John Bolton - April 08, 2026


You ARE the Media - Have a VOICE & Be HEARD (with Jason Lavigne)


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

217.76826

Word count

1,934

Sentence count

90

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of The Big Blue Mug of Coffee, Jon is joined by Jason Levine of The Levine Show to talk about the upcoming event, "Bearing Witness" in Red Deer, Alberta on April 11th.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel Wednesday, April the 8th.
00:00:06.800 I hope you're having a great day today with the big blue mug of coffee, of course, which
00:00:11.520 I tipped to you today, joined by our friend Jason Levine from The Levine Show.
00:00:17.300 Once again, talking about something I think is very important, Jason doing just fantastic
00:00:22.720 work, bringing so many great people together with varying opinions on things.
00:00:27.200 Jason, Jason, you've got an event coming up this coming Saturday, April the 11th in Red Deer, which you've invited me to come out and speak at.
00:00:34.620 Thank you so much for doing that.
00:00:36.440 It's called Bearing Witness.
00:00:39.080 And I have an interesting perspective on this being in broadcasting, Jason, since all the mid-80s.
00:00:44.900 Things have changed a lot since then, for sure.
00:00:47.080 I'm retired from broadcasting.
00:00:48.860 What is Bearing Witness about?
00:00:50.440 And tell us about some of the amazing people you've got speaking at this event.
00:00:54.760 thank you very much john for having me on today bearing witness is an act it's a civil act of
00:01:00.840 paying attention to history as it unfolds in front of you recording it sharing it and making
00:01:07.020 sure that people understand what's going on around us this is a duty actually i believe citizens have
00:01:12.560 in the past things like you know they'll say snitches get stitches you got to be quiet there's
00:01:19.820 a bit of a culture that you don't speak up you kind of be quiet and don't talk about things i
00:01:24.120 would like to change that. I think what we need is a lot of people to become whistleblowers,
00:01:28.060 record history, and share it. So this is what bearing witnesses in its fundamental form is to
00:01:33.880 encourage people to do exactly that. Just before we talk about some of the great guests you've got,
00:01:38.020 because you've got some big names coming out to this. You know, I've said on occasion,
00:01:43.040 people have these things right now. You basically got a television studio in your pocket now. This
00:01:47.340 is really a remarkable thing to have. And anybody that has one of these nowadays has a voice and
00:01:54.100 can bear witness right absolutely correct and there's an entire chapter in my book which is
00:01:59.600 also titled bearing witness which covers how you use your phone to do exactly what you just said
00:02:04.560 there is to record the history we talked about how to make sure that you're ready for the courts
00:02:09.280 how to stay out of the situation because the last thing the jury needs to see is you as a witness
00:02:14.560 yelling at the police officer as they're doing something improper it's very important for us to
00:02:19.800 use the technology around us, stay safe, and ensure that whatever we're capturing is useful
00:02:24.740 going forward, whether it's the courts or in media itself. So this is a live event. We'll
00:02:29.600 give people details on how to get tickets in just a moment. You will be, I think, streaming this as
00:02:34.360 well. So if you can't make it to Red Deer, you can watch it online. We'll give details on that as
00:02:38.680 well. Some of the names you've got coming out. You've got Stockwell Day there, a former leader
00:02:43.480 of the Alliance, Canadian Alliance from early 2000s, if I remember correctly. Boy, it's a long
00:02:49.300 time ago now. And of course, he worked with Stephen Harper and a number of different portfolios
00:02:53.700 with Stephen Harper. Viva Fry, I guess, if it's one person that I can think of that as bearing
00:02:59.860 witness would be Viva Fry, because he came to my consciousness during the convoy a number of years
00:03:04.520 ago. And what he did was he bared witness just by going down and talking to people, unlike the
00:03:08.800 mainstream media, which was just astounding. Frances Widdowson will be there, who has been,
00:03:14.160 people are trying to cancel her for telling the truth regarding the residential school
00:03:18.700 grave hoax. You've got Derek Smith on Unacceptable Fringe, Bird of Proud Dad will be there.
00:03:24.720 I met Ken Drysdale on your channel the other day and others. Just an amazing group of people,
00:03:29.160 Jason. Congratulations to you. No, thank you very much. And I think what you highlighted there,
00:03:34.420 there are a bunch of courageous people who did something like pick up a microphone,
00:03:37.880 pick up their phone, or just put a billboard on themselves and stand in public to try and
00:03:42.220 share the truth. And this is why this group was collected in this particular conversation.
00:03:48.020 It's because I want to encourage people to do something like that.
00:03:50.400 Grab your microphone, grab your phone, or go stand in a corner and talk to people.
00:03:54.560 I think it's very important.
00:03:55.880 And I'm really happy and excited that they all came together.
00:03:59.020 Viva is going to be the only one that's going to be doing it virtually.
00:04:01.540 He tried to come up here, just couldn't make a fitness schedule.
00:04:04.480 But he's excited to share his experience at the convoy,
00:04:07.440 why he felt compelled to get out of there with his phone.
00:04:10.160 And I think you're absolutely right.
00:04:11.360 I think Viva was one of the ones who ensured that the government didn't get away
00:04:15.200 with the narrative that they tried to push on us.
00:04:17.540 about the Nazi flags and the racists and beating up people in the streets,
00:04:20.940 because we got to see it.
00:04:22.740 And that's what Barry Winick was all about.
00:04:24.680 You can't hide the truth when it's streamed live.
00:04:27.000 It's there.
00:04:28.000 You either see it or you don't.
00:04:29.540 Viva, I think, was living in Montreal at the time and went into Ottawa.
00:04:32.580 I think he's moved down.
00:04:33.480 He's escaped Canada. 0.57
00:04:35.160 Lucky him, in a way.
00:04:36.860 I love living here in Alberta, but he has escaped Canada.
00:04:39.980 But yeah, you've got a great group of people.
00:04:41.600 And you've got Stockwell Day coming out.
00:04:44.180 Politician.
00:04:45.280 Do you have any idea what his message might be when it comes to bearing witness?
00:04:49.340 Well, he does have a daily podcast, too.
00:04:51.780 So that's why he was invited, because he does do his daily show with Stockwell Day.
00:04:56.200 I think it's a great little thing he's put together.
00:04:59.200 And I wanted to have a whole spectrum of people there.
00:05:02.840 We got some young YouTubers.
00:05:04.400 We got some middle-aged guys like myself.
00:05:06.500 And then we got Stockwell, who's seen a lot.
00:05:08.540 And I'm sure he's going to share with us how the government has interfered with media, how it's all changed.
00:05:14.620 and why he felt compelled he needed to pick up a microphone and start talking as well yeah yeah
00:05:19.180 and you've got you've got another group you forgot about the older guys like me you know who just
00:05:23.180 got into this about a year or so ago so you've got a live event here people can pick up tickets for
00:05:28.220 this uh or you can watch it online but want to fill the room in red deer how are ticket sales
00:05:32.540 going and if there are some tickets left how can people get them and meet all these wonderful people
00:05:37.900 well to find the streaming platform and to get tickets you can go to thelevineshow.com both are
00:05:42.860 available there there are some tickets available as well i would encourage people to hurry up
00:05:47.820 because the last couple days is where it picks up yeah they're only 30 online or 40 at the door
00:05:53.420 uh and we're also doing a free screening of the shot my movie that i'm traveling around canada
00:05:58.300 right now uh showing as well so if you if you can't make it to the main event come at 3 30 you
00:06:03.660 can watch the shot there's no ticket for that you can come on in but if you want to catch the entire
00:06:08.300 event you can be there at 9 30 40 at the door 30 online yeah tell people you're you're all over
00:06:14.680 social media you do a little bit of everything you're nice enough to have me on your show a
00:06:19.100 couple of times the levine show um i i always push people over towards youtube we hope people will
00:06:24.180 follow you wherever you may be go over and follow the levine show on youtube tell us a little bit
00:06:29.860 about your program what you do with your wonderful wife paula by the way uh tell us about that and
00:06:34.080 why people should come visit you on a regular basis oh thanks for that john yeah each morning
00:06:38.700 my wife and i get together we do a show called tea and coffee with paul and jay she likes her tea i
00:06:43.920 like my coffee we start bright and early at 7 a.m and what we do is we will talk about our lives and
00:06:49.840 our homestead and our children for the first 10 minutes we call that the martin update because
00:06:54.540 one of our viewers his name is martin and he's always very curious on how things are going on
00:06:58.580 the homestead right the next 20 minutes will be the news of the day what's happened over the last
00:07:03.000 24 hours. We'll go through my Twitter feed and talk about various events and things that are
00:07:07.600 going on. And then the last half an hour, we have a guest that would show up or two as we talk to
00:07:12.780 various people. We've had over about 900 people now on our show over the last three years to have
00:07:17.700 conversations. And then after that, we move over to our subscriber section where we spend a little
00:07:22.600 bit of extra time with people who join us in our members area, locals, where we have less,
00:07:28.380 uh more hair more laid back there's hair down uh conversation things that doesn't necessarily get
00:07:34.720 into the public like mitch sylvester coming on talking about what he's working on so you go
00:07:38.960 ahead and check that out all of that's available on the levine show.com and you like to provide a
00:07:42.820 different perspective uh your wife um it's interesting i think you guys are kind of getting
00:07:46.960 off the grid where you live as well and your wife has it's got a bit of an accent so i think she
00:07:51.300 brings a little different perspective to things as well doesn't she it's a great show and we want
00:07:55.440 people to go over there and subscribe to you and be part of what you're doing as well thanks for
00:07:59.220 doing what you do here uh you're always doing events like this it's just remarkable that you
00:08:03.280 can bring all of these diverse you can use the word diverse in this situation diverse voices
00:08:08.880 together uh to have an event like this coming uh this coming saturday the 11th this is happening
00:08:13.500 at the legacy center one england way and red deer go to the levine show.com to get get tickets jason
00:08:19.680 always a pleasure safe travels out there i know you're not uh not around right now but thanks
00:08:23.860 again for this. My pleasure. I'm leaving Kelowna to Vancouver, where I'm heading off to Nanaimo
00:08:29.660 to do another showing of the shot. I'll be back home in time for the event, which I'm putting on
00:08:34.860 on Saturday. Well, if we don't see you here, we'll send out a posse. Okay. Thanks again.
00:08:40.060 Thank you very much, John. Thanks for your time today, and God bless.
00:08:42.360 Thanks very much. Please go over and be part of what Jason's doing. If you like this video,
00:08:48.020 please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell for notifications.
00:08:51.280 I'll see you in the next one.