Rebel News Podcast - February 23, 2024


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trudeau doesn't want a free press — he wants taxpayer-funded jockeys who push government narratives


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 5 minutes

Words per Minute

172.1309

Word Count

11,344

Sentence Count

814

Misogynist Sentences

13

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Justin Trudeau says he's upset that Canadians now have other news outlets besides CBC and CTV to get the information they need to make decisions. But who's to say there's only one idea that's true? And what does that even mean?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I was in Lethbridge, but I'm back in Toronto, and I've had a time to go through
00:00:04.420 some videotape of Justin Trudeau talking about journalism and how we no longer have an agreed
00:00:09.900 set of facts for life. And I'm thinking, who is he to say we all have to agree with him on facts?
00:00:15.840 And isn't life about a clash of ideas, a marketplace of ideas, competing ideas? Who is
00:00:21.600 he to say there's only one idea that is true? I'll take you through the videotape, and I'll give you
00:00:25.960 my thoughts. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's
00:00:29.800 the video version of this show. And I think today's a good time to get it because I show so many video
00:00:34.540 clips. I'd love for you to see them. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight
00:00:39.780 bucks a month. You get the video version of the show, and you support Rebel News, which we need
00:00:44.260 because we don't take a dime from Trudeau, and it shows. All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:59.800 Tonight, Justin Trudeau says he's upset that Canadians have other news choices besides CBC
00:01:11.220 and CTV. It's February 22nd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:15.540 Shame on you, you censorious bug.
00:01:21.340 Oh, hi, everybody. It's great to be back in the studio. I was down in Lethbridge the last few days
00:01:34.880 for the pretrial hearings in the so-called COOTS 4. There's only two of them left. The other two have
00:01:40.080 pled out. You can see all my reportage there at truckertrial.com. By the way, the COOTS 3 have their
00:01:47.640 pretrial hearings next week. That's sort of the leadership team of the COOTS blockade truckers,
00:01:53.500 and I'll be out there again, and we're assigning our trucker trial reporter, Robert Krejcik.
00:02:01.700 You probably know him from covering Tamara Leach's trial in Ottawa. He'll be down there
00:02:05.440 in Lethbridge, too. There's a lot of trials going on. It's incredible how two years later,
00:02:11.400 the authoritarian lockdowns still continue to reverberate.
00:02:14.820 Anyways, I wasn't the only one who was in Alberta. So was Justin Trudeau,
00:02:19.780 and he did an interview with a left-wing radio host named Ryan Jesperson. I should say he's no
00:02:24.780 longer a radio host. He was sort of let go from his radio position, and now he's got an online show,
00:02:30.280 and good for him. He's an independent citizen journalist. He's got a bit of an audience,
00:02:34.120 and I salute him for that, even though I disagree with most things he says. Good for him.
00:02:38.460 I want to show you a clip that Justin Trudeau did when he was on this friendly radio show.
00:02:43.960 We're actually going to break it in half because there's two chunks. Here's the first part.
00:02:48.440 It's only 30 seconds long, but Trudeau says quite a lot in 30 seconds.
00:02:52.660 There is out there a deliberate undermining of mainstream media. There are the conspiracy
00:02:59.300 theorists. There are the social media drivers who are trying to do everything they can to keep
00:03:05.340 people in their little filter bubbles, to prevent people from actually agreeing on a common set of
00:03:10.340 facts, the way CBC and CTV, when they were our only sources of news and global, used to project
00:03:18.480 across the country at least a common understanding of things.
00:03:21.100 Some of what Trudeau says there is actually true. I think he's just putting the wrong spin on it.
00:03:26.760 So he says that independent journalists, citizen journalists, are deliberately undermining the
00:03:32.200 mainstream media. I don't know. Maybe that's what you call healthy competition, the same way that
00:03:37.280 Coke is deliberately undermining Pepsi and the liberals are deliberately undermining the
00:03:42.960 conservatives. It's called a clash of ideas or more to the point, a marketplace of ideas where
00:03:47.920 people vote with their dollars or where they click. He says that, you know, we're breaking down the
00:03:57.320 mainstream media. And I think it's because the mainstream media has failed to incorporate other
00:04:02.800 voices in it. Trudeau is suggesting that this is as bad that people are abandoning those
00:04:08.600 regime media. I think it's actually a good thing because people who are shut out from the national
00:04:13.800 conversation hosted by global CBC and CTV, for example, when was the last time you ever saw anyone
00:04:21.480 who was a global warming skeptic on the regime media or anyone who was pro-life or anyone who's worried
00:04:27.980 about transgenderism in women's sports or anyone who's pro-firearms or pro-Donald Trump or pro-Canadian
00:04:35.380 oil or anti-unlimited immigration. Never is the short answer. In fact, some of the TV stations like
00:04:42.500 the CBC have an official editorial policy against having people who are skeptics of global warming.
00:04:48.580 They say we don't debate flat earth. So the mainstream media has failed. You heard Trudeau say that phrase,
00:04:53.920 it's the mainstream media. And I use that phrase sometimes too. I prefer to say the media party or
00:04:58.380 the regime media, but really, why are we calling the mainstream anymore? And I just, for example,
00:05:04.460 I went to the CBC's annual report. It's really easy to find if you go to Google and just type in
00:05:09.200 CBC annual report 2023. And on page 18 and 19 and 20 there, I won't get deep into the details,
00:05:17.220 but you can see year after year, their audience is falling. How's that possible? The population of
00:05:28.420 Canada is growing. The budget for the CBC is enormous. They have such an enormous advantage.
00:05:35.600 How is it possible that month after month and year after year, the number of people watching falls here?
00:05:42.340 Just for one example, here's a statistic you can see right there. The CBC says they have about,
00:05:47.220 20 million visitors a month. There's 40 million Canadians. So if they have 20 million visitors a month,
00:05:58.140 that means on average, every Canadian clicks on a CBC story once every two months. I mean,
00:06:07.540 and it's declining. That's what's incredible here. I don't know if you can see that chart year after year.
00:06:11.240 They're not mainstream anymore. If the average Canadian only clicks on a CBC story six times a year,
00:06:20.420 which is what their own report is, that's not mainstream. That's fringe. He calls everybody else
00:06:27.160 a conspiracy theorist. That's just an insult. A lot of the conspiracy theories have been proven correct,
00:06:32.300 of course, whether it's about the extent that Trudeau would go for vaccine mandates,
00:06:39.160 or even some of his bizarre theories like blaming Israel for a rocket attack on a hospital in Gaza that
00:06:45.440 was done by Islamic Jihad. He says that the internet keeps people in their bubbles. I think it's
00:06:51.340 actually the opposite of that. The internet has freed people from the bubbles of CBC, CTV and global.
00:06:58.400 You're allowed to find your own bubble. I am, I guess, in a conservative bubble, but I'm still
00:07:03.920 overwhelmed with media from the left. I think I probably have a more diverse group of news that
00:07:09.240 I sample from than Trudeau does. But the one thing that got me the most from Trudeau's comments was
00:07:15.180 his phrase, a common set of facts. Like CBC, CTV and global used to project across the country. He's
00:07:25.440 admitting it. He's saying that he misses the ability of those three regime media to control what we say
00:07:33.640 and control what we believe is true. But we're not about a common set of facts. I mean, I think
00:07:41.160 there's certain things that we no longer debate, like, you know, the earth is round or the earth
00:07:46.020 is flat. I think we all accept that the earth is round. But most other things we allow disputes and
00:07:51.760 debates on. As Richard Feynman, the former Nobel Prize winner, once said, science is the belief of
00:07:58.160 the fallibility of experts. Experts are wrong. And science is constantly trying to prove they're wrong
00:08:04.520 and improve the theories of life. And we don't have common facts. We have debates over the facts.
00:08:11.760 Our entire society is set up that way. A court case has a plaintiff and a defendant or a prosecutor
00:08:18.760 and a suspect. We're not all on the same side. We argue it out. Same thing in politics. We have the
00:08:27.460 government, but we have the opposition, an official, institutional, permanent opposition, because we know
00:08:33.600 the truth is not owned and monopolized by any one side. Science is absolutely about skepticism and
00:08:41.800 challenging things. Who has trued out a demand that we have a common set of facts? Oh, let me guess.
00:08:46.740 I'm just going to go out on a limb here. The common set of facts that we all have to have is the one
00:08:51.120 he himself believes in. All right. I spent a lot of time talking about 30 seconds. Let's watch the
00:08:55.580 end of that clip. Any government that chooses to step up and say, well, this is the mainstream view
00:09:01.440 will, if we're not careful, actually compromise those organizations as being mouthpieces for,
00:09:12.000 you know, a mainstream view that, that people on the fringes are. Exactly. So how do we actually
00:09:20.660 shift that? I think one of the ways you do it is, um, create opportunities for strong, clear voices
00:09:27.980 like yours, like this show to be a source of news where people are actually drawing on real
00:09:34.380 conversations and evidence-based presentation and thoughtful exposition and investigation where
00:09:40.940 necessary. Like there is, there are massive changes that need to happen in our media landscape and
00:09:46.300 government can try and create conditions and incentives for it to happen. But ultimately it
00:09:51.900 does come down to Canadians saying, you know what? I, I don't want to accept the
00:09:56.880 communication of news. And quite frankly, the number of followers you have, the number of great
00:10:01.280 podcasts people are out there getting their news from, the, the people, the way people are consuming
00:10:05.340 their stories from around the world in more thoughtful ways, that is a good thing. But where it's lacking
00:10:10.540 is that local content, is, is the stories about the closure of, you know, this street that's going to
00:10:17.580 cause trouble in this neighborhood. Uh, as soon as you get to a certain size, as soon as you have
00:10:21.960 audience across the country, you know, you can't spend a lot of time on what's happening down at
00:10:26.520 the end of, you know, main street in, in, in your community. That, he said a lot of weird things there
00:10:31.400 too. He said that any media that jumps on the government view will be called a government mouthpiece
00:10:39.000 that's bought and paid for. But they're saying that because that's actually the factual truth of it.
00:10:44.760 As you know, 99% of Canadian media do get grants and subsidies from the government. That's, that's not a
00:10:51.560 conspiracy theory that's happening. Trudeau boasts about it. Most media companies don't like to talk
00:10:58.140 about it because it's clearly compromising their independence. But when the media echoes and repeats
00:11:03.920 what Trudeau says, and we say, oh, look, you're in the pocket of Trudeau. That's not a baseless
00:11:08.720 allegation. It's because they are paid by Trudeau. And there's a reason why in newspapers and TV channels,
00:11:15.080 an ad is marked as an ad. So, you know, that they're selling you something, not telling you
00:11:21.580 something. What Trudeau has done is blurred the line between telling you and selling you
00:11:26.000 because he's actually buying the journalistic coverage himself. He says though, I mean, and he
00:11:32.700 can't help himself. He's just ideologically incoherent. He says that he wants the government
00:11:37.380 to quote, create opportunities for strong, clear voices. What? The government's going to create,
00:11:44.220 and let me guess, I'm just going out on a limb here. The strong, clear voices are journalists
00:11:48.680 who like Justin Trudeau. Just, just a guess. And then he says, oh, and what we really need
00:11:54.100 is local coverage like potholes and roads and stuff. Hang on. I thought you were worried about
00:11:59.220 conspiracy theories on grand things. Justin Trudeau is a mishmash of ideas. All he knows is this.
00:12:05.420 He hates people who don't like him. He loves people who do like him. And he believes that cash is the
00:12:10.200 way to get him. You know, I, I don't know. I'm not sure what a common set of facts is on a pothole,
00:12:16.100 but I don't think you should put too much stock in anything Trudeau says. Um, I thought that was a
00:12:21.160 very interesting video clip, but even more interesting perhaps is watching Pierre Pauly,
00:12:26.700 the conservative leader, and how he tackles Trudeau in a way that I've never seen before. Trudeau's been
00:12:32.120 prime minister since 2015. And he was a candidate for years before that. And conservatives have
00:12:39.980 always been on the back foot. What I mean by that is always playing catch up, always on the defense
00:12:45.440 of always reacting rather than acting and always waiting to be sucker punched by the woke media and
00:12:51.800 Trudeau as racist, sexist, anti-gay, whatever. I mean, that's, it's almost like we've been handed a
00:12:57.060 script by the left and they attack us. And we sort of try and defend and say, Oh no, please don't call
00:13:03.320 me that name. Pauly did something the other day that I've never seen before. He was asked about
00:13:08.780 Trudeau's hate speech, um, bills, the online harms act. We've talked a lot about that over the years
00:13:13.300 and Pauly flipped it around immediately. I'll let you watch the clip, but Pauly said,
00:13:21.820 Trudeau to him, hate speech is speech that he hates. And that's very clearly.
00:13:27.060 And then he went on that hate line a bit and saying, Trudeau is the hater because Trudeau
00:13:32.760 is an, was an active racist in real life for the first half of his life.
00:13:42.000 A reference to the fact that Trudeau dressed up in blackface in his teens, his twenties, and even
00:13:47.740 into his thirties, he went on the offensive. He took the liberal stick of you're a racist,
00:13:55.340 you're a racist. And instead of waiting for it to be deployed against him, he harpooned
00:14:01.440 Trudeau with it. Take a look at Pauly saying that. Have you ever seen this before?
00:14:05.000 I point out the irony that someone who spent the first half of his adult life as a practicing
00:14:13.860 racist who dressed up in hideous racist costumes so many times he says he can't remember them all
00:14:22.260 should then be the arbiter on what constitutes hate. Why doesn't he, what he should actually do
00:14:29.520 is look into his own heart and ask himself why he was such a hateful racist for, despite his enormous
00:14:37.380 personal privileges of a multi-million dollar trust fund, being the son of a prime minister,
00:14:42.820 growing up in mansions, traveling the world, why he had so much hate in his art that he was
00:14:48.400 such an awful racist. And what he should do is actually explain where that ugliness came from.
00:14:55.120 And maybe in that way, rather than through coercion, he could help us all in the fight against real
00:15:02.100 hate. Thank you. Trudeau's a lifelong racist. I've never heard it put that way before. Everybody
00:15:08.860 in the media knows exactly what he's talking about. I think a lot of Canadians know exactly
00:15:13.280 what he's talking about. And how can you dispute it? The media either are going to ignore it or
00:15:19.340 because how can they debate it? How can they dispute it? Everyone knows that Trudeau got a
00:15:24.020 pass for wearing blackface. Now, Trudeau was challenged with this because this was actually
00:15:30.520 exciting for a journalist. And he was asked about the blackface comment. And he didn't do what
00:15:37.180 conservatives typically do. He didn't say, but, but, but, well, let me explain or you have to see.
00:15:41.540 He just ignored it and said, well, the conservatives are throwing insults. Watching Paliyev go on the
00:15:46.840 attack with what is normally a woke attack, you're racist, and watching Trudeau defend by ignoring,
00:15:52.380 this is new territory. Take a look at that. Dealing in facts, actually reading a piece of
00:15:58.140 legislation before he starts telling people what he think it does. And then having a rigorous debate
00:16:04.120 in parliament about how to best protect kids. He's not interested in that. He's interested in
00:16:09.320 hurling insults, in distracting from the fact that he has no plan on housing. He has no plan on child
00:16:15.220 care. He has no plan on fighting climate change and creating good jobs for the future. He has no plan
00:16:20.780 in terms of building and protecting the kinds of jobs here in Alberta or across the country that people
00:16:25.360 are going to rely on in a transforming world. What does he have a plan for? He has a plan for
00:16:30.300 stoking division, creating fear, throwing out personal insults. That's not leadership.
00:16:37.160 Canadians deserve a government that is focused every day on building a better future for them.
00:16:41.600 That's what I'm doing here today. He can throw whatever insults he like. I look forward to having
00:16:47.020 substantive debates on how we're going to fix the challenges Canadians are facing because we're busy
00:16:52.100 doing that while he's busy ranting. I sort of like that. And you know that that's going to blunt the
00:16:59.280 liberals for making that same attack on politics. And by the way, Pierre Polyev's wife is a woman of color
00:17:04.220 who's an immigrant to Canada. And I don't know if you know Polyev's story. He was adopted by a family,
00:17:09.440 yada, yada. And his dad later came out as gay. And I say that only to say, how do you attack a guy like
00:17:16.160 that for being anti-gay or anti-minority or anti-immigrant? You can't do those things to
00:17:21.520 Polyev that you could do in the past. Now, it was never based on fairness. They would say that about
00:17:26.640 anyone. But look at Polyev. He doesn't take it lying down. He goes on the hunt. He preempts.
00:17:32.600 I like it. I like it. Let me show you one more thing. So Trudeau felt like he had to come back at
00:17:41.400 that online harms thing one more time. And let me play. And so unprompted, without a question,
00:17:46.460 Trudeau weighed in on the subject one more time. Let me play just one more clip. Thanks for your
00:17:49.720 patience. But I find these clips very interesting. There was a question about online harms that people
00:17:55.380 are asking about. And I think I was talking about this with my MPs earlier. The reality is
00:18:00.180 I think everyone agrees how incredibly important it is to keep kids safe. We keep kids safe in the
00:18:09.940 schoolyard. We keep kids safe in our communities. We need to do a better job as a society keeping
00:18:16.320 kids safe online. Keeping them safe from child sexual exploitation, from bullying, from the kinds
00:18:23.360 of mental health distress that far too many of our young people are going through. And that's why
00:18:29.200 we're moving forward with online harms legislation that will be introduced soon in the House and that
00:18:34.800 will be robustly debated. Because I think it's something that all Canadians count on, that
00:18:40.600 governments do what they need to keep all of our kids safe. Now the fact that Pierre Polyevre and the
00:18:46.240 Conservatives, without reading the legislation, without knowing what's in the legislation, are not
00:18:52.220 just opposing it, but spreading lies about it, is concerning. What's also concerning is instead of
00:19:00.520 stepping up to stand for protecting our kids through responsible serious legislation. He's proposing that
00:19:09.800 adults should instead have to give their ID and their personal information to sketchy websites or create a
00:19:18.540 digital ID for adults to be able to browse the web where they want to. That's something that we stand against and disagree with. We think we need to
00:19:30.120 responsibly protect kids, but we need to do it in a way that is acceptable to all Canadians. So I think this is yet another
00:19:39.400 example of Pierre Polyevre being irresponsible and not serious and choosing to play politics instead of actually focusing on what
00:19:47.400 matters, which is how to keep our kids safe. Now if you've been watching my show for a few years, you know we've talked a lot about the so-called
00:19:53.400 Online Harms Act. I've always said that there were four pieces of legislation that Trudeau was putting in in order, and there was a
00:20:00.680 logical order. The first one was C-11. That basically gave Trudeau dominion over the internet. Until that moment, the government media
00:20:10.680 regulator called the CRTC only regulated TV and radio and cell phones and cable and stuff, but it didn't regulate the internet. C-11
00:20:20.360 gave the CRTC dominion over websites, and one particular section, you know, we've talked about this before, gives Trudeau the ability to alter
00:20:30.360 the search algorithms, which is terrifying. C-18 was the next one, which basically said if you're a trusted media organization, Trudeau's going to scoop up a
00:20:40.360 hundred million dollars a year from Facebook and Google and pay it out to his favorite media companies. Facebook said, yeah, thanks, but no thanks, we're not going to play, but Google's
00:20:49.360 playing along. So C-11 nationalized jurisdiction over the internet. C-18 basically wrung out a hundred million bucks from Google and
00:20:59.360 is going to parse it out to Trudeau's favorite media companies. Then there's C-36, which died on the order paper, but Trudeau said he'll bring it back. That
00:21:07.360 basically criminalizes offensive words. We'll talk about that another day. But the last part is the so-called Online Harms Act. And the government has really
00:21:17.360 disclosed a lot of its plans. They did this before the last election. And you might recall that Stephen Gilboa, the atrocious current environment
00:21:27.360 minister, was the heritage minister at the time. I want to remind you what Stephen Gilboa said the Online Harms Act was about. Let me show you this and then
00:21:35.360 I'm going to show you what Trudeau claimed it was about yesterday. Here's Stephen Gilboa reminding us that the real purpose here is to stop lowly citizens from
00:21:45.360 criticizing politicians. He said it. Take a look. We've seen too many examples of public officials retreating from public service due to the
00:21:53.360 hateful online content targeted towards themselves or even their families. Oh, and if you don't shut up and if you don't stop criticizing
00:22:01.360 politicians, there's always the nuclear option. His word, not mine. Nuclear option of actually banning a website from Canada. That's what North Korea does.
00:22:11.360 And Stephen Gilboa, that's just normal to him. Here's him saying it.
00:22:15.360 Envision having blocking orders. I mean, that's that maybe it's not, you know, it's a, it would be, it would likely be a last
00:22:29.360 result, last result, nuclear bomb in, in a, in a toolbox of, of mechanism.
00:22:35.360 You heard him. You heard him. It's about stopping criticism of politicians and they'll delete a website from the very internet if they have to.
00:22:44.360 Here's Trudeau yesterday claiming, no, no, no. This is all about keeping kids safe. Yeah, that's it. Keeping kids safe. Take a look.
00:22:53.360 We know and everyone can agree that kids are vulnerable online to hatred, to violence, to being bullied, to seeing and being affected by terrible things online.
00:23:10.360 We need to do a better job as a society of protecting our kids online the way we protect them in schoolyards, in our communities, in our homes across the country.
00:23:21.360 We need to make sure, and I think we can all agree, we need to protect our kids online.
00:23:26.360 Now, how to go about do that is a very careful balance. We need to make sure we're protecting freedom of expression.
00:23:34.360 We need to make sure we're protecting the freedoms and the rights of Canadians while we protect kids.
00:23:40.360 That's why we've spent years working with different community groups, with advocates, with minority communities, with experts,
00:23:47.360 with people in, in all sorts of different backgrounds to make sure that what we're doing is actually protecting kids.
00:23:54.360 And I look forward to putting forward that online harms bill, which people will see is very, very specifically focused on protecting kids
00:24:04.360 and not on censoring the internet as misinformation and as the right wing tends to try and characterize it as.
00:24:13.360 I think everyone, wherever they are on the political spectrum, can agree that protecting kids is something governments should be focused on doing.
00:24:21.360 That's a very long answer. And it's the first time I've ever heard Justin Trudeau criticize digital ID.
00:24:28.360 He's the guy who gave you a $6,000 fine if you refuse to use the Arrive Can app, and now he's against digital ID.
00:24:35.360 He's referring to an idea that Polyev seems to be supporting of requiring people to show ID to use pornographic websites.
00:24:42.360 I think there's some risk there in requiring people to show ID to websites.
00:24:47.360 I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I don't know enough of the details.
00:24:50.360 But what I do know is this is the first time Justin Trudeau has ever been for Freedom Online is for pornography.
00:24:57.360 Justin Trudeau has been a critic of freedom of speech. He's been rolling back freedom of speech in real life, in press conferences, on TV, on the internet.
00:25:06.360 This is the first time in eight and a half years I have ever seen Justin Trudeau come out for privacy and freedom of speech.
00:25:15.360 And it's for pornography. That's Justin Trudeau's mind.
00:25:19.360 I think it's very interesting, and I think these are battles that we haven't had before.
00:25:26.360 I think that conservative leaders in the past are absolutely terrified to talk about these kind of things.
00:25:31.360 They're terrified to talk about cultural matters, terrified to talk about personal matters.
00:25:35.360 But in the last couple of months, Pierre Polyev has not been resting on his laurels.
00:25:40.360 I mean, he's got almost a 20-point lead in the polls.
00:25:42.360 A lot of that is due to outrageous housing costs, outrageous inflation, grocery prices, crime, traffic, crazy waiting.
00:25:52.360 I saw a website the other day showing the official, like the government of British Columbia has official wait times for different hospital emergency rooms around BC.
00:26:01.360 They were five to ten hours each.
00:26:03.360 An emergency room. Emergency room.
00:26:06.360 Average wait ten hours in some of them.
00:26:09.360 People are beyond.
00:26:12.360 And you would think that, you know, to play it safe, Pierre Polyev could just talk about housing, talk about these things.
00:26:18.360 But in fact, he's actually using some political capital to talk about immigration, to talk about transgenderism.
00:26:26.360 Did you see this the other day when our friend David Menzies asked him a question?
00:26:29.360 Here's the question and the answer.
00:26:31.360 Good morning, Mr. Polyev. David Menzies with Rebel News.
00:26:33.360 Mr. Polyev, for the last few years, our news organization has been covering what can only be described as a war on women.
00:26:42.360 Biological males are pretending to be females, and these men are invading female safe spaces.
00:26:49.360 This includes female sports ranging from volleyball to rugby.
00:26:54.360 As well, men pretending to be women are gaining access to female shelters and even female prisons.
00:27:02.360 This has collectively led to real women and girls being emotionally abused, physically injured.
00:27:11.360 My question, sir, is should you form the next federal government?
00:27:15.360 Will you make female safe spaces safe again by introducing legislation that bans so-called transgender women from participating in female sports and getting access into female shelters and female prisons?
00:27:33.360 Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males.
00:27:40.360 You asked if I introduce legislation on that.
00:27:42.360 A lot of the spaces you described are provincially and municipally controlled.
00:27:48.360 So it is unclear what federal legislation, what would reach federal legislation would have to change them.
00:27:57.360 But obviously, female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females, not for biological males.
00:28:06.360 I think that's a really fair answer.
00:28:07.360 I think that's a really fair answer.
00:28:08.360 It's a limited answer.
00:28:09.360 He's not saying I'm going to go in and mind the province's business.
00:28:13.360 He's not saying he's going to go into a swimming pool owned by a city, tell them what to do.
00:28:19.360 But he's making a principle statement that male to female transgenders should not be in change rooms with real women.
00:28:28.360 And I think that's a position 80 percent of Canadians suggest in the polls attest to that.
00:28:33.360 I guess one of my favorite clips of Polyev talking about things that he's not supposed to.
00:28:39.360 Hey, you're not supposed to talk about that is when he talked directly about media bailouts.
00:28:45.360 This is a little while ago when he was asked about Bell Media laying off a lot of journalists.
00:28:50.360 And Trudeau just smacked right back at the reporter and saying he would not give subsidies to companies.
00:28:55.360 Look at this.
00:28:56.360 You're talking about tax dollars for media.
00:28:58.360 Isn't CBC your biggest, isn't, I can answer.
00:29:01.360 I asked regulatory relief.
00:29:02.360 You want to answer?
00:29:03.360 The party wants to grant $100 million in regulatory relief to the mainstream media.
00:29:08.360 When would you like me to respond?
00:29:11.360 Okay, good.
00:29:12.360 Okay, great.
00:29:13.360 So, of course, you are a tax funded media outlet and spreading Justin Trudeau's message.
00:29:18.360 Why did you want to answer $100 million?
00:29:20.360 So, you're interrupting me again.
00:29:22.360 You're interrupting me again.
00:29:23.360 I am answering the question.
00:29:24.360 Do you regret granting $100 million in regulatory relief to the mainstream media?
00:29:31.360 Your question is false.
00:29:32.360 So, if you can allow me to correct your falsehoods, then we can answer the question directly.
00:29:37.360 So, false.
00:29:38.360 Canadian Conservatives do not believe in giving tax dollars to media outlets.
00:29:42.360 That's Justin Trudeau.
00:29:43.360 That's Justin Trudeau.
00:29:44.360 That's Justin Trudeau.
00:29:45.360 That's Justin Trudeau.
00:29:46.360 Okay, if you don't want me to answer the question, I'll move on to someone else.
00:29:49.360 You're a tax funded mouthpiece to the PMO.
00:29:53.360 That's the reality.
00:29:54.360 I would love the question answered.
00:29:55.360 You committed to answering the question.
00:29:56.360 I'm trying to.
00:29:57.360 I'm trying to.
00:29:58.360 But you're heckling.
00:29:59.360 Are you going to let me answer the question or are you just going to heckle on behalf of
00:30:03.360 Justin Trudeau?
00:30:04.360 Which is it?
00:30:05.360 I would love the answer.
00:30:06.360 Great.
00:30:07.360 So, our party does not support tax dollars for media outlets, because that's when we
00:30:11.360 end up with biased media like you who come here and articulate the PMO talking points,
00:30:17.360 rather than delivering real news to the Canadian people.
00:30:22.360 Justin Trudeau gave Bell Media and other media tax dollars, supposedly, to protect media
00:30:28.360 jobs.
00:30:29.360 And then what happened?
00:30:30.360 They all got laid off.
00:30:31.360 So, the supposed justification for giving Bell all this money was that it was going
00:30:38.360 to save media jobs.
00:30:39.360 Well, they all got fired.
00:30:40.360 So, I guess that wasn't the real reason for giving tax dollars to the media.
00:30:45.360 The real reason was for him to buy support from the media, which is what it actually did.
00:30:50.360 So, we believe that media should be driven by readership, viewership, and listenership.
00:30:57.360 And that's what allows it to represent the Canadian people, rather than taking marching
00:31:03.360 orders from the PMO.
00:31:04.360 Yeah, that's a lot of clips I've shown you today, but I feel really good about them.
00:31:08.360 I feel really good about Pierre Polyev taking principled stands about immigration and transgenderism.
00:31:14.360 I feel absolutely great about Polyev just taking a baseball bat to Trudeau over a lifelong
00:31:22.360 racist.
00:31:23.360 It took me about half a second to say, what is he talking about?
00:31:26.360 Well, that's because no one's ever called it like that before.
00:31:29.360 And you saw Trudeau's response.
00:31:30.360 Trudeau didn't know what to make of it.
00:31:32.360 He just ignored it and said, oh, stop insulting me.
00:31:34.360 Really?
00:31:35.360 That's your playbook, buddy.
00:31:36.360 It's fascinating to see it deployed against him.
00:31:39.360 But it's also interesting to realize that Trudeau is not done censoring people yet.
00:31:43.360 If he had as well.
00:31:44.360 You heard that Ryan Jesperson interview.
00:31:45.360 He hates the fact that he no longer controls the narrative.
00:31:48.360 He hates the fact that there's conspiracy theories out there, although he's actually one of the
00:31:53.360 most prolific conspiracy theorists around.
00:31:57.360 I don't know.
00:31:58.360 I feel like we're in interesting days.
00:31:59.360 I feel like Rebel News is on the forefront of a lot of these issues.
00:32:02.360 We've been talking about things like transgenderism, David Mendy's great reports, or immigration
00:32:07.360 before anyone else was, and we're actually trying to do things about censorship by going
00:32:12.360 to court.
00:32:13.360 Interesting days.
00:32:26.360 Well, one of the things I like about the new generation of conservative political leaders
00:32:29.360 in Canada is they're not afraid to go directly to the people.
00:32:33.360 Pierre Pauly has done a great job of that, producing what I would call mini documentaries
00:32:38.360 talking about housing prices across the country, talking about inflation.
00:32:42.360 I find them actually pretty high-brow.
00:32:45.360 They treat the viewer with respect.
00:32:46.360 They have lots of facts in them.
00:32:48.360 They're plain-spoken, but they assume that Canadians may not be particularly informed on
00:32:53.360 a subject, but it treats Canadians as intelligent.
00:32:56.360 I really think it works, especially compared to the pablum and the fog that emanates from so
00:33:02.360 the liberal cabinet minister.
00:33:03.360 I like Pierre Pauly has moved, and you know who's doing a great job in that same vein?
00:33:08.360 Danielle Smith.
00:33:09.360 Now, I don't know if she's quite got the production quality down pat, which is interesting because,
00:33:13.360 of course, she comes from the media.
00:33:14.360 I'm sure she'll get better and better all the time.
00:33:17.360 But she's going straight to the people with Twitter videos and Facebook videos that I think
00:33:23.360 are quite effective.
00:33:24.360 First of all, they make her look really likable, I think.
00:33:27.360 And that's so important when your CBC opposition is trying to demonize you.
00:33:32.360 And second of all, she's being substantive.
00:33:35.360 Let me show you.
00:33:36.360 She did this just a couple of weeks ago on the transgender issue, and I thought she hit
00:33:39.360 a home run there, by the way.
00:33:41.360 Let me show you her latest.
00:33:43.360 It's around eight minutes.
00:33:45.360 I'm not going to play all of it now.
00:33:46.360 It's talking about how Alberta's going to handle the boom and bust cycles of oil and gas
00:33:51.360 and her plans.
00:33:52.360 Just watch a couple of minutes of her talking about saving money.
00:33:56.360 Take a listen.
00:33:57.360 Let me propose an alternative solution.
00:33:59.360 Peter Lougheed had the foresight to create what is today commonly called the Alberta Heritage Fund.
00:34:04.360 The initial purpose of this fund was to invest a portion of Alberta's non-renewable resource
00:34:09.360 revenues each year, so the investment income earned on the fund would eventually grow large
00:34:14.360 enough to eliminate our province's reliance on resource revenues when they ultimately declined.
00:34:19.360 Turns out that vision was well ahead of its time.
00:34:22.360 In fact, several countries, such as Norway and many other oil and gas producing nations
00:34:27.360 around the world, adopted that same strategy, and now boast sovereign wealth funds large
00:34:32.360 enough to entirely eliminate their nation's reliance on resource revenues.
00:34:36.360 In fact, these nations now earn enough each year in their funds to make massive investments
00:34:41.360 in world-class infrastructure and other public benefits that were not previously possible.
00:34:46.360 In Alberta, if we had just reinvested the income earned in our Heritage Fund from the Lougheed
00:34:52.360 Government's initial deposits of about $12 billion in the late 70s and early 80s, even
00:34:57.360 without investing another extra dollar, our Heritage Fund would be worth over $250 billion
00:35:03.360 today, earning between $12 and $25 billion per year in revenue.
00:35:09.360 This means we would have been earning enough interest today to make us entirely unreliant
00:35:15.360 on resource revenues. But for a variety of reasons, from both within and without Alberta,
00:35:20.360 we did not do this as a province. Of course, now is not the time for us to bemoan what might have been.
00:35:25.360 In my view, the time has come to act decisively and end any further procrastination.
00:35:30.360 Last year, our government passed a law mandating that all income earned in the Alberta Heritage Fund
00:35:36.360 must be invested in the fund rather than spent. During the current budget year, we hope to invest
00:35:42.360 and reinvest approximately $3 billion of surplus and investment income back into the Heritage Fund,
00:35:48.360 increasing its value to almost $25 billion. That's up from $17 billion just a couple of years ago.
00:35:54.360 This puts us back on the right track. In addition, I have instructed our Finance Minister to limit
00:36:01.360 government spending to below the legislated rate cap of inflation plus population growth,
00:36:06.360 not just during lean years with lower oil prices as we expect next year,
00:36:11.360 but also in years when high oil and natural gas prices result in billions of surplus provincial dollars.
00:36:17.360 Instead of spending all that non-renewable surplus cash on the wants of today,
00:36:21.360 we will be fiscally disciplined, invest in the Heritage Fund annually,
00:36:26.360 strategically pay down maturing debt, and slowly but surely wean our provinces' budget
00:36:31.360 off the volatile roller coaster of resource revenues.
00:36:34.360 In my view, our province has one last shot at getting this right.
00:36:38.360 We still have several decades during this global energy transition
00:36:42.360 where nations will desperately need our oil and gas resources for their people,
00:36:46.360 and we will provide it to them with the most advanced environmental technology on Earth.
00:36:51.360 So despite this coming year's predicted global economic slowdown,
00:36:55.360 I believe our province is on the cusp of an unprecedented and prolonged energy resource boom,
00:37:00.360 one that will include both hundreds of billions in investment and tens of thousands of new jobs,
00:37:06.360 not only in oil and gas production, but also in designing and building the most advanced emission reduction technologies on Earth.
00:37:13.360 It is going to be an exciting time for our province and for Canada,
00:37:17.360 especially once we finally get a federal government that acts like a strategic partner rather than a delusional adversary.
00:37:24.360 Prior to the end of this year, our government will publicly release a long-term financial plan charting a path to a heritage fund
00:37:31.360 of between $250 and $400 billion by the year 2050.
00:37:36.360 2050 is also our target for achieving a carbon-neutral economy.
00:37:40.360 Meeting these two goals simultaneously with Alberta technology, determination, and ingenuity
00:37:46.360 will leave an invaluable legacy for future generations of Albertans and Canadians.
00:37:51.360 There is no doubt in my mind we are capable of achieving these goals,
00:37:55.360 but we need to start today and stick with it fervently, year after year.
00:37:59.360 I ask for your support as our government commits itself to placing our province on this path to prosperity
00:38:06.360 that will last long after our last barrel of oil has been produced.
00:38:10.360 We, our children and their children, deserve nothing less.
00:38:14.360 You can watch the whole thing on her Twitter feed, or we'll have a link to it on the page.
00:38:18.360 I think she sounds great.
00:38:20.360 I think she sounds smart.
00:38:21.360 I think she sounds conservative, but also futuristic.
00:38:24.360 I don't agree with every word of what she says in the video.
00:38:27.360 She talks about, you know, carbon offsets or a zero carbon economy.
00:38:31.360 I think that's baloney.
00:38:32.360 But I think her comments about now are pretty good.
00:38:36.360 Let's ask someone who follows this very closely.
00:38:38.360 Our friend, Laura Gunter, senior columnist with the Post Media newspapers in Edmonton.
00:38:43.360 Lauren, great to see you again.
00:38:44.360 Thanks for taking the time.
00:38:45.360 You're welcome.
00:38:46.360 Happy to be here.
00:38:47.360 I like the fact that Danielle Smith is going straight to the people.
00:38:50.360 And I think every conservative politician should do that because I think too often
00:38:54.360 the mainstream media acts as a kind of filter.
00:38:57.360 Putting that, you know, outside comment aside, what about the heart of her message?
00:39:02.360 Do you agree with it?
00:39:03.360 Do you think it's smart for Alberta?
00:39:05.360 Do you think it's politically popular?
00:39:07.360 What do you think of her message today?
00:39:10.360 I think it's good.
00:39:11.360 I do think it's sensible.
00:39:13.360 It's not as dramatic as it might have been.
00:39:17.360 For instance, it doesn't acknowledge that the provincial government has a spending problem.
00:39:22.360 It doesn't matter which party is in office, whether it's the conservatives or the NDP or
00:39:28.360 now the UCP, they all spend more and more and more money every year.
00:39:34.360 And I call them I have today in the Edmonton Sun and the Calgary Sun.
00:39:37.360 I talk about the fact that in 2013, Alison Redford, who was the PC premier at the time,
00:39:44.360 talked about the bitumen bubble and how it was impossible to avoid deficits when we had to rely on oil and gas revenues.
00:39:52.360 And then in 2016, Rachel Notley talked about the revenue rollercoaster and how it was impossible to avoid deficits because we have to rely on oil and gas revenues.
00:40:01.360 And they have all done this.
00:40:02.360 I mean, I remember going back to Don Getty whining and whinging about the fact that they couldn't count on non-renewable resource revenues.
00:40:10.360 That's what they call the line in the budget every year, non-renewable resource revenues.
00:40:14.360 Because some years, as Smith pointed out this year, it's like 16 or 17 billion dollars in revenues, whereas two or three years ago, it was three.
00:40:23.360 Yeah.
00:40:24.360 Yeah, it's tricky for sure.
00:40:26.360 But nobody ever looks at the fact that 20 years ago, they were spending just a little more than half per capita adjusted for inflation of what they're spending now.
00:40:38.360 So they've increased spending by about 80% over 20 years in real dollars.
00:40:45.360 And they never acknowledged that.
00:40:47.360 So were there things about her speech that I didn't care for?
00:40:50.360 Yeah, I mean, I think it could have been much more transparent that way.
00:40:53.360 But in general, she said, look, we're not going to do this with taxes.
00:41:00.360 We're not going to do we're not going to find some stability in our revenues by putting in, for instance, a provincial sales tax.
00:41:08.360 Now, she didn't specifically mention the PST, but that's always, always, no matter who the premier is, that's always one of the options that's thrown out there is, oh, you know, if only Alberta had a PST, it would all be okay.
00:41:23.360 That's ridiculous.
00:41:25.360 So what she said was, over the next 25 years, we're going to try and hold spending to the increase in inflation and population.
00:41:34.360 If there's any surplus, we'll use it to pay down debt and reduce debt servicing costs and then put more into the Heritage Fund.
00:41:43.360 And I think this was one of the keys in her address.
00:41:46.360 She said, if the Heritage Fund had simply been left alone, if we had reinvested the interest from the Heritage Fund, it was about $12 billion when Peter Law had created it in the late 70s and early 80s.
00:42:00.360 If we'd left that $12 billion alone, the interest from that money plus the investments that it funded would now be giving Alberta about $250 billion in the fund, which would generate up to $25 billion a year in interest and investment income, which would even out all the problems that they have with non-resource revenue.
00:42:24.200 So this is sensible.
00:42:26.200 And I agree with you entirely that she accepts that Albertans might not know this, but she trusts that they're intelligent enough to understand it if she explains it to them.
00:42:37.200 I mean, you talked about the one she did a couple of weeks ago on transgender issues.
00:42:43.200 She did another one in January, where she talked about all of the different environmental initiatives that Trudeau has and how that was hurting Alberta.
00:42:53.200 And it was about four minutes long, I think four and a half minutes long.
00:42:57.200 And I thought it was very good.
00:42:59.200 But like you, I think the production qualities needed to be worked on.
00:43:02.200 I told her to stop walking.
00:43:04.200 She made me motion sick watching that one because she never stopped walking.
00:43:08.200 She never stopped walking.
00:43:09.200 She walked around the legislature ground and she stopped walking.
00:43:11.200 But it was intelligent and it was full of all sorts of really good information.
00:43:15.200 And so was the one on Wednesday night in the province wide address.
00:43:18.200 Yeah.
00:43:19.200 Those are great points.
00:43:21.200 I, um, I haven't checked this math recently, but I bet it's true.
00:43:27.200 I bet that the province of Alberta under a so-called conservative premier, that's what the UCB stands for United Conservative Party.
00:43:35.200 I bet they spend more per capita than the NDP government of British Columbia or the fake conservatives in Ontario.
00:43:44.200 I bet, in fact, Lauren, I bet you know this off the top of your head.
00:43:48.200 I bet that Danielle Smith spends more proportionately than Rachel Notley did.
00:43:53.200 No.
00:43:54.200 No.
00:43:55.200 I think they're actually about even, but-
00:43:57.200 Well, even that is shocking.
00:43:58.200 Even that-
00:43:59.200 They haven't ratcheted up.
00:44:00.200 You know, Thatcher used to say this about conservative governments in, in England, is that they would, they would come in and they would hold the line on spending done by the labor governments before them.
00:44:12.200 But no one ever ratcheted down this.
00:44:14.200 Right.
00:44:15.200 No, she came along.
00:44:16.200 And aside from the first four years of Ralph Klein's tenure, nobody has ratcheted back spending.
00:44:23.200 Yeah, this first time 30 years ago was the only time in Alberta history they actually cut, and they cut by a minuscule amount.
00:44:29.200 So, by the way-
00:44:30.200 Yeah.
00:44:31.200 The first four years, the first three years, they did a tremendous amount.
00:44:35.200 They, they cut 18% in real dollars.
00:44:38.200 Like, that was huge spending that they cut back.
00:44:41.200 But then thereafter, Ralph just spent.
00:44:44.200 And by the time he left office, they were spending the same amount per capita that, that they had spent under Don Getty, who was considered the spendthrift at that point.
00:44:52.200 But ever since that time, they've crept up and crept up.
00:44:55.200 Like, I call it expenditure creep because every year the expenditures go up until Kenny and, and, uh, Smith came in and they've, they've pretty much held steady.
00:45:05.200 Uh, uh, and I'm keen to see next week will be the provincial budget.
00:45:10.200 We'll see whether or not they hold steady again.
00:45:12.200 Uh, because they've made all sorts of very expensive promise, like first, more money for first responders, more money for healthcare.
00:45:20.200 There's tons of money in the healthcare budget in Alberta.
00:45:24.200 Yeah.
00:45:25.200 But they just have to fire about 10,000 bureaucrats who, whose jobs are not particular, it's not particularly obvious what the hell they're doing.
00:45:32.200 Uh, so, uh, you could find a lot of money there.
00:45:35.200 You'd find billions of dollars by reducing the amount of bureaucracy there.
00:45:39.200 So let's see if they can do that.
00:45:41.200 Let's see if they can hold spending at the natural increase of population and inflation and then, uh, find, find more money to spend on services by making efficiencies in the bureaucracy.
00:45:54.200 You know, the new leader of Argentina, who's got sort of wild hair and a, and a, um, he's always making wisecracks.
00:46:02.200 He's quite a dramatic personality, a little bit like Donald Trump between the hair and the comments.
00:46:06.200 Um, he's a real libertarian, but not just, you know, slogans.
00:46:10.200 He deeply understands Milton Friedman and economics.
00:46:13.200 He campaigned on absolutely shutting down more than a dozen government departments and cutting other things to the bone.
00:46:20.200 And, you know, Lauren, I think he did it.
00:46:22.200 In fact, just recently for the first time in more than a decade, Argentina turned a surplus.
00:46:27.200 And I don't think 99% of Argentinians even noticed a difference in their life because these bureaucracies were self-serving.
00:46:36.200 And so it is possible, but unless you have a radical revolutionary like Javier Millet, you're not going to get that.
00:46:42.200 And Danielle Smith, she has a libertarian streak.
00:46:45.200 She has a radical streak, but I think some of that's being pounded out of her just by the, the, the realities of being government.
00:46:52.200 You know what? She could take a much more aggressive libertarian approach to fiscal stability in Alberta.
00:47:00.200 There's no question she could do that.
00:47:02.200 But I think that this is sensible.
00:47:04.200 It doesn't upset people.
00:47:05.200 It's not going to rank all the markets in any way.
00:47:08.200 This is, this is a very plausible, sensible way of approaching things.
00:47:13.200 It's long-term.
00:47:14.200 It's, it's kind of like Flaherty.
00:47:16.200 You remember Flaherty when he was.
00:47:18.200 Yeah, Mike Harris's finance minister.
00:47:20.200 All right.
00:47:21.200 And, and, and Stephen Harper's finance minister.
00:47:25.200 Right.
00:47:26.200 Flaherty.
00:47:27.200 He was a very go slow approach kind of guy.
00:47:30.200 He, he looked at, you know, per capita GDP and the effects of, of deficit spending on, on our debt load.
00:47:38.200 And that's right.
00:47:39.200 This is, is kind of like that.
00:47:41.200 It's not going to rock the boats too much.
00:47:44.200 You can bet that the NDP and the public sector unions are going to complain that they're so far behind now that just holding the line on spending will make them fall further and further.
00:47:56.200 There's, in fact, there's a billboard campaign in Alberta right now by the Alberta Teachers Association that Alberta, it has the lowest spending on education in the country, which is, I don't know, I'm sure how you figure that.
00:48:10.200 Yeah.
00:48:11.200 You know, that's great.
00:48:12.200 That's the new math.
00:48:13.200 Exactly.
00:48:14.200 Because Alberta, Alberta's, this is where I thought you were going to go earlier.
00:48:17.200 Alberta's expenditures per capita, which is the only way of looking at expenditures is, you know, how much do you spend per person in your problem?
00:48:24.200 Alberta's expenditures per capita are second only to Newfoundland.
00:48:28.200 Newfoundland has the highest expenditures.
00:48:30.200 They're constantly in fiscal trouble.
00:48:32.200 We're lucky because we have more resource revenue than, than even Newfoundland does.
00:48:37.200 But we have the second highest per capita spending in the country.
00:48:41.200 And Newfoundland gets enormous subsidies through equalization.
00:48:44.200 So a lot of that's not even their own money.
00:48:46.200 Now, Danielle Smith, I think she, she likes new fangled ideas.
00:48:51.200 That's something you could admire about her.
00:48:53.200 She's open minded.
00:48:54.200 She's, she is open to talking about things in an experimental or, you know, for the subject of debate, let's just talk about this amazing idea, even if we're not going to put it into effect.
00:49:04.200 There's something to praise about a politician who's open minded like that.
00:49:08.200 But there's also a risk there that you cotton on to, you know, particularly strange ideas that aren't going anywhere.
00:49:14.200 And the whole idea of net zero or net zero carbon or carbon neutral.
00:49:19.200 I think that's one of those things that sort of technocrats like.
00:49:23.200 And it's sort of, you know, if a futurist is giving a talk, they're going to say net zero.
00:49:27.200 But I think it's BS.
00:49:30.200 And it's been a while since I've looked at the stats.
00:49:32.200 But I remember when I wrote my book, Ethical Oil, the case for Canada's oil sands.
00:49:35.200 At that time, at least, the number of proven reserves in the oil sands was about 170 billion barrels.
00:49:43.200 And, you know, that was, I think, three centuries worth of production at current rates.
00:49:50.200 And there's 10 times as much oil in place.
00:49:52.200 That means we see it's there.
00:49:54.200 We know it's there.
00:49:55.200 It's just not economic at today's technology and prices.
00:49:58.200 But theoretically, there's 10 times as much resource in place.
00:50:03.200 So the idea that, like she said, when the last barrel of oil is produced, I don't know if that's going to happen in the next century like that.
00:50:11.200 And the idea of being carbon zero, the other day she talked about doubling oil production, if I recall.
00:50:16.200 So I think there's certain inconsistencies there.
00:50:19.200 But what I like is that a conservative leader is talking about saving money, talking about holding the line and making it tough for people to call her crazy.
00:50:27.200 I like what I see.
00:50:28.200 I mean, I think she's like an awful lot of energy company executives.
00:50:35.200 They do the whole ESG, you know, environmental, social and governance dance.
00:50:42.200 They mouth the net zero.
00:50:44.200 Yes, we're working very hard with carbon capture.
00:50:48.200 You've seen the oil sands companies all got together and they now have these ads talking about,
00:50:56.200 yeah, we're as concerned as you are about emissions.
00:50:59.200 And that's why we have the largest carbon capture project in the history of the world.
00:51:03.200 And we're funding that.
00:51:05.200 That may just be a cost of doing business.
00:51:08.200 And the cost of doing politics, maybe you have to pay lip service to net zero, even though you don't believe that it's realistically possible.
00:51:16.200 It's certainly not possible within the 11 years that the federal liberals think that we could be able to do it.
00:51:23.200 And I don't even think it's possible within the 25 years that Smith has talked about.
00:51:28.200 It doesn't make sense.
00:51:29.200 It's just some artificial idea, net zero carbon.
00:51:31.200 Yeah, yeah.
00:51:32.200 I mean, it's an element on the periodic table.
00:51:36.200 In the Netherlands, when I interviewed the winner of their election, Heard Wilders, he was talking about the war on nitrogen.
00:51:42.200 And nitrogen, we've got to get at nitrogen.
00:51:44.200 I thought, you sound like a crazy man.
00:51:46.200 Well, no, we sound just as crazy.
00:51:48.200 They hate nitrogen.
00:51:49.200 We hate carbon.
00:51:50.200 Lay off the periodic table of the elements.
00:51:53.200 I mean, it's just sort of crazy.
00:51:55.200 Anyway, I got one last question for you.
00:51:57.200 Thanks so much for spending so much time with us.
00:51:58.200 I know you've got to run.
00:52:00.200 Rachel Notley, who achieved something no other New Democrat in Alberta has, broke through and became government.
00:52:06.200 It was a disastrous term.
00:52:07.200 Thank God it's over.
00:52:08.200 But she's retiring and well-deserved, I suppose.
00:52:11.200 There's a race on to succeed her.
00:52:13.200 Some of her cabinet ministers are putting their toe in the water.
00:52:16.200 But I think the biggest name that seems to be getting the most attention is the former mayor of Calgary.
00:52:21.200 My former high school or college debating partner, by the way, a left-wing liberal named Nahid Nanshi is, I think it's pretty clear he's going to jump in.
00:52:31.200 What do you think of his possible candidacy?
00:52:33.200 I think it's powerful.
00:52:35.200 The NDP is dominant in Edmonton.
00:52:37.200 Nanshi at least pulls some votes in Calgary, we know.
00:52:40.200 Yeah.
00:52:41.200 Being a minority, he may have some appeal to people who value that, you know, diversity and equity.
00:52:47.200 Do you think he's going to run and do you think he's got a shot?
00:52:50.200 Yes and yes.
00:52:52.200 I think he's going to run and I think he does have a shot.
00:52:55.200 I think that there will be an ABN campaign within the NDP.
00:53:01.200 There will be a consolidation of a lot of their-
00:53:03.200 Anybody but Nanshi, is that what you mean?
00:53:05.200 Anybody but Nanshi.
00:53:07.200 Because they think he's a liberal.
00:53:10.200 And I think they're right.
00:53:11.200 I mean, the whole time he was mayor, he said, no, no, no, I don't belong to any party.
00:53:15.200 I don't have partisan affiliation.
00:53:17.200 But everybody assumed he was a liberal and he's very tight with the current liberal government.
00:53:22.200 Right.
00:53:23.200 So I think he is not as popular in Calgary as he likes to think he is.
00:53:29.200 I think that the big factor in the next provincial election will be Smith's acceptance among UCP members.
00:53:39.200 There were about 40 or 50,000 UCP voters in Calgary who did not come out in the 2023 election.
00:53:47.200 If half of those people come back, if three quarters of those people come back, I don't care who you run as the NDP leader, they will not win in Calgary.
00:53:58.200 And they won't win the rural parts for sure.
00:54:01.200 Well, Nanshi's never going to win any more than two or three of the 44 rural ridings in Alberta.
00:54:09.200 So you've got to get 87 ridings, 44 of them, well, let's say 40 of them go right off the top to the UCP.
00:54:20.200 So you have to win all of Edmonton and almost all of Calgary in order to be the NDP premier of Alberta, unless there's a split on the right.
00:54:31.200 And if there's no split on the right and Smith doesn't scare voters like she did in 2023 that she's looked more rational, more reasonable, as you say, I think her videos are doing a lot to help that out.
00:54:43.200 I don't think there's I don't care who they run as the leader of the NDP in the next provincial election.
00:54:49.200 I don't think they can win.
00:54:50.200 Well, I like her.
00:54:51.200 I mean, I've known her since we were both in university at the same time.
00:54:54.200 She was the head of the campus conservatives.
00:54:56.200 I was the head of the campus reformers.
00:54:57.200 So we've known each other for a while.
00:55:00.200 I like I like what she's doing.
00:55:02.200 And I think it's important that she wins because Alberta's success is not just to its own credit, but a strong Alberta really does lift the whole country.
00:55:09.200 I mean, the amount of wealth being generated by the oil sands, despite what that radical ideologue Stephen Gilbeau says, it's one of the reasons Canada hasn't fallen for the behind.
00:55:18.200 Just one last fact and then and then let you wrap up.
00:55:22.200 In in January, there were headlines that in January, Canada created 37,000 new jobs.
00:55:29.200 And and that was way more than the economists had expected.
00:55:33.200 Over half of those jobs were in Alberta.
00:55:36.200 So that's what Alberta is doing for the national economy.
00:55:41.200 Interesting stuff.
00:55:42.200 Listen, great to see you.
00:55:43.200 Thanks very much for taking the time and for your smarts.
00:55:45.200 Right.
00:55:46.200 And we'll check out your what's what's the headline of your column, the one that ran in both Calgary and Edmonton?
00:55:50.200 I don't write the headline.
00:55:51.200 Yeah, I'll check it.
00:55:52.200 We'll put it.
00:55:53.200 We'll put it on the on the page for people to click through.
00:55:55.200 I'm sorry, I don't have it in front of me.
00:55:56.200 Great to see you.
00:55:57.200 I don't either.
00:55:58.200 Okay.
00:55:59.200 Take care.
00:56:00.200 You do.
00:56:01.200 I have a Lauren Gunter from the post media newspapers, the Calgary Sun and the Edmonton Sun.
00:56:06.200 Stay with us.
00:56:07.200 More ahead.
00:56:08.200 Hey, welcome back.
00:56:09.200 It's great to be back.
00:56:10.200 I've been traveling around and I am going to go back to Lethbridge for the pretrial hearings of the Coots Three.
00:56:26.200 That's what the prosecutor calls the leadership group.
00:56:29.200 And Robert Krejcik will be out there.
00:56:30.200 I'm really excited.
00:56:31.200 If you've been following Robert, he went to the Tamara Leach trial every single day.
00:56:35.200 I went once and I realized that I just can't cover one story every day for two months.
00:56:41.200 I just can't.
00:56:42.200 I have other obligations.
00:56:43.200 But Robert did a great job.
00:56:45.200 And he's not done yet.
00:56:46.200 That trial is just on a hiatus.
00:56:48.200 So in the meantime, we're going to, you know, set him up in Lethbridge.
00:56:52.200 And I think he's had great practice, so to speak, with the Tamara Leach trial.
00:56:56.200 So he's a good egg.
00:56:57.200 We'll both be out there in Lethbridge at the beginning of the week.
00:56:59.200 Then I'm going to come back, but he'll be out there every single day.
00:57:01.200 He's going to do great.
00:57:02.200 And that's going to be a very interesting trial, because unlike the Coutts Four, who
00:57:07.200 were charged with very serious offenses, the Coutts Three, it's more like a Tamara Leach
00:57:11.200 situation, just mischief type minor civil disobedience charges.
00:57:15.200 They're trying to get that, quote, leadership group.
00:57:17.200 When I was in Lethbridge yesterday, that's how the Crown Prosecutor referred to the Coutts Three.
00:57:21.200 So we're crowdfunding for them.
00:57:23.200 And of course, we're also doing the journalism.
00:57:25.200 Very interesting.
00:57:26.200 Hey, here's some letters.
00:57:27.200 PSL says, a police officer doesn't show up for a court date.
00:57:32.200 This isn't traffic court.
00:57:33.200 This is a very serious trial.
00:57:35.200 In fact, could be the most important trial in Canada right now.
00:57:37.200 That's fishy.
00:57:38.200 Yeah, you're talking about what happened is to challenge a search warrant, which is what
00:57:43.200 the Coutts Four are doing.
00:57:45.200 They wanted to cross-examine some of the police officers who drafted the information to obtain
00:57:50.200 the search warrant.
00:57:51.200 That's a legal document that's filed in court and shown to a judge ex parte.
00:57:56.200 That is, the other side's not there because you need the element of surprise for a search, right?
00:58:00.200 So drafting that document that you show to the judge has to be done very carefully and very fairly.
00:58:05.200 You can't exaggerate.
00:58:06.200 You can't leave out weaknesses in your case.
00:58:09.200 You have to put strengths of the opponent's case even though he's not there.
00:58:11.200 It's a very unusual document.
00:58:13.200 So you have to be full frank and fair are the three F's for an information to obtain.
00:58:19.200 You can't trick the judge.
00:58:21.200 And so the question is, was that information to obtain drafted properly?
00:58:27.200 One cop who swore the document was there yesterday and he testified.
00:58:31.200 But another senior cop was supposed to be there at 2 p.m.
00:58:34.200 Everyone was waiting and he didn't show up.
00:58:38.200 So, I mean, that in itself is not going to cause the men to be freed from prison.
00:58:44.200 But it shows, you know, he's at two years notice of this trial, but he just couldn't bother to be there.
00:58:49.200 I think that was atrocious.
00:58:51.200 I don't think the judge was impressed.
00:58:53.200 Tracy Short says, you absolutely discredited yourself by ranting about Moran like that.
00:59:00.200 We will be canceling any future funding.
00:59:03.200 Well, I'm very sorry to hear that.
00:59:04.200 You're referring to Jerry Moran, who took a plea deal where he signed a paper agreeing to plead guilty to a relatively minor charge involving firearms.
00:59:17.200 Basically, he agreed to take firearms down to the blockade.
00:59:21.200 In fact, when he was arrested, he had firearms in his vehicle.
00:59:25.200 Let me just say what I said yesterday.
00:59:28.200 Absolutely, that does not deserve a two year prison term.
00:59:32.200 No way.
00:59:34.200 But absolutely, that is not a civil liberties violation.
00:59:37.200 When you agree to bring guns to a peaceful protest that's surrounded by cops, that's stupid at the very least.
00:59:46.200 And apparently it's a crime.
00:59:48.200 I'm not here to weigh in on the wisdom of the plea deal.
00:59:52.200 Jerry Moran obviously had his own lawyer.
00:59:54.200 And as I said yesterday, it's possible that he was just tired of being in jail and he would sign anything in front of him just to get out.
01:00:03.200 That could be.
01:00:04.200 But I was shown a video actually by Jerry Moran's wife where she talked at great length about, you know, probably too much great length about what Jerry Moran did.
01:00:15.200 And that's what I said yesterday.
01:00:18.200 You can say these men were overcharged by police and prosecutors.
01:00:22.200 You can say two years in prison before trial is outrageous.
01:00:26.200 You can say this was all a political pretext to trump up the situation to give Justin Trudeau cause to bring in the emergency.
01:00:35.200 I believe all of those things.
01:00:38.200 But I also believe that it is stupid and perhaps criminal to agree to bring guns to a peaceful protest that's surrounded by RCMP.
01:00:49.200 How does that story play out?
01:00:51.200 In your mind, what's the plan?
01:00:53.200 You're going to shoot first or you're going to shoot if they come in?
01:00:56.200 Like, to bring a gun suggests you want to use a gun.
01:00:59.200 What's the plan there?
01:01:01.200 You want to have a massacre?
01:01:03.200 Let alone taking away the moral authority of the protest.
01:01:06.200 So, yeah, I can say Jerry Moran should not have been in jail for two years and was overcharged and it was a political charge.
01:01:13.200 I can say all that, but also say if it's true and he swore it was true, he signed that it was true, that he agreed to bring guns to the protest.
01:01:20.200 Yeah, that is not a civil liberties defense and I don't think he deserved two years in jail, but that was an atrocious thing he did.
01:01:29.200 Nevo Media Solutions say it's absolutely crazy that they cannot discuss this openly as we all watch what is going on with the Arrive Can app.
01:01:37.200 And this at the same time, it seems as though they are doing their best to keep everything quiet and away from cameras.
01:01:42.200 With a state of being that we cannot speak openly, this should be a wake up call for those who are unaware of the current state of Canada.
01:01:48.200 I hear what you're saying, but let me explain again why I can't describe what was said in court yesterday.
01:01:53.200 Now, of course, you can go to court and you can hear all these things for yourself.
01:01:57.200 So in that way, it's not a secret court. You just can't publish it.
01:02:01.200 Now, why is that? Because in a court case, a judge or more importantly, jurors can't go into the case with predetermined ideas about the facts.
01:02:12.200 And remember what I just said a moment ago about what an ITO is in information to obtain.
01:02:17.200 That's a list of accusations shown to a judge without the suspects there.
01:02:22.200 It's done in secret because you need that element of surprise to convince a judge to give a search warrant.
01:02:27.200 So those are unproven allegations, you know, that that's an undercover officer writing something without that undercover officer being cross examined.
01:02:36.200 That's perhaps a recording of a wiretap that isn't tested scientifically.
01:02:42.200 Was this legit? It's it's a bunch of I'm not going to say hearsay, but it is untested evidence.
01:02:48.200 So you do not want that in the newspapers every day if you want the accused to have a fair trial.
01:02:56.200 When that information is introduced in court in the trial, it will be public.
01:03:02.200 And by the way, if the court throws out the search warrant, which is what the hearings were about, then you'll surely learn about it then.
01:03:10.200 So it's extremely frustrating for you not to know what's going on.
01:03:16.200 And believe me, it's frustrating for me not to be able to tell you what's going on, because there were some actually startling things I learned yesterday.
01:03:24.200 But do you see why I can't say them?
01:03:26.200 Because if I were to say these five startling things were said to pull it by police to the judge to get the search warrant, well, you would assume they were true.
01:03:33.200 Or at least it would be on your mind. And there would be no rebuttal to them from the other side.
01:03:39.200 And how is a guy going to get a fair trial if that's in the media?
01:03:42.200 If the Lethbridge newspaper and the Lethbridge radio stations, the Lethbridge TV stations are all running with those untested accusations.
01:03:49.200 So it's very frustrating, but the frustration should end when the trial begins and those facts are admitted and challenged and cross examined.
01:03:58.200 So I wouldn't call that an unfairness. I would call it a quirk.
01:04:04.200 I would call it a frustration, but understand the reason for it.
01:04:08.200 But for the earlier writer who said she's no longer going to donate to Rebel News because I criticized the guy who wanted to bring guns to political protest.
01:04:19.200 I'm sorry, we just disagree.
01:04:22.200 I think what happens is a lot of people are so mad at how the Cooch Four are being treated that instead of having shades of gray here, you're either all in or all out.
01:04:35.200 Either you agree with everything these four men did or you're in league with Justin Trudeau.
01:04:40.200 It's not that way. I don't know if there's anyone in Canada who fights against Justin Trudeau as much as we do other than, I suppose, the conservative opposition parties.
01:04:51.200 I mean, our entire existence is challenging his bad ideas.
01:04:55.200 No one was more active during the lockdowns and the pandemic and the convoy than us.
01:05:01.200 But if you can't say that the idea to smuggle, to agree to smuggle guns into a blockade surrounded by cops, if you don't think that's a bad idea, I think that you've gone too far down the rabbit hole.
01:05:14.200 I don't know. I look forward to other feedback from other viewers. Feel free to send a note to Ezra at rebelnews.com.
01:05:21.200 And by the way, we are crowdfunding for one of the remaining accused. His name is Chris Carbert.
01:05:26.200 You can go to helpchris.ca and you can learn more about that case.
01:05:31.200 That's our show for today. What a show.
01:05:34.200 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night.
01:05:38.200 Keep fighting for freedom.
01:05:44.200 We'll be right back.