EZRA LEVANT ｜ Election focus shifts to crime, tax cuts, and 'nation-building' projects
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Summary
In this episode, I take you through the latest polling numbers on the Conservative Party's campaign platform, and explain why it's actually pretty good. I also talk about why I don't think Mark Carney is actually opposed to carbon taxes.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. A big show today. I'm going to do two things. I'm going to take you through the
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latest polling, and I'm going to take you through the conservative party's campaign platform that
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they announced today. There's actually a few good things in it I want to show you.
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But first, let me invite you to get what I call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this
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you know. We don't get any money from the government, so we rely on you. It's rebelnewsplus.com.
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Oh, by the way, one more thing. Thanks for tuning into this podcast. If you appreciate the news that
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Tonight, Pierre Polyev releases the Conservative Party campaign platform. It's April 22nd,
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and this is The Answer for the Vance Show. The election was supposed to be about a carbon tax.
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It was the most hated thing Trudeau had done to us in his decade as prime minister. And no one
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doubted that Pierre Polyev was truly against it. It was a huge political winner for him. But then
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Mark Carney came along, and in his first act, this party leader reduced the tax rate of the carbon tax
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to zero. Now, understand the trick here, though. He didn't repeal the tax. I'm not sure that he could,
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given that Parliament hasn't sat in months. Carney had a bit of theater, that's all, where he signed a
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fancy-looking piece of paper as if he were President Trump signing an executive order. Remember this?
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Yeah, except that in Canada, the prime minister doesn't sign executive orders. The governor general
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does, on advice of the prime minister. I don't think Mark Carney knows how we do it. He's been out of
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Canada so long. But my point is, Mark Carney did not abolish the tax. He didn't repeal it. He didn't
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remove it. He didn't root it out. He just turned the amount down to zero for now. And if you remember
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what he said, it's not that he disagrees with it suddenly. He just said it was divisive, as in it
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could be a political problem for him right now. So when he thinks it won't cause him a political
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problem, he'll be able to turn it up like a thermostat or something. Of course he will. I mean,
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carbon taxes aren't just Carney's favorite policy. They're really part of his identity. It's what he's done
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for the past decade. It's what his wife had lobbied for, the job he had at the UN, his reason for jetting
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around the world, going to the world economic form. It was all about global warming, carbon taxes,
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transitioning off oil, etc. He was the co-chair of something called the Glasgow Financial Alliance
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for net zero. G fans. It's a terrible acronym. But basically it meant he jetted around the world,
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pressuring companies to decarbonize and threatening them with divestment if they didn't cooperate.
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That's why he was interrogated by the U.S. Congress last year for allegedly extorting companies to
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comply with his green policies or be targeted for divestment. Now he's going to do that to our entire
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country. So yeah, if you think Mark Carney is opposed to carbon taxes, you just haven't been
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listening to him. He knows he needs to turn it down to zero for this election, but just for this
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election. I mean, what kind of grownup says they are a follower of Greta Thunberg, the high school,
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the junior high dropout? I see myself as part of the social movement. I think those at the vanguard of
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the social movement might see me as being farther behind. And I've, you know, full, absolutely full
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credit, and I do in the book to Greta Thunberg, who I've had the pleasure of meeting several times and
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who absolutely has catalyzed that movement, the youth movement, and also done something incredibly
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valuable. And this is embarrassing to admit, but I think we should admit it. And this is often true,
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by the way, in finance. Very obvious truths are not fully understood in the system. So what she
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hammered home was the carbon budget, how small it was, how rapidly it was being depleted. And we've
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moved in a few short years, in part because of her, from a world of ESG, sustainability, broader
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conversations around, as I say, sustainability, to a relentless focus on net zero. It's called the
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Glasgow Financial Alliance for net zero for a reason, because we've moved to the relentless logic of
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having to get emissions down consistent with the carbon budget. So in that regard, I'm part of that
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and part of mapping what people want to the mechanisms, particularly in finance, in order to
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deliver it. I'm also, though, conscious of two other things, Lionel. One is that, of course,
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net zero is absolutely essential to stabilize the climate. But that's not the same thing as
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protecting biodiversity. It's not the same thing as having a just transition along the way. There
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are lots of other elements that are necessary to this that these broader social movements rightly
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shine a light on either an unserious man or an extremely serious, extremely dangerous man. But
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the media was delighted by it, which is surprising. I mean, the media had said that anyone who was
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against carbon taxes was against the future and against our children and a threat to the society.
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And it was disqualifying for any conservative who dared to defy the net zero cult. I mean,
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entire election debates in this country were about carbon taxes. But I guess when a liberal
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turns it off, those worries go away. It was an issue until it suddenly wasn't an issue when
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they wanted to get their man elected. Where's the David Suzuki Foundation? Where's all the green
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activists? Where's Greta herself? Where's Stephen Gilboa? They all know it's just a ruse. Carney is
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their man, and they simply need him to get him across the finish line. And he's the same on everything
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else that Trudeau stood for, from massive foreign aid to being supportive of Hamas, to censoring
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free speech for critics, to being reflexively anti-American. But Mark Carney has three big
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things going for him. Number one, he reduced the carbon tax to zero, even if it's just temporary.
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Number two, he is not Justin Trudeau. So a lot of the hatred for Trudeau is dissipated. By the way,
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has anyone even asked, does anyone even care what Trudeau's up to now? That makes my point. No one
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cares. He was such an empty shell. And the third thing that Mark Carney has going for him is that
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the NDP has utterly collapsed, all falling away towards the liberals. That's probably the biggest
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factor. You know, I just went on Wikipedia. They have a page that lists all the public opinion polls
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from all the public opinion pollsters in chronological order. So in the past three days,
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April 20, 21 and 22, you can check this for yourself, there have been 10 polls published.
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And the conservative party in those polls ranges from a low of 36.3 in a nanos poll to a high of 41
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in a mainstream poll. Now, it doesn't really work to average them all because there's different sample
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sizes and different methodologies, but I did it anyways. And the average of the last 10 polls for
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the conservatives is 38.5%. That's pretty good. That's only down a few points from their all time
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high when the liberals were imploding under Trudeau. Liberal party, same thing. Last 10 polls, they
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average 42.7% by my math. So for sure, they are leading by four points. But so much of that is from
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the NDP, which is averaging just eight, averaging just 8.2% in the last 10 polls. The NDP are in
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single digits. They are about to get wiped out. I mean, possibly not even getting party status. It's a
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unite the left campaign. By the way, the People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier's party is averaging
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about 1.5% in the polls. And I got to tell you, I will never understand why Maxime Bernier didn't
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even try to get into the leaders' debate this year. Why didn't he even ask, let alone sue?
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I don't know. So yeah, it looks like a liberal win. There are six more days, though. Voting has
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started already. And I don't know if you saw, Elections Canada says there has been record
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turnout so far in the advanced polls. I don't know which party that could benefit. I could see both
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sides. I think a lot of Canadians are desperate to get rid of the liberals, and they don't want
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another liberal term. So I think they're motivated. But there's also a lot of leftists who are delighted
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to have a chance to stop Polyev and genuinely believe they're somehow fighting against Donald
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Trump by voting for Carney. And the younger voters are the most pro-Polyev, according to pollsters.
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Older voters are the most pro-Carney, and they seem to have a higher turnout. Seniors vote more than,
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say, people in their 20s. I don't know what high numbers means. I think a lot of Canadians have bought
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the line that Pierre Polyev is a mini-Trump. The media has weaponized that like never before.
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They know this is their one chance. But let me show you one more thing. This is a series of tweets
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by David Colletto. As you know, he's my favorite pollster, who's also one of the most accurate
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when comparing their polls to the Election Day results. I think he's very conscientious. Here's what
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David Colletto, the pollster for Abacus, wrote yesterday on X. He said,
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what if the liberals never really led by like 8 to 12 points, and it was just response bias?
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Now, I googled response bias. I wanted to make sure I understood what it meant. It's when people say
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something to a pollster that they don't really mean because there's some other force at play,
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like people telling pollsters what they think is a socially acceptable answer, sort of peer pressure.
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They want to say the right thing to the person on the other side of the phone. Or maybe just,
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for example, people who are Polyev supporters are less willing to talk to pollsters than liberal
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voters are. That's an example of response bias. Whenever I get a pollster on the phone,
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I assume it's a trick or a trap or someone posing as a pollster. I just hang up. I mean,
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that's not me really being a conspiracy theorist. That's just me valuing my privacy and distrusting
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the political class, and I'm not going to spend the time on it. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite
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because I love reading polls, but I'm not going to participate in one. That's response bias.
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Anyways, that's what Coletto suggested there. And then he wrote this too, and I thought this was
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very candid for a pollster to say. He said, to go from a 15-point liberal lead a month ago to a 2.1
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today is pretty remarkable. If you believe that, then you also have to believe, one,
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the liberals have run a horrible campaign. Two, the conservatives have run an amazing campaign.
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In other words, Coletto is saying it's more likely that the polls were wrong a month ago,
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or are wrong now, than the mood of the country has swung so much. Now, I don't know.
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I think there was a euphoria at removing Trudeau, just like there was in the States when Joe Biden
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was kicked out for Kamala Harris. And that rejuvenated the left that was demoralized. And in
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Canada, it united the left also, wiped out the NDP. But I think a number of centrists probably got
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caught up in that, and probably their anti-Trump instincts were inflamed. Now, Trump hasn't taken
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a shot at Canada or mentioned annexing us in the last few weeks. The Trump effect is subsiding a bit.
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I don't know, but I think the election is still afoot. I mean, look at this. The government says 7.3
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million people have voted already. A new record for this point of the election cycle. It was just
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5.8 million last time at this point. But this seems like a more momentous election than last
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one, doesn't it? Anyways, I said I'd look at policy. So here's the conservative official policy
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platform. It was released today. Now, if you scroll down it, you'll see about 32 different boxes
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representing 32 different policies. First one is reducing income tax by 15%. By the way,
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scrapping the carbon taxes on the list too. They say for real, for good, in contrast to Kearney.
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Cutting the sales tax on homes and reducing capital gains tax. In fact, the first six points are all
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related to relieving taxes and fees. The next three are ramping up energy projects and other
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industrial projects, including oil and gas. Lots about crime and reviving the military. So that's
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the website version. But they have a larger written version of the platform. And I'm so glad
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I reviewed it because it talks about some things that are not on the online version. Here, I'm going
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to read the entire platform of immigration. I'll just read it word for word. Restore order to
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immigration. Under the last conservative government, Canada had an immigration system that worked.
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It was fair, orderly, and the envy of the world. But after the lost liberal decade, that system is broken.
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The liberals' reckless and unsustainable immigration surge overwhelmed Canadian housing and healthcare
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services. We will restore integrity to the system by cracking down on fraud and dramatically reducing
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the number of temporary foreign workers and foreign students and limiting permanent immigration to a
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sustainable rate similar to the levels under the Harper government. We will prioritize those who are
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most needed, who grow our economy and meet our healthcare needs, and rebuild an immigration system
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that works for newcomers and Canadians alike. And then he's got a few bullet points. He says,
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we will keep the rate of population growth below the rate of housing growth, job growth, and healthcare
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accessibility to ensure sustainable immigration levels that are fair for Canadians and newcomers alike.
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I think that's a good one. Reject the radical liberal sensory initiative proposal to grow Toronto to a city of
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33.5 million, Montreal to a city of 12.2 million, Vancouver to a city of 11.9 million, Calgary, Edmonton
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to cities of 15.5 million, and Ottawa, Gatineau to a city of 4.8 million within a single lifetime.
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I know that sounds insane. That really is the platform of the sensory initiative that Mark Carney's team
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signed on to. Next bullet point, require union labor market assessment pre-checks ensuring unions get
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consulted before employers hire temporary foreign workers to protect Canadian jobs. I agree with that,
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by the way. Require criminal background checks for individuals entering Canada on a student permit.
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It's insane that's not happening now. Process refugee claims faster on a last-in-first-out basis
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and implement departure tracking so we have a clear idea of how many people are overstaying their visa.
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I would add to that, if you're going back to the country you fled for holidays, you ain't no refugee.
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Next one, expand and speed up removals for any criminal activity on a visitor permit.
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Anyone who's here on a visitor visa who breaks our laws will be removed from Canada. Now that last point
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is a bit of a change from what Paulie have told me a year ago when I asked him if he would deport
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foreign nationals who engage in anti-Semitic hate marches. Here's my question.
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Hi, Mr. Paulie. I'm Ezra Levan from Rebel News. You mentioned certain things that rise to the
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level of a crime, but there are many things that aren't quite at that level. For example,
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people marching, calling for an intifada, or using language that may not rise to the level
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of a criminal prosecution. And you've said before that you respect freedom of speech even for odious
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views. But what about people who are not Canadian citizens, who are foreign nationals, perhaps here on a
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student visa to go to our schools. And instead of studying at university, they're participating in
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these hate marches, intimidating people, Jewish restaurants, calling for the death of Jews.
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Again, not criminal level, but these are foreign nationals. Would you support canceling the visas and
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deporting foreign nationals who, instead of doing what they came here to do, are spreading hate at these
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pro-Hamas rallies? Thank you for your question. You raise a number of different issues. One,
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if someone comes here on a student visa and they're not actually a student, then on that basis alone,
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they should go home. We don't want to have, one of the problems we have with the student visa
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program is that it has been used as a fraudulent point of entry, particularly for corrupt employers
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trying to get labor from abroad. So in general, we believe that we should shut down all the fraud in
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the student visa program. And anyone who claims to come here to study that is not actually studying
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should not be here. With regards to protests, I do believe in freedom of speech. I believe people
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should be allowed to say things I disagree with, even things that I find appalling. That is the price
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of living in a free country. The alternative is to have state censors who then decide what kind of speech
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is acceptable and what is not. And then who chooses those state censors? And then those censors will
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pick and choose, based on their own political views, which speech is allowed and which speech is not.
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That's why I believe in freedom of expression. You mentioned, for example, if someone stands up and
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calls for violence against a particular group, they can, under the current criminal code, be charged with
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incitement. Those provisions already exist. And I would encourage law enforcement to make sure those
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provisions are upheld for any and all people who incite, deliberately incite violence against an
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identifiable group, because that has been criminalized for many years. And anyone who is convicted of that,
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who is not a citizen, should obviously not be in Canada.
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Now, back then, Polyev said he'd only deport Hamas radicals if they were convicted of a hate crime.
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Today, he says he'll deport anyone who breaks our laws, which suggests any other crimes, maybe even vandalism.
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But I think that's still too high a bar, because marching through our streets, shouting anti-Semitic slurs
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at Jews, it's not actually a crime in Canada. And frankly, I don't know if it should be a crime in Canada
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for citizens. That's free speech. But we don't have to put up with that from foreigners who are here
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as our guests. The U.S. is deporting bad faith visitors, including people on student visas who
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participated in the Hamas encampments in universities, not for necessarily committing crimes, but for
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organizing anti-American and anti-Semitic rallies. I think we need to go harder on foreign hate mongers in
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our country, but it's a baby step. I want to read one more section of the platform dealing with freedom
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of speech. And again, this wasn't on their website, but it's in their PDF document. It starts off saying,
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Wilfred Laurier once said, Canada is free and freedom is its nationality. But during the lost
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liberal decade, freedom of speech has been threatened, history erased, and voices silenced by censorship laws
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and corporate collusion. A new conservative government will restore free speech, protect personal
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liberties, honor our shared story, and promote Canadian culture and history. We will support media
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freedom by, first point, introducing a Freedom of Speech Act to repeal liberal censorship laws and
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restore Canadian news on meta and other platforms. Okay, I'd like more details on that. Boosting the
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local journalism initiative by $25 million for local news. All right, I don't know how that increases
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freedom to have more government in journalism. Next, ensuring all domestic government
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advertising dollars are spent on Canadian platforms only. Well, I mean, if they're going to be
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ads, are they ads or are they a subsidy for media? I don't have a strong opinion on that one. The next
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one, provide $25 million in support for Indigenous language media. We already do. Next one, supporting
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remote area internet connectivity so every Canadian has reliable access to news. How about leave that to
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Starlink? We will save by defunding the CBC and reforming crown corporations while maintaining
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Radio Canada's French CBC services. English language CBC should be a Canadian-owned, self-sufficient media
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organization that is a not-for-profit and supported by listeners, donations, sponsorships, ad revenue,
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and licensing revenue. All right, I support that. I think I like about half of these points, but why is the
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government funding any journalism, including the local journalism initiative? How is that any
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different from funding the CBC? And why would taxpayers be forced to continue funding the French
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CBC? That said, of course, this is better than any other party on the issue. I found this section
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promising. It was a little bit later in the document. Protect free speech on campus. Free speech is a
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cornerstone of Canadian democracy. We will ensure campuses remain places of debate, not censorship
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by, point one, requiring universities to enforce the standards of section two of the charter's freedom
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of expression as a condition for federal funding. Obviously, that's a good idea. And given the amount
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of funding from the feds to universities, it would be easy to command compliance. Look, I like the
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platform compared to the liberal spending and taxing and debt frenzy. I'm sure I'd like almost anything,
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but mainly we need to root out the liberal party, the corrupt, compromised, dedicated to extremism on
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everything from mass immigration to environmental extremism to foreign meddling. I don't want to be
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dramatic, but I really do think this election is the most important for Canada in my lifetime. And yeah,
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I'm worried. Stay with us for more with Gordon Chang next.
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Well, China is always in the news. It's in the news for a lot of reasons, military, economic, political,
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and in Canada's case, there's some national security concerns. As you know, I was curious about the
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strange way that Canada's new prime minister was selected. The Liberal Party had an online-only voting
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system. People as young as 14 were allowed to vote. Foreign nationals were allowed to vote. 400,000
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people were registered to vote, but 250,000 of those 400,000 were disqualified. And we never really got
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an explanation for that. I posed the question with no answer. Could it be that the People's Liberation
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Army hackers were able to penetrate the Liberal Party's system? I have no basis that they did,
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other than it's quite curious to me that a majority of registered voters were disqualified. And the
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results in the end were bizarrely uniform. In every district in the country, Mark Carney won by
00:23:53.620
approximately the same amount, even in the home districts of his rivals, such as Chrystia Freeland.
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That's just an observation. I don't have a conclusion to make because there were no complaints filed.
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That's been different over the last few weeks, as the government itself, the agency tasked with
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detecting foreign interference, has on several occasions held emergency news conferences,
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saying that the Chinese Communist Party has been targeting conservative candidates, including
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with propaganda drives using the WeChat app, popular with Chinese Canadians. There was a remarkable case when
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Paul Chang, a Liberal Party candidate in the Greater Toronto area, said, half-jokingly, he claims,
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but said it three times, that a conservative Chinese Canadian candidate was wanted in Beijing.
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And if anyone were to kidnap him and bring him to the Chinese consulate,
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they would receive a reward of one million Hong Kong dollars. He was replaced, but only after
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Mark Carney stood by him, his successor, by some measures, even worse. What does China see in
00:25:05.220
Canada? What does China see in our Prime Minister, Mark Carney? Joining us now to talk about that,
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and just as important, the Chinese-U.S. tariff war, is our friend Gordon G. Chang, who I say
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is the most interesting and best-informed analyst of China out there today. What a pleasure to see you
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again, Gordon. I know you're so busy. Thanks for jamming us in. Oh, well, thank you so much, Ezra. I really
00:25:30.340
appreciate it. Now, Canada has been dealing with China issues for a long time. The two diplomats who
00:25:39.220
were taken, Canada would say, hostage by China for years. China just put a massive tariff on Canadian
00:25:49.140
canola crops. There's always something afoot in Canada. Pull the camera back a bit. What does China
00:25:56.820
see in Canada? What would be the prize for China that motivates them to meddle in our democracy?
00:26:06.260
There are so many prizes. So, for instance, the Arctic. China wants to dominate the Arctic with its
00:26:11.780
new best friend, Russia. But also, remember, Canada is part of the Five Eyes. It would love to have
00:26:18.260
some intel on what was being discussed. Canada borders the United States, the world's longest
00:26:24.820
undefended border. And we know that that border is troublesome. In federal fiscal FY24, which ended on
00:26:34.180
September 30, 2024, the number of terrorist watchlist suspects coming in across the northern border far
00:26:42.420
exceeded those coming in across the undefended southern border. There were 155 on the terror watch
00:26:50.180
list apprehended coming from Mexico. There was 358 Ezra coming from Canada. And that shows there is an
00:26:59.380
infiltration problem. We know that various U.S. administrations, Biden, Trump, have talked to
00:27:06.900
Ottawa about all these problems, and a lot more of them, by the way, and have generally received a cold
00:27:14.500
reception. This is not a good story from the United States point of view. Because although we always
00:27:20.980
think of Canada as close friends, nonetheless, we do know that the Trudeau government allowed hostile
00:27:27.780
elements to use Canada as a staging ground for assaults on the U.S. And oh, by the way, where was the
00:27:35.380
world's largest fentanyl lab? No, it wasn't in China. No, it wasn't in Mexico. It was in Vancouver.
00:27:45.460
Wow. You know, that terrorist statistic is one I bet most Canadians don't know. We know that
00:27:51.220
ordinary migrants, obviously, that Mexican border was much larger an issue. But for, like you say,
00:27:57.220
those terrorist suspects on the watch list. Hey, I've got one last question for you about Mark Carney
00:28:01.940
before we move on to U.S. tariffs. Mark Carney was the head of, I call it a mini BlackRock. It was
00:28:08.260
called Brookfield. And it had about a trillion dollars under management, which is pretty big.
00:28:13.460
And Carney met with Xi Jinping, and he had a lot of dealings in China. If I'm being really, really fair,
00:28:21.620
if I'm trying to see things from Carney's point of view, he would say none of my business deals were
00:28:27.380
illegal. They all followed the law. We were told to go out and earn a rate of return for our investors.
00:28:34.340
China has high rates of return. If you're not in that growing global market, you're nowhere.
00:28:40.260
So if I was hired as a lawyer to defend his dealings with China, I would say, look,
00:28:45.540
it's the world's biggest economy. If you doubt it, go into your Walmart and try and find something not
00:28:49.540
made in China. Shouldn't he have sought the rate of return for his investors?
00:28:55.460
A critic would say, well, you were exposed to China. You favored China. You are doing China. You're
00:29:01.940
seeking errands. You're running errands for them. What's your take? I mean, it's pretty rare for a
00:29:08.020
businessman to actually meet one on one with Xi Jinping and to get a quarter billion dollar loan
00:29:13.460
from China. Or is that just business the way it is these days? Well, if you ask Hunter Biden, I guess
00:29:20.820
you'd say that's just business the way it is. A couple of things. The returns from China have
00:29:28.340
really been poor recently or basically this entire decade. So I'm not so sure that that's a good
00:29:38.260
investment on the part of anybody. And really what we're talking about is China gaining leverage with
00:29:46.500
someone who's the prime minister of a NATO member and Five Eyes Park, which just happens to share a
00:29:54.340
very long border with the U.S. So this is not business as usual. And I think that this is a
00:30:00.580
disqualifying element in Mark Carney's run for a new election. I mean, a new five-year term.
00:30:10.020
Yeah. But I'm just a foreigner, so you don't have to listen to me.
00:30:13.540
Well, I think, but you know China better than anyone else I know. Well, let's talk about the
00:30:18.020
United States because, of course, Donald Trump has always talked about China. Even before his
00:30:23.380
first term, he would tweet about China as a businessman. And even before the era of Twitter,
00:30:29.940
like it's been on his mind for 40 years. I'll be honest with you, Gordon. I don't fully understand
00:30:35.140
Trump's tariff strategy. I thought I did. I understand what tariffs are for. They're for
00:30:44.100
encouraging companies to locate manufacturing in America rather than next. I think that's the
00:30:48.900
strategy. But I don't understand the larger strategy. I'm just going to confess that maybe
00:30:55.380
you can shine a light on it and tell me especially how it affects China. Because I know China was trying
00:31:00.660
to set up its own economic sphere, the Belt and Road Initiative, and it was giving lots of loans.
00:31:07.060
And it's really colonizing Africa. Tell me how the American strategy interacts with China. And maybe
00:31:16.180
an easy way to do it is tell me how it's different from what Joe Biden did.
00:31:21.140
Yeah. Trump does have a messaging problem. And it is not entirely clear on certain days what he's doing.
00:31:29.460
But in general, the strategy is this. And that is that Trump is using the lure of the American market,
00:31:36.660
the biggest in the world by far. Consumer spending in the US accounts for what, 38 or so percent of the
00:31:43.300
global consumer spending. He's using that to stitch up trade agreements with countries that are our
00:31:50.260
friends. And he started with Japan. But he's also talking, of course, to South Korea, to Vietnam,
00:31:56.820
to the European Union, Italy. The Italian Prime Minister was recently at the White House,
00:32:02.420
Giorgio Maloney. And the idea is that by doing this, we'll be able to create a US-centered trade
00:32:10.020
block, which will in large measure exclude China. And we know this because the Chinese have actually
00:32:17.620
just yesterday on Monday threatened retaliation against any country that enters into a trading
00:32:25.460
relationship with the US that, as Beijing says, undermines China's interests. So apparently,
00:32:33.540
Beijing is really worried about what Trump is doing. So in general, that's it. When you look at the
00:32:40.100
tariffs on Canada and Mexico, this is where he really has a messaging problem, because he has not
00:32:46.020
actually spelled out in detail what he wants to do. There's, of course, the issue of trade surpluses.
00:32:53.780
But it's also Trump has not talked to the American people or talked to the Canadian and Mexican people
00:33:00.100
about his national security concerns that both of these countries pose. And if he did it,
00:33:05.700
I think that people might not agree with him, but at least they would understand the rationale for
00:33:10.740
what he is doing. Because there's a lot of head scratching, not only in Canada, where there's,
00:33:15.140
of course, anger, but also in the United States. So those people who have been following this have
00:33:21.860
been worried about Canada for a very long time. We've been talking about it. And if nothing else,
00:33:29.620
Trump gets high marks for raising the issue. But he needs to raise it in the way that people
00:33:34.740
understand why he's doing what he's doing. I think he has a rationale for this.
00:33:39.940
I know he has a rationale for this. It's just that he's not articulating it well.
00:33:44.580
Yeah. I mean, when he talked about security on the border, like you did,
00:33:50.020
people understand that. And by the way, there is a real problem with drug use in Canada.
00:33:56.020
Perhaps not quite as acute in the United States, but we have our own San Francisco.
00:33:59.940
It's even worse in Vancouver. And I think there's certain trade irritants, like we have a dairy
00:34:06.820
cartel that increases the price of dairy. We have a poultry cartel and things like that. People get
00:34:13.380
that. Trump also complained that banks aren't allowed to operate in the same way in Canada,
00:34:19.220
U.S. banks. Those are all very tangible things that people say, okay, I can understand that's a
00:34:23.860
bargaining chip. But the general bella caution, I'm a super fan of Trump, have been three elections in
00:34:30.260
a row. What that did is it allowed the latent anti-Americanism in Canada to flare up. And Mark
00:34:38.820
Carney said, I'm going to defend against Trump. And I'm worried, Gordon, that that's going to actually
00:34:43.780
put Mark Carney into the prime ministership because he's just riding. All he talks about is Trump.
00:34:52.180
All they doorknock about is Trump, Trump, Trump. And there's sort of Trump derangement syndrome in
00:34:57.220
this country. And right or wrong, I think that might lead to a really bad dude, Trudeau 2.0,
00:35:04.900
but smarter and harder working, becoming the PM again. And also, I think maybe even worse on China
00:35:12.180
than Trudeau was, which is saying something. Yeah, I agree with you, Ezra, you know, down the line.
00:35:19.300
You know, you look at Pellevra. I mean, he was up 20 points. Now he's down eight or something like that.
00:35:25.700
That's enormous swing. And that is the Trump factor. There's nothing else that accounts for that.
00:35:31.620
Um, so yeah, clearly, um, the United States needs to have, uh, needs to have much better
00:35:39.460
messaging and needs to have honest conversations, not only with the Canadian public, but also with
00:35:44.900
the American one as well. So I couldn't agree with you more. Well, we'll find out soon enough. The
00:35:50.500
election is on the 28th next Monday. And, uh, the gap has narrowed a bit. I was just looking at the polls,
00:35:57.460
uh, the average of the last 10 polls puts the conservatives behind by 4%. Now that still is a
00:36:02.500
loss, but it's, um, it's not the chasm that it was a week or two ago. Um, one of the pollsters
00:36:10.100
talked about a, uh, shy voter effect. Everyone knows they're supposed to vote for Carney. I don't
00:36:16.020
know. He's still predicting a liberal win. We'll find out really soon. It's great to catch up with
00:36:20.820
you. Maybe once the dust settles, we can talk again about how Canada is looking in terms of China
00:36:25.540
relations after the election. Yes. And by the way, it's no coincidence that China has taken over the
00:36:31.780
city of Vancouver and they've got a drug problem. Right, right. That's a good observation. We've
00:36:37.060
been talking with Gordon G Chang. You've got to follow him on Twitter at Gordon G Chang. I really
00:36:42.740
feel that I get the latest on China strategy by following him. And I would encourage you to do so
00:36:48.660
too. Take care of my friend. Thanks again for your valuable time. Thank you, Ezra. All right.
00:36:53.300
There we have it. Stay with us more ahead. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. The
00:37:08.420
first one is on rebels lawsuit against liberal party, dirty tricksters over the buttons. VRP
00:37:15.860
GEO says this is a second trademark violation for Carney in four months when he announced his entry for the
00:37:21.700
liberal leadership in Edmonton on January 16th. He used a logo that was held and used under trademark
00:37:26.820
by another company met credit debt collectors. It was quickly changed after the company told him to
00:37:32.420
stop using him. Now, I'm going to say in that case, it was probably an accident. They weren't trying to
00:37:40.500
hide anything. I'm sure they weren't trying to trick anyone that they were met credit. They just didn't
00:37:46.980
search properly. So I'm not, they should have done a little bit more prep, but it's not a
00:37:53.300
sin. It's they didn't do something with moral turpitude. They were just maybe sloppy. Let's
00:37:57.860
say that is very different here. They obviously did this in a witting, thoughtful way. They obviously
00:38:05.540
left their name off it because the whole point was to confuse. So this is much darker and it is
00:38:12.100
in the words of Mark Carney, totally unacceptable, although not so unacceptable that they fired
00:38:16.660
anybody. On CBC lies, Clint Scott Fisher says a petition should be started to demand defunding
00:38:23.700
the CBC. Well, the only people who would possibly do that is Pierre Pauliev's conservatives, I think.
00:38:29.700
Chris Richardson says pretty rich, the CBC complaining that Rebel News is biased. Well, by the way,
00:38:35.540
and here's the weird thing is that none of the party leaders objected to us being at the leaders'
00:38:41.700
debates, at least not that I saw. I mean, it's true Jagmeet Singh never answers our questions
00:38:46.500
anywhere, but that's just a weirdness he has. It's got nothing to do with the debates commission.
00:38:53.060
Mark Carney didn't get any Rebel News questions, but he answered other questions from citizen journalists,
00:38:58.740
and he was fine with them. Our questions, we asked a couple to Pierre Pauliev, we asked a couple to
00:39:05.860
Jagmeet Singh, he didn't answer, that's fine. We asked one to the leader of the block who
00:39:09.940
gave an answer in English, and he was sort of friendly about it. I mean, I'm not friendly,
00:39:13.460
but he was substantive about it. The people who had the problem with us being there, super weirdly,
00:39:19.620
were rival journalists. I think I told you that when Drea Humphrey asked her question,
00:39:24.100
other journalists were heckling her. It was the grossest thing I've seen, and
00:39:29.620
she was surrounded by this booing. It was shocking. The regime media did all the things
00:39:35.460
they accuse us of being. They were rude, they were unprofessional, they were disruptive. We were not.
00:39:42.420
Well, that's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:39:47.220
Headquarters, to you and I'm goodnight, and keep fighting for freedom.