Rebel News Podcast - A journalism lobby group took Trudeau’s bail-out — and now they’re calling for censorship

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Today, a really weird attack on Rebel News by a bunch of Justin Trudeau's

00:00:05.140 bailout journalists. It was so out of the blue, I go through it a bit and I do my best to rebut it,

00:00:10.120 and I also point out who's on the take. So take a look at that. I'd invite you to become a

00:00:17.100 subscriber to Rebel News Plus. You get the video version of this podcast, which I think is pretty

00:00:21.540 good. Just go to rebelnews.com and click on subscribe. It's eight bucks a month or 80 bucks

00:00:26.720 for the whole year if you pay in advance. Less than Netflix. Okay, here's today's podcast.

00:00:46.080 Tonight, a journalism lobby group took Trudeau's bailout money and now they're advocating for

00:00:51.300 censorship. It's August 18 and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:56.720 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:00.860 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:04.940 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's

00:01:09.340 my bloody right to do so. 0.63

00:01:15.480 There was a dumb joke I once heard and the punchline was something about a lobby group called 0.98

00:01:19.700 Chickens for Colonel Sanders. It was a joke, you know. I get it. No chickens would be 0.97

00:01:26.140 for Colonel Sanders. That's what was funny about it. Chick-fil-A has an ad campaign that's

00:01:32.020 in the same vein. It's a bunch of cows telling you to eat more chicken, which makes the same

00:01:37.660 point but from the other direction. It's not funny for cows to tell you to eat chicken,

00:01:43.020 is it? That's what you would expect other than cows don't talk. It was a good ad campaign.

00:01:47.800 Anyways, here in Canada, we have the same thing. But instead of cows telling you to eat chickens or

00:01:55.140 chickens telling you to support Colonel Sanders, we have journalists calling for censorship.

00:02:02.440 That's the funniest joke of all. They've gone nuts, I think. Do you remember this a few years back? 0.75

00:02:07.900 The group called Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. So they're telling you they're not

00:02:12.100 just Canadian journalists. They say they distinguish themselves from other journalists by emphasizing

00:02:17.280 just how much they care about free expression. It's their whole name. It's the characteristic

00:02:21.700 they're showcasing. And they decided that they wanted to ban Donald Trump from speaking in Canada.

00:02:29.340 Ban him. Censor him. You'd think that a group of free speech journalists would support free speech

00:02:35.360 and journalism. That you wouldn't want to shut down the world's most important political leader from

00:02:40.040 speaking and therefore journalists from reporting on what he would speak about. You'd think that.

00:02:46.440 But they actually didn't want any speaking or journalism about the speaking. They were

00:02:49.920 chickens who were for Colonel Sanders. They wanted to ban the president. Not even China does that, 0.90

00:02:56.760 by the way. China doesn't much like Donald Trump, but they didn't ban him from speaking in Communist

00:03:02.040 China. This group called Canadians for Free Expression, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression,

00:03:07.500 is actually Canadian Journalists against Free Expression. They're the chickens for Colonel

00:03:12.880 Sanders. When even the Toronto Star is scolding you for being a thin-skinned Trump derangement syndrome 0.84

00:03:20.000 hater censor, it's time to switch to decaf coffee. They're weird and discredited, the CJFE. I don't even

00:03:27.640 know if they actually do anything anymore. I certainly haven't seen anything other than a few anti-Trump

00:03:33.260 blog posts from them. But there's another group that is supposed to do things, and it's called the

00:03:38.520 Canadian Association of Journalists. They don't emphasize freedom of speech or freedom of the

00:03:43.120 press in their name. You would think that would be redundant. After all, journalism itself is a form

00:03:47.540 of free expression. And yet today, they released a strange unsolicited statement saying that we at

00:03:54.500 Rebel News should be banned from the Alberta Press Gallery, and that we would absolutely be banned

00:04:01.340 from joining them, the CAJ, the Canadian Association for Journalists, if we were ever, if we ever applied

00:04:08.620 to, which we haven't. So it's sort of weird. It's a bit weird because we haven't applied to them.

00:04:19.340 Now, I've known about the CAJ for years. I'm pretty sure we've never applied to join them. Why would I?

00:04:23.840 In fact, they become a lobby group for journalists who suck up to Trudeau to get bailout money from

00:04:32.280 him. Maybe I phrased that in a mean way, but they're a lobby group to get more money from Trudeau.

00:04:39.940 There really is no point for us to join them because we're not lobbying for money from Trudeau.

00:04:44.740 That's not our business model. I looked at the board of directors there. Name after name is obscure.

00:04:51.580 Most of them are unknown. They're not Canada's leading journalists. They're Canada's leading

00:04:58.360 bailout journalists. It's very different. So these are multi-million dollar recipients of Trudeau's

00:05:05.100 money. It's like that Quebec company called Bombardier. They're not that successful in the

00:05:10.360 airplane industry, but boy, are they successful at getting government grants. That was their real

00:05:16.100 industry. Same thing with these guys here. But look at them today, apropos of nothing. They put

00:05:21.480 out a press release saying that we here at Rebel News should not be allowed into the Alberta Press

00:05:25.200 Gallery. A group of Toronto-based journalists says so. They don't have anyone at the Edmonton-based

00:05:30.960 press gallery, so this is the Toronto point of view. They do have one token, Calgarian,

00:05:35.000 who works for McLean's Magazine, which is one of the biggest Trudeau bailout media companies in the

00:05:40.040 country. And they wrote this today. Let me read a little bit of it to you. Alberta Press Gallery

00:05:47.000 has a duty and a right to determine access. Get my dumb joke about chickens for Colonel Sanders now? 0.92

00:05:55.820 Now, I know something about rights and freedoms. I went to law school once a long time ago, 0.93

00:06:00.940 and I've read the charter. I actually read it from time to time. Just to refresh my memory,

00:06:04.960 Section 2 Fundamental Freedoms. Section 2B in particular guarantees freedom of thought, belief,

00:06:12.300 opinion, and expression, including freedom in the press and other media of communication. So

00:06:16.420 that's a right. I have a right to speak freely, to do journalism, and express my opinions and beliefs

00:06:22.560 in any medium. It's right there. You'll notice if you read the charter or the constitution or any

00:06:27.620 other law, there is no right for my competitors to ban me. That's not a right, guys.

00:06:33.960 That might be some sort of power you want. But in real life, my competitors don't have the legal

00:06:40.480 or moral authority to infringe my real rights. It's a counterfeit duty or right to stop me from

00:06:47.640 earning a living and practicing my career. That's not a real right. These people are politically

00:06:51.120 illiterate. If they think that there's such a thing as a right to ban people from reporting, who are you?

00:06:57.820 And to think they're in charge of educating the public about the world and how it works.

00:07:02.120 Anyhow, let me read a little bit from this fantastic essay of theirs.

00:07:05.640 This past Sunday, the National Board of the Canadian Association of Journalists, CAJ, gathered

00:07:11.480 for a regular meeting. That must have been riveting. One of our main agenda items, sorry, I'm laughing.

00:07:19.240 Can you imagine? This is their main agenda item. Was to discuss the recent news of the Alberta

00:07:23.680 Legislative Press Gallery's refusal to issue memberships to employees of Rebel News.

00:07:28.060 What a lot. So all these secret meetings, none of which invite us to make our case. All these little

00:07:34.200 snobs, these mean girls meeting in secret to ban us. What a weird witch trial, because at least if I 1.00

00:07:42.320 read my history right, witchers were invited to their own witch trial. We're never invited to our witch 0.98

00:07:49.100 trials. I'll keep going. Late last week, Post Media announced its extraordinary decision to pull

00:07:55.680 its newspapers from the press gallery. While the CAJ respects their prerogative to operate their

00:07:59.720 newsrooms as they see fit, we are concerned this decision could place its journalists in a difficult

00:08:04.500 position to adequately serve the public. What, what, what, what? Is it serving the public to ban rebel

00:08:11.920 reporters from working? Imagine how full of yourself you have to be to say, I think that's what they mean.

00:08:16.680 No, no, guys, this isn't a petty dispute or a political disagreement or competitive or business

00:08:23.880 rivalry. No, no, no, no, no, no. If you think we just don't like the rebels, you're totally wrong.

00:08:29.000 We're banning the people we hate because that's serving the public in interest, you see.

00:08:36.200 Yeah, we cows who are telling you to eat chicken instead, it's not for selfish reasons, you see.

00:08:41.720 It's for your own good, you see. I'll read some more. Press galleries are independent,

00:08:47.060 self-regulatory bodies that have long been part of Canadian legislatures. They are recognized by

00:08:51.840 the speaker to oversee the press accreditation process and other rules for legislative journalists.

00:08:56.700 Press galleries have a right and a responsibility to admit as members only those who meet their

00:09:01.620 standards and definitions for journalism, so long as the process is fair and transparent.

00:09:06.280 Like their secret meeting, right? No, guys, there is no journalistic profession.

00:09:11.280 That's not a thing. I mean, doctors, I get it. Lawyers, pharmacists, accountants, engineers,

00:09:17.420 those are real professions. A journalist is someone who writes stories about what they saw that day.

00:09:25.260 That's it. It's an activity. It's not a profession. There's no self-regulated profession.

00:09:30.860 I know they'd like to call each other doctor or whatever, but it's just a club of mean girls 1.00

00:09:36.300 and the uncool kids to boots. And of course, we're not part of a fair and transparent process.

00:09:44.240 In Alberta, they just sent us a note telling us we were banned. We weren't invited to our own trial.

00:09:49.260 We weren't even told of the reasons for being banned. And yet the journalists against journalism

00:09:53.800 or whatever this group is called is saying, that's the right thing. It's in the public. It's their duty.

00:09:58.100 This is my favorite part. The CAJ is not a regulatory agency and does not enforce a specific prescriptive

00:10:05.600 definition of journalism. Like most in the industry, we embrace a broad definition of journalism.

00:10:10.160 Sure you do. Much like a press gallery, the CAJ restricts our Class A membership to professional

00:10:15.700 journalists and we try upon transparent guidelines to make those decisions. The employees of Rebel News

00:10:21.100 would not meet our criteria. How do you know? You've never had a hearing about it. You just prejudged

00:10:29.540 us. You don't know who all our employees are. You don't know their credentials. We've never showed

00:10:35.680 them to you. How do you know? You're not actually real journalists, are you? Because you show no

00:10:42.540 curiosity. You ask no real questions. Guys, I think you're just a club of Justin Trudeau's

00:10:51.100 concubines. I know you think you're really cool, but you're his bought and paid for harem. It was 1.00

00:10:59.980 surprisingly cheap. I mean, $600 million is a lot of money to buy a bunch of newspapers. Actually,

00:11:06.320 it's just renting you out, I guess. But still, that probably only works out to max a few thousand

00:11:11.960 bucks per journalist. I mean, I see the Halifax Chronicle Herald on the CAJ Board of Directors.

00:11:16.620 They took millions from taxpayers through Trudeau. But they laid off, what, over a hundred workers

00:11:23.080 recently, that little chain of Atlantic newspapers. The money was just sopped up by the newspaper's

00:11:30.340 owners and managers. Imagine being for rent that cheap. You're some journalist for the Chronicle

00:11:35.380 Herald. So yeah, how do I put this? We're not interested in renting out our principals to Trudeau

00:11:42.280 like you are. These guys are really mad about our crowdfunding. Let me read a bit.

00:11:49.600 In reviewing the evolution of the Rebel News, it is clear their organization sometimes becomes an actor

00:11:54.560 in stories it tells. To date, this has taken several different forms, but includes providing

00:11:59.220 financial and legal assistance to some of its sources. Sources? No, we don't pay sources. We don't pay for

00:12:07.220 stories. We help people who need help, but we don't pay for the news. I know the Toronto Star did a lot

00:12:14.640 of that. They had a bounty out for the late Rob Ford, the former mayor of Toronto. They paid $5,000 a pop

00:12:22.120 to any one of Rob Ford's friends or acquaintances to secretly record him in private homes and then sell

00:12:29.320 them the footage. So that's journalism according to the CAJ, but not us helping to pay, you know,

00:12:36.080 tickets of working class people who got fined for going out in the park during the pandemic or

00:12:41.940 something. We don't pay for news. That's what you weirdos do. The CAJ says the critical distinction

00:12:47.960 between these practices and those employed by Rebel News are that its staff often actively

00:12:53.260 participate in the story, working toward their desired end by applying legal, financial, or other

00:12:57.820 resources. And you know the prostitutes who take Trudeau's money? They would never, ever, ever be guided 0.81

00:13:04.720 by their own activism or their own financial concerns. No siree. They take that Trudeau bailout money,

00:13:11.920 and they don't even think about it. You can tell how independent they are and how unaffected they

00:13:18.340 are, and they don't want to have any conclusion. Look at how they grilled Trudeau so mercilessly.

00:13:25.360 If you could do any other job and you have to answer, what would it be? I'd be a school teacher.

00:13:29.940 I knew you were going to say that. No, no. Like aspirational.

00:13:31.940 That's what I am. Aspirational. Something you haven't done.

00:13:38.740 No, it'd be that. It'd be, it'd be, it'd be maybe, maybe running a school.

00:13:42.980 Something at the UN. Something at the... Oh no, if I'm, once, once I'm done politics,

00:13:48.300 I'm done politics.

00:13:49.160 Last book you've read or the book you're reading?

00:13:54.120 The, just finished The Patch, which was Chris Turner's history of the oil patch. But I'm

00:14:05.840 also about to start the new Ken Follett, the third book that is the sequel to Pillars of

00:14:15.400 the Earth.

00:14:15.660 That's your nerdy side? No, that's, that's my, uh...

00:14:19.680 Your sci-fi nerdy side. No, no, it's not, it's not sci-fi. It's, it's just a, a sweeping

00:14:23.800 historical epic, I'm sure, but I haven't said it yet, so...

00:14:26.660 Yeah, one day we'll be real journalists like Rosemary Barton, paid by Trudeau. Speaking of

00:14:33.640 lawyers, she sued the Conservative Party for Trudeau during the election. The lawsuit's still

00:14:38.800 going on. And, and what was that, a platonic date with Trudeau? You know, that's

00:14:45.660 journalism. Anyways, here's, here's a quick line in their essay.

00:14:49.680 The CAJ also supported Rebel News' access to the federal leadership debates in 2019. You

00:14:56.900 mean the ones we had to rush to court in an emergency basis? Really? I must have missed

00:15:02.240 that. In fact, CAJ journalists cheered us being banned, objected to us going. The CAJ didn't

00:15:11.020 put out even a statement that I saw. They didn't intervene in court, that's for sure. I asked our

00:15:16.680 lawyer about this, because maybe I missed something. It was the first he heard of it, too. It's

00:15:19.960 almost as if these guys are lying to pretend they care about free speech, and they're not

00:15:25.600 just in the pocket of their boss, Justin Trudeau. I'm shocked. One more line from the CAJ today.

00:15:32.240 We carefully consider our political activities and community involvements, including those

00:15:36.600 online, and refrain from taking part in demonstrations, signing petitions, doing public relations work,

00:15:41.780 fundraising, or making financial contributions. If there's a chance, we will be covering the

00:15:46.440 campaign activity or group involved. Is that really true? You guys aren't telling Porky's

00:15:51.060 again, are you? Like I say, the CAJ is really just a group of concubines that Trudeau pays 1.00

00:15:56.140 $600 million a year to, so they take his cash. But in that traditional Liberal Party move, ad

00:16:03.760 scam, we charities, they know the rules. They have to kick back some of that cash to Trudeau.

00:16:09.800 See, a lot of Canadian journalists are members of the Unifor Union. It's weird that journalists

00:16:15.040 are in the Union, like it's some hard blue-collar activity or something. But they are. They're

00:16:19.860 in the Unifor Union, and they have registered an anti-Conservative Party third-party election

00:16:27.260 campaign last year. They take the members' dues from all these journalists, and they spend

00:16:32.880 it on fighting the Conservatives in the election campaign with demonstrations and signs and petitions

00:16:38.080 and public relations work and fundraising, all the things they just lied about. So Unifor

00:16:43.240 does that, and there's another union called the Media Guild that does the same. So not

00:16:50.820 only do these CAJ concubines take money from Trudeau, they then kick back some of it to Trudeau 1.00

00:16:57.940 at election time through their third-party super PACs. And they all choose to do this. These unions

00:17:03.840 aren't acting illegally. They have the consent and support of their members, these journalists.

00:17:11.000 But sure, sure, sure, because we provided a free lawyer to a single mom in North Bay who was arrested

00:17:16.700 for taking her daughter to the park. Sure, that makes us not journalists, while you ladies of the 0.79

00:17:23.260 night pay for attack ads on Andrew Scheer. Got it. Hey, have you ever seen any of these Justin journos

00:17:29.660 when they're doing a report about Trudeau? Have you ever seen any of them disclose this super gross

00:17:35.720 conflict of interest, either about taking Trudeau's cash or giving him a partisan kickback? No? Yeah,

00:17:42.240 me neither. We never stop talking about our interests. No one could possibly be unaware of our political

00:17:48.300 views in our campaigns. We talk about them constantly. You can judge for yourself if you think we're being

00:17:52.660 too political, but you can't really judge for yourself about these CAJ journalists, these Unifor journalists,

00:17:58.420 these Justin journos, because they never disclose it, do they? Last paragraph.

00:18:05.140 At the same time, however, the act of producing journalism is predicated on upholding high ethical

00:18:10.420 standards. Oh, the highest. Which demands that information gathered during the reporting process

00:18:15.200 be presented fairly, accurately, and transparently for public consideration. Yeah. No one is more

00:18:20.540 transparent than the Canadian Association of Journalists. They don't take payments from lobby groups

00:18:26.620 or foreigners. They're fair and transparent. Absolutely and totally. How dare you say otherwise?

00:18:33.280 I mean, just look at one of their board members who signed this letter, presumably.

00:18:36.600 The National Observer. Just top-notch journalist and certainly not in the tank for any lobby group.

00:18:42.780 Oh, hang on. Looks like they do take tens of thousands of dollars in cash from a lobby group

00:18:48.740 called the Tides Foundation. They're now called Makeway. They were renamed. They were so scandal-ridden.

00:18:53.660 It's an extremist anti-oil, anti-industry lobby group founded in San Francisco. They've renamed their

00:19:00.240 Canadian entity Makeway. But they boast, you see it, about paying the National Observer for journalism.

00:19:07.640 The National Observer admits they take the cash to run the stories that the Tides Foundation wants.

00:19:12.980 Look at the bottom of this news article here. This article is part of a series produced in partnership

00:19:19.800 by National Observer, Tides Canada. Oh, oh, really? And then Tides sometimes launders additional grants

00:19:26.560 to the National Observer through third parties. Here's an investigation by Vivian Krauss in the

00:19:32.220 Financial Post. In 2015, Tides paid U.S. 21,000 bucks to Earthways for re-granting to Observer Media

00:19:42.300 20,000 bucks for media reporting and 1,000 bucks in honor of Linda Solomon. Solomon is the founder

00:19:48.960 and editor-in-chief of the National Observer and the CEO of the Observer Group. She's also the sister

00:19:53.300 of Joel Solomon, a former employee and chairman of the Tides Foundation. Oh my God! So CAJ board members

00:20:02.360 who condemn us literally sell stories for cash. It's pay to play. They sell stories to foreign

00:20:11.120 anti-oil lobby groups and they actually brag about it, I guess? But they're much more ethical

00:20:19.600 than us, you see. Just ask them. Hey, here's the list of approved journalists, approved by the CHA and

00:20:26.200 the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Have you ever seen this? This is a list of press gallery members

00:20:30.760 in Ottawa that are approved. Do you see Xinhua and People's Daily? Now you know those aren't

00:20:40.300 journalists, right? They're government propagandists, for sure, and they're spies. They're paid for by

00:20:47.700 Xi Jinping, the dictator of China. They're not free to write anything they want. They write what

00:20:52.400 they're instructed to write by the Chinese embassy in Ottawa. They're not journalists. You know that,

00:20:58.020 right? How do they pass muster with the CAJ but independent Canadian journalists like us don't? Well, follow

00:21:09.600 the money. The money shows that the Tides Foundation bankrolls the National Observer. You can't believe a

00:21:16.020 word they say. It's controlled by the Tides Foundation. Follow the money. It shows that Justin Trudeau

00:21:22.100 bankrolls his little house of concubines who wrote a press release about us today.

00:21:28.880 So if these journalists are all taking money from a government or another entity, Justin Trudeau

00:21:36.620 or the Tides Foundation, and they're all refusing to publicize it, I mean, I grant you, the Tides

00:21:42.660 Foundation is disclosed here and there, and if you really dig, you can see the secret funding, but

00:21:47.800 they certainly don't disclose it when they're telling a story on TV, don't they? They don't end

00:21:53.440 the story by saying, I should disclose to you that I take money from Trudeau and I pay money to Trudeau.

00:21:58.460 They don't do that. So if they don't exactly highlight their conflict of interest, if they keep quiet about

00:22:06.180 the money they're taking, if they're keeping quiet about the money they're taking from Trudeau,

00:22:10.860 and if they're keeping quiet about the money they're taking from Tides, is there a chance

00:22:16.860 they're keeping quiet about money they take from other governments too? You know how you say

00:22:24.320 thank you in Chinese? It's xie xie. But I'm sure they already know that at the CAJ already.

00:22:32.280 I met with the Prime Minister today to inform him that I did not intend to run again in the next

00:22:52.320 federal election. It's never been my plan to run for more than two federal election cycles. As we move

00:23:00.700 to the next phase of our fight against the pandemic and pave the road towards economic recovery,

00:23:07.580 we must recognize that this process will take many years. It's the right time for a new finance

00:23:14.020 minister to deliver on that plan for the long and challenging road ahead. That's why I'll be

00:23:20.180 stepping down as finance minister and as member of parliament for Toronto Centre.

00:23:24.020 Whoa! So the election, as you know, was less than a year ago. Anyone who thinks that he was always

00:23:32.860 planning on stepping down, well, geez, I got a bridge or two in New York to sell you. He was thrown under

00:23:41.280 the bus. Of course, the state-supported media in Canada, the CBC and the bailout newspapers, were a little

00:23:48.120 bit more credulous and said, yeah, guys, he's not being under bussed. He genuinely is just moving on.

00:23:54.480 He's got other things to do, don't you know? He never meant to stick around. What a laugh. But it's

00:24:00.860 not funny. Canada is in the worst economic crisis we've had since the Great Depression. Imagine a

00:24:06.720 company in that position suddenly losing its CFO. Who's going to take over? Justin Trudeau, who believes

00:24:12.260 that you can balance a budget from the heart out or whatever he said. He said that and budgets

00:24:18.420 balance themselves. Neither quite worked out. Chrystia Freeland, who has no background in business

00:24:24.600 other than when she briefly was in charge of a Thomson Reuters project in New York City

00:24:29.720 that she completely destroyed. She's our new finance minister and the new deputy minister. She's

00:24:37.840 really taken over all the prime minister's work while he hangs out in Rideau Cottage. Here's an

00:24:42.720 image of her being sworn in as the new finance minister also. Well, in actual fact, it might not

00:24:50.780 be worse than Bill Morneau to have Chrystia Freeland as the finance minister. I don't know how it could

00:24:56.500 be worse. But one of the terrible things here is that Justin Trudeau has decided to prorogue parliament,

00:25:02.000 which is what he had always wanted to do, suspend parliament and all its committee proceedings.

00:25:07.080 So the various investigations into the corruption involving the WE charity, well, those are brushed

00:25:13.500 away too. So you've got a finance minister quitting in the middle of a crisis and already overworked

00:25:18.720 an underskilled deputy prime minister taking over the job while Trudeau continues his slow motion

00:25:24.080 eternal vacation. And now you have parliament itself dissolved. And the media is fine with this

00:25:30.580 because what's the alternative? The conservatives joining us now to talk about this is our old

00:25:34.600 friend Manny Montadegrino. He's the chair of Think Sharp and he always does. Manny, great to see you

00:25:41.020 again. Great to see you, Ezra. Always fun to be with you. You know, I'm a little bit mad, but what are you

00:25:47.100 going to do? I mean, Justin Trudeau protects himself at all costs. He's scapegoats. He fired Jody Wilson-Raybould.

00:25:53.140 He fired Gerald Butts. He fired Bill Marnot. No one is too important to be fired to get him out of an ethical

00:26:01.060 tight spot. Yeah, exactly. And he's the master of all these problems. Ezra, let's compare and contrast

00:26:09.360 finance ministers that Canada had during crisis. The last crisis, the Great Depression, sorry, Great

00:26:17.260 recession, was in 2008. And it was handled by Jim Flaherty. And that recession required about 100

00:26:26.620 billion dollars in stimulus spending, which was an absorbent amount, especially when all the three

00:26:32.300 parties were against any type of deficit spending. I mean, it pales in comparison today. I think we're

00:26:39.100 going to get to 500 billion dollars in deficits, at least over the next two years. But let's compare

00:26:48.940 the finance minister. Jim Flaherty got the problem in 2008. 2011, now I knew Jim Flaherty personally,

00:26:58.380 and I had the pleasure of spending some very personal time with him in 2011. This is now three years after

00:27:05.980 the beginning of the Great Recession, the financial crisis. And it was well in hand by then, but it

00:27:13.580 wasn't completed. And I spoke to Jim, and I tell you, you know, when I lose faith with this liberal

00:27:21.500 government, I do remember that there are some great public servants, some great public servants that make

00:27:27.740 this country great. And I don't lose it. When I'm as depressed as I am today, I don't lose sight of that.

00:27:35.340 I asked Jim, and I said, you know, you are the most sought after finance minister. You got awards. You are the

00:27:46.380 best in the industry. He received an award in 2009, a European award as best finance minister. And I asked him,

00:27:56.460 I said, why are you still doing this? I was an entrepreneur. I was in a major law firm at the time.

00:28:01.900 And I wondered, why aren't you going to a major law firm? And he would be, you know, he could make

00:28:08.860 in the millions. Or why not even go down south with Citibank or some other big institution that could pay

00:28:16.140 him $10 million? I mean, he was worth a fortune at the time. And I didn't understand it. And Jim looked

00:28:23.180 me square in the eyes and said, Manny, I still have a job to do. We're not out of this yet.

00:28:28.780 My goal to Canadians, my promise to Canadians is to get to a balanced budget. And we're on our way

00:28:36.220 there. And I walked away from there saying, wow, here's a guy that's leaving millions at the table

00:28:43.260 just to just to perform his public duties. Then I watched. And of course, he did. He did balance

00:28:49.900 budget 2014. He did resign 2014. And he passed away shortly afterwards, which just breaks my heart.

00:28:58.540 But it tells you the greatness of the man and the greatness of the public servant that Canada had.

00:29:04.860 Then I watched what Marno did yesterday. And in contrast to what I personally knew

00:29:11.660 of Jim Flaherty, Marno was all about him. I can't believe that Canadians, any Canadian, 1.00

00:29:19.660 would accept a person saying, yeah, I took this job. But you know what? I'm quitting because I'm done.

00:29:26.380 And I'm bored. And I'm going to go try to get this other job. And then leave you Canadians in a crisis. 1.00

00:29:33.260 That is the utter, complete opposite of Jim Flaherty. How Canadians are not just outraged

00:29:40.300 by the selfishness, by the lack of public duty. He understood the challenges. We are within only

00:29:48.940 a few months of this pandemic at the beginning of trying to get out. And he's already bailing.

00:29:55.900 So in contrast, but you know, I'm not shocked. This is a, you know, an unproven unethical minister

00:30:03.340 who already has a guilty finding under the Conflict of Interest Act. He had another investigation,

00:30:11.900 but was not found guilty. And he obstructed justice, instructed, used cabinet privilege and instructed

00:30:20.220 his staff not to speak to Mario Dumont, which was the ethics commissioner in the investigation of

00:30:26.060 the SEC Lavalin, which he was involved in it. So, so, you know, it just, of course,

00:30:32.860 this is going to happen. This is what I would expect of Minister Marno. And this is what I expect

00:30:38.780 of every person in this government, because it comes from the head. What's best for me? The message

00:30:44.220 best for me is, I'm tired of this. I want to move on. And I want to try another job and,

00:30:49.580 you know, screw you, Canadians, screw you and deal with your crisis in the first two, 1.00

00:30:55.180 three months of a crisis seemingly five times larger than what Jim Flaherty had to deal with. 0.99

00:31:02.460 Yeah. I mean, it's obviously untrue what he said. It's obviously untrue that he was done and tired,

00:31:08.220 and it makes no sense that he would have run for a seat planning to abandon it mere months later.

00:31:14.780 So it's obviously a lie that he and Trudeau or their spin doctors crafted together.

00:31:21.900 And I think it was designed, if I had to try and reverse engineer it, Manny, designed so that

00:31:28.380 Bill Morneau could say, oh, no, I wasn't fired. I wasn't scapegoated. I'm still super great. This

00:31:34.940 was my decision. I'm going to something even cooler. And Canada is so small time for me. I'm going

00:31:40.220 even bigger the OECD. So yeah, no, no, I'm not. I think this was designed to let him save face in

00:31:48.300 a way, even though it's a palpable lie. But you make the most important point, which is

00:31:52.860 imagine choosing to tell that lie. Yes. And because you think it's it looks better on you

00:32:02.140 to abandon the country in its biggest crisis in almost 100 years, because that's all that's

00:32:07.980 important is what do I look like? I mean, he's a billionaire by marriage. He married into the

00:32:13.420 McCain potato dynasty. He already is famous, I guess. So it was so important that he save face.

00:32:23.180 He'd rather lie to Canadians and get Trudeau out of a tight spot. You know, an honest guy would have

00:32:29.100 probably said, I quit because I won't work with Trudeau on A, B and C. I don't know. But what he did

00:32:34.940 was the worst of all worlds. But Ezra, brilliant point. But let's go deeper into that. It's not just

00:32:41.660 what he said. You know, this was approved by the PMO. You know that this was negotiated. So you have to

00:32:49.260 ask yourself this question. Why would the prime minister of Canada allow a guy to belittle the

00:32:57.420 finances of Canada for a better job? Allow a guy to say, I'm quitting because I'm kind of bored.

00:33:03.260 I want something new. Allow a guy to undermine the Canadian financial integrity. Why did the prime

00:33:10.860 minister accept this resignation speech? You know that the PMO looked at it. You know that they agreed to

00:33:17.820 it. And it only, I can only assume, I mean, either they willfully and dislike Canada so much that they

00:33:28.540 allow this guy to save his face over, you know, 37 million people. Or does the finance minister,

00:33:38.140 does Bill Moreau have some really nasty stuff, worse that we can imagine?

00:33:43.820 As we saw it played out on the SNC Lavalin, we didn't know until it all started coming out. Is it

00:33:52.700 that bad that Marno says, you know what, you want me to talk about this? Justin, you want me to talk

00:33:59.580 about that? You better accept me saving my ass, excuse me, and letting Canada flounder because that's 0.99

00:34:08.460 what you better accept. You better, he didn't put Bill Marno on the bus. The prime minister did not 0.99

00:34:15.500 put Bill Marno on the bus. The prime minister put Canada under the bus to allow the acceptance of this

00:34:23.340 resignation, which is a complete offense to every Canadian. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of MPs,

00:34:31.340 but few of them are as personally and physically close as Trudeau and Marno. I mean, even their

00:34:39.900 poses. Here's a pose. I thought this was a Photoshop when I first saw it. I mean, hugging,

00:34:45.660 hand on tummies. I just, I don't think I've ever touched a guy like that other than when I was in

00:34:52.380 high school wrestling or something. It's really weird. And they would pose so close, nose to nose,

00:34:58.780 and they would pose making sort of lovey hearts at each other and smiling. And I've never had my

00:35:05.260 face within one centimeter of another man's face other than, I suppose, when I was a baby.

00:35:12.540 There was something so eerily close. I mean, I'm not implying anything sexual. I'm just saying it was

00:35:18.700 really weird. The personal space merging of these two, I think they were close in, in, it just felt

00:35:26.460 weird. So I bet they know a lot about each other. So maybe, I mean, I think Bill Morneau is not as

00:35:32.940 sophisticated, uh, a knife fighter as Trudeau. But I think that it would be a disaster for Trudeau

00:35:41.020 if Morneau would spill, spill the beans. Like, so I think it's like a Mexican standoff. 0.78

00:35:47.340 Yeah. And I think each other, yes. And I, but I think after having what we've seen,

00:35:52.140 the attorney general, like, I mean, look what's happened to Canada. Probably the most important,

00:35:57.500 and this is a, you know, we are a constitutional driven country. The two most important people,

00:36:05.900 and obviously we're an entrepreneurial country, we're not a socialist country,

00:36:10.060 but the two most important people are the attorney general of Canada, the person who oversees the,

00:36:16.060 the laws of Canada and the finance minister. Both of them quit. Now, the attorney general had some

00:36:23.740 stuff to say and couldn't say because of, of, of privilege. But I think what Trudeau did not want to

00:36:30.220 see is more truth than, you know, I mean, I guess some liberals might need so many truths that,

00:36:37.740 but, but we, we, we caught on to them. But I, I think that, that, that the, the Morneau had more

00:36:45.660 stuff to say and parlayed it where Trudeau was forced to throw Canada under, and under the bus,

00:36:55.100 and also basically said that he's going to strongly support his, his quest to become this new job with OECD.

00:37:05.740 So, so, so why, how does a prime minister sewer and throw Canada under the bus, our economy under

00:37:15.180 the bus for this one man? It has to be because this one man, I think, has a lot of stuff on Trudeau,

00:37:23.420 much like we saw with the attorney general and the treasury board chair. So it, that's, and it's sad

00:37:29.340 because today, you know, I guess some of the media are saying Morneau was thrown on the bus.

00:37:34.940 I feel that Canada was thrown on the bus. You know, why would Morneau say, you know,

00:37:39.900 the gig is finance minister in the greatest economic upheaval in Canada in a hundred years.

00:37:45.740 Ah, you know what? Bored. Get somebody else to do it. It just doesn't make sense.

00:37:51.980 Well, I've already seen a lot of headlines about the prorogation and the fact that parliament's being

00:37:58.540 dissolved and all these committees are being abandoned. The language is very mild compared

00:38:03.580 to how the media described it when Harper prorogued the government. And I recall when

00:38:08.620 Harper did it back in 2000 and I think it was eight, it was because the opposition parties

00:38:13.660 days after the election said, huh, well, we're going to form a coalition, the bloc,

00:38:20.940 hippie, quad, the liberty and the NDP, we're going to form a coalition and we're going to take the

00:38:25.100 government away from Harper who had won the plurality of votes. None of this was mentioned

00:38:30.380 during the election. Harper said, we're just going to freeze everything, prorogue parliament.

00:38:35.100 And it cooled off and went away. Everyone thought, oh, how dare you prorogue parliament?

00:38:40.060 Well, to stop a trick separatist coalition. Yeah. I was there, Ezra. It was, it was egregious. We,

00:38:49.900 the Canadians just had an election, end of October. They have a minority government. And within

00:38:57.180 a few dozen days, there was a, you know, the deal with the devil, the bloc,

00:39:03.020 the bloc whose, whose duty is to end Canada and create its own country, signed a coalition

00:39:13.660 with the other minority parties to create the opposition. I mean, that was absurd on two basis.

00:39:20.780 And, and, and Prime Minister Harper had to, first of all, understand what's happening. Second of all,

00:39:27.180 understand why the media didn't understand what's happening. But we just had an election and

00:39:32.300 the, uh, they wanted to take, wrestle government away by creating this party that required the bloc

00:39:41.660 to be part of government. And, and that was absurd. And Canadians kind of said, hey, well,

00:39:47.740 this is getting to be really stinky. After he prorogued and messaged to Canadians properly, and, and the

00:39:55.020 message finally got out, it was very clear that that, that, that, that, that coup with the bloc,

00:40:03.100 who are anti-Canada as one country, um, it kind of dissipated. That's completely different facts than

00:40:11.180 today. Uh, we, today we have a, a, a crisis, a financial crisis. There isn't any opposition that's

00:40:19.660 trying to take down the government other than bloc, but there is no other opposition that's trying to

00:40:24.540 take the, during this time. There was no need to prorogue. So, um, it is, it is beyond me. This is,

00:40:31.580 you know, a thousand times worse than what happened in 2008, 2009. Yeah. Well, you wouldn't know it from

00:40:37.500 the mainstream media. No. It's great to catch up with you. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

00:40:42.380 Trudeau always wanted to get out of the, uh, restraints of parliament. He tried it once

00:40:47.020 before in the early days of the pandemic. He failed. Um, I think he's mentally checked out.

00:40:51.980 Um, I think his best buddy, Gerald Butts is in New York now. So he's lonely. He doesn't know who to

00:40:57.500 trust. Um, he doesn't like the work. He's, he's sort of got an, an enemy. I think they would say

00:41:04.460 he's bored. He's taking long vacations. His calendar has more personal days than ever before.

00:41:10.300 Chrystia Freeland says, Oh, I'll take that boss. I'll take that boss. She's hyperkinetic. 1.00

00:41:14.300 How good she is is a different thing. I actually think we have the worst government now than we

00:41:19.580 have had at any other moment in the Trudeau administration because he's checked out.

00:41:24.780 Well, that's true, but also the message and Ezra, I'd like to get your take on this because

00:41:30.380 I'm confused. The PMO message that there was a conflict between how to get out of this, uh,

00:41:38.060 financial crisis and they set up Murno as the kind of tough guy who wanted to cut back spending.

00:41:47.420 And what message does that mean? I mean, first of all, I wouldn't consider Murno anywhere near

00:41:53.740 a fiscal type of conservative. I certainly, you know, certainly not that. And he hasn't demonstrated

00:42:00.220 that. And it's for five years. I mean, he was the first to breach the balanced budget. He,

00:42:06.140 he exceeded his own high estimations of balance budget. So he's no Jim Flaherty. He's no conservative,

00:42:12.220 uh, conservative type, small C conservative type finance minister. So what is going on

00:42:18.620 with they setting up? Well, you know, he wanted to kind of cut a little bit of spending, but we want

00:42:25.420 to go hog wild. We need, we need someone, a finance minister to go hog wild on the spending.

00:42:33.260 That is frightening. If it's true, if it's true, it is frightening because we, we, he dead, we're,

00:42:40.780 we're, we're well over 500 billion. I mean, if the answer is in the next five years, add another 500

00:42:46.140 billion. Uh, it is frightening. Yeah. Well, many, uh, in, uh, short days, the conservative

00:42:53.820 party of Canada will reveal its new leader, um, as a result of its voting process, which is slightly

00:43:00.140 complicated and certainly weighted towards the smaller, uh, um, party membership ridings in the

00:43:07.340 country. So every member in Quebec or the Atlantic, for example, has per person a greater say than in

00:43:14.460 Alberta and Ontario. So it'll be, it's hard to guess. It's hard to read the tea leaves. We won't

00:43:19.740 know who the leader is until I think it's Sunday. In fact, people say Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole

00:43:27.260 are the front runners. We also hear that Leslie Lewis has some momentum. I don't think we'll actually

00:43:32.140 know until the end, but whoever it is, Manny, they're going to have the work cut out for them.

00:43:36.620 Last word to you. Yeah, no, absolutely. I, the new conservative leader. I mean, uh, you know,

00:43:43.420 we have a prime minister who caused the attorney general to resign because of his, because of

00:43:50.380 everything. It has his fingerprints on it, has true to fingerprints, obstruction of justice.

00:43:56.700 The attorney general resigned treasury board, the president of the treasury board resigned for the

00:44:00.940 same year. We forgot Ezra, the clerk of the treaty council. When in Canada's history has the unbiased

00:44:08.140 clerk of the treaty council that's there to direct the bureaucrat resigned because he felt that he was

00:44:13.180 in a conflict of interest. Right. His best friend quits, his finances. And let's add to this,

00:44:18.860 that what, what the, the, the, the governor general, like what the, is going on with the governor

00:44:25.100 general, these are all Trudeau's judgments. These, these are the, this is basically the five top

00:44:31.420 people in Canada, if you look, are constitutional. And of the five, it's a disaster. The attorney,

00:44:38.700 the governor general, uh, Johnson that was there under, under, uh, uh, uh, prime minister Harper

00:44:45.740 was just, it was a fine man that he did his duties honorably and made Canada look proud. It is a mess.

00:44:52.620 We, we are a mess in the monarchy. We are the mess in our finances. I mean, everything Trudeau has

00:44:59.020 touched is judgment. Do I think that the new finance minister is going to be any better? Absolutely not.

00:45:06.860 She was persona non grata in the white house that I know because I speak to my American friends.

00:45:13.900 She's not even allowed near the white house because she attended that, that, that tyrant seminar 1.00

00:45:20.460 that called Trump a tyrant, uh, while she's negotiating. So that, I mean, I guess the media

00:45:27.580 can spend what it wants, but I don't think, uh, Minister Freeland is going to be a strong

00:45:34.700 financial assistant to the problems that we have now. Well, my friend, you've left me suitably

00:45:40.300 depressed, but it's great to talk to you as always. That's my job. That's my job is to move my depression

00:45:45.420 on for you. That's my job. Manny Martin-Nagrino, CEO of ThinkSharp. Great to see you again.

00:45:51.580 Take care. All right. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead on Rebel News.

00:46:07.500 Hey, welcome back to my monologue last night. Susan writes, President Trump does not get the credit

00:46:11.420 he deserves. This election in the U.S. will have effects on us here in Canada too. He's the only

00:46:16.140 one standing between the globalists and the citizens. Oh, I think it's the most important

00:46:20.220 election. I mean, you could have said that last time too, but this is it. This is it.

00:46:25.420 Matt writes, the art of the deal. That's right. Trump's the king of the deal maker.

00:46:29.660 I think you're right. And I thought it was an intractable problem. Maybe it would be intractable

00:46:34.540 intractable to get Iran on side or the PLO itself. But I guess Trump had the savvy to say,

00:46:41.900 well, why would I try and negotiate with the PLO or Hamas? Those are terrorist groups. Why don't I

00:46:46.460 negotiate with the most successful countries in the Arab world? Those little Gulf states like Dubai 1.00

00:46:53.180 looks like a pretty successful place, pretty liberal place as Arabia goes. Yeah. Why not try and do a deal

00:47:00.300 with someone who wants to do a deal? Maybe it was just that simple observation. Bruce writes,

00:47:06.940 the reason President Trump succeeded where Barack Obama failed is simple. Conservatives deal with the

00:47:11.340 world as it is. Socialists try to force reality to bend to their utopian ideals. I think there's a

00:47:16.460 lot to that. I think that's not a bad observation. Well, that's our story and our show for today.

00:47:21.420 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night,

00:47:25.580 good night. And keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 19, 2020

A journalism lobby group took Trudeau’s bail-out — and now they’re calling for censorship

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