Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ CBC 'comedians' spend 15 minutes reviewing a conservative comedian they didn't even watch

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. The CBC dispatched some government comedians to critique a conservative

00:00:06.120 comedian named Ben Bankus. Trouble is, they refused to watch Ben Bankus' show before critiquing it.

00:00:12.800 But they still went at it for 15 minutes. I'll take you through the 15 minutes. It was quite

00:00:16.480 something. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the

00:00:20.440 video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight

00:00:25.320 bucks a month. We need the dough because that's how we pay our bills. And, you know, it keeps us

00:00:29.940 independent because we don't take any money from the government.

00:00:48.640 Tonight, CBC comedians spend 15 minutes reviewing a conservative comedian

00:00:54.060 whose show they didn't even watch. It's February 19th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:02.680 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:14.500 You know, I've known Ben Bankus, the Toronto-based comedian, for a long time. I remember during the

00:01:20.900 lockdowns, he tried to do outdoor comedy to get people laughing, and he would set up with a PA

00:01:26.820 system in a park to get around the rules against closed buildings. He was a bit of a dissenter back

00:01:33.460 then, and he showed some entrepreneurial spirit. And Ben, over the course of time, has gone over to

00:01:38.460 big things. He's sold out tours, not just in Canada, but actually mainly in the United States.

00:01:44.060 He's a hit. He's a popular success, and I can only presume by the size of the crowds and the number of

00:01:51.040 gigs he has, but he's a commercial success, too. That's how it is in comedy. Most people just simply

00:01:57.440 don't hit that level of success, so you've got to tip your hat to Ben, and it's no surprise that he's

00:02:03.760 really made it big in the States. Most Canadian comedians, when they make it big, they go to the

00:02:09.240 States. That's half the people at Saturday Night Live in New York City, including the boss of that

00:02:14.740 place. Well, naturally, the government-funded comedians at the CBC State Broadcaster hate

00:02:22.680 success stories like Ben. They can't or won't even try to make it out on their own. The idea of a

00:02:29.100 government comedian is an oxymoron. It's a contradiction in terms. How can you be punk rock? How can you speak

00:02:36.660 truth to power if you're cashing a check every week from Mark Carney and you work for his state

00:02:43.220 broadcaster? It's just a contradiction, and so I think there's a sort of a sullen jealousy. The

00:02:49.320 losers at CBC comedy, when they see someone like Ben make a success, especially given that Ben is

00:02:55.480 conservative. Ben is controversial, no doubt about it, but he's been on a tear, and sure, maybe it's worth

00:03:01.260 talking about if you prefer talking about jokes rather than hearing the jokes. And that's, I think,

00:03:07.680 my criticism of the show I'm about to go through with you. What I'm about to show you is a CBC panel

00:03:13.660 of three people, two of whom purport to be comedians, talking about Ben Bankus, but never actually

00:03:21.260 showing his jokes or telling you what the jokes are. But nonetheless, they spend 15 minutes

00:03:27.900 condemning those jokes. There's the host of the show, and he has two comedians, one of whom

00:03:33.720 refused to see the show, but accepted the gig to come on the CBC to talk about it for 15 minutes.

00:03:41.920 How on earth do you even do that? Well, I'll show you. I want to play for you the entire 15-minute

00:03:49.460 conversation. This really is the blind leading the blind. How can you have a host of a show,

00:03:54.960 interview a guest of a show about a comedy routine neither of them has watched? Well,

00:04:00.900 it's the CBC, and all they need to know is they don't like conservatives, and they certainly don't

00:04:05.500 like Jews like Ben Bankus. Two of the three people in this conversation are Muslim, and they complain a 0.97

00:04:11.640 lot about Islamophobia. Ben Bankus does the opposite. He mocks Islamist terrorists. I think that's the real 1.00

00:04:18.580 reason he's hated. But without further ado, let me take you through 15 minutes of CBC talking

00:04:24.840 about comedy they never even saw. Here, let's play the tape. You already know that comedians are

00:04:30.200 supposed to push the envelope. That's the thing that we go to comedy for. That's what we want our

00:04:34.220 comedians to do, to make us think about the world differently. Now let me stop you right there,

00:04:38.020 because I think we may have a difference of opinion on what comedy is about. I don't go to

00:04:43.160 see comedy that often, but when I do, I go to laugh, not to be challenged on how I think. I don't regard

00:04:51.820 most comedians as deep public intellectuals. Some of them, like Tim Dillon, do riff on current

00:04:57.180 events. But I think that's when people start to applaud them, as opposed to laugh. I prefer

00:05:03.260 my comedians to make me laugh, don't you? He's originally from Toronto, and he's kind of become

00:05:07.820 known for material that's a little bit racist and sexist and transphobic. And he began to sell

00:05:13.820 out a lot of dates after he made this joke on stage about Renee Goode. Renee Goode, of course,

00:05:18.060 the woman who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. And the thing about the idea that

00:05:24.140 the outrage is the thing that's bringing people to the door, that's something that's interesting to

00:05:28.220 me. Like, what is the draw to see someone like a Ben Bankus? Well, Ali Hassan is here and Anne

00:05:33.580 McMaster is here. Anne McMaster actually went to see one of his shows in Toronto in order to report back

00:05:38.540 on what that audience was like and what Ben Bankus' work is like. I got so much out of this conversation.

00:05:43.580 I hope that you do too. Hello, both of you. Good morning. Good morning. Nice to have you here.

00:05:48.860 Thank you so much. I got to tell you, we asked both of you to go see the show and you were like,

00:05:54.060 sure. And then, Ali, you were like, no, I'm not doing it. I'm going to start with you briefly.

00:05:59.180 Who is Ben Bankus? And then why did you say, no, I'm not going to this yet? I'm not going to go see it.

00:06:05.420 All right. That's your right to be a little bit pouty. It's a little bit thin skin for someone who calls

00:06:09.900 himself a comedian. But how do you take a gig? I don't know. Maybe they paid him 500 bucks to come

00:06:15.020 on this podcast. It wouldn't surprise me. Now that Lapu Lapu thing is just for those who don't know,

00:06:21.820 there was a terrible crime. Someone drove a vehicle into a group of people in British Columbia,

00:06:32.220 and it was actually a horrific mass killing. And both the victims and the perpetrators

00:06:37.660 were Asian. And it was deemed not to be a terrorist incident. There was a mental health

00:06:42.380 element truly involved. And so Ben Bankus apparently said he should have done another

00:06:47.180 Lapu Lapu, another lap. I don't know. I didn't see the joke. I only heard people partially retell it.

00:06:54.860 But yeah, a lot of comedy is black comedy and part of comedy is laughing at dark things. I mean,

00:07:01.820 gallows humor, funereal humor. That's the best they got here. I'll just give it away here. Spoiler

00:07:08.060 alert. They don't actually come up with anything else. They don't actually quote Ben or any of his

00:07:13.500 jokes. It's really weird. Listen to this story, though. Let me just tell you in a story. Last summer,

00:07:19.980 we have a party in my backyard with my son's baseball team. One of the mothers shows up, says,

00:07:26.140 I heard you're a comedian. We went to see a comedian recently. Do you know Ben Bankus? And

00:07:30.300 I do know Ben. I've worked with Ben over the years. But I keep quiet, withhold judgment. I go,

00:07:35.420 yeah, I know Ben. And she says, we actually had to leave. Now I'm interested. Tell me what happened.

00:07:41.260 Why did you leave? And she says, well, the best way I can describe it was it was just like a mob

00:07:48.700 mentality. So I said, tell me the moment when you left. She said, well, he told this joke. She says,

00:07:54.140 do you know about the Lapu-Lapu festival in Vancouver? And you know what had happened there?

00:07:59.020 Somebody had sort of mowed down. Yeah, several people. Yeah, exactly. And so

00:08:04.620 he tells a joke about, yeah, so this happened at the Lapu-Lapu festival. And now I'm paraphrasing

00:08:09.180 because I wasn't there, but he makes a joke about, uh, he should have taken a few more Lapu-Lapus

00:08:13.980 around the block. Oof. Crowd cheers. In their row, this baseball mom in her row, somebody yells, 1.00

00:08:21.580 kill them all. Yeah. I just don't believe that happened. I don't believe that a soccer

00:08:27.900 mom came to his barbecue. That was oddly specific. It sounded a little like Jussie Smollett saying,

00:08:32.620 oh, I was walking in Chicago at 3 AM. And some guys came out with a noose and said,

00:08:37.260 you're in MAGA country. Yeah, no, I don't believe that that barbecue story with the soccer mom

00:08:43.900 happened. And I don't believe she said, the crowd said, kill them all. And I don't believe

00:08:50.220 it happened at all. I simply don't believe it. But that's how you fight against conservatives.

00:08:55.980 If you're with the CBC, you make up something and attack that straw man. They don't invite, uh,

00:09:03.260 you to watch Ben Bankus's comments. They just make up an incident, but not even about Ben Bankus

00:09:08.140 himself, but someone who was in the crowd in a double hearsay. Just awful.

00:09:14.700 That's why I didn't go see Ben Bankus. In summary, that still bothers me to, you know,

00:09:20.060 Filipino community is in mourning. Uh, good, decent Canadians across this country are in mourning.

00:09:27.420 And that's the type of joke you make. So that's just, that's not my, that's not my cup of tea to,

00:09:32.060 uh, to make a gross understatement. All right. So, so it was a bad joke. Maybe. I don't know.

00:09:37.500 What, why is he even on this panel? I don't understand that part. Shouldn't you know something

00:09:42.140 about or see a show before criticizing it? That would be like doing a movie review,

00:09:46.460 but saying, I refuse to review, refuse to see the movie, but I'm going to condemn it. It's really

00:09:51.420 weird. So here's the thing that you and I have in common is like this, when we hear like the first

00:09:55.740 time that I heard about Ben Bankus was this sort of Rene Good story. And we'll get to that bit in just

00:09:59.980 a moment bit, quote unquote. Um, but I, that was my first time going, I don't think I want anything to

00:10:05.180 deal with it. I'm not sure the kind of audience that this person would draw. And thank you for

00:10:10.620 going to the show on our, all of our behalf, because we did want to talk to someone who was

00:10:14.220 actually like physically there. Talk to me about your experience at the show. What was his, what

00:10:19.420 was his performance as a comedian? Like what was a crowd like? Tell me.

00:10:22.940 So the host refused to go too. I get it. If some loser comedian didn't go, he's making a stand.

00:10:29.500 I, I, why he's invited as a panelist, I don't know, but you're the host of this panel

00:10:34.780 and you refuse to go too? What is wrong with you CBC people?

00:10:40.380 I mean, first of all, uh, maybe next time you could send me to something sort of more fun,

00:10:44.220 like the dentist.

00:10:45.020 You are owed that. You are owed that, at least.

00:10:47.820 It's okay. I'm working on my self-loathing.

00:10:49.260 Okay.

00:10:50.220 Um, self-loathing, eh? Yeah, I believe that.

00:10:54.060 It was interesting. And I admit, there was a bit of like car crash curiosity for me to go see this show.

00:10:58.540 Um, what I observed right off the top was, you know, he's a, he's a person of size,

00:11:03.900 but he's got a really small stage presence. He takes up very little space on the stage,

00:11:08.780 kind of hangs out towards the back, very little eye contact, like always looking over to the side.

00:11:15.580 And then he's got this big pop that he just dives into. It's almost like his security blanket.

00:11:19.980 Um, the other, like, I won't comment on what he said, but I can speak to the structure of what he said.

00:11:25.420 It's hard to be like, tell us some of the jokes.

00:11:27.500 I don't want you to do any of that. I already, like, I'm not interested.

00:11:30.460 Yeah, of course.

00:11:31.100 You won't comment on what he said? I don't understand.

00:11:34.140 What was interesting to me was that there was no self-deprecation in his jokes.

00:11:37.580 Like a lot of comics will warn themselves up to the crowd by making shots of themselves.

00:11:41.660 Yeah.

00:11:42.220 And he didn't do any of that. Um, all of the jokes were what we call punching down.

00:11:46.620 Mm-hmm.

00:11:47.260 So targeting people with less power.

00:11:49.980 Mm-hmm.

00:11:50.540 Women, immigrants, indigenous, um, the Bad Bunny show. 1.00

00:11:55.500 So Ben Bankus punches down. And of course, great comedians on the left always punch up.

00:12:01.980 And mostly what they talk about is Donald Trump. It, trouble is, it's just,

00:12:06.060 it's clapping comedy, not laughing comedy. But I don't know if you heard that there.

00:12:11.260 They mentioned Bad Bunny. Um, I don't think anyone in the world knew who Bad Bunny was,

00:12:17.260 other than, uh, people who like Spanish language rap, until about a week ago when he was the

00:12:23.340 halftime performer at the Super Bowl. Here's a quick clip of Bad Bunny, just in case you don't know.

00:12:29.100 So Bad Bunny is an incredibly successful rapper. He surely got paid a million dollars plus to be in the Super Bowl.

00:12:54.220 How is it punching down for Ben Bankus to make fun of a millionaire privileged rapper?

00:13:00.140 I don't know. You gotta have new talking points if you're on the left, or maybe talk about what Ben Bankus actually said.

00:13:05.580 It was, it was pretty wild to see this thing, this technique that he has where he will drop the most racist,

00:13:12.780 misogynistic line and then wait. And once the audience laughs, he's like, see? Then he, then he jumps in.

00:13:20.860 So there's, it was very interesting to watch how he worked the crowd.

00:13:25.020 Mm-hmm. That sounds like maybe barely working the crowd and hoping for a response from the crowd.

00:13:29.420 But I suppose that's sometimes what that job is. I mean, gotta tell you.

00:13:32.460 Yeah.

00:13:32.940 Ali, like he's got sold out show in Kitchener next week, has been moved from, uh, next month,

00:13:37.420 sorry, has been moved from a studio run performance arts center to a private venue because a lot of residents had protested.

00:13:43.100 Now I found this disturbing. The fact that it was in a government facility that canceled Ben Bankus,

00:13:50.220 then he moved to private facility. It shouldn't be that way. If you're in a government facility,

00:13:54.940 you should be protected by the charter of rights, which applies to all government that they can't pick

00:14:00.220 and choose based on your political opinion. They can't cancel you because they think you're unfunny.

00:14:05.660 If you're in a private facility and your contract allows them to kick you out, I suppose that's fine.

00:14:12.220 Private property. How is it acceptable that the government says who can and can't use a public

00:14:18.860 building based on if their jokes are funny or not? I think that's actually really dangerous.

00:14:23.820 The panel here didn't see any danger. They'll never be kicked out of anywhere. That's for sure.

00:14:27.820 When CBC reached out a comment for him, I just want to read you this quote. This is a quote,

00:14:31.660 this is a statement that we got, the CBC got from him. Um, Ben Bankus is proving that following your

00:14:36.540 dreams and speaking your own truth resonates with millions of people, even if that truth is seen as

00:14:41.660 harsh or abrasive. As a comedian, what do you make of that? You know, I think Ben, people of his ilk,

00:14:48.940 and there are, there are many other comedians like him, they believe they're speaking truth to power and

00:14:54.380 they believe at some level that they are some type of, you know, George Carlin, uh, Bill Hicks type

00:15:00.940 of, uh, you know, reincarnation. And this has been said by many people, many times, dude, George Carlin

00:15:07.260 would hate you. George Carlin would absolutely despise you and everything. Those were men who

00:15:12.060 actually spoke truth to power. Power felt ashamed hearing the jokes that, uh, that, that George Carlin

00:15:19.420 made about them. He exposed people in power and talked about how they were corrupt and how they were,

00:15:24.140 going back on what Ann's saying, this is all punching down. This is easy, easy pickings.

00:15:28.860 It's low hanging fruit. I don't consider it good comedy. There's no actual joke writing going into

00:15:36.140 the bulk of it. And, um, yeah, I mean, I look, Ben's roots are, uh, racist from the beginning.

00:15:43.260 So he just went on a minute long attack there calling him racist, but he didn't actually watch the show.

00:15:50.940 How do you do that? What he discovered during the pandemic was this impersonation

00:15:55.580 of Theresa Tam that he did really, really struck a nerve with a lot of people who were like, I'm

00:16:02.700 feeling, you know, I don't want to get vaccinated. I don't want to not go be able to go to my job.

00:16:08.380 I don't want to have to do this. And so he struck a nerve and he's really sort of capitalized.

00:16:12.220 To come after a public health official that was seen by people every day on the TV,

00:16:17.340 on TV because she was explaining what's happening with COVID. Well, that's one avenue that you can go.

00:16:21.980 Again, punching down public health officers like Theresa Tam, that's not punching down. 1.00

00:16:28.780 Public health officers were not only extremely well paid to Theresa Tam, by my memory, made over $400,000

00:16:36.140 a year, just a staggering amount of money. But put aside the money, the amount of power they had just

00:16:41.900 with a flick of their wrist to lock down entire school boards, to lock down all sorts of businesses

00:16:49.420 in some places like Quebec, to bring in curfews. You literally couldn't leave your house between 10

00:16:55.260 p.m. and 5 a.m. To think that these are powerless people. They were the most powerful authoritarian

00:17:02.460 people in our society. And Ben Bankus can't make fun of them. And the people who like Ben can't laugh

00:17:08.300 with them. That's really incredible. They had power. And didn't they say at the beginning

00:17:14.060 that that's what comedy is about, speaking truth to power?

00:17:16.540 Let me... Let me... Can I push you on this a little bit? Mm-hmm.

00:17:20.700 The counter-argument that I could sort of hear people making, and it's not an argument that I'm

00:17:24.380 making, is this idea that a comedian's job is to say the thing that's unsayable. That's the sort of

00:17:31.020 avenue that some of his ilk would maybe represent.

00:17:33.580 Of course. Hate speech is a crime, by the way. And under the Liberal government, it'll be a

00:17:38.300 crime subject to life imprisonment. This panel here has decided that Ben Bankus engages in hate

00:17:44.300 speech and racist garbage without even watching the show.

00:17:48.300 I've been doing this for 20 years. I follow all kinds of comedy. Comedy that people would be like,

00:17:52.860 oh, I can't believe you like that comedian. Yeah, I do.

00:17:55.420 Yeah.

00:17:56.140 But I'm not sure where this doesn't descend into hate speech. There is a comedian who can be like,

00:18:03.020 imagine if I said something like this, and it's couched in that, and there's the... I'm kidding,

00:18:08.460 I'm kidding. I'm obviously kidding. There's none of that. There's none of that. It is direct,

00:18:12.140 head-on racism and pulling out the worst of the audience, and the audience expecting,

00:18:17.340 quote, unquote... Well, they're not expecting the worst, they're expecting the best of him.

00:18:20.620 But from my perspective, it's garbage.

00:18:24.620 Mm-hmm. And in that statement that Ben gave, he said,

00:18:28.540 attempts to cancel his shows only amplify his voice. You certainly saw that after his shows in

00:18:33.740 Minnesota were canceled, after that Rene Good joke, that he made that joke. And then after that,

00:18:39.340 all of these other shows and other locations start to sort of sell out. Are attempts to cancel him

00:18:44.700 kind of exactly what Ben wants at this point?

00:18:47.660 Yes. In a word. Absolutely. What I saw during the show is the man thrives on divisiveness.

00:18:54.780 Mm-hmm.

00:18:55.260 He loves to rile up the audience. He loves that people adore him or hate him. That's his currency.

00:19:02.060 Everything I saw was about getting either the right or the left all worked up.

00:19:06.780 And in my opinion, I agree with you, Ali, it's not great comedy. I mean, doing stereotypes...

00:19:13.900 I'm sorry, my dad was doing that in the 70s. Like, this is not...

00:19:17.420 This is not... It's not craft.

00:19:18.860 This is not cutting edge. Um, but I will say this. He is good at what he's doing.

00:19:24.780 Because he is quite manipulative. He knows exactly what he's doing.

00:19:27.660 And I think if you're at a Ben Bankus show and you're laughing or you're seething,

00:19:32.140 you're doing exactly what Ben Bankus wants.

00:19:34.060 Mm-hmm.

00:19:34.620 He's getting a lot of attention through manipulating you.

00:19:37.740 You know, this guy, Amin, says he's a 20-year comedian and he knows the business.

00:19:43.740 I've never heard of this guy before. I've never seen him.

00:19:46.460 I think the only gigs he gets are government gigs. I think he's sort of a DEI comedian.

00:19:51.580 And again, that's the worst. DEI comedians are the ones who say things that say,

00:19:55.180 Oh, you're so right. Go Kamala. She's wonderful. Whereas real comedians make you laugh. 0.96

00:20:00.060 Um, here's an example of this DEI comedian saying that

00:20:05.340 all Canadians or a vast number of Canadians are racist.

00:20:09.420 He's happy to take the money from Canadian taxpayers for his CBC gigs and then call them racist.

00:20:15.900 Take a look.

00:20:16.460 I think, you know, in Canada, we want to believe that we're somehow morally superior to the US.

00:20:24.140 But it's just, I mean, I've traveled around the country.

00:20:26.140 I'm telling you, it's just, you can cover your ears if you like, but we're just equally racist.

00:20:31.580 We really are. We just know how to hide. It's like a line from Scarface.

00:20:35.340 They just know how to hide. This gal actually went to the show, but she hasn't given a single 1.00

00:20:40.860 example of a joke. She's done a lot of mind reading though, of what's in Ben Bankus's mind

00:20:46.780 and what's in the crowd's mind. Why not just tell us what some of the jokes were? If they were so

00:20:51.740 outrageous, why not say them? If there was a swear word, you can omit it. What kind of garbage is this

00:20:57.820 CBC show? I want to recognize that like, we've avoided playing a clip until now. And as much as like,

00:21:03.180 I don't want to give Ben Bankus a larger platform, but I think it's like maybe useful to understand

00:21:09.180 what he sounds like and the work that he does. So I'm going to play a brief clip. So here's Ben

00:21:13.900 Bankus in Pocopsea, New York, three days after Renee Good was killed in Minneapolis.

00:21:18.380 Now for a moment of silence for Renee Good.

00:21:21.820 So he asked for that moment of silence. That's how the audience responds.

00:21:33.500 They didn't let him say the punchline there. A moment for Renee Good. Okay, that sounded like it

00:21:39.180 was going to be a funny joke and they just didn't show it. In fact, all they showed was the crowd's

00:21:43.340 reaction. I don't know if you know who Renee Good is. She's this woman who tried to run over a 1.00

00:21:50.780 policeman. Pro tip, don't try and run over a policeman. And Renee Good had been part of this

00:21:57.020 anti-ice sort of mob, this Antifa mob that was tracking police, would go to police, would seek

00:22:04.300 interactions with police, confrontations with police. And in her case, she panicked,

00:22:09.340 she drove, she hit a cop and another cop shot her dead. Now I think that's terrible. But I also

00:22:16.860 think that's what happens when you try and run over cops. And I think this trio of government

00:22:21.820 comedians here wanted to turn her into some sort of saint. You might even say it's in bad taste to

00:22:29.020 make a joke about her. Although all I heard was him saying, let's have a moment of silence for her.

00:22:33.500 You can take that seriously or as a joke, but it's not particularly vicious or particularly dark.

00:22:38.540 But they're appalled by this because he's attacked one of their saints and they don't like that,

00:22:43.980 don't you know? Ali, what occurs to you when you listen to that?

00:22:46.620 His audience knows that he would never ask for a genuine moment of silence. He knows that they

00:22:54.860 know that he knows, right? It's that they're all in the thing together. That's the manipulation that

00:23:00.060 I think Ant's talking about. He knows how to get a reaction from them. He would never ask for a moment of

00:23:05.500 his sons. He's relishing in stuff like that. So yeah, it's going exactly to plan.

00:23:12.380 No, I think he's just mocking the fact that they've turned her into a secular saint

00:23:17.340 and they worship her and he refuses to go along with that. And they can't stand it. They're sort

00:23:21.740 of Puritans that way. I guess the larger story is the soul that shows, right? The idea of seeing

00:23:26.540 those kinds of moments and then people going like, I want to go see that in person. And what was the crowd

00:23:32.140 like at that Toronto show that you went to? Well, I mean, let's just say-

00:23:35.980 Sharp inhale of breath. Don't they see why people are going to see Ben Bankus? I mean,

00:23:41.420 there's reasons. Some people might find them funny just straight up. But when you have people banning

00:23:46.780 Ben Bankus and when you have losers reviewing his comedy for 15 minutes like this without even seeing

00:23:52.540 it, don't you realize that there's a free spirit in people, at least the kind of people who go to

00:23:57.340 comedy clubs who are typically liberty loving, typically ready to have some offensive things

00:24:03.180 said in their general vicinity. Because some dour, unfunny losers in a Toronto studio say, 1.00

00:24:10.780 don't go, don't you realize that is precisely why people are going to show that they don't have to

00:24:16.700 bend the knee to the government? I fit right in.

00:24:18.860 Ben. A lot of my people. It was convenient, I think, for me to see everyone in Toronto I would

00:24:25.900 never date in one place. That was like, thank you, Ben. I appreciate that.

00:24:29.660 They're all here. They're all here. How handy. There was a really interesting moment during the

00:24:35.500 show when Ben told the audience he wished they were more riled up. And I found that to be one of the

00:24:42.780 more, like, honest moments of the show. The more telling thing, yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, he's so

00:24:47.660 performative. And if we're in that moment when he said, come on, like, you know, your guys are too

00:24:51.980 quiet. It's like, wow. Again, that's what he needs is he needs that heckler. Right. He needs that

00:24:58.060 person to feed off of the thing. To feed off, yeah. Because he genuinely thinks he's the smartest person in

00:25:02.940 the room. It sounds like she's never been to a comedy club. I mean, every comedian likes to get the crowd

00:25:10.140 going, likes to get the crowd revved up. I, uh, I just think this is really weird attempts at

00:25:15.820 psychoanalysis. I just wish they would have talked about the show a little more. Keep watching.

00:25:20.300 There was a really interesting moment when, um, someone heckled. I guess, is it a heckle when

00:25:24.620 someone gives you a compliment? What is that? I don't know. Cheered, I guess.

00:25:27.900 A cheer? A cheer? And they said, Ben for Prime Minister. And that was one of the rare times his eyes

00:25:33.500 went to the audience. And he said, yeah, I just might have to do that to make everything right.

00:25:37.340 He ran for mayor of Toronto a couple of years ago. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bit of hubris there.

00:25:41.820 Yeah. Just a bit. They think he's serious about running for prime minister or mayor.

00:25:46.220 Have you seen Ben Bankis running for mayor? It's, it's a joke. You might not think it's a funny joke.

00:25:54.700 You might think it's in bad taste as many of Ben Bankis' jokes might be. But you have to realize

00:26:01.420 it's a joke. Take a look. My name is Ben Bankis and I'm running for mayor of Toronto.

00:26:06.860 Because I am the first and only candidate that is not only transgender, transracial,

00:26:14.140 gender fluid. But I also believe that I am Olivia Chow. I believe that I am her. I identify as Olivia Chow,

00:26:23.260 as well as Ben Bankis. So I'm racially and personality fluid. On top of that, I'm also

00:26:29.580 species fluid. So I'm a trans species monkey hybrid. I do believe I was a Chinese half human,

00:26:37.580 half monkey hybrid made in the laboratory in Wuhan, China as a part of the lab loop.

00:26:43.820 They think he's serious. Keep watching. Ali, I know you can't get into it too much,

00:26:51.340 but you are working on a project about comedians with views like Ben Bankis. Why? Why? Why is that

00:26:58.380 something that you were like, you know what? I think we got to spend a bit of time talking

00:27:01.420 about this a little bit more in depth. Yeah. It's a show that's, that's in development

00:27:04.860 and you know, we'll hear news in the next, in the coming weeks, but that character, and I'm,

00:27:09.740 I'm less interested in dunking on Ben Bankis as a human being and more interested in this

00:27:13.500 idea of a comedian having a darker material, it resonating with audiences and then the audience

00:27:23.100 sort of taking you to a darker place. Right.

00:27:25.980 As you start to veer out of that place, your audience is like, no, no, no, no, no,

00:27:29.180 go back and do that stuff, that Asian accent. Let's do that. Let's go back there. 0.99

00:27:33.020 I'm interested in that because comedy is instant gratification. It's feedback. And what happens

00:27:37.580 when that feedback is coming from people who like create a world for you that you hadn't

00:27:42.940 anticipated really being part of. I think that phenomenon is very interesting and it's, it's

00:27:48.060 quite prevalent and it's not just in comedy, it's in culture. So I thought that was really worth

00:27:52.380 exploring and very interesting for the show. Oh, here it comes. He's working on a project.

00:27:57.340 Do you doubt that it's a government project funded maybe by some anti-Islamophobia fund?

00:28:03.340 So boring and so unfunny. How about just tell us some jokes? If you're Jewish, if you're Muslim, 1.00

00:28:09.980 if you're Christian, can you just make me laugh, please? There's something sort of like about the, 1.00

00:28:14.700 you know, the algorithm online, but also just like in person, people sort of saying,

00:28:20.060 whatever you did there, do more of that. You're like, do I want to do more of that? And then before

00:28:23.980 you know it, it's kind of like maybe run away a little bit from you. And in a way I'm, I'm kind

00:28:29.100 of cognizant of the fact that we are doing exactly what Ben Bankist wants, which is having this

00:28:32.940 conversation. And then despite that, I think it's an important conversation to have. I think it's kind of

00:28:37.900 important for us to kind of sit around and go like, oh, we should explore what this says about us.

00:28:41.740 Why do you think it's important for us to sort of like sit here and sort of talk about this Ben

00:28:45.260 Bankist phenomenon and act and the fact that he had in fact is selling on shows?

00:28:49.580 Oh brother, we're having an important conversation. You know, I looked at the number of people

00:28:54.460 who viewed this on YouTube, you know, this is the mighty CBC. Just over 1,500 people have seen this

00:29:02.540 entire episode on YouTube. Nobody thinks it's an important conversation. And if they want an

00:29:09.100 important conversation, they'll probably talk to important people, not comedians. You go to

00:29:13.420 comedians for a laugh other than these losers. Yeah, I think that's a really great question.

00:29:18.300 I mean, I, I went because it, it was important for me to get out of my echo chamber, but I, I was

00:29:26.380 alarmed, I think, by what I saw. And it was for me, I think a reminder like,

00:29:32.380 love is stronger than hate. Right. We have a responsibility to show up, you know, and to

00:29:37.260 seek out the people who are humanists, who are curious, who are empathetic. Um, it was a, it was a

00:29:43.980 reminder to me of how important that is now. Um, and I look, Ben, he might call me a snowflake and,

00:29:51.340 and, and that's fine. I'm Canadian. I know the power of snowflakes. Yeah, that's real.

00:29:56.140 That's really real. Love is stronger than hate people. Um, okay. Maybe, uh, why are you saying

00:30:04.220 that? Are you implying that you are full of love and he's full of hate? That's, that's all you got.

00:30:08.540 That's you, you're on this panel and you don't, you can't muster any arguments other than you're

00:30:14.780 a morally better person. You haven't given us any examples. You haven't told us exactly what he's done

00:30:20.460 wrong other than the one case of not bending the knee to your new saint from Minnesota.

00:30:25.500 Very weak. Last word to you, pal. Why, why is it important for us to keep having this conversation,

00:30:29.420 even though Ben is like, let's, he probably kind of wants this. Honestly, I don't think Ben Benkis

00:30:33.980 is thinking about you at all. Today, uh, yesterday, I guess, as we record this, uh, a representative,

00:30:40.700 Republican Randy Fine in a sitting, uh, uh, you know, Senator in Florida said, uh, if the choice is

00:30:48.060 between dogs and Muslims, it's an easy choice, right? Paraphrasing his tweet. Um, that's the 0.86

00:30:54.220 reality I live in, right? That's what my kids have to grow in where we've normalized that type of talk.

00:30:58.540 I won't speak for you, Alameen, but that's, that's where, where we're at. That's what I see. And that's 0.95

00:31:02.460 what's normalized. Nobody's coming at him. He's still got a job. Um, so I feel like it's my responsibility

00:31:10.140 to work towards what I want to see, which is a world with less hate, not more.

00:31:14.380 You know, I don't think I would say that phrase myself, but he was talking about

00:31:19.020 a Muslim led proposed ban on dogs because some Muslim people find dogs unclean or they don't

00:31:26.140 want to deal with dogs. And so what the congressman was saying is if I have to choose,

00:31:31.020 I'll choose dogs. He's not saying that he's equating Muslims with dogs. Again,

00:31:35.580 I wouldn't use that phrase. I wouldn't say it, but if you're trying to make a point,

00:31:39.660 it's stronger if you don't have to twist it, don't you think?

00:31:42.140 I think, you know, the people of Kitchener who protested and forced him out of that venue,

00:31:46.060 I think that's a good part of the story. I think it should, it should be difficult for him to say

00:31:49.500 what he's saying and, and for it to get out there. And yeah, if we can counter it with,

00:31:55.500 as Anne said, more and more love than hate. And I know as cheesy as that sounds,

00:31:59.020 I think that's important. I think that's what helps us get through life.

00:32:02.460 Mm-hmm. I love you both. I appreciate your time.

00:32:05.260 You know, they sure say that Ben hates a lot and I don't know, maybe he does. It's human emotion.

00:32:10.620 But the only hate I've seen for the last 15 minutes is from their show. Now I looked at the

00:32:15.500 handful of comments on the site and they really are so very few, but every single comment except

00:32:21.340 for one, just as mocking these CBC losers saying that Ben, talking about freedom or that Ben is

00:32:28.700 funny. I don't know. I just think this is the weakest hit job, weakest assassination,

00:32:34.860 character assassination that I've ever seen. But that's the state of the CBC. But hey,

00:32:39.820 everyone got paid, even the unfunny comedians. Stay with us more ahead.

00:32:53.340 Around the world, Christianity is in retreat, being prosecuted by Islamic terrorists in places 0.98

00:32:59.420 like Nigeria or being cracked down on by state atheists, such as in China. So I'm delighted to 0.98

00:33:07.020 say that my favorite Canadian charity, the Democracy Fund has opened up a new project,

00:33:12.620 a Religious Freedom Fellowship that is emphasizing pro-Christian activity, by which I mean fighting 0.99

00:33:19.900 against anti-Christian discrimination, and also fighting against anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish

00:33:27.660 discrimination. And I'm delighted now to introduce you to an old friend who has a new role as the

00:33:33.340 director of the Democracy Fund's Religious Freedom Fellowship. It's Amanda Ackman, and she joins us

00:33:39.180 now from Ottawa. Amanda, great to see you again, and congratulations on your new position. I have

00:33:44.780 been thinking about anti-Christian discrimination for a long time. Some people refuse to say it even

00:33:50.460 exists. They don't believe it. They think Christians are too powerful to be persecuted. But I think

00:33:57.260 everything from affirmative action and the reverse discrimination within it to the fact that Christians

00:34:03.180 are subtly mocked in all media, I think there is a dearth of people even calling out anti-Christian

00:34:11.420 discrimination. That's my view. What do you think? You mentioned some of the religious persecution

00:34:16.540 around the world in places like Nigeria and China. And this matters because we, in the more free and

00:34:24.060 prosperous parts of the country, part of the world, have a responsibility to set the standard for

00:34:30.700 freedom, for pluralism. And so while the kinds of persecution might look different, the crisis is the

00:34:37.740 same. Are people free to live, work, and worship wherever they are? And so I think we actually honor

00:34:44.540 those who are suffering as victims of more egregious forms of religious persecution by raising the bar and by

00:34:51.420 saying we will not abide the anti-Christian bigotry that you pointed out exists in Canada. And that can

00:34:59.340 take the form of violations of conscience protections for faith-based institutions or the desecration of

00:35:07.260 religious sites of worship or of cemeteries or of religious statues. We always see incremental chipping

00:35:15.100 away at respect and reverence for religious traditions that bodes badly for the freedom and

00:35:22.700 peace of the societies that endure this. So we have to be vigilant. We can't take for granted. The

00:35:29.420 society that we have is a gift that has been bequeathed to us by the religious traditions that are most

00:35:35.100 under threat now today. Yeah. I think that sometimes Christians are purged from the public square. I think of

00:35:41.500 when Trinity Western University sought to have a law school. This is a university in the lower

00:35:47.260 mainland, one of the law schools. There's plenty of law schools in Canada. They were banned, not because

00:35:52.620 the law school was accused in any way of being illegitimate or not being good enough, but because

00:35:59.100 the university itself had a policy against premarital sex because it was a Christian school. On that basis 1.00

00:36:06.380 alone, various law societies in Canada said we refuse to accredit lawyers because they will be coming

00:36:13.100 from a bigoted tradition. And we see that in other professions too. People cannot have their religious 0.93

00:36:19.340 conscience, can't act on it, or they'll be purged from the profession. And even in politics, very famously,

00:36:25.900 Justin Trudeau purged any professing Catholics. Anyone who was pro-life was simply not allowed in the

00:36:33.260 liberal government. And so I think sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's foreign, but when you deny

00:36:39.580 a law school from being accredited because it's Christian, it's pretty clear we've got some serious 1.00

00:36:44.380 discrimination going on. And that was over a decade ago. That was about 15 years ago now.

00:36:49.740 Yeah, absolutely. We belong, Christians belong in the public square. Jews belong in the public square.

00:36:56.460 We need to have a pluralistic public square in order to have a free society. As soon as there starts

00:37:03.500 being an ideological values test, as we saw, for example, with the Canada summer jobs requirement

00:37:09.660 that people check a box, a testing that they believe in essentially abortion in order to apply for

00:37:17.980 government grants and hire summer students. This is completely undermining the public square and the

00:37:26.300 free society that we all have a responsibility to uphold and to fight for.

00:37:30.380 Yeah. And I can tell you made medical assistance in dying, as it's sometimes called another way of

00:37:36.540 saying euthanasia. I just know that it's, it is or will be weaponized against Christian traditions of 0.96

00:37:45.420 caring for palliative care, people who are in pain, people who are in hospital. The Christian tradition

00:37:51.260 would be to save the life. The new pagan made tradition would be to euthanize them. I really 1.00

00:37:58.220 think that's a threat. We're talking a lot about anti-Christian discrimination, but anti-Jewish

00:38:03.420 discrimination is, of course, off the, off the charts. In the last two years, especially in my own

00:38:08.700 city of Toronto, a Jewish girl's school has been three times shot with gunfire. There's a synagogue 0.99

00:38:14.940 on Bayview Avenue in Toronto, 10 times it's been vandalized. So it's shocking. And then there's the,

00:38:20.780 the hate marches through the residential communities, screaming obscenities at just ordinary Jewish moms, 1.00

00:38:27.900 dads and kids. It's so, so gross. So tell me what you're planning to do about it as the new director of

00:38:34.780 the religious freedom fellowship at the democracy fund. We know that a lot of the existing strategies

00:38:40.860 are not working to address and to tackle this first. It's not being taken seriously enough.

00:38:45.340 Second, there have been a lot of things tried and not working over the past decades. And so I think

00:38:51.100 it's time for some fresh ideas for some young ideas. And so that's why we've created the religious

00:38:57.740 freedom fellowship program to recruit a cohort of Canadians ages 18 to 35, who are going to present

00:39:05.580 their own project proposals. Maybe they'll be writing, maybe they'll be organizing events in

00:39:09.980 their community. Maybe they'll be protecting places of worship in creative ways. Really,

00:39:15.420 those are just a few ideas. Really, the ideas are going to come from the cohort. So we're looking for

00:39:20.700 people who have an interest in challenging and confronting this anti-Christian bigotry and

00:39:28.220 anti-Semitism in Canada. Whatever their angle, whatever their approach, we're looking for fresh

00:39:32.940 ideas. And during the year, participants in this cohort will get training, they'll get mentorship.

00:39:38.860 It is a remote-based program so they can stay in their cities and continue doing their ordinary

00:39:44.300 work and studies while connecting with a group of eager young people like them who are going to

00:39:51.100 promote religious freedom in Canada and then take up these action projects. So it's basically to say,

00:39:58.220 let's crowdsource, let's identify the ideas that we don't know about yet so that we can hopefully

00:40:03.580 have a more promising future in this regard. So basically, young people across Canada are invited to apply

00:40:10.300 to become religious freedom fellows. And then once there's a group of them or a cohort,

00:40:15.020 they'll have regular updates, they'll be part of a WhatsApp group, they'll get a modest stipend,

00:40:22.300 and they'll sort of be this team that's active. Give me some examples of what these, I'm calling

00:40:30.300 them kids, when you're 54, everyone's a kid. But give me an example of something these young people

00:40:35.900 might do on any given day. Right. Students and young professionals across Canada will be maybe

00:40:43.180 responding to an incident that happens in their community. So often we see incidents that are met

00:40:49.340 with silence. And so where do we oppose those incidents? It's got to be in the public square,

00:40:56.700 through op-eds, through articles, through shows of solidarity. And then after the attack in Australia,

00:41:03.340 Jews killed in Australia on the beach. And now Canadians are feeling that that threat,

00:41:10.620 we don't wait until something like this happens here. We say, what are we going to do to create

00:41:15.900 the conditions so that it won't happen here? And so I'm looking for those creative ideas to preempt

00:41:23.420 any sort of incident that would actually threaten lives here. We don't want to be the next country

00:41:32.860 in this story of extremely devastating, violent attacks. So it may seem modest, it may seem very

00:41:42.940 small, but we know that small acts of resistance against this kind of threat can be a turning point

00:41:51.020 in the, and can shift the culture. And so looking for those ideas, looking for people who are

00:41:57.820 disquieted by the rise of anti-Semitism on social media, who are ready to push back and to meet this

00:42:08.140 challenge with whatever they have on their conscience as an honorable form of resistance.

00:42:16.220 Hey, if someone's watching right now and wants to learn more about this,

00:42:19.340 what's the best way they can do that? You can go to religiousfreedomfellowship.ca,

00:42:23.900 check out the description of the program and apply there.

00:42:27.260 Great. By the way, I know you do some other things as well.

00:42:29.340 Why don't you give us a quick update on some of the other projects you're working on, Amanda?

00:42:33.660 Sure. So I'm also working to prevent euthanasia and encourage hope across Canada.

00:42:38.700 And as you mentioned earlier, this is also an area under which faith-based institutions

00:42:44.700 are under threat because, for example, hospices and hospitals that don't want to offer

00:42:53.020 death to people directly on site, they want to offer care, are being met with this ideological test

00:43:00.380 in order to continue operating within Canadian healthcare. This is unacceptable. People always

00:43:05.820 deserve better than death. There is always more that we can do in terms of love. And the request for

00:43:11.980 euthanasia is not usually the expression of a desire to die so much as it is an expression of some

00:43:17.580 disappointment. And so we need to meet that disappointment with something better, something

00:43:22.540 more attractive, again, something more hopeful than this despairing, dejected capitulation to

00:43:31.420 what is really a cry for help. So I promote life and I promote religious freedom and I promote the

00:43:38.220 ingenuity that helps us to meet the malaise that we sense in this country of Canada so that we can

00:43:44.860 have a brighter and more flourishing country that we can all be deeply proud of.

00:43:49.100 Well, we got to get that Religious Freedom Fellowship going. One more time, what's the website?

00:43:53.260 If someone's out there thinking, I want to learn a little bit more about this,

00:43:56.700 what's the website again?

00:43:57.660 ReligiousFreedomFellowship.ca

00:43:59.820 All right, Amanda, great to see you. Congratulations on the new position. 0.88

00:44:04.140 And hopefully we'll get that thing all staffed up.

00:44:07.420 Looking forward.

00:44:08.380 There she is, Amanda Ackman, the director

00:44:10.700 of the Religious Freedom Fellowship. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.

00:44:22.940 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me about Mark Carney's proposed anti-Trump coalition.

00:44:29.020 Malcolm Kendall says,

00:44:30.460 You notice that globalists like Carney stopped using the more honest great reset phrase that

00:44:34.780 Justin let out of the bag. Yeah, the great reset, of course, that's the name of a book by Klaus Schwab

00:44:39.180 of the World Economic Forum. They also had build back better was one of their phrases. But Mark Carney's

00:44:45.100 sort of gone old school with his new world order, right?

00:44:49.740 Mongo says, Carney is the greatest spokesman for Alberta independence. He will be the last prime

00:44:54.300 minister of a united Canada. You know, that's something that Preston Manning wrote last year in the

00:44:58.700 Globe and Mail. I was startled that Preston said it. I was surprised that the Globe and Mail ran it.

00:45:03.500 And I thought, holy smokes, that's a dramatic thing to say. But my gosh, it's almost coming true.

00:45:09.420 Kyle Hampton says, I don't think most Canadians understand how bad they are viewed in America now,

00:45:14.300 especially at the government level. From a government to government relationship,

00:45:17.260 there isn't too many more anti-American governments anywhere in the world. And Americans understand that

00:45:21.740 now. Kyle, I'm going to politely disagree with you. I really don't think Americans are focused on

00:45:27.340 this issue. There may be some pockets of Americans that are and perhaps a small segment

00:45:32.220 of the political class that is. But I mean, just right now, you've got some Americans, for example,

00:45:38.780 Hispanics and many people in Florida in general are focused on Cuba. You've got the military ramping up

00:45:45.900 for a possible and likely attack on Iran. You've got the Russia-Ukraine war that continues to grind on.

00:45:53.740 You've got trade with China and trade. There's just so many things that are more interesting, more

00:46:02.380 important, more relevant to the ordinary American. I mean, forget about foreign policy, the price of

00:46:08.940 groceries, price of inflation, the price of gas, which has fallen under Trump, the increasing in

00:46:15.900 factories, the increasing steel production, the unemployment numbers, the per capita GDP. There's

00:46:23.420 so many things that I think a normal person in America would think about other than Mark Carney is

00:46:30.780 whipping up anti-American nations into a coalition. Like, I just think one of the mistakes we make in

00:46:37.180 Canada is thinking that everyone thinks about us as much as we think about then, especially in America.

00:46:44.380 Donald Trump, I mean, I can only imagine how busy he is. I think they're going to attack Iran 0.96

00:46:49.500 in the most massive war since the first Gulf War. There's never been a larger

00:46:55.660 naval and air force presence since the first Gulf War. This is so huge. And I think it's going to

00:47:03.420 happen. I don't think Trump is thinking, well, what does Mark Carney have to say about me this week?

00:47:07.980 I just don't think he is. That's our show for the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here

00:47:14.780 at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:47:22.620 Here we go.

00:47:40.220 Here we go.

Rebel News Podcast - February 20, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ CBC 'comedians' spend 15 minutes reviewing a conservative comedian they didn't even watch

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