Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Candice Malcolm on the rise of independent media and the collapse of legacy trust

00:00:00.000 Tonight, a feature interview with Candace Malcolm, the founder of True North and Juno News.

00:00:06.300 You're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:11.520 When Rebel News started 10 years ago, there really wasn't a lot of independent journalism

00:00:28.540 in Canada. In fact, there really wasn't a lot in the West or in the world. I could count on one

00:00:34.380 hand's fingers the outlets that were trying to be independent citizen journalists. Believe it or

00:00:39.600 not, one of the inspirations for us was a left-wing channel called The Young Turks out of LA. And then

00:00:45.940 it was Glenn Beck's The Blaze. And that's about it. Well, I'm delighted to say that not only in Canada,

00:00:51.920 but in places like the UK, independent journalism, citizen journalism is thriving. Now, on the one

00:00:58.080 hand, we no longer have a monopoly like Rebel News used to on the independent journalism side. But

00:01:04.280 on the other hand, we're no longer lonely. We have allies. And I believe the market is so large

00:01:09.720 that there is so much room for people who want to challenge the regime media, as I call it,

00:01:15.920 that I have adopted the approach of Rebel News to be friends, even with our nominal competitors.

00:01:22.080 And one of my favorite sources of independent journalism in Canada that is not Rebel News

00:01:27.400 are the good folks at True North and Juneau News. And what a delight to have with us for

00:01:33.660 the entirety of today's show, my friend Candice Malcolm, the founder of True North and co-founder

00:01:39.180 of Juneau News. Candice, great to see you and congratulations on your successes.

00:01:44.040 Well, thank you so much, Ezra, and for that introduction, you know, I worked at the Rebel

00:01:47.880 at the very beginning and I've always been a huge admirer of what you do. I really feel like

00:01:52.060 you have been a mentor. You're the godfather of independent journalism in Canada and free speech

00:01:56.760 in Canada. So many of us are sort of following in your footsteps and able to do what we do

00:02:01.780 because of you. So I've always felt that we work together. We kind of do different things

00:02:06.600 in the media journalism space. But I think that it's stronger than ever. And even, you know,

00:02:12.380 to see from my perspective, younger, I think they call themselves influencers now, but the

00:02:17.520 young conservative influencers who are really have big followings on X and on YouTube and they're

00:02:23.160 kind of continuing this new stage of independent journalism, they don't even care what the legacy

00:02:28.500 media says, right? Like we're out here fighting the CBC and the Globe and Mail and trying to correct

00:02:32.620 the record on things that they're saying. And you people in their 20s, they don't even, it's not

00:02:37.300 even on their radar what's happening on the CBC because they don't care and it's not relevant

00:02:40.600 because the CBC has just lost the plot and they're so, you know, out in the woods just wandering

00:02:46.220 around talking to themselves, navel gazing, and not actually reporting on the important things that

00:02:50.180 Canadians care about. So I think we've created a whole new world, a whole new ecosystem. And it's

00:02:54.920 a great time to be an independent journalist. You're so right. And first of all, thanks for

00:02:58.240 your kind words. But you're right. When Rebel News started, I think I had a bit of an inferiority

00:03:02.740 complex about the raising media. I said, oh, we're not as reputable. We're not as large. And so it's

00:03:08.040 always been in the back of my mind. We got to show them. But you're right. This whole new generation

00:03:11.940 of influencers, they barely know what the CBC is. Of course, they don't read the Globe and Mail.

00:03:17.560 It's sort of awesome. Nowhere have I seen that change more than in London. I used to go and

00:03:22.620 cover Tommy Robinson's cases and I would be the only journalist outside court. Last couple of times

00:03:27.800 I went there, literally 20, 20 different citizen journalists from very rough folks with an old

00:03:35.440 phone to very sophisticated rigs and systems and staff. And I think the need is, it's a response to

00:03:44.420 a demand. People just don't believe the BBC, the CBC, the Globe. So I don't know. It's an exciting

00:03:51.340 trend to see. And you're right. 10 years ago, you had to convince people, well, you can trust us and

00:03:56.880 here's if you want to chip in, here's this new way. But now people are used to chipping in a

00:04:03.320 subscription here or there. That's an important part of it, the funding, isn't it? Because we don't

00:04:06.860 take government money. So the fact that people are used to chipping in five bucks or 10 bucks a month

00:04:12.140 for streaming things, they're now used to paying for independent journalism too.

00:04:17.460 Well, you're right. Because I think at the very beginning, it was a credibility issue, right? It's

00:04:20.720 like, well, you need to read the legacy media to know what's true. And then if you want a different

00:04:24.500 opinion, you can tune into Ezra or Candace and you can get the opinion side. Whereas I think that it

00:04:29.260 was really during COVID that the legacy media lied so much and it was so obvious they couldn't keep

00:04:34.680 the story straight. They couldn't tell us the truth and they just lost so much trust. And the

00:04:39.360 political situation has shifted too, right? Like in the UK, you're talking about, I remember I went

00:04:44.860 over to London to report on Tommy Robinson. And at the time, I think people thought that he was sort

00:04:49.260 of a fringe character. I have friends in the UK, friends from London who have kind of come around

00:04:53.600 on Tommy and he's become a more mainstream person who's just speaking the truth about the very obvious

00:05:00.040 problems with mass immigration, unchecked migration, bringing in people from the third world that don't

00:05:05.520 have any cultural fit in our country, in the UK or in Canada. And again, those opinions are now very

00:05:11.620 mainstream at the time. There were only a few people saying it. And now I think it's just obvious to

00:05:16.160 absolutely everybody that open border mass immigration has been a total failure.

00:05:20.540 Yeah. I want to talk a lot more about those things. You've talked about freedom of speech.

00:05:24.500 You've talked about, you know, mass immigration. Let's come back to that. But just give us one minute.

00:05:28.940 Um, I think I understand the difference between True North and Juno and our friend Keen Bexley,

00:05:35.380 who was with Canada Signal. He's also a Rebel alumnus. Help me understand what you guys are

00:05:40.640 building just because I know some of our viewers might also be trying to understand what's the

00:05:44.480 difference between True North and Juno. Yeah, I totally get this. And, and, you know,

00:05:48.700 it's a complicated structure just because we're operating in the Canadian system. And so True North

00:05:53.180 is a charity and they do written journalism. So they are journalists. This is still the same

00:05:58.960 team that we had before. Uh, they're out there writing the news. We have journalists all over

00:06:03.240 the country, uh, doing straight news. So not opinion journalism, but, you know, we do have

00:06:08.080 investigative journalists doing kind of deep dive. We have a crime reporter. We have our day-to-day

00:06:12.120 sort of political reporters. And so they do the written news.

00:06:15.020 So who would be some of the staff there? Is Melanie Bennett one of them?

00:06:17.380 Melanie Bennett.

00:06:17.780 She's great. I've interviewed before. Oh, she's doing great stuff.

00:06:20.300 She's very good. Uh, Cosmin Georgia, who was familiar. Alex Zoltan's a crime reporter. There's,

00:06:25.520 there's a, there's about a dozen of these, uh, young journalists. They're all, you know,

00:06:29.200 very talented, hungry, um, great team over there. And so, so, so that exists. And then Juno News was

00:06:35.940 a project that I launched with our friend, our mutual friend, Kian Bexty, who was the founder of

00:06:40.780 The Counter Signal. And so this is a platform, like a podcasting platform, news platform. Uh, we,

00:06:46.620 we carry True North's journalism. So, so True North is a wire service and we publish the news.

00:06:52.060 We're the publishers of that news. And then on top of that, you get podcasts to, uh, familiar

00:06:56.000 people like, uh, Mark Petrone and Chris Sims. Um, Alexander Brown has a podcast with us, myself,

00:07:01.680 Kian Bexty. Uh, there's sort of a host of, of, of different characters that you can find

00:07:05.260 on YouTube or on our website, JunoNews.com. And so it's a subscription service. Uh, people pay

00:07:10.520 to have access to everything and you get the written journalism from True North, but then you

00:07:14.480 also get, uh, the opinion side and a podcast side, uh, for myself and the team of others.

00:07:19.300 Well, that's great. I, I mean, it's, it's a pretty large operation.

00:07:23.120 Yeah. Yeah. We're growing. And I think, I think that was sort of the idea of it behind

00:07:26.540 Kian and I coming together. We wanted to join forces and create something that was bigger

00:07:30.700 than just the two, just True North and Counter Signal. And I think we really have, we've reached

00:07:35.080 a new audience. Uh, we have big staff. We have, uh, you know, a lot of things. We have a documentary

00:07:39.440 coming out in a couple, couple months and yeah, we're just able to sort of do more with, with more

00:07:44.520 resources and we're having a lot of fun. Well, that's great. I mean, uh, when, when you talk

00:07:49.240 about True North being a kind of newswire, I don't think ordinary people understand the power that

00:07:54.680 newswires have because one journalist with Reuters or Canadian press can be in hundreds, even thousands

00:08:04.440 of news outlets. And so if that one newswire reporter has a certain bias or makes an error,

00:08:11.520 it is so wide. And, and I think that historically newswires have been left of center. They've all

00:08:17.980 had a particular ideology. Certainly Canadian press is extremely leftist activist. And I bet most people

00:08:25.140 don't even know that they're reading it because they're picking up the Calgary Sun. They're picking

00:08:28.780 up the national post. They're picking up the global mail and they're reading a wire story and they

00:08:33.900 don't even know. People don't check the name of who wrote it. And like, so I think that people are

00:08:39.280 consuming this group think vanilla leftism and they don't even realize it. Well, that's exactly

00:08:44.820 right. Like most people don't realize that almost all the news stories in the legacy media, whether

00:08:48.620 you're reading it on CTV's website or the Globe and Mail or even the Toronto Sun or the sort of

00:08:53.460 traditionally conservative papers. And it's written by the same handful of hacks. And the way that they

00:08:57.940 write stories, the lens through which they interpret the world is the same as the CBC. It is,

00:09:03.040 like you said, it's groupthink. It's lazy. It's unoriginal. And it's basically just, you know,

00:09:09.080 Canadians bad, refugees good, right? Like that's basically in a nutshell what it is. And so the 1.00

00:09:14.000 idea was, no, we need journalists, reporters out there doing the research, doing the investigations,

00:09:19.840 telling the truth, telling the stories, not through this lens. So it is a competitor to the Canadian 0.94

00:09:25.320 press. I hope that, you know, eventually maybe newspapers, maybe even mainstream media will pick up

00:09:30.240 our stories rather than the Canadian press or in addition to it, just so that Canadians get a better

00:09:34.560 sense of what's actually happening in the country, not just what, you know, the establishment elite

00:09:38.800 leftists want you to believe.

00:09:40.200 So if True North is like the newswire service and Juno is like the particular publication and it's more

00:09:47.000 podcast oriented, are you accepting other customers for True North wire service or not yet?

00:09:54.820 Not yet, but we will. We will. We're getting to that point.

00:09:56.820 Something Rebel News might consider. I love the journalists you listed. I mean, I know Zoltan,

00:10:02.800 Georgia and Bennett. I think they're brave. I think they're not afraid to be,

00:10:08.020 to challenge the status quo. So when you guys are ready to take on customers,

00:10:13.420 we do subscribe to the Canadian press wire service photos. And my theory there is you can't,

00:10:19.100 you can sort of lie with a photo, but we need photos to populate our stories. But I'd love to

00:10:24.120 be a customer. Sounds like a deal.

00:10:27.380 Well, I'll wait for you to let me know that that's the thing. But I mean, part of the power of the wire

00:10:32.240 service is that the stories go in lots of places. I've seen, I've seen competitive efforts,

00:10:38.020 like that in the United States.

00:10:39.200 Yeah, we're talking about the Daily Caller, right? The idea is that they have this nonprofit

00:10:42.560 media outlet, because I think, you know, the Trudeau government did a lot of things wrong.

00:10:47.460 One of the things they did, though, was that they created a charitable status for journalism

00:10:50.680 outlets. I think that you and I as well, both of us, were kind of leading that charge and that

00:10:55.340 people are willing to pay for journalism that they like and that they enjoy and that they

00:11:00.200 appreciate. And actually, it's not just that they're paying for the service of being able to

00:11:03.280 read it. They think it's a social good. And they believe in it so much, they're willing

00:11:07.180 to reach into their own pockets and donate money to make sure that other Canadians see

00:11:11.380 it. So in a lot of ways, you know, they don't want us to put it behind a paywall. They want

00:11:14.840 everyone to be able to read it. They want everyone to be able to see it. And they're willing to pay

00:11:17.540 even more because, you know, the people who are in the comfortable position where they're

00:11:21.620 retired or maybe they're close to retirement and they have a bit of extra cash, you know, that's

00:11:25.480 something that they believe in and they want to put their money towards it. And so with this new

00:11:29.280 status that we are hopefully going to be able to get soon, it will mean that anyone can donate

00:11:34.060 and it will go towards journalism that will allow more Canadians to read the truth and be aware of

00:11:38.640 some of the problems that, you know, the CBC and legacy media just would prefer that we not talk

00:11:42.660 about, not even know about. And so they deliberately don't cover the kinds of stories that we do.

00:11:47.660 Let me ask you a question. You mentioned the UK and how some of the battles there, you know,

00:11:52.920 I call it like dystopian time machine. I go to the UK and I think, oh my God,

00:11:57.540 that's going to be us in five years. I mean, I really do think I get a sneak peek at our future

00:12:02.420 there. And I try and cover it from over here. I fly over there probably once a month.

00:12:08.840 How do you guys approach international stories? Do you sort of let that be to others? Or I'm just

00:12:14.940 curious, do you think it's important? Like the United States is such a big influence on all our

00:12:20.400 politics and there's so many more conservative and freedom oriented people there. What's your approach

00:12:25.860 being towards the U.S.? Do you sort of just focus on Canada for now?

00:12:29.020 I would say that we like, you know, what's happening in the U.S. is usually very interesting,

00:12:33.220 right? I follow it very closely. I'm kind of like a news junkie. So I like to know what's going on

00:12:37.680 all over the place. You know, sometimes there's big stories, big tragedies, like what happened in

00:12:42.900 Bondi Beach or what happened to Charlie Kirk that just, you know, they affect the entire world and

00:12:46.960 certainly the conservative world or, you know, in the case of the massacre. I mean,

00:12:50.480 anybody like the Jewish community, but also Christians and also people worried about mass

00:12:55.900 migration and radicalism and everything like that. So, you know, for me personally, I'm aware

00:13:02.280 of it all and I might talk about it here and there on my show, but the focus of the show always has to

00:13:05.820 be Canada, right? And same with True North. We have reporters all over the country and there's so many

00:13:10.600 interesting things happening in Canada. Sometimes our politics is actually more interesting than what's

00:13:14.420 happening in the States. But, you know, we really want to get into the communities, into the local

00:13:20.280 level and tell the stories that are just not being told. So I feel like there's enough things for us

00:13:25.060 to talk about here in Canada that we don't always need to focus as much on international stories. But

00:13:29.160 obviously, you're right that things that happen elsewhere, in some ways they're foreshadowing what

00:13:33.940 might happen in Canada. Sometimes that's already happened in Canada and now it's happening in the

00:13:37.940 United States or now it's happening in Australia and they're following us and we're the kind of

00:13:41.340 cautionary tale of, you know, what you don't want, for instance, when it comes to a national

00:13:45.800 euthanasia policy or, you know, many other social issues that Canada has gone so wrong. And so again,

00:13:52.060 our focus is always Canada. Back in 2019, True North and Rebel News were kept out of the national

00:14:00.960 leaders debate in the election. And both True North and Rebel News went to court and it was sort of a

00:14:05.760 miracle. We won. And the government was ordered to accredit Andrew Lawton, who at the time was a

00:14:10.720 journalist with True North. And I can't remember, I think it was Kian Beckstein, someone else.

00:14:14.460 Oh yeah, it was Kian, yeah. 0.64

00:14:15.320 If I recall. And we've had that battle with him again in 2021 and then they just sort of surrendered

00:14:20.040 this year. How are you guys treated by gatekeeping politicians? We had great access to Alberta's

00:14:29.100 Premier Daniels, but maybe that's because I knew her from college or something. I don't know. I think

00:14:33.520 she's generally more free speechy. She's not afraid. But to this day, we remain blocked by the

00:14:41.080 Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa. And Mark Carney and his staff wouldn't let us within a million

00:14:46.880 miles. Is that how they treat you also or is that sort of a rebel thing?

00:14:52.620 No, I think that's how they treat anybody who's not part of the official government press or the

00:14:57.340 regime media, as you call them. I think that certainly the liberals, anyone in Ottawa, it's tough,

00:15:02.900 right? I was able to interview Pierre Polyev last year, well, I guess earlier this year before the

00:15:10.320 election. And that was great. And I was able to do that, I think partially just because I knew Pierre

00:15:14.580 from before and he's a friend with my husband. And so I was able to just text him and I got an

00:15:18.420 interview with him. But it is a bit harder with any Ottawa politician. I think that the thing that's

00:15:24.300 changed, though, is that the independent media, we have a big audience, right? And so a lot of

00:15:29.920 conservative MPs are willing to talk to us just because that's where their voters are getting

00:15:34.540 their news from. Alberta, I think I feel like we're mainstream in Alberta. It's not even like

00:15:38.980 we're independent. It's like we are the kind of more establishment mainstream media there. And it's

00:15:43.420 the legacy media that's a bit more fringe. And so I think I think Western Canada kind of gets it a bit

00:15:48.060 more. Still a bit of a challenge in Ottawa, but it's never easy. And I think that's the reason behind

00:15:53.920 the independent press gallery and why we have that, because it's like, you know, just because we don't

00:15:57.780 work for one of these legacy organizations that literally gets funded by the Kearney government

00:16:02.000 doesn't mean that we're any less of journalists or any less right to tell our stories. And I think

00:16:06.700 that's a pretty compelling point. Yeah. That goes to my earlier point. And maybe this is too much of a

00:16:11.940 psychological confession on my part. For years, I was focused on we were small, they were big, we

00:16:17.940 didn't have a reputation, they did. And now, I mean, I stopped counting when our combined views and

00:16:24.740 impressions hit two billion. I mean, I could add, I could go and add it up. But I don't even care

00:16:30.280 anymore. I just know that some of our videos in one day, we'll get as much as the CBC, the national,

00:16:38.500 and we're just a little YouTube channel, really. So I'm not as shy about it anymore. How has the CBC,

00:16:47.460 the Global Mail, the Toronto Star reacted to independent media? Because at first, they sort of said,

00:16:53.280 oh, isn't that cute? You kids at the kids' table, they're good on you. Like, that's how they treated

00:16:57.700 Rebel when we were born. They thought we were completely harmless. They thought it was cute.

00:17:02.940 Then they thought, oh, my God, they're growing like crazy. Must destroy. Now, how would you say 0.99

00:17:09.360 they regard Juno, True North, Rebel News, any independents now? And I'm curious, because

00:17:18.100 on the one hand, they don't want to give us any credit. On the other hand, they want to undo us

00:17:23.460 when they can. What's your opinion? No, they'll never give us any credit. The only time they pay

00:17:27.100 any attention to us, Ezra, is when they're so outraged about something that we would dare to

00:17:31.380 report, right? Like, I think of Andrew Coyne, like, clutching his fists and his pearls over our

00:17:37.320 former journalist, Harrison Faulkner, reporting about arson and forest fires. Because, of course,

00:17:41.700 the Trudeau government wanted everyone to believe that it was just climate change causing all of these

00:17:45.040 forest fires. And then when you look at the reports and statistics, and you find that, like, 95% of

00:17:49.200 them are actually arson and man-caused. And so it was very outrageous that we would report that.

00:17:55.120 Myself, during the election, right before the election, I put out a report, and two of my

00:17:59.000 reporters did really good work looking into Mark Carney's daughter, Sasha Carney, who's actually...

00:18:05.700 That's legit. That's a legit story.

00:18:07.700 Who is actually, yeah, not... She doesn't identify as a daughter anymore because she has tranced. And so

00:18:12.960 the idea that our prime minister allowed his own daughter to be tranced as a teenager,

00:18:18.340 she went to the discredited Tavistock Clinic. She wrote about it, right? This wasn't like...

00:18:23.260 It wasn't like we went into her diary.

00:18:24.700 She's a public activist. That's why it's a legit story, because she made it public. 0.99

00:18:28.340 Right. Like, the legacy media treated it like we went in and stole her diary or something and

00:18:32.540 published her secret writing. She's an activist. She's writing essays about it and talking about a

00:18:37.740 double mastectomy and all this kind of stuff, right? And so it's like, you know what?

00:18:40.480 Right. Like, the prime minister allowed his own daughter to do that. And I think that's

00:18:44.840 in the public interest. I think Canadians deserve to know. I stand by that story. I stand by the

00:18:48.720 report. It's important. And, you know, yes, it's personal. Maybe I would have, you know,

00:18:53.700 going back, maybe I would have changed the headline or the way that we presented the story. But still,

00:18:57.640 I think it's a public interest to know that our prime minister went down that rabbit hole and allowed

00:19:02.540 his own family member to do something like that. And I think it's unfortunate that the conservatives

00:19:06.860 sort of felt the need to denounce me for that report. But the thing, just to go back to your

00:19:12.180 question, you know, when I put out that report, the legacy media really paid attention and they

00:19:16.840 did it to totally discredit me. Like, how dare you? In Canada, we never talk about politicians,

00:19:20.780 families and all this kind of stuff, which, you know, maybe that's a fair point, except for that

00:19:24.260 that's not true. They go after Anna Polly, I care Polly's wife all the time. They used to go after 0.80

00:19:28.500 Stephen Harper for the way that he treated his children member when he gave his son Ben a handshake

00:19:32.020 on the way to school. And that was, you know, the top news story in the country. Of course they go

00:19:36.540 after politicians, families. But when I did it, it was totally off, you know, unacceptable and out

00:19:42.840 of bounds. And they condemned me from the highest rooftop for that. And so that's when they pay

00:19:47.460 attention to us, when they're outraged over something that we report. Yeah. There's a real

00:19:50.920 clubbiness to it. I mean, there's something on CBC called the At Issue Panel. And it's normally

00:19:57.320 Rosemary Barton in Ottawa, Andrew Korn in Toronto, Althea Raj, who was Trudeau's authorized biographer

00:20:04.360 in Ottawa, and another lady whose name I... Chantal Ebert. Chantal Ebert from Montreal. It's been that

00:20:11.720 same, and they're starting to resemble each other. It's like old married couples that start to look 0.99

00:20:16.900 like each other. I think these three or four of them are starting, in my mind, they're all blending

00:20:22.100 together. And they haven't... It's like a pond that hasn't had fresh water coming into it in 20

00:20:29.740 years. And just geographically, it's just like nothing west of Toronto, but of course, the entire

00:20:37.160 ideological spectrum from A to B. Like, it's just... I mean, I don't know how many people watch that,

00:20:43.520 but my theory is they only care about one person watching it, the prime minister. And if it's okay

00:20:50.200 by him, it's okay by CBC. I don't know. I just... Like, surely there's someone younger, someone

00:20:56.520 newer, someone represented. Like, I don't know. I just... You have Trudeau's literal biographer

00:21:03.440 on the panel, but the closest thing you get to a conservative is Andrew Korn, who rages against

00:21:09.240 Pierre Polyev every week. Well, and calls me far right. It calls you far right. I mean,

00:21:13.780 to him, you know, he's so far to the left that anyone to his right is far right. So it's so absurd.

00:21:19.640 I don't know. It's just... I feel like they're stuck in amber. You know what I mean? Like a bug that was

00:21:24.300 caught in the sap, and it was metrified, and that nothing's changed over there. And nothing will

00:21:29.380 change as long as they can convince Mark Carney, like they convinced Trudeau, that they will be worth

00:21:35.700 their weight politically. I mean, when you think about CTV is the same way. I read Bell Canada's

00:21:39.900 annual report. That's a huge company. And the annual report was, I don't know, I'm going to

00:21:45.500 guess 50 pages long. They didn't even have one page about CTV News. They had like a paragraph.

00:21:51.760 It's not important to them as a business, as a mission. They're all about the internet and cell

00:21:57.220 phones. It's clear to me that the only reason Bell Canada subsidizes CTV News is as a political tool

00:22:04.400 to do favors for the regime because they're such a regulated company. I don't know. I look at all

00:22:10.120 the regulated TV. I look at all the subsidized newspapers, and I think they're not actually

00:22:15.860 about selling eyeballs to advertisers or selling news to consumers. They're about selling political

00:22:23.900 massaging of the truth to Justin Trudeau or now Mark Carney. Like, it's not what you think. What you

00:22:30.940 think is for sale is not what's for sale. It's like Facebook. You are for sale. I think that's

00:22:37.100 the modern mainstream media. You are being politicized year round. I don't know. I'm

00:22:42.840 rambling on a little bit, but I think that's the only reason these panels make sense.

00:22:47.780 Yeah. I think you've got, you kind of hit the nail on the head there, right? It's like,

00:22:51.480 it exists just to make them feel important that they have access to the prime minister and that

00:22:55.520 they can have him on the show and that the prime minister then feels important because he gets

00:22:58.780 invited on the show and they get to promote the ministers and it's all just one big, you know.

00:23:03.740 And they have lobbyists on. They call them strategists. They're lobbyists and they don't

00:23:07.660 disclose who they're lobbying for. That's crazy.

00:23:09.900 Right. No, this is like, this is kind of like the problem of Canada in a nutshell, right? It's like,

00:23:13.600 it's like there's these few kind of powerful families and powerful people that kind of control

00:23:17.640 everything and everyone just kind of does as they're told and the, you know, elite class isn't very

00:23:23.140 elite. They're not very creative or imaginative or smart. They just kind of, you know, do what they've

00:23:27.780 always done without the need to change. And I, you know, I think that this is a major problem in the

00:23:32.520 Canadian economy as well is that they just don't want to innovate. They don't want to change. They

00:23:35.520 don't want to move forward. You know, you can talk about pipelines, you can talk about resource

00:23:40.060 development, you can talk about the future of the country and just sort of lack of productivity.

00:23:44.520 You know, the idea that we have to have mass immigration just to grow the economy. Canadians don't 0.98

00:23:49.380 want to have kids, so they have to have like important third world in here to replace them all. 1.00

00:23:53.640 Yeah, there's just, there's so many problems and you look at the ruling class, you think,

00:23:57.120 you know, these people, they don't really have what it takes to get us out of this. And I think

00:24:01.060 that's why, again, why what we do is so important because we shine a light on it all and help people

00:24:05.220 make sense of it, that it doesn't have to be that way, that, you know, you can have startups and you

00:24:10.200 can have competition, you can have other voices and other people out there doing this thing. We

00:24:14.880 could probably actually do it better than they can.

00:24:17.320 True North started as a public policy think tank focusing on immigration.

00:24:21.120 Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on immigration

00:24:23.160 in 2026 because I think it's so unsustainable. And I think that there is a sourness in the

00:24:29.860 public mood. Canada used to be friendly towards immigration. I think that the, and now the head

00:24:36.680 of the so-called Century Initiative, which wanted to triple Canada's population, he's been appointed a

00:24:42.760 handpicked appointee by Carney. I think he's the new ambassador to the States. Like there is still a

00:24:49.120 runaway train there. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's kind of scary actually because it's

00:24:53.160 like, you know, I think for the liberals, the solution is just always more immigration. Any 0.52

00:24:56.960 problem, any issue, it's like, well, we just need more people. Just get more bodies in. And as long

00:25:01.140 as people are willing to come to Canada, we will pay for them. We'll literally give them everything

00:25:04.380 they need. We'll pay, we'll buy their bedsheets, we'll buy their apartment, we'll buy their car,

00:25:07.820 we'll put them, everything. And it's indiscriminate. But they're bringing in, I mean, I'm not saying

00:25:12.260 they're bringing in. No, they don't care. They don't care where you're from. They don't care anything.

00:25:14.800 Just come on in. They don't need interviews anymore. It's just all click a few buttons on

00:25:19.140 a website, you're done. It's, there's no actual, years ago they gave up interviewing people. They

00:25:24.240 just don't do it. They don't do it. And, and, and they don't even ask anything of you, right? It's

00:25:27.900 literally like, just come, don't worry, we'll pay for you. You'll, you'll, you'll have a nice life.

00:25:32.160 We'll take care of you. And free health, they advertise, there was a tweet by Immigration Canada

00:25:37.360 mentioning come to Canada for free health care. They're like, they're, they're, they're not even hiding it.

00:25:43.980 And that's just the beginning. I mean, you can go through reports of just all the things that they

00:25:48.220 get. No, it's, I was thinking about this the other day, Ezra, because I remember I was on your show

00:25:51.760 probably 10 years ago talking about the Syrian refugee strategy. And at the time, Kelly Leach had

00:25:56.540 this controversial idea that we should screen newcomers for their values. And I said, of course 1.00

00:26:01.440 they should. Of course that should be the bare minimum. You know, you should have to have, like,

00:26:04.880 what is Canada other than a shared set of values and ideas, right? We're not an ethnic race of

00:26:10.300 people, right? We're not a nation in the true sense. We've always sort of been a mix of different

00:26:14.520 people, but we have a shared worldview and a shared ideology. And so 10 years ago, it was like,

00:26:18.980 I think that you have to share that worldview in order to come to Canada. And in the last 10 years,

00:26:22.960 we've just seen the absolute consequences of complete open door immigration, wide open, 0.98

00:26:28.940 indiscriminate, as you said. And I think there's a much deeper problem that requires a much bigger

00:26:33.380 solution, right? Like I was actually talking to, not to get too personal, but my, my brother,

00:26:39.000 his family live in a suburb of Vancouver. My other brother and his family live in a suburb of

00:26:42.540 Toronto. And my nephew in Vancouver is the only white child in his class, the only white boy.

00:26:48.120 And I was talking to my sister-in-law and she said that one of her daughters is also the only

00:26:52.400 white girl in her class. They're in an entire school where there's no Canadians, basically.

00:26:58.280 Everyone is an immigrant. Everyone's from the world. Look, I think it's fine. I think it's great to

00:27:01.840 have, you know, a Chinese family and an Indian family. And it's interesting and fun, but that's not,

00:27:06.840 that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about everybody from a different culture,

00:27:10.420 everybody from a different place. And Canadians are, I don't know, I guess they're moving to the 1.00

00:27:14.500 exurbs and they're, they're getting further and further away from these cities. I think it has a

00:27:18.140 real problem. And I think it's very obvious to everybody that we don't really have any shared

00:27:22.880 values anymore. We don't really have anything holding us together. It's going to be a huge,

00:27:27.220 we're going to need a huge issue. There's going to be backlash. It's already here. It's already

00:27:30.020 coming. I think most Canadians opposed to, I think we do need an immigration moratorium. 0.99

00:27:33.460 I think that we should consider offering people money to go back to their country. I think that 1.00

00:27:38.380 the remigration is something that we should consider because even just the cost of living

00:27:42.240 in Canada, like we shouldn't be paying people to come here. We shouldn't be. If you want to come

00:27:46.020 to Canada, you have to make a sacrifice and work really, really hard and earn up enough money so

00:27:51.220 that you can live here. That, that, that should be what immigration is all about. Not, we're going to 1.00

00:27:55.060 bribe you to come here and don't worry if you can't afford it. We'll just keep paying you forever

00:27:58.440 and ever. That's just so backwards and so wrong, Ezra.

00:28:00.840 You know, in my trips to the UK, I've watched Nigel Farage who first became famous for leading

00:28:06.460 the UKIP party that led the Brexit referendum. And then now he's the head of something called

00:28:12.020 Reform UK. And over month after month, I see him getting bolder and bolder. Now he's talking

00:28:18.460 about remigration. Now he's talking about mass deportations. It's taken him a while to work

00:28:23.140 up to it because he's very careful. Like he's such a careful, pragmatic guy. Every single poll

00:28:29.360 for the last year puts him in first place. If they were in election now, he would win

00:28:33.100 a majority. And it's because, I mean, now he's in a by-election. He had, you know, deep

00:28:37.580 labor stronghold, stop the ships, you know, freeze immigration, stop the ships. And he's

00:28:42.960 gone beyond freeze immigration. He's talking about deportations. He is the number one for, 0.99

00:28:47.980 for a year now, the number one in the polls. Do you think Pierre Polyev could or should do that?

00:28:56.140 My theory is, be controversial, be radical. The media is going to have a controversy or a scandal

00:29:03.580 no matter what. Choose it. Yeah.

00:29:05.720 Make it on immigration because so many people quietly agree. 0.58

00:29:11.760 Right. And I think that there's a way to do it, right? I think Pierre is a careful person. And I

00:29:15.420 think that he was too careful in the election. I think that he should have been bolder. He should

00:29:19.480 have come out when, you know, obviously it was a difficult issue to navigate with President Trump

00:29:23.740 saying what he was saying about 51st Day. It wasn't easy. But Pierre was just kind of caught flat

00:29:27.460 foot, didn't know what to say, eventually just kind of copied the liberals and did what they did. So I think

00:29:31.100 he needs to be bolder. And I wish that immigration was one of those issues that he would take on. Maybe

00:29:36.080 he doesn't need to go as far as I do with re-migration. But I do think that people who came

00:29:40.560 here as students, I mean, that program is a total failure. They need to leave. They need to go home.

00:29:44.760 And the temporary foreign workers for positions that are not necessary.

00:29:48.600 Yeah.

00:29:49.160 That we could hire Canadians for. 0.98

00:29:50.620 Exactly. So really, it's not even a matter of whether it's the right thing to do. I think all

00:29:56.340 conservatives know that it is, and more and more Canadians. I think Pierre does need to

00:30:00.740 kind of wake up on the immigration issue.

00:30:02.960 He's scary because he'll call him racist.

00:30:04.560 Exactly. Yeah. And you know what? He just needs to get over that.

00:30:08.180 They're going to call him that anyways.

00:30:09.360 Yeah. And they do. And they'll call him extreme and a populist and far right,

00:30:12.840 even though he's the furthest from that. So yes, I think that if Pierre really wants to

00:30:17.480 carve out a place for himself, it's tough, right? Because I think, you know,

00:30:21.360 Mark Carney doing what he's doing, making these deals, it looks like he's going to

00:30:24.540 somehow be able to pull a majority out of a minority. And he's going to govern,

00:30:28.480 you know, in a way that Canadians might see as stable. Pierre has to do something. Otherwise,

00:30:33.680 I don't see him staying on as leader. And I think that could be disastrous for the Conservative

00:30:37.060 Party. So I hope he's listening. I hope he will take immigration as an issue and really carve out 0.84

00:30:42.980 a position that's very different from the Liberals. And this is something that I think

00:30:46.540 he can get Canadians on his side. Forget about the media. Forget about what they're going to say

00:30:49.400 about you. And just do the right thing. It ties to so many of the things that Pierre talks

00:30:53.480 about the cost of living. And, you know, Pierre's always been very strong, anti-radical, you know,

00:30:58.880 against the crazy Hamasniks celebrating and all those people have to go out. We were talking a bit 1.00

00:31:03.980 about free speech absolutist because you've always been a free speech absolutist. I think free speech

00:31:08.620 is so important. But at the same time, there has to be consequences to that speech, right?

00:31:12.120 But if you're a foreign national, if you're here as a student or a temporary worker,

00:31:15.680 and instead of coming in on those conditions, every Saturday you go scream at Jews, get out.

00:31:20.500 I mean, that's what Trump's doing. He's not kicking out citizens. If you're here as a special

00:31:28.140 guest and you decide instead to go on a political war against America or some Americans, get out.

00:31:34.120 Right.

00:31:34.400 I think that would calm and cool off our whole country because I'm worried about a terrorist

00:31:39.340 attack. I mean, I just am. We don't have, none of the Jewish schools or synagogues have armed guards.

00:31:44.920 It's like, I'm just, I, I, I think we're sleepwalking towards a crisis. Do you think

00:31:50.980 there's going to be an election next year?

00:31:52.420 I don't think so. I think, I think that the liberals, you know, it's, it's, it's, this is

00:31:56.800 just something that like, you never hate the elite as much, right? Like, like you think you hate them,

00:32:01.220 but you need to hate them much, much more, right? The fact that Mark Carney just came in,

00:32:04.400 he was confident from day one. He knew he was going to win the election, even though he was way

00:32:07.860 behind in the polls. He inherited Justin Trudeau's disastrous legacy and party. But he was like,

00:32:12.600 you know what? He wouldn't have come in if he didn't know, right? He knew that the legacy media

00:32:16.300 was on his side. He knew that the CBC was there. They were going to work into overtime and that

00:32:20.080 Canadians were going to fall for this narrative and this scheme and that propaganda works.

00:32:23.740 Propaganda is a hell of a drug and it works. And we saw it work on the Canadian public. The elbows

00:32:28.160 up crowd. I've never seen anything like that. A group of people just so hood up. And you know.

00:32:32.180 It's boomers. So young people are, I mean, I saw the latest poll from David Colletto of Abacus.

00:32:36.420 Young people are still solidly conservative. It's the boomers who have their house, who don't like 1.00

00:32:43.380 Trump's style and think Pierre Polyev is a little bit of a brat or something. It's the boomers. 1.00

00:32:48.580 Yeah. And so it's like watching those people operate, right? Like the, you know, the guy in

00:32:52.580 the election, the meme of the old man with the middle finger, that was just like perfectly

00:32:56.700 encapsulated. Like what's wrong with the Canadian, that class? Not all boomers because there's a lot 1.00

00:33:01.280 of really, you know, it used to be boomers that were more conservative and that they were the ones

00:33:06.040 that were voting for Stephen Harper as well. So anyway, I think that Mark Carney is a smooth

00:33:11.880 operator. You know, he's going to do what he has to do. Maybe he'll make some sacrifices to his

00:33:16.360 liberal base. And I hope we get some pipelines built, the memorandum of understanding. You know,

00:33:21.320 Danielle Smith seems to be pretty optimistic about it and I'll take her cues. And I just, I don't

00:33:25.840 think that they're going to have an election. I think that Mark Carney is going to govern for four

00:33:28.760 years as if he had a majority and that, you know, Pierre will have one last chance. Pierre

00:33:33.160 Polyev will have one more chance to win. I hope, hopefully by then the country won't have completely 1.00

00:33:38.040 destroyed itself and will be kind of hopefully going in a better direction. People have that

00:33:43.240 opportunity. But no, I think that, that this is, this is where the liberals are, are just, you know,

00:33:47.780 they're, they're, they're so clever. They're too clever for their own good. They're used to getting

00:33:52.360 their own way. They operate behind the scenes in shadowy ways and they will make sure that they

00:33:56.600 maintain control and power probably until either Mark Carney can get reelected or I don't know,

00:34:02.140 I've heard that he only wants to do one term and that he's going to leave after that and maybe

00:34:05.860 he'll bring in a new candidate. But I think, I do think that, that he will govern for four years.

00:34:10.380 Yeah. Well, he's a real operator. That's for sure. Great to see you. Thanks for visiting. Good luck

00:34:15.600 with True North. Good luck with Juneau. Keep us posted on how those things go. We love what you're

00:34:21.100 doing. And I, for one, I'm glad that it's not lonely as it was 10 years ago when we were the

00:34:26.800 only conservative or independent media in the country. And I wish you guys good luck.

00:34:30.360 Well, thank you so much, Ezra. Thanks for inviting me to the studio. Happy Hanukkah and

00:34:33.400 Merry Christmas to the audience. And always look forward to continuing to work with you and the,

00:34:37.940 and the great work that you do over at the Rebel. Well, thanks to the feeling of speech. Well,

00:34:41.440 there you have it, our show for the day. Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel

00:34:45.400 World Headquarters to you at home. Good night. And keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - December 25, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Candice Malcolm on the rise of independent media and the collapse of legacy trust

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