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Censorship, Convoy Prosecutions and the Stakes for Free Press

Day 2 · 4:17:43 · Jason Lavigne · Ron Johnson · Dean Allison

  • 📵 Facebook’s deletion of injury support groups, Johnson says, has blood on its hands and contributed to suicides; only a successful state AG lawsuit forced change.
  • 🚛 Continued Canadian prosecution of convoy organizers does not surprise him—government is power and power corrupts; Canada and Australia were worse than the U.S.
  • 📰 If Bills C-11 and C-18 extinguish independent media, freedom itself is lost; the remedy is to stop electing “liberal progressives.”

Final exchange on platform censorship, lingering convoy cases and existential risk to press freedom.

← Lavigne Interviews Senator Ron Johnson on Media Capture | Johnson: Canada’s Thin Edge on Injury Compensation →

Transcript

Jason Lavigne · 4:17:43

And this was a place where people were looking to just be heard and be able to share their experiences. It was being shut down. Uh, for example, we had our YouTube channel deleted 3 times because we would just talk about what's going on in the news. We weren't making medical claims, but there was claims in the news. Uh, this has changed now. It's so much changed now. But how can we make sure this doesn't happen again?

Ron Johnson · 4:18:03

Well, the only reason It's changing as, as, uh, Louisiana and Missouri brought a lawsuit against Biden administration and won. And so it was revealed that the Biden administration was putting pressure on companies like Facebook to, again, censor malinformation. There was a truth that they just didn't like. Uh, so that, that was incredibly crucial. But no, I mean, Facebook, they've got blood on their hands. The fact they shut down these, uh, support groups for the, the COVID injection injured. That results in people's suicides. They lost any kind of comfort, any kind of solace, cuz they lost contact with that, that, that, uh, Facebook group. And that's Facebook that caused it.

Jason Lavigne · 4:18:44

Now there's a lot of people here in Ottawa that were around during the trucker convoy in 2022, and you brought that up in your testimony as something that was kind of shocking to you to see the government respond that way. Is it shocking to you to find out that the government's still appealing the decisions and the acquittals that happened to this day? Tamara Leach and Chris Barber are still under prosecution.

Ron Johnson · 4:19:03

It doesn't surprise me because I'm not a fan of government. As I said in the testimony, one more definition of government is power. And as Lord Acton said, power corrupts. So it's a corrupt process. No, it was disappointing. I mean, as bad as it was in America, it was worse in Canada and Australia. Again, I kind of view these, you know, we're all soulmates here, right? We're brothers and sisters. You know, we spring from the same heritage. So it was his heart— it was very sad to watch that. Uh, I hope this is the start of turning things around here in Canada.

Jason Lavigne · 4:19:34

Now you're here at the Allison Inquiry, the first day, the first testimony. So thank you very much for coming out for that. But this is one of also the first times in Canada that anything's happened on the Parliament Hill. Any MP has stood forward, and you see around that table there's 20 seats, but there's only 4 MPs there, a lot of empty seats. What are your thoughts about that?

Ron Johnson · 4:19:52

I appreciate the the, the 5 that we had, including, you know, uh, MP Allison, um, that's not unusual. I mean, people, people, when you're not in session, they're out traveling the districts, uh, doing, uh, you know, that type of thing. So I, I appreciate the, the ones that came and I appreciated, uh, the media that showed up as well. It is unfortunate that the CBC and other, other legacy media here in Canada didn't choose to cover it, but eventually they'll be forced to.

Dean Allison · 4:20:19

Absolutely.

Jason Lavigne · 4:20:19

And one of the things that we're working hard on here is independent media, but our government is coming down hard on it with Bill C-11, C-18, and many others to try and silence us and stop us because we don't have the same type of thing as you, as freedom of speech. What will happen if independent media is completely extinguished here?

Ron Johnson · 4:20:36

You lose freedom. Yeah, that's why you want freedom of the press, is because freedom of the press assures freedom. Without it, uh, government use that power and crushes your freedom. As government grows, freedom necessarily recedes. So, you know, the, the solution here is don't elect liberal progressives.

Jason Lavigne · 4:20:54

Easier said than done around here.