EZRA LEVANT ｜ Forget about trying to say “Dominion Day”. I don’t even think Canada Day will be around for long.
Episode Stats
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Summary
The flag is lowered to half-mast on Parliament Hill to honour the victims of Kristallnacht, the burning of churches, and the unmarked graves of Indigenous children who died in Canadian Indian residential schools. Ezra Levenkamp explains why.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today I give you a bit of a Canada Day show, and I talk about how cancel culture
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is replacing the liberal value of patriotism. Liberals used to fly the flag. In fact,
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they changed Canada's flag to look like they're party colors. But now they're canceling things,
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putting flags at half-mast. I don't know. I'll give you my thoughts on it, and if the battle
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is hopeless, or if there's a chance, we'll turn it around. Before I get to that, let me invite you
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to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Plus, it gives
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you access to other great shows, too. Eight bucks a month. Just go to rebelnews.com. If you buy a
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whole year in advance, it's just 80 bucks for the whole year, which is a discount. All right, here's
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Tonight, forget about trying to say Dominion Day. I don't even know if Canada Day will be around
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for long. It's July 1st, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to
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the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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It's July 1st. Some folks call it Dominion Day, which is the legal name for Canada,
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the Dominion of Canada. That's too old-fashioned, and it evokes something majestic, maybe even holy.
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So it's been changed to Canada Day, just like our flag was changed to the Pearson pennant to have
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the right Liberal Party colors, but that was a different era. Pearson may have been a globalist,
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but I think he did love Canada. Pierre Trudeau, who, like Jean Chrétien, came from Pearson's
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government, was a communist and a globalist, but I think he loved Canada in addition to loving
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China and the Soviet Union and Cuba. I think Trudeau at the least stood up for Canada. He fought
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against Quebec separatism. He fought against the United States. Maybe those were negative
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fights rather than being positively pro-Canada, but I just can't imagine that Pierre Trudeau or
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Jean Chrétien would be as hostile to the spirit of Canada as Trudeau's dullard son Trudeau has become
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Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau ordered the flag to be at half-mast on Parliament Hill today for
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Canada Day. Was it out of solidarity with the half-dozen-plus churches that have been torched
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in the last week in national crime wave of hate crimes and arson? I'm kidding, of course not. He
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hasn't even said a word about it. The flag is at half-mast not because of this Kristallnacht of
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churches, but because of unmarked graves at various former Indian residential schools in Canada,
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including some that his father, Pierre Trudeau, would have presided over when he was Prime Minister.
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Those are unmarked graves, but they're not mass graves. They're graves of children who died across
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the decades at these boarding schools, these residential schools. According to the Truth and
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Reconciliation Commission, half of these kids died from tuberculosis. A hundred years ago, life
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expectancy was much lower than it is now. Hygiene, food, health, medicine was poor,
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these schools did not have proper resources. It was not good at all. This is not 2021 news. The Truth
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and Reconciliation Committee full report went into the details of the deaths, the deaths of these
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schools at great length when they published their report in 2015. So why the cancellation of Canadian
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symbols now, six years later? Stephen Harper gave a formal apology for government's role.
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Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian
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residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter
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in our history. Trudeau never to be outdone for apologizing for someone else's sins. I've never
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actually seen Trudeau apologize for himself. Trudeau gave his apology too.
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Mr. Speaker, today, I humbly stand before you to offer a long overdue apology to the former
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students of the Lockwood School in Cartwright, the Makovic Boarding School, the Nain Boarding
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School, the St. Anthony Orphanage and Boarding School, and the Yale School in Newfoundland and
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Labrador, on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians.
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So, Truth and Reconciliation Commissioned out in 2015. Apologies from Harper and Trudeau. So why
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is the flag being lowered today? Why are Canada Day celebrations being canceled across the country?
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Why are statues of any sort and all sorts being defaced or taken down? Not just Sir John A.
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Macdonald. We're long past that. But really anyone. All statues from earlier eras that weren't woke
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enough. Weirdly, the Norman Bethune statue, you know, that collaborator with the Chinese communists,
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it's not taken down. Same with Tommy Douglas and his statue. There's a lot to quarrel with with Tommy
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Douglas. He was for eugenics back when the Nazis were making that vogue. He wrote his university
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thesis on sterilizing people who were subhuman. And he wasn't too woke on gays.
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If ever we needed in this country to adopt a new attitude to homosexuality, this is the time.
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Instead of treating it as a crime and driving it underground, we ought to recognize it for what
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it is. It's a it's a mental illness. It's a psychiatric condition, which ought to be treated
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sympathetically, which ought to be treated by psychiatrists and social workers. And of course,
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there's Pierre Trudeau, the master of these residential schools. Why aren't his Trudeau
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statues being taken now? I wonder why those leftist icons aren't being smashed.
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I suspect it's because conservatives generally don't try to smash history.
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Conserve history, maybe learn from it, but smash it doesn't sound conservative. There's no perfect
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country in the world, by the way. I think I criticize Canada more than most people do.
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But the alternative to Canada isn't some fantasy utopia. It doesn't exist. It's one of the 200 other
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countries in the world. What's better? Which place is better? I like a lot of things about America,
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by the way. But if you're worried about residential schools and the treatment of Indians on
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reserve, I don't think you'll prefer America's history with Aboriginal people. They have a whole
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history called the Indian Wars. You might want to learn about that. This is an actual mass grave
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at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Don't read that story if you're hard of if you have a soft
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constitution. I should tell you, Aboriginal people haven't fared much better anywhere in the
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Americas either. If it's a slave history you're worried about, interested in, concerned about,
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know that Canada banned the slave trade well over 200 years ago. We were part of the British Empire
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that literally sent Navy ships to intercept and free slave ships for half a century, rescuing
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countless thousands. Tell me a continent that hasn't had slavery, going back to the beginning of
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recorded history from Egypt to China to Africa to Rome to Greece to the Mongols. There was quite a
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bit of slavery in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus, I might add. So I don't think it's
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enough to tear down or to hate. Show me your alternative. Show me a perfect society. There is no such
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place. Utopia is a word that literally means no place. It's an impossible state of perfection.
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dystopia. Now that's easier to find, isn't it? I note that most people who are tearing things down
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in Canada seem to be people who take things for granted. I'm pleased to say from my own personal
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observation that people who come here as immigrants usually have a sense of gratitude about being here,
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or if not gratitude towards Canadians or Canada itself, they're just glad to be out of where they
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came from. It's woke white liberals, typically in academic or other luxurious professions who've
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dreamed up this anti-Western ideology. My worry is that they are quickly indoctrinating otherwise
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grateful immigrants to Canada to have a sense of grievance against our own country, like the woke
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professors themselves have. They're training these newcomers in the most Western of traditions,
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self-hate. I'm worried about that. I even see it in Cabin. I put Trudeau, Justin Trudeau,
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as one of these fancy, luxurious self-haters. He's had all the privileges and benefits of society,
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but he hates society. You know, Ahmed Hassan, the cabinet minister, Trudeau cabinet minister,
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he doesn't let a week go by when he doesn't condemn Canadians as racist, hate mongers. He really
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is the worst, even though we saved his life. He came here as a refugee fleeing Somalia. We saved his
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life, so he says. But he hates us and says so every week or so, but he wasn't always that way.
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Here is a clip of Ahmed Hassan before he even became an MP, and he said something that was amazing.
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He said it's better to be Muslim in Canada than in any other Muslim country. Take a look.
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The fact lost on many Muslims, including Canadian Somalis, that it is countries like the United
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States and Canada that guarantee human rights and religious freedoms that we can actually practice
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our faith best in these sorts of environment. The civil rights of our community members must be
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protected, but obviously it's also equally important to disseminate these integration-friendly messages
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in order to contribute to a process where our communities emphasize the defense and attachment
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to the countries of Canada and the United States.
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That's the love, or at least the gratitude, or at least the honesty about Canada that I think many
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newcomers have, until it's beaten out of them by politicians and activists and professors, or until
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Trudeau says, no, no, no. We can make a real go of this division under lines of race and sex.
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Trouble is, as we rush to tear down so many things, we forget how hard it was to build them up in the
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first place. I sometimes think about how easy it is to break something like a light bulb, compared to
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how hard it would be to make something like a light bulb, and how many centuries and generations went
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into conceiving it and perfecting it. How hard was it to build a liberal democratic society like ours?
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Rule of law, high trust, honesty, hard work, property rights, safety, happiness, property, upward mobility,
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meritocracy. How hard? How many generations toiled? How many wars fought to give us what we have now?
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And I'm talking about going back even before Canada was around, going back to the bag of the cart even
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before that. Now, because we've had two generations of luxury and ease, we've forgotten that.
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So we're happy to trade it away so cheaply, to give away so easily what was won so hard.
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Now, we're not lost yet. Trudeau benefits from hating Canada. So does the media. So do many paid
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lobbyists. So do many brainwashed students. But so far, normal people are still normal.
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They don't hate Canada or themselves yet. But it's possible to teach a country to hate itself.
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We're far down the road. Teach a country to hate itself once it does, it generally doesn't last long.
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But we're not past the turning point yet. Stay with us for more.
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Almost every day, another church in Canada is burnt to the ground, or at least vandalized.
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I think we're over half a dozen now across the country, some on Indian reserves, some
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in cities, some in the middle of almost nowhere. One thing in common, they're churches and they're
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being attacked. Well, who could be fomenting an anti-church drumbeat right now? Well, Justin Trudeau
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himself demanding that the Pope come to Canada and apologize for Indian residential schools
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that were ruled, authorized, and paid for by the government of Canada itself.
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By the way, his own father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister for many of those years.
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Now, as you know, Stephen Harper made a formal public apology on behalf of the government of Canada.
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And Justin Trudeau did the same again several years later.
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However, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was a seven-year, multi-million dollar
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enterprise that made a lot of lawyers and bureaucrats rich. I'm not sure if it helped
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ordinary Aboriginal people. It actually had a whole volume on the children of these residential
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schools and mentioned in great detail the nature of the deaths, the cause of the deaths,
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tuberculosis being the leading one. I believe that malnutrition and lack of resources and lack of
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medicine was a serious contributing factor to the tuberculosis deaths of these kids. I also know that
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a hundred years ago, public health is not what it is today. I'm not downplaying the deaths of these
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children. I'm simply pointing out that it is not a shocking surprise in 2021. They've been known about
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for many years and documented in hundreds of pages in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Why
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is Justin Trudeau deciding now to pull down the flag on Canada Day? Well, after nearly a week of
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silence on the burning churches, he made a statement, and if you time it yourself, you'll see that he dealt
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with these six, seven burnt churches in 16 seconds flat. Here, take a listen.
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Hey, I also want to talk about the arson and vandalism we're seeing across the country
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targeted at Catholic churches. This is not the way to go. The destruction of places of worship
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is unacceptable, and it must stop. It's not the way to go. Well, you're telling him there,
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it's not the way to go, man. It's just not the way to go. And then he immediately pivots
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and says, well, we have to address your underlying grievance. Could you imagine
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any other religion, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, if not one, not two, three, four, five,
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six, seven, were torched in a spree if Trudeau would have remained silent for a week and then
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spoken for 16 seconds and saying, it's not the way to go, man, but I'll address your grievances.
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That is a crime wave. It's a hate crime wave. And I can assure you that if it were in another
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religion, Trudeau would call it a terrorist crime wave. Well, joining us now is one of our favorite
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people, Drea Humphrey, our West Coast reporter who actually went to Kamloops and Osoyoos to talk to
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people on reserve and to investigate the site of two of these church burnings. Trudeau, great to see
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you. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad the work you're doing going right onto the reserve. So
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much of the reporting on these stories is done from Toronto or maybe from Vancouver, but not on the
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ground. We enjoyed your in-depth broadcast about the Kamloops story that set off this new series of
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stories. Can you tell us what you saw when you went to visit two of these burnt churches in the BC
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interior in recent days? Well, it was quite eye-opening. What we wanted to figure out was
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exactly what did these churches mean to the community? Because you could see anything from
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people on Twitter sort of justifying it and the silence from, you know, politicians, our leaders,
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was almost deafening. So we went and the first one we went to was located in Oliver, BC. And it was
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one by a grave site. You could see that, you know, the Indigenous community had been using it for
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funerals and things like that. But we had heard that it wasn't used even prior to life with COVID-19.
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It was sort of just abandoned. But it is historical, as are many of the churches that have been burnt.
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Then we went to the Sacred Heart location, which is in Penticton. Now, this one was in fact being used
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before COVID-19. And the hereditary chief there, Chief Adam, he told us that there was actually
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discussion about whether or not it was going to open now that people are allowed to gather as well.
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And it was attended to by Indigenous Christians.
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Well, that's what's so obvious when I was watching some of your footage. And I know you put together
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a wonderful documentary. By the time this show airs, I think we'll have released it.
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Who, I mean, I would say to Toronto dwellers, big city dwellers, who do you think is using these
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churches in 2021 that are on reserve and near reserve, other than Indigenous people, including
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Indian band members? It's a place for your cycle of life events, a birth, a death, a wedding, a
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celebration. There's daycares nearby. There's fields. There's so many things. It's the center
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Let's just play a short clip of some of the local Indian band members you spoke to who spoke quite
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emotionally about the church. Here's one man, and tears were brought to his eyes when he talked,
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when he was talking about how much he loved that church. Here's a clip from your recent trip there.
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My mama got married. I loved that church. I loved it. And I don't like seeing it all pile of crap.
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I hope they rebuild or do something. Man, everyone got married and buried in that church. Everybody.
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Everybody. Right from my grandpas, my uncles, my aunts. It was a good place for me.
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I thought that was a very touching moment. And even those who criticize the Catholic religion
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and criticize residential schools, and I can understand both of those criticisms,
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they loved the church. It was part of their community. It was built by them and it was run by them.
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Well, you know, I can't help but make the parallel to the Black Lives Matter riots
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when the death of George Floyd happened. There was a vast majority, a consensus that, you know,
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having your knee on someone's neck for eight minutes is disgusting. It's shameful. We all thought it was
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wrong. And then yet, instead of just moving forward with that, we start to see riots happening in Black
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owned communities, Black businesses, Black houses being damaged. And I feel like that's what's
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happening here as well. On the First Nation reserve land, in the middle of summer, in a desert-like
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atmosphere where Indigenous families live right next door to that church, someone's setting them fire.
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And that's where, as we're told from the people that we interviewed, that's where, you know,
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their grandparents willingly went to church, their uncles, their aunts, that's where they had to go
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when they were young. And there were good memories at that Sacred Heart church. And the priest was
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Yeah. That's a great analogy is how does burning down a Black-owned business in a Black part of town
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help Black Lives Matter? How does burning down the center of the community in a reserve help the
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local members? I think it's atrocious what's happening. I don't know who's behind it. I want
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to let our viewers know that we've set up a very small website called findthearsonist.com. It's
00:21:03.840
probably more than one person, frankly. But findthearsonist.com. And I've put up a $10,000
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bounty for information leading to his arrest. And I'm not going to crowdfund that money. I'm not going
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to use rebel money for it. I'm just going to put up my own dough. I didn't tell my wife,
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Drea, before I decided to do that. So don't tell her I've done this. But I'm serious. I'm so upset by
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this, by what's happening. But I have to tell you, as much as I'm upset for these churches being burnt,
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which is terrible. I'm upset about how tepid the reaction to it is from everyone who's supposed to
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be on guard, from the police and from Justin Trudeau and his 16 seconds of, hey, guys, that's not the
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way, man. And I just feel like if this were a mosque, you would have the anti-terrorism squad on it. You
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would have the RCMP. You would have the National Day of Emergency or something. I don't know. It just
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would be treated like a crime wave that it is. It's barely mentioned by Trudeau for 16 seconds. And I don't
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Well, not to mention the 16-second mention, but it took, I believe, eight churches to go up in flame
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turning to say anything. I mean, that's insane. You know, one, it could be circumstantial. Maybe two,
00:22:24.820
two, it's hot out. But eight, it takes us that long to hear from our prime minister.
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You know, Sheila Gunn-Reed, our colleague, made a remark on Twitter I thought was pithy.
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She said, maybe we can take some of these police that are on mask patrol and maybe put them on to
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guarding some churches. I think she was actually referring to the cops who were seizing the Grace
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Life Church in Edmonton. How about protecting some churches instead of prosecuting them? That's how it
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used to be. Dre, I want to say I'm really thrilled about the work you've been doing on Reserve. One
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of my favorite things about how Rebel News has been operating in the last few years is that we have a
00:23:05.300
real bias towards going there. Sure, we give our opinions from our studios or from our homes or
00:23:10.680
whatever. But so often when there's a story, we fly there, we drive there, we interview real people.
00:23:17.120
And one of our mottos is follow the facts wherever they lead. And in your work, I think we got a full
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story. People who have mixed memories about the residential schools. They love certain memories of
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it and others were terrible. But the only person in all of your reports that I saw that was happy
00:23:39.220
about the burning was some woke white woman who sort of said, that's karma. So she was fine burning down
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an aboriginal church to show her solidarity with aboriginal people. It wasn't surprising me that
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the one woke white liberal you spoke with was the one person who was happy with things. I thought that
00:23:57.320
was just telling. Last word to you, Drea. Well, you know, we're obviously going to be following this
00:24:03.820
story closely. And I just want to say what an honor it is to be part of the Rebel team that is, you know,
00:24:09.640
giving a voice when no one wants to give a voice about churches burning, places of worship burning in
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Canada. So it helps me be able to sleep that night.
00:24:20.120
Well, I'm very glad to hear you say that. And I feel like it's a special mission for Rebel News. I'm a Jew
00:24:26.860
myself, as people know. But I feel like, I mean, I think back, whenever I go to the Holocaust Museum in
00:24:34.240
Israel, there's a garden called the, for the righteous Gentiles. That's a phrase that's used for the
00:24:42.000
Christians who saved Jews. Some of them saved just one. Some like Oscar Schindler saved a great number. And that
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always left a deep impression on me. And I'm not comparing the burning of eight churches to the Holocaust. But
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there is a parallel. The demonization of churches first comes burning the buildings, then comes burning
00:25:04.660
the people. I mean, there was a Kristallnacht in 1938, the night of the broken glass. And I feel like
00:25:11.180
we need to stand up for Christians who are being persecuted. Sometimes we find it easier to do that
00:25:18.320
when they're being persecuted in China or Iraq. But surely we should be just as vocal when it's
00:25:25.740
happening in our own country. So I'm glad you're out there on the ground doing that reporting. And I
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believe it's important, not only that we report, but I really do want to catch someone. I'm hoping
00:25:36.580
that a $10,000 reward is enough to make someone say, you know what, I'll take the cash. I'm going to,
00:25:42.500
I'm going to turn in someone who did it. Hopefully, maybe someone who was involved in it. Maybe there's
00:25:47.400
no honor among thieves. Maybe someone will turn in, you know, his buddy who did it. I just hope someone
00:25:54.360
stops it because it looks like it's speeding up. Anyhow, that's enough from me. But Drea,
00:25:59.780
great work from you. And I look forward to all of our viewers watching your on the ground reports
00:26:06.680
from the BC interior. So thanks, my friend. Thanks, everyone. All right. There you have it.
00:26:12.360
Drea Humphrey, who, of course, is one of our star journalists based in Vancouver,
00:26:16.340
has been doing excellent work on Indian reserves in recent weeks. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:26:24.360
Well, it's Canada Day or Dominion Day. I don't know what Trudeau would propose to call it. Black
00:26:36.880
Lives Matter Day, or I don't know, More Day, or let's just celebrate Justin Trudeau Day. I don't
00:26:42.400
know. He's got a vanity we haven't seen since, well, the previous Trudeau. And he smashed a lot of
00:26:48.860
icons in this country. He destroyed a lot of institutions. I think Justin Trudeau picked up
00:26:54.680
that narcissism and nihilism from his dad. But we're not done yet as a country. I think things
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are bad. The lockdown made everything worse. But it's not time to give up yet. We still got to fight
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in us. Canada, by the way, is more than just its government, too, I should say. That's our show for
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today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,