Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rebel reports live from Lethbridge to cover the 'Coutts Four' pre-trial hearing

00:00:00.060 Oh, hi there. Today's show is about the Coutts Four.

00:00:03.600 There's only two of them left.

00:00:04.640 They were the guys charged with conspiracy to commit murder

00:00:07.000 against the police in Coutts, Alberta a couple years ago.

00:00:10.620 To get the video version of this podcast, go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:14.240 Click subscribe. It's $8 a month.

00:00:16.020 And not only do you get the video version,

00:00:17.980 you also get the satisfaction of helping support Rebel News.

00:00:22.020 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:30.000 Tonight, another week, another visit to Lethbridge

00:00:42.680 for a trial of the trucker blockades.

00:00:45.160 It's March 18th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:50.920 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:00.000 Well, as you can see, I'm back in Lethbridge at the courthouse. 0.87

00:01:06.440 I think I've visited this place more often

00:01:08.640 than any other location in the country besides my home or my office.

00:01:13.020 You know, Starbucks talks about being the third place.

00:01:16.080 You go to the office, you go home.

00:01:17.420 Where's that third place you go?

00:01:19.160 That's Starbucks' internal strategy.

00:01:21.500 This is my third place.

00:01:23.020 If I'm not at home or at work, odds are I'm here.

00:01:25.520 And that's because this is the closest courthouse

00:01:28.300 to the Alberta-Montana border.

00:01:32.200 Coutts on the Alberta side, Sweetgrass on the Montana side,

00:01:35.380 where two years and a month ago,

00:01:38.160 a bunch of truckers and farmers and other ordinary Albertans

00:01:41.280 had a blockade in sympathy with the main trucker convoy in Ottawa

00:01:46.640 and a secondary one in Windsor.

00:01:49.380 Now, police sort of blocked access to Coutts,

00:01:52.460 which is a very small village.

00:01:53.800 It's not even a town.

00:01:55.520 They blocked it off at a larger town called Milk River.

00:01:59.220 It's like they built a giant siege wall around Coutts.

00:02:02.740 You couldn't get past Milk River.

00:02:04.660 You couldn't bring supplies to people.

00:02:07.120 You couldn't bring food to people.

00:02:08.820 It really was a showdown of sorts.

00:02:12.880 Whereas Ottawa and Windsor are large cities with huge police

00:02:17.020 with lots of resources, Coutts is far away.

00:02:19.340 So the police couldn't go in and pull out the protesters easily.

00:02:23.800 In fact, they had one sort of attempted show of force.

00:02:27.220 The men just simply outnumbered them.

00:02:28.840 And by the way, those huge agricultural vehicles,

00:02:32.500 they're even harder to move than the trucks.

00:02:34.940 Here's a scene from one of our documentaries on Coutts

00:02:37.660 showing that tense moment where all the troops sort of marched out

00:02:41.440 and the men just protested just sort of said,

00:02:44.980 Hey there, we're not going anywhere.

00:02:46.660 I don't know if you remember this.

00:02:47.640 All I want, O Canada, we stand on guard for Thee.

00:02:56.640 O Canada, we stand on guard for Thee.

00:03:03.640 O Canada, we stand on guard for Thee.

00:03:25.640 Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

00:03:44.380 Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

00:03:50.320 Well, of course, the law gets the last laugh.

00:03:53.300 They charged a lot of people there.

00:03:54.780 Now, again, what are they going to charge them with? Some parking offense? Well, in the case of

00:03:59.880 Pastor Arthur Pawlowski, they charged him for giving a sermon to the man which they said incited

00:04:06.820 their mischief. And incredibly, he was convicted of that crime. Rebel News' crowdfunding, along with

00:04:13.660 the Democracy Fund, the legal funds not only for his trial but for his appeal. Again, that was in

00:04:19.360 this building because, of course, this is the closest courthouse to Cootes. A lot of men there

00:04:24.000 were charged with mischief, which normally is really the most minor offense in the criminal

00:04:28.920 code, something reserved for, like, I don't know, someone who kicks over a garbage can or

00:04:35.000 something or, I don't know, spray paints, graffiti. Really, there's not a lot more you can charge the

00:04:41.240 trucker protesters with. The worst they did in Ottawa was some parking offenses and horn honking.

00:04:47.160 That's why they're coming against Mayor Halic with, I think it's incitement to commit mischief.

00:04:51.380 It's so minor. I really think it's the longest trial, hers is, the longest trial of any Canadian

00:04:57.600 ever charged with mischief. It's been going on for months and it's not done yet. Well, here in

00:05:02.900 Lethbridge, there's several trials for people who were involved in Cootes. In fact, the Democracy Fund

00:05:08.340 and Rebel News have crowdfunded for 55 people, 55 truckers, who were arrested or ticketed or charged with

00:05:16.740 one thing or another. That's on top of other pandemic issues. So there's a lot going on.

00:05:21.120 The Cootes 3 case, I don't mean to confuse you, but just to be clear, the Cootes 3 are the so-called

00:05:27.060 leadership group. They've been charged with mischief, much like Tamara Leach and Chris Barber in Ottawa.

00:05:32.380 But what I was here for is the so-called Cootes 4, and I know it's very confusing, but those are the

00:05:37.840 four men who were charged one day with very serious crime of conspiracy to commit murder. And the police

00:05:45.380 made such a shock and awe show of it. They had a carefully staged press conference where they showed

00:05:51.020 weapons, which are just regular hunting weapons. But they, you know, to Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal

00:05:55.840 journalists, they're terrifying because it's a gun in camouflage colors because that's how hunters are.

00:06:01.820 Here's a snippet of that police press conference that was on the eve of the Emergencies Act. And

00:06:08.400 that's why I think it's evident in retrospect, it was a pretext for Trudeau to put the country under

00:06:13.380 martial law. Here's how the police described it back then. Our members have been up here. And in general,

00:06:20.960 we haven't had many incidents involving violence. But unfortunately, an investigation started

00:06:28.720 after a period of time, when the initial protesters arrived, shortly thereafter, we began to receive

00:06:37.160 imminent information of potential threats. It took some time to investigate that and to determine facts

00:06:44.980 which have led us to several arrests during the night last night. These arrests and this investigation

00:06:52.200 is continuing. We have since made another arrest involving this. The escalation of violence towards the

00:07:00.420 members, including having someone break one of our checkpoints this afternoon, and just about hit one of our

00:07:09.000 members on the road. So we certainly have concerns about how this has developed and our investigation into what could be a

00:07:19.420 number of a number of different charges and a number of different acts has created a situation where we're

00:07:25.160 investigating conspiracy to attempt to commit murder. And then we have other investigations involving the firearms

00:07:33.580 clearly. So a search warrant was conducted last night in the air by it was approximately midnight 1230, where three

00:07:43.720 trailers associated to a group that had arrived separate to the original protesters, but in ended up being a part of this whole

00:07:56.140 situation. And this group, we conducted a search warrant into three trailers associated to them, resulting in the

00:08:03.280 seizure of weapons, firearms, ammunition, as well as body worn armor that would normally be a police issue.

00:08:12.940 And these people were taken into custody. We have determined that the investigation is ongoing and we will

00:08:22.680 continue to investigate this for the safety of the public and for the safety of the police.

00:08:29.000 You know, today, while I was sitting in the court, I reread some old CBC articles about the Cooch 4 and these charges and

00:08:36.840 reading it again with what I know now, it's so clear that so much of it is just hearsay or

00:08:42.320 speculation or the sort of fever dream of the police media industrial complex. They always had this

00:08:52.200 fantasy that the truckers were violent, that it was going to be a January 6 insurrection, which, by the

00:08:58.140 way, itself was not particularly violent. There were some broken windows for sure. But the only person who was

00:09:04.280 murdered that day was one of the protesters, Ashley Babbitt, if I recall her name. But still, January 6th, in U.S.

00:09:13.220 liberal circles was this terrifying event where we almost lost our democracy. Trudeau and the media industrial

00:09:18.860 complex wanted that narrative for these truckers. It never came. So they were desperate to find that and they thought

00:09:25.760 they found it in the Cooch 4. And frankly, it was so shocking, this talk of conspiracy to murder a policeman, that not only

00:09:34.700 did they arrest the four men, but the rest of the peaceful protesters said, yikes, we're out of here. We didn't sign up for this. And the men

00:09:41.840 voluntarily shut the Cooch blockade down, which, by the way, is an important point. The Windsor Bridge was cleared before the 0.60

00:09:49.180 martial law was invoked. Peacefully, local police could handle it. The Cooch blockade was cleared voluntarily by the men

00:09:56.120 saying, we're out of here if there were guns. And, but Trudeau almost hated that. In fact, you might recall, we've heard

00:10:02.220 this many times, including at the public inquiry into the Emergencies Act, that the city of Ottawa had negotiated a deal

00:10:10.260 with the truckers, that they would move a number of trucks away, and they would move them out of residential areas. When Trudeau heard

00:10:16.340 that, he pulled the trigger on the Emergencies Act, because he didn't want the temperature to be reduced. He

00:10:22.500 didn't want a negotiated solution. He wanted to be able to claim, uh-huh, we have our January 6th moment. So between

00:10:28.500 arresting Jamara Leach in Ottawa, and arresting the four men here in, in southern Alberta, they thought they had it.

00:10:37.600 I read the information to obtain, that's the police document, and you can see the words, information to

00:10:44.300 obtain a search warrant. So that's the list of accusations that police bring to a judge,

00:10:49.700 ex parte, which means without the other side there, because you need the sneak attack, you need the

00:10:54.060 Eleanor Surprise when you're executing a search warrant. And so they showed this document to the

00:11:00.080 judge and say, judge, give us the search warrant. And the judge did. And this document, it's subject to

00:11:06.000 a publication ban with certain exceptions. You can get the entire document for yourself from the court,

00:11:11.140 and I've done that. But you cannot publish it. So I cannot show you most of what's in it.

00:11:17.400 Certain parts have been given, the judges unsealed them, and allowed them to be published. But I don't

00:11:24.480 want to muck around there. But some of the, some, some of the allegations and accusations in the

00:11:29.500 information to obtain really are dramatic. And I thought to myself, there's really no way that this

00:11:35.320 many cops would be liars for Trudeau. But then a few, as you know, a few months ago, two of the

00:11:40.460 Cooch Four were released on the most modest, the most minor charges, that if they had been the charges 1.00

00:11:45.640 from the outset, these men would never have spent a day in jail. They would have had their wrist slapped,

00:11:49.580 maybe their gun license taken away for a few years, and that's it. So they have two men left.

00:11:54.700 And those two men were on trial today. The formal trial itself has not yet begun. They're still doing

00:11:59.600 preliminary matters. And alas, they are covered by a publication ban, too. So I can't really get

00:12:04.860 into it. Very frustrating to hear very dramatic things being said, but without the ability to

00:12:10.200 report on them, or even to characterize them as good for the prosecution or good for the defense.

00:12:16.040 The reason for this publication ban, when you think about it, it's to preserve the trial itself,

00:12:21.740 so that any potential jurors don't have little shreds or shards of evidence in their minds. Oh,

00:12:28.280 I know all about this. They're bad dudes. Or I know all about this. They're good dudes.

00:12:33.300 If they heard a police report, if they heard a lawyer on the other side, like, if they had some

00:12:39.260 information in advance of the trial, they would probably go in with their mind partly made up,

00:12:44.220 and they might just have an out-of-context fact or something like that. My point is,

00:12:49.160 it's important that the evidence that is being heard today, while very interesting,

00:12:53.160 has to be withheld from prospective jurors until it's properly put to them, so they hear all of it,

00:13:00.980 not just a journalist's summary, so they can hear if a lawyer challenges its credibility,

00:13:06.180 so they can make up their mind. It's frustrating that we can't publicize what is being said today,

00:13:12.180 but understand the reason is actually to protect the jury. So it's one of the few cases

00:13:17.600 where a ban on freedom of expression, it's temporary, and it's for the higher purpose of

00:13:24.340 justice. So I hate to say it, it's actually a good idea to have that publication ban, even though it

00:13:28.940 makes it frustrating for many people. One of the things people do to get around that is they come 0.97

00:13:33.520 and watch the trial. And alas, we're all jammed into a small courtroom, never enough room. They say

00:13:39.200 the larger courtroom is under renovations. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's frustrating

00:13:43.700 than the people. Anyways, there's only two of the coots four remaining, because like I said, 0.85

00:13:49.460 the other two copped a plea bargain a few months ago, and they were for minor offenses. And I don't

00:13:54.900 know if those men would have signed literally anything to get out of jail for two years. If two

00:13:58.860 of the best years of your life are stolen in jail, you probably would sign just about anything to get

00:14:05.020 back to your life and your family, even if it was false. But I don't know if it was a forced

00:14:11.080 jailhouse confession, as they call it. But even if we take it at face value, those two men are out

00:14:17.700 in the world. So obviously, the government doesn't think they're a menace to society anymore. So why

00:14:23.360 are the other two still in jail if their so-called co-conspirators have been let off to go back into

00:14:30.060 the public? What is the danger in March 2024 of these two remaining members of the coots four if the 0.94

00:14:36.620 other two coots four are out and about? Like that alone doesn't make sense. As you know, the other

00:14:43.880 day, I sat down with Betty Carbert, the mother of one of the two remaining accused. Here's a short

00:14:49.760 excerpt from that interview. Take a look. I do not believe now what I believed then. I do not believe

00:14:57.060 your son did what the police said he did. And I actually think he's being falsely accused.

00:15:04.640 And I think you're right. It was a shock to me because everybody might say that I'm his mom.

00:15:12.640 And so I'm a little biased. But I also, because I'm his mom, I feel that I know him best. Because of

00:15:18.960 that, I know that Chris couldn't possibly participate in what he's being accused of for many reasons.

00:15:26.120 I want to talk about those reasons because it's true. Every mother loves their son. Every mother

00:15:30.500 remembers their son as a baby and as a little boy. And even the mothers of actual criminals feel that

00:15:37.680 way. But I want to talk a little bit. Let's start with Chris and who he is and how he wound up at the

00:15:44.660 blockade because he was one of the peaceful protesters there. He just also was one of the four who were

00:15:50.340 swept up in this RCMP raid. Tell me about how it started. Why did he go to the blockade? Why did

00:15:57.940 he go to this protest? And what did he tell you about it? Was he in touch with you during the

00:16:02.340 protest? What do you know about that? He would text me probably every day just to keep me up to date on

00:16:10.560 what was happening. He was there because of the truckers. He felt that the COVID mandates, it was

00:16:19.800 affecting everybody. Anybody with a business where they were depending on products going and coming

00:16:25.660 from the US and the truckers having to find, well, probably new jobs because the ones that wouldn't

00:16:32.500 take the shot could no longer go across the border. So he was there to support them.

00:16:37.700 What we were talking about there was the difference between the two remaining accused,

00:16:42.440 Tony Olenek and Chris Carbert. And I know that there is a general solidarity with all of these men

00:16:48.240 that we don't like the prosecution of them, that it's all politically revved up. And I think that's

00:16:53.140 true. But there is an enormous difference between what Chris Carbert said and did and what Tony Olenek

00:16:58.840 said and did. And I don't know if in the name of political unity and harmony, we should discount some of

00:17:06.100 the crazy things that Tony Olenek said to undercover officers that, you know, were obviously are

00:17:13.640 probably just BS, just puffery, just a guy showing off. Remember in that saloon in Coots? Coots is such

00:17:22.100 a small place. All the men sort of hung out in this one saloon. It's where they met, it's where they

00:17:26.120 talked, it's where they ate and drank. And people could come and go. And there were uniformed police

00:17:30.560 officers in there. But there were also plenty of undercover officers, including attractive enough

00:17:37.580 young women. And so you've got these men who have just been cramped up with other men for a week or

00:17:45.680 two. And these attractive young women are hanging on their every word. And there's a male instinct I

00:17:51.200 might have even had it once in my life myself. When you're meeting a young woman, you want to show off 1.00

00:17:56.140 a little bit. You want to be a little tougher than you are, a little braver than you are. You want to

00:18:00.660 embellish your stories just a wee bit. I don't know. I think it's a male instinct, even more than a female 0.96

00:18:06.120 instinct. And so one of the defendants, Tony Olenek, told big stories. And again, I'm not referring to

00:18:14.280 anything I've heard in court, but rather to things that have been published due to the court revising the

00:18:20.180 publication ban. Tony Olenek wouldn't stop running his mind about what they were planning and what they

00:18:26.120 were doing and how they would fight back. And he used language that I think seasoned police

00:18:32.340 commanders would say, oh, that's just BS. That's just a guy showing off for girls. But remember what

00:18:37.500 the times were like in mid-February 2022. There was enormous pressure by Trudeau on the police to

00:18:44.040 find him something, anything. Remember they had that hoax of, oh, and the truckers lit an arson attack

00:18:49.860 in a condo and auto. I don't know if you remember about that. Complete hoax. They had the hoax of the

00:18:55.400 swastika flag. By the way, it's clear that the media doesn't care about anti-Semitic flags.

00:18:59.980 We've had anti-Semitic flags at Hamas hate marches for six months. CBC hasn't done an expose on that

00:19:05.460 yet. But like I say, the police were hunting, hunting, hunting for anything. And here's this

00:19:10.660 guy in a saloon bragging to a couple of undercover female officers about his plans for a revolution.

00:19:19.120 Yeah, you bet they're going to say go with it, even though he's a BS-er, even though there's no

00:19:24.160 evidence of it, we got to give something to the boss. The boss, of course, being Justin Trudeau

00:19:29.220 and his crooked RCMP commissioner at the time, Brenda Lucky. And I think that that old World War

00:19:35.960 II saying, loose lips sink ships, I think that's what happened here. Now, perhaps I'm not showing

00:19:42.200 the solidarity with Tony Olenek that one would want me to do. But listen, if he did commit the

00:19:50.160 crime of conspiracy to commit murder, then he should do the time. I just don't believe he did

00:19:54.740 that. I was thinking about the elements necessary to convict someone of conspiracy to commit murder.

00:20:02.180 And this is beyond a reasonable doubt. First of all, you need another person. That's why I think

00:20:05.740 they trapped Chris Carpenter there. But second of all, not only do you have to have the intention

00:20:09.720 to commit this murder, you have to agree to do it. Not just, hey, it's an idle plan or wouldn't it be

00:20:17.800 neat if or maybe we'll do. You have to, okay, are we agreed? Are we going to do this? Yes, go. I just

00:20:22.960 don't believe that the cops have that. And I think that they've been stretching this out to punish

00:20:28.260 everyone. Trudeau is extremely vengeful. He has vendettas like that. If you cross him, he will take it

00:20:34.740 out of your hide. He did to Tamara Leach. He did to Pastor Arthur Pawlowski. And I think that may be

00:20:40.020 what's going on in here. We're going to cover this. One of our mottos in Rebel News is follow the facts

00:20:45.000 wherever they lead. And there are some troubling facts here. I do not believe that two years in

00:20:54.240 prison is appropriate for a guy just being a blowhard and a braggart. And based on what's emerged in

00:21:03.860 recent months, including the plea deal, I don't think tolling Olenek had a conspiracy to commit murder.

00:21:09.920 I think he had just a big mouth. And that was enough for the government to go to war against these

00:21:15.160 truckers. We'll find out. Unfortunately, I can't tell you more of what's going on inside there because

00:21:19.960 it's covered by a publication of Matt. I'm delighted to say that Robert Krejcik, our reporter who covered

00:21:24.660 the Tamara Leach trials, is going to be here for the duration of the Cooch 4 and the Cooch 3. And he's, he,

00:21:31.560 you've seen his work with Tamara Leach, and I think he's really the right fit for this.

00:21:35.160 So that's my report from here. By the way, if you want to chip into the Legal Defense Fund for Chris

00:21:39.380 Carbert, we've set up a special fund for him at helpchris.ca. So feel free to chip in if you think

00:21:46.780 that he, he was overcharged and this is a political trial. That's my report from here in Cooch. Now we'll go

00:21:56.040 back to our regular programming of the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:22:10.760 Hey, remember just a few weeks ago, I think it was in late January, when the CBC's CEO, Catherine Tate,

00:22:18.540 was in Parliament answering prickly questions about their pay and their bonuses and their perks.

00:22:25.060 It was prickly for a number of reasons. And I think one of them is that Catherine Tate, 0.81

00:22:29.320 the CBC CEO, is so argumentative and so partisan, and she can't contain her hatred for the conservatives.

00:22:37.300 I mean, I get it, the feelings mutual, but just the contempt with which she answered questions

00:22:43.100 at this parliamentary hearing was incredible. She's an atrocious woman. I don't know if you know 1.00

00:22:47.980 this, but she was hired to be the CEO of the CBC. She was living in New York. What? Yeah. And in fact,

00:22:55.480 she would commute back and forth between New York and the CBC offices. She didn't, I don't know if

00:23:00.780 she's eventually moved, but for the longest time she commuted and you paid for that. Anyways, take a

00:23:08.280 listen to this exchange when Rachel Thomas, the conservative MP who's the critic for the CBC,

00:23:14.320 was trying to get to the bottom of how much they were paying in bonuses. Hey, when was the last time

00:23:21.000 you got a bonus? Most Canadians don't get bonuses. I mean, maybe they get an extra hundred bucks

00:23:26.100 at Christmas time, but bonuses are something that executives at companies get for hugely successful

00:23:32.040 years. The CBC has had their viewership fall in half since Catherine Tate took over. Anyways,

00:23:37.700 enough from me. Watch this atrocious exchange and pay close attention to the key message that this

00:23:44.880 American CEO has that no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't even pay bonuses. Don't even know what the

00:23:50.640 word means. Take a look. For the record, CBC Radio-Canada does not award so-called bonuses. What we have,

00:23:58.980 like every other crown corporation, is at risk or performance pay, which is a key part of the total

00:24:05.900 compensation of our non-union staff. Your so-called bonuses. I don't know what you mean by a so-called

00:24:14.080 bonus. This word is unfamiliar to me. I don't understand you. What a wicked liar. Joining us now to talk about

00:24:22.980 the lie and to prove that it was a lie is our friend Franco Teresano from the Canadian Taxpayers

00:24:27.880 Federation. Franco, you know, I think everyone felt like they were being lied to there. But you

00:24:34.700 actually have the proof of it. You guys at the Taxpayers Federation have in your hot little hands

00:24:39.640 an access to information document showing that not only did they get bonuses, but they used the word

00:24:46.120 bonuses. Catherine Tate was lying, wasn't she? What a word salad from the CBC boss. Hey, what a word salad.

00:24:54.620 And there is only one thing that I can take from that. Deliberately trying to mislead Canadian 1.00

00:25:00.060 taxpayers who pay for a salary. But folks, don't worry because the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:25:05.340 always keeps the receipts. We filed an access to information request to the CBC. And guess what?

00:25:12.280 The CBC's own documents. Can you see that there, folks? What's that word you see? Bonus, bonus,

00:25:20.100 bonus, bonus. The CBC did in fact hand out taxpayer funded bonuses in 2023, costing you, dear taxpayer,

00:25:29.980 $15 million. But Ezra, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Going back to 2015, the CBC's bonuses

00:25:39.620 have cost taxpayer 114 million bucks. So $15 million in bonuses in 2023, $114 million in bonuses

00:25:50.740 since 2015. Unbelievable, but completely believable. You know, bonuses are often paid in industries where

00:25:59.800 performance, you get a base pay for showing up and doing the work, but it's your performance that

00:26:06.460 gives you a bonus. You know, salesmen know that. It's a commission. Stockbrokers, you know, people who

00:26:13.260 there's a real upside if they work hard. That's where you have a bonus. The CBC, there really is no risk.

00:26:21.520 It's like a public utility in that everyone's forced to pay for it. I'm not sure why there's bonuses being

00:26:27.620 paid at all. I mean, I suppose if they had spectacular success, but as the conservative MP points

00:26:35.620 out, since Catherine Tate took over, viewership has actually fallen by 50%. I can't think of any other

00:26:44.280 business in the world where your results have fallen in half. Even though, you know, Canada's population is

00:26:53.260 larger than ever. Only half as many people watch it. Why are they getting bonuses at all?

00:27:00.580 Well, that's a great question, Ezra. You know, in the real world, outside of Ottawa, a bonus is for

00:27:06.400 when you do a good job. But in Ottawa, in the federal government, that's not what a bonus means to them,

00:27:11.960 right? They just get a bonus for showing up to work twice a week with their shoes tied.

00:27:16.200 I feel like that's kind of what's going on here. But this kind of illustrates the point. So in that same

00:27:21.440 committee appearance that you played a clip from, Miss Tate said something along the lines as that

00:27:26.900 this bonus pay goes out to their non-union staff of more than 1,100 employees. Okay? Well, they gave

00:27:35.700 out $15 million in bonuses to more than 1,100 employees. So it sure seems like all of them or

00:27:42.740 nearly all of them were getting a bonus in the managerial, the executive class, the non-union class

00:27:49.460 at the CBC. But hey, you know what? It's not like Tate or the other big wigs at the CBC are

00:27:56.980 hurting, right? So Tate's annual pay is somewhere between $470,000 and $620,000. And that includes,

00:28:07.360 yeah, yeah. And that includes salary, other benefits, and you guessed it, folks, a bonus.

00:28:12.620 Now, the CBC won't actually say how much exactly Tate is being paid by the taxpayer or what her 0.93

00:28:19.040 bonus is. But I've seen some analysis in other news outlets that suggest that Tate's annual bonus

00:28:26.400 could be in the six figures, depending on where she is in that salary range. So look, I mean,

00:28:33.740 at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we're calling for the CBC to be completely defunded.

00:28:38.820 We don't think they should get a single penny from taxpayers. But at the very least, like,

00:28:44.380 end these taxpayer-funded bonuses. Yeah. You know, if she's making $600,000 and she's getting the 0.87

00:28:51.360 bonuses suggested, her bonus will be six figures. Her bonus is $100,000. Her bonus alone is more than 0.93

00:28:58.080 the average Canadian makes in an entire year of work. The same Conservative MP asked some questions

00:29:05.580 about how on earth they could justify any bonuses given the failure. Listen to this comment about

00:29:14.020 key performance indicators. That's a term that a lot of businesses use. KPI, key performance

00:29:20.620 indicator. For example, in a media company, it might be how many viewers do you have? How many ad sales

00:29:27.140 do you have? These are measurable key performance indicators that show the success and health of the

00:29:34.060 company. Listen to what she says are the key performance indicators, given that their viewership

00:29:40.600 has fallen in half and it's declining literally every year. Just take a listen to this, as you say,

00:29:46.100 word salad. And then let me show you something. Take a look. Based on the metrics that are used then,

00:29:52.360 last year you gave out $16 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses to the staff. That was an average of $14,000

00:30:02.960 to staff members at the CBC. Most Canadians don't even see half of that in a bonus, not even a quarter

00:30:09.120 of that in a yearly bonus. $14,000 was the average amount that was given to CBC staff. What were the

00:30:16.340 metrics that were used in order to determine that bonus amount? So again, the KPIs are published

00:30:22.360 and they're very clearly have to do with performance of the service, for example, digital reach, for example,

00:30:30.660 engagement with news in the regions, for example, performance on engagement with kids and children. All of those

00:30:40.080 are published very clearly in our annual report. And I actually want to, if I may, may I ask? I think your number is wrong

00:30:46.560 if I want to correct the record. I would just highlight for you that it's interesting to me

00:30:51.600 because you're saying that these are the metrics, but actually the viewership of the CBC is cut in

00:30:56.460 half since you took leadership in 2018. It's come down by half. So it's interesting to me that you're

00:31:03.700 giving bonuses or performance awards when in fact the CBC is performing the poorest it's ever performed.

00:31:10.720 So bonuses keep going up. They keep skyrocketing. But performance, as you say the bonuses are

00:31:16.460 given granted based on. I really, if I may, Madam Chair, I'd like to correct the record.

00:31:22.200 So she's talking, well, we've got more kids watching, which is really weird and a strange

00:31:26.980 measurement. But if you look at the annual report that she says, they are failing in every single

00:31:33.200 key performance indicator except for one. The one that they're smashing is affirmative action hiring.

00:31:40.400 That's actually one of their KPIs. They have to have a certain quota of minorities and they 0.89

00:31:46.440 exceeded that. That is the greatest success of the CBC according to them themselves. They're losing

00:31:53.240 ad money. They're losing online viewership. They're losing actual TV viewership. The only thing they've

00:31:59.740 succeeded at, Franco, is a race-based quota system for hiring. It's, I can't imagine any other company in

00:32:09.840 the world that was failing on all accounts saying, well, we're failing, sure, but we sure are getting

00:32:16.200 a lot of minority hires here. Can you give us points for that? That's according to their own

00:32:20.960 annual report, Franco. Well, Ezra, let me just take a step back for a second and kind of point out the

00:32:28.120 obvious here. Okay. So Tate has been running around crying poor, begging the government for more

00:32:36.240 taxpayer cash. Uh, according to Tate, the CBC is chronically underfunded. So what did the federal

00:32:44.240 government do? Well, they shoveled an extra a hundred million dollars at the CBC, meaning the CBC will cost

00:32:49.920 taxpayers $1.4 billion this year. But to state the obvious, if the CBC was truly chronically

00:32:57.700 underfunded, which it's not, but if it was, then when the first thing that you do would be to cut

00:33:04.400 these bonuses out, right? Like that doesn't make any sense to me. If the cupboards are truly bare,

00:33:09.420 which you and I and all your viewers know that they are not when they're taking more than a billion

00:33:13.360 dollars from taxpayers every year. But if they were truly bare, wouldn't you cut the bonuses? Now,

00:33:19.000 Tate should be doing the right thing. I'm not going to hold my breath, but she should be doing

00:33:23.000 the right thing and ending these bonuses. Okay. I don't think that's going to happen. So we need

00:33:27.520 the politicians to stand in. Now to their credit, the conservative party has been very good on this

00:33:32.940 issue, right? You hear them all the time saying defund the CBC, uh, their leader, Pierre Polyev,

00:33:38.440 he's gone a step further and has also said that he would end the bonuses for failing government

00:33:43.740 authorities like the bank of Canada, like the CBC. Now that's something that we have to hold him

00:33:48.980 accountable for if he ever does form government. But where is the action right now? Because in the

00:33:55.540 last budget, finance minister, Christia Freeland said that she would find like a billion dollars

00:34:00.000 in savings at the crown corporations. And I think that the most obvious place for them to find savings

00:34:06.020 is to end these bonuses for failure. So that's what we should see. We should have seen Tate do the

00:34:12.280 right thing in the first place. But now I think Freeland and the other politicians in the governing

00:34:17.860 party need to step in and put an end to this. Yeah. You know, it's incredible. It feels like

00:34:24.060 they're all just burning the place down in their final year of their disgraced reign. I mean, they're

00:34:29.940 not even trying to hide it anymore. Um, by the way, when I mentioned that Catherine Tate was an

00:34:34.880 American, of course, I have nothing against Americans. It's just very odd to me that in a country of 40

00:34:39.980 million people that the leader of a cultural industry for Canada's national broadcaster was

00:34:45.780 hired out of New York. There's so many weird things about it. It's so fake. The CBC is all fake. And it

00:34:52.360 may once a long time ago have had some sort of moral basis. We need a Canadian national identity

00:34:58.640 because otherwise we'll be swallowed up by American radio stations. But in an era not only of 500 digital

00:35:06.100 channels, but of endless online content, there is no rationale for the CBC anymore. None at all.

00:35:13.800 And I think selling off the CBC isn't just smart financially. It's just smart in terms of getting

00:35:20.540 rid of a propaganda outlet. But there's just literally no need for one of a million news sources

00:35:27.740 to be owned by the government. Sell it and pay off some debt, reduce taxes, and let Catherine Tate try 1.00

00:35:34.820 and find a $600,000 job in the private sector. I don't think she will. Last word to you. 0.96

00:35:41.580 Well, look, I agree that the federal government should completely defund the CBC. I mean, for starters,

00:35:46.960 let's look at the moral issue here, right? Canadian taxpayers shouldn't be forced to fund a media

00:35:53.360 organization involuntarily, right? So what I mean by that is that Canadians should have the right to

00:35:58.960 choose which media organizations that they want to fund with their own money, not be forced to fork over a

00:36:04.480 billion dollars every year through the government, right? But number two is, look, we have so many

00:36:10.400 other media outlets in here, whether you want to call private media outlets or independent media

00:36:15.040 outlets that have to directly compete with the CBC, and they're more than a billion dollars that they

00:36:20.360 get from taxpayers every single year. That's not fair to independent or private sector media

00:36:25.040 organizations. But number three, look, we are in such an innovative world when it comes to the new

00:36:30.820 media organizations that are popping up or other different types of platforms. So what the government

00:36:37.520 is essentially doing with the media subsidies and the CBC is stalling the innovation. So for those many

00:36:44.080 reasons, I do not think that the CBC should be getting a single penny from Canadian taxpayers.

00:36:51.000 You know, let me leave you with one last thought. I know I already said last word to you, Franco,

00:36:55.100 but I just had an idea while you were talking. You know, I've observed private sector media companies

00:36:59.720 over the last 10 years try and deal with the new economic realities of the industry. And one of the

00:37:05.160 things they've done is sold their super high-priced real estate. In the 20th century, newspapers often

00:37:12.100 were in the heart of the city. They were sort of a flagship building right on the main street. Think about

00:37:17.520 where the Toronto Star office is. Well, a lot of those private sector companies have sold

00:37:22.700 their expensive real estate and either moved out into the suburbs or actually they work virtually.

00:37:28.020 Not the CBC in pretty much every city in Canada, the most expensive neighborhood. That's where the CBC

00:37:35.500 has its palaces. Think of downtown Toronto, King and John Street, that monstrous office. I'm not saying

00:37:42.480 it could sell for a billion dollars, but it would be hundreds of millions for sure. I think that the

00:37:48.860 CBC thinks it's a kind of royalty or aristocracy and they lord it over people. I think it, I think

00:37:56.120 their, their extreme pay and their luxury offices affects their mindset. I think that not only should we

00:38:04.360 defund the CBC, we should have an auction. And for all those progressive do-gooders at the CBC, I say

00:38:12.100 turn the CBC buildings, if you're not going to sell them, turn them into homeless shelters and let the 0.59

00:38:17.740 CBC, their final act, be to actually help some people rather than lord it over us. Thanks for letting

00:38:24.100 me rant a little bit there, Franco, with my idea. But I was just thinking about all the offices in the

00:38:28.560 private sector newspapers, National Post, Calgary Herald. I think of all the newspapers that sold

00:38:34.200 their buildings, not the CBC. Rant over. Franco, great to see you. Just, I'd like to encourage

00:38:41.140 people to go, go to the website, taxpayer.com. The headline of this story is CBC bonuses total

00:38:46.900 $15 million in 2023, even though Catherine Tate claimed they don't even know what a bonus is. Good to

00:38:53.600 see. We'll see you again soon, Franco. Hey, thanks, Ezra. Always a pleasure.

00:38:58.560 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - March 18, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rebel reports live from Lethbridge to cover the 'Coutts Four' pre-trial hearing

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