Canada’s military hatches a plan to transmit pandemic propaganda
Episode Stats
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Summary
The Canadian military has a plan to spread Justin Trudeau's pandemic propaganda to the Canadian public during the outbreak of the deadly virus called the Coronavirus Pandemic. It's a plan that has been around for a while, but it's still a bit of a mystery as to why.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. I have a whale of a story. I can't believe I missed it when it came out
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about a week ago. It's about the Canadian military cooking up a plan to promote Justin Trudeau's
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pandemic communications. I'm talking about Jeeps with bullhorns on them, blaring Trudeau's speeches,
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all kinds of crazy stuff like that. I'll read you what the general says, or the admiral in this case.
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That's coming up in just a moment. But first, let me invite you to become
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a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. Basically gets you the video version of this podcast,
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Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. Okay, here's today's show.
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Tonight, Canada's military hatches a plan to transmit pandemic propaganda to Canadians.
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It's August 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody
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You know, I saw the pandemic in China before it came here. I didn't really know what I was
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seeing, but because I follow a ton of Chinese dissidents on social media, I kept seeing videos
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like this. Confusing, terrifying, and of course impossible to corroborate, but it certainly felt
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authoritarian. Something bad was going on. But then again, China really is under a sort of perpetual
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martial law. We haven't seen the worst of that in Canada during the pandemic, but I was shocked
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to learn just how far down that road Australia, or at least their state called Victoria, has gone.
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Hmm? Imagine deploying the Australian Defence Force, that's their soldiers, to enforce some
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random, capricious, unscientific, whimsical, ever-changing, unsubstantiated public health
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orders. The curfew is the weirdest part, as if the virus only comes out at night, like it's
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a vampire or something. But soldiers? Why soldiers? Do they have special health care skills?
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Special law enforcement skills they know how to write a ticket? Special communication skills
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to calm the public? Of course not. It's the opposite. It's for the menacing effect. It's for
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the threat. It's for the psychological control. I don't think those soldiers actually want to do this.
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I don't think they enlisted to go to war against their own people, or to knock on house doors and
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spy on their compatriots. I think they're being used. So far, that's been avoided in Canada and the
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United States, more or less. I think some Canadian forces were conscripted into doing some menial
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tasks in some Quebec seniors' homes. Extremely inappropriate, by the way. Completely unnecessary.
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Abusive of both the patients and the Canadian forces. Psychologically speaking, abusive of the
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patients. Like when the Canadian forces were sent to shovel snow in Toronto that one time. Why are you
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being disrespectful to the soldiers, making them do that? But other than that, I don't think the
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Canadian military is being deployed. But look at this, look at this, look at this. I didn't see this
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when it was first published a week or two ago. It's about how Canada's military hatched a plan
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to wage an information battle against Canadians. Canadians who don't buy the Trudeau government
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line or the United Nations line. Look at this. The Canadian forces planned what some military
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insiders described as a propaganda campaign aimed at heading off civil disobedience by the public during
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the coronavirus pandemic. But the initiative was shut down by the country's top soldier who questioned
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whether it went too far in the methods military officers wanted to use. Say, who actually came up
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with this idea? I don't think it's ever really properly answered in this story. I'll read some more.
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The campaign called for shaping and exploiting information, allowing the Canadian forces to be
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able to strengthen trust in official sources of information, said a military planning document
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reviewed by this newspaper. One of the desired results was that civil order be maintained during
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the pandemic. Canadian public is deterred from participating in civil disobedience, according
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to the objectives of the plan. Canadian public compliance with suppression measures is reinforced.
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All right, so we don't have new fighter jets in Canada, so we can't keep up with our American
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allies. We can't properly patrol the skies against the new generation of Russian aircraft. We're obviously
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totally outclassed by China's bridging navy. We're not strong on cyber security, cyber attacks from
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China. We really don't even have any peacekeepers left in the world. We canceled the annual war games
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simulation at Cold Lake, the Air Force games called Maple Flag. But apparently we've got resources and
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manpower and budgets and time to work on political compliance of Canadian citizens to suppress
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dissident voices. Dissident voices. Those dissident voices, we have a word for that. It's called
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democracy. It's what our military is supposed to be protecting, not suppressing. I'll read some more.
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When Chief of the Defense Staff General John Vance was briefed about the information operations
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campaign, he ordered it stopped. Some senior military staff raised concerns the plan could be open
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to abuse in using propaganda or deception to manipulate the Canadian public. You don't say.
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The campaign was a combination of traditional communications methods using public affairs
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staff and influence activity specialists, as well as various other techniques to get military and
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government messages across the public. Really? So the purpose of the armed forces is to convey
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Trudeau's speeches now. Yeah? And the guns are just a subtle way of emphasizing how important it is to
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comply and submit to Trudeau, right? Hey, remember this ad produced by the liberals?
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Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities. Canadian cities. Soldiers
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with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up. Choose your Canada.
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Yeah, they said that if I voted for Stephen Harper, there'd be soldiers in the streets. Well, I
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did vote for Stephen Harper, so I guess they were right. The liberals want to put soldiers in the
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streets. I'll read more. If necessary, military vehicles with loudspeakers would be used to transmit
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such information. Seriously, that is pure banana republic type stuff. Could you imagine that? I mean,
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Trudeau really does love Cuba and China, doesn't it? Can you imagine a Jeep? Now hear this. You must listen to
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Trudeau. Can you imagine that? The Canadian forces was also ready to set up portable radio stations,
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which were used in Afghanistan to provide the military with an outlet to communicate in areas
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where infrastructure was lacking. Quote, village assessments would be conducted and meetings would
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be set up with religious leaders and non-governmental organizations, the information operations plan
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done. So if I disagree with Trudeau, which I do, does that make me the Taliban in this story? I'm not
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sure because, of course, in real life, Trudeau himself is on the side of the Taliban, or at
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least Al-Qaeda. He's the one who personally apologized to and cut a huge check to Omar
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Qadar, the Al-Qaeda terrorist. So in this weird scenario where the military is setting up propaganda,
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who's the good guys and who's the bad guys? Look at this. Information operations is defined by the
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Canadian forces as actions taken in support of political and military objectives, which influence
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decision makers by affecting others' information while exploiting and protecting one's own
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information. Asked about whether the military expected Canadians to participate in civil disobedience
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or riots during the pandemic, Santarpia, that's a rear admiral, responded, that was our worst
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case scenario. So he's the big boss who was talking to the citizens, Santarpia. Now, riots are one thing.
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Our police can handle riots, actually. All our police departments can. They all do.
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They often choose not to. Antifa thugs, the railway blockades in January and February.
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Even what we've seen in city centres, what we've personally experienced outside Toronto City Hall,
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lawlessness. I'd call that a riot. Police could stop them if they want. The Canadian forces wouldn't
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dream of sending in the army to fight those left-wing riots to propagandize about that. It'd be unthinkable
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if they worked up a whole plan for people who don't want to wear masks or take through those Chinese
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vaccines. But look at that one word there. Do you see I read the word civil disobedience? That's
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different from a riot. Civil disobedience is not an insurrection or treason or a military-style attack.
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The military was looking at getting involved in fighting civil disobedience. Your giveaway word
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here is the word civil. So what's the military doing planning to deal with civil disobedience that
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by definition is civil? People refusing to wear a mask. People refusing to take Trudeau's Chinese
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vaccine. Is the military going to get involved with that? Really? Will they actually stab the needle
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right into your arm? Will they engage in propaganda? Military jeeps with loudspeakers
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parked outside your house or something? Trudeau can't convince us in his daily press blather. He
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won't even let us come to those. So some military propagandist is going to have some town hall
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meetings like local chiefs or something back in Afghanistan? Get this. The military's information
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operations campaign noted physical distancing and self-isolation had resulted in Canadians
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perceiving a loss of freedom. This disempowerment in general context of anxiety will lead to increases
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of irrational behavior which may run counter to the overall response effort and public well-being
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it added. Okay. Hey guys, you only perceive that you've lost your freedom? I mean sure you're banned
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from going to your job. Your freedom is gone. You're under house arrest. But you just need to perceive it
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differently. If you're unhappy you're obviously irrational. Not the made-up public health theater.
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That's totally rational. You're the irrational one.
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What are you? Irrational? There's nothing wrong with being under house arrest. With deploying the
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military to make you take a vaccine. Stop being so irrational. Here's Teresa Tam to remind you what
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rational looks like. I think the public has to know this is one of the worst case scenarios in terms of
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an infectious disease outbreak in that their cooperation is sought. If there are people who are
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non-compliant there are definitely laws and and public health powers that can quarantine people
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in mandatory settings. It's potential you could track people, put bracelets on their arms, have police
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and other setups to ensure quarantine is undertaken. Yeah, stop being so irrational people. I'll read a bit
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more. There is an ongoing debate inside national defense headquarters in Ottawa about the use of
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information operations techniques. Some public affairs officers, intelligence specialists and
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senior planners want to expand the scope of some such methods in Canada to allow them to better
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control and shape government information the public receives. Really. So even though this crazy plan
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was allegedly nixed, the debate over similar plans continues at defense headquarters? How to push Trudeau's
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talking points against mere citizens? How to deploy the military not against their enemies but against
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their own people? I'll read more. But Santarpius said Canadians should feel confident the military would
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always act in accordance with Canadian law. We'll do our damnedest to be open and transparent and we'll never
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use any sort of information capability toward Canadians, he said. Yeah, you just said that you
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want to use this against Canadians. That's what you're debating now. You're debating doing it and how to
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do it. Your staff actually cooked up a plan to do it. Now that particular plan was nixed, but you're still
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debating it, but you swear it'll never happen. Hang on. Hang on. You're not using some of your PR magic right now,
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are you? Some disinformation right now, are you? Santarpius said discussions are now underway on how
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best to accomplish information operations in the future. Oh, I thought you just said you're not doing
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that anymore. We will develop and grow this capability over the coming years as it's really
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important both at home and abroad. Hang on. You just said you weren't going to do this at home.
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Sorry, I'm being irrational again. Various ideas have been proposed, including having Canadian forces
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personnel distribute government-approved messages on their personal social media accounts. Those inside
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National Defense Headquarters who propose such an idea argue that technique could be used to dominate
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discussion in Canada about particular topics on social media platforms. Oh, okay, so that's what
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armed forces is doing, propagandizing Trudeau messages. We're going to dominate. You know, it's
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actually brilliant. It'll work on compliant leftists. They do what they're told, but it'll turn normal
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people and especially conservatives against the military. This scheme will destroy public support
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from the military. It'll erode trust. Trudeau wins both ways. Santarpius said the Canadian forces
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was also concerned misinformation would circulate during the pandemic and the information operations
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campaign was needed to Canada. Hang on, I thought you just said you're not going to do this anymore.
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Hey, does the military have some sort of special skill at deterring misinformation? So if China lies
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about the pandemic and the World Health Organization repeats those lies and Teresa Tam, who still works
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for the World Health Organization, so she tells those same lies, is it misinformation? Is there a special
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magic to determine any of this or is it just whatever Trudeau says? Military officers privately say,
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however, the disinformation on the pandemic ultimately didn't become a major issue in Canada.
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Much of the misinformation circulated in North America came from sources like U.S. President Donald Trump.
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Really? Really? That's what our army says. So China is not the source of any misinformation.
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Don't believe anyone who says China's lying. They're honest. Our top ally, the United States,
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they're the liars about the pandemic. You're irrational if you think otherwise.
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Hey, can I ask you a question? Do you think the plan was actually put into effect?
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Is this article part of the plan? Now, I don't know. I know I don't trust this rear admiral
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any more than I can throw him. And I think that's the plan here. Just like the left managed to destroy
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the NFL and NASCAR by infecting those once conservative institutions with leftist wokeness and craziness,
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causing conservatives to abandon them, I think that's what's going on here. I'm not convinced
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by anything this man says, this rear admiral. I frankly don't think most Canadians would trust
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a jeep going around blaring Trudeau's speeches. I don't think that's his real mission here.
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It's too stupid even for him. I think the real mission here is to bring the Canadian forces
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into disrepute, to destroy the love and trust that ordinary Canadians have for the army,
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to even make our own soldiers and veterans start to distrust it, even to hate it. It's
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always been Justin Trudeau's objective. He hates our military. So call this information,
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call this political interference, whatever. Hey, admiral, mission accomplished,
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you disloyal underminer. Stay with us for more.
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Well, I think one of the problems with the mainstream media isn't that they're liberal,
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although that is definitely a problem. It's that they're all so bland and uninteresting and all the
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same. Well, what a pleasure to sit down with my friend Candace Malcolm, who's not just a great
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conservative journalist, but she's an innovator, a builder, someone who's not afraid to start
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something new. And she joins us down in the studio. Candace, it's great to see you again.
00:16:20.720
Thank you so much, Ezra. Thanks for the introduction. I think it's true that we criticize the media
00:16:24.700
because of the liberal bias, because they're now subsidized, or a lot of them just paid for outright
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by the government. But they're also really, really boring. They have the same opinion on everything
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and the range of what you can believe is narrower and narrower. And I think that's why so many Canadians
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are tuning out and rejecting that. Yeah. You know what? I admire what you've built with True North,
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and we love talking to you and Andrew Lawton and your other colleagues. We love that you're
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grassroots and that you don't take a dime from the government. What I want to talk about today,
00:16:52.380
if I may, is the Independent Press Gallery. Now, you and I have chatted a little bit about this,
00:16:56.960
but since we last spoke, you guys had a great event. And I know I spoke to you that day,
00:17:04.000
and I know you were a little bit worried because there was a tiny bump in the road. But a few
00:17:08.400
hours later, I thought that was the best political interaction I can remember seeing in Canadian
00:17:15.440
Conservative politics. I can't even remember the last one that was better. It was so good.
00:17:20.920
I'm talking about the, you know, fireside chat style interviews that you guys did with the
00:17:28.140
Conservative candidates. Give me a little bit of it from your point of view. You arranged that whole
00:17:32.780
thing. You did the whole thing. How do you think it went? Sure. Yeah. So, of course,
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we were a little bit disappointed, Ezra, because we had sort of planned and marketed this event
00:17:40.660
as the last debate amongst the Conservative candidates before, you know, Conservative members
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are going to have to mail in their ballots. We were so excited to get all four of the candidates
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agreed to it. I didn't honestly expect Peter McKay to say yes in the first place. The fact that he did,
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we were just really excited. It was going to be the big launch of the IPG. And because we had all four
00:18:00.200
of the members, the mainstream media had to pay attention. Even if they hate us, even if they
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begrudge everything we do, the fact that we had the legitimacy given to us by the candidates meant
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that they had to cover it. And they were. CPAC was going to air it. We had, there was a couple of
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news stories written about it. So we were excited about that. And then we got the curveball day of
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because Lesley Lewis informed us that she had an ear infection. We were hoping that she was going to
00:18:23.100
pull through. You know, her doctor advised her to stay home. Look, I get that people are a little bit
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paranoid at this point because of the coronavirus or whatever. And we're in Toronto where there,
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there, there is still cases and stuff like that. So we said, okay, we can still do the debate,
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the debate without Lesley. But then, you know, an hour later, Peter McKay's campaign put out that
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statement. Just, you know, I think Sheila Gudreid said that it was something funny about
00:18:44.840
earache solidarity or something like that. It was so late. And you know what, he would have been better
00:18:50.380
just to say nothing. Right. It was so transparent that it was a fib. I think that, I mean,
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the earache, all right, fine. I'm not going to say someone's franking an earache, but he's not even
00:19:00.960
trying when he says, because she has an earache, I won't go to the debate out of solidarity. And by
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the way, her campaign manager who came down there, I think he wanted to say, look, we really do support
00:19:10.260
the event. Steve, he said, we don't want that kind of solidarity. So he was saying, no, no, no, no,
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don't use us as an excuse. It was so transparent. I think Peter McKay was definitely the loser,
00:19:22.740
at least to the conservative base that was excited for the debate and excited that you guys were doing
00:19:28.160
it. Well, and that was the whole idea. This was to give the conservative members a final view of
00:19:32.780
the candidates and frankly, to a conservative audience. I know it's the independent press
00:19:36.740
gallery and we welcome membership from any independent outlet or journalist, but let's be
00:19:41.240
frank, you know, our audience, your audience, the post-millennial who's also a member, they all are
00:19:45.440
sort of on the right side of the political spectrum. So this was a chance for the candidates to actually
00:19:49.460
speak to the base, speak to the people who are going to be submitting their ballots. So Peter
00:19:53.580
McKay dropped out at the last minute and we kind of had to scramble, as you saw, you know, we had
00:19:58.280
a bunch of stuff planned and everything went out the window. We even had ordered nice podium signs
00:20:02.760
with names on it, you know, some expenses out the window, but that's okay. We pivoted and that's
00:20:09.140
sort of the beauty of the small independent nature of our media companies is that we're kind of used
00:20:14.140
to pivoting. We're used to scrambling at the last minute. So Andrew Lawton did a fantastic job
00:20:18.660
facilitating those conversations. My favorite part of the evening, I mean, so we ended up doing two
00:20:24.080
back-to-back, I think there were about 45 minute in-depth interviews on the same issues that we
00:20:28.900
were going to be talking about through the debate. So the things that conservatives care about, not the
00:20:32.060
stuff that the mainstream media obsesses on, not, you know, what is your position on abortion? What
00:20:36.860
is your, all the same stuff that they've heard over and over. No, we actually want to talk to them
00:20:40.500
about freedom of speech, about immigration, about all those topics. And so Andrew did a fantastic job
00:20:46.040
just getting into that. And then my favorite part of the night was the scrums afterwards,
00:20:49.920
because we had all these independent journalists, all these young, you know, really hungry guys asking
00:20:55.180
great questions. You know, compare that to the stale mainstream media ones where you get the same
00:21:00.500
question over and over. I think True North counted that, that one of the debates, they were asked like
00:21:05.140
20 times about systemic racism. It was like over and over the same. Whereas our questions, you know,
00:21:10.820
everyone had their own questions. It was really interesting and great to hear from so many
00:21:14.700
different journalists. You're right. I mean, and I enjoy, I went down there briefly and then I came
00:21:18.640
back up here to our, our world headquarters because I was sort of doing a live stream from here, but I
00:21:23.420
went down there just to say hi. And it was such a pleasure for me to meet young journalists,
00:21:29.540
independent, and frankly, I don't know if they're right-wing or left-wing, but that I had never heard of
00:21:33.660
before and that wanted to join. I was very excited by that. And then, and I saw some of these questions
00:21:39.180
like, what do you think of banning TikTok? Okay. That's a refreshing question. It's a real question,
00:21:44.100
goes to Chinese security and whatever. The questions that were asked were great.
00:21:50.160
I think the star of the night was your own colleague, Andrew Lawton. Let me just throw just to
00:21:54.660
two moments. I mean, he, he, his, I've always been a fan of Andrew, but he really hit a new height here.
00:22:01.980
Can I show two of my favorites? Sure. Absolutely. He was so well briefed and he exposed new things
00:22:09.120
about the candidates, which is hard to do because they've been asked so many questions. Here's when
00:22:12.560
he sort of discovered that Derek Sloan supports the dairy cartel. That was news to me. He did it so
00:22:18.820
well. Take a look at this. One of the big issues that we heard in the 2017 conservative leadership
00:22:24.480
race, which was odd to become so central was supply management. And this is an issue where I think
00:22:30.680
conservatives have often philosophically been at odds with some of the political realities. And I
00:22:36.640
know you have farmers in your riding. I know a lot of farmers, including dairy farmers specifically,
00:22:41.020
make up the conservative base. What's your stance? Well, I think that, I think that when you look at,
00:22:47.680
so first I'll say, I don't have any intentions to make any major changes to supply management.
00:22:53.020
Although we can always look at ways to modify the system.
00:22:56.580
That's real news. And here's Andrew, very gently, with a smile, exposing a contradiction in Aaron O'Toole,
00:23:05.880
talking tough about free speech, but well, he engaged in a bit of cancel culture too. Take a look at this
00:23:12.240
Throughout the conservative leadership race, there have been two candidates disqualified. One of them,
00:23:16.740
Richard Descari, another one, Jim Carahalios. And the reason I bring those up is because your campaign
00:23:22.760
had actually complained about Jim Carahalios' campaign in the race. A lot of members have
00:23:28.620
reached out to us wondering how you square, on one hand, being against cancel culture and being for
00:23:34.440
free votes, but on the other hand, seemingly supporting a position that denied the members
00:23:39.600
the ultimate right to determine who their leader should be or who their candidates should be.
00:23:43.680
Well, we have a leadership election committee, the LIOC committee that decides. We complain because
00:23:49.040
Mr. Carahalios was lying, lying to thousands of Canadians about me and on issues that I'm very
00:23:57.560
He did that with a smile. It wasn't gotcha. It was very fair. I have to say, I mean, I knew he was good
00:24:04.920
and I know I'm gushing now, but that truly was some of the finest journalism I've seen. I'm not just
00:24:09.600
saying that because I'm a friend of yours in front of his. That was great.
00:24:11.960
Yeah. Andrew is just an incredibly talented journalist all around. And I think, you know,
00:24:16.140
he comes from talk radio, so he's really good at asking these kinds of questions and doing
00:24:19.920
interviews. He's interviewed a lot of people. He's interviewed Dustin Trudeau before he's
00:24:23.280
interviewed Maya Angelou. He's got a really good list of people he's interviewed. And I think that
00:24:28.640
just his ability to get down to the nitty gritty, you know, I think that the candidates appreciated
00:24:34.080
the opportunity to talk to someone who's sort of friendly and actually wanting to get into the
00:24:38.860
issues into their platform. The candidates were relaxed because they didn't feel like it was
00:24:42.120
going to be an attack. Right. But the questions were firmer than they would normally get. That's
00:24:46.480
the irony. Yeah. And I think that the outcome was that viewers really got a better look at the
00:24:51.220
candidates. And that's, again, why I think that Peter McKay did lose out because had he shown up,
00:24:55.720
I mean, I'm not sure if there was three, whether we would have gone ahead with the debate or whether
00:24:59.020
we would have still done the fireside chats. I kind of liked the fireside chats as, you know,
00:25:03.020
in the future when there's other races, I hope we do them too, because they give you the opportunity
00:25:06.840
to really get to know a candidate. But again, you know, we left the night not really knowing
00:25:11.480
anything about Peter McKay other than that he didn't show up, even though Ezra, he was in Toronto.
00:25:15.220
He lives in Toronto. He was just up the street and didn't show up. But the other two candidates,
00:25:18.980
both of them, you know, were able to offer more of themselves, more of their platforms,
00:25:23.100
even if there were those two, you know, little contradictions that Andrew found.
00:25:26.440
Those weren't mean. It was just good journalism. Good journalism. Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:29.460
Well, I'm glad we recapped that event. And what a credit to you and the Independent Press Gallery.
00:25:35.680
I like the fact that the Independent Press Gallery is doing stuff. That's what I meant by my introduction.
00:25:40.100
You're not just a thinker, you're a doer. You're both. And that's rare. And I noticed that there
00:25:46.900
was some snippy comments on social media from the legacy media press gallery, the government press
00:25:53.300
gallery. Let me show you a couple of those. Here's a couple by people saying, I don't, what's their
00:25:57.360
problem? Why don't they just apply? I can't even believe that people would say that True North
00:26:03.400
and Rebel News have been knocking so hard on the door, our fingers are bloody. We have had to go to
00:26:09.020
court. And we've had our applications rejected by press galleries because they just don't like our
00:26:17.220
point of view. But that's not a reason to censor someone. It's very strange to me that the existing
00:26:23.560
media party, as I call it, is so self-unaware that they say, oh, you guys don't need to have an Independent
00:26:30.720
Press Gallery. Why don't you hang out with us? Well, we would like to, buddy. That's the problem.
00:26:35.420
Right. Yeah, it's really bizarre. I mean, I think we both had journalists removed from Trudeau events
00:26:39.640
by our safety. Andrew Lawton. I think they sent the cops after him, didn't they?
00:26:43.920
Yeah, and that was a public event where he had registered as a citizen. On the campaign, yeah.
00:26:46.860
And he got kicked out. Your own Kian Bexty got removed from Trudeau's house when he was trying
00:26:52.280
to show up. So, I mean, they're literally putting police between us and the government. And then
00:26:58.340
these journalists are acting aloof, like, why do you need this? What's the point of this? I think
00:27:02.360
that they're just sort of willfully, either willfully blind or, you know, they're trying to
00:27:05.840
undermine our credibility, which it was fine because they have their own, frankly, they have
00:27:09.660
their own credibility issues. And I trust Canadians to be able to see through that kind of thing.
00:27:13.740
I was really impressed and surprised to learn from you that there's something like 50 journalists
00:27:19.040
who have applied. I didn't know. That's part of my point about going down there and seeing
00:27:22.200
all these young guys. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? 50 people feel marginalized
00:27:27.460
by the existing press gallery. That's quite something. You and I might be the noisiest on
00:27:33.260
this issue, but there's a lot of others who have been quietly looked over. I got one last
00:27:37.380
question for you, and maybe you're not quite ready to answer it, but that's okay. Let me put it
00:27:41.300
and you can decline to answer. We have recently had a kerfuffle in Alberta. As you know, we
00:27:46.380
got Sheila in Northern Alberta and Kian in Calgary. We applied to join their Alberta legislature
00:27:52.720
press gallery, and we were blackballed. No reason. Sheila's a great... I don't even know
00:27:58.240
how... I mean, you can dislike me. I get it. And Kian can be a little prickly. But Sheila,
00:28:03.760
come on. I don't know anyone... She's nice. And even when she's being mean, she's not mean.
00:28:08.620
She tries to be mean, but she can't be. Anyways, they just said no for no reason. So we're sort
00:28:13.800
of having a big quarrel there. Have you thought about having the independent press gallery in
00:28:19.340
other places besides just Ottawa? Or maybe you already are, but we sure could use an independent
00:28:26.760
press gallery in Edmonton, probably in Toronto for Queen's Park, because I know they keep people
00:28:33.640
out too. I think it's a hazard that the legacy media, it's a moral hazard. They like to keep
00:28:40.240
out their rivals, sort of a cartel, keep up the competition, old boys club. Have you thought
00:28:47.080
about having provincial emanations of the independent press gallery?
00:28:52.820
I don't see any reason why not. I mean, the original idea was to look at the parliamentary
00:28:56.960
press gallery and say, you know, this is an exclusionary club. They bully people. You
00:29:01.940
call them an old boys club. I think they banned women for the first 70 years of their existence.
00:29:05.720
They banned broadcast media for the first decade of existence. They have this legacy of it.
00:29:10.380
But for sure, it happens in other parts of the country as well. And part of the concept
00:29:14.700
was that we want journalists to have access. And giving them the credentialed card will prove
00:29:20.780
legitimacy in the eyes of some people who will say, okay, you can come on into our legislature
00:29:24.600
building. But if there's resistance, I think that's the purpose of the press gallery is
00:29:28.700
to form a united body and say, you know, just because you write for a legacy newspaper doesn't
00:29:34.280
give you the monopoly over telling the news. And there's so many independent outlets, I think
00:29:38.740
our event proved there's people that we don't even know about that want to come and want
00:29:42.580
to be part of it. And, you know, the media should be more inclusive, more Canadians should
00:29:46.440
have their voices told. It's ironic, Ezra, because the whole purpose behind the CBC is
00:29:50.640
that Canadians' voices need to be told. And we don't want to be drowned out by American
00:29:54.220
voices. And yet when there are Canadian voices that want to have their voice heard, where
00:29:58.280
is the CBC? They're the ones that are often doing the censoring and doing the exclusion.
00:30:01.960
So I think it's a great idea and I hope we can help you with that.
00:30:04.640
Well, that'd be great. I was shocked when it came from Post Media because I used to work
00:30:09.560
for the National Post and I remember back then it was for free speech. And I also know that
00:30:14.780
five years ago, they sought the Competition Bureau's blessing to take over their competitors
00:30:19.920
and they swore on a stack of Bibles, oh, we are not anti-competitive. Don't you worry
00:30:24.120
about that. And here they are keeping us out. So I hope that we can fix that problem there.
00:30:30.860
Look, we're going to do our journalism just like you do, whether or not they let us in
00:30:33.880
the building. But it's pretty weird to me that in the year 2020, old, dying carcass media
00:30:40.980
can keep up the new, vibrant, green shoots media.
00:30:44.340
Well, just for a matter of time. I think it's only a matter of time and then we're going
00:30:49.540
Well, this is great to see you. Congratulations. I'm so proud that, and we signed our people
00:30:54.280
up. We had our people. I know we weren't the first. Someone got in before us, but we were
00:30:58.340
amongst the first members and we'll be supporters and we'll attend all the events. And if they're
00:31:04.160
anything as good as that great fireside chat event that Andrew chaired well, it's going
00:31:10.160
to be an amazing addition to the national debate. Congratulations to you.
00:31:14.260
And it's your entrepreneurial spirit as much as anything else. And that's what the
00:31:21.400
All right. There you have it. There's Candace Malcolm. She's the boss of True North. You
00:31:24.840
know her. You know, Andrew. We're good friends of ours. But if you're not yet a subscriber,
00:31:29.480
you got to go. Because look, the CBC just takes the money out of your pocket. They don't
00:31:32.800
even ask, right? They take it at tax time. Can you do me a favor and go to tnc.news, right?
00:31:37.160
T-N-C dot news. And you can sign up for the podcast, the shows. And you know, it wouldn't
00:31:44.980
hurt to chip in a few bucks. I mean, God forbid. God forbid. But you don't know what you got
00:31:49.900
until it's gone. And we've got to support. I say this when I see Spencer Fernando. I'm
00:31:55.520
a subscriber to the Post Millennial. I think I'm a subscriber to True North. I better double
00:32:00.380
check. If someone's out there doing grassroots journalism, I'm going to give them 10 bucks
00:32:05.540
a month. Well, there's no harm to me. Because we've got to support people. Even if you don't
00:32:10.840
agree with everything they say, you've got to support a variety of points of view. Not
00:32:15.540
just the government journalists. Go tnc.news. Oh, I would love it if 100 people who are watching
00:32:22.560
our show tonight just clicked on over and joined. Because you guys live based on viewer support.
00:32:29.440
That's right. And small, small dollar donations as well.
00:32:32.140
There you go. May I suggest $10 a month? Thank you. And I'm going to check to make sure
00:32:35.340
I'm doing that. I'm going to check to make sure. All right. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:32:49.440
Hey, welcome back on my monologue last night. Johan writes, this is all about control. This
00:32:54.620
is also about the public health community and doctors making a name for themselves now. Pandemic
00:33:00.300
is over. It was an interesting ride. Let's move on. Yeah. As Drea Humphrey points out,
00:33:07.180
these masks for preventive reasons, that's unlimited. That's forever. I don't want to
00:33:13.140
stay in this crisis forever. Human beings can't live in a state of anxiety and panic forever.
00:33:19.180
Christopher writes, science is revising opinion, not buying your attempts to vilify Dr. Tam.
00:33:24.420
At any given point, it can be argued, A, scientists were still understanding the nature of the virus,
00:33:29.700
and B, she was consistent with the best medical scientific thought about the pandemic at the
00:33:35.800
time. All right. So you like Teresa Tam, can I ask you a few questions? Who does she work for?
00:33:41.540
The honest answer, the technically accurate answer, is both China-dominated World Health
00:33:49.180
Organization and Trudeau. So I ask again, who does she work for? Who does she answer to? How is she
00:33:56.140
accountable? Are any other opinions allowed? And are there any limits to her powers? I don't like any
00:34:04.320
of the answers to that. On my interview with Abiyamini, Felix writes, just wait, similar quarantine
00:34:10.400
curfew laws coming to Canada. You can rest assured, you can be assured. I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure,
00:34:17.300
but maybe. I mean, Australia was doing great. And what was it, 11 cases the other day? They put the
00:34:24.680
whole state under martial law. And even our friend Abiy, he didn't even seem that particularly revved up
00:34:30.640
about it himself. I mean, he's opposed to it and he's critical of it, but where's the major fight
00:34:35.680
back? I don't know. I don't think you can lock down a city the size of Toronto with soldiers like
00:34:40.900
that without something snapping. And one more question. Do you actually believe for a second
00:34:47.460
that the ruling and elite classes will follow those rules? I do not.
00:34:54.000
Well, my friend, that's the show for today. Until tomorrow,
00:34:56.540
on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.