EZRA LEVANT ｜ Frances Widdowson DESTROYS the CBC in scathing interview
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 13 minutes
Words per Minute
153.69438
Summary
This is the most incredible media interview I've ever heard, and it's not even close to being as good as the one I heard when Jordan Peterson went on a British TV station seven years ago. It's an audio recording, not a video, so we won't be able to see the faces of the two people involved.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Very interesting show today. I actually watched a recording of an interview
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between Professor Frances Whittowson and a CBC reporter. It was about the residential schools
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and the claim of mass burials at a residential school in Kamloops. Frances Whittowson was being
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interviewed by the CBC and she had the presence of mind to record the interview herself. And it's
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the most amazing thing I have heard in years. I want to take you through it, playing it and
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pausing with my own commentary. I think you'll agree this is the most incredible interview
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maybe you've ever heard. That's ahead. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what
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we call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. It's eight bucks a month, which
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might not be a lot to you, but boy, that adds up for us. And that's how we pay the bills around here.
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So do me the solid and go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe.
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Tonight, it's the most incredible media interview I have heard since Jordan Peterson stumped Kathy
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Newman. It's July 22nd and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.
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You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.
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Do you remember when Jordan Peterson went on a British TV station called Channel 4? He was
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interviewed by their star anchor, Kathy Newman is her name, who clearly had her instructions,
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attack Peterson in all ways, at all costs, all the time. But Peterson was just cool like a cucumber.
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And it was amazing. It was, it was gorgeous. Here's a minute of that, just as a reminder of what it was like.
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Well, you say there are whole disciplines in universities forthrightly hostile towards men.
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These are the areas of study dominated by the postmodern stroke neo-Marxist claim that Western
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culture in particular is an oppressive structure created by white men to dominate and exclude women.
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But then I want to put to you that here in the UK, for example, let's take that as an example,
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the gender pay gap stands at just over 9%. You've got women at the BBC recently saying that the
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broadcaster is illegally paying them less than men to do the same job. You've got only seven women
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running the top FTSE 100 companies. So it seems to a lot of women that they're still being dominated
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and excluded, to quote your words back to you. It does seem that way, but multivariate analysis
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of the pay gap indicate that it doesn't exist. But that's just not true, is it? I mean,
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that 9% pay gap, that's a gap between median hourly earnings between men and women.
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But there's multiple, yeah, but there's multiple reasons for that. One of them is gender,
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but it's not the only reason. Oh, that was so painful. You know,
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tens of millions of people saw that clip around the world as perhaps the worst example ever of a bad
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faith journalist. You know, she said the phrase, so you're saying, 35 times in the interview. And
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every time she said something that he actually had not said, sometimes the opposite of what he said,
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it was her twisted attempt to argue against a straw man she had concocted in her own head,
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as opposed to the real Jordan Peterson, she was lucky enough to have in studio. It was just
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amazing. I can't believe she's still working in channel four, but I'm sort of glad she is.
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That's their kind of news and we all know it. So that was seven years ago now, but I stumbled upon
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an interview yesterday that is even more amazing, more majestic, more incredible, more revealing than
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that one. It's an audio recording though, not a video. So we won't be able to see the faces of
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the two people involved, which I deeply regret because I really wish I could see the journalist's
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face. Towards the end of this one, the interviewer actually sounds like she's going to start to cry.
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And I wish I could tell if she really was. Now, this video was uploaded just yesterday and I
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encountered it, but it had originally been put online actually last year, but it had so few views.
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I'm guessing that most of you viewers tonight have not encountered this. I'm a pretty big media
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consumer and I didn't stumble upon it till yesterday. So I'm taking the risk of showing it to you now,
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but I don't think you've seen it before. This was actually a year ago. I'm talking about this 25
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minute interview where a CBC reporter named Jordan Tucker, who is just amazing. I mean, here she is
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in her rainbow glasses. According to her bio, she is a journalist and writer with a degree in English
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and environmental studies. What a combination that is. It doesn't look like she publishes a lot
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with the CBC, but when she does, oh, it really counts. Here's one of her very important stories.
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Uh, sorry, I shouldn't laugh. Um, how Pokemon go is transforming downtown Prince George online game
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is helping change attitudes towards downtrodden downtown core. Yeah, I'm sure it is a sister.
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You go with that. Here's another very important investigative story. She wrote geese have taken
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over a BC beach, enter the dog squad dogs involved where a goose patrol labeled bester van vest or
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bandana. That's funny, but I don't think she meant it to be funny. I kid you not. Each of those major
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investigative reports needed two reporters at the CBC. I'm surprised it wasn't more. So we're dealing
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with a heavy hitter here. When I mentioned Jordan, that was the interviewer and the interviewee who
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put this up on her YouTube channel yesterday. That's how I came across it. Francis Whittleson,
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a professor and author and critic of something that's called the Indian industry. Sometimes that
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is the permanent class of lawyers, bureaucrats, and politicians, many of them who are not indigenous
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that live off the misery of Canada's first nations. It's sort of the deep state, everyone involved with
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grants and lawsuits and stuff. Anyway, so Francis Whittleson a year ago was going to northern BC to
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give a talk and young Jordan Tucker from the CBC had some tough questions for the good professor.
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But this wasn't Whittleson's first rodeo. She knows who the regime media are and what they're like.
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She might not have known who Jordan Tucker was unless she follows stories about
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goose patrols and Pokemon Go. But I mean, it's the CBC, right? Say no more. So she wisely recorded
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her own interview and was kind enough to tell that to Jordan Tucker. I'm surprised Jordan had her
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breakdown given that she knew she was being recorded. Now, the interview is about 25 minutes long.
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And I guess I could just show you a few excerpts, but I promise you, it is too good just to have a
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sample. I really want you to hear the whole thing. It was a masterclass by Whittleson and a devastating
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proof of just how absolutely awful the CBC is, especially when it comes to official narratives of
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the Canadian political establishment. Like in this case, the subject of the hoax,
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there was 215 bodies in a mass grave in Kamloots in an old residential school. It was not. It was
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ground penetrating radar that found some anomalies underground, but they did not excavate. Those
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anomalies could have been anything. It could have been rocks. It could have been an old septic field.
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It could theoretically even be a regular graveyard. They had those at these residential schools.
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It was not a mass grave. We don't know that there's bodies in there at all. No one has excavated.
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So that is the subject matter here. But you've got to listen. Well, you've got to listen to that,
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but you've got to listen to the whole thing. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play
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this recording and I'm going to stop it midway, maybe five times and give you my quick thoughts.
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But really, nothing I could say could trump just the sheer gorgeousness of what you are about to hear.
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I promise you the next 25 minutes will go by very quickly. So maybe get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee
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and sit down here. Let's listen to this incredible interview together. So that's Francis Whitteson on
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the left, of course, and that's our friend Jordan on the right. And this was an interview they had last
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Yes. Oh, okay. Sounds good. Okay. So do you think that you could introduce yourself for me?
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I'm a professor. I was a professor at Mount Royal University, which is a story in its own right
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I'm a writer and basically I'm a senior fellow with the Frontier Center for Public Policy.
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And I'm a board member for the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.
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Okay, cool. All right. So why are you going to Quesnel?
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I'm going to Quesnel to address the misinformation that was spread by the city councillors at the
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Well, the first is that many of the councillors didn't appear to have read the book and were
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making comments about it on the basis of their own speculation, I guess. I don't quite know where
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they got this information. But they were arguing that the book denies the abuse and the harms that
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were caused by the residential schools. And I believe Tony Goulet even implied that we were
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denying that the residential schools existed at all, which is one of the problems with this
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terminology of residential school denialism, which if you just took that description literally,
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you would think that that meant you're denying the existence of the residential schools. And that's
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not a clear term at all. It was developed by the academic Sean Carlton basically to smear his
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opponents and the Scrooge debate on the residential schools.
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Okay. And so what are you saying? If that's what they're saying, what are you saying your book says?
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And how is it different from what they're representing?
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Well, the book completely recognizes the abuses that occurred at the residential schools and
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realizes that there were serious problems. Many of the articles, there's a whole bunch of different
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articles. First of all, it's not written by one person. It's, it's, it's, there's over 15 contributors
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to this. And, and basically it's understood that there were terrible problems with the residential
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schools at logistical and also the, the difficulties of abuse and insensitivity and underfunding and so
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on. The main issue that we are talking about in the book is the Kamloops case and the false claim that
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was made by Roseanne Casimir on March, May 27th, 2021, that the remains of 215 children had been found on
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that site. And there is no evidence at all for the existence of remains on that site. And it is highly
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improbable that there will be such remains because not one parent has said that their child never came home
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from the Kamloops Indian residential school. So the book is largely about trying to correct information that was
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spread about that case, but it also tackles the issue of whether the residential schools were genocidal or not. So it's
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taking issue with that claim of the residential schools being genocidal.
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Okay. And what, what do you think would benefit, like, to what benefit do you think it would, it would help like
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that, that, that, uh, group in Kamloops, like, to lie about that? Uh, well, they obtained $7 million
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for making that claim. And there's all sorts of other disputes and dispersions of transfers that have
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been made because of the implication that genocide was perpetrated against not just that group, but
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indigenous people. So what people don't understand with respect to indigenous policy is that there's a
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huge industry that is built up around these legal disputes and the residential schools and all the
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settlements that have happened as well as, um, you know, the whole claims about genocide are a way of
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extracting transfers. And this is not beneficial at all for ordinary indigenous people. They're not the ones
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benefiting. It is the lawyers who are initiating this, these disputes that are benefiting.
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Okay. I hear what you're saying. Um, so I've, I've just wondering, um, I've been covering local
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government for a while and normally they're pretty disorganized. Um, like, like they, they can't,
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they can't find, they're very disorganized. So I'm just wondering how, um, you know, what information
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you have to suggest that a government, like a whole series of different governments, uh, these
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different indigenous governments would go about creating, creating a conspiracy this fast, like
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how they would be able to keep that under wraps. It's, it's not a conspiracy. And in fact, it's due to
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the media's complete failure, the failure of the media and people like yourself. Why are you not
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investigating these claims that are being made and trying to see what evidence there exists?
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The media has been, um, it's been absolutely terrible. And the thing, what, what happens is,
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and this is what's going on in Quesnel right now. If you are a critical thinker and you analyze the
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evidence, and this has been done in many articles, and I myself have a piece in there called Billy
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Remembers, which investigates these claims in depth. If you do that, you will be hit very hard
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with accusations of racism, uh, your hatred for indigenous people. And because most people,
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myself included, want to be someone who is, um, who helps to deal with the terrible problems that
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indigenous people are facing, getting accused of these sorts of things makes it very difficult
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to pursue the truth on the residential school file. It's not a conspiracy. People follow their
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own interests and there's money to be made by claiming that there's unmarked graves in all these
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areas. Okay. Pause just for a second. Very interesting so far. I mean, just the temperament
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and the tone of these two women couldn't be more different. Frances Whittowson, absolutely authoritative,
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at the same time, knowledgeable as compassionate. She's not denying that there are social dysfunction
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on Indian reserves. Of course there is. Only a blind person would say otherwise. She's describing
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what we have all seen, a claim that 215 children were found. Jagmeet Singh called it a mass grave.
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No excavations. It's just ground penetrating radar, which is not meant to detect bodies. It's meant
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typically to detect, uh, you know, mineral deposits. And you'll notice the first instinct of Jordan
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Tucker was how can you say everyone's lying? Why do you doubt not just one government, but all these
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governments? And her voice starts to become agitated and frail. But her, so far her argument is simply
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how can you possibly mistrust government? Why are you right and they are all wrong? As if being right
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and wrong is a matter of a vote or something. You'll see throughout the interview that Frances
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Whittowson says, pursue the truth. She's about getting the truth. And, you know, let the heavens may
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fall, but let the truth and justice be known. Which is very different from Jordan Tucker of the CBC.
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She's not about unearthing the truth. She's not about asking challenging questions of powerful people.
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And by the way, the chief of an Indian man is extremely powerful. Much more powerful in their own context
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than, say, a mayor of a city. Anyways, back to the interview. But you can see it's changed. And you can hear
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the agitation in Jordan Tucker's voice. Whereas Frances Whittowson, she's been through this a hundred times.
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By the way, sometimes I interview people on my show about a book, and I haven't read the whole book yet.
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I've skimmed it, or I've read a blurb about it. I just don't have time to read a two or three hundred
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page book before interviewing someone on my show. I wish I did. But what's so interesting here is this
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was obviously an attack on Frances Whittowson and the book Grave Error, which was edited by Tom
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Flanagan and Chris Champion. And as you heard, it had a bunch of essays in it. Jordan Tucker didn't
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even crack the spine. She didn't even look into the book. She was sent on a mission to destroy
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Frances Whittowson, but she was sent in completely unarmed. All right, back to the tape.
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So today, Techemlips is having, like, they're doing a sealed meeting with the Catholic Church
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to obtain all the different documents from the residential school about all the different
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children and all the different things that went on. If they were to uncover, you know, if
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those files were to say, the files from the church were to say, yes, these children died,
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would you accept that as being proof that you were wrong?
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Well, we all know that children died at the residential schools. That's not the same thing
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as saying that there's these clandestine burials in an apple orchard. We have death certificates.
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If they say, if the records say that a bunch of priests murdered children, would I accept that?
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Yes, if there were records that said that. But that's not going to happen. And it's a ridiculous
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assertion. We don't have any parent who's saying that their child never came home. Who are those
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215 children who are buried in the apple orchard? It doesn't make any sense. And journalists need to
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be using their critical thinking skills and their journalistic abilities and stop pandering to this
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I don't, I don't need, I don't need you to raise your tone like that.
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I'm just, I'm getting a bit tired of the, the sorts of claims that are being made after three years
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and have been called all every name in the book and having incompetent journalists who cannot do
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I, I don't need you, but that's not helpful for our line of questioning right now.
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Well, it doesn't matter at all. What do you think? Uh, you, uh, you, you do your job.
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I'm going to keep asking my questions, which is my job. And what I'm asking you to do now is not to
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Okay, stop, stop there. Frances Widowson has a strong voice. It's a confident voice. And she's
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certainly projecting. And maybe that comes from being a lifetime of a professor. I wouldn't say
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she's shouting or yelling. I think she's had the same, it would be, she's talking like this,
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a strong confidence voice. I mean, it's, I would say it's a loud voice. It's a strong voice. But
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to see she's yelling at this journalist shows that the, it's all about the journalist and her
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feelings and the microaggressions and her rainbow glasses. And, you know, the, the fact that she is
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saying, you can't talk to me that way, the reporter's job is to observe and report what
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she observes, not to fight with the, the source. If, if Frances Widowson is a little loud or a little
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noisy, deal with it. Don't have a pout in the middle of your job. You are not the story, Jordan
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Tucker. You, I mean, I think it was slightly mean of Frances Widowson to say, I'm sick of dealing with
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ignorant journalists. I think it's true here. And, you know, imagine if your killer question is,
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Professor Widowson, what if today the Catholic Church admits they murdered 215 people?
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Okay, well, that would be quite a bombshell. Imagine hanging your hat on that. All right,
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I got to resist because I'm going to be jumping in every second. Otherwise,
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watch some more of Jordan Tucker, the CBC versus Frances, Frances Widowson.
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That gets in the way of my ability to ask you the questions. Okay. All right. So who has,
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who invited you to the Quesnel Council? I'm not going to say that because there's terrible
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censoriousness that's happening in Quesnel and people are punishing people for discussing this book.
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So it's not fair to these people. Was it someone related to the mayor? I'm not going to answer that
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question. And you can understand, being a journalist, how anonymous sources are important in certain
00:22:18.120
circumstances. When you say censoriousness, what do you mean by that? What does that mean?
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Demands for punishment and trying to actually have censure against people who try to speak freely
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against these ideas, about these ideas. Can you give me an example of that happening?
00:22:41.020
Well, the son of Pat Morton has Sean Carlton trying to encourage people to destroy her tax business,
00:22:51.680
not her tax business, her son's tax business. Isn't, isn't that how the free market works though,
00:22:58.520
where you can choose not to go to a business if you don't like the people who are running that
00:23:03.320
business? Having a professor make all sorts of outlandish claims about someone, many would say
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defamation, which should be pursued in the courts, to encourage people rather than discussing things
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and trying to understand things more. But to punish people and to ruin their livelihood
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is absolutely shocking. And people should be very worried about what's happening in Quesnel right now.
00:23:31.640
Hey, stop just for a second. By the way, Frances Whitteson was drummed out of Mount Royal University.
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She alluded to that at the beginning. An arbitrator found that she was improperly and illegally handled
00:23:42.600
and that being sacked over her points of view was unacceptable. But the arbitrator said the
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relationship had deteriorated so much that she wasn't going to, they weren't going to order the
00:23:54.320
university to take her back. So she received some sort of payment. At least that's the latest that I've
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read. So this reporter was talking to someone whose entire career was canceled illegally and by smears
00:24:07.020
based on her content. And you can see the question, who invited you? Was it someone's son? Was it so-and-so?
00:24:15.440
That's not important journalism. That's an attempt to find someone and bully them. So much of journalism on the
00:24:22.200
left is to pretend that you're calling in your capacity of a journalist, but actually be an activist. It goes
00:24:29.240
something like this. Oh, I see you're running an ad on Rebel News. Well, Rebel News does this, this, this, and this
00:24:36.560
wrong. My deadline is in two hours. So I have two ways I can write this story. One is your company is
00:24:43.680
advertising with evil Rebel News. Or number two story, which I'd prefer to write is that you've
00:24:49.380
dumped Rebel News. So which story is it? It's not real journalism. It's bullying. And you can see that
00:24:54.640
Jordan Tucker, that's what she aimed to do. She was trying to smoke out, well, who brought you to town?
00:24:59.780
Was it so-and-so? Why are you upset that someone's family's tax business is being destroyed? Because we're all
00:25:05.640
bullying. And isn't that the free market? Never heard the CBC call for the free market before.
00:25:11.540
Never forget, the CBC is first and foremost a political organization that answers to the
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prime minister, that carries water for the Laurentian elite. And in this case, the official
00:25:21.580
narrative of what happened in to Kamloops, or as the rest of us call it, Kamloops. All right,
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let's keep listening. I mean, that's, but that's not an actual argument.
00:25:33.760
Saying that people should be worried is not an actual argument. That's just a bid for a motion.
00:25:40.720
That doesn't tell me why they should be doing this, or what it is that there's lots of things
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for people to be worried about. Okay, so are you being, are your travel expenses being paid
00:25:52.420
by anyone? Or are you paying them yourself? We'll see what washes out of the whole thing.
00:26:00.460
What do you mean by that? It depends on how much the expenses are. But I don't really see why I have
00:26:06.700
to justify my travel to Quesnel to people. I'm coming perfectly- Well, if you were invited.
00:26:15.000
I was invited, yes. And you won't tell me by who. And I'm wondering, are you selling books?
00:26:19.460
What's your motivation to go? First of all, I receive no money
00:26:23.660
whatsoever for the books. So there's people claiming that I'm doing this because I'm trying
00:26:29.940
to sell books. I get no benefit at all from those books. So that's just trying- The reason why I want
00:26:38.360
people to read this book is because it provides information which is not being disseminated
00:26:47.180
through the media, which one would expect to be happening in a free and democratic society
00:26:53.480
with the free press. Don't you think that it's quite like a lot, a lot of trouble to go to,
00:27:02.100
to say that 215 children died in order to get $7 million? There's a lot of other ways to get $7 million.
00:27:09.060
Well, it's a general benefit that is a financial benefit that's brought by doing that. The more
00:27:15.900
you can exaggerate the harm that has been caused, the more money you'll be able to extract on that
00:27:22.280
basis. And it's been very lucrative, not just for the Kamloops band, but there has been a quarter
00:27:28.420
of a billion dollars that has been dispersed since that announcement was made in May 2021.
00:27:35.500
So, because there's, there's been over 6,000 bodies found at this point.
00:27:46.940
Okay. You're dealing with a leading professor on the subject, Frances Whitteson. And then you have
00:27:52.200
Jordan Tucker, whose expertise is playing Pokemon Go and how that game will revitalize a decaying urban
00:27:59.540
downtown. You just heard her say that there have been 6,000 bodies found. Now, you're not an expert
00:28:09.960
and I'm not an expert. Have you ever heard that before? Have you ever heard that before? Let's see
00:28:16.720
what Frances Whitteson says. Take a look. What, what bodies, what bodies have been found?
00:28:22.040
I, I'm going with information from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and then various other
00:28:28.460
government bodies. No, no, but you said 6,000 bodies have been found.
00:28:34.760
That's the current, that's the current number. Yeah, that's all. And you say the Truth and
00:28:38.380
Reconciliation Commission says that 6,000 bodies have been found?
00:28:41.640
Can I complete my questions, please? I'm just, you're the one who made that claim.
00:28:49.100
And as a journalist, you should be concerned about the accuracy of your claims.
00:28:55.980
Yes, don't, don't worry. I'm very, um, I'm very aware of what my job is. Thank you.
00:29:01.540
Well, you haven't been doing a very good job so far.
00:29:04.200
I don't need you to provide feedback. I don't need that at all. I need you to answer my questions.
00:29:11.620
Oh, okay. Well, you made a false claim and I am telling you that your claim is false
00:29:16.880
and you should be more concerned about the accuracy of information.
00:29:20.460
I'm going to keep asking my questions. I don't need you to browbeat me. That's not helpful.
00:29:26.060
That's not what we're here to do. Well, stop, stop for a second. So,
00:29:29.540
sometimes a question is asked, here's a fact. What do you say about it?
00:29:37.060
It's sometimes called the premise of a question. 6,000 bodies were found. What do you say about that?
00:29:44.100
Well, I dispute, I disagree with the premise of the question.
00:29:47.720
What is your source from the premise? I can't answer the question. It's a loaded question because
00:29:52.500
it's based on something that's actually not true. Can you tell me the source of 6,000 bodies?
00:29:59.880
Who do you think has read that? Do you think Francis Whittowson has read that? Or do you think
00:30:04.580
Jordan Tucker, who just finished doing a story about Pokemon Go, has read it? Jordan Tucker,
00:30:08.700
who has not read the book Grave Error. Jordan Tucker, whose questions are focused on who's paying
00:30:16.840
your travel here? Who gave you an invitation here? Isn't it the free market that we're allowed
00:30:22.860
to bully people who disagree with us? And, oh, your point is just a bid for emotion,
00:30:29.040
not an argument. She's quarreling with Francis Whittowson. And when Francis simply asks,
00:30:34.880
what's your source for the premise of your question? How can I answer your question if
00:30:38.820
it's based on a falsehood? Oh, don't you ask me questions. Don't, don't, don't browbeat me.
00:30:46.160
This is the consummate CBC reporter. It won't surprise me if soon she becomes president of the
00:30:58.080
Okay. So, um, I, sure, I can find you some documentation later and send it to you that says,
00:31:09.100
uh, the number of children's bodies that have been found so far with this LiDAR. I don't need you
00:31:20.420
to interrupt me while I'm speaking. That's not, that's not anyone so thin-skinned in your life.
00:31:27.320
Have you ever met? I mean, you know, sometimes I, sometimes I have, have a debate, but when I'm out
00:31:32.900
in the world, sometimes doing streeters, you know what I'm talking about? When I'm on the street and
00:31:36.220
I encounter someone who's a hot potato, at least when I'm on my best behavior, I just shut up and
00:31:42.900
I let the hot potato bake. I let them say the most unusual things. Imagine being a reporter that when
00:31:48.600
you're getting spicy or interesting comments from your interviewee, you stop them and you say, no,
00:31:54.080
no, it's about my feelings. Don't speak too loud. Don't push back. That's actually where an interview
00:31:59.820
becomes great. And an interview is not just reading like a stenographer official talking points and,
00:32:06.200
and just writing down quietly what, you know, what's so interesting is that I've never seen a CBCer
00:32:13.680
take this kind of a streperous, quarrelsome approach with anyone from the regime. It's what
00:32:19.940
makes it so riveting is that she's so unarmed in this battle of wits that she was sent out to maul
00:32:26.540
Professor Whittowson. And Professor Whittowson has a stentorious voice. And, but she's actually being
00:32:33.620
quite pleasant and quite factual. And they've sent in a child to do a man's work. It's shocking.
00:32:39.960
And Jordan Peter, Jordan Tucker, excuse me, Jordan Tucker has several times basically said,
00:32:46.300
stop being mean to me. And you can imagine Frances Whittowson, who's obviously a professor,
00:32:52.300
I'm going to guess she's 70 years old. So she has been, she's probably been a feminist pioneer is what
00:32:59.220
she would have been called 40 or 45 years ago when she started. I bet when she graduated with her PhD and
00:33:06.960
got a job as a professor, she was probably the first woman in the whole department.
00:33:10.660
And she had to be twice as tough as any man. And she had to put aside any daintiness to elbows up
00:33:16.000
in a real sense. And imagine Jordan Tucker, who just starts falling apart whenever she's pushed and
00:33:24.060
not even pushed by a man. I tell you, there's two different role models for women here, aren't there?
00:33:29.220
Which would you rather your daughter take after? All right, I'll try not to interrupt so much. Keep
00:33:33.440
watching. Again, please stop interrupting me. Again, if you're saying that it's some sort of
00:33:47.960
widespread conspiracy, don't you think that there would be a better way for people to obtain money
00:33:54.240
than to be lying about the death of children? Children dying, children being buried in places is
00:34:02.600
very sensitive. Do you think that this is something like, why would they do that? Wouldn't they pick
00:34:13.880
a different thing that would be less harmful to the people that they know, the people in their
00:34:18.780
communities? Have you finished? Are you claiming that I'm saying there's a conspiracy?
00:34:28.220
I think that it is that saying that communities have hopped on to an idea of pretending that children
00:34:38.360
are dead in order to get a lot of money would be a very outrageous thing for a bunch of people
00:34:45.100
to say, especially when I'm quite sure that that would be something that the rest of their
00:34:52.840
community wouldn't go along with. And given that small communities are very bad at lying,
00:34:59.760
they're very bad at keeping secrets from each other. Either that everyone would have to be going
00:35:05.160
along with this vast conspiracy, or they would just have to be very cruel and be totally fine with
00:35:15.100
saying that all these different children were dead and misrepresenting it. So which is it? Are
00:35:20.920
they liars or are they cruel? They're not liars. There's no conspiracy. If you can let me speak for a
00:35:30.880
little while, I would appreciate it. What happens is that there are these stories that are going around
00:35:39.120
in communities based upon things that have been done by a defrocked United Church minister by the
00:35:46.000
name of Kevin Annette. Because of the distress that exists in communities, which are very distressed,
00:35:53.080
this tends to be something that has influenced the memories of people as it occurred, just don't
00:36:00.540
interrupt me, as did occur, as occurred in the case of the satanic panic that happened in the 1980s and
00:36:08.940
the 1990s. Quite a similar situation, which I document in Michelle Remembers. Those people were not
00:36:15.380
lying. They are people who are distressed, who have their memories influenced by these sorts of things.
00:36:22.600
And because money can be made from this, that's why you see these things catch fire within these
00:36:30.320
communities. So why were they distressed then? Why were they so distressed? Because of the terrible
00:36:39.220
social dislocation that's happened in Indigenous communities. The isolation, the dependency, which
00:36:46.320
exists in these communities. The terrible fetal alcohol syndrome rates, which exists in these communities.
00:36:51.820
So that's why there is so much distress in these communities.
00:36:55.740
Stop just for one second there. See, what Jordan can't process here is that she hates Frances
00:37:03.020
Whitteson. I mean, it's obvious. She can't bear to hear her talk. She's accusing her of browbeating her.
00:37:11.020
She's basically fighting with her instead of interviewing her. But in the last 30 seconds there,
00:37:17.240
you saw Frances Whitteson show compassion for the state of affairs on Canadian reserves. Fetal alcohol
00:37:23.420
syndrome, the distress, the social chaos. And for her to use those phrases to honestly and forcefully
00:37:33.900
describe the tragic situation of First Nation, especially on reserve in Canada. Jordan Tucker doesn't
00:37:41.140
know what to do because she doesn't have the facts at her fingertips. She clearly doesn't have any sharp
00:37:47.020
questions written down. She just knew that Frances Whitteson was evil and Jordan Tucker was standing up for
00:37:54.340
Indigenous people. And she doesn't know how to process the fact that, in fact, Frances Whitteson not only is a lot
00:38:01.600
smarter than Jordan Tucker and a lot better informed, especially on this issue. But I think it's pretty clear she cares
00:38:07.940
more. So what can young Jordan do? Let's watch a bit more.
00:38:12.900
Are you saying that they all imagined this? Like, this is all imagined?
00:38:20.940
First of all, no one ever said that 215 children were murdered in Kamloops. No person said that.
00:38:28.640
What you have is ground penetrating radar seeing anomalies and it became, it was assumed that this
00:38:38.160
must have meant that there were 215 children that were buried clandestinely in an apple orchard. So no
00:38:45.880
one was going around saying 215 children were murdered at Kamloops before this, before the GPR came about.
00:38:52.980
So, okay, but to be clear, you're saying that these people have imagined this.
00:39:03.560
Stop again, stop, stop just for a second. So words are important. And you think a journalist would know
00:39:09.560
that. I mean, that's why Jagmeet Singh, when he used the phrase mass grave on TV, not even the chief,
00:39:17.840
not even the ground penetrating radar person, called it a mass grave. That was Jagmeet Singh's own
00:39:23.860
addition to the story to get himself some TV time. And this reporter talked about murder.
00:39:31.820
And Francis Whittowson said, no one is even accused. I mean, imagine 215 murders. Like,
00:39:38.260
that would be insane. At worst, people are saying there was a bunch of unmarked graves and,
00:39:45.520
and, but that there were murders, 215 murders. As Francis Whittowson said, no one has actually
00:39:53.280
made that accusation. No one is that insane. No one can take the ground penetrating radar anomalies
00:39:59.520
and say, to, I mean, you can, it's a stretch to say they're people, because they're just anomalies
00:40:05.040
down there. Could be anything, could be metal, could be a septic tank, a septic field. It was one theory
00:40:10.220
I read. But to add on the murder, so you know that they're babies, and you know they were murdered.
00:40:17.740
And how do you know this? Because you don't know anything about what that is, let alone who they
00:40:22.080
are. And the contrast between, not just a know nothing. A know nothing is a blank slate. Jordan
00:40:28.780
Tucker isn't just a know nothing. She is full of poisonous lies. I can't believe that Francis
00:40:36.060
Whittowson has the patience for this. And, and, and she just won't even grant that even this crazy
00:40:43.000
thing could be false. I think she may be, I think we may be dealing with literally the worst reporter
00:40:49.280
in Canada. All right, let's play some more. I'll try not to interrupt. For example, there's, there's,
00:40:54.540
there's particular cases that you can look at. Alcohol-induced brain damage in their children.
00:40:59.520
Like they're, is that, is that what I'm hearing? No, you were asking me why they were so distressed.
00:41:05.380
And I was saying that was one of the causes of the distress. You have people who have suffered
00:41:11.260
from various things, and that makes them highly emotional and suggestive to think various stories
00:41:19.100
like what Kevin Annette was putting forward. And you have people like Billy Coombs, who's one of the
00:41:24.880
eyewitnesses. There's only, as far as I know, if you read Billy Remembers, which you probably
00:41:29.320
won't do, it has two eyewitnesses that are, that have actual accounts. Everything else is second
00:41:37.340
hand. So it's not those people who have these stories. It's, it's just recounting stories of
00:41:43.860
others. So two eyewitnesses. And then, so, so is it that these people then, all these different other
00:41:51.300
indigenous communities, they came, they thought it was a good idea and they started also kind of
00:41:57.680
mass hallucinating these deaths due to sadness? Well, this is people who evidently there's stories
00:42:04.820
in the community. For example, Pine Creek, there were stories that there were people buried in this
00:42:10.540
church. And so what they did is they went and took a GPR machine down there and they saw that there
00:42:16.800
were anomalies there. They dug up those, uh, that basement of the church and there were no remains
00:42:23.200
there. So someone had this, this kind of story that they'd heard about people being buried in
00:42:29.620
this church. This is the kind of thing that's happening. Okay. So I think I have a pretty good
00:42:34.800
idea of, of what you're saying. Um, do you think, do you really think she's been paying attention?
00:42:42.100
In Quenelle? No. No. Okay. And then your, are your travel expenses being covered?
00:42:48.380
Well, I'm going to see how much they are. If I can cover them myself, I will. But if they're going to
00:42:54.660
be, uh, a large amount, then I will try to, uh, raise money from my various associates.
00:43:00.960
Okay. And which associates are that? Are those? Um, I, I know a lot of people, uh, through, uh,
00:43:06.360
the Indian residential schools research, uh, that's being done. So there's a group that, that I
00:43:12.980
interact with and, and we're, we're, we're right now. I'm not, I don't anticipate it being the
00:43:18.380
expenses being all that high, but it's hard to know in advance, but I'm not making any money off
00:43:23.320
of this. How long are you going to be in Quenelle for? Uh, for a couple of days. And are you doing
00:43:29.300
any other events while you're there? I'm hoping to, I'm hoping to, I was hoping actually to do a
00:43:35.320
presentation at a, at, in a public forum type of, uh, situation, but we'll see how things go. Um,
00:43:43.040
you know, uh, it depends upon demand, I guess, but what, what I really would like to do is, uh, get,
00:43:49.260
have these documents, which I have obtained, which are on the agenda for the, uh, uh, April 2nd meeting
00:43:56.440
and ask the counselors who denounce grave error without ever having read the book, um, ask them some
00:44:04.640
questions about what they are putting into the public record at that meeting. So, okay. So,
00:44:11.760
you know, the federal government, the provincial government, um, the municipal government and
00:44:23.240
Quenelle, they all say that, yes, these things have happened. There, there are children buried in
00:44:29.340
Apple orchards. Um, stop. Is that true? Is that true? Or has this reporter just filled in the blanks
00:44:40.160
with their own imagination that they were murdered, that there were 6,000 such cases across the country,
00:44:46.580
and now that all levels of government have agreed with her made up facts? I have never seen any
00:44:53.240
interview like this. That Kathy Newman interview on Channel 4 was incredible, but I am so embarrassed
00:44:59.260
for Jordan Tucker and the CBC. Um, this is something that a high school journalism class
00:45:07.620
should fail, let alone journalism school, let alone a professional journalist at the CBC.
00:45:15.320
Unbelievable, but absolutely believable. Keep rolling.
00:45:23.240
Okay. Are all of those different governments lying? Like, are all of those different people
00:45:27.520
governments never lie, don't you know? The CBC knows. Or they're going along with these stories
00:45:31.420
imagined by people, by indigenous people? Are you saying that the federal and provincial
00:45:36.180
governments are saying that there's children buried in that apple orchard?
00:45:39.440
I'm, I'm asking why all of these different people at all these different levels of government,
00:45:45.760
all these different intelligent, thoughtful people who've, who've worked really hard and,
00:45:51.440
and learned a great number of things to get to their positions, why they would all be so,
00:45:57.420
um, you know, why it would happen that they would all be so, uh, so stupid. If, if that's,
00:46:06.140
if that's what's going on, if, um, if the truth is, as you're reporting it to be,
00:46:11.620
then how is it that all of these government officials are, are so, uh, have been so connived?
00:46:19.500
Well, first of all, the onus is on the people who are saying that there's 215 children buried there
00:46:31.120
And, and, and they have provided it. And the majority of people are quite satisfied with.
00:46:36.380
Are you, as a journalist, are you satisfied with the evidence?
00:46:43.260
You're, you're, you're, you think that there's 215 children buried in the apple orchard in Kamloops.
00:46:50.020
I think that at this point, there has been enough documentation. There have been enough.
00:46:58.840
There's enough social and archeological consensus to say that.
00:47:05.300
To say that we can just believe indigenous people and move on with trying to.
00:47:15.080
So I'm just going to repeat this again to make sure I haven't misunderstood you.
00:47:19.020
You are saying that there are 215 children buried in the apple orchard in Kamloops.
00:47:48.460
I'm, I'm wondering why it's so important to you to discredit this.
00:47:53.540
Yeah. Why don't you just shut up and go along with us?
00:47:55.820
I believe in the truth. I think the truth is important. Do you think the truth is important?
00:48:08.920
I think she's, she's about to cry. I think she's about to cry.
00:48:23.700
Uh, I think you really need to read that book because you do not have an understanding at all.
00:48:32.040
Well, you are a seriously incompetent journalist.
00:48:37.240
And this is what the CBC has sunk to these days.
00:48:41.640
I don't think that you accusing me or shouting at me is very helpful.
00:48:46.660
Well, I don't really think I'm shouting at you.
00:48:48.740
I'm just telling you, for someone who is here doing an interview on this case.
00:48:57.540
This interview is now over. Thank you for your time.
00:49:04.960
And there you have it. Listen, thank you for bearing with it.
00:49:07.840
I know that was long, but if you're like me, that was riveting.
00:49:11.920
Jordan Tucker. I've never seen anyone quite like her.
00:49:15.040
And I say again that this was recorded a year ago, but actually Frances Whitteson only put it on her YouTube page yesterday.
00:49:22.580
I know it had sort of sneaked out in a few other places.
00:49:28.060
But everything that happened there, you know it's still happening.
00:49:33.820
Kathy Newman perfected the so you mean to say straw man response.
00:49:39.520
But I haven't seen some of these like there's a social consensus that it's true.
00:49:46.700
And when you tell me they're wrong, I'm going to say stop browbeating me.
00:49:54.320
What a pity that Mount Royal University students are deprived of a no-nonsense, patient, fact-bearing professor as Frances Whitteson.
00:50:03.860
And what a shame that the CBC is full of Jordan Tuckers.
00:50:27.620
Well, it's been a few weeks since Israel and the United States degraded Iran's military.
00:50:33.340
The Israeli Air Force took out hundreds of targets.
00:50:37.360
And once the surface-to-air missile threat, once Israel had the supremacy in the skies, America came in with the Coupe de Grasse, with the B-2 stealth bombers flying all the way from the United States, an enormous mission, dropping very specialized bunker buster bombs into three Iranian nuclear sites.
00:50:56.400
It was an incredible act of planning and deception, and it, with one punch, knocked the nuclear program of Iran back years, maybe decades.
00:51:06.500
What was so interesting is in the days leading up to that, Russia's Vladimir Putin was asked if he would come to the aid of Iran, a country to which he was formally allied.
00:51:20.020
One of his interesting reasons was that there are two million Russians who reside in Israel.
00:51:26.800
I've never heard that as a geopolitical explanation by Putin before.
00:51:30.020
He clearly is focused more on his war in Ukraine than in beefing up a regime that was losing.
00:51:36.080
Very interestingly, Russia's, I'm not going to say puppet, but the Russia-allied president of Syria was also deposed.
00:51:46.480
I say all these things because I am most curious about how China has regarded the ongoing battle in the Middle East and Ukraine.
00:51:56.040
Has Donald Trump's military decision changed or altered the geopolitical battlefield?
00:52:08.500
But if there is someone who knows, it's probably our next guest.
00:52:19.760
Tell me what China makes of U.S. moves in Iran and even in Ukraine.
00:52:27.120
Well, first of all, on Ukraine, it was very clear.
00:52:31.060
Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, on July 2nd had a private conversation with the EU foreign policy chief.
00:52:38.440
And he told her that China cannot afford to see Russia lose in Ukraine.
00:52:45.020
And of course, this confirms what we already knew.
00:52:47.800
China has been providing across-the-board support for the Russian war effort, including now allowing Chinese mercenaries to go to the front to fight for Russia.
00:52:57.600
And also, they're People's Liberation Army officers in Ukraine right now, presumably as observers or advisors.
00:53:11.520
Sure. It's almost as if you can say that Putin is fighting a proxy war for the Chinese, because Xi Jinping believes that he must disrupt the international order.
00:53:23.400
And Putin is very important to that, because Putin is somebody who is willing to actually take on the West in battle.
00:53:32.560
Now, with regard to Iran, it's a bit more complicated.
00:53:36.280
But what we have seen over the last six months is that the United States has chased China out of the Middle East.
00:53:44.360
Go back a year, China looked like to be the dominant foreign power in the region.
00:53:50.060
It had brokered the deal with Saudi Arabia and Iran.
00:53:53.740
Also, in July of last year was the Beijing declaration, which was inked by China and 14 Palestinian groups.
00:54:06.980
And what we have seen is that in recent months, China has lost friends, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and, of course, Qatar.
00:54:17.300
Iran, its proxy, is being beaten up, as you pointed out.
00:54:21.100
So China right now has seen the power of the United States to reverse things when the U.S. has a leader who believes in making sure that American power is used.
00:54:33.200
Wow. Let's just talk for one minute about Ukraine and then let's pivot back to Iran.
00:54:37.300
It's so fascinating. And then I want to ask you about Taiwan.
00:54:40.720
I've heard reports that North Korean soldiers had been fighting in Ukraine for Russia.
00:54:47.400
I didn't know that Chinese mercenaries were there as well.
00:54:58.040
Have any of these Chinese mercenaries been captured as prisoners of war?
00:55:02.360
That would be fascinating to see Chinese soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
00:55:11.160
In a way, I never thought of Russia as the puppet for another force.
00:55:16.960
But if they're relying on soldiers from another country, maybe they are.
00:55:21.320
There were about 150 to 200 Chinese mercenaries in Ukraine.
00:55:26.420
And they could not have gotten there without both the knowledge and the approval of the Communist Party.
00:55:30.980
So although they're not formal military, we have to assume that China wanted them to be there.
00:55:38.120
As regards to the PLA officers, we don't know how many they are.
00:55:43.380
But obviously, they have been reported to be there from credible sources.
00:55:48.860
And it makes sense from a number of different perspectives.
00:55:52.400
And when we talk about the North Koreans, North Korea first sent somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 of their best troops, by the way, to the front in Ukraine.
00:56:07.480
And now there's talk that North Korea will send an additional 30,000.
00:56:12.760
Because this is a war of attrition, they could very well be maybe not a decisive factor.
00:56:19.200
They could be an important factor as Russia wears down the Ukrainian forces.
00:56:24.780
So I actually think that the North Koreans are there with the approval of China, that China probably masterminded this deal.
00:56:34.520
So again, what we're seeing is close connections among Pyongyang, Moscow, and Beijing.
00:56:41.320
You know, looking at it from the other side, China and North Korea, by deploying to Ukraine itself or the cursed region of Russia where Ukraine had entered,
00:56:54.060
they would be going head to head with Ukraine, which is backed by American CIA and Western weapons.
00:57:01.320
So I suppose it would be a kind of training, training in a real, you know, a real life deadly combat, learning Western tactics, learning how to defeat Western weapon systems, using drones, of which I would imagine China is probably a world leader.
00:57:20.920
So it's not just helping Russia, it's getting battlefield experience, which I don't know if China has actually had in many years.
00:57:29.760
Yeah. The last real war China was in was 1979, when they invaded Vietnam.
00:57:37.160
There was sort of like semi-war in 2020 between India and China, where in June of that year, China actually launched a surprise attack on Indian troopers and were badly bloodied by the Indians,
00:57:53.300
even though they had the Chinese had the Chinese had the element of surprise.
00:57:57.400
So we know that China's ground forces, although they've got great equipment, are not led very well.
00:58:03.860
And that's a real indication about the problems in the Chinese military generally.
00:58:09.300
With regard to China and Russia, this is a relationship that's getting very, very close.
00:58:16.400
And both sides are learning a lot about warfare.
00:58:21.500
We're learning a lot about drone tactics, for instance, because Ukraine is a master in those.
00:58:27.560
So this is an experiment for the world's next great war.
00:58:31.580
Yeah. Well, I would think, this is just my amateur thinking, that looking at America reviving its leadership in Europe, in the Middle East, has got to make Taiwan feel more confident.
00:58:47.620
The fact that Russia, which had some really leading edge weapons systems, and Iran, which had the use of very modern Russian technology, was just beaten handily by Israel and America.
00:59:09.000
Is there a sort of a retooling of Taiwan's military defenses?
00:59:13.120
I don't know. I'm just trying to think, if I was in Taiwan, I would be encouraged that America still gets involved, maybe not as adventurous as before, maybe more surgical than a World War-style attack.
00:59:27.600
But that secret raid by the B-2s, I would think that would make China and Russia think twice.
00:59:34.460
Because apparently, those planes were not detected until they had actually dropped their bombs and were leaving.
00:59:41.680
I've got to think that that was a wow moment in Beijing and Moscow.
00:59:47.540
Yes. You know, the one thing that doesn't go remarked very often, and which you pointed out now, and I think is really important, is the flawless execution of that mission.
00:59:58.160
Because you have the B-2s taking off from Whiteman Air Force Base in central Missouri, and flying halfway around the world, and then returning.
01:00:06.820
And that takes a lot of logistics, especially tanker support.
01:00:11.300
So the fact that we were able to do this, I'm sure has had an impression on the Chinese and Russians and Iranians and everybody else.
01:00:19.740
In general, Taiwan believes that its future could be largely written on the battlefields of Ukraine.
01:00:27.560
And we have heard Taiwan officials talk about that.
01:00:32.240
Because if the United States prevails in Ukraine, I think it makes China think twice about starting a war in East Asia.
01:00:39.520
If we fail in Ukraine, I think that it emboldens Beijing to engage in all sorts of adventurism around its periphery, including Taiwan.
01:00:50.620
And we have seen some very provocative Chinese military activity recently against South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, of course, Philippines, as always, and even against faraway Australia.
01:01:08.760
And it was a good demonstration of American power, which I think has made the Chinese think twice about what they're going to do in their own region.
01:01:16.820
You know, Donald Trump seems to have been successful in getting NATO countries to at least pledge 5% of their GDP to the military.
01:01:25.120
Now, I think there's some creative accounting in there.
01:01:27.480
They're now simply deeming other existing expenses to be military.
01:01:31.940
So I think they're, you know, they're fudging it as usual.
01:01:35.540
But I think there is a general understanding that Europe has to start carrying more of its own burden.
01:01:44.540
When you look at Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, have those countries ramped up their spending too?
01:01:53.440
I think Trump is clearly showing he will be a friend to other countries, but he doesn't want the free riding.
01:02:00.080
What's it looking like for those Asian countries I just listed?
01:02:04.980
Well, Japan and the Philippines have increased their defense spending.
01:02:09.720
And that was a long process that is now two, three years old.
01:02:13.940
And that's driven largely because they're worried about Chinese aggression.
01:02:21.500
But there is a political issue because the Kuomintang, the KMT, has been blocking increased military expenditures.
01:02:33.600
And what's going to be really important is that on the 26th of this month, there are going to be recall elections against some of these Kuomintang legislators.
01:02:42.480
Because the Kuomintang controls the legislative UN, their national legislation.
01:02:50.400
But in general, we're seeing across Asia, countries are more and more concerned about the Chinese.
01:02:56.420
And so therefore, they're ramping up their defense spending.
01:03:02.380
Donald Trump has been putting tariffs on a great many countries, including us here in Canada.
01:03:09.760
I remember even in his first run in 2016, he talked about China tremendously.
01:03:16.140
And he, I think, sought to undermine China's dominance, or at least its high growth economically.
01:03:29.860
Is he just as tough economically as he is militarily?
01:03:35.740
I don't know if it's a tactical tariff or just almost like a press release.
01:03:41.060
Trump has news statements almost every day about tariffs.
01:03:44.140
What's the real deal with Trump and China when it comes to trade?
01:03:55.460
And I'm not even sure that Trump understands it.
01:03:59.820
And that is, they had a May 12th agreement on tariffs.
01:04:05.880
And it was a pause for 90 days, which means we're talking about an August 12th deadline for a deal.
01:04:12.880
I don't know if the Chinese are going to meet that.
01:04:19.920
But we have seen reporting, especially from Bloomberg, but also the Wall Street Journal, that's talked about how Trump has gone soft on China.
01:04:28.840
That often he is taking the softest line of the people in the room.
01:04:33.940
And that's sort of, I can understand what Trump is doing.
01:04:39.020
I think that he's trying to do with Xi Jinping what he's did with Putin.
01:04:43.820
You know, when Trump took his second oath of office, he tried to come to terms with Putin, tried to arrange a peace deal for Ukraine, talked to Putin quite a lot.
01:04:58.460
And so we've seen a much harder tone from Trump on Putin.
01:05:04.140
I think we're probably going to go through the same dynamic with Xi Jinping.
01:05:08.300
And it's going to be unfortunate because time is really important these days.
01:05:12.900
And we're going to lose a lot of it as Trump tries to come to terms with the Chinese.
01:05:17.320
Right now, there is talk that Trump and Xi Jinping will try and meet on the sidelines of APEC, which is at the end of October in South Korea.
01:05:32.920
But my general feeling is the less we talk with China, the better it will be for us.
01:05:38.360
Because talking has just not accomplished what we have wanted to over the last three and a half decades.
01:05:47.700
He said, Iran has never won a war, but it's never lost a negotiation.
01:05:53.260
And I think there was a little bit of wisdom in that.
01:05:55.700
And I sense that China, which has been doing diplomacy for thousands of years in its own way, I think, I mean, I guess they've been doing the art of war for millennia as well.
01:06:07.100
But I think there's a seriousness and a strategy behind Chinese diplomacy that perhaps sometimes we don't discern.
01:06:22.100
Sometimes it appears that there may be an internal struggle of some sort.
01:06:28.240
It's hard to do what used to be called Kremlinology, you know, who's up and who's down, because it's not a free press.
01:06:43.140
Just like in Saudi Arabia, you have this new crown prince who's actually progressive and pro-Western, which you could see the change in Saudi Arabia.
01:06:52.700
Or is China really in the hands of hardliners, almost no matter who the leader is?
01:06:57.920
Yeah, I think Xi Jinping has lost control of the Chinese military.
01:07:03.400
And the reason is that in PLA Daily, which is the main propaganda organ of the Chinese military, since July 9th of last year, there have been a series of articles that praise collective leadership, which is a direct slap at Xi Jinping.
01:07:17.760
At the same time, we're seeing Xi Jinping's supporters in the military get purged and disappeared.
01:07:25.320
And so I think he put those two things together.
01:07:28.060
And it is more likely that Xi Jinping's adversaries are getting rid of Xi Jinping's loyalists rather than Xi Jinping getting rid of his own loyalists.
01:07:37.160
So I think that he's lost a lot of influence in the military.
01:07:40.080
In amongst civilians, the evidence is not as clear, but there have been signs, especially since the end of April, that Xi Jinping has lost some altitude.
01:07:50.860
Probably in the last couple of weeks, in other words, most of this month, I think Xi Jinping has gained some influence.
01:07:59.380
He's now being portrayed in state and party media in a more prominent way than he was during the two months starting at the end of April.
01:08:10.280
What we can see are signs that are inconsistent with stability at the top of the regime.
01:08:15.460
And that indicates that the infighting is still intense.
01:08:19.140
And people say we're going to learn a lot more next month.
01:08:23.640
But I think by the end of the year, we'll have some clarity about where Xi Jinping is or isn't.
01:08:29.100
And by the way, there is no designated successor.
01:08:31.580
And if Xi Jinping does lose power, it'll probably be to the hands of reformists.
01:08:38.760
Because one of the reasons why Xi Jinping is in trouble is because he's terribly mismanaged the Chinese economy.
01:08:44.080
And I think they'll go back to something more reasonable.
01:08:49.780
We're always grateful for your time and expertise.
01:08:53.640
And by the way, folks, I really encourage you to follow Gordon on Twitter.
01:08:56.900
He's by far my number one source of news and commentary on China.
01:09:03.200
Take care, my friend, and we'll talk to you again soon.
01:09:20.480
And by the way, these are comments by Rebel News Plus viewers just like you.
01:09:24.660
You can have a special page where only Rebel News Plus subscribers can comment.
01:09:28.600
The first one is on the trucker convoy and the media political industrial complex.
01:09:35.940
If 100% of your information, if you can call it that, came from CTV Global City and especially the CBC, you would never know this story existed.
01:09:43.580
In fact, more than one such viewer thinks that only stories that actually happened would have appeared on any of those networks.
01:09:51.000
I believe that there's bias in how any story is covered.
01:09:54.600
But the far more powerful bias is the stories you ignore and the stories you choose,
01:09:59.380
who you choose to erase and un-person in the sweep of history and who you choose to promote.
01:10:17.760
And I suppose there are gentler sources of information than Rebel News.
01:10:23.520
It's our style to focus on the front lines of the battle.
01:10:26.240
By the way, Alexa Lavoie has been doing amazing work recently in Montreal.
01:10:32.400
And my friend Lincoln Jay just returned from right near Roxham Road.
01:10:40.300
It's very close by with some incredible footage.
01:10:43.540
I just chatted with him as he came back from Quebec.
01:10:48.880
But as you correctly say, exciting can usually mean anger-making.
01:10:54.060
Hey, by the way, I'm going to be in Ottawa tomorrow and Thursday live tweeting the coverage for Tamara Leach.
01:11:05.500
And as you know, I was in Lethbridge a few months ago watching the sentencing of the so-called Coutts III.
01:11:11.480
Those were the three leaders of the Coutts blockade during the lockdown.
01:11:15.620
And two out of the three men there got zero time in jail.
01:11:18.560
They were convicted of mischief, but if it's a first offense and no violence involved, the precedent in Canada, probably 20, 30 cases, a lot of which involve Greenpeace, you might want to know, there's no custodial sentence.
01:11:31.260
That is, you get the conviction, the judge says, don't do it again, and you better not do it again because you might go to jail the second time.
01:11:39.260
So Tamara Leach, that's exactly what I expect will happen tomorrow.
01:11:43.140
But the prosecutor is demanding seven years in prison.
01:11:47.620
Seven years in prison for her and eight years for Chris Barber, who's on trial at the same time.
01:11:56.320
That is third world authoritarian police state stuff.
01:11:59.860
And I say again, don't make the mistake of thinking that is Justin Trudeau's or Mark Carney's prosecutor.
01:12:05.500
That prosecutor works for Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario.
01:12:08.760
Anyways, I'll be out there in Ottawa, live tweeting up a storm.
01:12:11.980
During breaks in the court, I'll be recording videos, and we will have our beautiful billboard truck there showing our support for Tamara.
01:12:19.340
So I will be producing shows from Ottawa, and I'll be back in the studio here on Friday.
01:12:27.800
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.