Rebel News Podcast


BREAKDOWN: Trucker Commission Day 7 | Ft. Sheila Gunn Reid, Keith Wilson, and Tom Marazzo


Summary

After the Public Order Emergency Commission investigation wraps up for the day, we move our live stream towards the end of the day where we talk about exactly what happened in the Trucker Commission. We talk about the OPP's response to a peaceful protest in the nation's capital, Justin Trudeau's use of a never-before-used law called the Emergencies Act, and whether or not it was necessary.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Music
00:00:20.460 Thank you.
00:00:50.460 Good afternoon, everybody, or good evening, depending on what part of the country you're in.
00:01:01.360 Sorry for the technical difficulties, including the ones that I just created out of my own negligence.
00:01:06.640 Welcome to the Rebel News daily live stream.
00:01:10.000 This show used to be at noon Eastern or 10 Mountain, but since there's so much to talk about after the Public Order Emergency Commission wraps up for the day,
00:01:22.540 we moved our live stream towards the end of the day, wherein we talk about exactly that, what happened in the Trucker Commission today.
00:01:29.180 And for those of you who don't know, the Public Order Emergency Inquiry or Commission is a result of Justin Trudeau's invocation of a never-before-used law called the Emergencies Act.
00:01:43.220 It's a rewrite of the old War Measures Act.
00:01:46.140 So you have sort of an idea of the level of incident that this thing should have been used for.
00:01:53.360 It's used for a Pearl Harbor event, a 9-11 event, an invasion of Canada, a breach of our borders, an internal catastrophic terror attack.
00:02:06.100 Justin Trudeau invoked it on bouncy castles, hot tubs, street parties, and peaceful Canadians who brought their big rigs to the nation's capital and stayed a little too long for the local residents.
00:02:20.680 And so apparently that amounted to domestic terrorism.
00:02:25.040 Justin Trudeau invoked this law, seized the bank accounts, and gave police extraordinary powers of arrest and seizure.
00:02:32.460 And so here we are now. He did that in February. It's October. We're rapidly approaching November.
00:02:39.320 And we're finally investigating the government's actions and whether or not invoking the act was necessary.
00:02:48.080 So we're on, I think, day 16.
00:02:49.200 And you know, Sheila, you mentioned 9-11, but the act wasn't even used on 9-11.
00:02:54.140 This is the first time in Canadian history that we used the Emergencies Act.
00:02:57.460 And even for something as big as 9-11, the prime minister back then didn't even use it.
00:03:02.460 No, that's true. And we've had also a very almost terror attacks happen on Canadian soil.
00:03:12.280 They're sort of foiled before they got to there.
00:03:14.940 Those sort of things never rose to this level.
00:03:18.780 Justin Trudeau invoked it on a protest that was so peaceful, it caused the crime rate to go down in Ottawa.
00:03:27.460 We heard in the first weeks leading up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, which happened on February 14th, from the 27th of January to the 13th of February, the crime rate in the nation's capital went down.
00:03:43.740 And there were only 13 convoy-related arrests.
00:03:50.320 And that included like a minor stuff, like highway traffic deck stuff, mischief, probably public urination, maybe.
00:03:58.760 Guessing there might be a public intoxication ticket in there too somewhere.
00:04:02.580 People were having a lot of fun.
00:04:04.060 And, you know, it was so bad, it was so terrifying that the worst thing Paul Champ was able to try to bring forward with the first witness today was the fact that trucks were parking in front of residential buildings on sidewalks and were being inconvenient to the public and that there were fireworks.
00:04:23.660 Those were the worst things Paul Champ tried to make the first witness today say that took place.
00:04:31.000 I've been to parts of the world where they do deal with terror in residential neighborhoods.
00:04:37.420 Like I've been to Israel.
00:04:39.020 I've been to the what they call settlements, which are just neighborhoods full of Jews where people think they shouldn't be.
00:04:46.700 I've been to Kurdistan, Iraq.
00:04:51.300 Those are residential communities who they deal with actual terrorism.
00:04:55.620 These people were inconvenienced and they were complaining about their Uber Eats not getting there fast enough, literally.
00:05:06.540 That's the terror in the nation's capital.
00:05:09.820 That constituted martial law in the nation's capital.
00:05:14.860 No, the real emergency was that Justin Trudeau was being absolutely embarrassed by these truckers.
00:05:20.440 And that's how you know the situation was so bad is that Uber Eats couldn't get places.
00:05:28.380 That's how you know you have a threat to democracy to deal with on your hands.
00:05:33.360 It's crazy.
00:05:34.500 We heard testimony over the last two days, excuse me, from OPP superintendents.
00:05:43.440 And some of the things they were saying about the OPS, the Ottawa Police Service, absolutely crazy.
00:05:51.180 And I'm inclined to believe them.
00:05:52.600 They were pretty straight shooters.
00:05:55.400 I used to think that Chief Slowly, former Chief Slowly, might have been one of the good guys in this.
00:06:01.780 I thought he left the police service or was replaced as chief.
00:06:07.420 Now, I don't think he was replaced by somebody better than him or who cared more about freedom than him.
00:06:12.160 But I thought that he was resistant to the crackdown on peaceful protesters.
00:06:16.840 But I don't think that's what it was.
00:06:19.140 I think that his time under pressure really showed how untenable his leadership was and how bad his leadership was in times of crisis.
00:06:31.900 We heard OPP superintendents, multiple superintendents testify to just the chaotic and divisive nature of Slowly's leadership.
00:06:42.880 There was one point where in a meeting with OPP senior brass who were coming into the city to help, their notes reflect that they said, look, we're here to help.
00:06:54.220 You guys come up with a plan.
00:06:55.600 We're here to act in support because you don't have enough officers to deal with this.
00:06:59.640 And there was no plan and Slowly basically freaked out to the point where senior members of Slowly's leadership team were texting and calling the OPP superintendents and apologizing for whatever had just happened.
00:07:17.400 He said he was abusive and out of control.
00:07:20.840 Yeah, no, it's incredible what we're seeing come out.
00:07:23.940 And I just want to inform you, I just see Keith entering our place in Ottawa.
00:07:28.340 Yeah, Keith Wilson, Tamara Leash's lawyer, one of the lawyers representing the Freedom Organizers here in Ottawa.
00:07:36.440 So we're going to throw to him that and when we come back, we'll be able to have Keith on with us.
00:07:41.040 Perfect.
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00:08:13.940 Thursday in Ottawa, the Public Order Emergencies Commission kicked off.
00:08:18.180 It's an inquiry into the actions of the government, or at least it's supposed to be.
00:08:22.800 The inquiry is allegedly meant to examine whether or not the government was justified
00:08:26.940 in invoking an anti-terrorism law called the Emergencies Act to euthanize peaceful anti-COVID mandate protests
00:08:34.000 taking place in the nation's capital, but also in other locations across the country.
00:08:38.420 My party! My choice! My party! My choice!
00:08:42.560 Now the convoy to Ottawa spent nearly four weeks completely peacefully demonstrating against lockdowns
00:08:48.980 and vaccine passports. It evolved into a nearly month-long street party replete with bouncy castles,
00:08:54.680 hot tubs, street hockey, concerts, and community outreach efforts like soup kitchens and food for the homeless.
00:09:00.980 Rebel News, as we were for the convoy to Ottawa, will be there on the ground in Ottawa to cover the commission
00:09:07.300 from the beginning to the end because you just cannot trust the mainstream media.
00:09:12.000 And in fact, that's what today's report is about.
00:09:15.840 We've rented an Airbnb in Ottawa where we're sending a rotating cast of journalists
00:09:20.360 to report on the Public Order Emergency Inquiry.
00:09:23.620 Now you can help support our efforts there at truckercommission.com.
00:09:27.080 The mainstream media's reporting about the alleged foreign nature of the convoy funding
00:09:32.680 was cited as a reason the Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act to arrest, detain,
00:09:37.900 and seize the property, bank accounts, and assets of anti-Trudeau demonstrators.
00:09:45.320 So joining us now is trucker lawyer Keith Wilson.
00:09:49.500 Hey, Keith, thanks for coming on the show.
00:09:51.380 I am dying to pick your brain about some of the stuff that we've heard from these OPP superintendents
00:09:57.400 about the chaos and disrespect of chiefs slowly.
00:10:02.460 It sounds like at some point he started to get pretty paranoid that people in the ministry,
00:10:08.060 and I don't know which ministry they're referring to, and I'm not quite sure it matters,
00:10:11.500 but he said that people were basically out to get him, that they wanted him to fail.
00:10:16.920 I don't know how true that is, but I think it led to just the chaos in OPS,
00:10:22.540 and it sounds like OPP just sort of walked into a nightmare and tried their best to do their best job at policing
00:10:30.600 without a plan whatsoever.
00:10:32.560 What was your experience in dealing with OPS?
00:10:35.600 Was it as chaotic as it sounds?
00:10:39.320 It was very linear, and it was very black and white.
00:10:44.160 What I mean by that is I would get a phone call from the lead police liaisons every 30 minutes to every hour
00:10:57.920 after the first couple days that I was here, and it was constant.
00:11:01.040 It would start early in the morning, as early as 6 or 7 in the morning.
00:11:03.680 You get your last call at midnight or so.
00:11:05.480 And they were not, you know, it's amazing to sit there and listen to these senior police people testify
00:11:12.940 when I was on the ground with the organic leaders of the freedom movement at every moment,
00:11:21.820 and you're just sitting there going, this is outrageous.
00:11:25.420 That is not what happened at all.
00:11:27.020 So, you know, we were, the typical phone call that I would get from the lead police liaison representative
00:11:37.920 would be, Keith, what's the exit strategy?
00:11:40.560 That was the question they asked us all the time.
00:11:42.280 And just for fun, about every four or five times, I'd say, Sergeant, I've got great news.
00:11:48.040 The leaders have come up with an exit strategy.
00:11:51.340 And he'd say, what's that?
00:11:52.460 And I'd say, remove all mandates and they leave.
00:11:56.160 And he'd go, oh.
00:11:57.800 Very simple.
00:11:58.660 So, yeah, it was really simple.
00:12:01.200 What's remarkable, though, and we're all experiencing it, I thought I was coming to a public inquiry,
00:12:07.480 and I feel like I've tuned into a new soap opera on Netflix that I'm binge watching.
00:12:13.480 It's just remarkable how dysfunctional the personalities and egos, the lack of organization.
00:12:20.880 Some of the leaders who are in the room in the inquiry joked today when they were talking about,
00:12:27.660 the police were talking about the challenges they had getting food and supplies.
00:12:30.980 And one of the leaders, who I won't name, whispered in my ear, she said, they should have asked us.
00:12:35.480 We would have fixed them up real quick.
00:12:36.580 I made the same joke.
00:12:38.060 I made the same joke.
00:12:39.260 I said, you should have asked the truckers.
00:12:40.880 They had food and supply chains.
00:12:41.520 We would have had them all fixed up.
00:12:42.940 Like, what do you guys want?
00:12:43.860 You want bacon and eggs?
00:12:45.200 You know, we would have had it.
00:12:46.300 You know, barbecue?
00:12:47.880 Just let us know.
00:12:49.000 So, yeah, it was amazing.
00:12:50.520 And now I understand.
00:12:52.480 We never understood why we were here, Sheila, and even subsequent why.
00:12:56.980 We'd hear senior government officials say that the Freedom Convoy is extremely organized.
00:13:02.080 The leaders are organized.
00:13:03.880 And we didn't think we were that organized.
00:13:06.460 But we now know what they were comparing it to themselves.
00:13:11.220 Total chaos and dysfunction.
00:13:13.780 All things being relative, it was a nightmare.
00:13:16.460 It was a nightmare.
00:13:17.640 Like, they said at one point, and maybe we can find that clip, Olivia, if you wouldn't mind,
00:13:22.320 there weren't enough food and supplies for the OPP officers that the OPS were demanding
00:13:28.900 to come into town.
00:13:30.100 At one point, they wanted 400.
00:13:31.920 Then they wanted 800.
00:13:33.360 They didn't even have enough food and beds for the ones that they had.
00:13:37.740 But they just kept demanding that they come into town.
00:13:40.840 OPP kept telling them, you got to pump the brakes.
00:13:43.140 We can't bring in all these people and not know what to do with them.
00:13:48.060 But yeah, you know, no wonder they were so shocked that the truckers had these supply chains.
00:13:53.740 They could not only get food to themselves, but then start feeding the homeless.
00:13:57.260 They had these supply chains to bring in fuel and wood and basically created a society in downtown Ottawa.
00:14:07.540 Absolutely.
00:14:08.220 In the span of a couple of weeks.
00:14:10.580 And the police, they didn't even know, they couldn't even talk to each other, it sounded like.
00:14:15.660 Well, that was the problem when we were trying to do the mayor's deal, when we were implementing it,
00:14:19.260 is the communications were incredible.
00:14:21.380 They had no ability to communicate with themselves.
00:14:23.420 We had, in fact, police reaching out to us.
00:14:27.700 I'd get phone calls from senior, like mid-range on the ground senior police, not the guys in the HQ, saying,
00:14:33.720 Keith, what's going on?
00:14:35.480 So they would say thank you.
00:14:37.140 And then they'd get on their radios and say, yeah, the truckers just told us what's happening.
00:14:41.200 Like, it was remarkable how badly it's coming out that they handled this.
00:14:48.420 And, but remember, let's keep our eye on the target here.
00:14:54.400 Have we received any evidence, and I shouldn't laugh, but I only laugh because it's so ridiculous.
00:15:00.460 Have we seen one stitch of evidence, one little minuscule drop of evidence that any of the criteria
00:15:08.900 required under the Emergencies Act to use the nuclear weapon of government power over Canadians' rights
00:15:15.460 was justified?
00:15:17.060 And the answer is absolutely nothing.
00:15:21.400 You know, that kept coming out.
00:15:24.000 Yesterday, we heard from Deputy Chief Ferguson, who had a lot of I don't know's, which was odd,
00:15:30.180 because I think she was the lady in charge of implementing the plan, as they say.
00:15:36.280 Steve Bell was in charge of intel.
00:15:38.120 There wasn't a lot of intel coming from Chief Bell and going up the supply chain slowly, it didn't sound like.
00:15:43.720 But there was a lot of I don't know's from her.
00:15:46.020 But one of the most ridiculous things I thought I heard her say was when she was talking about what we need.
00:15:52.060 The Emergencies Act, she said, helped grease the wheels.
00:15:55.720 Why?
00:15:56.260 Because the police were inept.
00:15:57.560 That's not a reason to stomp on everybody's charter rights.
00:16:00.320 But she said, well, it compelled the tow trucks to come.
00:16:04.940 And it made it so that we didn't have to swear in all these outside police officers.
00:16:09.460 And then when she was asked, well, how much time would that save?
00:16:12.980 Oh, a couple of hours.
00:16:14.280 Well, I'm sorry.
00:16:15.420 You can push if you can push a few pencils for a couple of hours if it means that you preserve the civil liberties of everybody in the country.
00:16:22.900 But then as it turns out today, we had an OPP superintendent saying, no, we didn't need that because OPP officers can arrest under the criminal code inside the city of Ottawa and they can work under the Highway Traffic Act, which much of it was done.
00:16:36.180 So they didn't even need this, you know, bureaucratic jump over that the Emergencies Act provided to them.
00:16:44.020 They didn't even need that.
00:16:45.460 It was like it's so they just keep saying it would have made our it made our lives easier, but we would have come to the same outcome at the end of the day.
00:16:55.580 That's what they keep saying.
00:16:56.880 All of them keep testifying to that.
00:16:58.440 I think during Craig Abrams' cross-examination by Mike Morris from Saskatchewan, he stated that, you know, the traffic was already dealt with.
00:17:08.800 The road closures and traffic diversion was already happening before the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
00:17:14.520 So I don't think the Emergencies Act was necessary into making sure that the traffic could continue to go on as usual.
00:17:21.300 The roads could be cleared as they wanted the roads to be cleared.
00:17:26.100 I don't think it was necessary.
00:17:27.360 Well, if people have only a limited amount of time, and most people do because they've got more important things to do with their lives, but although this is incredibly important and let's not lose sight of that, the interesting one to watch is actually the cross-examination of the police witnesses by the Government of Canada lawyers, because they're the ones that have to ask the questions to elucidate an answer that supports the invocation.
00:17:51.500 And so the last thing is like, well, you couldn't have done X without the Emergencies Act, right?
00:17:57.940 And then the senior police officials say, oh, no, we had the ability to do that.
00:18:02.400 Well, you couldn't have done Y without the Emergencies Act, right?
00:18:05.820 Oh, no, no, we do that all the time.
00:18:07.380 That's not a problem at all.
00:18:08.300 And it's just, you know, there's been a number of times where I'm sitting at our table with the four of us lawyers, and we look at one another and say, well, should we pack up our bags and go home?
00:18:20.360 Like, what war is there to do here?
00:18:22.080 We're on what day?
00:18:22.840 Is it day eight of?
00:18:24.600 Day seven.
00:18:25.400 Day seven.
00:18:25.800 Day seven of 38 days of evidence.
00:18:29.920 Day seven of 38 days of evidence.
00:18:33.080 So there's a lot more coming.
00:18:35.360 Of course, we've got our case to put in, and that's going to be interesting.
00:18:40.120 We're still negotiating our witness list, and I think people will find that interesting when they see who we ultimately have.
00:18:47.960 So I think we're going to continue to be surprised.
00:18:51.900 But remember, this is a very serious matter.
00:18:54.500 This is the federal government overriding people's rights.
00:18:58.080 This is the federal government giving itself the power to intrude into provincial jurisdiction.
00:19:01.860 This is the federal government doing this because we all know why a very spoiled, childlike prime minister got upset that hardworking blue collar and other Canadians called him out for his tyrannical health mandates and the harm that he did to our families and our communities and our careers.
00:19:22.800 And he wasn't going to stand for it and man up and be accountable.
00:19:27.400 Instead, he was going to punish Canadians and beat them up and push them out of town as he did.
00:19:33.480 You know, that's one thing that I think is sort of a thread that goes through so much of this and that it was hardworking blue collar Canadians.
00:19:43.240 And you see a lot of classism in all of this.
00:19:46.160 You see a lot of, I call them to Eva, the laptop and pajama class, the people who get to work from home, didn't really feel the effects of the pandemic.
00:19:57.000 Actually, their life was never better because they didn't have to go to the office.
00:19:59.840 Versus the people who have to go out in the world and keep the world turning.
00:20:05.800 So that well-kept people like those Ottawa bureaucrats can sit in their 22nd floor cubicle and complain about the diesel trucks below them.
00:20:13.980 You see how icky they think those people are and how their largest complaint was that their Uber Eats was too slow.
00:20:22.940 But then you also see it in how they claimed they needed to invoke this emergencies act to compel the truck, the tow truck drivers to do what they wanted them to do because the tow truck drivers were declining to become enforcers at the hands of the state.
00:20:38.260 So what they need, you hear it all the time from these OPS officers, well, we needed the tow truck drivers to come.
00:20:43.460 The tow truck drivers didn't want to come.
00:20:45.840 Well, yeah, they didn't want to be the enforcement arm of the state.
00:20:48.080 They're blue collar people too.
00:20:49.840 They don't want to have a bad name in their community because they did something bad to their neighbor on behalf of Justin Trudeau.
00:20:56.320 So then they say, well, we had to invoke the emergencies act because those prickly blue collar people weren't doing what we wanted them to do.
00:21:03.420 So we're just going to expropriate their business for a time here and make them do things against their will.
00:21:09.300 There's a lot, a whole pile of classism just running right through the middle of all of this.
00:21:14.980 There's a funny backstory here, Sheila, and I don't know if you know it.
00:21:19.140 But think back to where we were with health mandates in January and February.
00:21:24.360 And that's back when we had the rule that if you went into your workplace and someone you worked with got COVID, what were you supposed to do?
00:21:36.480 You were supposed to isolate too.
00:21:39.680 So when they phoned the tow truck companies, most of them said, oh, one of our drivers has COVID, so the rest of us can't work.
00:21:49.420 Like, sorry, just following the health mandates, as ridiculous as they were.
00:21:55.520 So they were having fun back at them and just saying, it's COVID, love to come help you and try to get those trucks out of there.
00:22:01.320 But, you know, we're following the health protocols.
00:22:04.000 So, yeah, that was a little interesting backstory we had fed to us in some of our operations centers.
00:22:09.860 Oh, that's amazing.
00:22:10.620 Now, but even their excuse about the tow trucks needing the EA because the tow trucks doesn't hold water because they were able to find seven tow truck companies in all of Ontario, probably outside tow truck companies.
00:22:23.840 You wouldn't want to be the local guy doing this with 34 heavy haul tow trucks that were willing to come in the days before the EA was invoked.
00:22:33.820 Well, we've already had two witnesses testify, police witnesses, that they had the ability to compel them under the Ontario legislation, that they didn't need the federal legislation.
00:22:46.740 So even if it was an issue of not having tow truck companies voluntarily come forward because they're having a little fun with it and saying that, oh, everybody's quarantining because of COVID,
00:22:55.900 they still had the ability to compel under provincial legislation and they didn't need the federal act.
00:23:00.260 You know, Olivia, why don't we throw to this clip?
00:23:05.780 And it was, again, a testament to the organization of the truckers.
00:23:12.420 It's Craig Abrams, OPP superintendent, on what he experienced and his people experienced upon getting the convoy into the city of Ottawa, if you want to throw to that.
00:23:25.020 I'm sorry, I kind of put her on the spot there.
00:23:32.240 But what Craig Abrams testifies to is, well, that they were dealing with logistics professionals, by the way.
00:23:43.040 When you're dealing with truckers, you know, like they know how to get in and out of places.
00:23:48.220 They're very organized.
00:23:49.760 But it also busts the mainstream media narrative and the political narrative that this was just like mayhem.
00:23:56.280 These were foreign mongrel invaders that just diverged on the city from all corners and just swamped it.
00:24:04.080 Everybody came in in an extremely orderly fashion.
00:24:07.840 Did you find that yet, Olivia?
00:24:10.320 Perfect.
00:24:10.680 In this first weekend, sort of January 29th, January 30th, can you just share with us any other observations about what was happening on the ground, what was going well, what was not going well?
00:24:26.300 It was really not going well.
00:24:28.540 I was getting lots of reports from my members of the NCRCC.
00:24:32.080 There was lots of dysfunctions to lots of yelling, lots of unknowns of what they were going to do.
00:24:36.220 On the 31st of January, I had a conversation with Deputy Bell where he basically said, we're planning for a protracted event and we really don't know our way out of this.
00:24:47.780 So that was the first indication to me on the 31st that we were going to be in for a long haul to assist them.
00:24:54.000 So I had to prepare my incident command team to kind of switch to say, okay, now we have to switch operations to supporting the Ottawa police.
00:25:02.840 And I'm not 100% what the numbers are going to look like yet, but it's clear through talking to Deputy Bell that it's going to be protracted.
00:25:10.960 They don't see a way out and they're going to be relying on us and other services to help them.
00:25:16.620 I think that was the wrong clip, Olivia.
00:25:20.320 I put it in the chat there.
00:25:21.700 That's a good one.
00:25:22.520 It just shows the mayhem.
00:25:25.280 It started early.
00:25:27.840 On their side.
00:25:29.820 Actually, that's a good juxtaposition.
00:25:31.780 So it shows the chaos on their side.
00:25:34.120 Now let's do the truckers.
00:25:35.880 Did you find that clip up?
00:25:36.740 It's the last one in the chat, Olivia.
00:25:38.120 Oh, we need five seconds.
00:25:43.960 Great.
00:25:45.440 I thought Craig Abrams, he was really good.
00:25:48.260 You can tell by his high and tight hairstyle that he takes his job very, very seriously.
00:25:54.080 His suit was heavily starched.
00:25:57.740 Yeah.
00:25:58.400 Yeah.
00:25:58.620 I think he is just generally heavily starched.
00:26:01.160 Okay.
00:26:01.400 She's got it.
00:26:02.000 Now we've seen the chaos of OPS.
00:26:04.220 Now let's do the truckers.
00:26:05.400 What went well and what could have been improved upon in preparing for the arrival of the convoy?
00:26:12.700 The OPP role on the initial convoy arrival in Ottawa went very smoothly.
00:26:19.720 We had minor issues in our smaller communities with members not obeying the mask mandates.
00:26:26.700 We had some restaurants who just choose to ignore the mandates altogether.
00:26:30.900 But overall, we had no assaults.
00:26:33.560 We had no criminality.
00:26:34.580 I wasn't aware of any charges being laid.
00:26:37.580 They said what they would do.
00:26:39.400 They kept a one lane.
00:26:41.480 They entered the city of Ottawa in an orderly fashion.
00:26:45.180 We had minor issues with supporters on the roadside on the 417 getting kind of dangerously close to the side of the highway, which was a concern.
00:26:53.000 But that wasn't convoy.
00:26:55.900 The convoy participants couldn't control that.
00:26:58.280 They did what they said they would do.
00:27:01.180 They didn't damage any highways.
00:27:03.060 They didn't cause any criminality.
00:27:05.460 So from that perspective, it was a success in getting them into the city of Ottawa.
00:27:09.720 Now, that's one of the things that fascinates me the most since the beginning of the commission, how people have such different testimonies from one another.
00:27:19.700 Catherine McKinney, you're going to hear her basically talk about it, just like Zexili, how the convoy was like the purge.
00:27:25.960 The whole war was going to end in two months and didn't have the emergency act.
00:27:29.820 And then we have this gentleman right here who says that the truckers were peaceful, that he's not aware of any charges that had been laid when entering the city.
00:27:39.980 On the contrary, you have Matthew Plurie who talks about microaggressions as they're the worst things in the world, the worst than authoritarian COVID-19 mandates.
00:27:48.520 Everyone seems to have a different version of the story.
00:27:51.460 It's unbelievable how that's allowed.
00:27:53.560 Well, but there is a common theme developing, and that is anybody who's in an official salaried capacity seems to be describing things in less than dramatic terms and oftentimes with more accuracy and truth, whereas those who are holding political office are just filled with hyperbole and sensationalism
00:28:18.180 and, you know, revealing a heavy snowflake tendency for sure.
00:28:26.140 Yeah, it's really something to see the grown-ups talking, and then you have the hysterics talking about other things.
00:28:35.280 But I'm inclined to trust the OPP on all of this.
00:28:39.500 They produced Intel reports early in January.
00:28:43.300 They provided them to the OPS.
00:28:45.500 Sounds like the OPS didn't do much with them.
00:28:48.780 They said they would provide personnel as quickly as they could.
00:28:53.120 They did.
00:28:53.920 One of the things that I thought was interesting today, it was sort of debunked in testimony.
00:28:58.580 You did see a sudden influx of OPP officers to Ottawa on, I think, the 16th and then subsequently, I think, the 18th, 19th.
00:29:11.420 And the official narrative had been, well, that came from the Emergencies Act invocation, but apparently not.
00:29:20.700 It was because the blockade at Windsor had resolved itself so that they could redeploy those officers because they just weren't available.
00:29:29.680 It had nothing to do with the Emergencies Act.
00:29:32.740 God help those officers when they did come.
00:29:34.740 They were probably sleeping on the floor somewhere.
00:29:36.860 But they didn't need the EA to get them in there.
00:29:39.680 They just didn't have the officers to bring in.
00:29:41.960 And all along, the official narrative has been, well, look it, all these cops showed up right after the EA.
00:29:48.900 Thank God for the EA, but it wasn't necessary at all.
00:29:52.400 That's clearly the evidence.
00:29:54.420 And those of you who might recall our lead barrister, Brandon Miller's opening statement, where he said, here's the test.
00:30:03.660 You're not going to hear any evidence about sabotage.
00:30:07.120 You're not going to hear any evidence about insurrection.
00:30:09.680 You're not going to hear any evidence about serious violence to persons and property.
00:30:14.160 And he went through the whole list.
00:30:16.040 He mimicked his opening statement in his cross-examination of the senior intelligence officer for the OPP, the guy who led Operation Hendon.
00:30:26.580 We didn't even know they had a code name for us, but now we know that.
00:30:29.880 And he repeated his opening statement, Brandon Miller did, with questions.
00:30:35.100 And with each of them, the senior intelligence officer for the OPP said, yes, there was no evidence of this.
00:30:43.840 There was no evidence of that.
00:30:45.200 You know, it's like, it's just really remarkable what's going on.
00:30:49.620 And, you know, when we were negotiating with the police and the politicians, when I was on the ground with Tom Maratso and Eva and others, we were always, and Eva would have an expression, where are the adults in the room?
00:31:03.800 And I know you used that a minute ago, Sheila, but we actually used that expression on the ground.
00:31:08.320 And we thought the other side was chaotic.
00:31:11.440 We had no idea the level of breakdown, dysfunction, egos, backstabbing, and all of these things that are being revealed.
00:31:20.820 It's tremendously embarrassing to find out that the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money that go into these police forces and these municipalities and these elected officials have resulted in such a dire situation.
00:31:35.160 Yeah, it was, it's been really something to see just, as we keep saying, just the extreme level of dysfunction.
00:31:43.280 And it seemed the only people who had their act together were the truckers.
00:31:46.680 The cops didn't know what the heck was going on.
00:31:48.920 And the mayor, he doesn't seem to really know what was going on.
00:31:52.000 I mean, he's just making things up at this point.
00:31:54.120 I don't know if you saw the other day where he said that someone came from the Maritimes with a gun to shoot him and was arrested.
00:32:00.120 And then he just said he misspoke.
00:32:02.660 Well, that's a hell of a thing to misspeak about.
00:32:04.800 That's not like using New Brunswick instead of Nova Scotia.
00:32:08.880 That's just a complete and total fabrication.
00:32:13.900 We are going to throw to an ad because I have to sneak off set.
00:32:17.340 Because I have to be at the UCPA GM.
00:32:20.200 I'm going to already be late.
00:32:22.420 Keith, thanks so much for being so willing to come, come on to the show, talk to us and give us your unique legal perspective because you were on the ground.
00:32:31.340 We're hearing a lot of people talk about this and including myself.
00:32:34.600 I wasn't there, but a lot of my team were.
00:32:36.420 And it's very unique because you were in these negotiations that a lot of people want to distance themselves from at this point.
00:32:44.260 So thanks so much, Keith.
00:32:46.920 William, hold down the fort.
00:32:48.380 Do a great job.
00:32:49.540 Sidney Fazzard is going to join in my place.
00:32:51.960 We're going to roll an ad so you don't have to see me untangle myself from all the cords and run out of my office.
00:32:57.080 Thanks, guys.
00:32:57.540 You learned on February 17th about the creation of the red zone in Ottawa, right?
00:33:05.460 Yes.
00:33:06.200 Okay.
00:33:08.280 And is it your understanding that that was only made possible by the invocation of the Emergencies Act?
00:33:20.700 It was my understanding through reading Twitter accounts and media releases that Ottawa police had indicated to the public that the red zone was created as a result of the Emergency Act.
00:33:34.160 I did a lot of the briefings with the members to explain their authorities, and I tried to explain it in as simple terms as I could to say, you're all police officers.
00:33:41.880 You all understand your authorities.
00:33:43.400 So they knew they had those abilities.
00:33:45.200 If they saw something, they could act.
00:33:47.200 They didn't need the Emergency Act to do it.
00:33:48.860 When the Emergency Act was invoked and there was restrictions placed and guidelines is the wrong word, but restrictions or regulations put in place about boundaries and certain street boundaries and entry into those boundaries and that members of the public entering that area had to have three or four different excuses, either a lawful purpose, a business owner, going to a hotel.
00:34:16.940 So there was three or four different areas that they were allowed to, so my officers were then expected to essentially do that.
00:34:26.640 So it turned from what was officers really observing traffic to once the act was invoked, I went downtown to see what our members were dealing with, and it was essentially a 14 to 15 hour ride program.
00:34:40.100 Our members rode up in horrible weather, standing on the roadside, checking vehicles, going through the list.
00:34:46.900 Hey folks, from October 13th to November 25th, we are here in Ottawa for the Emergency Act Inquiry organized by the Public Order Emergency Commission.
00:34:58.700 But why? Why the Emergency Act Inquiry? Well, because during the Freedom Convoy back in February, Justin Trudeau used a never-invoked-before Emergencies Act to basically seize protesters' bank accounts, seize protesters' money, seize their assets, trample their civil liberties.
00:35:14.060 So we're here this month, for the next month and a half, to figure out if the way the government acted was lawful and was appropriate.
00:35:20.860 So we are here to hold the government accountable, but we need your help.
00:35:23.520 We are here to cover it for you, because everyone else here is mainstream media.
00:35:26.560 So if you want to help us cover it, if you want to help us bring you the other side of the story, factual, actual news, go to truckercommission.com and consider making a donation.
00:35:35.660 Hey, Sidney, how are you doing?
00:35:40.100 Hey there, doing all right. Nice to be joining both of you guys again today. Tom, how are you?
00:35:44.220 I'm good, I'm good.
00:35:45.100 It's good to be joining you.
00:35:47.280 Yeah, so definitely super long date time, but before we start, I heard that you had an interesting interview earlier with a great leftist friend, Dean Blundell.
00:35:56.460 Yeah, that was pretty. It's the second time I went on Dean's show.
00:36:02.220 So, you know, he makes it interesting.
00:36:07.500 And the reason I agreed to go on the show, which is what I told him before I agreed to go on the show, I said, look, the reason I'm going to go on the show is this.
00:36:17.600 Justin Trudeau and many of the politicians have spent years ripping this country apart.
00:36:22.260 And I kind of felt like Dean Blundell and I, who are absolutely diametrically opposed in all of our views, had an opportunity to set a good example on two people that are so on the opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of what we believe about COVID-19, the government and all that kind of stuff.
00:36:44.600 It was a great opportunity to set an example, to have a dialogue, because that's what's been missing in this country for almost three years and maybe longer than that.
00:36:54.300 But, you know, we hear these stories consistently all across Canada where, you know, because different family members had opposing views about COVID-19 and mandates and PCR tests.
00:37:08.760 And, you know, we heard people were not allowed to go to their own family members unless they showed a rapid test trying to get in for Thanksgiving dinner.
00:37:16.280 And so, you know, we have been polite, I feel like on our side of the issue, we've been polite for quite a long time.
00:37:27.240 We've been respectful of our friends, our family, our co-workers.
00:37:30.400 And I thought, let's put our money where the mouth is.
00:37:33.960 And, you know, I agreed to go on Dean's show.
00:37:36.440 It's the second time I've gone on.
00:37:37.740 But unfortunately, there was, you know, a couple people that joined that were, one of them's an Ottawa residence.
00:37:46.280 A pretty hostile guy, felt that he had, you know, a grievance, like a pretty vicious grievance at times.
00:37:55.960 And then this lawyer, I don't know if she's a real lawyer, to be honest with you.
00:38:00.500 I'm not sure she's a real lawyer.
00:38:03.920 But she joined the panel as well.
00:38:08.480 And it was a little bit of a, I don't want to say it was an ambush because Dean told me they were going to be on it just before they were on it.
00:38:14.620 And I agreed to still go on it.
00:38:16.260 So, technically, I walked into the lion's den.
00:38:19.760 Yeah, that's the original Dean Blundell from September.
00:38:24.440 But today was a new one.
00:38:26.100 And, you know, as far as I'm concerned is you've got to be willing to take the tough interviews and have the tough discussions.
00:38:34.600 You can't just live in an echo chamber.
00:38:37.560 You've got to be able to lead by example and say, I can have a respectful discourse.
00:38:42.960 It did devolve.
00:38:44.120 It devolved quite a bit.
00:38:46.620 And I could sense this poly guy's frustration.
00:38:49.960 It got out of control.
00:38:51.240 But I just didn't engage in it.
00:38:53.820 Luckily for me, the internet connection was really bad.
00:38:56.600 So, I didn't, a lot of what I said wasn't even really heard anyway.
00:38:59.860 But a lot of the viewers were lighting me up pretty good on the chat.
00:39:03.440 But you know what?
00:39:05.540 I still think as vicious as it was at times, it was still worth giving it an attempt.
00:39:11.960 There it is.
00:39:12.420 There it is there today, right?
00:39:13.780 Oh, yeah.
00:39:14.000 And Karima, yeah, right.
00:39:15.700 Yeah.
00:39:15.940 So, this gentleman there on the bottom left in Karima, I mean, he lives in Ottawa and he felt like he had a very strong grievance.
00:39:23.920 But the challenge for us is, like I said, is, you know, for every 10 people that Dean Blundell can find of people that were negatively affected by the convoy, I can find 10 that supported the convoy.
00:39:37.360 So, what am I supposed to believe?
00:39:39.380 No, 100%.
00:39:40.160 And I think, you know, you touched on the division, the population, the media.
00:39:43.520 Politicians are not willing to engage with.
00:39:45.620 I think that's one of the reasons why we are where we are at right now as a society.
00:39:50.960 But let's go back to the commission now.
00:39:52.460 So, you are one of the Freedom Convoy organizers.
00:39:54.700 We just got a legal perspective from Ethan Wilson.
00:39:57.660 Sitting through the commission today, what was your main takeaway as one of the people that organized this peaceful protest back in February?
00:40:03.440 Well, I think towards the end, the comments there were a little bit unsettling from the last witness today talking about the fact that, you know, communications between us had broken down.
00:40:21.880 And he basically blamed us for the lack of communications with them.
00:40:25.480 And, like, I respectfully, vehemently disagree with that.
00:40:30.380 I mean, all of us made public statements.
00:40:33.980 I had begged the Ottawa Police Services liaison teams to give us a higher-ranking police officer to talk to.
00:40:44.620 And, in fact, there was a situation where I thought I was going into a meeting with at least an inspector.
00:40:49.840 I told them, I said, the next person I talk to on OPS better be an inspector, minimum, and not the two that I was dealing with.
00:40:57.440 And so, I attended this meeting with the expectation that I was actually going to be meeting with an inspector.
00:41:04.000 And I said, there's a caveat.
00:41:05.760 I want to be in that room.
00:41:07.240 I want to meet this person for 10 minutes alone, not your team, not my team.
00:41:11.740 I just want to get to know this person, see if we can build a working relationship.
00:41:15.440 That was really the intent.
00:41:17.360 And I went to the room early, and I was expecting that I would be meeting with an inspector.
00:41:24.040 And I was sitting in the room alone waiting for this person to come in.
00:41:27.920 And I heard the liaison team saying, there's no way we're going to send our guy in there alone to meet with any of you.
00:41:36.200 That's never going to happen.
00:41:37.660 So, I just simply got up from my chair, and I walked out of the meeting.
00:41:41.400 There was nobody that even came into the room, but they were all out in the hallway.
00:41:45.000 And I just walked away, and I went back to work.
00:41:47.780 And it was like, listen, I know that the police liaison teams didn't have decision-making authority of any substance.
00:41:55.780 They were a go-between.
00:41:57.480 They were trying to negotiate.
00:42:02.140 Negotiate is a very terrible word.
00:42:03.540 They were not trying to negotiate.
00:42:05.480 They were just trying to communicate their demands of us.
00:42:10.520 They weren't trying to give back anything.
00:42:12.400 They were just there to make demands.
00:42:14.480 And so, I said, I'm done talking with you guys.
00:42:16.920 And that is the only instance of any situation that I know of that any communications broke down.
00:42:23.960 The breakdown was I thought I was going into a meeting with a higher-ranking Ottawa police officer, and they reneged on the deal.
00:42:31.340 So, when I realized I was being kind of led astray, I just left the meeting.
00:42:36.940 I didn't say anything.
00:42:37.820 I didn't yell at them.
00:42:38.640 I didn't argue.
00:42:39.320 I just left.
00:42:40.520 Right?
00:42:41.220 So, to say that they wanted to have a dialogue and we broke down on our end is just categorically false.
00:42:49.340 Yeah, I think this situation, plus the city of Ottawa, plus the federal government, plus the OPP, plus Doug Ford, plus everything that's been happening, shows a lack of trust, destroys the trust that Canadians have in our authorities.
00:43:05.980 And I think that Eva Chipic, one of the other lawyers for the Freedom Convoy, summed it up well in one of her tweets.
00:43:11.780 I don't know if you can show it on the screen.
00:43:12.880 But she said, basically, loss of trust might be the most significant finding in the public order emergency commission.
00:43:19.600 Loss of trust on elected officials.
00:43:23.080 Loss of trust on our police authorities.
00:43:25.520 Even when trust was lost, the protesters didn't react or retaliate.
00:43:29.700 They kept their head up high and stayed peaceful.
00:43:32.600 I guess we can start with Sydney because you were at the coups blockade to re-experience the way that protesters were feeling.
00:43:38.320 Did you feel that was a factor in coups?
00:43:43.020 Sorry, what specifically was a factor?
00:43:45.480 The loss of trust.
00:43:46.420 Do you think that was something that had an impact on the protesters?
00:43:49.760 Kind of.
00:43:50.380 Like, it was mentioned in terms of negotiations and the failure of that one meeting that went through.
00:43:55.760 It was kind of like that with negotiators in coups where there was multiple times where they were bringing up the same request.
00:44:02.760 And then the truckers would kind of come together and make their request back to the negotiators.
00:44:07.900 And then the negotiators would receive the request, go back to, you know, the people they needed to talk to.
00:44:13.040 And then they would come back to the truckers and basically say the exact same thing they'd said.
00:44:17.160 They would try and, you know, pretend as though they were giving, you know, more than they were actually.
00:44:23.400 So it's unfortunate.
00:44:24.460 But in terms of, you know, that one meeting and their, you know, inspector's not going to come.
00:44:28.520 Well, maybe I should say don't take it personally.
00:44:30.400 It seems like this was happening in their own house as well.
00:44:33.380 They just couldn't keep anything together, it really seemed like.
00:44:36.700 And it kind of feels this way to me.
00:44:39.580 And maybe you guys can chime in on this.
00:44:41.900 It feels like they're playing hot potato right now.
00:44:45.080 It's who's going to take the responsibility.
00:44:46.580 And it's on the front of communication breakdowns.
00:44:49.200 And it's also on the front of the actual emergencies act.
00:44:52.900 Like, is it the bridge, the ambassador bridge?
00:44:56.140 Is it the blockade in Coots?
00:44:57.700 Is it the convoy in Ottawa?
00:44:59.920 It comes up every once in a while.
00:45:02.020 They're trying to look in the right direction to pin the blame on the emergencies act.
00:45:06.260 But really, it may be the unsung hero here is the, what do you call them, the tow truck operators.
00:45:12.480 And it seems like it was a matter of their lack of wanting to, or I should say,
00:45:17.360 maybe how often they were getting COVID was the issue at hand.
00:45:20.920 And that's why Trudeau called in the emergencies act, because all the tow truckers were getting COVID.
00:45:27.000 Yeah.
00:45:27.540 I mean, the tow truckers didn't want to risk losing business as well.
00:45:31.620 You know, at the time of the Ottawa convoy, they didn't want to go anywhere near it because they viewed truck drivers as kind of a, you know, sort of a brother in there.
00:45:41.460 Right.
00:45:41.680 I mean, they both drive big, giant vehicles that move things.
00:45:46.320 And I don't think the tow truck drivers wanted to have any part of it.
00:45:49.400 Like, they didn't want to feel like they were going against, you know, loosely their brotherhood there.
00:45:56.000 So I don't think there was a big, deep will of the truck drivers to get involved either.
00:46:00.860 Same thing in Coots with the tow trucks is there's a bit of that cooperation failure between tow truck drivers, operators, and the RCMP for very, very similar reasoning.
00:46:12.360 And I can't pull up an article or anything on this at the moment, but I remember that one of the things that happened was as soon as it was announced that, you know, Joe trucking or sorry, Joe towing was going to be assisting the RCMP.
00:46:24.080 It was like all of Southern Alberta immediately went to Google reviews and gave them a one star.
00:46:28.780 It's like, OK, you're going to cooperate.
00:46:30.600 Well, we're going to show you what that means.
00:46:33.100 Yeah.
00:46:33.780 I think something like that probably happened here in Ottawa as well with the ratings and stuff like that.
00:46:39.340 And I think I heard testimony of that, but I could never really confirm it.
00:46:43.340 And really, at the time, it wasn't really a big concern of mine.
00:46:48.160 But yeah, like to hear that testimony, though, that, you know, to be again blamed for it.
00:46:55.900 And I remember being upset with the police liaison team when we didn't get that meeting, but always in the back of my mind, I always questioned how much support they were getting from their own chain of command.
00:47:10.580 And it's kind of nice to hear, like over the last couple of days, that testimony, you realize they weren't really getting a lot of support.
00:47:18.840 And, you know, they, too, were getting the runaround quite a bit.
00:47:22.780 And that was because of all the infighting that was happening behind the scenes.
00:47:28.220 And the chaos, the lack of organization.
00:47:29.860 Yes, yes.
00:47:31.120 And I can tell you as a – go ahead.
00:47:33.560 Go ahead.
00:47:34.100 Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
00:47:35.620 I was just going to say, I can add the – as you guys, or as the convoy, I should say, was traveling through Ontario to get to Ottawa, the OPP officer mentioned, you know, I was like they weren't breaking laws.
00:47:46.220 They weren't being criminal.
00:47:47.500 They weren't making a mess.
00:47:49.100 Everything was according to plan.
00:47:51.020 Everything was proper.
00:47:52.600 And the facilitation of the convoy's entry into the city was all done appropriately.
00:47:57.880 Well, nobody complained.
00:47:58.920 Everything was good.
00:47:59.800 It's only a matter of when all these other officials and agencies were starting to amalgamate and, I guess, work side by side, if you can call it that, is when the failures started to erode the situation.
00:48:12.800 Mm-hmm.
00:48:13.520 And, you know, there's some terminology that keeps coming up, and it depends on which witness goes up onto the stand.
00:48:22.260 And I find it a little bit – it immediately gives one the impression that the witness on the stand is actually biased towards a certain outcome.
00:48:32.360 And I know this because every time I hear a witness say, refer to the convoy as the freedom convoy, I know they're at least empathetic.
00:48:42.300 But when they say illegal convoy or illegal occupation, that's when you know that that particular witness is going to be at least biased against the convoy, and hopefully they won't be biased in favor of the implementation of the emergency act.
00:49:01.020 So, this terminology does kind of reveal the direction of the thinking of the particular individual.
00:49:08.640 And when I hear a witness get up there and say illegal this or illegal that, my question that I would like to answer is, at what point did what we were doing actually become illegal?
00:49:21.260 And that's the question that I haven't heard an answer to yet.
00:49:24.440 Yeah, no one has said anything.
00:49:25.480 Nobody has said anything.
00:49:26.420 So, it's great.
00:49:27.100 You say it's illegal, but when did it become peaceful, legal?
00:49:32.720 Now, all of a sudden, it's illegal.
00:49:34.920 Mm-hmm.
00:49:35.160 Mm-hmm.
00:49:35.600 So, this is where I have problems with when the people get on the stand and they say illegal, I know that they're going to be a biased witness against us.
00:49:43.220 Mm-hmm.
00:49:43.580 Whereas what we saw with, I think, Superintendent Morris the other day, you know, I think he used that terminology, but strangely enough, he stuck to the facts.
00:49:54.440 So, you're seeing a very diverse sort of witness list of people coming in with very different points of view.
00:50:05.660 And it's always interesting every time you get a new witness, kind of your first impressions versus how they actually end up.
00:50:12.800 Right.
00:50:13.080 Yeah.
00:50:13.640 So.
00:50:14.300 No, it's definitely interesting.
00:50:16.500 And on top of that as well, one thing that's important to note, especially for those who are watching, I guess, larger portions of this,
00:50:22.780 is just as important as it is who is being asked the questions, is the person asking the questions.
00:50:28.660 Mm-hmm.
00:50:28.860 A lot of these individuals are the lawyers, the legal counsel.
00:50:32.180 They have an agenda.
00:50:33.180 They have specific things they're looking for and listening into.
00:50:37.200 And that is something to be accounted for as well.
00:50:40.400 There are parties that are, I guess you could say, maybe not in opposition to each other, but their legal teams are certainly looking for every inch they get when it comes to a lot of these government organizations.
00:50:50.920 And, you know, where is the blame going to fall?
00:50:54.020 And that's a big fight that's kind of silently going on right now between those teams.
00:50:57.820 And there was a bit of frustration, I believe, from, I forget exactly which individual it was, but one of the legal representatives in asking his questions.
00:51:05.660 You can tell he's getting, you know, heated.
00:51:07.340 He was jumping on the question.
00:51:08.500 He was cutting the witness off.
00:51:09.900 So you're starting to see those organizational, pardon me, organizational interests at hand.
00:51:17.960 Yeah, and I believe the lawyer you're referring to could be Peter Slowly's lawyer because a couple of times the justice had said, be fair to the witness because he kept asking questions and then cutting them off.
00:51:33.680 You know, and I think the trick with the lawyers is never ask a question unless you already know the answer, right?
00:51:38.520 Yeah, so, you know, you see examples of this kind of going on there.
00:51:43.960 Maybe they're getting frustrated because they're not getting the answer they were expecting to get.
00:51:47.420 So they have to pivot to a different tactic.
00:51:50.220 Yeah, 100%.
00:51:51.400 Go for it, William.
00:51:53.680 Sorry.
00:51:54.620 No, I was just going to say we're running out of time, but you can say what you were saying.
00:52:01.020 Well, yeah, and that kind of alludes to the two kinds of questions that the legal representatives are going to ask.
00:52:05.960 It's the question they expect the answer to, and, you know, they read the question, the witness answers, and they say, great, yeah, next question.
00:52:11.820 And then there's the question they ask, and the witness says something, and they go, wait, hold on a second.
00:52:15.740 All right, we've got to reorient the perspective here.
00:52:19.020 So it's kind of the two legal counsel questions I see being asked right now.
00:52:22.740 Yeah, yeah.
00:52:25.220 No, just before we get off, I see we have seven minutes left.
00:52:29.000 I wanted to show a clip of Justin Trudeau, an announcement that Justin Trudeau made today with Marco Medellino.
00:52:35.840 I guess we can start by the announcement that Marco Medellino made about the handgun freeze in Canada that was just announced today.
00:52:45.880 Actually, I took order today.
00:52:46.920 Can we show that?
00:52:47.580 Well, as we're pulling that up, I can just say in hearing the commission, that was one of the – or how it was expressed by one of the OPP officers, I believe it was, is that the grievances conveyed by the convey, there was a multitude of grievances, including, you know, the price of oil, the gun confiscations or the gun bans and stuff like that.
00:53:09.980 And this was all on top of, of course, the vaccine mandates and COVID restrictions that had been in place.
00:53:15.480 So it's funny he's making this announcement today on the handgun situation where he's – I don't know if you could say going after the same group of people, but it's just such a wide group that maybe no matter what Trudeau does now, he's going to be targeting more and more of the population.
00:53:32.160 Yeah, here we have the clip so we can show it on the screen.
00:53:34.400 We need to pass that law.
00:53:39.000 We need to make sure that we make good on our commitment to implement the buyback program on a national ban for assault-style rifles, because those guns have no place in any community.
00:53:48.980 They were designed for one purpose, and that is to kill people using maximum lethal force in the shortest period of time.
00:53:56.220 These guns have no place in our community, but Justin Schuero has absolutely no issue whatsoever hanging around four people everywhere he walks that have two of those in their pockets, because he knows that's how he defend himself.
00:54:14.720 And if you make them illegal, only the buybacks are going to have – that's the issue.
00:54:17.740 I know in Canada, we're not living in a culture initially in the East Coast that is used to living with guns.
00:54:26.280 But when you really think about it, if someone comes in a bank and has a gun and wants to steal the bank or wants to shoot people in the bank, if he comes in a bank, he's the only one with a gun.
00:54:35.800 Everyone's going to submit to what he's saying.
00:54:38.000 If he comes in a bank, he gets a gun out, and you live in somewhere like Texas where everyone has guns.
00:54:42.700 You go in a bank, you get your gun, you've got 50 guns pointing at you around you.
00:54:47.140 You're not going to do any damage.
00:54:49.000 But it's unbelievable.
00:54:50.960 They're not realizing their own hypocrisy, saying that guns have absolutely no purpose in our life when they're walking with people that have some in their pockets every day.
00:55:01.160 That's the liberal government.
00:55:02.400 Well, I mean, at the end of the day, what we do know is that I think the Association of Police Chiefs have – or other police chiefs out there across Canada have come out and publicly said,
00:55:12.700 look, this weapon ban is irrelevant because the crimes, the vast majority of the crimes are not being completed or executed by legal gun owners.
00:55:27.000 So why are you targeting the wrong people and taking legal, registered, PAL-licensed firearms from people?
00:55:35.260 And plus, you know, it doesn't even address the issue of gun smuggling at the border.
00:55:39.600 I interviewed an NDP MP last summer in June, and I asked him, you know, how is this policy going to affect the gun smuggling?
00:55:48.320 How is it going to have an impact on the issue of gun smuggling at the border?
00:55:51.560 And he admitted it won't do that.
00:55:53.680 It won't do anything.
00:55:54.620 It'll keep guns away from the good guys.
00:55:57.640 It'll make it easier for bad guys to do bad things with guns because they're going to be the only ones that have guns in their hands.
00:56:04.740 It's unbelievable that the liberal government is even thinking about policies as atrocious and ridiculous as this.
00:56:12.580 Personally, I think they should have just left it alone because we have the PAL course for both restricted and non-restricted weapons.
00:56:20.460 And we have a lot of safety mechanisms in place to guarantee, well, not to guarantee, but ensure that a legal firearm owner has it in a vault with trigger guards, separate ammo.
00:56:33.740 We have all these precautions in place.
00:56:35.480 So why are you targeting the most compliant gun owners in the entire equation?
00:56:40.500 And we're not focusing our effort exactly on the borders where a lot of we knew, I called it the summer of the gun a couple of years ago in Toronto.
00:56:50.680 It seemed like every two, three days somebody was getting shot.
00:56:53.740 The summer before that, because I lived in the GTA in North York, everybody was getting stabbed.
00:56:59.340 And then we transitioned to the gun the next summer.
00:57:01.780 And now all of a sudden, we're focusing on the wrong kind of gun issue altogether.
00:57:07.240 We're targeting legal gun owners that are acting safe and responsibly, and we're not addressing the issue at the border.
00:57:14.200 Maybe you should dedicate more resources to the border.
00:57:17.780 Yeah, look at the safest states in the United States.
00:57:20.140 The safest states, the most dangerous states, the most dangerous cities are the ones with the strictest gun laws in the country.
00:57:27.700 If you look at New York and California, Los Angeles, all the cities, Chicago, and you don't understand that strict gun policies that the leftist, idiotic politicians want to implement, both in Canada and the United States, don't work.
00:57:45.420 There's an issue where you're just not analyzing well what's happening.
00:57:48.760 Sid, what do you have to say to that announcement?
00:57:51.400 Well, drugs are illegal, right?
00:57:53.480 We still have heroin problems.
00:57:54.980 We still have an opioid crisis, right?
00:57:56.980 You know, this isn't going to solve any of the issues.
00:57:59.200 And, you know, yes, there's legal gun owners.
00:58:01.900 There's the issue of bringing firearms across the border.
00:58:04.700 There's also 3D printing of guns.
00:58:06.300 Like, realistically, there's no way to stop somebody who's compelled to the nth degree to acquire a firearm illegally.
00:58:13.360 You can't prevent that.
00:58:15.520 At least it's very difficult.
00:58:16.840 Whereas if you have people who are registered, people who've done the training, people who actually know how to operate those, I guess you could call them dangerous devices, but that all depends on whose hands they're in.
00:58:25.740 Well, then you're the better for it because you have these people with the experience to facilitate, as you mentioned.
00:58:31.220 You know, like in Texas, I'm in Alberta, so, you know, we're doing a little better off than Ontario.
00:58:35.440 But the more people with guns who are responsibly using them, the better.
00:58:38.340 And it is unfortunate to see this grab.
00:58:42.720 And a lot of the times, well, let me put it this way.
00:58:46.200 There's a gun and there's mass shootings.
00:58:48.140 There's also mass stabbings.
00:58:49.540 And, you know, there's people who, if they feel so compelled, they'll take their car for the wrong kind of ride and they'll hit, you know, somebody or multiple people.
00:58:57.280 We've seen these kinds of incidents.
00:58:58.700 If somebody is looking to commit an act of violence against somebody else, they're not going to stop themselves when they say, oh, I can't get a gun.
00:59:07.040 I guess I'm just not going to commit the crime.
00:59:09.020 No, that's just not how it works.
00:59:11.500 Yeah.
00:59:11.680 They'll find an alternative method if they have made the decision to commit the crime.
00:59:16.240 And, you know, let's take this one step even further, too.
00:59:20.340 We're not talking about open carry laws or issues in Canada at all.
00:59:25.640 We've gone in the opposite direction to open carry, but if you look at Texas and Florida, they're both open carry states.
00:59:32.440 And I was down, I did my Krav Maga instructor course in 2015 in Florida, and everybody I was with was carrying a weapon, you know, multiple weapons in the vehicle, all completely legal.
00:59:45.780 But what struck me, which was semi-terrifying, was the fact that every single morning before we would train, I would wake up in the morning, I'd watch the news,
00:59:54.180 and there'd be a minimum of three homicides by gun violence in Florida.
01:00:00.180 And I was just outside of Orlando.
01:00:02.080 And it struck me because everybody I was with was carrying a gun, except for the Canadian guy, right?
01:00:09.940 And when you look at the escalation of force, you know, for example, William and I, we start getting into a fistfight.
01:00:20.560 William is winning, and I've got an open carry weapon to save and defend my own life.
01:00:26.420 I'm going to employ the weapon, and I'm probably going to shoot them to protect my own life, and maybe vice versa.
01:00:32.060 If you don't have the firearms as an open carry as an option, then you're not going to escalate that use of force.
01:00:40.320 And so in Canada, we're not even talking about use of force.
01:00:43.520 What we're talking about is legal firearms ownership where it's got a trigger guard, and it's in a vault, and it's secure.
01:00:50.540 And you have rules about transporting it.
01:00:52.960 I mean, I think our rules around gun ownership are incredibly safe and really match the culture of gun ownership in this country.
01:01:03.500 And why we're focusing on something that is utterly useless is just, it's another, you look, I could go down some rabbit holes,
01:01:13.820 but as far as I'm concerned, this is all about, this is purely about disarming the public.
01:01:20.160 I'll be satisfied when the police are also disarmed as well.
01:01:25.040 Yeah, well, if we are to disarm the public, then...
01:01:28.040 Yeah, we disarm the public, let's disarm...
01:01:30.100 If these are such, like, effective laws, we disarm the public, then we disarm the police too.
01:01:34.940 Yeah, if that's the logic they're going with.
01:01:37.020 But we know that that's a fallacy, and I don't advocate for disarming the police.
01:01:40.620 I'm just saying, like, that's the ridiculousness of the argument.
01:01:43.260 If that's the way we're thinking, that's how you do it.
01:01:44.600 Yeah, right, and I think it's just another authoritarian virtue to acknowledge policy.
01:01:48.580 And it's the same type of policy that got us in this situation we're in right now,
01:01:51.480 where the government was able to invoke the Emergencies Act,
01:01:53.940 and where it got the support of a big amount of the population.
01:01:57.660 It's already 7-7-02.
01:01:59.820 Thank you so much for joining us at State.
01:02:02.140 Tom or Russell, once again...
01:02:03.140 Just around the corner.
01:02:04.380 Yeah, exactly.
01:02:05.340 Thank you, as well, Sid from Alberta, right?
01:02:08.580 Yep, absolutely.
01:02:09.300 It's a pleasure, guys.
01:02:09.960 But he's from Toronto, and we won't hold it against him.
01:02:12.780 That's right.
01:02:13.240 Toronto, Alberta.
01:02:14.260 Yeah, we've got a couple of people that did that, as well.
01:02:16.840 I'm from Niagara Falls.
01:02:18.560 Yeah.
01:02:19.340 Yeah, definitely an interesting day, and we'll be able to bring you even more next week, as well.
01:02:24.260 Thank you.
01:02:24.720 Thank you, everyone.
01:02:25.420 Have a great evening.
01:02:27.100 Thank you.
01:02:29.500 With this funding, the CBSA can deploy new technology, like scanners,
01:02:33.980 that can X-ray an entire truck in a matter of minutes.
01:02:38.000 The work we've been doing over the past years is working.
01:02:42.680 Last year, we interdicted nearly twice the amount of illegal guns coming across our border,
01:02:49.180 as we had the year before, and we're not.
01:02:51.780 We were들을 we're going to bring them back home.