EZRA LEVANT ｜ Where has the chamber of commerce been the past two years？
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Summary
Where have the Chamber of Commerce been the past two years? Where have the people who are supposed to stand up for businesses been the last two years, and why have they got their tongue in a pickle? I ll take you through some interesting exchanges I saw on Twitter today.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. In today's podcast, I talk about something I don't talk a lot about.
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I usually talk about the civil rights crisis we're in. I don't often talk about
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what small businesses face. Maybe I just sort of assume, you know, I care. But today I
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ask the question, where exactly have the chambers of commerce been the last two years? You know,
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the people who are supposed to stick up for businesses. Cat got your tongue? I'll take
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you through some interesting exchanges I saw on Twitter today. I'd like to invite you to become
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Let's just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. All right, here's to this show.
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Tonight, where has the Chamber of Commerce been the past two years? It's December 10th and this
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
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I care about civil liberties because I care about justice. I feel like the world is out of balance
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when I see something morally wrong. I see something morally wrong every day these days.
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The pandemic has brought out the worst in too many people. But at the end of the day, I'm
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not actually afraid of people. The pandemic has brought out the worst in powerful institutions,
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including large corporations. But mainly, I'm worried about what the pandemic has brought
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out in our governments. Because the difference between the government and the corporation or
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a private person is that the government has a monopoly on violence. It can force you to do
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things, force things to be done to you. I think corporations have been atrocious during the lockdowns,
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but in many cases, they were acting atrociously because the government forced them to act that way.
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I genuinely don't think corporations would have introduced vaccine passports on their own,
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for example. It's what Elon Musk said the other day. Government is just a corporation at its
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ultimate worst. Bigger than anything, but it can't fail. It really can't go bankrupt. You can never
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really fight it. And at the end of the day, it can do violence to you illegally. He even used the
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word immortal for the staying power of its regulations. This clip.
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There's a general problem, not just in the US, but in most countries where the rules and
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regulations keep increasing every year. Rules and regulations are immortal. They don't die.
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There's not a natural. Occasionally, you see some law with a sunset provision. But really,
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otherwise, the vast majority of rules and regulations live forever. Government is a corporation
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in the limit. So it is the most corporate thing. It is maximum corporation. But it's also a monopoly.
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And also, it's the only one that's allowed legally to do violence.
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I find that also grievous. Here's Arthur Pawlowski and his brother David being arrested on the highway,
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hunted down like dogs or like terrorists, really. Again, a corporation can't do that to you.
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An individual can't do that to you. I mean, I guess unless it's a gangster, I suppose. But
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at least then you can fight back and self-defense is on your side. You can't use self-defense against
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the police. Only the government could perpetrate such an offense against you. So that's what I
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really care about. I care about the morality of it, the psychology of it, the philosophy of it,
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the way we're all being rewired in society. And to be honest, I haven't talked enough
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about the economics of all of it. I've raged against the merger between big tech and big
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government, how Amazon and Netflix and Disney and all the online stores have thrived as their
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in-person bricks and mortar competitors have all been hobbled by the state, except Costco and Walmart.
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Those stores never closed for a minute, did they? Do you think Amazon.com would like the pandemic to
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go on forever? Of course it would. They're in league with big governments. There used to be a name for
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that. That corporate cronyism in bed with the government was a facet of fascism. But what about
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independent businesses, small businesses, mom and pop shops, restaurants, convenience stores,
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the trades, barbers, gyms, a little motel maybe? The stuff that makes a community, makes a neighborhood
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feel like home. The places that are the backdrop to your life. What about them? So many restaurants
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have closed forever in the lockdowns. Is there a restaurant or a bar or a place in your life that's
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much more than just where you had a meal once? But it was the setting for a major moment in your
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life, a happy moment in your life, a moment that made you feel a part of the place like you belonged.
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That's gone. I drive by a restaurant near my house every day that closed because of the pandemic.
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Not that I'd be allowed to go there now, even if it were open, but the sign of the restaurant is still
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up. I remember going there for the first time on New Year's Eve a few years ago with my family.
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I'm sad that it's gone. Maybe I'm being sentimental, but I think you need to know
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the place where you're living. These little stores, these little battalions of life.
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Paradoxically, our little company, Rebel News, has grown because of the crisis. I am not happy about
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that. I would prefer it if the world were normal and we were a small struggling company trying to make
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payroll each fortnight. I wish we were not in a crisis of society where no one can trust the
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government or the other media or any institution, really. Our motto, telling the other side of the
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story, was meant for a time like this, though. Our decision not to take any media bailout money
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was done for our own reasons, but in a time like this, it makes all the difference, don't you think?
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We've grown at Rebel News. We're twice the size of what we were a year ago
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because people want more of the other side of the story. Our projects with the Democracy Fund
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try to give people some helpful action, not just words. On Monday, I'll show you a shocking video
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about the price that our journalists pay for being independent. It will trouble you deeply.
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But today, let me focus on the question, where is the business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce? Where is,
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for want of a better phrase, you know, the businessmen, the business community, the people who are
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supposed to champion companies? The Chamber of Commerce, not Facebook and Amazon and Walmart
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and Costco, not the giants. They'll do fine. I mean, the local guys, the small guys, where are they?
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Where were their lobbies last year when the two-week lockdown started to turn into a two-year lockdown?
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Where were they? Did you see them even once? Where was the restaurant lobby? It's a big lobby.
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Where were the hotel people? Anyone in the travel industry, where were they?
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Where was the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the CFIB? They used to be pretty good guys,
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sort of like the Taxpayers Federation. They were pro-business, but mainly small business.
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Where have they been? Where were they when Chris Scott's Whistle Stop Diner was shut down,
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when Adam Skelly's barbecue was shut down? They were hiding like every other institution.
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In fact, most chambers of commerce welcomed vaccine passports. They decided it was the best way to
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end the lockdown, the government told them so, by sacrificing civil liberties for themselves and
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their customers, as if that would ever work. But look at this exchange I saw today on Twitter.
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The Globe and Mail wrote, happening today at 2 p.m., Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health,
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Dr. Kieran Moore, now joined by Health Minister Christine Elliott, will announce new measures,
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vaccine passports stays past January 17th, and stricter process for verifying medical exemptions.
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So, completely predictable, a disaster for civil liberties, a disaster for normalcy,
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and obviously a business disaster, unless you're Amazon and Netflix.
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Around 80% of Ontarians are vaccinated, by the way.
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That was supposed to be the end of the lockdowns, the way out. Obviously, the vaccines
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aren't working. When Bill Gates says it, can we please say it now?
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You know, we didn't have vaccines that block transmission. We got vaccines that help you
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with your health, but they only slightly reduce the transmissions. We need a new way of doing the
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But my point today is, so what does the voice of small business have to say about this extended
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lockdown and vaccine mandates and the continuing marathon here?
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Oh, here's that same Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
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Regardless of one's views on vaccine passports, there is no doubt they've led to a further drop
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in sales for the small businesses required to use them. Extending this policy extends the losses
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among hospitality and arts recreation businesses.
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Oh, okay. So nearly two years in, and the CFIB starts to timidly oppose what's going on.
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But does he even? Here's his next tweet in a series.
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Over 60% of businesses required to use vaccine passports report lower sales as a direct result.
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Less than 10% saw an increase. Over half have faced abuse and or increased costs.
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I hate the impact of this chart, the fact that businesses are being crushed. I hate that.
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I hate the fact that customers are unhappy. Life is being disrupted. Normal is being delayed.
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And people are saying so, even if it's just in private, to a pollster. 74% in the hospitality
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industry, 66% in arts and recreation. So theaters, gyms, sports clubs. This poll specifically asked
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about vaccine passports, demanding proof of vaccination. Now you wouldn't know it given that
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100% of the media loves the lockdowns. It's sad, but I see some hope in those stats that ordinary
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people, ordinary customers, ordinary businesses are not happy about this new biomedical security
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state that we're being told to live in. People aren't happy about being treated like prisoners
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in a prison. People aren't happy about being deputized to be prison wardens. Do you see that one line?
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62% of restaurants and 55% of gyms say they've had, quote, abuse or negative activity because of the
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vaccine mandate. Now, I don't want people to abuse each other. They conflate the word abuse with the
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word negative. I don't want shopkeepers or workers to be harmed, but telling them negative things is
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fine. That's freedom. That's listening to your customer. That's customer feedback. And that's hopeful.
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Don't you think that people are letting it be known? They are not happy.
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But here's what gets me about the chambers of commons, even the so-called business friendly
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CFIB that's supposed to be for the little guy. Here's another tweet by Dan Kelly. He says,
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CFIB is waiting to learn if the Ontario government will offer any support to those businesses required
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to use the system even longer. Alberta and PEI have offered some financial help, but not Ford Nation.
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And this is such a bad time for the feds to dramatically cut small biz support programs.
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So that's your demand for bailouts or handouts or grants financial help. You can't bring yourself
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to call for an end to this punishment, an end to the emergencies, an end to the law. You just want a
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few trinkets in compensation that'll be coming out of your taxes or debt anyway. The government doesn't
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come up with the money. It's being wrung out of you. You can't bring yourself to call for freedom.
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You're called the Canadian Federation of Independence. You just can't say it.
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With the changes the federal government has proposed in C2, only one of five small businesses
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in need of help will qualify for wage or rent help in the very lean months ahead. Join our call to fix
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the problem and then a link. Wage or rent help? For how long, mate? Another two years? Maybe another 20
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years. I clicked on the petition that they linked to there. I looked at it. They have five bullet point
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demands. Do you see that? All of them are for more money, more handouts. None of them are for freedom
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or just removing this emergency or how's this for a crazy idea? Letting every business choose their own
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fear level. You can have the quadruple mask, quintuple vac store for all the terrified people
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out there. And you can have the easy peasy store for others. How about let businesses, you didn't think of
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that, did you? And these are the capitalists? Really? Of course, they're crony capitalists now,
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just like Amazon and Netflix are. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's a disgrace. Stay with us for more.
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Well, better the devil you know, they say, and there's a reason for that because phrased in other
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way, things can always get worse. And these days, if they can, they often will. Jack Dorsey was the
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Rasputin-like CEO and founder of Twitter that has become the digital public square
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for a lot of political worlds, certainly in the United States, Canada, UK, Australia.
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Twitter's banned in China itself, but there are hundreds of Chinese agents on Twitter for the
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government, diplomats, military voices, all propagandizing against the West. That's allowed on
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Twitter, but Jack Dorsey banned Donald Trump, the sitting president of the United States. However bad Jack
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Dorsey was, though, it looks like it's getting worse. He is succeeded in his position by someone named
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Parag Agrawal. And you can see the changes already. Joining us now via Skype from Austin, Texas,
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is our friend Alan Bokari, senior tech correspondent of Breitbart.com. Alan, great to see you again.
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It's hard to imagine saying, I long for the days of Jack Dorsey. He was the censor who suspended the
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New York Post's Twitter account when they broke the news in the 2020 election about Hunter Biden's
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laptop. It's hard to think he could be the better than a better and in a better and worse diptych.
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But he was, wasn't he? That's absolutely right. Now, I have a rule when Silicon Valley CEOs are
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replaced. You know, however bad the previous CEO was, the replacement is almost certainly going to be
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worse. That's because, you know, the political climate in corporate America now is just so left wing
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that they're constantly moving to the left. And, you know, the replacement of a CEO is always an
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opportunity to find someone more woke, more radical, more extremist. And this is what we're seeing now
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with the new CEO of Twitter. He's barely been in his position for a week and already we're seeing mass
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suspension, mass bans, you know, accounts with tens of thousands of followers, hundreds of thousands in
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some cases being taken down withy nilly without even any explanation. So, you know, we're moving
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towards even more censorship on Twitter than we've seen in the past. Yeah, I mean, it's not just hate
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speech, which, of course, is a code for conservative speech. In the last week, two very surprising but very
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telling Twitter accounts have been nuked. And I see this in your latest article, Breitbart.com,
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called Twitter Blacklist's account providing updates on Ghislaine Maxwell trial. That's Jeffrey Epstein's
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procurer who helped him run his pedophile ring, Ghislaine Maxwell or Ghislaine, as some people pronounce it.
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All it did was spread information about the trial. There was no, at least as far as I know, there was
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nothing nefarious about it. It was literally magnifying what was going on in that courtroom. Deleted.
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Another one called Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker, which just, hey, here's what Nancy Pelosi is
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investing in. Public information in the public interest. Deleted. Deleted. That can't be a
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coincidence. It can't be. And, you know, both of those accounts have hundreds of thousands of
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followers. So if we ever ran them and put probably years of work, you know, certainly many, many hours
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of work into building out those accounts. And then Twitter just takes it away overnight. But yeah,
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those two accounts are interesting because, you know, it shows that on the one hand, they're not
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going to allow anyone to report on the wrongdoing of the elites who isn't part of the elites themselves.
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So, you know, CNN is going to be allowed to report on the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. But if you're a,
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if you're a, you know, a ordinary person with a Twitter account, then it's going to be a lot more
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difficult for you. You might even get banned. And then you have the Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker,
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which was a fantastic account. It drew attention to the fact that the, the investments of Nancy
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Pelosi have been surprisingly successful over her, you know, long career in Congress. The,
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I remember that account tweeting that Nancy Pelosi must be the next Warren Buffett, given how successful
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her investments are. Obviously, the underlying theme here is there's, you know, some suspicion,
00:18:01.300
at least of insider trading going on. And Pelosi has faced those allegations in the past. But,
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you know, that account has gone down to hundreds of thousands of followers. In the past week,
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we've seen like numerous right-wing accounts go down, various conservative bloggers and
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various stories, they can take them down as well. So what I think is going on here is Twitter is
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deploying some sort of network analysis tool. And what network analysis is, is I've written about this
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length in my book deleted on tech censorship. Network analysis is analyzing who follows who on social
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media. So if you want to identify a political movement, or a social movement, or some group of
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like-minded people on a social network, you want to look at who's following who. And social networks do
00:18:50.240
this all the time to identify, for example, certain groups of consumers, like, you know, people who buy
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Nike sneakers or people who buy, you know, Apple products. You know, they'll use network analysis
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to find out who those people are. But you can also determine who are members of a particular
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political movement using the same tool. And I think they've used that for shadow banning in the past,
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and they're now using that for, you know, full-scale permanent bans to ban an entire movement
00:19:16.720
Yeah, I find it troubling. I did a show when Parag Agrawal took over, and I quoted
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the same interview that you quote in your latest article in Breitbart. It was a comment he made
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to MIT Technology Review. I think it was at a conference. And I'm just going to read this. This
00:19:35.840
is you quoted in your article in Breitbart. This is the new Twitter CEO.
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Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy
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public conversation. And our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier
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public conversation. And he goes on to talk about speech is unlimited, but attention is limited. And
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he wants to use the algorithm to divert attention away from the things that are unhealthy and make
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people pay attention to the things that are healthy. But of course, he's the judge of what's healthy
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and unhealthy. And the fact that he says so so blatantly shows that that's considered normal in
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Silicon Valley. I find this shocking. But he said it out loud at a conference. He clearly wasn't shy
00:20:28.560
Yeah, I remember a few years ago in 2018, I published this document from inside Google called
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The Good Censor. And it was essentially admitting to censorship on the part of Silicon Valley, then
00:20:42.320
moving away from their ideals of free speech. And this was like a big story at the time because
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they were hiding it. This was a report that was not available to the public. But what I've noticed
00:20:50.240
increasingly is that the most Orwellian things you can imagine these days, tech companies simply
00:20:55.840
admit to them openly. It's become the norm in Silicon Valley, as you said, that they're going
00:21:01.840
to censor. They're going to choose. You don't choose what you see. They choose what you see.
00:21:07.440
And they use all this Orwellian terminology like healthy public conversations. And of course,
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they define what's healthy and unhealthy. Yeah. You know, I can't help but think of it.
00:21:21.040
Sergey Brin, one of the brains behind Google, he came over from the former Soviet Union. And I think
00:21:27.840
he had a memory of what Soviet totalitarianism was like. I don't know why over time he sort of lost
00:21:37.440
that. Maybe being a gazillionaire does that to you. Maybe the power went to his head. I don't know why.
00:21:43.520
But there was a while there, I truly believe, where that helped shape his thinking.
00:21:48.720
Parag Agarwal came to the United States as an adult, really to seek his fortune. And that's
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wonderful. A lot of people do. But I don't know if he has in his bones the First Amendment.
00:22:00.720
There's many wonderful immigrants to the United States from India. You and I both have an incredible
00:22:05.600
friend, Harmeet Dhillon, America's leading freedom of speech advocate of Indian descent.
00:22:15.600
I just think that this guy came to America to get rich. It would be like if someone from China
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came to America to get rich and said, oh, yeah, I sort of like the freedom because it lets me get rich.
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But he doesn't really care in his bones about the First Amendment. He just doesn't care.
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And it sort of gets in the way of getting rich. I'm worried about that. I'm not really picking
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on the fact that he's from India. I think some of the worst censors are American born and bred.
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Some of the worst America haters are born in America. I just I just wish there was someone in
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any of these creative industries who loved freedom as an ideal. And I think Jack had about like a drop
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of that in his blood. This fellow doesn't even care. I don't think he does. And, you know,
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I think it's perfectly valid to say, you know, some some cultures value freedom more than others,
00:23:05.280
particularly the post-Soviet countries, because they remember what what tyranny was like. I think
00:23:10.720
actually the post-Soviet countries probably the people who live their value freedom, maybe more
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than perhaps anywhere anyone else in the world right now, including the West, because, you know,
00:23:19.840
the West has never experienced that kind of Soviet communist tyranny. And this angry wild guy is very
00:23:25.920
clear to me what he's doing. He has just been made CEO. He knows what he needs to do to, you know,
00:23:32.240
win the favor of the press to get good press to Twitter. It's all about gaining status with with the
00:23:39.200
press, with the media, with the people who run the show in America. He knows that the way to do that
00:23:43.200
is to do a lot of bans early on to signal exactly what his new regime of Twitter is going to be like.
00:23:50.800
You know, one of the things that I've learned in the pandemic is a lot of the technologies
00:23:55.200
that are being deployed in vaccine passports, in lockdowns, in, you know,
00:24:02.560
app technology. They were tested out in communist China. For example, in the in the weaker province of
00:24:11.840
Xinjiang, they have omni surveillance apps that you need to show to travel around. This is on cell
00:24:18.400
phones. We know this. We we received confidential Canadian military documents describing this. And
00:24:26.560
it troubles me that a lot of the social credit, so to speak, style surveillance in China is being
00:24:34.160
brought here. And it makes me wonder if maybe Parag Agrawal's big score is to make Twitter China
00:24:43.920
compliant, to start gagging voices on Twitter so that he can say, hey, China, we're we're ready. We
00:24:52.320
we're going to have the pipeline flow the other way. We used to take censorship tools from China
00:24:57.280
to America. Now we've practiced how to manage wild conversations in America. Can you let us into
00:25:04.640
China, please? I don't know. Maybe that's a crazy idea. But he really is trying out China style
00:25:10.320
conversation moderation in America. I'm just sad to see it. Alam, I don't know what to make of it other
00:25:15.760
than to say I'm sad. It's certainly possible, your theory. I mean, you've seen this before in
00:25:21.840
Silicon Valley companies. Google tried at one point to make a censored search engine for the
00:25:26.720
Chinese market. They eventually backed down on the heavy bipartisan pressure. I actually think
00:25:33.520
that, you know, suppressing political dissidents in in America is more acceptable to American elites
00:25:43.280
than, you know, the Chinese suppressing dissidents in Shenzhen or in or in Hong Kong, because, you know,
00:25:51.440
you'll often see both Republican and Democrat politicians, very prominent ones criticizing China,
00:25:58.160
criticizing China for cracking down on dissidents in Hong Kong. But those same people are completely
00:26:04.000
silent when, for example, people are locked up for months on end for, you know, trespassing in a federal
00:26:09.760
building. Or when, you know, every every single Silicon Valley company joins forces to make certain
00:26:16.080
American citizens second class, because that's exactly what they've done. Or when they came up to
00:26:22.160
build the American equivalent of a social credit score. You know, if you say enough of the wrong
00:26:27.600
things, if you have enough wrong thoughts, then, you know, you won't have a bank account, you won't
00:26:32.160
have a PayPal account, you won't have access to social media, you won't have access to the public square.
00:26:36.160
And many of the politicians who criticize, who criticize, who attack China, who are China hawks,
00:26:42.080
you know, say very little about this. So in a way, I think what we're seeing something even scarier
00:26:47.360
than American elites posing up to China, we're seeing American elites more concerned by dissidents
00:26:52.800
in foreign countries than they are by the treatment of dissidents here in America.
00:26:58.240
You know, you're, I think you're right on that. Let me ask you one last question,
00:27:01.520
because I want to leave on maybe a hopeful note. Rumble, the video platform that sees itself as a
00:27:13.120
neutral, politically neutral alternative to YouTube. And it used to be a home of conservatives,
00:27:19.680
but they've gone out of the way to recruit progressive liberals like Glenn Greenwald and
00:27:24.880
Tulsi Gabbard and Russell Brand from the UK, like people who are certainly not right wing.
00:27:34.000
You know, they're they're growing, their viewership is growing, they've had some
00:27:39.600
investment rounds, I should disclose, I have like a sliver of a fraction of a percent of a millimeter
00:27:46.240
stake in it. Does it have any chance? Or if it gets big enough, will it just be killed
00:27:52.240
through some larger creature in the internet infrastructure?
00:27:57.360
I think it definitely has a chance. I think, uh, I also think it's a good thing that they're
00:28:02.560
recruiting liberals because what you don't want with these new platforms is them to be
00:28:06.880
ghettos. The really, really good thing about social media is that you can, or it used to be the case,
00:28:12.160
you can naturally persuade people. You could get the message to people who aren't conservatives,
00:28:17.360
the people who are on the fence and, you know, maybe, uh, maybe, maybe change their views in some
00:28:21.760
way. Or if you have a platform that's 99% conservative, you know, it's good in some ways,
00:28:25.760
but you know, you don't get that, uh, you don't get that exchange of views. Um, I think Rumble has a,
00:28:31.520
has a really good chance actually. I'm going to wait and see how it develops because as you said,
00:28:36.480
uh, all of these platforms are dependent on other entities. So, you know, they probably want to
00:28:43.040
maintain their access to the Google play store, to the Apple app store. Uh, you know, we've seen
00:28:47.840
other platforms like parlor and gab get kicked off of those. Uh, they also want to, you know,
00:28:52.560
not get the platform by banks and payment processes, which has happened before again to gab.
00:28:57.520
So, uh, these, these are all risks for any social media that said it's committed to political
00:29:02.640
neutrality, but, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll see where it's go, where it goes. I am optimistic about Rumble
00:29:07.760
and, uh, and the broader alternative tech ecosystem at the moment though. Well, I hope
00:29:13.120
you're right. I mean, we, we got a real scare earlier this year when YouTube completely demonetized
00:29:19.600
us, banned us from accepting, uh, super chats at their call when people make little donations,
00:29:25.200
gave us a strike. We feel like we're on borrowed time on Twitter, I'm sorry, on YouTube. So that
00:29:30.640
moment we started publishing on a multiple of platforms, Rumble, Odyssey, a Canadian, uh,
00:29:36.640
free speech startup called super you.net. So, um, on, on payment processing, you know what I'll
00:29:43.200
say? Like every conservative should learn how to use DeFi decentralized finance, uh, cryptocurrencies,
00:29:49.600
because, uh, you know, that's a system of exchanging value and making payments. I really can't be
00:29:54.720
sensitive. Like it genuinely can't. You can have, there are some cryptocurrency exchanges that are
00:29:59.600
centrally run, but the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem, you know, it genuinely is open to
00:30:05.360
everyone makes very radical too. You know, that's a very important point because of course,
00:30:09.760
we've had our battles with PayPal deplatforming us too. Alan Bocari, it's so good to catch up with
00:30:14.880
you. You really are ahead of the curve on all of these issues. What you talk about in 2018 comes
00:30:20.560
true in 2021. Uh, you've, you're definitely the early warning system on that stuff. Great to see you.
00:30:26.720
Thanks for your time. Good to see you, Ezra. There you have it. Alan Bocari, senior tech, uh,
00:30:31.680
editor and correspondent at Breitbart.com. Stay with us more ahead.
00:30:43.040
Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback. Jillian Davis says the hospitals will be overwhelmed,
00:30:47.920
yet we can afford to drum medical professionals out of service. I just moved to Ontario and have
00:30:52.320
been told it could take as long as six years to get a GP, but we're preventing doctors from
00:30:57.280
graduating. Just another day in clown world, I guess. Oh, we will feel the echoes of these
00:31:04.960
atrocious policy decisions for decades. And I'm not even talking about what we don't know
00:31:11.280
about the vaccines long-term effects. It's just the worst. I really think it's the worst civil
00:31:16.400
limits crisis ever in Canada. Definitely the worst public health crisis. And I'm not talking about the
00:31:22.880
virus. I'm talking about the politicians who, as you saw in Ontario, are just even digging in harder.
00:31:29.920
Well, that's our show for this weekend. And for, uh, today, of course, I look forward to seeing you
00:31:35.360
again on Monday. We have some bad news to share with you that I'm not trying to tease you or depress
00:31:39.680
you. I just want to tell you that we've, um, fighting for freedom and being an independent media
00:31:45.280
company in Canada is difficult and it's getting more difficult. And we'll tell you that the background to
00:31:50.160
that on Monday, but let me, uh, leave you with two things. First of all, an invitation to ask me
00:31:55.360
anything. We're going to try that. We're going to have a show. Ask me anything. Just send, uh, your
00:31:59.520
thoughts to letters to Ezra dot CA, whatever you want to ask. Uh, we'll do a show of your questions
00:32:04.800
and I'll answer them, try something new, have some fun. And, uh, let me leave you with, uh, what we call
00:32:10.640
the video of the day, just chosen somewhat randomly from our videos that are elsewhere on rebel news.
00:32:16.160
And this is an interview with Nathaniel Pavlovsky. If that last name rings a bell, it should,
00:32:23.040
you'll see why I'll leave you with that video. As I say to you, good night and keep fighting for
00:32:29.040
freedom. The procedure itself, both the initial exemption procedure and the appeal has been,
00:32:36.160
was very intimate, uh, very invasive and personal. And it's interesting because there's a Supreme Court
00:32:43.920
case called, uh, uh, syndicate Northcrest v. Amsterdam, where they established the court
00:32:48.960
outlines the test for determining whether a law or a policy is, uh, infringement of someone's
00:32:54.640
religious beliefs. Uh, but what I've noticed is that the university and employers are ignoring
00:33:01.520
that legal standard and they're implementing their own. Don't give up. Um, you know, just keep
00:33:06.800
appealing the decision, uh, meet with whoever is responsible for this. Uh, tell them that if
00:33:12.800
your religious beliefs aren't going to be upheld like the constitution and the Alberta Human Rights
00:33:18.080
Act, uh, tells, tells us that it should be, uh, threaten them with legal, uh, with legal action.
00:33:27.520
Tell them that, uh, you'll file a human rights complaint. Tell them you'll file a small claims.
00:33:31.440
You'll take this as far as it needs to go because our, we feel like we're being discriminated against.
00:33:44.720
Adam Sos here for Rebel News and I'm now joined by Nathaniel Pawlowski, son of Pastor Arthur Pawlowski,
00:33:51.760
who, as you know, was sent to jail for daring to open his church throughout COVID restrictions.
00:33:57.280
We were here just a few weeks ago and you yourself were part of the protest for students advocating for,
00:34:03.680
among other things, religious exemptions from vaccine mandates. Uh, on one front,
00:34:09.360
we do have some good news because you, uh, yourself, despite some invasive procedures,
00:34:13.840
obviously managed to attain that. Um, if you can tell us about what the process looked like
00:34:18.560
and how you managed to obtain the religious exemption.
00:34:20.720
Yeah. So, uh, my name is Nathaniel, Arthur's son. Uh, I'm in my last year of studies here at Mount
00:34:28.080
Royal. Um, my initial religious exemption was denied. Um, and I appealed it and miraculously it
00:34:36.800
was accepted because from what I've heard of, I was the only one who's been accepted so far. Uh,
00:34:42.080
definitely at least the Christian exemption, I've been the only one. Um, the procedure itself,
00:34:48.640
both the initial exemption procedure and the appeal has been, was very intimate, uh, very invasive and
00:34:56.720
personal. Uh, and it's interesting because there's a Supreme Court case called, uh, Syndicate Northcrest
00:35:02.640
v. Amsterdam where they established the court outlines the test for determining whether a law or a policy is,
00:35:09.200
uh, infringement of someone's religious beliefs. The first part of that is establishing whether the
00:35:14.720
person has a genuine nexus with, uh, an established religion. Um, but it's a subjective test and you
00:35:21.040
don't have to go into much detail. The second part of that is determining whether the actual law or
00:35:26.400
policy is an infringement of that person's religious beliefs and goes and violates their ability to live
00:35:32.960
in accordance with their beliefs. Uh, but what I've noticed is that the university and employers are
00:35:38.880
ignoring that legal standard and they're implementing their own, which leaves a lot of room for problems.
00:35:45.680
Um, my procedure was very invasive. Um, I felt like it violated my privacy. They demanded that I,
00:35:53.920
in my initial denial, they basically claimed that my beliefs were invalid. Um, so for the appeal process,
00:36:00.080
they made me go into detail of how my beliefs apply in every aspect of my life, going into crazy detail,
00:36:06.720
very personal details. Um, and it just, it's a small indication for how our core values like privacy,
00:36:15.280
privacy is one of the core values of democracy, especially here in Canada. And it just, it's a
00:36:19.840
small indication for how our values or core Canadian values are being superseded by these un-Canadian
00:36:28.000
governance and mandates. Well, it goes to show that you're studying criminal justice. So that's great.
00:36:33.200
The Anselm case, the interesting thing there is that that is functionally for most considered to
00:36:37.760
be the precedent setting case. And one of the conclusions was that a strictly individually
00:36:42.560
held belief that can be affirmed is sufficient for a religious exemption. Um, so we've seen lots
00:36:48.720
of schools saying, for example, for Catholics, well, the bishops don't say that it's automatically
00:36:53.840
a grounds for exemption or other religious groups saying that vaccination isn't necessarily a
00:36:58.400
violation, but that doesn't per the precedent of the law, um, violate your personal convictions.
00:37:04.320
Um, of the people that you've spoken with on this issue, um, there was a significant group of
00:37:10.560
people. I think some of you are connected in standing opposed to this, um, from that group,
00:37:15.600
is there anyone that you've heard of at all who's received successfully a religious exemption
00:37:19.600
other than yourself? No. So I'm the only person who's received one that I know of, and we are all
00:37:24.880
connected. There's a large group of us here at this university. Uh, I've heard of a few students
00:37:29.920
at U of C, but Mount Royal has been denying them all. I was the first person that I've heard of to
00:37:35.360
be accepted. And what, what was the process? What I know, lots of people that are just feeling
00:37:40.640
deflated. Um, I know people who are deeply bound by their convictions and that is their reason for
00:37:45.600
not being vaccinated. They've been denied at schools. What did you do? How did you stand up for
00:37:50.160
yourself and secure that religious exemption? Uh, so I had a meeting with the person who's
00:37:54.720
responsible for these exemptions here at the university. Um, I basically went over my,
00:38:01.280
my denial letter, uh, how I felt that it was, it was wrong that I was denied that my religious
00:38:06.400
beliefs were essentially spat on. Um, and basically I also said that if I feel like I'm being
00:38:13.360
discriminated, like my religious beliefs are being undermined, I'm going to take legal action. I'm
00:38:18.720
going to file a human rights complaint and I'm probably going to file a small claims because I,
00:38:23.760
I have, I have been dealt damages here. Um, so I had a meeting with a person and, uh, he kind of went
00:38:31.520
over what they expect from a religious exemption, but they never told anyone this. There's no like
00:38:39.200
set principle for what, what they, what they standard, but there's no standard that they give.
00:38:45.360
Um, so he kind of outlined what they're looking for. Um, but even then he said, it's very difficult
00:38:52.240
to obtain one and this and that. Um, so it was a really strenuous procedure to get it accepted.
00:39:01.920
And it seems like there is from many of the stories I've heard, some of them flat out horror stories
00:39:06.640
of people being yelled at and called villains, people we've spoken to for daring to not want to
00:39:11.360
get vaccinated. There is among administrations, it would seem, and we'll certainly reach out to
00:39:15.840
Mount Royal for commentary, but an ideological, uh, support for vaccines and an attempt to undermine
00:39:23.120
any efforts for religious exemption. Would you echo that sentiment?
00:39:26.080
Yeah, absolutely. They're, their official stances that they're not forcing anyone.
00:39:31.280
Of course they're not. Uh, but they're coercing us. They're telling us that there's no other options.
00:39:37.040
You have to get it or you don't get to continue your education, but you see with, uh, colleges
00:39:41.200
like in Red Deer, they reverse their mandate. So now they're going to continue with rapid
00:39:45.920
testing and no student is going to be discriminated against. So I don't see why Mount Royal and
00:39:51.440
University of Calgary and all Albertan universities can't echo what Red Deer College did and do the
00:39:58.000
same thing. And another question, this is more on the science, I suppose, of the matter, but, uh,
00:40:02.720
I've had to be tested to attend some of some events for the sake of reporting. And the reality of the
00:40:07.120
situation is if a school implements, let's say testing, we know that people who have the vaccine
00:40:11.920
aren't exempt from spreading someone who's been tested frequently. We know they don't have a test
00:40:16.240
and they will not spread. What is the opposition to the far more logical implementation of testing
00:40:22.080
programs that would ensure people's rights aren't violated and they aren't being forced to be
00:40:26.720
vaccinated? Why are people so opposed to that rational alternative?
00:40:30.000
It's a great question. And they have no answer to that because I asked, I posed that same question
00:40:34.160
myself. Uh, they say it's expensive, which doesn't make sense because we're paying for our own tests
00:40:39.280
now. Um, they're not provided by the university anymore. Um, and it's an automated procedure that
00:40:44.960
replies to our tests. So it scans it, make sure everything's in order, but to claim that it's too
00:40:51.600
expensive is ridiculous. It's just an excuse. Uh, the science behind it, nobody has tested positive
00:40:57.360
that I know of who is part of the rapid testing program right now. Uh, so it's obviously a self
00:41:02.720
safe alternative and I don't understand why they're not continuing with it.
00:41:06.160
And finally, perhaps a word of encouragement for students out there who are in the same situation
00:41:10.560
or maybe have been denied and any thoughts for those people?
00:41:13.520
Yeah. Don't give up. Um, you know, just keep appealing the decision, uh, meet with whoever
00:41:18.800
is responsible for this. Uh, tell them that if your religious beliefs aren't going to be upheld,
00:41:25.200
like the constitution and the Alberta human rights act, uh, tells, tells us that it should be,
00:41:32.320
uh, threaten them with legal, uh, with legal action. Tell them that, uh, you'll file a human
00:41:38.720
rights complaint. Tell them you'll file a small claims. You'll take this as far as it needs to go
00:41:43.440
because our, we feel like we're being discriminated against. Well, Nathaniel, thanks for your brave
00:41:48.720
stance. Thanks for sharing this update with us for students out there who are in the same situation.
00:41:53.600
Do not hesitate to reach out to us. Fight vaccine passports.com is the place to go to share your
00:41:58.800
stories. We are waging a number of fights against these discriminatory measures across this country.
00:42:05.120
We aired some of Nathaniel Pawlowski's concerns with Mount Royal university who provided the
00:42:10.080
following response. They said that Mount Royal university's position on COVID-19 is contained
00:42:15.680
here and they provided a link. They said that it outlines how individuals at MRU may apply for an
00:42:21.040
accommodation under protected grounds as enumerated by the human rights act. Mount Royal university did
00:42:27.440
not specifically reply to the concerns aired by Nathaniel Pawlowski aside from what's provided on their
00:42:33.600
website. I want to thank you all for tuning in for rebel news. I'm Adam Sos.
00:42:41.840
If you agree that students based on their deeply held beliefs should be granted medical exemptions and
00:42:48.240
you think that vaccine passports violate our fundamental rights, help us fight back against
00:42:54.160
vaccine mandates at fight vaccine, passports.com.