Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Finland wants Canadian soldiers to promise to fight Russia if they invade. Should we agree？

00:00:00.220 Hello, my rebels. Today I talk about a tiny country called Finland. Seems like nice people.

00:00:04.780 They have a very hip young prime minister, young lady, who says that one of the things 0.99

00:00:10.340 you need to know about Finland is how gender equal it is. But then she says, hey, can you

00:00:15.560 send some of those men over here to defend us? We want to join NATO because we're in

00:00:20.020 a squabble with Vladimir Putin. Hey, Canada, send your soldiers. I'll take you through

00:00:26.740 their application to join NATO and Trudeau's response. That's next. But first, let me

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00:01:05.060 Thank you. Okay, here's to the show.

00:01:10.220 Tonight, Finland wants Canadian soldiers to promise to fight Russia if they invade. Should we 0.89

00:01:23.140 agree? It's May 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:28.800 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:32.500 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:36.580 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody

00:01:41.460 right to do so.

00:01:42.420 I saw this out of the blue. No vote in parliament, not even a debate, just a tweet. A tweet. Finland,

00:01:55.400 one of Canada's closest partners and friends. Is that true? Would make an invaluable contribution

00:02:01.280 to the alliance? Is that true? Canada will support Finland's application for NATO membership.

00:02:07.740 Oh, so that's how Canada works these days? Just, you know, a tweet and it's done. You know who NATO

00:02:15.100 is, right? I mean, it was created by the Western allies after the Second World War as a counterweight

00:02:23.880 to Stalin's Soviet Empire. The Red Army actually did the bulk of the fighting in Europe to crush the

00:02:30.300 Nazi Wehrmacht. Of course, D-Day and Eisenhower and Churchill are on our minds here in Canada,

00:02:36.620 and in the West, Canada lost 42,000 men in the Second World War. America lost almost 10 times as

00:02:43.660 many over 400,000, but the Soviet Union lost nearly 10 million soldiers and another 10 to 20 million

00:02:53.200 civilians. Here's a startling fact, so impossible. I have personally fact-checked it. To check its

00:03:00.520 veracity, I can confirm it. Most males born in the Soviet Union in 1923 did not survive the war. Most.

00:03:10.040 That's how deadly the Nazi invasion of Germany was and how brutal the Red Army's losses were.

00:03:16.600 If you want to see a shocking depiction of it, watch the powerful Hollywood movie about

00:03:21.080 Stalingrad called Enemy at the Gate. So the Soviets, led by Stalin, did not leave the countries they 0.80

00:03:29.800 liberated from the Nazis the way that the Americans and the Brits and the Canadians left. The Russians 0.90

00:03:35.880 stayed. They colonized those Eastern European countries through which their Red Army had steamrolled.

00:03:42.760 Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, all of it. Not just the official parts of the USSR, the dozen or so

00:03:52.680 new countries that were once fused to Russia, like Ukraine and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,

00:03:59.400 Belarus and the like. But even independent countries they had passed through, like Czechoslovakia,

00:04:04.760 they didn't give them back. So as Churchill said, an Iron Curtain had descended on the on the continent.

00:04:11.160 And after a moment's rest, the West had a new totalitarian enemy, Soviet communism. NATO stood for 0.90

00:04:18.200 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As one diplomatic put it, the purpose was to keep the Russians out,

00:04:24.760 the Germans down and the Americans in. The key part of NATO is its treaty, Article 5. That's why it's

00:04:34.120 called the NATO Alliance. Let me read it to you. Article 5 says, the parties, that means the countries,

00:04:40.520 agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered

00:04:46.600 an attack against them all. And consequently, they agree that if such an armed attack occurs,

00:04:52.040 each of them, in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized

00:04:57.720 by Article 5 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties as attacked by

00:05:04.920 taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary,

00:05:11.480 including the use of armed force to restore and maintain the security of the North American area,

00:05:17.720 the Atlantic area. So for more than 40 years, that NATO Alliance and the Warsaw Pact Alliance that the

00:05:27.640 Soviets created, that froze the map, stopped any chance of wars between the two sides through what 0.91

00:05:37.240 was called MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. Because an attack on one part of your opponent was

00:05:43.640 considered an attack on all of them. And both sides had nuclear weapons, so no one tried anything in

00:05:50.680 Europe. The proxy battles in the Cold War were not in Europe. They were between Israel and its Arab 0.83

00:05:57.960 neighbors. They were in Vietnam, in Latin America, in Africa. But neither Russia nor America dared to fight

00:06:04.920 the other in Europe. So what about now? Russia has invaded Ukraine. Not just a former member of the 0.71

00:06:14.600 Warsaw Pact, but Ukraine was once actually a former Soviet Socialist Republic, integral to the former

00:06:21.800 Soviet Union itself, as much as any province in Canada was part of the country once. Which is my point. 0.97

00:06:27.960 Would you want to invite Ukraine into NATO today? Just the other day, the United States Congress,

00:06:34.680 100% of the Democrats and most Republicans voted to send another 40 billion dollars in weapons aid to

00:06:42.200 Ukraine. That's an astonishing amount of money. That's US money, real dollars. That's larger than the entire

00:06:48.120 military budgets of Italy or Australia or Canada. It's as large as the entire Ukrainian government budget.

00:06:55.240 But you'll notice, you know, cash, weapons, but no American or British or even Canadian soldiers were

00:07:03.960 sent to Ukraine. Would you send in your country's young men and these days young women to be cannon fodder 1.00

00:07:11.640 there? Or worse, to be a tripwire and be in a war against Russia itself, a nuclear-powered adversary? Of course not.

00:07:20.520 So here's my point. If we will not send troops to assist Ukraine because we don't want to be drawn

00:07:28.520 into a war with a nuclear-armed Russia, why would we agree to give Finland that power, that status? Why

00:07:35.880 would we agree to fight in Finland against Russia? Ukraine is a sizable country over 40 million people.

00:07:43.720 Finland is just five and a half million people, but it shares an 830-mile-long border with Russia.

00:07:49.000 How on earth could that possibly be defended? Well, Finland has fought back before, including when

00:07:55.320 Russia invaded them in 1939. Maybe they could hold them out again in a winter war. Could be. 0.89

00:08:02.280 Do you want to be the one to send in Canadian troops to try?

00:08:05.880 Here's what Melanie Jolie, our foreign minister, had to say just a few weeks ago,

00:08:09.560 when asked what exactly Canada was going to do about Ukraine.

00:08:16.520 Canada is not a nuclear power. It is not a military power, she told CTV Power Play host Evan Solomon.

00:08:25.320 We're a middle-sized power, and what we're good at is convening and making sure that diplomacy is

00:08:32.520 happening and, meanwhile, convincing other countries to do more.

00:08:35.880 So if we're not a military power, thanks for telling our soldiers that, and we're so good

00:08:42.040 at convening and meeting in diplomacy, why haven't we seen any convening and meeting in diplomacy?

00:08:47.800 Why haven't we done any? Because actually that's the first article of the NATO treaty.

00:08:54.040 I read the article five. Here's article one.

00:08:55.880 One, the parties, that means the countries, undertake as set forth in the charter of the United Nations

00:09:02.280 to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means,

00:09:07.640 in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered,

00:09:12.280 and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner

00:09:17.960 inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations. Yeah.

00:09:20.840 Has that happened in Ukraine or anywhere? But back to the news that we learned about in a tweet.

00:09:30.120 That tweet by Jolie's staff saying the decisions being made, guys, let Finland and Sweden into NATO.

00:09:36.440 And you can see the finished tweet she was replying to.

00:09:40.600 Finland's security environment has changed fundamentally. This warrants a reaction from Finland.

00:09:46.120 NATO membership offers Finland the most security. Finland makes its own decisions on its security.

00:09:52.040 And these decisions are not directed against anyone.

00:09:57.400 Yeah, I'm sort of pretty sure it is directed against someone in particular.

00:10:02.280 Say, by the way, can you find Finland on a map? I bet you can because you follow politics.

00:10:07.400 But I bet most Canadians can't because it's not an important country to us economically, politically, militarily.

00:10:13.880 We really have very few ties there. It's a tiny country, smaller in population than the greater Toronto area.

00:10:20.440 If you can't find it on a map, maybe we ought not to be committing our soldiers to defend it to the death.

00:10:25.640 But yeah, Finland is pretty much up there with Norway, Sweden and Russia. And that's about it.

00:10:34.280 When you say this isn't targeted to anyone, I feel like you're being deceptive right away.

00:10:38.600 The whole point of NATO was always to keep out Russia. So are we going to build a NATO air base there in Finland?

00:10:45.960 Can I ask you, what would the West do if, say, Russia deployed modern missiles right next to a Western NATO country?

00:10:55.960 I'll say if Russia put nuclear missiles in Cuba. Of course, there's no need to guess.

00:11:02.120 Yes, President John F. Kennedy embargoed the island and said he would destroy any such missiles.

00:11:09.080 Thank God Khrushchev blinked.

00:11:11.480 So we're doing that. We're surrounding Russia with NATO. Finland says it's to defend themselves.

00:11:17.160 Yeah, well, it could be. But isn't joining NATO pretty much the biggest provocation to Russia?

00:11:21.800 You could imagine exactly the sort of militarization that Russia said convinced it to attack Ukraine.

00:11:27.960 Now, I am not saying that that is a legitimate reason for Russia to attack, but it was their stated reason. 0.89

00:11:33.960 And so Finland is saying, hey, let's have some of that action over here.

00:11:38.120 And then Canada is saying, yeah, we'll take some of that action, too.

00:11:43.000 Russia and Finland have fought against each other for centuries, by the way. Sweden, too.

00:11:47.800 Which is also said it wants to join NATO. Both countries have very small armies.

00:11:54.040 I think it's learning all the wrong lessons from Ukraine. I think it's a bad idea by Finland, 1.00

00:11:58.760 but I think it's an insane idea for Canada. If Canada is not going to fight in Ukraine

00:12:04.360 for the obvious reason that we don't want to get into a war with Russia. Why? What's different in Finland?

00:12:11.240 And why does Finland expect us to send Canadian troops to defend them from Russia?

00:12:15.720 They aren't sending Finnish troops to help Ukraine.

00:12:20.280 Can I ask what our national interest is here? And why did Trudeau simply announce this in a tweet?

00:12:25.640 No debate, no vote in parliament, let alone a referendum. I have nothing against Finland.

00:12:32.200 And what they do to provoke or appease Russia isn't really my business.

00:12:37.720 I'm just not sure that it's in our interest to be dragged into a war about something that doesn't

00:12:42.200 involve Canada in any way. How many soldiers are we prepared to sacrifice for Finland's 0.98

00:12:48.040 reckless prime minister? And what is the risk of Russia attacking Canada in other places, too,

00:12:53.240 if we declare war on them because of a NATO treaty? Do we expect Russia to limit their retaliation to just

00:12:59.720 things happening in Finland? What is our Canadian interest in Finland? Do you think we'll be able to

00:13:06.280 beat back the Russians? Will our CF-18s, that are around, I don't know, 40 years old, be a match for Russian 1.00

00:13:12.200 jets and missiles? Are you willing to try? Say, do we have to stop every war in the world by joining

00:13:19.160 every war in the world? Is that our role? Is it better to go to war or to have a peace conference?

00:13:25.160 I thought we were good at convening things. I'm against Russia killing anyone, but I'm even more 0.99

00:13:30.680 against them killing Canadians. Where's our national interest here? And given Canada's own lack of

00:13:36.040 military capabilities, what would such a commitment mean if war ever came as it has come to Ukraine?

00:13:44.280 At best, this is posturing in another butch photo op for Trudeau. Maybe the band U2 will show up,

00:13:49.880 too, like they did when he was in Kiev. But how is this not a provocation to Russia? And at worst,

00:13:56.280 it could commit us to a war or more accurately commit Russia to declare war against us.

00:14:03.640 Oh, look, Finland's prime minister, she's so hip. She's part of the World Economic Forum. They love

00:14:11.000 wars over there. Wars are big profits for oligarchs, for arms dealers, for the World Economic Forum.

00:14:17.240 She reminds me, their prime minister, of Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister,

00:14:22.920 also a World Economic Forum graduate. Here she is bragging at the World Economic Forum about how

00:14:28.840 feminist Finland is, which is pretty exciting. We have so many young women in power. We have 1.00

00:14:35.720 actually a five-party coalition government and each party have a women leader in charge. And four of us

00:14:44.120 are under 35 years old, and one of us is over 50 years old. So we do have different generations

00:14:52.840 in the government. And of course, it looks different than that we are used to. But I hope that in the

00:14:59.800 future, it doesn't get as much attention, because it should be also seen as normal, that we have

00:15:07.080 different generations, different genders in power to making decisions. Because if we look at the 0.96

00:15:13.800 population, there are different genders, there are different generations. So we need people from all

00:15:20.040 backgrounds.

00:15:21.080 Very feminist, very Trudeau-like, very unserious, like Trudeau. Here's a story, you can Google it. I chose the

00:15:27.880 Washington Post version. Finland's prime minister apologizes after partying all night,

00:15:32.760 despite coronavirus exposure. She's very young and hip and cool, very feminist. Coronavirus, war, 0.91

00:15:40.120 whatever. She just wants to hit the clubs. But she wants Canadian soldiers to bail her out in her 1.00

00:15:47.560 country. She wants us to be her insurance policy while she goes to party and all that feminist stuff. 1.00

00:15:53.960 I don't think it's real. I think she wants Canadian men, as most of our soldiers and airmen and sailors,

00:16:02.760 she wants our men to save her and her country from her childishness and unseriousness. I say,

00:16:12.200 no thanks, lady, but good luck. Stay with us for more. 0.84

00:16:23.960 Well, the conservative leadership contest is underway. I'd say we're in the thick of the campaign.

00:16:31.560 Last week we had the debate, the official party debate. I thought it was atrocious. I already

00:16:36.200 gave you my thoughts on the debate itself. I'm not blaming the candidates. I'm blaming

00:16:40.280 the awful format. And I have no idea why someone thought a retired journalist, now a liberal lobbyist

00:16:47.000 named Tom Clark, would be appropriate to moderate it. I'll never understand that. But the candidates

00:16:52.280 actually are busy in the field. And I keep my eye on them and they're getting good turnout. All of them

00:16:58.440 are, Roman Baber, Lesley Lewis. But Pierre Polyev seems to be getting enormous crowds. I see this

00:17:05.320 tweet just today. He was in the smaller Newfoundland community of Windsor. Huge crowd. I mean, it's one

00:17:13.000 thing to get a big crowd in St. John's, but in these smaller centers, that's quite something. He seems to be

00:17:18.840 getting these crowds across the country. I think it's a resistance to Justin Trudeau and I hope that

00:17:25.000 Pierre Polyev himself will be a battler. If I had to judge what sets him apart from the others, I don't know

00:17:34.520 if he's any more ideologically conservative than, let's say, Roman Baber or Lesley Lewis. But I think he has a

00:17:40.600 reputation as a pugnacious fighter, which is what the Conservative Party has desperately wanted

00:17:47.400 instead of Aaron O'Toole or Andrew Scheer, the two previous leaders. That's all my opinion.

00:17:51.960 But what about the public opinion? Well, let me refer you to a story by our friend Spencer Fernando.

00:17:58.520 The headline is, among conservative supporters, Pierre Polyev's net approval rating is 38 points

00:18:07.080 higher than Scheer's. Joining us now to talk about his story and the poll upon which it is based is

00:18:13.800 our friend Spencer Fernando. Great to see you. Would you agree with me, Spencer, that the number one thing

00:18:20.440 about Pierre Polyev is that he's a fighter? That would be the, if he had to choose one word. Sure, he's

00:18:25.960 conservative. He talks about freedom. He's smart on economics. But I think what sets him apart is that

00:18:31.720 he, for years, has been the toughest battler against Trudeau. What do you think?

00:18:37.640 Yeah, I think that's the big thing. You know, he makes a lot of videos. He was very active in the

00:18:41.320 House of Commons. And he doesn't really accept the narrative being pushed by, you know, the establishment

00:18:47.880 media and by the Liberal Party. You know, a lot of other people in the Conservative Party will basically

00:18:52.280 just kind of wait and see what the Liberals are saying about them and then be defensive and

00:18:55.800 respond to that. And of course, if you're constantly defending yourself, then you're not making points

00:19:00.280 against your opponents or against others. So I think the fact that he, you know, he puts out a

00:19:04.440 lot of content, he fights back and he pushes his own narrative. I think that's what appeals to a lot of

00:19:09.400 people. Yeah, I think so. Certainly within the party who are sick of party leaders who cower before

00:19:15.640 the media, one thing that Polyev has done is he has vigorously said he'll push back against the CBC.

00:19:22.040 And I don't know, I tend to believe him as opposed to, you know, Andrew Scheer and

00:19:27.480 and Aaron O'Toole who might have said that briefly. I want to draw your attention to the polls that you

00:19:32.280 cite in your story, because this isn't just hunches and and your own view. This is relying on a wider

00:19:40.040 survey. And abacus research, which we should acknowledge is chaired by a partisan liberal Bruce

00:19:46.520 Anderson. That said, I think their work can methodologically be relied on generally. They have

00:19:52.120 two interesting slides. I'd like to show the first one to you. It's what the public at large

00:19:58.520 thinks of conservative leadership candidates, which is sort of irrelevant at this point because the

00:20:02.920 public at large will not vote in the conservative leadership. That's just for party members.

00:20:07.080 But the public at large is more supportive of Pierre Polyev than of Jean Charest. He has more positive

00:20:16.600 support and less negative support. And Charest has pretty big name recognition. In fact, of all the

00:20:23.720 candidates, Charest is the one that is the best known. The smallest number of people say they just don't

00:20:29.400 know. What do you make of those stats? Well, it's interesting. You know, another part of the poll that was

00:20:34.840 fascinating was that showed among those who don't currently support the conservative party, but

00:20:39.480 would be open to it. Polyev also had much higher ratings than Charest. So I think what's so interesting

00:20:45.080 is there's been the narrative pushed by a lot of people somehow that Pierre Polyev is very divisive.

00:20:49.800 The party's divided over Polyev. Well, not really. I mean, he had, I think, just a 7% of people who had

00:20:55.640 a negative opinion of him and over 50% who had a positive opinion within the conservative party.

00:21:01.640 And then Charest is much more even. Way more people in the conservative party have a negative

00:21:05.640 view of Charest. So Charest is the candidate who's been divisive. He's the one who divides the party.

00:21:11.640 You look at him in the debates, you know, he's yelling, you know, he's super angry. So the supposedly

00:21:16.440 angry Pierre Polyev is for the angry Jean Charest. But I think it goes to show how narratives get created,

00:21:22.360 right? They're just going to keep repeating that Polyev is divisive. They're going to say, oh, Charest is the

00:21:26.520 candidate of experience and unity. And they're just going to hope that if they say it enough,

00:21:30.280 then it'll, it'll start to stick in people's minds. But you know, if we look at the polls and look at

00:21:35.080 the facts and it's obviously Charest who's much more divisive and really, you know, I think another

00:21:39.880 interesting point is that as we're seeing the attacks against Polyev become more and more aggressive

00:21:44.760 and unhinged, it really demonstrates that those are attacks, not just against him, but against

00:21:50.280 conservative party supporters and members themselves. You know, you keep calling the candidate that most

00:21:54.920 people in the party support, you know, you're going to call them racist and extreme. Well,

00:21:58.120 that's what you're really saying about his supporters. So I think it's interesting to

00:22:01.480 note that Charest and Patrick Brown especially are using basically the same rhetoric as a liberal

00:22:06.920 party in order to attack people within their own party. And I think that's something people should

00:22:10.920 be aware of. Yeah. You know what? There's so much tone policing going on by the media. I never see it

00:22:17.800 when Justin Trudeau said, should we tolerate the unvaccinated or, you know, you don't see that tone

00:22:24.200 policing when those guys go at it? I think these are angry times. I think that we live in atrocious

00:22:32.520 times. We still have vaccine mandates to get on a plane or a train. I think we're the only country in

00:22:38.760 the world that has that. We I think we have an imperious prime minister. I think it's OK for citizens to be

00:22:47.400 angry, not violent, but angry. And it's just a bit much when the Zoom class, when the, you know, 0.86

00:22:54.840 the editors of the Globe and Mail owned by Canada's richest oligarch, the Thompson family, when they say,

00:23:00.120 you can't complain about inflation. How dare you take on Tiff Macklin and the Bank of Canada?

00:23:06.760 You know what? I think it's OK for people to be mad at the system. I don't know. And saying, oh,

00:23:12.200 Pierre Polyam is mad at the system. He's angry. I don't find that disqualifying. If you're part of

00:23:17.560 the, you know, elites that didn't they've had a great two years, you don't like someone who's

00:23:24.680 turning over tables. But I think Canadians will find Pierre scrappiness of a welcome change. I don't

00:23:30.200 know. That's my own hunch, I guess. Yeah. You know, when inflation starts to go up, people are going to get

00:23:35.720 more and more angry. And one thing people forget about inflation is when they start saying, oh, look,

00:23:40.120 inflation has gone down to six or five percent. Well, that's based on the prices that have already

00:23:44.360 gone up. Right. You know, it starts to look like inflation is easy simply because it's inflating

00:23:48.760 from already higher prices. So it's not like it goes back to where it was before and people can

00:23:53.000 afford things all of a sudden. So, you know, but I think I think that's it's a good point you made,

00:23:57.960 the tone policing, because what you're really seeing is the worst things get, the more the establishment

00:24:02.840 just gets angry at anybody who dares to point it out. Right. It's all here. This is populist sentiment.

00:24:07.640 This is angry. It's so funny how, you know, when Trudeau ran in 2015 and he did that thing

00:24:11.960 where he walked up the escalator going down, they said, oh, this is how many Canadians feel.

00:24:17.000 You know, they're working harder and harder, but they can't get any get ahead.

00:24:20.120 That was, oh, brilliant politics, very strategic. And it was it was a good ad and it was a smart

00:24:24.280 message. But when, you know, Pierre Polyam says, you know, Canadians are being screwed over 0.90

00:24:28.120 by inflation. Here's what's caused the problem. Here's how we can fix it. All of a sudden,

00:24:31.800 no, this is dangerous. He's undermining faith in our institutions. This is terrible.

00:24:35.800 So I think people really need to see the hypocrisy here and see who benefits from people not addressing

00:24:41.240 the problems we face, who benefits from people not talking about the problems we face. And I think,

00:24:45.560 you know, in a supposedly free and democratic country where institutions are supposed to be

00:24:50.520 accountable to the people, you know, it's interesting how angry people get in the elite

00:24:54.840 class whenever you hear any talk of accountable institutions. Yeah. You know, I filled up my car with

00:25:00.360 gas yesterday. One hundred and thirty dollars. I was buying the cheapest grade. One hundred and thirty

00:25:05.960 bucks. That stings. I mean, it's not going to take food off my family's table. But for a lot of

00:25:11.960 Canadians, it would. I mean, so much for Trudeau. I remember he used to talk about the middle class

00:25:17.800 and those trying to join it. He doesn't use that language so much anymore because it's so laughable.

00:25:22.440 OK, well, let me shift gears a little bit. The first chart I wanted to show was that

00:25:25.960 Pierre Polyev and Jean Charest are the best known of the candidates and amongst the general population

00:25:34.120 and that Polyev actually has the most positives. But the next question I thought was very interesting,

00:25:40.920 because remember, the general public is not voting in the leadership, just conservative members.

00:25:44.920 So the question that Abacus then asked, they only asked it of current conservative supporters.

00:25:51.800 Now, again, that's not the same thing as a party member who's going to go out to vote.

00:25:55.560 But it's probably a closer approximation. And there it's overwhelming. Fifty percent

00:26:02.760 have a positive view of Polyev. In second place is Charest at 26 percent, Patrick Brown at 20 percent,

00:26:09.880 and then the others in the teens. If that is anything to go by, current conservative supporters

00:26:18.040 are really running away with Pierre. Is that right? Yeah, it seems like that's the case. And,

00:26:23.720 you know, not to go into conspiracy theories, but it may make you wonder why the conservative

00:26:29.000 establishment wanted such a long leadership race, right? If it was a short one, quick one,

00:26:32.920 probably would be over my now. Polyev, I think, would win quite easily. But you notice what they're

00:26:37.400 starting to do is they're just throwing every attack they can at them. I mean, already I'm seeing

00:26:40.920 people for some of the other campaigns trying to tweet out stuff about, you know, Pat King and then

00:26:47.240 the Buffalo shooting and then trying to link that to the convoy and then trying to link that to Polyev.

00:26:52.280 So it's obviously they're going to go right for the jugular right now. And so they're going to try

00:26:55.960 to wear him down and, you know, destroy his image in the public. But, you know, the question is,

00:27:01.320 you know, what does that say about their view of regular conservative supporters? And it's very

00:27:05.320 interesting to see what is obviously a divide in the conservative party where you had, you know,

00:27:09.480 people like Polyev who said, look, you know, anyone who breaks the law or commits a crime or

00:27:13.800 is extreme should be held accountable. And that doesn't represent the vast majority of people,

00:27:18.360 either in the Freedom Convoy itself or who supported it. And I think that was a reasonable

00:27:22.920 and logical message, right? You can't, a group is not defined by just one person. It's defined by what

00:27:27.320 most of the people are doing. But then you have, you know, the Charay campaign, the Patrick Brown

00:27:32.760 campaign. They're obviously going with the message of all the people in the convoy were, you know,

00:27:37.000 racist and whatever other insult they can come up with. And they're trying to link it to a horrific

00:27:42.040 event in the United States, which itself is very, you know, emotionally manipulative and dishonest.

00:27:47.160 And they're using the same rhetoric that Justin Trudeau and much of the media use. So I think

00:27:50.920 people in the conservative party need to question, how do you think you're going to win an election

00:27:54.920 when the people, some of the people running to lead it are just copying the same messaging of the

00:27:59.400 liberals? You know, do you think, how's that going to be successful? And of course, we all know that

00:28:03.400 the liberals will be, oh, that's great. We're glad to see these people saying the same thing we are.

00:28:07.000 The second, if any of those guys became leader of the party, they would turn that rhetoric against

00:28:10.760 the conservative party regardless, right? They're always going to call them, you know,

00:28:13.800 racist and whatever other, you know, bigots and whatever they can. So I think people really need

00:28:18.040 to think very carefully about what it would mean to have someone leading your party who just adopts 0.99

00:28:22.440 the messaging of your opponents. And that's probably not going to work out so well for them.

00:28:26.200 Yeah. You know, these polls, of course, are an average of a sample and we have to extrapolate

00:28:32.840 from them what party voters will say. But I think one of the moves that Jean Charest might be able to do,

00:28:40.760 and it certainly is the signature move of Patrick Brown, is to sign up people who have in the past

00:28:47.320 not identified, not voted for, not called themselves or thought of themselves as conservative.

00:28:52.840 I think Patrick Brown's surprising win of the leadership of the provincial conservatives in

00:28:58.280 Ontario a few years ago was really working community groups, in particular new Canadians,

00:29:05.400 and signing up thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people that no one was, you know, could really see

00:29:12.440 coming. So if Pierre Polyev has 50 percent support amongst existing CPC supporters, that's great.

00:29:21.640 And that would tend to suggest he's going to win. Same with his huge crowds. But if under the radar,

00:29:28.280 Patrick Brown is signing up thousands or tens of thousands or theoretically a hundred thousand

00:29:33.560 people who are not on anyone's typical list, he could sneak through. Am I right?

00:29:40.040 Yeah, it's always possible. I mean, it is a competition, right? In many ways, it's a free

00:29:43.960 market. So you're allowed to go and talk to anyone eligible to vote and encourage them to sign up.

00:29:48.520 So I think, you know, the Polyev campaign obviously has to be aware of that. And I mean,

00:29:51.720 you saw Patrick Brown, who skipped the first debate and said he was out signing people up.

00:29:55.800 So that's obviously a big part of his strategy. And it's pretty clear that whether they have an

00:30:00.360 official pact or not, John Charest and Patrick Brown are going to try to encourage each other's

00:30:04.680 supporters to support the other one, if one of them is kicked off the ballot first.

00:30:08.920 So that is certainly something to watch out for. And it's, you know, the Polyev campaign, 0.98

00:30:13.080 they have a responsibility to do the best they can for their candidate. And that means, you know,

00:30:16.520 reaching out to those same communities and signing people up and, you know, whoever signs up the most

00:30:21.000 people and gets their vote out is going to win. Well, so we'll see how that goes. It's just that

00:30:25.160 the question is, of course, you know, if someone wins by signing up a bunch of people who are going

00:30:29.160 to end up not really being too interested in the party, you know, right after the leadership race,

00:30:33.400 how do you keep the party together at that point? You know, if people feel that, you know, you won

00:30:38.680 by appealing to sentiments that are in many ways against what the party stands for, I'm talking about

00:30:43.480 how, you know, they're trying to demonize Polyev, then a lot of people are going to be upset about that.

00:30:48.840 A lot of your core members and core supporters are not going to be happy. So it's, you know,

00:30:52.120 there's many different strategies to try and win. And each of those strategies has long-term consequences.

00:30:57.160 Yeah. You know, I see this morning, Michelle Rempel from downtown Calgary put out a very emotional,

00:31:03.800 I'm going to call it a rant. And it was based on the shooting in Buffalo. And it was, it seemed to me

00:31:14.040 because it was so unconnected to anything in Calgary, so unconnected from anything in Canada.

00:31:20.920 It seemed that it was an opportunistic attempt to, I think, blame, uh, Pierre Polyev for somehow

00:31:28.360 sympathizing with populists. I don't know. It was very strange, but it was the language and it was very

00:31:33.720 extreme and very Trudeau-like. And Jean Charest has used similar language saying that, um, Pierre

00:31:39.880 Polyev has disqualified himself. What's going to happen to all these bomb throwers, metaphorically

00:31:47.480 speaking, who are using such sharp attack language. Do you expect, like, I think it's pretty clear

00:31:54.840 Jean Charest is not going to run if he doesn't win. Um, do you expect other MPs like Michelle

00:31:59.880 Rempel to quit and become independents or even defect to the liberals? I think there's a fair chance

00:32:05.480 Michelle Rempel, if, if Pierre Polyev wins the leadership, that she's going to defect,

00:32:11.080 become a liberal and become a liberal cabinet minister for Calgary.

00:32:14.120 That's my, that's my prognostication. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think, you know,

00:32:19.240 with statements like that, you can always tell really how genuine it is by how it's used, right?

00:32:23.880 So if the first thing someone says is, you know, there was a horrific, you know, shooting in Buffalo,

00:32:29.320 you know, the ideology of the shooter is horrendous and we should all oppose it completely. I would

00:32:33.480 totally agree with that. It is a horrendous ideology and anyone who kills people for a political reason,

00:32:38.520 that's evil and that should be condemned. If you then use that statement and then the next thing you

00:32:43.480 say is, oh, and here's why I'm going to try to use this against someone I disagree with politically,

00:32:47.480 that's when you start to look and say, Hmm, that's interesting. That seems a little more

00:32:51.560 calculated than just, you know, you know, a wellspring of emotion. Someone wanted to share

00:32:55.240 their views. And so then I think Sheree retweeted that. And so, you know, it does get to the point

00:33:00.920 where you're saying, okay, you're, you're trying to take a horrific event in the United States

00:33:04.520 at a time when people are obviously, you know, paying attention to it, their emotions are heightened.

00:33:08.680 You're trying to use that to then direct, you know, people to link that to your opponent.

00:33:14.120 And we're not talking about some sort of corruption scandal. We're not saying, oh,

00:33:16.760 here's why my opponent's corrupt and their views are terrible. That's, that's just,

00:33:20.280 yeah, that's pretty common politics here. They're saying, here's a guy who went and killed a bunch

00:33:24.600 of people because of their race. And here's why he's similar to someone, a politician I disagree

00:33:28.920 with in, in the country who, in Michelle Rumpel-Garner's case happens to be in her party. She didn't

00:33:33.960 explicitly name Pauliev, but you can tell that that's, that's kind of the way they're trying to

00:33:39.000 link it all together, right? This guy's kind of like Pat King, Pat King's in the Freedom Convoy.

00:33:42.600 Oh, Pauliev supported the Freedom Convoy. Therefore Pauliev's like this guy. So it's,

00:33:46.520 you know, it's a very manipulative attempt. And, you know, it's a good point you raise,

00:33:51.720 you know, what happens if Pauliev wins, you know, where do those people go? You're, you're just,

00:33:55.560 you're calling him, and by extension, almost more important than what they say about him,

00:33:59.480 is what they're by extension saying about his supporters. You know, you've got,

00:34:02.280 as we see in the poll, 50% of current conservative supporters, not necessarily members, but supporters

00:34:08.520 who support Pauliev. Is the argument going to be that all those people now are, have the same

00:34:12.440 ideology as someone who went in and killed 10 people because of the race in the United States?

00:34:17.800 Quite a leap to make and quite insulting to, you know, the many millions of regular people who support

00:34:22.040 the conservative party. So I think, you know, we need to be very careful about this. And this is

00:34:26.360 something that liberals and the media have used for quite some time is whenever there's a, you know,

00:34:31.240 terrible event and emotions are heightened, they try to very quickly link those emotions

00:34:35.720 to their opponents in a negative way. And that just makes our politics even worse and more divisive.

00:34:40.200 So I think people really need to think of the long-term and even short-term consequences of that.

00:34:44.440 And you can't really unify people when you link them to whatever tragedy takes place.

00:34:49.160 Yeah. Well, it'd be very interesting. We'll find out in a couple of months. I think

00:34:52.920 that Michelle Rempel Garner will wind up as a liberal and she'll probably be given some 1.00

00:35:00.040 bobble, perhaps a cabinet seat or a parliamentary secretary seat until she is turfed by voters 1.00

00:35:07.240 for crossing the floor. I know that's a very intricate hypothetical scenario there, but I don't know how

00:35:12.200 you stay in caucus under Pierre Pauliev if he wins, given her rhetoric. Spencer, it's great to see you again.

00:35:18.680 Thanks very much for joining us, folks. If you haven't read the issue yet of spencerfernando.com,

00:35:23.320 the headline is, among conservative supporters, Pierre Pauliev's net approval rating is 38 points

00:35:28.760 higher than Sharace. Take care, my friend. We'll talk to you again soon.

00:35:32.280 Good talking to you.

00:35:33.160 All right. Stay with us. Your letters to me are next.

00:35:36.200 Hey, welcome back. Your letters 55 Kevin, referring to the backlash Trudeau when

00:35:48.760 Jagmeet Singh received says, Trudy even looks back and smiles at those screaming at him.

00:35:54.440 Singh waves as if he's getting a standing ovation. Yeah. You know what? Do you remember this video

00:36:00.680 here? Let me, it's a little throwback. Trudeau, he's so condescending. None of this bothers him.

00:36:07.000 I remember when the trucker said, will this rally cause Trudeau to change his mind? No,

00:36:11.000 he doesn't care. He doesn't believe in democracy. Remember when some indigenous protesters 1.00

00:36:16.360 scraped together the money to go to a Trudeau election campaign, I think it was in 2019,

00:36:22.520 and say, why haven't you got us clean water in our reserve? We're suffering from mercury poisoning.

00:36:28.600 And remember what he said? He smiled and laughed and said, thank you for your donation. Here,

00:36:32.200 remember this.

00:36:32.760 Thank you very much for your donation tonight. I really appreciate it.

00:36:52.840 He's doing that because he wants them to know he thinks they are lower than the dirt on his shoe.

00:36:59.160 So when Trudeau smiles and waves and Jagmeet Singh smiles and waves, that's their way of saying,

00:37:03.240 you mean nothing to me. Steve Taylor says, how can a coalition government

00:37:09.240 be made when nobody in the country voted for such a thing? Government needs to be reminded that they

00:37:14.840 work for the citizens. Well, that's the nature of a parliamentary democracy. Just the same way we

00:37:23.240 don't vote for our prime minister directly, like the Americans. They have a separate ballot for

00:37:27.640 their president, right? Not in Canada. The only people who vote for Trudeau or whoever the conservative

00:37:33.320 leader will be will those in their particular riding, the particular district. Our system is made by

00:37:39.320 coalitions of MPs. I don't know which system is better. These days, I have to think the American one is 0.77

00:37:44.520 better. Libertas says, Scary Poppins would fit in perfectly with the Singh Trudeau government's

00:37:52.040 ministry of truth. Oh, absolutely. And they're all using the exact same language.

00:37:57.720 Even Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine, he's shutting down rival political parties, shutting down media

00:38:05.080 that he says are conducting disinformation. It's so sad to see all of these left-wing leaders around

00:38:11.400 the world. You know, Boris Johnson in the UK is contemplating the same thing. That's our show for

00:38:17.800 today. Until tomorrow, let me say good night to you and keep fighting for freedom. But let me leave

00:38:21.800 you with a video of the day from Louis Brackpool. Brits react to a proposed European Union chat

00:38:27.880 control surveillance legislation. Talk about Scary Poppins. All right, goodbye, everybody.

00:38:33.000 This is Louis Brackpool reporting for Rebel News. And today, I'm in the heart of London in Trafalgar

00:38:39.400 Square. And I'm going to be going around and asking the British people, do they trust the government

00:38:44.920 in monitoring their devices or their mobile phones, in checking their messages and images?

00:38:51.800 Where the EU has recently drafted up a legislation called chat control. And what this legislation

00:38:58.040 will do will give law enforcers the power to go through their devices and monitor their messages

00:39:05.320 and images. Don't go away. Let's find out. Would you trust this government to do something similar

00:39:11.000 if it passed over here? No. No? No. Why is that? It seems like an invasion of privacy.

00:39:17.080 What's the place in the past and the freedom of information and the privacy of us and then

00:39:22.440 invade everyone's privacy. I don't know if they hide, but it's weird. How about yourself?

00:39:27.880 I agree, to be honest. I do believe it's an invasion of privacy. I understand why they're doing it,

00:39:33.800 but they should come up with a better way to avoid that from happening.

00:39:36.600 Yeah. Is it a protection act as well? Yeah. And yeah, to be honest and to make the internet and

00:39:44.440 everything else a lot safer for children and to encrypt it to be, but I do believe it is an

00:39:50.120 invasion of privacy because then I'll have to worry that every time I do send like a hi to my mum,

00:39:54.920 like what's the government going to do with that information or something? But it is, it is a little

00:39:59.240 bit worrying if they did do it here. The EU are drafting up a new legislation called chat control,

00:40:05.400 which means that they can monitor your messages and images on your phone to combat child sex abuse.

00:40:12.280 Do you think that that's a good piece of legislation or bad?

00:40:16.360 Well, let me tell you, uh, we're Canadian and we don't know anything about it.

00:40:20.600 What do you think it sounds like? Yeah, it combats child sex abuse, but...

00:40:24.520 Do you not think it would be an invasion of privacy?

00:40:26.680 Uh, yeah, probably. Right.

00:40:29.560 Ying and the yang. Yourself?

00:40:30.840 Yeah. I think also you got to balance things out. I mean, between, you know, right to privacy as well

00:40:35.240 as, you know, making sure that people follow the law.

00:40:37.000 Would you trust this government to do that over here?

00:40:41.160 Well, we're not from the UK.

00:40:43.240 Okay. Whereabouts are you from?

00:40:44.600 We're from Slovenia.

00:40:45.720 Oh, Slovenia. Okay. So if the Slovenian government could monitor and track all your images and messages,

00:40:52.280 would you feel comfortable? Obviously not, but... No? Yeah. No.

00:40:56.760 I think that is an invasion of privacy, most definitely. I would have to agree.

00:41:01.080 Even though it's combating child sex abuse, or so they say?

00:41:04.760 I feel like they could go about it in a different way.

00:41:06.760 Yeah, sure.

00:41:07.800 Same. I mean, like in the States, we'd go about it in separate ways.

00:41:12.120 And I mean, the police force is obviously more involved with that kind of stuff,

00:41:17.400 but I definitely feel like it would be an invasion of privacy.

00:41:20.200 I don't know a lot about that kind of stuff, but I probably wouldn't. No. Not massively.

00:41:26.920 Yourself? Yeah. From what you've said, definitely not.

00:41:29.080 Definitely not. No.

00:41:30.040 Do you think it's a breach of privacy?

00:41:32.040 I'd say so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, GDPR, like it kind of just goes way over that.

00:41:36.040 I don't know if I would. No?

00:41:37.720 Um, yeah. I think some ways I would trust them. Like generally, I do trust the government.

00:41:43.720 Yeah, yeah. But I don't think it's necessary.

00:41:45.960 Yeah. How about yourself? What do you think?

00:41:47.640 What do you think? Trust the government to look through your images and your messages?

00:41:51.480 No, I don't want Boris Johnson to look at my needs.

00:41:54.360 The EU have recently drafted this new legislation called chat control,

00:41:58.520 which basically means the EU can monitor your messages and images on your phone.

00:42:03.560 Do you trust the government to do something like that if that came over here?

00:42:07.480 Um, I am not an EU citizen, but absolutely not.

00:42:12.200 Whereabouts are you from?

00:42:13.400 I'm American.

00:42:14.200 Oh, American. So if, let's say the Biden administration then,

00:42:18.520 could monitor and track your messages and images to combat child sex abuse,

00:42:24.520 would you feel, would you be happy to give up your privacy basically to combat that?

00:42:30.120 I don't like the idea of people watching me reading my messages.

00:42:36.040 Yeah. How about yourself?

00:42:37.080 I mean, child abuse is a terrible thing, but even still, I don't like the idea of people being

00:42:41.880 able to monitor my text messages. Like, that's personal information.

00:42:44.840 Yeah, sure.

00:42:45.480 And I feel like everyone deserves privacy.

00:42:47.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:48.840 First Amendment.

00:42:49.960 Yeah, that's right. Exactly.

00:42:51.640 What do you think about that? Do you, do you trust the government to do that?

00:42:54.840 That's a hard one. Um, I don't know. I don't really trust the government to do that,

00:43:01.000 but I also want to go against like child sex trafficking and all that. So can I meet in the

00:43:06.680 middle? I don't know what the middle would be, but, um, would you trust the Biden administration

00:43:12.360 to do it or the Boris Johnson administration or whoever? No, no. Why is that?

00:43:17.960 I don't know. Politics scare me. Politicians scare me. I don't like them. Not saying I have

00:43:22.440 anything to hide. I'm just... The lowdown from the underground has clearly shown that people

00:43:28.120 value their digital privacy now more than ever before, and people weren't convinced that this

00:43:33.800 was tackling child exploitation, as the EU kept saying. So let me ask you something. Would you be

00:43:41.320 happy that the government is looking through your phone? So this has been Lewis Brackpool reporting

00:43:46.840 in central London for Rebel News. If you enjoy my boots on the ground, honest journalism, you can

00:43:55.720 now help support me over at ukreporters.co.uk, visit the website, give what you can. I've also been

00:44:03.240 working on a great reset documentary over at exposethereset.com. So go and visit there,

00:44:09.880 watch the trailer. That'll be out soon. Enjoy.

Rebel News Podcast - May 17, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Finland wants Canadian soldiers to promise to fight Russia if they invade. Should we agree？

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