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Tony and Jodie Give Thoughts on Emergencies Act, the Ottawa Protest and Justin Trudeau
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On this bonus episode of 'And Another Thing', Tony and Jodie give their reactions to the ongoing protest in Ottawa, the use of the Emergencies Act and what this could mean politically for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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Transcript
Introduction to Ottawa's Recent Events
00:00:00
Speaker
And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. Welcome to a special edition of And Another Thing. My name is Jody Jenkins. I'm Tony Clement.
00:00:26
Speaker
And we are doing kind of a, not really a breaking news, but certainly an update from the goings on in our country, mostly centered around, of course, the situation in Ottawa. And we've had some other big things come up in the last, I'd say, 24, 48 hours that have really changed the landscape of what's going on in our
Prime Minister's Invocation of the Emergencies Act
00:00:50
Speaker
country. I guess, Tony, let's start with the obvious big one. And that was the announcement
00:00:57
Speaker
just a day and a half ago, I guess now, by the time this show airs, about Prime Minister Trudeau looking for permission or looking for support to use the, or invoke, I guess is the word, the Emergencies Act, which was, am I right in saying this? Was that used to be the War Measures Act, or is that incorrect? Same thing, that's right. Same thing. Exactly the same thing. In the 80s, it was updated. I think Paren Beatty was the Defense Minister at the time.
00:01:24
Speaker
uh, to be a bit more modern and, uh, have, uh, what are supposed to be breaks in the system so that the government can't just invoke the, uh, emergencies act willy nilly. So they do have to, they can invoke it right away, but they have to go to parliament within, I think it's six days to get approval by parliament. And we'll try to make this like a very simple understanding of it because I'm sure it's, it's obviously a complicated, um,
00:01:53
Speaker
system or process that they have to go through. But in a nutshell, it gives the ability to provide more resources or tools, as politicians like to say these days, provide more tools to those in law enforcement, etc., in order to
00:02:08
Speaker
I guess effectively stop what they would deem a threat to the safety of Canadians. Is that right? Or maybe you can expand a little bit more? Yeah, I think it gives them emergency special powers. So as we're seeing, they want to use those powers to
00:02:23
Speaker
invade bank accounts that they deem to be injurious to the welfare of the country. It could mean that they could direct police authorities because you're not allowed as government to actually tell the police to go arrest somebody. That would be a police state, right? So you can, as legislators, as parliamentarians,
00:02:47
Speaker
create a law that allows the police to arrest someone, but the discretion is with the police, whether they lay the charge or not. So all of those things come into play when you invoke the Emergencies Act.
Comparing to the FLQ Crisis in 1970
00:03:00
Speaker
So it is supposed to be a special circumstance. Of course, the last time the War Measures Act was invoked in this country was by Pierre Elliott Trudeau during the FLQ crisis, where we had terrorists
00:03:11
Speaker
And let's not forget, these were violent terrorists, the Frontes de Brescion de Québec, FLQ. They had kidnapped and killed the Québec labor minister, Pierre Laporte, and they had, in their possession, they had kidnapped the High Commissioner from the UK, James Cross.
00:03:36
Speaker
letter bombs going off in mailboxes in Montreal. And there was generally a state of siege in Montreal and throughout Quebec. So that was the context of the War Measures Act being invoked in 1970. And it was still, even in that circumstance, highly controversial. And there were people in Quebec
00:03:58
Speaker
and elsewhere in the country who felt that this was an invasion of civil liberties at the time. And that was at a time when there was violent terrorism going on in Quebec in particular. So here we are in 2022.
00:04:14
Speaker
And so there's been a lot of feedback and a lot of reaction to the invocation of what is basically the same piece of legislation just more modernized in the context of the trucker convoy protests.
Nature and Perception of Ottawa Protests
00:04:30
Speaker
So yeah, and what you just described there with the FLQ situation, I think most of us would agree totally different than what is going on in Ottawa. However, there are some that are describing it or at least speaking of it in kind of the same, the same breath as they would describe that. I'm curious, my understanding, and again, if there's a listener or all of our listeners want to correct me, if I'm wrong, please send us an email or get in touch with us.
00:05:01
Speaker
We'll give you Tony's cell phone at the end of the show. My understanding is that, yes, they are downtown. Yes, they are protesting. I'm told that emergency vehicles, et cetera, you can still get through the downtown. It's not like a hard closure. Have you heard that or is that wrong? Yeah, I've heard that they have led emergency vehicles through
00:05:27
Speaker
I really, I have not been there. I have not been amongst the protesters ever, you know, at all in this past two and a half weeks. So I can't speak with direct experience, but I'm told the same thing that you are, Jodi, that there are kind of rules in place that would allow emergency vehicles to gain access if necessary.
00:05:49
Speaker
I'm told there's no violence outside of typical things that would happen day to day. Again, this is what I'm told. This is what I'm reading about. I know there's been some situations with a supposed arson attempt, handcuffs on a door. Again, a lot of things flying around out there, not a lot of meat to the stories, but
00:06:13
Speaker
Well, I mean, there's these instances that you find on Twitter where people felt intimidated or there were words exchanged that made people feel intimidated by the protesters. Yeah, you know, I know what that's like. I've gone through crowds of protesters on Parliament Hill. It can be intimidating.
00:06:34
Speaker
So, I guess the question that legal scholars are relating to and others is, is that enough of a trigger to invoke the Emergencies Act? And I would encourage our listeners not to get involved in situational ethics. And by that I mean,
00:06:56
Speaker
I don't like the truckers. I don't like what they're saying. Therefore, the government should be doing anything that they can. That's not right. Our rights are for every Canadian, not just for when it suits us, because we don't like the message of the group that is protesting. It's easy to say, if you agree with the protest,
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, they should protest all they want and they can do it all. But if I disagree with them, shut them down, arrest them all. That isn't the way rights work. Rights are there for the people that you actually despise. That's where civil liberties come into play. And look, if all of protest in Canada was always 80 percent in favor of the protest, well, there'd be no issue. But sometimes protesters are swimming upstream.
00:07:50
Speaker
And we should allow them the ability to express themselves within the law, within the law.
Impact on Canada's Global Image
00:07:55
Speaker
I get that point. But, you know, to invoke the Emergencies Act, to give the government special powers because of this situation, it's just a joke. I mean, I think the world looks at Canada and we're becoming a laughingstock that we can't
00:08:14
Speaker
I get it. We can't control our streets right now. We're a G7 country that can't control the main thoroughfare in front of our parliament buildings.
Police Chief Resignation and Political Climate
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, and of course that leads into our next updated news piece that we wanted to report on. Just today, well, it'll be yesterday or whenever you're listening to this book recently, the Ottawa Police Chief, is it Peter slowly? Is it Peter?
00:08:39
Speaker
I think Paul or Peter, yeah, slowly. Peter, we know it's not Mary. It's either Paul or Peter, but slowly, chief slowly resign or quit, right? Right. Peter, Peter slowly. What does that say?
00:08:56
Speaker
Well, it says that he lost the Confidence of the Police Services Board in Ottawa. Clearly, they've got a lot of yappers on that board, by the way, because they seem to, whenever they have a meeting, all of their comments get reported. They were highly critical. One member was calling the protesters in front of Parliament Hill terrorists. They were using very inflammatory language. They figured he wasn't doing his job.
00:09:26
Speaker
I was going to say too, the other thing, let's be clear here. Look, I don't live in Ottawa. I have friends in Ottawa that are on both sides of this, so I have no issue saying this, but let's be clear. If there was ever a place
00:09:41
Speaker
where a right leaning protest was going to upset the most people. It would be in Ottawa because all those ridings, all those areas are liberal strongholds. Is that not correct, Tony? Yeah, they are. Yeah, sure. Sure. And, you know, yeah.
00:09:58
Speaker
I'm not shocked that there's business owners. And again, people are going to come at me and say, well, you don't know that, but look, I wouldn't be shocked if there are business owners making political decisions about whether or not they open their store and then playing it off is like, I don't feel comfortable doing that. Or it's not safe because I could go down on Wellington street right now and find tons of businesses that are open and saying they've done more business this last couple of weeks than they've ever done. Right. So.
00:10:23
Speaker
Well, some are feeling intimidated because they're coming into their stores and the protesters aren't wearing masks and all of this.
Rights to Protest and Civil Liberties
00:10:32
Speaker
So there's some irritation there. I don't know what to say. I would like everybody to be respectful of one another. That would be what I would like. But when you're involved in a protest, it does get messy within the bounds of the law. It still gets messy.
00:10:52
Speaker
People are passionate about things. We have to respect that. You've said that in this show, but people are passionate about things on both sides. Look, you would have way more experience on the political side of this than
00:11:07
Speaker
than I would with what I'm about to say, and I'd love for you to weigh in. But look, I have grown up almost my entire life right beside the Tyendinaga nation, right on the Mohawk territory there. And so I have a lot of friends that are First Nations Mohawks. I have a lot of friends that live there, that grew up there.
00:11:27
Speaker
And we've obviously had a lot of situations with First Nations concerns, whether it's a blockage of roads, of railways, whatever. But I've never, outside of violence and things like that,
00:11:41
Speaker
I have never been someone that said, you know, I respect their right to do that. I know it's uncomfortable and I know that it can throw a wrench in a lot of things, but you know what? They have a passion. They believe that what they're doing is right. And just like, that's what protests are about. And, you know, if they're peaceful, yes, they're uncomfortable, but guess what? If nobody's getting hurt, I think they have a right to do that.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I question whether they get to park their rig in front of Parliament Hill for two and a half weeks. Now, we've had tractor protests before. Farmers, as an example, have driven their tractors and parked them in front of Parliament Hill, not for two and a half weeks, but they've snarled up Parliament Hill with their tractors before. There have been large demonstrations that have surrounded the Prime Minister's office. I talked
00:12:35
Speaker
about on the last show about I don't know more and the indigenous protesters and others who were supporting the indigenous people who were protesting. So let's not be naive about this when you're in the downtown core of Ottawa, there's going to be a protest or two. There's no question about that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess. Yeah, I have a little bit of a I actually I'm more of a
00:13:03
Speaker
I don't want, I don't know what the word to use is, but I can sense the hurt with people. It's just something I've heard. And they're just being sneered at. They're being sneered out by the mainstream media. They're being sneered out by the political elites. And I say that on both sides. Again, like I, like, again, like I have going back to the first nations issues, cause it's, it's some, it's something I can relate to cause we're right beside them is like, I know what some of these individuals are going through and they, they genuinely believe.
00:13:32
Speaker
that things need to be addressed. And I agree with them on a lot of issues. And so it's not easy. I don't know what the final answer is on all this, but I know what the answer isn't. And that's not the hate, the anger. Thankfully, I actually am impressed that there hasn't been any violence, to be honest.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know, but the hypocrisy, of course, why should I be shocked at hypocrisy? Good question. But, you know, it's like the inspector in Casablanca shocked, shocked that there's gambling going on. Yeah. But in this case, they're shocked that there might be some foreigners who are donating money to this car, which is an Internet.
00:14:15
Speaker
Well, where were they when a certain apocalyptic environmental group was raising money in the United States to shut down our pipelines? Where was the shock and anger about that? I didn't see those people who were shocked at this fundraising being shocked at that fundraising. So again, it's situational ethics. It's because we don't like the cause. We
00:14:40
Speaker
You should throw the book at them and use every means possible when that wasn't the case before. Same thing with the media who are now, as we speak, doxxing people who have made contributions to this cause. That's wrong. By the way, in my opinion, that's completely wrong.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, but that's what they're doing. I know they're doing that. That's what I'm saying right now. That's appalling. I saw that today. I saw somebody sharing a thread and I saw journalists retweeting that stuff. If you're a journalist and you're listening to this program, I'm telling you right now, that is disgusting.
00:15:12
Speaker
and you should be ashamed of yourself. It's wrong. I would say that on both sides. You are just lowering yourself to the level that you are actually railing against. It's wrong. I'm old enough to remember where the media and
00:15:33
Speaker
liberals in this country were all in favor of civil liberties. When you were a left wing media person or a left wing politician or a left wing activist, you were for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to protest, all of those things. But now, because it's something that you don't agree with,
00:15:57
Speaker
you know, misinformation or whatever excuse you want to use. I'm not saying it's an excuse, but it's you're tying all those people into what you consider to be misinformation, therefore hurting people. Therefore, these people have to be shut down.
00:16:12
Speaker
But that isn't the way civil liberties work. Civil liberties work on causes that you don't agree with. That's why they're there. If everybody agreed with the cause, there'd be no issue. There'd be no topic to discuss here. But because these liberal elites and the media elites and the status quo don't like
00:16:34
Speaker
what the protesters are saying, all of a sudden, their civil liberties don't count for much.
Civil Liberties and Media Critique
00:16:40
Speaker
If they're doing something illegal, arrest them. Please do not take my words to mean that they should get away with breaking the law. But if you're not going to arrest them, then what are you doing there? You have to have a whole new level of power, police power, government power, that is the Emergencies Act. That's what I don't understand.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting situation. I wanted to, Tony, quickly before we wrap this up, one other thing. I don't know if this will go on for a long time, this discussion on this aspect.
00:17:18
Speaker
I saw an article the other day and it kind of lined up with stuff that I'd been saying over the last two years that more and more evidence of how this is unfolding, the situation in Ottawa, leads to the bolstering of the theory that this COVID pandemic and the fallout is really kind of a class war in the sense that those that are on the mandates, pro mandates, pro lockdown, et cetera, are typically
00:17:46
Speaker
Their paychecks haven't been interrupted in the last two years. The ability to work from home is not an issue and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas the ones on the other side are ones that have been either, you know, lost their jobs due to COVID in the early going, significantly lost business and money, lost their jobs later on in the pandemic because of mandates with the
Pandemic's Impact on Class Issues
00:18:10
Speaker
vaccination. So is this devolved into a class war?
00:18:16
Speaker
Well, I think that that was always there. And I think people were noting two years ago the difference in suffering. Some people were trying to raise the issue and even progressives were saying, you know, the people who are disproportionately hit by COVID are working class people working in distribution and delivery centers or grocery stores or what have you.
00:18:37
Speaker
And they were also trying to make the point that if you are racialized, you are more susceptible to worse COVID because your health outcomes were affected. So that kind of creeped into the debate early on. But I think we've seen that as restrictions have continued, it has had a disproportionate impact.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then the whole trigger of this on the truckers was because if they were unvaccinated, they'd have to go to a 14-day, how ridiculous is this? We've made this point before, a trucker to try to deliver goods across the border, who's staying in his cabin, most likely on his rig.
00:19:26
Speaker
Uh, you know, they're all of a sudden they've got to do this 14 day quarantine. It makes no sense. And the sense of grievance that it created. Now I'm saying, you know, other people hopped on the bandwagon. Don't get me wrong.
00:19:40
Speaker
It's not just truckers, I get that. But the initial thing was truckers saying, look, we're just trying to do our job. They were called heroes at one point in this pandemic for continuing to work when the rest of us had to stay at home. So yeah, I think there's a bit of class issues there. But of course, in today's day and age, everybody's interested in the culture wars, not the class wars.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, I went on my boat to say obviously I'm exaggerating again. I've done that a couple of times, but it's just a
00:20:13
Speaker
to make the point, and I know there's good politicians out there, so don't listen to what I am saying, not to what I'm not saying, but I truly believe that the majority of politicians actually have no clue about what it's been like the last two years, because they have been afforded a life that a lot of us, look, I lost my job, I literally lost my job within eight months of COVID, not because of vaccines or any of that stuff, our company,
00:20:41
Speaker
eliminated several executive positions and sold off several of our properties. COVID did that. I was at work for almost a year, burned through all my savings, literally. Well, not all of them, but majority of them. It was rough. I got three young children. It's rough. And I don't know of any politicians that had to face that.
00:21:07
Speaker
No, no, you're right. You're right. Anyway, again, I know that I'm not saying that all of them are like that, but I am comfortable saying the majority of them don't really have a grasp of what it's like. Well, and that creates the sense of grievance, which I think is legit. And then what happens to somebody who has that grievance is they're sneered at. They're dismissed. They're belittled. They're laughed at.
00:21:35
Speaker
by the same people that you're referring to. And I just think that's wrong, and I think it's dangerous for democracy, quite frankly. Exactly. No, it's
Closing Remarks and Promotions
00:21:43
Speaker
exactly right. And we'll wrap it up with that. So yeah, that was kind of like a little update episode. I want to thank, again, MNC Podcast Network, Jordan and the team. They're going to get this up, and people can weigh in. We'd love to hear from you. Our email is and anotherthingpodcastatgmail.com. You can also check out the website and anotherthingpodcast.ca.
00:22:05
Speaker
because we could do a shameless merch plug if you want to go to ZekeAgency.com. Buy some of our merch. Show them how you feel. Buy some of our merch. If we had like 1,000 people that were walking downtown Ottawa with the young Tony sweater, that would be a sight to behold. It would make a difference. I'm telling you, you could change the world.
00:22:26
Speaker
People are like, what's the young Tony? I'll go check it out. ZHZ.com. Yeah. All right. Well, we will, thanks to John Mutton and the team at Municipal Solutions. We'll give them a plug as well. Yeah, sure. We'll give them a freebie on this one. Thecrewatloonypolitics.com. We've got some new episodes coming out for them too. So anyway, Tony, stay safe. Enjoy the rest of your week. You too.