It’s Remembrance Day — and Don Cherry was just fired for telling Canadians to wear a poppy
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Summary
Sportsnet fired Don Cherry for wearing a poppy on Remembrance day. Why should others go to jail when you won t give them a chance to protest? Ezra Levenant explains why the move was a betrayal of public opinion.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about Don Cherry being sacked by Sportsnet, not after any genuine
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public demand. The opposite, really. A fake Twitter storm, led, in fact, by other journalists,
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including at the CBC, where Don Cherry was once the top-rated and top-paid talent. I think the
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CBC hated him all those years, couldn't really express it, but now that he's with Sportsnet,
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they just had at it. And Sportsnet bent the knee, very upsetting. I'll go into the details and show
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just how outrageous it was. Can I invite you to become a premium subscriber, though? Go to
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premium.rebelnews.com. And just eight bucks a month, you get access to the video version of this podcast
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and a couple other shows, too. That's premium.rebelnews.com. Okay, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, it's Remembrance Day, and Don Cherry was just fired for telling Canadians to wear
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a poppy. It's November 11th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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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, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody
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It's November 11th, which is Remembrance Day. Later on the broadcast, I'll talk with my friend
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Lee Humphrey, a military veteran and an advocate for veterans. And of course, I'll read the poem
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that I do every year, not in Flanders Fields, which is very touching, but something that I think is
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a little more painful, actually, a poem by Rudyard Kipling about how veterans are treated when they
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come back from the war. It's called Tommy Atkins. It was published more than a century ago, but it
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could have been written yesterday. You know who loves the troops? Don Cherry does. He's the
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plain-spoken host of Hockey Night in Canada, or at least he was till today. For years, he was the
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only conservative voice allowed on the CBC, other than Rex Murphy. The CBC always hated Don Cherry
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for three reasons. Like I say, he's conservative, and not in a snobby, think-tanky, professor kind
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of way, but in a way that connects with grassroots, blue-collar guys, severely normal guys. Second,
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he was more popular than literally anyone else at the CBC. No one came close to his viewership.
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I know it's shocking that more people don't want to watch Rosemary Barton go on platonic
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dates with Justin Trudeau, but it's true. And the third reason is that Don Cherry was
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literally the only profitable thing at the CBC because of the first two points. So the CBC
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made a massive miscalculation when they let Rogers outbid them for the NHL rights, the rights
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to Hockey Night in Canada. With a bid of more than $5 billion for a dozen years, Rogers locked
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up the show. Now they subleased some rights back to the CBC, but it's Rogers' show now.
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Canadians don't much care which channel they watch, as long as they're watching hockey.
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And they loved Don Cherry as the color commentator. I don't think ordinary Canadians
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obsess over Cherry's politics the way other journalists do. Again, it's the jealousy and the
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political partisanship I referred to earlier. The CBC humiliated Don Cherry by putting him
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on a seven-second delay, as if he were some criminal who might blurt out some thought crime
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or something. I don't know. What a contrast to the hero's welcome the CBC gave to the terrorist
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Omar Khadar, when they literally welcomed him with disco lights, music, and champagne. Look at
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that ovation for a murderer. Oh, those women, they can't get enough of him.
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Anyways, this weekend on Hockey Night in Canada, Don Cherry was frustrated with the fact that so few
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people wear poppies. So he said this. You know, I was talking to a veteran. I said,
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I'm not going to run the poppy thing anymore, because what's the sense? I live in Mississauga.
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Nobody wears, very few people wear a poppy. Downtown Toronto, forget it, downtown Toronto.
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Nobody wears a poppy. And I'm not going to win. He says, wait a minute. How about running it for
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the people that buy them? Now, you go to the small cities, and you know, those, the rows on
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rows, you people love, you, they come here, whatever it is, you love our way of life. You love our milk
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and honey. At least you can pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that. These guys pay
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for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price. Anyhow,
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I'm going to run it again for you great people and good Canadians that bought a poppy. I'm still
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going to run it. Anyhow, love you for it. Tough to disagree with Don Cherry. He wants more people
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to buy poppies. And he wants people who come to Canada from other countries, newcomers, to show
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respect to the people who built Canada, made it the land of milk and honey, as he says. And they made
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it that way by making enormous personal sacrifices in wars. I got to say, it's tough to disagree with
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that. Ron McClain certainly agreed. He nodded along, gave it a thumbs up and said, love you for it
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afterwards. Pretty normal Don Cherry type stuff. In fact, more normal than he normally is with his
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crazy outfits, high collared shirts, and he loves making up words and phrases. I had never heard the
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word kookaloo before. Six more weeks of cold weather. Now, I'd like to ask you with your left
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wing, Pinkle friends. Yes. What about the warming trend? Like what, like, where does that come now?
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You know all about that. Do you really want to get into that? No, I'm just asking you that the
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kookaloos are, we're saying the warming trend, we're freezing to death. The kookaloos. I think
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everyone knew what he meant. Now, could Don Cherry have been a bit smoother as he expressed his point
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about new Canadians needing to study our customs? Probably. Maybe he wasn't as perfectly wordsmithed
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as some woke PR firm would be. They would have been trans-friendly also. Started out with some
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comment about being on sacred aboriginal land or something. Probably would have said, I'm him,
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her, they, them pronouns. But no, Don's Don. Pretty normal guy, which is why he's so popular.
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And why so many second-rate journalists, especially other sports journalists, and especially journalists
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at the CBC, hate him because he's better and they hate that. So, there was this fake storm of protest.
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They just faked it. No one real was upset by this. No normal people. It was all his rivals or
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leftist politicians. People who had been holding a grudge for years. And they started going nuts
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because Don Cherry is the last conservative in the mainstream culture. So, here's a Trudeau MP tweet.
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He simply needs to leave hockey night. It's time. That's Peter Fragiskatos, who's a liberal MP.
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So, now we have the liberal government saying who should or shouldn't be on television. Well, of course,
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it's Trudeau's Canada. And really, we know where the liberals stand on veterans already, don't we?
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First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court? Because they're asking
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for more than we are able to give right now. Yeah, Mr. Fragiskatos is fine working for a party leader
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who's dressed up in blackface so many times he's lost count, but he can't stand a conservative being on TV.
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The CBC naturally led the war against Don Cherry. They're finally free to hate him out loud, as they did
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under their gritted teeth for decades. They hated him for years at the CBC, but they couldn't attack him publicly.
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He worked for the company. He was their most popular broadcaster. He paid all the bills.
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But now that he works for Sportsnet, 20 years of pent-up hatred came spilling out of the CBC.
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It was amazing to watch the CBC. If anyone actually watched the CBC anymore, I don't know.
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On a Sunday night, I'm guessing maybe 50,000 people watch CBC's The National out of 35 million Canadians.
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Here's why. Get a load of this woman, who I think is a weird bigot. I don't even know what the word
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racialized means. Do you mean visible minority? I don't know. And I noticed she isn't wearing a poppy
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while she's shouting at Don Cherry. Take a look.
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I don't need to be told by you that my poppy will represent my support of bats. I hated the way that
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he did that. I thought that he was absolutely looking and pointing fingers at people of color,
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racialized communities, because he didn't see enough poppies. So that translates into racialized
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communities not caring about this country. I'm sorry. It was unacceptable. I would love to see
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Of course you would, dear. But we don't believe in censorship in Canada just because you're angry
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and call someone a racist who, by the way, didn't mention race at all. And by the way,
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put on your poppy, you ingrate. Well, Don Cherry didn't apologize. He did not bend the knee. Why
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should he? He's 85. He's almost 86. He hasn't bent the knee to anyone in 85 years. Why would he start
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now? But the coward Ron McClain did. Watch one more time. Don Cherry's normal Don Cherry-ness
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as his sidekick, Ron McClain, who was a millionaire because of Don Cherry. Watch
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Ron closely this time. You people love you. They come here, whatever it is. You love our way of life.
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You love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like
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that. These guys pay for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price.
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Anyhow, I'm going to run it again. For you great people and good Canadians that bought a poppy,
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I'm still going to run it. Anyhow. Love you for it. So if I'm counting right, there were five head
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nods. One love you for it and one thumbs up there. But look at Judas McClain the very next morning.
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I wanted to address what happened last night on Hockey Night in Canada. Don Cherry made remarks which
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were hurtful, discriminatory, which were flat out wrong. We at Sportsnet have apologized. It certainly
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doesn't stand for what Sportsnet or Rogers represents. We know diversity is the strength
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of the country. We see it in our travels with our show and with Hockey Night in Canada. So I owe you
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an apology too. That's the big thing that I want to emphasize. I sat there, did not catch it, did not
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respond. Catherine Denise, a son of First Nation, once said, in any wrongdoing, the real key is
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recognition and acknowledgement. And I wanted to let you know that first. And then you work on the
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relationship so that it isn't divisive, so that something can be a unifying event. Idle No More
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was a great lesson to all of us. Last night was a really great lesson to Don and me. We were wrong
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and I sincerely apologize and I wanted to thank you for calling me and Don on that last night.
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Hurtful, discriminatory, flat out wrong. How? And stop lying. You say you sat there and did not
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respond. You didn't catch it. You absolutely did respond, you liar. Five nods, a thumbs up and a
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I love you. Why are you trying to gaslight us? We saw what happened. And you're invoking
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aboriginal moral authority or whatever weirdness you're trying to do there. Why not invoke Black
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Lives Matter, you woke weirdo, you betrayer of your best friend who made you a millionaire?
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Sportsnet called Cherry divisive and discriminatory. Really? I heard a guy encouraging all Canadians,
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old timers and newcomers to learn about our customs and buy poppies to show respect. But this is
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Sportsnet's version of taking a knee. They worship wokeness. And look at all the vultures. Here's
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the once second highest paid CBC talent, Peter Mansbridge, making a false accusation against the
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once highest paid talent at the CBC. The notion that Canada's veterans were all white is dangerously
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wrong and an insult to thousands, says Peter Mansbridge. Yeah, Peter, who said anything about
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only white veterans? What a kookaloo, Mansbridge, not Cherry. Cherry's the normal one. Who asked you,
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Peter? Is this some grudge against the guy who earned more money than you for decades?
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All the people who had nothing to say about Justin Trudeau's blackface
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had a lot to say about Don Cherry. Here's Bruce Arthur, always under Cherry's shadow as a sports
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reporter. He called for Cherry to be fired. But not for Trudeau to be fired. Same guy, Bruce Arthur,
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because you see, he's so progressive. He's so progressive.
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Here's the liberal, John Moore, who actually compared Don Cherry to a Nazi. Do you see that Kristallnacht?
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Kristallnacht, I don't know if you know, Kristallnacht is when the Nazi riots, torch synagogues smashed
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windows. Here's a picture of Kristallnacht. That's what John Moore said. Don Cherry's comments were like,
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and by today, this afternoon, Don Cherry was fired. There actually was no public outrage.
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Just 30 mean girls in the media and 30 liberal party censors. Boy, the liberals were out in force.
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That's how it rolls in 2019. You get what you get when you elect Justin Trudeau as prime minister.
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That's the culture. On Remembrance Day, the number one Canadian defender of serving military and veterans
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is sacked as being divisive, while the black-faced groper just laughs and laughs and cuts another
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check to the CBC. What a disgrace. But today isn't about the CBC or Sportsnet or Trudeau or even
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Don Cherry. It's about our troops, completely forgotten in this hullabaloo. Every year, I read a
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poem by Rudyard Kipling, and I'll do it again today. There's one line that always makes me lose my
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composure a little bit. I'll see if I can read it through calmly today. This is Tommy Atkins by Rudyard
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Kipling. I went into a public house to get a pint of beer. The public any up and says, we serve no
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redcoats here. The girls behind the bar, they laughed and giggled fit to die. I out into the street again,
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and to myself says I, oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away. But it's, thank you,
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Mr. Atkins. When the band begins to play, the band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play. Oh,
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it's, thank you, Mr. Atkins. When the band begins to play, I went into a theater as sober as could be.
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They gave a drunk civilian room, but hadn't none for me. They sent me to the gallery around the music
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halls, but when it comes to fighting, Lord, they'll shove me in the stalls, for it's Tommy this and Tommy
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that and Tommy wait outside. But it's special train for Atkins. When the troopers on the tide, the troop
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ship's on the tide, my boys, the troop ship's on the tide. It's special train for Atkins when the
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trooper's on the tide. Yes, making maca uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than them
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uniforms and their starvation cheap. And hustling drunken soldiers when they're going large a bit
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is five times better business than parading in full kit. Then it's Tommy this and Tommy that and
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Tommy out of your soul. But it's thin red line of Eros when the drums begin to roll. The drums begin to
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roll, my boys. The drums begin to roll. Oh, it's thin red line of Eros when the drums begin to roll.
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We aren't no thin red Eros, nor we are no blaggards too, but single men in barracks, most remarkable
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like you. And if sometimes our conduct isn't all your fancy paints, why single men in barracks don't
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grow into plaster saints. Well, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy fall behind, but it's pleased to
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walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the wind. There's trouble in the wind, my boys.
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There's trouble in the wind. Oh, it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the
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wind. You talk a better food for us and schools and fires and all. We'll wait for extra rations
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if you treat us rational. Don't mess around about the cookroom slops, but prove it to our face.
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The widow's uniform is not the soldier man's disgrace. For it's Tommy this and Tommy that.
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Chuck him out, the brute. But it's savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot.
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And it's Tommy this and Tommy that and anything you please. And Tommy ain't a blooming fool.
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Welcome back. Well, we're affectionate of our military here at Rebel News. I don't think
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anyone who is on air has served, but we have lots of people who behind the scenes have helped. We have
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an editor who was in the Navy. And of course, Sheila's daughter is in the cadets. So we have
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a lot of sympathy and support for our troops, especially for those who paid the price in ways
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we can never imagine. And I think maybe it's because I myself have not served in the military
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that I feel an extra obligation to note Remembrance Day and to stand up for veterans. Because given that
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I did not serve in the military, is it not the least I can do? And that's how I feel. I think even if I
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had served, I would perhaps I'd be even more supportive of veterans and the serving military.
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I find it odious that rival networks such as the CBC state broadcaster seem to actually put their
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sympathies for foreign enemies like Omar Khadr ahead of our soldiers and veterans. And for one day a year,
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they grit their teeth and pretend to give a damn. I'm not doing this to virtue signal that we're
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morally superior to the CBC. I'm lamenting the state of our entire country, that what Rudyard
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Kipling wrote about in his poem, Tommy Atkins, a century ago, is unfortunately still true. It's a,
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I don't know, it's, I suppose, part of that peace dividend is that you don't have to care
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about soldiers anymore. But that's wrong. The peace dividend is precisely because the price
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soldiers are paid. So those are my thoughts. And joining us now is a man who has served more than
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most, our friend Lee Humphrey, who joins us now from Calgary. Lee, nice to see you again. And I rely
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on you for information, for opinions, and because you have the moral authority, having served our
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country in dangerous places, in the most dangerous places. So thank you for your service.
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Let's talk about the state of affairs, because I'm a critic of the liberal government, and I don't want
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my partisan bias to color my observations on the veterans file. If there's something they are doing
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right, I'd like to acknowledge it. In fact, it's important that I do, because I don't think veterans
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issues should be a conservative versus liberal issue. I think every party should be wanting to outdo each
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other. It should be unanimity. Sometimes I talk about seeing eye dogs. Who could be against that?
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You know, widows and orphans. I think veterans should be in that same category, that there's no
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daylight between any of the parties on how we treat veterans. Is there anything I can point to
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and give the liberals credit for? It's a tough one. I agree. It should become, and I hope it does at
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some point, become a nonpartisan issue. Because there are good people on both sides of the aisle,
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on every side of the aisle, that do want to support veterans. The problem that we seem to run into
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is regardless of the power, the party in power, the bureaucracy within veterans affairs, the mentality
00:21:14.520
within veterans affairs, that puts an incredible onus on paperwork and red tape, and pushes veterans
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to the brink of giving up, just never seems to end. So I'll certainly give the prime minister
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credit for saying the right things recently. He clearly had his misstep when he said veterans were
00:21:44.260
asking for more than they could afford. But he has put forward the right policy platform to support
00:21:53.480
veterans in many cases. It's not been enacted the way we would like to see it enacted, certainly not
00:21:59.920
with the speed that we'd like to see. We haven't seen consistency at the ministerial level. We've gone
00:22:07.900
through five ministers. And if, you know, rumors are correct, we'll have a sixth minister in a couple of
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weeks. So, you know, he's saying the right things as the conservatives did as well. But we're not
00:22:22.940
seeing the follow through that we'd like to see. You know, this isn't just a problem for liberal
00:22:29.800
parties. I sometimes spend some time over in the United Kingdom. And I see how they treat their vets
00:22:37.160
too. And they've had a conservative government in name, at least for some years. And over there,
00:22:44.580
and I, you know, I'm sort of embarrassed, actually, that I know some British stats more than our own
00:22:48.760
conservative stats. But my buddy Tommy Robinson out there brought to my attention, there was a hospital
00:22:58.240
for vets specializing in PTSD. And I didn't know just how widespread that was. I mean, I suppose in
00:23:09.500
World War One, it was called shell shock. They didn't have the word PTSD. But I didn't realize how widespread
00:23:16.560
it was. And even in the UK, under a conservative government, they were shutting down the medical
00:23:23.380
support for vets. How is it on the medical side? It's one thing to show moral support and have
00:23:29.820
financial support. But PTSD or shell shock and the psychological trauma of these awful wars, the
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terrorist wars where children themselves are often the human, you know, bulletproof vets, like human
00:23:44.500
shields. Are we properly addressing the psychological damage done to our vets in Canada?
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A mixed result, I'd say. So, you know, more than a decade ago, the Conservatives opened the
00:24:03.160
occupational stress injury clinics across Canada. The Liberals put more money into it and offered up
00:24:13.160
a couple of more clinics to expand the service capacity. The challenge there is that it still
00:24:22.820
isn't enough. The wait times are still too long. We had another suicide just last week from somebody
00:24:33.400
suffering that wasn't getting help in a timely way. We've seen the government drag their feet on
00:24:41.080
recognizing the importance of service dogs and providing those to veterans for those that it
00:24:50.740
helps. We've seen them roll back the cannabis allotment a couple of years ago saying that the
00:24:59.740
veterans were getting too much cannabis for free for those that it helped.
00:25:06.820
So a mixed bag. Again, on paper, they're opening the right clinics. They're hiring specialists in this
00:25:18.160
category. They're certainly, you know, trying to destigmatize the scourge that is PTSD. But the
00:25:30.640
bureaucracy again, gets in the way and and you think about this, you have a veteran, and he phones for
00:25:39.580
help. And he starts getting told about the forms he's going to fill out, and that he's got to see
00:25:47.320
a doctor to get another form filled out, and then they're going to process it. And, and then he's going
00:25:53.360
to get a call from a clinic in a few weeks, hopefully, and the frustration builds. So the, the person,
00:26:00.800
because they have this mental injury, starts self medicating, while they're waiting for proper
00:26:09.200
treatment. And as they self medicate, they run into the same problems that other people that become
00:26:15.400
addicted to drugs and alcohol run into. They have fights with their spouses, they have fights with their
00:26:20.960
employer and lose their job. And the spiral begins. And it's, it's like an airplane whose wings have
00:26:29.460
fallen off. It doesn't take long before the spiral ends in a terrible crash. And in many cases, that's a
00:26:36.360
suicide. So the liberals in their platform, you know, said a very important thing, and I hope they live up
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to it, which is that they will ensure that a veteran can have up to $3,000 worth of treatment, before they're
00:26:52.660
diagnosed. So if a veteran calls the helpline, they can immediately be transferred to a hotline where you have a
00:27:01.320
mental health care professional at the other end that begins speaking to the veteran, and helping them before we
00:27:09.280
worry about the paperwork. If that occurs, maybe just maybe, we'll save a few lives here.
00:27:18.780
Wow, that's the way you described it there. It, it makes it very real. Now, the military itself has
00:27:25.780
always been a place of paperwork and forms in quadruplicate and things like that.
00:27:30.040
Is the, is the way serving soldiers get their medical care and mental health care? Is that any
00:27:40.040
better than the way vets get it? Like, is there, I'm just curious, because when you describe forms and
00:27:48.040
bureaucracy, I thought, well, I think the military is a little bit like that on the inside of it, right?
00:27:52.540
Yeah, you know, and there's, there's a huge debate around the idea of being fit for service.
00:28:00.960
Back in, in the early 90s, mid 90s, they came up with a term called universality of service, which
00:28:09.160
meant each trade has medical criteria that makes you fit to serve, and you had to be deployable,
00:28:17.520
because the military was downsizing in huge, huge ways. So they did not have places to hold injured
00:28:25.440
soldiers for very long or trades to transfer them to, where they wouldn't have to deploy. So the idea
00:28:33.800
behind it was the army is expeditionary, the army is deployable, and you must be fit to fight at all
00:28:41.220
times. And you can be injured for a short period of time, but we're not going to hang on to you for very
00:28:46.920
long, because we can't recruit a replacement until you're out of the system. Within the community,
00:28:53.760
you know, people recognize that it's important that if you can't deploy, that puts stress on other
00:29:00.340
people that end up deploying more frequently, which puts more stress on their family, which puts more
00:29:06.260
stress on them. And often they leave the military or they break down. So I was going to say, it made
00:29:16.840
sense. But at the same time, when you go to war and suffer so many casualties, you need to take care
00:29:23.900
of those people. And the best way to take care of them is within the military community. So, you know,
00:29:30.740
I think they're starting to recognize and understand there needs to be, it can't be black and white,
00:29:35.740
there needs to be flexibility, until we get through this period of time where we had a surge of
00:29:41.520
casualties. And we need to take care of those folks and transition them either back into other military
00:29:48.480
trades or into the civilian world in a way that's acceptable to them.
00:29:55.340
You know, my father is a retired doctor. And I remember as a kid, he would say that there were
00:30:02.640
some patients who went to the front of the line. And prisoners were actually one example of people
00:30:13.280
who went, they had a special payment to go to the front of the line for medical care. I found that odd.
00:30:19.540
And another example was soldiers. And that makes a lot of sense. You don't want a soldier languishing
00:30:28.340
for six months in a waiting line. He has to be, like you say, ready to roll. Now, that's my memory
00:30:35.640
from what my retired doctor dad told me 30 years ago. Is it the same way now? Do, I know prisoners
00:30:45.760
still go to the front of the line. Do soldiers go to the front of the line for health care?
00:30:50.680
Serving soldiers do get MRIs, CT scans, etc. purchased so that they can see specialists
00:31:00.600
more quickly because they're getting paid whether they're functional or not. So the government,
00:31:07.460
and it's a tiny military, the idea was to shrink the military to the smallest possible size
00:31:12.760
and make everybody deployable and fit and ready to roll at all times so that you didn't have a lot
00:31:21.500
of excess fat to trim once the cuts had been done. So they do still do that. And they do still get
00:31:29.520
their medical care far quicker than the average citizen, simply because the government's paying
00:31:35.260
for their services and they want them to be ready to go. That does not apply to veterans.
00:31:39.880
Got it. And does that apply to mental health as well?
00:31:45.320
If you're serving, it applies to mental health. But there is a limit in the sense that the military
00:31:50.640
hires mental health care professionals. And typically, these mental health care professionals
00:31:56.460
share their duties with other hospitals, with clinics, with their own private practice.
00:32:02.200
So there's only so many of them. And they need a special level of training to deal with
00:32:08.360
military mental health because trauma is trauma. But there's a military component and a military
00:32:16.640
ideology and a military culture that has to be understood by those care professionals,
00:32:25.020
Geez. I tell you, I wish that you were somehow involved in figuring out the system on the inside.
00:32:32.380
Obviously, you're a critic of Trudeau, just like I am. And you would never be brought in.
00:32:37.020
I just wish there were someone who had your knowledge of the lay of the land.
00:32:41.100
I mean, I'm sure that the liberals would say they do have plenty of experts, but they don't seem to be
00:32:46.460
getting it done. Can I ask you about a different thing besides mental health and physical health,
00:32:50.220
though? I remember a couple of years ago, someone at CFB Borden sent me the base newsletter. So this
00:32:59.580
was the official newspaper published by the base. It wasn't like some dissident pamphlet. This was
00:33:06.460
the official newspaper in both languages for the base. And it talked about Christmas hampers, although
00:33:12.380
they banned the word Christmas. They didn't use the word Christmas in it. They called it holiday
00:33:17.900
something, something. And it sounded like a fun Christmas tradition until when I read it more
00:33:23.580
carefully. What they were saying is that there were people on the base who they needed food bank
00:33:31.180
food, like soldiers and their families on the base needed food. This wasn't for like the surrounding
00:33:38.380
communities. This was for serving soldiers on the base. And we saw that and we crowdfunded, I think it
00:33:44.140
was about 15 grand. And we went to give the check to the food hamper program and they refused it.
00:33:50.140
And you know this because you helped us find a veterans charity in the end. I'm worried that
00:33:58.540
the attitude in the military, because we didn't access to information about that afterwards.
00:34:03.180
And we found that the number one priority in the defense department
00:34:07.020
was don't embarrass the minister, cover things like that up. They thought our $15,000 gift,
00:34:15.900
they hated the fact that we're conservative, they're liberal, and it made the minister look bad.
00:34:21.180
We had the actual document saying, don't take the money, block them. How did this, you know,
00:34:28.220
how was this published in the first place? So I, I sense that rather than fixing some of these problems,
00:34:33.980
the, the liberal bureaucracy, and there were dozens of people involved in, in that, in those email
00:34:40.060
exchanges. I was shocked by how many people were working against this food hamper project. I sense
00:34:46.140
that it's all about protect the leadership, protect the brass, protect Trudeau and Harjit Sajan,
00:34:52.860
even if it means turning down help for vets or serving soldiers in that case. I don't know. I just,
00:34:59.740
I got a taste of the Kafkaesque bureaucracy just when we were trying to do a simple thing,
00:35:04.060
like dropping off a check. It was really crazy.
00:35:07.740
You know, the, the military is, it's an interesting place. In the mid nineties,
00:35:13.500
we were getting lots of notifications coming out saying, you know, because of all the pay freezes
00:35:19.100
that we've had, please let soldiers off early so they can go and get a second job and support
00:35:24.780
themselves and please have base food drives and things like that during special occasions. And,
00:35:31.420
and if, you know, you can give a guy an extra day off on a Monday, once a month or something,
00:35:38.700
please do so, so that he can work a second job. And the military didn't seem to mind it because the
00:35:47.100
idea was to embarrass the government and to, and to start treating soldiers with the respect and,
00:35:53.580
and paying them what they were due. But there was some painful lessons that came from that.
00:35:59.820
And a lot of senior leaders found themselves not promoted, disappearing, retiring. And those lessons
00:36:10.220
aren't forgotten. Embarrassing the government is a short term solution. It's like when you get a young
00:36:17.500
lieutenant and you have to train them as, as a senior NCO, you can take two routes. You can embarrass
00:36:23.340
them every day because it's very easy with a young lieutenant, or you can teach them how to lead men,
00:36:29.420
because someday he is going to be a senior leader. And if you go the, the route of embarrassment,
00:36:37.980
well, that's fine for, for about four to six years. And then suddenly he's a major and you're
00:36:43.500
still a warrant officer or a sergeant. And he's got some severe power over your future. So again,
00:36:49.900
it's a short term solution. And the lesson was not lost on the military that if you embarrass the
00:36:56.860
government, you will pay a heavy price for that. So now what you see is a very risk adverse senior
00:37:04.460
leadership. Generals, colonels, they are all extremely risk adverse. They are well informed in political
00:37:14.540
circles and how to deal with the politics and the bureaucracy of the D and D civilian employees that
00:37:21.340
actually run the place. And they know how the game is played. They know how they get to the top
00:37:28.140
and they know what to do and what not to do. So they have their local food drives to make sure
00:37:32.940
soldiers, you know, don't go hungry over the holidays. And they do quietly let people have second
00:37:41.100
jobs and, and, and take the time they need to be with their families, but they don't publicize it a
00:37:47.500
whole lot. And they avoid scrutiny like that. And they avoid embarrassment at the political level
00:37:52.620
at all costs. I get it. I understand that makes sense. The way you describe it like that.
00:37:57.420
I just think it's a shame. I mean, it would have, it would have been a one day thing. And the only
00:38:02.780
people who would have seen it would be our own viewers who would have felt good about
00:38:06.620
their donation. It's very frustrating to me, but the way you describe it makes perfect sense.
00:38:12.540
Well, listen, we're, we're being a little bit political because we are by nature a political show.
00:38:15.980
And I know you yourself, um, have been involved with the conservative party, but it is my true
00:38:21.100
hope that in time, these issues will become nonpartisan and that parties will seek to outdo
00:38:27.260
each other, um, as they do on some other issues, everyone trying to outbid the other for, you know,
00:38:33.100
I mean, I remember in the 2015 election, you had Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau saying,
00:38:38.700
I'll give the CBC 1.3 billion. Oh, I'll give them 1.5 billion. They were trying to outdo each other.
00:38:44.380
Uh, I only wish that they had that kind of, um, one upmanship when it came to taking care of our
00:38:50.620
serving military and our retired vets, some of whom are still injured. Last word to you,
00:38:56.620
my friend. Um, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit sad listening to what you're saying and thinking about
00:39:00.940
things, but, um, maybe Remembrance Day is a good time to, to think about these. But,
00:39:06.220
but why don't you leave us with some thoughts? What do you think on this latest Remembrance Day?
00:39:10.540
Well, you know, I think about the same things I think about pretty much every year, my colleagues,
00:39:17.980
my friends, the men and women I served with that didn't come home. All those that gave for us,
00:39:27.180
they gave so much, the families that, that suffered endlessly. Uh, that's what I think about when I'm
00:39:37.580
standing in the cold outside for 30 or 40 minutes or however long the ceremony lasts. I go to one in
00:39:47.500
Calgary that avoids politicians like the plague, which is really great. Um, and I'll tell you,
00:39:55.980
I, I am a conservative. I have founded a, a veterans for the conservative party page. I've,
00:40:02.860
I've advocated for the conservatives. I've, I've, I've wanted to run for them. But if Trudeau called
00:40:10.460
tomorrow, if his minister called, if somebody in the bureaucracy called, I'd be there in a heartbeat
00:40:16.140
and I do it for free if they asked my opinion, because I don't, I don't care what party solves
00:40:22.700
this problem. I really don't. All I care about is my brothers and sisters that still serve
00:40:29.340
and my fellow veterans. If I could help one, I'd, I'd become a liberal tomorrow.
00:40:38.220
Well, you know, that's a really beautiful note to end on Lee. It's great to have you on the show and
00:40:42.780
great to hear your voice. Always, uh, you stand for what's right and you stand for remembering those
00:40:47.740
who served and those who paid the price. Nice to see you again, my friend. Thank you for being with us
00:40:52.300
today. Thanks for highlighting this, Ezra. It's so important. All right. There you have it. Lee Humphrey,
00:40:57.820
a good friend of ours and a friend who has served our country in many ways. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:41:12.940
Welcome back on my monologue Friday about Alberta protecting conscience rights of physicians. Donna
00:41:17.980
writes, this bill is needed. Doctors should not be forced to perform abortions if it is against their
00:41:23.900
faith. There are many doctors who do not share these beliefs and they will be happy to perform
00:41:28.140
these services for the women who want them. Yeah, this bill actually doesn't even change anything.
00:41:34.460
As I showed you, Section 2A of our Charter of Rights, the fundamental freedom section, the very
00:41:39.820
first freedom is freedom of belief and conscience. Um, it just shows how when civil libertarians want to be
00:41:48.300
authoritarians, I think their authoritarian instinct wins out all these liberal journalists who really
00:41:54.220
want the power to force people to do what they want to do. Liz writes that we have to have a
00:41:59.980
conversation about doctors, right? Not to, to not perform something that is against their morality
00:42:04.460
or religious beliefs is really kind of embarrassing for a civilized country like Canada. Yeah, I keep
00:42:09.500
saying where are the civil liberties groups? When was the last time you saw the Canadian Civil Liberties
00:42:13.180
Association actually stand up for a real civil liberty? Sam writes, a doctor who performs abortion
00:42:19.820
or euthanasia is not a doctor I want treating me. Well, I mean, and that's the thing, abortion is one
00:42:24.860
thing, but assisted suicide, how is that even something that a doctor would do? The Hippocratic Oath, which
00:42:33.340
is millennia old, is do no harm. I have no idea to this day how a doctor can do that. I mean, abortion is,
00:42:39.500
we all know that abortion debate very well, but it's novel, the concept of a doctor helping to kill
00:42:47.820
someone who's born already. That's even more unfathomable. Well, that's our show today. I'm upset
00:42:56.300
about Don Cherry being fired because it's the bullying culture, the cancel culture, because it was so
00:43:02.540
obviously a fake manufactured by the media party, and because he was the last great conservative voice in
00:43:08.460
the pop culture. I think we're going to see a lot more of this in the months and years ahead.
00:43:13.980
By the way, we set up a petition before Don Cherry was fired called supportdoncherry.com, and we were
00:43:20.700
going to send it to Sportsnet, thinking perhaps he would be spared, but he was fired a couple hours
00:43:26.460
after we launched the petition. We're going to do it anyways. We're going to give a copy of the petition
00:43:31.980
to Don Cherry. We're going to give a copy to Judas Ron McClain. We're going to give a copy to Sportsnet
00:43:38.220
to let them know that people do not agree with their woke censorship. And I frankly hope that
00:43:46.220
Sportsnet loses a lot of money on this. It reminds me of Gillette when they came up with TV ads that
00:43:55.260
attacked men for being male and called them toxic masculinity. I think Sportsnet did the same thing
00:44:03.740
today. They listened to the shrill voices of the left instead of severely normal Canadians. That's the show
00:44:09.500
for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at Rubble World Highquarters, good night. Keep fighting for freedom.