Doug Ford repeals Ontario’s hated Green Energy Act
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
169.29333
Summary
In this episode, Ezra talks about the environmentalist environmentalist leader Gerald Butts and why he opposes pipelines in Canada. He also talks about why he thinks the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion should never be built, and why it s a bad idea.
Transcript
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Tonight, Doug Ford keeps a promise by repealing Ontario's hated Green Energy Act.
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I confess, I thought I'd never live to see the day.
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It's December 7th and this is the Ezra LeBant 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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You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
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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 right to do so.
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You know Gerald Butts, that's him in a private plane flying with Dalton McGinty, who was back then the Premier of Ontario.
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And now Butts is the right-hand man to Justin Trudeau.
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I've only met Gerald Butts a few times very quickly.
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The first time, no surprise, was actually in an airport.
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He came up and introduced himself and gave me his business card.
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He flies a lot, non-stop, like all the best environmentalists do.
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Sometimes on private jets, sometimes commercial aircraft.
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He has networks in academia, especially his alma mater, McGill, where he's treated as a hero.
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He was on their board for a while at the university.
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I gave a speech at McGill once, and he made sure he was there to listen to what I said and see who was in the crowd.
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He's linked in globally, too, to all the big environmentalist extremists.
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After he left Dalton McGinty's office, he became president of the World Wildlife Foundation of Canada, part of this program here.
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He was part of the Tar Sands Campaign, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund out of New York, attacking Alberta's oil sands.
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Butts has been waging war against the oil sands and pipelines.
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Anyone who actually thinks he wants pipelines built should give their head a shake.
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Blocking oil and gas is literally why he got into politics in the first place.
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Do you really think this guy would ever allow any pipeline, including the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, to be built?
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We think that the oil sands have been expanded too rapidly without a serious plan for environmental remediation in the first place.
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So that's why we don't think it's up to us to decide whether there should be another route for a pipeline.
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Because the real alternative is not an alternative route.
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Yeah, he bought the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline positively to ensure that the expansion will never be built.
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If you recall on that Rockefeller Brothers map, that pipeline map, do you see it says McKenzie Valley Natural Gas Pipeline?
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In fact, aboriginal groups have a huge stake in the project.
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It was delayed so long that technology called fracking was developed in the meantime and perfected and combined with horizontal drilling and the shale discoveries in the United States.
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So the North American price for natural gas fell by what?
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So the McKenzie Valley Pipeline is no longer economically feasible.
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I flew up to Inovic a few years back to meet a lot of these pro-development aboriginal folks, Inuit, Métis, Indians.
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Greenpeace first stopped the aboriginal fur trade, didn't they?
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And then they stopped forestry, which employed a lot of aboriginal folks.
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You'd be forgiven for thinking Greenpeace hates aboriginals, which is a line I heard more than once when I was up in Inovic.
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Everyone's on side now up there for this big natural gas pipeline, except it's never going to happen.
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I don't think anyone is going to pour billions of dollars into the project, given how cheap U.S. fracked gas is.
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And seriously, who would ever build a pipeline in Canada with Trudeau and Buston charging at all?
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By the time they build that pipeline, they'll have to do a transgender analysis.
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Now, that could be the case with all of Canada's pipelines when you think about it.
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You know, a U.S. judge has delayed the Keystone XL pipeline that Donald Trump had revived.
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But I'm not sure if Americans even care anymore.
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U.S. oil production is up 20% in the past few years.
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Bloomberg, the U.S. just became a net oil exporter for the first time in 75 years.
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Crude refined products exports exceed imports and weekly data.
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Shale boom has boosted U.S. crude oil shipments to record.
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And that's especially in North Dakota, by the way.
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Trump has gone full tilt with energy production as a jobs thing, as a trade thing, as a way
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to take power away from Russia and Iran, which are very dependent on oil for their wealth.
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And it gives them leverage even over Saudi Arabia, his ally.
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If the U.S. is a huge oil producer, if the U.S. floods the world market with oil, if it
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becomes independent of OPEC, both strategically and economically, it can actually boss around
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And America can even export oil to countries who could buy from America instead of from
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I'm sure there will still be markets for our oil somewhere at some price someday.
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And we may never get that moment back like my friends in Inovic just won't.
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I was up in Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic.
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I mentioned that Donald Trump revived the dead and buried Keystone XL pipeline, or at least he tried.
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You know, there's some judge who's blocking it.
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But Donald Trump probably seems to win in court after some activist judge stops him on something.
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It's operational, in case you're missing my point.
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And my bigger point is sometimes it is possible to return from the dead.
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Sometimes the Dakota Access Pipeline returned from the dead.
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I thought once you ban drilling, you're never going to unban it.
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Today is the day that Dalton McGinty's Green Energy Act, Gerald Butts, architect, was repealed.
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Restore municipal authority over energy projects.
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Ontario's government for the people is delivering on its promise to repeal the Green Energy Act 2009
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that led to the disastrous feed-in tariff program and skyrocketing electricity rates for Ontario families.
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The Green Energy Repeal Act eliminates a piece of legislation that introduced disastrous changes to Ontario's energy system
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that led to rising electricity rates for families and businesses, said Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, Greg Rickford.
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By repealing this act, we're restoring planning decisions to municipalities that were stripped by previous government
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and ensuring local voices have the final say on energy projects in their communities.
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You can't build a pipeline in Canada without endless consultations.
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Even people thousands of miles away from a pipeline were allowed to weigh in on the pipeline.
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The Northern Gateway Pipeline took input, took testimony from all across the country and even from foreign citizens.
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Even Hugo Chavez Oil Company, Citgo, was allowed to make a presentation.
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But not so for building massive wind turbines under Dalton and getting Kathleen Wynne.
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The Green Energy Act did not allow towns to have a say.
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Spot wind turbines, most of them aren't even spinning, by the way.
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No plans for remediation after the life of the wind turbine is over.
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Oil sands companies and other mines, they often have to set aside real money.
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Not like a promise, but actual shove the cash over for cleanup in advance,
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So in Alberta, you want to start an oil sands mine.
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Like a billion dollars you have to set aside in case you go out of business.
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And it's a real issue because, of course, wind turbines only work
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So the moment the subsidies are cut off, they become money losers,
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and the companies either go bankrupt or they just abandon the wind turbines
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I have seen dilapidated wind turbines on three continents.
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And Gerald Butts and Dalton McGinty brought that to Ontario along with huge power prices.
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I'm sure it's a coincidence that so many of the major players in the Canadian wind turbine industry just happen to be liberal insiders.
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He was the Liberal Party president, first in Ontario, and then under Justin Trudeau federally.
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He was the CEO of major wind turbine companies, the beneficiary of tens of millions of dollars in subsidies from the Liberal government.
00:13:06.140
Just like I'm sure it's a coincidence that so many of the major marijuana companies that have become billionaires under Trudeau in the past year are run by Liberal Party insiders.
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Canceling more than 750 wasteful energy contracts to save $790 million for Ontario electricity customers.
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Those are sweetheart deals to power companies, like the ones that Mike Crawley had.
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Paying grossly inflated rates for solar and wind power.
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Now some of those awful contracts remain in place and will for years to come, but at least it's a start, and I'm thrilled.
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I want to tell you one last thing about the Green Energy Act, which is a lie, of course, to call it green energy.
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Wind turbines are enormously inefficient, of course.
00:14:03.120
It takes an enormous amount of steel and concrete and rare earth metals.
00:14:12.540
But have you ever seen a Chinese rare earth metal mine?
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But the effluent, the pollution, it is perhaps the most polluted place on earth, is a Chinese rare earth metal mine slag pile.
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But more to the point, wind and solar energy, they're unreliable.
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So they all need a reliable backup source of energy, natural gas, nuclear, whatever.
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So it's not that the Green Energy Act actually reduced fossil fuel use.
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He just added a whole second layer of cost and waste, and then there's the obvious.
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And I don't want to gross you out, but take a look at this.
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If you don't know this, wind turbines are exempt from endangered species laws in Ontario under the Green Energy Act.
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The whole world knows that one disastrous day in Alberta, a bunch of ducks sat down in the tailings pod when the electric scarecrow wasn't working, and they died.
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There was a prosecution and like a $2 million fine.
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I mean, some good old boys would go shoot 20 ducks in an afternoon, and then, I don't know, go for wings or something.
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Did that look like a bald eagle or some condor to you?
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Wind turbines are specifically exempted from the Endangered Species Act because everyone knows they're bird blenders.
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A whole fleet of regulations are being repealed.
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Gerald Butts, Dalton McGindy, Kathleen Wynne, they did do terrible damage, but it is over.
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It don't undo the damage, but it stops more of the damage.
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Again, from an Ontario press release, I wish I had a better singing voice because this should be sung.
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The package, part of the Ontario Open for Business Action Plan, includes actions that would give businesses more flexibility to create jobs right here at home.
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Proposed changes to create jobs and reduce regulatory burden in specific sectors.
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It would also take major steps to make it easier for businesses to locate or expand in Ontario and to protect industrial lands, as well as reduces regulatory burden in specific sectors.
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Well, there are literally dozens of things they've done, and they have a ton of examples.
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I'm just going to pick a couple of really random examples.
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Ministry of Government and Consumer Services eliminated regulatory and licensing requirements for upholstered and stuffed articles.
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Removing all Ontario specific licensing and regulatory requirements for upholstered and stuffed articles will reduce a long-standing burden on business.
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Save businesses $4 million a year annually and eliminate trade barriers.
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These items will continue to be subject to the federal government's health and safety and labeling requirements, as is the case of other provinces.
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But yeah, why do you have extra provincial regs when you already have federal regs for upholstered products?
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Think about how many little, obscure, weird, niche regulations there are in every single aspect of life.
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Would repeal an outdated act that duplicates municipalities' existing bylawmaking and licensing authority.
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This change would remove a layer of red tape and make pawnbroker businesses subject to local bylaws, just like any other businesses.
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Why would you have to do a city license and a province license?
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How many other outdated dumb laws are there on the books that benefited some insider?
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This is a change to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing called Make It Easier to Locate or Expand in Ontario.
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Introduce a new economic development tool and remove planning barriers to expedite major business investments and speed up approvals so they would be completed within one year.
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As opposed to the McKenzie Valley Pipeline or the Northern Gateway Pipeline or the Energy Use Pipeline or the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
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These proposals to streamline provincial development approvals under the Planning Act would cut red tape and shorten the time it takes to build projects that create jobs.
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Municipalities would have the option to use the streamline process so they could act quickly to attract major employers.
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The aim is to have all provincial approvals in place within one year so qualifying businesses can begin construction.
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I mean, I used to know a condo builder here in town.
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The green, let me just read a little bit more here.
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The green belt is, I just want to tell you what the green belt is.
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The green belt is just another way of saying a huge no development zone that pretty much circles Toronto.
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It's the reason why housing is so expensive in Toronto, because you can't build in all those green areas.
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So you either pay artificially high prices to live in Toronto proper, or you commute in for hours.
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It is awful, and it's pure Gerald Butstall, McKinney, Kathleen Wynne, social engineering.
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Here's a complaining government journalist with the left-wing TV Ontario.
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For those of you outside Ontario, you may not know that there is a provincial version of the CBC owned by the government of Ontario called TV Ontario.
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And here's how this TV Ontario liberal describes this change.
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The changes to the Planning Act would allow municipalities, with the minister's consent, to pass open-for-business zoning bylaws.
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These zoning bylaws would not need to comply with.
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And then he lists all sorts of busybody laws that are now obsolete.
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That's a Dalton McGinnick, Gerald Butst, Kathleen Wynne point of view.
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I love that this provincial version of the CBC hates it.
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I love that Gerald Butst can't contain his rage about this.
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He's lashing out at Doug Ford every way he knows how.
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You know, there's a federal-provincial meeting going on between Trudeau and the premiers right now, first ministers.
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Meaning it's not going well because so many premiers want to talk about real problems, like the punishing costs of the carbon tax, or oil and gas pipelines not getting built, or the auto industry shutting down.
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But Trudeau wants to talk about feminism or something like that.
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And Trudeau doesn't do well, other than in a few shallow talking points.
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He wouldn't do well in a deep conference where he has to talk for more than, like, 60 seconds.
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He's not as well-briefed on oil and gas as, say, Saskatchewan's premier is.
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He's not, doesn't know business as well as Ontario's Doug Ford actually did business.
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Trudeau wants to make, this is incredible, he wants to make all the provincial premiers sit through lectures from his cabinet.
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Why don't they, I'd like Doug Ford to make Justin Trudeau sit through a lecture.
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Because Trudeau doesn't want to talk about real things, so he wants to have lectures.
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Let me quote you from a CBC story on the subject.
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Now, I'm recording this video before the day is done, so I'm not sure how it all went down at the end of the day.
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But look at this, from the government broadcaster.
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Friday's agenda, as it stands, is supposed to begin with a meeting between all the premiers and indigenous leaders,
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followed by talks between the premiers, Trudeau, and three of his members of cabinet.
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Bill Morneau, Dominic LeBlanc, and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna,
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who was meeting with her Ontario counterpart, Rod Phillips, earlier Thursday.
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The premiers have said they don't want to hear the ministers make formal presentations
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regarding a session on trade scheduled with Canada's ambassador in Washington, David McNaughton.
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The premiers have said they want to talk not only about NAFTA, but about other trade irritants,
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The first is the premiers, especially Doug Ford, aren't willing to be doormats anymore,
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And no one wants to hear a lecture on, I don't know, business from Trudeau or how to get things done from Catherine McKenna.
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They want to talk about problems like the tariffs that Trump has put on because Trudeau fumbled out.
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Trudeau doesn't have any solutions to problems.
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So I love the fact that Doug Ford now says he just won't attend the lecture.
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Catherine McKenna can delight Trudeau with her TED Talk-style PowerPoint presentation.
00:24:16.480
You know, the same thing actually happened when Trudeau hosted the G7 leaders earlier this year.
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By the way, Trudeau was set to give a lecture himself on feminism.
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Could you imagine listening to him with his sexy voice?
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You know, can you imagine him giving a lecture on feminism, the kokanee groper?
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He was about to go to North Korea for negotiations, or even go to Singapore for negotiations with North Korea.
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My first thing is I wanted to show you that burning wind turbine.
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If Ontario can undo the Green Energy Act and roll back the green belt, and a hundred tiny little regulations from the upholstery rules to the pawnbroker rules, that's a sign that things can get better.
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And things look better when he got a few friends and allies, don't they?
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A year ago, it was just tiny Saskatchewan, standing up to Justin Trudeau on the carbon tax.
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Oh, and though I don't recommend riots, France shows that the people can win, even against a pretentious, narcissistic, globalist carbon taxer who loves to pout for the camera.
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Justin Trudeau and Catherine McKenna think they're dazzling, think they're well-loved, because they only surround themselves with flatterers, including at the CBC, including their own caucus.
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And it can be depressing for the rest of us, because you start to think, am I the only person who thinks Trudeau's an idiot and McKenna's a kook?
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You see Doug Ford saying, yeah, no, I don't need to sit through you giving your kooky PowerPoint about carbon taxes.
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And you realize, OK, maybe we're going to be OK after all.
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Not for sure that McKenzie Valley pipeline cancellation, that ain't coming back.
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I don't know if the oil sands pipelines will, either, to be candid.
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I don't think, I don't know, maybe the moment's passed.
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I never thought I'd live to see the day when the wind turbine mania was officially killed.
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It wasn't long ago that the only people in Canada resisting the carbon tax,
00:27:23.920
The premier of Saskatchewan, a great little province, but a little province.
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The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and, well, little old us here at The Rebel.
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Well, now it is almost 2019, and it seems like half the country is opposing the carbon tax.
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Doug Ford, the premier of the biggest province of Ontario, is taking him to court.
00:27:46.880
And now we have news that the new conservative premier of New Brunswick,
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once a liberal stronghold, is joining that court battle.
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Well, here to talk with us about that is one of the people who's been fighting against the carbon tax since the beginning,
00:28:00.920
our dear friend of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Paige McPherson,
00:28:04.420
the Atlantic Canada Director for the Federation.
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I remember when it was pretty much just you and us,
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and it was pretty lonely, and even some fashionable conservatives like my old friend Preston Manning
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I remember, you're right, we've been fighting the carbon tax from day one,
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People said, look, Ontario is never going to change.
00:28:43.240
You've got both the Liberals and the PCs in Ontario saying that the carbon tax is the way to go,
00:28:50.020
and that is a carbon tax stronghold, and you're never going to break it down.
00:28:53.580
Well, how the tide has changed there in Ontario.
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You see now Premier Doug Ford there fighting against it,
00:29:00.220
launching a court challenge against Ottawa's carbon tax.
00:29:05.800
and I think that that's just a reflection of what the people in Ontario wanted,
00:29:09.240
because you had a lot of sort of elite academic types and politicians saying,
00:29:16.100
no, the carbon tax is good, and of course it does generate more revenue for government,
00:29:22.260
But I think when it comes down to what voters want,
00:29:25.200
it's certainly, I think, the tide is turning against the carbon tax.
00:29:31.380
I haven't had the pleasure of speaking yet with the new Premier, Blaine Higgs,
00:29:34.820
but I did have a very interesting interview with the leader of the People's Party out there,
00:29:41.460
which is no relation to Maxime Bernier's party of a similar name.
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Libertarian, smaller government type, I mean, a little bit unusual.
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So I was excited when they formed a coalition to boot the Liberals.
00:29:55.400
Tell us a little bit about Blaine Higgs, and what's he saying about the carbon tax?
00:29:59.520
I think a lot of our viewers in the West and in Ontario might not be that familiar with him.
00:30:05.420
So Blaine Higgs, the PC Premier of New Brunswick, it was definitely an interesting situation,
00:30:11.200
similar to what you saw in B.C., where there was a time where people weren't exactly sure
00:30:17.780
So now, as you said, the Liberals have been defeated.
00:30:21.760
They're being propped up by the sort of right-leaning People's Alliance.
00:30:27.580
Now, Blaine Higgs, the PC Premier of New Brunswick, characterized the election as a referendum
00:30:33.240
against the carbon tax, or a referendum on the carbon tax.
00:30:39.960
But to be honest with you, the New Brunswick Liberals, even their plan was to simply rename
00:30:45.420
a portion of their existing gas tax, the carbon tax, and then take that revenue and put it
00:30:50.520
into a climate fund, which we know is code for corporate welfare.
00:30:55.080
But even that Liberal position was not even strongly in support of the federal Liberal carbon
00:31:01.600
And indeed, Ottawa said to the Liberal Premier at the time in New Brunswick, that plan is
00:31:08.180
Now, with PC Premier Blaine Higgs coming to the forefront here and saying, we are going
00:31:14.620
to take this a step further, New Brunswick is actually now launching its own independent
00:31:22.540
So that's now the third province that is actually launching an independent court challenge against
00:31:28.700
So I think that's really good news for taxpayers in New Brunswick.
00:31:31.560
But it's good news for taxpayers right across Canada, because the more that we fight this
00:31:43.900
But it is true that a tax on gasoline, well, I mean, that's a hydrocarbon.
00:31:57.940
I mean, to be against the periodical table of the elements is nutty to begin with.
00:32:04.140
But if that's the weird game we're playing, it's completely legit.
00:32:08.180
For even a liberal premier, like the late liberal premier of New Brunswick, to say, look, we're
00:32:15.120
already carbon taxing our people to death through gasoline taxes.
00:32:28.040
And I mean, that's sort of a Weasley way of saying we don't like it.
00:32:33.380
It's interesting to me that that wasn't enough for New Brunswick voters.
00:32:37.800
And that gives me great hope that people want the full repeal, the full no here.
00:32:44.980
And so it was a really close vote in New Brunswick.
00:32:49.140
And so I think that what we can confidently say is that voters right across the spectrum
00:32:53.600
didn't want Ottawa's carbon tax, at least, you know, when it comes to that issue and which
00:32:58.540
Because the liberals were not fully in support of Ottawa's carbon tax, like you say, I think
00:33:05.060
But they definitely were fighting the federal government on that issue.
00:33:09.060
And then the PC is taking that even a step further, fighting them more with their own
00:33:13.220
And I'll add to that as well, that the PC government has said that they're also going
00:33:18.040
to join on to Saskatchewan's court challenge against Ottawa's carbon tax and Ontario's court
00:33:23.240
challenge as interveners on both of those cases.
00:33:26.600
So New Brunswick is actually fighting the carbon tax, you know, that sort of joining that
00:33:31.660
united provincial front against Ottawa's carbon tax in three different court challenges,
00:33:36.900
sending a very clear, clear, clear message, I think, to Ottawa that, look, provincial taxpayers
00:33:43.920
And in New Brunswick, where they've already met their 2030 emissions reductions target, and
00:33:49.600
they already are some of the most taxed Canadians when it comes to the gas taxes, which was the
00:33:55.900
former Liberal Premier Brian Gallant's point, but also income taxes, business taxes, you
00:34:01.400
name it, sales taxes, they're the highest across the board in Canada, in New Brunswick.
00:34:09.300
So when you take that into account, New Brunswickers, A, have already reduced their emissions, they've
00:34:13.900
already done their part when it comes to, you know, the climate change issue.
00:34:17.400
But on top of that, they're already heavily, heavily taxed.
00:34:20.560
How much more uncompetitive can you force a province to be?
00:34:25.120
And I think that's the point that's really getting across.
00:34:27.340
And that's what taxpayers in New Brunswick care about.
00:34:29.260
Yeah, I mean, New Brunswick is a very interesting province.
00:34:32.460
And for a while there, it had net outflow of migration.
00:34:37.380
It was also for a while there, statistically, the oldest population, because all the young
00:34:42.320
folks just left, because the economy was so slow.
00:34:45.720
I mean, there's a lot of things that make me sad about New Brunswick, the cancellation
00:34:49.640
of the Energy East pipeline, which would have been such an enormous benefit.
00:34:53.400
I want to ask you about one last thing, because I love New Brunswick, even though I've only
00:34:57.320
been there a handful of times, they have natural gas under their feet.
00:35:04.600
And natural gas, it is a hydrocarbon, it is a fossil fuel, as they say.
00:35:12.820
Now, I don't really care about these things, because I'm aware that carbon dioxide is what
00:35:20.680
But for those who care, fracked natural gas is the reason why the United States, their
00:35:27.620
emissions have actually fallen more than all other countries in the world combined.
00:35:32.060
Not because of some law that Obama passed, or some law that Trump passed, but because
00:35:38.300
It's so cheap, it's so clean, it's so plentiful, that private companies are saying, wow, this
00:35:42.800
natural gas is so cheap, let's burn it instead of coal.
00:35:45.980
I've got nothing against coal, but I'm just explaining what happened in America, in places
00:35:50.040
like Pennsylvania, that were economically hurt, and now they're booming.
00:35:54.620
That's a very long preamble, Paige, but my question is, is there any chance that under
00:36:01.320
Premier Higgs, who seems to be against the carbon tax, that New Brunswick might revisit
00:36:09.740
Because talk about an economic opportunity, and talk about a way, if you care about that sort
00:36:14.900
of thing, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because natural gas is the cleanest burning
00:36:26.400
So Premier Higgs has committed, he committed in his platform to revisit the ban on the fracking
00:36:36.120
They've announced that they're going to partially remove the ban.
00:36:40.780
Now, the problem is, with this policy, is that it's kind of, they have a selective approach.
00:36:46.120
So in communities that have the demand for it, they're saying that they're going to remove
00:36:52.700
the fracking ban, and then in communities that want the ban to stay, they're going to
00:36:58.060
Now, how that plays out, I think it'll be interesting to watch, because if the communities that want
00:37:02.600
to maintain the ban are communities that don't really have natural gas reserves anyway,
00:37:09.040
So I think it'll be positive to see that there will be, probably going forward, some more
00:37:14.500
fracking in New Brunswick than we've seen in the past.
00:37:17.220
And, you know, we've commended the PCs for having that as part of their platform.
00:37:21.140
Of course, there are still those in New Brunswick, political operatives, that are still trying
00:37:24.800
to maintain the ban on fracking, and that's to be expected.
00:37:27.900
But we've called for them to completely remove the ban.
00:37:32.240
I've lived in New Brunswick for a short period when I was covering the election there.
00:37:37.000
And what you can see so clearly, it's the same in Nova Scotia.
00:37:40.760
You see people leaving Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to go work on safe fracking projects
00:37:47.980
in Western Canada, or even, you know, Ontario, wherever it might be.
00:37:52.240
And then, and they're leaving their home provinces in order to do that.
00:37:59.620
I mean, why not, when you have these great reserves in New Brunswick, why not have those
00:38:06.780
And I think that's the New Brunswick government's argument.
00:38:09.580
And so I'm glad to see them moving forward on that.
00:38:12.000
We do hope that it results in a complete removal of the fracking ban in the province.
00:38:17.440
But at the very least, we are making some positive progress.
00:38:21.140
You know, I used to fly east and west quite a bit, and there were always New Brunswickers
00:38:25.120
and other Atlantic Canadians, and I thought to myself, New Brunswickers are working on
00:38:31.420
They're just doing it halfway across the country and commuting, and that's tough on
00:38:35.620
the families, and it's inconvenient and stressful.
00:38:38.220
Wouldn't it be nice if they could go home every night for dinner?
00:38:45.360
Like, people would actually commute that far to work in oil and gas, because there are
00:38:53.700
Well, listen, we started talking about carbon taxes.
00:38:55.820
We ended up talking about fracking, but I think they are related.
00:38:59.000
Let me ask you one last question, Paige, just because I got you here.
00:39:04.420
The protests in Paris, France, that turned violent, some of them, but they were mainly peaceful.
00:39:10.900
I saw up to 75,000 protesters, Paige, and they were protesting against the fuel tax.
00:39:17.820
Their yellow vests were a symbol of the new anti-car laws of Macron.
00:39:28.240
Because I know a lot of the international coverage has downplayed the carbon tax aspect of that.
00:39:33.660
Do you think that that inspired any Canadians, or was it just not covered clearly enough?
00:39:37.940
Well, I don't know if it's inspired any Canadians to go that far, but I think that what it shows
00:39:45.300
is a reflection of that discontent with these policies that are making the necessities of
00:39:53.440
life more expensive, or more difficult to access, or banning them completely, whatever the policy
00:39:59.500
I think that that same discontent is shared in Canada, in provinces that are fighting the
00:40:06.400
federal government on the carbon tax, saying, we don't want this carbon tax.
00:40:12.220
We've now voted in a government that doesn't want it, that said that it's going to fight
00:40:22.120
Now, I haven't seen anything like the protests that have happened in France.
00:40:25.760
I know, obviously, don't condone any of the violence that's been happening there.
00:40:30.060
But, you know, you can understand where a lot of the people there are coming from on
00:40:37.140
And in Atlantic Canada, there is a particular strength to the necessities of life angle,
00:40:47.640
You know, most of Atlantic Canada is relatively rural.
00:40:55.480
We need to drive our cars to get ourselves to work or to get our kids to daycare, whatever
00:41:01.400
And there's no way that, you know, we're going to do less of that if you simply make
00:41:07.780
All you're going to do is make it more expensive and make life more difficult.
00:41:11.820
And so I think that is a message that does strongly resonate in Atlantic Canada, because
00:41:19.080
Well, I tell you, it's a pleasure to talk with you for once about good news.
00:41:23.040
So many times when we talk with our friends at the Taxpayers Federation, it's degrees of
00:41:28.260
And I will agree that the pendulum is swinging back at least a little bit.
00:41:36.420
But wouldn't it be nice to see a thousand people gathering against the carbon tax, maybe
00:41:44.680
Maybe we should team up with the Taxpayers Federation and do something like that.
00:41:51.140
My friend Paige McPherson, she's the Atlantic Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
00:42:13.200
On my monologue yesterday about the UN Global Compact on Migration, K. Rick writes,
00:42:18.660
Ezra, if they have singled you out for attack, then you are effective at punching holes in
00:42:25.580
I don't mind them being mean to us rhetorically.
00:42:31.720
I think it distinguishes us from the me-toos, the think-alikes, the Justin's journos taking
00:42:43.680
But what worries me is if you read Section 33C and D of the Global Compact for Migration,
00:42:53.460
it specifically talks about recalcitrant media like us.
00:43:02.140
It talks about having monitoring and detecting and responding by governments to us.
00:43:06.760
So I don't mind if Justin Trudeau and Amin Hassan and Kent Hare and the Liberal Party are mean
00:43:15.180
I'm worried that they're going to take steps to ban us, sue us, regulate us, have Facebook
00:43:24.380
Daniel writes, George Soros is writing Canadian policy.
00:43:28.460
I would laugh my head off if it weren't so scary.
00:43:31.640
Yeah, Daniel, you know what's so frustrating to me about that is that was not hidden.
00:43:37.740
I showed you and I've showed it probably half a dozen times over the years.
00:43:41.280
That is a press release from the government of Canada.
00:43:45.140
You can search for it and you can find it in 60 seconds on Google.
00:43:48.960
And yet, have you ever seen a single story in the mainstream media about that?
00:43:55.100
I mean, George Soros is a newsworthy billionaire.
00:43:57.800
He's what the world's 14th richest man last I checked.
00:44:03.840
It's just interesting just whether or not you agree with it or not.
00:44:09.680
And it's not just interesting, it's controversial.
00:44:12.160
Can you imagine a Canadian prime minister outsourcing policy to a foreign country, to
00:44:17.540
That's, I can't even think of an example where it's ever happened.
00:44:31.940
Andrew writes, if you're so fringe and untrustworthy, why are they so worried about you?
00:44:41.520
Either the rebel is obscure and fringe and, you know, marginal, or the rebel is dangerous
00:44:50.680
I think the answer is we are filling the gap left by the mainstream media and, on some
00:44:56.920
issues, left by a timid conservative opposition.
00:45:08.840
If Post Media, Toronto Star, CBC, CTV, and Global News covered the other side of the story,
00:45:19.020
You could just flick on your telly and watch it in a million-dollar studio with billion-dollar
00:45:27.360
Well, if you heard the other side of the story on everything from the carbon tax to
00:45:30.460
open borders, immigration, to Omer Cotter and terrorism, to any of those issues, that's
00:45:41.000
Because I think the chances of the CBC telling the other side of the story are, well, it would
00:45:49.480
I have a needle than for the CBC to tell the truth.
00:45:59.940
David Menzies is off to Morocco, unless Ahmed Hassan has him arrested.
00:46:09.240
They're both covering their respective UN conferences.
00:46:13.520
And all of those videos will be on YouTube for free to the world to see.
00:46:18.640
If you want to see them, we've collected, we've set up a special website, rebelun.com,
00:46:25.080
where we will have all of the videos from both David and Sheila.
00:46:28.520
And if you want to help us cover their airfare, you can chip in there, too.
00:46:31.540
Until Monday, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, and I can say World
00:46:35.580
Headquarters, if we've got folks in Morocco and Poland, yeah, you're darn tootin' World