Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Politics, philosophy, history： an all-encompassing interview with Manny Montenegrino

00:00:00.000 Tonight, back by popular demand, our viewers' favorite, Manny Montenegrino.

00:00:05.520 A feature-length conversation about the year in Canadian law and politics.

00:00:09.480 It's December 29th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:12.160 We're fighting for freedom!

00:00:15.040 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:18.180 The Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:48.180 He was in politics.

00:00:50.520 He was in law.

00:00:51.500 He was the manager of a major national law firm.

00:00:54.240 He was Stephen Harper's lawyer.

00:00:56.000 And he is a keen observer of all things political, but he doesn't just talk about politics.

00:01:01.160 He understands the larger context and the legal context.

00:01:04.720 One of my favorite guys.

00:01:06.780 And he joins us now for a special in-depth interview.

00:01:10.560 Manny, great to see you again.

00:01:12.820 I tell you, clear the decks when Manny's around, because we're going to cover everything.

00:01:16.880 We'll touch on politics and philosophy and history.

00:01:20.440 When you look back at 2022, it was like we lived a decade in a year, didn't we?

00:01:27.380 Well, we did.

00:01:28.260 I mean, the worst part of 2022, and Ezra, you know this of me, I was called to the bar just

00:01:36.100 slightly before the adoption of the Charter of Rights.

00:01:41.080 So in the legal community, our generation are called charter babies.

00:01:47.760 You're BC before the charter.

00:01:49.440 You were born in the bar two years BC or whatever it was.

00:01:53.560 Right.

00:01:54.120 And it came just at the same time.

00:01:56.180 So we were, as young lawyers, we were completely enthralled with the process.

00:02:01.860 And we love the idea of having individual rights above the state, much like, and I think

00:02:10.060 America is the only country that truly has that.

00:02:12.440 So we were very excited as lawyers who fight for individual rights to have the Charter of

00:02:17.680 Rights in 1983 come to Canada.

00:02:21.480 Now, there was some dilution to it, and some of us were upset that the notwithstanding clause

00:02:28.940 was put in that still allows Parliament the ability to override individual rights in very

00:02:36.320 exceptional circumstances.

00:02:37.940 And I can still hear Prime Minister Trudeau, not this one, the other one, Pierre Trudeau,

00:02:45.360 and everyone else saying this notwithstanding clause will never be used.

00:02:50.200 Only in the rarest circumstances will you trample rights.

00:02:53.940 So we were all applauding it.

00:02:56.360 And 2022, only almost 40 years after the Charter, I have never seen so many individual rights

00:03:05.680 trampled upon time after time at the whim of this Justin Trudeau government.

00:03:14.240 And I'm sure his father is spinning in his grave.

00:03:17.680 He was a jurist, he understood individual rights.

00:03:22.220 This Justin Trudeau, I don't think understands anything except, you know, political correctness

00:03:28.440 and just being a vacuous human being.

00:03:33.420 But so here we have, I mean, 2022, what happened?

00:03:37.540 Well, people lost their jobs, lost the ability to earn an income.

00:03:41.300 People lost the ability to have governance over their own body, Section 7 of the Charter violation.

00:03:48.700 People lost their mobility rights, Section 6 of the Charter.

00:03:52.880 People lost, and there's the worst, and I believe this one to be the worst.

00:03:56.800 And that is, there are many public servants that sought an exemption, a religious or otherwise

00:04:07.280 personal exemption from the vaccination.

00:04:12.020 And they went before a star-channel tribunal to explain their religion and their religious

00:04:20.540 belief.

00:04:21.100 And some were peppered and questioned, do you really believe that?

00:04:26.300 That is a Section 2 violation.

00:04:28.840 I mean, imagine, Ezra, just imagine the concept that one is asked if they believe in what they

00:04:37.720 truly believe in by people, and at the end of it, their job depends on it.

00:04:42.800 I mean, the worst that you would expect.

00:04:45.500 I mean, go to Nazi Germany where, you know, are you Jewish?

00:04:50.820 And they ask those questions.

00:04:52.580 I mean, you know, your personal beliefs that should belong to you.

00:04:56.300 That was, I remember as a young lawyer, never should the state ever be in the question of

00:05:05.020 one's belief.

00:05:05.740 I mean, if we did that, then truly everything is under attack.

00:05:11.160 And these people had submitted before bureaucrats that really had no decision-making power, because

00:05:17.920 someone above that, and they were questioned, do you really have those beliefs?

00:05:23.120 Tell us more.

00:05:24.240 And why do you want exemption?

00:05:26.420 And it's, you know, what are your religious beliefs?

00:05:28.560 I mean, that is circa 1920.

00:05:31.700 So, talk about the crushing of individual rights.

00:05:36.020 That was just the vaccines and protocol.

00:05:38.840 Then you saw what happened with the convoy.

00:05:44.300 I mean, that was in the use of the Emergency Act.

00:05:47.600 Now, that Emergency Act is basically the new act of what was used, the War Measures Act.

00:05:56.300 And I mean, think of the title, the War Measures Act.

00:05:59.480 Those emergency powers will only exist in kind of time of war or unprecedented circumstances.

00:06:07.400 Well, we used it over a peaceful protest.

00:06:09.860 I live in Ottawa.

00:06:12.140 There wasn't one crime, serious crime.

00:06:15.280 There were no assaults.

00:06:16.880 There was no damage to property.

00:06:18.860 A lot of mischief charges, Ezra, mischief charges.

00:06:22.100 And these people were at the wit's end with the violation of the rights of Canadians, and they came to Canada. 0.98

00:06:35.760 So, we used the Emergency Act.

00:06:37.640 Again, a suspension of individual rights.

00:06:41.580 And the worst, Ezra, at this time, was using co-opting banks to do the government's dirty crushing of individual rights.

00:06:54.620 Imagine, Ezra, you or I could have given $20 to the cause of this liberation movement or this rights return movement, and we would have had the state seizing our accounts, looking into us.

00:07:11.400 I mean, this is, again, to a charter, a lawyer that's a charter baby, I would have never thought any of this remotely would happen in Canada.

00:07:22.640 But it has, in a short, almost two generations, in short 40 years, you know, Ezra, JFK once said that freedom and liberty is only one generation away from being lost.

00:07:39.060 Well, in Canada, we're close to two generations away from being lost, and it happened in my lifetime.

00:07:45.660 Yeah.

00:07:46.180 So many things you mentioned there.

00:07:47.980 And I, of course, went to law school probably about 15 years after you did, and the charter was treated as this sacred text.

00:07:57.360 It has not been used to strike down any substantive public health order, curfew, flight ban, quarantine hotels, quarantine act, the kind of invasiveness of asking someone, do you really believe in that religion?

00:08:12.600 Do you really?

00:08:13.720 Imagine the government doing that.

00:08:15.000 But, you know, what strikes me is that, you know, the pandemic happened in Wuhan in late 2019.

00:08:23.640 In March 2020 is when they started bringing in, declaring these emergencies and the lockdowns, just two weeks, by the way.

00:08:30.300 So we're almost at three years in, Manny.

00:08:33.380 Almost three years since the violations of our lives started.

00:08:37.980 And it just blows me away that the Supreme Court of Canada has not yet heard a single case emanating from the lockdowns.

00:08:47.000 They haven't, you know, this vaunted chart of rights.

00:08:51.100 It is as if the Supreme Court went on a three, a rip-ban winkle.

00:08:54.420 They fell asleep for three years and they woke up and said, huh, what?

00:08:57.360 Something went on?

00:08:58.140 And they haven't had a single case.

00:09:00.860 The only thing, and you correct me if I'm wrong on that.

00:09:03.320 Maybe I missed one.

00:09:04.040 I don't think I did.

00:09:05.040 The only thing the Supreme Court did was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court unilaterally declared that the Supreme Court building will have a vaccine mandate.

00:09:17.000 And he announced that.

00:09:20.300 So basically, you know where he stood.

00:09:23.260 And every other judge knew where he stood.

00:09:25.380 So they knew, oh, okay, so if this goes all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, we know in advance that without any arguments on either side, without any facts, the boss of our courts just said he's all in favor of vax mandates because he's brought one in himself.

00:09:39.760 Okay, now I know what to do.

00:09:41.500 So not only has the Supreme Court not only not done anything, but it's telegraphed to anyone, oh, don't bother with trials.

00:09:48.840 I'll tell you right now, vax mandates are kosher.

00:09:52.480 Yeah, no, exactly.

00:09:53.460 And, you know, the committee investigating the convoy, I mean, just think of the madness, how it's almost dystopian.

00:10:05.100 So just to bring some dates into being, December, January 2021, 2022, Ontario, and I think every other province, but I'm going to stick to Ontario because that's where I stand, locked down every citizen, vaccinated or unvaccinated.

00:10:28.560 The Ontario data at that time showed that the vaccinated were spreading and getting infected at almost 40% higher than the unvaccinated on a per capita basis.

00:10:44.040 These Ontario published numbers.

00:10:45.680 And for that reason, it was important to lock down the vaccinated that were once going to vaccine passport protected places like restaurants and wherever they were.

00:10:58.440 So Ontario was on a full lockdown because the vaccinated were spreading it more than the unvaccinated. 0.85

00:11:05.880 And then two days or a few days after that, near the end, when we all, everyone should have known by then, you're at home, you're a vaccinated person, and the government says stay home.

00:11:21.720 Everyone should have known by then.

00:11:23.620 I knew by April of 2021, when you look at the numbers in Israel, that they went to the, they basically, the vaccinated, because they were six months ahead of Canada, the vaccinated were being infected and spreading it as much or more than the unvaccinated.

00:11:44.820 But everyone, at least sitting at home, should have known that these vaccines do not stop infection, do not stop transmission.

00:11:54.180 And what does Trudeau do weeks after that, or I think it was the 15th of January, I forget the date, but put in a new mandate on our heroes, our truck drivers who stand alone in their trucks, who sit alone and bring us our food and bring us our supplies that we need tirelessly.

00:12:13.920 So can you imagine, at the end of the pandemic, when we all knew that the vaccines do not stop infection, do not stop transmission, he basically attacks the heroes.

00:12:29.280 And I think, you know, obviously there's no science behind it.

00:12:33.260 There's no, there's no compassion behind it.

00:12:36.380 There's no humanity behind it.

00:12:38.380 It just has to be how, I think Trudeau wants to know, how far can I take my powers?

00:12:45.260 So Alfie does, he strips these people of their jobs, they motivate them so much that they spend thousands of dollars coming to Ottawa.

00:12:54.920 And 90, in fact, 80% of the people in Ottawa in their trucks were vaccinated.

00:13:00.720 They understood the signs.

00:13:02.400 Why are you doing this to these unvaccinated? 1.00

00:13:05.380 And during the hearing, it was, I watched parts of it.

00:13:10.940 This is a year later.

00:13:13.400 Yeah.

00:13:13.740 And no one at the trial, no one said, hey, wait a minute.

00:13:19.460 There was no health reason to bring this mandate that caused these people to get in their trucks.

00:13:27.840 The issue is settled, Ezra, at least in September.

00:13:32.760 The CDC said there's no difference between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

00:13:37.640 By now, by the time of the hearing, I mean, Ezra, from a legal point of view, it's almost like a trial was happening and they said, well, we don't care about the self-defense argument.

00:13:53.280 We don't care about the guy breaking into his home and that's why we shot him.

00:13:58.460 Let's just talk about why you had the gun and why you shot the person.

00:14:03.020 And we don't care about the, you know, the law of self-defense.

00:14:08.160 This is why you acted.

00:14:09.800 These men and women got in their trucks because they were acting in self-defense.

00:14:18.240 And the evidence is clear about any of that.

00:14:20.660 Self-defense.

00:14:20.860 I love that analogy.

00:14:21.940 You know, by the way, the New York Supreme Court threw out their vaccine mandates and ordered the state to rehire those that were fired.

00:14:29.120 And they specifically cited that there is now proof that the vaccines do not stop transmission.

00:14:35.080 And if you ask public health officials, Dr. Fauci, Albert Bourla, the head of Pfizer, they say, oh, no, no, no.

00:14:41.660 We never said they stopped transmission.

00:14:44.140 Well, of course they did say that.

00:14:45.520 That's the whole rationale for forcing someone else other than yourself to have the vaccine.

00:14:52.080 Like if you want a vaccine, take it.

00:14:53.640 That's the libertarian mindset.

00:14:55.700 How can you force your neighbor to do so?

00:14:58.160 Well, the false rationale was because he will transmit it to me, which doesn't really make sense if you think it's safe for you.

00:15:05.160 But now it is established law and established science that the vaccines do not stop transmission.

00:15:11.840 So the whole vaccine passport vaccine mandate business had no factual underpinning.

00:15:17.580 And I bet you most people in public health, most people in law and politics in the establishment haven't really processed that because they're just they just know they're on team vaccine, team Pfizer, team Trudeau.

00:15:30.340 Right. It's amazing.

00:15:31.500 So so so you look back in 2022, me as a again, I go back to the charter baby.

00:15:37.600 It was, you know, I'm still shaking over what happened to the Canadian people.

00:15:42.980 How could this happen with with this wonderful document, these wonderful protections?

00:15:48.500 So 2022 and 2021, but 2022 predominantly was a great legal letdown.

00:15:56.240 But there's also another legal and another trauma that happened, not to the legal community, not to the rights of law, but to our our our our I'll call our medical profession.

00:16:10.080 I mean, the biggest I mean, I'll talk personally, and I know many that feel this way.

00:16:17.220 I had an absolute trust of our medical system.

00:16:21.060 I had an absolute trust of my doctor.

00:16:23.780 I had trust the health candidate was going through everything carefully about every drug that has been submitted and everything carefully reviewed for the protection of citizens.

00:16:37.400 Well, we watched there with with, you know, it's almost in front of us.

00:16:42.500 We watched that there was corruption.

00:16:44.900 There was really no tests of transmission.

00:16:47.540 There was no trust of infection.

00:16:49.400 There's a lot of hiding.

00:16:51.120 And everyone in the medical community rattled around one thought.

00:16:55.040 The whole concept of the oath of Hippocratic oath is do no harm.

00:17:00.000 We did much more harm.

00:17:01.600 And now they're agreeing to it.

00:17:03.340 We did much more harm to kids by closures and so on.

00:17:06.200 So so I look at and I ask the question and we know we know that no one looked at the the the test data and it was hidden by by these large pharmaceutical companies to see if what their claims were were true.

00:17:24.580 No one looked at and now I ask myself, how can I trust any doctor who says take this medicine, this vaccine?

00:17:34.260 When I said, wait a minute, I watched it.

00:17:36.960 I watched the sausages being made.

00:17:39.400 And I have no trust in any of this now.

00:17:45.660 And that to me, every I'm seeing I'm having a every doctor has a big job to do.

00:17:54.960 And that is, why weren't you there protecting the Hippocratic oath?

00:17:59.760 Why weren't you there protecting the trust in doctors?

00:18:03.440 And I say the same thing to lawyers.

00:18:06.060 I mean, so not only did lawyers fail, you know, my my my profession, but but the doctors failed themselves.

00:18:17.240 Like I I talked to many people that have had a complete 180.

00:18:22.820 I don't trust what the doctor says now because they didn't speak up.

00:18:27.780 Where were the cardiologists?

00:18:29.700 Where were the like so so there's 2022.

00:18:33.000 I mean, you know, if you wrap it up, there is a the biggest debt added to Canada's history that causes hyperinflation.

00:18:43.800 We've destroyed, you know, supply chains.

00:18:47.740 So economically is probably one of the worst thing that happened.

00:18:51.360 What happened to legal and then human rights?

00:18:53.920 Worst thing that ever happened.

00:18:55.380 Whatever happened to I mean, the doctors trust.

00:18:58.800 I mean, like, can you imagine undermining medicine and undermining Health Canada?

00:19:03.760 Do I trust Health Canada?

00:19:05.120 I did.

00:19:05.840 I don't.

00:19:06.800 I mean, it's that simple because I watched it.

00:19:10.640 You're so right.

00:19:11.400 And those few doctors who did stand up with a second opinion were hounded, prosecuted, suspended from practicing.

00:19:18.440 Well, let me ask you this, because I mean, you and I have learned so much and we were skeptics by nature and we're skeptics of big government.

00:19:25.320 And and. But let me put a few facts to you that are troubling.

00:19:32.220 Justin Trudeau won reelection a year ago.

00:19:36.340 He just did.

00:19:37.580 And you could say that his election platform was go harder against the unvaxxed, lock down harder, vaccinate harder.

00:19:46.260 No, no, Ezra, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to change this because I actually know what happened.

00:19:52.420 I not know.

00:19:53.420 But he basically said, hey, you guys who were vaccinated, you did the right thing.

00:20:00.420 You're the 70, 80 percent. 0.95

00:20:02.280 He pitted the 70, 80 percent against the 20 or 30 at that time.

00:20:07.240 That's a clear win.

00:20:09.300 Mathematically, you're on the right side.

00:20:11.600 And then he said, because you did all this, we're going to punish the people that didn't.

00:20:18.200 Whether and illegally not only punish them, that has no basis in science, because by April, we knew that there were just a few breakthrough cases.

00:20:28.880 We knew that Israel's on its third dose and the vaccinated were again.

00:20:32.020 We knew the science wasn't there, although they hit it.

00:20:36.280 We knew the law and that is we had a charter of rights.

00:20:39.660 No way should you assault that.

00:20:41.920 But he he it's very easy, Ezra.

00:20:44.460 I watched this series on on Netflix called Tyrants.

00:20:49.780 And it's very easy.

00:20:51.420 It's very easy in politics.

00:20:53.200 You simply pick one group that's a majority and you go after the minority and you're going to win. 0.99

00:20:59.500 And we've I've seen this in my lifetime.

00:21:01.600 You know, whether these these preacher politicians were going after the gay community back in the 60s and the 70s.

00:21:10.760 It's easy because a majority will always trample on.

00:21:14.600 And it's an easy political win.

00:21:16.300 That's what Trudeau's strategy was.

00:21:18.260 It was it was I'm going to reward you because you know why I'm going to reward you?

00:21:23.440 Because the vaccines didn't work.

00:21:26.100 You're still getting COVID.

00:21:27.760 You got it for nothing.

00:21:29.040 You try to protect you, but at least we can punish the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:21:33.420 That's your reward.

00:21:34.900 You're not being punished.

00:21:36.860 And you know what, Ezra?

00:21:38.120 Two Quebec MPs.

00:21:39.920 And you know this.

00:21:41.200 Courageous Quebec MPs said it was a strategy, a political strategy.

00:21:45.580 It got media for about one day and they were shooed away.

00:21:49.040 It was a strategy to pit the honest minority. 0.78

00:21:53.040 Minority, the the patriot minority against the majority and the majority got their there.

00:21:59.600 And they felt good because when you close a restaurant in September, when you lose a job, I didn't lose my job because of the vaccine.

00:22:06.640 I voted for the right guy.

00:22:08.200 I did the right thing and punish these people.

00:22:10.820 Just abhorrent.

00:22:12.040 Well, it's a terrifying way to look at it.

00:22:15.740 And you're so right.

00:22:16.460 And it wasn't just Trudeau, by the way.

00:22:18.160 British Columbia, the premier there was reelected.

00:22:21.040 Ontario's premier was reelected and he had a brutal lockdown.

00:22:24.520 Quebec actually had curfews and the premier there was elected very strongly.

00:22:29.080 You know, I after a great division in society, like I remember in South Africa, after decades of apartheid, they had something they called the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.

00:22:40.280 Now, they they they did a similar thing in Canada on indigenous issues.

00:22:43.840 And the whole idea is let's actually try and find some common ground morally.

00:22:48.480 We're not necessarily going to prosecute people or jail people or condemn people.

00:22:52.540 Can we just air out the facts and try and get along because we've got to live with each other?

00:22:56.780 That's how it was in post-apartheid South Africa.

00:22:59.820 And there was something similar after the Nazis were defeated.

00:23:04.040 There was a de-Nazification after the Soviet Empire fell.

00:23:08.820 Even in Iraq, after Saddam Hussein, they had something called de-Bathification. 0.88

00:23:13.460 Bath was the name of the political party.

00:23:15.800 In Poland, in Germany, in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, after the Soviet regime, those countries had to live with themselves and with each other.

00:23:22.480 And they went through this process of airing things out and trying to build a common view again.

00:23:29.440 And I don't think that's happened in Canada.

00:23:31.780 I think that that we were still pitted against each other.

00:23:35.520 Trudeau got away with it.

00:23:36.700 There was no there was no truth and reconciliation.

00:23:39.140 And as you say, he deliberately exacerbated the differences because he thought, well, I'll take the I'll take the bigger percentage and just win.

00:23:47.560 Ezra, he called the unvaccinated bigots, misogynists, racists, people with views that shouldn't be long.

00:23:57.220 This was at the time when the science was clear that the unvaccinated were correct. 1.00

00:24:03.360 He understood.

00:24:04.500 One thing that Trudeau does understand, he does understand pitting the majority against minority.

00:24:11.600 And he does understand.

00:24:13.500 And so it is it continues to this day.

00:24:17.400 Ezra, all that has to happen.

00:24:19.220 Listen, here's the problem, Ezra.

00:24:20.860 It isn't about, you know, the examples that you gave.

00:24:24.940 The problem is that the media is on that side as well.

00:24:30.060 The media is on that side and they are still doing substantial narratives to protect it.

00:24:37.960 What you need is a full, honest approach as to what was the science.

00:24:43.600 And, yeah, you know what?

00:24:44.560 We got it wrong.

00:24:46.140 But but that's what has to happen.

00:24:48.580 I mean, the big pharmaceutical companies are spending a fortune on media.

00:24:53.360 So they have a vested interest to continue with it.

00:24:56.640 I mean, I've never seen more.

00:24:58.420 I mean, it seems to me that the deeper that Pfizer paints itself into a corner.

00:25:04.200 And I wish I was 30 years old and back in my legal career, because that would be a wonderful class action lawsuit.

00:25:12.420 But the more they're in the corner, they understand the more that they have to pay out.

00:25:17.040 I've never seen more Pfizer ads.

00:25:18.780 If you notice, I mean, not not of the vaccine, other products.

00:25:22.440 So they're just and that buys the media, keeps it quiet and keeps it quiet for a few years.

00:25:28.700 But but really all this isn't, you know, this isn't, you know, what we've seen with with with Africa and South Africa.

00:25:38.200 This is a decision that was based on science.

00:25:41.300 These are people in the same family. 0.87

00:25:43.760 This isn't a black person versus a white person and all the ignorance and bigotry that belongs there.

00:25:50.760 This is brother and sister of the same family that are not talking to each other because the science was lied to them by the government.

00:26:01.380 So, you know, these are different people or different races or different cultures.

00:26:05.780 They're from the same bloody family.

00:26:08.360 And all we need to help these families is by the media saying the truth.

00:26:15.140 We got it wrong.

00:26:16.320 We were wrong.

00:26:17.300 We shouldn't have implemented this.

00:26:18.740 These these these these these unvaccinated understood it better than we did. 0.99

00:26:23.400 They were courageous.

00:26:24.560 Let's unify families first.

00:26:27.520 Let's unify communities and then unify the country under science, not because we all now are understand.

00:26:37.540 So that's this is the troubling part.

00:26:40.260 I understand racism.

00:26:41.920 I mean, you know, I'm an immigrant.

00:26:43.700 I understand the unknowns, what was happening in South in South Africa or Germany and all that racism.

00:26:51.960 But this is discrimination was based on a lie on science that was untrue.

00:26:59.580 That should be snap fixed in a minute.

00:27:04.800 Let me shift gears a little bit because we've talked a lot about the pandemic and the vaccine rules and the convoy and Trudeau and the polarization.

00:27:15.400 And you're right.

00:27:15.840 He absolutely leaned into division.

00:27:17.720 That's how he won it.

00:27:18.420 How about Canada's place in the world?

00:27:22.240 I remember when Trudeau won after Harper in 2015 and the liberals said, oh, we will be respected on the world stage again.

00:27:31.140 We won't have this doctrinaire guy who doesn't get it.

00:27:34.520 Stephen Harper doesn't get it.

00:27:35.420 I think Stephen Harper had a very strong foreign policy.

00:27:37.860 I think Canada was truly a leader, a moral leader.

00:27:43.420 Harper warmed up relations with India, which I think is very important.

00:27:46.980 Even though Barack Obama was president at the same time, Harper and Obama got along pretty well.

00:27:52.140 In fact, it wasn't until Trudeau won the election that Obama actually killed the Keystone XL pipeline.

00:27:58.520 Obama didn't do that until Harper was gone, despite all the disagreements.

00:28:02.380 But the left likes to fancy themselves great masters of the arts, of the great game.

00:28:09.060 And they haven't been.

00:28:10.320 What do you think about Canada's place in the world?

00:28:13.400 I think a lot of people should have been disabused of things when Canada lost the UN Security Council vote.

00:28:20.280 Not that that vote means anything, but it is a barometer of how other countries' governments view you.

00:28:25.980 What has Trudeau done to Canada on the world stage, not just in the last year, but I guess in the last seven years?

00:28:35.080 Well, that's a good question.

00:28:36.980 I have to go back in my years of observing this and say, what does Canada mean to the world?

00:28:45.620 And for the longest time, and here's the answer, Ezra, I'm an immigrant to this country.

00:28:55.000 It's a great country.

00:28:56.560 And boy, did I come to a great place.

00:28:59.340 This country, this young country, not even a dominion, put more men at risk to fight for freedom and liberties in the First and Second World War.

00:29:10.380 Remember, Canada was to the world, toe to toe, as strong as America in its ability to fight and spread human rights around the world.

00:29:25.700 That's who we are.

00:29:26.440 And if I had to say what's most defining definition or value of Canada, we are the individual rights champions around the world.

00:29:38.560 Obviously, America is more than we, because it's clout and its ability.

00:29:43.000 In Hong Kong, when they lost their rights and China took over, they were flying the American flag.

00:29:49.380 But Canada was a close second.

00:29:50.900 So that, to me.

00:29:52.100 Now, Trudeau understood this, because Harper, Prime Minister Harper did a great job on that.

00:29:59.120 And Trudeau understood it.

00:30:00.180 And if you might remember, early in his career, Trudeau tried to be the champion of individual rights.

00:30:06.320 And so what did he do?

00:30:07.340 He kind of, even before he was elected, gave a compassionate view of the Boston bomber.

00:30:16.260 Remember that, Ezra?

00:30:17.560 And he basically said, well, you know, where did he come from?

00:30:20.760 Because we Canadians understand individual rights.

00:30:24.660 Then he went on and the Omar Khadar, which is a complete abomination from a legal point of view. 0.98

00:30:30.560 But there he is.

00:30:32.660 He picks the kind of the most trampled case of individual rights and said, this person who agreed that he committed murder still has rights.

00:30:44.320 And that's a champion cause of Canada.

00:30:46.540 Then he picked a fight with Saudi Arabia under Ralph Balwaldi case, where he basically called for his freedom, this journalist who's in jail.

00:31:02.460 And he wanted to get, he wanted to do better than Harper in the sense that Canada was a place where individual rights were of great value.

00:31:15.760 So he, those three, but what really happened, I think I'll tell you something.

00:31:21.920 I know Stephen Harper.

00:31:23.540 He truly believes in his core individual rights.

00:31:27.360 You can tell that, that, uh, Justin, Justin Trudeau does not believe in it because what we saw in 2022 with the, using the emergency act on truckers clearly tells me that he's more of an autotrotic dictator.

00:31:47.280 He doesn't understand individual rights.

00:31:49.220 If it was in your soul, you would have not called for that.

00:31:53.220 If it was in your soul, you would have not fired people.

00:31:56.480 You would have just resisted.

00:31:58.260 You would have let them test or whatever you want to do, but no.

00:32:01.520 So, so if you ask me that broad question, we are, well, we're a mockery around the world on individual rights now because of the truckers, because of the mandates.

00:32:11.640 And so we've lost, I mean, what are we to the world?

00:32:14.460 We're much less than we were before.

00:32:16.420 You know, I mean, and I just think of China, how Trudeau sucks up to China so badly, but I don't know if you remember this little interaction where Xi Jinping gave Trudeau a little dressing

00:32:26.180 down like a boss would berate an employee.

00:32:30.560 Here's a little clip from their recent meeting in Asia.

00:32:33.200 Take a look.

00:32:33.660 Everything we discusses and leaks into the paper, that's not appropriate.

00:32:44.420 And that's how the conversation was conducted.

00:32:49.620 If there is sincerity on your part, we will continue to have, we will continue to look to work constructively together, but there will be things we will disagree on.

00:33:11.060 By the way, I like it when Canada and China are at odds politically and diplomatically.

00:33:25.020 I think we've been too subservient.

00:33:26.280 Trouble is, Canada is still completely subservient.

00:33:29.540 I mean, the RCMP was just found to be giving secure communications contracts to China.

00:33:35.340 There are Chinese police stations in Canada. 0.88

00:33:39.040 So, I mean, for even though Trudeau sucks up like crazy, he's still berated by the Chinese dictators. 0.94

00:33:45.240 Quite something. 0.96

00:33:46.200 Well, look, Manny, 2022 was the best of times and the worst of times.

00:33:50.760 It was the darkest moments of the lockdown, the flight ban, the martial law, but it was also a moment of courage where ordinary Canadians, working class people mainly, stood up and said enough and actually began to set us free.

00:34:03.540 So, I saw the best and the worst in 2022.

00:34:07.100 If I had to ask you to make a prediction about 2023, and it's always hard, predictions about the future are a lot harder than predictions about the past.

00:34:15.340 What do you think, what should, what is something to watch for in 2023?

00:34:18.960 Is there something that you're hopeful about, or is there something that you're trepidatious about?

00:34:24.500 I'm actually moving towards more trepidation.

00:34:28.160 I think there is a generation that doesn't understand values.

00:34:33.100 I'm sorry, individual rights and freedoms and privacy.

00:34:36.140 I think the test, what I saw with the vaccine mandates and the trucker, all that stuff is set aside, is how much will the populace subvert to the state?

00:34:53.560 And once you break that, and once they've done it once, once, I mean, Ezra, let me put it very clearly.

00:35:01.060 Once you've given up your body, your autonomy to your body to the state, you're done.

00:35:08.820 And I think we're going to see much worse.

00:35:10.900 I'm going to see, we're going to see, you know, fiscal, you know, financial autonomy.

00:35:15.400 We're going to see much worse.

00:35:16.960 We, the fact that I didn't see a bunch of doctors and a bunch of lawyers and a bunch of people saying, stop, this is the wrong direction.

00:35:25.440 This is against what Canada stands for.

00:35:28.000 I mean, listen, it's okay to be another country.

00:35:31.060 It's okay to be Cuba and North Korea and China. 0.98

00:35:35.420 But Canada had its own place and its own definition.

00:35:39.740 You want to change it?

00:35:40.660 Go ahead.

00:35:41.120 The popular school, change it.

00:35:42.500 That's what I think is happening.

00:35:44.420 Because we, it took truck drivers, truck drivers who I respect immensely, for them to say, we are the residual part of what Canada truly needs.

00:35:56.960 And to see that is frightening because I think once you've given up, so when you ask me for 2023, I mean, I think an election's coming.

00:36:06.720 How do I know that?

00:36:07.960 Well, 2019, Trudeau paid a bunch of money to media companies to win the election.

00:36:15.020 Now we're changing social media laws so you can ban me and other people more.

00:36:19.920 And so that helps him.

00:36:21.360 So I think that's a setup for an election that's coming up.

00:36:24.780 So, but it, so I think, I think Canadians, well, they're just, we're not teaching how terrible it can become. 0.99

00:36:35.380 And even with examples of what's happening in Europe, I mean, there's two places you can get your information from.

00:36:42.260 China, you see what's happening.

00:36:43.940 Oh, yeah, but that will never happen in Canada.

00:36:45.720 Well, it's happening.

00:36:46.780 You know, I mean, you know, but go to Europe where they really lost their own autonomy over their own energy.

00:36:53.180 I mean, there, there, there are people, people that I know that are cutting down trees to get through the wintertime.

00:36:58.660 It's just like, how much can you allow the state to infringe on their life?

00:37:03.860 And so I think we, I think 2022 was a big test.

00:37:08.240 And the big test is, did we break the spine of people who understand autonomy, who understand freedom, who understand, and they, they passed that test.

00:37:21.220 The, they, they passed it.

00:37:22.680 And so there's a few of us left.

00:37:24.220 And, and, and I don't know, I think Canada is going to keep going on this slip and slow, maybe with the change of government, and maybe by hearing it, but we need the media on side.

00:37:36.540 The media kind of likes, I mean, it's kind of neat.

00:37:39.400 I mean, the media has its people in control.

00:37:41.780 So it's, why would they want to give that up?

00:37:44.540 I mean, so my team's, I mean, we, we, we saw that with, with Twitter.

00:37:49.400 I mean, that's not even in the news that the, the bombshell, the Twitter was co-opted by the government to give this particular point of view.

00:37:59.620 I mean, that's frightening.

00:38:01.460 It's okay.

00:38:02.360 I hope we find, I hope we find out what Canadian government officials were meddling with Twitter in Canada, because I'm most certain that it had, why wouldn't it happen up here?

00:38:12.000 The Canadian Liberal Party and the U.S. Democrat Party are in lockstep on their campaign tactics.

00:38:17.180 And I'm quite sure that if we ever see the truth, we'll see that the, the government tried to get, for example, Rebel News censored the throttle.

00:38:26.200 Well, Manny, it's great to catch up with you.

00:38:27.840 I, I think you're right.

00:38:30.020 I wonder when an election is coming.

00:38:32.300 2023 would seem to be in the rhythm of this government.

00:38:36.240 They had one in 2019 and 2021.

00:38:39.060 I just think if the economy slows down, I don't know if Trudeau will want to go to the polls in the middle of that, but we'll, we'll find out.

00:38:45.060 And I'll tell you one thing, as you know, we are journalists who are not on the payroll of Trudeau and it'll fall to us to tell the other side of the story.

00:38:53.580 You know, we will.

00:38:54.260 Manny, great to catch up with you.

00:38:55.820 Merry Christmas and happy new year.

00:38:57.100 Thanks for spending some time with us today.

00:38:58.940 No problem.

00:39:00.340 Merry Christmas to you and your staff and continue doing the great work that you do.

00:39:05.460 I'll tell you something.

00:39:07.040 When we lose the rebel, we're faster and closer to that, the, the loss of our, our individual rights.

00:39:14.500 So, you know, keep hanging in and doing what you do.

00:39:17.840 Will do, my friend.

00:39:18.540 Thanks very much.

00:39:19.120 There you have it, Manny Montenegrino, the CEO of ThinkSharp, who joined us today via Skype from Ottawa.

00:39:25.800 Well, that's our show for today.

00:39:27.880 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:39:34.140 Thank you.

00:39:43.780 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - December 30, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Politics, philosophy, history： an all-encompassing interview with Manny Montenegrino

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