EZRA LEVANT ｜ Liberal-NDP coalition's Leah Gazan dismisses church burnings
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
151.77861
Summary
Asking a member of the Liberal Opposition to condemn church burnings is now perpetrating colonial violence. Then, Franco Teresano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins us to discuss the ballooning bureaucracy. It s July 23rd, 2023.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Asking a member of the Liberal NDP Corruption Coalition to condemn church burnings is now
00:00:06.180
perpetrating colonial violence. I'll show you the clip. Then Franco Teresano of the Canadian
00:00:11.400
Taxpayers Federation joins us to discuss the ballooning bureaucracy. It's July 23rd,
00:00:16.840
2023. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.
00:00:21.040
You fight for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!
00:00:30.000
There is no justification for burning down a church, period. Regardless of the other
00:00:42.880
information or regardless of the other justifications that people would claim to use,
00:00:53.180
there is never a justification to burn down a church. And we as conservatives have called for
00:00:58.720
stronger criminal sanctions for arson against all who carry out these attacks. We've also called for
00:01:05.340
more security infrastructure around places of worship so that we can stop terrorists who burn
00:01:10.980
down churches, who attack mosques and synagogues. Unfortunately, these crimes against religious
00:01:18.220
communities have raged out of control after eight years of Justin Trudeau's catch-and-release system,
00:01:23.480
after he has divided our country and turned people and groups against each other. We have more violence
00:01:29.220
directed against religious groups, including Christians, than we have ever seen in Canadian
00:01:35.360
history. This is the result of Justin Trudeau. He is not worth the cost, he is not worth the crime,
00:01:41.100
and he is not worth the country that we know and love. And we should provide the resources to allow for
00:01:47.000
full investigation into the potential remains at residential schools. Canadians deserve to know
00:01:58.120
the truth, and conservatives will always stand in favor of historical accuracy. None of this changes
00:02:05.600
the fact that the residential schools were an appalling abuse of power by the state and by the church at the
00:02:14.580
time. And we need to move forward in a country that is free so that every single Canadian, whether their
00:02:21.640
ancestry goes back tens of thousands of years, or whether they have been here for 10 days, has the
00:02:27.420
freedom to live their life in prosperity and happiness. Thank you. In Canada, over 100 churches have been
00:02:34.660
burned or vandalized since the so-called discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at a former
00:02:40.380
residential school site in Kamloops, British Columbia. Since 2021, we've had over 100 Christian churches
00:02:49.340
burned, vandalized, or desecrated in Canada. And sometimes when I see that, and I see the lack of
00:02:59.080
media coverage of those attacks on religious freedom, when I see that we cannot even in the House of Commons
00:03:06.760
get every party to agree on condemning those attacks on religious freedom, I think to myself,
00:03:14.840
like, yo dawg, are we like in the Truman Show or something right now? Like, it just seems so
00:03:19.720
frustrating and puzzling how you get to this point. And often, I will hear from constituents who are
00:03:27.820
concerned about it, and they'll say, express a sense of hopelessness, like, well, how do you get people to care
00:03:34.340
about this? And then I see other communities go through their own ordeals when it comes to attacks
00:03:42.080
on their religious freedom. We've seen, you know, schools and synagogues get shot at in Montreal,
00:03:50.040
or just over the weekend, we've seen the House hate-motivated attack on a Muslim family in London.
00:03:59.120
And I think to myself, well, maybe there's an opportunity for us all to work together
00:04:06.880
and draw attention to the various ways that faith communities in this country may experience
00:04:14.340
discrimination or persecution. Maybe there's an opportunity for us to build some bridges across
00:04:21.220
different religious communities in hopes that the experiences that are happening throughout this
00:04:28.000
country right now, where people feel, in many ways, afraid that they will lose their jobs by showing
00:04:34.840
that they are a person of faith, or that they will lose something, they're standing, perhaps,
00:04:41.120
in their workplace or their school for showing that they are a person of faith. That perhaps by
00:04:47.540
working together, we actually wind up being able to protect believers of all different types.
00:04:54.120
Now, I say so-called discovery because nothing has actually been discovered there. There have been
00:04:59.460
no excavations, no remains found, and we're just supposed to take everybody's word about what
00:05:04.380
happened there instead of investigating what we're being told is a large-scale murder scene.
00:05:10.600
Well, the remains of 215 children have been found in a mass grave in Canada.
00:05:16.280
Many of you know that just over a year ago, the discovery of the remains of 215 children
00:05:22.220
was found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School at the Kamloops Shaswemek First Nation.
00:05:27.560
But what if I were to show you that what I just said wasn't true, and that in fact,
00:05:34.160
a year later, not a single body has been found?
00:05:38.560
This mass grave is a painful reminder of the genocide.
00:05:44.460
Canada's leaders aren't condemning the burning of churches. No, they're endorsing the burning of churches.
00:05:49.420
A juvenile rib bone that surfaced in the same area.
00:05:52.420
You'd be surprised that a number of people who say, you know, I'm a doctor, I'm a paramedic,
00:05:57.280
and this is definitely a human bone, and it's definitely not.
00:06:05.760
Now, the misreporting of what happened in Kamloops, combined with statements of our Prime Minister,
00:06:13.760
Justin Trudeau, who clearly has a low regard for the country he governs, set off an epidemic of violence,
00:06:20.600
destruction, vandalism, and arson against Christian churches all across the country,
00:06:27.760
As you know, Ashley, we have put in place a security infrastructure program that partners with places of worship
00:06:34.420
to be able to put in cameras and security systems to keep those institutions safe from what is unfortunately a rise of intolerance
00:06:44.520
and racism and hatred that we're seeing across the country.
00:06:47.960
And certainly we will continue to roll out those funds in partnership with community centers,
00:06:53.980
religious institutions, and others that need that protection.
00:06:59.080
As I've also said, it is unacceptable and wrong that acts of vandalism and arson are being seen across the country,
00:07:13.220
One of my reflections is I understand the anger that's out there against the federal government,
00:07:21.760
It is real and it is fully understandable, given the shameful history that we're all becoming more and more aware of
00:07:30.420
and engaging ourselves to do better as Canadians.
00:07:35.320
But I can't help but think that burning down churches is actually depriving people who are in need of grieving and healing
00:07:47.040
and mourning from places where they can actually grieve and reflect and look for support.
00:07:55.700
We shouldn't be lashing out at buildings that can provide solace to some of our fellow citizens,
00:08:02.440
but we should be every day committing ourselves, each and every one of us, to the hard work we need to do
00:08:08.740
to actually rebuild a path forward that reflects the terrible intergenerational trauma
00:08:16.720
and present-day realities of suffering that we are all collectively responsible for.
00:08:23.100
Now, one of the inconvenient facts for the sympathizers like Justin Trudeau of the Church Burners
00:08:29.320
is that many of these churches are on reserve or serve Indigenous communities or Indigenous populations.
00:08:36.260
You only have to look at this handy, however horrific list of burned and vandalized churches
00:08:41.440
tabulated by our friends at True North to see just how many of these religious buildings are in Indigenous communities.
00:08:49.760
When you live in a small town where the church is the place where people gather to mark the milestones of their lives
00:08:57.100
like births, weddings, and funerals, the cultural and historic damage done to your community
00:09:03.180
when you lose your church is devastating and irreparable.
00:09:08.500
And if you're targeting churches that are on reserve to be destroyed
00:09:11.880
and you're doing it in a systemic way across the country
00:09:16.100
and then the people who operate the system, who actually are the system
00:09:23.380
if they're not treating with the significance and moral outrage
00:09:33.620
I would hear that argument every single day of the week.
00:09:38.560
that nobody really picked up on when it happened from back in June
00:09:48.660
because it's just little old me watching these committees
00:09:53.140
I don't have an army of overpaid journalists and worker bees
00:09:58.100
so I never really got back to this clip until now.
00:10:03.480
it'll be clear to you why the mainstream media didn't pick up on it
00:10:34.440
and they will say it without a shred of evidence
00:10:39.640
about the person they're accusing of these things
00:10:51.560
as you're watching this House of Commons exchange
00:11:17.520
I thank my colleague for her impassioned speech
00:11:42.520
I was just reading a report saying for instance
00:12:06.140
of cultural property in Indigenous communities.
00:13:12.420
unfounded, and obviously false claim in the House
00:13:15.300
and I think she should be called to order for that.