In this episode, Cory talks about why our justice system is broken and why chronic offenders should be released from prison. He also talks about a man who is serving a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit.
00:08:17.640Yeah, between China and the U.S. is definitely between Iraq and a hard place.
00:08:22.980So next on the news is we're following the Alberta Next panel quite closely here at the Western Standard.
00:08:29.340So this is a series of panelists that are hearing from Albertans about how they feel on certain issues, such as whether Alberta should have its own police force, whether Alberta should collect income tax rather than having it sent to Ottawa, and whether any kind of pension plan or taxes should be through the Alberta government rather than the federal government.
00:08:55.500And, of course, this is as independent sentiment is on the rise here in Alberta, too.
00:09:02.140So Premier Smith will be up in Edmonton this evening.
00:09:05.700Yeah, I guess last night's meeting, the open mic got a little hot, as you kind of expect.
00:09:10.600I mean, you know, she's going to have an interesting time tempering it from the people who are full out, just want an independence referendum, want out, or the people who want to talk about and examine some of those other proposals.
00:25:56.680And so there's no critiquing a measure that's meant to level that playing field.
00:26:01.080And that, unfortunately, prevents people from seeking solutions, assuming they're things outside of white nationalism, supremacy that's been holding it down.
00:26:09.740I mean, I was kind of talking about that a bit before the show.
00:26:13.200I've been visiting reserves and sharing video and things.
00:26:15.380I mean, there's just some socioeconomic challenges that are happening on reserves and in the system.
00:26:21.060And we can go far enough back as to how it ended up here where it is now.
00:26:24.140but those are going to hinder people making it to a higher level of post-secondary education
00:26:28.860like there's some solutions we need to go into much deeper than just constantly pointing the
00:26:32.800finger at colonialism and white supremacy. That's exactly right and I just go back to
00:26:37.840the point I made earlier that this vision I have of academic freedom to me is the way for
00:26:42.480universities to fulfill the promise to Canadian society but one of our experts actually makes
00:26:48.780this point. It hadn't occurred to me before, but it's quite interesting. If the goal is to have
00:26:54.100more Indigenous people in a university, in a genuine university experience, you can't turn1.00
00:27:00.580the university into something that isn't a university because they're not getting that
00:27:04.440experience. So I'm here to preserve that experience and I hope everybody gets access to it,
00:27:10.500but it's got to still be a university. Well, yeah, and it becomes unfair. I worry about that as
00:27:15.060is somebody who will rely on professionals and on a number of levels through life,
00:27:20.340whether it's doctors, lawyers, and such.
00:27:22.880And you want to pick who you feel is going to be the best person to do that job.
00:27:26.740And there's that unfairness that starts to come with a double standard
00:27:30.080going towards certain groups and minorities,
00:27:32.240whereas even unconsciously I might start ruling out other individuals
00:27:36.400because, well, maybe that person went through it
00:27:38.360without having the proper program and training that I expect in a university.
00:27:42.040and it actually puts who could be some very fantastic lawyers, doctors, engineers at a disadvantage
00:27:47.820because people look out of the corner and say, well, was it DEI or were they really
00:27:52.720get to that position on merit? It's just not doing favours to the Indigenous community.
00:27:58.040Well, certainly those are positions that reasonable people can take to critique these policies. I
00:28:03.760think I understand where the college is coming from as well. They want to do something and
00:28:08.140Are you going to have some very invasive, you know, detailed application from every single person to find out who needs how much accommodation?
00:28:19.040They've decided not to do it that way.
00:28:21.180So, you know, you can argue it both ways.
00:28:24.460But where the university, I think, really stepped over a line here is all of this bled into disciplinary proceedings.
00:28:32.760They were actually willing to use in our submissions in court.
00:28:36.940we say they were willing to use their non-academic misconduct proceedings to enforce
00:28:42.740as the appeal board of the university puts it that they can educate a student that it is
00:28:49.500inappropriate to discuss that they're indigenous and non-indigenous groups of students and that
00:28:55.100the non-indigenous students are treated unfairly that's why i was punished so i know that the0.98
00:29:01.580university doesn't mind separating people into indigenous and indigenous they're even happy to0.99
00:29:06.220make sweeping generalizations on that basis.
00:29:07.980Identity politics are kind of ingrained, actually.
00:29:09.680Yeah, but what I was punished for is suggesting that the wrong group is being treated unfairly.
00:29:14.340So beyond the broader problems that you want to talk about in a minute with this whole
00:29:18.240attitude, though, with yourself, now, do these punitive actions impact your career, or are
00:31:23.620because their constitution is founded on principles of classical liberalism where individuals have the freedom to express themselves and, you know, opine on matters of the day, including controversial matters.
00:31:36.160Yeah, well, and I mean, foundationally, our common law system, I think, is great and has some great things.
00:31:42.980I just feel it's quite drifted from what it was supposed to be in some cases, particularly criminal law, but that's kind of side down.
00:31:48.800Fair enough. This is not a criminal law case, thankfully.
00:31:51.700But if they are following the tenets of what should be established in law, then you should be confidently, you know, it should serve you well through this.
00:31:59.700But I mean, how long, what kind of timeline are you looking at on this now?
00:32:02.760It's very hard to say. I think we're past three years now from when I first learned of the complaint.
00:32:07.980We had to sort of march our way through all the proceedings in the university.
00:32:11.680Now we're at the beginning stages at the Court of King's Bench.
00:32:15.580It could take many more years. Who knows?
00:32:18.400Well, and as you know, again, with the laws, the system of precedents, though, so I mean,
00:32:22.160assuming that the things end well as they could for you in this, would this then
00:32:29.360encourage universities to change or examine their policies? Like, could this have broader reaching
00:32:34.320implications for them? We have approached this in a way where I think it could have very,
00:32:38.720very broad reaching implications. We're taking on the policies at the University of Saskatchewan
00:32:44.240that affect all members of that university. The language there is similar to what you would find
00:32:51.920in other universities across Canada, and it really takes on the implications of this world view.
00:32:58.320The broader world view is critical social justice, and that's detailed in our experts report.
00:33:04.880Anywhere that that's happening in a university, this case could have implications.
00:33:08.480Yeah, well, I'm just hoping maybe it resets things. As I kind of said before the show,
00:33:12.240So I'm a little concerned as a guy who's getting a little longer in the tooth.
00:33:15.160And I understand it's the next generation coming up who's going to be running this world when I'm a senior citizen.
00:33:20.420And I just want to make sure they've had as good and well-rounded an education as possible.
00:33:25.120And our post-secondary institutions are kind of, I think, at a point of crisis with that.
00:36:05.960So yeah, guys, if you want to look it up, Tim Hagstrom.
00:36:08.760And yes, you can help out with those societies and groups that do help in these things.
00:36:15.020As I said, the Justice Center is helping me and then others are helping others.
00:36:18.460So if you want to kind of lend a hand, because there's more to this, as you can see with the discussion, it's deeper, it's important.
00:36:25.580And it's going to impact all of us in a way, even if you're not going to post-secondary institutions.
00:36:30.860that people who graduate from them are going to have an impact on your life.
00:36:35.880As I said, professionals, whether it's doctors, lawyers, chemists, engineers, you name it.
00:36:42.520Let's see what we got going on in the comments here.
00:36:46.220Yes, a lot of advanced fashions pointing out when the law society requires the acceptance of untruth as fact,
00:36:52.200then basis sentences and career longevity on that.
00:36:56.540There isn't a legal system. There's religious tyranny.0.73
00:36:58.340Yeah, the law societies are a whole other ball of wax. I've had guests on here to talk about that. I've talked with Jonathan Dennis and others because they've been given a rough go by the law societies, which are kind of becoming a little too woke and forgetting, I think, what their mandate should be, again, in trying to maintain balance.
00:37:15.800law is an interesting area of education in that it's not a hard science like uh you know math
00:37:27.380chemistry uh you know physics where you're going to have some solid rules that are incontrovertible
00:37:33.680unless you're extremely woke and say two plus two equals five but you know what i mean law is
00:37:37.920actually an area where it's an ongoing debate it's just it's more of a philosophical calling
00:37:44.460I mean, it's an important one, but it's one that's changing and flowing with time.
00:37:48.620So it's hard to come up with solid rules on what's right, what's wrong.
00:37:54.920And it's up to those lawyers to do that task.
00:37:58.680And, of course, our judges later on tend to come from the legal class.
00:38:04.580And as I said to Tim, and I didn't expect him to go into that exactly, you know, but I fear for that.
00:38:10.920When we do DEI on the qualifications to try and get more of people from other particular groups graduating, I worry that we're getting lesser quality graduates or, and it must be infuriating.
00:38:26.020I'm certain there's some indigenous or black or other people that graduated from schools and they worked their butts off and they did fantastic and they're brilliant and they've earned every degree and recognition that they've gotten.
00:38:40.580but they know that some people kind of look out the corner of their eye and