Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ If you can damn a founding father of Canada, you condemn the memory of anyone else in Toronto

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Interesting show today. We're going to interview Jennifer Dundas,

00:00:04.100 a descendant of Henry Dundas, after whom Dundas, Ontario, and Dundas Street, and Young Dundas

00:00:10.000 Square, a lot of iconic places in Ontario were named. Well, Mayor Olivia Chow of Toronto wants

00:00:16.400 to unname them. She wants to cancel Henry Dundas. We'll talk about that. But first,

00:00:22.220 I want to invite you to go to rebelnewsplus.com. That's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:26.380 It's $8 a month, and you get the video version. I do the show every weekday. But more than

00:00:31.320 that, it's how we pay the bills around here at Rebel News, because we don't take any money

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00:00:40.680 on. You can subscribe at rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's show.

00:00:56.380 Tonight, will the city of Toronto cancel Henry Dundas 200 years after he helped free the

00:01:07.080 slaves? It's December 14th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:10.760 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:14.080 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.96

00:01:17.240 There's a Latin phrase, so of course I love it, damnatio memoriae, if I'm saying it right. 0.92

00:01:32.300 That means to condemn the memory of something, or usually someone. And what would happen is

00:01:39.460 a Roman emperor who had a rival, maybe his predecessor, maybe a brother, who would take

00:01:46.660 office and then do anything to eradicate any trace of his nemesis. Any statue would be destroyed,

00:01:55.580 or at least the face chiseled out. Any painting would be painting over. Any morguesaic would

00:02:01.380 be destroyed, and any law passed by that person would be repealed. The idea was to turn that

00:02:08.560 person and their entire works and their entire history into a wisp, a rumor, a nothing. Now,

00:02:14.980 we only know about the unsuccessful cases of damnatio memoriae, where there's a trace left,

00:02:22.400 where they missed a statue or a mosaic. We have no idea. How could we know if it was actually

00:02:28.560 successful on anyone? Can you imagine that? If we simply had an entire chapter of our history gone

00:02:35.540 because someone didn't like a rival. How barbaric, how uncivilizational, how ahistorical. Well,

00:02:45.160 you may know, you may be thinking, well, we are doing that today, aren't we? I am in Toronto,

00:02:49.740 where at Queen's Park, which is the name of the provincial parliament, there is an enormous statue

00:02:56.060 of Sir John A. MacDonald, the founder of this country. But it is in a giant wooden sarcophagus,

00:03:03.320 a coffin built around Sir John A., so you never have to look at him again. He's been stripped

00:03:10.080 from our $10 bill, and they're certainly not stopping there. In fact, if you can

00:03:14.940 damn the memory of the founding father of Confederation, you can damn the memory of anyone

00:03:21.200 else, and Toronto's amongst the worst of it. They renamed Ryerson University because of something he 0.99

00:03:26.460 allegedly did. And 200 years ago, there was a great statesman, a little more than that, named

00:03:31.360 Henry Dundas, who was a key political leader in the British Empire and had roots in Ontario.

00:03:39.100 And it is after him that the town of Dundas and Ontario was named, Dundas Street. And if you've

00:03:45.480 ever been to Toronto, you may know that in the downtown, there's this lively square. It's sort of

00:03:50.920 Canada's version of Times Square. There's theaters, there's restaurants, there's giant billboard ads,

00:03:57.940 and it's teeming with people and buskers and food trucks. That's called Young Dundas Square.

00:04:05.380 But wouldn't you know it? Today's damnatio memoriae practitioners, today's censors and cancel

00:04:13.920 culturers. They've drawn a target on Henry Dundas, and they actually propose to rip out the name,

00:04:22.780 to rename everything in the city that bears the word Dundas, including libraries and roads, and

00:04:28.960 yeah, 4,500 businesses. Here's Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, a city wracked by crime, homelessness,

00:04:37.800 high taxes, transportation issues. No, she has a higher priority. She must condemn the memory 0.80

00:04:45.160 of a man she knows very little about. Listen to Olivia Chow, the socialist mayor,

00:04:50.660 condemning Henry Dundas and getting her facts wrong, by the way. Take a look.

00:04:53.660 When it comes to renaming Dundas, some people have drawn the comparison to

00:04:57.900 the renaming of Centennial Stadium. People have said, you know, if you're going to rename

00:05:05.020 Dundas, costly crow says, because of a controversial figure like Dundas, why would you go about

00:05:12.060 and name a stadium after someone with an equally controversial background? Is that not, you know,

00:05:19.480 speaking up both sides of your mouth?

00:05:23.000 Dundas delayed the cancellation and the abolition of slavery 0.65

00:05:31.460 for many years. He also promoted taking children, young girls and boys, to bring them, take them away

00:05:44.760 from their parents and bring them to England, to other parts of Europe as slaves so they could 1.00

00:05:55.520 multiply, procreate, so there will be enough people, enough labor, slave labor, in order to service 0.92

00:06:05.440 the plantations. Surely you're not comparing a slave owner. Well, and it's not, I don't know whether

00:06:14.640 it's a slave owner or not. Well, but allow me to finish. The motion that then the Councillor

00:06:24.560 Moist would be bringing forward addressed this. I do know the pain of losing a loved one. I understand that.

00:06:35.360 That is why I supported Councillor Ainslie motion to name a football stadium because I understood what

00:06:47.040 that meant for the Ford family. I certainly understood how painful it was for a young person to die

00:06:55.740 prematurely. And yeah, that's why it's in front of the agenda today.

00:07:02.880 Could you imagine spending, the new estimate is $12.7 million. Of course, it'll be many times that.

00:07:09.460 But what about the fact that if there's someone 200 years ago who doesn't meet our latest political

00:07:16.620 fashion, even if it's a slur against them, a defamation that they can't defend, what about

00:07:21.160 the idea that we simply tear things down, tear down our history? It's actually, if you read the book

00:07:29.000 1984, what the hero of the book Winston Smith did for a living, he would go into work and every day

00:07:33.880 he would rewrite historical accounts to change them to fit with political fashions. Well, I've got some

00:07:39.580 strong views on this subject, but I'm not an expert in it. But fortunately, we have someone joining us

00:07:45.760 today who is. Her name is Jennifer Dundas. And as you can detect, she's actually a descendant of Henry

00:07:54.000 Dundas. And she is one of the Dundas family members who is campaigning against this eradication of our

00:08:02.420 history, campaigning against this Roman practice of damnatio memoriae, this past tense cancel culture.

00:08:10.300 And she joins us now via Skype. Jennifer, what a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for taking the time.

00:08:15.520 Thank you so much, Ezra. A pleasure to be here.

00:08:17.820 Well, it's troubling to me that we want to destroy our past. And in that brief conversation that we

00:08:25.560 played where Mayor Olivia Chow was talking about Henry Dundas, you can see she has a very weak grasp

00:08:31.300 of who he is, who he was, and what he did. She accuses him of being a slaveholder, then immediately

00:08:35.980 pulls that back. I mean, she really knows nothing about the man. Why don't you tell us, as someone

00:08:41.400 who was descended from him and someone who has studied him, obviously, who exactly was Henry Dundas?

00:08:47.400 And why has he for two centuries been celebrated in Ontario? Why are so many things named after him?

00:08:55.340 Tell me the truth about Henry Dundas.

00:08:58.860 Those are a lot of questions that I could go on for a long time about. But I'll just start by telling you

00:09:04.700 the big picture about Henry Dundas. He was the most powerful politician in Scotland for a good

00:09:11.100 three decades at the end of the 18th century, early 19th. And was a secretary of state, including

00:09:17.900 home secretary, a war secretary during the Revolutionary Wars with France. And during that

00:09:23.940 time, the abolition movement in Britain rose up. He was actually one of the very first participants

00:09:33.720 in that. In 1776, he had just been elected. He was the Lord Advocate, which is like a solicitor

00:09:43.160 general, attorney general for Scotland. And he volunteered his time. He worked pro bono to

00:09:50.540 represent a black slave who was fighting for his freedom in the Scottish courts. And he took 0.93

00:09:56.180 that case up to Scotland's highest court. And not only did he win freedom for that slave who

00:10:01.880 had been brought to Scotland from Jamaica, he won a declaration from the court that nobody could be

00:10:08.320 a slave on Scottish soil. Really big decision. He made legal history basically in Scotland

00:10:15.440 when he won that case for Joseph Knight. A couple of decades later, not quite, the abolition movement

00:10:26.680 regarding the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade picks up some speed. It had been rumbling

00:10:33.020 for a long time. But William Wilberforce brought that to the forefront of Parliament's agenda.

00:10:39.780 And he was trying to get abolition of the slave trade alone. Henry Dundas stepped in and said,

00:10:47.680 you're not going to be successful. The forces lined up against this are too powerful. And it will just

00:10:57.220 go underground. And the Caribbean slave owners will continue buying their slaves from other traders.

00:11:03.580 It just won't work. So if you really want to shut down the slave trade, you have to shut down the 0.96

00:11:09.080 slave trade and slavery together. And so he brought forward a motion to that effect,

00:11:14.960 and said that the abolition should happen gradually. And his vision was that by within seven or eight

00:11:24.680 years, the entire slave trade would be abolished. And within a generation, slavery itself would be

00:11:33.520 abolished because every child born to a slave would be born free and would have to be educated at

00:11:39.640 the expense of the owner of the parents. So he, those, that was his contribution.

00:11:48.540 Now he is.

00:11:49.020 Let me stop you there just for one second. I'm sorry to interrupt.

00:11:52.160 Are you, I just want to get this point clear, because I think this is very interesting,

00:11:55.300 if I heard you right, that Henry Dundas himself introduced this proposal. Is that correct?

00:12:01.680 He, he was responding to William Wilberforce, who had brought a motion in 1792 for the immediate

00:12:09.940 abolition of the slave trade, complete, total abolition overnight. Henry Dundas said in 1792,

00:12:17.060 that's not going to work. So he brought in an amendment, he introduced an amendment,

00:12:21.400 his amendment was successful for gradual abolition.

00:12:24.700 Got it. And this was for the slave trade as well as slave ownership, because there's different

00:12:30.780 levels. There's the slave trade, there's having slaves, there's the emancipation of children of 0.80

00:12:36.900 slaves. I know that this sounds like it's petty details, but it's actually, each of these was an

00:12:42.760 important breakthrough. It marked the end of, I mean, for example, if every child born to a slave is

00:12:49.300 born free. Right there, that's, you know, that's a time limit on slavery in itself. Each of these

00:12:55.040 is an important step. So, so which were the things that Henry Dundas was pushing for?

00:13:02.420 The end of the slave trade? And go ahead. 0.97

00:13:05.260 What he is criticized for is the fact that he took William Wilberforce's motion and proposed an

00:13:10.200 amendment that abolition, abolition should be gradual. Um, and, uh, in his speech in support of that

00:13:20.380 amendment, he laid out his plan and his plan was, um, to eradicate or abolish the slave trade within a

00:13:30.900 time to be determined, later determined to be seven or eight years. And that, uh, slavery itself would be

00:13:38.720 eradicated by eliminating what they called hereditary slavery. So if a, if a person owned a slave, they

00:13:46.980 also owned the children of those slaves, he would have put an end to that so that every child born to 0.97

00:13:52.320 a slave after that would be a free person entitled to education. Although there were, there was also

00:13:59.600 this idea that the child would have to work to pay back the cost of their education. Nonetheless,

00:14:06.260 within a generation, he would, he, his proposal would have eradicated slavery, um, within a generation.

00:14:13.760 You know, I, I, I learned something very recently that I, I was shocked to read it. And in fact,

00:14:18.980 I didn't believe it at first. I learned that an enormous loan, an enormous amount of money borrowed

00:14:28.020 by the British empire about 200 years ago, um, to emancipate the slaves in the British empire

00:14:36.120 was only finally fully repaid in the year 2015. So, uh, I mean, and I thought to myself, and some people

00:14:45.540 say, well, why would you pay to emancipate a slave? Why would you give money to the slave owner? Shouldn't you

00:14:52.680 be giving money to the slave? But I think it, if you want to be realistic and if you want to talk

00:14:58.280 about how the world was and how the world is in many parts to this day, slavery was an essential 1.00

00:15:04.360 part of the economy, especially in the new world, especially in the Caribbean, especially in, in South

00:15:09.100 America. And if you were to simply ban and make illegal the ownership of slaves, every interest that

00:15:17.600 depended on slaves would obviously reject it. And the whole idea is, can you actually get things

00:15:23.140 done? Can you actually get things done in parliament and have it affected through the law and have the

00:15:26.880 judges and the military and the state behind you, if you simply propose, we're going to end slavery

00:15:32.160 tomorrow, the, the likelihood of that happening, however much we might wish it would happen was nil.

00:15:39.860 So the combination of this gradual phase out of different degrees of slavery combined with the largest

00:15:47.360 loan I think ever taken. In fact, based on a GDP basis, the size of that loan was a quarter of a

00:15:56.900 trillion dollars. It was 40% of the, of the entire GDP. It took nearly 200 years to pay off. The British

00:16:09.300 government, the British military, the British empire, assisted by Henry Dundas, eradicated

00:16:17.360 slavery for the first time in history, I suppose, other than when Moses led the, the Israelites out 0.98

00:16:24.620 of Egypt. I mean, for, for Olivia Chow in 2023 to say, oh, he was responsible for slavery. Why didn't

00:16:33.560 he just snap his fingers and end slavery? It's such a shocking and a historical thing. What, do you have

00:16:39.560 any comments on what I've just said? Do you have any corrections for my understanding of the history of

00:16:43.960 slavery in the British empire?

00:16:44.960 One thing I would say is that this idea that slavery was essential, I would say that, that isn't a given,

00:16:52.700 but the powerful interests that opposed abolition of slavery, those, those interests were, were very difficult to

00:17:03.660 overcome. And so basically what parliament had to do was buy off the slaveholders. It was the only way they were going to 0.97

00:17:09.600 exit the ownership of slaves. And so whether or not they needed them, it's, you know, I would, I would argue,

00:17:17.280 actually, they didn't need them. But, but that was just the time and how difficult it was. So that tells

00:17:24.040 you, because that was, that started 41 years after Henry Dundas proposed the elimination of hereditary

00:17:31.580 slavery. So that bill was passed in 1833. It didn't take effect until 1838. So even though it passed it in

00:17:41.660 1833, slaveholders still had five years within which they were entitled to the services of these slaves

00:17:49.120 through some kind of apprenticeship that was in place. But full emancipation didn't happen till

00:17:55.720 1838. So that is 46 years after Henry Dundas proposed eliminating slavery within a generation and

00:18:07.220 abolishing the slave trade within seven to eight years. So you can tell why he would have, he would

00:18:18.340 have proposed this gradual process because he understood the forces that were lined up against any

00:18:25.180 any government winding down slavery or the slave trade. And he did some shuttle diplomacy, he went

00:18:33.300 back and forth between the supporters and the opponents of abolition, and he came up with this

00:18:38.260 compromise. And he was the second in charge, basically, in the British government, second to

00:18:45.840 Prime Minister Pitt. And he would have been a powerful ally to the abolitionists if they had joined with

00:18:54.180 him and said, Yes, we'll work with you on on this plan. Instead, they rejected it outright, they wanted

00:19:00.540 immediate and total abolition of the slave trade, right away, with abolition of the slavery itself, is

00:19:08.540 something that they they weren't even going to seek legislation on. They thought if you eliminated the slave 0.50

00:19:15.080 trade, that slavery would just wither on the vine. Well, fast forward to the 1820s. So 30 plus

00:19:23.800 years later, slavery is thriving, just as much as it ever had, the elimination of the slave trade didn't

00:19:33.000 affect the number of slaves in the Caribbean, one bit, just as Henry Dundas had predicted. And then they 0.51

00:19:40.960 started saying publicly, both William Wilberforce and the patron of the abolition movement, the Duke of

00:19:48.360 Gloucester started saying publicly that they regretted having rejected Henry Dundas's plan. So here you have

00:19:55.440 two of the most prominent abolitionists in Britain, both saying Henry Dundas was right, we wish we had

00:20:02.500 followed his plan. And now we have Toronto saying no. William Wilberforce was right in 1792, when he

00:20:12.540 denounced Henry Dundas for wanting to move gradually instead of all at once and only on abolition of the slave

00:20:20.100 trade. Another part of the context that's really important here is that in January of 1793, France declared war on

00:20:29.640 Britain. And France, which had a population of 24 million plus, and a conscripted army, was a huge force, opposing this

00:20:41.540 little island with 8 million people. And so at that point, the public interest in any kind of abolition

00:20:52.600 just vanished. And there was no political will left throughout that time during the revolutionary wars

00:21:02.400 in the 1790s. For Britain to basically weaken its position in the war by allocating resources to

00:21:11.000 abolish the abolition of the slave trade. In addition, if they had pursued abolition, they would have

00:21:17.180 alienated their interests in the Caribbean, which would have given France an advantage. So in the midst of

00:21:27.200 what became a world war, with most European countries in France, and even Egypt, it went as far south as

00:21:36.480 Egypt engaged in this world war. It was too much to expect that Britain would be willing to compromise its 0.99

00:21:47.140 security and its defense of its people by eliminating a slave trade that affected, you know, granted, tens of

00:21:57.920 thousands of people every year who were transported from Africa into the Caribbean. But it was looking back

00:22:09.160 now, you can just see that that was an unrealistic demand that William Wilberforce and others were

00:22:13.760 making during the revolutionary wars. And in some cases, you can see they were willing to compromise

00:22:19.120 then, but it was it was too late. I mean, Britain couldn't do that in the middle of a world war when its

00:22:26.100 security was on the line. You know, I'm thinking about what you're saying carefully. And I am quite

00:22:33.080 sure the lot of people are saying, well, slavery is wrong. We all know that just do it. Because that's

00:22:38.220 what we know in 2023. But what we have to remember is 200 250 years ago, people who were against slavery

00:22:45.440 were were radical. They they would be, they wouldn't just be quote, progressive, they would be regarded as

00:22:53.020 in some ways, unpatriotically. So like, it was such a radical departure from not just the norms of

00:23:01.620 the age, but of all time, there's been slavery, since prehistoric times, since biblical times in

00:23:08.740 every single continent. So the idea that the world's leading empire would simply take away what was

00:23:15.880 regarded as an economic asset. And I agree with you, that that slavery was not required, but it was

00:23:23.760 a benefit free labor, what's not to like if you are an amoral businessman. But, you know, I know,

00:23:31.400 I mean, I don't think Olivia Chow is a thoughtful person. I don't think she studied history. I think

00:23:36.040 she's very shallow and is simply a cliche monger. And this is progressive and woke. So she's doing it.

00:23:41.440 But I think that you can't judge things by 2023 standards in the in the time when it was happening.

00:23:52.420 This was unique around the world, there was no movement to end slavery in China, or the or the

00:23:59.300 caste system and its associated slavery in India, or in the heart of Africa, or in Russia, there was

00:24:06.960 slavery in all these places. And in fact, for 50 years, not only did the Brits abolish slavery, but

00:24:14.460 the West Africa squadron of the Royal Navy, for another 50 years, tracked down captured slaving ships

00:24:22.040 off the west coast of Africa, captured and seized the ships, and freed the slaves. So they weren't just

00:24:29.820 banning slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire, they were stopping it anywhere and

00:24:36.220 everywhere. That is unique, borrowing a quarter trillion dollars taking two centuries to pay it

00:24:41.520 off. Sending the Navy on a 50 not not a one week photo op, but a 50 year project to stop slavery

00:24:48.820 is the most progressive and life affirming thing perhaps ever done in history. And

00:24:55.380 in addition to that is 1600 British soldiers lost their lives on those ships, when they were fighting

00:25:04.480 the the slaving ships and trying to capture them. So it was a huge sacrifice for the country. And it was

00:25:10.700 a very revolutionary idea for the time, although France also did embrace it for a period of time in the

00:25:17.380 1790s. Although it then later reversed the abolition of slavery. But for a brief time in the 1790s, France,

00:25:28.260 partly as a way to unleash the forces of the black inhabitants of the Caribbean against the British,

00:25:35.620 declared emancipation of those slaves, but then reimposed slavery when it was no longer in France's

00:25:43.460 interest to support emancipation. But yeah, it was definitely a revolutionary thing to do.

00:25:51.620 Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the world. And so it was really a new way of thinking about

00:25:58.340 relationships between human beings. You know, it was a very Christian idea as well. I mean,

00:26:04.180 William Wilberforce was motivated by Christianity. It was the Christians who led the abolitionist movements. 0.97

00:26:11.380 And that song, Amazing Grace, sort of, and it was a very popular movie about 20 years ago as well

00:26:17.940 about that story. There was no Amazing Grace Wilberforce movement. In fact, to this day,

00:26:24.100 in many countries, there is still slavery in China, Arabia, and Africa. One of the things that bothers me

00:26:31.300 is that this is an attempt, so obviously, to graft on an American narrative onto Canada. I mean,

00:26:39.120 this whole change the name of Dundas stream came about from Black Lives Matter, which is a US

00:26:46.080 corporation that basically started a Toronto franchise, but we just don't have the same history.

00:26:53.280 Yes. Around that whole George Floyd Black Lives Matter movement that rose up so strongly in 2020,

00:27:02.400 I mean, that was happening as a way of addressing the legacy of slavery in the US. But what was

00:27:12.000 happening in Canada was completely different. So Henry Dundas appointed the first Lieutenant Governor

00:27:19.200 in Upper Canada, and his first order of business was to try to eradicate slavery in Upper Canada. He said,

00:27:27.360 under no circumstances will I tolerate laws that differentiate between Black people and white

00:27:32.960 people. He tried that in 1792. He met with so much opposition that his efforts failed. But in 1793,

00:27:41.680 some circumstances changed and allowed him to bring forward another proposal. This time,

00:27:47.040 he pursued gradual abolition, in a sense of an end to hereditary slavery, although more slowly than what

00:27:55.840 Henry Dundas had proposed. But reflecting, you know, the powers that were lined up against him,

00:28:02.320 this was John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant Governor. He proposed, first of all, that anybody who came

00:28:10.960 to Upper Canada would be a free person. So if anyone came with their slaves, or if slaves escaped from the

00:28:17.760 US to Upper Canada, they would immediately become free people. And then for those who were already

00:28:24.400 enslaved in Upper Canada, and there were about 500, between 500 and 550 slaves at that time,

00:28:32.480 they would remain slaves, although their children would achieve emancipation at the age of 25,

00:28:38.960 and their grandchildren would be free from birth. And so what happened was, this was the beginning,

00:28:47.040 this was the, he was planting the seeds of what later became the Underground Railroad, when slaves

00:28:52.800 escaped from the bounty hunters in the northern states, and from slavery in the southern states,

00:28:58.480 to a place of safety in Upper Canada. That, you can trace a direct line from that to Henry Dundas.

00:29:05.680 Another thing is, Toronto was incorporated in 1793, the very same year that that bill was passed,

00:29:14.880 that said that anyone who arrives in this province is a free person. So Toronto was born as an

00:29:22.320 anti-slavery city. A true sanctuary city in the original meaning of that word.

00:29:28.240 Exactly. And from the very first days of it being incorporated as a city, it was an anti-slavery,

00:29:37.520 pro-emancipation place, where people had refuge and safety.

00:29:41.680 You know, I mentioned earlier that slavery was endemic in every single continent,

00:29:46.000 and that is the case in the Americas as well. Of course, the conquistadors, when they discovered

00:29:54.880 the Aztecs and when they landed, there was massive slavery, and in fact, human sacrifice. And across

00:30:01.680 Canada, whether it was in Ontario, Quebec, or in British Columbia, slavery was part of the

00:30:06.720 indigenous economy and the part of indigenous warfare. And in fact, there was a point in time

00:30:12.320 when just numerically, the largest number of slaves in Canada were indigenous people who were enslaved

00:30:18.320 to other indigenous bands. And I'm not saying this to make any political point other than slavery was

00:30:24.720 everywhere, has always been everywhere. You can read about it in the Bible, you can read about it in

00:30:28.960 in law. But it was the British Empire that went to enormous political and financial and military-length

00:30:36.320 standard. And frankly, our American cousins, who were about 50 years behind or 80 years behind,

00:30:42.480 they had their bloodiest war of their history, much more bloody than their World Wars or the

00:30:47.840 Revolutionary War. The Civil War, their bloodiest war by far, was at least in part over slavery.

00:30:54.800 And the one thing I would caution, though, on that analysis is that it was a different kind of

00:31:01.920 slavery, depending on the location. So what was the most horrible part of the slavery in the Caribbean,

00:31:10.720 and as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, was this idea of chattel slavery, where a slave

00:31:19.680 was with had no more rights than livestock, they were they were owned completely, including their

00:31:26.480 offspring. That was that's not the same as slavery in other parts of the world. And and I think when

00:31:35.920 we're talking about indigenous people and their connection with slavery, we have to be sensitive to

00:31:40.560 that. And that, you know, there would be wars between various indigenous nations, they would capture

00:31:51.520 people from their enemy, and they would be enslaved, but very often they married into these tribes.

00:31:59.040 And, and, and so it was, it wasn't the same kind of slavery, it, in all cases, I mean, it may have been

00:32:08.320 like chattel slavery here and there. But, but I think there does need to be a distinction. And I don't mean to

00:32:15.120 paint indigenous people with the same brush, because it was particularly horrible what happened to black

00:32:21.280 people who were enslaved, that additional information. Of course, I, you know, I'm not an

00:32:26.960 expert on these things. I'm like a lot of people, I think I've just tried to learn about it on my own.

00:32:32.560 And, you know, just the sheer numbers of slaves I was seeing today, one black scholar was pointing

00:32:37.680 out just how many went to South America. That's one reason why the demographic hue of that continent is

00:32:45.120 the way it is. And, and I think that in certain places, like if you've ever been to the French

00:32:51.760 Caribbean, I mean, Haiti or Martinique, the slaves were worked quite often to death and just simply,

00:32:59.440 quote, replaced. I mean, there were, I suppose, degrees of brutality. But, you know, I recommend

00:33:06.080 for anyone who's ever been to Washington DC to go to the Lincoln Memorial and just read his

00:33:11.920 condemnation of slavery. And frankly, his premonition that every dollar that was enriched

00:33:19.200 through slavery would be paid in cost and every drop of blood would be, I mean,

00:33:24.240 it was just quite a striking religious, biblical condemnation that, that Lincoln gave. And it's

00:33:30.640 inscribed on the walls of the monument. No, he just reminded me of something that,

00:33:36.240 that Mayor Chow said, and we never really did discuss the content of her comment that you opened

00:33:42.880 the program with. And she, she accused Henry Dundas of proposing the breeding of slaves by bringing just 0.95

00:33:51.840 young girls and children into the slave trade. That is so unfair because it was William Wilberforce who

00:34:00.400 first proposed as part of his plan for abolition, that slave owners would be encouraged to breed

00:34:08.560 their slaves and keep them healthier so that they would breed and therefore they wouldn't need to

00:34:13.280 import more slaves from Africa. That was his idea. And when Henry Dundas accepted some of William 0.50

00:34:21.360 Wilberforce's idea, people just forgot that where those ideas came from. And when Henry Dundas was crafting

00:34:29.200 the compromise that would have resolved slavery, he gets blamed for what sound, which were horribly

00:34:38.880 offensive ideas. But where did they came come from? They came from the people who were seeking

00:34:44.720 abolition themselves. And so to blame Henry Dundas for that is, is just ridiculous. And also to blame him, I 0.98

00:34:53.040 would suggest he might have been a slave owner, also completely ridiculous. He, he said all his life that 0.97

00:34:59.600 he was opposed to slavery, that it was contrary to justice and humanity. And no one in the Dundas family

00:35:10.320 was connected to slavery. I mean, they were politicians, landowners, judges, lawyers, they were

00:35:17.840 professionals. But Henry Dundas's family had zero connection to slavery.

00:35:25.280 I don't think Olivia Chow knows anything other than, you know, a few lines she hears here and

00:35:29.840 there. And on that basis to damnatio memoriae, to condemn the memory of someone who obviously was

00:35:35.680 integral in the deconstruction and the elimination of slavery. You know, again, we're looking at this in

00:35:42.560 2023 where, yeah, it's obvious, we all know this. But 200 years ago, it would have been not just

00:35:49.760 radical morally, but it would have been radical economically to say, hey, America, which at the

00:35:56.320 time was, you know, I mean, the American Revolution was 1776. But for 150 years before that, it was

00:36:05.520 part of the British Empire. And there was still slavery throughout the Caribbean and South America,

00:36:10.560 et cetera, to simply say, hey, cotton growers, agricultural growers, your labor force is now

00:36:17.840 done. Good luck with you. I mean, you just like to flip a switch like that. The only way that actually

00:36:22.560 happened was this enormous debt that the British Empire incurred. I mean, I think of how we in our era,

00:36:31.680 I mean, how hard would it be to impose or repeal the GST or a carbon tax or just do some modest matter

00:36:41.680 of low importance, low moral importance? Like there's compromises and debates and amendments

00:36:47.760 and back and forths and referendums and elections. Like nothing moves in our system quickly and

00:36:55.680 cataclysmically. The idea, it would be as if you suddenly passed a bill to eliminate

00:37:02.160 30% of all labor in Canada. Let's say, I mean, it would be an absurd analogy, but let's just say

00:37:07.760 one day you said, no one under the age 35 is allowed to work. I mean, that's not a good analogy,

00:37:13.360 but I'm just trying to come up with a hypothetical scenario that would have the same shocking impact

00:37:18.640 on the world. People would say, that's ridiculous. That doesn't work. You promised, you know, for 0.97

00:37:25.280 generations we've been able to do that with the approval of the law. You can't simply change the

00:37:29.280 rules on no notice. I mean, just look at how hard, let me come up with a better analogy, look how hard

00:37:34.960 it is to uproot the taxi monopoly or the dairy monopoly and allow competition there. And I'm just

00:37:41.040 choosing these banal examples that are morally weaker. I mean, imagine trying to change the entire

00:37:49.520 world in one fell swoop. And the guy who says, well, I think we can do it. We've got to be a little

00:37:54.800 more gradual. Let's start by banning the slave trade and then giving emancipation to the next 0.99

00:38:01.360 generation and then eradicate slavery itself. And we'll do this over one generation really to end an

00:38:09.360 institution that is millennia old. And to say that he was the brake pedal stopping things. You know

00:38:14.960 what? I don't know the total truth about Henry Dundas and I'm sure you don't either. And I'm sure

00:38:20.880 some of it's lost in time, but let's learn about it and let's talk about it instead of having a fool 0.98

00:38:26.640 like Olivia Chow mouth off about it with, you know, a millimeter of shallowness and not just economically 1.00

00:38:36.160 disrupting half of the Toronto neighborhoods that bear his name, but also condemning a man who

00:38:43.360 actually made Canada free. I'm appalled by this cancel culture trying to reach back 200 years

00:38:49.280 as if Olivia Chow knows anything. You know, Mayor Chow does have a duty to inform herself, 1.00

00:38:55.600 but I actually hold city staff in Toronto responsible for the fact that she has been misinformed.

00:39:02.000 They have had every opportunity to make sure she is properly informed about the history and they

00:39:07.920 have obviously utterly failed to ensure that she has accurate information on which to proceed

00:39:14.000 to her embarrassment, ultimately, I believe. And so they have let her down. One of the things that

00:39:20.720 staff should have done is informed her about Henry Dundas's effect on Canada. And it wasn't just

00:39:27.520 appointing an abolitionist to be upper Canada's first lieutenant governor. He also provided assistance

00:39:38.080 and remediated some of the damage that had been done to black loyalists who had fought for Britain

00:39:44.240 and then were promised free right free land and equal rights in Nova Scotia and other Atlantic provinces.

00:39:52.400 When they got there, they didn't get what they were promised. Henry Dundas, when he heard about that,

00:39:58.160 ordered that they immediately be given their land, plus extra land to compensate them for the delay.

00:40:04.240 And if they were disillusioned with living in Canada and wanted to leave, he offered them free passage

00:40:09.280 back to Africa, to Sierra Leone, where Britain was establishing a colony of free black people.

00:40:16.960 For bilingualism, there was a there was a controversy in lower Canada about what would be the dominant

00:40:26.880 language in the legislature, because there was a French majority, but the English minority actually

00:40:33.360 represented the British who who governed that land. And so Henry Dundas just he ordered them to conduct

00:40:41.600 their proceedings in both languages so that it could, if it was in French, they'd be translated into English

00:40:47.120 and vice versa. As far as Indigenous people go, the Americans were making incursions into Upper Canada

00:40:57.920 prior to the War of 1812 and after the American Revolution, because they wanted more land.

00:41:03.680 And they had identified Indigenous lands as as being prime territory that they wanted. Henry Dundas ordered

00:41:11.600 Lieutenant Governor Simcoe to ensure that their lands were protected for them.

00:41:18.400 And also in the process referred to them as Indigenous nations, as Indian nations, he said.

00:41:25.120 He recognized their sovereignty, and he wanted their rights to be respected. And so everywhere you look,

00:41:33.360 in the ways that he affected Canada, he had a positive impact in ways that even today stand up

00:41:39.840 well to scrutiny.

00:41:41.840 You know, he sounds like a great builder, a great person with historical sweep, a person who

00:41:47.440 will be remembered and should be remembered. I don't think Olivia Chow will be remembered for much

00:41:53.600 other than presiding over the decline of the city. I'd like to set up a little petition. Look, I'm not here

00:41:59.680 in a position. I mean, we've been talking for the better part of an hour and I really appreciate it.

00:42:03.840 And you've corrected me on a few things that I'm glad you have. And you've made me want to study

00:42:08.160 more because, of course, my command of these historical matters is not deep. It's a little

00:42:13.840 deeper than Olivia Chow's, but I won't call myself a historian just yet. But I'd like to set up a petition

00:42:19.920 at savedundas.com, savedundas.com. Because I know it was a small petition by that American corporation,

00:42:27.920 Black Lives Matter, that got this thing rolling. And I'd like to have a counter petition. I'd like

00:42:32.720 to get more signatures by people who either love or like or know about Henry Dundas or people who say,

00:42:41.440 you know, I don't know that much about him, but I do know this. We shouldn't be deleting and condemning

00:42:47.600 and damning the memory of anyone who violates the fashion of the day or the ill-informed political

00:42:54.160 leaders of the day. So whether you are a true believer in Henry Dundas and believe that he

00:43:00.400 is someone who helped achieve the end of slavery in the British Empire, or if you simply think that

00:43:08.800 we shouldn't delete people from history because they're momentarily unfashionable,

00:43:13.440 I think in either case we should sign the petition at savedundas.com. Jennifer, do you know how many

00:43:19.280 signatures were on the petition that launched this atrocious campaign in City Hall to delete Dundas?

00:43:26.560 It was a few thousand, wasn't it? Yes. It was just over 14,000 and about half of those were

00:43:33.520 Toronto residents, according to the postal codes that they provided on the petition. 14,000, about

00:43:39.280 half were Torontonians. So my goal is to beat that. You know what, I would just caution you,

00:43:44.560 we actually do have something in the works around that. And we're waiting to find out tomorrow what

00:43:49.520 Olivia Chow unveils at council because she has said that she has something to unveil that she supports,

00:43:58.800 which is a much more limited scope of renaming. And what we, the hints are that she's given around this

00:44:07.360 are that the renaming will apply to the subway station by Dundas Square, which is the Dundas

00:44:15.600 station. And that the young Dundas Square itself would be renamed, but that the street name would

00:44:24.000 stay the same. So if there's going to be a petition, we we'd actually like to know actually what Olivia Chow's 0.72

00:44:31.760 policy is what she supports and what she's proposing to take forward into 2024 as the change that will

00:44:39.360 happen around the name Dundas. Well, I think we should save Dundas. And I mean, I, I'm not averse to

00:44:46.880 throwing a bone for the subway station because the TTC these days is known for violence and discomfort

00:44:52.560 and lack of hygiene in general and being, and lateness. So I think we're once naming a subway

00:44:59.200 station after a man would honor him. I think now the TTC would dishonor anyone. I think we should

00:45:04.400 rename it Chow station after the mayor, because I think it embodies her. But other than that, I think

00:45:10.480 we have to save Dundas.com. So I'll invite people. Well, personally, I, my, my view is that the most

00:45:18.320 important thing is that people know the historical truth about Henry Dundas as much as we can discern

00:45:24.640 it from the available record at this time. And if they want to go ahead and rename a station or a

00:45:31.920 square or anything, as long as they have the facts right, and they're not saying we're doing this because

00:45:37.120 Henry Dundas supported slavery, or he delayed abolition of the slave trade. Those are just lies.

00:45:44.240 They have been proven to be untrue. There are three peer reviewed articles that expose those lies.

00:45:51.040 And Toronto needs to face up to that before it does anything with the name Dundas. If they face up to

00:45:57.120 the truth, then I'm not going to stand in the way or try to convince them not to rename Dundas Square,

00:46:03.680 or a subway station or a library. As long as they respect the historical record and are honest with

00:46:12.160 citizens about who Henry Dundas was. And the fact that they've decided to change this name

00:46:18.000 for other reasons, and they may have very good reasons for wanting to put new names on some city

00:46:24.000 assets. But if they're going to smear our family name on the basis of lies, we will keep opposing them

00:46:31.120 every step of the way.

00:46:32.960 All right. Well, that's a powerful ending to our conversation. Jennifer, I'm so grateful

00:46:37.360 for your time. And you've planted in my mind the seed of many other questions. And I think I'm going

00:46:41.680 to do my best to educate myself. And I think our viewers who believe in history and respecting those

00:46:49.200 who have come before us, it's a form of the biblical admonition to honor your mother and father. 0.54

00:46:54.640 I mean, to throw out the past in ignorance is such a foolish thing. Not only is it disrespectful and

00:47:00.480 frankly immoral, it throws away, I mean, it presumes that we are somehow morally unique and morally

00:47:08.800 special today, and that we have nothing to learn from those who came before us. And I think that's

00:47:13.360 actually the reverse of the truth. Jennifer Dundas, thanks for your time and keep fighting the good

00:47:18.560 fight. Thank you for inviting me, Ezra. It was a pleasure.

00:47:33.680 Well, what do you make of that? I obviously have more to learn about this. Some of the statistics

00:47:39.360 we heard from Jennifer Dundas were slightly different than what I knew. I want to study it more. But look,

00:47:44.080 I know this. Canada has a very different history when it comes to race than the United States. We

00:47:49.280 were the destination of the Underground Railroad. We were with the British Empire when they gradually,

00:47:55.440 but over the course of one generation, extirpated this institution of slavery that has plagued mankind

00:48:01.520 since prehistoric times. And the fact that woke progressives like Mayor Olivia Chow thinks that we

00:48:09.920 have a racist history is atrocious. Frankly, we're not racist. We welcomed her to this country

00:48:15.600 from a less free place. And for her to condemn us as racist is outrageous. And for her to slander

00:48:22.160 Henry Dundas as a slave owner, he never owned a slave. He helped free the slaves. I'm grossed out

00:48:28.800 by this cancel culture. And you know, there may be facts about Henry Dundas that I didn't elicit

00:48:33.280 from his descendant Jennifer Dundas. That may well be the case. There may be other countervailing

00:48:37.680 facts. That may well be the case. How could there not be? There's pros and cons to every politician

00:48:42.480 in the world. But the idea that we would delete someone's name 200 years later when they're not

00:48:47.760 around to defend themselves anymore is just gross to me. I would like you to go to savedundas.com.

00:48:54.080 I know that Jennifer Dundas wasn't quite as bullish on it. She thought, well, maybe there's a compromise

00:48:59.040 here. No, this isn't just about Henry Dundas. It's about stopping the desecration of our history.

00:49:06.160 Go to savedundas.com. Well, that's the show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here

00:49:12.160 at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:49:27.840 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - December 15, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ If you can damn a founding father of Canada, you condemn the memory of anyone else in Toronto

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