The Candice Malcolm Show - TWO-TIERED Justice： Constitutional Lawyer weighs in on the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Folks, we have a great episode for

00:00:07.360 you today. We have John Carpe, constitutional lawyer, joining the program a little later on,

00:00:12.020 and we are going to talk about this day in Canadian history. This is an important day,

00:00:16.420 folks. We are going to find out the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lynch and Chris

00:00:22.260 Barber. And so we're going to do a little bit of a flashback and look back at what exactly happened

00:00:28.020 in January and February of 2022, the Freedom Convoy, the uprising against COVID tyranny,

00:00:35.780 because that was what was happening in our country. We'll talk about how the legacy media

00:00:39.680 painted them in Justin Trudeau's image. Justin Trudeau's narrative was that these were

00:00:45.300 insurrectionists, these were racists, these were bad people, small French minority with unacceptable 1.00

00:00:49.820 views, and that they had to be stopped at all costs. And so he did. He used legacy media to 0.52

00:00:55.380 completely tarnage their image, to call them the most awful names in the book, and then to use all

00:01:02.300 of the powers of the state in the Emergencies Act to crack down on these peaceful protesters.

00:01:07.360 And now here we are three and a half years later, folks, and we are still fighting this battle. The

00:01:11.720 two brave Freedom Convoy organizers are still standing trial in what I believe is a witch hunt

00:01:17.340 and a political prosecution. And it's really interesting because how you view Tamara Litch and

00:01:24.720 Chris Barber, it's one of the most polarizing things that I've ever seen in Canadian politics.

00:01:29.260 And it's still a litmus test today for many liberals and people on the political left, right?

00:01:33.800 If you see the Freedom Convoy as a bunch of no-good insurrectionists, sedition, as Mark Carney famously

00:01:41.780 called it, in the Globe and Mail, filled with racists and far-right radicals and funded by

00:01:47.140 mega-Republicans, it's probably because you've been watching the legacy media, you've been viewing

00:01:52.100 through the lens of the CBC. And the rest of the country, the way that we saw, the way that I saw it,

00:01:58.120 was an inspiring, patriotic, heart-warming uprising of Canadians, blue-collar Canadians, Canadians from all

00:02:04.960 backgrounds, just saying enough is enough. We want our lives back. We don't want to live under COVID

00:02:09.980 tyranny anymore. We don't, the mandates don't make any sense. The vaccine mandates, the idea that you

00:02:15.520 have to get vaccinated, it doesn't work the way that they said it was going to work, okay? And so that is why

00:02:21.480 I talked about this on social media, but this is the way I see it. COVID-19 was a story of mass hysteria.

00:02:28.620 It was a moral panic. It was a story of propaganda and textbook government overreach, okay? The story of

00:02:34.740 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ultimate demise. He was a story of an incompetent ruler who

00:02:41.460 was exposed for being incompetent. The story of the Canadian truckers is the story of a peaceful,

00:02:49.080 blue-collar uprising against what had become a tyrannical regime. And their story of their

00:02:55.140 prosecution remains. It's a story of Canada's broken justice system, two tiers, and Canada's

00:03:01.740 Laurentian elites tragically misguided priorities. And yes, I do believe that Tamara Lynch and Chris

00:03:09.120 Barber are political prisoners. They're guilty of opposing this overreach, of exposing our foolish 0.98

00:03:14.680 prime minister at the time, of leading a peaceful protest against tyranny, heroically standing up to

00:03:20.120 the powers that be, representing millions of Canadians, and just simply being on the wrong side

00:03:25.360 of the Laurentian elites. There's no doubt, folks, that the Freedom Convoy marked a change.

00:03:31.460 It was an inflection point in the dark era of COVID. It showed that enough people were opposed

00:03:37.380 to the entire regime, and that it didn't make sense, and that the science wasn't standing up

00:03:41.600 any longer. And it was the beginning of the end of the COVID restrictions, and the beginning of the end

00:03:45.940 of the Trudeau government. And so that is why these people are heroes. And today is another important

00:03:52.000 turning point for our country. We're going to find out later today whether petty tyranny will prevail,

00:03:57.340 and whether these political prisoners will actually be thrown in prison for possibly seven or eight

00:04:01.840 years, or whether Canada will arc back towards justice. I said yesterday on the show that I'm

00:04:08.020 still optimistic for the future of Canada. I got a little bit of pushback on the comments and in

00:04:12.760 social media. I don't think Canada is heading in the right direction. I don't think that Canada is on the

00:04:16.700 right path. I don't think that we have the right leadership in Ottawa. But the reason why I'm still

00:04:21.000 hopeful for our country is because of things like the Freedom Convoy, because of the truckers,

00:04:25.140 because of people like Tamara Litch and Chris Barber, who are standing up to tyranny. It gives

00:04:29.920 me hope for a country that there are still good people out there, that I think the majority of

00:04:33.980 the country is still on the right side deep down, whether they're the silent majority or whether

00:04:38.840 they are the actual activists in the streets. And so I want to just do a little bit of a flashback

00:04:43.580 to our coverage at True North. I think that we caught on with a lot of Canadians. We really grew our

00:04:49.320 audience during this time. And I want to show you how we were reporting it at the time myself,

00:04:55.100 as well as my colleague Andrew Lawton, who has since gone on to become an elected member of

00:04:59.440 Parliament for the Conservatives. At the time, he was reporting on the ground in the Freedom Convoy.

00:05:03.800 So we have that montage for you here. The trucker convoy was a huge success by every measure. It was one

00:05:09.980 of the strongest movements of patriotism and national unity in recent memory in this country.

00:05:14.600 Meanwhile, the legacy media outed themselves as being aggressively partisan, openly deceitful.

00:05:20.000 The Freedom Convoy is mainstream, and it is uniting Canadians regardless of what Justin Trudeau

00:05:25.240 or his cheerleaders in the legacy media have to say about it. He says that you are a small

00:05:29.320 fringe minority, hardly even worth his time. He thinks that you are a nobody. He thinks that

00:05:34.300 you're minuscule. He thinks that you are unimportant. Somebody who doesn't even deserve

00:05:39.040 the basic charter rights supposedly guaranteed to all people in the country. What an amazing,

00:05:43.860 spectacular weekend. It was one of those things that you just, I was glued to my computer screen,

00:05:48.560 glued to the television all weekend long. I couldn't get enough of these beautiful,

00:05:52.340 beautiful images of Canadians coming together. It was celebratory. It was happy. The mood on the

00:05:57.020 ground, as reported by True North journalists who were there, as reported by the thousands of people

00:06:01.860 who became independent journalists by attending the rally, by posting their own images and videos,

00:06:06.940 it was remarkable.

00:06:08.580 We are on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa in front of Centre Block for the Truckers for Freedom 0.98

00:06:14.480 Convoy. It hasn't even started yet, and this place is packed. We've got trucks lining Wellington

00:06:20.240 Street. We'll show those in just a moment. We've got people from all over the country here,

00:06:24.140 and the message is a very simple one. It's not about violence. It's not about white supremacy.

00:06:28.620 It's not about extremism. Well, I mean, if you watch the CBC or listen to Justin Trudeau, it is.

00:06:33.740 No, it's about freedom. It's a very simple message. It's a very unifying message,

00:06:38.020 and it's one that the people here are making sure is known.

00:06:41.700 So that was our view. That was our take at the time. It was optimistic. It was happy. Andrew Lawton

00:06:45.800 was jovial, even just reporting. It was like a breath of fresh air and light at the end of a dark

00:06:50.440 tunnel from COVID. But again, that was our perspective. That was how we saw things and how we were

00:06:55.520 reporting it. But there was a whole other side of the country, a whole other side of Canadians that

00:07:00.420 did not see it that way, that took their cues from the CBC and from Justin Trudeau. And because of

00:07:05.940 that, they still to this day believe that the truckers and the Freedom Convoy was really just

00:07:10.900 about a violent uprising, about hatred, about being racist and white supremacist. So apologies for doing

00:07:18.660 this, but here is what our prime minister at the time, I always do a trigger warning when I'm showing

00:07:22.860 videos of Justin Trudeau. But here's our prime minister at the time saying, no, no, no, this

00:07:27.940 isn't a happy uprising. These people are unacceptable. Here, let's play that clip.

00:07:32.820 The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable

00:07:43.020 views that they're expressing do not represent the views of Canadians.

00:07:51.120 Yes, actually, they do represent the views of Canadians. And it turns out that it was just,

00:07:55.560 I mean, those are maybe perhaps some of the most infamous words from prime minister Justin Trudeau,

00:08:00.020 that they are a small fringe minority holding unacceptable views. And so that's sort of when

00:08:04.160 things started to turn dark. We had the emergencies power unleashed. This was from the day, February 18th,

00:08:09.860 so a couple of weeks later, when the protest was trampled by the Emergencies Act, police state

00:08:16.500 martial law in Canada. Let's play that clip.

00:08:18.760 Oh, come on through. Come on through. What is happening here? Wow. What is this lady doing? 1.00

00:08:26.280 Trampling. Trampling horses. Trampling. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. What? Oh my God.

00:08:34.320 What the hell is that? 1.00

00:08:35.520 Fuck down. 1.00

00:08:36.880 They just trampled this lady. They just trampled that lady. 1.00

00:08:40.880 And then, of course, Andrew Lawton of True North was pepper sprayed, sprayed in the face by police

00:08:47.480 for the crime of just standing there. That was moments after that trampling happened,

00:08:50.880 when the police were just given the order to do what they could, do what they had to do to get

00:08:55.560 people out, including spraying journalists, assaulting journalists, and just trying to break

00:09:00.840 up the crowd. And so that is, that was sort of the end of the, of the protests. And thankfully,

00:09:06.660 the mandates and the lockdowns and everything else ended shortly thereafter, but it didn't

00:09:11.640 end for organizers. And so we know that Tamara Litch and Chris Barber have now been on trial

00:09:18.080 for 688 days. They were first arrested over 1,200 days ago. It doesn't typically happen in Canada.

00:09:25.980 Oftentimes, people are dismissed from crimes because of delays in court. Well, this trial itself

00:09:32.300 has been conducted over 45 days. And it's worth noting that Litch and Barber were found not guilty

00:09:38.360 on most charges. So back in April 25, they were convicted of many, they were, they were charged with

00:09:43.740 many things. Most of them, they were found not guilty. The only thing that they were convicted of

00:09:47.180 was mischief, mischief. And so the, today we will learn what the actual court order will be and

00:09:56.000 what the sentences will be. And to talk about all of this, I'm very pleased today to be joined by our

00:10:00.320 friend, John Carpe. John is a constitutional lawyer, president of the Justice Centre for

00:10:04.380 Constitutional Freedoms. The Justice Centre has provided legal support and funding for Freedom

00:10:08.860 Convoy protesters and organizers, including Chris Barber and Tamara Lynch. And of course,

00:10:13.940 they successfully challenged the Emergencies Act in federal court, which ruled in January 2024

00:10:18.720 that yes, that did violate Canada's charter rights. So John, welcome to the podcast.

00:10:24.900 So glad to be with you.

00:10:26.180 So help us understand what is happening today. Um, and, uh, what, what, what do you expect

00:10:31.120 to have happen?

00:10:32.860 So Wednesday, July 23rd, Thursday, July 24th, two days of oral argument by the crown calling

00:10:40.220 for a seven year jail term for Tamera Leach and eight years for Chris Barber and, uh, lawyers

00:10:48.480 for Chris Barber and Tamera Leach are also arguing on sentence. My, my understanding is that, um,

00:10:55.360 um, the lawyer for, um, are arguing for an absolute discharge, meaning no penalty, um, taking into

00:11:05.480 account the Tamera Leach has already spent 49 days in jail. Um, so the decision will likely 0.97

00:11:14.800 be rendered next week, the week of July the 28th or in August. Um, we're, we're not anticipating

00:11:21.420 a decision this week.

00:11:24.300 And so, I mean, maybe help us understand because, I mean, if you're listening to legacy media

00:11:29.000 and Justin Trudeau and CBC, I mean, they call this an uprising. They call this an insurrection.

00:11:32.760 I mean, they call it sedition. Uh, but the charge of mischief, I mean, that almost seems like

00:11:38.200 something that, you know, a teenager who's caught trespassing and up to no good. I mean,

00:11:42.580 I walked down the streets in Toronto or Ottawa, I see all kinds of mischief on a daily basis,

00:11:47.900 right? People using drugs, people's petty thief, people actually committing crimes. I mean,

00:11:52.920 there's violent crimes in this country. There, there's a whole litany of issues in our country.

00:11:57.620 And yet this court case is dragging on and, and the charge of mischief. Can you, can you tell us

00:12:02.880 like how common is that for something like this?

00:12:06.040 So mischief has several, there's different, there's different crimes of mischief that are set

00:12:10.740 out in, in section four, four 30 of the criminal code. One of them is property damage,

00:12:16.780 vandalism. So if somebody keys your car or spray paints a wall, that's mischief. It's also the

00:12:23.400 unlawful interference with the use and enjoyment of property. So for example, if you are walking

00:12:31.740 down the sidewalk and I get in your way and obstruct you, that's mischief because you lawfully can walk

00:12:38.820 down the sidewalk, or if you're trying to get into or out of your house, uh, physical obstruction

00:12:43.840 that prevents people from doing what they have a legal right to do is mischief. And so I've,

00:12:50.460 I've read the 105 page decision and, uh, you know, it's, it's debatable. We'll have to wait and see

00:12:57.540 whether the verdict is going to be, uh, appealed, but the judge ruled that there was interference with,

00:13:05.680 um, that, that some Ottawa residents, um, had interference with the lawful use and enjoyment

00:13:12.880 of their own property because some of the streets were too clogged up or people had trouble, uh,

00:13:19.680 driving their cars out, out of their apartment building, parkades, uh, people had trouble getting

00:13:26.740 around. So there was a finding of guilt on the, uh, on the obstruction, uh, and encouraging that

00:13:33.500 insofar as Tamara Leach and Chris Barber called on Canadians to come to Ottawa and to, to protest

00:13:40.260 peacefully. But so that, that's a verdict that, that might be appealed. It's interesting because

00:13:46.820 usually it's the left that's calling for civil disobedience and sort of peaceful protest. And yes,

00:13:51.620 technically there are some rules that are broken if you're blocking traffic or something like that,

00:13:55.180 but I'm sorry, from where I'm standing, we have seen environmental protests that block freeways,

00:14:00.380 that block pipelines, that block people from getting to work. We've seen the same thing

00:14:03.940 after the hoax regarding the unmarked graves where there were massive violent protests and the tearing

00:14:10.720 down of statues that are symbolic of our country, uh, in the, in the aftermath. Well, I mean,

00:14:16.020 since 2023, we have seen weekly or monthly, uh, Hamasnik protests where they, again, they shut down

00:14:22.520 freeways. They, they intimidate, uh, school children going into synagogues. And I mean, we, we, 1.00

00:14:28.340 we see very aggressive protests on the streets in Canada all the time, but usually that is happening

00:14:34.820 for the pet issues of the far left. And they seem to be able to sort of get away with it.

00:14:40.100 And yet here we had like a once in a blue moon, um, working class people, uh, not even politically 0.98

00:14:47.460 active people. Like, I don't know if these people identify themselves as conservatives or not, but

00:14:51.780 people just tired of government overreach when it came to COVID, which I think we all universally

00:14:57.220 agree at this point that everybody overreacted a lot during COVID and the law of the rules and

00:15:01.940 restrictions were nonsensical and counter to society. I mean, your own organization helped

00:15:08.020 prove that the emergencies act was government overreach. And so we're all kind of in agreement

00:15:12.180 of that now. And yet this case is dragging on. I think there's so many Canadians. We just see it

00:15:16.180 as a total, uh, misuse of justice, uh, the wrong priorities. And it's kind of making mockery. We're

00:15:23.940 saying that some people can get away with this kind of stuff if you have the right

00:15:26.900 politics. Um, whereas other people, if you have the wrong politics, you're going to go to jail.

00:15:31.540 Well, that's the biggest problem in Canada. It's the unequal application of the law.

00:15:36.980 Uh, the most glaring example that comes to my mind was in July of 2021, when some

00:15:42.180 Aboriginal protesters, uh, protesting against residential schools, they tore down, uh, and 1.00

00:15:49.060 vandalized a statue of Queen Victoria, uh, that was on the grounds of the legislature.

00:15:54.340 And in broad daylight, they tore down this statue. It's a good thing. It would have killed

00:16:00.020 anybody that it landed on. Cause it's made out of, it was very heavy and, and they, they,

00:16:04.980 they, they tore it down from a piece of marble that it was standing on. So nobody got hurt, but the,

00:16:11.860 the police stood by and watched police were present and it is a crime to destroy other people's

00:16:18.500 property. You can legally destroy your own property if you want to, but you cannot destroy somebody

00:16:22.980 else's property or public property. And a few months later, the crown prosecutors in Manitoba

00:16:28.980 announced that nobody would be prosecuted. No charges laid for obviously criminal conduct.

00:16:36.100 Uh, we saw the same very soft approach to people in March of 2020. Um, a little bit before lockdowns

00:16:45.060 were imposed, we had these people blockading railways and in the name of, um, Aboriginal rights in the

00:16:51.860 name of the environment. And, uh, the prime minister Trudeau said he wanted to sit down and meet with them.

00:16:58.340 Right. So it's, it's, it's all about the cause. And I think if the truckers, if the people in Ottawa,

00:17:05.060 if they had been waving rainbow flags or Hamas flags, uh, instead of the rude anti-Trudeau flags,

00:17:13.620 um, like the whole thing would have been, would have been different if, if it hadn't been against

00:17:17.860 the vaccine mandates, I don't think that the federal cabinet would have met and decided prior

00:17:22.820 to anybody setting foot in Ottawa without even knowing too much about what it was all about.

00:17:27.700 This came out in the public order emergencies commission, the federal cabinet determined that

00:17:32.260 they were going to, uh, paint the freedom convoy protesters as one or more of racist, white supremacist, 0.93

00:17:40.980 neo-Nazi criminal, dangerous, violent. That was the narrative. And then it spun around in a vicious 0.99

00:17:47.860 circle with the government funded media. So the politician would say that, that these, uh, the

00:17:53.860 truckers were really dangerous and they were arsonists. And then the media would report on that.

00:17:58.980 And then the politicians would comment on the media reports. So this just went back and forth in their own

00:18:03.140 little bubble, uh, projecting this image, uh, which unfortunately, you know, for the Ottawa residents who were

00:18:09.460 listening to government funded media, some of them were scared. They weren't scared, uh, based on

00:18:14.580 reality of, of the protesters actually being violent or dangerous, but they were scared by the media

00:18:22.260 coverage that, that completely misrepresented these Canadians. Well, it's so interesting that you say

00:18:26.900 that because we were watching very closely. We had several reporters on the ground during the protests.

00:18:32.180 And from what I saw, it was like, it was just so heartwarming. It was like a beautiful scene of like,

00:18:37.700 you know, families, people bringing sandwiches, homemade signs, like the bouncy castles. I saw

00:18:42.740 images of the men like cleaning the streets, sweeping the sidewalks, uh, scraping them so that 0.93

00:18:48.740 people wouldn't slip and fall. It was a huge outpouring of just community love and support.

00:18:53.780 And it was so strange to then like, you know, stumble upon left-wing Twitter or turn on the CBC.

00:18:59.380 And it's like the thing that they were reporting on was so different than what we were seeing with our

00:19:03.540 own eyes. It was like seeing the power of propaganda and your point that the cabinet,

00:19:08.180 that this was all coordinated. This was all planned. I mean, I remember from the very beginning,

00:19:11.780 John, um, when the first trucker convoy left British Columbia and the CBC had a report about

00:19:17.300 how they were protesting against dangerous road conditions, like literally. And they found a couple

00:19:21.220 of East Indian people they interviewed that, that actually, I guess, were protesting against dangerous

00:19:25.940 road conditions, but they, they, they, they totally distorted the thing from the very beginning.

00:19:31.460 And watching that unfold, it was like seeing a lesson in propaganda and how Canadians can so easily 0.99

00:19:37.860 fall for probably. I, I think the Canadians are some of the most propagandized people in the world,

00:19:42.580 but I want to tie this to, uh, the current political discussion because Pierre Polyev,

00:19:47.460 leader of the Conservative Party, he voiced support for the truckers back in 2022. He took a lot of flack

00:19:52.980 for it and he is still voicing his support courageously against, uh, the, the mischaracterizations

00:20:00.100 and the media pushback. So this is what he wrote on X on Monday evening. He says, let's get this

00:20:04.900 straight. While rampant, violent offenders are released hours after their most recent charges

00:20:10.820 and antisemitic writers vandalize businesses, terrorize daycares and block traffic without

00:20:14.820 consequence. The crown wants seven years prison time for the charges of mischief for leech and

00:20:19.700 barber. How is this justice? So I'm curious, John, uh, to, to, to get your, your take, and then we'll get to

00:20:27.220 some of the media criticism of Polyev. Uh, but, but what do you think about the way that Polyev has

00:20:31.380 commented on this so far? Well, everybody is, is entitled to comment on judicial proceedings

00:20:39.140 and that includes lawyers, non-lawyers. This is par for the course. This is a healthy part of the

00:20:44.900 judicial system is, is that the public does comment on what's going on. It would be really interesting to

00:20:52.100 see what jail sentences, uh, if even jail time that the crown was seeking in cases of other people

00:20:58.740 blocking roads, because to block a highway, uh, and, and highway, uh, in, in the legislation includes

00:21:06.020 city streets, right? It's not just a highway between two cities, but to, to, to block a highway is

00:21:12.340 criminal conduct and you can be criminally charged for doing so. And it would be interesting to see

00:21:18.340 other cases where highways were blocked as has, has happened certainly many times in, in Ontario and,

00:21:24.500 and, and in other provinces as well, you know, where, where was the crown seeking seven or eight years

00:21:30.740 for that? And I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but that would be, uh, something not

00:21:37.140 that hard to find out actually, uh, to, to look up the, the case law on, on other cases of, um,

00:21:44.180 obstructing a highway. That kind of thing. I mean, it happens all the time. And so,

00:21:47.540 but Pierre's decision to, to, to jump in and continue to the fort, to support the truckers,

00:21:52.580 he's obviously taking a political risk. And I want to read through some of the media reactions.

00:21:55.780 So we had the CBC writing a piece, poly of conservative MPs criticized crown

00:22:00.260 ahead of freedom convoy's leader sentences. The CBC interviewed Michael Spratt, an Ottawa-based

00:22:05.700 defense lawyer who called the MPs decision to weigh on the pro, uh, pro sentences,

00:22:10.260 craven politics. It's very dangerous for politicians to be weighing in on matters before the court,

00:22:14.740 he said, and then basically just accused conservatives of trying to advance their

00:22:18.980 political narrative. Uh, likewise, Tom Broadback in the Winnipeg free press, a columnist writes,

00:22:25.060 Pierre Polyevs led Tories gearing up for more ballot box failure with support for convicted

00:22:32.180 mischief ring leaders. And so it's really interesting to see the way that these newspapers,

00:22:37.540 these media companies continue to paint the trucker convoy as again, this sort of like racist

00:22:43.940 uprising, right. And that anyone who touches it is political poison. Andrew Coyne of the

00:22:48.660 Globe and Mail and CBC, uh, writes this, he says, incredible. They have learned nothing. Um, again,

00:22:55.300 criticizing, uh, Pierre Polyev for daring to voice support for the freedom convoy leaders. Next,

00:23:02.180 we have national observer columnist, Max Fawcett on X. He said, this is the kind of thing you say

00:23:07.460 when you're nervous about losing an internal conservative leadership vote. So they think that

00:23:12.740 it's all just about, uh, drumming up support from the base and, and pandering, uh, Rachel Gilmour,

00:23:19.540 who is a TikTok journalist wrote, Pierre Polyev comes out swinging dot to dot for the organizers of the

00:23:24.740 freedom convoy. Good to know all the talk of a pivot was actually a pivot even further rightwards from his

00:23:31.380 camp. And then finally you have Paul Wells, who is a very respected journalist. He runs a sub stack

00:23:36.500 and he just says noted noted as in we're watching you, Pierre, the Laurentian elite and the media

00:23:42.980 is noting that you are choosing to go on the other side. So Paul Wells is basically hinting that,

00:23:50.100 you know, there's good guys and bad guys and we in the lunchroom meet, we're the good guys. And this

00:23:53.860 is how we see the country. And Pierre continues to defiantly see the country the other way. And so

00:23:58.340 I thought it was like, sort of like just the perfect thing. Like the Laurentian elite are watching Pierre

00:24:03.380 and they're not happy with the fact that he is voicing concern. Um, what do you make of all this,

00:24:08.260 John? Well, part of the reason why it's okay for people to comment, uh, state their opinions about

00:24:17.940 judicial, uh, proceedings and, and they're public for a reason is that you have that, that transparency,

00:24:23.780 right. In a, in a healthy democracy, in, uh, the free and democratic society that Canada is supposed

00:24:29.540 to be, you don't have a secret trials because then their secrecy opens things up for abuse.

00:24:38.340 Right. So we have the, the open courts principle. Um, but part of the reason why it's okay for,

00:24:44.820 for all citizens, including elected politicians, including lawyers to comment on court cases is

00:24:50.180 because we expect judges to ignore public commentary. They might hear about it. They might even

00:24:55.940 deliberately seek it out, although it's probably not a good move, but they might hear about it,

00:25:00.980 but they're, they're looking at the evidence presented in court. And this is another very dark

00:25:04.980 aspect of the lockdowns era was, um, as we talked about this previously in regards to my book,

00:25:12.980 corrupted by fear. We have judgments where, uh, judges wrote the media narrative into their court

00:25:21.460 rulings and that make assertions there that, that they've heard on the CBC news or that they've read

00:25:27.380 on the internet that are just simply not supported by evidence that was put before the court. And so

00:25:32.180 judges took great liberties to, to, to write the media narrative into their court rulings, which prior to

00:25:38.580 2020, I think would have been very rare. I think that judges, whether it's a murder trial or family

00:25:45.540 law dispute or constitutional challenge, um, I think prior to 2020 Canadian judges would always ignore

00:25:52.420 what the media was saying and focus only on the evidence before the court. But we've, we've got so

00:25:57.300 many examples of judges, uh, that are simply writing the media narrative into their court ruling on these

00:26:04.260 lockdown challenges. I'm not saying it's a universal problem, uh, but, but on the constitutional challenges

00:26:10.180 to lockdowns as being unjustified violations of our charter freedoms of conscience, religion,

00:26:15.700 association, expression, et cetera. Uh, we, we've got too many examples of, of judges that are not

00:26:22.500 limiting, uh, themselves to what is placed, uh, before them in court. I had a question for you,

00:26:28.660 John, about the sort of jurisdiction, because I know that these are federal charges and everyone

00:26:33.380 thinks of this as sort of a liberal government, uh, Justin Trudeau continued into Mark Carney.

00:26:38.420 And yet it's interesting to learn, and Brian Lilly had a calm sort of, uh, alluding to this. Um, but

00:26:44.340 it's actually the Ford government and the government of Ontario that is overseeing and possibly pulling

00:26:49.700 the strings in this case. So I'm wondering if you could just help us understand the jurisdiction

00:26:53.300 breakdown and how Doug Ford could actually have maybe possibly stopped this or at least lessened some of

00:26:59.140 this. Well, it's the provinces who were in charge of administration of justice. And so in Ontario,

00:27:06.180 the crown prosecutors, even though they're prosecuting the criminal code offenses and the

00:27:12.020 criminal code is federal legislation, uh, but the prosecutors in, in Ontario and every other province,

00:27:18.260 they, they prosecute all offenses. I mean, you've got municipal bylaw infractions, you know, if you're,

00:27:23.460 if your dog's barking all night, keeping the neighbors awake and you get a ticket for that,

00:27:27.060 it'll be prosecuted by it. It's the province that pays for the prosecution service, uh,

00:27:32.980 traffic courts, speeding tickets, as well as criminal code offenses. And so the prosecutors are

00:27:39.940 supposed to be working at arms length from government. Uh, I, I, I hope that they are, I,

00:27:47.460 I assume that they are. So you don't have the premier or the justice minister. Uh, we saw this in the SNC

00:27:53.620 Lavalin case with the Trudeau government, right? It's not appropriate for the, uh, the prime minister

00:27:59.540 or, uh, any other cabinet minister to be directing prosecutions and saying, well, you know, go hard

00:28:06.820 on this guy, go easy on that guy. Oh, my cousin got charged with impaired driving. You know, can you just

00:28:11.700 turn a blind eye and let them get off? Cause he's a good guy. Like you don't want the politicians

00:28:16.420 directing the prosecutors. So this, uh, I guess I would say fanatical attitude towards, uh, using up

00:28:25.300 huge resources, uh, to prosecute Tamera Leach and Chris Barber, when the same crown prosecutors

00:28:31.220 complain publicly, they don't have enough resources to bring, uh, murder charges and, and aggravated

00:28:38.020 assault and sexual assault, get some people walking away scot-free without a trial. Crown prosecutors

00:28:43.940 say they don't have enough resources. So I would hope that it's still a bad thing. If the crown

00:28:51.060 itself is so obsessed with, uh, w w w with the freedom convoy, that would be a bad thing. It would

00:28:58.820 be even worse if it was directed, uh, and guided by the Ford government. I would like to believe that

00:29:04.900 it is not, and I certainly don't have any evidence to, to suggest that, that the crown is being directed

00:29:11.380 by Premier Ford. Well, I know we've gone over this a little bit, but there is obviously a double

00:29:15.220 standard in our justice system. When you just look at even just some of the recent news, John,

00:29:19.460 so we had Sam Cooper over the bureau reporting that charges have been dropped against a Chinese

00:29:23.940 scientist in Vancouver tied to Xi's talents program and Canada's synthetic drug pipeline. Uh,

00:29:29.940 no worries, no charges there. A man in Edmonton with a history of attacking people

00:29:34.500 was, uh, given seven years for random killing on an LRT. So he murdered someone he's getting seven

00:29:40.500 years, which is what Tamara and Chris might possibly get. Uh, next we had Juneau news reporting that a

00:29:46.820 judge has spared an Indian immigrant jail after trying to buy sex from a child from a minor, um, 0.90

00:29:53.300 because the judge didn't want that poor Indian immigrant to possibly have to get deported. So,

00:29:58.580 uh, they, they didn't give him, uh, jail time, right? A Quebec woman pleads guilty to joining ISIS

00:30:06.020 and they were just sentenced to one day in custody because, you know, uh, she, she, she was obviously

00:30:12.660 remorseful or whatever. Uh, we had an ex Belltech get mere house arrest after exposing himself to

00:30:19.540 customers. So, I mean, this is just like, I could, I could pull out a thousand examples for you, John,

00:30:25.780 of judges just going really easy on some people and then others, uh, uh, people like the freedom

00:30:32.900 convoy organizers going really hard. I don't expect you to make a prediction, but you watch these kinds

00:30:37.780 of stories carefully and closely. I wonder, uh, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think

00:30:42.500 that they will actually get jail time? And if so, uh, what, what do you expect the reaction to be from

00:30:47.300 the Canadian public? Well, I won't make any predictions. I mean, your guess is as good as mine,

00:30:53.220 you know, with some of the court cases over the years that I've been, uh, involved with or, you

00:30:59.060 know, or lawyer acting for clients in court, I, I have won cases that I should have lost and I have

00:31:04.900 lost cases that I should have won. And it's always, it's always a surprise. Um, you know, even the

00:31:10.900 guilty verdict, I mean, uh, would not have surprised me if there had been an acquittal. So without making

00:31:18.100 predictions, I will say if there's any jail time at all for, uh, Chris Barber or Tamara Leach or both,

00:31:25.380 then, uh, that's going to bring the administration of justice into further disrepute in the minds of

00:31:32.260 millions of Canadians. It's going to be seen as this, uh, double standard where other protesters,

00:31:39.860 if they're protesting for the right cause, a cause that, that the politicians like, uh, or that,

00:31:46.580 that the establishment likes, um, that double standard is, is just a glaring problem in, uh,

00:31:53.460 in Canada. So, but we'll have to wait and see what comes out. I, I really, yeah, no predictions.

00:31:59.540 Well, we will be following it very closely for you folks and we will give you an update when that comes

00:32:04.020 down. I want to change gears a little bit with you here, John, cause I know you're representing

00:32:07.540 a family and it's just absolutely extraordinary case. So Ontario teachers were just fired over their

00:32:13.300 personal values. The Alexander family were punished for standing by their beliefs. So we have Matt

00:32:20.580 and Nicole Alexander of Cobden, Ontario have dedicated over two decades of their lives to

00:32:26.660 supporting students in their community as educators in the Renfrew County District School Board.

00:32:31.140 They were basically fired or pushed out for just very innocuous, um, not adhering to extreme woke

00:32:40.500 ideology. John, can you tell us a little bit about their case and why you're representing them?

00:32:46.420 So Matt Alexander has been teacher for 20 years, spotless record. Uh, his wife, Nicole,

00:32:53.060 uh, was teaching kindergarten. She had been teaching for three years after taking time away from her 0.86

00:32:59.460 teaching career to raise her family at home. They both had great performance reviews and there,

00:33:07.140 nobody has alleged neither the school board nor any member of the public nor any parent nor any student,

00:33:15.140 nobody has alleged that Matt or Nicole Alexander, uh, has ever mistreated a student, treated a student

00:33:22.340 unkindly or unfairly, or has been discriminatory in, in their attitudes. Um, what happened one morning

00:33:31.220 was that, uh, Nicole came to work and she found a, uh, a pride, a rainbow pride poster, uh, that somebody

00:33:40.100 without her knowledge or consent had, uh, affixed to her door. And she noticed other doors, uh, nearby did

00:33:47.860 not have a pride poster and this was not some school policy or directive or edict. So she took down the

00:33:54.660 pride poster, put it in the cupboard and proceeded to go to work. And not long thereafter, she's called into

00:33:59.860 the principal's office and the superintendent of the school district is there. Uh, and, uh, she is

00:34:07.060 immediately suspended and she's later fired. Uh, her husband, Matt Alexander, who was teaching grades

00:34:14.020 seven and eight was, uh, phoned by the principal one day and told that he was suspended and under

00:34:19.780 investigation, uh, because of complaints about his social media posts. He did not have a social media

00:34:25.620 account at the time when he received this phone call. So what it ultimately came down to, they were

00:34:30.900 fired because they were asked to, uh, celebrate and affirm LGBTQ issues. And so you've got these very 0.65

00:34:39.700 woke, uh, radical policies that are in place in, in, uh, just about every public school board in Canada,

00:34:46.980 as far as I know. And so these teachers, they're not, they're not mistreating anybody. They're not

00:34:53.620 doing anything wrong. Philosophically. Uh, they don't want to say that they want to celebrate and

00:35:01.300 affirm, you know, they don't want to wave the rainbow flag and they don't want to push that LGBTQ, uh, 0.99

00:35:07.940 narrative that is being pushed by so many government agencies and school boards on that basis, they were

00:35:16.100 fired, not for any actual misconduct, but basically they, they said, look, we're not enthusiastic about

00:35:22.660 pushing and promoting, celebrating, affirming this LGBTQ narrative. Uh, on that basis, they lost their 0.94

00:35:28.340 jobs and the, their, their union, the elementary teachers Federation of Ontario essentially in a nutshell

00:35:34.900 did nothing to help them or, or to defend them. It's unbelievable. I mean, I'm sorry, but she's a

00:35:41.540 kindergarten teacher that didn't want a gay pride poster on her door and nobody told her that she had to 1.00

00:35:46.420 have it up. So she quietly removed it. Like in, in, in what world is that a firing offense? How, how, how,

00:35:52.340 like, what about her freedom of conscience? And also their children, their four and five-year-old

00:35:57.060 children, why do they have to be propagandized into an ideology, like any ideology? I mean, this is,

00:36:03.380 this is just so outrageous, John. Um, so what, uh, what's, what's next, uh, for this family?

00:36:07.940 So the, and the union did not raise, uh, there's very strong arguments. There's strong legal arguments

00:36:14.820 on their side. They, they have their, uh, freedom of conscience and religion, their freedom of

00:36:19.700 expression. Freedom of expression includes being free from compelled speech where somebody is forcing

00:36:24.900 you or pressuring you to say something that you disagree with. Uh, the school boards are government

00:36:30.100 entities. So the charter does apply to the school boards. And so the union didn't raise the freedoms of

00:36:37.060 religion and conscience, uh, or arguments also under Ontario's human rights legislation. Um,

00:36:43.620 the employer has a legal obligation for reasonable accommodation. Uh, so for example, somebody belongs

00:36:51.540 to a religion where they can't work on a Saturday, the employer has to accommodate that employee and not

00:36:56.820 require them to work on a Saturday, right? As an example. So the union didn't raise these arguments and

00:37:03.220 claimed that the case was weak. They didn't push it forward to arbitration. Uh, when asked why the

00:37:10.740 union felt that they thought that the case was, was weak and doomed to failure and not worth pursuing

00:37:15.700 to arbitration, the union provided no explanation other than saying, uh, well, we've given it a careful

00:37:22.340 review. So what's happening now are two things. Uh, human rights complaints have been filed on behalf of

00:37:27.300 the Alexanders against the school board for, uh, discrimination, uh, against their, uh, religion

00:37:33.940 and, and creed and further, uh, legal proceedings have been commenced before the Ontario labor relations

00:37:42.180 board to, or labor relations tribunal, I forget which to, to, um, take the union to task for its failure

00:37:49.780 to provide effective representation. Well, I'm very happy and pleased to hear that you

00:37:56.020 are fighting on behalf of this family. It is so outrageous the way that people are treated in

00:38:00.900 fields across the country. We had Amy Eileen Han on yesterday who was fired as a nurse because she 1.00

00:38:06.500 didn't want to promote this ideology. It's happening to teachers in Ontario, nurses in British Columbia,

00:38:10.900 it's happening all over the country. And John, we thank you, uh, for standing up for these types of

00:38:15.940 people and, uh, giving them a fighting chance. Uh, that's John Carpe of the justice center for

00:38:21.220 constitutional freedoms. Thank you so much, John, for joining us. Thank you. All right, folks,

00:38:25.620 all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is

00:38:28.260 the Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you and God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - July 24, 2025

TWO-TIERED Justice： Constitutional Lawyer weighs in on the fate of Freedom Convoy organizers

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