Does the Coronavirus prove that globalization was a bad idea？
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Summary
Is Globalization a Bad Idea? Does the coronavirus outbreak in Canada prove that Globalization is a bad idea? Ezra Levenrant takes a look at it and argues that we should live with it, not fight against it.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. Today, I do some blue-skying and brainstorming on what life would be like
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without globalization. I don't mean globalism, the ideology of internationalism. I mean the
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meat and potato stuff, importing, exporting, offshoring, things like that. It'd be interesting
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in your thoughts on it. Please consider subscribing to our Rebel News Plus. Just go to rebelnews.com.
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It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version of this podcast, as well as Sheila
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Gunn-Reidz Show and David Menzies Show. Okay, here's my show today.
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Tonight, does the coronavirus prove that globalization was a bad idea?
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It's March 10th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
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Hey, can I show you a quick clip from Global News the other day? It's a public health expert.
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They call him a doctor. I'm unfamiliar with him, but he seems credible. He's making the case that we
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can't just stop the coronavirus. It's going to come here, so we should focus on dealing with the
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virus rather than trying to prevent it. Here, take a look. It's just under one minute.
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You know, it's a real misconception that we can somehow close our borders. This has been shown over
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and over again in studies that you can't close borders anymore. If we were a 16th century Europe,
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you could do it, but you can't do it now. And we are so interconnected. If you think about the goods and
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services and food that we have in Canada, most of it's not from here. And so we are unable to close our
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borders that way. And really, this is about risk mitigation rather than trying to, like, stop the risk.
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And so that's why we're screening people with travel histories. But there's also very much an
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assumption that viruses cross borders. They don't need passports, and they will very happily,
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this virus will very happily spread to every country in the world at some point. And so we need to think
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beyond that and really think about what are the strategies that we can use in Canada to try to
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slow this down. But we're not going to stop it.
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By the way, that's true about global warming. Give me a tangent here for a second. The earth is warming
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very, very slightly, very, very slowly. But it is warming. I think that's a good thing. Our whole
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planet is still emerging from the ice ages. You know, the North Pole used to be covered in forests.
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There's evidence of that petrified forest buried under the ice. You can't stop the very slow emergence
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from that ice age. And you wouldn't want to, by the way. People in all life, in fact, do better in
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warmth than in cold. More people die in a cold snap than from any heat wave. As my friend Dr. Patrick
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Moore points out, where are all the biggest cities in the world? Where is the most diversity of plant
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and animal life in the world? It's around the equator where it's warmest. Life is hardest and
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sparsest in the cold north and far south. So if you were worried about global warming, and I say
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there's no reason to be, you'd be smarter to acknowledge that it is going to happen no matter
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what, has been happening for millennia. And the best thing to do with your energies, if you're worried,
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is to try to mitigate, try to manage, try to deal with any downsides. You can't stop it,
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so learn to live with it. In Canada, for example, that probably means longer growing seasons, milder
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winters. I call that a win. Anyways, forgive that tangent. I just wish we had that sort of
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methodological thinking on global warming instead of the insanity that thinks that by levying a carbon
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tax, you're going to stop the weather. You'll just stop the entire climate by paying taxes and
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recycling or something. It's not going to happen. Like a virus, the climate does not respond to
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politics or tweets or speeches or taxes. It is what it is. It's not going to change because Greta
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scowls at you. So in a way, I appreciate the honesty from that doctor. And it's true, isn't it? I mean,
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look at anything in your grocery store, especially during the winter. How much of it is from other
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countries for food from the United States and Mexico, but are there also further around the
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world increasingly. If you're eating fish, odds are it was caught in Asia. A useless fact that I
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happen to know for some reason is that China produces about half of the world's apples. They also make
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most of the world's apple computers too, of course, but the fruit. It's a global economy for food and
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computers and everything manufactured. Try finding something in Walmart that's not made in China.
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Or try shopping on Amazon, the mighty international online shipper. Or pharmaceuticals. So much of our
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medicine comes from China. And raw materials to make everything, like rare earth metals, like steel is
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made in China. So it's true what the man said. We are so interconnected. If you think about the goods
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and services and food that we have in Canada, most of it's not from here.
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It's true. If you like to get cheap apples in the wintertime, you have to accept coronavirus, I guess.
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And try to mitigate it because coronavirus doesn't need a passport, as he said. This isn't the 16th
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century when you could just put up walls, he said. So it's settled. If you like your Apple iPhone,
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if you like your Apple fruit, if you like your Walmart toys, your exotic fruits when it's minus 20,
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money, and saving a few bucks off your larger items, you've simply got to go with globalization.
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And hey, don't we get rich off it too? I mean, all the things we sell to foreigners.
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Well, not really. Actually, we pretty much just sell everything to the Americans who are like family.
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It's like our own country. Here, take a look at this chart. This is from the World Bank.
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We sell 75% of our stuff to the United States. We sell just over 4% of our stuff to China.
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They really don't buy our stuff. Maybe they would if we ever built an oil pipeline to the coast,
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but we won't. Here's what we import in terms of consumer goods. That's everything in Walmart,
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for example. 47% of our consumer goods is from the States. 15% from China. So that's a little bit
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more. On the food side, we import 61% of our food from the States. Then comes France and Italy.
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China, thankfully, is just over 2%. I guess what I'm driving at is, yeah, we buy all sorts of things
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from China. Lots of junk. Thankfully, not a lot of food. Too much of our medicine. Too much of strategic
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things like computers. But as Apple computers recently demonstrated, they can make computers
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in the United States at a profit. Trump has lowered taxes so much in the U.S. that all sorts of factories
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are reshoring to the United States. Remember that word offshoring? Now they're reshoring and repatriating
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money from abroad back home to America. So here's my point. Donald Trump cut taxes, pulling U.S.
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companies to bring their factories back home. And then Trump put tariffs on China, pushing American
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factories to relocate back home, or at least somewhere other than China. So there was the
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pull of low taxes, the push of tariffs, both of which he did for his America First agenda,
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economic prosperity and patriotism. Those were condemned as jingoistic. But if you were a factory
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owner and you took the plunge and took a hint and moved your factory back to America last year,
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you'd be thanking your lucky stars right now, wouldn't you? Globalization is built on mass-scale
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economies. We're saving a few pennies per pound of something or a few dollars per ton of something.
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It can add up if you're dealing with millions or billions of pounds or tons. But there are other
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prices to pay besides just a few percent profit here and there. I think we see the flip side of that
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argument with foreign, cheap, illegal workers, especially in the United States, but also here
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in Canada. California is a key example. I mean, if you're paying illegal workers a few dollars an hour
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less, let's say it's even $10 an hour less. Why, that might work out to 25 cents per avocado that you're
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saving. 10 cents cheaper for an orange or a tomato. Now, if you multiply that by millions or billions,
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that's a lot of money. I mean, it's more efficient that way. That's globalization. Saves you a bit of
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money, but what's the cost? That Dr. Michael Gardam says you can't just close borders. I think what he
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meant was you can't just close borders if you want to have cheap Chinese apples and cheap Chinese
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aspirin. And by cheap, I mean a few pennies cheaper. He's right. But he's stating that as if
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you'd be insane to sacrifice that savings. It reminds me a bit of Brexit, where the entire
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establishment was going crazy, warning you what life would be like if the UK removed itself from
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a political institution called the European Union. You just wouldn't be able to get any sandwiches
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anymore. But certainly there would be serious problems in terms of some of the fresh ingredients
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we bring in from the European Union and also from overseas, particularly if we have problems
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in the ports and we can't get ingredients through because they're all fresh and don't have a very
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long shelf life. And we've got no chance to stop piling fresh ingredients. So I think the answer from
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the sandwich industry is going to be that it's going to limit the amount of choice that consumers have
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if we suddenly crash out of Brexit in the way that it's being talked about.
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Yeah, no, that's crazy. You can get sandwiches. And even if it were true, which of course it wasn't,
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was having exotic ingredients in your sandwich worth giving up political independence? Was it really
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that important? Is saving 25 cents per avocado worth having illegals in the country displacing legal
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workers and illegals who don't pay taxes, who aren't registered in any way with the law,
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and yet who still take social services, schools, hospitals, lots of police? Is the state of
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California really ahead of the game by saving 25 cents per avocado? If you've outsourced your entire
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steel industry to China so that steel is a bit cheaper, let's say it's even, oh, I'm going to make
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up a number, $500 cheaper in your car. Not that there's a lot of steel in cars anymore, but how often do you
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buy a new car once every five or 10 years? So is saving 500 bucks, and it's not even that much,
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every five years worth shutting down your entire country's steel industry? Is it worth having
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thousands of unemployed men in Hamilton, Ontario, or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so your new car is
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$40,000 instead of $40,500? Trump points out that this globalization always seemed to be one way.
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America had to import cheap foreign goods, but those same countries never seemed to import American
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goods. He's been talking about this for close to 40 years. I got a full-page ad in major U.S.
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newspapers last year criticizing U.S. foreign policy. What would you do differently, Donald?
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I'd make our allies, forgetting about the enemies, the enemies you can't talk to so easily,
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I'd make our allies pay their fair share. We're a debtor nation. Something's going to happen over
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the next number of years with this country, because you can't keep going on losing $200 billion,
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and yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's not
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free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it,
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open. Just forget about it. It's almost impossible. They don't have laws against it. They just make it
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impossible. They come over here. They sell their cars, their VCRs. They knock the hell out of our
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companies. And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect
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somebody that's beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country.
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Kuwait, they live like kings. The poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings, and yet they're
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not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren't they paying us 25% of what
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they're making? It's a joke. It's true. Why is globalization outsourcing American and Canadian jobs to
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China and importing their products? Why is it never them importing our stuff? I think it's important
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to point something out, and you know me. I'm not an environmentalist, but China is by far the most
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polluted country in the world. I'd say India is a close second. Part of it is because they're going
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through their industrial revolution now, building hundreds of coal-fired power plants, electrifying
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their countries for the first time, building things that we built decades or even centuries ago.
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They're catching up at very fast speed. Good for them. But first of all, we outsourced our factories
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to them. And all that smoke and pollution, well, a good chunk of that is to make our stuff.
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Our stuff in our Walmarts and our Apple computer stores, it's pollution, but it's over there,
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out of sight, out of mind for us. So while we can criticize China and India for pollution,
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and I mean real pollution, not fake pollution of carbon dioxide, but real pollution,
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well, some of that pollution is precisely because we want them to make our stuff, and that's how
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they make it cheaper. They have cheap labor over there, of course, and we've just learned that
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Muslim Chinese people called Uyghurs have been sent to work in slave labor factories for Western
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brands. So yeah, that's going to be cheaper than American or Canadian workers, but also they have
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very few employment standards like laws against child labor or laws limiting the number of hours in
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the work week or laws that call for safety for workers, and what laws they have are obviously
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not enforced. So yeah, that's how you saved a hundred bucks on your thousand dollar iPhone.
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Congratulations to you. Not only did you not have a high-tech job in New York or Ontario or BC or
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Washington State, but you had a slave or a semi-slave make it for you, but you didn't see that part of
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it so you can pretend it wasn't on you. So what has this globalization done for us that Dr. Gardam
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told us about that's irresistible, that's unchangeable? It's made us vulnerable to every
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virus in the world. It's given us illegal labor at home and slave labor abroad. It's exported our jobs
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to foreign factories that pollute. It's given up our strategic security by putting China in charge of
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our steel and our pharmaceuticals and our computers and now our internet and now our data and now our
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cell phones. I mean, why not use Huawei? I hear they'll save you a few bucks a month on your internet
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or something. No problem. And that's really what's important, right? I don't want to give up some parts
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of globalization. I like it. I like the variety of the world. I like traveling to foreign places. I like
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learning from other people. I like other cultures. I like other food. I like coming home the best though.
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I like my own family and my friends and my street and my town the best. I welcome newcomers,
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but not in such number that I no longer recognize my street and my town and my country. That's not
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racism. It's not about race. That's just what it means to talk about your home. What's the difference
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between a house and a home? A home is your place. It's not really measured by saving 25 cents on an
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avocado. Maybe it's impossible to avoid coronavirus. Maybe it's impossible to unhook from the global system
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of trade or the global internet that now flows increasingly through China, all your data.
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But I think actually we can unhook a bit. I don't think China is the future. I think it actually
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aborted its own future. I think it killed itself and we're about to see that. I think the UK and other
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European countries will come soon, I think, will prove that you can unhook at least a bit and then more
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from global networks if it suits you. And Trump himself proves that you can get along without
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China, economically, strategically, political. I'd like to try a bit. What do you think?
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It is tough to fight the establishment. It's tough, especially if you're for freedom these days and
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slowly political correctness works its way through our establishments. And nothing is more established
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than the Law Society of Upper Canada. You can even hear it in their name. Now, they've
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modernized it now that they call themselves Ontario. They're getting with the times. But this is the
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highest heights of the legal profession in Ontario. It regulates all lawyers. It elects senior lawyers to
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manage the affair of lawyers. They're called benchers. And frankly, being elected a bencher is usually a
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precursor to becoming a judge. These are the fanciest of the fancy people. Try fighting them
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over a politically correct battle. You are fighting Goliath. But what happens if you actually win? And
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joining us now in studio is a man who stood on principle for freedom of thought, freedom of conscience,
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freedom of expression against the benchers establishment. And he won. And here to explain
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it to us is our friend Samuel Goldstein. Great to see you again. Great to see you. It's been a long
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First of all, you now are a bencher of the Law Society.
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I was going to say, I don't think we've ever had someone that fancy on this show before.
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You carry yourself humbly. But how many lawyers are there in Ontario?
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There are, I think there are about 47,000 lawyers.
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Now, the Law Society of Ontario, as it was changed a couple of years ago, also regulates
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paralegals as well. So I'm just going to say legal professionals. And there's about 56, let's
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say 56,000 legal professionals in Ontario. I could be off on my numbers.
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And how many benchers, as you're called, are there regulating these 56,000 people?
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Right. So there are 52 or 53. I can't remember my specific numbers.
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It's not a huge number. You're like a city hall, really, for lawyers.
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Yeah. But the reason why is because there's a breakdown. There are 40 benchers elected who
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are lawyers. 20 from inside Toronto, 20 from outside of Toronto. And then there are seven
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laypeople who the provincial government appoints. And then there are five paralegals. So it's 52.
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All right. Well, that's very interesting. And really, you govern the profession. Is that right?
00:19:08.980
Yeah. So we're a board of directors, essentially. It's a not-for-profit, non-share-issuing
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But you have a lot of power, too. You can disbar a lawyer, for example, if they misbehave.
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You really regulate. Instead of politicians regulating lawyers, you really have the power
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Yes. And you just pointed out an important feature of it. We were the first self-regulating
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body. And we're one of the very few self-regulating bodies. And what I mean by self-regulating bodies
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is of the legal profession. So in other jurisdictions in the world, the law societies there are actually,
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they don't exist. The government, as in England, actually regulates the lawyers.
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In Canada and Ontario, we are still self-regulated. And our mandate under the Law Society Act,
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the fundamental core of terms, is that we're supposed to make sure that lawyers are competent
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and lawyers are ethical. And there's a discipline tribunal. I'm actually sitting as an adjudicator
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So it's like you're a judge. You're a judge who just judges lawyers. Is that accurate?
00:20:20.540
And we can revoke their licenses, as you pointed out.
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Now, whenever there's this much power, and when you're dealing with powerful people like lawyers,
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who in society are, you know, wealthier, more politically connected, they're powerful people,
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there will be politics, especially on the regulatory side. Because imagine exercising control over those
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56,000 legal professionals. And that's where you came in with your fight. Now, I don't want to
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misstate it. So maybe you can tell our viewers, what was the battle about? What was this great battle
00:21:02.420
about freedom of conscience? Because that's the kind of stuff we care about here. And to know that
00:21:08.700
there was a battle, a clash of the titans, bencher versus bencher. You know, you guys are the masters
00:21:14.880
of the universe when it comes to law, and even judges, and the way court cases go, and the way you
00:21:21.900
can represent people. There was a brutal battle in the Law Society, wasn't there?
00:21:25.480
Yeah. First of all, I thank you for your flattery about being powerful.
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Yeah. So I think the lawyers often inflate our own sense of role in society. But yes, within the...
00:21:39.980
So as you pointed out, we regulate the lawyers. And what happened a number of years ago was that
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there was a statement of principles that was adopted by convocation. Convocation is what's called
00:21:53.980
Exactly. And they voted that all lawyers would have to adopt a statement of principles. And those
00:22:03.700
statements of principles were essentially illiberal ideas. We can get to them in a moment. And 22 of
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us ran on a slate. And in the last bencher election, which was last year, the bencher are
00:22:18.100
elected every four years. And all 22 of us got elected.
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So it was like a political party running for the parliament of lawyers, and 22 out of 22
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And the reason... And we haven't told people about the statement of principles, because you
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just say statement of principles. Well, that sounds good. But it's what those principles
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were. I mean, if the principles were be honest, don't steal, you know, fight for justice,
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who wouldn't support that. But it's what was jammed into the statement of principles that
00:22:54.260
Yeah. So the statement of principles were really about these warm, fuzzy words, these motherhood
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issues about diversity, inclusion, and equity. They sound great words. Who wouldn't be in
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favor of those words? But it was the meaning behind them. And frankly, as someone who is
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a free speech advocate like yourself, it doesn't matter whether I have to say something good
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or if I have to say something bad. The point is, I have a charter right. The charter right
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says that I don't have to say things that I don't believe in. It also says, I don't
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have to say things even if I do believe in. That's a very fundamental point. We have a right
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for expression, and we also have a right against compelled expression.
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Isn't that an interesting point? Because you're right, the word diversity, well, first of all,
00:23:40.560
that's a word that can mean different things to different people. To me, intellectual diversity
00:23:45.460
is important. Other people, the only diversity they care about is racial or sexual or characteristics
00:23:52.580
that I don't think we should judge each other on. But really, it's a Trojan horse for whatever
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the political power of the day says you have to believe. That's my thoughts on diversity.
00:24:01.800
No, it's absolutely… When we talk about diversity of ideas, I actually prefer to talk
00:24:07.500
about pluralism. And when we're talking about diversity… Because diversity is really
00:24:11.900
about this intersectionality of trying to say that there is a hierarchy of people out
00:24:16.580
there are victims, and it's based upon race. And we have to give priority to those
00:24:23.180
people on the top of the list in terms of the victimhood Olympics, the gold medals of the
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Olympic victimhood races. And I object to that. Now, I don't see anything wrong with multiculturalism,
00:24:33.840
right? I don't see anything wrong with having different… And I don't say racialized, which
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we'll get to in another moment. I say… That's a very weird word that's
00:24:40.540
reasonable. I say, look, we've already talked about ethnic minorities and religious minorities.
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I think it's important to provide protection for ethnic and religious minorities.
00:24:49.840
But that's got nothing to do with compelling someone to make certain platitudes.
00:24:53.140
Correct. To say something. That's what's weird. Like, telling a judge, telling a lawyer,
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you can't be racist, you can't be discriminatory. I think I've got time for that. But telling
00:25:04.200
a lawyer he has to testify, I am a diversity activist, or whatever the actual manifestation
00:25:10.840
was. That's where it gets weird and compulsive, and compulsion. That's the compulsion, right?
00:25:15.340
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll put this way. There was compulsion because if you didn't sign
00:25:19.580
on to these diversity principles, then they could sanction you. Now, the law society first
00:25:25.880
intimated that they would sanction people, revoke people's licenses.
00:25:31.640
…take away a man's livelihood if he didn't sign on to some…
00:25:33.640
Yeah. And then they backtracked a little bit, and they qualified it. So either it actually
00:25:37.580
meant something, that you actually believed in as your diversity ideas, and you were going
00:25:41.800
to punish people if they didn't go along with what you wanted, or you're just saying people
00:25:46.300
just tick something off, don't worry about it, in which case you don't believe. You
00:25:50.600
Mm-hmm. You know, that's… you're exactly right. I mean, first of all, if you believe
00:25:56.480
in diversity, isn't one species of diversity not signing on to a statement? Like, if you actually
00:26:03.180
believed in diversity, you would let someone not be like you.
00:26:08.360
And… and if you forced someone to make some statement, what's the value of a compelled…
00:26:15.360
That's like a jailhouse confession, where you're forced to sign… If a lawyer doesn't believe
00:26:21.580
Well, I think it highlights the intolerance of the social justice warriors and the progressives
00:26:27.700
I tell you, Sam, you're using language that I use, too. It's quite something for me to see
00:26:31.580
this language in a bencher, and your party, I'm going to call it a party, your slave…
00:26:50.580
Was there a slate against you? Was there a social justice warrior slate against you?
00:26:56.580
Or were you sort of the dissidents against everybody?
00:26:59.580
You know, certainly when we started running, there was a lot of pushback from those who
00:27:06.580
believed in the statement of principles, and there's still pushback, because we can get
00:27:13.580
But they didn't run… but they didn't run a slate against us.
00:27:14.580
And basically, you know, people just discounted us.
00:27:32.580
I just thought, how can you fight the benchers?
00:27:37.580
So, we went around and we were looking for people to join us.
00:27:39.580
And it was very hard, because people were afraid of us.
00:27:42.580
Because it's not just… you talk about the legal establishment.
00:27:45.580
It's not just the Law Society, but it's also the legal publications out there are very much in favor of whatever the Law Society is promoting at the time.
00:27:53.580
So, it was very hard to be treated seriously by like the Law Times or by even other legal… the Canadian Lawyers magazine, right?
00:28:01.580
You were constantly publishing articles, interviewing people at then the former treasurer, Paul Chabas, or the now treasurer, Malcolm Mercer, who dismissed us.
00:28:11.580
And if you just… let me give me a moment… give me a moment.
00:28:14.580
I really want to mention Michael Minear of London, Ontario, who started the website, the Stop SOP website.
00:28:21.580
And it was initially to oppose the adoption of the Statement of Principles by convocation.
00:28:26.580
And I got… they phoned me up one day and asked if I would join the group, because I had been writing for…
00:28:32.580
I'm a columnist for a small legal publication called The Lawyers Daily.
00:28:35.580
And I had been writing against the SOP for a number… for a period of time.
00:28:40.580
And they asked if they could use one of my articles.
00:28:44.580
We lost the vote, ultimately, because the convocation voted to adopt it.
00:28:48.580
And after that, they were like, what should we do?
00:28:51.580
And I said, well, look, we've got about 600 names on this website, if not more.
00:28:57.580
Why don't we now turn this into a political movement and run as benches?
00:29:06.580
But people initially, as I said, were afraid to join us.
00:29:10.580
And I remember being… I remember driving up to Newmarket Courthouse.
00:29:15.580
And my wife phoned me up and she said, congratulations.
00:29:27.580
And then she phoned me and she said, she'll look.
00:29:36.580
I thought, well, these guys, they're bravely fighting, but they're going to retreat.
00:29:43.580
This gives me hope, Sam, because this tells me that maybe there are some people who still
00:29:49.580
understand freedom and independence and the right to be a dissident, the right to be a
00:29:57.580
It gives me a little bit of hope in the legal profession that frankly is a flickering flame
00:30:04.580
And if you came in number five in the whole city, there's a lot of lawyers in Toronto.
00:30:11.580
If you came in top five, I find that very encouraging.
00:30:14.580
Well, I think it also shows that the profession didn't want this.
00:30:18.580
And the profession is concerned that La Saudi is engaging in this mission creep and going
00:30:26.580
The other thing I think we should point out to your viewers is that in the end, we did
00:30:32.580
There was a very long convocation back last year, and I think it was in June.
00:30:38.580
It sounds like almost the cardinal's meeting to select a pope, like convocation, white smoke
00:30:45.580
Are these convocations private, or are they on the record, or what are they like?
00:30:51.580
I think they're on the website of the La Saudi.
00:30:54.580
I think I've seen some clips from them, but it sounds very fancy like the high priests
00:30:58.580
So you had this convocation, and the statement of principles was…
00:31:06.580
And in fact, the reality is that the La Saudi continues to be very divisive.
00:31:14.580
I mean, we continue to try and fight against the social justice warriors and the so-called
00:31:29.580
Nima Hajjodi, who is this young lawyer who is the head of the equity group at the law
00:31:36.580
society, complained that that money should have gone towards equity issues.
00:31:41.580
And so we're getting a lot of pushback on the many different topics that we're trying
00:31:46.580
Just recently, we talked about how this equity group that has a permanent seat on the equity
00:31:52.580
committee of the law society was tweeting all these spurious accusations against a fellow
00:31:59.580
bencher, a colleague of mine who's on the slate.
00:32:04.580
So the law society itself is tweeting against an elected bencher of the law society.
00:32:13.580
He's appointed by this group called the equity group, which is like a Trojan horse inside
00:32:20.580
It has special status on one of the committees.
00:32:23.580
The rules, apparently, that I'm bound by a bencher code of conduct, but he's not bound
00:32:30.580
And when we pointed out this anomaly to the convocation the last meeting just two weeks
00:32:36.580
ago, instead of saying, oh, this is a problem, we should solve it, they ignored it and said,
00:32:41.580
well, we're going to table the issue we're not going to talk about.
00:32:47.580
You know, all these funny words, the more opaque the word, the more can be jammed through them.
00:32:56.580
You said you have 22 folks on your slate out of 57.
00:33:00.580
So of the other 35, are all of them really weaponized on this subject or are some of them
00:33:10.580
You know, there are two paralegals who tend to see our point of view.
00:33:14.580
And then there are a number of lay benchers who, despite the fact that we're appointed
00:33:17.580
by the provincial government, and voted against the statement of principles, so voted with
00:33:34.580
But you have to understand that, you know, as you know, it's very hard to take sensible
00:33:40.580
positions these days because you're accused of all types of horrible things.
00:33:48.580
And I truly believe that there, and I know this to be the fact, that there is a group of
00:33:53.580
benchers who didn't necessarily agree with the statement of principles and the other
00:34:01.580
But they felt pressured and bullied by other people who did believe in this to go along with
00:34:08.580
So if you don't support these equity causes, these diversity issues, despite the fact that,
00:34:15.580
for very good logical reasons, you're not engaged with on any sort of reasonable basis.
00:34:26.580
So Murray Klippenstein is a guy who has worked for indigenous Canadians.
00:34:31.580
He was one of the lawyers on the G20 suing the government at the time, really involved
00:34:40.580
And he looked at this report by this company, Stratcom, that the law society hired, which
00:34:46.580
laid the foundation for the statement of principles.
00:34:49.580
And he went through the analysis and it showed that the entire analysis of the Stratcom report
00:34:54.580
And no one has actually engaged with him on any reasonable level.
00:35:31.580
That is liberal, but that's also left wing, progressive, whatever word.
00:35:36.580
He represented the Dudley-George family in the Ipawai.
00:35:42.580
I mean, he is right out there on the front lines of progressive public interest law.
00:35:54.580
Surely that's got to make some other folks shake their head.
00:35:57.580
If this guy who's out there fighting these fights, like that's way out there.
00:36:10.580
And it's very funny how this issue brought us together.
00:36:12.580
I'd say, because you're on the conservative side of the aisle.
00:36:14.580
Definitely on the conservative side of the aisle.
00:36:16.580
But Murray recently won a case in the Superior Court in Ontario.
00:36:20.580
He's representing a number of indigenous communities in South Africa against a mining company.
00:36:27.580
And he's claiming that this mining company in South Africa was raping these indigenous women.
00:36:32.580
And he just won a motion which allows him to sue this mining company in Toronto, Ontario.
00:36:38.580
I think that was just in the last week or so, wasn't it?
00:36:42.580
So that's an extremely prominent case that anyone who cares about minorities, racial minorities, the poor,
00:36:51.580
they ought to say, well, this, Klippenstein's a hero.
00:36:55.580
If he is worried about this statement of forced diversity, you've got to say, he's got enough bona fides.
00:37:11.580
If he represented Dudley George, he's done more for the downtrodden minorities, whatever, than any of his critics.
00:37:19.580
Look, it's funny when people call me these names because fundamentally, you know, as a classical liberal, my main concern is with the low-income earners,
00:37:28.580
with the poor people and making sure there's no discrimination.
00:37:30.580
Well, that's who your clients are, mainly, partly.
00:37:32.580
Well, I know I'm a criminal lawyer, but I try and do some private clients.
00:37:37.580
But, you know, look, I'm also a national legal advisor for B'nai B'rith, Canada, right?
00:37:41.580
And I always have believed and still believe that, you know, you have to prevent discrimination is wrong.
00:37:47.580
But it's discrimination based upon prohibited grounds, right?
00:37:55.580
Who said that the best way to protect group rights is to protect individual rights?
00:38:09.580
In his collection of essays from La Cité, the magazine.
00:38:20.580
That's the most enlightened thing I've ever heard ascribe to Trudeau.
00:38:23.580
Because you, you know, and you protect individual rights, and then you let those individuals
00:38:29.580
decide which parts of their identity are prominent or not.
00:38:37.580
Right-handed, blue-eyed, whatever you think is important about you.
00:38:41.580
Listen, I mean, to start judging people by the color of their skin or their religion was
00:38:56.580
And I will continue fighting for individual rights.
00:38:59.580
I tell you, Sam, I am so impressed with, and I've learned so much here today.
00:39:04.580
And I'm still a little, you know, I'm very proud and excited to have a venture on Rebel News.
00:39:13.580
I bet you're going to get some sort of complaint.
00:39:16.580
I bet you're going to get a complaint about it.
00:39:17.580
So you're saying that the big election was last year, and it's a four-year term.
00:39:22.580
Do you think that there'll be a counter-revolution?
00:39:26.580
Do you think that the other side is going to regroup and try and beat you guys in the
00:39:42.580
From what I understand, I think there will be organization against us.
00:39:52.580
We're always looking for donations to run the campaign for next year, the Stop the Sop slate.
00:40:05.580
I think, you know, when we won, the Malcolm Mercer Treasurer and other people sort of dismissed
00:40:10.580
us as some sort of fluke, right, in the electoral system.
00:40:14.580
And they said, oh, you don't really represent the majority of people.
00:40:17.580
I mean, you just told me Klippenstein got more votes than anyone else in Toronto.
00:40:22.580
And interesting enough, Malcolm Mercer, you know, remember, there are 20 lawyers from
00:40:28.580
Oh, and he's telling you and your team, you came in fifth, your buddy came in first,
00:40:48.580
In any case, I suspect that there will be, they may very well try and organize against
00:40:57.580
Because I think, you know, I think there is a silent majority out there.
00:41:00.580
Well, and at least call it what it is, rival political ideas.
00:41:05.580
And I would rather have them in a slate defined by who they are than sort of sneak it through
00:41:12.580
Well, you know, I will admit that I'm a little, I mean, I think it's sad, really, that convocation
00:41:17.580
is going to be, is becoming politicized the way it is.
00:41:20.580
I actually don't think that's good for the profession in the long run, but I think it's
00:41:26.580
My one disagreement with you is I would say it was politicized.
00:41:33.580
Well, that's, look, it was certainly politicized and was politicized.
00:41:44.580
It's a response to what they've, what they've done.
00:41:48.580
But going forward, I think we're going to, it will be continued to be politicized.
00:41:52.580
And I hope in our goal, my goal is to be able to win all seats, all 40 seats and next convocation.
00:42:00.580
And you're not imposing your ideology on people, the opposite.
00:42:04.580
You're 40 people to say, we don't want an imposition of politics on us.
00:42:11.580
Because the law, you know, there's a misconception in what's happened through this politicization
00:42:16.580
And through Malcolm Mercer trying to argue that there's an expanded mandate for the law society,
00:42:21.580
is you've been able to incorporate all this, all these politics into all this sort of illiberal
00:42:30.580
If you want to go out and change the world, then run for office, run for public office.
00:42:34.580
The law saw, as I said before, its fundamental core mandate is to make sure that lawyers are
00:42:44.580
It's not a political, it's not a political platform.
00:42:49.580
And the number one thing I've learned is that sometimes you can hope, sometimes you can
00:42:53.580
beat City Hall or in this case, something much fancier than City Hall.
00:43:01.580
Because I know you got some notes and you were reviewing them.
00:43:08.580
I think fundamentally these diversity ideology is bad for the law.
00:43:15.580
But maybe that's a conversation for another time.
00:43:18.580
Well, let me give you a standing invitation to help us understand the law.
00:43:29.580
We do some law in our own way here at Rebel News.
00:43:32.580
I believe in some ways we're transforming into a public interest law firm.
00:43:38.580
We're standing up for people that we think are neglected.
00:43:43.580
In fact, our legal expense is our second largest expense here at Rebel News.
00:43:47.580
And I don't even mind because I think we're fighting the good fight.
00:43:49.580
Well, Ezra, I said off camera that I think a great loss for the legal profession is that you became a journalist and not a lawyer.
00:43:59.580
You would have made a great member of our slate and a bencher.
00:44:02.580
Well, it's very nice of you to say those things in our own way.
00:44:06.580
I think we are practicing some of the ideas that you've outlined there.
00:44:15.580
Our viewers are interested in the law and especially from your point of view.
00:44:24.580
Sam Goldstein, the leading force behind Stop Salt and a bencher of the Law Society of Ontario.
00:44:32.580
And I learned that his freedom slate just swept it.
00:44:49.580
What do you think of my thoughts on globalization?
00:44:54.580
I didn't even talk about globalism, which I absolutely reject.
00:45:05.580
It's these supranational organizations that don't have to answer to anybody.
00:45:10.580
I think most of us are agreed that globalism is wrong, but globalization of trade and travel,
00:45:17.580
maybe it's not quite all it's cracked up to be either.
00:45:25.580
But send me your thoughts to Ezra at rebelnews.com.
00:45:28.580
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.