Ezra Levant Show May 28 2018
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
188.87569
Summary
Ezra Levant reflects on the three days since Tommy Robinson was jailed for contempt of court, and why he should have been given a chance to clear his name. He also talks about why he thinks the government should have done what they did to Robinson.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Tonight, it's been three days since Tommy Robinson was thrown in prison.
00:00:06.160
It's May 28th and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.
00:00:14.260
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:18.040
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:21.760
You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.
00:00:25.100
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it
00:00:35.480
Tommy Robinson was one of our most rambunctious employees of The Rebel.
00:00:39.520
I don't think he ever even fit the term employee.
00:00:42.240
He told me once that he never had a boss before in his whole life
00:00:45.300
and I absolutely believe it. It sure felt that way.
00:00:48.220
He was like lightning. You can't really put lightning in a bottle.
00:00:50.680
If you could, it wouldn't be lightning anymore, could it?
00:00:53.400
Anyways, when we parted amicably a few months ago,
00:00:57.500
because he would be unrestrained by our corporate policies.
00:01:00.460
For example, Tommy went to Italy to cover the Italian elections.
00:01:03.900
He got into an argument with a migrant who threatened to kill Tommy.
00:01:11.000
Boom. Just down like a, just down on the ground.
00:01:20.540
I mean, that's exciting TV, but you can imagine how it would give me
00:01:23.700
back here at Rebel World Headquarters ulcers when he worked for us at The Rebel
00:01:28.300
When he went independent, it let me, for the first time,
00:01:36.140
I told you on Friday that I saw Tommy doing a Facebook live stream
00:01:39.300
from the street in front of the courthouse in Leeds, UK.
00:01:42.180
I don't have time to watch everything out there that I want to watch,
00:01:45.020
but I made time for this maybe because it made me a bit nervous.
00:01:47.860
A year ago, Tommy was standing in front of the court in Canterbury
00:01:50.480
and was later charged and convicted for contempt of court.
00:01:56.960
and he seemed to have learned the lessons from that day a year ago.
00:01:59.480
He said they were accused criminals, not criminals.
00:02:02.400
He didn't stand on the courthouse property at all,
00:02:07.200
and he wasn't saying any facts about the trial that weren't already public.
00:02:11.280
In fact, there was a moment when he was quoting
00:02:16.740
That's where he was going through the names of the men
00:02:18.380
who were accused of raping girls as young as 11 years old
00:02:25.720
but to me it certainly looked like he was following the rules.
00:02:28.620
But then he was arrested, as I showed you that day.
00:02:32.400
But just to recap, this is what police said to him on Friday
00:02:35.160
when he was just standing outside the court in Leeds.
00:02:53.880
Do you understand what I'm just looking for you?
00:03:05.740
I've been told that the police have been doing the case for one hundred and a hundred.
00:03:27.360
More people are going to watch this now than ever.
00:03:41.960
In fact, someone laid their hand in an assault with me outside court.
00:03:44.420
Other people have shwored me and threatened me about my mother.
00:03:47.600
And here I am being arrested for saying nothing.
00:04:14.260
Tommy was just talking to a Facebook video through his cell phone.
00:04:18.740
Imagine the police power to arrest someone for peacefully giving a political commentary on Facebook Live.
00:04:26.300
I say again, Tommy was not on the courthouse property, not even on his front steps.
00:04:30.180
So police arrested him for talking on Facebook.
00:04:32.540
If they could arrest him across from the courthouse for that, why could they not arrest him at his home for that?
00:04:44.640
If you watch my show on Friday, he was rushed before the judge in the case, not even allowed to call his regular lawyers.
00:04:50.280
The ones who know him, who know his history, who might be expert in certain areas of the law.
00:04:57.320
But not anyone who knew Tommy or the special facts and the special area of law.
00:05:02.060
And so it is unsurprising, but still shocking, that Tommy was sentenced to 13 months in prison.
00:05:06.940
A year ago, when Tommy faced the same contempt of court hearing in Canterbury, when we worked with him,
00:05:13.600
we were at least able to get him home that night and have the hearing postponed a week or two.
00:05:18.500
And we brought in not one, not two, but three top lawyers, a bit of a junior dream team, I guess.
00:05:23.740
And we got Tommy out because it's a complicated area of law, contempt of court.
00:05:29.480
But even though we won that case a year ago, the judge was terrifying.
00:05:35.740
Mr. Kowalewski is the name of our top lawyer in the time that we hired.
00:05:40.300
I accept what Mr. Kowalewski tells me about the dangers that you might face were you to be sent into immediate custody.
00:05:48.540
I have to say it is on a knife edge, so far as I'm concerned, because a very large part of me thinks, so what?
00:05:58.500
So the judge was saying, sure, he'll be in danger for your life, but so what?
00:06:02.500
He can go in solitary confinement for a few months.
00:06:08.600
I tell you, they treat Guantanamo Bay terrorists better.
00:06:12.400
Anyways, Tommy was careful on Friday, but that didn't stop him from being arrested.
00:06:16.340
But from arrest to drumhead trial to conviction to sentence, what, an hour or two?
00:06:36.120
But not a word for Tommy from Amnesty International or Penn International or Reporters Without Borders.
00:06:43.420
Not a word from CNN or the New York Times or even from the BBC or the UK tabloids.
00:06:51.980
They called Tommy far right, but let that small insult pass.
00:06:56.320
Not a peep from the mainstream media other than them.
00:07:02.200
I bet it got a million clicks, including from the UK, where the whole matter is under a publication
00:07:07.460
The judge who sentenced Tommy made it illegal to report that sentence.
00:07:14.280
I'm going to sentence you and then ban people from saying I sentenced you.
00:07:20.140
He said it's a reason why the United States had a revolution in 1776.
00:07:26.160
Those are good quips, but seriously, I'm glad that someone, anyone, even the son of
00:07:31.660
How about an actual elected official, though, especially in the UK?
00:07:35.080
Here's one member of the European Parliament, a UKIP MP or MEP, Gerard Batten, who did, who
00:07:46.400
No one from the governing Tories, not even the official UKIP party or what's left of it
00:07:51.560
He, Gerrit Wilders, the Dutch politician who was prosecuted for hate speech in his own
00:07:56.780
As you can see here, he stood in front of the UK embassy in Holland.
00:08:00.700
Hopefully there will be more protests like it, but so far, it's just the margins, not
00:08:04.760
There's no prime ministers or presidents speaking out.
00:08:09.500
Do you doubt it if it's some liberal citizen journalists were swept off the streets and swept
00:08:13.840
into prison and a gag order put on top, that this would be international news around the
00:08:17.780
world if it had been Donald Trump who did it or Stephen Harper who did it to a leftist?
00:08:30.600
Al-Qaeda, an American filmmaker originally from the Middle East who made a short YouTube video
00:08:36.460
And Hillary Clinton blamed him and his video for the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S.
00:08:45.140
They said his little YouTube film caused a terrorist attack of 100 terrorists.
00:08:54.980
Obama said anything to pretend al-Qaeda didn't do it.
00:08:58.360
And they threw that American filmmaker in jail.
00:09:04.560
And yeah, different standards when it's a leftist president who does it.
00:09:09.620
I spoke several times with Tommy's wife and family and lawyer over the past few days.
00:09:13.260
It sounds like they still haven't had a chance to meet with Tommy in person.
00:09:19.760
I say again, can you tell me in what way Tommy's situation does not qualify him as a
00:09:25.040
I cannot think of a way, other than we don't normally talk like that about people in the
00:09:29.520
U.K. or the U.S. and Canada, and yet here we are.
00:09:32.780
So the family tells me they want to wait until they speak to Tommy before making any decisions
00:09:40.920
They're feeling shell-shocked, and they're surely getting advice from all quarters, from
00:09:49.160
We have no standing, but we support him morally, and we help give him his start in journalism,
00:09:52.940
and we still like what he's doing, and we have a track record with him and with helping
00:09:58.460
So I offered help, and I'll stand down until it's specifically asked of me.
00:10:01.660
Any crowdfunding sites out there that you see, they are rogue, other than Tommy's own website.
00:10:06.020
Nothing claiming to be for his aid is actually authorized.
00:10:09.820
But there is one thing we can do, one thing we have a standing to do on our own.
00:10:15.600
Without the instruction of Tommy or his family.
00:10:17.640
Something that, in fact, we ought to do, and that we can do, and not everyone can do, but
00:10:23.640
And that is challenge this publication ban in court.
00:10:34.960
You can apply to a court to have a publication ban set aside.
00:10:39.560
I mentioned before, we're based here in North America.
00:10:41.600
Obviously, we're not subject to this ban, obviously, but our UK sister corporation called
00:10:46.480
Rebel News Network UK Limited, well, it's a UK company, and we have 152,000 supporters
00:10:57.920
So our UK sister company has the standing to go to court and to fight against this ban.
00:11:04.600
It's in the name of our UK sister company's right to report.
00:11:07.480
And our UK customer's right to know, and the general public interest in having open
00:11:15.940
We've hired an outstanding lawyer who has worked with us before and worked with Tommy before.
00:11:22.860
He's the lawyer who took the case of Chelsea Wright, the girl from Sunderland who suffered
00:11:30.380
I have spoken with Daniel just this morning, and he believes this is an important case, and
00:11:34.820
he's already working on an emergency application.
00:11:37.600
He's going to try to lift the publication, man.
00:11:39.360
For us and for all of the reporters, for everyone, it's a good job for us to do.
00:11:43.720
It's shocking that it falls to us, a small independent internet-based news company, to
00:11:48.200
fight for freedom of the press and open courts in the United Kingdom.
00:11:51.080
Where's the BBC or Sky or any of the tabloids that so love to skewer Tommy when it suits them?
00:11:56.860
Where are the organizations like Amnesty International or Reporters Without Borders coming to the aid
00:12:01.480
of a citizen journalist who was arrested and sentenced faster than in any dictatorship?
00:12:09.240
Or is he just happy to have silenced Tommy Robinson for good?
00:12:12.980
Now, we're going to crowdfund this as we always do.
00:12:15.460
We don't have huge budgets like the BBC or Sky or ITV.
00:12:18.700
If you want to help us crowdfund this court challenge to the gag order, please visit our
00:12:28.120
Note that this is separate from Tommy Robinson's own case.
00:12:30.300
This is simply to pay for challenging the publication ban in the UK.
00:12:35.640
My experience tells me it'll be approximately £20,000.
00:12:39.400
I'm going to make a video similar to this one and put it on YouTube outside the paywall
00:12:42.920
so that not just our subscribers can know about it.
00:12:45.320
Right now, Tommy's family and lawyer are still huddling and coming up with a strategy.
00:12:50.340
But in the meantime, let us go to court to lift the publication ban on this horrific story.
00:12:57.000
I truly believe that if the British people learned what happened to Tommy Robinson on
00:13:01.020
Friday, it would awaken within them the instincts of freedom and the rule of law that has been
00:13:08.220
If you want to help crowdfund the legal costs of our emergency appeal, please go to LetUsReport.com.
00:13:13.580
There's also a petition there that we're going to deliver next week to the UK Attorney General.
00:13:19.040
We're going to demand an investigation into the shocking treatment of Tommy by police and prosecutors.
00:13:26.400
It's something Tommy used to do to great effect in the UK when he worked at the Rebel.
00:13:29.900
Let's get 100,000 names on the petition demanding an explanation for this high-handed treatment of him.
00:13:43.800
Please go to LetUsReport.com and let the British people know what is happening in their own country.
00:13:50.720
Tommy's not with our company anymore, but he's still the UK's biggest rebel, don't you think?
00:13:54.440
And I think we ought to help him, even if that just means getting rid of this publication ban.
00:13:59.760
Well, I tell you, it is such a nail-biter, this Ontario provincial election.
00:14:21.640
It's been a rollercoaster ride ever since Patrick Brown was thrown out the window by his own party a couple months back.
00:14:27.800
Doug Ford took the leadership, another surprise, and he started with a 20-plus point lead.
00:14:33.060
But now the momentum is with the New Democrats, terrifyingly.
00:14:37.940
Well, last night was a key leaders' debate on TV.
00:14:41.300
And joining us now is someone who's been watching this debate extremely closely,
00:14:45.480
our friend Jerry Agar with News Talk 1010, the Jerry Agar Show.
00:14:54.220
I tell you, this Ontario election is so important.
00:14:56.700
We have a lot of viewers in Western Canada, but I know that they understand that if Ontario lurches to the left
00:15:03.040
or comes back a little bit towards sanity, it impacts the whole country.
00:15:07.700
So this is actually a pretty big deal, even if you're not in Ontario, right?
00:15:13.100
It was like watching the Alberta election when, after 43 years, the Conservatives needed to change.
00:15:27.440
But I keep telling people, I don't have a crystal ball, but let's not get caught up like we did on the American election
00:15:33.060
and thinking that because Hillary Clinton had the popular vote in the polls, she was going to win.
00:15:46.380
And we, of course, are going to do it on seats in ridings.
00:15:50.280
And there's a fascinating poll that they keep track of every day on the CBC, Ezra, where they are making seat projections.
00:15:57.040
They show the NDP winning the popular vote, the PCs winning a majority government,
00:16:03.460
and a possibility of the Liberals being decimated down below party status.
00:16:09.280
Well, I'm very pleased to hear that the fortunes of the Liberals are so dismal, but I am terrified of the prospect of another sort of an anybody but the above choosing the NDP.
00:16:24.260
Our producers have selected some clips from last night's debates.
00:16:30.620
You watched this very close last night in real time.
00:16:33.540
Maybe you can give me your thoughts on a half a dozen clips, OK?
00:16:38.620
Let's start with an opening remark with Doug Ford attacking the NDP, which is interesting.
00:16:49.340
As you say, the Liberals are not even in the game.
00:16:52.200
Take a look at this, and I'd like your thoughts after this one, Jerry.
00:16:54.980
Well, you think it's unaffordable now under the Liberals, and it's bad.
00:17:00.520
But it's going to get 10 times worse under the NDP.
00:17:05.600
We've seen when the NDP were in power that 125,000 people lost their jobs.
00:17:21.220
My friends, I'm going to reduce your personal income tax by 20%.
00:17:25.300
I'm going to reduce the gas price per liter by 10 cents a liter.
00:17:36.600
Jerry, do you think that's connecting with people?
00:17:41.640
I think people are asking Doug Ford how he's going to afford to do that, and that's a legitimate question.
00:17:47.000
But the first part, when he went after the NDP, saying it's going to get even worse, here's the evidence.
00:17:53.460
First of all, even the Premier took Andrea Horvath, the leader of the Ontario NDP, to task when the NDP have made the statement that they would not, under any circumstances, ever tell a public union they had to go back to work.
00:18:06.760
And, you know, the others were asking, well, then where's the power of government to do anything about a public union?
00:18:12.720
At some point, you have to actually care about the people on the other side of the equation, the taxpayers.
00:18:18.020
Andrea Horvath and the NDP say they would make Ontario a sanctuary province.
00:18:22.780
When the city of Toronto was already inundated by illegal immigrants, we're coming across irresponsibly, as you've reported so much on The Rebel, into Quebec.
00:18:33.160
And Justin Trudeau is saying, well, we'll just send them to Toronto.
00:18:40.220
Well, you know, I want to play just one more clip from Doug Ford.
00:18:45.760
He's not perfect by any stretch, but I believe he's the guy who could save Ontario from what I fear is like a Detroit-like decline.
00:18:55.480
Detroit used to be the most wealthy industrial city in America, the highest wage.
00:19:01.460
And a generation later, it's one of the poorest cities.
00:19:04.480
I hate to be so depressing, but it can happen that an economic jewel, it becomes a wasteland.
00:19:11.220
And I know that sounds shocking, but tell that to Detroiters 50 years ago.
00:19:17.580
One of the things that really animated the conservative leadership campaign was the carbon tax.
00:19:22.440
Let me play for you a clip from Doug Ford on the carbon tax.
00:19:26.860
The people that are most vulnerable are the low-income people that get hurt.
00:19:30.700
Look, when they put the carbon tax, the carbon tax jacks up the gas price, the worst tax ever, jacks up the gas prices,
00:19:39.120
but jacks up every single item you buy in the store, and it does nothing for the environment.
00:19:47.400
I believe in empowering the people, not empowering the government.
00:19:50.520
The people can spend their money a lot wiser than the government can.
00:19:55.200
That's the difference between the NDP, the liberals, and the PCs.
00:20:01.280
Not really a direct attack on the concept of a carbon tax.
00:20:05.140
I'm excited by opposing the carbon tax because I think it's something all the fancy, elite, environmentalists support, but no severely normal person does.
00:20:13.420
I feel like he wasn't as on fire on that as he should have been.
00:20:18.120
Well, it was one of the questions that was asked by somebody in the audience who first challenged him, do you believe in global warming?
00:20:24.100
And an important preface to this, Ezra, is that Doug Ford said to the person who asked the question,
00:20:29.680
not only do I believe in global warming, I believe in man-made global warming, but I don't believe in the carbon tax.
00:20:35.380
It isn't going to do anything other than just take money out of people's pockets.
00:20:38.620
I mean, you heard what he had to say about it there, that the important thing was, let's not panic ourselves into doing the wrong thing.
00:20:47.880
You know, Jason Kenney, believe it or not, is taking the same line, the would-be premier of Alberta.
00:20:53.900
He's saying, I'm not even going to engage on the science.
00:20:56.260
I think that's a mistake, but these guys, they don't want to get bogged down there.
00:21:00.700
They would prefer the fight over the carbon tax as opposed to, you know, this ethereal debate about global warming.
00:21:07.620
I think, Ezra, sorry, I think that there's, I understand why they're doing that.
00:21:12.080
And they're saying people might listen a little more if we actually go after this and demonstrate to people that the carbon tax won't do what they hope it will.
00:21:20.780
Laurie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun has done many, many, many fabulous columns on this.
00:21:25.980
You can, I think you can win on the economics and the science of the ineffectiveness of a carbon tax.
00:21:32.980
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit more about the NDP because, of course, Andrea Horvath, I think this is her third campaign, if I'm not mistaken, as leader.
00:21:40.400
And normally opposition leaders don't get that many cracks at it.
00:21:43.760
But I mean, I'm a fairly new Ontarian, as you know, Jerry, but I'm sort of comfortable with her as a person.
00:21:49.440
I mean, ideologically, I am totally opposed to the NDP.
00:21:52.280
But what I detect might happen is that people say, oh, yeah, her, she seems nice enough.
00:22:04.660
And I feel like that's what happened in Alberta.
00:22:07.140
Let me show you sort of a mashup of Andrea Horvath really trying to get some punches in.
00:22:14.200
Did this show a level of confidence that voters will like?
00:22:17.280
Or do you think this might have taken the shine off Andrea Horvath?
00:22:28.580
Mr. Ford, in fact, it wasn't that amount of money.
00:22:34.420
Your child care plan will actually create long wait lists.
00:22:40.540
Your plan has people paying $2,000 a month for child care in Toronto.
00:22:53.780
I mean, I know that's not a substantive reason to vote for someone or not.
00:23:00.220
Do you think she came across as a tough cookie who's going to hold Doug Ford to account?
00:23:07.120
I tell you, it didn't actually look that bad to me.
00:23:09.760
If I was a New Democrat, I would have been probably cheering her.
00:23:18.220
I think she finds herself in this amazing position where she could theoretically be premier.
00:23:22.420
I don't think that the NDP have thought about that for quite a long time, which I'll get to in just a second because it gives them another problem.
00:23:30.480
But then I'm not predisposed to support the NDP anyway.
00:23:34.120
I think if it were flipped around and Doug Ford was interrupting the woman as rudely as she did for 90 minutes last night, that would have been the headline this morning.
00:23:42.500
But that's the double standard, and I think that Ford understood it and played the game well in that regard.
00:23:48.620
What I meant by the other comment, as I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but I would say to anybody who has decided, oh, that Andrew Horvath seems so nice.
00:23:58.540
We're done with the liberals, so maybe the NDP are our choice.
00:24:02.020
Look, the NDP may have some good, intelligent, smart people who could lead a government on their roster.
00:24:07.300
But because they didn't really properly vet a lot of their people, not realizing perhaps that they'd be in this position, you need to look at the particular NDP candidate in your writing.
00:24:16.640
Because some of them are just anti-Canadian, way out there, fringe, loopy people.
00:24:27.720
They were just putting names down on paper because they thought they were going to be sacrificial lands.
00:24:32.500
Jerry, you've been very generous with your time.
00:24:37.400
There was one of these NDP candidates who, I know this sounds crazy, was posting to social media Hitler memes, as in Adolf Hitler.
00:24:50.620
I want to say straight up that any memes that had anything to do with Hitler is absolutely abhorrent.
00:24:58.080
And it's something that I absolutely reject completely.
00:25:02.580
But Mr. Ford's tabloid mudslinging against my candidates only foments divisiveness and hatred.
00:25:15.540
I tell you, that's quite a move there, Jerry, to have a candidate posting Hitler memes and to call the other guy hateful and divisive.
00:25:26.840
Well, you know, I hope not, because here's the problem.
00:25:31.120
She said last night, you heard it on the clip, that she just has no tolerance for that.
00:25:35.160
Well, I'll give credit to journalist Robin Urbach, who tweeted out right after that.
00:25:39.320
She says she has no tolerance for it, but she seems to be tolerating the candidate who actually put the meme out.
00:25:46.640
And by the way, we discussed this this morning on my radio show, and I brought up that point.
00:25:51.200
And one of the people said, well, it's too late, because if you dump that candidate, you've got nobody to replace her.
00:25:56.900
At this point, if people start giving the thumbs up to Hitler, take the hit and have no candidate in that writing, if that's what it takes.
00:26:06.520
I mean, if you're not going to get rid of someone for praising Hitler, I mean, that's pretty low standards.
00:26:12.620
Now, we've really ignored Kathleen Wynne in this whole discussion, Jerry, because the polls are so daunting for her.
00:26:18.240
But let me show you, she took sort of a defiant stance, and she said, I'm not sorry.
00:26:25.060
Here, let me play a clip of that, and then I'll let you go, because you're very generous with your time.
00:26:29.620
So here's what I want to say about the last five years.
00:26:36.140
I'm really genuinely sorry that more people don't like me.
00:26:40.900
But I am not sorry about all of the things that we're doing in Ontario to make life better.
00:26:51.840
She knows that, you know, her personal approval is very low.
00:26:58.960
But maybe she's embracing it, saying, I don't care what you think about me.
00:27:04.300
Again, I mean, I don't want to sound sympathetic to someone who I disagree with on everything.
00:27:14.760
I actually think that, maybe you and I notwithstanding, I think most people actually don't dislike her.
00:27:21.440
I think she's gotten away with a tremendous amount because they actually like her.
00:27:26.940
What people have finally decided is they don't like her policies.
00:27:30.220
They don't like what she's done to this province.
00:27:36.400
So once again, she doesn't really actually understand the people of Ontario properly.
00:27:40.060
Well, Jerry, you have your finger on the pulse of Ontario better than just about anyone.
00:27:44.700
I mean, every single day you interact with so many Ontarians on your show, News Talk 1010, Jerry Agar's show.
00:27:51.680
I believe you have a pulse of this debate and the pulse of this campaign.
00:27:56.240
And you've given me a little bit of hope when you point to the fact that if you just look at raw numbers, the NDP looks strong.
00:28:02.200
But if you look at the distribution geographically, riding by riding, it's still hopeful for Ford.
00:28:07.260
I sure hope so, because by God, I've watched what happens in Alberta.
00:28:14.980
Well, I think that that's the strongest thing that I want to tell people to repeat here is if you are inclined to vote NDP, take a look at what the NDP is offering you.
00:28:24.440
Because if you end up with a person who has accused the Canadian military of slaughtering women, children and innocents, you might not be happy with the government you get.
00:28:35.920
And that sanctuary city point that you mentioned earlier, it is so insane.
00:28:44.340
There you go, our friend Jerry Agar from News Talk 1010, the Jerry Agar Show.
00:28:48.420
You know, I'm so glad to talk with him, because, I mean, I pay attention to the Ontario campaign.
00:28:52.520
I'm an Ontarian now, transplanted here, I guess, about five years.
00:28:55.920
But I don't have the intimate knowledge of all the wrinkles like our friend Jerry does.
00:29:14.340
One of the weirdest things about Rachel Notley's government is how many of the senior staffers
00:29:27.820
I recall when Rachel Notley first took office there, I think 12 cabinet ministers.
00:29:31.820
My memory serves, I think only two of them had chiefs of staff from Alberta.
00:29:37.760
Imagine that 10 out of 12 of the most important departments and ministries in the province of Alberta
00:29:43.300
were run by hired mercenaries from outside the province's borders, including Rachel Notley's
00:29:51.880
The chief of staff was a lawyer from Toronto who was with an actor's union.
00:29:59.280
He was a labor organizer from Toronto in a province of, what, four and a half million people.
00:30:03.680
Was there not a single person in the province who was better suited to run her office than him?
00:30:10.400
I mean, there's not a ton of socialists in Alberta, but don't tell me you couldn't find
00:30:15.060
one Albertan who wanted to serve his or her province, even if they weren't a dyed-in-the-wool
00:30:22.160
socialist who would just say, in the interest of patriotism and success, I will go help Premier
00:30:28.720
10 out of 12 were, I'm not going to say foreign because they were Canadian, but they were the
00:30:34.140
leftovers, the losers, actually, from failed NDP campaigns in Toronto, in Vancouver, in
00:30:43.900
All the losers in the NDP came to Alberta to get free jobs.
00:30:52.260
And joining us now to talk about who John Heaney is and how he's bringing his loser-ness
00:30:56.740
There's a friend Sheila Gunn-Reed, our Alberta bureau chief.
00:30:59.340
Sheila, do I have my stats right about all those out of, it would just be so weird.
00:31:02.820
Imagine if 10 out of 12 chiefs of staff in Quebec were from, like, Calgary.
00:31:07.880
Or imagine if 10 out of 12 chiefs of staff to the B.C. government came from, like, Newfoundland.
00:31:13.840
People would say, yeah, good people, but, you know, shouldn't we represent our own province
00:31:24.600
And this story with John Heaney is even weirder.
00:31:27.700
Because you mentioned Brian Topp there, so Toronto-based socialist who came to be Rachel
00:31:34.500
When Brian Topp left, then John Heaney came on the scene.
00:31:43.500
Actually, he's known as a close friend of Premier John Horgan.
00:31:47.760
He was John Horgan's chief of staff when John Horgan was sitting as the leader of the opposition.
00:31:53.360
And he was also John Horgan's former business partner in his lobbying firm.
00:31:58.740
Now, John Heaney was our Rachel Notley's chief of staff.
00:32:03.040
And then he sort of left suddenly last August, saying that he had to go back to B.C.
00:32:08.800
because he wanted to spend more time with his family.
00:32:12.160
Well, the sordid tale goes on that John Heaney only left for two months.
00:32:17.980
He was back already working in Alberta in October of 2017.
00:32:22.580
So he wanted to see his family, but not any longer than two months.
00:32:29.060
And while he was working for the Alberta government, he was also actively lobbying in British Columbia.
00:32:36.280
He was working as a registered lobbyist in British Columbia, lobbying the NDP government there while on the payroll in Alberta.
00:32:44.360
And even sneakier and slimier, Rachel Notley hid his employment from the population of Alberta.
00:32:52.260
He was not listed as a government worker on our government employee website.
00:33:01.120
And he was only confirmed, finally, by the energy minister's spokesperson to have been working in Alberta at the beginning of May.
00:33:10.120
And it was confirmed that he was actually rehired back in October of last year.
00:33:16.780
I mean, to be a chief of staff or to be a senior staffer for a government, but you have a gig on the side that is political?
00:33:25.760
Like, I guess if you had like a local bakery or something, I don't think there would be a problem.
00:33:32.020
But if your business is lobbying the B.C. government for private clients while representing the Alberta government, which has a big feud with the B.C. government, that you're lobbying for private clients.
00:33:48.420
How is that even legal, let alone how did that pass anyone's gut check for being ethical?
00:33:55.480
And the fact that you say they hid it, obviously, it didn't pass their gut check, but they said, well, you know, we all got to get paid while we can because we're all going to be fired in a year and a half.
00:34:10.300
It gets crazier, Ezra, because there's another level to this story.
00:34:14.460
This isn't the first time that John Heaney has done this.
00:34:17.840
In 2007, he was a lawyer who was retained by the NDP in B.C.
00:34:26.660
And so he was working for the NDP as a lawyer when they were sitting in opposition.
00:34:31.760
And he was also, again, a registered lobbyist in British Columbia.
00:34:36.940
Now, those two things are not in contravention to the law.
00:34:39.780
What happened to end up in contravention of the law in 2007 was that John Heaney did what he always does and tries to line his pockets twice.
00:34:49.000
And he lobbied the NDP opposition critic on behalf of his client, which was a generic drug manufacturer.
00:34:58.460
He lobbied Adrian Dix, who happened to be the NDP health critic.
00:35:02.880
So he's working for the NDP, taking money for them and then sort of peddling his influence to his clients as a lobbyist and then lobbying the NDP health critic.
00:35:17.060
It's something that Rachel Notley has had to have known that he was that he's done in the past.
00:35:22.280
And she hid his employment from the Alberta people because she knew he was doing this again.
00:35:27.840
And I know she knew he was doing this again because Rachel Notley's spokesperson, Cheryl Oates, admitted that they knew he was doing it, but it was fine because he has an exemption.
00:35:42.580
I mean, what you said before that he was a lawyer for the NDP.
00:35:46.340
So he so I mean, I used to work as a lawyer a long time ago.
00:35:49.860
You have a loyalty to your client and you have to disclose things and your interests are to your client.
00:35:56.120
And for him at the same time to lobby his client on behalf of someone else paying him, that would be that that feels like he was being paid by both sides of a deal.
00:36:08.700
And the fact that he's still that he's being paid by someone to lobby the B.C. government while he's being paid by the Alberta government.
00:36:16.660
This I'm sorry, I don't like saying the word crooked because crooked really implies you're breaking some rules.
00:36:25.740
I guess in that way, Sheila, he's a perfect fit for the NDP.
00:36:31.460
And, you know, just by nature of Rachel Notley hiding his employment from the public, she knows that this wouldn't pass the smell test either.
00:36:39.160
But that's not even where John Heaney's troubles end.
00:36:42.360
And in November of 2017, an investigation was opened by the privacy commissioner into something that he had done in October 20 or in October of 2016.
00:36:54.420
So like a year prior, he was found to have been meddled in meddling in freedom of information requests.
00:37:02.360
He asked Service Alberta, according to an email released by the UCP, he asked Service Alberta to change the information that they would be releasing in these freedom of information requests.
00:37:12.380
So when the news broke that John Heaney was under investigation for things that he had done during the time that he had worked in the premier's office, he was already working back at the government.
00:37:28.280
And the Alberta government was answering questions about John Heaney as though he was no longer employed with them.
00:37:35.940
And they were just misleading everybody from start to finish.
00:37:38.340
Sheila, you called their number two years ago in your number one bestselling book called TheDestroyers.ca.
00:37:45.800
I went to the, I was just on the website the other day, TheDestroyers.ca.
00:37:50.760
It was ahead of its time, and I regret that because it was a premonition.
00:37:55.380
It was like, you know, that mythical character Cassandra warning everybody, warning, warning, warning, and no one listened.
00:38:08.260
I'm counting the days till they're thrown into the dustbin of history.
00:38:12.880
I cannot wait until they're relegated to the fringe party status that they so rightly deserve.
00:38:19.060
I think that John Heaney might deserve some extra sanctions.
00:38:21.680
I truly believe his conduct needs to be investigated because I think it goes beyond bad taste and bad judgment.
00:38:29.920
I won't say more until I have proof that's of a more criminal nature.
00:38:56.880
On my monologue Friday about Tommy Robinson, Carol writes,
00:39:11.500
The five Ps that Daniel Pipes described are the police, the prosecutors, the press, the politicians, and the professors.
00:39:22.860
Yeah, and this absolutely, absolutely is part of it.
00:39:26.500
The official people are not on our side anymore.
00:39:31.360
It goes against everything we know as a Western democracy.
00:39:33.700
What happens to the right to defend yourself in court?
00:39:36.040
The right to have your own lawyer, innocent until proven guilty.
00:39:41.080
I remember last time when they raided Tommy's home at 4 a.m.
00:39:46.500
But we were able to muster lawyers to get Tommy home that night.
00:39:49.700
And we were able to give our lawyers a few weeks to prepare.
00:39:58.860
They protect pedophiles and sexual predators and imprison those who call them out.
00:40:02.720
The rule of law exists at the whim of the political class.
00:40:05.660
Yes, and I know I've talked about the classism in the U.K. before.
00:40:09.260
Here in North America, we are blessedly free of classism.
00:40:13.360
I mean, people don't look down on you if you are a rags to riches story.
00:40:19.960
And I think it's a bit of the Canadian dream, too.
00:40:21.560
So many people come here, low class, and they work hard and they make their way up.
00:40:29.600
Like, there's none of that stratified sedimentary system in the U.K.
00:40:33.660
I mean, in Canada, people almost, I mean, it's two ways.
00:40:38.080
If someone started poor and made their way up, I think they earn the respect of people, don't they?
00:40:44.040
And if someone really made it, I think a lot of people say, wow, I want to do that, too.
00:40:48.440
Like, there's not a hatred of wealth by working classes, I don't think, generally, other than the NDP.
00:40:54.640
And I don't think there's a despise and a contempt for people who start off in working classes.
00:41:06.380
That's one of the things it took me a year to learn with Tommy, is that the people who are the victims of these rape gangs, of these predators,
00:41:16.140
they are, to quote Morrissey, they are nobody's nothings.
00:41:19.160
They are poor, white, working class girls that no one gives a damn about.
00:41:23.240
They don't have friends in Parliament, don't have rich lawyers, don't have friends in the media.
00:41:30.700
What they care more about is, oh, will I be called a racist if I do anything?
00:41:37.240
And that is why I think he had so much courage.
00:41:40.140
His family doesn't want our help for their personal affairs right now.
00:41:43.420
We're going to do this gag order, letusreport.com project, and hopefully we'll have some success there.
00:41:50.300
I'm not going to do my monologue every single day about it.
00:41:52.500
But I don't know if you know, but at 12 noon every day, I do a live chat on YouTube.
00:41:56.000
You're welcome to join if you're free, 12 noon Eastern Time.
00:42:07.080
I'm going to do that again tomorrow because there'll be more to report.
00:42:09.620
So if you want more on Tommy, I'll give you a little bit in the evenings.
00:42:12.200
But I don't want to just be Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.
00:42:14.160
So I'll do more at 12 noon if you have the time tomorrow.
00:42:18.040
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.