Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Is Cuba finally going to be free？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Oh, boy. An amazing thing happened in the United States today.

00:00:04.920 They indicted Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, for murdering Americans.

00:00:11.040 Well, you know what that means, right? Because they indicted Nicolas Maduro

00:00:14.120 before they seized him, handcuffed him, arrested him, and brought him to New York jail.

00:00:18.900 Will they be doing the same thing with brother Raul Castro? Holy smokes, it's happening.

00:00:26.020 That's ahead and a great interview with the Taxpayers Federation.

00:00:29.320 But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber of what we call Rebel News Plus, the video version of the show.

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00:01:16.480 Tonight, is Cuba finally going to be free?

00:01:19.940 It's May 20th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:22.200 You've got it for freedom.

00:01:23.680 Shame on you, you censorious bug. 0.95

00:01:37.300 We have Cuba on our mind. 0.91

00:01:38.900 Very important.

00:01:40.060 Been a lot of problem for a lot of years,

00:01:43.000 and this was a big, I think it was a very big moment

00:01:46.260 for people that, not only Cuban Americans,

00:01:49.080 but people that came from Cuba,

00:01:51.500 that want to go back to Cuba,

00:01:53.000 people that want to see their family in Cuba. I think this is a very big day, very important day.

00:01:58.420 You know, it's possible to care only about your own country, only about your own province,

00:02:03.200 your own city, your own neighborhood, even just your own family. In fact, I think that's a good

00:02:08.600 way to live. I think it's normal, but we can't live totally hermetically sealed lives, especially

00:02:17.100 in an age of globalization. The world comes to find us, even if we hide from the world.

00:02:23.000 We have to prioritize our own families, our own cities first, but it behooves us to look around

00:02:27.720 the world, even if it's just to learn, even if it's just to learn how nice we have it here at

00:02:32.120 home. Here, can I read a poem to you? It's a beautiful poem written by John Dunn back in 1624.

00:02:40.640 It's written in a more archaic English, but let me just read it as we would today. You probably

00:02:45.360 know this from school. No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent.

00:02:53.000 a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a

00:02:58.820 promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death

00:03:04.580 diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the

00:03:09.580 bell tolls. It tolls for thee. Isn't that great? It's so brotherly, isn't it? It's really a call

00:03:17.220 to be part of society. I feel that way sometimes, especially when people in other parts of the world

00:03:22.720 are yearning to be free i just feel a sympathy for them of course we can't ignore what happens

00:03:27.460 here at home we have to prioritize that before we think about other parts of the world i think

00:03:33.460 foreign aid for example is out of control we have to help people here first and we've broken down

00:03:39.300 our own borders and we've been swamped with people who shouldn't even be here but still 0.89

00:03:43.580 let me tell you a hopeful story of freedom not too far away it's overseas or at least overseas

00:03:50.660 In fact, maybe you've been there yourself.

00:03:53.200 I'm talking about the communist prison island called Cuba.

00:03:59.240 Now, as you may recall, we sent a couple of journalists a few months ago undercover.

00:04:04.420 They went there posing as tourists, but they actually brought cameras and they went around

00:04:09.180 interviewing as many actual Cubans as possible, not on any resort.

00:04:13.300 We sent our people to Havana itself, where a block away from the hotel, they were in

00:04:18.460 real life Cuba.

00:04:19.500 And they went there to talk. This was fairly recent after the United States snatched Nicolas Maduro, the tyrant of Caracas, Venezuela.

00:04:30.420 And our journalists asked ordinary Cubans about Maduro, about the Castros, about Donald Trump.

00:04:36.440 And it was very interesting answers.

00:04:38.080 And then we we scrambled the video to hide the identity of the people talking to us because they could be thrown in jail talking that way about the Castros.

00:04:45.480 We saw the wreckage of Cuba, not from any war, but from more than 60 years of communist neglect.

00:04:53.720 We saw the awful poverty.

00:04:56.280 We saw the result of their shortages, including shortages of gasoline and diesel.

00:05:00.740 There's no more garbage trucks picking up garbage.

00:05:03.440 The streets of Havana are piled high.

00:05:06.460 We blurred people, but many were very brave.

00:05:09.400 Now, I mentioned Nicolas Maduro, the dictator of Venezuela, the chief enabler of Cuba in many ways, including by supplying them with cheap oil.

00:05:19.460 But in one of the most stunning military special operations ever in history, he was simply snatched out of the military base upon which he had lived.

00:05:30.820 Like, he was so scared of things.

00:05:33.700 He lived on a military base, didn't stop the U.S.

00:05:36.260 They snatched him, took him to the United States to face charges as a drug cartel boss.

00:05:43.200 And in this whole raid, not a single American life was lost.

00:05:48.220 Just incredible.

00:05:49.040 Now, there were some deaths of Maduro's bodyguards. 0.99

00:05:52.760 But I should tell you, they were Cuban.

00:05:57.160 32 Cuban bodyguards were killed, according to Cuba.

00:06:01.700 Now, what were Cuban bodyguards doing guarding the body of a Venezuelan?

00:06:06.720 Now, in a way, Cuba was the colonizer of Venezuela.

00:06:11.200 It was the boss of Venezuela.

00:06:12.880 Because if you have Cuban nationals reporting to the Cuban army being Maduro's bodyguard, yeah, maybe.

00:06:19.140 But another way of looking at it is that they were more his prison guards.

00:06:23.660 They made sure he didn't do anything contrary to Cuba's interests.

00:06:27.820 Anyways, it took less than two hours for them to swoop in, get him, get his wife, get him on a ship, and then sail back to New York where he now sits in prison.

00:06:38.920 They put him in cuffs.

00:06:39.980 They put him in a ship.

00:06:40.860 It was a policing exercise, even though they had a lot of help from the military special ops.

00:06:46.260 He's in New York awaiting trial.

00:06:48.180 It's sort of incredible to me.

00:06:49.360 And now Venezuela is normalizing.

00:06:52.260 It's released most of its political prisoners.

00:06:54.240 It's liberalizing its economy.

00:06:57.020 The U.S. and others are coming in to revive the oil industry.

00:07:01.360 The U.S. has reactivated its embassy.

00:07:04.460 There's now direct floods back and forth to Miami.

00:07:07.160 It's working.

00:07:09.360 A nearly bloodless coup, you could say.

00:07:13.000 Venezuelans are so optimistic right now.

00:07:15.140 It's a miracle, really.

00:07:16.980 And I don't think we talk about it enough because we're distracted by everything else.

00:07:20.200 But I bet they talk about that raid and what has happened in places like Iran, Moscow and Pyongyang and Beijing and Ankara, Turkey, what America can do, what America could do.

00:07:32.120 And it just got through all the Russian and Cuban and Chinese air defenses and just snatched them.

00:07:39.520 And it all started with a criminal indictment, which in the States basically means charges being issued, criminal charges, a policing matter.

00:07:50.200 not a military matter. Keep that in mind. I'll come back to that in a second. You see, the U.S.

00:07:54.260 never recognized Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. It was pretty much

00:07:59.040 universally acknowledged that he stole the elections. Even Canada believes that, even the

00:08:03.840 U.S. Democrats say so. So he was a fake, a usurper. And so when he was indicted as a drug cartel boss, 0.98

00:08:12.620 it was sort of normal for the police to arrest him, even if they needed hundreds

00:08:16.260 of military troops to assist with the arrest.

00:08:19.760 Well, I tell you all of this because I'm so full of hope

00:08:22.780 for Venezuela and their people, and it's so miraculously

00:08:25.160 how Trump just did it.

00:08:27.200 He didn't ask anyone. He didn't tell anyone.

00:08:28.900 He didn't go to the UN. He didn't ask Mark Carney in advance.

00:08:31.540 He just did it, and what are you going to do?

00:08:35.160 But look at this, and I'm going to play this all five minutes of it.

00:08:38.000 I'm going to play a five-minute video for you, okay?

00:08:39.640 And it's en español, but there's translation on the screen.

00:08:43.240 I'm sorry if you don't have the video version.

00:08:44.660 Get the video version.

00:08:45.920 This is U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

00:08:49.800 speaking fluent Spanish, as you might imagine,

00:08:53.940 as he talks to the Cuban people.

00:08:55.860 Now, maybe I won't play all five minutes of it,

00:08:57.900 but here he is talking about the reality of Cuba today 0.97

00:09:01.160 and who is stealing from them. 0.52

00:09:04.240 I bet you most people don't know what's in this video.

00:09:07.140 Take a look.

00:09:14.660 Pero sé que hoy ustedes, quienes llaman a la isla a su hogar, atraviesan dificultades inimaginables.

00:09:21.900 Hoy quiero compartirles la verdad sobre el motivo de su sufrimiento.

00:09:25.700 Y quiero contarles lo que nosotros en los Estados Unidos le ofrecemos para ayudarlos no solo a aliviar la crisis actual, sino también a construir un futuro mejor.

00:09:35.620 La razón por la que se ven obligados a sobrevivir 22 horas al día sin electricidad no se debe a un bloqueo petrolero por parte de Estados Unidos.

00:09:45.880 Como ustedes saben, mejor que nadie, llevan años sufriendo de apagones.

00:09:50.560 La verdadera razón por la que no tienen electricidad, combustible ni alimentos es porque quienes controlan su país han saqueado miles de millones de dólares, pero nada ha sido utilizado para ayudar al pueblo.

00:10:02.940 Hace 30 años, Raúl Castro fundó una empresa llamada GAESA.

00:10:07.780 Esta empresa es propiedad de las Fuerzas Armadas y está operada por ellos

00:10:12.180 y cuenta con ingresos tres veces superiores al presupuesto de su gobierno actual.

00:10:18.360 Hoy, mientras ustedes sufren, estos empresarios tienen 18 mil millones de dólares en activos

00:10:24.660 y controlan el 70% de la economía de Cuba.

00:10:29.200 Obtienen ganancias de hoteles, construcciones, bancos, tiendas

00:10:33.360 y incluso del dinero que sus familiares le envían desde Estados Unidos.

00:10:38.080 Todo, todo pasa por sus manos.

00:10:41.100 De esas remesas, ellos retienen un porcentaje.

00:10:44.260 Pero de las ganancias de Gaessa, nada llega a ustedes.

00:10:48.580 En vez de usar el dinero para comprar petróleo,

00:10:50.700 como todos otros países del mundo,

00:10:53.300 dependieron del petróleo gratis de Hugo Chávez y Maduro para quedarse con el dinero.

00:10:57.400 But now that they don't have to give the oil free, they buy fuel for their generators and vehicles,

00:11:04.400 while the people ask them to sacrifice.

00:11:08.400 Instead of using the money to maintain and modernize the electric vehicles, 1.00

00:11:14.400 they use the money to build more hotels for foreigners 0.71

00:11:18.400 and to send their families to live with luxury in Madrid and even here in the United States.

00:11:25.400 Hoy, Cuba no está controlada por ninguna revolución.

00:11:29.760 Cuba está controlada por Gaesa, un Estado dentro del Estado,

00:11:34.160 que no rinde cuentas a nadie y acapara las ganancias de sus negocios para beneficios de un pequeño élite.

00:11:40.140 Y el único rol que desempeña el llamado gobierno es exigirle a ustedes que sigan haciendo sacrificios

00:11:46.980 y reprimiendo a cualquiera que se atreva a quejarse.

00:11:50.920 The President Trump offers a new relationship between the United States and Cuba, but it

00:11:56.920 has to be directly with you, the Cuban people, not with Gaza.

00:12:01.920 First, we are offering $100 million in food and medicine for you, the people, but it

00:12:08.920 has to be directly distributed to the Cuban people, to the Catholic Church or to other

00:12:13.920 groups of trust, not robbed by Gaza to sell them in their tiendas. 0.82

00:12:19.920 But the Cuban people don't care about the permanent car. 0.98

00:12:22.920 You want the opportunity to live in your own country, 0.79

00:12:25.920 as you live in your family in the United States or other countries in the world.

00:12:29.920 Today, from the communications media to entertainment,

00:12:33.920 from the business sector to politics,

00:12:36.920 from music to sports,

00:12:38.920 Cuban people have reached the top of practically all industries,

00:12:42.920 in all countries except one, Cuba.

00:12:47.920 Hoy en Cuba, solo aquellos cercanos al élite de Gaesa o que forman parte de ella pueden tener negocios rentables.

00:12:55.260 Pero el presidente Trump ofrece una nueva vía entre Estados Unidos y una nueva Cuba.

00:13:00.360 Una nueva Cuba donde ustedes, los cubanos de a pie, no solo Gaesa, pueda ser dueño de una gasolinera o de una tienda de ropa o de un restaurante.

00:13:09.700 Una nueva Cuba donde ustedes, no solo Gaesa, pueden abrir un banco o tener una constructora.

00:13:15.180 A new Cuba, where you, and not only the Communist Party of Cuba, can be owner of a television station or a newspaper.

00:13:24.180 A new Cuba, where you can quit a system that fails, without fear of going to jail or being forced to go to their island.

00:13:32.180 And a new Cuba, where you have the real opportunity to vote for those who govern their country and vote for them if they are doing a good job.

00:13:43.180 Esto no es imposible.

00:13:45.180 Todo esto existe en las Bahamas, en la República Dominicana,

00:13:49.180 en Jamaica y incluso a tan solo 90 millas en Florida.

00:13:53.180 Si ser dueño de su propio negocio y tener el derecho al voto

00:13:57.180 es posible alrededor de Cuba,

00:14:00.180 ¿por qué no es posible para ustedes dentro de Cuba?

00:14:04.180 En Estados Unidos estamos listos para abrir un nuevo capítulo

00:14:08.180 en la relación entre nuestra gente y nuestros países.

00:14:12.180 Y actualmente, lo único que se interpone en el camino hacia un mejor futuro son quienes controlan su país.

00:14:20.840 So what is he talking about? He's talking about a proposed new relationship between the United States and Cuba.

00:14:27.380 The truth that Cuba is run as a kleptocracy, where all the foreign money is stolen by a corporation called Gaeza,

00:14:35.620 a super conglomerate that literally owns everything of value in the Cuban economy.

00:14:40.920 All the tourism. It's owned by this corporation. All the retail stores. All wholesale trade. The entire financial sector. Imagine if there was one company in Canada that had every store, every wholesale supplier, all the tourism, every hotel, every airport, every spa, every resort, and every bank.

00:15:04.180 one company. It is the majority of Cuba's GDP. It is a corporation run by the military. Tens of

00:15:12.780 billions of dollars a year. Hey, where's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders and Canada's

00:15:17.900 Jagmeet Singh and Abbie Lewis? Where are all those communists to denounce billionaire monopolies 0.98

00:15:23.260 when you need them, eh? But here is the part that, oh, it's chef's kiss. Raul Castro, that's

00:15:33.600 Fidel Castro's surviving brother, has now been indicted in the United States. And what did I

00:15:39.960 just tell you about being indicted? That is the legal basis upon which the United States

00:15:44.540 snatched Nicolas Maduro, put him in handcuffs from Broadway, New York. Well, now Raul Castro

00:15:49.600 has been indicted. The figurehead of the regime has been indicted. Here's the charge. Raul Castro

00:15:55.700 directed Cuban fighter jets to shoot down little Cessna airplanes flown by Americans

00:16:02.660 in international waters and they were doing this to look for Cubans so desperate to flee Cuba

00:16:10.500 that they would get on little homemade rafts made of anything, just so desperate to cross the 90

00:16:17.680 miles to Florida to escape from the prison island. And there are sharks in those waters. That is a

00:16:22.240 dangerous stretch of water. So Cubans would make anything, just a homemade raft and start paddling 1.00

00:16:29.180 towards Miami. Well, these American civilians in Cessna airplanes in international airspace were 0.94

00:16:35.620 looking for people, and then they would call the Coast Guard to rescue them. Well, Raul Castro

00:16:41.860 sent a fighter jet to shoot down the American rescuers. This was a few decades ago. He murdered

00:16:48.340 them. He's a Cuban-American congressman describing the history. I just want to follow up on what my 1.00

00:16:55.500 colleague Mario Diaz-Balart has said and reiterate again what this is really

00:17:00.420 all about the number one job of a government is the protection of its

00:17:04.560 citizens and for far too long this incident has gone without any

00:17:12.180 repercussions for any of the people or at least the person most responsible for

00:17:17.580 this act which was Raul Castro and so to reiterate again exactly what this was

00:17:24.540 this was a flight of three civilian aircraft Cessnas they're on a

00:17:31.800 humanitarian mission they were looking for Cuban rafters in the Florida

00:17:37.740 Straits now mind you we don't know how many hundreds if not thousands of Cubans

00:17:42.600 actually died in the Florida Straits trying to make the crossing from Cuba

00:17:48.100 to Florida to find freedom now think about that these Cubans that were fleeing the island where

00:17:56.280 would would get on anything that would float an inner tube makeshift rafts some even converted 0.94

00:18:03.460 pickup trucks into boats to get away from this murderous regime and all these these these

00:18:13.260 These gentlemen and women in one of the planes that she was lucky she wasn't shot down were doing,

00:18:20.340 were just looking for these rafters in the middle of the Florida Straits so that they wouldn't die.

00:18:25.680 And then they would report the position to the Coast Guard.

00:18:29.080 That's all they were doing.

00:18:29.860 They were carrying drugs.

00:18:30.700 They weren't doing anything illicit.

00:18:32.360 And they were international waters and they were American citizens.

00:18:36.060 Why it's taken 30 years, I don't know why.

00:18:40.780 But again, the number one job of any government is to protect its citizens.

00:18:43.660 And finally, this administration, the Trump administration, has finally taken notice of that and said, yes, we will protect American citizens.

00:18:52.020 And yes, maybe justice comes a little late in this case, but justice will be served.

00:18:57.680 And there will be consequences to pay if you harm American citizens in international waters, international airspace, for no reason at all.

00:19:06.740 And believe me, this was no reason at all.

00:19:09.020 And so Mario de la Peña, Pablo Morales, Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandro Jr., their families can get a sense of justice today if, in fact, Raul Castro is indicted for murder down in Miami, which is what we expect.

00:19:28.680 I'm very proud to have signed the letter on February 13th, along with Mario and Maria Salazar and Nicole Maliotakis, asking the Trump administration to do exactly what we expect is going to happen this morning.

00:19:45.160 um you know it is justice delayed but at least it's justice and it's something that we've been

00:19:53.460 looking for you know a long time in my community down in south florida the people i represent

00:19:59.280 uh have been looking for this day i'm praying for this day for a very very long time one of

00:20:06.280 the pieces of evidence against real castro is a recording of him talking about ordering the head

00:20:11.460 I won't play the whole thing.

00:20:13.120 It's in Spanish, but apparently it's damning.

00:20:15.720 Here's just a moment, just to, you can hear the quality of the recording.

00:20:32.580 What is exciting about this isn't just that justice might finally come.

00:20:39.760 it's that this is so clearly an echo of how they went after maduro in my speculation this is really

00:20:47.440 a way to telegraph to the cuban regime itself that either they do a deal right now or raul

00:20:55.620 castro gets snatched like maduro was snatched and how are you going to stop that buddy here's acting

00:21:01.020 attorney general todd blanche he put this on twitter he said over the three decades later

00:21:06.340 We are committed to holding those accountable for the murder of four brave Americans, Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.

00:21:16.840 For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in the United States for alleged acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens.

00:21:26.040 President of the United States and this Justice Department are committed to restoring a simple principle. 0.61

00:21:30.180 If you kill Americans, we will pursue you no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold.

00:21:35.720 That is so awesome. 0.98

00:21:39.240 It's interesting that it's been that long and that it's under Trump, isn't it?

00:21:44.060 So what's going to happen next?

00:21:45.420 Well, I remember a couple of weeks ago when the CIA director himself flew down to Cuba for a meeting and he flew in an enormous jet, not Air Force One, but a pretty big jet.

00:21:57.480 And he landed right there in Havana so everyone could see.

00:22:00.700 He didn't go in in some tiny plane, low profile.

00:22:03.520 He wanted everyone to see that the CIA boss was coming and you're darn right he's going to show off his big plane.

00:22:10.820 And he met with the leadership of Cuba.

00:22:13.040 Now, he didn't say what he told them, but that's a real signal, isn't it?

00:22:17.580 And now the indictment of Raul Castro, I think the CIA director went down there to basically outline the different paths things could go.

00:22:29.460 The full Maduro model, the Iran model, a military campaign.

00:22:34.640 I think Cuba doesn't have much military left.

00:22:36.560 I don't know, the Greenland model.

00:22:37.760 I don't know what the other models are, but it looks like Cuba has chosen the Maduro approach. 0.70

00:22:42.320 All right, that's very exciting, and good luck to them.

00:22:46.560 We'll see how it goes.

00:22:48.160 The Cuban-Americans in Congress seem thrilled.

00:22:51.260 I mean, Trump would pick up a quick win, especially to contrast the slower pace of Iran, which is now almost at 90 days.

00:22:58.380 Now, I like it. Of course, I care about Canada. Of course, we've got plenty of problems here at home. I care about free speech in countries like the UK and Ireland. I look for trends around the world. But wow, wow, wow. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the last Stalinist regime in the Western Hemisphere went for freedom, especially if all it took was arresting some old fascist fossil who just wouldn't get with the program? Stay with us. More ahead.

00:23:28.380 Well, there's lots of different kinds of entertainment.

00:23:37.300 Some of it in the world is subsidized.

00:23:40.480 Symphonies, ballets, they're sometimes subsidized by the government,

00:23:43.460 but you often find philanthropists who are willing to close the gap

00:23:46.760 between what they want and what the market can bear.

00:23:50.140 I guess my point is there have always been patrons of the arts

00:23:54.560 because if you relied on ordinary people to spend their own money,

00:23:57.200 maybe they wouldn't make a ballet or an opera. That's where philanthropy comes in. For more

00:24:03.400 street-level taste, movies are profit-making in the main. Hollywood was built not on philanthropy

00:24:10.340 or patrons of the arts, but on the fact that people genuinely felt entertained enough that

00:24:15.820 they were willing to pay for the movies, and some movie makers became very wealthy. Which brings me

00:24:21.840 to sports. Soccer or football, as it's called in most of the world, is the most popular sport

00:24:28.180 around because all you need is a ball. It's just in terms of equipment and where you can play. It's

00:24:34.080 a lot easier to find a patch of land or grass to kick a ball around than to have a skating rink

00:24:40.880 and an ice hockey rink, which brings me to the World Cup, which is coming in part to Canada.

00:24:47.060 And here's the shocking news. The world's most popular sport that requires less infrastructure than, say, a frozen rink needs one billion, with a B, one billion dollars of government money to make it go.

00:25:03.940 How on earth is that possible? Joining me to talk about this now is Carson Binda of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:25:11.800 He's out there in British Columbia. Carson, great to see you.

00:25:14.920 Ezra, thank you so much for having me on today.

00:25:17.220 I mean, just one word, how?

00:25:19.100 Just how?

00:25:20.780 How do you have a billion-dollar shortfall in the world's largest sporting event for the world's largest sport?

00:25:28.360 How, how, how, how, how?

00:25:30.680 Well, the formula to wasting money is always the same, Ezra.

00:25:34.420 You just sprinkle in some bureaucrats and politicians and give them taxpayer money to blow.

00:25:39.320 13 soccer games are coming at a taxpayer funded price tag of more than a billion dollars when you

00:25:48.880 do the math that works out to about 82 million for each soccer game or about a million dollars

00:25:56.440 per minute of regulation playtime this is an outrageous amount of money coming right from

00:26:02.520 your pocket going out the door on these soccer games i don't get it what's the what's the payoff

00:26:09.480 i mean sometimes i was just watching some of the debate over a large data center center that's

00:26:15.320 being proposed for utah and the reason these different jurisdictions want the data center to

00:26:21.960 be in their turf is because of the construction jobs the ongoing jobs and the taxes um that these

00:26:29.440 companies will pay property taxes. And so let's say if there is a lifetime of a billion dollars

00:26:35.360 worth of taxes from a data center, maybe the local town would say, well, we'll give you a five-year

00:26:39.820 holiday on taxes. We want you to build here. Like there's a bit of a competition. Government

00:26:44.100 saying, well, we'll reduce our taxes. We'll reduce more. In the one hand, it's sort of a

00:26:49.020 targeted subsidy. It's true. But the reason they do it, at least they would say, is net.

00:26:55.240 this is billions coming into our economy here's my question to you where's the payoff like if

00:27:03.480 you're losing a billion dollars for a short-term entertainment you're not investing you're not

00:27:10.060 allowing some major project to come in that will give you returns over 10 20 30 years

00:27:16.880 these guys are coming in for a few games and going with a billion stuffed in their pocket

00:27:22.360 What is the rationale, Carson?

00:27:26.220 Yeah, Ezra, this is coming with massive pocketbook pain, despite the promised economic gain simply not materializing.

00:27:35.320 Let me give you an example here.

00:27:37.040 Hotel bookings in Vancouver are down about 20% this summer compared to last summer.

00:27:45.560 That means FIFA isn't drawing in hordes of tourists.

00:27:49.180 Rather, it's repelling them.

00:27:50.740 You don't need to take my word for it. Look at the BC government's own fiscal data on hosting the World Cup. Even after all the tax revenue that's coming in, even after all those tourist dollars, the BC government is still projecting this is going to come at a net cost of up to $145 million for Vancouver's seven games alone, not including the big cost to taxpayers for Toronto's games.

00:28:18.880 So we're seeing it with the tourism numbers. We're seeing it with the provincial government's own forecasts. This is coming at a huge cost without that promised economic gain.

00:28:30.480 You know, I saw news the other day that the big Saudi backed golf world, like they were trying to compete with the PGA. They were building a rival league. They were paying premier players huge signing bonuses to go play in Saudi. And I thought, OK, well, I mean, good for them.

00:28:47.520 they are a opec trillion dollar country with you know it's run by a authoritarian regime um maybe

00:28:56.660 they think this is good pr or whatever reason i mean they just abandoned that five billion dollars

00:29:04.260 into it and the thing is they have so much oil they're they're they have these huge sovereign

00:29:10.380 wealth funds because they're just pumping more oil than they know what to do with even the rich

00:29:15.720 Saudi princes can't afford it but at least the five billion that they spent it their hope was

00:29:24.080 it would be an ongoing asset a league it would eventually grow on its own like they were trying

00:29:30.320 to incubate a permanent thing it wasn't oh man wasn't that a great game that's it like even the 0.99

00:29:38.240 Saudis it was too rich for them and they got out of it but at least they had some sort of a plan to 0.94

00:29:43.600 own a valuable asset yeah no and that's not what's happening here with these canadian world cup games

00:29:51.600 a lot of the money that's being taken from taxpayers and spent hosting these 13 international

00:29:58.000 soccer games a tiny fraction of the overall tournament is money that's being spent and not

00:30:04.520 coming back to taxpayers it's one-off costs things like road closures and security escorts

00:30:11.340 for FIFA VIPs and dignitaries. Here in Vancouver, they're tearing up the artificial turf field at

00:30:19.000 BC Place, replacing it with a temporary grass field per FIFA's regulations, only to tear that up

00:30:26.780 and re-roll the turf out once the FIFA executives go back to Switzerland. So we're not seeing those

00:30:32.520 kinds of investments, as government likes to say. We're just seeing a lot of money wasted on one-offs

00:30:38.600 that won't benefit the taxpayers being left with the bill it just makes no sense i mean just

00:30:44.320 the sheer quantum of the number look if it was a hundred million it would still be a disaster if

00:30:49.680 it was 10 million it would be a terrible mistake but i just can't believe a billion dollars it's

00:30:57.520 just unfathomable i mean it goes back to my earlier point this is the most popular sport in the world

00:31:03.040 watched and played by more people than any other and and for it to lose it takes a phd

00:31:11.200 to figure out how to lose that much wow hey carson what are you working on at the taxpayer

00:31:17.320 federation we normally have some of your colleagues on franco teresano great guy

00:31:20.960 chris sims great guy noah jarvis like we love to meet you too give me 30 seconds about your beat

00:31:26.300 what are you working on these days besides this soccer scandal well one of the things i love doing

00:31:32.040 of the Taxpayers Federation is digging into government spending through freedom of information

00:31:36.360 requests. I spend a whole lot of time asking government for documents showing how it spends

00:31:42.620 your money. And let me give you a rundown of some of the stories we've caught really quickly here,

00:31:47.200 Ezra. We caught BC bureaucrats giving themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of secret

00:31:53.820 gift card bonuses. We caught David Eby secret gift card bonuses. We caught David Eby spending

00:32:00.740 three hundred thousand dollars on wood leather soccer balls for a photo op in japan so we're

00:32:07.500 keeping government's feet to the fire digging through those records and finding out exactly

00:32:12.240 how politicians and bureaucrats were spending your hard-earned tax dollars well you're doing great

00:32:18.180 and you know what you gotta laugh because the alternative is to cry uh i mean holy smokes well

00:32:23.940 keep up the great work thanks for coming on the show today i just can't believe i just can't

00:32:29.120 believe a billion dollars i mean that's like bringing the olympics to town i but just oh my

00:32:35.660 god but just one sport all right i gotta go carson or i'll just start ranting again great to see you

00:32:41.180 thank you for coming on the show thank you so much for having me there he is from the bc wing

00:32:45.660 of the canadian taxpayers federation carson binda stay with us your letters to me next

00:32:59.120 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me with my chat with the good professor and author from Ireland.

00:33:05.340 I find that a very interesting place.

00:33:09.220 4606 James says, much of the wealth that shows up in Ireland is fictional corporate tax strategy planning

00:33:13.940 that allows corporations to report profits and get taxed at 12.5% and shift it back to countries like the USA.

00:33:20.300 This GDP will never really trickle down to ordinary Irish people.

00:33:26.380 Well, that's sort of what Howard Lutnick was saying.

00:33:28.360 it's it's sort of a trick i mean there's no massive manufacturing in ireland the iphones

00:33:35.320 are made in china it's just a tax loophole that listen apple and a whole bunch of tech companies

00:33:40.360 and other companies take advantage of um but you're right it's it's not actually work it's

00:33:47.880 more accounting and there is some work there of course but not as much as the money would suggest

00:33:51.560 Canadian Samurai says, why can't they just follow Poland's example? Poland and Hungary and other

00:33:58.200 Eastern European countries are fighting so hard against the forced immigration. They're being

00:34:03.280 bullied by the EU that fines them hundreds of millions of dollars. But many of them say it's

00:34:08.080 worth it. We're going to spend that money. We don't care because we want to preserve our country. And

00:34:12.060 I think that's the right path. Romulus 3345 says a new political party in Ireland led by someone

00:34:18.200 like Maria Steen, that's the lady who wanted to run for president, but was shut out, would receive

00:34:24.760 a huge percentage of votes and completely change the political landscape for the better on the 1.00

00:34:29.040 Emerald Isle. Well, all these questions and points about Ireland makes me want to tell you that I am

00:34:34.820 going to Ireland tonight for a free speech battle and a political battle. I'm just going to be gone

00:34:40.840 for two days, but I'll be reporting to you from there. And, you know, we were talking earlier

00:34:45.120 today, but we have to care about Canada first. We have to care about our home first, but I think we

00:34:49.180 can also look at freedom trends around the world. And there's two battles for freedom in Ireland

00:34:54.820 this week. One is the trial of someone for fake news, but it wasn't fake news. He's on trial

00:35:01.160 anyways. It's an interesting story. And the other is a special by-election where an anti-immigration

00:35:06.760 trucker advocate is running and I think he might win. Anyways, that's what's coming up for the rest

00:35:12.320 of the week. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,

00:35:16.940 see you at home. Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - May 21, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Is Cuba finally going to be free？

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