The Candice Malcolm Show - Trudeau’s Wokest Week (Ft. Andrew Lawton)

00:00:00.000 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashes a torrent of radical, extreme, woke, far-left policies this week.

00:00:07.440 It's been the wokest week in Canadian history, from gun bans to hard drug legalization to refusing to admit that the pandemic is over.

00:00:14.920 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.680 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in.

00:00:32.040 What an incredible week we are living through.

00:00:34.020 It's like every woke idea in Justin Trudeau's head is coming out in the form of public policy.

00:00:39.260 It's really wild just to keep up with all of the things that are going on.

00:00:42.160 And so to help us make sense of the world and to break down some of the more extreme policies that we are seeing is True North senior journalist Andrew Lawton.

00:00:51.580 Andrew, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:53.820 Hey, good to be back. Thanks for having me on.

00:00:55.540 It's not pouring—well, I mean, it is still pouring rain where I am, but I'm not in the rain like last time I was on your show.

00:01:00.820 So we're moving in a drier direction.

00:01:03.400 That's right.

00:01:04.020 Well, we are—honestly, I couldn't believe the callousness of Justin Trudeau in introducing a gun ban like this just a week after the horrific news event down in Uvalde, Texas.

00:01:16.460 It seemed like the most sort of callous, calculated, just opportunistic, kind of icky thing I've seen in politics in a long time.

00:01:25.520 And, you know, maybe it's good policy, good politics, because a lot of Canadians don't like guns.

00:01:30.500 We don't have the same sort of gun culture, certainly, that they have in Texas.

00:01:33.780 But it just seemed so opportunistic, and I'm surprised that more journalists aren't sort of calling him out on it.

00:01:40.220 So, Andrew, you are a gun enthusiast.

00:01:42.620 He produced a fantastic documentary, Assaulted Justin Trudeau's War on Gun Owners.

00:01:47.100 So you're sort of our resident gun nut around here, Andrew, and I'm hoping that you can help us understand what exactly Justin Trudeau announced.

00:01:54.940 He called it a freeze.

00:01:56.320 It seemed more like a temporary ban to me.

00:01:58.600 So what is different, and what is your reaction to it?

00:02:02.620 So what they're doing is actually saying that no more handguns, once this legislation passes, will be able to be purchased.

00:02:11.140 That's what they're going for.

00:02:12.600 And this is a bit of a contrast, a significant contrast, from the big gun ban they did that kind of triggered Assaulted two years ago, which actually overnight froze these things.

00:02:22.280 So there's quite a different change in tactics here.

00:02:25.880 But I think the point that you introduced a moment ago is the key one.

00:02:28.960 It's responding not to a Canadian problem.

00:02:31.580 There is no Canadian gun ownership problem that stems from law-abiding gun owners.

00:02:36.560 There's an American problem that Justin Trudeau wanted to piggyback onto.

00:02:39.980 Well, and it just seemed like such an, again, unbelievably callous.

00:02:46.180 I'm surprised that the media hasn't sort of jumped on it.

00:02:51.840 But okay, so in the U.S., the concern is that young people, people who are mentally unstable, aren't being properly screened, and they're able to go and buy machine guns or whatever you call them,

00:03:05.800 assault white rifles or just heavy-duty rifles, and that's a problem for many in the U.S.

00:03:13.180 Canada, we don't have the problem with mass shooting.

00:03:15.880 If anything, there is a problem, though, with handguns, with crime, mostly in urban centers in places like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal.

00:03:24.160 So I'm wondering, Andrew, do you think that this gun freeze or gun ban, temporary ban, will help address that issue at all?

00:03:31.740 No, it'll do the opposite, because when you look at the problems, I mean, the two big centers for this, Toronto and Surrey in British Columbia,

00:03:40.160 the problems are inner-city gang-related problems.

00:03:43.500 They are guns that are overwhelmingly illegally smuggled in from the U.S., so there is a connection in that sense to the American gun ownership system,

00:03:51.660 but they're not coming from the lawful market in Canada.

00:03:54.740 So if you try to do what Justin Trudeau is doing, in his own words, which is close off the legal handgun market in Canada,

00:04:01.080 it actually does nothing to deal with the firearms that are at the root of this gun crime.

00:04:07.120 And to be fair, there is stuff in this bill that goes after smuggling.

00:04:10.140 There is stuff in this bill that goes after the border and stiffer penalties.

00:04:13.460 I'd say not nearly enough, and I'd say that the thing that he's really focusing on here,

00:04:18.020 going after the law-abiding, is entirely disconnected from where we do have an issue with guns in Canada.

00:04:24.140 And it's not from lawful licensed ownership, which has an insane amount of hurdles to go through.

00:04:29.940 And just, I mean, the government admitted this, too.

00:04:32.320 There was a story in Reuters where a reporter had asked a government official,

00:04:36.600 do you think there's going to be this run on handguns because of this?

00:04:39.980 And the official said, no, no, no, because they're so regulated and hard to get.

00:04:43.160 We're not worried about that.

00:04:45.040 So if that's the case, then why?

00:04:46.980 I mean, why do you think he introduced this?

00:04:50.140 He doesn't like gun owners.

00:04:51.580 I mean, it's a group that's overwhelmingly conservative.

00:04:54.780 It's a small minority.

00:04:55.900 I think handgun owners in Canada are about, you know, 700,000 in number.

00:04:59.640 So it's an easy group to score political points off the backs of because people that don't

00:05:04.600 understand guns, that don't understand gun owners, that don't think you need to have that

00:05:08.940 or that are confused about what the laws are, will say, oh, yeah, yeah, no one needs a handgun.

00:05:13.360 I support that.

00:05:14.320 So it costs him no votes and gains him a few.

00:05:16.980 So it's interesting.

00:05:18.620 I want to play a clip for you because Justin Trudeau was asked about this question.

00:05:24.220 He was asked whether or not or why his gun ban seems to target lawful, law-abiding gun

00:05:32.000 owners.

00:05:32.540 And I want to get your reaction to this clip.

00:05:35.040 What would your message be to firearms groups that are saying, you know, this handgun ban

00:05:39.380 continues to just target lawful gun owners?

00:05:42.160 And, you know, it's similar criticism to other gun legislation saying it's not going to target

00:05:45.760 people that are breaking the law anyways.

00:05:47.560 I think people need to be careful about misinformation and disinformation in this.

00:05:51.520 We've explicitly and specifically not targeted law-abiding firearms owners because those who

00:05:58.520 currently own and operate handguns safely and store them safely are not at all targeted

00:06:04.120 by this legislation.

00:06:05.360 We're simply saying that we are freezing the market and in the future it will not be possible

00:06:10.540 to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada.

00:06:14.540 There have been too many tragedies.

00:06:15.960 Canadians need to see safer communities and this is a comprehensive multi-step path towards

00:06:22.660 that.

00:06:23.480 Yeah, I don't know how he's justifying saying that because it only targets the law-abiding.

00:06:28.940 Again, it doesn't target people that have no respect or regard for the licensing system,

00:06:33.520 people that haven't gone through the background checks and the regular compliance measures and

00:06:37.880 the storage rules, all of that.

00:06:39.200 It only targets the law-abiding.

00:06:41.600 But again, he's preying on misinformation here and on people that don't actually understand

00:06:45.900 how hard it is to get one of these things in Canada.

00:06:49.420 Well, it's interesting because if I was a reporter there, I would have asked a follow-up.

00:06:53.060 Okay, then who does it target?

00:06:54.660 Because we're talking about like, I don't understand.

00:06:57.840 And then also that little dig that he does at the beginning and this has become like a

00:07:01.320 tick for the prime minister.

00:07:02.720 It's like anytime he gets a question that has some kind of criticism built in, he goes

00:07:08.040 right to misinformation and disinformation.

00:07:10.040 I've heard him do this multiple times to journalists, not just independent journalists, but legacy media

00:07:15.260 journalists, where he sort of accuses them of misinformation and disinformation.

00:07:19.740 And I know it's a little off topic because we're talking about guns, but I have to get

00:07:22.680 your comment on that.

00:07:23.420 What do you think of the prime minister kind of slipping that in and then not even providing

00:07:27.640 a clear answer?

00:07:28.340 Like, I really genuinely, honestly don't understand what he's talking about when he says it's

00:07:32.740 misinformation, disinformation to say that this bill only targets law-owning.

00:07:37.820 What's your take on the whole thing?

00:07:39.460 Well, it's his go-to because he doesn't think there is any legitimate criticism of him.

00:07:44.380 So if someone is criticizing him or criticizing a policy of his, he assumed they must be misinformed.

00:07:49.880 They must be the problem.

00:07:52.140 It's wild though, especially given, you know, the broader environment that we live in right

00:07:57.000 now where we're told that the biggest threat to national security is online radicalization

00:08:02.260 and misinformation, disinformation.

00:08:03.680 There's, what, three different bills that the liberals have cooking up that targets news

00:08:09.800 organizations and free speech on the internet.

00:08:12.440 And again, they go back to this misinformation, disinformation.

00:08:15.480 You have national security specialists using these buzzwords.

00:08:19.660 Andrew, I mean, why doesn't anyone call the prime minister on this?

00:08:23.620 Why don't journalists push back when they hear him just say this kind of blathering nonsense?

00:08:28.700 I think a part of it is that they don't feel they're ever going to be the target of the

00:08:34.320 regulation.

00:08:35.080 They don't feel that the regulation of media is a bad thing.

00:08:38.280 In fact, it protects them because it prevents their competition there.

00:08:41.400 And I think there's a lot of short-sightedness that's really at the root of this where they

00:08:45.660 don't understand why, or I shouldn't even say that maybe they understand and they just

00:08:50.880 don't care about the broader implications of this policy, about a world in which all media

00:08:55.820 has to go through this government conduit.

00:08:57.860 Because as we know, and as True North has been talking about relentlessly, that is the

00:09:02.200 only sort of media environment for those traditional legacy media types, which is the government

00:09:07.360 channel, government funded, and now government approved.

00:09:11.120 Well, I mean, you saw Trudeau just sort of throw that out at what I presume is a legacy

00:09:15.880 media journalist there.

00:09:17.660 There's just so many levels of absurdity when Justin Trudeau talks.

00:09:20.780 And I think that that is one of the examples.

00:09:22.500 Well, that's not the only sort of big, shocking news story of the week, Andrew.

00:09:26.840 I want to ask you a bit about, on Monday, there was a House of Commons vote on whether

00:09:31.900 or not Canada would be ready to lift the remaining COVID restrictions.

00:09:35.420 So many other places around the world have already done away with them.

00:09:38.840 They've sort of learned to live with COVID and everybody's moved on.

00:09:42.040 In Canada, not so much.

00:09:45.040 The Liberals and the NDP joined together to vote against this motion.

00:09:50.140 So it was defeated by a count of 117 to 202.

00:09:55.620 So there was just one Liberal MP and one independent MP along with the Conservatives that voted for

00:10:01.040 it.

00:10:01.360 So I wonder, what's your take on this?

00:10:03.700 Why is Canada dragging its heels when it comes to just moving on and learning to live with

00:10:07.580 COVID?

00:10:09.720 I don't know if I can answer the why, except for to spite people, to spite the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:10:15.980 I mean, that seems to be the big thing that Justin Trudeau wants to do.

00:10:19.160 But let me tell you, it is literally just Canada.

00:10:22.040 When I flew to Zurich to cover the World Economic Forum conference last week, the second people 1.00

00:10:28.160 got off the plane, you could tell who the Europeans were because they all like ripped 1.00

00:10:31.360 off their masks because they can walk around maskless in airports.

00:10:35.560 And on the way back, same thing.

00:10:36.940 You know, everyone's walking around, no vaccine passport in Switzerland, no masks, none of that.

00:10:42.140 You go through the airport, you're mask free.

00:10:43.880 And then the second you get on the Air Canada plane, because they're regulated by the government,

00:10:48.340 you've got to put your mask on.

00:10:49.940 And at one point, I was sort of reminded that I was coming home when I saw a flight attendant

00:10:54.360 wake up a guy who was sleeping because his mask had like slipped, you know, half a millimeter

00:10:58.160 below his nose or something like that.

00:11:00.540 So it is insane.

00:11:01.960 It's completely theatrical.

00:11:03.520 If you look at Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers, they're selectively wearing masks depending

00:11:08.800 on which meeting they're in and which thing they're in.

00:11:11.420 And it's like it's you could tell that they don't believe it anymore.

00:11:15.300 They aren't buying into it, but we all have to.

00:11:18.340 And the vaccine mandate for internal travel is insane.

00:11:21.600 There's a big legal challenge afoot right now against this.

00:11:24.860 And I don't think they want to give an inch.

00:11:26.820 I think the convoy embarrassed Justin Trudeau significantly.

00:11:30.340 And I don't think he wants to relent on anything that the people in that convoy wanted.

00:11:34.880 And maybe I'm drawing too many conclusions there, but I think spite towards this people

00:11:40.260 that Justin Trudeau holds in contempt, which he feels are the only people asking for changes

00:11:45.180 is really what's motivating this.

00:11:47.600 Although the opposition is growing.

00:11:49.520 I mean, just this week, the WestJet CEO is on a plane in Europe and he tweeted out how

00:11:54.120 kind of almost giddily that, oh, yeah, mask free in Europe.

00:11:57.740 And he didn't take aim at the government, but you could tell implicitly he was saying,

00:12:02.320 what is it that is different in Europe?

00:12:04.620 What is it that the science says here that it doesn't say in Canada or vice versa?

00:12:09.100 And WestJet's CEO also came out this week and said, we've got to get rid of the mandates.

00:12:13.220 They're killing tourism.

00:12:14.520 Now, my view is that they're just wrong.

00:12:16.840 I think the tourism implications of that may be a point of evidence in favor of dropping

00:12:21.500 them, but I think they're long gone.

00:12:23.240 If there was ever justification for them, there isn't now.

00:12:27.220 Well, a couple of things.

00:12:28.200 I think you're totally right about spite because we saw this non-binding motion put forth by the

00:12:33.180 conservatives, got voted down.

00:12:35.360 And then the next day, Trudeau announced that they were extending their restrictions, which,

00:12:40.560 again, it's punitive, right?

00:12:41.580 It's telling people who are vaccinated that they can't, sorry, people who are not vaccinated

00:12:45.820 that they can't come to Canada.

00:12:46.800 People who are unvaccinated, they can't leave Canada. 1.00

00:12:48.960 So it's punitive in nature.

00:12:51.360 I anecdotally as well, I've flown around a little bit and I noticed that every flight

00:12:56.340 I get on, the pilot comes on and sort of reluctantly apologizes and says, we know, we know this

00:13:01.700 policy is still in place.

00:13:03.080 We're sorry.

00:13:03.760 It's not up to us.

00:13:04.920 We're following Canadian federal regulations.

00:13:07.260 And you could just tell that everyone is sick of it.

00:13:09.180 One other story.

00:13:10.120 I was flying from Ottawa to Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago.

00:13:14.120 And as soon as we went over U.S. airspace, the pilot announced that you could take your

00:13:18.340 mask off.

00:13:19.320 And, you know, the pilot was excited to announce this, like, don't worry, you don't have to

00:13:23.580 wear it anymore.

00:13:24.420 I instantly took my mask off and then I looked around after what nobody else did, because

00:13:28.400 I realized it was all bureaucrats on the plane, either American or Canadian.

00:13:32.700 Yeah, going from one capital to another.

00:13:34.480 That's a good, I feel bad.

00:13:35.900 I'm glad you survived that flight, to be honest.

00:13:38.240 And I don't even think the pilot was right.

00:13:40.180 But you better believe I wouldn't be complaining, because, I mean, flights I've been on, they've

00:13:44.740 kind of claimed, you know, Transport Canada jurisdiction over the entire flight, even if

00:13:49.300 only a bit of it's in Canada.

00:13:51.500 And I think this is the thing, people.

00:13:52.860 But these measures everywhere else, I find, are decreasing in compliance.

00:13:57.120 Like, if you go around, even in some medical clinics right now in Ontario, masks are required,

00:14:01.880 but people generally aren't wearing them.

00:14:03.880 The airline industry, the aviation sector is like the one thing that the federal government

00:14:08.600 can control.

00:14:09.240 They can't control your neighborhood corner store.

00:14:11.740 They can't control the grocery store.

00:14:13.480 They can't control all of these other spaces, but they can control air and rail travel.

00:14:18.600 And I think there is something to, I just want to make these people suffer, and I want

00:14:23.020 to make these people hurt.

00:14:24.860 I think you're completely right.

00:14:26.720 And to speak to the science, our friend Senator Denise Batter, she was in the Senate the other

00:14:31.900 day, and she made an incredibly good point that really, you know, for all the times that

00:14:36.820 we hear from Justin Trudeau that this is based on science and we always have to follow the

00:14:41.060 science and we're the party of science.

00:14:43.580 Denise makes a great point about how there's nothing really scientific about this measure.

00:14:48.080 I'm going to play that clip for you, Andrew, and I'll get your reaction to it.

00:14:50.780 Senator Gold, according to a recent article, a UK public health agency report published this

00:14:57.300 month showed that after a second dose of Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccine, effectiveness fell

00:15:03.020 from 65 to 70 percent to as low as 15 percent by 25 weeks afterwards.

00:15:09.320 Most people in Canada received their second dose a year ago.

00:15:12.260 Yeah, and she's very right about that, and I would also add that even booster doses, which

00:15:17.160 were heralded as like the next frontier in this, have been abysmal at protecting people

00:15:23.000 against the latest variant, the Omicron variant.

00:15:25.960 I mean, the booster efficacy is pretty much non-existent, which is why people like me that

00:15:30.640 went, you know, for the first two years or I guess year and nine months of the pandemic

00:15:35.040 without really knowing that many people who had COVID, it quickly over the winter and even

00:15:40.520 in the last couple of months has become like everyone knows someone or multiple people

00:15:44.580 that have gotten it, and they're all fine, generally speaking.

00:15:47.520 I don't know anyone that's had any serious ailment from COVID in the last few months, but there

00:15:53.260 is no justification for it.

00:15:55.380 I mean, we got vaccinated in large numbers.

00:15:58.400 Vaccination hit its saturation point where no matter how many mandates and restrictions

00:16:03.100 there were, as many people got vaccinated as we're going to, at that point, you have to

00:16:07.400 just move on and say the people that thought the vaccines were affording them

00:16:10.500 protection got it, and everyone else didn't.

00:16:13.580 They made their choices.

00:16:14.540 Okay, we decided it was safe enough to open restaurants.

00:16:17.240 We've opened everything else.

00:16:18.760 Why can people not get on a plane in their own country?

00:16:22.600 It's part of the thing, I think, Andrew, and I'll let you react to this, is that if they

00:16:27.820 loosen the rules now, they're kind of admitting that they were wrong.

00:16:31.340 I mean, from Denise Batter's point, after 25 weeks, so we're talking half a year, for me,

00:16:35.960 I got my second dose, what, over a year ago in May, so a little over a year ago.

00:16:42.400 That means for the last 30 weeks or so, I have had less than 15% protection.

00:16:48.380 I feel like the Trudeau government is just doubling down because admitting that these

00:16:53.140 policies don't work sort of undermines the case that they've been trying to make for the

00:16:57.200 last year.

00:16:57.700 What do you think about that?

00:16:59.220 Yeah, I think you're right about that.

00:17:00.700 It undermines it, and the thing is, by not releasing these things sooner, they've made

00:17:06.580 it more difficult because now there's never going to be that magic moment where, okay,

00:17:11.140 one day it's unsafe, the next day it's safe.

00:17:13.400 There have been points in the past where you could really draw a line and say, okay, case

00:17:17.960 counts are here or hospitalizations are here.

00:17:21.060 But now, I mean, it's so insignificant.

00:17:23.280 People have moved beyond this.

00:17:25.060 We don't have a mass hospitalization crisis.

00:17:27.520 We don't have all of these things tripping public health alarm bells that were there

00:17:32.440 or people said were there some months ago and certainly a year ago.

00:17:36.620 So there isn't any moment now where the government has even said, we will do it when this happens.

00:17:42.380 We will lift the restrictions because there is no metric now.

00:17:45.340 When they're making things up as they go and not regarding science as being the basis of

00:17:50.660 policy here, there's no metric that can even justify it.

00:17:54.020 So ultimately, whenever it happens, it's going to be just on the whim of Justin Trudeau.

00:17:58.980 What a crazy way to govern.

00:18:01.180 And speaking of this, I don't know that you and I necessarily see eye to eye when it comes

00:18:04.780 to the issue of decriminalizing drugs, Andrew.

00:18:06.840 But I can't understand why a prime minister would sort of unilaterally announce that one

00:18:13.040 province out of 10, they're now legalizing drugs or decriminalizing hard drugs.

00:18:19.060 We're talking about hard drugs.

00:18:19.960 We're talking about opioids, cocaine, ecstasy, MDMA.

00:18:22.900 Like, so, so, so, you know, as of January 31st, 2023, Canadians over the age of 18 will

00:18:30.760 be legally able to possess 2.5 grams of these hard drugs.

00:18:34.360 And we're told that the purpose of this is to combat the rise in drug overdoses and this

00:18:40.600 sort of epidemic of opioid addiction and drug overdoses.

00:18:45.580 Do you think decriminalization is the best way to help people who are addicted to drugs?

00:18:50.140 Well, I think that you're asking a question there that I would say no to, but that doesn't

00:18:57.240 mean I'm not for decriminalization.

00:18:59.740 And I'd say there are two things.

00:19:01.400 Number one, I'm a libertarian.

00:19:02.740 And when you're talking about people that are doing things to themselves, however unhealthy

00:19:06.180 or risky they are, I think that they need to be able to make these decisions for themselves.

00:19:10.940 But I say that recognizing addiction is a disease.

00:19:13.920 And despite the challenges that you see from drug addicts in a lot of communities, especially

00:19:18.940 in BC, I think this needs to be dealt with.

00:19:21.660 I think when people who are using drugs are breaking other laws, those other laws need

00:19:26.740 to be enforced.

00:19:27.600 And I think that's what a lot of the activists don't really want to talk about, because I

00:19:32.040 do know that families are very much affected by this.

00:19:35.280 Businesses are affected by it.

00:19:36.600 I see it in my city of London as well, which is rapidly, I don't know if it's reaching

00:19:41.220 BC level numbers, but it's certainly rapidly rising in drug use.

00:19:46.160 But I think there's another side of this, though, which is you look at the status quo,

00:19:50.440 has this helped?

00:19:51.580 Has this worked?

00:19:52.900 And some people may say no.

00:19:54.540 And there's de facto decriminalization.

00:19:56.600 A lot of the times in BC and elsewhere, police are only going after those who have volumes

00:20:02.260 where they'd be trafficking anyway.

00:20:03.660 So there's been effectively a decriminalization policy.

00:20:07.280 But even if that's the case, I'd look and I'd say that criminal prohibition has not stopped

00:20:11.520 all of these problems that we see in communities across the country, across North America.

00:20:17.440 So if there is some way that we could just take that criminal aspect out of the equation

00:20:23.260 and make treatment available and more widespread, I think that would be desirable.

00:20:28.440 And I realize there are a lot of ifs there, but I don't think that anyone can say that

00:20:32.560 the situation we have today is a resounding success for the prohibition model.

00:20:37.220 Well, I would take just the opposite position because I grew up in Vancouver.

00:20:40.840 And even in the 90s and the 2000s, drug use is rampant, right?

00:20:46.380 Like people are using cocaine.

00:20:47.940 People are using ecstasy.

00:20:48.980 People are using heroin.

00:20:50.180 It's everywhere.

00:20:51.060 And that was under a regime that, like you said, they look the other way.

00:20:57.100 And so this whole idea that, to me, this signals from the Trudeau government, like we're just

00:21:03.160 kind of throwing our hands up and we're not going to have a policing element at all.

00:21:08.020 And I think the reality is that living in a city like that, living in Vancouver where drugs

00:21:12.780 are everywhere, everybody uses drugs.

00:21:15.220 And when I say drugs, I mean, mostly marijuana, people smoke pot, or they take other kinds

00:21:20.960 of like lighter drugs, I guess.

00:21:22.740 But then a lot of people do move into the heavier stuff, Andrew.

00:21:25.920 And it's not like it's a personal internalized use, right?

00:21:30.820 When you're using drugs, there's externalities.

00:21:33.760 Go take a look at the Lower East Side of Vancouver and see sort of the, what I think is, I mean,

00:21:41.040 it looks like a war zone.

00:21:42.040 I mean, there's just people with no dignity whatsoever.

00:21:46.260 No one's taking care of them.

00:21:47.660 There's no care.

00:21:48.960 There's no hope.

00:21:50.340 You know, people are just indulging in the most sort of self-destructive behavior possible.

00:21:56.020 And now we have, we already have a situation where there's safe injection sites and where

00:21:59.560 there's government enabling this kind of thing where you can get your drugs tested to make

00:22:02.980 sure that they're not poisoned or what have you.

00:22:06.680 And now you have the Trudeau government signaling like, hey, we're going to take more steps to

00:22:11.500 enable this sort of incredibly destructive behavior.

00:22:16.700 It's not just Vancouver that it happens.

00:22:18.640 The city is all over Canada, as you mentioned, even in Little London, Ontario.

00:22:22.260 But certainly Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, any big city, Edmonton even.

00:22:27.500 I've seen heavy, heavy drug use.

00:22:29.440 I just can't understand how taking a step towards allowing more people to use this, to enter into

00:22:36.500 this type of lifestyle, like how that's going to help minimize drug addictions and minimize

00:22:44.740 the harm that comes from drugs.

00:22:46.080 Well, I think you have to look at the motivation.

00:22:48.920 And the question is, are we trying to and is this trying to normalize and endorse drug use?

00:22:55.280 Or is it trying to reframe the way that we try to get people off of drugs?

00:23:00.100 And I'll be the first to admit, I know there are activists out there that are completely OK with the

00:23:05.580 normalization of after people that say, yes, it's a legitimate life choice, not just it's your choice

00:23:10.280 to make, but it's a legitimate thing that we shouldn't get in the way of.

00:23:13.340 And I have significant issues with so-called safe supply programs that try to say that,

00:23:18.360 you know, we should be able to offer people a quote unquote safe version of the street

00:23:23.740 drug they're using because this isn't working either.

00:23:26.100 And I think that does go down the road of normalizing.

00:23:29.220 But if we are trying to get people off of drugs and we're trying to get people into the pipeline

00:23:33.560 and we have treatment available to them, the rationale that I do think has some merit is that people

00:23:38.700 shouldn't be afraid of getting arrested if they want to seek that.

00:23:42.620 Now, I would be completely OK with some stopgap, a measure that said you have to go through

00:23:49.380 treatment or you have to face charges for whatever the offense is.

00:23:54.500 I think that would be a legitimate in between.

00:23:57.060 What I don't like is and you and I probably agree on this, is this idea that criminal law

00:24:01.860 is now like locality dependent.

00:24:04.440 This thing that's supposed to be national now changes depending on where in the country you

00:24:08.580 are, which is not supposed to be how criminal law is.

00:24:10.800 Well, I don't mind the idea that if you if you're found with heroin or drugs, heroin or

00:24:16.540 cocaine or something, you have the choice of going into treatment or face charges.

00:24:20.360 But but it seems like this is obsession with what they call small amounts that that there's

00:24:24.940 no there's no penalty whatsoever.

00:24:26.180 If you if you're caught with heroin and you say, oh, it's just for me, then it's like,

00:24:30.280 OK, go ahead.

00:24:31.080 Have a great day, sir.

00:24:32.080 But if you're not breaking any other law, what's the problem with that?

00:24:35.320 If you're not doing anything else illegal?

00:24:37.820 Well, it's it's like the question is, Andrew, like what kind of society do you want?

00:24:41.480 What kind of like world you want to live in where we as a society and our laws and our

00:24:45.640 political leaders say, you know, yeah, there's no meaning to life.

00:24:49.500 There's no you have no dignity to your body.

00:24:51.180 You can go ahead and completely desecrate yourself and you can you can take heroin until 0.98

00:24:56.400 you die. 0.98

00:24:57.600 And this is just that's just another lifestyle choice.

00:25:00.620 Right.

00:25:00.860 There's there's no moral good or bad.

00:25:02.860 And I think that when you get down that path where you're saying to people, go ahead, you

00:25:07.320 know, you do your heroin and just keep to yourself.

00:25:09.460 It's like, again, go spend some time in the lower east side of Vancouver.

00:25:13.560 I lived in San Francisco for two years. 0.69

00:25:15.140 It is a disgusting hell hole of a place to watch people, the lack of dignity, watching 0.97

00:25:22.680 people defecate on the streets, watching people sleeping, watching people chewing off their 0.99

00:25:27.560 fingernails, watching people struggling through the addiction, the horrible addictions that

00:25:32.580 come along with drugs.

00:25:33.540 And then, of course, you know, when they when they run out of drugs and they want their next

00:25:37.200 kick, what do they do?

00:25:39.120 They go out and rob people.

00:25:40.420 They go out and rob stores.

00:25:41.480 They break they smash windows.

00:25:42.760 They they destroy the city.

00:25:44.920 And again, go to go to Lurie's side of Vancouver, go to the Tenderloin district of San Francisco

00:25:50.700 and you will see hell on earth.

00:25:53.640 Right.

00:25:53.900 And so it's like, again, what's the problem?

00:25:56.520 It's other people.

00:25:57.400 It's it's it's their life.

00:25:58.540 They can destroy it all they want.

00:25:59.580 It's like at some point you have to ask what kind of community do you want to live in?

00:26:02.720 What kind of country do you want to live in?

00:26:03.840 What kind of place do you want your kids growing up in? 1.00

00:26:05.460 And to me, I've seen that.

00:26:07.060 And it's not something that I would advocate for anybody.

00:26:09.920 I mean, I feel sorry for I feel sympathy for people who are down that lifestyle.

00:26:13.520 But I think that the reason that they go down that path is because they have no other option.

00:26:17.440 There's no one there to help them.

00:26:18.520 A lot of times they have mental health issues.

00:26:20.300 And I think that there's a lot better ways to actually help those people and stop them

00:26:24.740 from using drugs than to say, OK, well, it's just for your personal use.

00:26:28.400 So go have it.

00:26:28.960 Have a good day, sir.

00:26:29.720 That that would be my that that's that's where I stand.

00:26:32.860 Yeah.

00:26:32.960 Yeah. And again, I don't think this is a legitimate life choice.

00:26:36.280 The question is, do I trust government to be the arbiter of what your life should look

00:26:40.980 like? And the answer is a resounding no, because I don't think and I know it's a bit of a

00:26:45.100 straw man, but I don't think we want a world where the government is the one that decides

00:26:48.980 the appropriate level of risk for for other activities people partake in, whatever they

00:26:53.660 are. I realize drugs destroy families.

00:26:55.720 I realize drugs destroy communities.

00:26:57.460 And interestingly enough, you mentioned San Francisco, I had heard about all of that

00:27:01.740 with like the human excrement on the streets.

00:27:03.800 I just didn't know how true it was, like literally my first time and my only time in

00:27:08.680 San Francisco, like I walk out the door of my hotel, which is very nice hotel.

00:27:12.200 And there it is on the side of the sidewalk.

00:27:14.200 So very much a real thing.

00:27:16.780 I just don't think that criminalization is the path to do it.

00:27:21.120 I think you have private charity groups.

00:27:23.300 You have a lot of advocacy groups that are working on this that I think should and

00:27:27.180 could be doing a lot more on this to get people off of drugs.

00:27:31.380 I just don't think the prohibition model has worked.

00:27:33.340 And I think that what we have now is a reflection of that.

00:27:36.260 I mean, I think that that could be the case when you look at something like marijuana and

00:27:41.260 you could say, OK, if someone's using marijuana, the only person that they're really impacting

00:27:45.460 is themselves.

00:27:46.180 But when you're talking about these other drugs, I mean, it's so clear that there's externalities

00:27:50.040 because you're not living.

00:27:51.000 You know, if these people could take drugs and just be in like a complete, you know,

00:27:55.660 sorry, they could be in a room with like, like padded walls or something like that, then 0.81

00:28:00.720 it's like, OK, I guess go nuts.

00:28:02.440 But the reality is that they do them out on the street and there's all kinds of runoffs.

00:28:06.960 And to me, again, this is like peak woke Trudeau pushing the most sort of whatever the trendiest

00:28:15.860 leftist cause of the day is.

00:28:17.420 And I think I think it's just completely the wrong the wrong choice.

00:28:21.300 Andrew, I want to ask you one more one more question.

00:28:23.140 Maybe we can end on a on a note that we actually agree on.

00:28:26.340 Another thing that happened this week is that the liberals push for the end of debate on the

00:28:31.100 Online News Act, this is Bill C-18, which would determine who is a qualified journalist and

00:28:37.400 who is not a qualified journalist.

00:28:39.460 So I'm wondering what's your take on the liberals doing this this week as well?

00:28:44.680 Yeah, I don't know if I made the cut yet.

00:28:46.000 Maybe we'll have to wait for a little while to figure out if I'm on the approved list.

00:28:48.880 Generally speaking, this government's record would suggest no.

00:28:52.500 You know, it's funny because the great the main criticism about C-18 is that it's government

00:28:56.900 control over the Internet and government control over speech.

00:29:00.440 And there's a particular poetry in government shortening, debating, cutting short debate

00:29:05.640 on a bill whose primary criticism is closing off the marketplace of ideas.

00:29:10.320 So all I have to say is, you know, at least they haven't lost their sense of humor.

00:29:14.760 A sense of irony there.

00:29:16.560 All right, Andrew.

00:29:17.160 Well, thanks so much for joining the show.

00:29:18.260 It's always great to hear your perspectives, opinions, and thanks for all the great reporting

00:29:21.840 you do for True North.

00:29:23.000 Hey, it's my pleasure.

00:29:23.820 Thanks for giving me a place to do it.

00:29:25.480 All right.

00:29:25.820 That's Andrew Lawton.

00:29:26.560 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:29:30.440 I'm Candice Malcolm.

The Candice Malcolm Show - June 02, 2022

Trudeau’s Wokest Week (Ft. Andrew Lawton)

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