Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ An update on my travels — and a heavy discussion about the war in Ukraine

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. I have some thoughts about the war in Ukraine. Frankly, I'm getting a little bit

00:00:06.100 scared about it. I feel like we've never been this close to a nuclear war, at least not since

00:00:10.740 the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think things are escalating. And the trouble is, Russia, 0.94

00:00:16.060 even though it's floundering and having some setbacks militarily, it's run by an authoritarian

00:00:21.700 leader who has nuclear weapons. And for 80 years, we've had a mutually assured destruction 0.82

00:00:28.540 a theory where we won't attack them and they won't attack us because the price would just be

00:00:33.960 too high. Does that theory not hold water anymore? Are we really going to escalate a war

00:00:40.280 against a nuclear power? I'll take you through the latest news and my thoughts on it. I'm a little

00:00:45.900 worried, I have to tell you. Before I get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel

00:00:51.160 News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click

00:00:56.460 subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get the Ezra Levant show five days a week. Plus we have

00:01:02.500 four weekly shows. Put it all together, that's 36 episodes a month. That's a lot of viewing for

00:01:08.580 just eight smackers. But more to the point, it's how we survive. We need that dough because we don't

00:01:13.280 take any money from true dough. So if you can help us out and help yourself with some great TV

00:01:17.680 watching, go to rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's show.

00:01:26.460 Tonight, an update on my travels and a heavy discussion about the war in Ukraine. It's October 11th

00:01:43.440 and this is the Ezra Levant show.

00:01:48.320 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:02:00.080 Great to see you again. Great to be back in our world headquarters. You know, I've been traveling 0.71

00:02:04.380 a little bit lately. I've been traveling mainly within Canada. Last week, for example, I went out

00:02:09.000 to Calgary for the United Conservative Party leadership announcement. Danielle Smith winning

00:02:14.380 with about 54% of the vote. She's the premier designate of Alberta, taking a bit of a sovereignty

00:02:21.560 line, something we've heretofore only seen from the province of Quebec. I find it very interesting.

00:02:26.940 One of the reasons I'm hopeful, I said Danielle Smith, despite her flaws, has focused on a freedom

00:02:33.460 message, including repudiating some of the lockdowns and the bullying that has characterized,

00:02:39.560 well, frankly, every government in this country over the past two years. But Alberta in particular,

00:02:44.700 you may know we have a petition right now at lockdownamnesty.com. We hope to hold Danielle

00:02:51.340 Smith to her promise of dropping the lockdowns. There are very few lockdowns still in place,

00:02:56.400 few pandemic rules still in place in Alberta, but the government is still prosecuting tickets and

00:03:03.020 charges that were handed out during the lockdown. For example, and I'll tell you a little bit more

00:03:08.320 about this in a moment, Arthur Pavlovsky was in trial today for a lockdown offense that happened

00:03:15.380 over a year ago. So although the lockdowns are no longer issuing new charges and tickets,

00:03:21.160 they're still going through all their old victims. We hope and expect Danielle Smith will act on her

00:03:27.660 promise to undo that. In addition to covering news, I've been going to a little fundraising get-togethers

00:03:34.300 for Rebel News. I've been to, I think, 16 cities in six or seven provinces over the last little while,

00:03:41.360 all the way from Vancouver on the west to, I think, Montreal is the furthest east. I've been

00:03:47.040 just reconnecting with our people since so many of us have been under a form of lockdown.

00:03:51.840 In fact, few of us could even fly within Canada domestically until a few months ago when Trudeau

00:03:58.020 decided to give us that liberty back. I'm heading back west tomorrow for the release of our latest

00:04:07.200 documentary. It's called Ungovernable. It's about Alberta separatism, Alberta's ungovernable nature.

00:04:16.280 And I love the fact that it was made by Kian Simone, who's a transplanted Torontonian who moved west

00:04:22.100 and has sort of discovered the nature of that province. Here's a quick trailer of the movie,

00:04:28.820 which you can see for yourself at albertadocumentary.com. Here's the trailer for Ungovernable.

00:04:34.740 It's the values. You look at Western values in Western society, and these are values we could all

00:04:41.460 relate to, but they're old world values of grit and community and perseverance.

00:04:51.280 It's a place where you can make a living with your back and your hands and a little bit of hard

00:04:56.540 work, and it's a place of opportunity. And I think as Albertans, we're fiercely protective of that.

00:05:03.160 The world's energy crisis has been grabbing newspaper headlines. In a nutshell, we're running short of

00:05:09.220 petroleum resources, and the prices are zooming upwards. My colleagues in the government and I

00:05:14.700 have come reluctantly to believe that the price of oil in Canada must go up.

00:05:19.600 This was Alberta. Origin of the Alberta separatist movement begins with the election of Pierre Trudeau

00:05:24.780 as prime minister. It was a deliberate and malicious targeting in the west, which suited 1.00

00:05:29.540 Pierre Trudeau just fine, just like it suits Justin Trudeau just fine.

00:05:33.300 Sunny ways, my friends. Blackface. There is an actual hostile government towards Alberta.

00:05:41.220 Why did your dad give everyone in Western Canada the middle finger?

00:05:45.460 Really, in politics, you do have to make big decisions, and whenever you make big decisions,

00:05:50.740 there's going to be people who agree with it and people who don't disagree with it.

00:05:54.260 Plenty of people want to leave this country.

00:05:58.040 It's not the kind of idea you'd expect to hear from someone who wants to win power and hold power.

00:06:04.840 It's a, it is a radical idea.

00:06:07.960 And you would normalize the discussion, and so maybe Alberta wouldn't have to go,

00:06:14.340 because maybe the rest of the country and the rest of the world would say,

00:06:17.160 whoa, don't go. Will you accept these changes instead?

00:06:21.240 That's what happened to Quebec. 0.70

00:06:23.160 There's no maple leafs west of the Manitoba borders.

00:06:26.120 Why do we want, why do we have a maple leaf by unilateral decision on Canadian flags?

00:06:31.340 Think of how the American colonists were in 1775.

00:06:37.560 That's how a lot of Albertans are today.

00:06:39.940 Very exciting. I'll be there in Calgary tomorrow night.

00:06:53.240 We're playing it in a real cinema, the Canyon Meadows Theatres,

00:06:57.320 and we're going to have a little red carpet style get-together beforehand.

00:07:01.320 I've been out to that same theater for other movies we've done, for example,

00:07:05.440 Kamloops, The Buried Truth, a documentary by Matt Brevner.

00:07:10.200 Andrea Humphrey.

00:07:11.080 So we've got a lot of documentaries going on these days,

00:07:13.440 and I'm happy for our team doing that new form of storytelling,

00:07:18.900 which I think is wonderful.

00:07:20.920 So I have been missing some shows.

00:07:22.940 I hope you're enjoying when Sheila or David fill in for me,

00:07:26.440 but I am aware that I'm out there, but I tell you it's for work.

00:07:29.460 Over the weekend, Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada,

00:07:34.000 I actually went on my first trip outside Canada in nearly three years,

00:07:39.080 my first foreign trip, I went to Scotland, of all places.

00:07:44.840 One of the things I did was I met this youngster, Callum Smiles.

00:07:49.240 That's a great name.

00:07:50.520 He's our newest reporter in the United Kingdom.

00:07:52.600 Here, let me play for you a little hello video.

00:07:55.280 I did meeting Callum for the first time in a wonderful little town in Scotland called Stonehaven.

00:08:00.640 Take a look.

00:08:01.020 Well, the work you're doing, you're up here with me in Scotland to cover the case of Gabby Burnett,

00:08:06.280 whose house was stormed without a search warrant by police almost two years ago.

00:08:10.480 I get the feeling that I've had here before,

00:08:12.940 which is that the mainstream media in the U.K. is just as much a media party,

00:08:18.580 just as much in sync with the regime as in Canada.

00:08:22.060 There might be a few more exceptions, like the new GB News TV station.

00:08:26.680 They're independent-minded.

00:08:27.720 There are a few interesting individuals left in the U.K.,

00:08:32.420 but the vast majority of reporters seem to be bland, regime-narrative, woke repeaters more than reporters.

00:08:41.120 That's how it looks to me in Canada.

00:08:42.520 What do you think?

00:08:43.660 There seems to be this willful neglect of the little man.

00:08:47.840 So I've shown people around the country before coming up here when they said,

00:08:52.280 oh, so where's the next story?

00:08:53.880 And I told them about Gabby Burnett, and they said, who's Gabby Burnett?

00:08:57.100 It's shown in the video, and they all have that same heart-throbbing shock

00:09:02.800 to think not only could this happen in our country, but that it can be kept so quiet.

00:09:10.160 Well, I didn't make my journey to Scotland just to say hi to Callum, though that was fun.

00:09:14.880 I was there because we have one of our Fight the Fines cases in Scotland.

00:09:20.860 In fact, we've got two cases over there.

00:09:22.320 As you know, the Democracy Fund handles most of the Fight the Fines cases here in Canada, 2,100 of them.

00:09:30.340 But the Democracy Fund only operates within Canadian borders.

00:09:33.600 So we have a couple of cases in the UK, both of them in Scotland,

00:09:38.240 and we have some cases in Australia that Rebel News itself takes care of.

00:09:42.920 I want to tell you the story about Gabby Burnett.

00:09:46.960 This video I showed you the other day, I just want to show you again.

00:09:50.240 Actually, let me play for you a little bit of my conversation

00:09:53.300 with Gabby Burnett and her little brother Luke,

00:09:55.660 who were at home when police stormed in.

00:09:59.280 No search warrant.

00:10:01.280 No crime going on.

00:10:02.800 No hot pursuit.

00:10:03.720 None of that.

00:10:05.120 Just a neighbor snitching on them, saying,

00:10:07.360 oh, they have an illegal gathering.

00:10:08.520 They didn't.

00:10:09.920 Gabby had a seizure.

00:10:11.800 They wouldn't help her, and they stopped her brother and her mother from helping her.

00:10:15.380 And to add insult to interjury, they're actually prosecuting her.

00:10:19.340 I'm not going to play the whole thing for you.

00:10:20.640 It's an 11-and-a-half-minute video that I recorded over there in Aberdeen.

00:10:25.240 But I'm going to play a couple minutes for you.

00:10:26.840 I want to show you, first of all, the violent police invasion, the home invasion, really.

00:10:32.800 And second of all, a bit of my chat with Gabby and her brother Luke.

00:10:35.840 I'm not going to show the whole thing.

00:10:36.740 You can see the whole thing at standwithgabby.co.uk.

00:10:41.060 Here's a little bit of what I was doing in Scotland.

00:10:43.360 Just stop it, ma'am. 1.00

00:10:44.600 In my house?

00:10:45.280 In my house?

00:10:46.260 I do not think so.

00:10:47.320 What's wrong? 0.99

00:10:48.800 What the f*** are you, mate? 0.99

00:10:50.180 Right, no, no. 1.00

00:10:51.980 Mom, no, please.

00:10:53.720 My mom's a... 0.98

00:10:54.620 My mom.

00:10:55.440 Please stop it.

00:10:56.220 My name is ****.

00:10:57.020 Please stop it.

00:10:58.300 My...

00:10:58.700 Stop it. 1.00

00:10:59.720 What the f*** are you, mate? 1.00

00:11:01.120 Stop it. 1.00

00:11:01.640 What the f*** are you, mate? 1.00

00:11:02.920 What the f*** are you, mate? 1.00

00:11:05.320 Oh, my God. 1.00

00:11:08.840 She's got anxiety.

00:11:10.440 She's got anxiety.

00:11:11.380 She's just being in a hospital. 0.99

00:11:12.680 She's just being in a hospital. 0.99

00:11:13.880 Give me a bomb.

00:11:14.600 What's going on?

00:11:16.060 She's just being in a hospital. 0.99

00:11:18.340 You're off of her? 0.97

00:11:19.740 She's got apocalypse. 1.00

00:11:21.700 She's got epilepsy. 0.79

00:11:23.140 I did...

00:11:24.680 Help! 0.98

00:11:25.380 vocaine after his seizure. 1.00

00:11:27.440 You're on that seizure, you f***er. 1.00

00:11:29.560 Help! 1.00

00:11:30.300 I don't see that something.

00:11:31.700 Oh, my God.

00:11:33.200 Oh, my God.

00:11:34.200 Oh, my God.

00:11:34.960 What have you done?

00:11:35.800 I did.

00:11:36.680 I did.

00:11:37.620 I was in Canada.

00:11:38.060 What have you done?

00:11:38.820 Help me.

00:11:39.120 Help me.

00:11:40.720 Help! 0.98

00:11:41.380 Help! 0.98

00:11:42.120 Help! 0.98

00:11:42.600 Help! 0.98

00:11:43.480 Help! 0.98

00:11:44.540 Help! 0.98

00:11:45.000 I was in Canada. I was far away. I had never been to Scotland until today. I had never met you or

00:11:53.280 heard of you. I saw that video and I was enraged. We're not just here to tell the story of what

00:12:00.600 happened. We're here to fight back. We have crowdfunded a lawyer to defend you in court

00:12:05.700 and we'll talk about that in a minute. But Callum Smiles and I want to talk about what happened

00:12:11.480 that day. Callum, you've watched that video. What would you want to ask Gabby and Luke?

00:12:16.360 And we'll talk to Luke who is there observing. Because the world has only seen from when you

00:12:22.600 started the camera. We don't know exactly what happened beforehand. So in your own words,

00:12:26.800 what exactly happened that day? Well, that day, it was just a normal day. We're obviously all

00:12:34.960 bored because of lockdown and that. I'd been going through some stuff. So my mum was looking

00:12:40.940 after me. I was all tired and everything. I was just chilling with my little brother. I think my

00:12:45.720 mum was through the house with her friend. I think they had a bottle of wine or something. Maybe had

00:12:50.840 some music on. Not very loud or anything, just like everyone does. And then we had that knock to the

00:12:58.040 door. And they were questioning my mum about who she had in the house and about coming into the house

00:13:05.980 to check who she had in the house. And she obviously wasn't up for that because we've done

00:13:10.900 nothing wrong. And, you know, there's no reason for them to be coming into our house. They had no

00:13:14.640 warrant. And then from then I thought it's getting a bit loud and a bit too, you know, a bit too much.

00:13:21.960 So I'll get my phone and record it because my little brother's there as well, which I'm worried

00:13:25.100 about obviously. And then I went through to say, I'll give you my mum's details. And as I said that,

00:13:32.960 that's when I got tackled to the ground in front of my little brother and my head smacked off of

00:13:37.960 something and had a seizure. So you had a seizure. They burst in the home, no search warrant. They

00:13:42.920 pushed their way in. How many of them were there? There was two stands at the door and I'm sure there

00:13:49.440 was two on the stairs as well. They pushed their way in. And your brother, Luke, you're 11 now. How old

00:13:56.060 were you back then? Were you nine or 10? 10. And, you know, I'm talking to you with your sister's

00:14:02.360 permission. It's not my practice to talk to young kids on camera, but you were there not just as a

00:14:08.760 witness, but as a family member. And I don't want to ask you prickly questions, but what was it like

00:14:13.600 seeing your mum being tackled this way by cops? Scary. And I think you were crying, were you?

00:14:21.760 Yeah. He was crying and he was all loud and, oh my God, oh my God, someone, get her, get her, 0.97

00:14:27.780 someone, get her, someone. You know, he was totally in a state. So were you worried more about the cops

00:14:32.320 or about your mum's, I'm sorry, your sister's seizure? Sister's seizure. Did the cops help her at all

00:14:38.180 with the seizure? No. So that trial may or may not proceed tomorrow. It's sort of up in the air,

00:14:44.280 but Callum Smiles will be there either way. I'm really excited about the lawyer we've mustered,

00:14:49.800 the law firm in Scotland. I, this was just coincidence. I didn't know this till later.

00:14:54.920 The law firm in Scotland and the lawyer, Callum Anderson, that we hired actually was the lawyer for

00:15:01.780 the first minister of Scotland. That's what they call their sort of prime minister there. So serious law

00:15:07.860 firm, very serious, high powered, smart guys. And I'm very excited about that because there's

00:15:13.140 simply no way that a working class woman like Gabby, who's only 20, could possibly fight back 1.00

00:15:18.520 against the unlimited resources of the Scottish police on her own. So I was glad to be over there.

00:15:24.660 And we do have one more case in Scotland and I think that's it for the UK. It's actually terrible

00:15:30.740 in its own way. This was atrocious because the home invasion and Gabby had a seizure and the police

00:15:36.760 didn't help her and banned the other family members. It's just so terrible. But the other

00:15:41.440 case we have is the case of Patty Hogg, who was at the time a city councillor in Lanarkshire,

00:15:47.340 which is near Glasgow. He was a skeptic of the lockdown. And so he had a peaceful outdoor

00:15:53.720 protest in the city. Police charged him. And one of the things they charged him with was a heavy

00:16:00.120 crime called reckless endangerment. That's the kind of thing you get charged with if you do something

00:16:04.620 insane, like standing on an overpass, dropping bricks on cars below, or I suppose driving drunk

00:16:11.320 through a playground or something. Reckless endangerment, a shocking crime. What did Patty

00:16:18.360 Hogg do? Well, by encouraging other people to protest outdoors at City Hall, they said, oh,

00:16:24.260 he was recklessly endangering them. He could have murdered them by the COVID virus. I don't even know

00:16:31.040 if there's been a single case of a confirmed outdoor transmission in history, but they so hate Patty

00:16:37.580 Hogg and the fact that he dared have another opinion. They are charging him. He was a sitting

00:16:41.380 city councillor at the time. Imagine that. You're an elected politician elected to politic. You go to

00:16:47.880 your place of the legislature to protest, and they charge you not just with some nuisance or mischief or

00:16:54.320 trespass or a ticket, but with a shocking crime like reckless endangerment. So Patty Hogg is our

00:17:01.820 second case there. Obviously, 99% of our Fight the Fines cases are here in Canada, but I thought that

00:17:09.480 would be a fun first trip outside the country. Fun, but I can assure you it was a working trip, as you

00:17:14.560 can see. I'm going to talk a little bit more about Fight the Fines and Arthur Pawlowski's case today,

00:17:20.100 but I want to tell you that most of our team at Rebel News is unjabbed. Now, we don't care if 1.00

00:17:25.600 you're jabbed or unjabbed. As far as I'm concerned, that's a personal choice everyone can make for

00:17:30.140 themselves. We have jabbed and unjabbed people at Rebel News, and we never inquired, and we never 0.67

00:17:34.040 violated people's privacy, but I happen to know that a number of our folks were unjabbed.

00:17:39.580 And between that and foreign countries' rules and Trudeau's bans, we really didn't leave the country

00:17:46.120 much. Now, that was okay insofar as the story was here. We had to cover the lockdowns in Canada.

00:17:51.560 We had to cover the Canadian reaction, and we were very busy from coast to coast. Alexa Lavoie

00:17:55.920 in Quebec, Drea Humphrey in Vancouver, so many journalists in between those two places. We

00:18:02.780 really had a lot of work. But now that Trudeau has finally dropped his unscientific

00:18:08.120 vendetta against the unvaxxed, some of our journalists, who you've gotten to know for their

00:18:13.180 domestic coverage, are going to be making trips to foreign countries. For example, coming up

00:18:17.900 in just a week, we are sending a crew of five people to the United Nations World Health Organization

00:18:29.640 Summit in Berlin. That's starting October 16th. That's the largest gathering of the WHO.

00:18:37.860 In fact, it's their only in-person gathering in three years. We're sending five people to cover

00:18:43.040 it, including Alexa, who's going to cover it in French. I think it's going to be very

00:18:47.040 important. There's going to be delegates from up to 200 countries there. Obviously, we're

00:18:51.760 going to keep our eye peeled for the Anthony Fauci's and Theresa Tam's of the world. But

00:18:55.880 I'm very curious to talk to people from the third world, to talk to people from Africa,

00:18:59.840 the least vaxxed country, which happens to have the lowest COVID mortality rate. Isn't that

00:19:04.580 interesting? If possible, I'd like to talk to a delegate from China. Why has that country

00:19:09.760 refused to inject its citizens with mRNA vaccines? Isn't that weird? I want to talk to people from

00:19:16.180 India, because India said to Pfizer, sure, you can sell your drug here, but we want to do

00:19:21.980 clinical trials. We want to see them. And Pfizer said, no, thanks. So there's a lot of questions I

00:19:26.720 would put through our reporters to delegates from other places around the world. I'm not just

00:19:32.400 interested in talking to Canadian and American delegates. It's going to be very interesting. And

00:19:35.680 covering the media, covering the World Health Organization is going to be interesting too.

00:19:39.160 So we've got a big delegation. You can see that at rebelwho.com. There's an interesting event we're

00:19:46.000 doing in another part of the world, in Buenos Aires, the C40 World Mayors Conference. What is

00:19:53.280 that, you say? It's a globalist meeting of mayors. They're meeting in Buenos Aires, outside the prying

00:20:00.260 eyes of journalists, outside the democratic accountability of their own city councils,

00:20:04.960 and they're hatching their plans. It's almost like it's out of a Bond movie. It's not a democratic

00:20:11.280 organization. It's not voted on by your and me. But these world mayors get together, and they have,

00:20:16.720 it's like their own mini world economic forum. So we're sending two journalists down there. I'm very

00:20:21.600 excited about it. You know, one thing we used to do every year at Rebel News was cover the UN Global

00:20:27.200 Warming Conference, technically called the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

00:20:31.720 We did send a small team last year to Glasgow. This year, it's in Egypt. We are sending six

00:20:38.720 journalists. We love to cover those because we care about oil and gas. We care about junk science.

00:20:45.000 And we want to show the hypocrisy of all the politicians flying in with their private jets 0.99

00:20:48.840 and telling us to take a bike or to walk. But they'll be there in their huge

00:20:53.640 escalades and Yukons, air-conditioned in that desert heat. It's going to be

00:20:58.120 fascinating. And then the final trip we've got coming is our trip to the World Economic Forum,

00:21:03.780 and they're meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2023. And I plan to go to that one too,

00:21:11.220 myself. So we're doing these trips because we've been cooped up for two years. We're doing them also

00:21:16.560 because they're very relevant to Canadians. Because I put it to you, more decisions are made at this

00:21:22.200 list of events I've just told you about. None of them democratic. None of them have the kind of

00:21:27.200 transparency and scrutiny that our own Canadian legislatures have. But I put it to you, more

00:21:31.460 decisions will be made at those conferences I've just outlined than will be made by Parliament.

00:21:38.460 Now, earlier I mentioned the Scottish cases. Gabby Burnett, who's in court tomorrow, Patty Hogg,

00:21:46.300 who's in court coming up later. Well, I mentioned them, and it just so happens that earlier today,

00:21:51.960 we had a huge win in court in Calgary by our very first Fight the Fines client, Arthur Pavlovsky.

00:22:01.440 I'll tell you more about it. I'm hoping to interview our reporter on the scene, Celine

00:22:05.400 Glass, who was live tweeting the hearing and who had the news the moment he was acquitted today.

00:22:11.300 But basically, Arthur Pavlovsky went to pick up his mail in the post office. He had a medical

00:22:15.200 exemption to not wear a mask, and they refused to serve him. And not just that, they called the cops on

00:22:20.440 him. But the case totally fell apart in court today. There was no evidence that Arthur did

00:22:26.380 anything wrong. They made up a bunch of lies about him. Oh, he was rude. He swore. I have heard Arthur

00:22:32.820 Pavlovsky use strong language, strong words like, get out, get out. But I have never in my life heard

00:22:39.500 him swear. I actually don't think he swears. I think it's sort of a religious thing for him.

00:22:43.600 So they had all these false accusations. And the police and the prosecutors were able to

00:22:50.060 prove none of them. And so he was acquitted. But let's be honest, it wasn't about him being

00:22:58.200 guilty. It was about the government of Alberta's ongoing vendetta against him. And believe me,

00:23:03.100 he has plenty more trials to come. They're still pursuing him. The province of Alberta,

00:23:07.860 Danielle Smith, is now the premier designate of Alberta. I told you she won her leadership just

00:23:13.460 last week. But the province of Alberta, the bureaucrats, the lawyers, the Justice Department

00:23:18.460 are still hunting down lockdown skeptics like Arthur Pavlovsky. That's why we insist that she 0.72

00:23:25.500 keep her promise and have an amnesty for everyone like Arthur. So that's what's going on. I've been

00:23:32.860 traveling a bit, but I wanted to explain to you, it's not vacations. I have not actually had a

00:23:36.740 family vacation since 2019. I'm going to go away this Christmas break for the first time with the

00:23:44.160 family in a long time. It'll be good. I wanted to explain to you that I'm either working on news

00:23:49.080 stories like I was doing in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, or that I was meeting with rebel supporters across

00:23:55.900 the country to raise funds for rebel news, which is sort of my job. But I have to tell you that over

00:24:02.640 the last few days, I've seen troubling news about the war in Ukraine. And when I saw the images of

00:24:10.640 the mighty Kerch Bridge, that's the bridge that Russia built connecting Russia to Crimea, which is a

00:24:20.060 multi-billion dollar bridge. It's a rail bridge and an automobile bridge. And it's not just a strategic

00:24:28.640 piece of infrastructure. It is a full of political pride for Vladimir Putin. He personally inaugurated

00:24:34.900 the bridge. When I saw that that bridge was destroyed, I wouldn't even call it a military

00:24:40.660 attack because it was not by jet fighters or a missile boat or anything like that. It was a truck

00:24:47.260 bomb, frankly, terrorist style. I think that's what you'd have to call it. And in fact, it sounds like

00:24:53.800 the driver of the truck did not know what he was driving. Ukrainian authorities took credit for the

00:25:00.260 explosion, which I suppose means they take the blame for killing the man who was in the truck and

00:25:07.060 those who were blown up by it. I found that shocking and audacious and bold. And I suppose it's the kind

00:25:14.380 of thing when you do when you are in a total war. But I'm deeply worried about the reaction that may come

00:25:22.280 from Russia. This comes on the heels of another dramatic attack against Russian infrastructure,

00:25:28.500 the explosion of their Nord Stream undersea natural gas pipeline, which was detonated by a

00:25:37.600 massive trove of explosives. No one has definitively taken credit or blame by that. But I think the

00:25:45.000 conventional wisdom is that something so sophisticated and so major could only have been done by a government

00:25:51.580 entity. And the list of governments whose militaries could pull that off is quite limited. And then

00:25:57.960 there's just that little video of Joe Biden saying, don't you worry that pipeline, we can take it out

00:26:04.200 of commission if we want. Here's Joe Biden saying that a few months ago. If if Russia invades, that means

00:26:10.840 tanks or troops crossing the the border of Ukraine again, then there will be we there will be no longer

00:26:21.280 a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it. But how will you how will you do that?

00:26:31.280 Exactly. Since the project and control of the project is within Germany's control. 0.74

00:26:37.240 We will. I promise you, we'll be able to do it. So I was getting nervous. I mean, I was nervous when

00:26:42.640 that Nord Stream pipeline was blown up. I'm nervous when the Russian bridge was blown up because these

00:26:48.000 things are they're brilliant tactical victories on the part of Ukraine or or if it's the United States

00:26:55.600 or the CIA or or mercenaries. We don't quite know who's done these things. They're brilliant. They're

00:27:00.640 devastating. Absolutely. And it seems like Ukraine and whatever other militaries are operating there.

00:27:06.600 We know, for example, the CIA confirmed to The New York Times that they are on the ground

00:27:11.100 in Ukraine, helping direct the use of the modern weaponry. Russia is having setbacks and it's

00:27:18.620 actually retreating in some parts. But that scares me because unlike a traditional or conventional foe,

00:27:25.640 Russia still has nuclear weapons and an angry, embarrassed, humiliated, rebuked Vladimir Putin

00:27:33.460 still has access to those nuclear weapons, whether it's a tactical nuclear weapon in the theater of war

00:27:39.980 or something else. I'm getting a little nervous about it. And I see that the bellicosity has come to

00:27:46.020 Canada. Let me start by showing you this terrifying video by Vladimir Zelensky, the former actor who is

00:27:53.540 now the president of Ukraine. Here he is calling for NATO countries to proactively attack Russia itself.

00:28:03.920 He wants NATO to attack Russia. He wants to end the 80 years of mutually assured destruction,

00:28:14.880 you know, the architecture of deterrence, of mutual deterrence. He says NATO should attack Russia.

00:28:23.840 Take a look at this. How do you feel about this?

00:28:25.380 What should NATO do?

00:28:28.300 What should NATO do?

00:28:29.420 To enable the use of the use of the nuclear weapons. 0.63

00:28:34.540 But what is important, I will return to the international community.

00:28:39.940 How do it before 2024?

00:28:41.620 To preventive attacks, so they knew what will happen if they will use them.

00:28:47.820 It makes me nervous when someone who is a serious person, the president of Ukraine, who obviously has the ear of many western leaders,

00:29:17.160 is calling on NATO countries to attack a nuclear-armed Russia.

00:29:22.980 Does that make you nervous at all?

00:29:25.640 Well, here's Justin Trudeau tweeting in reaction to a Russian attack that he stands loyally by Ukraine

00:29:35.980 and will give military assistance to Ukraine.

00:29:41.620 This is new for Justin Trudeau, I should remind you.

00:29:44.780 Justin Trudeau used to hate the military just like his old man.

00:29:48.560 You might recall that very shortly after Trudeau became prime minister in 2015,

00:29:52.440 he withdrew our CF-18s from the war against ISIS, something that the U.S. and Obama in particular asked him not to do.

00:30:02.500 The president of the United States, Barack Obama, said,

00:30:04.600 please do not withdraw your fighter jets from the war on ISIS.

00:30:07.800 But he did.

00:30:08.420 He was such a peacenik.

00:30:10.060 In fact, I don't know if you remember this clip, he was asked by CBC's Don Newman about what role Canada's military should play.

00:30:19.180 And he made this joke about generals who wanted to whip out their CF-18s and show you how big they were.

00:30:26.100 Take a listen to this guy.

00:30:27.200 You referenced Jean Chrétien in the second Iraq war where he said, the proof is the proof is the proof.

00:30:33.760 And then he said, I don't see the proof, so we're not going.

00:30:36.400 But also in the first Iraq war, 1991, the Liberal Party at first was going to oppose the CF-18s,

00:30:46.580 which were actually flying a non-combat role, but they were flying patrol over the Persian Gulf.

00:30:51.260 And then they reversed their position, and they did it basically for politics.

00:30:56.620 And I'm wondering, if you think Mr. Harper wants you to vote against the resolution because he thinks that's to his political advantage,

00:31:04.580 are you not playing into his hands if even on a principled matter, and I take the principles,

00:31:11.120 and I think they're very important ones, but at the same time, politics is politics,

00:31:14.500 and on a principled matter, you may have to put water in your wine and think, what are the political consequences of this?

00:31:23.660 In a room like this, it's easy to say politics is politics, and we have to do this.

00:31:29.360 And that's one of the problems that happens in rooms like this in the Ottawa bubble.

00:31:34.400 We forget about Canadians. 1.00

00:31:35.760 We think about tactical angles and, you know, how we might look to the press gallery or what our opponents might say about us.

00:31:47.000 And that, quite frankly, has led Canadian politics to being in the position of having a record level of disenfranchised, disinterest, cynical voters.

00:31:57.720 I'm sorry. Leadership moments are not about making the easy decision that goes along with things.

00:32:05.800 It's about taking a stand on the values and the principles.

00:32:08.800 And if there's anything the Liberal Party should have learned over the past years,

00:32:13.580 it's that Canadians need to know where we stand, and Canadians need to trust us.

00:32:21.340 So politics is secondary to me.

00:32:23.680 So will you be Jean Tretien, though?

00:32:27.680 You still want to see the proof is the proof is the proof?

00:32:29.720 Or have you pretty well made up your mind that it would be better for us to stay in a non-combat role?

00:32:34.520 I haven't made up my mind, but the onus is on Mr. Harper to demonstrate that a shift from a non-combat role

00:32:42.320 that we've established right now to a combat role is the right thing for Canada, the right thing for Canadians, 0.79

00:32:49.760 but also the right thing for the international community.

00:32:54.280 There are an awful lot of things that Canada can and should be doing.

00:32:57.900 I mean, think about Canada's reputation around the world and what we've done around refugees, 1.00

00:33:02.420 whether it be the Vietnamese boat people, whether it be the Ismailis in Uganda, in East Africa,

00:33:13.820 whether it be, even more recently, the Tamil community fleeing a civil war in Sri Lanka.

00:33:22.260 Canada has been a place that draws in and helps refugees in a significant and serious way. 1.00

00:33:30.680 Now, in this situation, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of displaced peoples in the region

00:33:35.380 who aren't looking to all, you know, leave the region.

00:33:38.980 That's where their homes are.

00:33:40.020 They need support to get through this very, very difficult time.

00:33:43.740 Canada has a capacity and an expertise in doing just that.

00:33:47.900 Why aren't we talking more about that?

00:33:49.780 Why aren't we talking more about the kind of humanitarian aid that Canada can and must be engaged in

00:33:55.320 rather than, you know, trying to whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are?

00:34:00.020 You know, it just doesn't work like that in Canada.

00:34:03.680 It's quite something for someone who was so anti-war, anti-war to the point of undermining our largest ally,

00:34:10.340 even when it was a democratic president.

00:34:12.760 There's something quite startling about Trudeau being so bellicose and belligerent.

00:34:17.460 I mean, Trudeau, I saw this statistic, Trudeau's emissaries and diplomats have met countless times with the Taliban

00:34:26.000 since NATO was driven out of Afghanistan.

00:34:30.280 I usually see that, and it's juxtaposed with the fact that Trudeau refused to meet the truckers at all,

00:34:36.380 but he'll meet the Taliban.

00:34:38.000 But that's my point. 0.99

00:34:39.020 Trudeau will suck up to anyone. 0.99

00:34:41.940 He'll suck up to ISIS, even returning ISIS terrorists. 1.00

00:34:45.140 He says a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. 0.98

00:34:48.360 He pulled away his CF-18s.

00:34:50.500 He's negotiating with the Taliban.

00:34:53.620 You know, he calls China the country he most admires.

00:34:56.440 He praised Fidel Castro. 0.84

00:34:59.480 Suddenly, he's very butch and militaristic. 0.82

00:35:02.720 It's startling for Canada.

00:35:05.460 It's startling for Trudeau in particular, who, I don't know if you would call him a peacenik,

00:35:10.500 but he was certainly anti-war and against our allies.

00:35:13.880 It's quite out of character for him.

00:35:15.800 And I put it to you, it's out of character for Canada as well.

00:35:18.160 Do you remember once upon a time we were known for peacekeeping and occasionally even for peacemaking?

00:35:23.760 I don't think we've seen the word peace coming from any world leader recently.

00:35:30.260 Now, I should tell you that when Justin Trudeau says he's all for war against Russia,

00:35:36.980 I don't know if he actually means it, because Canada's contribution to Ukraine has been extremely modest.

00:35:43.080 His contribution to Vladimir Putin has been much larger.

00:35:46.500 You might recall that Trudeau announced with great fanfare a list of sanctions against Russia and Putin's inner circle.

00:35:53.760 And he immediately amended those sanctions so he could have Russian natural gas turbines

00:35:59.460 shipped to Montreal to be serviced there, to be maintained there, before sending them back.

00:36:07.640 Trudeau literally fixed the turbines that will sell Gazprom's natural gas to Europe

00:36:13.080 that is holding Europe hostage, but he will not sell Canadian natural gas to Europe.

00:36:20.080 He actually said there's no business case for it.

00:36:23.340 So you've got the worst of both worlds.

00:36:25.460 You've got a warmonger who's anti-Putin publicly, but he's sort of a Putin collaborator economically.

00:36:37.280 So he has the photo ops about how tough he is with Putin, but he's actually doing more favors for Putin

00:36:43.300 by A, fixing Putin's natural gas industry, and B, refusing to let Canadians sell.

00:36:48.140 But I think things are getting very serious now.

00:36:52.100 I think that the talk about nuclear war is being normalized.

00:36:58.020 Here's a global warming expert saying, hey guys, this whole nuclear war thing,

00:37:05.760 this could be a real plus for global warming.

00:37:08.080 I'm serious.

00:37:09.120 That's the kind of commentary you're getting.

00:37:11.720 Nuclear war, it could be great for society. 1.00

00:37:14.420 We just don't know it yet.

00:37:16.420 I think things are getting heavy.

00:37:17.860 The Crimean Bridge blown up, the pipeline blown up, and one of Putin's close allies named

00:37:24.140 Alexander Dugan, his daughter Daria Dugan, was assassinated.

00:37:28.680 I mean, that kind of, it feels terroristic.

00:37:33.180 It doesn't feel military.

00:37:35.040 It feels vengeful.

00:37:36.140 It feels like a vendetta.

00:37:37.620 And it feels like the kind of thing, frankly, designed to provoke Vladimir Putin to overreact, to overrespond.

00:37:45.380 Now, after the attack on the Crimean Bridge, Putin's military did launch a barrage of missile attacks on Ukraine.

00:37:55.480 And that certainly got a lot of media coverage.

00:37:58.580 But when I saw some of the footage, it's very hard to get footage from Ukraine.

00:38:01.700 It's very hard to know what's real and what's disinformation.

00:38:04.700 But frankly, it looked a little bit, it reminded me of the U.S. tactic of shock and awe

00:38:12.260 when the U.S. military first attacked Baghdad after 9-11.

00:38:17.460 Let me give you a reminder of, sorry, it was not 9-11.

00:38:22.440 It was the first Gulf War.

00:38:24.080 Here's the first Gulf War. 0.81

00:38:26.620 The shock and awe tactic of scaring and breaking the confidence in Baghdad.

00:38:33.420 Here's what Baghdad looked like during shock and awe.

00:38:36.120 Here's the initial identification of the United States in the U.S.

00:38:50.100 You two were given up to the tempest ofication.

00:38:53.160 Perhaps some people were stripped of Baghdad, almost certainly some people at the time.

00:38:57.840 That was the last' hint of recognizing my common Me wasn't just as far as until there was an variant,

00:39:02.980 That is shocking and awesome.

00:39:31.340 Probably killed a lot of civilians, too.

00:39:33.940 Here's what the Russian missile attack on Kiev and other places looked like.

00:39:38.400 It looks like some people were bloodied and obviously some people were killed.

00:39:41.780 But frankly, I don't know if I would call it devastating, at least these images.

00:39:46.560 I'm sure it did kill people.

00:39:48.420 And I'm sure tens of thousands of Ukrainians and civilians have been killed.

00:39:52.980 But, you know, here was a pro-Ukrainian video montage.

00:39:57.040 And the bridge they showed destroyed was like one of those tourist glass bridges, the kind of bridge you have to be courageous to walk on because the floor was glass.

00:40:07.040 It actually felt like it was a shock and awe move designed to scare more than to kill en masse.

00:40:14.020 I don't know.

00:40:14.480 I don't really know what's going on there.

00:40:16.880 It's hard to know because there's so much censorship and so much propaganda.

00:40:20.960 But what I see officially from the West does scare me.

00:40:26.280 I see, for example, the video of Joe Biden promising that that pipeline will not proceed and later it gets blown up.

00:40:35.120 I see in reaction to this missile strike, Joe Biden announcing that he will indeed send advanced American anti-air missiles to defend Ukraine.

00:40:49.500 And that probably would shoot down some of those missiles. 0.99

00:40:52.620 But Ukrainians don't know how to use these advanced American systems. 1.00

00:40:57.020 They take months of training.

00:40:59.120 And I suppose that could happen, that they train Ukrainian soldiers for months how to use them.

00:41:05.080 But I think it's just as likely that Americans would operate them.

00:41:09.540 I mean, you can send an advanced missile system, but unless you're trained on it, you don't know how to use it.

00:41:15.360 Is Joe Biden going to give them the missiles and then train them and have them ready sometime in 2023?

00:41:20.960 Or did he mean what I think he meant, which is that he's going to send the advanced anti-aircraft missiles and the Americans to run them?

00:41:32.200 Which is really an American no-fly zone, not a Ukrainian no-fly zone.

00:41:36.680 I mean, can I ask the obvious question that I think a child would ask?

00:41:42.360 Is Joe Biden telling American military forces to shoot down Russian aircraft?

00:41:48.620 Should we have a debate about that?

00:41:52.860 Not just should Americans have a debate about that, but maybe Canada, the NATO allies.

00:41:57.280 Should we at least have a discussion?

00:41:59.060 I mean, are we going to declare war on the former Soviet Union?

00:42:03.440 Are we going to declare war on Russia?

00:42:05.260 Are we just going to do that?

00:42:07.560 Isn't that the thing that we were told was absolutely terrifying and would lead to mutually assured destruction for nearly a century?

00:42:14.240 Haven't we been told that?

00:42:15.520 Now, I agree, of course, that war is wrong, but there's no move to peace afoot. 0.98

00:42:23.340 There's no second track.

00:42:26.160 There's no parallel way to get to peace.

00:42:29.220 Can you have a total victory?

00:42:32.160 Can Ukraine actually get a victory that doesn't involve some diplomacy?

00:42:37.500 How do you get a victory over a nuclear power as an opponent? 0.70

00:42:41.760 That's what I don't understand.

00:42:42.880 I understand that Ukraine has had great military support and financial support from the United States.

00:42:51.080 I understand that U.S. made weapons, many of them operated by U.S. CIA operatives or others,

00:42:57.260 have really helped turn things in Ukraine's favor in the last couple of months.

00:43:02.160 I understand that.

00:43:03.180 I acknowledge that.

00:43:03.880 But can you really expect a total victory over a nuclear power, especially one whose authoritarian ruler has been publicly humiliated?

00:43:15.020 Blowing up that bridge over Crimea was shocking for sure.

00:43:18.740 But does Ukraine actually think they will reconquer Ukraine, which has been legally annexed to Russia?

00:43:27.760 Do they think that's going to happen?

00:43:29.240 And do they think Putin would allow that to happen without pushing the nuclear button?

00:43:34.800 I mean, I don't know.

00:43:36.280 Sometimes I'm told he's a maniac and unpredictable and he could be very dangerous.

00:43:43.280 And other times I'm told not to worry about the Russian military at all.

00:43:46.960 I don't know which to believe.

00:43:48.300 I just don't think that Ukraine can have a military victory over a nuclear armed Russia. 0.93

00:43:53.620 I just don't know if it's possible.

00:43:56.300 What's crazy in the West, both in the United States and Canada,

00:43:59.160 is that it is a nonpartisan, a bipartisan military industrial complex now.

00:44:07.520 Very few Republicans have spoken out against giving almost $100 billion worth of cash and weapons to Ukraine.

00:44:15.780 Very few have.

00:44:17.140 And in Canada, the same thing.

00:44:18.620 I see Pierre Polyev is vigorously denouncing Russia and supporting Ukraine. 0.77

00:44:23.880 Okay, of course, Russia is the aggressor here. 0.59

00:44:26.680 But does every single party now support this war without a parallel track suing for peace?

00:44:34.580 I mean, if Justin Trudeau, of all people, is pro-war, is there anyone else left?

00:44:40.840 Have you heard a word from the peace parties of the left, from Jagmeet Singh, about maybe suing for peace?

00:44:47.420 There's a lot of reasons why people want war.

00:44:51.660 If you're in the weapons business, these are boom times.

00:44:54.280 If you're in the oil business, the gas business, it's boom times.

00:44:57.740 If you're in the news business, you need something to sell clicks now that Donald Trump is gone.

00:45:03.260 Trouble is, Ukrainians are the ones in the meat grinder. 1.00

00:45:06.120 They're the ones who are dying.

00:45:07.560 By the thousand?

00:45:08.420 By the tens of thousands?

00:45:09.980 By the hundreds of thousands?

00:45:11.400 We don't know, really.

00:45:13.060 It's tough to check.

00:45:14.040 I got a question for you, and I asked this of a friend of mine who said that she would send her child to fight in Ukraine.

00:45:24.640 And my friend is not Ukrainian, and I don't know if she was serious. 1.00

00:45:30.900 But I said, why Ukraine and not the other wars around the world?

00:45:35.500 There are many wars around the world at all times.

00:45:38.380 So what other wars should we engage in?

00:45:42.160 What should we give military support for?

00:45:45.200 What other wars should we send people to?

00:45:48.640 Should we, I don't know, engage in the war in Ethiopia?

00:45:55.320 Should we engage in the war in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Mali?

00:46:01.640 There are wars all the time.

00:46:03.340 Is the only reason why we're so supportive of the war in Ukraine?

00:46:07.840 Is it because we feel we've got Russia trapped and can grind them down? 0.96

00:46:11.300 Or is it an ethnic or racial similarity?

00:46:14.420 Like, why are we not sending tens of billions of dollars to these other battles?

00:46:20.560 I don't understand it.

00:46:21.940 I don't understand the advantage for Ukraine, 1.00

00:46:24.700 and I most certainly don't understand the advantage for Canada or the United States.

00:46:28.840 I'm confused by it.

00:46:29.940 I want to say that asking these kinds of questions is not disloyalty,

00:46:35.920 and it's not being a Russian agent,

00:46:38.160 despite what the disinformation czars at the University of Calgary say.

00:46:44.940 There used to be a tradition in Western democracies of having debates and votes before declaring war.

00:46:51.320 Certainly, that was the case in the world wars in Canada,

00:46:55.360 even when we weren't fully autonomous from the United Kingdom.

00:47:00.640 I think that we ought to have a debate and a vote.

00:47:03.280 I remember when Stephen Harper sent a small contingent of a couple of hundred Canadian forces

00:47:08.660 to the ill-advised war to replace Muammar Gaddafi,

00:47:13.060 the war that later gave birth to the modern slave trade,

00:47:16.040 the mass of refugees from North Africa into Europe and the rise of ISIS.

00:47:22.300 What an ill-advised war that was.

00:47:23.740 But even then, there was a debate in Parliament about it,

00:47:26.320 even though it was a modest undertaking.

00:47:29.060 Do we believe in votes anymore,

00:47:30.640 or did we sort of get rid of that old-fashioned notion and pass everything by order?

00:47:35.420 Maybe Theresa Tam can keep passing orders like she did about health. 1.00

00:47:39.520 Maybe she can just simply issue orders about wars. 0.98

00:47:42.120 What do we think about the atrocities committed by Russia?

00:47:47.280 That's a very important question.

00:47:48.760 There have been atrocities.

00:47:50.000 But how do we feel about the atrocities carried on by Ukraine? 0.61

00:47:54.240 About the assassinations of family members of Putin's inner circle?

00:47:58.620 About the truck driver on the bridge who didn't know what he was driving and it was blown up?

00:48:03.460 That was not a military attack.

00:48:05.380 That was a suicide truck, and I don't think the driver knew that was his role.

00:48:10.280 How do we feel about the abolition of opposition parties in Ukraine?

00:48:16.860 Because that's what happened.

00:48:18.840 Vladimir Zelensky has shut down political parties that don't fully support him.

00:48:23.200 He's shut down opposition media, too.

00:48:26.420 You know he was named in the Pandora Papers for having tens of millions of dollars in offshore accounts.

00:48:31.840 I don't think he's the role model for a democracy or for ethical and accountable government.

00:48:37.440 I think it's a place of oligarchs and corruption.

00:48:40.980 What exactly is our role there?

00:48:42.900 What exactly is our interest there?

00:48:44.920 Can I understand what the Canadian interest is there?

00:48:49.200 And by the way, what constitutes a victory?

00:48:52.800 Do we have to keep supporting a war until all of former Ukraine is returned, including Crimea?

00:48:58.880 What price are we willing to bear?

00:49:02.800 It's sort of shocking and the kind of thing that you slow down like with a car crash to stare.

00:49:09.060 You can't help yourself when a bridge is blown up or a pipeline is blown up as long as it's someone else's bridge and pipeline.

00:49:15.540 How would we feel if, God forbid, one of our bridges or pipelines was blown up because we were part of the NATO allies that armed Vladimir Zelensky or even operated some of the weapons?

00:49:29.940 Are you ready for that?

00:49:31.120 Can we have a discussion at least?

00:49:32.700 I feel like the world is closer to nuclear war now than at any time during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

00:49:41.640 Where are the pro-peace people?

00:49:44.200 Where's the left?

00:49:45.380 Where's the parties of the left who were always for disarmament?

00:49:48.880 The activists like Trudeau was seven years ago when he mocked generals whipping out their CF-18s.

00:49:54.960 Or is the idea of dissent just completely gone again, another legacy of COVID?

00:50:01.460 We just all agree with the latest thing.

00:50:04.020 We just all say ditto to each other.

00:50:07.860 I'm not for Vladimir Putin.

00:50:09.340 In fact, I've criticized him so many times and written a powerful chapter in a book about him that now makes it impossible for me to visit that country.

00:50:16.340 The whole thesis of my two books, first Ethical Oil and then Groundswell, was that Canada had a special duty to produce as much oil and gas as possible to displace oil from OPEC and Russia to relieve their customers of the hostage situation they find themselves in.

00:50:33.840 If we had built the pipelines, including Energy East, all the way to New Brunswick, that would have allowed LNG tankers to fill up in New Brunswick and take that natural gas to places like Ukraine or Poland, I think Canada would have helped make the world a lot freer and would have removed the power that Vladimir Putin has over Europe.

00:50:57.080 Alas, Justin Trudeau didn't agree.

00:50:59.280 I don't think that Justin Trudeau is actually an agent for Vladimir Putin, but really, if he was, what would he do differently?

00:51:07.020 Suppressing Canadian oil and gas, repairing Russian pipelines?

00:51:12.000 I just don't understand it.

00:51:14.280 I find myself in an unusual position being someone who's against wars.

00:51:20.580 At the time, I thought the 9-11 wars were very justified. 1.00

00:51:23.980 I was delighted when Saddam Hussein was smashed by George Bush Sr.

00:51:28.320 Jr.

00:51:29.320 Sometimes a war makes people feel artificially bold and confident.

00:51:34.060 That's just usually if you don't know anyone who's fighting it.

00:51:37.440 If it's far away, you can only read the exciting footage, stories, and see the exciting footage.

00:51:44.280 But I'm not sure how long this war will stay far away if Joe Biden says he's going to give high-tech American equipment,

00:51:51.060 and if Canada's saying it's going to be involved.

00:51:53.520 How long will this war just stay on our TV sets?

00:51:57.820 How long will it be until some of it comes home to us?

00:52:01.720 I don't know, but I know one thing.

00:52:03.880 Asking basic questions about accountability and decision-making and national sovereignty and war and peace and justice,

00:52:11.360 that's called being a Canadian, and that's called being a Democrat and having a public policy debate.

00:52:18.320 I find it deeply troubling that there is no debate on these subjects,

00:52:21.560 and just like during the COVID era, everyone who's anyone seems to agree with each other.

00:52:28.160 Stay with us. More ahead.

00:52:29.380 Stay with us.

00:52:59.380 It's not on him like a ton of bricks.

00:53:00.880 It really is a vendetta.

00:53:02.780 And even though Danielle Smith is now the premier designate of Alberta,

00:53:07.560 it's the old regime of Jason Kenney and his lockdown laws that are still being prosecuted in the courts.

00:53:13.840 Let me say that again.

00:53:15.000 The lockdown is over.

00:53:16.780 Danielle Smith is the new premier designate.

00:53:19.660 But the bureaucracy, the prosecutors, the police are still marching under the old orders.

00:53:24.780 And today, they took Arthur Pawlowski to court again, this time for a mask violation.

00:53:34.240 I didn't even know they prosecuted people for that.

00:53:37.260 So they had that mask trial in Calgary.

00:53:41.120 And I was watching the live tweeting of that from our reporter, Celine Glass.

00:53:47.260 And when she said the verdict was issued, I couldn't contain myself.

00:53:52.680 A huge, huge win for Arthur Pawlowski.

00:53:57.220 And we go now to the courthouse steps.

00:53:59.540 It's a little noisy outside there, but it's very exciting to have Celine on location at the court of King's bench in Calgary.

00:54:08.240 Celine, great to see you.

00:54:09.840 Thank you for being in the court today.

00:54:11.840 This is the second big win in a row for Arthur Pawlowski.

00:54:17.500 That's right, it is.

00:54:18.520 Yeah, no, it was really exciting today to actually be there and to be able to live tweet, to be able to be there representing Rebel as well.

00:54:27.140 Well, I'm very glad you were there.

00:54:28.740 We have covered the case of Arthur Pawlowski really since it started in the spring of 2020.

00:54:35.540 They have come after him so many times.

00:54:37.680 I was talking to his lawyer, Sarah Miller, the other day.

00:54:39.900 I think this is like the 16th or 17th court hearing she's done for him that simply would be impossible for anyone who didn't have the resources of a crowdfunding campaign behind them.

00:54:53.460 Like literally you would have to be a multimillionaire or you would be crushed under the power of the government.

00:54:59.840 Tell me how many government people were there at the trial?

00:55:03.880 How many lawyers and police and witnesses, I bet they spent a half million dollars trying to get them today?

00:55:12.420 You know, that's really interesting, actually.

00:55:15.300 There was only, I believe it was just three witnesses.

00:55:18.920 It was one police officer.

00:55:20.740 He was the one that came after the couple of people at Shoppers Drug Mart.

00:55:24.900 The employees had called 911.

00:55:26.140 He was there to answer that call and to go and talk to Arthur himself.

00:55:30.140 And then there was one of the managers and then the woman at the counter that refused to actually provide him his mail, even though he had a medical exemption for his mask.

00:55:39.280 So but again, what's really interesting is that originally this case was founded on him for a mask violation for being contrary to the bylaw at the time.

00:55:48.740 And that was actually dropped.

00:55:50.580 And it also came out from the store owner when asked further about the different signs that they would have had posted and whatnot, that they're actually pretty lenient at the time and that going forward that wouldn't stand with his his case.

00:56:03.320 So that was that that that case was dropped pretty quick, pretty, pretty, pretty quick, like in the beginning of the court proceedings this morning.

00:56:12.320 And then they started talking about how, you know, you can't film in there and, you know, there's signs everywhere.

00:56:17.460 And then it was actually just down at the very big.

00:56:22.180 Jeez, sorry about that.

00:56:24.060 There's someone just came up to us.

00:56:26.620 But yeah, then it's just so happened that people.

00:56:30.860 Sorry, that totally just kind of threw me off.

00:56:32.960 No, keep going.

00:56:33.740 So you're saying that there was a sign or something.

00:56:37.220 Yeah, you're not supposed to record.

00:56:39.380 That's one of their store policies.

00:56:40.600 But it just ended up coming out again by the store owner that there was just a tiny little sticker in the window that, you know, it just was the camera with like the little the red circle with the cross through it, like no filming.

00:56:51.220 So then he tried to say that he was banned.

00:56:53.980 And at the very end, what this with this case was like founded on is and what the crown was grasping for the straws at the end.

00:57:01.460 And I was just trying to present any evidence regarding any evidence that had to do with the person at the front desk and her feelings and how she was, you know, personally offended by Archer because he had looked at her intimidatingly.

00:57:16.440 It was very strange because by the end of it, we were all very, very confused about what was going on and just what exactly this court case was founded on to start with.

00:57:26.080 Yeah, you know, I used to be a practicing lawyer.

00:57:29.480 I haven't done law in 15 years, I'm glad to say.

00:57:32.780 But I know and I don't think you have to be a lawyer to know that prosecutors only bring cases where, number one, it's in the public interest to do so.

00:57:44.160 And number two, where they have a reasonable likelihood of conviction.

00:57:48.920 So they don't bring trivial cases.

00:57:52.020 They don't bring weak cases.

00:57:53.640 First of all, it's not fair.

00:57:55.360 And second of all, there's so much real work to do to go after a marginal case is just a waste of time.

00:58:01.840 And it's not, again, in the public interest.

00:58:03.960 This sounds, again, like an anti-Arthur Pavlovsky vendetta.

00:58:09.060 It sounds like they just threw everything at the wall.

00:58:12.580 Oh, you're not wearing a mask.

00:58:14.000 Well, he had an exemption.

00:58:15.240 I was following along.

00:58:17.000 Did he swear?

00:58:18.100 No.

00:58:19.060 And I know he does.

00:58:20.020 I've never heard Arthur Pavlovsky say a swear in the entire time I've ever known him.

00:58:24.520 Like it was really.

00:58:25.420 So, I mean, really what it came down to is they didn't like him.

00:58:28.760 They were being mean to him.

00:58:30.720 But he had a lawful medical exemption.

00:58:33.240 So they were just trying everything.

00:58:34.800 Oh, you recorded.

00:58:35.820 Yeah, because you're being you're treating me in a bullying way.

00:58:39.440 It sounds I'm deeply embarrassed for the prosecutors and the police who put forward this case.

00:58:46.760 And good for the judge.

00:58:48.400 So tell me a little bit about the judge.

00:58:51.680 What what did you remember the judge's name?

00:58:54.740 Was it a man or a woman?

00:58:55.700 Was it old or young?

00:58:56.500 Did the judge have something to say?

00:58:58.520 Did the judge issue the ruling quickly?

00:59:00.800 Was the judge exasperated by the it sounds like the case sort of evaporated before your very eyes?

00:59:06.200 I didn't have a chance to read all your live tweets.

00:59:08.880 So and I'm sure most of our viewers didn't either.

00:59:11.180 So what was it actually like in the courtroom?

00:59:14.000 What was the judge like?

00:59:15.160 Could you tell by their face what they were thinking?

00:59:18.720 Oh, yeah.

00:59:19.420 Exasperated is a really good way to put it, actually.

00:59:21.940 Unfortunately, I didn't catch the gentleman's name, but he was elder and he really did his due diligence.

00:59:27.120 He analyzed all of the different evidence that was that was brought up from both sides.

00:59:32.960 But it's just like you said, the it immediately started to be torn apart.

00:59:39.080 The narrative that the Crown was trying to put together and an aim at Arthur Pawlowski very, very quickly.

00:59:46.700 That started to evaporate as soon as he started to ask questions to the Crown.

00:59:51.380 And, you know, I've I've watched a couple of these court proceedings.

00:59:53.720 I've never actually seen a judge dismiss witnesses from the Crown so many times to actually question the Crown prosecutor and just kind of be like, you know, why are you asking these questions?

01:00:05.040 Like, what are you doing?

01:00:06.200 Like, what is your intention?

01:00:07.720 There were quite a few times where he literally asked him.

01:00:10.880 He was like, is this relevant at all?

01:00:13.140 Why would you ask this question?

01:00:15.000 And it was very interesting because with Arthur Pawlowski, he has a lot of followers.

01:00:19.120 The side of the courtroom that he was in was totally full of his supporters.

01:00:24.220 And, you know, they they were quiet.

01:00:25.960 They just they sat there.

01:00:27.160 And I mean, by the end of it, there was a couple of chuckles.

01:00:29.760 Then even the judge didn't mind because he just seems so confused about what was going on.

01:00:34.960 Because, again, they were just grasping for straws to try and persecute Pastor Arthur Pawlowski.

01:00:40.420 And tell me a little bit about the prosecutor.

01:00:41.980 Was it just one prosecutor?

01:00:43.560 Were there several of them?

01:00:44.820 Did he seem like he had he knew the Arthur Pawlowski file well or was he just thrown into it?

01:00:52.320 Sounds like he had a bunch of goofy questions the judge didn't have time for.

01:00:55.780 Yeah.

01:00:56.640 No, he definitely did.

01:00:57.960 And I do not think that he was that he was able to tackle the saga that is Arthur Pawlowski.

01:01:04.100 There's no way there was a couple of pieces of evidence that he tried to actually bring forward.

01:01:08.680 And I wasn't aware of this.

01:01:10.140 I'm still new to covering these court cases.

01:01:12.020 But I learned so much each and every time that I'm there.

01:01:14.760 The evidence that is initially given to the to the Crown to be able to look after so that, you know, both sides can be able to present them in front of the judge.

01:01:24.440 All of that was already pre-established.

01:01:26.260 And he was here trying to grasp at straws again, trying to show new things.

01:01:30.120 And Sarah Miller stood up and was like, this has nothing to do with anything.

01:01:33.740 And by the end of it, when she called for a verdict and the judge was ready to to give an answer, he asked her to go up and give her her ending statement.

01:01:41.980 And then he politely asked her to sit down and was like, he basically said, you don't need to.

01:01:47.740 He's like, like, everything's good.

01:01:49.860 And then he was like, it's all dismissed.

01:01:51.720 He's like, you're 100 percent.

01:01:53.720 Well, I'm paraphrasing.

01:01:54.800 Obviously, he didn't say that.

01:01:55.860 But he was it was ruled that he was not guilty.

01:01:58.180 And that was it.

01:01:59.920 Everyone stood up.

01:02:00.880 It was court adjourned.

01:02:02.340 And that was it.

01:02:03.580 I don't think the Crown could have done anything.

01:02:06.080 They were not prepared for this.

01:02:07.720 How long was the whole hearing?

01:02:11.300 Well, court was supposed to start at 9 a.m., but I believe that we started around 1030.

01:02:15.880 And we were in there for probably an hour and a half.

01:02:18.940 And then once the verdict was ruled out, there was a 10 minute break.

01:02:21.900 And then we came back.

01:02:22.820 And that's when he said that all the charges were dropped and that Arjipulowski was found not guilty.

01:02:28.540 Wow.

01:02:29.260 And tell me a little bit more about Sarah Miller.

01:02:31.240 Was she there on her own or did she have another lawyer with her? 1.00

01:02:33.740 Sarah Miller is the lawyer that the Democracy Fund hired to represent Arthur a year and a half ago.

01:02:39.880 Like I say, she's been in court 16 or 17 times for Arthur since then.

01:02:44.420 Was she on her own or did she have a colleague with her?

01:02:47.080 How did she do?

01:02:48.460 She was on her own.

01:02:49.640 And like always, she was ready.

01:02:51.400 She was prepared.

01:02:52.180 And yeah, absolutely.

01:02:53.520 She's she's so fantastic at what she does. 0.89

01:02:55.820 And every single thing that the court brought up for her to go over in the cross-examination period, she was really quick to fire back and to deliver the facts really straight, cut clear, right to the point.

01:03:06.500 And there was nothing else that they could do.

01:03:09.020 She was she was there.

01:03:10.540 Yeah.

01:03:10.680 Well, that's very exciting.

01:03:11.620 You know, I've gotten to know Sarah a little bit over the last year and a half, as you know, she actually flew with Sheila Gunn-Reed to Geneva, Switzerland to lodge a human rights campaign against the Canadian government for the abuse of political prisoners.

01:03:27.400 The way that the government and the police and other entities have treated peaceful protesters, Arthur Pavlovsky, Tamara Leach, etc.

01:03:36.180 If these things were happening in Venezuela or Cuba, the U.N. Human Rights Council would investigate.

01:03:43.360 And so Sarah Miller and Sheila went to Geneva, Switzerland to file that complaint there.

01:03:48.400 So I really like Sarah and she you know what?

01:03:52.720 We've won some and we've lost some.

01:03:54.760 It's a lot better to win.

01:03:56.540 And it just goes to show you, you got to sometimes stick with it.

01:04:00.800 I mean, for the first year, Arthur Pavlovsky lost every single hearing he had.

01:04:07.100 And I think it's because the the courts were they had covid mania.

01:04:11.420 I think they just were so terrified.

01:04:13.580 Judges are typically elderly.

01:04:15.120 They don't circulate like they're not going to gyms or clubs or schools.

01:04:19.420 So the lockdowns didn't hurt them.

01:04:21.300 They get paid no matter what they're you know, they're not going out to party at night.

01:04:25.140 So, you know, in places like Quebec where they had a curfew, the judges really didn't care.

01:04:28.900 Judges were afraid of death.

01:04:30.760 I mean, we all are afraid of death.

01:04:32.200 But I think now two years into it, judges are sort of waking up.

01:04:36.600 And Arthur Pavlovsky has had two important wins back to back.

01:04:40.140 And I think he's on a roll.

01:04:41.940 And I'm glad you were there and congrats to you on live tweeting a court case.

01:04:46.640 It's sort of a special skill.

01:04:48.280 But I sure liked it.

01:04:49.380 I read your tweet the minute you said he won.

01:04:52.040 I was thrilled.

01:04:52.880 And were there any other journalists in the courtroom?

01:04:56.460 No, no.

01:04:57.440 And all the other times that I've live tweeted from court, it's been the same thing.

01:05:01.040 Rebel has been the only journalist in court every time.

01:05:03.780 You know what?

01:05:04.280 That goes to show that the media party, as I call it, they really have an official narrative.

01:05:10.600 They have talked about Arthur Pavlovsky endlessly.

01:05:15.080 They're obsessed with him.

01:05:16.300 I suppose we're obsessed with him, too.

01:05:17.680 But we have an excuse.

01:05:18.600 He's a freedom fighter.

01:05:19.640 We're crowdfunding his legal defense.

01:05:21.740 But the mainstream media is actually obsessed with Arthur Pavlovsky.

01:05:25.080 They write about him all the time.

01:05:27.320 They just don't like to write about it when he wins.

01:05:30.900 They hate him so much.

01:05:32.380 Like, you would think they would be in court today.

01:05:34.300 Aha! 0.94

01:05:34.960 Arthur Pavlovsky!

01:05:36.000 He's going down! 0.63

01:05:37.020 Oh, he was a masked, an unmasked bandit.

01:05:39.960 Normally, you think, a masked bandit.

01:05:42.400 Oh, he was an unmasked bandit.

01:05:44.140 We got him now.

01:05:45.160 No.

01:05:45.820 They weren't there.

01:05:46.900 And it goes to show that one of the powerful forms of censorship is when the regime media

01:05:53.080 simply does not talk about something.

01:05:55.760 One form of censorship or bias is when they talk about things in an unfair way, smear people.

01:06:01.280 They did a lot of that to the truckers. 0.61

01:06:02.620 But another form of censorship is when they just ignore the story.

01:06:07.320 And so I'm so glad you were in court today.

01:06:09.020 And I'm feeling pretty good.

01:06:09.940 That's good news.

01:06:11.380 And that credit goes to Rebel News viewers who crowdfunded the League of Defense.

01:06:15.620 Celine, thanks for going to court today.

01:06:17.940 Absolutely.

01:06:18.600 No, and thanks for having me.

01:06:20.400 Right on.

01:06:21.100 Our pleasure.

01:06:21.720 There you have it.

01:06:22.140 Celine Glass in our Calgary office at the Court of Queen's Bench or Court of King's Bench,

01:06:27.640 as it's now called.

01:06:28.380 You can see those big brass doors there.

01:06:31.060 Stay with us.

01:06:31.700 Your letters to me are next.

01:06:41.520 Hey, welcome back.

01:06:42.500 Your letters.

01:06:44.520 Roddy998 says, Danielle Smith is the best choice for the UCP to defeat the World Economic Forum, Soros-driven NDP.

01:06:53.360 Yeah, it'll be very interesting to see how she does. 0.76

01:06:55.760 I mean, I was talking to a lot of friends in political circles, and I'm just asking them,

01:06:59.520 do you think she'll be for real, or do you think she's going to start to water things down?

01:07:04.760 And there's a range of opinions out there.

01:07:06.640 I think she's got a tough go of it because she immediately inherits a caucus and really material for her cabinet that were assembled by her predecessor, Jason Kenney.

01:07:17.420 They're Jason Kenney's men and women.

01:07:18.960 Not all of them.

01:07:19.680 He alienated a lot of them.

01:07:20.920 But she's going to have to get started, at least, with Jason Kenney's people.

01:07:26.400 That'll be tough.

01:07:29.320 GGFD says, taking accountability for the past mistakes is a refreshing change.

01:07:33.740 Trudeau et al. have music to face at the Emergency Act Review.

01:07:36.940 All Canadians need to be tuned in to that.

01:07:39.120 Looking forward to the coverage.

01:07:40.620 Hey, thanks for that.

01:07:41.460 I'm really excited.

01:07:42.560 I told you about some of my travels.

01:07:44.100 I've been traveling throughout Canada, and I went to Scotland for two days.

01:07:47.640 I am going to be in Ottawa for our truckercommission.com coverage.

01:07:52.320 We've rented an Airbnb.

01:07:53.440 We're turning it into a studio.

01:07:55.360 We're going to cover this thing for really six weeks straight, so I will be spending some time down there doing some journalism along with a lot of our team.

01:08:03.380 And I think it's important that we're there because I know the regime media is going to try and revise history and make Trudeau the hero and the truckers the bad guys.

01:08:14.200 We'll have to do our best to speak truth to power.

01:08:17.060 That's coming up later this week.

01:08:18.560 I'll be in Calgary tomorrow night for the documentary, Ungovernable.

01:08:21.980 The next day, I'm off to Ottawa for our trucker commission work.

01:08:25.520 It's all work, my friends, and I love to do it.

01:08:27.900 And thank you for, when I'm away, accepting with such a warm welcome, my colleagues, David and Sheila.

01:08:33.200 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

01:08:38.780 And keep fighting for freedom.

01:08:40.260 I'm Jeremy LaFredo for Rebel News in Burdenham, Pennsylvania at Miller's Organic Farm.

01:08:44.260 Last month, we told you the story of how Miller's Farm was raided by armed federal agents and economically crippled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

01:08:51.680 Now, as the seasons change, Miller's Farm is going toe-to-toe with the federal government to protect himself and independent farmers all over the country.

01:08:59.560 My goal is to leave an example for the generations to come, so that future generations can farm like our grandfathers did.

01:09:07.380 The way God wants us to be sustainable, without genetically modified seeds, without synthetic fertilizers, we just want to live off the land and take care of God's nature.

01:09:18.320 Amos Miller is an independent organic farmer in Burdenham, a remote Amish village in central Pennsylvania.

01:09:25.000 The farm has everything, pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle, to grass-fed raw dairy like yogurts, cheeses, and butters.

01:09:32.020 The farm raises chickens, pigs, and even water buffalo.

01:09:34.980 Everything is raised in pastures, without any pesticides, GMO feed, or synthetic hormones.

01:09:40.240 It's these reasons, holistically grown organic meat and dairy, that people all over the country signed up to be a part of Miller's private food club.

01:09:47.720 I think they want to have the connection to the farm, and they see the actual practices being done on the farm, and they trust the way we do things.

01:09:58.400 They educate themselves, and they truly believe that food from grass-fed cows, access to sunshine and fresh air, does affect their overall health.

01:10:10.460 But unfortunately, this is also the reason that the federal government, and all of its might, is coming after him.

01:10:15.740 Several months ago, Amos' farm was raided by armed federal agents, the U.S. Marshals Service.

01:10:21.300 They're also trying to economically cripple the independent farmer with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

01:10:26.360 The government says that Amos must cease operations because he doesn't adhere to the USDA standards, the very reason that so many of Amos' customers get their food from him.

01:10:35.080 Amos argues that U.S. government food regulations exist chiefly to strip small organic producers of their independence.

01:10:40.800 They're also financially intensive, making it so only the large producers are able to afford and stay in business.

01:10:47.040 By cutting the government out of his operations, he's effectively cutting out the middleman.

01:10:51.080 The government siphons money out of these small farms through expensive, quote, user fees.

01:10:55.860 The government is using a health and safety justification to come after Miller's farm.

01:11:00.020 According to U.S. Representative Thomas Massey, it's instead corrupt financial incentives that are behind it.

01:11:05.480 He explained correctly that Amos is still able to sell camel milk and water buffalo meat.

01:11:10.040 Why?

01:11:10.680 He said because there's no corporate camel milk lobby or industrial buffalo meat lobby embedded at the USDA or walking the halls of Congress with campaign checks.

01:11:19.720 Meaning even though he processes all sorts of animal meat and dairy at the farm, the USDA is only concerned about the way in which he raises and processes cattle because they're funded by the animal-specific industry.

01:11:30.260 More so, Amos and his customers argue that the USDA mandates food be processed and produced in ways that actually make the food less nutritious.

01:11:38.520 Amos believes if they can bring down his operation under dubious reasoning and harmful regulations, other farmers will be next, putting the entire food system at stake of being transformed in the vision of the industry-backed government and WEF-aligned elites.

01:11:51.320 Amos noted that over the past few years, more and more valuable independent farmers have been getting shut down by the government.

01:11:57.260 Legally representing Amos is constitutional whiz and veteran lawyer Robert Barnes.

01:12:02.260 Barnes explained to the Lancaster Patriot, a local newspaper in Amos' area, that, quote,

01:12:06.880 This is about power. Who has the power to choose what I eat, what I put into my own body?

01:12:12.300 It's an extension of the vaccine mandate dispute.

01:12:15.120 It's an extension of a range of controversies currently raging across the country about the Constitution and our laws and the role of the federal government in our lives.

01:12:22.840 Next week, Rebel is going to sit down with Robert Barnes for an exclusive interview and discuss what this case means for independent farmers, food sovereignty, bodily autonomy, and freedom in general.

01:12:32.580 Please go to leavethemalone.com, that's leavethemalone.com, and sign our petition, which I'll be personally delivering to the federal court where Amos' case resides.

01:12:42.080 For Rebel News in Burdenham, Pennsylvania, I'm Jeremy Lafredo.

01:12:45.560 .

01:12:48.560 .

Rebel News Podcast - October 09, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ An update on my travels — and a heavy discussion about the war in Ukraine

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Summary

Transcript