Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Has Trudeau's leadership crippled the Canadian Armed Forces beyond repair？

00:00:00.000 You know, Justin Trudeau has tried to finish off the Canadian Armed Forces,

00:00:03.920 continuing the awful project that his father, Pierre Trudeau, started.

00:00:07.280 Well, today we've got a great guest, David Redman, a veteran,

00:00:11.140 and a bit of a scholar and a thinker when it comes to reviving the Canadian military.

00:00:15.020 You're really going to appreciate his comments today.

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00:01:40.980 Tonight, can the Canadian Armed Forces be revived after Trudeau has tried to destroy it?

00:01:54.760 A feature conversation with veteran David Redman.

00:01:58.200 It's December 31st, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.

00:02:00.860 You've got it for freedom!

00:02:04.060 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:02:07.200 I think 2025 is going to be a year of great change in Canada, a great change for the world.

00:02:21.200 Donald Trump is back as president, and what America does always echoes around the world.

00:02:26.700 In few places will it echo more than Canada.

00:02:28.940 One of Trump's beefs, and this is stretched back to his first term, is that many NATO countries were not carrying their load.

00:02:37.760 I remember the dramatic meetings when he would fly to Europe, be surrounded by NATO leaders, and he would scold them.

00:02:45.240 And I think they sort of, in a way, liked it.

00:02:48.500 They liked the fact that America was demanding that they live up to the promise.

00:02:53.560 And it wasn't just America being the Globocom. 0.77

00:02:57.460 Trudeau didn't do as well.

00:02:59.080 He took it personally.

00:03:00.340 Here's a great interaction between Trump and Trudeau, where Trump asks Trudeau,

00:03:06.980 what percentage of our GDP is being spent on defense?

00:03:10.600 And the target in NATO is 2%.

00:03:12.500 And watch Trudeau sort of fib, and Trump calling him out in a way that no Canadian journalist had done.

00:03:20.680 This was from Trump's first term.

00:03:22.700 Take a look.

00:03:23.560 Mr. President, Canada does not meet the 2% standard.

00:03:27.300 Should it have a plan to meet the 2% standard?

00:03:30.380 Well, we'll put them on a payment plan, you know?

00:03:32.340 We'll put Canada on a payment plan.

00:03:34.160 Ron, I'm sure the Prime Minister would love that.

00:03:36.180 What are you at?

00:03:37.040 What is your number?

00:03:38.860 The number we talk about is 70% increase over these past years, including, and for the coming years,

00:03:46.340 including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets,

00:03:53.340 we are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it.

00:03:59.260 Okay.

00:03:59.600 Where are you now in terms of your number?

00:04:02.200 We're at 1.35?

00:04:05.000 1.3.

00:04:06.120 1.4.

00:04:06.620 1.4.

00:04:07.660 1.4.

00:04:08.840 And continuing to move on.

00:04:10.360 They're getting there.

00:04:11.060 They know it's important to do that.

00:04:14.280 And their economy is doing well.

00:04:16.340 They'll get there quickly, I think.

00:04:17.740 And look, it's to their benefit.

00:04:18.940 And the President knows well, as well, that Canada has been there for every NATO deployment.

00:04:24.800 We have consistently stepped up, sent our troops into harm's way.

00:04:29.680 We're leading in Iraq.

00:04:31.520 We're leading in NATO, in Latvia.

00:04:34.380 We continue to step up.

00:04:36.400 Like most of our allies, there are some countries that, even though they might reach the 2%,

00:04:42.540 don't step up nearly as much.

00:04:44.560 And I think it's important to look at what is actually being done.

00:04:47.820 And the United States and all NATO allies know that Canada is a solid, reliable partner

00:04:53.020 that will continue to defend NATO and defend our interests.

00:04:56.600 And we do have tremendous coordination with radar, with all of the different things that,

00:05:01.600 you know, technologically, we have tremendous coordination between Canada and the United States.

00:05:05.560 While things are even worse, it won't surprise you to hear, although Trudeau has certainly

00:05:11.100 got the headlines for his bold support of Ukraine during the Russian-Ukraine war, announcing

00:05:18.060 weapon systems going over there.

00:05:20.320 In fact, my understanding is that only a single tank was actually delivered.

00:05:25.380 And much of the other weaponry was not because it was not up to standard.

00:05:29.840 It wasn't operational.

00:05:31.100 It wasn't co-operational with other equipment sent by our allies.

00:05:35.740 This rings true to me when I realized that Canada was not a participant in a major NATO

00:05:43.340 exercise this year.

00:05:45.460 We simply didn't have the stuff.

00:05:47.660 You might recall there used to be an annual sort of top gun fighter jet contest in Alberta,

00:05:54.400 in Cold Lake, Alberta, called Operation Maple Flag.

00:05:57.620 It was like a multinational training contest.

00:06:03.140 Canada simply hasn't hosted it.

00:06:05.060 And I think the reason is we can't keep up with the countries that have F-35s and F-22s

00:06:11.200 and F-16s and F-15s.

00:06:13.140 Our old CF-18s just don't do the job.

00:06:16.060 So what will happen in Canada if, as every poll suggests, Pierre Paglia becomes the new

00:06:22.480 prime minister?

00:06:23.200 We lack the American tradition of military service for our political class.

00:06:30.880 Trump himself did not serve in combat.

00:06:33.740 J.D. Vance, in fact, was at West Point, if my memory serves.

00:06:38.160 There is a tradition in American leaders to have a connection to the military.

00:06:42.820 Despite having no such personal connection, will Pierre Paglia rebuild the armed forces,

00:06:50.380 not just in terms of equipment and payment, but in terms of moral support, in terms of

00:06:56.440 giving it a proper mission, not just using it as a press release?

00:07:01.240 Joining us now to talk about this is someone who probably knows more than most.

00:07:04.880 His name is David Redmond.

00:07:06.800 For 27 years, he served in the Canadian Armed Forces before moving on to other public service

00:07:12.300 careers, including acting as an emergency preparedness officer in the Alberta government.

00:07:18.600 He recently published a lengthy essay in the C2C Journal, which is a conservative magazine.

00:07:26.260 You can find it at C2, the numeral 2, cjournal.ca.

00:07:30.260 The essay was called, Unfit for Duty, It is Time to Rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:07:36.700 And David Redmond joins us now.

00:07:38.540 Pleasure to have you on the show.

00:07:39.560 Thanks for taking the time.

00:07:41.380 Thank you for having me.

00:07:42.740 Well, a 33-page essay, at least that's what it is when I printed it out, that's more than

00:07:48.460 just an op-ed or an editorial.

00:07:50.580 That is a deep review of our armed forces.

00:07:53.340 I think the timing of your deep review is perfect, because I think the Conservative Party of Canada

00:08:00.600 knows that it will be forming government probably within six or nine months, and it's probably

00:08:06.820 starting to think, we better put some meat on the bones of our plans.

00:08:10.860 Is that why you wrote it?

00:08:12.300 You want to influence the incoming government?

00:08:15.680 I wrote it to get any government, probably the Conservative government, to realize the

00:08:24.300 state of the armed forces.

00:08:26.240 But even more than that, back in March, I published on Frontier Centre for Public Policy an article

00:08:32.400 on the complete set of six national interests that define a democracy, one of which, of course,

00:08:38.200 is national security.

00:08:39.360 And a part of national security is the Canadian Armed Forces for our country, national defence.

00:08:45.680 And I've been watching with absolute horror what's happened to our military over the past

00:08:51.860 nine years, and like many veterans, I found it completely unacceptable. 0.96

00:08:57.580 And so what I tried to do is to put into a paper what's happened to our armed forces, why

00:09:05.300 we are where we are, and then to present a solution, because you never just bring a challenge in

00:09:11.420 the army, you always have to show up with a solution.

00:09:13.720 So if you read the paper, the first half defines the problem and states how we got where we

00:09:19.580 are.

00:09:20.400 And the second half presents what's needed to overcome the challenge, and then an actual

00:09:25.700 process to implement what's needed.

00:09:29.480 You know, I find it interesting how Donald Trump is sort of threatening NATO.

00:09:35.700 It's sort of like his tariff threat.

00:09:37.600 I don't think he wants the or else to come through.

00:09:40.440 It's just he wants to get people's attention.

00:09:42.440 He sort of says, if you don't carry your weight, then we're out of here.

00:09:47.500 Well, he doesn't want to leave.

00:09:49.120 If he wanted to leave, he would just leave.

00:09:50.960 He's trying to get their attention.

00:09:52.800 I think people are deliberately misinterpreting him because they would rather quarrel than fix

00:09:58.340 the problem at hand.

00:09:59.660 I think his style works.

00:10:03.780 I think Trump's threats have really coaxed Europeans to start to chip in more to their

00:10:08.640 military.

00:10:09.780 It hasn't worked with Canada yet, has it?

00:10:13.160 No, it definitely hasn't.

00:10:15.340 And when I hear things coming out of this government's mouth, it's the same as before.

00:10:21.500 Back when they were first elected in 2015, they promised new fighter jets, they promised

00:10:27.380 new ships, they promised new tanks and equipment for the army, and not a single one of the things

00:10:33.980 they promised in 2015 has come true.

00:10:36.880 So anything that they promise now in a knee-jerk reaction to the threats coming from south of

00:10:42.880 the border, I believe it's just that, a knee-jerk reaction, once again rhetoric, which won't

00:10:48.240 have any substance.

00:10:49.060 You know, we absolutely depend on the United States to protect us.

00:10:55.900 I was just talking with Gordon Chang about the Chinese hot air balloon spy device.

00:11:02.920 It was tracked over Canada.

00:11:05.960 I think it was the Yanks who first spotted it.

00:11:08.300 I don't know if it was the Canadians.

00:11:10.080 And it was allowed just to traverse our whole country before it was taken down in the States.

00:11:15.140 And I just, I don't know if we would have even spotted it.

00:11:18.020 I mean, correct me if my facts are wrong on that.

00:11:20.180 I don't think we would have spotted it without them.

00:11:22.920 And there might come a time, if we continue on our path of just sort of demoralizing and

00:11:29.300 defunding our armed forces, when some hot air balloon, some ship, some country plants a flag

00:11:38.640 on some Arctic island, we find out about it months later by accident, and we literally

00:11:45.980 can't do anything about it.

00:11:47.880 Like, I think that would be very much on brand for the Canada of the 2020s if we continue on

00:11:54.400 our path.

00:11:54.900 I agree with you.

00:11:57.160 And that's why I wrote the paper.

00:11:59.460 And you'll see, I put the solution in five steps.

00:12:05.520 And the first is to define the purpose.

00:12:08.020 You can't just suddenly say you're going to buy 12 submarines.

00:12:11.760 It's a joke.

00:12:12.800 You have to define what is the purpose of the Armed Forces of Canada.

00:12:16.760 And from that falls the combat capability of the personnel, and then the appropriate equipment

00:12:24.040 for those combat-capable personnel.

00:12:27.060 And the whole idea that Canada at this point has less operationally deployable personnel than

00:12:35.040 the New York City Police Department is not only makes me ashamed, it's terrifying.

00:12:42.020 The sovereignty of our country should be our number one aim.

00:12:46.800 And for the Armed Forces of Canada, it should be the number one mission, not their sole mission,

00:12:51.100 but their number one mission.

00:12:52.860 And to do that, they have to have combat-capable people that are capable to deploy on every type

00:12:58.720 of mission.

00:12:59.380 And as you use as an example, the sovereignty of our North, I believe we need to have mission-oriented

00:13:07.640 soldiers in every province and territory in Canada.

00:13:10.440 We need an Air Force and a Navy that can protect our three coasts and our airspace.

00:13:16.680 But we need to be able to deploy surge capacity into every corner of our country as our number

00:13:22.780 one mission in response to any threat.

00:13:26.740 Then we need to understand that we share this continent with one of the largest superpowers

00:13:32.740 in the world, probably at the present time still the largest.

00:13:36.200 And our neighbour to our south counts on us to make sure that we can at least do our part

00:13:41.240 to defend our piece of the continent and not allow it to become a hotbed of international

00:13:47.680 organisations which mean to do both us and them harm.

00:13:51.960 So I believe the Canadian Armed Forces has the outward-looking mission while other members

00:13:56.240 of our national security, our border services, our Coast Guard, our police take care of the

00:14:02.760 internal measures, but with an Armed Forces that's capable of backing them up from coast

00:14:08.020 to coast to coast on land, sea, and air.

00:14:11.040 You know, I was just thinking about the different values.

00:14:14.240 Like you say the purpose of a military is very important.

00:14:18.200 And I've started thinking about that.

00:14:19.580 I'm leafing through your paper here where you talk about purpose.

00:14:22.280 Because so many of the reasons and the morale and the mission of a military are at odds with

00:14:31.160 the mindset of the Trudeau regime.

00:14:33.880 And I'm not particularly picking on him because I think there's been a decline under all parties

00:14:39.800 over the last 50 years.

00:14:41.700 But if you deracinate your country, if you pull out the roots, if you erase your history, if you take

00:14:49.860 Sir John A. McDonald off the $10 bill, if you change your anthem, if you replace lethality of the

00:14:56.100 military with wokeness, if you call your country a country of genociders, if you say we're a post-national

00:15:06.140 state, we're really just an address, and you give away your citizenship to anyone who, you know,

00:15:12.700 says they're a foreign student, and now we have a million folks.

00:15:16.060 Like if you devalue your country so much, of course you're against the military.

00:15:22.200 Because the military is the opposite of all those things.

00:15:24.660 It's about identity.

00:15:25.900 It's about pride.

00:15:26.660 It's about excellence, not, you know, affirmative action.

00:15:30.380 It's about distinguishing our country from foreign countries. 1.00

00:15:33.360 It's about saying that our judgment is superior to that of our enemies.

00:15:37.660 Like it would almost be impossible for someone like Justin Trudeau to support the military

00:15:43.720 because every single thing a military requires or a military is, is contrary to his worldview.

00:15:51.640 Like you could not have a strong, proud, effective military run by Justin Trudeau because it's

00:15:57.800 an anathema to everything he believes.

00:15:59.560 What do you think of that?

00:16:00.140 Okay, I want to answer you in three parts.

00:16:04.120 The first part is why I wrote the paper back in March.

00:16:08.780 Canada, 2024, a strong, resilient nation or a fractured country.

00:16:17.880 And in it, I defined the six national interests that form any democracy.

00:16:22.060 The first two of those is unity, and the second is national security.

00:16:26.120 And then there's good governance, rights and freedoms, economic prosperity and growth, and

00:16:32.540 individual and societal well-being.

00:16:34.780 Those are the six.

00:16:36.020 But the first two, unity and sovereignty, without them, the other four might as well not exist.

00:16:42.420 And what we've seen in the last nine years is a direct attack on those first two elements.

00:16:49.640 The unity of our nation and the unity of our citizens, the intentionally fragmenting and

00:16:55.420 breaking up of the members of our Canadian public, and a direct attack on all elements of national

00:17:02.100 security, not just the Canadian Armed Forces, our intelligence services, our policing services,

00:17:07.780 our courts, all of the pieces that fit into our complete umbrella of national security.

00:17:15.460 And the largest tool that was used against it was massive and overwhelming immigration. 0.57

00:17:20.040 So then I want to go to the second part of what you said.

00:17:23.720 When we look at a country, it's the common ethics and values that form the unity of a nation.

00:17:30.100 And when you intentionally attack the common ethics and values, you are intentionally trying

00:17:38.040 to erode the country.

00:17:39.700 And I always use the country of Switzerland as a good example of a country where you can have

00:17:44.320 three cultures, Italian, German, and French, but with one binding set of ethics and values.

00:17:51.440 And I believe that the mass immigration that we've seen coming into our country has intentionally 1.00

00:17:56.160 attacked both the unity and our national security.

00:17:59.680 So then the third part of what you've said is about the Armed Forces specifically.

00:18:05.840 I presented two years ago to the National Standing Committee on Defence at their request when the Trudeau

00:18:13.920 government was trying to re-roll one-third of the Armed Forces of Canada to be the emergency

00:18:19.120 management force to take care of wildfires and floods.

00:18:24.240 The Armed Forces of Canada is your combat-capable force.

00:18:28.960 Its job is to defend our country.

00:18:31.120 It is to fight.

00:18:32.640 It is not to do anything else.

00:18:34.640 It's not for social experiments.

00:18:37.040 It's not for fighting wildfires and forest fires.

00:18:40.320 It is to fight an enemy using every possible tool to destroy them or neutralize them.

00:18:48.320 And so every day that you take away from a combat-capable force, you are taking away a day of them

00:18:54.720 training.

00:18:55.440 And as I say clearly in the paper, to make a sergeant, a sergeant who commands a section of 10 takes 10 years,

00:19:03.440 because you have to teach individual skills, collective skills, then battalion skills, brigade skills,

00:19:10.800 divisional skills.

00:19:12.000 You need to incorporate them into a complete overall environment.

00:19:15.920 You need to give them their personal trade as well as the collective trade to work and fight together.

00:19:22.880 People don't even know the words dash down, crawl, observe, sights fire when they come in

00:19:27.360 as a citizen.

00:19:28.480 But they have to be taught over and over and over and refreshed and then continuous training

00:19:33.120 to keep their skills at an intense level.

00:19:35.760 So if you do anything that takes away from the training cycle and the deployment cycle

00:19:41.440 of a combat-capable force, you are eroding that capability.

00:19:46.080 There is many other people to do all those other roles.

00:19:50.240 Our border services, our police services, emergency management, which is in every province and

00:19:56.080 territory of Canada, takes care of wildfires, floods and tornadoes.

00:20:00.320 You don't need the armed forces to do that.

00:20:02.960 So the three parts, yes, there's an intentional erosion of the unity and the national security,

00:20:08.960 all elements of it in our country.

00:20:10.880 There is the breakdown of that ability within the armed forces to do their core mission,

00:20:19.600 which is to be combat-capable on a moment's notice to deploy anywhere within our country

00:20:25.600 against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but also to be able to deploy in support of our allies in

00:20:31.680 North America and wherever else the government of Canada determines is in the national interest of

00:20:37.840 our country abroad in support of friends and allies.

00:20:42.560 You know, you're talking about the core mission of the military and you're right.

00:20:46.800 It's not...

00:20:47.360 I remember a few decades ago, there was a bad snowstorm in Toronto.

00:20:51.360 And at the time, the mayor, Mel Lastman, wanted the military to come shovel.

00:20:56.240 You know, every single person...

00:20:57.440 I was in the army during that period.

00:20:59.520 I served from 72 to 99.

00:21:02.960 And a very good friend of mine that I'd served in Egypt with back in 1978 was the commander of

00:21:08.160 Land Forces Western Area.

00:21:10.160 And he phoned me.

00:21:11.200 I was in Borden, Ontario, and he was a joke, but he called me up.

00:21:15.280 He was a general and he called me up and he says,

00:21:17.120 Dave, you haven't happened to see a battalion driving down the road past you.

00:21:21.200 I seem to have lost my immediate rapid reaction force.

00:21:25.280 I'm told they're on their way to shovel snow in Toronto.

00:21:29.440 The two of us laughed, but it wasn't funny. 0.96

00:21:32.240 It was absolutely ridiculous.

00:21:34.560 I was also there for the ice storm.

00:21:36.800 I closed my complete training establishment and deployed 300 soldiers to help restore power in

00:21:45.040 both Ontario and Quebec.

00:21:47.200 Now, don't get me wrong.

00:21:48.880 Canadian soldiers are extremely proud when they can be used as the force of last resort.

00:21:55.280 To help in emergency management tasks in our country.

00:21:58.640 But every minute of every day that they are away from their training and deployment missions

00:22:04.160 to fight for our country is a day that their skills diminish.

00:22:08.720 And so we should only use them as the force of last resort.

00:22:12.320 And what we're seeing in this last nine year period is the armed forces being called routinely

00:22:18.000 by premiers of provinces, by mayors of towns to deploy because they have failed to invest

00:22:24.640 properly in their own emergency management.

00:22:25.840 That's exactly right.

00:22:26.640 That's exactly it.

00:22:28.080 And they have failed to prepare.

00:22:30.720 And it's like, oh, we'll call the army.

00:22:32.400 They'll do anything.

00:22:34.720 You know, and and I think of one of the and by the way, you know, I remember growing up,

00:22:41.040 people used to say, well, Canada were two things were the best health care in the world.

00:22:45.440 No one says that anymore.

00:22:47.120 And we're the peacekeepers.

00:22:48.640 I don't know if we have any peacekeepers deployed anywhere.

00:22:51.600 I know there's a little force of Canadians in the Baltics, but they're not peacekeepers.

00:22:55.600 They're sort of with, I think, in Latvia or Estonia.

00:22:58.320 Correct me if I'm wrong.

00:22:59.360 But I mean, David, is it true that we don't actually have any Canadians

00:23:06.160 on a UN peacekeeping mission anywhere in the world?

00:23:09.120 Is that accurate to say?

00:23:10.160 To the best of my knowledge, we have individuals deployed in UN missions,

00:23:15.920 but we don't have formed units of any type.

00:23:18.960 And maybe I need to be a little more clear on the UN peacekeeping.

00:23:24.960 I served 72 to 99.

00:23:26.880 And so I did my share of United Nations peacekeeping missions.

00:23:31.040 And I would put it to you that while they were a great source of national pride at times,

00:23:36.640 their effectiveness was very limited because in almost every one of them,

00:23:41.200 there was no peace to keep unless the nations had already decided they wanted it.

00:23:46.400 The forces were routinely sent simply to give a cooling off period.

00:23:50.240 And most of the time that didn't work.

00:23:52.240 So peacekeeping missions are a bit of a misnomer.

00:23:56.480 Canadian forces deployed routinely in them.

00:23:58.960 And if you look in my paper, to me, it's not one of the missions that I support.

00:24:04.480 I support combat capable training and capability.

00:24:08.240 And every type of mission that is not focused on that diminishes the ability of our forces

00:24:15.840 to respond when the time is required.

00:24:18.000 Well, I agree completely.

00:24:19.600 I mean, peacekeepers are cast out of the country when the nations involved want to go to war.

00:24:25.520 Correct.

00:24:26.400 Often peacekeeping is used by third world countries as a source of revenue.

00:24:30.480 Because they get paid to peacekeep.

00:24:34.640 We've heard terrible stories about some peacekeepers, largely from third world countries as well,

00:24:39.600 engaging in sex trafficking.

00:24:43.680 I guess my only point was, even though it was only for bragging purposes 20 years ago,

00:24:49.120 we don't even have that anymore.

00:24:51.040 And the fact that, you know, I think the last mission we were on was when Justin Trudeau's mom

00:25:02.240 came back from a sort of an eco-tourism trip to Mali, Africa.

00:25:07.200 Like, his mom went there and came back and had a huddle with Justin.

00:25:12.160 And so he sent peacekeepers to Mali, a very dangerous country.

00:25:16.640 Thank God that mission ended with no casualties.

00:25:20.080 But I mean, it's so obvious that Trudeau does not believe the core mission of the military is

00:25:26.560 what you said.

00:25:27.200 It's not about lethality.

00:25:28.720 It's not about projecting force.

00:25:30.480 If you were to ask him or, and frankly, I think a lot of the entire political class,

00:25:35.360 I don't have to pick on Justin Trudeau.

00:25:36.880 The NDP would say the same.

00:25:38.080 The bloc would say the same.

00:25:39.280 And I bet you half the members of the conservative party who haven't thought

00:25:42.720 about it clearly would say the same.

00:25:43.840 I bet you 80% of the media, if you ask them the core purpose of the military, they would

00:25:51.360 not say it's to project force, to destroy or neutralize the other side, to protect our

00:25:56.960 territory.

00:25:58.240 They would talk about, like, I see an absurd story out of the UK.

00:26:02.240 They're thinking of having, I think it was in the UK, electric powered military vehicles

00:26:09.520 for carbon reduction reasons.

00:26:11.520 We saw under the Biden-Harris administration, an emphasis on transgenderism in the military. 0.99

00:26:18.000 These are other, and I mean, to me, they're ridiculous. 0.96

00:26:21.600 Other people might find them worthwhile. 0.66

00:26:23.680 But they certainly have nothing to do with lethality.

00:26:26.880 And I don't think the modern liberal state can embrace the idea of we are trying to kill the other

00:26:33.840 side as quickly and efficiently as possible.

00:26:36.960 I don't think they're even comfortable with the idea of a military.

00:26:40.160 What do you think about that?

00:26:42.000 Well, I start the paper with an ancient quote from ancient Greece.

00:26:47.600 It's anonymous, but every country has an army.

00:26:50.640 Theirs are somebody else's. 0.95

00:26:52.560 And the intent of that quote was, if you don't defend yourself, someone will come in and take

00:26:58.160 you.

00:26:58.720 And then you'll have their army with their foot on your neck.

00:27:02.720 Now, my entire point in the paper is to try and refocus that combat capability is the core

00:27:10.960 essence of any military.

00:27:12.400 And if you're not training to use it, you are using it.

00:27:16.320 But behind it all, and I think President-elect Trump said it very clearly in his first tenure,

00:27:24.160 that the threat of a fully combat capable force helps with diplomacy and that that's part of

00:27:31.680 the intent.

00:27:32.640 If you have in Canada a force that can be deployed and that people know is credible and it can cover

00:27:39.200 each of our partnership agreements, all of our alliance agreements, it can defend the sovereignty

00:27:45.600 of Canada and assist in the sovereignty of North America, and the world sees it as best in class,

00:27:52.400 even though it may not be the largest.

00:27:55.280 The mere threat of its use helps in all of our foreign affairs and diplomatic missions because

00:28:00.800 we are a credible nation.

00:28:02.480 We are exactly the opposite now.

00:28:04.960 People look at Canada.

00:28:06.400 Our alliances laugh at us, don't invite us to meetings, intentionally ignore our input.

00:28:12.240 Our foreign affairs people have great difficulty getting any credibility in the world because

00:28:17.840 they look at us and they know we're not a serious country and we don't take our national security and

00:28:23.040 part of that national defense seriously at all.

00:28:25.920 In fact, we have intentionally destroyed them.

00:28:29.040 Yeah.

00:28:29.280 I mean, in the last few years, I've heard the phrase AUKUS, which we never heard of before.

00:28:34.560 AUKUS is Australia, UK, and US.

00:28:38.160 Those three countries sort of smushed together into one word.

00:28:42.240 Well, who's missing from AUKUS?

00:28:44.400 We are.

00:28:45.600 We're still part of the Five Ives intelligence sharing network, though I'm not sure how much

00:28:50.080 our allies are sharing with us, given how the Chinese government has penetrated the parliament.

00:28:54.960 But we're just not even part of AUKUS.

00:28:56.560 We weren't even invited.

00:28:57.520 That's that's not just an alliance.

00:28:59.120 It's a they're buying equipment together that it's its own sort of treaty.

00:29:04.480 And that name is is a spin off of when I served.

00:29:08.000 It was called ABCA, the American, British, Canada, Australia brackets New Zealand.

00:29:13.280 New Zealand was what is in there as well.

00:29:15.600 And so it used to be ABCA and the sea was clearly us.

00:29:19.040 They formed AUKUS because they threw the sea out.

00:29:22.160 That's very sad, by the way.

00:29:24.160 I mean, we were disproportionately there in World War One, World War Two, in the late 40s.

00:29:32.000 I think we had the third largest Navy in the world.

00:29:34.080 We actually had an aircraft carrier for a while.

00:29:36.560 I mean, we had a whole beach, Juneau Beach, next to our allies, Juneau and Sword and Utah and,

00:29:44.880 you know, on Normandy, though, that's that Canada is gone.

00:29:49.760 And you can even see it in recruitment efforts.

00:29:52.320 I mean, how important it was to Justin Trudeau to have those tampon dispensers in the men's 1.00

00:29:59.920 bathrooms on military bases.

00:30:01.600 That was such a high priority.

00:30:04.160 But regular kit for the soldiers where they had to buy it themselves.

00:30:07.760 There's food banks every year on Canadian military bases.

00:30:10.640 We did a story once about one.

00:30:12.640 I think it was even CFP Borden when they had like Christmas hampers for soldiers who couldn't

00:30:19.120 afford to feed their families.

00:30:20.240 We did a story about it.

00:30:22.080 And we raised money to donate money to this base.

00:30:26.560 The government refused to take the check because it was too embarrassing.

00:30:29.920 We did an access to information request.

00:30:32.480 They needed the money, but they refused to take a gift to their Christmas hamper project because

00:30:38.480 they didn't want to be embarrassed.

00:30:40.080 But they found money for the tampon dispensers.

00:30:42.560 It's madness.

00:30:43.520 I mean, I suppose you're always going to have people who join the military no matter what.

00:30:48.240 But who would sign up for a military that's under-equipped, that's main job is shoveling 1.00

00:30:54.320 snow, that's ordered around based on the whim of Trudeau's mum, I talk about Molly, and that

00:31:01.200 is left out of all the action.

00:31:02.640 I mean, if you were a young Canadian man who wanted adventure and patriotism, you're probably

00:31:08.560 more likely to find it in the British Army or the American Army.

00:31:12.960 Absolutely.

00:31:13.520 In the Latvian deployment, there were serious, clear articles of soldiers buying their own

00:31:21.200 personal kit because the supply system couldn't supply it to them.

00:31:25.200 We know that we're supposed to be there training other forces how to fight and be combat capable

00:31:33.360 on equipment that we don't even have in our own armed forces here in Canada, air defense

00:31:39.280 systems and the munitions for our artillery.

00:31:43.840 The story goes on and on and on, and so that's why I wrote the paper to try and reorient

00:31:50.400 both our political class, but in particular Canadian citizens, and I hope they actually

00:31:56.720 read it and understand that combat capability is something that every country in the world

00:32:02.880 that's a serious nation has, and that all the things that we seem to be using our armed

00:32:09.040 forces for are incorrect.

00:32:12.160 And if you want to have a peacekeeping force, then make a peace corps and let someone, invite

00:32:21.520 someone, you know, I hear Mr. Trump, President-elect Trump, talking about perhaps it's time for

00:32:28.640 us to become a state.

00:32:30.160 For those who haven't read either my paper from March or this paper, the Monroe Doctrine was

00:32:35.920 a real thing back in the late 1800s after the Civil War in the US. It was felt that the United

00:32:42.960 States had the right to all of North America, including Mexico and Canada. And I hear people

00:32:49.040 talking about wanting to be part of the United States. Well, sir, I don't. I am a very proud Canadian.

00:32:56.000 Both my mother and father fought in World War II. Both were in the RCAF. My mother is a WAF.

00:33:01.440 My father is a pilot in the Pacific. My grandfather fought in the First World War in the trenches in

00:33:06.480 France as a Canadian in the first Canadian division. I understand from my travels, 27 years in the army

00:33:16.080 and some pretty awful places in the world, what it means to live in a democracy. But a democracy comes

00:33:23.600 with the responsibility to defend your rights and freedoms. And if you don't, you will lose them.

00:33:30.000 There was a very powerful presentation at the National Citizens Inquiry in Red Deer

00:33:35.680 in April 2023 by a lady who had grown up in the solidarity movement in Poland.

00:33:42.800 And her purpose coming to the NCI was to plead with Canadians to take their rights and freedoms, 0.90

00:33:49.840 which were totally demolished during the COVID incident, because she saw happening in Canada,

00:34:01.040 what had happened in Poland. And she did not, she fled Poland to get away from all of that 0.79

00:34:07.760 at the end of the solidarity movement. And she saw Poland reemerging in Canada,

00:34:12.640 and she couldn't believe it. If you don't defend your rights and freedoms,

00:34:15.760 you don't have them. And a country that isn't prepared to defend their rights and freedoms,

00:34:20.160 isn't a country worth defending. And that was in the white paper on defense

00:34:24.160 under the Croatian era, who then turned around and tried to destroy the armed forces at that time

00:34:29.680 in the 1990s. So the hypocrisy isn't new. But Canadians need to understand that this beautiful

00:34:36.480 country they live in is being demolished in front of them. With the protests, we see the Hamas supporters 1.00

00:34:42.560 in our streets, the Eritrean supporters in our streets, the Kalistani people in the streets, 0.74

00:34:48.080 fighting for wards that aren't part of Canada and don't represent the ethics and values of our country.

00:34:53.120 And it's time we took our democracy seriously and stopped bringing people into our country who don't 1.00

00:35:00.560 respect our ethics and values, but at the same time standing up for the people that do respect our

00:35:05.920 ethics and values and having a combat capable force that can defend our sovereignty within our own country.

00:35:13.040 Wow, you touched on a lot of things there, for sure. You know, when Trump, in his joking,

00:35:19.600 provocative way, he finds a sensitive spot and he keeps poking at it. And watching different Canadian

00:35:26.720 reactions to the 51st state thing is very illuminating. Your reaction is, you know, if you

00:35:33.920 value being Canadian, you got to keep it, you got to show it, you got to do something about it, not just

00:35:39.120 wine. I saw Jean Charest was saying, we should all be deeply offended. That's not an action plan.

00:35:45.040 That's an emotional response. Frankly, one of weakness and one of reaction. You know, there's an

00:35:52.240 old saying, you and what army? You know, as in you have a strong point of view, you believe in something,

00:35:57.680 okay, you and what army? And I think in his own way, Trump is trying to say, well, get a bloody army,

00:36:05.920 get a border, enforce the law. Like if you actually go to the beginning of this whole shenanigans with

00:36:11.120 Trump, he said to Canada Mexico, do me a favor and keep my main campaign promise for me before I even

00:36:18.560 take office, fix the border. Because we share a border where neighbors, you know, good fences make

00:36:23.680 good neighbors. The president of Mexico pretty much said yes right away. She grumbled a bit, but she said

00:36:29.760 yes. Only Canada went into this great hamlet like, you know, you know, soliloquy. How about

00:36:38.960 fix your border? If you think you're a sovereign country, prove it by fixing your border. If you

00:36:44.480 think you're an independent country, prove it by funding your army. In a way, Trump is saying things

00:36:52.480 that hurt feelings, I think that are pointing us towards, well, how about man up? How about fix our

00:37:00.160 problems? If you actually are deeply offended, as Jean Charest says he is, why not say, we'll show

00:37:06.160 those Americans, we'll have a strong border, we'll have a strong military, we won't let them push us

00:37:10.560 around. I think secretly that's what Trump wants. I don't think secretly. I think he's been quite open

00:37:17.840 in Canada about it. And let's be very clear. The United States has been calling us out for an awfully

00:37:23.920 long time. When Obama stood up in our legislature and said, we need more Canada, he wasn't talking

00:37:31.200 about feminism and women's issues. He was, if you go to the speech, he had just opened the whole

00:37:37.920 discussion with the fact that we weren't paying our way and meeting our NATO commitment. And when he said,

00:37:45.120 we need more Canada, he was saying, we need Canada to meet its 2% and to contribute militarily to NATO.

00:37:53.280 And Trump is just simply reiterating what's been said to Canada for an awfully long time.

00:37:58.720 When I served in uniform, back when I did three tours in Germany, from 72 to 99. And when we went on an

00:38:09.520 exercise in Germany, as part of a US or a German Corps, we're talking 130,000 troops deployed.

00:38:18.080 Canada was tiny, but we were respected because we had kept a full mechanized brigade group on the

00:38:25.440 ground and contributed with with good combat capability. And everyone said Canadian soldier

00:38:32.000 was worth 10 of any other soldiers, we just needed to have at least 10 times more to be credible.

00:38:37.840 And so that was being said in the 1980s. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last. But

00:38:43.920 if we don't take it seriously this time, there will be massive trade implications,

00:38:48.800 as there should be. If I can take you back to 1970, when Justin Trudeau's father was the prime

00:38:56.640 minister, and he destroyed the Canadian Armed Forces. When we had a country with 20,000 people,

00:39:02.720 we had an armed forces of 105,000. Pierre Trudeau came to power, cut it to 70,000 with the intention

00:39:09.360 of taking it to 50,000 and turning it into a peace corps until the NATO alliance said,

00:39:14.800 no main battle tank, no committed brigade group in Europe, no trade with Europe. Well,

00:39:22.000 we've come full circle under his son, only it's worse now.

00:39:25.600 Incredible. Well, I think your timing here is sound, because I do believe that 2025 will be the

00:39:33.680 year where Canada says goodbye to Justin Trudeau. In fact, it seems like half of his caucus want him

00:39:39.280 gone already. We're taping this show a couple of days before it goes to air. There's even a chance

00:39:44.320 by the time it airs, Trudeau will be given the boot, but I very much doubt that. I think that it's

00:39:50.240 important that the Conservative Party of Canada reassert the values that give rise to a strong

00:39:57.280 and self-respecting military, because it's not just about equipment and money. It's about the

00:40:03.280 ideas behind the military, why we have one, why we need one, the mindset of the people in the military,

00:40:09.360 what is their purpose and mission. And you're so right that we've lost our way. I've really enjoyed

00:40:14.800 talking with you over the course of the last half hour. Folks, if you want to read the very

00:40:19.760 detailed essay by our guest, you can find it at C2C Journal. That's with the numeral two,

00:40:26.640 C2C Journal. The essay is called Unfit for Duty. It is Time to Rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces. And

00:40:33.760 our guest has been David Redmond. Thanks so much for spending so much time with us.

00:40:38.800 Thank you, sir. All right. Well, there you have it. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:40:44.320 Headquarters to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - January 01, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Has Trudeau's leadership crippled the Canadian Armed Forces beyond repair？

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