EZRA LEVANT ｜ Finland wants Canadian soldiers to promise to fight Russia if they invade. Should we agree？
Summary
Finland wants Canadian soldiers to join NATO to fight Russia if they invade. Should we agree? Ezra Levenveen takes you through their application and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's response. Sponsors! Rebel News Plus - Rebel is the most important conservative antidote to Justin Trudeau, and we think you re going to like it.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today I talk about a tiny country called Finland. Seems like nice people.
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They have a very hip young prime minister, young lady, who says that one of the things
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you need to know about Finland is how gender equal it is. But then she says, hey, can you
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send some of those men over here to defend us? We want to join NATO because we're in
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a squabble with Vladimir Putin. Hey, Canada, send your soldiers. I'll take you through
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their application to join NATO and Trudeau's response. That's next. But first, let me
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invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.
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Tonight, Finland wants Canadian soldiers to promise to fight Russia if they invade. Should we
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agree? It's May 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody
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I saw this out of the blue. No vote in parliament, not even a debate, just a tweet. A tweet. Finland,
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one of Canada's closest partners and friends. Is that true? Would make an invaluable contribution
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to the alliance? Is that true? Canada will support Finland's application for NATO membership.
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Oh, so that's how Canada works these days? Just, you know, a tweet and it's done. You know who NATO
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is, right? I mean, it was created by the Western allies after the Second World War as a counterweight
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to Stalin's Soviet Empire. The Red Army actually did the bulk of the fighting in Europe to crush the
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Nazi Wehrmacht. Of course, D-Day and Eisenhower and Churchill are on our minds here in Canada,
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and in the West, Canada lost 42,000 men in the Second World War. America lost almost 10 times as
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many over 400,000, but the Soviet Union lost nearly 10 million soldiers and another 10 to 20 million
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civilians. Here's a startling fact, so impossible. I have personally fact-checked it. To check its
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veracity, I can confirm it. Most males born in the Soviet Union in 1923 did not survive the war. Most.
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That's how deadly the Nazi invasion of Germany was and how brutal the Red Army's losses were.
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If you want to see a shocking depiction of it, watch the powerful Hollywood movie about
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Stalingrad called Enemy at the Gate. So the Soviets, led by Stalin, did not leave the countries they
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liberated from the Nazis the way that the Americans and the Brits and the Canadians left. The Russians
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stayed. They colonized those Eastern European countries through which their Red Army had steamrolled.
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Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, all of it. Not just the official parts of the USSR, the dozen or so
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new countries that were once fused to Russia, like Ukraine and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
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Belarus and the like. But even independent countries they had passed through, like Czechoslovakia,
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they didn't give them back. So as Churchill said, an Iron Curtain had descended on the on the continent.
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And after a moment's rest, the West had a new totalitarian enemy, Soviet communism. NATO stood for
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the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As one diplomatic put it, the purpose was to keep the Russians out,
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the Germans down and the Americans in. The key part of NATO is its treaty, Article 5. That's why it's
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called the NATO Alliance. Let me read it to you. Article 5 says, the parties, that means the countries,
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agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered
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an attack against them all. And consequently, they agree that if such an armed attack occurs,
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each of them, in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized
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by Article 5 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties as attacked by
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taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary,
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including the use of armed force to restore and maintain the security of the North American area,
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the Atlantic area. So for more than 40 years, that NATO Alliance and the Warsaw Pact Alliance that the
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Soviets created, that froze the map, stopped any chance of wars between the two sides through what
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was called MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. Because an attack on one part of your opponent was
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considered an attack on all of them. And both sides had nuclear weapons, so no one tried anything in
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Europe. The proxy battles in the Cold War were not in Europe. They were between Israel and its Arab
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neighbors. They were in Vietnam, in Latin America, in Africa. But neither Russia nor America dared to fight
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the other in Europe. So what about now? Russia has invaded Ukraine. Not just a former member of the
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Warsaw Pact, but Ukraine was once actually a former Soviet Socialist Republic, integral to the former
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Soviet Union itself, as much as any province in Canada was part of the country once. Which is my point.
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Would you want to invite Ukraine into NATO today? Just the other day, the United States Congress,
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100% of the Democrats and most Republicans voted to send another 40 billion dollars in weapons aid to
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Ukraine. That's an astonishing amount of money. That's US money, real dollars. That's larger than the entire
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military budgets of Italy or Australia or Canada. It's as large as the entire Ukrainian government budget.
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But you'll notice, you know, cash, weapons, but no American or British or even Canadian soldiers were
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sent to Ukraine. Would you send in your country's young men and these days young women to be cannon fodder
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there? Or worse, to be a tripwire and be in a war against Russia itself, a nuclear-powered adversary? Of course not.
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So here's my point. If we will not send troops to assist Ukraine because we don't want to be drawn
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into a war with a nuclear-armed Russia, why would we agree to give Finland that power, that status? Why
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would we agree to fight in Finland against Russia? Ukraine is a sizable country over 40 million people.
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Finland is just five and a half million people, but it shares an 830-mile-long border with Russia.
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How on earth could that possibly be defended? Well, Finland has fought back before, including when
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Russia invaded them in 1939. Maybe they could hold them out again in a winter war. Could be.
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Do you want to be the one to send in Canadian troops to try?
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Here's what Melanie Jolie, our foreign minister, had to say just a few weeks ago,
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when asked what exactly Canada was going to do about Ukraine.
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Canada is not a nuclear power. It is not a military power, she told CTV Power Play host Evan Solomon.
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We're a middle-sized power, and what we're good at is convening and making sure that diplomacy is
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happening and, meanwhile, convincing other countries to do more.
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So if we're not a military power, thanks for telling our soldiers that, and we're so good
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at convening and meeting in diplomacy, why haven't we seen any convening and meeting in diplomacy?
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Why haven't we done any? Because actually that's the first article of the NATO treaty.
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One, the parties, that means the countries, undertake as set forth in the charter of the United Nations
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to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means,
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in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered,
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and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner
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inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations. Yeah.
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Has that happened in Ukraine or anywhere? But back to the news that we learned about in a tweet.
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That tweet by Jolie's staff saying the decisions being made, guys, let Finland and Sweden into NATO.
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And you can see the finished tweet she was replying to.
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Finland's security environment has changed fundamentally. This warrants a reaction from Finland.
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NATO membership offers Finland the most security. Finland makes its own decisions on its security.
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And these decisions are not directed against anyone.
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Yeah, I'm sort of pretty sure it is directed against someone in particular.
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Say, by the way, can you find Finland on a map? I bet you can because you follow politics.
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But I bet most Canadians can't because it's not an important country to us economically, politically, militarily.
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We really have very few ties there. It's a tiny country, smaller in population than the greater Toronto area.
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If you can't find it on a map, maybe we ought not to be committing our soldiers to defend it to the death.
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But yeah, Finland is pretty much up there with Norway, Sweden and Russia. And that's about it.
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When you say this isn't targeted to anyone, I feel like you're being deceptive right away.
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The whole point of NATO was always to keep out Russia. So are we going to build a NATO air base there in Finland?
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Can I ask you, what would the West do if, say, Russia deployed modern missiles right next to a Western NATO country?
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I'll say if Russia put nuclear missiles in Cuba. Of course, there's no need to guess.
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Yes, President John F. Kennedy embargoed the island and said he would destroy any such missiles.
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So we're doing that. We're surrounding Russia with NATO. Finland says it's to defend themselves.
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Yeah, well, it could be. But isn't joining NATO pretty much the biggest provocation to Russia?
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You could imagine exactly the sort of militarization that Russia said convinced it to attack Ukraine.
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Now, I am not saying that that is a legitimate reason for Russia to attack, but it was their stated reason.
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And so Finland is saying, hey, let's have some of that action over here.
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And then Canada is saying, yeah, we'll take some of that action, too.
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Russia and Finland have fought against each other for centuries, by the way. Sweden, too.
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Which is also said it wants to join NATO. Both countries have very small armies.
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I think it's learning all the wrong lessons from Ukraine. I think it's a bad idea by Finland,
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but I think it's an insane idea for Canada. If Canada is not going to fight in Ukraine
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for the obvious reason that we don't want to get into a war with Russia. Why? What's different in Finland?
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And why does Finland expect us to send Canadian troops to defend them from Russia?
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They aren't sending Finnish troops to help Ukraine.
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Can I ask what our national interest is here? And why did Trudeau simply announce this in a tweet?
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No debate, no vote in parliament, let alone a referendum. I have nothing against Finland.
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And what they do to provoke or appease Russia isn't really my business.
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I'm just not sure that it's in our interest to be dragged into a war about something that doesn't
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involve Canada in any way. How many soldiers are we prepared to sacrifice for Finland's
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reckless prime minister? And what is the risk of Russia attacking Canada in other places, too,
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if we declare war on them because of a NATO treaty? Do we expect Russia to limit their retaliation to just
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things happening in Finland? What is our Canadian interest in Finland? Do you think we'll be able to
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beat back the Russians? Will our CF-18s, that are around, I don't know, 40 years old, be a match for Russian
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jets and missiles? Are you willing to try? Say, do we have to stop every war in the world by joining
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every war in the world? Is that our role? Is it better to go to war or to have a peace conference?
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I thought we were good at convening things. I'm against Russia killing anyone, but I'm even more
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against them killing Canadians. Where's our national interest here? And given Canada's own lack of
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military capabilities, what would such a commitment mean if war ever came as it has come to Ukraine?
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At best, this is posturing in another butch photo op for Trudeau. Maybe the band U2 will show up,
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too, like they did when he was in Kiev. But how is this not a provocation to Russia? And at worst,
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it could commit us to a war or more accurately commit Russia to declare war against us.
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Oh, look, Finland's prime minister, she's so hip. She's part of the World Economic Forum. They love
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wars over there. Wars are big profits for oligarchs, for arms dealers, for the World Economic Forum.
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She reminds me, their prime minister, of Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister,
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also a World Economic Forum graduate. Here she is bragging at the World Economic Forum about how
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feminist Finland is, which is pretty exciting. We have so many young women in power. We have
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actually a five-party coalition government and each party have a women leader in charge. And four of us
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are under 35 years old, and one of us is over 50 years old. So we do have different generations
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in the government. And of course, it looks different than that we are used to. But I hope that in the
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future, it doesn't get as much attention, because it should be also seen as normal, that we have
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different generations, different genders in power to making decisions. Because if we look at the
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population, there are different genders, there are different generations. So we need people from all
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Very feminist, very Trudeau-like, very unserious, like Trudeau. Here's a story, you can Google it. I chose the
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Washington Post version. Finland's prime minister apologizes after partying all night,
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despite coronavirus exposure. She's very young and hip and cool, very feminist. Coronavirus, war,
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whatever. She just wants to hit the clubs. But she wants Canadian soldiers to bail her out in her
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country. She wants us to be her insurance policy while she goes to party and all that feminist stuff.
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I don't think it's real. I think she wants Canadian men, as most of our soldiers and airmen and sailors,
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she wants our men to save her and her country from her childishness and unseriousness. I say,
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no thanks, lady, but good luck. Stay with us for more.
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Well, the conservative leadership contest is underway. I'd say we're in the thick of the campaign.
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Last week we had the debate, the official party debate. I thought it was atrocious. I already
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gave you my thoughts on the debate itself. I'm not blaming the candidates. I'm blaming
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the awful format. And I have no idea why someone thought a retired journalist, now a liberal lobbyist
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named Tom Clark, would be appropriate to moderate it. I'll never understand that. But the candidates
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actually are busy in the field. And I keep my eye on them and they're getting good turnout. All of them
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are, Roman Baber, Lesley Lewis. But Pierre Polyev seems to be getting enormous crowds. I see this
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tweet just today. He was in the smaller Newfoundland community of Windsor. Huge crowd. I mean, it's one
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thing to get a big crowd in St. John's, but in these smaller centers, that's quite something. He seems to be
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getting these crowds across the country. I think it's a resistance to Justin Trudeau and I hope that
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Pierre Polyev himself will be a battler. If I had to judge what sets him apart from the others, I don't know
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if he's any more ideologically conservative than, let's say, Roman Baber or Lesley Lewis. But I think he has a
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reputation as a pugnacious fighter, which is what the Conservative Party has desperately wanted
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instead of Aaron O'Toole or Andrew Scheer, the two previous leaders. That's all my opinion.
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But what about the public opinion? Well, let me refer you to a story by our friend Spencer Fernando.
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The headline is, among conservative supporters, Pierre Polyev's net approval rating is 38 points
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higher than Scheer's. Joining us now to talk about his story and the poll upon which it is based is
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our friend Spencer Fernando. Great to see you. Would you agree with me, Spencer, that the number one thing
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about Pierre Polyev is that he's a fighter? That would be the, if he had to choose one word. Sure, he's
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conservative. He talks about freedom. He's smart on economics. But I think what sets him apart is that
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he, for years, has been the toughest battler against Trudeau. What do you think?
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Yeah, I think that's the big thing. You know, he makes a lot of videos. He was very active in the
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House of Commons. And he doesn't really accept the narrative being pushed by, you know, the establishment
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media and by the Liberal Party. You know, a lot of other people in the Conservative Party will basically
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just kind of wait and see what the Liberals are saying about them and then be defensive and
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respond to that. And of course, if you're constantly defending yourself, then you're not making points
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against your opponents or against others. So I think the fact that he, you know, he puts out a
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lot of content, he fights back and he pushes his own narrative. I think that's what appeals to a lot of
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people. Yeah, I think so. Certainly within the party who are sick of party leaders who cower before
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the media, one thing that Polyev has done is he has vigorously said he'll push back against the CBC.
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And I don't know, I tend to believe him as opposed to, you know, Andrew Scheer and
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and Aaron O'Toole who might have said that briefly. I want to draw your attention to the polls that you
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cite in your story, because this isn't just hunches and and your own view. This is relying on a wider
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survey. And abacus research, which we should acknowledge is chaired by a partisan liberal Bruce
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Anderson. That said, I think their work can methodologically be relied on generally. They have
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two interesting slides. I'd like to show the first one to you. It's what the public at large
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thinks of conservative leadership candidates, which is sort of irrelevant at this point because the
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public at large will not vote in the conservative leadership. That's just for party members.
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But the public at large is more supportive of Pierre Polyev than of Jean Charest. He has more positive
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support and less negative support. And Charest has pretty big name recognition. In fact, of all the
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candidates, Charest is the one that is the best known. The smallest number of people say they just don't
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know. What do you make of those stats? Well, it's interesting. You know, another part of the poll that was
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fascinating was that showed among those who don't currently support the conservative party, but
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would be open to it. Polyev also had much higher ratings than Charest. So I think what's so interesting
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is there's been the narrative pushed by a lot of people somehow that Pierre Polyev is very divisive.
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The party's divided over Polyev. Well, not really. I mean, he had, I think, just a 7% of people who had
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a negative opinion of him and over 50% who had a positive opinion within the conservative party.
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And then Charest is much more even. Way more people in the conservative party have a negative
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view of Charest. So Charest is the candidate who's been divisive. He's the one who divides the party.
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You look at him in the debates, you know, he's yelling, you know, he's super angry. So the supposedly
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angry Pierre Polyev is for the angry Jean Charest. But I think it goes to show how narratives get created,
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right? They're just going to keep repeating that Polyev is divisive. They're going to say, oh, Charest is the
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candidate of experience and unity. And they're just going to hope that if they say it enough,
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then it'll, it'll start to stick in people's minds. But you know, if we look at the polls and look at
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the facts and it's obviously Charest who's much more divisive and really, you know, I think another
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interesting point is that as we're seeing the attacks against Polyev become more and more aggressive
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and unhinged, it really demonstrates that those are attacks, not just against him, but against
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conservative party supporters and members themselves. You know, you keep calling the candidate that most
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people in the party support, you know, you're going to call them racist and extreme. Well,
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that's what you're really saying about his supporters. So I think it's interesting to
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note that Charest and Patrick Brown especially are using basically the same rhetoric as a liberal
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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
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times. We still have vaccine mandates to get on a plane or a train. I think we're the only country in
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the world that has that. We I think we have an imperious prime minister. I think it's OK for citizens to be
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angry, not violent, but angry. And it's just a bit much when the Zoom class, when the, you know,
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the editors of the Globe and Mail owned by Canada's richest oligarch, the Thompson family, when they say,
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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,
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Pierre Polyam is mad at the system. He's angry. I don't find that disqualifying. If you're part of
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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
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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,
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inflation has gone down to six or five percent. Well, that's based on the prices that have already
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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
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just gets angry at anybody who dares to point it out. Right. It's all here. This is populist sentiment.
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This is angry. It's so funny how, you know, when Trudeau ran in 2015 and he did that thing
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where he walked up the escalator going down, they said, oh, this is how many Canadians feel.
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You know, they're working harder and harder, but they can't get any get ahead.
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That was, oh, brilliant politics, very strategic. And it was it was a good ad and it was a smart
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message. But when, you know, Pierre Polyam says, you know, Canadians are being screwed over
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by inflation. Here's what's caused the problem. Here's how we can fix it. All of a sudden,
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no, this is dangerous. He's undermining faith in our institutions. This is terrible.
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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,
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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
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,
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
00:35:00.040
bobble, perhaps a cabinet seat or a parliamentary secretary seat until she is turfed by voters
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.
00:35:33.160
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
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,
00:36:32.760
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
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?
00:40:30.840
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?
00:40:45.720
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.
00:41:07.800
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.
00:41:32.040
I'd say so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, GDPR, like it kind of just goes way over that.
00:41:37.720
Um, yeah. I think some ways I would trust them. Like generally, I do trust the government.
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.
00:42:14.200
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.
00:42:37.080
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.
00:42:51.640
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,