Latest / Kvetch & Release / Injunctions, protests, & where we are as a country

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Injunctions, protests, & where we are as a country · Kvetch & Release

• 0:03
  We are back John Lidkey here on AM eight hundred CKLW. It is four
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  sixteen. We saw yesterday in Toronto, just about an hour before the injunction
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  to clear out the University of Toronto pro Palestinancy Israel encampment came into effect,
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  students left on their own accord. But I think it's safe to say that,
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  you know, they themselves said we wanted to leave on our own terms.
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  Even though they left, you know, an hour before that injunction came
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  into effect. I don't think they would have left without that injunction. And
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  I wanted to talk with an Order of Canada recipient as well as the president
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  of the Automotive Arts Manufacturers Association of Canada. Flavio Volpe joins me right now,
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  who himself was part of bringing the injunction that ended the Ambassador Bridge bockade.
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  How are you doing today, Flavio. Great to be on John,
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  Thanks for bringing me on to talk about the fun old times. Yeah,
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  absolutely right. Just that was a whole little thing that happened a couple of
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  years ago. It's interesting. I mean, we're all learning more if we
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  don't, if we're not lawyers already. Which of course, I am not
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  about injunctions in the court process and how it all operates with you know,
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  police and our politicians. It's interesting that it's we're relying on the courts to
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  enforce public order, at least now with these two examples. What are your
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  thoughts, Well, protests has always been political, and so people have always
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  you know, decided through history to take their political positions and express them publicly,
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  and I think that's part of a healthy democracy. What we've seen over
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  the last number of years, especially during and coming out of the pandemic,
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  people are being increasingly committed to their causes and taking to the streets, but
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  we're also seeing them step up over the streets into public disruption, disruption in
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  other people's lives. You know, they're on the Ambassador Bridge. Of course,
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  it was a disruption that that you know, was forcing the layoff of
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  people from work that had nothing to do with what the protest was about.
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  And so so you know, we decided to go to court and get the
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  law clarified, get the law clarified for police services so they can go and
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  force it. What we saw in Toronto and in a lot of places around
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  North America, you have these tent campments that moved from you know, here
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  I'm in City of Toronto. We see protests every weekend. But they decided
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  that they weren't their voices weren't being hurt politically. So they thought, let
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  me break the law, and in this case in terms of setting up on
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  private property and disrupting the the enjoyment of that property for the actual for the
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  actual stakeholds of that property. Then while you're doing it, I mean,
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  this country, there are there are some pretty wild things happening. You know,
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  we have people that not only are doing that, but then saying very
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  hurtful things to other Canadians in the context of in this case, an international
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  debate overall war. And so you know, you have this double head scratcher
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  for local residents here saying, oh, I can't move into the University of
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  Toronto and then spew hatred to my neighbors and claim that I have a political
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  right to do that. And so finally the courts decided and said they should
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  go. And and for all the tough talk they did, I'm glad they
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  just got up the most. And for most people, you know, they
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  wonder, how like, don't you have a job it's fifty three days.
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  You're sitting in your university demanding that the university solved Middle East East peace,
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  while you, you know, spew hateful stuff to your neighbors. You know,
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  we're in a funny place. Go to work funny places. Yeah,
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  definitely one way to put it. We saw also last night a softball Canada
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  game that was protested because of the Israel softball team, and we saw people
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  that were protesting again the war in the Middle East, but hurling insults at
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  children. I'm so disappointed. You know, I coached baseball for three decades.
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  Some of the international baseball coached in the middle of Toronto, multi ethnic,
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  multicultural, multi faced teams, families that helped raise each other's kids,
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  stood up for each other all over North America as we went out to playing
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  things, thinking to myself, it takes a special type of person to show
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  up at a park and politicize a kids game and THENTO kids. Yeah,
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  you know, I don't know. I don't know where these people get their
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  values from. But if you come in you're yelling at my kid, it's
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  not political anymore. You're You're just a crappy human being. And I don't
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  I wonder when we're all going to kind of figure out that yelling anti Semitic
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  things at Canadian Jews isn't going to move the net and Yahoo work. Haven't
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  it any any way further than being Islamophobic over the course of the last twenty
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  years was going to move the dial on anything that was happening in Iraq and
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  Afghanistan with Taliban and al Qaeda. I think we've lost our minds. I
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  think we've lost our minds. It's and it's sad. You know, it
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  seems as if the tenor keeps increasing. People are agitated again. It's another
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  summer of protest. It looks like I mean, I think you basically just
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  said it right now, but I wanted to just get your opinion on,
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  you know, just the mood of the country overall. As we get closer
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  to you know, there's gonna be three elections coming up within the next sixteen
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  months, municipal, provincial, and federal. What's your take on how things
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  are going. I think it's important that people know and to hear from me
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  as well. But I think you should all. I think everybody should have
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  a right to protest. You take a position, man, whatever it is
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  like I grew up in Mike Harris's Ontario. There's a protests to Queen's Park
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  every single day, but they were they were vibrant and hard and heavy,
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  and people would go home. What we're seeing right now is such a polarization
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  in these conversations that people are just being hateful, people are just being belligerent
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  to people who don't take their positions, and we're seeing a lot of inaction
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  at all levels of government. We're hearing a lot of officials say, well,
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  this isn't us, this isn't our Canada, this isn't our city,
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  this isn't who we are is obviously it's a it's a part of who we
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  are now, who do we want to be? And and beyond moralizing,
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  a little bit of law enforcement helps let people understand that there's consequences who we
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  are as a country rural law uh. And we are a very strong multicultural
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  experiment and in the world, I mean we live in in relative harmony all
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  kinds of different things and cultures and languages. And I think at the heart
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  of it, you know, I want to see leaders express what it means
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  to be Canadian and all this and then being Canadian is be absolutely respectful to
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  your neighbor. They're gonna be your neighbor tomorrow. When the when, when
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  whatever today's calamity is to striving you crazy and uh in man in your favor
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  or not. Uh, you still got to live next door to that person,
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  got to pay taxes and build schools here in build communities here. And
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  we're losing a bit of a sense of that. And we have some political
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  actors, you know, parties in Autowa at are that that you know during
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  the convoy. Uh, you know, if we all saw one of the
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  parties you know, cozy up to to you know, that tone of element,
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  it was no good. It was no good because it doesn't show leadership.
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  It doesn't show you know. You could say, look, you've got
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  to you've got a real gripe. And and I hear you, and I
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  think we should have a good dialogue and maybe some action on how to help
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  you. But if you're repeating the slogans the noun, the verb, slogans
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  and egging the mind for to move up in the polls, part of the
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  problem. And I think the political class in this country are becoming part of
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  the problem. From action and in action they egg them on for votes,
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  and then when normal people are asking, how come I can't do that or
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  I can't say that, or I'm getting offended and my kids don't feel safe.
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  Why isn't Why why don't we see leadership at city hall, at the
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  provincial capital or the national capital. I think people have a really different expectation
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  of what politicians and police should be doing in matters like this and what they're
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  actually seeing, and it's it's damp in the mood of the country. I
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  gotta agree with you. I do think that some of our politicians are not
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  acting in the best faith for the situation that we're in. Might make for
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  good incentives for social media fodder, but it's it's pervasive and perverse for you
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  know, actual interactions, which is what I like to discuss. You know,
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  Flavio, it's really great to talk with you. I'm glad that I'm
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  able to do so, not just through the lens of talking about automotives,
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  but you know as well about just the politics and how we all interact.
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  It's always a pleasure to spend some time with you. Always the pleasures on
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  So many people choose this country from so many different places, because we get
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  so many things right, we just have to remind everybody and that, you
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  know, I'm saying this to the man in the mirror two that if this
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  place is great, it's because we actually owe it at a gratitude to keep
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  it great. And you can't do that bioarctic shitty, no doubt about that.
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  We can leave that there. Thank you so much for your time today,
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  Flavia. Thanks. John Flavio Volpe is the president of the Automotive Arts
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  Manufacturers Association of Canada, but as well he is a recipient of the Order
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  of Canada. I'm John Lidd