Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The Chinese spy balloon went over Canada too, but who saw it coming？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. It's great to be back at our world headquarters. As you know, I was in Alberta

00:00:04.060 covering the trial of Pastor Arthur Pavlosky Thursday and Friday. Today, I'm going to talk

00:00:08.560 to you about that crazy spy balloon. And I'm going to ask you, was it a success for China or not?

00:00:14.520 I think you might be able to guess my answer. I'm going to show you footage of the balloon,

00:00:18.920 it being shot down, and I'm going to show you various people opining on it. I really want you

00:00:23.500 to get the video version of this podcast. I want you to see the balloon and seeing it being shot

00:00:28.100 down. I want you to see General Milley give his excuses for China. You can do all that with what

00:00:35.940 we call Rebel News Plus, the video version of the podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com

00:00:40.140 and click subscribe. It's $8 a month. You get the video every day. And we need the $8. I know it

00:00:46.520 doesn't sound like a lot, but if enough people get the $8 a month subscription, we can pay our staff

00:00:51.860 off that because we don't get any ad money from YouTube. We don't get any grant money from Trudeau.

00:00:56.660 And we want to keep it that way. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:12.880 Tonight, what do you think of that Chinese spy balloon? You know, it went over Canada too.

00:01:20.460 It's February 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.

00:01:23.060 You know, I thought it was a joke at first, a balloon sent over from China. I mean,

00:01:43.900 if you've been following the war in Ukraine, you're alive to the threat of high-tech drones

00:01:48.320 and missiles. And if you've been following the threats from North Korea, you know about ICBMs,

00:01:54.020 intercontinental ballistic missiles. But did you see it coming that it would be balloons?

00:02:00.420 I didn't. And in fact, we should ask who did see it coming? Because what I can tell is it was

00:02:07.380 announced to the world, not by the U.S. military, not by NORAD, not by NATO, not by the U.S. president,

00:02:13.840 but by some folks on the ground who just saw it with the naked eye. Here is the ABC News timeline

00:02:21.800 that they put together. Apparently, the balloon was first spotted 10 days ago, January 28th,

00:02:28.740 over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. I think that's what they're saying. Then it went over

00:02:33.180 the Northwest Territories in Canada two days later. I'm laughing at how the ABC graphics department,

00:02:39.000 their map shows. Do you see the northern interior of BC? And they call it SW Canada. I don't know,

00:02:46.620 Southwest Canada. So maybe we're dealing with a less than reputable news agency here with ABC,

00:02:51.440 but I'll keep using it anyways. According to them, the balloon entered U.S. airspace again.

00:02:57.260 So it went through Alaska, then the Northwest Territories in BC. Then it entered the U.S. airspace

00:03:02.520 again on January 31. And then it was publicly filmed by citizens on their, on their cell phones

00:03:09.480 on February 1st, four days after cruising through North America. Here's one of the first citizen

00:03:17.520 journalist reports of it. Okay. That's the moon. It's a little fuzzy out here and it's a kind of a

00:03:24.640 cruddy phone, but it's slightly overcast. But what the heck is that? That's not the sun. And according

00:03:32.760 to my little planet guide, it's not a planet. What the heck is that? Any help would be appreciated.

00:03:43.800 That's John Martin in Montana. He tweeted that video and he asked, quote,

00:03:48.760 any clue as to what this is in the sky? It's moved a little in the past 40 minutes, but

00:03:53.100 it was just as bright in daylight hours. It was literally a UFO, an unidentified flying object,

00:03:59.540 not an alien spaceship, just something that wasn't identified. And the local airport began diverting

00:04:07.000 flights, as you can see. They've changed the headline of this story since the original one,

00:04:13.580 but let me read the line that I want. Quote, on Wednesday, the Billings Logan International Airport

00:04:19.860 was shut down for roughly two hours. Around the same time, many Montanans were noticing an

00:04:25.420 unexplained object in the sky. Shane Kettering, the director of aviation at Billings Logan,

00:04:30.120 says two flights to the airport were diverted and one flight was delayed from taking off while the

00:04:34.480 airspace was closed. The diverted flights were eventually able to land.

00:04:38.300 So my point is, literally five days after this Chinese balloon had been over North America,

00:04:44.700 it still wasn't identified or made public. No officials had said anything. It fell to ordinary

00:04:49.660 citizens to report on it. And local airports had to change air traffic control to accommodate it.

00:04:54.940 No one warned them. I started seeing this on Twitter, and I'll be very candid with you. My first

00:05:00.020 thought was this was some sort of internet joke, a hoax. I'm embarrassed to say that, but I'll explain

00:05:05.420 myself, and it's not a great explanation. I thought, you know, we haven't heard a word from NORAD, from

00:05:11.200 the North American air defense team that's, you know, the treaty between Canada and the U.S. is in

00:05:15.920 charge of protecting the continent. Not a word from the Canadian government, not a word from the U.S.,

00:05:20.580 and surely they would have said something. So surely this was just a fake or something. That's what I

00:05:26.960 thought. I actually still trust authorities to let me know what's going on. I'm foolish, as you could see.

00:05:32.340 No, it was real. The government was just hiding this from us, assuming they had detected it.

00:05:40.320 Here's Joe Biden when he was finally asked about it on Sunday, and he said he wanted to shoot it down

00:05:46.380 last week, but the generals told him that was too dangerous, so they didn't want to do it, and

00:05:51.540 he obeyed them. So he let it finish its journey all across North America, and then only shot it down

00:05:57.920 after it was done. Here, take a listen. The Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible.

00:06:06.220 They decided, without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do

00:06:12.580 that was as it got over water, outside within our, within 12-mile limit. They successfully took it down,

00:06:19.780 and I want to compliment our aviators who did it, and we'll have more to report on this a little

00:06:26.340 later. Thank you.

00:06:27.320 Mr. President, what did you say about China? What's your message to China?

00:06:31.480 You were saying the recommendation was from your national security.

00:06:34.680 I told them to shoot it down.

00:06:36.240 On Wednesday?

00:06:36.980 On Wednesday.

00:06:37.600 But the recommendation from...

00:06:38.440 They said to me, let's wait till the safest place to do it.

00:06:41.200 By the way, the vast majority of North America is uninhabited. I'm talking most emphatically

00:06:47.020 about Alaska and the Northwest Territories. Huge areas, almost no people. The average population

00:06:53.980 density in Alaska is just one person per square mile. But of course, almost all of them are in

00:07:00.680 just... There's only about five cities in Alaska, Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks. So it's literally...

00:07:06.860 If the balloon was literally not above those cities, the real population density outside those

00:07:12.900 cities is a tiny fraction of that, there's no one up there. I once drove through the Northwest...

00:07:20.860 Through the Yukon to Alaska. I think it was 90 minutes before I saw another vehicle. That's

00:07:27.880 how empty it is. Northwest Territory, it's actually more pronounced than in Alaska. The population

00:07:34.100 density is 0.08 people per square mile. And again, if you take out the... There's like

00:07:41.260 five towns in the Northwest Territories. You know, once I flew from Inovic to Tuktuk to

00:07:47.020 Yuktuk, and in that one hour, it was in a small plane, so I was looking down the whole

00:07:51.040 time, we did not see a single human or any evidence of any humans. It was nothing but emptiness.

00:07:57.880 The only thing I did see was there was a crashed airplane on the ground, and I saw an abandoned

00:08:04.540 radar station that was once part of the... It was called the DEW line, the distant early

00:08:08.840 warning line that once provided radar warning of any Soviet attack during the Cold War.

00:08:16.180 Now, the DEW line was replaced about 40 years ago by the North Warning System, which apparently

00:08:22.820 has better technology. Here's a Government of Canada map showing all the different radar stations

00:08:28.800 from this new system. You can see that the balloon would have or should have been detected on many

00:08:35.320 occasions. It basically should have been constantly detected because it was going down the coast pretty

00:08:40.380 much, just setting off radar all the way down. Did it? And if so, why was it kept secret?

00:08:47.760 I do not believe Biden's excuse for not shooting it down earlier. Shooting it down over a

00:08:52.800 lot of people in Alaska or the Northwest Territories or even Northern BC would have had a minuscule

00:08:58.500 risk of hurting someone below. There is no one on the ground other than those few towns in Alaska

00:09:05.040 and Northwest Territories. It is empty. I've been there. Frankly, they could have issued a public

00:09:10.420 warning to anyone in the area, especially in remote areas, but they didn't. That's the point. I really

00:09:16.780 don't think they wanted anyone to know. They thought they could keep it a secret for the Chinese. 0.95

00:09:22.800 When I say they, I mean Trudeau and Biden. Both are deeply committed to China. I mean,

00:09:28.940 they would rather have allowed the balloon, which I think we can assume is a spy balloon,

00:09:33.380 to finish its job rather than to expose China as hostile and active. And yet, even when it was

00:09:39.680 revealed by citizens, they still allowed it to complete its mission before shooting it down.

00:09:45.780 And here's the video of that. Checking Twitter on several different official up. Oh, I believe it

00:09:54.680 just happened there. That was it live, raw and unfiltered. It appears that that China spy balloon.

00:10:02.140 Oh, and it just so happens that the root of the balloon took it over the U.S.'s ICBM fields in North

00:10:07.060 Dakota. I'm sure that was just a coincidence. Why wouldn't the U.S. say, though, where exactly it was

00:10:12.040 going? Were they embarrassed? Why were they keeping China's secrets for them?

00:10:16.200 Position of the balloon classified?

00:10:19.460 Phil, right now, what we're not going to do is get into a hour by hour location of the balloon.

00:10:24.780 Again, we're monitoring it closely. As I mentioned right now, it's over the

00:10:29.280 center of the continental United States. That's about as specific as I'm going to get.

00:10:33.780 I understand it might be inconvenient, but does the public not have a right to know

00:10:36.540 if the balloon is over their state? The public certainly has the ability to look up in the sky

00:10:39.860 and see where the balloon is. I don't get it. What was the thinking about not letting people know?

00:10:45.480 What was the thinking about not stopping it until it was done at spy mission?

00:10:49.940 Was it anything to do with this?

00:10:51.480 There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing

00:11:02.180 them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, we need to go green as fast as we 0.98

00:11:07.500 need to start, you know, investing in solar. I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen

00:11:12.460 Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he could do everything he wanted.

00:11:16.420 Or was it anything to do with this? Joe Biden's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

00:11:20.280 basically the head of the Biden military.

00:11:22.780 As you alluded to in the previous question, China is not an enemy.

00:11:26.460 And I think that's important for people to clearly understand. China is a rising power.

00:11:33.620 China has been a rising power since Deng Xiaoping in 79. And they've been clicking off at 10% 0.98

00:11:39.920 growth for almost 30 years. And they dropped down about 7% last year or two. And they'll

00:11:45.380 probably drop again, you know, and come into the range of normalcy and 3 to 5% growth.

00:11:49.700 But that's still significant economic growth. And there's been a really large historic change

00:11:56.360 from a North Atlantic-based global economy to now it's proceeding to be a North Pacific-based

00:12:03.600 global economy. So with respect to China, what normally happens historically, it's not in all

00:12:11.080 cases, but in most cases, where you have economic growth of that magnitude typically follows military

00:12:17.580 power. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a significant increase in Chinese military

00:12:23.640 capabilities over the last 10 to 20 years. And they are going to develop themselves and are developing

00:12:32.600 themselves into a great power. That is not to say, however, that they are an enemy.

00:12:38.160 Is it anything to do with this?

00:12:39.680 That the Chinese thought wrongly that the United States is going to attack them. I am certain,

00:12:46.260 guaranteed certain, that President Trump had no intent to attack. And it was my task to make

00:12:51.140 sure I communicated that. And the purpose was to de-escalate, calm things down.

00:12:55.980 You shared all that earlier, I understand.

00:12:57.600 And as part of that-

00:12:58.100 And as part of that-

00:12:58.680 Just say, did you or did you not ask, tell him that if we were going to attack,

00:13:03.420 you would let him know?

00:13:04.240 As part of that conversation, I said, General Lee, there's not going to be a war. There's

00:13:08.600 not going to be an attack between great powers. And if there was, the tensions would build up.

00:13:12.480 There'd be calls going back and forth from all kinds of senior officials. I said, hell, General Lee,

00:13:16.100 I'll probably give you a call. But we're not going to attack you. Trust me,

00:13:19.360 we're not going to attack you. These are two great powers. And I am doing my best to transmit

00:13:24.760 the president's intent, President Trump's intent, to ensure that the American people are protected

00:13:29.360 from an incident that could escalate.

00:13:31.700 I understand your intent. But I think you articulating that, that you would tell him,

00:13:37.240 you would give him a call, I think is worthy of your resignation. I just think that's against

00:13:42.980 our country, that you would give our number one adversary that information and tell him that.

00:13:49.180 Yeah, that's the U.S. military boss who convinced Joe Biden not to shoot it down until after

00:13:54.600 it was done. Not that Biden needed much convincing. I mean, his son Hunter Biden

00:14:01.080 did billions of dollars of deals with Communist China, starting when Biden was Obama's VP.

00:14:06.580 I'm guessing Biden didn't need a lot of convincing to let the balloon do its work.

00:14:10.840 What was in the balloon? I don't know. The military shot it down, but hasn't said what they

00:14:16.260 found yet. I wonder if they ever will. Was it just a surveillance device? Was it a weather

00:14:20.320 balloon, like the Chinese said? Could be. I mean, China has spy satellites. They also have

00:14:26.440 commercial aircraft flying into and across the U.S. all the time that I'm sure have electronic

00:14:30.940 sensors in them. They have thousands of human agents on the ground, let alone hundreds of

00:14:36.220 official diplomats, many of whom are Chinese spies. And of course, so much information is willingly

00:14:41.600 given to China. If you're on the app TikTok on your phone, China pretty much knows everything about 0.89

00:14:47.360 you. How many soldiers on military bases have that app in their phones? Who knows what that balloon

00:14:54.740 was? Some people wonder if it was a test for an EMP attack, electromagnetic pulse, to detonate a

00:15:02.700 nuclear device at that high height that would not kill people, but it would fry electronic communications

00:15:10.460 across America. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was something more sinister, like testing out a

00:15:15.300 bioweapon delivery system. I don't know. In the end, a $200 million F-22 fighter jet and a $400,000

00:15:25.060 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile took out the balloon after a week. My point about the cost of those weapons is

00:15:33.420 this. How much do you think that balloon cost? Apparently there are more balloons going on now

00:15:40.020 too, but what would the cost of a balloon be? Now, I don't know what the payload was, whether it's a

00:15:45.100 bomb, a bioweapon, some spy sensors, but what would a balloon cost? I just Googled high altitude balloons

00:15:52.860 balloons. And here's one for sale for $159. Here's the Canadian government on stratospheric

00:16:03.180 balloons. They don't give a dollar amount, but they say this, these balloons require no engine

00:16:08.520 and no fuel and are fully recovered after each flight. They can reach altitudes of up to 42 kilometers,

00:16:15.860 holding their instrument packages aloft for several hours. Some balloons can even conduct

00:16:20.860 long duration flights lasting days, weeks, and even months. Stratospheric balloons are a platform

00:16:26.500 of choice for scientists and engineers as they can be used to test and advance space science for

00:16:32.480 far less than the cost of a satellite, up to 40 times less, and provide an opportunity to carry out

00:16:37.940 concrete scientific experiments in a short period of time and attain results quickly. Yeah, or use them

00:16:44.200 for spying. So what was the price of the Chinese balloon? Was it even $50,000? Was it even $5,000?

00:16:54.880 If even. And so what if they don't send one? What if they send not one, but $1,000? What if they sent $10,000?

00:17:06.620 You know, it's just a fraction of the cost of the F-22. You know, that's how drone warfare over

00:17:14.460 Ukraine is being conducted right now, sending not one drone, but swarms of drones, each one costing

00:17:20.760 maybe a few thousand dollars. What are you going to do, scramble a $200 million fighter jet

00:17:25.020 after a week of indecision? And in the end, that's what I think this actually was. I don't necessarily

00:17:33.440 think it was about an electromagnetic pulse. I don't think it was about a biohazard. I don't

00:17:38.340 even think it was about spying, though I think that happened. I think it was testing something else.

00:17:45.040 I think it was testing America under Joe Biden and Canada under Justin Trudeau.

00:17:50.440 And the test was a spectacular success for China. Trudeau and Biden either didn't spot the balloon,

00:17:57.480 which would be a huge success for China, or they spotted the balloon and chose to keep it a secret

00:18:02.860 from their own public, which would be a huge success for China. Then Canada and the U.S. refused

00:18:10.460 to shoot it down until it was done its mission. Big success for China. And here's the totality of 0.99

00:18:17.060 America's political response. This is unbelievable. I'd just like to briefly address the presence of

00:18:22.640 the Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace. I spoke this morning with director of the CCP

00:18:29.460 Central Foreign Affairs Office, Wang Yi, to convey that, in light of China's unacceptable action,

00:18:35.060 I am postponing my planned travel this weekend to China.

00:18:38.760 As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali in November

00:18:45.360 that I would travel to Beijing to follow up on their discussions. We've been working across the U.S.

00:18:50.960 government to prepare for a substantive set of discussions on issues that matter to the American

00:18:55.060 people and to people around the world. And we've been engaging for some time with our counterparts

00:18:59.860 in Beijing to prepare for these meetings. Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced that we had

00:19:06.420 detected and we're tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United

00:19:12.180 States. We continue to track and monitor the balloon closely. We're confident this is a Chinese 1.00

00:19:18.660 surveillance balloon. Once we detected the balloon, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect

00:19:24.820 against the collection of sensitive information. We communicated with the PRC government directly

00:19:30.020 through multiple channels about this issue. Members of my team consulted with our partners in other

00:19:36.260 agencies and in Congress. We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence

00:19:42.340 of the surveillance balloon in our airspace. We concluded that conditions were not conducive

00:19:48.420 for a constructive visit at this time. In my call today with Director Wang Yi, I made clear that

00:19:55.380 the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty

00:20:01.060 and international law, that it's an irresponsible act, and that the PRC's decision to take this action

00:20:07.460 on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared

00:20:12.180 to have. I told Director Wang that the United States remains committed to diplomatic engagement with

00:20:18.740 China and that I plan to visit Beijing when conditions allow. That's the Secretary of State

00:20:24.180 Anthony Blinken. So no sanctions, no military response, no deporting of Chinese diplomats, no

00:20:29.940 tariffs on Chinese imports, no banning Communist Party members' children from going to school in America,

00:20:36.340 nothing. Just the pitiful Secretary of State saying he's going to postpone his trip to China,

00:20:41.460 but he's still absolutely committed to still coming to China and working collegially with them. Don't

00:20:46.500 worry about that. It was almost an apology to China, which is actually what China sort of asked for.

00:20:55.780 Beijing registered its strong discontent and protest after the U.S. shot down a Chinese

00:21:02.580 spy balloon on Saturday, but there may be little it can do to retaliate. Hang on,

00:21:08.340 the New York Times is suggesting that maybe China should retaliate against America. That's a political

00:21:15.300 option here. As if they were the ones who were wronged here. Should America retaliate? The New

00:21:20.820 York Times never contemplates that. What a disaster for us. Hey, what do you think Donald Trump would

00:21:26.660 have done had this happen on his watch? Well, that's a trick question. Do you think for a second that the

00:21:32.260 Chinese dictators would have dreamed of sending over such a provocation during Trump's tenure?

00:21:37.620 Of course not, precisely because none of us actually know what Trump would have done.

00:21:42.260 And the fear of the unknown would have held China at bay, as it held the world at bay for four 0.97

00:21:46.820 peaceful years under Trump's presidency, as it held Putin at bay. Putin, who invaded Ukraine under Obama

00:21:52.820 before Trump and who invaded Ukraine under Biden after Trump, but didn't dare invade anybody during

00:21:59.060 Trump. I saw this laughable story in the regime media. They're now claiming that, oh, in fact,

00:22:07.140 yes, this absolutely happened several times when Trump was president, other than the small detail of

00:22:12.580 no one knew anything about it. No one saw it. And Trump was never briefed on it. But oh, no,

00:22:17.220 no, no. Trust us, guys. This did happen and Trump didn't do anything. Yeah, sure. No one believes that

00:22:21.700 other than the media party. And up here in Canada, well, here's our defense minister, Anita Anand.

00:22:30.500 We deployed a Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora long-range patrol aircraft to strengthen efforts to

00:22:36.640 disrupt gang activity in Haiti. This aircraft will provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

00:22:43.140 and bolster efforts to establish peace and security for the Haitian people.

00:22:48.100 Got it. So the Haitian people will be secure. When will the Canadian people be secure?

00:22:54.100 Here's Anita Anand again on the weekend. She said today a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft departed

00:23:01.700 Halifax carrying the first Leopard 2 main battle tank that Canada is sending to Ukraine. Canada stands

00:23:08.980 with the people of Ukraine and will continue to provide Ukraine's armed forces with the equipment that

00:23:13.060 they need to win. I'm not sure if sending one Cold War era tank to Ukraine is going to tip the balance

00:23:19.620 of war there. Not sure Canada has too many such tanks that are actually operational. Not sure who's going

00:23:24.820 to operate the tanks in Ukraine, who's going to maintain them, who's going to train the Ukrainians 0.98

00:23:29.220 to use them. Not quite sure of any of that. But it was good for a photo op. I do know one thing,

00:23:35.220 though. Anita Anand has made literally hundreds of announcements about security for Haiti and Ukraine,

00:23:41.380 but her sole comment about China's balloon was this one press release. Certainly not a video or

00:23:47.940 a public statement. And the sternest language she could muster was that the balloon, quote,

00:23:52.820 violated U.S. and Canadian airspace and international law. Yes, we know that, sister.

00:23:57.220 The question is, what are you going to do about it? Nothing. No condemnation of China,

00:24:03.860 no repudiation or denunciation, no threat, no demand, no retaliation, no end to the joint

00:24:09.300 Canada-China military projects of which we know there are plenty. She said more about fighting Haitian 0.69

00:24:16.100 gangs this past weekend than about defending our airspace. Like I say, a complete and utter success

00:24:25.460 for China's dictatorship. If I were Taiwan, I'd be pretty worried. Stay with us for more. 0.89

00:24:31.540 The President

00:24:46.980 Yes. Now, by the way, I'm going to add just on that. Decriminalization has been in place in BC now since

00:24:53.060 about 2017. In reality, the results are in. The debate is over. It has been a disaster. An

00:25:01.140 absolute abject failure. You'd not only need to take a walk down the streets of East Vancouver,

00:25:08.100 where addicts lay face first on the pavement, where people are living permanently in tents and

00:25:13.380 encampments. But you just need to look at the data. A 300% increase in drug overdose deaths in British

00:25:21.700 Columbia since Trudeau took office eight years ago. The Trudeau NDP approach is on open display in

00:25:29.460 Vancouver. It is a complete disaster. It is hell on earth. We're going to reverse that policy and we're

00:25:37.060 going to reverse and we're going to replace it with recovery and treatment. That's what works. And again,

00:25:42.660 the debate is over on that as well. In Alberta, they doubled the number of treatment beds from

00:25:47.940 4,000 to 8,000. And they've cut in half the number of overdoses. We need to save our brothers,

00:25:52.740 our sisters, our neighbors, our friends from the scourge of drug addiction. And a quality of

00:25:57.780 government will make sure there is treatment and recovery to do that.

00:26:00.100 Well, Justin Trudeau loves to say how well things are going and certainly they're going

00:26:05.140 well for him. But I note that he does condemn Canada quite often when he is outside of our

00:26:12.500 own country. It's very strange to see a world leader on an international stage talking down

00:26:18.740 Canada. If anything, it should be the reverse. He should be boasting about his country, my country,

00:26:23.700 right or wrong. When he's abroad and when he's at home, he should be tucking into the problems we have

00:26:29.300 with Trudeau. It's the reverse. And it's very strange, especially when Trudeau accuses Canada

00:26:35.940 of genocide, an extreme statement that he just won't stop saying, because not surprisingly, that

00:26:44.180 is thrown back at us when we actually accuse real genociders like, for example, communist China doing 0.53

00:26:50.340 the same thing. Well, Pierre Polyev, the leader of the Conservative Party, has been using a phrase

00:26:56.820 domestically, not abroad, that Canada, or at least big parts of it, are broken.

00:27:03.940 Here is Pierre Polyev with a recent video talking especially about the declining state of safety

00:27:11.940 and health in one of the great cities in this country, Vancouver, BC. Take a look at Pierre Polyev.

00:27:16.980 Do you ever feel like everything's broken in Canada? I mean, here we are. The most beautiful

00:27:22.740 place in the world, beautiful British Columbia, the Pacific, the Vancouver skyline, and another

00:27:28.260 tent city. In that tent city are people hopelessly addicted to drugs, putting poisons in their bodies.

00:27:37.300 They've probably lost their homes, their families. They've lost control of their lives and they might lose

00:27:43.620 their lives altogether. Just today we learned that British Columbia is on track to have over 2,000

00:27:50.260 drug overdose deaths this year alone. That is a 300% increase from 2015 when Justin Trudeau took office.

00:28:01.940 These are Canadian citizens who are losing their lives. They could be your sister, your brother,

00:28:07.380 your daughter, your son. They could even be your parents. This can happen to anyone. Many people got

00:28:13.540 hooked on these drugs by taking them first as medications and then increasing their dosage and

00:28:20.180 eventually becoming outright addicts. It's not just crack cocaine and methamphetamines, but it's opioids

00:28:26.260 that are in the same family of drugs that are often prescribed or over-prescribed. But the addictions that

00:28:34.020 we see that have terrorized these people and our communities, they are the result of a failed experiment.

00:28:43.620 This is a deliberate policy by woke liberal and NDP governments to provide taxpayer-funded drugs,

00:28:53.460 flood our streets with easy access to these poisons. A powerful social media video that has been seen

00:29:00.900 a great many times while Trudeau has been attacking Polyev for talking this way, not just in response to

00:29:07.620 that latest video, but for weeks. Trudeau has said anyone who criticizes Canada or points out our

00:29:13.620 failures is talking us down. Here he is in mid-January making that very point. Mr. Polyev might choose to

00:29:21.940 undermine our democracy by amplifying conspiracy theories. He might decide to run away from journalists when they

00:29:29.860 ask him tough questions. That's how he brands himself and that's his choice. But when he says that Canada

00:29:39.140 is broken, that's where we draw the line. This is Canada.

00:29:44.100 And in Canada, better is always possible. But I don't accept Canadians and politicians that talk down our

00:30:00.740 country. Let me be very clear for the record. Canada is not broken.

00:30:15.140 Well, isn't it the job of the official opposition to oppose? Isn't it the job of both the official

00:30:20.980 opposition and the Prime Minister to recognize Canada's problems and, you know, fix what's broken?

00:30:27.300 Joining us now via Skype from British Columbia is our friend Aaron Gunn, a filmmaker and social

00:30:33.700 commentator who knows a lot about this subject. He is the filmmaker behind the enormously popular

00:30:39.620 viral video called Vancouver's Dying. And he joins us now. Aaron, great to see you again. What do you make

00:30:46.900 of this quarrel between Polyev and Trudeau? Is it possible to say Canada is broken, or at least parts of Canada

00:30:56.180 are broken while still being a hopeful patriot? Yeah, I think that's the story of any democracy is

00:31:03.940 you want to be pointing out where things aren't going so well and where they can be improved.

00:31:08.500 And if you've traveled to parts of Vancouver and you've traveled to the downtown east side specifically,

00:31:14.100 which is the part of the country that Polyev was mentioning and referring to, then I don't know how you

00:31:21.140 can think things aren't broken. Here in British Columbia, we have an overdose crisis that's, you

00:31:28.900 know, there used to be 150 people dying every year from overdose. Now it's over 2000. We have crime

00:31:34.100 that's rampant every day in Vancouver. There are four random violent stranger attacks every single day.

00:31:41.780 Uh, you just have this, this homelessness that's all over this place. There's general degeneracy

00:31:46.980 needles on the sidewalk, on sidewalks and parks. And, uh, there's lots of, you know, there's

00:31:52.740 neighborhoods of Vancouver where people don't feel safe to walk anymore. And that's, I don't think

00:31:56.740 that should be acceptable. And I think Polyev is, is correct in pointing that out. You know, I was

00:32:02.740 shocked the last time I visited San Francisco. This was in 2019 before the lockdowns. And even then it was

00:32:10.180 coming apart, even in very wealthy neighborhoods in San Francisco has some staggering wealth

00:32:15.620 in part because of Silicon Valley, you see shocking, not just homelessness, but, but what is

00:32:22.660 happening in these permanent shanty towns. It, it didn't feel like North America, San Francisco, 1.00

00:32:28.180 LA, parts of Portland and Washington, but don't think Vancouver is immune. I think that the downtown

00:32:37.140 east side, lower east side has just been, sorry, the downtown east side, excuse me, East Hastings

00:32:40.980 street has been turned into some sort of holy place by the media party that you just have to accept it

00:32:50.260 and you have to work with it and you have to respect it as opposed to fix it. I think

00:32:55.540 we actually know more about the urban decay in American cities than we do about the urban decay in

00:33:01.540 our own cities. It's a weird thing. And I think Trudeau is how dare you, how dare you point this out

00:33:07.140 as part of that. They just want everyone to be in a conspiracy of silence about it.

00:33:12.900 Yeah. It's almost as if, well, I think the media is trying to gaslight Canadians, that this should be,

00:33:17.060 this is normal, that we should be accepting this. And the fact is when you travel around the world,

00:33:21.300 what's, what's happening in the downtown east side in Vancouver and other Canadian cities is not normal.

00:33:26.420 And it shouldn't be surprising that when you see other cities starting to copy and paste the same

00:33:31.940 policies that have been implemented in Vancouver over the past 20 years, you get the exact same

00:33:37.380 results. And of course, what are they pushing now where you have a decriminalization of fentanyl,

00:33:44.180 crack cocaine and crystal meth is supposed to be somehow solved the problem. And what these activists

00:33:50.820 and ID logs actually want, which is tax payer funded supply of hard drugs in perpetuity,

00:33:57.700 and that we just have to kind of accept this and treat it as some sort of palliative issue.

00:34:02.100 And if that's not indicative of how broken parts of Canada are, I'm not sure what is.

00:34:07.700 You know, it's terrible. I don't know the death toll that COVID viruses had in British Columbia. I

00:34:14.820 don't want to guess without looking it up. But of course, most of those for people who are very old,

00:34:19.700 average age of a deceased from COVID was in the high 70s. Average victim had several comorbidities.

00:34:28.020 Whereas you just gave us a figure, and I'm just still reeling from what you said,

00:34:31.940 2,000 overdose deaths a year. And those are mainly young people in their 20s and 30s, maybe in their

00:34:40.100 40s. These are people who would naturally have had their whole life ahead of them. So it's not,

00:34:46.100 and of course, any death is a tragedy, but someone dying at 75 from a virus is, I think,

00:34:53.220 far different than someone dying at 30 from a completely preventable social ill. We haven't

00:34:59.300 had a fraction of the care, the concern, the social interventionism for 2,000 overdose deaths,

00:35:06.660 deaths as we've had for a similar number of COVID deaths.

00:35:11.780 Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head there, Ezra. These are young people. These are people

00:35:15.060 that had their whole lives in front of them. They're, you know, they're sons and daughters.

00:35:18.660 They had the potential to be productive taxpaying members of society to raise their own families,

00:35:24.660 or in some cases, they're leaving families behind. And it's a staggering number. It takes a while to

00:35:30.180 comprehend it. 2,000 deaths a year, preventable deaths a year, just in British Columbia,

00:35:36.740 of predominantly young Canadians. I mean, think about that. I remember when we were losing,

00:35:41.700 you know, obviously, tragically, a couple dozen a year in Afghanistan across the entire country.

00:35:48.340 And that, of course, was a tragedy. We're talking 2,000 young people just in BC alone,

00:35:54.100 every single year. You know, over 10,000, you know, if you go back over this past decade, pretty much.

00:36:00.420 And it's a staggering death toll. And we have these bodies piling up on top of each other,

00:36:08.180 as you also alluded to, at least in the first year, much higher than COVID was. And yet we don't

00:36:15.060 want to talk about it, or the solution is just to throw more drugs at the problem.

00:36:18.980 Yeah. You know, I just checked really quickly there. And indeed,

00:36:22.180 the number of COVID deaths in BC is around 2,400. And of course, every one of them is a 1.00

00:36:27.860 lost father, mother, et cetera. But to have that annual death toll, and by the way,

00:36:34.740 there is a demographic aspect to this. A lot of the people in that terrible condition are indigenous 1.00

00:36:41.300 people. A lot of them are mentally ill. They have some challenges besides just being addicts. And I think

00:36:49.300 that the fact that this is encouraged, this is almost curated, that this is so completely approved

00:36:57.700 of, I think is a terrible, not only a bigotry of low expectations, but it's almost as if

00:37:03.220 the entire welfare state, all these social workers and politicians and activists,

00:37:09.540 they want this misery because it gives them a justification for their perpetual fight.

00:37:15.540 That if these people were ever helped out, cleaned up, get put into some proper system,

00:37:22.900 taken off the streets, well, then what would this entire industry, there's an entire industry built up

00:37:28.820 around this downtown east side in Vancouver. Don't kid yourself. There are people who

00:37:36.660 hundreds, there's probably several, for every person on the street, there's probably several

00:37:41.380 several bureaucrats, agencies working. It's a cottage industry keeping people miserable. I don't know. I,

00:37:48.580 I, I just think that the old saying, you know, that in a definition of insanity is doing the same

00:37:55.380 thing and expecting a different result. It's just getting worse, isn't it?

00:38:00.180 Yes. The, it's the poverty industrial complex. That's what I call it. There's, there's groups

00:38:04.900 making hundreds of millions of dollars, these so-called nonprofits that aren't that, you know,

00:38:09.700 people are making huge salaries that are running, um, that are off of the suffering of others. Now,

00:38:15.700 I think I really want to point out what really frustrates me, Ezra, is the hypocrisy,

00:38:20.980 because if Justin Trudeau or any of these big wood politicians, if their, uh, children had the,

00:38:27.700 fell into the unfortunate circumstance of becoming addicted to drugs, uh, becoming addicted to opioids,

00:38:33.380 you think the solution for them would be, oh, here's a safe supply of crystal meth or heroin or

00:38:39.140 fentanyl. And we're just going to warehouse you in some crime-ridden hotel where everyone's

00:38:43.460 surrounding you is doing drugs. No, that's not the solution they would get. They would get proper

00:38:47.300 treatment and rehabilitation, abstinence-based treatment and rehabilitation. But when it comes

00:38:52.340 to all these other people, these minority groups, like indigenous Canadians, as you mentioned,

00:38:56.900 apparently the solution for them is we're just going to throw drugs at them and then, and then put

00:39:01.220 them away in some shanty hotel. I don't think that's something that, I don't think that's the solution. 1.00

00:39:07.220 I mean, it's, it's, uh, just perpetuating the problem and perpetuating that industry, uh,

00:39:12.180 as you pointed out, instead of actually getting people clean and, uh, returning them to being

00:39:16.660 taxpaying members of society, which is what would be best for them would be best for the community

00:39:21.780 and best for taxpayers ultimately over the longterm. Yeah, that's a great point. And there's a classism

00:39:26.980 to it. Also, I want to show you a video and really there's a new video like this every day from

00:39:32.340 Toronto. You're out there in BC, Vancouver, one of the most amazing cities in the country. Toronto,

00:39:37.380 the biggest city in the country, uh, has a spate of crime on the, the Toronto Transit Commission.

00:39:44.740 Those are the buses and the subway stations. And a lot of it is drug fueled and mental health issues

00:39:51.300 too. And the answer by Toronto's mayor is we'll have a national summit. Oh, is that what we're missing?

00:39:57.620 More politicians jetting together to have a little gab fest, uh, over some nice wine. Um,

00:40:03.460 and you are so right that if it were Justin Trudeau's kids on drugs, they wouldn't be given a

00:40:08.900 safe supply. They would be fixed. And if it was John Tory's family, well, they only ride in limos.

00:40:14.020 Here's a quick clip from the streets of Toronto. Yesterday's attack of an elderly woman here on

00:40:19.380 Yonge Street is just the latest in violent incidents that have happened throughout the city. And it's been

00:40:25.860 enough to incite fear among residents and those visiting our city as well. We've definitely

00:40:32.180 noticed quite an escalation in violence. Like it's pretty scary riding the TTC. Um, even having my

00:40:39.220 headphones in, it's just, I don't know, it's kind of like risk now that you have to consider. In addition

00:40:44.980 to an 89 year old woman being pushed and killed on Yonge Street, last night a woman in her 20s was

00:40:51.460 suffering from stab wounds to her abdomen after being found at Dundas subway station. Police were

00:40:57.620 told the incident happened at York University before she made her way downtown. A man in his 50s

00:41:03.700 was arrested Friday afternoon after trying to push another person onto the subway tracks at Bloor Yonge

00:41:10.100 station. To be honest with you, this part of the city, uh, I'm usually afraid to come to this part of the

00:41:15.780 city. Uh, so I don't come that often. Yeah. There's a, there's a madness, but there's a classism too. And

00:41:21.380 I'm not a Marxist, but the little people can live with it. The fancy people live in gated communities,

00:41:27.300 only travel in, you know, uh, fancy vehicles. Certainly they would never go public transit and,

00:41:34.180 uh, sucks to be you if you're on the downtown East side, just incredible. Tell us before we go

00:41:40.180 a little bit more about the wild success of your movie, Vancouver's dying. We showed it before.

00:41:46.740 This was very important right before the Vancouver municipal election, where the NDP

00:41:53.380 mayor was thrown out quite a surprise to me and a support the police. I would call him conservative

00:41:59.780 mayor came in again. It was delightful news to an outsider like me. Give me one more minute,

00:42:06.100 reminding our viewers about your film, which I really think helped make the difference out there.

00:42:10.820 Vancouver's dying. Give us a word on that while we play some B roll of it in the background.

00:42:16.180 Yeah. Thank you for that. That's right. Yeah. The Vancouver is dying documentary, uh, really opened my

00:42:21.220 eyes. It was a, it was a big topic to tackle, but it's a really blown up since we released it back in

00:42:26.260 October. It's got about 2.5 million views on YouTube, um, and a couple hundred thousand in other

00:42:33.380 places on the internet, but, um, it just tackled the problem and tried to drill down to what is the

00:42:38.580 common denominator with all these overdose deaths, uh, massive increases in crime and, uh, ramp and,

00:42:45.700 you know, homelessness everywhere you look in, in parts of Vancouver and, and really drilled down to

00:42:50.340 the, to this drug addiction, uh, crisis that is being fueled by poor government policies.

00:42:56.500 And, um, and we just talked to the experts and talk to people that talk to people living on the

00:43:01.540 downtown East side, talk to people that were in recovery. And, um, I think it just, you know,

00:43:06.740 as an expose, cause just, as you pointed out earlier, you know, the mainstream media doesn't

00:43:10.340 want to talk about this issue. So, um, uh, we decided to, to go on the ground and, and do the

00:43:16.100 journalism that, uh, they weren't doing. Well, it, it made a difference. It's one of those times

00:43:21.220 where telling a story makes a difference in the world. Sometimes it's just, you know,

00:43:26.340 blather talk, not action. But I think your movie was one of those times when ideas changed the

00:43:33.220 course of the world just a little bit. And in the city of Vancouver, I think your movie did,

00:43:36.980 by the way, we'll have a link to Vancouver is dying. You can watch it directly. I'll put a link

00:43:41.940 to it under this video. You can find it, Aaron, always a pleasure when you're doing something.

00:43:46.980 I know it's something to watch. You're always fighting for freedom and prosperity and a safer

00:43:51.380 community. We can hardly wait to see what you do next. Let us know what you're up to,

00:43:54.740 because we're always riveted by it. Vancouver is such an important city. We're glad that we

00:43:58.980 have reporters out there now these days. Of course, our friend, Drea Humphrey is doing 0.88

00:44:02.900 outstanding work there and, uh, look forward to your next move also, Aaron. Great to see you.

00:44:08.180 Thank you for having me, Ezra. All right. It's our pleasure. There you have it, Aaron Gunn.

00:44:11.860 Stay with us. More ahead.

00:44:24.740 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Steve Z says, thanks, Ezra. I actually lived in Alberta

00:44:30.020 for three years, but had to flee back to Ontario because I was set up by the police. It can be a

00:44:34.900 scary place. Could the good pastor story be paralleled with the hugely unjust Julian Assange

00:44:39.940 saga for wider exposure? There seem to be similarities. Regards. Uh, thanks, Steve Z. Um, I don't think it's

00:44:47.220 comparable at all to Julian Assange. He published internal military documents that embarrassed the

00:44:53.940 military. The military claims that it exposed U.S. secret allies around the world, and he's been

00:45:00.820 jailed for years without a substantive trial. You can have different opinions on Julian Assange.

00:45:07.380 Um, I think I was very hostile to him in the beginning, but I, I think I've softened my stance. I think I,

00:45:13.300 I, I, uh, took his critics line as the gospel. Whatever you think of Julian Assange, the case

00:45:20.180 of Arthur Pawlowski is completely different. Arthur Pawlowski served a few, you know, 51 days in

00:45:26.100 prison grand total, but he has not been languishing for years and years. He's had trials and actually

00:45:31.780 he's won those trials. And what he's on trial for is not receiving or publishing secret government

00:45:37.540 documents, but rather for making a public speech, encouraging peaceful truckers to hold the line

00:45:46.260 at their protest. So the comparison is not apt at all. But here's the difference that I think is

00:45:52.980 important. Julian Assange is an Australian in the UK being deported to America. Arthur Pawlowski is a

00:46:00.900 Canadian on trial in Canada for a speech he gave in Canada. That terrifies me more.

00:46:08.180 Pamela writes, hi Ezra. I'm a big fan of yours. Great work covering the World Economic Forum.

00:46:12.420 And I loved your interview with Noor Bin Laden to spin off her comment on the importance of educating

00:46:17.380 the public on the founding fathers of America and how historically the USA has been the wedge

00:46:21.380 between the global agenda and freedom. The one company that I think has been doing a fantastic job

00:46:26.500 with educating the public and most importantly children on conservative values and the founding

00:46:30.260 fathers of America has been PragerU. Perhaps an interview with Dennis Prager or Marissa Strait.

00:46:36.020 Additionally, a great app I've discovered is Angel Studios and they have a fantastic cartoon for kids

00:46:40.820 called Tuttle Twins, whereby they visit the past via a time machine with their Cuban grandma and visit

00:46:46.660 the founding fathers, etc. Well, first of all, thank you for your compliments. I'm not familiar with that

00:46:52.740 app or Tuttle Twins, so I can't speak to them. PragerU, though, I am quite familiar with.

00:46:58.180 They're very strong in terms of freedom. They have hundreds of millions of views, probably billions

00:47:02.500 of views. And I have had the pleasure of being at a Democracy Fund event where Dennis Prager and a

00:47:10.260 colleague were talking about freedom, not just in America, but in Canada. So I agree with you.

00:47:14.580 I'm PragerU and I thank you for your compliments. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow,

00:47:20.020 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night,

00:47:23.780 and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - February 07, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The Chinese spy balloon went over Canada too, but who saw it coming？

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