Canada’s “weirdo” foreign minister owes over $1M to a Chinese government bank. What could go wrong？
Episode Stats
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Summary
Justin Trudeau's foreign minister has a million dollar loan from the Communist Party-run Bank of China. And a left-wing feminist professor from the University of Alberta is being thrown out the window because she doesn't think trans women are biologically women.
Transcript
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Hey, you rebels. You know, completely normal. Justin Trudeau's foreign minister has a million
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dollar loan from the Communist Party-run Bank of China. I mean, who doesn't? Could happen to
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anyone, really. I mean, what's in your wallet? Visa, MasterCard, American Express, $1.2 million
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mortgage with the Bank of China. I mean, who amongst us doesn't have it? Just crazy, crazy
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story. And then I talked to a left-wing feminist professor from the University of Alberta
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who's being thrown out the window because she doesn't share the transgender ideology.
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She's an old-school feminist who doesn't think trans women are biologically women. Oh, boy.
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That's an interesting conversation, I thought. I hope you think so, too. Let me invite you to
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become a premium subscriber. That's really how we pay the bills here. The podcast is free, right?
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So if you chip in $8 a month to get the video version of it by becoming a Rebel News Plus
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subscriber, that pays the freight. If you go to rebelnews.com, it's $8 a month, $80 a year,
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and you get the video version. Also, Sheila Gunn-Reed's show, David Menzies' show. I think
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it's worth $8. I really do. All right. Here's today's show.
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Tonight, Canada's foreign minister owes more than a million dollars to a Chinese government bank.
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What could possibly go wrong? It's June 11th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
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You know Francois-Philippe Champagne, right? That's Trudeau's pro-Beijing foreign minister.
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You'll probably remember him from this disgraceful moment. The government of Taiwan had just made a
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huge donation of clean, hygienic, high-quality face masks to Canada, unlike the government of
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Communist China, which had bought up all of our good Canadian face masks in January and February and
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then sold us shoddy Chinese-made face masks in return at inflated prices. So Taiwan was a hero,
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the exact opposite of communist China. But when a conservative MP asked foreign minister
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Champagne to thank Taiwan, he just wouldn't. He refused. He thanked all the countries who had
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given Canada masks. But yeah, I mean the U.S. sells us masks. China and Taiwan, those are really the
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three. And China's masks were shoddy, dangerous even, unusable. But Champagne just wouldn't say the
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word Taiwan. Because China hates Taiwan and China takes the point of view that Taiwan isn't even a
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real country because China keeps threatening to reconquer it. That's an insane point of view, of
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course. But Champagne is so obedient to communist China, even now he just wouldn't even say the word
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This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28th, he personally
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tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPEs to Canada. This tweet
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happened within three hours of China announcing that gift. Now, as it turned out, many of these PPEs
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were defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to
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Canada. And yet, here we are, two weeks later, and the Minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan
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for its generosity. Will the Minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift
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Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every
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nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic which knows no border. We have been expressing our
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thanks to many nations who have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important at the time
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of pandemic, Mr. Speaker, that we don't play politics, that humanity comes together. I can say
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to my COVID foreign minister's call, the world community has come together to make sure that we
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would make sure that supply chain would remain intact, that we would have transit up, that we would
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have air bridges. And we will continue, Mr. Speaker, to work with every nation when it comes to health.
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This is a public good that we want to work together.
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We will go back. That is so creepy. What a weirdo. I'm sorry. What do they have on this guy? Is it
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compromise? That's the old Soviet term for compromising material, like extortion stuff. I don't know what
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China has over him. Or maybe he's just ideologically in the tank for communist China, like his execrable boss.
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There's a level of admiration I actually have for China, because their basic dictatorship is allowing
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them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
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Hey, let me contrast Foreign Minister Champagne's grotesque ingratitude. That's what that was,
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ingratitude. He's an ingrate. He took the gift from Taiwan. Oh, you bet he did. But he wouldn't even
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say thank you. It's like he made Taiwan come in the back entrance, the servant's entrance or
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something. But look at this. Look at this contrast. The Chinese government donated a few masks to Canada.
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Again, shoddy masks. And it's after Chinese operatives hoovered up every clean mask from
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Home Depot and Canadian Tire in our whole country and shipped it to China while telling us coronavirus
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wasn't contagious, don't you know? So that's what China did. But this is from the Chinese embassy in
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Ottawa. On March 27th, Bank of China donates medical supplies, including 30,000 medical masks,
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10,000 sets of protective clothing, 10,000 goggles and 50,000 pairs of gloves, followed by N95 medical
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masks. Canada fighting against COVID-19. We are together. Yeah, no, you liars. We are not together.
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You lied about the virus. You shut down flights from Wuhan to your own cities of Beijing and Shanghai,
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but you kept the flights to Canada. You lied about the virus while you bought up all our supplies.
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And then you gave us a fraction of a fraction of those supplies back and they were shoddy and dirty,
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but you wanted a pat on the head and you charged us money. Taiwan gave us half a million clean masks
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and you won a prize for giving us 30,000 masks. You crooked commies. But look at this. The Communist
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Party of China propaganda, that message was tweeted at, do you see it there? 9.48 a.m. on March 28th.
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9.48 a.m. And look at this. At 12.31 p.m., not even three hours later,
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Champagne issued a gushing thank you to the commies by name. He named them. Thank you for this donation.
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In the face of a global pandemic, supporting each other is not only the right thing to do,
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it's a smart thing to do. Okay, got it. A gushing personal thank you, not only for the masks,
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but he went further and claimed that China was supporting us and that they were doing the right
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thing and the smart thing. Not just, hey, thanks for the 30,000 masks, but a larger endorsement of
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China's attitude and policy too. I'm only surprised he didn't call them daddy, which he normally does.
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Contrast that with his utter refusal to even say the word Taiwan when repeatedly asked about it
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by an MP. But did you notice that Chinese embassy tweet?
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It was tooting the horn of a donation nominally made by the Bank of China. Now the Bank of China is
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one of that country's largest banks and it is owned by the government. It's owned by the Chinese
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Communist Party. So it's not, it's not their central bank, although it does have some power to print
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currency, if you can believe it, but mainly it's just a big Communist Party bank over there. That's
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what it is. So it's no surprise that its tweet was published by the Chinese embassy. They're basically
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the same thing. So Francois-Philippe Champagne broke every speed record in Ottawa by publishing an
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official thank you in less than three hours to a Chinese government bank. Well, would you look at this?
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Big story in the Globe and Mail. And I mock them for being part of the media party.
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But how can I dispute that the Globe and Mail has consistently had the strongest coverage of
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China policy in Canada in the mainstream media? I think it's a big reason why they've been
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almost all but shut out of Trudeau's morning press scrums too. Did you know that? Trudeau is punishing
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the Globe and Mail for reporting things like this. Take a look at this. Foreign Affairs Minister has two
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mortgages with state-run Bank of China. Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne has two
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registered residential mortgages with the state-owned Bank of China in London, which the opposition says
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opens him to personal financial vulnerability at a time when relations with Beijing are at a standstill.
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Mr. Champagne, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 2015, bought two apartments in London,
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one in 2009 and one in 2013, while he was an executive with Amec Foster Wheeler PLC,
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the British multinational construction and engineering giant. The mortgages were initially
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valued at $1.7 million and the current balance is $1.2 million. So Canada's foreign minister literally
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owes the Chinese government more than a million dollars. But here's my favorite part of the story.
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Mr. Champagne said he had a temporary work permit for the United Kingdom
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and was unable to get a loan from a British bank?
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Are you telling Porky's, is that true, that a senior executive for a multinational
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construction giant, extremely wealthy man, jet setter, worldwide player,
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he couldn't get a mortgage or a secured loan? You've got the property and you can't get a loan in London.
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Really, the financial capital of the world, in many ways even more so than New York or Hong Kong.
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London, home of every bank imaginable. London, multinational city where senior executives
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from the whole world come to work for a period of time. There wasn't any other bank in that massive
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city, that banker's city, that would provide a mortgage to a rich man secured against a rich condo.
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He had to go to China? Is that the truth or is he lying again, the liar?
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Here's a nugget from that Globe story that points out just how crazy that lie is.
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Data from UK Finance, a trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector,
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showed that for 2018, the Bank of China was the 53rd largest mortgage lender in the United Kingdom,
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with a 0.1% share of the country's mortgage market when measured by value of mortgages outstanding.
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So there were 52 other banks that people would more regularly use.
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No one needs to get a loan from the Communist Party of China to buy a mortgage in London.
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London is the most financed city in Europe, probably the world seriously. London does more
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financial commerce in Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Moscow, all of them combined. It is the boss
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of finance. It is sophisticated. But they just couldn't loan money to buy two condos for this
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man. He had to go to China. Scout's honor. Is any of this normal? No, of course it's not normal,
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but it is being normalized. That is very different. I say, do you think there are any liberal MPs or even
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cabinet ministers who have loans from other dictatorships like Iran or North Korea even?
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I know that would be crazy, right? That would never happen, right? Like 0.1% chance of that happening,
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right? Yeah. Well, that wouldn't be any crazier than the man in charge of negotiating for the freedom
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for the two Michaels, literally being held over a million dollar barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.
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That would never happen, right? Stay with us for more.
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Well, about 40 years ago, the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau said it was no more possible for the
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Olympics to lose money than for a man to get pregnant. It was a joke. And of course, the joke was on him,
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the Olympics lost a lot of money. Well, if that mayor were around today, that joke would likely
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be illegal. Let me quote to you from an article in the Edmonton Journal. This is amazing. Quote,
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the university has said it's perfectly okay to fire people for doubting that men can get pregnant,
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for doubting lesbians can have penises. The implications are very dangerous because this
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is a live issue in our contemporary Canadian democracy. It's not a joke anymore. Our next
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guest is a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, my own alma mater,
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who was fired from an administrative position because she doubts that men can get pregnant.
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She is a feminist. In fact, I think she's the polar opposite to rebel news on most ideological issues.
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But she has been sacked by political correctness. Nonetheless, Professor Kathleen Lowry joins us now.
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Professor Lowry, thank you very much for joining the show today.
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Hi, thank you for having me. Did I accurately summarize what happened? I see a copy of your letter
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in the Edmonton Journal. You were fired because you wanted to talk about feminism
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and that women, biological women, are different than trans women. Am I correct?
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Well, yes. But there's actually been developments since then that I think are even more interesting.
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So I want to quickly dispense with what's been in the news so far because on my dismissal back in March,
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my faculty association is backing me up because it wasn't handled according to proper disciplinary
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procedures. So I think on that I'm likely to prevail. I think the faculty association just has sort of
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an airtight case. But what's happened since then, what's happened with all the publicity around this,
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is there's a kind of burgeoning round two. So the burgeoning round two is once this was in the news,
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a colleague, students, and particularly student journalists from the University of Alberta
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Gateway newspaper started combing through my social media history. So I always comment on social media
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under my real name, and particularly they've combed through my social media history on a site called
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Spinster. So it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek name. Spinster is something like gender-critical,
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feminist, uh, uh, Twitter. And I, I think this, this next stage, I think is going to be the more
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interesting stage because I think it's not, it's not going to turn on, um, it's not going to primarily
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turn, I don't believe, on my academic freedom, which most of the discussion so far has been framed
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in terms of, in terms of, but it's actually going to raise issues about what any Canadian can say
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about gender and gender identity. So, um, let me, I'm just going to go. Is it okay if I just keep
00:15:22.400
sort of? Yeah, please. We, we want to learn. Can I just read one more? Before you do, Professor,
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may I read just one more line from the Edmonton Journal? Because I'm up to speed with your case
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as far as that article, but can I just give one more fact to our viewers, uh, before you go deeper?
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Because I, I, uh, our viewers are likely new to this. So I'm just quoting, um, from what you told
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the journal. I think it's very on point and then please do continue. Um, because I think this is
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what you got in trouble for and correct me if I'm wrong. This is you in the journal. I said on the
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first day of class, we're going to read material in this class that are currently out of fashion in
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academia. You certainly don't have to agree with me since this is a university. I think it's important to
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be exposed to this is important literature you should be aware of. So basically you took
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the traditional feminist point of view as opposed to the transgender point of view and, and you let
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your students know, you know, they might find it disagreeable. So that was what got you in trouble
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stage one. I just, am I correct in that? Well, you know, I, I can't know because the complaints are
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confidential, but I don't think it was actually any students in that course. I think it was students
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who heard that I kind of existed as a gender critical feminist who complained because I,
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the students, even the students who by the end of the course didn't agree with me, um,
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they all really appreciated being exposed to this literature. So the students who actually were
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in a learning situation were, were not traumatized by being in a learning situation. But there,
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I think my problems come from a much greater number of students who are traumatized to learn
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that I, that I exist on campus and I'm, and I have bad thoughts.
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So step one was the academic administrative position firing and you're staying here in phase
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two, which is the mob combing through your historic tweets.
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This one, this one I think is really going to be interesting because I think, you know,
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the mob is coming for me and there's really, there's no way they're not going to get me. And it's not
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because I've said anything terrible or hateful, or I think that trans people should be bonked on the head.
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It's because gender critical feminism is in direct collision with gender identity ideology and
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particular gender identity ideology as is enshrined in bill C-16. So I don't, your viewers, I mean,
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your viewers, listeners may not know what bill C-16 is. It's a, it's a bill that was introduced in 2017
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that added gender identity and expression to, to the grounds on which people couldn't be discriminated
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in the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms. So, um, the critical part, so, so now gender identity
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is kind of, is being treated very reverentially. Now that's quite different from the sort of
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traditional feminist approach to gender. So the traditional feminist approach, which now gets
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called gender critical or radical feminism, but in the olden days used to be just feminism.
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Um, the old approach to gender was biological sex is real. People is, are born, it's a boy or a girl.
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And, and then societies kind of place gender expectations on these people who were born.
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And these gender expectations tend to be hierarchical and tend to contribute to the oppression of women.
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So that, you know, men are supposed to be leaders and, and women are supposed to be docile followers,
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those kinds of expectations. So, um, the feminism of a generation ago said, look, this is wrong. We,
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people are born and we shouldn't put these kinds of gender expectations on them. What we should do is we
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we should abolish gender. So the attitude to say a little boy who enjoyed tea parties and wearing
00:19:00.080
tutus would be, well, you know, knock yourself out. You're a little boy. Are you there who enjoys
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tea parties and, and tutus. And the, I, the, the idea that feminists had was that this process would
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be liberatory. If we stopped expecting people to fit gender, gender identity categories,
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people would be happier and society as a whole would become better. Now this has really changed
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and it's specifically, and it's now changed, not just in, in academic discourse and a lot of popular
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discourse, but it's now changed in Canadian law. So this means we have to have a kind of reverential
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embrace of gender stereotypes. So that same little boy born now who likes tea parties and wants to wear
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a tutu. You say, oh my gosh, you, your gender identity is that of a girl. So you were born in
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the wrong body and we, we understand, we're going to affirm your gender identity and we're going to
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raise you as a little girl. So people who don't feel they fit into the category of, of gender stereotype
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girl or gender stereotype boy, those people are now called non-binary, which an, an older feminism would
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have said, that's everybody. I mean, no one can fit perfectly into the categories of gender because
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the categories of gender, their expectations are so rigid. So, um, I'm guessing that, that your
00:20:23.520
audience might be a little bit older, but I remember my, so some of them might recognize
00:20:27.440
this reference. It's one I like to use a lot. Um, my dad was a big fan of the 1970s NFL player,
00:20:34.320
Rosie Greer. And some of you might remember Rosie Greer, you know, is a huge, successful NFL player,
00:20:39.280
very macho, but he also published this book called Rosie Greer's needlepoint for men. So,
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so Rosie Greer was not, but I mean, old fashioned feminism would say everybody is non-binary.
00:20:50.960
Professor, could I jump in for a second? Some of our viewers are, are not as, uh, familiar with the
00:20:56.800
academic, uh, academic phraseology. Can I ask you, um, really the sharp, uh, front, uh, uh, the, the,
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the conflict between your point of view and the transgender view, can I see if I can sum it up in,
00:21:10.960
in more plain language? And you tell me if I'm doing a disservice to it, because I, I understand
00:21:15.760
what you're saying. And we're familiar with C16. We remember when Dr. Jordan Peterson was worried
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about, and it's almost like you're echoing those worries, but would you say that the difference
00:21:25.840
between your point of view, uh, uh, as a feminist and the current point of view of gender identity?
00:21:33.360
And, and tell me if I've got you wrong, I'm just trying to put your views into plain language,
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which was obviously I'm going to lose some nuance, but that you believe that women are women,
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even if they express their gender differently. So you could be a more masculine expression,
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maybe a lesbian of a certain style, but you're still genetically, biologically a woman. That's
00:21:55.600
your view. And you use the example of a boy who likes tea parties. He's still genetically,
00:22:00.960
biologically a boy. Maybe he's gay or whatever. That's one point of view. And the new point of view
00:22:06.400
is a biological male saying, no, no, no. I am actually a woman. Let me into women's sports.
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Let me into women's prison. I'm not even saying this is a gender expression. I'm saying I am a woman.
00:22:19.040
Am I oversimplifying or getting it wrong? Well, no, you're not. And actually there's
00:22:23.680
some inherent contradictions to it. The, the, the sort of erasure of sex is a real problem,
00:22:29.520
but the, the legal, and that does, that is something that people say that I am literally
00:22:34.960
a woman, but the legal language is just about gender identity. So the language in bill C 16 doesn't
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say sex is literally changed. It says that, um, gender identity and expression, you, you can't
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um, you can't discriminate on its basis, which I fully agree with, but it, the way it's being
00:22:54.480
interpreted is you also, you cannot have a critical perspective on gender because gender is the thing
00:23:01.280
that you must, you must embrace and affirm. So does that make sense?
00:23:06.160
I think so. I, I have to say, I, I'm not strong in, uh, academic vocabulary, but I, I've listened
00:23:14.480
very carefully to what you have to say. And I, I think I understand it. I, may I ask you about
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you because you, you obviously think about this stuff all the time. And I think, I think our viewers
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would, would say, even if they may have differences of opinion with you, they can, they can immediately
00:23:31.920
assess as I do that. You care about ideas. You care about debating and that you'd be willing to
00:23:37.280
talk to anybody about these ideas. That's sort of your job. Um, but it sounds like the people who
00:23:43.440
are disagreeing with you don't believe in discussion, debate, arguing. There's certain
00:23:48.800
red lines they don't even want to talk about. Am I getting that part right?
00:23:52.080
Well, you are, but it almost doesn't, doesn't matter how they feel. What matters is what the
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law says. And, and right now, um, or at least how we're interpreting, uh, Bill C-16 right now,
00:24:06.240
at least one interpretation of Bill C-16 would be that gender criticism, because it doesn't
00:24:14.000
affirm, it does, it's not reverential towards gender identity, that, that is, that should be illegal,
00:24:20.560
that that is hate speech. So to go back to, so, so ever since Bill C-16 was passed,
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there's been a real campaign against gender critical feminists. So they've been no platform,
00:24:31.280
they've lost their, they've lost their jobs, they've been kicked off Twitter, they've been
00:24:35.200
kicked off Facebook. Um, and I, I think in my view and in the view of gender critical feminists like me,
00:24:41.760
this is kind of the central feminist struggle of our era. So the idea that, um, gender is not
00:24:50.400
something to celebrate. It's something to be quite wary of because it, it tends to be, uh, a structure
00:24:59.520
of oppression and, and the way it works as a structure of oppression tends to harm women.
00:25:05.920
I think, you know, everything that we see from Bill C-16, all the implications of these bills,
00:25:11.520
Bill C-16, this is just true. So the things you've mentioned about trans identified men in women's
00:25:17.520
prisons, about trans identified men in women's sports, about the way that the, the criticism of,
00:25:24.720
of gender critical feminists falls very, very heavily on women. So there's, there haven't been
00:25:31.120
a lot of no platform men. And actually I would say Jordan Peterson is, is unusual because he's not,
00:25:36.640
and he's kind of a patriarch. Um, his case was very famous, but the, and very celebrated,
00:25:43.360
but there are dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of women who have been harmed.
00:25:47.680
You know, I, I agree with that. And, and I, I know you would be surprised how many feminists
00:25:53.200
I know because I'm not particularly a feminist myself, but I see the erasing of women from,
00:26:00.400
from certain spheres and I can, and it irritates me and I'm not a feminist. I can only imagine how
00:26:05.280
it irritates a champion of women and a feminist. And as you go through the list, Facebook, Twitter,
00:26:11.920
deplatforming. We know the case of Megan Murphy and the, and the library in Toronto. The irony is that
00:26:17.920
I think I'm on the polar opposite of the spectrum of you, but all of those same things I see is
00:26:22.320
deplatforming. You're, you are a feminist as you've described yourself and you're facing deplatforming
00:26:29.280
and firing from college. I have a question for you. Have you had any assistance, either legal
00:26:34.560
assistance, media assistance, PR assistance? Is anyone coming to help you against the mob?
00:26:40.400
Well, I mean, the media has been great. Actually people, people see this and they're concerned.
00:26:47.200
Um, my, at least on fight number one, my faculty association really backed me up, but they,
00:26:51.760
they don't take a position on my gender critical views. This, I don't know. I mean, I don't know.
00:26:57.120
This is where I say it's going to be very interesting to see this, how this unfolds because,
00:27:02.080
um, students are looking for gender critical content and they're going to find it.
00:27:07.120
So what is going to happen with that gender critical content? Definitely a lot of people
00:27:11.440
from what they've seen already, they think I should be charged from hate speech with hate
00:27:14.640
speech crimes. They think I should be dismissed from my position as a university professor.
00:27:20.080
So is, is, I mean, the, the one thing I, I hate in a way I hate that this has happened. I mean,
00:27:26.160
of course I hate that this is happening to me. Like I have a mortgage. I don't want to lose my job.
00:27:29.520
I don't want to go to jail. On the other hand, this has happened to so many women
00:27:35.360
quietly flying under the radar. So I'm so fortunate in a way that there's been so much attention to my
00:27:41.040
case. So whatever happens, whatever happens to me, it's going to happen in the public eye. So it's
00:27:47.600
going to happen in the public eye. And, and I think that it's not, you know, the first case,
00:27:53.520
number one, people talked a lot about academic freedom, but the, what's, what's happening right
00:28:00.400
now is about the right, not just of academics to talk about, um, whether gender identity is
00:28:09.280
something that we should be really reverential towards. Uh, but can anyone express gender
00:28:18.480
critical views? Can, can anyone express concerns about the policy implications of this? So, um,
00:28:25.840
I have one example that, that I like to give that has to do with the university. Can I give
00:28:32.560
that example? Yeah, of course. Okay. So, you know, people have, and I think quite rightly,
00:28:38.000
people are concerned about men and women's prisons. People are quite rightly concerned about men and
00:28:42.160
women's sports. People are quite rightly concerned about, um, so-called gender affirmative
00:28:48.240
therapies being used on children before they really are at an age to have a sense of who they
00:28:55.200
want to be, um, what, what their gender and sexuality is going to look like. Some of the
00:29:00.320
consequences of some of the therapies that are currently being advocated are, are really terrible.
00:29:04.960
You know, they, they, they can have the impact of sterilizing children. Some of the puberty blocking
00:29:10.480
drugs that are used are carcinogenic. They definitely are going to have bad effects on children's health.
00:29:15.920
So there's all of those concerns, but let me just give you a, um, a more, perhaps a less,
00:29:22.000
I mean, a less drastic concern, but a concrete example of, of, of the things that worry that I
00:29:31.280
think should worry us all. Okay. So my university has recently passed a new equity, diversity,
00:29:38.480
inclusivity policy regarding hiring and what it, what it mandates. And I'm the only person
00:29:44.960
on the general faculty's council to have voted against it. And you might think this is surprising,
00:29:49.200
like as a feminist, why would I be against, you know, I'm certainly not in favor of an all white
00:29:53.920
male university. So why wouldn't I support this? The, the language in the policy says that, um,
00:30:01.840
in any hiring situation, whether academic, administrative support staff, if you have two
00:30:08.000
equivalently qualified candidates, you should hire the one who is historically underrepresented
00:30:16.640
in within the university. So there's examples that we could think of that, that, I mean, you,
00:30:22.800
your, your viewers might not agree, but let's say I would agree, but I would say if you,
00:30:27.120
they're equivalently qualified and there's a white guy and, uh, and an indigenous woman,
00:30:36.160
then hire the indigenous woman. I wouldn't have a problem with that. With gender identity
00:30:42.800
being enshrined in the law and now in policy, the way it is, what happens if there are two candidates,
00:30:49.520
one is an indigenous woman and the other one is a, a person who identifies as non-binary
00:30:57.040
and uses they, them pronouns. Now, certainly in terms of historical underrepresentation,
00:31:04.240
the non-binary person using they, them pronouns is much more historically underrepresented because
00:31:10.400
that identity didn't exist before about five years ago. So as the policy is written now, does that mean
00:31:17.040
you hire that person over an, an indigenous woman? Is, is that, is, I mean, the policy sort of lays out
00:31:26.640
all of these identities on a, on a perfectly flat surface and just says, well, let's, let's make sure
00:31:32.800
we pick a mix of them. I think it makes such a mockery of the whole history of social justice
00:31:40.720
across the 20th century. I think it makes such a mockery of the series of struggles that we've had
00:31:47.760
to become a more just society. And I, trans rights activists often figure their struggle as the last
00:31:53.920
in a cumulative series. So we had colonial people rebelling against imperialism. We had the civil
00:32:00.240
rights movement. We had the women's movement. We had the gay and lesbian liberation movement. We had
00:32:05.520
the disability rights movement. And I actually offer a course, I've offered a course for many years,
00:32:08.960
where we read both theorists and movement literatures from all of those movements.
00:32:13.840
When you get to, I think this trans rights activism, I think, I think one of these things
00:32:19.200
is not like the others. One of the ways it's not like the others is, and this is something I think
00:32:24.480
your viewers or anybody who is politically interested will, will really feel kind of on that, on, in that,
00:32:31.920
the hackles on their back of their neck, which is, it's predicated on something that's absurd. It's
00:32:37.600
predicated on the idea that biological sex isn't relevant in human affairs. It's predicated on the
00:32:44.160
idea that you can change biological sex. Now, the fact, Bill C-16 says we all have to say that the sky
00:32:53.200
is green and the grass is blue and you're in big trouble. And the big trouble is not a joke. The big
00:33:00.000
trouble is coming from you right now, that you're in big trouble if you don't say that. I think that's
00:33:05.360
worrisome on its own merits, but I also think there's, if you think about it in terms of the
00:33:10.800
history of social justice movements, all of the ones I mentioned up to that point, so anti-colonialism,
00:33:17.120
civil rights, women's movement, gay and lesbian liberation, disability rights movement, they all
00:33:22.560
asked us to make, they all asked us to kind of get a grip. They asked us to make, to have a better
00:33:28.560
apprehension of life as it really is. They, each of them said, look, the imperialism is exploitative
00:33:38.160
and colonized people can rule themselves. It said the racial caste system in the United States is
00:33:46.560
unjust and it's bad policy in terms of, it just doesn't fit people. The women's rights movement
00:33:51.840
said this, you know, all of these. So all of these were, were, were saying, let's, let's grapple more
00:33:59.200
fully with reality. Right. Sorry, go ahead. Says, says, let's ignore reality. And, and by saying,
00:34:08.880
we are the accumulation of everything that's gone before. I think it's a terrible insult to all those
00:34:14.960
previous movements as if each of those movements was also asking us to accept an absurdity. So I,
00:34:21.680
I, you know, I, I, I'll finish in a second, but I just want to say, um, I've been, I've been on,
00:34:31.120
on the left my whole life. I, I can remember in junior high school, I went to junior high in the States
00:34:36.960
and I can remember military recruiters coming to my junior high in 1984 and me and my little feminist
00:34:43.520
friends, we asked why are gays and lesbians not allowed in the U S military. So these are things
00:34:49.920
I've been thinking about my whole life. And I just think where we are now, this is not what I signed
00:34:56.000
up for. Well, that's fascinating. I have to say, I think some of the things you've said on our show
00:35:02.960
here today could put you in some political jeopardy, but calling out absurdity sometimes does. You may,
00:35:09.120
you made me think of the Jonathan Yaniv case who presented himself to immigrant women of color
00:35:14.880
who were estheticians and demanded to be waxed. I mean, it's so absurd. Right. And you just made me
00:35:21.920
think of them. And until it, until it came really out into the public eye and it was dragged down into
00:35:27.520
the public eye by a really courageous, um, blogger named Gallus Mag. Um, she's, she's been so important.
00:35:36.400
And, uh, until it was dragged down into the public eye, the BC human rights tribunal
00:35:41.600
was on Jonathan Yaniv's side. It was helping him harass those immigrant women of color.
00:35:46.240
He co-opted it. He hijacked it. It's so wrong. It's so wrong.
00:35:49.680
Well, it's very interesting because I think, I mean, and I know when our producer contacted you,
00:35:56.720
he said you, you, you noted the difference in ideology between you and me, and that's fine.
00:36:02.080
Well, I actually, I, I, you know, I, I was kind of horrified to be honest. And I,
00:36:07.200
I hastened to say that I was a supporter of, um, the boycott divest sanctions, hoping that you guys
00:36:14.400
would be put off, but you weren't. And, um, and I feel like in a case like mine, it's about free
00:36:20.960
expression. It would be very hypocritical of me to say, Oh, I'll, I'll speak to media, but not you.
00:36:26.560
And I also said that I was, I did think it was terrible that you all were not given press
00:36:32.160
credentials at the federal leaders debates last year, because I think, you know, you're not my
00:36:39.120
cup of tea, but you're somebody's cup of tea. So, so you should be allowed to, to cover, you know,
00:36:45.840
you guys are journalists. If the government is deciding which journalists are allowed to cover
00:36:50.480
events, that's, that's not a, that's not a happy world.
00:36:53.280
Well, thank you. You know, I remember the great, the late great, uh, civil libertarian,
00:36:58.000
Alan Boroy, he said, free speech is such a strange thing. You have to give it to your
00:37:02.000
opponent if you want it for yourself. And I always try to think of that. Well, let me ask you this.
00:37:06.480
Uh, if the mob is coming for you and it sounds like they are,
00:37:10.320
and if they're digging through old social media comments, they'll probably find something that
00:37:14.640
irks someone. Um, let me just put an invitation out there and it'll sound strange,
00:37:19.840
strange. But if you need help, if you need help with a lawyer, one of the things we like to do is
00:37:27.200
crowdfund civil liberties lawyers. And I just want to put an offer out there. I mean, if your faculty
00:37:33.280
association doesn't help you, and maybe they are, if you get sacked, God forbid, and I, I mean,
00:37:38.720
the way you describe it, they're coming for you hard. I know this sounds like strange bedfellows,
00:37:43.440
and it most certainly is. And although I, you know, concede that I don't agree or even understand
00:37:50.240
everything you're saying, that's not the point. The point is that you don't cave into the mob.
00:37:56.800
So I just want to put an offer out there and you don't have to accept it here, but God forbid,
00:38:00.480
if you need it, we'll crowdfund a lawyer for you. We'll crowdfund a lawyer for you.
00:38:04.400
That's very nice. I'll stay in touch. You know, you, you may know that this is an issue that's been
00:38:09.200
really controversial in gender, gender critical feminist circles. So I know there were some
00:38:14.800
feminists in the States who spoke at an event at a, at the Heritage Foundation. I don't know if you
00:38:20.880
heard about this. I didn't hear about that. No. Yeah. The Heritage Foundation hosted an event
00:38:26.160
for gender critical feminists. And there was a lot of criticism about how could you work with
00:38:29.200
Heritage Foundation? And it was really because no one else offered, you know, so, so I, that's been
00:38:36.560
another thing that's been distressing as someone who's always been on the left is, is the left is
00:38:44.320
not extending a hand at all to gender critical feminists. And, and what are we, what are we
00:38:50.960
supposed to do? Yeah. So that's, that's actually a live issue in and of itself, but they, you know,
00:38:57.440
hopefully it won't come to that, but I, I have to say, honestly, I'll keep you all in line.
00:39:01.520
Okay. Well, hopefully it won't come to that. And the fact that your article, I mean,
00:39:04.960
you mentioned the media has been at least somewhat sympathetic. I learned about your case through
00:39:09.120
the Edmonton Journal in a fairly sympathetic piece. Um, listen, I wish you all the best and
00:39:13.600
I thank you for talking with us today and having a bit of a, go ahead. Yeah, no, it was a pleasure.
00:39:19.280
Thank you. Okay. Well, uh, I wish you good luck and, uh, we'll be keeping an eye on things and I
00:39:25.200
challenge you to take me up on my offer should you need it. I mean, you might actually be the person
00:39:33.200
to stand up to the mob and win. And if we can help you do that, uh, right. Well, it's, it's very,
00:39:39.680
you know, anything is possible because it's, it's, it's such, it really is such strange times.
00:39:45.760
Strange times. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, professor. And a pleasure to meet you.
00:39:49.840
Okay. All right. A pleasure to meet you as well. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Well, that's professor
00:39:53.440
Kathleen Lowry and associate professor of anthropology at the university of Alberta. Stay with us.
00:39:59.200
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday. Lewis writes your monologue on the British
00:40:12.160
and Canadian struggle against slavery was most welcome and an antidote to the current maelstrom
00:40:16.000
of lies, violence, and madness. In my home province of Nova Scotia, slaves fleeing America were helped
00:40:21.200
by a movement called the underground railway. People who offered shelter and food to those in flight painted
00:40:26.160
their chimneys white with a black band around the top so that people would know to stop for
00:40:32.000
refreshment and welcome. I remember my grandparents' old home in Granville Ferry still had this symbol of
00:40:39.840
support for freedom back in the late fifties when I was a boy. Oh, that is such a wonderful story.
00:40:47.600
Thank you very much. I'm going to do more research into this. I learned so much
00:40:51.600
preparing yesterday's video and it just got me fascinated. I just, listen, I was fairly attentive
00:40:59.040
as a school boy. I'm not saying always, but I paid attention. I liked history. I just didn't
00:41:05.280
learn any of these things. I didn't know we abolished the slave trade in the 1790s. You know, what's that?
00:41:10.480
Almost more than 150 years before Canada was even formally, you know, independent. I didn't,
00:41:16.560
I didn't know that the British Empire paid, took a 200 billion or whatever dollar loan to redeem
00:41:22.640
every slave in the empire. I didn't know that. Did you know that? Why didn't you know that?
00:41:27.280
Well, we weren't taught that. Susan writes, I did not learn that in any history class in school.
00:41:32.720
Thank you for doing the research and opening our eyes. I am now feeling much prouder to be a Canadian,
00:41:36.720
despite what the media analysts tell us. Well, isn't that the truth? And I can assure you that the
00:41:42.080
people who are spray painting and rioting and looting and smashing don't know that. The trouble
00:41:46.240
is, I think even if they knew that they wouldn't care, it wouldn't stop them. On my interview with
00:41:50.720
Ryan Gerdusky on his book, They're Not Listening, Craig writes, President Trump and Brexit were just
00:41:56.240
the beginning as the EU collapses and Canada is poised for a major political nationalist revolution
00:42:01.040
against our current dictator, Justin Trudeau. Well, now you use the word dictator with some artistic
00:42:05.680
license, but I have to say, can you name for me any other leader in the G7? I'm not including
00:42:11.920
the G8's Vladimir Putin, but in the G7, you know the countries I'm talking about? Italy, France,
00:42:17.840
the United States, Canada. What are the other G7 countries? You know, I think India might be one
00:42:23.920
of them. Sorry, I forget all seven G7s. So accepting there out, China and Russia, can you tell me any
00:42:33.200
leader of the G7 that is suspending parliament the way Trudeau has? That is bringing in censorship
00:42:43.680
of the internet like Trudeau repeatedly promises? That is banning journalists, investigating journalists,
00:42:49.200
having RCMP march journalists at a press conference like Trudeau has? I can't, I can't. So it's an artistic
00:42:57.760
license to call him a dictator, but not by much. All right, that's today's show. What do you think
00:43:03.840
of the conversation with the professor from U of A? I didn't understand a lot of her feminist jargon.
00:43:10.000
I'm sorry, it was jargon, it's academic jargon. But I could understand pretty clearly she was in trouble
00:43:16.880
for saying that, you know, calling trans women women is like calling the sky green. That,
00:43:24.160
that I could understand. And although, and then she wanted to make the point that she
00:43:28.400
has a different opinion on me than Israel. Okay, so what? It's got nothing to do with you don't
00:43:33.760
sack a professor because the Twitter mob says you're not gender friendly enough or whatever.
00:43:38.800
Yeah, absolutely. We'll crowdfund a lawyer for her if she gets sacked. Don't you think?
00:43:42.960
That's what I mean. That's what, that's what free speech means. It's a, it's such a paradox. You have
00:43:48.800
to give it to your opponents if you want it for yourself. And I really feel like in the last few months,
00:43:53.680
rebel news has done civil liberties work in that vein. I'm so proud of all the cases we've handled
00:43:59.200
in terms of the pandemic. Most of those people are working class people would never even think of
00:44:04.400
rebel news. It wasn't in their, you know, world, but we have come to help them. I have become enthused
00:44:10.080
with this work. And I think our viewers have too, because they've supported it through crowdfunding.
00:44:14.800
I don't understand. I don't agree with much of what that professor says,
00:44:19.520
but I will actually put my money where my mouth is and crowdfund a lawyer for her defense,
00:44:26.720
should they come to sack her. Isn't that funny? That's our show for today until tomorrow. On behalf
00:44:33.440
of all of us here at rebel world headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.