How the Trudeau government is rigging the leaders' debates in the upcoming federal election
Episode Stats
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Summary
Justin Trudeau has handpicked his left-wing journalists to run the debates, and they will set the rules, whether you like it or not. I think it's insane, and I haven't seen a single criticism by the Media Party.
Transcript
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Hello, Rebels. Today I talk about something that I haven't seen criticized anywhere in the media party.
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It's a bizarre new decision that Justin Trudeau and his hand-picked staff will run the election debates in Canada this fall.
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In the past, it was a voluntary agreement between the media and the political parties.
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Everyone was equal, and they haggled over the rules and who was where and what the subjects would be.
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No, no, not anymore. Justin Trudeau has taken over that and has hand-picked his lefty journalists,
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and they will set the rules whether you like it or not.
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I think it's insane, and I haven't seen a single criticism of it by the media party.
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All right, here's my podcast about just another way that Trudeau has his thumb on the scale of this upcoming election.
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Tonight, is there anything in the upcoming federal election that is not being rigged by the Trudeau government?
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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 right to do so.
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We're less than 90 days away from the 2019 Canadian federal election, but it is summertime for another month, and most Canadians aren't really paying attention, I don't think.
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But after Labor Day, it's going to be a quick sprint to October 21st.
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One of the moments that sort of wakes everybody up to the fact that an election is imminent is the leaders' debates.
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They usually don't contain any decisive moments these days, but there are a few.
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Remember this one, Jack Layton skewering that American tourist named Michael Ignatieff who very, very briefly visited Canada and became liberal leader.
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He said before you have to walk the walk, and you have to be a strong leader and respect parliament.
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I've got to ask you then, why do you have the worst attendance record in the House of Commons of any member of parliament?
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If you want to be prime minister, you better learn how to be a member of parliament first.
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You know, most Canadians, if they don't show up for work, they don't get a promotion.
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Mr. Layton, I don't surrender to anybody in my respect for the institution of parliament and my obligation to the people who put me there.
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So don't give me lessons about respect for democracy.
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Well, where were you when I was there standing up to Mr. Harper and voting against his policies, and you weren't in the chamber?
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I think you need to understand a little bit more about how our democracy works.
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I don't know, maybe it wasn't a killer moment, but I thought it was pretty good.
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And that was a question put by one political party leader to another, not by a journalist.
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But in the main, it's not the political candidate to control the debate.
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I like that exchange I just showed you, but what if the rules were a little bit different?
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What if those candidates couldn't ask each other questions?
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What if they weren't allowed to follow up with a supplemental question like Jack Layton was?
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What if they just let the other candidate wriggle out of it?
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I don't think any journalist would have put that question to Ignatius that way.
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Even just the fact, just notice it there, the studio was all orange.
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Could it be conservative blue or liberal red instead?
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But I think by far a more important decision about the formats of these debates are the
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rules played by the journalists who moderate them, because often those moderators are so
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And 100% of the time, if they're political, they're on the left, by the way.
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Can I show you an example from the American 2012 campaign?
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And they were talking about the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi just
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It took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
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In other words, he did call it an act of terror.
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It did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there
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The administration indicated that this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous
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But she really, really wanted to be a debater, didn't she?
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Mitt Romney had given an answer that happened to be right, actually.
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Obama and his team had lied about the terrorist nature of that attack.
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Natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video.
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There was a violent protest outside of our embassy sparked by this hateful video.
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We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that
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That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks.
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It was a crude and disgusting video that sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.
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So Romney was right, but even if he wasn't right, it's up to Barack Obama to point that
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out or to tens of millions of Americans at home judging for themselves, not for a left-wing
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journalist in the moment to interfere with the debate, to say to the candidates whether
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their answer was or wasn't correct in her opinion.
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And like I say, she was wrong factually, by the way.
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So who's going to be the moderator of Canadian debates?
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The Democrats in the United States right now are having their presidential nomination debates
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at the presidential primary, and it's a hoot to watch.
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But look at this question from Don Lemon, of course, from CNN again.
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He states as fact, not as opinion, but as a premise that we can all agree on, that Donald
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We want to turn now to the issue of race in America.
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Congressman O'Rourke, President Trump is pursuing a re-election strategy based in part
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How do you convince primary voters that you'd be the best nominee to take on President Trump
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Now, they're all Democrats, so they all agree with that, I think.
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And like I showed you from that Romney-Obama debate, CNN is pretty much partisan left-wing.
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I'm not sure how many Republicans or independents we're even watching.
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Often debates are split up into different chunks, different sections, based on different
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You might have a different one on health care, just for example.
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Justin Trudeau would love a half hour in the debates about the climate crisis, climate emergency.
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And you know that's what the media actually calls it these days, a crisis.
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There's no objective measurement by which it could possibly be called a crisis.
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It is objectively true, by contrast, that we do have an immigration crisis in Canada,
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50,000 illegal entries at that Roxham Road ditch on the Quebec-New York border.
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There's now, what, a 10-year backlog for reviewing those bogus refugee claims?
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We're at the point where we're warehousing refugees in urban refugee camps, including
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But what are the odds that there would be a 30-minute segment on the immigration crisis,
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And that word crisis would be used there as opposed to a climate crisis.
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Now, in the past, anyone could theoretically host an election leaders debate.
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Of course, all you have to do is convince the leaders to show up.
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So you'd have to be able to produce it successfully.
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You'd probably have to have some reputation for non-partisanship.
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So that limits it to probably a dozen different groups, including, I don't know, Facebook,
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Remember last time there was one of the monk debates at the University of Toronto?
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But like I say, there would be a choice in the past.
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And so the groups pitching the debates to the parties would have an incentive to be fair,
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I think, to make it palatable to all the party leaders if they wanted them to participate.
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Or maybe they don't want all the leaders to participate.
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Elizabeth May loves being in these leaders' debates,
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even though she has no chance of becoming prime minister.
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She just really uses it as a fundraising opportunity for her party, a PR opportunity,
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In the last election, she literally never once attacked the liberal candidate.
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All of her attacks were on Trudeau's opponents, especially the conservative who was running Stephen Harper.
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Elizabeth May historically has been the liberal party's wingman, Trudeau's little buddy.
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So obviously the left want her in there to double the amount of bashing on Andrew Scheer this time.
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But this time, given just how far Trudeau has collapsed in the British Columbia because of his mistreatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould,
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I actually think the Green Party, if they do well, might steal maybe even a couple of seats out there,
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and more importantly, split the liberal NDP vote out there.
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So paradoxically, having a wingman like Elizabeth May might actually help the conservatives this time.
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But my point today is, if there were freedom in who arranged these debates and how you could have some people offer to host a debate with her in it and see who comes,
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and someone would offer to host a debate without her in it and see who comes, and it would be whatever.
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But, you know, I mean, for contrast, what do you think about Maxine Bernier?
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The left-wing media love having Elizabeth May in these debates, but they despise Maxine Bernier.
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Look at this, from the liberal government press release announcing the rules for debates.
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In the interest of time, and as a starting point for the upcoming 2019 debates,
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the government has established clear criteria for participation by political party leaders.
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In 2019, debates would include leaders of political parties that meet two of the following three criteria.
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At the time of the general election in question is called,
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the party is represented in the House of Commons by a member of parliament who is elected as a member of that party.
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That's a rule written to address precisely one person, Maxine Bernier.
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Do they have a certain number of candidates or are they at a certain level in the polls?
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But all of a sudden, the government has just said there are official government rules written by Trudeau now
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Even if the media wanted otherwise, even if all the party leaders wanted otherwise,
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that's what Trudeau wants and what he wants is what he gets.
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In the past, these were all private decisions between the political parties and the media,
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Now there's actually a government commission that makes the decisions for these debates appointed by Trudeau.
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Decided by people who work for Justin Trudeau and the establishment.
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And extra gross, they've appointed former Governor General David Johnson to run it.
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Who will be shaping the reporters, shaping the questions, shaping the themes?
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Here's the government's list of approved journalists for these debates.
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Only these media are allowed to participate in the debates.
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CBC News, Radio Canada, that's the French, Quebec wing of CBC.
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So the Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal establishment.
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Five out of the ten of the institutions are in Quebec.
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Quebec has less than a quarter of Canada's population.
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I saw this headline in Black Locks, the great independent news outlet in Ottawa.
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Bailout worth $115,000 a week to the Toronto Star.
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The largest daily newspaper in Canada, the Toronto Star, yesterday estimated its take of federal money,
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federal media bailout money is worth the equivalent of $115,385 a week.
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Payroll rebates will see publishers awarded up to $13,750 per newsroom employee.
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Gee, do you think they're going to have a theme or a section of the debate about the carbon tax and its cost to business?
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Or Trudeau's war against pipelines and industry?
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Do you think they're going to talk about the foreign policy mess Trudeau's created with China, India, Saudi Arabia, everyone?
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Or do you think Trudeau's hand-picked bailout media will talk about the climate crisis?
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Hey, Andrew Scheer, let's talk about the climate crisis.
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It's a whole page called A Fight for the Future.
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The Star asked the same two questions of the five Canadians who are making climate change a top priority.
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That's bought and paid for Liberal Party propaganda.
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And I mean, listen, what they put on page three of their own newspapers, their business.
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But these people are legally appointed to run the debate.
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So Justin Trudeau says they're going to shape the debates.
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Them, the state broadcaster, and the Huffington Post.
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But the Huffington Post is not a newspaper of record.
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If they were printed on paper, they would be called the gutter press.
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They would be called, well, they would be called worse.
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So, of course, they're going to run the debate.
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I've said it before, under Justin Trudeau, there will only be two types of media soon.
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Only two types of conversation at all in this country.
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Conversations approved by the government and founded by the government.
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Anyways, the question arises, how much money, in terms of dollars, is the LCBO losing on an annual basis?
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And, incredibly, our demand for a dollar figure was denied.
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Now, what makes this concerning is that we're supposed to have a new government in place where there is transparency, especially when it comes to crown corporations.
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Now, we reached out to the Ministry of Finance, and they basically told us that this is an LCBO internal matter.
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My personal theory is that the dollar amount must be so massive.
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Actually, well, that would defeat the purpose of our business.
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I understand that, but this is your own personal camera.
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We do not want to be on your own personal camera.
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Sir, your autofocus is not going to help you here, okay?
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If she hasn't given you the go-ahead, you have to get out.
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It's an incredible story, and joining us in studio is our friend, David Menzies.
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I want to make sure that I understood the premise of this right.
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The LCBO, that's the Government Liquor Stores in Ontario, there's versions across the country,
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their policy here is if someone shoplifts liquor, not to stop them?
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The person just walks right out the store, Ezra.
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This is not just destitute people, you know, hobos coming in for a hit.
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And there are now organized people that are stealing booze to resell it.
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And, I mean, Ezra, think of that business plan.
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And, I mean, there's some cheap, you know, hooch that's a few bucks, but there are some
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kinds of liquors, you know, an old whiskey, a fancy champagne that are hundreds.
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There's probably even some wine or liquor that's over $1,000, and they just let people walk
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We saw a security guard touching your camera, stopping you, getting all up in your grill,
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But you're saying they don't do that to people stealing liquor from them that they see.
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As I understand that, in fact, later in the video, Ezra, that man's partner, another security
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guard, my cameraman, Efren, and I were walking away.
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And I got that, you know, that spidey sense feeling someone's following me.
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And sure enough, it was the other security guard.
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Now, we walked an entire city block from Queens Quay to Lakeshore Boulevard, and then
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we hung a right, which is we're walking further and further away from the LCBO, and this guy's
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So he's following you, so you can't film him, but they're going to creep behind you.
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But they won't do that to someone who's stolen $50, $100, $500, $1,000 worth of liquor.
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Now, once he realizes he's being followed, he's hot-tailing it back to the LCBO.
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And the question I said to him, Ezra, is that why don't you follow the thieves out of the
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Why don't you make a citizen's arrest, but you're entitled to do so?
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So shoplifting is allowed at the LCBO, but practicing journalism isn't?
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You know, theft, shoplifting, theft at a restaurant, theft at any retail store, theft at a dollar
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store, theft at a Walmart, theft at a Safeway, a Sobeys, is one of the big issues for an entrepreneur.
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In a cash business where there's little things that can, I mean, you see this in drugstores
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where small, expensive things like those razor blade packages for like a Gillette, they're
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That you actually have to like get them unlocked or something or ask for them from the cash
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because, you know, shrinkage or whatever they would call it, it's such a problem.
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It's why a cash business like a bar, you have got to be there every day or you'll just be
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It's, it's a real burden for any retail person.
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And the LCBO has just sort of said, nope, because the sucker taxpayer will cover it and
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And I don't even understand, is it because it's too hard?
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Well, they must be really thirsty and they're, but as you point out, it's not like a poor person
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I mean, that, that still should not be allowed, but maybe there's a real problem there.
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No, sadly, Ezra, we reached out to the Ministry of Finance and they go, well, it's an internal
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By the way, when you do get people at the LCBO to talk to you, they play the role of, well,
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we are merely the puppets of our ministerial masters.
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I've reached out, sadly, I must report sadly, given how he ran on a campaign of transparency,
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But I want to pick up on what you said just a bit earlier.
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You were mentioning other retailers like Costco and Walmart.
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If they have a shrinkage problem, they have a shoplift problem.
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The difference here is that you and I and all the other millions of people that live
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We can't allow this money to just go out the door.
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They gave us five intangible, bizarre reasons why they were going to keep this confidential.
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And as I said, we're still waiting to hear back from the premier's office.
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And it makes a mockery, Ezra, of the justification of the monopoly of the LCBO and other provincial
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liquor bureaus as well, which is social responsibility.
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You know, we can't let the private sector handle trade and something potentially dangerous
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I mean, there'll be kids drinking Colt 45 in the parking lot.
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So we have a situation, Ezra, where you have, if it's somebody that looks like they're not
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19, they'll be challenged at the cash register and refused if they're paying for the booze.
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But if that miner just steals a bottle of booze, can I get the door for you, sir?
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I've never heard of anything so stupid in my life.
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And of course, it's going to be from a government and a unionized government bureaucracy that
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I think the LCBO should stop oversampling their own goods when they make business decisions.
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The union estimates, this is information I just came across, that the amount of the
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I think that, like, every day, every liquor store is being robbed.
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And this is as if Justin Trudeau's open borders immigration policy has been applied to liquor
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I can't believe that Doug Ford would allow this.
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More ahead, I'm going to go get myself a $1,000 bottle of whiskey.
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What do you think about the slow accretion of power over our political system by Justin
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I mean, maybe you don't think it's a big deal who runs the election debates.
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Well, will you think it's a big deal if the whole thing turns into a liberal policy platform
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Let's talk about, like, if it's all his shtick and it's all set up to bash the conservatives.
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I'm sure the left would freak out if an official Stephen Harper-appointed election debates commission
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chose his favorite subjects for the entire leaders debate.
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Let's talk about fiscal, you know, responsibility.
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I mean, you could see how outraged the media would be if Harper picked his favorite people
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I haven't seen a peep against this from the bailout media.
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But this is just one of a hundred things that's slowly constricting our national conversation.
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Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,