Shaun Newman Podcast - #907 - James Bauder

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

James Bauder is an Albertan truck driver and co-founder of Canada Unity, a group opposing public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic and was a key organizer of the 2022 Canada Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. Arrested in February 2022, Bauder faces charges including mischief, intimidation, and obstructing police. He is currently seeking political asylum in the United States and has since had a Canada-wide warrant issued for failing to appear in court. James Bauder Link: www.Buymeacoffee.com/jamesbauderTo watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] Money SummitWebsite: ExpatMoneySummit.com

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things. Recently, I just put out a video on wisdom. I was just like, where do you find it? You know, I read proverbs every morning. And I like some of the comments. Here's Lee Hepner. Wisdom comes from the elders. What better source of experience than from those that have been around the block a few times? Tim had commented if only the political class could learn from history. Maybe they'd see what the results of full-blown socialism are. And then Kevin Damon said, I agree with Lee and Tim. The education of history and conversing with the old ones will help a great deal. Also observing life without inserting your own perceptions and preferences can lead you to good things. Even listening to the honest to a fault thoughts of a child can lead, even listening to the honest

to a fault thoughts of a child can lead you to wisdom. If you have your thoughts on where you gain wisdom from, shoot me a text. I'm just curious. I was reading Proverbs 3 and 4 and it just, you know, it reiterates over and over and over again that wisdom and knowledge will give you peace in life and will lead you to a lot of good things. So I was just kind of curious. Where do you find wisdom? The new studio is coming along and if you want to get your name on the legacy wall, shoot me a text. See if we can't figure out some things

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I just want to see those numbers to continue to grow. It does help with the algorithms to have the show rated, and I appreciate it if you do that. All right. Let's get on to the tale of the tape. Today's guest is an Alberta truck driver and co-founder of Canada Unity. He was also a key organizer of the Freedom Convoy. Now he's seeking political asylum in the United States of America. I'm talking about James Bauder.

So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by James Bauder. Thank you, sir, for hopping on this morning. Thank you, Sean. Pleasure. Now, I know bits and pieces of your story.

I want to say my audience knows exactly who you are, but I could be wrong on that. So how will we just start with who is James and then we'll get into everything going on today? Just tell us a bit about yourself, James. Well, let's see here. Come from the Alberta side of the fence where I grew up on the farm and then from there, I went into the oil patch and I got my CDL at the age of 18 and started working my way through the oil patch. And then I went back into farming and then COVID hit. And then I went back into trucking.

And from there, you know, this little thing behind me here called the Freedom Convoy. I'm one of the, you know, key people involved with the Freedom Convoys. So that took me to all across Canada. I lit a whole pile of convoys and was out on the front lines depending businesses. And from all the unlawful mandates. And from there, You know, got to see one of the largest peaceful movements in our lifetime take place in Ottawa that then sparked a flame that went around the entire world with Freedom Convoy, Freedom Convoy, Freedom Convoy, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide were involved and participated in eventually the tyrannical mandates that were imposed, not just on Canadians, but all over the world started to drop.

all over one word, freedom, you know, the two words are freedom and convoy put together. And, you know, part of my other aspect is I've tried to the best of my abilities to bring unity into the center of conversations between Canadians. And that's not an easy topic, especially when you're dealing with left versus right and polarization and misinformation and disinformation and disinformation. from media. So here's this one word, unity, and what do we do with it? So, you know, I introduced, you know, some strategies of putting unity in our community throughout the COVID era. And, you know, I'm happily married to my beautiful wife, Sandy, who is also my co-driver. She got her CDL after we got back from Ottawa when the Emergency Act was invoked. Both my wife and I, we were arrested. We were one of the last people in Ottawa making a stand there, and we also had responsibilities

as being organizers. So we were in the Ark Hotel when the Emergency Act was imposed upon us, and nobody was around in the Ark anymore. It was just Sandy and I, and a couple of the vets that were, you know, standing around to protect the folks. And we had a bunch of rooms that had to get cleaning out and all sorts of stuff. So, you know, we walked out of the hotel, you know, going to get my morning coffee. And there's a whole parade of, you know, militarized police that were on one mandate, one mandate alone was to arrest and kick out anybody that was within, you know, eyesight of the inner inside Ottawa down.

core when that happened. So we were unfortunately arrested, even though we didn't break any laws and we didn't violate any laws and we didn't advocate for any laws to be broken. So, you know, that event from the unlawful use of the Emergency Act, which has been found by a federal judge Mosley to be unjustified and a violation of our rights has cost an enormous amount of hardship and pain and suffering throughout, you know, unprecedented levels all across Canada, Sean. We've got over 272 that are a result. These are just salt to the earth, regular folks, just like your followers, you know, hardworking people that stood up. And as a

result of them standing up peacefully, they get, you know, arrested as a result of that emergency act. And then a federal judge comes along afterwards and says, hey, wait a minute, you know, Justin Trudeau and Christia Freeland and Bill Blair and the Attorney General and all our ministers at the federal level, they violated everybody's rights. What they did was wrong and unjustified. So you would think a logical point at that point would be to look at all of the charges that are all across Canada. There's like I said over 272 individuals that participated. And you know the faces of the Freedom Convoy like Chris and Tamara and myself, but there's so many other beautiful people that didn't ask to have law. off-air political persecution committed against them.

They didn't ask to have their rights taken away. They didn't ask to be put in solitary confinement. They didn't ask to be put in prison. They didn't ask for a criminal record. They didn't ask to have their trucks and their bank account ceased. They didn't ask for any of those tyrannical aspects that have taken place. And yet here we are. We've got an entire nation.

that has got individuals who are victims of law fair and political persecution. Crime example is John Carpe. He is, you know, one of the founders of JCCF, and he just lost it. He just got disbarred on the second. So an Alberta lawyer, you know, this is the second time. He's been disbarred, Manitoba, and now Alberta, because he stood up for our freedoms.

And he's a lawfare. against him. He was a guest to the show just a couple weeks ago, so I'm sad to hear that. Yeah, I just found this out, you know, that, you know, this morning, I'm having my morning coffee and I'm like, no darn way. You know, good guy. And folks say that lawyers don't fight for us. Well, they're wrong. I've got over 11 lawyers myself. I'm not kidding you, Sean, 11 lawyers fighting for my freedom. Because I did something really unprecedented is my lawyers with democracy fund, and I'm grateful for them.

They are really good folks. Have strategically put my trial at the very end of all of the freedom convoy persecuted. So that because there's something that's unique to Gene. that puts me in a different classification than anybody else in Canada. My charges, when I appeared in front of the crown for the very first time, remember I got arrested in Ottawa, just like a lot of other folks, and there was arrests that were taking place, you know, the Cootsboys and all over Canada. So a massive sweep of arrest took place as a result of that Emergency Act.

So I appear in court in the very first time. They go, oh, you know, I had the senior crown prosecutor make a special appearance to hand me additional charges that nobody else in Canada has. And they link me as the founder and the architect behind the entire Freedom Convoy. And truth be known is that I started this whole thing back in July, August. of 2021. So I did a lot of organizing nationwide with a lot of groups. And I also have my national group, Canada Unity, which I had a huge following. So I'm partnered up with other national groups. So I'm working with those national groups and we're promoting and we're planting seeds across Canada, get ready to go to Ottawa, we're going to fill Ottawa with semis. We don't know when,

but we know that this is going to happen. It's the right thing to do. And I, you know, before I approached anybody, something that is, and this is where the Crown prosecutors, they have this evidence, is that I approach, police on guard for the nationwide group, talking to another nationwide group, you know, director to director. And I talked to the directors of, police on guard and I approached them and I said I have this strategy I want to fill Ottawa with semis I want to create a nationwide convoy that's never been done before and I want to use the spirit of unity and I want to do this lawfully and peacefully and I know what we're going up against we're going up against a government regime that is just beating the crop out of

Canadians with all these unjustified mandates so you know that that's sparked a whole chain of events hundreds of Zoom calls going out into farmers quonsets and barns and going into Walmart parking lots and Tim Horton parking lots and leading convoy after convoy after convoy after convoy all over the map going to businesses that were getting brutalized at that time when they said hey I I refuse to ask for my customers to put a mask on. I refuse to ask my customers if they've got a vaccine or not. I'm here, you know, everybody can come to my business.

But then along comes the Gestapo, the police, handing down $100,000, $200,000 fines, putting pastors in jail that's kept their churches open and said, we're not going to comply. So, I mean, this is all going on, all over the map. And it was getting worse and worse and worse. And some of the red flags that my wife had were watching what was happening out in eastern Canada at the time.

When you had to show up and get groceries and show your passport, your vaccination passport. I was like, who, where are we going? We need change and we need to stand up. So, you know, myself, I might be just the initial spark. arc of a grassroots movement. But then soon a lot of other folks started to join in. And we all started to collaborate together in unity on how to put unity back in our communities,

which was a strategy that I was working on. So along come December 10th, which is why I'm in a lot of heat with the federal government and our judicial system is that I may, a very powerful speech addressed right to Justin Trudeau right in front of his office on Parliament Hill on December 10th and I said, Justin Trudeau, if you continue with your unlawful mandates, and I kept saying unlawful mandates, see, a mandate is not a law. Folks just forgot all that. Corporations forgot. It's a policy. It's not law.

and you do not have to comply with a mandate, period, full stop. But yet folks were falling for this all over the place. Corporations were telling their employees, you have to comply, you have to comply. No, you don't. Show me in the law where a mandate overrides my rights. Okay? We can talk about that for a whole, for days and days and days and days on itself. But going back to December 10th, I made a very big speech and I said, no way, I'm a truck driver and I standing up and, you know, originally it was standing up for all of the mandates.

But then it switched into, you know what, this federal mandate against all the truckers of which I am and I was forced to quit my job because it refused to comply to a policy where the country. companies were, you know, just doing what other companies did. Well, the government says, so we have to do, so you have to do. And I said, no, no, no, no, you're wrong, and I'm not going to follow all of this stuff. So I quit my job just before in December, just before Christmas of 2021. So, yeah, 2021, somewhere around that area. It gets blurry. It's, I mean, this has been going on for four years for me.

So anyway, I said, if you put the mandates on the federal trackers require to get a fully vaccinated, I'm going to fill out of all the semis. And Sean, because of all of that work done prior, I kept my word. When those mandates came on, it was very easy for me to flick a switch and enact multiple layers of strategy that it takes. taken months to put together where website went up, route mapping went up, who's, you know, all the different cities and towns that we stopped in across the entire coast. That was all done.

Who the captains are, you name it. There was a lot of back-end legwork that was already done and all I had to do is go flip a switch. Everything's posted up on the website. And then from there, you know, trust on another strategy to bring in social media influencers to jump on board. And, you know, Canada took care of the rest. And it was the most amazing thing to witness from my chair in this convoy to see the love and the unity and the hope that we all share together. So, government. In our conversation yesterday before we did this, I was telling you that I got to talk to Chris Barber from roadside.

He's pulled over. I just looked it up. I think it was January, just to put it in perspective of how close it was to the convoy. It shows January 19th, whether it was the day before that. It just kind of gives you some idea, January 19th, 2022. So it's summer a day or two before that would be my guess, but I don't actually know. and I told you, I'm like, that that'll never work. But I appreciate that they're going to raise money.

And if they raise too much money, they're going to give it to veterans at the time, right? And then it's funny that interview went out. And the amount of people that texted me if I was going on it and I'm going on it. I'm working at this time, I've got three young kids. You know, I'm just piecing together this show,

trying to like, you know, get an interview out, etc. And it was, you know, only days later, the you know that uh everybody knows i think on this side that i followed out the convoy and caught you guys in thunder bay essentially and then rode in it from um sue saint marie for no from thunder man now now my memory's foggy james regardless i got to ride with pretty boy in in uh part of the convoy and you know though that's a memory you know that i'll never forget you know the the amount of people on the roadside um you know just how many people you know how many people you have reiterated to me they're proud of the Canadian flag again, right? Just the

amount of flags was was insane and the amount of people that were sitting out there, you know, it's for anyone that isn't in Canada listening to this to understand how cold it was at that time of year and the fact that if you're going to take a trip across Canada to do it in the middle of winter other than truck drivers, you basically go, no, I'm not doing that. Like the roads are not the greatest. You're going through northern Ontario, which I played hockey there for three years. Like, it was almost weekly the road was shut down because of an accident, right? Like, this isn't the safest time to go across.

And the fact that no giant accident happened because of that or that anything else for that matter, like people having fires right on the roadside and waving flags, I remember driving behind the convoy now and just being like, I can't make any silly decisions here because there's people on both sides of me all the way, you know, if it was supposed to be a four-hour drive, it took eight hours. And the reason for that is because people were like standing out in front, making you stop, they wanted to talk. And then when you did get open stretches, there were still people on both sides of the highway.

And you're like, this is, this is wild. You know, like every Canadian should have participated just to see that and feel that emotion that was all along the highway all the way to Ottawa. Yeah, Sean, there is so much love from coast to coast. And out here in the West, you know, as an Alberta boy, you know, we got to see, you know, the start of it. But then also understand that we don't talk about the eastern Ontario aspect. We don't talk about the Eastern Canada convoy that was also included, which was also just as amazing to witness. So speaking of Thunder Bay,

that's when Chris and I had finally got to catch up with each other. And we're sitting in Big Red. They're having some conversations. And I said, I got to take off and I got to go catch up with the Eastern convoy because they're coming in and we've got to try to coordinate all this, you know, multiple, multiple convoys. You know, we had to separate the convoy from the west and go both directions so that it could all flow. There is a lot of logistics, and it takes truckers with experience to move things. And I'm really, really still to this day, extremely proud of.

of all the captains that were involved, the pilot drivers that were involved, behind the scenes, the communities that stepped up, especially when, you know, truckers, we can only drive for a certain amount of time. So we had to coordinate all of the legal aspects for truckers to drive because they have to operate under certain laws. And then, you know, you've got all of the personal vehicles and you've got motorhomes and you got all sorts of elements to this. You have, public safety on all the sides of the roads. You got overpasses. So you can imagine how much work was involved behind the scenes. This wasn't just something that you flick a switch. And, you know, you're going to organize Canada's largest protest overnight. No, it took months

of work. And I'm really, really amazed at how well it turned out and just wowed that no one accidents, you know, during a crazy amount of time. The highways couldn't have been safer at that time because we weren't cold that fast. You know, there are so many people that just wanted us to stop and on the sides. I remember, uh, uh, somewhere around Saskatchewan, uh, we're going. And I've seen this little family here. And, you know, in the middle of nowhere, you know, these, these country roads that just come out of nowhere on a highway.

Yeah. And, and, and, and I've seen this. family and they had their pickup truck parked and they were all cuddled up in the back of the pickup truck with blankets on and their little flag and you know they're they're just all by themselves and i'm just like wow the stories that i get to this day of uh folks and how this touched them one one couple they uh they got so excited they had uh they whatever moved them they just said we've got to go we got to go we got to get into this conway And they got two days down the road and they're like, where's our kids?

We forgot our kids. I was like, what we need to do? Folks that said we were just going to come out for a little bit. And that was part of the strategy. If you wanted to get on the conboy and he just wanted to come along for a ride for day trip, jump in and, you know, hook up with us and you go back home. Well, a lot of folks just didn't go back home. It just carried on.

I had nothing, no clothes. They just, I can't leave. I got to keep going. So, you know, you get to Ottawa and just, wow, to witness that. Did you, if I understand you correct, you left Thunder Bay, went to the East Convoy, so you rode in with the Eastern Convoy into Ottawa. Is that correct? Yes.

And then we were. You didn't get, you didn't get to experience North Bay then. North Bay I went through there, but, the time I'm talking about, I've reiterated this multiple times. You had the convoy split after Thunder Bay. One went to north route, one went right along side. I took off on the south route, so I didn't go on the north route. So sorry about that. No, no, no, no.

I just, just to share a story. I went through Sue St. Marie and stopped in there because they got a unity center. in Sioux St. Marie that I helped start. So, you know, there were sort of a, that goes right back to the first convoy I'd ever been on in 2019. I got to, you know, meet some really amazing Canadians in Sue St. Marie. And then just, they adopted me. I don't know.

You know, just super, super nice people. And they started something really, really unique where they got together and they took over a school. And then they made it into a freedom fighting. you know a freedom advocacy uh place and massive facility so uh they you know approached the founders and we all got talking and uh you know became uh also a canada unity center as well so it was really a uh you know like coming home uh in a sense uh for me uh so i had to stop in there and visit everybody and then uh you know that night i took off uh to uh uh bypass armpar which is one

of our main zoning areas to get everybody reorganized and then work with authorities to go from our empire into Ottawa. But I didn't get to go to that part. I had to get over on the other side of Ottawa to facilitate a lot of other elements that were coming in from Quebec and from all the east coast provinces. Well, the reason I bring up North Bay in particular is, so I caught it at, We caught the convoy at Dryden, Ontario. That's where I'd played hockey. And so we stopped and visited with my billet parents from back in my hockey days.

And so I kept saying, like, how big is this thing? Like, I just, I have no understanding. And in North Bay, the two convoys, or the same convoy, converged back in. And the road was shaking, A, like, it was wild. And there was just thousands of people everywhere. It's a, you know, like, I don't think I took enough pictures or video. I should have just been like, I should have never taken, I should have a GoPro camera on or something.

You know, you always have the best ideas in hindsight. But like, North Bay to me on the drive out there was an insane, insane in the best possible way. I've never seen anything like that. All the cities across that we got to watch Convoy come into was really cool. But North Bay, it was night. It was cold. and both convoys, the same convoy, but it finally converged

and you got to see the seismic and it was just wild. It was just straight out of some movie, I guess. And that was crazy to me. That's just a side story that I, you know, as a man who raced ahead and brought it back in the other side, I'm sure you have stories from... I can relate to the popos are calling me

every half hour when this thing first started. How many are... the convoy. And they wanted to know prior to the start date, how many are going to be in? How many are going to be in? And I just kept, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. How would I know? You know, I had no idea how many people were going to show up for this thing, starting from the very, very, very, very start, the place where every day, every couple of hours, how many are going to be in? And then we start the convoy. And then the phone calls are coming in from the place again. James, how many? How many? How many?

I'm like, I don't know. I'm talking to the captains here, and I'm hearing reports that there's hundreds. And then an hour would go by and they'd phone me up again. James, how many? I'm like, well, I don't know. I think we're at 10 kilometers long now. Oh, wow. And then it was like, well, I think maybe you should get your plane and get in the air

because we can't track this anymore. And then they come back and they're like, this thing's over 100 kilometers long. And I'm like, cool. That was just the first start of it out of BC where we were over 100 kilometers long. We couldn't track it in a amount of people. It was how many kilometers long it was.

So then they get to Calgary and it took all night. It was still moving and we were shut down in Calgary and it was still coming in from northern BC and northern Alberta. So then we get into Winnipeg and over on the other side of Alberta, the convoys still coming. That's how big, just the first start of it was. We're on the other side on the eastern side of Winnipeg and the convoy. is still coming from Alberta. Okay. Wrap your head around that.

Yeah, well, people were. And that's verified by the police that had their, you know, they were reporting to me and they're like, mind blowing. So like, how do we handle this? It's just like, but we're all going on. When you talk about a true grassroots movement,

it caught the attention of every Canadian. Whether they were pro it or not, I have no idea, but every Canadian, and there was more than a few that were pro, as you're pointing out, with the size of it and the support of it. Let's fast forward then, because, I mean, like, I listened to you a couple of interviews you've done. And I happily married on this side, as I pointed out, I got three young kids. Walk me through the end of the convoy in Ottawa and watching your wife getting arrested. To me, that's got to be a difficult thing to be a part of. I don't know. Like, I just...

You know, Sean, threw out that whole thing. We kept telling people, and you're right on the Code of Conduct that I wrote with the team was, this is peaceful, this is lawful, you respect the police, you respect each other. Under no circumstances, are you to ever use violence? Period. Full stop.

And everybody, you know, any of the organizers, any of the captains, and captains kept changing down in Ottawa, you know, every couple of days you'd have a new captain and you'd have a new block captain. And the whole standard protocol was nobody, nobody used violence against the police, period, full stop. If they beat us, don't, like, we have cameras, you know, let them beat us.

So seeing my wife being arrested, and I'm also being put in handcuffs at the same time, we're about a half a block away, and I'm watching her and looking on her face, and I'm just, I had to do an immense amount of self-control not to lose my cool. And I just, at that point, I just started praying to God and said, you know, this is over my, over my shoulders. here and and you know very fortunate that a couple of hours later we're in the same uh detachment center and we're getting fingerprinted i'm looking at her and she's looking at me and she's getting fingerprinted i'm getting fingerprinted and we're just shaking her heads and uh you know um you know we get both our marching orders released on our own recognizance because we don't have criminal records and

things like that. So the police said under no circumstances, are you allowed to return into the red zone, which was downtown Ottawa? And we're like, well, what do we do with their possessions? And they seized our vehicle and impounded it. Also had our bank account seized. So, you know, all we had when we got reunited together was our cell phones.

So both of us jumped up. and we did a live feed calling for help. You know, where are we going to go? Where are we going to stay? And this is going to really rock Alberta. You know who came to our aid? Quebec. Rescued Sandy and I.

Quebec did. I still get emotional over this, over the west and the east fighting each other. But if you were in Ottawa, you've seen the east come out and see. stand in unity together. And it wasn't West versus East. And we've been played for so many years to hate each other, to have division.

When you see real unity, it moves you, touches you. And you're forever changed. You can't go back. And that's what we got to see in Ottawa. I got to watch the Quebec part of the convoy come in. and uh you know out here in alberta as you well know right Quebec is almost a dirty word it is and and uh watching them come in and then the Florida Lee being everywhere and Alberta flags being everywhere and Canadian flags being everywhere I'm like this is so cool right like

when you talk about seeing true unity it's moving that I couldn't have said it any better jams because that is exactly what the freedom convoy represented I mean why else is it so demonized and attacked to this day. Yeah. So tell me a boat. Tell me about what you're doing now. Because, you know, like, if you rewind the clock,

I don't know what people would say 10 years, is it 20 years, take your pick, maybe even just before the, before COVID. An American seeking asylum in Canada. I don't even think anyone would bat an eye at it. Oh, yeah, sure.

But now a Canadian seeking asylum. in the United States, that should raise a bunch of people's eyebrows. I mean, I know tons of people, acquaintances, friends that have moved to the United States or elsewhere. They're getting out of Canada. They want nothing to do with it. But asylum is a, well, I haven't, I don't know if I've come across that. So walk me through this.

Sorry. It's called political for a reason. If anybody questions the Emergency Act not being political and politicized, and if anybody questions the criminality behind all of these charges that are a result of the invocation of the Emergency Act being used. And like I said, you know, we're right back from when Judge Mosley found the federal, you know, he came forward as a federal judge and he said, hey, wait a minute, Trudeau, this is wrong. You violated rights. Well, the Attorney General at that point, and there's laws that have been broken here by the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecutors, and nobody talks about this. The lawyer certainly can't talk about this. prime example, John Carpe, you know, if you bring this stuff forward, you're going to get penalized severely.

So I'm sitting on some evidence against the Crown prosecutors and the Attorney General specifically in regards to how they violated laws as a result of not dropping the charges against a minimum of 272 Canadians. just one of them. And remember my lawyers put me at the very end because I'm facing up to 15 years in jail. Okay, not 10 years, not five years, 15 years, the most severe punishment possible of anybody charged in the entire Freedom Convoy, 15 years, folks. So I don't know. how you would all respond if you were in my shoes and your lawyers came to you and said, James, you're going to jail. There's nothing we can do about it. Get ready, get prepared. You're going to jail. You know, you haven't broke any laws. It doesn't matter what we say in court because the judges and the crown prosecutors are committing lawfare and they're committing

political persecution against everybody. And if they, it's too bad, suck it up, get ready to you're going to jail. And I'm like, really? Hold my beer. I'm going to go and do something that needs to be done. And I'm going to commit reverse lawfare by filing for political asylum in the USA where I know, and I did my research on, I know that I can fight this in the United States because of the First Amendment, which does. doesn't have any loopholes in it versus the Canadian Charter of No Rights, No Freedoms, where they abused the notwithstanding clause all the time. And I've met the man that wrote the Canadian Charter of Rights, Mr. Brian Peckford, and he will lose his. The blood pressure

goes off. You mentioned the notwithstanding clause, and he just loses. loses it because that was never the intention of the document that he created for all of us. And the government has nicely used and abused that notwithstanding clause to, you know, conduct lawfare and political persecution with anybody that doesn't fall in their narrative. Anybody that, you know, stands up for and does a protest and they don't agree with it. They can use the notwithstanding clause. So I bring my whole evidence pile down to USA. I hire one of the top lawyers that you can get.

He is number one in USA when it comes to affairs like this. He's high profile, Mr. Matthew Coaklin. He wrote the book on all of this stuff. So we've been talking and strategizing. He is like you have one of the most unprecedented cases in USA history. This is precedent setting because you're not only, qualified under all levels. So there's a risk assessment that lawyers have to do prior to, you know, people just don't understand how it's not an easy path to go through political

persecution. You have to have overwhelming, substantiating hard physical evidence to back up your claim or it gets rejected. So the five main key questions are, is there evidence of lawfare? Check, yes, there is. Is there evidence of political persecution? Check, yes, there is. Is there evidence of political prosecution? So there's a difference between persecution and prosecution.

They're very similar. However, in the law point of view, there's definite differences. So political prosecution, yes. Is there evidence of harms committed against you by the government or the judicial system? Check, yes. Is there evidence of potential harm against you if you are to be returned back to Canada? Meaning if we don't accept your application, what harm would come to you if you were returned? So five key questions are involved in the political asylum application, where you are a asylum seeker.

So that's all been very, very well done. It took from April 15th where I made the decision to say goodbye to my wife. That's about 140 some odd days ago. so April to today and I entered USA legally folks I'm not an illegal migrant not an illegal alien I am a Canadian USA long haul truck driver

that was driving with a load that was already granted by the border custom agents for me to be legally in USA So I'm here with a nice little stamp saying you're here lawfully and legally. And from there, you're, you know, the next step is I've hired a very good lawyer. And from there, it took a team of many, many lawyers to go through and look at all the hard evidence and can start compiling a legal brief that's in the hundreds of pages long,

that's never been created before in American history, that will eventually land in the courts of USA, exposing the entire Canadian judicial system from coast to coast, and exposing our federal ministers for the unlawful aspects, for the crimes that they've committed against myself and 272 Freedom Convoy participants and organizers such as Chris and Tamara, who are looking at seven years for Tamara and eight years for Chris, which is, you know, nobody should have one day in court.

Remember, the Crown and the Attorney General have violated laws. All these charges should have been dropped by law, because they're all the result of the Emergency Act. James, sorry, I just got a thought, you make a point of saying I entered the USA legally. Has there been like people trying to say that you're there illegally or why do you make such a point on that? Oh my goodness. Sean, I have such amazing fun with all my trolls. You know, they give me entertainment, really.

on X or on Facebook. You should go to ICE Detention Center. Oh, alligator alcatraz for James. You're a coward because you're running away from the law. Oh, the stories that we get is just absolutely insane coming from people that supposedly just want to try to lower my spirits. And I'm just like, meh. I have so much support from coast to coast worldwide as well.

Folks that know the truth. They're folks that sit back and actually don't follow the mainstream narratives. They're intelligent enough to put two and two together and come up with four and what's right and what's wrong. So it's just, you know, if you're in the fight for freedom, you also have to have some thick skin. and sit back and watch the insults and watch the hate and just brush it off. I don't even get involved anymore. I have so many supporters that just sit back and I watch the comments and supporters are just, they go after them on their own.

And it's just, it's kind of sad in some perspective, seeing how much stupidity is exercised from folks that just have no clue. They all have opinions, but they're not entitled to the truth. If I may, though, you helping be an architect, and I don't know if you like that word, but forgive me, that's one that comes to mind when you're talking about the freedom convoy and all the intricacies that made it possible and successful and safe and all these things, right? There's a ton of planning that went in the background. So when I hear you point out that I went across legally, you know, they have a stand, you know, and you walk through, you thought that out then because if you didn't get across legally, they would. would be able to deport you back to Canada, right? You have to walk through all the things that allow you to be successful in this.

I don't even know, allow you to be successful in this, this lane that you've chosen to go down because. Reverse lawfare. Because if at any point you do something that they can hook you on, you're back in Canada, as I understand it, you know, from the Rebel News report, there's now been a nationwide warrant for your arrest. So if you come back to Canada, it's like, well, what's going to happen? You're going to jail. You're going to jail.

It'll be solitary confinement just like others. So let's jump you up on this. So I've made my file. And I got, you know, I'm down here in USA, you know, working on all this. And I've got my Canadian democracy fund lawyers that are battling it out with the crown prosecutors back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And eventually what they were trying to do, my lawyers, which makes, makes common sense was to adjourn my trial, which is the last trucker standing trial of all the

Freedom Convoy, which is in a, so I've got two different trials. I got one, which is a Freedom Charter Challenge, or sorry, a Charter Challenge, which is in October. We haven't dealt with that even yet. Okay. So I still have to hear that's going to come up in the news here future is, you know, I've got to appear for that. But for the criminal trial, which is November and December, I won't be there, okay, obviously, because under the legal requirements, when you file for political asylum, remember what harms would come to me? Okay, it makes no logical sense.

You don't return back to your home country. You give up your home country. That's the price of freedom that I pay. I know going into this that I can never return to Canada ever. I've given up my home to fight for freedom for the 272 and myself. So I can't come back to Canada, period, full stop. Okay. And the law is very clear on that.

There's international laws and there's also U.S. laws. So political asylum seekers are protected under the laws. And my attorneys were trying to get an adjournment to push back the trial dates in Ottawa so that it would give time for my political asylum case here in USA to be brought forward to a judge, which has to happen and be accepted or rejected. Well, you know, logical decision makers you would think that makes pretty logical sense. We've got murderers, we've got pedophiles, we've got people breaking into houses, and we've got all sorts of other bigger issues that we could use our court time with. So we've got to keep these courts free.

And if we've got a person that can't be in that courtroom, well, then adjourn the trial. That's a pretty standard practice, right? No. No, no, no, no, no. The judge that decided to issue a nationwide warrant for my arrest first issued a Canadian-wide summons for me to appear. He revoked my lawyer's rights to appear on my own, on my behalf, which is a pretty standard thing. This is just like a jury pre-trial.

So you don't need to be present. Your lawyer can stand up there and talk to the Crown Prosecutor because they're just coordinating details of the eventual trial that we have to stand there for. So a lot of times, you know, I mean, that's what we have lawyers for. You can continue on. You don't need to be in that courtroom. Well, the judge didn't like, he revoked my lawyer's rights.

What we're talking about, the democracy, on lawyers here. These guys are high-end really good doing what they do. And they got kicked out, said, nope, you can't represent James. He needs to be here and answer to me personally why he's not going to come to, why he's not going to be in this trial. And the lawyers are like, political asylum, lawfare, evidence. Well, the judge doesn't have the evidence file. Okay. That's clue number one. So then the judge says, well, James has got no merit, and his claim isn't justified, and we're unbiased.

So we're going to issue a nationwide warrant for his arrest, put him on Canada's most wanted list, and we're going to make sure that he's here in this courtroom. Okay, so the judge went over international law. He went over U.S. law. The definition of lawfare and political persecution just took place in that courtroom right there, right there on August 15th or whatever, 17th or whatever it was when this happened. So it just strengthened an already powerful legal brief that's already in place. It just gave me more evidence.

So here's the reality is that I am so heavily protected under the laws of USA and international laws. I cannot be extradited back to Canada and the safe country agreement. If the Crown prosecutors want to proceed forward, so right now I'm on Canada's most wanted. I'm a trucker. It's crazy. But crazy. So that doesn't mean that there's going to be an extradition warrant. So right now my lawyers are working with the Crown to see if the Crown is going to proceed forward.

So this is now in the Crown's hands. Do they want to proceed with an extradition warrant to try to extradite me back to Canada, where obviously I'm going to go to jail, which then gets the U.S. Department of Justice involved, Pam Bondi, because you have an attorney, she's the Attorney General for USA. So she has the final say, final authority in USA for any of these matters. So we could go through courts and so on and so forth. The judge could say yes. He could say no. So this has to get battled out in U.S. soil. Remember that First Amendment, okay? And reverse lawfare is being played against the Canadian government and the Canadian judicial system.

And according to a team of very high powerful, very smart, very qualified, very competent, experienced lawyers, a team of them. They've all said, James, you've put the Canadian judicial system and checkmate. You've won. The evidence is that strong. The crown has lost its control over me. and the evidence speaks on itself and its own merits. The crowns lost control, sorry, the crown's lost control over you. Yeah.

And the price for that is to never come back to your home country again. Correct. But I'm not running. I'm charging the hill with everything I got to fight for this, to expose. It was no more different than when we took the Freedom Convoy to Ottawa. our whole plan was to expose this on a global stage. Right now, I'm doing the same thing. I'm just continuing the freedom convoy with one person.

I'm exposing all this. Unjustified lawfare and unjustified political persecution that's taking place across our entire country. Yeah, for anyone to, I don't know, sitting on this side, James, for anyone to come after you for running away or anything like that. I laugh at that. I'm like, what? Like, a, 272 people have faced persecution for the Freedom Convoy. Correct?

Correct. And it could be, minimum, right. And each one of them has had to figure out the best way forward forward themselves. So I look at this and I'm like, for anyone to judge you for running away. I'm like, there's people leaving in droves right now. They just, they don't want to be in this country anymore. That's sad because, you know, born and raised here, I, I can see, you know, when we, when you go back to the unity conversation right at the start of this, it's like, you can see what Canada could be. But then you see the stack of cards that are leveled against us.

And you go, I don't know how this gets figured out. So for you to, to choose, well, do I just go to jail for, you know, do they charge him with 15 years? Do I only get seven? Do I get whatever? And then the next question's got to be, we're talking about seven years or whatever the years are for peaceful protest. I'm like, those two things don't go together, folks. And we all know it. And so for anyone to judge you about it, I would strongly suggest they go think about that for themselves if they were sitting facing 15 years in jail, what they would do and how they would go about it.

Even one day in jail to me. Yeah, well, fair. Okay, seriously, at the end of the day, if you look at the scales of justice, one day versus a life sentence, it's the whole principle behind the scales of justice. They're not balanced. They're very, very biased. So a criminal record is a death sentence to a long-haul USA Canada trucker. That's the end of my business. Okay.

So I have to fight it because that's my. my livelihood. I can't get a criminal record. I meant to ask you this right off the hop before, but then we went into the freedom compoy and everything else before 20 and you take your pick on the number but I'll say 20 before the pandemic started and all the things started coming in. Does James Bauter have like a criminal record of 18 things yet you know like I don't know. I was just curious right was this long track record. Yeah. Zero. And under the public inquiry, everybody's records were fully exposed, whether you had a record or not,

and it's got no criminal record, as well as truck drivers. I mean, you know, to cross the border and stuff like that, there's a level of scrutiny that's applied to us for bonds and so on and so and so forth, security into certain aspects. So, yeah, no, no criminal record at all, zero. I've been a good boy. I mean, my biggest thing is I like to go fast and I get some speeding tickets, typical Alberta oil patch guy, right? But other than that,

that's the extent of it. There's some speeding tickets here and there. But yeah. Common sense, you use the word common sense, and I use it all the time as well. But, I mean, that isn't the state of Canada these days. When you talk about common sense and knowing that that isn't going to

happen, the chances that they relent on this is probably close to zero, which means they're going to come after even harder, but that only solidifies your political asylum case even more, correct? Yeah, and I don't know what the Attorney General of Canada and the senior management team that's on top of the Crown prosecutors are thinking right now. because, you know, they really are a checkmate. If they proceed forward with an extradition warrant, then it goes in front of a judge, and then the evidence file comes forward.

Checkmate. They lose. And by judge, forgive me, the judge would be in the... But the judge, just for one second. The whole Canadian judicial system, we're talking the Emergency Act, we're talking seizing of our bank accounts, we're talking, the National Citizens Inquiry Report.

I have so much evidence that shows law firm political persecution and harm being done, not just myself, but to thousands of Canadians that gets entered and publicly exposed in a public court with cameras rolling. So they have to really sit there and go, do we want to try to extradite this man? Because we could end up really in a hornet's nest in a bad wood. where we're going to lose, there's no,

there's no pathway forward for them to win. If I may. Yeah. If they go for extradition, if judge it goes before would be in the United States of America, not Canada, correct? Yeah, that's all happens in U.S. soil.

So it's... With all the evidence. The reason I ask that question is because if it comes back to a Canadian judge, you know, there's a whole bunch of, So just they're like at this point, you know, like it doesn't matter what the evidence says. The conclusion has already been made on the freedom convoy, anyone who participated in it, et cetera, et cetera.

The reason I bring up the judge being in the United States is now it goes into the United States Court of Law where things should be different. And they will get to examine all the evidence for themselves, which in theory, and I'm just theorizing. They apply the First Amendment to all of this. Hello, check meet. Well, and just think of the media, think of the media scrutiny that will come from that. Oh, we're just getting started here. We're getting warmed up.

I know that this ends all in one pathway is that I will be vindicated. I will, the evidence stands on its own merit. And from there, once I'm officially accepted, I'm in status pending right now. So while you're in status pending, there's protocols that you've got to follow. One of those brutal protocols that I don't like right now that's killing me is I can't work. I'm going squirrely. I can't work.

You know, I'm 54 years old. I have been, I like to work. I like to drive Sammy. I want to be with my wife. And she gets added to my application eventually down the road as my wife. So eventually we will be reunited together as a husband and wife as a long haul truck driving husband and wife team, which are like the unicorns of the driving industry. You know, everybody wants a husband and wife team.

They really do. We can haul us and we can, sorry, we can, we can, we can, we can, uh, we can, uh, We can cover an awful lot of ground in a quick period of time. So companies and brokers and everybody, they love dealing with husband and wife teams. And we're very experienced. We know what we're doing. We've got clean CDLs. So, you know, I want to work and I want to be reunited with my wife.

But I've got blockades in front of me that are in front of me a waiting period of 180 days. So I won't get to legally work, even though my application was filed at the beginning of August legally I got to go through this legal waiting period as an asylum seeker that will then grant me the the right to work in you know February March of next year sometime so right pretty hard to go through all that you lose your home you lose your house you lose your friends do you lose your family and you also lose your job and your ability of making a living uh it's pretty uh freedom isn't free but at the end of the day what options do i have you know do i go to the canadian judicial system and in october

november december and uh oh you know put me in jail because uh you're going to do it anyways it doesn't matter what i say doesn't matter what my lawyers say uh the judges um and the crowns have already found me guilty before I even get on that cart room. So, you know, this is just, uh, it had to be done. If people, expose this. If people are wanting to, uh,

um, follow this along, James, or support or anything like that. I know you got a bunch of different links. Um, where can people find those? I'll probably add them to, what I'll do is I'll add them to the show notes. What do you throw them up on the screen and just, uh,

uh, that way, folks can can see them there there's the gifts and go support james water um and i've been very transparent with folks so there's this really amazing uh brother of mine dave freedom and that's actually his last name freedom uh for real for real so uh you know he uh he uh he said when i set this up he said be very transparent with folks uh show receipts uh so uh i've got two uh posted receipts of uh 10,000 and 9,500 going to my lawyer. That's USD. So there's $20,000 worth of receipts.

And I'm only at, I think, $13,000 raised. So, you know, I've had to use my savings that I had. So that's just a thing there. but if you want to go to the actual website, I've got the Give MeSand Go, and then I've also got Buy Me a Coffee slash James Bauter. And the Buy Me a Coffee one is a new program that I launched. It's really cool.

I can share videos. I can share news clippings, which, you know, as you know, as a Canadian, you know, you can't share news because we're in communist land. So that's been a really good one. Videos. Yeah, this one right here. Really cool. I can share videos, news, all sorts of stuff. You can literally a dollar to whatever amount you want to throw in there. Folks that, you know, the average donations are coming in, you know, 50 to, you know, 100 bucks kind of thing. And I mean, I cannot express, Sean, how grateful I am for the support that I'm getting. It is overwhelming my heart every single day.

And I wish I could hug everybody. I really do. And there's not enough thank you. Because I can't take this fight on. I've lost everything. And I still have legal fees. And in order to win this fight, unfortunately, you know, you have to hire lawyers. And I've dealt with, oh, the lawyers have been doing this for free, James.

Well, who out here, Sean, do you want to work for free? Who in this world works for free? Okay? These are $1,000 an hour lawyers. They're the top, top, top in the world. They don't work for free. And they've been extremely, extremely generous with their rate. It's almost pro bono, but they've got to make a little bit of money.

I think they're charging me 150 an hour, which is super reasonable, considering they've got hundreds of hours invested already in preparing an unprecedented legal brief. And it doesn't stop from there. There's court time. There's judges. There's all sorts of, you know, the fight isn't over for me yet. Even though I know that it all lands at the same verdict is I will have my asylum accepted because of the overwhelming. evidence and then from there the next chapter is a class action lawsuit filed here on US soil against the Canadian government and the Canadian judicial system.

What I'll do is I'll put all the links in the show notes that way people can just go and click on them. Is there any final thoughts you have for Canadians before I let you off here? Is, you know, any parting words you want anyone to know? I am lost right now for Canada. I really am. I don't know what the solution is anymore. I mean, we've tried and tried and tried all of us in our own different ways

to try to restore democracy in Canada. And as in Albertan, you know, I see the upcoming referendum. And I can't deny that I'm a supporter of the independence movement. And I think that other provinces, when I look at the federal government, I will look at World Economic Forum and the federal government signing us on to the WHO World Health Organization, you know, the next pandemic. We're all screwed. Planned Demic. We're all screwed in Canada.

I look at the economic factor. I look at our GDP. I look at their interest rates. I look at the homeless. I look at the flood of migrants coming into this country. I look at all of it. And I don't, I'm, I'm really lost to be honest with you, Sean, on what, what is the answer? And I think, I think really from a strategist point of view, is to support the Alberta independence movement right now.

Because that could be the catalyst, the, that could be the seed and the spark that brings down the regime nationwide. So then you have another province that starts to look at Alberta and all of the benefits financially. You know, like Isaac Einstein, you know, if you've got a problem, take the emotion out, get a piece of paper, column A, column B. Pros and cons. And write out the pros and the cons for your question that you're asking. So when you do this exercise for Alberta independence on column A, what are the, what are the, the pros and column B, what are the cons? Holy what an exercise. You're going to see all the benefits outweigh the cons on the other side. It's huge. It's massive difference. It's right there in black and white. So, you know, I think that that might potentially spark

Saskatchewan and then Manitoba, Quebec, the eastern provinces, and eventually the thing called the British Monarch and the World Economic Forum and all the control mechanisms, the regime that they have over us, it starts to crumble on itself and it loses the control that they have right now over Canadians. And maybe that's what the future of Canada looks like is independent provinces that just don't have the federal government anymore. That would be a dream come true is get rid of the federal government and have independence within our provinces and have unity between the provinces and just get rid of the federal government. Well, how do you get rid of the federal government? You have to cut the umbilical card.

You've got to go snip, snip, snip, and say bye-bye. So that's where I'm at as in Alberta. Boy, I support the movement. And if I could vote, but I don't know. don't think I can come back to Canada, remember? So I can't even come back to Alberta to vote for that. But I think that's a pathway forward to take on this federal government that has just went full-bore, tyrannical, socialist, Marxist, neoist, fascist, communists, you name it. They have a massiveism problem.

But when you talk about patriotism and you talk about independence, lawful freedoms, they are, you know, their fruits are weighed and measured by their actions. And you've got, you know, you've got to look at that, that the federal government just isn't in it for anybody anymore, except for themselves. So appreciate you coming on, James, and doing this. And we'll be paying attention to see what comes of this. in probably the near future. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of updates. You know, you can follow me on X as well.

If you want to, that's sort of a neutral platform or at least I can post my media updates and news updates. There's a lot of them. You can Google my name. Lots of stuff comes up. So, Trucker 4F is my, my X account. I had 350,000 plus followers. and then I woke up one day and they were all gone, you know, it is what it is. What do you do with that?

So I'm starting over, ground zero kind of thing on platforms. And so if you want to follow me on X or follow me on Facebook, I'd be appreciative as well, just to keep in touch. And I love all of you. I really do. My heart goes out to those that are standing up for their freedoms. And, you know, we've just got to keep the spirit of unity. Keep the conversation going.

And remember that little exercise. Column A, column B, it works. Thanks, James. Okay.