EZRA LEVANT ｜ Never-ending media bailouts hinted at in exclusive Heritage Department briefing notes
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Summary
RebelInvestigates has access to documents from the Ministry of Truth. They reveal the government's plan to bail out local media outlets. But what happens when the money is used to hire climate change journalists? And why is it being used to counter climate change journalism?
Transcript
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Tonight, an exclusive Heritage Department access to information briefing note titled
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Approaches for Online News Publisher Renumeration, and in that somebody accidentally told the
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It's May 5th, 2022, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.
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I have my hands on some Canadian Ministry of Truth documents.
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These are some briefing notes, what they call advice to the minister prepared by ministerial
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staff that we filed for through access to information on the government's media bailout.
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The majority of these documents are from way back in 2020, so just a couple of years ago.
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We wanted to dig deeper, especially after seeing this report from our friends over at True
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North on just one small portion of the series of media bailouts, which are estimated to be
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Media executives who were given control of a federal grant program for the journalism sector
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According to Blacklock's reporter, media executives sitting on the local journalism initiative judging
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panel have approved their own organizations for grants to hire new employees.
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Start-up news outlets were not allowed to apply for grants.
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The $50 million local journalism initiative was created by Heritage Canada back in 2019,
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with control given to organizations within the press industry.
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Several managers of prominent mainstream news outlets sit on the judging panel.
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One panel member is the Winnipeg Free Press publisher Bob Cox.
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The Free Press was awarded grants to hire two new reporters, including a climate change correspondent.
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We will tell stories that need to be on the public record from around the province.
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We will do it where the permafrost is melting, the Free Press wrote on its application to the
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Now, in case you were wondering why you see so much climate change journalism now completely
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shoehorned into your local newspaper, well, this is why.
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Some of the bailouts for local news were used to hire journalists to scare your community
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into caring about something no one really does by saturating the news ether with so many stories
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about the glories of a carbon tax that you finally just capitulate and give in.
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Anyway, let's keep going from this article in True North.
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Cox, who chaired the newspaper lobby's pursuit of a bailout from the federal government, told
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MPs in 2019 that the push for federal support was not for his own interest.
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These measures have been called a bailout by some.
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I would suggest this crowd knows very little about the business of operating a newspaper,
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There has also been the suggestion newspapers will be beholden to the federal government,
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not independent, and more likely to give favorable coverage.
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Well, Bob Cox, even the bureaucrats writing advice to the minister in the documents I have
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were sounding alarm bells that the media bailouts would contaminate media coverage.
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I think that might actually be the point of these bailouts to contaminate the coverage.
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Now, let's look at the documents I have a little closer and we'll publish them all for
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you in full so you can look at them for yourself.
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They are as much your documents as they are mine.
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And that's because we only have access to them through your generous crowdfunding donations
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at our special investigative journalism website, rebelinvestigates.com.
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We can see the government's definitions of terms like online platforms, news publishers, and
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To them, news publishers are persons that produce news content for making available in some format,
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But as you know, they are prickly about giving us that distinction.
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News content is factually based information on or account of recent or important events
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Again, something they are remiss to say that we do here at Rebel News.
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Misinformation, according to the government, is false or inaccurate information that is communicated
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Now, I think we used to just call that being wrong on the internet before being wrong was made
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Being defined as wrong according to the government is misinformation, even if, as they say here,
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Even if you didn't actually mean to disagree with the government.
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Now, that, disagreeing with the government, is worthy of censorship and more regulations.
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Misinformation also amounts to asking good questions the government doesn't want you to ask.
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Remember our exchange with Alexa Lavoie and Justin Trudeau here.
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Donc, M. Trudeau, je vais revenir rapidement sur ce qui s'est passé hier.
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Vous avez déabolisé l'un des rares médias qui ne reçoit pas d'argent du gouvernement.
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Vous avez exprimé votre opinion en disant que nous propageons la désinformation.
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Si c'était vrai et si c'était le cas, la Cour fédérale ne nous aurait pas permis d'être ici aujourd'hui.
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Je suis moi-même scientifique et je me base sur les faits.
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L'Israël est l'un des pays les plus vaccinés au monde.
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Ils sont rendus maintenant à leur quatrième rappel de vaccin.
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Ils ne considèrent plus que ceux qui ont reçu deux doses de vaccin sont pleinement vaccinés.
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Ma question est, plusieurs Canadiens ne désirent pas avoir un rappel de vaccin.
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Allez-vous enlever leurs privilèges reliés au passeport vaccinal?
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Et aurez-vous l'obligence de répondre à ma question en tant que premier ministre?
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J'ai partagé ma perspective sur ton organisation hier soir.
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OK, back into these documents, let's look at page 56.
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We see some interesting comments that are partially blurred out along the side of the document,
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They're editing the document here in real time,
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including someone here who obviously doesn't really want to progress in their career with the federal government
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We know how the federal government feels about truth-tellers, don't we?
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Anyway, this person, God help them in their career,
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is raising concerns that the imposition of a levy on linking to news articles,
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as is now proposed in Bill C-18, that's the Online News Act,
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which has a clause in it that requires social media companies
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to pay for merely facilitating news access, linking to news access.
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Well, this person feels that it could undermine negotiations
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and they also raise concerns that the incentives could prevent certain media outlets
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from receiving the market correction they so rightly deserve from the public
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for being awful and bad at the thing they exist to do, you know, journalism.
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They're worried, this person, that it would artificially, quote, artificially,
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structure the marketplace and create, quote, perverse incentives.
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Now, that's a pretty strong phrase, but it's accurate and true.
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It's the exact thing that Bob Cox from the Winnipeg Free Press
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When he wants to make us believe that the good people,
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for example, in Lynn Lake, Manitoba, population 674 care more deeply
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about the environment more so than the local nickel mine
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But the warnings from that one truth-telling bureaucrat,
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You know, the one person that said these bailouts and freebies
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would pervert the news marketplace and skew the media landscape
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You know, that's the whole point, to artificially skew the landscape
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In these documents, it also reads that the digital economy
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does not provide the same support for journalism
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at an ever-increasing merry-go-round of media subsidies.
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It's here on page 57, and this is how we know more bailouts are coming.
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There's a comment on the side asking if the funding already being provided,
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$1.2 billion plus for the CBC, and at the time of this briefing note,
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$170 million in direct subsidies to the media and different CRT supports.
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This person is asking if these, all of this, are sufficient and appropriate,
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and they're asking if the money already provided is the right calibration.
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Franco Turizano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins us after the break.
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Canadian families are being hammered by record inflation,
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and you know what the Liberal solution to all of this is?
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They gave the Senate a raise, and they sort of did it without anybody really knowing.
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It needs some of the details filled in, so we called in a bit of an expert.
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We called in Franco Turizano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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Franco, tell us what's going on here, because I read this, and I think, you know,
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families are just being pinched through inflation that is being just driven by the Liberals' bad policies
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through hikes in the carbon tax, through their out-of-control spending.
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And instead of, you know, dealing with reality and maybe forcing the politicians and the Senators
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to live within some of that reality that Canadian families are supposed to deal with,
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Well, what's really happening is another slap in the face to struggling taxpayers.
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High level, you're going to see some Senators take anywhere from about $20,000 in a raise
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all the way up to an extra $42,000, and here's why.
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Right now, the Senate formally recognizes two different types of group,
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the government and the opposition in the Senate,
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and the leaders of those two groups get what's called a leader allowance,
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But now, under this new bill, what is going to happen is you're going to have
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more smaller caucus groups, and each leader of the caucus group
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will now get a pay raise of between $21,000 and an extra $42,000.
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Now, that number in and of itself, that's a big pay raise.
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But what we have to remember is the context of all this,
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because who's going to pay for those big raises?
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And it's taxpayers that have struggled through two years of revolving government lockdowns,
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that have struggled through pay cuts, that have struggled through job losses,
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So, as I said at the beginning, this really feels like a slap in the face to struggling taxpayers.
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Yeah, you know, there's been stay-at-home work orders,
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A lot of them were not traveling, were not going to work.
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A lot of them were working from home, doing, frankly, in my opinion, less work than ever.
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because they're independent senators who so often vote along the government lines,
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This is, as you say, a slap in the face to normal people who are just trying to make ends meet,
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while the Liberals are bringing in increases to everything, especially through the carbon tax.
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Yeah, they like to call themselves nonpartisan,
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but really what they are is unelectable and unaccountable.
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But, Sheila, this really fits the bigger issue with what's going on in Ottawa.
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Because let's remember, it's not just some senators that are getting pay raises,
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these new leaders of these small caucus groups.
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All senators have already taken three pay raises during the pandemic,
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just like all members of Parliament have already taken three pay raises during the pandemic.
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And it is a shocker, because there is no way that the people who are supposed to be our representatives
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in Ottawa deserve three pay raises during a pandemic.
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with the printing press on overdrive that is fueling inflation.
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And while their constituents have struggled with pay cuts, job losses, business losses,
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they've taken pay raise after pay raise after pay raise.
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If you look at the three pay raises that have happened during the pandemic,
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well, in total, members of Parliament are now collecting more than $10,000 more than they were pre-COVID,
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while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now collecting more than $20,000 more than he was pre-COVID.
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It's unfair, and they need to give these pay raises back.
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Now, it sort of came to be in a bit of a sneaky way,
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and it didn't make it through the House of Commons.
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So now they stuck this in the budget implementation bill,
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So the average person wouldn't even think to go looking for it.
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It's sort of left up to organizations like the CTF,
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who do the dirty work of digging down in these big budget bills.
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because this is in the budget implementation bill.
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And remember, the budget is a few hundred pages long, right?
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like the massive deficit that's more than $50 billion,
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like the fact that the government has no timeline or plan to balance the budget,
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like the fact that the debt is more than a trillion dollars
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So taxpayers are already digesting on these other huge macro issues within the budget,
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and buried within these few hundred pages of the budget implementation bill
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is this sneaky little pay raise that is going to see some senators getting an extra $21,000
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it's not all that much money when you talk about the just enormity of the debt and deficit.
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Why it's so important, and it actually is a really big deal,
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is because you're seeing politicians in Ottawa,
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you're seeing senators in Ottawa become financially divorced
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from the people that they're supposed to represent.
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And that's why you're getting such bad policies out of Ottawa,
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because they're not impacted the same way everyone else is by their own decisions, right?
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Many of the people within government who are pulling the levers around lockdowns
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or other types of restrictions, they didn't lose a payday.
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When they raise the carbon tax, when they raise booze taxes,
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Well, they are not really impacted to the full extent of these higher taxes,
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of this inflation, because they continue to give themselves raise after raise after raise.
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Now, Franco, I want to ask you, because I think the last time that we talked,
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or you talked with Rebel News, you were on your tour with the debt clock.
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What was the reception like for you as you pulled your debt clock into small towns
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Because just, you know, you get dizzy watching that number go up and up and up and up.
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It gives you, like, anxiety watching it go up, knowing that not only are you going to be paying for it,
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your children are going to be paying for it, your grandchildren are going to be paying for it.
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Well, yeah, we just finished our national debt clock tour.
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We went coast to coast, started in Victoria, and then we also went right to Halifax.
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And on the time that we were on the road for about a month and a half,
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the debt went up by $8 billion, so absolutely eye-watering.
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And that was the main reaction that we got, was a shock value,
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seeing the $1 trillion debt going up by about $1,600 a second.
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A lot of people were like, hey, when are we ever going to see the clock start to go down?
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But there's also two very important things that we heard from Canadians in small towns and big cities.
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Number one was they're worried about the financial future they're leaving to their kids and grandkids.
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Right now, each Canadian is already on the hook for more than $30,000 in federal debt.
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And that number continues to go up and up and up.
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And people are worried that they're not setting up their future generations for financial success.
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And Sheila, the second thing that we heard is that people feel like they have lost a sense of control,
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like they've lost a sense of being able to actually hold their politicians and government bureaucrats accountable.
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Yeah. And, you know, I guess to some extent, you're sort of scared to hold the politicians to account
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because they might emergencies act you and seize your bank account,
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as we've seen the liberals do with convoy protesters.
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But before I let you go, let people know how they can support the work that the Taxpayers Federation does,
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because you are really just, to some extent, a bit of a mom-and-pop shop up against the full levers of the government.
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Well, thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.
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Please head over to taxpayer.com. You can check out our newsroom.
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And again, just want to say thank you again for having me on today.
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You've got it. Thank you so much for the work that you do, not just for Canadians,
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but for generations of subsequent Canadians who will be paying for the Liberals' out-of-control spending.
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Stay with us. Your letters to Ezra up next, after the break.
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This brings us to the portion of the show where Ezra reads his fan mail, his hate mail,
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your letters, questions, and comments to him, unlike the mainstream media.
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You know, I want to stop and address this one right here,
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because we saw this firsthand with Tara Henley when she left the CBC.
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She left, and when she left, she wrote a Substack article explaining that CBC screens their guests
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for diversity to make sure that they have the right people being interviewed that check the right demographic boxes.
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So at CBC, they don't really care what you say or what your opinions are.
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They just want to make sure that you fall into the right category of human beings so that they can show you that they've checked all the demographic boxes
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So that's one of the things that I am most proud of here at Rebel News as it's that we protect our journalists when somebody assaults them.
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We make sure that we do our best to hold that person to account, no matter what the cost.
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When I was punched at the Women's March a few years ago by an out-of-control male feminist named Dionne Bewes,
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we pursued him criminally, and then we pursued him civilly.
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And it cost much more to pursue him civilly than we received in judgment.
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But it was so important to hold him to account in every single way possible.
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And I know that that's not just something that Ezra did for me.
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It's something that we do for all of our staff.
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Thank you to Olivia behind the board for putting the show together.
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Thank you to everybody behind the scenes at Rebel News World Headquarters
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and who works remotely from all across the country for making sure the show is available for you to watch.
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We've got a video of the day, a carefully curated video of the day for you to watch.
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And as Ezra always says, keep fighting for freedom.
00:22:24.580
The local elections in the United Kingdom are set to kick off on Thursday, the 5th of May,
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where the Conservatives, according to polls, are projected to potentially lose a lot of council seats,
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with many people feeling like either the system doesn't work,
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the Conservatives aren't actually conserving anything,
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and a Labour government wouldn't make much difference at all.
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and today I'm outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, England,
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where the local elections in the United Kingdom are set to begin on the 5th of May.
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Voters who have registered will be able to cast their ballot on who they want to run,
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the London Borough Council's District Councils.
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A quick, scary fact for everyone that's outside of the United Kingdom.
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Scotland and Wales' voting age was reduced recently to 16 years of age.
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Someone as young as 16 can rock up to a voting booth and vote,
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and they most likely haven't even finished their GCSEs.
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The vote is projected for Boris Johnson to take major losses in the council seats,
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with even talks of Conservative councillors defecting.
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The most prominent headlines that spring to mind at the minute are of that of Partygate,
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where during the height of lockdown, the Prime Minister hosted drinks and parties,
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whilst the public weren't even allowed to see friends or family.
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The police force was out fining innocent people for wanting to keep their businesses running.
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Myself and my colleague Lincoln even covered a story where a man drove to the seaside with his wife,
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let's not forget about the leader of the opposition,
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who has now called off more investigations because it turns out he was having a party during the height of lockdown
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where Tory MP Neil Parrish was caught looking at pornography by his colleagues,
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bringing a whole new meaning to mass debate in the House of Commons.
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He, on the other hand, says that he was actually searching for tractors.
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Many of the Tory female colleagues are dubbing this incident as misogynistic.
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Whilst once again, without getting sidetracked,
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Angela Rayner of the opposition was actually accused by Tory MPs
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that she used a basic instinct style ploy to distract Boris Johnson by crossing her legs.
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She, of course, says that these claims are false, misogynistic and desperate perverted smears
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However, recordings have actually come to the surface of Angela laughing
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and joking about this type of action back in January.
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It's now later revealed that an inquiry was set up to find the source of this story
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and turns out the source was actually Angela Rayner.
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Turns out that Angela Rayner actually propagated the story.
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Priti Patel and her colleagues are dubbing the Rwanda scheme a success.
00:26:12.880
Meanwhile, a reporter come out at The Times recently
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where only 2% of illegal migrants that make the journey
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With 11 days of no activity in the English Channel due to, you guessed it, bad weather,
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between the 1st and 2nd of May, the Border Force, Hurricane Deck Boats and others
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have offered themselves as a taxi service to approximately over 500 illegal migrants into the country.
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I was right to be sceptical, of course, about this plan.
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Meanwhile, Keir Starmer seems to be just avoiding the issue altogether.
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I've not heard a single sensible solution from him or his Labour Party members at all.
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How much immigration is too much if they want open borders?
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How can you even justify the sustainability of it
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if we're caught up in the worst cost of living crisis,
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a supply chain crisis and the worst standards of living since the 1950s?
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I wonder if Keir Starmer is even interested in putting the interests of the British people first.
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I also understand that a lot of people feel like this system is set up for people like me and you to fail
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when you have people that are supposed to be in charge of the country
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that simply are out of touch with what the British people believe in.
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who openly admit that they penetrate the cabinets of world governments
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to influence them on legislation under the guise of a sustainable future.
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What we are very proud of now is the young generation
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like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on,
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I know that half of this cabinet or even more half of this cabinet
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are for our actually young global leaders of the world.
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If you were in a casino and you knew the tables were rigged
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so the house always won, would you bother gambling?
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And I completely understand why he thinks this.
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And I sympathise with his viewpoint completely.
00:28:51.060
I must say, however, with gambling, you could lose everything,
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which in turn could affect your marriage, your children, your parents,
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Whereas with voting, you haven't got anything to lose in my view.
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And wouldn't that be something the WEF would benefit from?
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Fewer votes in independent parties with no pushback
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who are essentially two cheeks from the same arse.
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Lastly, I would never ever tell you who to vote for.
00:29:32.720
The right to vote and the right to choose when voting is essential.
00:29:37.440
So, of course, it is definitely something to think about.
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If you enjoy my honest boots-on-the-ground journalism,