On April 16th, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris burned to the ground in a massive inferno. What happened? And what does it mean for the future of Canada's premier, Rachel Notley?
00:00:51.360It's April 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:53.920Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:59.740There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:03.820The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:09.660Tonight is the Alberta provincial election, which we have been covering very closely this past month.
00:01:19.880But since this show here airs at 8 p.m. Eastern, which is 6 p.m. in Alberta, and the polls don't close there until two hours later,
00:01:27.800I'm going to talk about something else today since we've pretty much done all of our speculating and guesstimating above the election already.
00:01:34.680I should invite you, though, to join our live results show tonight, which is on YouTube.
00:01:41.100It's free. It's not behind our paywall.
00:01:43.280And it's called a YouTube Super Chat, if you haven't heard about that before.
00:01:46.920While we broadcast live, we'll also have a little live comment section right next to the YouTube screen that we can see in real time.
00:01:54.260And so you send us messages, and we'll surely be responding to your questions and comments as we go.
00:06:20.400But still, it had the gutting, shocking feeling of a sort of 9-11, a symbol of the Christian West itself being burnt.
00:06:28.360Which is why it was no surprise to those of us who follow such things that the Arabic language chat by French Muslims on news pages and Facebook pages was jubilant.
00:06:39.840Look at all these comments from a French news Facebook post.
00:06:43.740All the celebration, all the happy faces, the emojis, the jubilation at the burning of a mighty Christian church.
00:06:53.240They know there's a meaning here more than just bricks and stones.
00:06:57.440Just two months ago, by the way, another mighty French church, Saint-Sulpice, was burnt too.
00:08:19.580Before they even know when there so evidently sometimes is a wolf, when someone calls out Allah Akbar, when an ISIS flag is found, when it's so manifest, we have the reverse of the boy who cries wolf.
00:09:41.100I regret that we will likely never know all the facts.
00:09:43.260We have sent Jack Buckby and Martina Marcotta to Paris to see what they can find and to interview people on the street and see if they can get other interviews and information.
00:10:06.060If you want to help out, you can go to rebelparis.com.
00:10:08.300All their videos will be on that page as well.
00:10:10.680Now, accident or arson, I do not know.
00:10:12.380But I do know that this has caused a hole in the heart of France.
00:10:16.300It is a symbol of decay of the West, how the West is falling, how the West's enemies are jubilant, how a coalition of militant progressives who hate the church from the left are allied with soft or hard jihadists.
00:11:09.460And of course, the Liberals don't care much about it, only having, what is it, one MP from there, if my memory serves.
00:11:17.160But now that Ontario has Doug Ford as the premier, they have a much bigger battle on their hands.
00:11:25.000And in fact, that battle is now being waged in the Ontario Court of Appeal, where the province of Ontario is challenging the constitutionality of Trudeau's carbon tax.
00:11:36.960And I understand there are also interveners in that court from other provinces.
00:11:40.980Well, I'm delighted to say that our friend Andrew Lawton is in the courthouse at the Court of Ontario in downtown Toronto.
00:11:49.700He's been covering it for the True North Report, which is, of course, run by our friend Candace Malcolm.
00:12:14.600I remember you were with me in London, England, live tweeting the trial of Tommy Robinson.
00:12:20.740So I know you're skilled at covering court cases.
00:12:24.420Set the scene for our viewers a little bit.
00:12:27.340How many lawyers, how many parties are there in this courthouse at the Ontario Court of Appeal?
00:12:34.100Well, the event is being held at Osgoode Hall, the actual hearing here.
00:12:39.800And if anyone's ever been to their main courtroom, it has a room that seats a few dozen people.
00:12:44.660But what's interesting is that there are so many lawyers involved that media and the general public have actually been relegated to a different room.
00:12:52.260And there's a video stream that we're watching because there are so many lawyers because of how many parties are involved that are taking up the space in that main room.
00:13:00.500Now, in the actual reference, there are just two parties.
00:13:03.720The government of Ontario and the government of Canada.
00:13:06.360But the interventions are quite significant in this.
00:13:09.480Not only do you have several provinces that are intervening, British Columbia is intervening to support the federal carbon tax.
00:13:16.420And then the governments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick are opposing.
00:13:20.820Another element that I find interesting is that the United Conservatives of Alberta are intervening.
00:13:27.320Now, the Alberta government opted against pursuing intervener status, but the United Conservatives will be presenting their argument tomorrow.
00:13:36.040And the interesting thing about that is that they may find out tonight that they're going to be the government of Alberta,
00:13:42.020which will certainly give the arguments they're planning on putting forward tomorrow a little bit more heft because we'll have yet again another province joining the crusade against Justin Trudeau and his carbon tax.
00:13:54.700Now, of course, as we know, an election happens and the winner of that election, I think, is called the premier designate, sort of like in the States when you win, you're the president elect.
00:14:16.840His party's arguments will have more heft.
00:14:19.680Now, I understand also the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is intervening.
00:14:23.580Are there any other groups intervening on behalf of the tax?
00:14:28.260Well, pretty much everyone is intervening on behalf of the tax, with the exception of the provincial governments I just mentioned
00:14:34.560and the United Conservatives and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:14:38.420A lot of the interveners, there are nine, I believe, are coming at this from a pro-carbon tax perspective.
00:14:44.960You've got the Environmental Defense Initiative.
00:14:47.640You've got the Intergenerational Climate Change Group.
00:14:50.960You've got a lot of the Suzuki Foundation, which I know is one of your favorites, Ezra.
00:14:54.960But you've got all of these groups that are pushing for a carbon tax.
00:14:58.580But what's fascinating about this is that the scope of the discussion was laid out very clearly by both the Canadian government and the Ontario government.
00:15:07.720And that is that we're not debating policy here.
00:15:41.540And whether you agree with a carbon tax or not, what's being discussed here is whether that's the right of the province or the federal government to decide, not whether it's good or bad policy.
00:15:53.600I was watching some reports from the courthouse where it sounds like the federal government and these pro-tax interveners want to talk, you know, like David Suzuki talks, we must save our planet.
00:16:06.400But that's not, you know, we're not having a TV debate here.
00:16:10.140We're not having a presentation to junior high school kids about their feelings.