EZRA LEVANT ｜ CBC refuses to even be accountable to the House of Commons over the resources they waste
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Summary
In this week's episode, Sheila Gunn Reed takes a look at how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Cbc) quietly influences the public in much the same manner as they overtly influence the free thinking employees that remain there for some reason, forgetting that they are supposed to be impartial.
Transcript
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cbc refuses to be accountable even to the house of commons about the extent of the resources
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they are wasting manipulating the public then robbie picard joins me to discuss his
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pro oil and gas cross canada bus tour it's september 30th 2022 i'm sheila gunn reed
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you know i saw this tweet in my inbox this morning and it was very very interesting
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it's about katherine tate the head of the canadian broadcasting corporation who doesn't actually
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spend very much time in canada producing canadian content in fact since being given her role back in
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2018 tate's resided largely in brooklyn new york with her husband in a 5.4 million dollar home
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but as one of those so-called essential workers she was allowed to commute back and forth across
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the border at the same time her organization published many many screeds condemning unnecessary
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travel and maligning truckers who didn't want to get vaccinated to cross the border for their job
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as i don't know some sort of russian operatives i do ask that because uh you know given canada's
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support of ukraine in this current crisis with russia i don't know if it's far-fetched to ask but
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but there is concern that russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this as this protest
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grows but perhaps even instigating it from from the outset anyway back to that interesting tweet i
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saw in my email inbox it was from norman specter he's a former journalist former ambassador to israel
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a former federal civil servant and ironically a sometime panelist at the cbc and he tweeted out
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this article in french from le devoir katherine tate the that's the new york city residing head of the cbc
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she had invited newsroom employees to participate in a march in memory of the victims of residential
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schools this thursday despite as le devoir writes their duty of restraint written in black and white
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in the public broadcaster's journalistic standards and practices i'm not questioning the value of this
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day but from a journalistic point of view there's a clear discomfort in being invited to participate
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said an employee of the newsroom of the ottawa station who requested anonymity for fear of
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reprisal from his employer well well well there you go isn't that interesting so many interesting
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things that's definitely why we don't hear more of of people breaking ranks at cbc it's apparently not
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the sort of workplace where you can speak your mind freely to management no is it but let's keep
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reading from this le devoir article all employees of the station all sectors combined received
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an email on tuesday a copy of which was obtained by le devoir inviting them to participate in the
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orange shirt march in recognition of the national day of truth and reconciliation organized by cbc's
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indigenous offices equity and inclusion department and radio canada's diversity and inclusion department
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the event was intended to raise awareness of the legacy of residential schools and honor
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thousands of thousands of survivors i see this invitation as a lack of consideration or lack of
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understanding of journalistic work said the employee with whom le devoir spoke he recalled impartiality is
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one of the fundamental principles of journalistic standards and practices
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asked once again about inviting journalists to take sides by participating in this event
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cbc radio canada management responded through its spokesperson leon marr that journalists are an
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integral part of cbc radio canada and that this is why they receive these communications their status
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as journalists then requires them to consider our journalistic standards and practices before making
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the decision whether or not to participate in such an event so management invites them to participate in
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an event that may violate the journalistic standards and practices of impartiality then the journalists feel
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intimidated to the point where they speak out but only on the promise of anonymity what happens if they
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don't go march in this thing are they fired shamed bullied maybe who knows apparently the workplace
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environment at cbc is so toxic that you don't feel empowered to resist these sorts of things publicly when
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they violate your conscience but this all got me thinking about how cbc quietly influences the public
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in much the same manner as they overtly influence some of the free-thinking employees that remain
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there for some reason and how cbc feels emboldened to just get away with it all forgetting that they are
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supposed to be impartial because canadians from all side of the political spectrum are the ones footing the
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bills at cbc not just left-wing radicals this week an order paper question rolled across my desk and it
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speaks to just how the cbc sees itself beyond criticism to the point of defying parliamentary
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rules and at cbc they think their activism is none of the business of the people who are paying for it
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all it's activism that violates their own standards and that's fine and also not answering to parliament
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that's fine too rules are for the rest of us not friends of the liberals like the cbc this week a
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conservative mp shelby cramp newman hit a bunch of government agencies with order paper requests
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inquiring how many people are working in the social media departments at those respective agencies now
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many agencies responded for example that's how i know that the department of fisheries and oceans
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had 13 people involved in drafting a tweet reminding people not to eat lobsters that wash up on the beach
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during hurricane fiona no matter how hungry they are apparently it's illegal so federal ministries
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responded to the order paper query and order paper queries legally compel agencies to provide information
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before the house of commons within a statutory amount of time unless there's some sort of extraordinary
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circumstance preventing the information from being divulged but not the cbc when they were asked
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how many full-time employees were working at the cbc in their brainwashing i mean social media
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departments they couldn't answer that question how does any grown-up accountable company not know how
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many full-time employees are working in a specific department i mean in the private sector where you're
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beholden to the bottom line and not reliant on constant subsidies this is something that you would
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definitely know you'd have to and if your shareholders asked you for it you would indeed provide it but not
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the cbc look at this the information requested is not readily available to provide the information as
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requested the corporation would need to undertake a manual search how are these employees getting paid
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if you don't know how many of them work at the company anyway cbc then gave 14 single space pages of
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social media accounts including youtube instagram tiktok linkedin twitter and facebook that they manage
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and it's not just for the shows that nobody watches that i didn't even realize existed in many
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circumstances but it's also for the talent too on instagram 128 separate accounts are managed by the cbc on
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facebook 235 accounts are managed on twitter 208 separate accounts are managed linkedin five i suppose
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we should be grateful for the low number there on pinterest they've got nine on youtube 69 separate
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accounts there's one cbc reddit account thank goodness and then to make sure that your kids are
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sufficiently brainwashed there are two snapchat accounts from cbc and 11 tiktok accounts that they
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manage by my rough chicken scratch math i think that's close to 668 separate social media accounts
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that cbc barfs into the ether every single day each one of the people managing those accounts is fully
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funded by you but you don't get to know how many people are doing that boring obscene brainwashing work
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but that's a lot of opportunities to manipulate the narrative for cbc isn't it and if you think i'm
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exaggerating when i say manipulate the narrative i'm not cbc accused the trucker convoy of being
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russian disinformation twice and cbc had to retract those allegations twice it's a lot of social media
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accounts though to make sure the lie goes all the way around the world before the truth has time to put
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his pants on right don't you think you're entitled to know who these people are how many of them there
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are and how much they make or do you just pay for it all and shut up i know what cbc wants you to do
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if they had their way nearly 700 accounts would be the only things left on the internet telling you what
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to think and what to say and what's acceptable stay tuned for an interview i recorded with robbie
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picard from oil sands strong while he was on his cross-country pro oil sands bus tour up next after
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robbie picard from oil sands strong what are you doing here today so i'm here in red deer um i'm parked in
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parking lot and i am selling uh t-shirts hoodies and toques um and promoting the new project oil
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and gas world magazine and it has been awesome it is i've i've interviewed uh the premier jason kenney
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i've interviewed tons of other politicians and we have the first issue it's still a sample issue of
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oil and gas world magazine but it's pretty much done we have some editing to do and we're working on
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the second issue and uh it's been amazing i'm taking this uh 1977 i actually was told to call it
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a bluebird school bus that's been converted because that sounds better so it's a bluebird bus
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i'm taking it across the country on a very slow pace interviewing canadians about oil and gas
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um connecting ottawa and also hyper focusing on justin trudeau's failure to address the energy
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crisis in europe particularly germany now in red deer today this is the canada strong and free
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networking conference what's been the reception from the crowd it has been amazing um there's this
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new movement with conservatives that they feel that they have not been properly uh heard and
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represented in mainstream media and i'm surprised it's coming from all walks of life so it's nice to
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see that there's a new initiative to tell all sides of the story and i'm happy that i'm contributing in
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my small way by reaching out i've had people come up to me today quite emotional saying like they've
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i i i'm hyper focusing too not just on oil sands but uh and oil and gas but also on the communities
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that have been brutalized when they shut down the coal and i find it really odd that government
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regardless of what stripe would come in and say look we're going to shut down your industry
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promise you jobs and literally ruin your lives and then there might be a slow economic turnaround as
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you adjust but it's caused a lot of damage particularly uh you know in the parkland county region
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um so i'm finding that quite intriguing um this uh project with this magazine the digital and the
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video it's not just about ceos we'll have definitely interview everyone and we're getting all kinds of
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requests but the but it's about telling all the stories and i'm really happy to tell stories of
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regular people like me yeah you and me regular people families uh and it brings a lot of joy and
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the project's been a lot of fun it's fun i'm starting to join the bus now i went shopping i got new
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bedding for it it's a mess inside right now because i've got to kind of organize it but
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yeah i'm really enjoying it i haven't slept in it yet but i will probably start sleeping it probably
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tomorrow um and as i inch up my way through these towns so you've told me before but maybe for people
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who don't know what inspired the bus tour here so the main there's two okay so the one was when
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pierre pauliev wore uh this logo in ottawa and the carlton liberal association implied that he was a
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white supremacist implied that we were white supremacist and that really bothered me not to
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the point where i need to go and like scream and yell but i just thought like what kind of narcissistic
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douchebag loser would label an organization without even meeting them and i have like i mean all
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sand strong has you know millions of reach like one like last month we had over 37 million i can
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fight back and and people that know me though that's not true but i thought about it what if there
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was someone else who didn't know people in media couldn't fight back and and that could have
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permanently damaged their brand and that's happened like if you remember like tommy hill figure they
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said his brand was racist and he said something on oprah's show that never happened but the damage
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that that did and oprah had to come out and say no that didn't actually happen so i don't appreciate
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the privileged people of ottawa that have been that live in that recession-proof community whose
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decisions affect everyone here in alberta doing that and the other reason is kind of simple i i'm really
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enjoying taking a break and driving a bus and i want to i want to tell the stories of canadians
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uh that are not necessarily heard or listened to and provide them a platform and i like i like the
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the deep dive that i'm able to do with this magazine i can tell stories that aren't like about
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cooking and canning and family and and i want to i want to go a little deeper because i do believe that
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uh there's such a disconnect between toronto ottawa montreal and the rest of canada and sometimes
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we're completely different two different nations um so i'd like to kind of give people a voice and
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the the new thing is like uh our prime minister had a chance to once to could you imagine the i heard a
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low estimate of what would mean if we did the lng to europe and it's like a quarter of a trillion
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dollars every year i think that's low we could have probably added a trillion dollars to our economy
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and outside of our economy think about what we would contribute to world peace a hundred percent
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i mean there's all this talk about dictators uh russia putin and we could provide environmentally
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stable and they talk about like the united nations uh saying that we need to have better relations with
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our indigenous uh you know residents of the country and there's nothing better for economic
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reconciliation for indigenous people than resource development particularly the say the two first
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nations in british columbia of course fort mcmurray and across and i think that energy will provide
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that so if the united nations actually cares about the indigenous people of this country as a metis person
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i think they would double down on energy development for our country and um it like look germany is
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smarter country than we are when it comes to technology they know what green energy did they they developed
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it they did it fast and now they're going back to fossil fuels they're going back to natural gas and
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it really really suck if they have to go beg putin to get energy so they don't freeze this winter
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and um i think there's been a one good thing i think there's an energy wake-up call i think these so-called
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environmentalists are realizing there's no such thing as green energy and it's moronic to shut down
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natural gas propane fossil fuels um and i think i think there's a bit of a switch it's unfortunate
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though that our prime minister comes from second generational wealth um doesn't understand that in
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business you need to market and fight for business and uh this was an opportunity it's unfortunate that
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he was the face but i do believe that there's a fight in province-wide to make this work now you've
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mentioned brand a couple of times and the business case and you are i think systematically undoing
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just you and your little bus all the damage that the mainstream media quite frankly has inflicted on
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the reputation of oil and gas um and the green movement the foreign-funded green movement you would
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think that this is work that should have been done by deep-pocketed billion-dollar multinational
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companies who are benefiting from canadian oil and gas but they haven't really been in the fight
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it's fallen on activists like you yeah you know what and i'm not going to sugarcoat it okay uh when i
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stood up to jane fonda the amount of money that saved the industry like they should have you know a little
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bit more uh generous i mean the that triggered the premier at the time richard notley to denounce her
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visit it triggered uh the left-wing green premier exactly it also triggered um the all the indigenous
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communities in fort mcmurray to speak out against her visit she got booed at the airport they missed
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she missed her flight she wasn't welcomed and standing up to her there's not been a celebrity
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visit since i mean you can say greta but greta visit was pretty low-key and i'm proud of that i'm proud
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that we fought back um so i think that there needs to be a lot more of that and you're going to see a lot
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more of that now lastly where can people keep track of your travels because you're selling t-shirts
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to fundraise for your trip you're going to be all over the place you're going to be in small towns
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and big cities all across the country how do people find you um go to oil sandstrong.com and i'm don't
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like asking but i'm going to ask we have a 500 mystery pack which means you're going to get a
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couple big shirts probably too big for you and a bunch of other stuff you can give it a christmas
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presents we're going to unload all the shirts that we have and you contribute 500 bucks which helps pay for
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this trip which is very expensive um mostly i fund oil sandstrong through my company robbie
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card media i treat it like a client but i'm going to be trying to you know drum up a little bit more
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and we're going to hire a couple staff and then please check out oil and gas world magazine um and
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subscribe for the print edition um the online will always be free i want this to be free but if you
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want to help out it'll be uh ten dollars plus shipping a month and you get a beautiful magazine and
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some mystery shirt or something whichever we're trying to unload that month wave extra and that
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would really be helpful so if you go to our page we've set it up oil sandstrong mystery thing 500
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bucks um i don't think we're going to do a go fund me at or go give send go at this moment but we'll
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see how it goes but um it helps and we this is also i want to be very clear this is not a fast
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moving thing i'm going to inch my way along i will park in ottawa but i'm not going to i'm going to be
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hopefully we'll be interviewing parapolyev on the bus and i'm going to be talking to stories but this is a more
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of a um sort of a launch of a magazine digital slash print magazine that is going to tell the
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stories of average oil working canadians and then a little bit of fashion i've actually got a fitness
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guy in there that he's going to be teaching oil workers that work at site how to work out and we
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actually filmed the video with him like pumping weights he's gonna say this is what you should do
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on your six days off so it's not just about promoting oil it's about promoting the beauty of the
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interesting culture um i've reached out to funky banjoko who's um one of our counselors she's going
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to be talking about multiculturalism and uh i i'll be featuring uh mayor bowman um he's our mma fighting
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mayor who kicked butterbean in the head and knocked him out there's a lot of cool stuff happening great
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well friends we've come to the portion of the show where we take your viewer feedback unlike the
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highly unaccountable cbc as i alluded to in my mono actually as i proved in my mono we actually care what
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you think about the work that we're doing and we welcome your ideas and opinions on the stories that
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we cover now some of the best ways to make sure your comment gets to us is just right here that's
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why we put this up but if you leave a comment on one of our rumble videos we have mr producer and
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ms producer who go looking for those and they send them over to me or ezra as the case may be
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now the letters today on ezra's interview with our friend manny montanegrino on trudeau
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snubbing italy's newly elected female prime minister gordtron writes canada's brave leader
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has a unique taste for the democracy types he admires most yeah that's uh hinting at justin
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trudeau i think it was back in 2013 2014 he said that one of the reasons that he admires china and that
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one of the reasons china is his favorite dictatorship is their ability to turn on a dime with regard to
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going green as though china's going green and they can turn on a dime when it comes to everything because
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they don't consider the civil liberties and rights of the people of china so the government can just react
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however they want but imagine being somebody that's thought about what their favorite dictatorship
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might be i know what my favorite democracies are but i've never thought about what my favorite like
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my highest ranking dictatorship it's quite crazy uh wild bill says she scares moisture boy yeah justin
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trudeau i remember when he said um that we should avoid speaking moistly i think he should avoid
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speaking at all however yeah uh italy's new female prime minister she does scare him and that's why
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you know the the left are so quick to malign her too justin trudeau is doing his best to ignore her
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but the left is actively campaigning to label her something that i don't think she is and i'll tell
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you why i don't think she is the things that the media and the left although i'm probably repeating myself
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uh say she is and it's because she campaigned on three things god family and country now for that
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the left is calling italy's new female prime minister a fascist or a neo-fascist or a crypto-fascist
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but here's why i don't think she's a fascist although i'm willing to be wrong i'd just like to see
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evidence to the contrary two of the thing three things that she campaigned on as her central
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platform the cornerstones of her campaign are the things fascists fear the most family and god
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because any dictator whether fascist or communist they require unwavering loyalty
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or allegiance to the state whether that is ideology that compels it or fear of reprisal that compels it
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but when you have family and when you have god you have something the people are more loyal to
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always than the state it's one of the reasons why most communist dictatorships immediately scratch out
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god and replace religion with the state is because they need people without a moral compass without
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another allegiance except for that which is only only to the state keith talk says lol i don't think
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anyone with any intelligence cares what trudeau thinks the people of canada congratulate her well i mean
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yeah of course i i think more and more like as normal people we we definitely don't think trudeau
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speaks for us but at the same time he does have an obligation to speak on behalf of the government of
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canada and congratulate her and let us never forget that this is the guy who sent a glowing eulogy
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when fidel castro died the dictator of cuba so at the very least he could say something about
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you know what a great leap this would be for feminism he doesn't even have to
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thank her but he could thank feminism and i think he cares about that but he's just just so petty and
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shallow that he couldn't well everybody that's the show for tonight thank you so much for tuning in
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thank you to everybody in studio in toronto working to put the show together everybody who works behind
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the scenes to get the show to you thanks for bearing with me as i put the show together for
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ezra tonight and as ezra always says keep fighting for freedom it's the values you look at western
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values in western society and these are values we could all relate to but they're old world values
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it's a place where you can make a living with your back and your hands and a little bit of hard work
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and it's a place of opportunity and i think as albertans were fiercely protective of that
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the world's energy crisis has been grabbing newspaper headlines in a nutshell we're running short of petroleum resources
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and the prices are zooming upwards my colleagues in the government and i have come reluctantly to believe
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that the price of oil in canada must go up this was alberta origin of the alberta separatist movement
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begins with the election of pierre trudeau as prime minister it was it was a deliberate and malicious
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targeting in the west which suited pierre trudeau just fine just like it suits justin trudeau just fine
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sunny ways my friends blackface there is an actual hostile government that was alberta
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why did your dad give everyone in western canada the middle finger really in politics you do have
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to make uh big decisions and whenever you make this big decisions there's gonna be people who agree with
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it and people who don't disagree with it plenty of people want to leave this country it's not the kind
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of idea you'd expect to hear from someone who wants to win power and hold power it's a it is a radical
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idea and you would normalize the discussion and so maybe alberta wouldn't have to go because maybe the
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rest of the country and the rest of the world would say whoa don't go will you accept these changes
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instead that's what happened for for back there's no maple leafs west of the manitoba borders why do we
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why do we have a maple leaf by unilateral decision on the canadian flag think of how the american colonists
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were in 1775 that's how a lot of albertans are today