Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ 10 small observations about the Alberta independence movement

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I'm going to share with you 10 deep thoughts I have on Alberta independence.

00:00:05.860 It's just my feelings as sort of an Alberta expat out here in Toronto. I've been out here in Toronto

00:00:10.020 for almost 15 years, but my heart's still in Alberta. I think I understand both sides of

00:00:14.920 the divide. And I'll take you through my top 10 observations so far. I wonder if you'll find them

00:00:20.900 interesting. And then, of course, we talked to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about the government

00:00:26.160 hiding certain expenses. You know, that's never a good sign. But first, let me invite you to become

00:00:31.600 a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. Just go to

00:00:36.420 rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And we really rely on that dough to pay the

00:00:42.340 bills around here because we don't take any government money. And it shows. Tonight, 10 small

00:00:47.740 observations about the Alberta independence movement. It's February 10th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:56.160 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:08.060 Well, hi, everybody. You know, I was born and raised in Alberta. My father's in Alberta and

00:01:13.180 actually goes back to 1903 when my family first came there. That's actually before it was a province.

00:01:18.960 1903 in a place like the United Kingdom or France is a blink of an eye. It's very modern. But

00:01:23.960 1903 in the prairies is pretty ancient. And the thing is, the history of Alberta, which I studied

00:01:30.640 growing up both in school and just in informal readings, is one of inequality. The province of

00:01:36.820 Alberta was born unequal. It didn't have the same natural resource rights as eastern provinces. It was

00:01:42.420 born weak on purpose. There was the first, the contemplated idea of a super province called Buffalo,

00:01:47.960 if you can believe it, look it up, that had both Alberta and Saskatchewan joined. It was cut in half

00:01:53.020 to make sure it didn't get too powerful. But of course, the two provinces are best friends.

00:01:57.840 There's a lot of things about Alberta's history that keep echoing over time. For example,

00:02:03.640 Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, raiding the oil welfare in the national energy program,

00:02:10.560 which then of course came back with Justin Trudeau's own carbon tax. And now with Mark Carney

00:02:16.300 demanding all sorts of payoffs and commissions of sorts, carbon capture here, carbon tax there,

00:02:23.320 before Albertans are allowed to work for a living. No other industry in the country

00:02:27.640 has to pay off collateral interests before they have the right to do, I don't know,

00:02:33.220 lumber or fish or coal. It's, well, coal maybe a little bit, but only Alberta has to pay a kind of

00:02:40.880 fee in political favors before it's allowed to exploit its own resources. These things add up

00:02:47.880 over the course of time. But I live in Ontario now. I used to say I'm an exile in Toronto. You can only

00:02:54.160 say that for so long before you are an Ontarian. I feel, though, a great kinship within Alberta,

00:02:59.960 and I visit it all the time. We have a presence in Alberta, our chief reporter up there, Sheila Gunn-Reed

00:03:06.300 and others as well. And I feel like I'm keeping my ear to the ground on this independence movement

00:03:11.420 very closely. It's something that I followed growing up. And I followed Preston Manning's

00:03:16.280 attempted antidote to separatism. Remember that Preston Manning's first motto for the Reform Party

00:03:22.400 was the West Wants In. It was a complete rebuttal to the West Wants Out, the Western Canada concept

00:03:29.740 and other separatist movements that flourished in response to Pierre Trudeau's attack on the West.

00:03:35.680 Preston Manning, in his own way, saved Canada. Now, you'll never hear a thank you from Ontario

00:03:42.240 and Quebec. They have nothing but hatred for him. But he is the one who took all that energy and said,

00:03:48.160 hey guys, let's try and reform the country, not abandon it. Well, I was part of that in a very

00:03:54.540 small way. I was Preston Manning's assistant for a couple of years in parliament, and I was a

00:03:58.400 youth organizer. And I was thrilled with the energy in Alberta, but I soon came to the conclusion

00:04:04.440 that everyone else in Alberta has always concluded, which is the numbers just aren't there.

00:04:09.980 When you are 10% of the population, even a couple percent more in our structure,

00:04:15.040 you just get the short end of the stick every time. There is not the same protection for oil-rich

00:04:20.980 places in Canada as, let's say, Texas. It would be unthinkable that the federal government would raid

00:04:26.840 Texas in the manner that the federal government has raided Alberta. These are some of the things

00:04:31.360 on my mind. But I'd like to share with you 10 thoughts. They're not deep thoughts. They're not

00:04:38.000 intricate thoughts, but they're just sort of some things I've observed over the debate. And I say this

00:04:42.700 is an Ontarian who loves Alberta and someone who thinks that Alberta has actually been hard done

00:04:48.520 by in its own way. You might laugh at that. Alberta is the wealthiest place in Canada. It's very

00:04:53.740 successful despite the attacks on it. But it's a combination of what it has not been able to do

00:04:59.780 and how it has been deliberately disrespected over the generations. These are some of the things on my

00:05:05.260 mind. So let me start with my first point, which is the Alberta independence movement is not actually

00:05:11.540 anti-Canadian. And it's definitely not anti-patriotic. In fact, I bet that in Alberta,

00:05:19.960 most military veterans, let alone serving military, and most police and most police vets are for it.

00:05:27.080 I just give that as a kind of measure of patriotism, just like you saw in the trucker convoy.

00:05:31.900 Um, it's in fact, a kind of heightened patriotism. It's not a loathing for Canada. It's a lament

00:05:39.540 for what Canada has become and what it never could become. I think you'll find if you were to ask

00:05:46.000 most independence-minded Albertans, are you patriotic? They would say yes. They would sort

00:05:52.700 of struggle to reconcile how they could be a monarchist or how they could love Canada's history,

00:05:58.380 but also want to leave it. But, uh, I put it to you that that is a fact. Most Albertans who want

00:06:04.420 independence are not anti-Canada at all. Here's my second point. I don't think that the independence

00:06:11.560 movement is actually passionate. And I mean that in the Latin meaning it's a tortured or, or revved up.

00:06:19.100 I, I, I think it's not emotional. In, if anything, it's in sorrow, not anger. It's not a rage against

00:06:26.120 Canada. It's a cold-blooded, thoughtful decision that has been, I don't know, lurking for a while,

00:06:34.180 and now it's here. Uh, I think it's like a decision people have just finally made. I, I guess you could

00:06:40.620 compare it in some ways to a divorce and there are divorces with both parties argue and throw dishes,

00:06:47.100 I guess, but this would be the couple that no longer argues with each other. They're just

00:06:52.280 done. And now it's just having a divorce with the least rancor possible. I think that is the mindset

00:06:59.420 of the average Alberta independence-minded person. They're not raging. They're not actually passionate.

00:07:06.240 They've just decided. My third observation is that it's absolutely not the case with the

00:07:12.780 anti-separatists, either those in Alberta or mainly those in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal. I think

00:07:18.300 in my mind of the at-issue panel, I think it's called on CBC, where you've got Andrew Coyne and

00:07:24.500 Rosemary Barton and Althea Raj and Chantali Baer, the entire range of opinion from A to B,

00:07:29.920 the entire range of geography from Toronto to Montreal. Like it's just a laugh that that is their

00:07:35.800 national panel. They're all in agreement and they are raging. I mean, Andrew Coyne has lost his

00:07:41.580 marbles on Donald Trump. He's got a Trump derangement syndrome and he has now aimed that

00:07:46.260 not only at Pierre Paglia, but at any independence-minded Albertans. So I say that whereas

00:07:51.540 independence-minded Albertans are not running hot, they're very cold and thoughtful,

00:07:57.220 the anti-separatists are raging. They're full of loathing. They're full of insults. In fact,

00:08:02.960 it's very rare that I see an argument attempting to persuade Albertans not to go. It's normally

00:08:10.360 either saying, you're stupid, you don't know this, or just plain old name calling. You know 1.00

00:08:16.140 what I did? I was looking at the use of the word treasonous. That socialist pro-China premier,

00:08:23.140 David Eby, used the word treasonous. Other people are using the word treason.

00:08:26.720 I'd like to just take and pause a moment. I read an article last night in the Financial Times

00:08:31.280 about a group of people from Alberta. I won't describe them as Albertans who went to the White

00:08:37.000 House seeking the assistance of the United States to break up our country. Now, I understand the

00:08:44.000 desire to hold a referendum, to talk about the issues you want to talk about in Canada. We got

00:08:48.400 free speech. That's important. But to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up

00:08:55.020 Canada, there's an old-fashioned word for that. And that word is treason.

00:08:59.800 I had Grok, which is the Twitter-based artificial intelligence engine. I had a search through the

00:09:08.080 archives of the CBC for any single occasion where the CBC called Quebec separatists treasonous. And

00:09:16.740 it came up with nothing. And then I instructed it, look deeper, look harder. They could not find a,

00:09:22.740 the artificial intelligence could not find a single instance of the CBC calling a Quebec separatist

00:09:29.040 treasonous. But they certainly ladle that word around with Albertans. And like, there's a lot of

00:09:36.340 layers here. First of all, the double standard between Quebec and Alberta just confirms that in

00:09:41.900 the minds of Albertans. Second of all, the fact that the CBC, a national organ under the Canadian

00:09:49.140 Broadcasting Act, is so partisan is another point. And, and just the, the, the fact that they're

00:09:56.240 accusing Albertans who are following a democratic path of being treasonous. Basically, you're not

00:10:02.260 allowed to object to your position. You're not allowed to do what the Clarity Act and the Supreme

00:10:06.620 Court says you can do. You're not allowed to do what Quebec has done twice. And if you dare to speak

00:10:12.120 back, we're going to call you basically the worst crime in the book. My fourth observation

00:10:17.940 is that when you listen to an anti-separatist, it's sort of like an inkblot test. It's a projection,

00:10:25.080 maybe. They project their own sins or their own ideas onto Alberta. It's a, it's a scapegoat. I mean,

00:10:30.760 usually they're anti-capitalist, anti-oil and gas, pro-Ottawa, pro-globalist. So they see Alberta,

00:10:38.040 sort of like in that book, Gulliver's Travels, which is a wonderful book. And it's not just a

00:10:41.460 book for kids, by the way, but remember Gulliver, Gulliver went to a couple of lands. He went to

00:10:46.020 Brobdingnag, where everyone was huge and he was little. And he went to Lilliput, where he was huge

00:10:53.300 and everyone else was little. And, you know, they, they tied him down with a thousand little

00:10:57.880 strings. That's Alberta in the minds of anti-separatists. Alberta is this giant that

00:11:04.260 needs to be tied down with thousands of little strings, social license, carbon taxes, MOUs,

00:11:11.880 carbon capture, you know, tanker ban. We have this mighty giant and we have to tie him down.

00:11:20.100 And everything that Alberta doesn't like, they like. It brings out their true nature. Very few,

00:11:26.140 like I say, anti-separatists actually try and convince Albertans. They're not trying to make

00:11:31.620 the case that Albertans are better off financially or would have a, a more sensible foreign policy or

00:11:37.700 more sensible immigration policy. They, they know that they can't make the case on the math or maybe

00:11:43.800 they don't know. And they just are going off half cocked. But I think most of them just take it as an

00:11:49.760 opportunity to virtue signal, like the, the at issue panel I mentioned, whoever can be the most

00:11:55.600 anti-separatist wins. I don't know, the approval of the Laurentian elites, more money for the CBC.

00:12:05.400 They demand that Alberta be submissive to whatever their ideological pet project is. They just demand

00:12:13.660 it. And so they're outraged that Albertans would defy them. My fifth observation is an,

00:12:20.140 I don't actually think this is a bargaining chip as opposed to what Quebec often does. Now it can be

00:12:25.880 a bargaining chip. When Alberta says we have a demand, there's never an or else. I mean, or else

00:12:33.220 what? What are you going to do? You and what army, right? This is the ultimate or else. It certainly

00:12:37.920 has been for Quebec. Give us three seats out of nine on the Supreme Court or else. Give us control over

00:12:43.760 certain, certain federal jurisdictions like immigration or else. Let us have our say in

00:12:49.340 who gets to be a judge or else. There's a lot of or else-ing out of Quebec. It's a bargaining chip.

00:12:55.140 I really don't think that's what's on the minds of most Albertans as they sign up for this

00:13:00.240 independence referendum. I mean, it, it could be, and it will be. The more real this independence

00:13:05.500 referendum gets, the more I think some pragmatic politicians will say, oh, yikes, we better

00:13:10.620 appease it. But that's not what's motivating it. It's really not. There's not a separatist industry

00:13:17.720 in Alberta the same way there has been in Quebec for two generations. My sixth observation is that

00:13:26.580 part of this independence movement is a reaction to the same thing happening over and over again,

00:13:32.760 like that great movie by, uh, uh, Bill Murray called, um, Groundhog Day. Um,

00:13:38.260 you know, what, what happened to Alberta during the social credit era, during the great depression

00:13:45.180 where Alberta actually went bankrupt and the way that Alberta was treated then. And then in the

00:13:51.260 seventies and eighties during the OPEC oil shocks, and then during Charlottetown Accord, and then during

00:13:55.800 like, uh, again and again, and again. Um, I think that many new Albertans get to understand that

00:14:03.500 when they come to Alberta, that's never taught, uh, in Ontario or Quebec, certainly not in Quebec.

00:14:09.380 I think people are just sort of, they, they realize they, there was a hope in Alberta that

00:14:13.840 Pierre Polyev could reset the country. Just like when Stephen Harper won, um, it reduced the demand

00:14:22.460 for independence because people thought, okay, that's our guy. He's not going to favor us so much,

00:14:27.980 but he's going to stop the pain. He's going to stop the attacks on us. And he sort of did,

00:14:32.980 but not really. He's still appointed kooky left-wing judges. He never really dealt with

00:14:37.900 Alberta's over contribution of the country, but he gave Alberta enough respect that separatism

00:14:43.620 waned. I think a lot of Westerners were hoping Pierre Polyev would do the same, but now that that

00:14:48.800 victory was snatched, uh, away, uh, into the jaws of defeat. Um, I think people said, you,

00:14:57.520 you've just seen this movie too many times before, whether it's Pierre Polyev, Stephen Harper,

00:15:01.840 Preston Manning, whomever, it's just, it's not going to get better. It's structurally broken.

00:15:07.180 I think many Albertans understand that. My seventh point, I saw a little news item that a number of

00:15:12.960 angry ND peers say they will leave Alberta if, well, they didn't quite say if what, if it goes

00:15:17.760 independent if they have a referendum. Now, I don't believe this. This reminds me of when

00:15:21.780 Hollywood lovies say, if Donald Trump wins in 2024, we're leaving. I think the only one that left was

00:15:29.920 Rosie O'Donnell and I think Ellen DeGeneres. And I think they both want to come back. Like that's two,

00:15:36.040 no one's going to actually sell their house and move, move to where? I just don't believe it. But if it

00:15:43.140 happens, um, win-win, I, I think while I don't think a lot of NDPers or other leftists would leave

00:15:52.980 Alberta, uh, although maybe some people working for the feds will, I think a lot of good people

00:15:59.180 from the rest of Canada would definitely want to join. I mean, I live in Toronto and there's an

00:16:05.060 enormous number of people in Toronto who are doing what they can to get out of the city. I think it

00:16:09.860 really started during COVID when the city was paralyzed by government, by public health

00:16:15.840 ninis and a lot of people who could just relocated to Florida. That's often the laptop class, people

00:16:22.080 who could work from wherever, a lot of lawyers, a lot of, um, people in finance. I think that that

00:16:29.080 trend has been, for example, let me give you an example. Um, there's been so much antisemitism and

00:16:33.740 crime and antisemitic crime in Toronto that I just happen to know that an awful lot of Jewish families 1.00

00:16:40.020 are looking to get out of Toronto and they're wondering, well, do we go to Florida? Do we go,

00:16:44.580 where do they go? I think that if Alberta were independent, you would see refugees from the rest 1.00

00:16:51.780 of Canada. They would be probably entrepreneurial refugees. They would be people who are sick of living 1.00

00:16:57.880 in, uh, extreme immigration cities like Toronto and, and Vancouver, probably. Uh, I think you would, 0.99

00:17:05.180 I wish you would see more of an exodus of the NDP socialist types, but I'm quite certain you would

00:17:10.660 see an inflow of good people who have had it with life in other parts of the country. And I think that's

00:17:16.620 one of the things that terrifies the antiseparatists. My eighth observation is that a lot of this is an

00:17:24.420 oblique reaction to Mark Carney, not just the fact that Polyev didn't win and Carney did. I mean, in the last

00:17:31.780 year, look at Carney's conduct. I mean, his, his main dealing with Alberta was to have this complex

00:17:38.940 member of memorandum of understanding where Alberta had to immediately, uh, spend money on carbon capture

00:17:45.660 and jack up certain taxes. And maybe by the year 2040, a pipeline would be built. I mean, I don't think many

00:17:53.220 Albertans were persuaded by that, but put, put aside that just the, the, the carnival of insanity,

00:18:00.540 world economic forum, and, and being an anti-American globalist going to China and saying,

00:18:05.860 you're going to sign onto their new world order, being an anti-Trump agitator, doing things like

00:18:13.020 recognizing Hamas run Gaza as the state of Palestine. There's so much garbage being done 0.98

00:18:22.840 in the name of Canada. And this goes to my very first point about Alberta independence. It's not 0.98

00:18:27.920 really anti-Canadian or anti-patriotic. It's sort of, oh, so Mark Carney is doing that. That is going

00:18:34.880 in such a terrible direction. Oh, another $50 billion for electric vehicles. You're, you're poking America

00:18:40.740 in the eye with a Greenland, uh, consulate. You're just doing all these stupid things, corporatist 1.00

00:18:47.260 thing, paternalistic gimmicks. And I think a lot of Albertans are saying, you know what, 1.00

00:18:52.260 how do we separate from that guy? So when people want to separate, they want to separate from the

00:19:00.420 antics and the shenanigans. And that guy reminds me when Preston Manning wrote in the Globe and Mail

00:19:04.740 that Mark Carney could be the last prime minister of the United Canada. I think Preston might be right.

00:19:10.480 My ninth point, I think is my most normal point. It's how would the life of an ordinary person

00:19:19.840 change on a normal day in Alberta after a referendum vote or after independence? I got to say in so many

00:19:29.040 ways, nothing would change. I mean, there would still be many government services, uh, all the ones

00:19:36.160 provided by the province, which is education and healthcare. They would still be provided by the

00:19:41.340 province. They would just have billions of dollars more because Alberta wouldn't be sending money for 0.75

00:19:45.860 equalization or payments anymore. There are some things that would have an Alberta flag on them rather

00:19:53.140 than a Canadian flag. Interestingly, I, this caught me by surprise when I first saw it online, the idea that

00:19:59.480 people could keep their pensions and their passports. And it's true because those things are issued to

00:20:05.760 individual persons. Uh, why and how would they change? I'm not saying that there wouldn't be an

00:20:11.360 eventual change with the pension plan, but you've got a passport in your hand. Um, it works. What does

00:20:19.080 a passport do? It lets you go into another country, lets you come back from that other country. Passport

00:20:23.940 doesn't have your residential address in it, by the way. It just says you're a Canadian citizen. If Alberta

00:20:29.680 were to separate it, how does that void your passport? There, there would most likely be an Alberta

00:20:37.180 passport and you could probably, if not have both, you could move over to the Alberta passport. But just

00:20:43.440 because there was a vote in a referendum, many of the things that you use wouldn't suddenly vaporize,

00:20:50.280 but just stop and ask yourself, how many things do you use in a given day or a given week that are

00:20:56.060 actually run by Ottawa? When I look at Ottawa, I think of taxes. I think of foolish wokeness. I think

00:21:02.900 of an insane foreign policy. I think of a weak military. I really think of nothing that affects

00:21:10.020 me really in a day to day. I get up, I get in my car, I drive my kids to school or I drive to work.

00:21:17.180 I, if I have to go to the hospital, none of the things that I do in real life are running from garbage

00:21:24.600 collection to bylaw officers. I mean, that's real life. I mean, if Ottawa's dealing with those things,

00:21:31.540 it's an invasion of Alberta sovereignty. Anyways, I put it to you that most Albertans would have no

00:21:37.520 difference at all in their life. If Alberta were to be independent other than they'd have lower taxes 0.96

00:21:43.980 and they would be divorced from the insanity that's going on in Ottawa. My 10th thought is that some

00:21:50.600 things would change, but I think that's all doable. This has all been contemplated before. In Quebec,

00:21:56.340 for example, a lot of the groundwork was thought through. You may recall that Quebec elected a

00:22:01.040 provincial government called the Parti Quebecois. And once they were elected into office, they had all

00:22:06.200 the tools of a government. They had the civil service, they had government budgets, and they

00:22:10.460 studied all these things. They studied questions like passports and stamps and currency and international

00:22:16.720 debt and postal unions and international flights. Like there's a hundred little things and you think,

00:22:21.820 oh my God, how do we handle that? Well, you handle that one at a time and it's been done before in

00:22:26.240 other places like Yugoslavia no longer exists. It's other little countries. Czechoslovakia no longer

00:22:33.460 exists. The Soviet Union is a dozen countries now. These things can happen and it's a little bit

00:22:39.760 discombobulating, but it doesn't have to be a lot discombobulating. Look, Canada was an audacious

00:22:47.200 idea, the second largest country in the world. But it was designed as a compromise really between

00:22:53.600 Anglo-Protestants and French Catholics. That was a beautiful compromise where, I mean, look at our

00:23:00.860 constitution. It protects French rights and education. It didn't contemplate a large, settled, 0.95

00:23:07.900 bold, independent-minded, individualistic West with more oil and gas wealth than anyone could

00:23:15.560 possibly have dreamed of in the 18th or 19th centuries. And so you have a country that maybe

00:23:22.300 in some ways is too big geographically. You have deep anti-Americanism that's whipped up by, I don't

00:23:31.120 know, is it the descendants of United Empire loyalists, people who left the United States after George

00:23:35.780 Washington kicked out the Brits? Is it really echoing from 250 years ago? I don't know, but

00:23:41.080 whatever it is, I think a lot of Albertans just don't want that. There's a deep anti-Americanism,

00:23:46.660 there's political opportunism, there's rent-seeking, which is a fancy word of saying people just,

00:23:51.120 you know, wringing out Alberta like a sponge. It's all too much. If Alberta were to be independent, 1.00

00:23:59.120 it would not be a disaster. And once it's possible, I think a lot of other things would be possible

00:24:07.220 immediately too. From Saskatchewan, which I predict would join its sibling right away, to Quebec saying,

00:24:14.540 well, hang on, can we renegotiate our position? I'll tell you one thing, there's lots to talk about

00:24:20.220 in the year ahead. And we'll do that talking and I'd like to hear from you too. Stay with us, more ahead.

00:24:29.120 Hey, I got a question for you. How bad does it have to be for the government to hide

00:24:37.440 the dollar amount of how much it's spent on any project? I mean, every day, and especially on

00:24:43.320 budget day, the government shows us just how bad it is because they have to, and they brazen it out

00:24:50.100 and they talk about investments. That's just a fancy way of spending. But how awful is the truth

00:24:56.840 if the government will do anything to stop the numbers from seeing the light of day? Well,

00:25:04.800 that's exactly what's going on these days with regards to the gun buyback program. Let me read

00:25:11.240 to you the latest release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. It's entitled, Ottawa Blocks

00:25:16.840 Details, a Failed Cape Breton Pilot Project. Let me just read the first sentence and then I'll

00:25:22.960 bring the Taxpayers Federation into this. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is launching a legal

00:25:29.460 fight after the federal government refused to disclose the details of the gun confiscated

00:25:34.560 during the failed Cape Breton Pilot Project. I bet they spent like 10 grand a gun.

00:25:42.520 The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on this program.

00:25:45.800 They deserve to know exactly what's happening with the money, says Gage Hobrick, CTF Prairie

00:25:52.240 Director. The government should not be pushing forward with its gun confiscation nationally while

00:25:57.980 leaving taxpayers in the dark on these important details. And joining us now from Saskatoon is Gage

00:26:04.080 Hobrick. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. I just said it probably cost 10,000

00:26:09.360 bucks a gun. No, no. It's probably much, much more than that. I forgot. We're dealing with, what,

00:26:15.000 a nine-figure expenditure? Yeah. Well, I mean, just like in that access and information request

00:26:22.380 we got back, the government's been kind of mum on the entire numbers when it comes to this gun

00:26:27.800 confiscation scheme. I mean, Ezra, you rightly point out that the government's usually proud of all of the

00:26:33.540 money they're wasting on budget day. But even when it comes to this gun ban scheme, they're keeping

00:26:38.280 those numbers close to heart because they know how awful it's going to be for taxpayers, right? We saw

00:26:43.780 way back in 2020 when the government first talked about this program, it would cost $200 million,

00:26:49.660 they said. Now we've seen other experts six years on say more than $6 billion. And when you're

00:26:58.220 spending that kind of money, taxpayers deserve to know what it's being spent on. That's why we asked

00:27:03.360 the government this simple question. In your Cape Breton pilot project where you confiscated

00:27:08.180 these 25 guns, where the government, by the way, wanted to confiscate 200, what guns did you

00:27:13.840 collect? Were they these weapons of war that the public safety minister is scaring us about? Or were

00:27:19.360 they plinkers or old antique hunting rifles? Right? So we asked the government that very simple

00:27:24.460 question. They refused to give us the answer, likely because they're embarrassed about what those

00:27:29.700 documents show. Yeah. If the whole project only collected 25 firearms, I think my earlier comment about

00:27:36.320 10,000 bucks a gun is going to be insanely low. You know, it's not that common for police to speak

00:27:45.220 out against a justice minister or a public safety minister. You just don't see it a lot. And I think

00:27:51.120 that's proper. I don't want my police being any more political than they are. But this gun buyback idea

00:27:58.880 is so stupid that one police force after another have gone public and saying, we aren't going to do 1.00

00:28:05.180 this. I mean, let me give you an example. Here's the Toronto Police Association, one of the largest 1.00

00:28:09.820 police unions in the country. Quote, and this is, I'm reading from your publication here. We know that

00:28:16.320 the gun buyback program is going to have essentially zero impact on the crime in Toronto, said Clayton

00:28:23.460 Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association. And then you note that dozens of local police take

00:28:29.500 the same position. There is a massive crime wave in this country. And it's not farmers and duck hunters

00:28:35.320 and ranchers with the firearm they inherited from their grandpa or an antique that their grandpa brought

00:28:41.920 back from World War II. It's just not. What's the real motivation for this? Because all the police are saying

00:28:48.840 this won't have anything to do with crime. Is it just for show? Is it for them to tell Montreal and

00:28:55.580 Toronto liberal voters, hey, guys, we're really going after the gun criminal? Like, what is the point of it?

00:29:03.080 Well, I think the biggest point there is, as you mentioned, cops being political, it takes a lot

00:29:07.760 for those guys who are just focused on the everyday of doing their jobs and actually enforcing the laws to

00:29:13.300 stand up and say, hey, this policy, it's not going to work. It's a bad idea.

00:29:18.840 Because you mentioned the crime wave we're seeing across the country. We're seeing other police forces

00:29:23.300 like the president of the RCMP union who said that we need to be focusing on that crime. And that crime

00:29:28.980 is not committed by the duck hunters and the sport shooters. It's by people with illegal guns who smuggle

00:29:34.660 them from other countries. And this ban does nothing to do anything with that. The confiscation

00:29:40.380 does nothing to stop that. Because the important fact of the matter is, when we look at it,

00:29:44.860 is if you're, if you have a gun illegally in your possession, so you're a criminal,

00:29:49.320 you can't turn it in to the feds under this program. The only people who the feds can take

00:29:55.360 guns from are people who have followed the law. Really? So you can't just walk up,

00:30:00.200 you can't just be a guy and walk up and say, I found this gun. So you're saying?

00:30:03.940 Yeah, there's no amnesty for that in the law as it's written on the amnesty order. It only applies

00:30:10.180 to people who previously owned the gun legally. Then by definition, you're not going to have any

00:30:14.760 criminals. Like literally the rules say you can't have a criminal do it if you have to have a gun

00:30:20.500 license to turn a gun in. Oh my God, I didn't even know that fact.

00:30:24.980 Exactly. So the only people who are going to turn this in are the people who are the most law-abiding,

00:30:29.140 where even though the government's doing a policy they probably disagree with, they think

00:30:32.580 it's their duty to follow the law. Not a single criminal is going to be participating

00:30:37.140 in this because they're not allowed to. That is so dumb. Let me read the last sentence 1.00

00:30:43.840 of your press release. The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Manitoba, their NDP,

00:30:49.780 by the way, Ontario, their pretend liberals, by the way, the Northwest Territories, Newfoundland

00:30:55.240 and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick all say that their provinces will not participate

00:31:00.360 in the program because it is unlikely to make Canadians safer. Like other than Quebec, I think,

00:31:05.320 I don't know if there's anyone I didn't say on that list. Like no one thinks this is a good idea.

00:31:11.000 Yeah. You don't get that kind of consensus in this country unless it's Olympic hockey,

00:31:14.760 which we're going to be looking at pretty soon. You never get these premiers, right? Alberta and

00:31:18.840 Saskatchewan rarely agree with Manitoba on anything. They definitely don't agree with Newfoundland

00:31:24.440 and Labrador. But all of these premiers have stood up, no matter their political stripe,

00:31:28.920 and said, this is a bad program. It's going to waste provincial resources that we want to use

00:31:33.240 to actually keep people safer. All it's going to do is take guns away from the safest people

00:31:38.600 in our communities. It makes absolutely no sense to participate in. You know, even Wab Kanu, 0.99

00:31:44.120 the NDP Premier of Manitoba, just talked about how much of a headache this program seems to be.

00:31:49.960 And even his government likes to waste money on the craziest stuff. So when those premiers are

00:31:54.040 talking about the huge amount of waste from Ottawa, everyone should perk up and be like,

00:31:57.880 this is time for this program to go. Yeah. And the fact that they're keeping it secret,

00:32:02.920 how much money they spend, it's insane. I see that your general counsel, Devin Drover,

00:32:07.880 is getting ready to sue if the information commissioner doesn't hand the money over,

00:32:11.720 I didn't hand the info over on how much money is being spent. I look forward to seeing how that goes.

00:32:16.920 I tell you, it's great to catch up with you. We often talk to Franco Terzano

00:32:21.720 of your organization. It's nice to meet you. Gage Haber, keep in touch.

00:32:25.240 Thanks for having me on. All right. There is the Prairies Director

00:32:29.480 of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Stay with us. Your Letters to Me next.

00:32:34.040 Hey, welcome back. Your Letters to Me. On the Justice Center sandwich board guy,

00:32:48.840 Sister Serena says, if you do not put the word pray in the sign, why would they still go after him?

00:32:54.760 Same reason they go after Billboard Chris. They just don't like the message and they're,

00:32:57.880 I don't know, they're bullies. No one told them about free expression. The world is heading towards

00:33:04.360 censorship. I don't know. Next letter is from Ananda who says,

00:33:11.240 sounds like he's protesting his service, not providing one. Yeah, you're talking about abortion.

00:33:15.240 Look, you can like or dislike this guy's message, but to have a sandwich board peacefully,

00:33:20.360 to say that there's no swears, there's no threats, there's no, you know, it's just his point of view.

00:33:26.520 The fact that he's been detained and fined is, is un-Canadian. 0.92

00:33:32.760 Oxy Fee says, I see Olivia Chow and the police are upset at your video truck ad about Muslims.

00:33:39.880 You know, I didn't know they're erupting again. We have a billboard truck, which I love,

00:33:44.760 and we have messages against extremists like Hamas. We have a billboard message that talks about

00:33:50.840 deporting Hamas sympathizers who come to country under false pretenses to be a temporary worker or

00:33:57.160 a student. But in the end, of course, just whip up anti-Semitic sentiment, not just the sentiment,

00:34:03.160 but engage in crime, trespass, nuisance, vandalism, in some cases, uttering threats,

00:34:08.520 in some cases, arson, and even shooting at Jewish schools. Yeah, we've got a billboard truck

00:34:13.320 calling all that stuff out. If Olivia Chow is mad about that again, good. Well, that's our show for

00:34:20.280 the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:34:25.240 goodnight, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - February 10, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ 10 small observations about the Alberta independence movement

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