EZRA LEVANT | A major church in Toronto is burnt to a crisp and all the media cares about is the architectural loss
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
165.8892
Summary
A major church in Toronto is burnt to a crisp, and all the media cares about is the architectural loss. How can you rule out arson if the official story is arson? And while the investigation is ongoing, the prime minister has not been so kind as to say, "Didn't you make the mess we're in?"
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, my friends. I went to the scene of the St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto.
00:00:05.680
That's the big church that was burnt down on Sunday morning. I chatted with some firefighters
00:00:11.040
and I'll give you my thoughts about what happened. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber
00:00:15.420
to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com,
00:00:21.000
click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month, but you get all the video version of the show
00:00:25.840
and the satisfaction of keeping Rebel News strong, because we don't take any money from
00:00:31.060
Trudeau and it shows. All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:49.540
Tonight, a major church in Toronto is burnt to a crisp, and all the media cares about is the
00:00:55.820
architectural loss. It's June 11th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:15.560
Hi, folks. I have an interesting show for you today. In a few minutes, I'll introduce you again
00:01:19.540
to my friend Franco Teresano. We're going to go over the latest weird statement by Chrystia Freeland.
00:01:24.680
She implied that if we don't raise taxes, there's going to be like some Hunger Games sci-fi dystopian
00:01:33.480
revolt, and people will climb over the gated fences of rich people and skewer them or something. It was
00:01:39.180
sort of really crazy, and it was really crazy for a finance minister whose party has been in power for
00:01:44.460
almost 10 years to say, didn't you make the mess we're in? Anyway, we'll talk about that a little later.
00:01:50.920
But first, I want to show you a video I recorded on the streets yesterday.
00:01:55.340
We just did it late in the day, so we didn't have the chance to show it yesterday. We're going to show it
00:01:59.680
today. A large and impressive church, almost a cathedral, beautiful on the inside, to be sure,
00:02:06.880
went up in smoke. It was a four-alarm fire. It was the first thing on Sunday morning. Luckily,
00:02:12.760
no one was hurt. I stopped by and looked around, and I talked without a camera to a number of the
00:02:20.380
firemen, and I'd like to show you a report I put together on the scene of St. Andrew's Anglican
00:02:27.040
Church. Here, take a look. Ezra Levant here for Rebel News. I'm in Midtown Toronto. Behind me,
00:02:35.160
the charred remains of a major church in Canada, St. Anne's Anglican Church, a mighty church more
00:02:43.520
than 100 years old, a massive edifice in this community, burnt to a crisp, a four-alarm fire
00:02:51.280
earlier. Early yesterday morning, you can see fire crews are still here en masse. Almost a dozen
00:02:57.640
vehicles surrounding the place. Firefighters told me that the fire has burned out, and now they're
00:03:03.980
focused on pumping out the water from the basement. The water obviously used by them to put out the
00:03:10.380
flames, but not before the building itself was completely burnt. Now, what's interesting is that
00:03:16.380
this has received coverage in the mainstream media, which is not usual. There have been literally
00:03:22.360
dozens of churches, many of them burnt to a crisp in Canada, that have been hit by a crime wave of arson
00:03:30.800
in the last few years. In fact, if you add in other vandalism, more than 100 Canadian churches have been
00:03:38.980
vandalized, smashed, or burnt in approximately four years. It's every other week. The fact that this one
00:03:48.960
also had some famous paintings in it by the so-called Group of Seven, I think that's what made the
00:03:56.400
mainstream media cover it. For example, let me quote to you the headline from the Globe and Mail. Look at
00:04:03.840
this. Loss of Historic St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto's Catastrophe for Canadian Architecture?
00:04:12.980
Seriously, an entire article, and the bulk of it is how architecturally interesting it is, and there was
00:04:19.480
some secular artwork in it. Could you imagine if a Jewish synagogue, or a Sikh temple, or a Muslim mosque
00:04:28.420
had been torched? And the headline was, it was architecturally interesting, people. This is a real
00:04:35.440
loss for architecture. Unthinkable. Now, I should say that we don't yet know conclusively the cause of
00:04:44.260
the fire. I spoke to two firefighters who said it's still under investigation, and yet every news article
00:04:50.840
I've read, and public statements too, such as this one from the CBC, say they rule out arson. How can you
00:04:58.340
rule out arson if the investigation is ongoing? Would they prejudge a fire at a mosque that way? Of
00:05:09.260
course not. Justin Trudeau would have an emergency national press conference using his best substitute
00:05:14.980
drama teacher voice. But this is just a Christian church, so who cares? The prime minister has not
00:05:20.380
been motivated to put out a statement, though it's burnt to a crisp. The fact that officials, or the
00:05:25.880
official regime media, they're really wanting the same, say it's not arson, while the investigation is ongoing, is
00:05:33.040
reminiscent of the terrible fire that torched the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. Before the
00:05:40.660
investigation, they announced it was not terrorism. Our friend Morrissey even made a song about it. Remember this?
00:05:47.520
Not for that, we will not be silent. Not for that, we will not be silent. Before any investigation, they said this is not terrorism.
00:06:11.740
Listen, it is possible that it wasn't arson, and it's also possible that if it was arson,
00:06:19.180
it wasn't anti-Christian bigotry. This is Toronto. It's in a perpetual crime wave. Typically, the crime
00:06:26.600
is stolen vehicles, not arson. But it might have just been mischief all around, including right across the
00:06:32.820
street. Vandalism is everywhere. Graffiti. It's accepted as normal in Mayor Chow's Toronto. I can't just put the
00:06:40.840
blame on her. The premier of this conservative province and the prime minister, they abide this
00:06:46.400
as the new normal. It's interesting to me what does or does not get labeled a hate crime. Even hoaxes get
00:06:54.460
this prime minister's attention. I don't know if you recall, a few years ago, a young lady said someone
00:06:58.840
ran up to her with scissors to cut her hijab. It was so evidently a Jussie Smollett-style hoax. But the prime
00:07:06.200
minister met, tweeted about it, and the tweet remains, even though it's debunked. I don't know if this is a hate
00:07:13.580
crime or just a regular crime. I do know the silence of officialdom is echoing. The worst that they're
00:07:20.960
concerned about is the architectural catastrophe. I shouldn't say that Justin Trudeau had nothing to say
00:07:28.240
about this. A few years ago, his senior advisor, Gerald Butts, when pressed about this crime wave of church
00:07:36.400
arsons, said it was, quote, understandable. As I've also said, it is unacceptable and wrong that acts of
00:07:47.280
vandalism and arson are being seen across the country, including against Catholic Churches.
00:07:57.280
One of my reflections is I understand the anger that's out there against the federal government, against
00:08:03.280
institutions like the Catholic Church. It is real and it is fully understandable, given the shameful history that we're all
00:08:11.280
becoming more and more aware of. It was understandable. I mean, not that he condoned it or approved it. He just
00:08:19.520
understood why people would torch churches. This, of course, because like Trudeau, Butts himself has a
00:08:26.960
loathing for Christianity. He participates in the defamation that the church was responsible for a
00:08:34.240
genocide of indigenous people. And who wouldn't understand torching a symbol of genocide? That's where
00:08:41.440
we are under Justin Trudeau in Canada. We'll keep you posted on this story. It's very sad that an iconic
00:08:48.480
church is torched. Yeah, there's architectural and art reasons for it. But when a house of worship is burned
00:08:56.480
and no one in the regime gives a damn, I think that's a sign that your civilization is unhealthy.
00:09:09.200
Well, one of our younger reporters, Sarah Stock, was down there as well. She later went and did what we call
00:09:16.000
streeters, vox pop, asking ordinary people on the street what they thought about things. Here's an excerpt of that.
00:09:22.160
Sarah Stock for Rebel News. We're here in little Portugal in Toronto, standing in front of St. Anne's Anglican Church.
00:09:29.040
It burnt down yesterday morning, just before 8 a.m., went all the way up in flames. And the way the mainstream media is
00:09:35.280
talking about this church, the focus seems to be, oh, this church was a symbol for the community. People would meet in this
00:09:41.440
church and have dinner. This church, they're focusing on the artwork and the architectural design, which, yes, that's important.
00:09:48.160
And I think it does make the church stand out. In the grand scheme of things, there have been more than
00:09:53.040
40 churches in the past couple of years that have been burnt down, whether by arson or whether by
00:10:00.400
inconclusive investigations that could have been arson. Now, this came after insufficient claims about
00:10:08.240
residential schools committing a genocide against Indigenous people. And when Justin Trudeau talked
00:10:14.800
about these events, he said this torching of churches was understandable.
00:10:20.000
As I've also said, it is unacceptable and wrong that acts of vandalism and arson are being seen across the
00:10:29.680
country, including against Catholic churches. One of my reflections is I understand the anger that's out
00:10:37.760
there against the federal government, against institutions like the Catholic Church. It is
00:10:45.920
So what's to stop Canadians from burning down churches?
00:10:49.120
Imagine if this was a Jewish synagogue or a Muslim mosque. The mainstream media would have the same
00:10:54.400
reaction. Well, we're here in Young Dundas Square, which is soon to be named Sankofa Square, by the way,
00:11:01.360
because apparently Henry Dundas was a racist, even though he was an abolitionist. But regardless,
00:11:08.000
it's noisy here as usual. There's lots of people around. So this is the perfect place to talk to your
00:11:13.200
average Toronto resident and see if they've even heard of the 100 churches that have either been vandalized
00:11:20.400
or burnt down in the past couple of years and see how that relates to the St. Anne's church that was
00:11:26.560
just burnt down yesterday. Have they heard of that? Not sure. Let's see if anyone sees a connection
00:11:31.600
here. Do you know that there is 47 churches in Canada, Christian churches, that have been burnt down
00:11:38.640
either by arson or suspected arson just these past couple of years? Have you heard about that?
00:11:43.360
No, not at all. Not at all? No. Why do you think you haven't heard of that?
00:11:47.120
Uh, I don't know. It hasn't been in the news? I actually haven't, no. No?
00:11:52.800
Um, I have not. You haven't? No. Okay. Why do you think that is, that you haven't?
00:11:58.720
Um, I'm not too sure. I'm not too involved with Christian media myself. What was the question?
00:12:04.160
I heard about that, but I don't know much about this. I did not know that, no. No, I did not.
00:12:09.280
Why do you think you haven't heard about that? Because, uh, the news is censored in our country, maybe?
00:12:13.920
Yeah. Wow. That's very unfortunate. Did you know it? I did not. You haven't even heard about it anywhere?
00:12:22.000
Maybe I have and just forgot, but I don't know, to be honest. No. You haven't? Why do you think that
00:12:27.600
is, that you haven't heard of it? I'm not, I'm not sure it's not on the news. Um, maybe it's not that big
00:12:34.400
of a deal. For real? I've not heard that. I've not heard about that. Why do you think you haven't
00:12:39.680
heard about, don't you, like what, why aren't people making a big deal about this? Yeah, because
00:12:44.400
this is 2024, right? People are not as religious. Have you heard of that? I have not. You haven't
00:12:50.080
heard of that? No. A little bit of it. A little bit? A little bit. Did you hear about the church that
00:12:54.560
burned down yesterday? I did not hear about those. Let's just think about this. Do you think if it was 47
00:13:00.800
Jewish synagogues or Muslim mosques, do you think you would have heard of it? Well, yeah,
00:13:06.720
but are you sure that there are 47 churches burned down? That's an awfully large number. Yeah,
00:13:12.000
probably more than that were accents, but it's 47 that are either confirmed arson or suspected arson.
00:13:19.120
Yeah, no, I wasn't aware. Did you hear about that in Toronto? That I actually didn't hear either,
00:13:23.120
no. No? Sorry, no. Um, like, what do you think that is that you haven't heard of it? Like,
00:13:27.760
it seems like it's like a pattern, you know what I mean, of these hate crimes? Personally,
00:13:31.920
I would not be involved in any type of Christian things because I'm a First Nations person. And,
00:13:37.360
um, just because due to residential school and the pain that it put all of my family through,
00:13:43.520
um, I prefer not to deal with it. Okay. Do you think that this would be considered a hate crime
00:13:50.480
if you're burning a church down because it's a place of worship? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
00:13:56.240
I think so. Do you think the mainstream media might have anti-Christian bias?
00:14:00.880
There's definitely some sort of an agenda, but I feel like it shifts throughout the years,
00:14:04.640
you know? Yeah, for sure. In the government, these same mainstream media sources like the CBC,
00:14:09.520
they like to call a lot of things hate crimes, right? Yeah. But when we hear all these churches
00:14:14.160
have burned, I haven't heard the word hate crime used once, and it's a place of worship. Why do you think
00:14:18.880
that is? Uh, I don't know, honestly. I'm kind of going to be stumped there. I think it's because
00:14:27.520
there's maybe in the news, people are just talking about bigger things than the church is burning down,
00:14:33.760
as in, for example, the Palestine and Israel war. But it is an important issue. But I just think that
00:14:41.760
people just don't really exactly know what's going on because it's not really out there. Yeah.
00:14:48.320
Um, not too much. I don't know. It just seems to be a fairly common occurrence now. Yeah. Why is it
00:14:55.760
so common? What could the motivation be, do you think? Well, um, what kind of church was it that was
00:15:02.160
burned down? What religious? This was an Anglican church. Anglican church. See, I'm an atheist,
00:15:06.960
so to me, like all churches and synagogues. Well, the churches that have been burned down there,
00:15:12.880
they were from all sorts of different denominations all over Canada. So it wasn't,
00:15:17.440
you know, it's kind of a common misconception. They were all Catholic churches, but there's Anglican,
00:15:22.320
United church, Lutheran is a pretty big assortment. I mean, let's face it. Anything to be burned down
00:15:28.720
like that, it's bad. And I certainly don't condone it, but I don't get all exercised about it because,
00:15:34.480
you know, to me, it just doesn't affect me. It doesn't affect you, is that what you said?
00:15:38.880
No, because I don't go to churches or synagogues. I do respect the churches. I respect everyone,
00:15:44.480
but it's just coming from my personal point of view so that I wouldn't really be involved.
00:15:50.640
Do you think that it would be considered a hate crime if you burn a church?
00:15:54.720
Uh, it depends your reason for it. Yeah, I think it really depends on the context because,
00:16:00.880
yeah, because it's just different from each person's point of view, you know?
00:16:05.280
I think it's, like, I don't think it's okay to disrespect people's religious beliefs like that.
00:16:11.840
Like, you can take it up with the church without, like, messing up their place, like.
00:16:19.680
I don't know if there are 47 Jewish synagogues or Muslim mosques that were burnt down in Canada.
00:16:28.960
Yes, I do think so, because I think there was a couple reasons. One, I think those two religions
00:16:35.120
are very vocal and they, again, not to get too religious or whatever, but I think those religions
00:16:41.360
actually stand for their beliefs. I don't know, maybe the media's trying to hide it? I'm not sure.
00:16:45.280
Do you think that might have to do with, you know, the kind of bias there? They're not going to call
00:16:50.560
it a hate crime. Even Justin Trudeau, he said, oh, you shouldn't do that, but it's understandable.
00:16:58.080
One of my reflections is I understand the anger that's out there against the federal government,
00:17:04.720
against institutions like the Catholic Church. It is real and it is fully understandable.
00:17:10.240
What do you think about him saying that? I mean, yeah, it's kind of like,
00:17:14.640
shit, you got me there. I mean, like, it's kind of like, it's like you're feeding them
00:17:18.320
something to work with, right? It's like... Yeah, I think it's a hate crime because, like,
00:17:21.920
it's destroying property, right? That's already a crime already. So, like, I think it's a hate crime.
00:17:28.480
Like, let everyone do whatever they want to do, to be honest. This is an important thing.
00:17:32.240
Something that's a part of God, a lot of people believe in nowadays, it's not like we believe in,
00:17:36.000
it's a religion, got burnt down and no one absolutely cares about it because they're going
00:17:40.960
to go talk about the next celebrity or like, oh, the celebrity got pregnant or something. Like,
00:17:45.040
it's insane. Crime is a very subjective term and it's very, very hard to decide if something's
00:17:52.400
done because of something being Jewish or something being Muslim or something being Christian.
00:18:00.480
Probably there is a motive, but then it could just be random violence. I don't know.
00:18:05.120
It's hard to prove. I mean, do you think if it was 47 transgender care facilities that were
00:18:11.600
burnt down, do you think people would call it a hate crime? That, for sure, yeah. Yeah. Oh, 100%.
00:18:18.080
I think it's yellow tape. Everyone's going crazy. Yeah, I think they'd probably value that more than
00:18:21.760
the churches, to be honest. Why do you think that, why do you think our culture has gone to that point
00:18:25.440
where people don't seem to care? Uh, I'm not sure, to be honest. Maybe just propaganda and
00:18:30.960
shit. I don't know. Okay. Do you think that's considered a hate crime if you burn a church?
00:18:37.280
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that the government would call it that? No. No? Well, we've talked
00:18:44.240
to a lot of different kinds of people here today, but one thing seems to be in common. Not very many
00:18:49.760
people have heard anything about these churches burning down. I wonder why that could be. For Rebel News,
00:18:56.800
it's Sarah Stock. Well, what do you think of the whole thing? I mean, maybe it was an electrical
00:19:04.160
fire. Could be. Maybe it was just regular arson. I mean, Toronto is in the middle of a crime wave,
00:19:09.920
and there's a lot of graffiti and vandalism. Or maybe it's just the latest in fires against Christian
00:19:17.040
churches. It's hard to tell because, of course, like Notre Dame's fire in Paris, authorities do not
00:19:22.960
want you to know who really is torching places. They didn't in Notre Dame and in almost actually
00:19:29.280
over 100 churches in Canada that have been torched or vandalized in other ways. It certainly feels like
00:19:35.760
the regime doesn't want you to know they're being targeted because they're Christian. Stay with us.
00:19:54.800
I'm not sure why Christian Freeland was appointed finance minister. She has no training in the subject.
00:20:00.960
She went to school studying Slavic matters, language, geography, which are interesting things but
00:20:08.000
have nothing to do with economics or finance. She was an absolute disaster when she was appointed
00:20:14.400
an executive for Thomson Reuters, a large news company. She was put in charge of something called
00:20:19.840
Reuters Next, and she actually destroyed the entire company. Once she was done with it,
00:20:28.560
they didn't try and fix it. They threw it out. She lost hundreds of jobs and tens of millions of dollars,
00:20:36.960
an absolute meltdown. And you could see in it the descriptions of how she would ignore advice,
00:20:43.920
bring in her personal friends, money was no object, sort of a premonition for how she would run Canada.
00:20:50.880
And of course, she was right up Trudeau's alley. Never forget that Christian Freeland's job before she
00:20:56.800
became an MP was George Soros' authorized biographer. That's really what she did. No wonder she's been
00:21:05.520
appointed finance minister. One last tidbit before I show you a video, and you'll understand why
00:21:10.960
I'm talking about Christian Freeland, is she lived in the States. She jetted around the world.
00:21:16.480
She came back to Canada as a favor to us to run for parliament. You would think someone who had held
00:21:23.200
high positions at Reuters and was probably making close to a million dollars a year would have saved up
00:21:27.600
a few bucks. But even 10 years ago, she couldn't afford a home in Canada. Now, I'm not mocking or
00:21:35.120
laughing. It's extremely expensive to buy a home in Canada. In Toronto and Vancouver these days, the
00:21:41.200
average home is more than one million dollars. But 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. And she was a grown
00:21:47.600
woman, an MP, her husband was working too. And yet she needed her parents to co-sign her mortgage for her,
00:21:56.320
to make the down payment for her. And I'm not laughing at someone for being poor. I'm not laughing at someone
00:22:02.480
for not having a million dollars that they can borrow in their own credit. I'm not saying a million cash.
00:22:07.920
She couldn't even get credit for that. I'm saying these are warning signals that maybe
00:22:15.520
she has no clue how to manage her own money or a business's money in the case of Reuters next.
00:22:22.800
And you want to put her in charge of the economy? Well, look at Chrystia Freeland just the other day,
00:22:28.640
talking about how she thinks the economy works and how she thinks people should consider taxes.
00:22:35.040
Take a look at this monstrosity. Do you want to live in a country where the only young Canadians
00:22:40.800
who can buy their own homes are those with parents who can help with the down payment?
00:22:48.240
Do you want to live in a country where we make the investments we need in health care, in housing,
00:22:55.120
in old age pensions, but we lack the political will to pay for them and choose instead to pass a
00:23:03.840
ballooning debt onto our children? Do you want to live in a country where those at the very top
00:23:12.400
live lives of luxury, but must do so in gated communities behind ever higher fences using private
00:23:22.240
health care and airplanes? Because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of
00:23:31.200
their less privileged compatriots burns so hot. Every Canadian across our great country needs to ask
00:23:43.200
themselves these same questions because the stakes could not be higher. Oh my God, what a wacko. Oh,
00:23:52.720
I've got a lot to say about this as you can guess, but let me bring in an expert. I'm talking about
00:23:57.040
Franco Teresano. He's the boss of the Canadian taxpayers federation. I had no idea the stakes
00:24:02.560
were this high. Franco, if we don't raise taxes, by the way, it's been nine and a half years of
00:24:06.960
liberal government. If we don't raise taxes right now, we're going to turn into some, I don't know,
00:24:12.400
Blade Runner, Robocop, dystopian place where people are hiding with their private jets behind
00:24:18.080
gated. I don't even know what that was all about. Franco, do you want to take a first stab at it?
00:24:22.640
I mean, all this government does is raise taxes and waste our money. So like, what are they talking
00:24:29.600
about? There's so much to pick out there. But first, can I just state the obvious?
00:24:34.400
Did the finance minister just warn about adding debt onto the backs of future generations?
00:24:40.240
Like, are you serious? Like, are you serious? I mean, as of this year, the Trudeau government will
00:24:46.240
have officially doubled the entire federal government debt. Nine years doubled the entire
00:24:53.120
federal debt by adding $600 billion onto the debt tab. Well, who's going to be paying for that?
00:24:59.280
Canadians, kids and grandkids, future generations of Canadians will be making payments on the debt
00:25:06.160
for their whole lives. So like, I don't think Canadians buy that line of argument from the finance
00:25:13.520
minister or the Trudeau government. But you know what I think that Freeland and Trudeau really have
00:25:18.640
to worry about here are Canadians who are absolutely fed up about being overtaxed all the tax hikes that
00:25:25.680
we're seeing and the federal government wasting our money like crazy. You know, I'm glad you focused on
00:25:31.760
that debt part because that that's insane for the liberals to pretend they care about the debt. I mean,
00:25:37.280
you probably know the stats off the top of your hat of how much they've added to the debt.
00:25:41.280
I don't know that figure without looking it up, but I think the largest deficit in Canadian history
00:25:46.960
was actually run under Justin Trudeau. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. I'm not putting you on the
00:25:53.680
spot with this. No, no, no. During the COVID years, I mean, remember the massive deficits that we were
00:25:58.400
seeing. Yeah. You said, look, when Trudeau first came to power, the debt was like $616 billion.
00:26:04.720
The debt today is more than $1.2 trillion. So the Trudeau government has doubled the federal debt.
00:26:13.840
And Ezra, to your point, they don't care about the deficit. I mean, come on. They don't care about
00:26:18.960
the debt. They've proven to taxpayers that they do not care about fiscal responsibility. This is fiscal
00:26:24.240
insanity. I mean, listen to this, folks. They're hiking the capital gains tax. This is a massive tax
00:26:30.640
hike. And the government is still running a $40 billion deficit this year. Okay. The capital gains
00:26:38.480
tax increase will cost Canadians about $7 billion this year. But with Trudeau spending $535 billion
00:26:46.800
this year, he's going to blow through that extra cash in less than seven days.
00:26:51.440
Oh my gosh. Now that's what this is. This is her sales pitch for her increase in capital gains tax.
00:26:58.640
And I think what she's trying to do is do a bash the rich, only rich people get capital gains. This
00:27:05.280
is about, I think she actually said, I don't know if it was in this clip or I think it was another one
00:27:09.360
where she talked about the 0.013% as if it was just an obscure group of billionaires. I think she implied
00:27:17.280
people with private jets, but that's not who pays capital gains tax. Tell me about the typical
00:27:28.000
Canadian. Give me a sketch for me, an example of a Canadian who would be taxed under the capital
00:27:34.240
gains tax. I got a few ideas, but taxpayers is your business. Tell me who will be hit by this.
00:27:40.880
What about doctors? You know, doctors who spend their whole career saving lives and now just want
00:27:47.040
to save for the retirement. Well, they're going to get hammered by the capital gains tax increase.
00:27:51.440
Or what about, you know, your small business owner who doesn't have a government pension
00:27:56.480
so relies on capital gains to fund their golden years, right? So essentially the government is
00:28:02.720
going after entrepreneurs going after, you know, professionals like doctors also like to state the
00:28:08.720
obvious discouraging young, smart computer science grads who graduate from a Canadian university
00:28:15.200
who want to start like the next Amazon here in Canada, but now we're being chased away to other
00:28:20.400
places because of this capital gains tax increase and all the other tax hikes that the federal government
00:28:25.520
is doing. But, you know, let's go back to that political wedge here for a second, okay? Because like
00:28:30.960
Trudeau and Freeland are talking about how they want the rich to pay more. Well, how about you just make
00:28:37.120
rich multinational corporations pay for their own factories, right? Like, let's not pretend,
00:28:43.600
let's not pretend like the federal government didn't just announce billions of dollars for
00:28:47.920
the boardrooms in Germany and Japan, right? The billions of dollars going to multinational
00:28:53.360
corporations from taxpayers to corporations like Volkswagen, Honda, Stellantis, and companies like
00:29:00.800
that. So you want to make the rich pay their fair share? Well, how about you just cut out all this
00:29:05.840
corporate welfare going to multinational corporate corporations? Yeah, that's a great point. They're giving
00:29:10.640
money to some of the most profitable foreign countries and companies in the world, and they're,
00:29:16.080
I suppose, money is fungible, but they're getting it. I mean, tell me if this is an example of someone
00:29:20.960
who, I mean, I'm not a tax expert, so Franco, correct me if I'm wrong. So let's say someone's a plumber,
00:29:27.440
and they save up a few bucks and get their own equipment, get their own truck, and hire some other
00:29:32.400
guys, and soon they've got a couple trucks and a couple guys, and soon they've built up a bit of a
00:29:36.640
plumbing company, and you work your fingers to the bone for 50 years, and then you retire, and you
00:29:42.240
sell that thing. Is that an example of a capital gains? Is that a scenario?
00:29:48.240
Well, those are similar. Those are things that could happen here, or just people who have like
00:29:52.880
other like real estate properties because they don't have the government-funded pension that all
00:29:58.080
the bureaucrats in Ottawa essentially do, right? So one other thing, you know, Jack Mintz, a famous
00:30:04.400
economist who was at the University of Calgary, rightly pointed out that it's not the same
00:30:09.760
people every single year who are making these capital gains, right? Like many Canadians will
00:30:14.640
make capital gains, or many different Canadians will make capital gains in different years as
00:30:20.720
they sell some of these assets, for example, to fund their golden years. So it's not like the
00:30:25.600
government is just going after like a couple people who have all these bags of money. Like this is
00:30:31.920
going to have real life implications for Canadians who are getting ready to retire.
00:30:36.400
You know, there was a while, I think it was 2006, 2007, sorry, 2016, 2017, before Trudeau's policies
00:30:46.320
really started to bite, where he was still riding on being cool, when he was showing foreign leaders
00:30:51.600
his fancy socks, you know, before people really started to find out about him. And he would hang out
00:30:58.640
with tech leaders, because nothing is cooler than tech. And one of the most successful Canadian
00:31:06.400
high-tech companies is called Shopify. And that might sound strange to some people, but it's an online
00:31:13.440
system for selling things. It's basically a way to sell things online, whether you're a small business,
00:31:19.600
a big business, or just someone with a hobby. And Shopify is a Canadian success story.
00:31:26.240
And in the past, Trudeau would hang out with their president and founder and their senior executives,
00:31:33.360
because it's pretty cool starting a high-tech company from scratch, being a global force,
00:31:38.560
making lots of money. But in the past week or two, the leaders of Shopify, who used to be really chummy
00:31:46.320
with Trudeau, have put out statements just completely candid, saying this will destroy
00:31:53.680
entrepreneurship. And I have to say, that's all Shopify is, entrepreneurs. They don't deal with
00:32:02.320
anyone else. I bet you that the CEO of Shopify knows a thousand business owners on a first-name basis,
00:32:10.800
and their company would know hundreds of thousands aggregate. Like no one, I don't think there's a human
00:32:17.440
being in Canada who knows more about small businesses and entrepreneurship and how to make a go of it
00:32:23.120
than Shopify. Like that's all they do. And here's a tweet from them just saying this is a disaster.
00:32:32.240
I don't think Trudeau would be welcome in a lot of those high-tech hothouses anymore. What do you think?
00:32:39.040
Okay. So, you know, I think it's pretty obvious that this tax hike is going to be disastrous for
00:32:45.360
entrepreneurs, for small businesses, for professionals like doctors, right? Like I think
00:32:50.400
that's very easy to understand how this tax hike will chase away investment. It'll chase away young
00:32:55.520
talent to other countries. But let me just like make a pitch on why every single Canadian taxpayer
00:33:01.760
should be against this. Number one, it's not about tax fairness. Okay. If it was even remotely about
00:33:07.520
tax fairness, somebody's taxes would be going down. But in fact, people's taxes are going up,
00:33:13.680
carbon tax up, alcohol taxes up, payroll taxes up, a new streaming tax, and now this capital gains tax
00:33:20.640
height. So this is about really one thing when it comes to all taxpayers, the government trying to
00:33:25.840
take as much money from Canadians as it can get away with. Number two, we cannot let the Trudeau
00:33:31.920
government get away with this. With it running deficits in the tens of billions of dollars
00:33:37.440
every single year, if the Trudeau government gets away with this capital gains tax hike,
00:33:42.480
it is a very good bet that it's going to keep on looking for new ways to get more money from
00:33:48.000
already tapped out Canadian taxpayers. So even if you think that this particular capital gains tax hike
00:33:54.720
won't affect you, you need to get off the bench and you have to oppose this because guess what?
00:34:00.880
This government doesn't deserve a single penny more from Canadians. This government does not have a
00:34:07.520
revenue problem. It has a spending problem and all Canadians have to push back against Trudeau's
00:34:13.040
capital gains tax hike before the government comes looking for even more ways to take more money from
00:34:18.320
you. Yeah. I just want to touch on one last thing before you go. I think it was the craziest part of
00:34:23.680
Christian Freeland's little screed there. I mean, you pointed out immediately the joke that she cares
00:34:29.520
about debt and the deficit. You're pointing out how, you know, the tax is going to hurt everyone.
00:34:35.360
But she had a, like her theme was, hey, rich people, if we don't raise this tax on you,
00:34:44.160
the poor's are going to, like, it's going to be like Mad Max, a Mad Max movie. They're going to
00:34:51.840
invade and with swords and, you know, attack you and your gated communities. Like it was basically
00:34:58.560
saying there will be a civil war and you'll be killed or something. Like it, that's actually how
00:35:03.760
it sounded. She was talking about gated communities and private jets. Like she was saying, she was basically
00:35:10.880
saying Canadians are so animalistic and volatile. They hate you so much. If we don't tax you more,
00:35:18.400
there's going to be a civil war. I think that's what she was saying. I think she's full on wacko
00:35:24.400
to use a phrase. I don't know if she wrote that herself or if some staffer wrote it.
00:35:31.280
I think that sounded full on crazy. What do you think? Well, I think it's another proof
00:35:38.160
point that the government just has absolutely no idea the struggles facing ordinary Canadians
00:35:43.760
or what ordinary Canadians are talking about and thinking, right? Because like, let's just go back
00:35:48.720
only a couple months to April one, when the government raised the carbon tax again,
00:35:54.320
which for ordinary can make Canadians makes the necessities of life more expensive, like
00:35:58.800
driving to work, like heating your home, like buying groceries. And the vast majority of Canadians,
00:36:04.960
we released a poll. The vast majority of Canadians were against the carbon tax increase.
00:36:10.240
What did the federal government do? Did it listen to Canadians? No, it hiked the carbon tax again.
00:36:15.200
It plans on hiking the carbon tax again next year. So you know what I, what I really think that the
00:36:20.160
government has to do and particularly Freeland and Trudeau and the liberal cabinet ministers
00:36:25.360
is to listen to Canadians and to understand that what Canadians are really fed up with
00:36:30.400
is the overtaxing the tax hikes. And then the fact that they take our money and they waste it
00:36:37.040
largely on themselves. Just madness. I mean, there, there's also an implication that, um,
00:36:44.240
that the crime in this country is because people are poor. There is a crime wave in this country,
00:36:48.720
in this country, and I don't think it has anything to do. I just just, I'm going to be thinking about
00:36:52.960
that rant by her for a long time. Franco, it's great of you to spend some time bringing the smarts.
00:36:57.840
I'm, I'm bringing the, I feel like I was watching a little bit of a sci-fi movie there. Like the,
00:37:02.320
like, uh, um, you know, what's that movie where for 24 hours, what's it called? The Purge
00:37:07.200
or something for 24 hours, there's mass lawlessness. That's the craziness of Christy Freeland. I can
00:37:12.160
hardly wait till the next election. Franco, we love you because you're nonpartisan and because you
00:37:16.320
don't take a dime from government. So you are the advocate for taxpayers of all stripes. Thanks for
00:37:20.960
your time, my friend. Hey, thank you, Ezra. All right. There he is. Franco Terrazano.
00:37:25.360
Can you imagine that really is like the movie, The Purge or Mad Max, where she's saying we need
00:37:29.520
to raise taxes or else the wildlings will come. All right. Stay with us more ahead.
00:37:45.360
What do you think of that fire at a church? I mean, it really irks me that the coverage was all about
00:37:50.800
the architecture and the art. And I'm not denying it was an interesting church. I mean, it wasn't,
00:37:56.160
it wasn't a great medieval wonder. I mean, it's 120 years old. I respect the building
00:38:00.720
and it did have some artwork and I'm not denying that. And I'm not denying that either are a loss
00:38:05.200
or a painful loss. I'm not denying any of that. I just find that an odd thing to focus on. If there
00:38:10.560
was a mosque or a Jewish synagogue that was burnt down in Canada, do you think that would be the
00:38:16.640
totality of the commentary by The Globe? Actually, I shouldn't say that. These days, The Globe and
00:38:21.040
other media are doing their best to downplay anti-Semitic attacks. So maybe they wouldn't
00:38:25.360
care if it was a Jewish synagogue. But I just find it odd. At the slightest flicker of an insinuation of
00:38:33.200
Islamophobia, Justin Trudeau's on the scene with denunciations and statements. I don't think he said
00:38:38.720
a word about this church. Because I don't think he cares. Actually, I do think he actually does care.
00:38:45.520
I think part of him is glad to see it. You saw his statement and that of Gerald Butts. They
00:38:51.120
understand people who want to burn down the church. Just outrageous. Well, that's our show for today.
00:38:57.760
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,