Rebel News Podcast - August 26, 2021


SHEILA GUNN REID | Constitutional Lawyer Derek From: Coerced Vaccination and Fighting for Your Rights


Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

160.70963

Word count

6,776

Sentence count

415

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Calgary-based constitutional lawyer Derek Frum joins me in an interview we recorded yesterday night to discuss the constitutional issues with vaccine passports, the obvious ineffectiveness of a vaccine passport in preventing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and why he thinks coerced vaccination is the constitutional hill to die on.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Oh, hey, Rebels, it's me, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're listening to a free audio-only
00:00:03.980 recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, aptly called The Gun Show, but you know what?
00:00:08.900 This is the internet, so you can listen or watch whenever you feel like, because that's
00:00:13.400 the beauty of not being tied to terrestrial radio.
00:00:16.460 Now, tonight my guest is someone who, I guess if you pay attention to civil liberties in
00:00:21.900 Alberta, you already know who he is, but he might be a new face to some Rebel viewers
00:00:27.480 outside of the greatest province in Canada, greatest place on the face of the earth, Alberta.
00:00:34.380 It's Derek Frum, and he's a constitutional lawyer based out of Calgary, and tonight we're talking
00:00:39.800 about vaccine passports and how the coronavirus pandemic has really been used to crush civil
00:00:50.160 liberties, not only in Alberta, but really across the board and across the world.
00:00:55.240 Now, if you like listening to the show, then I promise you're going to love watching
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00:02:15.280 Some governments and now private companies are imposing vaccine passports.
00:02:27.200 What's the motivation here?
00:02:28.640 Are vaccine passports even effective, and why is almost no one bothering to fight back 0.96
00:02:35.340 against them?
00:02:36.240 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:02:38.660 The province of British Columbia is currently bringing in a vaccine passport system that
00:03:01.020 doesn't even allow for medical or religious exemptions to the rules.
00:03:05.380 Just look at this, BC's vaccine card for public activities leaves disabled people feeling trapped.
00:03:13.660 As the province announced its plans for a proof-of-vaccine system for restaurants, concerts, and other
00:03:22.120 quote, non-essential spaces, there are concerns that people with disabilities and those who can't
00:03:29.760 get vaccinated are being excluded.
00:03:33.060 Now, the province of Quebec, they've lost their mind, too.
00:03:36.640 They're bringing in a similar vaccine passport system in the next couple of weeks using a QR code.
00:03:43.300 However, here in Alberta, our government has rejected the idea of a vaccine passport.
00:03:49.060 Our Premier, Jason Kenney, has even said that he will oppose any efforts by the federal government
00:03:55.160 to impose a vaccine passport system on us here in Alberta.
00:03:59.120 However, what's truly the difference if private companies are opting to do it instead of the
00:04:05.860 government, like the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames, who are making proof-of-vaccination
00:04:11.200 mandatory to attend a hockey game in a publicly funded facility?
00:04:18.060 And our Premier, who tells us he's against vaccine passports, he's notably silent on the issue.
00:04:24.560 Now, one person who is definitely not notably silent on the issue of vaccine passports is
00:04:30.360 Calgary-based constitutional lawyer Derek Frum, and he joined me tonight in an interview we
00:04:36.160 recorded yesterday night to discuss the constitutional issues with vaccine passports, the obvious
00:04:42.160 ineffectiveness of a vaccine passport in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, and why he thinks
00:04:48.340 coerced vaccination is the constitutional hill to die on.
00:04:54.560 Joining me now from his Calgary home is Calgary-based lawyer Derek Frum.
00:05:12.300 Now, Derek, you're a new face, I think, to Rebel viewers, but definitely not to me.
00:05:17.000 Why don't you give us a bit of a background about who and what you are, the things that
00:05:24.060 you have been working on in the past, because you're definitely not one of those homemade
00:05:30.700 lawyers that plague the internet post-COVID.
00:05:33.760 Give us a little bit of your CV, if you will.
00:05:37.240 Okay.
00:05:37.580 So I've been a lawyer for about 10 years, and I started my practice and I articled with the
00:05:43.820 Canadian Constitution Foundation in Calgary.
00:05:46.580 So originally I worked with John Carpe and then Marnie Soupkoff, Chris Schaefer, Howard
00:05:52.560 Anglin, a bunch of names that many people will know.
00:05:56.020 And I spent 10 years there.
00:05:57.940 And over that time, I was able to work through a number of important constitutional cases that
00:06:03.920 made it to the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:06:05.260 One that's very important and was a lot of work was the RV Como case, which was actually
00:06:12.540 an interprovincial trade case regarding beer.
00:06:14.960 That was about seven years of my life from its inception in, I think, about 2012, till
00:06:19.780 we got a decision seven years later from the Supreme Court.
00:06:23.280 So I've been a long time, my entire legal career, I've been an advocate for personal liberty,
00:06:28.580 for open borders within Canada, for economic freedom, and for the rights that are enshrined
00:06:35.480 in the Charter.
00:06:36.740 Now, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is because you've been so outspoken.
00:06:41.580 One of the few lawyers out there, I think really with the exclusion of our Fight the Fines
00:06:46.520 lawyers and then the Justice Centre, you're one of the few lawyers out there that is so
00:06:50.060 outspoken about the trampling of civil liberties during the time of the coronavirus.
00:06:56.000 And lately, you've really been on my radar because you've been very outspoken against
00:07:02.120 vaccine passports in one form or another, either from government or from private business.
00:07:09.080 But why are you so concerned about vaccine passports?
00:07:13.460 Well, it's actually a long, long explanation will be required for that, but I'll try to keep
00:07:18.860 it short.
00:07:19.580 No, you can have all the time you want.
00:07:21.380 No, lovely.
00:07:22.180 No, that was a mistake.
00:07:23.160 So, it became very obvious early on when I was a young lawyer, well, 10 years ago, that
00:07:31.640 when government gives itself a tool, it creates a tool through legislation that it can use.
00:07:38.460 That tool isn't always used how it was expected to be used.
00:07:44.760 So, for instance, there's all sorts of legislation in Canada called civil forfeiture legislation.
00:07:51.960 And originally, that was intended to strip criminals of the proceeds that they earned through criminal
00:07:59.160 activity.
00:08:00.220 But it has since been completely turned on its head and turned into a revenue stream for government
00:08:06.860 agencies to strip Canadians who have done nothing wrong of their property and fill government
00:08:12.060 coffers.
00:08:12.560 So, this has happened, and it's not unusual to be able to follow a particular tool from
00:08:20.160 its inception to how it ultimately is used by government.
00:08:23.720 So, it was very obvious to me, because I'm familiar with this pattern, it is, I think,
00:08:29.400 inevitable for most legislation to have this result.
00:08:33.260 And when I see lockdowns happening, and the first one happening in Alberta last March, it
00:08:40.460 became very obvious to me that this was precedent setting for the future, that it will be used
00:08:44.820 by successive governments for other purposes.
00:08:47.520 And it's not a question of if that will happen, it's a question of when it will happen.
00:08:53.800 I can guarantee you that there is not a tool that the government ever gives itself that
00:09:00.820 it will not use again.
00:09:01.400 And so, for instance, this vaccine passport that we're all very concerned about now and
00:09:07.100 vaccine mandates, they're kind of two sides of the same coin in many ways.
00:09:10.320 But what that will be right now, it seems reasonable.
00:09:14.920 We're just going to use it for a temporary period of time, they say this.
00:09:18.880 But you know what?
00:09:20.020 I can tell you that when they find there's an appetite for it in Canada, or that the Canadian
00:09:25.460 population will, for the most part, tolerate this sort of violation of rights, and freedoms
00:09:31.260 are freedom to move freely and be participants in the economy and social life of our country.
00:09:36.820 If that is tolerated by Canadians, it will be used again. 0.99
00:09:41.480 And it will be different crises in the future.
00:09:44.360 And there's no question in my mind that Canadians get used to it, and it will show up again.
00:09:50.460 So that's why we need to fight this now.
00:09:53.240 This is really a hill to die on, because it's inevitable.
00:09:57.740 It's inevitable that it will be used against us in the future.
00:10:01.640 Well, we're seeing it already.
00:10:02.660 I mean, in British Columbia, they're bringing in a vaccine passport system that really
00:10:06.700 doesn't even allow for reasonable accommodation.
00:10:09.500 They're just saying, you have to get a vaccine.
00:10:12.640 You have to present your papers, as they say, if you want to participate in everyday normal
00:10:17.960 life.
00:10:18.380 And it doesn't even matter.
00:10:19.480 It's not tied to hospitalizations.
00:10:21.800 It's not tied to positive case counts.
00:10:24.500 Take that for whatever you will.
00:10:26.720 And there's no reasonable accommodation.
00:10:28.040 You can't say, well, I am an Orthodox Catholic.
00:10:33.060 I cannot take a vaccine that is made with fetal tissue.
00:10:36.300 The only vaccine that you have available for me today contains fetal cell lines.
00:10:41.700 I can't take that in good conscience.
00:10:43.500 It doesn't matter.
00:10:44.120 Then I can't participate in society.
00:10:46.000 There's none of those exemptions being made in BC.
00:10:48.920 What do you think the chances are that BC's vaccine passport system, with no accommodations,
00:10:56.360 what do you think the chances are that that would withstand a constitutional challenge?
00:11:02.860 So in 2016, if we were having this conversation, we would say it's clearly going to be found
00:11:09.740 to be unconstitutional.
00:11:10.880 In 2021, I don't know what to say.
00:11:16.800 I'm very discouraged, both at the members of my profession.
00:11:22.440 I'm very discouraged at how quickly Canadians caved in to fear.
00:11:27.520 And I'm very discouraged that our governments have decided that there's a one-size-fits-all
00:11:35.040 solution that they're trying to sell as a temporary solution.
00:11:39.740 But really is a permanent solution in disguise.
00:11:43.540 And this is what I mean by that.
00:11:45.600 So vaccine passport, if you don't participate and take the vaccine, you may lose your job.
00:11:53.980 You may lose your livelihood.
00:11:55.620 Your kids are impacted.
00:11:57.280 And so it's a coercive form of government incentive to force a particular type of behavior.
00:12:06.060 And they may say, well, it's just, it's a couple months long.
00:12:09.320 It's going to expire.
00:12:11.500 But if your need is to put food on the table now, if you want to participate, if you're
00:12:16.700 going to miss an opportunity or your kids are going to miss an opportunity for their
00:12:20.600 development in whatever that is, if that's sports, school, anything like that, some sort
00:12:26.220 of extracurricular activity.
00:12:28.180 People who miss those opportunities and just take a vaccine, those are actually permanent
00:12:35.060 consequences.
00:12:36.300 A child who is left behind, that could have repercussions for their entire life.
00:12:40.640 Not to be hyperbolic about it, but it could.
00:12:43.360 If you lose your job and you're having difficulty putting food on the table, there could be long
00:12:49.460 term consequences to that.
00:12:51.040 And if you choose, again, to take a vaccine, you betray your principles, you have this internal
00:12:57.300 conflict for the rest of your life, or let's say you suffer an adverse effect from the vaccine,
00:13:03.160 that could also be permanent.
00:13:05.600 And so I don't buy the government's argument that this is a reasonable way to do things and
00:13:11.860 that it's only temporary in nature.
00:13:13.540 Some of these consequences, the effect of a temporary mandate, a temporary vaccine passport
00:13:20.400 might be permanent in nature.
00:13:22.760 And so it's very discouraging to me the way they're selling it.
00:13:26.120 They should have reasonable accommodations built into it.
00:13:29.280 The most obvious one, and I think everyone who's a reasonable person can agree with this.
00:13:36.060 And that is a hill to die on when I say everyone who is a reasonable person can agree with what
00:13:41.180 I'm going to say.
00:13:41.700 If you've had COVID-19 and have recovered, you're immune.
00:13:47.800 You have better immunity than a vaccine will provide you with.
00:13:52.300 Broad immunity.
00:13:53.940 In fact, there's good evidence now that you risk more by taking the vaccine than someone
00:13:59.900 who hasn't been infected.
00:14:01.700 So the government is not only not listening to you, that you should be exempt from their
00:14:07.260 irrational little game that they've set up.
00:14:09.480 But they're putting you at risk for incentivizing you to do something that's more risky than
00:14:15.820 if you didn't do it.
00:14:17.440 So it's just very clear that this is not a well thought through plan.
00:14:23.060 And I've been struggling trying to figure out what the idea is behind it.
00:14:28.440 All I can think of is that we've gotten to the point where the mob, in the most sad sense
00:14:38.060 of the word, is now in control.
00:14:39.860 And politicians are responding to incentives driven by mob mentality.
00:14:44.320 And so they're grasping at straws, trying to maintain power.
00:14:49.020 And this is the last straw they've grasped at recently.
00:14:52.780 Yeah.
00:14:53.280 I mean, they do keep telling us to follow the signs, but it would seem that they are chasing
00:14:57.400 the politics and the votes here without getting too technical.
00:15:02.120 And this probably won't go up on YouTube.
00:15:04.340 It'll probably end up on Rumble anyway.
00:15:06.200 But I mean, when we see what's happening in Israel with one of the largest vaccination
00:15:13.540 rates in the free world, and the majority of their hospitalizations now are people who 0.97
00:15:20.780 have received the vaccine, as in sounds like the vaccine is failing six months out.
00:15:27.160 And instead of seeing that, examining the data, and reacting accordingly here in Canada, we
00:15:35.520 are just pursuing the same, I guess the right word is failure.
00:15:39.720 Yeah.
00:15:40.260 It's a failed strategy that we continue to pursue.
00:15:44.500 Lockdowns didn't prevent COVID from spreading.
00:15:48.040 The NPIs in general didn't.
00:15:50.380 The non-pharmaceutical interventions didn't prevent it from spreading.
00:15:54.000 Now, it can be responded to what I just said, that, well, we don't have a control group.
00:16:00.220 We don't know what would have happened if it weren't that way.
00:16:03.660 But you know that Sweden is still a pretty good example.
00:16:06.780 And I did check it today.
00:16:09.000 They are getting a few more cases than they have been through the summer, but their deaths
00:16:14.340 are still riding zero.
00:16:16.820 And it seems to me that we chose a flawed policy and we're sticking with it.
00:16:22.020 And we're going to do more of the same and expect different results.
00:16:25.220 And you're right.
00:16:26.240 The Israeli data is troubling.
00:16:28.060 I don't know at this point if it's an indication of what we call ADE or if it's an indication
00:16:37.940 of failing vaccine efficacy over time.
00:16:40.920 It seems to be one of the two.
00:16:44.220 I think we have enough data now to say, and there's scientific studies demonstrating this,
00:16:50.980 you don't have to take my word for it, that the vaccine efficacy is fading.
00:16:55.340 The longer out you are from your vaccine dosage that you took, the less immunity you still have.
00:17:03.080 And the data from the UK seems to be backing that up as well.
00:17:06.400 And so when we start looking at what we do know, vaccine efficacy seems to be fading.
00:17:15.680 And people who have taken the vaccine still are carrying the virus and are able to spread
00:17:21.720 the virus and do occasionally get sick from it.
00:17:26.220 So what purpose does a vaccine passport serve?
00:17:30.040 So if we run the game as a, like a game in our mind, like a game of chess, we know the rules.
00:17:37.480 Person A is vaccinated.
00:17:39.160 Person B is not.
00:17:40.980 Person A is worried.
00:17:42.420 Person B is not.
00:17:44.120 Person A has as much protection as they can from the pharmaceuticals as they can get at this point 0.92
00:17:50.160 in time.
00:17:51.200 And they can still get sick.
00:17:53.100 They can still spread the, the, the sickness to others, but yet they're demanding a person B, 0.99
00:18:00.060 that person B's liberty is restricted.
00:18:02.480 That is irrational.
00:18:04.620 That is a game that does not make any sense.
00:18:07.760 And, you know, if it were 2016, a court could clearly review that.
00:18:13.420 And under section one of the charter would say, government, you have to provide a very good
00:18:17.900 reason why you're restricting liberties the way you are.
00:18:20.320 And this restriction is beyond what is necessary.
00:18:24.680 And there's a good potential that the government's plan would be curbed by the courts.
00:18:29.800 But not in 2021.
00:18:32.200 And I think we, I think we've seen that all play out already at the COVID jail level with
00:18:40.700 our constitutional challenge of the COVID incarceration program of completely healthy, innocent people
00:18:46.680 abducted from the airport.
00:18:47.880 Uh, when you put it that way, it sounds crazy, but it's happening and it was upheld by the
00:18:53.260 court.
00:18:54.260 And the, the craziest thing that came out in that court case was if you presented at the
00:19:00.360 airport and you just said, you know what, I'm sick, they would send you straight home
00:19:06.280 to quarantine for 14 days.
00:19:08.340 If you present it as healthy, you had to quarantine for three days, then go home for 14 days.
00:19:13.580 So again, doesn't make any sense.
00:19:16.540 Right.
00:19:17.220 Yep.
00:19:18.120 And, uh, so kind of in a, in a joking way, I've been telling people to the two first casualties
00:19:25.600 of the COVID pandemic were rationality and the rule of law.
00:19:29.840 Yeah.
00:19:30.360 And so, I mean, we're, this whole thing can be viewed for, through a lens of like game
00:19:36.400 theory and no, we're, we discovered the rules as we've been going along as scientific studies
00:19:42.220 come out.
00:19:42.600 Oh, it's aerosol.
00:19:43.800 The spread is in the air.
00:19:44.880 Well, then at that point, masks became irrelevant.
00:19:48.240 And what we're really should be concerned about is the amount of air space around us in a room.
00:19:53.640 Smaller rooms get saturated more quickly with aerosol particles of virus.
00:19:58.220 And if we're in a large ventilated space, there's not much concern.
00:20:01.620 So my kids should never have been stopped from playing hockey this year.
00:20:05.840 It was irrational.
00:20:07.220 They're in a large space.
00:20:09.240 There's no concern about an aerosol particle being passed around at any great degree at that
00:20:13.720 such a large space.
00:20:14.760 Kids aren't at risk and masks were useless in that environment.
00:20:19.220 But no, we can't do that because the mob is in charge and the government will just comply
00:20:23.700 with whatever the mob wants.
00:20:25.100 So we have to punish children.
00:20:27.060 Yeah.
00:20:27.240 We're writing policy based on other people's irrational fear.
00:20:30.420 And so many of those people very rarely have children, but they want to hold your children
00:20:34.640 captive to their fear.
00:20:36.720 I wanted to ask you really quick before we move on about, I noticed the police in Toronto,
00:20:43.540 they've come out against forced vaccination and I'm having a really difficult time finding
00:20:48.920 Christian charity in my heart for them.
00:20:50.760 And I know that I should, because this is probably their little, you know, moment where
00:20:56.440 they're mugged by reality because this is starting to affect them.
00:20:59.640 But they spent a summer and a winter and a spring flattening protests of people who didn't
00:21:05.840 want to wear masks inside.
00:21:07.860 And now when the chickens come home to roost and they have to comply by the COVID regulations,
00:21:12.640 it's a bridge too far.
00:21:14.520 Do you think we're going to see more police forces speak out and more, even nurses and
00:21:19.220 doctors who, who has, they've had their unions acting as mouthpieces for the lockdown movement.
00:21:27.920 Do you think we're going to see more individuals in the public sector speak out against these
00:21:32.920 vaccine mandates?
00:21:33.860 I actually, I do, I do think that, and I think that the problem is, is kind of twofold.
00:21:40.940 One is Canadians are, are kind of asleep generally, we're, we're, we're talking of our governments.
00:21:46.880 We've never, our, like our generation has never had to fight for any sort of freedom at all.
00:21:52.480 But it's, it's been completely without cost to us.
00:21:56.280 And we've also never really seen the value of freedom demonstrated to us either.
00:22:02.180 We, we haven't been in the Dominican looking across, you know, at Haiti, or we haven't had
00:22:08.160 to escape Cuba.
00:22:09.240 We've never, most of us have never experienced that.
00:22:12.440 But there is, in my experience, there is one sort of Canadian that does understand that.
00:22:18.220 And Mr. Levant will appreciate this.
00:22:22.000 Canadians that have been dragged through vexatious human rights tribunal proceedings, all of a
00:22:28.220 sudden are woken up to the fact that we live in a country where you can't say what you want
00:22:33.060 to say freely.
00:22:34.060 You have to worry what your neighbours might think of what you're saying.
00:22:37.300 And that sort of thing, when a vexatious and frivolous complaint is made against somebody,
00:22:43.560 and they have to spend a year of their time responding to it, and they have to hire a lawyer,
00:22:47.940 it costs them 1000s of dollars. And even if they're exonerated in the end, their name is
00:22:54.300 dragged through the media as being a bigot. Those people come out the other end, and they
00:23:00.060 have very different views on freedom and liberty. They become zealots, and they understand. And
00:23:06.020 they understand because of their close proximity with having lost their freedom. And so I think
00:23:12.280 now I hope that those Canadians that have not appreciated what they have, now that they're
00:23:18.800 on the cusp of losing something very significant, maybe they'll wake up, maybe they'll stand up,
00:23:25.300 I really hope they will. Because I've got to tell you, it's, it's the majority of us. And we've been
00:23:32.220 saying this stupid bromide for a year and a half that we're all in this together, when nothing could 0.59
00:23:37.820 be further from the truth. We have not all been in this together. And we've been told telling our
00:23:43.140 kids, take one for the team. And just why, why we would tell our young men that they should get
00:23:50.000 vaccinated and risk the potential heart problems, when they're at zero risk from COVID is beyond me.
00:23:56.720 But you know what, this take one for the team thing needs to go by the wayside, because our team
00:24:02.800 sucks, and we shouldn't be loyal to it. We need to have people that actually understand
00:24:07.780 the importance of individual liberty. There's no one that knows what's in your best interest,
00:24:13.260 Sheila, better than you. The government should not be in the business of telling you what your 0.95
00:24:18.240 interests are. That is wrong. You know what your interests are better than anyone in the world.
00:24:24.620 Maybe you should take the advice to those around you that love you, because people can get confused
00:24:28.700 sometimes. But that's actually something they've earned through their relationship with you. No
00:24:33.900 bureaucrat sitting in Ottawa can tell you what you should do. They can't know you. They can't know
00:24:38.700 your life. Canadians need to wake up and realize that our number one enemy here is actually not a
00:24:44.620 virus. Our number one enemy is our governments using this against us. All of this is precedent
00:24:50.140 setting. Well, it's interesting to watch the evolution of this misplaced sense of civic duty,
00:24:58.500 that you have to participate in this mass experiment with what looks to be a failing medication to be a
00:25:08.020 good citizen. And if you care about freedom and everybody minding their own business and getting
00:25:12.360 to do what they want with their life and with their family, you're the bad guy. And the scold and
00:25:17.820 the tattletale is the good citizen now. It's very East Germany. Yeah, it is. And it does remind me of, 0.89
00:25:24.760 so I am not an expert on this. I've read a little bit of it, and I encountered some of it in law
00:25:29.900 school. But some of the interesting studies that were done on the German courts during the time
00:25:37.420 around World War II is fascinating. And about how the rule of law was often followed, but when the law
00:25:44.960 is perverse, the rule of law is nothing wonderful. Like you can have evil laws. Sure. And you can follow
00:25:53.140 them to a T. And so many conservatives and lawyers and liberals alike will say, the law was complied
00:26:00.840 with. Well, you know what? Evil laws should not be followed. And that's what makes a law evil. And
00:26:08.860 what makes people able to evaluate that? Well, they have to have a prior moral theory. You have to have
00:26:14.160 some sort of an ethical foundation for your life, where you can evaluate laws. And so that's the
00:26:22.400 other thing I worry about with Canada through all this, is I've seen, I've seen so many people that
00:26:27.880 I've respected fall in line, because it's the law, the government said this, well, I really hope that
00:26:36.180 you had a moral view of what's right and wrong. And that is a, you know, that's another argument that
00:26:43.040 we can have with people or discussion about what right and wrong are. But the fact that people won't
00:26:48.480 even evaluate what's happening is shocking to me, completely shocking, because that's exactly the
00:26:55.780 problem that they had in Germany. That's exactly the problem. The law was followed. The law was evil. 0.57
00:27:03.060 Like, people, you got to wake up, we got to evaluate what's happening, not just comply.
00:27:08.420 Well, and I think, to go off on a little bit of a tangent, but I think that's why
00:27:13.380 some of the crackdown, the COVID crackdown, particularly here in Alberta, was so harsh
00:27:18.640 on churches, is that the government can never bring people who answer to a higher moral code
00:27:25.060 into compliance with a bad law, because they are doing exactly what you're saying. They're
00:27:29.380 evaluating the law through a specific moral lens and saying, no, I cannot in good conscience
00:27:35.420 abide by that law. And I think that's why the crackdown was so harsh. It was meant to discourage
00:27:41.020 anybody else who's guided by that moral compass. Maybe they, you know, to discourage them from
00:27:48.700 getting the idea that maybe they should stand up to. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I mean,
00:27:54.880 it's sort of trite now, all these months later, but Caesar doesn't like competition.
00:28:01.680 Yeah. And, and I've learned, like, I've learned through my experience doing constitutional litigation
00:28:08.400 in a charity, that if you stand up, and you put your head up and fight the government,
00:28:13.760 what happens is they crush you, they absolutely come to crush you. So I had that conversation on
00:28:21.820 QR 77 with, with a host here in Calgary, just before Christmas. And we were discussing these sorts of
00:28:28.680 matters. And at that time, Pastor Coates had just done his now famous sermon and put it on YouTube.
00:28:35.640 And so I had that, that conversation. And, and then later, we took it offline. And, and the discussion
00:28:44.400 was, well, I hope, I hope the government of Alberta takes a reasonable approach. And I said, there's going
00:28:50.120 to be no reasonable approach. It doesn't work that way. If you, if you stand up against the government,
00:28:55.460 they have to make an example of you, they're coming to crush you. That's the only way it works.
00:29:00.580 So I had a client, Bruce Montague. He was famous back in late 90s, early 2000s, for protesting the gun
00:29:08.080 registry. He intent, he's a gunsmith from, from rural Ontario. And he intentionally did not register
00:29:16.380 his firearms collection. He wanted to get arrested to do a constitutional challenge. And so here he is,
00:29:23.020 he's just a guy who didn't do his paperwork. And he wanted to get his day in court. And so he finally,
00:29:29.060 after two years of trying, protesting it publicly, flaunting it in front of the RCMP, he finally got
00:29:34.720 arrested. And so what did they do? Well, they found him a couple of hours from home at a trade show.
00:29:41.960 They arrested him in front of his daughter. She was, I think, 12 at the time, left her stranded
00:29:46.500 without her dad. Dad got hauled off to prison. And that, so that was the first thing. So then the
00:29:52.960 next thing they did is they went after his gun collection, which fine, it was, it was part of
00:29:59.120 the criminal act. They took that. And then they went into his house. They took everything from his
00:30:04.320 house, his computers, his wife's cookbooks, the, all the silverware, the whole house was emptied. It was a
00:30:10.220 house that was empty. They took that from him. And then they started a civil forfeiture proceeding
00:30:15.740 against his house. They're going to take this 50 some year old man who tried to try to get his day
00:30:21.800 in court to do a constitutional challenge for the good of Canadians. And they're going to crush him.
00:30:27.160 They took his house away, his house that he built with his own hands. So this is what happens in my
00:30:32.720 experience is that they can't, they can't broach any competition. The government can't have a
00:30:37.920 competitor. It's a monopoly. They're the only game in town. They won't, they don't like it when other
00:30:44.100 people stand up to them. So Pastor Coates and the past, other pastors that have stood up,
00:30:49.920 this is the only response that could be expected. The government has to come in and crush them.
00:30:56.240 And that is not acceptable. That is not acceptable. Well, it's not even close to over yet. One of our
00:31:03.560 fight the fines clients church in the vine in Edmonton, they're still receiving tickets and
00:31:10.540 charges because they're sort of backdating them now to all the times that they didn't let Alberta
00:31:16.560 Health Services and Occupational Health and Safety, another long arm of the government they
00:31:21.260 used to crush these churches, come in and interrupt their services. So, you know, it never ends. And,
00:31:27.480 you know, when I see sort of backdating of tickets and charges, I know there's another lockdown coming,
00:31:34.280 just as you predict. They will do this again. And they're already taking care of the troublemakers in
00:31:39.500 advance. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I can guarantee they're thinking that way. And, you know, the government is
00:31:46.080 just another actor. They're a very special actor in society because they're venerated for some reason
00:31:53.220 by many Canadians as being somehow that when a politician or a bureaucrat works for the government,
00:31:59.980 that they suddenly stop being a human and they're an angel with the motivation of an angel.
00:32:06.140 It's mind-numbing to me how people can believe this with all the evidence to the contrary.
00:32:11.920 They're just another actor that has extraordinary powers and yet is not held in check. And that's
00:32:18.580 my big worry with all of this is that the constitution is supposed to hold the government
00:32:23.720 in check. It's supposed to be there. The rule of law is supposed to be there for Canadians to rely on
00:32:31.400 in times when we most need it. You know, in freedom of expression cases, it's not for saying things that
00:32:38.200 the status quo believes. Like, I like the colour of the sky when it's like it is outside right now.
00:32:44.320 That is not controversial. I don't need constitutional protection from the state when I say that. It's
00:32:50.180 when I say controversial things about controversial topics that the constitution has to be there to
00:32:55.760 protect me because that's what we've all agreed on. That's what it's for. But yet in times like this,
00:33:02.880 I find that the constitution is a very hard document to rely on. It's like being at a baseball game.
00:33:09.700 You have to, you're the cleanup batter, you have to win the game for your team. And you're going to
00:33:16.320 work with a bat that you know is going to shatter in your hand and cut you. You can't rely on it.
00:33:22.740 And that's what I worry right now with our with the constitution in the charter is that it is a broken
00:33:27.860 bat at a time when we need it. We need to hit one out of the park for freedom. That bat is going to
00:33:34.280 break in our hands and damage us. And we can't rely on it. And that that honestly is my biggest concern.
00:33:41.740 Yeah, as somebody once told me to view the constitution as a restraining order against
00:33:47.420 the government. You know, yeah, yeah, it should be it should be the rules of the game that they have
00:33:54.180 to follow. Yeah, they they find ways to get it. They sure do. Now I wanted to ask you really quickly
00:34:01.840 about Premier Jason Kenney, who has been noticeably absent during this federal campaign as one of the
00:34:10.260 at least now, although he wasn't always a vocal opponent against the lockdown. Jason Kenney
00:34:18.180 today is much different from Jason Kenney 90 days ago or a year ago. However, he's sort of been
00:34:24.800 disappeared, I think, from the campaign trail when normally he is out there in the forefront during
00:34:32.220 these things. But he has said that he would be against vaccine passports and he would fight the
00:34:41.340 federal government if they sought to impose one. And yet he hasn't said anything while Jason, while
00:34:48.300 Justin Trudeau won't shut up about vaccine passports. And while here in Alberta, we've seen
00:34:54.180 the flames, we've seen the oilers, they're all bringing in vaccine passports for you to be in 1.00
00:35:00.460 attendance and the stampede. Again, if you wanted to watch live music at the stampede, you had to
00:35:05.320 produce proof of vaccination or submit to a medical test, which I can't even believe I'm saying, but
00:35:10.640 that's the world we live in now. Where's Jason Kenney is my question for you.
00:35:14.480 Oh, boy, that is such a tough one. And I really hesitate to say what I think his motivations are,
00:35:23.720 because I just don't know. But he is noticeably absent. And I do recognize exactly what you said,
00:35:29.440 that he has come out on those issues in a very seemingly strong way. But I think the best judge
00:35:38.400 of future behavior is past behavior. And so this is the this is the Jason Kenney, who apologized last
00:35:46.980 May for shutting down schools and said it'll never happen again. And then lo and behold, what was it
00:35:52.540 twice, twice more, he did it to us, to my kids. And so past behavior, he's a, he's a man that seems to
00:36:01.040 say one thing and he does another. And, you know, this is a time in Canada's history where we require
00:36:08.020 strong leadership. Yeah, we require someone who, who doesn't have aspirations beyond doing what's
00:36:15.800 right. Someone who's not looking for a future in Ottawa. It requires a leader who is willing to take
00:36:24.760 a tough stand and look at the actual consequences of what he's doing. And the consequences of what
00:36:32.880 might be done to us and say, this is my hill to die on. That's, that's the type of leader that Alberta 0.91
00:36:40.780 requires right now. And it's going to be a leader that has to buck against popular trends. I mean,
00:36:48.780 there's a very concerted effort in the media right now. It's, you know, I think I could tell you the day
00:36:53.500 it started. I look back at my text messages, the day it started. Joseph Vipon, that doctor from
00:37:00.020 Calgary who works in the ER, started hitting the press that day advocating for more lockdowns and
00:37:07.240 vaccine passports. The Calgary Chamber of Commerce came out that day and advocated for vaccine passports.
00:37:14.780 I mean, this is, it's, it, it looks like a concerted effort. It doesn't make any sense when you
00:37:22.300 understand what the vaccines do. But my impression is that there's a lot of divergent interests at play
00:37:28.760 here. Public sector unions want one thing, and they're using this as an opportunity to get what
00:37:35.720 they want. The Chamber of Commerce is probably most interested in getting customers back. And they've
00:37:43.020 miscalculated thinking that the way we can get customers most comfortable back in, you know,
00:37:49.500 the, the flames arena and back in watching Oilers games that most, we can get more people back and
00:37:55.560 feeling more comfortable about it. If we can tell them the person sitting beside you has taken two
00:38:00.580 vaccine, vaccine doses. I think it's a calculation on their part. I think it's a miscalculation,
00:38:06.600 but that explains, I think why it's irrational from the point of view of, you know, looking at what
00:38:13.480 the vaccine is actually capable of doing. And Jason Kenney needs to step up and correct the record.
00:38:19.600 I think a strong leader would do so. But I'm always worried that there's that idea like,
00:38:27.680 oh, I'm moving on to Ottawa someday. And right now, Alberta, Alberta doesn't need someone who's looking
00:38:34.920 past doing the right thing now. Yeah, in a world of Cuomo's try to be a DeSantis. And I'm not sure
00:38:43.280 if we're not sure if we're getting that from Jason Kenney. Now, before I let you go, because I
00:38:47.940 promised you 20 minutes, and I think we're going on 35. I know that you have been giving advice to
00:38:55.440 people about vaccine passports and a little bit of employment advice with regard to people who work
00:39:01.360 in private industry who are potentially could face unemployment if they don't take the vaccine.
00:39:10.260 What is your one little bit of advice to those people out there?
00:39:15.260 Keep track of everything. I think the most important thing is right now with your employer,
00:39:20.500 all your interaction with them, whether you're unionized or not, whether you have a government
00:39:24.780 employer or a private employer, is you need to keep track of everything that happens. Build your case
00:39:31.560 now, collect the evidence. Every conversation, intentionally write down when it was,
00:39:37.540 what it was about. You need to have all that in place because if you're ultimately dismissed
00:39:42.600 because you stand up for your own rights, you will do far better when you speak to a lawyer at that
00:39:48.440 point if you have a clear line of evidence establishing your case. Well, Derek, I want to
00:39:55.280 thank you for being so generous with your time. I'm a little ashamed it's taken so long to have you on
00:39:59.520 the show because you're such a smart legal thinker and a true believer in freedom. And I hope that
00:40:04.880 you'll come back on again very soon. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thanks, Derek.
00:40:16.800 Derek tells me he's absolutely inundated by people who are calling with concerns and legal questions
00:40:23.420 about being forced by their employers, both in the public and private sector, but also by their schools
00:40:29.800 and post-secondary institutions to receive a vaccine they are morally or medically opposed to. And friends,
00:40:37.820 we're getting the exact same thing here at Rebel News. People have questions. But for me, the question remains
00:40:44.860 as it has through the entirety of this pandemic. Where are all the civil liberties groups outside of,
00:40:51.320 of course, fightthefines.com and the Justice Centre and the Canadian Constitution Foundation to actually
00:40:58.380 stand up for the civil liberties of Canadians? You know, it's pretty easy to stand up for civil liberties
00:41:05.820 when no one, no government is taking them away. But it is hard work to fight the full force of the
00:41:12.800 government when the government is trying to crush you and make an example of you. Now, I'm not scared
00:41:18.340 of hard work. Derek is clearly not scared of hard work. But we are definitely finding out that a lot
00:41:24.400 of so-called civil libertarians fear hard work as much as they fear the coronavirus. Well, everybody,
00:41:31.620 that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see everybody back here at the same
00:41:37.240 time in the same place next weekend. Remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.
00:41:42.800 olduğunu, like a lot of people here, don't let the government tell you if you're beginning to speak origembleness.
00:41:46.340 Are those sav cool?
00:41:47.780 And that's the same passage that we may be spending on.
00:41:48.920 How it is theANEMChair is not meant to understand, which is, as you know,
00:41:50.720 Ben, Svenja. You've got Run for determinants inань,
00:41:51.580 Seriality, that's perfect especially when you see the United States of London.
00:41:53.520 And so we concur people there already don't let the government say that,
00:41:54.900 so well- acne again. And you should say mira Biden.
00:41:59.980 So we're just looking forward to making that 90 million years ago,
00:42:03.720 if you've been using 30 advocating BO Liu çocuğ jedochisan,
00:42:06.160 you know UFO fills everyone except for theない Africa.
00:42:06.980 And we're going to think about this in half a year to connaughter interface.
00:42:07.800 How the lead help will happen?
00:42:09.240 ems staan goodness rural teams?