ANDREW CHAPADOS ｜ Ezra Levant
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Summary
Rebel News founder Ezra Levan Levan joins me on this episode of the show to talk about the origins of Rebel News, the founding of Rebel, and the story behind the creation of the Rebel News brand.
Transcript
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of course I am joined by the boss man Ezra Levan how are you doing today I'm great being called
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the boss man I just thought of Bruce Springsteen for a second or the wrestler that's right thanks
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for joining me episode number 50 thanks for letting me do this for 50 weeks wow crazy amount
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of time yeah well you know what I want to salute you on the initiative you took and I really like
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the guests you choose it's a little bit different than our other Rebel News products and I I'm
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actually incredibly impressed with the quality like you've had some amazing guests I don't know
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how you do it but you're your own producer am I right I basically just sent out the email and hope
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for the best well it's worked it's worked congratulations thanks for having me on no
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problem of course I think what everybody wants to know as a fan would be you're at Sun News how does
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Rebel News start what spawns the idea well we certainly didn't want to start it we wanted to
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work for Sun News forever it was a great company owned by Quebeco which is a major media conglomerate
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so there were 200 people working at Sun News Network I would say was even a little luxurious I mean
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we had a makeup team we had you know green room we had like it was it was great and then they suddenly
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announced that it was being shut down because of a bad CRTC ruling so we will all went in to get our
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severance checks and clean out our desks and I said to my little team you you you you you come to my house
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let's see if we can replicate capture some of the audience and the messaging and the movement that
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Sun News was Sun News was was activist in its day a little bit like Fox News a little bit like GB News
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in the UK so eight folks sat around my table and we thought let's get out of the things that hurt Sun
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let's get out of the big equipment heavy equipment million dollar studios quarter million dollar cameras
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let's go simple cell phone camera let's get away from satellite linkups let's do Skype let's have
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men on the street we don't have to have a whole team let's use a different technology the TriCaster
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not a five-person control room and most importantly let's never again allow our destiny to be decided by
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government bureaucrats at the CRTC so that's where the word rebel came from we were rebelling against
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the editorial narrative of the mainstream media rebelling against the old technology rebelling
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against the regulatory power it started literally in my living room the first video and here we are
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almost seven seven years later we're coming up on 50 staff I'd say we're about a billion views between
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YouTube Facebook Twitter all the other forums we have viewers not just in Canada but in the UK and
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Australia very strong and I've had a chance to meet great citizen journalists like yourself
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I think there's only a single person in our entire company with a journalism degree David Menzies
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everyone else is a just has a natural curiosity and I think that works now in terms of rebel news
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blowing up when I became a fan 2016 do you think the culture war would you say is the thing that really
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put it into everybody's living rooms well 2016 was a magical year because it was the year before
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YouTube decided to punish conservatives it was the year of Trumpism Trump himself was a rebel against
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all the things I talked about the establishment the the media he used the internet to beat his primary
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rivals and then to beat Hillary even though she outspent him that's why when Trump shocked everyone
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especially the New York Times that he won you you saw the the demonetization and the throttling of
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conservatives on the internet which I think in the end helped undo Trump but that glorious year you
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not only had the most interesting man in the most interesting story in the most interesting country
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the most interesting election but the medium was still free so we zoomed because we were the only
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Canadians taking our point of view and Americans found us and loved us and we had colorful characters
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like back in that day we had Gavin McKinnis doing humorous videos before he was anathematized and
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criminalized and we really grew our team quickly we grew our business model that's one more way in which
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we rebelled we don't really make a lot of money in ads these days almost none but through crowdfunding
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which is a kind of ad hoc subscription really you're not subscribing to something regularly you're
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saying I like that I'll give 10 bucks to that oh they want to build a new studio I'll give 50 bucks to
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that so it's different than the subscription and that you're saying okay we got a project we want
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to send Sheila Gunn-Reed to report from the global warming conference in Marrakesh Morocco do if you
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support that help buy a plane ticket so it was a very practical tangible way of crowdfunding and here we are
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we built the company based on crowdfunding and I think that keeps us honest because if you know CNN
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or CBC forgets its audience it doesn't necessarily mean they're out of business in the case of the
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CBC is the state broadcaster they're really just operating for one man Justin Trudeau we every day
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have to listen to our viewers if we get it wrong our viewers will tell us and if we still get us get it
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wrong our viewers will not support us and we will be out of business very quickly so it forces us to
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keep a certain sense of humility to listen to our people not just talk at them and the fact that we
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have thousands of individual donors our average donors think about fifty three dollars so that
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means that there's no one person who can call us up and pull the plug when I worked at Sun News
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we were owned by Quebec or which is owned by a man called Pierre-Carl Pelletot who I really admire
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by the way and who I like very much but at the end of the day he was the master of the entire enterprise
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and you had to be careful you couldn't talk about certain subjects that were sensitive to him fair enough
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here at Rebel News we have no master we have thousands and thousands of stakeholders and any one of them if
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they get mad at us for something okay we'll pay attention then we'll read their email but there's no one
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donor who's large enough that it would cause us to shift course I would much rather have a thousand
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people giving fifty bucks than one guy giving fifty thousand bucks I know it sounds counterintuitive
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because that one check would oh that's easy I don't have to work anymore no the effort you make
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to attract and retain a thousand supporters is such a is such a salutary act the things you have to do
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the way you have to respect views and that's you know you're not just a tv star you work in our we
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call it community management you talk to rebel viewers that is the source of our strength if we
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keep our feet on the ground and so many companies have done this now with patreon and with subscribe star
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and locals so many people have gone big you're a big fan of tim dylan he's huge just from people
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wanting to pay to hear him talk and I think that's the proof and one of the things that the legacy media
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I sometimes call the media party because they have they have a central message they have a discipline
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they stick together it's like a political party except for you can't vote them out I think you see that
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kind of click and I saw recently tim dylan was in a bit of a scrap because he's doing so well
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and patreon and other people are looking down their nose at him no I think that's a bit of jealousy
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it's either disbelief or jealousy I remember when we launched rebel news and we did our very first
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crowd fund and I'll tell you we raised 85 000 in one day that's shocking and I think we got it we can
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do it because because I for the first couple of payrolls I just put everything on my like I used my
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severance from some news to hire these folks I didn't know if it was going to work so we did
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we just started doing journalism we did about 50 videos and then I sent an email to everyone
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saying all right guys if you like this I do need your help please help and then we just sent the
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email we waited 85 grand came in and I knew we would live because that was people's way of saying
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we value this and I remember when we told that I think it was the mclean's magazine or someone else
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they literally refused to believe it they said no you're getting some grant from some oil company
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that wants to see you why did they say that because they do not want to believe that we have that
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kind of purchase with viewers because they know they do not and I saw a headline just the other day
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that salt wire which is a bunch of newspapers in Atlantic Canada took a massive multi-million dollar
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grant from Trudeau for the media bailout and they proceeded to lay off over 100 staff and
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see they keep if you are if you work for the mainstream over 1500 media companies in Canada
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have taken that Trudeau bailout I didn't even know there were 1500 media companies
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so they're all failing and they think how can we survive on our own Justin Trudeau please give us
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more money 1500 of them some of them get millions of the post media gets 140 grand a week from Trudeau
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so that's a sign of their own lack of confidence that's a sign that they've given up any editorial
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independence if you're working for the man that's a sign of decline all right we're going to take
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welfare manage to climb we don't take a dime from government my god you've got to be confident to do
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that no advertising no government money that's impossible it's impossible and and when we had that
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first success 85 grand in one day I was blown away but no one of our critics would believe it because
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they know in their bones that if they and boring old Maclean's or boring old I don't know Toronto Star
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actually put out a tip jar instead of their viewers if you really love us support us no one would
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would you pay money to see TV do they really serve you like that well that's why their Toronto Star had
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to be bought out like their tip would be the two dollar Saturday star or whatever their their big
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thick one is but that doesn't happen yeah you know it's there's a phrase I heard once
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grandtrepreneurs you can be an entrepreneur out there hustling working trying things or you can
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be a grandtrepreneur gaming the system trying to figure out just the right words to convince the
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right bureaucrat to give you money you might actually get a lot of money as a grandtrepreneur I mean
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post media gets millions but what if you took that energy and that in you know smarts and that
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initiative and actually deployed it to figuring out how to work in this internet age I actually think
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being a grandtrepreneur is a trap because you're directing your attention your brilliance you're in
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your brainstorming your hopes to being basically a teat sucker that's not a swear
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you said to me before that you have seen the rebel news cast let's call it like Saturday night live
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Saturday night live terrible now by the way of course but because of the the new and interesting
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characters who's somebody that's left that you're like I really like I'm proud of that person I'm proud
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of the time we spent together impressed by what they've done ever since well there's a lot of
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examples like that and listen not all our alumni glow under glorious things some of them flame out
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you know you might be surprised but the editor-in-chief of quillette the australian
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magazine claire layman she was a rebel news contributor I thought she did great and because
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I'm always scanning often twitter and social media who and I look for someone who is a good communicator
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speaks from the heart authentically and is a citizen journalist trying to fight the world trying to
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the rest of the world I very very rarely look at someone who's already in media first of all they've
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made it I probably can't outbid them they are probably careful if you've got a job with CTV or
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you know ABC you're probably careful and you would never go to rebel because that would
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you know look bad but what if you're a citizen journalist and so claire layman would be an example
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of that I mean Gavin McInnes went on to big things and then he just sort of had a lot of political
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problems but there's someone who we really took from semi-obscurity and I mean he listened he was
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with vice and he had some success but he made hundreds of videos with us some of which had two
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three million views very successful um you know sometimes people need our structure um to help them
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succeed um I'm just trying to think of other examples I think we've got a great cast of talent
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right now I look around our company we have people in four countries and right now just in
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terms of outstanding journalism Avi Yamini in Melbourne Australia he's world class we've got
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great Canadians too but by coincidence we have a journalist in the most locked down city in the
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world it just is a coincidence and he's doing amazing world-class coverage I'm very proud you know
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the Saturday Night Live analogy is find young talent teach them a few ways of doing things and
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either they stay on or they or they move on I mean I I like to keep in touch with some of our alumni
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Kian Bexty of Calgary is an example he's got the counter signal he started with us um it was one of our
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critics that said we're like the Saturday Night Live of conservative media was Jonathan Goldsby of
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Canada land he hates us but he acknowledges we're talent scouts I think I spend an hour a day talent
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scouting because you always need to add more talent and someone moves on for a reason and you're and
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there's always someone who is an interesting point of view um Drea Humphrey she was not a professional
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journalist I just saw her doing some basically homemade videos and I thought whoa she's a good
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thinker a good talker Tamera Ugolini she was a client of our Fight the Fines project and I thought oh my
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god who is that so smart so well-informed articulate battler who's she so we find people in the
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strangest places and we put this motley crew together and you know in its own funny way it's
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worked it's worked bloody well have you many played by Rob Schneider by the way I believe in terms of
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I want to talk about Fight the Fines um obviously it kind of caused a gear shift in the media once all
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the lockdowns happen and everybody was saying who's going to stand up for our rights how important
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has Fight the Fines been to you personally it's the greatest thing I've ever done in public life let
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me explain it for the viewers who might not know in April of 2020 so very early in the pandemic not
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even a month in I saw a video of a pastor in Calgary who was feeding the homeless literally it was still
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snowing in Calgary he was feeding the homeless and a bunch of police came up to this guy literally
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giving hot food to homeless people the cops came up to this pastor started pushing him around and
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gave him a ticket for what they called an illegal gathering and he said I'm not this isn't a brave
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this isn't you know I'm feeding these hungry people because the city isn't they gave him a ticket I think
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it was like a thousand dollar ticket and I saw that and I saw how they physically pushed this pastor
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that made just some button in me got pushed and I I had heard that I I'd met that pastor before I knew
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him a little bit Arthur Pawlowski is his name and I called him up and I know what he's good at he's
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good at being stubborn and he's good at being a pastor he's good at feeding the homeless but he
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probably was not good at finding a lawyer and paying for a lawyer you know everyone has their
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strengths so I said Pastor Arthur we will get you a lawyer to fight these tickets all we need you to do
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is occasionally talk to us on tv so we can tell the story that's how we're going to crowdfund this
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and fight the fines was born and here we are a year and a half later more than 2 000 people we have
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helped people businesses churches hundreds of ordinary people and we've spread this to other
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countries there's a homeless man in Australia who's sleeping in his car he had nowhere else to sleep
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cops came knock knock knock you're out past curfew gave him a 1500 fine his life savings are
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three thousand dollars he's saving up money to get an apartment the cops take half his money and
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they didn't give him a place to sleep what are you doing that's not public health that's not public
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service there's no way he could afford a lawyer by the way depending on some of these cases we we've
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spent in some cases a hundred thousand dollars defending people like Pastor Arthur they keep coming for
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him but our people love it so much you know the rebel rebel's motto is telling the other side of the
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story but you ever see that citizen journalist moment where someone is filming something so
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atrocious and you're really glad they're filming it because otherwise you wouldn't have seen it
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but in the back of your mind you're thinking why didn't they do anything about it okay you're filming
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it but that's passive shouldn't you in the moment fix the problem that's a tough thing to say because
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you don't know what it's really like there and you're grateful you saw the video so we tell the other
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side of the story every day but when i saw what they did to Pastor Arthur i couldn't just be the
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guy telling the story and so we added this whole other side to what we do and later the democracy
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fund a registered charity was approved by the counter revenue agency so now we can actually give
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charitable tax receipts for people who donate to those civil liberties so we got rebel news which is
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still telling the other side of the story but we've got the democracy fund which fights for civil
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liberties every day it's double the work because there's double the problems out there but that's
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how fight the fines grew into these larger projects now our story was shared worldwide he's got the
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famous video i know uh people down at prager you shared it blaze tv there's still the continuum of
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people that say well how come they didn't follow the rules how come these uh churches can't congregate
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online or outside socially distance which they did and got fined for still by the way in ontario
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what do you say to the people who just you know say just follow every rule as it's handed down by the
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government well uh in the case of other badlovsky it's you're you're not even going to believe what
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he was actually sentenced for what he was actually arrested he spent three days in prison for and it was
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because for one hour and 10 minutes he didn't close his church one hour and 10 minutes and the order to
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close his church was given to him in like a plastic bag he didn't even open it and read it he the cops
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knew who his lawyer was like i say we had given him a lawyer a year earlier so he didn't read the order
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he had no chance to get legal advice so the whole thing was a stitch up as they say and they they have
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hated that guy since the beginning so he actually what he actually went to jail for was the dumbest thing
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you've ever heard but it's exposed i think a deep flaw in um in pandemic law and policy and
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enforcement first of all okay i mean there's a bunch of ways to answer your question one is
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none of these these things were actually debated in parliament many of them weren't even issued by a
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cabinet minister through some sort of committee you know a cabinet order there's lawyers that review it
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it's it's just public health officers and there's got to be 200 of them it's like it's like uh hornets
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buzzing around this country everywhere you look there's another public health officer every city
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has one every region has one every province has one there's like oh my god there's how many thousands
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of you are there and they just utter something and it's different from what they said a week ago
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it'll be different in another week and if they say it is that law or do they have to put up a written
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press release or does it have to be an order like this it's so they don't know what they're doing
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the police often have a different set of rules every week or every month and how do they enforce it and
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and what about exemptions like for masks it's it's such bad law making bad law enforcement it was
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terrible when the police got involved to begin since when do police police enforce health and health
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orders never you're sending a SWAT team to take I mean let me let me refer you to the worst moment
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that Arthur Pawlowski he had left his church they could have picked him up at church they know where
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his house is they could have picked him up at his house but he was in the car on a road and they had
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this whole SWAT team sort of swarm his vehicle on the road like he was some narco terrorist pull him out
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of the car put him on his knees on the highway cars speeding by why did you put him onto the road
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why didn't you put him off the road you put him on the road while cars are speeding by hands above
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and said why are you arresting him at all you know you know his lawyer we've been paying his lawyer to
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talk to you cops for a year now you wanted the shock and awe moment you wanted to humiliate him
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you wanted it to justify your SWAT team budget what the actual hell and we've seen the slow
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authoritarian emergence I think a lot of the good cops have either been reassigned or retired and I
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think the worst cops are having the time of their lives and everyone's become a bit of a mini cop
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a snitch an auxiliary a brown shirt a mask enforcer in Alberta unvaccinated people are not allowed to meet
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each other in private not even the Stasi would say that and it's all a disgrace so my it's a very
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long way of saying we have immoral unconstitutional laws but we have judges who accept them I think
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and we're in the worst of times every part of the society has failed every institution we would count
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on every government in Canada is for the lockdown but so is every opposition party every mainstream media
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is in favor for it every lawyer the civil liberties groups are silent every law professor every
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institution in society is in support of this lockdown it's madness and it's terrifying can we
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not have some diversity of opinion for god's sakes and I want to ask you about some I was going to ask
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you about the media but I think I know your your answer for a lot of that some of these anti-lockdown
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groups that we've seen over the last two years now I think almost um some have been good some have
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been bad colorful leaders across all of them you have maybe famously pointed to some that you shouldn't
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trust in the early going how do you think they've affected any of this at all I mean there there's
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famous ones we've got the the Patrick King guy we've got a norm people that were such getting such a fanfare
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but they didn't really do anything what's your opinion on all this I think nature abhors a vacuum
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uh there is a such a demand for people to speak up because all these other institutions I just listed have
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failed so people step into the void some of them with good intentions they just maybe don't have
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all the tools for example we see a lot of homemade lawyering like people coming up with legal ideas
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that sound good but they're not real people googling things on the internet and say oh I just have to
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say I do not consent and they can't seize my business I'm sorry mate that's not real law
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so there's some people who are so desperate they'll cling to like like if you had an uncurable
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cancer god forbid and every doctor said there's nothing we can do you would out of desperation go
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to alternative medicine if that didn't work you would go to quacks or or people selling you some
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snake oil you're so desperate and people in our situation in our country for two years they're so
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desperate they don't understand it where is everybody where's the opposition where's the media
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where's the law where's the where's anything where's the college of physicians and surgeons
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where's everybody anybody oh my god and so they'll turn to anyone and I see some of that
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you know Lamont Daigle who created the the line I think he's a fed I think he's a fed I mean the feds
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are trying to criminalize anti-lockdownism they say as much I think Patrick King is an example of a
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guy who did a little homemade law and loved loved the media attention Chris Skye is a very interesting
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character and I think quite often he's right but once in a while it goes too far and we've interviewed
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him a lot the reason these people have had success is because others who should be filling those spaces
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are not and I'm not going to trash these guys I think there's problems with all three of them
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but at least they have the courage to be contrarian it's like that picture of that German rally in the
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late 30s where every single guy is doing the Sieg Heil except for one guy who's got his arms crossed
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and we all like to think we would be that one guy but look around we know who's we everyone who thought
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they would have been speaking out against Hitler in the 30s we see you we see you now and we know you
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would have been silent and passive and that's what's terrifying to me is you know that phrase never
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again and I went to Jewish school and I learned about the Holocaust and all I could think about
00:25:11.760
how did they not see it coming why did they not well because that's easy to say when we know the
00:25:15.780
end of the story we don't know the end of the story but I know one thing no there's been no
00:25:20.380
countervailing force why wouldn't this go on forever why wouldn't police go even further I see in
00:25:25.540
Austria police are literally demanding papers for people to be out in public in Austria that's so on
00:25:31.460
the nose if you had a Hollywood movie it's a no that's too much that's just too no I mean all they
00:25:37.900
got to do is check the attic for Jews now and they got the full you know we got a full circle
00:25:41.500
fight the fines we won't ask we will open all these have brought people out of the woodworks that maybe
00:25:47.880
wouldn't have been involved in politics or a fan of rebel dudes I'm thinking of athletes musicians
00:25:52.500
actors anybody surprising reach out to you that you want to share anybody who you're like wow I can't
00:25:57.340
believe this person agrees with me now you know I'm talking to a Hollywood actor I didn't know him
00:26:03.680
but my kids know him he's in an international franchise uh I googled him he's bloody famous
00:26:10.220
he's been in films that have had enormous viewership I don't want to say his name because he hasn't made
00:26:14.880
the decision yet to go rogue I'd say he's even bigger than Gina Carano who was in the Star Wars movie
00:26:20.940
um and I was shocked that he called me he's a Brit I'm not going to say any more about him how did you
00:26:26.960
why are you calling me well because he had seen our videos and I'll let him you know and in fact
00:26:33.320
I said to him you got to be careful because you go say the wrong word here and you're going to be
00:26:37.540
blackballed like like Gina Carano was but it's not just that I I see people like Naomi Wolf
00:26:44.660
Robert F Kennedy Jr these are liberals I see a lot of liberals and a lot of conservatives finding
00:26:52.880
common ground in fact those is it liberal or conservative to say I don't want the state
00:26:58.380
to work with a big corporation to give it immunity from from negligence lawsuits to forcibly inject
00:27:06.160
people on pain of them being fired and union bosses are throwing in with the corporate executives
00:27:11.360
like we're helping an Air Canada flight attendant fight her union because the union won't fight Air
00:27:17.220
Canada so does that make me a left winger or a right winger I'm helping this working woman she's a
00:27:22.300
working class woman flight attendant on her feet all the time you know her union she's got natural
00:27:29.280
immunity because she recovered from the COVID they're saying take the jab or be fired and the
00:27:33.260
union wouldn't help her so we took her union to the labor board and now they're going to grieve it for
00:27:37.300
okay am I right wing now I don't know I'm working with an NDP-ish lawyer I'm working with a left-wing
00:27:42.560
lawyer to help her I don't care left wing right wing where's the ACLU where's all the people who said
00:27:47.440
my body my choice where's that whole pro-choice movement where's the whole privacy where's the whole
00:27:51.760
it's between me and my doctor none of your damn business where's the folks on the left who used
00:27:55.620
to be skeptical of big pharma that used to be the big you know boogeyman for the left big pharma I
00:28:01.880
never really understood it but everyone railed about big pharma what you know you're bloody cheerleaders
00:28:08.040
for them now and my body my choice where did those people go you're going to get an injection and then
00:28:16.700
another injection oh and then there's another injection I'm going to call it a booster oh and then
00:28:21.200
another injection and if you don't oh your choice but we'll fight that's not a choice it's you know
00:28:26.720
that classic muggers line your money or your life okay well that's phrased as a choice too okay here's
00:28:33.460
my money see he made the choice people he wasn't forced I gave him the choice and he chose him
00:28:38.280
that's not a choice that's under duress and you know Godwin's law says whoever first invokes Hitler
00:28:45.060
loses the argument but that's a joke but what what happens when you see those authoritarian instincts
00:28:49.920
reviving the Nuremberg code of informed consent for medical procedures emanated directly from the
00:28:56.160
Nazi doctors Joseph Mengele and others who committed atrocities on people without their permission
00:29:01.380
knowledge consent literally torture but out of that the doctors went on trial Dr. Brandt the other
00:29:06.780
doctors they went on trial for what they did as doctors and from that verdict came the 10-point
00:29:13.820
Nuremberg code so named because these war criminals they were doctors and and it elucidated
00:29:20.040
the doctrine of medical consent free informed consent you have to let them know what the risks
00:29:25.440
are they have to be able to stop at any time there's 10 it's like the 10 commandments of medical
00:29:30.260
consent we are violating those and so yes it is appropriate to say that the Nazis would do that
00:29:36.140
you're damn right that's why we have those rules and you're breaking those rules it's been
00:29:39.820
80 years less than 80 years and you're breaking those rules again and in Austria they're searching
00:29:45.140
in addicts you talk about the left-right dichotomy I want to talk to you about the conservative party
00:29:49.520
of Canada I think a lot of people Canada US UK Australia are all discovering that they don't
00:29:56.660
really have an opposition party they probably don't have a conservative party here in Canada we are what
00:30:02.740
seven provinces conservative leadership didn't turn out to be really that way what's your what's your
00:30:08.320
thought process on how the conservative party should move forward new leadership you know nuke it from
00:30:13.180
the ground up completely abandoned it for a different party what's your take on that well federally
00:30:17.620
I think Aaron O'Toole is untrustworthy and unredeemable he said everything that you would want him to say
00:30:26.260
when he was running he was against cancel culture he was against the carbon tax to bring in a different
00:30:30.580
issue he was gonna privatize the CBC which is another issue like there's a whole suite of things he said
00:30:37.160
tough on China at first too yeah and he you know was nice to Leslie Lewis and social conservatives and
00:30:46.080
then as soon as he got the vote he threw all that stuff out now he's pro carbon tax and not just that
00:30:51.500
if you disagree with him you're out of the party he fired Derek Sloan he demoted Leslie Lewis she's not
00:30:58.240
even in shadow cabinet um but put aside that the fact that he's paranoid about rivals he's just not
00:31:05.920
conservative what are the key issues of the day right now the the mandatory vaccines he has not
00:31:11.300
opposed them he has not opposed the lockdownism on other issues he's for the carbon tax he's for open
00:31:17.880
borders migration um his last critic on on the internet was for censorship in fact was complaining
00:31:23.580
that Trudeau wasn't going fast enough and hard enough I cannot honestly tell you a single thing
00:31:28.820
about Aaron O'Toole that makes him more conservative than Justin Trudeau I can't I can't name one I and I
00:31:34.800
would tell you if I could the fact that 30 years ago Aaron O'Toole was a was in the military I find
00:31:40.500
admirable but that's got nothing to do with his policy positions as a politician today at least Justin
00:31:45.540
Trudeau is honest when he says he hates conservative things he hates the West he hates oil he hates this at
00:31:50.680
least at least Trudeau's not lying to you so I look to the states and I know it's possible I remember
00:31:55.660
when Ron DeSantis first decided to reject lockdownism to reject the fear-mongering to reject anything the
00:32:04.760
public health officer says is true approach and for about two full weeks he was battered and bashed like
00:32:11.340
nothing I've ever seen but he held the line and you know who started families and parents started
00:32:17.580
supporting him he he's not against the vaccine he's taking the vaccine himself and he he promotes it
00:32:22.620
he made it very widely available he just repeatedly says it's every everyone's choice it's your choice
00:32:28.260
it's your personal choice your family choice that's the language that left isn't it and he held the line
00:32:34.280
and now Florida has one of the lowest rates of the virus in America even though it has one of the
00:32:38.860
oldest populations and it's free and it's economically free and so he I think was a role model that if you
00:32:47.780
just show some leadership why is it so hard for Doug Ford and Jason Kenney to fight against lockdownism
00:32:54.280
well it's because they've never tried because no one else is leading if they were to lead they would
00:33:01.040
have a tough time at first but if they just held the line I think they could break through there's no
00:33:05.900
reason that Alberta couldn't be the Florida of Canada in terms of the free province the one that's
00:33:11.660
not in that's taking back power from that's replacing medical officers with sane ones like Florida has its
00:33:18.180
surgeon general he's just not a crazy lockdownist UN talking points reader alas we don't have a single
00:33:26.060
government or opposition party like Ron DeSantis 50 states in America 50 points of view 10 provinces in
00:33:35.280
Canada one point of view that's a disgrace so why this pandering it always seems the last two months
00:33:41.660
before an election they try to reach out for the liberal votes that in my opinion are never going
00:33:45.860
to vote for them no matter what they think you're evil bad white supremacists you name it do they reach
00:33:51.200
out for them for that last desperate vote count or are they just never the actual conservatives they
00:33:56.260
paint themselves to be you know I have a theory and it's I mentioned that Nazi photo of the one guy not
00:34:03.960
seek highly what I've learned is seven years of the boss of rebel news is that you can teach someone
00:34:10.880
how to hold a camera that's pretty easy I think you can teach people how to ask questions I mean you
00:34:16.020
need a natural curiosity but we all know how to ask questions the one essential characteristic that is
00:34:22.900
indispensable to be a rebel news journalist is are you willing to incur the disapproval of your peers
00:34:31.020
and by peers I mean other journalists other people in the political media class
00:34:34.940
that is the hardest thing in the world to break peer pressure if you're in a scrum and everyone's
00:34:45.440
and you ask a bloody tough one not unfair not mean
00:34:53.300
you'll see the politician smile turn it immediately turn to a frown you'll hear the other journalists go
00:35:01.880
why are you ruining our narrative why are you asking that question you right-wing are you
00:35:07.180
so you'll immediately and forever be marginalized that is extremely painful socially psychically
00:35:21.320
that that same peer pressure that applies to journalists
00:35:26.580
it applies to politicians if you care about what the media says about you
00:35:31.700
about what the political media industrial complex says about you
00:35:36.600
you will never be anything other than a cookie cutter like we see now
00:35:42.620
it is a rare politician who is able to fight the bad guys
00:35:52.640
Ron DeSantis is successful that reason same with Governor Abbott of Texas
00:35:56.800
we don't have any of that in Canada either in the media or in the political class
00:36:02.360
Rex Murphy and Conrad Black and I think I've just named every conservative journalist in this country
00:36:08.400
there's a few good guys at the Sun Joe Warmington
00:36:15.960
to me it was a revelation where in the 2019 election
00:36:20.660
it fell to an American magazine I think it was Time magazine
00:36:24.560
to publish the photos of Justin Trudeau in blackface
00:36:29.340
and the guy who gave it to the Americans did so because no Canadians would run with it
00:36:35.800
was that within hours of Time magazine publishing it
00:36:49.780
yeah and then there was another one and then another one
00:36:53.020
it's not that they were beaten to the punch by Time
00:36:56.900
they had these in their pocket for months years
00:36:59.880
and they self-censored because they agree with Trudeau
00:37:03.860
they didn't want to have that moment of breaking peer pressure
00:37:08.780
they didn't want to affect themselves in a regulatory hearing
00:37:22.900
when you have in your possession blackface pictures of Trudeau
00:37:41.000
that I think showed the true nature of Canadian media
00:37:44.740
that's the peer pressure that no one wants to buck
00:37:59.740
are we going to have a turning point USA Canada