Shaun Newman Podcast - #493 - Andrew Lawton

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Managing editor at True North, host of the Andrew Lawton Show and author of the book -       “The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World”. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastPatreon: www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

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I'm talking about Andrew Lawton. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Andrew Lawton. So, sir, thanks for hopping on this side. Hey, it's good to talk to you at long last. Thanks for the invitation.

Yeah, it, um, I don't know. You know, every time I feel like I've had everybody from Canada on, Canada, you know, for as small population-wise, maybe Canada is, it feels like there's always, I can't imagine being in the States and trying to get everyone from, like, media on your show. And that's like, you know, I feel like I'm just scratching the surface here in Canada. And every time I think I'm getting close, I just, oh, yeah, I haven't had Andrew on. Or I haven't had whoever on. It doesn't matter. And so it just keeps going and going and going, which is fun. I always enjoy getting somebody new on and hearing a bit about their story and then some thoughts on the world today.

I mean, you've been in media now. How many years has it been, Andrew? Well, I mean, really, since I started to attempt to make a go at it about 13 years since I started making any, I say real money. I don't mean a lot of money, but like as a real job, it was 2013 when I got my first gig working for Chorus hosting a daily radio show. And it was actually quite interesting because I got my start in blogging and podcasting just as a hobby. I was never interested in making money from it. In fact, I think at one point I had sold like a $25 ad on my blog. And it was like the happiest I had ever been because I was the first person in Canadian history to ever make money on a blog.

And now it's like all come full circle because I'm back to new media and I really wouldn't have it any other way. You know, it's funny. I enjoy hearing those types of stories because everybody's like, you know, someday you hope you make it large. And when you make it large, everyone will be like, oh yeah, he's always been large.

But it's like, no, I remember when I got 50 bucks for a hockey draft I was promoting as like the major sponsor, $50. I remember the guy laughing at me? Because, you know,

I would have been, you know, I don't know how young I would have been. That's a while back now. But I remember thinking 50 bucks was like, just so I could, like, holy crap, all right,

I'm doing something right. It's $50. And I mean, don't get me wrong. In today's can. Canada, you know, with everything going up and up and up, it's worth even less than back then. But still, it's always cool to hear how money has changed for somebody over time, especially in a game like this, you know, podcasting or blogging or, you know, any of these different

media forums to get anyone to believe in it. And especially at the start when you're just like, I don't know, like, because I have tons of people ask, and I'm sure they've asked you along your career, you know, like, you know, like, what do you charge? Like, how do you start, you know? cool to hear that back in the day, you know, $25 bucks was a big deal to you. Yeah, because it was never intended to be a career. And in fact, like, I remember the attitude that was there for the blogosphere, as we called it at the time.

And by the way, I don't even think anyone uses the word blog anymore. I mean, that's like the new version of like taping something is to blog. But what was interesting about it was that it was a bunch of just scrappy people that really held a little bit of contempt towards, you know, official media and not even just mainstream media, but just like official media. And that there was a great joke that emerged. I can't remember who it was, but someone had just besmirched bloggers as just a bunch of people in their pajamas in their parents' basements. And then from that, there was this very successful American company called Pajamas Media, which eventually became PJ Media. And they really just took it on the chin and

kept going with it. And I always sort of liked that. And when I, I guess, went corporate, if you will, I had really hoped that it would be possible to bring that scrappiness into the mainstream environment. And the only way you could really do that, in my view, was through talk radio, because that was kind of the last holdout of independent thought in traditional media. And that was, to be honest, what I had a really, really good ability to do for a few years until the bottom came out of that. Well, I'm kind of curious, you know, like, I don't know a whole lot of your story. I've listened to your show.

I've listened to, I believe, some talks you've given. You know, like, I've definitely been sent enough Andrew Lawton different stories and different podcasts or shows. Do you call them all podcasts? Because I can't figure out if you're a podcaster or if you're a traditional media guy or you're somewhere smacked in the middle. It doesn't matter. I've been saying your stuff lots. And I've read some of your substack once upon a time as well. So it's funny, this world that I'm in, I get sent a lot of everybody's,

stuff from across Canada. But I don't know, that's a mouthful. Yeah, I don't really care too much what you call it. I mean, I consider myself a host and a broadcaster, even though I'm broadcasting no longer over terrestrial airwaves. But I guess by training, that's my background. I mean, where I really cut my teeth in media after doing the blogging and podcasting just as an amateur was hosting a daily talk radio show. And I was in London, Ontario. But from there, I was part of a company where I had the opportunity to guest host on 770 CHQR in Calgary. And I actually was like the fill-in for Danielle Smith for a time, which means I'm actually deputy premier right now. I believe that's how it works. And then I had the chance to guest host in Toronto and nationally. And I had a lot of fun

with it. How pissed were people when it was your days to guest host for Danielle Smith? Or were they like, oh, Andrew's on. I'm excited for this. So I've actually spoken about this with Danielle. At the beginning, they were thrilled because she remember when she first started doing it, a lot of the memories of the Great Floor Crossing were still very raw for people. And a lot of people that kind of are on the political right were not fans of her. And the station had done this really, really terrible thing where they were kind of auditioning us off of each other over the course of a summer where, you know, Danielle would guess two weeks and I'd guess for two weeks. And And they weren't saying it was an audition, but I knew it was an audition.

And I knew that when I was up against Daniel Smith, I was going to lose. So I was just like, all right, you're paying me to guest host. I'll do my two weeks stints and that's fine. And then when they ended up giving her the show and they let me guest host from time to time, I had already had a rapport with the audience. So I don't know if they were, you know, happier or unhappier depending on who was on. I mean, it was her slot and I always tried to respect that. but I don't think they were unhappy when I was there.

The only exception was, and this is actually kind of a funny story, I was doing this from Ontario. And I never lied about it, but I also never drew attention to it. And there was one time I was guest hosting, and the big story that week was that they were renaming this bridge in Calgary to the reconciliation bridge. They were taking it away because they didn't like the old legacy of the racist, white supremacist, colonial founding father,

of Canada, Sir Hector Louis Launchevain. I was of course talking about the Lausanne Bridge because that is what his namesakes building is in Ottawa, the Lausanne Building, and I think I probably did this for about 20 minutes before I got the phone call. It's Langevin, you Easterner

and that was when I realized that the cover story I had was up sadly. Was falling apart? You know, it's funny, I got people on this side. On the Tuesday mashup, I butcher names all the time. I've just embraced it. I'm like, I want to get the names right, but at the same time when I'm pronouncing like French names from the, or Easterner names, or on and on it goes, I'm like, you know, like it's just word mumbo-jumbo to me and I just roll with it.

And people, I don't know, people, you know, they've got to have a little bit of a sense of a humor, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I know nothing about sports. Like, it's just, it's a joke on my show or running joke that I know nothing about sports. Do I know who Connor McDavid is? Do I know which? Who Connor McDavid is. I've heard of him.

Is he Maple Leafs? Okay, I know nothing about sports, as I said. And the thing is, the point of this story. You are the second person. You are the second person. I can't tell if you're pulling my leg right now. You don't know who Connor McDavid is? I've heard of it.

I know he's a hockey player. I don't know, like, now that I'm wondering if I'm wrong about that. No, he's a hockey player. You're the second person. So to give you a little bit of a break here, I picked up Kig Carson for one of my last in-person shows. And I get in the vehicle and we're driving, and I say something about, yeah, you know,

Amminton home. of one of the greatest hockey players of all time. And he's like, oh, who's that? I'm like, Connor McDavid. He's like, well, never heard of him. I'm like, you've never heard of Connor McDavid. That shows you how much hockey needs to grow. When the best player, possibly sports fans will argue all the time,

nobody knows who he is. Do you know who LeBron James is? Yeah, he's King James, right? Michael Jordan. Yeah, yeah, and that's a chapter. this is a terror, I should have never agreed to this interview. I know who Michael Jordan is. I know he was a pro baseball player for a time, believe it or not.

All I'm saying is Tom Brady. Oh, yeah, Tom Brady, I know. So it's funny, to me, the only reason I'm picking on you is because I'm like, okay, so you don't know any sports, but the major sport in Canada, the best player going right now. You don't know who he is. That's a knock on the NHL because you know who one of the greatest. I don't blame the, I blame myself fully. I do not blame the NHL.

Think about it. Like, you know who the NFL guy is? You know who the NBA guy is? I'm just picking on you. That's all. So I have a little bit of knowledge. You pick on me all you want, Andrew, because there's lots of things I don't know about.

And you can expose that at any time you want. I have a little bit of knowledge with anyone that played for the London nights, just because my radio station when I was in London, I had the rights to that. And I actually went to high school. I was in a grade 11 law class with Patrick Kane. So I know who Patrick Kane is. And then he went on to, you know, like make more money than I'll ever make in my life.

Did you ever try to get a money? the show? I didn't actually. He was actually very friendly and I had a decent enough relationship with him and I was friends with them on Facebook and then when he was like embroiled in that big controversy with the taxi cab driver one of them. Yeah, I think he deleted his Facebook so I haven't really spoken to him since then. I was about to send him like a message and you know the Facebook was gone. But the thing is though like I'm actually one of these people where the only time I sort of pick up on sports is if it crosses outside of the sports threshold. So like, Anytime there's a sport story that becomes like a political story or a gender culture war story, I know it.

So I could tell you all about NASCAR because of the whole thing that happened there with the, you know, the rope in the garage. I could tell you about, you know, an athlete that has said something about politics, but I just could not tell you about anything they do on the ice or on the field or on the court. You know exactly who Ivan Proverroff is then for all his saying he wouldn't wear the jersey for warmups. and then, you know, and on and on it went with the pride stuff, and there you are. Anyways, I'm just, this has been fun, folks. I'm looking to no audience here because I'm like, anytime I get to pull out some sports and then see someone squirm, it's funny. I probably squirm about a lot of topics that I know nothing about, but hockey,

once upon a time was the mainstay of the show, right? Like, I was actually just looking at, at this, like, list. And I, I, this is for my own brain for, like, if I was to ever do a show, and I need somebody who has a background in X. And one of the lists is sports. And it is the longest list I have because for the first 200 episodes of this show, it was majority athletes.

Now I'm on two episodes. You'll be like episode, I don't know, 493, 494. And now you're at like the least athletic person you could find. No, it's funny. I've had so many people on that don't know anything about sports and it just blows me away. You know, it's pretty cool, honestly, like how,

I don't know how I get hooked up, you know, like I guess Andrew, like maybe two years ago, I wouldn't know anything about you. It's possible. But now because of a chain of events, I've changed what I'm doing. And now you're in my, you know, my, I don't know, I guess my sight line quite a bit like of what you're doing. And maybe hopefully what I'm doing is come across your table and back and forth because this is where I have landed now. And the sports thing, although still part of me, I haven't done a whole lot with it. And so no, I find it very fascinating because one of the first interviews I ever did where I was on the other side was this guy named Vance Crow to St. Louis.

And I had missing teeth. You know, I was wearing a backwards hat, I think, and I just sat down and he's like, holy crap, you're a real hockey player. I'm like, yeah? What did you expect, right? And we had this lovely chat. I think that can a conversation, no matter. your interests can go, you know, that's the lovely thing about podcast. That's what Joe Rogan does so well,

is he has people from all backgrounds on to share some of their thoughts and you can have a great old time. And I don't know, I'm just exposing the sports side of it for you. And I didn't mean to do that. No, it's funny. One of my years and years ago, I was doing an audition tape for, or not an audition tape, but it was a live audition for some radio gig. And I had to read a couple of scripts of news stories. and a couple of them were sport stories. And I just, like, butcher the pronunciation of every name, of every athlete they gave me, except for one, I got Ponokerovsky, and I don't even know who Ponokurovsky is, but I had heard some anchors say it, so I knew the pronunciation.

But I screwed up Rick Vive. And I said Rick Vave, and then everyone just started guffawing, laughing in the studio, because it was like a five-letter name. I didn't know it was possible to screw it up, but there we were. Well, it's funny, you know, like with the rise, of like on rate and guys like that you know if you just played it off like you're just being funny that you know like not knowing who macdavit is you can you can play that up and people would love it you know like people love that type of thing did you go to did you go to school then to be a radio

guy no no i went to school for a political science and i never anticipated ever going into media and it was actually a a bit of a round about journey for me i i had some some serious health issues around the time that I was coming out of school and I just started blogging as a hobby. I had all these opinions and I knew far less than I thought I did about the world, but that didn't stop me. And I just started doing it and then kind of lucked into it. Like I said, when I first realized that it was possible to make a bit of money and turn this into a job, I went with it. I never really knew what I wanted to do. I was always interested in politics from the time I was, you know, you know, earlyish into high school. And, you know, I did an internship on Parliament Hill,

so I'd cut my teeth there. But the media thing really came up accidentally. That's interesting because, you know, obviously that means you were good at it, because for most people, it just doesn't happen by chance, even if you are putting a little, you know, there's tons of people who play video games. They're never going to make the million dollars, you know? Like, so you must have been doing something right. You know, with your political background. I've had this question come at me a bunch. And my background, here's, to me, this is, you know, my weakness. So I look at politics. And up until 2015, I did not pay attention. I did not give a shit. I did not have kids yet. I was not married. Heck, I was pretty close to still

playing hockey at that point. So I was just kind of like, you know, whatever. Then this guy named Justin Trudeau gets in. I get married. We start to have kids. I start to go, what the heck is going on? Not you and Justin Trudeau. Correct. Not me and Justin Trudeau. And I go, now I get asked a ton. Oh, do you think P.P. is going to fix everything. And I shouldn't maybe call him Pee Pee, but it gets sent to me enough. I'm like, is Pierre going to fix it? I'm like, well, I don't know, I'm paying attention now.

Like, it ain't going to fool me this time around, right? Like, I don't know what I thought of Justin Trudeau back then. But I guess you've been staring at this a lot longer than I have. You see the polls and everything else. I don't love all the polls that come out because I, you know, my type of person doesn't answer a poll anyways. They just look at them and go like, who's answering this? But when you look at it and you see the state of Canada's in, you go, are the conservatives going to win in a landslide? One, and then two, if they do, are they going to walk in and, like, acts a whole bunch of things the West wants out of, like carbon tax, like defunding the CBC, like immigration, like all these huge topics.

Is that what Pierre is going to come in and do or is that not what politicians do? Well, I mean, there's a lot to unpack in that question. I think for starters, the one thing I've said on my show and I'll repeat it here is that I don't think there's any such thing as a conservative minority government for the foreseeable future. So if the conservatives are going to win, they need to win.

They need to win a majority so that they can come in. And that would actually be very helpful for a lot of people in Canada that are hoping for change. Because if, let's say the conservatives win a minority and they need the support from some other party, be it the Block Quebec, the NDP, the liberals, that's going to be their excuse to not do anything of substance. To say, well, you know, it's precarious. And that was what Stephen Harper used. And look, I think Stephen Harper did a lot of very good things.

But from 2006 to 2011, he could not govern without the support from another party in the House of Commons, which meant that all of these conservatives that were hoping for significant reforms, form of the Senate of this of that we're saying okay but hang on we got to wait until he gets a majority now when he did get the majority he didn't really do a lot of that stuff he didn't leave any of these giant reforms uh in his agenda so it looked like he was kind of hiding behind that minority status so i think that for the conservatives they're not going to be able to get anything done uh that matters to them if they don't win a majority so that's the first caveat i'd put there. If they do, Pollyev's been pretty unequivocal about a few key things. One of them is

getting rid of the carbon tax and one of them is defunding CBC. Anything short of that is going to be a betrayal of the people that put him there. Because he hasn't even done the thing that Aaron O'Toole did, which is once you win the leadership, just completely soften and or reverse on these things. Like O'Toole, you may recall, when he was in the leadership was saying, yeah, defund the CBC. And then when he was running in the general, it was, we want to commission a report that looks at alternative business models to maybe at some point modernize. And I was like, I couldn't even find the point in that if I had the most powerful microscope on earth, let alone the truth and authenticity in it.

So I think that there is, Pollyev has not left himself a lot of wiggle room, which I hope and think will keep him accountable if he wins. But the other part of your question was on politicians in general. And I used to be someone who had a lot of faith in the political system as being the answer to our problems. You know, I went into political science. I worked on Parliament Hill. I ran for office at one point in 2018, unsuccessfully, but I ran. So I held a belief that the political system held the answers.

And I'm not one of these people that thinks it's irrelevant because what politicians do matters. And you know, you could have a groundswell of people across the country saying something, but unless those 338 people or a majority of them in the House of Commons act on something, it's not really going to get done in the legal sense of the word. But where I have a bit of hope is that if you look at politicians to lead, you'll be disappointed. If you look at creating the conditions and climate that make it so they'll follow because they have no choice, that's where the alternative is. And I think that's when I've sort of reoriented myself away. I don't want to say I would never, ever run for office again, but I have no imminent plans to at all. Because I do genuinely believe that more of the heavy lifting, certainly for people that view the world like I do, need to be done outside of politics so that politicians can look around and see millions of people that believe in this thing so that they'll do the right thing. Yeah, actually, you know, I've been wrestling with what you just said there for quite some time.

And then I was following you on Twitter and you'd put up a thing by Milton Friedman. And I was like, I read it and I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. And I don't know why. Because in my brain, I'm like, get the right people elected and they'll do the right thing. And here, I'll read it off. This is what Milton Friedman said. I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. the important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion,

which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, then the right people will do the right thing, will not do the right thing either. Or if they try, they will shortly be out of office. I hope I didn't butcher that too much. Can I just paraphrase it to put a finer point on that? What he's basically saying is that instead of looking for the right, people and getting them into office you need to make the political climate such that

even the wrong people will do the right thing right and and the the thing I've been struggling with and I think this what you're talking about here is starting to put into my mind and maybe clear up some things is for I don't know maybe the last 10 years maybe it's longer maybe shorter you can certainly hop in with your thought on it I just don't think there's been any pushback of a media sort of thing in Canada I think we look to the states, but the states doesn't do anything for our policy. You know, like it's two different countries.

And so I would have been sitting here all through COVID. Like, where is the pushback? But now you look at it and they're starting to become some formidable names across Canada that are holding the culture war to account, like allowing other people to have their say. Can it be better? Can there be more? Can there be different? Certainly.

But the avenues are there. Now, I mean, you got C-11, C-18, you got a whole bunch of stuff coming down the pipe that are going to make it interesting all over again. But regardless, if you're trying to create conditions, what creates conditions? Media. Or am I wrong on that? I mean, look, it's kind of an indulgent point for me because I am in media, but I definitely think independent media or media in general is key to that. I think, you know, culture and society are, but it's difficult to show. show a cultural barometer without the media because it's the media that is so essential to telling the stories of what's happening out in the world and and you know of connecting like for

example i think covid is really useful in this regard because there were millions of people across the country that were fed up with mask mandates restrictions vaccine mandates in some form now a lot of them were going along with stuff for a variety of reasons but people were very much against it and why COVID restrictions, I think, were able to be upheld for so long. It's because the restrictions themselves prevented people from getting in the same room where they could be talking about them and sharing their frustrations and saying, well, hang on, this doesn't make sense. And that's why, you know, banning Christmas dinners was actually a very useful policy for the government in keeping the regime alive. And I'm not saying that was the intention,

but that was certainly the effect and the outcome of it. And the convoy, which was obviously incredibly important to me, and that's why I wrote a book on it, was another example of this, because you had people that were for the first time looking around and seeing there were others like them, others that were at the same place they were on these things, but they didn't know them and didn't know that other people were there

and that they weren't so alone. And that's where I look at independent media, which was a crucial, crucial aspect of telling that, story and it was only through independent media saying this convoy was a thing that other people started to join together and do it or at least that it happened so quickly because that was a mass media as opposed to just the direct communication on TikTok and telegram and all of these other platforms well yeah COVID to me really exposed in the worst type of way how so many of our institutions are captured. And I, to me, media is an institution. Like, I mean, it's controlled by

however many different companies across Canada, yada, yada, yada, go on, and so forth. And there was a ton of people that were very upset. But they had no way to voice that because media wouldn't talk to any of that. They didn't want to have anyone on. Anyone that did talk got ostracized and removed and on and on it went. I mean, the doctors got their own stories. The nurses got their own stories. The nurses got their own stories. Heck, in this province, there's tons of workers who have all these different stories. There's businesses that have stories of not being allowed to come on to a work site if they didn't have their proper, you know, vaccination records to show that their employees were up

to snuff and whatever else. This went on and on and on and on. And, you know, everyone, including myself, just assumed at some point, media would start going like, something doesn't add up, except they didn't. actually they've become so culpable in it like it's just like it's just it's absolutely grotesque that they haven't been able to break free of the narrative except money and a whole bunch of other things Andrew just I assume add up to that and so that's why the rise of the independent media has been so honestly just like noticeable over the last year if not last three years because

people went looking everywhere and if you had anyone on that made a lick a sense that got shared through the grapevine so fast. Like there's this underground little network right now where if I assume, and I've never seen one of my interviews go through it. I've experienced when one of my interviews starts to get more views and you're like, what the heck did I just do, right? Because where's that the rest of the time? But I've experienced it the opposite way where, you know,

there's been different videos and different short clips and different things. Also, I'm flooding through my inbox or my own. my phone where people just texting me, like non-stop. And that was created through COVID because nobody knew how to get, you know, you're just looking for any piece, morsel of information, specifically from in Canada, if you would, that would just help you like understand what on earth was going on. Yeah, I mean, my interest and my ability has always been more oriented towards Canadian politics.

And I don't mean like the, I mean, sometimes it's boring, I guess, but I don't mean just the intricacies of, oh, this bill is becoming a law and stuff like that, but just the Canadian political landscape. And I've got a whole bunch of friends and contacts in independent media in the U.S. that have never expressed the remotest bit of interest in any of the work that I've done.

And I don't fault them for it because, you know, what the heck do they care about, you know, who the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition is or something. And there was a bit of a blip when Justin Trudeau came onto the scene because Americans liked to mock him, but it was always a drive-by. They'd sort of like come on to the story for a day, say, oh, ha, ha, ha, he's such an idiot and get off it. It wasn't until COVID.

And I'd even say the convoy specifically when everyone else that I knew around the world was like turning to me and being like, what the heck is going on with your country? I mean, that chapter put Canada on the map in a way that, depending on which side you're on, was either, you know, greater or quite shameful. But it was an interesting dilemma to be in because all of a sudden you're not just seeing in, media as being the vehicle to tell the story of what's happening to Canadians, but also to really tell the story of Canada to people outside the world. And I mean, look, we were talking about this a bit at the beginning, Sean. The list of independent media in Canada used to be just like a napkin with Ezra Levant's name scribbled on it. Like it was a non-existent list. And I've, in the last couple of years, have met people that have come up to me and said, oh, I'm a big fan of your work. I'm

with, you know, X, Y, Z outlet, and I've never heard of them. And I love it. I love it when I have these people that maybe they have small audiences, maybe they have large audiences, but these people that are saying, you know, screw this, I'm not going to just deal with coverage of Canada that I don't like. I'm going to make my own. Well, it's never been easier, too, right? Like, I mean, if you got, I think it was me and Chris Sims talked about it. Once upon a time, how many newspapers, independent newspapers were in Canada. And just how the press, you know, the free press wasn't free. It was free from the government, right? And she got talking about that. And, To me, that was really interesting.

So to see all these people popping up, because once again, I have, I don't think I need to point this out, and you just got to go back to the first episode and go, ooh, that was something. You know, like, but I have no formal training in journalism or broad, or radio or anything. You're better for it. Well, and isn't that what everybody says now? They're like, you're better for it. And I would say, you know, the reason I'm into politics in different things is I just go, like, I'm starting to understand how important it is. Actually, one of my favorite things right now is getting political nerds or junkies on to explain things to me because I literally don't get. I just, I watch our political system and I'm just like, whoever thought this was a great way to do it?

Because like right now, you know, I would say most rational people would say like, you know, me and Andrew can disagree on something. But if we're going to represent a province, let's just take a province, we have to come to some agreement. for the betterment of our province. Instead, the official opposition and the governing body just yell at each other and don't take any of their suggestions. Now, maybe they got no good suggestions.

But none over the course of four years, that's pretty hard to believe. And yet, that's all it is now. It's just a peacock session, you know, where they attack each other and nothing comes out of it. And all of us, I think, all of us viewers sit there and go like, what the heck was the point of that?

They're just wasting taxpayers money at this point. Like they're just sitting there, you know, like doing nothing. I want to get out of the crap we're in. I know tons of people that are struggling right now. Certainly it ain't getting any better anytime soon with the election still a ways out. You got carbon tax increasing. You got the housing fiasco going on. You just got all these things, inflation running rampant and on and on it goes.

And we're going into winter, which means, you know, flu season is back. So you're going to have all these people talking about masking and all this junk. You're going to have, I mean, go to the grocery store right now. That isn't a fun trip, you know, and we're getting into the cold months. Like, I don't know about you out east, but this morning I woke up out here and we were like nine degrees, I think, maybe it froze the other night. And I'm like, come on. It's like the beginning of September for Pete's sake. And you, so what's going to happen? Heating bills are going to go up, you know, all, all this. I mean, I hate to bring it down on such a note. I just, it'd be nice if we had.

political system where they actually work together to solve some problems and fix some things to make people's lives better. And I know that's a little altruistic and all that, you know, but I don't know. What is a political, I don't know, a junkie nerd, think about my thought because maybe I'm just like a moron. And that's fine. I don't think you're a moron, but the problem with what is on its surface a very noble goal, which is, you know, set aside your partisanship and and work together for the common good. The problem with that is that the solutions proposed are going to be so wildly different and they should be different. I mean, you know, Justin Trudeau, like let me go back to COVID for a second. And I'm sorry that I keep belaboring.

No, no, no. It's an incredibly useful and illustrative episode in world history and certainly in community history. And everybody understands it. It doesn't matter what side they were on and they all understand it. Yes. What was the goal that was presented by political leaders of all parties in March, April of 2020? It was this team Canada approach. It was where we're all going to set aside our partisanship and come together and we're going to be on the same team. The opposition is not going to criticize the government for this. So what do we get? We get no pushback when government gets out of control in its spending, in its control, in bypassing the democratic process, bypassing accountability. And I'm not even talking about, you know, vaccines and lockdowns,

but even just budgets. I mean, the billions and billions and billions of dollars that were spent without accountability to put people on serve indefinitely to bankroll all of these government programs. And I'm not saying that a conservative government would have avoided all of those mistakes. I'm saying that when you set aside partisanship, which actually has an important role to play, you end up with a government that has no check on it. And that's my fear of what happens if we pursue that admittedly noble goal of let's all just work together. Because let's say that we're talking about hydro bills or electricity bills, what does working together look like? Because the liberals think that the big issue is the climate and the

conservatives think the big issue is the cost of living. So what is a collaborative solution to your energy bill look like? And I'm not sure it can exist when there is such a wildly different outlook. Well, maybe I'll rephrase it then, because I don't want vanilla on the opposite side and not have a backbone and say their thoughts and everything else. But at the same time, I feel like, you know, on any given subject, climate change,

there is going to be experts in their field from both sides who come, have a discussion, and from that policymakers go, listen, it seems like, you know, maybe we got a pollution problem and we got some things that were maybe not a hundred percent great on with the environment but to tax the population into oblivion and to do things with EVs and all this things and our in our grid and

you know and on and on and on it goes maybe in this short of time isn't the best idea instead they don't do that they have this idea that the world is ending by 2030 unless we go fully electric, fully no more this, no more that. We're going to, and you're just like, now, well, if we're going to talk about COVID, then we might as just slide in wef and how excited they are that they control our government and everything else. And you go from the average person, we just sit here and go, like, no longer do we have a prime minister.

We have a puppet. And he is being played by some foreign entity because they don't give a shit about us minions. They just want to play out this idea. and see how it works. That's sitting here. I'm just like watching this. And that's why I go back to Pierre. I just go like,

I wonder if he's actually going to get in and dismantle this all or how much control they actually have on our system right now. I don't accept that, you know, the problems with this government are coming from Justin Trudeau being under the thumb of some foreign entity. I think the problem is that he has an ideological outlook

that drives him to do what he does. I think it would actually be a lot easier if we could point to some higher power and say that's the problem. But I can't accept that because everything that he has ever done and everything he has ever stood for insofar as he is able to find a backbone has been in reorienting what Canada is to the country he's trying to make now. And I think that, I mean, I've just to use the World Economic Forum as an example, I've covered this the last two times they've met in Davos. And actually, I recall on your show, Danielle Smith saying she had been following along with my. coverage, which was quite flattering. And I'm going to be going back in January. And whenever the WEF comes up, there's always this debate about how much influence they have over countries like Canada. And it doesn't help that you've got their founder being like, uh, we've penetrated the

cabinet and Mr. Trudeau is a young global leader and that you have people like Christopher that's on the board of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I think those, I mean, with Christopher Freeland, you do have a case to make that she actually has this dual loyalty problem because she's committed herself to this organization and its aims. But in the case of Justin Trudeau, I actually, I'm not going to say he's not a puppet of various influences that are ideological in nature. But I don't think he's doing what he does because Klaus Schwab is telling him to. I think he's doing what he does because he wants to. And I think it's an agenda that aligns with a lot of unsavory people like Klaus Schwab and like the, you know, Antonio Gutierrez of the UN and so on. And I almost think that

that's worse, because in that case, it's a problem that we have to look at in Canada and say, you know, why have people voted for this agenda? Why did people vote for the guy that wanted to lock up the unvaccinated from their offices and prevent them from getting on planes? He campaigned on that. And that's the more challenging dilemma. The word that comes to mind is useful idiot. That's what he becomes because he believes what you're saying is is he comes from the school of thought and he believes in it And so he doesn't need to be he doesn't need to be under close Schwab's thumb He actively participates in what the wef is talking about and therefore he isn't controlled by him Yeah, he's just he's bought into the agenda on his own

Yes, right and and that becomes a useful idiot then is basically and in Canada one of the most powerful useful idiots I might add I don't know To me, when you get looking at it, you go, okay, why did everybody, why did everybody go along with COVID? And that's an interesting question, because there's a lot to unpack there, Andrew. You know, to a lot of people, they felt course to get every, to do everything. A lot of that's fear. Now, the coercion to get the shot with work comes from losing your job.

So you look at the corporations and how they settle under, you know, Black Rock and all that, that jazz. And you go, okay, so they're pushing it there. There's a lot of different agendas being pushed through a lot of different ways that just the average folk just want to be left alone. And through COVID, that got exposed. Well, no, that got pushed on everybody all at once. It was like, it was almost, it was lockstep for like two straight years. Everything just one after another after another. Like I tell this story a lot.

In it was March, April, May. In May, I'm sitting, you know, at this time I'm working in the oil field for Giant Corporation. And we have in May a meeting. So a Western Canada meeting. It's a virtual call. I have a lady on saying when we're going back to working in our offices. This is May 2020. Okay.

And at this point, you know, like the fear is subsided. Everyone's like, okay, well, let's get back to work. and, you know, like, I assume we're going back. And they said back then we would not be back in-person working environments until there was a vaccine. And that's a big giant corporation. And like, they knew back then that we weren't, this was what was being pushed. And so, you know, like the conspiracy nut in me goes, and I wasn't,

I don't think I was a conspiracy nut before COVID, but the conspiracy nut in me goes, okay, like there's just, there's things going on that whether he's a useful idiot or not, whether he knows it or not, um, I'm, I'm curious and I think a lot of people are curious to see the next election because I assume at this point all the polls, I hate the polls, but the polls show that Pierre is going to get in, right? The conserva's going to end. Now whether it's a minority or majority, hey, that ways to be seen. And you don't want to get overconfident, but that's what it looks like. So then you move towards it. And everybody's, myself included, is waiting, does he change things or does it stick to the same path? and then we'll have, in my mind, a bit of an answer on what we're saying,

is he a puppet or is he just totally bought in and he totally believes in it? Because right now a lot of people don't trust any of the parties, don't trust any of the system. The system keeps doing really strange things over and over and over again. I mean, right now in Ottawa you got Tamara Leach and Chris Barber on trial. Here in Alberta, you got the Coutes 4 doing a whole bunch of things there. And the more people I interview about that, I'm like, you know, once upon a time, I thought those were the most dangerous men in Canada.

Now I'm kind of like, huh, there's a lot more to this. And it just keeps, and I'm just, I'm just scratching the surface of some of the things going on in Canada. Yeah, and I, look, I think that there is, the term deep state often brings up accusations of conspiracy theories. But, I mean, we, I don't even think we need to call it the deep state. We can call it what we've always called it, which is the bureaucracy. I mean, there are these, these people that exist regardless of who's in power and of who's in office. if you ever spend time looking at access information request, which any citizen of Canada can file to get information from the government, you'll see the way bureaucrats communicate. And no one can say

they don't have agendas of their own. And, you know, the tone of bureaucratic communications, if you look in files when the conservatives were in government versus when the liberals are in government, you can tell. They're invested in Justin Trudeau in a way they were never invested in the aims of the conservative government. And I'm generalizing. I'm not saying there aren't individual civil servants that might be conservative, but the bureaucracy itself has an agenda. And you can see how this is weaponized against governments. Because when a politician wants to do something, you know, they want to pass a law, the first thing that they do is they go to the civil service and say, okay, this is what I want to do. Tell me what it'll look like. Tell me the pitfalls. Tell me the things

we need to be aware of, the landmines. And they'll get legal opinions that say, oh, this is not going to be constitution or oh, you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do this. Now, at the end of that, they can do what they want. But oftentimes you have bureaucrats that can exercise a huge amount of influence over legislation. Just legislation before a Canadian has ever seen it, before a bill has ever been tabled, and people can debate it. Now, this is, I think, incredibly incredibly problematic, especially if you have weak-willed politicians who will just kind of take their note and say, we recommend against this and say, okay, well, I guess that's it and we'll move on to the next thing, or even worse, when then they go to the bureaucrats and say, well, what can we do? What are we

allowed to do? And in that case, you know, it opens the door to a world in which there is no capacity for leadership and in which, you know, imagine when Pierre Polyev gets in, if that scenario that you've laid out happens and he wants to defund the CBC, every bureaucrat is going to be throwing everything they have at him to say why he can't do it. And he needs to turn around and say, yeah, I can. I was elected, you weren't. And this is what we're doing. And we need politicians that are going to do that.

Here's a different question for you then. You're a guy who ran for politics once upon a time. So you've had your finger on the pulse. You've been staring at this scenario well before Justin Trudeau, I can say safely, correct? 2018, so after Trudeau, but I ran provincially. Sorry, not running, but just staring at politics in general. Like enjoying it. I've been following since, I mean, I was in high school.

So going back, pushing 20 years now, yeah. Okay. So when you look at politics, was there kind of like this soft lull in society, Canadian society, where people just didn't care and weren't paying attention to it? And so you might argue that politicians, you know, they'd vote no on some bill and nobody cared and on and on it went. And it was kind of like this soft spot where you could be like, man, get into politics. Like, yeah, you travel a lot, but like, you know, for the most part,

you don't even need to read the bills, just vote what the party wants to move on and the public doesn't care. And COVID now has ramped that up through the roof where everybody, you know, like, if you're going to be a politician, even if you're going to be like a civil politician in your town, you better buckle up because people are amped right now and they're paying attention to everything, even harmless bills, I think, maybe not all of them because I mean, that's that's that's that's a high or a tall ask but or am I wrong in that too I have people been paying closely attention to politics since you know you're back in high school and I'm just off on that no it's changed and it's tough because on one hand I think it's great for more people to be engaged

but in the other hand the problem with people that are newcomers to politics is that they they don't understand how things are done and I don't mean that in an insulting way because in some cases how things are done is entirely insult away good stuff sir? No, no, but I genuinely don't mean that. I don't mean it as a negative. But for example, there was a bill that came up recently that I saw circulating on Twitter that was a bill, the text of a bill that said the licenses of banks were set to expire in 2025 or something like that. And people who have never really followed this issue before were saying, oh my gosh, what's happening? What's happening? Banks are going away. Is this the replacement of finance in Canada

with this and that and this and that? But if you have followed, this before, you know that the banking licenses have to be renewed every, I think it's five years or 10 years, and they are renewed every five and 10 years with the passage of a new bill. And the reason this bill exists is so that lawmakers basically can keep some level of control over the financial system. And now, whether you agree with the way it is or not is not particularly relevant, the point is that there was no story here. But people got very panicked because they didn't know that this was an entirely normal thing. And I think the problem is when people are brought to politics like I was,

because it was like, wow, this is just kind of an exciting part of the world, then they're going in with a bit of optimism and hope. When people are driven to politics because of how bad things are, they see the worst in it. And I'm not saying that either is right, but I'm saying that that's what breeds that distrust in everything. And, you know, I do believe there are good people in politics. I believe there are bad people in politics.

I believe there is good legislation. I believe there is bad legislation. I believe there are things that happen that are borderline criminal, and I believe there are things that happen that can be good. I don't view all of it as black and white. You know, there was a Senate bill that was circulating that people, I was getting so many emails about it. And it was a Senate bill that was to do with, like, banning genetic discrimination.

And people were saying, this bill means that vaccine passports are illegal. and it actually did nothing of the sort because they were just about entirely different things. But people that get invested in politics because something is so terribly wrong in society, I don't think they necessarily know where to look for the solutions. And I don't think we should be mocking people like that. I think quite the contrary, we need to be discussing this more.

In 2017, there was this really heartwarming moment where Justin Trudeau was touring the country doing these town halls. And there was this woman in, I think it was Peterborough, Ontario. Her name was Kathy Coutula. And she asked a question, holding her hydro bill in hand, which in Ontario, electricity bills in 2017 were insane. Just like it was people were going broke from paying for their electricity. And she was saying, like, I can't do this. What are you going to do to help me?

And the mocking that she got from the media and the political class of, oh, doesn't she know that's a provincial issue? Why is she talking to Justin Trudeau? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, this is a woman in crisis right now. This is a woman who's hurting. Don't you dare turn around and say that she needs a civics lesson when what she needs is someone to step up and be a leader. And by the way, incidentally, the carbon tax was affecting people's bills, the federal carbon tax. So it was an issue that had to do with the federal government, even if it was predominantly provincial.

But the response to that is to, I think, help people channel it. Actually, you know, say, hey, I agree with you. this is how we get this done, let's do it, not just mocking people for not having ascended the ivory tower like the rest of the intelligentsia. Well, I don't know about you, but certainly on this side, I know I'm a dummy when it comes to politics. I'll ask them, I'm like, I'm going to stray into it.

If I hit landmines, so be it people can get upset because I'm like, I don't care. I thought for sure I was a full-blown conservative and I was going to agree with everything, and I was ardent and whatever. And, you know, and then when you take a step back and you go, well, why do I think that? Because I've never actually paid attention to politics. I just haven't. Like I just think about that.

It's like saying you're an Hamilton Island fan, but you've never seen him play, Andrew. You're just like, I don't know, I think my dad maybe was it. Well, I love Connor McDavid. That's right. I'm a big fan. So, you know, like to me, the encouragement of having the conversations and exploring the topics, that's been one of my favorite things to do on the podcast is to like, you know, have some people on when when Daniel Smith you know this this this still confused me at the time when she was running for

UCP leadership it wasn't a sitting MLA I'm like that is the most strange thing in the world and I had to ask a group of political nerds that question to help explain it from it because I'm like this makes zero sense like in what realm of possibility like I'm excited for it because you know at that point daniel had been on the show multiple times uh so I was very excited to see how this all played out But, you know, there's a lot of things that go on in the political sphere that if I just take a step back and I go like all my knowledge I have on like how the NHL works and salary caps and all this useful, useless information for the most part and try and just act like, okay, and just put that to the political realm. I'm like, yeah, we need to, we need to foster way more conversations and debates and and and on the political realm to try and get people interested in it so they could learn so then they can ask. better questions and then we can really hold our politicians because we elected them you know like there are elected officials and yet somehow they walk around and do things that I disagree with

all the bloody time and I don't get it you know I asked a he I asked a politician I didn't ask another guy asked what is a woman to a poll to an unelected guy okay in Saskatchewan that should give you a good feel for how the answer should have went and he said I personally and then went off and I said why is it you personally well the sass party you know it's we got a player cards right with the cities I forget how he said it and I don't want to butcher it too much and I was just like yeah but you're perpetuating a lie like I mean this is this doesn't make any sense like I mean people can be what they want I'll agree sure but when it comes to like man woman

and different things it's pretty black and white now are you gonna piss some people off sure but I mean or we just get a perpetual anyways so to me i go full circle andrew and i go like i think bringing people in and getting them to understand is a beautiful thing well i agree and and the flip side of what i was saying earlier about uh you know the the people not always understanding the way things work is that sometimes the way things work actually makes no sense whatsoever and you know there are examples of this where you try to explain it to someone you realize as you're talking how completely absurd this is. And you're like, wait, why, why am I just, this is not the way

a normal society would function. Correct. There are certainly aspects of that in, in politics in general and certainly in Canadian politics. Well, I think that's, um, that's probably true across the board, because the first thing that comes to mind, I hate, I keep pulling up sports, but like NHL teams, you know, they'll sign a guy and then there's, there's different contracts, like no movement, so he can't be traded, uh, without him signing off on it. Or, a short team list where he gives off like five or ten teams you can trade me here certain rules like that you're like what in what world does that really make any sense like if if you sign a contract somebody they should be able to you know and different leagues

have different um ways of they're doing about NFL can ax your contract pretty much anytime they want right so they sign Andrew Andrew fucks up Andrew you got and you that's that's the NFL for the most part and to most of us that's like oh that's kind of you know like Even in the workforce, you know, after three months, it's kind of like, you can't really do that without a justifiable cause. And so, you know, when you come back to politics, there's a whole bunch of funky stuff going on. And sometimes it takes a new set of eyes to stare at a problem for the first time ever because there's a ton of smart people that are not in politics and want nothing to do with it. And then they stare at it for like two minutes ago, that makes zero sense. Why are we doing that to give it like a breath of fresh air, if you would?

Well, I mean, there are, I'm going to be careful in how I were. No, I won't be careful. There are a lot of idiots in politics. And, you know, people that go in because they love the fact that they can make, you know, $175,000 a year and have a job and a pension and, you know, have a staff and travel and go on these foreign junkets. There are people to go in wide-eyed and enthusiastic because they say, you know what, I really want to make a difference. And then you get the people that go in that are very successful.

They've, you know, had a career in business, in law, and something else, they go in there, and they're in disbelief at how little they can get done. I mean, the worst MPs, I think, and I don't mean as a moral judgment, but the most ineffective are MPs that have gone in that have been executives in a business, where they're used to just being able to make a decision, and then they realize that all of a sudden, oh, you have to go through this committee of nine people, and oh, and then the party whip is going to tell you, well, we can't say that because it might interfere with this, and then someone else said, oh, well, actually that's on my portfolio, so I have to be the one that does that and not you. And you get people

that say, why did I give up a salary of half a million a year to go and do this while having the media trying to destroy me at every turn? And you can understand why some of the people that could actually get some stuff done, don't want anything to do with it, and why people that love the inefficiency do continue to do it. So why did you go into... Why did you run? Why did you go like, I think this is a good idea. You know, I've never really spoken about this with much candor. So I guess there's no time like the present.

It was a few different things. So the situation in Ontario was that it was 2018. We had had a liberal government for 15 years and the most unpopular premier you could imagine in Kathleen Wynn, just like everything was terrible in the province. And it was a guarantee that the conservatives were going to win. Like everyone just knew the conservatives under Doug Ford were going to win. And the thing was in Ontario, Patrick Brown was the leader of the PCs, but there was a big kerfuffle.

And in January of 2018, he was ousted. The party had a leadership race. Doug Ford, who was this incredibly unlikely figure, who I had known a little bit, was running and then won the leadership. And it was like the Ontario Trump moment in the sense that it was the outsider, the really grassroots. oriented guy who was saying, you know, very conservative things and had a really good record with his brother Robin in Toronto that was now the leader. I had been asked to run when Patrick Brown was the leader and I was hosting my radio show. And I just, I thought about it, but really didn't want to give up what I was doing that I enjoyed to run, not knowing if I'd be able to go back to it.

If I were unsuccessful. Well, in March of 2018, my show was canceled and I was fired. The election was coming up in June, and as it so happened, the riding that I would have run in didn't have a candidate, a conservative candidate. So, you know, it was going to be, I was already unemployed. I had time. It wouldn't have been as much of a sacrifice because I wouldn't have been leaving something specifically. I just would have been delaying my next step. And I said, okay, let's do it. And, you know, worst case scenario, this is three months of my life. and then I move on to something else.

Best case scenario, I win. I go in and I get some stuff done. And so that explains why I ran at the time that I did. The motivation aspect is because I still had a bit of hope and optimism in the political system being a vehicle for people to bring things they care about forward. And, you know, I had always had, you know, very good conversations with Doug Ford on my show about the importance of caucus members being able to hold to their values. and champion things that matter to them and matter to their constituents.

And, you know, the joke's on me, because I've heard politicians say that before and not honor it. But I genuinely believe Doug Ford was a different type of leader. And I think in a lot of ways he would have been had COVID not come along. But COVID, of course, revealed the best traits and worst traits of people in society. And politicians are no exception to that. And anyone that stood up for the positions I would have been standing up for, for was kicked out of caucus. You know, people like Roman Babber and Randy Hillier and, you know, so on. And so, so in retrospect, I wouldn't have been all that effective as a progressive conservative

member of the Ontario legislature. I mean, maybe I would have been effective in my one term for, for Ontario, but pushing back against a majority government that was doing the things they were doing as one lone voice wouldn't, wouldn't have actually affected change. So I, I, I'm fully prepared to admit that I went in believing a little bit more in the system and the process than was warranted. And, you know, had I won, I would have given it out, given it my all and tried very hard, but just knowing what I know now about those four years, I don't think I would have been able to get much done at all.

So do you ever think about it then, about running again? Or are you like, now that ship has sailed and, you know, like, I run from it now. That's my, that's my joke. I run from it. I don't run for it. Look, if I were living in 30 years, I've done what I've done in the media and I don't feel like I can ascend anymore in that world and, you know, an opportunity comes up. I'm not going to say never, right? Like, if opportunities come up and I feel I can make a difference in that, then I'll do it.

But that would be the linchpin there is that it has to be a situation where I'm convinced that I could actually make a difference and not just be a seat-feiting. or a placeholder because I have no interest in doing that. Speaking of media and ascension, Tucker Carlson, maybe one of the top figures in media right now, or not one of the top, for sure one of the top. I don't know if he's at the top, but you get the point. I don't think you can argue with the fact that, you know,

when he had Trump on, I forget how many million views that had, but a ridiculous amount. Did you see what he's bringing out tonight now? By the time this airs, this will be, well, have been able to watch it. But have you seen his preview of what he's doing today? Yeah, this is the Obama's purported former lover. Former lover. Yeah.

Tucker does some amazing things. Amazing. Where I'm like, man, can you imagine sitting across from Trump on the Republican debate night and then just absolutely smashing out of the park? And I didn't think it was a great interview. Full disclosure. I thought, I don't know. But then again, it's Trump.

I don't know, right? Like, I'm acting like I would have asked any tougher questions, and I probably would have got chewed up and spit out. So, regardless, you know, you got Tucker. He's running around with Ice Cube, and then, you know, he's got Donald Trump, and then he's got all these different people. And then he's got Obama. Now, don't get me wrong.

People have been talking, you know, in the different spheres about this story. You know, he had the Obama, what was it, chef or cook or whatever, died in the eight feet of water. and people were, you know, what happened there and there's been all these. And then this story comes up. And I'm like, so he had to have done some digging on him, right? Andrew, to be like, this guy is legit. But how the heck would you ever find out that he's legit?

Well, I don't know if you can. I mean, I think that if I recall correctly, this was a story that had, I have like a vague recollection of this kind of circulating on like the nasty, like, evil, scary. conservative corners of the internet, you know, 15 years ago or whatever. And I think Tucker said in an interview he was doing on someone show recently that there was that, that this was kind of an open secret and the media just decided to not look into it and not pursue it. So presumably this guy has kind of been in reporters' rolodexes for the better part of 15 years, and it's only now that Obama is no longer a particularly relevant political player, that, you know, Tucker's in a position

where he can do the interview. And I mean, look, this is kind of a thing. where I look at it and I say, if this came out 10 years ago, I think it would have been a story. If the guy was being legitimate and his claims could be verified or authenticated, at least in some way. If it came out when Obama was in office when he was running, it's the kind of thing now where, and I, no slight against Tucker. I think he does great work where I just kind of don't see the point of it at this stage, unless he's trying to say that this is an indictment, not of Obama, but of the media. And I think there's actually the angle that I'm interested in is that if this story was known to every political correspondent in America and had the ring of truth and they all decided to look away, that to me is the bigger story than Obama just hooking up with a guy when he was in college or whatever it was. That's because I don't know. He was talking about, what was he talking about?

Cocaine and doing crack. And Obama has admitted to him. using cocaine. Like he's admitted to having used drugs. So that part is not altogether like a breaking news story that Obama abused hard drugs when he was younger. Well, I woke up this morning, flicked on Twitter. And, you know, like every day Twitter's got something that's, you know, you know, there's always something there for shock value these days. But that one from Tucker, I'm like, that's, I did not see that coming, I guess, you know, like that. I mean, imagine Donald Trump is the opening act to this guy.

Like Donald Trump was the warm-upack to the guy who did Coke and slept with Barack Obama, apparently. Apparently. Yeah, well, I mean, I just look at that and I'm just like the list of people, you know, we're rolling in the car with Ice Cube one day. And then, you know, the next day it's Donald Trump. And then it's a guy on his show. I don't even know his name, by the way. Like, I'm talking about him.

I don't even know the guy's name. I don't know. He's the guy that said he had sex with Obama. That's the only thing I know about him. It's like the one-hit wonder of sex. What do you think coming up here, September 20th, the one billion, the one million person march for kids, Camille, I don't know if I'm saying this right, here. Maybe you can check me on my name. Camille Al-Sheikh, I think, is the Muslim man for Omaha who initially started this and now it's been picked up by a bunch of different groups.

And it's kind of, well, I don't know, I don't want to say exploding, but it feels like it's becoming a bit more mainstream. would have been your thoughts on it or have you seen much from where you're sitting? Yeah, I had Camille on my show. I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago to chat about it. I think it's certainly interesting to watch. And look, I'm in the business of building bridges and not burning them or I try to be anyway. And I love when you see different groups that don't necessarily have a lot in common get together behind a political cause. So, you know, just as the Freedom Convoy brought together indigenous people in Quebec, ex-separatists and Alberta separatists and, you know, conservatives and Green Party people like

altogether, even if they won't agree on, you know, 99% of other things, they could agree on that core aspect. We're seeing the same thing on parental rights right now, where people who may not agree on religion and politics, but say, you know what, we can all come together for our children and our belief that parents are the first and best educators for their children. So I'm encouraged by by what I'm seeing. I don't know if politicians are going to listen in all provinces, but the number of provinces where we have seen them speak up in support in some way of parental rights has been quite notable. In New Brunswick has started and then pretty soon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, even Ontario, which I think did the wrong thing at every step of the

journey on COVID, but seems to be at least adopting parental rights in some way nominally. we don't know how that's going to look in policy yet, but I think it's working. And I think when people see this landscape of Canadians of all different faith backgrounds and of no faith at all that are saying, yeah, we want to support our children and our right as parents, that's going to make a movement. And to go back to the Milton Friedman line, that's going to create the conditions where even terrible politicians will have to do the right thing. Yeah, it's been interesting to watch the different governments put forth different things. Saskatchewan, you know, when you bring them up. But Saskatchewan, I don't know, is it the government? I assume it's the government is being sued right now.

And that could be as quickly as they put that policy in place, it could be out the door again. You know, and that type of thing is interesting to watch because I think people need to understand that. That it's not just a slam dunk, walk away their parental rights and nothing else. because as soon as it happened, a law firm out of Ontario filed a whatever injunction or whatever the word type is to try and put a halt to it, like immediately. And so the verdict is still, we're still waiting on it because, you know, they got, I think it's court coming up here. One of the listeners from Saskatchewan should update me on this. I'm sure it's coming here in the next couple weeks that they have to, you know, make a decision on whether to put a hold or a stay or whatever the word is here. This is where I need the lawyer.

I need Layton Gray back on so he can be like, this is what they're talking about. Anyways. But regardless, when you talk about creating conditions for politicians, I don't disagree with you. And one of the things about the million person march for kids that I was really full. I'm still fascinated by is a Muslim asking all faiths. I'm like, well, that's kind of cool, isn't it? Like, I mean, Wendy, I don't know about you, Andrew, but in the Western world, we've had an image of Muslim people promoted for a very long time, and that isn't it.

I'm just, you know, like, that's about as easy as I can say it. Like, to me, you know, since 9-11, for sure, it's been one image promoted. And whether you didn't believe it or not, that's been the way it's been in movies, Hollywood, you know, and now it's like the opposite, right? Like there's, you know, racism towards them and everything. It's like, I don't know. Like, does anybody? And to see that community reach out and then hopefully other communities go and create a bridge or, you know, take the olive branch for what it is and march beside them would be something of a spectacle, I would think all media would want to capture. Well, I mean, one of the challenges here is that to counteract what you just described, the media and the political class have tried to basically say that you're not even allowed to criticize when there is some radical Islamic hate preacher that's saying, you know, death to the Jews. If you speak up, it's like, oh, no, no, no, diversity and all of that. And the liberals have really tried to adopt Muslims as their pets. You know, when Justin Trudeau in 2015 kind of weaponized for political gain, the Syrian refugee,

crisis. Since then, the liberals have been all about diversity, diversity, diversity. And then it's amazing when the Muslims speak up and say, well, you know, we have kind of some traditional views about family. It's like, well, bigots, bigots. The liberals that were like holding them up as being model Canadians for the last 22 years are now turning around and saying, no, no, no, we side with the trans folks, not the Muslim folks. And that is the problem with diversity bingo, is that eventually you're going to have two groups whose interests or demands are in conflict. And, you know, the Muslims are saying what Christians and Jews have said, which is that we don't want everyone to be Muslim. We just want you to let us be Muslim and let us have our views and

our values and our faith. And that is no longer permitted. I mean, again, it's the, the LGBTQ movement, and I'm not referring to gay people. I'm talking about the politically charged advocates of this movement. I don't just want tolerance and coexistence. They want. They want forced acceptance of every single aspect of this, which when you push into the gender ideology realm is a big ask from people because you're saying, okay, not only do you need to accept that maybe Heather has two mommies, but you need to accept that Timmy wants non-binary pronouns on Monday and female pronouns on Tuesday and male pronouns Wednesday up until lunchtime, at which point Timmy reverts to

non-binary. We're supposed to just say this is entire normal. There's a story this week in Quebec where there's a teacher that's demanding to be referred to as mix instead of Ms. or Mr. And the school is like giving kids a lecture on the first day of class about the importance of diversity and tolerance. So that's the problem here. We're not just forcing people to accept, which I think is an entirely reasonable thing to do in a pluralistic society. We're forcing them to celebrate. And I just, I think of Jordan Peterson and, you know, just speak the truth. And when you, you know, if all of society, society agrees that somebody can be called mix.

Is that what you said, mix? Yeah, mix. MX, but it's pronounced mix. You know, if all of society thinks that's a cool thing to do. I hate that I know this, by the way. You know, well, I agree. I've been rattling off LGBTQ2SL plus for so many weeks in a row. You miss the I and the A.

Well, I know, and I miss the P, you know. So, I mean, at the end of the day, there's just so many going. But, you know, it's interesting to me. It's just like, you know, if society deems something is, you know, as this is the way, they just kind of adopt it and slowly move along and whatever else. But to, like, force people to call you, like, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, like, it just sucks that it's involved with kids, right? Because I think that, you know, as a parent sitting on this side.

You know, Andrew goes, I want you to call me Mix. I'm like, all right, Mix. And I'd probably tease the shit out of you, right? Instead, you got a position, a person in a position of authority saying something that makes zero sense to any of us. It just doesn't make any sense. And there's going to be somebody's like, well, this is why. And you're like, okay, it still doesn't make any sense. Like, over the course of history, that's ridiculous.

But it's kids. And, like, we've seen a few different kids speak up. and then they get ostracized. And like, I didn't think that ever happened, but in this world it does. And that's when you look at you. Like, we're, you know, I call it the upside down, but we're in a strange place, man.

Like, we were in a very, very strange place. Jordan Peterson was warned about it years ago, and I didn't quite get it, and now I'm starting to see what he was talking about, and on and on and on it goes. You know, I am happy to see Caleb Lemieux show up as a man, though, instead of wearing giant prosthetic breasts at her new job, or his new job,

I didn't even know what to say at this point. At Mix's new job. That mixes new job. Cover all your bases. Before I let you out of here, we've got to do the final question, but I also want to give you a plug. Where can people find Andrew Lawton? Well, my show is the Andrew Lawton show, and it's at True North, which is tnc.com,

and my substack is Andrew Lawton. substack.com. What do you have upcoming here, whether it's this week or in the weeks to come that's on your horizon? What are you aiming at? What are you covering? So this weekend, I'm actually in Quebec City covering the Conservative Party of Canada's annual or biennual convention.

So next week on the show, I'll have some interviews and coverage from that and kind of a look at where the Conservative Party is sitting and orienting itself moving into the next election. Quebec City is that do they just pick that out of a hat or is that like yeah they kind of just rotate around through this one was like scheduled I think before COVID and they ended up like they had already put down the deposit

at the convention center or something I guess so they just had to had to stick it there but yeah they do it like Calgary Vancouver or Montreal they do it all over sure yeah well I've heard lots of great things about Quebec City I've been through it once but I've never actually spent any amount of time in there so who would be at that convention

and who are you hoping to sit down and talk to? Like if you could have your pick and a letter. I mean, look, I've done several interviews with Pierre Paulyev. It would be great to do more with him. There's always stuff going on there. A lot of the conservative MPs, perhaps even all, should be there. So I would actually put it out to your audience. If there are any people that you want to make sure I grab and pull over,

do send me a note on Twitter or something. But I don't know. I guess I'm kind of interested in the ones that have something to say that's not just, you know, Justin Trudeau is bad. Like immigration has been under the microscope for the last few months. I'd love to talk to the conservative immigration critic Tom Comitch and kind of get a little bit more specifics about what the conservatives would do on that file. Yeah, the immigration thing is an interesting thing.

To get up to 500,000 new immigrants in the country by 2025, that's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, and also, I mean, the conservatives are in a tricky spot because they also, get a lot of support from immigrants. I mean, we were just talking about the million person march. I mean, a lot of those Muslim people are going to perhaps vote conservative. And if they turn around and say, okay, but we're not going to let grandma come into the country, that's going to be a challenge. And this is where you get to the point where politics gets in the way of policy. Yeah, but aren't, this is where I feel like people are more reasonable than, than they probably

are. If you're sitting there and you're going and you explain it out, and this is probably where I think you know you can be reasonable and probably not but it'd be like listen the reason why we have to cap it at a certain amount of people coming in the country every single year is because of these problems and if you want these problems to to stop we have to lower the amount of immigration coming in the year uh per year otherwise we're going to start seeing these offshoot problems and it's great you got grandma in here but there's going to be all these problems that come with that and and and are people not that reasonable am i way too green in thinking that? I mean, it's challenging because I think you talk about the media problem that

we were discussing earlier here in that the media will twist any reasonable restriction on immigration to being, he's shutting the doors, he's banning immigrants, he's doing all that. And ethnic media has had, I've heard, I don't read ethnic media papers because I don't speak the languages, but I've heard they sometimes can tweak that out. So you get this paranoia in certain ethnic communities that that kind of overly inflates what a proposal would actually do. At the same time, a lot of people that I have spoken to, I mean, when I ran for office, for example, I was running provincially. Immigration wasn't a provincial issue, but I would talk to people that were newer Canadians and they would share with me a belief on immigration that were letting in too many people. So they were often far more

desiring of a restriction on immigration, but people can make an exception for their own family. It's like they want the door shut behind them, but they want to be able to kind of open it a crack for people they know to come over. And that's an entirely reasonable thing. It's just so charged the issue. It's impossible to have, or at least very difficult to have that nuanced conversation. So if you watch Pierre Pauliev, who's been asked by, I don't know if I asked him or if one of my call, I think I might have asked him once. And one of my colleagues asked him, you know, listen, the liberals are saying 500,000. Yes or no, will you stick to that number?

and his answer as well, we're going to look at the number and it's not a yes or no. Now, supporters of him will say, oh, well, if you listen really carefully, what he's saying is that he wants to make sure the number is reasonable, which means, of course, he'll lower it, to which I say, okay, then come out and say you'll lower it if that's your belief. Yeah, it's, I don't envy politicians because I feel like I, you know, you'd be able to just come out and do bang, bang, bang, and say exactly what's on your mind. and I'm sure that'd piss people off. I'm positive it would, but dang it'd be nice to hear a politician that says exactly what he's thinking at all times.

Well, maybe not all times, but you know the point. I'm trying to throw at you. Before I let you out here, the Crude Master final question. I'm going to go all the way back. I've done a couple of these over the last couple interviews, but he's the owner of Crude Master, him and his wife, Tracy. He'd been on the podcast and he said, if you're going to stand behind a cause, stand behind it absolutely. what's one thing Andrew stands behind?

Free speech. It has always been the hill to die on for me. It will continue to be the hill to die on. If you don't have free speech, you can't talk about anything else of substance and do anything else. And that's why I have been so incessant in my coverage of the internet regulations

because I see that as being a very significant infringement of free speech. But that for me is and will be the hill to die on. Well, thank you, sir, for for hopping in and doing this. Great to finally have you on this side on the show and look forward to, I don't know, hopefully the future has a lot of bright days ahead of it in it. I'm sure it does, but, you know, here in Canada, I look forward to talking some of the

issues that I'm sure are to come in the days, months, years ahead. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Hey, thanks, guys, for tuning in today. That was Andrew Lawton. and hopefully you enjoyed the show. Today's show brought to you by Calrock Industries. All you got to do is go to calrock.com to get all their information,

new, used, and refurbished oil and gas equipment in stock. That's here in Lloydminster. They're your best bet when it comes to finding equipment that fits your needs and is within your budget and is ready as soon as you need it. Also wanted to say that I want to hear what your favorite part of the interview was. Working with Jack, we've been trying to cut out

some of the best parts of the interview. and toss them out on social media. So if you got a thought on Andrew's chat today or our conversation today with Andrew, shoot me an up and shoot me a note in the text line and the show notes and would love to hear for your guys' thoughts. And we'll get that tossed out there

and let it roll. Either way, we'll catch up to you on the next one. Thanks for tuning in today, guys.