EZRA LEVANT ｜ Carney’s non-answer on energy exports reveals everything Canadians need to know
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Summary
Why do Liberals speak to you in a certain foggy way? Ezra Levenant takes a trip down memory lane to ask the question, and explains why they re not what they used to be. Plus, Ezra talks about why he longs for the days when the Liberals were more like the old days.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Mark Carney is on another European junket. I don't know what he thinks
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he's going to accomplish there. It's such a small fraction of our trade compared to Canada,
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U.S., which is the big action, but he has no success there. So I think he prefers Europe
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anyways. He's a European citizen, as you may know. I talk about that, and I also interviewed
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Tristan Hopper about self-defense laws in Canada. So that's ahead. But first, I want
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you to get a subscription to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast,
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because I'm going to play a bunch of clips, especially of Mark Carney and his new energy
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minister in Europe. And I want you to see what they say. Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click
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subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And not only do you support Rebel News, but you get
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all that content. And you know, we don't take a dime from government. So we actually need
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Tonight, why do liberals speak to you in that certain foggy way?
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It's August 26th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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When I was much younger, I worked as Preston Manning's assistant in parliament in the late
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1990s. That was in the last century. One of my jobs was to manage question period for the
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opposition. Of course, it's not called answer period for a reason. The idea was to make the
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questions stand on their own, so that no matter what excuse the government would come up with,
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the point would come across. And the question, I got to know not only the Reform Party MPs,
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which was pretty fun, but the style of the various Liberal cabinet ministers who answered.
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Every day, we'd have a dress rehearsal before the actual QP, as we called it. And I would sometimes
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play the role of different liberals, which was fun. Now, this was a generation ago, so the names might
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not even ring a bell for you. This was the era of Alan Rock and Paul Martin and Anne McClellan. Rock
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was atrocious, always was. But boy, I long for the days of the moderate liberal. There used to be such
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a thing like Paul Martin, who actually balanced a budget and Anne McClellan, who actually helped
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birth, at least legally and politically, the oil sands. I mean, don't forget that part. Justin Trudeau
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and now Mark Carney have spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the oil sands in every possible
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way. But 25 years ago, the Liberals tried to grow it. They were proud of it. And although Jean-Claude Chen,
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the Prime Minister signed the Kyoto Protocol, he literally did nothing about it, other than say
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he cared. I should also point out that the that Chrétien pumped the brakes on Brian Mulroney's
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immigration extremism. Yeah, you heard me right. Under Mulroney, immigration tripled from around 85,000
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people a year to around a quarter million. Chrétien actually reduced it a bit, if you can believe it.
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Yeah. Today's Liberals are completely unrecognizable by those standards. Absolutely dedicated to out-of-control
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spending and taxing and borrowing. Environmental extremism is so important to them. Feminism and
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banning anyone who's pro-life. You cannot be a pro-life Catholic in the Liberal Party. You can be
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pro-life Muslim. Of course, every Muslim is pro-life. It's a very strange party now compared to really
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the Big Ten Coalition of Chrétien. Today, it's mass immigration, the diaspora politics. I would
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actually give anything to reset Canada to what it was like back then. I was always a conservative or a
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reformer. But now I sort of look at the Paul Martin-Jean-Claude Chen Liberals and say, you know,
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I'd sort of vote for that now, too, if I could. Bit of a trip down memory lane for me. Chrétien sometimes
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answered questions in question period, but often he would let his deputy handle them. And forgive me
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my long detour here, but that's actually one of my points. The deputy prime minister for a chunk of
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Chrétien's term as PM was a soft-spoken member of parliament from Windsor named Herb Gray. He was the
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consummate loyalist, self-deprecating. He made an art out of being low energy, low key. He joked about
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Herb-a-mania. You know, he just swallowed up questions in question period by taking all the
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energy out of them. We called Herb Gray the gray fog. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, but I regret
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I must take issue with the premise of his question insofar as, I mean, he would just, he would bore you
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to death. No anger, no fire, just a fog machine, a fog into which you could walk and you could never
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be seen again. But there was something lawyerly about it, I guess. And even though it was low
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energy, it wasn't just duck speak, as Orwell would say. It wasn't just babbling. It was a bureaucratic
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answer, but it was an answer, I guess. But the past is a different country, isn't it? What a world
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we're in now. Did you see the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the big gathering at the White House
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last week for Vladimir Zelensky? Trump and the seven dwarves, I call it, each of the European leaders
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trying to appear so important, when everyone knew the only decider in the room was Trump himself.
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But they had all flown over all the way to America. So they were given about two minutes each to say
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their piece. Do you remember Keir Starmer, it's a British PM. Do you remember his two minutes? Just
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listen to this and tell me if you understood any of it, or if it was duck speak, not Herb Gray
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bureaucratic speak, but just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you understand what any of this means?
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Thank you very much, Mr. President, and thank you for hosting us here. Can I start where Emmanuel
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started, which is we all want peace. The war in Ukraine has had a huge impact, particularly
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on the Ukrainians who've borne the brunt of it, but it's also had an impact on Europe and
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on the United Kingdom. There's not a family or community that hasn't been affected. And
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when we talk about security, we're talking about the security not just of Ukraine, we're talking
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about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom as well, which is why this is such
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an important issue. I think this is such an important meeting. As a group, I think we've
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had a discussion on the phone a number of times, Mr. President, but be able now to be around
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the table to take it forward. And I really feel that we can, I think, with the right approach
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this afternoon, make real progress, particularly on the security guarantees. And your indication
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of security guarantees of some sort of Article 5 style guarantees fits with what we've been
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doing with the Coalition of the Willing, which we started some months ago, bringing countries
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together and showing that we were prepared to step up to the plate when it came to security.
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With you coming alongside the U.S., alongside what we've already developed, I think we could
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take a really important step forward today. A historic step, actually, could come out of
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this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine and security in Europe. I also feel that we can
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make real progress towards a just and lasting outcome. Obviously, that has to involve Ukraine.
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And a trilateral meeting seems the sensible next step. So thank you for being prepared to
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take that forward. Because I think if we can ensure that that is the progress out of this
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meeting, both security guarantees and some sort of progress on trilateral meeting of some sort,
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of bringing some of the difficult issues to a head, then I think today will be seen as a very important
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day in recent years in relation to a conflict which has gone on for three and a bit years. And so far,
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nobody nobody's been able to bring it to this point. So I thank you for that. The only part I
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understood was that Keir Starmer believes that every single family in the United Kingdom has had their
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lives changed by the war in Ukraine. I'm just not sure that's true. And Trump gave a funny look right
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at that moment to J.D. Vance, who was standing in the room when Starmer said that. But Starmer is one
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of those modern robotic duck speakers who say nothing. And after a while, you realize it. And then you can't
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unhear it and you begin to despise even the sound of his voice. If you don't follow UK politics, you won't
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know what I mean about Starmer. But it's basically the bizarre style of speaking that Chrystia Freeland
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has perfected. We have a very impressive deficit of some 60 billion dollars in the last budget. So
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when do you foresee a return to a balanced budget? Ms. Freeland speaks first. Mr. Jobin,
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we are all liberals and we will not repeat conservative misinformation. We are not going
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to do the conservatives work for them. The reality is that Canada's financial record is very strong.
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We have a triple A credit rating. We have the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the entire G7. But
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speaking of our economy, we have to begin with the fact that we're living in a completely different
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world. Let's begin with the threat that Donald Trump poses. And as Karina suggested, we have to seize
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the opportunity of this wave of Canadian enthusiasm to build, to attract investment and jobs.
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Just so irritating, usually starting with an obsequious thank you for your question,
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and then giving a rambling response that is completely unconnected to the answer that just
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burns up the time, talks out the clock. And after you hear it a half dozen times, you realize it's not
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an answer at all, but it's actually a kind of insult delivered with a straight face. How dare you ask me
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about that? I'm going to thank you for it and then just burn up the clock talking about whatever I want
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to talk about. Yeah. Well, Mark Carney and his clones have perfected it too. Just take a look.
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So Carney was in Europe because of course he is. He's a citizen of Europe. He has an Irish and a UK
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passport. So that's his favorite place. He quit Canada to go there for a bigger opportunity. And
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I'm not sure he's done social climbing there yet. He said he wants Canada to join the European Union.
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So he's back there and he thinks that's the place for him to be. Donald Trump is holding our
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country's private parts in his fists. But instead of dealing with Trump, which is the vast majority
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of our trade, Carney is over in Europe pretending that they can in some way replace our access to
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the largest market in the world that's just across the border by car and truck and train. You know,
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90% of Canadians live within an hour of the United States, but Mark Carney thinks Germany is going to
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save us. It's so weird. So let's start with a question put to Carney when he was in Germany
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about selling energy to Europe. Now the Germans came to Canada a couple of years ago, begging for
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our energy, real energy, natural gas, not solar energy or electric vehicle, fake subsidies, green
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scam energy, but actual natural gas, because that's what they use. And they're buying it right
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now from Russia. And it's not just shaming them, but it's undermining them because they actually
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Europe spends more on Russian natural gas and other energy, including oil than they do to give Ukraine
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in aid and weapons each year. Let me say that again on a sheer mathematical basis. If you ask me
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which side of the war Europe is on, the mathematical answer would be Russia, because if you're measuring
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strictly on who Europe gives its money to, Europe gives more money to Russia than to Ukraine because
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of energy. But Justin Trudeau said, no, we're not going to sell you any LNG. There's no business
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case for it. So Europe wants to change that. Justin Trudeau refused to sell oil and gas, refused to let
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it even be produced, let alone shipped, let alone sold. 180 degrees opposite of Jean-Croix and McClellan.
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But German reporters are more honest than many Canadian reporters. And here's a little exchange.
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Prime Minister, just one question about raw materials. Could you please explore a bit more
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what Canada can realistically actually offer to Germany and Europe, given the fact that ports on
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the east coast and also pipelines are still lacking? Okay. Okay. You can, you're welcome to take the
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second part of that, my question, if you wish. Thanks for the question. Look, there's a huge range of
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immediate opportunities with respect to critical metals and minerals. And there are medium-term
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opportunities with respect to all forms of energy, including LNG and hydrogen. And I'll quickly
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explain how we make those happen. Our government is in the process of unleashing half a trillion dollars
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of investment in energy infrastructure, port infrastructure, particularly intelligence infrastructure
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as well with AI. And a number of those investments, the first of which we will be formally announcing
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in the next two weeks, are with respect to new port infrastructure. And some of the examples in the
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public domain will include from reinforcing and building on the port of Montreal, a new port effectively
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in Churchill, Manitoba, which would open up enormous LNG plus other opportunities and other east coast
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ports for those critical metals and minerals. So there is a lot happening. It's the number one focus of
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this government is to build that infrastructure and particularly infrastructure that helps us
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deepen our partnership with with our European partners and particularly Germany.
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So, yeah, no pipelines, more money for a port in Montreal. Gee, that's a shocker. A plan for Churchill,
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Manitoba. So that will be 10 years. Are you kidding if you think it's going to be any faster? Just
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Just duck speak. Throw in a mention of AI. Why not? Half a trillion dollars. That's what he's going to
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unleash. Does that mean tax dollars? What does it mean that he's going to unleash half a trillion dollars?
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Why is he the decider? Do we have a centrally planned economy now? Just a bunch of baffle gab.
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Was there a single word in there that answered the actual question? How are you going to move any of
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this energy to Germany without pipelines or ports? And by ports, those big LNG liquefaction ports where
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they take natural gas, super cool it, which it liquefies, it puts it in those funny looking tankers
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and sends it over there. You can't just build those. Oh, but we have a huge range of opportunities,
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he said. And how long do you hear that? How long do you hear him say those things again and again and
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again before like Chrystia Freeland and Keir Starmer, you realize that you're just being lied to. It's just
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a way to burn up the time here. He's been prime minister for 166 days, by the way. Do you think any
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of these things are going to be built even in his first term? God forbid there's more.
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But in fact, Canada does sell our natural gas to Europe, just like we do sell our oil to the
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world. Now you might find that surprising because we don't have LNG export ports. But the answer is
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it goes to the United States of America. We sell, I don't know, 90% of our oil directly to the United
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States, same with our gas and our exports that's going to America. And they take it and they might
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process it or mark it up and then they resell it on the world market. And maybe that's why
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Donald Trump prefers Mark Carney. No pipelines built in Canada means more profits for the U.S.
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to resell our good stuff. Here, get a load of the Polish prime minister to Canada speaking some truth
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on the CBC of all places. Take a look. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kind of famously
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said there was no business case to sell Canadian LNG to Europe. Well, when you look at what the Americans
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are doing, they sent 44 million tons of LNG to Europe last year. They're obviously seeing
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a business case for what they're producing. Is Poland interested in Canada's natural resources
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and LNG in particular? Is that something that you would like to see advance as these two countries get
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closer together? Yeah. Well, remember some of that LNG that is coming from United States to Europe to
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Poland is also Canadian LNG. But it's being sold for a much higher price, I would say, than when it would
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come from Canada. Yes, we are constantly interested. We would like the Canadian LNG market to open to Europe.
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We would like to see the Canadian gas flowing to the east coast on Canada and the Canadian
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gas flowing in European pipelines. This is, you know, one of the energy topics that we are working
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on with Canadians for a number of years. There are others which are also very significant and we are
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very much more successful in the other areas than gas so far. But if you're able to make a push in that
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regard, that will be to the benefit of Europe and that will be to the benefit of Canada.
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Hey, but remember, guys, there's no business case for our energy. That's what the master industrialist
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and tycoon and oilman Justin Trudeau said. Hey, have you ever seen this guy before? I hadn't. His name is
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Tim Hodgson and he's Canada's new energy minister. He used to work for Mark Carney at Goldman Sachs
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and at the Bank of Canada. They're old friends. Take a listen to him in Europe. He was announcing he
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was so excited to go there. Parliament is coming back on September 15th. And until then, we're making
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every minute count. That's why I'm heading to Berlin with the prime minister to build Canadian-German
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partnerships in energy and critical minerals to shore up our economies, industries and security.
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And we're not showing up alone. We are bringing a Canadian business delegation to find new European
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markets for our energy and minerals. By working with our allies, we can give Canadian industry
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the market certainty it needs to build projects of national interest and ensure our resources reach
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across oceans, not just across our borders. Thank you. And again, welcome aboard.
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Hey guys, they're building. They're shoring up. They're finding new markets for energy. They're
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giving certainty to investors and they're not small-minded people who think America's the answer.
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They're crossing oceans, not just borders. How do you sell energy to Europe if you don't have any
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pipelines? And if you won't for probably a decade, why do you think people in the industry don't
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already know where energy is bought and sold? We're discovering new markets. You don't think
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oil men know where oil is bought and sold? And they need politicians to tell them about new markets.
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We're doing a favor to the industry by showing them new markets. Was that the missing piece of the puzzle
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here? Canadian oil men just didn't know where to sell their oil and gas. And the Europeans just didn't
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know who makes oil and gas. And luckily, Mark Carney and Tim Hodgson are going to connect them and
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unleash this. Was that the problem the whole time? Or maybe has it been the anti-pipeline laws,
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the anti-tankership laws, the anti-oil sands laws, the anti-emissions laws, and until a few months ago,
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a carbon tax, which was going up every year. And by the way, has not been abolished. It's just been
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temporarily set to zero percent, but it could be reset tomorrow to a higher number. Yeah, talk about
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uncertainty. But you know who can make sense of all this? A government journalist named David Akin.
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He knows what the oil and gas industry needs for the Goldman Sachs boys, Mark Carney and Tim Hodgson,
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to do what the private sector can't do. To them, private industry isn't even in the game. This is
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about governments making the decisions, government making the deals, government making the funding.
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When things fail, government's bailing them out, just shoveling more money into it until it happens.
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Quick question on financing. I wonder if the government of Canada, as it did with Trans Mountain,
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is considering participating in an equity stake in either mineral developers or transporters of energy,
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or might assist with some other levels of financing as we approach the budget. In other words,
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other than signing partnerships, is there some tangible way the government of Canada
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will put some skin in the game financially to help private sector proponents?
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So there's a number of different tools that we have, be it through the Canada Infrastructure Bank,
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through CDEV, through EDC, through BDC, through SIF. Some of these are so risky, these projects,
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that even BDC is not going to take that risk on. That's why we bought Trans Mountain, because of
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the risk profile needed the government backing it, right? So again, there are tools like the Canada
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Growth Fund that take first-of-a-kind risk. So the government is going to use all the tools it has
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to responsibly develop projects, to do it in a way that's responsible for Canadian taxpayers,
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and do it in the right environmental way, and in conjunction with First Nations.
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Did you hear that part where David Aiken did some liberal-splaining, where he said the Liberals bought
00:22:01.940
the Trans Mountain pipeline because the company couldn't handle the risk? That's a lie. The
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government of Trudeau is what killed the pipeline. The US owners were about to sue Canada for billions,
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but instead, Liberals said, no need to sue us, we'll just give it to you. We'll buy
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this dead pipeline that we killed for billions of dollars. Huge profit margin for Kinder Morgan,
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which was actually building it with private money. And then the Liberals bought it at a massive
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premium. And do you think the Liberals know how to build pipelines? They use tax dollars to do what
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a private company was going to do on their own. Absolute financial disaster. I think in the end,
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it was four times more expensive than the original budget. But to David Aiken, it's a success story.
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And did you hear Hodgson? Not a word about Canadian entrepreneurs, Canadian companies,
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it's all government funds, government subsidies, government banks. These guys are not capitalists,
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they are crony capitalists. It's a big difference. By the way, how soon until this will happen? How
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The pipeline for building the kind of port and pipeline infrastructure that would just allow you to
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export as much as you want to sell and as much as they want to buy. So I'm not an engineer. I think
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the goal and what I've seen the proponents talking about is being able to ship in as little as five
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years from. So that's what their goal is. Oh, five years at the soonest. Got it. So we're going to be
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shipping LNG to Europe by 2030 earliest. Hey, thanks guys. Thanks for helping get Europe off of Russian
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oil and gas. I shouldn't say oil though. There are no plans to get Canadian oil to market. Not a word
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about oil other than it's not going. I'm not aware of a proponent who's talking about that right now.
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Yeah, that was a pretty quick clip. The last question I think was the best though. Why would
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anyone trust a liberal to get an energy deal done? I mean, these aren't the Christian liberals.
00:24:13.540
These are the Trudeau Carney liberals. Do we face a credibility gap because it takes time to get
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projects going approved and actually being developed and exploited? What's what's the kind of conversation
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you're having with? I looked around that room today and there were an awful lot of
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awful lot of German companies that were pretty interested in working with us. The liberals destroyed
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the oil and gas industry. Do you think they're going to rebuild it? They're not even saying that they will.
00:24:42.820
They're maybe going to get some gas going. They're not going to get the oil industry growing. They
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say the soonest they expect anything to be built is in five years. So that means 10.
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Not a word about private industry, all managed from the top like the UN does, like the World Economic
00:25:00.260
Forum does, which makes sense. That's where Carney is from. How long do you think Canadians will put up
00:25:05.940
with all these buzzwords and all these self cheerleading press conferences and all this fog?
00:25:16.020
Well, my observation is Canadians will put up with it indefinitely. Stay with us for more.
00:25:22.820
Well, I measure the success of rebel news journalism in various ways. Sometimes the reaction we get,
00:25:39.060
sometimes if we change public policy, but the depth of the reaction, not just journalistically, but in terms of
00:25:45.700
people chipping into the legal defense fund, tells me that the case of Lindsay, Ontario native Jeremy
00:25:53.700
McDonald has struck a chord, not just with Ontarians, but with people across Canada. You know the story.
00:26:02.100
Jeremy McDonald asleep in his home at 3am, which is a good thing to do at 3am when someone breaks into his
00:26:10.820
home with a crossbow, which is a weapon that means to kill. Incredibly McDonald manages to get the best
00:26:19.940
of it. And in an altercation leaves the intruder, a serial criminal known to police. Well, I won't
00:26:28.660
describe the details of it. I'll let the court hear them. But let me just say the intruder was repelled.
00:26:34.900
Police came, charged the intruder, but also charged Jeremy with very serious offenses. I think
00:26:40.500
assault with a weapon was the name of one or aggravated assault. These are not minor charges. And if the
00:26:46.580
intruder happens to die, and I hope he doesn't, those charges could be elevated to manslaughter. So what is
00:26:53.460
the state of self-defense in Canada, especially in your home? There is no excuse whatsoever. There's no lawful
00:26:59.940
justification for breaking into a man's home at night. So why is it that the police have charged him?
00:27:06.740
We've done some talking and interviewing on this subject. My colleague Tamara Ugolini talked at
00:27:12.260
length with a criminal lawyer on the matter. But I think an excellent survey of the state of the law
00:27:17.620
was done by Tristan Hopper, a columnist with the National Post. In his compendium called First Reading,
00:27:24.580
he writes, you can legally shoot, stab, and bludgeon home invaders in Canada.
00:27:31.060
But that doesn't mean prosecutors won't put you through a years-long legal odyssey. And joining
00:27:38.500
us now to talk about that is Tristan Hopper. Tristan, thanks so much for making the time.
00:27:42.900
You really went through these cases. How did you find them all?
00:27:45.940
Pretty easy. It's something I've sort of been looking at on and off since 2011. So there are
00:27:53.460
some sort of, if you speak to sort of legal experts or lawyers who specialize in them,
00:27:57.940
there's a few sort of cases they'll point you to. There's a few that are high profile and then
00:28:02.900
there's a few that have gone under the radar. So I guess what's interesting about Lindsay Ontario
00:28:06.980
is this is obviously getting a lot of attention. You have everybody from Daniel Smith to Doug Ford
00:28:11.700
weighing in on them. But it's not an atypical case. There's been any number of cases just in
00:28:16.900
the last few years very similar in which someone's asleep in their home. Home invaders, they either
00:28:23.140
kill them or injure them and they are faced with criminal charges. So cases like this have happened
00:28:29.780
a lot. This one, probably because crime is so high right now and it's easy for all of us to sort of
00:28:35.380
imagine ourselves in the shoes of Mr. McDonald is getting more attention than is typical.
00:28:42.100
I think you're right. I think there's a few layers. First of all, this guy is a known serial criminal
00:28:46.900
and he was out on the street. I think that bothers a lot of people and we hear that story more often
00:28:51.780
than the opposite. I think the brazenness of it, I mean, breaking into a house at that hour
00:28:57.940
and there were accomplices on the street and the crossbow is just crazy. And I think my theory,
00:29:05.380
Tristan, is that one of the reasons police charged Jeremy McDonald, the homeowner,
00:29:10.740
is because they want to tamp down any member of the public who's getting big ideas
00:29:16.100
about finding an alternative solution to home security other than the police. I mean, we all know
00:29:21.780
the Toronto police officer whose advice was have your key fob to your car near the front door so
00:29:30.900
that when your home is raided, it's easy for the criminals and they don't linger. If that is what
00:29:36.020
the state does to protect us, maybe some more adventurous men are going to say, yeah, you know what,
00:29:44.580
I'll let others take that advice. I'm going to defend my own house. My theory is police charged
00:29:49.860
Jeremy McDonald, not because he did something wrong, but because they want to set an example
00:29:54.820
and stop anyone else from thinking of defending themselves. What do you think?
00:29:58.500
It's keeping the peace principle. So, you know, deeply embedded in Canadian culture is this idea
00:30:04.260
that we keep the police, they keep the peace rather than doing the right thing. And those are very
00:30:08.180
different things to do. I mean, an issue you covered quite often is all these anti-Zionist protests
00:30:14.260
on the streets all the time. I mean, the right thing would be to stop, you know, open terror
00:30:19.460
supporters from illegally blocking roads, but instead you keep the peace. You do the less
00:30:25.940
disruptive option, which is to let the anti-Zionist to step free reign over the street. So, yeah,
00:30:31.460
you could argue about it from that perspective. The pattern I saw when I was looking at, because
00:30:36.580
there are cases, there was one in Alberta, one I found in Ontario, in which there is a dead or injured
00:30:43.540
home invader and no charges are laid. So you have a homeowner who was not put through this legal
00:30:49.860
odyssey that Mr. McDonald's put through. The ones I looked at in which that wasn't the case, and
00:30:54.660
usually the pattern is, you're hit with second-degree murder or manslaughter or assault charges,
00:31:00.020
and, you know, you're arrested. You have strict bail conditions. You have to spend tens, if not
00:31:05.620
hundreds of thousands of dollars on your legal defense. And then a few months later or two years
00:31:10.340
later, the Crown ends up dropping the charges. So, yeah, you basically put through this two-year
00:31:15.540
legal odyssey. Now, in all of those cases, and this isn't universally the case, the homeowner, there was
00:31:22.180
something that they weren't squeaky clean. So maybe their son sold drugs from his bedroom. You know,
00:31:29.860
maybe there was one illegal .22 firearm in the house. You know, maybe they were facing
00:31:35.940
unrelated drug charges somewhere else. So police are called to the scene. There's a dead guy on the
00:31:42.020
ground, and they say, well, you know, you've got drug. How do we know that, you know, this wasn't just
00:31:47.540
a drug that had gone wrong. So rather than actually investigating the true case of it, you know,
00:31:52.260
you just have an imperfect individual who was still placed in a dangerous situation and had to defend
00:31:57.060
themselves. You just refer it to Crown, and the truth eventually comes out. But in the interim,
00:32:04.180
whether it's five months or two years, you put this essentially innocent individual through illegal
00:32:09.060
hell. So that seemed to be the pattern that emerged for me. It was just police, rather than
00:32:16.500
determining what the case was here. You found, you know, you saw a marijuana pipe, and you said,
00:32:22.740
no, okay, this, you know, this is a job for the prosecutors, rather than getting to the root
00:32:28.260
of what actually happened. You know, I think that's a very wise perception. I think you're right.
00:32:33.140
You know, Lavrenti Beria, the old Soviet secret policeman said, show me the man,
00:32:37.860
I'll find you the crime. And the thing is, none of us are perfect. And if we are in our own homes,
00:32:43.300
maybe there's something that, that's, you know, uninvited police into our homes might see something
00:32:48.900
that maybe, I'm not making a confession here, by the way, but I think you're exactly right. Police
00:32:54.500
might say, oh, you're not as squeaky clean. But the thing is, the right to self-defense doesn't
00:33:00.340
depend on you being a squeaky clean, you know, virtuous saint. And that I, what I love about the
00:33:08.100
castle doctrine, as the law is sometimes called where a man's home is his castle, it's ancient.
00:33:14.500
It's not just an idea cooked up in the United States. It's an ancient principle from the United
00:33:20.660
Kingdom, from which we take our laws also. And in particular, the king or his soldiers cannot come
00:33:27.940
into your house without a warrant. Imagine that you're in a kingdom, especially centuries ago,
00:33:34.580
but the king himself cannot bust down your door without a, without a legal reason. And I find that
00:33:43.140
so important to our whole notion of our place in democracy, property rights, just so many things
00:33:51.460
depend on that. We don't seem to have that. You know, I take your point in the end, we have that,
00:33:57.140
but anyone who dares to assert that right is put through two years of hell first. That's what,
00:34:01.700
that's what your report basically says. Yeah. The, the, the typical response is yeah. Yeah.
00:34:06.260
If someone breaks in and you've been here to kill them, you're probably going to be arrested that
00:34:10.340
night. And the best case scenario is that you're home the next morning and no charges are laid. And
00:34:14.740
that, that does happen. Um, but yeah, if, if you're an impaired individual and you know,
00:34:20.740
the people profiled, they didn't do anything wrong. Um, but you know, maybe they weren't, uh,
00:34:25.940
just an upstanding member of the rotary club, um, who just happened to have someone in their
00:34:30.900
basements. Um, you know, they lived in a rough neighborhood, things have gone wrong in their
00:34:34.100
lives. So, um, it seemed to be more of a case of just bad police work. Um, now I guess one factor
00:34:40.820
in the police's defense is if you've actually killed someone and you're guilty of it, you always,
00:34:45.860
almost always claim self-defense. So it's the most common cause. So police show up, there's a body,
00:34:51.140
you killed them, uh, over a drug debt. You say, oh, he charged in and he tried to kill me. So I had
00:34:55.460
to shoot first. Um, so there's been several cases which did not succeed at the Supreme Court level,
00:35:02.180
uh, in which you've had a pretty obvious case of, um, it's a gangland killing or it's a crime of
00:35:08.340
passion. Uh, someone claims self-defense and that's slapped down by the courts. Uh, so I guess I would
00:35:13.380
argue in these cases, it's, it's the job of the police before that two-year legal odyssey has proceeded
00:35:19.140
to sort of determine what is, is the truth. You know, this, this person claiming defense,
00:35:23.140
self-defense is potentially different than the actual criminal claiming self-defense to get
00:35:27.460
away with killing someone. You know, I want to talk about, uh, Doug Ford and, and he took to the
00:35:33.620
microphone very soon after this. Let me play a clip of, of Ford referring to the case of Jeremy
00:35:39.620
McDonald. Here, take a look. Everyone hear about the story in Lindsay? So this criminal that's wanted
00:35:44.740
by the police, breaks into this guy's house, this guy gives him a beating, and this guy gets charged.
00:35:52.820
Like, and the other guy gets charged. But, like, something is broken. I know if someone breaks
00:35:58.340
into my house or someone else's, you're gonna fight for your life. This guy has a weapon. You're
00:36:03.620
gonna use any, any force you possibly can to, to protect your family. I'm telling you, I know
00:36:09.700
everyone would. I'd be scared to break into Kevon's house. Look at the, he's like a linebacker. He'd beat
00:36:15.140
the living crap out of the guy, as he should. I, I, because no, enough's enough here. There,
00:36:23.140
violent, violence and, and, uh, breaking into people's homes, putting guns in their heads.
00:36:27.780
And guess what? Some bleeding heart judge, little Johnny, he didn't have a good upbringing. So we're
00:36:34.020
gonna let him out on bail five more times, uh, because he's on his fifth, uh, you know,
00:36:38.660
being let out on bail five times, just to go do the same thing, uh, the next day. I'll tell you one
00:36:44.100
thing. I get more calls than anyone in the country. People are done with this. They're absolutely done.
00:36:51.140
They're finished. You should be able to protect your family when someone's going in there to harm your
00:36:56.900
family and your kids. You should use all resources you possibly can to protect your family. And maybe these
00:37:03.300
criminals will think twice about breaking into someone's home. That's not the first time
00:37:07.220
Doug Ford has talked about this. In fact, he used the phrase castle law, uh, himself before. I just
00:37:13.460
want a quick flashback to that. Take a look. Uh, I mean, he's talked about it several times and he
00:37:17.540
himself, uh, would have had a car was stolen from his property, but because police are stationed at his
00:37:25.060
house, they quickly intercepted it. But here's, here's where he was talking about castle law. Take a look.
00:37:29.860
Did you hear about the guy that these thugs came up, you know, ready to steal his car. They're all
00:37:35.380
in their masks and everything. So I guess he was a hunter or something. He shot, he shot a shot up in
00:37:40.340
the air. I don't recommend that by the way, but he gets charged. I got to find out this guy's name and
00:37:46.580
number and I'm going to hold a fundraiser for lawyer fees for him. He should get a medal for standing up.
00:37:52.340
It's like down in the U S we should have the castle law. Someone breaks into your house. And I know any of
00:37:58.100
these people here, someone breaks in your house and they're coming after your kids and you're
00:38:02.260
coming after your spouse. You're going to fight like you've never fought before. You're going to
00:38:06.660
use anything that you have, be it weapons, baseball bats, knives, you're protecting your family.
00:38:12.420
These thugs shouldn't be coming in there. Here's my point, Tristan, you got the premier of the
00:38:17.140
province. He's been premier of Ontario for seven years. During that time, he has appointed many judges
00:38:22.900
to the provincial court. Um, he is in charge of the prosecutors. Of course, he doesn't meddle in
00:38:29.220
each case, but he sets broad policy. He's in charge of the legislature. He could make amendments to,
00:38:35.780
to certain things. I know the criminal law is a federal matter, but there are certain things
00:38:39.540
provinces can do. He, he supervises the police. He supervises the prosecutors. Here's my point.
00:38:45.220
Do you buy it when the, when the politician most responsible for the state of affairs in policing
00:38:54.180
and prosecutions says he's for castle doctrine, but he stands by passively while a man is charged?
00:39:02.900
I mean, how can, on the one hand, he claim he's for it when for seven years, he's done nothing to,
00:39:07.460
to bring it into effect. Are you going to ask me to argue if Doug Ford says things that are not backed
00:39:13.780
up by any kind of policy or, you know, systemic changes whatsoever? Um, I, I, I guess so. Yeah.
00:39:20.420
Um, so, I mean, he could argue, he could be comforted by the fact that, um, I mean, the reason
00:39:26.500
these issues, you know, are so easily seized the public narrative is because we can all imagine
00:39:30.420
ourselves in those situations. So that's why it's very hard for prosecutors to make these charges.
00:39:37.060
I couldn't find a single case in which there was a case of a home invasion and someone actually was
00:39:41.460
convicted. Um, unless it was a lesser charge, uh, sort of, they did have an illegal firearm in the
00:39:47.140
house, uh, or something, because all you have to do is once you get in front of a jury, you're like,
00:39:51.540
you know, uh, I'm sitting there. I did not ask for this. I hear glass breaking downstairs. I grab a lamp
00:39:57.540
or something, um, and, and, and charge in. So, um, yeah, I think there are like a lot of things,
00:40:05.220
um, you know, be at the, the rise in auto thefts, the rise in stranger attacks, any number of horrifying
00:40:11.700
crimes that are becoming more and more regular. Um, there are fixes that can be done to make these
00:40:16.660
go down sometimes incredibly simple fixes. You know, I remember the days when fixing crime was
00:40:21.220
complicated. Now it's quite easy. Uh, just stop, stop letting, um, you know, serial criminals out to
00:40:27.460
continue break, uh, breaking the law, you know, find a way to stop that. Um, so yeah, if you're just
00:40:33.220
going to sort of express, uh, sympathy, uh, with Mr. McDonald, uh, but you're not going to sort of
00:40:39.620
back it up with potential changes to enshrine this case. So, um, I, I guess I could, if I could get
00:40:46.020
into Doug Ford's head, maybe he's being a little cautious. He's still thinking, well, what if we
00:40:50.580
find out Jeremy McDonald knew the guy, um, or, you know, he, he was coming in for some other reason,
00:40:55.860
and this wasn't a pure case. That's a good reason for the premier not to meddle in any live case to
00:40:59.860
begin with. I mean, the right answer is not to talk about any cases before the courts,
00:41:04.180
but Doug Ford didn't choose that, uh, discretion. And that's what the police are saying. So the police,
00:41:10.180
Canadian police, you know, classically give very few details about any of these things.
00:41:14.420
So it's easy for us to speculate, but they're claiming if you follow this through the court,
00:41:19.060
you're going to, you're going to come around to our side. Uh, now they've said that in all of the
00:41:22.660
prior cases I mentioned in which someone didn't do anything wrong and five months later,
00:41:26.740
their life is ruined and now the charges are dropped. Um, but that's what their claim is.
00:41:31.620
They're saying, well, there's something that's going to come out that's, this isn't going to be
00:41:34.820
your, your pure case of home invasion. So, um, I, I guess that's the, that's the biggest credit
00:41:40.340
I could potentially give to the police service in this case. Um, but at the worst case scenario,
00:41:44.660
yeah, he just defended himself and they decided to throw the book at him because, you know, he was,
00:41:49.620
he punched him once more than he should have. Yeah. You know, Justin Trudeau legalized marijuana.
00:41:55.700
It's now in every corner, uh, store of this country, any, every corner of this country.
00:42:00.340
Um, but for a decade or two before that police forces, prosecutors, usually at the provincial
00:42:06.820
level all made the decision. We are not going to prosecute people for simple possession of a small
00:42:13.220
amount of marijuana. It's just not in the public interest. And frankly, there is not a reasonable
00:42:18.260
chance of conviction. It was a decision to use discretion, not to do something, even though
00:42:22.980
it was in the criminal code. And we see that all the time. There is nudity, for example,
00:42:27.220
in pride parades, uh, nudity than in other cases would yield a prosecution under the criminal code.
00:42:32.820
There's a section against nudity. My point is police have the ability to make these decisions.
00:42:37.700
And for some reason, neither Doug Ford nor frankly, Danielle Smith of Alberta have said,
00:42:42.980
we simply as a matter of policy will not prosecute these. And my hope is that the case
00:42:48.260
of Jeremy McDonald changes that by the way, folks, if you haven't chipped in yet, feel free to go to
00:42:53.700
castle law now.com. That's a website we've set up with the only authorized crowdfund to help
00:43:00.740
Jeremy McDonald. I've spoken to a few times on the phone and, you know, obviously he's rattled by this
00:43:05.620
whole thing to say the least. Uh, Tristan, thank you very much for taking the time. I really would
00:43:10.500
recommend to anyone to follow Tristan in the national post. He, he has columns, but he also does these
00:43:16.580
compendiums that I just think are great surveys of the news. Uh, what are you working on now? How,
00:43:21.940
and what's the best way for people to follow you? Go to the national post, buy my book,
00:43:27.220
don't be Canada. Uh, or we have a new season of my podcast. Uh, Canada did what?
00:43:34.020
Canada did what? Excellent. Thanks for taking the time with us. I really appreciate it. And it was an
00:43:38.740
excellent read. I think you, if I can contrast that the CBC, it felt like they were deploying expert
00:43:44.900
after expert to say, no, do not defend yourselves. It felt like a weird campaign by the CBC. Do not
00:43:51.700
defend yourself. And I, I think your, your essay here is a good counterpoint to that. So thanks
00:43:56.740
very much. All right. I hope everyone stays safe. Thank you very much. There he is, Tristan Hopper.
00:44:02.820
Stay with us more ahead. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Cecilia 9169 says,
00:44:18.580
it's my understanding is there was already a law against burning the American flag,
00:44:23.620
like what those people were burning our flag. So I'm so glad that he has done this
00:44:27.460
because in Obama white house, they let it actually, um, burning the American flag has
00:44:34.660
repeatedly being held by the courts to be expression and protected by the first amendment.
00:44:42.820
I read Trump's executive order and about two thirds of it really is saying that they will respect the
00:44:50.340
US first amendment. Otherwise this thing would be struck down in a moment. He said two things,
00:44:54.820
really three things. The first is they would sort of test what the limits of the first amendment is.
00:44:59.220
Okay. Recognizing that first amendment covers a lot of it. The second thing is that if you burn a flag
00:45:06.100
while in a riot, where it's not really about expressive comment, uh, expressive content,
00:45:13.220
you're not expressing a view. It's a becoming a weapon or something that that will be prosecuted.
00:45:18.740
How often does that happen? I don't think it happens very often. And then the final part was
00:45:24.740
if you are here on a visa, if you are a foreigner and burn the flags, get out. And that's not even a
00:45:31.140
first amendment thing. It's a, you are expressing your opposition to America as a country. I don't
00:45:37.300
know if that will survive the first amendment. Um, I would think that the first amendment is something
00:45:41.940
that citizens can avail themselves of. I don't know if it'll work in the deportation context, but I
00:45:47.540
think Donald Trump, or at least the lawyers who crafted that executive order, know that burning
00:45:53.780
a flag is part of the first amendment, which is why the flag is so powerful in a way, because that's
00:46:00.580
the free, the freedom, so free that you can burn the flag and it's still allowed. I don't know. It's a,
00:46:08.580
it's an interesting way to approach the culture war. If you read the executive order,
00:46:13.140
it really realizes that free speech is strong. Uh, next letter from Mark Hachette, 1809,
00:46:19.460
it says, Queers for Palestine is like turkeys for Thanksgiving. It was quite a showdown between
00:46:25.220
the Queers for Palestine and the regular pride parade. Um, the police didn't do anything to move
00:46:33.060
the Queers for Palestine because they know the pecking order. I remember a decade ago, I wrote a
00:46:38.820
column about politically correct poker, probably 20 years ago now, where I said, you know, straight
00:46:45.620
white men, it's like playing poker and maybe you have a pair of twos or something pretty low hand.
00:46:51.620
And then I said, well, if you're a woman, it's slightly more, if you're black, it's slightly more
00:46:56.180
disabled, gay. What's the tippy top political poker? Well, these days it's obviously Hamas. It's
00:47:03.540
obviously Islam. I mean, LGBTQ2SL plus is pretty powerful, but nothing can top Hamas. It's a very
00:47:13.540
upside down way we're living. I think that's our show for today until tomorrow on behalf of all of
00:47:18.500
us here at rebel world headquarters to you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.