Andrew Lawton, senior journalist at True North, recounts his unfiltered access to the 2024 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, clashing with figures like Albert Bourla (Pfizer CEO) and Dame Melanie Dawes (Ofcom), while critiquing Canada’s C-11, C-18, and Online Harms Act—laws expanding state control over media. He contrasts Pierre Poilievre’s rising poll lead with past Conservative leaders’ inconsistency, warning of censorship risks like Chapters’ ban on his book The Freedom Convoy, which sold 200K copies despite opposition. The episode frames WEF’s global influence as a mirror for domestic overreach, urging vigilance against erosion of free speech under both corporate and government pressure. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, a feature interview with our friend Andrew Lawton, senior journalist at True North.
I like Andrew for so many reasons, including I like seeing him when he's doing journalism around the world.
And last I saw him was in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum.
And he took a slightly different approach than we did, and it was very successful.
Ours was successful too, as you know.
We'll talk with him about the World Economic Forum, Pierre Polyev, and many other things in Canada.
That's ahead on this special interview edition.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of the show.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month.
And that's how we live, my friends, because we do not take money from Trudeau and never will.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, a feature interview with senior journalist at True North, Andrew Lawton.
It's February 20th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
Come on, you, you censorious bug.
Well, as you know, we always have a show on statutory holidays.
It's just a tradition we have.
Davos and Lobbyists00:15:44
And one of the things we love to do is take the time to have an extended interview with someone we find particularly interesting or an expert in a subject.
And my friend Andrew Lawton is both of those things.
What I love about him is he fights for freedom, but because he's with True North, which is, I'm going to say, 5% better behaved than Rebel News, he often gets into places where we don't go.
But I still get to hang out with him in the field.
For example, I saw him in Davos, Switzerland, covering the World Economic Forum.
Without further ado, let's bring on our friend Andrew Lawton.
Great to see you, Andrew.
Nice to have you in the studio.
Last I saw you, we were actually at the World Economic Forum.
I thought that was a fascinating event.
I had never been to it before.
Was that the first time you were there as well?
No, I went for the first time last May when they had a lot of people.
Oh, right.
Sorry.
I knew that.
That's right.
I forgot about that.
That's right.
So you're an old-timer.
You know your way around.
Yeah, I'm a WEF veteran now.
I will say, though, I went in May.
This most recent visit was my first time as a quote-unquote accredited journalist.
So I was actually able to get into some of the spaces this time around.
Right.
And that's a fascinating balance because you get access to these VVIPs, but you've got to be, you know, polite enough that you don't get the boot.
Like there's some rules, and it's walking a fine line.
And when I spotted Albert Boorla, the CEO of Pfizer on the street, Avi Yamini, and I really grilled them tough.
I get the feeling if I had done that inside, I probably would have been kicked out, don't you think?
Yeah, and I should say that the many different guidelines I was given as far as what I can do and where I can go, none of it was focused on content.
None of it was that you can't ask tough questions.
A lot of it was focused on spaces, though, where you can't actually record in this space.
And conveniently, those spaces are where a lot of these VVIPs are milling about, grabbing their coffee, their juice, and whatever.
But, you know, I will say, I was able to talk to people.
I was able to do interviews.
And my approach going into this was that I'm not going to change my coverage based on the fact that I have credentials because I felt I had a job to do and that was that.
So I didn't pull any punches in that sense.
Well, you managed to buttonhole some very serious players.
And I think you did a great job.
And I mean, I think there's pluses and minuses to both approaches.
I loved what we did with Albert Burla, but you're right.
Had we been at like a juice bar or a coffee bar, that would have been forbidden.
And fair enough, because, I mean, you don't want a guest at a conference to be antagonized everywhere.
I get it.
What was your favorite interview?
I'd love to show our viewers a clip from what you thought was the most interesting interaction you had.
Oh, that's a tough one.
I think one of the most substantive was an exchange I did with Dame Melanie Dawes, who is the woman in charge of Ofcom, which is the broadcast regulator in the UK.
And the reason I think this is relevant to people in Canada and elsewhere as well is that Ofcom is Britain's CRTC.
And Britain is going through something very similar to what's happening in Canada right now with Bill C-11, which is expanding the authority of its broadcast regulator to include the internet.
So the big question is, why was a woman like this at Davos?
And why does her organization take a censorship approach when it's supposed to be just deciding about broadcast spectrum and who can be on what channel and these sorts of things?
You know, I want to show a clip of that.
I think Ofcom, they are like the CRTC and they're quite aggressive in their investigations and they're quite political.
Here, let's play a clip of you talking to the British regulator, a bit of a premonition of what might come to the internet here in Canada.
Let's take a look.
I was just wondering if I could ask you about whether you think Ofcom is being fair in enforcing its COVID misinformation policy against very legitimate discourse about COVID.
Well, I'm not quite sure what you mean, to be honest with you.
Well, people that have spoken about vaccine injuries have received Ofcom complaints and investigations and broadcast license are in jeopardy of people that talk about very real issues.
I just don't think that we've, I'm not sure it's very hard to answer that question without a specific instance.
GB News is facing investigations.
Well, there are sometimes cases where we open up an investigation, but let's see how that goes.
What we're absolutely clear about is that freedom of expression is incredibly important in the way that we deal with the broadcasting code.
So people are absolutely entitled to express views.
So we always abide by those principles whenever we're looking into anything.
So do you believe that discussing vaccine injury should be allowed?
Certainly, absolutely.
Free and frank and open conversations are always good on any topic.
Well, good for you.
And you also talk to other, I mean, Christia Freeland.
I know you've engaged with Mark Carney before.
There are Canadians who love going to this thing.
And I can understand why.
You know, Canada is a smaller pond in terms of oligarchs and influencers than the world.
And, you know, you can be the deputy prime minister of Canada and start to feel it's sort of small for your ambitions.
You go to Davos and, well, there's Xi Jinping.
There's George Soros.
There's Al Gore.
There's Albert Burla.
You're in a whole different league.
I think that Canadians sort of suck up to Davos.
They think it's where the fanciest Canadians go.
Am I wrong in trying to get into the mind of Canadians who go to Davos as Christia Freeland does?
Like they're trying to set up a bigger deal than just hanging out with the peasants back home.
Yeah, and a lot of them, I mean, obviously we focus on the cabinet ministers who are there, Christia Freeland or people like Mark Carney, but there's also another stratum of guests from Canada that are not household names that are nonetheless there.
For example, executives from SNC Lavalin, executives from Tech Resources, which is an oil and gas company, an odd pairing for an organization like the World Economic Forum that just wants to declare war on the oil and gas sector.
A woman who represents an indigenous group in Canada, some guy that writes about blockchain.
So you've got all these people there.
And the big question that I go back to is: what are they getting out of it?
Because we know that business leaders have to pay big bucks to be there.
In some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars, whereas the politicians are there for free.
And as you and I have discussed in the past, I think it's because they're the product being sold that makes it worth it for someone at a big oil and gas company to perhaps spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Or the CEO of BMO, who for the first time was asked about his comments that came out in the Public Order Emergency Commission calling the truckers or wanting to label the truckers as terrorists.
And again, I've tried to get BMO to talk about this in the past.
The only way I was able to put the question to their CEO was just by doorstepping him on the streets of Davos.
Good for you.
And I'm so glad that you did because those banks were part of really the worst moment.
I mean, listen, shooting peaceful protesters, shooting journalists was pretty atrocious.
The riot horses that the cops were pretty atrocious.
But seizing banks is actually, his bank account is actually far more chilling.
Here's an excerpt from you buttonholing, door stopping, as the Brits say, the BMO chief.
Let's take a look at that.
Minister Freeland said during the Public Order Emergency Commission that you had wanted to call the convoy protesters terrorists to deal with their financing.
Why was that?
So I would never call the convoy protesters terrorists.
What was said is that in order for the banks to be helpful, there are certain protocols.
And those protocols include sanction where we can, in fact, help in that case.
Otherwise, it's not our business to interfere in the affairs of anyone's finances, truckers or otherwise.
One of the other banking executives on that call had pushed back a little bit and said that they didn't want the banks to be weaponized.
Was that a view you shared?
Oh, it's always a view I shared.
I don't think banks should be weaponized any more than any other industry.
I think we have jobs to do and we do it for Canadians.
And I think generally, in fact, more than generally, we do it pretty well.
Did you support the financial measures?
Good for you, Andrew.
Well, listen, I got one more question about the World Economic Forum.
I don't want to talk too much about it, although it was so fascinating.
It was like a target-rich environment.
Like you just stand there.
I mean, I was a peasant on the outside of the drawbridge, but the drawbridge would come down.
And you have to have sort of a keen eye to look at a name tag.
But just in the course of an hour, I saw John Kerry, Tony Blair, Governor Kemp from Georgia, Albert Boorla.
Like you just stand there, and it would be like going fishing in a pond that was stocked with huge trout.
I mean, it really is probably in terms of VIPs per square foot.
It really is the densest gathering of influential people around.
I mean, I suppose the United Nations General Assembly could be, but those are just diplomats.
And a lot of those, you know, frankly, smaller countries aren't even, you know, that recognizable or wouldn't even command that much attention.
I think that Davos, in some ways, and Klaus Schwab in some ways, it's the most influential place in the world.
What do you think of that?
Yeah, it's certainly they strive for that.
And I think it's filled with the most influential people.
It's odd in a way, because if you've ever been to a conference, you'll know that I know you have, but your listeners, they all have this very similar approach where they're very collegial.
You just bump into people and you see, oh, this person that I haven't run into in several years, I just saw them there.
And it's exactly like that, except they're heads of government and heads of state.
So, you know, you go to the washroom inside and oh, the next stall over, it's the prime minister of Belgium.
You're walking around on the street and oh, there's Princess Beatrice that I attempted to get to comment on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but she didn't want to take debate on that.
She just laughed at me.
But you run into people that you would just never see even on their own elsewhere in most cases, let alone altogether.
Yeah, good for you.
Let me ask you one last question about the World Economic Forum before we move on.
I'm riveted by it because I feel like my eyes have been open to them.
You know, for years, Terence Corcoran and the Financial Post would write about them, and I never understood it.
I thought it sounds so boring, World Economic Forum.
So a bunch of economists around the world having a, like, I would fall asleep before I even finished reading the third letter of WEF.
I didn't care.
Terry Corcoran was always banging on about that.
I never got it until very recently.
And I think 95% of Canadians have either never heard of the World Economic Forum or like I used to be, didn't understand why they should care about something full of boring people.
Or if they follow the CBC and the Toronto Star, they say, oh, that's just a conspiracy theory by the alt-right.
So here's my question for you.
You and I have stumbled upon this incredible place where oligarchs and politicians and business people try and shape the world in their image.
But I think that most people either don't know, don't care, or don't want to hear.
What do you think?
Yeah, there are different criticisms.
I mean, there are the people that believe it's a shadowy cabal of satanic child killers in the mountains pulling the puppet strings on the world.
And then there are people on the other side that believe it's saving the world.
They're tackling the challenges head on.
They're fostering cooperation.
And then I think there is a reasoned critique that is not extreme, which is the position that I take, which is that this is a group that exists because it peddles influence.
And they wouldn't have the legitimacy they do to the people that give the money and go year after year if they didn't have influence.
And I think that the big challenge there that I would extract if we're commenting on this, and I think if we are paying attention to this, is that we would never settle for, in a domestic context, all of the corporate CEOs in Canada getting together behind closed doors with all the cabinet ministers in Canada.
We would think that was very weird.
Why do we on a global scale think that's acceptable?
Right.
And I asked both Albert Burla and Greta, who did they meet with in their private meetings?
And neither of them had an answer for me, of course.
Maybe I was too prickly in my questions, but it is a legitimate thing because if Albert Burla came to Canada's parliament, he would have to register with the lobbyist registry.
Yeah, exactly.
And he would have to, at least in general terms, explain what he was there to do.
And that does not happen at Davos for all we know.
He met with Christia Freeland and came to a deal.
I mean, we don't know.
It's not disclosed.
Like you say, it's influence peddling.
Well, listen, it's a fascinating subject.
I'm sure I'll go again next year.
I really enjoyed the trip.
It was a little frosty and hard to get to, but that helped make it more fun, I think.
But let's come back to Canada now.
And I want to talk about the opposite of the World Economic Forum.
They talk about global citizenship.
I want to talk about Canadian citizenship, which is rooted in our national sovereignty, our constitution, and our ability to throw out our leaders.
You can't do that at the World Economic Forum.
You can't vote out Klaus Schwab.
You can't, there's no opposition party in the World Economic Forum.
But there is in Canada so far, at least for a while, there will be, I hope.
And it looks like Pierre Polyev is really starting to get some traction.
I saw a bunch of polls in a row showing that he's leading and not just by the margin of error.
And I mean, I live in the most, the city with the most liberal MPs in Canada.
I live in Toronto.
And I watch CP24, which is just a very popular all-news channel that's always on in restaurants and bars.
And I can't believe my eyes, Andrew, they're actually giving Pierre Polyev fair coverage.
I don't, like, what's going on?
Maybe even in Toronto, some people are getting a little sick and tired of Trudeau and they're going to give Pierre Polyev a chance.
I don't know.
What do you think?
There was a theory that I came up with a while ago, and so far I've not been able to disprove it, which is that the media is not always in the bag for the liberals.
And I know that's a shocking concept, so please let me explain before you pounce on it, because the media will criticize Justin Trudeau.
The media will criticize the liberals.
But when the media criticizes the conservatives, it's for being conservative.
When the media criticizes the liberals, it's for not living up to what they think the liberals should be.
So conservatives get attacked on policy.
Liberals get attacked on character.
And I think that there is still some frustration among media who would align with the liberals on policy with Justin Trudeau.
And I think that Justin Trudeau has really not done a good job at all of trying to protect his left flank.
I think he's always taken for granted that those voters have nowhere to go.
Jugneet sings a joke.
They're never going to vote conservative.
But I think it's going to be the left that ousts Trudeau before it will ever be the right.
Trudeau And Freedom Of The Press00:14:58
You know, Pierre Polyev, he's got a certain style.
Like he really, I mean, I like Pierre a lot.
I've known him since we were both young.
And he has been, I mean, if he was a liberal, I'd say he's a politician for life.
That's really the job he's always had.
But I think he's good at it.
And I'm impressed with the depth of his command of economic issues.
Like he really does know financial issues, monetary issues.
To see him go toe-to-toe with the Bank of Canada governor and win is stunning to me.
And I think he's got a sense of humor too.
I think he's a bit of a showman in a way.
I think he's smarter than Trudeau.
And in his own way, he can put on a show.
Let me show you a viral video that Polyev put up, or his staff.
Now, they edited it a bit to add some humor.
So this isn't Polyev himself.
But they said, they quoted Shakespeare, if you have any tears, prepare to shed them.
And it was an exchange between Pierre Polyev and Justin Trudeau about Bill Mourneau.
And I acknowledge that most of the humor here was added by the editors after the fact.
But I thought this is the kind of thing that's going to win it for the conservatives, a sense of humor, making fun of the other guy, getting people to laugh along with you.
If you ridicule someone, that's the most powerful way to attack them.
Here, watch this video put out by the Conservative Party and tell me they don't have a good shot at their campaign tactics.
Take a look.
It's not me that says that this prime minister overspent.
It's Bill Mourneau.
Remember him?
My old friend Bill Mourneau.
He's the one that said this prime minister spent too much.
Prime Minister.
You know, the conservative leader is stumbling over himself when he starts quoting random liberals.
It's been a long day without you, my friend.
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.
We've come a long way from where we began.
Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.
When I see you again.
That made me laugh.
Now, I grant that's not all Pierre Pauli had there, but the fact that that's his style and his office style and he does these little social media videos.
I think he can win.
And if I had to put money on it, I would say he's going to win, Andrew.
I think he can.
I don't make predictions because a lot can come up.
And I think that oftentimes conservatives can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which I believe Andrew Scheer did.
I believe to some extent Aaron O'Toole did as well.
And I think that what we see in both cases is tremendous flip-flops that took place where they positioned themselves as one thing in the leadership and another thing in the period in which they actually were the leaders of the conservatives.
And in the case of Andrew Scheer, I think he is himself a genuine conservative, but he took the advice that he had to go to the mushy middle.
I think Aaron O'Toole is in the mushy middle, but he took the advice in the leadership that he had to go hard right.
Pierre Polyev, I think, is who he is.
And he has been consistent.
And I'm not a single-issue voter on CBCD funding, but that was one of the litmus test issues for me where I said, if Pierre Polyev becomes the leader and never speaks of this policy again, this is going to be a big red flag.
He has doubled down and tripled down on CBCD funding since becoming the leader of the conservatives, which I actually think is a very important thing.
So at this point, he has not abandoned the red meat issues.
I think he softened his support for the convoy, which I found a little bit concerning when he started saying, well, you know, I wish everyone had been a pedestrian.
I wish, you know, they didn't show up with trucks.
So I think we need to be mindful of it.
But if he can actually stay consistent and show Canadians that he has beliefs, he's not afraid of those beliefs, and he's willing to sell those beliefs, that's going to be his path to victory.
You know, you're so right.
When he said defund the CBC, I thought, boy, that's what every conservative leader says when they're seeking the leadership, but then they drop that fast when they get comfy in the Ottawa bubble, not Polyev.
And the president of the CBC, I think her name's Catherine Tate, has just fumbled the ball by demonizing the conservatives, saying that's why no one likes us.
Because Pierre Polyev, as if people would have been watching the CBC by the million, were it not for a political leader criticized.
Like not only was it such an excuse, a bizarre self-serving excuse for why no one watches the CBC anymore, but it just absolutely plays to the conservative hunch, the feeling in our bones that the CBC preacher naturally, inherently, genetically hates conservatives.
And oh my God, has she played into that?
I think it's always a winner to run against the CBC.
Just like if you're an Alberta premier, it's always good to run against Ottawa.
If you're a conservative, it's always good to run against the media party.
Look at Donald Trump.
And the more the CBC takes the bait, the more it proves Pierre Polyev is right.
Now, I'm not proposing this as some trick or some gimmick.
I think it's the only way to win because you've got to out them to show that they're not neutral referees.
They're players in the game.
I'm with you.
I think that that's one of the most encouraging things that Pierre Polyev has done is fight the CBC harder since becoming the leader than he did even before.
Well, you know, our mutual late friend Kathy Schadel had always said, they're never going to like you.
And that was, I think, so true about the media, about the left.
You're never going to win them over.
So any one, any conservative who tries to charm the media, who tries to charm the liberals, they're going to fail because the knives are going to come there.
So you can't outplay them.
You can't outwit them unless you are prepared to call out the premises.
And that means calling out bad questions, calling out bad behavior.
And I think that one thing that was really interesting here when it came to Pierre Polyev and going after CBC is that he has done this by going after David Aiken at that press conference when David Aiken was, you know, just berating him for not taking up the pressure.
Let me play a second of that.
Hold that thought.
I just want to remind people how crazy that was.
I'm so glad you reminded me here.
Take a look at my former colleague.
I don't know if you would consider him a former colleague as well.
David Aiken just went nuts.
Take a look.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Appreciate your presence here today.
Before I begin, let me just say that.
I'm just looking to fire the Bank of Canada, governor.
How would that help inflation?
Thank you very much.
I'm being heckled here by the way.
Thank you very much for your congratulations.
Thank you very much for your questions.
I'm going to begin my remarks now.
But will you take some questions afterwards?
That's usually.
Justin Trudeau is out of touch, and Canadians are out of money.
The cost of government is driving up the cost of living.
A half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest that Canadians pay.
The cost for workers and businesses to produce the goods that we buy.
On top of that, Trudeau proposes yet more spending to bid up costs even further.
The more he spends, the more things cost.
It is just inflation.
Their homes and to buy a home in the very first place.
Hold my hand.
The reason that we have basically a liberal heckler who snuck in here today to Global News.
I'm the chief political force right for that organization.
Are you going to let me make my mistake?
From the guy who actually reported first on the prime minister breaking the law.
Are you going to let me know?
Ask a question.
Say yes.
I've actually never seen you heckling the prime minister.
Ask Minister Bear back.
You're going to take some questions at the end of this statement.
Yes, I'll be taking two questions at the very end.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
So I'm going to start my statement again.
Yeah, and Polyev called him out.
Sorry, I interrupted you.
I just wanted to play that clip.
No, that's better than my description of it.
So I'm all for it.
So he, Pierre Polyev didn't let that slide.
Other conservative leaders would have let that slide.
Yeah, they would have apologized.
They would have said, oh, you know, I'm so sorry.
I'm going to take more of you.
And then they would have been bludgeoned down.
So I'm not saying that Pierre Polyev is taking my advice, but one bit of advice I gave on my show some months back was to be more like Ron DeSantis.
And you don't need to do the Trump thing because Trump is a very unique character who can pull off stuff that other people can't.
But certainly be like Ron DeSantis, if in no other way than calling out the premises.
Because if you don't undermine the premises, you have to be beholden to the conclusions.
Yeah, you're so right.
DeSantis, exactly.
He's got all the positive characteristics of Trump without some of the excesses.
And you're right.
Only Trump can beat Trump.
And he's an inherent entertainer.
I mean, the guy had absolute blockbuster TV shows for years.
He's an empresario.
I like the Ron DeSantis approach, and maybe that's where Pierre Polyev.
I think the anti-Trump, the anti-DeSantis was Aaron O'Toole, who literally in the last election was sued by Rosemary Barton and the CBC.
They filed a lawsuit.
That was in 2021, right?
No, that was Andrew Sheeran.
Sorry, I got my elections mixed up.
Filed a lot.
Thank you for the correction.
Filed a lawsuit against the Conservatives.
Rosemary Barton, while she was the boss of their election coverage, and the Conservatives still went on her show.
How?
Well, they're suing you.
And I don't think Pierre Polyev would make that mistake.
And here's hoping he does.
Hey, do you think there's going to be an election in 2023?
It's tough to say.
I mean, I never want to make the mistake of presuming that Jugmeet saying is at all a relevant person.
But I think the challenge is that he is the one holding the keys to the kingdom here.
And he's ultimately the one that's going to decide when and if there is an election.
And, you know, we look, for example, at the release of the emergencies, the Public Order Emergency Commission report this week, a very watershed event.
But the NDP had months earlier said, oh, yeah, well, even if it comes out and it's a scathing indictment of Justin Trudeau, we are still going to continue to support the government.
So I think it's possible, but I don't think it's likely.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Got one last question for you.
By the way, it's been great to hang out with you this past half hour.
I appreciate it.
I'm worried about civil liberties, not just because we saw what the government got away with during the Truckers and the Emergencies Act.
We saw what the media was willing to let them get away with.
Many media were egging Trudeau on to go further.
Many media were.
And I think that Trudeau's re-election after the lockdowns, I think the reelection of other lockdown premiers, I think the media supporting lockdowns and many media supporting the Emergencies Act.
I think Trudeau has learned a lesson that civil liberties and the Charter of Rights aren't quite the Canadian values that we all thought they were.
I see that.
I think so.
And, you know, if we view journalists as being the counterbalance to authoritarianism, and I use that in the broadest sense, what happens when both are in lockstep?
I mean, one of the things, if you look at dictatorial regimes that take place, is the government co-ops the media.
And media are an agent of the government.
Now, in Canada, I don't want to be extreme.
We're not North Korea.
We're not China.
We're not Cuba, but we have serious liberty problems that the government has created.
And the media, in this case, has the legal right to be a critic of that power.
They have the legal right to be a counterbalance against government.
And many of them choose not to be.
Yeah.
You know, forever it's been that way.
I mean, Trotsky had a famous speech: we need a newspaper.
You know, of course they did.
They had to get the message out.
The first thing that was often done in coups in third world countries was seize the radio station, seize the TV station.
And I think that Trudeau isn't seizing them by force.
He's seizing it through carrots, not sticks, through bailouts and renting them, really.
But what scares me about 2023 are these bills moving through Parliament, C-11, C-18, what used to be called C-36 and a bill that has not been introduced yet called the Online Harms Act.
Together, that's four bills, each of which gives the government increasingly more power over the internet, over media, over, quote, hate on the internet, which is in the eye of the beholder in many cases.
I'm worried that four bills, that's more than Trudeau has on inflation or the economy, tells me that this is going to be the year where freedom of speech is really tested in Canada, freedom of the press.
And you guys are independent media.
You don't take government dough.
We're clearly, we got a bullseye on our back.
I would put the Western Standard in that category and a handful of others.
I am worried about the free press in 2023.
Is that just me being paranoid, or do you think I should be worried?
No, I think you should be worried.
I think other Canadians should be worried as well.
And if I were to put a bigger picture look at it, I would say this, that the last three years, the COVID era has shown us a monumental expansion of government power.
When government is responsible for making decisions about what you put in your body, about where you can work, about where you can travel, it's not a big leap to see that same government wanting to control what you can consume, what you can read, what you can post.
So government, it's not just a free speech issue.
It's a government control issue.
But I think it's still nonetheless concerning.
Yeah, well, we'll fight it.
And we're members of the Independent Press Gallery, along with TrueNorth and dozens of others.
And hopefully there'll be some counterweight to really what I call the government press gallery in Parliament.
Government Press Gallery Concerns00:01:21
Andrew Lawton, senior journalist with TrueNorth, great to see you again.
Before we say goodbye, is there a project you're working on or something that you would encourage our viewers to see?
We know you've got the Andrew Lawton show, which we're big fans of.
Is there anything else you want to tell our people about?
Well, we just passed the one-year anniversary of the Emergencies Act and the Convoy.
So if you want to relive that period in Canada's history, I have a book out about it called The Freedom Convoy, which I was so proud to be able to document.
And so far, I think remains one of the authoritative sources on this chapter of history.
It wasn't given to the Toronto Star or to CBC, but it was on the side of freedom.
Yeah.
And by the way, that was the number one bestseller in the Canadian best-selling list.
Although, boy, did chapters work hard to keep it off their shelves.
And whenever I would poke my nose into chapters, I would make a small fuss, not a big fuss.
I would make a small fuss.
Where is Andrew Lawton's book?
And that's a kind of censorship as well.
But, you know, you sold it online, which, of course, is where most of the action is.
Take care, my friend.
Nice to see you.
It was great to hang out with you a little bit in Switzerland, holding the oligarchs to account.
And we look forward to watching what you and True North does in 2023.