EZRA LEVANT ｜ Stuntman Singh doesn't call election after ripping up confidence agreement
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Summary
Jagmeet Singh announces an end to his coalition deal with Justin Trudeau, but what does that mean for the fall election? Our guest for the feature interview is Loren Gunter from the Edmonton Sun, who has been a long-time supporter of Singh's campaign.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Boy, I was excited when I saw that Jagmeet Singh was breaking off his coalition deal with Justin Trudeau.
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I thought we'd be headed into an election, but alas, no, it's just, oh, I don't know what it is.
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We'll try and figure that out today. Our guest for the feature interview is Loren Gunter from the Edmonton Sun.
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But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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That's the video version of this podcast. I'm going to show you about five video clips today.
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I really want you to see them. I mean, you can figure it out, I guess, by listening to them.
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But this is a visual show. So if you get a subscription to Rebel News Plus, you can watch the video show every day.
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Plus the satisfaction of keeping Rebel News strong, because, as you know, we take no money from Trudeau and it shows.
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Tonight, Jagmeet Singh breaks his coalition deal with Justin Trudeau.
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But are we really going to the election in any hurry?
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It's September 5th, and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.
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Well, Justin Trudeau governs like he has a majority.
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He really doesn't care what the opposition says, which is odd, considering how weak his election showing was in the 2021 vote.
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But he has, as his coalition partner, Jagmeet Singh, who has been occasionally making remarks about how I'm going to hold that Justin Trudeau to account, but then rolls over every single time.
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And Jagmeet Singh announced that he is no longer going to have a contract, a written agreement, to prop up Justin Trudeau.
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He didn't say he's going to force the fall of the government-con election.
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He's just saying, well, Justin Trudeau can't take me quite as for granted anymore.
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Today, I notified the Prime Minister that I've ripped up the Supply and Confidence Agreement.
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Canadians are fighting a battle, a battle for the future of the middle class.
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Justin Trudeau has proven again and again he will always cave to corporate greed.
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The threat of Pierre Polyev and Conservative cuts.
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From workers, from retirees, from young people, from patients, from families.
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He will cut in order to give more to big corporations and wealthy CEOs.
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The fact is, the Liberals are too weak, too selfish, and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people.
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In the next federal election, Canadians will choose between Pierre Polyev's callous cuts or hope.
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That Canada's middle class will once again thrive together.
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I'm running for Prime Minister because together, we can and will stop Conservative cuts.
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And we won't let them tell us it can't be done.
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Big corporations and wealthy CEOs have had their government.
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Because in the meantime, we're going to deliver for Canadians.
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And the contrast with a Conservative leader that wants to cut dental care,
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cut the school food program, cut insulin through pharmacare,
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cut the programs that Canadians are relying on to help them through this difficult time,
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well, that'll be a political decision that Canadians get to take in an election.
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But in the meantime, I'm not letting down Canadians, and I'm going to stay focused on them.
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And let's go to Pierre Paulyev to round things out.
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And then we'll bring in our guest, and we're going to chew things over.
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Here's Pierre Paulyev, the leader of the opposition.
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And now Sellout Singh has pulled a stunt, the Sellout Singh stunt today,
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where he came out and claimed that he was wrong, that the coalition was a bad, costly idea,
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but he refuses to commit to voting for a carbon tax election.
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If you're serious about ending your costly carbon tax coalition with Trudeau,
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then commit today to voting for a carbon tax election
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at the earliest confidence vote in the House of Commons.
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That way we can have a carbon tax election where Canadians will decide
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between the costly coalition of Trudeau and Sellout Singh
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that tax your food, punish your work, take your money, double your housing costs,
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or common-sense conservatives who will axe the tax, build the homes,
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Well, there you have it, the three major party leaders.
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Joining us now via Skype from Alberta's capital city of Edmonton
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to talk about is our friend Lorne Gunter, senior columnist with the Edmonton Sun.
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Just the other day before this announcement was made by Singh,
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you were sort of laughing about Singh and saying there was really nothing he couldn't abide.
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There was no humiliation he couldn't, except from Justin Trudeau.
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Remind us what you were saying right before Singh buckled.
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So, in 1983, Brian Mulroney beat Joe Clark out of Clark's job.
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Clark had been the leader of the PCs and the prime minister.
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And Clark decided to stick around and serve in Mulroney's cabinet.
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And then in 1991, Mulroney put Clark in charge of negotiating a new constitutional deal
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among the provinces except Quebec that would then be presented to Quebec.
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And when he finally got one, Mulroney was out of the country and Clark announced it.
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And then Mulroney flew back in a hurry and said, no, no, no, no, no.
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The man had an infinite capacity for political humiliation.
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Tom Flanagan, who you know, a U of C prof, said at the time that Clark had the highest threshold
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for humiliation of anyone in Canadian politics.
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I mean, Singh has spent the last two and a half years swallowing all of the garbage that
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There are very few dentists who are actually participating in it.
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You're shy about, oh, six million kids in the program.
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And so on issue after issue after issue, the liberals would say they lived up to Singh's
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And Singh would just sort of, in a meek little way, lap that all up and continue voting for
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I mean, to answer your lead-in question, I don't think that Singh's announcement on Wednesday
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Because he has now said, we will only support them on a case-by-case basis.
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Well, effectively, that's what they've been doing.
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And I think the only thing that will come of this is that taxpayers in Canada will be
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Because the liberals will have to spend even more money to get either the bloc or the NDP
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Of all those clips that we just saw, I think the funniest and at the same time, the most
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infuriating thing that was said was Trudeau said, well, I hope there's not an election
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for another year because we're planning to spend the next 12 months delivering on those
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I mean, why are we waiting until the last 12 months for Justin Trudeau to actually figure
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out how to solve housing, how to solve inflation, how to solve crime?
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These are all problems his government has created.
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I actually was a little surprised when I saw Paulie's remarks yesterday, this morning.
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I thought he kept trying too hard to show the contents of his T-shirt.
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And he didn't go after the fact that the liberals and the NDP together for the last two and a
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half years, the liberals for the last nine, have created all of these problems.
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This liberal bail reform that's led to all the increase in violent crime, much of the
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It's liberal safe supply that's led to all the open drug use in public places.
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It's liberal spending policies and liberal interest policies that have led to the unaffordability
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of ordinary middle-class staples like food and gasoline and electricity in your home.
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I mean, those are all liberal NDP-created problems.
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And that's what I think Paulie have needs to keep hammering at.
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But it just infuriates me when Trudeau seems to think that, oh, well, you know, it's Pierre
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Polyev, who's going to hand everything over to big corporations and make huge cuts into
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programs that you middle-class Canadians are depending on.
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They create these dinky little programs that have no real impact on inflation or housing
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or crime or anything like that to correct problems they created.
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And then they say, oh, that miserable Pierre Polyev, he's going to cut all those programs
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you've come to depend on at exactly the wrong time.
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Well, now, if you just reversed a lot of liberal policies, you'd get rid of all of that stuff
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I mean, this is the worst government Canada has ever had, period.
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And I don't think Singh is going to pull the plug on these guys anytime soon.
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Yeah, I mean, I think the difference between today and yesterday is yesterday, Singh basically
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You can have everything and anything because we're yours.
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You'll just have to have them for each dish off the menu.
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Or another way to look at it is you owned us before.
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So I think he might actually extract a little bit more because he's going to make demands
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But Jagmeet Singh is doing very poorly in the polls.
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From what I understand, I'd have to freshen my memory, I don't think they're doing well
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I don't think he wants to go to the polls himself.
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I think he just realized that Justin Trudeau is so hated.
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I mean, David Colletto, who works for the pollster Abacus, he's my favorite pollster to quote
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because I know he's not particularly sympathetic to the conservatives.
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So when he says something that is in their favor, I know he's not saying it easily.
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He says that when people look at Trudeau, they're more likely to hate him than just to dislike
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Most people are okay, a little bit of dislike, a little bit of like.
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And it's only the margins that they love you or hate you.
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I think it's people feeling let down, people feeling disillusioned, people just sick of
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him, sick of that voice, sick of that dramatic actor's style, sick of how he never takes any
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I just think that Jagmeet Singh has finally realized that he is hitched to the most hated
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And he wants to get a little bit of room between them, but he doesn't want to stop supporting
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And the NDP do not want to go to an election now, because as you said, in the last two months,
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over the summer of 23, it was the liberal support that collapsed, completely collapsed.
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Day after day after day, they came down and down and down and down.
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This summer, it was the NDP that came down and down and down.
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They've lost about a quarter of the support that they had going into summer.
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So Singh is hoping against hope that if he pulls away from Trudeau a little tiny bit, he will
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raise his party standing up at least high enough that they can win the same 25 seats that they
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Because right now, they're headed for about 13 or 14 seats.
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They get half their caucus, which is 26 members.
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They are at risk of coming out of B.C. with only four or five seats.
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So he's hoping that if he gets a little distance from Trudeau, he can get back up to at least
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You're correct in saying that it's collapsed, too.
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Because why would you give money to the NDP if all you're going to get out of that is
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He said, look, if Jagmeet Singh is serious about this, he will say right now, on the first
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opportunity when Parliament returns after the 20th of September, I and my party will vote
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non-confidence in this government and bring it down and force an election.
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If I were in the railroad unions who were furious with him, the railroad unions were furious with
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Trudeau because Trudeau had said to Singh, well, Singh at first threatened Trudeau he would
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pull out of this agreement if Trudeau intervened in the rail strike.
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It took 17 hours after the rail strike began for Trudeau to intervene and send it to binding
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The NDP caucus told Singh, apparently, I don't know this directly, but I've been told it by
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The NDP caucus apparently told Singh that he was going to have to face their wrath at their
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retreat just before Parliament returns if he didn't tear up this agreement, because now
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the Liberals had crossed the line that even the sycophantic New Democrats in his caucus
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And the rail unions were going to throw the weight of the private sector union movement
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I mean, a lot of the private sector unions are probably going to sit out the next election.
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But Pierre Poliev has done a much better job of speaking to where ordinary people are.
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And you have to remember now that union members are no longer working class.
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If you are in a union and you are a government worker, wow, you're above middle class, you're
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If you are in a private sector union, you're no longer working class, you're middle class.
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And so when people talk about middle class issues and how it's affecting Canadians, it's
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affecting labor unions in the private sector every bit as much.
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And so there is attracted to Poliev and their solutions as they are to either of the other
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And so there was this perfect storm of anger on the left and union threats and resentment
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So what he has done is in name only, he has torn up the supply and confidence agreement.
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I didn't realize what a big role the rail strike played.
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I want to go back to the videos of the three men we showed, because each of them, there
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And you touched on it there by saying that labor unions in 2024, I mean, the government
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sector labor unions, they're going to go liberal every time or even NDP.
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But private sector unions, it would be really weird for them to go for the NDP or the liberals,
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because as you say, it's guys making low six figures.
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You know, it's hard, like hardworking guys, but they have a level of wealth and they typically
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have, it's hardworking men who tilt conservative.
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But when Jagmeet Singh was talking about standing with the workers and standing against the rich
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I mean, I don't know if you saw it out there in Edmonton, but in Toronto, there's sort of
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a fancy fashion sort of upmarket magazine called Toronto Life.
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And Jagmeet Singh, who's a handsome man, posed for a series of glamour shots in his fine bespoke
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suits, and he's got a BMW, and he's a wealthy man who has, he's a handsome man, but he dresses
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like he's a model, and he drops, I don't know where he gets his money from, but the guy's rich.
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For him to say he's with the working class, it just doesn't really ring true.
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Here's Pierre Polyev, who he accuses of being anti-labor and pro-CEO.
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I just want to give you two clips, and I'm not going to play it long, but this is, I just
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And Pierre Polyev put out a video on Labor Day that I thought, you know what, he is going
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for working class conservatives, sort of like Trump did.
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Trump, the billionaire, well, I think he knew how to talk to the working class.
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Tell me who is going to connect more with workers, fancy-pantsy Jagmeet Singh or fairly
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normal guy, Pierre Polyev, with this kind of a vid.
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A country is built by the people who rise when it is still dark.
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The servers and soldiers, the farmers and factory hands, the nurses and night shift workers,
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often called ordinary people, but they are extraordinary.
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They carry the government on their backs, with little reward.
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But there is a new dawn rising, where hard work is rewarded, where there's affordable food
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and a home in a safe neighbourhood, where everyone gets a fair shot at a good life,
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where common sense is common, and where, after the night, no matter how long or dark,
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So that's Pierre Polyev speaking quite honestly and candidly.
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He practically sounds like a Marxist when he's bashing CEOs as a class.
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And, you know, he's not the kind of guy who would go to, you mentioned Mulroney earlier,
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Mulroney would hang out with the council of CEOs.
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They used to be big players, this council of CEOs, like the plutocrat club.
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Here's Pierre Polyev from a few months ago, where he basically says,
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This is the first time I have spoken to either a chamber of commerce or a board of trade
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since I became leader of the Common Sense Conservatives two years ago.
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During that time, I have spoken at 110 shop floors and five union local facilities.
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And the reason why this is only my first chamber or board of trade
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I love the people who risk their entire worth in order, their entire family savings
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in order to start a business and build their dreams.
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Rather, the reason this is my first time speaking to a business association of this type
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is because my experience with the corporate lobbyists in Ottawa, the main groups there,
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have been that they have been utterly useless in advancing any common sense interests for the people on the ground.
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The corporate lobbyists in Ottawa are focused on getting lunches with ministers at the Rideau Club
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or expecting that politicians are going to do things for them
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without actually convincing the people on the ground of the benefit to them.
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My common sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime
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is a bottom-up free enterprise agenda, not a top-down state capitalism agenda.
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It is not about politicians and CEOs working together for their own interests.
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It is about unleashing the power of free enterprise
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so that workers and entrepreneurs and consumers
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can exchange the voluntary purchase of goods for services,
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goods for dollars, of investment for interest, and of work for wages.
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And when you look at demographic support for Pierre Paulyev,
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I think he's going to get more working-class support than Jagmeet Singh.
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In Trudeau's clip, he talked about the big corporations.
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Who's giving tens of billions of dollars to foreign automakers
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That's not the conservatives, the so-called party of the little guy,
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the coalition between Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau.
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They've given tens of billions of dollars in subsidies
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between American politics and Canadian politics.
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But this week, the New York Times had some fascinating polling numbers
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on swing voters, people who are neither dedicated Democrats
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They tended to be in trades and in skilled positions
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rather than in academic positions or professions.
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it's interesting, it was an interesting combination.
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It was economic, standard of living, cost of living issues
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there are an awful lot of people who are adrift at the moment
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because the two parties that they would normally have chosen
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nor knows how to speak to them, nor understands where they're at
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They're not worried about whether or not there is a capital gains tax
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which is an obsession of both the NDP and the Liberals.
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for you to fill your cart with the food that your family needs.
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And we're going to do everything we can to bring those prices down.
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oh, that's because there are nasty, greedy CEOs
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It's because you put taxes on everything that moves.
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from tilling the soil to driving the trucks to the grocery store
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you've increased the price because you put a carbon tax on it.
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that you drove up inflation on the monetary side.
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And then, you know, you've allowed in last year
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I do not blame the people who have been let in legally
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and reduced the availability of them in the public sector.
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what were potential themes from the federal government
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So, and listen, I hate Loblaws for another reason.
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They were part of the bread price fixing scheme
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worth of bread out of the mouths of poor people.
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talking about people thinking about woke issues.
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It's under, you know, the news talks about official things,
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but what do people talk about at the water cooler
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He always put immigration as an under news issue.
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And that's breaking through into the real news these days
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But transgenderism, people are worried about that.
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And the drug legalization of, quote, safe supply,
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It didn't really, like, I think he took him 30 seconds
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But when he started to talk about drugs and crime again,
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is thrilled with transgenderism, legalized drugs,
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Like you said, I just don't think that's clicking.
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It's like they're generals fighting the last war.
00:31:48.020
But they appointed him because they were hoping,
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in ridings that have large immigrant populations
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and the fact that Trudeau made that announcement
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the Federation of International Swimming Associations,
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and they've adopted them in the last year or two