Brothers Josh and Nick Alexander are evangelical Christians who have become known in Canada for taking vocal stances against COVID-era mandates and gender ideology in schools.
They were highly active in Canada’s Freedom Convoy and the Million March for Children, a walk-out protest against gender ideology. They’ve been arrested multiple times and faced major backlash for their activism.
Watch the clip:
Josh Alexander was suspended and ultimately banned from physically attending his Catholic high school after protesting against transgender individuals using the bathroom of their choice and saying that there are only two genders.
🔴 WATCH the full episode (56 minutes) on Epoch Times: https://ept.ms/S0213JoshandNick
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek: Josh and Nick Alexander, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Josh Alexander: Thank you for having us.
Nick Alexander: Thanks for having us.
Mr. Jekielek: You were both involved in the Freedom Convoy protests a couple of years back and other significant social issues that have been bubbling up to the surface across Canada. What is your reaction to the federal court in Canada deeming the invocation of the Urgent Emergencies Act by the Trudeau government to be against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? How do you react to that, Nick?
Nick: We’ve all known that it is in violation of our Constitution and our Charter of Rights. This ruling sets that in stone and makes it apparent to the whole world how corrupt our government is.
Mr. Jekielek: What about you, Josh?
Josh: I was with Chris Barber in the lead truck of the Freedom Convoy. He was on trial with Tamara Lich when we got that call informing us that the federal court had made that decision, and it was definitely encouraging for us to see that. It is what we expected. But we now see the federal government saying they’re going to appeal that decision. It will be interesting within the coming weeks to see how well written that decision was, and if the government will be able to critique it very much.
Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. Chris Barber and Tamara Lich are charged with mischief, and typically this does not require a long, drawn-out, high-profile trial. What is their status?
Josh: They’re currently on trial right now in Ottawa, and it’s taking longer than most murder cases would. I got to sit in for a bit of that. It’s ridiculous how long the trial is taking and the steps that the Crown has taken to prove their guilt. These two were actually obeying the Charter and staying true to their nation’s values in a time of crisis. I’m definitely glad that they are still doing well.
Tamara and Chris are encouraged and they’re fighting strong. Not only them, but also so many others that are on trial right now, including a friend of mine, Erin Aldridge. At the convoy, he was known as the shirtless guy. He went around the entire convoy without a shirt in -30C (-22F) weather in the winter.
Mr. Jekielek: He survived somehow.
Josh: He survived, but his sentencing will be on February 15th. He’s been found guilty of a lot of stuff, so this hasn’t stopped. We have this court decision that is encouraging, but we also have to recognize that a lot of people have been persecuted. We’ve still got the Coutts Four imprisoned without due process in Alberta for two years now, and nobody wants to talk about that issue.
Mr. Jekielek: I recently interviewed the journalist, Rupa Subramanya, who did some excellent reporting from Ottawa about the Freedom Convoy protests back in February, 2022. We were talking about the Coutts Four, but neither of us really knew what was happening. Recently, Tucker Carlson was discussing this with Premier Smith of Alberta. Please remind us about this whole situation.
Josh: This is obviously the Canadian government overreaching once again. The Coutts Four were at the Coutts, Alberta border crossing during the Freedom Convoy, and they were involved in that demonstration. There were a lot of accusations that came from all that. Actually, I’m not very well versed on everything that happened.
But as an onlooker, and I’ve said this before, you are always innocent until proven guilty. I grew up watching old westerns, and there was due process and you could trust the government to be the good guys and the prosecution to act honorably.
That is not what we’re seeing here. We have seen the Canadian government, especially in Alberta, actually break the Geneva Convention on some of their political prisoners. This is definitely an issue that needs to be talked about more.
Mr. Jekielek: Please qualify that for us.
Josh: We’ve recently had an excellent example with Artur Pawlowski. He was held in confinement for the longest time. Actually, they would bring him into the standup steel box, which is about a foot-and-a-half wide, and you can’t sit down in it. You have to stand up, and they would leave him in there for hours.
When they arrested him one time, they hung him in the paddy wagon. They shackled both his hands and his feet, and he was hanging in there. He’s a pastor. For those who don’t know, he’s just a pastor that wanted to open up his church and give the gospel.
Mr. Jekielek: I remember the viral clip where he says to the police, “Nazis. What are you doing coming into my church?”
Josh: Actually, I got to speak in his church last year and I'll be meeting up with him again here in DC next week. But yes, he is just one of the many pastors that spoke out and did the right thing and obeyed the Scriptures and the Great Commission, and they’re now being punished for it. There is some encouraging news in Canada, but you have to be wary of what’s going on behind the scenes.
Mr. Jekielek: The Freedom Convoy was the most consequential protest world-wide in recent history. One, it was a protest by Canadians who are known for being mild-mannered. It was a huge, huge convoy that emerged, picked up steam, and people kept joining in all the way to Ottawa.
Two, it was an absolutely genuine grassroots movement. Everybody, except the media and the federal government, knew that. It wasn’t some kind of outside interference or non profit-funded thing. No, this was self-funded by the participants.
Finally, regarding the Emergencies Act, the federal court has basically said, “No, that was overreach.” But the Emergency Act showed the public that this was not just theoretical—governments can really do this. Nick, what’s your reaction to the after-effects of the protest? How have things changed since that time?
Nick: It gave the world a glimmer of hope that people can make a change in the face of tyranny. We saw that right after the protest ended, the mandates actually ended. It shows that when people stand up against a tyrannical government, it can change how the government acts towards the people. But it also showed the level of evil that a government will go to in order to punish people for a civil protest.
Mr. Jekielek: You both have a very interesting vantage point. You’re young, and you’ve been on the streets. You’ve had crazy altercations with both protesters and law enforcement.
Let’s go back a bit. What is school like in Canada? You know this from your own personal experience, but also from people reaching out to you as well. Please tell us about that.
Josh: I was actually homeschooled up to grade seven, and then I went into the public board. In Canada, we have the public board, and then we have the public Catholic board. They’re both essentially the same, although many would argue about that. I’ve experienced both of them. I have to say that the Catholic board was actually more openly radical in their ideology, and I don’t mean that in a religious sense. I mean that in a woke, progressive sense.
I went into high school and that’s when the mandates started to come in, and I was openly opposed to them. I would be suspended from school a lot for noncompliance. That was an issue that ended up taking place when me and my friend, Monty Walker, organized student walkouts against mandates, and they spread from Ontario to Alberta, to British Columbia, to Nova Scotia, and everywhere.
We did these walkouts. The board would plead with us to stop, and when that didn’t work, they would start disciplining us. Then they called the police on us trying to stop us. That was actually the only time in the last couple of years I can say that the police did the right thing. The principal from my public school called them and said, “We have a student here that’s organizing protests and won’t stop.” They explained to him the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights and our right to peaceful assembly.
Then the Freedom Convoy came in, and as students we were involved with that. At one point, according to the federal government, you had to be 18 or older to exercise your right to peaceful assembly. When I heard that, Nick and I plus a few other students all went down to the convoy and helped with some of the gas running.
But yes, that was my first experience. Then I left that school board after the mandates got lifted. I just wanted to finish my education in a more polite manner without teachers harassing me nonstop.
Mr. Jekielek: How did the teachers harass you?
Josh: I would get sent to the office for anything. I could sit down for lunch in an area that they didn’t like, and then I'd get sent to the office. It was personal to them, because I did not go along with the mandates. They didn’t like that, and they would often try to play it off as a disrespect issue.
Even my own principal told me in many conversations, “You are a respectful student. You are an award-winning student. We don’t know where you went wrong.” They just wanted me to sit down and shut up about the issue. If it was just that simple, maybe I would have. But I recognized that there was a lot more to this issue than people’s safety and staying six feet away, so that granny would stay safe.
Throughout history, we’ve exchanged freedom for safety, and that’s always our biggest mistake. I tried desperately to get students to recognize what was going on, and they wouldn’t. I would make predictions. For instance, early on I said, “There is going to be a mask mandate.”
Students said, “No, we have freedoms in this country, and that won’t happen.” Then it happened and they all defended it. They said , “We have to have mandates because it’s for our safety.” Then I would say, “There’s going to be a vaccine mandate.” Then sure enough, there would be a vaccine mandate.
I said, “There won’t be just one, there will be multiple mandates.” They just kept happening. Now that this court decision has come out, we’re seeing a change in the narrative where they pretend that all along they thought it was an overreach. It is quite ridiculous.
Mr. Jekielek: But that seems positive somehow.
Josh: It’s false. Basically, they’re saying that after having called us terrorists. I’ve had articles written about me by accredited journalists calling me a terrorist. You make all these accusations, and then overnight there’s a court decision and everything’s back to normal. Nothing ever happened.
Today they might be on our side with this issue, but the next day, if the government tells them not to be, then they won’t be. Either they will really understand it or they will accept what the government says and be warriors for falsehood again.
Mr. Jekielek: Talking about gender ideology, Nick, you were at an event with Chris Elston in Toronto where you had an altercation with both counter protestors and law enforcement. Please tell us about that whole situation.
Nick: It was on September 22, shortly after the Million Man March which we were helping with and orchestrating across Canada. We were with Billboard Chris in Victoria Park in Toronto. We were doing one of our normal events, our Education Over Indoctrination protests, and we had a decent sized crowd of a few hundred people there. It wasn’t as big as we were expecting, but it was still a decent sized crowd. There was roughly the same size crowd opposing us, just a little less than a few hundred.
They were getting very violent throughout the day. It was just escalating, escalating, and escalating. We were on one side of the street, and they took the other side, but the cops just kept pushing our crowd further away. There was a small portion of our crowd that ended up getting left behind, and then surrounded by the woke mob.
I went back there and tried to get them to move. I discussed it with the police and said, “We’ve been organizing this event for months. We have every right to be here. You guys know we’re here. We’re the reason you guys are here. We have the right to stand here.” Then the other crowd just keeps attacking us. They have umbrellas they’re trying to stab us with. They come in waves.
Three or four of them will rush into you, then the rest of them will come in behind them and try to push us off the sidewalk or onto the street and try to push us out of there. One of them ran over and tried to tackle me. I crouched down and tried to push him off of me. A second guy dives over and takes a swing at me. He was in my peripheral vision, so I couldn’t exactly see what was in his hand, but he sliced me right above the eye.
Luckily, I saw him coming in my peripheral vision, so I was able to back out of the hit and avoid most of the contact. I got a cut above my eye, so I was bleeding pretty bad. I looked down at the sidewalk and there’s a pool of blood there.
The cops, instead of arresting the guy who attacked me, pushed him back into the crowd. They kept trying to get me to leave, so I’m just standing there. At this point, I’m giving the gospel to the crowd like we always do.
It’s really a message of absolute love. The cop walks up to me and says, “You can’t say that here. You can’t do that here.” One of the veterans I was with, Wild Bill, is a good guy. He says, “It’s going to be an honor going down beside you,” and he shakes my hand.
I see him, then you can see that something has switched. He knows what’s about to go down. The cops come to surround us, put us in cuffs and drag us off to the paddy wagon. They kept us in the paddy wagon for a couple hours. We were in there for quite a while.
Meanwhile, I’m still bleeding. A face cut bleeds a lot, and it was fairly deep. When we finally got to the police precinct, they kept me locked up in the paddy wagon for an extended period of time before one of the officers came up. I was still handcuffed.
He put some sort of bandage on the cut. It wasn’t sticking, because there was so much blood, so he wrapped it in a cloth and put a pin on it. Then they took my pin away. They thought I was going to break out. He said that he was worried I was going to break out.
I was joking about it. I said, “I can use that pin to pick my handcuffs.” They refused to give me medical assistance for an extended period of time. Eventually, they brought me to the hospital after hours.
When I get to the hospital the nurse at the front says, “You’re going to have to put a mask on, sir.” I’m in handcuffs at this point, covered in blood, with two cops on either side of me. I’m standing in the emergency room and everyone’s looking at me and it’s a bit of a sight.
The nurse says, “You’re going to have to put a mask on.” I say, “I’m not putting a mask on. I’m not doing that.” Security walks up and they say, “No, you have to put a mask on. This isn’t optional.”
I say, “What are you going to do? Call the cops?” The cop beside me just starts laughing, because he knows I’m already arrested. Finally, they stitched me up at the hospital.
Mr. Jekielek: This is in September of 2023?
Nick: Yes, September, 2023.
Mr. Jekielek: They were requiring you to wear a mask?
Nick: Yes. In early fall, 2023, hospitals in Canada mandated masks again.
Josh: They are still mandated.
Nick: Yes, they still are. Going back to the facial cut, I asked one of the cops what it was, because I knew it was a blade of some sort. He said that it was a bladed glove, and the other cop told me it was a knife.
After I got released and was talking to people that were in the area at the time, everybody seemed to think that it was a knife. But a guy did get arrested shortly after for assaulting another person. He was wearing a bladed glove. Which one it actually was, I don’t know, but I do know that it was a blade of some sort.
Mr. Jekielek: How do you explain how law enforcement approached this situation?
Nick: It’s interesting you bring that up. What I find so weird about the whole situation is that our crowd who is pro-freedom and against the gender ideology being forced on the kids, our crowd is the same crowd that in 2019 was the Back the Blue crowd. We had Back the Blue patches that we wore, and were very vocal about supporting the police. We always said, “Don’t defund the police. We need our police. We love our police.”
The police have essentially responded to this by unfairly restricting the populace who is standing up for right. They’re acting on fear, whether it’s fear of the crowd, fear of the woke mob, or whether it’s fear of losing their job, which we’ve seen happen in Canada.
Our parents, both school teachers, lost their jobs because they refused to encourage transgender ideology to their kids. Whether the police are in fear of losing their jobs or whether they’re in fear of the mob, they’re acting out of fear and they’re improperly enforcing justice.
Mr. Jekielek: What is the state of the education system? How many people in the school system are actually taking a contrarian position?
Josh: In my experience, I’m the only student in Canada in my situation. I believe I’m the only student in the states in this situation. I know there have been other kids that have stood up and they’ve faced consequences for doing so. There’s a girl named Olivia who just mentioned the word biological female in an essay. They gave her a zero grade on it, and they docked all her grades.
There are no students that are willing to talk about these issues. A lot of them don’t recognize that these issues matter. A lot of them don’t understand why I do what I do. As far as teachers go, they are worse than the curriculum.
Looking at the curriculum itself, I disagree with a lot of the sex ed stuff. I disagree with the way it’s taught and the way it’s addressed. But honestly, the curriculum isn’t even my problem. It’s more the radical teachers that enjoy pushing hysteria upon kids.
I’ve had so many teachers ask me this question at the beginning of my first year, the first time ever being in the Catholic board. The first question I get asked on the first paper I receive is, “What are your pronouns?” That sets the tone for the rest of the class.
It shows that these students think it’s totally normal. They all write down their pronouns and go on to talk about cultural appropriation and the racist curriculum and systematic racism within municipal government. It’s ridiculous just how much they enjoy pushing a false narrative and how infuriated they get when it is challenged.
I have always been respectful, and that’s the only way that we can properly approach these issues. But they lose their composure, especially in the face of somebody who’s respectful. That’s what they really dislike, because it’s easy to discredit someone that’s rude or obnoxious. But when you get somebody that’s respectful and articulate in describing the issue before them, they don’t like that at all.
I have received a lot of very irresponsible feedback from teachers. I’ve had so many inappropriate comments. For instance, the first argument that was made against me by my law teacher, after I said that males shouldn’t be in female washrooms and changing rooms, was that the only reason I believed that was because I couldn’t control my hormones. She said that in front of the entire class.
That’s totally inappropriate for a teacher to talk like that, especially about a student, in front of other students. That’s how empowered they feel. They don’t think that there are going to be any consequences. I’ve brought these issues before my school board and before trustees. There’s no concern about those kinds of issues. They would rather punish me. At this point, the only allegation against me is that I quoted Mark 10:6, which says, “God created the male and female.” They don’t like that.
Mr. Jekielek: How is that an allegation?
Josh: They say it was bullying.
Nick: In a Catholic school board. He was quoting the Bible in a Catholic school board.
Josh: Yes. That has been an issue that has come up several times. In Canada, we have Bill C-4, which bans conversion therapy. It essentially bans certain Scriptures that state the truth about biblical sexuality, so Mark 10:6 would be one of those.
Mr. Jekielek: But you’re not forcing anyone to believe that.
Josh: I am not. But it’s me in a class with students that identify as something other than what they were born as. When I state my beliefs on that issue, when I quote Scripture, it is considered offensive, and it is considered bullying. That’s the allegation. What actually happened is that I was in the classroom with about 30 students. My math teacher was shouting at me and telling me I can be whatever I want to be, that I should explore myself, and that I might not actually be a boy.
I went back and forth with him on this, and the entire class freaked out. They’re calling me a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe. I have to defend myself while also stating my opinion. One student who I’ve since learned was a transgender stands up, leaves her chair, walks across the class, yells at me, and tells me she can identify as she pleases, and she can be whatever she wants to be.
I respond, “Yes, of course you can identify as you please, but that doesn’t change your biology. It doesn’t change the fact of the matter. It doesn’t change reality.” I said that and then I quoted Mark 10:6, and this is where the allegation comes from. I said, “Look, God, create us male or female. You’re either one or the other, and you can’t change it.”
That was considered to be bullying. This is in a classroom debate where the teacher is encouraging it. That’s why I’ve been banned from school for two years. Even after that two-year ban is over, I will essentially have an indefinite ban until I apologize for quoting Scripture.
Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about the Million Man March. Many people here in the U.S. may not know about it, but it’s a significant event for a large number of people. Canada has 40 million people now?
Nick: Yes, around 40 million now.
Mr. Jekielek: A pretty significant number of people mobilized to participate in many towns and cities across Canada. Please tell us about that.
Nick: It was really quite incredible to see parents from all different religions and all different walks of life saying, “We’re sick of our kids being told anti-truths. We’re sick of all the corruption they are being taught. We’re sick of the sexual immorality that is being forced on them. We don’t want this in our school system. Teach our kids something that’s going to benefit them in life. Teach them math and real science, and keep this other junk out of it.”
There have been a handful of voices the last few years talking about this. Hardly anybody will bring it up. When you break it down, most parents didn’t know what was happening in the school system. Kids go to school, then they come back home. Parents are busy with work, they make supper, put the TV on, and then go to bed. They are just living a normal life, and probably weren’t aware of what was happening and actually taking place in the school system.
What happened with Josh in the classroom brought to light what’s taking place in our school system, and parents weren’t happy. They came from all walks of life from all across the country. We had 10,000 people in Ottawa, and that was just a local Ottawa group.
They weren’t from Toronto, because Toronto had another 10,000 people in Toronto. It was the same in Niagara, the same in Barrie, and the same all across Canada from east to west. Every town of any size had hundreds and thousands of parents and students walking out.
The problem is that members of the woke mob tend to be a lot more vocal about their opinions, and that leads people to believe that this is the majority and how the majority sees things, when it’s not. The majority doesn’t see things that way. The majority just doesn’t care enough to get involved. It is time that the majority gets involved before society completely collapses.
Mr. Jekielek: Do you think this is the beginning of a reaction?
Josh: It’s hard to say. I have been to schools where I learned more about how students think. I’ve always wondered about how much different I am from the average student, because I just don’t know. A lot of students can’t relate to me. But I get to go there and watch the student body change within just a few brief minutes.
For instance, I was in Calgary on May 17th of 2023, and I showed up for this event. There’s BLM and Antifa protesting outside of a high school because there were students at that high school having a protest in support of me. I went to visit with these students. There were groups there waiting for me, both supportive students and students that were against me. There were a lot that just wanted to see what was going to happen. Then there’s BLM and Antifa. There’s a stone wall separating me and BLM and Antifa from the students.
I got attacked. They punched me in the face. They were choking me with a chain around my neck. They’re burning my Bibles and trying to set me on fire at one point. The students are watching this, but I’m totally calm. A lot of the time I have my hands in the air, and I’m actually just trying to engage with students while I’m getting attacked. Then the police come in and they tell me that I’m under arrest and they take me away.
As I’m being handcuffed, I’m still talking to students. I’m giving the gospel and I’m offering them Bibles. Then they arrest me and they walk me away. I am even engaging with students from the paddy wagon, and I just wouldn’t shut up. The police are telling me that I need to stop. They wanted to get me on a hate speech bylaw, because apparently, you can’t say anything controversial within 200 meters of a pride group. But these are actually counter protesters to my event.
I got to watch how students reacted to all that, even students that were just bystanders and didn’t really support me. They didn’t really know anything about this. About an hour-and-a-half later, I get released under the condition that I don’t return. The police tell me, “If you return, you will be arrested and charged.” I get released and I start walking right back there because I wasn’t finished there yet. I had an event to do and there were students that wanted to meet me and wanted to talk, plus I wanted to give them the gospel.
That’s what I did. There was a line set by the police. They said I couldn’t cross a certain line. I couldn’t cross the road towards the school. As I’m about to cross that line, the students that weren’t supportive of me before all came over to me, and they all wanted photos.
They were talking with me and asking questions about Jesus on the cross and all these issues. They realized that if I was willing to go to that extent to give my message, there must be something to it. They can relate to me because I’m 17-years-old and they couldn’t really imagine doing something like that, but they can relate to the situation. They actually like it.
Students love rebellion. Young people always have loved rebellion, which is why the Left is doing so well in the universities, because they teach rebellion against everything that’s normal and traditional. The mistake that the conservatives make is they try to play center field and they try to get people from both sides. They don’t want to offend anybody.
The reason I get a radical response from students is because in this day and age, my message is actually radical and they like that. They don’t want somebody that’s going to play center field. They want somebody that will help them rebel. We have to channel that rebellion into a righteous rebellion. That’s what I try to do.
It’s weird that now the born-again Christian kid that is giving Bibles out is rebellious, but that’s a tactic that we need to use. It’s a lesson that a lot of Canadians need to learn.
Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about Save Canada, which is the organization you are promoting. Your brother actually got suspended for wearing a Save Canada hat. Was that a Save Canada event that you were talking about earlier?
Josh: Yes.
Mr. Jekielek: There are a few different elements here. There were traditional Muslims at the Million Man March. There were classic liberals at the Million Man March. There were all sorts of people. Obviously your faith is very important to you. You both have mentioned that in no uncertain terms.
There is part of the movement which is about freedom and then there’s part of the movement which is about spreading the gospel. Save Canada could be a provocative message to some people. Save Canada from what? Please tell us about that.
Josh: At that march, it was the first time I had ever seen this. There were Orthodox Jews and there were Muslims. There were Christians and there were Catholics and there were Sikhs. There was everyone you could imagine at that march. In my belief, it is because all morality stems from God. That’s the idea of morality, which comes from the idea of God. He is the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy.
That truth is going to be pulled into every religion, but it all comes back to the truth of morality and where it originates. Muslims are some of the most disciplined people you will ever meet, and they have outdone the church on almost every level. There is a lot that can be learned from them about discipline and about being a unified people.
They have really helped. There was a gentleman we worked with a lot, Kamel El-Cheikh. He is a Muslim and a parent that said, “Look, enough is enough. I want to join.” He met me on June 9th in Ottawa, and we worked together on the Million Man March.
A lot of this definitely stems from religion, if not all of it. My argument is that the Save Canada message is a very generic message. It can be used on any issue. It actually came out before the Freedom Convoy and then led up to the mask mandate issue. It was a young man in Nova Scotia that wore the Save Canada hat for the first time. He just went to a little rally on Citadel Hill and the police arrested him.
Mr. Jekielek: Why is wearing a Save Canada hat an arrestable offense?
Josh: This happened more when the lockdowns were in place and you weren’t allowed to demonstrate. Anyways, I got to know that guy and his group. It was passed off to us a year before the Freedom Convoy, and since then we have been running this organization.
I like it because it refers to our politics and our social issues, but it also refers to the state of our nation. I always say politics is symptomatic of the state of our faith in our nation, because if we were a moral nation and a righteous nation, we wouldn’t be in this condition right now.
My favorite book in the Bible, Proverbs, talks about what happens to the foolish man and the evil man, and then what happens to the prudent man. That is so true, and I’ve seen it at work in my own life. We need to have faith in that and recognize that those who rely on falsehood and who campaign on falsehood are going to fall.
We need to recognize that and have hope in that and be bold about our faith because there’s going to be a time when we will have to answer for our actions on earth. Did we stand with the fools that stood on falsehood and who built their house in the sand, or are we founded on the rock?
Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about the situation where your brother was suspended for wearing a Save Canada hat. What happened there?
Josh: The hat was controversial but not to the point where anybody really cared. I wore it for all of my time in high school. I wore that hat leading up to the convoy. Even after the convoy, nobody really cared. It did not become an issue until that viral video of me being arrested outside my high school wearing that hat. It has also been a key partner in our messaging over the last year about gender ideology. That’s where we really hit them, and they didn’t like that.
Any student within the schools wearing this symbol suggesting that they support me or my narrative would be kicked out. I get messages all the time. My little brother saw that Nick got knifed and he thought he would wear the hat in support of us on his next day at school.
Yes, they showed up and brought him into the office and told him he should take it off. He asked why, but they couldn’t really explain why. They just said it was controversial and they didn’t like the branding. They said it was too political, which it is not, as we just explained.
It’s really not a political message. There should be nothing wrong with the message, “Save Canada.” Whatever side of the political spectrum you’re on, you should recognize that Canada is in peril. It’s no longer what it used to be. You would not think it would be too offensive to say, “Save Canada.” But apparently it is, so they’re kicking students out for wearing my hat now.
Mr. Jekielek: Your parents obviously played a role in you being here today and everything that led up to it. Please tell us about your relationship with your parents.
Nick: I have a very good relationship with both my mom and my dad. They made a lot of sacrifices growing up to make sure we were raised right and raised in line with the Word of God. They did everything in their ability to assure that we would grow up to live righteous lives.
They talked about the gospel from a very young age, essentially from day one. I was three days old when I was first in church and heard the gospel, the importance of turning from our sins to Jesus, the importance of repentance, and the importance of living your life in a walk with Christ. They have very heavily influenced our lives. Yes, Save Canada wouldn’t exist without them, that’s for sure.
Josh: For someone to hear us talk about our parents with respect to these issues, they would just say, “You’re just a bunch of indoctrinated kids,” but that’s really not the case. My parents didn’t want me in the education system because that is indoctrination. They wanted to teach us how to think and not what to think. They have presented us with the evidence and allowed us to decide for ourselves. When the truth is before you, it’s not that complicated.
I’m very thankful for my parents and the sacrifice they made to keep us out of school and to homeschool us, but not only that, to now watch them lose their jobs because of it. My dad was one year away from his pension, and that has all been stripped away from them because they chose to be Christians.
I was asked a question at my school board hearing. I was before a bunch of lawyers at the school and they were trying to find out whether I was really guilty of what I’m being accused of.
Mr. Jekielek: What is that, by the way?
Josh: Bullying.
Mr. Jekielek: Yes, okay.
Josh: I’m sitting before this board and I got asked a very strange question. They asked me, “Do you believe your principal, Derek Lennox, actually believes what he’s saying?” I said, “No, I don’t believe you can be raised with morality and be totally okay with not standing up for the vulnerable, and leaving teenage girls to have to undress in front of boys. No, I don’t believe that’s okay.”
I said, “My parents don’t believe that’s okay either. They made a very different decision than Mr. Lennox.” I said, “The reason for that is because they’re Christians.” The room kind of went silent. This is in a Catholic school board room, and they did not like that. I said that in order to stand up. In order to take a fall for what is right, you have to be sure of that and you have to be in a relationship with Christ. I’m proud to have been raised in the family that had that.
Mr. Jekielek: How has this affected your family as a whole?
Nick: It has shaken it up, and my parents have lost their jobs. It’s changed the path we were headed down. But at the end of the day, not a lot has changed, because we’re still grounded in Christ. He’s our soil, he’s our rock, and we’re still grounded in truth. We’re still grounded in His word. We know that when we stand before the throne at the end of our lives that we will have done what is right.
We have to pay for earthly things, but righteousness also has a price, and freedom has a price. Everything has a price. At the end of the day, it’s worth paying.
Mr. Jekielek: Josh, You mentioned there aren’t a lot of kids doing what you’re doing. But at the same time, there seems to be a shift. You’ve been talking with young people across the country. Do you see a shift happening?
Josh: To an extent. This goes back to how the narrative changes as the truth comes to light, then everybody acts like that’s normal. Students are starting to recognize the truth. They are starting to realize that maybe I’m not the radical, hateful bigot they thought I was, especially when they actually get to talk to me in person and see my actions in the face of both injustice and tyranny. But I truly believe that without seeing the full truth, our nation won’t be able to turn around.
Canadians are known as being very polite, but that turns into being docile very quickly. You can be polite and you can be respectful, but you also have to be bold. That’s where we need to see a change. It’s not just in Canada. I’m an American as well, and I get to meet with American students and see what’s going on there. Honestly, it’s not much different than Canada.
Canada is just a few months ahead of America and it’s sad. I go to the states thinking that there’s hope and there is. It’s definitely not too late to fix America, but I see the same symptoms. The world in general is headed in a very bad direction. The only thing that can change that is an actual recognition of what is true to the core. I’m willing to stand for and to die for my faith. If it’s not worth dying for, then it’s not worth living for.
Mr. Jekielek: You grew up in a Christian household, your parents instilled these values that you’ve been describing, Nick. Was there some moment where you decided, “Yes, I’m on board with this”? Did you have to make that choice, or was it always obvious? It’s always very interesting to me how people come to their faith.
Josh: I can’t remember an exact moment where I decided this was true. I don’t have an amazing testimony about how I came to faith. I was at a fairly young age when I recognized that, and I’ve only grown since then. But I would also say that the Bible talks about how we are to die to our sin every day.
Every day we are supposed to make that decision, “This is what I’m going to stand for.” Every decision we make in our lives, it should be with that in mind. With each challenge that is put before us, we have to make that decision every time.
Nick: For me, I was about 11-years-old. I grew up in a Christian home. I was well aware of the story of the gospel and I was aware of it all. It just didn’t have a huge effect on me personally. I remember that I was 11-years-old and at a gospel tent meeting. The preacher was preaching. I believe he was using a certain chart depicting the broad road and the narrow road. It’s a chart that a lot of gospel preachers use. I remember sitting there and it struck me, “I’m a sinner. Right now I’m in my sin before a holy God.”
Mr. Jekielek: In highly secular societies, like the U.S. and Canada, religious faith is often portrayed as being some kind of indoctrination, and that it’s not something people come to naturally. That’s my observation, and if you disagree, please tell me.
This program is about people who are challenging some of the grand narratives of the day, many that are false. People come to their strength in different ways. For some of them, it’s just obvious that this is what they have to do. Sometimes they find it in God, and other times they find it in other places.
Josh: I believe that morality can be found. I have a lot of secular people that I’ve met that are willing to stand up more than Christians. It can’t be through indoctrination. It has to be a personal choice that this is the truth. That can come from people that aren’t religious and it has happened many times throughout history.
Many of the greats were atheistic or didn’t believe in Christ’s death on the cross. Whether you are a Christian or not, everybody recognizes that there is evil. You will have all these scientists and these secular figures talking about the common rule, and that every equal has an opposite. If we know that there is evil, we have to recognize that there is good. There is a pinnacle of morality.
Mr. Jekielek: We were talking about the situation in schools. From the perspective of someone who was just recently in school, what does it look like?
Nick: It’s weird because physical relationships are a dying thing. They have been replaced by social media. Snapchat is probably the tool that’s most used where both sexes seem to be getting satisfied from social media. It’s a very, very strange situation.
Josh: It’s a mess. You'll have these circles where promiscuity is encouraged and it’s all they work on. Then you have the pornographic group. They just send nudes and they try to make any kind of offer, but I don’t want that. I’m waiting for marriage. That’s one of the greatest things that our society has lost. It’s the greatest bond between a man and a woman. God gave the gift of marriage. It’s something that’s been lost and it’s been perverted, and we need to change that.
Mr. Jekielek: It’s very hard to find people who can talk credibly about the impact of pornography on our society. It has a profoundly destructive effect. How common is it among high school people?
Nick: With the vast majority of males, I'd say up into the high 90th percentile are into pornography.
Josh: It’s rampant, and it used to be something that people were embarrassed by. The only place you could get it was maybe the gas station, but that’s no longer the case. It’s open to anybody. It’s a private thing that you would think they would be embarrassed by, but that’s not the case.
I was in my math class again, and they were talking about pornography. I was shocked by girls and guys openly talking about what they watch, how much they watch it, when they watch it, and the most recent time they watched it. I was shocked. I always knew it was a raging issue, but I didn’t know it was something they didn’t even recognize as a problem. They aren’t embarrassed by it. They are totally okay with it.
Nick: It also explains why our population is so docile and weak when it comes to tyranny. There’s a Latin word, virtus. It defines warrior virtue, bravery, honor, and courage, something that is completely lacking in our society.
But looking back at the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, that was what their society was built upon. The men were warriors, and that’s what made them so great. That’s what made so many great accomplishments in their society. Men get this desire to conquer fulfilled by pornography. I believe it has an effect and is one of the reasons for our weakened, docile society.
Josh: James O'Keefe released an interview with somebody from PornHub and the guy admitted that they have branding in there and they have techniques to try to open people up to new categories, and it just furthers the sexual perversion of our country.
Beauty inspires men to greatness, but when you remove the tradition in beauty and you remove the elegance and just make it only the physical beauty and not the heart, it becomes really lame.
Mr. Jekielek: There’s something profoundly broken with how young people are forming relationships affected by this pornography. I can’t imagine how destructive an impact that might have on relationships. It is desensitizing, which is related to what you were talking about just now.
You both paint a very dark picture. On the other hand, you’ve inspired a lot of people, Christian and otherwise, to be more vocal about their beliefs and stand up for what they believe and say it publicly. As we finish up, let’s talk about the reactions to your work and what Save Canada is up to next.
Josh: Yes, we’ve definitely seen a change in the way that the nation has responded to us. People are starting to accept our narrative and it’s become more of a talking point. For the longest time, politicians wouldn’t discuss this, and now here we are.
Mr. Jekielek: Just to be clear, what won’t they discuss?
Josh: Gender ideology, and also the destruction of our once great nation. I look at that and I recognize that there is so much fear in both the people and the politicians that needs to be addressed.
But I also see that one 17-year-old kid’s voice can mean a lot. One 19-year-old firefighter, the youngest in the department, his actions that cost him his job can mean a lot. They can set in motion quite the testimony across the nation and make a difference.
It will never be recognized, but that’s not our goal. The fact of the matter is it has changed the way social issues are addressed in Canada, and we aren’t going to stop. In fact, on February 16th, we have the third Education Over Indoctrination rally coming up in Ottawa. We’ve had quite a bit of success with those in the past. I’m looking forward to that one.
Mr. Jekielek: Josh and Nick Alexander, such a pleasure to have you on the show.
Josh: Thank you very much.
Nick: Thank you for having us.
Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Josh and Nick Alexander and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek.
🔴 WATCH the full episode (56 minutes) on Epoch Times: https://ept.ms/S0213JoshandNick
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