Former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Brian Peckford announces he will be taking legal action against the Canadian government for infringing upon the Canadian Charter of Rights. This could be a big win for Canada. In this episode, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson speaks with the Honourable Brian P. Peckford, who served as Premier of Newfoundland & Labrador for a decade. He wrote part of the Canadian Constitution, so he knows when it s being abused. He is the only living former premier who participated in the constitutional process that led to the Constitution Act of 1982, something that is dead relevant to our later discussion. He was also the author of two books: The Last Day Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More, which was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2012. He retired in 2001, and currently lives with his wife in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada. As I mentioned, as I mentioned the last week, as he has serious concerns about the current government's policies, because he has been talking over the last few days about the concerns of the current Canadian government about the Charter and its infringement of Canadian people's rights. Also, a quick thanks to Lex Friedman for lending us his studio to record this at the last minute. I hope you enjoy this at-the-minute conversation. Dr. B.B. Peterson is a very important figure in the Canadian landscape, so that everyone is in the proper place to appreciate the conversation about such things at this time. Again, if you want an ad-free experience of this podcast, check out show notes or go to the show notes on show notes and listen to the full of the conversation. That'll change what you're listening to. . - Dr. Dr. Peterson's new series, "That'll Change What You Press On" is available on the Daily Wire Plus, wherever you listen to this podcast is listening to this episode of the podcast, and you can sign up for $10 a month, or $100 a year, That'll Change what you press on in Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you go, or wherever they listen to podcasts to the ad free version of this Podcasts are listening to the podcast? That'll Changed What you Press On, That Will Change What you're Changing What You Push On? Subscribe to the Dailywire Plus, Subscribe on Podchaser and Subscribe on Itunes, Subscribe to The Daily Wire + Subscribe on itunes and Subscribe to Itunes Subscribe to That'll Be No Matter What You Do It, Subscribe On Itunes
00:00:01.000Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.000Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
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00:00:51.000Welcome to Season 4, Episode 78 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.
00:01:00.000This is a very important episode regarding the fate of Canada, the freedom of Canadian people, which is seriously at risk right now.
00:01:07.000Honorable Brian Peckford is announcing that he's going to be taking legal action against the Canadian government for infringing upon the Canadian Charter of Rights.
00:01:15.000This is serious. This could be a big win for Canada.
00:01:18.000The Honorable Brian Peckford served as Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador for a decade.
00:01:23.000He wrote part of the Charter of Rights, so he knows when it's being abused.
00:01:27.000He started in 1972 in the House of Assembly and served as a minister until he became Premier in 1979.
00:01:34.000Peckford and Dad discussed the legal strategy in response to Canadian health measures and what a federal win for his case would entail.
00:01:41.000The abuse of power for emergency measures that's occurring now.
00:01:45.000And they also discussed choosing YouTube and podcasting over traditional media outlets.
00:01:50.000Also, a quick thanks to Lex Friedman for lending us his studio to record this at the last minute.
00:01:58.000Again, if you want an ad-free experience of this podcast, check out show notes or go to jordanbpeterson.supercast.com
00:02:06.000and you can sign up for $10 a month or $100 a year.
00:02:09.000That'll change what you press on in Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts to the ad-free version.
00:02:16.000Hello, everyone. I'm here today with a historical figure in the Canadian landscape, the Honourable Brian Peckford, former Premier of Newfoundland.
00:02:43.000We've been talking over the last couple of days about the broader events in Canada in relationship to the political and constitutional work that Mr. Peckford did in the 1980s
00:02:58.000and decided that it was necessary to have a serious conversation about such things at this time.
00:03:05.000I'm going to open this with a bio of Mr. Peckford so that everyone is situated in the proper place to appreciate the conversation.
00:03:13.000The Honourable A. Brian Peckford, P.C. was born August 27, 1942 in Whitburn, Newfoundland, graduating from Lewisport High School in 1960.
00:03:24.000He obtained his BA in education at Memorial in Newfoundland in 1966 and later did postgraduate work in English literature and educational psychology.
00:03:35.000In 1972, Mr. Peckford entered the political arena as a member of the Progressive Conservatives, was elected as a member of the Provincial House of Assembly,
00:03:48.000soon serving as special and parliamentary assistant to the then Premier Frank Moores.
00:03:55.000He was Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in 1974 and Minister of Mines and Energy and Minister of Rural Development and Northern Affairs for that province in 1976.
00:04:07.000In 1979, at the age of 36, which made him a very young leader by the standards by which such things are judged,
00:04:16.000he became leader of the PC Party and Premier of Newfoundland.
00:04:21.000His government established the Atlantic Accord, bringing offshore oil and gas revenue to the province, over $25 billion to date,
00:04:31.000and a say in the management of the resource.
00:04:34.000Newfoundland's involvement in Canada's constitutional partition process in the early 1980s led to the breakthrough agreement,
00:04:44.000culminating in the Constitution Act of 1982.
00:04:48.000He is the only living First Minister who participated in that constitutional process,
00:04:55.000something that's dead relevant to our later discussion.
00:04:59.000He retired from politics in March 1989, beginning a consulting company with his wife Carol, assisting companies in Europe and North America.
00:05:10.000Former Premier Peckford is the author of two books.
00:05:13.000The last, Someday the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More, was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2012.
00:05:22.000He was soared to the Privy Council by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 1982.
00:05:29.000He retired in 2001 and presently lives with his wife Carol in Parksville, British Columbia.
00:05:35.000Now, Mr. Peckford and I have been talking over the last week, as I mentioned,
00:05:42.000because he has serious concerns about the policies of the current Canadian government
00:05:49.000in relationship to the Canadian Charter of Rights, which was established as part of the Constitution Act in the 1980s.
00:05:58.000And he, as I said in the bio, is the only living minister who participated in that constitutional process
00:06:05.000and is therefore a unique, let's say, historical and current resource because he can help illuminate Canadians
00:06:16.000as to the intent of the people who were instrumental in drafting, writing and agreeing on all of those fundamentally important accords.
00:06:30.000So, let's start by talking about what concerns are driving you to re-enter the political discussion at the moment.
00:06:44.000Well, primarily, it is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
00:06:48.000especially those freedoms and rights that are in sections 2, 6, 7 and 15 of the Charter, which I helped craft.
00:06:56.000And there are freedoms of association, freedoms of expression, religion, conscience, freedom of assembly, freedom of association.
00:07:04.000That's in section 2. Section 6 of freedom of mobility, the right to travel anywhere in Canada or leave Canada.
00:07:11.000Section 6 deals with life, liberty and security of the person.
00:07:15.000And section 15 with equality. Every Canadian is equal before the law.
00:07:21.000As we sit here today, those provisions are being violated by all the governments of Canada,
00:07:28.000but in particular in my case right now, the federal government of Canada.
00:07:32.000And I'm about to launch a lawsuit against the federal government because of these mandates,
00:07:40.000There's no other travel ban in the Western world like this one.
00:07:44.000And yet we're the second largest country in the world by geography.
00:07:48.000This impinges upon my right of travel, my right to travel to my family back east or my friends.
00:07:54.000It takes away my right as a Canadian to be protected by the mobility right of section 6.
00:08:01.000And therefore, I feel that the federal government has overreached its authority.
00:08:06.000Okay, so let me get this clear because I'm still having a hard time conceptualizing the fact that this is actually a reality.
00:08:15.000So the situation we have in Canada is that a former drafter of what is one of the most fundamental articles of our shared agreement as a people
00:08:27.000is now about to launch a legal claim against the government itself for violating the fundamental principles upon which the entire country is founded and assembled and agrees.
00:08:47.000I'm the only first minister left alive who was at that conference and helped draft these freedoms and these rights and the Constitution Act of 1982 itself.
00:09:00.000You know, I've been watching this thing now for almost two years.
00:09:03.000I've been speaking out about it at public meetings and on my blog and so on.
00:09:08.000And I've come to the conclusion now that I must, as a Canadian and as one of the writers and founders of the Constitution Act of 1982,
00:09:18.000not only speak about it, I must act about it.
00:09:21.000I must show Canadians that I'm so concerned as a citizen, as a former first minister that helped craft this Constitution Act of 1982,
00:09:29.000that I must take action against my own government because they have violated rights that I and others helped craft in 1981, 1982.
00:09:38.000Well, what do you think the legal response to this is going to be?
00:09:42.000You've obviously, and I know this, of course, is you've been consulting with a legal team, I suppose, and we can talk about that.
00:09:49.000I mean, it seems to me that this puts the courts in an awfully complicated position, to say the absolute least, because it's, and please correct me if I'm misstepping in any way here,
00:10:02.000it's up to the courts to determine the letter, but also the spirit of these fundamental laws.
00:10:08.000And it seems to me that it's almost inarguable that if you have a living member of the body that drafted the provisions making the claim that they're being violated,
00:10:20.000that that's as good an indication about the violation of the spirit of the law, certainly, and perhaps the letter as well, that you could possibly have.
00:13:25.000And fourthly, and most importantly, all of those three must be done within the context of a free and democratic society.
00:13:31.000And a free and democratic society, to me, means parliamentary democracy in our country.
00:13:36.000We have 14 parliaments, and they have been completely silent.
00:13:39.000There's no parliamentary committee anywhere in any of those 14 parliaments looking at what's happening to our country.
00:13:44.000There are the people's representatives.
00:13:46.000Okay, so you're also saying, and this is also terrible, that you're also saying that even the process itself by which these exceptions could be made has been essentially subverted in the name of something approximating expediency.
00:14:02.000But that the rationale for that expediency does not indicate a level of seriousness sufficient to justify that expedient process.
00:14:15.000And I think that's extremely unfortunate.
00:14:17.000And I don't want to speak for myself on this.
00:14:20.000There's quite a few experts around, like the Great Barrington Declaration over a year ago now, identified, and these were some of the greatest epidemiologists in the world, how to approach this kind of a situation.
00:14:33.000And their principles still stand, you know, you protect the vulnerable, you do everything to protect the vulnerable in this kind of situation.
00:14:44.000All of the provinces of Canada have what's called emergency measures organizations, which we spend all these millions on as taxpayers, who do nothing else.
00:14:53.000We sit down every day and organize a plan for some kind of an emergency declared, let's say, let's admit, maybe an emergency or at least a very serious situation in the country.
00:15:05.000And then they bring to bear all of the planning tools that are necessary, not just a narrow clinical one from the Department of Health.
00:15:16.000And Lieutenant Colonel David Redman out of Alberta, who wrote the new Emergency Measures Act there, speaks eloquently to this and has produced all kinds of documents that nobody has challenged that this was the appropriate approach to take.
00:15:31.000Okay, so let's, so there's two issues that stem out of that.
00:15:36.000The first is, what has also happened, and you're making allusion to that, is that the political, our political leaders have not only circumvented the parliamentary process to produce provisions that violate the Canadian Charter of Rights,
00:15:54.000but they've abdicated their responsibility for overall governance, which is the balancing of all sorts of competing interests to a narrow public, so-called public health policy.
00:16:06.000So, and that, that's also inappropriate governance in the most fundamental sense.
00:16:13.000And if anybody looks at the documentation that the Lieutenant Colonel David Redman has produced, they will be convinced that the, and you know, we had the swine flu and other flus before this, other infectious diseases.
00:16:26.000And that's why these emergency measures organizations were put in place for, you know, like when the river floods in Winnipeg, or when we have, you know, a nice storm in Quebec or whatever, that there are people who have already planned for all of this, and have already contacted the private sector, the public sector, all the relevant government departments.
00:16:46.060So when something happens, they're ready to move quickly on all fronts, and have a very joint effort to ensure that the totality of society is considered, isn't compromised, and you put in measures which acknowledge all the factors.
00:17:02.920Because now we know from studies that have been produced, even by Douglas, Dr. Douglas Allen of Simon Fraser University, who looked at 80 studies over a year ago, which showed that the cure was worse than the disease.
00:17:13.380In other words, the lockdowns caused so many problems on the other side, that was difficult to justify the measures that were being used.
00:17:20.820Okay, now you alluded to the fact too, that this isn't in some sense, common public knowledge.
00:17:26.180And then, along with that, we're faced with the extreme oddity, I would say, of the fact that the venue that you chose to announce this move, and to discuss all these issues, isn't a standard news media venue.
00:17:39.460It's my YouTube channel, and one of the things that you discussed with me earlier this week was the impossibility, in your view, of having these topics dealt with in an honest and straightforward manner by any major news organization in Canada.
00:17:57.460Which, to me, is almost a statement damning the current larger scale governance structure, which in some sense includes a free press operating in a coherent and articulate and trustworthy manner as a check and an opportunity for reflection on the political process.
00:18:20.140And so, that in itself seems as worrisome as all the other things that we're talking about at a governmental level.
00:18:26.580Like, I think this is preposterous in some sense, that this is the place where this discussion is taking place.
00:18:34.140Yes, no, I think you raise an extremely important point, and one that I need to address.
00:18:39.840And I've been vocal about being concerned about what's happening for quite some time, and I've held public meetings here on Vancouver Island, and Vancouver, in front of the Art Gallery last October.
00:18:52.000And I've written letters to national newspapers, and they have not carried any of my letters, which is quite unusual.
00:18:59.080Because before this happened, they would carry my letters when I made comment on normal public policy issues across the nation.
00:19:17.360Well, it seems to me that the media, very early on, bought into the government narrative and developed the same kind of fear that a lot of individuals did.
00:19:26.720Because of what that was being told, all was being proposed with all these cases, even though these cases didn't represent hospitalizations or ICU visits or whatever.
00:19:38.080And so, there was a fear generated early on, and the mainstream media bought into it very quickly.
00:19:44.240And now, are out trying to sustain the narrative that they became a part of early on.
00:19:50.660Of course, we also know that all the mainstream media have received significant sums of money from the government of Canada over the last three years, over $600 million.
00:19:59.660So, one cannot but mention that in any discussion like this, that one has to ask the question,
00:20:06.360has this flow of money from the federal government to the Canadian press in any way impinged upon their impartiality to tell the story on both sides of the issue?
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00:23:38.820And how serious a challenge is this to the claim of the government, in some sense, to have legitimate sovereignty?
00:23:46.860Yes, I think this is very serious because I think, first of all, you have to, as you know, in the legal system, specifically articulate in your lawsuit what it is you're, you know, making the lawsuit about.
00:24:20.920Traveling by plane and train is extremely important for business and for the normal functioning of a nation.
00:24:27.340Remember, for the maintenance of families and for the maintenance of families.
00:24:31.760The country was formed by moving from east to west with a railway.
00:24:36.020I mean, our history is all, you know, replete with that kind of stuff.
00:24:39.820So, what we chose was this particular situation of this travel ban, which, right, impacts every single Canadian in their movement to meet family and to conduct regular business.
00:24:52.520And so, we thought this would be an area that we should highlight because we had to get specific.
00:24:59.560So, I'm particularly on the lawsuit challenging the government's program of banning travel by train and plane by Canadians.
00:25:10.900In other words, we can't travel across our own nation.
00:25:14.340And the Section 6 says mobility, the right of every Canadian to travel anywhere in Canada or leave Canada.
00:25:25.840So, therefore, that's what we are pursuing now in the courts in the next couple of days, in the next few weeks, and hopefully we'll get a decision.
00:25:32.800We're asking for an expedited decision in the next three or four months.
00:25:36.220So, this will fundamentally challenge the approach that the federal government is taking on responding to this so-called pandemic.
00:25:44.980And therefore, we'll put into question this whole notion of using Section 1 of the Charter to override these rights and freedoms.
00:25:54.080If us as First Ministers, Dr. Peterson, had wanted to just have protecting rights and freedoms that could easily be changed, we wouldn't have gone to the Constitution.
00:26:04.220We would have just said, just put an act in the federal parliament and put acts in all the parliaments, and then up to the whim of the political party at the time to change it.
00:26:14.100We wanted to safeguard it so that it would be on the whim of political machinations and therefore could not be changed only in the most extreme circumstances.
00:26:23.000So, what we're really concerned about, and what I'm really concerned about, is if this is not, if our Charter is not upheld and then honored, and these freedoms and rights honored, then the next, and therefore we lose,
00:26:38.100the next time around when there's an emergency two or three years from now, or one, or the government decides and declares that there is an emergency,
00:26:44.880they can use this as a precedent, and the Charter becomes further diluted, and then our rights and freedoms as individuals has been destroyed, and that section of being a democracy is no more.
00:26:59.000That is the great danger, and so that's why it's very necessary for me to do what I'm doing.
00:27:03.440The other point about this is, is that four years after the Charter came in, in 1986, there was a case in the Supreme Court of Canada,
00:27:11.300where the judges were forced to look at Section 1, because of the way the lawyer had constructed the case for his client, it's called the Oates Test.
00:27:19.900And in that, the judges tried to describe what this Section 1 meant, and they did not a bad job, not as good as I thought they should do, but still a much better job.
00:27:32.100And it's really funny, the lower courts who have already looked at the Charter, as it relates to what's going on, have not used this Oates Test, which is highly unusual.
00:27:41.300Because courts always look to the precedent set by the highest court, Supreme Court, in determining what they will do in their case, because they were both concerning the Charter.
00:27:51.480And so, the absence of seeing the Oates Test being used in the lower courts so far is very troubling, and therefore, the other reason why we must take this kind of action at this time.
00:28:03.580Okay, so let me ask you a question about that, because this process of circumventing Parliament, and then failing to meet the proper standards for the kind of crisis that would involve lifting the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights,
00:28:23.580that should be blocked by the courts if they're abiding by the principle of common law, reliance on previous presidents, especially at higher court levels.
00:28:37.640But that's not happening, and that's in the context that we discussed already, where the media, for example, has become co-opted or corrupted to a degree that it's no longer reliable.
00:28:49.940I've spoken with many lawyers in Canada in recent years who are very upset about the co-option and corruption of the entire legal enterprise for similar reasons.
00:29:03.960Are you even vaguely confident that the court system itself has enough integrity to give the views that you're putting forward, even though they're at the basis of the Constitution that unites us all?
00:29:19.900Do you think that your views can get any fairer or more equally impartial hearing in the court system than they have in the media?
00:29:30.240Well, I think here's where I come down on that.
00:29:33.240The lower courts have made some decisions which are injurious to the Charter, and they're being appealed to the higher courts.
00:29:41.020So I think here's where we have an opportunity.
00:29:43.400This particular lawsuit of mine will go to the Federal Court of Canada first, and then likely to the Supreme Court of Canada second.
00:29:51.780Regardless of what decision is made, one side or the other will quite likely appeal it.
00:29:55.880So I think at the Court of Appeal in the provinces, that's the highest courts in the provinces.
00:30:02.640Every single province has courts, a Supreme Court, and then a Court of Appeal.
00:30:08.640And Canadians are confused about that because when they hear of these early decisions, I think that's the end of it.
00:30:15.440To use a really good metaphor, Canadian metaphor, we're in the second period, halfway through the second period.
00:30:21.460We've still got perhaps half the game left or almost half the game left.
00:30:25.740And that's where the courts of appeal come in, who usually are more independent and more sober thought as it relates to the jurisprudence, which is before that.
00:30:35.680And so this is where I and the lawyers, I think, come down and say, we have to exhaust all of the civilized legal processes that we set up under our Constitution.
00:30:49.020And that means these decisions will be appealed to the courts of appeal in the provinces and then the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:30:55.980So it's these higher courts that have an unbelievable responsibility now, unelected judges, to finally decide whether, in fact, really the democracy of Canada is going to survive or not.
00:31:11.120Or whether suddenly, from 1867 to 1981-82, we didn't have a written charter.
00:31:16.640We get one, and now within 40 years, it's being eviscerated or somehow undermined by an overreach of the various governments.
00:31:26.260That's our position, and we hope to put that to the judges, and hopefully that the judges will see it in that kind of reasoned, balanced way.
00:31:35.280Okay, so you focused on movement, the right to movement, and I think you put that in a very interesting historical context
00:31:43.880and practical context with your discussion of the fact, A, that Canada is absolutely huge and people are distributed all across it,
00:31:52.620and that freedom of movement is necessary for us to conduct our businesses and to maintain our families and to communicate,
00:31:59.600but also that Canada itself was knitted together as a consequence of facilitation of freedom of movement, not least by the railway.
00:32:07.520So, but were there other violations of charter principles that you considered highlighting as you moved forward before you settled on freedom of movement?
00:32:19.860Of course. There were many, including freedom of association and freedom of assembly.
00:32:25.980Lots of people, the churches, Christian churches and other churches were prevented from getting together.
00:32:31.580Yeah, and there's a curfew in Quebec still, which is just absolutely beyond comprehension, in my estimation, in a free society, that that can be the case.
00:32:44.000And I have friends in Quebec who are hurt to the bone by the fact, for example, that they're not allowed to attend religious services, for example.
00:32:54.940And that's a really egregious violation, because if there's anything more fundamental, let's say, than freedom of association,
00:33:02.720well, maybe there's freedom of speech, but before that even, there's freedom of belief.
00:33:07.320And to interfere with that at a governmental level is unprecedented, in my estimation.
00:33:13.480Especially when they have not gone out of their way to demonstrably justify, which is one of the tests of Section 1.
00:33:19.860Where is the demonstrably justification, demonstrably justification of what they're doing?
00:33:24.580One would think in public policy since my time, and long before when I was a premier, one of the things governments did when they were introducing,
00:33:31.820especially brand new legislation, you know, and doing very serious things with the Constitution would be to do a cost-benefit analysis.
00:33:39.640And based upon that, you would decide how you went forward.
00:33:43.640No parliamentary committee was ever struck to look at both sides of the issue and call an expert.
00:33:48.500All of these kinds of reasonable measures, which were part of the Canadian fabric of developing public policy, have been discarded in this particular...
00:34:58.240Well, here's where the most insidious part of this equation comes into play.
00:35:02.820What the governments have done and used, in very many cases, existing legislation under which they have the power to make regulation.
00:35:10.820So they've used existing emergencies, okay, legislation, and inflated it enough or interpreted it in a manner that they can also use in this circumstance and therefore issue additional regulation, okay?
00:35:26.260And then in other cases, they did not fully explain or have a parliamentary committee look at other amendments when they opened their parliament and closed it within two or three days or a week.
00:35:37.220In other words, sufficient debate wasn't allowed to understand the repercussions of what they were doing when they were giving more power to the minister and more power to the public health officer.
00:35:47.440Right, so this really means, this really means in some sense that none of these policies were subject to opposition.
00:35:55.140And let's, we could delve into that a little bit.
00:35:57.820You might say, well, in an emergency such that provisions shouldn't be subject to opposition because that's inefficient.
00:36:04.240But that is the same thing as saying two things.
00:36:07.360One is that they shouldn't be thought about because discussion between opposing parties is actually thought.
00:36:15.860And then the second thing it's saying is they should be implemented without recourse to the broader public because the broader public is represented in that oppositional structure so that everybody's voices are being allowed to be heard.
00:36:29.800That's what, that's in some sense the whole point of the parliament where you, parliament means place of talking fundamentally and it means more deeply than that, place of thinking and even more deeply than that, place of discussion of the entire panoply of public opinion.
00:36:45.960That's all gone by the wayside in the name of efficiency, let's say, or something like that.
00:36:51.420Yes, doctor, and even, it gets worse than that because we have had time.
00:36:56.520One can perhaps relieve or excuse, if one wants to, to make, so that your argument is completely reasonable and say, for the first 90 days when this thing began, you could make an argument that, okay, the government's had to move.
00:37:11.000But in any rational way, if they had used the emergency measures planning that was already in place, they would have moved to protect the vulnerable first and then did a study on the rest.
00:37:21.080What else do we need to do in society?
00:37:23.720What they did is just a carte blanche on or over all of society without giving second thought to it.
00:37:29.000And now all of the studies, 90 days after this started and 100 days, 120 days, showed, right?
00:37:36.940And then the Great Barrington Declaration is a good example.
00:37:39.320Over a year old now is the Great Barrington Declaration.
00:37:45.000And Dr. Allen's report from Simon Fraser over a year ago.
00:37:48.460So they've had lots of information and scientific studies about what's going on to demonstrate that not only are the vaccines destructive,
00:37:57.000more destructive than any vaccines in our history, and that's a scientific fact, then they had time to adjust.
00:38:05.520And this is where they have not even been nimble in this kind of circumstance when you think this is the very time that governments will be nimble.
00:38:12.100Okay, we'll see what we can do with the vulnerable, all these long-term care homes and the hospitals and those who are most vulnerable.
00:38:19.380And we'll now have the Parliamentary Committee on an expedited basis.
00:38:22.960I understand that on an emergency basis, bring in experts from both sides within the next 30 days to see whether what else we should do in a reasonable and graduated way
00:38:32.580or are what we're doing now the most appropriate way to respond to it.
00:38:38.300So your case is, well, in the early stages of the emergency of the pandemic,
00:38:43.780when people didn't understand the magnitude of the risk, there was potential for justification for reducing parliamentary complexity to short-term efficiency.
00:38:55.200But as the pandemic has unfolded and we've become more aware of its true risks or lack thereof,
00:39:00.660we should have returned to the principles of parliamentary democracy as rapidly as possible.
00:39:05.360And with less and less justification, that's continued to happen.
00:39:09.780That circumvention of the parliamentary process has continued to happen.
00:39:14.160And I suppose that culminated in recent months with the Quebec lockdown, the curfew.
00:39:21.460I don't see how anybody can possibly make the case that that curfew was implemented under conditions that were as uncertain and dire
00:39:30.040as those that obtained in the initial phases of the pandemic, especially given that Omicron is obviously much less serious than the original virus.
00:39:48.100And that's not going to be pushed up much higher than 90% without government intervention that becomes unbelievably heavy-handed.
00:39:54.500So, there's less and less justification for more and more circumvention of parliamentary processes as this proceeds instead of exactly the opposite.
00:40:49.400But the other thing is, as you say, the transmission of the of the virus now and the virus has changed.
00:40:56.620So a lot of the vaccines that are being used are no longer applicable.
00:41:00.240They don't do anything to the existing variant that we have.
00:41:03.960They were devised for another variant or for the original virus.
00:41:07.920The other thing is people getting aboard planes and my travel ban that I'm arguing on before the lawsuit is that everybody transmits it.
00:41:15.980Now, unvaccinated and vaccinate, transmit, receive and transmit the virus.
00:41:21.100So it's hard to make the argument that the travel ban should be in place.
00:41:24.800The transmission of the virus for which all of this is centered is no longer valid.
00:41:29.200That is, is that the vaccinated protect against the virus because they receive it and transmit it the same as the unvaccinated.
00:41:37.980And now we find in Denmark, Israel, just in the last few days, right, that in Australia, their case rates have gone to the roof again, even though they're 90 percent vaccinated.
00:41:48.980And so the whole basis, right, the whole basis of this argument of these lockdowns and travel bans and so on, the basis has crumbled, right?
00:42:00.040The whole citadel on which this so-called rational approach to a virus has completely crumbled and no longer can sustain itself.
00:42:08.720So one must then question why is this continuing to be in place when all of that data is available, which at least...
00:42:17.540Well, I can tell you what I've been informed of about why it's continuing.
00:42:21.900And I had a conversation with a senior advisor to one of Canadians, provincial governments, a number of conversations.
00:42:28.160Some of those were conducted with RECs.
00:42:30.300None of this was made public because the conversation occurred in privacy.
00:42:34.480And I asked the gentleman I was speaking with why he wouldn't go public.
00:42:40.000And he said, and I believe honorably, that he believed he could still do more good from within the confines of the governmental structure than as a lone voice crying in the wilderness, let's say.
00:42:50.380But he told me flat out that Canadian public policy is being...
00:42:56.240So it's not being generated through the parliamentary process that it's supposed to be generated through.
00:43:02.280What's happening instead is the politicians are turning to badly sampled opinion polls, short-term opinion polls, and driving policy as a consequence.
00:43:13.740They're not actually driving it as a consequence of public opinion polls because that would be something like consulting the people.
00:43:19.720They're utilizing adherence to short-term public opinion polls to maximize the probability that they'll obtain political success in the electoral sphere in the near future.
00:43:31.280And so I said, I pressed him, I said, so you're telling me that this isn't based on the science because that's certainly what we're hearing.
00:43:39.880And he said, no, it's not based on the science.
00:43:43.860I asked him, is there an end game in place, which is, do we have definitions laid down for when the pandemic is now of sufficient lack of severity that it's over, so to speak, and we can go back to normal life?
00:44:00.180Is there even a conceptual framework within which that might occur?
00:44:04.780And the answer to that was, no, there's not that as well.
00:44:08.260And so it was one of the most shocking conversations I think I've ever had in my life, in some sense, because I'm not a cynic about the political process.
00:44:17.900I think that cheap cynicism about politics is, it's an abdication of civic responsibility, and it's bitterness masquerading as wisdom.
00:44:31.720And that, but then when I heard that the situation at the highest levels of governance was more cynical and less responsible than I could have even imagined,
00:44:45.560and that even when I pushed that interpretation to see if I was misinterpreting, the answer I received was a definitive no.
00:44:57.800And I didn't really know what to make of that in the aftermath of the conversation, because, well, for obvious, for all the reasons that we're discussing,
00:45:06.780it's like, well, have things really got to the point where we don't use parliamentary process, we're violating the Canadian Charter of Bill of Rights,
00:45:14.360the press is so involved in collusion that they won't even report on it,
00:45:18.820and they're being subsidized to a great degree by the government in some sense for doing so,
00:45:23.520and that's so widespread that it covers the entire legacy media, let's say.
00:45:27.760It's like, it sounds conspiratorial in the deepest sense.
00:45:33.040And that's why a lot of people have gone that route, is because they have been almost pushed in that route.
00:45:41.440And you see the government in using their polling here, they're advertising, you've got to get vaccinated on the television,
00:45:47.620and they're actually even doing ads for children and trying to talk to children directly through a public ad.
00:45:54.340So they're feeding off themselves, they're creating enough fear so that they'll get the poll they want to get.
00:46:00.380Well, that's the other thing that I see happening, and this is partly why this process is so dangerous,
00:46:06.080is first of all, it's very, very difficult to poll people and get a read on really what they want.
00:46:11.820And that's why we don't have direct democracy by the people.
00:46:16.120We don't want fear and whim and impulsivity that's not thought through carefully to be the basis for governance.
00:46:24.480So really what's happened, we could say in some sense, is that by circumventing the parliamentary process
00:46:31.040and abdicating responsibility for complex, multi-level decision-making,
00:46:37.200we've reverted to something like the most primordial form of whim rule by mob,
00:46:43.460and that's all mediated through opinion polls.
00:46:46.480That's been the alternative to the parliamentary process.
00:46:49.100The other thing perhaps that a lot of Canadians don't acknowledge and recognize,
00:46:53.480and Canadians are very wonderful people and very nice people and very trustworthy of their governments, okay?
00:47:01.060And so what has happened in the last 40 years, they have not noticed because we have not been civically involved like we should.
00:47:07.420I say in all my public meetings, the level of good democracy is directly related to the amount of civic involvement.