Transcription
We keep thinking that, oh man, when this threshold's crossed, people are going to rise and take a stand. Oh, when when Bill C6 is passed, people are going to enough's enough. When Bill C1, when Bill C9, well, I'm here to tell you, no one seems to be rising up. No one, no one seems to be talking. No one seems to be calling their MPs. No one seems to be taking a difference. What is it we're going to wait for to get involved?
[music]
If that doesn't sound your alarms, um, I'm trying to sound your alarms. Trying to make you hear the fact that this is radical. Ladies and gentlemen, citizens, welcome to the podcast.
[music]
It is good to have all of you here. You know, I believe there is so much going on that we need to be up to date on. We need to make sure that we are sharp on it. Today's a little bit of a different episode. I am not joined by David. This is kind of refreshing. I get to say exactly what I want when I want without being interrupted. No, I'm just kidding. David's probably watching going, "Man, what is with you?" We we bug those, which we love. I love David. You all know that. It is, like I said, a little bit of a different show, but I didn't want to uh, we didn't want to not do this show. There is too much happening right now, I believe, in Canada that is affecting that will affect every one of us, left, right, center of the aisle, wherever you find yourself when [snorts] it comes to our laws and what we believe and how we believe. In my opinion, this is probably one of the most pivotal times that we are dealing with when we are dealing with laws like Bill C9 that are being passed currently. We we have to make sure that we are involved in the process so that we can watch out for how this will affect us. Like I said, I don't care where you are. You you all know that I'm a pastor. You guys all know that I'm Christian. That David's a pastor as well. We're Christian. This podcast is is kind of just commentary where we wrestle through what's happening in our country so that we're all aware. Uh, but I don't like, obviously, you know, I'm speaking from my convictions and you have your own convictions. You have your children. You have the the future of our country as we deal with everything in front of us as we try to interpret who should be voted in, whose whose policies are allowing a more free Canada. You know, like I I heard the Canadian national anthem yesterday and I just couldn't help but think about the words, "God, keep our land glorious and free." God keep our land glorious and free. We want a more free society. We have, like I don't think people understand this when it comes to understanding speech and legislating speech. We need to we need to know the importance of keeping speech as free as possible. If we legislate speech to kingdom come, we will stop free thought. We will stop opposition. We already have too much of a vacuum when, like, even when I think about what's happening with YouTube and Instagram and algorithms. I I can sense and feel it. I don't know if you guys are the same. I'm very curious. Throw in the comments if you're if you agree with me or not. But when I'm on Instagram or YouTube, you can feel that your idea is kind of being centralized, that it's being pushed down, that you are kind of being put into a box. At least I hope you can sense and feel that. And and sometimes what I will literally do is I'll log out of my user so that it doesn't know who I am and and just see what it suggests so that I can see new stuff or when I search stuff because it just loves to pigeonhole. And the thing that's so dangerous about that is that we get further and further and further into our thoughts and we are getting confirmation bias and we see something we agree with and go, "Yeah, see, I told you so. See, I told you so." Like, even I saw a post this morning where it was comparing the Democrats to the Nazis and it was just taking it was taking two different things. Bam. And and and and all these things, all the points it was making were true because they were hyperfocusing on one little tiny detail. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And I just stopped and went, what, what, what is there to win from this comparing it to the Nazis? Like, and so I immediately went, man. And so luckily my radar picked it up and went, this is evil. This is nuts. We the it's oversimplifying how evil the Nazis were and trying to associate that with the Democrats, which is trying to create a further and further separation between the left and the right. It's dangerous. It's extremely dangerous. And so when we talk about bills like Bill C6, Bill C9, Bill C1, where they're censoring the internet, where they're censoring speech, where they're trying to put definitions of hatred by defining it with hatred. Like, even as I was getting ready for this show, I'm going, "Tell me about the definition for C9," and it's talking. So essentially, it says it is trying to put more legislation on hatred for those who hate certain groups and try stop. I was talking to ChatGPT. I was like, "You're you're saying that they circularly defined it by using the word hate in the definition of hate." And then it literally responded, went, "Yes, this is a difficult thing and you should not be typically doing circular definitions when it comes to defining something that you're trying to get more clarity on." Yeah, of course. And so the question that I have is, who is going to be defining these things? When you look at the wording of it, and I'll see if I can pull up some of the wording here. It says, um, there's new criminal offenses which creates laws against intimidating or obstructing access to places like like schools, community centers. That that seems cool. Hate, like, I get it. Don't block schools or hospitals. That that will stop people from doing things. Again, they aren't defined enough. Hate symbol ban prohibits public displays of symbols associated with terrorism or hatred. Again, hatred is too vague. Um, and and what what I mean by that is there are people who hate things that I believe are good, that people that are good things. There are people who hate my faith. There are people who hate my skin color. And and there are people who hate other skin colors. And so we, what, what my thought is, what I believe is, we need more speech, more freedom. And when we overlegislate these things, we will allow some who are in power to control the direction of speech, the direction of podcasts, the direction of of just our conversations, ultimately limiting our freedoms further and further and further. And when people become afraid to talk about what they don't know, what, what is, what is not clear, uh, we we will get further and further apart. And we are essentially stopping rethought, rethinking. I have a few videos here that I want to kind of go towards here and show you guys to kind of, um, hope you guys understand. This week is extremely pivotal. If you have, like, again, I don't care what camp you're on. I don't care where you're at. You should be calling your member of parliament and you should be telling them, "I will not be voting for you if you vote for C9. If you are voting for Bill C9, I will not vote for you." I don't care what side, who they are, where they are, what party it is. Bill C9 needs to stop. We we can't have that level of censorship. And so I want to uh, show you guys a few of these clips here. And this is uh, John Carpe, that we've had on our show here a few times. And it's short, sweet, but his his clip is, uh, it's pretty punchy.
>> Yeah. Bill C9 would make us more like the United Kingdom where you've got people criminally charged every day over politically incorrect social media posts.
People in the United Kingdom are charged criminally and and arrested in their homes for social media posts. I want people to understand that. So, if you are in the camp, if you are in the camp where you go, "Hey, there's an injustice here and you want to speak to it," which I believe you should, going, "Hey, um, maybe it's immigration where we're overdoing it on immigration, maybe we're pushing the envelope too hard." Well, if you decide according to Bill C9's definition to speak to that and you are, um, what they say is hatred or, uh, um, detesting a group of people, a minority group of people, that's considered hatred. And there are people in the UK, United Kingdom, that are being arrested for their opinions on social media posts because they're trying to defend their country, going, "Hey, is this in the best interest? Is this in the like, that's literally how we've designed our country." And when you look at the House of Commons, it is for the wrestling of thought and idea and question period and and and they go back and forth in speeches to the throne to try to get people to listen, to see, to look at a new opinion, new thoughts, new ideas. But as Carp is saying here, people are being arrested for their social media posts. Let's go back.
>> Social media posts about immigration or other hot button topics. So the Liberals now have the support of the Bloc and they're going to, it looks like they're seeking to end the debate. It's not too late though for Canadians to contact their MP. Uh, we know that the federal government backed down on the Strong Borders Act, Bill C2, should be called the Strong Surveillance Act. They backed down on that because there was so much opposition to it. So I would encourage people listening to this show to contact their member of parliament. I don't care if he's Liberal, NDP, Conservative, Green, Bloc, but contact your MP and say, "If you don't, if you don't vote against Bill C9, I'm going to vote against you in the next election." Short and simple. And, uh, we could still see, uh, some Liberal MPs getting scared and, you know, not wanting to rush ahead with this with this bad bill.
Which is good. And that's the end of the clip there. But, uh, I actually find it hilarious that he's kind of saying the same thing because that is the point of members of parliament is that they should be trying to represent their people. Like, again, this week we saw an NDP member of parliament cross the aisle over to the Liberal party and, uh, it's, it's getting to the place where you're going, "Okay, so they're two, I believe they're two seats away from a majority government." And there's been multiple crossings of the aisle and and we understand how that's set up. I get it. That has been built into the way that we run our parliamentary system, absolutely get it. But it is being abused. It is being used right now so that when bills like this come come to pass, that they just move it across with the majority and they don't need anybody. And so they don't need the NDP to vote with them. They don't need the, uh, Bloc to vote with them or the Conservatives, depending on the issue. Um, they can just push these things through. And so what happened on, uh, what day is it today? It, what happened this week, I believe it was Tuesday this week, was, uh, they actually voted to stop debate on Bill C9. So here we are. We have a censoring, a censorship bill, which is going to censor the internet, which is going to censor speech, which is going to censor free thoughts, podcasts, which is going to censor YouTube videos and ideas of Canadians who want to talk about their country because they care about their country. Um, but they decided to censor the the the communication about the censorship bill. Like, you can't write, you can't make this stuff up. This is just, and so they stopped the ability to debate on the bill, which you're going, "What are they afraid of? What is going on?" And so if that doesn't sound your alarms, um, I'm trying to sound your alarms. I'm trying to make you hear the fact that this is radical. I'm very careful about the words I'm using. It is radical. Bill C9 is dangerous for all Canadians. I don't care what your religion is, what your faith is, what your side of the aisle you're on. It is radical censorship. And they've now just censored the debate on the censorship, which is just, it's ironic. It's really quite ironic. But the, the one of the major ideas that I want you to understand, and David and I, we've talked about this before, is, uh, is can you imagine if we were having a conversation and in around a table and someone starts talking about something that we don't like and immediately we go, uh, immediately we just throw a blanket over their head. "Ah, don't, don't say anything." Wouldn't your alarms go off? Wouldn't you be like, [laughter] "Um, no. Actually, I want to hear what they're saying. I don't understand here. What's going on?" No, no, no. He's not allowed to talk. How are you doing? Tell me a little bit about yourself. You should ask questions. You should be like, "I'm sorry, but what does, let's call him Frank. What does Frank have to say that you're so scared of?" Like, come on. Like, and and like I've seen a number of Canadians do this, and I completely agree with it. There's a number of guys who go, "There's no such thing as hate speech. Hate speech does not exist." And so they sit down at these tables to have debate about, "No, there's this, this, this," and essentially they get to the place where they're saying, "We understand there are people with hatred in their heart who are going to say vile and disgusting things, but we must protect the speech at all costs because the slope is so slippery that if you continue to compel speech with legislation, you will begin to cut off all that is good as well. You'll stop free thought." You'll and and so the whole concept is that if we allow people to have free thought, free ideas, free debate, the iron, sharpen iron, let the good ideas rise to the top because the bad ideas will be squashed out in this free democratic society. And and I I almost hesitate to say free. We are actually, I don't know if we're a free society anymore. And not and not just because of Bill C9. I'm just talking about as far as legislation goes. There is very few things that we are free to do. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, go look up our our our number of Bruce Party episodes where he talks about how free, what, what does free even mean? We are legislated to to no end. There's no ability. You can't even, you can't even set up a shed in your backyard without going to the HOA and getting a permit to be passed through the city, etc., etc. And I understand regulations and and I understand the the point of this. My whole point is, is, is are we free anymore? I'm not sure. And we should be trying to be more of a free society so that we can have free thought, free ideas, freedom of religion, and, uh, and get closer to that. There's another video here of a good friend of ours who's Brendan Whitten. He's a pastor out of, uh, Ontario, and he shares kind of his thoughts here on Bill C9, and I thought, uh, I thought I'd share maybe the first couple minutes of it.
>> Hey everybody, Pastor Brendan here. I just wanted to come on for a few moments. Uh, I'm saying it's a beautiful day. Loving the warmth, loving the sun outside. Thank God. I I'm in my car in between volleyball games at my daughter's volleyball tournament. But I wanted to talk for a few moments about some really concerning developments regarding Bill C9. Now, if you've tracked with me at all, you know that I've, uh, on this platform, on a church platform, on a ministers' network Canada platform, really expressed concerns regarding Bill C9. Uh, I agree with the ultimate heart of the bill. It's an anti-hate legislation. Uh, we need strong laws against hate. We need to take a stand. And so the heart of that is good, but the problem has been the way the bill, bill is built. It's not, it's not well-written law. And it really leaves the door open, especially with a recent amendment that was made at the Justice Committee to remove good faith religious beliefs from being protected. It really leaves the door wide open for reading of scripture.
Let me, I just want to pause there for one second. Um, what he said there is, is, is a very important thing. There, there was a, a, a clause in the bill that said if there was religious, if, if religious leaders or pastors are were in good faith preaching their religious beliefs in good faith, meaning not meaning to be malicious, again, that's like slippery slope, but still, if it gave the room that if it was in good faith, meaning these are the religious texts, we are not calling people to hatred, we're not calling them, so essentially in good faith, that's also been removed, which, which is wild. So that's been removed and that's a big deal because there's an, it seems like there's an intent, an intent to try to police, uh, religious biblical texts as we, uh, as we have so-called religious freedoms here in Canada.
And and this should be very concerning to us all. Let me say, even if you're not a Christian, you still should be concerned about this because it is, um, oh, it just opens the door for so many issues and so many problems and then it opens the door for other things that could go forward, which is not what we want as a culture of society in that at all. So here's the issue. We've talked a lot about that. Um, the Liberal government, we just found out yesterday or the last couple days that the Liberal government has decided to silence all debate on this bill. There's been a lot of debate. Uh, it's the most controversial bill I think I've seen in a long time. I mean, the debate there's been for my Canada by itself, great organization, Fatine Gresesi, they've logged over 60,000 calls now to members of parliament expressing their concern, but the Liberals are just seem to be very intent on just pushing this right through, shutting down all debate, and it could go through as early as next Friday. So in light of this, um, I just want you know, bring several things forward. First and foremost, let's pray. Let's continue to pray. We believe in the power of prayer. We believe the power of prayer has been making an impact on this and so we need to take our prayer to an even higher level right now. Secondly, I want to encourage you to be calling members of parliament. Now, here's the key. Call your member of parliament. Uh, but try and get a read if they are already opposing this bill. Let them know you stand with them, but it doesn't move the meter too much if your member of parliament already agrees with you on this. I mean, it's great to support them, but what really has been making an impact, we found, have been phone calls to other members of parliament who maybe are supporting this bill, members of parliament who are with the Liberal Party, per se, or with other parties that would support this bill, and letting them know our deep concern. Again, we had a member of parliament, re, former member of parliament, say that her office got three calls regarding an issue that put it on the radar that this is something that matters to people. Well, we've had 60,000 plus. And so call members of parliament. Uh, even if you're real busy during the day, call at night, call her in the morning, you know, leave their, leave voicemails and obviously be respectful, but let them know we're very concerned about this bill. We're very concerned about where this is headed, and we're very concerned that they're shutting down debate regarding it. We are a democratic society.
That's essentially, he goes on for a bit more, but I, I thought his take was actually quite refreshing on that. He, as I said, he's a pastor. He's a great friend of ours. He's a very wise man and, uh, he's very involved when it comes to policy in in in Canada, like, like not even just in the religious world. I think sometimes we're too used to being in separate camps. There's one last video here before we run out of time. I want to make sure we get to, so I want to show you guys this one here.
>> The Supreme Court of Canada in the 2012 case of of WCOT describing what was a reasonable limit on freedom of expression. And let's just underline this. They said that this was a reasonable limit, but they also said that this is an infringement of freedom of speech. So what you have to start with in C9 is an infringement of freedom of speech. This definition does infringe freedom of speech. That's what the Supreme Court says. Okay? So this is, this is, this is an infringement from a government that claims to be a government of the Charter and of rights. So we, we start there and then if you, if you fiddle with the wording [snorts], if you leave words out, if you, if you make it detestation or vilification and not, and for example, then you are, you are downgrading the threshold above which you need to get in order to find that this is established.
That wild. So for those of you who don't know, Bruce Party is a professor of law, incredibly brilliant man. We've had him on the show many times. His take is just, he's, he's values the the wording of law so carefully and articulately. And that's, that's the whole point is that, uh, we, we have to understand the implications of the words that are put into these, into this legislation. When you're defining hate with the word hate, it's too ambiguous, it's too unclear. Where we, as Canadians, like, we need to understand that when we go, if we ever find ourselves in a court case or in the court of law where we are trying to defend ourselves, the wording and the meaning is everything. We have to be so careful to protect ourselves and understand that as we go through these things. Um, it's everything for our defense. It's everything for the freedoms of of our country. I have three young kids and as I raise these three young kids, I understand that we have to, I'm trying to get them to understand that there's a good and there's an evil and that there's people that want to do this and this. And if all of a sudden I decide to start policing words in my my house where I can't let my kids have free thought where we wrestle with ideas and thoughts and if my daughter decides to go, "What about this?" And I go, "Don't you talk about that. That's absolutely not. I'm going no." As a, as a strong, confident father who believes the truth can answer all, I will answer her question. I'll bring clarity to it. I will show her, hey, there's a, there's a dangerous ditch on that side. You got to watch out for that. But, but what C9 is doing is, um, we are, we are bringing down the freedom. We are lowering our level of freedom of speech. We are lowering our ability to communicate. And I don't think people understand the implications of this. I think the more I see, like, it's to me, I'm going, it's wild to see the direction that the country, Canada, is going in our country where we say, "God, keep our land glorious and free." We are constantly eroding the freedoms of Canadians. We saw it out out east where they they started to do a gun buyback program. And they said, "Ah, it's not, it's not compelled. It's not forced, but there's an expiry on it." So, they ask questions and go, "What happens if the expiry comes and goes? And there's been no, no one has handed over their guns." Well, we'll cross that bridge when it comes. And, uh, no, and well, then why are you putting an expiry on if it's not forced or compelled? And so, there's all sorts of things that are happening where they're, they're, they're just eroding away freedoms, one day at a time, one bill at a time. And I, I think the reason I wanted to make sure that we talk about this is that you, as Canadians, understand this, that we, as Canadians, understand this, is that we keep thinking that, oh man, when this threshold's crossed, people are going to rise and take a stand. Oh, when, when Bill C6 is passed, people are going to, "Enough's enough." When Bill C1, when Bill C9, well, I'm here to tell you, no one seems to be rising up. No one, no one seems to be talking. No one seems to be calling their MPs. No one seems to be taking a difference. What is it we're going to wait for to get involved as as citizens? Like the whole reason and point we do this podcast and I love this podcast. I love what we're doing. I love the dialogue that comes from it. I love the fact that we get experts on that we sometimes don't agree with. We're just going, "What you want, you you think that's good? You think that, like, we we we have to do that. We have to find opposing ideas." I was just talking to a great friend of mine and, uh, a really, really good friend of mine, and they had a friend, a family friend of theirs, call them and say, "Hey, your ideas, your conservative ideas are dangerous to my family, and because of that, we won't be hanging out with you anymore." Like, when I heard that, I went, "What?" And I know this person. They're not calling for hatred, for violence, for any one of these things. In fact, they're one of the most reasonable, beautifully articulate, careful, loving people I know. But what has happened is this person is a conservative who's being told that they're dangerous. This person is, is, and so the person that called them is a far-left leaning, very far-left, and is essentially essentially saying, "You are a danger to me and my family." And and as I assess the polarization of the left and the right and what has happened, when I first saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated, killed, murdered, um, I, I just, I just couldn't understand, like, how could this ever happen? All he did was speak words. And unfortunately, the far-left considers words violent, and that is not what they are. Words cannot be violent. You can call people maybe to violence, which Charlie never did. Uh, but words are words, and we must protect words so that we can have good ideas rise to the top. And so if you find yourself maybe in the camp where you are getting so bothered, so upset, so angry that you go, "I, I," and you block anyone who disagrees with you, I'm here to tell you, you are the problem. If you can't hear an opposing view, an opposing idea, and you can't wrestle with it intellectually, honestly, if you can't hear the view, then I'm, I'm here to tell you, you are the problem. You, you are part of the problem. If you find yourself so deeply hating, I'll use the the orange man, Donald Trump, where you have what we what I call Trump Derangement Syndrome, where they can't even handle the idea of him handing having any ideas or anything. You're part of the problem. You have to objectively look at something going, "Okay, is there truth here? Is there something good here?" Like, even when I just saw Bill Maher, um, I highly recommend, I wish I had the clip ready for you, but he's on his show and he's talking about how did he have the right to go into Iran, and the guest that he has on the show go, "No, absolutely not." And so then he reads Trump's statement going, um, "Well, he believes that as the commander-in-chief and the the protector of the United States of America, he has the right that if he knows threats that he will take out the threats to defend the nation." And they went and said, "Those statements are far too vague." And so he, Bill Maher goes, "Do you believe that that's justified what he just said there?" "Absolutely not. These are far-left leaning guests he has. Absolutely not. That is so vague. There's no way you can justify based on those statements." Like, he needs more clarity and more more detail. And then Bill Maher goes, "Oh, well, I'm here to tell you that that was Barack Obama's actual statement." And then you, you see them kind of trip on their words because they realize, "I violated my party. What have I done?" And and the hypocrisy is great. And I'm not here to just go against the left or the right. I'm here to say that we are not supposed to be party loyal to our death. We are supposed to be, uh, truth loyal, looking for the truth, letting good ideas rise to the top. Let uncomfortable ideas wrestle with each other. So, in the last few minutes I have here, last time I have here, I'm here to tell you, I hope you get educated on Bill C9. I hope you understand the implications of it. I hope you call your member of parliament. Search it up. I want to say thank you guys for joining Citizen. This has been such an amazing time as we wrestle through all these things as we go through what seems like the most rocky time Canada has seen in my lifetime, maybe in in the history of Canada. I don't know. But I, I'm glad we've got a voice. I'm glad we can have conversations about things that are difficult. If Bill 9 C9 gets passed, I don't know what we will have to censor on our podcast or not. I'm not sure if we can wrestle with all these ideas. I'm, I'm dead serious. It's wild that we have to talk about that. But again, share the share the post, like it, comment, jump in the comments. Thank you guys for watching, Citizen, and we'll see you next week Friday.