Rebel News Podcast - October 23, 2024


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Does Canada's Constitution actually protect equality, or is it all liberal mumbo jumbo？


Episode Stats

Length

40 minutes

Words per Minute

152.9333

Word Count

6,173

Sentence Count

389

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

21


Summary

Does our Canadian Constitution even protect our equality before the law, or is it all liberal mumbo jumbo about equity? Professor Bruce Pardy, a freedom lover and an activist, and a journalist, is our special guest today.


Transcript

00:00:00.140 Hello, my friends. Name for me a single freedom-oriented law professor. Can you do it?
00:00:07.360 It's a pretty short list, but the name at the top has got to be Professor Bruce Pardy of Queen's University,
00:00:12.700 a freedom lover and an activist and a journalist. He's our special guest today.
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00:00:50.500 All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:57.900 Tonight, does our Canadian constitution even protect our equality before the law,
00:01:13.840 or is it all liberal mumbo-jumbo about equity?
00:01:17.560 It's October 23rd, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:20.240 You're fighting for freedom!
00:01:23.580 Shame on you, you censorious bug!
00:01:26.760 If you think it's tough being a freedom-oriented person in general,
00:01:40.100 imagine how hard it is to be a freedom-oriented person in the bosom of the establishment
00:01:45.580 at one of the finest law schools in Canada,
00:01:48.560 a place where conformity is perhaps rewarded and cancel culture thrives.
00:01:54.820 At least, I think that's how it is.
00:01:56.320 But there is an anomaly at Queen's University.
00:01:59.560 His name is Professor Bruce Pardy.
00:02:01.720 He is a freedom-oriented law professor there.
00:02:06.240 He's also the executive director of Rights Probe,
00:02:10.200 which, as it sounds, is a think tank devoted to freedom and civil rights.
00:02:15.340 And he is not only a force of nature and a professor,
00:02:18.760 he is a public intellectual who writes about freedom in various places.
00:02:23.520 He recently had a study published by the Aristotle Foundation,
00:02:27.280 an excerpt of which ran in the National Post.
00:02:29.440 What a pleasure to spend the course of the next half hour with Bruce Pardy.
00:02:33.460 Bruce, great to see you again.
00:02:35.160 Great to see you, Ezra.
00:02:36.260 Always good to chat.
00:02:37.500 Well, that's nice you to say.
00:02:38.500 I hope I haven't unfairly characterized what it's like to be a professor at Queen's University.
00:02:43.820 Obviously, if they have you there, they have a certain tolerance for ideas.
00:02:49.180 But I'm afraid that other universities like TMU, formerly known as Ryerson,
00:02:54.900 they might not be as hospitable to someone with your point of view.
00:02:59.660 I don't know.
00:03:00.840 I don't know.
00:03:01.320 Certainly, listen, I should say that here at the Law School of Queen's,
00:03:05.940 I am very welcome to say what I think to their credit.
00:03:14.100 So I don't want to place them in a light that's not deserved.
00:03:17.540 But at TMU, at the new law school they're going to put in place,
00:03:22.860 they have set aside three quarters of their student seats for people of particular identities.
00:03:30.620 And now, to be sure, this is not the only institution that's doing this.
00:03:35.360 This is just the latest example of an equity-driven educational program.
00:03:42.580 And it shows how far down the road Canada has traveled in terms of replacing the idea
00:03:51.380 of equal treatment by the law, from that idea, equal treatment to equity.
00:03:59.380 And what we are seeing now at TMU and other educational institutions,
00:04:04.200 not to mention jobs and government programs of all kinds,
00:04:08.480 are now based upon equity instead of equality.
00:04:12.340 And that means that your entitlement to apply for jobs or to apply for seats
00:04:17.800 or to apply for programs depends upon your identity.
00:04:21.880 And some people, and let's just call a spade a spade,
00:04:26.580 certainly straight white males would be the first on the list,
00:04:30.800 are not eligible for these things.
00:04:34.220 This is a form of discrimination in the name of equality,
00:04:40.920 which is not the thing at all.
00:04:42.380 You know, it's been a while since I was in law school
00:04:45.340 and dealt with Section 15-2 of our Charter of Rights.
00:04:49.880 Section 15-1 of our Charter of Rights gives everyone equality before the law
00:04:54.160 based on characteristics like race or sex or religion.
00:04:57.740 But immediately afterwards, Section 15-2,
00:05:00.760 this is hardwired right in our Charter of Rights.
00:05:03.860 It basically says, well, except when, well, I'll read the wording,
00:05:07.860 it does not preclude any law, program, or activity that has as its object
00:05:14.600 the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups,
00:05:20.500 including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin,
00:05:25.620 color, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.
00:05:29.760 Now, that assumes that if you're a minority, you're disadvantaged.
00:05:34.120 And it assumes if you're white, you have privilege.
00:05:39.020 And by the way, I don't even know what the word minority means anymore
00:05:41.800 because in Toronto and Vancouver, for example, whites are the minority.
00:05:46.820 And we get into all sorts of weird issues like how do you test someone's race?
00:05:53.220 How much of a minority do you have to be to qualify?
00:05:57.180 I think this is a ticking time bomb that has been in our Charter for 40 years,
00:06:02.480 and now it's really starting to explode, isn't it, Professor?
00:06:06.340 Yes.
00:06:06.840 Well, this is so.
00:06:08.880 The mistake was to include the exception in 15.2 that you read.
00:06:15.140 But there's been more mistakes than that.
00:06:17.680 So one of the points that this report is trying to make
00:06:22.960 is that Canadians believe, and understandably so,
00:06:28.920 because this is what 15.1 says.
00:06:31.800 15.1 says everybody has the right to be treated equally under the law.
00:06:36.500 In other words, justice is supposed to be blind.
00:06:39.860 And what has happened over these past 35, 40 years
00:06:43.040 is that the Supreme Court has made the exception in 15.2 the general rule.
00:06:50.060 15.1 basically doesn't exist anymore.
00:06:51.960 The Supreme Court has said that 15.1 and 15.2 together
00:06:57.460 require substantive equality.
00:07:00.860 And substantive equality essentially means equity.
00:07:03.900 It essentially establishes license
00:07:06.680 to give preferential treatments
00:07:10.420 to some groups over other groups.
00:07:14.180 And I would like Canadians not to be suffering under the illusion
00:07:22.540 that there is a right to equal treatment under the law,
00:07:26.740 because the Supreme Court has basically said that's not so.
00:07:30.960 Is there a recent case where this has become very underlined and clear?
00:07:37.060 I mean, I think the courts and our human rights commissions
00:07:40.260 have always been into affirmative action,
00:07:43.240 but is there some recent development
00:07:45.660 that causes you to write this essay in the Aristotle Foundation?
00:07:51.480 Well, as I alluded to,
00:07:54.760 this trend has been going on for a long time.
00:07:56.800 In fact, it began with the very first case
00:07:59.040 that the Supreme Court heard under Section 15.1 of the Charter.
00:08:01.900 But most recently, the most recent case I would cite
00:08:06.320 is a Supreme Court case from, I think it's 2020.
00:08:11.680 They were assessing a program put in place by the RCMP
00:08:15.340 that allowed job sharing between their employees.
00:08:19.320 If you wanted to work part-time,
00:08:20.780 you'd be able to by sharing a job.
00:08:24.060 And this was put in place many, many years ago.
00:08:26.460 But some women challenged the constitutionality of the program,
00:08:34.540 partly because those people who opted into it,
00:08:38.980 it was a voluntary program, entirely voluntary.
00:08:41.320 You could choose or not to stay full-time or part-time.
00:08:44.640 And if you chose part-time,
00:08:46.680 you would also get a pension, as you would with full-time,
00:08:50.640 but your pension, of course,
00:08:51.760 would be proportionate to the number of hours that you worked.
00:08:55.080 So what happened over time was, as you might guess,
00:08:59.220 more women than men chose to work part-time
00:09:04.320 and therefore ended up with lower pensions than the men.
00:09:07.460 And on that basis, it was challenged as unconstitutional.
00:09:13.480 You have an equal program, voluntary,
00:09:15.980 same rules for everybody,
00:09:17.980 challenged as being unconstitutional.
00:09:20.380 And the Supreme Court said, yeah, yeah, not allowed to do that.
00:09:22.940 In this situation, you have to have unequal rules
00:09:28.380 between men and women,
00:09:30.080 so as to prevent a disparate impact between them.
00:09:35.860 And so this is traveling beyond the exception in 15.2 that you read.
00:09:40.480 This is now saying that 15.1 means
00:09:43.020 you have to apply different rules to different groups.
00:09:47.400 And that is not what the charter says.
00:09:51.580 You know, that word equity, and I went to law school,
00:09:53.940 I didn't do a lot of lawyering,
00:09:55.440 but you learn about the word equity pretty soon.
00:09:59.480 And it's been around for a while.
00:10:02.760 It's not just for 40 years.
00:10:04.380 It's been around for decades, even more.
00:10:07.040 Sure.
00:10:07.760 Yeah.
00:10:07.940 I think it's a giant fudge factor
00:10:10.540 where a judge says, all right, if I apply the law,
00:10:14.080 it doesn't get me the result I want,
00:10:15.700 so I'm going to use the word equity,
00:10:17.680 which sort of means fairness or the way it ought to be,
00:10:21.560 and I'm going to use that to change the outcome.
00:10:24.380 Is that the wrong approach?
00:10:26.180 Give me your best definition as a law professor
00:10:29.300 of the word equity,
00:10:31.000 and maybe compare it to the word equality.
00:10:32.780 I think everyone knows what the word equality means.
00:10:34.580 But what does equity mean, and is it just a fudge factor?
00:10:38.760 Well, so one of the complications is that the word equity
00:10:41.720 has a couple of different meanings.
00:10:45.280 One of the meanings,
00:10:46.460 and not the one that I'm speaking about now,
00:10:48.560 but one of the original meanings was a body of law
00:10:54.180 that was based upon discretion of the courts
00:10:58.180 to do what they thought best.
00:10:59.560 And so in that sense, it's related.
00:11:02.120 But the particular version of equity that we're talking about
00:11:05.940 is the idea of applying different rules to different groups.
00:11:10.260 The whole notion of equality before the law
00:11:13.280 is embedded in the idea of Western legal systems.
00:11:17.300 It goes back to the idea that justice ought to be blind,
00:11:20.040 that your rights should not depend upon who you are,
00:11:23.900 what your lineage is, who your parents are,
00:11:26.360 what your race is, what your sex is,
00:11:28.180 is that the law should be impartial, neutral.
00:11:32.540 If you are charged with a criminal offense,
00:11:35.320 then the outcome of that prosecution
00:11:36.960 should not depend upon your identity.
00:11:38.880 It should depend upon what you did.
00:11:44.440 And that idea is, as time goes on, going out the window.
00:11:49.380 More and more, the law is suggesting
00:11:52.160 that the standards to be applied to you
00:11:56.680 and the punishments to be applied to you
00:11:58.580 do depend, do depend on your identity.
00:12:03.640 And that is the core of the equitable idea.
00:12:07.600 And it is being applied now more broadly all the time.
00:12:11.980 And it is being applied in favor of the predictable groups
00:12:16.520 and against the other predictable groups.
00:12:19.900 And this is a situation that I would regard as intolerable.
00:12:25.920 And yet, there is no end in sight.
00:12:30.240 Yeah.
00:12:30.680 You know, for a long time,
00:12:32.840 there was a different standard in criminal law
00:12:36.000 when dealing with Aboriginal or Indigenous defendants.
00:12:39.980 So if someone committed a crime and they were Indigenous,
00:12:44.220 they, as a rule, got a lower penalty,
00:12:49.300 a lower punishment, less jail time,
00:12:51.560 if any jail time at all, because of their race.
00:12:54.680 And I think this was widely accepted.
00:12:57.200 I think one of the cases was the Gladue case,
00:12:59.220 if I'm not mistaken.
00:13:00.240 Gladue, yeah, sure.
00:13:02.520 I think everyone sort of said,
00:13:04.360 well, that there's a historical cultural anomaly here,
00:13:08.180 so we'll just, this is, you know,
00:13:10.360 by the way, I think the victims of this rule
00:13:13.020 are Indigenous people.
00:13:16.640 When a violent man, a rapist, God forbid, a murderer,
00:13:22.340 happens to be Indigenous,
00:13:24.480 they are released much more readily back into the community
00:13:27.080 where they commit their crimes again.
00:13:28.540 If you look at the RCMP statistics
00:13:31.820 for missing and murdered Indigenous women,
00:13:33.620 the vast majority of perpetrators
00:13:36.780 are other Indigenous people,
00:13:38.980 men they know,
00:13:40.440 because they're released into the community.
00:13:42.080 So the soft-hearted, equity-seeking judges
00:13:46.080 who thought they were doing Indigenous people a favor
00:13:49.480 by putting violent men back into the community
00:13:52.120 are actually causing another crime wave.
00:13:54.000 But at least it was limited.
00:13:56.220 And you could say, well, there's a historical reason for it.
00:13:58.800 You could disagree with it,
00:13:59.700 but you could understand it.
00:14:01.160 But giving this same special favor
00:14:04.100 to newcomers to Canada
00:14:06.880 who have no historical situation
00:14:10.000 that needs to be ameliorated.
00:14:11.800 We didn't have a system of widespread slavery
00:14:15.040 like the U.S. South.
00:14:16.460 We didn't have,
00:14:18.000 we don't have an obligation.
00:14:19.480 We were not a colonial power
00:14:21.140 that had, you know, outposts around the world.
00:14:23.560 We weren't a Canadian empire.
00:14:24.740 I think it was bad enough when it was Indigenous,
00:14:27.860 but now, as you mentioned,
00:14:29.940 with this new TMU medical school,
00:14:33.100 basically it's anybody but whites.
00:14:35.320 I find that weird.
00:14:37.860 Well, there is a logic to it
00:14:39.980 if you put your finger on where it's coming from.
00:14:42.800 And this is not the kind of thing
00:14:44.400 that the courts would identify,
00:14:45.760 but my theory, and I'm not the only one,
00:14:48.080 goes like this,
00:14:48.780 that this approach has embraced
00:14:52.840 the social justice theory of the world.
00:14:56.880 And that theory goes like this,
00:14:59.300 that there is nothing in society but power,
00:15:01.320 power relationships.
00:15:02.440 And there are some groups that are privileged
00:15:04.480 and some groups that are oppressed.
00:15:06.420 And the whole objective of social justice,
00:15:09.360 and for that matter, the law,
00:15:11.380 is to flip this power pyramid.
00:15:15.140 And of course,
00:15:16.520 the white males are at the top of the pyramid.
00:15:18.780 And you can guess who's on the bottom of the pyramid.
00:15:22.260 And so it is justified
00:15:23.800 to apply different standards
00:15:26.280 to those people at the top
00:15:27.820 versus those people on the bottom,
00:15:29.180 so as to invert the pyramid.
00:15:32.160 And if you think that's the logic,
00:15:34.120 then everything we've talked about
00:15:35.720 makes complete sense.
00:15:37.420 That, to my mind,
00:15:39.080 is a violation of the central premises
00:15:43.960 of the Western legal system,
00:15:45.460 but the social justice theory
00:15:47.380 doesn't care about that.
00:15:48.780 I think you're right.
00:15:50.460 And it's always odd
00:15:52.500 when foreign narratives
00:15:55.000 of oppressor and oppression
00:15:56.680 and oppressed
00:15:57.400 are imposed on Canada.
00:15:58.940 I think of the Black Lives Matter movement.
00:16:01.280 I am not an expert
00:16:02.900 in U.S. race relations,
00:16:04.340 but I do know one thing.
00:16:05.640 They had widespread slavery in the South.
00:16:08.300 And they had Jim Crow laws,
00:16:10.560 and they had a lot of challenges
00:16:11.600 that we frankly didn't have in Canada
00:16:13.760 for historical reasons.
00:16:14.940 So to try and graph
00:16:16.760 the Black Lives Matter narrative
00:16:18.560 onto Canada,
00:16:20.160 it never really made sense to me
00:16:22.260 because we don't have that same history.
00:16:24.420 You could say the same
00:16:25.080 with Occupy Wall Street.
00:16:26.500 We didn't have bank bailouts.
00:16:28.260 You could, you know,
00:16:29.280 sorry, you were going to say,
00:16:30.320 go ahead.
00:16:30.580 No, no, I was just going to say,
00:16:33.060 Ezra, you're making the mistake
00:16:34.480 of being logical
00:16:35.480 and basing your ideas on history,
00:16:37.600 on the facts as they actually happened.
00:16:40.680 As time goes on,
00:16:41.760 those things have
00:16:42.460 very little to do with it.
00:16:44.840 This is a system of belief.
00:16:47.980 And as long as you are inside that system,
00:16:51.020 the whole thing is internally consistent.
00:16:53.000 It's just when you wander outside it
00:16:54.460 that the thing starts to fall apart.
00:16:56.000 But let me go back
00:16:58.080 to one of the main premises
00:17:00.120 of the way equity is applied.
00:17:02.300 So you referred to the way
00:17:03.700 legal rules are being applied
00:17:05.400 to different groups of people.
00:17:08.200 And the idea that, you know,
00:17:10.140 people should not be discriminated against
00:17:11.580 by the law
00:17:12.280 is, of course, a good one.
00:17:15.140 You know, the law should not be arbitrary.
00:17:16.800 The law should not punish you
00:17:18.180 for who you are.
00:17:20.360 But there's a,
00:17:21.320 there's the logic of equity
00:17:23.200 goes like this.
00:17:24.300 If we look at populations of people
00:17:26.280 and we see that in certain contexts,
00:17:29.520 there are more or less
00:17:31.160 of certain people
00:17:32.860 than there are in the population at large.
00:17:34.340 So, for example,
00:17:35.080 there are more Aboriginal offenders
00:17:36.720 proportionately in prison
00:17:38.480 than the proportion
00:17:40.140 of Aboriginal population
00:17:41.180 in Canada at large.
00:17:42.520 But the equity logic goes like this.
00:17:45.140 Therefore,
00:17:45.900 because the numbers are different,
00:17:47.380 therefore,
00:17:48.100 there is automatically a conclusion
00:17:49.920 that the system of law
00:17:53.060 is discriminating,
00:17:54.700 which is not,
00:17:55.800 which does not follow at all.
00:17:57.000 So we would not say,
00:17:57.980 for example,
00:17:59.040 we would not say
00:18:00.020 that white athletes
00:18:01.660 are being discriminated against
00:18:03.220 by the NBA
00:18:03.980 because
00:18:05.660 there aren't as many good
00:18:08.820 white players
00:18:09.520 as there are black players.
00:18:11.340 And that makes,
00:18:12.960 that's fine.
00:18:14.760 But when you turn it
00:18:15.760 the other way around
00:18:16.400 and you say,
00:18:17.100 well, there are more
00:18:17.700 of these people
00:18:18.460 in a bad situation,
00:18:20.180 well, therefore,
00:18:20.980 there must be discrimination
00:18:22.020 and therefore,
00:18:22.780 we must apply
00:18:23.400 the rules of equity.
00:18:25.160 You know,
00:18:25.820 Jordan Peterson
00:18:26.460 talks about this
00:18:27.820 a fair bit
00:18:28.620 when he's asked about sexism
00:18:30.200 and the patriarchy
00:18:31.740 and disadvantage
00:18:33.180 and he lists
00:18:34.480 the high-risk professions
00:18:37.060 or occupations
00:18:38.120 that are overwhelmingly male,
00:18:40.780 the most physically dangerous ones
00:18:43.480 that are 98,
00:18:45.880 99% male.
00:18:47.900 Yes.
00:18:48.460 You don't even have
00:18:49.180 to be that exotic,
00:18:49.900 just heavy construction work.
00:18:52.740 Sure.
00:18:53.260 You know,
00:18:54.300 fishing boats
00:18:55.940 that are at sea
00:18:56.760 for weeks.
00:18:58.160 Right.
00:18:58.660 You know,
00:18:59.140 even trucking.
00:19:00.460 I mean,
00:19:00.840 you would think
00:19:01.400 that would be
00:19:01.960 a gender equal thing,
00:19:03.060 but a lot of uncomfortable,
00:19:05.780 physically unpleasant jobs
00:19:07.440 are male
00:19:08.000 and no one
00:19:08.820 complains about that
00:19:09.800 and you don't have
00:19:10.820 a condition
00:19:11.980 of historical disadvantage
00:19:13.880 that needs
00:19:14.500 to be ameliorated.
00:19:15.960 But let me throw
00:19:16.800 some match.
00:19:17.460 I think,
00:19:18.460 and you're not supposed
00:19:19.080 to talk about these things,
00:19:20.080 you're not supposed
00:19:20.500 to notice these things,
00:19:21.800 but there are statistics kept
00:19:23.400 and there are people
00:19:25.380 who come to Canada
00:19:26.180 from far away places
00:19:27.380 who do actually better
00:19:29.300 than old stock Canadians.
00:19:32.460 Oh, sure.
00:19:33.400 Oh, absolutely.
00:19:33.820 People from India.
00:19:34.480 Yeah, yeah.
00:19:35.040 I mean,
00:19:35.420 some of the highest
00:19:36.260 performing demographics
00:19:37.420 in terms of wealth
00:19:38.480 and, you know,
00:19:41.160 who are the most successful
00:19:42.240 Canadians and Americans?
00:19:43.840 People from India,
00:19:45.860 people from Nigeria
00:19:46.960 might surprise you
00:19:48.320 often do better
00:19:49.340 than domestic Canadians.
00:19:51.620 So,
00:19:52.040 to give someone
00:19:53.100 who just arrives here
00:19:54.220 from China,
00:19:54.860 a lot of Asian Canadians
00:19:56.120 do outstandingly well
00:19:57.420 economically.
00:19:59.380 I mean,
00:19:59.600 look around,
00:19:59.960 you have the mayor
00:20:00.480 of Toronto
00:20:00.980 as a Chinese woman.
00:20:02.000 Like, there's really no political
00:20:03.800 or business heights
00:20:05.000 in Canada
00:20:05.580 where you don't have minorities.
00:20:07.280 Like, I can't think
00:20:08.400 of any sphere
00:20:09.580 of influence
00:20:10.760 where visible minorities
00:20:12.760 aren't successful.
00:20:14.600 So, to say,
00:20:15.720 as Section 15.2 says,
00:20:18.100 to have a historical
00:20:19.580 disadvantage here.
00:20:23.280 What disadvantage?
00:20:25.040 No, the fact of the matter
00:20:26.080 is that
00:20:27.900 in Canada today,
00:20:30.040 you know,
00:20:30.300 institutionally,
00:20:31.260 the actual cases
00:20:34.300 of actual discrimination
00:20:35.660 are vanishingly small.
00:20:37.280 I mean,
00:20:37.460 there isn't really
00:20:38.020 any acute
00:20:38.780 discrimination now.
00:20:40.320 And you cannot
00:20:41.060 point to any
00:20:42.900 legal rights
00:20:44.400 that one group
00:20:47.160 has
00:20:47.460 that other groups
00:20:48.040 do not.
00:20:49.960 Ironically,
00:20:50.600 the one exception
00:20:51.200 is
00:20:51.680 that
00:20:52.760 people who
00:20:53.840 belong to certain
00:20:54.640 kinds of aboriginal
00:20:55.280 groups have more
00:20:56.260 legal rights
00:20:56.820 than other people.
00:20:57.720 But
00:20:57.880 there's certainly
00:20:58.880 nothing that a white
00:20:59.900 man is legally
00:21:00.840 entitled to do
00:21:01.740 that other people
00:21:02.840 are not entitled
00:21:03.420 to do.
00:21:03.800 That kind of
00:21:04.240 discrimination
00:21:04.720 was gone a long,
00:21:06.460 long time ago.
00:21:07.720 And now,
00:21:08.840 so we're left
00:21:09.840 with chasing ghosts.
00:21:13.040 And that's what
00:21:14.000 equity has become.
00:21:15.160 It's become
00:21:15.840 the attempt
00:21:18.980 to make
00:21:21.180 into villains
00:21:22.280 the descendants
00:21:23.900 of those groups
00:21:25.940 that originally
00:21:26.580 might have had
00:21:27.200 a leg up.
00:21:29.360 You know,
00:21:30.000 I don't know
00:21:30.300 if you saw this.
00:21:31.280 It didn't make
00:21:31.880 the headlines,
00:21:32.680 but a couple
00:21:33.420 months ago,
00:21:34.560 Arif Varani,
00:21:35.740 the federal
00:21:36.300 justice minister
00:21:37.180 and the Trudeau liberals
00:21:38.040 introduced
00:21:39.040 a position
00:21:40.780 paper
00:21:41.180 on black
00:21:42.620 justice.
00:21:44.960 And
00:21:45.380 one of the
00:21:47.140 things in there
00:21:47.960 was a call
00:21:48.660 for reparations,
00:21:49.880 which I find
00:21:50.840 very odd
00:21:51.580 in that Canada,
00:21:53.300 the country of Canada
00:21:54.180 never had slavery
00:21:55.000 at all.
00:21:55.420 Canada was born
00:21:55.900 in 1867.
00:21:57.060 And even when
00:21:57.820 Canada was a colony,
00:21:59.720 we rooted out,
00:22:01.220 we banned
00:22:01.820 slavery
00:22:02.480 very early.
00:22:04.380 As you know,
00:22:04.820 the British Empire
00:22:05.640 banned slave trade
00:22:07.220 and then emancipated
00:22:08.720 the slaves
00:22:09.200 by basically
00:22:10.240 buying their freedom
00:22:11.160 with a quarter
00:22:11.720 trillion dollar
00:22:12.540 loan that they
00:22:13.640 only paid off
00:22:14.260 a decade ago.
00:22:16.200 Almost 2%
00:22:17.340 of the British
00:22:18.280 GDP
00:22:19.040 for more than
00:22:20.440 a century
00:22:20.940 went to fighting
00:22:21.880 against slavery.
00:22:23.040 The West Africa
00:22:23.820 squadron intercepted
00:22:25.300 more than
00:22:25.840 a thousand slave ships,
00:22:27.320 freed the slaves,
00:22:28.600 seized the boats.
00:22:30.520 Like,
00:22:30.740 it was remarkable
00:22:31.620 Canada
00:22:32.440 really is as close
00:22:34.160 to blame free
00:22:35.060 in that whole business
00:22:35.960 as possible.
00:22:36.580 There was slavery
00:22:37.200 in Canada,
00:22:37.700 by the way,
00:22:38.040 Professor,
00:22:39.100 amongst the
00:22:40.000 indigenous tribes.
00:22:41.860 Oh, yes.
00:22:42.740 Numerically speaking,
00:22:43.940 most slaves
00:22:44.620 in Canada history,
00:22:45.440 it wasn't numerically
00:22:47.200 huge,
00:22:47.820 but it was Indian
00:22:48.860 bands
00:22:49.380 in economic
00:22:51.600 and warfare
00:22:52.260 against others.
00:22:53.860 Sure.
00:22:54.460 So,
00:22:55.120 I totally agree
00:22:56.240 with you.
00:22:57.500 And the idea
00:22:58.700 is crazy
00:23:00.700 from that point
00:23:01.660 of view,
00:23:02.020 but it's also
00:23:02.640 crazy from another
00:23:03.800 even more fundamental
00:23:05.320 point of view,
00:23:05.980 which is
00:23:06.620 in our system
00:23:08.820 of law,
00:23:09.420 you do not
00:23:10.040 hold people
00:23:10.700 responsible for
00:23:11.560 things they have
00:23:12.180 not themselves
00:23:12.680 done.
00:23:14.140 Right?
00:23:14.620 So,
00:23:14.840 if your uncle
00:23:17.640 went and robbed
00:23:18.960 somebody,
00:23:20.240 they would not
00:23:21.120 charge you
00:23:21.740 with a criminal
00:23:22.220 offense.
00:23:23.440 This wouldn't be done.
00:23:24.860 You're not
00:23:25.280 responsible for
00:23:25.960 your uncle.
00:23:26.320 and yet we
00:23:28.240 pretend as
00:23:28.900 though that
00:23:30.080 people who
00:23:30.520 are alive
00:23:31.000 today
00:23:31.520 are responsible
00:23:33.820 for something
00:23:34.820 that somebody
00:23:35.420 did who's
00:23:36.440 long dead
00:23:36.920 and that other
00:23:38.260 people who
00:23:38.800 were not
00:23:39.100 around,
00:23:39.640 who were not
00:23:39.920 alive at the
00:23:40.420 time,
00:23:41.280 are suffering
00:23:41.960 because of
00:23:42.500 something that
00:23:42.840 happened before
00:23:44.020 they were born.
00:23:45.380 And those two
00:23:46.200 ideas are
00:23:47.480 not on.
00:23:50.080 That is
00:23:50.920 contrary to the
00:23:51.820 whole premise
00:23:52.720 of the way
00:23:53.860 we deal
00:23:54.500 with liability
00:23:55.300 in our
00:23:56.640 system of law
00:23:57.380 or at least
00:23:57.780 it used to
00:23:58.180 be.
00:23:59.080 And so
00:23:59.380 these calls
00:23:59.920 for reparations
00:24:00.540 are political
00:24:04.300 nonsense.
00:24:05.540 And yet they
00:24:06.360 have legs.
00:24:08.000 Well,
00:24:08.240 I was
00:24:08.580 astonished to
00:24:09.180 see them in
00:24:09.660 a Canadian
00:24:10.180 government
00:24:10.620 document.
00:24:11.920 You know,
00:24:12.220 it's punishing
00:24:13.400 people for
00:24:14.140 things they
00:24:14.700 did not do
00:24:15.600 and rewarding
00:24:17.140 people for
00:24:17.960 damages they
00:24:18.580 did not
00:24:18.980 suffer.
00:24:20.200 I want to
00:24:21.220 ask you
00:24:21.760 a practical
00:24:23.080 question.
00:24:23.560 I saw that
00:24:23.980 Kamala Harris
00:24:24.740 about a week
00:24:25.700 ago announced
00:24:26.460 a policy for
00:24:27.900 black men.
00:24:29.680 Yes,
00:24:30.340 yes,
00:24:30.780 yes.
00:24:31.380 That's obviously
00:24:32.240 because a lot
00:24:32.920 of black men
00:24:33.440 are not voting
00:24:34.120 for her.
00:24:34.980 I think she
00:24:35.640 will get the
00:24:36.200 majority of
00:24:36.760 black men,
00:24:37.400 but even if
00:24:38.200 only a few
00:24:39.000 percent,
00:24:39.800 7% of
00:24:40.680 Americans are
00:24:41.260 black men,
00:24:41.700 about 14% of
00:24:42.520 Americans are
00:24:42.920 black.
00:24:43.500 So about half
00:24:44.080 of those are
00:24:44.540 men.
00:24:45.480 And even if
00:24:46.240 she loses,
00:24:47.140 out of the
00:24:47.460 7%,
00:24:48.400 if she loses,
00:24:50.080 like typically
00:24:50.720 six out of
00:24:51.300 those 7% would
00:24:51.820 vote Democrat,
00:24:52.580 overwhelming
00:24:53.000 Democrat.
00:24:53.860 So if one
00:24:54.420 or 2% move
00:24:55.520 over,
00:24:56.720 especially in
00:24:57.420 cities like
00:24:57.860 Philadelphia or
00:24:58.940 Detroit that
00:24:59.580 are very
00:24:59.900 black cities,
00:25:00.940 in swing
00:25:01.900 states,
00:25:02.380 that could
00:25:02.940 make a
00:25:03.260 difference.
00:25:03.540 So Kamala
00:25:04.220 Harris is
00:25:04.700 targeting
00:25:05.060 black men
00:25:05.680 with a
00:25:06.400 $20,000
00:25:07.960 forgivable
00:25:09.880 loan,
00:25:10.620 one million
00:25:11.440 of these.
00:25:12.100 She's offering
00:25:12.720 $20 billion.
00:25:14.460 I think that's
00:25:15.180 just code word
00:25:15.740 for reparations,
00:25:17.020 but my brain
00:25:17.840 started thinking,
00:25:18.620 all right,
00:25:18.960 what's a
00:25:20.340 man?
00:25:21.320 That's probably
00:25:21.860 easy to answer,
00:25:23.180 but what's
00:25:23.860 black?
00:25:25.280 Kamala Harris
00:25:25.980 is half
00:25:26.640 black.
00:25:27.660 Barack Obama
00:25:28.160 was half
00:25:28.720 black.
00:25:29.520 How black
00:25:30.200 do you have
00:25:30.680 to be?
00:25:30.980 And I know
00:25:31.240 that sounds
00:25:31.640 like a crazy
00:25:32.080 question,
00:25:32.800 but actually
00:25:33.220 South African
00:25:33.920 apartheid,
00:25:35.240 German Nazi
00:25:36.160 policy,
00:25:37.880 American slave
00:25:38.660 policy,
00:25:39.540 needed a
00:25:40.300 scientific answer
00:25:41.280 because what if
00:25:42.040 someone said,
00:25:42.980 you can't kill
00:25:43.640 me, you can't
00:25:44.280 enslave me,
00:25:45.000 I'm white.
00:25:45.820 Know your
00:25:46.760 black.
00:25:46.980 So they invented
00:25:48.340 a whole vocabulary.
00:25:50.220 Terrible words
00:25:50.800 we don't use
00:25:51.520 anymore,
00:25:52.000 they're archaic.
00:25:53.700 Octoroon,
00:25:54.800 quadroon.
00:25:55.600 It even feels
00:25:56.320 dirty to say
00:25:57.040 those words
00:25:57.520 because those
00:25:57.920 are the words
00:25:58.620 of racial
00:25:59.620 oppression.
00:26:00.700 Mixling,
00:26:01.240 that's what the
00:26:01.680 Nazis said,
00:26:02.240 Mischling,
00:26:02.960 if you are
00:26:03.400 a Mixling
00:26:03.760 first degree
00:26:04.360 or second degree.
00:26:05.300 You needed
00:26:05.900 a science
00:26:06.800 to determine
00:26:08.100 who was
00:26:08.840 too black,
00:26:09.700 too white,
00:26:10.240 too Jewish.
00:26:11.460 So here's
00:26:11.920 my question
00:26:12.380 to you,
00:26:12.740 Professor,
00:26:13.240 and I was
00:26:13.720 thinking about
00:26:14.080 this with
00:26:14.800 Kamala Harris,
00:26:15.320 but I don't
00:26:15.640 need to
00:26:15.840 go to
00:26:16.000 America.
00:26:16.600 Let's talk
00:26:16.980 about TMU,
00:26:18.100 Toronto Metropolitan
00:26:18.860 University,
00:26:19.820 formerly called
00:26:20.220 Ryerson.
00:26:21.180 If someone
00:26:21.960 says I'm
00:26:22.600 black,
00:26:24.640 who's TMU
00:26:25.540 to say no
00:26:26.080 you're not?
00:26:26.580 If someone
00:26:26.960 says I'm
00:26:27.320 a woman,
00:26:28.700 well we know
00:26:29.220 where that is
00:26:29.900 these days.
00:26:30.620 So how do
00:26:31.260 you enforce
00:26:31.940 it?
00:26:32.300 How do the
00:26:32.840 courts do
00:26:33.500 it?
00:26:33.860 If someone
00:26:34.320 says I'm
00:26:34.740 black,
00:26:35.100 prove I'm
00:26:35.480 not.
00:26:36.240 Do they
00:26:36.540 take a
00:26:36.880 23 and
00:26:37.540 me DNA
00:26:38.140 test?
00:26:38.880 Like it
00:26:39.140 gets absurd.
00:26:40.420 Yeah,
00:26:40.660 these things
00:26:41.000 are not done
00:26:41.460 with any
00:26:41.760 kind of
00:26:42.020 scientific
00:26:42.340 precision,
00:26:44.140 and even
00:26:44.760 the
00:26:44.920 definitions
00:26:45.340 are not
00:26:45.740 really
00:26:45.920 provided.
00:26:46.360 I mean,
00:26:47.180 I know,
00:26:48.280 I'm sure you
00:26:48.660 do,
00:26:48.940 people who
00:26:49.360 have some
00:26:51.220 aboriginal
00:26:51.640 background in
00:26:53.080 them,
00:26:53.600 in their
00:26:54.420 lineage,
00:26:55.160 and depending
00:26:56.520 upon their
00:26:57.000 situation,
00:26:57.700 they either
00:26:58.860 get their
00:27:00.040 cards or
00:27:00.700 they don't.
00:27:02.100 And there's
00:27:03.520 no real
00:27:04.840 science in
00:27:06.180 it.
00:27:06.920 It all
00:27:07.240 depends upon
00:27:07.800 the political
00:27:08.520 or social
00:27:10.240 approach that
00:27:11.900 is being
00:27:12.340 applied by
00:27:12.960 the institution.
00:27:13.960 And the
00:27:14.380 institution in
00:27:15.060 question,
00:27:15.460 like TMU,
00:27:16.020 will have a
00:27:16.360 great deal
00:27:16.920 of discretion
00:27:17.500 about how
00:27:18.560 it wants
00:27:18.900 to assess
00:27:19.440 these claims.
00:27:20.980 But you
00:27:21.480 mentioned the
00:27:21.900 United States,
00:27:22.540 and we
00:27:22.740 should just
00:27:23.020 say this.
00:27:23.520 that plan
00:27:25.220 that Harris
00:27:26.140 has put
00:27:26.420 forward to
00:27:27.140 favor black
00:27:28.660 men, to
00:27:29.140 encourage them
00:27:29.720 to vote
00:27:30.020 for her,
00:27:31.540 may be,
00:27:33.140 may very
00:27:33.680 well be
00:27:34.180 unconstitutional
00:27:35.120 in the
00:27:35.680 United States.
00:27:36.320 Because last
00:27:37.100 summer,
00:27:38.540 the U.S.
00:27:39.320 Supreme Court
00:27:39.980 struck down
00:27:42.400 the admission
00:27:43.500 policies of
00:27:44.240 Harvard
00:27:44.560 University and
00:27:45.720 others,
00:27:47.640 wherein they
00:27:48.400 preferred
00:27:48.900 applicants of
00:27:49.960 some races
00:27:50.500 over others,
00:27:51.100 so as to
00:27:51.560 achieve
00:27:51.960 diversity
00:27:52.720 goals.
00:27:53.520 the U.S.
00:27:54.140 Supreme Court
00:27:54.480 said, no,
00:27:55.440 that's contrary
00:27:56.980 to our
00:27:58.120 constitutional
00:27:58.740 guarantee of
00:27:59.420 equal protection.
00:28:00.880 So,
00:28:01.620 officially,
00:28:02.520 in the U.S.,
00:28:03.280 they still
00:28:04.080 do have a
00:28:04.980 constitutional
00:28:05.500 guarantee of
00:28:06.300 equal treatment
00:28:06.860 under the
00:28:07.340 law.
00:28:08.780 And so,
00:28:09.300 all these
00:28:09.960 kinds of
00:28:10.240 things are
00:28:10.480 happening in
00:28:10.840 the U.S.
00:28:11.140 as well,
00:28:11.640 but they
00:28:12.060 may be able
00:28:12.900 to sort
00:28:13.360 themselves out
00:28:14.120 in time,
00:28:14.640 maybe.
00:28:15.580 In Canada,
00:28:16.760 we do not
00:28:17.580 have that.
00:28:18.480 Our Supreme
00:28:19.260 Court has
00:28:19.900 explicitly said
00:28:20.720 the other
00:28:21.360 thing,
00:28:21.820 which is,
00:28:22.360 your
00:28:23.260 constitutional
00:28:23.920 right to
00:28:24.320 equality
00:28:24.780 is a
00:28:25.220 right to
00:28:25.580 substantive
00:28:26.260 equality,
00:28:27.100 which means
00:28:27.520 equity.
00:28:28.240 Yeah.
00:28:28.740 I find that
00:28:29.760 terrifying,
00:28:30.900 because if you
00:28:32.120 can no longer
00:28:32.880 go to court
00:28:34.460 to get
00:28:35.080 justice,
00:28:36.020 where do you
00:28:36.640 go?
00:28:37.420 Do you
00:28:38.020 grieve?
00:28:39.740 Do you indulge
00:28:40.800 your grievance
00:28:41.400 quietly?
00:28:42.040 Do you express
00:28:42.840 your objection
00:28:44.540 in some other
00:28:45.240 way?
00:28:45.580 One of the
00:28:49.300 things Rebel
00:28:49.680 News does
00:28:50.120 is we
00:28:50.440 litigate.
00:28:50.920 We don't
00:28:51.160 just act
00:28:52.420 in the
00:28:52.620 court of
00:28:52.840 public
00:28:53.060 opinion.
00:28:53.480 Sometimes
00:28:53.700 we go
00:28:54.040 to the
00:28:54.200 court of
00:28:54.420 law,
00:28:54.540 and sometimes
00:28:54.920 we have
00:28:55.260 marvelous
00:28:55.720 victories.
00:28:56.520 We've
00:28:56.800 beaten
00:28:57.000 Tredo
00:28:57.420 twice when
00:28:58.360 he tried
00:28:58.660 to ban
00:28:59.120 us from
00:28:59.580 his election
00:29:00.280 debates.
00:29:00.840 I feel
00:29:01.360 like those
00:29:01.720 were important
00:29:02.140 victories.
00:29:02.940 We've
00:29:03.240 beat four
00:29:04.260 or five
00:29:04.700 cabinet
00:29:05.100 ministers
00:29:05.460 who
00:29:05.740 silenced
00:29:06.480 us on
00:29:06.880 Twitter.
00:29:07.640 So I
00:29:08.720 have enough
00:29:09.240 success in
00:29:09.840 the court
00:29:10.220 that I have
00:29:11.180 some faith
00:29:11.820 there,
00:29:12.320 but other
00:29:12.980 times it
00:29:13.480 really is
00:29:14.680 heartbreaking,
00:29:15.780 and I
00:29:16.220 never want
00:29:16.860 to lose
00:29:17.180 my faith
00:29:17.760 in the
00:29:18.060 system,
00:29:18.660 because what
00:29:19.540 does that
00:29:20.020 do?
00:29:20.880 And that's
00:29:21.960 why I'm
00:29:22.320 worried about
00:29:22.800 people on
00:29:23.280 the right
00:29:23.600 being pushed
00:29:24.200 out of
00:29:24.820 polite company,
00:29:25.980 because if
00:29:26.540 they're no
00:29:26.840 longer allowed
00:29:27.540 to be part
00:29:28.100 of the
00:29:28.340 system,
00:29:29.060 they either
00:29:29.980 have to
00:29:30.540 turn off,
00:29:31.260 check out,
00:29:31.860 and find a
00:29:33.960 place to
00:29:34.400 hide, or
00:29:35.420 God forbid
00:29:35.940 they indulge
00:29:36.460 something
00:29:36.720 different.
00:29:37.200 Again, to
00:29:37.500 refer to the
00:29:37.920 United Kingdom,
00:29:39.300 so many
00:29:39.940 people feel
00:29:40.440 disenfranchised.
00:29:41.520 In that
00:29:41.800 country, it's
00:29:42.480 the indigenous
00:29:43.180 white working
00:29:44.680 class, who
00:29:45.760 feel totally
00:29:46.420 shut out, and
00:29:47.540 there was
00:29:47.840 race riots a
00:29:48.660 few months
00:29:49.020 ago, and
00:29:50.300 because there's
00:29:51.560 no place for
00:29:52.220 those people in
00:29:52.920 the entire
00:29:53.480 system, legally,
00:29:55.520 politically,
00:29:56.620 journalistically,
00:29:57.780 culturally, they've
00:29:58.680 been cancelled,
00:29:59.780 and there's an
00:30:00.700 old poem by
00:30:01.640 Rudyard Kipling
00:30:02.320 called When the
00:30:03.300 English Began to
00:30:05.260 Hate, and he
00:30:06.840 wrote it a
00:30:07.220 hundred years
00:30:07.700 ago, and I'm
00:30:09.300 worried about
00:30:09.980 that, Professor,
00:30:10.860 because we've
00:30:11.360 got to keep
00:30:11.840 everyone in the
00:30:12.960 system.
00:30:13.320 everyone has
00:30:14.320 to believe
00:30:14.860 that the
00:30:15.220 system will
00:30:15.700 give them
00:30:16.020 a fair
00:30:16.340 shot, and
00:30:17.380 what you're
00:30:18.700 saying is
00:30:19.400 that is
00:30:19.700 clearly not
00:30:20.260 the case.
00:30:21.700 Yes, this
00:30:22.420 is the
00:30:22.680 danger, that
00:30:23.600 people will
00:30:25.100 review the
00:30:26.440 system as
00:30:27.540 fair and
00:30:28.300 legitimate as
00:30:29.160 long as they
00:30:29.760 perceive that
00:30:30.400 they will get
00:30:30.800 a fair shot.
00:30:33.100 But if that
00:30:33.880 system begins
00:30:34.780 to explicitly
00:30:38.780 say that
00:30:40.120 certain kinds
00:30:40.900 of people
00:30:41.340 are not
00:30:42.320 equal, that
00:30:43.200 they're not
00:30:44.120 entitled to
00:30:45.680 the same
00:30:46.200 rules as
00:30:46.720 everybody else,
00:30:48.700 we're traveling
00:30:51.060 down a bad
00:30:51.500 road.
00:30:52.500 I'm just
00:30:53.160 going to read
00:30:53.520 one stanza
00:30:54.200 from that
00:30:54.740 poem.
00:30:55.320 I refer to
00:30:56.180 Kipling too
00:30:56.720 often, but
00:30:57.640 other than
00:30:58.120 Shakespeare, he's
00:30:58.760 my favorite
00:30:59.340 poet, and
00:31:01.040 he was only
00:31:02.480 around a hundred
00:31:03.220 years ago or
00:31:03.820 so, but it's
00:31:04.320 like he could
00:31:05.620 see so many
00:31:06.180 things.
00:31:06.460 It's a poem
00:31:06.820 that's actually
00:31:07.140 called The
00:31:07.480 Beginnings, and
00:31:08.580 I'll just read
00:31:08.980 the first stanza.
00:31:10.040 It's, it was
00:31:10.980 not part of
00:31:11.880 their blood, it
00:31:13.080 came to them
00:31:13.840 very late, with
00:31:15.300 long arrears to
00:31:16.660 make good, when
00:31:18.000 the English began
00:31:19.060 to hate.
00:31:20.020 They were not
00:31:20.660 easily moved,
00:31:21.520 they were icy
00:31:22.040 willing to
00:31:22.600 wait, till
00:31:23.440 every count
00:31:24.160 should be
00:31:24.660 proved, ere
00:31:25.640 the English
00:31:26.160 began to
00:31:26.720 hate.
00:31:27.360 I'm almost
00:31:27.760 done, I'll
00:31:28.080 just finish
00:31:28.460 it.
00:31:29.400 Their voices
00:31:30.180 were even
00:31:30.660 and low, their
00:31:31.700 eyes were
00:31:32.200 level and
00:31:32.680 straight, they
00:31:33.760 were neither
00:31:34.380 sign nor
00:31:35.160 show when
00:31:35.720 the English
00:31:36.100 began to
00:31:36.460 hate, I
00:31:36.920 won't
00:31:37.120 finish.
00:31:37.940 But, so
00:31:39.080 a hundred
00:31:39.620 years ago, he
00:31:40.460 said there's
00:31:40.940 only a certain
00:31:41.440 amount of
00:31:41.820 patience, and
00:31:43.220 I can only
00:31:43.920 imagine what
00:31:44.320 he would say
00:31:44.720 today.
00:31:45.620 Canadians are
00:31:46.280 not hateful,
00:31:47.080 they're the
00:31:47.340 most easy
00:31:49.120 going people, I
00:31:50.120 think, in the
00:31:50.600 world, by
00:31:51.600 some measures,
00:31:53.020 most tolerant,
00:31:54.420 but I detected
00:31:55.320 change out
00:31:56.120 there, I see
00:31:56.660 the new polls
00:31:57.380 about immigration,
00:31:58.780 and there was
00:31:59.260 a political
00:32:00.220 consensus, at
00:32:01.380 least among the
00:32:01.920 political parties
00:32:02.500 in Canada, that
00:32:03.600 immigration was a
00:32:04.540 good thing.
00:32:05.040 Now I see
00:32:05.540 new polls,
00:32:06.040 that two to
00:32:06.860 one, Canadians
00:32:07.940 say it is
00:32:08.480 positively a
00:32:09.320 bad thing.
00:32:10.780 And I'm not
00:32:12.020 saying Canadians
00:32:12.600 I know of no
00:32:13.740 Canadians who
00:32:14.880 would object to
00:32:16.480 the idea of
00:32:17.340 fair competition
00:32:18.140 between people
00:32:19.280 of different
00:32:20.800 identities and
00:32:21.600 backgrounds and
00:32:22.400 lineage, that
00:32:23.700 they would all
00:32:25.000 agree with the
00:32:25.660 idea that that
00:32:26.460 kind of thing
00:32:26.980 should not
00:32:27.520 matter.
00:32:28.780 So if you're
00:32:29.500 applying for a
00:32:30.120 seat in a
00:32:30.720 medical school,
00:32:31.780 that the fact that
00:32:32.500 you are white or
00:32:33.300 black or indigenous
00:32:34.180 or whatever
00:32:35.200 should not
00:32:35.980 matter one
00:32:36.480 bit.
00:32:37.920 And so in
00:32:38.320 that sense,
00:32:39.800 Canada is a
00:32:40.540 not racist
00:32:42.420 country.
00:32:44.000 But there is a
00:32:45.480 different kind of
00:32:46.280 racism now that's
00:32:47.160 being applied.
00:32:48.220 And that racism
00:32:49.160 is against
00:32:50.000 the white and
00:32:53.740 in some cases
00:32:54.380 the Asian
00:32:55.040 occupants of
00:32:56.200 this place.
00:32:58.240 And yeah,
00:32:59.680 your take is
00:33:01.800 well-deserved.
00:33:04.480 It makes me
00:33:05.280 sad.
00:33:07.160 And by the
00:33:08.620 way, the
00:33:08.960 people who have
00:33:09.580 come here en
00:33:10.260 mass, and I'm
00:33:10.820 speaking about
00:33:11.180 immigration again
00:33:11.860 for a moment,
00:33:12.540 in a way you
00:33:13.020 can't blame them.
00:33:13.720 They were
00:33:13.920 invited in.
00:33:14.460 They were let
00:33:14.780 in.
00:33:15.360 Most of them
00:33:16.920 were not here
00:33:17.300 illegally, by the
00:33:18.420 way.
00:33:18.620 They were allowed
00:33:19.360 in through some
00:33:20.120 legal process.
00:33:21.840 And it's the
00:33:22.560 courts that we're
00:33:23.160 talking about now.
00:33:24.100 I don't know.
00:33:24.660 How does that get
00:33:25.620 fixed, though?
00:33:26.140 I think if I
00:33:27.520 had to list two
00:33:28.300 failures of the
00:33:29.220 Stephen Harper
00:33:29.720 government, I
00:33:30.880 think it was an
00:33:31.300 excellent government.
00:33:32.060 It was very
00:33:32.440 incremental, but in
00:33:33.260 many ways it was
00:33:33.780 very timid.
00:33:35.360 Yes.
00:33:35.800 It didn't take on
00:33:36.720 the CBC, which
00:33:38.140 is one of the
00:33:38.580 reasons they got
00:33:39.340 pounded so badly
00:33:40.120 in the 2015
00:33:40.740 election.
00:33:41.240 They had a
00:33:41.660 chance to
00:33:42.460 rein in the
00:33:42.840 CBC.
00:33:43.380 They did not.
00:33:44.740 And to this
00:33:45.540 day, it is a
00:33:46.640 tremendous distortion
00:33:48.000 in the political
00:33:48.580 discussion.
00:33:49.200 I think the
00:33:49.560 second and
00:33:50.400 maybe larger
00:33:51.040 problem was the
00:33:53.020 courts.
00:33:53.400 I don't think
00:33:53.860 that Stephen
00:33:54.320 Harper prioritized
00:33:55.820 putting freedom
00:33:56.880 oriented judges
00:33:57.700 on the court.
00:33:58.820 Donald Trump
00:33:59.620 had the
00:34:00.120 Federalist
00:34:00.660 Society to
00:34:01.400 help recruit
00:34:02.080 and vet
00:34:02.780 outstanding lawyers
00:34:05.120 who could be
00:34:05.600 candidates, judges
00:34:06.300 who could be
00:34:06.740 candidates.
00:34:07.320 And one of
00:34:07.980 Trump's great
00:34:08.500 achievements was
00:34:09.160 his courts.
00:34:09.940 Trump himself, I
00:34:10.580 don't think, knew
00:34:11.000 anything about it,
00:34:11.580 but he delegated
00:34:12.300 it to outstanding
00:34:13.240 people.
00:34:13.700 I think Stephen
00:34:15.540 Harper let, you
00:34:17.560 know, log
00:34:18.080 rolling, patronage
00:34:20.100 politicians put
00:34:22.240 duds on our
00:34:23.640 Supreme Court
00:34:24.280 with maybe one
00:34:25.000 or two
00:34:25.280 exceptions, and
00:34:26.560 the court we
00:34:27.120 have, while
00:34:28.120 Harper actually
00:34:28.980 appointed many
00:34:29.820 of them, is
00:34:31.120 indistinguishable
00:34:31.920 by the radical
00:34:33.140 leftist
00:34:33.600 appointments.
00:34:35.560 I think that's
00:34:36.680 a fair assessment.
00:34:37.280 The problem
00:34:40.020 now is that
00:34:41.160 equity is
00:34:43.020 embedded in
00:34:43.960 our Constitution
00:34:44.700 over a long
00:34:45.700 period of time
00:34:46.240 by a great
00:34:46.700 deal of
00:34:47.120 Supreme Court
00:34:47.560 jurisprudence.
00:34:48.980 Now, governments
00:34:50.560 are not
00:34:50.940 helpless, but
00:34:52.620 they would have
00:34:53.480 to be determined
00:34:54.320 and courageous
00:34:55.880 and strategic
00:34:57.400 about how they
00:34:59.020 would start to
00:34:59.440 reverse this.
00:35:00.040 But let me
00:35:00.320 give you an
00:35:00.560 example.
00:35:01.880 If you were a
00:35:02.900 government, other
00:35:03.540 provincial or
00:35:04.120 federal, and you
00:35:05.040 saw this problem,
00:35:06.120 then you would
00:35:07.580 have to do
00:35:08.180 something like
00:35:08.680 the following.
00:35:09.340 You could enact
00:35:10.340 a statute that
00:35:12.500 established the
00:35:14.180 rules about equal
00:35:15.420 treatment the way
00:35:16.120 you thought it
00:35:16.680 ought to be, and
00:35:18.520 you could include
00:35:19.140 the notwithstanding
00:35:19.900 clause, saying we
00:35:21.080 are going to treat
00:35:22.380 everybody equally
00:35:23.520 with that regard to
00:35:24.280 identity, not
00:35:25.400 withstanding the
00:35:27.340 Charter of Rights.
00:35:28.620 And we have to do
00:35:29.260 that because the
00:35:30.000 Supreme Court has
00:35:30.780 declared what the
00:35:31.600 Charter of Rights
00:35:32.200 means.
00:35:33.240 And then you
00:35:33.780 could go on and
00:35:34.600 you could do
00:35:34.960 things like this
00:35:36.060 dismantle the
00:35:37.360 human rights
00:35:38.240 codes and the
00:35:39.060 apparatus that
00:35:39.780 exists to
00:35:40.980 basically achieve
00:35:42.060 the same thing.
00:35:42.920 So you would
00:35:43.240 have to be
00:35:43.600 deliberate and
00:35:44.380 courageous and
00:35:45.140 strategic, and
00:35:46.420 you have to be,
00:35:47.540 it would be
00:35:47.860 politically daring.
00:35:49.140 But that is the
00:35:49.740 kind of thing that
00:35:50.480 would have to
00:35:50.880 happen next in
00:35:51.500 order to start to
00:35:52.440 reverse this trend.
00:35:53.960 I think that
00:35:55.020 Pierre Polyev is
00:35:56.180 quite likely to be
00:35:57.040 the next prime
00:35:57.580 minister.
00:35:58.020 A lot can happen
00:35:58.680 between now and
00:35:59.620 the next election,
00:36:00.360 but every single
00:36:01.320 poll for the last
00:36:02.100 year suggests it.
00:36:03.460 I think he's been
00:36:04.140 very disciplined.
00:36:04.820 He's focused on
00:36:05.720 economic matters.
00:36:07.260 He's recently
00:36:08.820 started talking very
00:36:09.880 carefully about
00:36:10.600 immigration, but I
00:36:11.880 have really not
00:36:12.720 heard anything from
00:36:13.800 Pierre Polyev about
00:36:15.200 matters such as we've
00:36:16.620 discussed here today.
00:36:18.060 And I think it is
00:36:19.460 perhaps unlikely that
00:36:21.720 he would take the
00:36:22.500 bold step you
00:36:23.220 outline.
00:36:23.640 Maybe he's saving his
00:36:25.240 thunder on that till
00:36:26.600 he's through an
00:36:27.180 election, but I don't
00:36:28.760 know.
00:36:29.140 Do you have any
00:36:29.860 intel?
00:36:30.720 I don't know if you
00:36:31.280 have any interaction
00:36:32.240 with the party?
00:36:33.140 Who do you think
00:36:33.660 might be a justice
00:36:34.820 minister under
00:36:35.780 Pierre Polyev?
00:36:36.400 Is that outside your
00:36:37.440 scope of affairs?
00:36:38.380 Yeah, I couldn't
00:36:38.960 speculate on that.
00:36:40.000 I'm sorry.
00:36:40.420 I don't really have a
00:36:41.860 scoop to give you.
00:36:44.100 And whether or not a
00:36:45.260 new conservative
00:36:45.720 government would be
00:36:46.860 bold enough to do
00:36:48.760 the kinds of things
00:36:49.560 that I'm describing,
00:36:50.520 I really couldn't say.
00:36:52.400 Yeah, fair enough.
00:36:53.360 And I look to
00:36:54.200 Alberta.
00:36:55.060 Danielle Smith talked
00:36:56.200 a lot about the
00:36:56.820 Sovereignty Act, but I
00:36:57.680 think she sort of
00:36:58.220 stepped a little bit
00:36:58.900 back from it.
00:36:59.960 I mean, she's talking
00:37:01.160 about a provincial
00:37:02.800 bill of rights.
00:37:04.000 I mean, these are
00:37:04.840 good signs.
00:37:06.160 Yes.
00:37:06.460 Have you looked at her
00:37:07.600 proposal on that at
00:37:08.520 all?
00:37:09.440 Yeah, I've seen some
00:37:10.180 versions of it.
00:37:11.580 I think it's in the
00:37:14.040 right direction.
00:37:15.020 I don't think it goes
00:37:15.960 to the core of the
00:37:17.260 problems that we have
00:37:18.500 in some respects,
00:37:19.460 though.
00:37:20.280 And it maintains the
00:37:22.580 control, and it's
00:37:23.940 very difficult to get
00:37:24.660 around, but there are
00:37:25.340 ways to try.
00:37:26.640 Anyway, it maintains
00:37:27.780 the control that the
00:37:28.720 courts and the
00:37:29.880 tribunals have over
00:37:32.340 the meaning of the
00:37:33.280 phrases that you put
00:37:34.080 into the Bill of
00:37:35.100 Rights.
00:37:36.120 And so I applaud the
00:37:38.460 intent, and maybe it
00:37:40.520 will work out very
00:37:41.100 well.
00:37:41.520 I'm looking forward to
00:37:42.320 seeing what they do.
00:37:43.540 But there are some
00:37:45.160 real difficulties, and
00:37:46.760 in order to solve
00:37:47.940 those difficulties, you
00:37:48.900 really have to take
00:37:49.640 the bull by the
00:37:51.800 horns.
00:37:53.460 Professor, you've
00:37:54.140 been very generous
00:37:54.760 with your time.
00:37:55.400 I want to ask you a
00:37:56.280 question, because
00:37:58.180 sometimes I like to
00:37:58.960 think practically.
00:37:59.740 I mean, I love
00:38:00.220 conversations and
00:38:01.220 ideas, but what do
00:38:03.940 you do?
00:38:05.780 I mean, other than
00:38:06.480 talk, what can be
00:38:07.700 done?
00:38:08.880 What could an
00:38:09.500 ordinary person do,
00:38:11.100 and what could a
00:38:11.920 person in a position
00:38:12.820 of power do?
00:38:13.640 You've mentioned
00:38:14.440 being bold and
00:38:15.440 bringing in a law
00:38:16.380 that would restate
00:38:18.480 the traditional
00:38:19.400 notion of equality.
00:38:20.720 Is there anything an
00:38:21.760 ordinary person can do
00:38:23.120 to fix this?
00:38:24.180 Well, we can all
00:38:27.640 participate in trying
00:38:29.040 to build a
00:38:30.440 environment, a
00:38:31.480 political environment
00:38:32.360 in which a
00:38:33.820 premier or a
00:38:34.740 government that
00:38:35.500 would start going
00:38:36.160 down this road
00:38:36.920 wouldn't get
00:38:37.380 clobbered by, you
00:38:41.360 know, the CBC and
00:38:42.380 the other media and
00:38:43.620 the other, you
00:38:45.320 know, non-thinking
00:38:46.040 people in this
00:38:46.720 country who are
00:38:47.600 reactionary to
00:38:48.480 believe that, you
00:38:49.480 know, if you do
00:38:49.960 this kind of thing,
00:38:50.620 then that means
00:38:51.120 you're a racist.
00:38:52.320 Right.
00:38:52.600 So building a
00:38:53.900 political environment
00:38:54.800 in which governments
00:38:56.320 feel safe to do
00:38:57.540 the kinds of
00:38:58.120 things that we've
00:38:58.900 been describing is,
00:39:00.560 I think, the most
00:39:01.840 important next thing
00:39:03.260 to do.
00:39:03.860 And to achieve
00:39:04.840 that, you've got to
00:39:06.120 have all hands on
00:39:07.160 deck.
00:39:08.220 Yeah, and I don't
00:39:08.740 think that's going to
00:39:09.260 come quickly.
00:39:09.760 I think that's a
00:39:10.180 25-year project.
00:39:11.860 I agree.
00:39:12.420 Because it's taken us
00:39:13.140 25 years to get
00:39:14.000 into this pickle.
00:39:15.440 Well, listen, it's
00:39:16.160 great to catch up
00:39:16.880 with you, and
00:39:17.380 thanks for letting
00:39:17.940 me read a little
00:39:18.540 bit of poetry to
00:39:19.760 you.
00:39:20.160 I, you know,
00:39:21.200 sometimes I can
00:39:22.820 find a Kipling
00:39:23.580 poem that applies
00:39:25.140 to almost any
00:39:25.800 situation out
00:39:26.800 there.
00:39:28.500 Great to see
00:39:29.200 you again,
00:39:30.200 Bruce Pardy,
00:39:30.800 Professor of Law
00:39:31.620 at Queens
00:39:31.920 University and
00:39:32.500 Executive Director
00:39:33.120 of Rights Probe.
00:39:34.400 I don't need to
00:39:35.000 tell you to keep
00:39:35.640 fighting for freedom.
00:39:36.400 I know you do it
00:39:36.980 every day.
00:39:37.400 Great to see you.
00:39:38.520 Thanks, Andrew.
00:39:39.100 You too.
00:39:39.400 All right.
00:39:39.760 Cheers.
00:39:40.480 Well, there you
00:39:40.920 have it.
00:39:42.020 Until tomorrow,
00:39:43.260 on behalf of all
00:39:44.380 of us here at
00:39:44.920 Rebel World
00:39:45.360 Headquarters, to
00:39:46.020 you at home,
00:39:47.100 goodbye.
00:39:48.220 And you keep
00:39:48.760 fighting for
00:39:49.220 freedom, too.
00:39:49.820 You too.
00:39:51.860 We'll be right back.