EZRA LEVANT ｜ Conservative MPs shouldn't be bullied into silence by leftists
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Summary
Member of Parliament Garnet Genuis was banned from speaking at York University on Friday, and he just accepted it. I ll explain what the member of parliament should do when some student activist says he's not allowed to come to campus.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. I have a slightly sad, slightly infuriating story for you today.
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A member of parliament for the Conservative Party was banned from speaking this Friday
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at York University, and he just accepted it. He just said, okay, sorry about that.
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Anyone who wanted to meet me just phoned me. No, no, that's not good enough. You're a member
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of parliament. I'll explain what the member of parliament should do when some student activist
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says you're not allowed to come to campus. I was sort of disappointed. That's the show today. But
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first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. That's the video
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we don't take any government money, so we really rely on it.
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Tonight, a member of parliament should not let leftists bully him into silence. It's January 8th,
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Garnet Genuis is the member of parliament for Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta. That's
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actually Sheila Gunn-Reed's riding, and he's one of the good guys. At least in his heart, he is.
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Sometimes he lacks the courage of his convictions, though, which always breaks my heart. I remember
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when I interviewed him a few years ago about why he would go along with one scheme to endorse
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the Paris global warming targets, which meant a carbon tax and all sorts of net zero BS. I honestly
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can't remember if the red Tory leader at the time was Andrew Scheer or Aaron O'Toole, but it doesn't
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really matter. You'd think an MP from Alberta with major oil and gas operations right in his district
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would stand up for his people rather than appease some placeholder red Tory leader. I asked him about
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that, and I was not impressed with the answer. I'm not interested in telling the story about what
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we're doing. I'm interested in selling oil. You say that... Yeah, but those two go together,
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obviously, right? I mean, we can't sell oil. No, not obviously. We're not selling in a sort of
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telling our story kind of sense, right? I feel like I'm listening to the duck speak,
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the Kim Kardashian talking points of Catherine McKenna and Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley.
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You don't need to tell a story to sell oil. 90 million barrels of oil are bought and sold every
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day, much of it from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela. They don't need to tell a story. They just
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need to sell oil. And your line about balancing the economy and the environment, what on earth does
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that have to do with being subject to some UN scam? I can't... You have utterly absorbed the talking
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points of Catherine McKenna. She has said those exact same things. You know, sorry, but that is
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completely unfair, right? Like, every single day, Conservative MPs stand up to fight back against
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the carbon tax and fight for... Not this day. Not this day.
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Those are the things that matter to my constituents, opposing the carbon tax and getting pipelines
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through. And taking an approach that doesn't fight on ground we can't win on, and that chooses
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to fight on ground that matters so much more and that we can win on, that's the responsible approach
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that I think we need to take. And, you know, it doesn't mean people are always going to agree with us.
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It doesn't mean we're always going to agree with you, but we've got to have a respectful
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conversation here about the reality that what matters to my constituents is achieving results
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for the energy sector. And there is nothing in this ocean or in the accord that takes away from
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our ability to do that. It's the Liberal plan to supposedly implement it that we take issue with
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and have always will and will continue to. So you say with honesty and belief that you believe
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being part of the United Nations Paris Agreement makes it easier to sell Alberta oil? Is that
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what you're saying? Ezra, I think that if we were to say we are one of a very small number
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of countries that are outside of it. In certain environments, it would make it much more difficult.
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For instance, in Europe, right? We have, I think, an opportunity by getting the Energy East pipeline
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built to market our oil resources to Europe. And that requires us to sell what our policy mix is,
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Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia. You know who sells oil to Europe? Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia. Do they have
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to sell their policy mix? You are sounding like Justin Trudeau. Does Saudi Arabia have to sell itself?
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You'll get no argument from me that there are huge problems environmentally in terms of human rights.
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Yeah. I raise these issues repeatedly, the human rights issues themselves, as well as
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the fact that Canadian energy is a much better alternative than this.
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You haven't answered my question. But I'm just saying we should put our
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best foot forward here, Ezra, right? Like, you need to recognize that. I think that we can put
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our best foot forward and we can fight on the issues that matter on carbon taxes, on pipelines,
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and we can get better results if we actually position ourselves for success in that argument.
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Yeah. You know what? Rachel Notley has been using those exact lines for two years. She's saying,
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if we just stab ourselves in the eye, if we just stab ourselves in the eye, we'll buy social license.
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That's what you're saying. No, that's not what I'm saying. Because the Paris Agreement doesn't
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stab us in the eye. The Paris Agreement has no negative impact on us.
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It's just a knowledge form. The Paris Agreement involves Canada setting our own targets, which are
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We take issue with the carbon tax that Rachel Notley is proposing, that Justin Trudeau is proposing. We
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are opposed to the carbon tax. And that's a critical difference. That's not critical.
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On almost every vote, we receive a recommendation from the WIP. Personally, I don't know what other
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conversations other members had. I never discussed it with the WIP because I was convinced and remain
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convinced that our vote was the right decision. I mean it when I say he's one of the good guys.
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But the thing about being a good guy is you have to do it. You have to act on it. You can't just be
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good in your heart quietly. That's not enough. At least it's not enough for a member of parliament.
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I mean, look at the word parliament. It comes from to speak out, to advocate. Ordinary private citizens
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can keep their own counsel. Ordinary people have the right to remain private. You don't have to jump
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into every battle. But if you positively signed up for the battle, if you signed up for politics,
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if you ran on a promise to say certain things, the battle of ideas is actually your job. You gotta act
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on it. Now, I really do like Garnet Genuous, in case you're in any doubt, but look at this that he
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wrote late last night. You tell me if you are as disappointed as I am. He wrote this on X now called,
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or used to be called Twitter. He said, I have disappointing news to share about further attacks
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on free speech. My event at York University, scheduled for this Friday, is now cancelled
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due to a decision of the Student Union not to allow it. I'm pretty surprised. We've done the
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same event concept at universities in four provinces without incident. I stand in a public area in front
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of a banner and talk to students as they walk by about jobs and unemployment. But the Student Union
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at York won't allow it. York students who want to talk about jobs and unemployment should please
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contact my office. I still want to hear your stories. So that's it. Instead of going to the
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students where they are with the hope of meeting people, not just diehard conservatives, but people
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who aren't political, people who aren't convinced to engage them and convince them, you think it's a
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substitute to tell them to phone your MP's office, actually not even their own MP's office,
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to phone you out in Fort Saskatchewan. Who came up with that one? That is not a substitute. That is
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not good enough. Here's what I wrote in reply to Garnet Genuos on Twitter, and I tried to be my
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friendliest, the friendliest version of myself. I said, hi Garnet, I think you could have a different
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response than just accepting this outcome and tweeting about it. Number one, I think you should go to court.
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The Student Union may be governed by the Charter of Rights and therefore have an obligation to respect
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your freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, etc. Even if they're not
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governed by the Charter, there are likely other procedural rules of fairness that apply. It's already
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Thursday, but you should go to court anyways because you could reschedule the York University
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meeting for another day. Number two, the Student Union may have the ability to eject you from their property,
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e.g. if you were set to speak in a building owned by them, but they wouldn't have the ability to ban
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you from anywhere else on campus. There are plenty of meeting rooms, even auditoriums on campus where
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they have no power. Number three, most people who are banned from campuses don't have the money,
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know-how or large media presence to fight back. You have all three. I think it behooves you to push back
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against the censorship, not only for yourself, but to set a legal and political precedent for others.
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And number four, frankly, why wouldn't you just show up? What are they going to do? Arrest you?
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At most, they give you a trespass notice, which you'd ignore and continue to talk.
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If they finally did call real police, then slowly leave. And let that be the defining image for York
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University in 2026. Spark a larger debate about freedom. Get the Board of Governors and the University
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President on the record. It is not acceptable for a student union to ban an MP from speaking on campus.
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Going along with it strengthens it. That's what I wrote. What do you think? There's other points I
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could have made too, like maybe they're breaching a contract or inducing a breach of contract. I'm
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thinking like a lawyer for a second. It almost doesn't matter. The point is to fight and to show a bit
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of courage, not to back down at the first whiff of wokeism. I mean, if a member of parliament can't
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stand up to censorship at York University student union, how is an ordinary student expected to do
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so? I mean, you're a grown man with a lot of power. And if you can't stand up, how could some 18 or 19
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year old stand up? It isn't part of being in public life, part of being a leader, isn't it being a role
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model? Setting an example. Some loser left-wing student just says, no, you can't come. And you
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say, um, okay, anyone can phone me out there in Fort Saskatchewan. Now, after I posted my response,
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Garnet Genuous wrote this. He said, some people have suggested that I proceed with the event anyways.
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Yeah, that'd be me. I am willing to do so-called unauthorized events on campus. I did one previously
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at Concordia. I don't believe that student unions should be able to shut these things down. In this
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particular case, I've been working with a group of local students to facilitate the events. I don't
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want to create a situation in which they could face indirect consequences. I'm always ready to deal
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with controversy. Are you really, mate? Are you really? But I don't want to leave someone else holding
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the bag. Well, isn't that what you just sort of did? So bottom line, I expect to be back at York,
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but not this Friday. I'm sorry. I don't buy it. I don't want to create a situation in which they
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could face the indirect consequences. They're precisely the ones who have to suffer the direct
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consequences of you bailing. You quit their event because some woke student said you can't do it.
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And what consequences are you referring to? Is there some threat against them? And if so, you've just
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accepted that or you're letting it stand without pushing back. I'm sorry. I just don't think that's
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good enough. You can't be the cowardly lion. You got to have some courage. Not when you have the
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power of an MP's office behind you. You have nothing to lose. You can't be fired. Your expenses
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are covered. You're your own boss. You're very strong as an MP. You can challenge this petty
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ruling. If you get in trouble, Parliament's Board of Internal Economy will take care of you, for
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example, paying for your legal defense. I know that. You've got access to every journalist in Canada.
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You could send an email and get on CBC, CTV, Global News immediately. You have power,
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but you're bending the knee to some woke urchin. You need to channel a bit of that US senator from
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Louisiana, John Kennedy, not the late president, but this guy. I'm talking about the cultured,
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cosmopolitan, goat's milk latte drinking, avocado toast eating insiders elite.
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Why not have some fun? Why not make this a free speech moment instead of just
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slinking away? Why not name and shame the person who's censoring you? Why not put them on the back
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foot? Why not make them justify themselves? Put them on the defensive instead of mumbling your
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justifications. Why not act like an MP? Why not act like a free man? Why not act like a Canadian and say,
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you are un-Canadian. I'm not going to cancel. I'm going to come to talk and you can arrest me if you don't
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like it. Why don't you strap on some balls? And why not make them send out police to threaten to
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arrest you? The police will not want to do so. At the very least, you'll walk out when they arrive
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and not be arrested. But it'll be a scene the entire country will watch and it'll be a great shame
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on York University. Why didn't you even name the person who did it to you? The university itself will
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surely be compelled to clarify its support for free speech. Or if you want to be a bit braver,
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frankly, why not let them handcuff you and drive you off? They're not going to keep you in prison.
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They'll be out in an hour. You know, they're not going to charge you. They'll release you in an
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hour. If they do charge you, it's under the trespass act. You'll get a hundred dollar fine.
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My point is, why are you acting like you are the outsider? You were the problematic one. You were the
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unusual one instead of just saying, no. I mean, whoever would seek a ban to ban a Canadian MP from talking to
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students, that's the unusual one. That's the weirdo. That's the one deviating from our national
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beliefs. I'm sorry. I'm disappointed. At Rebel News, our main job is to report the news. And sometimes we
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get illegally hassled by security, by protesters, by police even. And we fight back every time.
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Even though we don't have a public budget, even though we're not MP after our name, we fight back.
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David Menzies was arrested five times. We always got him out of jail. We're suing the police. He
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never actually spent overnight in jail. We would always get him out even if it was midnight. We
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fought back and we're still fighting back. It's one of the most expensive things we do because the
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government has unlimited budgets. Well, that's the thing about being an MP. He has a big government
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budget too, by the way. And if he's ever sued or prosecuted, he has an unlimited budget.
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Now, I'm disappointed. I've reached out to Garnett to invite him to come on the show and talk with me
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about this. I sort of doubt he'll come on, but I hope he will. I'm worried that the conservative
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party of Canada is losing some of its verve. You know, my colleague, Sheila Gunn-Reed reached out
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to Pierre Polyev's officer for a year-end interview like so many others are doing. And by the way,
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Pierre Polyev has done a lot of podcasts and influencers. He's, you know, I saw him do an interview to
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the trucker Pleb, who's a really good guy. And there's just so many. He did one with Juneau News.
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He's doing a lot of them. But Rebel News just couldn't fit in their schedule, they said.
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Okay, well, Christmas is over. How's your schedule looking now? Or is it that we're slipping back
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into that era, that Erin O'Toole, Andrew Scheer era, when they would let the mean girls of the regime
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media bully them? Are we back to, don't, the Erin O'Toole saying, don't talk to those
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trucker people. Are we back to, don't talk to Rebel News. What's going on?
00:16:47.980
Why wasn't Sheila Gunn-Reed allowed to talk to Pierre Polyev? If the conservative member of
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parliament from the conservative province of Alberta, in the conservative riding of Sherwood
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Park, Fort Saskatchewan, you know, I, I, I know he's got it in him. I mean, look at this speech
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he gave at a citizenship ceremony a couple years ago. We weren't settled through the leveling down
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of a censorious state. We were built by fearless pioneers, like all of you, seeking opportunity
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and freedom. That is the freedom to speak to advance your own deeply held convictions.
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That's good stuff. You see, he's got it in him. He's, he's using the language of freedom
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and anti-censorship, but he said it in a speech with no risk. It was just in front of a bunch of
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new Canadians who were just listening to a politician before they got their citizenship.
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I mean, there was a no risk situation. How about giving that same speech delivered
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tomorrow at York University, instead of letting them run you off with just a mean tweet? Stay with us for more.
00:17:56.700
Well, you know, one of our favorite guests to go to is, well, frankly,
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anyone associated with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, because it seems like all we hear
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from are people who want to boost taxes. They don't quite say it that way. They say,
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we need you to make an investment in, oh, I don't know, $50 billion for electric vehicle batteries.
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But the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and I believe in them for one big reason,
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is they don't take government money, so they are not compromised. The leader of this fighting force
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is our friend Franco Terrizano, and he joins us now via Skype from Ottawa. Franco, great to see you
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again. Happy New Year to you. 2026, before we get into the details of your latest memo,
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are you optimistic or pessimistic for this year from a taxpayer's point of view?
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Well, I always like to think of myself as a happy warrior, so I'm a little optimistic, but
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I'm also not naive, right? And I think one of the big issues that we're facing here in Canada
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is the crushing federal government debt. Right now, more than a trillion dollars, interest charges
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on the debt alone, costing us more than a billion dollars every single week. So, you know, the next
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time you're standing in there in that checkout line, well, every single dollar you're paying in federal
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sales tax is now going to pay interest on the debt. I got a question for you. I mean, I hear this
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from Mark Carney's apologists, and I even hear this from some provincial Ontario conservatives
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who are sort of chummy with Carney, and they say to me, Ezra, Mark Carney is more conservative than
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anyone since Stephen Harper. Well, okay, that means more conservative than Justin Trudeau.
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They say he used to work for Stephen Harper, which I guess is technically true. He was the
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Bank of Canada governor back then, I think. And they say that he's undoing some of the radical
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nature of the Trudeau government. You know, Trudeau would never sign an MOU for pipelines,
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even though I don't think the pipelines will likely happen. There's at least the fact that
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Stephen Gilboa is having a hissy fit over it is maybe a good sign. And they point to the fact that
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there is a small $190 tax cut from 15 to 14 percent for the lowest income earners. And they're trying
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to say, no, no, no. This is Paul Martin all over again. This is the fiscally conservative liberals.
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I don't buy it. What should I say the next time I encounter someone trying to say, no, no, no.
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Mark Carney is really a fiscal conservative. What should I say to them?
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What's fiscally conservative about borrowing $80 billion in one year?
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Yeah. What's fiscally conservative about planning to borrow more money than Trudeau
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even planned? I mean, look, like if you're going to tell me that somebody's fiscally
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more conservative, right, more fiscally responsible than Trudeau, I'm going to be like,
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well, you just put the bar on the floor. I mean, Trudeau is the prime minister who doubled the debt
00:20:51.180
in 10 years. And look, let's look moving forward. Okay. Carney plans to add what about $320
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billion to the debt over the next handful of years? Well, over those same years,
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Trudeau was planning to add about $150 billion to the debt. So Carney's planning to borrow twice
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as much as what even Trudeau was planning over those same exact years. Come on.
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Yeah. I want to let you know I wasn't buying it, but I just wanted to ask what your response would
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be. And by the way, lowering that tax rate by 1% on the lowest income earners, I mean,
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of course it's better than nothing, but it's offset by so many tax increases.
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Why don't you go through some of them? I mean, an obvious one is the booze tax, isn't it? I mean,
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I'm not a big boozer myself, but you know, it's, it's something that people use. Tell me how alcohol
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taxes are looking to go this year. Well, I'm going to get into alcohol taxes in a second,
00:21:43.100
but first let's talk about another income tax hike. Okay. Because not only do you pay income taxes,
00:21:48.780
you also pay payroll taxes. Right. Right. That's the big answer.
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Government. That's the big answer. Yeah. Yes. Right there. Right. So look,
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yes. Is an income tax cut better than no income tax cut? Yes, it is better. Okay. But the income
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tax cut from Carney is going to save the average taxpayer, like 190 bucks, right? That's, that's
00:22:08.380
according to the parliamentary budget officer, but in the same breath, Carney is also hiking payroll taxes
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this year. Okay. So if you're making 85,000 bucks, let's say you're paying an extra $262
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in payroll taxes this year. So look like, okay, you're saving a couple hundred bucks on income taxes,
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but many Canadians are also paying a couple hundred bucks more in payroll taxes. And Ezra,
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all of this debate over one tax cut versus one tax increase misses the entire point. Canadians are
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already way overtaxed. Okay. Right. Like more than 40% of the average family's budget is going to
00:22:47.740
governments, all levels of government. So think about it this way. And it makes me want to puke
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the average or for the average family, their biggest expense is not the house they live in.
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It's not the food they eat or the clothes they buy. It's the taxes they pay. Yeah. You know what?
00:23:05.500
I'm so glad. I wish I had some of these talking points at my fingertips when I was having a debate with
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my friend. You tell me a little bit about the carbon tax that's going up because of course,
00:23:14.780
Mark Carney in part won the election by canceling the consumer retail carbon tax that Justin Trudeau
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was the centerpiece for him. But what about that industrial carbon tax, especially in Alberta?
00:23:27.580
Tell me a little bit about what Carney's doing there. Yeah. And first let's set the stage because,
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hey, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The reason that the liberal government canceled their own
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favorite tax that consumer carbon tax was because of ordinary Canadians, right? It was ordinary
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Canadians who told these politicians, if you want to keep your cushy political jobs, you better end
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that consumer carbon tax. But then, you know, on the other side, Carney didn't end all carbon taxes.
00:23:53.420
He he's cranking up this hidden carbon tax on Canadian business. And look, that will make your life
00:23:59.180
more expensive, right? Because a carbon tax on refineries that makes your gasoline and diesel more
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expensive. A carbon tax on utilities that makes your home heating more expensive and a carbon tax
00:24:09.260
on fertilizer plants drives up food for farmers and makes your groceries more expensive. But not
00:24:14.140
only that, folks, OK, an industrial carbon tax is an economic sucker punch to Canada's economy,
00:24:20.940
right? That's what it is like. It's going to push our entrepreneurs to cut production here and set up
00:24:26.300
shops south of the border. You asked me specifically about the agreement with Alberta. Well,
00:24:31.100
Ezra, after Carney signed that agreement, he held a press conference and he bragged to the media that
00:24:36.620
it meant a six times increase in the industrial carbon tax. You know what? I think you're right.
00:24:42.300
He was trying to shore up that Stephen Gilboa base. You know, I saw a picture the other day
00:24:48.060
on Twitter and I just checked it. I can't find it, but I remember seeing it that the price of gasoline
00:24:53.020
at a particular gas station in Alabama was $1.99. And Canadians might be saying, oh, well, that's,
00:25:00.780
wow, we pay $1.20 or whatever. But of course, in Alabama, they measure in gallons.
00:25:07.500
So that's like four liters, right? Is it 3.8 liters to the gallon? So that would be like,
00:25:14.140
I don't know, 50 or 60 cents a liter in Alabama. I don't think they have a lot of oil in Alabama.
00:25:20.460
We've got so much oil in Canada and our, our gas prices are, I think about triple what they are
00:25:27.500
in the U S you know, I want to read something from your latest column. You wrote a column in
00:25:31.180
the Toronto sun. Um, this was just before the new year called Canada needs serious tax cuts in 2026.
00:25:37.500
Let me read just one line that I'm reading your own column back to you to Franco. Um, you said
00:25:42.860
just 12% of Canadians believe Carney that businesses will pay most of the cost of his carbon tax.
00:25:48.780
Talking about the industrial carbon tax. According to a Leger poll, nearly 70% of Canadians say
00:25:55.500
businesses will pass most or some of the cost on consumer. Well, of course they are. What else
00:26:01.420
could they do? Of course, of course. Right. And look, uh, we kind of already talked about how
00:26:07.100
obviously it doesn't matter what type of lipstick you put on your carbon tax pig,
00:26:11.660
all carbon taxes make life more expensive, right? Obviously. And Canadians get that.
00:26:16.460
But one of the reasons we asked Leger to do that national poll is because we, we want to like
00:26:22.220
see if Canadians are buying Carney's carbon tax spin because early in 2025, right during the election
00:26:28.380
season that was going on, you had Carney essentially running around saying, Oh, don't worry folks.
00:26:33.420
It's just big businesses that'll pay this carbon tax. Well, clearly Canadians aren't buying his carbon
00:26:39.180
tax spin. Obviously a carbon tax makes life more expensive. It doesn't matter what a politician tries
00:26:44.380
to call it. But Ezra, here's another point. Okay. Regardless of who is in the white house in the United
00:26:50.460
States, whether it's a Democrat president, whether it's a Republican president, none of them are bringing
00:26:55.980
in national carbon taxes. Okay. So this is a fundamental hit to Canada's economic competitiveness.
00:27:03.660
You know, it's drives me crazy for a decade now when Justin Trudeau and his environment minister,
00:27:10.540
Catherine McKenna, and then Steven Gilboa and Mark Carney, who spent his whole career pushing what
00:27:15.180
he calls net zero. They all have this weird manufactured factoid that I've never seen anywhere
00:27:22.060
else in the world. They say, we need to have, you know, a carbon tax and net zero on our oil and gas
00:27:30.460
to sell our oil and gas as if, as if countries would not buy our oil without it. Listen, there are
00:27:36.940
countries out there buying oil from Venezuela, from Russia, from Iran, China, India, they're desperate.
00:27:44.060
They'll buy oil from anyone. They buy oil from Sudan, which is a genocidal, you know, they slaughtered
00:27:50.380
their own people in Darfur. There is no such thing as an oil buy. It's not like you're a fine wine.
00:27:56.460
Oh, I'm tasting this one. I'm tasting that wine. Oh, I'd never be associated with that one. People buy
00:28:00.940
oil because they need it. The idea that they wouldn't buy Canadian oil if we don't have all these bizarre
00:28:06.220
carbon taxes or, or carbon capture. I've never heard anyone else in the world say that, but
00:28:12.460
no one ever challenges Carney Trudeau when they say such kooky things.
00:28:17.020
Ezra. So when I, shameless plug, when I wrote my book, axing the tax, the rise and fall of Canada's
00:28:23.580
carbon tax, I had to do obviously a whole bunch of research. So maybe the numbers are slightly
00:28:27.580
different because this was last year. I looked at the World Bank. Ezra, 70% of countries don't have
00:28:34.620
a national carbon tax. And that was according to World Bank data, right? So the vast majority of
00:28:40.380
countries around the world do not have a national carbon tax, including some of the world's largest emitters.
00:28:46.380
Yeah. Right. So like, so, so like that was just bogus from the start, but here's another question
00:28:51.740
too, right? If your whole priority is how to reduce emissions, I have a simple question for you. How
00:28:57.980
much emissions do you reduce globally when a Canadian business moves down to the United States?
00:29:04.060
Yeah. Great point. Or when, you know, it's not like anyone is going to stop driving their car.
00:29:11.820
Um, either, either, you know, they're either going to buy their oil from Canada or the United States
00:29:18.380
or another ethical oil producer, or they'll buy it from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, you know, Nigeria,
00:29:24.140
whatever. My point is you could shut down every barrel of oil produced in Canada. Not a single car
00:29:29.900
would no longer drive. We would just be buying 5 million barrels more per day from OPEC conflict
00:29:36.220
countries. I mean, it's not like shutting down Canadian industry will stop anyone from driving.
00:29:40.460
They'll just buy their oil from the bad guys. Well, I tell you, we're in, you know, that old saying,
00:29:45.500
we're in the best of times, we're in the worst of times. I can't say we're in the best of times. I
00:29:48.860
just think we're in the worst of times from an economic point of view, but hopefully,
00:29:52.460
hopefully Canadians will wake up to that. Franco, I know you guys are going to fight like hell you
00:29:56.380
always do. Thanks for taking the time with us today as you always do. Hey, it's my pleasure.
00:30:00.620
And folks, keep up the fight. Don't get discouraged. Good. That's a good point to end on. I don't want
00:30:05.100
to be all mopey. It's just, we got our work cut out for us. Thanks, Franco. Thanks. There he is,
00:30:10.220
Franco Teresano, the boss of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.
00:30:15.340
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. OneFoe90 says, 85% of Greenlandic people said no in February
00:30:34.300
2025, and 6% said yes to becoming American. The US had 17 bases in Greenland during the Cold War.
00:30:42.140
They shot all of them down. They shut all of them down, besides one Patufic space base with 150
00:30:47.820
servicemen. Greenland and Denmark has never had any problem with the US opening them again. Denmark
00:30:54.140
can't sell Greenland. It is in the Danish constitution, as is Greenland's right to choose independence if
00:30:58.860
they say so. Look, I'm not saying that this isn't somewhat complicated, but my point yesterday was to
00:31:04.780
show the countries buy and sell land all the time, from Alaska to Louisiana to buying those Caribbean
00:31:16.540
islands from Denmark itself. So this is not weird. Truman offered 400 million bucks, if I recall,
00:31:22.860
in gold. So it's not weird. I don't think Denmark is treating Greenland as a priority because it's not
00:31:30.460
a priority. It's not an economic priority, and Greenland has a baby-sized budget. You heard
00:31:37.180
Donald Trump the other day saying he wants to expand the US defense budget from 1 trillion
00:31:42.700
to 1.5 trillion. Just a reminder that the Danish defense budget is 10 billion, so this would be
00:31:51.660
150 times bigger than the Danish budget. Of course they don't have the means to defend
00:31:57.420
properly. Why not let the Yanks in? I'm not saying... I'm not the decider here, but Denmark is not in a
00:32:04.300
position to properly defend the Arctic. It's just not. I'm not being mean about it. Canada isn't either,
00:32:10.380
by the way. Sandy Stanley says, Trump threatens to invade Canada. Canadians disarm themselves, elbows up
00:32:17.980
logic. Yeah, you know what? I see a lot of people saying, let's not buy the F-35. Let's buy that Saab
00:32:24.860
Gripen fighter just to show the Americans. Well, the first thing I would say to that is Canada's
00:32:30.620
already spent billions of dollars on the F-35, and we're scheduled to take delivery of the first
00:32:36.300
ones this year, actually. The bulk of them won't actually arrive till 2028, which is Trump's final
00:32:42.300
year as president. So making a decision about fighter jets, which are going to last us for decades,
00:32:46.860
to, you know, poke at Trump in his final year of his presidency seems pretty short-sighted to mean.
00:32:54.460
I was in Israel a couple of years ago and I saw the F-35 in action. I saw the F-15 first,
00:32:59.900
which is an amazing aircraft. And then I saw the F-35 behind it. And it is the most incredible
00:33:07.260
aircraft in the world, that and the F-22. And to say, no, no, we're going to buy a 30-year-old
00:33:13.420
Saab jet that no serious front-line country is buying just to spite Trump is so dumb.
00:33:24.140
And by the way, you don't think America's going to
00:33:27.420
have a tit for tat if we break our deal there. It's just so foolish.
00:33:32.060
On the interview with Melanie Bennett of Juneau News, I like Melanie,
00:33:35.500
Toronto Homestead says about that curriculum. Remember the Islamophobia curriculum?
00:33:43.500
None of this is appropriate to be in the school system. Islam is not an ethnicity. It is a belief
00:33:48.540
system that gets forced onto people. The Iranian people are currently in day 12 of a country ride
00:33:53.100
revolution, trying to free themselves of an Islamic regime that was forced upon them 47 years ago.
00:33:59.340
Yeah. It really is a terrible convergence of wokeism and Islamic extremism. And the crazy thing is,
00:34:09.020
I mean, I've actually been to a couple of Muslim countries. I went to Iraq, the northern part,
00:34:14.220
Kurdistan. I went to United Arab Emirates. And they don't have the craziness over there. They just don't.
00:34:21.260
They don't have people blocking streets to pray like they do in Toronto and Montreal. They don't
00:34:28.780
have the Muslim Brotherhood extremists. The grown-ups of the Muslim world stop all that stuff. It's the
00:34:36.300
West that lets that insanity go. Anyways, I'm going to keep my eyes peeled on the Iran uprising. I'm so
00:34:42.780
hopeful that something comes from it. Boy, to free the Persian people would be amazing. It would change
00:34:49.180
the world because that's been such a source of terrorism, of radicalism for Islam. And of course,
00:34:54.940
it's a regional destabilizer. I am hoping for Iran, for Iran's sake, will be free. But I'm also hoping
00:35:01.420
for it for our sake and America's sake and Europe's sake. We'll see how that goes. That's our show for
00:35:07.340
today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good