00:08:05.980And Michel Cormier, who is the executive who runs the government agency called the Debates Commission, he said to Parliament the other day that our questions were, quote, peripheral.
00:08:17.560Well, who says? I mean, there are different questions. They're relevant.
00:08:22.480But even if they were peripheral and unrelated to the election, so what? It's a right to ask them.
00:08:28.540And really, one day, every four years, we get to put a question to Mark Carney, because he hides and he bans us, even though he's made promises to allow independent journalists, and he doesn't.
00:08:40.000What's crazy to me is that one question every four years is too much for this system to happen, and they all circle the wagons to try to expel us.
00:08:48.740And here's the crazy thing that I think everyone should know.
00:08:52.360The government nationalized leaders' debates.
00:08:57.200And since they can't keep out independent journalists from Juno or Rebel or anyone else anymore, because two federal courts in a row said they couldn't, what's their proposal?
00:09:08.840Their proposal is to shut down the Q&A altogether.
00:09:12.720Since they can't keep out the ones they don't like, you, me, Drea Humphrey, Kian Bextie, et cetera, they would rather shut it all down during the election.
00:09:24.420Their job was to promote debate, to allow Canadians to learn more, but they would rather
00:10:37.920Like our entire society lost its mind and suddenly decided that men can become women,
00:10:41.800and it's totally fine for guys to go into female locker rooms,
00:10:44.860totally fine for guys to play in girls' sports.
00:10:46.640Like, those are important questions, not just to me as a conservative, but really to Canadians all over the country. The media make the debates so narrow that they're almost irrelevant, right? So the fact that you do have a bunch of kind of like wild, maverick-type reporters getting up there willing to ask tough questions, and to point, yeah, actually, Mark Carney handled it pretty well. That kind of showed a bit of his character, which again is the point of the debate, right?
00:11:10.720So we have this stuffy, elite class of journalists that want to dictate what the country cares about.
00:11:18.120But the country doesn't really care about those things, right?
00:11:20.460And so I think it's just so important that we have the media there.
00:11:23.240And I think it's so telling how the legacy media reacted.
00:11:26.220I have a little montage here, as you're going to enjoy this, of just how the CBC reacted, how the journalists just melted down.
00:11:32.720And they just couldn't believe their own eyes that free-thinking people were allowed to ask questions.
00:11:39.060The post-debate scrums were dominated by right-wing media groups who flooded leaders with questions on topics unrelated to the debate.
00:11:46.720I think the debate commission is going to need to be accountable for what's kind of happening here.
00:11:51.820They've opened up the scrums and the press access to a bunch of groups who sometimes are registered charities or have been defined by their owner as not actually a journalistic organization or have been ruled by the federal court to not be a journalistic organization.
00:12:04.500True North is a very right-wing website, and there have been issues in the past with who gets allowed into these scrums and who's allowed to ask questions of the leaders. The Debates Commission was the one who decided that these people were allowed to come in and ask these kinds of questions.
00:12:24.060At one point, when some of those last questions came up, I just checked to make sure, yeah, no, we're in Canada.
00:12:30.160Imagine the chutzpah, that they, that those losers, those government regime journalists, all taking a paycheck from Karani, by the way, imagine the audacity that they get to decide what is or isn't a relevant question.
00:12:42.640what we, I mean, hey, ask your own questions. We'll ask our, I would never say, how dare the
00:12:49.540CBC talk about global warming? I would just roll my eyes. But they fancy themselves something
00:12:55.260superior. Hey, I saw an ad, sort of an old timey Instagram channel of things in Canadiana in the
00:13:03.940past. And it was an ad in 1974 for CBC's The National. And back in 1974, when Canada's
00:13:11.800population was about half of what it is now. They were getting 2 million views a night. They were
00:13:17.720boasting about this in their ad for The National. These days, the numbers are so low, they don't
00:13:21.800release them. The last numbers I saw were that the CBC's The National gets about 250,000 views.
00:13:27.980So Canada's population has doubled, but the viewership of CBC has fallen from 2 million
00:13:33.620to 250,000. And I think that the smaller it gets, the more strident they become and the more
00:13:42.160Canadians just don't even pay attention. In their last report to Parliament, the CBC boasted that
00:13:47.3204.2% of Canadians watch them on TV. 95% of people don't. It's a bit of chutzpah that they regard
00:13:56.720themselves as the keepers of the debate. No one even cares about the CBC. We're just forced to
00:14:02.340pay for them. Well, that's how I felt. I felt that the debate itself was just kind of predictable
00:14:07.340and boring. And all the questions were already things that the politicians talked about day in
00:14:12.140and day out on the campaign. So they all had their scripted response, right? And so the part that was
00:14:16.540interesting and unique was the thing that we added to the end to make them think on their feet and
00:14:22.520answer questions that they feel uncomfortable doing. As we saw, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh
00:14:27.080couldn't even do that, right? He just had to go to, I don't answer your questions. And then of
00:14:31.340course, yeah, the CBC's response there. I mean, especially knowing now what we know, Ezra, about
00:14:36.360how these two individuals, David Cochran and Rosemary Barton, are like bullying and gatekeeping
00:14:42.080inside the CBC. Remember, Travis Dan Roche had that explosive testimony where he disclosed that
00:14:46.860those two are kind of like hated within the CBC. And yet they were saying like, you know, this is
00:14:53.420peripheral or this is outside the topic of the debate. That was a point, right? The debate was
00:14:57.720boring and all the questions were really predictable and our questions were not. So isn't
00:15:02.900that what the scrum is supposed to be? And then them trying to police us saying, oh, True North
00:15:07.220is very right-wing. It's a very right-wing website. And oh, they're a charity, therefore
00:15:11.460they can't do news. I mean, come on, give me a break. But the news that made us talk about this
00:15:17.440today, Ezra, is the fact that the debates commissioner appeared in parliament. You referenced
00:15:22.560that he was speaking to committee and he has made his recommendation that canada cancel the media
00:15:28.960scrums so they want to continue to have this government funded debate structure and that the
00:15:35.920idea is because the government's paying for it all canadians are supposed to have access to it
00:15:40.000it's not just you know hosted by one outlet like if it was only hosted by global maybe it would
00:15:44.400only be accessed by global news uh journalists and that might not be fair to the other journalists so
00:15:49.520you know they had this government structure so that all journalists could have access
00:15:52.640rosemary barton said the debates commissioner were the ones that let us in not true it was
00:15:56.400actually the judge that ordered them to let us in because they tried to not let us in and then
00:16:00.080the judge came in and said actually canada's a free society with a free press and these are
00:16:03.840journalists they have you know there's a free speech right to go in um and so the the solution
00:16:09.360after a year of hawing and humming and thinking it through is just to scrap it so i want to just
00:16:15.280play this quick clip of michael cormier recommending that they get rid of this whole
00:16:19.760thing um this is for march 12 2026 this is sought three where cormier is questioning like what is
00:16:25.440a journalist well we're not supposed to be the ones that determine that and he basically just
00:16:28.880says that the post scrum was counterproductive as well so this raises an issue that goes beyond the
00:16:36.240commission what or who makes up a journalist some have told us that we don't have the authority to
00:16:46.080decide and so we have a very large definition of a journalist and we include different models of
00:16:55.840journalism but during the last election it created a problematic environment for a lot of journalists
00:17:05.120and it also raised issues with press conferences that were counterproductive
00:17:13.360they were not productive for anyone i disagree i thought they were super productive but ezra
00:17:18.560what did you make of that whole thing i just love that line it created a problematic environment
00:17:24.160for a lot of journalists so other people who were watching other journal founded a problem
00:17:32.640that we were asking our questions and i just just turn that over in your brain for for a couple of
00:17:39.640times look let's say every single thing they said about us was true that we were peripheral that we
00:17:44.600were right wing that we're not real journalists etc okay so what like why why are you in such a
00:17:51.500tizzy it's because they believe in their mind that they are this elite like like an oracle or a high
00:17:58.340priest a society they think they're like a profession that you have to beg to enter like
00:18:03.620an ancient guild and we are outsiders who are peasants and we don't have their aristocracy
00:18:09.300like they actually think there's some priestly class with some magic by the way the reason why
00:18:16.240Juno and Rebel are successful and the reason our questions are interesting is because the
00:18:20.820regime media has not done a good job they haven't vetted Mark Carney they didn't vet Justin Trudeau
00:18:26.000we didn't have a chance to put a question to Carney directly, but my question to him would
00:18:31.060have been, do you still have three passports and why? If I had a follow-up and it would have been,
00:18:35.900what was the residence in your last tax return? Is that why you had an Irish passport? Why are
00:18:41.300you still holding hundreds of millions of dollars in stock? I mean, those are basic vetting
00:18:48.320questions, so simple, not right-wing, just who are you, Mark Carney? You've come back to Canada
00:18:54.420after a decade away. None of those basic vetting questions. And that's what terrifies the other
00:19:01.020journalists, that we might have a real question better than them. We might show what real
00:19:04.960accountability journalism looks like. We might actually get a scoop. Like, literally, why would
00:19:10.940they care that once every four years we put a question? Last point, you know, you mentioned
00:19:15.800Andrew Lawton, and I used to see him in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum when we
00:19:19.900would go every january he did such a great job there and this january we were in davos again
00:19:25.640and in a 24-hour span i scrummed justin trudeau for about 10 minutes which was pretty fun christia
00:19:32.160freeland for about the same melanie jolie briefly and francois philippe champagne i talked to four
00:19:38.320cabinet ministers or one former pm in a day that was more access than i had in 10 years to the
00:19:47.300liberal government. And it's because the police in Davos don't block journalists. They only stop
00:19:53.340you if you're a threat or something. And obviously we weren't. So isn't it funny that we have to go
00:19:58.180halfway across the world to put a question to our own cabinet ministers? And by the way,
00:20:01.900our questions were good, if I may. And there's something really creepy about Canada. It's really
00:20:07.960banana republic-ish, where the government pays the regime journalists and keeps out. I've always
00:20:14.260said, soon in Canada, there will only be two types of journalists, those paid by the government and
00:20:20.460those banned by the government. And we're pretty close to it. It's really unbelievable. And I mean,
00:20:25.940to your point, you ask great questions. We loved your questions in Davos. It's so outrageous that
00:20:31.540you weren't able to ask those questions on home soil that you had to go abroad. I want to go back
00:20:37.240to Drea Humphries, your journalist, because she raised a question that to many Canadians, Ezra,
00:20:42.240this is the most important question. This is sort of when our country really started unraveling. Yes,
00:20:47.080it happened during COVID as well. But the moral panic over the unmarked graves, which has broadly
00:20:52.380turned out to be a hoax, right? And so Drea Humphries had the foresight to ask that question
00:20:57.420during the debate. We showed it to you a minute earlier. I just want to throw to Rosemary Barton
00:21:01.860again. This is CBC's chief political commentator. And this is how she reacts. She's almost in tears,
00:21:07.040right? She doesn't want to talk about this. The questions that the rebel and the Juneau News
00:21:11.000think up this specifically the rebel it causes them so much anxiety and consternation they just
00:21:18.500can't handle it so she has to jump in and accuse drea of trafficking misinformation and then making
00:21:24.460a false claim let's roll this clip this is thought 10 rebel news in particular traffics and
00:21:29.180misinformation facts uh lack of facts and uh as you heard in that question which was uh woven with
00:21:36.120some truth and some things that weren't true. Yes, there have been burnings of Christian Catholic
00:21:41.700churches. Yes, there have been remains of Indigenous children found in various places
00:21:47.380around the country, which she misrepresented. So I don't know, maybe Rosemary doesn't just,
00:21:52.640she doesn't know the issue. She doesn't have her facts straight because the CBC issued a rare
00:21:57.060correction, Ezra. 24 hours later, this appeared on the CBC News website. As CBC News has reported
00:22:04.200on multiple occasions, what several indigenous communities across Canada have discovered on the
00:22:09.480site, former residential schools are potential burial sites and unmarked graves. So no, they
00:22:14.620haven't found remains. Actually, no remains have been found in the places where they were alleged
00:22:19.320Rosemary doesn't have her facts, or she just was hoping to push government propaganda and hope that
00:22:24.280she wasn't caught. And then they quietly put this correction at the bottom. Again, this is why
00:22:29.120these debates are so important because we are getting the facts out there. And while many people
00:22:34.240will listen to Rosemary, although to your point earlier, not as many as they would like, right,
00:22:38.080the CBC numbers have plummeted. But the fact that that is now on the record, I think is helpful.
00:22:42.460What do you think? Yeah, Rosemary Barton hosts a show called At Issue, where they have a panel
00:22:46.820with the entire political spectrum from A to B. It's the same three tired voices in Ottawa,
00:22:53.080Montreal, and Toronto, Althea Raj, Andrew Coyne, and Chantal Ibert. It's a hermetically sealed
00:22:58.660world. And when I say the spectrum from A to B, it's sort of a joke, but they do not allow rogue
00:23:03.880opinions on anything important, whether it's the medical assistance in dying or life issues or
00:23:08.940firearms ownership or Donald Trump or global warming or any of these, or truckers. You're
00:23:14.560just not allowed to have a different opinion. And they're so terrified that in a, what's a wrong
00:23:21.740think, that's what Orwell could be terrified that a wrong think idea might penetrate their defensive
00:23:26.920Shield, and one of their viewers might say, hey, what was that you just said? I didn't know that.
00:23:32.260Are you saying 100 churches were vandalized or burned? I didn't know that. I'm going to look
00:23:36.560into that myself, and I'm going to start Googling because I can't find that news in the CBC.
00:23:41.500They need everyone to be in this false consciousness, and COVID was the best example
00:23:47.380of that. No one was allowed to even dissent, and by the way, that seeped into YouTube and other
00:23:51.960places. They needed the pretense of unanimity. They needed everyone to think, everyone agrees,
00:23:58.080I can't dissent. That's why they're panicking, because we had the national audience there for
00:24:04.160a moment, maybe a million people watching live, and they heard for the first time questions they
00:24:09.880didn't hear anywhere else. That's actually why they were terrified. Partly, it's personal distaste
00:24:14.700for us. Partly, it's professional rivalry. But I think mainly it's ideologically, they could not
00:24:20.840allow a mind virus to be planted that hey think for yourself maybe the cbc isn't telling you the
00:24:26.760whole story a hundred percent okay as we're going to take a minute to talk about the sponsor of
00:24:31.160today's episode which is the news cruise and i'm very excited to announce that this news cruise
00:24:35.720is a joint rebel juno news venture we are going on a cruise november 28th to december 5th 2026 so
00:24:42.120just the next winter but this same calendar year in the eastern caribbean leaving from fort
00:24:47.720lauderdale you can go get your tickets come on this cruise kian bexy is going to be there
00:24:52.520ezra you're going to be there go to thenewscruise.com so it's thenewscruise.com follow that
00:24:58.840link go get it go get a cabin go go have a vacation if you can have a vacation you might as well
00:25:03.080surround yourself with like-minded canadians you want to meet people who share your ideas share
00:25:07.640your values and you get to hang out with some of your favorite journalists ezra what a great idea
00:25:11.720i remember i went on one of these with you oh gosh i don't know i guess it was a decade ago now
00:25:15.720But I still keep in touch with many of the people that I met on that cruise and still
00:25:19.740sort of have friends that I keep in contact with.
00:25:21.800So why don't you tell us a little bit about this cruise?