Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Frances Widdowson DESTROYS the CBC in scathing interview

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Very interesting show today. I actually watched a recording of an interview

00:00:05.520 between Professor Frances Whittowson and a CBC reporter. It was about the residential schools

00:00:13.280 and the claim of mass burials at a residential school in Kamloops. Frances Whittowson was being

00:00:19.980 interviewed by the CBC and she had the presence of mind to record the interview herself. And it's

00:00:26.320 the most amazing thing I have heard in years. I want to take you through it, playing it and

00:00:30.860 pausing with my own commentary. I think you'll agree this is the most incredible interview

00:00:35.880 maybe you've ever heard. That's ahead. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what

00:00:41.200 we call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. It's eight bucks a month, which

00:00:46.340 might not be a lot to you, but boy, that adds up for us. And that's how we pay the bills around here.

00:00:50.460 So do me the solid and go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe.

00:00:56.320 Tonight, it's the most incredible media interview I have heard since Jordan Peterson stumped Kathy

00:01:05.440 Newman. It's July 22nd and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.

00:01:09.080 You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:15.600 Do you remember when Jordan Peterson went on a British TV station called Channel 4? He was

00:01:29.660 interviewed by their star anchor, Kathy Newman is her name, who clearly had her instructions,

00:01:36.020 attack Peterson in all ways, at all costs, all the time. But Peterson was just cool like a cucumber.

00:01:42.960 And it was amazing. It was, it was gorgeous. Here's a minute of that, just as a reminder of what it was like.

00:01:49.920 Well, you say there are whole disciplines in universities forthrightly hostile towards men.

00:01:54.680 These are the areas of study dominated by the postmodern stroke neo-Marxist claim that Western

00:01:59.400 culture in particular is an oppressive structure created by white men to dominate and exclude women.

00:02:06.180 But then I want to put to you that here in the UK, for example, let's take that as an example,

00:02:13.760 the gender pay gap stands at just over 9%. You've got women at the BBC recently saying that the

00:02:19.640 broadcaster is illegally paying them less than men to do the same job. You've got only seven women 0.98

00:02:25.740 running the top FTSE 100 companies. So it seems to a lot of women that they're still being dominated 1.00

00:02:32.880 and excluded, to quote your words back to you. It does seem that way, but multivariate analysis

00:02:38.240 of the pay gap indicate that it doesn't exist. But that's just not true, is it? I mean,

00:02:42.960 that 9% pay gap, that's a gap between median hourly earnings between men and women.

00:02:48.000 But there's multiple, yeah, but there's multiple reasons for that. One of them is gender, 0.96

00:02:51.820 but it's not the only reason. Oh, that was so painful. You know,

00:02:55.280 tens of millions of people saw that clip around the world as perhaps the worst example ever of a bad

00:03:04.320 faith journalist. You know, she said the phrase, so you're saying, 35 times in the interview. And

00:03:12.180 every time she said something that he actually had not said, sometimes the opposite of what he said,

00:03:18.100 it was her twisted attempt to argue against a straw man she had concocted in her own head,

00:03:23.480 as opposed to the real Jordan Peterson, she was lucky enough to have in studio. It was just

00:03:27.920 amazing. I can't believe she's still working in channel four, but I'm sort of glad she is.

00:03:32.700 That's their kind of news and we all know it. So that was seven years ago now, but I stumbled upon

00:03:39.740 an interview yesterday that is even more amazing, more majestic, more incredible, more revealing than

00:03:48.740 that one. It's an audio recording though, not a video. So we won't be able to see the faces of

00:03:54.840 the two people involved, which I deeply regret because I really wish I could see the journalist's

00:03:59.700 face. Towards the end of this one, the interviewer actually sounds like she's going to start to cry. 0.69

00:04:06.300 And I wish I could tell if she really was. Now, this video was uploaded just yesterday and I

00:04:13.420 encountered it, but it had originally been put online actually last year, but it had so few views.

00:04:19.720 I'm guessing that most of you viewers tonight have not encountered this. I'm a pretty big media

00:04:25.160 consumer and I didn't stumble upon it till yesterday. So I'm taking the risk of showing it to you now,

00:04:30.600 but I don't think you've seen it before. This was actually a year ago. I'm talking about this 25

00:04:37.100 minute interview where a CBC reporter named Jordan Tucker, who is just amazing. I mean, here she is

00:04:47.180 in her rainbow glasses. According to her bio, she is a journalist and writer with a degree in English

00:04:53.520 and environmental studies. What a combination that is. It doesn't look like she publishes a lot

00:04:58.180 with the CBC, but when she does, oh, it really counts. Here's one of her very important stories.

00:05:03.920 Uh, sorry, I shouldn't laugh. Um, how Pokemon go is transforming downtown Prince George online game

00:05:13.900 is helping change attitudes towards downtrodden downtown core. Yeah, I'm sure it is a sister.

00:05:21.040 You go with that. Here's another very important investigative story. She wrote geese have taken

00:05:26.560 over a BC beach, enter the dog squad dogs involved where a goose patrol labeled bester van vest or

00:05:35.720 bandana. That's funny, but I don't think she meant it to be funny. I kid you not. Each of those major

00:05:44.820 investigative reports needed two reporters at the CBC. I'm surprised it wasn't more. So we're dealing

00:05:50.720 with a heavy hitter here. When I mentioned Jordan, that was the interviewer and the interviewee who

00:05:56.920 put this up on her YouTube channel yesterday. That's how I came across it. Francis Whittleson,

00:06:02.320 a professor and author and critic of something that's called the Indian industry. Sometimes that

00:06:09.640 is the permanent class of lawyers, bureaucrats, and politicians, many of them who are not indigenous

00:06:14.820 that live off the misery of Canada's first nations. It's sort of the deep state, everyone involved with

00:06:21.020 grants and lawsuits and stuff. Anyway, so Francis Whittleson a year ago was going to northern BC to

00:06:28.660 give a talk and young Jordan Tucker from the CBC had some tough questions for the good professor.

00:06:35.660 But this wasn't Whittleson's first rodeo. She knows who the regime media are and what they're like.

00:06:41.040 She might not have known who Jordan Tucker was unless she follows stories about

00:06:45.320 goose patrols and Pokemon Go. But I mean, it's the CBC, right? Say no more. So she wisely recorded

00:06:53.520 her own interview and was kind enough to tell that to Jordan Tucker. I'm surprised Jordan had her

00:06:59.920 breakdown given that she knew she was being recorded. Now, the interview is about 25 minutes long.

00:07:05.660 And I guess I could just show you a few excerpts, but I promise you, it is too good just to have a

00:07:14.460 sample. I really want you to hear the whole thing. It was a masterclass by Whittleson and a devastating

00:07:21.100 proof of just how absolutely awful the CBC is, especially when it comes to official narratives of

00:07:28.480 the Canadian political establishment. Like in this case, the subject of the hoax,

00:07:33.900 there was 215 bodies in a mass grave in Kamloots in an old residential school. It was not. It was

00:07:41.780 ground penetrating radar that found some anomalies underground, but they did not excavate. Those

00:07:47.040 anomalies could have been anything. It could have been rocks. It could have been an old septic field.

00:07:51.160 It could theoretically even be a regular graveyard. They had those at these residential schools. 0.98

00:07:56.620 It was not a mass grave. We don't know that there's bodies in there at all. No one has excavated.

00:08:00.840 So that is the subject matter here. But you've got to listen. Well, you've got to listen to that,

00:08:06.980 but you've got to listen to the whole thing. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play

00:08:10.520 this recording and I'm going to stop it midway, maybe five times and give you my quick thoughts.

00:08:16.160 But really, nothing I could say could trump just the sheer gorgeousness of what you are about to hear.

00:08:23.920 I promise you the next 25 minutes will go by very quickly. So maybe get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee

00:08:30.060 and sit down here. Let's listen to this incredible interview together. So that's Francis Whitteson on

00:08:38.320 the left, of course, and that's our friend Jordan on the right. And this was an interview they had last

00:08:43.580 year. Take a listen.

00:08:45.620 Hi, hi. Can you hear me?

00:08:46.720 Hi there. I can. Yes.

00:08:48.720 Awesome. Okay. So I do have the recording on.

00:08:52.140 Okay. I'm recording this as well.

00:08:54.900 Yes. Oh, okay. Sounds good. Okay. So do you think that you could introduce yourself for me?

00:09:00.420 Your name?

00:09:01.460 Francis.

00:09:01.940 First and last?

00:09:02.780 Yes. Francis Whitteson.

00:09:05.040 Okay. And what you do?

00:09:07.060 I'm a professor. I was a professor at Mount Royal University, which is a story in its own right

00:09:12.000 about my ongoing dispute with Mount Royal.

00:09:16.600 Okay. And what do you do now?

00:09:20.300 I'm a writer and basically I'm a senior fellow with the Frontier Center for Public Policy.

00:09:29.040 And I'm a board member for the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

00:09:32.880 Okay, cool. All right. So why are you going to Quesnel?

00:09:38.300 I'm going to Quesnel to address the misinformation that was spread by the city councillors at the

00:09:47.360 meeting on March 19th.

00:09:51.220 And what misinformation is that?

00:09:54.440 Well, the first is that many of the councillors didn't appear to have read the book and were

00:10:02.120 making comments about it on the basis of their own speculation, I guess. I don't quite know where

00:10:08.320 they got this information. But they were arguing that the book denies the abuse and the harms that

00:10:16.800 were caused by the residential schools. And I believe Tony Goulet even implied that we were

00:10:23.800 denying that the residential schools existed at all, which is one of the problems with this

00:10:29.400 terminology of residential school denialism, which if you just took that description literally,

00:10:37.360 you would think that that meant you're denying the existence of the residential schools. And that's 0.71

00:10:42.740 not a clear term at all. It was developed by the academic Sean Carlton basically to smear his

00:10:51.620 opponents and the Scrooge debate on the residential schools.

00:10:55.840 Okay. And so what are you saying? If that's what they're saying, what are you saying your book says?

00:11:02.900 And how is it different from what they're representing?

00:11:05.500 Well, the book completely recognizes the abuses that occurred at the residential schools and

00:11:12.060 realizes that there were serious problems. Many of the articles, there's a whole bunch of different

00:11:16.380 articles. First of all, it's not written by one person. It's, it's, it's, there's over 15 contributors

00:11:22.240 to this. And, and basically it's understood that there were terrible problems with the residential

00:11:29.880 schools at logistical and also the, the difficulties of abuse and insensitivity and underfunding and so

00:11:37.060 on. The main issue that we are talking about in the book is the Kamloops case and the false claim that

00:11:47.180 was made by Roseanne Casimir on March, May 27th, 2021, that the remains of 215 children had been found on

00:11:59.700 that site. And there is no evidence at all for the existence of remains on that site. And it is highly

00:12:07.720 improbable that there will be such remains because not one parent has said that their child never came home

00:12:17.260 from the Kamloops Indian residential school. So the book is largely about trying to correct information that was

00:12:26.340 spread about that case, but it also tackles the issue of whether the residential schools were genocidal or not. So it's

00:12:35.100 taking issue with that claim of the residential schools being genocidal.

00:12:39.720 Okay. And what, what do you think would benefit, like, to what benefit do you think it would, it would help like

00:12:48.360 that, that, that, uh, group in Kamloops, like, to lie about that? Uh, well, they obtained $7 million

00:12:56.420 for making that claim. And there's all sorts of other disputes and dispersions of transfers that have

00:13:05.360 been made because of the implication that genocide was perpetrated against not just that group, but

00:13:13.300 indigenous people. So what people don't understand with respect to indigenous policy is that there's a

00:13:19.300 huge industry that is built up around these legal disputes and the residential schools and all the

00:13:26.240 settlements that have happened as well as, um, you know, the whole claims about genocide are a way of

00:13:33.240 extracting transfers. And this is not beneficial at all for ordinary indigenous people. They're not the ones 1.00

00:13:39.900 benefiting. It is the lawyers who are initiating this, these disputes that are benefiting.

00:13:46.320 Okay. I hear what you're saying. Um, so I've, I've just wondering, um, I've been covering local

00:13:54.960 government for a while and normally they're pretty disorganized. Um, like, like they, they can't,

00:14:00.700 they can't find, they're very disorganized. So I'm just wondering how, um, you know, what information

00:14:06.180 you have to suggest that a government, like a whole series of different governments, uh, these

00:14:12.680 different indigenous governments would go about creating, creating a conspiracy this fast, like 0.97

00:14:18.600 how they would be able to keep that under wraps. It's, it's not a conspiracy. And in fact, it's due to

00:14:24.880 the media's complete failure, the failure of the media and people like yourself. Why are you not

00:14:32.260 investigating these claims that are being made and trying to see what evidence there exists?

00:14:38.120 The media has been, um, it's been absolutely terrible. And the thing, what, what happens is,

00:14:44.380 and this is what's going on in Quesnel right now. If you are a critical thinker and you analyze the

00:14:51.220 evidence, and this has been done in many articles, and I myself have a piece in there called Billy

00:14:55.980 Remembers, which investigates these claims in depth. If you do that, you will be hit very hard

00:15:03.780 with accusations of racism, uh, your hatred for indigenous people. And because most people,

00:15:11.940 myself included, want to be someone who is, um, who helps to deal with the terrible problems that

00:15:18.600 indigenous people are facing, getting accused of these sorts of things makes it very difficult

00:15:24.660 to pursue the truth on the residential school file. It's not a conspiracy. People follow their

00:15:31.340 own interests and there's money to be made by claiming that there's unmarked graves in all these

00:15:37.620 areas. Okay. Pause just for a second. Very interesting so far. I mean, just the temperament

00:15:43.440 and the tone of these two women couldn't be more different. Frances Whittowson, absolutely authoritative, 0.98

00:15:48.860 at the same time, knowledgeable as compassionate. She's not denying that there are social dysfunction

00:15:54.280 on Indian reserves. Of course there is. Only a blind person would say otherwise. She's describing 1.00

00:16:01.660 what we have all seen, a claim that 215 children were found. Jagmeet Singh called it a mass grave.

00:16:09.940 No excavations. It's just ground penetrating radar, which is not meant to detect bodies. It's meant

00:16:15.720 typically to detect, uh, you know, mineral deposits. And you'll notice the first instinct of Jordan 0.57

00:16:25.480 Tucker was how can you say everyone's lying? Why do you doubt not just one government, but all these

00:16:33.060 governments? And her voice starts to become agitated and frail. But her, so far her argument is simply

00:16:42.120 how can you possibly mistrust government? Why are you right and they are all wrong? As if being right

00:16:50.660 and wrong is a matter of a vote or something. You'll see throughout the interview that Frances 0.65

00:16:56.140 Whittowson says, pursue the truth. She's about getting the truth. And, you know, let the heavens may

00:17:02.500 fall, but let the truth and justice be known. Which is very different from Jordan Tucker of the CBC.

00:17:08.580 She's not about unearthing the truth. She's not about asking challenging questions of powerful people.

00:17:13.900 And by the way, the chief of an Indian man is extremely powerful. Much more powerful in their own context

00:17:19.460 than, say, a mayor of a city. Anyways, back to the interview. But you can see it's changed. And you can hear

00:17:25.200 the agitation in Jordan Tucker's voice. Whereas Frances Whittowson, she's been through this a hundred times.

00:17:32.320 By the way, sometimes I interview people on my show about a book, and I haven't read the whole book yet.

00:17:38.260 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

00:17:42.920 page book before interviewing someone on my show. I wish I did. But what's so interesting here is this

00:17:47.960 was obviously an attack on Frances Whittowson and the book Grave Error, which was edited by Tom

00:17:53.720 Flanagan and Chris Champion. And as you heard, it had a bunch of essays in it. Jordan Tucker didn't

00:17:58.820 even crack the spine. She didn't even look into the book. She was sent on a mission to destroy

00:18:03.640 Frances Whittowson, but she was sent in completely unarmed. All right, back to the tape.

00:18:09.200 So today, Techemlips is having, like, they're doing a sealed meeting with the Catholic Church

00:18:18.980 to obtain all the different documents from the residential school about all the different

00:18:27.020 children and all the different things that went on. If they were to uncover, you know, if

00:18:32.640 those files were to say, the files from the church were to say, yes, these children died,

00:18:38.620 would you accept that as being proof that you were wrong?

00:18:41.160 Well, we all know that children died at the residential schools. That's not the same thing 0.82

00:18:47.600 as saying that there's these clandestine burials in an apple orchard. We have death certificates.

00:18:54.620 I'm saying if there's, you know.

00:18:56.500 If they say, if the records say that a bunch of priests murdered children, would I accept that?

00:19:02.620 Yes, if there were records that said that. But that's not going to happen. And it's a ridiculous

00:19:09.220 assertion. We don't have any parent who's saying that their child never came home. Who are those 0.86

00:19:15.880 215 children who are buried in the apple orchard? It doesn't make any sense. And journalists need to

00:19:23.700 be using their critical thinking skills and their journalistic abilities and stop pandering to this 0.92

00:19:31.780 ridiculous kind of claim.

00:19:33.660 I don't, I don't need, I don't need you to raise your tone like that. 0.65

00:19:37.660 I'm just, I'm getting a bit tired of the, the sorts of claims that are being made after three years

00:19:43.880 and have been called all every name in the book and having incompetent journalists who cannot do

00:19:49.880 their jobs.

00:19:50.840 I, I don't need you, but that's not helpful for our line of questioning right now.

00:19:56.060 Well, it doesn't matter at all. What do you think? Uh, you, uh, you, you do your job.

00:20:01.540 I'm going to keep asking my questions, which is my job. And what I'm asking you to do now is not to

00:20:08.000 yell at me.

00:20:09.180 Well, I'm not yet.

00:20:09.760 Okay, stop, stop there. Frances Widowson has a strong voice. It's a confident voice. And she's 0.72

00:20:16.400 certainly projecting. And maybe that comes from being a lifetime of a professor. I wouldn't say

00:20:21.220 she's shouting or yelling. I think she's had the same, it would be, she's talking like this,

00:20:26.380 a strong confidence voice. I mean, it's, I would say it's a loud voice. It's a strong voice. But

00:20:32.240 to see she's yelling at this journalist shows that the, it's all about the journalist and her

00:20:37.820 feelings and the microaggressions and her rainbow glasses. And, you know, the, the fact that she is 0.86

00:20:45.620 saying, you can't talk to me that way, the reporter's job is to observe and report what

00:20:52.080 she observes, not to fight with the, the source. If, if Frances Widowson is a little loud or a little

00:21:00.500 noisy, deal with it. Don't have a pout in the middle of your job. You are not the story, Jordan

00:21:08.580 Tucker. You, I mean, I think it was slightly mean of Frances Widowson to say, I'm sick of dealing with 1.00

00:21:14.880 ignorant journalists. I think it's true here. And, you know, imagine if your killer question is, 0.98

00:21:23.360 Professor Widowson, what if today the Catholic Church admits they murdered 215 people?

00:21:31.680 Okay, well, that would be quite a bombshell. Imagine hanging your hat on that. All right,

00:21:40.380 I got to resist because I'm going to be jumping in every second. Otherwise,

00:21:43.440 watch some more of Jordan Tucker, the CBC versus Frances, Frances Widowson.

00:21:48.280 That gets in the way of my ability to ask you the questions. Okay. All right. So who has,

00:21:55.440 who invited you to the Quesnel Council? I'm not going to say that because there's terrible

00:22:00.300 censoriousness that's happening in Quesnel and people are punishing people for discussing this book.

00:22:06.240 So it's not fair to these people. Was it someone related to the mayor? I'm not going to answer that

00:22:11.920 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?

00:22:25.940 Demands for punishment and trying to actually have censure against people who try to speak freely

00:22:34.740 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

00:23:11.020 defamation, which should be pursued in the courts, to encourage people rather than discussing things

00:23:18.360 and trying to understand things more. But to punish people and to ruin their livelihood

00:23:24.500 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. 0.99

00:23:35.880 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

00:23:48.400 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

00:23:58.560 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? 0.99

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

00:25:17.220 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,

00:25:26.860 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

00:25:46.740 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.

00:27:42.820 Whoa, stop right there. Stop right there.

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?

00:29:57.260 Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Really?

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

00:30:55.200 organization. All right, play some more tape.

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 0.83

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, 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

00:33:06.960 got a job as a professor, she was probably the first woman in the whole department. 1.00

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 0.97

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? 0.99

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 0.90

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 1.00

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 0.96

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 1.00

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 0.55

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 1.00

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, 1.00

00:45:57.420 um, you know, why it would happen that they would all be so, uh, so stupid. If, if that's, 1.00

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

00:46:26.240 to provide that evidence.

00:46:29.280 And they have provided it.

00:46:30.820 What's that?

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?

00:46:41.420 I am. Of course I am.

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.

00:46:56.500 What documentation?

00:46:58.840 There's enough social and archeological consensus to say that.

00:47:03.460 Social consensus.

00:47:05.300 To say that we can just believe indigenous people and move on with trying to. 1.00

00:47:09.980 Just believe them.

00:47:10.900 Just.

00:47:11.000 Do our best.

00:47:11.660 There's a social consensus. Just believe it.

00:47:14.260 Believe this reporter.

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.

00:47:32.860 I think that.

00:47:47.200 Oh my God.

00:47:48.160 This is.

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? 0.98

00:47:55.820 I believe in the truth. I think the truth is important. Do you think the truth is important? 0.93

00:48:00.460 I'm going to ask, um, do you?

00:48:08.920 I think she's, she's about to cry. I think she's about to cry.

00:48:16.300 Boy, it's a long pause.

00:48:20.240 You should read Grave Error.

00:48:22.460 That's good advice.

00:48:23.700 Uh, I think you really need to read that book because you do not have an understanding at all.

00:48:29.140 Ma'am, I don't need that from you. Thank you.

00:48:32.040 Well, you are a seriously incompetent journalist. 0.99

00:48:36.520 Truth. 0.99

00:48:37.240 And this is what the CBC has sunk to these days.

00:48:41.120 It's true.

00:48:41.640 I don't think that you accusing me or shouting at me is very helpful.

00:48:44.980 No one's shouting, sister.

00:48:45.840 To your case.

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.

00:48:54.300 Please stop. Please stop. That's enough.

00:48:57.540 This interview is now over. Thank you for your time.

00:49:00.740 Well, you're going to hear more about this.

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.

00:49:24.760 I just had missed it.

00:49:25.860 So I'm a bit late off the draw.

00:49:28.060 But everything that happened there, you know it's still happening.

00:49:31.860 I've just never seen an interview like that.

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.

00:49:43.880 I don't need any facts.

00:49:45.280 I'm going to make up facts.

00:49:46.700 And when you tell me they're wrong, I'm going to say stop browbeating me.

00:49:49.840 Stop shouting at me.

00:49:51.180 That was just incredible.

00:49:52.760 And you know what?

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. 0.92

00:50:03.060 What a shame.

00:50:03.860 And what a shame that the CBC is full of Jordan Tuckers. 0.99

00:50:07.380 That's our interview for today.

00:50:10.340 Sorry, that's our that's my monologue.

00:50:13.420 That's my monologue for the day.

00:50:15.280 Really, it was Frances Whitteson's monologue.

00:50:17.360 Stay with us.

00:50:18.300 More ahead.

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. 0.73

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. 0.66

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.

00:51:18.400 And he declined to do so.

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.

00:51:44.060 He now lives in Russia.

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?

00:52:04.940 What does it mean for Taiwan?

00:52:06.520 I have no idea.

00:52:08.500 But if there is someone who knows, it's probably our next guest.

00:52:11.800 His name is Gordon G. Chang.

00:52:13.280 He's an essential person to follow online.

00:52:15.840 And what a pleasure to have him join us now.

00:52:17.780 Gordon, thank you so much for coming back.

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.

00:52:43.040 It was very clear.

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.

00:53:05.120 But they're also in the battle as well.

00:53:08.860 So clearly, China across-the-board support.

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.

00:54:03.340 But that deal fell apart very quickly.

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.

00:54:52.060 Is that a symbolic force?

00:54:55.260 Is it a large enough force to make a dent?

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.

00:55:07.500 That might enter the narrative of this battle.

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.

00:56:04.520 Actually, they were in Kursk.

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. 0.72

00:56:34.520 So again, what we're seeing is close connections among Pyongyang, Moscow, and Beijing.

00:56:41.180 Wow.

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, 0.95

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. 0.75

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. 0.88

00:59:05.580 Would that be a sign of hope for Taiwan? 0.96

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. 0.56

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.

01:00:30.220 And I actually think that that's right.

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.

01:01:03.540 So this is, it's all a demonstration effect.

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. 0.66

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.

01:01:41.500 Has that happened at all in Asia?

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.

01:02:17.760 In Taiwan, they're also increasing spending.

01:02:21.500 But there is a political issue because the Kuomintang, the KMT, has been blocking increased military expenditures.

01:02:31.020 So this has been a difficult slog.

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. 0.99

01:02:47.620 So this will be important.

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.

01:02:58.580 Let me pivot from military talk to economics.

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.

01:03:23.680 What is Trump doing now?

01:03:25.420 Is he appeasing China economically?

01:03:29.860 Is he just as tough economically as he is militarily?

01:03:33.260 I find it hard to keep up, frankly.

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?

01:03:50.040 I wish I knew.

01:03:51.300 This is not very clear.

01:03:55.460 And I'm not even sure that Trump understands it.

01:03:58.380 We know certain things.

01:03:59.820 And that is, they had a May 12th agreement on tariffs.

01:04:03.720 It was important.

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.

01:04:15.580 I hope that they will.

01:04:17.260 We may get some sort of framework out of 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.

01:04:55.860 But Putin didn't reciprocate.

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.

01:05:30.160 We don't know if that will come to pass.

01:05:32.920 But my general feeling is the less we talk with China, the better it will be for us. 1.00

01:05:38.360 Because talking has just not accomplished what we have wanted to over the last three and a half decades.

01:05:44.160 You know, it's interesting.

01:05:46.220 I mean, Trump had that phrase about Iran.

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.

01:06:17.240 Let me ask you one final question.

01:06:19.500 You mentioned Xi Jinping.

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.

01:06:34.840 And these things are done behind closed doors.

01:06:37.200 What is the state of affairs of Xi Jinping?

01:06:39.340 How old is he these days anyways?

01:06:41.100 Is there an heir apparent?

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.

01:06:51.360 Is there any hope for that?

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.

01:08:06.740 But we really don't know.

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.

01:08:22.420 Maybe.

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.

01:08:46.700 Well, we learned so much from talking to you.

01:08:49.780 We're always grateful for your time and expertise.

01:08:52.240 Gordon G. Chang, great to see you.

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.

01:09:02.320 We're grateful to have you.

01:09:03.200 Take care, my friend, and we'll talk to you again soon.

01:09:05.500 Thank you so much, Ezra.

01:09:06.520 All right. Take care.

01:09:07.880 Stay with us.

01:09:08.620 More ahead.

01:09:16.700 Hey, welcome back.

01:09:19.520 Here's some letters to me.

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.

01:09:34.560 Robert Perizzo commented saying,

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.

01:09:49.680 You know, I say this a lot.

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.

01:10:06.640 Jane Vandervleet commented,

01:10:08.760 Both stories today are anger, anger-making.

01:10:12.660 Thanks, Ezra.

01:10:13.580 Well, it's true.

01:10:15.400 It's true.

01:10:16.100 The world is a frustrating place.

01:10:17.760 And I suppose there are gentler sources of information than Rebel News.

01:10:22.100 But I don't know.

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.

01:10:31.080 We've got some videos coming out.

01:10:32.400 And my friend Lincoln Jay just returned from right near Roxham Road.

01:10:37.800 There's a new crossing.

01:10:39.380 It's not at 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.

01:10:46.540 So we'll have some very exciting news.

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.

01:11:02.720 She is at her sentencing.

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.

01:11:37.280 But there's no jail 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.

01:11:53.960 Absolutely shocking, abusive.

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.

01:12:26.460 It's our show for today.

01:12:27.800 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

01:12:32.420 Keep fighting for freedom.

01:12:35.500 Thank you.

01:12:35.960 Thank you.

01:12:36.140 Thank you.

01:12:37.340 Thank you.

01:12:39.120 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - July 22, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Frances Widdowson DESTROYS the CBC in scathing interview

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