EZRA LEVANT ｜ The Chinese spy balloon went over Canada too, but who saw it coming？
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Summary
A Chinese spy balloon has been spotted over North America and it has been shot down. Is this a success for China or a failure for the U.S. military? Is it a hoax? Or is it something more sinister?
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. It's great to be back at our world headquarters. As you know, I was in Alberta
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covering the trial of Pastor Arthur Pavlosky Thursday and Friday. Today, I'm going to talk
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to you about that crazy spy balloon. And I'm going to ask you, was it a success for China or not?
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I think you might be able to guess my answer. I'm going to show you footage of the balloon,
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it being shot down, and I'm going to show you various people opining on it. I really want you
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to get the video version of this podcast. I want you to see the balloon and seeing it being shot
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down. I want you to see General Milley give his excuses for China. You can do all that with what
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we call Rebel News Plus, the video version of the podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com
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and click subscribe. It's $8 a month. You get the video every day. And we need the $8. I know it
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off that because we don't get any ad money from YouTube. We don't get any grant money from Trudeau.
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And we want to keep it that way. All right, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, what do you think of that Chinese spy balloon? You know, it went over Canada too.
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It's February 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.
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You know, I thought it was a joke at first, a balloon sent over from China. I mean,
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if you've been following the war in Ukraine, you're alive to the threat of high-tech drones
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and missiles. And if you've been following the threats from North Korea, you know about ICBMs,
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intercontinental ballistic missiles. But did you see it coming that it would be balloons?
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I didn't. And in fact, we should ask who did see it coming? Because what I can tell is it was
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announced to the world, not by the U.S. military, not by NORAD, not by NATO, not by the U.S. president,
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but by some folks on the ground who just saw it with the naked eye. Here is the ABC News timeline
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that they put together. Apparently, the balloon was first spotted 10 days ago, January 28th,
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over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. I think that's what they're saying. Then it went over
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the Northwest Territories in Canada two days later. I'm laughing at how the ABC graphics department,
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their map shows. Do you see the northern interior of BC? And they call it SW Canada. I don't know,
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Southwest Canada. So maybe we're dealing with a less than reputable news agency here with ABC,
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but I'll keep using it anyways. According to them, the balloon entered U.S. airspace again.
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So it went through Alaska, then the Northwest Territories in BC. Then it entered the U.S. airspace
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again on January 31. And then it was publicly filmed by citizens on their, on their cell phones
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on February 1st, four days after cruising through North America. Here's one of the first citizen
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journalist reports of it. Okay. That's the moon. It's a little fuzzy out here and it's a kind of a
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cruddy phone, but it's slightly overcast. But what the heck is that? That's not the sun. And according
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to my little planet guide, it's not a planet. What the heck is that? Any help would be appreciated.
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That's John Martin in Montana. He tweeted that video and he asked, quote,
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any clue as to what this is in the sky? It's moved a little in the past 40 minutes, but
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it was just as bright in daylight hours. It was literally a UFO, an unidentified flying object,
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not an alien spaceship, just something that wasn't identified. And the local airport began diverting
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flights, as you can see. They've changed the headline of this story since the original one,
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but let me read the line that I want. Quote, on Wednesday, the Billings Logan International Airport
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was shut down for roughly two hours. Around the same time, many Montanans were noticing an
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unexplained object in the sky. Shane Kettering, the director of aviation at Billings Logan,
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says two flights to the airport were diverted and one flight was delayed from taking off while the
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airspace was closed. The diverted flights were eventually able to land.
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So my point is, literally five days after this Chinese balloon had been over North America,
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it still wasn't identified or made public. No officials had said anything. It fell to ordinary
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citizens to report on it. And local airports had to change air traffic control to accommodate it.
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No one warned them. I started seeing this on Twitter, and I'll be very candid with you. My first
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thought was this was some sort of internet joke, a hoax. I'm embarrassed to say that, but I'll explain
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myself, and it's not a great explanation. I thought, you know, we haven't heard a word from NORAD, from
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the North American air defense team that's, you know, the treaty between Canada and the U.S. is in
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charge of protecting the continent. Not a word from the Canadian government, not a word from the U.S.,
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and surely they would have said something. So surely this was just a fake or something. That's what I
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thought. I actually still trust authorities to let me know what's going on. I'm foolish, as you could see.
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No, it was real. The government was just hiding this from us, assuming they had detected it.
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Here's Joe Biden when he was finally asked about it on Sunday, and he said he wanted to shoot it down
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last week, but the generals told him that was too dangerous, so they didn't want to do it, and
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he obeyed them. So he let it finish its journey all across North America, and then only shot it down
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after it was done. Here, take a listen. The Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible.
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They decided, without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do
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that was as it got over water, outside within our, within 12-mile limit. They successfully took it down,
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and I want to compliment our aviators who did it, and we'll have more to report on this a little
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Mr. President, what did you say about China? What's your message to China?
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You were saying the recommendation was from your national security.
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They said to me, let's wait till the safest place to do it.
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By the way, the vast majority of North America is uninhabited. I'm talking most emphatically
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about Alaska and the Northwest Territories. Huge areas, almost no people. The average population
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density in Alaska is just one person per square mile. But of course, almost all of them are in
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just... There's only about five cities in Alaska, Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks. So it's literally...
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If the balloon was literally not above those cities, the real population density outside those
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cities is a tiny fraction of that, there's no one up there. I once drove through the Northwest...
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Through the Yukon to Alaska. I think it was 90 minutes before I saw another vehicle. That's
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how empty it is. Northwest Territory, it's actually more pronounced than in Alaska. The population
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density is 0.08 people per square mile. And again, if you take out the... There's like
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five towns in the Northwest Territories. You know, once I flew from Inovic to Tuktuk to
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Yuktuk, and in that one hour, it was in a small plane, so I was looking down the whole
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time, we did not see a single human or any evidence of any humans. It was nothing but emptiness.
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The only thing I did see was there was a crashed airplane on the ground, and I saw an abandoned
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radar station that was once part of the... It was called the DEW line, the distant early
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warning line that once provided radar warning of any Soviet attack during the Cold War.
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Now, the DEW line was replaced about 40 years ago by the North Warning System, which apparently
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has better technology. Here's a Government of Canada map showing all the different radar stations
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from this new system. You can see that the balloon would have or should have been detected on many
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occasions. It basically should have been constantly detected because it was going down the coast pretty
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much, just setting off radar all the way down. Did it? And if so, why was it kept secret?
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I do not believe Biden's excuse for not shooting it down earlier. Shooting it down over a
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lot of people in Alaska or the Northwest Territories or even Northern BC would have had a minuscule
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risk of hurting someone below. There is no one on the ground other than those few towns in Alaska
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and Northwest Territories. It is empty. I've been there. Frankly, they could have issued a public
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warning to anyone in the area, especially in remote areas, but they didn't. That's the point. I really
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don't think they wanted anyone to know. They thought they could keep it a secret for the Chinese.
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When I say they, I mean Trudeau and Biden. Both are deeply committed to China. I mean,
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they would rather have allowed the balloon, which I think we can assume is a spy balloon,
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to finish its job rather than to expose China as hostile and active. And yet, even when it was
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revealed by citizens, they still allowed it to complete its mission before shooting it down.
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And here's the video of that. Checking Twitter on several different official up. Oh, I believe it
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just happened there. That was it live, raw and unfiltered. It appears that that China spy balloon.
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Oh, and it just so happens that the root of the balloon took it over the U.S.'s ICBM fields in North
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Dakota. I'm sure that was just a coincidence. Why wouldn't the U.S. say, though, where exactly it was
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going? Were they embarrassed? Why were they keeping China's secrets for them?
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Phil, right now, what we're not going to do is get into a hour by hour location of the balloon.
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Again, we're monitoring it closely. As I mentioned right now, it's over the
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center of the continental United States. That's about as specific as I'm going to get.
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I understand it might be inconvenient, but does the public not have a right to know
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if the balloon is over their state? The public certainly has the ability to look up in the sky
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and see where the balloon is. I don't get it. What was the thinking about not letting people know?
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What was the thinking about not stopping it until it was done at spy mission?
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There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing
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them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, we need to go green as fast as we
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need to start, you know, investing in solar. I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen
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Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he could do everything he wanted.
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Or was it anything to do with this? Joe Biden's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
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As you alluded to in the previous question, China is not an enemy.
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And I think that's important for people to clearly understand. China is a rising power.
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China has been a rising power since Deng Xiaoping in 79. And they've been clicking off at 10%
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growth for almost 30 years. And they dropped down about 7% last year or two. And they'll
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probably drop again, you know, and come into the range of normalcy and 3 to 5% growth.
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But that's still significant economic growth. And there's been a really large historic change
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from a North Atlantic-based global economy to now it's proceeding to be a North Pacific-based
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global economy. So with respect to China, what normally happens historically, it's not in all
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cases, but in most cases, where you have economic growth of that magnitude typically follows military
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power. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a significant increase in Chinese military
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capabilities over the last 10 to 20 years. And they are going to develop themselves and are developing
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themselves into a great power. That is not to say, however, that they are an enemy.
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That the Chinese thought wrongly that the United States is going to attack them. I am certain,
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guaranteed certain, that President Trump had no intent to attack. And it was my task to make
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sure I communicated that. And the purpose was to de-escalate, calm things down.
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Just say, did you or did you not ask, tell him that if we were going to attack,
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As part of that conversation, I said, General Lee, there's not going to be a war. There's
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not going to be an attack between great powers. And if there was, the tensions would build up.
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There'd be calls going back and forth from all kinds of senior officials. I said, hell, General Lee,
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I'll probably give you a call. But we're not going to attack you. Trust me,
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we're not going to attack you. These are two great powers. And I am doing my best to transmit
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the president's intent, President Trump's intent, to ensure that the American people are protected
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I understand your intent. But I think you articulating that, that you would tell him,
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you would give him a call, I think is worthy of your resignation. I just think that's against
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our country, that you would give our number one adversary that information and tell him that.
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Yeah, that's the U.S. military boss who convinced Joe Biden not to shoot it down until after
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it was done. Not that Biden needed much convincing. I mean, his son Hunter Biden
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did billions of dollars of deals with Communist China, starting when Biden was Obama's VP.
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I'm guessing Biden didn't need a lot of convincing to let the balloon do its work.
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What was in the balloon? I don't know. The military shot it down, but hasn't said what they
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found yet. I wonder if they ever will. Was it just a surveillance device? Was it a weather
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balloon, like the Chinese said? Could be. I mean, China has spy satellites. They also have
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commercial aircraft flying into and across the U.S. all the time that I'm sure have electronic
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sensors in them. They have thousands of human agents on the ground, let alone hundreds of
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official diplomats, many of whom are Chinese spies. And of course, so much information is willingly
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given to China. If you're on the app TikTok on your phone, China pretty much knows everything about
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you. How many soldiers on military bases have that app in their phones? Who knows what that balloon
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was? Some people wonder if it was a test for an EMP attack, electromagnetic pulse, to detonate a
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nuclear device at that high height that would not kill people, but it would fry electronic communications
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across America. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was something more sinister, like testing out a
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bioweapon delivery system. I don't know. In the end, a $200 million F-22 fighter jet and a $400,000
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AIM-9X Sidewinder missile took out the balloon after a week. My point about the cost of those weapons is
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this. How much do you think that balloon cost? Apparently there are more balloons going on now
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too, but what would the cost of a balloon be? Now, I don't know what the payload was, whether it's a
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bomb, a bioweapon, some spy sensors, but what would a balloon cost? I just Googled high altitude balloons
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balloons. And here's one for sale for $159. Here's the Canadian government on stratospheric
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balloons. They don't give a dollar amount, but they say this, these balloons require no engine
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and no fuel and are fully recovered after each flight. They can reach altitudes of up to 42 kilometers,
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holding their instrument packages aloft for several hours. Some balloons can even conduct
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long duration flights lasting days, weeks, and even months. Stratospheric balloons are a platform
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of choice for scientists and engineers as they can be used to test and advance space science for
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far less than the cost of a satellite, up to 40 times less, and provide an opportunity to carry out
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concrete scientific experiments in a short period of time and attain results quickly. Yeah, or use them
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for spying. So what was the price of the Chinese balloon? Was it even $50,000? Was it even $5,000?
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If even. And so what if they don't send one? What if they send not one, but $1,000? What if they sent $10,000?
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You know, it's just a fraction of the cost of the F-22. You know, that's how drone warfare over
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Ukraine is being conducted right now, sending not one drone, but swarms of drones, each one costing
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maybe a few thousand dollars. What are you going to do, scramble a $200 million fighter jet
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after a week of indecision? And in the end, that's what I think this actually was. I don't necessarily
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think it was about an electromagnetic pulse. I don't think it was about a biohazard. I don't
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even think it was about spying, though I think that happened. I think it was testing something else.
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I think it was testing America under Joe Biden and Canada under Justin Trudeau.
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And the test was a spectacular success for China. Trudeau and Biden either didn't spot the balloon,
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which would be a huge success for China, or they spotted the balloon and chose to keep it a secret
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from their own public, which would be a huge success for China. Then Canada and the U.S. refused
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to shoot it down until it was done its mission. Big success for China. And here's the totality of
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America's political response. This is unbelievable. I'd just like to briefly address the presence of
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the Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace. I spoke this morning with director of the CCP
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Central Foreign Affairs Office, Wang Yi, to convey that, in light of China's unacceptable action,
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I am postponing my planned travel this weekend to China.
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As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali in November
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that I would travel to Beijing to follow up on their discussions. We've been working across the U.S.
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government to prepare for a substantive set of discussions on issues that matter to the American
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people and to people around the world. And we've been engaging for some time with our counterparts
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in Beijing to prepare for these meetings. Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced that we had
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detected and we're tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United
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States. We continue to track and monitor the balloon closely. We're confident this is a Chinese
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surveillance balloon. Once we detected the balloon, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect
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against the collection of sensitive information. We communicated with the PRC government directly
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through multiple channels about this issue. Members of my team consulted with our partners in other
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agencies and in Congress. We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence
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of the surveillance balloon in our airspace. We concluded that conditions were not conducive
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for a constructive visit at this time. In my call today with Director Wang Yi, I made clear that
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the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty
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and international law, that it's an irresponsible act, and that the PRC's decision to take this action
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on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared
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to have. I told Director Wang that the United States remains committed to diplomatic engagement with
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China and that I plan to visit Beijing when conditions allow. That's the Secretary of State
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Anthony Blinken. So no sanctions, no military response, no deporting of Chinese diplomats, no
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tariffs on Chinese imports, no banning Communist Party members' children from going to school in America,
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nothing. Just the pitiful Secretary of State saying he's going to postpone his trip to China,
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but he's still absolutely committed to still coming to China and working collegially with them. Don't
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worry about that. It was almost an apology to China, which is actually what China sort of asked for.
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Beijing registered its strong discontent and protest after the U.S. shot down a Chinese
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spy balloon on Saturday, but there may be little it can do to retaliate. Hang on,
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the New York Times is suggesting that maybe China should retaliate against America. That's a political
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option here. As if they were the ones who were wronged here. Should America retaliate? The New
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York Times never contemplates that. What a disaster for us. Hey, what do you think Donald Trump would
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have done had this happen on his watch? Well, that's a trick question. Do you think for a second that the
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Chinese dictators would have dreamed of sending over such a provocation during Trump's tenure?
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Of course not, precisely because none of us actually know what Trump would have done.
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And the fear of the unknown would have held China at bay, as it held the world at bay for four
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peaceful years under Trump's presidency, as it held Putin at bay. Putin, who invaded Ukraine under Obama
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before Trump and who invaded Ukraine under Biden after Trump, but didn't dare invade anybody during
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Trump. I saw this laughable story in the regime media. They're now claiming that, oh, in fact,
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yes, this absolutely happened several times when Trump was president, other than the small detail of
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no one knew anything about it. No one saw it. And Trump was never briefed on it. But oh, no,
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no, no. Trust us, guys. This did happen and Trump didn't do anything. Yeah, sure. No one believes that
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other than the media party. And up here in Canada, well, here's our defense minister, Anita Anand.
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We deployed a Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora long-range patrol aircraft to strengthen efforts to
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disrupt gang activity in Haiti. This aircraft will provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
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and bolster efforts to establish peace and security for the Haitian people.
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Got it. So the Haitian people will be secure. When will the Canadian people be secure?
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Here's Anita Anand again on the weekend. She said today a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft departed
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Halifax carrying the first Leopard 2 main battle tank that Canada is sending to Ukraine. Canada stands
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with the people of Ukraine and will continue to provide Ukraine's armed forces with the equipment that
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they need to win. I'm not sure if sending one Cold War era tank to Ukraine is going to tip the balance
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of war there. Not sure Canada has too many such tanks that are actually operational. Not sure who's going
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to operate the tanks in Ukraine, who's going to maintain them, who's going to train the Ukrainians
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to use them. Not quite sure of any of that. But it was good for a photo op. I do know one thing,
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though. Anita Anand has made literally hundreds of announcements about security for Haiti and Ukraine,
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but her sole comment about China's balloon was this one press release. Certainly not a video or
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a public statement. And the sternest language she could muster was that the balloon, quote,
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violated U.S. and Canadian airspace and international law. Yes, we know that, sister.
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The question is, what are you going to do about it? Nothing. No condemnation of China,
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no repudiation or denunciation, no threat, no demand, no retaliation, no end to the joint
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Canada-China military projects of which we know there are plenty. She said more about fighting Haitian
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gangs this past weekend than about defending our airspace. Like I say, a complete and utter success
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for China's dictatorship. If I were Taiwan, I'd be pretty worried. Stay with us for more.
00:24:46.980
Yes. Now, by the way, I'm going to add just on that. Decriminalization has been in place in BC now since
00:24:53.060
about 2017. In reality, the results are in. The debate is over. It has been a disaster. An
00:25:01.140
absolute abject failure. You'd not only need to take a walk down the streets of East Vancouver,
00:25:08.100
where addicts lay face first on the pavement, where people are living permanently in tents and
00:25:13.380
encampments. But you just need to look at the data. A 300% increase in drug overdose deaths in British
00:25:21.700
Columbia since Trudeau took office eight years ago. The Trudeau NDP approach is on open display in
00:25:29.460
Vancouver. It is a complete disaster. It is hell on earth. We're going to reverse that policy and we're
00:25:37.060
going to reverse and we're going to replace it with recovery and treatment. That's what works. And again,
00:25:42.660
the debate is over on that as well. In Alberta, they doubled the number of treatment beds from
00:25:47.940
4,000 to 8,000. And they've cut in half the number of overdoses. We need to save our brothers,
00:25:52.740
our sisters, our neighbors, our friends from the scourge of drug addiction. And a quality of
00:25:57.780
government will make sure there is treatment and recovery to do that.
00:26:00.100
Well, Justin Trudeau loves to say how well things are going and certainly they're going
00:26:05.140
well for him. But I note that he does condemn Canada quite often when he is outside of our
00:26:12.500
own country. It's very strange to see a world leader on an international stage talking down
00:26:18.740
Canada. If anything, it should be the reverse. He should be boasting about his country, my country,
00:26:23.700
right or wrong. When he's abroad and when he's at home, he should be tucking into the problems we have
00:26:29.300
with Trudeau. It's the reverse. And it's very strange, especially when Trudeau accuses Canada
00:26:35.940
of genocide, an extreme statement that he just won't stop saying, because not surprisingly, that
00:26:44.180
is thrown back at us when we actually accuse real genociders like, for example, communist China doing
00:26:50.340
the same thing. Well, Pierre Polyev, the leader of the Conservative Party, has been using a phrase
00:26:56.820
domestically, not abroad, that Canada, or at least big parts of it, are broken.
00:27:03.940
Here is Pierre Polyev with a recent video talking especially about the declining state of safety
00:27:11.940
and health in one of the great cities in this country, Vancouver, BC. Take a look at Pierre Polyev.
00:27:16.980
Do you ever feel like everything's broken in Canada? I mean, here we are. The most beautiful
00:27:22.740
place in the world, beautiful British Columbia, the Pacific, the Vancouver skyline, and another
00:27:28.260
tent city. In that tent city are people hopelessly addicted to drugs, putting poisons in their bodies.
00:27:37.300
They've probably lost their homes, their families. They've lost control of their lives and they might lose
00:27:43.620
their lives altogether. Just today we learned that British Columbia is on track to have over 2,000
00:27:50.260
drug overdose deaths this year alone. That is a 300% increase from 2015 when Justin Trudeau took office.
00:28:01.940
These are Canadian citizens who are losing their lives. They could be your sister, your brother,
00:28:07.380
your daughter, your son. They could even be your parents. This can happen to anyone. Many people got
00:28:13.540
hooked on these drugs by taking them first as medications and then increasing their dosage and
00:28:20.180
eventually becoming outright addicts. It's not just crack cocaine and methamphetamines, but it's opioids
00:28:26.260
that are in the same family of drugs that are often prescribed or over-prescribed. But the addictions that
00:28:34.020
we see that have terrorized these people and our communities, they are the result of a failed experiment.
00:28:43.620
This is a deliberate policy by woke liberal and NDP governments to provide taxpayer-funded drugs,
00:28:53.460
flood our streets with easy access to these poisons. A powerful social media video that has been seen
00:29:00.900
a great many times while Trudeau has been attacking Polyev for talking this way, not just in response to
00:29:07.620
that latest video, but for weeks. Trudeau has said anyone who criticizes Canada or points out our
00:29:13.620
failures is talking us down. Here he is in mid-January making that very point. Mr. Polyev might choose to
00:29:21.940
undermine our democracy by amplifying conspiracy theories. He might decide to run away from journalists when they
00:29:29.860
ask him tough questions. That's how he brands himself and that's his choice. But when he says that Canada
00:29:39.140
is broken, that's where we draw the line. This is Canada.
00:29:44.100
And in Canada, better is always possible. But I don't accept Canadians and politicians that talk down our
00:30:00.740
country. Let me be very clear for the record. Canada is not broken.
00:30:15.140
Well, isn't it the job of the official opposition to oppose? Isn't it the job of both the official
00:30:20.980
opposition and the Prime Minister to recognize Canada's problems and, you know, fix what's broken?
00:30:27.300
Joining us now via Skype from British Columbia is our friend Aaron Gunn, a filmmaker and social
00:30:33.700
commentator who knows a lot about this subject. He is the filmmaker behind the enormously popular
00:30:39.620
viral video called Vancouver's Dying. And he joins us now. Aaron, great to see you again. What do you make
00:30:46.900
of this quarrel between Polyev and Trudeau? Is it possible to say Canada is broken, or at least parts of Canada
00:30:56.180
are broken while still being a hopeful patriot? Yeah, I think that's the story of any democracy is
00:31:03.940
you want to be pointing out where things aren't going so well and where they can be improved.
00:31:08.500
And if you've traveled to parts of Vancouver and you've traveled to the downtown east side specifically,
00:31:14.100
which is the part of the country that Polyev was mentioning and referring to, then I don't know how you
00:31:21.140
can think things aren't broken. Here in British Columbia, we have an overdose crisis that's, you
00:31:28.900
know, there used to be 150 people dying every year from overdose. Now it's over 2000. We have crime
00:31:34.100
that's rampant every day in Vancouver. There are four random violent stranger attacks every single day.
00:31:41.780
Uh, you just have this, this homelessness that's all over this place. There's general degeneracy
00:31:46.980
needles on the sidewalk, on sidewalks and parks. And, uh, there's lots of, you know, there's
00:31:52.740
neighborhoods of Vancouver where people don't feel safe to walk anymore. And that's, I don't think
00:31:56.740
that should be acceptable. And I think Polyev is, is correct in pointing that out. You know, I was
00:32:02.740
shocked the last time I visited San Francisco. This was in 2019 before the lockdowns. And even then it was
00:32:10.180
coming apart, even in very wealthy neighborhoods in San Francisco has some staggering wealth
00:32:15.620
in part because of Silicon Valley, you see shocking, not just homelessness, but, but what is
00:32:22.660
happening in these permanent shanty towns. It, it didn't feel like North America, San Francisco,
00:32:28.180
LA, parts of Portland and Washington, but don't think Vancouver is immune. I think that the downtown
00:32:37.140
east side, lower east side has just been, sorry, the downtown east side, excuse me, East Hastings
00:32:40.980
street has been turned into some sort of holy place by the media party that you just have to accept it
00:32:50.260
and you have to work with it and you have to respect it as opposed to fix it. I think
00:32:55.540
we actually know more about the urban decay in American cities than we do about the urban decay in
00:33:01.540
our own cities. It's a weird thing. And I think Trudeau is how dare you, how dare you point this out
00:33:07.140
as part of that. They just want everyone to be in a conspiracy of silence about it.
00:33:12.900
Yeah. It's almost as if, well, I think the media is trying to gaslight Canadians, that this should be,
00:33:17.060
this is normal, that we should be accepting this. And the fact is when you travel around the world,
00:33:21.300
what's, what's happening in the downtown east side in Vancouver and other Canadian cities is not normal.
00:33:26.420
And it shouldn't be surprising that when you see other cities starting to copy and paste the same
00:33:31.940
policies that have been implemented in Vancouver over the past 20 years, you get the exact same
00:33:37.380
results. And of course, what are they pushing now where you have a decriminalization of fentanyl,
00:33:44.180
crack cocaine and crystal meth is supposed to be somehow solved the problem. And what these activists
00:33:50.820
and ID logs actually want, which is tax payer funded supply of hard drugs in perpetuity,
00:33:57.700
and that we just have to kind of accept this and treat it as some sort of palliative issue.
00:34:02.100
And if that's not indicative of how broken parts of Canada are, I'm not sure what is.
00:34:07.700
You know, it's terrible. I don't know the death toll that COVID viruses had in British Columbia. I
00:34:14.820
don't want to guess without looking it up. But of course, most of those for people who are very old,
00:34:19.700
average age of a deceased from COVID was in the high 70s. Average victim had several comorbidities.
00:34:28.020
Whereas you just gave us a figure, and I'm just still reeling from what you said,
00:34:31.940
2,000 overdose deaths a year. And those are mainly young people in their 20s and 30s, maybe in their
00:34:40.100
40s. These are people who would naturally have had their whole life ahead of them. So it's not,
00:34:46.100
and of course, any death is a tragedy, but someone dying at 75 from a virus is, I think,
00:34:53.220
far different than someone dying at 30 from a completely preventable social ill. We haven't
00:34:59.300
had a fraction of the care, the concern, the social interventionism for 2,000 overdose deaths,
00:35:06.660
deaths as we've had for a similar number of COVID deaths.
00:35:11.780
Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head there, Ezra. These are young people. These are people
00:35:15.060
that had their whole lives in front of them. They're, you know, they're sons and daughters.
00:35:18.660
They had the potential to be productive taxpaying members of society to raise their own families,
00:35:24.660
or in some cases, they're leaving families behind. And it's a staggering number. It takes a while to
00:35:30.180
comprehend it. 2,000 deaths a year, preventable deaths a year, just in British Columbia,
00:35:36.740
of predominantly young Canadians. I mean, think about that. I remember when we were losing,
00:35:41.700
you know, obviously, tragically, a couple dozen a year in Afghanistan across the entire country.
00:35:48.340
And that, of course, was a tragedy. We're talking 2,000 young people just in BC alone,
00:35:54.100
every single year. You know, over 10,000, you know, if you go back over this past decade, pretty much.
00:36:00.420
And it's a staggering death toll. And we have these bodies piling up on top of each other,
00:36:08.180
as you also alluded to, at least in the first year, much higher than COVID was. And yet we don't
00:36:15.060
want to talk about it, or the solution is just to throw more drugs at the problem.
00:36:18.980
Yeah. You know, I just checked really quickly there. And indeed,
00:36:22.180
the number of COVID deaths in BC is around 2,400. And of course, every one of them is a
00:36:27.860
lost father, mother, et cetera. But to have that annual death toll, and by the way,
00:36:34.740
there is a demographic aspect to this. A lot of the people in that terrible condition are indigenous
00:36:41.300
people. A lot of them are mentally ill. They have some challenges besides just being addicts. And I think
00:36:49.300
that the fact that this is encouraged, this is almost curated, that this is so completely approved
00:36:57.700
of, I think is a terrible, not only a bigotry of low expectations, but it's almost as if
00:37:03.220
the entire welfare state, all these social workers and politicians and activists,
00:37:09.540
they want this misery because it gives them a justification for their perpetual fight.
00:37:15.540
That if these people were ever helped out, cleaned up, get put into some proper system,
00:37:22.900
taken off the streets, well, then what would this entire industry, there's an entire industry built up
00:37:28.820
around this downtown east side in Vancouver. Don't kid yourself. There are people who
00:37:36.660
hundreds, there's probably several, for every person on the street, there's probably several
00:37:41.380
several bureaucrats, agencies working. It's a cottage industry keeping people miserable. I don't know. I,
00:37:48.580
I, I just think that the old saying, you know, that in a definition of insanity is doing the same
00:37:55.380
thing and expecting a different result. It's just getting worse, isn't it?
00:38:00.180
Yes. The, it's the poverty industrial complex. That's what I call it. There's, there's groups
00:38:04.900
making hundreds of millions of dollars, these so-called nonprofits that aren't that, you know,
00:38:09.700
people are making huge salaries that are running, um, that are off of the suffering of others. Now,
00:38:15.700
I think I really want to point out what really frustrates me, Ezra, is the hypocrisy,
00:38:20.980
because if Justin Trudeau or any of these big wood politicians, if their, uh, children had the,
00:38:27.700
fell into the unfortunate circumstance of becoming addicted to drugs, uh, becoming addicted to opioids,
00:38:33.380
you think the solution for them would be, oh, here's a safe supply of crystal meth or heroin or
00:38:39.140
fentanyl. And we're just going to warehouse you in some crime-ridden hotel where everyone's
00:38:43.460
surrounding you is doing drugs. No, that's not the solution they would get. They would get proper
00:38:47.300
treatment and rehabilitation, abstinence-based treatment and rehabilitation. But when it comes
00:38:52.340
to all these other people, these minority groups, like indigenous Canadians, as you mentioned,
00:38:56.900
apparently the solution for them is we're just going to throw drugs at them and then, and then put
00:39:01.220
them away in some shanty hotel. I don't think that's something that, I don't think that's the solution.
00:39:07.220
I mean, it's, it's, uh, just perpetuating the problem and perpetuating that industry, uh,
00:39:12.180
as you pointed out, instead of actually getting people clean and, uh, returning them to being
00:39:16.660
taxpaying members of society, which is what would be best for them would be best for the community
00:39:21.780
and best for taxpayers ultimately over the longterm. Yeah, that's a great point. And there's a classism
00:39:26.980
to it. Also, I want to show you a video and really there's a new video like this every day from
00:39:32.340
Toronto. You're out there in BC, Vancouver, one of the most amazing cities in the country. Toronto,
00:39:37.380
the biggest city in the country, uh, has a spate of crime on the, the Toronto Transit Commission.
00:39:44.740
Those are the buses and the subway stations. And a lot of it is drug fueled and mental health issues
00:39:51.300
too. And the answer by Toronto's mayor is we'll have a national summit. Oh, is that what we're missing?
00:39:57.620
More politicians jetting together to have a little gab fest, uh, over some nice wine. Um,
00:40:03.460
and you are so right that if it were Justin Trudeau's kids on drugs, they wouldn't be given a
00:40:08.900
safe supply. They would be fixed. And if it was John Tory's family, well, they only ride in limos.
00:40:14.020
Here's a quick clip from the streets of Toronto. Yesterday's attack of an elderly woman here on
00:40:19.380
Yonge Street is just the latest in violent incidents that have happened throughout the city. And it's been
00:40:25.860
enough to incite fear among residents and those visiting our city as well. We've definitely
00:40:32.180
noticed quite an escalation in violence. Like it's pretty scary riding the TTC. Um, even having my
00:40:39.220
headphones in, it's just, I don't know, it's kind of like risk now that you have to consider. In addition
00:40:44.980
to an 89 year old woman being pushed and killed on Yonge Street, last night a woman in her 20s was
00:40:51.460
suffering from stab wounds to her abdomen after being found at Dundas subway station. Police were
00:40:57.620
told the incident happened at York University before she made her way downtown. A man in his 50s
00:41:03.700
was arrested Friday afternoon after trying to push another person onto the subway tracks at Bloor Yonge
00:41:10.100
station. To be honest with you, this part of the city, uh, I'm usually afraid to come to this part of the
00:41:15.780
city. Uh, so I don't come that often. Yeah. There's a, there's a madness, but there's a classism too. And
00:41:21.380
I'm not a Marxist, but the little people can live with it. The fancy people live in gated communities,
00:41:27.300
only travel in, you know, uh, fancy vehicles. Certainly they would never go public transit and,
00:41:34.180
uh, sucks to be you if you're on the downtown East side, just incredible. Tell us before we go
00:41:40.180
a little bit more about the wild success of your movie, Vancouver's dying. We showed it before.
00:41:46.740
This was very important right before the Vancouver municipal election, where the NDP
00:41:53.380
mayor was thrown out quite a surprise to me and a support the police. I would call him conservative
00:41:59.780
mayor came in again. It was delightful news to an outsider like me. Give me one more minute,
00:42:06.100
reminding our viewers about your film, which I really think helped make the difference out there.
00:42:10.820
Vancouver's dying. Give us a word on that while we play some B roll of it in the background.
00:42:16.180
Yeah. Thank you for that. That's right. Yeah. The Vancouver is dying documentary, uh, really opened my
00:42:21.220
eyes. It was a, it was a big topic to tackle, but it's a really blown up since we released it back in
00:42:26.260
October. It's got about 2.5 million views on YouTube, um, and a couple hundred thousand in other
00:42:33.380
places on the internet, but, um, it just tackled the problem and tried to drill down to what is the
00:42:38.580
common denominator with all these overdose deaths, uh, massive increases in crime and, uh, ramp and,
00:42:45.700
you know, homelessness everywhere you look in, in parts of Vancouver and, and really drilled down to
00:42:50.340
the, to this drug addiction, uh, crisis that is being fueled by poor government policies.
00:42:56.500
And, um, and we just talked to the experts and talk to people that talk to people living on the
00:43:01.540
downtown East side, talk to people that were in recovery. And, um, I think it just, you know,
00:43:06.740
as an expose, cause just, as you pointed out earlier, you know, the mainstream media doesn't
00:43:10.340
want to talk about this issue. So, um, uh, we decided to, to go on the ground and, and do the
00:43:16.100
journalism that, uh, they weren't doing. Well, it, it made a difference. It's one of those times
00:43:21.220
where telling a story makes a difference in the world. Sometimes it's just, you know,
00:43:26.340
blather talk, not action. But I think your movie was one of those times when ideas changed the
00:43:33.220
course of the world just a little bit. And in the city of Vancouver, I think your movie did,
00:43:36.980
by the way, we'll have a link to Vancouver is dying. You can watch it directly. I'll put a link
00:43:41.940
to it under this video. You can find it, Aaron, always a pleasure when you're doing something.
00:43:46.980
I know it's something to watch. You're always fighting for freedom and prosperity and a safer
00:43:51.380
community. We can hardly wait to see what you do next. Let us know what you're up to,
00:43:54.740
because we're always riveted by it. Vancouver is such an important city. We're glad that we
00:43:58.980
have reporters out there now these days. Of course, our friend, Drea Humphrey is doing
00:44:02.900
outstanding work there and, uh, look forward to your next move also, Aaron. Great to see you.
00:44:08.180
Thank you for having me, Ezra. All right. It's our pleasure. There you have it, Aaron Gunn.
00:44:24.740
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Steve Z says, thanks, Ezra. I actually lived in Alberta
00:44:30.020
for three years, but had to flee back to Ontario because I was set up by the police. It can be a
00:44:34.900
scary place. Could the good pastor story be paralleled with the hugely unjust Julian Assange
00:44:39.940
saga for wider exposure? There seem to be similarities. Regards. Uh, thanks, Steve Z. Um, I don't think it's
00:44:47.220
comparable at all to Julian Assange. He published internal military documents that embarrassed the
00:44:53.940
military. The military claims that it exposed U.S. secret allies around the world, and he's been
00:45:00.820
jailed for years without a substantive trial. You can have different opinions on Julian Assange.
00:45:07.380
Um, I think I was very hostile to him in the beginning, but I, I think I've softened my stance. I think I,
00:45:13.300
I, I, uh, took his critics line as the gospel. Whatever you think of Julian Assange, the case
00:45:20.180
of Arthur Pawlowski is completely different. Arthur Pawlowski served a few, you know, 51 days in
00:45:26.100
prison grand total, but he has not been languishing for years and years. He's had trials and actually
00:45:31.780
he's won those trials. And what he's on trial for is not receiving or publishing secret government
00:45:37.540
documents, but rather for making a public speech, encouraging peaceful truckers to hold the line
00:45:46.260
at their protest. So the comparison is not apt at all. But here's the difference that I think is
00:45:52.980
important. Julian Assange is an Australian in the UK being deported to America. Arthur Pawlowski is a
00:46:00.900
Canadian on trial in Canada for a speech he gave in Canada. That terrifies me more.
00:46:08.180
Pamela writes, hi Ezra. I'm a big fan of yours. Great work covering the World Economic Forum.
00:46:12.420
And I loved your interview with Noor Bin Laden to spin off her comment on the importance of educating
00:46:17.380
the public on the founding fathers of America and how historically the USA has been the wedge
00:46:21.380
between the global agenda and freedom. The one company that I think has been doing a fantastic job
00:46:26.500
with educating the public and most importantly children on conservative values and the founding
00:46:30.260
fathers of America has been PragerU. Perhaps an interview with Dennis Prager or Marissa Strait.
00:46:36.020
Additionally, a great app I've discovered is Angel Studios and they have a fantastic cartoon for kids
00:46:40.820
called Tuttle Twins, whereby they visit the past via a time machine with their Cuban grandma and visit
00:46:46.660
the founding fathers, etc. Well, first of all, thank you for your compliments. I'm not familiar with that
00:46:52.740
app or Tuttle Twins, so I can't speak to them. PragerU, though, I am quite familiar with.
00:46:58.180
They're very strong in terms of freedom. They have hundreds of millions of views, probably billions
00:47:02.500
of views. And I have had the pleasure of being at a Democracy Fund event where Dennis Prager and a
00:47:10.260
colleague were talking about freedom, not just in America, but in Canada. So I agree with you.
00:47:14.580
I'm PragerU and I thank you for your compliments. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow,
00:47:20.020
on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night,