Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Naheed Nenshi’s apology shows who really controls the modern NDP

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Nahid Nanshi gets monstered by his own clan and decides the only way to save

00:00:07.000 himself is to come out fully against Israel. That's sort of a weird thing for a provincial

00:00:12.220 opposition leader. I'll take you through the history of it. But first, let me invite you to

00:00:16.580 become a subscriber to what we call a Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. And

00:00:21.440 I want you to do that because I want you to see what I mean when he was monstered. That's sort of

00:00:26.000 a british phrase for being mogged for being sort of ambushed on the street by a lefty who thought

00:00:33.980 that nenshi wasn't anti-semitic enough i'll show you what happened i want you to see it though not

00:00:38.540 just hear it tonight naheed nenshi copies the u.s. left and goes full anti-israel it's july 16th

00:01:02.300 And this is The Ezra Levant Show. 0.82

00:01:07.160 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:18.900 You know, there was a time when the lifeblood of the political left was the union movement.

00:01:24.520 I mean, that's what the NDP was, a party created by farmers and factory workers.

00:01:29.360 Over time, blue-collar became white-collar and pink-collar as unionized workers took over the parties of the left, both in Cannes and the U.S.

00:01:38.620 Not too long ago, a quarter of all delegates to the Democratic National Committee's conventions were teachers' union members, a quarter of them, let alone other public sector unions.

00:01:49.140 The issues for the left back then were more entitlements, more spending, and things like environmentalism and gay rights. 0.97

00:01:57.200 Not surprising when the left was a teacher's union left, an overwhelmingly feminine industry. 1.00

00:02:03.440 And those are feminine issues, being cautious, protecting the socially vulnerable, abortion on demand for any reason or no reason. 0.84

00:02:10.800 I think there was a moment when gay rights, abortion rights, and global warming were the essential issues in both the Canadian and American left. 0.53

00:02:19.520 But over the last decade, a new, more combative strain of politics has replaced that, though.

00:02:25.340 the marxist view of the world where everyone is put into one of two categories the oppressor

00:02:31.340 or the oppressed i think that's taken over the democrats and when you prejudge people on that

00:02:38.380 marxist divide and put them immediately into friend or enemy categories you don't really

00:02:43.500 have debates anymore do you because there's no compromising with pure evil the only reason to

00:02:49.240 talk to the oppressor is to negotiate the terms of their surrender that's where cancel culture

00:02:55.120 came from, I think, it's not a traditionally liberal idea. Liberals would debate, would go

00:03:00.680 back and forth. I'm here to tell you that the center of gravity of the parties of the left

00:03:05.440 in Canada, in the United States, and in the UK too, in Ireland, it's no longer teachers unions,

00:03:12.420 or really unions of any sort. Definitely no blue-collar workers like truck drivers or

00:03:17.480 skilled trades anymore. You won't find them. The center of the left-wing parties is the

00:03:24.040 university campus, believe it or not, radical professors, radical students, the kind of people 0.73

00:03:28.540 who set up those encampments at universities across North America to condemn Israel and support

00:03:33.600 Hamas after the terrorist attacks on Israel. I think the craziest was at Columbia University

00:03:38.740 in the heart of New York. I went down there to take a look for myself. I'm back in New York City

00:03:43.700 in front of Columbia University. This is the gate that we entered for a two-hour First Amendment

00:03:50.440 window when we were here the other day that is from 2 p.m till 4 p.m they opened the gates for

00:03:56.340 journalists and if you recall there were hundreds of them in line to to see firsthand the protesters

00:04:03.160 inside the hamas encampment um i call them protesters because i suppose that is what

00:04:10.620 they're doing but there wasn't a lot of talking from those protesters they were instructed by

00:04:16.440 their leaders not to talk to journalists, not to talk even to friendly journalists, but rather to

00:04:22.500 have hand-picked official spokesmen dealing with the media at large. In fact, if any journalist

00:04:29.200 tried to get in the actual encampment, they were blocked by a combination of students, but also

00:04:36.160 teachers too. You know, it's incredible. Columbia University costs about $99,000 for one year's

00:04:44.000 tuition. And that's U.S. money. That's around 140 grand Canadian per year. So these are not the

00:04:51.300 working classes. These are rich kids who are bored and want to get back a daddy or something,

00:04:57.340 or who feel guilty about daddy's money. So they take up luxury causes. That's what global warming

00:05:02.260 was. Only rich people care about that. But the edgiest of luxury concerns is Gaza. These kids 0.99

00:05:09.940 couldn't find Gaza on a map.

00:05:12.380 Many of the people protesting are not students,

00:05:16.880 not surprisingly, they wear masks.

00:05:19.140 I think the funniest moment of the day,

00:05:21.680 and I've only been here for about an hour,

00:05:23.920 is seeing people with flags,

00:05:27.360 flags that aren't even the Palestinian flags.

00:05:30.360 What country's flag is this?

00:05:32.360 What flag is this?

00:05:33.660 Palestine.

00:05:35.140 Is this a Palestine flag?

00:05:36.540 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:38.240 Are you sure?

00:05:39.540 Hi, do you know what flag this is?

00:05:44.400 I'm not sure, but it's not the Palestine flag.

00:05:47.060 She says it's not the Palestine flag.

00:05:50.740 Did you just pick it up or did someone give it to you?

00:05:53.060 It was given to me.

00:05:54.080 I went to another encampment in New York, you saw there,

00:05:57.040 at the Fashion Institute of Technology it's called,

00:05:59.340 and the first people I met with, they didn't even have the right flag for Palestine.

00:06:03.460 They had no idea what they were doing.

00:06:05.340 They just bought some flags that sort of looked right.

00:06:07.920 These are low information voters, but they're not there for the policy.

00:06:12.520 They're there for the emotion, for the sense of belonging.

00:06:16.100 It's a kind of faith.

00:06:17.540 It's a cult, really, when you're post-Christian and post-American and global warming doesn't

00:06:22.840 do it for you anymore. 0.75

00:06:23.820 This is the way.

00:06:25.100 It's far more exciting.

00:06:26.360 There's some blood and some violence in the air.

00:06:29.700 What a feeling.

00:06:31.220 So yeah, that's today's left.

00:06:33.440 It's not liberal in any sense of the word.

00:06:35.580 it's not for debating and disagreeing with fellow citizens it's for

00:06:39.500 deplatforming and destroying enemies it's not moderate it's not thoughtful it's not policy

00:06:46.300 based it's about tribes look at avi lewis the new leader of canada's federal ndp by the way

00:06:52.240 both his father and his grandfather were ndp leaders too if you can believe it

00:06:56.220 if you want to see our website on the subject go to avi lewis.com we've actually got that website

00:07:02.620 where we have sort of a depository of our videos on him.

00:07:08.040 Avi Lewis's dad and grandpa were actually pro-Jewish, by the way, pro-Israel.

00:07:12.380 But Avi Lewis is the most extreme leader in Canada when it comes to the Jews and Hamas.

00:07:18.260 He's all the way over.

00:07:19.300 He'll probably declare war on Israel if he could. 0.83

00:07:22.920 I mean, here's a sample. 0.62

00:07:23.980 And now 3,000 people killed in Lebanon in war crimes of now a significant scope.

00:07:33.440 And not to mention the global destabilization of its attack on Iran, which by many accounts

00:07:38.420 it dragged the United States into. 0.90

00:07:40.320 This is a rogue state, Israel. 0.97

00:07:41.960 And Jews of conscience around the world have been standing up to say it must be held to 0.94

00:07:45.660 account.

00:07:46.460 And in Canada, we have a federal political party that is calling for a real two-way arms

00:07:50.520 embargo, a cancellation of our free trade deal with Israel.

00:07:53.980 recalling ambassadors and diplomatic measures and a serious statement on the international stage

00:08:02.220 that Canada stands for international law and against the actions of this rogue state and its

00:08:07.540 genocide. Avi Lewis has taken the position because he's a woke radical where every Israeli is an 0.90

00:08:14.160 oppressor no matter what and every Palestinian is oppressed no matter what and any violence from a 0.90

00:08:19.940 Palestinian is justified, therefore. So what's left to debate? I mean, the fact that this extremist 1.00

00:08:25.320 position happens to attract voters amongst the millions of new migrants to Canada who've come 1.00

00:08:30.260 from anti-Semitic countries, well, that's a happy bonus for him. He's got the woke universities, 0.94

00:08:35.160 and now he's got the bigoted migrants, and it's working. In the last election, the NDP under

00:08:41.000 Jagmeet Singh got just 6% of the vote. It won just seven seats in the country, down from 24

00:08:47.020 the election before. But under Avi Lewis, they've already doubled the vote intention in polls. Here's

00:08:54.000 a recent poll, around 13% now. Partly it's because Avi Lewis, while a race baiting communist, is just

00:09:01.280 smarter and harder working than Jagmeet Singh. But part of it is because the number one single most

00:09:07.720 radical policy change at the NDP, they are now officially on the side of Hamas and Iran and

00:09:14.100 against america against the west and against jews same things happening in the u.s democrats

00:09:20.600 look at zoran mamdani the new communist mayor of new york here's how he watched a soccer game today

00:09:26.300 in prison on rikers island sitting next to a new friend who i understand is in prison

00:09:32.260 for strangling his girlfriend and we talked about 66 you have one star

00:09:38.740 You know, I hope that this shares with people who are incarcerated here on Rikers

00:09:53.120 that they too are a part of New York City.

00:09:55.240 The World Cup has been a magical moment for the entire city.

00:09:58.060 These are New Yorkers, and they will be New Yorkers when they get out of Rikers.

00:10:01.240 They're New Yorkers today, and I wanted to make sure that we can celebrate this moment together.

00:10:05.820 They're not hiding it. They're leaning into it.

00:10:07.900 these folks call themselves communists. They want to abolish the police. They want to abolish

00:10:11.600 America. They really mean it. So to Canada now, I know Nahid Nenshi, the leader of the opposition 0.86

00:10:18.200 in Alberta, the leader of the NDP in Alberta. We were in high school debating at the same time,

00:10:23.200 if you can believe it. And then in university, we became a debating team and we competed at the

00:10:28.500 national business school debate competition held every year at Queens University. And for two years

00:10:33.280 in a row. We won the nationals, a right-wing Jew and a left-wing Muslim. It was pretty fun.

00:10:40.100 And politically, at least, we couldn't be more different. He's a smiley Muslim, though, which 1.00

00:10:44.540 is the moderate Islam that follows the Aga Khan. But that was when Alberta's Muslim community was 1.00

00:10:50.800 very small, but the same as the Jewish community. Oh, that's not the case now. There are about 200,000

00:10:56.660 Muslims in Alberta. That's according to the 2021 census, which means it's probably more like

00:11:01.360 quarter million now. Some of them are moderate, like Nenshi, but many are not. So do the same

00:11:08.500 math that Avi Lewis did. In the last election, Danielle Smith won her government by fewer than

00:11:15.620 150,000 votes. If Nahid Nenshi can activate the Muslim base, 250,000 people, he's got a real 0.60

00:11:25.040 chance just by making that one change. Add in the wokeism of the NDP base, the government unions, 0.91

00:11:31.900 the university students, the radical NGOs. There are very few people in his coalition that he would

00:11:37.420 turn off by going full Hamas. There's only upside for him. So look at this video taken just the 0.98

00:11:43.900 other day. Nancy was being monstered at a stampede event, forget this, for the sin of taking a picture 0.99

00:11:50.420 just out and about with the Israeli ambassador. 0.98

00:11:53.640 Take a look at how he's being hounded from the left.

00:11:56.580 So tell me about what's not fair about that.

00:11:58.400 Please tell me.

00:12:00.280 That he comes to the stampede and I say hello?

00:12:03.540 Like, am I supposed to tell him to have off at a public event?

00:12:06.340 Yeah, that's not how it works.

00:12:08.560 Yeah, I think there's two sides.

00:12:10.040 I think there's two sides.

00:12:10.800 Please don't record.

00:12:11.800 I think there's two sides.

00:12:13.060 Okay, if you're recording, then I've got to get to the stage.

00:12:15.000 Thank you.

00:12:15.760 Thank you for being here.

00:12:16.800 Now, here's the innocuous picture of him and the ambassador, by the way.

00:12:22.800 Now, in that video, Nancy was irritated, but he made a good point.

00:12:26.700 Was he really going to physically snub someone like that, like a child having a tantrum?

00:12:32.420 The whole point of a diplomat is that you have someone who is a liaison between two

00:12:36.780 countries specifically to resolve issues and disagreements.

00:12:40.680 He doesn't have to be your friend.

00:12:41.880 You don't have to agree with him.

00:12:43.360 The whole point of diplomacy, though, is to be diplomatic.

00:12:47.060 And anyways, what business is it really of the leader of the opposition in a province

00:12:50.580 who has no responsibility for foreign affairs and, frankly, knows very little about the issue?

00:12:56.680 So good for him for standing up.

00:12:59.300 But that video, it went viral, and obviously a message was sent to Nenshi.

00:13:04.140 Either you un-person the ambassador, either you cancel him,

00:13:09.000 Or the anti-Semitic voting bloc un-persons you.

00:13:14.700 Join our mob or the mob will come for you.

00:13:18.300 Now, I don't know Nenshi well. 0.99

00:13:19.680 I did 30 years ago when we were debating partners, but that's a long time ago.

00:13:24.120 He didn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body back in the 90s.

00:13:27.340 I don't think he does today, to be honest.

00:13:31.140 But he's got something just as bad. 0.58

00:13:33.260 a desire to win so badly so desperately that he will allow the anti-semites to commandeer him

00:13:41.400 and what he says and does he will submit to them he will say what they want him to say

00:13:45.240 he will do what they want him to do i don't think he's an anti-semite but he leads an anti-semitic

00:13:50.720 party proudly and loudly and like abby lewis he'll smear the jews all day long his conscience

00:13:57.640 is clear on that, because winning is everything. So look at what he published today, just a day or

00:14:04.060 two after that viral video of him went public. A message from Nahid Nenshi. I want to speak to you

00:14:09.240 from the heart about a photo going around from last weekend. I'm so sorry for the harm it caused.

00:14:15.380 The harm? Was someone hurt by a political leader taking a photo at the Stampede?

00:14:21.220 At one of many public events at Stampede, I was approached by the Israeli ambassador. We had a

00:14:26.380 very brief and frank exchange during which a photo was taken. I think that's Nancy pretending that he

00:14:31.780 gave a lecture to the ambassador or something. I think he's trying to sound a little more butch 0.92

00:14:36.240 than he was. After talking to many people in the community, which community? What are you talking

00:14:41.600 about there in the community? Who do you mean? Over the last couple of days, I better understand

00:14:46.280 the immense hurt that has been caused to a lot of folks. Has there really been an immense hurt?

00:14:52.920 have people been hurt by that photo the alberta ndp strongly believes in human rights and

00:14:58.920 international law our position on this has never changed hey are you sure about that because i

00:15:03.360 don't think the ndp actually gives a damn about human rights back to the letter the israeli

00:15:07.500 government's actions in gaza have violated international law as the canadian government

00:15:12.100 has affirmed from the refusal to lift blockades that resulted in the gaza famine to indiscriminate

00:15:17.540 bombing there was no famine and the bombing was not indiscriminate it was in response to the worst

00:15:23.400 terrorist attack in israel's history hamas murdering and raping 1200 and taking more than 200

00:15:29.120 captive not a peep about that from nenshi those people aren't in his electoral coalition

00:15:34.460 at least 20 000 children have been killed a few days ago southern lebanon the ancestral home of

00:15:40.800 many albertans was bombed as part of a sustained campaign okay hang on a second is it really a

00:15:47.520 sustained campaign to bomb southern lebanon or was it a response to iran's terrorist hezbollah

00:15:53.800 that is holed up in southern lebanon turning it into a terrorist attack base against israel

00:15:59.120 why does nanshi not mention that lebanon and israel just signed a peace treaty just a couple

00:16:04.560 weeks ago whereby both demanded that hezbollah leave southern lebanon i mean it's one thing to 0.57

00:16:10.180 be pro-lebanon i am but it's quite something to be outright pro-hezbollah isn't actually stupid 0.84

00:16:17.000 or just evil well he's not stupid even here in home he continues we're seeing increases in anger 0.99

00:16:25.120 hatred anti-palestinian racism and anti-semitism no brother the jews are about one percent of the 0.96

00:16:32.100 population and they're about 80 of the victims of the hate crimes but nice drive thanks for throwing

00:16:37.800 in that anti-Semitism part, man. It really helps. I believe and will always believe that we have the

00:16:44.000 ability here to be models for the world on how people of different faiths can live together

00:16:48.600 purposefully and lift one another up to ensure we all live a life of dignity. I have dedicated my

00:16:53.800 life to that goal and I'll never waver from it. Signed, Nihid Nanshi. What a malleable piece of

00:17:00.260 putty. What a loser. You know, maybe he is an anti-Semite. 30 years ago, he was not. But if he 1.00

00:17:07.920 had said these things 30 years ago, he would have destroyed his political future. People would have

00:17:13.460 said, whoa, you're crazy. But today, in a rising tide of Jew hatred and violence, Nenshi has done 0.99

00:17:20.220 the math again. It's a winner for him, just like it's a winner for Avi Lewis. No Jews are going to 0.94

00:17:25.880 vote for Nahid Nenshi. And even if they do, they're a tiny number in Alberta, not a quarter

00:17:30.840 million Muslims. Nahid Nenshi might, in his heart of hearts, not actually be anti-Semitic, but there's

00:17:36.280 not a difference on the outside anymore, is there? Stay with us for more.

00:17:51.280 Well, Rebel News is interested in the country and interested in the world. Sometimes we even

00:17:55.800 fly to other countries to bring you the news, especially on themes that affect us here at home,

00:18:01.060 like censorship and mass immigration. But one of the places we follow very closely is right in our

00:18:06.240 own country. I'm talking about Alberta, the place I was born. And I would say that you don't have to

00:18:11.880 be from Alberta to agree with the statement that Alberta is the freest place around, the most

00:18:17.080 conservative, certainly. And so the most likely to chafe against the Laurentian elites and their

00:18:22.640 globalism and socialism. So it's not surprising, therefore, that Alberta has an independence

00:18:28.380 movement because the way Canada is going, it's not like the Canada we knew when we were growing

00:18:34.220 up. Toronto the good, as I showed you yesterday, that's just not here anymore. So how is the

00:18:41.060 independence campaign going? It's summertime. Albertans are busy doing what everyone's doing

00:18:45.620 in the country, going to barbecues, taking time at the lake. Of course, the Calgary Stampede is a

00:18:50.420 big attraction. Even Mark Carney himself came out there, tried flipping some pancakes. I understand

00:18:55.520 that he didn't wear cowboy boots. He wore running shoes, which is about as authentic as a three

00:19:02.680 dollar bill. But the man who I think is the driving force now behind the referendum movement is Keith

00:19:10.220 Wilson. Now, Mitch Sylvester was the leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, who went with his army

00:19:17.120 door to door to get the petition signatures to trigger a referendum, but that has been set aside

00:19:24.300 by what I call a rogue judge. And because the rogue judge will not allow an actual referendum

00:19:31.460 to happen, the premier has announced a referendum on a referendum, which she says

00:19:37.560 meets the legal requirements, including consulting with Indian bands. So that race, 0.54

00:19:42.760 a referendum on the referendum is on. And as you know, Rebel News has created a third-party

00:19:48.420 advertising group so we can legally participate. But Keith Wilson has set up a third-party group

00:19:54.400 that seems to be the new center of gravity in the campaign. And he joins us now for an update

00:20:02.240 on how the summer is going. Keith, great to see you again. And congratulations. Before we go any

00:20:07.000 further. Give us some stats. You have registered with Elections Alberta and set up a legal entity

00:20:13.440 called a third party advertiser, which is required for anyone other than a formal political party.

00:20:19.380 Remind us, what's the name of your third party advertiser? And give us some measurements

00:20:23.820 that show how strong it is. Sure. We registered a group called Let Alberta Decide. You know,

00:20:31.460 Our focus is on getting information and to people, particularly in the cities and those who are leaning towards wanting to vote to stay, who haven't really put their mind to the implications and the realities facing Canada and Alberta and the opportunity of independence.

00:20:49.560 And we've been just thrilled at the response and the energy and the excitement.

00:20:55.420 We've raised well over a quarter of a million dollars in less than a month.

00:20:59.900 We're leading the donations in terms of all of the different groups that are out there.

00:21:05.380 On short notice, we organized the Stampede breakfast for last Sunday,

00:21:09.620 and we sold it out in a few days.

00:21:12.600 Over 1,000 people showed up.

00:21:14.320 It was an excellent event by all reports.

00:21:17.660 A real diversity of people.

00:21:19.500 A lot of people commented that, who are regular sort of at independence events and town hall meetings,

00:21:26.260 that there were so many people there that they'd never seen before.

00:21:28.960 And that's what we're all about is bringing in and broadening the tent, really excited about we're launching a large sign campaign for Calgary because there's a lot of red and white signs and we're going to be matching those.

00:21:42.080 We've got a pretty interesting strategy to deal with that.

00:21:44.840 And we're also deploying and we're well on our way to a very creative and novel digital strategy to reach people because everybody spends time on their devices.

00:21:53.560 So it's going really well.

00:21:55.220 I love the excitement, the caliber of the volunteers.

00:21:58.960 It's it's it's going really well.

00:22:01.260 You know, I got a question for you because you you are a lawyer, of course, by profession.

00:22:05.880 You're a king's counsel, which is a designation given to senior lawyers.

00:22:09.800 So you're a rule.

00:22:11.360 You're a compliance expert in a way.

00:22:14.900 Now, the elections, Alberta laws are very particular.

00:22:17.740 I know this because, like I said, we registered as well.

00:22:20.340 But I noticed that two of the remain groups have not registered.

00:22:25.640 One is the mighty union called Unifor.

00:22:29.080 That's one of the richest, most politically active labor unions in the country.

00:22:33.340 By the way, they represent hundreds of journalists, which I think is a bit of a conflict of interest.

00:22:38.420 They are a Remain campaign group, but they have not registered yet.

00:22:43.900 And Thomas Lukaszek, a former red Tory cabinet minister, he's got a campaign office.

00:22:49.680 He's got campaign science.

00:22:50.720 He is doing everything.

00:22:51.740 like you if an alien landed from space they would say oh there's a campaign on like the guy's

00:22:57.060 campaigning by every measurement he has not registered and i i don't mean to be a stickler

00:23:02.920 here but this elections alberta chief is so partisan he goes after any conservative who

00:23:10.420 who has one jot or tittle out of place and yet these massive government-funded campaigns i mean

00:23:17.580 Unifor, I guess government-funded is the wrong word, left-wing-funded campaigns.

00:23:23.800 He's not requiring them to register.

00:23:26.100 How can anyone have faith in the process that's so obviously tilted?

00:23:30.700 Well, let's be clear about something.

00:23:34.000 The role of a chief electoral officer, and in this case elections Alberta, is one of the most important roles in a functioning democracy.

00:23:41.740 because it's through elections and people individual having the secrecy and going into

00:23:47.920 the ballot box and making their choice that even if their choice isn't successful

00:23:54.800 there's not riding in the streets we have peaceful transitions of power and democratic countries

00:24:02.280 because we have an institution like here in alberta called elections alberta and it can

00:24:07.720 is expected to conduct itself with impartiality and the highest degree of integrity and treat all

00:24:14.900 sides the same. No observer can look at the facts here and conclude that's what's happening.

00:24:22.240 Elections Alberta has compromised itself. It is blatantly obvious. And Thomas Lukasik with his

00:24:29.020 Forever Canada thing is almost rubbing it in now. He's almost doing na-na-na-na-na. Like,

00:24:34.100 look at you guys are following the rules and the chief electoral officer is not requiring me to

00:24:38.020 he said on in a bbc interview this week that he's going to do everything he can to win the vote

00:24:44.060 as you noted he has a campaign office in both calgary and edmonton he has a campaign bus he

00:24:50.140 has a campaign slogan he has a campaign website he has campaign volunteers and he's put out thousands

00:24:55.780 and thousands and thousands of campaign signs across the province and meanwhile elections

00:25:01.060 Alberta says, oh, no, he's not campaigning. But they hunt us down for the slightest infraction.

00:25:06.380 So it's really disappointing. I've said in some other interviews, and I'll say here,

00:25:11.220 that the chief electoral officer and the key people in that office need to have a look in

00:25:15.580 the mirror. They need to do an honest evaluation of the damage they're doing to democratic

00:25:19.520 institutions. If Albertans cannot trust the integrity of the electoral process, it's a

00:25:26.860 serious threat to democracy. And I hope the chief electoral officer either changes course and

00:25:33.100 enforces the law evenly, or he recognizes he's not up for the job and he steps down.

00:25:38.460 Yeah. You know, we saw what happens when a radical is in charge of elections. We saw that

00:25:44.260 with Elections Canada for years as well. And it really does corrode trust in the system.

00:25:50.600 But let's talk about some of the issues that are going on. I think pipelines are an important

00:25:56.000 issue but by far not the only issue they're more a symptom uh than anything of an underlying problem

00:26:03.640 uh mark carney has been going through a certain performance a kabuki dance where he suggests he's

00:26:10.660 for a pipeline he says some of the right words but there's it's so obvious that it's just talk

00:26:16.720 and not going to get the job done that no oil company has stepped forward and say yeah i believe

00:26:22.740 this pipeline will happen and i'm gonna commit to pumping oil through it like that's that's how it

00:26:27.640 works in the pipeline industry we just saw that with the south bow pipeline they said okay we're

00:26:32.540 gonna have this half a million barrel a day pipeline who's in and they got commitments for

00:26:37.460 20 years to fill it up that's how a real pipeline works no one has said oh i believe so deeply in

00:26:43.680 the carney pipeline that i'm ready to ship my oil in it and i'm willing to sign on the line that is

00:26:48.120 dotted just no one believes it but what carney has focused on which i absolutely believe

00:26:55.040 is that he demands that alberta oil companies pay some sort of toll or some sort of i don't

00:27:02.480 know commission or or payment or or shake a ransom to british columbia for the right to

00:27:10.220 cross over its holy holy territory with a pipeline tell me a little bit about what mark carney and

00:27:14.840 And David Eby have talked about how to, you know, how to pluck the chicken.

00:27:20.680 Well, let me say this first generally, and I'll deal with the specific tolls issue.

00:27:25.220 These pipeline announcements, the deal between Smith and Carney, the deal between Carney and Eby,

00:27:32.640 and this week, the detailed announcement of the agreement between Alberta, Canada,

00:27:39.840 and the oil sands companies on the Pathways Carbon Capture billion-dollar boondoggle

00:27:46.580 has been the biggest boost to independence.

00:27:49.720 It's not something I thought was going to happen.

00:27:51.920 I thought these pipeline announcements would take the wind out of the sails of independence,

00:27:56.020 but instead it's like a gale force pushing the ship forward.

00:28:01.780 And let me illustrate why.

00:28:03.580 Well, first of all, the level of political capital that's required to spend it to negotiate a deal for a pipeline.

00:28:13.460 Ezra, I'm old enough to remember when we needed a pipeline, a pipeline company determined there was a market for it and that it would provide jobs and return on investment.

00:28:23.200 So the pipeline company would plan the route, file an application, get an approval, construct it and operate it.

00:28:28.060 That's how it worked.

00:28:28.960 now you've got to do this bend on go on bent knee kiss the ring of the prime minister to have him

00:28:35.280 designated a national project of national interest which he hasn't even done yet go through this

00:28:39.760 complex process the reason no private proponent comes forward is because of the laws that the

00:28:45.520 federal liberals have put in place starting with trudeau the no more pipeline laws the tanker ban

00:28:50.660 the carbon capture the net zero the methane rules i could keep going they put all these obstacles

00:28:57.800 in place. So a surprise add-on to all of this is the agreement that was announced two weeks ago

00:29:07.260 includes in it, and it was economist Jack Mintz who flagged this, and he's very conservative by

00:29:15.600 nature. He's not prone to any form of hyperbole ever. He wrote a public article on this, and he

00:29:23.380 said let's call this new tolling provision where the bc government is now allowed to charge a toll

00:29:31.500 to alberta for oil going through the tmx pipeline both in the future and existing pipelines he said

00:29:40.620 let's call it what it is extortion jack mince words yeah he's no radical i mean he's very

00:29:46.860 mainstream guy. And so this is unprecedented. Alberta ships $30 billion worth of oil through

00:29:55.880 the TMX pipeline, some for export, but a lot of it goes to the Burnaby refinery to supply gasoline,

00:30:02.880 diesel fuel, and jet fuel to the lower mainland. If that pipeline gets shut off 11 days later,

00:30:07.300 that whole economy shut down. And now they're going to be able to charge a toll that's on $30

00:30:13.100 billion worth of commerce going through that pipeline. Well, BC ships over 50 billion,

00:30:20.000 $50 billion worth of goods and products through Alberta on our two major highways and our two

00:30:28.440 major rail lines that go easterly. So does that mean Alberta can now charge a toll on the $50

00:30:33.920 billion? See, it shows how confederation is broken. Yeah. You know, the whole point of the

00:30:41.420 cp rail in the first place was to bind the country together that was the whole point

00:30:46.120 because bc looked quite likely to join the united states i mean imagine connecting up alaska with

00:30:52.600 california um it was mcdonald's national dream yeah and foundation of our country and the idea

00:31:00.700 that every hamlet village town and city could put up a toll booth is contrary to the nation

00:31:07.020 a country concept of a nation um and you mentioned the 50 55 billion that goes through albert from bc

00:31:15.440 through alberta like just think it's it's like you say like here's an example every car sold in

00:31:21.340 ontario and quebec that's from hyundai or nissan or whatever every made in japan made in korea car

00:31:27.720 it comes by ship to vancouver and then goes typically by rail across well why shouldn't

00:31:34.720 Alberta have a little dip our beak in there. You know, I mean, it would get ridiculous is the

00:31:40.700 reason why. Well, it's in the name of carbon. There's all these trucks, these semi-trailer

00:31:45.160 trucks that are burning diesel fuel. Imagine the emissions. We need a toll on those semi-trailers.

00:31:51.960 I mean, it's absurd. It's a shakedown. That's not how countries work. And, you know, one of the

00:31:58.320 things that skeptics or critics of independence say is, well, you would be at the mercy of your

00:32:03.160 neighbors, if you were an independent country, well, a person received its neighbors right now.

00:32:08.480 And by the way, the United States has said it'd be delighted to have an oil pipeline and yet

00:32:13.440 another one go through them. I don't know. It's just if BC would, no other province has to play

00:32:19.120 that game. But for some reason, the prime minister has approved of this shakedown. I don't think

00:32:25.320 it's registered strongly enough in Alberta that this is a shakedown. Well, it's not only that,

00:32:31.160 it's another shakedown in a different way.

00:32:33.260 There's a shakedown going on with the taxpayer.

00:32:37.040 And that is the, you know, when TMX was proposed,

00:32:41.360 this is the Trans Mountain Pipeline

00:32:43.060 that goes from Edmonton to Vancouver.

00:32:44.920 It was originally proposed,

00:32:46.500 private sector was going to do it.

00:32:47.840 It was going to cost $5 billion.

00:32:50.040 To build this new Pacific Pipeline

00:32:53.120 that the Prime Minister and Premier have announced

00:32:55.320 in the recent weeks,

00:32:56.580 they're talking about $40 billion of taxpayer money.

00:33:01.160 taxpayer money, $40 billion. And then this pathways idea of capturing the CO2 and putting

00:33:10.040 it in the ground. Jack Mintz and the Fraser Institute released a study on June 25th that

00:33:16.260 said when you add all of the costs of just the pathways alone and the carbon capture and the

00:33:21.920 industrial carbon tax, it's going to make Alberta oil, natural gas, electricity uncompetitive relative

00:33:28.480 to the United States. These are self-inflicted economic wounds. These are self-inflicted

00:33:34.500 burdening of the taxpayers. You know, what's so troubling to many conservatives here in Alberta

00:33:40.320 is that Premier Smith and the UCP were elected on a platform of opposing the imposition of net

00:33:48.200 zero carbon policies on our economy. And now suddenly something happened this summer and the

00:33:54.840 Premier is a co-implementer of it, voluntarily agreed to implement and entrench net zero onto

00:34:03.860 our economy and not just new production. It's not the case that these new costs

00:34:09.440 on production from carbon taxes and net zero pathway costs will apply to new production.

00:34:16.900 They're going to be applied immediately to all production. So that makes us the differential

00:34:22.740 and the disadvantage of selling our oil products

00:34:26.420 into the United States, even worse.

00:34:28.240 It's such a strange decision. 1.00

00:34:29.820 So many people from the oil patch

00:34:31.280 and others have approached me and said,

00:34:33.500 this makes no sense.

00:34:34.700 This is a bad deal.

00:34:36.320 It's a bad deal.

00:34:37.480 And that's why it's furthering the cause of independence.

00:34:40.920 It's showing how broken the country is,

00:34:43.540 that Ottawa holds us back.

00:34:45.660 And to get any chance of increased production,

00:34:48.560 you've got to do a deal with the devil.

00:34:50.020 Yeah. You know, the phrase Straits of Hormuz, everyone's learned a little bit more about that lately. Of course, that's the very narrow passageway for oil to come out of the Persian Gulf. Persia, of course, is another way of saying Iran, but there's other OPEC countries there, too.

00:35:05.240 um my point is that remains an incredibly important uh choke point for oil which tells

00:35:13.460 you that there that there are enormous customers out there for the most ethically blighted oil in

00:35:21.100 the world i mean that oil is conflict oil by any definition it's also oil that you know if you

00:35:27.820 cared about misogyny or gay rights or indigenous rights all of those things are violated if you

00:35:33.240 care about the environment you think iran cares about the environment or any of those opec regimes

00:35:38.260 and the reason i mentioned that is because the allegation that social we need social license

00:35:44.200 that was a line that was used a lot over the last 10 years i suppose if alberta doesn't do this

00:35:50.020 carbon capture for billions of dollars people won't buy our oil that's never been said in the

00:35:55.660 history of oil buying if there's a lineup to buy iranian and russian conflict or even isis

00:36:03.380 was able to sell oil when it had control of syria it had oil trucks there were customers for isis

00:36:11.380 oil there will be customers for alberta oil we don't have to go through the 20 billion dollar

00:36:16.880 pathways net zero shakedown i just don't get why we're we're doing that when no one else in the

00:36:23.180 world does and that's a that's a big reason why no one wants to actually put oil in this dream

00:36:28.080 pipeline well we're only doing it because mark carney wrote a book called values and one of his

00:36:34.280 aspirations is to impose net zero policies first on canada and around the world and again it's

00:36:41.840 absolutely mystifying to so many conservatives here and i think albertans generally as to why

00:36:47.120 the smith government agreed to go along with this we went from fighting net zero to being

00:36:53.020 agreeing to entrench it so uh i just say this too that that you know alberta has the largest

00:37:00.380 reserve of oil in the world relative to democratic countries in the western world right we would

00:37:06.160 probably be better off just to ship double our production straight through the u.s and ship it

00:37:11.660 out of the gulf of america than all of this nonsense that's going on with the rest of canada

00:37:16.820 And again, it'd be one thing to burden the oil and gas industry with these astronomical, when you combine the 40 billion for the new pipeline, which let's face it, it's never going to get built. Nobody's going to afford to produce oil to put in it. And that's what the oil industry is saying. And you combine that with the $25 billion pathways project, that's around $70 billion. That's the same amount as the government's budget here in Alberta. That's healthcare, everything combined.

00:37:43.840 This is an astronomical amount of money. It will burden the next generation with debt. Governments don't have $70 billion. They're going to borrow it on our credit cards, our kids' credit cards, and our grandkids. It's going to drive up inflation. It's going to perpetuate the affordability crisis. And that's why an increasing number of Albertans are looking at this, saying this is yet another reason to support independence.

00:38:07.840 I got one last question for you, and it's the mayor of Calgary, who, you know, he's got a lot to say about national issues.

00:38:17.940 I suppose Naheed Nenshi is weighing in on international issues, so why can't Jeremy Farkas talk about national ones?

00:38:23.820 Let me play for you a little video that the Calgary mayor said. I'd like your reaction to this. Here, take a look.

00:38:30.480 Hey, Calgary, it's Mayor Jeremy. This morning, I want to chat with you about why I've been speaking out about Alberta separation.

00:38:37.080 There's a reason the Bank of Montreal is no longer headquartered in the city of Montreal.

00:38:42.740 It's because years of political uncertainty convinced businesses to invest somewhere else.

00:38:48.940 And a new report from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, our city's top business leaders, suggests that the same thing could happen to us too.

00:38:57.540 The Chamber estimates Alberta separation could cost our economy up to $62 billion every year.

00:39:04.260 That's more than what we spend every single year on education and health care in this province combined.

00:39:10.340 That's about $3,000 per Albertan every single year.

00:39:15.660 They also estimate that up to 175,000 jobs could be at risk.

00:39:21.540 And we're already seeing those warning signs.

00:39:24.700 As someone who works every day to sell people on investing in our city,

00:39:28.360 I'm already seeing businesses hesitate, companies delay hiring, and employers looking elsewhere to grow.

00:39:36.280 And more than half of Calgary businesses say the separation debate is already hurting Alberta's economy.

00:39:43.920 Nearly all of them say the impact is negative.

00:39:48.120 You know, I'm just a skeptic on that. I'm not sure if I believe it.

00:39:51.420 I don't quite know what the mayor's agenda is.

00:39:55.920 maybe has higher ambitions. Calgary mayors go on to great things. Ralph Klein became

00:40:01.640 premier. Nahid Nenshi wants to repeat the trick. What's your view on this? And is there any,

00:40:06.740 oh, I don't know, $13 billion data center recently that might dispute his thesis?

00:40:14.180 Well, it's disappointing that the mayor would behave in such a reckless manner.

00:40:19.580 He's sputtering nonsense. First of all, the Chamber of Commerce poll. Most businesses are

00:40:24.620 not members of the Chamber of Commerce in Calgary. And it turns out that those that responded in a

00:40:30.660 negative way and said this might create some talk of independence might cause some businesses to

00:40:35.860 leave is less than 3%. But in any event, the overwhelming factual data shows that the mayor

00:40:44.920 is just spouting nonsense. He's obviously seeking favour and doing Ottawa's bidding. And what I mean

00:40:50.960 by that is meta

00:40:52.700 announced

Rebel News Podcast - July 16, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Naheed Nenshi’s apology shows who really controls the modern NDP

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