EZRA LEVANT ｜ Maxime Bernier came in a distant second in the by-election last night. So what happens now？
Summary
Maxime Bernier came in a distant second in the by-election in Portage Leamington, Ontario. What does that mean for the People s Party? And what does it mean for Andrew Scheer and the rest of the Tories?
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Last night, Maxime Bernier placed second in the by-election in Portage
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Lisger, but he didn't have the breakthrough he was hoping for. And in fact, the conservative
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vote increased. What does that mean for Bernier and the People's Party? I'll give you my deep
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thoughts on the subject. But first let me invite you to subscribe to Rebel News Plus. That's the
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Tonight, Maxime Bernier came in a distant second in the by-election last night. So
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what happens now? It's June 20th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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We like Maxime Bernier. I've known the man for 20 years, ever since he was at the Montreal Economic
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Institute. I like his style and his ideology. I like that he's energetic and doesn't seem to care
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what the media party says about him. He was a cabinet minister under Stephen Harper, of course,
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and then he ran against Andrew Scheer for the party leadership in 2017 to succeed Harper. And it was
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quite something, if you recall, it went to 13 different ballots. Bernier was leading for the
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first 12 ballots, and only on the last one did Andrew Scheer squeak ahead 51% to 49% under the
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party's quirky point system. It was quite something. Bernier was stylish and fit and talkative and
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French. Scheer was dull and introverted and inexperienced. He was Speaker of the House of
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Commons for years, so I suppose he was experienced, but really he didn't have a track record of fighting
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for anything, really. The Speaker of the House is neutral, doesn't vote on things. He never fought
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for a bill, he never really fought a campaign, he never had a tough scrum. After his first election, I
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think he went into diplomat mode. It was like he was frozen in time for the eight years of Stephen Harper's
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tenure. So he had no scandals, I suppose, but he also had no track record of anything, no experience
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campaigning going up against the bruising battles of the liberals or their media regime. Bernier was
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libertarian, Scheer was social conservative, but like I say, Scheer lacked the courage of his
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convictions. He'd never really been in a fight before. He panicked about everything. He bent the
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knee to the media, especially to the CBC. I remember when he went full coward about us,
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even though his right hand man was a co-founder of Rebel News with me. Andrew Scheer, let's begin
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with your decision earlier this week. You said you will not grant any further interviews to Rebel
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Media for as long as its editorial direction remains as is. So what is it specifically about the editorial
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direction that led you to that decision? Well, first and foremost, you know, it's very important
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me to send a very clear signal that the Conservative Party of Canada has always been a party that is
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inclusive and tolerant and open to members of every different ethnic community that call Canada home
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and that chose to make this wonderful country where they want to grow and raise their families. And
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like I was just disgusted by what I saw in Charlottesville on the weekend, that kind of hatred
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and vile displays of intolerance just need to be denounced. And I understand that there's a fine
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line when it comes to journalism between reporting on facts, reporting on what's going on and giving a
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platform or in any way kind of legitimizing what may be going on. And I felt that that line was
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was crossed on the weekend. And so I just decided, you know, I'm not going to lend my platform to
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to those or, you know, institutions or outlets that that may may be doing that. So, you know, I'm here with
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a positive message. And I want to get that message out in a positive way to as many Canadians as I can.
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What was it specifically that you saw that led you to the decision?
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As I said, I just felt that that line between saying, okay, here's what's going on. Here's an
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important event that may be happening. You know, people obviously need to be aware when there are
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good things happening, when there are bad things happening. You know, that's what media outlets do.
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They cover on events. But, you know, when when when people are given an extra platform or or,
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you know, in any way an outlet starts to concur or legitimize some of the the aspects around that,
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that's not where I want to go. I don't want to see anybody with those kinds of views have that.
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So the fact that they were on the air, the white supremacists were on the air. I mean,
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what what was it specifically that you saw where you said, okay, I can't be part of this?
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What was the moment? Like, as I said, it was just it was the nature of the coverage. It was the way
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that, you know, in any way that that outlet or the people involved in producing those shows kind
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of went beyond just saying here's what's happening and and and, you know, gave that an extra legitimacy
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or voice, you know, in any way kind of concurring or validating some of the points. And I felt that
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that was going on while that was happening. You know, I'm an open accessible politician. I don't think
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you want politicians or or prime ministers or premiers or, you know, members of parliament
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deciding what is or what isn't legitimate news outlets or journalism. We believe in freedom of
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the press. You know, even the liberals fought to to make sure that the rebel was included at the United
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Nations climate change talks. I think Canada is, you know, respects that that that history of an
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independent profession when it comes to the press. But when it comes to granting exclusive interviews,
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when it comes to kind of, you know, seeking an outlet where I would talk directly to get my vision out,
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what my positive messages for Canadians based on what happened on the weekend. I just think that
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going forward, I'll be looking at other types of outlets that that don't, you know, blur that line
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or cross that line into giving that kind of legitimacy to those kinds of groups. Look, Andrew,
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they're not going to be any nicer to you just because you turned on us. And indeed, they weren't. Even after
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the CBC literally filed a lawsuit against him right in the middle of the election, he still kept going
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on their shows. It's like he thought he could charm them into liking him. What an idiot. He blew it.
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Of course, it just got worse with Aaron O'Toole, who ran as a full blown liberal. I mean, seriously,
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come on, a carbon tax. Andrew Scheer sucked up to the CBC thinking they would like him. But now Aaron
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O'Toole sucked up to the liberals thinking they would like him. What a disappointment. He's gone
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now. But he popped up on TV again. I think I showed you this the other day. He's got advice
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for Pierre Polyev on how to win, which seems to be do exactly what he did to lose.
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You know, the Conservatives won the popular vote in the last two elections. It just wasn't efficient
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enough. And Mr. Trudeau, some of the polarization is actually focusing and over delivering your small
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cohorts. So he's now won two minority governments with a smaller popular vote and in some elections
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being virtually shut out in certain provinces of the country. So I think had the pandemic not been a
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part of the discussion, I had a lot of fiscal Conservatives that wanted to see the Conservatives
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with a smart plan on the environment. A lot of business leaders, for example, or small business
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owners that wanted to make sure they lowered emissions for their kids, but were worried about
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our competitiveness, worried about trade relations, thought Mr. Trudeau's ethics were questionable.
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So there's a bunch of voters that want to see the Conservatives address all issues. I think Pierre
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will do that. Yeah, Aaron O'Toole is sort of the only guy in the universe who cannot give advice
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on how to win, because he doesn't know how. But hey, the media has a strange new respect for Aaron
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O'Toole now that he is no longer an actual threat to Trudeau and in fact seems to be criticizing
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Pierre Polyev. O'Toole was terrified of Rebel News also. I mean, I interviewed him a couple years ago
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and it was fine. Again, it was the mean girls of the media party who convinced him he can't talk to
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Rebel News if he wants to be friends with them. Spoiler alert, they didn't really mean it when they said
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they'd be friends with him. To be clear, I don't take being friends with Rebel News as a litmus test
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for a politician. I mean, I suppose there could be a good reason not to like us, or at least not to
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like me. But if you are so obviously marginalizing or deplatforming or trying to cancel Rebel News just
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to appease the woke mob, then liking us actually is a litmus test. Because if you let the liberals or the
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media party tell you who you can and can't talk to on your own side of the aisle, especially who you
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can or can't meet with, well then imagine how they'll control you if you ever actually took the
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levers of state power into your hands. It's about courage. That's my favorite thing about both Donald
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Trump and Ron DeSantis. That's the one thing they actually both have in common. They never,
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ever let the media party bully them and they love actually demonstrating how partisan the media are
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and fighting back. Pierre Polyev has a bit of that in him too, especially towards the CBC.
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But back to Maxime Bernier, he placed an extremely close second to Andrew Scheer in that
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Conservative Party leadership in 2017. Scheer appointed him to the shadow cabinet, but the two
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of them really didn't get along from the very beginning, obviously. I don't know if you remember,
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but Bernier then wrote a book called Doing Politics Differently, My Vision for Canada, which boy,
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that sure sounds like a political autobiography, a campaign book, really.
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He posted a chapter online and I can see why Scheer saw that as a kind of undermining Scheer's authority,
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especially since Bernier criticized the Derry Cartel, which was actually one of the ways Andrew
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Scheer won the leadership by appealing to that cartel. Anyways, things rapidly fell apart between
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the two men and Bernier launched his own party. He quit the Conservatives, launched his own party,
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the People's Party of Canada, that August. So he wasn't even under Scheer's leadership for a year.
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I remember doing a video at the time, I should dig it up. I was surprised by Bernier's move. My
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thinking at the time was, if Bernier had just stayed cool and just stayed within the party,
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and if Andrew Scheer lost the upcoming general election, which it sort of looked like he would
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have done on his own, Bernier would have absolutely been a shoe in right afterwards to be the leader.
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I mean, given that he only lost by just one percent. And if Scheer did win in 2019, which didn't
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happen, well, surely Bernier would at least be the Quebec Lieutenant in that party. But alas,
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Bernier broke away to start his own party. That's extremely hard. I saw Preston Manning try it for a
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decade. Bernier claimed that the incumbent party was just inherently corrupt. He didn't want to stick
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around in it. Now, there's something to that, of course, in all parties. There's insiders,
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there's lobbyists, there's sellouts, there's compromisers. Andrew Scheer obviously sold out to the
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dairy cartel in Quebec, and he won his leadership that way. Welcome to politics.
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The 2019 election was lost by Scheer, despite the shocking revelations of Trudeau's blackface
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antics. I mean, how do you lose to that guy? Plus, the even much more important revelation that Trudeau
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and Gerald Butts fired Jody Wilson-Raybould for not interfering in a criminal trial where Trudeau's
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friends were trying to get a sweet plea bargain instead of a criminal prosecution. How do you lose an
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election like that? And then there was the 2021 election. Aaron O'Toole was even worse,
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even more liberal-like, and he just wouldn't. He just absolutely wouldn't say a word against Trudeau's
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approach to lockdowns or force vaccines or the rest of it. Look at this. This was supposed to be
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a leader's debate, you know? It wasn't. They all agreed. We're all in this together.
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We've come so far in the fight against COVID. It's time to finish this pandemic for good. So get
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vaccinated. If you know someone who hasn't, talk to them. For our kids, for our communities,
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for our economy. It's how we get forward together. Vaccines are safe and effective for use. Vaccines
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are the best way for you to protect yourself, your family, and your community. So get vaccinated.
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Pour vous protéger vous-même, pour protéger les plus fragiles d'entre nous, pour protéger l'ensemble
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de la population, le meilleur moyen connu demeure le vaccin. S'il vous plaît, soyez responsable,
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We all agree getting vaccinated is the way forward. We're all in agreement this is not a partisan issue,
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so please get vaccinated. We're united and it's time to get the shot. Vaccines save lives. They're
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how we're going to beat COVID and it's time for everyone to do it. Get the shot. Get the shot.
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Oh, that's so cringy, so gross. And you'll notice that Maxime Bernier was not allowed into that debate,
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even though he was polling high enough to warrant it. I wish Bernier had sued the Debate Commission to be
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allowed in. We, Rebel News, sued the Debate Commission when they banned us from covering that debate as
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reporters and we won. You'd think an actual candidate would have sued too to get in. Why not? I think
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Bernier would have electrified that debate. The other five candidates were absolutely indistinguishable
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on any key issue. I really can't recall any differences. Bernier would have at least shown
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an alternative. I think he would have won that debate just by showing up. But alas, Trudeau's man,
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David Johnston, who ran the election debates, he kept him out. But that was when an alternative
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populist, contrarian, freedom-oriented voice was needed the most in the country. Everyone,
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everything, the whole establishment, they were unanimous. Everyone except the people.
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That's what we found at Rebel News. We were one of the few media to question
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the forced lockdowns and the vaccine mandates. And there was a big demand for the other side of
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the story. Alas, Aaron O'Toole was opposition leader, but he did not oppose. Of course, he didn't
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win the election. Why would you vote for him? Bernier did oppose. In fact, he was personally
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arrested. He was victimized by the lockdowns. He was targeted for arrest in Manitoba on the
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orders of the premier, who publicly announced he wasn't welcome in the provinces if we live
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in political fiefdoms that the premier can control like some prince or something.
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And when the trucker convoy came, Bernier championed them. O'Toole cowered under his desk,
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the loser. O'Toole demanded that his MPs not even visit the truckers. Well, that was the final straw,
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and O'Toole was thrown overboard, thank God. But that was the beginning of the end.
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The truckers did it. They broke the fever in the country. They woke the country up. Almost
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immediately, premiers began backing down. Do you remember? Jason Kenney did, and then Kenney
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himself was still thrown out by his party. Vaccine mandates were lifted. Lockdowns were lifted.
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The truckers was what freed us. Bernier had battled in a way that very few other politicians
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had done so. A handful of provincial legislators did in Ontario. Four conservatives did so,
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and they were all immediately punished by Doug Ford, kicked out of the party. Roman Baber,
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you might recall. Randy Hillier. There were one or two other dissidents across the country. Bernier was
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the only federal politician who opposed, but alas, he did not have any standing. He did not have a seat
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in parliament. At least Elizabeth Gray, even though she's quite a marginal character, she has always had a
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seat and her party has two. Fast forward to last night and the four by-elections across Canada. One
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of them happened to be in the Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisker, which is a wonderful riding. I've
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been there. Great people and very deeply conservative. In the last election, the People's Party got 22%.
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Far behind the Conservative Party's Candace Bergen, who was almost at 53%, but Bergen was retiring.
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So you could see in a perfect storm how Bernier might have had a shot. Very right-wing riding. Great
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base to build on. Conservative MP retiring, so those personal connections gone. A by-election allows voters
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to vote on principle without risking changing the government. They can be more idealistic than
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pragmatic. And Bernier as leader, that's a perfect storm. Alas, it wasn't to be.
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Bergen's Conservative Party successor, as you can see, Brandon Leslie, he actually got more votes than
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Bergen did last time, at least percentage-wise. He got 65%. Bergen got 17% down a bit from his party
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showing last time. I think that's two general elections, 2019 and 2021, and two by-elections that
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Bernier has contested, but not one. Which brings us to today. Now let me stop for a moment and say
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that Rebel News has been the most supportive news outlet in Canada towards Maxime Bernier. We cover
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his press conferences. I've personally interviewed him probably 10 times. We've also sold ads to him.
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We'll sell ads to almost anyone, by the way. He bought ads with us because our viewers are a good fit.
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Our viewers like Bernier's love for freedom, and we appreciated his opposition to the lockdowns
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when few other politicians would have the courage to say so. Last night, Bernier vowed to fight on.
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And that's great. He's obviously a fighter. But what does it mean to fight but not have a seat in
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parliament for four years now? I mean, that's a politician, but it's more of a pundit or an activist.
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Now I like punditry and activism. It's actually what I do for a living. And there's something great
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about a political party. You can run candidates. You can get on the ballot. It's also good to fundraise
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because you get a sort of tax receipt issue for donations that no other advocacy group can get.
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It's even more generous than a charitable tax receipt. But last night was a pretty convincing
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result in the most PPC-friendly riding in the country. So what now? Well, I hope Maxime Bernier stays
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in the public square. He always was in the public square. His father was too. I think he has good
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skills, a strong network, a strong ideology. He's bilingual. I love how he infuriates all the right
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people in the establishment and in the media. All the fancy people hate Maxime Bernier. But what
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do we think and what do we do here at Rebel News? Like I say, we've covered him more than most. I
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interviewed him at the start of his by-election campaign. My colleague Sidney Fazzard interviewed
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him just the other day. We certainly gave him ink and air time, but what now? I'm going to invite
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Bernier to come on my show for an 11th time to talk about his future plans, but what could they be
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exactly? And is his result in Portage-Lizger an indication of how things have changed in the past
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two years? The PPC was sorely needed as an antidote to Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole and to the pandemic
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lockdown conformity. But now that Pierre Polyev has moved the CPC to the right, and now that the
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lockdown crisis has receded, are populist conservatives and freedom-oriented contrarians
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happy enough with Polyev to vote for him? That seems to be the message in Portage-Lizger,
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does it not? I think that Pierre Polyev isn't perfect, but perfect can be the enemy of the good.
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What I mean by that is Polyev is miles better than O'Toole and Scheer. He's still a bit cautious,
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and he's scared of the media party, but much less than those other two. He's taken firm lines on
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things like the carbon tax, the economy. He sure has socked it to the CBC. He's obviously still scared
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to talk about immigration, and he's still shy about rebel news. He hasn't done a sit-down interview with
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us, Pierre Polyev. Though when we bump into him in events, he doesn't tend to run away. Bernier
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isn't scared of anything, but maybe that kind of ideological purity is great for punditry and social
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media action, but not so much for winning elections. We desperately need to beat Justin Trudeau. Many of
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the qualms I personally had with O'Toole and Scheer are gone now. No way was I going to support carbon tax
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lovers and CBC lovers. Really, after losing in 2019 and 2021, isn't it desperately time to win against
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Trudeau? And you tell me, is it not the fact that there are only two people who could mathematically
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become PM after the next election, Justin Trudeau or Pierre Polyev? In Alberta last month, the left
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had a similar choice to make. All the small parties on the left voted strategically. The Green Party,
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the Liberal Party, the Alberta Party, they all basically evaporated and their voters coalesced
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around Rachel Notley, the NDP candidate. The only hope they had to beat Danielle Smith, the
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conservative. It wasn't enough, but it was very strategic and they almost did it.
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Is that how it might go this time federally? I fear that there will be a bit of an
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anybody-but-conservative vote as the media demonizes Polyev. I think you'll see
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people leaving that empty suit Jagmeet Singh and voting for Trudeau just to block Polyev.
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In that way, I fear that Polyev's healthy lead in the polls today could be a mirage.
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And so if the left coalesces around Trudeau, if they abandon the Green Party and the NDP
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to vote for Trudeau, ought not the right to coalesce around Pierre Polyev?
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It's hard to say otherwise. I like Bernier very much and I wish he were in parliament. I wish he
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were in government. I wish he had beaten Andrew Scheer, the cowardly dairy lobbyist,
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back in 2017. But wishing doesn't make it so. And so if the PPC hasn't won a seat in the last two
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general elections and the last few by-elections, and if another general election is upon us soon, and if
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Pierre Polyev is pretty good, if not perfect, and if he's running the most serious campaign
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against Trudeau we've ever seen, even more serious than Harper's 2015 campaign.
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Now I put this question to the former Premier of Newfoundland, a great freedom fighter,
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a great Canadian named Brian Peckford. And here's what he said to me when I asked him,
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remember this? Now your co-plaintiff in the airline mandate case is Maxime Bernier,
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the leader of the People's Party. And we have quite a strong relationship with Maxime Bernier.
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We interview him a lot. We find him very interesting. We found him quite principled on a lot of matters,
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including during the lockdown. And I think we interview him every month or two. And I admire,
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there's a lot to like about Maxime Bernier, but if I have to be completely, pragmatically, coldly,
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candid, he cannot form the next government. And even when he had a seat, when he had the one seat
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for his party, he didn't break through. And there were a lot of reasons for that, including they,
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they, in my view, illegally kept him out of the leaders debate. There were a lot of other reasons.
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But and let me tell you, this is as someone who admires Maxime Bernier and generally supports him.
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I wish it were otherwise. But I do not think that Maxime Bernier can mathematically be the next
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government. So to me, there's really only two mathematical choices, Justin Trudeau or Pierre
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Paulieff. And and those are the two pragmatic choices. And therefore, I will, between those
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choices, choose Pierre Paulieff. Would you would you do differently?
00:23:33.220
Yes, I will vote for Maxime Bernier in a flash, because I'm looking long term. We have to change
00:23:41.060
the whole structure of this country. We can do a lot within the existing constitution,
00:23:46.420
like I just proposed, as it relates to CBC, as it relates to tightening up the conflict of interest
00:23:51.940
legislation, as it relates to the political parties publishing their audited financial statements of
00:23:57.780
their party every year, as it relates to sovereignty and signing trade agreements and so on. We can do a
00:24:03.700
lot inside the existing constitution, but we need to do more. And therefore, we have to start somewhere
00:24:11.300
to begin that reform. And so I'm looking long term, long term, the policies that are on the PPC website
00:24:19.380
today on Mr. Bernier's website most align with my views now as as a Canadian and as a former first
00:24:28.580
minister. They align most with me. I see what has happened to bilingualism, biculturalism. I see what's
00:24:35.060
happening to being very, very flexible in trade agreements. I see what's happened to our immigration
00:24:41.780
policy where it hasn't matched our economic policy and which has gotten out of hand. And so we have to
00:24:48.820
start somewhere. And so in however many years I got left, as long as Mr. Bernier sticks with those
00:24:54.100
principles that he has actually put in writing, and by the way, his expenses are right there on
00:25:00.020
his website as well, his financial statements, which I'm asking the other parties to do, I will begin anew
00:25:07.700
to assist him in getting, look, if he could get three or four seats and to become, to have to be interviewed
00:25:15.540
by the press to start the ball rolling. I think that would be a really good start. And having him
00:25:22.100
part of the national conversation and his views could really assist. So you start small, you get a
00:25:29.540
couple of seats or whatever, you get a chance to get your ideas out there. And that could lead to over
00:25:34.820
the next two elections to them being a very big political force. So you got to start somewhere.
00:25:40.820
The Canada is broken. Our democracy has been has been lost. Our charter has been broken. And
00:25:47.940
therefore, this is a long term project. And we must start now with honesty and real or
00:25:56.260
system to begin rebuilding our nation. And I can't think of any better way to do it
00:26:01.780
practically than through the PPC. All right, that's good stuff. I take the point. And of course,
00:26:05.940
he's right. But I don't want Trudeau to win again. I want to stop him. Every day that goes by,
00:26:12.580
more terrible things are being done in Canada, not just in parliament, but through executive orders
00:26:18.340
and just spending and through judges being appointed and through foreign policy being ordered. Frankly,
00:26:24.980
if we wait too long, who knows what Justin Trudeau will do? Who knows if the internet will even still be
00:26:31.060
free two elections from now? I love Maxime Bernier as a person and as a political activist, but I do
00:26:37.860
not believe that he can win a seat in the next election. In his own way, he helped push the
00:26:43.700
Conservative Party to get rid of O'Toole and to usher in Polyev. He showed, by example, how a true
00:26:49.940
freedom fighter sides with the truckers. And he shamed the Conservative Party of Canada MPs into following
00:26:55.940
his lead. And Aaron O'Toole's attempt to stamp that out was the cause of O'Toole's ouster. Bernier
00:27:02.580
helped with that. He helped improve the Conservatives from the outside. I'm not a politician and I'm not
00:27:08.660
a member of a party, but I can say it is time for Canada to get rid of Trudeau and people who value
00:27:14.500
freedom and privacy and national sovereignty should vote like the next election is their last election,
00:27:21.060
because given Trudeau's madness, given his illegal invocation of martial law, given his obsession
00:27:27.060
with censoring the internet and his prosecution and jailing of his political enemies, it just might be
00:27:49.380
While the good guys are outnumbered by the bad guys, that's just how it is. And that's why our side cannot
00:27:55.460
relent. The other side is relentless. But you know, if you're a happy warrior and you don't mind fighting,
00:28:00.740
you can see some progress. And I'm pleased to say that the forces of freedom have a new ally. And
00:28:07.060
the forces of freedom, you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Canadian Taxpayers
00:28:11.380
Federation. I'm talking about our counterparts at True North or Western Standard, the Fraser Institute.
00:28:18.900
I'm talking about freedom oriented groups like the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom or our
00:28:25.300
friends at the Democracy Fund. Well, add to that constellation a new star. I'm talking about the
00:28:32.580
Aristotle Foundation. Sounds high minded because it is, but it's dedicated to those principles of free
00:28:40.020
inquiry and open debate. Principles that have been eroded in Canada lately, where there's more cancel culture
00:28:48.580
than debate culture. I'm delighted to have on the show the boss of the new Aristotle Foundation
00:28:55.540
from his world headquarters in Calgary. I jest. I joke that we're in our world headquarters here. It's a
00:29:02.020
small shop. But the Aristotle Foundation has good bones. They're dedicated to freedom. And it's a delight
00:29:07.780
to talk to Mark Mielke, their boss. And by the way, they're launching with a bang, a new book. Mark, great to see you.
00:29:14.260
Great to see you, Ezra. Thanks for having me on.
00:29:16.020
Well, come on. I mean, you're going to be a regular here. I just know it because you have made
00:29:22.020
a decision about the course of your life's work that you were going to chair,
00:29:26.820
the Foundation for Public Policy called the Aristotle Foundation. Why don't you tell us a
00:29:32.340
little bit about that? And then we'll talk about your project that you're launching with your debut,
00:29:38.820
your new book. But first, give me a little bit of background on the Aristotle Foundation for Public
00:29:43.700
Policy, your registered Canadian charity headquartered in Calgary. What's your official mission?
00:29:50.660
Well, our mission is to champion reason, democracy and civilization or civil society,
00:29:56.100
as people might know it. Now, that's you're right. It sounds very kind of highfalutin.
00:30:00.020
But basically, we want to make people think because I think a lot of people or some people anyway in the
00:30:04.900
chattering classes, and it filters down are not thinking these days. So is it reasonable to say Canada
00:30:10.340
is a systemically racist society? In the new book, which we'll talk about in a moment, Matthew Lau says,
00:30:15.220
no, it's not reasonable. How about democracy? Why did the Swiss get to vote in a carbon tax and vote
00:30:20.260
it down, where Americans can vote in marijuana? And Canadians are told, we just have to behave,
00:30:26.820
not challenge the political class or anyone else. I think democracy needs some reform and a dose of
00:30:32.820
direct democracy, actually, in Canada. And how about civilization? Again, a very old-fashioned word.
00:30:37.780
A couple of years ago, I read about a little town called Cranbrook, a city in British Columbia,
00:30:42.020
not far from where I grew up in the interior of British Columbia. Two gangs were fighting it out
00:30:46.580
in the streets. And then they went to the hospital and fought it out in the hospital.
00:30:50.340
Think about a small city. How do you deal with that? I was reading yesterday in National Review,
00:30:55.700
a great article on Ontario schools and some of the violence. Is this the kind of civilization,
00:31:00.260
the civil society, the country we want? So the Aristotle Foundation was set up to make people think
00:31:05.380
about some of these claims, some of these issues. And we're underway. And the first part of this is
00:31:11.300
putting out a book that says, you want to cancel Canada? Really? You think that's a great idea?
00:31:16.020
We've got 20 authors in the book that say, maybe you want to rethink that.
00:31:20.420
Well, let's get right into the book. The book is called The 1867 Project, Why Canada Should Be Cherished,
00:31:27.620
Not Cancelled. And it's a group of essays. You mentioned one of them on systemic racism. And,
00:31:35.780
you know, I think racism has been a human condition in every continent since the dawn of time. And in the
00:31:43.460
past, it was just considered normal. I mean, you could even say the saying, birds of a feather flock
00:31:48.980
together. I mean, I think it's only now that there's an emphasis of getting past that. I mean,
00:31:57.860
really a blink of time in the history of man. And I think Canada has a noble place in that.
00:32:02.740
We were the country that banned the slave trade more than 200 years ago. We were part of the British
00:32:09.940
Empire's campaign against slavery. We were the destination for runaway slaves through the Underground
00:32:16.740
Railroad. I think that Canada, if you judge us in the time in question, in this 18th century,
00:32:25.860
in the 19th century, we were the most progressive place around. And I think an attempt to retroactively
00:32:33.860
demonize our country as racist is historically illiterate. And it's wrong. That's my thought.
00:32:40.100
What does Matthew Lau have to say? It sounds like he's a Chinese Canadian. You have a lot of minorities
00:32:45.940
writing here. And they're writing things that are contrarian because the official woke view is, no,
00:32:50.900
we're all racist. We're a genocidal state. John A. McDonald's a war criminal. Tell me about some of
00:32:56.820
these essays standing against this hurricane of woke. Sure. You mentioned Matthew Lau's in the 1867
00:33:04.660
project and his chapter is key because there is this notion that Canada is systemically racist today.
00:33:10.500
What Matthew does is he adds some history and some statistics to this claim and then rebuts
00:33:15.460
the claim. So how he does that is he says, look, yeah, 70 years ago or 100 years ago,
00:33:20.820
there was discrimination against minorities in this country. But today, if you look at the income
00:33:25.300
stats, right, you look at ethnicity, you look at income. Well, who's at the top of the heap income-wise?
00:33:31.140
It's those with East Asian origins, for example. You know, himself in the Chinese community,
00:33:37.780
if you look at Japanese Canadians, if you look at someone from Taiwan as opposed to China proper.
00:33:43.300
But generally, East Asian Canadians are at the top of the income heap, which is a good thing.
00:33:47.700
Now, it doesn't mean there's not individual bigots out there or prejudice. Matthew makes this
00:33:51.780
distinction in the 1867 project. But to find a bigot out there is not the same thing as saying
00:33:57.700
Canada is systemically racist. And people are not clear in this. And that's the problem these days.
00:34:02.340
People don't make distinctions. They don't actually define what they mean when they talk,
00:34:06.260
you know, including politicians, a lot of them and a lot of the media. So what's a good reminder
00:34:11.220
of what systemic racism is? Let's go back 100 years to San Francisco. Back then, whites in San Francisco
00:34:17.460
would not allow those of Chinese origin into their white hospitals. The Chinese of San Francisco
00:34:22.980
had to build their own hospitals. That's institutional racism or Ontario before the
00:34:27.860
early 1950s. You could discriminate against someone based on color or ethnicity in terms of employment,
00:34:34.660
accommodation. But laws are passed against that in 1951, 1952. And yet, 70 years later,
00:34:41.380
we have governments and politicians pulling their hair out as if, you know, this is Canada in 2023,
00:34:47.540
is Alabama in 1923. It's really quite ridiculous. So Matthew Loud does a nice job.
00:34:53.300
Taking down this claim that Canada is systemically racist, at least against minorities. I mean,
00:34:58.180
you do see government policy these days. That is what I'd call reverse racism. I had to ask one
00:35:03.700
dean at the University of Calgary to defend a hiring policy that was very specific to one color.
00:35:08.580
And they said, really? So you wouldn't hire the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor because you
00:35:12.820
think she's privileged? So it's amazing to me, actually, how we've lost ground on this issue,
00:35:17.620
Ezra. That unfortunately, today, old evils are cropping up and new guises, new justifications.
00:35:23.860
Discrimination against the individual, as opposed to, no, celebrate the individual,
00:35:29.300
discriminate based on merit, higher on merit, that sort of thing.
00:35:32.180
So we've actually, I think, lost some ground, unfortunately.
00:35:35.700
And you're comparing things to Canada and San Francisco in the last century. But I think you
00:35:41.620
can take a broader comparison. Why just compare us against our own recent past? Why not compare us to
00:35:47.220
every single other country and continent in the world? I think there's a myth that only the West
00:35:54.500
was racist or only the... Whereas today, I mean, there is still slavery in several continents. There's
00:36:02.100
still overt racism and discrimination in several continents. What other country in the world is
00:36:07.940
better than Canada? I don't think there's a good answer to that. Listen, I want to whip through some
00:36:11.460
of the other subjects. Give me just short snappers on each of these. Greg Piazetsky, if I'm saying it
00:36:17.460
wrong, takes on the case of Sir John A. Macdonald. Here in Toronto, there's a great statue of Sir John
00:36:23.620
A. Macdonald right in the heart of the city. And they built a wooden coffin around it, so no one has
00:36:29.140
to look at it. It's insane. The founder of this country is in a wooden coffin in the biggest city
00:36:36.420
because the city fathers are too ashamed of him. Give me a one-liner of why Greg Piazetsky says
00:36:42.820
that's wrong. Well, because he favored treaties and carried out treaties in the West, specifically
00:36:50.260
to make sure that what happened in the American West didn't happen in the Canadian West. Founded
00:36:54.100
the Northwest Mounted Police to protect the first settlers, you could say, from later settlers and
00:36:58.500
vice versa, but first settlers from later settlers. And he provided famine relief. Plus, he was instrumental
00:37:04.820
as part of the effort to inoculate indigenous Canadians against smallpox. So for all those
00:37:09.700
reasons and more, Greg details why John A. Macdonald, as he puts it, saved more indigenous
00:37:14.660
lives than any other prime minister. Gaurav Jaswal, which sounds like a Sikh name. And again,
00:37:21.140
I'm pointing this out because I think there's something powerful for people who are supposed to be
00:37:27.060
woke and think as part of an identity group saying, no, no, no, I've looked at things independently
00:37:31.700
and it's not that way. Tell me about Gaurav Jaswal's essay on the error of Canadian self-loathing. I
00:37:39.540
think that is truly, you know, we're talking about race a little bit. It's like one of those funny
00:37:44.500
lists, white people problems or things white people like. I think that maybe things are so luxurious and
00:37:50.580
so prosperous that the way that, and there's no real battles to fight, that we turn on ourselves.
00:37:58.580
And it's sort of like a cannibalism. We declare ourselves the enemy. Tell me why Gaurav Jaswal
00:38:04.660
thinks that Canadians should stop hating themselves. I love Gaurav's chapter in the 1867 project.
00:38:10.500
Gaurav is an entrepreneur from Goa, India, who sent his two sons here to university to Canada. And then
00:38:15.700
Jaswal started to notice that Canadians were beating up on themselves and he was wondering
00:38:21.060
why. So he kind of looked into this. And in the chapter, in the 1867 project, Gaurav says,
00:38:26.020
what do you mean you're a systemically racist country? You know, I came to what Matthew Lau said.
00:38:31.060
He asked his questions. Gaurav says he knows someone who, he doesn't say which province,
00:38:35.540
but a friend of his, a lady that moved here some time ago, became elected as an MLA to a provincial
00:38:40.340
legislature in, in Canada. And then this, this lady had the temerity to say, Canada is an institutionally
00:38:46.020
racist country, um, against me. And Gaurav said, listen, I live in Goa, India. I'm not native to this,
00:38:52.020
this state in India. I couldn't get elected in the state because of the racism. And yet you move to
00:38:56.580
Canada and you're elected as a politician. Um, so Gaurav kind of again unpacks this. He also,
00:39:02.660
he wrote a column in the national post several years ago, and he, he reprints some of the letters
00:39:06.900
he got some of the emails he got when he wrote that post column, uh, from Canadians, a lot of
00:39:11.700
whom were immigrants and said, this is nuts how we're attacking Canada as a systemically
00:39:16.740
institutionally racist country. And again, they kind of made the point you made, they've encountered
00:39:20.740
real racism around the world. Um, and they came from societies that sometimes were deeply racist.
00:39:25.940
So Gaurav does a nice job of unpacking this from Goa, India to say, you know, Canadians stop doing
00:39:31.380
this. You've, you've got a country that was built up over time that has as many things to cherish.
00:39:37.220
You know, I've been to some foreign lands, including Iraq. And, uh, it's funny what I,
00:39:43.220
what people said to me when I was in Iraq, they said two things. They said, stop smiling so much.
00:39:47.860
You look stupid and stop saying thank you very much for little things that let's stop overthinking
00:39:54.500
people. I said, well, that's just how I am. Maybe that's how Canadians are. We're always saying,
00:39:58.260
sorry, eh? And, and my friends over there said, no, you look so gullible and you look like a mark
00:40:06.900
and you're so, oh, thank you very much for a trifle. People said, it looks like you're a sucker.
00:40:13.540
And I think that's how it is over there. But here in Canada, we like being nice. We like saying,
00:40:18.580
after you, no, after you, let me hold it over you. No, sorry, sorry, sorry. And, and I think that
00:40:23.540
that some of these essays in a way are unpacking that is that we're so hypersensitive to criticism.
00:40:32.340
We're so obsequious that we don't even take our own side of the argument that we're so
00:40:38.980
deferential and that other places, other people in the world are brutal. Oh no, sorry, sorry,
00:40:45.220
sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say, okay, I think the core problem in Canada
00:40:50.420
is best illustrated by an image. When you think about what it takes to create a country from scratch
00:40:55.060
over time, it's like an oak tree. I love oak trees. Why? Because they're, they're massive.
00:41:00.580
Their canopy is huge. They can shelter people underneath it. My car has been hit by hail a
00:41:04.740
number of times in Calgary. If I was sitting under an oak tree with my car, we probably would have
00:41:08.740
protected it because of the canopy. It's so huge. An oak tree is like, is like a country. It's like a
00:41:14.420
civilization and vice versa. So Canada was built up over time, pre-confederation,
00:41:19.060
post-confederation. I mean, you can go all the way back 20,000 years ago to the first settlers,
00:41:23.220
right? Those who are now called indigenous, whose ancestors came over the Bering Strait.
00:41:27.700
Everybody contributed to building this country. French fur traders, people in 1867,
00:41:32.340
people who came two months ago from Ukraine or Hong Kong, fleeing troubles there in those, in those
00:41:36.900
locales. And, but people today, some anyway, I don't think it's a majority of Canadians, Ezra.
00:41:42.340
I think there's a chunk of the population that's, that sees a diseased limb in our history,
00:41:46.980
right? We didn't give the vote to indigenous folk before 1960 or women before the end of the 1910s.
00:41:52.660
All right. That was a problem. It was a diseased limb on a tree, so to speak. What do you do?
00:41:57.220
You don't take down the entire tree. You prune the limb, you make the tree better. But we've got
00:42:01.780
people today who see a problem and they immediately want to take down the entire structure of Canada.
00:42:06.500
They want to pour acid on the roots, our foundations. Well, that's dumb because it's the tree of Canada,
00:42:12.820
so to speak, this massive oak tree that's been built up over centuries that has afforded protection
00:42:17.300
to millions of people. Perfectly? No. But of course, and this is the other problem I have,
00:42:21.860
and I think this is also the genesis of the 1867 project and the Aristotle Foundation, Ezra.
00:42:27.140
When people look back in the 20th century, the main problem was, you know, for the main utopian
00:42:32.900
problem was Marxism. But at least they could argue they looked ahead and they could create
00:42:37.220
a perfect society in the future. Today, we have people who are utopians who look back
00:42:41.780
into history and weirdly expect history to have been perfect, even though it was populated by
00:42:46.740
imperfect human beings like us. Why would you expect John MacDonald to have been perfect or hold
00:42:51.940
views exactly like us? Plus, it actually, it's not just, of course, they were different people,
00:42:55.780
different age. We don't need to excuse or apologize for that or condemn them for that.
00:43:02.740
Here's the other problem today with, again, some of the chattering classes who want to trash Canada.
00:43:07.620
It's also that, look, we built on their ideas and they had the tougher struggles.
00:43:13.780
John MacDonald trying to like feed, you know, in a famine, Indigenous Canadians trying to inoculate
00:43:19.620
Indigenous Canadians against smallpox. We're trying to build a country in a pre-modern age where it was
00:43:24.740
mostly rural and agricultural before the rise of the automobile. I mean, you know, the people who fought in
00:43:30.820
world wars to actually preserve liberty, to advance liberty, the people who worked for suffrage for
00:43:36.100
equal opportunity, regardless of color, they had the tougher job. So for us to trash past generations,
00:43:41.700
to me, seems entirely ungrateful. And it's the wrong way to look at history. We have built on their
00:43:47.300
sacrifices and successes. It's not that we ignore the wrongs in human history, but we've got to
00:43:52.980
understand, at least in the Anglosphere and liberal democracies like Canada, we're a success,
00:43:58.100
by and large, for the most part, except for some backsliding today, because of what these
00:44:03.860
founders and others did. And we ought to appreciate that more. So I think that's a big part of the
00:44:08.420
1867 project, trying to get people to think a little more deeply, instead of this nonsensical
00:44:13.780
black and white view of history, which, you know, in the 1950s, John Wayne is always the good guy,
00:44:18.100
the Indigenous person is kind of secondary. Now it's flipped. That's just, that's simplistic
00:44:22.980
history. We shouldn't do that again and treat individuals as something less than what they are.
00:44:26.820
Individuals. And I think condemning great men and women in the past for flaws is a kind of narcissism.
00:44:34.500
I'm better than them. I'm perfect. Obviously I'm perfect. No one in the future will ever look at
00:44:39.700
me and say, I missed a trick. So I'm so perfect. I'm looking back historically and I'm superior to
00:44:46.580
them. And I'm just going to tell you that in the noisier I say it, the more pure I am.
00:44:50.500
I tell you, I look forward to reading the book. It's called The 1867 Project. It's a compilation of
00:44:56.420
20 vignettes like these. The new foundation that published it is the Aristotle Foundation
00:45:03.700
for Public Policy. And their motto, which I like, is championing reason, democracy,
00:45:10.020
and civilization. And we could use a little bit more of all three of those things. We've been talking with
00:45:14.820
Mark Mielke, their new executive director. Listen, congratulations. You can get the book on amazon.ca.
00:45:22.020
I just went there myself. Congratulations on it. And what's the best website for people to
00:45:29.540
Well, if I may as well, Ezra, let me just say that I think we should unite around ideas,
00:45:34.100
not divide and identities. That's actually the positive message in the 1867 project book. That's
00:45:39.380
the end of the book. People can find us at AristotleFoundation.org. Just tap in Aristotle
00:45:44.900
Foundation, look for us, and you'll find us there. And again, the book, you're right,
00:45:49.140
is available on an amazon.ca. But I think Canadians should unite around the wonderful ideas that are part
00:45:55.620
of our history and now and not divide. So that's really where we want to point people to, is that
00:46:01.780
positive end for everybody. Because we're such an identity diverse country, we need to unite around
00:46:06.180
better ideas. There you have it. Mark Mielke, the Aristotle Foundation. Good luck to you. We look forward to
00:46:11.380
following your success. Thank you, Ezra. Cheers. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:46:25.620
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Mark Beerly writes, I remember when they first started pushing
00:46:32.660
the idea of hate crime. I knew it was only a matter of time before we would begin to see hate speech.
00:46:38.100
And here we are. Yeah. You know, it's incredible how many people think that hate speech is some like
00:46:45.940
legal category of speech that is not protected speech. There is no asterisk in the chart of rights
00:46:51.540
that says you have freedom of speech unless your feelings are hard. It's just not a thing. But
00:46:57.220
frankly, I bet you half the lawyers and judges in the country would go along with that authoritarian
00:47:01.860
view. Someone named Wolfious, I think that might not be a real name, says, speaking of re-education
00:47:08.020
camps, isn't that what feds wanted during the start of the pandemic outbreak by sending those unvaxxed
00:47:13.300
to re-education camps around Canada? And you thought it could never happen in Canada to
00:47:18.180
you know, are strong and re-educated. They weren't re-education camps. They were,
00:47:23.220
I'm not going to say concentration camps because that implies the death camps of
00:47:26.900
Nazi Germany, but they were quarantine camps. They were mainly at airport hotels.
00:47:34.580
And they were an absurd violation of our civil liberties. They were actually scientifically junk.
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If you are sick with the virus, go home and isolate yourself. Don't go to a hotel with
00:47:46.820
staff and other people at a busy airport. They made no sense, but it was that authoritarian
00:47:52.100
instinct of public health. So yeah, those were not re-education camps though. Those were
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quarantine containment camps, which is, I suppose, the step before a re-education camp.
00:48:04.420
Chuck Andrews says, if you won't tolerate being hated, don't be hateful. Well, you really don't have a
00:48:09.940
choice about it because you can't control other people's feelings. They will hate what they want to hate and
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love what they want to love. And it's very hard to change those things. Like I say, if you want to
00:48:19.780
change feelings of hate, you almost certainly have to deal with the underlying grievance. People
00:48:25.380
generally don't hate for no reason. There's some hurt in their life that is driving them to that,
00:48:30.660
some injustice. They might be wrong about it, by the way. It is possible to change people's views,
00:48:36.740
but that involves talking, arguing, maybe even hollering at each other, sometimes offensive talk. But as
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Churchill himself said, it's better to jaw jaw than to war war. Do you see what he means by that?
00:48:52.580
That's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:48:57.460
to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.
00:49:00.420
That's what you see here at Rebel World Headquarters