WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 Imagine for a second that you are in a job where 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:08.400 doing the the quote -unquote right thing Constantly 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.740 puts you at odds with your boss right and your 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:13.599 colleagues and oh, yeah about 70 % of the general 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:17.160 public that is Quite the stressful work environment. 00:00:17.260 --> 00:00:19.460 Yeah, exactly I mean every single day you walk 00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:21.379 into the office knowing that sticking to your 00:00:21.379 --> 00:00:24.879 principles just simply refusing to bend a popular 00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:28.660 opinion Might actually end your career Yeah. 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:30.539 So you have to ask yourself, would you keep doing 00:00:30.539 --> 00:00:34.140 it? Or would you eventually cave just to keep 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:37.479 the peace? Well, it is the ultimate test of integrity, 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:39.740 isn't it? Totally. Most of us like to think we 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:41.759 would hold the line. But when the pressure to 00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:44.039 compromise is coming from the literal people 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:46.719 who control your livelihood, I mean, the math 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:48.799 usually changes for most folks. It really does. 00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:51.859 But the reason we are asking this today. because 00:00:51.859 --> 00:00:55.140 we found a historical source detailing the career 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:58.219 of a man who actually lived that exact scenario. 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:00.539 He really did. Right, so today's deep dive into 00:01:00.539 --> 00:01:03.399 the source material focuses on William Warren 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:05.700 Ullman. He was a Canadian member of Parliament 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.879 whose entire career was essentially Well, a master 00:01:09.879 --> 00:01:12.500 class in staggering contradictions. And completely 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:15.060 immovable principles. Yes. We are extracting 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:18.180 a roadmap of how one man navigated these massive 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:22.780 political and moral dilemmas. fighting to abolish 00:01:22.780 --> 00:01:25.540 the death penalty to literally taking on his 00:01:25.540 --> 00:01:28.159 own country's national police force. It's a wild 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:31.359 ride. And just a quick note before we dive in, 00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:35.280 we are dealing with some incredibly heavy, highly 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:37.799 polarizing topics today. Very heavy. Yeah. Our 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:39.799 source material covers everything from capital 00:01:39.799 --> 00:01:42.739 punishment and abortion to international conflicts 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:45.060 and national security. Right. Which means we 00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:47.420 need to state directly to you listening. Our 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:49.579 goal here is never to endorse a right wing or 00:01:49.579 --> 00:01:52.019 left wing viewpoint on any of these issues. Exactly. 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:54.280 We are strictly here to impartially report on 00:01:54.280 --> 00:01:56.239 the fascinating historical facts contained in 00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:58.319 the source material. We lay out the mechanics 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:01.099 of what happened and why it happened. And well, 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:03.280 you get to draw your own conclusions. Right. 00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:05.819 Because our focus is on the architecture of his 00:02:05.819 --> 00:02:08.120 leadership and the historical context of his 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.110 decisions. We're not here to litigate. the modern 00:02:11.110 --> 00:02:13.150 political debates surrounding them. OK, let's 00:02:13.150 --> 00:02:16.590 unpack this because his background sounds like 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:19.069 a recipe for a completely different kind of politician. 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:21.250 Oh, for sure. I mean, he was a Mile and Montreal 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:24.330 kid born in 1932. He played three years of varsity 00:02:24.330 --> 00:02:27.009 ice hockey for the McGill Redmen, which is pretty 00:02:27.009 --> 00:02:30.490 intense. Yeah. And he was deeply Catholic, Jesuit 00:02:30.490 --> 00:02:33.110 educated. You hear that resume and you might 00:02:33.110 --> 00:02:36.270 picture this, I don't know, rigid traditionalist, 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:39.750 but he eventually became a fierce champion for 00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:42.919 deeply progressive, highly controversial causes. 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:45.219 And that background is actually the foundation 00:02:45.219 --> 00:02:47.280 of everything you did. It really forged this 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:51.919 unbreakable, highly stubborn moral compass. Blubbering 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:54.020 is definitely the word. Yeah, you have the physical 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:56.560 discipline of a varsity athlete, the intellectual 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:59.000 rigor of a civil law degree, and this deeply 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.939 held personal faith. All of these things combined 00:03:01.939 --> 00:03:04.099 to create a politician who viewed the law not 00:03:04.099 --> 00:03:07.099 just as some administrative rule book, but as 00:03:07.099 --> 00:03:10.020 a moral instrument. And we really see that put 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:12.280 to the test when he gets his first taste of real 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.740 power, don't we? Oh, absolutely. To understand 00:03:14.740 --> 00:03:17.060 his lifelong fight against unchecked authority, 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:19.800 we first have to look at what happened when Pierre 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.060 Trudeau appointed him to actually run it. So 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:26.020 in 1972, Alman becomes the Solicitor General 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:28.990 of Canada. Which, I mean, is an incredibly tense 00:03:28.990 --> 00:03:31.669 period to step into that specific role. Yeah, 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:34.530 the timing was wild. He is serving right after 00:03:34.530 --> 00:03:37.710 the October crisis. For those unfamiliar, this 00:03:37.710 --> 00:03:41.990 was a period where domestic terrorism by a separatist 00:03:41.990 --> 00:03:45.650 group known as the FLQ led to martial law essentially 00:03:45.650 --> 00:03:47.650 being declared. Right, the military was literally 00:03:47.650 --> 00:03:49.430 deployed on the streets of Montreal. Exactly. 00:03:49.509 --> 00:03:51.469 The nation is completely on edge and national 00:03:51.469 --> 00:03:53.969 security is the absolute top priority. And as 00:03:53.969 --> 00:03:56.469 the listener general, Almonde is suddenly the 00:03:56.469 --> 00:03:59.590 watchmen over the watchdogs, the Royal Canadian 00:03:59.590 --> 00:04:03.030 Mounted Police, the RCMP. But it turns out the 00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:05.669 watchdogs were completely off the leash. They 00:04:05.669 --> 00:04:08.650 really were. Right. In 1976, the director general 00:04:08.650 --> 00:04:11.409 of the RCMP Security Service comes to Almond 00:04:11.409 --> 00:04:13.849 and asks him to sign a warrant to intercept the 00:04:13.849 --> 00:04:16.470 mail of a Toronto couple. The intelligence suggested 00:04:16.470 --> 00:04:19.189 this couple was conspiring with the Japanese 00:04:19.189 --> 00:04:21.930 Red Army to launch a terrorist attack on the 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:25.509 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. A huge threat. 00:04:25.629 --> 00:04:30.230 Right. So given the stakes, Alman signs it. But 00:04:30.230 --> 00:04:32.930 then nine months later, he has to scramble to 00:04:32.930 --> 00:04:35.290 cancel the warrant. Yeah, because the Justice 00:04:35.290 --> 00:04:37.910 Department knocks on his door and basically informs 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:40.649 him that intercepting mail like that blatantly 00:04:40.649 --> 00:04:43.250 violates the Post Office Act. It was a massive 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:45.730 wake up call regarding how intelligence agencies 00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:48.870 actually operate. And the thing is, it was not 00:04:48.870 --> 00:04:50.829 an isolated incident. Right. The source talks 00:04:50.829 --> 00:04:53.470 about another case. Yes. Look at the Leonard 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.509 Peltier extradition case that same year. Peltier 00:04:56.509 --> 00:04:58.970 was a prominent Indigenous rice activist in the 00:04:58.970 --> 00:05:01.589 United States who fled to Canada after a deadly 00:05:01.589 --> 00:05:04.269 shootout with the FBI. Almond was a Solicitor 00:05:04.269 --> 00:05:06.610 General when Peltier was extradited back to the 00:05:06.610 --> 00:05:09.790 U .S. And according to Almond, the FBI submitted 00:05:09.790 --> 00:05:12.350 flat -out false information to the Canadian government 00:05:12.350 --> 00:05:14.509 to secure that extradition. Yeah, I read this 00:05:14.509 --> 00:05:16.689 in the source. They submitted an affidavit from 00:05:16.689 --> 00:05:19.689 a woman with severe mental disorders who falsely 00:05:19.689 --> 00:05:22.329 claimed to be Pelty's girlfriend, just to manufacture 00:05:22.329 --> 00:05:24.829 a reason to get him back across the border. Exactly. 00:05:25.290 --> 00:05:27.810 And the Canadian intelligence apparatus didn't 00:05:27.810 --> 00:05:30.459 stop them. Unbelievable. And then you have his 00:05:30.459 --> 00:05:33.279 testimony before the McDonald Commission. This 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:37.100 was a massive federal inquiry launched specifically 00:05:37.100 --> 00:05:40.079 to investigate illegal activities by the RCMP. 00:05:40.180 --> 00:05:42.779 Right. So after he left the post of Solicitor 00:05:42.779 --> 00:05:46.040 General, Allman sat down and testified that the 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:49.720 RCMP had routinely lied to him. Just to his face. 00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:52.579 Yeah. Yeah. He recounted how they actually advised 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:54.939 him that breaking into buildings without warrants 00:05:54.939 --> 00:05:57.980 was totally legal, as long as the officers did. 00:05:57.839 --> 00:05:59.639 didn't steal anything while they were inside. 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:02.579 Wow. I mean, it's like being hired to manage 00:06:02.579 --> 00:06:04.759 a bank, only to find out the security guards 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:06.560 are running a side hustle robbing the vault, 00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:08.220 and they're looking you in the eye and saying 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:10.740 it's standard company policy. Gad is the perfect 00:06:10.740 --> 00:06:13.000 way to look at it, and this explains the underlying 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.939 mechanism for the rest of his career. Well, this 00:06:15.939 --> 00:06:18.949 era was the crucible for Almond. Witnessing the 00:06:18.949 --> 00:06:21.949 RCMP and the FBI manipulate the law shattered 00:06:21.949 --> 00:06:24.550 any blind faith he had in the infallibility of 00:06:24.550 --> 00:06:27.629 the state. I see. Yeah. He realized that institutions, 00:06:27.990 --> 00:06:30.410 even those heavily funded and specifically designed 00:06:30.410 --> 00:06:33.230 to protect citizens, are fundamentally flawed 00:06:33.230 --> 00:06:35.949 and entirely capable of profound dishonesty. 00:06:36.189 --> 00:06:38.829 And that profound distrust of state power leads 00:06:38.829 --> 00:06:41.509 directly into what might be his ultimate stand, 00:06:41.629 --> 00:06:44.129 right? It does. Because Almond had just witnessed 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:46.829 firsthand how dishonest state justice systems 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:49.910 could be. he became fiercely determined to strip 00:06:49.910 --> 00:06:52.009 the state of its absolute ultimate power. The 00:06:52.009 --> 00:06:55.970 power to kill. Exactly. In 1976, he tabled Bill 00:06:55.970 --> 00:06:59.149 C -84. The objective was to remove the death 00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:01.610 penalty from the criminal code entirely and replace 00:07:01.610 --> 00:07:04.110 it with a minimum 25 -year life sentence with 00:07:04.110 --> 00:07:06.430 no chance of parole. And the public backlash 00:07:06.430 --> 00:07:09.220 to this was astronomical. Oh, it was huge. Polls 00:07:09.220 --> 00:07:11.680 at the time showed 70 % of Canadians actually 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:14.000 supported capital punishment. Opponents were 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:16.420 screaming for a national referendum. Even former 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:18.620 Prime Minister John Diefenbaker weighed in, didn't 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:21.639 he? He did. Diefenbaker argued that abolishing 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:24.579 the death penalty right before the 1976 Montreal 00:07:24.579 --> 00:07:27.379 Olympics, especially after the horrific Munich 00:07:27.379 --> 00:07:30.279 massacre at the previous summer games, was sending 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:33.860 a green light to global terrorists. Wow. And 00:07:33.860 --> 00:07:36.699 didn't Canada's official hangman even publicly 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:39.899 call for Allman's resignation? Yes. The pressure 00:07:39.899 --> 00:07:42.300 was coming from every conceivable angle, from 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:44.779 his constituents, his political rivals, the media, 00:07:45.379 --> 00:07:47.959 everyone. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting. 00:07:48.060 --> 00:07:50.120 I have to push back a bit on Allman's strategy 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:53.480 here. Okay, sure. If 70 % of the public actively 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:56.420 wants something, isn't it political suicide? 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.540 Or even fundamentally undemocratic for an elected 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:01.740 representative to just ignore them? That's the 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:04.470 big question. Right. How did he justify essentially 00:08:04.470 --> 00:08:06.129 looking at the Canadian public and telling them 00:08:06.129 --> 00:08:08.490 they were wrong? Well, it comes down to a fundamental 00:08:08.490 --> 00:08:10.829 philosophical debate about the nature of democracy. 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:13.420 Almond argued that a representative democracy 00:08:13.420 --> 00:08:16.980 deliberately excludes plebiscites or direct public 00:08:16.980 --> 00:08:20.360 votes on complex, emotionally charged issues. 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:22.139 OK, so he didn't believe in direct democracy 00:08:22.139 --> 00:08:25.040 for this. Exactly. His defense was that members 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.600 of parliament are elected to deliberate. They 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:30.220 are paid to study the granular details of the 00:08:30.220 --> 00:08:32.779 justice system and make informed decisions of 00:08:32.779 --> 00:08:34.600 conscience. Oh, I just follow the crowd. Right. 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:37.700 They are not elected to just blindly read the 00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:39.940 latest opinion polls and rubber stamp the anger 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:42.409 of the public. And he also pointed out a massive 00:08:42.409 --> 00:08:45.049 glaring hypocrisy in the system itself, didn't 00:08:45.049 --> 00:08:48.029 he? He did. Canada had a death penalty law on 00:08:48.029 --> 00:08:50.690 the books, sure, but Parliament had commuted. 00:08:50.889 --> 00:08:54.250 every single death sentence since 1962. Oh, wow. 00:08:54.309 --> 00:08:56.289 So no one was actually being executed anyway. 00:08:56.529 --> 00:08:58.549 Exactly. It was functioning as security theater. 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:00.929 It looked tough on paper, but the state wasn't 00:09:00.929 --> 00:09:03.230 actually carrying it out. That is fascinating. 00:09:03.490 --> 00:09:05.970 And again, keeping to our rule of impartiality, 00:09:06.129 --> 00:09:08.250 we aren't here to debate the morality of the 00:09:08.250 --> 00:09:10.509 death penalty itself. Right, of course. We are 00:09:10.509 --> 00:09:12.529 examining the mechanics of Alman's political 00:09:12.529 --> 00:09:16.110 courage. He genuinely believed it was illegitimate 00:09:16.110 --> 00:09:19.070 to grant the cabinet and the judiciary the ultimate 00:09:19.070 --> 00:09:23.309 power over a person. especially given the institutional 00:09:23.309 --> 00:09:25.409 corruption he had just uncovered as Solicitor 00:09:25.409 --> 00:09:28.070 General. So he and Prime Minister Trudeau knew 00:09:28.070 --> 00:09:31.190 a forced party vote on this would basically tear 00:09:31.190 --> 00:09:33.029 the government apart, so they made it a free 00:09:33.029 --> 00:09:35.409 vote. Which means members could vote their conscience 00:09:35.409 --> 00:09:37.629 instead of the party line. Yeah, and it was an 00:09:37.629 --> 00:09:40.509 absolute nail -biter. The bill narrowly passed 00:09:40.509 --> 00:09:44.350 131 to 124. That margin is incredibly tight, 00:09:44.610 --> 00:09:46.629 especially considering there was a liberal majority 00:09:46.629 --> 00:09:48.889 in the House at the time. Super tight. It proves 00:09:48.889 --> 00:09:51.470 how polarizing the issue was and it shows the 00:09:51.470 --> 00:09:54.909 sheer volume of political capital. Allman was 00:09:54.909 --> 00:09:57.190 willing to burn just to codify his principles 00:09:57.190 --> 00:10:00.330 into law. And that willingness to burn political 00:10:00.330 --> 00:10:03.830 capital, to defy the majority, it really bled 00:10:03.830 --> 00:10:06.049 into every other role he took. He essentially 00:10:06.049 --> 00:10:08.070 turned into a rebel within his own party. He 00:10:08.070 --> 00:10:10.230 really did. Let's look at his time as Minister 00:10:10.230 --> 00:10:12.090 of Indian Affairs and Northern Development from 00:10:12.090 --> 00:10:16.669 1976 to 1977. What was the baseline culture he 00:10:16.669 --> 00:10:18.970 walked into there? Was the government actually 00:10:18.970 --> 00:10:21.169 taking indigenous land claims seriously at that 00:10:21.169 --> 00:10:23.549 point? Not at all. The standard attitude of the 00:10:23.549 --> 00:10:25.990 era was highly dismissive. How bad was it? Well, 00:10:26.330 --> 00:10:29.309 his predecessor in that role, Jud Buchanan, had 00:10:29.309 --> 00:10:32.309 literally referred to the land claims and self 00:10:32.309 --> 00:10:34.610 -government demands of the Dean people as, quote, 00:10:34.909 --> 00:10:38.710 goobel de gook. Wow. Seriously. So Almond walks 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:41.389 into an office where the standing policy is essentially 00:10:41.389 --> 00:10:44.429 mockery. Yes. How does he actually change the 00:10:44.429 --> 00:10:47.009 mechanism of that department? What's fascinating 00:10:47.009 --> 00:10:49.409 here is how he fundamentally flipped the legal 00:10:49.409 --> 00:10:52.879 approach. Before Allman, the government essentially 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:55.759 treated historical treaties like ancient, ignorable 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:58.700 suggestions. Allman told his bureaucrats to treat 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:02.000 them as binding, modern contracts. He extended 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.399 the rule of law to indigenous witnesses by taking 00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:07.000 historical treaties at face value. That's a massive 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.620 shift. Huge. If a treaty guaranteed a right, 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:11.840 Allman decided the burden of proof was on the 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:13.500 government to prove they shouldn't honor it, 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:15.539 rather than forcing indigenous groups to beg 00:11:15.539 --> 00:11:18.600 for it. He publicly expressed sympathy for the 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:20.899 political demands of the Dean and the Metis. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:23.059 And he was apparently on the verge of reaching 00:11:23.059 --> 00:11:25.500 a massive land claim and autonomy settlement. 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:29.039 He was very close. But then the party pulls the 00:11:29.039 --> 00:11:31.740 plug. He gets abruptly replaced in the fall of 00:11:31.740 --> 00:11:35.120 1977 by Hugh Faulkner. And Faulkner immediately 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:38.580 rolls back all the progress Allman made and proposes 00:11:38.580 --> 00:11:41.320 a standard, highly limited cash settlement and 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:43.820 reserves instead. Which unfortunately stalled 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:47.669 the talks until 1981. Yeah, Almond was operating 00:11:47.669 --> 00:11:50.110 from a baseline of empathy and legal fairness 00:11:50.110 --> 00:11:53.029 that was radically ahead of its time for a federal 00:11:53.029 --> 00:11:55.570 bureaucrat, but it made him a massive liability 00:11:55.570 --> 00:11:59.669 to party leadership who just wanted quiet, traditional 00:11:59.669 --> 00:12:02.009 governance. Yeah, he became an absolute nightmare 00:12:02.009 --> 00:12:03.769 for party whips. I mean, jump to the Constitution 00:12:03.769 --> 00:12:06.429 Act in 1982. Oh, this is a big one. This is his 00:12:06.429 --> 00:12:09.129 own party's massive legacy -defining achievement. 00:12:09.419 --> 00:12:11.779 Pierre Trudeau's crowning moment, and Allman 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:13.980 votes against it. He does. He hated the inclusion 00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:16.039 of Section 33, known as the Not Withstanding 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:18.700 Clause, which essentially lets provincial legislatures 00:12:18.700 --> 00:12:21.500 legally override certain charter rights. Right. 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:24.740 He also opposed Section 59, which delayed minority 00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:27.240 language education rights in Quebec. Because 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:29.840 he voted against his own party's signature legislation, 00:12:30.340 --> 00:12:32.929 he never held a cabinet seat again. He prioritized 00:12:32.929 --> 00:12:34.990 the structural integrity of the Constitution 00:12:34.990 --> 00:12:37.950 over his own career advancement. He just refused 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:40.309 to endorse a document that he felt contained 00:12:40.309 --> 00:12:43.049 legal loopholes for human rights. Andy did the 00:12:43.049 --> 00:12:46.230 exact same thing in 1995. He did, yeah. He voted 00:12:46.230 --> 00:12:48.350 against his own finance minister, Paul Martin. 00:12:48.509 --> 00:12:51.669 over a budget that introduced deep spending cuts 00:12:51.669 --> 00:12:54.649 and failed to scrap the goods and services tax, 00:12:54.769 --> 00:12:57.990 the GST, which the party had explicitly campaigned 00:12:57.990 --> 00:13:00.210 on promising to remove. Right. They promised 00:13:00.210 --> 00:13:02.529 the voters. So the prime minister at the time, 00:13:02.769 --> 00:13:05.309 Jean Chrétien, retaliated by firing him from 00:13:05.309 --> 00:13:07.190 his position as chair of the Justice Committee. 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:10.419 He was entirely willing to publicly embarrass 00:13:10.419 --> 00:13:12.960 his own government if he felt they were breaking 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:15.580 traditional party principles or going back on 00:13:15.580 --> 00:13:17.519 their word to the voters. OK, but I have to stop 00:13:17.519 --> 00:13:19.100 you here on this next detail from the source. 00:13:19.259 --> 00:13:21.059 OK, what is it? Because I want to know if this 00:13:21.059 --> 00:13:23.700 is actually principled leadership or if he was 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:26.419 just being petty. Oh, the turtleneck. Yes. Yeah. 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:29.299 In 1979, the Speaker of the House refused to 00:13:29.299 --> 00:13:31.700 recognize him to ask a question because he was, 00:13:31.700 --> 00:13:35.059 quote, improperly dressed. He was wearing a turtleneck 00:13:35.059 --> 00:13:37.700 sweater with his suit. instead of a traditional 00:13:37.700 --> 00:13:42.200 tie. He argued the ruling, lost, and had to literally 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:45.559 borrow a tie from a rival NDP politician just 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.159 to stand up and do his job. That's true. Is refusing 00:13:48.159 --> 00:13:51.259 to wear a tie really making a stand or just causing 00:13:51.259 --> 00:13:54.279 a scene? I mean, it might seem like a petty wardrobe 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:57.120 malfunction, but... It perfectly encapsulates 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:00.500 his philosophy. Really? How so? He fundamentally 00:14:00.500 --> 00:14:03.480 rejected arbitrary rules that lacked logical 00:14:03.480 --> 00:14:06.980 sense. If a rule didn't serve a clear moral or 00:14:06.980 --> 00:14:09.039 functional purpose, he wouldn't conform to it 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:11.259 just because... That's the way it's always been 00:14:11.259 --> 00:14:13.820 done. Oh, OK. It was the exact same logic he 00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:16.000 applied to the death penalty or indigenous treaties 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:18.500 just scaled down to parliamentary dress codes. 00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:21.220 OK, I see the connection there. He refused to 00:14:21.220 --> 00:14:24.700 accept because I said so as a valid argument 00:14:24.700 --> 00:14:27.059 from authority. Exactly. We see that internal 00:14:27.059 --> 00:14:30.679 logic again with the 1988 abortion vote. As a 00:14:30.679 --> 00:14:33.080 devout Catholic, Allmont personally opposed the 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:35.899 act of abortion, but he voted against criminalizing 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:38.480 it, which drew massive ire from conservative 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:41.960 Catholics across the country. And this is a crucial 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:45.000 distinction in his philosophy. He rigidly separated 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:47.279 his personal theological beliefs from his duty 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:49.840 to public law. Right. He did not believe his 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:51.799 personal Catholicism should dictate the criminal 00:14:51.799 --> 00:14:54.980 code for all Canadians. He recognized that a 00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:58.399 pluralistic society cannot function if one group's 00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:00.960 religious doctrine is weaponized as state law. 00:15:01.419 --> 00:15:03.779 Wow. It feels like he was a whistleblower inside 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:07.029 his own party. In modern politics, where towing 00:15:07.029 --> 00:15:09.350 the party line is everything, could a Warren 00:15:09.350 --> 00:15:11.950 All -Man even survive today? That's a great question. 00:15:12.169 --> 00:15:14.769 Probably not for very long. Yeah. He retired 00:15:14.769 --> 00:15:17.850 from parliament before the 1997 election, essentially 00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:20.909 pushed out of federal power. Once you've alienated 00:15:20.909 --> 00:15:23.350 your own party and left the federal system, what 00:15:23.350 --> 00:15:25.789 is left? Not much for most politicians. Right. 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:28.309 But for All -Man, the transition was completely 00:15:28.309 --> 00:15:30.169 seamless. He just took his fight outside the 00:15:30.169 --> 00:15:32.350 system, proving his principles weren't just for 00:15:32.350 --> 00:15:35.669 a political show. He began scaling his anti -authoritarian 00:15:35.669 --> 00:15:38.429 philosophy to different levels. Globally, he 00:15:38.429 --> 00:15:40.549 took over as the president of the International 00:15:40.549 --> 00:15:42.769 Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 00:15:43.190 --> 00:15:45.759 replacing Ed Broadbent. He brought his focus 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:48.379 on Indigenous rights to the international stage, 00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:51.019 heavily supporting the drafting of the International 00:15:51.019 --> 00:15:53.200 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. 00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:55.679 He was also an active participant in the negotiations 00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:57.700 for the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland, wasn't 00:15:57.700 --> 00:16:00.039 he? He was, which is actually where he met his 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:02.600 second wife, Rosemary. Oh, wow, that's amazing. 00:16:03.080 --> 00:16:05.679 But then we get this incredible full circle moment 00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:09.460 on the federal level in 2005. He serves as legal 00:16:09.460 --> 00:16:11.440 counsel for the International Civil Liberties 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:14.080 Monitoring Group during the Marr Air Inquiry. 00:16:13.870 --> 00:16:17.029 Right. And for context, Mar Air was a Canadian 00:16:17.029 --> 00:16:19.509 citizen who was detained during a layover in 00:16:19.509 --> 00:16:21.909 the United States and deported to Syria, where 00:16:21.909 --> 00:16:24.610 he was tortured for nearly a year. Horrible story. 00:16:24.850 --> 00:16:28.009 It is. It later came to light that the RCMP had 00:16:28.009 --> 00:16:30.809 provided the Americans with faulty, misleading 00:16:30.809 --> 00:16:34.230 intelligence that falsely linked Air to terrorism. 00:16:34.649 --> 00:16:37.269 So what does this all mean? The grand irony here 00:16:37.269 --> 00:16:40.299 is staggering. Oh, totally. Almond starts his 00:16:40.299 --> 00:16:43.340 career in the 1970s, trying to control the RCMP 00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:46.419 from the top down, sitting in the Solicitor General's 00:16:46.419 --> 00:16:50.100 chair. 30 years later, he is ending his career 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:52.379 fighting them from the outside in a public inquiry. 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:55.059 Arguing that Canada's national security agencies 00:16:55.059 --> 00:16:57.539 were once again choosing security over basic 00:16:57.539 --> 00:17:00.360 human rights and operating completely unaccountably. 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.240 Exactly. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:17:03.659 --> 00:17:06.319 it shows that for Almond, the venue changed, 00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:08.779 but the mission never wavered. Right. Whether 00:17:08.779 --> 00:17:10.460 he was sitting in the prime minister's cabinet 00:17:10.460 --> 00:17:13.539 or acting as external legal counsel, his goal 00:17:13.539 --> 00:17:16.500 was always protecting the vulnerable from institutional 00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:19.180 overreach. And he even scaled that mission all 00:17:19.180 --> 00:17:22.200 the way down to the municipal level. In 2005, 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:25.079 he ran for Montreal City Council. He did. His 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:27.960 primary goal was to help oversee the city's implementation 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:30.319 of a rights charter that he had personally helped 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:33.839 draft. But true to form, even as a member of 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:36.500 the Mayor's Union Montreal Party, he constantly 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:39.380 criticized his own mayor, Gerald Tremblay, whenever 00:17:39.380 --> 00:17:41.640 he disagreed with him. Of course he did. He even 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:44.559 voted against the mayor's motion to rename Park 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:46.960 Avenue. He just couldn't help himself, and if 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:50.390 he thought the boss was wrong, He remained fiercely 00:17:50.390 --> 00:17:53.170 independent, constantly scrutinizing the mechanisms 00:17:53.170 --> 00:17:56.309 of power. In 2011, he supported the Canadian 00:17:56.309 --> 00:17:59.049 vote for Gaza to deliver supplies to Palestinians. 00:17:59.230 --> 00:18:02.230 Right. And in 2014, he fought against a Canadian 00:18:02.230 --> 00:18:04.470 bill designed to implement a global convention 00:18:04.470 --> 00:18:07.089 on cluster munitions. Right, because he actually 00:18:07.089 --> 00:18:09.130 read the fine print. He always read the fine 00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:12.269 print. He argued that a specific clause in the 00:18:12.269 --> 00:18:15.589 bill gave Canada an explicit exemption to use 00:18:15.589 --> 00:18:18.549 these weapons during joint military operations 00:18:18.549 --> 00:18:21.190 with non signatories like the United States. 00:18:21.269 --> 00:18:24.329 Exactly. He pointed out that Australia and New 00:18:24.329 --> 00:18:26.670 Zealand had passed similar legislation without 00:18:26.670 --> 00:18:29.690 creating that loophole and he warned that Canada's 00:18:29.690 --> 00:18:31.390 exemption would just encourage other countries 00:18:31.390 --> 00:18:34.009 to ruin the integrity of the treaty. Yeah. He 00:18:34.009 --> 00:18:36.569 was sharp on the absolute mechanics of the law 00:18:36.569 --> 00:18:39.109 right up until the end. He was. Warren Allman 00:18:39.109 --> 00:18:41.470 passed away from terminal brain cancer in December 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:45.250 2016 at the age of 84. His legacy is still highly 00:18:45.250 --> 00:18:50.259 visible today though. In 2023 Somerald Park, 00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:52.259 which is right in the middle of the Montreal 00:18:52.259 --> 00:18:54.900 constituency he represented for over 30 years, 00:18:55.299 --> 00:18:58.359 was officially renamed Warren Almond Park. It's 00:18:58.359 --> 00:19:00.759 a fitting tribute. It really is a fitting permanent 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:03.700 tribute for a guy who spent his entire life standing 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:06.160 his ground. Which brings us back to where we 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:08.779 started. I want you to think about your own life 00:19:08.779 --> 00:19:11.940 and career. Yeah. How often do we accept the 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:15.400 notwithstanding clauses at our jobs? the little 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:18.480 moral compromises, the turning a blind eye to 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:21.559 lazy goobledygook excuses, just to keep the peace 00:19:21.559 --> 00:19:23.640 with our bosses or our peers. It happens all 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:26.099 the time. Allman's life is a reminder that you 00:19:26.099 --> 00:19:28.400 don't actually have to compromise your core principles, 00:19:28.539 --> 00:19:30.059 though you might occasionally have to borrow 00:19:30.059 --> 00:19:32.079 a tie from a rival to get your point across. 00:19:32.339 --> 00:19:34.960 It is a deeply challenging legacy, and it leaves 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:37.200 us with something critical to mull over, especially 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.819 regarding his stance on the death penalty referendum. 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:43.470 It's a Well, Almond warned that ruling by plebiscite, 00:19:43.589 --> 00:19:45.170 just doing whatever the polls say in the heat 00:19:45.170 --> 00:19:48.269 of the moment, would open the door to dangerous 00:19:48.269 --> 00:19:51.869 reactionary governance. In today's hyper connected 00:19:51.869 --> 00:19:54.809 world where politicians have instant access to 00:19:54.809 --> 00:19:57.730 real time polling. algorithmic feedback, and 00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:00.490 constant social media outrage, we have to ask. 00:20:00.930 --> 00:20:03.690 Have we completely lost the era of the deliberative 00:20:03.690 --> 00:20:05.730 representative? Wow, that's a great point. And 00:20:05.730 --> 00:20:08.710 if we replace moral conviction with algorithmic 00:20:08.710 --> 00:20:11.170 crowd pleasing, what happens to the minority 00:20:11.170 --> 00:20:13.690 voices when the majority decides they are expendable? 00:20:13.990 --> 00:20:16.769 That is a heavy but absolutely essential question 00:20:16.769 --> 00:20:18.970 to leave on. Thank you so much for joining us 00:20:18.970 --> 00:20:21.029 for this deep dive into the source material. 00:20:21.349 --> 00:20:23.069 Keep questioning, keep learning, and we will 00:20:23.069 --> 00:20:24.069 catch you on the next one.