Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 568 | The CDC's 'New' Speech Milestones & the Latest on Canada's Crackdown | Guest: Pastor Steve Richardson

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Today we're hitting two topics: the CDC's new, lower expectations for child speech development, which totally have nothing to do with how harmful masks are for young kids, and the police crackdown on the Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa, Canada. The police and media are trying to keep the truth from surfacing, but it's clear that the police are being way too heavy-handed in their approach. Then, we talk to Canadian Pastor Steve Richardson, who attended the protests as a bystander but was beaten by police anyway just for being there. --- Timecodes: (0:00) Introduction (2:25) CDC quietly lowers their standards/milestones for speech development in 2 yr olds (19:57) Why we're talking about Canada so much right now (31:45) On-the-ground footage from the Ottawa protesters & police (39:35) Interview with Steve Richardson, pastor in Ontario, Canada --- Today's Sponsors: A'del Natural Cosmetics artisans make their cosmetics in small batches without the use of parabens, synthetic fragrances or preservatives, nano particles, petrol products or anything else on an ingredient list that's way too difficult to pronounce. Visit AdelNaturalCosmetics.com & use promo code 'ALLIE' to get 25% off your order! ExpressVPN lets you change your online location so you can control where you want Netflix to *think* you're located — it works with other streaming services too! Be smart & stop paying full-price for streaming services & only getting access to a fraction of their content. Get your money's worth at ExpressVPN.com/ALLIE & get an extra 3 months free! Z-Stack is a specially formulated immune-boosting supplement that includes Zinc, Quercetin, & Vitamins C & D. By taking Z-Stack daily you're super-charging your immune system! Get started at ZStackLife.com/ALLIE & enter promo code 'ALLIE' to get a small discount off your first order! --- Previous Episodes Mentioned: Ep 544: Why American COVID Policy Has Failed Us & How to Fix It | Guest: Dr. Bret Weinstein https://apple.co/3LRSweI Ep 538: Conversion Therapy & Canada's Assault on Christianity | Guest: Dr. Joseph Boot https://apple.co/3JsVaFE Ep 401: Joy in Jail & Peace Through Persecution | Guest: Pastor James Coates https://apple.co/3sPFt4S Ep 564: Trudeau Crushes Freedom Convoy with Martial Law | Guest: Ezra Levant https://apple.co/3IfOhHK --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in, conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers, Craft Beef, Better

Than Organic Chicken, All-American Made shipped right to your front door. Use good ranchers.com slash alley. Good ranchers.com slash alley. All right, guys, we've got a lot to talk about today. We are going to talk about a couple things. We are going to discuss the CDC quietly changing the developmental communication, find motor skills, milestones for toddlers. And what this may have to do with the harms of mask wearing and virtual learning,

lockdowns, things like that. We are also going to talk to a Canadian pastor who has been on the ground in Ottawa, Canada, where the protests are happening, where Justin Trudeau has seen. reached the bank accounts of peaceful protesters and has ordered the police to break up the demonstrations. The police are doing that. They're following orders very violently, as we will see. So he is going to tell the truth about what's going on there because we keep hearing that these are violent protesters, they're terrorists, they're fascists. Well, he is going to bust a lot of the myths that we have been hearing from are propaganda peddlers here in the United States. And in Canada,

he is also going to deliver us a message of gospel hope that I'm really excited for you to listen to because, man, that is what we need in all of these crazy times. So first before we get into that, I'm going to talk about the CDC story. And then I'm going to tell you why we have to care about what's going on in Canada. And I'm going to tell you why these stories, why the encroachment of the tyrannical government in Canada matters so much for those of us who are in America. So I'm going to articulate that as clearly and as emphatically as I possibly can because there are too many people who just don't, who just quite frankly, don't get it. And they need to. Okay. The time is now for us to understand what's happening in Canada and why it matters here. But first, before I get into all of that, let's talk about this crazy CDC story because I saw a lot of you freaking out about it on social media and totally rightfully so. This is a crazy story. And some of you don't know this story.

and it's just going to blow your mind. So the CDC has quietly changed many of the communication, fine motor skills, developmental milestones for toddlers, specifically for ages, about 18 months to 30 months. They've changed the standard. And they haven't just changed the standard. They've actually lowered the standard. And you have a lot of speech pathologists who are speaking out who are very angry about

this. and are worried about the implications for kids. And I'll get into more of that in what they're saying just a second. Let me tell you, though, what exactly happened. So the CDC quietly changed the developmental, fine motor skills and communications, milestones for toddlers. And so let me compare what the milestones were in March of 2021 and what they have just changed to without saying, hey, here's the science behind this.

Here is why we change these milestones, which have been in place for decades, by the way. This is not like, oh, they change it every few years as the data develops as the science comes out. And they are at odds with other organizations who are experts in young child development and communication. So previously, the CDC was saying that two-year-olds, by the time they turn two, they should be able to put sentences together that are two to four words. They should be able to follow simple instruction. They should be able to point to things, name things in a book, the familiar things that they have seen before. They should be familiar with people, the different kinds of people,

their different body parts. But now they've actually lowered those standards. So the CDC is saying that they should be able to point to things in a book when you ask. So where is the bear? They should be able to point to that. They should be able to say two words together rather than two to four word sentences. just two words together, like more milk. Points to two body parts when you ask him to show you.

He uses more gestures than just waving and pointing, like blowing a kiss or nodding yes. Honestly, things like nodding yes and blowing a kiss, that's something that kids really should be doing before two years old. So the CDC is changing these milestones, and they are lowering the standard for kids in communication. It's obvious that they are, to say that now two-year-olds really shouldn't be quite as independent. When it comes to what they

are communicating, really they should still be. The CDC is now saying kind of in responsive and repetitive mode. But in reality, if you look at other standards by other pediatric organizations that specialize in this kind of thing, speech development communication for kids, by two years old, they should really be past that. And while there is a range of development for children, these standards are really important because they help parents understand when their child might need to go into speech therapy or to look for early intervention or to simply work with their child more. Maybe parents, they look at the standards and they say, okay, you know, my child is two years old and they're only saying two words. I need to be working with them a little bit more in ensuring that they're communicating better and more effectively. But now that the CDC has lowered these standards, again, it seems arbitrary.

they haven't revealed the science behind why parents aren't going to know that they actually need to intervene. The CDC has also added a 30 months milestone. This did not exist previously. And these markers include says about 50 words, says two or more words with one action like Doggy Run, names things in a book when you point and ask what is this, says words like I, me, or we. So this is at two and a half years old. The problem is, is that previously two-year-olds were supposed to say more than 50 words. And according to the ASHA, if a two-year-old could not say 50 words, that was actually a sign that that child needed some kind of intervention.

They needed some kind of help. They needed some kind of speech therapy. Now, again, because that standard is lowered and we don't know why parents aren't going to, know to seek out the help that they need. So people are understandably upset about this. They're frustrated with this because they feel like the standards are just going to the least common denominator. And this is not actually going to help kids who need the help. And this is not going to make kids better communicators. Simply lowering the bar because so many kids are behind over the past two years is not what is going to help kids develop in their language and communication

and fine motor skills. Providing the resources, providing the tools, providing more resources in training for speech pathologists, more resources for parents. That's what we need to be doing. What it seems like to me, and this is just speculation, but it also seems like common sense, deductive reasoning, the CDC doesn't want to admit that mask wearing, on nursery workers, on babysitters, even on parents, has been extremely detrimental to kids' development over the past couple of years. I mean, we've seen the data about this, that toddlers, on average, have a lower IQ than kids that were born pre-pandemic on average.

And they're not admitting that this probably has to do with a lot of the arbitrary, unscientific restrictions and mask mandates that have been put in place, that have seriously affected kids. I mean, this is just obvious. You don't have to be a speech pathologist to know this, although I happen to have talked to a lot of speech pathologists. Their jobs, especially where they have to wear a mask, has been rendered almost impossible.

It is a normal part of human communication, human understanding to read lips. It's actually very hard to understand what someone is saying when they are wearing a mask, especially if you are learning language. I was on the plane a couple days ago with my husband, and of course we have to wear our masks and he's trying to say something to me, but he obviously doesn't want to talk too loud because we're on an airplane.

I literally could not for the life of me understand what he was saying. He had to pull down his mask and use the same volume to communicate what he was trying to say to me. I had to read his lips to understand what he was saying. I mean, you can multiply that times 10 if you're talking about a child who is just learning how to talk, how to form words, and then you can multiply. multiply that even more when you're talking about a child that either has special needs or is just a little bit behind when it comes to speech. They're trying to learn how to say they're ours. They're trying to learn how to say their ls. They're trying to understand, especially kids with autism, trying to understand human emotion,

understanding facial expressions to try to mimic those facial expressions and emotional reactions and also understand emotional reactions and other people. I mean, that's also part of building empathy and good listening skills, not just good talk. talking skills, all of that is taken away with masks. And so to think that mask wearing wouldn't have negatively affected kids in their most formative years, it's illogical. That is anti-science. But we already know the CDC is an anti-science organization. I'm sure there are a lot of great scientists that work there, but they are a political front. And they are never going to admit that they were wrong on masks. They were wrong on recommending any kind of virtual learning if they ever did. They were wrong to side with the teachers unions and Democratic politicians when it came

to shutting down schools and lockdowns and things like that. They were wrong. And we may have irreversibly damaged an entire generation. This also, I think, reflects really the progressive ideology about anything when it comes to economic policy, when it comes to social policy, when it comes to any kind of academic policy. They always try to achieve their convoluted versions of equity and equality, not by trying to raise up those at the bottom, but by trying to lower the standard to have some kind of like fake definition of success. I'm sure you guys saw this story several weeks ago. There was a story about a high school in Baltimore where it was like 70% of the graduating class had a kindergarten reading level. Kindergarten reading level guys. Like a lot of

kindergartners go into kindergarten not knowing how to read. And by the time they are finished with kindergarten, I mean, they can read like really short words. We're talking about like the basic Dr. Seuss books for a lot of kindergartners. You're talking about 18 year olds who could barely even read at a kindergarten level. And yet the part of this story that was stunning was that they had, this particular high school still had like an 80% graduation rate. So what was going on there? Was it because all of these kids just happened to be really good at math and science. They just happened to kind of be bad readers. And so they were still, you know, graduating, reaching high standards in other ways. No, it was because this school, just like schools in a lot of liberal areas, simply lowered the standards. They didn't

require them to be able to read hardly at all. They're almost, they're basically illiterate. And you could be illiterate in this district and graduate from high school. They lowered the standard to say, hey, we have this high graduation rate. That's what progressive policy so often does. Even if you think about like the principles of socialism. It's not actually uplifting those at the bottom. It's just taking away with the people at the top, not even people at the top, but people in the middle have giving it to those at the bottom. So everyone has equal levels of misery. That's what the CDC story reminds me of. Rather than, again, equipping people who are struggling to help kids who have fallen behind, especially over the past couple of years, we're just going to

make sure that all toddlers fall behind. And like, when did they catch up by? the way, because it has been known, again, for decades, that if a two-year-old can't do the things, the CDC used to say that they had to do, like, speak 50 words or more, that that was a serious problem. That was a developmental problem. Again, that necessitated intervention. So if that's no longer the case, like, if we're saying, okay, fine, you can be two and a half and you can be not saying 50 words. And just for reference, like, I have a two-and-a-half-year-old. And, I mean, she is very smart, but, you know, I think a lot of two-year-olds are like her. I mean, she's always loved, like, books and words and songs and all of that. But she probably

knows, because we keep track of this, she probably knows 300 words. She just loves, she's very observational. She loves naming things. And she just, sometimes she just shocks me with how much she knows. I don't even remember teaching her that. But she probably knows 300 words. So that's, that's her. And then this is the CDC saying that when you're two and a half, you shouldn't even know 50. Oh, my goodness. She probably knew 50. 50 words, like, I don't know, right after she turned one. And, you know, I think, yes, she is smart, but I think that there are a lot of smart two-year-olds who we are now going to say, like, other people don't have to try to reach that standard. Talk about creating gaps.

Like, this is actually not going to create the equity or equality that maybe the CDC and progressive say that they want because I'm not going to stop teaching my children and making sure that they know tons of words by the time they're two or two and a half. I'm not going to start applying the CDC's lower standards to my kids. I'm going to ensure that they know as much as humanly possible. But then maybe you have new parents who don't know any better who look at these new CDC standards and just think, well, yeah, 50 words is fine by two and a half and they're not going to get the intervention or the help or the speech pathology that they need. This is a huge problem. So again, going back to my question, which I never really fleshed out, like when, when, when,

do they catch up? Or are they just going to be set back for the rest of their lives because of these lower standards? Are they going to be bad communicators? Bad readers have bad reading comprehension for the rest of their lives. Like at what point do they get to the standard that is necessary to be a productive working human being? And of course, it's hard not to kind of get conspiratorial and ask is that is that the purpose? Is the purpose to hold young people back? I don't know. I just know that this is wrong. Again, the CDC is so untrustworthy. It's so untrustworthy that, of course, people aren't going to listen to them when it comes to other health measures because they are so, same with the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are so political. And they don't actually

communicate the science if there is any behind the things that they do. Never articulated science behind child, especially two-year-olds mask wearing. They never articulated the proper science behind how the vaccines were actually going to be effective. They've never even articulated good science or provided good studies for universal mask wearing for adults. And now, unfortunately, our kids are going to be negatively impacted by this. And this makes me really sad. And I feel for a lot of you speech pathologists, you've been put in a really hard place.

I would just encourage you, even though I don't know everything that you do, I would just encourage you to keep on raising the bar because you are why there can be. high standards because you help kids who just need a little extra help to reach the standards that are in place and have been in place for a very long time for a reason. So keep pushing your kids, keep pulling out their potential. What you do as a speech pathologist is so, so important. And don't worry about the CDC lowering standards. They're a political, arbitrary, ideological, almost governing body at this point that in a lot of ways, not always, but in a lot of ways, really just needs to be ignored. At the very least, they need to be rebuked. All right, that's all I want

to say on that. There's a lot more that we could say. Maybe we'll have a speech pathologist on sometime in the future to talk about why this is such a big deal. I just wanted to give you my perspective as a mom. This just makes me really sad. And I know that I speak for a lot of you when I say, not my child, not my child. I don't look to the CDC to tell me how advanced my child should be verbally. We should all be dedicated to as much excellence as possible. One thing I want to say about that, I think it also has to do with not just COVID stuff, but also just like the rise of virtual babysitters in that I think a lot of kids are in front of screens more than they used to be. and that is probably negatively affecting their development in some ways, in some ways, too.

Probably. That's, again, just my guess. All right. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay. So before I get into the conversation with the pastor, Pastor Steve Richardson, let me tell you

why we've talked about Canada so much. So we typically focus on this show on American culture wars and issues within the American Church, but we've also dedicated quite a few episodes to Canadian tyranny. And the reason for that is this. Canada is our closest ally. They're supposed to be a free representative democracy. They're supposed to, alongside us, uphold the ideals of Western civilization. They are supposed to respect freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of protest,

in the right to due process. And in the last year alone, they have failed on each of those vital fronts. So they threw James Coates in prison last year for refusing to close the doors to his church. And he was just one of a few pastors that were imprisoned for this crime. And the total lack of outcry from Christians here in the States who pride themselves in, quote, speaking truth to power and social justice and making good trouble was and still is appalling. And then you've got Bill C4, which we've talked about, which is billed as a ban on conversion therapy, but is actually just an outright criminalization of biblical counseling of talk therapy and Christian speech.

It is an attempt to criminalize Christianity, which is in the business of conversion, not from gay to straight, but from dead and sin to alive in Christ, which does involve repentance from a whole host of lifestyles and behaviors. Thus, it is a bill Bill C4 to make Christianity illegal. Now, we are seeing Canada crush the freedom to protest, arresting peaceful demonstrators, seizing their bank accounts, so that reportedly even family members of protesters are having difficulty withdrawing money. Trudeau invoked emergency powers, something that has never been done to basically turn Ottawa into a police state. This also violates the right to do process, all because truckers,

and other working class Canadians were opposing, are opposing the vaccine mandates and the lockdowns and the restrictions that have unscientifically and in such a draconian and cruel way have inhibited

the lives and the freedoms of Canadians. All because they resisted that. Trudeau and his regime have crushed them. So without committing an actual crime, Canadians are being, being punished, left destitute because they disagree with the government. And what are all the loud

and proud pro-democracy leftist in America doing? Nothing. They don't care. They think Trudeau, the same guy who said in 2013 on tape that he admires China because of its, quote, basic dictatorship, is right for punishing these truckers and working-class families. They think it's great. They would not bad an eye if the police started spraying these people with bullets. And how do I know? Because similar things have happened, have been happening in countries like Australia and France for the past year. Peaceful anti-lockdown protests met with brutal disproportionate police force. These are not just rumors. We can see on Twitter videos of this happening. And the same people who claim to care about police brutality here, just pretend like it doesn't happen. And now they're saying that this is

law and order in Canada. Okay, so just so I get this straight, when BLM and Atifa are literally assaulting and murdering innocent people, they're burning down buildings, they're ruining communities, filled with people who did nothing wrong, when they're threatening to murder cops, that doesn't count as something that requires a police response, but peaceful protesters in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, do. So violent riots are the voice of the unheard, but peaceful protests aren't? Where's the bodily autonomy crowd, by the way?

So you'll march for your right to kill your baby, but not for someone's right to earn a living without getting a vaccine that they don't want? Where are all the socialists? Wasn't it Karl Marx who said workers of the world unite? They're uniting right now. They're literally uniting right now. In Canada and in other nations, and you're cheering on their oppression? So to everyone who looks back on the 20th century when tyrants came to rise in Italy and Germany and the Soviet Union and Cambodia and who says, I know I would have stood up for the people being targeted by the government. I would have stood up for their freedoms. I would have been on the right side. Where do you stand right now? Look at where you stand right now. That's where you would have stood then. You know, I don't agree with many of the narratives and the arguments put forth by Black Lives Matter. That's no surprise. There's so much

propaganda that goes out after a news story is released about a police officer and a black man. And yet, number one, I do think that they have legitimate points about the power and the authority of the police and how that can be used arbitrarily and that can absolutely be used for oppression. I've always said that. And number two, I will always defend, no matter how much I disagree with them at a certain point, I will always defend their right to protest, their right to free speech. Same with pro-abortion groups. Same with just about any group or cause or organization that exists. I will vehemently and publicly disagree with them, but I will stand up for their ability to exercise their constitutional rights. I understand that that's what it takes to live in a free

society. I want to live in a free society. I do agree with the protesters in Canada. I agree with their aims. Vaccine mandates and lockdowns are oppressive. They're cruel, they're unscientific. But I would disagree with them inflicting violence on innocent people and the desecration of property no matter how much I might agree with what they're fighting for or what they're claiming to fight for. That's called a principle. Quite a few people apparently have never heard of that. And to those who say, well, how could you care more about this? How could you care more about Canada than what's going on in Ukraine? Russia is invading Ukraine and thousands of people may die or become refugees because of that.

And to answer that question or that critique, let me give you a metaphor to explain. If something bad happens to a friend of yours, say they get mugged in the neighborhood right next to your neighborhood. And then you turn on the news later. And you see that a stranger in another state was murdered by a gang. Are you a bad person for caring more about your friend who was mugged a mile from your house than you care about the random person murdered? No, that's normal. I would even say that's natural. Now, that doesn't mean that you think getting mugged is worse than getting murdered.

That doesn't mean that you don't care about the person who just got murdered. It just means that you care about your friend and you care about yourself and your family and their safety. I really think that's instinctive and that's normal and that's right. That's what's going on here. I care more right now about what's going on in Canada than in Russia, not because I think Russia should invade Ukraine or not because I don't think there will be dire consequences to that. I think that's horrible. But that's also Russia.

They are, unfortunately, an imperialistic, brutal dictatorship. So I can say, yeah, that's really bad. But look, we've also got really big problems in our own backyard right now. Plus, just to be honest, I'm a little skeptical of the motivations of at least some, or maybe even many of the politicians and media, saying that we have to care about Russia first and foremost, or what's going on with Russia, we have to care about Ukraine first and foremost for the sake of democracy and the sovereignty of their borders. Well, first, again, many of those politicians are decidedly against democracy here in the West. And two, these are many of the same

people who don't care about enforcing our own border laws. So why is the sovereignty of Ukraine and their borders more important than our own? Like, isn't it kind of logical to be a little skeptical of the motivations of people who care more about Ukraine's borders than our own? Why is it that so many of the same people who have no problem with our borders being wide open are so concerned with the borders of an Eastern European country that isn't even in some ways, even all that democratic? We can say, yeah, what's going on in Russia is bad, categorically, objectively. Lots of countries do bad things, including China, which is way more of an international threat

in my opinion that Russia. And a lot of the same people who care so much about what's going on in Ukraine don't care at all that China has been colonizing countries in South America and Africa for years and has said nothing about the fall of Hong Kong. So again, I'm just a little skeptical about the motivations there. I'm not saying that what's happening in Russia and Ukraine doesn't matter. Again, or that I approve of it. I just care. more right now about what is going on in our backyard. I'm watching our closest ally, a supposedly democratic country devolve into tyranny. And that's not supposed to be high on my priority list. I would have to hate my own country. Be apathetic toward liberty and be totally

calloused toward my children and their future to not be paying super close attention to what's going on in Canada. Canada is a bellwether of what's to come in the United States. So, So it is only right, logical, reasonable to dedicate my attention to this. We will talk about Russia and Ukraine in the coming weeks and months, I'm sure, but not today. Today, our eyes are here on the United States and on Canada. And in just one second, we are going to talk to a pastor who is going to give us an up close and personal look at what's actually going on there and give us the Christian perspective. Okay, so one more thing before we actually start that conversation, because I

I want to set this up and I want to give you a picture of what's really going on. Like why this is such a big deal, why I'm so fired up about this. If you're not on Twitter, you haven't seen this because of course most of the mainstream media besides, you know, the Blaze Fox News and, you know, conservative media, they're not playing this stuff. And so I just want you to see what's actually happening. First, we're going to play the protests, the demonstrations themselves, which, we've done a few times.

Just to show you, this is not like some violent insurrection. This is not a bunch of people desecrating property like we saw in several cities in the United States last year in the name of so-called racial justice. I mean, these are people, just normal salt of the earth people who are having a good time and truly trying to be as peaceful as possible. So here's one piece of footage of a couple. dancing that was taken this weekend. I mean, that's just pure.

Like, does that look like, does that look like a protest or a demonstration that needs to be broken up by police with batons? No. No, I don't think it does. And I'm not saying that that's indicative of every single part of the protest, but talk to anyone who has been there, who is not purposely trying to spout some kind of anti-conservative propaganda. and they'll tell you that's what it's like.

Spirits are high. People are trying to be joyful and steadfast. And then here is the response of protesters. So I just want to set this up for those of you who are just listening rather than watching on YouTube. These are peaceful protesters and you see a line of police officers who are trying to push back against them. And the protesters are yelling at the are yelling at the, are yelling at the, the police officers, I love you, I love you. I mean, that's incredible. Here's that clip. Well, they're wearing names on there. What that? So that loud bang that you heard is the police

officers. That's their warning bank. So you heard the protesters saying, I love you, I love you, to the line of police officers. And then you heard that loud bang, which is basically a warning that we're about the pushback against you until you leave. And as we will talk about with this pastor, and as you're about to see, that also means abuse by the police. There was one clip that was going around of a woman who had a walker, who was at the protest, who was knocked over by a police officer on a horse. And then you actually see the horse walking over this woman. She was later hospitalized.

Here's the footage of that. So the Ottawa police, of course, is saying, oh, no, someone threw a bicycle in front of a horse and injured the horse and we had to push, we had to push them out of the way. That is an elderly woman. That's an elderly woman that is not a man with a bicycle. I mean, this is straight out of, I mean, I know people are like, don't compare, don't compare to Nazi Germany. I'm not saying it's the exact same thing is what happened to Nazi Germany, okay?

But as Brett Weinstein said on this podcast, whenever you get in the same quadrant of any form of totalitarianism, it's time. Whenever you get to that proverbial segment of the library, that's when you look around and you say, I don't think we should be here. I think we should head on out. That's what Canada needs to do right now. They need to look at what's going on, whether you're on the right or the left, and you just say, you know what? I think that we are in the wrong segment of the library. You can say it's not exactly like Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that it is exactly like Nazi Germany. But there are too many similarities how the police are acting to what went on in the 20th century to say that it's, oh, that's a little bit fascisty for my comfort.

All right. So that was the trampoline of the elderly woman. She is alive. She did go to the hospital. She did get treated. There was some misinformation about who she was going around. And then some people were saying that that's not true. The Ottawa police saying that that clip was deceptively edited if you watched it.

Like, there's no editing. I'm pretty, I think I'm pretty good at recognizing when something. is edited. I don't see how that could be changed by any context. If I mean, I will be the first to let you know. If so, I would love for there to be somehow more context to the police officers trampling a woman with a walker. I would love to be corrected on that. All right. And then here's more brutality from the police, which again, I just, there's just no amount of context that could justify this. I mean, that just makes me want to cry.

Makes me want to cry. You're seeing the police knee this guy in the stomach who's not armed. He's just trying to defend himself holding his hands up. He starts crumpling to the ground. And then a wall of police officers tries to cover up the beating, what's happening, so that the camera can't see it. And then here's this woman. She is in Ottawa.

She is trying to get some coffee. and here's how the police handle that interaction. I can't even go down there for a coffee. Go grab yourself in the red zone right now. If you don't leave right now, you will be arrested. Do you understand me? I can't go for a coffee. Grab yourself as if we see, we'll be patrolling all day.

If we see you again, it'll be different. Leave. Take your camera and get out of here. I mean, if you're not watching on YouTube, you really need to. It's hard for me to describe that she's filming it. with her phone at the end, you see the police officer grab her phone, like push it down, and then you actually see the camera is then aimed right at the gun that's on the holster. And he's saying, what did I tell you? If I see you again, it's going to be different.

What does that mean? So these people are being threatened, threatened with their lives. I mean, they're being threatened with violence by the police. It is so called Western democracy for peacefully protesting, for walking outside trying to get coffee, she's not doing anything. And you're going to tell me this isn't the biggest freaking story in the world right now. I'm sorry, but no. Thankfully, our guest is going to, well, his story is gut-wrenching, but he's a lot calmer than I am about this. And so he's going to remind us, he's going to give us, remind us of the peace of Christ and the hope that we have. And it's good, too, because it's easy for me to get very much.

very worked up about all of this. We have to care, but we have to balance it with trust in God's sovereignty. And that's exactly the balance that our next guest brings us. So finally, no more buildup without further ado. Here is Pastor Steve Richardson. Pastor, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? So I am Steve Richardson, pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church in Tilsonburg, Ontario. And I've been following some of your tweets about what is going on there in Ottawa in different parts of Canada. Can you tell our American audience who like a lot of Canadians are basically just hearing the negative side of the story or really what I would say is propaganda that these are violent protesters. They're breaking the law.

And Trudeau is just, you know, very gently kind of enforcing law and order so that Canadians can get back to their life. What would you say to that? is someone who has kind of been on the ground and talk to people and who really knows what's going on. So I went up a couple weeks ago and met some of the protesters, well, a number of protesters saw the kind of environment. It was a happy environment. The message was peace and love. I know some of the truckers that are there and all of them fully committed to peace. Their desire is simply that our freedoms, our liberties would be given back to us as people. and we'd have the right to make decisions for ourselves.

So what I saw when I first went up was just this very upbeat, positive atmosphere. I went back on Friday night and I ended up in Ottawa on Saturday morning. And I went because I was seeing on social media what was happening, the brutality on the part of the police, and I couldn't bear to just watch it and do nothing. So I went up and I, like the others with me, took with me to two other pastors and another fellow. and we went also committed to be peaceful. And so we joined with the remaining group that was there. And we watched as the police began to make their march forward.

And I can tell you that I was stunned right from the beginning with the level of violence that was used entirely unnecessarily. So just picture you've got crowds of unarmed peaceful protesters. of them were hurling insults and those became worse as the police became more violent. But you've got these rows of officers armed, some with batons, and all of a sudden they would begin to push and move quickly and striking with their batons, retreating protesters. I myself was on four separate occasions assaulted by a police officer, different officers, different scenarios, and I can say that none of them were provoked.

I wasn't hurling insults. I wasn't involved in any kind of altercation at all. I was simply there with the people. Just happened to get in the way. And when you say assaulted, what was that specifically? First time, I was struck by a police officer in the head and thrown to the ground. The second time, I was trying to help an older man who had done. been knocked to the ground and was being beaten. And I was struck with a baton. The third time I

was beside a truck driver who got out of his truck, he got done. I had said to him, you know, we're with you. So he got done on his knees, put his hands on his head and surrender. I decided to do the same. I thought, okay, he's going to be arrested. And I was watching how they were arresting these men. And every time they were brutal. They didn't peacefully arrest these men. They were, they would often beat them. And these are truckers. These are truckers who were, who had hands their head in full surrender, quiet surrender. So I'm sorry, I'm just going to pause for a second, just because I want to make sure that everyone has the context.

Not everyone has, a lot of people in America really haven't been following this very closely. Of course, we've talked about it on our podcast a lot, but the American media is focused, you know, on other things, as you can imagine, and they're certainly not covering what you are describing. So we know kind of what is, why the police are there because of the emergency. powers that were invoked by Justin Trudeau and we know that the police have been trying to basically break the back of these protests for the last week or so. You described though a couple minutes, minutes ago, I think it was in Ottawa that you said that you saw the police

marching forward. Like tell me what that confrontation was like, like what exactly did that look like? And when you're saying that you saw several instances of violence, police against peaceful protesters, what exactly went down in those incidents? So if you can picture, you've got the trucks, the remaining trucks were on one side, and you've got a line of protesters who are standing there in a sense trying to protect the truckers. But of course, without any weapons and without any violence. I mean, they don't dare touch the police officers. No one did that I saw.

And had they done so, it would have gone very badly for them. You've got the line of protesters and there's a face-off. And you've got rows and rows of police and various kinds of uniform, some who are on, there's no markings, no names, no badge numbers. And it's heavily armed, more police than there are protesters. There would be a sudden loud bang, and then they would begin to march forward. And the march forward was a rush. We didn't have it.

There was no, the warning was the bang, and then they would begin to rush forward. If he got trampled, if he got anybody in the way would, of course, be pushed. But often struck with batons, knocked to the ground. If somebody was knocked to the ground, instead of helping them up, the police kicked, beat them with their batons. I saw this again and again and again. Wow. And how did this, what effect did this? have on the protesters? Did this make the protesters dissipate? Like how, what was the impact of this?

It was very emotional. There are a lot of tears. A lot of people are just brokenhearted. A lot of protesters saying, guys, why? Why are you doing this? You don't need these weapons. Why are you hitting us? We're peaceful. We just want peace. Of course, the police, there was no interaction on their part. There was some anger. I mean, some of the protesters would hear insults like Nazi. And I think that's the only thing that I could say against the protesters at points the insults were pretty serious.

But you can imagine their frustration and anger as they were seeing these kinds of things not being able to do anything, realizing that they, they, there was, it was futile to attempt to in any way resist the police. So for the claims that these are violent protesters, insurrectionists, rioters, is there any truth to that, at least from what you've seen of these protesters? I saw nothing of that. I saw, of course, you got a mix of people. I saw a lot of just ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, and I was actually stunned at the peace and the self-restraint of these people. there were certainly a few that were trying to rally the crowd to to hold the line but holding the line simply meant standing there as the police pushed them but there was there was a real general spirit of wanting to be peaceful and not allow the police to sort of suck them into a confrontation and so it was it was that was quite moving and I can tell you I saw nothing of violence on the part of the protest there's not on Saturday

Not the previous week. It's possible there were occasional moments. But if you saw what I saw, what would have amazed you is the self-restraint. To see, for example, an older man on the ground being beaten, helpless, it took all that was in me not to act out, to protect him. Yeah, I can imagine that's just kind of instinctive. And so you said that the police don't respond. that they don't, you know, have any interaction on their part with the people who are either hurling insults at them or who are just asking them, why are you doing this?

Does it surprise you that the police, at least in Ottawa, have followed these orders that they're willing to treat their fellow working class Canadians in this way? Has that shocked you? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's probably what caused so much dismay and so many tears on side. is it, I think we're shocked that our fellow citizens would do this, would in some cases seem to relish it. I had one encounter where a police officer spoke to me. I was stuck, myself and a reporter, were stuck between two trucks and the crowd on the other side, and we couldn't move, and he's pushing us. And so I, we tried to reason with him. The reporter said, I'm a reporter. I can't move. I said, you know, I'm a Christian pastor. are stuck here, and he just looked at us and said, I don't care.

Wow. So I think that reflected very much the spirit of it. There were occasional police officers who had tears in their eyes. I think not everyone there wanted to be there, but there were definitely those who seemed to enjoy it. Wow. That's really such a shame. I think the feeling of helplessness is what makes me the saddest in thinking about,

in thinking about this, that there's no reasoning with the people who are inflicting this kind of violence and brutality because there's really no rationale. There's no rationale to it. I'm sure they have their own, the police have their own, you know, justifications. Maybe they just say we're just following orders. We're just doing our job, which that in itself is quite frightening. In your opinion, where do you think this goes from here? It's hard to say.

I see a growing momentum on the part of ordinary Canadians to resist and to want to do something. I've heard of a call for a general strike across the nation. I know there's a convoy in BC. I don't know, but I mean, I fear that the peaceful protesting not being received, not being heard will at some point turn to violence. And I think that's a fear of many right now. Now this is not your first time dissenting, disagreeing with the Canadian government. You racked up, I think it was $600,000 in fines, is that correct? And you were, I guess, faced with six years imprisonment because of your defiance to lock down orders, your refusal to close your church.

Is that correct? Yeah, so basically on six separate occasions, I was charged by the police. for gathering my congregation for worship. And each charge carried with it a maximum of $100,000 of fines and one year in prison. So the total tally at the end was six years in prison, $600,000 in charges and fines. And thankfully, that has been resolved in court at this point. But, yeah, I mean, and of course in our case, it wasn't a protest. It was simply Christians meeting for worship.

Wow. And you were officially censored by the Canadian Presbytery for violating his ordination vows and not following the right procedure for leaving the ARP. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that's about? Yeah, I don't want to say too much for their sake more than anything else. But the decision on my part to obey God rather than men angered my presbytery. I was charged with being skisput. and the decision to leave the denomination was also not received well by the presbytery. And so they decided to excommunicate me without trial. And as far as they're concerned, I am no longer ordained, but happily that I am part of another presbytery that has decided to ignore, I guess, what the Canadian ARP decided to do. Can you tell us a little bit about the theology behind the civil disobedience that you have participated in over the past couple of years? Because while you and I are on the same page, you have even Christians, and of course non-Christian, both in America and Canada, who say, you know what, this is not the right thing to do to stand opposed to the government when it comes to vaccine mandates or lockdowns.

you've got Christians making the argument of Romans 13, that you just need to obey civil authorities. Obviously, you disagree with that line of argumentation. Can you just articulate a little bit of why you disagree with that and why you've taken the stand that you have? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's two separate issues. I would say that the far greater issue is the church. So when we disobeyed the government back in 2020 and in 2021, it was because, it's absolutely clear in scripture that the governments are under the authority of God.

Their authority is borrowed and they are to uphold the law of God. God's law says that we are to worship him. It tells us when we're to worship him, how to worship him, and the government has no authority in the church. And so it was as clear as day to me that when the government begins to interfere with the worship of God, tell the church how to worship, when to worship, whether they can worship, that we simply have to disobey them. We don't have to do so in a rude way.

We ought to be quiet and peaceful about it, but we must do it. And our forefathers, they did so. That's the history of the church. So that was as clear as day to me. The other issue in terms of civil disobedience, if it's going to a protest that the government has decided is unlawful, I think that's maybe less clear than the other.

but to me the justification for that is the same justification that sent my grandfather off to World War II, that it's worth fighting for liberty. We are citizens of the country as well as citizens of heaven. And so it falls on us to defend the freedoms that are God-given. And if we don't stand up, then our children and grandchildren suffer. Yes. Do you agree with the statement by John Knox? I think we still have it up.

That resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. Is that a maxim that you agree with? Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with it too. Unfortunately, you know, even among those who, okay, say you disagree with that, say you have theological contentions with that statement there, unfortunately a lot of Christians, a lot of so-called evangelicals here in the United States, that they allow their disagreement with that to refuse to stand up.

for people like you or James Coates, they refuse to even see it as a religious liberty issue. And they have their Christians like Russell Moore, like Tim Keller, Francis Collins, who have basically castigated anyone who has, you know, kept their doors open and defied lockdown orders. Has that surprised you, seeing the cowardice and really the divisiveness, lack of integrity of a lot of Christians who have kind of thrown other Christians under the bus? Yes and no. So when it comes to some like Russell Moore or Tim Keller, it hasn't surprised me. There's been a trajectory we've seen already. With others, it has been tremendously surprising and disappointing. But what I think at the heart of this is that we are beginning to see more clearly that Christianity

has become very man-centered. It has been infiltrated. It has been become very much, influenced by humanism. So everything is along the horizontal. It's about what is best for my neighbor, what does the world think of us, all along the horizontal. And we have forgotten God. What people are not thinking about is how these things affect God.

So people might get upset. They might get riled up if a neighbor is trampled on the ground. But if Christ is trampled on, his rights are trampled on, his church is trampled on, most Christians seem to have little problem with that. And so we've seen this compromise and this, I think, cowardice, but I think it reflects a failure to recognize what belongs to God and that he is worthy.

You know, I'm not sure if you meant to do this, but Alexander Solton Heitzen, who wrote the Gulag Archipelago, who is obviously a dissident to the Soviet Recytes. regime or was, he said that the reason why they got to where they were with the totalitarianism that reigned in the Soviet Union was that men have forgotten God. Now, when I hear that from Solstin-Heidson-Heidson, I think of atheists or I think of agnostics, people who have just shunned the faith. What I think is interesting and very profound, maybe unintentionally on your part, is that you used we have forgotten God to actually talk about professing Christians,

Christians who are looking at their faith as exclusively horizontal rather than vertical. And maybe that is actually why here in the West we are where we are, not just because men in general have forgotten God, but because professing Christians have. So interesting, but a sad state of affairs, absolutely. Can we end, though, on a bit of a hopeful note. for those who don't know the gospel, who don't know the hope this you have, and why you can remain hopeful and steadfast and joyful, even in the midst of the threat of tyranny and the consequences that you've endured over the past couple of years, can you just share that hope with people? Yeah, sure. Before I do just want to say, too, that I heard a pastor say just yesterday that we do not give up what we love. There are many people who draw the line with their children. They would allow the government to have anything but their children. well, as Christians, we love no one more than we love Jesus.

And we loving Jesus means that we worship him. So the one thing we will not give up is worship. And as far as the message of hope, I mean, the reason why we love him is not only because of who he is, but what he has done, that when we were lost in sin, Christ died for us. and that though we deserve, because of how we have lived, though we deserve to be punished in hell forever and ever, that Jesus has paid for our sins at the cross, and there's not a single sinner that is too sinful,

that is too far gone to be rescued by this Savior. The wonderful message of the gospel is that Christ has paid at all. It's free to all who will come, and he has said he will cast out no one who does come. So when we look at what's happening in our country and what's going on across the world, I have hope and peace because I know, first of all,

that Jesus Christ is king, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The kingdom will continue to advance world without end, and that it is often the case that when the church is under persecution, that it is thrived. And as I look at a church that seems to, as the Bible says, wax fat

and become complacent and lukewarm, that what would be the most helpful, I think, though I don't relish it, would be persecution. Because then it seems that God's people are cast upon God and begin to see the vanity of what the world offers. And it is then that they become alive. And so perhaps this is what we need. Perhaps we'll see in the next generations hard times, but also joyous times and refreshing from the presence of God. Yes, the true church is refined by fire, not destroyed by it. And I think that is a place where we can put our hope and that ultimate victory is sure. Even if we don't see small scale victories, political victories here in this life, we will see an all-encompassing total victory when Jesus rules in totality. And that's certainly where my hope is derived. So thank you so much. Thank you for sharing what you have. We will continue. continue to pray for you. I encourage people who listen to this show and who are watching this

to send you encouragement and to pray for you and all Canadians, but especially Canadian Christians and pastors. So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's been good. Okay, guys, that's it for today. We've got lots of good stuff coming out this week that I'm really excited about. I know we've done a lot of interviews over the past two weeks, but that's because there's so many people to talk about who have so much good expertise to lend. And if you haven't listened to last week's episodes, we did a lot of good, we just did, we covered so much last week. So make sure you go back and listen to those. I also did a bonus birthday episode on Friday.

Just gave a little life advice and travel down memory lane. And so go listen to or watch that if you have it. Subscribe on YouTube. And also leave us a five-star review if you love Relatable on Apple Podcast. Thanks so much for listening. We will be back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself.

On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.