Western Standard - Is there ＂Free Speech＂ in Canada？ This University legal action may tell us!

00:00:00.000 welcome to the drill Western standards periodic show covering timely topics this episode we're

00:00:15.660 featuring Angelo Isidoro executive director of the UBC free speech club Angelo how are you today

00:00:22.800 I'm doing well you doing doing good actually I'm filming here from Victoria of course you're

00:00:29.400 you're in Vancouver and we just recently had a massive dump of snow here on the west coast which

00:00:35.260 we're not used to oh but somehow we both survived and now we're here right on and and we had a bunch

00:00:44.160 of power issues on Wednesday when we when we went to record so instead of filming this on January 15th

00:00:49.740 when the news broke we're filming it on January 17th so thank you for for taking the time to be

00:00:54.600 with us today I know you must be really busy with this whole Andy no situation and for those of you

00:01:01.200 who haven't paid attention to this topic Andy no is journalist out of Portland famous for a number

00:01:09.300 of reasons probably most famous for showing up on the Joe Rogan show after having a milkshake to

00:01:14.400 the face and and a concussion as a result after I guess a confrontation with Antifa which she which

00:01:23.460 is sort of his beat he he's kind of the journalist there that's talking about what's going on with

00:01:28.680 Antifa locally and yeah and obviously UBC free speech club decided hey here's a great speaker to come in

00:01:38.580 part of us an upcoming series which I guess you can let us know about and abruptly UBC told you no

00:01:46.740 they're not gonna allow them to come so why don't you why don't we dive in at any part there that you

00:01:53.040 think is yeah at least to start but maybe maybe you can start with the latest and we'll work our way

00:01:58.920 backwards so we're not today well the latest right now is we're living the dream and we're suing UBC which

00:02:06.240 is not something we wanted to do but basically we had no other choice we've been doing events we've

00:02:12.100 been hosting events for the better part of three years now and we've hosted everybody from Jordan

00:02:17.700 Peterson to Ben Shapiro and ContraPoints and a few others and we booked Andy or rather the campus

00:02:25.560 president Noah booked Andy as part of a lecture series that we want to start in 2020 on radicalism we

00:02:33.080 want to do a lecture series that examines radicalism both on the left and the right right so Andy would

00:02:40.820 be analyzing radicalism on the left and the topic of his talk was understanding Antifa violence and in

00:02:48.060 the ultimate form of irony the school caves in and cancels due to their own fear of Antifa violence now so

00:02:54.860 was that predicated on a specific threat or do you know if there was a specific they didn't tell us any

00:03:01.320 specific threat what they told us or rather I should describe how how that lovely day went I you know

00:03:07.820 I woke up to a missed call from the chief risk officer said look you got to give me a call back

00:03:12.560 we got to talk about this event which I expected to some degree because every event we do there there

00:03:18.600 are these patterns that we notice where at some point you'll have people making threats and then I

00:03:24.000 get a call from the school that says look we got to bring in a couple guards or we got to bring in

00:03:28.440 lots of guards you know for example with Ben Shapiro we spent you know thousands of dollars there on

00:03:33.480 security and over the years we've probably spent like maybe forty thousand dollars total on campus

00:03:40.700 security so I'm always ready for that call where they're going to invoice us for security and I

00:03:47.520 thought that's what that call was but to my to my surprise and to the surprise of the Justice Center

00:03:52.620 you know the chief risk officer said look this event finally went to the table with the executives

00:03:59.900 and they've asked me to tell you that they're canceling it and they're canceling it due to the

00:04:04.940 fact that Antifa has been more prominent on campus as of late and due to the fact that Andy Ngo was assaulted

00:04:14.040 in the past right so there's so much wrong in just that sentence on its own of what he told me I mean

00:04:23.700 on Andy's part you're basically discriminating against someone who is involuntarily assaulted you

00:04:31.260 know it's not like well they say they do a risk assessment and typically the risk assessments are

00:04:35.940 based on previous events so if we bring Ben Shapiro they'll say okay well Ben was at Berkeley and that had

00:04:41.160 issues so then we correlate didn't they burn down the campus basically and pretty much yeah so they

00:04:46.320 thought they saw that and they said okay well that happened at Berkeley ipso facto it's gonna happen at

00:04:52.360 UBC you have to hire a hundred guards and of course nothing happened with Ben and you know I think you

00:05:00.720 were at that show right I mean I I actually my my nephew really really wanted to go see it and so I

00:05:08.520 figured why not and four of us actually went and he was really disappointed at the stunning lack of

00:05:14.580 protests I know that that occurred but it was on Halloween so I imagine you know if you're gonna get

00:05:20.340 dressed up as Antifa likes to do you probably have you know some Halloween costume yeah you know yeah yeah

00:05:28.800 maybe on Halloween they dress as normal people maybe that's they twist it around oh yeah I mean there

00:05:36.960 are no problems at all so you know I'm on the phone with this guy and I say look like why if it if this

00:05:43.500 is a safety concern due to his history of events which he's never done events before so they said

00:05:49.680 well due to the fact that he was assaulted on the street though I mean he was on the street doing the

00:05:55.020 man on the street thing with his camera getting right up in people's faces I assume as as much as

00:06:00.960 you know he within his I guess his zone of safety and I don't know you know I get the sense that he

00:06:08.400 doesn't put his personal safety necessarily ahead of his journalism which certainly that's the way it

00:06:14.220 appears from what little I know of the gentleman but but yeah it's definitely you know do you definitely

00:06:21.540 can't compare what happened during a heated exchange on the street with what would certainly

00:06:29.100 happen at the UBC campus yeah yeah well I don't think you should be correlating it in any way to

00:06:34.380 say that look this guy walked down the street and got attacked by someone so ipso facto we don't want to

00:06:41.040 allow him on campus because he was assaulted I mean you're basically discriminating against someone for

00:06:46.200 something they have no control over so it's quite a terrible precedent oh it's a horrible precedent

00:06:51.960 and it's hypocritical because you know like UBC tweets out this video about how they care about big

00:06:57.360 important challenges and diversity I'm like really you're not gonna platform a gay Vietnamese journalist

00:07:03.060 he was assaulted for his beliefs I mean this is this is some pretty nut crazy stuff so you know I told

00:07:10.680 the guy the the chief risk officer I said look why can't we hire security if this is a problem

00:07:15.660 I knew it was gonna be some you know a bit of a problem because Antifa hates him because you know

00:07:21.260 unfortunate for them he sort of exposed them and validated a lot of the concerns that people have so

00:07:27.940 you know if there's gonna be protests let's you know I'll pay a fee and we'll we'll bring security like

00:07:33.660 we always do like we've always done for the past three years and to that I was told yeah that worked in the

00:07:40.380 past for you guys but there have been other events with other groups on campus that have been

00:07:45.020 violent for example Jen Smith hosted an event on campus that had hundreds of protesters and it got

00:07:51.980 pretty nasty and that's a that's the trans right yeah or a trans person that's the one that where

00:08:00.220 it's it's a trans female she's a trans female and but she's kind of speaks out against the trans movement

00:08:09.180 yeah so Jen Smith is a transgender female who goes by he him pronouns and he I guess he advocates against

00:08:16.140 SOGI which is a program oh the the provincial education yeah program exactly which which teaches

00:08:21.900 sort of transgender stuff to kids right and he's been doing sort of a lecture series all over the

00:08:28.140 province and it garners a lot of controversy mm-hmm and it was quite a large protest for him on UBC there

00:08:35.820 hundreds of protesters and someone got assaulted and there were arrests and I think the school was

00:08:40.300 somewhat taken aback by that especially given that you know again the guy told me on the phone we did

00:08:45.500 Ben Shapiro there's no problems there we did Jordan Peterson we did you know all your events there's never

00:08:50.380 really been any serious issues but after Ben Shapiro you you have these new Antifa groups that sprung up on

00:08:58.220 campus that felt somewhat ashamed of themselves that they didn't do enough to shut down Ben Shapiro so

00:09:06.540 the things aren't getting better they're getting worse in terms of of the violence on campus which is

00:09:13.500 unfortunate and you know he said look it's security isn't even an option and that's where the problem

00:09:22.300 legally sort of stood out to me because I'm in my head I'm saying okay if this is a security threat

00:09:28.220 let's hire security let's work with police if these people are violent arrest them and Bob's your

00:09:34.620 uncle the problem solved but you know it's well I don't know if we'll ever know if it's if they

00:09:42.780 cancelled it specifically or truly for security reasons or is it because of publicity because after

00:09:49.500 that Jen Smith event UBC was kicked out very publicly of the pride parade along with the library right

00:09:56.300 and that turned into a big publicity thing because the pride society said oh you know the library and

00:10:02.620 UBC platforms hateful people so they shouldn't be allowed in the pride parade so you know I'm gonna

00:10:10.140 I'm I'm I've got a few years on you it's hard for me to keep up with the latest in intersectional

00:10:16.700 ideology um what specifically is it about Andy know that um Riles uh Antifa is it is he um I mean

00:10:28.860 obviously he's not some kind of white nationalist if he's a Vietnamese immigrant he's not probably

00:10:34.300 anti-gay if he's gay okay they'll say that he's a white nationalist he's a Nazi he's alt-right he's a

00:10:40.700 fascist okay so that's so you can still get those labels even if sure even if you're um even if sort

00:10:47.660 of doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface yeah because they'll see it as oh you're just the token

00:10:52.140 for them they're just controlling you I see you're trying to their gripe with him is that um well I

00:10:59.420 saw some of them complain that oh Andy know gave kill lists to the atomwaffen then I had to look up what

00:11:05.340 atomwaffen meant and it turns out the atomwaffen is sort of a paramilitary neo-nazi uh group in the

00:11:12.540 states um and they were alleging that he gave them kill lists of Antifa and then of course you know

00:11:19.580 three minutes of googling showed that that isn't the case at all and all he did was publish an

00:11:23.900 article which happened to have names on it and then a year later the atomwaffen read that article

00:11:29.420 took the names from that and added it to their database so with Andy in particular we were sort

00:11:36.780 of shocked because they really pulled the trigger on the wrong event UBC I mean because the guy is not

00:11:44.860 that controversial we've hosted more controversial people with with no issues what about um what about

00:11:52.380 doxing um I know uh Andy know I've seen it I've seen some of his posts where he actually names

00:12:01.340 protesters publishes their faces which of course Antifa typically covers up so as not to have that

00:12:08.540 um do they perceive that as a as a form of yeah they perceive that as doxing right which and interestingly

00:12:15.980 just to be fair like you know I was um I was watching um a video posted by Unifor uh last week

00:12:24.060 uh completely unrelated but uh related to the uh the co-op refinery strike where they um in this video

00:12:31.180 they named and showed faces of a number of replacement workers or what they would call scabs um and uh

00:12:39.900 you know sort of taken aback going well this is kind of this is essentially doxing like what they're not

00:12:45.740 saying to go and be violent towards these people or to you know otherwise go after these people but

00:12:51.420 um you know is there is that an implication and and maybe there's a parallel here right um is that is

00:12:57.900 that maybe why um they don't like Andy no because he's been you know historically he's named and shown

00:13:04.140 faces of some of the the key people that are organizing this in Portland I think a vigilante element

00:13:10.060 could definitely be part of it I mean I believe he started naming people after he was assaulted he

00:13:15.660 was trying to figure out who assaulted him and he kind of went on a bit of a crusade to expose these

00:13:21.340 people um which is understandable and then you kind of play a game of who started it because certainly

00:13:28.060 both sides do it but I think in terms of what he's currently doing where you know you might see on his

00:13:32.300 wall that he's publishing different mug shots uh I mean the way he's described it and I would tend to

00:13:39.340 agree that doxing would have to involve some kind of information that isn't necessarily public right so

00:13:45.500 if somebody you know was publicly exposed for example just recently um there was an antifa leader

00:13:54.220 or an antifa blogger that was accidentally um exposed his identity was accidentally exposed by cbc in a

00:14:01.820 documentary they just produced on antifa oh and they did a really terrible job of blurring his face

00:14:07.180 because he has been sort of an antifa blogger for about 10 years and then you know next thing you know

00:14:13.180 rebel media is reporting on it everybody knows about it dandy reports his identity and he's he's a high

00:14:18.460 school teacher in alberta okay so and then now that's become you know a thing that that spreads like

00:14:25.420 wildfire right so you know i'm not in love with the whole you know who's he who's he sort of thing

00:14:34.060 mm-hmm uh especially because like i've been doxed before okay and i think you know your instinct is

00:14:42.220 fine i'll do it right back to you right and it it just it creates an environment that really sucks to

00:14:49.900 live in and to work in because then you're always worried about you know you're always looking behind

00:14:54.380 your back and and it's worse when you know there there's defamatory statements and i think that's

00:15:01.020 something he also focuses on which is look

00:15:04.380 people are lying about me and i want to find out who's lying about me so i can take legal action

00:15:09.820 right so i can understand where he's coming from nonetheless even if he's even if as a journalist

00:15:17.340 he's targeting individuals which are violent and you know they've publicized themselves he still has the

00:15:23.180 right uh as an individual to be platformed right he hasn't done anything illegal oh 100 yeah and i think

00:15:30.620 i i mean it's an interesting tangent for sure around the the doxing and the antifa stuff that

00:15:35.820 goes down in portland but ultimately your your student club decided to bring a speaker in to speak

00:15:43.420 on campus um there shouldn't really be a whole lot more to be said about that right you're a university

00:15:51.580 you're bringing in a speaker um you know it's not the first and certainly won't be the last speaker with

00:15:57.740 any level of controversy doesn't mean everybody that shows up to see them agrees with everything

00:16:03.260 they say certainly when i saw the ben shapiro one i i disagree with ben shapiro on a lot of things

00:16:09.180 you know i'm i want to hear an intelligent articulate point of view that maybe is different

00:16:14.540 than mine and maybe will challenge mine which is kind of the point of universities is it not to

00:16:20.060 create uh a marketplace of ideas where you know you can you can hear and discuss and and um criticize

00:16:28.540 uh ideas that maybe you know run afoul of your own if we just deep deep platform everybody then

00:16:35.580 ultimately we do do we not just create a society where you know we we live in a bubble and um what's the

00:16:41.980 value of having a university in the first place yeah yeah i mean this is the perceptional issue i

00:16:47.740 mean andy himself in a recent interview said look you don't have to like me but this isn't really about

00:16:53.900 me this is and this is what we're trying to say as well is that this is about the precedent and once

00:16:58.700 you explain the precedent to people they're like oh this could happen to anybody if we're going off of

00:17:05.260 the heckler's veto which is you know you could bring mother teresa to ubc and she's controversial

00:17:11.740 already so yeah well let's who's not controversial i was going to say jk rowling the other day anybody

00:17:18.140 anybody historically or alive or dead is you know has baggage i remember getting into a

00:17:26.300 a meaningless debate online about martin luther king jr and this person you know and it's like look

00:17:32.140 martin luther king jr was not perfect either but man he had some incredibly great things to say

00:17:37.820 and uh you know if we can't move past that and you know um recognize the good of the contribution

00:17:43.820 of a man like martin luther king jr then what are we even doing right yeah but i mean that goes back

00:17:51.180 to to what you explained and what you thought universities are for and i don't think that's the

00:17:55.980 case anymore at least not at least not what i've experienced the other side sees what you're talking

00:18:01.740 about the diversity of thought going to an event that you don't necessarily agree with the speaker

00:18:07.260 i mean they see that as performative they see it as you're validating their opinion because you're

00:18:13.660 giving them a platform their perception of what you're doing of what the audience is doing and

00:18:19.820 engaging and you know the agora the marketplace of ideas they see that very differently from how we see

00:18:25.900 that so i i think it's a tribal issue in terms of the interpretation of the events they see these

00:18:31.580 events as a rally we're bringing andy no to validate all of the evil ideas that the free speech club

00:18:38.060 believes in because they just want to do a circle jerk echo chamber thing right but at the end of the

00:18:44.940 day i mean and if you're at the bench of pure event you saw that in every q a we always say if you

00:18:49.900 would disagree with the speaker you can jump the line and i you know i saw that yeah yeah and i mean

00:18:55.740 that's that creates we saw well and interestingly we saw a controversial speaker i don't know how much you

00:19:00.940 want to talk about it but um where um there was a stunning degree of empathy on behalf of i would

00:19:10.620 say your group and certainly the speaker as well in protecting the identity of that uh individual

00:19:17.660 uh after the fact and i i don't know the story obviously you you'd be more aware of what went down

00:19:22.380 after but um you know delayed getting the video online and lots of things like that um which i think

00:19:28.780 which i think was fantastic you know like um you know there should be there should be some free

00:19:35.020 debate and you know it's look it's nice i've said some really stupid things in my life that were not

00:19:41.820 recorded and uh you know and we live in this social media age um and you've grown you know i guess it's

00:19:49.340 one sense grown up with it right and um uh it's hard to take things back now right and so we you know we

00:19:56.300 got to stop you know uh this whole idea of just you know crushing people out of existence because

00:20:02.940 they said one wrong thing or one thing that could be perceived to be wrong one time in their life on

00:20:09.980 on audio or video recording you know what i mean you know like we're we used to be allowed to make

00:20:16.380 mistakes and and um you know barack obama um you know has uh opinions that evolve right can we not all just

00:20:24.700 have our opinions evolve over time you know could we have to i mean perfect i think so i think so but

00:20:30.700 i think the issue is that i'm convinced our side believes in what you're talking about i'm worried

00:20:36.540 that the other side is very utopian so they don't believe in sort of an evolution of thought they

00:20:41.660 believe in dogma right and that's where the difference is and of course what you're talking

00:20:46.060 about in terms of that ben shapiro event um was sort of an altercation or a heated discussion

00:20:52.380 probably honestly one of the most heated discussions i've seen ben have uh between him and uh a ticket

00:21:00.060 holder who jumped the line to challenge him and it got so heated uh that after the show you know i had

00:21:07.180 a discussion with ben and he said look i don't want it in the video because it's too much yeah but what

00:21:13.340 happened in there is for that audience to take and digest and and he actually met up and had brunch

00:21:20.380 with that individual the next day and you know and of course what happened was i got attacked by our

00:21:25.820 own people because when i uploaded it everyone was like oh where's that big altercation that's going to

00:21:30.860 become a clickbait video and yeah this and that right and then i had to say oh ben told me to delete it

00:21:37.500 and then everyone was like oh well ben would never say that right because they know him so well so

00:21:43.260 the internet's a funny place when it comes to dealing with the mob and the mob exists on both sides you

00:21:48.700 know in this case with andy the mob just happens to be on the left and yeah we get accused all the

00:21:54.220 time of all we'll you know the free speech club only brings right-wingers we've brought just as many

00:21:58.540 left-wingers as we have right-wingers it's just that when we bring right-wingers it's calamity it's

00:22:04.300 national news it becomes a big thing there's you know people wailing in the street when we bring a

00:22:10.060 left-winger uh it's just quiet because that's the zeitgeist right it makes me wonder when the left and

00:22:19.980 i hate to sort of paint a broad stroke but you know i'm old enough to remember when the left was um a

00:22:28.380 movement that was built upon free speech you know you think of the martin luther king juniors of the world

00:22:37.180 and everybody that came after and they would argue for free speech and and of course they had to

00:22:42.460 because because they didn't have it and um and they and they eventually got it and that's how society in

00:22:50.860 so many ways has benefited through through this um through prog through progress um as a result of people

00:22:58.940 like that pioneers of free speech and at some point in the last 20 years the dial shifted and suddenly

00:23:07.740 you know within the progressive movement we have this idea that um we can censor and bully ourselves

00:23:13.980 towards progress instead of uh instead of you know making rational arguments and talking about issues

00:23:20.460 and i don't know when that happened i honestly just blinked and everything changed yeah i think

00:23:26.140 it's extremely due to to subjectivity i think one of the issues that i've noticed is that their

00:23:32.620 interpretation of words has changed so their interpretation of words is violence they see

00:23:39.340 it as if someone is wailing a club around attacking people yeah no wonder that their reaction is so

00:23:46.380 extreme because their understanding of what speech is is so dogmatic and ideologically uh perverted but

00:23:55.740 that's new that's that's new that you know that didn't exist yeah that didn't exist 30 years ago i

00:24:02.060 you know i i i really think there's something more fundamental to it and i think it comes back to that

00:24:07.580 issue of tribalism right where you know if if if our side is winning then um you know we don't need free

00:24:16.780 speech yeah because the free speech will just challenge our side right and uh and certainly you could

00:24:23.260 make an argument in the 1950s um you know sort of predating the civil rights movement that that was

00:24:29.900 probably a pretty prevalent attitude on you know what would have what we would have might have called

00:24:34.300 the right at that period in time and uh and certainly um that you know there was a challenge to that and

00:24:41.740 and i i think it would be hard to argue that that wasn't a good thing ultimately for for society

00:24:47.740 um i don't know anybody who would argue otherwise but why is it now that it's not a good thing to

00:24:53.180 challenge status quo and i think it's because the the left if you will you know again broad strokes

00:24:59.340 hate to sort of do that but i think if they're winning if their side is winning then they have

00:25:03.980 no reason to uh you know to be in favor of free speech right yeah yeah and of course by winning you

00:25:11.100 you mean you know what is more established in the zeitgeist of the culture what is what is the norm

00:25:16.620 and of course in the 60s you had you know back in the day the prudish republican

00:25:22.380 sort of social conservative we don't like anything that's different thing and they were the

00:25:26.940 establishment and the left was for free speech and now it seems to be going the other way you know

00:25:32.700 it's interesting one of our top members one of our most active members is actually um a hippie in his

00:25:38.700 70s and he actually popularized wreck beach back in the day if you don't know wreck beaches i've heard

00:25:45.900 the uh heard the legend yeah so he i mean it's it's gonna have to google that a hippie to look

00:25:51.900 like long hair long beard wacky you know interesting guy and i'm saying you know he's in the green party

00:25:59.260 he's an environmentalist he's a leftist yeah i'm saying well how is it that everyone around you

00:26:04.860 is everyone that you you know are associated with is so anti-free speech and you're so absurdly pro-free

00:26:11.180 speech and he said something interesting he said i didn't change everyone changed around me i just

00:26:16.140 stayed where i was right and i think that's what it is i think the pendulum and the overton window

00:26:21.740 shifted and attitudes changed and you know it's it's happened very quick you have other people like

00:26:28.220 peter bogosian who's been talking about this cancellation you have jonathan k you have uh brett

00:26:33.500 weinstein you have people who are on the left but of course any leftists and again we're being so

00:26:38.860 broad here but any leftists who are pro-free speech are immediately disregarded by the ardent

00:26:44.780 leftists as being basically conservative or apologists for the art or alt-right or something

00:26:50.060 yeah right of course right yeah so yeah so what a crazy time to be alive i you know it's it's it's funny

00:26:56.620 because you know and i don't know how old you are but you're obviously a lot younger than i am

00:27:00.700 um but it must sound weird to you that like how profoundly different the world is 30 years

00:27:08.380 and and you know we reached a time and i felt like we were really reaching a time in the 90s

00:27:13.660 when we when we were beginning to really see equality i remember you know within the conservative movement

00:27:20.300 um you know people like like myself were really actively involved in um in equal rights for gay people

00:27:30.860 and uh you know a number of things were very cutting edge for the time and um you know and

00:27:37.580 now you look at it and you're like i don't know anybody on the right that is super opposed to gay

00:27:44.460 marriage or super opposed to you know gay people you know being allowed to be who they are and i don't

00:27:51.420 know anybody on the right who um you know a lot of these social issues you know look people still have

00:27:57.500 trouble with with a lot of a lot of issues right but ultimately we have as a country never been more

00:28:06.060 more progressive in in in human history and yet you know you you hear these voices on this you know

00:28:15.260 fringe left that keep talking about how essentially we we're fascist and we've never been more right

00:28:21.740 wing than any time in history and it's absurd it's you know for me for a person my age pushing 50

00:28:28.620 it's just absurd to to listen to that because it's so not true it's been it's it's you know it's it's

00:28:36.460 amazing how much society has changed in the last 30 years and and and for certainly for the for the 20

00:28:44.380 years leading up to about mid 2000 you know um just an amazingly positive change and then we got into

00:28:52.300 this toxic prescriptive um you know um intersectional us versus them you know uh you know like this whole

00:29:04.860 notion of can we um you know can we um can we um elevate uh girls in education without um pushing boys

00:29:20.220 down you know like can we do two things at once right like and and the answer apparently is no we

00:29:26.140 can't we have to we in order for us to elevate one group we have to we have to bring down another group

00:29:33.020 right and it's this is a sort of absurd notions like this that you know just completely baffles

00:29:39.660 somebody of my age who you know we were right here on the bleeding edge of this stuff and and now we

00:29:46.540 just now i just look at it and i don't even recognize it yeah yeah everything is

00:29:50.060 a binary everything's black and white everything is segregated and that's the thing it's like

00:29:54.460 there's no room in the political conversation for people who are like yeah i mean you know could be

00:29:59.820 right could be wrong i like this about this person but i don't like that you know we we booked and you

00:30:05.820 know i don't agree with everything andy no says or does i don't even know the matter is you know like

00:30:11.580 there's demand for it people wanted to see it we thought it'd be interesting i think what what the

00:30:16.220 fringe left is and again we're both being careful not to do broad strokes but i think what they're

00:30:21.420 trying to do is determine what is and isn't tolerated in society even though they're a vocal minority

00:30:28.060 they're attempting to create a culture that says anything that's not what their beliefs are

00:30:35.580 is fascist evil get it away from us and because the other day andy's like center right right he

00:30:42.620 describes himself as center right it's not like you know and but again that's you and me saying

00:30:48.300 it's not that controversial that's our perception but to them we're both you know in the thick of it

00:30:55.580 so the issue is that they're trying to define the culture and they they think you can define the

00:31:01.820 culture starting on campus and that's why their reaction to this is look if you host this event we're

00:31:06.940 going to come and shut it down physically there are tweets all over the place about it about curb

00:31:12.460 stomping and pulling fire alarms and milkshakes and all that stuff they they see it as this is how we

00:31:19.020 win and of course the reaction to that is not to do the same you know we've seen an issue on the right

00:31:25.020 now where you have groups bringing up that are saying look let's just cover our faces and do the same

00:31:29.900 thing that's to me that's a race to the bottom and i don't want to get there so you know as

00:31:36.860 much as i blame antifa for for this cancellation to me like antifa is just a symptom they're going

00:31:42.540 to do what they're always going to do the end of the day the institution that promotes enlightenment

00:31:48.620 values needs to take a stand and they didn't and they caved in and their idea of caving in or their

00:31:54.620 goal of caving in they they told me this they said look we believe that if we cancel these controversial

00:32:01.020 events antifa will leave the campus and then maybe down the road you can bring andy back after

00:32:06.220 things to go down and that's to me i told them straight up that's the stupidest thing i've ever

00:32:11.740 heard that's absurd because the winners don't usually leave yeah and typically if you negotiate

00:32:17.900 with terrorists and say here's a million dollars they're not going to say okay bye you're never

00:32:21.980 going to see us again that's not that's that's you're caving in to domestic terrorism basically

00:32:28.220 so they're not going anywhere and in fact you've emboldened them and given them the illusion of power

00:32:33.820 which they'll no doubt use and abuse so i told them what you're doing is actually making ubc less

00:32:40.540 safe you're creating problems down the road because we're not going anywhere so i said look i'm basically

00:32:46.860 gonna sue you guys and take it to the supreme court and that's the plan well on that note um and thank you

00:32:54.460 for exploring those fascinating tangents with me up to this point but uh um obviously you know being

00:33:03.260 a student club you guys are just awash with money to uh to uh take uh ubc to court uh or is that not the

00:33:11.900 case do you have a partner in this yeah well i mean we're we're we're an organization we try we've we've

00:33:18.860 definitely hosted some pretty large events this wasn't our largest event so the money situation

00:33:23.980 isn't that crazy right um but in this case you know the support that we needed and i think we got

00:33:32.860 was you know a proper uproar and i think we definitely got that even the media itself has been

00:33:38.860 quite positive i would say right maybe maybe because andy's a journalist sure maybe they sort of got

00:33:44.780 spooked and said okay like this could create a problem for us um so we got the attention and our

00:33:50.220 goal was to get ubc to rescind um the cancellation which they didn't do so now it's going to the

00:33:57.580 supreme court in terms of sorry just to clear that's the supreme court of british columbia of british

00:34:03.260 columbia yeah okay um you know in terms of the next steps uh i don't think we can necessarily host

00:34:10.380 anything at the moment just because we rely on public institutions to to you know operate as

00:34:16.620 venues and i don't frankly don't trust ubc uh to do that nor do i trust sfu which has been a bad actor

00:34:23.900 in the past as well so i think you know this case at least if i'm if i'm thinking of it correctly as the

00:34:32.140 justice center has described it to me uh could be quite historical well that's yeah yeah then sorry to

00:34:38.860 interrupt i i think i think that this this is kind of the point right is in some ways i sort of hope

00:34:45.260 ubc doesn't rescind on their decision so you can beat them in court and set a very clear firm precedent

00:34:54.700 that um you know institutions of higher learning uh cannot discriminate you know in this in this fashion

00:35:02.460 and you know um i i guess you know from my perspective as a total outsider um that's kind

00:35:08.700 of that's what i would like to see i would like to see the principles of free speech uh affirmed here

00:35:14.940 and and obviously if ubc were to rescind at this point um there's no there's no case law that can be

00:35:21.740 referred back to it would be embarrassing for them for sure and it would be a bit of a black eye

00:35:26.140 um but but i'm sort of on the same boat as you now which is look let's take it to the supreme

00:35:31.740 court of bc we think we'll win because this is so beyond the pale of of what is proper and if that

00:35:39.180 happens we create a legal precedent i don't care what you know hypothetical buzzwords the fringe left

00:35:45.660 wants to create about things a legal precedent is a legal precedent which one day could extend

00:35:50.780 to all of canada this is how these things start and if we create a legal precedent that says look

00:35:56.140 you can't just give in to the heck where's veto because then you can book anybody any speaker at

00:36:01.820 any time and anyone could say i'm gonna burn the place down and then you literally you don't you

00:36:07.020 don't have a society at that point right well and and and i think the flip side is also true

00:36:12.140 you know and obviously we're speculating a little bit here i i think i think um you know any if the

00:36:18.380 court does what it should do then they should you know do a serious finger wagging at um ubc in this

00:36:26.220 situation but um even if you lost this court case i think it's important because uh it would have a

00:36:34.380 different effect obviously there'd be a different precedent but it would i think galvanize canadians

00:36:40.940 who think who think that we live in a free country to come to a realization that maybe that's actually

00:36:48.140 not the case and i and you know so half of me hopes that the court will come down um you know in in favor

00:36:54.940 of of you uh because to to affirm the fact that we have a free country but you know i feel like if the

00:37:01.980 opposite happens uh it'll wake a lot of people up who think you know i mean you know look i don't go to

00:37:08.380 university it's been a long time since since i've been there right and uh you know but but i have a

00:37:15.180 kid that's gonna go to university in a few years right and um i think there's a lot of people like

00:37:21.500 me who don't just don't realize that we've kind of gotten to the place where we are yeah are in our

00:37:27.500 culture and and it's and it's pretty shocking when you really break down um what exactly they're

00:37:34.140 saying and you know you sort of half wonder these are intelligent people the you know the ubc executive

00:37:39.980 you know is made up of a lot of smart folks um they have to realize this sort of um awful

00:37:48.540 precedent that they're setting in this situation don't they i don't know i mean you can speculate

00:37:54.940 it's i speculated to the point where maybe they want to get sued so then antifa doesn't point the

00:38:00.140 finger at them it points the finger at a supreme court right supreme court case right it's washing

00:38:05.260 their hands clean maybe but you know i think you're right and i think look at the end of the day

00:38:10.860 you're a busy working man people are busy living their lives working going home not everybody's a

00:38:16.860 junkie like us that has time to you know delve into this stuff but then people deserve to know like

00:38:25.100 it takes a while to to really understand this stuff and i think what's important and i think

00:38:29.900 what we're doing right is really condensing it down to simple principles that the working layman

00:38:36.700 could understand and say yeah i think that's important right because we're all we're all busy

00:38:41.020 with our lives but at the end of the day you know people have kids and your kids are going to be going

00:38:46.380 to this place and you want your kids to get an education in critical thinking not an education in

00:38:51.980 uh post-modern uh neo-marxist feminist dancing therapy right so yeah and it's a lot of money

00:38:59.820 too that's the other part of this is a tax issue where look we're all paying our tax dollars to go

00:39:06.620 into this institution and we are all very politically diverse with different ideas and we all have a

00:39:11.980 gentleman's agreement as a society that we're going to be neutral in these institutions libraries are

00:39:18.540 neutral and universities are neutral and if they're politically uh biased then that sort of alienates

00:39:25.420 uh the taxpayer so there's there's something even more fundamental because that speaker you were

00:39:30.620 mentioning earlier um jen smith yeah came to uh victoria um and and booked at a library i think 30

00:39:39.900 people showed up to listen to them um and uh and the whole bunch more showed up to to protest and

00:39:50.940 and lots of people i know on i frankly on on both sides some went to see them and some went to protest

00:39:57.340 them and um and i think protesting is is legitimate if you want to protest 100 right that's part of a free

00:40:05.500 country yeah that's my right d platforming is not you know pulling fire alarms and assaulting people

00:40:13.020 and and the like that's not part of a a free country and uh you know i there used to be there used to be

00:40:21.580 i think a consensus uh in our culture you know that there was some clear lines that you just didn't cross

00:40:29.020 and we've crossed those and we seem to be crossing them over and over again uh like there's no barriers

00:40:34.940 to this and um to me that's i think that's the most stunning change uh culturally but there you know

00:40:44.860 the the fundamental part you know we talked about the marketplace of ideas and everything else but that

00:40:49.900 there's something even more fundamental to free speech and it it goes like this it's

00:40:55.420 it's if there if somebody has a very bad idea right like we can all agree that fascism is a very bad

00:41:06.060 idea right and so if somebody who was legitimately a fascist wanted to go and talk about how great

00:41:14.460 fascism was right i think i think we would all find that pretty repugnant but even then i don't think

00:41:22.620 as a society we say no you can't talk about those things because part of what free speech allows you

00:41:29.820 to do is it allows you to air bad ideas uh so that they can so so that they can see the light of day

00:41:38.460 and people can see how in this in the example of fascism just how terrible they are right because

00:41:44.940 because if we if all we do is block bad ideas and the people that promote them then they're just going

00:41:51.580 to grow in the shadows and and we're not going to have that um that regular ongoing uh assessment

00:42:01.180 of ideas that we should that we need to have if we're going to progress as a society and and i really

00:42:07.100 feel like that concept for a lot and it's a hard concept right because you know there's a lot of ideas

00:42:16.700 that i find truly deeply repugnant and uh and i really you know you know just even hear them is

00:42:25.020 disgusting right but that's i think um the the kind of uh compromise you have to make uh to have a free

00:42:34.780 society and to progress as a society is you have to be open and willing to have those ideas aired and

00:42:43.020 libraries and educational institutions are the place for those to happen yeah if we pretend away

00:42:49.020 fascism like it didn't actually exist because there's no speakers out there that want to talk

00:42:54.700 about it and you know we're kind of in that place anyway i don't think there's any there's not a lot of

00:42:59.340 real fascists around and when they do they they kind of hover in their mom's basements or whatever

00:43:04.220 right but um you know the uh uh you know the problem is some point in society people are going

00:43:12.060 to go well what is this thing called fascism maybe we should check it out maybe there's some good

00:43:16.300 qualities there no nice people will i mean i mean that's that's the thing naive people will and i think

00:43:21.980 that's right you censor it you make it sexy you make it you know it's the streisand effect it backfires

00:43:27.740 yeah answer it it becomes we're human beings this is the oldest story ever don't eat that apple

00:43:34.620 anything you do don't eat that apple and we eat the apple right away well and i could present my

00:43:40.060 own counter argument when you look at isis for example right and all the recruiting that they did

00:43:45.260 online um you know if they were not recruiting online they never would have recruited all the people

00:43:50.380 they recruited right and so you know so how do we you know as a society we we can't be talking about

00:43:57.740 just blocking every bad idea we don't like but you know maybe we need to be thinking in a in a more

00:44:03.580 holistic way how do you how do you account for it right i think their side is saying well if you

00:44:08.940 platform someone who has repugnant ideas they are going to persuade naive people in the audience to

00:44:16.540 become violent and join their radical belief system and furthermore you are normalizing those ideas by

00:44:23.900 giving them a platform right that that is their interpretation they see it as hate speech which

00:44:29.340 is completely subjective in this day for some reason even though legally you know it's it is someone

00:44:36.380 inciting a genocide is someone saying let's go attack group x and get rid of them if so we're not going

00:44:41.500 to platform them and they should prosecute it because that's illegal yeah uh but if someone is saying

00:44:46.780 something incredibly stupid uh or incredibly repugnant you know the question is well how do you allow

00:44:53.820 them to say that but ensure that the pedestal you give them will not only be a gift to them but also

00:45:02.300 a curse because that spotlight means that they are open to really harsh criticism that's right yeah

00:45:07.820 right i mean that's why with these events we always have the q a because it's like i don't want

00:45:13.580 it to be an echo chamber because if it's an echo chamber you might have naive people who might

00:45:18.940 accept the ideas too easily you have some you know some guy see kiling on stage which you know i

00:45:26.140 don't know when that would happen and you go and present ideas contrary to him and you prove him wrong

00:45:32.460 and you do it in an articulate sophisticated way instead of putting a mask on and throwing molotov cocktails

00:45:39.340 right that is how you get rid of that and you broadcast that you film that and you say look

00:45:43.980 this is how you deconstruct ideas this is something that isn't new that thomas aquinas taught his classes

00:45:51.100 you know forever ago thousand years ago in that fashion he would start his lecture by saying god

00:45:57.020 doesn't exist prove otherwise and he would sit there you know there's this notion that all the middle

00:46:03.900 ages were the dark ages if you look at actually thomas aquinas i mean he would debate with his

00:46:08.700 students on the very existence of god build an argument have a respondio and that's just part

00:46:15.500 of critical thinking that's what universities are for you're developing your brain and your ability to

00:46:21.420 argue so you know with andy my hope was look if you want to protest protest protest peacefully that's

00:46:29.900 your right we celebrate your right if you want to challenge him come in and challenge him i want that

00:46:35.980 there i want that audience to experience that otherwise frankly it's boring right you know but the

00:46:41.900 moment you attack him and shut everything down i mean i've had speakers in the past and i won't say

00:46:47.820 who but there are definitely speakers who almost want to get deplatformed because if they do it completely

00:46:55.900 validates their objective right yeah it gives them a huge boost it's so obvious too right oh it's this is

00:47:03.340 like basic basic you know human behavior and it's like people who who you can tell are trying to get

00:47:09.420 banned on twitter yeah you know why well it's because then they can have the badge that they were banned

00:47:15.180 on twitter yeah exactly so there's trolls everywhere and there's people who feed off of it i think in

00:47:20.300 this case you know i was pretty upset when it was cancelled and i pretty much knew right off the bat it

00:47:25.980 wasn't going to get rescinded but the silver lining is this and this is what the lawyer said they said look

00:47:31.100 this is going to go to a judicial review and if we win it'll create a legal precedent that means that

00:47:37.100 you can bring andy no and just about anybody else and do an event that's 10 times bigger afterwards so

00:47:43.260 maybe this needs to happen at this point in time right and if we lose then you know that's that'll be

00:47:50.460 the that'll be so you know uh i think that'll be big enough to wake even the layman up and say okay wait a

00:47:59.820 minute this is actually a big problem and and we need to do something well and that's why when i heard

00:48:05.020 the news you know i was sort of processing all this and you know i i thought you know this is a win

00:48:10.540 either way you know the the last thing you want right now is for ubc to send their decision because

00:48:17.340 you know either way um you know either either we reaffirm free speech in our in our society in a

00:48:24.220 serious legal way uh or uh the clarion call goes out to uh to people to let them know you know hey by

00:48:33.100 the way canada doesn't have free speech and you know um just so you're aware this is this is this

00:48:39.020 is the kind of culture we live in now yeah it's a litmus test it's a total litmus test and if we win

00:48:44.380 and that's great and and it'll be something to be celebrated if we lose it'll prove it'll prove our point

00:48:50.140 about the battle of free speech and i'll move to the desert and sort of be an obi-wan kenobi hermit

00:48:56.060 and let the next generation uh fight that battle if we lose but uh but you know it's i'm pretty

00:49:03.260 optimistic we're gonna win just because this is you know at least according to the lawyers this is like

00:49:10.540 way beyond the pale usually legal issues that you'll see is schools uh purposefully inflating

00:49:17.500 security prices this is what's been happening all over the place and actually the jccf just won

00:49:23.660 uh a case in alberta where a pro-life group was charged something like twenty thousand dollars

00:49:29.260 just to host an event for security and that was you know 20 in alberta in alberta so now that that

00:49:36.300 created you know a legal precedent which could hopefully be expanded elsewhere uh but this is

00:49:42.060 what it takes it's it's gonna be a legal battle and at the end of the day you know if we don't do

00:49:48.380 it who will you know i'm i'm missing the part of my brain that uh that is fearful of stuff so you know

00:49:58.220 at some point you're like look what are you what are you gonna take for me you know what i mean like

00:50:04.780 we booked this if i wouldn't be able to sleep at night if i just walked away quietly yeah uh and a whole

00:50:11.260 lot of people would be upset and i'd be upset and andy would be upset and i would i would be very

00:50:16.700 upset for the next generation that won't be able to experience freedom so we'll see what comes of it

00:50:24.220 uh if all goes well and we'll continue you know doing our events as we do and having a conversation

00:50:29.660 in canada and having a diversity of speakers it's just it's just part of it we don't have first amendment

00:50:35.980 it's true but we have some rights and and i want to test whether those are really there or not and

00:50:42.060 i think this this case which again could could end up being quite historical uh might be the ultimate

00:50:48.780 litmus test so um angelo uh we i was joking earlier about the financial situation um if people do want

00:50:58.860 to help um how do they get a hold of you they should they reach out on your facebook page

00:51:04.140 yeah we have the free speech club on facebook we have uh our youtube channel um the free speech club

00:51:11.020 is what it's called and if you go there there's there's links to support both us and the justice

00:51:16.300 center and we upload videos there regularly that cover these sorts of issues so yeah i think we have

00:51:22.060 about 35 000 subs now um and then of course www.freespeechclub.com and uh yeah and i think we're on twitter as

00:51:30.540 well at the ss club okay well thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule wishing

00:51:37.820 you the very best and um for those of you who are tuned in on youtube uh you you can also uh hear this

00:51:45.660 pot this podcast on your favorite podcast player and if you're listening to us on your podcast you can

00:51:52.860 find us on youtube at the western standard don't forget to become a member of the western standard for as

00:51:58.300 little as five dollars a month you can support journalism that is government free so um so thanks

00:52:07.340 again to our guest today angelo and um all the very best and we'll i'm sure hear a lot more uh in the

00:52:14.940 coming days oh yeah well thank you for having me all right take care all right

00:52:32.540 you

Western Standard - January 24, 2020

Is there ＂Free Speech＂ in Canada？ This University legal action may tell us! - The Drill, January 17

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