Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Catherine McKenna announces she’s quitting politics in a burst of self-pity and narcissism

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today, I take you through Catherine McKenna's goodbye speech. I don't

00:00:05.800 think it'll be her last goodbye speech. I think she loves talking about herself too much, loves

00:00:10.940 photo ops about herself too much. I think it's the first of a long goodbye tour. There'll be

00:00:16.080 goodbye conferences, goodbye parties, goodbye speeches in the House of Commons. She's just too

00:00:22.940 much of a camera hound to make this goodbye. But I'll give you the true measure of her career,

00:00:29.200 including the most devastating condemnation of her character that she herself said. So

00:00:34.900 that's ahead. Before I get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel

00:00:39.980 News Plus. It's the video version of these podcasts, which I think is better than just the podcast

00:00:45.680 because you put a lot of effort into showing your clips, showing your facts, showing your photos.

00:00:50.120 Unfortunately, you have to look at me, but other than that, it's good. You also get access to

00:00:54.800 Sheila Gunn-Reed's weekly show, David Menzies' weekly show, Andrew Chappas' weekly show. That's

00:00:59.180 all also on Rebel News Plus. Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. It's eight bucks a

00:01:03.880 month, and that money helps keep us strong and independent. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:08.200 Tonight, Catherine McKenna announces she's quitting politics in a burst of self-pity and narcissism. 0.91

00:01:29.800 It's June 28th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:34.500 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:38.280 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:42.380 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:47.220 right to do so.

00:01:48.200 It's not even close. The most vain MP in Parliament is Justin Trudeau. I think he just loves looking

00:02:00.320 at pictures of himself. There's a weird Peter Pan juvenile side to it. Boy, he loves dressing up

00:02:07.060 in costumes. He never wants to grow up. My advice to all the single people out there is find someone

00:02:14.420 who loves you as much as Trudeau loves himself. But a very close second would be Catherine McKenna.

00:02:22.100 Her first big PR splash as a cabinet minister was when she led the most bloated delegation in history 1.00

00:02:29.140 to the Paris Global Warming Summit that the UN was hosting just after the 2015 election.

00:02:34.960 That's when she hired a Paris fashion photographer to tag along and capture all of her magical moments.

00:02:44.420 Now, everyone these days has a great camera in their cell phone. And of course, there are staff who can

00:02:50.240 take a picture of her and even official photographers along with the delegation. But none of them were

00:02:56.000 good enough for Catherine McKenna. She literally forked out thousands and thousands of tax dollars 1.00

00:03:01.860 to hire a Paris fashion photographer. She really does fancy herself, I don't know, a supermodel or 1.00

00:03:10.140 something. Well, she does have the vocal fry down pat. I don't know how you can have a valley girl 1.00

00:03:16.080 accent when you're from Hamilton, Ontario. But she she mastered that. Here's how she started. That's

00:03:22.020 how she started her career as an MP. And I think she ended it in a similar flourish today. She had a

00:03:28.580 photo op to announce she's quitting politics. And she exited with the same vanity flourish with which 1.00

00:03:34.800 she entered. Here's one of her many photos of herself that she tweeted about herself when having

00:03:41.820 a press conference to talk about herself. But look at it. She stepped out of her ministerial car to get

00:03:47.680 on her bike just for the photo op. Oh, yes, she has a free car as a cabinet minister. And she puts on

00:03:54.520 the mileage. Curiously, she blocked our access to information request about how much mileage she puts 0.97

00:04:00.000 on that car. That's odd. It's also illegal. It's almost like she doesn't want people to know just

00:04:04.920 how much she drives. I don't blame her. People might call her a hypocrite. So she's on her bike

00:04:11.880 as if she wears high heels when biking. And she's wearing a mask outside, even though she's had her

00:04:20.980 vaccine shot. What a weirdo. So she had a press conference to announce that she's not running again. 0.68

00:04:26.760 And it was covered live by CBC and CTV for more than half an hour. I'm not even kidding. Is that the top

00:04:35.760 news in Canada, in the world? I think it was 42 minutes of unfiltered, self-serving propaganda.

00:04:42.700 Can you recall the last time that Trudeau himself had 42 minutes straight of pandering from the media

00:04:48.380 like that? It's quite something. And she did take some questions, if you can call them that. You might think

00:04:53.240 that a self-described feminist like McKenna, oh, I don't know, might have been asked questions about,

00:04:57.980 I don't know, the fact that Harjeet Sajam remains in cabinet, despite news, you know, that he actually,

00:05:06.120 you know, you know, this whole sexual misconduct thing in the military, even amongst his own staff,

00:05:11.780 there are people accused. You might think that a self-described ally of Aboriginal people who started

00:05:17.940 off her speech to acknowledging that she was on Indian land. You might think she would have had,

00:05:22.500 you know, a couple of questions about the bizarre bigotry shown by Carolyn Bennett, Trudeau's

00:05:28.560 Indigenous Affairs Minister, towards Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Justice Minister fired by Trudeau,

00:05:35.120 when Bennett claimed that Raybould only cared about money and her pension. Seriously,

00:05:40.700 the same Jody Wilson-Raybould who put everything on the line for ethics. Imagine claiming that she 1.00

00:05:45.020 was the one motivated by power and money. No questions about that for McKenna. It was a

00:05:51.340 reminder about the collusion between the media party and the Liberal Party. Really,

00:05:54.580 there's no dividing line between them. The closest thing to a tough question

00:05:58.500 came from one of those Trudeau bailout news media called The Logic that asked McKenna,

00:06:04.460 and I'm not even kidding, see for yourself, why aren't you spending more money faster? You think

00:06:10.800 I'm kidding? I'm not kidding. Take a look.

00:06:13.080 I'm Minister David Revely from The Logic. I'm wondering if you could share your insights as

00:06:18.320 infrastructure minister into why it seems so difficult to spend billions of dollars to build

00:06:23.840 and fix stuff in this country. The government is not on track to meet its long-term commitments on

00:06:29.400 that spending. Why is it so hard? That was literally the toughest question she was asked.

00:06:33.680 Why aren't you spending more? By someone who's on the Trudeau payroll himself. No questions about the

00:06:38.960 missing billions in infrastructure money that, you know, just gone missing. Just that little thing.

00:06:45.200 No questions about the fact that McKenna has declared war against Canadian coal and Canadian

00:06:50.040 oil and gas and Canadian pipelines, but literally flew to China with the crooked SNC-Lavalin types

00:06:56.680 to promote the use of coal there. She really loves China, just like Trudeau. So there were no

00:07:02.880 questions about the fact that as Canadian environment minister, she worked for a Chinese government

00:07:08.160 agency, not a bilateral agency, not some joint Canada-China thing. She literally served on a

00:07:14.780 Chinese government agency working for them. Does she regret that? Oh, don't ask such mean

00:07:22.000 questions. Nothing on her chronic habit of embroidering the truth, like blaming normal weather events on

00:07:29.680 global warming. Like saying the science blamed global warming for some floods. Oh, there's floods

00:07:36.040 every spring. Her own department said she just made it up. That's a lie. Certainly no questions about

00:07:42.840 her more weird indulgences, that it would have been the source of endless questions if it had been a

00:07:48.680 conservative MP. I mean, here's just one. Why did you eat a dog and brag about it on TV?

00:07:55.260 I found out one of the most popular dishes in Flores was dog. Guess what we had for lunch?

00:08:12.820 That's weird. But what got me the most about Catherine McKenna was about how she manipulated 1.00

00:08:19.280 feminism and used it to silence other women and to excuse herself from any accountability. She was 1.00

00:08:26.260 silent as Trudeau fired Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, possibly the best health minister

00:08:32.260 Canada ever had. Imagine if she had been in charge during the pandemic instead of Patty Hajdu, 0.99

00:08:38.100 that graphic designer and Chinese Communist Party activist. To McKenna, being a woman served only one

00:08:45.300 purpose, to provide cover for Trudeau's own misogyny, including his own sexual assaults,

00:08:51.740 including against Rose Knight. But at the same time, this lesson that we are learning in,

00:08:58.360 and I'll be blunt about it, often a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate,

00:09:06.120 and a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently,

00:09:10.900 and we have to respect that. McKenna endorsed Trudeau and endorsed Sajjan and endorsed all the other

00:09:17.240 disgraces in cabinet, giving them her women's seal of approval as they abused women. McKenna was a nasty 1.00

00:09:25.120 bully herself, of course, calling her critics deniers, evoking that Holocaust vocabulary. But if anyone

00:09:31.080 criticized her, she played the victim card immediately, saying that any criticism of her was sexist.

00:09:37.740 People mock Trudeau for being a narcissist, photo-op-loving lightweight. I do that every day.

00:09:44.300 McKenna is the same way, but when people criticized her for it, including Sheila Gunn-Reed's gentle

00:09:49.800 nickname for her being Climate Barbie, after she hired that Paris fashion photographer, 1.00

00:09:55.780 McKenna went full enraged emo and said it was the worst thing to happen to women in modern history 1.00

00:10:03.420 in Canada, and shame on Sheila for being so sexist. Which is weird, because McKenna herself loves 0.99

00:10:11.980 bullying women. Do you remember when Sheila Gunn-Reed asked a real question of someone from McKenna's

00:10:16.380 delegation to that UN Global Warming Conference? Remember this?

00:10:19.980 Hi, I'm Sheila. Nice to meet you. Hi, I'm Kevin. Hi, Kevin. Rachel, you got a card?

00:10:23.660 Yeah. This is my staff. Great. Okay.

00:10:30.380 Sorry, and for which organization? No, sorry, we're actually not available. We're on our way

00:10:35.820 to another meeting. Well, he just agreed to speak to us.

00:10:38.300 But he just agreed to speak to us. Why are you not speaking to us? Is it just us in particular?

00:10:49.260 Is it just us in particular that you don't want to speak to?

00:10:54.380 Is it just...

00:10:55.100 Go to our next meeting, no? Thank you.

00:10:56.620 It's us though? Like, why don't you want to speak to us? Do I seem unpleasant or...

00:11:01.500 Was I rude?

00:11:08.460 I don't understand why you won't speak to us. You were just sitting there speaking to a bunch of people.

00:11:15.420 Are you worried I might ask a difficult question?

00:11:21.980 This isn't going to look good, you running away from me. You know that, right?

00:11:24.940 Yeah, after that, and that's good journalism by Sheila, McKenna specifically told the United

00:11:31.180 Nations to ban Sheila from ever attending a UN conference again. So yeah, I think Sheila has

00:11:37.020 earned the right to call McKenna climate, Barbie. But to David Akin, today that was the most important

00:11:44.620 part of McKenna's self-serving speech. It's the most important thing David Akin wanted to ask McKenna about.

00:11:51.020 David Akin, Global News. Thank you, Minister, for taking our questions.

00:11:54.780 And congratulations and good luck on whatever's in the future. I wanted to ask this question of you.

00:12:00.860 You are among a group of female politicians in this parliament that has had to endure some 1.00

00:12:06.380 ridiculous abuse, not just on social media, but often from parliamentarians sitting right across

00:12:10.460 from you. I wonder if that played at all a factor. You've been very, I thought, pretty strong in

00:12:15.420 dealing with a lot of that. But did that play a factor? And the next step then, as you speak to

00:12:20.380 particularly younger women who are thinking about getting into politics, what can be done? What can 1.00

00:12:25.900 you say to them who just look at your experience and say, I just can't do that?

00:12:31.820 Yeah, male feminists. White knighting for a powerful woman. David, maybe she'll offer you a job. 1.00

00:12:38.140 I miss David, my old colleague, coming to Sheila's aid when she was banned by McKenna for going to the

00:12:44.780 UN, or for that matter when Sheila was attacked by an NDP activist, male feminists, eh? Akin, Trudeau,

00:12:51.340 they're all the same. Catherine McKenna was a failure by her own yardsticks. The world emits

00:12:58.300 more carbon dioxide than ever, if you care about that sort of thing.

00:13:01.660 McKenna's beloved China emits more than the G7 countries combined. And even Canada is growing

00:13:09.980 its emissions, other than the brief dip during the last recession. Didn't McKenna say she'd fix all 0.95

00:13:16.220 that? Maybe she never meant it, but either way, it's a failure. As an individual politician, she failed

00:13:23.100 too. Even Trudeau grew tired of her and demoted her in cabinet. In her self-congratulations today,

00:13:30.060 McKenna said that she wanted to make way for someone more diverse than her.

00:13:34.700 And that's the message. That for all the negativity, there are millions of other

00:13:41.660 people on the other side who have supported me personally, but support politics and support

00:13:46.140 politicians. And that's really my message. But honestly, to the girls, the women, the broader

00:13:54.620 diversity, we need more diversity in politics. It's the only way it is going to change.

00:13:59.660 I say do it. If you feel it in your heart, if you've got something to contribute,

00:14:05.100 if there's something you want to achieve, then get into politics. We need new voices,

00:14:10.300 and we always need to push. I'm leaving because I have other things to do.

00:14:15.740 And I think I've done what I came to do. But this should not be a message about not going into politics.

00:14:23.740 This should be a message. We need more of you in, and I'm creating space for folks to do it. 0.97

00:14:28.300 Yeah, that's just another lie. She's making way for an old, white, rich man, a banker, a globalist,

00:14:35.740 named Mark Carney, former central banker, who wants to come back to Canada from the UK,

00:14:41.580 enter parliament, and eventually succeed Trudeau. So much for young, diverse voices.

00:14:46.300 How will Catherine McKenna be remembered, if at all? I don't know if she'll be remembered,

00:14:53.100 but I think if she is, it'll be as a cry bully who loved to attack others, especially other women. 1.00

00:14:59.500 But the moment her outrageous conduct itself was criticized, even gently, McKenna played the victim

00:15:05.500 card and taught other women and girls that when the going gets tough, the answer is to complain and 0.97

00:15:11.820 say it's just because you're a girl. I think McKenna will be remembered as a bitter partisan with deep

00:15:18.860 ethical problems, who collaborated in firing authentic women who probably themselves could be

00:15:25.020 called feminist heroes, certainly much more than McKenna. But mainly, McKenna will be remembered

00:15:31.420 as the cabinet minister who went into a Newfoundland bar, met some CBCers, got drunk, and then said the

00:15:42.140 quiet part out loud. The secret to success, she said, was just to tell a lie over and over again.

00:15:52.140 You know, I actually gave them some real advice. I said that if you actually say it louder,

00:15:56.860 we've learned in the House of Commons, if you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your

00:16:00.540 talking point, people will totally believe it. So just go. Yeah, that's what we'll remember of

00:16:05.420 Catherine McKenna in her own words. Stay with me for more.

00:16:22.140 Well, we have over 1,834 cases at our fightthefines.com civil liberties project. Most of them are what I

00:16:29.900 call severely normal Canadians, just from every walk of life and every background, just people who were 0.97

00:16:35.740 hit hard by outrageous and likely illegal lockdown tickets. However, amongst those 1,834 cases, there are

00:16:44.620 some special ones that stand out, including a few churches, a few businesses, and a few cases that

00:16:51.900 the politicians really want to turn into examples. And Calgary, and Alberta more broadly, seems to be

00:16:58.620 ground zero for the maximalist approach to lockdown prosecutions. And today, three of those most prominent

00:17:06.860 cases issued rulings. The court issued a ruling. Chris Scott, the proprietor of the Whistle Stop

00:17:14.860 Diner in Mirror, Alberta. Arthur Pavlovsky and his brother David, pastors at the street church, and

00:17:23.100 Tim Stevens, another Calgary pastor, all of them have their rulings today, and all of them

00:17:29.740 were convicted. Joining us now via Skype is our friend Sheila Gunn-Reed, who was watching

00:17:34.940 three of those matters unfold this morning, and was live tweeting the proceedings. Sheila,

00:17:40.220 great to see you again. Hi, Ezra. Thanks for having me on the show. I just want to clarify

00:17:45.260 one quick thing, because there are a lot of moving parts today. Tim Stevens, he didn't get a decision

00:17:49.900 today, but his next court appearance is kicked down the road until mid-July. So that's when we'll

00:17:57.340 hear next from him. So while the politicians are celebrating, as they say, the greatest outdoor

00:18:04.300 show on earth, the Calgary Stampede, while they're trying on their new outfits to celebrate the

00:18:09.100 reopening of this province, Tim Stevens is being told that he'll sit in jail for at least another

00:18:14.780 two more weeks before he even goes before a judge one more time. So, okay, thank you for the

00:18:21.100 correction. So Chris Scott, the businessman, and the two Pavlovsky brothers, they were convicted

00:18:26.940 or found in contempt of court today. They will be sentenced later. Tim Stevens, you've corrected me,

00:18:32.460 thank you for that, did not have a ruling today, but he will rot in jail until his trial is heard

00:18:39.980 at a later date. So he remains in prison. Do you know how long he's been in prison for? It's got to

00:18:45.100 be a week now, right? Yeah, I think we're approaching maybe even two weeks that he's been sitting in jail.

00:18:51.660 And today, the other hearings were two separate

00:18:56.380 contempt hearings for the Pavlovsky brothers, because they were held in contempt of an April 23rd

00:19:05.180 court order that was obtained in secret, and then a May 6th court order that didn't

00:19:09.660 name either one of them in it, but was also obtained in secret, and then the Chris Scott

00:19:13.740 hearing as well at the very same time. Yeah, and you said a few things there that may sound

00:19:17.660 odd to people. Obtained in secret, I mean, we have been crowdfunding the lawyer for Arthur Pavlovsky.

00:19:26.300 He was actually our very first client in Fight the Fines. We've been representing him or funding

00:19:32.140 Sarah Miller to represent him since April of 2020. So that's now 14 months. And for the Alberta

00:19:39.580 government, they know this. They fought with Sarah Miller. She's cleaned their clock time and again.

00:19:44.300 So they sneaked into court without notice to Arthur, without notice to Sarah Miller.

00:19:50.060 They didn't tell the judge that they knew Arthur was lawyered up, and they made a secret application

00:19:56.140 and got an order, and they didn't invite the other side to be part of a battle. That's how courts are.

00:20:03.900 Adi ultram partum is the legal maxim that means hear the other party. And that didn't happen.

00:20:09.980 So it was a secret application for a contempt order. And on one of them,

00:20:15.580 it didn't even name the people. It was just John Doe's and Jane Doe's.

00:20:19.660 They are doing very rotten law in Alberta, and they're doing it with pride. The number of

00:20:25.900 prosecutors and bureaucrats the government of Alberta is throwing these pastors is shocking.

00:20:31.100 It's like the Nuremberg trials. But if the bad guys had won, the amount of prosecutorial

00:20:36.380 and police power they're putting on these pastors is crazy.

00:20:41.340 Well, and just the complete idea that there's no such thing as procedure anymore.

00:20:47.420 So not only with that April 23rd order that was obtained in secret against Pastor Art,

00:20:52.860 that was served to him the morning of April 24th, when they tried to enter his church,

00:20:58.140 because that order gives Alberta Health Services and the police free reign to enter Pastor Art's

00:21:06.140 church, whether services are going on or not, which is actually in breach of the Canadian Criminal Code,

00:21:13.420 Section 176, that you cannot interrupt a church service. But they handed it to him

00:21:18.780 and gave him two and a half minutes to be served with it, to read it, to understand and then come into compliance.

00:21:29.740 Art's first language is not English. He speaks Polish first. And in that moment when they're serving him,

00:21:38.220 because Art is really good at recording every interaction he has with officials, he can be heard

00:21:43.900 saying, call my lawyer, call my lawyer. And they never did. They never gave Art an opportunity to

00:21:52.700 understand the order and come into compliance. They gave him two and a half minutes. And that was

00:21:58.460 one of Sarah Miller's arguments was that this is just not enough time for anybody, let alone someone

00:22:03.020 who's got English as a second language to understand what you're giving them.

00:22:06.540 Yeah. And that's the thing. The fact that Pastor Tim Stevens is in jail right now, the fact that Arthur

00:22:14.700 Pawlowski was in jail for days and before him and Chris Scott was in jail, and of course in Edmonton,

00:22:21.340 Pastor James Coates was in jail for 35 days. These are not crimes. They're not charged with any crimes.

00:22:27.020 No. And these health orders that they're charged with, they don't carry with them a custodial sentence.

00:22:33.500 So what's happening here is Alberta Health is trying to find some way to jail them that's not

00:22:40.380 contemplated in the law. And so they got these sweeping contempt orders against anyone and then

00:22:47.820 tried to tag people they don't like and literally give them like two minutes or you didn't comply

00:22:53.100 within two minutes reading a legal document as I storm your church with a bunch of armed cops off to

00:22:59.660 jail for you. I don't know. I find it deeply troubling that no one, especially the official

00:23:07.180 civil liberties groups on the left seems to care. And frankly, I'm embarrassed for the judge that

00:23:12.460 upheld all of this. I mean, we're going to, I mean, I spoke to the lawyer already this morning,

00:23:16.300 Sarah Miller. I said, if there's grounds for appeal and if the clients want it, we will continue to

00:23:20.940 crowdfund to appeal this all the way. But I do not have a lot of hope because the government loves this

00:23:27.820 lockdown. The opposition loves it. The judges love it. The police love it. The civil liberties

00:23:33.900 associations with the only exception of the JCCF and us are silent. Maybe, maybe Canadians 0.94

00:23:41.020 really don't care about freedom. Maybe Wilfrid Laurier was wrong that freedom isn't our nationality and

00:23:47.100 Diefenbaker was wrong. Maybe, maybe country, countries like Canada aren't really meant to be free,

00:23:53.420 Sheila. I say that facetiously because I think all people are meant to be free, but it's pretty

00:23:57.580 disgraceful what's happening. Well, yeah, I mean, and Chris Scott, he was arrested and held for

00:24:04.140 three days. His crime was refusing to go broke. He held a 1500 strong, a 1500 person strong protest

00:24:12.700 at his restaurant that the government that very week had seized from him. They chained the doors to

00:24:19.500 the restaurant. They chained the doors to the convenience store. They chained the doors to the

00:24:23.580 gas station and they locked up his campsite for some reason, collectively punishing the entire town

00:24:29.740 of Mirror, Alberta, whose closest gas station then was 20 kilometers away. So naturally the town came out

00:24:36.220 in full force to support him the night of the protest. And Chris Scott was taken away for protesting

00:24:43.420 the government restraints on his own business. He was restrained from protesting government

00:24:49.500 restraints. He was held for three days. And in Chris Scott's case, again, just like Pastor Art,

00:24:56.300 the government knows who Chad Williamson is. They know that Chris Scott has a lawyer. He's been fighting

00:25:04.300 other court orders on behalf of, of Chris Scott before, but they snuck in to a Calgary court in front of

00:25:11.820 Justice Rook and failed to inform the court that Chris Scott was represented by a lawyer and failed

00:25:20.620 to inform Chad Williamson of the proceedings against his client. And because of that on Wednesday,

00:25:27.660 so two days from now, I think that's the biggest fight here is that Chad and Chris are in front of

00:25:34.620 the court of appeals because they are trying to overturn the original court order based on the fact that it

00:25:40.940 was, uh, procedurally illegal really that it violates the fundamental principles of justice that if you

00:25:47.740 have a lawyer, uh, you should be able to have your lawyer in court representing you and that you should

00:25:52.620 know if the court is going to do things to you that ultimately could end up with you behind bars.

00:25:59.180 So on, on Wednesday, so two days from now, I think that's the big, the big, big court fight,

00:26:06.780 at least for Chris Scott is that they are in court arguing that, Hey, we didn't do anything illegal.

00:26:12.540 It was you, the government who did something illegal. Well, I'm not going to hold out hope that's, uh,

00:26:18.700 that the court of appeal will see it any differently than the lower courts. I mean, uh, there was an insane

00:26:24.060 ruling by the federal court of Canada. We challenged their hotel COVID quarantine jails, and that was upheld

00:26:31.500 by the federal court. And part of me thought, I get it. I've already listed how the entire

00:26:36.540 establishment is in favor of these lockdowns, uh, forever. Why should one federal court judge stand

00:26:43.020 up and take the heat for saying the emperor has no clothes? Why? So that everyone else in Ottawa can,

00:26:49.420 can marginalize them and call him a kook and not invite them to Christmas parties anymore.

00:26:54.060 So I think that when you're dealing with courts, especially senior courts and courts of appeal,

00:26:59.100 you're dealing with the fanciest, highest stratum of society. And the higher you go on that mountaintop,

00:27:06.300 the less likely you are to be a dissenter, a dissident, or someone of principle to say,

00:27:11.900 Whoa, there's a lot of groupthink going on up here. And I'm going to, you know,

00:27:16.540 put a spanner in the works. You're just not likely to see that. Now I hope I'm wrong.

00:27:21.100 I hope I'm wrong. Here's what gets me. I saw the other day that Senator Josh Hawley

00:27:26.940 of the great state of Missouri wrote a letter asking the U S um, independent, sorry, international

00:27:34.140 religious freedom commission to put Canada on the watch list because of all these pastors being

00:27:39.900 arrested. And the letter was copied to Canada's ambassador to the States. I thought it was a

00:27:44.620 great letter. I should tell you that I know of at least 20 other congressmen who are alive to this

00:27:51.100 matter and state legislators too. My God, I can only imagine what would happen if they jailed these

00:27:57.260 pastors again. Here's my question. You got, let's say two dozen American politicians worried about

00:28:06.300 religious freedom in Canada, including a fairly powerful Senator. I haven't seen a single Canadian

00:28:14.540 senator of either of any party. I haven't seen a single Alberta government or opposition politician

00:28:23.740 out of 338 MPs. The only one who said anything is Derek Sloan. And he was ejected from the conservatives

00:28:31.180 months ago. So I've just gone through hundreds of Canadian politicians. Not a single Canadian

00:28:39.980 politician is alarmed about jailing pastors. Not one has said a word. I wish they could all lose.

00:28:51.340 I wish every Canadian politician of every political party could all lose because they are all

00:28:59.100 absolutely terrible. None of them are upholding religious freedoms and it's a disgrace. Well, I've seen 0.82

00:29:05.340 a few of them speak out about another issue of religious persecution. So we've had five churches

00:29:11.980 burned in the West here and three more vandalized, including a Polish Catholic church in Edmonton.

00:29:19.340 And I've seen some conservative politicians say, oh, you know, this is, you know, we have to speak out

00:29:24.940 about these churches burning and the vandalism and the intolerance and the people who are actively

00:29:30.540 cheering for it. And I appreciate that. However, you're pretty quiet about when pastors are locked

00:29:39.820 up. You can be outraged about a building. And trust me, those buildings are meaningful. They house the

00:29:48.220 history of the congregation in the parish. But you didn't say anything when the government locked up the

00:29:54.620 pastors of other churches. It can't be one and not the other. It has to be both.

00:30:00.300 Yeah. Well, I find this whole thing very frustrating. I know we got into some technical legal stuff today.

00:30:07.420 But I think, let me sum it up this way. If these things were happening in Egypt, China, the Nineveh

00:30:15.900 Plain of Iraq, Pakistan, parts of Nigeria, where Christians are being persecuted, if these things

00:30:24.300 were happening there, there would be outrage. In fact, maybe Jason Kenney himself would be outraged.

00:30:29.900 He used to do that. But they're happening in Canada. Other countries are starting to notice, but

00:30:37.260 it's like we are sleepwalking. Sheila, I know that I'm committed to continuing to fight the fight.

00:30:43.660 I think most of these pastors and Chris Scott, the businessmen, are too. We got a great team

00:30:49.100 of lawyers. You mentioned Chad Williamson. I mentioned Sarah Miller. We now have over a dozen

00:30:53.820 lawyers across the country. For folks who want to chip in, you can go to fightthefinance.com.

00:30:58.460 You'll actually get a charitable tax receipt for that. I'm sad and I'm tired of this fight,

00:31:05.660 but we can't stop. We have to keep fighting. It's just sad that all those things I was taught

00:31:12.460 that Canada stood for, freedom, the rule of law. I'm just sort of sad to see that we failed the test

00:31:19.180 that we really meant it. You know, there are business owners who are willing to go to jail

00:31:24.940 for the right of small business owners to keep their doors open. And there are pastors who are

00:31:29.660 willing to go to jail in front of their crying children for the right for religious freedom for me.

00:31:36.380 For me, the least we can do is stand behind them. And I just want to take this minute to thank

00:31:41.980 everybody who has donated either at savearcher.com or fightthefines.com.

00:31:48.780 It's for those of you at home, it might be a financial donation that you're giving, but let me tell you

00:31:54.540 what your moral support. I mean, your monetary contribution to our fight for freedom.

00:32:00.060 Of course, that's valuable. It keeps the lawyers fighting, but it really means a lot for these

00:32:07.260 people in their darkest moment to know that there are so many people cheering for them to keep going.

00:32:12.940 Well, that's a better note to end on. I'm just sad about this setback because I just feel like

00:32:22.220 this idealized version of Canada that I had in my head, the idealized version I had of the law.

00:32:27.420 I mean, I'm a former lawyer myself. I went to law school and I thought, wow, this law,

00:32:31.900 it's to be, you know, it's our greatest inheritance. It's our greatest asset.

00:32:40.300 You know, China's taking it away from Hong Kong. And well, that's not like us. We would fight.

00:32:47.900 We have not fought like Hong Kong fought for their freedoms. And you're right that these pastors,

00:32:54.860 including Tim Stevens, who's in jail right now. We'll keep fighting, Sheila. I just want to

00:33:00.140 express my own personal sense of loss, the loss of the naive belief that the establishment in this

00:33:07.740 country actually believed in freedom. That I've lost. That's a personal thing. That's just

00:33:15.020 my own illusion coming into contact with reality. We're still going to fight like hell. You know that,

00:33:21.180 Sheila. We'll fight like hell. And I know these pastors will and our lawyers will. It's just sad

00:33:25.340 to realize it. That's all. Well, you and I were talking the other day, we can't change the world,

00:33:30.460 but we can change somebody's world. And I think that's really what makes a difference for people.

00:33:34.940 All right. We'll end on that note. Sheila, thanks for your great work.

00:33:38.220 And we'll keep up the fight. Appreciate your time. Thanks, boss.

00:33:42.140 All right. That's Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter who was covering various cases.

00:33:46.780 Don't mind me. We're going to get up and fight. We always do. Stay with us more ahead.

00:34:02.060 Hey, welcome back on my show on Friday on Aaron O'Toole's poll numbers. Maurice writes,

00:34:06.380 I don't know, Ezra. Every time I watch your show, I get more depressed. How about looking into a few

00:34:10.540 points on a conservative win, please? Well, if I want to feel good about the conservative party,

00:34:16.540 which I do, I turn to Pierre Polyev. He's always got some little video making a point,

00:34:22.300 making an argument. And it raises my spirits because he's a happy warrior. He's a true conservative.

00:34:28.780 I think he's an excellent communicator. And he's young enough to wait out Aaron O'Toole. And

00:34:37.100 that's how I keep my hope alive. I don't think the polls are going to provide you

00:34:41.100 any hope. No, it's possible that the conservatives will turn it around in the campaign. I mean,

00:34:46.060 I guess it's possible when you've got, what, is it going to be a hundred third party super PACs

00:34:51.740 against the conservatives? And of course, the greatest super PAC of all the media.

00:34:57.420 I mean, remember the CBC literally sued the conservative party in the middle of the race

00:35:00.860 last time. So yeah, do you think that the conservatives are going to rise in the polls

00:35:06.220 or fall in the polls in the campaign? But if you want to have hopes, just close your eyes and think

00:35:11.420 of Pierre Polyev. I'm serious though. He's the only hope. Travis writes, I have voted conservative in

00:35:17.500 every provincial and federal election as well as others in my family. We have always been conservative

00:35:22.860 supporters. I will not be voting conservative in the next federal election. Well, I want to correct an

00:35:27.580 error I made the other day. When I was talking to Lauren, I had seen the poll results nationwide and

00:35:33.980 they omitted the People's Party of Canada. And I got a note from someone who said, actually,

00:35:39.740 in the provincial breakdowns in Alberta, the People's Party was at 7%. Now, I didn't verify

00:35:45.820 that myself. I'm just telling you, I got an email from someone who saw the show. So I should have

00:35:50.380 probably checked it before saying it to you on TV. But so there's a twinkle of dissent there,

00:35:59.180 but still 7% in the polls. You know, you can come in second or third in every single riding

00:36:04.700 in Canada and not win a single seat. We don't have proportional representation. You need to have

00:36:10.620 30% plus in any given district if you're going to win. And I think that's going to be the shame of

00:36:17.660 it is there's going to be some dissident parties and dissident candidates who get votes, but they

00:36:23.260 don't poke through. I don't know. There I am being depressing again. That's our show for today.

00:36:28.620 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:36:32.540 good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:36:47.660 you

Rebel News Podcast - June 29, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Catherine McKenna announces she’s quitting politics in a burst of self-pity and narcissism

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