Rebel News Podcast - December 31, 2024


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rupa Subramanya： Free speech in Canada 'weak,' facing 'draconian' Online Harms bill


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

161.08684

Word count

7,312

Sentence count

479

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Rupa Supranania is one of my favorite columnists and investigative reporters. She's been with the National Post and True North, and now she's with Barry Weiss's The Free Press. What a pleasure to have her for the whole show today.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.780 Rupa Subramania is one of my favorite columnists and investigative reporters.
00:00:05.020 She's been with the National Post and True North, and now she's with Barry Weiss's Free Press.
00:00:10.200 What a pleasure to have her for the whole show today. 0.91
00:00:13.540 Let me invite you to get the video version of this podcast.
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00:00:31.740 All right, here's today's podcast.
00:00:34.040 You know, nowadays it feels like censorship is creeping into every corner of our lives,
00:00:38.640 whether it's the news we access, our posts on social media, or even how we choose to manage our family's wealth.
00:00:45.620 With companies like BlackRock amassing substantial voting power through passive investing,
00:00:51.500 it's up to people like you to take back the power of your investments by working with a firm that shares your values.
00:00:57.640 That's why we have partnered with Rocklink Investment Partners.
00:01:01.420 Rocklink is independent, which means they have the freedom to invest without being influenced by the globalist agenda.
00:01:08.380 They focus on creating portfolios of excellent businesses, not on ESG and DEI or the latest woke trend.
00:01:16.360 Call them at 905-631-5462 or email them at info at rocklink.com.
00:01:23.340 That's rocklink with a C, info at rocklink.com.
00:01:26.360 Tonight, a feature interview with Rupa Supramania, one of Canada's most independent journalists.
00:01:37.640 It's December 30th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:40.640 You're fighting for freedom!
00:01:43.520 Shame on you, you censorious bug!
00:01:46.660 Our next guest has a unique voice in journalism.
00:01:58.820 I started following her years ago.
00:02:00.600 I was delighted when the National Post made her a columnist,
00:02:03.900 and then she started a podcast with our friends at True North.
00:02:07.640 And it didn't surprise me when she was snapped up by Barry Weiss's leading independent media company called The Free Press.
00:02:15.500 You probably can guess who I'm talking about.
00:02:17.680 It's our friend Rupa Supramania, who was our guest for the entire show today.
00:02:22.400 Rupa, great to see you.
00:02:23.400 Thanks for making time for us.
00:02:25.060 You're doing such amazing things.
00:02:27.000 I'd love to follow you online.
00:02:30.000 It's great to be with you once again, Ezra.
00:02:32.140 It's been a while, but I'm so glad that we're doing this today.
00:02:37.000 Well, thank you.
00:02:37.960 And first, tell me a little bit about The Free Press.
00:02:40.280 Barry Weiss, if I understand, she was an editorial writer at The New York Times,
00:02:44.200 and she felt that wokeism and, frankly, a little bit of anti-Semitism was taking root in that institution.
00:02:51.260 And so she branched out on her own, started The Free Press.
00:02:54.000 It's done so well and has an interesting point of view.
00:02:58.140 And they cover different countries, not just the U.S.
00:03:00.700 Give me one line about The Free Press, because you obviously work there.
00:03:04.680 You would know much better than me.
00:03:06.240 What is it and why is it important?
00:03:07.880 Oh, so The Free Press is a very exciting new media outlet in the U.S.
00:03:15.800 I've been associated with them since the truckers' protest, Ezra.
00:03:20.800 And I've been writing for them since.
00:03:25.080 I'm now full-time with The Free Press.
00:03:27.180 And, you know, what makes The Free Press special and sets it apart from other independent news outlets in the U.S.
00:03:37.820 and Canada and elsewhere is that we're not afraid to, you know, go after subjects that, you know, other people are afraid to touch.
00:03:47.200 And we've done that consistently, you know, across the board, whether it relates to free speech or identity politics, wokeism, gender ideology, and so on and so forth.
00:04:01.760 We've done some amazing work on all of these subjects, and, you know, and our readers see us, see that for, you know, appreciate our, appreciate what we have to offer.
00:04:16.900 And we're in a very exciting place right now.
00:04:20.820 We're, you know, growing really, really fast.
00:04:23.680 We're picking up a lot of subscribers, and it's the talk of the town, essentially.
00:04:32.440 And I'm incredibly proud to be associated with Barry and Nellie and the rest of the team and what we're trying to accomplish.
00:04:42.880 Well, it's exciting to watch.
00:04:44.580 And you're right.
00:04:45.600 I remember your coverage with the truckers.
00:04:47.140 You were one of the very few journalists who actually just went on the street and just talked to truckers and asked them, who are you and why are you here?
00:04:55.400 The two most simple questions, even, you know, frankly, a child could have asked those questions.
00:05:01.000 But the professional journalists that made up what I call the regime media, they wouldn't even ask those very basic questions.
00:05:09.120 That's sort of a rebellious thing to do, if I can use a word.
00:05:11.940 But is the free press, is it a dissident publication?
00:05:17.120 Is it contrarian?
00:05:18.400 Or is it just, I mean, like Barry Weiss is fairly much an establishment person.
00:05:23.480 I know she is the backing of some of the establishment.
00:05:26.420 Would you call them contrarians and dissidents or just critics and open-minded skeptics?
00:05:31.780 No, we're not contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but we are very much concerned about the way the free press wouldn't be possible if not for the fact that the legacy media has gone the way it has, right?
00:05:51.540 And so there's a real need, a real desire among the public for a media outlet that can offer the truth or, you know, at the very least, you make up your own mind.
00:06:08.140 You know, we don't go around, you know, ceremonizing to our readers.
00:06:15.500 We treat them as intelligent people and we lay out the facts.
00:06:20.440 We tell them what the story is and then it's up to you to decide.
00:06:23.160 And I think that's really the essence of journalism and that's what the free press does.
00:06:29.160 But having said that, we're not afraid to take positions on certain things.
00:06:32.760 Like, you know, we call out anti-Semitism, for example.
00:06:35.620 We call out things that are unfair and unjust.
00:06:40.420 We call out government overreach.
00:06:42.200 So we are very clear where we stand.
00:06:46.500 We're open-minded, of course, while being very clear where we stand.
00:06:51.960 I want to ask you what you think of Bill C-63.
00:06:56.740 Jordan Peterson, when he announced he's moving from Canada to the United States, cited Bill C-63 as one of the things on his mind.
00:07:04.420 Now, I don't know if that bill will become law before the Canadian election, which seems somewhat pregnant right now.
00:07:13.160 So it may die on the order paper.
00:07:14.920 And I think if Pierre Paglia becomes the prime minister, I don't think he'll revive that bill.
00:07:19.160 But even without that bill, there are a lot of censorship apparatuses already in effect, whether it's human rights commissions and tribunals or, frankly, the media subsidy, which is another kind of corrosion of free press.
00:07:32.880 I mean, you could use a carrot of censorship or a stick of subsidies.
00:07:37.700 How big of a deal is that in Canada?
00:07:40.680 And do you think Pierre Paglia will be any better if he becomes prime minister on the issue of free speech?
00:07:48.600 Oh, so Bill C-63, if I understand, is the online harms bill.
00:07:54.200 That's right.
00:07:54.860 Oh, sorry.
00:07:55.340 Yeah, exactly.
00:07:56.180 The one that.
00:07:57.120 Yeah, I just, you know, hard to follow with all the numbers.
00:08:00.460 Yeah, there's so many numbers.
00:08:01.320 But yeah, it's going to be devastating.
00:08:05.780 And I cannot even believe that we that someone would even come up with something so preposterous and draconian when already our individual liberties and our right to free expression is under, you know, is under threat and has been.
00:08:23.860 And as we saw during the truckers protest, which led to the debanking of some protesters by our former finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, the point is the state of free speech in Canada is so weak.
00:08:39.440 And then on top of that, we're imposing this this this this this this legislation, this proposed legislation.
00:08:46.760 You know, this is the kind of stuff that you see in authoritarian tin pot dictatorships in the third world.
00:08:52.920 And I never imagined my my life in the nearly 30 years that I've lived in this country that, you know, the craziness, the insanity that I left behind is now here.
00:09:04.360 And it's and it's and it's and it's taking root here in a way that I never even expected.
00:09:11.100 And and and and the dissent, the opposition to this, you know, is is to me, you know, you asked me about Pierre-Paul Yevour.
00:09:21.360 However, I you know, he does say that Canada should be the free he wants to restore Canada to being one of the freest country in the world.
00:09:29.780 I do think that Canada at one point was a very, very free country.
00:09:33.740 I would say I've pointed this out several times.
00:09:37.360 We were at one point even more libertarian than the U.S., but things really, really changed, especially under Trudeau senior.
00:09:46.880 And and, you know, things have been going downhill since then.
00:09:49.180 And then success, you know, governments in those intervening years, whether liberal or conservative, I don't think they took these issues very seriously, which is why which is why we are here in this situation in the first place.
00:10:05.280 In a sense, I feel that the Canadian public has been primed to to to to have more government in their lives.
00:10:13.320 You know, they I remember like 20 years ago in grad school, you know, I stood out as a you know, you know, I was seen as a heretic.
00:10:22.140 I was seen as, you know, an oddball for for for for for talking about the things that we're talking about now.
00:10:29.360 But the chickens have come home to roost. I do I do wish that the conservative party was a little more clear on things like censorship.
00:10:38.060 You know, I I I I do wish that they would articulate that that that that more clearly, you know, so I know exactly where they stand.
00:10:47.840 It's not just good enough to say I'm going to make Canada the freest country in the world.
00:10:52.560 What does that mean exactly?
00:10:53.860 I met another guy at the Le Brat brewery a few days ago and you can watch the video of me talking with him.
00:11:00.160 He walked up to me. He said, I have three jobs and I can't make it.
00:11:04.000 We're renting. We have no hope that we've given up on ever owning a home.
00:11:07.300 We're renting. We can barely make it.
00:11:08.900 And he said to me, I feel ashamed when I talk to my kids because they asked me why I'm never around and why we can never have a house.
00:11:19.360 And I feel like a failure, but he didn't fail.
00:11:24.220 He has been failed.
00:11:27.160 He has been robbed of the promise of Canada.
00:11:31.960 It was a very simple promise that if you worked hard, you got a good life.
00:11:36.820 Now, it wasn't fancy or extravagant, but you got a house with a yard where you could have kids playing safely and you could have a nice dog that you could afford to feed along with the kids and your kids could play safely in the streets.
00:11:54.720 That was the promise.
00:11:56.020 Now, politicians break promises all the time, but you know what was bad about this promise?
00:12:00.660 This promise didn't belong to this Prime Minister.
00:12:05.520 It wasn't his promise to break.
00:12:07.880 It belonged to all of us.
00:12:11.680 And our purpose is to bring home that promise for that young man, that young father and that older female worker so that they can once again take back control of their lives, live in a safe country where their hard work earns them a good wage, where the rent and their food is affordable.
00:12:30.520 And where, when they go to bed at night, they know that they will be safe throughout their sleep and that they will have their car in their driveway in the morning.
00:12:40.080 A country where people are proud again to fly the flag, where they know the government is a servant and not a master.
00:12:49.140 A country where they understand that every day, the commons, this place, works for the common people, not for the ego of one man desperate to cling on to his job.
00:13:02.440 We must remember that we are servants in this place.
00:13:07.020 We have a job to do on behalf of the people who sent us here.
00:13:11.380 Our personal dramas are not important.
00:13:13.620 The dramas that should seize all of our concern and imagination are the daily dramas of the working women and men that build this country.
00:13:24.420 We are in it for them.
00:13:25.940 We're going to give them back control of their lives in the freest country on earth, Canada.
00:13:30.840 Let's bring it home.
00:13:32.620 Come on, get up, ladders. 1.00
00:13:34.140 And so, you know, I'd like a little more clarity on that, on those statements.
00:13:40.360 I do hope, I do hope that Mr. Polyevra, you know, stays true to his word and, you know, won't take us down this path of, you know, to more censorship.
00:14:00.760 You know, the problem with a lot of this legislation is that once it becomes law, once it becomes policy, it's very difficult to reverse it.
00:14:10.100 We've seen this.
00:14:11.180 It's not just unique.
00:14:12.300 It's not just unique to Canada.
00:14:14.520 You know, I've seen this in other places as well.
00:14:16.380 Once you have something in place, it's very difficult to reverse it.
00:14:19.980 So the question is, you know, you know, how do we see, how does, how do we see the next government restore our rights and freedoms?
00:14:29.980 That's the, that's one of the biggest questions for me.
00:14:33.640 There are all kinds of other issues that animate me as well, but I want to see, I mean, Mr. Polyevra has a lot, is going to have lots of challenges on his hand.
00:14:41.760 You know, the economy for one thing, you know, our GDP growth, per capita GDP growth has stagnated, immigration is an issue.
00:14:52.080 And, you know, we're basically in a state of crisis right now.
00:14:55.060 And, you know, a lot of that, I think, needs to be, you know, he's got, he's got his plate full for sure.
00:15:04.640 But I do think as well that we need a leader who is going to make us less socialized, less social, who's going to argue for less socialism in our lives.
00:15:17.720 And that is something that is very, I'm very passionate about that.
00:15:20.660 Where is Mr. Polyevra's position on, on supply management, for example, on the dairy industry?
00:15:28.460 Why do we have a cartel there?
00:15:30.600 Where does he stand on the cartel that exists with airlines or in the telecom industry?
00:15:37.760 Where does, where does the conservative party stand on, you know, on, on healthcare?
00:15:45.240 You know, I'd like to have a private option.
00:15:47.420 Why do I have to go overseas to get, to see a family doctor?
00:15:51.300 I've been waiting for a family doctor for 15 years.
00:15:54.480 This is unacceptable.
00:15:56.000 And these are issues that I, I really think we, we need, we need, we need the conservative party to tell us where they stand on this thing, on these issues.
00:16:05.800 What are their proposals?
00:16:07.180 How do they plan on fixing these issues?
00:16:10.700 How does the conservative party plan on fixing the problem that I and so many other Canadians don't have access to a family doctor?
00:16:20.580 You know, hearing you list those things, supply and management, healthcare, those are age old problems that I think a lot of freedom oriented people just said, well, we're doomed to have those forever.
00:16:32.960 There's no way those can change.
00:16:34.440 It's like the mountains, they'll always be there.
00:16:36.700 But when I look south of the border and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed by Donald Trump to head something they call the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE.
00:16:46.620 And they're talking about hacking away entire agencies.
00:16:52.000 It's very bold.
00:16:53.280 I don't know if they'll actually be able to do it.
00:16:55.460 I mean, there's a lot of other checks and balances in the American system.
00:16:59.960 I wonder if you think, you know, I think Pierre Paulyev's going to get a huge majority.
00:17:05.360 I think he's going to have a very strong mandate.
00:17:07.380 But he's going to have a lot of checks and balances on him too.
00:17:10.020 The Senate, for one thing.
00:17:12.000 The courts.
00:17:12.820 Yeah.
00:17:12.940 The civil service and their public sector unions.
00:17:16.080 Do you think that besides tackling inflation, the deficit, immigration, the anti-Semitic crime wave, do you think he'll have enough political capital to also take on the dairy cartel?
00:17:30.900 Which irritates everyone, but there's a lot of votes in Quebec for it.
00:17:35.400 Do you think he'll have the power and the energy to take on health care?
00:17:39.700 Because even though everyone knows our health care is broken, it still has sort of a magical aura to it.
00:17:45.520 I mean, I think almost everything needs to be fixed.
00:17:48.960 What do you think should be the top priority?
00:17:51.260 Because what you've just described, those are very real issues.
00:17:56.120 But would they make the top five things Paulyev had to do?
00:18:01.000 Would they be that high a priority?
00:18:03.980 Yeah.
00:18:04.180 So I think they're all related.
00:18:06.420 I don't think that I don't think it should be business as usual anymore, Ezra.
00:18:11.500 I remember, you know, in grad school, we were having these discussions.
00:18:18.940 Even back then, strengthening the border, you know, massaging our relationship with the U.S.
00:18:27.220 These are all important priorities.
00:18:29.940 The priority right now is, you know, how do we get out of this economic mess that we're currently in?
00:18:36.800 And, you know, how do we fix the affordability crisis?
00:18:40.720 How do we fix the housing crisis?
00:18:42.240 How do we ensure that young Canadians have a shot at the Canadian dream, which is now basically, it's in the toilet right now, to be honest.
00:18:53.720 And, you know, how do we fix all of those problems?
00:18:57.700 So the economy, you know, his priority is going to be the economy to basically stop the bleeding, you know, as quickly as possible.
00:19:08.580 But all of these other issues that I cite are very related to the fact that we are in this mess to a large extent because Canadians have, you know, I used the word primed earlier. 1.00
00:19:23.540 We have come to accept, unlike our, you know, our neighbors to the south, where they're generally skeptical of the government, we have come to love government in this country.
00:19:35.400 We love the government doing stuff for us, which is why, you know, criticizing the health care system or touching it or any politician touching the health care system and even proposing an alternative to what we have right now.
00:19:49.700 It would be, you know, a career suicide, essentially, because we have gotten so used to having the government do everything for us.
00:19:59.200 Our education system is socialized.
00:20:01.040 Let's talk about that.
00:20:03.860 You know, it only it only survives because of large subsidies from the government and the international students who come here, who pay international student fees to subsidize the education of local Canadians.
00:20:18.900 I once was an international student many, many years ago.
00:20:22.160 And that has not changed.
00:20:24.480 That's that's that.
00:20:26.280 And because that hasn't changed, given recent announcements with respect to capping immigration in Canada and, you know, and capping the number of student study permits and so on, colleges and universities are struggling because they're they're not forced to compete.
00:20:48.200 Nobody in this country is forced to compete and actually jump into the deep end of the pool and take a risk.
00:20:55.800 You know, we're not we're not we're not our our our our we don't think that way.
00:21:02.360 We don't we don't we expect to always have the government to fall back on.
00:21:07.780 And that is the fundamental there's a fundamental problem with the Canadian psyche that needs to change.
00:21:14.340 And and I hope that that this current crisis, you know, gets people to think, you know, about it's not just good enough to blame Justin Trudeau.
00:21:25.640 I know he deserves a lot of the blame, but much of what is happening right now, it took root a long time ago and nobody said anything.
00:21:36.020 And that's that's what needs to change, because Pierre Pauliever is going to can do, you know, how much power is he really going to have to really radically bring about changes to the system, real overall all of the system?
00:21:51.120 I don't think that's possible.
00:21:52.740 He's going to be able to do a few things in the margin here and there.
00:21:56.220 I don't think we can ever have like a doge like situation here in Canada. 1.00
00:22:01.100 But but, you know, a lot of the heavy lifting also has to be done by us.
00:22:05.620 We have to start demanding results.
00:22:07.660 We have to start start start asking, why do we not have this competitive environment in Canada?
00:22:15.580 I work for a U.S. company and I see how hard my colleagues work.
00:22:19.360 And it's just absolutely inspirational because they believe in the American dream and they think that hard work is rewarded.
00:22:28.980 Here, hard work is not rewarded.
00:22:32.760 You know, you Canadians who tend to, you know, successful Canadians end up moving, leaving Canada to the U.S.
00:22:43.800 You know, the other day Trump put out a very short message on social media saying any business that wants to bring a billion dollars or more to the U.S.
00:22:55.360 will get expedited clearance through any regulatory approvals, including environmental.
00:23:03.000 And it seemed sort of a, you know, a statement out of nowhere.
00:23:06.820 Then a few days later, the president of a Japanese bank called SoftBank announces at Mar-a-Lago he's bringing a hundred billion dollars with the aim of hiring a hundred thousand people.
00:23:17.580 And I just thought that would never, ever, ever happen in Canada.
00:23:21.020 No one would make that kind of bet in Canada.
00:23:24.140 There's no one in Canada who would go out and hustle that.
00:23:26.640 The Canadian way is to take a bunch of tax dollars and invest it in a pre-existing company, typically a foreign company, like an international carmaker, and say, here's money to build a battery plant in Canada, which is a weird investment, weird meddling in the market.
00:23:44.580 But that's Canada's idea.
00:23:46.460 And my point is, it's not just Trudeau.
00:23:49.280 That's Doug Ford, the allegedly conservative premier of Ontario.
00:23:52.940 I think we have so few industrialist entrepreneurs left, and Trump is going to accelerate that brain drain.
00:24:02.500 I mean, there's this company called Shopify.
00:24:04.240 I talk about them from time to time.
00:24:06.040 A multi-billion dollar Canadian tech company.
00:24:08.560 Why would they stick around up here?
00:24:10.960 I mean, to be abused, to be lectured at by Trudeau or Freeland or whoever's next, why wouldn't they go to this amazing country that is lighting up, that's going to roar like a rocket?
00:24:21.040 I don't know.
00:24:21.500 I just think that Donald Trump isn't just a specific challenge to Canada.
00:24:27.160 He's a general challenge to every slouching economy in the world.
00:24:31.320 The UK also.
00:24:32.860 The European Union also.
00:24:34.460 Who wouldn't want to move to strong, free, rich America? 0.51
00:24:38.460 Yeah, 100%.
00:24:40.380 Look, the exodus of Canadians to the United States is not new.
00:24:47.060 You know, that's been the case for years and years, you know, and for various reasons, of course, everything from, you know, there are better opportunities there.
00:24:58.520 It's a bigger market and, you know, lower taxes and so on and so forth.
00:25:03.460 But now people leaving Canada, and I've spoken to several of these individuals who've left just in the last five or six years, some before the pandemic and some after.
00:25:16.740 And, you know, they're just tired.
00:25:19.220 They're tired of not being able to get by in this country.
00:25:23.440 You and I can just go, like, just 100 miles south, 80 miles south, and be able to buy a home and pay lower taxes.
00:25:37.080 And that's just how, you know, how stark the contrast is.
00:25:42.720 And so people leaving now are young people, nurses.
00:25:47.300 I've spoken to nurses who are leaving when we have a nursing shortage in this country.
00:25:51.700 Why would you, you know, what we're doing right now, Ezra, is we're bringing in, like, low-skilled workers from India and other countries, but primarily from India.
00:26:06.840 They're a drain, a net drain on our economy.
00:26:11.060 They're not contributing anything.
00:26:12.640 And these are the people who are here in Canada right now.
00:26:18.260 We're not bringing in the next nuclear scientists.
00:26:21.400 We're not bringing in the next Nobel laureate in physics.
00:26:24.160 We're not bringing in the next Shopify, creators of Shopify and other such businesses.
00:26:34.100 You know, we're bringing in Uber drivers and people who work at Tim Hortons.
00:26:40.240 I remember when I first came to this country, it was not as easy as it is now.
00:26:45.200 I mean, there were still problems then.
00:26:46.540 I remember when I came here, I couldn't believe, you know, that it was actually a lot simpler coming here than going to the U.S.
00:26:53.300 And, you know, and even back then, you know, I was a critic of Canadian immigration policy, even as an international student.
00:27:00.240 But it's gotten a whole lot worse.
00:27:03.620 And, you know, the United States is going to, has historically brought in the best and the brightest, including many, many Canadians.
00:27:12.660 And under Trump, that's, that's really going to skyrocket.
00:27:17.180 That's really going to, you know, be, be an important policy plank of his.
00:27:22.660 He's going to attract the best people to, to America.
00:27:26.340 And, and, you know, once again, restore America to its, to its, to, to, to, to, to its past glory, which, you know, which took a beating, you know, over the last few years.
00:27:39.480 But, but I think that's what Trump intends on doing.
00:27:42.480 And, and, and we should be really, really afraid.
00:27:45.240 I mean, it's not just the threat of tariffs and, and, and so on.
00:27:49.680 The 25% tariffs would be devastating on our economy.
00:27:53.340 We should also be worried about the fact that a lot of good Canadians are planning on leaving this country and moving to the U.S.
00:27:59.480 Yeah.
00:28:00.000 I saw a speech by Pierre Polly in Parliament the other day saying people who are well off would move if they could.
00:28:07.420 When I travel across this country, I consistently meet two types of people.
00:28:12.720 One, those who are a little better off and tell me that, and I'll be very blunt about this, is that if I don't win, they will leave the country.
00:28:20.500 And they are very numerous.
00:28:23.480 But, you know, I don't worry about them as much.
00:28:25.560 You know who I worry about?
00:28:27.920 The ones who can't leave.
00:28:29.100 The ones who don't know, and if I can just be, use very blunt language, who tell me, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.
00:28:37.320 I have no idea how I'm going to pay my way.
00:28:41.360 And I think that's, I think that's part of, Trump has been tweaking Justin Trudeau on social media about the 51st state and calling him Governor Justin Trudeau.
00:28:49.200 And just recently he said we should annex Canada in the 51st state.
00:28:54.100 All of that, like that's sort of silly for the leader of the free world to do, but he's a master negotiator and psychological operator.
00:29:02.640 I think he's actually getting at something that a lot of Canadians look south and say things are better there.
00:29:09.320 Even proud nationalist patriotic Canadians have to say, well, there would be some benefits to being in a freer, richer country.
00:29:18.640 I don't know.
00:29:19.100 It's very interesting to see Trump play with Trudeau.
00:29:22.220 You could say that Trump's original tweet about the 25% tariffs set in motion this domino effect, one thing happening after another, which led to Chrystia Freeland's ouster and the crisis.
00:29:36.220 I mean, it's amazing what that man can do with tweets.
00:29:38.780 But let me come back if I may to your points about immigration.
00:29:42.380 I think there was, I think the so-called consensus about immigration was always exaggerated by, in the media, I think Canadians have always been opposed to high immigration.
00:29:54.220 Just no politician was able to say it.
00:29:57.060 But it's at such a critical mass.
00:29:59.520 Apparently, there's 4.9 million people in Canada on a temporary basis whose tenure here expires at the end of 2025.
00:30:10.100 I mean, just the logistics of them going home would be 100,000 a week.
00:30:15.300 That's not going to happen.
00:30:16.280 And I think there's three things, and I'd love it if you responded to this.
00:30:19.660 First of all, the sheer number of immigrants is so shocking to people that it's now around 2 million a year by all categories.
00:30:28.560 I'm going to use the word fraud, summer fraudulent, like fake refugee claimants, but also fake students who go to these diploma mills in strip malls and say, I'm here as a student.
00:30:39.740 There's a million so-called foreign students in Canada.
00:30:42.380 There are not a million Canadian students in Canada.
00:30:44.740 And finally, there's the cultural baggage.
00:30:51.060 We see battles between Sikhs and Hindus, between pro-Hamas protesters and the Jewish community they're targeting.
00:31:00.100 I feel like you've got three big problems, sheer numbers, people feeling taken advantage of, Canadians saying we're being tricked and taken as fools.
00:31:09.580 And finally, something I'm very alive, too, we brought in a wave of anti-Semitism, and there's other foreign diaspora battles I don't even quite understand.
00:31:18.820 I think all three things are rooted in immigration.
00:31:22.020 What do you have to think?
00:31:22.800 Oh, 100%.
00:31:24.680 100%.
00:31:25.640 Look, I've always been very, very clear on immigration as an immigrant myself.
00:31:32.360 You know, as I told you, when I first came here as a student, these were problems I was seeing even back then.
00:31:39.480 I remember as a grad student here in Ottawa, you know, anti-Semitism is something that I would, you know, I speak to with my, some of my professors, because some of these, you know, the campuses, university campuses in Canada were really like, you know, you had these student movements on these campuses, which were virulently anti-Semitic.
00:32:08.000 And this was 2007, 2008, when I was a student.
00:32:13.780 And, you know, it was just shrugged off and, you know, it's not a big deal.
00:32:19.580 It's not, you know, nothing to take seriously.
00:32:23.660 Yes, it exists.
00:32:24.740 But, you know, let's move on, you know, and that was the end of the matter.
00:32:29.020 But it's, you know, and I remember tweeting about this when Trudeau announced that he was bringing in a whole bunch of Syrian refugees a few years ago.
00:32:40.340 And I was, I was saying, well, you know, this is, this is, this is going to result in some serious problems in Canada.
00:32:47.740 And I was called a racist and a bigot for pointing that out.
00:32:50.360 So, so these problems, look, you know, diaspora politics have criticized that, you know, my first column in the National Post in 2020 was about, my inaugural column was about diaspora politics.
00:33:05.580 Why are we bringing this nonsense into this country?
00:33:08.540 And, but we, and, you know, like, look, I mean, Trudeau deserves a lot of the blame when he says, you know, Canada's a post-national state and so on.
00:33:18.920 But the roots of this predate Trudeau, you know, once again, we just, you know, it's convenient to keep blaming him for everything.
00:33:25.640 But, you know, we've also, many of us have been sleeping behind the wheel when these things were set in motion, multiculturalism.
00:33:33.640 And, you know, I, when I came as an immigrant, as an international student, and I just didn't understand what this multiculturalism thing was all about.
00:33:43.200 There's no multiculturalism in the U.S. 0.99
00:33:45.420 You, you're American first and then everything else after, you know, you're American first and then, you know, you want to pray at a Hindu temple. 0.86
00:33:53.700 You want to go to the synagogue, you want to do, go to a mosque, you know, you know, wear your ethnic outfit on, on, on, on a, on a certain occasion.
00:34:03.540 By all means do that, but you're American first. 0.76
00:34:05.940 That was never the case in, that was, that was really never the case in Canada, at least in the 30 years that I've been here.
00:34:14.260 Where you're, you're, you're allowed to, in fact, you're encouraged to take on all of these other identities before you become Canadian.
00:34:23.880 And that is the fundamental problem in this country when it comes to, you know, how, how we deal with immigrants. 1.00
00:34:30.760 They, they, where's their desire to integrate?
00:34:35.020 What exactly are they integrating into when they're not, you know, they're just allowed to just, you know, yeah, you know, you're, you're, you're Sikh first. 0.80
00:34:45.400 You know, why are Sikhs in this country advocating for a separate homeland in, in India?
00:34:50.600 I, you know, I just don't understand that.
00:34:52.900 Why are Hindus and Sikhs in this country battling it out on the streets of Brampton and, and, and the, and Indians, Hindus are carrying Indian flags. 0.99
00:35:03.140 What is the relevance of the Indian flag in Brampton?
00:35:05.880 I just don't understand that.
00:35:07.880 But this is what we've encouraged.
00:35:10.060 Politicians of all stripes have encouraged this kind of behavior, liberal, conservative.
00:35:15.700 And, you know, to be honest, I, I am a little concerned, you know, where, where is the conservative party on this, right?
00:35:20.900 When Pierre Polyevre announces a, um, an air India flight to Amritsar.
00:35:26.620 Why Amritsar?
00:35:29.140 And we will bring a direct flight to Amritsar.
00:35:35.000 We will rebuild the Canada that we know and love.
00:35:38.480 A Canada where it doesn't matter if your name is Martin or Mohammed, Singh or Smith, Polyevre or Patel.
00:35:47.520 What is the relevance of Amritsar?
00:35:49.380 I don't get it.
00:35:50.160 We used to have a nonstop flight to Mumbai where I used to live, um, part-time and that got canceled because it was just not financially viable.
00:35:58.840 So why Amritsar?
00:36:00.180 Um, you know, we've got to stop doing this.
00:36:02.880 We, Trump won as big as he did without wearing a single turban.
00:36:07.880 Amritsar is, uh, of course the Sikh, um, holy city.
00:36:11.400 Am I right in that?
00:36:12.200 Yeah.
00:36:12.640 What about my holy city?
00:36:14.220 You know, what about the holy city of Israel?
00:36:15.680 Yeah, I was just explaining what Amritsar was to folks who might not remember.
00:36:18.940 I just don't, I just don't, it's, it's infuriating and it makes me so angry because, um, this is, you know,
00:36:26.240 these are things that we should, we should just be putting an end to this right, right now.
00:36:31.200 Right.
00:36:31.780 And, and immigrants, I still believe that most people who come here are coming in good faith and they want a better outcome for them and their families.
00:36:40.720 And they, you know, they're going to work hard and they're not going to take advantage of the system.
00:36:45.980 That's historically, that's been my position for a very, very long time, but I'm not starting to question that, you know, I'm starting to question, well, who are these people?
00:36:54.800 You know, why, why are they, um, you know, bringing in all their grievances here?
00:36:59.680 You know, what is going on here?
00:37:01.520 Why are you carrying the flag of a foreign country on the streets of Canada?
00:37:06.140 What does that have to do with me?
00:37:07.820 You know, I think there's a lot of, um, ethnic internal sort of passionate battles, but I think there's also foreign manipulation. 0.67
00:37:17.380 I mean, we've seen reports of Iran has a lot of operatives here.
00:37:21.260 We know communist China.
00:37:22.300 It's not just Iran.
00:37:22.880 It's not just Iran, Ezra.
00:37:24.780 I would even say it's, it's even India.
00:37:26.900 India is a wily actor in all of this. 1.00
00:37:29.700 And, you know, it gets away, uh, with a lot, um, because it's the, you know, fifth largest economy in the world.
00:37:36.940 And it's the world's fastest growing economy.
00:37:38.780 It's the world's largest democracy.
00:37:40.700 And, and, but, you know, I, I think, you know, Modi's a wily politician and he knows how to play Canada.
00:37:47.700 You know, he knows that we are a divided country.
00:37:50.600 He knows that we, um, you know, we, we, we are the way we are.
00:37:54.820 He knows that, you know, uh, people can go around Brampton, uh, carrying the Indian flag.
00:38:01.440 And, you know, this, this, this, this, this plays really, really well for him back in India.
00:38:06.300 And we are just sitting by and watching all of this unfold when, when our politicians should stop going to temples.
00:38:14.980 They should stop going to Gurdwaras. 1.00
00:38:16.900 They should stop doing all of these things.
00:38:18.760 They should stop placating, um, uh, diaspora groups, uh, whoever they are and, uh, put Canada first.
00:38:26.020 Um, because that, the Canadian national, um, you know, put Canada's national interest first above everything.
00:38:33.980 It'll be interesting to see if Pierre Polyev uses, if not that language, that idea.
00:38:39.360 Um, and I think you see that same spirit in Nadja Farage and Brexit, in Georgia Maloney, in Hungary's Viktor Orban.
00:38:48.740 People who are saying, well, we have to put our own country first.
00:38:51.500 Um, they say that often in regards to foreign immigration.
00:38:55.120 Um, it'll be interesting to see if Pierre Polyev, how far he goes down that way.
00:39:00.500 I think so far he's been successful mainly by talking about financial issues, um, the carbon tax, crime.
00:39:08.580 I think that he has avoided some of these ethnic issues because he says things are going so well for me.
00:39:13.620 Why would I get, step into that trouble?
00:39:17.400 Well, he's not going to be able to get away from that for far too long because those issues are, you know,
00:39:23.380 I think they're coming to a head now and, uh, he's going to have to address it at some point.
00:39:27.980 And I hope he does, um, you know, and if I were writing for the national post, I would actually
00:39:32.680 be writing this, urging him to, um, pay attention to these issues and, you know, and really put an end
00:39:38.680 to stop playing diaspora politics because putting Canada first, as he rightly says, is the most 0.99
00:39:44.900 important thing right now.
00:39:45.960 It's not about putting Indo-Canadians first or, uh, Sikh Canadians first.
00:39:50.340 It's about putting Canadians first.
00:39:52.220 Yeah.
00:39:53.100 Well, Ruby, it's great to catch up with you and we love your work in all the different platforms
00:39:57.980 you've been in.
00:39:58.500 I'm excited that you're going full-time for the free press.
00:40:01.200 We've talked about some heavy things and some of them a little bit depressing, but actually I,
00:40:05.560 I am entering 2025 with some hope inside of me.
00:40:09.360 I, I feel there's a hope for peace between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East, largely
00:40:14.880 because I think Donald Trump has a track record of brokering peace, including the Abraham Accords.
00:40:20.860 I feel hopeful for Canada.
00:40:23.160 I know that removing Trudeau won't solve all the problems, but it'll get us in the right
00:40:27.560 direction.
00:40:28.340 I feel like even though we're in a battle with the U.S. over tariffs right now, I think those
00:40:34.180 are just opening skirmishes and that as America gets stronger, some of that will probably
00:40:38.700 wash over us too.
00:40:39.860 Well, it'll have to, we'll have to, to compete.
00:40:42.580 So I'm actually feeling more hopeful about 2025 than I have felt in many years.
00:40:47.100 Last thing, and then I'd love you to respond.
00:40:50.000 If you would have asked me three years ago, what scares me the most, it would have been
00:40:53.940 how social media and big tech was seeping into every single part of our lives with its
00:41:00.300 woke agenda.
00:41:01.640 And I remember when Parag Agrawal, who was an executive at Twitter said, you don't have free,
00:41:07.280 you have freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.
00:41:10.560 And he thought that was pretty clever because it rhymed.
00:41:12.900 What he meant was, you can say what you want, but we will make it so no one else hears you.
00:41:18.440 You can type all the mean things you want, but, and you'll think that you're talking to
00:41:23.320 the world, but we'll, you'll be shouting into the, into the wind.
00:41:26.740 And that scared me so much because that was like corporate censorship outsourced from
00:41:32.580 government, hidden.
00:41:35.240 You don't even know you're being sent.
00:41:37.140 Like, I thought that is the dark future.
00:41:39.380 And then Elon Musk comes along and fires all the woke censors and turns Twitter into this
00:41:46.280 rambunctious free place again.
00:41:47.900 That's, that I think was partly responsible for Trump winning.
00:41:50.880 And so I thought I was so blackpilled as the kids say, I was so despondent and I saw these
00:41:57.040 censorship laws and a bit of a miracle happened.
00:42:00.440 So I'm heading into 2025 feeling optimistic.
00:42:03.840 How do you feel about 2025?
00:42:05.520 What are you watching for?
00:42:06.900 What do you think might come true in the year ahead?
00:42:08.840 Uh, um, I, I'm, yeah, I, I think I'm, I'm a bit optimistic, I'm cautiously optimistic,
00:42:18.440 uh, about 2025.
00:42:21.300 Um, I, you know, I, I do think that finally in the U S we have someone who's going to get
00:42:27.280 some, some results.
00:42:29.220 Um, and, you know, we've seen Trump 1.0 and, uh, and, you know, and, and, and we, we know,
00:42:37.840 you know, there's a track record there.
00:42:39.640 So, so we know what he's going to do.
00:42:42.340 Um, and I'm, I'm hopeful that we get through this present crisis here in Canada very quickly.
00:42:50.000 Um, because this kind of political turmoil is not good for the economy.
00:42:55.480 It's not good for this Canadian psyche.
00:42:57.560 It's not good for anything.
00:42:59.620 Um, I'm cautiously optimistic as well.
00:43:03.060 Like I, I, I, you know, I've been, I've been, you know, I, I've, I've seen this kind of thing
00:43:08.020 so many times I have had my hopes up high and, you know, and then had, and then the come
00:43:15.660 crashing to the ground.
00:43:17.500 Um, you know, I, a lot of things do concern me, um, uh, you know, especially with political
00:43:26.140 change in this country, when is that going to happen?
00:43:29.360 How is that going to happen?
00:43:31.360 Um, you know, these are questions I, I, I never thought that I would even have to ask
00:43:35.860 these questions, but, you know, yet here we are.
00:43:39.080 Um, so, you know, it's still, it's, there's still a lot that needs to be done, um, before
00:43:46.040 I can, uh, sit back and pop open the champagne and, and, and have a drink.
00:43:52.080 But, um, but I think until then I'm cautiously optimistic about what's going to happen in 2025.
00:43:57.660 Yeah, me too.
00:43:59.580 Listen, it's great to see you.
00:44:00.740 We're going to keep following your work at the free press.
00:44:03.240 I love what you're doing and you're right.
00:44:05.160 You have the freedom to take on a range of subjects, not just about Canada, but thematically
00:44:09.660 that apply to the whole world.
00:44:11.280 So you guys keep it up.
00:44:12.620 We love independent journalists.
00:44:14.680 We regard ourselves as that.
00:44:16.240 And we think that we're helping to shape the national and international conversation as
00:44:20.580 much as any old regime media.
00:44:22.440 And I think that it's interesting that you were at the national post, which is a, you know,
00:44:27.260 mainstream media, and you have gone from there to the free press that sort of shows where
00:44:33.360 the world is going towards independent media.
00:44:35.360 Keep it up, Rupa, and keep in touch.
00:44:37.820 Thanks so much, Ezra.
00:44:38.720 Great, great chatting with you.
00:44:40.280 Likewise.
00:44:41.080 There you have it, Rupa Subramania.
00:44:42.640 You can follow her online at the free press.
00:44:45.760 That's our show for today.
00:44:47.420 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home,
00:44:51.880 good night and keep fighting for freedom.
00:44:57.260 All right.
00:44:58.260 Bye.
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