EZRA LEVANT ｜ Web of control： Trudeau rules YouTubers and podcasters must register with the government
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Summary
The CRTC wants all streaming video creators to register with the government if they're above a certain size. We know where this leads, and it's nowhere good. We're fighting for freedom, you censorious bug.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Exciting show today because terrible things are happening, which is a cause
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for excitement. Justin Trudeau's CRTC has demanded that YouTubers and bloggers and podcasters,
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anyone with a streaming video, has to register with the government if they're above a certain
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size. Well, we know where registration of journalists leads and it's nowhere good.
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That's our show for today. I want to show you some video clips, including of Stephen
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Gilboa talking about these things in the past. So I'd like you to see it, not just hear it in a
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podcast. Can you please go to rebelnewsplus.com? That's the video version of this podcast. Click
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subscribe. It's eight bucks a month and you get to see the clips we put on for you. All right.
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Tonight, Justin Trudeau announces on a Friday afternoon that YouTubers and podcasters must
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register with the government. It's October 2nd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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We're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.
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When governments want to reduce media scrutiny of something, when they want to bury something,
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they announce it on a Friday afternoon, preferably before a long weekend. That's what Trudeau did on
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Friday with this bizarre tweet by the CRTC, the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications
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Commission, Trudeau's radio and TV regulator. Except, as you know, a few months ago, Trudeau's Bill C-11
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gave that old, useless relic astonishing new powers to regulate the internet. Here's the tweet by the
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CRTC. They said, today we're taking a major step towards modernizing Canada's broadcasting system.
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Following broad consultations, we are releasing our first two decisions, including which online
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streaming services must register with us. Modernize, eh? Do you think that a government agency can
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modernize anything, especially the internet? Has the internet been waiting for 25 years for Justin Trudeau and
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his appointees to fix it, to make it modern? Have the geniuses in Silicon Valley been asking for help to
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modernize things? Because compared to the Liberal Party of Canada, they're old-fashioned, they don't know anything
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about technology. Come on, the CRTC is a joke. Created in the age of radio and TV back in 1976.
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It's been obsolete for more than a decade, probably two decades, other than for handing out lucrative
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monopolies to Canada's cell phone cartel. Canadians literally pay the highest cell phone rates in the
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world. Huh, thanks CRTC. The CRTC has various predecessors stretching back to the advent of radio.
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Almost 100 years ago, the reason the government said it was necessary back then is there was limited
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bandwidth on radio. If you have a radio station, let's say at 1060 on the AM dial, you can't have
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another radio station nearby that's close to it on that frequency. So there was a physical limit.
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You needed a regulator. It was a century-old problem. There are unlimited TV channels on your cable
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package on streaming services like Netflix. There's the satellite radio. Of course, there's YouTube
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and podcasts and live streaming. Now, the internet is unlimited. It's not like AM radio stations. And
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everyone can be a creator now. Ordinary people can become huge stars on Twitter or Facebook or TikTok
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if they have something smart or funny or interesting to say. It's all been very hard for the regulators
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and gatekeepers and lobbyists at the CRTC. They were left behind until Trudeau gave those old cronies
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power over the internet. Now, they want YouTubers and other talent to register with the government.
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Really? So journalists, anyone with a large audience, register with the government. I've heard that phrase
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before. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in federal court in Toronto where Trudeau's lawyers told the court
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that I, as an author, should have to register with the government to write a book that was critical of
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Justin Trudeau. They said that. They literally argued that. I'm the first Canadian author in history
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who's been ordered to register my books with the government. There were 24 books about Justin
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Trudeau published in the 2019 election. Mine was the only critical one. Mine was the only one
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investigated, prosecuted, convicted, and fined by police and Elections Canada. And don't think the CRTC
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wasn't watching. They watched and they noticed and they learned that no one cared. Well, a lot of
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ordinary people cared, but not a single so-called journalism advocacy group called the Canadian
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Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Canadian Civil Liberties
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Association, Amnesty International, Penn Canada. Not a single journalism advocate or author's advocate
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cared. Not even enough just to tweet about it, let alone to send a lawyer to court to intervene in the case.
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The CRTC saw that Trudeau has successfully subverted and undermined the media by subsidizing it and
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bribing it. So they learned, they knew that they could force, if they could force me to register my
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book, they could force others to register their podcasts and live streams. I should point out not
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everyone was silent when my book was being prosecuted. Jordan Peterson saw the danger and he tweeted up a
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storm in support of me. I'm grateful to him. He stood on principle and now they're coming for him
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as Canada's leading YouTuber. He says he won't comply. It'll be interesting to see if they prosecute
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him and who will come to his aid if they do. As my old friend John O'Sullivan always said to me,
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it's easier to fight in the first ditch than in the last ditch. Here's his tweet. Jordan Peterson says,
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take your modernization and stuff it where the sun never shines. I hope that means he won't comply,
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but they will surely prosecute him. They've been looking for a reason to prosecute him. As Lavrenti Beria,
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the head of Stalin's secret police in the Soviet Union, used to say, show me the man and I'll show you
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the crime, as in they'll get you on something, anything, even if they have to manufacture a fake crime
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to get you, which they just did on Friday. This shocking decision was not debated, let alone voted on by
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parliament. It's a decree, like something Castro would do, but it's pretty certain that the liberals would have
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won the vote if they had put it to parliament. The NDP are even worse than the liberals. Here's NDP
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or Charlie Angus, who wants to make a government list of conservative activists.
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I crossed a new Rubicon in 23 years of public service. I had to ask the OPP to come and answer
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phones at my office because we were being overwhelmed with threats of violence against me,
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my staff, my family. Welcome to public life in 2023, where death threats and intimidation
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are becoming part of the playbook of the far right. And it's not just politicians. We're
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seeing death threats against journalists, school board trustees, medical professionals.
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What's bubbling up in the conspiracy swamps of 4chan, Reddit, and X are increasingly crossing
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the line into real life. Call it pitchfork politics. It represents a serious threat, not just to public
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safety, but the very nature of democracy itself. These extremists make these threats because they can get
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away with it. It's time to mandate the RCMP to establish a registry of online domestic extremism.
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They need to have the resources to identify the sources of the threat, to make contact with them
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and to keep track of them in a public registry. Democracy is in a very fragile place and we need
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to work together to keep people and our system working. I understand he's not saying to make a list
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of actual criminals. It's already a crime to make a threat or whatever he claims happened. I don't
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believe him. He wants to put out known activists on his list. The Bloc Québécois is just as bad. And
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frankly, I'm not sure how every conservative MP would vote. Here's Aaron O'Toole's old heritage critic,
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Alain Reyes, a couple of years ago, saying he wants more regulation on the internet too. This was an
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alleged conservative. But we don't see it in the bill. There's nothing in this bill that allows for
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the regulation of social media or platforms like YouTube. And it's clear we would have liked to have
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seen this in the bill. The minister even says we have to find a way of preventing hate speech,
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conspiracy theories, and fake news that's shared. But right now in the bill, unfortunately,
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we won't even be able to amend it in that aspect. And because it's simply absent from the bill.
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Well, he's not running again, thankfully. But how many other O'Toole liberals are lurking in the
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Conservative Party? You know, it reminds me, and I think about this from time to time, I've told you the
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story before about how communist Romania made people register their typewriters with the police.
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First, they had to answer questions, what are you doing with such a dangerous and antisocial device
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as a typewriter? Then they had to give a sample of how the typewriter typed. And that sample would
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be kept on file at the police station, so that if police discovered some samizdat, that's the word
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for illegal political commentary, the police could compare the samizdat, the illegal messages,
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with the output of different typewriters to see who would have typed it like a fingerprint,
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since each old-fashioned typewriter was slightly different than the other.
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Registering typewriters. Let me read a little bit about that. This is from a Guardian story,
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but a book about typewriters in Romania. When the typewriter arrives, she explains the system for
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registering it with the police, how it was fingerprinted, and how they must provide an
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explanation for why they need it. An instrument can be used to type about personal feelings,
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forbidden, or write anti-government pamphlets, forbidden. So yeah, in Canada, we don't register
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typewriters. Come on. That's crazy. We register podcasts and live streamers and YouTubes.
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We also register guns, and then we ban them. You'd think this would freak out everyone who should be
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freaked out, but that forgets that most of the regime media are fine with this, because they know
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they're going to be fine on the inside. They're in the system. They're not punished by the system.
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I mean, the CBC's Aaron Wery, he wrote a love letter to Trudeau that he called a book,
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Pure CBC Propaganda, published the same time as mine. He wasn't prosecuted or fined. I was.
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So why would Aaron Wery stand up for my freedom? He wasn't going to be persecuted. CTV, CBC, Global News,
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The Star, The Globe and Mail, they're all on the inside of Trudeau's regime. You have to understand,
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they like competitors being banned. They don't really care about Friedman's speech or the
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independence of the press. They made that decision years ago when they decided to take Trudeau's
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cash. They chose power over independence. They chose bailouts over revenue from their own readers.
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They chose sides. They sided with the regime. By the way, the bailout media didn't just fail
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despite Trudeau's cash. I think they failed because of it. I mean, very few news organizations
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permit critical coverage of Trudeau anymore, and people can sense it. It shows. I mean,
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here's the state broadcaster's chief Ottawa reporter. Look at how proud she is. You know,
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Rebel News, as you know, started in my living room just eight years ago, but already 41% of Canadians
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trust us more than trust age-old legacy media like CBC, CTV, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail.
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How? Because we're independent. Well, it's Monday afternoon. I've seen very little in the last 72 hours
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on this from the media party. I've seen foreigners weighing in. Isn't that always the way foreigners
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who aren't on the take can criticize Trudeau? They see him anyway. Glenn Greenwald, he's an American
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who lives in Brazil. He did a series of tweets about it. Look at this one here.
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He says, the Canadian government, armed with one of the world's most repressive online censorship
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schemes, announces that all online streaming services that offer podcasts must formally register
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with the government to permit regulatory controls. And look at that, almost 50 million views. That's
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10 times more than the entire combined audience of every news outlet in Canada. Now, a lot of those
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are foreign viewers, but it's not like this isn't interesting stuff. But like the trucker convoy,
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the media party up here knows who butters their bread, so they don't want to talk about it. If they
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talk about it, they want to take the liberal side. Now, Glenn Greenwald does not take any Trudeau money,
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so he covers the news as he sees it. Elon Musk saw Glenn Greenwald's tweet, and he chimed in.
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Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful. Almost 40 million views of that tweet,
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too. I'm shy to say it. My own tweet on the subject got only 1.2 million views, but again,
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it shows that Canadians care about freedom, even if Trudeau and the media party don't. 1.2 million
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views. That's five times more than watch. CBC's The National on any given name. Now, this didn't
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just happen all at once. Trudeau recently rammed through Bill C-11. It put the entire internet
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under the control of his CRTC appointees. C-11 lets Trudeau order Facebook, Google, YouTube
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to alter their algorithms to hide things Trudeau doesn't like. Here's the key section of the law.
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You've heard me read this before. Section 9.11e says,
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The commission may make orders imposing conditions, including the presentation of programs
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and programming services for selection by the public, including the showcasing and discoverability
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of Canadian programs. That's a search algorithm. What shows up, what you discover. YouTube, Google,
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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter already boost or throttle content based on their own criteria.
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It's usually hostile to conservatives or contrarians, especially on issues like vaccines or
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transgenderism. But this new law puts Trudeau in charge. Trudeau has now given himself the power
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to alter the discoverability of internet content. He already said he's going to decide which news
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is trusted and which isn't. He said that in his very first media bailout announcement when he was
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starting to pay his friends in the press. Let me quote from the Globe and Mail. It's just incredible
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The government said the package will aim to help, quote, trusted news organizations, but we'll leave
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it to the media industry to define the application of the new initiatives. Now, they're not leaving it
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to the media anymore, are they? That was five years ago. Justin Trudeau has lost his patience.
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He's now going to decide for himself. As you know, Trudeau introduced a news license called a QCJO,
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Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization. Trudeau gave himself the power to give or deny that license.
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Until now, that license mainly meant you got tax relief. We don't get that.
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Now, I mean, something else doesn't. Here's Trudeau's cabinet minister, Stephen Gilboa,
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three years ago talking about forcing journalists to get a news license.
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How will this work? How are you going to regulate websites? How are you going to register all that?
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Well, I mean, one of the recommendations, so you're talking about a couple of different things here,
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but as far as the licensing is concerned, is if you're a distributor of content in Canada,
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and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the requirement probably
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wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google. So there would have to be some proportionality
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embedded into this. But we would ask that they have a license. Yes.
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There was almost no pushback from the regime media because they knew what it really meant.
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They'd get the license because Trudeau trusts them, but independent competitors like us would be shut down.
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It would ban their upstart competitors. There used to be some independent journalism NGOs in Canada,
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but they have been transformed into grant-seeking lobby groups who exist only to extract more bailouts
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from Trudeau. They'd never criticism. They're in perpetual begging mode, and it shows, because he
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always makes them beg for the next year. He keeps them on a string. As I mentioned, Rebel News applied
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for a QCJO news license. We were turned down laughably. Trudeau's bureaucrats claim less than 1% of what
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we publish as news. I don't even know how that's possible, but that's what they said. We're still suing
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them. The courts move very slowly. Friday's announcement demanding that live streamers
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register with the government is shocking but not surprising. Trudeau has been working on co-opting
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the media since he was elected. He's about halfway through his plan. 99% of journalists are on the
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inside, so they're silent. Bill C-11 gave Trudeau power over the internet, including altering search
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algorithms. C-18 gave Trudeau the power to collect a link tax from Facebook and Google and to use that for a
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slush fund for trusted media only. Those are both law now, and there's more coming. Trudeau introduced
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another censorship bill in the last parliament called C-36. It died on the order paper, but he
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says it'll be back. It includes secret trials for internet hate and punishments, including house
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arrests, even ankle monitors, even jail. The final step in Trudeau's censorship plan is the most draconian
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of all. He calls it the Online Harms Act. You know, in a confidential memo, Twitter said it was
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the worst thing they've seen anywhere outside China, Iran, and North Korea, and that was Twitter before
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Elon Musk took over. In his final bill that he proposes, Trudeau would give himself what his cabinet
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calls the nuclear option. That's what they call it. The power to actually ban entire websites from even
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existing in Canada, like China does with their great firewall. We've seen too many examples of public
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officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves or
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even their families. Envision having blocking orders. I mean, that's that maybe it's not, you know, it's a, it would
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be, it would likely be a, a last resolve, last resolved, uh, nuclear bomb in, in a, in a toolbox of, uh,
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of mechanism for, for regulators. So that's what's happening. That's what Jordan Peterson is concerned
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about. That's what I'm concerned about. You don't force journalists to register with the government
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unless you plan to regulate them, punish them, throttle them, ban them, even jail them. It's not just
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Jordan Peterson, who will be forced to register because of his Canadian residents, but American
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broadcasters with large Canadian audiences will too. 19 out of the top 30 podcasts in Canada are
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American. They're covered by this decree. Be interesting to see if American podcasters will
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save us in the end though, because the Canadian media sure won't for the reasons outlined above.
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Forcing American companies to register with Trudeau, that's anathema to their first amendment
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and likely a violation of the US MCA trade agreement. Look, Trudeau doesn't care about
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much. He's, he's known as a shallow man with no policy depth. He's a hundred percent about spin
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and controlling the message. He's put forward, not one, but four censorship bills. That's how obsessed
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he is. He really is like his father figure Castro, isn't he? We know that Trudeau has a hatred for rebel
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news. He says, so look at the abusive answer to Alexa Lavoie mere hours after the federal court found
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that he had violated her constitutional rights and the court ordered him to accredit us at the debate.
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Bonjour M. Trudeau, Alexa pour Rebel News. Donc M. Trudeau, je vais revenir rapidement sur ce qui s'est
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passé hier. Vous avez déabolisé l'un des rares médias qui ne reçoit pas d'argent du gouvernement.
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Vous avez exprimé votre opinion en disant que nous propageons la désinformation. Si c'était vrai
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et si c'était le cas, la Cour fédérale ne nous aurait pas permis d'être ici aujourd'hui. Je suis moi-même
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scientifique et je me base sur les faits. Ma question est la suivante. L'Israël est l'un des pays les plus
00:19:58.080
vaccinés au monde. Ils sont rendus maintenant à leur quatrième rappel de vaccin. Ils ne considèrent plus
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que ceux qui ont reçu deux doses de vaccin sont pleinement vaccinés. Ma question est, plusieurs
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Canadiens ne désirent pas avoir un rappel de vaccin. Allez-vous leur enlever leurs privilèges
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reliés au vaccinal? Et aurez-vous l'obligence de répondre à ma question en tant que premier
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ministre ou allez-vous encore diaboliser mon média?
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J'ai partagé ma perspective sur ton organisation hier soir. Je n'ai plus rien à dire.
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But as long as we have breath in us, I promise we will fight for freedom. We're going to fight
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back like our entire existence depends on it. Because it does. Learn more and sign our petition
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at stopthecensorship.ca. And if you can chip in a few bucks to help us fight Trudeau in court,
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please do because we're there all alone. Thanks.
00:21:18.340
Hey, I've got a question for you. Do you know what net zero means? No one knows what net zero means,
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but we're all supposed to support net zero. And believe it or not, most conservatives say they
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support net zero. Even Pierre Polyev in Ottawa and Danielle Smith in Edmonton say they support
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net zero. Net zero, what does that even mean? Net zero by 2030. Net zero by 2050. What are they
00:21:46.240
netting out to zero? I think the opacity of that term is why anyone would say they agree with it.
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Because, oh, it just, it's a meaningless phrase. If it was to have net zero emissions, no, you can't
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emit any carbon dioxide. You can't drive. You can't farm. You can't heat your homes. Net zero by 2030.
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People would start to ask more questions. And if they learned that emissions meant anything you do
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in life, from living to breathing to agriculture, living and breathing to driving a car or flying in a
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plane, suddenly there would be a lot more questions. If people said, how do we have net zero when we're
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increasing immigration by one million souls a year? They might ask other questions too. Net zero,
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what a bunch of BS. There's a new poll about net zero, and it gives me a flicker of hope that people
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are starting to see through it. Joining us now via Skype from Ottawa is the National Director
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of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who knows that net zero is basically a scheme to tax everything we do.
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Joining us now is Franco Teresano. Franco, how are you doing?
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It's a pleasure. I think one of the tricks that the government uses for any tax is to call it anything
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except a tax. They'll call it a levy. They'll call it a fee. And in this case, they won't even call it a tax.
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They'll call it net zero. From the Taxpayers Federation's point of view, what is net zero other
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than a Trojan horse of taxes? Well, I mean, their number one policy that they try to sell on this
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is a carbon tax, right? And not only are Canadians paying one carbon tax, we're now paying two carbon
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taxes, which Mr. Trudeau imposed on Canada Day. Happy Canada Day folks. But look, a glimmer of hope,
00:23:41.100
as you alluded to, is a new poll released, done by Leger, released by Post Media, that shows the
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majority of Canadians either want the carbon tax cut or completely killed. And I think that's good
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news because remember, not too long ago, all those smart folks in Ottawa, all those lobbyist academics
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were saying that the carbon tax was either inevitable or good policy. Well, Canadians are understanding
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that it is not good policy. It's an absolutely useless tax. And it sure doesn't look inevitable
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anymore with growing momentum of taxpayers fighting back against Trudeau's carbon tax regime.
00:24:18.720
See, carbon taxes tells us a little bit about what it's about carbon. It doesn't sound that scary,
00:24:25.540
although it's being demonized. Carbon is the stuff of life. We're made up of carbon,
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carbohydrates, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons. It's everywhere. It's, listen, it's element number
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six on the periodic table. It's, it's literally in the food we eat. So when people hear carbon tax,
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I think they know something's up. And if you were to interview someone pumping gas and ask them how
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they feel about a carbon tax, I think they would be able to put it together with the high price they're
00:24:53.800
paying in a pump. But net zero is a little different. And tell me, did this Leger poll talk about
00:24:59.240
net zero by name, or just one of the tools to get to net zero, namely the carbon tax? Did they test
00:25:06.180
net zero with the Canadian public? That's a good question. Look, Ezra, I'll just be honest with
00:25:12.100
you. I was so focused on the results about the carbon tax, because that is my key as a taxpayer
00:25:17.100
advocate is fighting this absolutely useless tax. Now let's talk about that guy or gal filling up at
00:25:23.100
the pumps, right? And I think if you asked him or her, you know, how do you feel about the carbon tax?
00:25:27.940
I think any average Canadian would say, well, this is a completely useless tax, because how does
00:25:34.460
making my life more expensive, the necessities that I need to get to work to keep my home warm
00:25:41.020
during those cold winter months, to even fill up my grocery cart, how does it make it more expensive
00:25:45.680
for me in Brooks, in Medicine Hat, in Halifax, in Burnaby? How does making my life more expensive do a
00:25:52.400
single thing for the environment? And of course, the answer is, it doesn't. The carbon tax does not
00:25:58.220
cut emissions, it cuts families' budget. The carbon tax is not about the environment. No, no, no. To
00:26:04.180
your point, it is about a form of control, right? Do what we say, or pay.
00:26:11.180
You know, Franco, I'm so glad you are a watchdog on the carbon tax file, because that's where the rubber
00:26:16.940
hits the road. It doesn't say net zero on the gas pump, it says tax on the pump. But I've called up
00:26:23.360
on my phone, the poll by Leger, and it does actually ask Canadians a little bit about net zero,
00:26:32.100
which is interesting. Let's go through together. And I didn't mean to surprise you with it, but
00:26:36.760
it's actually a glimmer of hope. I've got it here, and I want to show you the questions that Leger act,
00:26:42.480
and you give me your reaction to it, Franco. So, here's some of the highlights, and I'm taking
00:26:46.500
this directly from Leger's website. And by the way, I mean, everyone's heard of Leger and Leger,
00:26:51.640
they are the largest Canadian-owned pollster. And in my experience, they play it straight down the
00:26:57.260
middle. They're not, like some pollsters have a liberal tendency, like ECOS. Leger is really mainly
00:27:03.380
a market research firm. They do some politics polls, but I think they're pretty straight down the
00:27:07.960
middle. So, here's what they say. 68% of Canadians are unwilling to pay more in gas tax. And that's
00:27:15.540
your focus, Franco. But look at this. Familiarity and practicality of net zero 2050 policy. This is
00:27:25.660
what I was getting at earlier. People don't even know what the phrase is. Half are aware of the
00:27:31.360
Canadian government's net zero policy. I don't believe that. I don't believe it's that high. I think
00:27:36.920
people are just saying that so they don't feel dumb on the call. However, here's the key, Franco,
00:27:43.860
and I'm reading directly from the Leger website here. Only 15% feel it's realistic for Canada to
00:27:52.860
be a net zero emitter in 27 years, in the year 2050. So, there's some crazy people out there saying net
00:28:01.040
zero 2030, which would be cutting a staggering amount of industry down. Only 15% say we'll get
00:28:10.340
there in 2050. Anyone who says net zero 2030 is crazy. What do you make of that?
00:28:16.560
Well, I think Canadians are saying, well, we have no idea what's going to happen two decades from now.
00:28:21.240
But I also think more and more Canadians are kind of tired of just being fed a load of baloney,
00:28:28.080
if I could say that. I mean, like the idea that we're just going to punish all of Canadian
00:28:32.860
industries, Canadian workers, and then downstream raise the costs on Canadians. And the idea to think
00:28:38.660
that that's going to help the global environment, I mean, it's preposterous. And I think Canadians
00:28:42.200
are just sick and tired of taking it from these politicians who are essentially spinsters,
00:28:47.660
right? I mean, even Trudeau has before acknowledged that if it's just Canada doing all this,
00:28:53.240
essentially, it wouldn't do a single thing for the world, right? Canada makes up 1.5% of global
00:28:59.460
emissions. So, Mr. Trudeau can completely bring all of our industries to a screeching halt. What
00:29:04.260
would that do? It wouldn't do anything for the global environment, but it would cause a ton of pain
00:29:10.140
for all Canadians. Yeah. Hey, I want to throw one more thing at you, because again, you say net zero,
00:29:15.500
people say, what is like, it's just such a weird phrase, net and zero. Net zero what? Well,
00:29:21.420
when Leger asked Canada, like one of the ways to get to net zero, that means reducing carbon
00:29:26.900
emissions, would be shutting down our power sources, including clean burning natural gas.
00:29:32.420
Here in Ontario, they have lots of windmills and solar, but obviously it's not reliable. So,
00:29:37.860
they started all these natural gas power plants as backups. Well, guess what? They're running full
00:29:42.820
time because wind and solar are unreliable sources. So, here's what Leger said. They asked Canadians
00:29:50.240
if it's realistic to eliminate virtually all of Canada's electricity from carbon emitting sources
00:29:58.960
by 2035, as in shut down natural gas power plants. Only 19% of Canadians said that's doable.
00:30:08.060
So, the phrase net zero, I think is a foggy, amorphous thing that a person on the phone would
00:30:14.120
say, yeah, I've heard of that. Yeah, I support that because they don't even know what it means.
00:30:18.760
But when you start getting specific, like how do you feel about a higher carbon tax? How do you feel
00:30:23.400
about shutting down natural gas? When you start putting meaning around the world, that's zero,
00:30:28.480
only 19% of Canadians think, yeah, we should shut down our natural gas power plants. I find this
00:30:36.580
poll encouraging. I think we need a way though, Franco, a different, clearer way to say the word net
00:30:43.520
zero. Because even saying that word, I think enhances it as a real thing. And it hides its true
00:30:51.920
nature. What do you think? What could we say? What could we use instead of net zero? And I'm putting you
00:30:57.660
on the spot here today, but I want to muddle my way through it. Because if you ask someone in high
00:31:03.100
school or college, you believe in net zero by 2050, net zero by 2030? Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Okay. How
00:31:09.220
about no cars, no power, no travel, no flights, no regular agriculture, no meat? Okay. I know what
00:31:19.200
you mean now. How should we phrase this? You're a master at communication around tax issues. What ideas
00:31:26.200
would you have? Well, okay, Ezra. So I just want to say two things. Number one, I mean, it's kind of
00:31:31.680
the Orwellian type of political speak, right? These politicians don't want to actually tell you
00:31:37.060
exactly what they mean. They want these high-minded phrases. So people don't actually know what they're
00:31:42.640
talking about. Then they want to say the couch in these terms where it's almost impossible for anyone
00:31:47.640
to be like, oh, I'm against that. Even though if they were honest with you with what it means,
00:31:52.500
as you can see, many Canadians would be against exactly what it means, right? Like, hey, do you
00:31:57.940
want to pay X amount more for gas to do absolutely nothing for the environment? And then you actually
00:32:02.600
find out that a majority of Canadians either want the carbon tax cut or killed. Now, in terms of what
00:32:08.060
phrasing should we use? Well, I'm not even sure it needs to be one exact phrase to counter what these
00:32:14.180
politicians are talking about. In fact, I think you've got to break it down as many ways as possible to
00:32:19.180
show Canadians exactly what that type of policy or tax or new government regulation would mean.
00:32:26.120
So I think we actually have to break it down to the specifics so Canadians know exactly what
00:32:31.320
politicians and bureaucrats and academics are planning. Yeah. You know, let me close on this.
00:32:35.860
I saw a tweet that suggested young people have two big worries on their mind. One is they can't afford
00:32:43.160
to live. They can't afford to buy a house. They can't afford groceries. Inflation is really hitting
00:32:47.640
young people who are just getting going in life hard. And in the same token, they're anxious about
00:32:53.840
a climate Armageddon because they've been bombarded with this terrifying apocalyptic imagery. First of
00:33:00.300
all, I think they're linked. One of the reasons things are so expensive is because of carbon taxes
00:33:05.300
and because power is so expensive because we went to unreliables. And I don't know, I think that
00:33:11.460
I think we can get to a prosperity agenda where energy and food are cheap, where housing is affordable,
00:33:20.040
but I don't think we're ever going to do that with this climate catastrophizing out there. In fact,
00:33:26.440
I think part of the whole climate agenda is to make life difficult and poor so that we have less life.
00:33:33.460
They actually have that phrase degrowth, where they want less of everything, less economy. And if you ask
00:33:40.840
Bill Gates, he believes we need billions fewer people in the world. I think they want smaller lives,
00:33:48.980
smaller people, and smaller hopes. That's what net zero means. I don't know. I'm going to keep
00:33:54.640
turning it over in my head because I think we need to rebut that phrase. Last word to you, Franco.
00:33:59.520
Well, one of the reasons life is more expensive, that's an understatement, Ezra. Come on. Carbon
00:34:04.680
tax number one. There's a second carbon tax in place. And then you have these policies that just
00:34:09.820
almost directly go after our oil and gas resource, whether it's Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines law,
00:34:16.700
Bill C-48, the discriminatory tanker ban, rejecting the Northern Gateway pipeline, moving the regulatory
00:34:22.300
goalposts on energy ease. Biden pulls a presidential plug on Keystone. Trudeau barely bats an eye. I mean,
00:34:29.040
no, this is a huge reason that life's more expensive. But here's the thing, right? I think
00:34:33.160
most of those younger Canadians who answer that poll aren't really ideological one way or the other.
00:34:39.000
I think the vast majority, they care about the environment, but they also care about being able
00:34:43.380
to afford hamburger meat, right? And the beauty of this is that you can kind of do both at the same
00:34:48.880
time, but you have to be honest. So number one, these types of carbon taxes don't do a single thing
00:34:54.420
for the environment. And number two, how we become prosperous in Canada while still taking care of
00:34:59.660
the environment? It's actually quite easy, right? You want to sell our natural gas or natural resources
00:35:05.160
all over the world. Let's do that. And two, let's make sure entrepreneurs can develop new types of
00:35:11.500
technology with market forces, and then we can export that as well. So that's how we have to do it.
00:35:17.020
And I think there is a glimmer of hope in this poll that we've been discussing.
00:35:20.760
You know, I think we have to get back to what environmentalism used to mean, which is clean air,
00:35:25.540
clean soil, and clean water, real things. And I think, by the way, there is work to do on that.
00:35:31.040
And if you've ever traveled to China, you know that there are huge, real problems with pollution.
00:35:36.160
I think climate, combating climate change, which is code word for taxes, has actually snuffed out real
00:35:43.140
and necessary environmentalism. That's something we got to work on too. High energy, Franco,
00:35:48.620
Terrazzano, one of our favorite guys. You take care, my friend.
00:35:54.460
All right. Our pleasure. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:35:57.300
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me, Andrew Baikey, or Baikey, says,
00:36:13.000
it comes down to the Liberal Party fundamental belief that if people won't choose to consume
00:36:17.640
state-funded content, they will force you to. The same can be said for similar liberal policies
00:36:22.620
around environmental protection and health care. Yeah, they're authoritarian by nature,
00:36:26.680
and they hate criticism. And it's true, they've managed to mollify and vanillify
00:36:32.740
99% of the official media just by putting them on the payroll. It was really easy. But people want
00:36:39.960
skeptical, critical, independent takes. And so they'll find them, even if it's just people on
00:36:44.600
Twitter. I mean, I think we're one step above Twitter, not in terms of morality or whatever.
00:36:50.720
I think that anyone on Twitter is great. But in terms of our processes, because we do this full time.
00:36:55.340
But I think to Trudeau, anyone who's not part of the regime media is disgraceful and should be banned.
00:37:02.500
I call our team citizen journalists. You can be a citizen journalist, too. I've said this for a long time.
00:37:08.580
If you have something interesting to say in your smartphone for free, you can become the media.
00:37:15.100
Use your camera. Post to Facebook or Twitter. Type a tweet. That is what journalists do.
00:37:21.480
And Trudeau looks down his nose at those people, not because they're not smart,
00:37:25.840
but because he doesn't control them. Screamin' Baby Jones says, and I think CBC encourages the
00:37:32.240
reader to share links to their web articles on their own site, to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit,
00:37:37.260
LinkedIn, and email. Maybe CBC should be paying Meta for the privilege of increasing reach on social
00:37:42.220
media platforms. Look, I have a lot of beefs with Meta. They're actually sort of the opposite of
00:37:48.320
Trudeau's beefs. I despise the fact that Facebook, which owns Meta, sorry, Meta owns Facebook,
00:37:54.980
Meta owns Instagram, are so censorious of conservatives. Mark Zuckerberg spent tens of
00:38:00.620
millions of dollars on a Democrat get-out-the-vote campaign. He's extremely partisan. They really
00:38:06.400
interfered with the Brazilian elections, with the French elections. Facebook are already great
00:38:11.400
interferers. Trudeau wants them to interfere more under his Bill C-11, but he wants to
00:38:18.520
take hundreds of millions of their dollars to pay off to his trusted journalists.
00:38:23.680
So in this one instance, I'm on Facebook's side.
00:38:27.680
Carl Rhodes says, since Trudeau says Rebel News is not an accredited news source,
00:38:32.040
Rebel should petition Facebook to allow Rebel links. Then Rebel will be the only news source on Facebook.
00:38:36.700
It's funny you say that. We actually wrote a letter to Facebook making that exact point. Our lawyers did
00:38:41.820
saying, look, we're not a QCJO-approved journalism source, so stop banning us. Well, they've ignored
00:38:48.000
the letter so far. It doesn't surprise me. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf
00:38:53.020
of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.