Rebel News Podcast - October 01, 2024


DAVID MENZIES | Are federal workers actually reflecting on Truth and Reconciliation?


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

143.92316

Word count

5,124

Sentence count

291

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Tonight, 2024, is the year of censorship, and if a NDP private members bill passes in
00:00:23.940 Ottawa, expect yet more censorship to head our way. It's Monday, September the 30th, 2024.
00:00:32.120 I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levent Show.
00:00:38.600 Shame on you, you censorious bug.
00:00:41.880 Hey folks, happy National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Was it good for you? I know
00:00:57.900 it was very, very good for federal government workers, given that it's a full statutory holiday
00:01:03.060 for them. I wonder how many were reflecting on reconciliation, or given the glorious summertime
00:01:10.360 weather were getting in the GTA, at least. I wonder how many were out on the golf course earlier
00:01:15.880 today. As for the vast majority of us schleppers, well, it was just another day at the office, I
00:01:21.600 reckon. I guess we'll have to reflect on truth and reconciliation on our own dime when we get off
00:01:28.460 work. Say, since the Prime Minister had the day off, I wonder how Justin Trudeau reflected upon
00:01:36.040 truth and reconciliation this year. We all know how he reflected upon this solemn occasion when the
00:01:44.140 holiday, well, at least a holiday for some, was first incorporated back in 2021. In fact, folks, I think
00:01:50.960 we even have some video footage of Justin's heartfelt remembrance.
00:02:06.580 Oops, that wasn't actually the former part-time drama teacher Justin Trudeau channeling Frankie Avalon.
00:02:13.820 Even so, I do ponder if the surf was up on Dofino Beach earlier today. Anyway, I was also wondering
00:02:23.700 if I just committed a future crime vis-a-vis making an inappropriate comment on anything and all things
00:02:31.960 Indigenous. I do not jest, although I wish I were. Last week in the House of Commons, NDP MP Leah Gazzan 0.92
00:02:41.180 tabled a private member's bill called C-413. From the NDP's website, here are the details.
00:02:50.440 For starters, Bill C-413 is, quote, aimed at combating residential school denialism and stopping
00:02:58.940 the harm it causes to survivors, their families, and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.
00:03:06.120 If passed, this bill would add to the criminal code the offense of willfully promoting hatred
00:03:14.440 against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, justifying, or downplaying the harm caused by
00:03:23.120 the residential school system in Canada, end quote. Wow. A criminal code offense for, say,
00:03:31.640 questioning the validity of statistical data that might not even be accurate? That sounds really
00:03:39.420 serious, don't you think? But Ms. Gazzan, the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, is adamant that
00:03:46.200 no thought crimes regarding Indigenous matters shall be tolerated in our stolen land of Canada
00:03:53.820 Canada if Bill C-413 becomes law. Quote, if the government is serious about reconciliation,
00:04:03.540 then they need to protect survivors and their families from hate. The residential school system
00:04:10.020 was a genocide designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families, and heritage.
00:04:16.620 To downplay, deny, or justify it is cruel, harmful, and hateful. This should have no place in Canada,
00:04:25.580 end quote. Funny that I thought censorship had no place in Canada, but in these increasingly
00:04:32.700 censorious times, our dominion is evolving into a realm in which big brother Trudeau and his useful
00:04:40.220 idiots are watching you and penalizing you. You know, my beloved boss, Ezra Levent, he predicted that
00:04:47.740 2024 would be the year of censorship. And wow, Ezra has proven to be a modern-day Cassandra. And in this
00:04:56.660 respect, think of Bill C-413 as an Indigenous-themed addendum to the most censorious legislation in, well,
00:05:06.860 basically the history of the Western world, that would be Bill C-63, aka the Online Harms Act.
00:05:15.420 As Ezra warned back in February, Bill C-63 will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to stipulate that
00:05:23.180 online hate speech is discrimination. And the bill will empower people to file confidential complaints
00:05:31.580 if the commission thinks the individuals might be subjected to intimidation. That's right, you do not
00:05:40.700 even get to know the identity of your accuser. Oh, and if you find out who that person is and name him
00:05:47.420 or her, you'll face further penalties. It gets worse. Those who engage in hate speech could face life
00:05:56.460 imprisonment. It would also allow judges to put you under house arrest with an ankle bracelet and tell
00:06:03.980 you who you can or cannot talk to on suspicion that you might commit a hate offense. You know, the sci-fi
00:06:13.820 flick Minority Report, complete with its pre-crimes unit, well, it's quickly becoming a current-day reality
00:06:21.660 in Canada, isn't it? Meanwhile, so-called victims of hate speech could be compensated up to $20,000.
00:06:30.220 With stand-alone hate crimes being added to the criminal code, the federal government would be
00:06:35.740 entitled to an additional $50,000 per complaint. Wow, that's a service charge that would even make
00:06:42.940 the shysters running Ticketmaster blush. And because the odious Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act
00:06:51.260 is back, well, expect that also to be weaponized against dissenting Canadian expressions.
00:06:59.500 Bill C-63 is equal parts appalling and terrifying. And now we have Bill C-413. And in both cases,
00:07:08.300 it's all about clamping down on those expressing contrarian opinions or else. Indeed, I shall quote
00:07:16.860 directly from the private members bill, which is hell-bent to eradicate the so-called willful
00:07:23.500 promotion of hatred directed at indigenous peoples. Quote, everyone who by communicating statements
00:07:31.660 other than in private conversation willfully promotes hatred against indigenous peoples by condoning,
00:07:39.100 denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada,
00:07:44.380 or by misrepresenting facts relating to it. A, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to
00:07:52.620 imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. Or B, is guilty of an offense punishable on summary
00:08:00.940 conviction. End quote. Well, thank goodness that this bill does not apply to private conversations.
00:08:06.940 That would seem to indicate that the Gestapo won't be listening in on our phone conversations and
00:08:14.140 monitoring our emails. Well, not yet, at least. As always, the devil is in the details. First and
00:08:20.860 foremost, what is the benchmark for indigenous hatred? Apparently, everything changed in Canada
00:08:28.940 regarding native affairs in 2021. That's when a mass grave of indigenous people was allegedly discovered at
00:08:36.380 residential school sites in Kamloops, BC. At one point, the missing children reportedly discovered at
00:08:44.300 unmarked graves across Canada ended up totaling as many as 1,300 souls. But is that number even remotely
00:08:54.700 accurate? Regardless, the Kamloops story sparked riots. Statues were torn down and dozens of churches were set
00:09:03.100 ablaze. As for the Trudeau liberals, they were all in with the anti-colonial narrative. Federal
00:09:09.740 government buildings were ordered to display the Canadian flag at half-staff for almost half a year.
00:09:15.900 Justin's best buddy, meanwhile, Gerald Butts, didn't condemn the arson attacks on churches but said
00:09:21.740 he found such crimes understandable. And yet, what was the truth behind those alleged mass graves? Well,
00:09:31.580 CP Champion and Tom Flanagan co-authored a book published last year entitled Grave Error,
00:09:37.820 How the Media Misled Us and the Truth About Residential Schools. Earlier this year, the Fraser
00:09:45.500 Institute published an article based on the Grave Error book entitled No Evidence of Mass Graves or
00:09:53.260 Genocide in Residential Schools. The following is an edited excerpt of that article. Quote,
00:09:59.900 On May 27, 2021, Roseanne Casimir, chief of the Kamloops Indian Band, announced that ground-penetrating
00:10:09.180 radar had located the remains of 215 missing children in an apple orchard on the site of a former
00:10:18.380 residential school. Politicians and media seized on the announcement and stories of mass unmarked graves
00:10:26.860 and burials of missing children ricocheted around Canada and indeed much of the world. According to
00:10:34.380 Canadian newspaper editors, the discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was the new story of the
00:10:41.260 year and the world press photo of the year award went to a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses
00:10:50.140 along a roadside with a rainbow in the background commemorating children who died at a residential
00:10:57.500 school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada. These events created a narrative about the
00:11:06.220 genocidal nature of residential schools which were established in the 19th and 20th centuries by
00:11:12.860 churches and the government to educate Indigenous children and assimilate them into Canadian society.
00:11:21.020 That narrative went unchallenged at first, yet substantial pushback gradually developed among a
00:11:28.620 group of retired judges, lawyers, professors, journalists and others who have had careers in researching and
00:11:36.540 evaluating evidence. It's no accident that most are retired because that gives them some protection
00:11:45.660 against attempts to silence them as deniers. But the narrative of mass graves is wrong and not just wrong,
00:11:53.900 but egregiously wrong. For example, the essay in Kamloops not one body has been found by Montreal historian
00:12:02.940 Jacques Royard has done more than any other single publication to punch holes in the false narrative
00:12:11.180 of unmarked graves and missing children. Other essays punch more holes. Academic provocateur Francis
00:12:20.220 Widowson shows how the legend of murdered children and unmarked graves was spread by defrocked United
00:12:29.100 Church Minister Kevin Annette before it popped up at Kamloops. Retired Professor Jaime Rubinstein and
00:12:37.420 collaborators examine the evidence of unmarked graves, such as the results of the GPR, and find there's
00:12:46.380 nothing repeat nothing there. Retired Professor Ian Gentles examines health conditions in the schools
00:12:54.860 and shows that the children were better off there than at home on reserves. Our book demonstrates that
00:13:03.580 all the major elements of the Kamloops narrative are either false or highly exaggerated. No unmarked graves
00:13:11.820 have been discovered at Kamloops or elsewhere, not one. As of August 2023, there had been 20 announcements
00:13:21.020 of soil anomalies discovered by GPR near residential schools across Canada, but most have not even been
00:13:30.140 excavated. So what, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown. Where excavations have taken place,
00:13:39.100 no burials related to residential schools have been found. In other words, there are no missing
00:13:46.300 children. The fate of some children may have been forgotten with the passage of generations, forgotten
00:13:52.380 by their own families, that is, but forgotten is not the same as missing. The myth of missing students arose
00:14:01.580 from a failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's researchers to cross-reference the
00:14:08.540 vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them.
00:14:16.460 The documentation exists, but the commissioners did not avail themselves of it." End quote. Now,
00:14:24.220 folks, the article goes on to make the case that the narrative of mass burial grounds of indigenous people
00:14:29.740 is, well, at the end of the day, a hoax. But if you even suggest that in certain circles,
00:14:36.460 you'll be demonized, you'll be vilified, you'll perhaps even be terminated. And this is the current
00:14:44.220 harsh reality in Canada without the passage of Bill C-413 into law. Indeed, it would appear that what
00:14:53.900 Gazin is hoping to do is merely add jail time to the punishment to ensure that the so-called deniers
00:15:01.740 and those who might voice a contrarian opinion will be intimidated into silence. And yet, how does this
00:15:09.820 heavy-handedness contribute to the very spirit of Truth and Reconciliation? Isn't part of this process,
00:15:17.980 when it comes to the truth and reconciliation all about having open and honest dialogue? But no,
00:15:27.580 Gazin, like some wannabe director at the Ministry of Truth, wants you to subscribe to a certain narrative
00:15:35.020 vis-a-vis indigenous affairs, even if that narrative is a falsehood. And she wants you to self-censor
00:15:43.820 yourself under penalty of law and even imprisonment. Now, historically, private member bills die on the
00:15:52.540 vine. But given the on-again, off-again, on-again bromance between Justin and Jugmeet, and given
00:15:59.660 that Trudeau is likely all in when it comes to the bill's content, given that he adores censorship,
00:16:07.660 well, perhaps this bill has a fighting chance of getting widespread support and actually becoming
00:16:14.860 law. And if that does pass, what then? Are the authors of Grave Error and the head honchos at the
00:16:23.980 Fraser Institute going to be the first to be prosecuted on the basis of denialism, even though
00:16:31.260 there's still not a scintilla of evidence that these mass graves exist? For that matter,
00:16:37.180 is Rebel News and yours truly on the hook for a fine and some jail time, simply for airing this
00:16:43.740 monologue. What's perversely ironic is that Gazin is obsessed with so-called denialism when it comes to
00:16:52.460 what she believes to be an attempted genocide of Canada's indigenous people. And yet for almost a year
00:17:00.060 now, we have seen thousands of violent pro-Hamas demonstrators take to the streets of our great
00:17:07.820 dominion, denying the Holocaust as they openly support engineering an additional one. These unhinged 0.93
00:17:17.420 members of the New Age Hitler Youth Movement continue to make coded chants clamoring for the genocide of
00:17:25.420 the Jewish people, you know, intifada, and from the river to the sea, and go back to Europe. 0.84
00:17:32.300 And for the most part, what's been the response of those in government and law enforcement?
00:17:37.580 Well, they hold their noses, they turn a blind eye, and then they arrest and imprison peaceful
00:17:43.980 counter-demonstrators and members of the independent media who might have the temerity to ask impolite
00:17:51.020 questions. What a joke. A bad joke without a punchline. Bottom line, the year of censorship,
00:17:59.020 or at least selective censorship, continues unabated. And it would appear that the only thing George Orwell
00:18:07.660 got wrong about his most famous cautionary tale was the date.
00:18:24.460 Hey everybody, before I jump into the story, I just want to show you my new coffee cup. On this side,
00:18:29.260 Rebel News, our logo. But on this side, who is that? Who is that wanted for journalism? Well,
00:18:34.860 that's my buddy David Menzies. I'm not even kidding. That is actually his real mugshot when he was
00:18:42.060 arrested in Toronto for doing journalism. He's been arrested three or four times in 2024 alone.
00:18:48.140 I'm not laughing about it, but if you got to choose between laughing and crying,
00:18:52.940 you may as well laugh and put a mug on it. That is actually his real mugshot. And I think he actually
00:18:58.140 looks sort of cool. So here's to David, a journalist who was arrested for journalism. There's no two ways
00:19:04.060 about it. Anyways, back to the journalism we're doing here today. The CBC is not just Canada's
00:19:10.300 largest news organization, larger in terms of journalists than all the others combined. Imagine
00:19:15.660 how that distorts the market. But incredibly, their viewership is falling despite Canada's population
00:19:24.620 growing. People are watching it less and it's speeding up the less, the less, the less.
00:19:29.340 So they put together a panel to figure out what's going on. And you're going to laugh at this.
00:19:35.820 One of my favorite guys is joining us today. You know who I'm talking about, Franco Teresano,
00:19:39.420 the Taxpayers Federation. He joins us now via Skype from Calgary. Franco, everybody knows what's wrong
00:19:45.980 with the CBC, but only this government would spend a quarter million dollars finding experts from the CBC
00:19:53.340 to tell us what's wrong with the CBC. Tell us the facts. What's, give me the scoop. What's really
00:19:58.860 going on here? And you know, I'm laughing just because of how ridiculous this waste of money really
00:20:04.140 is, right? So, you know, the government is dropping $200,000 plus on this seven person modernization
00:20:12.940 panel to figure out, I don't know, I guess what's wrong with the CBC and how to move forward.
00:20:17.660 And you know what? They didn't have to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure
00:20:22.700 out why the CBC is failing. All they would have to do is go to Tim Hortons and ask one of the many
00:20:28.220 customers there and they would tell the government just why the CBC is failing. But, you know,
00:20:33.820 $200,000 and that tab is probably only going up. Even Canadian Heritage admits that the cost
00:20:40.860 could balloon higher than that. And another crazy part of the story is like, folks, this is a seven
00:20:46.780 person panel, modernization panel. Well, three of the seven panelists that used to work at the CBC
00:20:54.380 and another one of them was a contributor to the CBC. So four of the seven CBC panelists either worked
00:21:02.220 at the state broadcaster before or was a contributor to the state broadcaster. So, you know what, if they
00:21:08.860 really wanted a predetermined outcome, they could have gotten one for a lot less than $200,000.
00:21:15.180 Yeah, it's incredible. And the fact that they're choosing their own people, the people who were
00:21:20.140 part of the disaster to give advice on things, it's, you know, I don't know why, but it sort of makes me
00:21:25.260 think of when the Biden administration had a summit on electric vehicles, they did not invite Elon Musk.
00:21:32.140 They invited the others, but not Elon Musk, the guy who's actually given her. Why? Well, because they didn't
00:21:38.060 want to hear what he had to say. They didn't, they absolutely did not want to hear him. They wanted
00:21:42.940 the insiders because this is an inside thing. I think a lot of people who are counter to the CBC
00:21:52.860 independence, anti-CBC activists could point out why we think that they're failing. And we could
00:21:59.580 point out for free, and I think we do every day. Why do you think they choose to spend hundreds of
00:22:03.980 thousands of dollars on insider experts instead of listening to the free advice that any Canadian,
00:22:10.300 like you say, you just go to a coffee shop. Anyone would tell you what's wrong with the CBC.
00:22:13.660 Why do they insist on paying for bad information instead of actually listening to what the public
00:22:18.300 has to say? What's going on? Well, two reasons. Number one, it's easy to waste money when it's not
00:22:25.340 your money, right? It's not like this is their money that they're wasting. I mean, this is money that
00:22:29.580 they're taking from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers, right? The CBC is costing Canadian
00:22:34.220 taxpayers more than a billion dollars every single year. So number one, it's easy to throw away money
00:22:40.220 when it's not yours. It's somebody else's. Number two, they don't want that free advice from Canadians, 0.98
00:22:46.220 right? Because sometimes the truth hurts, especially when you're the CBC taking more than a billion
00:22:51.420 dollars from taxpayers. They don't want to hear why they're failing from everyday Canadians. That's why
00:22:56.300 they stack the panel with ex-CBC staff. And I got a proof point. You know what else we've been
00:23:02.300 talking about on your show, Ezra, is the millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses that the CBC
00:23:08.700 has been handing out. Well, you know what? The CBC is using our tax dollars to hand out these bonuses,
00:23:14.380 but they don't ask Canadians what Canadians think about these bonuses. So the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers
00:23:19.660 Federation, we did ask Canadians, right? We commissioned a poll from Leger, a reputable polling
00:23:24.860 firm, and the polls show that seven in 10 Canadians are against those CBC bonuses. So why isn't the
00:23:31.260 CBC just going to a Tim Hortons, just going on the road and asking Canadians? Well, I don't think they
00:23:36.460 want to know the answer from Canadians. Yeah, you know, we have a motto here, follow the facts wherever
00:23:41.260 they lead. That's hard to do because you have a preconception in mind. It's something called confirmation bias.
00:23:47.580 You love an answer that's exactly what you thought you were looking for. It's tough sometimes,
00:23:53.180 and I find it tough too. We go out into the world, we have a very strong... We went down
00:23:57.740 to Springfield, Ohio a couple weeks ago. We thought we were going to see people eating dogs and cats.
00:24:04.540 We couldn't see any evidence of it. And we were sort of excited about that crazy story.
00:24:08.540 But you've got to, you know, listen to the facts as they are. And we did not find any evidence of that.
00:24:13.260 The CBC will do anything not to change their worldview. They would rather change the facts
00:24:19.900 than change their worldview, which is why they're asking insiders to review their own system.
00:24:26.620 Hey, I got a technical question. I was looking at your press release on this. You said the total cost
00:24:32.780 of the panel is more than... We're talking about the CBC panel, more than $280,000, including
00:24:38.540 $106,500 for panel members. That's a sweet gig. I'd do it for free, by the way.
00:24:46.140 And then what's this? $133,000 for background documents, $28,000 for facilitators, and $13,000 for
00:24:57.900 translation. Do you know what... What's a background document? How do you spend $133,000? What even is
00:25:05.020 a background document? Do you know what that means?
00:25:08.460 So, from my understanding, okay, first of all, this is about as transparent as a coconut, okay?
00:25:12.940 Yeah, I don't get it.
00:25:13.740 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.
00:25:25.340 I actually don't think the government even knows how much this is costing, okay? So our great
00:25:30.460 investigative journalist at the CTF, Ryan Thorpe, he went through hundreds of government
00:25:37.100 records from access to information records, right? And those records suggested that the cost of the
00:25:42.940 modernization panel was $280,000. So Ryan did a follow-up with Canadian Heritage, the department
00:25:50.620 in charge of the CBC, and the Heritage Department said, well, you know, the costs are actually more
00:25:56.060 like $200,000. So do you see what's going on here, folks? Like, they give these records out to the
00:26:02.220 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
00:26:13.180 CDC is failing, but I don't even know if the government knows how much this is actually going
00:26:18.220 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
00:27:04.700 where you can do something that you know is wrong because you're not paying the price for it.
00:27:08.940 This is a form of moral hazard. You have hundreds of executives at the CBC who are paid six figures
00:27:16.940 to figure out what are we doing wrong. To spend a quarter million dollars on an outside panel,
00:27:22.940 that is a Potemkin village. That's a distraction. Frankly, if you were to ask me why would they do 1.00
00:27:28.300 this, it would be, oh, we're going to have a friendly group of outsiders who can now go and
00:27:33.580 sing our praises to the world. I don't think this is actually a real panel on how to fix the CBC.
00:27:38.860 I think they're just paying a bunch of people to go forward and say, oh, the CBC really is worth it.
00:27:43.260 And I'm here to tell you that as an independent outsider. There are hundreds of people at the CBC
00:27:48.940 who are paid to fix the problem. The fact that they don't is because they're bailed out every time.
00:27:53.740 I got one super quick question for you. What's going on with CTV?
00:27:58.540 Have you been following that spat between, is there a taxpayer angle in that? I don't want to
00:28:03.900 get you to comment outside something outside your mandate as a taxpayer's guy. But I think Justin
00:28:10.300 Trudeau is, sorry, pardon me, Pierre Polly was implying that Bell Canada and its CTV subsidiary
00:28:17.660 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
00:28:28.380 to your point about the CBC and this modernization panel, because I think you really hit the nail on
00:28:33.820 the head on one aspect there, okay? So let's not forget that the government stacked this modernization
00:28:39.980 panel with ex-CBC staff, right? Three out of the seven used to work there. One other one was a
00:28:45.980 contributor. But not only that, right? Most of these panelists have either worked for the CBC
00:28:52.620 or for an organization that has taken taxpayers' money, right? I'm sure that's totally a coincidence,
00:28:58.860 right? Just like I'm sure that'll be totally a coincidence when they come back recommending
00:29:04.060 that the CBC take more taxpayers' money. But you know what? If the government wanted
00:29:08.700 a predetermined outcome, they didn't have to waste $200,000 on this, okay? And to go back to your
00:29:15.740 point about the moral hazard, here's how it plays out in real life, right? You have Catherine Tate, 0.98
00:29:21.020 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 1.00
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.
00:35:34.140 Thank you.
00:35:35.820 Thank you.