DAVID MENZIES ｜ Are federal workers actually reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation？
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Summary
It's the year of censorship, and if a new bill passes in Ottawa, expect yet more censorship to head our way. It's Monday, September 30th, 2024, and it's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Transcript
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Tonight, 2024, is the year of censorship, and if a NDP private members bill passes in
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Ottawa, expect yet more censorship to head our way. It's Monday, September the 30th, 2024.
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I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levent Show.
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Hey folks, happy National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Was it good for you? I know
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it was very, very good for federal government workers, given that it's a full statutory holiday
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for them. I wonder how many were reflecting on reconciliation, or given the glorious summertime
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weather were getting in the GTA, at least. I wonder how many were out on the golf course earlier
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today. As for the vast majority of us schleppers, well, it was just another day at the office, I
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reckon. I guess we'll have to reflect on truth and reconciliation on our own dime when we get off
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work. Say, since the Prime Minister had the day off, I wonder how Justin Trudeau reflected upon
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truth and reconciliation this year. We all know how he reflected upon this solemn occasion when the
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holiday, well, at least a holiday for some, was first incorporated back in 2021. In fact, folks, I think
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we even have some video footage of Justin's heartfelt remembrance.
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Oops, that wasn't actually the former part-time drama teacher Justin Trudeau channeling Frankie Avalon.
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Even so, I do ponder if the surf was up on Dofino Beach earlier today. Anyway, I was also wondering
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if I just committed a future crime vis-a-vis making an inappropriate comment on anything and all things
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Indigenous. I do not jest, although I wish I were. Last week in the House of Commons, NDP MP Leah Gazzan
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tabled a private member's bill called C-413. From the NDP's website, here are the details.
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For starters, Bill C-413 is, quote, aimed at combating residential school denialism and stopping
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the harm it causes to survivors, their families, and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.
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If passed, this bill would add to the criminal code the offense of willfully promoting hatred
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against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, justifying, or downplaying the harm caused by
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the residential school system in Canada, end quote. Wow. A criminal code offense for, say,
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questioning the validity of statistical data that might not even be accurate? That sounds really
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serious, don't you think? But Ms. Gazzan, the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, is adamant that
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no thought crimes regarding Indigenous matters shall be tolerated in our stolen land of Canada
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Canada if Bill C-413 becomes law. Quote, if the government is serious about reconciliation,
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then they need to protect survivors and their families from hate. The residential school system
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was a genocide designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families, and heritage.
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To downplay, deny, or justify it is cruel, harmful, and hateful. This should have no place in Canada,
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end quote. Funny that I thought censorship had no place in Canada, but in these increasingly
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censorious times, our dominion is evolving into a realm in which big brother Trudeau and his useful
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idiots are watching you and penalizing you. You know, my beloved boss, Ezra Levent, he predicted that
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2024 would be the year of censorship. And wow, Ezra has proven to be a modern-day Cassandra. And in this
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respect, think of Bill C-413 as an Indigenous-themed addendum to the most censorious legislation in, well,
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basically the history of the Western world, that would be Bill C-63, aka the Online Harms Act.
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As Ezra warned back in February, Bill C-63 will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to stipulate that
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online hate speech is discrimination. And the bill will empower people to file confidential complaints
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if the commission thinks the individuals might be subjected to intimidation. That's right, you do not
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even get to know the identity of your accuser. Oh, and if you find out who that person is and name him
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or her, you'll face further penalties. It gets worse. Those who engage in hate speech could face life
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imprisonment. It would also allow judges to put you under house arrest with an ankle bracelet and tell
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you who you can or cannot talk to on suspicion that you might commit a hate offense. You know, the sci-fi
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flick Minority Report, complete with its pre-crimes unit, well, it's quickly becoming a current-day reality
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in Canada, isn't it? Meanwhile, so-called victims of hate speech could be compensated up to $20,000.
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With stand-alone hate crimes being added to the criminal code, the federal government would be
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entitled to an additional $50,000 per complaint. Wow, that's a service charge that would even make
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the shysters running Ticketmaster blush. And because the odious Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act
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is back, well, expect that also to be weaponized against dissenting Canadian expressions.
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Bill C-63 is equal parts appalling and terrifying. And now we have Bill C-413. And in both cases,
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it's all about clamping down on those expressing contrarian opinions or else. Indeed, I shall quote
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directly from the private members bill, which is hell-bent to eradicate the so-called willful
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promotion of hatred directed at indigenous peoples. Quote, everyone who by communicating statements
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other than in private conversation willfully promotes hatred against indigenous peoples by condoning,
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denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada,
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or by misrepresenting facts relating to it. A, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to
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imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. Or B, is guilty of an offense punishable on summary
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conviction. End quote. Well, thank goodness that this bill does not apply to private conversations.
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That would seem to indicate that the Gestapo won't be listening in on our phone conversations and
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monitoring our emails. Well, not yet, at least. As always, the devil is in the details. First and
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foremost, what is the benchmark for indigenous hatred? Apparently, everything changed in Canada
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regarding native affairs in 2021. That's when a mass grave of indigenous people was allegedly discovered at
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residential school sites in Kamloops, BC. At one point, the missing children reportedly discovered at
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unmarked graves across Canada ended up totaling as many as 1,300 souls. But is that number even remotely
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accurate? Regardless, the Kamloops story sparked riots. Statues were torn down and dozens of churches were set
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ablaze. As for the Trudeau liberals, they were all in with the anti-colonial narrative. Federal
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government buildings were ordered to display the Canadian flag at half-staff for almost half a year.
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Justin's best buddy, meanwhile, Gerald Butts, didn't condemn the arson attacks on churches but said
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he found such crimes understandable. And yet, what was the truth behind those alleged mass graves? Well,
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CP Champion and Tom Flanagan co-authored a book published last year entitled Grave Error,
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How the Media Misled Us and the Truth About Residential Schools. Earlier this year, the Fraser
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Institute published an article based on the Grave Error book entitled No Evidence of Mass Graves or
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Genocide in Residential Schools. The following is an edited excerpt of that article. Quote,
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On May 27, 2021, Roseanne Casimir, chief of the Kamloops Indian Band, announced that ground-penetrating
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radar had located the remains of 215 missing children in an apple orchard on the site of a former
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residential school. Politicians and media seized on the announcement and stories of mass unmarked graves
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and burials of missing children ricocheted around Canada and indeed much of the world. According to
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Canadian newspaper editors, the discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was the new story of the
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year and the world press photo of the year award went to a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses
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along a roadside with a rainbow in the background commemorating children who died at a residential
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school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada. These events created a narrative about the
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genocidal nature of residential schools which were established in the 19th and 20th centuries by
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churches and the government to educate Indigenous children and assimilate them into Canadian society.
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That narrative went unchallenged at first, yet substantial pushback gradually developed among a
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group of retired judges, lawyers, professors, journalists and others who have had careers in researching and
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evaluating evidence. It's no accident that most are retired because that gives them some protection
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against attempts to silence them as deniers. But the narrative of mass graves is wrong and not just wrong,
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but egregiously wrong. For example, the essay in Kamloops not one body has been found by Montreal historian
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Jacques Royard has done more than any other single publication to punch holes in the false narrative
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of unmarked graves and missing children. Other essays punch more holes. Academic provocateur Francis
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Widowson shows how the legend of murdered children and unmarked graves was spread by defrocked United
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Church Minister Kevin Annette before it popped up at Kamloops. Retired Professor Jaime Rubinstein and
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collaborators examine the evidence of unmarked graves, such as the results of the GPR, and find there's
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nothing repeat nothing there. Retired Professor Ian Gentles examines health conditions in the schools
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and shows that the children were better off there than at home on reserves. Our book demonstrates that
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all the major elements of the Kamloops narrative are either false or highly exaggerated. No unmarked graves
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have been discovered at Kamloops or elsewhere, not one. As of August 2023, there had been 20 announcements
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of soil anomalies discovered by GPR near residential schools across Canada, but most have not even been
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excavated. So what, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown. Where excavations have taken place,
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no burials related to residential schools have been found. In other words, there are no missing
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children. The fate of some children may have been forgotten with the passage of generations, forgotten
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by their own families, that is, but forgotten is not the same as missing. The myth of missing students arose
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from a failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's researchers to cross-reference the
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vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them.
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The documentation exists, but the commissioners did not avail themselves of it." End quote. Now,
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folks, the article goes on to make the case that the narrative of mass burial grounds of indigenous people
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is, well, at the end of the day, a hoax. But if you even suggest that in certain circles,
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you'll be demonized, you'll be vilified, you'll perhaps even be terminated. And this is the current
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harsh reality in Canada without the passage of Bill C-413 into law. Indeed, it would appear that what
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Gazin is hoping to do is merely add jail time to the punishment to ensure that the so-called deniers
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and those who might voice a contrarian opinion will be intimidated into silence. And yet, how does this
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heavy-handedness contribute to the very spirit of Truth and Reconciliation? Isn't part of this process,
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when it comes to the truth and reconciliation all about having open and honest dialogue? But no,
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Gazin, like some wannabe director at the Ministry of Truth, wants you to subscribe to a certain narrative
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vis-a-vis indigenous affairs, even if that narrative is a falsehood. And she wants you to self-censor
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yourself under penalty of law and even imprisonment. Now, historically, private member bills die on the
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vine. But given the on-again, off-again, on-again bromance between Justin and Jugmeet, and given
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that Trudeau is likely all in when it comes to the bill's content, given that he adores censorship,
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well, perhaps this bill has a fighting chance of getting widespread support and actually becoming
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law. And if that does pass, what then? Are the authors of Grave Error and the head honchos at the
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Fraser Institute going to be the first to be prosecuted on the basis of denialism, even though
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there's still not a scintilla of evidence that these mass graves exist? For that matter,
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is Rebel News and yours truly on the hook for a fine and some jail time, simply for airing this
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monologue. What's perversely ironic is that Gazin is obsessed with so-called denialism when it comes to
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what she believes to be an attempted genocide of Canada's indigenous people. And yet for almost a year
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now, we have seen thousands of violent pro-Hamas demonstrators take to the streets of our great
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dominion, denying the Holocaust as they openly support engineering an additional one. These unhinged
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members of the New Age Hitler Youth Movement continue to make coded chants clamoring for the genocide of
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the Jewish people, you know, intifada, and from the river to the sea, and go back to Europe.
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And for the most part, what's been the response of those in government and law enforcement?
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Well, they hold their noses, they turn a blind eye, and then they arrest and imprison peaceful
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counter-demonstrators and members of the independent media who might have the temerity to ask impolite
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questions. What a joke. A bad joke without a punchline. Bottom line, the year of censorship,
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or at least selective censorship, continues unabated. And it would appear that the only thing George Orwell
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got wrong about his most famous cautionary tale was the date.
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Hey everybody, before I jump into the story, I just want to show you my new coffee cup. On this side,
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Rebel News, our logo. But on this side, who is that? Who is that wanted for journalism? Well,
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that's my buddy David Menzies. I'm not even kidding. That is actually his real mugshot when he was
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arrested in Toronto for doing journalism. He's been arrested three or four times in 2024 alone.
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I'm not laughing about it, but if you got to choose between laughing and crying,
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you may as well laugh and put a mug on it. That is actually his real mugshot. And I think he actually
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looks sort of cool. So here's to David, a journalist who was arrested for journalism. There's no two ways
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about it. Anyways, back to the journalism we're doing here today. The CBC is not just Canada's
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largest news organization, larger in terms of journalists than all the others combined. Imagine
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how that distorts the market. But incredibly, their viewership is falling despite Canada's population
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growing. People are watching it less and it's speeding up the less, the less, the less.
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So they put together a panel to figure out what's going on. And you're going to laugh at this.
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One of my favorite guys is joining us today. You know who I'm talking about, Franco Teresano,
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the Taxpayers Federation. He joins us now via Skype from Calgary. Franco, everybody knows what's wrong
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with the CBC, but only this government would spend a quarter million dollars finding experts from the CBC
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to tell us what's wrong with the CBC. Tell us the facts. What's, give me the scoop. What's really
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going on here? And you know, I'm laughing just because of how ridiculous this waste of money really
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is, right? So, you know, the government is dropping $200,000 plus on this seven person modernization
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panel to figure out, I don't know, I guess what's wrong with the CBC and how to move forward.
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And you know what? They didn't have to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure
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out why the CBC is failing. All they would have to do is go to Tim Hortons and ask one of the many
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customers there and they would tell the government just why the CBC is failing. But, you know,
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$200,000 and that tab is probably only going up. Even Canadian Heritage admits that the cost
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could balloon higher than that. And another crazy part of the story is like, folks, this is a seven
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person panel, modernization panel. Well, three of the seven panelists that used to work at the CBC
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and another one of them was a contributor to the CBC. So four of the seven CBC panelists either worked
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at the state broadcaster before or was a contributor to the state broadcaster. So, you know what, if they
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really wanted a predetermined outcome, they could have gotten one for a lot less than $200,000.
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Yeah, it's incredible. And the fact that they're choosing their own people, the people who were
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part of the disaster to give advice on things, it's, you know, I don't know why, but it sort of makes me
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think of when the Biden administration had a summit on electric vehicles, they did not invite Elon Musk.
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They invited the others, but not Elon Musk, the guy who's actually given her. Why? Well, because they didn't
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want to hear what he had to say. They didn't, they absolutely did not want to hear him. They wanted
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the insiders because this is an inside thing. I think a lot of people who are counter to the CBC
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independence, anti-CBC activists could point out why we think that they're failing. And we could
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point out for free, and I think we do every day. Why do you think they choose to spend hundreds of
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thousands of dollars on insider experts instead of listening to the free advice that any Canadian,
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like you say, you just go to a coffee shop. Anyone would tell you what's wrong with the CBC.
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Why do they insist on paying for bad information instead of actually listening to what the public
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has to say? What's going on? Well, two reasons. Number one, it's easy to waste money when it's not
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your money, right? It's not like this is their money that they're wasting. I mean, this is money that
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they're taking from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers, right? The CBC is costing Canadian
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taxpayers more than a billion dollars every single year. So number one, it's easy to throw away money
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when it's not yours. It's somebody else's. Number two, they don't want that free advice from Canadians,
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right? Because sometimes the truth hurts, especially when you're the CBC taking more than a billion
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dollars from taxpayers. They don't want to hear why they're failing from everyday Canadians. That's why
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they stack the panel with ex-CBC staff. And I got a proof point. You know what else we've been
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talking about on your show, Ezra, is the millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses that the CBC
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has been handing out. Well, you know what? The CBC is using our tax dollars to hand out these bonuses,
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but they don't ask Canadians what Canadians think about these bonuses. So the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers
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Federation, we did ask Canadians, right? We commissioned a poll from Leger, a reputable polling
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firm, and the polls show that seven in 10 Canadians are against those CBC bonuses. So why isn't the
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CBC just going to a Tim Hortons, just going on the road and asking Canadians? Well, I don't think they
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want to know the answer from Canadians. Yeah, you know, we have a motto here, follow the facts wherever
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they lead. That's hard to do because you have a preconception in mind. It's something called confirmation bias.
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You love an answer that's exactly what you thought you were looking for. It's tough sometimes,
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and I find it tough too. We go out into the world, we have a very strong... We went down
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to Springfield, Ohio a couple weeks ago. We thought we were going to see people eating dogs and cats.
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We couldn't see any evidence of it. And we were sort of excited about that crazy story.
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But you've got to, you know, listen to the facts as they are. And we did not find any evidence of that.
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The CBC will do anything not to change their worldview. They would rather change the facts
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than change their worldview, which is why they're asking insiders to review their own system.
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Hey, I got a technical question. I was looking at your press release on this. You said the total cost
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of the panel is more than... We're talking about the CBC panel, more than $280,000, including
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$106,500 for panel members. That's a sweet gig. I'd do it for free, by the way.
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And then what's this? $133,000 for background documents, $28,000 for facilitators, and $13,000 for
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translation. Do you know what... What's a background document? How do you spend $133,000? What even is
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a background document? Do you know what that means?
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So, from my understanding, okay, first of all, this is about as transparent as a coconut, okay?
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So, I mean, what essentially I think they were doing is trying to get briefing papers for these
00:25:19.580
panelists to help them in their modernization discussions, right? But here's the craziest part.
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I actually don't think the government even knows how much this is costing, okay? So our great
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investigative journalist at the CTF, Ryan Thorpe, he went through hundreds of government
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records from access to information records, right? And those records suggested that the cost of the
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modernization panel was $280,000. So Ryan did a follow-up with Canadian Heritage, the department
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in charge of the CBC, and the Heritage Department said, well, you know, the costs are actually more
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like $200,000. So do you see what's going on here, folks? Like, they give these records out to the
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public, suggesting it's one cost. Then the department comes back saying, oh, no, it might be another cost.
00:26:08.220
So not only are they wasting our money when they could have just asked Canadians for free why the
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CDC is failing, but I don't even know if the government knows how much this is actually going
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to cost taxpayers. You know, a lot of media companies are failing, and they have executives
00:26:25.340
and business people and owners who are racking their brains, how do I fix this? How do I fix this?
00:26:29.500
And the reason they're forced to think it through is because if they don't fix it, they're going to
00:26:33.820
go bankrupt. They're going to go out of business. And frankly, a newspaper has been closing in Canada
00:26:38.620
pretty much every week for a decade, believe it or not. There's a motivation to fix your business
00:26:47.340
if you own it and are at risk, but there's a moral hazard if your business is declining,
00:26:54.140
if you're a failure, but someone's always there to bail you out. You know that phrase moral hazard.
00:26:58.540
It means the consequences of what you're doing have been removed from you. So you are in a position
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where you can do something that you know is wrong because you're not paying the price for it.
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This is a form of moral hazard. You have hundreds of executives at the CBC who are paid six figures
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to figure out what are we doing wrong. To spend a quarter million dollars on an outside panel,
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that is a Potemkin village. That's a distraction. Frankly, if you were to ask me why would they do
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this, it would be, oh, we're going to have a friendly group of outsiders who can now go and
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sing our praises to the world. I don't think this is actually a real panel on how to fix the CBC.
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I think they're just paying a bunch of people to go forward and say, oh, the CBC really is worth it.
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And I'm here to tell you that as an independent outsider. There are hundreds of people at the CBC
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who are paid to fix the problem. The fact that they don't is because they're bailed out every time.
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I got one super quick question for you. What's going on with CTV?
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Have you been following that spat between, is there a taxpayer angle in that? I don't want to
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get you to comment outside something outside your mandate as a taxpayer's guy. But I think Justin
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Trudeau is, sorry, pardon me, Pierre Polly was implying that Bell Canada and its CTV subsidiary
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are beholden to government regulators and grants. Do you have any info on that?
00:28:24.380
Well, Ezra, you know, I'm not sure I'd be able to add too much on that, but I do have to go back
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to your point about the CBC and this modernization panel, because I think you really hit the nail on
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the head on one aspect there, okay? So let's not forget that the government stacked this modernization
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panel with ex-CBC staff, right? Three out of the seven used to work there. One other one was a
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contributor. But not only that, right? Most of these panelists have either worked for the CBC
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or for an organization that has taken taxpayers' money, right? I'm sure that's totally a coincidence,
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right? Just like I'm sure that'll be totally a coincidence when they come back recommending
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that the CBC take more taxpayers' money. But you know what? If the government wanted
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a predetermined outcome, they didn't have to waste $200,000 on this, okay? And to go back to your
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point about the moral hazard, here's how it plays out in real life, right? You have Catherine Tate,
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the president and CEO of the CBC, crying to the government, claiming that the CBC is chronically
00:29:28.620
underfunded, even though it gets more than a billion dollars from taxpayers every single year.
00:29:34.460
So you would think that if the CEO actually thought its organization was chronically underfunded,
00:29:40.620
then it wouldn't be handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives.
00:29:46.140
But what did the CBC do? It still handed out millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses
00:29:52.700
to its executives last year and this year. So that is the moral hazard, right? Instead of improving
00:29:58.860
services, figuring out how to get voluntary contributions, you have the CBC's president,
00:30:03.740
and CEO crying, begging to the government for more taxpayer cash.
00:30:08.780
Franco, I just want to give you one little anecdote, because I know one of these people
00:30:11.820
on the panel. Sort of. I don't know him personally, but I've been following him for years. His name is
00:30:16.940
David Skok. And let me just read one line from your report here, and then let me tell you a little nugget
00:30:22.700
about him. Your report says, David Skok, editor-in-chief of The Logic, that's a website-based
00:30:29.500
news outlet to focus on tech. David Skok was the only participant to decline payment
00:30:37.180
for his participation in the panel. So he sounds like a good guy. He's willing to give his advice
00:30:43.500
on how to make a go of it for free. Not so fast. I remember when David Skok started The Logic.
00:30:50.620
He said, we're going to be independent. We've got to be. No one will trust us otherwise.
00:30:54.940
We're not taking a dime of Trudeau's money. Okay, that lasted about a year. And then he
00:31:02.300
made a public statement saying, we can't do it. We're not good enough. Our customers don't support
00:31:06.620
us enough. And instead of finding something else to do with my life, I am going to go against
00:31:11.260
everything I believe in and take the government dough. His wording was slightly different, but that was
00:31:16.220
the outcome. So here's a guy who's trumpeted himself as a friend of free enterprise, failed,
00:31:24.140
and went cap in hand to Trudeau for a bailout. He's on this panel. He's making a big show of not taking
00:31:32.060
government money. He's already taking government money. And more than that, every day of his life,
00:31:38.620
he repudiates his public statement that he would do it on his own merit. I just wanted to tell you,
00:31:45.340
that's the perfect guy for the CBC panel because he's a failed free marketer who then went to the
00:31:51.420
warm embrace of free taxpayers' money. And I think you can tell in advance what he's going to say.
00:31:56.780
Don't mind me. I wanted to share that little bio on David Skok with you, Franco.
00:32:00.380
Well, you know what, Ezra? Here's the solution. Get the government out of the business of media,
00:32:08.140
right? Freedom of the press means freedom of government interference, but it also means you
00:32:13.660
got to take the government out of funding the media. Taxpayers should not be paying a single penny
00:32:20.700
to media corporations or media organizations. And that means defund the CBC and all of the taxpayer
00:32:27.420
funded media subsidies. In fact, Ezra, I think you'll like this. The only modernization plan
00:32:33.180
for the state broadcaster should be three words long. Defund the CBC.
00:32:38.540
There you have it. We'll end on that note. Our friend Franco Teresano of the Taxpayers
00:32:42.460
Federation. Keep in touch, my friend. Hey, thank you so much. All right. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:32:57.420
Well, really, hasn't 2024 been marvelous? We see so much legislation going through to censor what we
00:33:07.740
can say, what we can publish. Meanwhile, out on the street, it's good old-fashioned hooliganism
00:33:15.580
that is taking root. And I speak about unhinged members of the Rainbow Mafia and their Antifa allies
00:33:22.540
allies who have taken to throwing bricks at our glorious jumbotron truck. We published a piece
00:33:32.700
recently about that. The truck needs some repairs. And well, because we're not bending the knee,
00:33:39.100
we're not going to put it in a garage because unhinged censorious thugs want us to. In any event,
00:33:46.620
it sure got a lot of response from you, folks. Bo Bender writes, and they just happened to come
00:33:53.580
across a brick at the perfect time. Yeah, right. You know, that's a great question, Bo Bender.
00:33:59.020
Were they packing bricks or did they scoop them off the street? Nevertheless, it makes a mockery
00:34:06.780
of the left. Do you know how they love to chant, love Trump's hate? What kind of love do you get
00:34:12.220
when you have a brick thrown at you? A Smith writes, BC election underway right now. Send us your cool
00:34:19.900
video truck. We need all the help we can get. You know what? Who knows the way things are going.
00:34:26.940
That truck is getting a fantastic reception. Maybe we need to roll out more trucks in more provinces
00:34:34.860
to get the message of free speech out. Danielle B. Cooper writes, every country needs a clone of
00:34:43.340
David Menzies. Hello from Australia. Well, that is so nice. You know what? I completely support cloning
00:34:51.100
because I'll get that clone to do all my work. Whereas the real David Menzies, well, I guess I'll go to
00:34:57.340
Tofino, BC and go on a surfing safari, much like our prime minister likes to do on truth and
00:35:04.140
reconciliation day. In any event, folks, thank you so much for tuning in. Ezra, as you might know,
00:35:10.220
is on an extra special assignment down in the great state of Texas. He'll be back here
00:35:15.820
tomorrow. In the meantime, as always, stay safe and stay sane.