EZRA LEVANT ｜ The state of civil liberties in Canada： in-depth with JCCF's John Carpay
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Summary
Civil Liberties is always on our minds, not just because we use our freedoms, but because we fight for those freedoms. Well, today we talked to one of Canada s leading freedom fighters, my friend John Carpe from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Civil Liberties is always on our minds, not just because we use our freedoms,
00:00:04.880
but because we fight for freedoms. Well, today we talked to one of Canada's leading freedom
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fighters, my friend John Carpe from the Justice Center. But first, let me invite you to get the
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video version of this podcast. Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a
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here's today's podcast. Tonight on Christmas Eve, the state of civil liberties in Canada,
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a feature interview with our friend John Carpe of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom.
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We're ready for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!
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Well, you hear me complain from time to time that there are not enough civil liberties organizations
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in Canada that live up to their name. I mean, literally their name. Where's the Canadian Association
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of journalists when David Menzies gets arrested five times for doing journalism? I suppose I put
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myself in that too, having been a jailbird now myself. Where's Canadian journalists for free expression
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fighting against Bill C-63, Trudeau's monstrous censorship bill that even pre-Elon Musk Twitter
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compared to North Korea? Where's Penn Canada? Where's Amnesty International? Where is the Canadian
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Civil Liberties Association? Alas, every one of them is like salt that has lost its saltiness.
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What even is the point of those organizations? Of course, you know me, I love the Democracy Fund,
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which is a registered charity that works with different cases, Rebel News highlights.
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But the granddaddy of all freedom-oriented civil liberties law firms, they've been doing it for more
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than 10 years. And you've heard us interview their staff lawyers and talk about their cases
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a hundred times. Well, those are the guys and gals at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom,
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otherwise known as the JCCF. And I'm delighted to say this year I was honored to receive their
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Freedom Fighter Award named after George Jonas, the great Hungarian journalist and freedom fighter.
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So as we are drawing to the end of 2024, I thought, who better to have a sit-down with and do a state
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of the union in terms of civil liberties? How is Canada faring on these questions? From my point of
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view, there's lots of reasons for pessimism, but we'll talk about that and see if there are any little
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green shoots of hope. And maybe even if the election down south of us and the freedom orientation of some of
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Donald Trump's cabinet, I mentioned Twitter, Elon Musk is sort of going to be like a kitchen cabinet
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member in his belief in freedom of speech. Will some of the freedoms in America slosh over the border
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onto us? Joining us now via Zoom is the boss of the Justice Center, our friend John Carpe. John,
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great to see you again. Good to be with you. Well, the JCCF is so important and it's been around for so
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long. You really are the granddaddy of civil liberties groups. But by another token, you're
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the baby because you started long after the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and some of
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those other groups were around. They just stopped working. Like I literally cannot tell you the last
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time Canadian journalists for free expression did anything fighting for freedom. They don't even
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put out a tweet or a statement about censorship like C63. You know, I used to be a member of Penn
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Canada. What's the point? They never talk about censorship in Canada. What do you think about
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the state of civil liberties? Well, in a similar vein, when the government's grossly violated our
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freedoms of association, conscience, religion, peaceful assembly, and so on with the lockdowns and the
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vaccine mandates or vaccine passports, basically mandatory vaccination policies, we saw the Canadian
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Civil Liberties Association and other civil liberties groups basically embraced the government's
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narrative on lockdowns and vaccine passports, basically supported those things. They took issue
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with that some people were suffering worse harms than others. So if you were dark-skinned, female,
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LGBTQ, handicapped, you're going to suffer worse from lockdowns than if you are male, light-skinned,
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etc. That's the only thing really that they went on, but they fundamentally supported or at least did not
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oppose these horrific violations of our fundamental charter freedoms that dragged on for literally
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years. But you know what? It doesn't matter. You've got lots of people watching The Rebel and I think
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other independent media are growing, and that's very positive that all of these independent media outlets
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are growing. And the Justice Center has received tremendous support, and we're ready to enter into
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2025 fighting very hard. Well, I mean, I take your point about it doesn't matter, but I think what you
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mean is despite that. I mean, because all those things matter deeply. And I was going to talk about the
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civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic because, of course, that's what spurred the birth of the
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Democracy Fund. And that was really the JCCF, the Justice Center's time to shine. Unfortunately, some of the cases
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that you took have been ignored and downplayed. Like, I can't believe, for example, one of the most
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shocking violations of civil liberties in recent memory in Canada, when if you were not jabbed,
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you could not get on a plane or a train or a ferry in this country, second largest country in the world,
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cold country. You can't just drive across Canada in the winter. I mean, from coast to coast, it's...
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The airlines didn't want that policy. There was no medical basis for that policy. They didn't respect
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exemptions for religious or health reasons. They didn't give you credit if you had got the virus
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and recovered naturally and thus had strong natural immunity. You and a number of very interesting
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plaintiffs put together a very meticulous lawsuit. You deposed government bureaucrats and got astonishing
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admissions. And yet, the courts in this country said, oh, it's over. So it's moot. So we're not
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going to trouble your little, your pretty little minds with this. It's not of interest to the public.
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We're not going to hear the case because it's all over. That's basically what they said, didn't they?
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Yes. It's the silver lining on the cloud is that because of the court actions, we got admissions
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from government officials saying under oath that there was no medical or scientific basis to support
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these travel mandates. That's an admission we would have never received from the prime minister
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or any cabinet minister or any provincial premier at a news conference. But it was through the court
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action through one of our court actions in Saskatchewan. We had an admission from a government
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official under oath that if somebody died in a car crash, when he's brought to the hospital,
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they run a COVID test on the corpse. And if they, through PCR testing, if it's a positive test,
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they list that as a COVID death. We got that through litigation. So it's been, on the one level,
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it's been very discouraging. On another level, it's been a good tool for getting out the truth
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and showing just how, how pathetic and miserable and weak the government's evidence is in these
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court challenges to lockdowns. I take your point. So on one hand, we learned the awful truth about our
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government, but on the other hand, they learned they can get away with it. So many of the precedent
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setting cases that I would have thought would have been slam dunks for freedom,
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the courts found some excuse to let it slouch by. It was almost like they found a pandemic exemption
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in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, and that the judges went out of their way to find some
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angle to permit the greatest infringement of civil liberties in a generation. I think,
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while you and I may have learned something about the nature of government,
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government learned something about the nature of checks and balances on them, which is,
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they really, I mean, the Emergencies Act, finally, it was found to be unconstitutional
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legal by the federal court, more than a year later, by the way. But, or a year later, that is. But
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other than that, I can't think of a single important case that the civil liberties side won. Can you,
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like a single substantive case about, you know, a labor union agreement or a mask bylaw or these insane
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arrive can lawsuits? I cannot think of an important blow for liberty. All the bad stuff was rubber
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stamped. Am I missing? Was there some case other than the Emergencies Act? Did I miss something where,
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where the bad guys might have lost for once? We've had minor and partial victories here and
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there. But unfortunately, I have to agree with you substantively. The court rulings the last two or
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three years in regards to the lockdowns of vaccine passports have been atrocious. I'm addressing this
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by way of a book, which you and I have had a few discussions about. It's called Corrupted by Fear,
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How the Charter Was Betrayed and What Canadians Can Do About It. It's going to be available January 15th.
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And I am criticizing, going through what was the evidence that was put before the courts and how
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the courts have, in many cases, they've ignored the evidence that was placed before them. Judges have
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have made assertions in their ruling that are just repeating what they heard on the six o'clock news.
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And we've had court rulings where the judge says, well, the government's evidence is more persuasive,
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but they don't say how or why they believe the government's evidence to be more persuasive,
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which makes for a very poor judgment. Because if you're going to accept one side's evidence as
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stronger, better, more persuasive than the other, regardless of which side, but you owe it to
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justice and you owe it to the people, to citizens, to explain how you arrived at that conclusion.
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And it's rather ominous and dangerous when you've got court rulings that say, well, you know,
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we think the government's evidence is more persuasive. And there's not a sentence in the court judgment
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explaining why or how the government's evidence is more persuasive. So this book is part of an
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effort. It's part of an already in existence, widespread effort to hold the judiciary to account
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over betraying the charter. And with that public awareness that is, over the long run,
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it's going to trickle up towards the appointment of better judges, as we've seen south of the border
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in recent decades. Very slow, very gradual trend towards appointing judges that have a greater
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Well, I hope that happens in Canada too. In Donald Trump's first term, there were some mistakes and
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some missed opportunities. But I think a lot of people would agree, by working with the Federalist
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Society, which is a freedom-oriented fraternity of lawyers, they managed to make such outstanding
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appointments. Obviously, the Supreme Court appointments are the most important. But I think
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that's a terrible contrast to Canada, where Stephen Harper, when he was PM, he really had the chance to
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remake the Supreme Court forever. And he never thought about it. I think that was probably the
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greatest missed opportunity of his prime ministership. Hopefully, if Pierre Paldé becomes PM next year,
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he'll take a different approach. He'll realize that that is the greatest opposition to any freedom-oriented
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government. Not the opposition, not the media, but the courts. Anyways, I don't want to spend too much
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time talking about the COVID pandemic, because you and I have talked about that many times before.
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And I know we've chewed these things over with our viewers. The JCCF has a lot of work to do
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post-pandemic too, just like the Democracy Fund does. And I want to talk about some of those cases.
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I printed off a few different stories from your website before I sat down here. Here's one.
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And I'd like your help on this, because I haven't spent a lot of time on the subject.
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Danielle Smith, who I know has come to a lot of Justice Center events,
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so she's certainly sympathetic. She has introduced something she calls the Alberta Bill of Rights,
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or maybe she's reintroduced it. And your headline is, Steps Forward, Steps Backward
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in Bill 24 Changes to the Alberta Bill of Rights. Let me ask you, what does the Bill of Rights,
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proposed Alberta Bill of Rights say? Why did the premier bring it in? And how can it be improved if
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there are flaws to it? Okay. So the Alberta Bill of Rights has been
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the law in the province of Alberta for several decades. In recent times, it's clearly being
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ignored by the courts. So it's similar to the charter. It says every Albertan has the fundamental
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right of free speech, freedom of conscience, religion, association, assembly, so on and so forth.
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And it says that every law in Alberta must be interpreted and applied in a way that respects
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these fundamental freedoms. So it's good to have in place, but the courts ignored it. In the case of
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Sheely and Annette Lewis, they said, well, we're just going to do a charter analysis. We're not going
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to pay attention to the Alberta Bill of Rights. A very similar outcome in the Ingram decision,
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which was one of the Justice Centre's cases where the court ended up invalidating Alberta's lockdown
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measures. So the background is the courts were ignoring the Alberta Bill of Rights. Daniel Smith's
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UCP government brought in Bill 24 to improve it. The first draft of Bill 24, we said, it's not great
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because you've got this language in there that's just like the charter that says that these rights
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can be limited, subject to reasonable limits, as can be demonstrably justified in a free society.
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So we've pushed back on that and said, well, at least change that language to get requirement for
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evidence, which we didn't see much with all the charter rulings regarding lockdowns. So
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Bill 24 was amended to get some better language in there. At the end of the day, I always go back to
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what really matters more than the wording of the charter or the wording of the Bill of Rights is our
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culture. Do we have a freedom-loving culture? If yes, that's going to trickle up to the politicians,
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the lawyers, the judges. And so we think the Bill 24 was a small step forward. However,
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in the bigger context, what really matters is that we educate Canadians of all ages, especially the
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younger ones, but Canadians of all ages, we need to really appreciate our charter rights and freedoms
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and the free society. If we don't, then it doesn't matter what the wording is of the Alberta Bill of
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Rights or the Canadian Bill of Rights or the charter.
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You know, I'm just thinking to myself, I actually did go to law school in Alberta 20 plus years ago,
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and I forgot that there's an Alberta Bill of Rights. And I think the reason is because it's
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like an appendix in the body. It really is not used. No one talks about it. I guess an appendix,
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if you have appendicitis, you talk about it. But the fact that this law has been there dormant,
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not really used, tells us a lot. How do you move a law from a regular statute, one of hundreds on the
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books, to give it the power that it is any other laws, if they contradict the Alberta Bill of Rights,
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are to that degree of no use or effect? Like how is it that the charter of rights is the supreme law for
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Canada? But the Alberta Bill of Rights is not the supreme law for Alberta. And how could that be
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changed? Because if you had a freer constitution of Alberta, then you have the constitution of Canada.
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If you have Alberta, the freest place, and if you have that enshrined in a law, how do you make sure
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that that law really is, you know, the determining factor as opposed to just something that judges say,
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yeah, yeah, that doesn't really mean anything. That's just for show.
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Well, and I think that's probably, you know, and I've not spoken to Danielle Smith about this,
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and I can only speculate as to what her reasons are. But we had a situation in Alberta where courts
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were blatantly, very blatantly, with the Sheila Annette Lewis case, which for the benefit of those
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who hadn't heard, a lady, courageous lady, who had had COVID and had recovered from COVID,
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she was pressured to get injected with COVID vaccine. She said she didn't want to get injected.
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She was kicked off of a waiting list for life-saving organ transplant. Just a disgrace,
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and shame on the Alberta doctors who did that. We provided lawyers for Sheila Annette Lewis,
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went to court, lost, lost in the first level court of appeals. Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear it.
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But this is an example where the judges completely ignored the Bill of Rights.
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So I think the reason why it was, I think the reason why Premier Smith brought in Bill 24
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is to put in some different language to force the judges to really take a look at it and change the
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status quo of judges simply ignoring it. So I think that's one of the positives. Potentially,
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we'll have to wait and see what the courts do with it. But the amendments to the Bill of Rights
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were there so that the courts are no longer going to feel quite as comfortable in just ignoring it as
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You know, a few months ago, I went down to Sao Paulo, Brazil, first time I've ever been in South
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America, because I heard there was a huge rally for freedom of the press and freedom of speech,
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because a judge there, Alexandre de Maures, had banned the entire Twitter app.
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And Elon Musk was in a very public dispute with this judge, who, by the way,
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one of the things he would do is he would ban critics of the government on Twitter
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and then tell Twitter to delete their account, but tell Twitter not to say who did it.
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Like, this judge was saying to Twitter, suspend that account, I ordered you to, but you can't
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tell anyone I ordered you to, and they can't, you know, you have to keep this whole thing secret.
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And Elon Musk basically said, you're asking us to break the law, we're not going to do that.
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They had this huge fight. Well, de Maures, since Musk wouldn't ban a handful of critics,
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Maures banned the entire app from everyone in Brazil. You had to get a VPN to use them.
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So I went down to Sao Paulo. I wanted to see how big a free speech rally is in,
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I'm not going to call Brazil the third world, but it's a developing country.
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Do they care about freedom? And John, I don't know if you know, but there were 200,000 people there.
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And obviously not all of them spoke English, but my question was, why are you here?
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They all said freedom of speech. They all said Elon Musk on Twitter. Like, it wasn't just
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a partisan rally. They really knew why they were there. Here's a quick clip
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of my trip to Sao Paulo. It's just, it was incredible to see the different races and the
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different ages. It felt, it felt sort of wonderful to see this. It was like one of those old Benetton
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ads, people of every background, but unified for the belief in freedom. Here, take a look.
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I, I come here because I'm here to, to defend the free of Brazil because Chandon is, uh, he's
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Freedom of speech? Yes, yes. He's closing our, our mouth. Oh, really? Because we...
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Lula is doing that? Or Moray? Moray. Moray is, um... That's the judge. He's the judge. He's,
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uh, literally is just a toy for him. It's just a toy.
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This Alexandre de Moray, he actually, he shut up 22 million people that use X or the X Twitter
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here in Brazil. So 22 million. It's a lot. It's a lot. 22 million.
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I think in the United States, what they're doing to Donald Trump, trying to censor him, trying to
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take legal action against him. I feel like they're doing the same thing here as well.
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Uh, and this Alexandre de Moray, I think he's a radical judge. Does it look likely that he'll
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be impeached or do you think he's going to continue doing what he's doing?
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I think he is unfortunately going to keep doing what he's doing, which is a shame for us,
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Brazilian, because this, he doesn't represent us, but I hope one day it will stop.
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They're going to be one impeachment. They're going to ask for impeachment. This time,
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we have a lot of power. The judge Alexandre de Moray?
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Yeah. Yeah. Then it got to be a lot of power, this impeachment for 90s. I hope so you win.
00:23:53.020
John, it was an amazing rally. And I sometimes wonder if we could muster even 2,000
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people or even 20,000 people for free speech in Canada. And I worry that we can't. Once there was a
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50,000-person rally for free speech in Ottawa, by the way, when they tried to shut down the radio
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station in Quebec called Chois FM. So there was a moment in Canada where we had a rally of that size.
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But my point, and I'm sorry I'm taking so long to get to it, is Alexandre de Moray is a judge.
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He was using the statutes of Brazil. He was just abusing them. And you know those old sayings,
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show me the man, I'll find you the crime. That was Lavrenti Beria of the predecessor to the KGB.
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Or you know the other saying, the more laws, the more corruption. Like you and I believe in the
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law as a tool for freedom, but other people use the law to suppress, even to pervert the law.
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How do you stop the Alexandre de Moray's from putting roots in Canada? How do you stop
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Part of, that's like a many part response, but I'll mention a few components because that could
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be a very long answer. We've got to educate our children, our grandchildren. The Justice Center is
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largely developed and will be completing in 2025 a charter curriculum for high school students.
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That's available on our website. People of all ages can read that and use that. But if you have a
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Canadian public where Canadians understand freedoms, we understand it in our minds,
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we cherish it in our hearts. And if you have citizens who really demand the rule of law and that we are
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governed by laws, not by the whim of the mob or the whim of the king or the prime minister,
00:25:53.420
if we have citizens who demand that our freedoms of expression, conscience, religion, peaceful
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assembly, association, and so on, be supported, that's going to trickle up. You're going to have
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politicians and eventually judges as well that are going to have that. So it starts and it ends with
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the culture. If you have a culture of freedom-loving people, it's highly unlikely that you're going
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to get some tyrannical judge that's just going to take away freedoms contrary to what everybody in
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society knows and appreciates and understands to be true.
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You know, it's not just the courts. I mean, as you may know, John, and I didn't call you from jail,
00:26:41.740
but I was arrested a few weeks ago in a kind of civil disobedience, but not even really. I wasn't
00:26:49.260
I wasn't actually trying to be disobedient. So I take that back. It wasn't civil disobedience.
00:26:55.100
There was a pro-Hamas demonstration near my house that I think probably violated some
00:27:00.940
hate crime law, although I'm not a big fan of hate crime laws. I think there are other laws that should
00:27:05.340
be prosecuted from trespass, nuisance, uttering threats, assault, supporting a banned terrorist
00:27:11.180
group. Those are all laws that I can get behind. But this astonishing hate crime, like reenactment
00:27:19.020
of a terrorist leader was nuts. And I went to photograph it and the police arrested me saying
00:27:23.820
my presence was inciting the pro-Hamas people to breach the peace. Now, I know that that was unlawful,
00:27:29.580
but I I felt like I had to stand my ground. I was arrested and jailed for a few hours.
00:27:36.300
I saw I saw the video clip. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad it was only a few hours because it's
00:27:42.860
sucks to be in jail. I spent 23 hours there myself and Tamera Leach 49 days, but I'm sorry you had to
00:27:48.220
spend even a few hours. It was disgraceful. Well, thank you for that. But even that no one I mean,
00:27:55.820
these cops were telling law abiding Canadians to back off. They were because that was a path of
00:28:02.220
least resistance. And I know that's not normal because, John, I was recently at the riots in
00:28:07.580
Amsterdam and I go to Davos every year in Switzerland where all these super important VVIPs are there.
00:28:13.740
And the Dutch police and the Swiss police would never think of stopping a journalist. In fact, I was shocked
00:28:20.380
by how helpful they were. Even in Amsterdam, there was an actual police action when I was there. And
00:28:28.620
they just said, who are you with? I said, we're with the media. They said, okay. And then they went
00:28:32.620
on to like in Canada, it's not just the judges. I think it's every element. You have partisan prosecutors.
00:28:40.780
Judges are being taught to use pronouns. And if you don't use, if you misgender someone,
00:28:46.140
you could throw a whole case. And police, I think, have downloaded that authoritarian nature.
00:28:52.140
I can't believe how light touch the cops in Davos are every year when we're standing next to super
00:28:58.460
important political leaders. In Canada, we get arrested routinely. It's not just the judges,
00:29:05.420
is what I'm saying. It's the entire culture. I feel like that's changed over the course of the last 10 years.
00:29:13.660
Well, sadly, I have to agree with you. This is why we've got our work cut out for us. And a big part
00:29:22.540
of it is with the school system. I tell parents, if you are able to, and I know some parents cannot
00:29:29.500
because of financial reasons or scheduling or whatever, but if you're able to take your kids
00:29:35.340
out of the public schools, put them in private school, homeschool them. If you're a grandparent,
00:29:40.860
tell your kids that you will help them and support them, whether financially or otherwise,
00:29:48.220
to get their kids out of these toxic places where they are obviously not learning. They're being taught
00:29:57.420
what to think. They're not being taught how to think. And we see this, I've been seeing this for decades,
00:30:02.460
on university campuses. The people graduate from grade 12, they go to university, they can't think,
00:30:09.180
they can't reason, they can't debate, they can't argue. All they can do is just get very angry when
00:30:16.460
somebody says something that they disagree with, and they can't even articulate, they're not even
00:30:21.580
capable of debate. So we need that change in the education. That's a big part of it. It's going to take
00:30:28.220
time. We're not going to change that in weeks or months. It's going to take years and decades.
00:30:33.740
And we got to reclaim our freedoms because, as Jordan Peterson once said, one of his talks
00:30:41.180
a year and a half ago, I can't remember when it was, but he said, slaves look to tyrants to give them
00:30:49.500
meaning and purpose in life and direction and how to live and what to think. And tyrants look to slaves
00:30:55.900
to be empowered. But if you have educated, awake, responsible adults as citizens,
00:31:04.940
You know, I saw Francois Legault, the premier of Quebec, a few weeks ago, react to a scene where a
00:31:14.700
lot of pro-Hamas protesters were taking over a public street. And there were also other scenes of taking
00:31:22.860
over other public places, including actually outside the Notre Dame Basilica, which is the
00:31:27.980
major cathedral in that city. And I've seen similar things in my city of Toronto. I see the pro-Hamas
00:31:34.940
people block very important roads. One's called the Gardner Expressway. They often block downtown
00:31:42.700
intersections. And one of the things they do is they then have a little prayer. They have the Islamic
00:31:49.020
style prayer right on the street. They just sort of bend down and kneel and bow down and say,
00:31:54.220
we're praying now. Don't you dare move us. And to me, that's an act of domination. There's a hundred
00:32:00.620
mosques in the Toronto area. Feel free to pray all you want on the mosque. Pray even in the park,
00:32:05.500
I suppose. I mean, if you're not bugging anyone, but to block a street. And I can imagine how frustrating
00:32:11.100
that was. And Legault had these comments to make when he saw some of this. Here, take a look.
00:32:18.140
I think he was reacting to something that he didn't like, which I don't like either. I think
00:32:38.300
it's the domination of public space and the violation of various laws. But I think he reached
00:32:44.220
for the wrong tool there. I think what these pro-mask people are doing is weaponizing their religion,
00:32:51.260
daring you to move them for the offense. It might be a bylaw offense. You can't block a street.
00:32:58.460
You can't do something religious while you're blocking a street to make it lawful suddenly.
00:33:04.700
So I think Legault realized that they were being cheeky and taking advantage and sort of playing the
00:33:13.260
race car there. And he wanted to stop that. But instead of insisting that they just clear the
00:33:18.060
street, he was going after the religious aspect. And I agree that they're doing it for political
00:33:23.980
purposes. They're infusing their lawbreaking with religion to sort of dare you to arrest them for
00:33:30.620
it. And then they'll claim discrimination. So what they're doing is odious. But I think that Legault,
00:33:35.340
if he was serious about stopping that, he would have, over the last 14 months, gone after them for
00:33:41.260
trespass, nuisance, mischief, vandalism, uttering threats. There's some cases where you're wearing
00:33:48.140
a mask while committing a crime. That's an offense additionally. Tell me what your thoughts are,
00:33:53.340
because I know that the Justice Center recently sent a demand letter to Premier Legault. What's your
00:33:59.180
take on things regarding these mass protests in the streets?
00:34:05.020
So freedom of expression does not authorize you to block traffic, does not, in my view,
00:34:12.300
authorize you to close borders. When the Coutts protests in Alberta and the Windsor one,
00:34:19.100
the Justice Center didn't speak out and say, yeah, you can stop economic activity. You cannot prevent
00:34:25.020
people from going to work. You cannot prevent people from entering into and leaving their buildings
00:34:32.940
where they work. You cannot obstruct streets. And so as a passionate defender of campus-free speech,
00:34:40.380
you know, when the Justice Center first started in 2010, I'd say close to half of our cases were
00:34:46.620
campus-free speech cases. We still do a lot of this work, but now it's not half. Now it's, you know,
00:34:51.500
it's down to a tenth just because we've grown and taken on so much other stuff. So I'm a passionate
00:34:56.140
believer in campus-free speech. I also applauded the dismantling of these tent cities. Your freedom
00:35:03.580
of speech does not extend to, you know, putting up a permanent or quasi-permanent something that
00:35:10.620
goes on for days or weeks or months and you have your tent city. No, it's quite reasonable for the
00:35:15.340
university to say you can put up your display from, you know, 9am to 5pm or 8am to 8pm, whatever,
00:35:22.540
but you got to take it down. And that space is a public space that other people can use.
00:35:27.820
So what you need to do is crack down hard on, enforce the existing laws. So if you are shutting
00:35:35.660
down traffic, that even, there's criminal code provision as well that can be applicable. It's
00:35:41.580
certainly against Ontario's provincial legislation to block traffic. Guaranteed.
00:35:48.140
You know, enforce the law and arrest these people. If it's a provincial offense, give them a ticket.
00:35:53.500
If it's criminal, handcuff them, take them off to chill and so on. Enforce the existing laws.
00:36:01.260
And then also, you know, leave the space for law-abiding, peaceful expression, like on a public
00:36:08.700
sidewalk where you can stand there with your sign, no matter how hateful it is or is perceived to be.
00:36:13.260
Yeah, my one problem, I mean, I've always considered myself a very strong free speecher.
00:36:21.900
But what happens if you bring into Canada, not just thousands or hundreds of thousands,
00:36:26.860
but literally millions of people who do not value free speech, who do not value the peaceful exchange
00:36:33.980
of ideas, the meritocratic non-violent solution to problem solving.
00:36:41.420
You're describing Islamists as well as woke equity, diversity, inclusion. You got two groups here that
00:36:49.820
are a threat to our free and democratic society. Right.
00:36:53.420
And there's got to be this cultural response, sorry to interrupt you.
00:36:56.700
You know, there's threats from both of those groups and they're fundamentally similar in those
00:37:01.420
ways. They hate the fundamental freedoms. They hate democracy and Western civilization
00:37:07.660
and fundamental freedoms. Both the woke progressives and some Muslims, not all Muslims,
00:37:14.060
but some Muslims are just like the woke people. They want to shut you up and they want to control
00:37:19.740
your speech. And they think they're entitled to control somebody else's vocal cords.
00:37:23.100
Yeah. And what worries me is that if you bring in people in such number that they don't integrate
00:37:29.740
and assimilate those Canadian values, I think it's possible for anyone from any country in the world
00:37:35.660
to come to Canada and be properly absorbed and integrated and assimilated and turned into a Canadian.
00:37:42.780
But that only happens when the trickle is slow enough that we can Canadianize them,
00:37:49.340
rather than for them to turn us into a kind of Gaza-fication. What I see on the streets of Toronto
00:37:56.700
is much more culturally a fit for what they do in Gaza. There hasn't been a kind of
00:38:03.820
outright terrorist violence yet. There have been schools shot, Molotov cocktails thrown,
00:38:11.740
glass windows smashed some arsons. So it's one step beneath what they would actually do in Gaza,
00:38:18.700
but I feel like if you bring in a sufficient number of people who are fundamentally illiberal,
00:38:25.260
that's just going to be the cultural center of gravity. And I think our freedom mindset relies on
00:38:33.020
a certain shared view of the world and in a way, a high trust society. What I mean by that is if you lose the
00:38:41.180
game, but everyone played by the same rules, our system is built on the loser saying, okay,
00:38:47.740
I had my shot, I made my argument, I lost, I'll do better next time. But if you only use democracy for
00:38:55.900
the tools that you to win, and if you don't win, if you flip the game board up and say, I don't,
00:39:02.860
like, I'm just worried that at a certain point, if we bring in too many illiberal people,
00:39:08.140
that our freedom way of thinking will be fine amongst ourselves. But if we are dealing with a mass of
00:39:19.260
people who do not value freedom, and who would do violence if they could, I think there's a breaking
00:39:25.020
point there. I think that mass immigration undoes the necessary cultural foundation upon which
00:39:31.580
libertarianism relies. What do you think? I can't disagree with you. And I do not disagree with you
00:39:38.620
on this general idea that if we want to maintain a healthy democracy, where people respect the
00:39:47.100
fundamental freedoms of conscience, religion, expression, and so on, we do have to take a look at
00:39:53.900
the immigrants that are coming in. Bearing in mind at the same time, I'll never forget some
00:39:59.260
20-something years ago. I was running for the Reform Party. That's when you and I met in the early
00:40:07.820
1990s. And I was having lunch with a Reform Party supporter, Caucasian guy, married to a Chinese
00:40:16.380
Canadian. And he said that all of his Chinese in-laws were hardworking, taxpaying, pro-family,
00:40:28.060
pro-freedom, whatever. And they thought that the biggest problem in Canada was white people.
00:40:33.260
And so my point is that, yes, absolutely, we have to defend our freedoms. That includes
00:40:40.540
not allowing in people that are demonstrably hostile to our values, or allowing those people
00:40:48.380
in numbers where they can be properly assimilated. But we've got to clean up our own backyard
00:40:58.300
Yeah. I mean, and I don't think I mentioned race at all today. I mean, one of the most poignant
00:41:02.700
moments in Rebel News was when we sent some of our reporters into Hong Kong during their final,
00:41:09.500
last desperate battle to keep the freedom alive in that city. And to hear these Hong Kong
00:41:15.580
residents, including the students, passionately defend freedom of speech and the right to dissent and
00:41:20.940
the right to challenge your government was heartwarming. But in the end, heartbreaking
00:41:25.500
as China crushed them, frankly, used the Wuhan virus as an occasion to distract the world and
00:41:32.860
to crush Hong Kong. But to see the beautiful way that they pined for the British system
00:41:38.380
of civil liberties and the rule of law was actually incredible. You're right. And I remember during the
00:41:43.260
COVID protests, you heard a disproportionate number of voices with the East European accent who perhaps
00:41:50.700
remembered what communism was like. And I love encountering people from around the world who
00:41:55.660
are angry that we would throw away our freedom so gently. But I'm afraid that we have. That'll be a
00:42:01.420
subject for another time and maybe for a different forum. But it is something that I worry about. John,
00:42:06.540
it's great to catch up with you. We love the Justice Center. We love to interview you and your
00:42:10.620
lawyers. We interviewed James Manson just the other day about that police officer who donated 50 bucks
00:42:15.820
to the truckers and had his life turned upside down. So we love to follow the JCCF. Thank you for
00:42:22.620
giving me your award this year. That was a real honor. Thank you. We'll continue to shine the light
00:42:29.500
on what you're doing to help get the word out. And I myself take some pride in the fact that from time
00:42:35.260
to time to time, I chip in a few bucks at jccf.ca. And I know a lot of our viewers do too. John,
00:42:42.380
good luck in the next year. In one sentence, give us a reason to be optimistic about 2025.
00:42:51.420
Here's my reason to be optimistic. Truth always vanquishes the lie. Freedom always ultimately prevails
00:42:59.420
over tyranny. Justice will triumph over injustice. And so we need to practice the virtues of courage
00:43:06.060
to speak truth to power, perseverance to keep up the fight, not give up and quit in a few weeks,
00:43:11.180
a few months, but be in this for the long haul. But we're going to win in the end and we're going to
00:43:16.220
win back all the rights and freedoms that have been lost. Well, from your mouth to God's ears,
00:43:20.460
I hope that all happens. It will be a big battle until that happens. John, great to see you. Keep
00:43:25.100
up the good work and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care. All right. There you have it. John Carpe,
00:43:30.860
the leader of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms and a good friend of the show. Until next
00:43:37.340
time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep fighting