The Andrew Lawton Show

From Bill C-11 to the redefinition of “hate speech” to a plan to ban online “harmful content,” the Liberals are firing on all cylinders to regulate and restrict internet freedom. Elon Musk tweeted this morning that it sounds like Justin Trudeau is trying to “muzzle” Canadians. True North’s Andrew Lawton says Canadians need to pay attention, as C-11 is just the tip of the iceberg. OpenMedia.org cam...

Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has released troves of files documenting how Twitter personnel worked behind the scenes to suppress the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, shadowban conservative accounts, and ultimately ban Donald Trump from the platform. True North’s Andrew Lawton says Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech warrants a stand against Justin Trudeau’s efforts to r...

Longtime political activist Benjamin Dichter was one of the faces of the Freedom Convoy, adopting a strategy that eschewed legacy media and focused on telling the story of the convoy through social media and independent media outlets such as True North. He’s also been critical of some convoy figures in the months since the protests ended. Dichter has written about the convoy in a new book, Honking...

After a record-setting year for inflation, there's no immediate reprieve in sight. A new report into Canada's food prices anticipates a five to seven per cent increase in food prices next year. For a family of four, grocery bills could rise by $1,000 to over $16,000. One of the report's researchers, University of Saskatchewan professor Stuart Smyth, joins The Andrew Lawton Show live to discuss why...

In his first appearance on True North since becoming leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre sat down with Andrew Lawton for a wide-ranging interview about his agenda and priorities. Poilievre and Lawton discuss the Public Order Emergency Commission and broader implications of Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act. They also discuss the drug epidemic sweeping Cana...

After six weeks of testimony, the Public Order Emergency Commission has wrapped its fact-finding phase. Canadians have been able to hear from themselves that there simply was no national emergency of any kind, let alone one that needed such an extreme measure to address, True North's Lawton Lawton argues. In this edition of the show, Andrew breaks down the highlights from Justin Trudeau's and Chry...

Documents published by the Public Order Emergency Commission show cabinet ministers Marco Mendicino and David Lametti talking about sending in Canadian Armed Forces tanks to deal with the Freedom Convoy – though Lametti said this was just "banter" between friends. True North's Andrew Lawton said the 'just kidding' defense doesn't pass muster when the government ended up using wartime powers to dea...

Tensions ran high during today’s Public Order Emergency Commission hearing as Commissioner Paul Rouleau ejected Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller while Miller attempted to raise issues regarding outstanding motions about the government’s redaction of documents. True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses the explosive turn in the proceedings in this live edition of The Andrew Lawton Show. Also, world...

China is operating overseas police stations, spending trillions on infrastructure in the developing world, infiltrating institutions, and influencing elections around the world. Canada is not immune from this, with numerous examples of Chinese espionage and influence from the last few years alone. This morning, Chairman Xi Jinping dressed down Justin Trudeau at the G20 summit and got only talking...

As of next March, people suffering from mental illness will be eligible for assisted suicide in Canada. True North's Andrew Lawton wrote a column yesterday warning of the consequences of Canada going this down road, written from his perspective as a suicide survivor who might have sought out an assisted death during his own struggle with depression more than a decade ago. Also, The Democracy Fund'...

In a phone call between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford days before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, Trudeau told Ford no additional legal powers were needed for police to clear the Ambassador Bridge blockade. True North's Andrew Lawton discusses the revelation with lawyer Mark Joseph of The Democracy Fund. Also, author and Canada Strong and Free Netw...

After telling Canadians that cutting the $11.99/month Disney+ subscription is a tool to fight inflation, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has acknowledged her "privilege." Freeland's comments come as her fall fiscal update paints a rosier portrait of the government's deficit projections than the Parliamentary Budget Office's numbers support. Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Franco...

Convoy organizer Tom Marazzo testified before the Public Order Emergency Commission for several hours, but the clip that’s going viral is him refusing to talk to legacy media outlets, which he accuses of “lying for three years.” Marazzo called out the lack of political leadership during Covid, which triggered the convoy protest in the first place. Also up today was Convoy lawyer Keith Wilson, who...

Text messages between staffers in Justin Trudeau's and Marco Mendicino's offices reveal in the early stages of the convoy the Liberal government was focused on the convoy's "narrative" rather than any purported threat to national security. These messages were published by the Public Order Emergency Commission yesterday, and support the idea that the protest was a political opportunity and not a na...

Danielle Smith has been premier of Alberta for less than three weeks but has already made headlines around the world for her apology to unvaccinated Albertans and her Alberta-first approach to governing. In this interview with True North’s Andrew Lawton, Premier Smith discusses the process of unifying the United Conservative Party caucus, priorities for the fall legislative session, moving beyond...

In what’s becoming a daily recurrence at the Public Order Emergency Commission, another senior police official said today that law enforcement didn’t ask for the Emergencies Act and had a plan in place to deal with the convoy without it. Day after day, the federal government’s narrative about the Emergencies Act is crumbling, yet Trudeau and his ministers are still insistent their response was jus...

Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he wasn't testifying before the Public Order Emergencies Commission. This week, the Commission said Ford has been asked numerous times and has declined, prompting a legal summons to be issued, which Ford is not fighting in court. True North's Andrew Lawton asks why Doug Ford is so afraid of appearing before the Commission under oath when he was a supporter...

Evidence filed before the Public Order Emergency Commission confirms what most Canadians knew, even if CBC and the Trudeau government didn't – that the Freedom Convoy was an organic and grassroots movement, not an operation launched by foreign actors or fuelled by foreign funding. This CSIS finding is one of many revelations published in a trove of commission documents yesterday. In this edition o...

We're on the fourth day of hearings into Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act and so far no one has provided any evidence of an actual emergency. Last week, witnesses testified about phantom honking and microaggressions. This week, we've so far heard finger-pointing between different levels of government and agencies, but nothing to justify the heavy-handed emergency power the federa...

At Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s first press conference, she condemned vaccine discrimination and vowed that Alberta will never return to lockdowns or segregation based on vaccine status. This comes the same day a Pfizer executive admitted the drug company had to release the vaccine “at the speed of science” and thus didn’t study its effect on transmission. True North’s Andrew Lawton says the v...

Online financial service provider PayPal has backtracked on a proposed policy change to fine users $2500 if they're caught spreading "misinformation" online. Despite the backtrack, PayPal has a record of financial deplatforming that should alarm Canadians, True North's Andrew Lawton says. Justin Trudeau's government is already trying to regulate social media platforms – what happens if this oversi...

Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act to crack down on Freedom Convoy protesters has been widely condemned by civil liberties groups on the left and the right. This month, hearings into the commission investigating the federal government's "public order emergency" declaration begin, meaning Canadians will hear testimony from government officials, members of law enforcement, and key fi...

Quebecers re-elected Francois Legault and the CAQ with a decisive majority last night, with the Conservatives getting a sizeable chunk of the vote but no seats. Legault's government imposed lockdowns, vaccine passports, a curfew, and threatened the unvaccinated with fines – and he still won. The same was true of Ontario Premier Doug Ford a few months ago, and Justin Trudeau won the 2021 election w...

The federal government has finally ended the vaccine requirement for entering Canada and is making ArriveCan optional as of October 1. While this is a good thing, it's too little too late, True North's Andrew Lawton argues. The federal government has admitted no wrongdoing, and even while Justin Trudeau announced the restrictions were lifting, he threatened more of them if Canadians don't get boos...

Whether it's the media, the education sector, or even the corporate world, wokeness is everywhere. In this edition of The Andrew Lawton Show, partially filmed live before an audience in Red Deer, Alberta at the Canada Strong and Free Regional Networking Conference, Andrew talks about the root of media bias and interviews Conservative member of parliament Tom Kmiec about a proposed bill to force bu...