This week on The Ezra LeVant Show, host Ezra Levenant visits his alma mater, The Western Standard, to talk about censorship in Canada. He's joined by the editor of the now-defunct Western Standard and a former editor-in-chief of the magazine.
00:08:19.240I'm terrified already, but let me read a little bit to you.
00:08:22.900The Canadian government plans to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in search results and when used to prioritize the display of content on search engines and social media services.
00:08:33.240So, the Canadian government is going to get involved with what news gets boosted and what news gets hidden when you do searches.
00:08:43.240Trudeau is going to get involved and regulate that.
00:08:46.660Gee, what do you think he's going to do?
00:08:48.500Let me read a little bit more from Michael Geist's article.
00:08:50.640The regulation plans are revealed in a letter from ISED Minister François-Philippe Champagne to the Industry Committee studying Bill C-27, the Privacy Reform and AI Regulation Bill.
00:09:04.660The government is refusing to disclose the actual text of planned amendments to the bill.
00:09:53.600The government bank from the People's Republic of China.
00:09:57.300Who would go to the Communist Party's bank and borrow money from a foreign government for a mortgage and keep it when you become an MP and keep it when you become a cabinet minister?
00:10:12.680Now I think I know where François-Philippe Champagne is getting his ideas for AI spying on people.
00:10:20.360He is hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:10:23.580Anyhow, so let me get back to the article.
00:10:25.260Well, Michael Geist outlines seven different things that AI will do that is being regulated.
00:10:31.940Okay, some of the regulations are being modeled after the European Union.
00:10:35.960Okay, I suppose, although they don't seem to love liberty as much over there.
00:11:35.420The use of an artificial intelligence system in matters relating to, A, the moderation of content that is found on an online communications platform, including a search engine and a social media service.
00:11:50.260Or, B, the prioritization of presentation of such content.
00:11:56.620So the first one is moderating comments.
00:11:58.940Can you imagine an artificial intelligence system that searches maybe for words like Trump or Pauliev or Daniel Smith or Alberta or Freedom or Trucker Convoy or Tamara Leach or Rebel News?
00:12:13.420Can you imagine an AI system, a hunter-killer system, not run by humans, run basically by Skylink or whatever it was called in the Terminator?
00:12:22.460Can you imagine unleashing that on comments, on Facebook, on Twitter?
00:12:26.300You wouldn't even know the censorship.
00:12:35.160If you typed in, give me the news on the Trucker Convoy, Rebel News would be hidden and the CBC News would be boosted.
00:12:41.980That's what discoverability, the prioritization of the presentation of such content.
00:12:47.900When you type in something in Google or Facebook, the algorithm chooses what's first, second, third, fourth, whatever.
00:12:53.900There's already political bias in those systems.
00:12:56.360Trudeau wants to be able to regulate that through AI.
00:13:00.640Now, that's something I've warned about before.
00:13:03.260In C11, Section 9.11E, as you recall, gives Trudeau the power through the CRTC to alter the discoverability algorithm for YouTube and other broadcasters.
00:13:15.300But this would be for everything, AI for everything.
00:13:33.240Geist talked about it about a week ago before this AI stuff was cleared to me.
00:13:38.300Let me just show you how Francois-Philippe Champagne introduced this bill to Parliament because, again, this is how they do it in China's fake Parliament.
00:13:48.400Well, that's how Trudeau and his cabinet do it in Canada's Parliament.
00:18:32.140I wanted to have you on the show because of this wild article I read in the National Post.
00:18:37.780And it confirms a lot of things that I think we all know about Justin Trudeau and that he will just legislate.
00:18:46.280And because he panicked because some people said some critical things of him on social media and evidence be damned, outcome be damned, human rights be damned.
00:18:59.360He'll just change things because his friends complained at him.
00:19:03.080And that seems to be the case with this wild story about a disinvitation from the headline is from Ecole Polytechnic Group, which sent Trudeau government into damage control mode.
00:19:19.080And these are exclusive emails obtained.
00:19:21.280And the Trudeau government adjusted its gun buyback policy so that it's involuntary gun buyback.
00:19:28.520And I hate that phrase because you're not buying back anything.
00:19:32.400You're confiscating something and maybe compensating me for it.
00:19:36.040It became mandatory because Polly Souviant demanded that it be mandatory.
00:19:45.680And so hundreds of thousands of Canadian gun owners who have done nothing wrong, minding their own business, followed all the rules, jumped through all the hoops.
00:19:54.520All these people had to do was complain at Justin Trudeau.
00:19:58.340And all of a sudden, the buyback buyback program became mandatory.
00:20:21.060And it's one of Canada's darkest days, without doubt.
00:20:24.460And I don't think anybody disagrees with that.
00:20:26.680And there was a group that was born out of that, Polly Souviant, whose mission since then has been to eradicate civilian firearm ownership.
00:20:36.600So they have a memorial every year, and it's like been going over three decades, right?
00:20:42.620So they have a big memorial every year, and it's televised, you know, full red carpet, full press by the mainstream media.
00:20:50.780You know, it's the red carpet is rolled out on this event.
00:20:55.660And Justin Trudeau takes this opportunity to play up to his audience, you know, that he's the feminist prime minister and whatever.
00:21:04.060It plays really well to the cameras, right?
00:21:05.580So every year he goes to this memorial, and of course, it's a great photo op for him.
00:21:15.620So they were unhappy that his attacks on law-abiding gun owners weren't going quite far enough.
00:21:21.960You know, it's not enough to ban our guns.
00:21:23.760It's not enough to prevent us from purchasing new ones.
00:21:26.780It's not enough to destroy our community.
00:21:29.120They also want our doors kicked in and our property confiscated.
00:21:32.080So they did, it was like a public, like a publicity stunt is what I would call it, where they disinvited him.
00:21:41.940And they said, you are no longer welcome to attend our memorial unless you go all the way with these gun owners and have their doors kicked in and have their stuff confiscated from them by force.
00:21:52.580So, sure enough, the, you know, the policy was very easily altered to fix this.
00:22:00.140And I think this is, speaks to the way they govern.
00:22:50.440Because they come along and confiscate our guns.
00:22:54.360But so how big is Polly, this group that with one cranky tantrum can, you know, basically cause Justin Trudeau to do reactionary legislation?
00:23:28.520So, and then you've got Heidi Rathjen is another spokesperson.
00:23:33.040She was on campus that day, but nowhere near what happened.
00:23:36.280So she's not considered a victim or a survivor of this.
00:23:39.620I guess you would consider her maybe some sort of witness or whatever.
00:23:43.640But what happens is they are very coordinated and very organized.
00:23:49.160They work very closely with the Coalition for Gun Control.
00:23:52.960And then, of course, out of, you know, there hasn't been a lot of big shootings in Canada, but there have been a few.
00:23:59.280And every time there is one, whether it was committed by a licensed gun owner or not, they recruit them into their group.
00:24:05.700So you've got the Danforth Families for Safe Communities, which, of course, was born out of the Danforth shooting, a crime committed by a madman with an illegal gun sourced through his gang-affiliated brother.
00:24:20.180You know, you've got the mosque shooting.
00:24:22.540So they've sort of all collected under one umbrella.
00:24:24.840But the reason why they're so particularly powerful is because it's got that feminist aspect to it, because this horrific shooting targeted women in particular.
00:24:38.900And so that's sort of been, you know, December 6th has been sort of memorialized as this day, you know, to fight against violence against women, which I support.
00:24:49.920I also want safer communities for women everywhere, right?
00:24:54.840Yeah, we just have a different solution.
00:25:16.400In fact, her brother was a former director for one of the other national Canadian firearm advocacy organizations.
00:25:23.400So, you know, it's interesting because he had an interview with CBC and he said, my sister would be rolling in her grave knowing that they are using her legacy to push for attacks on the very people that were part of her community.
00:25:38.240But, you know, you don't get airtime on things like that.
00:25:41.920So, unfortunately, it's taken what was a horrific tragedy and something that we can learn from and move forward from, you know, and try to protect women and turned it into this political football where, you know, both sides, I think, are disingenuous.
00:25:59.060You know, he'll do anything to get his invite to go to the memorial and they will use that memorial and the memory of those women to force him to do political things.
00:26:09.120So, yeah, it's not something I would be capable of doing, but we're not the same.
00:26:15.860We're not the same, but it's Justin Trudeau.
00:26:18.500And, you know, he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.
00:26:23.240You see him, you know, turn up at, you know, residential schools and take a knee and then he goes surfing on Truth and Reconciliation Day.
00:26:35.300And I think Pauly knew how important a photo op is to Justin Trudeau.
00:26:41.520And that's how they were able to manipulate one of the most feeble-minded, powerful men in the Western world.
00:26:49.160I wanted to ask you, going forward, where are we at on the latest gun grabs?
00:26:56.740Where are we at on the so-called buyback?
00:27:00.120Well, funny enough that you mentioned that.
00:27:01.960So the gun ban that this whole thing is referring to is, of course, the May 2020 Ordering Council gun ban that's happened three and a half years ago.
00:27:13.460However, not a single gun has been confiscated by this government.
00:27:41.340We just want to move on and try and salvage our businesses, right?
00:27:45.060Willing participants don't even have a program with a lobby group that has signed an agreement with the government to perform that.
00:27:52.420So we, as you know, we filed a federal court challenge very quickly after this ban was announced back in 2020.
00:28:01.320It's been moving up the speed of justice.
00:28:04.640And we did have an eight-day hearing in the federal court here in Ottawa back in April.
00:28:10.520And Justice Kane actually came forward at a recent case management conference and said she will have her decision on that by the end of the month, which is interesting timing because there's an amnesty right now that protects gun owners who own these firearms, who bought them in good faith and bought them legally, have used them for decades without issue and use them safely.
00:28:32.480are protected from criminality, which the charge would be possession of a prohibited device, which carries with it a 10-year minimum mandatory prison sentence, right?
00:28:43.640So you and I are protected from that amnesty, but it runs out at the end of the month.
00:28:48.920The government has already once before extended that amnesty.
00:28:52.640The new public safety minister has made no indication that he intends to do so.
00:28:58.700And of course, we're not so silly as to put the freedom and future of Canadian gun owners in the hands of the Liberals.
00:29:05.480So we filed an injunction application in the federal court to force them to extend that amnesty.
00:29:12.540Now everything's, you know, we've got a bunch of dates to file affidavits and cross-examinations and memorandums of fact.
00:29:19.340We will have a hearing on that injunction application to extend the amnesty on the 25th of October.
00:29:27.100So it's cutting it pretty close, you know, should the government not voluntarily do it by then.
00:29:33.260But, you know, at the end of the day, we should have a decision out of Justice Kane by the end of the month.
00:29:38.560So I guess we will find out where we stand for the CCFR, regardless of whether we win or not.
00:30:06.200If you re-elect us again, we'll do it right this time and do it through legislation and just reuse it, like recycle it as yet another election promise, right?
00:30:20.720By the end of October, there's all kinds of things will be happening.
00:30:24.160We will either win an injunction to extend that amnesty and protect gun owners or it will run out and we will all be exposed to criminality.
00:30:32.920And hopefully, Justice Kane does come through with that decision by the end of the month.
00:30:37.520And maybe we won't need that injunction because maybe we'll win and the OIC will be nullified and we'll head to the range.
00:30:52.480If we lose, we have no intention of stopping now.
00:30:55.120So, we're committed to taking it all the way.
00:30:58.280And at the end of the day, my message to gun owners out there everywhere is you've done nothing to deserve this and this government won't be in power forever.
00:31:06.480So, you know, either way, there will be a shinier day coming, but it just may not be yet.
00:31:12.840Now, Tracy, how do people help the CCFR as they fight for gun owners like me, like you've done absolutely nothing wrong, who just want to hang on to their family heirlooms, in my case, and in the case of so many people across the country?
00:31:29.840How do people support the work that you do at the CCFR?