Shaun Newman Podcast - #250 - Corporal Dan Bulford 2.0

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Dan is a 15 year vet of the RCMP where he spent the last 8 years on the Emergency Response Team in Ottawa where his primary duties were supporting the protection of the Prime Minister. We discuss his experience with the convoy in Ottawa which ultimately led to his arrest.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here:⁠ https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

This is Nick Hudson. I'm Dr. Daniel Nagassey. This is Julie Pennessy. This is Corporal Daniel Beaufort. This is Dr. Paul Alexander. This is Dr. Eric Payne. This is Dr. Eric Payne. This is Dr. Peter McCullough.

Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday, hump day. Hope everybody's week is cruising along. We got a great one on tap here for you today. Before we get there, let's get, of course, to our sponsors of today. Today's episode, Canadians for Truth. They are a non-profit organization consisting of Canadians who believe in honesty, integrity,

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make sure you let them know you heard about it from the podcast, right? Now on to that Ram truck rundown brought to you by the auto clearing Jeep and Ram, the Prairie's trusted source for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, and all things automotive for over 110 years. He's been an officer with the RCMP for 15 years. Since 2013, he'd been in Ottawa where he spent eight years on the emergency response team

where his primary duty was supporting the protection of the prime minister. talking about Corporal Daniel Bulford. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Of course, I'm joined today by Mr. Daniel Bulford. So, sir, thanks for, well, good to see you again. Good to see you.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me again. To the listener, they wouldn't know because I, as everybody knows, on this end, I went silent there for about 53 days. But I did get to meet you. And your wife and that was a pretty, pretty cool moment I thought to actually get to meet you and share a conversation. I thought it was pretty cool. I wish we would have done something maybe a little more elaborate on the podcast

so people could have heard. But for me personally, I thought that was a cool moment in Ottawa that I'll look back on fondly. Oh, me too. I had almost zero free time. And so I was really, I thought maybe I had missed you. I thought maybe you had left town. So when I ran, ran into you that night, I was very happy that we had the opportunity to actually see each other in person and meet in person. Well, here's what I think everyone's curious about, right? Everybody had their story from Ottawa, and Ottawa was hard to explain. But you're a guy who was boots on the ground, was there the entire time. That's where you've worked, yada, yada, yada. You had an interesting perspective.

And then at the end of it, like, I removed myself from social media. I just, I needed a break. And then when I do come back on, I see you giving yourself over to police and my heart broke into it. I'm like, oh, man. Like, I don't know. We can get into the paranoia and all those different things. But you, in my opinion, are one of the good ones, at least from what I've saw. And maybe we're both insiders. Who knows, Daniel?

But it's interesting how the paranoia gets cranked up on everything. But I thought we'd start with your view as a convoy came into Ottawa. And then just, you know, talk about some of the things you saw and everything. else. We can get into lots of the different areas here that have been unfolding since then. But maybe give the viewer, the listener, your perspective on the convoy being in Ottawa. Well, initially, when the convoy was spooling up, you've seen it moving across the country. I don't have much of a social media footprint, but my wife was given me updates. and I was monitoring the convoy moving across,

and you've seen it building great momentum and huge support. And we were so excited for when it was going to roll into town. And my initial job or role was supposed to be, like hadn't wasn't involved with the actual convoy itself. I was actually supposed to be helping provide security for some of the higher profile doctors and scientists who've spoken out and they've been threatened. as a result of that. So I mean, hey, I have a background in protection. That was my expertise over the last eight years. And so that was going to be my role. But then on the Tuesday night before the convoy

rolled into town, I think it was January 24th, roughly, or the 25th. I got a phone call from a friend, kind of almost a panic phone call saying, like, we are helping the volunteers organization, like adopt a trucker for basically receiving and help, like hosting the convoy as they land in Ottawa. And we really need your help with security. And I was like, okay, you know, last minute, right, the convoy is on the final march into Ottawa in a couple of days' time. But at the same token, you know, I knew that I could find other people to help full and fill the role I was supposed to do. and I knew like these people, these truckers and the supporters of the convoy that are rolling into Ottawa, I owe them everything because they are the only people who stood up on mass to oppose the tyranny that was the ever-increasing authoritarian behavior from our government,

not just federal, our provincial governments as well. And so I felt like, I cannot say no to this. I have to help. And so the next Wednesday morning, I went to a meeting and it was a small group of volunteers around a kitchen table. And you've seen like we were just getting started on like preparations. Thankfully, we had some very switched on people that were able to manage the number of volunteer I guess you could call them applicants and had organized some people into who was willing to do what.

Like who was willing to offer a place to stay? Who was willing to offer to provide transportation? Who was going to be willing to help prepare food? Who was going to be willing to help with security? And I mean, I've had a lot of experience in tactical planning for these big, big events that happen in downtown Ottawa, right? like, you know, Canada Day, Remembrance Day. And like a significant amount of time and resources go into planning those events. And like, I'm just used to planning this small portion of that said event, right?

And here we are. And like a big Canada day could almost be a year in planning, like for as a whole, as an event as a whole. And it's done by like groups of paid professionals. And here was this little handful of volunteers. tiers that we're trying to prepare for something of that magnitude in two or three days. And I thought to myself, I'm like, wow, we, I mean, good on the people who agree, who kind of put the idea forward for the adopt a trucker, but like, they had no idea how big this of a task this was to take on.

And so, but we all knew, well, we don't have a choice. So we're just going to do what we can. We started making phone calls and trying to get things organized, figure out, okay, who's going to be, who's going to, who's running first aid, who's running security, who's running shuttles, who's running food, who's running lodging. Like, it was, it was a hasty preparation. I know. So, but, you know, we, we worked our way through it. And thankfully, because the people that were coming were so, they're so used to taking their own initiative to getting, like, getting shit done that things just happened.

Like, we didn't have to micromanage hardly anything because people would just, like, realize that there was a need for something. to happen and they would just do it. So anyways, I ended up fulfilling the role essentially of like volunteer security coordinator and and police liaison. That was a that was probably what I spent the majority of my time doing was talking to the different police agency liaison teams and and trying to keep people calm about what they were seeing from the police in Ottawa at the time, right? Because a lot of people had never been to a, some people had never been to Ottawa. A lot of people had never been to Ottawa and a lot of people had never

seen what would normally happen when you have one of those massive events in downtown Ottawa because it is the capital and because it is the parliamentary precinct, you know, there, there is, it's not uncommon to see a lot of the things that we saw from the police in the first couple of weeks, right? Like snipers on the roof of Parliament Hill, that used to be my job. I used to be up there all the time for stuff way smaller in scale than the convoy. And, you know, the different police services like walking around in different types of gear, like that's pretty standard when you have a major event, right? Placing barricades around roads, whether it's concrete or heavy equipment. That's been a norm since vehicle ramming's

become popular over in Europe and other parts of the world, right, as a way to create mass casualties. So fortunately, the volunteer people were basically self-managed themselves on the security front. And then I, the majority of my time was all spent dealing with, like, explaining to people what they were seeing. and some of the reasons why, because a lot of people, like, just automatically went to that mindset of, like, there's going to be a massive, you know, government conspiracy to crack down on us and, you know, and I mean, there was, well, the first, like, three, four days, it seemed like every couple hours, there was a new, a new panic. A new panic. It reminded me of, uh, um, the game he used played at school where you'd tell the rumor and go through all the people. And by the end, it was,

like what, what? And that's to me what I saw over and over and over again. And all it was was was putting out these fires all over the place, but it sent everybody into a panic. And when tensions were that high right at the start, like this has to work. That's what everybody thought. This has to because if this doesn't work, what are we going to do? Yeah, then it's lost. Yeah, it was a very hopeful but very tense couple of days there right at the start. And then I thought, I don't know, I thought from the cops, about day four, Dan, I thought everything just kind of relaxed for a period of time. But maybe that was just from my standpoint. Well, I think there was a real heightened anxiety from the people who came.

And I was, I was, I, fortunately for me, I had been involved in a lot of those big events. So I was, I think I was able to help people like stay calm for, for a period of time because, you know, being the security guy, I would get,

I would feel tons of like, phone calls and people wanting to report like, you know, there's snipers on the rooftop of Parliament Hill. And I'm like, yep. And they're like, well, that's not normal. Like, are they a threat to us?

I'm like, no, they're not a threat to you at all. They are there to watch the crowd. They're looking for people who could be a threat, but they're not looking to target anyone on the ground specifically. They're there to watch, observe, and make sure that no one becomes an active threat to the crowd as a whole. Like that and to make sure no one actually tries to like become a threat towards the parliament. And that was my old job, right?

But there was a real, you're right. those first like i'd say the first week at least maybe even longer there was a really high sense of anxiety about like people afraid that the that the police were just going to mass mobilize and smash the convoy which you know did eventually happen but it took some time to get there i do think like the the the police in ottawa like the in the major services there on a regular basis they're on a regular basis. They facilitate big events all the time. Right. Like I can't remember a protest ever being that scale. You know, there, there have been a couple like BLM protest back in 2020 was quite large, but not as big as the convoy. And but, you know,

they, they deal with protests all the time in Ottawa, like all the time. And, and big, big, big events where there's huge gatherings of the public. That's a regular occurrence there. So I think that a lot of the anxiety that was there in the initial days was a result of people never being exposed to anything like that, like seeing like, you know, different police from different parts of the province. And then as it got closer to the third week, right, even police from different parts of the country.

And I was trying to just reassure people that like, that's normal. It's not unexpected. We see this all the time in Ottawa. And it's, you know, a lot of it is just as simple as sustainability, right? Like they need to bring people in on a massive scale in order to be able to cycle people out. So what point then did it become a surprise or like that isn't normal? Well, the third week is the obvious, the obvious turning point when they invoke the Emergencies Act.

I mean, it wasn't a real surprise to me that the Trudeau government made that move because it kind of followed the progression, right? The city of Ottawa declared a state of emergency. then the province of Ontario declared a state of emergency, and then eventually the federal government did on Valentine's Day. But what I was hoping was that because the protest was peaceful, that they wouldn't have the justification to move on the protest because there was no imminent threat to, well, to the nation, right?

There was no imminent threat to anybody as a result of the convoy, even though, you know, even though the government and the mainstream media narrative was that it was violent and aggressive and, you know, damaging property, which was completely false. That was total BS. Well, that was the hardest thing I had, listen, being there and seeing everything and then flicking on the news, which you shouldn't have done while you were there. but it was hard not to just, I wonder what they're saying about this. I wonder what they're saying about this. And I don't know. Like,

I walked a lot of those streets. Doesn't mean I was everywhere. Definitely was not. You're another man who would have known a lot on the inside. And everything I saw and everything I'm hearing from you, like it wasn't a riot. It wasn't like it was some of the most, well,

I keep saying it was, I didn't realize that level of humanity existed. The amount of people that were, you know, Like, just everything. Like from the smiles, the handshakes, to the cleaning, to the shoveling the sidewalks, to the amount of free food. Man, you could go there and have a class A grade one meal. Like everyone got top-notch food and didn't cause you think.

It was unbelievable. Yeah, no, it was unity on a scale that I've never seen before. Unity, that's a great word. Yeah. You go to a big Canada Day event. And I mean, I was usually elevated watching the crowd. You could walk, you know, you'd be on the lookout for people that were kind of stood out as potentially like suspicious, you know, with their behavior and who could be a potential threat. All the same things that you would look for with any large crowd.

And with Canada Day, yeah, it was like a party type atmosphere. But it was always like little groups just doing their own little thing, right, within the larger group. Whereas this, I mean, I didn't have the bird's eye view that I normally do, but anytime I went down there, like just total strangers. Just like laughing and hugging and everyone just so happy to like feel like, oh my God, there's a sense of hope for Canada. Right? Because I think a lot of people were in that mindset before the convoy rolled into town that like or before the convoy started rolling across the country that what's left to stand up for? Right. Like if if the majority of the population wants Canada to be the way Canada is and the way Canada is heading, is there a place for me here anymore? Do I have a future here or is it time for me to go? And I had that conversation with my wife many times. And I was at that point where I was like, I should have got my family out while I could before the flight restrictions shut everything down. Right. And so like when you go, go downtown, Ottawa, when the convoy was here and experience that firsthand.

Like, man, thousands and thousands of people, like, just packed in the street, like, happy to see each other, you know, happy to see each other's face. Like, and it didn't matter. No one cared. No one cared what race you were, what religion you were, what your background was, how you even voted. No one cared. All anyone cared about.

was that we're all there to stand together for our fundamental freedoms, period. Yeah, it was, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was almost a euphoric atmosphere. Like there was times where you would like, the first few days, especially when I would, my take my little mini breaks to get out of the coordination center and go, like, walk downtown and check out the convoy. And you see the people and the trucks and everyone like that, that level of unity and that level of joy and hope. you would just like, it would, yeah, I'd get overwhelmed. Like I was so many times, right?

I'd just like, I'd just break down waterworks. Like, thank you truck drivers for saving our nation, right? When nobody else did. Not the doctors, not the lawyers, not the cops, not the courts, not the politicians, the truckers. The truckers gave millions of Canadians hope that we're not going to let our country be taken away from us. just because some talking heads and governments say they can that they're going to take away all of our freedom. It galvanized the population, right? Because everybody was looking, I don't know how many times in the conversations I had leading up to the trucker convoy.

Everybody was there was so much energy. It just didn't know where to go. Like it was just kind of splattering against the wall, you know? Like, oh, it's going to stick. Nothing's sticking. Nothing sticking. And then you heard the trucker convoy. Yeah.

And everybody knew. yep, that's going to work. Yep. And when you talk about talking to strangers, that's all I did there. It was just approach random people. And I say there's a lot. You know, in Alberta, and you would certainly know this. Like, Quebec is kind of like a, almost like a swear word out here, you know?

Like, oh, they're always taking their money and there's a little bit of animosity. There is an animosity there, 100%. And I would say some of the nicest people I met there were from Quebec. And I can understand them. And they knew I was from Alberta. and we just kind of like everybody was there for the right reasons and they understood that and that was like to me super cool like i think i don't i don't know how to put it to in words almost like you have canada day and canada is fun there's not like believe me and i've had this conversation

with uh jama sinclair before he's a 30 year um military event about canada day being on the wrong date it should be on a different date that means more to our military or something that means more to Canadians. We got it on like kind of a warm day so we can all get out there and wave our Canadian flag and whatever. And that week, two weeks of being with the convoy, I was like, oh, this is Canadian.

Nobody gives a crap that it's minus 30 outside. It's freezing cold. Yeah, everybody's outside. They're bundled up. They're like, and just such unity. I haven't been using that word. I've been using the level of humanity. Like I just, everybody was so open to talking to everyone.

Everyone was smiling. I don't know if I've ever seen so much smiling in my life. Everyone was crying. Yeah, that's it. There was just so much emotion. But I always say, too, like, I'm not a protest. Like, I don't go on the weekends to go protest. And actually, when Brian Pekford was on,

and he mentioned that if we just protest something like five Saturdays in a row, and said I'll be over. They had to be meaningful protests, but five in a row. And I've got to have him back on to explain that better because now, now I think about it all the time. but I wasn't as soon as he did that I went to emminton for protest because I'm like okay if Brian Pekford's going to say that I better either put up a shut up right so I don't really know what a protest is supposed to be I'll say this the one I went to in emminton was like oh like

it was uncomfortable you talk about little groups it was kind of like that right we're all there for the same reason but it was kind of like you're there there's three people and their family and then a couple friends and I'm the awkward guy sitting there as himself and I'm kind of walking and then should have invited a couple people, but I just kind of went in spur a moment, whatever. You get to Ottawa. I walked around by myself a lot. I never felt alone.

It was the most safest place ever. I think I gained weight. I don't know how that's possible, but everywhere I went, there was some new vendor with his family going, you ate yet? I'm like, I've ate like three times, but geez, I feel bad,

not taking a taste of what you got. So then you eat some more. And I mean, and that just kept spurn out. I tell people all the time, I got to feed homeless. I don't know about you, Danny. I don't know if you got to do anything like that,

but I got to feed the homeless and stuff. And I never realized how much fulfillment, maybe that gives a person. Like, just like respect one another. And there's a guy down and out sitting on the street corner. It's minus 30. How would we go give him a bowl of chili? And, you know, the 60-year-old kid you're with is like,

sure, I think it's a great idea. All right. So we go give him, actually, I think it was pizza. When he gave him some pizza and he was just like over the moon. Like that's what was going on. That's what I saw with my eyes. And I know there's a heck of a lot more than that going on. But once again, I come back to the media thing. I come all the way circling back around it because that's one that I said it on Bass Crow show. I'll say it again here. And I apologize because I don't know how to say it better. But it's a real mind fuck. Like I can just imagine being in your shoes and the way the media has portrayed you and everything else, how hard this has been. I'm not surprised. by the media's approach to this, being what my, you know, my former profession exposed me very early on to how biased the media reports, right? They will, you know, they, they tell the story that they want to tell in order to get the most attention and the most viewership. It's not about

telling the truth anymore. It's a, like, have you ever seen that interview with Denzel where he goes off on the media about being first. I think he's 100% accurate with that. You have your independent media sources, which are doing a much better job, but everyone has a bit of an angle, right?

And I don't think it's any surprise that media that is funded by our government is going to report favorably on behalf of our government. Now, I've been, I haven't,

I haven't, I stopped paying attention to the mainstream media a long time ago because of my experience with my old profession. But unfortunately, I've had to start paying attention to them again to a degree just to see how deceitful they are being. And now, I mean, after experiencing what I did in Ottawa, especially throughout the duration, like not just Ottawa, like throughout the duration of the pandemic and what I see that's either being. being suppressed or not reported and what they are saying and then looking at their own information on public health websites and that's not congruent with what they're saying in the media. And then you go experience the convoy. And it's probably the single greatest event I've ever been a part of in my entire life.

Right. I mean, aside from my wedding and my children being born, I don't think any. Yeah, thank you. I put that little caveat in there. Getting married, my wife, my kids, convoy. Yes. Yeah. The convoy was the single greatest thing I've been a part of in my professional life. And I don't care what the media says about me. I know that everyone that was involved that I came into contact with, whether they were truckers, supporters, or people volunteering

had nothing but the best intentions of being peaceful. trying to do it the right way, let our voice be heard and, and show the world that, like, we will not submit to authoritarian governance. I think. And, but then the media, they twist it to fit the narrative that they want. And I just, I think that if I had one solid piece of advice for anyone who still, living in fear of the convoy or the supporters or COVID, turn off the CBC and the CTV and global news and all of those big outlets.

Like go look for yourself. Go find information for yourself. And then beyond that, I would also say that we have to start questioning everything that we're being told. Maybe that sounds a little bit paranoid. I don't want to be that paranoid. but you should be able to trust your government and your media, but it's clear from what I've experienced firsthand that you cannot.

Well, I was going to, I think maybe I was the naive one, right? Because on the road to Ottawa and seeing everything I was seeing, it did confuse me to why the CBC wasn't on the side of the road talking about it. And now everybody that I said that to was like, well, of course, they're pushing their narrative, whatever. I'm like, I guess I just had more faith. I personally thought the longer it went on, they'd have to change the tone. Like, they just, they would. And so I think probably one of the hardest things that I had to wrap my brain around. I'm still trying. I'm still trying to do it. Is, even than a police force, the media outlets have to have good people there, right, that are good

people. I know people who've worked there, right? Like, I just, so here's good people. And I'm going, okay. So at what point do they start talking about which actually going on in the convoy? Because I'm sitting in the middle of it. And I thought the entire way across Canada that eventually they'd be like, wow, look at this. Like even the first day I talked to a, I mentioned this before, a 20-year vet of the Ottawa Police Force, me and my sister talked to him. And you could tell he was like, oh, yeah, just another, another protest. And I was like, I'm not so sure about that. And the longer we talked to him, then he mentioned, you know, I'll say this, though,

I've never seen protesters clean up their own garbage before. Like, there's people out cleaning everything up. And I'm like, yeah, it's pretty cool. Because everybody knows they're on thin ice, right? Like they can't step out of line because that's what they'll expose. So everybody was like trying their best. to go out of their way to make sure only good things can be told. And I eventually thought the narrative would break and CBC would walk in and they'd start

like interviewing all the good stories. All you had to do was walk down the street and you just ran into them headlong. Like I mean, they were just everywhere. Like every person you ran into had this story that was like, wow, that would have been good television. So when it comes to ratings, I go like, that really bothers me because it's like, what we're talking about is people will only tune into bad things. And I know Don Henley and Dirty Laundry, the song, and I get it.

But like Canada, COVID, like that was a hell of a story. And instead, yeah, was there people there not for all the best reasons? Maybe. But I feel like the stories of those got really exposed and really talked about. And that's what they focused on. The longer it went on, the heart of you went, the hell is going on. And so in my, I come back to it. It's a real mind fucked.

And I really had to think about that one for a really long time, that our government is willing to go to extreme lengths to keep up a narrative that doesn't even make sense anymore. And then on top of that, there's thousands of people upon thousands employed by the CBC. They aren't all freaking robots. They got to be sitting there going, what the hell are we doing? No? Are my wrong on that, Dan? No.

I think you're bang on, correct? But I think that my guess is that within the news media, you're going to have people that see the truth, but they're intimidated into staying silent. Because of the job. Much like in the police, right? I field messages all the time from active serving police officers, not just RCMP, other police officers,

like, thank you, Danny. You have given words to my thoughts. Thank you for speaking up. And that might sound kind of bragish or a braggy thing to say. But like, then why aren't you speaking up? Right. Like I know that we all have that threat of what could happen if you were to speak publicly. But I would say you don't have to go public.

I did. I did because I volunteered out of a small group of people. We knew that someone had to. And I felt like I was researched enough that I was willing to do it. And I was also at that stage where I couldn't just sit in my basement silent waiting for this problem to go away. But all it would take on the enforcement side and within the news media side, any profession, where you have a bunch of people who see what's really happening, but remaining silent, because of fear of losing their job is just tell your boss in private. Like, I'm not doing this anymore. And if enough people took that stand together,

if enough people were in solidarity like that, even internally, you don't have to make a big public display about it, then the boss has to re-evaluate, can I get rid of all of these people? Like, for example, my old team, roughly 30 guys. That's, you know, that's not a big unit by any means. But if the entire team had said, you know what, if you push Danny Bulford out because of his decision, we all leave, that would be enough for the RCMP to say, whoa, we better reevaluate our, our stance here, right?

It might not have worked in the ultimate outcome that we wanted, but it at least would have put them back on their heels a little bit and realize like, oh, you mean we can't just bully people around and force them to do what we want? Right. And I think like what people don't understand is how much influence we actually have on public policy. Well, we just. We just saw it with the truckers. Exactly. Right. Like people, you know, okay, the federal government wouldn't negotiate. The federal government wouldn't engage. The federal government wouldn't drop the mandates. But look at what happened across the entire country. Right. And it doesn't matter. I don't care what any of those premiers or chief medical officers say about it had nothing to do with the truckers. I called BS on that. It 100% had to do with the amount of support that Canadians were putting behind the truck convoy. That's why mandates got pulled. That's why vaccine passports got pulled. Everybody knows the reason, like, You're lying to yourself.

You are. The reason that everything's gone isn't because of those, you know, that month, right? Like those days, every day that it lasted and people talked about it more and more videos came out, it gave more ground for every premier to stand on to say, we're done with this. We saw it first here in Alberta and Saskatchewan. That's what happened. And I mean, it's totally to do with that. The, you know, I'd always, what maybe one of the interesting things about going through the last year and talking so much about this, this topic was like, how do we get out of this, right? And everyone and, you know, you get your Brian Peckford.

Who'd say, well, we got to, you know, the people got a protest. United noncompliance. That's right. And you're like, you really think that could work, right? Like I just couldn't, in my brain, I'm like, they have these freedom days, you know, where there's 20 people kind of waving a flag and you're kind of like, how is that ever going to work? And then you see it work and you're like, oh, well, that's, that's how it does it. It has to be scale, right? Like, like you said, I've, I've been to a lot of protests when I was working that the turnout was abysmal. And I even thought to myself for years, like, what are these people really hoping to accomplish here? Like, you know, I get, now I have a whole new appreciation for people standing up for a cause that they believe in. But at the time, I was sitting there watching like these, these small groups, you know, coming up on the Parliament Hill. And I was just thinking like, oh, man, like this never seems to change anything.

But if you get it on a big enough scale, it can make some serious changes. Right. Like, and that's what happened in Ottawa. So you, you had the provinces on mass, either halt things that they were bringing into place, pull back restrictions, you know, vaccine passports, mask mandates, you know, if they didn't do it while the convoy was in town, it was like they were setting dates. And I think that the only reason that they didn't do it like immediately

was because they were had to try and save face to a degree, right? Like, oh, if we drop all this right now, it's going to be clear that we are under the, you know, we have been pressured by the job of the convoy as opposed to. That extra, yeah, that extra two weeks makes a difference. Yeah. COVID knows that it has to just disappear in two weeks time, right? It's like, when you walk in, people walk in with a mask.

It's like, COVID only exists between four to seven feet. That's why you can take the mask off as soon as you sit at the table. I mean, it makes no sense. But anyways, sorry, I digress. But if you get it on a massive enough scale like Ottawa did, that is the wake-up call. That's what the politicians will respond to. It's like, oh, my God, there is not, this is not just the small fringe minority. There's millions of people supporting this.

as it moves across the country, and there's thousands upon thousands physically here amongst the trucks in support of them, right? And I think that, I mean, well, I'm convinced that's why the provinces went the way they did. And that's also why our opposition finally started being an opposition and why our opposition leader was replaced, right?

It was clear that it was because you didn't take a strong enough stance on our behalf, right? And that's why you're no longer going to be remaining as the leader of the official opposition. I'm convinced of that. Well, and the thing was is like, have I ever taught, well, I mean, we've only talked a little bit, but did I tell you anything about the convoy, like following it through northern Ontario? No. Like, it's one thing to have a protest in Ottawa.

It is, like, you. You said it mass noncompliance. Like, when we watched it go into Sudbury, it pulled into Sudbury late and only part of it because they split the convoy because of road closures. And it had to have been that night, like minus, I don't know, my phone died as I was trying to record it. That's how cold it was outside. Like, I mean, I don't know, it was minus 30-ish. Like, it was cold. And it was like a rock concert as the trucks rolled in.

And they did the slow roll, like revving the engines. People were going nuts. And it wasn't like one of the cool things, you know, I had this conversation with a guy a couple days ago. And he was saying, oh, yeah, but it was just all one type of person. I laughed. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like it was all ages. It was kids all the way up to grandparents.

It was every code, creed, religion, everything, color, you name it, we're out there. And that was Sue St. Marie. And the next night is when in North Bay, the convoys convert. So the one from the north met. And I swear to this day that the road was rumbling as they were converging. And there was people like there were just people everywhere. And it's like minus 30 outside. And they've been waiting hours because the one thing about people don't understand what the combo is it.

It didn't move that fast. Like the one day it was a seven hour drive. It took a 17 hours. And people just lining the highway. And just when you think, oh, there's nobody out here. Okay, we can get going. You pull around a corner and there'd be another hundred people. And now, 100 people over there.

If you're a politician, you couldn't hide from that. Like you just, you couldn't hide. You could put your head in the sand if you wanted to. But you look out and there was people everywhere where that convoy went. It was unreal. Yeah. It was a rock party that didn't end for how many days. And then it hit Ottawa and it just kept going.

Yeah. Well, I think, I remember. probably like the within the first weekend of the convoy being in Ottawa like scrambling, running around talking to the different police agencies

an Ottawa police officer saying to me like we had no idea that this was going to be this big. And I just looked at him. I'm like, well, that's because you've been listening to the CBC. Like if you had been paying, it doesn't take like a high speed intel officer

to keep an eye on social media. and see that people are talking like, you know, numbers anywhere between 10,000 up to possibly 50,000 trucks, right? Like, I have no idea what the over, what the actual final number was of vehicles. Does anybody have? No, I don't think anybody does. But it was massive, right? And so when that, when that behemoth landed in Ottawa, they were completely caught off guard.

And they, and they've admitted that. They've admitted that to me in person. They've admitted that, like in the media, you know. and they can talk about it. Well, it's a major failure of the police and intelligence services. It's like, you don't have to be a police officer or an intelligence officer to look online and see the fact that, holy crap, this thing's really picking up some serious steam and some serious support from all like people are coming from the Northwest Territories, Prince George, Vancouver, Toronto and Niagara, the east coast of Canada. Like, you had truckers come from Newfoundland.

I had across the ferry. I interviewed a guy in a, like, oh, what is one of those trucks called? Like one of those little Toyota, but it's got like this tiny little backseat. And it was him and his three kids, three kids from Vancouver Island. And he just said, I got to go. Kids can come or you can stay home with your mom. And the kids are like, no, we're coming. So there they are.

They're loaded up in this little truck fall in the convoy. I'm like, this is unreal. All right? Like, when would this ever happen? Any other time in history? Like, I can't think of anything other than, honestly, like, maybe wartime when you're like, okay, you've heard the call and you got to make the trip and the boys go or the women go. Like, I mean, everybody puts in their part at that point.

But like this was. And once again, all ages, all races, everything. Like, I met a set of grandparents from both northern B.C. They'd made the trip. Like, it was wild. Fireworks going off. Like, I just. and yet the CBC caught none of it.

Like, none of it. I'm just like, this is, this is hard to handle, you know? Well, I'm again, but you have an interesting background, Dan, and that you, like, that's why I say I was naive. Because I was really naive. Like, I just assume it would change. But I watched that Fifth Estate where they talked to all of them. And I was like, like, yeah, I, I,

I mean, you pick part the Sean Newman podcast. Are you going to find me swearing? Yep. Are you going to find me saying some things about Trudeau? Yep. Are you going to find, like, you can probably list off a bunch of things. And if you clip it out, we all know how this is on any type of media source. You can make anyone sound like a jackass, especially with me and you, when I talk for like your 250, 250th episode at like an hour of pop at least, you're going to find some dirt there.

Like, I mean, that's pretty easy. And I mean, like the fifth estate thing is like, huh like if you if you'd really you could have done one of those but do another one where you actually get them in and like show the light of the two sides and the the side that would win is the side that was there that showed everything that was going on yeah well another thing that I've said in defense of the convoy when people have been critical of me being involved with it is you know they're regurgitating what they've heard in the media and I just I get so tired of trying to argue you against the lies of the mainstream media.

I just say, did you go there yourself? And the answer I've received is, well, no, I couldn't. It's like, lie, that's not true. You could have absolutely come down there at any point in time. You could drive down. People were still able to drive around the city because lanes were left open. It might have taken longer, yes. But you could have come down at any point in time, seen for yourself what it was really like.

and you would have been welcomed by everyone. No matter what your view of the convoy was, we like up on the stage truck, they were actually providing people the opportunity to speak against what the convoy was in Ottawa for. I mean, that didn't happen much, right?

Because I think there was only one or two people that have the guts to actually come do it. And you know, good on them for having the courage to come confront like thousands of people about like, you know, expressing their displeasure. But they were accommodated. right, they were given the opportunity to speak to speak and present their case, which is what none of us have been allowed to do, right?

Anyone who's questioned, the narrative, has been like publicly shamed and attacked and name called in efforts, which has been very successful in keeping people silent and afraid of what the social perception of them will be if they question things publicly. But so if you didn't come down there for yourself to see what it was really like, you missed out because it was a historic moment and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. I'm so grateful that I got to be involved and in I think in a significant way, right? And now coming back to the fifth estate you're talking about. That's the one where I think it was, is it Binley? Is that the journalist's last name? Jeez.

Now you're on the spot. I don't know. She interviews James Bouter. Yeah. Pat King and Jeremy and tries to make an attempt to interview Jeremy McKenzie, right? And that's the only people that they focus on, right? And they paint them to be like these big lead convoy organizers, you know, and then they try and, you know, they really go after Pat King for some of the things he said publicly.

And, you know, they really try and make him appear as oh, he's a white supremacist and inciting violence or advocating for violence against Justin Trudeau. And then they go off on Jeremy McKenzie and try and. connect him to one of the guys who's arrested and charged in Coots, Alberta. And I watched, I watched it and it was painful. I mean, it's, you can tell, like, she talked about interviewing Pat King for an hour, but then what you only see, maybe five minutes of the interview, right? And it's like, and it's very set to the very dramatic music. And it's smoke and mirrors. It's all that, that's what they do. They, they craft the message and they edit to fit, to make the narrative fit the message they want to tell.

And I can tell you from a hundred, like with 100% confidence that, I mean, I don't, I'm not privy to everything that was happening during the convoy. But like, it was a busy time. We were go, go, go, go, go on the volunteer front. And I did get to meet and interact with a lot of the truck captains, right? People that were kind of like, well, identified as kind of the de facto leadership of the trucking convoy. And I didn't talk to James Bauder once. I never even met him in person. I didn't even know what he looked like until I watched the fifth estate. Never spoke to him once.

Pat King, I seen in person two times. And like the interaction there was basically he said, well, if anyone here has a problem with me, come talk to me about it. So I went and talked to him about my concerns with him. He assured me that those weren't concerns. Like, okay, good, good enough. And then the one other time, he came like running in to the room I was in and just like, oh, there are, you know, cops are coming. There are bus loads of them doing this and that and the other thing. And so a few of us went out to check it out and it wasn't happening. So it was like it was like a false alarm.

And that's exactly what I talked to him about. Actually, that was my concern was like, look, I don't have any trust in what the media says about you. But you tend to get people really amped up about what the cops are going to do. and then it distracts and derails everything that, you know, it distracts everyone for a couple hours. So those are my two interactions with him, like expressing we, it was clear that he probably wasn't a big fan of mine. Why is that?

Well, I think he doesn't trust me. He thinks I'm a government mole still working for the RCMP. And whatever, believe what you want. Danny, are you a government mole still working for the RCMP? No, emphatically, no. 100% no. They did pay me the last couple of months because of a retroactive pay raise that they negotiated from the Treasury. You're on the payroll.

That's true. So I did just recently stop receiving my final payments from them. But that's because it was retro paid back to like 2017 or something. But it was obvious he wasn't like super comfortable with me. And I went and talked to him about my concerns with him. but we ironed it out, went our separate ways, and that was pretty much the end of our interaction with each other, aside from that one instance where he ran in,

like raising the alarm, which turned out to be false. Jeremy McKenzie, I met one time, very briefly, just in passing. I recognized him as the raging dissident. I said, hey, I know you. I said, you're the raging dissident. He's like, you're the former sniper.

And I'm like, yep. And then I said, I really liked your video when you were walking on the beach, talking about how poorly soldiers were being. treated. And that was it. That was pretty much the end of our interaction. So like they're being painted as these lead convoy organizers by the CBC, you know, some being jailed for it, even though they, to my knowledge, they had almost nothing to do with like the day to day operation of the convoy. I mean, like, I don't know. They, they probably have their own little social,

they probably have, I shouldn't say little little. That's, you know, I don't want to be belittling to them. but like they have their social media following. But my impression of them was like, you know, James Bauter, I'm not, I don't really know anything about him. But you got Pat King and Jeremy McKenzie. They're basically loud social media personalities who are now being targeted as convoy organizers when I don't believe that's true at all. I met while I've interviewed Jeremy McKenzie. I didn't get to meet him while I was there. He's just a really smart guy, right?

He has a way of humor mixed with like getting to the point. And that cuts through to a lot of people. But he's also been on Alex Jones. And I mean, if you don't know who Alex Jones is, I mean, like, that puts a red flag on most people because Alex Jones is probably the most spoken person in all of North America. It doesn't mean he's always wrong or right.

It just means that's what he is. And so Jeremy McKenzie has been on there multiple times. times. That's going to put a red flag on him. And then he has a tendency to say, like, I really enjoy Jeremy McKenzie. I really enjoyed having him on here. But he has a tendency to say what's going on. Like, just like, and with his background in the military, I mean, he's, he's a card. Like, he is, he is a real card. But once again, like, I watched his videos while he was there. And he was pretty much making fun of the government for what they were saying about what was actually happening there, right?

But Pat King was a guy I bumped into briefly as well. And I, one of the things that really surprised me about Pat King is in his videos, I always thought he was like kind of arrogant and kind of come off as like, maybe even gruff. He's rough around the edges, yep. But when I met him and shook his hand, he was a soft-spoken guy. And I was like, oh, well, that is, you know, like, geez. But I don't know. they painted them on the fifth estate as like these mass conspirators of overthrowing the government.

Yep. Insurrection, right? Yeah. That's the angle they're trying to play. And people are buying it, right? Like the masses that still listen to the CBC and the CTV, they buy it even though it's complete garbage. That was never the plan. That was never anyone.

I don't think I ever, you know, I can't say for certain what either of them said because I haven't watched all of their content. But like, that was never part of the convoy goal, right? the goal was ending the mandates. Well, once again, that's why I say if you listen to all their stuff, yeah, they might have said some things. They might have said a lot of different things. Honestly, I can't sit here and say for certain they didn't say we're not going to overthrow the government or there won't be bloodshed or I have no idea.

What I can certainly say with confidence is somewhere along the lines from BC to landing in Ottawa, the mentality of the entire convoy changed like immensely. And I, I don't mean to say they were coming with violence from, from one point and then hit a different point and it was different. It just, it kept evolving. And the closer they got, the more peaceful it became. Like, and it was peaceful when it left. Like the amount of times that when I was sitting around with any of the truckers, they talked about how, you know, like, we got to be on our best behavior. We got to make sure we're doing this. We got to make sure we're doing that. We got to make sure we can't do this because they're going to try and portray it as exactly what they're doing. I remember thinking

like, oh, okay. You know, like one of the, one of the coolest things I saw was I was in the hotel when the Cobb showed up. And at the start, it was three lanes, like all lanes were jammed with Samings. Like you walked out the door and nobody could move. Like it was just like, what is going on? And no emergency services could get in, no nothing. and like that we up and that was the plan we're going to jam it up and we're we're locking the city down and you're like holy crap like this is this is like intense and the cops came in and said you know what guys like what happens if somebody gets hurt what happens if we need an ambulance to get through what happens if it's one of your people what happens if it's a mom who

needs to get you know give birth right and all of a sudden you can see light bulbs come on and i what i really appreciate about the truckers was they had their can't captains and within like it couldn't have been five minutes dad like they went out within five minutes you could drive through the middle lane again and all the moos semis had moved and that wasn't a story they got portrayed about how well they worked with the cops to try and like free up because you said people could come down they certainly could when I left I drove up like it was just like you hopped on that and don't get me wrong it was lined with semis but like you there was no parking spots but you could you could drive wherever you wanted to and one of the things that's you

I think they got overshadowed was how cooperative they were. Yeah, they didn't all leave because they weren't going to. That wouldn't have made the point they were looking to get. All of us wanted them to get. But like, they weren't these white supremacist. Unreasonable extremists. Thank you. Yeah.

Extremists. Not even a bit. Yeah. So in my old world and what you even see on that fifth of state interview is talking about IMVEs, ideologically, or ideological motivated violent extremists. and that's how they're trying to paint the convoy by, you know, trying to take the things that Pat King had said. Right. By showing every Pat King interview and pulling out little video clips.

Little clips of it. And the same thing with Jeremy McKenzie. And the thing is, is like, I'll be hard on myself. If you go back on me, you can find stupid things. I'm sure you can. Jeremy McKenzie and Pat King are just a little more aggressive in how they portray things. things. They're there are loud social media personalities who are the easy target. That's right. Or they have been made to be the easy target. Even though like I I sincerely don't think that Pat King is a

white supremacist. I don't believe that. And I do think that the media is trying to clip little things that he said to make him appear that way. A hundred percent. Same, you know, they've tried to paint Jeremy McKenzie as like this right wing malicious. leader because of diagonal. And when you actually- This evil mastermind. Yes. And when you actually like even scratch the surface of the diagonal thing,

it, it was like a satirical comment, like almost like a satirical comedic type thing that he created out of humor. Like so many people, he has a following because he's saying things that people are like, that actually makes sense. Like I agree with that. And he actually talks about things.

Like his stuff is like, you listen to it. you're like, man, that makes a ton of sense. Like when he was on here, it was the day I left for the conboy. And like, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, holy crap, that makes sense, right? And he, yeah, like, he didn't say these crazy things. He just said, like, I want my freedoms back.

I want to be able to do things again. And then, you know, along the lines, somehow, you know, while they've just taken shots at him and Pat King and everything else. I want to talk about, you know, we talk about Pat King and Jeremy McKenzie. Can we talk about the paranoia? Like, the mole thing, I joke around with you if you're still working, you know, as a mole. But like, that was like tons of people asked me that. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised people asked other people if I was until I went completely dark.

It just disappeared. And then maybe they thought I was paid off to go away because the amount of rumors that I had on why I laughed from, I don't know, drinking to DUI to lost my job to I was I was arrested they shut down everything like I mean the rumors are rampant and I don't I mean geez I did go silent there so I fair enough on the rumors but like hearing I've interviewed all all you guys well for the most part right so like Chris Barber yourself Jeremy McKenzie are a few that come ranked to mind yours one is one was interesting, but the paranoia thing, I think, would be interesting for people to hear about. Well, yeah. So there was definitely, and still is a significant amount of distrust,

even within the freedom movement, right? Like, I fielded a ton of, I mean, there's definitely people that don't trust me, whatever, you know, believe what you want. But there, even other figures within the convoy. People that have even met you? I don't know. I mean, I think most people that have any spent any time with me would know that that's not true. But I think,

you know, the concept that here I am a relatively young, healthy fit guy with a ton of money invested in me in training by the RCMP, like the mindset is, there's no way that they would just let him go. Well, they did. They turned their back on hundreds of us.

do people not realize what happened in the last two years? I don't know. I mean, like, I don't know what to say. I mean, I don't even try and defend myself from those actions. Like, it's or those allegations, like, look, if you believe it or not, like, that's, that's on you. Right. This is the world. This is the world we've been living in now, though, for myself for a year, right?

Like, that's, that's been maybe one of the toughest things, Dan, is like, I get a guy, like yourself and I go, I wonder if he's real. You know, like it's a Zoom call, right? Like me and you, and I know people that listen to the podcast, they go, you know, when you hear me talk over and over and over again, I think most people are like, man, he's real. You get a guy like Dan Beaufort and you go, I wonder if that guy actually exists. You know, like it's an abstract thought, right? Like, he's only done a couple interviews. If you search him, it's not like you're everywhere. It's not like people are meeting you. It's not like you got to cross Canada tour happening.

And you go, I wonder, I wonder if he is a plan. And then I met you. And I'm like, yeah, there's Dad Bulford. It's awesome, right? And I'm like, I have an interesting perspective because I, like, I'm not like a truck captain. I didn't just show up with my 10 guys and go, who are all these people? By the time I get there, I've interviewed half of you. And I'm like, holy crap.

Like, I know a podcast is a weird thing. And maybe you could share your perspective. because you get interviewed. From my seat, by the time we're done with this, I feel like I kind of know you on a bit of a personal level because it's like, I don't know, how many people do you sit and have deep conversations with or even just listen to for a couple hours?

Like, I would say you don't do that very often. Except when you're in my chair, I do it all the time. And I feel like I get, hmm, like if you're going to fool me, I'm not saying you can't because somebody certainly will. And they probably have. but if you're throwing your hat in the ring of speaking out against your government and your career, man, you got to have balls of steel to be doing that. And I don't know.

That's my perspective on it. Well, I just, there's too many opinions to worry about trying to control people's opinion. So I just take the mindset. Like, I know who I am. The people that I trust and care about know who I. I am and know what I'm about. If, if, if you want to question me, go ahead and question me and try and look into it if you so choose.

But I do think there is, because there is such a sense of mistrust, because people feel like they've been lied to for like, well, at very least the last two years, you know, specific to the, you know, COVID, that it has created mistrust. in just about everything and every one. And so, you know, like, there's some, there's some personalities out there that have a significant following, whether they're YouTubers, podcasters that have their own doubts about some of the people that were part of the convoy. You know, and I've, I feel that concerns about Tamara and I feel the concerns about

Chris Barber, like, people ask me, like, do you think they're legit? And my answer is like, look, I have no, I have no reason. to question the authenticity of anyone that I came into contact with. I don't have any concerns. I do not believe that Tamara Leach is a plant. I do not believe that Chris Barber is a plant. I don't believe that Pat King is a plant. I don't think Jeremy McKenzie or myself.

I think people are genuinely who they presented themselves to be during that convoy. It's just a bunch of people from different backgrounds that have been pushed too far. and so they push back in the way that they know how. And it, what's hard about it, though, is that things can go viral so quickly, is that like you see the same social media messaging, like, filtering through over and over and over again. And then it's easy to go down the, I hate to use the term, but the conspiratorial path about everything now, right? Because everyone feels as though they've been lied to so much about everything that they're constantly questioning, who can I believe, what can I trust? And I even find myself doing that on a frequent basis.

I've had an outpouring of people contact me wanting to give me information. But a lot of it is way outside of my scope of expertise, but they're pretty persistent about having me involved in like they want my input on this initiative that they're working on. and I just think I can't I can't help but think to myself even like is this a deliberate distraction is someone deliberately trying to distract me from what I need to be focused on by trying to bombard me with other information like just overwhelm me so I mean I understand that paranoia but what I have tried to message to people like public messaging to people and I did make a little rumble video about it like shortly after the convoy was disbanded because it was like there was a lot of division being created even within the freedom movement, right? Like, you know, people with their own ideas about what the, how, what, how people should be operating, what we should be doing next. It's like, just don't cancel each other out, right? Like, don't engage in the same cancel culture that we complain about all the time from, from the government and the mainstream media, right? Like, if someone brings you information of concern, make some effort to look into it.

to either verify it or confirm it false before you just like pump it out into the ether for other people to spread and spread and spread. Right. Like take some measure to authenticate the information or prove that it's false. You know, I mean, and that's not really easy to do all the time, but don't just pass it on and pass it on without trying to verify it first. Do you know what I mean? like I think that is you know I think social media can be used for good but I think it can also become very toxic because things can just go viral things can go viral so quickly right and I think that we need to be better than that right we criticize the government of canceling people and we criticize the mainstream narrative and or the mainstream media. And like I referred to the as the woke mob, right, of canceling anyone who says anything contrary

to what they're the messaging that they're putting out. But then we are, we have been engaging in that behavior ourselves, right? Like just, you know, pumping out allegations or are, sorry, not spreading allegations about people that we have taken zero steps to verify whether they're true or not. And that is, it's toxic and all it does is create further division. And it actually plays right into the hand of the people that want the freedom movement to fail. Right.

It's, we're basically doing their job for them. Well, it's one of the, if we continuously cancel each other out without, you know, without any real solid evidence that the information is true. Yeah, it was one of the, one of the things I noticed in the time I was there. It almost felt like every day there was a new reason not to trust each other, right? Like if they could sow enough seeds of doubt, then you would turn on each other, right? I think it's one of the cool things that happened, at least in the time I was there, is that people didn't turn more on each other, right? Because there was a ton of stuff that was put out there.

and everybody was so nervous that I don't know people were there for the wrong reasons or people were put in place to be there for the wrong reasons or people blah blah blah blah blah blah and I just found if you kept talking to people you could find out what their reason for being there was and and usually by opening up a discussion and talking to people so many good things come out of that well that's why when you bring up Chris Barber I'm like, gee, I don't know. Like, I knew him before they even started on the convoy. Just briefly, I might add, right?

But in my interview, I was like, gee, he doesn't sound like, he just sounds like a guy is frustrated, right? And man, he's like so many others. Oh, and he's vaccinated. And he's, you know, and he's all these things. It's like, I don't know. Did he expect what was going to happen there? I highly doubt that. Like, I was sitting in the room at the start.

when you realized there was no plan in place. Like, oh, like everybody had this plan to get to Ottawa, but now you're in Ottawa. Now what? Uh, like, you're like, this isn't some master plan. Like, this was like people's frustrations and there's energy, it's time to go do something. Okay, what are we going to do? Convoy to Ottawa. Great. All right.

Oh, crap. There's a ton of people pushing this. Oh, and the GoFund me just went. 10 million right? And you're like, now what? Well, it was a giant conspiracy. Really? I think it was a bunch of people that are frustrated. That's what it is. I mean, that, you know, that mindset that it was some master plan. That was never true. Like, like you said, people had enough. The truckers kicked it off. started something that I think millions of us were waiting for, right? Like we were waiting for certain aspects of society en masse and large numbers to stand up and say enough is enough.

And the truck convoy is what initiated that, that spark, if you will. And as they came across the country, it built momentum and built momentum and more and more support and people got more and more excited. But the only plan that I'm aware of for when they actually landed here, was the plan that was provided to me by the Ottawa Police Service about where trucks were going, what routes the trucks were going to come into the city and where trucks were supposed to park and stage. And beyond that, like we, you know,

volunteers were scrambling to get things organized to be able to actually like help take care of the truck convoy when they arrived in Ottawa. And then beyond that, it was just like, you're just figuring things out on a daily basis. And like you said, what's the fire that I need to put out right now? Now what's the problem that's right in front of my face that I've got to deal with right now.

And then Kate, yeah, I think that's done. Now I got to deal with the next one. And like for me, well, and for many of us, not just me, but that first week and a half, almost first two weeks was like there was hardly, hardly any sleep. Like it was go, go, go, because the phone just didn't stop ringing, right? It was nonstop. And I enjoyed it. Like it was, it was stressful at times because there was so much on the go, especially those

first few days when we were like utter chaos. But once we started to kind of get into the groove of like, okay, who is good at what job, then it was, it became a lot more manageable. But I remember laughing when we were all laughing when we saw like the then police chief slowly, out of police chief talking about how like, you know, they're, they're highly organized and well funded. it's just like, man, like, we are not highly organized. Like, we're making this up as we go. And like, this is a massive thing.

And we're trying to accomplish this on a, like, as we go. And not and like, and well funded. Like, okay, yeah, there was this big pot of money with this go fund me. Frozen. And then, uh, given back. And then a big pot of money from gives and go, frozen, unable to access. And so like, it was based on the generosity of people's donations that people were able to survive that length of time there, right? It was, it wasn't because we were some big,

organized, well-funded, oiled machine. And even the way that the media tried to portray it, like, you know, people like me and Tom, you know, people that had like this, you know, former police tactical background and former military background and like all these, you know, they're run like a well-run military operations. Like, no, people just, you're talking about working class people who are just willing to get out there and get the job done and take care of themselves. One of the coolest things I saw firsthand was when they were trying to get fuel to places. And they're like, well, what can we do? Somebody's like, carry it in.

Yeah, carry it in. All right. So, all right. So then what did you have? You had groups of guys hauling around full jerry cans to fill up trucks. And I witnessed that full head. I'm like, well, I never thought I'd see a kid's wagon used for this purpose. But I'm like, that's pretty cool, right?

Like, I mean, I don't think that's well organized. Like, I mean, that's like adjusting to the problems on the fly. Well, we got to get fuel in there. Okay. How do we do that? Well, we got manpower. Let's use it. A lot of things that we were trying to brainstorm how to solve problems just happened.

They solved themselves because people were out on the street and there's like, well, I'm not waiting around for someone else to come save the day. I'm just going to go take care of business. And people would just get together and do things. Most of the time it was very helpful, right? Like one example is security volunteers through the night was an issue. I didn't have enough people to like maintain convoy security through the night. But we had a whole bunch of truckers.

And so I had this idea in my head. I'm like, well, you know what? Maybe we can go to the truck drivers themselves and we can talk to them about doing like a like almost like a community watch type mindset. Right. You know, work in pairs so that they're never alone. They can rotate in shifts because we just don't have enough. volunteers to like patrol the streets all through the middle of the night when I actually went to go talk to someone about it they had already set it up on their own and I was like oh well perfect

there we go they watched their blocks or their groups of trucks yes yeah they created like block captains and they set their own schedule to like kind of watch things out because or watch over things because trucks were getting vandalized and people were being like harassed in the middle of the night by like whoever it may be, like people who were just against the convoy or anti-fah type personalities. We don't know for certain. But, you know, trucks were being damaged. People were being like kind of, you know, targeted in the middle of the night. So they, I was trying to think of a, of a solution that would be doable based on who we had access to resource wise.

And then when I went to go talk to someone about it about trying to like pitch this idea, they had already set that up themselves. And I'm like, oh, well, perfect. You beat me to the punch. And that was the beauty of that, like that, that, that, that working class group of people, right? Like, they're not afraid to just, you know what? There's a problem. What do we do to fix it? And they fixed it. And it, that really made my life a lot easier once they had that established. And I think what we, what we witnessed, you know, they tried to paint it as like this highly organized military style operation. It's like, no, people just are really, like this class of people is just really good at getting

stuff done when stuff needs to get done, right? They're really good at taking care of business when there's a job that needs to get done and a problem that needs to be solved. And then on the other side, it was like, well, and like Tom Maraza has said this publicly as well. Like what high speed military tactics did they use? The convoy did exactly what they said it was going to do.

They drove to Ottawa. They parked as close to parliament as they could. And they didn't leave. They said that we're going to Ottawa, we're going to park parliament and we're not leaving until they dropped the mandates. And that's what they did. And then there was actual negotiation to move trucks.

And that was, I think that was even in the media recently, there was negotiation to move trucks closer into the downtown core out of the outside of the city, or more, sorry, more peripheral areas of the city. And then it was the police that shut that down, not the truckers. Here's a question for you. I read an article about a baseball field where truckers made a circle. They put up like almost looked like plywood, so you couldn't see in. There was only one entrance. And this was almost militarized. Did, I didn't hear anything about this, although I was not there. Obviously, everyone knows my story.

I wasn't there full time. So I read this story and I'm like, gee, that's one I hadn't heard of. Did you hear anything about this? Did you see this? Do you know what it was? So I never did make it there, but there is a baseball stadium right near the old RCMP headquarters. So that old headquarters is mostly vacant now.

But on Coventry Road, there is a, I think it used to be the Ottawa Champions, was the name of the baseball team, like AAA type baseball. But that Coventry Road was one of the staging areas identified by the Ottawa police for for like overflow trucks to park at. And so that was one of the staging areas, right? Because not everyone could get downtown. And they, they quickly kind of set up their own base camp there. And like our goal was to just provide them with like,

Hey, what do you need for food? Who needs a shower? Things like that. Like, we're trying to help provide the basic necessities of life. And, you know, we, they essentially even created their own security system in place just to avoid, you know, like, uh, unfriendly people accessing the site, right? Like there was, there was no, there was no shortage of journalists who want to portray the convoy in a negative light. There was no shortage of, uh, Ottawa residents who, believed the narrative and wanted to like counter protest against the convoy although i think that that number is much smaller than the media would have you believe so they set up their own operation there but it wasn't wasn't militarized i mean like it was just people set up a camp

and with on their own initiative they decided to put some they decided to put some measures in place to make sure it wasn't just that people couldn't just come and go without like unchecked, right? Like making sure that they're not going to allow any instigators in that would then try and, you know, incite some kind of altercation with some of the truck drivers. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah.

I was just curious if you and you're in the duration of it, if there was some bad characters that's slowly filtered into Ottawa because that's the way the new. news, that's the way the article that I read portrayed that baseball field is where it was, some bad actors were in there and that they were trying to, you know, once again, I, I, once I got back here, I had a ton of people send me a ton of articles. And I, at times, I just, I didn't read any of them. I was just like, I just, I just can't. Other times, it's funny, I would, I read a couple of them and one of them that caught my eye was this base, football field. And then it talked about how there was bad people starting to filter to Ottawa

because the longer it went on, the more it attracted different people. And I was like, well, I can't tell you anything. Like I wasn't there. And the entire time I was there, anyone that looked to me like a bad character, I went and talked to. And they always turned out to be like a genuine human being with, you know, their reasons for being there are no different than me. And I always thought that was like pretty cool. Like, you know, somebody looks intimidating. Maybe it was just smile at them and say hello and see what their story is because maybe they're just a regular human being and that's what I found by and large was if you just went and smiled and talked to people including cops including business owners including everybody who was there usually they were just

like you know it's funny how a smile disarms people and then they'll just talk to you and they'll even laugh at you for being like oh you thought I was what you know like I don't know how many times I was like oh yeah I heard you're antifa and they're like antifa no and I'm like oh, that's what I heard, right? And you just carry on. But this baseball field, I was like, hmm, I never saw that. I never got a chance to walk in there and actually introduce myself. I don't know. I mean, specific, do you have any specific information about what kind of bad actors? Because there was, there was elements that were very protective of their area. but like I don't think there was any malicious intent there.

I think they were just like they wanted to make sure that the people that were staged there were looked after and they didn't want to just let anyone infiltrate the group. Because again, a lot of like we talked about before, a level of mistrust and a little and maybe even borderline a little bit paranoia at times about like what kind of big government crackdown is going to come crashing down on us. Right. there was a lot of people that were of the mindset that like the intelligence world and the police world was like going to like plan some major operation to discredit the convoy right like there's a lot of people that had a legitimate fear of that and like to the point where there was a lot of fear that they were that government agents let's say would infiltrate the convoy and you know, instigate violence so that the convoy looked bad or plant weapons so that the convoy

looked bad. There was a lot of people that really believe that. And actually, I did get some information at one point that there was a plan to plant firearms within the convoy in order to create like a false flag event. I believe that information was reliable based on the source of from which it came. And so the first people that we notified was the police and then we notified the truck captains like to try and push out a broadcast to for people to remain vigilant. And then we did a public announcement about it. And it all it kind of fit right around the same time that there was like 2,000 firearms stolen from like a trailer or a tractor trailer down in the Peterborough area, which is not far from Ottawa. Right. So there was, I think a lot of that

you could call it hypervigilance about who had access to certain areas was because people were very fearful of that being a reality. And even if I didn't have the same concern about like law enforcement planting evidence because I know like that's high that's very illegal. But but I wouldn't but it wouldn't surprise me if a group that was against. the purpose of the freedom convoy would try and infiltrate and plant something to discredit the convoy. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like a lone actor or a small group of people that are like hardcore against the freedom convoy. And so they're going to try and do something to bring negative attention, which could like, you know, destroy the convoy's reputation in the media, turn the public against them and to even potentially, you know, initiate like a large scale police crackdown, right?

prior to what did eventually happen. Yeah. You do mention then that you did have reliable information at one point, that they were trying to do something like that. But overall, you didn't witness a group of bad actors in Ottawa. No, no, no, never. And I think, like, I think some of the initial people, like when you talk about plants, like, I think the guy carrying the Confederate flag,

was a plant, like from outside of the convoy, deliberately trying to walk in there to make the convoy look bad. Same with the guy who was carrying the swastika, like the Nazi flag, right? Because when the vast majority of people from the convoy saw that, they called it out and told those people you're not welcome here. Get that. Like, that's not what we're about, right? We're not about the hate, so to speak. One of the, one of the cool things that people probably don't realize was the flags that I did see there was an infinity flag, which was, I believe, if I'm recalling this, correct, was a First Nations and the French working together. Geez, I'm butchering the story a bit.

But I found that one interesting. It was everywhere. And the other one was a purple and white. It was these two lines. And it was supposedly the first flag of Canada. And I was like, wow, got into history lesson, just, walking around a protest. That was that was rather cool. Now I've I've kept you for some time here. So we got to do the the crewed master, the final five here, which is just I've changed it up because I don't like the five questions.

I just want to put a time slot in here that I don't want to keep you for five hours. So we got five, 10, 20 minutes. It doesn't matter how long it goes for. But I shout to Heath and Tracy and crewmaster for support in the podcast. Now, I have waited over an hour now to ask you about the one thing that I should have probably asked first. The video of you getting arrested really bothered me because of Chris Barbara getting arrested was a tough one to watch. But in his position, I was like, I feel like that was coming for him. Tamarra was probably coming for him. You were really interesting. And how you did it was like, well, I don't know. If there's a Danny Bulford move, I feel it was very Danny Bulford.

I'm like, I watched you. You got to give me some, and the listener, some insight into that day, uh, giving yourself up for arrest, how that came to be. Why or I don't know, like what they arrested you for. What was, I don't even know, like, where did you go after you got arrested? And how long did that all last for? Okay. So, as soon as Chris was arrested, that's when I knew.

that they're going to target people that they view as organizers, including me being one of them, right? So I wasn't, I wasn't real surprised. I mean, I don't, I'm still convinced it. Like, no one that was arrested committed a crime, like committed a legitimate crime. we tried desperately to keep everything within the confines of the law. And every time a new order came out, you know,

we had a legal team look at it and to make sure that whatever we were doing protest-wise was still within the framework of the law. But like the new police chief came in, the Emergencies Act was invoked. As soon as they arrested Chris, it's like, okay, they're targeting people that they perceive to be like the head organizers,

right and so i went out with for a walkabout later on that day with tamara and a few others like expecting a bunch of us to get arrested and i was like well i would rather just get this over with then bring a bunch of people other people into jeopardy and that didn't happen i mean you probably saw the video of tamara get arrested i was right there and i was fully expecting myself and one of the other people with us to get arrested. And they didn't have any interest in us whatsoever. So the next day was the Friday that the mass mobilization started on the 18th to start dismantling the convoy.

And so my wife and I had been down at the Rideo Sussex Corner, like at the front line. And I was I was down there basically pleading with the Ottawa Police Emergency Services Unit. Like you don't have to do this. You know this is wrong. If you know that this is wrong in your heart, all you have to do is say no. You don't have to cross the line. You don't have to go public like I did. All you have to do is just say, nope, I'm not doing this.

And you know that like discipline would likely be minimal, right? Like, you know, you could, whatever, you could have any number of reasons for refusing to participate. And that was, that was the angle. I was trying to like tug at their heart a little bit and be like, okay, come on. Like, this is a peaceful protest. There's no need for you. guys to move on people with force. And they would, they would push in and take ground and then kind of stop and wait. And then they'd push in and take ground and stop and wait. And that's kind of

what I was expecting to be the extent of it. Right. Like I thought that they would push enough ground that they could then remove trucks. Like I thought that was going to be their tactic. So I was down there and I didn't want to leave because I felt very, I felt very, um, strongly that like these truckers came here to stand up for me and my family when nobody else did no other profession did i'm not gonna i'm not gonna abandon them right and so but then there was like there was a press conference being held at the lord elgin hotel that i was supposed to be at and i was late for it and the one guy that was with me is like come on you you got to go you got to go to this like they're they're they're calling they want to know where you are and they're like you're you know

your voice can make a bigger impact than you being right here right now. So I was like, okay. So I ran up to the Lord Elgin. I gave a very brief little like kind of imprompt to, I guess speech you could say about what was happening out on the street and how like how it broke my heart. That what was happening with law enforcement and versus the peaceful protest. And that was right after Tom, Tom Raza had spoken.

And then right after that. my wife showed me a message on her phone and it was from a neighbor of ours saying like the news is reporting that the police are looking for Danny to arrest him and I mean I know that they you know they they watch mainstream media so I was like okay well if the news is reporting that the police are looking to arrest me it's probably true so I knew where they were like they were still down at Rita and Sussex right like the big police action that's where it all was at that moment in time And then there was this young guy there who was already making like a documentary. And so he kind of like walked along with me as I was preparing to go.

And I was like, well, again, let's just let's go get this over with. Hopefully keep a bunch of attention away from other people. And I was also thinking like this, you know, hopefully, hopefully that, you know, that I could try and at least convince a few of them to not continue. like me turning myself in knowing that I used to be one of them. Maybe I overestimate my importance. I was really hoping that that would be a hard thing for a cop to do. I was hoping that it would be hard for the police to arrest me.

So I walked down to the line. I found a line of RCMP officers, which was perfect. And I just walked up and said, look, I hear that you're looking for me. Like, I'm here to turn myself in. And then I think I asked, is that true? And then the one big, the one big officer who did end up arresting me, he kind of got like a prompt from his supervisor to, yeah, grab him. So he grabbed me and he arrested me for mischief. It was, you know, it was very low key.

It was, it wasn't stressful. Like, I knew, I knew exactly what to expect. And I knew that, I knew that they weren't going to mistreat me or anything like that. It was totally peaceful. But then I was, I was walked to the back of the line back towards, like they had like a lineup of people that had been arrested throughout the morning already in between the Weston hotel and the Shaw Center. And that's where they had like a like all the prisoner transport vehicles like the paddy

wagons and handover teams and a bunch of a bunch of guys who did my old job like emergency response team guys were back there. the horse the horses the mounted units were back there and so i got walked to that line up and then i actually stood there in that line for probably close to like two hours and this this rcmp officer that arrested me he was i think he was grateful to have a break from the front um i don't think a lot of them were real excited about being up there and ultimately i got handed over to the ottawa police service and then I got put into like they took a photograph of me and just took like my tombstone data data birth address all that stuff and then they eventually put me in a transport vehicle

I was taken to the Ottawa police headquarters on Elgin Street brought into the cell block there when I was in a cell block there they also advised that I was also under arrest for disobeying a court order and obstruction. I think obstructing a police officer. And I was like, okay, that seemed to be the blanket charges that they were telling everyone. I got my, I got booked in, I got my phone call to a lawyer. I got put in a cell and then I just sat there for like roughly eight hours or so, eight and a half hours.

Like I think I was in custody for a total of like 10 and a half hours. and I actually thought like, you know what, I'll take this opportunity to try and get some sleep. So it wasn't very comfortable. But I did nap a little bit. But I was sitting there thinking about like, oh, man, I wonder what it's like out there now. Eventually, the detective, like the, well, there's two of them, but I only got the name of one, the great big guy. And he, they brought me out of the cell right around midnight. and they had all my personal belongings and my boots and everything.

And I was, I was sitting there thinking like, okay, they're going to try and like offer like some kind of a negotiation. Right. Like, hey, you know, if you provide a statement, if you cooperate, you know, we'll let you go kind of idea. And so that's what I was expecting. And they took me up into an interview room. I sat there for a little bit. And then he finally, the big detective comes in and sits down, which, by the way, he's a homicide detective. So they have homicide detectives working a mischief investigation.

I mean, I know the convoy was a big event, but like that in itself, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it needs to be out there publicly. They pulled seasoned detectives off of murder investigations to investigate peaceful protesters who had trucks parked downtown and honk their horns. just because those truck drivers and supporters stood up against the government. So neglecting murder investigations to investigate Big Rags Park downtown honking horns. That in itself needs to be a story, right? It's threatening the power structure, right? That's what the trucker convoy did. But it's like, what's what's, what's,

what's the bigger priority here? A murder or a mischief? But me and you, we make that call. That's nice and easy, but we're not the ones that get to make that call. And as we're seeing, you know, like, you understand the law side of it. And I certainly am new into... A little bit. I'm certainly new into the law enforcement, I meant.

Yeah. I'm certainly new into the media side of things. But the blatant disregard for what actually went on. there is appalling in my eyes right and there's like I can sit and dance around why they did it and try and like be like geez I don't know why they did that it's become very evident now that's the hardest thing to like just admit like hmm okay but they pull you out they they arrest you yeah I mean so he sits me down in the interview room great big guy and he just looks at me and he says, why are you here?

Well, because I was arrested for mischief. And then I told them about like, you know, and then when I got to the cell block, I was told about the disobey a court order and the obstruction. And when I was in the, when I was in the cell thinking about that, I was just like, I wasn't overly concerned because I'm like, okay, I'm pretty sure they don't have any evidence that I committed any of those offenses. And I don't think that anyone committed any of those offenses. I just think that, but that's what they're going after people with, right?

But the, you know, mostly surrounding trucks and horns. And I said, well, I don't have a truck down there. And even if they did, I still think that's like, it's super weak, right? But anyways, he asks me why I'm there. I tell him. And he says to me, did you ask to get arrested? And I thought to myself, I'm like, well, that's not how this works. But I'm like, no.

And then I told them the story about being down at the line, going to the press conference, getting the message from my wife, going down and presenting myself and being arrested. You could tell he was visibly annoyed that I was there. And probably because he's a homicide investigator who's been pulled off of homicides to work mischief files at midnight on Friday, right? Like, from my experience as a cop, when you have important files to investigate, like serious crimes, you don't want to be wasting your time on the mischief file, right? Like, that's a waste of your time and energy, but you know that like, but you're probably, he's probably getting huge pressure from the boss that

this is your primary focus. This is the, like, the priority for the city of Ottawa. And so, he's annoyed that I'm there. And he just says to me, he's like, well, we're not going to charge you with anything. So I'm not going to, basic, I'm not going to ask you like the same questions. I've been asking everybody else for like the last four hours or whatever. I think, I think that's what he said. And he says, so we're just going to let you go. And I'm like, okay.

And then he says, but this has to end. I said, well, I agree. He said, well, a lot of people got hurt today. I didn't know. So I said, well, on which side? He said, well, I think on both sides. And I said, well, our message was always to be peaceful no matter what. And he said, well, I don't know if that, I don't know if that, I don't know if that happened today.

And I was like, well, I've been in here. I couldn't tell you. So he ended up like walking me to the front. kicking me loose. And as I was walking back to the hotel to go link up with my wife, hoping that she hadn't herself been arrested, I talked to an RCMP officer, and I talked to a couple OPP officers, and I talked to an Ottawa police officer. And I asked all of them on my walk if they knew of any serious injuries that occurred. And the only person who said anything was the RCMP officer who mentioned that the only thing he was aware of was the horse trampling

incident. And he said, like, he had heard a lot of people were saying that that lady had died, but he thought that that was wrong and that she was going to be okay. But that was the only thing anyone mentioned. Like when I asked the OPP and the OPS, I just simply said, like, hey, are you guys all okay today? Yep, yeah, we're good. Thanks. Both of them. So I was like, okay, detective, you're just trying to like tug at my heartstrings about cops getting hurt, right? So then I got back and linked up with my wife. And she showed me a bunch of the videos of what had occurred that day, like some of the more violent arrests and the horse trampling incident.

And I was like, did any, does anyone know if any cops got hurt? And they're like, no one had any information of that. And I still have not heard of any reports of that to date. So I think he was probably trying to like manipulate me a little bit, like you know they do that right when they want to try and how how um tug at your heartstrings a little bit to elicit a reaction you being a married man a family man how uh if it's not too personal of a question dan how um how was a conversation with your wife of like i'm going to be arrested you know like i'm pretty sure i'm going to be arrested oh my my wife

there's no way that she was going to back down either out of the fear of that happening. Like she's my wife is a warrior and she was like, yep. And I kept telling her, I'm going to say, okay, I don't want you to be right down at the front of the line with me. Like, because the kids will need at least one of us home. And she was just like, she refused to leave my side.

She's like, nope, there's no way I'm going anywhere. I mean, thankfully we had grandparent help here at the time. But yeah, no, she, we were fully, we were fully prepared to deal with those consequences. And I mean, even for me, when they were, when there was a lot more rhetoric, like, when I found out like the first couple of arrests that occurred that were actually convoy people being like the aiding and abetting mischief for fueling trucks, I was like, okay, that's it.

That's the best they got. Like, who's even ever heard of aiding and abetting a mischief, right? Like, like, it's, and typically, like, the way a mischief works from a police standpoint is like, okay, if you break my window, that's a mischief. That's property damage, right? It's either under 5,000 or over 5,000. But then there's also a subsection, which is what they used here in Ottawa, where you're, you're accused of obstructing the lawful enjoyment of property. And so that's the angle that they're working with these mischiefs, right? It's not about physical property damage.

It's about they're trying to accuse the truck convoy of obstructing people's lawful enjoyment of their property. But my experience with that from when I was working like general duty, like a patrol officer, was that if Sean Newman had a party at his house and someone showed up uninvited and was like causing a scene, you know, drunk fighting with people, refusing to leave. the house, that's not causing a disturbance because he's in a private residence, but me as the police, when I show up, if he refuses to leave, I can arrest him for mischief to prevent the continuation of that offense. Once he's removed, you know, he might go to cells to sober up and

then get punted, like, sorry, punted, released when sober with no charge. But I've never heard of anyone actually being charged with mischief for obstructing the lawful enjoyment of property. It basically was like a method for us to remove a problem from a situation. Once the situation is no longer a problem, you're gone, right? It's like, it's a way for us to like, okay, you need to leave. You're refusing. Okay, you're under arrest for mischief. I take you away from the area. Once you're no longer a problem and I'm no longer concerned that you're going to go back, you're not going to be charged. And so once I learned that the first couple people arrested were arrested for,

like related to the fuel for aiding and abetting mischief, I was like, oh, that's it? Because we had heard all this rhetoric about like, you know, their insurrection and domestic terrorism. And I even thought to myself at the time, I'm like, that's comedic, right? Like, I'm like, okay, I look forward to the day I'm sitting. in an interview room across the table from an inset investigator, like a lot of them, which, some of them which I know, you know, the officer in charge of that unit that I know and be like,

do you really view me as a national security threat as a domestic terrorist? Like for the last number of years of my time on my team, I was trying to convince senior management in the RCMP, or like in my division anyway, that my team should be a full-time counterterrorism team. or a full-time hostage rescue team, like a combination, like trying to recreate, like give us the official mandate for hostage rescue domestic counterterrorism. That was my goal from my old team. And I would go around to different RCMP units and try and pitch that idea to them. Because, you know, overall, we have teams, emergency response teams all across the country,

but no one team has that specific mandate. You know what I mean? Like everyone is basically expected to fulfill that role. But it's very difficult when you need resources and training and budgets like to try and recreate what the FBI has down in the States. And so I was like, you know, I, even that, even when they were, even when the politicians, especially the city politicians and the police were and the like police chief were ramping up the rhetoric about like holding the city hostage and domestic terrorism. I was like, well,

it is clearly that is not the case that you would actually have evidence that that is what we are. So bring it on. You want to put me in an interview room and try and interview me regarding domestic terrorism? Sure. Let's have that conversation. You're in an interesting position knowing the inside of that world. A lot of people wouldn't feel that comfortable, especially knowing. for sure. Yeah. Especially knowing that like, well, I don't know, just how naive I was, I assume there was a ton of people in that room that were just trying to organize

truckers. They weren't, you know, sure, in the back of their brain going, I may go to jail for this. Maybe I won't. I have no idea. But to actually get thrown in there with charges of whatever and mischief being the one that they got thrown around. And obviously that's what they held a lot of people with.

not knowing the inside of that world, I could see how a ton of people would be like, oh yeah, I don't know. But you're an interesting case because obviously you know the inner workings of all that and kind of get like, well, that's not a big deal. Like there was a ton of days there where there was a ton going on. If you didn't have the right person sitting there that could just de-escalate things, things would escalate because, I mean, they're going to come arrest everybody. Oh, my God, right? And everybody'd freak out. But if you had the right person sitting there, they could be, well, come on, guys. Like, realistically, uh, XYZ, right? I don't know what XYZ is, but there was multiple people, lots of times. It would just de-escalate a situation immediately. It was, it was kind of interesting to watch actually from afar.

Well, I hope that that was some of what I was able to bring to the table. And I hope this doesn't sound, pretentious. But when I was asked to help in, probably well, but when I was asked to help in that role, I did have a thought process of like, you know what? I would rather have me in that position, you know, dealing with security, liaising with the police, because I know that world in Ottawa specific to these big events, as opposed to someone who has no idea, but pretends that they do. Right. Now, you know, you get a lot of these like armchair experts who haven't actually done that job or been in that position. And so they are making decisions and offering advice based on what they have fabricated in their mind to be how the police operate. Yet they might not

actually have any actual firsthand experience with it. So I thought, okay, it's probably, I mean, for one, I felt like I have to support the, the truckers. They still. it up for me and my family when no one else did i'm not going to turn my back on them but it was also like i think it would be if if we want this to remain peaceful the entire time it's important to have people who know how know how things operate in order to try and like be that intermediate between you know the the convoy and the cops right and so i hope that i was successful in contributing in that way. That was part of my thought process, although my primary reason for saying yes was because I felt like, well, they stood up for me. I'll stand with them.

I think a lot of people jumped on board with what they were doing because of what they were doing, right? Like what they stood for and everything else. Now, before I let you go, I think it's probably wise to remind people that while we sit here talking, there are still people being held in prison. Pat King being one of them. What are some of the other people that are being held right now? I know we talked about Tyson Billings, Steve Charlend, are those the three guys that are still being held? Those are the three that I know of.

I've heard that others may have been arrested, but I don't know anyone else that's still in custody. But those are the three names that I've seen publicized in the media. and like they've had repeated hearings and just keep being remanded over and over again. So like being held in custody. So far, what I've seen from the charges that have been published against them, I don't, again, I don't know the details of what everyone was involved in while they were in Ottawa. But based on the charges that I've seen that have been laid against them, it's all pretty. standard, like they're almost all facing the same things from what I've seen.

Like you have the, they're being accused of mischief, counseling, mischief, disobeying a court order, counseling, disobeying a court order, obstructing police, counseling obstruction of police. And then just recently, definitely Tamara, Chris, and I think Pat as well, we're also charged with intimidation and counseling intimidation. And, okay, on the mischief side of things. Like the fact that we still have people held in custody for something like that is a complete departure from the norm. Like the fact that they were released on some of the like bail conditions that they were like Chris and then Tamara being held and then eventually released like not allowed to use social media, not allowed to even talk about the freedom

convoy not allowed to converse with certain people, not allowed to even participate in protests related to COVID restrictions. It's like, I've never heard of anything like that before for mischief related offenses. Like, that's, that's bizarre. And that's a massive departure for the norm. And the fact that there's people still in custody for that, like, that to me, no, no question is, like, that's a political. they're political prisoners. It's not based on the criminal code

and based on what like standard practice would be. When you look back at, you know, I've seen people released when accused for very violent crime. Right. And, you know, they'll be on a no contact order with the victim,

et cetera, lots and some other bail conditions. Usually like my experience was like, they're usually when they commit those violent crimes, they're quite often under the influence of alcohol or drugs. So no contact with the victim, abstain from alcohol, report to, you know, a report to a PO or like a probation officer, something of that nature. But like to completely censor people and suppress them from their like their fundamental right to even protest, that's, I've never seen that before. Especially when it was like, it was peaceful.

There was no, there was no violence. there was no property damage. So like it's a massive departure from what my experience has been in the past. And people still being like people still being denied their, you know, their liberty, their freedom because of these mischief based offenses. It's like, well, if my, if I understand the angle that the police and the courts have taken here, It's that the mischief and the court order and everything was and the obstruction was all related to the trucks being downtown and the trucks remaining downtown. Well, those trucks are gone.

They were forcibly removed and they dispersed and gone home, the people that got their vehicles back. So what is the threat of the continuation of the offense? I can't understand it. I don't feel like there's any continued concern that if Pat and Freedom George or Tyson Billings were released, I don't think there's a major concern that they would then go continue the offenses that they're accused of. Does that make sense? Yeah. You got me curious.

The intimidation one. What does that mean? Okay. Okay. So that's a criminal code offense as well. And where I see that as complete garbage again is it who specifically did they intimidate? Like I'm sure, I'm sure that the crown has like probably identified people who've complained about it. But to my knowledge, to my knowledge, the convoy didn't intimidate anyone and or. counsel the intimidation of anyone. The message was always about open, welcome, support people's freedom of choice, right? Freedom of choice, freedom of expression, freedom of speech. I've heard tons of people, Dan, that they were intimidated by the convoy. And why that was was because of what media was saying, right? They were fearful to go down there. But I'm wondering, so Chris Barber gets an intimidation charge for.

what? For intimidating who specifically? Yeah, I don't look at Chris, like when I think of intimidation, maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. I think of like a mob boss intimidating, I don't know, a politician, a judge to make a ruling, something like that. And I go, oh, okay, yeah, like maybe that can hold. Like, I don't know, what do you do, kill his horse or something and throw it in his bed? You know, are we going full on Godfather here? Like, is that what we're talking about? Because that's an interesting one to throw at a few different people of the convoy. Well, and how about this. If you look at the criminal code definition of intimidation, essentially, the elements of the offense are, I force you to do something that you don't have to do, that you have a lawful right not to do. Or I force you to abstain from doing something that you have a lawful right to do under threat of violence towards you or a relative or threats of property damage. or threat of punishment of some kind.

So you got it pulled up there. So 423 sub 1 sub B. I want you to look at sub B specifically because it's pretty long-winded. So sub B says intimidates or attempts to intimidate the person or relative of that person by threats that in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment

inflicted on him or a relative of if his, of hers or that the property of any of them will be damaged. But there's also, there's a part in there about punishment, right? Like being subject to some kind of punishment? I guess so punishment inflicted on him or her or relative of his or hers. So in the preamble, before you get to those subsections,

it talks about like someone forcing you to do something that you have a law for right not to do or forcing you to abstain from something that you have a lawful right to do. Right? So like, It can go either way. Either I force you to do something or I force you to avoid doing something. Yeah. I just, I'm, I guess that one, I don't know.

So I'll ask you, what do you think these vaccine mandates have been in order to keep your employment? They've been forced on you. They've been forced, right? Under threat of losing your job or losing your pay, right? Provincial. Intimidination. Intimidation could be the word. are 100% I in my mind I mean I'm just a cop I'm not a legal expert I'm not a lawyer but in my mind

what has happened what has been imposed on the Canadian public has been intimidation right you know that's that's why that's you can go down that rabbit hole but that's why I come back to masking whatever right but the vaccine mandate 100% in my mind has been intimidation right from the provincial level the federal level even private business right people who have imposed that on their employees under threat of losing your job or losing your pay that's a punishment right no matter what they say oh it's non-disciplinary administratively without pay are you kidding me you're talking about taking my paycheck away and i have to go find a new career now you don't think that's that's not disciplinary because i refuse oh by the way within our own

legislation i have to consent to medical procedures right in order for it to be lawful? So I have a lawful right to say no. It even says it in that immunization report where like immunization cannot be made mandatory in Canada due to the Canadian constitution, period. The constitution being the supreme law of Canada, period. So our government is in my mind 100% guilty of intimidation. So who did the convoy specifically intimidate first hand?

That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Whereas millions, millions of Canadians did not take a shot until they were mandated to do so to keep their job or to be able to get on an aircraft, which is another lawful right, mobility right, correct? Under the charter. Yes. You know, so millions of Canadians have been, you know, people call it coercion, but it's the same thing as intimidation in my mind, have been intimidated to do something. They had a lawful right to say no to under threat of punishment from our federal and provincial government. And, you know, and to some degree, like municipal governments on their employees, hospitals on their employees, police services on their employee.

Like, millions of Canadians have been victims of the criminal code offense of intimidation. And no one's talking about that. No, they're just putting it up. Yeah, they're just putting it. Chris Barber and Tamara Leach are accused of intimidation, which like, of who? Of who? Like, if you, if you came down there firsthand, you would have. seen that no one was trying to behave in an intimidating matter.

100%. If people went down, but the way the media portrayed it, I'm like, I could see how they see it as intimidation. They, and they forcibly took the capital and they were holding it and they wouldn't leave and they were a bunch of whatever, you know, extremists. And I can see how they could portray it as intimidation. I sit here and I go, a news report is not evidence. That's right. That's what I mean. So when you talk about what went on for the last two years, I'm like, oh, yeah, that feels like intimidation. Coercion, that's the word that's been used a lot. But that's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

There's evidence on video from the prime minister. If you don't take this, there will be consequences. What are the consequences? Oh, well, that's specified later on. You will be put on administrative leave without pay. If you don't comply, you're not allowed to get on an aircraft. You're not allowed to see your dying loved one in the hospital. You're not allowed to keep your job.

Right? Like that is 100% in my mind intimidation. And so I personally think millions of Canadians could make a criminal complaint against different levels of government, different employers for intimidation. However, I don't believe that, well, I don't know if any police services will take it seriously. Yeah. Because it's too widespread. It's like everywhere. This isn't one jurisdiction.

This is everywhere. Well, but if millions of Canadians demanded that it be investigated, it might gain some traction, right? Because public policy seems to be made based on public opinion, not on evidence. Yeah. Well, I think that's what surprised all, like, was so shocking to so many different people, including myself, was I just assumed the law was the law. Yeah. Well, I did too. But it isn't. I just assumed, I don't know. Like, I just got to see firsthand. I mean, the trucker convoy was showed all of us.

If you put enough pressure on politicians, they will dance. And it goes both ways. So the trucker convoy goes, causes a stir. What happens? Well, politicians, well, all right. Well, they never cease to amaze any of us anymore. They take away all the restrictions like that. Well, all that was was pressure.

on politics, right? Just pressure from the population to change next. We want things different. Well, it happens. But for me and you and a whole bunch of people, like the travel restriction is just like mind bending how that's still there. But I got friends in the group of pilots. Free to fly.

Thank you. And like Air Canada was May 1st. If they didn't have their shots, they would be put. And they just moved that to November. November. And I'm like, why would you move it to November? Cold and flu season comes up again. I know, but right. Just wait. I'm just wait.

Theresa Tam's already planting the seeds. And Doug Ford said a similar thing. Like, I will not be one bit surprised if they try and bring back mask mandates and other mandates come next fall. I think they are going to give people the summer to have like a false sense of freedom. And then boom, here's your restrictions again in the fall with cold and flu season. that's my anticipation. I mean, I could be wrong. I hope I am. But they are already planting that seed. And one thing that I, we have noticed all along is like they'll plant a seed and then they'll let it fester. And then so it's not such a blind side surprise when they actually bring the, the regulation or the restriction into effect. So people need to be awake. Pay attention. They, I mean, okay, well, this, this could go on and on and on. But while everyone is distracted with other events, there's a whole bunch of other things going on right here in Canada passing through provincial and federal legislature that no one's talking about. And it's all going to impact our future.

Right. And but I think my main focus has, I think what our main focus needs to be collectively is we can affect. change if enough of us demand it right and it doesn't even have to be through um you know you don't have to wait until 2025 to have a say yeah right like lobby your politicians stand up in unison stand up for each other the employer and the government as an employer needs their employees on mass more than we need them in their positions of leadership, right? Well, I think one of the things that trucker convoy taught us is together, we are one powerful thing.

Yeah. Right? Like that was evident. Politics is a popularity contest. And I tell you what, if things come back, people need to remember that. Like, listen, together we stand. Like, divided, we fall. It's a pretty, pretty simple little recipe here.

And they're going to try and put things in, like, it's one of the things I'm hoping that I'm going to do better as I move forward is I really want to bring more people to the table. I really want to bring many sides to the table because, you know, do I think I got it all right? No. I just know what we all lived through for the last year. It wasn't, was not fun. And that doesn't matter if you were vaccinated or unvaccinated, in my opinion. if you were a person in this country, it was a long year.

Unvaccinated was really not fun because literally you couldn't go anywhere. You were treated like a second-class citizen. 100%. Like you did not have equality, even though, you know, people were operating under the false belief that you were more dangerous than a vaccinated person

of spreading the disease. But there was a ton of people, like we said, that in order to keep their job, to order to keep food on the table, whatever it was, went and got whatever they didn't want to get. And there's other people just got it and still are upset with what the government did, right? And is doing and continuing to do.

And there's got to be a way, and I'm actively searching this out, to bring people, more people to the table. So when the time comes, like, people are together and united and they just stand. They don't allow it anymore. It's just like, no, this is ridiculous, right? Is that another trucker convoy? I don't know. I mean, is that what's going to happen to happen? Yeah, sure.

James Top. James Top. The veteran marching across Canada. Yes. You know what? Like it's a major contrast from the big visual of the trucks. Yes. But that guy, if we all get together in solidarity to support him, everyone who is concerned about the direction of Canada, you know, regardless of status.

I don't even care about that. Like I haven't even paid that much attention to what's currently going on with COVID numbers. because I've been so focused on other things that are happening in Canada right now that is a further degeneration of our fundamental freedoms. That no one's paying attention or not no one. Very few people are paying attention to because of the distractions of what's happening globally. We could recreate the environment that the trucker convoy had. Behind James Top.

Right. It's a very different visual. but we could bring millions of people to Ottawa when he if if people are willing to get on board and stand up united against the further degradation of our freedom and get behind James Topp when he gets into Ottawa and demand that our politicians acknowledge our concerns and and go to a evidence-based approach as opposed to modeling. Right. Every time you hear about a new plan for COVID, it's all based on modeling, modeling, modeling, modeling. Well, we've got over two years of evidence to make decisions now. So let's make evidence-based decisions, not the decisions based on speculative modeling. Right. So I think there's an opportunity there. And you know what? And there is other, there's other convoys and rallies being held all over different parts of the country. like I think but I think but but I think once again one of the things that was great about the trucker convoy is it galvanized everyone at the same time you can have all these splinter um and I'm not saying they're bad please don't let anyone hear this and go like it's bad to have a protest I'm not saying that

but what moved politicians was that everybody got behind one thing the volume and when it got cranked up nobody could hide from that not a single person and then you saw the protests happen um emington calgary regina like for locally close to where i am and the pressure that was put on by one single event and its size changed things and what i do uh like about uh mr top walking and is it's already i'm already seeing it i've only been back you know this is the first day or well no like the third day sitting in the chair, Dan, since coming back off of a hiatus. And the thing about him is he, I probably get a message multiple times a day that I need to get him on. Right. So I just, so for the listener, I just got his number and we'll see where it goes. And, you know,

it sounds like he's kind of in this neck of the woods, not Lloyd particular, but you get the point in the provinces. And I, yeah, I've been watching his little journey since he started. And to me, I agree with you on him. I think that is something people can get behind. And I've heard a bit of his story. And like, yeah, I think it'll be interesting, hopefully, to get him on here. One, but two, as he gets closer to see what excitement comes from that. Because that is a slow, one of the things about the tracker convoy that was interesting was it was like a little bit of anticipation, right? They left.

Oh, where are they at? Oh, they made it here. Oh, did they? And then you see some videos and you're like, oh, okay. Right. But it wasn't like, oh, there are an auto. one, there's a protest. It was like extended period of time. Now, top is like that on steroids, because I don't know, when does he plan to be in Ottawa? I think he's planning, I think he's

anticipating being here in June sometime. Okay. Yeah, but there is a certain day around that time year, which would be epic for a lot of people to come to Ottawa to join in solidarity with him. Yes. Right? I get where you're leaning. I think that would be awesome. But hey, I'm just going to get, I'm going to put my support behind him. There's other people that have been doing things locally here in Ottawa to kind of keep

things alive and they're keeping things above board. They're doing it the right way. I'm going to support them. A guy by the name of Jeremy from Alberta is, um, uh, he, uh, he, He had Freedom Fighters Alberta, and then he changed it to Freedom Fighters Canada after being involved with so many people down here. There are, and there's different things going on in different parts of the country where people are still trying to keep this freedom movement alive, right? I mean, I think a lot of us, myself included, had a little bit of like a convoy depression. You could say once the convoy was dismantled and trying to sit in there and be like, okay, like, where do we go?

go from here, right? I think, and I, this is not my idea, but I'm in agreement with it. It's conversations I've had with people. It's like, you have all these different groups, right? All these different freedom groups. And I'll just, even just use the police groups, for example. Sure. Like you have Mounties for Freedom, police on guard, police for freedom, provincial police for freedom. And then you even, and then you like, you want to extend that to veterans for freedom, which is a newer group, really rallying behind James Top. We're all putting our support behind this guy. And I think as a whole, like Action for Canada, take Action Canada,

there's a ton of different groups. Everyone has their own method and skill set that they can bring to the table to try and keep pushing for the restoration of our fundamental freedoms. And I think it would be. really great if we could all come together with one unified message, right? Like, I think if you look at the, the official narrative, they've been very effective at pounding the message into people's subconscious, safe and effective. Benefits outweigh the risk. You know, it's the only way through this. And they just keep repeating themselves over and over and over again. And so I think we need to tell

our story and our message in a similar fashion where we just keep constantly a constant barrage of putting that message out there. And one message that I think everybody can get behind, regardless of vaccine status, regardless of race or religion or ethnic background, it doesn't matter. It's like the fundamental freedom to choose based on uncensored truth and treating every individual, with dignity and respect because I can tell you, and I'm sure you've experienced this, there has been an element of society, even people that were close to me in the past, even knowing who I am and what kind of person I am that have totally treated me as if I was the plague because I refused to buy into the narrative.

And they believe that because the government, public health, and the media has told them that, even though they know me as a human. And they like we, we were friends for years. And now because of this one choice that I made, which I felt was an evidence-based decision, now I'm no longer treated as an equal. Right. Even now, even now with restrictions falling away, it's awkward. Right. It's it has ruined relationships. relationships. The propaganda has destroyed relationships. And so in order for us to get enough people on board with standing up for each other, for each other's rights and freedoms, if we don't agree on every single issue, we need to have a message that resonates with everyone, right? I don't care if you're vaccinated or if you're not. Everyone is deserving of dignity and respect. right? If we and we should have, well, we do have a fundamental freedom of choice as protected by our charter and every other piece of legislation surrounding human rights. And it needs to be based on uncensored truth. If you don't have access to both sides of the information, you can't have an honest debate about the truth to get to the truth. It's propaganda. And so I don't think you can go wrong appealing to the masses.

And that's what we need to appeal to the masses, right? That fundamental freedom to choose based on uncensored truth while treating every individual with dignity and respect. Even people who hate me should be an agreement that that's where we should be going as a society. You know what I mean? People are uncomfortable though to hear differing opinions. opinions. Well, that's the life, man. Right. People have different opinions. And I mean, just, I know, but you surround you, we can't always be in our own little echo chamber, right, reinforcing our own bias, right? Like, that's, I, you're not going to, you're not going to get

any arguments out of me. I, listen, I think it's something that I'm going to try, that I really want to try and do better on the podcast, moving forward is to, sure, have damage. Bullford on. But it'd be interesting to have somebody on who completely disagrees with you, because I think it'd be interesting. Some of the funnest conversations I had in Ottawa, there was there was so many Facebook videos of one guy with a mask on who was just losing it on the truckers. I bumped into that guy. It was a, oh, yeah, the guy who was yelling in the street. Oh, yeah. What I ended up coming out of our conversation was that he hadn't slept in like four nights because of the horns. And it was right at the start. And I was like, oh, well, I mean,

yeah, I don't think the truckers want it to go on like that forever, you know. And we had this like, I was willing to let them yell at me because I was, you know, I don't know, I was happy. And nothing really bothered me. And the longer he talked, the calmer he got because I wasn't, I wasn't engaging in a fist fight. I wasn't engaging in a verbal abuse of words. But I found one of the interesting things sitting on this side is the amount of comments I get against. my my my like they're not you're an idiot it's like no it is you're an idiot it isn't that you're

wrong it's that they take a tax at your moral like standards because you're willing to sit and listen to um you know different doctors and different people and you know and just hear out their side and uh but i think overall one of the things that i need to do better hopefully is to engage both sides because I think if you can start to have both sides come to the table a little bit and maybe I'm wrong in this idea but certainly you can tell me I'm I can go fly a kite but I think our side this side that I sit and talk to you we engage the the population that wants to hear it easy done but the people that never want to listen to you Dan are never coming the people right now that never want to listen to Sean talk to Dan or never coming if I can

start to find ways, or if we can start to find ways to bring other people in that certainly think I'm an idiot, certainly think you're an idiot, just to hear what they have to say, then they're going to pull their crew in because their crew is going to be like, hmm, because I've seen Joe Rogan do this. And I've heard people that I never thought would listen to Joe Rogan go, well, I'm going to listen to that one because that's my guy. And then you listen to him and what Joe does. And it's not that he's an idiot. It's just that when you get long form expanded conversations like this, Certain things make sense. Certain things really don't make sense.

And if they can't defend themselves, then it gets exposed. Or maybe they have a great idea that me and you don't even know. And that's good too. Like, I mean, all of it's good. The problem we got right now is the echo jam. Is the fact that our government leaders and everything have the answer. And this is it. And if you don't do it, this is what happens.

And me and you sit there and look at that and go, that is complete assigneeat. Like there's different ways, you know, I don't know how. many times I got to say it. Like there's multiple ways to get through, you know, we're through. And now coming in, do you think there's going to be a flu season this fall? I'm just curious. Do you think there's going to be flu? I think there is. Oh, probably. Yep. And do what are we going to do? We're going to slap mass on everybody again? Are we going to go back to QR code? Are we going to go back to all that? Like, is that the plan? And if they're in government and that's the plan, I'm like right now you have nothing but time to solve a giant amount of issues and maybe the

issues to me and you are small but to them they got to deal with it it's like well so then deal with it but don't put like one of the hardest things and you mentioned it one of the hardest things I've seen over the last couple years is mental health I'll put myself in that category I'll put people I never thought would ever have mental health problems have mental health problems why it's not that hard you just ask either side doesn't matter what you did with your vaccination status either side like the rules that we're getting putting in the the conversations the fact that wouldn't leave you the fact they just get hammered hammered hammered like that sucked that was not fun and the fact that friends and you mentioned this good friends and family have had this is infected everybody

like the family unit has been hurt by this friends friendships have been destroyed by this And I don't know how you ever get that back. And that's the government, like that's a, that is, our government has done such a poor job, such a poor job on navigating all this. And I don't know how you ever, you ever get that back if you ever can. That comes from the populace saying no more. And so what you're talking about with all these different groups and James Topp, yeah, I think you can get me on board with that.

I think that makes a lot of sense. I think we need to find ways to come together. and not just the groups that have formed, but the population, we got to move on. We got to find, like, I'm tired of talk about COVID. I think you're probably tired of talking about COVID. The problem is that the government is already planting seeds, like you say, they're already doing things that you're like, fuck,

like, why are they doing that? They're going to try and push again. I have no, I'll be very pleasantly surprised if they don't try and bring restrictions back in. right and and it varies from province to province like the university of toronto just dropped their vaccine mandate based on a human rights complaint that was made against the university by faculty and they published a paper as to how the restrictions are unscientific and questionable and i haven't read the paper in its entirety but and but back in a few months back the ontario

human rights commission came out publicly saying that choosing not to be vaccinated does not qualify you for a human rights complaint. But now they seem to have reversed on that by honoring a human rights complaint on behalf of UFT staff. It's like, well, had all of us known that you were going to do that, we all would have made human rights complaints and gone through this by a different process. But again, maybe that's also a feather in the cap of the truck convoy, right? Maybe they have changed a lot of people's minds.

Whereas out in British Columbia, the commissioner for the human rights commission out there is like pressuring Bonnie Henry to bring mask mandates back according to the news again take everything from the news with a grain of salt but it's like there's no consistency there and so one thing one thing people could do if you're having a difficult conversation with someone that you disagree with i don't know if anyone has actually taken any of this to heart when i've discussed it with them. But like if you look at your own provincial pandemic response plan, and if you look at the federal plan, so I've looked at Ontario and I've looked at the federal plan, both were put in place anticipating a large scale influenza pandemic prior to COVID.

The Ontario one was updated 2013, federal one, 2018. But they're very similar. They almost say the exact same thing. The different levels of government have different. responsibilities, but what I can tell you from my interpretation of reading both documents is that masking healthy people was never part of the plan. The only time they talk about it in either plan is specific to a healthcare worker treating an infected patient wearing a fit tested n95 respirator. Surgical masks and cloth masks not recommended. Lockdowns were never part of the plan unless you're looking at like last resort something like a school closure or something like that absolute last resort for something with a much higher infection fatality rate like something like

spanish flu death rate this is right in their plan this is our own science that we did not follow we did the exact opposite um early treatment 100% part of the plan they talk about like a mass distribution of antivirals from government stock piles. Now, with influenza, I talked to Dr. Ira Bernstein and he said, well, you know, that might, you know, Tamiflu and we don't really know how effective that is. But within the plan, it specifically says, like acting within the precautionary principle, like you cannot wait for scientific certainty to start using safe drugs to develop early outpatient protocols, you know, to help mitigate impact on the health care system.

So we did the exact opposite of those three things. We masked healthy people. We locked down. And we absolutely destroyed anyone who advocated early treatment, right? Even though that was clearly part of our pandemic response plan, provincially and federally. They do, you know, to their credit, or not to their credit. Full disclosure, they do talk about immunitis.

but on two points I'd like to make on that. We're talking about flu shots that have been around for a long time, which don't seem to have near the number of adverse reactions. I mean, as far as I know, right, I haven't done the big deep dive on influenza shots, but I think a lot more people are comfortable with that than the brand new COVID ones. And second point on the immunization, it specifically says it has to match the circulating strain. which I think if you've been paying attention, even to public health officials, you would see that the current COVID shots have completely failed against new variants.

And yet they keep advocating for people to take more and more of the same product that has continued to fail against recent variants. Why? why did we do the complete opposite of what our plan was? And if, and if you look at Dr. Tam's bio, I think it's a, it's a bio specific to like,

if you Google her like Dr. Teresa Tam biography, I think you'll come up with, I think it's like women, women in medicine. And it's like a little biography on her. And there's specific language in her bio that matches exactly what is said in the intro to the Canadian plan and the Ontario plan about like,

best practice. is based on experience gain from like the initial SARS virus and H1N1. They all say that similar. They all say those same things like the provincial federal plan and her bio. So it's like there's no way people in her position didn't know what the plan was. There's no way. So essentially our plan was like a great Barrington declaration approach, which was published again by like, professors from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford.

Yeah. Back in October of 2020. Yeah. And as soon as it was published, it was over 800,000 signatures and everything else, right? Oh, and then Dr. Fauci, Dr. Collins, and I can't remember the other gentleman, maybe the Eco Health Alliance guy. I can't remember for certain. But definitely Collins and Fauci from NIH and NIH and IAID, like there's emails that have been

exposed that they were like actively communicating that we, that they, had to crush basically the reputation of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration to discredit them. That's been, I tell you what, I want to wrap up because I'm like, I feel like we could go on and on and on. We could go on. It's been a while. Well, I tell you what, we'll just have you back on. That's a simple thing to do, Dan. And we could certainly get into some of the things that are concerning you with what's going on with some of the bills being passed, that type of thing. I tell you what, in almost two months of no podcasting, if I thought the world was going to slow down and there'd be nothing to talk about, well, I would be sadly disappointed.

And I mean, like, the world continues to speed up. There continues to be things upon things upon things to talk about. And I don't think we'll have any shortage here in the months to come. And I always enjoy our chats. I know this is only the second one. but getting to meet you in person and everything else like that. We'll have you back on because I think you come with an interesting perspective and one hell of a beard, if I may say so.

Now that I'm not in the oil field, I'm slowly to listen to the person. They can't see it, but it's slowly coming in because I think one of the, on a funny note at the end here, I think one of the cool things about not being in the oil field, it's not going to have to be clean-shaven. And so we're going to grow a beard. We're going to try and rival Mr. Bullfrode on the other side there. So I'm a it's a ginger beard though.

So you do have a ginger beard. That's right. You got. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for having me again. Um, I would just say like if anyone is concerned about what might be happening like based on things that I mentioned. Like I think the, I'm all about free markets and people's having freedom to choose.

but we cannot allow governments to take away our fundamental freedoms, right? Familiarize yourself with the charter. And if you see a bill that threatens any of our fundamental freedoms, that's a warning signal about a, like a slippery slope that we're continuously sliding down in Canada, and not just Canada, but in the Western world. And if we're not careful, we're going to start. Yeah. Like, it's only a matter of time.

until other people's freedom start to be infringed, not just my freedom to choose bodily autonomy, right? Or not just our freedom to choose bodily autonomy, right? They're actively pumping through legislation that's going to dictate what content you cannot watch and cannot listen to. I think more and more people are starting to become in tune with what's going on and starting to pay closer attention to it. For so long in my life, like it really didn't matter.

At least it, you know, people probably people older than me will laugh at me for saying that because I'll be like, you're an idiot. you should have been paying attention for longer than that. But I feel like more and more people are starting to pay attention whether or not that means that things will be stopped or, you know, stopped in its tracks or because they're paying attention, anything's going to change. I don't know that answer. But I do think more people are starting to take notice. I think there's more and more people starting to talk, have shows similar to what I do or their variation, which, you know, I mean, can only help because, I mean, The fact that everybody can see firsthand what the CBC says and then what guys like myself

and others experience there and there's just there, there's no like putting the two together. Like there's so far apart, it's not even remotely close. I think is eye opening to a lot of people. And in that case, that's probably started to show people like, well, maybe I should be going to an alternative source and trying to find different means than just turning on the CBC and seeing what they say. because, I mean, once again, I just, that one was a really hard thing to see firsthand. Like, I'd never seen anything like that before.

It's, there's going to be some different guys I try and bring on because I, you know, they worked in the industry a long time. And I, I'm curious if they have their moment where they're like, oh, this is messed up because they probably do. I don't know if you could be in that industry and not see it firsthand and be like, this is strange. And I know it hasn't been going on just for this year. It's had, it's, you know, you can read things.

from long ago that show it's been going on. But, needless to say, it's been fun having you back on the show, Dan. I do appreciate it. And all the best to you and your family. And I look forward to getting to sit with you again here in the future. Right on. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate you having me.

Hey, thanks for tuning in today, guys. I hope you enjoyed. If you haven't, make sure to like and subscribe, leave some feedback, share to your friends, family. It's always cool hearing how people found the podcast, and that's a lot of you guys and girls sharing what I do. I appreciate that. Finally, in the show notes, the number to get hold of me,

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