Tag: Ottawa

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Ray McGinnis August 9, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded August 9th, 2023.

Over the weekend, Global Affairs Canada announced it was “suspending development assistance” to Niger due to the overthrow of the government there. Ottawa said,

“Canada reiterates its solidarity with the people of Niger and its support for democracy, peace, inclusive governance and the rule of law.”

Clearly, when it comes to Canadian foreign policy there are coups, and then there are coups. Historically, Ottawa has either stood silently by – or more worryingly – played a major role in fomenting and supporting coups it deemed advantageous around the world, all putting to the lie its high road rhetoric of “support for peace, democracy, and inclusive governance”; nevermind “rule of law”, that murky precept dredged up only when Canadian corporate interests are challenged by natives with the temerity to control sovereign wealth and resources.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, and hosts the Canadian Foreign Policy Hour, a weekly examination of the country’s actions in the World.

Yves’ many articles appear across the internet, and at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his latest piece, ‘Democracy far down list of Canadian interests in Niger‘ provides facts so disturbing to Canada’s international reputation they remain unreported in the nation’s corporate and state media.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; it’s not only in Canada’s foreign policy where the myth of its democracy-loving ways is confounded by its systematic erasure of those principles. Here at home too Ottawa is waging a determined campaign to roll back the clock on citizens’ rights; back say a thousand years, predating the English Common Law’s foundational habeas corpus legislation. Right now, August 9th, 2023, four men have been held with neither bail nor trial since February of last year.

Ray McGinnis is an author and retired educator-cum reporter after attending the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings in Ottawa last November. His latest article on some of the enduring aftermath of the unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act, ‘Coutts Four Denied Bail, in Prison in Canada for over 500 Days without Trial. Are they Political Prisoners?‘ appears at the Substack site, Propaganda in Focus and serves as damning indictment of the Trudeau regime’s disconnect from western traditions of human rights, as understood for more than a millennia.

Ray McGinnis and Canadian jurisprudence’s trip back to a Medieval future in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Canada’s dismal democracy record abroad.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ray McGinnis (extended) March 4th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 1st and 4th, 2023.

Last month, Justice Paul Rouleau held his nose and blessed Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to shut down the Ottawa Anti-Vaccine Mandate protest in 2022. This though none of the “tests” within the Act for doing so were met by the actions of ‘Freedom Convoy’.

And, though providing a post-imprimatur to the government’s actions, even Rouleau says the means used to punish Canadians exercising their “democratic rights” to express political opposition to government policy, (like freezing bank accounts of participants’ non-participating spouses) was “flawed”, he provides no legal remedies.

Ray McGinnis is an author and retired educator. He says he “became concerned” with the disconnect between mainstream media and alternative livestream coverage of the Freedom Convoy. He subsequently attended the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings for a week in Ottawa last November, and his article on the event and its aftermath, ‘Commission Reveals that Trudeau Government Lied About Nature of Truckers Protests in Ottawa Last February to Justify Invocation of Emergencies Act‘ is published at CovertAction Magazine.

 

Today, Ray McGinnis and the Freedom Convoy’s hard-learnt lessons for Canadians.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ray McGinnis, Robert Freeman March 4th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 1st and 4th, 2023.

Last month, Justice Paul Rouleau held his nose and blessed Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to shut down the Ottawa Anti-Vaccine Mandate protest in 2022. This though none of the “tests” within the Act for doing so were met by the actions of ‘Freedom Convoy’.

And, though providing a post-imprimatur to the government’s actions, even Rouleau says the means used to punish Canadians exercising their “democratic rights” to express political opposition to government policy, (like freezing bank accounts of participants’ non-participating spouses) was “flawed”, he provides no legal remedies.

Ray McGinnis is an author and retired educator. He says he “became concerned” with the disconnect between mainstream media and alternative livestream coverage of the Freedom Convoy. He subsequently attended the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings for a week in Ottawa last November, and his article on the event and its aftermath, ‘Commission Reveals that Trudeau Government Lied About Nature of Truckers Protests in Ottawa Last February to Justify Invocation of Emergencies Act‘ is published at CovertAction Magazine.

Ray McGinnis in the first half.

And; much has been made of the first anniversary of Russia’s so-called “Special Operation” in Ukraine by the western press. Countless hours of television, and oceans of ink have been spilt to convince citizens in NATO nations of the righteousness of Kyiv’s cause – and more importantly – of “our” noble motives in supplying its army with billions of dollars and an incomprehensible amount of high-tech weaponry.

Robert Freeman is Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project. He’s a past educator, and author of ‘The Best One Hour History’ series of books covering history from ‘The Renaissance’ and ‘The Scientific Revolution’ to ‘The Protestant Reformation’, ‘French Revolution’ and great wars of the last century.

Robert’s recent article, published at CommonDreams.org, ‘Ukraine and the Tunnel at the End of the Light‘ is a hard-eyed assessment of both the disaster that is the Ukraine/Russia war, and the doomed political and economic dynamics behind the conflict.

Robert Freeman and shedding the rosy aura around Ukraine’s war prospects in the second half.

But first, Ray McGinnis and the Freedom Convoy’s hard-learnt lessons for Canadians.

 

Song: After the Revolution (from the album Return)

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ted Smith, Dimitri Lascaris February 20, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 12th and 20th, 2022

The Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club discovered last week the cost the province’s Community Safety Unit sees fitting for it to pay for the crime of providing British Columbians with medicines they cannot find elsewhere. Following raids led by the CSU in 2019 and 2020, the Buyers Club now faces fines approaching $6.5 million. It’s a price too far they say.

Ted Smith is a long-time justice activist and co-founder of the Victoria Cannabis Buyer’s Club, which for more than twenty-five years has provided cannabis-based products to people with terminal cancer and other incurable medical conditions. He says, though they were waiting for the CSU shoe to drop, the Club was still unprepared for the ridiculous amount announced. Nor were they ready for what followed: GoFundMe® disallowing their legal defense fund, and now webhost, Go-Daddy going and removing the club’s website – reportedly at the request of the CSU.

Ted Smith in the first half.

And; there’s a crisis in Canada. It’s not the one you’ve likely been watching on the news nightly, but a greater crisis of confidence in the institutional foundations not only in this country, but across the western world. From the French Gilets Jaunes and Spain’s Indignados, to the January 6th insurrectionists and Ottawa Freedom Convoyistas, there is an unmistakable whiff of tiki torch in the air. And, perhaps it’s the promise of pitchforks to come that has Neoliberal, globalized leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez, and Justin Trudeau stabbing at the panic button? In Trudeau’s case, the Canadian prime minister’s minority government Februrary 14th declared a “public order emergency” and in an unprecedented step enacted the federal “Emergencies Act”. This in response to a “fringe” group of truckers blocking streets in the nation’s capital.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist, and former front-runner for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. He calls the Trudeau government move “draconian & anti-democratic legislations” that he says “should not even exist“.

Dimitri Lascaris on the Liberal government’s St. Valentine’s Day massacre of Canadians’ civil rights, and the necessity to support dissent, even when you don’t agree with the dissenters in the second half.

But first, Ted Smith and the perils of practicing compassionate care for the sick and dying in Canada’s “legal marijuana” environment.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio and serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/