EZRA LEVANT ｜ Austria and Australia. I’m glad I don’t live in either one and I’ll show you why
Summary
Austria is the country where Adolf Hitler was born, and it s almost like it s a muscle memory for authoritarianism. I wonder if the fact that we see it in color now, with all sorts of nuance, means we hear it differently than if we saw it in grainy, black and white footage. And we never could have another Nazi state, could we? I mean, that s just unthinkable, right?
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today I show you what's going on in Austria, and I'll show you what's going on in Australia,
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and how there's echoes, especially in Austria, of what that country did 80 years ago.
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It's almost like it's a muscle memory for authoritarianism.
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I wonder if the fact that we see it in color with all sorts of nuance
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means we hear it differently than if we saw it in grainy black and white footage.
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I wonder if our guard is down because it doesn't look old-timing,
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and we never could have another Nazi state, could we?
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We'll also talk to our friend Andrew Lawton about the same thing.
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Before I get there, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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I'm glad I don't live in either one, and I'll show you why.
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It's November 22nd, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Here's the opening scene from one of my favorite movies of all time called Dumb and Dumber.
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Could you tell me how to get to the medical school?
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I'm supposed to be doing a lecture in about 20 minutes, and my driver's a bit lost.
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You go straight ahead, and you make a left over the bridge.
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Austria is the country where Adolf Hitler was born.
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What happens when you demonize your fellow citizens when you declare an unclean underclass?
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Of all the countries in the world to bring in police searches for your papers,
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I think Austria feels just a little too cliché, doesn't it?
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Or maybe it's precisely because they've done it before that it comes a bit too naturally,
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Have you ever heard of this book, Explaining Hitler, the Search for the Origins of His Evil?
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That's a picture of baby Hitler on the cover, which is something you could think about for hours.
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You've perhaps heard of the thought experiment, if he could go back in time and kill baby Hitler before he set the world on fire, would you do it?
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It's a bit harder to do when you see a cute little baby like that.
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I won't answer that question now, but let me quote to you something that Ron Rosenbaum, the brilliant author behind that book, said.
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He wrote an update to the book more recently, before Rosenbaum went crazy about Donald Trump.
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He thought about modern Nazism, including Iran, and its threat to the Jews.
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Let me read to you from the L.A. Review of Books a few years back.
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Before Auschwitz, Kurtz writes, Auschwitz was unimaginable.
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That is no longer so today, because Auschwitz, in fact, occurred.
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It has now been established in our imaginations as a firm possibility.
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What we were able to imagine, especially because it once was, can be again.
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That chilling last sentence tempts me into a discussion of the contentious Second Holocaust controversy,
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one I stirred up when I wrote an essay essentially saying what Kurtz was saying.
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No matter how many times and how many Jews and non-Jews aver never again, it can happen again.
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The only thing that has changed is that now we know that it can happen at all.
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And in fact, is it not more likely because of technology?
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In fact, Rosenfeld, a far more learned figure on the subject, devotes the final section of
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his book to taking up and elaborating upon the necessity of confronting the potential
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for a Second Holocaust, as has the Israeli historian Benny Morris, who mordently observed that this
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time a Second Holocaust would be much easier to accomplish.
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A single thermonuclear weapon could kill six million Israeli Jews in six seconds on a strike
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on Tel Aviv rather than the six years it took Hitler.
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Wow, I'll stop talking about Jews in the Holocaust, but I'll talk about the war against
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civil liberties and civilization in general, the authoritarian instinct, the power of propaganda
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Do you see Rosenbaum's point and the point of others?
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He quotes, it was done once, so it is more likely to be done a second time than not at
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all, once you think the thought and the technology to do it now, unimaginably powerful, a single
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Now apply that to the technology of oppression.
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There really aren't a lot of Jews left in Austria today.
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There were just under 200,000 Jews at the start of the Holocaust.
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So what's being done to Austria isn't about Jews or anti-Semitism, it's about power and
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control and authoritarianism against everyone of every religion and race.
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There aren't enough Jews to hate, really, but the unvaccinated or the new Jews, the dirty
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people, the unclean ones jeopardizing the rest of us.
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who's going to stop that if this were said in north korea or iran or venezuela or russia a
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couple years ago wouldn't there be congressional hearings about it and justin trudeau well not him
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but someone else saying they care i mean the un is fine with tyranny but how about those in the west
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who still actually claim to care a bit about freedom and liberalism but it's tough for the
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west including america to lecture the world on lockdowns and forced medical procedures and civil
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liberties infractions when america in the west is home to so many of the same things at least in the
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states there are some objectors in canada the entire national establishment is complicit that's austria
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reverting to a caricature of itself i love austria i've been there twice once as a teenager and once
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on my way to iraq a few years ago what a contrast that was vienna the center of western culture opera
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art architecture so beautiful and then i went on to erbil the city in iraq that is a pile of terrorist
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rubble the contrast couldn't be more stark but isn't the real strength of the west the freedom
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the liberal values the civilization the humanity isn't that the foundation upon which all the other
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superstructures are built yeah there's gorgeous architecture in vienna but that's not the
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foundation is it i'm sad for austria but i see some won't take it lying down i see even some police
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are refusing to enforce the nazi-like orders i'm surprised they're still left in the force two
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years later sorry it's not godwin's law when police in austria really start enforcing public hygiene against
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lower castes and demanding papers that's one of the few times and places where you really can invoke
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hitler without people saying oh don't invoke hitler now let's move from austria to australia
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get a load of this guy as you know last night we took an urgent action to escalate our response in
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these communities immediately implementing a hard lockdown that means residents of injari and rock
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hole no longer have the five reasons to leave their home they can only leave for medical treatment
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in an emergency or if required by law it's highly likely that more residents will be transferred to
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cow springs today either as positive cases or close contacts we've already identified 38 close
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contacts in pinjari and that number will go up those 38 are being transferred now i contacted the
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prime minister last night we are grateful for the support of about 20 adf personnel as well as army
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trucks to assist with the transfer of positive cases and close contacts and to support the communities
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holy cow imagine that in in black and white footage in the original german he's talking about taking
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people away to government camps using the army the army meant to fight against i don't know china
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most likely but foreigners whatever being deployed street by street home by home to arrest and deport
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citizens who are unclean except for politicians they've exempted themselves get a load of this
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this kind my eye oh yeah that's not a watering down that's specific advice uh legal advice and
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uh supported by the solicitor general that there are uh constitutional and other um legal protections
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for some of those groups that mean that a mandate uh was really not a recommendation for those groups
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um does that apply to mps too i mean are there state mps in the parliament yeah i believe so again
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again legal legal impediments or legal recommendations that uh mps can't be uh within those mandates that's
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not to say that there aren't other mechanisms uh for mps to be managed but um the treasurer can speak
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for that that is no longer mps are no longer part of the public health order no mps have not been
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part of the the mandate for legal advice uh around that but as i understand it not required
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um for mps in victoria as well yeah well get on of this lady she seems nice you are not being
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discriminated against you choose to do something that puts other people's lives at risk and you will
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be accountable you will be held accountable for that choice it is that simple that's what we're
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talking about here people who don't get the vaccine are making a choice you have a choice we all have
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choices to make we all get a choice you're making a choice that means you're more more likely to get
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covered and you're more likely to spread it to someone else and that is your choice it is your right
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i want to make that clear and i support that choice i'm just checking this bill says the freedom
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unvaccinated is more important than the freedom of the vaccinated really i don't think so
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not on my watch here's the thing being held accountable for your own actions isn't called
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discrimination it's called being you wouldn't believe it a goddamn bloody adult that's right
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being an adult it's putting others before yourself and that's what this country's supposed to be
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about that is why they're doing it one nation is the champion for the right for unvaccinated
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i don't think so it's not going to happen under my watch and i doubt very much if it's going to
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happen under premier gutwin's watch we're not going to stand for it the way out of lockdowns
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restrictions is vaccinations because there is nothing else on the table let's be honest about
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that it's the only weapon we have that's what we need to do sometimes sacrifices have to be made
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this bill flies in the face of all of that and that's why i absolutely oppose every every bit of it
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these people are unhinged but come on it's not going to get actually nazi would it i mean it couldn't
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couldn't right well i know what ron rosenbaum would say is there something genetically different
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between australians today and germans 80 years ago no we're the same men and women we probably have less
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liberal culture in our blood less history less knowledge less philosophy now than they did 80 years
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ago i mean we're not taught about liberal values anymore i think germany in the 1930s was probably
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more progressive more modern than we are now but they succumbed and again that was before the
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technology of today just as iran could do a holocaust in six seconds where it took hitler six years the
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australian police could do a gestapo through cell phone apps where it took the nazis or papers to do it
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one step at a time police had to be everywhere in nazi germany and the lands that the nazis conquered
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they needed everyone to cooperate they now they did have plenty of snitches and informants and
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collaborators wherever they went it's true but they still did need those people on the ground they didn't
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have the panopticon of our modern surveillance state facial recognition software ubiquitous closed
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circuit video cameras gps tracking your every moves credit card tracking big data ai they didn't have that
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back then i'm here to tell you that when germany and austria went nazi it happened in stages in steps
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and no one believed it would go all the way why what would they they just slowly conditioned themselves
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to the next step and the next step year by year the emergency was made permanent year by year the
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extreme solutions were slowly ratcheted up from banning jews and the nuremberg laws banning them from
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public life to banning them from life at all from a temporary solution to a final solution
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don't get caught up on the jews part just think of the ratchet effect of what you already today in 2021
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take as normal now the losses of civil liberties that have already been accepted and even adopted by you
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just think about that there is a flicker of hope i i see it in australia as the country gets worse than
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ever some people are rising up hundreds of thousands in melbourne i don't think any of them believe that
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they have a nazi as a premier in the state of victoria they don't they have a communist just as
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authoritarian um but they see his moves his emergency legislation to make him a de facto dictator they
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they see it not everyone sees it but hundreds of thousands now do boy i hope it's enough
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stay with us for more on this with andrew lawton
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well these days the kids say pics or it didn't happen as in show me the proof or i don't believe you
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that's pretty easy in an era of the ubiquitous cell phone camera in fact i think we have too many
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photos and too many videos but it's true i mean did anything even happen before the age of photography
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the civil war in the united states was one of the first photographed wars it's hard to imagine what wars
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looked like before then we just have paintings and portraits and stories and how credible are they
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and even when we think of the second world war and the holocaust although there was photography and
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video and film it wasn't called video then it was in black and white and it was usually grainy
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and i tell you these obvious things because when we think of tyranny in a historical setting
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we don't imagine it being normal in full color we imagine it being grainy and black and white and
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probably spoken in a german accent by people in military uniforms but i should tell you even if
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you don't know this holocaust happened in full color with normal people flesh and bone it's just that
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our recordings of it are in black and white and i tell you this because i tell you that if tyranny
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were to reemerge in the year 2021 and if it forgot to speak in a german accent and wear a nazi uniform
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would we detect it if tyranny came in the form of medical doctors would our guard be down as i told
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you the other day in the doctor's trial some of the most horrific crimes committed by the nazis
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were done not by military men but by medical doctors it was those disgraceful atrocious shocking
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experiments including those done by dr joseph bengala the so-called angel of death that led to
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the publication of the 10 principles of the nuremberg code so i say to you that if in the year 2021
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tyranny came with an md not a four-star general and if it came speaking english with a smile
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instead of a german with a scowl would we really be morally and politically emotionally ready to
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defend against it i don't think we would i don't think we have i think we've seen the proof of that
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this past year and a half but how odd it is that the country of austria the country of hitler's birth
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is the country taking the most tyrannical the most fascist approach to vaccine lockdowns even talking
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about forcibly jabbing people and imprisoning them at home forever if they don't comply i showed you
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this video before take a look that's in full color but if it were in black and white and if they were
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asking for your papers rather than your covid app would it be any different austria is leading the
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way here's their chancellor saying he could go harsher he wants to go harsher still he wished he did
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this before take a look ab montag for maximal 20 tage wird ein bundesweiter lockdown gelten der nach zehn
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tagen evaluiert wird er endet automatisch spätestens am 13 dezember ab diesen datum ab dem 13 dezember gilt
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für geimpfte und genesene kein lockdown mehr zum beschluss dass es ja rasch jetzt eine bundesweite
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impflicht in die wege leiten diese soll bereits ab ersten februar nächsten jahres 2022 gelten
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well that's just austria germany wants to get on the bandwagon across the european union we see the dark
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fascism reviving will it come to canada or is it already here joining us now via skype is our friend
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andrew lawton from tnc.news andrew i know i'm sounding quite dramatic and maybe even a little sad
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but the people who were in germany in the 30s were the most educated enlightened rational
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scientific thinkers of europe germany was the home of culture and learning and and literature and poetry
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and music these were not taliban illiterates these were the leaders of culture and they embraced if not
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at first eventually the worst fascism known is it possible that it could be happening again
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one thing that i i think is so paramount and you touched on it there ezra is that you need a
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population that's willing to go along with this and we oftentimes especially on the right tend to
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look at enumerated rights and freedoms as being the be-all and end-all the u.s bill of rights the
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canadian charter of rights and freedoms for all its flaws and and similar charters and constitutions
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around the world but none of these freedoms matter in the least if you don't have a culture
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that is committed to upholding them and i think you you've acknowledged the biggest danger here which
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is not that we have governments that are resorting to what i think are objectively tyrannical measures
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when it comes to uh the auspices of public health but that they're doing it with a population
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that is not only complacent but in in many respects encouraging and welcoming it
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you know there's so many similarities uh the nazi propaganda referred to jews as dirty
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as carrying disease of untermenschen and here we see and we learn from black locks recently
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that justin trudeau had polling prior to the last election that told him if he demonized
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the vac the unvaccinated as unclean threats to the west rest of society that would resonate
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with a sizable number of voters i mean one is unvaccinated one is jewish obviously that's a
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difference but the demonization of sectors of society i mean i i i guess it's true you can
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you can try and improve a culture over time but at the end of the day we're all sinners we all have
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these psychological blind spots there's hatred and fear in all of us and this is a reminder of how
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quickly a population can be weaponized against itself indeed and i think that's where the comparison
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is an important one i i don't go so far as to generally speaking in my commentary
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liken anything to the holocaust because the the final goal here is different we're not talking
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about a government agenda on extermination but we are talking about a systematic delegitimization
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and segregation and and denial of people's rights been the thing in austria that i i find so
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fascinating here and and i should say i i was actually uh just two weeks and a day ago i i got back
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from austria i was there on a holiday and i was sitting in a cafe and i was chatting with my wife
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and we were remarking about how how normal it all felt there compared to life in canada life in
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ontario specifically and it's amazing what a difference a few weeks can make that that place
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that was again feeling relatively free you had to use a vaccine passport but you could also use a
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negative test or proof of acquired immunity not perfect but better than the systems that we have
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in in place in in canadian provinces and and then you go forward a couple of weeks and we're talking
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about mandatory vaccination legitimately the threat of jail time the threat of jail time according to
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the guardian for people who by february are not vaccinated this is the only country in the world
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apart from turkmenistan which is generally not the company in like in which i like to find myself for
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matters of public policy the only western uh supposedly democratic country in the world to go this far
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and as we know with europe it's typically a case of them moving in packs germany is already acknowledging
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that it is not going to take anything off the table which is not exactly a comforting line from a german
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official for obvious reasons and numerous other countries as well that are seeing a demand from
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the who do increase to ramp up their measures and yesterday's conspiracy theory is today's public
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policy i said that on your show a couple of months ago and here we are with a vaccine mandate in place
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in a western nation i find it depressing i find it too on the nose that austria is one of the places where
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this public health fascism is returning um but on the other hand i see in australia which has gone nuts
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also now they're actually using the australian defense force their their army to literally round
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up people and take them to quarantine i mean it's like you say alex jones of infowars come back all is
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forgiven literally i mean what is there a single prediction he made that hasn't come true on this
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stuff but on the other hand in melbourne there were protests that the police themselves counted in the
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hundreds of thousands of people and i i don't know my australian domestic political history very
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well but it's got to have been a long time since hundreds of thousands of people mobilized and that
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made me think of other historical examples let's put aside the nazis for a bit the soviet union in the fall
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of the eastern bloc in poland where you had mass protests not that big but you had a million people
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hear the pope and you had the solidarity shipbuilding union movement and you did have people take to the
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streets and say enough is enough i don't know maybe they had an anonymity back then because they
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weren't tracked on their apps and there weren't facial recognition software they had their other
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spies i wonder i wonder what's going to happen if you have hundreds of thousands of people standing up
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in melbourne saying we don't accept this tyranny is it enough to stop it i i don't know and and will
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they be punished will they be more compliant than the solidarity protesters in poland some you know
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30 years ago well i i think it's an interesting question because one of the challenges in austria
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which has a relatively low vaccination rate compared to other countries especially in europe is that it has a
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political party that unlike in most countries you and i have been exploring is actually standing up
00:27:04.620
for freedom they have i believe it's called the austrian freedom party party or the freedom party of
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austria it's the third largest party in the austrian legislature and they have actually been standing up
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and standing firm against these mandates so in austria you actually do have represented in the political
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system some of these views and values that are being expressed in protests whether that will be enough to
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resist this i don't yet know but i i do think that we have the power of the ballot box and and whatever we
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are annoyed with when it comes to governments and democratically elected governments that then use
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their mandate to do any number of things that were not even on the table when people went to the polls
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you still have to hope that it's possible to get rid of these people and and replace them with someone
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that's going to take a much better a much better view of these things and and the challenge is that in in australia
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australia and and just actually i'll say back up and talk about canada justin trudeau has done things
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that you and i have talked about at great length and canadians voted him back in the problem is that
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a lot of these people in the streets i fear are not actually a majority yeah not just that but you're right
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to point out in austria at least they have the seed crystal of an official political party
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on their side showing them that they weren't alone in canada all ten provinces both the
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governments and the oppositions are in lockstep all five major parties in parliament in complete
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agreement on the essentials of the lockdown and the mandated vaccines so i think it's harder
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to break the conformity by the way uh solidarity in polo was 40 years ago i said 30.
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um i uh i'm worried about i don't know much about austrian politics but i i'm i've heard of
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some of these freedom-oriented parties there and in germany alternative for deutschland same sort of
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thing they have a they're a minority party that's for sure but they do they're sort of like the people's
00:29:00.060
party of canada but if they had elected some seeds and i think that there's a real chance
00:29:07.820
that those political parties may be criminalized for what they're saying and we've seen this
00:29:15.020
i saw the president of pfizer say that false criticisms of his vaccine should be
00:29:22.700
criminalized that's not too far away from what most governments in the west are talking about
00:29:27.500
doing on the internet uh katherine mckenna the disgraced former cabinet minister is tweeting about
00:29:33.500
how you should be banned uh from saying certain things on twitter that she disagrees with we know
00:29:40.300
that twitter bans ordinary people but i think that they're gonna in here's my prediction andrew
00:29:47.340
i predict that maxime bernier himself will be prosecuted in canada for some sort of thought crime
00:29:54.460
and that in in europe in these countries where you refer to i predict that there will be an attempt
00:29:59.260
to criminalize these freedom-oriented parties it's just a speculative prediction but i i fear
00:30:05.020
we're getting worse one of the dangers here that i would point out and i actually mentioned this in
00:30:10.940
a column this morning is that we we're talking about a country that has by virtue of making vaccines
00:30:17.340
mandatory and i don't mean mandatory to go to a restaurant or mandatory to get on a plane but
00:30:21.820
mandatory to exist as a citizen of austria a country that has made vaccination something over
00:30:27.100
which you no longer have the right to choose when a country has done that they've already accepted
00:30:33.020
that you as an individual do not have rights unless the state gives them to you they've already accepted
00:30:38.380
that the state has authority of over you once that fundamental premise is overcome everything else
00:30:44.860
is just a matter of degrees i think you're so right you know what you mentioned you were in austria
00:30:51.180
enjoying a lovely afternoon and then all of a sudden things got a lot worse i think that that's
00:30:55.660
what's happened for the last two years it's been a yo-yo it's been obedience conditioning uh like like
00:31:03.100
when you're training a new puppy you know give them a little freedom take it away give it away
00:31:07.900
practice conditioning them to be obedient and you know all the different waves the different um variations of
00:31:18.460
this virus the different walk downs i think they're demoralizing people they're trying to destabilize
00:31:24.780
people make them dejected make them tired make them forget that this whole thing was supposed
00:31:30.460
to be a temporary emergency i think that it will never end until people decide for it to end i think
00:31:38.700
relying on the political and bureaucratic public health deep state to end it is unrealistic here's
00:31:44.860
a clip of fauci saying get used to taking boosters a couple times here for the rest of your life here's
00:31:51.340
a clip of that we would hope and and and this is something that we're looking at very carefully
00:31:56.780
that that dirt shot with the mrna not only boosts you way up but increases the durability so that you
00:32:04.700
will not necessarily need it every six months or a year we're hoping it pushes it out more if it doesn't
00:32:11.900
and the data show we do need it more often then we'll do it i really think that if we don't have a leader
00:32:18.300
like a ron desantis of florida we will never be out of this if you had to and i i know it's unfair to
00:32:25.660
ask you this but andrew if you had to predict do you think that this public health emergency will
00:32:33.420
become permanent i i think elements of it will be uh you know for example i i don't think that a
00:32:41.100
maskless air travel is ever coming back or not in the foreseeable future and i i do think that to some
00:32:46.220
extent if we have people tracking the severity of various annual flus i i could see flu shots
00:32:52.620
becoming subject to a vaccine passport because as i said once you've already overcome the hurdle
00:32:57.580
that this is a normal way to run society everything else is just a matter of how far you want to take
00:33:03.180
it or how you want to specifically apply it so the idea of saying but you can't do that because we we
00:33:08.780
reject that we've already gotten rid of that this is no longer an encroachment of rights it's an
00:33:13.260
obliteration of them so i i do think that aspects of this are here to stay and i do think that the
00:33:18.540
danger of it is that because that trend you just mentioned of people feeling so demoralized and
00:33:23.260
dejected has become such a force people will take whatever crumbs of liberty they're thrown if i i put
00:33:30.620
out a poll question on twitter an informal question last week about maskless air travel and i had people
00:33:36.140
saying you shouldn't complain you know that that's just you know fine that's just the price of getting
00:33:40.380
back to normal now and people that do not like masks they don't love wearing them they don't
00:33:44.940
love being told they have to but they're just so demoralized that it can get any better that they'll
00:33:50.540
take whatever they're given well i like you very much andrew but you've made me very sad today
00:33:57.100
um likewise that's right it was a it was a doomed to fail from the beginning i think well it's great to
00:34:02.300
see you i keep uh encouraging our people to follow your stuff at tnc.news and all our friends at true
00:34:08.700
north and of course on the andrew lawton show great to see you my friend thanks for coming on the show
00:34:13.340
thank you all right there you have it stay with us
00:34:26.860
hey welcome back your viewer feedback alberta patriot one says just like the legion the salvation
00:34:33.420
army have abandoned all their morals and have joined the globalist clowns in their evil agendas
00:34:39.020
neither one will get my nickel from my family ever get woke and go broke yeah i am sure that these
00:34:46.620
organizations are overwhelmingly staffed with great people but there's a few woke executives at the top
00:34:53.660
who have made these terrible decisions i i've seen it in the legion i've seen politically correct people
00:34:58.780
uh in the head office of the legion bring in absurd policies that surely don't represent the
00:35:04.140
membership i think that's the same thing going on here in the salvation army and i hope they they
00:35:08.700
get a course correction someone with the friendly nickname our leaders lie says wow this christmas is
00:35:15.820
going to be great i won't be supporting any business that asks anything personal about my medical info
00:35:21.740
and any business who pushes it on their staff talk with your money and don't give it to drug pushers
00:35:28.300
well that's going to be tough it's sort of like deciding you're not going to buy things from china
00:35:33.740
that really does limit it thing is i mean there was a restaurant i walked into they wouldn't let me in and
00:35:40.620
the staffer who i presume was a minimum wage waiter said look it's not me it's my boss and if i had
00:35:45.420
talked to the boss he'd probably say it's not me it's the police i think you have to go to the root of
00:35:50.460
the problem but it's also terrible that there's such total compliance amongst the masses and
00:35:55.820
anyone who shows any independence the state crushes them into powder that's what that show of force
00:36:01.660
against adam skelly and his barbecue last year was all about well that's the show for tonight until
00:36:08.460
tomorrow on behalf of all of us here at rebel world headquarters to you at home good night and keep
00:36:13.420
fighting for freedom and let me leave you with an interview from alberta's provincial conservative
00:36:19.180
party's conference over the weekend where our adam sos and other teammates were reporting on the
00:36:24.460
inside asking questions of a government that we generally criticize but unlike other governments
00:36:29.980
they actually let us into their party i'll leave you with that until tomorrow bye bye
00:36:38.300
well good afternoon it's great to be here as we wrap up the united conservative party's
00:36:43.100
2021 agm alberta is back it's on a roll alberta's on the rise and that is certainly the spirit that i
00:36:50.300
felt from the 1600 delegates here this weekend with adam happy to take your questions good afternoon
00:36:56.060
premier adam sos from rebel news i think it's fair to say that there's potentially a bit of a trust
00:37:00.700
issue among perhaps the more civic libertarian minded people in alberta at the calgary stampede breakfast
00:37:07.100
you boasted about reverting a hundred-year-old mandatory vaccine law you also said that vax
00:37:12.380
passports would violate health privacy laws months later despite commitments to oppose these vaccine
00:37:18.460
passports they were implemented minister lagrange has now called that there would be no vaccine
00:37:23.980
passports for those aged 5 through 11. how can we know that that commitment will be upheld
00:37:29.260
adam sos here for revolt news and this is the final day of the united conservative party annual
00:37:38.060
general meeting this is a much shorter day policies and motions will not be debated this is largely
00:37:44.620
election preparation and socialization for some people but there will be a media scrum today and that
00:37:51.260
is ultimately what we're here for we're hoping to bring some tough questions well good afternoon it's
00:37:56.620
great to be here as we wrap up the united conservative party's 2021 agm we didn't even
00:38:02.380
think we would be able to have an in-person agm not long ago in fact the decision to hold this meeting
00:38:07.260
wasn't made until about a month ago so we put together uh this incredibly successful uh gathering of
00:38:14.780
grassroots conservatives in just four weeks time with over 1600 registered delegates that's the largest
00:38:20.700
uh agm that we've had since our founding convention as a party back in 2017 just the spirit of positivity
00:38:27.900
in the halls um i've had a chance to speak to hundreds of delegates from all across the province
00:38:32.380
and was so uh profoundly encouraged by them uh to uh about the performance of the government and
00:38:39.180
and delivering on our commitments to albertans the 83 percent of our platform commitments that we delivered
00:38:43.900
on uh the huge economic renewal as i said in my speech yesterday it's clear that while we still
00:38:49.820
have a way to go uh to be careful on covid that alberta's economy is recovering uh leading the
00:38:56.700
country in economic recovery rick bell calgary sun you seem very very happy today and uh that's obvious
00:39:04.060
um you talked about the how you felt about gathering with the people and the reaction you had
00:39:10.540
what is your plan apart from covid what is your plan to win back the hearts and minds of albertans
00:39:16.860
as opposed to just the party members that were here today well the plan is to focus on the priorities
00:39:23.180
of albertans which i believe obviously is getting through what's left of covid safely and then seeing
00:39:30.460
real strong economic recovery this government was elected on a platform to have jobs economy and pipelines
00:39:38.860
and we have seen the completion of one pipeline we're on progress before the completion of a second
00:39:44.780
we've seen alberta nearly leading the country in job growth 90 000 net new jobs this year and on the
00:39:50.380
economy obviously there's incredibly good news and much more to come many of the announced
00:39:56.220
investment announcements that we have made over the past few months actually go into the ground in 2022
00:40:02.060
and 2023 which means that as we approach the next election albertans are going to see
00:40:07.260
tangible proof everywhere they go about uh an economy that is uh moving on all cylinders so i think that
00:40:16.140
uh as is usually the case uh the the key issue in the next election will be uh who best can uh continue
00:40:24.380
that economic growth and recovery and i think it will be evident that the policies of the conservative
00:40:30.060
government have put us in that position so we will continue to focus on albertans priorities
00:40:34.860
uh and that means job number one jobs in the economy uh but it also means uh continuing uh to stand up
00:40:43.180
for this province continue the fight for a fair deal and of course the broader theme of making life better
00:40:48.780
for albertans but i think we'll be we will be judged in the spring of 2023 uh based on how we performed
00:40:56.060
on the commitments that we made i'm confident that we will by that time have delivered on well over 90
00:41:03.980
percent of our election commitments from 2019 and the most important being uh that i think we will be
00:41:11.180
far exceeding far exceeding uh our uh our commitments in terms of economic uh and job growth good afternoon
00:41:18.700
premier adam sos from rebel news i think it's fair to say that there's potentially a bit of a trust issue
00:41:23.660
among perhaps the more civic libertarian minded uh people uh in alberta at the calgary stampede breakfast
00:41:29.740
you boasted about reverting a hundred-year-old mandatory vaccine law you also said that vax
00:41:35.020
passports would violate health privacy laws months later despite commitments to oppose these vaccine
00:41:41.100
passports they were implemented minister lagrange has now called that there would be no vaccine
00:41:46.620
passports for those aged 5 through 11. how can we know that that commitment will be upheld
00:41:52.540
well first of all adam thank you for the question uh we did amend the public health act this spring
00:41:57.980
following uh the advice of a legislative legislature committee to remove the power of mandatory
00:42:04.700
inoculation that had been in that law since 1910 so alberta no longer has the legal power to compel
00:42:12.220
somebody to be to be vaccinated and we did that precisely to underscore that at the end of the day
00:42:18.220
people will choose whether or not they get vaccinated we obviously strongly encourage them to do so the
00:42:23.500
restriction exemption and program in no way constitutes a mandatory vaccination it applies to discretionary
00:42:31.260
activities activities that are not necessary for uh for for basic the exercise of uh basic life uh this
00:42:38.780
is things like going to nightclubs and casinos uh hockey games and uh and concerts um where the chance of
00:42:45.740
viral transmission is extremely high we know that 90 percent of people in icus have been unvaccinated
00:42:50.620
and we know that we were uh very close to completely exceeding the maximum capacity of
00:42:55.820
of critical care in our hospital system so we had to do something and it was either that or revert to uh
00:43:02.860
brutally tough widespread shutdowns of businesses potentially schools places of worship so i think we
00:43:08.940
we did what was necessary um to allow society to continue to function openly while limiting spread
00:43:15.660
and protecting our health care system in terms of the school uh this children uh between the
00:43:20.780
ages of five and eleven as you know health canada has now authorized the use of the pfizer pediatric
00:43:26.300
vaccine uh for kids in that age age range and we encourage parents to look carefully at the
00:43:32.620
scientific evidence about the safety and efficacy of those vaccines while at the same time recognizing
00:43:37.420
that children at in that age are at a much lower risk than adults of severe outcomes
00:43:42.060
um and because of that we don't think it's uh it's necessary and for a fact i think it would be
00:43:48.860
wrong to effectively uh punish little kids in doing things like sports activities and and uh
00:43:56.140
uh and and basic uh basic activities uh because their parents have chosen not to get them vaccinated
00:44:02.780
the choice is not the children's choice the choice is their parents choice um and so i don't think we
00:44:08.140
uh there's not a compelling public health need there because children of that age range with
00:44:13.580
almost no exceptions they don't end up in hospital we've had um zero deaths in covet under the age of
00:44:18.940
18 um uh typically at most we might have one person under the age of 18 in an icu uh so there is no
00:44:25.900
compelling public health need uh to do that and and uh and furthermore our polling indicates that
00:44:31.500
that roughly 50 percent of parents of children in that age range age range do not intend to have their
00:44:37.100
five to 11 year olds vaccinated so again we wouldn't want to create a situation where um
00:44:42.140
you know six-year-olds can't go to a birthday party at a restaurant because their parents didn't get
00:44:45.900
them vaccinated and a quick follow-up um when on the horizon can we expect vaccine mandates to
00:44:51.580
dissipate um there are there is a percentage of the population who will not be vaccinated
00:44:55.740
um can they expect to live like this forever what's the prospect so we will maintain the
00:45:00.860
restriction exemption program through the winter because of the uh prospect of uh of um seasonal
00:45:08.620
headwinds of cold weather forcing more people indoors of potential waning of immunity both from
00:45:15.340
prior infection and from vaccines we need to be careful through the winter months
00:45:19.740
so we've said that we'll maintain the program at least into the first quarter of next year
00:45:23.900
i very much hope i very much hope that by that time we will see um uh with higher vaccine rates
00:45:31.420
hopefully by that time by next spring will be over 90 first dose coverage uh we'll have had a wider
00:45:37.500
rollout of uh booster shots uh we'll have seen the pediatric vaccines for those who want them
00:45:43.420
and and um and so i'm very hopeful that by uh towards the end of the first quarter of next year
00:45:51.020
we can end the restriction exemption program the idea is not to have this as a permanent
00:45:55.100
feature of our society and i said in my speech yesterday that we must move forward um to manage
00:46:02.140
risk the risk of covid while getting on with our lives and so we are focused on increasing uh icu capacity
00:46:11.020
in wider use of rapid tests and um and and wider use of therapeutics like monoclonal antibody therapies
00:46:19.260
uh as a strategy going forward to manage risk well there you have it folks that is a wrap on our
00:46:26.780
coverage of the 2021 united conservative party agm jason kenney certainly saw the event through rose
00:46:34.300
colored glasses for the rest of us present here despite more support than we likely expected for
00:46:39.500
jason kenney there are still seeds of division here we were happy to be here and we thank you for
00:46:45.020
your support in helping us be here to cover this event and to cover the other side of the story
00:46:49.740
as always i want to thank you for tuning in for rebel news i'm adam sos
00:46:56.700
as always we are out here telling the other side of the story asking the questions that you want
00:47:01.340
answers to if you want to help us bringing you this side of the story you can chip in at realreporters.ca