Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Amish fighting ArriveCAN fines give back, donate to local food bank

00:00:00.000 tonight the Amish do a little bit of good in the community by helping out a food bank what a

00:00:20.340 contrast to the way they've been bullied by the government it's july 11th and this is the

00:00:24.960 Ezra Levant show shame on you you censorious bug

00:00:32.340 hi everybody i'm in hanover ontario at the salvation army if you don't know the salvation army of course

00:00:47.000 it's a christian church but it's also a mission poverty alleviation food banks in some communities

00:00:53.720 they have secondhand clothing stores they really are the heart of the community the little platoons

00:01:00.100 that take care of each other and so it's not surprising that today i was with a lawyer from

00:01:08.120 the democracy fund mark joseph and the leader of the steering committee of the amish that we have

00:01:14.920 been dealing with fighting against the abusive and sadistic fines that have been levied against the

00:01:22.500 amish people by the government because they don't use the arrive can app you remember what the arrive

00:01:28.360 can app was that malware spyware white elephant that trudeau commissioned from his buddies and paid 63

00:01:35.720 million dollars for you had to download it on your phone and every time you came into canada you had

00:01:40.840 to fill out this invasive app anyways that that's an atrocious violation of privacy at the best of times

00:01:47.580 but for the amish community makes no sense the amish in case you don't know eschew all things modern they 0.99

00:01:53.880 don't drive in cars they're on horse and carriage they don't use phones or electricity so telling an

00:01:58.820 amish person crossing the border have you downloaded the arrive can app on your smartphone is so crazy and 1.00

00:02:04.740 so stupid only a government would do it trouble is when the amish did not fill out their forms they got 0.99

00:02:11.520 massive fines often five six thousand dollars and because they're not of this world they're 1.00

00:02:17.900 it's almost like they are living in a pre-modern way they didn't realize that by not fighting the

00:02:26.220 tickets they got they were in a way consenting to them and so the government not only fined them

00:02:33.120 massive amounts of money hundreds of thousands of dollars for the community but the government when

00:02:38.000 they were not paid they put liens on the homes and farms of the amish people so that they couldn't 1.00

00:02:44.280 sell them bequeath them take a loan out against them in a way it was the first step to expropriating 0.87

00:02:50.140 the property to pay these stupid fines by the way the democracy fund has helped more than a thousand 0.98

00:02:57.480 people with these damn arrive can app fines but i have not heard of them taking a lien on anyone else's 0.98

00:03:06.920 property what do you think of that if i'm not mistaken the democracy fund has helped 1400 people 0.96

00:03:11.600 with arrive can app problems my math might be a little bit off but not a single one of them that

00:03:17.340 i know of had a lien put on their property other than the government's abusive and discriminatory approach

00:03:23.880 to the amish and i don't think that's a coincidence anyways in comes the democracy fund taking these cases but

00:03:30.960 it's harder than it looks because these cases have hardened like concrete remember these cases were

00:03:36.260 earned during the pandemic 2021 2022 and it's now 2025 so these are cold cases they had to be cracked

00:03:44.940 open and then re-heard and that's painstaking and not every judge is down with it but slowly but

00:03:51.240 surely the democracy funds lawyers are making headway so what are we doing here why are we at the

00:03:56.280 salvation army church this has got nothing to do with the amish they are not this is not an amish

00:04:01.420 well i'll tell you what the amish in a gesture of goodwill and a statement of solidarity with the

00:04:08.960 non-amish community announced in court that they would be making a donation of something close to

00:04:15.500 their heart they're not rich people they're not in they don't use modern industry so their farms are

00:04:20.960 still run on people power and animal power like seriously animals pull the plows that's the way they live

00:04:27.100 in the amish style but they made donations from the heart pickles jams quilts and they selected this

00:04:37.240 salvation army food bank as the definite as the destination of their generosity could you imagine

00:04:44.060 that a persecuted people bullied by the government responds instead with love and generosity let me show

00:04:52.140 you what happened half an hour ago when the leader of the amish steering community showed up here

00:04:58.220 with a car full of goodies take a look so cindy in addition to the food uh some of the amish ladies 1.00

00:05:06.260 have made quilts and and they're beautiful homemade quilts that would be i think you could even call them

00:05:13.440 folk art and so they're but obviously they're made for practical use and um so we have some of that and

00:05:20.860 and mark joseph who's the senior litigator at the democracy fund so let's see what we've got there

00:05:27.280 uh i see pickles

00:05:29.560 strawberry jam

00:05:33.800 i mean these are some real uh delicacies

00:05:40.900 genuine preserve

00:05:42.180 yeah

00:05:42.740 we're so thankful for them here at the salvation army of course we serve the greater hanover area

00:05:49.620 and we are a non-profit organization and the demographic is uh it's not foreign to anyone

00:05:55.880 i mean we have children we have seniors we have all age ranges couples families and uh we really

00:06:03.340 appreciate this it'll go to very good use food bank uh use is up 50 percent in the past year

00:06:08.580 so uh we will definitely make use of it thank you so much

00:06:11.960 well that's it's good to hear that we have this coming and i'm sorry that the use is up so much but

00:06:17.460 uh this will be put to good use obviously let's see what we have here different kinds of

00:06:22.580 pickles i have uh had amish pickles before and they're they're they're they're really delicious

00:06:28.380 i see some sauerkraut i think i want to just uh look at those quilts for a second mark can you

00:06:34.740 bring one of the quilts so here's one of the quilts that looks like a gorgeous nice warm quilt

00:06:41.120 that is very nice and warm and you know what um unfortunately in every community we have homeless

00:06:45.720 the homeless population and when they come to the door for service we often offer them

00:06:49.940 a quilt and a pillow and uh they all get to made to good use and that is something very warm

00:06:56.440 would help someone who's uh living on the streets or living at a campsite

00:06:59.900 well here's one with a message on it from fanny and i won't say her her name because she probably 0.87

00:07:07.340 wants uh privacy so these are custom made homemade quilts and uh i know you'll put them to good use

00:07:15.340 from people who need them the most we will and if we don't if we don't manage to have people need

00:07:20.300 them in through the year we will give them out as christmas gifts at christmas time because the need

00:07:24.860 is different at christmas time and sometimes we have people that a family that could use a quilt

00:07:31.940 for comfort along with their christmas gifts and their hamper all right well let's carefully uh mark

00:07:37.840 do we have more things in the car or should we carefully start to wheel this down to the entrance

00:07:41.800 i want to make sure none of those delicious pickles falls off here maybe i'll do something useful i'll put

00:07:49.800 the mic down and i can carry some uh you want to carry those pickles you know what uh i don't want

00:07:55.100 to i don't want to hijack any of the pickles here i'll i'll handle down okay perfect i don't want to

00:08:05.340 go too fast i don't want to lose any pickles so mark tell us a little bit about um the reason

00:08:11.180 that the amish community is donating this to the food bank today sure as many of our donors probably know

00:08:18.100 uh the amish ran in some trouble during the pandemic as they crossed the border

00:08:22.620 uh they obviously don't have access to technology and they didn't have smartphones so they couldn't

00:08:28.180 use the arrive can app and they were uh ticketed for allegedly failing to comply with the arrive can

00:08:36.920 app and incurred seven thousand dollar tickets sometimes those tickets fell into arrears

00:08:42.480 and uh sometimes those tickets were translated to liens on property and obviously that threatened

00:08:49.560 their farms and their way of life so tdf was able to step in and managed to get those tickets reopened

00:08:55.900 and those liens off the property for the most part we still have some appeals to do

00:09:01.120 but in uh in a gesture to the community uh the amish decided to give back and make this donation of

00:09:11.120 of food preserves and quilts to the salvation army as a demonstration of goodwill so if i understand it's

00:09:19.500 sort of a plea deal to instead of paying the thousands of dollars and the liens this is a statement

00:09:25.760 of good faith and goodwill by the amish and in return the liens are removed from their house and

00:09:31.280 there's no fine to be paid is that correct well sort of in it wasn't a quid pro quo it was just it

00:09:36.700 was a gesture we announced in in open court to the justice of the peace that in uh the that the

00:09:42.920 amish would be making this uh gesture uh as a way to demonstrate to the community that they're giving

00:09:49.560 back okay let's take the camera out of here to let them have their privacy mark thank you for

00:09:55.940 working so hard with the amish uh we have a special thanks to the steering committee uh the amish prefer

00:10:02.740 not to be on tv so we won't show the team and cindy of the food bank thank you for accepting these

00:10:09.820 gifts and putting them to good use i feel really good about the fact that you're the destination for

00:10:15.040 this good luck to you and your team okay bye thank you bye now all right let's let these folks

00:10:19.660 have their privacy well joining me now to talk in a place that's more private i didn't want to be

00:10:23.800 near the door of the food bank because people are coming and going and i want them to have some

00:10:28.480 privacy some people might not want it to be known that they are in a position where they have to go to

00:10:33.640 the food bank anyways joining me now is mark joseph senior lawyer for the democracy fund mark tell us a

00:10:38.560 little bit about how this fits into the big legal battle because this isn't really a quid pro quo it's

00:10:44.900 more sort of a statement of the mindset of the amish isn't it right so uh democracy fund stepped in

00:10:52.500 to try to help the amish and we had some success in getting these tickets reopened uh we negotiated

00:10:58.020 with the crown and most of them were stayed uh some were uh given suspended sentences for nominal so zero

00:11:04.720 dollars but the amish still felt that they should make a gesture and give back to the community

00:11:09.160 uh and so that translated into the donation you see today for for food preserves and the homemade

00:11:15.160 quilts i want to tell you that i have bought these same things from the amish before pickles jams apple

00:11:23.460 butter it's sort of amazing it's the kind of thing that you always hope you find at a farmer's market

00:11:29.480 sometimes the stuff at a farmer's market is actually sort of processed and industrial anyways it

00:11:33.960 sort of sneaks into the farmer's market this is the real deal so obviously if someone is in a position

00:11:39.320 where they need food from the food bank they're having a tough time and i don't want to make light

00:11:43.060 of that at all but whoever is coming to this food bank in the next few weeks is in for a treat some of

00:11:49.520 the quality of the food farm to fork is the phrase that comes to mind so what a gift the amish are doing

00:11:56.560 and you know what not everybody would respond to bitterness and cruelty with generosity i'm i'm sort

00:12:04.600 of a tit-for-tat kind of guy but imagine the amish being pushed around for years by the government 0.99

00:12:09.860 and their response is the opposite their response is to help the community right so one of the one of

00:12:16.460 the uh issues we had as lawyers was to uh have our clients agree to fight this the amish are very 0.88

00:12:24.520 non-confrontational that's stemming from the biblical beliefs so that was a bit of a chore for

00:12:29.780 us to to let them know that this is this is something they should do they should uh fight

00:12:35.200 these tickets we felt they were unjust we felt that we could overturn them which we did um and then the

00:12:40.320 the gesture they made uh it was quite valuable goods i mean every time i visit them i i buy the the

00:12:46.160 preserves myself because they're getting their excellent quality stuff and they decided to make some of

00:12:51.500 that uh available to to the salvation army yeah i love the pickles um you know i just want to explain

00:12:57.820 one thing and i've explained it before maybe i've alluded to it here part of the amish lifestyle is

00:13:02.080 not to use modern things like a smartphone but they also don't want to appear on camera and they don't

00:13:08.240 even want us to say their names and there's different strictnesses with different amish communities

00:13:13.040 there's different denomination or or sects of amish and so it actually makes it a bit of a challenge

00:13:18.840 to tell the story if i can't show you the people in the story if i can't interview the people in the

00:13:23.640 story um i can't even say his name even though it's an awesome name uh the the head of the amish

00:13:29.600 steering committee who's just around the corner um but that's just how it is we have to tell the

00:13:34.580 story for them and in so many ways that's been the essential challenge of this project how do you

00:13:39.660 fight for someone who's not a fighter how do you tell the story for someone who is sort of by nature

00:13:45.280 shy how do you crowdfund for people who are not online and i think the power of the story has

00:13:53.940 overcome that systemic challenge and it was and we were just talking to the head of the steering

00:13:59.700 committee a moment ago and it comes down to a righteous gentile named grant lukes who was a

00:14:04.200 friend of the amish who heard about this trouble connected them with us and he plays the go-between

00:14:08.480 because again these guys don't have cell phones or smartphones or emails or faxes so even just the

00:14:14.080 logistics it actually fell to a friend of the amish named gary grant sorry who knew about rebel

00:14:20.100 and knew about democracy fund so it's it's actually you could say if you were a believer you would say

00:14:25.920 this was sort of a miracle the way this came together because the amish would have suffered in silence 0.95

00:14:30.940 right i mean the elders i've heard described that they they felt that they'd leave it in the hands of

00:14:36.000 god uh and as you described it just so happens that that someone got in touch with the democracy fund

00:14:41.620 uh grant he's been a great go-between and then we had to arrange the logistics going back and forth

00:14:45.780 there's no phone available for the for the clients usually it's an email it's a phone call for lawyers

00:14:50.240 but we had to drive up and drive back and arrange for so that was a challenge but you know we didn't

00:14:55.540 complain about it we just had to overcome that uh because of course their lifestyle is you have to

00:15:00.440 respect it you know there's a saying pray like it all depends on god work like it all depends on you

00:15:05.760 and i think it was maybe a combination of those two things anyways uh a successful and interesting

00:15:11.760 day uh i think it made the day of the folks here in hanover at the salvation army they were very happy

00:15:16.780 to receive our stuff and uh now i'm back to the big city i came out here with our videographer

00:15:21.940 mauricio and we love to tell the story and we're so grateful for the democracy fund you know there's a

00:15:27.260 lot of civil liberties groups uh in canada i i'm i find it well i don't i won't say surprising

00:15:34.060 because i'm not surprised by it anymore so few of them would would lift a finger for this the

00:15:38.600 canadian civil liberties association in fact it's not just other public interest lawyers who ignore

00:15:43.440 it but but so-called progressives um this is a shocking story it it's a looks like it's going to

00:15:50.440 have a happy ending but because the amish are christian that's my theory it has been thrown down 1.00

00:15:55.760 the memory hole and no one is talking about it but if you are someone who has supported the

00:16:00.040 democracy fund or rebel news this slow turnaround to victory is yours and let me close by saying if

00:16:08.560 you want to chip in to help the democracy fund which has obviously not been charging uh these amish 1.00

00:16:14.700 folks you can go to a special website called help the amish.com you can make a donation there and

00:16:21.260 you'll get a charitable tax receipt by the way so a hundred dollar gift i think works out to

00:16:26.340 i forget the exact amount you would pay in the end but but uh it's a charitable receipt uh because

00:16:33.040 it is a genuine charity so go to help the amish.com if not you well then who and if not now well then

00:16:41.520 when and together we'll get justice for these folks for rebel news i'm azra levant

00:16:46.740 well all of canada is talking about the letters sent to our country by president donald trump

00:16:58.580 announcing 35 percent tariffs on a range of industries it's uh startling and uh mark carney

00:17:05.300 our prime minister is happily on holidays he's been working so hard don't you know um hopefully he'll

00:17:11.420 come back from his holidays but uh you never know he was busy talking to his european friends remember

00:17:17.360 he has three passports so he's doing business there but uh another letter has come across a canada's

00:17:24.300 desk it was sent to the canadian ambassador by a friend of canada who is the congressman for the

00:17:30.760 seventh district of wisconsin's tom tiffany has written a letter with his colleague brad finstad of

00:17:36.660 minnesota and let me just read a couple of lines from it and i'm delighted to say we have the

00:17:40.320 congressman standing by to talk about his letter um it says we write to you today on behalf of our

00:17:45.180 constituents who've had to deal with suffocating canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin

00:17:50.480 this summer as we are entering the height of the fire season we would like to know how your government

00:17:55.340 plans on mitigating wildfire and the smoke that makes its way south i'm going to skip ahead to what

00:18:00.540 i think is the most important sentence of the letter while we know a key driver of this issue has been a lack

00:18:06.900 of active forest management we've also seen things like arson as another way multiple large fire

00:18:13.580 wildfires have ignited in canada this worrisome trend can be reversed a proper action is taken and

00:18:20.240 it ends on a friendly note which i'm glad it does it says canada has been a friendly neighbor of the

00:18:25.040 united states and the states we represent so given the significance of this issue we urge you to relay

00:18:30.300 this message to your government in particular natural resources canada and the canadian forest service

00:18:36.240 and joining me now to talk about this is tom tiffany the member of congress for the 7th district

00:18:40.660 of wisconsin well thanks very much for taking the time to meet with us ezra it's good to join you and

00:18:46.040 hello to all of our good friends in canada well thank you and i read the letter and at first i i i didn't

00:18:51.900 know what to make of it because canada is sort of treading carefully these days but i i regard your letter

00:18:57.520 as like a friendly note from a friendly neighbor just saying hey um by the way it you've got some big big

00:19:05.160 fires and uh can you help us because we're getting covered in smoke it felt friendly but you did zero

00:19:12.240 in on forest management can you explain a little bit of what you mean by that what we've been seeing

00:19:18.800 i think across north america certainly we've seen it in our western states ezra where as a result of

00:19:24.520 lack of good forest management we're seeing these massive wildfires in fact i would take you back to

00:19:30.640 1988 i have a chart that i use in the natural resources committee that that is the dividing

00:19:36.200 line to me that's when we here in america stop managing our force as we should and became much

00:19:43.940 more preservationist in nature what happened we forest production went down wildfires went up and

00:19:52.660 that's been the trend line ever since then and we really used to have really good forest management i

00:19:58.080 think the same thing is happening in canada to a certain extent certainly maybe some unique

00:20:02.620 circumstances like we meant like you mentioned in regards to arson and things like that have

00:20:07.620 happened also but largely it is the um corporate environmental groups who have shut down logging

00:20:16.640 to the harm of our economy but also to our environment and as a result we see these massive wildfires

00:20:23.740 and we get this smoke that comes down from canada and to be fair it has happened coming from the

00:20:29.620 western states here in the united states also and i'm as every bit as critical of them as i am of canada

00:20:35.860 right well we have taken a great interest in some of these fires we had a very special campaign around

00:20:40.300 the jasper wildfires uh earlier and of course we set up a special website help jasper.ca

00:20:45.880 and it is a fact that our environmentalist uh federal government especially uh former environment

00:20:53.620 minister stephen gilbo refused to do the natural clearing of the dead fuel and if you just leave

00:21:01.320 it there that is a tinderbox waiting to go off you use the word preservationist i think that's sort of

00:21:06.660 different from conservation isn't it preservation is sort of like an ideology don't touch anything

00:21:12.680 don't allow any logging whereas conservation would be okay let's have a controlled burn or controlled

00:21:17.960 color the trees tell me what you mean by preservationists and these corporate environmentalists

00:21:22.920 i take it you mean groups like greenpeace give me a little bit more background yeah so um uh conservation

00:21:30.240 and management are the two keywords that i use and um that's what we want to see happen

00:21:36.320 preservation is simply not touching and when you don't touch those trees are going to

00:21:42.620 go one way or another you can either harvest them they're going to go down via disease and they're

00:21:47.900 going to burn one way or another those trees are going to come off from the forest land because they

00:21:52.400 have a certain shelf life i mean they have a a life expectancy so if you don't manage your forest as we

00:22:00.700 used to do effectively and much of that happened as a result of if people remember the spot at all

00:22:07.100 fiasco out in the western united states a couple decades ago which was just purely a preservationist

00:22:14.120 play by environmental groups who do not believe in the greatness of america they do not believe that

00:22:20.820 we should be producing things here in america and it's an attempt to bring us down that's really what

00:22:26.760 they're attempting to do and that's why they filed the lawsuits and that's a whole nother problem that we

00:22:33.100 need to deal with in the congress of the united states is the frivolous lawsuits well congressman i'm not

00:22:38.480 sure if you're familiar with stephen gilbo who was our foreign uh former environment minister who's now

00:22:43.180 in another position in in carney's cabinet he was one of these environmental extremists in fact he was

00:22:49.560 arrested um and and convicted of i'm not going to say eco-terrorism but of a law-breaking stunt several

00:22:58.100 times so unfortunately those groups which you have accurately called corporate environmentalists

00:23:03.720 they're environmentalists of fortune they're about drama and fundraising they go straight to the heart

00:23:10.040 of our canadian government and i don't feel like i'm tattling i feel like i'm warning you

00:23:14.300 um so let me ask you you sent the letter on july 7th to our ambassador it's been a few days since

00:23:21.060 and have you had any response or was it just sort of a perfunctory thank you for your letter

00:23:25.600 will pass it on have you heard anything from any officials on the canadian side we haven't heard

00:23:31.160 uh much from the ambassador um which but i expect we will but boy have we been hearing it from some

00:23:37.240 canadians they're like butt out why don't you people be good neighbors all the rest and i just

00:23:43.120 including the premier of manitoba um answered us and he was quite indignant about this this is not

00:23:50.960 a uh an instance of where i'm saying i want to criticize canada just because it's canada

00:23:58.220 i'm equal opportunity in regards to this i am critical of how california's been doing our united

00:24:04.140 states forest service and bureau of land management who manage millions of acres i've been every bit as

00:24:09.280 critical of them also we need to change the paradigm what has worked what has been going on for the last

00:24:15.640 three to four decades here in north america with this preservationist mentality is harming uh harming

00:24:22.180 north america both its environment and its economy yeah well and that's and to be fair to the premier

00:24:29.420 of manitoba uh you know and he's got this great line he says we'll never be your 51st state but we'll

00:24:34.060 be your number one best friend and i sort of he's actually a uh you know an interesting fella i can i can

00:24:39.760 understand um but i thought your letter you know it was it had concern in it but it also had friendship

00:24:46.220 and it also had a recognition that some of these things are outside the hands of government like

00:24:49.640 arson is a real issue but at the end of the day there is a political decision in there and it is to

00:24:56.300 you know we just talked about it not culling the trees and so they're just there is feel and you're so

00:25:02.120 right i i actually visited los angeles when it was still smoldering uh the pacific palisades and so

00:25:07.920 there is horrendous uh forest and water water management too and and and frankly in uh in other

00:25:14.800 places like even lahaina maui well um how do you hope this uh well and what are you hoping to hear

00:25:20.880 back if uh if uh the natural resources canada or the canadian forest service writes back to you what

00:25:27.420 what are you hoping to hear in return and and i think that they'll be diplomatic i thought your letter

00:25:33.040 was diplomatic it was uh it got a lot of attention up here what are you hoping to get back from

00:25:39.820 the the government itself so job number one of the letter has been accomplished as you just cited ezra

00:25:45.960 and uh but we're looking forward to the dialogue that can happen in regards to this but this is a

00:25:51.360 serious issue because we've had scrolls running on our local weather reports not so much the last few

00:25:58.660 days uh or last couple weeks but a month ago you saw that regularly here in these upper midwestern states

00:26:05.220 like michigan uh minnesota and wisconsin be careful if you're going outside because there are there's

00:26:12.100 going to be significant uh plumes of smoke that are going to be over your state or over your region

00:26:17.380 and in fact they had weather maps showing almost like where thunderstorms are they'd show where the

00:26:22.660 clouds are and they're telling people if you have respiratory problems you need to stay home

00:26:27.480 now if a factory was doing that ezra we would go to them and say you can't do that anymore we're

00:26:34.120 saying to our good friends in canada you've got some of the same illness that we have in wisconsin or

00:26:39.480 excuse me in america with the corporate environmental groups want to be preservationists start managing

00:26:45.440 your forest deal with the arsonists and others because it does have an impact on us and we want to be

00:26:51.960 good neighbors along with you all right well your message is certainly being received and i and

00:26:57.460 i appreciate the spirit of neighborliness that you're showing because i really uh i i just as

00:27:03.700 a personal confession i have found the last six months to be a difficult time because i'm such an

00:27:08.980 admirer of the united states and we're not used to quarreling with our best friends and neighbors and

00:27:15.220 it's my hope that we can work together constructively i agree that you raise a very important issue we've

00:27:19.940 raised it at rebel news ourselves about terrible ideological mismanagement of force and hopefully

00:27:26.420 your letter uh will yield a positive response and by the way fixing that problem the number one

00:27:32.260 beneficiaries of fixing that problem would be canadians of course so hopefully this will have a

00:27:37.300 positive outcome congressman that's certainly the intent of the letter and i look forward to working

00:27:43.300 with our good friends in canada right on well thanks for taking the time to meet with us today we've been

00:27:48.020 talking with congressman tom tiffany of the seventh district of wisconsin thanks keep up the good

00:27:54.100 work okay you too there is for more follow us at rebelnews.com

00:28:00.020 you

00:28:15.460 you

Rebel News Podcast - July 12, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Amish fighting ArriveCAN fines give back, donate to local food bank

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