Canadian Constitutional Crisis | Brian Peckford | The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast S4: E78
25 Jan 2022
https://odysee.com/@PandemicParallaxView:6/Canadian-Constitutional-Crisis_Brian-Peckford-012522:2
https://ratical.org/PandemicParallaxView/index.html#CCCBP

Timestamps:
[0:00:00] Political context for the interview
[0:07:32] Jordan introduces his esteemed guest the Honorable Brian Peckford, former prime minister of Newfoundland and Labrador
[0:10:47] Peterson and Peckford’s discussions over the last week
[0:13:07] Rights infringed by Government despite Charter of Rights
[0:18:10] Four tests before revoking Canadian rights 
[0:20:39] Appropriate use of emergency measures
[0:22:21] Why YouTube and not (more traditional) media outlets? Following the money
[0:25:23] Peckford's (intentionally) assertive denouncement; establishing precedents
[0:30:20] Can Canadian courts be relied upon for fair and impartial hearings?
[0:33:49] Canadian mobility rights
[0:36:14] Subversion of the parliamentary process during the pandemic
[0:43:05] Changes in transmission/vaccination rates & societal effects after 1st lockdown
[0:44:25] Accountability & Government inertia in the face of faulty measures
[0:51:23] Ramifications of a federal win 
[0:54:40] The second (competing) Charter of Rights
[1:01:09] Jordans' summary of the accusations up to this point. Degradation of civic involvement. Why civic education matters.
[1:09:02] Recap
[1:11:16] Peckford’s appeal to Canadian citizens
[1:15:08] Closing conversation
#CharterOfRights #COVID19 #CanadianRights #Vaccines #Lockdown

mr peckford and i have been talking over
the last week
um as i mentioned
because he has serious concerns
about the policies of the current
canadian government
in relationship to the canadian charter
of rights which was established as part
of the
constitution act in the 1980s and he
as i
said in the bio is the only living
minister
who participated in that constitutional
process and is there uh is therefore a
unique
let's say historical and current
resource
because he can help
illuminate canadians as to the intent of
the
people who
were instrumental in
drafting writing and agreeing on all of
those
fundamentally important accords
so let's start by
a disc let's start by talking about
what concerns are driving you to
re-enter the political discussion at the
moment
well primarily it is the charter of
rights and freedoms
especially those freedoms and rights
that are in sections 2 6 7 and 15 of the
charter which i helped craft
and their freedoms of association
freedoms of expression religion
conscience freedom of assembly freedom
of association that's in section two
section six of freedom of mobility the
right to travel anywhere in canada or
leave canada
section six deals with life liberty and
the security of the person in section 15
uh with equality every canadian
is uh equal before the law as we sit
here today
those
those provisions are being violated by
all the governments of canada but in
particular in my case right now the
federal government of canada and i'm
about to launch a lawsuit against the
federal government because of these
mandates especially their travel ban
[Music]
so
i want to get this straight in my head
zooms back up you were involved in the
constitutional process
okay
and
that
um relevant to the establishment of the
canadian bill of rights
canadian charter rights sorry yes let's
get that right
bill rights was done in 1960 by john
baker and was incomplete
right right okay that's why we needed
the charter rights in 1980 1802
right okay well we might want to we
might want to cover that when we talk
i'm trying to i'm trying to
juggle a lot of balls in my head right
now because we want to be able to
concentrate on the issue at hand but we
also want to bring along people who are
listening into the entire process so
they understand
yes we kind of have to do this on the
fly because we have like zero time so
and we want to get it right and so
when you were
working on the
constitutional partition process
how was that associated directly with
the
establishment of the canadian charter of
rights
okay it was all in the same bill called
the constitution act of 1982.
okay it's confusing because in 1981 when
we finalized the deal in november it was
called the patriation agreement
but when it got put into legislation in
the next year it got the words got
changed because it's now going into
legislation to the constitution act of
1982.
so the constitution act of 1982 contains
the patriation in other words this was
us our last time
severing ties with england we wouldn't
have to go back to england anymore to do
any amendments to our constitution we
could do them in canada that's what
patriation means
and then attached to what were a number
of other provisions including the
charter of rights and freedoms so it's
the constitution act of 1982 but it was
finalized in the fall of 1981.
okay eric are we recording like this we
are yeah okay good because that's
actually all relevant information some
of this might have to be
sorted
what's that that's okay
yeah no that's fine okay okay okay good
put it in later okay
so
yeah because i'm thinking
at this point if i can have everybody
else on airplane mode
uh during the recording
so i put at the end of the bio here as a
kind of lead into our discussion
that mr peckford has recently re-entered
the political arena because he has
serious concerns about the policies of
the canadian government in relationship
to the canadian charter of rights and if
he's not talking it's excellent
that's okay
that's a pretty blunt that's a pretty
blunt statement
but it's true
okay so
now we talked when when we emailed we
decided that
we're going to kind of open this with
a description of
the current problem and what you're
going to do about it
and then maybe we can use that as a lead
into a discussion of the history
yes sure okay that seems reasonable i
want to do i don't want to do this in a
planned
and
one of the things that goes very badly
in this kind of media is any attempt to
sort of shape it you know i know okay
okay so we don't want to do
that so
okay i think i thought i think i can
open with the bio which is pretty much
what your people sent me i just
shortened it to some degree like sure
i just tightened it up that's all and
then
i can use that line he recently entered
the political arena because he has
serious concerns i can use that
and ask you what those concerns are that
should do the trick that should open the
conversation i think
yes
okay
and i think all the other questions i
have
i can just ask you well
we're doing this they can just be part
of the process and that'll help me bring
everyone who's listening along
yeah and then
go ahead please i can very quickly
say in my opening as i say one of my
concerns that in 1867 when the country
was formed with the dna act there was no
bill of rights or charter rights in it
that's why we're still relying on the
british common law which was unwritten
and then we decided into the 20th
century that that wasn't good enough
especially with the influence in the
united states that had a bill of rights
almost from day one yeah so there were
moves underfoot to try to do that that
started with diesel baker in 60 but that
was only a federal act that applied to
federal people that didn't reply to the
whole nation to every canadian so in
1981
we completed that process by doing the
charter rights and freedoms in the
constitution act of 1982 which gave
every canadian rights and freedoms
written in the constitution
yep yep that's that's all that's all
excellent background
yeah okay i think i think
likely we're ready to go
we can talk about what we're going to do
with all this material
when we're done recording it and figure
out exactly how to manage it the release
of it and all of that
yeah i mean i'm
in some sense tempted to even use all
the discussion we're having right now as
part of that because
that gives people a very honest
representation of exactly what's going
on it's good for them to see the process
and not just the conclusion
so and that also makes it much more
trustworthy in the most real sense
there's no
attempt to massage
that's exactly it that's exactly it and
we want to step extraordinarily
carefully so i think i'll open with this
bio and then i'll i'll just ask you what
your concerns are
i'll also do a foray into asking you why
you chose this
medium
to make
to make this
case and claim because that's also
unsettling to say the least
so
all right
are you ready eric yes sir
okay
oh is that is it dave
yeah
i'll go down
um
i don't know that he can and lex is
going to record upstairs so he can't go
upstairs either so
he's just kind of
no tucky
thank you scott
we'll wait till he's back you don't need
a chair wait to live's back
are we waiting till we're gonna wait
till he's back just to confirm that
oh okay okay so we got a just a couple
minute delay here
go for it jordan
hello everyone i'm i'm here today with a
historical
figure
in the canadian landscape the honourable
brian peckford former premier of
newfoundland
we've been talking over the last couple
of days
about
the broader events in in canada in
relationship to
the political and constitutional work
that mr peckford did
in the 1980s and decided that it was
necessary to have a serious conversation
about such things at this time i'm going
to open this with a bio of mr peckford
so that everyone is situated in the
proper place to appreciate the
conversation
the honorable a brian peckford pc was
born august 27 1942 in whitburn
newfoundland
graduating from lewisport high school in
1960 he obtained his ba in education at
memorial in newfoundland
in 1966 and later did postgraduate work
in english literature and educational
psychology
in 1972
mr peckford
entered the political arena as a member
of the progressive conservatives
was elected as a member of the
provincial house of assembly
soon serving as special and
parliamentary assistant to the then
premier frank moores
he was minister of municipal affairs and
housing in 1974 and minister of mines
and energy and minister of rural
development northern affairs
for that province in 1976
in 1979 at the age of 36 which made him
a very young leader by the standards by
which such things are judged he became
leader of the pc party
and premier
of newfoundland
his government established the atlantic
accord bringing offshore oil and gas
revenue to the province
over 25 billion dollars to date
and a say in the management of the
resource
newfoundland's involvement in canada's
constitutional partition process in the
early 1980s led to the breakthrough
agreement
culminating in the constitution act of
1982.
he is the only living
first minister
who participated in that constitutional
process something that's dead relevant
to our later discover discussion
he retired from politics in march 1989
beginning a consulting company with his
wife carol assisting companies in europe
and north america
former premier peckford is the author of
two books the last someday the sun will
shine and have not will be no more was a
globe and male best seller in 2012.
he was soared to the privy council by
her majesty queen elizabeth in 1982.
he retired in 2001 and presently lives
with his wife carol in parksville
british columbia
now
mr peckford and i have been talking over
the last week
as i mentioned
because he has serious concerns
about the policies of the current
canadian government
in relationship to the canadian charter
of rights which was established as part
of the
constitution act in the 1980s and he
as i
said in the bio is the only living
minister
who participated in that constitutional
process and is there uh is therefore a
unique
let's say historical and current
resource
because he can help
illuminate canadians as to the intent of
the
people who
were instrumental in
drafting writing and agreeing on all of
those
fundamentally important accords
so let's start by
a disc let's start by talking about
what concerns are driving you to
re-enter the political discussion at the
moment
well primarily it is the charter of
rights and freedoms
especially those freedoms and rights
that are in sections 2 6 7 and 15 of the
charter which i helped craft
and their freedoms of association
freedoms of expression religion
conscience freedom of assembly freedom
of association that's in section two
section six freedom of mobility the
right to travel anywhere in canada or
leave canada
section six deals with life liberty and
the security of the person in section 15
with equality every canadian
is uh equal before the law as we sit
here today
those
those provisions are being violated by
all the governments of canada but in
particular in my case right now the
federal government of canada and i'm
about to launch a lawsuit against the
federal government because of these
mandates especially their travel ban
there's no other travel ban in the
western world
like this one and yet we're the second
largest country in the world by
geography
this impinges upon my right of travel my
right to travel to my family back east
or my friends it takes away my right
as a canadian
to be protected by the mobility right of
section 6. therefore
i i feel that the federal government has
overreached its authority
okay so let me get this clear because
i'm still having a hard time
conceptualizing
the fact that this is actually a reality
so the situation we have in canada is
that
a former drafter of what is one of the
most fundamental articles of our shared
agreement as a people
is now about to launch a legal claim
against the government itself
for violating the fundamental principles
upon which the entire country is founded
and
assembled and agrees that's not too
blunt
no that is
that is very very accurate that's
exactly what's happening i'm the only
first minister left alive who was at
that conference and helped draft
these freedoms and these rights and the
constitution act of 1982 itself and i do
this very reluctantly uh you know i've
been watching this thing now for almost
two years i've been speaking out about
it at public meetings and on my blog and
so on
and i've come to the conclusion now that
i must as a canadian and as one of the
writers and founders of the constitution
act of 1982 not only speak about it i
must act about it i must show canadians
that i'm so concerned as a citizen as a
former first minister that helped craft
this constitution act 1982 that i must
take action against my own government
because they have violated rights that i
and others helped craft in 1981 1982.
well what do you think the legal
response to this is going to be you
obviously and i know this of course is
you've been consulting with a legal team
i suppose and we can talk about that
i mean
it seems to me that this puts the courts
in an awfully
uh complicated position to say the
absolute least because
it's and please correct me if i'm
misstepping in any way here
it's up to the courts to determine
the letter but also the spirit of these
fundamental laws and it seems to me that
it's almost inarguable that if you have
a living member of the
of the body that drafted the provisions
making the claim that they're being
violated that that's as good an
indication about
the violation of the spirit of the law
certainly and perhaps the letter as well
that that that you could possibly have
it
am i
am i
summing that up accurately
yes you are and then and and other
lawyers including the lawyers that will
be representing me now in this lawsuit
the justice center for constitutional
freedoms have looked at the situation
very carefully and it's after weeks and
weeks of deliberation that we've decided
upon this action so the justice center
for constitutional freedoms will be
launching this lawsuit in the next 24
hours or so on behalf of me and a number
of other canadians but of course because
of my present status and previous status
as a first minister this becomes
elevated and perhaps more public than it
would otherwise become
but
this is my deliberate consideration and
that of my lawyers of what is going on
in this country what is happening is
that there is a section in charter
rights and freedoms which allows
governments to override these freedoms
in unusual circumstances and i remember
this very well when we were crafting the
constitution these unusual circumstances
because we're putting it in the
constitution it's not a federal act or
provincial act it's in a constitution
which is supposed to enshrine permanent
values and give glue to the country okay
so this section one can only be used and
i remember this well in times of peril
in times of war and insurrection or when
the state is in peril when the existence
of the state is in peril this particular
virus
for which there's a recovery of 99
a fatality rate of less than one percent
does not constitute in my view
uh a
a situation where the country is in
peril and therefore i argue that section
one doesn't even apply even though
they're trying to make it apply and use
that as the reason for doing what
they're doing
so you're saying that in your estimation
and and this is a consequence of the
knowledge that you bring forth from
conferring with all the people who
drafted this legislation to begin with
at the provincial and the federal level
that when you drafted it you did not
envision that its provisions could be
violated under conditions that weren't a
threat like a fundamental threat to the
integrity of the country itself
and the current and that the current
state of affairs on the public health
front
does in no way meet that criteria
absolutely it does not at all meet that
criteria and even in the extreme
circumstance because we're all fair
people that you tried to make section
one apply
and you and you said what peckford and
others are saying uh happened in 81 82
and section one doesn't apply uh does
apply then there are four tests that
have to be met in order for it to apply
that means it must be demonstrably
justified
that what the action is is worthwhile in
other words some kind of cost-benefit
analysis it must be done by law it must
be done in reasonable limits and
fourthly and most importantly all of
those three must be done within the
context of a free and democratic society
and a free and democratic society to me
means parliamentary democracy in our
country we have 14 parliaments and they
have been completely silent there's no
parliamentary committee anywhere in any
of those 14 parliaments looking at
what's happening to our country there
are the people's representatives and so
on okay so you're also saying and this
is also terrible that you're also saying
that
even the process itself by which these
exceptions could be made has been
essentially subverted in the name of
something approximating expediency but
that the the rationale for that
expediency does not indicate a level of
seriousness sufficient to justify that
expedient process
absolutely
absolutely exactly what i'm saying and i
think that's extremely unfortunate and
uh i i don't normally speak for myself
on this there's quite a few experts
around
like the great barrington declaration
over a year ago now identified and these
were some of the greatest
epidemiologists in the world how to
approach this kind of a situation okay
and that's their principles still stand
you know you you you protect the
vulnerable you do everything to protect
the vulnerable in this kind of situation
and by the way this is not new all of
the provinces of canada have what's
called emergency measures organizations
which spend we spend all these millions
on as taxpayers who do nothing else so
sit down every day and organize a plan
for some kind of an emergency
declared let's say let's admit maybe
the emergency or at least a very serious
situation in the country and and then
they bring to to bear all of the
planning tools that are necessary not
just a narrow clinical one from the
department of health right
how is the best way in lieutenant
colonel david redman out of alberta who
wrote the new emergency measures act
there
speaks eloquently to this and has
produced all kinds of documents that
nobody has challenged that this was the
the appropriate approach to take okay so
so there's two
issues that stem out of that the first
is
what has also happened and and you're
making allusion to that is that the
political
our political leaders
have not only
circumvented the parliamentary process
to produce provisions that violate the
canadian charter of rights
but they've abdicated their
responsibility for overall governance
which is the balancing of all sorts of
competing interests to a narrow public
so-called public health policy
so and that that's also
inappropriate governance in the most
fundamental sense
yes absolutely no question and if
anybody looks at the documentation that
the left-hand colonel david redmond has
produced they will be convinced that
and you know we had the swine flu on i
and other foods before this and other
infectious diseases and that's why these
emergency measures organizations were
put in place for you know like when the
river floods in winnipeg or when we have
you know uh a nice storm in quebec or
whatever that there are people who have
already planned for all of this and have
already contacted the private sector the
public sector all the relevant
government departments so when something
happens they're ready to move quickly on
all fronts and have a very joined effort
to ensure that the totality of society
is considered compromised
isn't compromised and you put in
measures which acknowledge all the
factors because now we know from studies
that have been produced eaten by douglas
dr douglas allen with simon fraser
university who looked at 80 studies over
a year ago which showed that the cure
was worse than the disease in other
words the lockdowns caused so many
problems on the other side that was
difficult to justify the measures that
were being used okay now you alluded to
the fact too that
this isn't in some sense common public
knowledge and then
along with that we're faced with the
extreme oddity i would say of the fact
that the venue that you chose to
announce this move and to discuss all
these issues isn't a standard news media
venue it's my youtube channel and one of
the things that you discussed with me
earlier this week was the impossibility
in your view of having these topics
dealt with in an honest and
straightforward manner by any major news
organization in canada which to me is
almost an
statement
damning the current
larger scale governance structure which
in some sense includes a free press
operating in
in a coherent and
articulate and trustworthy manner as a
check
a check
and an opportunity for reflection on the
political process
and so that in itself seems as worrisome
as all the other things that we're
talking about at a governmental level
like i think this is preposterous in
some sense that this is the place where
this discussion is taking place
and so
yes no i i i think you raise an
extremely important point and one that i
need to address
and i've been
vocal about being concerned
about what's happening for quite some
time and i've held public meetings here
on vancouver island and vancouver in
front of the art gallery last october
and i've written letters
to national newspapers and they have not
carried any my letters which is quite
unusual because before this happened
they would carry my letters when i made
common comment on normal public policy
issues across the nation and they
carried my letters but in recent times
they have not even acknowledged that
they received them
so how do you account for that
what what's going on
well it seems to me that the media very
early on bought into the government
narrative
and developed the same kind of fear that
a lot of individuals did because of what
that was being told all was being
proposed with all these cases even
though these cases didn't represent
hospitalizations or icu
visits or whatever and so there was a
fear generated early on and the
mainstream media bought into it very
quickly and now are out trying to
sustain the narrative that they became a
part of early on is the only way i can
explain it of course we also know that
all the mainstream media have received
significant sums of money from the
government of canada over the last three
years over 600 million dollars so one
cannot but mention that in any
discussion like this that one has to ask
the question
has this flow of money from the federal
government to the canadian press in any
way impinged upon their impartiality to
tell the story on both sides of the
issue
what do you expect is going to happen as
a consequence of the challenge that
you're mounting and can you go into some
details about the precise nature of the
challenge because i i still don't i
don't understand it completely by any
means perhaps it's not understandable
completely by any means but
you're obviously with your legal team
you have a view of how this is likely to
unfold um
so
what do you want to happen and and and
how serious it challenges this to the
claim of the government
in some sense to have legitimate
sovereignty
yes i i i think uh
this is very serious because i think
first of all you have to as you know in
the legal system specifically
articulate in your lawsuit what it is
you're
you know making the lawsuit about so you
have to be specific so we had to pick
one area we could you know freedom of
expression conscience assembly
association life liberty and so on and
we picked mobility and the federal
government itself because
this you know
the second largest country in the world
right traveling by plane and train is
extremely important for business and for
the normal functioning of a nation
remember for the maintenance of families
and for the maintenance of families the
country was formed by moving from east
to west with the railway i mean our
history is all you know replete with
that kind of stuff so what we chose was
this particular situation of this travel
ban which right impacts every single
canadian in their movement to to meet
family and to conduct regular business
and so we thought this would be
an area that that we should highlight
and because we had to get specific so
i'm particularly um the lawsuit
challenging the the government's
program of
banning travel by train and playing by
canadians in other words we can't travel
across our own nation and the section
six says mobility the right of every
canadian to travel anywhere in canada or
leave town
that's what the sector says
that's the exact words of sectional so
therefore that's what we are pursuing
now in the courts in the next couple of
days in the next few weeks and hopefully
we'll get a decision we're asking for an
expedited decision in the next three or
four months so this will fundamentally
challenge
the approach that the federal government
is taking on responding to this
so-called pandemic and therefore will
put into question uh this whole notion
of using section one of the charter to
override these rights and freedoms if us
as first ministers uh dr peterson had
wanted to just have uh protecting rights
and freedoms that could easily be
changed we wouldn't have gone to the
constitution we would have just said all
right put it back just put an act in the
federal parliament and put acts in all
the parliaments and then up to the whim
of the political party at the time to
change it we wanted to safeguard it so
that it was beyond the whim of political
machinations and therefore could not be
changed only in the most extreme
circumstances so what we're really
concerned about and what i'm really
concerned about is if this is not
if our
charter is not upheld and then honored
and these freedoms and rights honor then
the next and therefore we lose the next
time around when there's an emergency
two or three years from now or one or
the government decides and declares that
there is an emergency they can use this
as a precedent and the charter becomes
further diluted and then our rights and
freedoms as individuals has been
destroyed and that section of being a
democracy is no more
that is the great danger so that's why
it's very necessary for me to do what
i'm doing the other point about this is
is that four years after the charter
came in in 1986 there was a case in the
supreme court of canada where the judges
were forced to look at section one
because of the way the lawyer had
constructed the case for his client it's
called the oats test
and in that the judges tried to describe
what uh
this section one meant and they did not
a bad job not as good as i thought they
should do but still a much better job
and it's really funny the lower courts
have who have already looked at the
charter as it relates to what's going on
have not used this test which is highly
unusual because courts always look to
the president set by the highest
supreme court in determining what they
will do in their case because they were
both concerning the charter and so the
absence of seeing
the the oats test being used in the
lower court so far is very troubling and
therefore the other reason why we must
take this kind of action at this time
okay so let me ask you a question about
that because this process of
so circumventing parliament and then
um
failing to meet the proper standards for
the kind of crisis that would involve
lifting the provisions of the canadian
charter of rights
that should be blocked
by the courts if they're abiding by the
principle of common law
reliance on previous presidents
especially at higher court levels
but that's not happening and so
and that's in the context
that we discussed already where the
media for example has become co-opted or
corrupted to a degree that it's no
longer reliable
i know i've talked spoken with many
lawyers in canada in recent years who
are very upset about the co-option and
and corruption of the entire legal
enterprise for similar reasons
are you even vaguely confident that the
the court system itself has enough
integrity to give the views that you're
putting forward even though
they're at the basis of the constitution
that unites us all do you think that
your views can get any fairer
or
more
equally impartial hearing in the court
system than they have in the media
well i i think here's where i come down
on that the lower courts have made some
decisions which are injurious to the to
the charter and they're being appealed
to the higher courts so i think here's
where we have an opportunity this
particular lawsuit of mine will go to
the federal court of canada first and
then
likely to the supreme court of canada
second
regardless of what decision is made one
side of the other will will quite likely
appeal it
so i think
at the court of appeal in the provinces
that's the highest courts in the problem
since every single province
has courts a supreme court and then a
court of appeal and canadians are
confused about that because when they
hear these early decisions i think
that's the end of it
and that's only the beginning of it to
use a really good metaphor canadian
metaphor we're in the second period
halfway through the second period we
still got a you know perhaps half the
game left or almost half the game left
and that's where the courts of appeal
come in who usually are more independent
and more sober
thought as it relates to the juris
prudence which is before them and so
this is where i and the lawyers i think
uh come down and say
we have to exhaust
all of the
civilized legal processes that we set up
under our constitution and that means
these decisions will be appealed to the
courts of appeal in the provinces and
then to the supreme court of canada so
it's these higher courts that have an
unbelievable responsibility now
unelected judges to finally decide
whether in fact
uh the the really the democracy of
canada is going to survive or not or
whether suddenly from 1867 to 1981 82 we
didn't have a written charter we get one
and now within 40 years it's being
eviscerated or somehow
undermined by an overreach of the
various governments that's our position
and we hope to put that to the judge
judges and hopefully that the judges
will see it in that kind of reason
balanced way okay so you focused on
uh movement the right to movement and i
think you put that in a very interesting
historical context and practical context
with your discussion of the fact a that
canada is absolutely huge and people are
distributed all across it and that
freedom of movement is necessary for us
to conduct our businesses and to
maintain our families and to communicate
but also that canada itself was knitted
together as a consequence of
facilitation of freedom of movement not
least by the railway so but were there
other
violations of charter principles that
you
considered um highlighting as you moved
forward before you settled on
freedom of movement
of course there were many including
freedom of association
and freedom of assembly
lots of people the churches christian
churches and other churches were
prevented from getting together so that
violence and there's a curfew in quebec
still
which is just it's just absolutely
beyond comprehension in my estimation in
a free society that that can be the case
and i have friends in quebec who are
hurt to the bone by the fact for example
that they're not allowed given their
they're not allowed to attend religious
services for example which and that's a
really egregious violation because
if there's anything more fundamental
let's say that freedom of association
well maybe there's freedom of speech but
before that even there's freedom of
belief and and to to interfere with that
at a governmental level is unprecedented
at in my estimation especially when they
have not gone out of their way to
demonstrably justify which is one of the
tests of section one where is it
demonstrably justification demonstrable
justification of what they're doing one
would think in public policy since my
time and long before when i was a
premier one of the things governments
did when they were introducing
especially brand new legislation you
know and doing very serious things with
the constitution would be to do a
cost-benefit analysis and based upon
that you would decide how you went
forward none of that was done no
parliamentary committee was ever struck
to look at both sides of the issue and
call-on experts all of these kinds of
reasonable measures which were part of
the canadian fabric of developing public
policy have been discarded in this
particular so what are people okay so
what are people doing i've spoken to rex
murphy about that and rex has been
the only journalist perhaps who's been
beating the warning drum trying to alert
canadians to the fact that the
parliamentary process itself has been
subverted at the federal and the
provincial levels and he's he's
certainly been allowed to express those
views but i don't think canadians
have any real sense
of
exactly how serious that is so one
question would be well if our laws are
no longer if the laws that restrict our
charter freedoms are no longer being
produced by parliamentary debate
how are they being produced and so that
be the first question how practically
how is this occurring is it just by is
it just by fiat is it just by statement
and
and
and if so why are these laws to be
regarded as valid at all and if they're
not valid well what does that mean
yeah well here here's where the most
insidious part of this equation comes
into play what the governments have done
have used in very many cases existing
legislation under which they have the
power to make regulation
so they've used existing emergencies
okay legislation and
inflated it enough or interpreted in a
manner that they could also use in this
circumstance and therefore issue
additional
regulation okay and then in other cases
they did not fully explain or have a
parliamentary committee look at other
amendments when they open their
parliament and close it within two or
three days or a week in other words
sufficient debate wasn't allowed to to
understand the repercussions of what
they were doing when they were giving
more power to the minister and more
power to the public health officer right
so this really means this really means
in some sense that none of these
policies were subject to opposition
which is because that's and so and let's
we could delve into that a little bit
you might say well in an emergency such
that provisions shouldn't be subject to
opposition because that's inefficient
but that is the same thing as saying two
things one is that they shouldn't be
thought about because
discussion between opposing parties is
actually thought
and then the second thing it's saying is
they should be implemented without
recourse to the broader public because
the broader public is represented in
that oppositional structure so that
everybody's voices are being allowed to
be heard that's what that's in some
sense the whole point of the parliament
where you parliament means place of
talking fundamentally and it means more
deeply than that place of thinking and
even more deeply than that
place of discussion of the entire
panoply of public opinion that's all
gone by the wayside in the name of
efficiency let's say or something like
that yes doctor and even it gets worse
than that because we have had time
one can perhaps relieve or excuse if one
wants to to make so that your argument
is completely reasonable and say for the
first 90 days yeah this thing began
you could make an argument that okay the
government's had to move but in any
rational way if they had used the
emergency measures planning that was
already in place they would have moved
to protect the vulnerable first and then
did a study on the rest what else do we
need to do in society what they did is
just a carte blanche on over all of
society without giving second thought to
it and now all of the studies 90 days
after this started and 100 days 120 days
show right and then the great barrington
declaration is a good example over a
year old now is the great barrington
declaration so they had lots of
information and dr allen's report from
cyber trades over a year ago so they've
had lots of
information and scientific studies about
what's going on to demonstrate that not
only are the vaccines destructive more
destructive than any vaccines in our
history
and that's a that's a scientific fact
then
they had time to adjust and this is
where they have not even been nimble in
this kind of circumstance when you think
this is the very time that governments
would be nimble okay we'll see what we
can do with the vulnerable all these
long term care homes in the hospitals
and also who are most vulnerable and
we'll now have the parliamentary
committee on an expedited basis i
understand that on an emergency basis
bring in experts from both sides within
the next 30 days to see whether what
else we should do in a reasonable and
graduated way or are what we're doing
now the most appropriate way to respond
right right
so your case is well in the early stages
of the emergency
of the of the pandemic when people
didn't understand the magnitude of the
risk there was potential for
justification for reducing parliamentary
complexity to
short-term efficiency but as the
pandemic has unfolded and we become more
aware of its true risks or lack thereof
we should have returned to the
principles of parliamentary democracy as
rapidly as possible
and with less and less justification
that's continued to happen that that
circumvention of the parliamentary
process has continued to happen and
and i suppose that culminated in in
recent months with the the quebec
lockdown the curfew
i don't see how anybody can possibly
make the case that
that curfew was implemented under
conditions that were as uncertain and
dire as those that obtained in the
initial phases of the pandemic
especially given that
the omicron is obviously much less
serious than the original virus and also
we we've already attained something
approximately
something approximating an 80
vaccination rate
and that's not going to be pushed up
much higher than 90 without government
intervention that becomes unbelievably
heavy-handed so there's less and less
justification for more and more
circumvention of parliamentary processes
as this proceeds instead of exactly the
opposite
exactly that's why it took me this long
to to be convinced that i have to take
this action i mean i never took this
action 90 days after they brought in
these things or 100 days or a year after
right we've i've been watching this and
commenting and making you know
articulating my concerns as rex has by
the way rex and murphy and i went to
university together we're both
newfoundlanders we're all both born in
newfoundland and uh i've heard him on
your program with you and enjoy enjoy
the conversation and and
love the english literature and the
classics like like he does and
we both got a very wonderful education
at memorial in those days no longer
there now but we did and i do appreciate
his commentary and what he's brought to
this uh to this discussion it's very
very important but the the other thing
is as you say the transmission of the of
the virus now and the virus has changed
so a lot of the vaccines that are being
used are no longer applicable they don't
do anything uh to the existing variant
that we have they were devised for
another variant or for the original
virus now the other thing is people
getting more planes in my and my travel
ban that i'm arguing on before the
lawsuit is that everybody transmits it
now unvaccinated and vaccinate transmit
receive and transmit the virus
so it's hard to make the argument that
the travel ban should be in place if the
transmission of the virus for which all
of this is centered is no longer valid
that is is that
the vaccinated protect
against the virus because they receive
it and transmit it the same as the
unvaccinated and now we find in denmark
israel just in the last few days right
that in australia their case rates have
gone through the roof again even though
they're 90 vaccinated and so the whole
basis right the whole basis of this uh
argument of these lockdowns and travel
bans and so on
the basis is combo right the whole civil
on which this so-called rational
approach to a virus has completely
crumbled and no longer can sustain
itself so
what one must then question why is this
continuing to be in place when all of
that data is available which at least
well i can tell you what i've been
informed of
about why it's continuing and i had a
conversation with a senior advisor to
one of canadians provincial governments
a number of conversations some of those
were conducted with rex none of this was
made public because the conversation
occurred in privacy and
and uh i asked the gentleman i was
speaking with why he wouldn't go public
and he said and i believe honorably that
he believed he could still do more good
from within the confines of the
governmental structure than as a lone
voice crying in the wilderness let's say
but he told me flat out that
canadian public policy is being uh um
so it's not being generated through the
parliamentary process that it's supposed
to be generated through what's happening
instead is the politicians are turning
to
badly sampled opinion polls short-term
opinion polls and driving policy as a
consequence and then it's not they're
not actually driving it as a consequence
of public opinion polls because that
would be something like consulting the
people they're utilizing
adherence to short-term public opinion
polls to maximize the probability that
they'll obtain political success in the
electoral sphere in the near future and
so i said i pressed him i said so you're
telling me that there's
that this isn't based on the science
because that's certainly what we're
hearing he said no it's not based on the
science that's not driving the decisions
i asked him
is there an end game in place which is
do we have definitions laid down for
when the pandemic is now of of
sufficient lack of severity that it's
over so to speak and we can go back to
normal life is that even is there even a
conceptual framework within which that
might occur and the answer to that was
no there's not that as well
and so
so it was one of the most shocking
conversations i think i've ever had in
my life in some sense because i'm not
cynic about the political process i
think that cheap cynicism about politics
is
uh it's a
it's an abdication of civic
responsibility and it's it's
it's it's bitterness masquerading as
wisdom
and that
but then when i heard that the situation
at the highest level of levels of
governance was
more cynical and less responsible than i
could have even imagined and that even
when i pushed that interpretation to see
if i was misinterpreting the answer i
received was a definitive no it's as bad
as you think or worse
and i didn't really know what to make of
that in the aftermath of the
conversation because
well for obvious for all the reasons
that we're discussing it's like well
have things really got to the point
where we don't use parliamentary process
we're violating the canadian charter of
bill of rights the press is so involved
in collusion that they won't even report
on it and they're being subsidized to a
great degree by the government in some
sense for doing so and that's so
widespread that it covers the entire
legacy media let's say it's like it
sounds conspiratorial in in in the
deepest sense and
that's why
that's why a lot of people have gone
that route is because they have been
almost pushed in that room and you see
the government they're using their
polling here they're on advertising
you've got to get fascinated vaccinated
on the television and they're actually
even
doing ads for children and trying to
talk to children directly through a
public ad so they're feeding off
themselves they're creating enough fear
so that they'll get the poll they want
to get
well that's what i that well that's the
other thing that i see happening and
this is partly why this process is so
dangerous is first of all it's very very
difficult to pull people and get a read
on really what they want and that's why
we don't have direct democracy by the
people we don't want
fear and whim and impulsivity that's not
thought through carefully to be the
basis for government so really what's
happened we could say in some sense is
that
by circumventing circumventing the
parliamentary process and abdicating
responsibility for complex multi-level
decision-making we've reverted to
something like the most primordial form
of of whim rule by mob and that's all
mediated through opinion polls that's
been the alternative to the
parliamentary process
the other thing perhaps that a lot of
canadians don't acknowledge and
recognize and
canadians are very wonderful people and
very nice people and very trustworthy of
their governments okay and so what has
happened in the last 40 years they have
not known this because we have not been
civically involved like we should i say
in all my public meetings the level of
good democracy is directly related to
the amount of civic involvement right
the less civic involvement the less
democracy and this is what's happening
in canada yeah well that cheap that
cheap cynicism interferes with that too
and what that means is that because
people are cynical and they think that's
wisdom then they they abandon these
institutions and then when they're
abandoned that means that maybe the
people who shouldn't be running them
are able to run them and then the whole
thing gets corrupted from the bottom up
and that's happening i see that
happening with school boards in
particular it's absolutely exactly
it's happening all over the place and
the problem with canada is not the
parliament that you and i grew up with
okay where the mp had really significant
power with the parliamentary committee
had really significant power and this is
true in all the problems as well there's
been a gradual
shift of power from the parliament first
to the cabinet and now to the first
minister's office both in all the
provinces and in the government of
canada donald j savoie has written a
book on this called democracy in canada
the the disintegration of our
institutions it's only a couple years
old it's a haunting book but he's one of
the experts in governance in canada and
he's a scholar at the university of
moncton and this is more or less his
epic book he's written quite a few books
on this over the years and this is a
book that every uh thinking canadian
should read because it
methodically and intelligently deals
with how over time without the shock
being fired the movement of power from
where it should reside in the parliament
all the way to the prime minister's
office and the premier's office and this
therefore um this this
this situation in early 2020 we were
very vulnerable to this kind of thing
happening by governments because we have
ran into that kind of atmosphere over
time with power shifting and therefore
exercise of power quickly by the
executive rather than by the parliament
okay so we've outlined to some degree
what it means
if the challenge that you're proposing
to mount fails and what it'll mean is
that what's happening now
with the centralization of power and the
circumventing of the parliamentary
process and the reliance let's say on
opinion polls and whim and the
abdication of responsibility for
governing to so-called experts who are
uni-dimensional in their viewpoint
that's the status quo and that's
becoming more and more uh uh the norm
what's the
i don't understand what'll happen if you
win i mean because if you win it means
that
we've been
that the laws that have governed us for
the last let's say year two years
accepting that initial period of maybe
we could say
uncertainty bordering on the level of
potential emergency
if you win
what does that mean for the
for the political sovereignty of the
federal gov federal and provincial
governments
i think what that means is that if we
win
we
we have identified that we have some
very substantial laws on the books that
when challenged and brought rationally
towards our highest courts
we'll be honored and that will give
canadians faith to reform either the
existing political parties or go with
new political parties that recognize in
their platform which they've signed off
on with the people that they respect the
charter rights and freedoms and only in
very dire circumstances
like a war insurrection cannot be uh
circumvented right that we must get back
to a parliamentary type of democracy the
power must be
returned to the parliament look
jody rabo when she argued as a minister
of justice and then later wanted to
appear before a parliamentary committee
she was allowed to appear a couple of
times then they shut the committee down
even though she indicated in writing
that she had more information that she
wanted to present so there was the
complete
what should i say tyranny of the
majority and for the parliamentary
system to work we have examples all over
the place of this in all of the
parliaments of canada so if we win i
think it will restore some confidence in
our system
with canadians and and tell them that
yes we have to reform the system more
and we can go with other political
parties or reform the existing ones so
that these laters leaders understand and
revise their platforms to get back to
what is true to parliamentary democracy
in our country that's the best so we can
see what does it say about if you win
what does it say about the culpability
of our current political leaders i mean
i don't understand what if if they if
their policies have been shown to
violate the most fundamental principles
upon which our country
maintains its peace and prosperity its
its integrity if they violated that what
does that mean for them
what are the consequences of that i
think the consequences is that either
they'd have to do a wholesale
reform of their parties or other new
parties will emerge with the kind of uh
platform that is implicit in that wing
okay you knew
part of one of the people who was
involved in the process that led to the
establishment of the
rules and regulations the principles
that we're discussing was pierre elliott
trudeau
so
what do you think
his intent was in relationship to the
charter of
rights and what do you think
he wanted less involvement of the
problems that's why
another piece of history doctor that
nobody seems to know about is that when
we started the process of getting the
charter it was a 17-month negotiation
and over halfway through the prime
minister of canada left the table and
said you're too difficult to deal with
even though it's a federal state you
know power's in the provinces powers and
here's where it's all gone wrong and so
he left the table and unilaterally
passed his own
bill
to patriot the constitution and have his
own version of the charter and he went
to his own friends in the supreme court
who turned him down what he was doing
was viewed
unconstitutional on september 28 1981
then he came back to the table and we
got the deal we have now so he didn't
get his charter his charter was amended
by us because we're in a federal state
and the court ruled you cannot do this
because you're impacting upon other
units of the confederation which have
legitimate power
and so he had to come back to the table
and then we negotiated what became for
example when you look at the charter
rights and freedoms now in that
parchment piece that people see when
they go into government canada sites and
i signed a whole bunch of them at a
public meeting last night there was only
one name on that charter pierre
electrudos that's unconstitutional
all the names of the first ministers
need to be on that charter in order for
it to be legitimate because it took all
the first ministers except quebec who
wouldn't uh agree but all the rest said
there were nine provinces and the
federal government that signed off on
that charter that signed off on that
constitution act 1980 do so there's just
this an insidious thing going on for
four or five decades whereby everybody
thinks it's trudeau's charter trudeau's
charter got defeated by his own court it
was the charter of the provinces and the
federal government together that got
approved
that's a really important piece of
history which gives an important
backdrop to the nature of our country as
the court saw it
in 1981 and which one hopes the court
will continue to see now in 2022 and
2023 this is the extremely important
thing the other point that everybody
ignores is this that the charter doesn't
begin with section one
it begins with a tiny preamble of one
sentence whereas
the country canada whereas we are
founded on the principles of the
supremacy of god and the rule of law
and after that sentence it's not a
period it's not a semicolon or a comma
there's a colon
which says everything follows after this
and that's another area where the courts
and their governments are falling down
on the job is that they're supposed to
consider every
thing in the charter in light of two
principles the supremacy of god and the
rule of law and somehow
that which is a key part of opening the
constitution
the the introduction of the constitution
has been missing and that's the other
part that i argue very strongly until
it's taken out if somebody says we don't
have anything or about god well then
fine you'll have to change the
constitution but as long as it's in
there those words are just as important
as any other words in the chair of
rights and freedoms and therefore have
to be acknowledged in any rendering of
any decision under the charter and so
what do you think that means practically
in this particular case well in this
particular in my particular case i'm
arguing very straight on the travel ban
but
but one would
hope that in the consideration of this
lawsuit that the the judges will
introduce their
case and their decision and
relate to the history of the charter
right and also relate to
what how the charter opens and it's in
this context that we will be considering
our decisions yeah well it's to some
degree the the idea of right itself is
predicated on the idea of i would say
it's something approximating the divine
worth of each individual which is what
makes us equal before the law the rights
aren't
this is a problem i had i i would say in
some sense with the chart of rights
right to begin with because there's some
confusion about the derivation of the
rights are these rights that are granted
to you by your government or do you have
those rights to begin with as a
consequence let's say of something
approximating your relationship with the
divine
and then the government can impose
limitations on that only where that's
practically necessary but i suppose the
inclusion of that preamble
is one of the uh
acts that was taken
and and articulated properly to put
the idea of the intrinsic worth of the
individual on something like
metaphysical grounds so it's a
precondition it's a precondition for the
existence of the body of laws and the
constitution itself
exactly exactly and that's extremely
important and and i i deliberately
introduce this now because i know hardly
anybody else in discussion the turner
and the constitution act of 1982 have
done so that's partly why freedom of
religion is so so important and we
should say we're not speaking about this
necessarily in specifically religious
terms there's no difference between
freedom of religion and freedom of
belief and there's no difference between
freedom of belief and the capacity for
independent thought but also the right
to follow the dictates of your own
conscience
exactly exactly and so therefore it's in
the totality
of the charter right that even my
lawsuit should be considered and other
lawsuits like it and so
all of this is extremely important in
knowing who we are as canadians and how
we're going to function as human beings
in some democratic structure into the
future because our democratic structure
will be
significantly reduced if we lose on
having the these provisions of the
charter honored again right so okay and
so you're also making the case that
there's been a tremendous abdication of
responsibility on the part of our
political leaders and also the
circumvention of our parliamentary
processes which is dangerous
procedurally and also a threat to our
liberty and freedom and prosperity all
of that but we also have had that
discussion in the context of in some
sense a broader discussion because you
also made the case that
it's the degeneration of civic
involvement as a consequence of a narrow
cynicism that a lot that set up the
preconditions for this to occur in the
face of an emergency and so canadians
shouldn't be patting themselves on the
back in self-righteous manners saying
those damn politicians have betrayed us
they should be thinking well that's
occurred to some degree and that's awful
and hopefully unconstitutional but it's
happening in the context of all of us
not stepping forward to take our proper
place in the governance of society
because we're cheaply cynical about
politics and lazy and irresponsible
absolutely i couldn't agree more and
that's where the educational system you
know the whole totality of our society
comes into play and the various parts to
that society which make it function
better and one of the great areas is in
education when i talked grade 8 back in
19 the late 1960s
in springdale newfoundland i introduced
civics there was no civics in the class
in school even back then i introduced it
there there was within the department of
education's curriculum guidelines
the opportunity if any school or teacher
wanted to teach it there was some
materials available on civics and you
could teach a course and i went to the
principal and asked if i could teach it
this is
back in the late 1960s so the gradual
erosion of our educational system to
necessarily include right
a course on this governance and on the
system of government at the municipal
provincial and federal level was missing
even then continued to be even worse as
time went down and the history got uh
got taken out of the course
out of the curriculum and some fusion of
social studies got rep
well the whole principles
the principle of the sovereignty of the
individual and then the associated
sovereignty of the people that principle
cannot abide unless sovereign
individuals take responsibility for
governance and cheap cynicism is no
excuse for not engaging in that process
i mean i've been struck through my whole
life talking to young people in
particular
about their feelings of powerlessness
and and and their separation in some
sense from the day-to-day operations of
the state and i got involved in the
political party when i was very young i
was 14 it was with the ndp in alberta
with grant naughtley and that was all
about the same time that you were
operating
on the processes that we're describing
now and one of the things that
absolutely shocked me even back then
when i was that young was how hungry the
political parties were for anyone's
involvement how welcoming they were if
you wanted to get involved and how much
scope of movement was available to you
as a private citizen almost at your beck
and call if you were willing to involve
yourself in the political process now i
don't think young canadians they
certainly haven't been taught that
that's the case and they certainly
haven't been guided through the training
processes necessary to
make them aware of the availability of
that but it's also partly to be laid at
the feet of canadians it's like you
could be involved in the political
process if you just asked and wanted to
be it's not like these parties aren't
crying out for
workers volunteers
and you can move up the ranks very
quickly if you're competent so
so there's no excuse for that not
happening
no no absolutely but the educational
system is partly to blame because we're
followed through before we become an
adult and want to get involved in
political affairs we have you know
complete ignorance of how the process
works even the political parties work
like you say or how the municipal
council works so the school board works
or the province works what powers of the
province is that what problems you know
uh the powers of the federal government
have how are we different from the
united states of america which is the
elephant that lives next door to us we
should know all of these things and this
should be a course you know developed
from grades seven or eight up to the
last year of high school so that when
people graduate
they have a knowledge and an
understanding that they can then pursue
through university and so on yeah
exactly well we have vague courses that
are in the political ideological domain
that basically concentrate on something
approximating the vague horrors of the
past not that those aren't real and not
that we shouldn't take responsibility
for them but they're no substitute for
detailed knowledge of the actual
structures of governance and there's
certainly no substitute for
the deep respect that should be part and
parcel of every canadian's political
view for the integrity of the
institutions that have enabled us to
live in peace and prosperity for well
the entire expanse of canadian history
internally and then much in the much
broader western world for hundreds of
years before that
yeah exactly but what has also happened
is that uh we have uh the individual
because of the nature of governments
over the last 40 years where the state
has taken on more and more say in the
operation not only of the society
generally but even of the economy and
everything that goes with it plus
everything else is that the sovereignty
of the individual the importance of the
individual your individual action your
individual decisions have become less
and less and less and so individuals
feel somewhat powerless because the
state has taken over almost every aspect
of your of your life and so every every
time there's a problem what is some
politician doing about not what what am
i doing about as an individual
even over our health care for example
it's all been just relegated to the
state to the degree that you know you've
got to fix my problem you know nothing
about whether i'm taking my uh you know
i have a good diet or if i'm exercising
it's like this and back to the pandemic
again this is a really good example of
where governments have really
fallen down on the job is that everybody
knows that vitamin d is very very
important for your health and that it's
a great uh
vitamin as it relates to your immune
system yet no government in canada has
been advancing and promoting vitamin d
during this very critical time when
studies have shown that those who have
adequate levels of vitamin d have less
hospitalizations protecting those that
have
you know adequate levels so one would
think that they're really concerned
about public health one of the first
things they should have had at every
press conference they had go get your
vitamin d levels tested right and then
start taking vitamin d if in fact your
levels are low and we all know about 80
percent of people who live in northern
climes like canada have a deficiency
in in vitamin d so here we had a really
cheap way of helping so the
hospitalization rate could have been a
lot less
than than what it was just by people
taking regular vitamin d and so this is
a really really common sense concept
that had lost all meaning in some kind
of different approach and it all had to
be pharmaceutical all had to be some
kind of you know vaccine it just
couldn't be a vitamin d and zinc and
vitamin c and kerosene and other things
like that not to mention iberonectin or
hydro hydroxychloroquine which has been
on the market for 40 or 50 years yet
they're telling us to take a vaccine
that hasn't had the tests that these
other two have had
so let's let's recapitulate and maybe we
should close because we covered an awful
lot of territory and i think it'll take
the listeners of this podcast a fair bit
of time to digest everything that's been
discussed already
and so you're mounting a challenge to
the
integrity and constitutional
appropriateness of a series of laws that
have been passed in canada over the last
two years and you're mounting that as
one of the establishers of the charter
upon
which the entire country is predicated
making the claim that these actions
violate both the spirit and the law that
governs our land at the deepest possible
level of analysis that's the first thing
the second thing is
the collusion between the press and and
the governmental agencies that are
circumventing the parliamentary process
is so intense that it's almost
impossible to have this discussion in in
the public landscape it there aren't
venues for that
no i can't i've tried it's not like i
haven't tried i'm not making this kind
of uh uh um statement without without
evidence i i don't come by all of this
lightly i don't want to do what i'm
doing i'd rather not have to do this as
a canadian and especially as a first
minister who was involved in the council
right yeah this is not this is not a
trivia
i've written the national post i've
written other newspapers and they have
not carried my stuff nor have they ever
gotten back to me and all of them also
know that i'm out there on my blog which
kicks 10 000 to 15 000 readers every day
and a lot of them know that so i've had
to go to alternate media and i've done
about 50 interviews before i launched
this lawsuit all over canada two and
three hours long and i get hundreds and
hundreds of emails a day responding to
what i'm doing
and now i've been led to where i am
today to actually as one individual with
others
file a lawsuit against the government of
canada in the federal court on the
travel ban to give it specificity so
that i can make this kind of lawsuit
and how do you think if if you had your
will and you had
you were acting in accordance with the
idea that someday the sun will shine and
have not will be no more
what do you think canadians should do as
a consequence of receiving the
information we have today
and of of
and in terms of their reactions to the
fact of this lawsuit and its potential
outcomes so if you could call on
canadians to deliver what they should be
delivering as individuals given the
situation we're in now what would you
recommend for them to do
i would recommend the following please
don't go down a bunch of rabbit holes
talking about a monarchy of 100 years
ago i get all this all the time that
canada is only a corporation it's not
really a country and all of that stick
with what we know for sure and we know
we have a constitution and two written
documents one when we were formed
another in 1981 they are documents that
were passed legally through
parliamentary represe democracies and
they have been exercised they have been
used so the very fact that they've been
used makes them a reality because part
of our constitution is also custom and
convention and that customer convention
proves that what we have is valid okay
so what they should be doing is sticking
with the elected
all of the elected people in their
legislative assemblies
everybody in the legislative assembly
right up to the premier and in the
federal government
go
write your mps write your mlas
ask them and demand meetings with them
to go through what are you doing about
this what is your argument against in
favor of these mandates when all this
information is available so canadians
must start to really activate their
civic responsibilities in a huge way and
then involve themselves in legitimate
organizations who are open and free that
are going to help you do this kind of
okay so so you're saying that we should
trust the basic institutions
we should have faith in them because
they've worked for us in the past
they've united our country and and are
drawn from a tradition that has united
countries for long before that
and that we should start using them
properly and responsibly
and also like in my particular case the
justice center for constitutional
freedoms rocco galati in toronto who's
got a constitutional foundation and he's
uh initiating actions against the
federal government there's another one
calling the canadian constitutional
foundation itself in ontario all of
these organizations who are looking for
the support financial support they
should be supported because they are
very they're vanguards they are they are
protected we can put links to them we
can put links to them in the description
of this video so we'll have my if you
can get your team to to give us all the
links that you would like to put in the
description of the video then we'll do
that and we'll do our best to get this
out well hopefully tomorrow as soon as
we possibly can
well thank you very much but i really
think that if we get back to
participating in our democracy we can
turn this around but we and and it may
come to also like the truckers convoy
now
peaceful demonstration civil
disobedience is also a part of democracy
legitimate civil disobedience we must
protest in front of our legislatures in
a peaceful manner
demonstrating and articulating our
position in a rational way and so part
of that is definitely a concern about
the manner in which governance itself is
being conducted in the county in canada
and a call for return to parliamentary
supremacy and proper procedures
absolutely
absolutely well thank you very much for
speaking with me today and for and for
all of the people who are listening to
this thank you for your attention and
and pay attention because this is a
non-trivial occurrence and um if we're
careful and wise maybe we can weave our
way through this without having things
crumble into anything resembling chaos
around
us thank you very much very great
pleasure to meet you sir
we'll talk again perhaps as this unfolds
okay thank you
okay
what's that there's gonna be two things
yep
um
if
mr peckford and if you can give us short
summaries of
how it feels for him to have
helped build his establishment and to
see where we're going with it
i don't think i've got the energy
i don't think i can do it i think but i
do think we should talk about we should
talk about this procedurally there's two
ways we could release this in my
estimation
we could start
with the bio
and and proceed through that way or we
could include because we started
recording you and i started recording
before we even started the discussion
there's kind of part of me that thinks
that we should just
also include that
and so i'm fine with that
yeah that's fine yeah
okay so what we'll do we'll get eric to
get you this video as fast as possible
okay and you can take a look at it
especially the opening and see if but i
i think making this as transparent as
possible is is exactly the right thing
to do and so we'll do like no editing
and we'll release everything we can
well you know what you're you're right
on line with me i that's my whole
inclination my whole instinct that's the
way i've operated all my life and i
beautifully like that yeah well this is
one of those they say that you shouldn't
ever
if you like sausages you should never
see how they're being made but
this is one of those situations where
people need to see how the sausages are
being made
yes absolutely
i couldn't agree more
okay and here i've got another question
for you too um
tell me what you think about this
it's conceivable so i'm in touch with
rex murphy all the time and i've told
him that something was brewing although
i didn't tell him what um do you think
it would be worthwhile to get this video
to him
as fast as we can to see
what first of all what he thinks about
it but also to
inspire him conceivably to start
attending to this and to
working on building his criticism
that would be what do you think about
that i think you could do it uh
say tomorrow afternoon quite likely
after the justice center released their
press release
okay it should be you can you can do
what you like with it now
but that would be the best timing
yes because you don't want to involve
anybody else no matter how legitimate
yeah until really after the
you you can release your things whenever
you want the lawyers have agreed right
and that's the agreement i have so that
you you can preempt the press release
but we leave it there on death till the
press releases out
tomorrow afternoon then you the first
person you can contact is rex okay will
you will you get your people to put that
in writing to me in an email and also
include eric on that because i don't
want i'm i'm somewhat scattered as a
consequence of the discussion and i
don't want to make any mistakes in this
procedure
okay okay okay estimate for when what's
up for when the press releases oh when
and when will the press release be going
out tomorrow the best i have for my
lawyers is tomorrow afternoon
tomorrow afternoon
it could be you know three or four
o'clock more afternoon okay so i'll get
going out tomorrow okay well i'll get
eric to continue coordinating this with
your people i'm not going to have any
time to pay attention to this over the
next today because i'm completely
stacked with meetings and i have a
lecture public lecture tonight so i'm
going to be kind of out of the loop i'm
going to leave it in eric's hands he's
very capable and reliable and he can
just communicate with peace as you've
been doing and the other of the team and
copy me and we'll be back to you right
away okay okay
all right well away we go
away we go the way we go
all right pleasure to meet you sir and
hopefully at one point we'll be able to
meet in person
yes and and i say the last word i'll say
what you have participated in here today
is a very important
contribution to hopefully restoring our
democracy through the charter
that's all is important to me that's the
only thing i do from 8 o'clock in the
morning till 11 o'clock at night is
pursuing the ideas that i pursue with
you today
thanks very much
bye bye
bye
all of that
and that the last statement as well yep
thank you tammy okay so you can handle
this can you yep absolutely team's all
prepped and ready to go so we are going
to get started on it as soon as i can
get them the files which will be very
soon
all right
[Music]
you