New rules and new normal for protesting in John Tory's Toronto
Episode Stats
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Summary
Pro-terror groups are allowed to protest in the city of Toronto, but anti-lockdown protesters are not. What's the difference between the two? And why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer?
Transcript
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Hey folks, this is the audio version of the Ezra Levent Show. I'm David Menzies, guest hosting for
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Ezra Tonight. And the monologue of tonight's show is on the double standard when it comes to
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protesting in the city of Toronto. Now, if you would like the video version of this show
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and some other great TV format style shows, please go to rebelnewsplus.com. That's rebelnewsplus.com.
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Tonight, anti-lockdown protesters get arrested, but pro-terror groups are allowed to protest.
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It's March 9th, 2021. I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levent 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 about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Since January, Mayor John Tory has made it loud and clear what the new rules are in the new normal in the new and not improved Toronto.
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Namely, if you go to Yonge Dundas Square, as the anti-lockdown protesters used to do,
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you will be arrested should you commit any of the following five egregious crimes.
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Speaking into a megaphone, displaying a sign, waving a flag, quoting biblical passages, or merely standing on a corner.
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We have weeks' worth of video evidence proving this to be true.
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I was going to pray about this before I came here.
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All I wanted to do was let people know about this vaccine.
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And make no mistake, folks, tyrant Tory got his way.
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Young Dundas Square, which should exist as the heart of the city, is now a no-man's land.
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Indeed, after being ticketed and tackled and arrested and hauled off to jail for exercising their constitutional rights.
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Anti-lockdown protesters now congregate at Queen's Park, where they get ticketed and tackled and arrested and hauled off to jail for exercising their constitutional rights.
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But last Saturday morning, I ventured into the forbidden zone of Young Dundas Square, and look what I saw.
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A crew that puts together the Middle East Toronto blog had congregated there.
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And lo and behold, police weren't cracking heads on this day.
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Rather, a police officer was being interviewed.
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You'll find it on the blog Middle East TO, Middle East Blog Toronto.
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It's a blog for Middle Eastern people, and we're talking about building trust between the police and the Middle Eastern community.
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I was just here, because usually I've been here in the past, and the police are arresting people for congregating on Young Dundas Square.
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So I just wanted to get a record of that, if any shenanigans happen like that.
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I'm just trying to understand, officer, what's the difference between people protesting and these nice people doing a little documentary here?
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The Middle East Toronto blog people were completely accommodated, and I'm happy for them, really, folks,
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because I adore that silly little concept known as freedom of the press.
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Yet, just look at how Rebel News videographers were treated at Young Dundas Square protests a few weeks ago.
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The media is exempt, but it's like CP24 and stuff like that, right?
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If you're not sure, then why are you making assumptions then?
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You know, I love that line about media not being allowed unless you are the bought and
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Oh, but it gets worse, folks, because later that same day in the afternoon last Saturday,
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check out who was occupying the public square, brandishing flags and signs, none other than
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members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, a.k.a. the LTTE, a.k.a. the Tamil Tigers.
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The Tamil Tigers are recognized as a terrorist group in Canada as well as more than 30 other
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And here they were on Saturday, their supporters in Toronto, Canada, proudly flying a flag that
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displays a tiger's head next to a couple of automatic weapons and a halo of bullets.
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One can brandish the flag of a terrorist organization in Torrey Town, but if you wave a Canadian flag,
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well, check out what happened to this poor patriot.
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It is reminiscent of the offensive line of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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But where, oh, where was the fuzz when it came to the Tamil Tigers supporters marching
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Well, I sought answers from Don Pete, Mayor Tory spokesman, and Brad Ross, the City of Toronto
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spokesman, as well as Connie Osborne, the spokeswoman for the Toronto Police Service.
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Well, quote, just curious, last Saturday I dropped by young Dundas Square in the morning
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and there was a group from the Middle East blog Toronto filming a segment there, far from
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police clamping down as they do with the anti-lockdown protesters, a police officer was actually
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I don't begrudge these bloggers this opportunity to gather, but why the double standard when it
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comes to the anti-lockdown people who tend to get ticketed and or arrested?
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In the afternoon at the square, there was a demonstration by those supporting the Liberation
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Canada has designated the LTTE as a terrorist group, yet there they were waving the flag of
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But again, why is this tolerated but not anti-lockdown demonstrations?
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Please let me know at your earliest convenience.
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I have also followed up with a phone call and you know what, folks?
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This is just too much of a political hot potato for Team Tory to handle.
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And really, how do you justify the unjustifiable in the first place?
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But this grotesque double standard is appalling.
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And the underlying message seems to be if you are a member of a so-called politically
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incorrect protest, i.e. the rank and file of Yahoo Nation, you will be ticketed and arrested
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But if you are part of a protest that, oh, lauds a terrorist group, oh, well, nothing
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Oh, and if you are a Black Lives Matter protester, not only do the cops turn a blind eye to elicit
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gatherings, but the rank and file actually take part in the protest, including the former
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But then again, we know that John Tory just loves Black Lives Matter.
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Do you remember the infamous racist rant a few years ago by Usra Kogali, a co-founder
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Quote, please, Allah, give me strength not to cuss, kill these men and white folks out
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You know, Usra never apologized for this racist rant.
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And instead of condemning her, Black Lives Matter shamefully rushed to her defense.
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And as for Mayor John Tory, well, he presented this lovely lady with a civic award called the
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Pam McConnell Award for Young Woman in Leadership.
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Just look at this pathetic man, this phony baloney conservative.
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Indeed, imagine if Usra Kogali was a white man and one was to replace Allah with God and
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the man's plea was for God to give him strength not to cuss, kill these women and Black folks
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Do you think that guy would be getting a leadership award as opposed to a prison cell for committing
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But that's how we roll in John Tory's Toronto these days.
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Hogtown is the living land of the double standard.
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Patriots get arrested while terrorist sympathizers are openly accommodated and racists actually
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Hey, John Tory, what are you going to do for an encore?
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Well, folks, in so many jurisdictions the world over, the lockdowns are coming to an end
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and economies are reopening, but not so much in Canada.
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And when you are a politician of any political stripe, of any jurisdiction here in our great
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dominion, it seems that when you argue for more economic liberty, you are dismissed as being
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unproductive or counterproductive or even being called an outright crank.
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Well, joining me now is our friend to the show, Andrew Lawton of True North.
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And, Andrew, you had a great commentary on True North discussing this very issue.
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And we have seen that politicians, and I think of people like Randy Hillier, Roman Baber, those
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who speak out against the Ontario policy regarding the lockdowns, well, suddenly cancel culture
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comes right up into their windshield, doesn't it?
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I mean, we've seen in the last several years a number of issues become political hot potatoes,
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where if you have the wrong opinion of them, it's a cancelable offence.
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And we've talked about this, you and I, and I know on our respective platforms we have.
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But we're talking about something really devastating right now, which is that you cannot even speak
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out in support of reopening, in support of sending people back to work, of letting people live
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their lives, without that being characterized as a fringe position, and you being then characterized
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And as far as all of the, I say political issues, because that's really what it is, as far as
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all of the political perspectives that have become cancelable, this is one that I find is
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the most shameful because of the fact that it's actually a majority position.
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Most people want to live their lives and go back to it.
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But in politics, it's a slim, slim minority of politicians prepared to say that.
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Indeed, and you know, Andrew, I want to give a shout out to our mutual friend, Anthony Fury.
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It was about a briefing that happened on Monday by the Ontario Science Table.
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And to me, it was incredible good news because you look at the stats, and there's so many stats,
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but I think the most important one was that this science table concluded that a whopping 55%
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of deaths coming from the virus were from long-term care residents.
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And the number of deaths, and when you look at that as a segment of the population, that's
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So we know now, surely, where the, you know, the most vulnerable demographic is, and it
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So why the heck is the economy in still lockdown mode?
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There's so many arguments to be made that the so-called cure is worse than the curse.
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One of the big things that I've noticed in all of this is that whenever we've had predictions
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from, I'll say Ontario specifically, my and your province, they have been flat-out wrong.
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And I don't just mean, you know, they might just have a bit of a rounding error, but flat-out
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wrong, oftentimes a literal fraction of what was predicted.
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Remember, the first modelling we heard said that we would have 100,000 deaths.
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We were supposed, and that was within the span of a few months from when that was made
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We've been told that we could be up to 20,000 cases a day by now, and we're actually at less
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And this whole thing happens in a way that most sensible people would say what Anthony's
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been saying, what you've been saying, what I've been saying, which is okay, if those numbers
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are wrong, let's delve into them a bit deeper and say, and ask, where are the risks?
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And who do we need to really protect and target our measures towards?
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And for the government that says science needs to be at the forefront of its decisions, this
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It's coming from so-called fringe politicians, and that's how it's so maligned.
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Because my take on this, my friend, is that before this pandemic took root, I didn't know
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who the various chief medical officers were in the city, in the province, federally.
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I didn't know the name of Eileen Davila and David Williams and Teresa Tam.
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And yet these are unelected, non-accountable people that are completely immune to any kind
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They haven't suffered a nickel's worth of salary being deducted.
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And it seems that our elected leaders are beholden to these people and almost using their
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advice as an excuse of why the economies must remain in lockdown.
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Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, got an Emmy out of his press briefings.
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In B.C., the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Bonnie Henry, got a book deal out of it.
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So she's a medical officer who's actually got time to write a book throughout this pandemic.
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And listen, what we're seeing here is, I think, twofold.
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There are public safety risks that are inherent in the COVID-19 pandemic.
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And I think that what government doesn't want people doing is taking it upon themselves to
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So they end up with this one size fits all position.
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But the problem with that is that it delegitimizes all of their advice when they're proven to be wrong
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on their numbers so people don't actually pay attention.
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When the government was saying, well, don't do masks, they make things worse.
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And then do masks and now double mask and triple mask.
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And by this time next year, we might be at the hazmat suit phase of it.
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When they do these flip flops, all they do is force sensible people who aren't themselves
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experts to just say, well, all right, I'm just too confused by it.
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So government is trying to use simple, easily understood solutions.
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But to do that, they have to go to the lowest common denominator, which means the least
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If there were continued case counts, continued deaths coming in, someone like a Premier Ford
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I shut down the economy, even though I'm a super free market person.
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But going back to your original premise, it's so sad when you see the likes of a Roman
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Baber, Randy Hillier, Belinda Carajolios get kicked out of caucus when they dare to speak
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differently than the politically correct mandated strategy when it comes to the lockdowns.
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And I thought it was very interesting you flagged David Sweet of the Canadian, of the Conservative
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But this is someone really with no skin in the game in terms of repercussions.
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As you mentioned, he's not running in the next election.
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And I thought Aaron O'Toole's response to Mr. Sweet, it was pathetic, Andrew.
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But the part of it that stood out was him basically saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, yeah, we're
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But that's no excuse to lash out in counterproductive ways.
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So he was basically inferring that by speaking against lockdowns, which is, to be honest, the
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definition of productivity, of wanting people to get back to work.
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But by speaking against lockdowns, you're just being counterproductive, basically accusing
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David Sweet of demagoguery for saying that he wants his constituents to be able to keep
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When, just to put that in context, this week, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce found that
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51% of Canadian businesses don't know if they'll be able to last to the end of the year.
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That is a shocking statistic, especially since those are the remaining businesses, Andrew,
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There's some survivor bias there, because these are the ones that survived lockdown 1.0,
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and half of them basically are saying, I don't know.
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But the fact that there's that much uncertainty means that this should not be a fringe position
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You know, you go to jurisdictions like Florida.
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You see people walking around without masks, congregating at beaches, you name it.
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Heck, in February, 25,000 people in Tampa Bay to take in the Super Bowl.
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What I'm asking is that regardless of the cowardice level that we have with our elected representatives
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of every political stripe, of every level here in Canada, when or when do you think we can
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do things like, I don't know, go to a rock concert, get into a jam-packed restaurant again,
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go to a sporting event, when is the cherished old normal going to come back?
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Well, at this point, it doesn't look like there ever will be one.
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And I know that's a very depressing position to put forward.
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And I'm sorry about that because I'm bothered by it as well.
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But we already have Patty Hajdu, the health minister, saying that vaccine passports are
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on the radar for discussion among G7 countries.
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And even if Canada were to decide against a vaccine passport, any destination Canadians
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might want to go to may have a requirement of one.
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And for us to even imagine that there is going to be any such thing as the old normal, this
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is a 9-11 caliber event where all of these things that we once took for granted are reshaped
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and remade in the image of COVID, despite the fact that the threat will have, for the most
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The Ontario Science Table data should have been cause for celebration with medical health
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Instead, I see the likes of Dr. David Williams, Eileen Davila.
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They seem to be of the mindset that until we have 100% vaccination and until the virus is
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100% eradicated, we can't go back to the old normal.
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And those two things are never going to happen, my friend.
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So maybe what you just said is a prophecy that unfortunately might come true.
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I would love to be wrong about this, but the optimism is waning.
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Well, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me here on the Ezreal Event Show and keep fighting
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More of the Ezreal Event Show to come right after this.
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And as Ezra always says, keep fighting for freedom.