Rebel News Podcast - An Alberta university implements a free speech pledge — and the province’s journalists complain

00:00:00.000 Hey, Rebels, did you ever notice how the media uses the word controversial as sort of a dumb

00:00:06.780 code word for things they just don't like, but they can't really marshal an argument

00:00:10.780 against?

00:00:11.560 The latest is the Edmonton Journal calling a free speech code at Keanu College.

00:00:17.220 And by that, I'm not speaking Orwellian, and ironically, it really is a code strengthening

00:00:21.460 free speech.

00:00:22.320 The Edmonton Journal calls that controversial.

00:00:26.300 Yeah, mate, I don't think that's controversial.

00:00:28.140 I think the opposite is controversial.

00:00:30.100 I'll take you through it today.

00:00:31.440 But before I do, can I encourage you to become a premium subscriber of The Rebel?

00:00:35.460 Just go to therebel.media slash shows, and it's eight bucks a month or 80 bucks for the

00:00:40.960 year.

00:00:41.620 Type in podcast as coupon code, you get a discount.

00:00:44.640 You also get Sheila's, Sheila Gunn-Reed shows and David Menzies shows.

00:00:47.940 And what's fun about it is you get the video version of this podcast, which I like to think

00:00:54.160 is better in every way other than you have to gaze upon me.

00:00:57.540 All right, without further to do, here's the show.

00:01:00.000 Tonight, the first Alberta university officially implements a free speech pledge, and the province's

00:01:10.620 journalists complain.

00:01:11.720 It's July 30th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:16.820 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:20.540 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:24.580 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:29.500 right to do so.

00:01:30.480 There's something wrong with the media when journalists are against free speech.

00:01:39.960 I mean, you probably think I'm joking or using a dramatic metaphor, but no, these days, journalists

00:01:45.020 are the most active censors out there.

00:01:46.780 There's a whole genre of journalism around being a tattletale.

00:01:50.520 By that, I mean, not actually reporting the news, not shoe leather reporting, get up from

00:01:54.440 your desk, go out into the world and find out what's going on.

00:01:56.460 I mean, the kind of journalism that involves snitching on people you don't like, doxing

00:02:00.840 people, as it's called.

00:02:01.700 That's when you publish private details about your political opponents, like their home

00:02:05.800 address, their bosses, name that sort of thing.

00:02:08.560 It's not journalism, really.

00:02:09.880 It's anti-journalism.

00:02:11.440 It's trying to stop people, shut them up, maybe even hurt them in some ways for having a

00:02:15.560 different point of view.

00:02:16.140 That's not journalism.

00:02:17.360 Here's an example of that.

00:02:18.780 Our friend Pamela Geller, who we've had on the show, well, a left-wing activist site that 0.99

00:02:23.180 calls itself BuzzFeed News, so they claim to be news reporters, they thought it newsworthy

00:02:28.620 to dig up the private details of Pamela Geller's daughters, to embarrass them and get them both 0.99

00:02:34.500 fired because BuzzFeed hates their mom.

00:02:38.520 Mission accomplished, I get. 0.98

00:02:39.940 BuzzFeed is trash journalism, though I think they revel in it, but CNN actually calls itself 0.80

00:02:44.920 the most trusted name in news. 0.95

00:02:47.200 Here they are going to a private citizen's home about a year and a half ago, a senior

00:02:51.300 citizen, a little Jewish grandma in Florida, who posted a Facebook message about Donald

00:02:57.020 Trump.

00:02:57.400 That's literally all she did.

00:02:59.900 And CNN went to her home, cameras rolling, named and shamed her on international TV, and

00:03:08.160 said she was colluding with the Russians.

00:03:10.120 Will you admit it?

00:03:11.160 Well, you guys were involved with Being Patriotic, right? 0.62

00:03:14.880 Very, very patriotic, but not...

00:03:16.800 Being Patriotic was the group that contacted and helped organize some of these activities

00:03:21.340 that you posted on your own Facebook account.

00:03:24.340 Those were legitimate.

00:03:26.000 Those were Russians.

00:03:27.500 They were not Russians.

00:03:28.540 I don't go with the Russians. 1.00

00:03:30.260 That group was Russian.

00:03:32.260 I have nothing to do with the Russians. 0.98

00:03:34.200 Well, apparently you did.

00:03:35.440 Is that journalism, going to some grandma's house and saying we saw you post something

00:03:43.680 on Facebook?

00:03:45.520 No, I don't think that's journalism.

00:03:47.100 Sorry, that's not going to win you a Pulitzer.

00:03:48.760 Well, actually, these days maybe...

00:03:50.120 Well, that's embarrassing and punishing a Trump supporter, a Florida grandma who just

00:03:56.100 dared to put something on Facebook!

00:03:59.360 Something Trumpy for her friends.

00:04:01.000 CNN is a Democrat vengeance machine.

00:04:03.460 I'm sorry, that was not journalism, folks.

00:04:06.280 You're not going to...

00:04:07.480 You know, that's not the new Watergate.

00:04:09.020 Grandma posts something on Facebook that's not quite right.

00:04:11.860 The shocking footage that will bring down that Florida Bubby and Zadie.

00:04:16.040 One last example.

00:04:16.980 I've shown you this before.

00:04:17.760 It's from a group ironically called Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

00:04:22.420 Talk about false advertising in their name.

00:04:24.380 Last year, you recall, they literally started a petition to ban, to censor Donald Trump from

00:04:32.340 speaking at the G7 conference held in Quebec.

00:04:35.320 It was so insane that even the left-wing Toronto Star condemned them.

00:04:38.720 I mean, just slow down for a second.

00:04:40.400 Canadian journalists for free expression literally wanted to ban Donald Trump from speaking, including

00:04:47.720 speaking to journalists. 0.96

00:04:48.880 By the way, that's clown world. 0.86

00:04:50.780 That's journalism today. 0.71

00:04:52.180 Oh, one more thing about Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

00:04:54.920 I hate saying that lie.

00:04:56.100 When Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he wanted more freedom of expression on campus, more

00:05:00.980 diversity of views, more open debate, fewer leftist safe spaces and trigger warnings and

00:05:05.920 censorship, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression attacked him.

00:05:10.520 I'm not kidding.

00:05:11.180 They oppose it.

00:05:12.060 They deplore it.

00:05:12.800 Those are the words they use.

00:05:13.680 Look at that headline on their press release, Free Expression Groups Oppose Ontario Government

00:05:18.560 Plan for Universities and Colleges.

00:05:21.040 Oh my God, it sounds like Doug Ford was coming to censor them.

00:05:23.320 They actually don't mention in the headline that it was a plan to increase free speech. 0.72

00:05:28.640 They're so dishonest.

00:05:30.060 They know they ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they're not. 0.99

00:05:33.820 Unbelievable.

00:05:34.460 Which brings me back to the news of the day.

00:05:37.080 Jason Kenney's new government in Alberta is following Doug Ford's lead in Ontario and bringing

00:05:41.440 in similar rules to enhance free speech in Alberta.

00:05:43.880 Now, what does it mean, a rule to ban free speech?

00:05:47.920 Isn't free speech sort of the opposite, a lack of rules?

00:05:50.980 Well, that's the thing about a government institution.

00:05:52.760 They need to be reined in, constrained, put a straitjacket on them.

00:05:56.480 They need to be limited in what they can do or else over time, like a weed, they'll just

00:06:01.140 grow bigger and bigger and take over.

00:06:02.240 In a university situation, that could mean, for example, banning student clubs, stopping

00:06:07.820 them from registering or stopping them from getting office space in the student union building

00:06:13.060 or renting rooms for events.

00:06:14.800 That happens to pro-life clubs in Canadian campuses all the time, by the way.

00:06:18.800 It could mean the trick that they did on Lindsay Shepard when she wanted to speak on campus.

00:06:23.260 They said, sure you can, but you have to pay more than $10,000 in security fees.

00:06:28.820 Of course, students already pay millions of dollars in fees for campus security.

00:06:33.260 And then, of course, there's the regular police.

00:06:35.120 It's the university's duty to keep it a safe space.

00:06:38.900 And I don't mean safe from hurt feelings, but actually safe from physical violence.

00:06:42.820 So when you say to a speaker, sure you can come, absolutely, you just need to pay $10,000

00:06:47.880 in security fees.

00:06:49.960 No, no, no, that's not really a security fee.

00:06:51.520 It's just a way of banning a speaker from your campus without having to be honest enough

00:06:55.840 to say they're banned, which is why universities need rules.

00:06:59.120 They need to be limited because in every university, both in the student's union level and the administration

00:07:03.840 itself, there lurk plenty of would-be censors.

00:07:07.000 And they probably don't even think of themselves that way.

00:07:09.020 So that's what Doug Ford's doing in Ontario.

00:07:11.040 He's telling campuses that if they censor their own students, they risk having Doug Ford take

00:07:15.720 their money away.

00:07:16.540 So Doug Ford obviously knows.

00:07:18.060 What we all know is that universities care more about money than about principles of open

00:07:23.140 debate in 2019.

00:07:24.340 So that's where he gets them.

00:07:26.440 He gets them by paying attention, by threatening their cash.

00:07:29.340 It's smart.

00:07:29.760 He's not lying about it being a security fee.

00:07:33.240 He's telling the truth.

00:07:34.080 If they don't believe in the free exchange of ideas, he really doesn't see the point in

00:07:37.060 funding them because that's the point of universities.

00:07:40.020 I agree.

00:07:40.620 And so does Jason Kenney.

00:07:41.680 And now, the first Alberta university to sign on with the free speech pledge is a great

00:07:47.600 little college in Fort McMurray called Keanu College.

00:07:50.440 I had the pleasure of giving a pro-oil sands speech there once.

00:07:53.360 The kids are great.

00:07:54.720 And maybe it's not surprising that they're the first callers to sign on in Alberta in

00:07:58.580 a real city like Fort McMurray, hardworking town, pro-industry town, a town hurt by leftist

00:08:04.000 politics.

00:08:04.620 You probably have fewer social justice censors than you do, say, in the lefty paradise of

00:08:09.240 Edmonton.

00:08:09.900 So they're the first.

00:08:11.180 Here's a story in the Edmonton Journal about it.

00:08:14.060 Keanu College becomes first Alberta institution to publicly roll out Chicago principles.

00:08:18.640 And I'm not sure if you remember, but the Chicago principles, that's the name given to a

00:08:22.060 statement written by a number of scholars at the University of Chicago who were doing

00:08:25.900 their best to outline a practical but principled free speech policy.

00:08:30.960 It's a really thoughtful document.

00:08:32.920 It's so good.

00:08:33.680 It's so well done that it's been adopted widely by other universities, too, because they just

00:08:38.000 did such a good job.

00:08:39.100 Here's what it looks like.

00:08:39.940 It's very simple.

00:08:40.940 It's just a three-page document.

00:08:42.940 And like half of one page is just people who signed it.

00:08:46.080 I think I took you through most of this a few months ago.

00:08:48.860 But let me just read to you one more time a key paragraph that I think just nails it.

00:08:53.960 So here's from the Chicago statement.

00:08:57.820 Of course, the ideas of different members of the university community will often and quite

00:09:04.160 naturally conflict.

00:09:06.400 But it is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from ideas

00:09:10.720 and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.

00:09:16.120 Although the university greatly values civility, and although all members of the university

00:09:21.860 community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns

00:09:26.980 about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion

00:09:32.100 of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.

00:09:37.920 You know, how can you disagree with that?

00:09:39.760 I recommend you read the whole thing.

00:09:41.020 I'll see if we can put a link to the Chicago principles on the website under this video.

00:09:46.300 You can see why so many leaders around North America say, hey, just copy what they did

00:09:50.900 in Chicago.

00:09:52.440 So Keanu College is in.

00:09:54.360 But the Edmonton Journal, they seem sort of mad about it.

00:09:58.960 Let me read a little more.

00:10:00.080 A northern Alberta college has become the first post-secondary institution to officially adopt

00:10:04.200 controversial freedom of speech rules ahead of an approaching deadline set out by the provincial

00:10:11.600 government.

00:10:12.260 Hang on, hang on.

00:10:13.400 Controversial?

00:10:15.800 Says who? 0.65

00:10:17.240 Is it controversial to support free speech on a university campus?

00:10:21.560 That's controversial?

00:10:23.720 Not that censorship has become the norm?

00:10:26.360 I love that word controversial.

00:10:27.880 It really means nothing, does it?

00:10:29.420 Other than a supporter, a reporter is trying to be negative, but can't really make the

00:10:33.680 case.

00:10:34.020 Ooh, controversial.

00:10:36.220 It's like a generic warning, but the kind of warning that says, I can't really articulate

00:10:40.700 the problem, but just trust us.

00:10:42.180 It's controversial.

00:10:44.480 Now, once upon a time, you could actually trust the Edmonton Journal.

00:10:47.960 About 80 years ago, they won a Pulitzer Prize for standing up.

00:10:51.180 It's right there in their lobby, by the way.

00:10:52.840 It's amazing.

00:10:54.400 Standing up to Bill Eberhardt, the premier of Alberta, who passed a series of laws.

00:10:58.600 Can you believe it?

00:10:59.960 That allowed the government to force newspapers to print government propaganda on their editorial

00:11:04.420 page.

00:11:04.780 See, if Eberhardt had been smart about it, he wouldn't have used the stick to force them

00:11:09.800 to write his editorials.

00:11:11.020 He'd have used a carrot, like Justin Trudeau.

00:11:13.640 He'd have offered the Edmonton Journal its cut of a $600 million bailout, or whatever the

00:11:17.640 equivalent would have been in 1938 dollars.

00:11:19.940 And they would have censored themselves willingly for him.

00:11:22.660 Anyways, that was then.

00:11:24.120 This is now.

00:11:24.960 Let me read from the journal today.

00:11:26.000 Hey, student groups had voiced concerns that schools weren't prepared.

00:11:31.740 Huh?

00:11:32.580 In May, the United Conservative Party announced its intention to follow in Ontario's footsteps

00:11:37.620 by introducing the principles developed by the University of Chicago in 2014.

00:11:43.260 They allow speakers on campuses to share their views, no matter how unwelcome, disagreeable,

00:11:47.460 or even deeply offensive they may be.

00:11:49.280 They have been criticized by academics as benefiting more extreme and conservative speakers.

00:11:53.920 So, did you see that first part there?

00:11:57.220 Schools aren't prepared for free speech?

00:12:00.820 What does that even mean?

00:12:02.420 I think that means they need free speech good and hard, then.

00:12:05.140 If they're not prepared for it, they need it good and hard.

00:12:07.680 What about the part about benefiting extreme and conservative speakers?

00:12:11.360 Well, you know, on that last point, I suppose they're right.

00:12:14.240 Since the majority of banned groups these days are conservative, I mentioned the pro-life

00:12:19.660 clubs earlier.

00:12:20.300 But if you read the Chicago Principles, which I doubt the Edmonton Journal has, even though

00:12:24.600 it's only two and a half pages, the first example the Chicago Principles cite is actually

00:12:29.440 a communist, a leftist.

00:12:31.100 Let me read.

00:12:31.480 A student organization invited William Z. Foster, the Communist Party's candidate for

00:12:37.180 president, to lecture on campus.

00:12:38.960 This triggered a storm of protests from critics both on and off campus.

00:12:42.100 To those who condemn the university for allowing the event, President Robert M. Hutchins responded

00:12:46.500 that, quote,

00:12:47.140 On a later occasion, Hutchins added that free inquiry is indispensable to the good life,

00:13:02.800 that universities exist for the sake of such inquiry, and that without it, they cease to

00:13:07.220 be universities.

00:13:08.340 So yeah, I guess to most academics and most journalists, when a leftist is barred from

00:13:13.860 campus, that's censorship. 0.76

00:13:15.280 But when a conservative is banned, that's just good hygiene.

00:13:19.660 Let me quote you from the Keanu College statement itself.

00:13:22.340 It's in point form.

00:13:23.500 There's a little bit of wiggle room in it.

00:13:24.620 We'll see how it's implemented.

00:13:25.800 But I like these parts.

00:13:26.660 Here, let me read a few.

00:13:28.720 Community members have the right to criticize and question other views expressed on campus,

00:13:34.960 but cannot obstruct or interfere with others' freedom of speech.

00:13:38.820 And institutions should not attempt to shield students from ideas or opinions they disagree

00:13:43.660 with or find offensive.

00:13:45.600 Mutual respect and civility are valued, but do not constitute sufficient justification to

00:13:50.160 limit free speech.

00:13:51.200 I like it.

00:13:51.980 I like it.

00:13:52.660 I can hear the echoes of the Chicago principles in there, and I can see why leftists, Antifa

00:13:57.500 thugs, and tattletale hall monitors, snitch-style journalists like BuzzFeed News would hate it.

00:14:03.440 I mean, the whole point of doxing people is to shut them down, de-platform them, to ban

00:14:07.900 them.

00:14:08.360 And Keanu College is saying in advance that they're not going to accept that kind of behavior.

00:14:12.040 You know, I made an observation to a friend the other day.

00:14:15.000 I'll tell you a personal story.

00:14:16.020 When I was at the Sun News Network, you probably know, I was sued or threatened with lawsuits

00:14:21.560 every few months, frankly.

00:14:24.480 Now, Sun News stood by me.

00:14:25.640 They knew that if they surrendered even once, there would be a tidal wave of nuisance suits.

00:14:29.900 So they held firm.

00:14:30.920 And we never lost one lawsuit, although I should tell you, a couple of those lawsuits continue

00:14:34.360 even to this day, nearly five years after the Sun shut down.

00:14:37.380 But we've been here at The Rebel for almost five years, and I checked, and we've produced

00:14:42.500 more than 12,500 videos so far.

00:14:44.820 That's a lot.

00:14:46.460 And we've only been sued twice, once in Canada and once in Australia.

00:14:52.520 How could that be?

00:14:54.300 I mean, we're just as editorially tough as we were back at Sun News.

00:14:58.280 We're much smaller commercially than the mighty Quebec or the multi-billion-dollar company that

00:15:04.080 owns Sun News.

00:15:04.600 So why aren't the bullies using lawfare against us more like they did back in the Sun?

00:15:11.380 Now, I don't want them to, but I was just curious, why aren't they?

00:15:14.200 Well, here's one theory.

00:15:16.480 Most of the lawsuits against Sun News, they weren't real at all.

00:15:19.360 They probably didn't even expect to win.

00:15:21.460 They probably didn't expect to go to trial.

00:15:23.520 Like I say, there still are, too, going on.

00:15:25.480 But more than a dozen lawsuits and complaints to the CRTC and just endless threats, they simply

00:15:31.600 went nowhere.

00:15:32.220 So why did people do them?

00:15:35.320 I think the whole point of them was to harass, not me, actually, but my bosses there, to

00:15:40.680 stress the relationship between Sun and me, to cause stress there, to make it a headache

00:15:45.900 and a cost and a time waster for everyone there, just to train them, to condition them

00:15:50.000 into being less politically conservative, less pugilistic.

00:15:52.640 It was a psychological operation, a psyops.

00:15:55.040 Partly targeting me, but mainly targeting the bosses there, the corporate bosses, to make

00:16:00.140 them associate, what's that word, controversy with me.

00:16:03.640 Controversial commentator, Ezra Levant.

00:16:05.620 Controversial network Sun News.

00:16:06.640 It was to harass Quebecor in the hope that they'd cut us loose.

00:16:09.920 Now, they didn't.

00:16:11.200 It took Stephen Harbour's CRTC to kill Sun News.

00:16:14.420 But here, the rebel, there's no boss to hassle or stress.

00:16:20.220 I mean, I guess I'm the boss, but really, I see our viewers as the boss.

00:16:23.860 You're the ones who fund us.

00:16:25.120 So the strategy of threatening us with lawsuits doesn't work as well.

00:16:29.320 I suppose a lawsuit could kill us if it really hits home and we lose.

00:16:33.940 But the process itself, us being the target of a nuisance suit, I don't think it demoralizes

00:16:38.860 our people because we expect it and we know it's unfair.

00:16:41.520 I think in some ways it revs our people up because it proves our point about leftists wanting

00:16:45.520 to silence us instead of debate us.

00:16:47.360 I mean, that thuggish elections commissioner in Alberta who's going after Sheila Gunn-Reed 0.99

00:16:51.860 for her book, I mean, that might scare a big corporation that's risk-averse, but here

00:16:56.560 to us, it just enrages me and I think all of Sheila's fans.

00:17:01.780 It makes me want to fight harder.

00:17:03.240 I think it makes our viewers want to fight harder.

00:17:04.740 We're going to beat them, by the way.

00:17:06.040 My point is what Keanu, here's why I mentioned all that, is that what Keanu College is doing

00:17:11.080 is removing the incentive, the process, removing the stress, removing the tactic, removing the

00:17:17.740 strategy from the censorship left.

00:17:19.540 In fact, disrupting conservative speakers won't work anymore at Keanu College.

00:17:23.680 Complaining to the media about Keanu College having a speaker won't work anymore.

00:17:27.540 I mean, the media will have a tantrum, but they won't be able to pressure university administrators

00:17:32.240 into blocking or deplatforming an event like they could.

00:17:36.000 It'll actually change the economy of the harassment left.

00:17:40.280 It takes the ability for them to censor away.

00:17:43.360 It actually makes the left engage and debate if they care about something, or more likely

00:17:49.360 just go back to their dorm rooms and smoke pot if they don't care about something, which

00:17:53.080 most of the time they don't.

00:17:54.180 I like Keanu College's new rules.

00:17:57.600 And unlike the Edmund Journal and the rest of the snitch journalists out there, I don't

00:18:02.020 see it as controversial.

00:18:03.100 I see those fake news journalists who think going to a grandma's home to grill her about a 0.79

00:18:07.240 Facebook post.

00:18:07.960 I see them as controversial.

00:18:09.940 And based on the plummeting viewership of CNN and the plummeting readership of the Edmund

00:18:14.980 Journal, I think a lot of other people think the same way I do, too.

00:18:19.420 Stay with us for more.

00:18:20.300 Welcome back.

00:18:35.080 Well, shocking news.

00:18:35.800 I don't know if you saw it.

00:18:37.220 Justin Trudeau has had nonpartisan senior civil servants, so I'm not talking about political

00:18:42.980 appointees, but rather permanent bureaucrats, pick up the phone and call independent pundits,

00:18:49.020 commentators, former ambassadors, to tell them to stop saying things about the fact that

00:18:56.020 China still holds two Canadian hostages, or at least to stop saying things that might

00:19:02.280 get in the way of Justin Trudeau's re-election.

00:19:05.320 Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Lauren Gunter, senior columnist with the Edmonton

00:19:09.180 Sun, who recently wrote a great article about this.

00:19:11.800 It's in the Sun.

00:19:12.440 The headline is, The Latest Liberal Affront to Free Speech.

00:19:15.660 Lauren, great to see you.

00:19:17.280 Good to see you.

00:19:17.920 You know what?

00:19:19.980 I understand why liberal partisans would want the liberals to be re-elected.

00:19:25.280 That's their job.

00:19:26.420 And I could even understand why maybe a campaign manager might call around to pundits and say,

00:19:32.480 hey, help us out. 0.93

00:19:33.460 There'll be a weird request.

00:19:35.260 But I find it concerning, as I know you do, too, that nonpartisan civil servants would be

00:19:43.620 phoning professors and pundits and saying, hey, come on, you're saying the wrong thing.

00:19:48.240 It's going to be hard for Trudeau to get re-elected.

00:19:50.700 That doesn't sound like the Canadian way.

00:19:52.360 No, I would call this interference laundering.

00:19:58.980 The government is trying to interfere in people's freedom of expression, but they don't want it to appear as though Trudeau or one of his direct minions is doing it themselves.

00:20:11.200 They want it to appear as though Global Affairs Canada, the old Foreign Affairs Department, is doing it.

00:20:18.540 So they have an assistant deputy minister in global affairs phone David Mulroney, who is our – no relation to Brian Mulroney.

00:20:29.060 David Mulroney, who's our former ambassador to China.

00:20:32.760 And Guy Saint-Jacques, who is another former ambassador to China, and say, you know, given the – these are direct quotes – election environment, we would be happier if you wouldn't say anything negative – that would come back negatively on the government.

00:20:49.220 Well, there's so many things wrong with this.

00:20:51.920 First of all, both men are academics now, so you're sort of meddling with academic independence.

00:20:56.820 They're both private citizens now.

00:20:58.660 They're no longer federal civil servants, and they don't take an oath that lasts for a lifetime.

00:21:05.740 If you are in the intelligence services, there are things you cannot ever talk about, period.

00:21:12.000 It doesn't matter how many years you've been out, how many years you've been retired.

00:21:15.140 There are certain things you simply can't talk about.

00:21:17.360 These guys aren't covered by any of that.

00:21:19.820 They were bureaucrats and diplomats.

00:21:22.960 They weren't spies.

00:21:25.440 So they're not covered by that.

00:21:27.020 So those – that's wrong as well.

00:21:29.580 The other thing that's wrong about this, and you may – you probably remember vividly, right after Trudeau was sworn in, I think it was two days after he was sworn in in 2015, he went to the Pearson Block, which is the home of Canada's Foreign Affairs Department, now called Global Affairs.

00:21:46.160 And there was a rock star reception for him.

00:21:49.480 There's an atrium in the middle of the building, and people lined the outside of the balconies all the way up to the top of the building to cheer and yell and, oh, it's Justin Trudeau here.

00:22:03.620 Oh, the bad Stephen Harper days are gone.

00:22:06.500 And I think ever since that time, a large chunk of people in global affairs, not by any means all of the people in global affairs, but a large chunk of them have been quite happy to be the diplomatic arm of the Liberal Party of Canada, not of the government of Canada.

00:22:25.380 And you'll remember too that David – that John McCallum, the minister that the Liberals had to lean on to leave, they had to pressure him to leave, even though I don't think they really wanted him to leave.

00:22:38.880 He was advising the Chinese government on things it could do to help the Liberals get re-elected in Canada.

00:22:48.420 So it's very incestuous.

00:22:50.640 It's a snake pit of counter-influences and influences and meddling, and that's just the latest of the Liberal efforts to limit free speech.

00:23:02.420 You know, and it's the worst when it comes to China, of course, Jean Chrétien, whose son-in-law is the head of the Desmarais Company's huge investors in China.

00:23:13.920 Jean Chrétien went to work in China with the Chinese government just a few weeks after stepping down from parliament, like a few weeks, not months or years.

00:23:24.360 I find it implausible that he wouldn't have been preparing for that while he was still PM.

00:23:30.080 You mentioned John McCallum giving advice to the Chinese government.

00:23:33.360 Just a few months ago, he was supposed to be our ambassador, giving advice to our government.

00:23:39.140 These guys are playing both sides of the table.

00:23:41.200 Now, what I like – you mentioned David Mulroney, and when people hear Mulroney, they think Brian Mulroney, but as you point out, no relation.

00:23:47.020 I enjoy following him on Twitter.

00:23:48.920 He's very much seized with the Chinese challenge right now.

00:23:53.340 He seems very thoughtful.

00:23:54.720 I don't know him in any other context.

00:23:57.020 He points out how Canada is not having either a principled or a pragmatic approach.

00:24:03.700 Like, I really find him a source of wisdom.

00:24:05.940 He reminds me of our old friend Charles Burton, who also loves the hope of China, but he's not blinded by xenophilia or something.

00:24:15.460 Yeah.

00:24:16.000 Not like John McCallum.

00:24:17.560 I mean, John McCallum boasted about the fact that he has a Chinese wife and that he was given a Chinese name.

00:24:26.200 And he would refer to himself sometimes by his Chinese name.

00:24:31.120 And he was given that name by Chinese officials.

00:24:34.060 So what we're looking at here – and this kind of gets off the free speech topic – but what we're looking here at global affairs now is that the people who are running things, who are liberal sycophants, are also amateurs at this.

00:24:51.080 It's like David Mulroney didn't always give Stephen Harper the advice Harper wanted to hear.

00:24:56.260 He didn't work to try and get the conservatives reelected.

00:25:00.620 He understood that we are a small fish.

00:25:05.180 We're a real underdog when you're taking on China. 0.80

00:25:08.420 But there are things you can do that the Chinese don't like that make them think twice about leaning on you. 0.99

00:25:15.660 And there is a pragmatic debate to be had within the federal government, in the Justice Department, Global Affairs, Prime Minister's Office about what we do with the Huawei executive that we are keeping under house arrest in Vancouver until she gets an extradition hearing to the United States.

00:25:34.600 What do we do with that?

00:25:36.060 How do we handle that?

00:25:38.100 Can we lean on – could we lean on the Germans, for instance, to lean on the Chinese, to back off on our two people? 0.81

00:25:46.780 You know, I don't know those answers.

00:25:49.620 But they know those answers.

00:25:51.000 There's lots of people who are very, very smart, who work at foreign affairs in Ottawa, who have dealt with this problem that we have, being a country of 36 million, up against giant economies and giant countries.

00:26:05.100 And how do we deal with that?

00:26:06.620 They know that.

00:26:07.560 But Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, their belief is that, you know, they just virtue signal.

00:26:14.140 Yeah.

00:26:14.860 They tweet, and that's going to make everything go away.

00:26:17.640 And it's funny because, you know, they cringe when you compare them to Donald Trump.

00:26:22.720 But they conduct an awful lot of foreign policy with no more forethought, nor any more depth of awareness and PR than Trump does.

00:26:32.980 Well, and just look at the effectiveness.

00:26:34.680 I mean, generally in foreign affairs, Trump gets what Trump wants, whether it's getting NATO countries to spend more on the military or – I mean, we don't know how the story is going to end with North Korea, but he's certainly made more progress than Obama has.

00:26:50.040 I don't know.

00:26:50.760 I think the test of good intentions is good results.

00:26:54.060 And I don't even see – I can't name a single country in the world whose relations with Canada are better now than they were before.

00:27:01.960 No.

00:27:02.400 And not even Cuba or Iran, by the way.

00:27:05.040 Not their fault.

00:27:06.420 Our fault.

00:27:07.440 Yeah.

00:27:07.620 We've annoyed the Saudis. 1.00

00:27:09.420 We've annoyed the Russians. 1.00

00:27:10.440 We've annoyed the –

00:27:12.260 India.

00:27:13.380 India.

00:27:14.100 Big time we annoyed India. 1.00

00:27:15.920 I mean, Brazil.

00:27:17.060 Yeah.

00:27:17.220 OK, so you say, well, you know, who cares?

00:27:20.100 So what about – the Saudis are now being run by a man who looks to the West like he might be more westernized and more liberal but clearly is not.

00:27:30.320 So why not poke them in the eye?

00:27:33.720 Well, because you have to deal with countries on a long-term basis, not a gotcha basis, not a ha-ha-ha, see what we did to you.

00:27:42.680 And I just think we're dealing now with people who are so smug, who have such high impressions of themselves, such high opinions of themselves, that they think the world is waiting.

00:27:57.960 Not just Canada is waiting.

00:27:59.540 But the world sits breathless at the hem of Justin Trudeau to hear what the great man has to say next.

00:28:06.600 And that's just not happening.

00:28:08.500 You know, I'm glad you mentioned Brazil, their president, Jair Bolsonaro, very interesting guy, powerful, very Trumpy, very pro-Trump.

00:28:18.300 Reminds me a little bit of that Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini.

00:28:22.920 Bolsonaro, you can like him or not, but he won a majority of the votes in Brazil, and he's making things happen.

00:28:30.200 When he was elected, the press release by the Canadian government was so snippy, it didn't even mention him by name, let alone congratulate him.

00:28:41.740 It was so passive-aggressive.

00:28:43.940 And then remember when Trudeau was sitting between the Chinese president and the Brazilian president, and Trudeau was so desperate, he reached over to shake Bolsonaro's head.

00:28:55.400 Bolsonaro has no idea who Trudeau was, but if he bothered to know, he would see, oh, there's the snippy guy.

00:29:02.500 He knew enough to turn his back on him.

00:29:04.300 He knew who he was.

00:29:05.340 And that's the point, because for the purpose of one snippy press release, if we would have showed some professional restraint then, maybe we could have had Bolsonaro's help getting our Canadian hostages back, but we just couldn't restrain ourselves.

00:29:18.260 Or we'd have smoothed over some of our other trade problems that we're having with Brazil right now.

00:29:22.120 You know, I think the only people who can probably help us get our hostages out of China are the Americans. 0.88

00:29:28.260 And I'm not convinced that they're fully behind us, and they should be because we did the arrest that they requested of us for the extradition of Maine.

00:29:41.320 So they should be behind us.

00:29:43.120 But, you know, there have been two or three or four times where Trudeau or Chrystia Freeland have been rude in public about Trump, dismissive, sneering, snide.

00:29:54.260 And he's saying probably to his justice and state to people, just ignore the Canadians.

00:30:01.180 You know, we don't really need them.

00:30:03.400 They need us more than we need them.

00:30:05.740 And just let it go.

00:30:08.260 And that doesn't have to happen.

00:30:10.020 I mean, Harper didn't get dismissed by Obama, even though the two of them were miles apart on policy, because they dealt with each other professionally.

00:30:18.700 They dealt with each other courteously and intelligently.

00:30:21.540 This group in the liberal government does not do that.

00:30:25.780 It doesn't think through the response it would have if it was on the receiving end of the same virtue signaling that it seems to think the rest of the world needs.

00:30:35.940 Yeah. Let me come back to one last thing, and I appreciate you being so generous with your time.

00:30:40.840 We've been talking. I mean, there's so much to talk about here, and I'm really enjoying it.

00:30:45.420 I want to come back to the headline of your piece, The Latest Liberal Affront to Free Speech.

00:30:49.480 Let me zero in on one thing, and you mentioned it in passing, but I'd like to go back there again.

00:30:53.320 You mentioned that the senior civil servant, the assistant deputy minister, so that's pretty high up the food chain.

00:30:59.760 Again, this is a civil servant. This is the permanent bureaucracy.

00:31:05.080 The politicians come and go, and their political staff come and go, but these guys are supposed to stick around, conservative, liberal, whatever.

00:31:10.740 They do their job honestly.

00:31:12.400 But this guy was running an errand for Trudeau, and he wasn't saying, hey, don't say this in public because it could jeopardize the lives of the hostages.

00:31:23.960 You could dispute that, but that could be a legitimate reason for an assistant deputy minister to call someone up and say, look, we have information that what you've done is put them in jeopardy.

00:31:34.400 Please don't.

00:31:35.700 Okay, I mean, I might be irritated by that, but that's your objective.

00:31:39.460 But when you say it's for, as you point out in your article, quote, election environment, you have transformed the permanent bureaucracy of this country into an election team, mate.

00:31:52.200 That's nothing new for these guys.

00:31:54.600 Take a look at Michael Wernick, the retired former clerk of the Privy Council, who was spearheading a lot of the pressure being put on Jody Wilson-Raybould last fall to cut SNC-Lavalin a deal.

00:32:09.300 That's not the role of the clerk of the Privy Council.

00:32:11.860 I worked with two clerks when I was in Ottawa in the 80s.

00:32:14.840 Both of them would have said to the prime minister if the prime minister had said, look, I want you to phone the justice minister and put pressure on her to make this deal.

00:32:23.360 Both of them would have said, Mr. Prime Minister, she's your minister, not mine.

00:32:28.120 I will deal with the deputies if that's what needs to be done.

00:32:31.080 But ministers are the responsibility of the prime minister.

00:32:33.640 And second, sir, there is a law in the country that prevents us from making – putting this kind of pressure on the attorney general when it comes to an independent prosecution.

00:32:43.400 And I would recommend strongly, sir, that you not put pressure on her either.

00:32:48.100 But not Wernick.

00:32:49.400 Wernick was right out there.

00:32:50.500 And then the liberals want to appoint him as one of the five guardians of our election when it comes to looking for interference from foreign countries.

00:32:59.600 They just have no concept of what freedom of expression means or what independence of thought means.

00:33:06.960 Can I leave you with one anecdote?

00:33:08.540 And I did a little show on this a few months ago.

00:33:11.000 I was watching Karina Gould, the Democratic Institutions Minister in Parliamentary Committee, answering some questions about this five-man Internet censorship panel that Michael Wernick was going to chair, which is terrifying.

00:33:25.300 And she was asked several times for examples of when they would weigh in.

00:33:29.620 I thought that's a good question.

00:33:31.000 And she gave an answer two or three times, the same answer.

00:33:34.560 She said the Macron leaks situation in France.

00:33:38.180 And Macron, of course, is the new president over there.

00:33:41.900 And just a couple weeks before their election, all of his campaign emails were hacked or leaked or something.

00:33:49.060 They were all published.

00:33:50.080 And there was a lot of very embarrassing information, deals, payoffs, private conversations that were insulting.

00:33:58.740 None of it was fake.

00:33:59.900 It was just leaked.

00:34:00.880 And it absolutely was news in the same way Hillary Clinton's emails were news or WikiLeaks' news.

00:34:08.180 It just was embarrassing for Emmanuel Macron.

00:34:10.700 So the French government ordered French media not to report on it, and they didn't.

00:34:18.500 But it was truthful, and it was relevant to voters.

00:34:21.920 The French government just said, no, no, no, we're going to protect our chosen one.

00:34:26.660 And that was the specific example given by Trudeau's cabinet minister of when they would intervene.

00:34:33.440 Of a good intervention.

00:34:35.620 Oh, yes.

00:34:36.360 Yes.

00:34:36.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:37.340 Not a bad intervention.

00:34:38.720 She was saying if there was some embarrassing leak that was truthful, relevant to the public interest, important to the election, they would step in to protect Trudeau.

00:34:50.280 She said this.

00:34:51.840 She said this, Lauren.

00:34:53.580 And by the way, the conservatives just sort of shrugged and said, oh, okay.

00:34:58.200 Oh, yeah.

00:34:58.500 But you know what's going to happen if this sort of thing gets some traction, you know, regulating social media or having election watchdogs.

00:35:11.400 Someone's going to say, look, I don't believe much in the positive side of multiculturalism, or I think that illegal immigration is leading to all sorts of problems in Canada, or I'm skeptical about the science behind climate change alarmism.

00:35:28.600 I mean, there are all sorts of issues about which the progressives feel so strongly that their side is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

00:35:40.220 And they will try and eliminate those messages from the public square.

00:35:44.880 That's what frightens me ultimately.

00:35:47.560 Well, it frightens me because I think they'll come for me first, and then they'll come for you second, my friend.

00:35:53.220 Well, listen, thanks for spending so much time with us.

00:35:54.960 We covered a wide range of subjects, but you're always such a fan favorite.

00:35:58.600 It's always nice to have you, Lauren.

00:36:00.320 Okay, you bet.

00:36:01.080 All right.

00:36:01.340 Thanks, my friend.

00:36:01.980 Bye-bye.

00:36:02.740 All right.

00:36:03.100 There you have it.

00:36:03.540 By the way, I recommend Lauren's columns all the time in The Sun, but it's great when we have a chance to talk with them about it.

00:36:08.680 All right.

00:36:08.980 Stay with us.

00:36:09.400 More ahead on The Rebel.

00:36:10.220 Hey, welcome back on my monologues yesterday and about a burka-clad woman shouting shame at a pride parade in the UK. 1.00

00:36:27.720 Susanna writes,

00:36:29.220 London is the canary in a coal mine when it comes to the implementation of Sheree law.

00:36:33.480 I would call it the boiling frog phenomenon.

00:36:35.320 By the time Londoners realize it's too hot, it'll be too late.

00:36:39.160 Well, Susanna, I'm going to disagree with you only one regard, and that is London's like the 20th canary in the coal mine.

00:36:48.660 I would put Paris ahead of that.

00:36:50.040 I'd put Rotterdam in Holland ahead of that.

00:36:52.440 I would put Malmo, Sweden far, far, far ahead of that.

00:36:56.500 Then, of course, why just focus on the last generation?

00:37:00.300 I mean, as I point out from time to time, Egypt was a Christian country once.

00:37:05.680 Now, maybe 10% of the people left there are Coptic Christians.

00:37:09.480 Constantinople was once the largest city in the world, the wealthiest city in the world.

00:37:13.460 It was the seat of an empire.

00:37:17.140 Now it's called Istanbul, and the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque and now a museum.

00:37:22.780 Yeah.

00:37:23.480 So, London is maybe the latest canary in the coal mine, but it's certainly not the first.

00:37:30.160 James writes,

00:37:30.860 If this was a Christian, they would already be in jail. 1.00

00:37:33.580 Well, yeah, exactly.

00:37:34.660 I mean, I think about our friend Tommy Robinson.

00:37:37.780 Simply for asking rapists as they go into court on Judgment Day,

00:37:42.620 how do you feel about your verdict today?

00:37:46.100 Not shouting, not swearing, not blocking.

00:37:48.100 How do you feel about your verdict today?

00:37:49.700 Well, that's a nine-month prison term.

00:37:52.180 Now, they claimed it was impeding and prejudicing the trial.

00:37:55.200 That's not true.

00:37:55.720 The trial was over.

00:37:57.340 Prison for him.

00:37:58.180 There was a guy named James Goddard in the U.K. called a lefty politician a Nazi.

00:38:04.280 That's all he said, called her a Nazi.

00:38:05.540 It's not true.

00:38:06.040 It's mean.

00:38:07.540 He just got a criminal conviction. 0.99

00:38:10.260 This burka-clad Muslim woman crying shame. 1.00

00:38:13.680 The police apparently detained her yesterday.

00:38:15.800 I don't believe she'll be charged.

00:38:18.000 And if she's charged, I don't believe she'll be prosecuted.

00:38:20.080 I just don't see it.

00:38:22.300 I just don't see it.

00:38:22.960 We'll see.

00:38:23.740 We'll see.

00:38:24.180 But I don't think justice in the U.K. is blind anymore.

00:38:26.440 Connie writes,

00:38:28.900 In June 2019, a Toronto man was arrested and held in jail overnight for preaching on the street in a gay village.

00:38:34.620 This in a country that supposedly values free speech.

00:38:37.460 A month or so later, a Muslim woman in London is screaming at gay people on the street, calling them shameful, and nothing at all will happen to her.

00:38:44.140 I think you're talking about Reverend David Lynn at the Gay Pride Parade.

00:38:47.780 And I saw that he wears a body cam.

00:38:49.360 We helped David Lynn about four or five years ago when he was arrested for, they called it busking.

00:38:55.420 He was preaching at Young and Dundas Square.

00:38:57.540 I haven't talked to him in a few years, but I see he's in the pickle again.

00:39:00.760 And he was just, I saw the videotape, and he was not being abusive or rude.

00:39:05.160 I mean, he was having a message of love like he's, I mean, he's Christian, but he wasn't abusive.

00:39:10.620 He was actually arrested.

00:39:12.400 The better comparison I would have was when David accosted that Muslim extremist at the Al-Quds day protest, 0.98

00:39:21.580 who said, I want Sharia law in Canada, and under Sharia law, gays will be executed. 0.96

00:39:26.640 He just said, he wasn't even saying it in a hateful, threatening way. 0.98

00:39:29.380 He just said, oh yeah, that's going to be what we do here.

00:39:31.880 I mean, welcome to the madness of the world.

00:39:37.800 Well, that's our show for today.

00:39:39.060 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - July 31, 2019

An Alberta university implements a free speech pledge — and the province’s journalists complain

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