Rebel Roundup: Guests Ezra Levant, Amanda Head, & Keean Bexte!
Episode Stats
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Summary
Rebel Commander Ezra Levant is back from covering the latest Tommy Robinson trial in which he became a part of the story. He tweets from the proceedings, and is asked not to do so by the presiding judge. And we look back at some of the best commentaries of the week from your favourite rebels.
Transcript
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Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you,
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in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favourite rebels.
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Ezra Levant is just back from the UK where he was covering the latest Tommy Robinson trial,
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a trial in which Ezra himself became part of the story.
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As the dumpster fire known as Lav Scam continues to blaze,
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Justin's loyal liberal minions are touring the Dominion,
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trying to cause distractions to make us all forget about this scandal.
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Well, our Calgary-based rebel, Kian Bextie, doesn't think so.
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And it should go without saying that those who sexually prey on minors
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And that's typically the case, but they do things kind of differently in Hollywood.
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Apparently, perverts are tolerated in Tinseltown,
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as long as they're making money for the studios.
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and I'll share some of your responses regarding our mission to Ottawa on Monday,
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in which we delivered some very stern messages to the Trudeau Liberals
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and it was that I myself became part of the conversation in court.
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But, of course, I came to Peterborough to live-tweet this.
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So I assume what I always do, tweet with my opinions.
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I did it at the Royal Courts of Justice in front of no one less than the Supreme,
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sorry, the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain and of England and Wales himself.
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So, I mean, I've live-tweeted many times from the UK,
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But the judge specifically asked me not to tweet commentary,
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She didn't use that word, but that's what I think journalism is without commentary.
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I said, well, I'm sorry, I don't want to get off side with you, Your Honor.
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Welcome to the increasingly Orwellian United Kingdom,
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a realm in which there are so many severe restrictions
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when it comes to press freedom and freedom of speech and freedom of expression
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that it is almost hard to believe that this nation
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was indeed the birthplace of the Magna Carta some eight centuries ago.
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Indeed, forget about Speaker's Corner these days.
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The authorities are lecturing both the populace and the press
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And what's worse is that too many Britons, it seems,
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are surrendering their rights and freedoms without putting up much of a fuss.
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And with more on his trip across the pond to not-so-jolly-old England
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You went to cover a story and you became part of the story.
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I've been doing it even before Twitter was around.
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I remember I covered a Human Rights Commission case with Mark Stein.
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and writing contemporaneous reports for a decade.
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Last year, I live tweeted from both the Royal Courts of Justice
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So I've been doing this probably half a dozen times.
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They pronounce the little bit, they say Peterborough.
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And occasionally, if there's something that's just so absurd,
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But my main job is just to type as fast as I can.
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I should tell you that in the three days I was over there,
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In fact, the third time, it was almost like she had a hearing.
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It wasn't a hearing, but there was no one else in the court.
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It was the judge, me, the two lawyers, the usher and the clerk.
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It wasn't to rain in your tweets, your coverage,
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based on intimidating a witness, nothing like that.
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It was this fact that you can't apparently cover a UK trial
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First of all, we all watched the footage of the police.
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Just to tell our viewers who don't know what we're talking about,
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they call it football over there, with his kids.
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He took the kids out to a festival or something.
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The kids were in and out, and they played outside.
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So they frog march him down to the railway station.
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And they follow him, videotaping him and his kids.
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And we watched this awful footage of them abusing Tommy's kids.
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Either one, any one of them could break me like that.
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Like, I'm not exactly the toughest guy around, David.
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And the judge said, stop intimidating the police.
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I swear to God, the judge said, stop intimidating the police.
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I said, opinion journalism is a form of journalism.
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And she said, you cannot express an opinion until after I issue my verdict.
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I said, even, does this apply even when I'm not in the court?
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I said, does it apply even after the evidence is done?
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I'm not going to fight it because I don't, first of all, I don't want to be held in contempt of court.
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If I am going to fight that issue, I'll fight it on a time and manner of my choosing.
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I was there to report on Tommy's trial, not to create a trial of my own.
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But I found it extremely depressing that that's the state of journalism in the U.K.
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Tommy Robbins' lawyer was completely in sync with the judge on this.
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I was sitting next to a pretty good guy from the local paper named Freddy.
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So I should have said, well, Freddy, you get probably better pay and better pension if you just become a court stenographer.
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I'm just stunned that the whole place, oh, we just do what we're told around here, mate.
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He was with the local paper and obviously a liberal.
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And I would just sort of- I mean, the guy was sitting right next to me.
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Because when Tommy Robinson himself is on trial, which has happened a fair bit lately,
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the media don't rein in their opinions until the verdict is rendered.
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Yeah, when he's in jeopardy, when he's the bad guy.
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So it's- I think, first of all, they don't believe in free speech over there much.
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And I think, second of all, they're blind to their own double standards.
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There's not a media outlet in the U.K. that didn't have a very strong opinion on Tommy's case
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And there was no judge saying, you stop blogging about Tommy.
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But the first time a blogger blogs about Tommy or tweets about Tommy sympathetically,
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There was a moment where they cleared out the public members of the court
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Well, again, so do the press have special rights that ordinary citizens don't?
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And then they said, okay, take out your journalism cards or licenses.
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And all the journalists, okay, here's my license.
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We're not the freest place in the world, but you don't need a license to be a journalist in Canada.
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And so the judge comes back in and talks to the various people and says,
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I understand you don't have licenses in Canada.
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I'll take your word for that or something like that.
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It's what kind of a people is comfortable requiring journalists to have licenses?
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I understand why you would want a doctor to have a license.
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You don't want a quack doing surgery who doesn't know how to do.
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I understand why you'd probably want some sort of licensing for accountants, pharmacists, lawyers.
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Like there are some real professions out there.
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I think nursing, you probably want some standards, even a vet, a veterinarian.
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You just, journalism, a journalist is someone who does journalism.
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In this day and age, Ezra, the term citizen journalist has come to fruition with social media.
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And they hated that I was doing citizen journalism there and I wasn't bending the knee.
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And by the way, going back to the trial, Ezra, what I found very profound, and God forbid I'm going to utter an opinion here.
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But you mentioned that there was a PC Mason with the other city's police force.
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That was the fans from the other city coming into the town to play football.
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And this guy is a special constable that monitors the behavior of those football fans.
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And he actually said when he was asked if Tommy Robinson was a risk, he said no, which goes completely against the testimony of the cops who arrested him and frog marched him to the train station, as you said.
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Well, you here in Canada today, and we're talking a couple hours before your show goes live to the Internet.
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Right now, literally as we speak, the judge in the UK is releasing her judgment.
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But it was very interesting to learn how they police football games.
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And the teams are very loyal and very cohesive.
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So Tommy's from Luton, and Luton Town's football team, when it travels, Luton police travel with it because they know all the Luton fans and who might get drunk and who might cause trouble and who doesn't.
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So away teams, when they're visiting, like the visiting team, they bring cops with them who are specialists on the football beat.
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And the away team and the home team, a cop from each police force, police together, so they call them spotters.
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You can hit someone with it and force them to leave if there's a risk that they might do something wrong.
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That's what they threatened Tommy with in the pub that day.
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By the way, the pub manager, the landlady, came up to the cops and said, what are you doing?
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So I think I don't want to guess how it's going to go because literally in half an hour we'll find out.
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And I think that the whole system over there has gone so far down the road towards authoritarianism.
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My own small experience fighting for my right to have an opinion.
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Imagine being told you cannot express an opinion on anything in this trial until I say so, says the judge.
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Ezra, Mr. Producer's telling me in my ear we've got to wrap it here.
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But I'll tell you, thanks for your excellent coverage.
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And, folks, please go online, watch Ezra's reports.
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And as Ezra points out, really one of the saddest things is that this is a nation that 80 years ago stood up against the Nazis,
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fought for the rights and freedoms that we have today, and for whatever reason seems so complicit in taking the knee, as Ezra says,
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is to give up those rights and freedoms or at least have them severely curtailed.
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I don't know what the future has in store for the UK as this goes on, but thankfully there are fighters like Tommy Robinson and Ezra Levin standing up for those rights and freedoms.
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More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
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The Liberals have used every parliamentary tactic in the book to stop Jody Wilson-Raybould from finishing her testimony at the Justice and Human Rights Committee.
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You could hear the pleas and the disgust from the opposition members of the Justice Committee
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as partisan hack Liberal Anthony Housefather slit the throat of the final attempt to have Jody Wilson-Raybould respond to the spin and the rhetoric from top Liberal bureaucrats like Gerald Butts.
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It's clear that the Liberals are doing everything that they can to stop Canadians from hearing anything more about the SNC scandal that Justin Trudoso desperately wants covered up before the election.
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At a distraction announcement in Calgary, Minister Champagne took questions from the media,
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where I was able to ask him if he thinks Jody Wilson-Raybould should be allowed to return to committee to testify.
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Can you tell me, do you think that Jody Raybould-Wilson should be allowed to go testify in committee again,
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Well, I would say that for now, I think we have been able to listen to a number of witnesses.
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What I take away from these testimonies is that the Prime Minister and his words in action always stayed within the bound of what was legal,
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that every member of his staff understood there was a line not to be crossed.
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And the most recent testimony, what I take away is that the Prime Minister had the 9,000 jobs in mind,
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two-thirds of them are across Canada, one turn in Quebec, that he had done in mind,
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and that at the end, what Gerald Butts was looking for in other staffers was to get a second opinion.
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Well, don't know about you folks, but last time I saw so much spin occurring,
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it was during a four-player game of battle and tops.
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Which is to say, so much for Justin Trudeau's 2015 promises of sunny ways and transparency,
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and claims that this bunch of liberals, well, they weren't going to be like, you know, the other guys.
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Indeed, as Justin works on his tan lines and builds sandcastles on some Floridian beach,
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his hapless foot soldiers are out on the hustings trying to convince Canadians that
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everything about the SNC-Lavalin affair is not scandalous.
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But unless you're a die-hard liberal supporter, or you just recently underwent a lobotomy,
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very few are buying what these guys are selling.
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And with more on that raging lav scam dumpster fire that refuses to go away,
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Now, so, Kian, that interview you did with Francois-Philippe Champagne,
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Just looking at his body language and his facial expressions,
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it's clear to me, at least, that not even Minister Champagne believes a word of what he's saying.
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So, if that's the case, what makes him think that anyone else is buying this rubbish?
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And the evidence on social media speaks for itself.
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People are interested to hear what Jody Wilson-Raybould has to say.
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they want to know what Justin Trudeau said in those days,
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what Justin Trudeau and top liberal bureaucrats like Gerald Butz and Michael Wernick said,
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in those days where she had her testimony restricted,
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And the fact that Justin Trudeau is using his henchmen in that committee to stop her from speaking
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tells us that there's some stuff to figure out still,
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So, it might do more harm than good to do what they're doing here.
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And, you know, Kean, I think you nailed it there.
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And, I mean, you rhetorically asked in your commentary what exactly is Justin Trudeau hiding.
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And, I mean, given what Jody Wilson-Raybould has already said
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and how damning it was, at least from an ethical and moral perspective,
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What do you think that she has that could be even more damaging than what she's already stated?
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I think that the most damaging thing that could come out of this is more evidence
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that Justin Trudeau is using this with personal partisan politics in mind.
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So, and we heard brief glimpses of that when they were talking about 9,000 jobs
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and, oh, but Justin Trudeau's writing is in Quebec,
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and they should consider that in their decision.
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I think that more political decision-making when it comes to this delayed prosecution
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would be the worst thing for Trudeau, for sure.
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And, you know, Kian, you mentioned again that number, 9,000 jobs,
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and we read and hear and see that number over and over.
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I mean, just last week in Toronto on a local radio station,
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I heard a liberal spin doctor being interviewed,
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He said, well, whether it's 9,000 jobs or 5,000 jobs,
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You just almost halved the number to 5,000 from 9,000.
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who came up with that number and has it been fact-checked?
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and I almost guarantee you it hasn't been fact-checked,
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First off, they're not supposed to use that as a consideration with deferred prosecutions.
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And when they keep saying that over and over and over again,
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it shows how out of touch they are with their own laws.
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Secondly, if you go and watch that interview that I did with Champagne,
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you could tell that the PMO sent him his talking points for when he came to Alberta,
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It was, as you know, there was 9,000 jobs on the line,
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and two-thirds of them were not even in Quebec.
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So, you know, they're trying to make it sound like it's this real national issue, right,
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It's a couple thousand jobs that wouldn't even necessarily be lost,
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and those jobs shouldn't even be in consideration
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when they're making delayed prosecution agreements.
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And you can tell that they're using this as a tool for their election
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to make it sound like they're standing up for Canadians.
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It's sad, really, how he's using this as an excuse.
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I think you hit two nails on the head right there, Kian.
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i.e. turn a blind eye to this because there's many jobs at stake,
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Mr. Champagne, who is the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities,
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he seems very concerned about these alleged 9,000 jobs.
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Two-thirds that he pointed out to you were outside Quebec.
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when it comes to what's happening in the oil patch?
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It's a greater number than 9,000 jobs at stake.
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And it's pipeline paralysis by their own inaction
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when it comes to the jobs and the well-being of Albertans?
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Well, it's clear that there's two tiers of workers here in Canada.
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and people that can benefit Trudeau politically.
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And then there's workers who, even if, you know,
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a couple of them started voting for the Liberals,
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And you can tell in every action that this government takes
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from purchasing out a pipeline to the carbon tax,
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it's clear that he doesn't care about Alberta being successful anymore.
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And with Alberta's success comes Canada's success,
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And, you know, Kian, and that's the thing, isn't it?
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I mean, I don't want to sound too cynical here,
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but the West is a write-off for the Liberal Party of Canada.
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Part of their power base, and it was always thus, is Quebec.
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And so when we're talking about job preservation,
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let's not kid the kidders, as they say down at the Kearney.
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This is about preserving Liberal MP jobs in Quebec,
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Like, I don't understand how Trudeau can morally stand up for this company,
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You don't see oil sands companies doing that here in Alberta,
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And, you know, and you bring up a very interesting point there, too,
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That, like, circus sidebar story to this whole scandal,
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that SNC-Lavalin put up, what was it, $30,000, I think,
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to procure prostitutes for Gaddafi's son while in Canada.
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First of all, I'm really interested to find out
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how much service $30,000 in prostitution gets you these days.
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is this is a prime minister who declares himself a feminist,
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and much of the feminist narrative is that, you know,
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prostitution, that's kind of a form of human trafficking,
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and, you know, it's something that women who are desperate,
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to a company, rather, that facilitates this kind of behavior?
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Prostitution, you know, it facilitates human trafficking,
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It is a very, very bad industry to be involved in,
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has indicated that she's still going to run as a liberal,
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so that she does not sign her nomination papers
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and thank you again for another excellent commentary.
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including the two men in the recent HBO documentary
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have testified in defense of Michael Jackson in the past.
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when it was announced that Michael Jackson had died,
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but there have been numerous allegations over the years
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about a life of drugs and orgies with the director.
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to still get their pound of flesh out of Singer.