Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to crown enclosure, the podcast on church state and faithful citizenship. I'm your host Patrick Brown from January 29th to February 20th, 2022. The eyes of the world were upon Ottawa, Canada as hundreds of truck drivers and thousands of their supporters park themselves downtown as part of the self-styled freedom convoy protest against COVID 19 restrictions and vaccine mandates the way in which the event unfolded stoked disagreement amongst Catholics and non-Catholics alike with the dust having settled somewhat, we thought we would cast our eyes back and evaluate the freedom convoy through the lens of key tenants of the Catholic church's teaching, especially St. Thomas Aquinas's formula for what constitutes just law and the principles that underlie when civil disobedience is permissible. Our guest is Dr. Mary Catherine Summers, professor emerita of philosophy and past director of the center for tic studies at the university of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Believe it or not, this episode marks the one year anniversary of crown en Kroger's entry into the podcast sphere. Help us celebrate by subscribing, leaving us a rating on apple or Spotify, telling a friend or two about us, or hitting us up by email or social media. For more information on how to support the show, check out our website@crownencrozier.com.

Speaker 2: 1:24

There are two swords, and the question is which sword is superior, the spiritual sword or the temporal sword.

Speaker 3: 1:35

And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Speaker 4: 1:44

I die. His Majesty's good servant at God's first.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Welcome to crown en Crozier. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Mary Catherine Summers, Dr. Summers, welcome to the show. Thank

Speaker 5: 1:58

You. Glad to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:59

You are doing an enormous service by joining us for starters. I mean, we're gonna be tackling a major current events issue, which believers and non-believers alike have been debating. We're gonna be talking about the recent freedom convoy protest in Canada, but often the debate around this issue, even while it was going on, it was simplistic. It was unedifying. So we're really looking forward to taking a much more rich substantive approach to the matter at hand. Interestingly, this topic has also proven to be so controversial and hot that a lot of folks, including within the church, they don't even wanna touch it. They don't wanna talk about it. Can we knocked on a couple of doors, hoping to have this conversation with them members of the clergy and the lady alike, and the response was consistently? No, thank you. So we've had to reach across the border all the way to Texas to make this conversation happen. So we are very grateful for you giving us the time of bay, but also bringing, uh, your philosophical expertise to bear in some ways, this is really fitting. We're recording this around the one year anniversary of the start of our podcast. And you blessed us with your presence for one of our preliminary or one of our first episodes ever. And that was what would Aquinas say about COVID restrictions? Not only was that one of our first episodes, it's actually proven to be our most popular episode. So in so many different ways, this is very fitting and we couldn't be more grateful for your time and expertise today, as we did last year, I am gonna start the show with full disclosure and transparency. Dr. Summers is my aunt. I'm her favorite nephew. So we've got that outta the way she didn't correct me. So take that brothers<laugh>.

Speaker 5: 3:40

We probably ought also ought to stipulate that, uh, I spent some of the best years of my life in Toronto, Ontario going to graduate school. I attained landed immigrant status, but now I am distanced from it enough, I suppose, for it to be a safe topic for me, the freedom convoy

Speaker 1: 4:00

We did kind of go back and forth. Should we invited Canadian? Should we invited America? But I think actually this conversation is gonna corroborate that it's good to have the benefit of a perspective from, for someone who is a little bit detached geographically, and in some other ways to frame our conversation for today, there are really three big questions that we want to tackle. One is we're talking about the self-styled freedom convoy. What is the Catholic understanding of authentic freedom? The second question was the freedom convoy protest in whole, or in part justified from the perspective of the teaching tradition of the Catholic church. And then thirdly, was it morally listed for a Catholic to participate in the freedom convoy? So those, these are three very momentous, very difficult complex questions, which we're looking forward to trying to wrap our heads and our minds around before we get right into it. I'm just gonna set the stage with a couple of caveats for purposes of this conversation. We're gonna focus on the, again, the self-styled freedom convoy that ensconced itself in downtown Ottawa from January 29th to February 20th, we can talk a little bit about the protests that occurred at the international border crossings between Canada and the us, but largely we're gonna focus on the freedom convoy in Ottawa. We're also going to restrict our conversation to that original event, not the copycats that may have followed. I know there have been some folks down in the us who've, uh, tried to one up the original thing, but like they say, in the movies, the sequels never as good as the original and ironically enough, uh, that also applies to the current time in which we're recording this episode, which, uh, is just on the cusp of perhaps freedom convoy, 2.0 coming into Ottawa. There's a, a motorcycle protest rolling thunder, uh, that might be making its way into the national capital this weekend. So let's talk about that first, that first question. What is freedom? What is it for?

Speaker 5: 5:57

Well, freedom is first off. It's a condition of our will and our will is a rational power. So it's part of our rational nature to have a will to desire. When is this will free dig down into Catholic teaching and it's when there is no impediment to desiring what is a true good, and this is the same as willing what God wills for us conforming our wills to the divine will following the law, whether this is the natural law or the divine law. And we have to, we have to do some work to understand what God's will is for us. And this happens in a number of ways when we're young, we begin to learn God's will through our parents, through religious formation, our education and the arts and sciences is also an important part of this and also a kind prima Fatia respect for the laws and political engagement. So all of those are, uh, ways in which we can try to discern the will of God for us, but the truly free will is one which wills were our will wills for ourselves, what God wills for us.

Speaker 1: 7:17

And so when we practice freedom in the public square, what are some key things we need to be to be mindful of?

Speaker 5: 7:27

Well, we have to look at the function of law and also of political society in forming our desires for the good. If the law is good, if the laws are good, they should be making us better able to appreciate the good and also, you know, not simply our own good, but the common good, which is the object of political society. So the normal in the normal process, we begin to learn about the good from our parents, but then we also begin to learn about the good, not from their rules and laws. And there are rules and laws from the very beginning of our life, but also from the laws of our, whatever political entities we are connected to. We have to assume, at least in Catholic teaching, we have to assume that the law serves a teaching function that, uh, we have authority to, to rule politically comes from God, but it comes through us through the people. And we choose some form of government in order to establish laws, human laws, which are supposed to make it easier for us to be good than not. Uh, so we have to assume kind of educate a function of the law. So we have to presume that the laws are good. I read in conjunction with preparing for this, uh, an essay on civil disobedience by mark McGuigan, who taught at university of Toronto law school back in the day. But I believe he was attorney general of Canada at a certain point. And he quotes St. Oon Lauri, Lex, and dubio praise tour. Yuta in other words, in default of anything else, we presume that the law is just so we can't start out thinking that the law is unjust and that we can somehow break it. But we have to assume that the law is meant to be just, and then we have to start examining it. That's an important part of being a political person. And of course, Aristotle says that what's the difference between human beings and other animals we're political. We gain together, and we want to be organized in that, in that unity. So we have to have laws and we have to have some kind of way of making laws and also for testing them

Speaker 1: 9:58

In some ways, law and freedom are two sides of the same coin. What we need to acknowledge is that they're, they're both intended for something larger freedom serves a larger purpose. The law serves a larger purpose. Is it enough simply to say that they both serve to, to give praise and, and glory to God, or, or how, how do we, how, how would you elaborate upon that? A little further?

Speaker 5: 10:20

The ultimate purpose of freedom is to choose what's good. And, uh, we spend most of our life trying to discern what that is simply exercising choice in a sort of unbounded way is not really, uh, what freedom is. As a matter of fact, it can decrease our freedom. Uh, we need a, a sort of richness of, uh, rational speculation and thought and, uh, you know, consideration of our, um, selves of our family situation, our political situation in order to be able to choose the good, because lots of things look good here and now, or maybe later, but, um, very few things are compellingly good, and for the long haul.

Speaker 1: 11:11

So that captures it in a nutshell, then freedom is the ability to choose and, and to do the good, I'm just curious, is there any Catholic Saint, or is there any Pope who perhaps lay claim to that succinct formula more than someone else, or, or is that something that has simply evolved over the, the tradition, uh, of the doctrine of the church?

Speaker 5: 11:32

Well, the question about freedom versus the will of God, you know, our freedom to choose and the, and God's freedom because he's the creator and also the providential ruler of the world. This is, this has been something which all kind, all manner of Christians have debated. I mean, this was a big deal in the reformation, as you might, you might remember Thomas Aquinas holds that it is possible for God to be well, he is completely free in creating us as we are and directing us to our final end. And remember, he's not directing us by ourselves, but, you know, in conjunction with, with all of creation, uh, and yet we remain free precisely because even though we are under an obligation, a moral obligation to discover the good, it's quite true, that lots of things appear to us to be good, and we can choose them in so far as they're good. What we can't choose is evil. That's what we're not free to do. We're not free to, to choose something because it's evil. We might think we are, but we're not we're choosing it because it appears good to us here and now. So we retain the freedom to choose what appears to us to be good. And now, nevertheless, God will, is directing us to the final end, both of our own lives and to the whole of creation.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So in light of the, the definition and the principles, you've just laid out for us in terms of OB your observations of the freedom convoy, I think we can give some, we can give some marks to the event and the movement and the protest in terms of alignment and consistency, with an understanding of the ability to do the good and trying to preserve that because the reality was that the practical effect of, of many restrictions that were put in place by various, uh, civil authorities inhibited our ability to choose and, and to pursue the good at the same time though, I, I would make the observation that there were aspects of the freedom convoy and, and there were members, there were participants in the protest who like, like many people in our, our contemporary world and certainly point my finger point the finger at myself and, and other, other members of the church. We lose sight of the proper understanding of freedom. Uh, it has become, uh, this sense of doing whatever you want. And, and some of that was very much on display in the freedom convoy as it's been with other protests against C restrictions. But what I'm getting at in this regard too, is you did see many freedom convoy participants painted on the side of their cars, or as part of the, the chance, uh, saying things like my body, my choice, and that's been a recurring slogan in the, the anti-vaccine mandate protest that the civil authorities have no ability to, to mandate a medical procedure or an, an injection into our bodies. So that the, my body, my choice philosophy has, has very much been on display. So arguably that one manifestation of, of the mentality on the part of some of the protestors is probably a bit of a, a bit of a strike against them, at least from a, a pure Catholic perspective and, and, and understanding through the lens of Catholic teaching of, of what freedom is. Do you think that's a fair statement?

Speaker 5: 14:58

I do. I think that, that slogan's very seldom work. You know, if you're going to claim my body, my choice on vaccines, you're probably also going to have to claim it on abortion and, and, you know, and a number of other things, one has to assess how important, and just the laws, which restricted movement and mandated vaccines, you know, what, what do we have to say about them? But we also can't be surprised that people who are just trying to get on with their lives and support their families and do all kinds of normal things, may resort to slogans and other things to express their frustration. You mentioned, I think at some point, not in this conversation, but in our correspondence, the, uh, memorandum of understanding, which some people issued by the truckers, which some people took to be insurrection took it to be that they were intending to topple the government or something. You know, something of this kind Catholics look upon the whole issue of, uh, civil disobedience. They look on it, you know, there are two different things you can look at. You can look at the authority is the authority legitimate. And certainly if in fact one is thinking of Topley<laugh> the government, uh, one would have to be quite sure that the government, uh, is such that it's being in place means that people can't live well. They can't Le live, uh, good lives according to, uh, to Christian principles. But I have to say that that watching things from the freedom convoy on this side of the border, I never got the idea that toppling the government was the purpose of the convoy, but rather to protest, uh, certain, you know, rulings and restrictions. And so, you know, in this case, one can say, did the freedom convoy have the obligation to protest this law? Or was it simply something that is perfectly permissible given that the law might have, first of all, impacted them disproportionately let's face that. I mean, everybody in my family was able to work from home during, uh, the COVID lockdowns. And for those couldn't work from home, these restrictions meant something quite different than they did from those who could simply, you know, boot up their computers and zoom into their, into their office space. And one would think that that's exactly what we're dealing with here with the, with the trucker convoys. Uh, these were, this was going to be rules and restrictions, which impacted them in a, in a disproportionate way. You know, one can look at the, uh, you know, the types of things which, uh, historically have been discussed with respect to civil disobedience. Uh, you know, some of them are extreme, you know, you have, you have a revolution, okay. But some of them are, you know, are much more, you know, limited in scope. You have strikes, you have marches, you have picketing, you have certain kinds of boycots. You know, this seems to me to be where the, uh, freedom convoy fits in, they are, uh, showing resistance, not violent resistance, but they are showing resistance to existing laws, which they consider to be unjust. And they also consider that they impact them disproportionately because they're on the road, they're not on their computers. And, uh, and that prima FACHE seems, uh, a reasonable, a reasonable thing to do.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Let's segue into a little bit more the nature of the, the measures and the restrictions that were being opposed by the truckers and, and their supporters from the non trucking community. I do wanna Harn back to our, our conversation from last year where we talked about, uh, what would Aquinas say on COVID restrictions and you, during that conversation laid out some of the key criteria in Aquinas's theory of law, with which we can assess the justice of a law. Uh, and I'm just gonna quickly lay those out here. As a bit of a reminder, one, a human law has to be Tant out to an ordinance of reason. Two, it has to be for the common good three promulgated by a competent authority and for a proportionate distribution of benefits and burdens with which much of this conversation hinging on the question of whether the measures and the laws, which were the subject of the truckers protests were just, or not, we're gonna use that formula for a lot of our assessment. If we kind of look at the initial straw that broke the camel's back, if you will, this was the rule put in place, uh, that required truckers and other essential workers crossing the, the us Canada border to have a COVID vaccination. Now that rule was first announced actually by the us government in October, 2021 Canadian government followed suit November, 2021. But it's important to remember the context. I mean, up until that point in the pandemic 18 months in essential workers, like truckers had been permitted to continue, continue their work and crossing the border. And then arguably in fall 2021, something changed. I've looked at the both of those rules. And I would respectfully contend that the justification or using that first criterion from Aquinas's theory, the ordinance of reason, I would argue that the, the measures fall short in that regard, you look at those announcements from the government, and in some ways these policies were kind of glorified, press releases. I mean, you don't get any detailed justification or rationale, cost benefit analysis, regulatory impact statement, none of that. And in fall 2021, it seemed like we were getting more announcements and measures along those lines where the governments at various levels weren't even bothering putting out detailed analysis or data analysis kind of justifying their action. So it, it seems like we can poke a hole in that initial cross border rule, but then as we on all the convoy kind of morphed into something much, much bigger and no pun intended, it kind of became the major vehicle through which all of the frustration that folks had at all of the measures at various levels of government were packaged into. And these are things like vaccine mandates for purposes of employment or vaccine passports in order to gain entry into certain establishments restrictions on mobility, whether domestically or internationally taking that, uh, formula from Aquinas and, and applying it to all of these different measures, where do you think we can land in our discernment around? Were these things inhibiting the pursuit of the good on the part of the, the people who were affected.

Speaker 5: 21:54

If I can judge the Canadian situation from the point of view of the us situation, we suffered from incredible confusion who had the power to make laws who had the power to enact policies. And then what about all of these experts? Just the other day, Dr. Fauci, who basically directed the government's under two president's response to the, uh, to the COVID pandemic lamented, the fact that the courts had gotten in the way of the CDC. Now, this is a fundamental problem who makes the law certainly Aquinas would say it has to be made by the proper authority and much of the skepticism and sort of discontent about laws, at least in the United States where it, where it exists has been, because it seems that some group of experts who didn't always have the same, you know, positions were in fact making law where in fact our elected officials should be making law. So that that's a real issue. And the question of who's in charge was very much, is very much been a question during the entire pandemic. And, uh, how much are we to seed to experts and how much are are we to leave in the hands of officials whom we elected? And we, of course, can unelect<laugh> if, uh, you know, if the chance comes. So, yeah, I think that's been a real problem. And what are the standards, if you have a, um, a letter coming out from Lancet one year, which says that there's no way in the world that the disease could have come from the Wuhan lab and then a year later lancets got another letter, which says, well, yeah, that looks like a real probability. The problem with leaving all these things in the hands of the experts is that, uh, they change their mind. They get new data sets, whatever it might happen to be. Whereas the elected officials have, you know, a very definite set of obligations and, uh, and powers. And I think everyone would've felt better if we had felt they were the ones in charge through the pandemic and not, um, were they, weren't always moving off stage to let the experts tell us what to do,

Speaker 1: 24:17

Invoking that very specific criterion from Aquinas's formula about the law being promulgated by competent authority. Arguably a lot of these measures fall short, uh, in the assessment in that regard, because it was not, as you say, the accountable elected officials, making the decisions or formulating many of the basis for those decisions through the exercise of, of their office, for what it's worth as well, to provide additional, additional context. And speaking further to the nature of these measures against which the truckers were protesting. I mean, I just made a very quick list here in terms of some of the ones that are most vivid from my experience here in the province of Ontario. And you, you look at some of them individually, but then as a package deal, you think there's no way these pass the test when it comes to Aquinas's theory of just law in very early stages of the pandemic year in Ontario, religious services were deemed non-essential that label itself speaks volumes in terms of the compatibility with the, the natural order of, of these provisions, essentially saying that worshiping God is non-essential. Uh, and it's one thing to, it's one thing to restrict worship for a very finite period of time, but then for it to stretch indefinitely with no parameters, it seems like a gross violation. Then you fast forward to later, later in the fall of 2020, where Ontario was experimenting with every approach in the world, I mean, we color coded this whole province and some regions were red and orange cuz they were hot. Other regions were a lighter color, but you had to stay in your own region. And it was technically a crime. If you traveled to one of the hot zones elsewhere in the province and the go post, there were continuously shifting then in, in December, 2020, the government announced, okay, we're going back to full lockdowns on December 24th, there's this massive blow back because that conflicts with Christmas. So they change their minds to boxing day. And you just think, well, how is this an ordinance of reason? How are we fulfilling that basic tic criterion of an ordinance of reason if there's this zigzagging? And then later in spring of 2021, we saw things like law enforcement agencies in Ontario, publicly refusing to enforce certain measures because they were deemed to be too restrictive and onerous spring 2021 was a pretty pivotal time here, but you had police forces publicly saying to the executive branch of government, we are not going to enforce these measures. So again, you think of what that means from an ordinance of reason and a common, good perspective when you have law enforcement taking that kind of actions and then laws

Speaker 5: 26:52

Need to be enforceable.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Exactly, exactly. Just law is one that can be enforced and there's clarity around the need for enforcement. And it was, and then it was just a few weeks later in, in summer 2021. I'll never forget this press release from the government of Ontario, which talked about easing restrictions in long term care homes. But literally in that press release, you had language around brief hugs and handholding is now permissible and you think, wow, glory be to God state San state sanctioned hugs with grandma. This is wonderful. So a again, coming back to that, those fundamental criteria from, from Aquinas's formula of proportionate distribution of benefits and burden for the common good, you think of needing permission from the state to hug your grandma or to have a priest with her at her, at her bedside to administer the last rights, which did not happen on many occasions for, for thousands of individuals in light of these provisions. My sense would be there. We have a, we have a very firm leg to stand on when it comes to questioning and challenging the justness of these measures. And in that light, it seems like there was a justifiable or there was justification to some of the actions or the nature of the grievances on the part of the freedom convoy.

Speaker 5: 28:11

The government's inability to, to have a correct hierarchy of goods, uh, where worshiping God and being able to look after your family. You know, one of my best friends died without me being there precisely because there was no way that I could, I could, uh, get in to see her to think that the least important thing is to go to church. And the next least important thing is to, as you say, hug your GRA hug, your grandmother, uh, this makes one wonder about the, uh, the competence or at least the let's put it this way, the directiveness and the care to the common good, which people had making these rules. And you can, you can leave the beginning of it. You know, we can say, let's just not worry about that because in the beginning of a pandemic people, are they panic. They don't, they don't know what to do. Experts are yelling different things in their, in their ears. And so whatever mistakes they make at the beginning, uh, we should be kind and forgiving about, but that doesn't really apply a year into, into a situation by that time, wiser head should have prevailed and the right order of goods necessary for, you know, a good human life should, uh, you know, should have been reestablished. You know, even if they fell apart for, for a while. I mean, we've had an absolute epidemic of, um, teenage suicide drug use and just pervasive loneliness. Teachers at universities, uh, have committed this in the Chronicle of higher education that their students have changed. They don't seem to be able to be focused. They don't seem to be able to commit to coming to class. There's nothing wrong with the intellectually. It's just that this whole lockdown thing's been a terrible burden on them in terms of their engagement with other people and with the kinds of experiences that they need to go forward.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I mean, the analogy I've often used is we were dealing with a fog of war at that point. Things were foggy and unknown, but to your point a year later, yes, we can have an expectation that perhaps the fog has not fully lifted, but it's in the process of, of, of dissipating let's segue into the flip side of Aquinas's formula for the justness of human law. The, the opposite side of that coin is criteria for civil disobedience and a couple of concrete things. I'd love to equip our listeners with one there's the, the section in the, the catechism of the Catholic church, 2242 on civil disobedience. I'll just read the first sentence very quickly. The citizen is obliged in conscience, not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of person or the teachings of the gospel. Going back to some of the previous examples that I gave around, not being able to hold grandma's hand or not being able to be at the bedside of a loved one at their death. I mean, that seems a very clear cut case of being out of step, uh, with the teaching of our church, uh, in terms of representing, uh, contrarians to the, to the fundamental moral order, the relationship between persons and the teaching of, of the gospel. I, I would contend, I want to cite a couple of other examples as well, and, and, and then get your thoughts further on, on this topic of disobedience Pope Leo, the 13th and 1890, he wrote an epicly beautiful encyclical on Christians as citizens. Paragraph 10, from that encyclical reads reads as follows. If the laws of the state are manifestly at variance with the divine law containing enactments hurtful to the church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the Supreme pontiff, the authority of Jesus Christ then truly to resist becomes a positive duty to obey a crime between those words from 2242 and the catechism and that ency in cyclical from Leo the 13th, I would argue that a lot of the measures, which the trackers were protesting fell short of that test and that threshold.

Speaker 5: 32:27

Well, yes, indeed. Uh, what Leo is primarily concerned with is that Christians should be able to live as Christians and where the secular authorities forbid the preaching of the gospel, or, uh, interfere with parents raising their children, you know, in gospel values that, uh, there has to be resistance. Uh, there's also in the Catholic church, uh, a long history of prioritizing social order. In other words, you have to have really good reasons to disrupt the social order, uh, because on so much of the good that comes to individuals and their families and friends comes through a social order, which is which we can count on. We know, you know, we know what happens when we wake up in the morning. We know that we can go to work. We know that we can visit our friends. We know we can send our children to school, et cetera. So disrupting the social order is, um, is a very grave thing to do, and certainly shouldn't be undertaken without due consideration. So there always Catholic theories of civil disobedience, uh, you know, as I said, prioritize the social order and say that we have to, we have to accept crema Fatia that the laws are good. Uh, so when we decide to go against, uh, the law and when we decide to disrupt the social order, we have to have pretty good reasons for doing it. And as I said, the worship of God, the support of our families, the education of our children, uh, these are going to be very important, uh, receiving the last sacraments. This has been, as far as I can see the most egregious thing that's happened throughout the, uh, pandemic and, uh, who thinks that they have, you know, they have the power. I mean, you think lightning would come and strike them down to, uh, not let a, a person, uh, have their last confession heard or not have anointing of the sick. It, it seems, you know, blasphemous, you know, to me that that's certainly part, but it it's happening more and more. I mean, you know, there was a, uh, a member of parliament, a Catholic member of parliament who was assassinated in the UK in the last year and the police would not let a priest go in and deliver the, uh, last sacraments because, you know, it was a crime scene. Well, again, this is a society where we have the I an improper hierarchy of goods, but having marches, having strikes, having picketing, these are things which, uh, Catholic social teaching has held, has upheld, you know, under important circumstances. Uh, certainly Catholic cited with, uh, civil rights, uh, demonstrators and picketers, et cetera, during the civil rights, uh, movement in the United States. And so, you know, it's not that it can never happen. It just that it has to happen for a grave reason. Canada has its own history of disruptions and strikes, et cetera. I think it would be good if we looked at the, uh, the freedom convoy, uh, with kind of the same light that we would look on these previous, uh, disruptions, the 1962 Saskatchewan Medicare dispute, where doctors withheld their services, because they thought that the, uh, the way in which the law had been enacted, uh, was an interference with their professional responsibilities. Okay. You know, the globe and male said at that time, well disagree, but you know, you can't disobey, but that's an, that's certainly a mantra which would not be accepted in terms of Catholic social teaching. Yes, you should always disagree. And sometimes you should, uh, you should disobey. I remember, uh, quite vividly the, uh, TTT strike in Toronto in, um, 1974, it lasts for 23 days. You'd imagine Toronto without the TTC for 23 days, you know, the claim was, uh, that we had to have labor justice, that the working conditions pay, et cetera. So these disruptions are, you know, are tolerated, um, precisely because of the, the good, not just to some person or group of people, but to the whole community or the postal strike in 1975, which lasted for 43 days. I can tell you that, uh, the group of people that I went to school with who were applying for jobs, this was, this was an incredible burden. You know, we drove down to the American, you know, the us border and we mailed things, but how could we get things back? Our whole futures were impacted by the interviews. We never made it to because we didn't know they were happening because of the, the postal strike. So it's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before hasn't happened in Canada. And also, you know, hasn't, uh, been as you know, just, and right, precisely because of the, uh, the goods that were at stake, if nothing else, the good of the good of honest labor, uh, and just wages and, and safe working conditions, et cetera,

Speaker 1: 37:54

I'm always reminded, uh, when, when we go to the, the fraternity pairs here in Ottawa and I'm leafing through my missile, doing my examination of conscious that language is right next to the, to the listing of, of the four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance. One of which is depriving workers of their just wages. Correct. But I, I think those were fascinating anecdotes, uh, and examples that you just gave from our past, leave it to an outsider to remind Canadians of their history. But I, I would wager in both those instances, those events had more of an impact on the lives of Canadians all across the country than the, the three weeks of the trucks in downtown Ottawa. A all right, if, if we're kind of keeping score at home, we're giving the truckers marks some marks along the way in, in terms of compatibility or, or alignment with, with some fundamental principles of Catholic teaching, as it relates to resisting or opposing or protesting measures, which, which fall short of the justness test, but the manner in which the disobedience happens is key as well. And duration here, uh, is an important point, uh, as you've alluded to in, in your examples. Uh, and, and I think we need to preface this part of the conversation with, with an acknowledgement part of the, the pitfall and the shortcoming for a lot of conversations and debates related to the freedom convoy is, is this treatment of the convoy or truckers as this monolithic entity. And we need to acknowledge that many participants were there for slightly different reasons. And they went about their protests in very different ways. So it's very difficult to paint with broad strokes. And unfortunately that's been the posture that many pundits, many folks in the media, many folks in our own government have reverted to. So there are a couple of things that, that I wanna focus on as it relates to trying to examine the nature of the trucker's actions or some of the trucker's actions and how we view that through a Catholic lens. The first one I wanna start with, you mentioned it previously, this MOU, this memorandum of understanding that some of the organizers put together in advance, uh, of coming to Ottawa, essentially this MOU was seeking signatures from Canadians. It was almost like it was one part MOU, one part petition, but it had these provisions around the Senate coming together with the governor general, essentially to invalidate the actions that the federal government was undertaking and the measures they were imposing. And if need be to take certain action that would effectuate a change in the leadership of government IE and the, the executive branch. I took one look at it and thought one, this is nonsense. And this is really unfortunate because this is a, this is a self-inflicted wound, right out of the gates for members of this movement, uh, because it just reflected, uh, a lack of understanding of how our constitutional system of government works. And I had the fear, which later proved to be vindicated that this just became fodder ammunition for critics to question the, the legitimacy and credibility of this movement. So I, I think it's, I think it's safe to say that that MOU for certainly fell short of criteria and Catholic teaching that would've, would've justified civil disobedience. I mean, do you, do you have any further thoughts on that? Having, having looked at the MOU yourself,

Speaker 5: 41:04

Obviously a parliamentary system is a bit different from that in the United States. So I suppose if one could ask Boris Johnson to resign because he had a COVID party, uh, you know, when everyone else was being kept apart, one might ask prime ministers to resign over issues of vaccination mandates, et cetera. But again, the Catholic teaching on this has always been, and right back to, uh, to Thomas Aquinas that, uh, it takes a whole lot before one could reasonably overthrow a government, even tyrants shouldn't be overthrown unless, uh, you're quite sure that it's going to be better without them, uh, because of what happens, suffering death, all of those things that can be connected with the, um, the overthrow of the, uh, government and, you know, frankly, I don't understand why people are, so we must live in a very unstable time, uh, because obviously, uh, there were quite a few people who thought that the, the sort of mob action on January 6th in the United States was an attempt to overthrow the government. People thought that the trucker convoy was an attempt to overthrow the government one, can't get to the point where a lot of people being together because they don't like something the government is doing is all of a sudden an insurrection, a rebellion, something that has to be put down at all costs. So one has to balance those things, but it seems to me that the getting together of a lot of people who are angry is becoming understood and only one way. And that's, you know, as dangerous insurrection and needing to be put down right away, even to the point with your government of interfering with people's bank accounts. I think that was probably the most astonishing thing<laugh> to me.

Speaker 1: 43:01

Well, ho hold, hold that thought, we're gonna get to that in just a second, in terms of your point of just slapping this label of, of in interaction or rebellion on any large gathering of people who are frustrated and are expressing discontent. I mean, we had the mayor of Ottawa and various city counselors, including the then chair of the municipal police services board using the terminology of the freedom convoy lane siege to Ottawa. And that term was used frequently and with much carelessness and among other things, I was, I thought it was just ironic that about one week after the last protestors were cleared from the streets of Ottawa, uh, Russian president Putin invaded Ukraine, and I think gave us a different definition, perhaps a more conventional definition of what it looks like to lay siege to something or to a city. So certainly a poor choice of words on the part of the municipal leadership in Ottawa. One thing I really wanna make sure to give some attention to is whether or not the principle of subsidiary that the Catholic church has given to us is such a gift in her teaching, whether that was on display and whether that was prop properly animating some of the actions from the protesters. I'll just give a very quick definition of subsid. The catechism defines it as a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order or said differently decisions should be left to the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority. I do think we need to make a distinction that again, the initial straw that broke the camels back was a federally imposed requirement. This was on essential workers moving across the border. The convoy then kind of snowballed into a much larger movement, but a lot of the measures and restrictions that the convoy was protesting against in fairness, a lot of them were promulgated at the subnational level. They were not promulgated by the government of Canada. Is that a strike against the convoy in terms of choosing to go to the national seat of government and centralizing their protest there, as opposed to going to the provincial seats of government? Although there were some miniature spinoff convoys, which did try to do actions along those lines, but what most of the effort was focused in the national capital, how should we look at that in light of the principle of subsidiary?

Speaker 5: 45:26

Well, I think that the, the sort of tendency to, you know, to focus on, on the, uh, federal government or the national government is, is a sign of the times. I mean, part of it is simply means of communication. We're always aware of what they're doing and what they're saying. And also it's a sign of, of sort of helplessness that people feel they have to go to the, the top to have them deal with their problems, which isn't, which isn't always a good thing. I mean, if you think about what's happened in the United States, the federal government doesn't have that much power to, you know, to lay down restrictions and requirements. Uh, the state governments have those powers. And so a lot of the things that they recommended or they laid down, there was no sort of basis in law for them doing it at the national level. And so what happened eventually is that the individual governors took over and did very different things. Some were, you know, into major lockdown, some were into minimalist lockdown. And one might say the same thing about the, um, with respect to subsid, you know, about the emergency powers that were in absolutely invoked, uh, because as I understand it, uh, these are only supposed to be invoked when there's a kind of national crisis. Whereas one might say that crisis was sort of confined to Ontario or confined to, uh, to Ottawa, even though it involved, um, bridges to the United States. And it certainly involved the national government, you know, on top of the fact that, uh, it seems that those laws were, were meant to address problems like terrorism and things like that, which it seems a bit much to lay that upon this convoy of, uh, of truckers. So that's, you know, that's another sort of subsidiary issue. I know that the, um, perhaps for reasons which might, uh, um, be obvious that the premier of Quebec said, don't include us in this. So yes. Deal with your own problem in Ontario, but don't put it on us. And who knows this may simply be that Quebec's had enough of<laugh> of war powers acts or, uh, you know, or emergency, uh, powers acts, but still it was, it was, it was clear that the premier of Quebec considered this to be a local problem, uh, and not one which had anything to do with him. And so don't put your national solution on my, on my province,

Speaker 1: 47:53

Absolutely looking at the protestor actions and their concentration in Ottawa through the lens of subsidiary. I, I think in fairness, calling a spade a spade, there is an argument to be made that perhaps more of the frustration or more of the protest should have been directed at at prevention authorities. And, and I, I think there's certainly grounds to make that argument. Oh, one, one of the other actions that I wanna make sure we give some attention to was the honking, but in the early days of the trackers being in downtown Ottawa, I mean, let's just say there was a lot of honking and it wasn't always during daylight hours, actually, if any of our listeners are interested, you can go to our Twitter page, crown and Crozier scroll down to our postings from early February, and you'll actually see some footage. Uh, there was a, a rosary recitation on parliament hill, I think on day six of the protest, 7 30, 7 30 at night. Uh, and there were lots of horns interfering. And, and I remember thinking at that point, I don't see why the honking is essential to the cause. And I'm not convinced that it is infused with the spirit of love th neighbor and sure enough, it was about a week into the protest. Some residents of OT actually sought an injunction and a judge of the Ontario superior court. Granted the injunction essentially prohibiting the use of porns by the truckers. I think that's an acknowledgement. We can make that if, if you wanna apply the golden rule, you know, love that neighbor. Uh, I think injecting that spirit into the protest as it related to that particular aspect or action fell short of, uh, the standard set by, by Catholic teaching.

Speaker 5: 49:30

Well, it seemed to me that the court order, uh, was very Prudential. In other words, uh, it affirmed the right to engage in peaceful, lawful protests. Uh, and yet it granted the injunction against the, uh, the horn blowing examples that I mentioned earlier. I mean, we have to take these things into consideration. Having horns blowing all the time is likely to just cause one to be unable to get on with one's life. And that's, that's a real problem. Uh, but as I say, the postal strike the TTC strike, doctor strikes, teacher strikes all of these interfere in ways, which are probably more significant with our ordinary life and the horns do. And yet the horns have this sort of torture element to them, you know, that, uh, so that people can become angrier at having horns beeping all the time than, you know, having to walk everywhere in Toronto during the, the TTC strike. But this also brings us to the, the question of why it lasted so long, uh, why it, it started with the honking and other, other forms that were, as I say, sort of torturous and which are on the edge of what we might call peaceful protest. It seems to me that the, the government and in particular, the prime ministers simply would not address the truckers and their concerns. And I found that, you know, very difficult, uh, to understand, I think I have to admit, I didn't hear every recorded speech that Trudo gave, but I remember one of them that simply started out with a list of, you know, all the things that were wrong with this protest. I mean, it was racist. It was right supremacist. It was, you know, and nobody does anybody listen to that list anymore because it's the list that one compiles and then shouts at one's enemies. It, it isn't necessarily based upon any kind of, uh, of real evidence or at least not significant evidence and the right to petition one's government. I mean, this is, this is part of the first amendment in the United States to red petition the government for redress of grievances. But certainly the, uh, you know, the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms says dissent is the mark of a society, a democratic society. And there should be a right to, you know, to pick it and to, um, you know, and to peaceful assembly. So it is strange that a, the government who accepts that dissent is a hallmark of a democratic society, as something you can't imagine, people saying, you know, when the United States put in its, its constitution or its bill of rights. So it's a stronger statement. Uh, and yet this dissent seemed to be considered to be wrong, right? From the beginning,

Speaker 1: 52:28

The prime minister described it as individuals holding unacceptable views,

Speaker 5: 52:33

Right. But one would think that there are no unacceptable views

Speaker 1: 52:37

Precisely.

Speaker 5: 52:39

And, and we, we have a, a sort of similar situation in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, um, the bonus army, which marched into Washington DC in 1932, there were like 40 some thousand people, veterans and families, and they set up encampments, they set up their own little government, they had food services, they had all this other kind of stuff. And what did they want? Uh, they wanted the government to redeem their bonus certificates, not in 1945, figure out this is a war that was going on in the, in the teens, not in 1945, but now because they were out of work, the country was in recession, all of these sorts of things. And, uh, president Hoover just didn't meet with them. And in the end sent general MacArthur to clear them out with tanks. Uh, he may very well have lost the election because of that, that move. When they came back, Franklin Roosevelt said we need to talk. And, you know, I don't have to hold up Roosevelt just being the greatest president ever in the United States. But he saw that these people had real problems. They had a real right to petition the government. They had served their country, and now they wanted to, you know, to reap the reward of that. And he came to, to a compromise with them. They didn't get the money, but they got jobs. I would've expected. Why couldn't the prime minister, just go out there and talk to them. Talk to, I mean, talking with them in Ottawa, in the streets, would've been incredibly

Speaker 1: 54:12

Powerful or it's even just meet a delegation in a conference room in, in your office

Speaker 5: 54:17

Building made delegation a conference room, if you're so bloody scared of them, which he seemed to be. I mean, the fear factor, there was not impressive.

Speaker 1: 54:25

No, I mean, he made himself scare with the asserted isolation after testing negative for COVID and then a couple days later apparently tested positive. Anyway, there were several reasons for his, for his absence, uh, from the area. Interestingly, I mean, just on the point you make around following the example of medieval monarchs and actually meeting with your people who are petitioning. The one instance to my knowledge where an elected official actually did reach out to members of the convoy. This was the mayor of Ottawa through some back channels. He asked some of the truckers to relocate their vehicles off of residential streets. And this was actually one day before the emergency act was announced and the truckers dutifully complied, there was no objection, they relocated. And one thing what could have been if earlier in the, in the protest there had been that type of outreach and communication just before we leave the honking, you alluded to it. But I do wanna say it for the benefit of our listeners, the same judge who issued the injunction on February 7th, prohibiting the use of horns. He actually said as well, paragraph seven of his decision, the defendants and other persons remain at Liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest. I think you can interpret that as either a tacit or an overt acknowledgement of, uh, the nature of the peaceful, lawful, safe protests. That was, that was unfolding. You know, I wanna go back to one of our fundamental questions, could a Catholic show up and participate in good conscience. I, I think there's a pathway to, yes, among other things. I'm kind of reminded of the, the famous admonition from Pope Leo, the 13th Christian, remember your dignity. And I have a sense that a Christian who remembered his or her dignity in this instance could have shown up to the convoy protest. They didn't have to shout my body, my choice. They didn't have to wave flags with a four letter word beginning with a letter F but beyond things of that nature beyond, you know, not waving a Confederate flag, which between that and the purported Nazis in attendance was, was grossly overblown. There were some knuckleheads who should have behaved more appropriately, uh, on the side of the national war Memorial. Uh, there were some knuckleheads who probably could have left the statue of Terry Fox alone, although they didn't desecrate it despite, uh, what the media would like. You believe there were a few, there were a few knuckleheads to be sure, and we need to call a spade, a spade, but the larger question for Catholics of could you have showed up and in good conscience engaged in a morally IIC act of disobedience. How would you answer that question?

Speaker 5: 56:53

Well, you know that, uh, one of your, uh, well, not so distant ancestors did precisely this, my grandfather, your great-grandfather, who was a union organizer for the railroads back in the early part of the 20th century. And a lot of union organizing activity was, uh, prohibited. And what did they all do? They weren't supposed to gather together. And they linked arms and walked through the main streets in Duluth, Minnesota in order to show that they had solidarity and that they were going to organize. Certainly there was, there was no lack of Catholic fervor in that family. So should we be able to, uh, to seek justice when the law seems to be in our way, you know, Martin Luther king letter from the Birmingham jail, should people be forced to submit to laws, which they had no part in enacting or laws which disproportionally burden them? Yes. They should be able to seek justice in mitigation against that kind of law. I know that this certainly happened in, uh, in the United States, uh, and in Houston, which is, you know, has a huge medical community. All of the nurses who said we were heroes last year, and now we're anti-vaxxers, we are, we're trying to kill people because we don't want to have an, you know, a vaccination and that kind of praised you because you're risking your life. And they were to show up at work every day and to perform operations and different kinds of tests and procedures on people without any, you know, more protection than, you know, their gowns and their masks, all of a sudden, they're the bad guys. And I can imagine the truckers feeling much the same way we praise truckers because they delivered food to us. We couldn't go out and get it for ourselves. And they came and delivered food for us. So that's, it's very confusing to have a society turn on you like that. And so I, I quite understand, um, you know, they're sort of continued thirst for justice. And of course that doesn't mean that every one of them was had pure and UN, uh, motives for doing what they did that never happens in any group movement whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 59:18

It's difficult to get a definitive question, particularly when you're dealing with thousands of individuals and you need to assess different Prudential motives and circumstances. But one observation I couldn't help, but make is. And, and this is part of the impetus for today's show was to try to help equip our audience and our listeners with, with some knowledge and insights to, to help them discern this question, you know, one of the observations I can't help, but share is it would've been really nice if we had had some, some leadership in the church or some members in the church, helping us with this effort, uh, giving us tools and knowledge and teaching to help us discern. I mean, particularly for, for those of us who live here in the national capital region. Yeah. You know what, it would've been nice to have received some guidance and I can't help, but observe that in the lead up to the freedom convoy and while it was taking place, there was silence from the Archbishop of Ottawa. There was silence from most of the priests in Ottawa in terms of willingness to make public statements, or even to talk about this at the pulpit, I've combed the public record to the best of my knowledge, the Archbishop of Ottawa, didn't say anything publicly on the matter to the best of my knowledge, the Bishop's assistant, uh, did speak on record to some sources, uh, some outlets in the Catholic media, the pillar in the Catholic register, essentially saying that the Catholic community in Ottawa was divided clergy and lady, lady alike, as it related to the convoy, the merits of the convoy, whether or not people should participate, the freedom convoy gained international attention. It's one of the rare times that what's happening in, in quiet sleepy Ottawa is, is making waves around the world and the leader, the local vicar of the Catholic church had nothing to say.

Speaker 5: 1:01:11

Well, I think both the, the bishops in Canada and the United States have lost the will to speak out publicly about secular affairs. And part of this is simply the beating that they've taken over in the United States over sexual abuse and in Canada over the, the native schools, for example, so that they, they somehow feel, they lack the moral standing to speak, and that's just wrong. They need to get it back. They need to understand that their authority, their voice is slipping away. Um, if they don't stand up and talk, I was constantly complaining about the bishops in Texas. There are a lot of,'em a lot of Catholics here and not standing up, uh, on certain kinds of, of life issues. But, you know, they've stood up against a projected execution that was supposed to happen yesterday. I just wanted signed a petition against this, uh, this particularly egregious execution. And they made their voice. They talked together and they made their voices heard. The same thing happened when, when Texas legislature, uh, you know, passed the 15 day rule on abortion, the bishops actually, you know, stood up and cheered and supported it. They didn't say, well, there might be this little problem with it, you know, or that little problem. They simply saw it as a tremendous step forward by the general community in Texas to protect life. And I think that bishops simply have to, uh, to get over this shame that they have at very usually the, the behavior of their colleagues or the behavior of behavior that they shut their eyes to, and to realize they still have a responsibility to their flock. It doesn't matter what happened last year. I mean, it doesn't matter in, in terms of their responsibilities and obligations. It certainly matters, but they haven't somehow, you know, lost all their obligations besides, you know, saying mass and hearing confession, just because of the sins of their colleagues.

Speaker 1: 1:03:20

Now, the, the nature of their teaching office doesn't change.

Speaker 5: 1:03:22

Yes, no, it doesn't at all. It doesn't at all. And as a matter of fact, that's one of the things which Leo, the 13th stressed in the encyclical on Christian citizenship that you, that you mentioned before that, uh, the obligation to be evangelical and public about, uh, the teachings of the church never stops for any reason.

Speaker 1: 1:03:45

I mean, I, wasn't looking for the Bishop to take sides and come firmly down on one side or the other, but I think a lot of it could have just been what we've been trying to do on this show, which is okay, well Catholics and, and other people of Goodwill out there. This is the self-styled freedom convoy. Well, let's all remember what freedom is. And if you're choosing to engage in this particular protest, that should be your animating principle. Freedom is freedom is the ability to choose and to do the good, and that should be your animating principle. If you choose to show up and engage in this protest, if you choose to show up, do so with dignity as Paul, Leo, the 13th, admonished us engage in dignified form of protest, know what the basis is for your protest. If you're protesting against the federal authority, make sure you're protesting something under their purview, uh, and something over which they have control. I, I just wanna be clear in terms of what I would've liked to have heard or what would've been, what would've been encouraging and instructive for purposes of, of my own discernment. And I, I don't think that would've been asking too much for our local Archbishop just to have, who have laid out certain markers like that without, without coming down firmly on one side or another.

Speaker 5: 1:04:53

Yeah. One thing that he could have done if he had come out early and said, uh, these are the Catholic principles for protest peaceful protest, then he could have come out later and said time to go home and could have said, let's face it. The prime minister, ain't it coming down tonight? You know, he's not gonna talk to you. So it's time to balance the rewards. And, uh, and also the burdens of staying here any longer. If you speak early, then when things begin to get out of hand or look kind of ugly, you have the right to say something, uh, if you don't come out early and make your presence fall, then obviously you can't come out at the end and complain.

Speaker 1: 1:05:38

And that's a great point. And, and to your early observation, around the nature of the federal government's eventual response, in terms of evoking, federal emergencies, authority, and grossly violating the principle of subsidiary among other things, when that occurred, there was less of a standing for the Bishop to have weighed and, and said anything because he didn't speak up earlier, as you might expect. Uh, I had some spirited discussions with a few friends, including Catholic friends on, on the convoy, as I'm sure many of us did. And, and it actually got to a point where I remember asking the rhetorical question to my friend, would the freedom convoy had been more justified or justified in the view of my friend, if its singular focus had been overturning Canada's abortion laws, let's just contemplate a hypothetical scenario where, where truckers mobilized in downtown Ottawa and refused to leave until there was serious change to our federal government's abortion laws, which here in Canada among the most permissive in the Western world. And, and you know what my friend actually did a, a bit of a double take and was, was a bit tongue tied because just the nature of that issue cast into different light, the disobedience that the, the truckers had demonstrated. But you know what, it's a question I've actually been wrestling with since, because if we think abortion is the grave evil, that it is, I think we, we would be more accepting and we should want I'll even go so far as to say we would want disobedience of that nature to occur.

Speaker 5: 1:07:04

It was debated in the pro-life movement for years, what was the most effective way of protesting abortion? And of course there was the rescue, you know, movement, uh, which actually went in, in blocked abortion clinics. And of course in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people have marched every year in January in commemoration of the Supreme court decision. But there are a lot of other people who thought this had to, this was not just a matter of changing law. See, there's always this question. Do you change the law or do you change the minds? And with abortion, it seemed that it was going to have to be a conversion, um, of spirit, a conversion of mind and not just simply overturning the law. Now, the interesting part about this is, is that, you know, I, I think the Supreme court will overturn Roe V Wade in just another couple of weeks. And, but this coincides with, uh, a real conversion of spirit as well, many fewer younger people think that abortion is an acceptable thing. And part of it is simply that they've met the, the baby face to face. And, you know, in terms of the technology, what technology is made available. So this is always a question, do we change hearts or do we just change the law? And sometimes just changing the law is good. I mean, you wanted to change the laws, the segregation laws in the south, whether or not you changed anybody's mind. Okay. It just had to go. But then on the other hand, uh, there are other cases where conversion of spirit is absolutely necessary in certain sense, nothing else will do.

Speaker 1: 1:08:41

I think that brings us back full circle to the theme, the fundamental theme of freedom, and what is the purpose of freedom? How is it exercised and converting spirits and hearts and minds to the proper exercise of freedom and putting it at the service of the good and, and making it, making sure we understand it as the ability to choose and to do the good is certainly just as relevant, uh, in the context of, of abortion laws as it is for, uh, all of the, the restrictions under COVID that we've encountered Dr. Summers, our time is up. This has been a, a really fascinating enriching conversation. We're so thrilled to actually be able to talk about something as important and consequential as the freedom convoy, and to be able to bring in Thomas Aquinas, Leo, the 13th, the catechism of the church, the words of Christ himself. So thank you so much for, for being our guide and our guest today, it's been greatly appreciated.

Speaker 5: 1:09:30

I've enjoyed it very much. And, uh, obviously this is not a topic which is going to become irrelevant.<laugh>, you know, anytime soon there will be other events which echo the same kind of, uh, dynamic.

Speaker 1: 1:09:46

We just appreciate your willingness to be here. It, it wasn't too hot for you. It was too hot for some others. Uh, but we are delighted to have you in the end. This was really enriching and gratifying. Thank you so much.

Speaker 5: 1:09:57

Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 1: 1:09:59

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