Eva Chipiuk interview on Emergencies Act Inquiry report
Episode Stats
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Summary
On this episode of the Freedom Council's Emergency Act inquiry, we speak with Eva Cipiuk, a Freedom Council lawyer, about the release of the final report from the inquiry into the events surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks in Canada.
Transcript
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She was, is one of the Freedom Council lawyers.
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I'm not going to say Chief Counsel because I got in trouble
00:00:07.340
for that last time, but certainly one of the people
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who is most recognizable as representing the Freedom Convoy
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and putting the gears to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
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on that last day of the inquiry on November 25th.
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I remember that day very well, but he certainly,
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Ab, but obviously I want to get right to this report
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The, and obviously I'm talking about the Emergency Act
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inquiry report, it came out on Friday, February 17th,
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Yeah, and you know, great question too, because I go back
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to what Mr. Rouleau said on the first day of the inquiry.
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This is meant to be a transparent process so that the public,
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And yet we didn't know when the report was coming out.
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And I actually think we found out about it via the news first,
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because media said that there was a copy coming out.
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That goes to show whether or not this process was in fact,
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as we went into it with good faith, thinking it was an unbiased process
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that was meant to look at the truth, but even just with this kind
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administrative, administrative, terrible, I can't call it a hiccup at the end.
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You cannot put parties through six weeks of intense proceedings where some
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of our clients have been vilified as basically the worst un-Canadian criminal people
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in all of Canada and not even give us the courtesy of letting us know when the copy of the report
00:02:06.120
And then I don't know if you know, David, but what the board ended up doing or the commission
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was they provided a copy to the Ottawa journalists in person for over two hours.
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They had two hours to review it and not, no parties that I know of, I can't tell you whether
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or not the federal government got it in advance at this point, a little bit, I've lost faith
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So I wouldn't, I would not be surprised if they of course got a copy in advance, just like
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the Ottawa media party, as some call them, but parties that were really put through the
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There was a media lockup on, on that morning, much like a budget lockup.
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And I, I found that to be, once again, it was last minute.
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But of course, a couple of days before the report was released, we had the retirement and
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not the resignation, but the retirement of RCMP commissioner, Brenda Luckey.
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I thought that perhaps was going to signal something about the report that there was going
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And, and of course there was from Justice Paul Rouleau, but I thought perhaps that was an
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indication that Rouleau was going to come down on, on Trudeau and, and on your side in this.
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Were you at all surprised with the report's conclusions?
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Uh, you know, of course, uh, in that it's just, if anybody watched the commission, if anybody
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watched, um, live streaming of the protests in Onewa, if anybody was there, they know that
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there, this was the farthest thing from a national security threat you can get.
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Uh, this was pure incompetence on government levels and police authorities that plain and
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simple, um, and people should not be vilified and, and criminalized and demeaned and defamed
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because the government cannot, uh, be competent in their management of Canadians.
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And it certainly is embarrassing on Canadians for their government, uh, not embarrassing
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In my opinion, I think the report, because it went so far is, um, I think that the government
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has overplayed their hand as they did many times in Ottawa.
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For example, uh, when the police was, were taking fuel from protesters, we saw the reaction
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They came together and they provided fuel when they tried to freeze assets, uh, Canadians
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were pouring in with more cash donations and, and helping out with food.
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So this is just another overstep by the government.
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I wrote a column the, uh, the day of the report's release.
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And I said it was appalling that Justice Rulo allowed Trudeau to get away with this.
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But I found one thing interesting in his comments.
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And of course, I haven't gone through the entire report.
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We had time to go through the executive summary, basically.
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And he put his lead, he buried his lead at the very last, like judges are apt to do.
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But when he finally says, I haven't concluded that in this case, the very high threshold for
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So he's saying that he met the high threshold, but the end he says he's reluctant to say that.
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I almost sensed that there was a, that he really didn't want to say that the government did the
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Yeah, and I think you went further in that comment too, saying that maybe reasonable Canadians would
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Well, no, Rulo, that is actually, that was your job to look at the circumstances.
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Um, Rulo was asked to look at the circumstances of what, why the federal government invoked the
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That is not his job to say whether or not he was justified in doing so.
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So he went further than he needed to, and then kind of backpedaled with some of it.
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Um, and this is something I heard Keith say, so I'm going to use it going to the 2000 page report.
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If you want everybody to read a decision or report, you make it five pages.
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If you want, um, more people to read it, um, and get an understanding for a 20 pages,
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if you want nobody to read it, you'd make it 2000 pages.
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Um, and I don't think it takes, uh, you know, too many people to figure it out.
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I was reading this morning and the Globe and Mail, I think I said,
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such a copy of this is that, and I found this absolutely astounding that the Globe and Mail,
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which has really been, I think, over the last couple of years in true to his pocket,
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came up with an editorial where they say we disagree, for instance, with his conclusion,
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speaking of Justice Paul Rulo, that the invocation was justified.
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Well, again, this is where I'm thinking the government overplayed their hand here,
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And people reasonable Canadians are talking now and saying that this is not reasonable.
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And I'd like to remind you, David, and I use this in my social media, um, kind of, uh, when I,
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a while ago, Globe and Mail also had a great editorial about, um,
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And, um, they really put themselves forward on that saying that we cannot move forward in this
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process transparently and hold the government to account if the entire legal opinion is completely
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So they, there was an indication that there were concerns with it.
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I think what's happened in the last two, three years is that, like I said earlier, honest,
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good work, hardworking Canadians have been vilified so badly by this government
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that anybody that wants to take a stand just stays back because they don't want to target on their back,
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And I'm going to even say defamatory campaign that they've gone on calling people that have done
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nothing more than call, ask to hold their government to account, calling them terrorists.
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But I think now people are starting to wake up that this has gone on way too far and gone
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way too crazy and, and they're going to start talking.
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I, I've noted that the decision has not gone over well in parts of Europe and United States.
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There has been criticism that Trudeau just got away with this.
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And do you think that's going to resonate some more?
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Well, so, you know, the, the one thing is he hasn't gotten away with anything, um,
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because like I said, this wasn't Rouleau's job to decide whether or not the, it was justified.
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There's so many legal processes and I'm with Canadians.
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It's unfortunate because it ends up being a waste of money for who Canadians, because Canadian
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taxpayers are the one that are, are funding the legal defense on the, on Canada side.
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Um, and you know what, maybe that's something that's starting to start to change.
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If we're trying to hold our government to account on things like this, maybe, maybe they should
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be pulling it out of their own pocket instead of relying on good, hardworking Canadians to be
00:10:23.100
Um, so there is a judicial review of the emergent of the decision.
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So that's still in federal court and that's going to be heard in April.
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And that's the proper forum for a judge to say whether or not this decision was justified.
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And, you know, since the federal government has thrown this into the public realm and into the
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court of public opinion, let's use the court of public opinion.
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It's more powerful now I've realized than court systems.
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It seems sometimes it's a lot more immediate and it's a lot cheaper.
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Um, so if in the court of opinion, public opinion, we win, that's a win.
00:11:04.140
If the world is talking about how unjustified this was and, and the, the rule report was
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I've heard, I think you use those words and I've heard that already a lot.
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But as you, as you say, though, that there's still the court of public opinion,
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and you're also saying there's another judicial process.
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I don't think most Canadians are aware of that.
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They thought Rouleau's assertions were the final say on this.
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And again, like he said at the beginning is they're not binding.
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So he only makes recommendations, but a judge is actually going to say whether or not that law was
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Basically, the words Canadians are looking for, that's for a judge to decide, not the commissioner.
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But that's where I've lost a bit of faith there, David, is if we're looking at a truth-seeking
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process, you don't provide documents on the last week.
00:12:02.540
You don't redact documents to the extent that they did.
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And what we were going through, 10 minutes to cross-examine a witness, including Prime Minister
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And I'm sorry, but I went into this process with good faith.
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And the government and the commission really didn't seem to deliver.
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Do you think, though, by Rouleau saying that they met the threshold, that this was justified,
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and these recommendations that he's made to sort of water down the act just a bit,
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is that going to make it more tenable in the future for governments to use this authoritarian mechanism?
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And this is what Canadians need to think about when they go to the polls, is ask members of
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Parliament whether you agree with that or whether, if you're in office, are you going to change this?
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And I think that, I hope that Canadians, again, have woken up to the fact that if we're going to be
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so willy-nilly with these kind of draconian tools, we can't keep letting that happen.
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And we need public officials to stand for Canadians and not for the government.
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If there's anything beyond this next judicial process, is there still work to be done?
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This was a little battle, but there's a large war ahead of us here because there is,
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as you might recall, there's still political prisoners.
00:14:00.620
And I think that we need to put our attention on political, because they're going to continue
00:14:09.340
There's a $400 million class action against some of the protesters in Canada that were in
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And I have some really great ideas on other lawsuits that we can launch.
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And this has just caused me to fuel it up a little bit and get into gear.
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Well, you always seem to be in high gear, Emma.
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And I know you're off to Toronto this afternoon.
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And as the story continues to unfold, I know you're going to be a major part of it.
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So Avya Chippia Legal Counsel for the Freedom Convoy,
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I thank you for joining the Western Standard today.