Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Do the terms left and right make sense in politics anymore？

00:00:00.240 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I have some thoughts about the realignment of left and right in Canada and the United States and around the world.

00:00:08.140 The Davos meeting got me thinking about it, and I started going through things that left and right are sort of scrambled on these days.

00:00:14.940 And then we talked to Palminder Singh about the one-year anniversary of the Trucker Convoy.

00:00:19.300 That's a fun interview. That's all ahead.

00:00:20.720 But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

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00:00:47.280 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:53.160 You're listening to Rebel News Podcast.

00:00:59.000 Tonight, do the terms left and right make sense in politics anymore?

00:01:07.980 I'll give you some weird examples.

00:01:10.220 It's January 26th, and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.

00:01:13.240 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:16.300 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:19.240 I'm conservative.

00:01:28.920 Of course I am.

00:01:29.860 I used to be a member of the Conservative Party.

00:01:31.860 In the next election, I will most likely vote for the Conservative Party of Canada candidate.

00:01:37.460 But I really don't use the word conservative as much these days as I used to,

00:01:42.940 because I don't think it fits perfectly to the pressing issues that face the world.

00:01:47.280 And when I look around at the people who are often fighting the same fights I am,

00:01:51.540 on the same side that I am, I notice many of them are not traditionally conservative.

00:01:57.460 They would recoil at the word.

00:01:59.400 Obviously, one of the examples I'm thinking about is the pandemic and the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates

00:02:04.020 and other punishments like that.

00:02:05.700 I've told you before my observation that people from all walks of life oppose those traditional liberals

00:02:10.700 who would say, my body, my choice, when it came to abortion or drug use.

00:02:14.520 They couldn't stomach now being ordered to take a government injection

00:02:18.240 on pain of losing their job or access to public spaces.

00:02:22.480 Labor union members who were appalled that their own union leadership sold them out to the bosses,

00:02:27.800 accepting fundamental changes to the collective agreements without so much as a negotiation,

00:02:31.980 let alone a strike.

00:02:32.960 Green party types, natural health types, just shocked that their own green leader was now a backer of Big Pharma.

00:02:39.700 I mean, this little scene taped right before the 2021 leaders' debates in our election

00:02:45.480 was just a perfect summary of the uni party.

00:02:48.840 Am I right?

00:02:49.840 We're all in this together.

00:02:52.140 We've come so far in the fight against COVID.

00:02:54.420 It's time to finish this pandemic for good.

00:02:56.680 So get vaccinated.

00:02:58.080 If you know someone who hasn't, talk to them.

00:03:00.520 For our kids, for our communities, for our economy.

00:03:03.880 It's how we get forward together.

00:03:06.200 Vaccines are safe and effective for use.

00:03:09.060 Vaccines are the best way for you to protect yourself, your family, and your community. 0.82

00:03:14.320 So get vaccinated.

00:03:15.520 Let's fight COVID-19 together.

00:03:18.200 Pour vous protéger vous-même, pour protéger les plus fragiles d'entre nous,

00:03:21.400 pour protéger l'ensemble de la population,

00:03:23.620 le meilleur moyen connu demeure le vaccin.

00:03:26.360 S'il vous plaît, soyez responsable, soyez solidaires, faites-vous vacciner.

00:03:31.380 Merci.

00:03:31.660 We all agree getting vaccinated is the way forward.

00:03:36.380 We're all in agreement this is not a partisan issue, so please get vaccinated.

00:03:40.680 We're united, and it's time to get the shot.

00:03:43.800 Vaccines save lives.

00:03:45.540 They're how we're going to beat COVID, and it's time for everyone to do it.

00:03:49.440 Get the shot.

00:03:50.660 Get the shot.

00:03:51.800 I acknowledge that they didn't specifically call for the vaccine mandate or vaccine passports,

00:03:56.800 but that was where the vaccine policy debate was at that moment.

00:04:00.180 It was about to get worse, including bans on flying or taking trains or boats or whatever

00:04:07.820 for the unvaccinated in Canada.

00:04:09.960 I was banned from flying for a year, as I'm sure many of you were.

00:04:12.900 That video was from mid-September 2021.

00:04:16.340 A month earlier, the federal government had indicated that any employees under its power,

00:04:20.980 as in federally regulated industries and government workers themselves,

00:04:25.000 would be mandated to get the jab.

00:04:27.100 And in the campaign, Trudeau, of course, said much, much more.

00:04:31.200 So how gross was that to have all five party leaders short-circuit any debate and just agree?

00:04:36.540 No wonder they conspired to keep out Maxime Bernier,

00:04:39.600 despite the party being at 5% in the polls, the threshold for joining the debate.

00:04:44.720 I think Pierre Polyev is better on those issues than Aaron O'Toole,

00:04:48.540 and we are out of the crisis, at least for now.

00:04:51.020 But we can never forget how complicit the so-called conservative parties in Canada were

00:04:56.100 on the abridgment of our freedoms and privacy, the federal conservatives under O'Toole,

00:05:01.180 and even worse, provincial conservatives who were actually in power,

00:05:04.960 including Jason Kenney in Alberta and Doug Ford in Ontario.

00:05:07.620 So you see what I'm saying about the word conservative.

00:05:11.500 But what makes me think of this more was my recent trip to Davos, Switzerland,

00:05:15.680 to cover the World Economic Forum.

00:05:17.780 It really is a caricature of an evil cabal of ultra-rich manipulators,

00:05:22.820 Klaus Schwab, the supervillain, even with a German accent, and a Nazi father. 0.87

00:05:28.660 He's talking about world domination.

00:05:30.380 When I mention our names, like Mrs. Merkel, even Vladimir Putin, and so on,

00:05:37.440 they all have been young global leaders of the World Economic Forum.

00:05:42.080 But what we are very proud of now is the young generation,

00:05:47.940 like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina, and so on,

00:05:54.400 is that we penetrate the cabinets.

00:05:57.400 So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau,

00:06:02.480 and I would know that half of this cabinet,

00:06:09.340 or even more half of this cabinet,

00:06:12.780 are actually young global leaders of the World Economic Forum.

00:06:17.400 I've seen some conservatives laugh at that, saying,

00:06:20.300 oh, he's deluded, he's just a braggart, that's nuts, that's just PR.

00:06:24.900 And Klaus Schwab obviously is a braggart and a promoter and a hustler,

00:06:28.300 but it's also obviously true.

00:06:31.480 From prime ministers and actual royalty to leaders in finance and high tech

00:06:36.040 and big pharma and big media, all sorts of green schemers,

00:06:39.240 they really are there at the World Economic Forum.

00:06:42.780 And many of them pay millions of dollars for the privilege of being there.

00:06:46.960 And his young leaders really do go on to run many parts of the world.

00:06:51.640 And my point here is, isn't this what the left used to be against?

00:06:57.500 When I was young and in university and exposed to the organized propaganda of the left,

00:07:03.520 so I'm talking 30 years ago in the 1990s,

00:07:06.400 the left demonized what they called multinational corporations

00:07:10.440 or transnational corporations.

00:07:12.740 It was an insult.

00:07:13.660 They would spit those words.

00:07:14.860 And there's two parts of that, the corporation part, which they hated so much.

00:07:21.360 They even made a hit movie about it, implying that by nature,

00:07:24.700 corporations were like a psychopath.

00:07:27.100 That was the thesis of the movie.

00:07:29.040 And of course, the multinational part was a shot at globalism

00:07:33.480 or globalization, as they called it back then.

00:07:36.240 So that was the left back then, denouncing big business,

00:07:39.860 denouncing billionaires and billionaires who operate in different jurisdictions.

00:07:43.860 The reason the left said they hated multinational corporations was that such companies,

00:07:49.160 they argued, were in a race to the bottom.

00:07:52.320 They would move jobs to the lowest paid workers in the world,

00:07:55.200 thus taking away good jobs from us and not just going towards cheap labor in China or wherever,

00:08:02.080 but also weak labor.

00:08:03.900 Weak labor laws, everything from union rights to health and safety rules.

00:08:08.320 And of course, multinational corporations sought out places with the weakest environmental rules.

00:08:13.960 And finally, they moved their profits around to pay the least tax possible in whatever jurisdiction

00:08:18.280 and don't even start on human rights.

00:08:21.100 So those were the accusations of the left.

00:08:23.800 And to be fair, many of them were proven true.

00:08:27.660 But what the leftists didn't talk about was that that globalization was only made possible by consumers,

00:08:33.760 customers who would buy something made in China because it was a fraction of the price it would cost

00:08:39.520 if it was made in America or Canada.

00:08:41.940 Over time, China in particular, but other poor countries too,

00:08:45.740 became the outsourced factory of our world

00:08:49.260 and also the outsourced pollution place in the world too.

00:08:53.920 But it wouldn't work if consumers didn't want it.

00:08:56.780 And obviously, people vote with their dollars.

00:08:59.920 All I'm saying is that those were the things that the left claimed to care about

00:09:03.660 when it came to capitalism.

00:09:05.460 Now they love big businesses and billionaires and multinational companies.

00:09:11.260 How do they love George Soros, Bill Gates, Larry Fink of BlackRock?

00:09:14.660 How do they love a big private jet secretive meeting in Davos, Switzerland?

00:09:19.900 How did that happen?

00:09:21.760 I remember the foreign policy narrative of the left when I was a student also.

00:09:25.140 The CIA was the source of evil.

00:09:27.800 It had toppled legitimate governments around the world

00:09:30.520 and installed American client regimes.

00:09:32.980 That's where the term banana republic came from,

00:09:35.060 a reference to the CIA toppling third world leaders in Latin America

00:09:38.840 in cahoots with the United Fruit Company, which is now called Chiquita Banana.

00:09:43.040 I was told about the evils of American foreign policy

00:09:46.260 with all sorts of intrigues from countries far away

00:09:49.160 about which I knew little.

00:09:50.620 And to be honest, I never really cared enough

00:09:52.240 to investigate the veracity of the claims.

00:09:54.580 I was skeptical.

00:09:55.500 And if I had to choose between rival world powers,

00:09:59.820 which at the time were, you know, at least before 1989,

00:10:04.240 the Soviet bloc or the American bloc,

00:10:06.840 obviously I would choose the democracies every time,

00:10:09.300 even if they were getting their hands dirty in certain places.

00:10:13.020 But my point is, there was a time when the left hated the CIA,

00:10:18.200 hated foreign policy intrigues,

00:10:19.940 hated what they called neocolonialism or imperialism

00:10:23.320 or foreign adventures.

00:10:24.740 And now, well, talking about the CIA,

00:10:28.440 all the big TV channels have actually former CIA officials,

00:10:31.920 including even former directors of the CIA,

00:10:34.220 they're literally embedded in the media.

00:10:37.000 I remember the first Gulf War when CNN had reporters

00:10:40.260 embedded in the U.S. military during the invasion.

00:10:43.840 Now that's flipped around.

00:10:44.840 The CIA is embedded in the media just to make sure

00:10:48.500 they really follow the talking points of the deep state.

00:10:51.500 And the left, they seem to love it.

00:10:55.560 And it goes without saying that the left hated wars

00:10:58.060 when I was a kid, especially wars in which the West,

00:11:00.640 that is America, was a belligerent.

00:11:03.620 It's not just the Vietnam era.

00:11:05.280 It came pretty soon after 9-11 even.

00:11:08.840 The number of anti-war movies I remember seeing

00:11:11.500 in the early 2000s was staggering.

00:11:14.360 I remember I went to the Toronto Film Festival back then

00:11:17.340 and it was pretty much nothing but anti-war movies.

00:11:21.180 None of them did well in the box office, by the way.

00:11:23.180 They were all so bitter and obscure and radical.

00:11:26.000 But being anti-war was big.

00:11:28.740 There was a perpetual protest group called Code Pink

00:11:31.420 that was against American war.

00:11:33.320 They were active when America really was in wars,

00:11:36.160 in Iraq, in Afghanistan.

00:11:38.900 I'm sure you remember, though, Donald Trump really put

00:11:41.280 going to war on pause during his presidency.

00:11:44.020 He didn't start any new wars.

00:11:46.460 He quickly ended the war against ISIS by beating them.

00:11:50.340 And he brought U.S. troops home from around the world.

00:11:52.740 Still, weirdly, the left kept up their anti-war protests,

00:11:56.880 even though there really weren't any American wars.

00:11:58.820 Here's some gals protesting Trump, even though, like I say, 0.99

00:12:02.780 I think he's the most anti-war president since, what,

00:12:06.340 Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson?

00:12:08.700 Hey, guys, put down your goddamn guns.

00:12:12.480 Hey, guys, put down your goddamn guns.

00:12:15.760 I'm from Washington State.

00:12:17.320 San Francisco, California.

00:12:18.800 But we live in Washington, D.C.

00:12:20.460 So tell me what brought you out.

00:12:22.500 War brought us out here. 0.95

00:12:24.680 We are with Code Pink, which is a women's peace organization.

00:12:28.420 So we're at the RNC to hold Donald Trump and the GOP accountable

00:12:32.280 for their hateful, racist, xenophobic rhetoric,

00:12:35.580 which are the seeds of war and violence.

00:12:37.660 Keep militarized now!

00:12:39.740 Bust up war!

00:12:40.980 Bust up war!

00:12:42.220 So the left was against war when there was no war.

00:12:47.080 But I'm pretty sure there's a big war going on right now in Ukraine.

00:12:51.360 And I haven't heard a peep from Code Pink about it.

00:12:53.520 Have you?

00:12:53.840 I mean, I see just in the recent days that Germany is going to send 0.75

00:13:00.100 their most modern tanks to Ukraine, to Ukraine.

00:13:03.180 And the U.S. is going to do the same.

00:13:04.800 They're sending their ultimate tank, the M1 Abrams.

00:13:09.580 And I think Canada is considering sending some of our tanks.

00:13:13.640 I'm just not sure how many of our tanks actually work.

00:13:16.080 So I'm not sure if our military could keep that promise that

00:13:19.120 Chrystia Freeland obviously made when she was at Davos

00:13:22.120 or whatever secret meeting came up with the deal

00:13:24.200 because she certainly doesn't put it to a debate in Parliament, does she?

00:13:27.660 Like I say, the left loves war now.

00:13:31.400 Isn't that weird?

00:13:32.600 Now, I'm not a peacenik, but I don't think we should be cavalier

00:13:35.920 about sending our soldiers to die

00:13:37.680 or being happy about other countries doing so with their young men.

00:13:41.760 And, of course, the most heartbreaking victims are the civilians.

00:13:46.160 And then there's the minor matter of engaging in brinksmanship with Russia,

00:13:49.420 which may be weaker than NATO in conventional weapons.

00:13:52.800 I think that's probably true.

00:13:54.520 But I see that as actually a risk, not an opportunity.

00:13:57.600 If Russia were to lose a war fought with tanks and men,

00:14:02.740 and if it were to be driven out, not only the land it seized in the past year,

00:14:06.820 but also Crimea, which it annexed years ago

00:14:10.540 and calls, you know, integral Russian territory.

00:14:15.720 Now, surely Vladimir Putin would consider using nukes

00:14:19.820 if he was going to lose that badly.

00:14:21.500 His government has said as much.

00:14:23.300 Do you think, what, he's not brutal enough to use nukes?

00:14:26.760 He's not desperate enough to use nukes?

00:14:29.020 I mean, I don't know.

00:14:29.800 Those are questions that the huge left-wing disarmament protests

00:14:33.240 in the 1980s asked, but the left is positively excited by war now.

00:14:40.160 It's odd to me.

00:14:42.420 The left used to be for free speech,

00:14:45.500 much more in the 60s and 70s, but still in the 90s they were.

00:14:49.340 They loved Noam Chomsky, who was a kind of free speech absolutist,

00:14:54.040 who also had a scathing analysis of the corporate media in America.

00:14:57.720 He made a documentary called Manufacturing Consent,

00:15:01.460 which was a cult classic for every lefty I ever met in the 90s.

00:15:07.780 Manufacturing Consent talked about many things,

00:15:09.660 but one of them was how the concentration of big media

00:15:13.500 in the hands of a few media conglomerates

00:15:16.600 homogenized the discussion in America and, to an extent, the world,

00:15:21.460 and basically ruled out or ruled in different ideas.

00:15:25.120 He was worried about news monopolies.

00:15:27.080 So what we have in the first place is major corporations,

00:15:31.460 which are parts of even bigger conglomerates.

00:15:34.200 Now, like any other corporation,

00:15:35.800 they have a product which they sell to a market.

00:15:40.020 The market is advertisers, that is, other businesses.

00:15:44.080 What keeps the media functioning is not the audience.

00:15:47.400 They make money from their advertisers.

00:15:49.540 And remember, we're talking about the elite media,

00:15:51.580 so they're trying to sell a good product,

00:15:54.900 a product which raises advertising rates.

00:15:57.620 And ask your friends in the advertising industry,

00:16:00.020 that means that they want to adjust their audience

00:16:02.740 to the more elite and affluent audience.

00:16:04.860 That raises advertising rates.

00:16:06.700 So what you have is institutions, corporations, big corporations,

00:16:09.920 that are selling relatively privileged audiences

00:16:13.240 to other businesses.

00:16:15.200 Well, what point of view would you expect to come out of this?

00:16:18.880 Without any further assumptions,

00:16:20.740 what you'd predict is that what comes out is a picture of the world,

00:16:24.040 a perception of the world,

00:16:25.500 that satisfies the needs and the interests and the perceptions

00:16:28.380 of the sellers, the buyers, and the product.

00:16:31.880 Now, there are many other factors that press in the same direction.

00:16:38.080 If people try to enter the system who don't have that point of view,

00:16:41.740 they're likely to be excluded somewhere along the way.

00:16:44.360 After all, no institution is going to happily design a mechanism

00:16:47.740 to self-destruct.

00:16:48.820 It's not the way institutions function.

00:16:50.620 So they all work to exclude or marginalize or eliminate

00:16:54.080 dissenting voices or alternative perspectives and so on

00:16:57.280 because they're dysfunctional.

00:16:58.720 They're dysfunctional to the institution itself.

00:17:00.380 And again, there was something to it, of course.

00:17:02.520 I mean, in Canada, for years growing up,

00:17:05.220 you basically had the Southern chain of daily newspapers

00:17:08.280 and you had the small Sun chain of newspapers

00:17:11.080 and you had, what, three TV news stations dominated by the CBC

00:17:15.080 and the same on the radio, and that was it.

00:17:19.000 But where are those lefties now

00:17:21.100 when there are just as few companies dominating big tech?

00:17:26.060 Facebook, which owns Instagram, Google, which owns YouTube, and Twitter.

00:17:29.120 And until Elon Musk bought Twitter, they all manufactured consent together

00:17:34.280 about the pandemic for sure, but also about other things.

00:17:37.680 And that wasn't enough.

00:17:39.560 So there are now corporate and government-funded fact checkers,

00:17:42.720 which never checked the facts of the establishment,

00:17:45.200 only of the establishment's critics.

00:17:47.820 Isn't that odd?

00:17:48.640 And then there's the issue of feminism.

00:17:52.980 When I was young, feminists were at odds with conservatives, 1.00

00:17:57.040 but now the enemy of feminism is transgenderism, 1.00

00:18:01.500 which is erasing women's places, 1.00

00:18:03.340 or even the definition of what a woman is after all. 0.96

00:18:08.000 Destroying women's sport by allowing men to compete. 1.00

00:18:11.360 putting convicted rapists in women's prisons

00:18:15.740 if the rapists simply identify as women

00:18:18.700 and absolutely smearing women who used to be heroes to the left, 1.00

00:18:23.460 like J.K. Rowling, just atrocious.

00:18:27.540 And I think of these things because I'm fascinated by the reaction

00:18:30.520 to our World Economic Forum videos from Davos.

00:18:35.820 And I do see some thoughtful, independent leftists, true progressives.

00:18:41.500 They found themselves agreeing with our videos,

00:18:44.000 not just the BlackRock video, of course,

00:18:46.160 but also the Pfizer video scrumming Albert Bourla, the CEO,

00:18:50.540 and the Greta Thunberg video too.

00:18:52.640 Here's liberal comedian and pundit Jimmy Dore.

00:18:56.860 Take a listen to him for a minute.

00:18:57.860 How come you never protest Saudi Arabia or Russia?

00:19:01.560 You only protest Western energy.

00:19:04.380 Why have you never criticized Vladimir Putin or OPEC?

00:19:08.540 Yeah, I've never done that.

00:19:10.400 Never, ever.

00:19:10.840 Will you do so now?

00:19:12.060 Will you condemn OPEC energy?

00:19:16.540 That's a super legit question.

00:19:19.960 Will you condemn OPEC energy?

00:19:21.760 So how does someone navigate that?

00:19:25.640 She doesn't know what that is.

00:19:27.860 Now, OPEC is in bed with the West.

00:19:29.780 They're in bed with the petrodollar.

00:19:31.320 They're propping up the United States petrodollar,

00:19:33.380 which allows us to commit genocides and wars all over the world.

00:19:38.200 That is a big, big pusher of climate change, the military.

00:19:43.820 That's a completely legitimate question.

00:19:46.980 And she just ignores it.

00:19:48.260 Let's watch.

00:19:51.620 Greta, can you condemn every... 0.89

00:19:53.280 And then she starts laughing.

00:19:55.800 Like, I'm sorry, you guys.

00:19:57.660 This is fucking...

00:19:58.500 You got a shitty spokesperson.

00:20:00.740 You got a really shitty...

00:20:02.380 This is your...

00:20:03.080 Do you think this is going to get it done on climate change?

00:20:05.680 You think acting like a child, which is what she's doing.

00:20:09.360 She's acting like she's 12 years old, not like she's 20, and responsible.

00:20:12.780 She can't answer a direct question about climate change.

00:20:18.020 Not one.

00:20:21.440 Single delegate that's come here on a private jet.

00:20:23.820 Surely that's something you should condemn.

00:20:26.280 She won't.

00:20:27.420 You can do it, too.

00:20:29.260 She won't do it.

00:20:31.000 Isn't that...

00:20:31.420 What is this, weird?

00:20:32.820 What kind of a weird back and forth is she... 1.00

00:20:34.980 This is crazy.

00:20:36.280 But Jimmy is unusual these days.

00:20:39.660 He's rare.

00:20:40.920 He's a principled leftist of the sort I remember when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s.

00:20:48.220 99% of so-called progressives today are weirdly cheering for Pfizer, cheering for the war in Ukraine.

00:20:58.860 Like, for the war itself.

00:21:00.060 Forget about cheering for Ukrainians. 1.00

00:21:01.600 They want the war, even though Ukrainians are the cannon fodder. 0.98

00:21:06.280 They're cheering for the CIA.

00:21:08.900 They're cheering for media concentration and censorship and cheering for all the things that the left said they hated when I was young.

00:21:16.160 And that wasn't that long ago.

00:21:18.620 It's strange, isn't it?

00:21:21.020 I find myself sometimes more in league with principled leftists these days than I do with the so-called conservatives that want to swan about at Davos.

00:21:34.140 Stay with us for more.

00:21:47.760 The lockdown was a very strange thing socially.

00:21:51.320 It stopped us from gathering.

00:21:53.160 It stopped us from meeting.

00:21:54.440 It shut down places of religious worship.

00:21:56.920 It shut down gyms and bars and restaurants.

00:21:59.820 Shut down schools.

00:22:01.020 Many workplaces shut down.

00:22:03.220 But people found ways to create their own community.

00:22:06.840 I think that the number of friends that I made during the lockdown was maybe the most friends I've made in any given year since I was a child at school.

00:22:15.720 Because people found common interest, including fighting for freedom.

00:22:20.320 One of the most interesting people I met during the lockdowns was someone I first discovered online making little TikTok videos.

00:22:28.500 Here's an example of one of the motivating, humorous, passionate, patriotic videos of a man named Palminder Singh.

00:22:37.940 Here's just a flashback of how I met this man.

00:22:41.200 Hey, warrior truckers. 0.80

00:22:44.660 Look at him.

00:22:45.720 How excited he is to scare us.

00:22:49.160 And look how scared we are.

00:22:51.660 Right?

00:22:52.460 So I think he's a good guy.

00:22:54.700 Look at his face.

00:22:55.880 Look at the amount of stress he is going through.

00:22:58.960 Right?

00:23:00.200 Over here is his forehead.

00:23:02.160 So he's a good guy, but he's reading the script.

00:23:05.760 They all are reading the script.

00:23:07.840 These are all good people, but they're under pressure.

00:23:11.180 All right?

00:23:11.940 We need to stand with them as well.

00:23:14.720 And whoever writing their speeches, they want us to get violent.

00:23:18.900 You know, they're using the words violence, riots, all the negative words, right?

00:23:24.300 But what we are doing, we all know that.

00:23:27.180 Let's spread more love. 0.78

00:23:28.960 Let's compound it to 10x.

00:23:30.780 Come on, man.

00:23:31.640 What are you talking about?

00:23:32.780 Number players, bank accounts.

00:23:34.340 Come on.

00:23:34.840 People over there, you don't know what they already, you know, decided in their heads.

00:23:42.660 You cannot scare them with the threat of noting their number plates and, you know, bank accounts.

00:23:50.120 Because we know we are standing for the right thing.

00:23:53.580 We are standing for the truth.

00:23:54.960 Well, I am lucky enough to have met that man in person, and so have some of you who attended our Rebel News Live conferences in Toronto and Calgary, where he was a hit speaker.

00:24:06.980 And I'm delighted to have Palminder join us, again, from his vehicle, as he did so many times during the lockdown, to talk about the one-year anniversary of the Trucker Convoy.

00:24:17.380 Palminder, great to see you again, and, you know, seeing you in your vehicle, pulled over to do a video, that's sort of how the world got to know you a year ago anyway.

00:24:26.720 Yep.

00:24:27.160 This is my studio, and thank you, Ezra.

00:24:29.280 Thank you so much for having me here.

00:24:31.560 And it's such a beautiful time of the year.

00:24:35.820 We were there in Ottawa.

00:24:37.320 Somebody was planning.

00:24:39.180 Somebody was already on the way.

00:24:41.160 And here we are talking about it once again.

00:24:44.820 Thank you.

00:24:45.420 Well, it was an amazing time, and it was so grassroots.

00:24:49.740 What I mean by that is it was authentic.

00:24:51.860 It was organic.

00:24:52.660 It wasn't created by some PR firm in Toronto.

00:24:56.940 It wasn't funded by some political operation in Ottawa.

00:25:01.400 This was ordinary people from different walks of life.

00:25:05.000 And I think that so many people, it was the first time they ever did anything political ever.

00:25:11.620 I mean, that's how it was with Tamara Leach, and I think that's how it was with you, right?

00:25:16.420 Yep.

00:25:17.160 I was having zero interest in politics before the convoy.

00:25:22.000 I wasn't aware of nothing, like whatever these guys are doing.

00:25:26.320 I had no idea.

00:25:27.980 But after the convoy, you know that everybody knows.

00:25:31.560 All we do now is like do comments, our commentaries on their political stupid decisions and everything, right?

00:25:38.760 So now we are fully aware of Canadian, not just Canadian, because of you, Rebel News.

00:25:45.000 We are aware of the world politics.

00:25:47.000 Well, I really enjoyed your videos, and I must have watched 30 of them.

00:25:52.860 And I loved sort of learning about things along with you as you discovered different political stories and gave your opinions on it.

00:26:00.960 I think people got a real kick out of it.

00:26:03.000 And one of the things you said that I think meant so much to other Canadians is that when Trudeau denounced the truckers as racist or sexist, I'm trying to think of all the insults he made.

00:26:14.960 And you said, no, that's not true.

00:26:17.560 And, you know, obviously, I can tell from your beard and your turban that you're Sikh.

00:26:22.420 And the fact that Trudeau claimed that the truckers were racist, you and other Sikhs there, but not just Sikhs, indigenous people, black people, white people, people of every background, French-speaking truckers from Quebec.

00:26:36.000 There were so many Quebecers.

00:26:38.300 I think that you were living proof that Trudeau's attack on the convoy was false.

00:26:45.300 Yeah, we know that from the day one, every single attack, it was all false.

00:26:51.640 They weren't having any proof or evidence of it.

00:26:55.640 Like he told the truckers they're racist, they're extremist, they're misogynist.

00:27:00.280 You know, we were there on the ground for three weeks.

00:27:03.260 And this morning I was talking about my another friend.

00:27:06.600 He was from London.

00:27:08.040 He was there in the convoy with his family, another Sikh friend with the full-grown beard and turban with his family.

00:27:15.920 And he was like, I never, ever felt that comfortable in Canada the way he was feeling in the middle of the convoy in Ottawa.

00:27:23.820 And he was like, every time I was going out there, having a bonfire together, everybody was coming, hugging him, even from Saskatchewan, Alberta, you know, from Quebec.

00:27:35.820 So we felt that oneness for the first time, that unity.

00:27:39.380 So racism wasn't even there, not even for a while.

00:27:43.480 I wouldn't say it wasn't even there.

00:27:46.900 Like the racism, it was the only main misinformation was being spread by Trudeau and by the mainstream media.

00:27:55.620 I know exactly what you mean.

00:27:57.660 I arrived and I thought it felt like, you know, sometimes when a city's hockey team wins the Stanley Cup, people just start honking their horns and celebrating and cheering strangers.

00:28:10.180 Like there's that rare feeling that comes around, like when, you know, at an event, I think winning the Stanley Cup is the best example that comes to mind, but it was that way the whole time.

00:28:22.220 And I remember people spontaneously singing, oh, Canada, I never saw so many Canadian flags in my life.

00:28:28.580 And it really felt special.

00:28:30.680 It felt like everyone was in a friendly, patriotic community mode.

00:28:36.160 I have to say in my whole life, I don't think I've been in that kind of a spirited feeling maybe half a dozen times in my whole life.

00:28:45.000 And frankly, I'm pressed to think of a single other example right now.

00:28:48.300 I mean, I'm not saying that's the only time in my life I've felt that way, but it's certainly the most community oriented, collegial feeling I can think of.

00:28:57.040 I mean, maybe.

00:28:59.200 Yeah.

00:29:00.040 It was just wonderful.

00:29:01.300 I have to say, like it felt emotional.

00:29:03.800 Go ahead.

00:29:04.460 Yeah, sorry, I'm cutting you off.

00:29:06.600 I don't want to forget this.

00:29:08.300 So I'm having goosebumps.

00:29:10.860 I can literally feeling my heart like beating, you know, out of love.

00:29:15.920 You just remind me all those feelings.

00:29:18.320 First time I felt those feelings, I was there.

00:29:20.620 I'm an immigrant, right?

00:29:21.680 I'm from India.

00:29:22.580 So we were all the immigrant people.

00:29:24.680 They always have this sense of belonging to back home.

00:29:28.100 We're always discussing back home politics, back home issues.

00:29:31.980 Nobody really care about what is happening in Canada because they just came here as an immigrant. 1.00

00:29:38.220 They just want to make money and make home, stuff like that, you know.

00:29:42.360 So first time I felt this Canadian feeling when we won this Raptors game, you know, the championship.

00:29:48.920 I was there in Brampton downtown.

00:29:52.420 So I was there watching the live game with my wife, with my daughter, and we were screaming.

00:29:57.500 Everybody was laughing and smiling at each other.

00:30:01.400 I was like, wow, this is totally different feeling.

00:30:03.920 So being Canadian, right?

00:30:05.740 So then we won.

00:30:07.080 Everybody was hugging each other.

00:30:08.940 You know, you can feel that energy like you just mentioned regarding the Stanley Cup, everything.

00:30:14.100 We experienced those feelings in the Freedom Convoy, like every minute.

00:30:21.700 The moment we entered Ottawa, I was like standing out of the center of our truck, like F-150.

00:30:29.260 I was like, I'm feeling something in the air.

00:30:32.300 You know, love is in the air.

00:30:33.800 Like you cannot stop smiling.

00:30:35.920 You cannot stop laughing, you know, out of love.

00:30:39.520 And everybody's coming, hugging you and saying thank you.

00:30:43.720 And you look anybody into the eyes and nobody even, you cannot feel that they are strangers.

00:30:51.040 They're coming to you.

00:30:52.260 They're just hugging you.

00:30:53.680 And they're saying thank you.

00:30:55.120 Thank you for being here.

00:30:56.600 So yes, it was a totally different vibration.

00:30:59.720 Like you can feel love, light, peace and unity.

00:31:02.900 Yes, it was there.

00:31:03.820 And we experienced that for the first time.

00:31:07.240 All the Canadians came together, even from Saskatchewan, from the villages, from the towns, from the cities, from Quebec, from Canadian mountains, you know, from Alberta, from Ontario.

00:31:20.320 Everybody was there.

00:31:21.840 All the races were there.

00:31:23.580 You know, we were sharing the same thing.

00:31:26.200 The love, the light, the peace and unity.

00:31:28.680 I'm still getting the goosebumps by thinking all these feelings here again.

00:31:34.000 So thank you, Ezra.

00:31:35.340 Well, you know, that's exactly how it was.

00:31:37.820 And in fact, the people that were full of sour feelings were Trudeau and his government and some of the hostile media.

00:31:46.840 They were the ones who were hunting for proof of malice or violence.

00:31:52.000 And that's what's so amazing is you had these truckers, hundreds of truckers, thousands of people, tens of thousands, and there was not a single violent incident.

00:32:01.820 In fact, it was so peaceful, they tried to create hoaxes and blame it on the truckers.

00:32:07.260 They were eventually all debunked.

00:32:09.480 I mean, there were sour people there, but it was the government angry that the people were happy.

00:32:16.420 There was hot tubs.

00:32:17.480 There was dance parties.

00:32:19.460 There were bouncy cancels.

00:32:21.280 Yeah, it was quite something.

00:32:23.420 Now, here we are a year later, and thankfully most things have gone back to normal.

00:32:28.940 I think the truckers and those who supported them should take a lot of credit for that because things were only going to get worse.

00:32:36.120 I remember January of last year, and, you know, there was the flight ban, and there was vaccine passports, 0.55

00:32:45.920 and Trudeau was saying, should we even tolerate people who are unvaccinated?

00:32:51.540 And I think things were going to get worse, not better.

00:32:54.320 But the truckers sort of broke the fever.

00:32:57.740 And slowly, you know, Alberta and Saskatchewan dropped their vaccine mandates, and the Conservative Party of Canada got rid of their leader who was too timid, and suddenly things started to move.

00:33:12.100 I think the truckers deserve a lot of credit for bringing us out of the lockdowns and back to freedom.

00:33:19.560 I really think the truckers won the battle for freedom.

00:33:24.280 Yes, they are our real heroes, not just for Canada, for the world, you know, because it was so tense the situation in the whole world.

00:33:33.460 Like, what is really happening?

00:33:35.140 What is going on?

00:33:36.380 Everybody was confused.

00:33:37.900 They were confused whether they should trust their government or not, because they were getting these mixed information from the social media, and mainstream media was showing something else.

00:33:49.480 So, once this freedom convoy happened, it sparked the flame throughout the whole world.

00:33:55.520 We witnessed the freedom convoy in New Zealand.

00:33:58.380 And also, people started doing rallies in Switzerland, in Australia, in the UK, in the US as well.

00:34:06.160 So, yes, these truckers, these Canadian truckers, they sparked this freedom flame throughout the whole world.

00:34:13.560 So, yes, they are our biggest heroes, and we need to recognize them.

00:34:18.120 We need to acknowledge them that, yes, they are our heroes.

00:34:21.920 And we should celebrate this anniversary every year.

00:34:26.040 I know this year we couldn't do it in Ottawa on a bigger scale, but down the road, I know we are going to clean this mess.

00:34:33.760 And hopefully, I'm not just saying it just like that, we will celebrate this Freedom Convoy ceremony every year in Ottawa, and we'll remember all the heroes, all the truckers.

00:34:46.300 We will celebrate them, we will celebrate them, we will recognize them every year in the history of Canada, that these truckers, they stand against the tyranny, they change the political viewpoint of people, they change everything.

00:35:01.540 Because of the Freedom Convoy, I'm a totally different person.

00:35:05.220 Before, I was ignorant.

00:35:06.320 I had no idea what is going on in Canada.

00:35:10.240 Now, I'm fully aware.

00:35:11.600 People are following me on Twitter.

00:35:13.460 Almost all the Canadians who are related to this freedom movement, they know me, and they gave me so much love on TikTok as well.

00:35:22.560 So, because of the Freedom Convoy, even for my, I'm evolving as a person every day, I'm giving full credit to the truckers, to the Freedom Convoy organizers, and to the Red Bull News, all the independent news channels.

00:35:37.220 I'm giving all the credit to all the people for changing my life for good, not just mine.

00:35:42.860 All the Canadians, they are associated with Freedom Convoy, and I heard these stories every day.

00:35:51.640 Some people met there, they found their girlfriends, their boyfriends in the Freedom Convoy, now they're becoming a family, you know?

00:35:59.920 So, there's so much going on that we don't even know, you know?

00:36:03.060 You know me, I know you, I know a few people, but there are millions of people that they're saying their life have changed totally after the Freedom Convoy.

00:36:11.800 Plus, because of the Freedom Convoy, they had to stop their agenda, they had to lift the mandates, they had to stop this arrive camp thing, and they have to lift all the restrictions.

00:36:25.660 Because of the Freedom Convoy, Canada is fully aware, because of that they couldn't bring these mask mandates, they were trying their best to bring back in this winter.

00:36:37.280 Maybe they were looking for another lockdown, but they couldn't do it, because people are fully aware.

00:36:44.500 Why people are fully aware? Because of the Freedom Convoy.

00:36:47.820 So, yes, I'm giving full credit to all the truckers, all the independent news channels like Rebel News, and our Western Standard, whoever were there, were covering for the real, showing the real truth to the people.

00:37:01.420 And now, mainstream media, we all know that nobody really trusts them, except 10, 15 people, right?

00:37:09.260 Well, you know what, it's such a pleasure to talk with you again, Palminder, and we're going to put your Twitter and other contact info under this video, so people can follow you.

00:37:20.580 And that's how I started things off. They tried to shut us down and keep us apart, but we're not for the trucker convoy.

00:37:27.940 I would never have met you. I would never, in the lockdown, I would never have met some of the staff we hired here, like Alexa Lavoie.

00:37:35.240 We met her at a protest in Montreal. So many great people came out of the woodwork and woke up and got involved.

00:37:44.540 And it was a wonderful thing, and you're right, we have to commemorate that day, even though the current regime in Ottawa doesn't want us to.

00:37:52.520 Palminder, it's great to see you again. Thank you for all your work, for spreading freedom, and your own enthusiasm for Canada and liberty is inspiring.

00:38:03.200 And I just congratulate you for it, and I thank you for it. Great to see you again, my friend.

00:38:07.740 Thank you, Ezra. Thank you so much. One thing I just want to add in the end, like, I'm totally a different person.

00:38:14.480 I'm not saying I'm different. I'm the real Palminder now. 0.99

00:38:17.620 And thank you, Canada, for bringing the real Palminder out of me, and I'm truly grateful for this. 1.00

00:38:23.680 So thank you so much. Thank you, Ezra. Thank you, Rebel News. Thank you, all the Rebel News team.

00:38:28.680 Well, that's such a beautiful thing to say. Stay safe, my friend. Drive safe, and I can hardly wait to see you again.

00:38:35.840 Thank you, Ezra. Thank you so much.

00:38:37.040 There you have it, Palminder Singh, a freedom activist who I met during the convoy. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:38:54.540 Isn't Palminder great? Boy, you know what? There's a guy who's got a big heart. Am I right?

00:38:59.920 Here's some letters from you to me. Dwayne Christie says about the public order inquiry into the

00:39:06.420 Emergencies Act. It wasn't a trial, and there will be no consequences. As usual, it's the emperor's

00:39:12.140 word against ours. We will have this joker for the rest of Canada's life as we know it. I would like to

00:39:17.280 see a bill against coalition governments, too. We didn't vote for NDP, and this deal that gives them

00:39:21.860 power is wrong. Alas, that is our parliamentary system. It's a different system entirely than the

00:39:29.360 American system where you vote for a president directly. We just don't do that in Canada.

00:39:34.580 But I think you're right about your main point, which is he's going to laugh. He's going to shrug.

00:39:40.500 Even if he is found to have had no legitimate basis for declaring martial law, who's going to do

00:39:47.220 anything to him? His party won't. Joe Boudreau says, Ezra, while I did criticize you about your street

00:39:53.960 interview with Greta Thunberg in Davos, I do very much applaud you for your reaction to CBC coming

00:39:58.760 against you for your letter to Premier Smith of Alberta, my premier. You're still my journalistic hero

00:40:02.800 in Canada. God bless you. Thanks, Joe. And I did read your letter about Greta. I'm sorry I didn't

00:40:07.400 write back directly. You know, it looks tough when you're, you know, five foot nine, 200 plus pound guy

00:40:14.180 asking questions of Greta Thunberg, who's five foot nothing, 90 pounds. She's so small. She really is 0.77

00:40:21.180 like a child. But we have to be able to ask her questions, even though she's a little person.

00:40:26.400 And I don't think any of the questions were mean or that rude. It may have looked like we were

00:40:34.220 swarming her, but we all gave her space. No one touched her. That's just sort of the nature of a

00:40:38.520 media scrum. If you recall, the very beginning of the video, she was asked by her security guard,

00:40:45.100 do you want us to walk with you? And she said, no, that's OK. And at the very end of the walk,

00:40:48.960 she said, OK, guys, please leave us now. And everyone did. She even thanked us. So yeah,

00:40:54.320 listen, it's tough being a guy asking tough questions of someone who looks like a girl.

00:41:00.240 But I have to say, I've probably read a thousand comments in relation to that Greta video. It's

00:41:05.160 got so many millions of views and fewer than one tenth of one percent. I mean, like I really,

00:41:13.700 I think I only saw two comments saying, oh, you look like bullies or something. And there were people

00:41:18.520 who just didn't like us anyways. I like almost no one said that. So that's just on the Greta piece.

00:41:24.320 On the CBC thing, Joe, thanks very much for your kind words. I feel good about that letter I wrote

00:41:29.580 to Premier Smith. I have a rule of thumb whenever I talk to politicians. My rule is I don't say

00:41:36.360 anything in private that I wouldn't say in public or frankly that I haven't said in public. I don't

00:41:41.700 give private advice to politicians. It's different from what I say in public because I wouldn't want

00:41:47.220 my viewers to think I have some side deal or two points of view. And if you look at the five-page

00:41:54.620 letter that I sent to the Premier, it's really the arguments that I've made on TV for two years,

00:41:59.940 but with some legal footnotes. You've heard me say the two standards for any prosecution to proceed

00:42:06.180 in Canada. Is it in the public interest? And is there a reasonable prospect of conviction? You've heard

00:42:11.840 me say that. You heard me say that in my on-camera interview with Danielle Smith. Actually, she said

00:42:17.120 it. So are you surprised when I send a note to Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta,

00:42:21.420 mentioning that? There's nothing in that letter that's a surprise, and I'm proud of every word of

00:42:25.860 it. And the CBC reached out to me in a way that made me think they were going to try and do some

00:42:30.060 gotcha on me. It wasn't as bad as I had feared, where their story that came out was a bit of a

00:42:34.340 nothing burger, but they're so desperately trying to dislodge Danielle Smith. It's sort of pitiful and

00:42:39.000 sort of obvious. My only worry is that some people actually get their news from the CBC and actually

00:42:44.220 believe it. I know that's not a large number, but it's large enough. Well, that's the show for

00:42:49.800 today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good

00:42:54.600 night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:43:09.000 .

Rebel News Podcast - January 26, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Do the terms left and right make sense in politics anymore？

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