Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Erin O’Toole fires a candidate for expressing concern about forced vaccine passports

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. I was so disappointed to learn that Aaron O'Toole fired his Yukon candidate who

00:00:06.040 looked like a really good candidate, a candidate who lost by just 150 votes last time and looked

00:00:12.260 like he was going to win this time. And he fired him for the strangest reason. I can't even believe

00:00:18.100 it. I'll tell you about that reason and I'll tell you my thoughts on it on today's podcast. But

00:00:23.120 before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video

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00:01:00.300 Justin Trudeau. So please consider helping us that way. All right, here's today's show.

00:01:04.780 Tonight, Aaron O'Toole fires a candidate for expressing concern about forced vaccine

00:01:25.160 passports. Is that really the conservative position? It's August 13th and this is the

00:01:29.680 National LeVant Show. Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:36.520 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to the

00:01:42.120 government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:01:46.460 I love the Yukon. I recommend you visit it at least once in your life. You can get there by plane,

00:01:56.380 which is the fastest, by car from BC, which is the prettiest, I think, and by ship, including cruise

00:02:03.240 ships that dock in Skagway, Alaska. And then it's a short trip over to the Yukon. That's the most

00:02:08.260 adventurous. That's how the gold rush went in. I've had the good fortune in my life to visit Yukon all

00:02:14.020 three ways, so lovely, and pretty rugged, and pretty natural. And if you're out there, it's a choice,

00:02:20.560 I think, to be away from the big city. I mean, sure, they're high tech too. They're on cell phones

00:02:27.000 and satellite phones and the internet and everything, but you can't get coverage everywhere without a

00:02:32.920 satellite phone. And that's part of the point, I think, of the Yukon lifestyle. It's a bit more

00:02:38.660 natural. If your idea of a good time is going to a Starbucks to take an Instagram photo of

00:02:44.000 your cappuccino, you might not like the Yukon way. I haven't been there in the past year,

00:02:49.440 but I bet they haven't got as caught up in the COVID-19 mania as the big cities have, because

00:02:54.060 the mania is media-driven, especially social media. And I think it's a big city thing, because in big

00:03:00.060 cities, I think you're more afraid of strangers. You don't know everyone you meet. A small town,

00:03:05.480 you're comfortable with people because you probably know them personally. Even in the biggest city

00:03:09.860 there, Whitehorse. So just because Teresa Tam or some other politician in some press conference

00:03:15.540 thousands of miles away tells you to panic about being close to people, if you know everyone in

00:03:21.080 town, you're probably not going to take her advice. She's the stranger, not your neighbors in a small

00:03:25.660 town. I just get the feeling that panic and mania are more of a big city thing than a country living

00:03:31.440 thing. I tell you this because I think Jonas Smith, the Conservative Party candidate in the Yukon

00:03:38.800 until he was fired yesterday, I think he's probably a pretty typical Yukoner. Here's how he describes

00:03:45.080 himself on his own website. Jonas is professionally known in the Yukon as an advocate for the territory's

00:03:52.740 responsible mining industry and for his volunteer work with the Every Student, Every Day Student

00:03:58.400 Attendance Charity, as well as his decades of experience in the hospitality industry and arts

00:04:03.220 community. He's a third generation Yukoner, used to work for the premier there. I have to say he looks and

00:04:08.980 sounds like a pretty great candidate. He served on the Conservative Party's National Council, so he's no

00:04:15.680 neophyte. In fact, and how painful must this have felt, in the last election federally in 2019, Jonas lost by

00:04:25.180 just over 150 votes to the Liberal. So close. And that Liberal MP just announced he's retiring, so he's

00:04:34.380 not running again this year. So I have to think that Jonas Smith had a pretty good chance of winning in

00:04:40.680 the Yukon. He came within a percent of winning last time and the winner's retiring. I think Jonas is the

00:04:47.120 man to beat, but he was sacked yesterday by Aaron O'Toole. O'Toole must have met him or at least dealt with

00:04:54.800 him electronically since he was on the party's national council. So what did this guy do or say

00:05:01.080 that was so bad? Well, I'll tell you. Here's a story from the Yukon News. Yukon Conservative Party

00:05:07.440 candidate booted from position due to vaccine views. Smith said he was told the reason for his

00:05:13.740 disallowment was his opposition to calls for implementation of mandated workplace vaccinations

00:05:20.280 and vaccine passport requirements in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He phrased it really well,

00:05:27.860 Jonas Smith did, at least I think he did. Listen. I believe in standing up for the rights of all

00:05:34.020 minorities, including those of the unvaccinated, be it for medical, religious, or personal reasons,

00:05:40.360 and that our country needs less discrimination, not more, continued Smith. Generations of Canadians have

00:05:45.960 fought for our Section 15 charter rights as well as freedom of choice when it comes to matters

00:05:50.320 of bodily autonomy. And these proposed vaccination-related restrictions will vastly alter what

00:05:57.400 kind of country our children will inherit, he said. Smith said mandatory vaccines will create a two-tiered

00:06:03.240 society. Well, that's all true, and I think it's very well said. Now, here's the thing.

00:06:11.300 There are no vaccine passports yet in Canadian law, at least not yet. Some universities have brought

00:06:19.540 them in, though all the ones I've looked at so far have exemptions for medical reasons or other reasons

00:06:24.860 too. The province of Quebec says it's going to bring in a vax passport, but they haven't filled out

00:06:30.440 the details yet. It's not a thing yet. But there is no federal vax passport, nor a Yukon one,

00:06:36.580 and even that control freak Theresa Tam hasn't called for one yet, and she's about as authoritarian 1.00

00:06:42.700 as they come. I think the public has to know this is one of the worst-case scenarios in terms of an

00:06:49.260 infectious disease outbreak, in that their cooperation is sought. If there are people who are

00:06:55.060 non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health powers that can quarantine people in mandatory

00:07:04.180 settings. It's potential. You could track people, put bracelets on their arms, have police and other

00:07:13.020 setups to ensure quarantine is undertaken. So there's no vaccine passport. Even the liberals

00:07:19.460 haven't called for one yet. They might well do so. I fear they will, but they even, even they haven't

00:07:26.340 had the audacity to do it yet. I bet they're going to wait until after the election is over.

00:07:31.080 This thoughtful candidate for the Conservatives in the Yukon thoughtfully talks about protecting

00:07:36.000 minorities and not segregating as a society, and he's sacked from running as a Conservative

00:07:42.700 candidate? Just fired? Told he's not in anymore? Just done? Here's how Trudeau's CBC state

00:07:49.720 broadcaster reported it. Conservatives drop Yukon candidates citing opposition to public health

00:07:57.000 guidelines. A party spokesman says Smith doesn't support certain public health guidelines.

00:08:04.500 But that's another CBC lie, isn't it? Because that's not what a vaccine passport is. It's not

00:08:11.760 a guideline. It would be a rule, an order, a legal requirement. That's how the term is used. And you

00:08:17.340 can see in Smith's comments, that's what he's worried about. The force of law, the forced outcome,

00:08:22.580 segregation, discrimination, not guidelines. So what is Conservative Party policy on the

00:08:30.300 question? Are they for vaccine passports? Are they for vaccine passports and also for banning

00:08:37.500 criticism of vaccine passports? Or for vax passports and for banning criticism of them and for banning

00:08:48.200 even a discussion of them before the rules are even set? That's quite some ban. It's a ban about

00:08:55.540 talking about bans. I think this Jonas Smith was on to something when he worried about the Charter

00:09:01.680 of Rights. Speaking of which, look at this from the Globe and Mail. Debate on vaccine passports would 0.54

00:09:08.260 expose Quebecers to conspiracy theories, Legault says. So Quebec is bringing in a vax passport, 0.99

00:09:14.580 but no debate is allowed? Democracy is on hold for the pandemic, apparently. Democracy is on

00:09:20.360 lockdown because, get this, quote, I don't want certain people, whom I won't name, to come explain

00:09:27.140 that there's a conspiracy. It's not good to be vaccinated, that in the end we're putting a

00:09:31.760 microchip in people's arms to follow what they're doing. Stories like that, Legault said in Second

00:09:36.680 in Quebec, North Quebec City. I don't think we need that in Quebec. Got it. So someone you won't name,

00:09:43.920 you're afraid that they're going to accuse you of being a tyrant in a goofy way with a microchip.

00:09:50.180 So you will, in fact, be a tyrant in a real way by banning all debate. That's what I'm worried about.

00:09:57.220 Not a microchip, by the way. I'm worried about a guy banning democracy. I mean, whoever's worried

00:10:02.480 about microchips, I'm not sure if banning debates about it, microchips or not, is going to allay their

00:10:08.060 fears. Banning a debate to stamp out conspiracy theories. Is that like thinking kerosene will put

00:10:13.880 out of fire? I'm guessing the conspiracy theories will grow. Here's what the Parti Québécois said.

00:10:21.440 This is not a banal measure that we want to put in place and will deprive a certain number of our

00:10:26.580 fellow citizens of the rights to which we are accustomed, PC health critic Joel Arsenault said

00:10:31.980 in an interview Thursday. This is why we believe that we must analyze all the ins and outs of a

00:10:36.600 measure like this one to ensure that it is used in the fairest and most equitable way.

00:10:41.200 The Parti Québécois, Arsenault said, wants to know when the passport system would end.

00:10:48.760 Ooh, that's a good question, isn't it? When will it end? That's a very real question.

00:10:55.340 The lockdowns haven't ended. The two weeks to flatten the curve is coming up on two years now.

00:10:59.980 I think I know the answer to the question, when will the VAX passports end? And I think the answer is

00:11:04.480 never. I think. I think the VAX passports are the camel with its nose in the tent and then everything

00:11:11.380 will be loaded on these VAX passports. Not just COVID-19, but everything. All your health information,

00:11:17.760 all your politics, your finances, your freedoms, because that's how China does it with their social

00:11:23.540 credit system.

00:11:24.540 Dear passengers, people who travel without tickets or behave disorderly or small being in public areas

00:11:33.300 will be punished according to regulations, and the behavior will be recorded in the individual credit

00:11:39.600 information system. To avoid an inactive record of person operated, please follow the relevant

00:11:46.720 regulations and help with the orders on the train and at the station.

00:11:54.720 Yeah, when will this VAX passport end? Or is there no end in sight? Is it like the temporary

00:12:00.820 income tax just till we beat the Kaiser in the Great War? Does it end? Sorry we can't talk about

00:12:07.380 that, because it might lead to conspiracy theories. There is one political leader in Quebec who is

00:12:13.020 worried about all this. Conservative party leader Eric Duhem, whose party gained its first member

00:12:18.100 of the legislature when Claire Sampson joined him in June after she was ejected from Lagos Coalition

00:12:24.800 Avenue in Quebec, told reporters in Quebec said he had received two doses of vaccine but doesn't

00:12:31.060 support the passport system. Duhem said he has received more than 130,000 digital signatures on an

00:12:38.360 online anti passport petition that was posted on his website. You know, Eric Duhem, who's a friend

00:12:45.540 of our show, had a press conference yesterday at the legislature in Quebec, and he invited our Quebec

00:12:51.180 reporter, Alexa Lavois, and she went, but security wouldn't let her in. Now, he told her to come. It was his

00:12:58.920 press conference. She went. Security kept her out, saying she wasn't accredited. But by whom?

00:13:03.440 She was invited. Security gave her a phone number to call, and no one answered it. Hey, guys, no

00:13:10.280 conspiracy theories allowed. Little tidbit, I follow some conservatives on Twitter, of course,

00:13:15.920 including a few senators I like. I like Senator Judith Seidman, and she tweeted something that asked,

00:13:22.120 I thought, a good question, about the science. She tweeted about a study from a respected doctor

00:13:28.860 showing that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are actually only about 50 percent effective against

00:13:34.980 the Delta variant. And she wrote, quote, important growing body of evidence on the reduced effectiveness

00:13:42.520 of mRNA vaccines against Delta infections. That's all she wrote. Do you know who she is, by the way,

00:13:50.420 besides the senator? You probably haven't heard of her. Let me read from her bio.

00:13:54.140 The Honorable Judith Seidman is an epidemiologist, health researcher, and social services advisor

00:14:01.860 who was appointed to the Senate of Canada on August 27, 2009. An epidemiologist, you know that means

00:14:08.600 someone who studies epidemics, right? Pandemics, that sort of thing. And she simply said, we need to

00:14:14.180 pay attention to this troubling research. And her tweet was deleted within a day.

00:14:20.020 I thought it would be, so I took a photo of it before she took it down.

00:14:26.240 Did Erin O'Toole order her to delete that innocuous tweet? She's a senator. He can't fire her. 0.97

00:14:36.280 She's an epidemiologist. She's an expert. And she didn't say anything other than, hey, look at this study.

00:14:40.580 Let's pay attention to this issue. But that's too much for Erin O'Toole, I guess. 1.00

00:14:46.220 Erin O'Toole is firing candidates who care about civil liberties, like Jonas Smith.

00:14:51.880 It looks like he's telling senators to shut up. He's going further than ever, further than Teresa

00:14:58.480 Tam and Justin Trudeau have, in his love for vaccine passports. I don't know if Erin O'Toole

00:15:04.720 believes any of this himself, or if he's just worried about getting on the wrong side of the CBC

00:15:10.160 and the media party, who are nuts about the pandemic. I think Erin O'Toole doesn't really

00:15:15.380 believe in anything too deeply. He just does what he thinks the media wants him to do, the media party.

00:15:22.000 Which is why he's for the carbon tax, which is why he's for open borders, mass immigration. 0.88

00:15:27.560 Which is why he hasn't said a word about Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilbeau and their massive censorship

00:15:32.040 plans. And which is why he's firing his own candidates for worrying about vaccine passports,

00:15:37.860 as they should worry. I think Erin O'Toole is going to lose the election and probably lose 20 1.00

00:15:43.940 conservative MPs riding. My only question for the 100 or so MPs who will survive his disastrous

00:15:52.380 leadership is just how far are they willing to go down his bizarre policy path now to please him.

00:16:00.700 Because when he loses in six weeks, when he's no longer leader, those surviving MPs will still be

00:16:10.060 stuck with whatever they say in the next month or so on the subject. They shouldn't go down with his

00:16:17.240 ship. They should live to fight another day as conservatives or they'll lose as his party will

00:16:23.400 less than a rule. Let's get with us for more. 0.59

00:16:37.800 Welcome back. Well, Jonas Smith, I have to tell you, I've never met him,

00:16:41.700 but he seems like a really good guy. Seems like a great Yukon-er. Seems like he's involved in public

00:16:49.360 life. And I have to tell you, I was impressed with the way he talked about civil liberties. You just

00:16:55.560 don't hear that language, that vocabulary anymore. And maybe there's other things I don't know about

00:17:01.660 him. I'm sure there are. But for a guy to talk about how we have to not divide ourselves and protect

00:17:07.740 minorities, not just racial or religious minorities, but, you know, medical minorities or conscientious

00:17:14.760 subjectious, I'm going to say I found his comments almost touching. And for him to be sacked, to be

00:17:21.240 defenestrated, to use the fancy word, thrown out of a window with no notice, warning, appeal, or

00:17:28.340 explanation other than you had wrong think. I think that bodes poorly for the conservative party.

00:17:35.100 Join me now to talk about this. This is one of our favorite guys, Andrew Lawton with True North.

00:17:39.240 Andrew, welcome to the show. I have in front of me your new article,

00:17:41.640 conservatives bar former MP and leadership candidate Pierre Lemieux from running. So it's not just

00:17:48.040 Jonas Smith. It's Pierre Lemieux. And there's other candidates too. First of all, welcome. Second

00:17:55.400 of all, tell me what you think's going on. Well, it's concerning. And, you know, the Pierre Lemieux

00:18:01.260 one is interesting. Here's a guy who took a riding that hadn't been conservative since the 1950s,

00:18:07.660 Glengarry Prescott Russell in Ontario in 2006. And then he increased his margin in 2008 and 2011.

00:18:14.980 And like a lot of conservative MPs, lost in 2015, tried to reclaim it in 2019, wasn't successful,

00:18:22.460 wanted to run again this time around. And the party said, no, our rules say that if you lose twice in a

00:18:27.900 row, you can't run a third time. Okay, rules are rules. Except the rules also let a candidate get a

00:18:34.480 waiver from that, which has been given in other cases, such as with Costas Menegakis in Richmond

00:18:41.160 Hill. So the party very specifically did not allow a three-time MP to run. You may say, well,

00:18:48.360 what's the deal? He's a social conservative. And given what's happened with Derek Sloan,

00:18:52.680 what we've seen happen with other social conservative nomination candidates,

00:18:56.660 even without evidence, it's fair to ask the question of does him fitting into that ideological

00:19:03.480 section of the party have a role in him not being allowed to run? And I've had a lot of backlash. And

00:19:10.520 I know you get this as well, Ezra, from people that say, well, you know, defeating Trudeau has to

00:19:14.420 be the first priority. We can't write these stories that start looking like conservative infighting.

00:19:20.040 If you don't like the dirty laundry being aired, stop dirtying the laundry is my take on this.

00:19:24.680 Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is what's frustrating about Aaron O'Toole is he, if he

00:19:31.160 disagrees with someone or if he regards them as a leadership rival or as someone stealing more

00:19:35.900 sunshine than him, he, he deals with them not by reforming them or finding a special mission for

00:19:43.780 them or even giving them busy work. He just silences them or tries to kick them out. He had Jim

00:19:49.660 Karahelios, another leadership candidate, kicked out for saying mean things about him in the

00:19:54.640 leadership. Well, you know, you, if you, if you can't handle that, you're probably not going to

00:19:59.900 do well against the liberal war machine. And, and even Pierre Polyev, I think it's widely acknowledged

00:20:05.680 he was demoted from finance critic because he was shining too brightly and he made Aaron O'Toole

00:20:10.880 look dull by comparison. I mean, this Pierre Lemieux, I don't know him, but if he could take a riding

00:20:16.580 that for 60 years has been liberal and he won it a few times and they're finding this excuse not to run

00:20:22.880 again, I don't know. I just don't know how many people you can purge and still you call yourself a

00:20:28.140 big tent. I mean, he, he, O'Toole says he's a big tent, but anyone who thinks a bit different than him

00:20:35.340 or anyone who's a little more conservative than him gets thrown out of that tent pretty quick.

00:20:41.980 Yeah. And again, I mean, there's a disorganization aspect here too. In, in the, in the case of Pierre

00:20:47.240 Lemieux, he filed his papers in January and just on August 6th, last week was told no. So you got

00:20:54.240 to wonder why are they stringing him along? We see this happening in Ontario politics as well. Stella

00:20:59.300 Ambler, a former federal conservative MP, uh, was approved as a nomination candidate. And then the

00:21:05.880 Ontario PCs decided to scrap the nomination and appoint someone anyway. So there are a lot of very

00:21:11.340 legitimate questions here as to what the end game in all of this is. If you don't want to have open

00:21:16.160 nominations and you want to have handpicked candidates that are going to hue to the leader's

00:21:20.500 positions, that's fine. Just own it, just own it and say, this is who we are. That's what Justin

00:21:25.620 Trudeau has done. And for the most part, it's worked for him. He doesn't even bother promising

00:21:29.400 open democratic nominations. He just says, these are the people we want. This is what they have to

00:21:34.700 think. And the media gives him a pass on it. The conservatives, it seems like are trying to have the

00:21:39.880 best of both worlds here. They're trying to say, yes, we're an open big tent party, but then if the wrong

00:21:45.220 person wins, they have to quickly pivot and adjust that.

00:21:49.560 Yeah. And I got to tell you, in a lot of these cases, I don't think that these guys being thrown

00:21:53.180 out are the wrong person. I mean, maybe I'm a little enamored with this Jonas Smith in the Yukon, but

00:21:58.000 boy, a guy talking that, um, thoughtfully about civil liberties doesn't seem like the wrong guy to me.

00:22:05.060 Um, I don't know. I just, I'm disappointed by that. I have a theory and it's that, it's that

00:22:11.260 Aaron O'Toole doesn't really hate these guys. He's served with some of them in parliament before.

00:22:16.820 Some of them have been even in cabinet with him before, uh, under Stephen Harper. He doesn't hate

00:22:22.400 them. Uh, he's not even ideologically appalled by them. I think Aaron O'Toole is just so terrified

00:22:28.400 by what the mean girls think. And by that, I'm joking. I'm referring to the CBC and the Globe and 0.89

00:22:33.880 Mail and the Toronto Star and their Ottawa press gallery that has such a clique, so much peer pressure

00:22:38.480 to think a certain way. I think that, you know, throwing out Jonas Smith, oh my God,

00:22:44.580 we have to get rid of him because the CBC loves vaccine passports so much. Or, oh my God, 1.00

00:22:49.300 we got to get rid of Pierre Lemieux because he's too socially conservative for the Toronto Star.

00:22:53.760 I don't even think that it's Aaron O'Toole's own views. I think he's trying to guess what the media

00:22:59.380 party wants him to say and preempt them because he just doesn't want them to be mean to him,

00:23:04.440 which they're going to be anyways.

00:23:05.840 No, I would agree with that. And even the fourth wave alarmism we've been seeing from the

00:23:11.540 Conservatives in the last week of, oh, it's so dangerous to have an election in the Delta-driven 0.53

00:23:16.000 fourth wave. Or maybe it was American Airlines, Delta, I can't remember, but I get my variants

00:23:20.320 mixed up. But if they're doing that, I don't think they're true believers in that. I think that they

00:23:25.060 see that as being the cudgel they can use against Justin Trudeau. But it's the same here. I don't think

00:23:30.460 that they actually have an issue with these people. I've talked to a lot of people on Aaron O'Toole's

00:23:35.220 campaign. I know they're solid Conservatives, but Conservatives tend to, with a capital C,

00:23:40.640 the Conservative Party tends to default into fear and panic. We saw this with Andrew Scheer's

00:23:46.240 campaign in 2019, where Andrew Scheer, who's been a former reformer from out in the prairies,

00:23:52.480 he's on side on a lot of these issues. But once he's in that position, it immediately goes into

00:23:57.880 what's the safest, blandest, most banal thing we can say. And that tends to be dogma for

00:24:04.700 Conservative campaigns.

00:24:06.140 Yeah. Let me ask you about vaccine passports, because Quebec is talking about bringing theirs 0.98

00:24:11.600 in in just a few weeks. Manitoba has sort of a proto-passport. It's like an ID card.

00:24:18.260 We learned today, we actually got an email that was leaked to us from the military, that the

00:24:22.960 Canadian Armed Forces are bringing in their own kind of vax passport. So they're coming. We see 0.99

00:24:27.560 Toronto mayor calling for it. I think they're coming. And I don't think it's being debated within

00:24:34.640 the Conservative Party properly. Obviously, it hasn't been debated in Parliament. So Aaron O'Toole firing

00:24:42.360 Jonas Smith from the Yukon is sort of a policy statement in a way.

00:24:46.720 Do you think the Conservative Party of Canada supports vaccine passports? And maybe answer, 0.56

00:24:54.260 do you think the leader does? Do you think the MPs and senators do? And do you think the

00:24:58.520 grassroots members do? Because right now, that's the state of the art. The party fires you if you're

00:25:04.260 a skeptic. What do you think?

00:25:06.140 Well, I certainly don't think the grassroots members do. And I would say most of the caucus

00:25:10.120 doesn't as well. But the problem is that it's increasingly, and this is a danger seeming like

00:25:16.440 a lot of Canadians do. And the Liberals, I think, are going to run with this as a wedge issue. I don't

00:25:21.940 know if you saw the Globe and Mail editorial this morning. Yes to vaccine mandates. Yes to vaccine

00:25:28.900 passports. Now, this is a media outlet in Canada saying vaccines should be mandatory. We should have

00:25:35.600 to prove we're vaccinated. And that's kind of an uncontroversial position to a lot of the media

00:25:41.140 party type. So I do think that it's going to be positioned as a wedge issue for conservatives.

00:25:46.820 My danger here, I don't know if you also saw Francois Legault, he was asked why not debate

00:25:52.360 the plan to put in vaccine passports. And he said that he doesn't want to debate it because doing

00:25:57.680 so could allow some people to share conspiracy theories with Quebecers. So there's a free speech

00:26:03.240 component here too. It's not just that you're expected to support vaccine passports. It's now one of

00:26:09.060 these many issues that we're not even allowed to discuss. There's a correct position that the

00:26:13.880 overseers have set out. And anyone who deviates from that must be censored, at least in Quebec.

00:26:19.460 You know, it's funny. I mean, the Globe and Mail editorial, I really don't care what some anonymous

00:26:23.900 Globe editorial writers think. I know Aaron O'Toole does. But one of the issues they've been obsessed with

00:26:29.700 for years is, I think it's called Bill 21 in Quebec, which is the secular law that if you work in the

00:26:38.820 public sector, you can't have an ostentatious or conspicuous religious accoutrement. So for example,

00:26:44.600 you can't wear a hijab. You can't wear a big cross, I imagine. You can't have a Jewish yarmulke, 1.00

00:26:52.180 I guess. I don't know all the details of the rule.

00:26:53.860 So the Globe and Mail has been ferociously opposed to that for years, citing the Charter of Rights and

00:27:01.400 Freedoms. And fine. I mean, I get the other side of that. Personally, I want a secular,

00:27:06.080 nonpartisan public sector. But I can understand why people say you can have reasonable accommodation

00:27:11.220 and allow a yarmulke or a Sikh turban or a hijab. I see both sides, frankly. And I can think about

00:27:17.640 a hundred issues I'd rather talk about than that in terms of importance. But the Globe and Mail has made

00:27:22.260 it their signature issue. And because they're so, they care so much about the Charter of Rights for

00:27:28.980 Minorities. Okay, good. Appreciate that. And then they come out saying, I don't care if you have a

00:27:34.220 medical reason, I don't care if you have a religious reason, a conscientious reason, vaccine passports, 0.57

00:27:39.620 or you're not even allowed in private sector establishments like restaurants and gyms and bars.

00:27:44.940 I just don't know how these Toronto fancy pants can have in their same mind, we must allow hijab, 1.00

00:27:51.120 Sikh turbans, and yarmulkes in the public sector. But you're not even allowed to be a conscientious 0.99

00:27:57.260 objector, religious objector, or medical objector in the private sector. And that's fine charter-wise.

00:28:02.620 I just don't know how they're such acrobats to hold both of those irreconcilable positions at once.

00:28:08.400 I just don't even know. Well, if I may, I think it's because they're not actually reaching either of

00:28:14.160 those positions through an assessment of freedom. Even the opposition of Bill C-21,

00:28:18.840 they may cloak their concerns in charter language and constitutional liberties language,

00:28:24.120 but their actual basis is diversity and multiculturalism. They're not using freedom

00:28:30.360 as the foundation for that argument, because they don't view these things through that lens at all.

00:28:34.900 So when it comes to vaccine passports, the civil liberties aspect doesn't factor in at all.

00:28:39.700 They're thinking of, we need to get to this COVID zero outcome,

00:28:42.560 the consequences on individual choice be damned, and this is how we're going to do it.

00:28:48.100 Yeah. You're so right on that. Listen, it's great to see you again. There's so many ways people can

00:28:52.760 enjoy your stuff. Andrew Lawton's show, that's your regular show. Appreciate that.

00:28:57.480 tnc.news. We love True North. We think you guys are wonderful. And you just came out with your new

00:29:06.840 video documentary called Assaulted, and that's at assaulted.ca. That's about gun control. Am I right?

00:29:15.060 Yes. And very timely with the liberals trying to further encroach on the rights and livelihoods

00:29:21.880 of law-abiding gun owners. So it's a four-part series that we produced over the last few months

00:29:26.260 that is out in its entirety now. Well, that's great. You know, folks, we love the fact that

00:29:30.620 you're watching us here at Rebel News, and I appreciate the eight bucks a month you pay us

00:29:34.000 for this show. But do yourself a favor and subscribe to tnc.news. I bet you do already.

00:29:40.820 And check out Andrew's show. And I got to watch Assaulted, too. I know about it. I know it's there.

00:29:47.340 I've just seen a little bit of it. I got to make the time for it.

00:29:49.380 You donated to it. Your name's in the credits.

00:29:51.160 You know what? I donate a little bit here and there where I can to TNC. Thank you for the shout

00:29:57.020 out. You guys are so rare. And I can count on one hand's fingers the number of independent

00:30:02.720 journals, Black Locks in Ottawa. That's a small group there. So I just think it's so important

00:30:09.860 that we got to support the few independent voices left. And Andrew's just such a great one. So we

00:30:15.720 thank you. Good to see you, my friend. Have a good weekend.

00:30:18.400 And you.

00:30:18.800 All right. There you have it. Andrew Lawton. Stay with us more.

00:30:21.400 Well, folks, that's the end of the show. It's pretty much accepted that this Sunday,

00:30:39.460 Justin Trudeau will call the election. I think that's almost a certainty. As I mentioned the

00:30:44.740 other day, I've started seeing liberal ads online. They apparently started running a bit early.

00:30:51.100 Liberal candidates are in campaign mode, opening offices, getting their literature ready. So it's

00:30:56.420 coming. I think it's going to be a quick election. I mean, it's a fixed number of days,

00:31:04.660 but I don't think it's going to be very eventful. I think Justin Trudeau will win.

00:31:07.980 I think the conservatives will lose support. I think Maxime Bernier will pick up a few points

00:31:14.460 from disaffected conservatives. I don't think Derek Sloan got his new party quite together in

00:31:19.920 time. But I think that so many demoralized conservatives are going to stay home and vote

00:31:24.760 for those alternative parties. And I think the media will ensure that their boy, Justin Trudeau,

00:31:29.840 is carried across the finish line, even though he's been a disastrous prime minister.

00:31:33.240 In short, I think that six weeks from now, we're going to have a stronger Justin Trudeau,

00:31:38.780 a weaker conservative party, and there's not going to be any real champions for freedom out

00:31:43.520 there. I'm very upset about things, but I promise you that at Rebel News, we will continue to fight

00:31:48.840 for freedom, both journalistically and as we do increasingly in the court of law. Hopefully we'll be

00:31:54.180 able to preserve what's best about Canada that way. That's our show for today. I'll see you on

00:31:59.180 Monday. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:32:03.240 Keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 14, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Erin O’Toole fires a candidate for expressing concern about forced vaccine passports

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