Andrew Lawton and Spencer Fernando dissect Justin Trudeau’s handling of the 2022 Ottawa convoy protests, where Lawton was pepper-sprayed while documenting police brutality, and Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act to suppress dissent. They critique Trudeau’s European trip amid the Ukraine crisis as a distraction from domestic failures like inflation and gas price hikes—linked to his carbon tax policies—while questioning whether he sees Canada’s role in Ukraine as substantive or performative. His government’s focus on electric cars over military spending or Arctic defense, alongside contradictions like banning Russian athletes but not oil imports, risks undermining Western economic unity. The convoy protests signal rising political assertiveness, potentially reshaping Canada’s global image and forcing overdue debates on energy dependence and governance, with Trudeau’s weakened standing spotlighting the Conservative leadership race as a pivotal alternative. [Automatically generated summary]
Thanks for watching another episode of Andrew Says We Are Here live or at least we'll say we're live with Andrew Lawton and Spencer Fernando.
How are you guys doing today?
I died like half an hour ago.
I'm not alive.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I don't know what that means.
Spencer, how are you?
Good.
Good.
Very high energy today, Spencer.
Okay, it's early in the morning.
I know.
I'm thanking you guys for joining me.
The first thing I want to get to is with you, Andrew.
I saw in Ottawa the pictures.
I saw a brief video, but I haven't seen a full recollection of what happened when you got pepper sprayed.
Can you review for our audience who maybe hasn't seen it what exactly happened during your coverage in Ottawa?
I know we probably saw it from different angles.
I just want to get your take on what happened.
Yeah, and I'll try to give the condensed version of the story, but the one thing I will draw attention to is that it happened almost at the exact moment of the famous trampling incident where that Indigenous woman was basically pushed to the ground by a movement of police horses.
And it was actually my effort to see what was happening there that really got me to miss what was happening to me or was about to happen to me.
It was in front of the Chateau Laurier.
It was the day before the protest was really completely disbanded.
Police were trying to push closer and closer to Parliament Hill and had managed to do it until the Chateau Laurier, which is about two blocks east or so of Center Block.
And police had been keeping a pretty steady, methodical pace for most of the morning, which made it easy if you were a journalist to be there and kind of be able to predict where you could safely be.
And I was where a lot of other journalists were, especially news photographers.
And it was at that exact moment that the tactic changed very dramatically.
Police rushed forward.
They broke either intentionally or unintentionally, I don't know, that solid line that they had.
That's why you had the horses go out ahead over near the sides.
Police actually started pushing people against like a wall.
And that's where I got trapped and I didn't really have anywhere to go.
I wasn't able to move back.
And then eventually, despite being about, you know, six, seven, eight feet from the front line, I got pepper spray directly in my left eye.
And that was quite a shock because, again, I had been following every order to obey.
I had been deliberately staying out of the clash that was at that immediate front line of the protesters and police.
But evidently, that was not enough.
How long did that take you out of commission for?
Because I know you were there reporting and doing a bunch of stories there.
How long did that take you out for?
Or did you just keep going?
Well, immediate, I mean, immediately it took me out for, you know, probably a good five, ten minutes or so, just trying to, like in the field, get back to a point where I could see and my eye could open and I could work.
I mean, that tweet that I put out with that photo of just like the close-up of like my giant swollen face was something I was like doing with kind of like one eye and one finger as I was trying to kind of clean my eye out.
So it wasn't actually, but I knew it was important to document.
But later on, I ended up having to spend a couple of hours going to the hospital and getting treated there because it was a particularly prolonged reaction, which they advised you to seek treatment for.
So I don't have an exact time, but it wasn't just about, oh, this minor inconvenience for a few minutes, as I think a lot of people assume pepper spray is.
It can actually do some damage.
And I think it can be reactivated too if you try to rent it out later.
Given the, like I said, the live stream coverage and the coverage from people on the ground, do you think this sort of exacerbates or further separates people down party lines?
Because you could really get two worlds.
If you're looking at CBC or CTV coverage who are talking about a lot about themselves and a lot about how dangerous and how they're ravaging the streets of audio, or if you look at True North coverage, who's on the ground, talking to people, getting stuff at the front lines, do you think this could further separate people and there could be completely opposite interpretations depending on who you watch?
Well, I think that was definitely the case.
And just look at, I mean, I know everyone talks about the bouncy castle and the hot tub and all of these things, but I think they're important symbols of it because to some people, you would look at the convoy and just see this big block party.
And to other people, you would look at the convoy and see this radical Haiti hate fest insurrection.
Patrick Brown's Campaign Strategy00:15:04
And again, I'm not going to whitewash it.
There were some people that, of course, were not there and all just having fun.
I mean, these were isolated incidents, though.
The general vibe, the general atmosphere was a peaceful protest and a very fun environment for people up until the very end.
And when you have people looking at that and seeing a fringe minority with unacceptable views and seeing all of these things that the media were claiming were happening there, how can you not have this confusion in these parallel societies that are unfolding?
So Trudeau calls this Emergency Act.
And Spencer, I want to get your take about when they go do that second vote and then they revoke it almost immediately within a couple days.
What do you think was the purpose of that?
Was that just Trudeau flexing his muscles saying, hey, look, I can keep going with this for as long as I want?
Or is that sort of actually them saying, oh, we don't need this anymore.
It turns out that we don't actually need it or this is giving us blowback.
What's your take on them getting that vote and then basically taking it away within a couple days?
Yeah, I think it was a way for him to kind of impose his will on the people who in his caucus who were starting to push back.
You had Joel Lightbound who was criticizing the government, and then you had, I think, I think it's Nate Erskine Smith, and he was kind of hinting that he didn't like the idea, but then he said he only voted for it because the government called it a confidence motion.
So I think the liberals, Trudeau, was starting to feel that he was getting too much pushback and he wanted to, you know, kind of threaten his own people and impose his will on them.
And so it is kind of a flex of power to say, you know, I made you vote for this against your morals and against your beliefs.
And now two days later, I'm revoking it.
I mean, he also humiliated Jake Meet Singh, which I'm sure he enjoyed doing.
So yeah, I think it was really a power move.
Well, what about the bloc coming in with the conservatives on these votes?
Unanimously, of course, and you've got four parties split two and two.
What do you think the strategy behind the block coming in and supporting the conservatives was there?
They always like throwing a wrench in things, it seems.
Sometimes successfully, sometimes very successfully, sometimes nobody even notices.
What do you think the strategy was for that particular vote?
Yeah, I think with the bloc, it's that they don't like the federal government imposing powers, right?
They may not have opposed exactly what the government was doing if they had been in charge of doing it, perhaps in Quebec, but they don't like the idea of the central federal government imposing things that would influence what Quebec could do or take away the rights of people in Quebec, right?
So it's not necessarily the most altruistic position for them, but that does sometimes line them up with the conservatives who have lately been opposed to government overreach and government infringement on individual freedoms.
So kind of a relationship of convenience there, but I think we'll take what we can get when it comes to politicians pushing back against some of this stuff.
Andrew, do you see the same way to add to that?
Yeah, the only thing that I think the Block Québécois dislikes more than conservatives is federal government overreach into provincial affairs.
And the last thing they want is the federal government going in and conscripting Quebec tow truck drivers, freezing Quebecers' bank accounts, all of these things.
So, I mean, I have a great deal of disagreement with the Bloqué Bécois, but on this, their concerns, again, especially given the invocation of the old War Measures Act and the FLQ, I think Quebecers have a very keen awareness for just how dangerous legislation like this is.
For sure.
And it's always very interesting when, you know, enemy of my enemy becomes my friend, essentially, which I think is what was happening there.
I want to move on because I want to get, you know, how highly I consider you both in the Canadian realm of politics.
I want to get both of your takes on the conservative candidates that are coming up.
It's a few months away, and, you know, people are throwing their hat in.
And Jean Charest, if you, I mean, I just remember him for his name.
But if you have voted for the first time within the last seven years, let's say when Justin Trudeau got into office, you're probably not going to know who he is.
If, let's say, you turned 18 and now you're 25 or 24.
What do you think the strategy is there?
Is it one of these situations where you hope that he's just a fresh face in some people's mind because he's jumped around a lot?
What do you think the strategy is there?
Is it just, you know, get myself back in there, get some money, get some emails?
What do you guys think?
Andrew, you want to go first?
Yeah, I do think there is a legitimate question of, are you yesterday's candidate?
Are you this guy coming back?
I mean, there's a history of that happening in Canadian politics.
Justin Trudeau was gone, was in retirement, and came back.
And if you are just looking at it from an objective historical point of view, his most successful term in which he accomplished the most, not saying that it was good accomplishments, but the one he accomplished the most in was undeniably his last term.
So I do think there is a sense of someone coming out of retirement and having a last kick at the can of sorts.
As far as the translation of that to voters, I don't know.
One thing that is working in his favor is that the media loves him.
The media loves talking about Jean Chara.
People like Jerry Butts are saying, yeah, we should all be paying attention to Jean Charais.
And a former liberal senator wrote an op-ed defending him as being a true conservative, which is great because for all of my assessments of conservatism, I go to liberal, former members of the Senate.
But I think that legitimately, Canadians will know the name.
And if they don't know it directly, they'll be told to know it.
They'll be told he's someone who's relevant.
But as we see, that doesn't always translate within a leadership contest to success.
Peter McKay got that treatment.
He was the one that everyone wanted.
He was the one that the Globe and Mail was writing about.
And in the end, he didn't even come close.
So as far as whether he is going to win or not, I don't know if he's connected enough to the conservative base or if he has enough of a campaign that he can sign up new members, convince current members.
That'll be the big question in a leadership context anyway.
Spencer, how much influence do you think that some of these corporate media outlets can have in pushing like somebody, pushing somebody like him into contention?
Well, it could be quite a lot, right?
Because name recognition is really half the battle, if not more, in a leadership race, especially with a lot of candidates.
And so he's going to get that immediately.
And, you know, as Andrew said, right, people who don't know of him will be made to know of him.
He's going to get more favorable coverage.
I mean, you already see, look at the difference in coverage he's getting compared to pure Polyev, right?
I mean, it's quite different.
And so that's going to be a challenge for Polyev and for more true conservatives in the race.
They're going to have to fight not just against the Shere campaign, but also against the media.
And they're going to spin stories as well.
I mean, it just came out a few days ago that Huawei is saying, well, no, actually, Jean-Cheray wasn't actually doing that much in terms of the two legals.
It was more about 5G and lobbying of the government for us.
So, I mean, if that happened to someone like Polyev, that would be the main media story, right?
You know, Polyev caught lying or something like that.
So Shere's going to get somewhat better coverage than other people would.
But again, with the rise of independent media and with social media, it's not quite as easy for the establishment press to push a narrative and then just assume everyone's going to go along with it.
Leslien Lewis is probably an underdog in most people's books.
During the last election, you know, she had, I think, one of the, if not the most, the second most votes, if I'm not overall, if I'm not mistaken there.
And then she settled into her position that she is now.
Now she's running again.
Do you guys think she has a shot at winning, Andrew?
Do you think she has a shot at winning?
Or is this just bolstering her for further down the line?
Because she's got a long career ahead of her, I think.
People like her.
She says a lot of good things.
She has good ideas.
She is one of the people that's brave enough to come out against the grain, against the party on some issues.
She did that by being one of the first people to speak in Ottawa.
What do you think her campaign's goals are going into this?
Well, I think that the campaign goal is to win.
And I think that she did have a very strong showing.
She was a relative unknown in 2020, had never held office.
No one had ever heard of her at the beginning, and ended up, again, with a very significant amount of name recognition and a lot of support from a lot of members of the Conservative base.
Even a lot of Peter McKay's supporters were putting her second on their ballot.
Now, I think that a lot would have to go right for her for her to come out with a win, but I should also qualify that by saying the ranked ballot makes that possible.
So someone like Roman Baber, who has done a lot of work on the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine mandate stuff, is not well known outside of Ontario.
He could have a very strong showing, and then his support, if he gets dropped off the ballot, might flow to Lesland Lewis.
That's one example.
If something really strange happens where Jean Charais people are really, really, really not liking Pierre Polyev, and they want to just put anyone before him, if he gets eliminated, that could flow to Lesland Lewis as well.
And she could also come out of the gate with a very strong amount of support on the first ballot with the support she has from a lot of social conservative groups who are very well organized.
So there is a path to victory.
It would require a lot of different things to happen.
But I also think that she's starting not as an unknown this time.
She's starting as someone that came out of the last leadership race unblemished and also someone who was sidelined by Aaron O'Toole.
She was very high profile because of her showing in the leadership.
And then after the election, she's denied a portfolio in the shadow cabinet, denied a portfolio in the conservative leadership.
And she was really just shoved to the back benches when a lot of people were saying, why is this woman who's speaking for a lot of people in the party getting this treatment?
So I think that there is a lot of support for her.
I just don't know how much it's going to be and where it's going to come from.
Spencer?
Yeah, I think, you know, in the last leadership race, there was kind of a lack of energy, you know, from the base.
You know, they weren't too excited about a lot of the candidates.
And so I think she benefited from that in that she was more outspoken and she was more true to the views of many people in the conservative base and the other candidates were seen to be.
And so I think this time, some of that energy is with Pierre Polyev.
Some, you know, will be with Roman Baber.
And so I think she'll do pretty well, but I think she has a bit more of a challenge this time in that the energy is, you know, a lot of the base is excited about some other candidates as well.
She's not really the only one who's capturing that energy.
So I think it'll be a little more difficult this time, but it'll be interesting to see, right?
I mean, a lot of it's going to come down to, you know, do Patrick Brown supporters go for Shere and do Shere's supporters go for Patrick Brown?
Whether they have an official deal or not, they seem to be certainly working relatively closely together, at least in their message.
I mean, you see their people retweeting some of the same stuff on Twitter.
So I think it'll be interesting to see if, you know, Leslie Lewis, her supporters, where they go and what impact that could have on the final ballot.
Yeah, and I want to talk about Patrick Brown, mainly his tactics, is what I wanted to talk to you guys about regarding him.
To me, Patrick Brown is pulling out some of the, let's say, at least five years old 2016 style sort of an attack, an attack campaign on Pierre, whether you agree with that or not.
I think he's going that style a little bit, and he's got his thing with the ice rink.
We all know his face when David Menzies caught him.
He's got his past controversies with all these allegations.
A lot of it's been retracted by papers now.
What do you guys think?
Do you think this, Andrew, do you think this style of campaign is going to work?
He's got a lot of support in his city, I feel like, judging by the people who came out and supported him last week.
Do you think this style of campaign is going to gain a lot of ground for him, sort of going head-to-head with Pierre?
It's, I mean, again, it certainly is dragging the perceived frontrunner into a fight, which means that you are seen by a lot of people as being at their level.
I mean, if Pierre Polyev didn't think Patrick Brown was worth all that much, he wouldn't bother responding to him.
So I do think that, I mean, Drew North, for example, ran a story about Pierre Polyev and Patrick Brown spat.
So obviously people are paying attention to it.
I do think with Patrick Brown, it's kind of interesting because here's a guy who's a complete hustler in a sense of he works hard.
And he went from being a backbench conservative MP to being the leader of the Ontario PC party because he was picking up the phone, calling people.
He'd be at every event.
He'd talk to everyone.
The problem is that he does not have, similar to Roman Baber, a national footprint.
He has a provincial footprint and he really has a regional and municipal one.
So he needs to make himself part of the national discussion.
And if he's firing potshots at Polyev, that's one good way to do it.
Spencer, if he's doing this with Pierre, do you think, you know, however much you believe his past or not, his troubled past, do you think that becomes a problem for him?
Or do you think people even care at this point in, you know, 2022 politics?
Yeah, well, I think the liberals are looking at this and they're just watching and writing their attack ads, right?
I mean, you can imagine it, right?
So Pierre Polyev becomes a leader.
What does fellow conservative Patrick Brown think about Pierre Polyev?
And then they run Patrick Brown's comments.
And so the Liberals, I'm sure, are really enjoying this.
And, you know, this is where I think the CPC made a serious mistake with their six-month leadership race.
I mean, this is like, what, a week into it?
We've got six more months of this kind of stuff going on.
And that's going to do severe damage to the party.
I mean, whoever wins, right?
So Polyev wins, you're going to have a faction of the party that Brown recruited who are going to say, oh, a racist one.
And then, you know, if Patrick Brown or Jean-Charais wins, you know, there's going to be a whole bunch of people in the Conservative Party, including many MPs, who are going to be quite pissed off and not really happy at all.
And that's going to be a problem.
So I think a six-month leadership race was a serious tactical mistake for them.
And I think they could pay the price for it.
That's an interesting point, especially with provincial races coming up in the summer.
I didn't think about it from that perspective.
But the last person, obviously, last but not least, Pierre Poilev.
And Andrew, I watched some of your interview with him.
I think you did a great job, especially when you asked him questions about hairy things, about things that people are talking about online, like the World Economic Forum.
Did you get the sense that he is much different than the other candidates?
Did you get the sense that he's going to be a different type of conservative leader, maybe leaning further towards a PPC audience that's going to like him?
Or do you think that it becomes, if he becomes party leader, it's going to become sort of the same thing we expected under Aaron O'Toole?
How do you think he becomes a leader in that sense?
It's a really good question.
And I think that one of the big frustrations I've had with conservative leaders in the last two elections, Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole, is their inability or unwillingness to communicate conservative messages and to do it in a capable, clear, and consistent way.
In the case of Andrew Scheer, he seemed to be apologizing for being a conservative.
In the case of Aaron O'Toole, he just abandoned conservative policies when he faced pushback from the media.
So I think that a politician that's going to own their message and actually get down, if the media wants to get dirty, get down and dirty with them.
And that's something Pierre Polyev has shown a willingness to do.
Guns, Gas, and Political Ideology00:15:13
I've seen him push back against the premises of trick questions from the press.
And I'm not comparing him to Ron DeSantis, but I do think there is that Ron DeSantis-like quality.
You know, I guess I am comparing him to Ron DeSantis then, but I think in the specific way of how he owns what he believes and pushes back against the media, there's something in that is very useful.
And I think it helps them because the existing knowledge or wisdom of conservative campaigns just hasn't been working.
You need someone that's going to try and go on the offensive.
So I think on style alone, that will set him apart from others.
On the actual substance, it stands to be seen.
I mean, this is a guy who's been a longtime conservative MP.
He's got a voting record.
People can look at that.
He's not a social conservative.
He's doing the O'Toole thing, which is saying that I believe in free votes and I believe you're a part of this party, but I'm not offering you anything.
But he is also very solid on other red meat conservative issues like free speech.
He was a supporter of the trucker convoy quite early on.
So I think that for a lot of people, he's not just this far-right candidate.
For some, he is in the media.
He is someone who's relatively mainstream in conservatism, but he has a much different way of communicating that.
Spencer, when people look at Pierre, and I'm playing devil's advocate here, and they can say, you know, he didn't speak up about lockdowns or, you know, quarantine facilities in Canada.
He's basically said end all restrictions, but he hasn't said specifically, you know, let unvaccinated people fly.
Should we expect him to come out and be a man of the people, of the entire party?
And like I said, touch into those PPC-style voters?
Or do you think he goes more of an O'Toole way where he has all this bark, but once they get pushback, if he's in power, the leader of the party, that he's going to rescind these promises that he had?
Yeah, you know, I think we could certainly have more confidence in him than O'Toole.
You know, O'Toole was very conflict-averse.
You know, he got scared at seeing whenever the media criticized him, so he just tried to placate everybody and make the problem go away by basically surrendering to the narrative of his opponents.
I think with Polyev and with other conservative MPs, too, it's useful to look at how their message changed when O'Toole was the leader and then when he wasn't the leader anymore, right?
I mean, they certainly started talking a lot more freely about ending restrictions, about opposing government overreach.
And so I think that that's something to look at too.
There's obviously always going to be pressure within parties from what the leader wants, and that obviously influenced a lot of them.
But I think he'll certainly be tougher than O'Toole.
You know, to a certain extent, every conservative leader does a bit of a pivot to the center, just as liberals and NAP somewhat, well, the NAP, not really, but the liberals will try to do that as well.
You're going to be a little more aggressive talking to your party base than you would be to the public.
But the idea is there's a way to do that that's still consistent with your principles, right?
Maybe you change your tone a little bit, but you're not changing your ideas.
What we saw with Aaron O'Toole is he not just changed, he didn't just change his tone to be a little more moderate, but he completely reversed himself and abandoned his ideas.
So since Polyev is a better communicator, I see him being able to manage that a little bit better.
And, you know, he has been sharing a message for quite some time, especially on economic issues that has been quite consistent.
So I imagine he's going to keep doing that.
Yeah, I like what he has to say when he talks about the economy and especially around the pipelines in regards to when he says that about Russia and Ukraine.
You know, we should be building more stuff here, flowing our oil here.
I would like to hear him speak more about, you know, gun legislation and free speech legislation.
And like you said, there's six months.
There's probably plenty of time for that.
I'd love somebody to ask him about it.
But when I think about gun legislation specifically, not knowing how you guys feel about this, but I can't remember the last time that some of this stuff started getting walked back.
I know Stephen Harper, I believe, got rid of the, you know, you have to call the RCMP or the OPP when you're moving your firearm, but that's since been gone back and they've expanded the gun list.
Andrew, do you think that we get to a point where we can actually start talking about, you know, opening up our freedom of speech laws or opening up our gun rights?
Do you think we get to a point in the next election cycle where that becomes a hot topic?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be a hot topic in the election because the media will take any relaxation of firearm restrictions as being, you know, just opening the floodgates to people walking around with, you know, handguns and machine guns and all of that.
But I do think that we are at a point in the country where we need to just stop apologizing for things that make sense from a policy perspective.
I'm a gun owner.
I did a documentary about firearms, so I know this issue very well, as someone affected by it, and also as someone who's reported on it.
And Aaron O'Toole had proposed initially a very sensible approach to firearms that he completely rolled on when he was getting questions about it in the campaign.
Pierre Polyev, he has a lot of rural people in his riding.
I know he has spoken out about guns.
I'm going to be looking to see in his leadership platform what specifically he'll do.
I spoke to Jean Charé about this because he had backed the long gun registry when he was Quebec Premier.
And he basically would only commit in my interview with him to no new restrictions.
He wasn't committing to rolling back any of the Trudeau restrictions.
So I think that you have to look at, especially the prohibition that went in place in May 2020 and also the legislation the Liberals are trying to put forward right now to allow municipalities to ban handguns.
I think a conservative leader needs to say no and no to both of those.
Andrew, I think I know the answer to this, but can you explain to people why the liberal government does a gun ban list as opposed to, you know, regarding function or type of weapon?
Can you explain that for people?
I don't think most people understand the reason why we just got a mass list of weapons.
Well, the one thing I will say, and it's a bugaboo of mine, I don't call them weapons because a weapon is based on intent.
A gun is a gun.
A gun is a firearm.
And I think that what the Liberals or what Canadians need to know first and foremost is that effectively all guns are illegal in Canada unless the government says they're legal.
There's no right to bear arms.
So anything that is allowed is because it's been specifically designated as such, and you have to have a license and go through that.
So every gun in Canada has to be classified.
And the three categories generally are non-restricted, restricted, or prohibited.
And because you have a system that's based on classification, it licenses the government in a way to reclassify, which is what happens, not irregularly, but what happened in that mass form almost two years ago.
As far as the list, you're right to point out that it's not based on usage.
You've got guns that were non-restricted that are more dangerous in the wrong hands than guns that are prohibited because of the way they look.
And the problem is that government really in that order and council started focusing on aesthetic and look a lot more.
I mean, it used to be for the longest time that you could buy a 50-caliber rifle that could shoot, you know, three kilometers away.
And that was non-restricted, like a hunting rifle.
And then you had other guns that, you know, shot little .22 rounds, which will still hurt and they could kill you, but conceivably they're not as dangerous as other rounds.
You had guns that fire those that were restricted because of certain things.
So you do need someone who's going to come in and take a sensible, bigger picture look at this instead of just catering to emotions, which is what the liberals have been doing.
Okay, Spencer, I want to go to you and talk to you about Justin Trudeau.
And I want to ask you, he's in Europe, obviously addressing Ukraine and Russia.
What do you think his strategy is right now?
Is it, I'm running away?
Do you think he's actually doing any good over there?
What do you think is his plan right now?
I think he's trying to stay out of the spotlight after the convoy stuff, but I want to know what you think about this.
Yeah, I mean, his international image took a massive hit, which I think really upsets him because he clearly prioritizes how he's viewed around the world, it would seem more than how he's viewed within Canada.
But, you know, it's tough.
I mean, there is obviously a terrible situation going on with Russia's war against Ukraine.
I do understand that world leaders like Justin Trudeau, you know, whether we like it or not, he is the leader of the country.
He does have to go talk to other people and, you know, do some serious things.
So I hope, you know, for once he's going to actually take it seriously, not view it as a photo op.
There are things Canada can be doing and that we should be talking to our allies about.
One would be increasing our military spending, countering Russia in the Arctic, making sure we can contribute to our alliances.
And obviously, you know, we are getting more oil and gas and at this point wheat out to the world, right?
Because there could be severe wheat shortages and food shortages.
So there are a lot of things Canada could do to help our allies and to help the world.
And so I think we should be doing that.
But it remains to be seen whether Trudeau will take it seriously or whether he just has another video planned.
Andrew, Trudeau and Biden are using this conflict as an excuse for gas price increases.
The carbon tax is being increased again.
Inflation is now because of Biden or because of Putin as if it wasn't happening before.
How much legs can they use this as there to this excuse?
How long can Justin Trudeau say, you know, the economy isn't my fault?
Inflation isn't my fault.
Gas prices and the pipeline isn't my fault.
Maybe that one isn't his fault, actually.
But how long can he use this as an excuse?
And how long can he, you know, continue running a country this way?
Same with Biden, but we're not in America right now.
How much longer can Justin Trudeau continue this downward spiral before people have finally had enough, dare I say?
Yeah, I mean, let's not forget that CBC was trying to stoke the idea that the Russians were behind the convoy before Russia invaded Ukraine.
So blaming Russians is a popular Canadian pastime in the left, even when they haven't done anything.
So when they have done something, it's great because then you can just like really ramp up the whole, everything's Russia's fault.
Like to Justin Trudeau, Russia is the new Scott Bryson.
I mean, Scott Bryson was responsible for everything up until 2021 when Jodie Wilson-Raybold and all of that other stuff had happened.
That was all Scott Bryson's fault.
We're in a new era.
It's all Russia's fault.
And it's a very convenient scapegoat because, yeah, Russia is an aggressor.
And yes, there are global effects on oil prices and the economy when this is happening, but it cannot deflect against what was already happening in the same way as the pandemic.
Justin Trudeau has blamed the pandemic for running up a deficit, neglecting to acknowledge that he was on track to run up quite significant deficits even before the pandemic came about.
So I think people have to start looking at what was happening before these magical external factors arrived.
Spencer, the verbiage on the left right now is buy an electric car.
The gas prices are here to stay.
You know, this is a time that we can all, you know, put a few extra dollars into the government's pocket to stick it to Putin.
And I want to ask you, because the episode we've done together on this show was called and about the great reset.
A lot of these policies moving forward are about climate change and moving towards green energy, which I think is just a shift in who's the billionaires.
How much of this do you think is governed on an international level?
And I don't mean they're saying there's some secret cabal.
I think it's quite public.
Toronto Sun says it's a fantasy land and doesn't exist.
But how much of this is big corporations getting together and saying, you know, we can sort of shift influence in this direction and get money flowing in the direction that we want.
And, you know, we can blame it on Putin, whether you agree with the war or not, or no matter what side you are on.
How much of this do you think is decided on an international level with these huge conglomerates, whether it's media, MasterCards in the World Economic Forum?
You know, Microsoft is.
Do you think there's actual planning going on there?
Or do you think this is actually just a coincidence of leftist governments doing what they think is the right thing?
Yeah, I think a lot of it is just, you know, governments taking advantage of a situation that they didn't create or plan, but they take advantage of it very quickly.
Obviously, with the pandemic, we saw Trudeau say it's an opportunity.
Most people wanted to get back to normal.
Trudeau saw it as a way to get away with certain things that often you couldn't get away with when people weren't afraid in a crisis.
I do think there are a few things.
I mean, one, Canada certainly can help the world, as I said, and we should be doing that.
So I think it'll be interesting to see what our governments will do.
Will they actually wake up and realize, look, you can't tell people to go buy electric cars if they can't afford the price of gas, right?
I mean, electric cars are very expensive, and there's serious supply chain problems there, too.
People shouldn't imagine that somehow the electric car supply chain is independent of everybody else.
And so I think it'll be interesting to see what happens.
I think seeing Ukrainians stand up for their country has inspired a lot of people.
And we can sometimes take freedom for granted, although not what we've seen recently in Canada.
But seeing people give up their lives to fight against a dictator and to fight for their freedom really kind of makes us realize how we are lucky in many ways to be in a somewhat free country at least.
And so I think we have to get serious.
We have to build up our military.
We have to build up our oil and gas sector.
And it remains to be seen if we'll do that.
I mean, you had Melanie Julie yesterday saying, oh, Canada's, we're not a military power.
We do diplomacy.
We convene.
We're a convening power, whatever that means.
So, you know, I think there's, I would suspect there's a divide in the government right now between people who realize that, look, the green energy thing, that's a big failure, not just, you know, economically, but also strategically.
But, you know, there's a fight going on.
Trudeau, I think, is going to try to stick with his ideology very much and just hope this all goes away and he can go back to pandering to the kind of unrealistic green proposition.
So I think we'll see what happens.
I think Canadians need to really demand that the government get serious, though.
Andrew, last question to you, and piggybacking on what I was asking you earlier about the economy.
China, Russia, and it seems like India now are teaming up for their own currency, their own trade.
How much do you think this hurts Western countries in the long run, particularly here in North America?
Do you think this was a mistake to ban all these Russian things outright and say, let's call for Russian NHL players to be gone?
Some people said, they've kicked them out of soccer competitions and international competitions.
Do you think that this is going to hurt in the long run due to an overstep?
Or do you think this was inevitable for Eastern powers, let's call them, to sort of get together and say, hey, we don't need the West?
You know, one thing that comes to mind when you ask that question, Andrew, which is that when people like me were saying that we should be boycotting the Olympics in Beijing, a lot of people were saying, well, it's not fair to the athletes to let them become victims of our politics.
Yet a lot of those same people are the ones saying we should ban the Russian pianist and ban the Russian hockey player and tumb out the Russian vodka and all of that stuff.
Weaning Off Energy Dependence00:02:39
And I think that that is a contradiction that I'm not hearing anyone square and anyone account for.
The fundamental reality is that people are political when you're talking about movements across borders.
But I don't think we should be going after Russian individuals that have nothing to do with the conflict and also are in many cases critical of it, as in the case of the pianists.
And all of this is happening while the big fish, the Russian oil and gas imports are not being addressed.
You've got countries in Europe.
Hungary is an example here, that have just a complete energy dependence, Germany on Russia, or a significant enough one that they can't afford to take the principled stand.
Now, I think we have to talk about what we do to wean ourselves off of energy dependence on countries like Russia.
But in Canada's and the U.S.'s cases, especially, especially, there is no excuse for energy-rich countries to have had to get in bed with it in the first place.
And I know that for me, China is the one that I follow a lot more with the Belt and Road Initiative and China's attempts to basically economically colonize the world.
But we should be learning from this and not letting ourselves get into this position of dependency with other countries in the future when we don't have to.
Yeah, and when you look at, and when we're playing the moral game, you have to bring up places like China or Saudi Arabia, which we spend many more billions of dollars on oil than we do Russia.
Let's check out Saudi Arabia's human rights record at any time.
I know I said last question, but Spencer, I want to know, given the convoys and everything that's happened, the explosion in interest in Canada, are we going to see a lot more focus internationally on Canada's next election, on the Conservative election, do you think?
I think so.
You know, I think for a lot of people, you know, the image of Canada is a very quiet, you know, docile, you know, submissive place was shattered, which I think is really good.
I mean, the fact that Canadians stood up and pushed back against the government shows that there's more toughness and courage in the country than I think perhaps a lot of people on the outside thought there was.
So I think we're going to see more tension on Canada.
I also, I think because Trudeau's image has really degraded internationally so much, the focus will be different.
You know, people are going to be looking at Canada as a very different kind of country and seeing what kind of leader we're going to have and kind of taking their blinders off, which is good.
I mean, you know, one of the big problems I think our country's had for a long time is that we pretended that just being polite and ignoring problems was somehow a virtue when that really means the problems just fester and get even worse.
And so the fact that we're actually, you know, there may be, you know, more political aggressiveness and more political conflict, but I think in the long run, that means we're going to be more honest with each other and actually have real debates about the problems in our country.
Canadians Push Back00:01:09
And only by really debating things can you actually start to fix them.
So I think, you know, in the short term, it's going to be stressful for some people, but in the long term, I think it's good.
And I think the world will be interested to see how Canada starts to change.
Thank you guys so much for joining me, my Canadian Politics Brain Trust, Spencer Fernando on Twitter.
I think spencerfernando.com, yes.
That's right.
Yes, and TNC.news and Andrew Lawton.
You never know when he's going to get pepper sprayed.