Speaker 1: What a all right? The show started, Garrison, Hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about Canada again, so yeah, um, and
Speaker 1: to discuss Canada and politics and the happenings here. We
Speaker 1: have another journalist who writes for I Believe, Anti Hate
Speaker 1: Canada and like the Canadian Anti Hate Network and also Vice.
Speaker 1: I believe right, I've written for Vice. I'm currently researching
Speaker 1: full time and extremism researcher for It's a new initiative
Speaker 1: called the Online Hate Research and Education Project. It's actually
Speaker 1: partnered with the Canadian Anti Hate Network and it's it's
Speaker 1: under the new Burger Holocaust Education Center, which might be
Speaker 1: renaming very soon. I'm I'm very excited for you guys
Speaker 1: to get into a Twitter fight with James Lindsay. Um
Speaker 1: can't wait. So yes, Dan here has joined us to
Speaker 1: talk about Canada because I've gotten a few messages about
Speaker 1: this thing that's happening. My mother, who's in Alberta, called
Speaker 1: me a few days ago to talk about this thing
Speaker 1: that's happening. So it's been it's it's I'm getting a
Speaker 1: lot of things and it's definitely worth discussing, specifically on
Speaker 1: some of the rhetoric that people are using around this.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually I'm gonna I'm gonna hand it to
Speaker 1: Dan to talk about what, like how did this thing,
Speaker 1: like what is it and how did it kind of
Speaker 1: get started? Yeah, Well, so Derrison is not alone, by
Speaker 1: the way, for anyone not in Canada. Every single person's
Speaker 1: mother in the entire country is called using about it.
Speaker 1: I just got another message literally right now, like literally
Speaker 1: this second. It's gonna nothing. Moms of Canada have been activated.
Speaker 1: Moms of Canada have been activated, but not in exactly
Speaker 1: the same way that they're being perceived to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the ways. So the quote unquote trucker convoy, which
Speaker 1: I might get into a little bit later, but I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like against even calling it a trucker convoy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was started on January and by a former Wigsit
Speaker 1: Party now called the Maverick Party member Tomorrow Lich and
Speaker 1: a group of like very active far right grassroots protesters.
Speaker 1: You do a lot of organizing like this, uh, and
Speaker 1: most of them, most of their activities kind of go
Speaker 1: back to tea. Yeah, they go back a decent a
Speaker 1: decent amount. Yeah, like this, I mean there's links to
Speaker 1: people that have been doing it in the nineties and
Speaker 1: Canada's movement right now, but a non binding motion against
Speaker 1: U I think it's a M three a few years
Speaker 1: ago really mobilized people and it's kind of been more
Speaker 1: consistent since then of the same groups of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what we talked about in our first Canada
Speaker 1: episodes about kind of how we got to that point
Speaker 1: and now like those same people are still kind of
Speaker 1: behind what's going on right now. So, yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: alleged caravan of truckers of all the truckers in Canada
Speaker 1: going going to Ottawa, um and Canada, all the tuckers
Speaker 1: and so this thing was kind of originally organized by
Speaker 1: some like known far right figures and the people associated
Speaker 1: with like the Canadian Yellow Vests, which kind of died down,
Speaker 1: but it didn't die down. It just morphed, right, morphed
Speaker 1: into a very strong anti vax of presence in Canada
Speaker 1: right now, the anti vaxx movements getting a lot of
Speaker 1: popularity in Canada, and it's run by these guys who
Speaker 1: were doing we Exit, which is like West Exit, but
Speaker 1: for like it's it's it's like for Alberta NBC to
Speaker 1: go away from Canada because the rest of Canada's too liberal, um,
Speaker 1: so we exit and the l vests have really changed
Speaker 1: all of their focuses into this anti VAXX thing as
Speaker 1: a way to do recruiting, and they've prompted this kind
Speaker 1: of movement of truckers going to Ottawa. UM for a
Speaker 1: few specific reasons which I think Dan probably knows a
Speaker 1: little bit more about than I do. Like I I
Speaker 1: know the gist of it, but you you would focus
Speaker 1: on the on this slightly more than I have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the main reason is it works, um like,
Speaker 1: just from the perspective of getting attention and being able
Speaker 1: to get a message out. UM. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of traction on this that these groups don't normally get.
Speaker 1: I think the last trucker convoy UM that was done
Speaker 1: under this sort of umbrella, it had like nine I
Speaker 1: think was the total amount of like trucks that made
Speaker 1: it to Ottawa the last time this was trying to
Speaker 1: be done, and it was basically the same demands and
Speaker 1: the same reasons. So this one was started on January
Speaker 1: and it didn't get that much fuzz the first couple
Speaker 1: of days. The original goal was set at a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. I don't remember the exact time, but once
Speaker 1: it hit that pretty fast, and it hit the first
Speaker 1: million pretty fast in ways that like these fundraisers really
Speaker 1: really don't. Like the last big one we saw in
Speaker 1: Canada that was quite alarming in that fast capped out
Speaker 1: at under four hundred thousand dollars and that was um
Speaker 1: for a barbecue for a barbecue that got defied protests
Speaker 1: last year and uh ended up getting like all it's
Speaker 1: it's a bad door shut down. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: more money now in this one. Yeah, because this this
Speaker 1: fundraiser which was supposed to go like hand in hand
Speaker 1: with these truckers protesting the vaccine mandates because they're upset
Speaker 1: that they're not allowed to truck into these states because
Speaker 1: they're not vaccinated. So they have decided to all truck
Speaker 1: into Ottawa as like a pseudo strike slash like blockade
Speaker 1: type thing because they're saying that they were not going
Speaker 1: to do our jobs and we're gonna kind of block
Speaker 1: off access to these roads um until this mandate is
Speaker 1: is removed. Now. Of course, the funny thing here is
Speaker 1: that the mandate that to enter to not being allowed
Speaker 1: to enter the states to do your trucking rooms. That's
Speaker 1: not a mandate by Canada. That's done, but that like
Speaker 1: that's the rule in the United States because you're entering
Speaker 1: the United States, they're the States is actually the ones
Speaker 1: doing the block edge of the Canadian government has no
Speaker 1: control over this. It's not like it's not actually the
Speaker 1: thick the way to get the message out and support
Speaker 1: is incredibly effective because something I think like percent there
Speaker 1: was a survey recently of Canadians are against the mandate,
Speaker 1: which is like really huge um for like Canada's anti
Speaker 1: vax movement to kind of get that like support and
Speaker 1: like a lot of people are mobilized too. By there's
Speaker 1: a trend of posting. It starts from four Chain and team,
Speaker 1: but it's getting revived a lot again now of people
Speaker 1: posting like empty grocery stores. Even a Conservative member of
Speaker 1: parliament recently posted an empty grocery store. And as for
Speaker 1: people's emails to try to like change the laws, it
Speaker 1: turned out to be from the UK. It was a
Speaker 1: stock photo. Uh. And there's been like even like the
Speaker 1: stores themselves have had to come out and make statements
Speaker 1: being like yeah, we're not we're not empty. We have
Speaker 1: we have something we are in the process if we restocking.
Speaker 1: That's happened the US to where it's like we're literally
Speaker 1: emptying that shelf to move stuff with other shelfs. We've
Speaker 1: had a really bad snowstorm for a lot of the
Speaker 1: real photos of like empty shelves, and it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: no salad tap out and the story just make a statement.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, we had two snowstorms a day in
Speaker 1: a row ock. But like the narrative that they're trying
Speaker 1: to push is like these these mandates are causing these
Speaker 1: shortages um and the propaganda is working even though it's
Speaker 1: all on a false premise, because first of all, it's
Speaker 1: not like that that those aren't that, that's not casting that,
Speaker 1: and second of all, complaining to Canada's that's not the
Speaker 1: Canada's not the one who's making the restrictions in the
Speaker 1: States are the one that's that's blocking from doing this.
Speaker 1: But but it's it's not actually about these issues. It's
Speaker 1: that's not the reason why you're getting all these people
Speaker 1: driving to Ottawa, because there is a lot of people.
Speaker 1: There's not many trucks, but but there is there is
Speaker 1: a decent amount of people. You know, it's that that
Speaker 1: are that are going this because it's not it's not
Speaker 1: actually about these specific issues. It's this general um like
Speaker 1: seething hatred of Trudeau and like a generalized grievance that
Speaker 1: it's gotten this broad support, it's gotten enough financial backing
Speaker 1: the fundraisers what like like over six million dollars now um,
Speaker 1: And it's it's not like it's just what it actually
Speaker 1: is is an incoherent kind of intention just to go
Speaker 1: to the capital and cause problems, right that that that's
Speaker 1: what they're actually that. That's what like the underlying thing
Speaker 1: is for a lot of a lot of the like
Speaker 1: explaining why it's gotten so picked up. Some some official
Speaker 1: demands like have been put out and they would be
Speaker 1: even more confusing like to read than like some of
Speaker 1: them are there. A couple of the most recent ones
Speaker 1: are just very general like stop this divisive nature that
Speaker 1: our government is imposing kind of thing like I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but it's it's really quite bland. Um. Some demands from
Speaker 1: san little groups involved. One they say they won't leave
Speaker 1: until Trudeau steps down. Others say, at one point said
Speaker 1: until every politician stopped down, stepped down. I think that
Speaker 1: was when before someone kind of pushed in more realisticals
Speaker 1: into the movement, but like in terms of like what
Speaker 1: they're talking about, for like the rhetoric surrounding it. We're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of rhetoric around the sentence being like
Speaker 1: we this can be our version of January six, but
Speaker 1: like they're saying that like in a good way, like
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing that at least some of the organizers,
Speaker 1: and then it's being carried out into like the generalized
Speaker 1: rhetoric is that this this should be our own version
Speaker 1: of this, which is which is interesting on a few ways,
Speaker 1: but like also like this would not have been said
Speaker 1: like seven months ago, but it's being said now, which
Speaker 1: means like there's been a shift in how January six
Speaker 1: is being viewed. There was this initial like really distancing
Speaker 1: and now it's like it's becoming almost like more acceptable
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that it was maybe a good thing in
Speaker 1: your eyes, And it's like that's an interesting rhetorical shift
Speaker 1: that that's been going on. But then it's also concerning
Speaker 1: on just like a regular level to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these people wanted these people are saying they want to
Speaker 1: do their own January six. That has obviously physical implications
Speaker 1: for all these people trying to drive to Ottawa. Um
Speaker 1: do either blocking off roads or just like making the
Speaker 1: government inoperable. Yeah, a coat streamer or a well a
Speaker 1: streamer in what's called the Plaid Army, And now that's
Speaker 1: sometimes kind of just being rebranded as like Diagalon network
Speaker 1: quote unquote, which we can get into more, but it's
Speaker 1: it's gonna be sillier. Yeah, they're they're kind of their
Speaker 1: own they're their own issue for later. Yeah, they're their
Speaker 1: own issue. But it was one of their streamers who
Speaker 1: is very tangently connected to like a lot of the
Speaker 1: the far right people that are involved in this protest
Speaker 1: movement leading up to an in fact, Pat King, who
Speaker 1: was officially one of the organizers of the convoy until
Speaker 1: he wasn't and then he was again. That was a
Speaker 1: whole dramatic thing for a day, like he streamed alongside
Speaker 1: Plaid Army guys before um So, someone on Plaid Army said,
Speaker 1: and I would quote, I would like to see our
Speaker 1: own January six event, see some of those truckers plow
Speaker 1: right through that sixteen football And on January twenty four,
Speaker 1: that was put up on CTV News made alive and
Speaker 1: it's kind of scare a lot of people. I think
Speaker 1: at that point former Conservative leader Andrew Sheer had already
Speaker 1: voiced support for the convoy. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: other like members of Parliament stuff voicing support for the convoy. Uh,
Speaker 1: some of whom really didn't seem to know like what
Speaker 1: was involved and really just kind of heard ten like
Speaker 1: in passing, Oh it's against these mandates and I opposed
Speaker 1: these mandates too, And it's like, if I think it's
Speaker 1: the true DEALU based well side out, it's gonna help you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna help your political career. Yeah, yeah, it's completely true.
Speaker 1: So have they actually started like blocking roads or is
Speaker 1: it just a bunch of red and people driving like driving.
Speaker 1: So there's there's a few differently converging points of the convoy.
Speaker 1: I think I would say probably the biggest one. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's hard to kind of keep track. Started
Speaker 1: in British Columbia and it's going so for this, I'm
Speaker 1: sure not everyone knows like math for Canada. So like
Speaker 1: bur just Columbia is like our west coast, that's our
Speaker 1: our California, UM, and Ottawa is it's close to the
Speaker 1: west and it's in Ontario, but it's on the border
Speaker 1: of Quebec and Ontario, and that's where our parliament is,
Speaker 1: that's our capital city. So it's coming from every which way,
Speaker 1: but I think the largest contingent comes from British Columbia
Speaker 1: and it just basically goes eastward to Ottawa, picking up
Speaker 1: people along the way. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's heading in that direction. Um, how do we know
Speaker 1: about I know some people have kind of already some
Speaker 1: people have kind of already sort of arrived in Ottawa,
Speaker 1: but most mostly people are expected to more arrive in
Speaker 1: the next Like, well, we're recording this Thursday night, so
Speaker 1: this episode will probably come out on Monday. Um, people
Speaker 1: are expected to arrive on Saturday. Is the day that
Speaker 1: expected people expecting like everybody to be there. At least
Speaker 1: that's the understanding of it. The convoy itself arrives Saturday. Um,
Speaker 1: there are people like coming from further east who are
Speaker 1: like staying overnight in town and kind of just showing
Speaker 1: up the parliament event. So like, by by all accounts,
Speaker 1: the Parliament show will probably be a lot bigger than
Speaker 1: the so far. Yeah, I guess we haven't mentioned numbers yet,
Speaker 1: SORR numbers, nor like what what they actually really plan
Speaker 1: on doing once they get there, because it's it's been
Speaker 1: so much talking about like why this got started, and
Speaker 1: what's the like driving motivational factors. Yeah, like their their
Speaker 1: goal is to get to a place and do a
Speaker 1: thing and and that's the yeah, and the thing's the
Speaker 1: thing that's mostly unclear. And I have seen discussions about
Speaker 1: like blocking on like doing like trying to assemble like
Speaker 1: a trucking strike, um, and then like blocking off accesses
Speaker 1: so that the government is forced to obey their demands
Speaker 1: or else like the country will shut down. UM. Then
Speaker 1: some people maybe are just kind of doing it as
Speaker 1: a one day protest. It's it's it again. It is
Speaker 1: it is. It is pretty unclear, but people are headed
Speaker 1: to their UM what what is the what is the numbers?
Speaker 1: At least from where we can see like online and stuff,
Speaker 1: their numbers have been the number fifty trucks. People became
Speaker 1: fifty trucks very quickly. Um, and that same number I
Speaker 1: think Rogan repeated it, I know, said yeah, yeah, Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan said it THEO Fleury one on Laura Ingram and
Speaker 1: repeated the fifty thousand number, he said, fifty thousand truckers,
Speaker 1: not trucks specifically. Um, as far as I know, THEO
Speaker 1: Fleury has no official involvement Convoy, and it's just a
Speaker 1: fan and it's just repeating some numbers that like organizes
Speaker 1: themselves have kind of echoed. Um. This is also complicated
Speaker 1: for me because this is very troubling in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. But also I'm a huge fan of the
Speaker 1: song Convoy, so this is really devastating. Please continue, It's
Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, So Canadas fur It protest movement has
Speaker 1: kind of happened doing this in February of Kelly and Farcas,
Speaker 1: who's like a mainstay of the anti mask antivacs movement. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in between when I'm talking about in right now
Speaker 1: actually dated Pat King for a while, who's kind of
Speaker 1: the most outspoken person organizing the current convoy claimed that
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people were coming to Parliament for what
Speaker 1: was then like an anti mask demonstration. Before the event,
Speaker 1: data will look changed to fifty uh. And I was
Speaker 1: actually there, it looked closer to like two people. I
Speaker 1: had friends that had counted like hundreds and seventy people,
Speaker 1: So not quite fifty uh. For all intents and purposes,
Speaker 1: the current one will be longer. Reporters doing great journalism
Speaker 1: along the way have estimated up to like four hundred
Speaker 1: people so far um, including I think fifteen trucks outside
Speaker 1: the bass Pro shop in Toronto this afternoon. I was counted.
Speaker 1: Side note, if nothing else, gotta give them points for
Speaker 1: stopping at bass Pro in Toronto is a pretty sweet
Speaker 1: bass pro. Do you love a good bass Pro shop?
Speaker 1: My favorite is the one they built into the Giant Pyramid. Yeah, obvious,
Speaker 1: Nashville baby. So the Bass Pro in Toronto, if you're
Speaker 1: ever in town, Robert, it's the only place around that
Speaker 1: I've been told it sells sub songic twenty two rounds.
Speaker 1: So if you're like in the woods, so I feel
Speaker 1: like in the woods, but like you don't want to
Speaker 1: like scare your neighbors because the woods aren't bad. Big Yeah.
Speaker 1: I used to have some friends and I used to
Speaker 1: go shooting in a suburban neighborhood with two because it's
Speaker 1: don't don't do that, Definitely it was there was it
Speaker 1: was legal a right Canada, doesn't I do not. I
Speaker 1: don't endorse them. You might have might have to cut
Speaker 1: this part out for regional sharing. Go leave this all late,
Speaker 1: just a bunch of words, make it nonsense with bleeping
Speaker 1: please continue. Yeah, so only fifteen trucks were counted by
Speaker 1: CBC at that point. Um and like videos and stuff
Speaker 1: have been right, Yeah, yeah, there might be a couple
Speaker 1: dozen slightly short. But I think by the time brobby Saturday,
Speaker 1: I think there's a decent chance that there might be
Speaker 1: maybe around fifty trucks to a hundred trucks. If there's
Speaker 1: anything more than like five hundred, all of the media
Speaker 1: footage will look like there's fifty that's enough trucks, Like
Speaker 1: nobody's cameras going to be able to show the extent
Speaker 1: of them realistically. And then yeah, once they're there, it's
Speaker 1: unclear what they want to do. Some people just want
Speaker 1: to do the function up thing. Some people want to
Speaker 1: carry on the tradition of like what the most of
Speaker 1: the anti like VACS anti mask protests in Canada been,
Speaker 1: which have been pretty big, But it's been, it's been,
Speaker 1: it's been mostly standing with signs. Um, so it is
Speaker 1: it is? It? It is really unclear because again, most
Speaker 1: of the truckers in Canada probably are not going to
Speaker 1: be there nor to necessarily endorse this idea. Um Nor
Speaker 1: is like right, because they're pressing the their their whole
Speaker 1: initial issue is not even based on an actual like thing,
Speaker 1: So it is I'm not sure how they people are
Speaker 1: really gonna show up because I don't know even how
Speaker 1: specific it is to an issue. UM one. One just
Speaker 1: really interesting, funny, interesting thing that I thought about is
Speaker 1: like with with some of these people UM, you know
Speaker 1: talking about you know, going to Ottawa and not leaving
Speaker 1: until the mandates are dropped with the entire government resigns.
Speaker 1: Like these people who are talking about this like block
Speaker 1: engine shortage and stuff are also like the same people
Speaker 1: who get very angry and Indigenous people for blocking off
Speaker 1: roads and trails um for like oil and like pipeline protests.
Speaker 1: A lot of them, yeah, some of them. Some of
Speaker 1: them are indulged in pretending and stuff like Pat King.
Speaker 1: Back in September, Um kind of went on like a
Speaker 1: kick where he just let a lot of people believe
Speaker 1: he was indigenous and claimed someone not correct them that
Speaker 1: is that is weird, And a family member of him
Speaker 1: went on Facebook and like bombarded people with information that
Speaker 1: he was not in fact indigenous, and it was all
Speaker 1: very weird and a lot of people held them to
Speaker 1: comments in the past where he talked about Anglo Saxon's
Speaker 1: having the strongest bloodlines. Uh yeah, that is I think
Speaker 1: Pat pat King he deserves his own little deep dive
Speaker 1: on one of the pods. But but yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: it is like with all the people talking about blockheads
Speaker 1: and stuff all you most of them coming from like
Speaker 1: the western side of Canada. Um it is it is
Speaker 1: uh yeah, like you're you're talking about all these things,
Speaker 1: and like there's really big pro oil sentiments and all
Speaker 1: of the in all of this crowd because a lot
Speaker 1: of it is connected to financial and political stuff, not
Speaker 1: necessarily even this vaccine issue. It's been more like a
Speaker 1: symbol to represent their general kind of upsettedness at the
Speaker 1: way at the way things are going for them. It's
Speaker 1: interesting to me. So when I first heard about this,
Speaker 1: my I was I was like, oh, okay, so this
Speaker 1: is gonna be like the Chilean truckers and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is really bad. But it's like it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me, like how few people they've been able to mobilize,
Speaker 1: Like that's like not a large number of truckers like that.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it looks like a lot of like vehicle
Speaker 1: is when you when you see like footage photos and
Speaker 1: videos like like in I'm gonna like a lot of
Speaker 1: like Telegram and Facebook groups of just people just like
Speaker 1: sharing pictures and photos of the rally of the convoy
Speaker 1: passing through their town and like it's like what Robert said,
Speaker 1: like it's here when it fills up both sides of
Speaker 1: the camera and you have a wide depth of field,
Speaker 1: it looks huge and it's it's really hard to count. Uh.
Speaker 1: The money is preposterous. Also, saide note on on the
Speaker 1: money um. The funds were frozen a few days ago
Speaker 1: on the twenty five, but today one million dollars was
Speaker 1: released back to them because they gave go fund me
Speaker 1: a pretty clear plan allegedly according to go fund me
Speaker 1: for for how they're gonna distribute it. The rest of
Speaker 1: the it's it's I think it's like six point seven
Speaker 1: million now, so the rest of the five point seven million,
Speaker 1: I think it is still frozen. Okay, well it is.
Speaker 1: It is, so it is so much money. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should do something like that. They could They could
Speaker 1: actually buy truck nuts for a hundred and fifty thousand truckers,
Speaker 1: which is the most I've seen them. Guests, truckers are coming.
Speaker 1: They could buy truck nets off Amazon for all of
Speaker 1: them and still have the vast majority of their funds
Speaker 1: left over. Yeah, but see that would be an act
Speaker 1: of actual heroism and and they're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: The reason why I wanted to talk about this is
Speaker 1: one to like acknowledge that it's happening, right, acknowledge the
Speaker 1: tactics that they're using in terms of trying to go
Speaker 1: into an urban area and block off like trade routes essentially, um.
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to talk about like, first of all,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter that like the fact that this is
Speaker 1: happening is divorced from any kind of direct cause, right
Speaker 1: because they're they're actual grievance is false and their grievance
Speaker 1: doesn't really actually matter. It just needs there needed to
Speaker 1: be some kind of cultural or propaganda push in order
Speaker 1: for this physical action to happen. And that's been done.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even need to be like coherent um. And
Speaker 1: then escalation people driving here doing this thing. And then
Speaker 1: I know there was this one interview UM I forgot
Speaker 1: on what news channel. But they interviewed this one trucker
Speaker 1: guy part of a part of this part of this
Speaker 1: convey in my hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Um and he's
Speaker 1: he said, um, I advocate civil war. If people don't
Speaker 1: want to step up, we have guns, will have some
Speaker 1: we'll stand up and we'll bring them out. But like
Speaker 1: so that's the quotes, like in the fact that you're
Speaker 1: just openly saying I advocate civil war in relation to
Speaker 1: this movement is like my goals. My goal here is
Speaker 1: being like people fantasize about Canada as being a place
Speaker 1: to escape, you know, like Canada is like the other
Speaker 1: from the States, and like, no, it's the same, like
Speaker 1: we are like where you cannot escape away from fascism.
Speaker 1: There is no really there's no real away right now
Speaker 1: in terms of there's no safe ground. It can spread
Speaker 1: to where you are and for people living in Canada.
Speaker 1: When you have people on the news on like Global
Speaker 1: News saying I advocate civil war within the context of
Speaker 1: this of this like, um, you know, convoy movement, it
Speaker 1: is it is an actual thing of pay attention to.
Speaker 1: It is an actual problem. It's it's huge and earlier
Speaker 1: today and I might pronounce his name on but Dale
Speaker 1: MANUK doc from CBC Toronto tweeted a story because he
Speaker 1: on behalf of CBC contacted an actual organizer of the convoy.
Speaker 1: They have different regional organizers and and their website list
Speaker 1: them all um and it had pack King funny side done.
Speaker 1: It had pack King listed as an organizer while they're
Speaker 1: go fund me had a statement saying they had no
Speaker 1: connection to him, which was very funny. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: CBC Toronto pack contacted them and the guy responded enough
Speaker 1: lies you quote slate blooded trader, evil will get its
Speaker 1: due in the end and after a little yeah after
Speaker 1: yeah after it back, yeah, after it, back and forth,
Speaker 1: very brief back and forth. Uh and just like a
Speaker 1: couple of questions. Uh. The organizer ended with, you know,
Speaker 1: you toe the line for the global corporate coup taking
Speaker 1: place under the guys of public health. You can't be
Speaker 1: that dumb traders will swing in time, Oh boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do think Americans don't fully understand how much the
Speaker 1: anti vax movement is tied too far right politics with
Speaker 1: it in Canada and it's like been like the driving
Speaker 1: force of far right politics for the past two years
Speaker 1: and it's gotten so much larger. Um, it is like
Speaker 1: it is, it is. It is a thing like when
Speaker 1: when you have when you have people on camera saying
Speaker 1: we want to January six, I advocate a civil war,
Speaker 1: talking about not leaving until the government either resigns or
Speaker 1: mandates are dropped, and then threatening physical violence on top
Speaker 1: of that. Um yeah, like it's it is. It is
Speaker 1: a thing that could happen there, And that's kind of
Speaker 1: why I wanted to talk about it is like yeah,
Speaker 1: when I have my mother calling me dozens of messages
Speaker 1: from random people like we're about this, then yeah, it
Speaker 1: is an issue like, um, it's it's it's not it's
Speaker 1: not not a thing, No, it it is. And the
Speaker 1: rhetoric is so universal against anyone they perceived to be
Speaker 1: leftist too, that it is really dangerous. Like there's been
Speaker 1: a little bit of talk of like counters in Ottawa. Um,
Speaker 1: when the numbers are this big, like there's no safe
Speaker 1: weight for people to to stop that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: especially when all all the vehicles are in that side.
Speaker 1: Like it's a it's dangerous. There's a lot of violent stuff.
Speaker 1: Um even uh, like I was looking today the People's
Speaker 1: Party of Canada's they got like five percent of votes
Speaker 1: in our last selection. They had a little bit of
Speaker 1: a scandal during our election, which is at the end
Speaker 1: of last year. UM, where a writing director for I
Speaker 1: think it's uh, it's the great area of London. It
Speaker 1: is elegant Middle six London. Uh. So they're they're writing
Speaker 1: directors and not their member of parliament writing. Um was
Speaker 1: revealed to uh post like sculpt mask not tea memes
Speaker 1: and memes comparing Bernier, the leader of his own party,
Speaker 1: to Hitlert so like probably not a negative comparison, Um.
Speaker 1: And he was not fired for it, but he was
Speaker 1: fired after it came out that he was being charged
Speaker 1: for throwing rocks at our prime minister. Yeah, he actually rely,
Speaker 1: he recently said on a live stream. He was asked
Speaker 1: he was currently on trial, and he said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean as far as I know, Like he's been posting
Speaker 1: images of like trucks running people over and that's just
Speaker 1: like one connection to h to the legitimacy of it all. Um,
Speaker 1: Like you, I mean the plat army guys, the ones
Speaker 1: who talked about driving the truck sixteen feet, they're also
Speaker 1: connected with Bernier. They've had Randy Hillier on their podcast before,
Speaker 1: who's a sitting politician and a member of provincial parliament,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like our States Center equivalent over here.
Speaker 1: UM They've they've had him on and like there's some
Speaker 1: like legitimacy to it getting on and when you just
Speaker 1: talk about the broad movement in general. Former UM Conservative
Speaker 1: Party of Canada leader Andrew Shear, who had kind of
Speaker 1: a rocky departure from the party because he alleged leaves
Speaker 1: campaign funds to pay for his kids to private school
Speaker 1: side not like he had already signed on and endorsed
Speaker 1: and been interviewed. Erin O'Toole, the current leader of the
Speaker 1: of the Conservative Party AH just today actually uh said
Speaker 1: he was going to engage with them. Earlier this evening,
Speaker 1: Sergeant in Arms Packers McDonald sent an email to our
Speaker 1: parliamentarians ahead of Saturday's trucker convoy protests and quoting Justin
Speaker 1: links Twitter here, there have been attempts to collect MPs
Speaker 1: home addresses as such, the Sergeant at arms as advising
Speaker 1: to avoid the rally and go somewhere safe. That apparently
Speaker 1: wasn't listened to Erin O'Toole, who said, I do it anyways,
Speaker 1: and Justin Link tweeted later tomorrow, I will be meeting
Speaker 1: with truckers to announces right after Parliamentary Security warned MP
Speaker 1: used to avoid the protests entirely. So it's not great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean again, this will probably come out after Saturday,
Speaker 1: So if we don't talk about this again, then that
Speaker 1: means probably it's good. I mean, they showed up, they protest,
Speaker 1: and they kind of justicipated if we're following this up
Speaker 1: in a few days with another episode, that would be
Speaker 1: something bad happen. But again, even even at this point,
Speaker 1: it is still worth talking about in terms of like
Speaker 1: the generally like this is like the kind of like
Speaker 1: the net of why this is so important for everybody
Speaker 1: is what you were saying about, Like, when you've got
Speaker 1: this many people, this many trucks coming from an outside
Speaker 1: and moving into a city, there's very little that can
Speaker 1: be done against them. Um, Like, there's not there's not
Speaker 1: really much of an effective counter other than trying to
Speaker 1: get another massive people in cars to confront them, and that's, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a potentially dicey situation. So this remains a
Speaker 1: very powerful tactic. We've seen it used all over the
Speaker 1: United States too, like and it's this idea of like
Speaker 1: blockading a city. Even though this is kind of the
Speaker 1: earliest step in taking that is this is gonna be
Speaker 1: the last time people try to extend to this logic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of the surrounding cultural reasons and
Speaker 1: shifts and rhetoric and like applicable nous as like an
Speaker 1: act of like an act of like protest or like
Speaker 1: like revolt or insurgency, whatever whatever you want to use.
Speaker 1: Is there's interesting because like a lot of these other
Speaker 1: interesting thing about the States compared to Canada is like
Speaker 1: the States we have like we have like an actual
Speaker 1: like far right movement, like we have like we have
Speaker 1: like conservatives, when then we have like the far right
Speaker 1: movement in Canada. That that distinction is not much of
Speaker 1: a thing. A lot of a lot of there is.
Speaker 1: There is some far right figures trying to push stuff forward, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but a lot of like the space in between conservative
Speaker 1: far right is kind of a little bit more fluid.
Speaker 1: A lot of these people who are showing up are
Speaker 1: not like far right protesters, they are kind of regular conservatives,
Speaker 1: but they're still getting sucked into saying I advocate a
Speaker 1: civil war, like that is just a regular conservative dude.
Speaker 1: He's not a member of any kind of political thing.
Speaker 1: He's It's like, it's that is just that is just
Speaker 1: kind of what this culture on the western side of
Speaker 1: Canada really really like a kind of defaults to almost
Speaker 1: when when you start going into this kind of like
Speaker 1: anti Trudeau territory, because that's the their their their main
Speaker 1: their main politics is anti Trudeau. Like that is that
Speaker 1: is what they are. So anything that gets to that
Speaker 1: point is allowed, whether that is conservative or that is
Speaker 1: like more far right, as long as it's anti Trudeau,
Speaker 1: then it's it is a valid politic And that's not
Speaker 1: distinction in the state. That that's a thing into Canada
Speaker 1: that I don't really see as much in the States.
Speaker 1: It's very familiar to me when you talk about how
Speaker 1: anti Clinton is um fed into Trump is um like
Speaker 1: that that is I think a worthwhile comparison to me,
Speaker 1: because there were a lot of American conservatives who could
Speaker 1: get in bed with anybody if they were staying against
Speaker 1: Hillary or Bill um cool stuff. Well, this is all fun.
Speaker 1: I hope to not talk with you about this again, Um,
Speaker 1: but there is a chance, there is a chance people
Speaker 1: have conversations Um, if you wouldn't want to after after
Speaker 1: episode airs, if people want to see what happened, right
Speaker 1: because this this air is probably Monday, um, and the
Speaker 1: convoys set to arrive on Saturday. Where can they find
Speaker 1: work talking about that? Soether that be like your Twitter
Speaker 1: feed or um if you know if any articles are planned? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm planning on live tweeting. Um. I can't make
Speaker 1: any promises because safety is always a thing and I
Speaker 1: won't to know what it looks like until Saturday happens.
Speaker 1: But I'm planning on live tweeting. My Twitter is at
Speaker 1: spineless L. That's the word spineless and then just the
Speaker 1: letter L. So yeah, you can check in on his
Speaker 1: account to see if he has a thread by the
Speaker 1: time this episodes out. Um, And yeah that's how That's
Speaker 1: how you can kind of figure out what happened if
Speaker 1: you're just listening to this now and then in the
Speaker 1: meantime there'll be a lot of Ottawa media covering it
Speaker 1: if you just want to see the fallout. I imagine
Speaker 1: the Canadian Anti New Work might talk about it more.
Speaker 1: They put an article today on it that that covers
Speaker 1: more of the kind of problems that the far right
Speaker 1: that we talked about today than the most other media
Speaker 1: will go into they did. Uh, that was a very
Speaker 1: good article. And then also today um I Elon Musk
Speaker 1: tweeted in support of the Canadian truckers. So just in
Speaker 1: terms of let's just as as a good example, I
Speaker 1: think this situation is a really great way to start
Speaker 1: thinking about politics and culture UM and how they relate
Speaker 1: to each other, and how this type of thing succeeds
Speaker 1: and how it succeeds UM and why this rhetoric is
Speaker 1: so successful in bringing in so many people in Canada
Speaker 1: and raising six million dollars almost seven million dollars. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that is that is the show. One more plug dance,
Speaker 1: so people know where to find you. Uh, I only
Speaker 1: really am active on Twitter, so again it's at spineless LU.
Speaker 1: The word spineless is then I don't have a spine.
Speaker 1: And then the letter L on Twitter, thank you plug
Speaker 1: your Getter account. You're getting wow yeah, real real get
Speaker 1: her user vibes coming off of Dan the only social
Speaker 1: media platform that Joe Rogan looked at and said, Robert's
Speaker 1: just trying to get me to plug my sock puppet accounts. Yeah, everyone,
Speaker 1: this is fucking off. You could follow all my sock
Speaker 1: puppets at Fascist Wizard dot c a of anyway that
Speaker 1: is uh that that doesn't for our show. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening, and yeah convoys Canada can't can't escape bad excellent.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It Could Happen Here is
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts from
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