EZRA LEVANT ｜ What's bugging me, you say？ Insects on the dinner plate
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Summary
The world's largest cricket farm is located in canada, and many of these crickets are destined for human consumption. But why? Why is Canada the only country in the world that has an edible cricket farm? And why is it located in the bread basket of the earth?
Transcript
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tonight are bugs bugging you well then you won't want to miss my interview with the ceo of aspire
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foods the world's biggest cricket factory based right here in london ontario it's thursday october
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six 2022 i'm david menzies and this is the ezra lavent show
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so folks you might ask what's bugging me today well the answer is actually found in the question
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which is to say bugs are bugging me today oh sure we have to share the planet with insects and arachnids
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and so on and they so completely outnumber us they are supreme nuisances of course and yeah i'm looking
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at you mosquitoes and wasps and bed bugs yet coexistence is one thing but do we have to put
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the creepy crawlies on the dinner plate well if you ask the likes of claus schwab of the world
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economic forum the answer would be yes that we need to substitute steak and potatoes for crickets and
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mealworms oh not that king schwab will be showing down on insects anytime soon mind you much like
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he tells us you know to surrender our cars as he buggers off in his chauffeur driven limo
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what a fun burglar now you may have heard that there is quite the canadian angle when it comes
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to the topic of edible insects namely a humongous cricket breeding facility operated by the aspire
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food group recently opened in london ontario now my initial calls and my emails went unreturned so i
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hopped into the menzoid mobile and buggered on down the 401 to try and get some answers
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and here's what transpired david menzies for rebel news here in london ontario and folks i am standing
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in front of the world's largest cricket farm i kid you not and uh many of these crickets are destined
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for human consumption and the question arises why i know that edible insect fans and there are some
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people that fall into that category uh they talk about the millions and millions of people the world
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over that eat insects as part of their daily diet what they don't tell you is that most of those
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people are in third world nations and unfortunately they don't have access to other food i don't think
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a grub worm is someone's first choice over a hamburger or a chicken souvlaki after all now the thing is
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you gotta wonder is canada truly a nation that is desperate for insects on the menu um but here's
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the thing aspire food group which is the name of the company here folks they're not really taking
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much of a risk in case this turns out to be a big flop for example aspire's plant has received
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16.8 million dollars from canadian taxpayers via something called next generation marketing canada
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and it seems that this payment might just be the first installment if you can believe it
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also aspire has received an additional 10 million dollars in taxpayer funds funds from sustainable
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development technology canada and get this they've even received a million dollars from the united
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nations now we thought the idea of the world's largest cricket farm being located in canada well
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that's kind of a big story wouldn't you say um especially with so many of the world's elites right now
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attacking farming traditional farming that is just look what's happening in the netherlands
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just look at that harebrained plan to label canadian ground beef as bad for your health
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and yet here we have this multi-million dollar insect farm uh right in the uh bread basket of
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ontario it it just seems weird but we tried emailing they don't return your emails we tried phoning
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unless you know the employee's extension number and i took several guesses uh you cannot leave a
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voicemail so why the lack of transparency now i should point out our good friend at uh western
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standard uh karen selick she recently penned a fine piece about this operation and when she reached out
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to interview someone well at least she got a reply it wasn't a good one it said the following quote
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hello karen there is no one available to respond to your questions take care simone end quote i don't know
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who simone is but aspire ceo muhammad ashur well guess what folks he was more than happy to sit down
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with a cbc journalist and if you check out that report it comes across more like a press release
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rather than a actual news report uh in any event i'm here to get some answers i think they owe us some
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answers they're getting tens of millions of dollars of uh taxpayer money and because of that they should
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be transparent in terms of where that money is going and whether or not this is going to be a viable
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operation it obviously it's not viable enough for them to roll the dice and invest in this facility
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themselves no they're depending on you and i just like the cbc depends on you and i in any event let's
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go in and uh see what's cooking so to speak folks just take a look at the size of this facility
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you know it reminds me of something from pop culture oh i know it's a borg cube you know
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resistance is futile self-determination is irrelevant at least to what the world elites
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want you to put on your plate in the near future ugh sir how you doing there good i'm david menzies with
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rebel news and nice to meet you sir i'm in the middle of the meeting and the facility is close
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visitors at the moment but if you like to schedule a meeting uh you can reach out to us and and we'll
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oh i have i've reached out oh one second oh up is muhammad ashur here because your phone doesn't
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pick up messages how about we come back after your meeting you'll have to schedule with me because
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we're starting the plan we're not doing interviews for at least weeks oh but you gave an interview to
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cbc muhammad ashur no well um we got the brush off as you can see he seemed friendly he's in a meeting
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i offered to come back uh for the meeting i toronto is a more than two hours away from here
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they do not return their emails folks and they have a phone system where when you call unless you know
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the extension you cannot leave a message it does not go to a voicemail operation and uh you end up
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guessing at extension numbers i'd have better luck uh winning lotto max i think well folks my camera
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woman sarah and i we had just finished wrapping up our report such as it was we got the bums rush as
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you saw earlier we walked around the facility we were literally heading out to hit the road and who
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should come out of the building but muhammad ashur himself he is the founder and ceo of aspire and
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mr ashur graciously invited us in to have a sit-down interview and here's how that went i'm just
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wondering um muhammad can you tell us why you think there is demand in canada for cricket consumption
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that's human consumption well okay so human consumption i'm not so sure about that okay our
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primary market's actually pet food okay so we don't really when i first started the company i was
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in medical school i came across this business competition the idea this was at mcgill university
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the idea was to build a business that can address global food security so we started traveling around
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different countries looking at different foods people eat we noticed that in a lot of the countries
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where people have experienced real hunger places in africa primarily insect consumption is actually
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prevalent so our thought was maybe we can come up with a way to farm insects to address food security
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in these types of countries our thinking was never to try to get canadians or americans to eat
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to eat bugs now over time we started to see that you know what there could be potential marketability
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of insects for human consumption but that's obviously it's tough i mean you think like 25 years ago the
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idea of eating raw fish for most canadians was crazy and now sushi is everywhere so yes there is
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potential for insects to be a greater and greater percentage of our protein intake but our focus
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is right now 100 pet food oh okay then so none of the crickets in this facility are right now destined
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for human consumption in canada no oh but outside of canada and right now we don't have we don't have
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any contracts right now with anybody who's buying crickets for human consumption out of this facility
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okay yeah now the other thing um i'm so sure is the the fact that i i was looking at you know your
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business plan and there's tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer funding i think there's even
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a one million dollar grant from the un and you know a skeptic might say that this gamble you know
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might not be done if it was simply your money or your investors money but it's taxpayer taxpayers that
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are taking the risk on this venture how would you respond to that yeah i mean so i have to of course
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on the one hand be very grateful for a lot of the support we've received in the grants uh it's
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important to recognize that for every so this facility for example eight out of ten dollars that
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went into building this facility came from investors which means i sold a huge percentage of my company
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for us to be sitting here and actually those investors are amazing canadian private equity investors
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venture capital investors you know here's the really cool thing we won this prize when we were
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in mcgill in canada we started this company in canada but we actually moved to austin texas to do a lot
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of the r d because we had found a company there we acquired it that's where we did a lot of our early
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research and then we found that a lot of a lot of the great support we were getting great investors
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that were backing our company many of them happened to be canadian so anyway as we decided to build
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our facility in london ontario we were attracted in large part by some of these grants so one of them
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for example is sustainable development technology canada this is a grant that's aimed at companies
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that are going from sort of a pilot scale so proof of concept to commercialization that whose business
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model has the potential to dramatically reduce you know environmental emissions and things like that
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in our case if you look at pet food 30 percent of the calories that dogs and cats eat come from meat
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and you know a dog in the wild doesn't eat cows a dog in the wild eats you know crickets or other
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insects historically pet food used to be the leftovers of human food which makes a lot of sense
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right you take a chicken you move the thighs you move the the breast and then the rest is rendered and
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extruded into a pet food nowadays a lot of millennial pet parents want to be feeding their pets you know
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these chicken breasts also and so now you have a lot more meat being produced you have pet food
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manufacturers that are literally competing with human food manufacturers to be able to get their pets
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the same quality meat that they are eating themselves and so our perspective is that there's an
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opportunity for pets who naturally enjoy eating insects to reduce the environmental emissions
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associated with their consumption through insects as a substitution does that make sense um well i'm not a bug
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expert if you can imagine but um i'm just curious you mentioned it was the research and uh development
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facility was in texas and is there any um taxpayer money from texas going into this venture so um we
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actually did not receive any uh grants within texas now the halt prize of course came in canada
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uh uh in the sense that the whole prize is funded by uh the um uh halt uh organization so the whole
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business school every year issues a challenge it's a one million dollar prize it's put up by the
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halt family they're the founders of ef an education company uh and it was the brainchild of the halt
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organization so that was the only grant that came in to aspire up to now when we were ready to
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commercialize it's very tough to get those grants now the only difference is we actually did receive
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a small business grant from the department of defense in the very early early days but we never
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got it because our company is more than 50 percent owned by canadians so you have to be an american
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citizen or at least like more than 50 percent of your ownership is american so we actually had a lot
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of a lot of opportunity to get u.s grants but we could never close them because of our status as
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canadian citizens and and as you said um what you're growing here is destined for pet food um maybe
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there's a potential for human food in the future but there's a lot of uh buzz if you pardon the pun about
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um um insects being used as edibles for human beings and i mean we see it from you know people with
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the world economic forum uh united nations as you mentioned gave that one million dollar uh prize to
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you um i'm wondering why why does it seem to me uh mr sure that there's um people in powerful positions
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advocating the consumption of insects while at the same time waging war on traditional agriculture you
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see what's happening in the netherlands uh here in canada there was a scheme to put warning labels on
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canadian ground beef and um a lot of people i guess are nervous or concerned that is this going
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to be part of the new world order so to speak the idea that we're going to give up beef and chicken
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and pork and instead have insects on our dinner tables uh i should hope not i'll tell you something
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right now i personally consume meat um my family consumes meat my parents are from egypt i've traveled
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around the world i think it is preposterous to imply or suggest that we're going to live in a world
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without meat while i from a distance can respect entrepreneurs who want to envision a world without
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meat i've been around enough farmers and i've seen regenerative agriculture and what amazing things it
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can do for our land so i think that there's a misperception and this is the broader alternative
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protein movement you have companies that are on one extreme that say the world needs to get rid of all
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meat we're against meat everybody needs to be eating you know plant-based this and you know
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alternative that and then you have on the other extreme the you know under no circumstances over
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my dead body i'm only eating you know beef every single day for the rest of my body our company is
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not an anti-meat company and actually i've lost customers over that because a lot of the alternative
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protein companies are very puritanical in that perspective like they really expect you to be
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doggedly against meat or else like you're you're not you're not in the fold that's not our position our
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position is meat is here to stay we and and there's lots of opportunity for us to create
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better regenerative agriculture around it our perspective is the world is growing massively
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we need more protein and insects are so efficient at converting what they eat into into protein biomass
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this facility here is on four acres and it will produce you know 12 million kilograms a year of meat
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of insect protein that's a massive productivity out of a short amount of land so we're contributing and
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we're seeing ourselves as part of an overall solution but meat's going nowhere okay well you
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know it's interesting because i think i saw you quoted might be in a cbc article and i think you said
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up to about two billion of uh the world's people actually eat insects and but i would say on the
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other hand uh mr sure is that because they don't have access to any other protein or meat to that
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they're forced to eat bugs that's so interesting you say that so i used to think that too right because
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i didn't grow up eating insects myself in fact when we first came up with the idea for this business
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we didn't we didn't really we weren't really sure um uh which insect even to start with right so when
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we travel to oaxaca mexico and this is one of the poorest states in mexico okay one kilogram of
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grasshoppers david is more expensive than a kilogram of beef chicken and pork combined can you believe
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that i couldn't believe it i find that very hard to believe but is that true it is true and you know
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why it's because grasshoppers only come in season for about three months okay and because of that
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well three things one they're in short supply and the demand is quite high because they're quite tasty
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you took anything and you add chili and lime and and and seasoning and it's going to taste delicious
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but the second reason is because the manual labor involved in capturing that many grasshoppers go try
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catching a thousand grasshoppers good luck right so so that makes it very expensive to capture this
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amount of protein and that's what makes it expensive and i saw relatively poor people literally going up and
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buying grasshoppers in like 10 gram portions because that's all they could afford so that was
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so disruptive to my world view made me realize that this you know if insects are so prevalent
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and if apparently they are they are so good nutritionally why haven't they already solved world
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hunger well it turns out in a lot of these countries you actually can't rely on these insects
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year-round because they only come in season due to temperature and climate for a short period
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and high demand makes them very expensive so it's actually on the contrary not only are people not
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forced to eat this food they seem to be going out of their way to spend an inordinate amount of money
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to enjoy this delicacy that is fascinating but tell me my colleague chili gun reed she had a commentary
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a few days ago and it was based on a scientific report that came out about the problem with pathogens
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in insects and i think for i'm going by memory i think it was over 30 percent of insects destined for
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human consumption have a pathogen problem is this a concern no so we have to be careful what we mean
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here so there's pathogen risk for example with like food safety so if you package something
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incorrectly at a plant it doesn't matter what it is it could be meat it could be chicken it could be
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it could be you know crackers right like so if there's an introduction of some sort of a contaminant
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in the food processing steps that could be a problem but if you're saying does the insect itself have
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a pathogen so that depends on the insect that's why for us when we selected crickets we were very
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specific that it has to be an insect that does not transmit any diseases to humans that it's an
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insect that doesn't have any microbial activity at the end when we harvest our crickets we actually
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check and we have to run analyses to look for any kind of microbes so for us we wouldn't operate as a
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food production facility if we allowed for any kind of pathogen to continue in the food chain food
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processor manufacturer we have to have the best general manufacturing processes we have to have the
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right sanitation the right hygienic practices in place so that you know you don't introduce any kind of
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pathogens in your process so like producing crickets it's the same as producing you know
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chicken beef pork what have you you've got to follow sanitation standards to make sure okay 100
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okay then and so just be clear as you said it's most or all of the product that you will be producing
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it's destined for pet food but i imagine you know there might be a business case for you if you can convince
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i don't even one percent of the population that a cricket sandwich or wrap however it's served
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is good for i mean that's good for your bottom line so ultimately do you see in the months and years
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ahead maybe uh having some of your product go for human consumption um i think we're going to be
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focused on pet food for quite some time that market is massive david and in and it's only growing
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you know during covet so many more people adopted pets and brought pets into their household
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and because they're spending more time with their pets they're starting to pay attention to what
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their pets are eating and they're thinking to themselves you know the pet is no longer this
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adorable furry creature that greets me when i come home they're now like my favorite child so
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they're treating them accordingly canadians americans people in in these countries we spend an enormous
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amount of money on our pets because we adore them and for us we see a huge opportunity to be able to
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deliver the same high quality nutrition to pets while at the same time having a tremendous impact on both
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their health and bodies as well as the environment and of course with you being the ceo i'm sure
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you've crunched all the numbers are you confident that this is going to be a profitable venture moving
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on yes i am okay well mr sure i want to thank you so much for a uh you're a hard man to pin down um
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i've been reaching out to your company but uh one last question is there anything that we haven't
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discussed when it comes to the consumption of insects that you feel would be relevant for our audience to
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know uh not at this time but if you have any other questions you can feel free to reach out to me and
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and please don't don't go through the info whatever contact page i'll never see that i'll give you my
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business card you'll get my email address if you have any follow-up questions feel free to reach out
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oh i agree i greatly appreciate that thank you for your time mr sure thank you thank you so much for
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coming well there you have it folks i should tell you that i found mr assured to be very likable
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and i am indeed very grateful that he invited us into the facility for a sit-down interview
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and i'll take mr assure at his word that the crickets that are being bred here at the aspire plant
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are going to be utilized as pet food but then again that's in the here and now isn't it who's to say
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that in the near future crickets produced by this facility won't be destined for human consumption
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in the final analysis i'm a complete libertarian when it comes to a person's food choice
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you want to be carnivorous well there's plenty of superb keg steakhouses to satiate your need for
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meat you want to be vegetarian or hardcore vegan hey your body your choice right except when it comes
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to getting vaccinated for covet 19 of course and if you want to go through life as an all-out insectian
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well lucky you there are an estimated twin quadrillion bugs on planet earth you will never go hungry
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say you want fries with that mealworm yeah well so many politicians and mainstream media types are
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promoting the edible insect revolution why oh why do they always look so miserable when they are caught
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on camera eating a bug check it out pakistan has never seen an unbroken cycle of monsoons quite like
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this eight weeks of non-stop torrential rain a national emergency has been invo
00:22:43.080
has been invoked but the weather in pakistan extreme weather is alarming
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need to gotcha reports yeah so not exactly um finger licking good now is it and somewhere in the
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halls of global news ottawa rachel crimore remains in the fetal position weeping over the fact that yet
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another canadian female journalist was attacked by an alt-right insect but getting back to the cricket
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factory my bugaboo alas is the sheer amount of taxpayer dollars propping up insect farms like a
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spire if there is indeed a business case to be made for edible insects and why are taxpayer funded
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subsidies needed the same could be said for our state broadcaster the cbc if a majority of canadians
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gave a rodent's rectum about the cbc then why does it need more than a billion dollars in taxpayer
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welfare on an annual basis and the answer to that query of course is this just check out the cbc's
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abysmal ratings these days in the meantime i remain completely unconvinced that insects are a viable
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protein source assuming one is given the choice between bugs or burgers or for that matter even
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broccoli the mere sight of bugs is revolting to so many of us who make up club homo sapiens thus sorry
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the great world economic form when it comes to my dinner plate i will once again paraphrase the late
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great charlton hested i'll give you my hamburger when you pry it from my cold dead hands
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folks if i told you that there is a policy being enforced stating that an area is a jew free zone where
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and when would you think i'm speaking of perhaps berkeley in 1939 or would it be berkeley in 2022
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consider this shocking opinion piece published in newsweek recently entitled university of california
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berkeley law school's jew free zones the latest progressive trend quote for several decades jewish
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college students have been sounding the alarm about rising anti-semitism on college campuses
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from mild episodes of graffiti to bds activism torah desecrations and egging jewish frat houses
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university campuses have become hotbeds of anti-jewish and anti-zionist activist activism both in north
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america and throughout the world rightly recognizing campus anti-semitism as a blight on higher education
00:25:49.080
and on america former president trump signed an executive order in 2019 on combating anti-semitism
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unfortunately since then not only has the campus situation for jewish students not improved it has
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taken a dramatic turn for the worse this can be seen most acutely in a move recently made
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by law school students at one of america's most progressive university networks in one of america's
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most progressive states at the beginning of the current academic year nine law school student groups
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at the university of california at berkeley school of law amended their bylaws to ensure that
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nobody who supports israel or zionism is invited to speak given that the vast majority of jews worldwide
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support the state of israel these student groups have in essence created a jew free zone in the
00:26:48.360
hallowed halls of berkeley law the ruling would bar the law school's own dean erwin chemerniski who
00:26:57.480
identifies as a progressive zionist increasingly an oxymoron if the progressives have their way
00:27:05.880
banning jews or members of any other religious group from participating in a civil activity such as
00:27:12.520
speaking at a publicly funded university is discriminatory and immoral and if it becomes acceptable and
00:27:21.240
normalized in america to ban a jew from speaking on a college campus because of an opinion held about
00:27:29.160
israel or zionism what is to stop the next step from happening i.e the normalization of banning jews
00:27:37.880
from attending that same or other institutions of higher education or other entities end quote
00:27:45.560
absolutely incredible and downright sickening and joining me now for more on this shocking state
00:27:53.240
of affairs at berkeley is the author of that opinion piece and that would be toronto-based writer laura
00:27:59.560
rosen cohen welcome to the ezreal event show laura how you doing i'm good how are you doing i'm doing
00:28:06.360
great thanks for joining us laura it is hard to believe that this is actually happening in the usa with
00:28:14.520
all of the constitutional protections that country has but it is happening how did this perverse so-called
00:28:22.440
jew free zone initiative get rolling in the first place well i think for a long time berkeley in
00:28:30.200
particular has been a hotbed of anti-israel and anti-zionist political activity they have a really active
00:28:37.240
um palestinian student life there um california itself is a very progressive state so all those
00:28:44.840
and all those ingredients together have created a climate that has just become increasingly
00:28:50.760
uh hostile to israel and zionism and you know as it's been said when people talk zionist they actually
00:28:58.440
most of the time mean jews so what we can see is that the environment has become progressively more
00:29:04.920
more dangerous i would say and more um the temperature is rising on campus towards jews in
00:29:10.280
general so it's been a long time coming um and as i wrote in the article it's just that this particular
00:29:17.880
episode has kind of upped the ante on the anti-israel and anti-zionist um behavior on campus
00:29:25.880
laura it truly makes a mockery of the term and the concept progressive this is not progressive this
00:29:34.120
is regressive this is you know a form of discrimination um it is a a completely biased
00:29:43.320
attitude to an identifiable group um god forbid if this was any other minority being singled out like
00:29:50.600
this i'm sure it would be front page on every single american newspaper but that's another factor
00:29:57.240
isn't it laura the lack of media coverage nobody's talking about this what's going on yeah i think that
00:30:05.320
there's also been a lot of anti-christian bias um in america on college campuses for a long time
00:30:11.720
and that is also something that people turn a blind eye to in the mainstream media there are certain
00:30:16.440
groups certain religious groups certain maybe gender groups that are more highly protected
00:30:23.000
by the media and the media goes into full gear if certain groups are are attacked um i think in this
00:30:30.440
case it's just really uncomfortable territory for the left um jews are very progressive in general jews
00:30:37.880
vote left whether it's democrat in the united states or liberal in canada and it's really hard for
00:30:43.640
them to square the circle about what's happening now um it's a very difficult thing to have to
00:30:49.560
acknowledge at some point that the political left is more of a danger than the political right is to
00:30:55.400
jews um in north america so that that being said is understandable that there would not be very much
00:31:03.400
media coverage of this particular um event there's often independent media covering anti-semitism and
00:31:11.960
anti-semitic attacks um for example there's a non-jewish guy named mike chernowitz who is in california
00:31:20.680
who was on the story of jews being attacked knockout punched all these hasidic jews being attacked he
00:31:27.320
here he is this non-jewish um documentary film producer and sort of social media giant and he's the
00:31:34.120
seemed to be the only one interested in it it's very strange but jews i think have become um on the
00:31:39.880
scale of hierarchies of identity politics they're quite low on the scale right now and um there are
00:31:46.440
people who are higher up on the pyramid um jews are not even necessarily considered a minority worthy
00:31:52.360
of any protections in many cases they're just considered blanket to be part of the white um hegemony
00:31:59.160
the white power structure so things have gone a little topsy-turvy um in america in particular but
00:32:04.280
whatever happens in america you know it's going to start to happen in canada progressives here have
00:32:09.000
their pulse on what's happening in the united states and um i don't it does i don't feel like it's going
00:32:14.840
to get better i think that with the current administration a lot of the blind eye is being
00:32:20.120
turned to a lot of this stuff and i can't i'm not particularly optimistic about where it's going to go
00:32:26.440
you know laura what you said earlier um is a very important point um that there are so many in the jewish
00:32:32.520
community that vote left i would argue that if you are a jew in 2022 and you're voting for the
00:32:41.160
biden democrats or the justin trudeau liberals i would question if you're a self-hating jew because
00:32:48.200
these are not your friends these are you know i mean justin trudeau when he was unveiling uh holocaust
00:32:54.760
proclamations he couldn't even say the word um with with biden look what um rashida talib says
00:33:03.720
on almost a uh a weekly basis um here's a quote um i want you all to know that among progressives
00:33:12.840
it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back israel's apartheid
00:33:21.480
government this is not anti-israel this is not anti-zionist this is anti-semitism because there
00:33:28.760
is no apartheid in israel and if your argument is based on a lie then i'm sorry the likes of talib
00:33:35.960
that is classic anti-semitism and nothing else so can you possibly explain to me why in 2022
00:33:44.680
laura there are so many jews that vote democrat in the u.s and liberal in canada yes i can okay
00:33:56.120
so basically the problem is so jews generally also have a messianic tendency believing in utopian
00:34:04.440
movements they're very idealistic jews in their dna have belief in their dna but a lot of jews have
00:34:12.120
um kind of gone away from religion and religious beliefs and observance and real traditional judaism
00:34:21.080
in favor of much more progressive causes so the jews that you get voting democrat and voting liberal in
00:34:28.200
canada their religion for the most part is political leftism that is what they believe in they believe in
00:34:36.200
that culturally they're still jewish they might have yiddish words that they use they might celebrate
00:34:43.080
holidays in certain ways but their actual political belief the thing that they strive towards is
00:34:49.080
political leftism so that really explains it all which also is why in more orthodox communities you're
00:34:57.000
going to find people are voting for trump they're going to be more politically conservative
00:35:01.640
um and in canada they were voting more for conservatives so there is a definite um relationship between
00:35:10.760
i think jewish practice that is to say being jewishly literate prayer holidays hebrew um
00:35:21.160
have you traveled to israel that sort of thing and um level of commitment to conservative or left-wing
00:35:29.240
politics once you realize that they're true believers but they believe in political leftism as opposed to
00:35:36.360
maybe the god of israel as was traditional then it all makes sense absolutely incredible uh laura and
00:35:43.400
you know getting back to berkeley i'm going to quote another piece from your superb column in newsweek
00:35:50.280
and it says the anti-jewish climate at berkeley on college campuses in the hallways of congress and on
00:35:56.920
the streets of new york is not just a jewish problem because what starts with the jews never ends with
00:36:03.960
the jews american jews may flee california and new york for the calmer waters of desantis's florida
00:36:11.640
but that is really just a band-aid solution for a serious national problem so the point i'm making
00:36:19.240
here laura and i think the point you're making your calm is that if you are not jewish and you don't
00:36:27.400
care about what happens to the jewish community how soon will it be before these so-called progressives
00:36:33.480
come after you for some perverse uh reason your thoughts they'll they'll definitely start coming
00:36:40.440
after you because there's no point where they'll live and let live what i also mean by if you turn a
00:36:47.160
blind eye to what's happening with the jews is is basically the proverbial canary in the coal mine
00:36:53.480
situation that's what we've seen is that societies that have generally been accepting of jews allowed
00:37:01.160
them their full civil rights to participate in full civil society those are the societies that actually
00:37:06.760
thrive and you have to look through the microcosm of history to see that that is what is actually the
00:37:12.520
case the societies that have enabled anti-semitism state sanction pogroms other anti-semitic activities
00:37:20.520
have for the most part ended up in the dustbins of history empires entirely and yet the jews are still
00:37:27.400
here the jews have survived many empires throughout history the jews even survived the most evil
00:37:33.240
extermination attempts of nazi germany we're still here and we're still going to be here but if you look
00:37:40.440
around and you can even think about it in terms of in a biblical sense for those people who are
00:37:45.480
believers um even if you're not a person of faith when in genesis 12 3 it says god says i will bless
00:37:53.640
those who bless you and curse those who curse you you really have to look at that and say isn't that
00:37:59.800
actually the case haven't all the societies that have treated jews so badly where are they now all these
00:38:05.800
empires have come and gone and ironically um what you see now is that societies that are reaching out
00:38:11.960
to israel the collective jew um those societies are enjoying some prosperity as well i never thought in
00:38:19.160
my lifetime that i would see you know religious hasidic jews dancing at a wedding that there would
00:38:25.000
be a chief rabbi of the united arab emirates jews and arabs dancing together engaging in commerce
00:38:31.800
together traveling to each other's countries i never thought that saudi arabia was going to be a
00:38:37.080
peace prospect but you know it feels like that we might be on the cusp of that as well this strange new
00:38:43.400
sunni jewish alliance you know against iran for example so again bless those who bless you curse those who
00:38:51.800
curse you and then you think to yourself what am i actually witnessing here in north america
00:38:57.400
um and i think that toleration of anti-semitism is one of those red flags in a society and it's not
00:39:04.680
just going to stop at jews so the knockout punches that were happening in new york city that's happening
00:39:10.280
now to asians nobody stopped it when it was happening to jews and now it's happening to asians
00:39:16.680
without mercy these are merciless attacks that are happening all the time and if you don't stop a place
00:39:22.600
like berkeley from essentially banning jews for certain thoughts that they have about a certain
00:39:27.640
country where they have affiliations of ancestral homeland homeland kinship i mean that's basically
00:39:34.680
a thought crime so if the next progressive thing will be to stop the jews from being able to attend
00:39:40.920
or to stop anybody else that they deem you know ineligible because of their opinion it shouldn't matter
00:39:46.200
what anybody's opinion is what matters is your behavior so you know if there was a jewish student
00:39:53.080
who was uh murderous violent or something like that or had injured people then you could understand
00:40:01.240
banning that particular person for the actions that they had done but it is completely immoral
00:40:06.680
completely unconstitutional in the united states as well to try to ban somebody from speaking on a
00:40:12.600
publicly funded campus for thoughts or feelings that they might have so if you allow that because
00:40:18.600
it's just the jews then you're going to be opening yourself up to a a black hole it's never going to
00:40:24.680
end because with these particular kinds of fanatics there is no live and let live it doesn't exist that
00:40:32.040
concept doesn't exist you give an inch the one a mile and i think that we've we've seen that happening
00:40:37.960
in a lot of other elements of life and in society now and what it takes is massive lawsuits massive
00:40:45.800
donors cutting off the the funding um some coverage in the media so thank you you know for covering
00:40:53.880
this story but other than that it doesn't stop and then once they finish with that if they've gotten
00:40:59.000
pushback from that then they're just going to go on to the next thing so this is like a relentless
00:41:04.200
ongoing war um and it's unfortunately it is really truly anti-semitic and it's unfortunate there that
00:41:11.480
there are going to be a lot of progressive jews who try to explain it away but it's because it's
00:41:16.680
because of what i explained before is that their primary belief system is actually quite far away from
00:41:22.280
judaism and it's more about leftism it's absolutely baffling and one last question uh laura um and you
00:41:29.080
referred to it uh in your last answer about civilizational decline and the conclusion of
00:41:35.720
your column you note that if these cases of anti-semitism are not addressed if this nonsense
00:41:43.880
at berkeley is not addressed these are the clearest warning signs of the impending and irreparable decline
00:41:52.680
of the american republic are they going to be addressed or is this a nothing burger for so
00:41:59.960
many people for members of the media for even progressive jews that turn a blind eye when it
00:42:06.680
comes to policies that are designed to ostracize and hurt them what are your final thoughts are laura
00:42:14.200
um i really do believe that it is um a sign of decline of of america and it is heartbreaking to
00:42:21.320
me because i'm somebody who actually loves america and when i see these stories i actually feel
00:42:26.680
physically ill because america is supposed to still be the beacon of freedom um and free speech and free
00:42:34.840
expression and all those great things when you see it happening in america you wonder who is going to be
00:42:40.760
there to defend these rights for anybody else so if those rights get eroded and anti-semitism to this
00:42:47.960
obvious a degree is normalized in america i think that that is they're kind of at a tipping point
00:42:54.360
and i'm not sure given what we've seen over the past few years through covid and given the leadership
00:43:00.280
that we see in progressive states how they've been run to the ground look at oregon california michigan new
00:43:08.280
york um these places are not going to recover so people are fleeing they're setting up shop elsewhere
00:43:16.440
because they don't see any possibility of recovery so i think anti-semitism is definitely one of the
00:43:23.560
the hallmarks of of decline um and i think also all the election shenanigans um whether you believe
00:43:31.160
the election was stolen or not in america last time i think there's there's really some very um
00:43:37.240
difficult and troubling undercurrents uh right now in america uh a lot of people are talking about a
00:43:44.120
national divorce in america and there are going to be those for whom you know anti-semitism and
00:43:49.400
these kind of they're red lines in the sand because they know what it leads to so uh i don't think it's
00:43:57.320
a i'm not sure there's going to be a happy ending here and like i said jews might try to escape for
00:44:02.920
florida while there's ron desantis ron desantis is not going to necessarily be a permanent fixture
00:44:09.000
and some parts of america i think have gone too far down the hole to actually be able to bounce back
00:44:14.360
whether it's spiritually um or economically and um we'll have to wait and see i i don't like to be
00:44:21.800
pessimistic about it but i can't really see a real revitalization of um the way things were there's a lot
00:44:29.240
of stuff that overt has shown us um you know a lot of us talked about not wanting a new normal but we
00:44:35.480
actually i think have to admit that there is a new normal right now and it contains a lot of things
00:44:40.200
that are really ugly and that we don't want and most of us would like to go back to some kind of a
00:44:44.840
2019 situation but some of those days are gone and the left has succeeded in creating a new normal in a
00:44:53.080
lot of places um that i think is not reversible so we'll have to see i don't like to be the debbie downer
00:44:59.640
but with this particular story i can't i don't see it ending well well i i always look for the
00:45:05.480
silver lining laura and hopefully there will be pushback hopefully the pendulum will swing back to
00:45:12.920
the realm of common sense because this is increasingly the bizarro superman world that we're living on
00:45:19.320
up is down left is right and so on laura i want to thank you so much for your time and i urge our
00:45:25.640
our viewers to seek out your column uh in newsweek uh it's a superb column it's a chilling column and
00:45:33.400
hopefully this will be addressed in the uh days and weeks ahead thank you again laura talking about
00:45:39.560
it david i appreciate it you got it and that was laura rosen cohen who is a toronto-based writer
00:45:46.920
keep it here folks more of the ezra levant show to come right after this
00:46:02.280
well folks my beloved colleague sheila gun reid she was filling in for ezra last night and tons of
00:46:07.080
feedback regarding her monologue about how biden is increasingly on his knees begging the opec masters to
00:46:16.200
turn on the taps to get america more oil how funny it was that uh well perversely amusing i should say
00:46:22.600
that it was only a few years ago under the trump administration that the u.s was energy self
00:46:28.120
sufficient unbelievable in any event evil beaver writes funny how many who are against alberta oil
00:46:35.880
always peacock around about equity ethics and morals if they truly cared about this they would only buy
00:46:44.600
alberta oil are there any other countries that are as ethical as canada or anywhere near i would
00:46:53.400
like to know seriously ethical meaning environmental policies non-slave work environment clean and friendly
00:47:02.120
to all nations well you know evil beaver you nailed it uh and by the way if anyone wants a great primer
00:47:09.320
on ethical oil it is the book by that very name ethical oil written by the big boss man some 10 years
00:47:15.400
ago uh it just shows what a fantastic and stellar track record canadian fossil fuel industries have
00:47:23.880
compared to the product uh being uh mined uh in in the middle east in fact i'd love to do an experiment folks
00:47:31.080
where we go to a gas station and we label the pump ethical alberta oil and then next to it another pump
00:47:40.120
soddy oil same price or maybe make the ethical oil five cents a liter uh more expensive who knows i
00:47:47.320
wonder if consumers would vote with their lawyers right now because what's happening to our domestic oil
00:47:52.680
sands industry is a smear job that is reprehensible and downright disgusting stuart d reagan 13 writes
00:48:02.920
reducing supply doesn't keep prices low it allows gas stations to gouge consumers biden is an idiot
00:48:10.600
puppet president you know i don't think there's gouging going on by the gas stations i think that's
00:48:16.520
a myth as i said earlier donald trump had america energy self-sufficient for the first time in 70
00:48:23.880
years in fact the u.s under trump was exporting oil i don't think gas stations want the price to go up
00:48:30.920
to a point where people just park their cars and don't use oil to the same extent at the end of the
00:48:36.760
day that is not going to be good for their bottom lines galand 53 writes quebec has long used the
00:48:45.320
threat of separation to extract more than their share of canada's wealth all provinces should
00:48:51.320
threaten separation so the federal government is forced to treat all equally well you know uh yes
00:48:57.560
quebec did have two uh referendums on separation both went down to defeat i don't think given the
00:49:05.800
demographic makeup of quebec that uh separation uh could pass as a mandate and i know there's a
00:49:13.720
separation movement in alberta i'll tell you one thing folks if the liberal government keeps treating
00:49:21.720
alberta the way it's treating it and if ever we have conservative leaders such as erin o'toole
00:49:27.320
that just take alberta uh for granted i could see a separation movement of uh quantifiable results uh
00:49:37.240
starting in alberta because if you're not wanted well time to leave isn't it well folks that wraps
00:49:43.880
up tonight's edition of the ezreal event show thank you so much uh for joining me hey i'll be back here
00:49:49.240
tomorrow friday in the meantime as always stay sane i want to take you through this otherwise unknown health
00:49:57.480
canada poll done earlier this year by environics and it was clearly tailored to garner the results the
00:50:03.880
government wanted but even in the end the disdain for the government from the public could not be
00:50:10.200
parsed out of the data look at this specific research objectives were to understand the level of
00:50:15.720
awareness of climate change and its health risks and impacts actions taken to adapt and be more
00:50:20.760
resilient to the health risks or impacts of climate change trusted sources of media used and other means
00:50:27.960
and opportunities for education and awareness raising and the public's views on the role of
00:50:33.880
government and non-governmental organizations 1520 canadians were pulled for a cost of nearly 120
00:50:40.520
000 so let's read through the study together and let's see if you can see the problem with this i
00:50:45.560
noticed it right away canadians are increasingly convinced about the phenomenon of climate change more
00:50:51.320
than 8 in 10 or 85 say climate change is definitely happening and this belief has steadily increased
00:50:59.560
over time from 69 in 2008 and 79 in 2017 did you notice the flaw right there they immediately presume
00:51:07.480
that if you think the climate is changing the natural default of the study is that it's human caused
00:51:13.320
they're lumping people who think that climate is an ever-changing cycle composed of far more variables
00:51:19.960
than the size of my comfortable suv and how much beef i eat and that i think it may have a lot to do
00:51:25.240
with that big burning ball of gas in the sky than how much money i send to trudeau for my climate sins
00:51:32.360
every year okay let's keep going there has been a substantial jump in the proportion of climate change
00:51:39.080
believers again interesting use of that word who say they have taken steps to protect against the health
00:51:45.800
impacts of climate change from 38 in 2017 to 59 in 2022 what does that even mean wearing sunscreen
00:51:54.680
wearing a hat more often going sleeveless wearing warmer socks drinking more water it just might if
00:52:00.600
we look at the next finding however many of their reported actions actually relate to mitigation efforts
00:52:06.680
i.e reducing the impacts of climate change rather than protective or adaptive measures
00:52:12.520
to date seven percent of canadians have sought medical attention because of a climate change event
00:52:21.480
medical attention for climate change really for what heat stroke sunburn frostbite wind burn these
00:52:28.440
are immediate weather related harms they're not climate related and the next finding admits as much
00:52:35.880
they're calling heat stroke a climate change illness as in 2017 most canadians can identify at least one
00:52:44.200
symptom of heat illness particularly dizziness and excessive thirst understanding how to protect
00:52:50.440
against heat illness also remains similar to 2017 staying indoors 53 drinking fluids 52 remain the most
00:52:59.000
widely mentioned preventative measures canadians remain the most likely to consult the internet followed by
00:53:05.880
their doctor for more information about heat illness wait a minute if you drink more water and consult
00:53:14.600
dr google or mmd about dizziness or being outside for too long that's a climate change related mitigation
00:53:21.800
effort now this next finding is amazing because if you live in a tiny hot apartment on the 20th floor
00:53:28.040
guess what also climate change indoor temperatures increasing temperatures due to climate change and extreme
00:53:34.840
heat heat events can create difficulties in cooling indoor spaces which can be harmful to health
00:53:42.200
one in five canadians find it difficult to regulate the indoor temperatures in their main living space
00:53:50.040
in the summer this skews to residents of apartments and condominiums and those who rent their home
00:53:57.400
and accordingly to younger canadians under age 35 and those with lower household incomes who comprise
00:54:06.280
a greater proportion of renters and apartment dwellers no air conditioning climate change the role of
00:54:13.400
federal government almost one in five 18 percent of canadians report having visited health canada's website
00:54:19.960
in the last year to learn how to protect themselves and their families from climate change this is higher
00:54:27.960
among bc residents 26 who disproportionately experienced the impacts of climate change throughout 2021 again what
00:54:37.400
does this mean this might be capturing people who look at health canada for sunburn remedies does this also
00:54:44.920
capture people who go to environment canada's website to find out if it's gonna rain now this is why you
00:54:51.320
didn't see the data trumpeted from the rooftops besides the obvious flaw in the premise that lumps climate cultists
00:54:58.040
in with people like me who think taxes don't change the weather but that weather has always changed and we may
00:55:05.000
even be coming out of the last glacial age anyway the federal government receives only modest ratings for
00:55:12.440
protecting canadians health from climate change one in ten ten percent feel the government is doing a good job
00:55:20.440
while six and ten give moderate ratings and one quarter give negative ones
00:55:27.800
so more people think the feds are doing a bad job than a good one on the issue of climate change and even
00:55:33.960
radical skeptics like me can agree with that for rebel news i'm sheila gun reid