EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta goes to the polls. Plus： A feature interview with documentary filmmaker Aaron Gunn
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
175.43285
Summary
Ezra Levant sits down with Aaron Gunn to talk about his new documentary, Canada is Dying, and how YouTube tried to stop it from going viral. Plus, we have a live stream for Alberta on election night.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, my rebels. A big show today. It's election day in Alberta, but we managed to squeeze in a
00:00:05.180
great interview with my friend Aaron Gunn, the documentary filmmaker, who has a viral hit on
00:00:09.240
his hand. It's called Canada is Dying. He'll take us through the movie and actually how YouTube
00:00:14.480
tried to stop it. That's a crazy story right there. I want to also say that tonight we have
00:00:20.860
a live stream on, an election live stream for the province of Alberta. So feel free to tune in then.
00:00:25.880
If you're listening to this on election night, it's 8.45 Eastern time, 6.45 p.m. Mountain
00:00:31.720
time will be live. All right. Here's today's podcast.
00:00:35.260
I want to talk to you about something because we have a new sponsor and I came across them
00:00:58.780
on my own. And I said to the team, Hey guys, this looks interesting. And I was told Ezra,
00:01:05.680
they have already reached out to us to advertise. I said, come on, this new organization called the
00:01:13.060
wellness company, and they are now sponsors of our live stream. Can you believe it?
00:01:17.740
And here's my favorite part. They give a discount to rebel viewers. If you use the coupon code
00:01:27.940
rebel, let me tell you a little bit about them. I'm going to give you their philosophy.
00:01:33.960
Our medical system is failing because of oppressive government health policies and the lack of
00:01:37.360
appreciation for natural approaches to staying healthy. Isn't that the truth? They shut down the
00:01:41.960
gyms during the pandemic. This is where the wellness company comes in by unequivocally and
00:01:47.960
unapologetically standing up for medical freedom and the right to affordable healthcare, TWC, the
00:01:53.780
wellness company, Vision champions the right to make one's own choices for their body. They strive to
00:02:00.100
build a new healthcare system that earns people's trust, governed and operated with transparency and
00:02:04.300
offering the highest quality practitioners who align at their core with the fundamental belief to put
00:02:08.380
the patient first. So it's medical and philosophical. The fabric of this company has been woven
00:02:15.380
together by its medical team, whose courage and bravery in their fight for medical freedom and
00:02:18.860
truth, as well as their devotion to the public, will help to ensure improved health outcomes,
00:02:23.000
convenient access to physicians, and lower costs of healthcare for patients. And I know two of those
00:02:28.220
people personally. Dr. Roger Harkinson, MD, Dr. Julie Panessi, PhD. I'm excited about these folks.
00:02:40.280
Check them out at twccanada.health. So it's not a .com, it's a .health. And by the way,
00:02:47.280
Peter McCullough's with them. That's amazing. That's amazing, isn't it? So go to twccanada.health,
00:02:53.680
but you've got to use the promo code REBEL if you want the 10% discount. And you can go directly to
00:03:03.780
twccanada.health.rebel as well. So I am excited about these guys because A, I know them. B,
00:03:11.380
ideologically, they're ringing my bell. And C, sounds like a necessary effort to fill a major void in our
00:03:21.240
system. So I think that's the kind of thing that Avi was talking about there. If you are in, if you
00:03:27.000
are fit for REBEL News, we would love to have your ads. And TWC, Canada.health is absolutely bad.
00:03:34.420
I'm excited about this. When was the last time you saw me do an ad read? I don't do ad reads if I
00:03:38.980
don't understand and agree with a company. I'm not going to do an ad read for the NDP. They'd say,
00:03:45.820
here's a hundred thousand dollars to an ad read. I'm not going to do that because I don't believe
00:03:49.040
in them. It's a pleasure to have an advertiser that we can actually believe in. So use coupon
00:03:56.440
CONREBEL though, if you want your 10% off, and I hope you do.
00:03:59.300
Tonight, Alberta goes to the polls, plus a feature interview with Aaron Gunn,
00:04:03.260
a documentary filmmaker. It's May 29th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:04:07.140
You're fighting for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!
00:04:15.820
Hi, everybody. It's great to be here. I'm excited because I'm recording this
00:04:26.960
on Election Day in Alberta, but before the polls close. When the polls close, we will be doing
00:04:34.300
a live stream, as we often do. I'll be out here in our world headquarters in Toronto,
00:04:38.320
and Sheila Gunn-Reed and Adam Sos and other of our Alberta team will be on the ground out there.
00:04:44.260
But what makes me excited about it is, first of all, the substance of the election. Like it
00:04:49.180
couldn't be a starker choice between Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley. And really, truly,
00:04:53.180
the future of the province turns on this. I'm not exaggerating. People often say this is the
00:04:57.340
most important election ever. It's often not true, but oh my God, is this one important. But I'm also
00:05:02.800
excited about it for personal reasons, because tonight is the night we debut our new studio. I'm
00:05:09.400
recording my live stream, sorry, my Ezra LeBancho, as we call it, from our boardroom, because we've
00:05:16.160
sort of been camped out here while the construction crew works in the old studio space, building a new
00:05:21.700
studio. Well, in just a couple hours' time, we will go in there and try it out for the first time.
00:05:27.860
There might be the odd glitch, I should warn you, because we literally have never broadcast
00:05:31.780
anything before. It's sort of dramatic to go from never using a space to live streaming it in the
00:05:36.640
first time, but that's what we'll be doing. So I hope you enjoy it. In fact, by the time this show
00:05:42.620
you're watching airs at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Mountain Time, well, our live stream starts just
00:05:49.460
shortly after that. Our live stream starts at 8.45 Eastern Time, 6.45 Mountain Time. That's going to
00:05:55.840
be a long night, could be, or the results, you know, it's really a two-party outcome there. So there's
00:06:02.640
there's not going to be a minority government situation. It's either going to be Rachel Notley
00:06:08.280
or Danielle Smith. The question, I suppose, is will it be tight and close, or will it be a
00:06:12.340
landslide? We'll find out. So that's tonight, and I would encourage you to hop on over to the live
00:06:18.340
stream, which you can follow us on YouTube and Rumble and our other streaming systems. But I do
00:06:24.460
want to talk to you, show you an interview I recorded with my friend Aaron Gunn, who's just an
00:06:29.100
outstanding filmmaker. So I'll show you that, and then I'll come right back and I'll read a couple
00:06:33.260
letters to you. So here's my interview with Aaron Gunn. Well, conservatives have a lot of opinions,
00:06:49.540
but quite often they're spoken in a dry way, almost like a mathematics professor. I think
00:06:54.240
conservatives like to argue, I guess we'd be called left brain, like an engineer or an accountant,
00:07:00.760
and too few people who care about freedom and privacy and smaller government think about things
00:07:07.140
artistically. Think about things in the manner of Hollywood. Think about emotion. We eschew that.
00:07:13.600
We don't have a lot of comedians on our side of things. And so when we find an artist or an author
00:07:19.040
or a songwriter or a filmmaker who promotes an agenda of freedom, well, my God, that is the time to lean in
00:07:26.420
and help and watch and learn and spread the word because we are outgunned in that side of things.
00:07:32.660
And I am talking about a friend of the show. He's my friend too. Aaron Gunn is his name. He's an
00:07:38.000
outstanding documentary filmmaker, and he has done it again with a hit, unfortunately, on a very
00:07:44.680
sensitive subject. The title of his new documentary is Canada is Dying. And it's an homage to Vancouver
00:07:52.220
is Dying, a spectacular viral hit he did a few months back when Vancouver had its turning point
00:07:58.500
municipal election. And incredibly, they threw out the hardline socialist NDP MP who was the mayor.
00:08:05.700
And I am hoping in my heart of hearts that Canada is Dying will also serve to wake up Canadians
00:08:11.800
coast to coast to what is happening to this country. What a pleasure to be joined now via Zoom
00:08:16.940
by the filmmaker himself, Aaron Gunn. Aaron, great to see you again. And I wish there were more
00:08:22.440
people who believed in freedom and the creative arts because the whole industry depends on freedom.
00:08:27.660
Hollywood depends on freedom. Artistic liberty depends on freedom. Too many people in that
00:08:32.440
industry forget it, but you're out there fighting the good fight. What would you say motivates you?
00:08:36.440
And then we're going to get into the movie in a second, but why are you a creative guy when so many
00:08:41.620
on our side of the aisle or not? Well, let me first say thank you for having me, Ezra. And I wish
00:08:47.160
there were more conservatives and common sense people in the media as well. So thank you for the
00:08:51.400
work that you're doing. But I think what motivates me is, you know, as someone who's forced to consume
00:08:59.180
so much liberal content because it's so ubiquitous and out there, that no one's telling in a lot of
00:09:05.060
cases in depth in these kind of documentary fashions, the other side of the story, which obviously you do a
00:09:11.220
lot of at Rebel News. And growing up on the west coast or the left coast of Canada here in British
00:09:17.260
Columbia, for the past 20 years, I've grown up in seeing the results right in front of me of these
00:09:24.020
failed harm reduction policies or so-called harm reduction policies. And I've watched homelessness,
00:09:30.600
drug addiction, and violent crime get worse and worse and worse. And I wanted to know why is this
00:09:36.960
happening? And we looked at it first and Vancouver is dying. And then after I made Vancouver is dying
00:09:42.280
and it blew up, I heard from people across the country, especially across BC, but also across the
00:09:46.280
country saying, you have to come to my city because it's happening here in Kelowna, or it's happening
00:09:51.240
here in Lethbridge, or it's happening here in London. And so we came out to try to travel across the
00:09:57.940
country and figure out, hold on a second, this isn't just a Vancouver problem, what is happening
00:10:02.780
in Canada? So that's what motivated me to make this specific project. Well, I'm so glad you did.
00:10:07.980
And what's the view count? How long has it been online now? And how many people have watched it so
00:10:12.500
far? Well, the two main places it's posted are Facebook and YouTube. You can also find it on
00:10:19.180
Rumble. But it's been up for about six days and combined, it's got about 800,000 views right now.
00:10:24.340
That's incredible. I want to tell you by reference, the CBC's flagship news show called CBC The
00:10:31.200
National, often is in the two to 300,000 views space. So you are just blasting it. That is
00:10:38.500
enormous. And I congratulate it for you. Hey, just for folks who haven't watched it yet, I want to
00:10:42.840
really get them excited about this. I want to show them the quality. I mean, this is Netflix quality,
00:10:49.120
this is theatrical quality, and we're very proud of you. And we're trying to get into the documentary
00:10:53.720
space a little bit, so I know how hard it is. And you're a tough act to follow. I want to show
00:10:59.460
people some of the heart-rending and very compelling things. Let me ask you to choose,
00:11:05.180
of all the things, and you traveled the country, what was the biggest surprise that you came across?
00:11:12.000
I mean, we all know that Canada's going in the wrong direction, but was there something out there
00:11:15.320
that really startled even you? Well, there's a couple of things that startled me when making this
00:11:22.240
documentary, unfortunately. Especially, well, starting off with violent crime, some of the
00:11:28.040
insane sentences and people that our justice system or so-called justice system have been letting out
00:11:32.900
on bail. But the biggest surprise, if you made me choose just one, I would have to go toward the end
00:11:39.800
of the documentary, when we start talking about what's fueling all of this violent crime, the drug
00:11:45.140
addiction crisis that is sweeping Canada, and this new so-called safe supply, where the federal
00:11:50.960
government has started basically flooding our streets with opioids, unbeknownst to most Canadians.
00:11:56.700
And we interviewed a pharmacist who didn't want to be, didn't want to be recognized and want to have
00:12:00.860
her face shown. And she was telling us what was happening at the pharmacy that she was working at.
00:12:06.360
And so I'll get this clip. And she actually said that there were doctors where she would call down to
00:12:13.000
the doctors who were writing these prescriptions, saying, there are people coming in with these
00:12:17.920
prescriptions of powerful, highly addictive opioids who walk out of the pharmacy every day, this is a daily
00:12:24.640
prescription, and sell them right in front of the pharmacy. Someone comes and picks them up. And the person
00:12:30.420
or your patient that you've prescribed this to isn't actually taking his medications. And the doctor said,
00:12:37.820
well, I'll watch the clip and you'll see what the doctor said.
00:12:44.540
It doesn't even sound real saying this, but like, I have patients who, the whole reason that they became
00:12:50.320
addicted to opioids was because one time their doctor prescribed them Oxycontin, they got hooked.
00:12:55.680
So I have those people who are now getting this prescribed safe supply. They're selling to other
00:13:01.500
people who are just going to end up in this same thing. Like, it's just this circle.
00:13:04.640
During the huge ramp up of legally produced, clearly labeled, consistent quality prescription opioids,
00:13:14.020
more Americans and Canadians died of those legally produced opioids than died in World War I and World
00:13:19.980
War II combined. And that was, that is very, very recent history. We got here from companies saying
00:13:27.320
the same line of reasoning, you know, don't be opioid phobic. We're going to prescribe these very
00:13:33.060
generously. We'll give them out in the community in all kinds of ways at a much higher level than we
00:13:37.440
ever have. And because they are FDA approved or approved by, you know, Health Canada, they're safe.
00:13:45.160
And, you know, millions of people got addicted, hundreds of thousands of people died. And we still
00:13:49.320
have people dying from those medications today, including, by the way, a number of people who are
00:13:54.160
dying from street fentanyl. If you follow back their story, they started on one of those,
00:13:59.080
you know, allegedly safe, you know, opioid prescriptions.
00:14:03.280
I tell you, and of course, of course, everyone knows that's going on. Of course, that's so secret.
00:14:08.280
That's incredible. Well, you know, I think that some Canadians, I mean, let's be honest, Canada
00:14:14.880
sometimes has a bit of a smug superiority complex. You know, listen, I love being Canadian. I would want
00:14:21.120
to be nothing else. But, you know, I know chapters in to go, they say Canada, the world needs more Canada.
00:14:26.700
We have the best healthcare system in the world. We're nicer than America. Like all these things
00:14:32.060
are a little bit of smugness. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes they're true, but sometimes
00:14:36.620
they're not. And I think Canadians think, well, terrible crime and terrible homelessness, that's
00:14:43.460
America. That's the hard hearted mean streets of America without a social safety net. I think that,
00:14:50.340
I think that Canadians overestimate how, how our streets are, especially Canadians who don't get
00:14:56.880
out and go to some of the downtown areas. What would you say if you had to choose the worst thing
00:15:02.160
that you discovered? And I wouldn't call it maybe a surprise, but something that maybe caught,
00:15:06.660
if a Canadian say, well, that would never happen here, that's maybe Skid Row in LA, or maybe that's
00:15:11.660
the worst part of, you know, Portland. What would you say the worst thing that you discovered in
00:15:23.380
Well, I mean, there's a, I would, I'd say two things. I mean, I mean, one thing I would have
00:15:29.640
to say is just that how the downtown East side is, is at this point, basically apocalyptic. It's,
00:15:34.440
it's, it's some dystopian alternate reality, the zombie like apocalypse, but across British
00:15:40.220
Columbia, especially, at parts British Columbia, especially, this is happening in every small
00:15:46.260
town. I mean, I'm on Vancouver Island, Ezra. And I mean, towns that have, you know, 30, 40,000 people,
00:15:52.380
Campbell River, Duncan, Nanaimo, which we spent a lot of time in, Victoria. I mean, they all have
00:15:57.700
these mini downtown East sides now that, that have popped up in the interior, Penticton, Kelowna.
00:16:02.940
It's in elsewhere in the country, but in BC, because you have this obsession with, with, you know,
00:16:09.700
basically enabling and normalizing hard drug use and homelessness, you get more of it. And it's,
00:16:15.080
it's really sad to see. It's not just limited to Vancouver anymore. Now I will, I will say,
00:16:19.320
I gave you that other clip, but the first kind of half of the documentary or the first third
00:16:24.460
is also about our criminal justice system. And I sat down across from a mother whose son was murdered
00:16:30.980
in one of these random violent attacks and to hear her story and, and how hurt she was. So just,
00:16:38.620
just to cover this, this happened back in 2017. Okay. Her son was violently stabbed to death in
00:16:47.440
the middle of a street by someone who didn't know there was actually, he stabbed someone else. He
00:16:51.180
went to help this person who had been stabbed and that he himself got stabbed 14 times, Ezra.
00:16:57.500
And as I was interviewing her, the mother, I found out that the person that stabbed her son 14 times to
00:17:05.460
death had already been released on parole. This, this happened in 2017. And to sit there and just,
00:17:11.600
you know, think about like, that's not that, you know, that's not a long period. That's six years.
00:17:15.920
That's six years already released on parole, already walking these same Canadian streets.
00:17:21.960
And the shocking story, and I would hear this over and over again, but, or read about it, but as I'm sure
00:17:28.340
you know, like when you actually sit across a mother who this happened to, it becomes a lot more real.
00:17:33.240
So, so I can, I can show you a clip of her talking about this right here.
00:17:38.200
Well, you've warned us. So this is not for the faint hearted here. Take a look.
00:17:44.540
Well, this is very troubling, but you know, I think we need to be troubled just the same way.
00:17:48.800
We don't like the sound of an alarm when we get up in early in the morning, but we need the alarm to
00:17:52.660
wake us up. Or you could say a fire alarm is even more important. We need to hear it, even if it's
00:17:58.060
unpleasant. And I think that you are raising an alarm, especially for people who don't know these
00:18:03.060
things, who maybe live in a suburban neighborhood and don't go into places where these homeless
00:18:09.020
encampments and these free drug areas are. I think that's the alarm. So we would prefer to look away,
00:18:15.980
but I don't think that's going to fix it. Hey, I want to end on a more positive note,
00:18:20.020
because you got to keep hope alive. Otherwise, what's the point? I mean, you obviously made this
00:18:26.200
movie to make a difference, to motivate change. And so let me ask you to end on a hopeful note.
00:18:32.020
Was there something in your journeys that gave you a flicker and thought, you know what, this is
00:18:37.560
reversible. It is not our destiny. We can make a better fate. Was there something that fits that
00:18:43.760
description? I'll tell you two stories and they're connected. The first one is that
00:18:49.920
I talked with probably a dozen individuals who are addicts in recovery, people who had been
00:18:56.680
homeless, who had been addicted to fentanyl, who have now incredibly turned their lives around
00:19:01.800
and are helping other people and pushing the message of hope and pushing that message of addiction
00:19:08.040
recovery. And what I took away from that is, you know, you can see these apocalyptic-like scenes.
00:19:13.860
And it's amazing that the people in that situation, they can be helped, they can be saved,
00:19:19.240
they can return back to society as law-abiding, tax-paying, and productive, happy citizens and
00:19:25.580
fathers and mothers and sons and daughters. There is hope out there. And I saw that hope with my own
00:19:30.900
two eyes. And no better example of that, I would say, was Marshall Smith, who became the chief of
00:19:38.960
staff to the Alberta premier and who used to be homeless on the downtown east side, has now risen
00:19:46.260
to that, obviously, position. And we got a tour with him through these 10 giant treatment facilities
00:19:54.820
that Alberta is now building. Alberta has stopped the federal liberal government's attempt to push
00:20:01.460
free opioids into Albertan streets, and they've put a stop to that program. And instead, they are
00:20:08.200
focusing on treatment and rehabilitation and getting more people, you know, to get that agency back over
00:20:18.240
their own personal lives and not look at the person that's struggling on the street and say,
00:20:22.800
all you need are more free drugs and saying, actually, no, we're not going to enable and
00:20:26.880
normalize this. So we got some incredible kind of exclusive tours of these facilities before they
00:20:32.780
open. So I'd love to show you that clip because that left me a lot. Okay, let's take a quick look
00:20:37.680
at that. Give us a bit of hope. Take a look. As part of the goal to extend treatment and recovery
00:20:43.120
to all Albertans who require it, regardless of ability to pay, Alberta has begun construction of 11 large
00:20:50.720
treatment facilities spread out across the province. In Red Deer, the first such facility is almost ready
00:20:58.000
to open a brand new building. I was given a chance to tour with Marshall Smith. Aaron, this is the first
00:21:05.520
of 10 large recovery communities that we're building here in Alberta. These are different than the sort of
00:21:14.640
normal treatment centers, which are short-term 28-day programs. These facilities are large,
00:21:20.720
high-capacity facilities where clients can come and stay for up to a year at a time. It's individualized
00:21:27.360
care with full medical services. In the one in Red Deer, it's 75 beds, 50 on the male side and 25 on the
00:21:33.360
female side. It's separated. They've got separate kitchens and people are going to be put through the
00:21:37.360
work. They're going to do the therapy in the morning and chores in the afternoon or vice versa.
00:21:42.640
They're going to have to learn how to cook, learn how to take care of themselves, learn how to take
00:21:46.320
care of the facility, learn how to do some community gardening. Maybe we'll end up seeing some kind of
00:21:51.040
farmers market there. And we'll be coaching people through how to develop the life skills so that they
00:21:56.560
can get their individual agency back. And then setting them on a pathway where they can pay it forward and
00:22:00.960
help others. I think that that is a much more inspiring vision than simply watching people slowly killing
00:22:08.000
themselves, which is, I think, what the alternative approach has been. We won't give up on people.
00:22:13.600
And they are healing communities. But things are done in groups, right? And they live a very structured
00:22:19.600
day. In contrast to the pure housing model where people come in and they get a hotel room and that
00:22:27.840
they can continue to use drugs in their hotel room and there's no structure to that. I would say that
00:22:33.520
that that can be very dangerous. And, you know, 75 percent of fatal overdoses occur at home on the
00:22:40.000
living room floor. So if you're giving somebody a living room floor and you are allowing them to
00:22:45.840
continue using drugs in your facility, the chances are you're probably going to find somebody dead.
00:22:51.360
Instead of warehousing attics in hotel rooms like the B.C. government,
00:22:55.680
these Alberta treatment facilities aim to build recovery communities.
00:23:00.960
Sure. Well, we call them recovery communities for a reason, right? Because it isn't just the
00:23:07.120
treatment of addiction that happens here. It is a reintegration into community. It's a rebuilding of
00:23:12.880
community. When people are on the street, whether they're in tent encampments or you see homeless
00:23:19.760
people gathering, they do that because that is their community, right? That, you know, whether
00:23:25.440
that community is attractive to us or not is irrelevant. Addiction is an illness of loneliness,
00:23:31.520
despair and isolation. And so the antidote to that is building facilities like this where people can
00:23:37.200
come together, where they're not lonely, where they're not isolated and where they're not in despair.
00:23:43.760
Any opioid vending machines here? No opioid vending machines here. No. We're going to skip the
00:23:49.040
opioid vending machines. As a government, we believe very deeply that our job as government
00:23:55.120
is to be the cheerleader in chief. We have an obligation to provide the tools, facilities like
00:24:01.120
this, like we do in all kinds of other areas of health care to give the people of Alberta the best
00:24:08.000
shot at recovery. For this, the Alberta model has received international attention, hosting a global
00:24:15.120
conference in 2023 to showcase to the world its early success.
00:24:20.560
Of the last decade, we've seen the issues of addiction, homelessness and public safety grow and affect
00:24:26.240
every community in Alberta. Something definitely does need to be done in the criminal justice system
00:24:33.520
and you're bringing something that hopefully will get worldwide and fast.
00:24:38.320
Now in Alberta, first jurisdiction, I think anywhere in North America,
00:24:44.400
any Albertan, any time of day, anywhere you live, free of charge with no waitlist,
00:24:49.200
can receive treatment on demand, right? And that is...
00:24:58.000
Well, Aaron, I salute you. You've done a hell of a job as usual. Now, I want to leave and I just want
00:25:02.400
to mention this because I think you're a very responsible journalist. I think you're very fair.
00:25:07.760
I think you're even handed. I mean, you have a mission, it's clear, but I think you do responsible
00:25:14.320
journalism. No one would say you're a bomb thrower, so to speak. And yet, when you uploaded a trailer,
00:25:22.400
like a little teaser promo of this to YouTube, they slapped it with an age warning. So it was no
00:25:30.320
longer free on the internet. You had to stop, log in, prove your... Look, it was this whole owner's
00:25:35.760
thing, which killed that thing immediately. And yeah, there are some sad and emotionally
00:25:42.960
challenging parts of the video, but it's not gratuitous. It's not titillating. It's not obscene
00:25:48.800
by any of the definitions that something might normally be censored. And when I heard that
00:25:54.000
YouTube had blocked, essentially blocked your trailer, I thought, that is political. That is
00:26:01.040
political. Tell me a little bit about that. Now, they haven't done that to the main movie,
00:26:06.080
I understand, which is weird because the trailer is extracted from the main movie. I think they're
00:26:11.760
just messing with you. Am I being too paranoid here? What do you think?
00:26:14.960
I mean, sometimes it's hard. It's hard to differentiate incompetence from maliciousness.
00:26:22.720
So I'm not sure what YouTube is doing. They did demonetize the main documentary, which is...
00:26:31.200
They implied that it was promoting drug use, which is...
00:26:35.200
That's what I would point out. The thing is, it's basically showing what you can see if you walk
00:26:44.880
downtown Vancouver. And apparently, that's too shocking for Canadians. What I pointed out is
00:26:50.160
almost all of the clips or all of the footage that they would object to is just taken from nightly
00:26:55.040
newscasts over the past year or two. And also, they didn't do it to Vancouver's Dying, which is
00:27:03.920
the prequel to this. So I mean, this might be a bit of an inside baseball thing, but it is very hard
00:27:08.560
as a filmmaker to... This is why I'm hoping there's going to be new platforms like Twitter that are more
00:27:14.480
creator-friendly, that don't create all this high degree of uncertainty when it comes to trying to
00:27:20.400
make projects like this. Because there's supposed to be an exception, YouTube plays out for
00:27:24.960
educational or documentary content. And then you get hit with, for a small director and producer
00:27:32.800
like me, it's a big blindside all of a sudden to have your trailer slapped with an age restriction,
00:27:37.120
which as you pointed out, essentially blocks it. They stop the distribution of it.
00:27:41.520
And then for the main video to be demonetized, it's got 800,000 views right now. So I mean,
00:27:47.280
this is, if it gets up into the millions, like Vancouver's Dying, that's talking thousands of
00:27:53.040
dollars. So it's, I don't know if they're keeping the money or what, I'm pretty sure there's still
00:27:57.680
ads running on it. So it's very frustrating to work with these social media companies.
00:28:03.280
I will say I've had my problems with Facebook in the past. They seem to have no problem with this
00:28:07.840
video. It's up without any demonetization or blocking of any kind. And obviously, it's up on
00:28:15.280
Rumble as well. So yeah, it's very frustrating as a small town, as a small time kind of producer and
00:28:21.920
director of this content. I know Rebels had issues with YouTube as well. So it's fingers
00:28:27.920
crossed that Twitter can, can really grow into a proper alternative.
00:28:31.120
Yeah. I know that Twitter now allows long form videos, like two hour videos. So hopefully that'll
00:28:36.400
be a forum for you also. Listen, Aaron, it's great to catch up with you. Thanks for taking so much time.
00:28:40.480
And thanks for showing us those three clips. The movie is called Canada is Dying. You can find it
00:28:46.960
on YouTube, Rumble and the other places that Aaron mentioned. And listen, we wish you wish you so much
00:28:53.120
success and we can hardly wait till your next project. Keep up the fight and keep being creative
00:28:58.320
and expressive because, you know, that that's not a strong suit of our side of the island. I'm so glad
00:29:04.080
you're doing it. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, Ezra. I really appreciate it.
00:29:08.560
All right. Our pleasure. There you have it, Aaron Gunn. The movie is called Canada is Dying. You can find
00:29:20.240
Hey, welcome back. I have three letters to the editor I'd like to read to you. And the first one
00:29:26.160
is quite critical. Here, let me read it to you. It's from Aaron Road Knight, who says,
00:29:30.080
your first endorsement. As you said, this is the first endorsement in your history. And it's not
00:29:34.240
for someone extraordinary who is fulfilling promises, kicking out the left-wing media and
00:29:38.400
making a province country free. No, it's for someone who routinely changes stories on whether
00:29:43.520
she can pardon, grant, amnesty for different stories. A truthful person is one story and tells
00:29:49.040
the truth they have nothing to hide. You should endorse someone who believes in freedom,
00:29:52.400
liberty and stands behind it. Arthur Pawlowski, Maxime Bernier, for example. This endorsement,
00:29:57.200
again, has led to bias. When Arthur Pawlowski did a press conference, Rebel News was nowhere
00:30:01.680
to be found, breaking their promise to newsreaders to tell the other side of the story. In this case,
00:30:05.840
Danielle, broken leadership story. Well, I have known Arthur Pawlowski for more than a decade.
00:30:12.000
Even back at Sun News Network times, we would talk about him and how he was persecuted by the
00:30:17.040
police. Here at Rebel News, we've done the same. And then we've gone one better. We have crowdfunded
00:30:20.960
his legal defense. He has had more than a dozen. I think the number is like 17, actually.
00:30:26.480
Court appearances. And we have crowdfunded his lawyers. That said, my support for Arthur Pawlowski
00:30:31.840
is as a Christian pastor who stood for freedom of religion and defying government authoritarianism.
00:30:38.160
I think that his new political party, to be very candid, does not have a chance of winning,
00:30:44.320
a chance of winning at all. I think it won't even get 1% of the vote. But even if it did,
00:30:50.480
that's not my interest in Arthur Pawlowski. My interest in him is the civil liberties battles
00:30:55.600
he's in, not just to protect him from the state, but to set a precedent for freedom.
00:31:01.600
I was at Arthur Pawlowski's rally in Lethbridge outside his trial about a month ago
00:31:08.720
when he talked about his new party. So I don't know if it's accurate to say we haven't covered it,
00:31:14.800
but I don't know how newsworthy it is because it was registered just days before the election.
00:31:20.400
And there will be only two parties that have a chance of winning, Rachel Donnelly's NDP or
00:31:26.560
Danielle Smith's UCP. So in fact, in my endorsement, I wanted to
00:31:31.840
make clear that I thought Danielle Smith actually took a lot of
00:31:37.520
blows, took a lot of bruises from the media and the NDP for
00:31:41.520
her defense of people who were hit with lockdown fines. So I disagree with you on that.
00:31:45.360
Next letter is from Lise Dumont who says, I already voted. Danielle has my vote. There's no other
00:31:51.120
option. If NDP gets in, it will be the death of Alberta. I'm shocked to see orange signs on people's
00:31:55.600
property. Do they not have a memory of what happened the last time the NDP were in power in Alberta?
00:31:59.840
Man, people are blind or just ignorant. You know, I'm reminded about Donald Trump,
00:32:04.160
who I think was an outstanding president. And we see that now that he's gone. I mean, inflation,
00:32:10.800
price of gas, unemployment, war in Ukraine, looming war in Taiwan, all sorts of things gone mad.
00:32:20.800
But people said he had mean tweets. OK, so you got yourself a president, Joe Biden, who I think is
00:32:28.000
cognitively impaired. And the one thing you know is he's not doing mean tweets because I don't think
00:32:32.320
he writes any of his own tweets or any of his own speeches at all. And my analogy is,
00:32:36.400
Danielle Smith muses out loud. And maybe she shouldn't do so as much, although a lot of the
00:32:42.320
clips being used against her, historic clips was from when she was a journalist. But that's an
00:32:48.880
aesthetic. That is an extraneous incident. The heart, the character of her campaign is a smaller
00:32:55.360
government, freedom-oriented government, which is far more important. Rachel Notley's core is not her
00:33:02.160
friendly smile and happy demeanor. Her core is an authoritarian socialism. I'm worried that too
00:33:08.560
many people are voting based on feelings rather than the devastation that Rachel Notley will bring.
00:33:16.480
Alberta Patriot One says, I still think the only way for Alberta to get out of serfdom is to leave
00:33:20.320
Canada. I think $600 billion is enough welfare for the East. Our province could have used that money
00:33:25.760
for new hospitals and schools in combating the communist scourge. All right, well, let me throw a
00:33:30.320
point back to you. Who is the challenger? Who is the risk of turning Alberta into a, to use your word,
00:33:38.320
a communist scourge? Well, it's not anyone from Ottawa or Toronto or Quebec. It's Rachel Notley,
00:33:45.920
who was born in Alberta. The risk to Alberta today, literally today, is from Albertans. And having
00:33:55.120
Alberta as a separate country, I don't know if that would fix that problem. I am nervous that Alberta can't
00:34:00.000
even get its own house right. I agree with you generally that Confederation has been economically
00:34:05.280
a losing game for Alberta. Alberta is being punished in a number of ways. Justin Trudeau regularly beats
00:34:10.480
up Alberta for the delight of his Liberal voters. But I'm not sure if an independent Alberta that votes
00:34:15.520
NDP is any better or worse than in Alberta, a Canadian province that votes NDP. That's our show for today.
00:34:24.000
We'll have so much news on the election results tomorrow. And please watch our live stream tonight.
00:34:28.400
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,