Rebel News Podcast - August 17, 2021


DAILY | Trudeau Calls Election, Steve Sailer's Afghanistan


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 38 minutes

Words per Minute

151.2848

Word Count

14,907

Sentence Count

1,230

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

31


Summary

In the wake of the Taliban's rapid victory in Afghanistan, Ezra Levant reflects on the momentous victory by the Canadian troops in Afghanistan. He also talks about Justin Trudeau's decision to call an election, and a clip from a speech he made about tyranny and tyrants.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi everybody, Ezra Levant here. How are you doing? What an incredible weekend. I was riveted
00:00:19.580 by the scenes coming out of Afghanistan of the Taliban reconquering that entire country
00:00:24.840 in hours. You know, I recall, I'm old enough to remember the Gulf War after 9-11 when America,
00:00:34.240 along with other allies, the UK in particular, and Canada had some jets if I recall, toppled Saddam
00:00:43.580 Hussein in, that would be the first Gulf War, toppled Saddam Hussein in a matter of not even
00:00:52.880 weeks. And it was regarded as such a military triumph, which indeed it was. And then other
00:01:02.600 wars, more wars, Second Gulf War. And I think there was a bit of ethnocentricity to think,
00:01:12.920 yeah, that's just the awesome power of American and allied military might, which of course it was.
00:01:19.820 But then what do you say about the lightning-fast victory by the Taliban?
00:01:29.280 Like, really, really in a few days.
00:01:33.500 Was that because of technology? I don't think it was. As Joe Biden boasted, the Afghan army
00:01:39.980 had 300,000 troops with very modern weapons, really the same weapons that Americans used, and they
00:01:48.600 fell like a house of cards. It wasn't the technology, it was the motivation, it was the
00:01:55.720 belief in the cause, it was bravery and courage and standing for something.
00:02:00.280 We'll talk more about this later in the show, but it was just stunning footage. I actually think that is the
00:02:06.500 largest story of the day. But here in Canada, we have an election. Yesterday, Justin Trudeau
00:02:14.120 went to the Governor General. As Canadians and Canadian supporters in Afghanistan were scrambling to get out,
00:02:22.880 Trudeau thought a better use of his time, rather than work on that old thing, would be to prematurely call an election because he thinks it's in his political interest.
00:02:34.880 I don't think that the Governor General should have said, no, I'm not letting you call an election.
00:02:45.360 I think that that would be overstepping for the Governor General.
00:02:49.580 But I think the Governor General should have sent him away for a few hours while she consulted.
00:02:55.800 And during that time, I think she could have drafted a statement saying that because of the
00:03:02.060 limited role of a constitutional monarchy, she's not going to interfere, but she does note that there's a
00:03:08.920 grave situation going on that the government ought to attend to. So saying, yeah, I'll give you your
00:03:15.420 election, but it's my duty as sort of a benign monarch to point something out. And that rebuke alone would
00:03:22.840 have, I think, had reverberations for the whole campaign. That's just my own daydream of what I think
00:03:28.300 ought to have happened. But of course, when Justin Trudeau handpicks the Governor General, she does what
00:03:34.920 he says. We have a clip from Trudeau's announcement yesterday, a sort of an odd statement about tyranny
00:03:43.220 and tyrants. It's clearly on his mind. Here, take a listen.
00:03:47.040 We've seen situations where conservative backbenchers have referred to some of this
00:03:53.940 government's decisions as tyrannical in terms of how we're creating mandates for vaccination
00:04:00.780 of public servants or vaccination of people on trains and airplanes. Well, the answer to tyranny
00:04:07.520 is to have an election.
00:04:13.660 I'm not going to say that's quite a full-throated admission of tyranny, but it's obviously on his
00:04:18.720 mind. What Justin Trudeau probably understands, but is dancing around, is that a tyranny punctuated
00:04:28.760 by a day of voting every four years, or in this case, two years, does not change the tyrannical
00:04:34.040 nature. Democracy is not just a day every four years or however many. It's a continuous process.
00:04:42.040 It's a system of checks and balances. For example, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Pierre
00:04:47.100 Trudeau shepherded into our Constitution, that applies all the time. That limits the government
00:04:55.560 even during emergencies, even during pandemics. So you can't engage in tyrannical acts 364 days
00:05:03.840 a year and then have an election one day a year and say, oh, this validates every illiberal
00:05:09.700 thing I've done. It doesn't work that way. What the government does is subject to those checks
00:05:16.280 and balances all the time. Now, the trouble in Canada is that our judges have been, have so
00:05:21.560 far not stopped any of these clearly unconstitutional matters. And then there's the whole matter of
00:05:26.940 Parliament itself, which barely sits anymore and is hobbled in many ways. I think that the
00:05:35.020 fact that Trudeau repeated that word is interesting. It shows that it is on his mind. And he loves
00:05:40.560 it. I mean, why should that be surprising to you? This is the guy who went to, you know, is
00:05:48.000 a super fan of Castro's Cuba, called China, the country he most admires. We'll get back
00:05:56.560 to Afghanistan later because I think it's incredible and deeply worrying. And the only people, I mean,
00:06:04.380 obviously the Afghans are terribly worried. Can we show the footage of them scrambling to get
00:06:10.500 on some of those American massive cargo jets? So, I mean, America's been in Afghanistan for
00:06:18.580 20 years. There's wives and children there. There's civilians there. There's staff. So this
00:06:25.240 is a plane. This is not an American cargo jet. This is some passenger jet. And they're literally
00:06:31.280 doing anything just to get into that plane.
00:06:39.840 I don't see many women there.
00:06:44.000 Can you get the one where the plane is taxiing down the runway
00:06:48.400 with 50 people literally clinging to the outside of the plane? That was a civilian airliner there,
00:06:53.840 a commercial plane, I mean to say, that was probably being chartered
00:06:57.360 to get people out. But the U.S. military had some really big planes. I think they're C-17s is their
00:07:04.960 name. Yeah. Look at this. So this is, that's a mighty plane. And that could hold anything. I presume
00:07:14.000 that's full of people. And look at these folks holding on. I don't know what they're thinking.
00:07:20.400 Were they thinking that the plane would stop and let them in? Were they thinking they were going to hang
00:07:27.120 on until the plane took off? Now there's another video, and I'm going to give you a viewer's discretion
00:07:36.240 warning. Do you have the other video where it takes off and someone actually held on?
00:07:42.000 You know, these military planes, first of all, I don't know if the pilot even knew anyone was still
00:07:51.760 holding on. And I don't know what he was supposed to do. If civilians clinging onto a plane are going
00:07:58.000 to stop you from taking off, you'll never take off. This really is like the fall of Saigon in South
00:08:04.240 Vietnam. And it's actually not that important if you can find it. It's just a terrifying video.
00:08:12.960 When one of those planes taxi down the runway, it didn't stop. It kept going. And the more sensible
00:08:21.120 folks let go. So this is a longer version. This is from Al Jazeera. Is this the one that actually takes
00:08:31.440 off and someone falls? All right, folks. So viewer discretion advised. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad that's on
00:08:38.080 there. So it's taken off. And there was someone who was hanging on. There was someone who was hanging on.
00:08:48.960 And they fell.
00:08:53.120 Very sad. You must be quite desperate to hold on to the outside of a
00:08:57.680 military jet like that. Of course they're desperate. They're all going to be killed.
00:09:09.040 I don't know about all of them, but many of them. We'll come back to that. But I want to talk about
00:09:14.320 the Canadian election. I want to talk about the Canadian election. I think the Afghan story is an
00:09:19.200 important Canadian story. Almost 160 Canadians died in Afghanistan. And some people might now, and
00:09:26.320 and thousands more were injured, including through PTSD, psychological trauma, what used to be called
00:09:33.920 shell shock of working in such a horrific place.
00:09:39.680 Um,
00:09:43.120 why? What did they achieve?
00:09:47.760 Was all their sacrifice for nothing? Those are real questions.
00:09:50.560 They're questions for Justin Trudeau. I doubt they'll be put to him in any serious way.
00:09:58.080 They're questions for the United Kingdom, but they're mainly questions for the United States
00:10:01.760 and Joe Biden in particular.
00:10:04.800 Who I note has been in hiding for several days.
00:10:07.280 The only image of Joe Biden I have seen in the last 48 hours is a still photograph of him
00:10:16.560 in a situation room. Do you have that photo?
00:10:20.000 I know I said I'd talk about the Canadian election. I will. I promise you it's most of the show today.
00:10:24.480 Um, so, Joe Biden as recently as last month said, oh no, the, the Afghan army is well trained,
00:10:37.840 finely equipped, vastly outnumbered the Taliban. They'll hold for sure. Weeks went by and that was
00:10:45.360 false. And then even in the final days, um, Biden administration officials were saying, oh no, no, no, no, no.
00:10:53.600 There's no way it's going to fall in days. It fell in hours.
00:10:58.720 And some of those images like the fall of Saigon, people desperate to flee.
00:11:04.640 Um, so where is Joe Biden? Is he making a presidential address?
00:11:08.880 Um, I see reports that they're moving thousands of American soldiers back into Afghanistan
00:11:17.840 to help extract the stragglers. I'm not sure how that's going to go. Um,
00:11:26.560 do you have the still image of him just in front of it? Yeah. So president, so this is, um,
00:11:32.480 an image, an image, this is from Fox News, but this image was released, uh, by the White House.
00:11:37.760 Here's Fox News caption, President Biden meeting his national security team virtually earlier today
00:11:47.920 to discuss the evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Kabul. Now just hold this up there for a second.
00:11:53.680 Um, there's a few things I find interesting about this. He's completely alone in the room.
00:12:01.200 Um, I find that, um, unusual. Uh, can you zoom in? Can you open that picture up and zoom in on the picture itself?
00:12:12.880 Uh, sort of, uh, yeah, the, the photo in that tweet.
00:12:16.160 Uh, Richard Grinnell, who used to be the national security, uh, top, uh, cabinet official for Trump,
00:12:23.840 the national security. Yeah, zoom in if you can on that, on that video wall there. Yeah.
00:12:30.160 So, I don't know if you can see it, but those are different officials and their title or their offices.
00:12:39.200 Like, I think that's Kamala Harris in the middle, actually. Um, do we have anything?
00:12:44.160 Can we zoom in at all a little bit more? Uh, Rick Grinnell said,
00:12:49.760 why is the national security and spy team not redacted?
00:12:55.200 I mean, I think Kamala Harris is, uh, is one thing, but the other people there,
00:13:03.520 when Joe Biden has an emergency national security crisis,
00:13:08.800 um, and not with his cabinet, and in fact, there's no one there in the room with him,
00:13:12.640 which I find odd. Like, no one, not one person. Um, why are you showing who the top spies are?
00:13:22.640 Why are you, isn't that confidential information? So I thought that was one observation made by Rick
00:13:28.320 Grinnell that I thought was very interesting. And if we get a higher res photo, that'd be great.
00:13:34.320 The second thing, and I don't want to be too conspiratorial, but it is a question.
00:13:37.920 Someone looked at the clocks on the wall. You know, when you're in certain places,
00:13:43.600 they have all the different time zone clocks on the wall. Um, in this image, yeah, so, um, like JFK,
00:13:54.400 uh, Naval Observatory, that's the name for the Vice President's Office. DNI, that's Director of
00:13:59.920 National Intelligence, I believe. Scroll down a little bit. Doha Station, so that's, uh, in Qatar. So that's the CIA.
00:14:07.440 And on the left is the CIA, I presume in Langley. Why are you, and then State Department, that looks
00:14:14.480 like, uh, the Secretary of State there. Why are you showing
00:14:20.720 OSD, JCS, what's that, Joint Chiefs? Um, why are you showing the actual, I mean, so what, Kamala Harris,
00:14:28.960 she's not, but who are those other folks in there? And the one right to the left of Kamala Harris. I can't
00:14:34.320 quite make that out. Can you read that, what that says? CENTCOM, so that's the central command, uh,
00:14:40.480 of the military. So, this photo alone has a tremendous amount of information, um,
00:14:48.080 on who is briefing the President, who's involved. I bet they're running, uh, I bet the bad guys are
00:14:55.120 running facial ID scans on those CIA operatives. Is it normal to bring a camera in to show the faces
00:15:04.560 of CIA agents who are working in counter-terrorism? Asking for a dummy here. My favorite is JFK,
00:15:11.440 wherever that is. Is that, I mean, there's a number of things named JFK. I don't know what that is.
00:15:15.840 Um, they're wearing masks. Of course, that's the most important. Um, but look at the clocks up there.
00:15:23.760 So, so you can see Washington DC 1129, which would mean five hours later in London. We know that. And
00:15:30.880 there's Moscow time in Tehran and Beijing and Seoul. So that's, that's really good. Now, I saw an
00:15:38.320 observation that the Moscow time was wrong here. Because I, some places the time zones change.
00:15:47.920 Like, for example, in Saskatchewan, Canada, the time zone changes, um, differently. It doesn't,
00:15:55.920 they don't have daylight savings time. Um, thanks very much. And so it could be that the President,
00:16:04.160 and it's just a little trifling detail. Could be that in that situation room, whoever's in charge
00:16:10.320 of the clocks just didn't fix it. But a more conspiratorial or speculative, um, or paranoid,
00:16:17.360 uh, analysis might be, that ain't no photo from yesterday. That's a photo from another
00:16:23.760 period of time in the year when that Moscow clock was accurate. Um, not every place in the world has
00:16:31.840 daylight savings time. So, I mean, I'm not going to put too much stake in that. But don't you find
00:16:38.480 it bloody odd that we haven't heard a word from Joe Biden? We haven't seen proof of life. I'm not
00:16:42.880 saying he's dead. I'm just saying, where the heck is he? Like, isn't it bizarre in the extreme that he
00:16:49.200 hasn't even touched down in Marine One, that's the name of the chopper, and said, folks, it's a very
00:16:54.480 serious event. I'm meeting with my team right now. I'll have remarks later tonight. I mean, like,
00:16:58.640 how long are you going to wait? Kabul fell yesterday. Um, is he okay? Is he sick?
00:17:10.320 Is he having a health episode? Did the stress get to him? Is he just more incoherent than normal?
00:17:17.920 Why, why won't they even release a video? I'm not even saying that, I mean, I think it's pretty
00:17:25.040 clear he wouldn't have the stamina to do a genuine press conference, but typically in grand moments
00:17:30.880 like this, a president comes out and gives a set speech, usually from the Oval Office or something
00:17:36.480 like that. It's, it could be pre-recorded, frankly. Um, why don't they have any proof of life kind of
00:17:42.960 video? Again, I'm not saying he's dead. I'm just saying, where the heck is he? What's he doing? Is he okay?
00:17:47.840 Is he healthy? Who's actually making the decisions? Was that image of him in the situation
00:17:52.720 room a real image? Why are they showing the faces of individual CIA officers on the counterterrorism
00:17:59.200 file? You know, I, I, I'm not very familiar with that world, but, um, I am, I do know that people in
00:18:06.240 those positions, their faces and their names are a closely guarded secret for a variety of reasons,
00:18:12.960 including their own security and safety. It's just incredible. Um, so how many days has it been
00:18:20.640 since Biden has been seen? And also Jennifer, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. I mean,
00:18:26.240 I haven't checked in the last hour, but, um, she's on vacation. That's what her autoresponder email
00:18:34.160 says. I'm away for a week. Go to AOC's Twitter feed. Uh, last she tweeted was a couple of days
00:18:39.920 ago, something about libraries, public libraries being just amazing. I wonder if she's broken her
00:18:45.280 silence. I mean, maybe she was just enjoying the weekend. Um, yeah, her last tweet, shout out to
00:18:53.200 libraries and library workers. We love and appreciate you. That's all. So that's, uh, two days ago. Hey,
00:19:01.600 hey, hey, AOC, anything. And, and the one above that, just so you know, it's a pin tweet. It's got,
00:19:05.520 uh, it's from, uh, almost a year ago. So it's not new. Um, so scroll down a little bit. So the only
00:19:12.560 thing she has had to say in two days is shout out to my life. Hey, that was my library workers. Whoa.
00:19:21.440 Hey, oh, library workers. Shout out to the libraries. Woo. Okay. Nothing else going on. I'm going to go away
00:19:26.960 for a few days now because there's nothing else going on really. Is there anything else from,
00:19:31.120 go to POTUS, uh, uh, twitter.com slash POTS, president of the United States. Has he had anything
00:19:40.320 to say? Maybe something about ice cream, maybe his favorite flavor. Okay. I will be addressing the
00:19:47.120 nation on Afghanistan at 345 today. All right, good. So we'll have some proof of life, hopefully.
00:19:52.560 Um, but before that, you can see the same thing. He hasn't had a word to say in two days.
00:20:01.680 In fact, on August 14th, he was saying during the world wars, Native American code talkers use
00:20:07.200 that language to develop an unbreakable. So Afghanistan is falling, but you're talking about,
00:20:13.360 and he's got something to say about Haiti. Hey, that's great. I, you know, I like Haitians as much
00:20:17.760 as the next guy. You've got your own crisis, mate, but you haven't had a word to say about it in days.
00:20:26.960 That's incredible. That photo of him all alone, though, was quite something, quite something.
00:20:34.560 All right.
00:20:37.680 You know, there is just, let's, you know, we, we did the Afghan stuff first. I said I wasn't going to,
00:20:42.000 but let's just do one more thing. Can you show some of the troves of, of weaponry?
00:20:50.640 Because the Americans left so hastily that they left behind staggering amounts of first-rate military
00:20:59.760 hardware, trucks, and I don't know, I don't think there's any main battle tanks there, but
00:21:07.520 armored vehicles and MRAPs, I think they're called, and obviously Humvees and personal weapon systems
00:21:15.440 and helicopters. Now, some of these might have technically been owned by the Afghan army,
00:21:21.280 but they surrendered faster than Saddam Hussein surrendered in the first Gulf War.
00:21:26.400 And some of these images are incredible. The Taliban now has an air force of American,
00:21:37.840 they have more Black Hawk helicopters now than many other countries.
00:21:45.280 And, I mean, it is a skill to fly a helicopter. I imagine that's pretty, pretty hard to do,
00:21:51.600 probably even harder than flying a fixed-wing aircraft. But there was a video I saw online of
00:21:58.560 Taliban taking over an air base. Yeah, now that, that looks like it's a little bit derelict, right?
00:22:05.200 So that, that looks like an aircraft that's having some trouble. But there, I saw a video of the Taliban
00:22:13.280 actually flying helicopters. There's also one of, it shows a road. Yeah, let's, let's see this one,
00:22:23.120 if this is one. Is there any audio?
00:22:35.840 Thanks. Yeah, I won't ask for any more helicopter shots, but if you could find me the one on the road
00:22:59.280 to Iran. Now, I think what that, that video we showed there was, the Taliban getting into helicopters,
00:23:06.560 figuring out how to turn them on. But I think those folks there weren't pilots, so they didn't dare actually take off.
00:23:11.760 They just said, let's turn this thing on for fun.
00:23:14.800 Take my word for it, I won't ask Justin to find them now.
00:23:18.320 But they, they were airborne. Yesterday they were airborne. And,
00:23:23.120 um, I'm not sure if I could properly identify which helicopter that was. But I believe that's a Western
00:23:30.400 helicopter. I don't know if that's a CH. Yeah, sorry, I'm not even going to guess. I'll show my
00:23:34.240 ignorance if I try and guess. Um, but there were some quite, um, impressive hardware that is rather new.
00:23:44.800 And it was given to the Afghan army. And they either defected or abandoned or surrendered at once.
00:23:52.880 And a whole convoy of that is going up to Iran right now. And of course, China and Russia both
00:24:00.880 immediately recognized the new Taliban government. Uh, I think it's a certainty that all of that American
00:24:08.160 hardware and importantly the software, the computer side, the tech side will be dissected and copied and
00:24:15.520 stolen if it hasn't already been by those countries. And it's just incredible.
00:24:24.720 Oh, do you have a video there? Yeah, look at this. This is what I'm talking about. Now,
00:24:28.320 these just look like
00:24:31.680 fairly standard vehicles. Although some of them have some
00:24:38.160 yeah, this is from Iran TV. This is going to Iran. Um, obviously these aren't American vehicles
00:24:45.040 there, but you could see some of that was clearly American made Humvees and other modified vehicles.
00:24:52.480 Just a disaster. I, um, I should say that I don't believe America should be the Globo cop.
00:25:01.120 I don't think it should be the world's policemen. I don't think Canada should be either. And more than 150
00:25:06.560 Canadians gave their life in Afghanistan. And they've got to be asking for what?
00:25:15.840 Thousands of Americans, trillions of dollars. And for what? And for what?
00:25:22.240 Afghanistan is not a liberal democracy. You know, there was an incredible essay
00:25:26.160 by, um, by Steve Saylor in USA Today, 20 years ago. Can you find that Steve Saylor? Type in Steve
00:25:35.120 Saylor, man who would be king. We've talked about that movie before. It was a, it was a short story
00:25:41.760 written by Rudyard Kipling over a century ago about a couple of British soldiers, um,
00:25:49.680 who decided to become kings. And they went into Kafiristan, this very remote part of, I think,
00:25:59.040 Afghanistan, where there had been no contact with outside forces since Alexander the Great. And they
00:26:06.240 went in with 20 muskets or rifles or whatever. And they said, we know we can take them over. We're
00:26:11.840 tricksters. We'll take over the first town. We'll train some soldiers with our 20 guns. We'll take
00:26:17.600 over the next town, the next town. And we'll run the place. We'll conquer it. And they conquered it
00:26:21.520 very quickly. And then an amazing movie. Uh, yeah. There's Sean Connery and Michael Caine. What a great,
00:26:34.080 great movie. So Steve Saylor reviewed this amazing movie 20 years ago and said, look,
00:26:44.080 it's a work of fiction written by Rudyard Kipling. Because of course, before the Soviets in Afghanistan,
00:26:49.680 the British were in Afghanistan. And the question was, can any outside force hold Afghanistan?
00:26:57.520 Can you Google USA today, Steve Saylor? Because now that's a fictitious movie. It's a work of fiction.
00:27:04.720 It's a, it was a short story written by Rudyard Kipling. Written over a hundred years ago. Afghan
00:27:12.080 insights. Man who would be king. So look at the date on that. September 2001. I'm just going to read a
00:27:18.320 couple lines. No great adventure movie, no great adventure movie, not even Lawrence of Arabia, offers more
00:27:23.840 insights into the possibility of an upcoming war in Afghanistan than John Huston's 1975 film,
00:27:28.800 The Man Who Would Be King. Starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine, the film is based on an 1888 short
00:27:34.000 story by Rudyard Kipling that is set in Afghanistan. In the last two weeks, a couple of contradictory
00:27:39.280 assertions about Afghanistan have become commonplace in the press. I'm reading to you what he wrote before
00:27:43.600 the invasion. This was September 2001. This was right after 9-11.
00:27:47.680 The first is that outsiders inevitably face horrifying defeat in Afghanistan. The second is that the U.S.
00:27:56.720 must not only kill Osama bin Laden and batter the Taliban regime, but should then take up the imperial
00:28:02.560 burden in Afghanistan. By the way, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called The White Man's Burden, which is,
00:28:09.440 I think he's bolderizing it here to call it the imperial burden. The U.S., they say, should conquer and pacify the
00:28:16.560 entire Texas-sized country, build a unified nation out of its warring ethnic groups, reconstruct its
00:28:22.880 economy, liberate its women, calm its furious holy men, and make it a middle-class democracy. This was written
00:28:29.760 20 years ago. The Man Who Would Be King reminds us that neither despair nor utopianism is a realistic
00:28:36.720 attitude for anyone contemplating a military incursion into that harsh land. It may seem strange to look to a
00:28:43.560 Victorian costume drama for perspectives on a 21st century war, but few movies have benefited more from the
00:28:50.280 energetic inspiration of a young genius and the skeptical wisdom of old artists who'd been everywhere and done
00:28:56.920 everything. Rudyard Kipling, the youngest man to win the Nobel Prize for Literature at age 41 in 1907, was only 22
00:29:04.760 when he wrote The Man Who Would Be King. Yet, and he'd already been shot at by a Paffin tribesman
00:29:12.280 in the famous Khyber Pass. Although out of fashion for decades, the Bombay-born Kipling is now the
00:29:18.200 literary immortal of the hour, as America contemplates the same question that so long plagued the British
00:29:22.920 Empire, what to do about Afghanistan? Kipling was long despised for his imperialism, yet at a time when
00:29:28.920 many, including more than a few anti-Taliban Afghans, want the U.S. to take responsibility
00:29:33.480 for Afghanistan, Kipling's sharp eye for the rewards and dangers of imperialism is suddenly
00:29:38.120 relevant once again. In the words of critic John Derbyshire, Kipling, quote, was an imperialist
00:29:43.720 utterly without illusions about what being an imperialist actually means, which in some ways
00:29:48.360 means that he was not really an imperialist at all. Yet it took 69-year-old John Huston to richly flesh
00:29:53.320 out Kipling's tall tale, adding an astute post-Vietnam moral. I'm not going to read
00:29:58.920 anymore. It's a very long article. It's on USA Today. I read the whole thing yesterday.
00:30:05.080 It's like it was written five minutes ago, but it was written 20 years ago. And by the way,
00:30:11.480 I'll just tell you his points. His first point is, anyone can conquer the Taliban or whatever it's
00:30:18.680 called at that moment. You know, it's just, you know, the Brits did it. The Soviets did it.
00:30:25.480 America did it. That's not the hard part. The hard part is holding it and ruling it
00:30:33.800 and overcoming local traditions, customs, religions, concepts that are immutable. And by the way,
00:30:42.040 if you've seen the movie, wonderful movie, Sean Connery, who quickly conquers Kfiristan,
00:30:49.400 as it's called, then said, well, I'm the king now, and I'm going to dispense justice. And it was going
00:30:54.760 okay. But then he wanted to marry beautiful Roxanne, a tribeswoman. And there was a reason I won't get
00:31:00.600 into now where that was completely contrary to all the rules of Kfiristan. But he was so set on it,
00:31:06.840 and it was his downfall. And I think there's an allegory there, too. There are certain things
00:31:12.280 about Afghanistan that will not be changed, and you will never do. And the Brits couldn't,
00:31:17.320 and the Soviets couldn't, and the Americans couldn't. And the man who would be king is, I know, listen,
00:31:23.000 I'm not saying it was a documentary, but it's a parable, and it's an allegory, and it's set there,
00:31:28.360 and it was by a guy who was actually there and was shot at, just in the 1888 version of an IED.
00:31:38.200 And so who's going to run Afghanistan now? Well, the Taliban. But I think China and Russia will come
00:31:45.960 in. Now, will they have better luck this time than last time? Well, I think on the China side,
00:31:50.680 there's not going to be any compunction about killing locals. I mean, China will kill, has,
00:31:58.600 you know, under Mao, killed tens of millions of its own people. China literally has set up Muslim
00:32:03.560 concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims in the west part of the country. If China has any footprint on
00:32:09.720 the ground, and I'm sure they will, they will be merciless with whoever they want. But why would they,
00:32:15.400 they're not going to try and seek to reform Afghanistan? The imperialists of Rudyard Kipling
00:32:24.520 thought, well, we can save them. We can, you know, can you call up his poem, White Man's Burden?
00:32:29.960 You're not allowed to read this poem anymore. But the British imperialists, like the Romans,
00:32:37.080 wanted to change where they were, bring in a code of laws, bring in bureaucracy and rules.
00:32:43.240 The Romans didn't bring in democracy, but, and the Brits really didn't either, but they at least
00:32:50.280 brought in a form of civilization, including that of Christianity. So this is an incredible poem,
00:32:57.560 which you're not even allowed to read these days. It's called The White Man's Burden.
00:33:01.160 And you might say, well, that's racist. But here's how it was viewed by Rudyard Kipling
00:33:07.320 over a century ago. I'm going to read this. I don't know if you're allowed to read this anymore.
00:33:11.560 Take up the white man's burden. Send forth the best you breed. Go bind your sons to exile,
00:33:20.360 to serve your captives' need, to wade in heavy harness on fluttered folk and wild,
00:33:26.280 your new-caught sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child. Take up the white man's burden,
00:33:31.320 impatience to abide, to veil the threat of terror and check the show of pride, by open speech and simple,
00:33:37.440 and hundred times made plain, to seek another's profit and work another's gain. Take up the white
00:33:43.760 man's burden, the savage wars of peace. Fill full the mouth of famine and bid the sickness cease.
00:33:51.280 When your goal is nearest, the end for others sought, watch sloth and heathen folly. Bring all your hopes
00:33:57.700 to naught. Take up the white man's burden, no tawdry rule of kings, but toil of surf and sweeper,
00:34:04.400 the tale of common things. The ports you shall not enter, the roads you shall not tread. Go mark
00:34:09.200 them with your living and mark them with your dead. Take up the white man's burden and reap his old
00:34:14.240 reward, the blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard, the cry of hosts ye humor,
00:34:21.280 us slowly toward the light. Why brought he us from bondage, our loved Egyptian knight? Take up the white
00:34:28.400 man's burden, ye dare not stoop to less, nor call too loud on freedom to cloak your weariness.
00:34:35.520 By all ye cry or whisper, by all ye leave or do, the silent, sullen people shall weigh your gods in
00:34:41.280 you. Take up the white man's burden, have done with childish days, the lightly proffered laurel,
00:34:47.360 the easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now to search your manhood through all the thankless years,
00:34:53.360 cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, the judgment of your peers.
00:35:01.120 That, other than some of the archaic language and the unwoke word white man's burden, let's switch
00:35:07.920 the word, you know, I bet a lot of people who were woke or born after the year 1990,
00:35:12.560 I'm saying, don't say white man. Okay, fine, let's say, take up the neocons burden,
00:35:19.520 take up the globalist burden, take up the, what burden could we substitute that would get over
00:35:27.840 that word? Take up the globalist burden, take up the NGO burden, take up the world policeman,
00:35:34.160 take up the peacekeeping burden. Let's, yeah, that's the one. Take up the peacekeeping burden.
00:35:39.520 But look at, you know, go and help people, go and fight sickness, go and liberate, did he say
00:35:46.720 liberate women there? Was that in there? Or that was, that was in the USA Today story.
00:35:52.480 Raise people up, civilize them, build things, thank, unthanked, unthanked.
00:36:00.720 That was written in 1899. Steve Saylor's review of the Man Who Would Be King was written in 2001.
00:36:09.920 And here we are in 2021. And I think they are all correct.
00:36:15.520 Which is, you want to go in and smash up some terrorists? Hey, count me in as a moral supporter.
00:36:22.360 But again, you have to, I mean, unless you're a soldier ready to do the soldiering,
00:36:26.520 I don't think you should ever be too gung-ho about a war with someone else's kids, am I right?
00:36:33.640 It's easy to be armchair, an armchair soldier. Adam Smith talked about that, about how bored,
00:36:42.600 fancy, luxurious city folk like to play war games with someone else's kids. Even Adam Smith talked about
00:36:48.840 that. But if it's about destroying terrorist networks and blowing up things, you know,
00:36:55.000 these days that's, I suppose, easy enough with airplanes and missiles. But if you want to have
00:36:59.960 boots on the ground and hold the country for 20 full years, you're an imperialist again. Sorry. I mean,
00:37:09.160 take out the archaic language, swap the word white out and put in just, you know,
00:37:15.320 Operation Enduring Freedom or whatever it's called. How's what the United States and Canada
00:37:21.240 and Britain and other countries did over the last 20 years in Afghanistan any different
00:37:26.360 from what Rudyard Kipling was talking about? How's it any different? I really recommend the movie
00:37:30.680 The Man Who Would Be King. All right, we're going to read some chats now. And like I said,
00:37:35.240 we're going to start today's show with the Canadian election. So now that I got my little preamble out
00:37:42.360 of the way, 37-minute preamble, the show is about to begin, my friends. We're going to talk
00:37:48.200 about the Canadian election. It's actually quite important that we do because we have so many things
00:37:52.760 that I want to tell you about. Let's whip through some super chats. Hyperchat, History Club World,
00:37:58.280 how well do you think the Conservative Party, the Maverick Party and the PPC will do in this election?
00:38:02.520 Do you think any of the parties will interact with you as journalists or will you be trapped in police
00:38:07.240 custody? Follow History Club on Instagram. Oh yeah, I think the PPC and in fact, I think we
00:38:14.920 interviewed Maxime Bernier just a couple days ago, even in the weekend. Maverick Party, I think
00:38:21.320 Sheila has interviewed Jay Hill and I expect we'll do that some more. Yeah, I think those parties are
00:38:27.960 hungry enough for media coverage that they will not turn their nose up at us. But I think that both
00:38:33.160 the Liberals and the Aaron O'Toole Conservatives will, although I don't know if I told you, I was
00:38:37.800 at an event in Edmonton a couple weeks ago and there were two MPs there, I'm not going to name them,
00:38:43.800 and I saw them across the room and they came up to me and they said hi to me and they asked for
00:38:49.240 selfies with me. And maybe I told you the story already and I said if you post those you'll get
00:38:53.480 fired and they said they didn't care. So the snobby look-down-your-nose-ishness of the Aaron O'Toole
00:39:03.080 Conservatives is not a view shared by all their MPs, I'm pleased to say. On Rumble, Roxford N3,
00:39:09.800 he's going to say he was re-elected so people voted for Vax Passports so it's not tyranny. That's
00:39:13.800 exactly what he's going to say. Rumble, Daughters of Narcissus, how long do you think the ban on the
00:39:19.800 Unvax flying will last? I have to decide whether to jump on a plane or I might not get to see other
00:39:24.600 family for who knows how long. Well that's a real consideration. The announcement was like a
00:39:30.040 like a tweet, like just a little, you know, very short statement. There's no legislation,
00:39:35.320 there's no regulation, there's no rules, there's no question period. So I don't know if it's actually
00:39:41.640 going to take effect immediately. But you know what, to be very candid, if I were you I would get my
00:39:47.480 family reunions going. If you wanted, if you were going to visit someone, I would do so
00:39:52.280 in the next month or so. I absolutely would. I think there's going to be a big battle,
00:39:55.960 big civil liberties battle, and seeing how the courts so far have not struck down any part of
00:40:00.200 the lockdowns, I'm not optimistic. Hyperchat, Enoch the Salty Pretzel, I'm more concerned about all the
00:40:06.840 women and girls being rounded up and kidnapped by the Taliban as sex slaves and unwilling wives.
00:40:10.760 Also you can expect Bachabazi to be fully back on the Taliban menu. You're talking about basically
00:40:17.720 rape slavery, both of women and boys. Absolutely that's back on. And by the way, the man who would
00:40:26.280 be king treats that issue, there's an incredible scene, I'll tell you, where they conquer a little
00:40:33.240 village, Sean Connery and Michael Caine. And the local chief offers up a whole bunch of women,
00:40:43.400 including very young women, including I think some of his daughters. And Daniel, and one of them,
00:40:53.720 Sean Connery and Michael Caine is outraged and says, you, you barbarian. And the other says,
00:40:59.160 oh, local customs. And then, and immediately, the warlord says, oh, if you don't want women,
00:41:07.000 I have boys. And then the other one, I think it was Michael Caine O'Connery said, local customs,
00:41:13.640 or so I forget the exact, but the idea of raping boys, which is called Bachabazi, if I'm pronouncing
00:41:23.960 that correct, which goes on, on mass today, and which allied soldiers had to turn a blind eye to,
00:41:30.360 because that's one of those local customs. That was in the movie, The Man Who Would Be King. I
00:41:34.120 really recommend it. I wonder if you could find that, that clip of The Man Who Would Be King. It's,
00:41:42.280 they're basically offering him girls. And then they said, would you prefer boys? And, and the way that
00:41:47.960 Michael Caine and Sean Connery react to that culturally is identical to the treatment of
00:41:56.920 women today, and boys today, frankly. That they are the sexual playthings of men, and they don't
00:42:05.240 have civil rights in their chattel, and Sharia law supports them. Terrifying. You know, if you could
00:42:13.960 find that clip, it's, and the movie was in 1975. Roger Tipling in the 1880s, the movie in 1975,
00:42:24.840 the great essay by Donald, Steve Saylor in 2001, and here we are in 2021. Has anything changed under
00:42:31.400 the sun? Nothing changes under the sun. Hyperchat from History Club World. Why doesn't Canada or
00:42:39.320 America send resources in to evacuate as many citizens as humanly as possible? Send the military
00:42:43.880 military to control the airport and some surrounding land and allow people in and just resettle them
00:42:47.640 in Canada, America, or onto cruise ships. Who? How many? What? Yeah, you, there's, how many people
00:42:54.280 in Afghanistan? I, I used to know that number. Afghanistan population. 38 million. It's exactly
00:43:01.320 the size of Canada. So what are you proposing? To take 10, 20, 30 thousand or 10, 20, 30 million
00:43:08.760 people and just move them here? Going to, going to do that for the whole world? Like, at what point
00:43:17.960 do you say, okay, we're a country, they're a country? You know, there's a lot of blame to go around for the
00:43:22.520 generals and for Joe Biden and even for previous presidents, Trump, Obama, Bush. But at what point
00:43:31.000 do you say, hang on, this is your country, you really did have soldiers and equipment, and if you didn't
00:43:40.200 fight for your country, we should fight more? Or maybe you don't see your country as a Disney-fied version,
00:43:50.840 a knockoff of America. Maybe you really are like Kafiristan in the movie The Men Who Would Be King.
00:44:01.000 Rumble, frosty night. Rebel News, what do you think the outcome of the election will be? All right,
00:44:11.240 I said I was going to start with the show on the election, so let's do that. Justin, let's,
00:44:15.960 you know, it's got a few things out of, out of the way there. Let's start the show right.
00:44:21.960 Yeah, let's start the show. Play the, play the YouTube warning. Let's start the show. That was a bonus.
00:44:27.240 You just got yourself a bonus 45 minutes on Afghanistan. But today's show is about something
00:44:32.360 completely different. It's about the Canadian election. Throw the warning up there.
00:44:35.880 Warning. Censorship. Warning. Censorship. Warning. Censorship.
00:44:42.920 Hello, everybody. Ezra Levant here, August 16th. It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:44:47.320 For those who joined for a special bonus pre-show, great to have you back.
00:44:51.240 For those who are just joining now, welcome. As advertised, today's show will be about the election.
00:44:58.040 For those who just enjoyed the 45-minute director's cut bonus blooper reel, you're welcome.
00:45:05.400 I do recommend The Man Who Would Be King. In case you didn't know, I recommend that movie.
00:45:11.320 Who doesn't like Michael Caine and Sean Connery? One of my favorite things to say is ba'o awo'a.
00:45:19.720 All right, back to today's hot news, which is the election. I think it's going to be a disastrous election.
00:45:27.000 For two reasons. The first reason is the media, which helps us understand the world, which shapes
00:45:37.160 perceptions which are more powerful than reality, and who have an important role to challenge the powers
00:45:43.000 that be. The Canadian media, which is always tilted left and has always been infected by government
00:45:52.360 dogma and government propaganda and government interests through the CBC, the state broadcaster,
00:45:59.160 has almost completely wiped out independent journalists.
00:46:03.640 And I don't know if you saw the story a week ago in blacklocks.ca.
00:46:09.240 Blacklocks reporter, one of the few independent media sources in the country.
00:46:12.920 Now the subsidies are secret. Heritage Minister Stephen Gilboa's department refuses to name publications
00:46:19.800 awarded, publishers awarded nearly $61 million in pre-election emergency relief.
00:46:26.440 The grants were to ensure readers receive timely information they require from their government.
00:46:33.240 So they just gave out $61 million to the media right before the election as a pre-election
00:46:40.280 tip, bribe, commission, payoff, solidarity fund. So the media were bad enough. The CBC media was the worst.
00:46:50.040 And you just gave them $61 million, and you're keeping their name secret for the election. So the media
00:46:58.200 is now completely compromised. And they don't care if you know it. They just took their own union news
00:47:05.400 from their media unions to run anti-conservative campaign attack ads.
00:47:12.200 Who are the independent journalists in this country? Well, aside from Rebel News, there's
00:47:16.360 True North, TNC.news. There's Spencer Fernando. There's Western Standard Online. There's a guy out in BC,
00:47:24.760 I think it's called The Breaker. It's Bob Mackin. There's Black Box Reporter.
00:47:31.480 I think I've just gone through it. The Post Millennial does some independent journalism,
00:47:36.120 but they're mainly just rewrite news stories on Twitter. I don't know how much primary journalism
00:47:43.240 they do. I like them, but they don't do primary journalism. That's it, I think. All the newspapers
00:47:52.760 are on the take, all the TV stations, all the radio stations. So that's the first problem. You can't
00:47:59.160 trust the media anymore. Not that you really ever could, but now they're just completely in the tank.
00:48:02.840 The second problem is that Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the official opposition,
00:48:09.560 and the official critics. You know, these are titles, and they're actually jobs and job descriptions,
00:48:14.920 and you're paid for it. Well, the Conservative Party isn't really conservative, and the opposition
00:48:20.120 isn't really opposing. So who is? In the pre-show, the bonus material, we talked about how Trudeau said,
00:48:30.200 if you don't like a tyranny, now it's your time to speak up. Let's play that clip one more time,
00:48:34.120 because it is quite impressive. Trudeau is saying, well, I can't be a tyrant, because we're having
00:48:39.160 this election. Take a look. We've seen situations where Conservative backbenchers have referred to
00:48:46.680 some of this government's decisions as tyrannical in terms of how we're creating mandates for vaccination
00:48:54.200 of public servants or vaccination of people on trains and airplanes. Well, the answer to tyranny
00:49:01.320 is to have an election. No, that's not true, because an election is a moment
00:49:07.720 every four years. Tyranny can exist punctuated by the odd election. By the way, this health
00:49:17.880 vaccination, the biosecurity state, social credit system, vax passport, whatever you want to call it,
00:49:25.720 it wasn't debated in Parliament, wasn't introduced as a bill, wasn't subject to scrutiny in the House of
00:49:32.520 Commons Committee. They've had a year and a half, by the way, but they just haven't. Not that O'Toole
00:49:38.360 would oppose it. I just read his platform today. Not a word opposing it. Not a word opposing it.
00:49:46.760 So it is not disproof of a tyranny that once every four years you have a vote.
00:49:55.160 Living in a free country, it's free every day, and the government doesn't get to misbehave and violate
00:50:00.680 civil liberties every day. So problem number one, the media is completely complicit, bought off
00:50:09.720 by the governing party, and they don't even hide it anymore. Problem number two is that the party who
00:50:19.160 is given special status in Parliament, special budgets, special rights and privileges to oppose
00:50:25.080 is not opposing. And they call themselves conservative, but I don't see the conservative part.
00:50:31.640 They're like salt that's lost its saltiness. What is it even? And I want to show you a moment
00:50:38.200 yesterday that I think is just absolutely, couldn't be more succinct, showing the problem.
00:50:46.120 You know, there's a guy named Andrew Coyne. I think he's 61. I think he was born in 1960,
00:50:53.560 if memory serves. He's a young looking 61. He's been a journalist as long as I can remember.
00:51:03.640 I think he's a dozen years older than me, so I sort of always looked up to him a bit because he was
00:51:08.120 always a cycle ahead of me in life. And I don't read him much anymore. I find him boring and predictable
00:51:16.760 and very establishment and often self-contradictory, but whatever, I'm sure he has the same views about me.
00:51:24.360 But he's regarded as sort of like, I mean, he's the establishment for sure, but he's been like he's had,
00:51:31.320 he's been like a marquee columnist. They show his name in this picture. He's on TV. He was,
00:51:39.160 had senior positions with the Globe and Mail. Then he went to the National Post. Then he moved
00:51:43.880 back to the Globe and Mail, which sort of tells you really Tweedledee, Tweedledum. There's no real
00:51:47.240 difference in Canada's newspapers. So I'm not going to call him a dean of anything, and I'm not going to
00:51:52.920 say it's particularly accomplished. I don't think he's ever written a book. I don't think he's actually
00:51:56.520 ever done anything other than be sort of just like, you know, those two grumpy old men in the Muppets.
00:52:01.800 who sit up there in the opera and just, you know, the peanut gallery and just heckle.
00:52:06.360 I mean, he's not as old as them, but he just sort of like, what does he do other than hang out,
00:52:10.680 hang around and give some half witty comeback that sounds smart. But when you think about it,
00:52:15.720 you, you know, a day later, you forgot, what did he say? What did he say? He comes and goes,
00:52:22.120 and you don't even remember what it is. Anyhow, my point is, he couldn't be more of a man of the
00:52:27.640 establishment. In fact, that's really his entire CV, is he was born to his father, who was an
00:52:33.240 important man in the Bank of Canada. And because he had that important last name, life has been easy
00:52:38.920 for him rather than rather like Justin Trudeau's. So that's Andrew Coyne. He's the establishment man
00:52:45.880 in the media party. Although bizarrely, he votes NDP, he votes green, which I think is a sign of
00:52:53.720 philosophical schizophrenia. But look at him yesterday. Look at this tweet. Andrew Lawton
00:53:02.520 gets the first question? Seriously? Well, now what does this mean? Hold this on the screen.
00:53:09.800 So there was a press conference. I think this was Erin O'Toole's press conference. The
00:53:13.800 unconservative conservative, the opposition leader who doesn't oppose, the salt that has lost its
00:53:20.920 saltiness. Erin O'Toole, footnote in history, the man who makes Andrew Scheer look passionate.
00:53:30.040 So Erin O'Toole was having a press conference and Andrew Lawton, our friend from due north, was there.
00:53:35.480 And he got the first question. Now, my experience is you can get the first question sometimes
00:53:40.520 by showing up first and getting to the microphone early. Sometimes that's just how it's chosen. Are you
00:53:46.920 there first? But whatever it is, maybe he was chosen first. Maybe it was on the phone. So maybe
00:53:52.680 he just logged in first. Maybe it was random. I understand this may have been on the phone,
00:53:58.360 but it doesn't matter because someone has to be first. And if you're in a press conference,
00:54:03.160 you know, hopefully it goes on for long enough that you get a range of questions. So it actually
00:54:08.600 doesn't even matter who goes first, I don't think. If it goes on for 5, 10, 15 minutes and
00:54:15.000 you cycle through some questions, does it matter? First, second, third?
00:54:21.320 Like, journalistically, does it matter? Justin, can you think of a reason why it might matter?
00:54:27.000 Maybe, ah, good point. So Justin says maybe people stop watching after the first few minutes. That
00:54:32.280 would be for the live audience, but I don't think a lot of people were riveted to their TV screens. Oh,
00:54:36.520 wow. Aaron O'Toole's going to make a statement. I got to tune in now. I think reporters would listen
00:54:41.160 to it and then go write something. I don't think that's like a white hot live show. Oh my God,
00:54:45.160 Aaron O'Toole's live streaming. Oh my God. Is he on Instagram live? I got to watch Aaron O'Toole. He's
00:54:50.920 got, hey guys, it's a, it's a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Put down everything. Andrew Coyne is,
00:54:57.880 Andrew Coyne. Aaron O'Toole is live streaming, guys. I don't even know what accent that was. I don't
00:55:03.960 know what that was. That just came out of me. Um, so my point is it absolutely doesn't matter
00:55:10.520 the order other than if you're about snobbery and if you just really care about that. And oh my God,
00:55:22.040 he's wearing that suit. Did you see that? That hasn't been, that hasn't been in fashion in four
00:55:29.960 years. Oh my God. You know, I hear he didn't go to University of Toronto like me. I hear he went to
00:55:40.760 a, well, he's not our kind here. Let me just put it that way. And that haircut, I mean, um, wow. He
00:55:48.920 went to, uh, first choice haircutters. Uh, I don't like to get change back from a hundred when I go to
00:55:54.760 myself. Like it's pure snobbery is what I'm saying. Pure snobbery. Look at that tweet again from Andrew
00:56:00.840 Coyne. Andrew Lawton gets the first question. Seriously. But what does that mean? I know Andrew
00:56:13.240 Lawton. He's on our show all the time. So you're not even, so you're not even pretending that you
00:56:20.680 believe in free speech or an open press or independent press or, or different voices.
00:56:25.640 And you are, and, and even if you think this in your own mind, Andrew Coyne,
00:56:33.400 and that's fine. We all have our foibles. You're a snob. Fine. You think this thought in your heart.
00:56:39.640 Fine. We get it. You're fancy because you had the good luck of being born after your father rather than
00:56:45.400 before him. We get it. It's the Justin Trudeau, Peter Pan. You've just, everything you have is by
00:56:51.720 virtue of your father. We get it. But don't say those things out loud because what you're saying is
00:56:59.080 not only do I think I'm better than Andrew Lawton, but I don't think he should be treated the same as
00:57:05.800 me. See, that's the difference. You're not just saying, haha, dumb question. Okay, got it. Dumb question.
00:57:12.120 That's a judgment on the, on his smarts. And is his question good? And, you know, but Andrew Lawton
00:57:19.160 gets the first, I am offended. I am the one who gets the first question. I am better than him.
00:57:26.920 Andrew Coyne, of course, isn't just a bailout taker from Justin Trudeau. He's far worse than that.
00:57:34.360 Look, 99% of journalists in Canada take Trudeau's money.
00:57:37.240 But Andrew Coyne is one of a handful who put on a show about, I don't like government subsidies for
00:57:45.400 newspapers, but I'm gonna take it. Andrew Coyne, who for years rails against the CBC,
00:57:53.560 getting government money, is on a thousand bucks a pop on their ad issue panel. Now,
00:57:57.880 that's what it was 10 years ago. I guess he gets a lot more now. So Andrew Coyne is the worst in the
00:58:03.320 world in that he takes the bailout money, but he doesn't have the grace to shut up about it,
00:58:08.120 take the money and shut up about it. That's what 99% of journalists do. Andrew Coyne takes the money.
00:58:13.240 He says, I sure don't like taking this money, but I'll take it. He's only worked for bailout media,
00:58:19.720 in fact. And you can see his rage. I think he hates Andrew Lawton for that reason alone.
00:58:27.720 Not because Andrew Lawton might not be in the highest styles or have the finest pedigree. I
00:58:33.720 think that what actually burns up Andrew Coyne is that Andrew Lawton is a more independent,
00:58:39.160 credible, trustworthy, arm's length, neutral journalist than Andrew Coyne. Because unlike
00:58:44.040 Andrew Coyne, Andrew Lawton doesn't take money from Trudeau on Monday and then report on him on Tuesday.
00:58:49.960 So I'm excited to tell you that the government, which took over the debate commission, you know
00:58:59.720 every year there's a debate. It used to be done by the TV networks. They had sort of a consortium,
00:59:04.280 they figured out on their own. Trudeau nationalized that. And look at who he installed as his debate
00:59:12.760 moderator. There's going to be five people asking questions in English. And one of them is Rosemary
00:59:18.040 Barton, who she, she's, um, that gal. Oh my God. I was so excited. I was so close to him.
00:59:29.800 I, I felt him brush up against my hair. I, I could feel the warmth of his body.
00:59:35.800 I love you. Do we still have video? I think that the CBC had Twitter take it down. When she went on
00:59:45.720 that platonic date with Trudeau, remember that? And they talked about what he was listening to.
00:59:49.560 What podcasts are you listening to? What's the, what do you do on a rainy day? Do you ever just daydream?
00:59:58.600 What's your favorite color? If you could be anything, like I, a couple of those I'm making up as jokes,
01:00:05.080 but I'm not actually like, what's on, what's on your podcast? This is what Rosemary Barton asked him on
01:00:11.320 their platonic date. I think she thinks she's dating him or could date him or something. Do we have to take a look?
01:00:20.360 Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be close to you.
01:00:45.400 Why do stars fall down from the sky every time you walk by? Just like me, they long to be close to you.
01:01:10.440 On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true.
01:01:20.320 You know, that loving look, you, I mean, find yourself someone who looks at you the way Rosemary Barton looks at
01:01:26.620 Justin Trudeau and hang on to that because that is true love. Now that's a funny version, but we have, believe it or not,
01:01:32.140 the serious version of that, where you actually hear her questions to him, is much, much worse.
01:01:37.260 Hey, um, if you were a prime minister, what would you do? Hey, what are you listening to in your podcast now?
01:01:47.640 Yeah, sorry, I'm just excited a little bit. Rosemary, yeah, this tweet has been withheld in response to a report
01:01:57.560 from the copyright holder. Um, the CBC hates this tweet so much, and there's another one we have of, uh, of, anyway,
01:02:06.440 so Rosemary Barton, Trudeau's platonic girlfriend. Hey, what, um, Justin, what's it like to be so pretty?
01:02:15.640 Um, she's actually one of the moderators of the English language debate, which is incredible in itself,
01:02:25.840 a state broadcaster, platonic girlfriend, selfie taker, so obviously in love. I mean, why don't you guys just get a room?
01:02:35.240 Um, like, so compromised to begin with. But she actually, if you remember in the last election campaign,
01:02:44.840 sued the Conservative Party. I mean, she was the plaintiff. Rosemary Barton versus Conservative Party
01:02:51.840 of Canada. She sued the Conservative Party. In court. And you're the moderator? Because you're neutral.
01:03:06.640 It is just incredible. I want to show you what the Debates Commission, you might recall last year,
01:03:13.360 we applied for our journalists to be accredited. At the very last moment, they declined.
01:03:19.360 And they gave us like a one-line answer, which wasn't the real answer. So we rushed to court the
01:03:25.040 next business day. They told us on Friday morning, you're not allowed in. We were in court on Monday
01:03:29.360 morning. Emergency application before the Federal Court of Canada. And I couldn't even believe it, we won.
01:03:38.880 The Federal Court of Canada said it was unreasonable and time was of the essence. They ordered the Debates
01:03:47.040 Commission to let us in. And David Menzies and Kian Bextie and Andrew Lawton, the three journalists who
01:03:52.960 were banned, got in and asked the best questions, by the way. So that was humiliating for Trudeau and for
01:04:03.520 the mean girls like Andrew Coyne who wanted to keep us out. So they just released the new rules. They just
01:04:09.120 released media accreditation for the 44th general election. The Leaders Debate Commission is mandated
01:04:16.240 by its Constituting Order and Council to organize two leaders debates for the next federal general
01:04:20.800 election, one in each official language. See, right there you can see why Trudeau did it. Before,
01:04:25.200 there were several debates, but Trudeau doesn't like debates. Media representatives wishing to have access
01:04:31.040 to the debates organized by the commission must apply to be accredited by the commission. So the
01:04:35.040 government will decide if he gets to ask questions of the government. Now, scroll down a little bit
01:04:41.920 there. This is just amazing. The commission recognizes the media organizations, columnists,
01:04:53.120 or commentators may have an editorial point of view or endorse political candidates or political causes.
01:05:00.080 However, a conflict of interest arises when the media organization or journalist
01:05:04.800 becomes an active participant in the story that they are covering. Now, this next part is called
01:05:11.280 the Rebel News Clause. According to the CAJ, Canadian Association of Journalists, a conflict of interest,
01:05:20.560 one, when an organization, oh, there is a conflict of interest, one, when an organization becomes an actor in
01:05:29.760 the stories it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its
01:05:36.320 sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal services, crowd funds to help some
01:05:44.640 individuals in stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertising, and launches petitions.
01:05:50.160 I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder who crowd funds legal fees for clients.
01:06:00.640 Is there any media in Canada that does that?
01:06:05.440 Oh, right. I think we do that.
01:06:07.520 I think we do that.
01:06:12.800 Crowd funds legal services.
01:06:20.400 Or has a president whose name rhymes with Shmezra.
01:06:25.600 No, no, no, we're not singling out Rebel News.
01:06:29.040 But if you have something called fightthefines.com, you're not allowed in.
01:06:33.360 No, no, no, no, no. We're not discriminating against Rebel News. But if you happen to crowdfund legal fees for Arthur Pavlovsky, you're not allowed in. What's that got to do with the federal election? Oh, nothing. But if your boss's name rhymes with Shmezra, you're not allowed in either. But we're not targeting Rebel News and we're not bitter about losing to them in federal court last time. No, no, no. Why would you say that? Put that back up. This is so unbelievable.
01:06:59.020 When a reporter writes opinion pieces about subjects they also cover as journalists, endorses political candidates or causes, takes part in demonstrations, signs petitions, does public relations work, fundraisers and makes financial contributions.
01:07:15.940 OK, well, I've got to tell you right now that Andrew Coyne, the Saints, and Rosemary Barton, who herself, how about when you go to court to sue?
01:07:24.740 How about when you go to court to sue the conservatives? Is that OK? Is that OK? Because Rosemary Barton did that.
01:07:33.020 Andrew Coyne endorses and condemns politicians every day. Would he be kept out?
01:07:41.360 That is called the Rebel News. We don't like you. We're not letting you sit with us at the lunch table because you're not with the cool kids.
01:07:55.280 You and Andrew Lawton are really meanies. And anyone and I'm not saying Rebel News is banned, but anyone who has a fight the fines campaign for Arthur Pawlowski is banned.
01:08:04.040 That just may happen to be Rebel News. That just may happen to be Rebel News. But if it is, it's purely a coincidence.
01:08:11.060 That could be called the Rebel News section. They are so afraid of anyone who is not bought and paid for on their payroll.
01:08:23.020 Andrew Coyne is the voice of these people. Andrew Lawton got the first question. He's not our kind, dear.
01:08:36.780 What a bunch of snobs. Andrew Coyne is the snob. But this government debate commission hates Rebel News because we sued them and we beat them like a drum in court.
01:08:48.760 And they were humiliated because they were shown to be a bunch of partisan hats.
01:08:52.940 So they're really super smart bureaucrats, handpicked by Justin Trudeau, said, well, I know, we'll just pass a law that Rebel News is not allowed to ask us questions.
01:09:05.160 Like, I mean, there are other crowd funders in Canada. I think that, I think True North does, I think what they do could be called crowd funding.
01:09:12.860 I'm not sure. They have subscriptions. And Canada Land, for example, a left-wing gossip podcast, they ask, like, is what they do called even, I don't think, you know, I don't think they even ask for donations.
01:09:26.180 They do. They ask for donations. They ask for donations. Is that called crowd funding? I don't know.
01:09:30.680 And then there's rabble. Like, I don't even really know. What is crowd funding? Crowd funding is when you ask a crowd to, like, ask the public for funding.
01:09:40.060 We use the word crowd funding every day. I guess we could say donations or something.
01:09:46.660 But really, all crowd funding is is a way of getting paid.
01:09:50.740 So what, put that back up, those rules back again. It's quite something that they would talk about being funded by viewers as disqualifying, but being funded by Trudeau.
01:10:01.000 So let's read that first part again.
01:10:01.980 According to the CAJ, there is a conflict of interest when an organization becomes an actor in the stories it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal.
01:10:21.200 What does free legal services for Arthur have to do with whether we can ask Justin Trudeau a question?
01:10:26.540 Listen, crowd funding to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertisers, and we don't do that, and launches petitions.
01:10:41.880 That is called the rebel news. We don't like you. You guys are really mean, but we just don't have the courage to say we don't like you, so we're going to pretend that we're being really, really neutral and this could catch anybody.
01:10:53.400 How about just say you're not allowed to come if the president of your company is a pudgy Jewish guy with glasses and, you know, who lives in Toronto, around an eighth of a ton, you know.
01:11:11.900 Why not, like, why not just say, if you work with Ezra, you're not allowed.
01:11:17.540 Like, why go through all those weird, and if you crowdfund legal assistance for someone, what has that got to do with that?
01:11:25.540 What is helping Arthur? Like, they're crowdfunding legal resources for civil liberties.
01:11:30.620 What has that even got to do with asking a question of Jagmeet Singh?
01:11:38.300 Excuse me, Jagmeet Singh, I have a question for you about vaccine passports.
01:11:42.520 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop.
01:11:44.860 You are crowdfunding a lawyer for someone in Calgary right now, so you can't ask Jagmeet Singh about vaccine passports.
01:11:54.000 What?
01:11:56.900 That's the triple truth. That's what's going on.
01:12:00.620 Hyperchat from History Club World, will Rebel News be suing the commission again and again?
01:12:06.640 Point out hypocrisy in it.
01:12:09.900 Jack M. on Super U.
01:12:11.320 What a pleasure to have someone from Super U.
01:12:13.240 How can it be illegal to use taxpayer dollars to buy the media for political gain?
01:12:18.860 Well, let me answer both of these.
01:12:20.520 We just started the show again, for people who are just joining us.
01:12:23.420 We had a 45-minute pre-show.
01:12:25.400 It was awesome.
01:12:26.300 Talked about movies.
01:12:27.240 I read, like, a whole item from USA Today back in 2001.
01:12:33.260 A lot of people requested that.
01:12:34.600 So that took 45 minutes of throat clearing.
01:12:43.320 Then we started the show again at 1245.
01:12:46.360 So you just joined us.
01:12:47.420 We're really near the beginning.
01:12:48.740 Thank you.
01:12:49.240 Welcome, by the way.
01:12:51.360 But I want to tell you what we're doing.
01:12:52.840 Okay, I've been joking around a little bit.
01:12:54.140 So what are we going to do?
01:12:59.740 Well, can you go to realreporters.ca?
01:13:02.560 We set up a website, realreporters.ca.
01:13:09.740 And help fund our 2021 Canadian election coverage and view our election plans below.
01:13:14.840 Yeah, this is why we can't go to the elections debate.
01:13:20.280 Because we're asking our viewers for money instead of asking Trudeau for money.
01:13:26.500 Unlike the CBC and the bailout newspaper.
01:13:29.740 Oh, can we have that corrected to papers?
01:13:32.700 Bailout newspapers.
01:13:34.160 Can you have AT&T correct that?
01:13:35.980 Rebel News doesn't take any funding from Mr. Stan Trudeau.
01:13:38.980 Well, Trudeau just gave $61 million in secret payments to news reporters on the eve of the election.
01:13:44.280 And he won't say who he paid until after the election.
01:13:47.720 It's incredible that it's a secret.
01:13:49.740 Normally, the media would dig into secret payments to liberal friends.
01:13:52.980 Except that they are the liberal friends.
01:13:54.520 Which explains the total silence amongst the mainstream media.
01:13:56.700 But they took the bribe on the top of their regular bailouts.
01:13:59.560 So that's what we're up against, Rebel News.
01:14:00.940 That's our competition.
01:14:01.780 We're one of the few news companies not on the take.
01:14:05.480 And since YouTube demonetized us this spring.
01:14:07.740 Since they cut off our right to sell ads.
01:14:09.380 We'd be relying on donor donations.
01:14:11.020 But we're not going down without a fight, everybody.
01:14:13.720 Here's our three-point plan to fight back.
01:14:15.960 I wrote this, by the way.
01:14:18.540 Number one, journalism.
01:14:20.380 Deploy the largest group of rebel journalists ever assembled.
01:14:24.060 Get them out in the field, not just in their home cities, but traveling.
01:14:28.400 Point number two, Rebel News Plus.
01:14:30.240 Make our premium shows, which are normally behind the paywall.
01:14:33.300 Make them free for everyone during the election period.
01:14:35.160 And point number three, legal.
01:14:37.740 Have a free speech legal team ready to fight against a certain censorship
01:14:42.560 that will be thrown against us and other independent journalists.
01:14:47.400 And we already started with our first election lawsuit.
01:14:50.260 We're not just going to ask tough questions or just Dan Trudeau as liberals.
01:14:53.340 We're going to ask tough questions of all politicians.
01:14:57.340 Including Aaron O'Toole.
01:14:58.340 Because we're alarmed that he has given up on true conservative ideas.
01:15:03.000 Scroll down.
01:15:04.080 Put us on the page here.
01:15:05.560 Journalism.
01:15:06.380 We're not going to play favorites.
01:15:09.640 And we'll talk about smaller parties, too.
01:15:11.080 Can we add the Maverick Party to that right now?
01:15:13.920 So we're going to fix the S on the first sentence.
01:15:16.560 And Maxine Bernier's PPC.
01:15:18.000 Jay Hill's Maverick Party.
01:15:20.920 Can we add that there?
01:15:22.620 And Derek Sloan has plans, too, that we're curious about.
01:15:26.680 If we want to talk about the issues, the media won't.
01:15:29.260 Scroll down.
01:15:29.900 We talk about Rebel News Plus.
01:15:32.000 Talk about the...
01:15:32.600 Oh, that's right.
01:15:33.440 We filed a legal challenge already to Elections Canada there.
01:15:36.880 I haven't even had a chance to talk about that.
01:15:38.660 Thank you.
01:15:39.580 So, um...
01:15:41.880 Hey, can you go to rebelnews.com slash journalists?
01:15:49.720 You know, we were around in the 2015 election.
01:15:53.200 We were just born back then.
01:15:55.480 And then we were around in the 2019 election.
01:15:57.660 I think we did a pretty good job.
01:15:59.480 So this is our third federal election.
01:16:03.660 Now, look at this page.
01:16:04.820 You can see this on our website right now.
01:16:07.540 Journalists.
01:16:08.260 So that's me at the top.
01:16:11.320 That's my name, Ezra Levant.
01:16:13.020 And then our chief reporter.
01:16:14.060 So let's count.
01:16:15.160 So there's Ezra.
01:16:16.740 There's our chief reporter, Sheila.
01:16:19.440 There's Avi Amini, Rebbe Award winner.
01:16:22.500 So is Sheila, by the way.
01:16:24.620 David Mantis, also a Rebbe Award winner.
01:16:28.800 Best pandemic journalist.
01:16:30.620 Raheel Raza, who's the head of our advisory board.
01:16:35.160 Drea Humphrey, one of my favorite people.
01:16:37.820 She's amazing.
01:16:39.040 I like her so much.
01:16:41.340 Adam Sos in Calgary, holding down the fort there.
01:16:45.020 Andrew Chapanos.
01:16:46.500 You've seen him out here before, obviously.
01:16:48.640 Tamara Ugolini, very interesting.
01:16:51.640 Started as a Fight the Flies client.
01:16:54.420 Liked it so much, she joined the company.
01:16:57.180 Alexandre Lavoie.
01:16:59.380 She is doing a great job.
01:17:01.460 I love her attitude.
01:17:03.220 And she does stories in English and Francais.
01:17:05.500 Then we've got Kian Simone, who joined us in Calgary.
01:17:09.360 We call him K2, because we had another guy in Calgary named Kian, Kian Bextie.
01:17:14.100 So this is K2.
01:17:16.400 And then, truly one of the favorite people I've met over the years at Rebel.
01:17:21.500 His name is Mocha Bezergin.
01:17:23.600 It's his nickname.
01:17:24.900 And he's our chief videographer.
01:17:26.460 And he just, he loves doing work in Quebec.
01:17:28.960 He loves to travel.
01:17:30.340 And he's really going to work hard in this election.
01:17:32.200 He just promised me.
01:17:33.300 Not that he wouldn't have done it without the promise.
01:17:35.780 But we're going to have him flying around so much.
01:17:38.040 I said, Mocha, you've got to go full tilt.
01:17:39.400 He said, I'm up for it.
01:17:41.540 Sidney Fazzard.
01:17:42.400 I think I'm saying that right.
01:17:43.720 Sidney joined us as an editor.
01:17:46.500 And he's also doing some on-camera work.
01:17:48.100 Now, down under, we have Alexandra Marshall, just joined us.
01:17:53.560 In Toronto, Catherine Krozanowski, if I'm saying that right.
01:17:57.780 And on Twitter, I think she's the crow or something, which I think shows a sense of humor.
01:18:02.380 Lincoln Jay, you know, the ladies love him, girls adore him.
01:18:06.900 Just a great guy.
01:18:10.600 Efrain Monsanto, started right out of school.
01:18:15.040 Now he's our head of video.
01:18:16.040 He also does journalism.
01:18:17.960 And he was the guy who was arrested.
01:18:19.800 What was he arrested for?
01:18:21.500 Or ticketed.
01:18:23.300 For not smiling.
01:18:25.600 For shaking hands.
01:18:27.140 He got a ticket, swear to God, for shaking hands.
01:18:32.040 Obviously, we're fighting that.
01:18:33.860 Yankee Pollock, who just did great work in Montreal.
01:18:41.560 And I don't know why he's not on there.
01:18:43.040 Is there a problem with Matt Brevner's, because that's the one name I noticed that's not on there.
01:18:48.580 So, I don't know if you've been counting.
01:18:51.320 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
01:19:01.860 Now, two of them are in Australia.
01:19:04.920 So, you know how many people we have in Canada on the telly?
01:19:11.840 17.
01:19:13.160 Is that right?
01:19:13.920 Did I count right?
01:19:14.820 So, you'll notice that I'm not talking about people who are purely behind the scenes.
01:19:18.360 Now, you can see about half these folks do behind the scenes work as well as on camera.
01:19:23.400 Like Andrew Chapados and Sidney and Mocha and Efron and Kian.
01:19:28.740 So, I'd say half these people split their time between behind the scenes work and on camera work.
01:19:34.180 But, me, Sheila, David, Drea, Adam, Tamara, Alexa, are only on TV.
01:19:50.800 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
01:19:54.020 So, there's 10 people who are part-time on TV.
01:19:57.920 I think I've got to cover it.
01:19:59.280 And then 7 who are full-time.
01:20:02.080 Would you say that's enormous?
01:20:04.680 I would say that's enormous.
01:20:06.000 I happen to know, because I was talking to a lawyer for McLean's Magazine,
01:20:11.080 that McLean's entire company is 14 people.
01:20:14.940 So, they're not even talking about, right now they have some freelancers or whatever.
01:20:18.380 But their entire company is 14 people.
01:20:21.300 And we have 17 Canadian on-air talent plus 2 Australians.
01:20:28.220 I'm not counting here.
01:20:29.020 What's my point besides my pride and joy in this talent?
01:20:36.380 We're deploying, my friends.
01:20:38.720 We're deploying these 17 people into the field in the election.
01:20:43.860 Now, the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Andrew Coins of the World
01:20:48.960 and the Justin Trudeau Debates Commissions, they seem to dislike crowdfunding.
01:20:55.460 Go back to realreporters.ca.
01:20:56.760 Put that, show that.
01:20:57.700 So, how are we going to pay?
01:20:58.520 How are you going to pay for 17 people?
01:21:01.860 Well, I know what I would do if I was McLean's Magazine.
01:21:04.720 I'd call up the Prime Minister's office and say, give us some money.
01:21:07.680 Our goal is to do it through crowdfunding.
01:21:11.220 You see this little thing on the right-hand side?
01:21:13.100 Payment one time, monthly, 10 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever, 1,000.
01:21:17.340 You know, that's how we do it.
01:21:18.860 That's called crowdfunding.
01:21:19.880 You know that.
01:21:20.840 But apparently, the government thinks crowdfunding is really, really evil.
01:21:25.080 They would prefer it if you took their government grants.
01:21:29.800 Yeah, we're not going to do that.
01:21:37.120 We're going to, and so far we have 699 donors.
01:21:40.180 And if you want us to continue our Real Reporters Plan, then that's how you can help us.
01:21:45.580 I think it's quite something that they explicitly say they don't like crowdfunding.
01:21:54.040 Because every bloody one of them is on the take from Justin Trudeau.
01:21:57.360 Andrew Coyne's snobby, oh my God, just since you refreshed that, we got eight more donors?
01:22:07.240 Oh, you didn't refresh this the last time.
01:22:09.300 So it's about 10 minutes.
01:22:10.340 Well, that's almost one donor a minute.
01:22:12.900 Well, that's pretty good.
01:22:16.500 I just find, like, Justin, would you not agree with me that it's remarkable
01:22:19.480 that the Debates Commission specifically talks about crowdfunding?
01:22:23.680 What is crowdfunding?
01:22:24.700 Let me tell you what I think about crowdfunding.
01:22:27.360 I mean, occasionally if a donation comes in, someone brings it to my attention,
01:22:32.680 Ezra, maybe call this person or whatever.
01:22:35.000 But do you think I know those, do you think I've even looked at those 707 names?
01:22:41.120 I can just tell you, let me just tell you right now, I have not.
01:22:44.740 I have not looked, I mean, and maybe those 707 people are saying, Ezra, I wish you would.
01:22:49.220 Ezra, you could be a little bit better in the thank you notes department.
01:22:51.800 Okay, you're right.
01:22:54.220 But what I regard that, and maybe you don't like to hear this,
01:22:57.440 I regard not knowing who those 707 people is as a plus.
01:23:00.920 And I can tell you one thing.
01:23:03.260 Not a single reporter here knows who those people,
01:23:05.380 because we obviously keep that list private, both for legal reasons and moral reasons.
01:23:09.480 No one at Rebel News knows who our crowdfunders are.
01:23:14.800 So they're out there, and they can follow our mission without fear or favor.
01:23:20.340 Follow the facts wherever they lead.
01:23:22.080 Tell the other side of the story.
01:23:23.440 They don't know who those 707 people are.
01:23:28.380 So they're not in the back of their mind saying,
01:23:30.060 oh, I better not criticize Justin Trudeau,
01:23:31.980 because my boss just got $5 million from the bailout fund,
01:23:35.600 so maybe I'm not going to ask a tough question.
01:23:37.500 Oh, I better not ask Stephen Gilboa a tough question,
01:23:41.420 because he's bringing the internet censorship,
01:23:43.480 and he's also paying my boss, so I better not,
01:23:45.900 you know, oh, we're getting money from, you know,
01:23:47.900 Facebook and Google pay a lot of media companies directly.
01:23:51.120 Oh, what do you think that is?
01:23:52.400 That's called a bribe, people.
01:23:53.820 That's called lobbying.
01:23:57.240 If Facebook gives your company,
01:23:59.980 and Facebook is now paying news companies directly,
01:24:02.580 if Facebook gives you a half a million dollars,
01:24:04.560 let's just say I'm making up a number,
01:24:07.420 yeah, they're going to expect that you're not going to condemn them in your editorials.
01:24:13.200 So if I just told you the 17 Canadian reporters we have,
01:24:18.660 plus we've got two others,
01:24:21.120 those 17 reporters do not know who those 707 donors are,
01:24:27.480 and they will not know who those 707 donors are.
01:24:31.040 So those 17 reporters are more neutral and more independent
01:24:34.040 than Andrew Coyne, the CBC, the Global Mail, the Toronto Star, Global News,
01:24:39.380 or any other bailout company,
01:24:41.760 or any other Unifor or Canada Media Guild company.
01:24:44.380 They just are.
01:24:49.280 But it is so bizarre to me that the Debates Commission has specifically singled out crowdfunding.
01:24:56.620 And there's, by the way, I don't think there's any other media company in Canada
01:25:00.340 that even uses the word crowdfunding.
01:25:03.140 I love True North.
01:25:05.920 I think they use the word donations,
01:25:08.100 which is sort of crowdfunding.
01:25:09.880 Or I think they use the subscription.
01:25:11.340 I'm a $10 a month giver to True North,
01:25:14.180 plus I chip in when they have the odd project.
01:25:16.820 Andrew Coyne told me,
01:25:17.640 Andrew Lawton reminded me that I chipped into a video they made.
01:25:21.900 They're specifically saying,
01:25:25.540 if you get your money from Justin Trudeau, you're neutral.
01:25:28.360 If you get your money from 707 strangers, you're compromised.
01:25:33.600 What?
01:25:34.720 If you donate money to Unifor's campaign against Erin O'Toole, you're neutral.
01:25:41.220 If you donate money to Arthur Pavlovsky's civil liberties lawyers,
01:25:46.340 you don't belong anywhere near a debate.
01:25:49.800 What?
01:25:50.280 What's Arthur Pavlovsky?
01:25:51.440 Did they say fight the fines?
01:25:52.980 They said something.
01:25:53.860 It was almost like they said,
01:25:54.980 they didn't actually say the word fight the fines.
01:25:56.960 They used the word legal defense or something.
01:26:00.360 Where was that?
01:26:03.780 Crowdfund to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers.
01:26:09.160 What has that got to do?
01:26:10.980 What has that got to do with anything?
01:26:17.840 I just think this is incredible.
01:26:19.380 That is the, we don't like Rebel News and we sort of lack the courage to say it,
01:26:26.240 but we're going to be weaselly about it.
01:26:28.740 And Andrew Coyne will just come out and say it.
01:26:30.780 He's a snob and Rebel News and Andrew Lawton are not our kind deer.
01:26:34.000 But Justin Trudeau's handpicked us and so he told us to ban Rebel News.
01:26:37.840 So we're going to do that.
01:26:39.220 And we're just going to say we're not against Rebel News necessarily,
01:26:43.460 but if you happen to be a crowdfunded conservative website who also helps civil liberties people,
01:26:49.340 you're not welcome here.
01:26:50.360 But we're definitely not banning Rebel News.
01:26:52.720 It's just a coincidence.
01:26:57.320 That is an ad for Rebel News.
01:27:01.680 That list of who's allowed and who's not is de facto an ad for Rebel News.
01:27:08.620 Because you know we are the only media they insist on keeping out.
01:27:14.220 And why is that?
01:27:16.500 Is it really because we crowdfunded lawyers for Arthur Pawlowski?
01:27:22.420 What?
01:27:22.820 He's just a Christian pastor in Calgary.
01:27:24.660 We're paying his legal bills.
01:27:26.600 Oh, you did that, eh?
01:27:28.320 So you raised money for legal bills.
01:27:29.920 Well, you certainly can't come to a national debate and ask questions about anything.
01:27:34.720 Oh, my God.
01:27:37.620 Very funny.
01:27:38.720 But you know what?
01:27:39.600 I would like to ask for your help.
01:27:41.660 If you can go to realreporters.ca.
01:27:44.200 Go there one more time.
01:27:45.000 Let's see if it ticked up.
01:27:46.520 It was 707.
01:27:47.940 It's been about five minutes.
01:27:49.820 Oh, my God.
01:27:51.280 Look at that.
01:27:52.400 It's 715.
01:27:54.760 That's eight people in eight minutes.
01:27:57.460 Right?
01:27:57.660 Probably even less than eight minutes.
01:28:01.140 Yeah.
01:28:02.340 You know what?
01:28:03.780 That's how you build a media company.
01:28:06.040 I do not know who those 715 people are.
01:28:08.540 How would I know?
01:28:09.240 I'm on TV right now.
01:28:10.780 I could take the time and dig it up.
01:28:12.880 I'm promising you I'm not going to.
01:28:16.560 Because not that I don't care.
01:28:18.060 In fact, I want to say thank you to those people right now.
01:28:20.740 I'm not pretending I'm ungrateful.
01:28:22.460 Do you understand the difference between me being grateful but not wanting to have a boss?
01:28:28.760 And the average donation, I haven't checked in a while, but last time I checked, the average donation to Rebel News, I think, was $53.
01:28:34.300 So don't ever let me say I don't value a $53 donation.
01:28:40.600 That's our specialty.
01:28:42.540 But you see, when I say we have a $53 donation average, do you know what that means?
01:28:48.020 That means everyone has an opinion and we hear everyone's opinion.
01:28:54.580 Did that just tick up again?
01:28:55.680 Everyone's allowed an opinion at Rebel News.
01:29:02.320 But since the average donor is $53, everyone's opinions count, but no one counts too much, if you understand what I'm saying.
01:29:11.380 If we took a million dollars from Justin Trudeau or Stephen Gilboa, his opinion would count too much.
01:29:19.200 And not just that, they're the center of the news.
01:29:21.000 How can you take money from the center of the news?
01:29:25.680 I love crowdfunding.
01:29:28.880 It's the most honest way to do journalism.
01:29:32.100 Sometimes people say, oh, Ezra, you guys are crowdfunding too much.
01:29:35.960 Well, you know what?
01:29:36.440 99% of our viewers don't chip in.
01:29:39.040 So if you don't like it, don't chip in.
01:29:41.640 99% of people don't.
01:29:43.560 But for the 1% who feel motivated, chip in.
01:29:45.860 Chip in.
01:29:46.240 It's voluntary.
01:29:46.740 You're going to get the video no matter what.
01:29:48.180 But the reason I'm telling you it's better is, number one, you're not forced to support us.
01:29:55.180 Unlike the CBC, you're forced to support them.
01:29:57.740 Unlike the $61 million payoff to the journalists before the election, you're forced to support them.
01:30:03.600 But number two, our journalists, they don't know who those 716 people are.
01:30:10.620 So they go out there and they just do the job.
01:30:13.440 Follow the facts wherever they lead.
01:30:15.240 Tell the other side of the story.
01:30:16.300 Those are two of our mottos in the newsroom.
01:30:19.320 Isn't it crazy that they specifically say crowdfunding is a downside, but they love the government on the take reports?
01:30:28.320 Isn't that incredible?
01:30:30.360 All right.
01:30:30.900 Well, we did two shows today.
01:30:32.140 We did the 45-minute pre-show about Afghanistan.
01:30:35.840 Oh, my God.
01:30:36.860 721.
01:30:38.900 Thank you.
01:30:40.160 I presume that's people watching this.
01:30:42.520 But maybe not.
01:30:43.160 Maybe it's just other people out there.
01:30:44.680 That's realreporters.ca.
01:30:46.240 Thank you very much.
01:30:50.520 You know, I want to say one quick thing and then I've got to go because I've been going on a little long today.
01:30:55.120 Can I tell you that we have a great event coming up in Regina, Saskatchewan?
01:30:59.620 Regina is a town of about a quarter million.
01:31:01.300 It's the capital city of Saskatchewan.
01:31:03.300 As you can see from the Latin, Regina means queen.
01:31:06.340 And one of the nicknames of that great town is the Queen City.
01:31:10.760 And on September 14th, we are having an evening with Dr. Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace.
01:31:17.600 Now, you might recall that we originally scheduled this event when he was unseemly deplatformed by the city of Regina.
01:31:26.600 The city of Regina government was having a conference.
01:31:29.060 They invited, I think, 45 different speakers.
01:31:31.760 Really interesting mix of speakers.
01:31:34.000 And one of them was Patrick Moore.
01:31:36.800 I've heard him speak.
01:31:37.720 In fact, he came on one of our rebel cruises once.
01:31:40.000 Great guy.
01:31:40.900 Really compassionate guy.
01:31:42.940 One of the co-founders of Greenpeace.
01:31:44.380 He loves critters.
01:31:45.700 He loves the environment and the world.
01:31:47.800 But he's not, he's not a partisan guy who only cares about, like, Greenpeace has lost its way is what I'm saying.
01:31:55.120 And he, but he's still got, he's all heart.
01:31:57.280 So he's a bit of a skeptic about some things.
01:31:59.260 I love the guy.
01:32:00.880 He was deplatformed.
01:32:02.180 The only one deplatformed from that conference because a bunch of cancel culture types canceled him.
01:32:06.880 And the city of Regina, shame on them, canceled him.
01:32:09.540 I know him enough that I called him up on the phone.
01:32:11.900 I said, do not cancel your plane ticket.
01:32:15.220 Go to Regina.
01:32:16.440 We will book another venue.
01:32:18.860 And we will do an event just with you.
01:32:21.760 And to heck with that stupid city conference.
01:32:24.120 We're going to have a Dr. Patrick Moore event.
01:32:26.820 He said, sure.
01:32:27.780 And I said to him, what is your speaking fee?
01:32:30.920 And he told me, I said, we will honor it.
01:32:33.520 We will pay you what you were going to be paid.
01:32:35.960 No discount.
01:32:36.740 I'll tell you that.
01:32:37.540 Because this is not a setback for you.
01:32:39.560 It's an opportunity to show that you actually were the star.
01:32:43.720 So we booked a venue called the Conexus Arts Center, which is a beautiful building.
01:32:56.780 Huge.
01:32:57.480 The capacity of the main theater, I think, is 2,200.
01:33:00.400 By the way, the original City of Regina conference only had room for a few hundred people.
01:33:04.580 We sold about 1,500 tickets, like in a week.
01:33:12.860 Isn't that amazing?
01:33:14.460 The fools of the city of Regina thought, oh, someone complained.
01:33:17.920 Let's get rid of Patrick Moore.
01:33:19.160 He was the most interesting thing at the conference.
01:33:21.140 We sold 1,500 tickets like that.
01:33:23.260 Now, trouble is, the pandemic came.
01:33:25.060 The lockdowns came.
01:33:25.860 The Conexus Arts Center shut down.
01:33:27.300 So we had to postpone and postpone again and again and again and again and again.
01:33:31.000 But finally, they've lifted the rules.
01:33:33.260 So we got our date, September 14th.
01:33:36.540 And I checked.
01:33:37.840 In fact, I'm going to check literally right now in real time because I got a little app here telling me how many people.
01:33:44.340 So whenever people asked for a refund because of the constant postponement, we gave it to them, obviously.
01:33:50.900 But can you believe it?
01:33:52.980 We still have 1,300 people signed up.
01:33:56.660 But we're selling tickets some more because there's room.
01:34:00.060 There's still room.
01:34:00.980 1,300 people.
01:34:02.660 Oh, and by the way, we got a little pre-show VIP wine and cheese and then a dinner afterwards with Patrick Moore if you want to come to that.
01:34:10.120 But I'm so excited that we are proceeding with that event two years late, but we're proceeding with it.
01:34:16.240 And Patrick Moore is coming.
01:34:20.760 If you asked for a refund and got your ticket refunded, you can buy a ticket again if you like.
01:34:25.360 If you held on to your ticket, thank you.
01:34:27.340 I will see you in Regina on September 14th.
01:34:30.780 It's going to be great.
01:34:32.620 I just wanted to tell you that because, boy, we should have had that event before, but the pandemic stopped us.
01:34:38.740 This event isn't just about St. Patrick Moore.
01:34:41.560 And it's not just about getting together after being apart from each other.
01:34:44.940 It's about re-platforming a guy who is de-platformed, re-platforming a guy and showing the city of Regina shame on them.
01:34:54.380 Don't you think?
01:34:56.460 All right.
01:34:57.560 It's 1.34.
01:34:58.320 I got to go because I'm late.
01:34:59.620 But give me one more glance at realreporters.ca.
01:35:03.800 How's that doing?
01:35:05.940 I'm excited.
01:35:07.580 Realreporters.ca.
01:35:08.540 That's if you believe in our crowdfunded journalism.
01:35:11.780 That's our crowdfunding website.
01:35:13.100 Oh, my gosh.
01:35:17.240 Literally, as we've been here, it was 7.07, then 7.15, then 7.16, then whatever to whatever way.
01:35:23.720 7.31.
01:35:25.420 As we have been here, 24 people.
01:35:28.680 It's like, you know, this is what PBS used to do with their telethons.
01:35:32.380 This is the most honest way to do it.
01:35:34.440 As opposed to the government way.
01:35:36.000 Oh, Mr. Trudeau, can I have some free millions of dollars?
01:35:39.440 I'm sure there won't be any strings attached.
01:35:42.540 I don't know who these 7.31 people is.
01:35:45.560 I will never know who they are.
01:35:47.180 Who's more independent?
01:35:51.380 Us?
01:35:52.240 Or someone who calls up Justin Trudeau and begs?
01:35:55.400 And you don't think he makes you beg?
01:35:57.060 And you don't think he reminds you who gave you the million dollars?
01:36:00.080 I'm so grossed out by the bailout media, the bought-off media, the $61 million secret payment media.
01:36:07.840 And for the government commission to say, to specifically say crowdfunding is a no-no.
01:36:15.940 I think that gives the game away.
01:36:17.780 I think that shows where they're coming from.
01:36:19.120 And the fact that they hate our civil liberties project for fight the fines.
01:36:23.560 By the way, that's done through the Democracy Fund.
01:36:26.100 They're too stupid to know that, I guess.
01:36:27.740 The Democracy Fund, not that you would be dumb not to know it.
01:36:30.600 But if you're trying to attack us for that, do your research.
01:36:33.380 That money doesn't come to Rebel News.
01:36:35.800 That money goes to the Democracy Fund, which is an independent CRA charity that pays.
01:36:40.760 When we raise money for Arthur Pawlowski or the other 2,200 clients,
01:36:45.360 that money does not actually go to Rebel News.
01:36:49.880 We've got to get going.
01:36:50.740 My friends, thank you for your support.
01:36:53.980 I love the fact that our very independence is what bugs the debate commission.
01:37:00.680 Isn't that ironic?
01:37:02.300 It's upside-down land.
01:37:04.280 We're the only truly independent.
01:37:06.400 Well, True North and other groups like that.
01:37:08.460 But we're the most independent in many measures.
01:37:12.280 We've got 17 Canadian journalists crowdfunded.
01:37:15.800 And that's specifically what the government debates commission hates.
01:37:19.820 Unbelievable.
01:37:20.740 Give me one more chance.
01:37:21.880 Give me one more glance.
01:37:23.700 You know, I bet it's still the same because it's, you know, just because I'm impatient doesn't mean that someone else.
01:37:28.920 But I'm just thrilled.
01:37:30.300 I'm just thrilled to see the public.
01:37:32.500 Oh, my.
01:37:33.140 Did that just go up again by 4?
01:37:34.740 Did that just go up again by 4?
01:37:37.300 Oh, my God.
01:37:38.660 It's almost like people want real reporters.
01:37:42.900 Well, we can't have that.
01:37:45.240 All right, guys.
01:37:45.800 I've got to go.
01:37:47.000 You had a two-for-one show today.
01:37:51.080 Great to be back.
01:37:52.320 I've got a show tonight at 8 p.m.
01:37:54.680 Until then, do we have a dog video?
01:37:56.300 We do.
01:37:57.080 I'll say goodbye now.
01:37:57.940 Here's a dog video that will hopefully make you feel a little bit better about your day.
01:38:01.800 Take a look.
01:38:02.180 Thank you.