CORY MORGAN SHOW： The Canadian justice system is in terminal condition
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode of the Corey Morgan Show, Corey talks about why he thinks our justice system is broken and why we need to write criminals off the rails. He also brings on Tim Hagstrom to talk about his recent lawsuit against the University of Saskatchewan.
Transcript
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day. Welcome to the Corey Morgan show. Getting into the dog days of summer, mid-July now.
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The stampede's out of the way. I don't have my excuse to wear jeans to work anymore,
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so I just have my usual poor wardrobe. Eventually, we'll get a wardrobe department and I can
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be dressed better, but until then, blame the frugal ways of the Western Standard for not
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buying me a new sport coat. All right, lost the cover, though. We're looking forward to
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it. I got a guest coming on, Tim Hagstrom. You've probably seen some of those stories
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going on. He was, to say the least, roughly treated by the University of Saskatchewan for
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daring to just try to question some of the policies of DEI and other exceptions made,
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you know, I guess for exam lengths and things like that with students. He'll explain that,
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and now he's bringing a suit against the University of Saskatchewan. It's good to see people
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not backing off in light of those sorts of things. I'll be checking in with Jen in a few minutes here
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to get the latest on the news. And yes, I'll be talking. There's a lot of justice things going
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on today, I guess you could say. So, good to see you guys checking in there. Gord Tulk,
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North Run Grader and Paradoxy. Gord saying, terminal? Really? Gord, it's social media,
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their headlines, and yes, they are eye-catchers. And actually, I'm going to start, though, I mean,
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I appreciate the questions on what's got me wound up and why I feel that our justice system is terminal
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and broken. This is something that's been making the news recently. So, on July 29th, 2023,
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and I'm only going to pronounce his first name once, Rukanisha, and they call him Nakunda,
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but he was stabbed to death by a random stranger when he tried to ride the LRT in Edmonton. He was
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54 years old. He's left seven children behind. Ironically, he'd escaped the violent, impoverished
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world of Congo, only to be murdered due to Canada's pathetic justice system. Jamal Wheeler killed Nakunda
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in cold blood. He didn't know his victim, and he wasn't provoked by his victim. Wheeler has a thing
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for trying to kill people at LRT stations. Yeah, he's been doing this for years. He'd been convicted
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with attacking people with pepper spray at one station. He'd been convicted for pushing a person
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onto the train tracks at another station after he beat on him. And he'd been convicted of attacking
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people with an axe at a station. What do we do? We kept letting him out. Limp-wristed sentencing
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ensured Wheeler was released repeatedly until he finally managed to kill a man. Now, Wheeler has
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reached the apex of his criminal career so far. He's stolen the life from an innocent man. So,
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what was his sentence? Well, he's going to be free in four and a half years to kill somebody else,
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folks. Rest assured, he won't be reformed, and another innocent person or people will pay the
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ultimate price for this. Anybody who's followed court proceedings for violent, chronic offenders
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knows the usual lines of defense. He was Métis and suffered due to colonialism. He was an addict. He
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had a rough upbringing, blah, blah, blah. You know what? I couldn't care less. When it gets to
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sentencing for criminals, the only thing that should be taken into consideration is public safety.
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How the criminal got there in the first place is irrelevant. Wheeler is clearly so dangerous he
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should never be free again. Yet he will be, and he will re-offend. I do understand. We must study
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what creates violent repeat offenders. It's important to learn so we might hopefully prevent
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some violent crimes rather than react to them. Once a person has become a habitual offender,
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though, and we've identified them, it's time to write them off from society. Reforming criminals must
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be the priority with new offenders. The best outcome we can all see is that a person has gone off
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the rails but used their time incarcerated to better themselves and become a functional citizen upon
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release. We should provide the resources to assist with that rehabilitation in that case, and the
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investment will often be well worth it. But when the efforts for reform fail, and the offender becomes
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chronic, then it's time to accept reality and remove them from the public, possibly indefinitely.
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The success rate in reforming chronic offenders is terribly low, and once the criminals reach that
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status, the safety and rights of the public must come before those of the offender. It's not just
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chronic violent criminals who must be incarcerated for long term to repeat offenders from thieves to
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drug dealers need to be removed as well. The cost and societal damage from career criminals can't be
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understated, even if they are directly violent. They cause mistrust, stress, and damage. They've also
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put the public at risk as they take up law enforcement resources as they're constantly arrested and
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released. Study after study indicates the vast majority of crimes are committed by a minority of
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chronic offenders. It stands to reason if we can keep that minority locked up, they can't
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re-offend. How many times do we get a read about some burglar or car thief that's convicted for
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their 30th, 50th, or 100th offense? Never mind the multiple murderers out there. The cost to
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incarcerate, hey, it doesn't have to be that high when it's accepted that that inmate's never going
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to be released. Resources then don't need to be wasted on rehabilitation if facilities can be
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constructed in isolated regions to inexpensively prevent escapes. Call it gulags, if you will.
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The criminals had a choice. Their victims didn't. And no, I don't support capital punishment. I still
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don't. I don't trust our legal system or government enough to give it the power to kill a citizen.
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I do support hundred-year sentences, though. The concept of locking up a human forever is a hard
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one to accept. I can accept that, though, more than watching people being victimized and often
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killed by criminals we already had in custody and then released. Hey, if a magic pill is invented which
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cures a chronic criminal, then we can reconsider their interminable incarceration. Until then,
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though, it's time to warehouse them once we've identified them somewhere secure for the sake
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of public safety. Rest assured, it'll have a much more positive impact upon crime and crime reduction
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than chasing people around to seize their antiquated duck hunting guns. When Canada has become more
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unsafe than the Congo, we know it's time for a reality check. And yes, Gord, that's why I say it's
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terminally broken. When we got a guy like that who's been in custody and released him and let him kill
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somebody and we're going to let him out to kill somebody else in four and a half years, the system's
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terminal. All right, that's my rant to get things off on a good note. How's it going, Jen? I'm doing
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good. Thanks, Corey. How you doing? Good. This is the Western Standard's Jen Hodson, a reporter
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extraordinaire to give the news update because Steve's indisposed yet again. Yet again. Yeah, that's
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right. I've been under the weather for the last couple of weeks, unfortunately. Yeah, there's been a
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bad bug going around. Bad bug going around. Yeah, that's right. So, Prime Minister Mark Carney opened the
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day with an announcement on steel. And rather than going elbows up, quote unquote, I guess President
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Trump instead, there will be no changes to current trade measures. However, Ottawa will be funneling in
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more than a billion into the steel industry on taxpayers dime. Yes, so that'll be a billion towards
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helping the steel industry, helping steel firms. And then another 70 million is going towards
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worker compensation and those that are affected by the tariffs. Well, bailouts always work well. I
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mean, look how well the cricket industry has developed in Ontario or the battery manufacturing
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plants. I mean, that's all blossomed for us, hasn't it? The cricket industry. Yeah, you say true words,
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Corey. And there are some tariff adjustments on non-US countries. Most notably, the Carney Liberals are
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cracking down on any country that has their steel poured in China. So they're leveraging tariffs on those
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countries, I guess, to boost up Canada's tariff war. Well, it's interesting. China does provide a
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lot of steel to Canada. I mean, fair enough, if you're looking at protectionism, that's one of the
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targets you want to go. You can see what he's doing though. He's fighting back against China and trying
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to avoid getting further into a deeper fight with President Trump. Exactly. Where our bigger, well,
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China's an issue as well. It's a mess. I don't envy Carney. I don't like him, but he's in a tough,
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tough position. I'll give him that. Yeah. Between China and the US is definitely between
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a rock and a hard place. So next on the news is we're following the Alberta Next panel quite closely
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here at the Western Standard. So this is a series of panelists that are hearing from Albertans about
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how they feel on certain issues, such as whether Alberta should have its own police force, whether
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Alberta should collect income tax rather than having it sent to Ottawa, and whether any kind of
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pension plan or taxes should be through the Alberta government rather than the federal government.
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And of course this is as independent sentiment is on the rise here in Alberta too. So Premier
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Smith will be up in Edmonton this evening. Yeah. I guess last night's meeting, the open mic got a
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little hot as you'd kind of expect. I mean, you know, she's going to have an interesting time
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tempering it from the people who were full out, just wanting independence referendum, want out, or the
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people who want to talk about and examine some of those other proposals. Yeah. We'll see if maybe
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they change some of the structuring types meeting and attitude. Yeah, for sure. And there is nuance
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to this issue. Some people are approaching it all or nothing. We've completely had enough. And as you
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say, others are willing to hear out other sides and negotiate. So we'll see what this Alberta Next
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panel produces over the course of the summer and into September even. Yeah, she's going to have her hands
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fully out. It goes for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Into the end of September,
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I believe. The end of September, she'll be coming to Calgary with the Alberta Next panel.
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Yeah. Ending in, well, we'll have to go to that. Yeah. We'll have to go check that out. Yeah.
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Western standard field trip. Canada's poverty line is being redefined. So the federal government
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is looking at how they're actually going to define what it means to be
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poor or living in poverty in Canada. So we'll find out exactly what their definition is of that
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by the end of the fall. Oh boy. I mean, I guess it depends on who they put behind it. You know,
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usually you see that as a precursor when they want to start talking universal basic income.
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Wow. Yeah. It depends on what you're going to measure it against. I mean,
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if you're measuring against Eastern Africa, well, our poverty line is going to be quite low.
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But if we measure it against domestic expectations, it's kind of an arbitrary thing. Nobody's starving
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or, you know, being thrown in the streets with our social safety net. Where's poverty land?
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That's right. Well, they could also lower the poverty line to sort of frame it as though there
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aren't so many Canadians that are struggling and living in poverty. And then make themselves look
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a little better. Look at that. We've pulled all these people out of poverty, or at least we moved the line.
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At least we moved the line. Yeah. Yeah. You can keep winning when you move the goalpost for sure.
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Yeah. All right. And as for wildfires, so the feds have finally, for the first time ever,
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sat down and calculated just how much wildfires cost and released a report saying that it's running up
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into the billions. And also they established the reasons why they say that there's wildfires rampant,
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especially in Western Canada. Guess what the first reason is, Corey?
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Oh, probably that we elected conservatives, but other than that, it'll be climate change.
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Yeah. Climate change, precisely. And as well as population growth was mentioned in that as well.
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So turn this into an immigration discussion if they really want to go there.
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Yeah. So a bit of a surprising acknowledgement by the feds there. And thirdly, they also conceded
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forest mismanagement played a role. There is a role for forest management. I'm glad they brought
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that up at least. I mean, they're having a bit of an honest look at some of it.
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Yeah, absolutely. It does actually seem like, you know, it wasn't a widely published report,
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of course. It took some access to information to get that out, of course.
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Yeah. And they'll cherry pick what portions they want to use later on.
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Yeah. No, we're onto them, aren't we? Right on.
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Yeah. And finally, we're just speaking a bit before I came on about supply management.
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So there's an interesting poll this week released by Angus Reid that found that Quebec,
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which isn't really surprising, is the province that most widely supports the supply management
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system, which has been dubbed the dairy cartel. Basically, it's a, I'm sure you've talked about it
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a lot on your show. I don't need to go into details with your audience, Corey, but it's a quota system
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for dairy farmers that results in a distortion of the market. A lot of milk products having to be
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dumped out, inability to sell to American markets. And it's, it's been widely, widely disputed,
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especially in Western Canada, especially in Alberta by Alberta farmers. So the poll shows that
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I think it was about a third, or maybe it was lower, maybe 20, about 24% of Albertans,
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if I remember correctly, support the supply management and many, many are opposed. A third
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point of that study was whether you support, you don't support, or if you're okay with it being used
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as a bargaining chip and a terra for. So at first glance at the study, it shows that Canadians are
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widely opposed to it. However, if you look into the details of it, they're a wide, a large percentage
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are actually willing to concede that it's not a crucial part of our economy.
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Yeah, no, it's an interesting one. And, but I mean, the overall headline I see they've been
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throwing out is that most Canadians support it. And that's the case you wonder, well, okay,
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who can sign the poll? That's what you got to look into folks. Cause some people say, well, it's Angus
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Reid. No, that's who did the poll, who paid the bill. And then when you look at the framing of
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the questions, but that's a whole separate discussion. Yeah, absolutely. And who was
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polled, which in this case was the Angus Reid forum. And you have to ask, well, who is nudged
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into signing up for the Angus Reid forum? That too. But it's interesting, at least it's come into the
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discussion because most people, I think that's part of the problem is most people don't even realize
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the system was there or what it does, but they are under threat now due to the trade.
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And if they have heard of it, a lot of people just heard of it through framing from the federal
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government, right? Is this safety net and this protectionism for farmers. And don't you want to
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save the farmers, right? When there's a whole other side, it's very nuanced issue as well.
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Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks for that update. You said there wasn't much news going on.
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Yeah, I guess there's always something to talk about, eh?
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Right on. Okay. Well, thank you again. I'll let you get back into that newsroom to
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dig out some more stories on this apparently slow news day.
00:14:47.000
Thank you. So that is our Jen Hartson. Yeah, as we said, very prolific, lots of stories,
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lots of stuff coming up out there. That's where I like to remind you folks, we are an
00:14:56.440
independent media outlet. That means we don't take tax dollars. The reason we can pay Jen and me and
00:15:02.280
John over there and the rest of us is because of subscribers. So if you've already subscribed,
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thank you very much. But if you haven't get on there guys, westernstandard.news slash subscription,
00:15:12.200
10 bucks a month, just like an old newspaper subscription, keeps things rolling for us,
00:15:15.880
keeps us independent, keeps us accountable to you. It's a hundred dollars for a year. Take advantage of that
00:15:21.320
volume discount for it. And then we can keep providing these stories that the other outlets
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just don't want to cover and touch. This is the future of media is independent media. Yeah. You
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know, that supply management thing, the funny thing is, I mean, I'll just throw a point out before I
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move on to my guest with this, you know, when they, they love claiming all these things, a couple for
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one, they say it's saving the family farm. Well, I put that out in a recent column. No, actually in the
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70s, we had like 140,000 dairy farms in Canada. Now we have less than 10,000. So if supply management
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was supposed to save the family farm, it's done a terrible job. By the way, uh, Gord Tulk did some
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good work on this. I'm going to talk about that a little later. Um, as well, the other aspects I'm
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seeing that they're saying we have to stop it to, you know, keep the supply management to stop the big,
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bad American products coming up because they're terrible, terrible dairy and milk products,
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and they're awful and their quality is terrible. Really? Well, and again, if that's the case,
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you don't need to be protected. Do you? Do you not trust Canadian shoppers to pick the better butter?
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Ah, it stinks. All right, let's move on and get to my, my guest here. And, uh, it's Tim Hagstrom.
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He's had rough treatment, as I said, kind of at the start of the show from the University of, uh,
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Saskatchewan or is it Saskatoon? The University of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan.
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Okay. Okay. I should know these things as a Westerner, but I appreciate it. You, you haven't
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taken it lying down and you're taking the fight back to the university. Uh, I guess we'll just
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kind of start though. What happened? Who's over there? You're a law student. Uh, there were some
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policies you wanted to question and what went from there? Well, thank you for having me on, uh,
00:16:59.800
Corey. And I'm sorry, I didn't get the memo, uh, but not rank genes in your office.
00:17:03.640
Oh, well, you can't see that from there. You never mentioned that. I mean, I've done
00:17:06.280
some shows with no pants, but they don't need to know that over there.
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We'll leave it at that. Uh, so, uh, yes, I, um, this started when I was in the third year of law
00:17:15.720
school in my winter semester in 2022. And I'd just come back from an exchange in Ottawa in the fall
00:17:23.240
and, uh, learned that there was a point of great contention, uh, among my classmates, uh,
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which had to do with an exam accommodation policy, uh, because there is one policy among others for
00:17:35.000
law students at the university of Saskatchewan that is only available to students who self-declare
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as indigenous. Um, I want to be clear about this. I never took a view on that policy. Uh, but what
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really concerned me at the time, uh, once I talked to a number of students who are really riled up about
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this is I saw students forming into two different factions and people from opposite factions were
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adopting these attitudes that I thought were quite corrosive. They didn't want to talk to each
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other. They didn't see, um, you know, the highest that could be said or didn't want to see that in,
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in the other side. Uh, so that's what I spoke out about. Uh, I, I read out a letter that I'd written,
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uh, to my classmates. You can find it online. Um, and, uh, I got punished for that.
00:18:22.360
Yeah. And, and it, I mean, it's indicative of a bigger trend. You, you, you, you looked at things
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from that traditional view. It's the institution of higher learning. It's an area where there's
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supposed to be discourse. Or if we want to go back to the ancient Greeks, you know,
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you're supposed to be philosophizing and sharing different notions, even if you differ. And that
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concept is really quite lost for most post-secondary institutions. Now it seems it's a bad group think
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approach. Well, that that's exactly what I'm finding fighting to defend. And I really believe in that.
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So the case we have now, uh, at the, uh, Saskatchewan court of King's bench is quite interesting
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because we've got two expert reports now, uh, to explain concepts that are going to be
00:19:01.240
important in this litigation. Uh, so one expert report is on the recognized principles of academic
00:19:06.520
freedom because the university of Saskatchewan act, which gives the university its powers requires
00:19:12.040
that the Senate, the board and the council do things having regard to the recognized principles
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of academic freedom. And this expert report paints a picture of what I believe in, which is a community
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of scholars and students who are openly and sincerely discussing things, uh, where the moral and
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intellectual autonomy of every individual is prized. And to my mind, this is the only way that a
00:19:35.480
university can fulfill its promise to society, which is to discover knowledge and transmit it and not get
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stuck in attitudes that prevent people from looking for their blind spots.
00:19:48.120
Yeah. So, and I mean, it didn't just end with, with some hostile times and in the end, I mean,
00:19:53.080
you've completed your, your, your university and such, but you got sanctioned essentially. I mean,
00:19:57.880
there were consequences they laid upon you for this.
00:20:00.120
Yes. So what happened is I, I read this letter, uh, towards the end of third year. And then as I was
00:20:06.040
just finishing up exams, I received a notice of a complaint that another student had made. Uh, I thought it
00:20:11.640
would be dismissed and it wasn't. Uh, then I thought we could try a mediated conversation to resolve what I
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felt must be a misunderstanding that didn't happen. Uh, instead I was found guilty of having committed
00:20:22.360
harassment by reading this letter. Uh, we tried an appeal at the university and they upheld that
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decision. So now there's a sanction, uh, there's a reprimand on my file. I don't know if it's been
00:20:33.880
written yet. I'd be interested to read it. And, uh, they ordered that I write an apology letter that
00:20:40.680
acknowledged that what I said caused harm. And this would amount to, uh, denouncing my own beliefs.
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I'm not willing to do that. No. And, and, and that's where it starts smacking. I don't want
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to draw too many close analogies, but you know, of the old oppressive regimes where they would reeducate.
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And if a person still has, has been found guilty of, of stepping outside of the line, yes,
00:21:03.960
forced apologies, forced retractions. And that's not healthy. I mean, unless it's genuine anyways,
00:21:12.280
whether you're right or wrong, forcing apologies is, is, is not beneficial.
00:21:16.760
Well, I agreed with that. And it's interesting when I made submissions to that, uh, this hearing
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board who decided the sanction, I looked at their policy and it says they can request an apology.
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It doesn't say they can require one. And I told them, if you request an apology from me,
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it will have no practical effect. You should choose something else, uh, because I can't issue that
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apology. So kind of getting back to what you questioned. I mean, I know part of it is questioning
00:21:40.600
just the whole process and not allowing you to discuss this, but I mean, just so people know what
00:21:44.360
was underlying with this is that there's a different length of time that self-identified
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indigenous students may have to write exams as opposed to other students, which I, I guess,
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you know, it could be debatable on whether, uh, indigenous students just need that extra time
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and it'll be beneficial, or it is an unfair racially based, uh, uh, change of, of requirements for
00:22:10.360
different students. I mean, these are the things we should have then discussed if we're going to have
00:22:13.480
it, but the bottom line is what you're told is you don't even talk about it.
00:22:17.400
That's exactly it. And that policy has been around for a long time at the college.
00:22:22.520
They're wanting to do something about underrepresentation, uh, for indigenous people
00:22:26.440
in the legal profession and at the college of law. And I think reasonable people can come
00:22:31.160
at that, uh, from different angles, including the one that the college has settled on.
00:22:36.040
But what's really an issue in this case is this broader point of our students even allowed to discuss
00:22:41.080
this. And I think it's important that we're in this litigation, uh, wanting to be very precise
00:22:47.960
about what's an issue. Uh, so we've uncovered a number of policy documents at the university,
00:22:54.680
uh, that actually had a bearing in this case, even though that wasn't quite clear as I was going
00:22:59.320
through the proceedings. And we've brought this second expert report to help explain that. Um, so what
00:23:05.640
we're hoping to persuade the court is that, uh, the university has taken a specific intellectual,
00:23:12.760
or sorry, an institutional commitment starting in about 2020, the summer of 2020. I don't know if
00:23:18.680
you remember, that was a summer of racial reckoning, particularly. And when it says, I don't know more
00:23:23.560
was exploding and, and, uh, well, no, that was after Idle and War. That was the, the, the, uh,
00:23:28.440
summer Kamloops to Floyd. And yes, there was a long loop in Canada. Um, and so what the university did
00:23:35.960
was, uh, they committed to doing more about racism and how they did this is that they, uh,
00:23:41.720
appointed an individual to be a special advisor on anti-racism, uh, to establish a committee which
00:23:48.040
had very vast powers at the university. And this person happened to be a post-colonial scholar,
00:23:54.040
which is a very, uh, interesting, uh, worldview. I don't believe in it at all. Um, but I do respect
00:24:00.440
people's moral and intellectual autonomy. So I respect that people can have that worldview of
00:24:05.880
post-colonial, uh, studies, but what happens once the university takes that on as an institutional
00:24:11.160
commitment? Uh, that's, what's issue at issue in this litigation. Um, so what our expert explains
00:24:17.000
is that in this worldview of post-colonial studies, um, there's a certain degree of moral relativism.
00:24:23.560
Uh, they don't completely believe in objective truth. So that's somewhere where I disagree. Um,
00:24:29.800
and the way it manifests specifically is that, uh, claims made by indigenous people are thought to be
00:24:36.920
on a higher level. Um, in some instances, they're not to be questioned at all.
00:24:41.640
And, uh, the other sort of precept of this worldview is that every equality of, sorry,
00:24:48.680
every inequality of outcome between indigenous and non-indigenous people must have been caused by
00:24:54.600
some sort of moral depravity, uh, that they tend to call, uh, white supremacy or, or other words like
00:25:00.760
this. Um, what happens when you think that every unequal, unequal outcome, uh, must be caused by some
00:25:09.000
The thing is always somebody else's fault. It's not a healthy mindset to take on for oneself for personal
00:25:14.520
growth. Uh, you can, you can face injustice and it, and things are unfair and can happen to people.
00:25:20.120
But when it's really ingrained like that, I mean, it's, it's a questionable approach to give to people.
00:25:25.560
Well, what it does is it shut down, shuts down speech. And that's what we've seen here. Um,
00:25:30.840
the hearing board, I think read this case as, first of all, there's this debate that was going on
00:25:37.640
about this policy dealing with extra time on exams. And for the hearing board, there is no debate.
00:25:44.920
Of course that policy is necessary because if there are unequal outcomes in terms of indigenous
00:25:49.640
people being represented in the legal profession and so on, it must be caused by white supremacy.
00:25:54.680
There's no defending the outcome. And so there's no critiquing a measure that's meant to level that
00:26:00.600
And that unfortunately prevents people from seeking solutions, assuming there are things outside of
00:26:06.120
uh, you know, white, uh, nationalism, supremacy, that's been holding it down. I, I, I mean,
00:26:11.240
I was kind of talking about that a bit before the show, I've been visiting reserves and sharing video
00:26:15.000
and things. I mean, there's just some socioeconomic challenges that are happening on reserves and in
00:26:20.440
the system. And we can go far enough back as to how it ended up here where it is now, but those are
00:26:25.480
going to hinder people making it to a higher level of post-secondary education. Like there's some
00:26:29.480
solutions we need to go into much deeper than just constantly pointing the finger at colonialism and
00:26:34.920
Well, that's exactly right. And I just go back to the point I made earlier that this vision I have of
00:26:39.960
academic freedom to me is the way for universities to fulfill the promise to Canadian society.
00:26:46.360
Um, but one of our experts actually makes this point. It hadn't occurred to me before, but it's quite
00:26:51.320
interesting. Um, if the goal is to have more indigenous people in a university, in a genuine university
00:26:58.280
experience, you can't turn the university into something that isn't a university because they're not
00:27:04.040
getting that experience. Um, so I'm, I'm here to preserve that experience and I hope everybody gets
00:27:09.640
access to it, but it's gotta still be a university.
00:27:12.280
Well, yeah. And it becomes unfair. I worry about that as somebody who will
00:27:17.000
rely on professionals and on a number of levels through life of whether it's doctors, lawyers,
00:27:22.360
and such, and you want to pick who you feel is going to be the best person to do that job.
00:27:26.600
And there's that unfairness that starts to come with a double standard going towards certain
00:27:31.320
groups and minorities. Whereas even unconsciously, I might start ruling out other individuals because,
00:27:36.600
well, maybe that person went through it without having the proper program and training that I
00:27:40.840
expect in a university. And it actually puts who could be some very fantastic lawyers, doctors,
00:27:46.520
engineers at a disadvantage because people look out of the corner, well, was it DEI or were they really
00:27:53.320
get to that position on merit? It's just not doing favors to the indigenous community.
00:27:57.960
Well, certainly those are, uh, positions that reasonable people can take to critique these policies.
00:28:03.480
I think I understand where the college is coming from as well. They want to do something. And, um,
00:28:08.680
are you going to have some very, uh, invasive, uh, you know, detailed application from every single
00:28:15.640
person to find out who needs how much accommodation? Um, they decided not to do it that way. So, you know,
00:28:22.520
you can argue it both ways, but, uh, what, where the university, I think really stepped over a line
00:28:28.920
here is all of this blood into, uh, disciplinary proceedings. They were actually willing to use
00:28:35.480
in our submissions in court. Uh, we say they were willing to use, uh, the non-academic misconduct
00:28:41.240
proceedings to enforce, um, as the appeal board of the university puts it, that they can educate a
00:28:48.440
student that it is inappropriate, uh, to discuss that they're indigenous and non-indigenous groups of
00:28:54.280
students and that the non-indigenous students are treated unfairly. That's why I was punished.
00:29:00.280
So I know that the university doesn't mind separating people into indigenous and indigenous.
00:29:05.320
They're even happy to make sweeping generalizations.
00:29:09.640
Yeah. But what I was punished for is suggesting that the wrong group is being treated unfairly.
00:29:14.600
So beyond the broader problems that you want to talk about in a minute with this whole
00:29:18.600
attitude though, with yourself now, do these punitive actions impact your career or are they going to,
00:29:24.920
or have they, uh, they, they have, um, I, I like to sort of, uh, you know, endure this and not to not
00:29:32.600
complain much about it, but you ask the question, it's a fair question. And they have, um, as long as
00:29:37.640
these proceedings were ongoing, I had to disclose them. Um, I, I did some, uh, legal work in Saskatchewan,
00:29:44.440
uh, and then I applied to be a lawyer in Alberta. So both law societies regulate that from each
00:29:50.440
province. I had to disclose, uh, when these proceedings were ongoing, uh, when a decision
00:29:55.880
came out and then that gave the law societies the ability to review my good character. Um, so that's
00:30:02.280
been, uh, an adventure, let's say, um, it takes up a lot of time and, um, it, it just has affected,
00:30:10.920
I think my options in terms of being called to the bar as quickly as my peers and, um, you know,
00:30:18.040
being able to just launch into my profession without this, uh, hanging over me as, as something
00:30:22.680
where I still need to clear my name. Yeah. And I just wanted to establish that. Cause you know,
00:30:26.120
you, you have filed, you know, a suit against the university and, and it's, you know, not because
00:30:31.640
you just have your nose out of joint or something. I mean, this is potentially caused serious damages
00:30:36.120
to you. Thus, you know, you, you want to see that, uh, remedied. Yes. Yeah. I want to see, um,
00:30:42.520
actually I, I, I know you said before in this segment, uh, you've, uh, you don't have a great
00:30:47.960
degree of faith in our justice system. Um, I believe in our justice system. I believe that the court,
00:30:53.880
uh, is going to get this case, right. I think we've got a strong case and, uh, we're inviting the
00:30:59.720
court to grapple with what happens when a university takes on as an institutional commitment
00:31:06.280
this world view of post-colonial studies, which isn't receptive to, uh, debate about things that
00:31:12.360
they take for granted. Um, and basically we say it offends the principles of academic freedom.
00:31:18.200
So it's not lawful according to the statute that gives the university its powers and it offends the
00:31:23.080
charter, uh, because their constitution is founded on principles of classical liberalism,
00:31:28.600
where individuals have the freedom, uh, to express themselves and, uh, you know,
00:31:33.000
opine on matters of the day, including controversial matters.
00:31:36.360
Yeah. Well, and I mean, foundationally our, our common law system, I think is, is great.
00:31:41.960
And it has some great things. I just feel it's quite drifted from what it was supposed to be,
00:31:45.800
uh, in some cases, particularly criminal law, but that's kind of side down.
00:31:48.920
Fair enough. This is not a criminal cut law case, thankfully.
00:31:51.800
But if, if they are following the tenants of what should be established in law,
00:31:55.480
then you should be confidently, uh, you know, it should serve you well through this,
00:31:59.560
but I mean, how long, what kind of timeline are you looking at on this now?
00:32:02.840
It's very hard to say. Uh, I think we're past three years now from when I first learned of the
00:32:07.320
complaint, we had to sort of march our way through all the proceedings in the university.
00:32:11.560
Uh, now we're at the beginning stages at the court of King's bench. Um, it could take many more years.
00:32:18.440
Well, and as you know, again, it was a system of precedents though. So I mean, assuming that the
00:32:23.160
things end well, as, as they could for you in this, would this then, uh, encourage universities
00:32:30.520
to change or examine their policies? Like, could this have broader reaching, uh, implications for
00:32:36.040
we have approached this in a way where I think it can have very, very broad reaching implications.
00:32:41.320
We're taking on the policies at the university of Saskatchewan that affect all members of that
00:32:45.960
university. The language there, um, is similar to that, what you would find in other universities,
00:32:52.920
across Canada. And it really takes on the implications of this worldview. The broader
00:32:58.920
worldview is critical social justice. Um, and that's detailed in, in our experts report.
00:33:04.440
Uh, anywhere that that's happening in a university, this case could have implications.
00:33:08.520
Yeah. Well, I'm just hoping maybe it resets things. As I kind of said before the show,
00:33:12.280
I'm a little concerned as a guy who's getting a little longer in the tooth. And I understand it's
00:33:16.440
the next generation coming up, who's going to be running this world where they're a senior citizen.
00:33:20.520
And I just want to make sure they've had as good and well-rounded an education as possible.
00:33:25.160
And, and, uh, our post-secondary institutions are kind of, I think at a point of crisis with that
00:33:29.640
needs correction. So I guess I'm just hoping your case can, can help, uh, nudge that a little back
00:33:34.280
to where it belongs. Well, every generation has to fight these battles, I think. So, so you,
00:33:40.280
you've got your eyes on the right issues. Um, I just want to specify I'm speaking only in my personal
00:33:45.080
capacity, you know, not, not for any other organization. Um, although I'm supported in
00:33:49.720
this case by, by charity, I wouldn't be able to do it without them. Yeah. Well, and then the
00:33:55.000
justice center for constitutional freedoms is representing me on a different thing. I've got
00:33:58.360
myself into the soup with, I mean, they, you know, there's good organizations that help us out when
00:34:02.120
we've, uh, well, if they accept those cases, so there's nothing wrong with that. Absolutely.
00:34:07.080
Uh, so before I let you go, where, where can people keep track of what's happening with this
00:34:11.000
and what you're up to, uh, on this? So, uh, yes, the, the organization that is supporting me
00:34:16.360
in making this possible is called freedoms advocate. They can be found at freedomsadvocate.ca.
00:34:21.000
Um, the priests selective about their cases. So people should be able to find mine pretty quickly.
00:34:25.800
Um, and we rely on donations. So if anybody's inclined and able to make a contribution, they can
00:34:31.240
donate, uh, through that website, freedomsadvocate.ca, uh, to the cause of protecting the freedom of speech.
00:34:37.960
Great. And I just saw you're, uh, active with the Runnymede society and you want to
00:34:42.040
maybe a little audience know what that is or what it's about. Oh, yes. So, um, the Runnymede society
00:34:47.480
is a special project. It's existed almost for 10 years and, uh, we're at, uh, different law schools
00:34:54.040
across Canada. Almost all of them were mostly volunteer led and we host events to grapple with
00:35:00.520
legal matters of the day, um, with intellectual diversity. Uh, so we're taking
00:35:06.920
a different track from what you'd find often in the classroom. And, uh, the Runnymede society is,
00:35:12.920
it's very important to the organization not to take a position on specific legal issues.
00:35:18.440
It upholds broader principles of constitutionalism, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms.
00:35:24.360
Uh, even in my case, the organization takes no position. I want to make that clear because people
00:35:29.240
need to be able to come to their own conclusions. Well, it's the same principle as with the university,
00:35:34.040
you know, you can debate it and discuss it, not taking a stance necessarily. That's, that's the
00:35:38.120
whole. Yeah, exactly. Well, I appreciate you, you know, not taking it laying down. I mean,
00:35:43.000
you could have just kind of finished school, complied with their things and moved on with
00:35:46.040
your career, but, but you're trying to do something proactively after the fact to, to,
00:35:50.280
well, for your own sake, but I think in, in the broader sake as well. So I appreciate that.
00:35:54.440
And you're coming in to talk to us today. Thanks so much for having me on. All right. Well,
00:35:58.040
and I wish you the best as it, as you said, drags out. It's going to take a while through the courts,
00:36:01.320
but hopefully it gets a good outcome. I hope so too. Thanks again. Thank you.
00:36:06.120
So, yeah, guys, if you want to look it up, Tim Hagstrom and, and yes, you can help out with,
00:36:10.120
uh, you know, those, uh, societies and groups that do help in these things. As I said,
00:36:15.400
the justice center is helping me and then others are helping others. So if you want to kind of lend
00:36:19.400
a hand, cause you know, there's more to this, as you can see with the discussion, it's deeper,
00:36:24.040
it's important and it's going to impact all of us in a way, even if you're not going to post-secondary,
00:36:29.560
uh, institutions, the people who graduate from them are going to have an impact on your life.
00:36:35.800
Uh, as I said, professionals, whether it's, uh, doctors, lawyers, chemists, engineers, you name it.
00:36:41.400
Uh, see what we got going on in the comments here. Uh, yeah, it's a lot of, um,
00:36:48.280
advanced fashions pointing out when the law society requires the acceptance of untruth is fact, then, uh,
00:36:53.320
uh, basis sentences and career longevity on that. There, there isn't a legal system. There's
00:36:57.640
religious tyranny. Yeah. The law societies are a whole other ball of wax. I've had guests on here
00:37:02.920
to talk about that. I've talked with Jonathan Dennis and others, cause they've been given a rough go
00:37:07.560
with the law societies, which are kind of becoming a little too woke and forgetting, I think what the,
00:37:12.280
their mandate should be again, and trying to maintain balance. Law is an, an interesting area of
00:37:19.400
education in that it's not a hard science, like, uh, you know, math chemistry, uh, you know, physics,
00:37:29.800
where, where you're going to have some solid rules that are incontrovertible, unless you're extremely
00:37:34.440
woke and say two plus two equals five. But you know what I mean? Law is actually an area where
00:37:39.880
it's an ongoing debate. It's just, it's more of a philosophical calling. I mean, it's an important one,
00:37:45.400
but it's one that's changing and flowing with time. So you, it's hard to come up with solid rules and
00:37:52.440
what's right, what's wrong. And it's up to those lawyers to do that task. And of course our judges
00:37:59.720
later on tend to come from the, the legal class. And it was, as I, I said to Tim and I, I didn't expect
00:38:08.040
him to go into that exactly, you know, but I fear for that. When we do DEI on the qualifications
00:38:13.800
to try and get more of people from other particular groups graduating, I worry that we're getting
00:38:22.200
lesser quality graduates or, and it must be infuriating. I'm certain there's some indigenous
00:38:28.280
or black or other people that graduated from schools and they worked their butts off and they
00:38:33.240
did fantastic and they're brilliant and they've earned every degree and, uh, you know, recognition
00:38:39.960
that they've gotten, but they know that some people kind of look out the corner of their eye
00:38:44.200
and say, well, was that DEI? Did they really go through the same process as everybody else?
00:38:49.160
It's unfair to them because again, as I said, I, I, to be honest, uh, I would question and I'd have to
00:38:58.440
see, I guess a longer work time resume if I were in a position of hiring for somebody in one of these
00:39:03.080
positions. But if it was fresh out of school, no, I probably I'll say it bluntly. I wouldn't hire people
00:39:08.040
from those, uh, minorities, not because I dislike the minority, but I worry that they wouldn't be as
00:39:12.360
well qualified as some of the others. And this is, is, is causing harm to the people it's supposed to
00:39:18.600
help. Now, getting back to law, getting back to where we're going, getting back to where I, as I
00:39:24.120
said, our, our, our systems in terminal condition, let's talk about immigration. This is a story some
00:39:28.360
others have probably seen recently. I mean, this is where it gets bizarre too. How are these guys getting
00:39:32.840
on the bench? So this is an Ontario resident, resident, not a Canadian citizen. Let's be clear
00:39:37.880
about that. Tried to buy sex from what he thought was a 15 year old. Yeah. So it was a sting operation.
00:39:45.240
He was caught for trying to, uh, lure a minor. He's a pedophile. Let's say it for what it is.
00:39:52.440
He was given a conditional discharge by the judge. Why? To help him stay in Canada because he's not a
00:40:00.360
citizen yet. So if he got convicted of this, it might impact his ability to become a citizen.
00:40:07.880
Really? Yes. I want it impacted. The man's a pedophile. He pursues children. I want him the
00:40:15.240
hell out of our country. What kind of judge makes an allowance for scum like this to keep him in?
00:40:25.480
I mean, people say, Oh, how do you define who deserves to stay within Canada? Who doesn't among
00:40:30.920
immigrants? Well, here's one of the lines is pretty simple. If they're child predators,
00:40:34.440
we don't want them. Yet a judge couldn't figure that out, made an exception for this man
00:40:42.680
and said, no, we don't want to convict him because it might impact his ability to become a citizen.
00:40:48.520
What the hell is wrong with you guys? And it's this kind of garbage, this, this, this immigration crap
00:40:57.480
it's going on. Speaking of things that get unfair to others, but we've got to clean up
00:41:04.920
our system on who we're accepting, who we are in Canada is built on immigration. Immigrations are what
00:41:10.440
immigrants are what make us strong. They bring a work ethic here. They bring professions. They bring
00:41:15.800
their families. They contribute to the country, but there's a bunch within them that don't. There's a bunch
00:41:22.680
that are sick. There's a bunch that cause problems. If you saw that Western standard
00:41:26.600
story on that gang in Ontario that was busted because they'd been doing home invasions all
00:41:32.840
over the place. And you saw the names and the people participating in it, guys, they were all new
00:41:39.800
Canadians. They should be the hell out of here, gone, make room for the people who want to come here
00:41:47.560
and abide by the law. People who want to come here and work and make a living and make a better life
00:41:52.840
for themselves. Why is it so difficult to just look at these things objectively and figure out some of
00:42:01.160
the easy ones, right? Man wants to pick up 15 year old children and molest them. That's one we don't
00:42:07.880
want. I don't need to be a judge to understand that. I don't need a law degree to understand that. I'm
00:42:13.880
pretty confident most Canadians will accept that kind of ruling. And it gets to the stupid, you know,
00:42:20.040
an issue that's been big lately too with, oh, the big book ban in Alberta. Oh, the Alberta government's
00:42:25.080
cracking down and banning books. Oh, they're virtual fascists because they're banning books.
00:42:31.160
And then the people start, where do you draw the line? How can we allow people to start judging
00:42:35.320
which books are appropriate for children within children's libraries and which aren't?
00:42:39.720
And I've been posting that on X. It's pretty easy to draw the line on some of them because one of the
00:42:43.480
books that was in Alberta schools in front of children in a library depicted a couple of men
00:42:50.680
going down on each other. Guess what? There, there's one you can safely remove from the list. Is it really
00:42:58.760
that complicated? Was it really that hard? Do you really need to allow it all? No, pull the porn. It's
00:43:07.880
not that complicated. But these naval gazers, these hammerheads, and I really wonder where their
00:43:14.360
interests are, who want to get that in front of our kids. You know, and then there are people saying,
00:43:19.400
oh, so they're pulling it because of homophobia. No, they're pulling it because it's frigging porn.
00:43:23.400
And, you know, I saw somebody speaking on X who said it. Well, he's a gentleman from the LGBTQ community
00:43:32.920
or said, why is this always sexualized anyways? You know, they can discuss LGBTQ things with kids as
00:43:39.320
they're growing, as they're figuring out who they are and what they're going to be without going into,
00:43:44.360
oh, by the way, here's the better way to give a man head. It doesn't, you know, they reduced it to the
00:43:51.000
sexual component. There's more to being gay than having sex with each other. Isn't there?
00:43:59.000
There's the relationship, but these nutcases, we get into these positions, judges, higher education,
00:44:08.360
our public education system, where they really can't figure out what's porn or what's not what's
00:44:15.800
appropriate to become in front of kids. It's not again, getting back to where Gordon maybe thought it
00:44:20.520
was, uh, exaggerating when I say things are in terminal condition. Well, when we're seeing stuff
00:44:25.320
like this going on, I'd say it's getting a little terminal. If we have a society that really can't
00:44:30.360
figure out when porn is appropriate to put in front of children or not. Yeah. We got a terminal problem,
00:44:36.440
guys. And we got to talk bluntly to it. We got to accept it. We got to get realistic about it.
00:44:43.400
Uh, another one. I'm going to just stir up the anti-vaccination folks among
00:44:48.520
bios. The measles outbreak. It's been getting big. It's been getting wider. Look, folks,
00:44:53.240
it's a hundred percent preventable. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of talking about all
00:44:56.440
vaccinations. Most people were talking about with the COVID thing, which is separate. They're saying,
00:45:00.680
I accept all the old vaccinations, the proven ones, the polio, the measles, the rubella, the mumps,
00:45:06.600
whatever, all that. Well, not everybody did obviously because there haven't been enough
00:45:10.280
vaccinations and now measles is going around and we don't need it to be going around. I know it's not
00:45:14.760
the most harmful disease in the world, but it's still one you don't want your kids getting if you
00:45:19.400
don't have to. I don't believe in vaccine mandates. Never have, never will. It has to be a choice. It
00:45:26.040
must be a choice. And I think part of the reason people aren't taking it up is because the bloody
00:45:30.760
coercion and crap that came out during COVID, the government actually built the mistrust
00:45:35.400
that led to fewer people getting the vaccinations. But guys, please look into it. We don't need to
00:45:41.320
be battling measles. This is one that should be behind us. So keep it in mind. All right,
00:45:47.240
lots going on. Check in for the pipeline. It's going to come on a little bit later tonight
00:45:51.960
and the rest of our stuff. Be sure to share our links, subscribe, all that good stuff.
00:45:57.720
Send me emails if you've got more you want, coverage, stories, ideas, things like that.
00:46:01.720
And of course, take out a subscription with the standard if you haven't already.
00:46:04.680
So thank you again for tuning in today, guys, and we'll see you next week at this time.