Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Stephen Harper’s son says I should show more class, stop criticizing Jason Kenney

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Ben Harper, Stephen Harper's son, took a shot at me on Twitter, which got my

00:00:04.720 attention. I thought I'd reply with a video. That's today's show. I think I'm going to pull

00:00:09.100 it from outside the paywall just to have it as part of the public discourse. But please enjoy it

00:00:15.100 as part of the podcast. And by the way, the paywall I'm referring to is for what we call

00:00:20.120 Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of the show. And I think it's a richer experience in

00:00:26.240 that it lets you use your eyes, not just your ears. We have quotes. We have tweets. We have

00:00:31.220 video clips. We have little snippets. We put some effort into it. So I hope you enjoy it. And to do

00:00:36.340 that, just become a Rebel News Plus subscriber. Go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. It's eight

00:00:41.620 bucks a month. No big deal. You get my show and Sheila's show and David's show and Andrew's show.

00:00:46.340 I think it's a whale of a deal. Anyways, here's today's program.

00:00:56.240 Tonight, Stephen Harper's son says I should show more class and stop my criticisms of Jason

00:01:12.020 Kenney. Is he right? It's June 29th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:16.900 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:22.720 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:26.780 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody right

00:01:31.960 to do so.

00:01:37.540 Alberta had the best government in terms of the lockdown. For a very long time, it resisted the

00:01:43.340 mob mentality that the other provincial governments indulged and briefly that most U.S. states fell

00:01:49.900 into. I can imagine that must have been hard given that the public health industrial complex

00:01:54.820 is inherently hierarchical and globalist and is based on a culture of obedience, not dissent.

00:02:03.340 They move in packs. Bad ideas spread quickly. They all just repeat each other. I really don't know why

00:02:08.520 every city and every province even bothers having their own public health officers and a deputy public

00:02:14.680 health officer, literally hundreds of them in Canada, most of them earning mid-six figures.

00:02:19.280 Dina Hinshaw, the public health bureaucrat in Alberta, makes a whopping $370,000 a year.

00:02:26.860 That's exactly double what Premier Jason Kenney earns, by the way. Isn't that weird?

00:02:32.900 But why do we need 100 of these health scolds if all they do is just read from the same talking points

00:02:37.960 written by the United Nations World Health Organization or Anthony Fauci? My point is,

00:02:43.240 for the first year, it must have been hard for Alberta to avoid just following along with Teresa

00:02:48.340 Tam and Fauci, especially with the media being such avid lobbyists for total lockdowns.

00:02:54.520 But Jason Kenney and Alberta held out for quite a while. You could say they were the Florida of Canada

00:03:00.220 and Jason Kenney was the Ron DeSantis of Canada until they utterly collapsed and capitulated and just

00:03:07.720 handed the reins of government over to the unelected, unaccountable health bureaucrats

00:03:11.780 that no one ever heard of until last year. Just completely collapsed, exhausted.

00:03:17.140 Went from the best to the worst. It's funny because I know a lot of staff in Kenney's office

00:03:21.500 and when I was out west last year before the capitulation, it was from one of them that

00:03:26.840 I learned the term doctator, as in a dictator doctor. I thought it was funny and I thought 0.57

00:03:32.160 it was great because like most good jokes, it's true. Well, the doctators had the last laugh,

00:03:38.060 didn't they? Alberta went from the lightest touch to the heaviest. I've seen some awful lockdown 1.00

00:03:43.260 policings around the world. I've shown you this horror show before of an Australian mum having a 1.00

00:03:49.320 crying child ripped out of her arms and she is thrown in the back of a police van for the non-crime 0.96

00:03:54.300 of carrying a sign, dissenting, horrific child abuse. And you see some ad hoc thuggery,

00:04:01.740 well pretty much everywhere actually. I chalk some of it up to unclear laws that aren't really laws,

00:04:07.120 they're just orders that aren't easy to understand by either citizens or the police. They change all the

00:04:13.500 time, the whole situation's stressful, the bizarre world of police enforcing imaginary things that

00:04:20.660 aren't crimes like six feet apart, put on your mask instead of, you know, real crimes. But what I've

00:04:26.660 just described is usually spontaneous problems in the moment that on sober second thought were often

00:04:33.160 apologized for by police chiefs after a calm review. As in, I think the worst abuses in the lockdowns

00:04:39.000 were from clueless cops enforcing vague rules and maybe getting carried away. They were rogue

00:04:45.540 incidents, even though there were a lot of them. But that does not apply to Alberta. I mean, yeah,

00:04:51.380 no shortage of thugs with badges like this Calgary cop who bizarrely wasn't immediately sacked. 0.94

00:04:58.380 Completely unprofessional, swearing, out of control, emotional, physically weak, abusive, 0.93

00:05:25.880 poor judgment, threatening violence on a kid for skating outdoors on a city rink. I mean,

00:05:31.360 atrocious, a disgrace, but it wasn't planned, right? What we've seen from the government of

00:05:35.840 Alberta in the past six months of their doctatorship isn't rogue, spontaneous abuse. It's methodical, 0.76

00:05:42.980 planned, the result of high-level meetings, approvals. It's official. It's sanctioned. It's what the

00:05:49.880 Alberta government wants. It's who they are. It's the revenge of the nerds, the public health bullies who

00:05:55.320 were ignored for most of a year now have their way. So when Pastor Arthur Pawlowski was arrested

00:06:01.040 after church, it was planned. Police had been tracking him for weeks. They knew where his church

00:06:06.720 was, where his home was. But in the end, they chose to swarm him with a massive SWAT team operation.

00:06:13.700 They pulled him over on the highway for some reason, extracted him from his vehicle,

00:06:18.360 forced him to walk into the middle of the highway, forced him to kneel on his knees,

00:06:26.380 cars whizzing by. What? That was not a spontaneous thing. The Grace Life Church in Edmonton,

00:06:34.920 they never had an outbreak of the disease at all. But police physically raided the church at dawn,

00:06:41.460 expropriated the building, put latrines on the church property as close to the entrance

00:06:46.260 as they could just to defile the place. They put up tarps to hide whatever other

00:06:51.700 indiscretions were happening. And they turned the whole facility into an armed garrison for literally

00:06:58.340 months. That was not spontaneous. That was not rogue officers or inexperienced cops making the wrong

00:07:04.900 call. These are master plans approved at the highest political levels. Arrests, jail, 35 days in prison

00:07:14.140 for Pastor James Coates in Edmonton. That was an accident. That was, sorry, but that was not an

00:07:21.260 accident. That was asked for by the government specifically. He didn't just land in jail for 35

00:07:26.120 days. Government lawyers representing the Alberta government taking direction from the health

00:07:31.460 department and Dean Hinshaw asked for him to be jailed for 35 days. Pastor Coates, Pastor Tim Stevens.

00:07:38.380 And then Tim Stevens was arrested a second time. Do you remember this footage? This is from June 14th,

00:07:44.160 more than two weeks ago. He's still in prison today.

00:07:47.620 Bye, Daddy.

00:07:48.980 Bye, guys.

00:07:50.160 Bye.

00:07:50.560 We're going to move, okay?

00:08:02.540 Bye.

00:08:05.240 Not too close, not too close.

00:08:07.180 Okay, guys, step back, please.

00:08:11.540 Bye, Daddy.

00:08:12.680 I love you very much, okay?

00:08:15.160 Stay slow, okay?

00:08:17.000 Bryce will build his church.

00:08:20.560 So he's still in prison, and he'll be there for two more weeks, actually. He will be in

00:08:27.060 prison a month for an offense that does not itself contemplate any jail time. And more

00:08:33.240 than that, Alberta is boasting that it will finally lift the last of the lockdown rules

00:08:37.340 on Thursday, on Canada Day. But Alberta government lawyers specifically asked that Tim Stevens,

00:08:43.960 that dad and pastor, be jailed until his hearing two weeks from now. What?

00:08:50.560 What's the public health rationale for that? Churches, which had special penalties under

00:08:55.440 Alberta lockdown law, by the way, companies like Costco and Walmart were allowed to operate at a

00:09:01.000 certain percentage of their fire code capacity. So like 15% or 20%. But churches, no matter how

00:09:07.240 large they are, the largest cathedral, one of the mega churches, like there's some churches that hold

00:09:12.560 2,000 people. They were only allowed a maximum number of 15 people in the church, no matter how large

00:09:17.400 the facility, 15 people. Oh, unless it was a funeral, in which case it would be 10 people.

00:09:22.920 Unless the funeral was outdoors, in which case it would be five people. What? There's no data or

00:09:28.540 science behind that. That's just bigotry. And it was enforced brutally against Christian churches only.

00:09:35.620 For some reason, NHL teams had full exemptions for them and their entire entourage. They were even allowed to go to

00:09:44.900 restaurants that you and I weren't. Hollywood celebrities, too. They were welcome to come to Alberta to film huge

00:09:50.980 productions, hundreds of people, but Canadian pastors and church off to jail. Even though the lockdown will be lifted in

00:09:59.180 Alberta on Thursday, on Canada Day, Pastor Tim Stevens remains in jail, and he will remain in jail for two more weeks

00:10:05.360 because shut up. That's why. You want an answer? Shut up is the answer. Really. As Oscar Wilde would say, to jail one

00:10:14.820 Christian pastor may be regarded as a misfortune. To jail two looks like carelessness. But three pastors jailed now?

00:10:24.280 Two of them for a month? And no other jurisdiction in the world has jailed a pastor even once

00:10:31.240 in a lockdown. Well, some people might start to think that maybe you've got yourself a bit of a bigotry

00:10:38.660 problem. And indeed, people are asking that very thing. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a rising

00:10:45.080 Republican voice, he wrote a letter to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom asking them to put

00:10:50.380 Canada on their watch list. So did Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin. I have personally

00:10:56.600 received an invitation to speak to a group of congressmen in Washington about this. Can you

00:11:00.920 believe that? I know that the Canadian political class doesn't care about any of this. Not one

00:11:05.500 Conservative MP has said a word. Not one Conservative senator, even though they are beyond reprisal from

00:11:10.820 their party leader, let alone any other party, but the rest of the world thinks we're getting a bit

00:11:15.120 careless with our pastors. Last night, Alberta's health minister, health bureaucrat, it's hard to

00:11:21.400 tell the difference. She was milking the last few days of her unchecked power. Her dream come true to

00:11:28.400 be a tyrant will be over for her in two days. She'll go back to being a nobody, a $370,000 a year nobody. 1.00

00:11:36.220 But she was ringing up the last few days. She tweeted this, the pandemic is over. There are a grand

00:11:46.320 total of 39 people in intensive care in the entire province of four and a half million people. That's

00:11:52.680 fewer than one in a hundred thousand. And they, as always, have many comorbidities. They're sick to

00:11:57.760 begin with. Look, this thing is over. The party is over. And yet the province is still under a lockdown 0.93

00:12:04.880 today. Why not lift it right now? Why not lift it now? They said they would, by the way, if certain

00:12:09.660 yardsticks were met. They were. Why not lift it a month ago? Three months ago, actually.

00:12:14.660 I mean, the death toll plummeted really after Christmas. It was over.

00:12:19.660 Why didn't she end up for her? She's the boss. And she loves being the boss too much. That's why. 1.00

00:12:24.340 Here's what I wrote in reply to her tweet, her last 48 hours of power. I said,

00:12:29.740 your policies have caused far more death than they have saved. You sentenced hundreds of Albertans to

00:12:37.600 death through depression, suicide, and drug overdoses. You destroyed thousands of businesses,

00:12:44.160 ruined thousands of marriages. You are a wicked woman who is going to hell. 1.00

00:12:49.820 Now, I admit that last sentence is a bit of a flourish. I'm not sure what it means theologically, 1.00

00:12:55.440 but I do know the wreckage she has caused to countless lives. Countless families. I know a bit

00:13:02.160 of what Dante thinks hell looks like, but for someone like Dina Hinshaw or Anthony Fauci or Teresa Tam,

00:13:09.440 I imagine that hell would be having to listen to the crying children of Tim Stevens bid their father

00:13:18.180 farewell for eternity, just listening to this. Bye, daddy. Bye-bye, guys.

00:13:24.840 Bye-bye, guys.

00:13:32.900 We're going to move, okay?

00:13:40.360 Not too close, not too close.

00:13:42.260 Okay, guys, step back, please.

00:13:46.560 Bye, dad.

00:13:48.180 I love you very much, okay?

00:13:52.020 Christ will build his church.

00:13:57.400 I would think that being forced to listen to that and knowing that you caused that

00:14:01.260 and knowing the other pain you caused, the families that were not allowed to be together for a funeral,

00:14:09.120 families that were not allowed to have weddings, kids that were not allowed to have graduations,

00:14:13.500 children who were not allowed to go to school.

00:14:15.220 I imagine that hell for a public health bureaucrat is having to face their own carnage

00:14:22.300 and knowing that they did that.

00:14:25.440 But who knows?

00:14:26.440 Maybe Dina Hinshaw would get an enjoyment out of that. 1.00

00:14:30.200 Maybe that is what she gets her kicks from. 1.00

00:14:32.960 After all, she was one who ordered that that be done to Tim Stevens.

00:14:38.200 She hasn't disowned it.

00:14:41.320 Why would she find it hellish to listen to that or watch that for eternity?

00:14:45.800 Maybe that's like her highlight reel of career successes.

00:14:49.300 We've had a jumbotron truck driving around Calgary with footage on it of Pastor Tim Stevens being taken away and his crying children,

00:14:59.020 juxtaposed with the image of Alberta's health minister at that Sky Palace party,

00:15:06.180 violating the same lockdown laws that Tim Stevens was being jailed for.

00:15:10.140 We took the truck with that jumbotron to the health minister's office.

00:15:13.620 Oh, he hated it.

00:15:15.140 He sent security to tell us to leave.

00:15:18.580 After we deployed that truck and after the U.S. politicians started to write about the pastors in Alberta being jailed,

00:15:25.820 I started getting private messages from old friends who were in the Alberta premier's office in its wider circle

00:15:32.020 asking us here at Rebel News to call it off, telling us to pipe down now.

00:15:37.700 I'm not going to name them because their notes were private and they're friends.

00:15:40.460 But the thing is, it's not over now.

00:15:43.600 It's not over, is it?

00:15:45.480 A dad is in jail and he will be for two more weeks.

00:15:48.780 I didn't do that.

00:15:49.940 No one else in the world did that.

00:15:51.560 Why would I stop criticizing that if Justin Trudeau did that?

00:15:55.620 Would I not be criticizing him too?

00:15:57.540 Of course I would.

00:15:59.920 And then I got this tweet from Ben Harper, Stephen Harper's son.

00:16:03.940 He's grown up now.

00:16:05.420 He works for Jason Kenney now in the premier's office.

00:16:07.800 I haven't seen Ben in a long time since he was a student.

00:16:11.280 I was surprised that he went to work for Jason Kenney as a political staffer.

00:16:14.240 I had thought he was on a business path after school to do something more productive in life.

00:16:18.520 But I'm afraid young Ben has become a partisan political pro.

00:16:21.860 And I suppose the shame on Shandro Jumbotron plus the U.S. Republican scoldings plus the incredible plunging opinion polls are probably getting to them.

00:16:34.660 And so Ben felt compelled to respond to my mean tweet, which is worse, jailing a pastor and father or my mean tweet about it.

00:16:43.420 I guess they're both pretty bad, eh?

00:16:44.820 Anyways, here's what Ben Harper said to me.

00:16:47.260 In China, Christians who worship outside government-approved boundaries are driven underground and their leaders are arrested and detained.

00:16:56.740 While Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners are subject to repression and intimidation.

00:17:03.860 Under our government, Canada has spoken out consistently and emphatically without fear or favor.

00:17:09.420 Canada defends human rights around the world.

00:17:12.080 And we have not only spoken out, we have also taken action.

00:17:16.460 As Canadians, as citizens of a free country, we have a solemn duty.

00:17:21.500 As Sir Wilfrid Laurier once said, and I quote, we should always remember this.

00:17:25.600 Le Canada est libre et la liberté est sa nationalité.

00:17:29.720 Canada is free and freedom is its nationality.

00:17:33.460 Oh, sorry.

00:17:34.280 That's not what Ben Harper said to me.

00:17:35.800 That's what Stephen Harper said about religious freedom when he was prime minister.

00:17:41.040 Sorry, here's what Ben Harper tweeted to me.

00:17:45.840 Oh, sorry, my mistake.

00:17:47.940 That's what Jason Kenney tweeted about churches being bullied by police.

00:17:52.280 Here, let me find the Ben Harper one.

00:17:53.740 Okay, here it is. 0.95

00:17:56.420 Just like the perpetual lockdown crowd, no data to back up ridiculous unhinged claims. 0.97

00:18:02.780 Show some class.

00:18:04.000 Albertans were well served by Dina Hinshaw's data-driven approach. 0.81

00:18:10.860 Glad clickbait-driven extremists on both sides were ignored.

00:18:16.580 Well, yeah, no, Ben.

00:18:18.380 There is a lot of data about how lockdowns kill.

00:18:22.540 They kill through suicides.

00:18:24.220 They kill through drug addiction and overdoses.

00:18:26.340 They kill through mortality and morbidity of poverty.

00:18:29.540 As in, once you're poor, everything gets worse.

00:18:33.640 Regular health is worse.

00:18:35.140 Cancer surgeries are canceled.

00:18:37.060 The stabilities of marriages fall apart under lockdown.

00:18:40.060 Depression.

00:18:41.460 This is not my opinion.

00:18:42.520 As I showed on the program the other day, Statistics Canada made it clear.

00:18:46.380 For the first few months of the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada,

00:18:51.200 excess deaths, as they called it, were amongst senior citizens dying from COVID.

00:18:55.820 It's true for the first part of the year, but then the excess deaths were the young people

00:19:02.480 dying from the lockdowns.

00:19:04.460 That's your data, Ben.

00:19:06.540 But I'm open to data.

00:19:08.680 Open to science.

00:19:10.180 I'd like to know what science or medicine or data says NHL teams can meet with their whole

00:19:17.700 entourage, but not churches.

00:19:19.880 That Walmarts and Costcos have a percentage of their capacity, say, 30% of their fire code,

00:19:28.580 but their churches can only have an absolute number of 15 people, no matter how large they

00:19:33.760 are, 10 people for a funeral and five if it's outdoors.

00:19:36.580 Where's some math for that, Ben?

00:19:38.520 Where's the data for that, Ben?

00:19:41.920 The government was asked.

00:19:44.540 St. Dina Hinshaw was asked.

00:19:46.600 In the course of their prosecution of that Edmonton pastor, James Coates, they were asked

00:19:52.680 to justify their data.

00:19:55.040 And a year after the lockdowns, Hinshaw's official position to the judge was that she

00:20:00.380 needed more time to get the data together to show why Coates had to be jailed.

00:20:05.600 So yeah, we're all waiting to learn what that data is, Ben.

00:20:09.180 What's the data behind jailing Tim Stevens even now after the lockdown is being lifted, Ben?

00:20:15.280 But that's not what really bugs me.

00:20:18.760 I sort of like the fact that Ben Harper is showing some political loyalty to his boss,

00:20:23.300 Jason Kennedy.

00:20:24.160 Loyalty is a good thing generally.

00:20:26.480 I wish he'd attack the left as vigorously as he attacks the right and calls us extreme.

00:20:33.380 But it's tough to say where being a lockdownist puts you on a political spectrum anymore, doesn't it?

00:20:38.400 Is that right wing?

00:20:38.980 Is that left wing?

00:20:39.500 But what bugged me was this line, show some class, show some class.

00:20:45.520 And he called me an extremist.

00:20:49.040 Really, Ben, am I not classy enough?

00:20:52.720 I'm too low class for you, Ben.

00:20:55.680 I'm not high class.

00:20:56.680 I'm not fancy.

00:20:57.520 I'm not part of the establishment.

00:20:59.300 I think you're right.

00:20:59.960 I'm not part of the NHL class that's exempt.

00:21:02.260 I'm not a millionaire hockey player, a billionaire hockey owner.

00:21:04.820 I'm not part of the Hollywood movies that for some reason had a data-driven exemption from Dina Hinshaw,

00:21:09.640 the politicians, the lobbyists, the bureaucrats who have these Sky Palace parties with $50 bottles of booze.

00:21:15.200 It is true.

00:21:16.440 I'm not classy enough for that, Ben.

00:21:18.860 It is true.

00:21:20.100 I'm what the Brits would call middle class.

00:21:22.100 I'm not working class.

00:21:23.240 I'm not high class.

00:21:24.280 My dad was a doctor.

00:21:25.160 I've got a law degree.

00:21:26.280 But I went to a public high school, a normal university.

00:21:28.860 I worked for a living.

00:21:30.260 I'm not high class, that's for sure.

00:21:32.340 I use the wrong fork most of the time.

00:21:34.120 But you know, I'm old enough, Ben, and I come from Calgary, so I actually know your parents, Ben.

00:21:39.380 I knew them each before they were married to each other.

00:21:41.540 Did you know that?

00:21:42.620 Lorene Teske and Stephen Harper, and I know them a bit.

00:21:46.160 And they're not high class either.

00:21:48.620 Your mom, Lorene, is pretty plain spoken. 1.00

00:21:50.600 She likes being outdoors, motorbikes, guns.

00:21:53.480 I remember she had a party for a book launch for me at 24 Sussex Drive.

00:21:57.580 It was a pizza party.

00:21:59.700 Seriously.

00:22:00.580 24 Sussex Drive, a pizza party.

00:22:02.900 Not catered hors d'oeuvres.

00:22:05.220 Stephen Harper, is he high class, Ben?

00:22:08.240 He fired a cabinet minister who ordered a $16 orange juice from a hotel minibar.

00:22:14.860 Your mom and dad were not elitists.

00:22:17.340 They were the opposite.

00:22:18.340 They were attacked mercilessly as being low class, hillbillies, cowboys, unsophisticated, grubby populists. 0.61

00:22:25.840 They were called extremists, too.

00:22:27.520 It's just weird hearing those insults from their son, the same insults that were used against them for years.

00:22:33.800 Extremists, low class. 0.99

00:22:35.300 But it's funny.

00:22:36.180 When I was a kid, I was 21, when I knew Lorene and Stephen separately.

00:22:41.160 When the old Mulroney Tories and then the Kim Campbell Tories were in their final death throes, 1993, that's how old I am.

00:22:49.340 And they still had power in those final months.

00:22:51.240 They still had donors.

00:22:52.380 And back then, corporations could make huge donations.

00:22:54.780 So the federal PC party was actually very rich and powerful, or so it seemed right before they lost every seat except two.

00:23:02.200 But it was all just the palace guard, the loyalists, who had nothing to offer in terms of policy or ideas, but they had connections and money for their remaining time.

00:23:11.920 That's how this all feels to me.

00:23:14.960 Don't criticize the United Conservative Party.

00:23:17.240 That's low class and extremists.

00:23:19.240 Yeah, I guess it is.

00:23:20.060 I wasn't invited up to the Sky Palace to have a shot of $50 booze and look down on the ants below scurrying around and order up the police chief to round up some pastors to deter the others.

00:23:31.500 It's true, Ben, I'm low class.

00:23:32.780 Certainly lower than you think you are.

00:23:34.840 But I know where you come from, Ben, even if you've forgotten.

00:23:38.900 I looked at who liked and retweeted young Ben.

00:23:41.880 I was curious and I was struck by something.

00:23:44.500 How much that list was dominated by lobbyists.

00:23:48.680 I'm serious.

00:23:49.520 There were no grassroots conservatives, at least not many, no party workers, the type of folks who door knock a thousand doors, who spend a hundred hours putting up lawn signs, people who work out of love and belief in policy, not money, not lobbyists, not a lot of grassroots conservatives, but an awful lot of those hangers on.

00:24:10.200 The ones who will milk the ones who will milk the system to the last moment, the folks who were there from Mulroney and Kim Campbell right to the end in 1993.

00:24:19.440 Lobbyists, lobbyists, lobbyists, lobbyists.

00:24:22.760 People who know that Jason Kenney and his lockdownists aren't conservative anymore, people who know getting reelected will be a challenge if it's even possible.

00:24:32.700 People who know they've lost their ideological way, but these lobbyists can still make a buck off their connections for at least another year or two.

00:24:41.160 And so they want to signal to Ben, who works for Kenny, that they're on his side here and they're not low class either.

00:24:49.060 They're high class like you, Ben.

00:24:50.420 So can he please answer their emails and return their phone calls about some scheme they're trying to sell or some procurement contract they're trying to land or some appointment they're trying to finagle?

00:25:01.920 I don't know.

00:25:02.660 I actually like Ben Harper, even if you can't tell, or at least I like the young student he was when I last spoke with him years ago.

00:25:08.620 But his dad stood for something and stood against something.

00:25:13.880 Stephen Harper was a real conservative and he hated the political media industrial complex, the permanent bureaucracy.

00:25:21.880 I don't think he would be white knighting for public health officials who violate liberty with a smile.

00:25:29.100 Who knows?

00:25:30.040 Maybe Stephen Harper has become a swamp creature in his retirement too.

00:25:34.200 I don't think so, but maybe.

00:25:36.580 I just have a tough time believing that the great conservative prime minister who set up an office for religious freedom

00:25:43.300 would also send police to arrest pastors again and again and again and jail them for months

00:25:52.520 and pass rules that specifically punish churches.

00:25:57.720 I don't believe it.

00:26:00.180 Then again, I wouldn't have believed it that Jason Kenney would either.

00:26:03.920 Stay with us for more.

00:26:13.300 Well, the pandemic, or more precisely the political response to it, the authoritarianism of the lockdowns,

00:26:23.520 has rearranged, I think, some political coalitions.

00:26:26.720 People who I think would call themselves the civil liberties left or the civil liberties liberals

00:26:32.460 have found that they're not really in sync with many of the lockdownist politicians

00:26:37.700 who call themselves a liberal or a Democrat or, in Canada, every single political party.

00:26:44.060 And so I'm paying attention to voices that, frankly, I didn't listen to before or I didn't even know about before.

00:26:50.600 And one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter is Janine Younis.

00:26:56.300 She's a lawyer with the new Civil Liberties Alliance.

00:26:58.980 Let me just read to you three of her tweets in a row.

00:27:02.140 Tweets are very short, but I think she says a lot here.

00:27:04.400 I long considered vaccines among humanity's greatest achievements.

00:27:09.520 I looked forward to the COVID vax, and I assumed I would get it.

00:27:13.660 Before I became eligible, I got COVID, so I decided not to.

00:27:16.720 Based on events that transpired, I have since become profoundly skeptical because of, one,

00:27:25.360 the complete disregard for natural immunity, two,

00:27:28.500 the push to vaccinate everyone, even children to whom the virus poses almost no risk

00:27:35.380 and upon whom the vax hasn't been adequately tested.

00:27:39.680 Three, the media and Centers for Disease Controls rush to depict negative events from the vax

00:27:46.520 as outliers and mild, which is the polar opposite of the approach both the media and the CDC took

00:27:53.980 with respect to COVID deaths, and four, mandating vaccines in order to participate in society,

00:28:02.140 attend university, go to work, et cetera.

00:28:04.620 Call me crazy.

00:28:06.600 I don't think I am.

00:28:07.740 Well, I don't think she is either.

00:28:09.320 Janine Younis joins us now via Skype from the Washington, D.C.

00:28:13.300 Eric Genie, great to see you again.

00:28:15.340 I'm really enjoying your tweets.

00:28:17.440 Have you always grappled with—tell us a little bit more about you.

00:28:23.700 So if we've interviewed you once before, do you come from a political background?

00:28:27.520 Are you a liberal activist?

00:28:29.220 Were you always a civil libertarian on the left?

00:28:31.720 Where did you come from?

00:28:34.000 Thank you so much for having me back, Esther.

00:28:35.700 It's a pleasure to be here.

00:28:36.800 I considered myself a leftist for a long time, although I always had a pretty strong civil

00:28:41.320 liberty streak.

00:28:42.080 So I put myself clashing over the years with some of my fellow leftists on free speech

00:28:47.080 issues, especially free speech on campus.

00:28:50.120 I didn't agree with a lot of the people who were taken down during the Me Too movement.

00:28:54.520 Not that I don't think the Me Too movement had some good aspects and beneficial aspects,

00:28:58.760 but I didn't like the way that people's careers were being destroyed a lot of times without

00:29:04.700 thinking in a more nuanced fashion.

00:29:07.340 So I would call myself a leftist civil libertarian, I guess, or something like that.

00:29:13.180 You know, I've been introduced to a lot of true liberal thinkers in the last year.

00:29:19.560 I think I mentioned in our last conversation, whether it's Naomi Wolf or Robert F. Kennedy,

00:29:24.000 Jr.

00:29:24.240 People, frankly, I didn't pay attention to before.

00:29:26.460 And I find it very heartening that there are people on the left who are truly concerned.

00:29:30.340 Let me give you an example.

00:29:31.120 For a generation, for two generations, my body, my choice, you know, my health care

00:29:37.340 privacy, it's between me, my doctor and God.

00:29:41.360 These are some, keep your rosaries off my ovaries. 1.00

00:29:44.180 These are some of the slogans of the left, the cultural left, when it came to medical questions

00:29:51.260 or public interest in abortion rights.

00:29:54.180 And yet I see this zeal, not just to get everyone jabbed, but to know about that most

00:30:01.860 private health moment, to demand people to answer questions about it, to prove it, and

00:30:08.920 that their status in life will depend on it.

00:30:11.140 What happened to the my body, my choice people?

00:30:14.420 I don't know.

00:30:16.700 That's certainly not what's going on now.

00:30:18.440 And I do want to clarify when I say, when I said I was skeptical in that tweet, I'm not

00:30:22.700 skeptical of vaccines generally.

00:30:24.380 And I'm not, it seems to me that evidence shows that this is a good vaccine.

00:30:29.160 It helps a lot of vulnerable people.

00:30:30.900 What I'm skeptical of is the media's depiction of it and the CDC's.

00:30:34.420 I don't think we're getting an accurate picture.

00:30:36.500 And that has made me look for information outside of those sources.

00:30:40.600 So, you know, this is, at least in America, the vaccine is only approved for, under an emergency

00:30:47.300 use authorization.

00:30:48.140 It's sort of what's, you know, it's used in emergencies.

00:30:52.460 It doesn't go through the full clinical trial testing.

00:30:56.560 And, you know, we're seeing these incidents in children, especially of myocarditis, and

00:31:01.660 they just haven't, there's just this sort of rush to dismiss them and to say, oh, but

00:31:06.260 everyone should still get the vaccine.

00:31:07.440 Everyone should still get the vaccine.

00:31:08.900 It should be a personal choice one makes, you know, with one's doctor.

00:31:12.220 Everybody has different circumstances.

00:31:13.520 For instance, you know, having had COVID was one of mine that led me to decide not to get

00:31:18.000 the vaccine.

00:31:19.400 Yeah.

00:31:19.720 And, you know, allergies.

00:31:21.100 I was reading the World Health Organization's statement on vaccines and kids just last week,

00:31:28.420 and they changed it overnight.

00:31:31.600 At first, they said they weren't recommended for kids.

00:31:34.860 And then they changed it without a note, without a clarification, without an explanation, to

00:31:40.700 say that it was recommended for kids sort of in some cases, and then they had some strange

00:31:45.600 language about if supplies warrant and if other people get it first.

00:31:50.880 I don't know what supplies or other people getting it first has to do with whether or not

00:31:54.960 it's safe.

00:31:55.480 But I just don't think that the World Health Organization or the CDC are apolitical anymore.

00:32:02.960 I don't know if they ever were now that I think about it, but they seem so political

00:32:08.140 that their politics is tied to their medicine is tied to their politics.

00:32:13.040 Exactly.

00:32:13.680 And I mean, I'm concerned about what this will do in terms of trust in public health establishment

00:32:18.160 going forward. 0.95

00:32:19.900 I mean, people aren't stupid.

00:32:21.120 People know that if you say everyone must get the vaccine right now, you know, indiscriminately,

00:32:26.000 they know that's not true.

00:32:27.260 We know there are some people who shouldn't get the vaccine.

00:32:29.580 It seems, you know, with children, they face almost no risk of a severe outcome from COVID.

00:32:35.220 So there should be more assessment going on.

00:32:37.680 And I think this is creating more vaccine skepticism and may lead to really bad outcomes with diseases

00:32:42.180 where we really want people to get vaccinated, like measles.

00:32:46.560 So I don't think this is wise from a public health perspective at all, taking the long view.

00:32:51.120 Yeah, Canada has been really weird on this.

00:32:53.320 I mean, Justin Trudeau's first instinct was to sign a deal with the Chinese vaccine manufacturer,

00:32:59.140 which is just crazy.

00:33:00.340 But that's a classic Trudeau move.

00:33:03.020 So Canada was so far behind other countries in getting a Western produced supply.

00:33:09.060 And then supplies were so limited.

00:33:11.320 So you can see a lot of their rules that just so obviously the science has followed the politics.

00:33:18.380 For example, the amount of time between a first and second dose.

00:33:22.920 Canada just expanded it.

00:33:24.860 It was so obvious that was to cover up for the fact there wasn't enough supply.

00:33:28.180 And then mixing and matching first, second, and maybe here come third vaccines, one from each maker.

00:33:35.380 They're turning that into a plus in Canada.

00:33:38.420 And I just, I mean, I feel like I see through it.

00:33:41.740 And you say it's building doubt in public health institutions.

00:33:46.740 I think it's madness to have doctors say whatever politicians want them to say.

00:33:52.620 But it's happening.

00:33:53.660 And I don't know.

00:33:54.720 I just, I'm concerned by how blindly people are following advice that looks on the face of it to be absurd.

00:34:00.860 Like, it's good to mix and match vaccines.

00:34:05.380 How could that, I mean, listen, I'm not a doctor or a virologist or immunologist.

00:34:10.320 But I, that's pretty clearly what you say when you've run out of vaccine number one and have a lot of vaccine number two.

00:34:17.280 That's just what it looks like to me.

00:34:19.420 Yeah, that definitely seems to be the case.

00:34:22.180 And another disturbing thing that's happening is that dissenting voices are really being silenced.

00:34:26.720 For instance, one major example is Martin Kulldorff, who is a friend of mine and is one of the best vaccine safety specialists and epidemiologists in the world.

00:34:35.760 He's at Harvard.

00:34:37.620 And he was kicked off of a working committee of the CDC because he thought, actually, that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine shouldn't be suspended.

00:34:46.300 So just because he voiced a dissenting opinion, which the CDC then adopted a few days later, they let him go.

00:34:53.120 And I think we're just seeing a real silencing of people who dissent on these issues.

00:34:59.180 And it's really disturbing.

00:35:00.220 So we're not really getting real information.

00:35:03.480 And I don't feel at this point like I know where to get real information.

00:35:07.320 Yeah.

00:35:07.660 I mean, I understand being concerned about things that are dangerous.

00:35:12.560 How many people are in intensive care?

00:35:15.180 How many people are dying from the virus?

00:35:17.900 If we can trust the measurements, because how you label a death, a COVID death, is subject to politics, too.

00:35:25.080 But let's say we accept the definitions.

00:35:27.900 In the Canadian province of Quebec, I see that cases, and again, that's something else altogether, are at a 10-month low.

00:35:36.440 And across Canada, the cases are plummeting.

00:35:39.540 Deaths are plummeting.

00:35:40.640 And so the new standard by which politicians are saying we'll only let you get back to normal is not who's sick.

00:35:48.560 It's not who's very sick in ICU.

00:35:50.840 And it's certainly not who's dying.

00:35:52.980 Their new standard is completely unmoored from health outcomes.

00:35:56.660 It's now, will you take the vaccine or not?

00:36:00.020 So it's unrelated to the problem we were supposed to be solving.

00:36:05.740 And now it's just we need to get 75%.

00:36:08.960 Quebec, for example, they just sent a letter out to all kids in the province saying if we don't get 75% of kids, 12 to 17, getting double doses, there'll be masks in schools and no extracurricular activities.

00:36:23.520 Got nothing to do with kids' health outcomes, everything to do with kids taking a jab.

00:36:28.640 I feel like I'm in a reality show sponsored by Pfizer.

00:36:32.440 I feel like everything I hear is a drug ad as opposed to fixing a problem.

00:36:38.700 Yeah, that's absolutely.

00:36:40.020 And it was very similar in New York, too, where, you know, well, we can get back to normal when 70% of people are vaccinated.

00:36:45.440 I've been saying something similar.

00:36:46.860 Like, I feel like I've been in a Black Mirror episode for the past 15 months.

00:36:49.860 I just I don't understand what's happening.

00:36:52.400 And yeah, this I mean, this idea that it's tied to case, the whole case issue, you know, should never have been a thing.

00:37:00.340 It should have been about hospital capacity.

00:37:02.480 And if we really had to lock down for a short time for hospital capacity, that could be up for debate.

00:37:07.620 But this idea, you know, what Britain is doing, Australia going back into lockdown.

00:37:12.020 I mean, just constantly.

00:37:12.960 It's crazy.

00:37:14.100 It's crazy that we've forgotten what life is about, in my opinion.

00:37:18.320 Yeah, I'm worried about it.

00:37:19.100 I see Israel, which boasted about having the highest vax rate. 0.98

00:37:22.500 Now they have a zero COVID prime minister.

00:37:25.540 They're going to talk about lockdowns again.

00:37:28.180 I just I'm worried about things.

00:37:31.240 But I I'm worried about the fact that as the disease recedes in terms of its actual danger, governments, at least in some places like Canada, are getting more and more extreme in their demands.

00:37:47.360 It's almost like they're off the trying to offset the banality or the normalcy of real life with increased stringency politically just to keep the lockdowns going.

00:37:58.140 And what gets me is how many people are buying into this as if it's just proof of their virtue.

00:38:06.040 Yeah, I don't know.

00:38:06.740 I what is it about people who want the lockdowns to continue just morally and aesthetically and politically and stylistically, not for any health reasons?

00:38:20.580 They just love this lockdown life.

00:38:23.300 Who the heck are they? 0.96

00:38:24.560 Well, I think a lot of introverts, maybe. 0.83

00:38:28.380 And then I think a lot of people actually really liked it.

00:38:31.060 I mean, if you're a middle class, upper middle class professional, you can do your job from your computer.

00:38:36.940 A lot of people really just don't want to be in the office, actually.

00:38:40.500 So I think, you know, we've created this associating morality with supporting lockdowns and staying home and blah, blah.

00:38:48.660 And I think a lot of people are like, well, that's what I want to do anyway.

00:38:52.760 And now I can see moral well doing it and shame other people for wanting to live their lives.

00:38:59.880 You know, it's a very bizarre thing that's happened.

00:39:02.820 I wish I could understand it.

00:39:04.200 I really don't.

00:39:05.400 Yeah, I don't I don't get it.

00:39:06.440 I see the strangest masks in the strangest places and people.

00:39:10.000 I don't know.

00:39:11.440 I just I think that we are seeing a new division, a new new camps emerge.

00:39:20.100 I don't I don't think it's traditional left wing and right wing.

00:39:22.980 But I think this is rearranging politics along a psychological line.

00:39:28.080 I mean, there's class issues, too.

00:39:29.560 You talk about middle class people who are just loving it, who haven't lost a day's pay.

00:39:33.560 Maybe they haven't even worked and they're still getting paid.

00:39:35.460 I find I find we're entering into a worse era now.

00:39:39.800 It's not even about a virus anymore.

00:39:41.940 It's about lockdownism.

00:39:43.620 I hope we can talk to you some more.

00:39:45.080 I like reading your point of view.

00:39:46.900 I follow you on Twitter.

00:39:48.220 Lefty Lockdowns One is your Twitter account.

00:39:51.600 And I hope we can talk to you more in the days and weeks and months ahead.

00:39:56.080 Thank you so much, Ezra.

00:39:57.480 All right.

00:39:57.800 Great to see you again.

00:39:58.400 There's Janine Yunus from the new Civil Liberties Alliance.

00:40:01.500 She joined us via Skype from Washington, D.C.

00:40:04.060 Stay with us.

00:40:04.740 More ahead.

00:40:05.460 Welcome back on my show last night.

00:40:18.200 Bruce writes,

00:40:19.600 Climate Barbie is proof that politically driven affirmative action is a terrible idea. 1.00

00:40:24.060 You're so right.

00:40:24.660 Listen, I just want to show you one quick thing.

00:40:26.000 This is from the Toronto Star.

00:40:27.080 They had this loving goodbye to her.

00:40:29.640 And they had this tweet.

00:40:30.500 I just want to show you.

00:40:31.180 It was promoted by Twitter.

00:40:32.020 How she boasted about fighting against Trump on climate.

00:40:37.740 And that was one of her proudest moments.

00:40:39.060 But I checked.

00:40:40.500 Here's the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, as they call it, for Canada and the United States.

00:40:46.060 It's last data is 2018-2019.

00:40:50.280 Canada increased its global warming emissions 2018-2019.

00:40:55.820 America reduced it.

00:40:57.400 Donald Trump is better on climate change than Trudeau and McKenna, even though he never bragged about it or made it a priority.

00:41:06.840 Isn't that weird?

00:41:07.360 It's almost like you can't trust the media.

00:41:10.940 James writes,

00:41:12.080 We stand behind all our pastors standing for religious freedom.

00:41:15.080 God before government always.

00:41:17.560 Well, I just find it really odd that the churches weren't just prosecuted.

00:41:21.160 They were prosecuted in a punitive way.

00:41:24.220 That the rules were specifically worse for churches than for Costco's.

00:41:28.300 And even now that Alberta is lifting the last lockdown rules, Pastor Tim Stevens will rot in jail for two more weeks.

00:41:34.580 Why?

00:41:35.500 Isn't it over?

00:41:36.780 Why is he in jail?

00:41:38.200 Why are you locking him up still?

00:41:40.880 JT writes,

00:41:41.660 Sad, Canada is no longer a free country.

00:41:44.000 They will make up laws to shut up any word they deem they don't like.

00:41:47.640 Well, you know, I think the words themselves, the last tool we have, you know, the saying,

00:41:53.100 Take away all my freedoms, but leave me with freedom of speech, and with it I'll win back the others.

00:41:58.300 I've heard that said before, and I think it's true. 0.98

00:42:01.100 It's a strategic freedom upon which all the others are based, which is why they're coming for it.

00:42:06.340 Well, we'll do our best to fight.

00:42:07.500 I hope you go to StopC36.com.

00:42:10.460 Last I checked, we had over 20,000 people signing that petition.

00:42:13.260 It's really giving her.

00:42:14.260 So feel free to join it, too.

00:42:15.860 All right, that's our show for the day.

00:42:16.940 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here, to you at home, good night.

00:42:20.880 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:42:28.300 Talk to you soon.

00:42:35.520 Bye.

00:42:36.440 Bye.

00:42:37.000 Bye.

00:42:37.500 Bye.

00:42:38.180 Bye.

00:42:39.120 Bye.

00:42:39.260 Bye.

00:42:39.640 Bye.

00:42:41.380 Bye.

00:42:42.200 Bye.

00:42:44.300 Bye.

00:42:45.500 Bye.

00:42:46.760 Bye.

00:42:47.280 Bye.

00:42:47.560 Bye.

00:42:48.360 Bye.

00:42:49.860 Bye.

00:42:50.180 Bye.

00:42:50.240 Bye.

00:42:52.200 Bye.

00:42:52.360 Bye.

00:42:54.480 Bye.

00:42:55.980 Bye.

00:42:56.780 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - June 30, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Stephen Harper’s son says I should show more class, stop criticizing Jason Kenney

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