Juno News - January 26, 2021


Unmasking the Great Reset

Topics
Great Reset
Mentioned
Justin Trudeau Ezra Levant Yassine Dubey COVID-19 Catherine McKenna Sopranos Donald Trump Andre Picard Patty Haydew Patty Hajdu Doug Ford Zoom Rima Burns McGowan Merrilee Fullerton Chrystia Freeland Antonio Guterres Sven Spengerman Aaron Rosenberg Woodrow Wilson Pierre Poilievre and 7 more
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies Ezra Levant on being fined for writing a book about Justin Trudeau

Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

179.54

Word count

5,320

Sentence count

352

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Coming up, the Liberals embrace the Great Reset they told us was a conspiracy theory, facts and coverage, and Elections Canada s blow against press freedom. The Andrew Lawton Show hits the reset on another episode of the program.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:06.700 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.720 Coming up, the Liberals embrace the Great Reset they told us was a conspiracy theory,
00:00:17.420 facts and COVID coverage, and Elections Canada's blow against press freedom.
00:00:24.120 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:30.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:33.480 This is the Andrew Lawton Show on True North.
00:00:35.720 We are hitting the reset on another episode of the program.
00:00:39.480 Perhaps it will even be a great reset.
00:00:42.560 Who the heck knows?
00:00:44.460 In any case, my thanks to you all.
00:00:46.840 This is a big week if you are paying attention to the world that the global elites are trying to create for you
00:00:52.880 because this is the virtual Davos Agenda Summit put on by the World Economic Forum.
00:00:59.180 Normally, all of the elites and world leaders would be hobnobbing in the Swiss Alps,
00:01:03.860 but right now they have to slum it by doing it on Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:01:09.860 But nevertheless, the Davos Agenda this week aims to put forward the Great Reset Initiative.
00:01:16.160 It is, according to the World Economic Forum,
00:01:18.560 the official launch of this Great Reset Initiative that purports to create a new form of capitalism
00:01:25.920 and take advantage of the fact that the pandemic has just devastated the economy
00:01:30.860 to rebuild the world in the image that people like Klaus Schwab and the UN
00:01:35.780 and all of these other organizations and individuals tend to want,
00:01:39.480 a world that they have not yet succeeded at putting into place without the pandemic.
00:01:43.940 The problem is that people on the left insist that it is a conspiracy theory to talk about the Great Reset,
00:01:50.800 even though it's the name of a book and it has its own website
00:01:54.540 and the World Economic Forum is entirely proud of the Great Reset Initiative.
00:01:59.700 This is what came up when Justin Trudeau indicated that he wanted to partake in a little bit of a reset.
00:02:05.540 Remember this?
00:02:06.380 This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset.
00:02:09.820 This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems
00:02:15.520 that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change.
00:02:21.640 And then, of course, people like Conservative MP Pierre Polyev rightfully draw attention to it,
00:02:26.780 point out the similarities between Trudeau's reset rhetoric and Klaus Schwab's reset rhetoric,
00:02:31.620 and then Trudeau accuses them of peddling conspiracy theories.
00:02:35.880 The difficult moments we're in, it's nice to be able to try and find someone to blame,
00:02:41.320 something to point to, something to get mad at.
00:02:43.740 I think we're seeing a lot of people fall prey to disinformation,
00:02:47.380 and if Conservative MPs and others want to start talking about conspiracy theories,
00:02:53.640 well, that's their choice.
00:02:55.200 Well, if that's the case, the conspiracy has certainly thickened,
00:02:58.680 because this week, Chrystia Freeland and Patti Haidu are among the vaunted speakers
00:03:03.660 of the World Economic Forum's Davos agenda.
00:03:06.860 Yes, the two Canadian cabinet ministers are actually speaking part of this week of events
00:03:11.260 that aims to launch the Great Reset Initiative.
00:03:14.600 Chrystia Freeland is speaking about stakeholder capitalism,
00:03:17.860 and, of course, Patti Haidu is speaking about restoring cross-border mobility.
00:03:21.700 This is the woman who said that border closures are racist and don't work, 0.91
00:03:25.740 and then went all in on closing the Canadian border,
00:03:28.400 which will have been closed for coming up on a year quite soon,
00:03:31.340 and then she's the one that they want to speak about reopening the world,
00:03:35.260 which I'll just let you take from that what you may.
00:03:37.700 But the problem is, while everyone who's everyone is speaking at the Davos agenda this week,
00:03:42.240 the keynote speaker, the person who kicked things off,
00:03:45.200 was none other than Chairman Xi.
00:03:47.280 Yes, Xi Jinping spoke and actually tried to double down on the globalization and globalism
00:03:54.520 that so many people are critical of in the World Economic Forum's mandate,
00:03:58.980 and he actually took aim at the arrogant isolationism.
00:04:02.140 He didn't call out Donald Trump by name, but you could tell it was an attack on Trump,
00:04:06.320 and said that we need to go down even further the road of multilateralism
00:04:11.180 and globalization and the UN-led international order,
00:04:16.040 and he called for adoption of the UN Agenda 2030 and other things like this.
00:04:21.540 And if you watch the whole speech,
00:04:23.180 it's not something that really aligns with the China that we all know.
00:04:28.740 But there's something very revealing in this.
00:04:31.560 China knows it's running the world right now. 0.98
00:04:34.900 China knows that this world order, which is not a conspiratorial term,
00:04:38.380 that's actually what it is here,
00:04:39.860 is working to its benefit.
00:04:41.420 The liberal capitalist free market world order that was created by Western governments
00:04:46.360 is something that China has been able to manipulate and maneuver its way 0.88
00:04:49.720 into a great deal of success with.
00:04:52.220 So why would China want to mess with it? 0.99
00:04:54.580 China's investing right now about a trillion dollars
00:04:57.080 in the so-called Belt and Road Initiative,
00:04:59.760 which is actually putting Chinese money at the forefront of development
00:05:03.420 in I think like close to 100 countries.
00:05:05.880 It is China's world, and we are just tenants in it right now. 0.99
00:05:11.280 So when Klaus Schwab is heaping praise on Chairman Xi,
00:05:15.180 and Chairman Xi is talking about the need to go further down this road
00:05:18.160 of international multilateralism,
00:05:20.180 and then the Secretary General of the UN comes on a couple hours later,
00:05:23.760 Antonio Guterres, and says the same thing.
00:05:26.120 And then later on in the week,
00:05:27.340 we've got Patti Hajdu and Chrystia Freeland that are all a part of this. 0.68
00:05:30.420 How are Canadians supposed to stand for being accused of spreading conspiracy theories
00:05:35.240 to talk about the fact that there are people that are trying to manipulate the world
00:05:39.180 into this form of a reset?
00:05:43.220 Hidden in plain sight does not even begin to describe this.
00:05:46.960 This thing that is actually a source of pride for some of these international elites
00:05:51.040 that we are being told we're not allowed to even talk about, let alone call out.
00:05:54.980 Now, this is not just some shadowy cabal of people that are sitting in some cave
00:06:00.080 in the Swiss Alps deciding how the world is supposed to be structured.
00:06:03.820 These are people who actually have leadership positions in countries around the world,
00:06:08.160 like, for example, Chrystia Freeland and Patti Hajdu,
00:06:11.160 who are on the front lines of the government's response to COVID-19
00:06:15.500 and any number of other areas,
00:06:17.120 and these are the folks that they're hobnobbing with.
00:06:19.760 And Chrystia Freeland knows these people very well.
00:06:22.040 One of her great claims to fame before she entered politics
00:06:24.780 was literally writing the book on the Davos elites,
00:06:27.940 immersing herself in this world.
00:06:30.700 And it's hard to imagine, looking back,
00:06:32.800 that this was done with a journalistic eye
00:06:34.780 when now she is one of the very people
00:06:37.360 that she was writing about in her seminal work.
00:06:41.160 And again, I mean, the topics that Hajdu and Freeland were talking about
00:06:44.740 were relatively banal.
00:06:46.000 I mean, stakeholder capitalism, whoop-dee-doo,
00:06:48.360 and cross-border mobility,
00:06:49.520 which is basically just saying,
00:06:50.760 yes, we want to get the world moving again.
00:06:52.720 I mean, there's nothing controversial on the surface about those.
00:06:56.280 But it's a part of them inserting themselves into this agenda.
00:06:59.920 It's literally called the Davos agenda.
00:07:02.280 Inserting themselves into this agenda
00:07:04.060 that doesn't actually care about the independence of nations,
00:07:07.500 that actually rebukes it.
00:07:09.560 The United Kingdom, by leaving the European Union,
00:07:12.900 actually struck a blow against this narrative that is unfolding,
00:07:16.900 a world beyond and moving past nation-states,
00:07:20.980 a world in which every country's interests have to be subservient to the global order,
00:07:25.200 to the global interests.
00:07:26.720 And it's not that we're heading towards one world government.
00:07:29.420 It's that individual countries are increasingly interested in surrendering their own sovereignty
00:07:34.880 to just do whatever the UN wants.
00:07:36.900 And Justin Trudeau has these idealistic delusions,
00:07:40.240 these delusions that, by the way, were disproven,
00:07:43.000 going as far back as like Woodrow Wilson in the early parts of the 20th century.
00:07:47.760 And Justin Trudeau wants to just completely outsource all decision-making to the UN,
00:07:52.380 to the World Health Organization.
00:07:53.940 So no wonder Chairman Xi is happy with the world order,
00:07:58.020 because the world order is the one that gave the WHO
00:08:00.660 that refused to actually look at China's role in unleashing the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:08:06.340 It's the world order that's allowing China to become such a powerhouse.
00:08:10.220 The world order that is happy when Chairman Xi gets up there
00:08:13.160 and talks about the Paris climate agreements,
00:08:15.360 while on the other hand, actually committing genocide against Uyghur minorities,
00:08:20.480 and having labor camps and state executions.
00:08:23.160 That Chairman Xi was not criticized.
00:08:26.240 But oh no, no, no, to Klaus Schwab, it's all great,
00:08:28.260 because yeah, he shares our goals of a world that's moving forward,
00:08:31.620 leaping into progress, because if there is a one-world government,
00:08:34.860 or even a de facto one-world government,
00:08:36.960 it's going to be China that's at the helm of that.
00:08:40.300 We are going to be covering this more and more.
00:08:43.520 In fact, in May, the World Economic Forum is planning to have an in-person summit in Singapore,
00:08:48.740 which they normally have, again, this week in Davos,
00:08:51.120 but everything's a little bit wacky this year.
00:08:53.060 And I actually hope to be there covering this,
00:08:54.980 because we know that a lot of the benefits to the world leaders that go to these things
00:08:59.040 are not the official sessions, but all the meetings that take place away from the cameras.
00:09:03.900 And that's what we aim to see.
00:09:05.240 But we're getting a little bit of a taste of it
00:09:07.220 by watching the Zoom version of the Davos agenda this week,
00:09:10.400 the agenda that is being written for you under the auspices of a Great Reset.
00:09:15.240 But oh no, it's just a conspiracy.
00:09:17.100 We'll be back in a couple of moments with more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:09:23.060 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:09:26.280 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:09:28.580 I want to talk about a story that actually emerged in my neck of the woods down in southwestern Ontario
00:09:33.240 over the weekend that has become a national story.
00:09:36.480 It involves one of the youngest COVID-19 deaths in the country,
00:09:40.600 the death of a young man, 19, named Yassine Dubey,
00:09:44.120 who was a contract cleaner at a long-term care home near London.
00:09:48.000 Now, I say a COVID-19 death.
00:09:50.000 It's not actually known how Yassine Dubey died.
00:09:53.280 And in fact, according to the local health officials,
00:09:56.080 it will never truly be known.
00:09:57.980 There was no autopsy.
00:09:59.140 All they know is that four weeks ago, he contracted COVID-19,
00:10:03.440 recovered from it, but he's still classed as a COVID death
00:10:06.840 because COVID-19 was in his chart, so to speak.
00:10:11.000 Now, this is tragic no matter what.
00:10:13.340 And I actually don't like talking about this
00:10:15.280 because I don't like that this has to be put through a political lens.
00:10:19.040 But I also was seeing how this man's death was being taken
00:10:22.160 and made into a political statement by so many people.
00:10:26.360 And I had to push back against it.
00:10:28.980 The fact is, we don't know how he died.
00:10:31.600 We never will know how he died,
00:10:33.240 given the way they report these things
00:10:34.780 and what the health unit has said.
00:10:36.540 But this is how it was reported.
00:10:38.120 Just take a look at the beginning of this clip from CTV London.
00:10:41.440 Yassine Taub is the first person under 20 in Ontario to die from COVID-19.
00:10:47.800 The 19-year-old passed away Thursday in South London.
00:10:51.660 And of course, that old line about how a lie has gone around the world
00:10:54.820 before the truth has put its pants on is very much the case.
00:10:58.000 I'm going to go rapid fire here.
00:10:59.780 Catherine McKenna says,
00:11:00.960 very sad to hear about Yassine DeBay,
00:11:02.720 a frontline LTC worker who passed due to COVID.
00:11:07.260 Another Liberal MP, Sven Spengerman, says,
00:11:10.200 my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Yassine DeBay.
00:11:13.760 He passed away on Thursday from COVID-19.
00:11:17.700 Andre Picard, very well-known and very well-respected health columnist
00:11:21.440 for the Globe and Mail, said Yassine DeBay died of COVID-19.
00:11:27.160 A CBC headline,
00:11:28.700 Ontario teen who died of COVID-19 was refugee
00:11:31.680 who worked as a long-term care home cleaner.
00:11:34.840 Unifor says he died of COVID-19.
00:11:37.900 A London city councillor says it was actually anti-mask protesters
00:11:41.520 that were to blame.
00:11:42.840 And an Ontario MPP by the name of Rima Burns McGowan
00:11:46.000 says that this is actually Doug Ford's fault.
00:11:48.360 Doug Ford and the long-term care minister, Merrilee Fullerton,
00:11:51.200 are personally responsible for killing this young man,
00:11:54.460 even though no one knows how he died and there was no autopsy.
00:11:57.600 And he was past the point of being infectious.
00:12:00.040 And it's not clear whether he was in hospital
00:12:02.020 for any prolonged period of time with COVID-19.
00:12:05.400 Now, as I said on Twitter,
00:12:06.820 none of this takes away from the tragedy of a 19-year-old dying.
00:12:10.200 It's far too young.
00:12:11.600 But facts still matter.
00:12:13.780 And this man's being made into a martyr for people
00:12:17.380 that have an axe to grind on refugee politics,
00:12:19.840 on long-term care,
00:12:21.260 people that want to instill a great deal of fear in the population
00:12:23.820 about how COVID-19 can affect anyone and everyone
00:12:26.500 and your 19-year-olds aren't safe
00:12:28.260 and we got to keep kids out of classrooms.
00:12:30.120 When in actuality, this is a tragedy,
00:12:32.660 but it is not a tragedy that speaks to a broader narrative
00:12:35.920 unless people make it speak to a broader narrative.
00:12:39.260 Now, Yassine's family, who again has suffered a terrible loss here,
00:12:43.680 has said that a coroner confirmed from a blood test
00:12:47.120 that he died of COVID-19.
00:12:49.360 Now, I don't know how that works out.
00:12:50.560 And again, I have no reason to distrust the family.
00:12:53.180 There is still the comment from the local health unit,
00:12:55.940 the official that said there is basically no answer
00:12:59.580 that can be given to a lot of these questions.
00:13:01.880 But the whole point is,
00:13:03.980 even with this,
00:13:05.560 at the time that all of these people were saying
00:13:08.180 what they were saying,
00:13:09.040 when Catherine McKenna was saying died of COVID,
00:13:11.740 Andre Picard,
00:13:12.500 when all of these people were misplacing
00:13:14.660 those very significant prepositions,
00:13:16.560 it simply wasn't known.
00:13:19.040 And in many cases, it still isn't known,
00:13:21.300 which is why the data collection issue here
00:13:23.280 is such an important one that needs to be rectified.
00:13:26.140 We've got to take a break.
00:13:27.060 We'll be back with more of The Andrew Lawton Show
00:13:28.820 in just a moment.
00:13:29.660 Stay tuned.
00:13:32.180 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:13:34.380 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:13:38.940 We know that Justin Trudeau's government
00:13:40.560 loves to pontificate on the importance
00:13:43.300 of press freedom and free speech.
00:13:45.320 They host these big, fancy conferences
00:13:48.020 where they promote the virtues of free speech
00:13:50.460 and say that Canada is a beacon of hope
00:13:52.820 on press freedom.
00:13:53.800 Well, a journalist is being charged
00:13:56.820 for writing a book about Justin Trudeau.
00:14:00.160 You may have heard this story right now.
00:14:01.720 The rebel commander himself and author of The Lebranos,
00:14:05.020 Ezra Levant, posted a fantastic video
00:14:07.340 not that long ago of his interrogation
00:14:09.760 by two investigators with the Commissioner
00:14:12.080 of Canada Elections.
00:14:13.380 It appears that investigation has come to an end
00:14:15.780 and Ezra owes the government $3,000
00:14:18.360 for the crime of writing a book.
00:14:21.460 Ezra joins me on the line.
00:14:23.440 Ezra, good to talk to you again.
00:14:24.560 Thanks for coming on today.
00:14:25.980 Oh, my pleasure.
00:14:26.720 Thanks for having me.
00:14:27.960 So $3,000.
00:14:29.000 This is the going rate apparently for writing a book
00:14:31.800 that criticizes Justin Trudeau during an election.
00:14:34.820 Yeah, they say it's a violation of the Canada Elections Act.
00:14:38.900 They say that my book, because, and by the way,
00:14:41.720 they spent a lot of time going through this part
00:14:43.960 in their violation notice to me.
00:14:46.620 They say that because I compare the Liberals
00:14:50.520 to the Sopranos, remember the title of my book
00:14:53.700 was The Libranos.
00:14:55.400 So they really go on at length about how that's mean,
00:14:58.800 how that compares the Liberals 0.69
00:15:00.440 to a corrupt group of lawbreakers.
00:15:03.180 And I'm thinking, yeah, yeah.
00:15:05.020 Anyways, they say because it's mean,
00:15:07.300 that is tantamount to a campaign ad.
00:15:11.180 And because we sold so many books during the election,
00:15:14.620 that's an illegal campaign activity.
00:15:16.820 Except for two things.
00:15:18.160 First of all, Section 2 of that same Canada Elections Act
00:15:23.520 specifically exempts books and the promotion of books
00:15:28.900 as long as they're sold at a reasonable price.
00:15:31.620 And I think my book was sold for $15,
00:15:33.800 which was probably a little bit high, in fact.
00:15:36.440 And it applies to the promotion of books, too.
00:15:40.260 So we had billboards and lawn signs and videos
00:15:44.240 and internet ads.
00:15:45.800 We had about five different ways.
00:15:47.080 And they all used that language, the Libranos.
00:15:50.120 So it's exempt.
00:15:51.940 Section 2 of the Act says it's exempt.
00:15:54.080 Even if Section 2 of the Act didn't say so,
00:15:57.000 we have centuries of common law
00:15:59.420 and our chart of rights and our Bill of Rights,
00:16:01.540 which protects political speech, freedom of the press.
00:16:04.680 So there's no way that my book is illegal.
00:16:07.360 We don't have illegal books in Canada.
00:16:10.200 Let me throw one last thing at you, Andrew.
00:16:13.120 There were 23 other books published at the same time
00:16:17.980 in the 2019 election about Justin Trudeau.
00:16:21.080 So mine was one of 24 in total.
00:16:24.140 The other 23 were either sort of wishy-washy
00:16:28.360 or extremely pro-Trudeau.
00:16:31.120 For example, there was a book written by the CBC's Aaron Wary,
00:16:35.100 total love letter to Trudeau.
00:16:37.900 So you could say that's a campaign ad for Trudeau,
00:16:42.100 except, of course, it's a book, so it's exempt.
00:16:44.840 The police who interrogated me,
00:16:46.700 they were 30-year veterans of the RCMP, they told me.
00:16:50.360 They're working for Elections Canada now.
00:16:52.720 They said they were aware of these 23 other books,
00:16:55.520 but mine was the only one they were investigating.
00:16:58.720 And I said, how's that?
00:17:00.740 Isn't that proof of what's going on there?
00:17:02.980 And they actually said to me, well, you can complain about them.
00:17:05.940 No, I'm not a censor.
00:17:07.300 I'm not this crazy book burner.
00:17:10.020 But they admitted, I'm the only book they're prosecuting.
00:17:13.760 And by the way, I'm the only book that criticized Trudeau.
00:17:16.260 That's a really bad look for a G7 country.
00:17:19.840 Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things,
00:17:22.400 given the implications of this charge that you've had leveled against you,
00:17:26.220 but was it just the ads that you were charged for,
00:17:29.340 the posters, the signs, the billboards,
00:17:31.340 or was it those as well as the book itself?
00:17:34.660 You know, I'd have to look at the exact wording.
00:17:37.040 I don't have the violation in front of me.
00:17:39.360 But they specifically mentioned the image.
00:17:43.920 We had an artist.
00:17:46.000 I don't know, for those, I mean, the Sopranos,
00:17:48.460 a lot of the kids these days don't know what that is.
00:17:51.080 But for people in their 30s and 40s,
00:17:52.860 they might recall that show, the Sopranos.
00:17:55.100 It's about 20 years old now.
00:17:56.480 They had this promotional poster that showed Tony Soprano
00:17:59.960 and his Soprano family looking a little, very menacing.
00:18:04.020 So we, the book cover of the Libranos was an homage to that.
00:18:09.420 It had Trudeau and his henchmen.
00:18:11.880 Bill Morneau was in it, Catherine McKenna.
00:18:14.100 It was a total spoof.
00:18:15.540 I guess you only really got it if you understood the original Sopranos thing.
00:18:20.000 So it's probably a bit of a dated reference now.
00:18:22.660 But they, so what was on the billboards was exactly what was on the cover.
00:18:28.740 It was, we used the same artwork.
00:18:30.740 The only thing is our ads had three words on them, buy the book.
00:18:37.560 So, you know, it was just the cover of the book that said, buy the book.
00:18:43.780 Those were found in violation.
00:18:46.700 I'm sorry, I don't have it in front of me,
00:18:48.000 but you can read the violation for yourself.
00:18:51.020 We put them on the internet at SaveRebelNews.com.
00:18:54.020 So folks can read it.
00:18:55.300 You can also see my interrogation at the hands of these officers.
00:19:02.160 Can I throw one more wrinkle at you?
00:19:04.020 And I thought this was crazy.
00:19:06.040 When I was being interrogated with, and this was a year ago,
00:19:09.340 they asked me to go to their high security headquarters in Gatineau, Quebec.
00:19:14.120 So I did.
00:19:14.720 And then I, but I didn't tell them I was recording them because I knew no one would believe me.
00:19:19.900 I didn't know what they were going to say, but I knew it would be so crazy that no one would believe me if I didn't film it.
00:19:24.460 So I went in there with a hidden camera.
00:19:25.980 That's the only time I've ever done that in my life.
00:19:27.920 I was very nervous about it.
00:19:29.700 But it worked, not nervous to do it.
00:19:31.780 I was nervous that the camera wouldn't work, but it worked great.
00:19:34.220 And you can see in that videotape, and we have that on that page, SaveRebelNews.com.
00:19:39.680 I asked the cops, I said, I've come all the way to Gatineau, Quebec to meet you.
00:19:45.560 I've come here voluntarily.
00:19:47.460 I didn't tell them I came to record them also.
00:19:49.560 I said, I've come here to meet the complaint, but you haven't shown me the complaint yet.
00:19:55.880 Can I see the actual complaint that started this whole thing?
00:19:59.620 Can you tell me who complained?
00:20:02.140 And they said no.
00:20:03.140 They refused to show me the complaint.
00:20:06.220 They refused to tell me who the complainant was.
00:20:08.700 I said, how can I meet?
00:20:10.200 I've come all the way to Gatineau.
00:20:11.780 Yeah, you have a right to face your accuser, except you don't in this proceeding.
00:20:15.660 Yeah, and to this day, that was a year ago, remember, so they convicted me now.
00:20:20.180 They still haven't shown me the complaint or told me who the complainant is.
00:20:23.860 And I know this is just one more level of crazy.
00:20:27.480 They didn't actually invite me to their hearing or trial or whatever it was.
00:20:31.440 The last interaction I had with them was a year ago.
00:20:34.540 So they investigated me.
00:20:38.000 They interrogated me or whatever.
00:20:39.380 And then there was no hearing.
00:20:42.660 There was no time to come and present an argument.
00:20:46.300 They knew I had a law firm because I had my law firm talk to them about a few things.
00:20:51.020 So they knew who I was.
00:20:53.840 They knew how to get in touch with me.
00:20:55.260 They knew who my lawyer was and how to get in touch with them.
00:20:58.120 But they didn't tell either me or my lawyers there was going to be a hearing or a panel.
00:21:03.760 I don't even know.
00:21:05.100 Maybe it was just one guy who said he's guilty.
00:21:07.820 We weren't invited to that.
00:21:09.740 We didn't know how that it was.
00:21:11.460 We weren't even invited to make written submissions.
00:21:14.740 We were just told out of the blue that we were convicted and fined.
00:21:22.120 It's absurd.
00:21:23.140 Obviously, we're appealing.
00:21:24.880 And we're going to challenge the underlying constitutionality of this law.
00:21:29.900 And I think that this, the fact that they're doing, I think it's absurd.
00:21:33.300 I think it looks really bad on them.
00:21:34.780 But the fact they're proceeding nonetheless tells me we're in a new era, Andrew, where shame and our cultural memory of being a free place no longer carries weight.
00:21:47.360 And it's been a few days since I rang the alarm about this.
00:21:52.320 And other than you and one of your colleagues at True North, I don't think I've seen any coverage of this in the Canadian media.
00:22:01.740 And I think it's because I'm conservative.
00:22:05.420 I'm a bit of a troublemaker, a gadfly, some would say.
00:22:08.680 So either out of personal distaste for me or political disagreement with me, the fancy people, the intellectual class, have decided,
00:22:17.800 all right, we're fine with an author being convicted in absentia.
00:22:21.740 We're fine with an author being hit with $3,000 in penalties.
00:22:25.120 Because they know their worldview insulates them from this.
00:22:28.060 And that's the big danger of this.
00:22:29.540 It used to be back in the era of the Human Rights Commission fights.
00:22:32.760 There was a principled response from journalists because they understood the broader implications of what was happening.
00:22:39.220 And I do have to ask you about that battle because I recall one of the big shortcomings in people that support free speech's ability to fight against the Human Rights Commissions
00:22:48.800 is that it wasn't really happening in a real courtroom and very similar to what's happening here.
00:22:53.920 This is a hearing that takes place behind closed doors.
00:22:56.880 It might not have even been a hearing.
00:22:58.120 Do you have the ability under this law to fight this in a real court?
00:23:04.380 Well, you know, I gave it to our lawyers and I asked them to look at the appeal.
00:23:08.880 And it will eventually get to a real court.
00:23:15.180 I think the first appeal, believe it or not, is within Elections Canada.
00:23:20.300 Of course.
00:23:20.700 Don't hold me to that.
00:23:21.520 A body that has served you so well up until this point in this investigation.
00:23:25.800 Yeah, so we'll probably lose that one too.
00:23:27.640 I don't know.
00:23:29.120 But I've told the lawyers.
00:23:31.480 It's the same lawyers that argued for Rebel News alongside you and your lawyers at the Federal Court of Canada to get into the election debates.
00:23:42.780 So we've got great free speech lawyers, Aaron Rosenberg, David Emmalep.
00:23:47.000 They were with you when you won that free speech battle.
00:23:51.860 So these are the same guys I'm using.
00:23:53.600 Don't mess with success.
00:23:54.760 These guys got it.
00:23:55.560 So I said to them, appeal this finding, but also challenge the underlying law.
00:24:00.880 Because, look, if we don't do it, who will?
00:24:03.840 When I was a younger man, let's say 25 years ago, I recall when I was just learning about the law and things like that,
00:24:12.160 I recall there was a tradition amongst Canadian media companies to hire a free speech lawyer, like a top gun,
00:24:20.460 send him to court whenever there was a free speech battle.
00:24:23.580 And this one excellent free speech lawyer, and it would be different on different cases, would represent all the media.
00:24:31.120 So a lawyer would show up in court and say, your honor.
00:24:32.980 Yeah, there was a consortium mindset.
00:24:34.560 A consortium, that's what they would call it.
00:24:35.820 Because everyone realized they were all in it together.
00:24:37.780 That's right.
00:24:38.540 So the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, all the newspapers, all the TV stations,
00:24:44.480 they'd chip in like a thousand bucks each.
00:24:46.820 And together, that would maybe give them 20 grand.
00:24:49.500 So they'd send a top gun into court and say, your honor, I'm here to represent every single newspaper and TV station, radio station in this country.
00:24:58.120 Here's the list of them all, because this is a grave threat to all of us.
00:25:01.920 And even though we may not like this guy, we may not know this guy, the principle is so large and important, we're here.
00:25:07.960 I haven't seen that done in at least a decade.
00:25:12.860 And because there's so many newspapers and TV stations, it's not a money issue.
00:25:16.840 I think they have been tamed and trained, and they're submissive now.
00:25:22.520 I think they're all on the payroll of Justin Trudeau's media bailout.
00:25:27.000 They're all ideologically fused and merged with the government.
00:25:33.300 The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is absent without leave.
00:25:36.820 It really is a tiny handful.
00:25:40.900 The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, they're fighting hard.
00:25:44.120 And I think I've just gone through the whole list by mentioning them.
00:25:47.420 There is the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
00:25:50.200 I saw they were doing some stuff.
00:25:52.300 But really, there's nobody.
00:25:54.080 And it's really weird that we have to spend what will probably be 100 grand fighting this.
00:25:59.880 I mean, a normal human being would say, just pay the three grand.
00:26:03.820 Why would you pay?
00:26:04.880 Or just register your book.
00:26:06.140 But you have to, you can't die on the, I mean, you have to fight on these hills, though,
00:26:11.560 because it is going to hamper your ability to write a book in the next election, whenever
00:26:16.020 that comes, and so on.
00:26:17.680 But I do have to ask, because I know that you're fighting the underlying law as well.
00:26:21.280 And I'm glad you are.
00:26:22.340 Because that act that exempts advertising of books, specifically, also has a caveat there,
00:26:29.080 which I understand they're using against you, which is that that only applies if the book
00:26:33.360 were going to be published, regardless of whether or not there were an election.
00:26:37.500 And now, personally, I don't think that should matter, right?
00:26:40.040 I think if you're in any sort of world of publishing, you don't want to publish something
00:26:44.720 when it's going to have less of an impact.
00:26:46.600 So if you're writing a book that has to do with an election, you're going to publish
00:26:49.600 it around the time of an election.
00:26:50.920 It's the same as how, in the media, people hold on to scoops until after weekends or after
00:26:55.760 holidays.
00:26:56.380 But this is a book that you would have written regardless, isn't it?
00:26:59.540 Yeah.
00:26:59.980 You know what?
00:27:00.400 I'm glad you mentioned that.
00:27:01.540 So section two of this law says books are exempt, the promotion of books are exempt if, number
00:27:08.200 one, it's sold at a reasonable price, and ours was, and number two, the book would have
00:27:13.840 been published whether or not there was an election.
00:27:15.740 That last part doesn't even make sense, because of course there's going to be an election.
00:27:20.900 And if there's not going to be an election, well, then we are in grave danger indeed.
00:27:26.620 And that's not even a joke anymore.
00:27:28.560 They've delayed elections in New Zealand, they've delayed elections in the United Kingdom
00:27:32.480 using the COVID emergency as an excuse.
00:27:35.400 So it's not even unthinkable that elections would be delayed.
00:27:39.280 That wording doesn't even make any sense.
00:27:42.780 I was asked by these cops, did you time the release of the book for the election?
00:27:47.700 I said, of course, because it's about the election.
00:27:50.340 You don't, there were probably, I'm going to guess, 500, maybe more books about Donald
00:27:56.600 Trump, probably 500, including sort of small publishers.
00:28:00.680 Like the Trump book industry, Trump saved the book industry.
00:28:04.460 I mean, think about all the Trump books.
00:28:07.580 None of them waited until November the 4th to be published.
00:28:11.440 That would be really weird.
00:28:13.520 All of them were published pretty much after Labor Day, because they wanted to sell books
00:28:19.240 when people were paying attention to the election.
00:28:21.520 Election was in its final moment.
00:28:23.360 So, of course, my book was published on the eve of the election.
00:28:28.620 Same thing with the other 23 books about Trudeau.
00:28:31.560 It would have been really, really weird to publish a book about Trudeau in the election
00:28:35.780 after the election.
00:28:37.560 Then it's all moot.
00:28:39.120 It's all obsolete.
00:28:40.400 And if they're trying to make that against the law, I mean, by the way, if they are saying
00:28:45.580 that's against the law, well, then all 24 books are against the law.
00:28:49.020 It's normal to publish a book during a campaign.
00:28:52.240 The wording of the law is so weird, whether or not there's an election.
00:28:55.540 Well, if there was no election in Canada, you're darn straight I would publish that book.
00:28:59.440 Yeah, and it's more than books we need to be doing at that point.
00:29:02.760 All right.
00:29:03.240 Well, we wish you the best in this.
00:29:04.800 Please do keep us updated.
00:29:06.080 Ezra Levant, the Rebel Commander and author of the now-banned book, effectively, The Libranos.
00:29:12.140 Ezra, thanks very much for coming on today.
00:29:14.220 Thanks, Andrew.
00:29:15.080 That was, of course, Ezra Levant, and you can get all the details at rebelnews.com.
00:29:20.120 And that does it for me for today.
00:29:21.840 We'll be back in just a few days with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:29:26.180 This is The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:29:28.440 Thank you.
00:29:28.920 God bless, and good day, Canada.
00:29:30.520 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:29:32.380 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.