Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Millions in taxpayer money funneled to Canada’s worst left-wing propaganda site

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends, an interesting revelation about a far left-wing website called the National

00:00:05.460 Observer and how they became the number one recipient of government grants.

00:00:11.320 It's a crazy story.

00:00:12.640 I'll go through it with you.

00:00:14.140 But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:17.080 It's the video version of our podcast.

00:00:19.140 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:20.960 Now, we do charge eight bucks a month, but that's because we're not like the National

00:00:25.700 Observer.

00:00:26.180 We don't take money from the government.

00:00:28.340 We have to earn it by convincing people to pay it to us.

00:00:31.480 We can't just steal it.

00:00:32.980 That's why I'd love your help because we need you to survive.

00:00:36.180 That's rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:37.980 Oh, yeah, one more thing.

00:00:39.160 Are you wondering how you can support your favorite independent news outlet

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00:01:23.800 tonight canada's worst left-wing propaganda website gets millions of tax dollars to pay

00:01:35.300 for their journalism it's april 28th and this is the ezra levant show

00:01:39.640 shame on you you censorious bug

00:01:53.800 Hey, I hope you saw the show. Last week it was when Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter,

00:02:01.200 made a presentation to Parliament's Heritage Committee about what it means to be an independent

00:02:06.020 journalist. I was so proud of Sheila. I actually hadn't seen her remarks at all before she

00:02:10.820 delivered them. So I heard them the first time in that committee room. I was very excited.

00:02:16.520 Boy, she has a great understanding of what it means to be independent and to be a journalist

00:02:20.600 and the impediments to doing that in Trudeau and Carnies, Canada.

00:02:25.300 I was very proud of that.

00:02:27.860 You know, the shenanigans by the regime in so many ways.

00:02:32.140 I mean, MPs who didn't like her kept interrupting and saying,

00:02:35.300 my translation isn't working.

00:02:37.280 We've got to stop Sheila from talking.

00:02:39.040 It was so weird.

00:02:40.480 I really felt like I was in high school and they were pulling the fire alarm or something.

00:02:44.260 But the more gross part, I mean, politicians are going to be politicians,

00:02:48.240 but the other journalists who were there were from the official regime media in fact the main

00:02:53.920 journalistic union who was there was called the canadian media guild you know the word guild it's

00:02:59.040 like a medieval society as as if there's some secret knowledge that these journalists have

00:03:05.320 that the rest of us don't have as if they're craftsmen or something i mean like a fine

00:03:10.400 stonemason who apprenticed for decades with a grandmaster no you're just a propagandist anyways

00:03:16.840 they wanted two things as you know more money and more censorship well look what was revealed

00:03:22.280 today and i just say all that just to put you in the mind of what it means to be an independent

00:03:25.400 journalist and how proud i am of sheila gunreed and i hope you're proud of her too but look at

00:03:31.040 what was revealed by a conservative mp's question now this was written up by black locks one of the

00:03:36.460 few independent media companies in this country black locks tweet is actually more succinct as

00:03:41.380 tweets tend to be Vancouver climate news site national observer is the heaviest user of federal

00:03:49.060 media grants covering the equivalent of 23 employees 1.37 million for wage subsidies

00:03:57.080 640 000 from the periodical fund 435 000 for sole source federal subscriptions so apparently they've

00:04:08.120 about 23 staff we have 34 at rebel news they were given millions i think the craziest part frankly

00:04:16.460 are the nearly half a million dollars in forced subscriptions by bureaucrats that was that last

00:04:22.060 line item there they basically say to bureaucrats pay government money to get a premium subscription

00:04:30.140 from the national observer that's just so nuts who are the national observer either a far left

00:04:37.320 website based in vancouver that used to be called the vancouver observer they were started by a u.s

00:04:42.780 propaganda group called the tides foundation the same folks who bankroll basically all the anti-oil

00:04:48.640 anti-forestry anti-tanker uh propaganda um you know i i like the fact that holly doan of black

00:04:56.760 locks calls them a climate website because that's really what they are that was what they were

00:05:00.820 started to be other anti-conservative of course anti-alberta of course they're conspiracy theorists

00:05:06.080 about foreign interference i mean they they thought i was involved with russia or something

00:05:11.840 i played a practical joke on them uh in response that i'll have to tell you that another day

00:05:15.760 but they in fact are the foreign interference they're a canadian branch plant of san francisco

00:05:21.940 leftists and in fact their boss um is is an american communist radical who basically was

00:05:27.780 dispatched to canada so here let's read from black locks a little bit let me read a little

00:05:32.000 bit from the extended story eco news site number one in grants a vancouver climate news site the

00:05:40.200 national observer is the nation's heaviest user of department of canadian heritage grants newly

00:05:44.720 disclosed records show the quote independent news site received more than 1.3 million dollars

00:05:49.540 in taxpayers aid to cover the equivalent of 23 employees salaries while its ceo served on the

00:05:55.240 volunteer board responsible for approving grants. That's crazy. The National Observer Record speaks

00:06:04.440 for itself regarding our independence from any government of the day, said Jimmy Thompson,

00:06:08.300 editor-in-chief. The company in a mission statement claimed to be a profitable independent

00:06:13.200 news organization reading 4.5 million readers annually. But here's the gross part. This was

00:06:19.340 a secret. I mean, really, it meets the definition of a conspiracy. Payouts under the local journalism

00:06:26.360 initiative had been concealed by News Media Canada, a publisher's lobby group that processes

00:06:32.380 grants applications. National Observer CEO Linda Solomon Wood, that's the U.S. communist,

00:06:39.100 was a member of the judging panel that, quote, reviews applications, selects recipients,

00:06:43.260 and decides funding allocations according to the lobby. Editor Thompson did not dispute the

00:06:48.560 figures disclosed in an inquiry of ministry tabled in the commons at the request of conservative

00:06:53.760 mp arpen canna mp canna had asked with regard to the government's local journalism initiative

00:07:00.260 what was the breakdown of final funding each media outlet received now of course the whole

00:07:05.060 thing's rigged let me read the next part of the story the journalism initiative pays 100 of the

00:07:11.440 cost of selected employees salaries up to 60 000 annually let me just stop here and just i mean

00:07:18.540 I don't want the money. It's poison. But if someone were to pay all our staff up to $60,000,

00:07:26.320 first of all, some of our staff don't make $60,000. But could you imagine how free and light

00:07:33.180 we would feel? I mean, they are not a business. They are a grift. They are a project of the

00:07:41.100 liberals. And they actually have the audacity to call themselves independent, even though basically

00:07:46.440 they work for the liberals let me read a little more records show the national observer in five

00:07:51.780 years successfully applied for grants 23 times while ceo solomon wood was on the judging panel

00:07:58.220 editor thompson said the ceo played no role in winning grants for the website quote miss

00:08:04.600 solomon wood recused herself from any discussion of national observer applications he said they're

00:08:10.320 all friends i mean they're all in it together they all get government money and apportion it

00:08:16.120 And do you think for a second, if they work together and laugh together and hand out government money together, when it's the National Observer's turn to get paid, and so their editor says, I'm going to step out of the room for a minute, wink, wink, the rest of them know exactly what to do.

00:08:32.940 This is so super gross.

00:08:34.440 I can only imagine how this would warp my brain if Rebel News got millions of dollars from Carney and we began to rely on it like an addict.

00:08:44.960 I mean, I suppose if you won the lottery once, it would sort of wobble you, but hopefully you would pay down some debts and get on with regular life.

00:08:53.620 But imagine if every year you got hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mark Carney, the most political man in the country, that would warp you and you would become addicted to it because you'd be reliant on it and you would be obsessed with it.

00:09:08.920 you wouldn't be talking to your viewers you would be talking to one viewer you would pull your

00:09:14.520 punches you would use more gentle language you would ignore certain stories and our staff would

00:09:21.020 know that as well so they would do the same everyone would know we would be like a kept

00:09:26.420 mistress but trying to keep it secret from our viewers really but here's the fact and this is

00:09:33.340 right in their the statement of the money they have to force people to subscribe to them the

00:09:38.220 government has to order bureaucrats to subscribe hundreds of thousands of dollars in subscriptions

00:09:43.120 and these bureaucrats use tax money to pay for it they would die in two weeks without these subsidies

00:09:49.520 they would run out of money for payroll now they say you saw me read it earlier they say they have

00:09:55.640 four and a half million viewers i don't know exactly that what that means um i mean i don't

00:10:01.260 know if i should believe them they're they're a propaganda website but they claim more than four

00:10:07.960 million views a year that's nice i mean if you take your their word for it that's a little over

00:10:12.820 300 000 visitors a month it's a little more than 10 000 a day okay that's nice good team effort

00:10:23.780 um there's no proof of that they just say it and i'll take them at the word i don't know if you

00:10:31.020 saw but in december i did a post uh and i published the raw information from an app called

00:10:36.260 hoot suite that's the name of an app that runs our social media and i just published the full

00:10:42.220 report no edits it's all out there showing that last year we had 430 million views and impressions

00:10:51.020 so they had 4.5 million we had 430 million so we're we're almost a hundred times bigger

00:11:00.340 were almost a hundred times bigger.

00:11:05.180 Have you honest, be honest with me,

00:11:06.700 have you ever heard of the National Observer before?

00:11:09.800 I had because I follow environmental extremists

00:11:12.100 and the Thais Foundation.

00:11:14.160 But most Canadians have not.

00:11:15.540 I don't know if you remember, a few months ago,

00:11:17.360 Oxford University and the Reuters Foundation

00:11:20.220 did a study of Canadian media

00:11:22.620 and they had this wonderful chart

00:11:24.020 showing that Canadians actually watch

00:11:25.640 a lot of American media like CNN,

00:11:27.800 but of Canadian video news channels,

00:11:30.340 CBC is in first place. I'm only talking about the Canadians now. CTV is in second and Rebel is in

00:11:36.700 third. We're ahead of global news. No one's heard of the National Observer other than the bureaucrats

00:11:41.740 forced to buy it. Look, the National Observer is not a real news site. And I'm not going to say

00:11:47.220 you're not a journalist because that's what they say about us. But look, they're a propaganda site.

00:11:51.800 They received massive funding from a lobby group. They are stenographers. They are PR men. They're

00:11:57.520 not they don't have an open mind they can't their mind can't be changed they're a propaganda site

00:12:03.260 paid for by tides and then trudeau and then mark carney there's no organic authentic support for

00:12:09.140 them it does horrific damage to canada by trafficking in horrible ideas but they're not

00:12:14.600 real it's all manufactured that said it's comforting to know that just just 10 000

00:12:21.700 people a day. Watch that crap. Stay with us more ahead. Last month, I was down in New York state 1.00

00:12:38.500 where our friend Tommy Robinson was doing a live event hosted by our alumnus Gavin McInnes. So it

00:12:44.940 was a lot of naughty people in one place. And the venue was a very interesting warehouse. It was sort

00:12:51.100 of the America First Paraphernalia Warehouse.

00:12:54.540 It was like a shrine to MAGA.

00:12:56.920 It was quite something.

00:12:58.420 And so it shouldn't have surprised me, and I don't think it did,

00:13:01.120 that they started the event by everyone standing

00:13:04.860 and saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

00:13:07.540 Now, I stood respectfully and silently,

00:13:10.260 but I did not say the Pledge of Allegiance, first of all,

00:13:12.520 because I don't know it, and second of all,

00:13:14.420 because I am not pledging allegiance to the United States

00:13:17.620 because I'm a Canadian.

00:13:19.380 But I stood respectfully while everyone else did.

00:13:21.840 And you know what?

00:13:22.300 It was a touching moment because it was a unified sense of dedication and purpose.

00:13:28.200 I wouldn't say it was a religious moment, but it was sort of a secular religion, if I may.

00:13:33.520 It was a cohesive joining of the people in that room.

00:13:37.480 It felt like a perfunctory saying of grace before meals.

00:13:42.340 It's just a moment.

00:13:43.520 You just take a moment to recognize that there are other things and maybe even a higher power

00:13:48.220 and it's not just all about stuff in your face so we can take 30 seconds and say grace that's how

00:13:53.420 it felt and i really liked it well in canada you don't hear the anthem that often in a patriotic

00:14:00.300 way i mean you still hear it at sports games it's true but we don't have something like um

00:14:06.140 the pledge of allegiance i mean schools used to say god save the queen or god save the king

00:14:11.840 that's long gone and any wisp of christianity has since been eradicated from the public square but

00:14:17.700 what has taken its place is remember sir isaac newton said nature abhors a vacuum so when you

00:14:24.040 remove the christian faith and its symbols and rituals from public sphere don't think that

00:14:31.040 people will not miss it they'll fill it with something else they'll fill it with environmentalism

00:14:36.280 they'll fill it with some woke statement and as is increasingly the case in canada it will be

00:14:42.840 filled by a quasi-religious really a pagan and somewhat mystic statement called a land

00:14:50.860 acknowledgement where and i should say at my own children's school everyone stands as if it's some

00:14:56.640 religious statement as if it is some pledge of allegiance to be honest and i have to tell you

00:15:02.480 i am the only parent who does not stand and that is a terribly difficult thing to be the one person

00:15:09.200 who sits while 400 others stand but at least i have not been arrested at least i have not had

00:15:14.220 social workers sent to my home to examine the affairs of my family because i refuse to bend

00:15:20.560 the knee to this canadian pledge of allegiance but that's me if you look across the country on

00:15:27.680 the other coast the west coast the sunshine coast school district 46 well this is exactly what

00:15:34.820 happened a mom lara yates refused to go along with this pagan acknowledgement and her daughter

00:15:42.380 was immediately punished and they did indeed send social workers to her home luckily she has a legal

00:15:48.520 eagle on her side joining us now via skype is our friend and lawyer lisa bildy who is also the boss

00:15:56.060 of the free speech union of canada she joins us now lisa great to see you again i'm so glad you're

00:16:02.300 helping this mom me too and that's why we started this free speech union idea was so that we could

00:16:08.660 help all these people who are just ordinary folks trying to you know stand up for things and express

00:16:14.640 the express themselves and getting in trouble like larry gates tell me a little bit more about her

00:16:19.420 she's from seychelles if i'm saying that right she's a mom of four and she thinks that saying

00:16:25.860 these uh is a form of forced political expression i can tell you although i have not been forced to

00:16:31.840 say the words the peer pressure was enormous and you have to really be a political dissident to

00:16:36.840 stand up to it um in bc saying that land acknowledgement actually has some meaning as

00:16:43.280 you i'm sure have been following there have been court cases now that say there is such a thing as

00:16:48.280 indigenous title and that uh white men or other immigrants may not actually own the land under

00:16:55.280 their feet and so it's a it's almost like a magic spell that is actually in british columbia

00:17:02.240 poof and so now the indigenous title fairy has arrived you rub the land acknowledgement genie

00:17:08.800 lamp and the genie is here um in bc it's way more meaningful because they they actually are

00:17:15.320 legal consequences let me stop talking for a bit why don't you tell us a little bit more about your

00:17:19.820 client and what exactly happened to her sure well this isn't the first time she's expressed

00:17:24.900 opposition to it she is a mom of four as you mentioned two of her kids have already graduated

00:17:30.020 from this high school in sechelt and two are current students one of them in grade 12 who was

00:17:35.460 in a drama performance and so there was an evening performance and that's where where this event took

00:17:41.620 place but but long before that lara had first of all her oldest daughter is actually of indigenous

00:17:46.580 heritage and so all four girls uh have been attending the indigenous learning program which

00:17:52.340 which is a sort of a sub-program of the district.

00:17:56.500 And she has expressed concerns about land acknowledgments for years,

00:18:00.800 including, well, and especially after one of her daughters actually was failed a course

00:18:05.980 because she refused to produce her own land acknowledgment.

00:18:08.840 And so after all this effort of private conversations and challenging through the appropriate channels,

00:18:16.900 she finally just decided she was going to essentially heckle the land acknowledgment

00:18:20.840 at one of these drama performances.

00:18:22.340 it was an evening thing it was a it's this is a high school by the way so these are these are not

00:18:26.960 small children and she gave warning she told her daughter to tell the teacher that she would be

00:18:32.760 doing this that she would she would briefly heckle the land acknowledgement then she would sit quietly

00:18:36.960 for the rest of the performance and that's exactly what she did and she yelled out something like 0.99

00:18:41.420 save us your race baiting stop this political bull you know something like that and and then

00:18:47.140 she sat quietly for the rest of the performance. Nobody asked her to leave. Nothing happened. The

00:18:52.540 show went on. And then afterward, the drama teacher actually sort of outed her daughter 1.00

00:18:59.540 to the rest of the students and said, this is whose parents were heckling. And then the kids

00:19:07.620 started bullying this daughter. And not only that, but the principal called in a counselor to assess

00:19:13.680 whether she should even be released to her home whether she was suicidal or or any concerns like

00:19:18.160 that which which was completely preposterous in the circumstances so eventually they let the

00:19:21.900 daughter go home but then the principal called children's aid or whatever the bc equivalent is

00:19:26.880 and so a social worker came out to the house to assess whether this family was safe for these 0.98

00:19:31.640 children which was just again outrageous that is straight or well that you are mentally ill for 0.97

00:19:38.180 having these views we must cure you of your uh anti-social behavior if you don't support a land 0.98

00:19:45.340 acknowledgement you must be ill and you must be dangerous exactly so there's more two more things

00:19:51.960 one is that the principal immediately called in counselors for the whole school to help them cope

00:19:59.320 with having heard a contrary opinion if you can believe that she sent a notice home to parents

00:20:04.400 And again, these are high school students. But in her submissions, because we had an internal appeal, and I'll get to that. But in her submission, she talked about how she had pulled in all these councillors who were actually away on a retreat, brought them in on an emergency basis. And still, seven weeks after this incident, some people were still needing help to cope with having heard a contrary opinion.

00:20:24.900 so the next day Lara received something called a section 177 order which is a direction basically

00:20:32.880 not to attend on school property it's like a trespass notice and the the legislation makes it

00:20:39.920 to me at least reasonably clear that this is supposed to be done to maintain or establish

00:20:45.320 order in the moment and of course it wasn't necessary she was quiet she's after her her

00:20:51.000 brief outburst she sat still and quiet and wasn't a problem so it wasn't needed it was being used

00:20:57.000 the next day as a form of punishment now you're banned you cannot come on your daughter's proper

00:21:01.840 school property for two months and then there was going to be some condition that she'd have to kind

00:21:07.020 of establish that she was prepared to behave before she'd be allowed back on and of course 1.00

00:21:10.960 you know she hasn't conceded anything and so she's still banned and she's kept her kids home

00:21:16.260 because frankly, she's worried about the kind of environment where her kids are, you know,

00:21:23.260 the family's being called, having children's egg called on them. So she's not feeling very secure

00:21:28.220 sending her kids alone into that environment. I guess. Well, that's crazy. Now, you're not Laura,

00:21:35.740 so you may not have this information, but have any other parents expressed solidarity with her

00:21:42.100 or agreement. I can tell you the peer pressure to go along with these things is enormous.

00:21:47.940 First of all, no one wants to be called racist. Second of all, everyone likes to conform.

00:21:52.820 I mean, we saw that during COVID. Everyone wants to move with the pack

00:21:56.980 because if you're a dissident, you're weird. In this case, they'll send a social worker

00:22:01.860 and consider basically kidnapping your kids. Has anyone else at least privately said to Laura,

00:22:08.020 were with you do you know the answer you may not know it i don't know i don't i haven't heard of

00:22:12.900 any um so it's a small town and you're right i'm sure people would feel uncomfortable taking a

00:22:18.980 position on that but um so what what we were able to do is first of all file an internal appeal to

00:22:26.500 the superintendent that was allowed to us under the under the regulations and then that was denied

00:22:33.220 um and we tried to appeal it to the school board we were denied the opportunity to do that and so

00:22:38.940 now we're proceeding to a judicial review judicial review so the standards of judicial review i have

00:22:44.720 learned through many failed attempts they really defer to the local decision maker quite often

00:22:51.000 like for a court to set aside a ruling by a school by any other sort of petty government body

00:22:57.680 they're they're reluctant to do so because at least in my experience and in some case law

00:23:04.280 the courts say look we want to defer to people closest to the issue with the most experience in

00:23:09.920 the issue we want to give them some wiggle room we want to give them the right to be wrong

00:23:13.780 it's only if they're patently unreasonable they're just absolutely incorrect are we going to overturn

00:23:21.080 them um if they're reasonable enough we'll let it go what's the standard for review because i'm

00:23:28.360 worried a court will say yeah we're not going to crack this open well that's been my experience

00:23:34.080 too they are very difficult uh to to take these things forward um one thing we are seeking

00:23:39.780 though yeah well there's we're seeking a declaration that her charter rights were

00:23:44.320 infringed uh because it is a public school and you know she has she does have a right to speak

00:23:50.180 she was she was counter protesting essentially like this was a form of protest and i think it's

00:23:57.500 fair to say that and in fact the emergencies act decision uh verified that sometimes protests are

00:24:04.100 disruptive i mean that's the whole nature of a protest and so you can imagine that there'd be

00:24:08.320 a double standard here if this was a protest in on some other matter it's unlikely she would

00:24:12.840 have been banished um but one of the other things we're seeking is is um or that i'm i'm contemplating

00:24:19.780 seeking is an order quashing the um the the orders that allow these indigenous land acknowledgements

00:24:28.240 in the first place there's an interesting provision in the school act it says uh this is

00:24:32.680 section 76 it says all schools and provincial schools must be conducted on a strictly secular

00:24:37.860 and non-sectarian principles so as you were saying at the outset you know these have taken on a

00:24:43.360 quasi-religious tenor yeah they're certainly if you take the position that sectarian is not just

00:24:49.080 a religious concept but but refers to you know very strong controversial topics that uh that

00:24:55.680 people might reasonably disagree on for a public school to take a position on something like that

00:25:01.160 is in my view or at least it's arguable that that's contrary to the intent of this

00:25:06.560 of this section of the act which you know the public schools that have to um have to educate

00:25:12.400 children from all backgrounds all political perspectives they shouldn't be taking a side

00:25:16.600 on controversial issues and they need to stop so if this is one way to help stop that i'm i'm

00:25:21.500 inclined to take it forward yeah i know in alberta the provincial government is looking at

00:25:25.860 depoliticizing schools and i think that could be the single most important legacy of premier smith

00:25:31.640 i mean schools are the training grounds the ideological factories for left-wing activists i

00:25:38.240 mean the jesuits said it but but other uh others have to give me a child um at the age of eight

00:25:45.100 and i'll have him forever um i mean when you are teaching children of tender years about land

00:25:52.460 acknowledgements you were telling them in a very impressionable you were setting in them concrete

00:25:57.300 that will harden for the rest of their life and that that i think is the weaponization of children

00:26:03.160 and the teachers unions are the worst at it um what's interesting i'm thinking about your case

00:26:07.740 is that the mom was the so-called offender but the child was the one who was punished and yeah and

00:26:14.220 and perhaps the courts won't allow that i mean even if there is some remedy that must hit the mom

00:26:20.380 why should the child be uh subjected to it and sicking social workers on the mom is the craziest

00:26:27.220 part of all right yes we're hoping that we were trying to get an apology so that we could have

00:26:34.680 the daughter returned to school and they kept saying to us in correspondence look we we want

00:26:38.520 your children this only applies to you but then they put all these unreasonable barriers in front

00:26:43.460 of mom and and refuse to apologize for their own actions and so so far we've it's been an impasse

00:26:49.240 on that front so she's she's got the kids at home and and is homeschooling i got one last question

00:26:53.960 for you um i don't know if you'll get this information through the litigation process or

00:26:58.700 you'll have to do a freedom of information request but i think it would be fascinating

00:27:02.240 to see how the land acknowledgement came about in internal records and how this child and the mom

00:27:11.600 have been handled since i mean there may be some litigation privilege that the school applies to

00:27:17.100 we're not going to give these records up but i don't think that that would count unless it's

00:27:22.080 chatting with counsel i bet based on my experience in life that the woke teachers said outrageous

00:27:31.380 things in emails and whatever teachers chat boards they have and i think that you have a chance to

00:27:39.700 win this thing on the merits but you may also have some ticking time bombs that they left by speaking

00:27:45.820 intemperately it sounds like they really hate the mom and through her hate the daughter i mean

00:27:51.920 you've got to hate someone pretty bad to send child and welfare services to the home to take

00:27:56.300 the kids away i would bet you a dollar that they have said outrageous things that they would not

00:28:03.240 want to see the light of day anyhow it's just an idea from from someone who's used to quarreling

00:28:09.360 what do you think oh well we'll certainly try to get our hands on whatever we can

00:28:15.620 and and i wouldn't be surprised you know this is the other thing that these land acknowledgements

00:28:20.960 also impose a burden on teachers because if you happen to be a teacher not only do you have to

00:28:25.620 listen to it like all the parents and students, but you may be compelled to say it too. And I

00:28:30.620 think, honestly, pushing something like this forward, whether it's politically or if we're

00:28:34.480 fortunate to get a good decision in the courts, would be a relief to a lot of teachers who

00:28:38.980 quietly endure this and have to say these words they don't agree with. And anyway, it's time to

00:28:44.120 stop. And so whatever we can do to help that, we'll do. Well, I'm glad to hear it. Your organization

00:28:49.320 is the free speech union of canada fsu canada.ca i am a gold member of the free speech union the

00:28:56.580 original one in the uk and i'm delighted that you're heading up the canadian branch give me

00:29:01.740 just 30 more seconds about what the fsu canada does in general yes well we're a new sister chapter

00:29:09.000 of the one in the uk that you're a member of and we've been around just over a year we have it's a

00:29:14.160 member-based organization so people can join and participate in activities like salons we just had

00:29:19.320 one in Vancouver last week with Eric Kaufman leading that one in Hamilton a couple weeks ago

00:29:24.340 with Bruce Party so nice opportunities to get together with people who care about free speech

00:29:28.600 and and figure out ways forward and we also have a few legal cases which we send out to outside

00:29:34.020 counsel which mostly is me at the moment until we get better funding I'd like to have a stable of

00:29:39.160 lawyers to take these cases, for sure. We have campaigns that we run, including one to abolish

00:29:44.280 human rights tribunals, which have become enforcers of ideology rather than actually,

00:29:48.620 you know, sort of caring about universal human rights. And we also collaborate with our

00:29:55.320 international partners. And so we have a new FSU that just started in Brazil. And so it's

00:30:00.420 interesting to see how similar things are in all of our countries. It just seems like all of these

00:30:06.180 restrictions on free speech and censorship and attempts to surveil and curtail is happening in

00:30:12.240 lockstep around the world well i didn't know you guys were active in brazil you know i went there

00:30:16.460 for a day they had a big march when some crusading judge shut down the entire app twitter for the

00:30:25.080 whole country because they refused to censor a few accounts so this judge moreish is his name

00:30:31.260 Alexander Marais, if I'm saying that right, shut down the whole thing. And so 200,000 people

00:30:38.100 protested the shutdown. I heard it was large. I wanted to see with my own eyes. I had never seen

00:30:45.300 that many people care so explicitly about freedom of speech before. It actually was incredibly

00:30:50.580 inspiring because I don't know if you could even get 20,000, if you could even get 2,000

00:30:56.060 to take to the streets in Canada.

00:30:58.660 But there were indeed 200,000

00:31:00.360 marching for freedom that day.

00:31:01.920 Thanks for letting me tell you that anecdote,

00:31:03.600 but it was actually a very hopeful scene,

00:31:05.820 very hopeful sign.

00:31:07.360 Anyway, you and I have our work cut up

00:31:09.280 for us here in Canada.

00:31:10.700 Lisa, great to see you.

00:31:12.040 And once again, the website for folks

00:31:13.460 who want to help, whether that's join or donate,

00:31:15.940 that's fsucanada.ca.

00:31:18.480 Thanks, Lisa.

00:31:19.580 Thanks so much, Ezra.

00:31:20.520 Good night.

00:31:20.820 Our pleasure.

00:31:21.540 Stay with us.

00:31:22.200 More ahead.

00:31:26.060 hey welcome back your letters to me on the nova scotia spaceport i just can't say that without

00:31:36.600 smiling uh jfk19780 says this is why the liberals want to shut down all the committee meetings in

00:31:43.080 the house of commons they don't want all this theft exposed 11 years of stealing in proroguing

00:31:48.080 parliament and blacked out documents this is liberal transparency for you you know i just

00:31:52.380 have never ever in my life heard of someone backdating a lease so they could pay a full year

00:31:57.240 for time they didn't have the property and it's even crazier that they're paying 54 000 bucks a

00:32:03.600 day like 20 million bucks a year for the lease and the spaceport is leasing that land themselves

00:32:09.160 from the provincial government for about 14 grand a year it's madness jerry john said this 200

00:32:15.440 million slab makes about as much sense as financial sense as a 25 billion dollar sovereign wealth fund

00:32:21.720 built on national debt canadian taxpayers are disrespected to an insane degree oh yeah i mean

00:32:27.400 they're just raiding absolutely raiding the bank are they just and who's going to stop them uh the

00:32:33.280 national observer donaldus says kind of like what happened when trudeau built a shed for eight

00:32:39.680 million dollars yeah a shed for eight million dollars you're talking about the one i think up

00:32:43.560 in the yukon or somewhere in the far north um but at least that was eight million not 80 million or

00:32:48.300 $200 million. And they claim that was for cost overruns, as opposed to just sloshing the money

00:32:55.540 at friends. Yeah, and now they have a majority, so they're shutting down inquiries. Welcome to

00:33:00.420 Canada. We really are a banana republic. Well, that's our show for the day. Until tomorrow,

00:33:05.860 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.

00:33:09.380 Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - April 28, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Millions in taxpayer money funneled to Canada’s worst left-wing propaganda site

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