Western Standard - Why is Trudeau getting Emergencies Act Inquiry report before you do？

00:00:00.000 Minister Blair, Public Safety Minister, Minister Mendicino, National Security Intelligence

00:00:11.040 Advisor Jody Thomas and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey and today you testified that

00:00:16.720 the federal government was committed to exhausting all alternatives to a resolution prior to making

00:00:21.840 a decision to invoke the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act. Do you agree that that

00:00:28.000 accurately describes your government's position? That the invocation of the Emergencies Act was a

00:00:33.920 measure of last resort, was not something to be taken lightly and something to do when other options

00:00:41.040 were not effective. And you are aware that the OPP along with others developed an engagement proposal

00:00:48.080 and you were advised of that proposal at the IRG meeting on February 12th, correct? It was a proposal

00:00:56.160 but we had, and it was presented to us, we had more questions about how it would actually work.

00:01:04.000 There, it was not a complete proposal. My last question, Mr. Prime Minister,

00:01:08.240 when did you and your government start to become so afraid of your own citizens?

00:01:14.720 That's a very unfair… I am not, and we are not. Those are my questions.

00:01:19.280 I thought, by the way, that was a tour de force of questioning. And I think the country,

00:01:27.520 at least those who were watching that day, recognized that Justin Trudeau lied

00:01:34.160 when you asked him why he called Canadians names.

00:01:37.360 Yeah, well, it's so interesting because the question was, in fact, do you as a leader think that

00:01:45.840 your job is to unite Canadians or divide them with name-calling? And I guess, you know,

00:01:52.560 he couldn't really answer that question apart from saying, I didn't call anyone names, but it was

00:01:57.920 what the role of a leader is. And it was interesting to see how he scrambled with that one.

00:02:05.040 Yes, he certainly did scramble and denied it all, even though he had said, of course,

00:02:10.160 in two separate occasions that people opposed to the vaccine were misogynistic and racist, which was,

00:02:17.200 I personally believe, and I think everybody associated with the Freedom Convoy believed

00:02:22.480 was just unacceptable. You also asked him, and you repeated that in a tweet the other day,

00:02:29.520 when did you start to become afraid of Canadians? Do you really think, do you think Justin Trudeau is

00:02:34.240 afraid of Canadians? Well, so I was in Ottawa for the convoy protest, and I was in the middle of so

00:02:43.120 many negotiations with the city police. So all we had to do, the only people we had to deal with at

00:02:48.720 first was Ottawa city police, and then the city of Ottawa came to the table because they were desperate.

00:02:55.200 And then I sat through six weeks of hearings with all these representatives of Ottawa. Beside me,

00:03:01.760 most of the time Tamara Leach was sitting and like, you know, protesters were in and out. Then the last 1.00

00:03:08.000 week we had ministers and Brenda Luckey. And all I thought the whole time was, what were you afraid of?

00:03:17.200 You know, we're sitting here in the same room, we're all Canadians, we're all adults, I think. And all you

00:03:23.600 had to do was talk to us, talk to the protesters, they came to your doorstep. What on earth are you so 0.98

00:03:31.040 afraid of? Like, I do think so, because there was absolutely no reason for there not to be any

00:03:38.400 dialogue. All right. And certainly his reaction, the authoritarian reaction did seem to indicate

00:03:48.000 fear. And certainly his ministers, I think of the justice minister, I call him the injustice minister,

00:03:54.480 when he actually asked for tanks to go out and confront these peaceful protesters. You wonder

00:04:01.040 what they were thinking. But it was just a joke, David. Yeah, it was just, yes, that's right. Afterwards,

00:04:07.520 it was just a joke. But of course, this cabinet often looks like a joke. And that's, that's part of the

00:04:15.040 problem. I want to turn, of course, to the issue of the hour, which is,

00:04:19.440 why is Justin Trudeau getting a copy of the Public Order Emergency Commission report, or as people

00:04:26.640 generally know it, the Emergencies Act inquiry report, two weeks ahead of everybody else,

00:04:32.160 including you or the opposition? Great question. And we don't have an answer to it. So I tried to

00:04:39.360 explain it as best I could on social media. And in our, it's in our final submission as well.

00:04:45.280 So this is a statutory requirement to do this into for the inquiry to happen and for a report to be

00:04:54.000 tabled in the House of Commons. That's a statutory legal requirement. No other commission or inquiry in

00:05:01.840 Canadian history has been conducted because of a lawful act like an act. And usually they're by order and

00:05:11.440 counsel, something like there's a, you know, a plane goes down, let's investigate it, let's figure it

00:05:17.280 out. So they come to the table, they make up an order in council, and they move forward. So in this

00:05:23.760 case, they also issued an order in council that has a different deadline. So the cabinet,

00:05:31.440 including Trudeau, wrote the mandate for the commission in addition to what's in the act.

00:05:37.760 And it has a different deadline. And that deadline is only for Trudeau and his cabinet to get an

00:05:44.080 advanced copy basically of the commission's report.

00:05:48.320 That does certainly sound mysterious. Do you think the public, you and the opposition,

00:05:56.880 the official opposition could be seeing a different version of this report after two weeks?

00:06:01.680 You know, that would be the more sinister result after having some time with the report so they

00:06:09.200 could, you know, ask for an amendment. I don't know. At a less sinister view of it,

00:06:16.320 they just have an opportunity before everyone else to start their messaging campaign,

00:06:22.400 their spin campaign before anybody else. And, you know, one thing that we really have to

00:06:28.080 think about and talk about is when the Emergencies Act was debated after the War Measures Act,

00:06:35.440 there was strong opposition to it. And it was the NDP that was demanding transparency and accountability.

00:06:43.440 And they're the ones that heavily pushed for this inquiry to happen because this is such a strong tool.

00:06:50.480 So we shouldn't be willy-nilly about any of this. This is so important, this inquiry. It's in statute.

00:06:58.400 It was debated. It's in law. And none of these mysterious questions about what's going to happen

00:07:06.080 and early reports should ever be touching the tongues of any Canadians. Like, this should not be a discussion.

00:07:12.800 Hmm. Yes. And certainly, it can only raise more questions and concerns. And so many Canadians

00:07:21.760 already have questions and concerns about the invocation of the Emergencies Act. So...

00:07:27.520 Exactly.

00:07:28.080 Now, you also mentioned the fact in your Twitter feed that there's been no comment from the federal

00:07:35.920 government on the legal opinion that was offered the cabinet. Now, can we think anything else,

00:07:42.240 then, that the cabinet didn't like this legal opinion?

00:07:46.320 So that, to me, is incredibly shocking. And I'm surprised more Canadians aren't outraged about that.

00:07:53.600 But... So when Minister Lamedi came to this stand, he came saying he was a fact witness.

00:08:01.520 So why do we need somebody providing facts? We already have the facts from tons of police officers.

00:08:08.960 That's... That was their job. They were the ones informing the minister. It's not like I wanted

00:08:13.840 Alamedi's first-hand experience during the three weeks there. That's not what he was there for.

00:08:18.960 And so he made that qualification at the beginning, which was very troubling for our group.

00:08:27.360 And one thing I want to mention before I go on is that on the first day, the commissioner said that

00:08:33.280 this isn't meant to be an adversarial process. This is an inquisitorial process. So our group wasn't there

00:08:39.760 to be at odds and demanding and fighting with. It's for the commission to do that. So we saw that

00:08:47.120 play out with the redactions and the late documents. It shouldn't have been on our group

00:08:52.080 to be the ones asking for that. That should have been the responsibility. And that is the role of the

00:08:57.120 commission. They had a huge team there to support that. So again, nobody's speaking up that this

00:09:05.360 doesn't make sense. That Alamedi is up there talking about being a fact witness. And 0.95

00:09:10.880 there's only so many challenges one can make. And so he goes up there and I'm sure it was shown during

00:09:17.760 his evidence or maybe somebody else. It said Department of Justice. And then the rest of the page was

00:09:24.800 blanked out. And he would not agree to waive or even ask his clients to waive privilege because

00:09:34.320 a lawyer has to abide by solicitor-client privilege. And clients are allowed to have discussions with

00:09:42.880 their lawyers in a protected environment. But we're not talking about those discussions anymore.

00:09:49.440 We're talking about the legal opinion, which they then said informed the cabinet of making the

00:09:55.920 decision of invoking the Emergencies Act. So in my view, this is a legal opinion that all Canadians

00:10:03.360 deserve to see. It's not about what was said, what the advice was, that was their opinion. And based on

00:10:09.040 that piece of paper, it was made, evidence was given that that's the reason they invoked the

00:10:15.520 Emergencies Act. So Canadians, for transparency, in my opinion, deserve to see that legal opinion as

00:10:22.480 well. And of course, if they're not releasing it, there must be something there that they don't

00:10:29.360 want to release. That is contrary to their opinion. Yeah. There was, after November 25th and Trudeau

00:10:40.720 stepped down, of course, there were, the Commission continued its hearings very quietly because they

00:10:47.600 certainly didn't promote them. They brought in a series of experts, so-called experts, to discuss

00:10:52.960 whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act was the appropriate thing to do. Most of these experts,

00:10:58.000 I attended a few of these meetings. There was no media present except myself, no public. Most of these

00:11:04.720 experts, as far as I can see, were pro-emergencies act. Were you invited, or was anybody from the

00:11:10.640 Freedom Convoy legal staff invited to attend these sessions? Interesting question. So I didn't stay on

00:11:19.040 in Ottawa any longer, but we had one of our legal team members still there. And so she informed,

00:11:25.120 first, we didn't really know about the process. We knew it existed, but we didn't know how involved we

00:11:32.240 could be. We thought we would be part of the panel discussion. After six weeks of evidence,

00:11:37.520 you know, we're there, let's have an informed conversation about what was discovered in the

00:11:43.120 last six weeks. No, that's not how it was. So what we were told to do is email a question to the lead

00:11:51.440 lawyer for the council, and they will determine whether or not that question will be put to the panel.

00:11:57.600 In addition, many people don't know this. They actually took away the microphones from all of the

00:12:04.000 parties, apart from the government of Canada. They still had a microphone in front of them.

00:12:10.320 All other parties, microphones were gone. So even if you wanted to raise a question, it was not possible

00:12:16.240 for you to do so. That's exactly what I suspected. Because as I said, it was most of these people,

00:12:24.800 they were there to reinforce the government. And I was quite surprised. Well, maybe I shouldn't have

00:12:31.520 been. But I was almost shocked that there was very little mention to the media that the process was

00:12:38.080 continuing, because they obviously didn't want a lot of coverage. So yeah, what was troubling to me,

00:12:45.600 as I mentioned, is after six weeks of so much evidence, and we weren't invited to be part of the

00:12:52.560 panel, you could really see that many of the panel members, they were still talking on MSM talking points.

00:13:01.040 It's like they hadn't heard anything from the six weeks, and they're just providing their academic

00:13:07.200 opinion. So you see how siloed it was. And it's like, how is this furthering any of the benefits

00:13:15.920 that we were looking to do it? Maybe that's the case. Maybe they didn't want that. Again,

00:13:20.320 you noted that the media wasn't really alerted to it. So working in silos and, you know, it's

00:13:27.200 incredibly unfortunate to me that that's how things were conducted in Canada. Dialogue is missing.

00:13:35.760 Yeah, I wanted to ask you as well, you probably haven't seen this, but I'll read a couple of

00:13:42.000 paragraphs from it. The Ottawa People's Commission, which sounds to me like a bunch of

00:13:48.880 neo-communists hiding out someplace in the gutters of Ottawa. But they've released a report today,

00:13:55.280 and the only media agency I think that's covered it has been the CBC, of course. And the allegations

00:14:02.000 in this report are so over the top, are so outrageous, that it's almost like a parody.

00:14:08.160 And I'll read you their key line. And apparently, they claim they spoke to 200 people, which of

00:14:15.440 course, it's nothing. But I doubt they even spoke to that many. And the commentary runs like this.

00:14:23.360 People who live and work in Ottawa endured several weeks of widespread human rights abuse amidst the

00:14:29.520 climate of threats, fear, sexual harassment, and intimidation marked by racism, misogyny,

00:14:36.160 anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other expressions of hate and intolerance.

00:14:44.640 I just, I just, I wonder if this was for real or not. But here's really where I want your comment.

00:14:52.240 This is, well, yes, people told this commission they were driven into by truck

00:14:59.120 drivers, beaten, pushed, chased, and threatened. Now, obviously, if any of this had been anything

00:15:06.400 but fiction, I think people would have been running to the police, and people would have been charged

00:15:10.800 for driving over residents or beating them up. So, do you have any comment on that?

00:15:17.280 Yeah, well, and I actually just tweeted about it today is, unfortunately, and I've said this many times

00:15:25.040 since, especially the Public Order Emergencies Inquiry, it really exposed the incompetence of our

00:15:33.520 government agencies and police authorities. And I don't say that with pride or that I'm happy about

00:15:42.880 that. I don't say that at all. What I think it did is definitely shone a light on the issues. But to some

00:15:50.240 extent, I have to feel for police authorities who are getting this kind of just silly. So, basically, 0.92

00:16:00.720 what they're saying is everyone failed them. It was so bad that the police, like, it sounds like the

00:16:07.280 police just abandoned these people and the city. And so, how can, how do you reconcile that? And I do blame

00:16:15.760 our Prime Minister Trudeau from the top starting this rhetoric of hate and division. And who's the

00:16:24.000 one that has to deal with it on a day-to-day basis? It's the police authorities on the ground with

00:16:30.400 protests and anti-protests, with city council that was on the ground, because of the hate divisive

00:16:37.920 rhetoric that came straight from our Prime Minister. And it's just sad, honestly.

00:16:44.240 Yeah. People have asked me why I spent so much time at the Freedom Convoy a year ago and why I've

00:16:52.560 spent so much time writing about it ever since and why I'm going to keep writing about it. Because I think

00:16:57.920 we're living in a historically very fragile time because of the preponderance of social media,

00:17:05.840 the distrust of the mainstream media, and the fact that we hear words like misinformation,

00:17:11.920 disinformation constantly spewned by this government. And I think it's important that

00:17:18.880 that people like me, and I think what you're doing and what you have done is so important

00:17:24.800 to define actually, historically, what happened during that time of the Freedom Convoy. Because otherwise,

00:17:31.920 the official history being written by the Trudeau government, and people like this,

00:17:38.240 is going to paint this peaceful protest like it was a Nazi Nuremberg rally. And I spent the time I 0.74

00:17:46.640 spent, I saw nothing but love and compassion and people who are hurting because of excessive mandates

00:17:53.840 and authoritarian laws from this government. So I want to thank you for keeping up the fight

00:18:00.880 in this. Because I think it's not just a matter of politics and it's not a matter of whether or not

00:18:06.400 you agree with the mandates or you're vaccinated or not. It's a matter of historical record. And I

00:18:13.200 think what you're doing and you continue to do with on social media and in interviews like this and the

00:18:19.120 other work you do is so important because you have credibility and people listen and we need more

00:18:25.200 people to define actually what happened last February. Well, thanks so much, David. And like,

00:18:31.200 I appreciate all the work that everyone else is doing. And speaking to what you mentioned,

00:18:38.560 making sure history is pretty accurate. That was a big reason that, too, I had read those statements to

00:18:47.040 Prime Minister Trudeau. Many people didn't realize that, too, because that became an exhibit that forms

00:18:53.840 part of the public order emergencies inquiry. I read three short paragraphs from three different

00:18:59.920 people of I think it was 500 or 300. We had so many, we couldn't even put it together. But getting

00:19:06.240 those stories of people that were there, and more so my heart goes out to the people that are Indigenous

00:19:14.720 and Black and LGBTQ that were there to support and they're doubly getting it. So they're being told that

00:19:24.240 like myself being a female, a misogynist or a Black person or an Indigenous person,

00:19:30.000 they're racist for supporting it. Those are the stories that are still out there. And they brought

00:19:37.040 tears to my eyes when I was reading them all the time. And yes, let's keep sharing those important

00:19:43.120 stories from the people that were actually there and not those that made it up in their heads.

00:19:47.920 Well, thank you so much, Eva. I hope we can talk again, certainly when the actual report comes out,

00:19:54.800 and perhaps next week when Justin Trudeau gets his secret copy. Thank you so much again, Eva.

00:20:00.640 My pleasure. Thank you.

00:20:02.080 Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago. These guys are on the front

00:20:08.240 lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:20:14.960 And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong

00:20:19.680 people who become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny.

00:20:25.360 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.

Western Standard - January 31, 2023

Why is Trudeau getting Emergencies Act Inquiry report before you do？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript