Ford's free market cannabis plan gives public sector unions “reefer madness”
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
157.83089
Summary
Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants private retailers to be able to sell marijuana, and the progressives are acting paranoid? Did they start smoking before it's legal? I wonder. I m David Menzies and this is the Ezra Levin Show.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Tonight, reports are suggesting that Premier Ford wants private retailers to be able to sell
00:00:05.680
marijuana and the progressives, well, they're acting paranoid. Did they start smoking before
00:00:12.140
it's legal? I wonder. It's August 1st. I'm David Menzies and this is the Ezra Levin Show.
00:00:23.320
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:26.900
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:30.940
You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
00:00:34.340
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:44.320
We are only a few months away from the legalization of cannabis in Canada.
00:00:49.260
And whether or not you imbibe, there was some good news recently for those who are fans of the
00:00:54.680
free market economy. Namely, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is hinting that pot might be sold in private
00:01:01.660
retail stores. Hey, that's far out, man. Although not everybody is happy, of course.
00:01:07.040
Now, full disclosure, I have never smoked marijuana. Hey, forget wacky tobacco. I've never even had a
00:01:13.780
cigarette. You're looking at a real square here, folks. But this rant isn't about the various forms
00:01:19.920
of combustibles. It's about which channel should sell those products. Now, in Ontario, under the
00:01:26.620
previous Kathleen Wynne Liberal government, the plan for cannabis was that it would be sold the
00:01:32.280
same way liquor is retailed in the province. Namely, it would be made available only via a
00:01:37.720
government-run retail monopoly. But recently, newly elected Premier Doug Ford suggested that pot
00:01:44.240
might also be retailed at private sector shops too. Hallelujah. Indeed, the marijuana file is a
00:01:52.400
snapshot that fully illustrates the difference between the Wynne Liberal way of doing things
00:01:57.960
versus the Ford PC way of taking care of business. In fact, remember last May during the election
00:02:04.840
campaign how former Premier Wynne tried to channel fear-mongering regarding pot sales at private
00:02:10.840
shops. It was like a 2018 rendition of reefer madness. So it was that in vilifying the private
00:02:18.660
sector, Wynne ridiculously said Ontarians don't want, quote, cannabis sold next to candy bars,
00:02:26.620
end quote. Really? Based on what survey, Ms. Wynne? Or was this based on a gut feeling in your old
00:02:33.460
role as the province's top nanny statist? Wynne is yesterday's news, of course, but the
00:02:40.500
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, well, they're likely here forever, unfortunately. And
00:02:45.960
check out their little tidbit of reefer madness by way of a press release they sent out yesterday.
00:02:52.440
Here's the opening line, quote, as the outcry grows against Doug Ford's leaked plan to privatize
00:02:59.380
the sale of cannabis, OPSU President Warren Smokey Thomas is calling on the rookie Premier to give it
00:03:07.000
some sober second thought, end quote. Yeah, gee, what is Smokey smoking these days? Right off the bat,
00:03:14.660
old Smokey spreads a heap and helpin' of fake news with his pronouncement about there being a
00:03:21.120
growing outcry against privatization of pot sales. A growing outcry by whom, Smokey? The rank and file of
00:03:30.260
OPSU? But check this out, folks. In the second paragraph of the release, Smokey goes full-on fear factor.
00:03:38.680
Quote, the haze is clearing on this half-baked scheme and people are realizing that it's going to cause a lot
00:03:45.480
more problems than it solves. Who's going to pay for all the extra policing we'll need? Who's going to pay for
00:03:52.100
all the extra inspectors? And except for profiteers and organized criminals, who else would actually
00:03:59.700
benefit? Nobody, end quote. Whoa, profiteers and criminals running wild on the streets of Toronto,
00:04:07.500
all because of little mom-pa shop selling marijuana? Oh, give me a break. Alas, what Smokey is peddling
00:04:15.040
is so much hallucinatory crapola. And I'm sick and tired of the private sector being maligned by the
00:04:22.980
government and public sector unions that are entitled to their entitlements. That's because
00:04:29.320
the numbers prove that when it comes to social responsibility tied into age-restricted products,
00:04:36.320
it is the private sector that actually does a far better job than the nattering nabobs of negativity
00:04:42.040
running the nanny state. Just check out a mystery shopping study conducted by Statopex Field Marketing
00:04:49.520
five years ago. It was revealed that when tested with underage secret shoppers, it was convenience
00:04:55.700
stores that scored the highest challenge and refusal rate. Convenience stores scored an 87.3%
00:05:02.560
pass rate. The beer store chain came in second at 80.7% and lo and behold, the Liquor Control Board of
00:05:09.980
Ontario, which is fully owned and operated by the provincial government and staffed by OPSU members,
00:05:16.260
came in dead last with a 74.6% pass rate. That means one in four miners successfully purchased
00:05:23.660
age-restricted products from the LCBO, as opposed to one in five from the beer store and one in eight
00:05:29.940
for convenience stores. Also, far from a growing outcry against privatized pot sales, I would suggest
00:05:38.340
if there is an outcry, the outcry is for privatized pot sales. Again, consider the numbers in a 2012
00:05:46.700
Ontario Convenience Stores Association petition, which was delivered to Queen's Park, calling on the
00:05:53.080
Ontario legislature to allow for more competition in beer and wine sales through convenience stores.
00:05:59.500
That petition boasted more than 112,000 names from more than 200 communities across the province.
00:06:08.140
It was the single largest petition ever collected in the history of Ontario. Clearly, Ontarians want
00:06:15.820
those age-restricted products sold by the C-Store channel. Why would it be any different when it comes
00:06:22.920
to pot once pot is legalized? So, hey Smokey, why don't you put that data in your pipe and smoke it?
00:06:31.000
And you want to know why the private sector is so much better at selling age-restricted products
00:06:36.860
than government stores, folks? It's because privatized retailers have the most to lose.
00:06:43.280
The government routinely runs sting operations to catch convenience stores selling tobacco to
00:06:48.760
underage customers. If these operators are caught doing so, they face big fines, they might even be
00:06:54.600
stripped of their license to sell tobacco, which is effectively a retail death sentence for them.
00:07:01.080
Yet, what happens when the LCBO sells booze to a minor? Well, the answer is nothing. Case in point,
00:07:09.640
six years ago when I was with the Sun News Network, I organized a little experiment in which a 14-year-old
00:07:15.120
boy, wearing a disguise, visited three LCBO stores to purchase hard liquor. Not only did all the
00:07:22.220
stores sell him bottles of Sambuca, in each case, he wasn't even asked to display identification.
00:07:29.820
And what, pray tell, happened in the aftermath? Did these stores have their business licenses
00:07:35.760
temporarily revoked? Were any of the employees reprimanded? Nope. Rather, here's what LCBO spokesman
00:07:44.000
Chris Layton told the Toronto Sun in a follow-up story, quote, maybe we need to remind our staff
00:07:50.440
of their obligations under the Liquor License Act, end quote. Yeah, no harm, no foul. We just forgot to
00:07:58.480
follow the rules, that's all. We'll try harder next time. Pinky swear. As for the liberal brainstorm of
00:08:05.560
servicing the entire province of Ontario with just 38 government-run Ontario cannabis stores,
00:08:13.180
just talk about a major fail waiting to happen. 38 stores cannot possibly meet the anticipated
00:08:21.440
demand in a province the size of Ontario, all of which will guarantee that the black market will
00:08:27.780
continue to thrive in this province. Indeed, even the logo for the Ontario cannabis stores monopoly
00:08:34.980
was a fiasco of titanic size proportions. Just check it out, folks. A simplistic OCS in black
00:08:44.120
letters on a white background corralled in a circle. The sort of thing a 10-year-old might produce
00:08:50.240
on an etch-a-sketch, except that the previous liberal government paid an ad agency some $650,000
00:08:59.120
to come up with this tripe. Yes, $650,000. Hey, pass the duchy on the left-hand side. I think I need to
00:09:08.260
get Hyde to help reduce the pain I'm feeling thanks to government stupidity. Bottom line, let's hope
00:09:15.480
Doug Ford and provincial governments right across Canada, for that matter, allow cannabis to be sold
00:09:22.220
at private stores. And please, let's hope they also dismantle the various provincial liquor and gambling
00:09:28.980
monopolies, too. Government's only role when it comes to any product, even age-restricted products,
00:09:36.100
is to regulate those products and tax the stuff, not retail it. Especially when any state government
00:09:43.780
monopolies tend to do such a profoundly awful job doing so.
00:09:52.220
Ontario Premier Doug Ford dropped a bombshell last Thursday night when he announced that
00:10:10.060
he was cutting the number of Toronto City councillors from 47 to 25 ahead of the October 22nd municipal
00:10:17.340
election. And I think the career politicians at Toronto City Hall are still screaming hysterically
00:10:23.520
about this austerity plan because, hey, after all, government, in their viewpoint, is supposed to
00:10:28.960
get bigger and bigger, not go on a diet. Joining me now to talk about Premier Ford's bold move
00:10:35.040
is Christine Van Gein, Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Hey, Christine,
00:10:44.360
Always a pleasure. So tell me, Christine, is this City Hall slimmed down good governance on
00:10:50.200
behalf of the Ford PCs, or is this an attack on democracy, as the progressives would lead
00:10:58.940
Yeah, so I think three things about this move. First, I think it's a good move for taxpayers.
00:11:03.260
It's going to save at a minimum $30 million. That's the estimate from the Toronto Star. The government
00:11:08.780
said $25 and a half. But based on last year's public disclosures of spending by council on
00:11:14.880
salaries and staff is closer to $30 million. It's probably even more than that, because if you don't
00:11:21.320
have, if you have 22 fewer city council members, you have 22 fewer pet projects for them to spend
00:11:27.400
money on. The other thing is that this is going to be good for the governance of the City of Toronto.
00:11:33.600
Right now, their council meetings are completely bananas. Last week, they had a council meeting
00:11:39.420
that went on for five days. The meetings go late into the night. Councilors will vote on things at
00:11:45.940
11 p.m., sometimes worth millions of dollars. They'll spend as much time debating something like
00:11:50.900
a traffic light as they will a multi-million dollar contract. So having fewer city councillors,
00:11:57.440
fewer voices wanting to be heard with their own special interests, this is going to streamline
00:12:02.440
democracy. And the third thing that's good about it, from my point of view, just to conclude,
00:12:09.180
is it's actually good for democracy, because the current plan to move to 47 wards creates a big
00:12:15.160
disparity between the wards. You'll have some wards that are really small and some that are quite large,
00:12:21.380
like more than double the size of the smallest ward. So it gives a bigger voice to some people and a
00:12:26.600
smaller voice to others. With 25 wards, they're all closer in population and giving better voter parity,
00:12:32.260
which is a good thing for democracy. No, I tend to agree. And to address your second point,
00:12:36.780
Christine, I've seen it myself at City Hall, paralysis by analysis going on for hours, even days
00:12:42.920
about really trite issues. It springs to mind the, you know, the adage of too many chefs spoiling the
00:12:49.760
broth. But, you know, tell me, what fascinates me is the hypocrisy. Mayor John Tory is all of a sudden
00:12:57.440
saying, well, we need a referendum on this. We need to hear from the people. Well, why wasn't
00:13:03.240
there a referendum when they decided to increase the size of city council from 44 to 47? Oh, then the
00:13:11.660
great unwashed masses, I guess their opinion doesn't count for much. But when some of these
00:13:15.700
cats are losing their jobs, suddenly the people are very important, eh?
00:13:19.380
Yeah, so from my point of view, I'm never against bringing a question to the people. And I wish that
00:13:26.520
our system of governance actually had more referendum on issues, because I think the people
00:13:31.340
usually know better than their elected politicians who get into these positions of power and then use
00:13:37.220
it to promote their own self-interest. So I'm always in favor of a referendum. I don't think in this
00:13:41.980
case it's going to actually happen in time. The referendum wouldn't be possible before the October
00:13:48.500
election. It's October municipal election. So we're in a position where we're forced to say,
00:13:55.040
are we going to increase to 47 wards? Are we going to have a referendum? And I think that the move to
00:14:03.140
47 wards is a bad move, and it's going to be bad for the city, and we stuck with it for four years.
00:14:08.260
But I am generally in favor of putting questions like this to the people, and I wish that we did that
00:14:15.060
more often than just when politicians hide or at rest. Oh, no, it's a different set of rules when
00:14:22.640
it's slimming down as opposed to larding up. But, you know, the other thing, Christine, is that this
00:14:28.960
allegation that, you know, this came from out of the blue that, you know, we can't believe you're doing
00:14:35.140
this. I mean, did any of these people listen to what Doug Ford was saying on the campaign trail when
00:14:41.600
he was saying things like the party on the taxpayer dime is over and, you know, less government and
00:14:47.400
respect for taxpayer dollars? He campaigned on less government, more efficient government.
00:14:53.480
Why are they having us believe that this is a complete shock to them, that he would do something
00:14:58.600
like this? It's true that Mr. Ford campaigned on the promise to make government smaller, and it looks
00:15:05.380
like he's starting by making Toronto City Council smaller. I don't know what making government
00:15:11.020
smaller could mean other than something like this. But it is true that he didn't explicitly say that
00:15:17.140
he was going to make this move. However, I think that if you are shocked by this, you're really not
00:15:23.260
paying attention, and you don't know who Ontario elected. Mr. Ford, Premier Ford, has been involved in
00:15:30.440
Ontario politics and Toronto politics for a really, really long time. He's very passionate about the
00:15:37.640
city. He said repeatedly throughout his career how dysfunctional Toronto City Council is. And his own
00:15:44.000
brother, when his brother was mayor, his brother supported a motion to reduce City Council to 25
00:15:48.860
members. So it's really not coming out of the blue. People kind of are lighting their hair on fire and
00:15:54.320
saying it's a big shock. Mr. Tory's exact words were that Premier Ford had raised this with him,
00:16:00.780
but he didn't think he was furious. At the press conference, when confronted with this fact,
00:16:06.060
Premier Ford laughed. And he said, I don't know why he thinks I raised it if I wasn't serious.
00:16:11.680
So I don't think people should be shocked. Yeah, and I know there's also been allegations that this
00:16:16.500
is really being driven by a vendetta against Tory, who, of course, four years ago, Doug Ford lost to in
00:16:23.420
the race for mayor. I don't think those are valid. But the thing is, Christine, City Council isn't
00:16:29.760
going quietly into the night. They're contemplating a legal challenge. I think that's a fool's errand.
00:16:36.780
I think that's just more wasting of taxpayer dollars, because at the end of the day, I think
00:16:42.840
the province is constitutionally sound to do this. Municipalities in Ontario exist by, you know,
00:16:49.340
the will of the province. So do they have any basis for a lawsuit to try to reverse this decision?
00:16:56.820
It's hard for me to comment on the basis of a lawsuit. There are, it's clearly within the powers
00:17:02.380
of the Premier to do this, but there are also principles of democracy. So it would be
00:17:07.760
something that if the city wants to bring a lawsuit and challenge us, they would say that there's an
00:17:13.440
unwritten principle of democracy, and that this principle is being undermined by the move
00:17:17.660
of the Premier doing this so close to the election. The challenge would be related to the timing of
00:17:25.580
the move rather than the substance of the move. And I think that that's, at least for voters,
00:17:31.440
it's not particularly persuasive to say this is the right thing to do, but it's the wrong time.
00:17:37.200
So it's hard to say when the right time is to move ahead with a move like this, especially when
00:17:43.720
you know that no matter what, when you do it, council is going to be opposed to it.
00:17:47.800
And, you know, you raised something there too, Christine, the voters. Do you think the people,
00:17:52.840
I'm not talking about the political insiders, you know, people such as yourself that are,
00:17:57.220
you know, watching the political game, but I'm just talking about Joe and Jane Public getting by.
00:18:02.180
Do you think that they really care about city council being cut almost in half,
00:18:09.240
or are they just collectively shrugging about this and life goes on?
00:18:14.760
I mean, in the debate, some city councilors said that they had received a total of, I think,
00:18:21.960
Four emails on this issue, two against and two for. So the reality is, unfortunately,
00:18:28.320
I think a lot of people don't even know who their city council is, councillor, not alone which ward
00:18:33.000
they live in, or before this debate popped up, how many wards there are in the city of Toronto.
00:18:39.460
And I do wish that people were more engaged in their local democracy, because it's important
00:18:43.740
that we are so that we can hold our politicians to account. But to say that this is the number one
00:18:48.540
issue in Toronto right now, in Ontario right now, it just shows that there are vested interests at
00:18:55.240
stake. It shows that there are people with something to lose. And those are the politicians. And those are
00:19:00.340
the people who are laying their hair on fire. This is not an issue that, you know, regular people
00:19:05.420
are really consumed with. I think where people line up passionately on this, if they're not
00:19:11.080
somehow involved, is if they liked Premier Ford to begin with, or if they didn't like him to begin
00:19:18.800
with. And their position on it is largely falling along those lines.
00:19:22.940
Yeah, I agree. If there's any vendetta, it's the anti-Ford people that are playing their cards in
00:19:28.260
regard to this announcement. And, you know, Christine, we're almost at an end here for
00:19:33.400
this segment. But how about we leave it on this? When you look at the numbers, right? I look at the
00:19:39.060
city of Los Angeles, their population, almost 4 million people. They have 15 councils, sorry, 15
00:19:47.400
people on council. Toronto, the population is 2.8 million. It's going to go down to 25 members of
00:19:55.020
council. So I guess what I'm saying to you, Christine, if a city of 4 million people like
00:19:59.400
Los Angeles can get it done with 15, surely a city of 2.8 million like Toronto can get it done
00:20:06.260
with 25, no? Yeah, I mean, there's no magic number for what the right size for council is. And Los
00:20:13.100
Angeles does have only 15 councillors, but they have smaller sub-councils that are also playing a role
00:20:19.720
there. But other cities like Brisbane has a council of 26 councillors and they're closer in size to
00:20:29.200
Toronto. Calgary has a smaller city council. There isn't a magic number, but what we do know is that
00:20:35.600
right now Toronto City Council is highly, highly dysfunctional. So any move that might improve the
00:20:41.840
functioning of that body should be welcomed by people instead of hailed as some kind of end of
00:20:48.880
the world. I agree. As the farmers say out West, time to call the herd, if you will. Christine, a
00:20:56.280
pleasure speaking with you on this latest decision by the Doug Ford PCs. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
00:21:02.660
You got it. And folks, keep it here. More of the Ezra Levent Show to come right after this.
00:21:18.880
Holy headache. When old Twitter comments made by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn surfaced
00:21:25.180
last week, his employer Disney was not amused. Gunn had made jokes about rape, pedophilia, 9-11 and even
00:21:33.980
the Holocaust, many found to be very unfunny, very vulgar and totally inappropriate. Disney decided to
00:21:42.160
fire gun from directing the next Guardians sequel. But faster than you can yell Avengers assemble, the cast
00:21:48.820
members of Guardians of the Galaxy issued a joint statement imploring Disney to reinstate the disgraced
00:21:56.180
director. And with more on this story is our Hollywood conservative Amanda Head. Welcome to the Ezra Levent Show,
00:22:02.960
Amanda. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I think this is my first time on Ezra's show. Oh, you always remember your
00:22:09.240
first time, they say. Right. And I better watch what I'm saying, given what happened to Mr. Gunn.
00:22:13.860
But I guess, Amanda, the most relevant question in this story is simply this. Will the Guardians of
00:22:21.440
the Galaxy cast get their way when it comes to getting Gunn back on board or will Disney stick to its
00:22:27.800
rocket raccoon guns? I sincerely hope that they stick to their guns because that's going to set a precedent
00:22:37.060
in Hollywood. And I frankly think that the cast was wrong to come out and defend this guy. You know,
00:22:44.720
if you remember two years ago, when the hot mic moment came out about Donald Trump, obviously,
00:22:51.260
when that emerged, the conversation between him and the E! News guy had happened, you know, 10 years
00:23:00.600
prior to that. And liberals in Hollywood were like, it still matters. It still matters. And yet these cast
00:23:07.120
members are coming out and saying, oh, but he said it so long ago, not that long ago. And the things
00:23:13.140
that he said were, I mean, he joked about raping children and, you know, pedophilia. And one or two
00:23:20.640
jokes here or there can come across as just making, you know, having poor judgment and making egregious
00:23:27.780
jokes. But the sheer volume of content that's out there of things that he said along these lines,
00:23:33.920
I'm not trying to pathologize his situation, but it kind of makes you wonder if there's a deeper
00:23:40.840
issue. And Disney is a company who makes children's movies and content. And so I think that Disney,
00:23:48.480
you know, of course, it begs the question, is this freedom of speech? Well, yes, of course,
00:23:52.100
it's freedom of speech. But same with the NFL, private company, private ownership. You have the right
00:23:57.580
to hire and fire at will. And I think that they made the right decision because
00:24:02.020
I think that the franchise would have suffered if they had not fired him. And I think that there
00:24:09.380
is a very strong likelihood that the third installment of the franchise still will suffer
00:24:14.500
because these cast members came out and defended him.
00:24:17.720
But, you know, Amanda, I'm really struggling with this one. And I'll tell you why. We seem to have,
00:24:23.720
I think we're going into a period of outrage fatigue where, you know, finding something,
00:24:29.480
anything that somebody said as being a source of outrage. And always, always, always, it seems,
00:24:35.380
given the social media mob mindset that's out there. The only solution, of course, is to fire that
00:24:43.220
person, economically blacklist them. We saw it happen with Roseanne Barr last month, a Winnipeg
00:24:50.740
morning man. Dave Wheeler lost his gig because of a joke he made about a transgender person that,
00:24:58.020
you know, his higher ups didn't like. What I'm getting at, Amanda, is that are we in a time frame
00:25:06.800
right now where just by saying or doing something offensive, it automatically means the death penalty
00:25:14.120
in terms of your career, as opposed to the old days where there used to be like suspensions,
00:25:18.200
fines, that sort of thing. You know, what are your thoughts on that?
00:25:23.120
I don't think it'll be the death penalty for his career. I think that there are places who cater to
00:25:27.900
that type of humor. You know, Adult Swim on late night cartoon network or, you know, any network that
00:25:36.480
carries that type of salacious and offensive humor. So I definitely don't think that his career is over.
00:25:41.480
But, you know, this the left has been doing this to people on the right for a very, very long time.
00:25:48.960
And people on the right have suffered professionally and emotionally and within their community.
00:25:53.980
And it's finally being done back to them. And, you know, they're not happy about it. But I love
00:26:00.580
the comparison with Roseanne because, you know, she she put out this tweet and people said,
00:26:06.640
oh, her tweet means that she's racist, which is why she should be fired. But yet when this guy tweets
00:26:12.420
about raping little boys and little boys touching him in his silly place, that's not an indication of
00:26:18.100
any type of psychological issue regarding pedophilia. Yeah, no, I agree. The the jokes were vulgar and
00:26:27.120
they were crude and probably the worst sin of all. They were unfunny, which is the nature of a joke.
00:26:32.720
But the other issue I have with what we're going through, and you are right, the left began this
00:26:39.640
witch hunt. And, you know, I have problems with the double standard there as well. But what another
00:26:48.720
thing I'm getting at, Amanda, is that how far back do we go in somebody's life in terms of an electronic
00:26:56.320
or printed footprint and finding out something that was salacious or vulgar? I mean, right right now,
00:27:04.420
I'm kind of concerned maybe did I write something in my yearbook from high school that's going to hit
00:27:10.200
me over the head? It seems that we're all kind of living with the sort of Damocles over our heads
00:27:16.520
right now. Well, David, I think that if you had written in some if you were a senior in high school
00:27:24.180
at 18 years old and you wrote in a first grader, first graded females yearbook, I would like for
00:27:31.480
you to touch me in my silly place. And you worked for Disney. I'm sorry, but I think you ought to be
00:27:36.700
fired. Yeah, I know. I know what you're saying. But again, it's it's the timeline. It's it's it's the
00:27:45.680
fact that I guess the other thing I'm getting at to Amanda, these were jokes. I totally agree with
00:27:50.920
you. Distasteful, vulgar, unfunny. But I contrast that with Roman Polanski, who actually did rape
00:27:59.440
a underage girl many decades ago. And you'll see once in a while, maybe it's different now post me
00:28:07.060
to moment a movement, but you'll see every once in a while the some speech given at the Golden Globes
00:28:14.140
or the Oscars where there's where the person is imploring to have Roman Polanski come back.
00:28:19.780
And there's like a quasi standing ovation. Now, that guy is a scumbag for what he did.
00:28:25.720
A hundred percent because he actually did this. I'm guessing what I'm getting at. There's a difference
00:28:30.500
between doing something and making some jokes that really missed the mark.
00:28:35.400
Yeah. And I agree with you there. But again, we go back to the corporate interest of
00:28:43.620
a corporation like Disney who makes children's content. If this had been, you know, the NFL and
00:28:52.020
someone making jokes about football players, then it might be the same type of situation. But when you
00:28:57.560
have a corporation whose number one purpose is is putting out children's content, you can't have
00:29:05.000
someone on staff who is making jokes about raping children. And Disney is a private company. They
00:29:09.400
have the right to hire and fire whoever they want. And by the way, without cause. But this is 100%
00:29:13.880
cause. And the issue with Roman Polanski, I mean, that begs a larger question of the culture within
00:29:19.600
Hollywood and the normalizing of really disgusting, abhorrent criminal behavior.
00:29:24.580
No, you are quite right. And Amanda, one last question, because we have to wrap here soon.
00:29:29.800
Moving forward, I'm just wondering why the cast is showing this solidarity. I mean,
00:29:37.140
you know, given these terrible jokes aside, is this a really good director, a really good guy?
00:29:43.120
And secondly, when it comes to the new director coming in, if Disney is indeed going to stick to
00:29:50.260
its guns and keep this guy on the bench, do you think there's going to be kind of a toxic environment
00:29:56.200
created on the set? To your first question, I gave up trying to get in the minds of celebrities years
00:30:03.000
ago. I can't, I can't really imagine why they would. Maybe because their experience with him
00:30:12.280
was 100% pleasant. But as we know, I mean, I'm in the middle of watching a documentary about a guy who
00:30:18.540
allegedly and possibly murdered two women. But, you know, on the surface, he seemed, you know,
00:30:24.340
genteel and normal and all of that. I mean, you never know the other side of things.
00:30:30.820
Oh, the idea that since they're going to bat for this guy, whoever comes in and takes over the
00:30:36.480
directorial reins, is that going to cause a lot of friction on the set and maybe the product suffers
00:30:44.080
I hope not. I hope that they can remain professional and understand the situation that James Gunn put
00:30:50.980
Disney in. This is not a situation that Disney created. This is a situation that James Gunn caused
00:30:56.400
himself. So I hope that these actors and actresses can remain professional. But then again, these are
00:31:01.280
the types of people who cheer on, you know, holding the president's beheaded head and, you know,
00:31:06.360
bashing Donald Trump's star. And they cheer on, you know, brutalizing conservatives. So who knows?
00:31:11.980
All right. Well, Amanda, we're going to have to leave it at that. Thank you so much for weighing
00:31:17.040
in on this latest Hollywood drama from behind the cameras. Really appreciate it.
00:31:23.340
And that was Amanda Head, everybody. And please keep it here. More of the Ezra Levent show to come
00:31:28.020
right after this on my interview with Mark Morano from climate depot dot com about the plastic straw
00:31:44.700
ban. Deborah writes, just wait until the plastic freaks go after medical supplies. It shouldn't be
00:31:51.500
long now. Well, that's the thing, isn't it, Deborah? Today it is plastic straws. And if they win
00:31:57.940
that battle tomorrow, they will campaign for the eradication of another plastic product,
00:32:03.660
all the while using a multitude of plastic products themselves, of course, because they don't want
00:32:09.060
to negatively impact their standard of life. And on my monologue yesterday about Doug Ford
00:32:15.280
cutting Toronto City Council in half and working at the speed of business as opposed to the speed
00:32:22.080
of bureaucracy, Paul writes, the career politicians in Toronto are scrambling.
00:32:27.940
According to the Liberal Party sponsored news, an injunction is or has been filed in an attempt
00:32:33.860
to save their useless asses. Well, actually, Paul, the last I heard is that council has requested
00:32:41.000
city lawyers to explore options and get back to them on August 20th. Yeah, August 20th.
00:32:48.540
Just think about that for a second. Their asses are indeed on the line here and they are up against
00:32:54.400
the clock. And these guys still need three weeks to explore options. Wow. Even when many of these
00:33:02.560
councillors are facing unemployment, they still move at the speed of government. And Keith writes,
00:33:10.240
I had a dream last night. Doug Ford, Prime Minister of Canada. Well, you know, Keith, your dream is a
00:33:17.400
progressive's worst nightmare. But hey, people scoffed at the very idea of Rob Ford becoming mayor of
00:33:23.600
Toronto and the usual suspects laughed aloud about Doug Ford becoming PC party leader and then premier of
00:33:30.700
Ontario. So who's really to say that your dream sometime in the future won't indeed come true? Well, that's it
00:33:39.100
for tonight's show, folks. I'll be back in filling for Ezra again tomorrow. In the meantime, never forget
00:33:44.260
without risk, there can be no glory. Good night.