SPECIAL! “Fake news,” “feelings” more important than freedom at government media conference
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
171.04857
Summary
Ezra Levant is back in the Potemkin village of free speech. Day two of the so-called "Media Freedom Conference" in London, England is in full swing, and Ezra is here to talk about it.
Transcript
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Day two in the Potemkin village of free speech.
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It's July 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 of a wire publisher
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You know what a Potemkin village is, don't you?
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It's a fake. It's something to show off to foreign media to, well, to lie about the way things really are.
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And that's what this so-called Media Freedom Conference,
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co-sponsored by the governments of Canada and the UK, has been.
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This is the second day of the conference and I am convinced that the purpose of the conference
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is to further the globalist agenda that Justin Trudeau is definitely part of.
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And I'm afraid the United Kingdom must be too, but many others,
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which is to divide the world's media into two parts.
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Those that are controlled and subsidized by government
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and those that are marginalized, demonized and banned by government
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No independent media, no free media, no dissident media,
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How could the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom abide that?
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Well, I'm telling you that for the last 48 hours I've observed it with my own eyes.
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I've listened to dozens, probably two dozen hours of conversations,
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And the ideas of freedom, what it means to be free, have been incidental.
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Maybe 20 minutes out of all the talk I've heard,
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much more common is the talk of banning fake news and disinformation.
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But what is fake news or disinformation other than something someone disagrees with?
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I think the theory of man-made global warming is fake news and disinformation.
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I think the theory of Trump-Russia collusion is fake news,
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But for the official narrative media, that was the truth.
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So what we have here is a media censorship commission
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I want to tell you about one particular moment when I knew this was coming true.
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I actually wasn't there myself, but Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter,
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As you know, Canada's foreign minister, Christy Freeland,
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And there was a gaggle of reporters, including from CTV and Global News
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and other mainstream media who frankly don't have a lot of time for us here at The Rebel.
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So this whole gaggle of Canadian reporters was going in,
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and Sheila and Andrew were there, and they said,
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It's too crowded in here, so two journalists can't make it,
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and those two are you, Sheila, and you, Andrew.
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Oh, my God, it couldn't have been more transparent.
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And in that moment, Christy Freeland showed her true colors at a free speech conference.
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At the conference, moments after giving a lecture to everyone
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about how politicians must respect journalists even if they ask tough questions.
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If that story isn't incredible enough, what happened next was even more amazing.
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Those other mainstream media journalists I just referred to,
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If Sheila and Andrew aren't going in, we aren't going in.
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And not just that, it wasn't just the Canadians.
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A government broadcaster, a government journalist from the state broadcaster of Qatar,
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an odious dictatorship, had more free speech in his blood
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than Christy Freeland, the co-chair of this conference.
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Here, our friend Sheila Gunn-Reed was right there with her camera.
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So, um, Rubber Mail, um, Wobble, um, CTD, Al Jazeera, CBC, and the National Economic Team.
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No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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That's, let's take us to the room, and we can see if we can...
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The worst censor at the conference was Chrystia Freeland, the co-chair.
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The best moment was Canadian journalists who discovered the...
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I was actually invited to be on a panel, sort of a youth journalism panel.
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I don't like when things are artificially divided up at the kids' table and the grown-ups' table,
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And I was invited on a panel at this conference.
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Obviously, they didn't run that by Chrystia Freeland.
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So, I was on it, and I was disappointed at how little, how shallow the roots of free speech are in the millennial generation.
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And I think that the idea of hurt feelings that counterfeit human right not to be offended,
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I'm afraid that's taken deep root even at this conference.
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But I want to tell you a story today that I thought was rather incredible.
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As I mentioned, this was co-sponsored by Canada and the United Kingdom.
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I was told by a staffer there are 900 people working at this conference of 1,000.
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And, you know, there was Brits and there's Americans here and Canadians and other Europeans,
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And I just sat down in a session, and I couldn't even find it on my agenda.
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And I sat down, and I wasn't really paying much attention because I didn't know who I was listening to.
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And I heard him talking about how free the country of Pakistan was.
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Pakistan is a racist, Islamic supremacist country in their constitution.
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You know the case of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who was sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam,
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finally freed and actually came to Canada, if you can believe it.
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The Pakistani foreign minister was a guest of honor speaking on the main stage.
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That thug, and I call him a thug because he's part of the regime.
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It would be like having Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela or Vladimir Putin.
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I mean, they're not completely irredeemable, but to invite the foreign minister of Pakistan as an honored guest,
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And I was listening to him lie about free speech when I knew about Asia Bibi.
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And surely Chrystia Freeland, the foreign minister who welcomed and took a photo op with these people coming from Pakistan,
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Well, I have a little censorship story involving Pakistan.
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It's what I do, and I tweet about many subjects.
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And one day I got an email from Twitter saying the government of Pakistan objected to a tweet I published.
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And so they demanded it be deleted, and Twitter complied.
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And so you've got some thuggish Sharia supremacist in Pakistan telling a company in San Francisco,
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First Amendment free speech jurisdiction, to censor me, a Canadian journalist, in Toronto.
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And that thuggish foreign minister of Pakistan was sitting right on the stage.
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And when you have a careful, nuanced point you want to make, send in Ezra Levant.
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I'm going to ask a question to the Pakistani gentleman.
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Because it's the Media Freedom Conference, and you're not going to shut down questions about a censor.
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I have a Twitter account in Canada, and because I wrote something that produced some Pakistani blasphemy law,
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you complained to Twitter, which took down my tweet in Canada.
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So can you explain why your Islamic supremacy in Pakistan is silencing my personal and journalistic freedom in Canada?
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And I know it happens in the United States, too.
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And frankly, you sure should be embarrassed to invite a censor like this.
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But back to the thought, who the hell are you to censor me in Canada?
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I know you don't, because you don't like free speech.
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First of all, you want your sentiments with a perspective.
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Just look at the tone of the talent you've adopted.
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Shame on you and shame on you for inviting you.
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And what you call freedom at times you are projecting certain sectoral agenda.
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I bet you 200 million Pakistanis wanted to say that to him.
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There were a number of speakers from unfree countries.
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Anyways, as I was walking out, a young Pakistani man came right up to me and wanted to talk to me.
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It was part of the foreign minister's thuggish entourage.
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It was a young reporter who himself had been blackballed by that same foreign minister.
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In fact, he was a TV journalist whose network was taken off the air.
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He was so excited that someone finally held the foreign minister's account.
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Irfan, after I asked the foreign minister a tough question, you came up to me.
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At first, I thought you were maybe an enforcer of his, but the opposite.
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The Pakistani government has censored you too, haven't they?
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You know, the first question which I asked you, the minister, I'm really shocked when coming to this world organization,
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like the conference where the whole world is watching you and putting a show to the world,
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that in Pakistan the media is free, which is not.
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The three channels have been taken off the air, right?
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And this is something really disturbing for all the journalists
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because we don't know where we stand as a free journalist and what we have to do.
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Because the reason was during the time when the PTI government in Pakistan, right,
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The channels in Pakistan were actually showing the street power of PTI without any discrimination
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because everybody has a right to come in the street and talk about this is what happens in democracies.
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But recently, since this government came into power, right,
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most of the media houses in Pakistan are actually controlled in their own way,
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that you cannot show this, you cannot show this.
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The question was, during the press conference of the political rival of the foreign ministers,
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Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Maryam Namaz, who is the daughter of the ex-prime minister in Pakistan, right?
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And during her press conference, these channels have been taken off the air
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because what she was actually coming up with the evidence,
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what exactly happened with that particular judge,
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who actually admitting the fact that the whole deceit in the case of the prime minister of Pakistan
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And tell me, you mentioned just before we turn the camera on that you yourself,
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Yeah, in the most part of the country, 24 News is not live.
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And, you know, it's just more like a censorship which the Pakistan media is actually facing right now.
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How did you feel as a journalist who's been censored by the government of Pakistan
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to see the foreign minister of Pakistan on stage being given the red carpet treatment?
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and if you have to put the ball in somebody else's court, right?
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This is a PEMRA who is doing in Pakistan, the regulatory body in Pakistan.
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Send somebody who is the representative of the PEMRA
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so we can actually address to the people, the right people, the right question,
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I think this absolutely defines the values of the journalism in Pakistan.
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If someone of that level coming to media conferences like this,
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You are on the front lines of free speech, and I hope you stay strong.
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A Pakistani journalist who's looking to the United Kingdom and Canada,
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perhaps for hope, for inspiration as a role model.
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He's invited to this conference where he's told it'll be about media freedom.
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He's a hopeful young Pakistani man who wants our Western values of liberty.
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His jailer, his warden, his punisher, his censor, his bully, his boss, his tyrant, his dictator, his authoritarian.
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And he looks on the stage and he sees the tyrant.
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I think it's important because the kind of camouflage and misdirection and sleight of hand here
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on freedom of speech is exactly what you can expect to be pushed all around the world,
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Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at The Rebel, including over here in London, UK,
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And keep fighting for freedom while you still can.