Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The fine line between access and antagonism： An interview with Andrew Lawton

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, a feature interview with our friend Andrew Lawton, senior journalist at

00:00:06.200 True North. I like Andrew for so many reasons, including I like seeing him when he's doing

00:00:11.380 journalism around the world. And last I saw him was in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum.

00:00:15.800 And he took a slightly different approach than we did, and it was very successful. Ours was

00:00:20.900 successful too, as you know. We'll talk with him about the World Economic Forum, Pierre Polyev,

00:00:25.760 and many other things in Canada. That's ahead on this special interview edition. But first,

00:00:31.380 let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of the show.

00:00:34.980 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe, eight bucks a month. And that's how we live,

00:00:40.820 my friends, because we do not take money from Trudeau and never will. All right, here's today's show.

00:00:55.760 Tonight, a feature interview with senior journalist at True North, Andrew Lawton. It's February 20th,

00:01:08.240 and this is The Ezra LeVant Show. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:25.140 Well, as you know, we always have a show on statutory holidays. It's just a tradition we have.

00:01:30.340 And one of the things we love to do is take the time to have an extended interview with someone we

00:01:34.860 find particularly interesting or an expert in a subject. And my friend Andrew Lawton is both

00:01:40.940 of those things. What I love about him is he fights for freedom, but because he's with True North,

00:01:47.200 which is, I'm going to say, 5% better behaved than Rebel News, he often gets into places where we

00:01:54.180 don't go. But I still get to hang out with him in the field. For example, I saw him in Davos,

00:02:00.540 Switzerland, covering the World Economic Forum. Without further ado, let's bring on our friend,

00:02:05.460 Andrew Lawton. Great to see you, Andrew. Nice to have you in the studio. Last I saw you,

00:02:10.600 we were actually at the World Economic Forum. I thought that was a fascinating event. I had never

00:02:16.660 been to it before. Was that the first time you were there as well? No, I went for the first time last

00:02:23.000 May when they had their first- Oh, right. Sorry, I knew that. That's right. I forgot about that. That's

00:02:26.760 right. So you're an old timer. You know your way around. Yeah, I'm a WEF veteran now. I will say,

00:02:32.480 though, I went in May. This most recent visit was my first time as a quote-unquote accredited

00:02:38.280 journalist. So I was actually able to get into some of the spaces this time around.

00:02:43.080 Right. And that's a fascinating balance because you get access to these VVIPs, but you've got to be,

00:02:52.160 you know, polite enough that you don't get the boot. Like there's some rules and it's walking a fine

00:02:58.080 line. And when I spotted Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer on the street, Avi Amini and I really

00:03:03.740 grilled them tough. I get the feeling if I had done that inside, I probably would have been kicked

00:03:08.680 out. Don't you think? Yeah. And I should say that the many different guidelines I was given as far as

00:03:15.480 what I can do and where I can go, none of it was focused on content. None of it was that you can't ask

00:03:21.320 tough questions. A lot of it was focused on spaces though, where you can't actually record in this space

00:03:27.760 and conveniently those spaces are where a lot of these VVIPs are milling about grabbing their coffee,

00:03:33.880 their juice and whatever. But, you know, I will say I was able to talk to people. I was able to do

00:03:38.900 interviews and my approach going into this was that I'm not going to change my coverage based on the

00:03:45.300 fact that I have credentials because I felt I had a job to do and that was that. So I didn't pull any

00:03:50.820 punches in that sense. Well, you managed to buttonhole some very serious players and I think you did a

00:03:56.300 great job. And I mean, I think there's pluses and minuses to both approaches. I loved what we did

00:04:02.000 with Albert Bourla, but you're right. Had we been at like a juice bar or a coffee bar, that would have

00:04:06.960 been forbidden. And fair enough because they, I mean, you don't want a guest at a conference to be

00:04:13.500 antagonized everywhere. I get it. What was your favorite interview? I'd love to show our viewers a

00:04:19.600 clip from what you thought was the most interesting interaction you had.

00:04:23.080 Oh, that's a tough one. I think one of the most substantive was an exchange I did with Dame

00:04:30.360 Melanie Dawes, who is the woman in charge of Ofcom, which is the broadcast regulator in the UK. And

00:04:38.260 the reason I think this is relevant to people in Canada and elsewhere as well is that Ofcom is

00:04:43.640 Britain's CRTC. And Britain is going through something very similar to what's happening in

00:04:48.900 Canada right now with Bill C-11, which is expanding the authority of its broadcast regulator to include

00:04:55.800 the internet. So the big question is why was a woman like this at Davos and why does her organization 0.93

00:05:02.660 take a censorship approach when it's supposed to be just deciding about broadcast spectrum and who can

00:05:09.120 be on what channel and these sorts of things?

00:05:11.120 You know, I want to show a clip of that. I think Ofcom, they are like the CRTC and they're quite

00:05:19.920 aggressive in their investigations and they're quite political. Here, let's play a clip of you

00:05:25.520 talking to the British regulator, a bit of a premonition of what might come to the internet

00:05:30.720 here in Canada. Let's take a look.

00:05:32.720 I was just wondering if I could ask you about whether you think Ofcom is being fair in enforcing

00:05:36.940 its COVID misinformation policy against very legitimate discourse about COVID.

00:05:42.080 Well, I'm not quite sure what you mean, to be honest.

00:05:44.520 Well, people that have spoken about vaccine injuries have received Ofcom complaints and

00:05:48.640 investigations and broadcast licenses are in jeopardy of people that talk about very real issues.

00:05:53.680 I just don't think that we've, I guess I'm not sure it's very hard to answer that question

00:05:59.460 without a specific instance.

00:06:01.020 GB News is facing investigations.

00:06:02.760 Well, there are sometimes cases where we open up an investigation, but, you know, let's

00:06:06.980 see how that goes. What we're absolutely clear about is that freedom of expression is incredibly

00:06:11.120 important in our, the way that we deal with the broadcasting code. So people are absolutely

00:06:16.060 entitled to express views. So we always abide by those principles whenever we're looking into

00:06:21.000 anything.

00:06:21.800 So do you believe that discussing vaccine injury should be allowed?

00:06:24.980 Certainly, absolutely. Free and frank and open conversations are always good on any topic.

00:06:29.620 Well, good for you. And you also talk to other, I mean, Chrystia Freeland, I know you've engaged

00:06:35.140 with Mark Carney before that there are Canadians who love going to this thing. And I can understand

00:06:42.600 why, you know, Canada is a smaller pond in terms of oligarchs and influencers than the world. And,

00:06:53.520 you know, you can be the deputy prime minister of Canada and start to feel it's sort of small for

00:06:59.300 your ambitions. You go to Davos and, well, there's Xi Jinping, there's George Soros, there's Al Gore,

00:07:05.180 there's Albert Bulla. You're, you're in a whole different league. I think the Canadians sort of suck 1.00

00:07:10.640 up to Davos. They, they think it's where the fanciest Canadians go. Am I wrong in trying to get 0.99

00:07:16.180 into the mind of Canadians who go to Davos as Chrystia Freeland does? Or like they're trying to set up a

00:07:23.500 bigger deal than just hanging out with the peasants back home. 0.92

00:07:27.340 Yeah. And a lot of them, I mean, obviously we focus on the cabinet ministers who are there,

00:07:31.800 Chrystia Freeland or people like Mark Carney, but there's also another stratum of guests from Canada

00:07:38.460 that are not household names that are nonetheless there. For example, executives from SNC-Lavalin,

00:07:44.280 executives from Tech Resources, which is an oil and gas company, an odd pairing for an organization

00:07:50.040 like the World Economic Forum that just wants to declare war on the oil and gas sector. A woman 1.00

00:07:56.280 who represents an indigenous group in Canada, some guy that writes about blockchain. So you've got all

00:08:01.540 these people there. And the big question that I go back to is what are they getting out of it? Because

00:08:06.880 we know that business leaders have to pay big bucks to be there. In some cases, hundreds of thousands

00:08:12.780 of dollars, whereas the politicians are there for free. And as you and I have discussed in the past,

00:08:18.960 I think it's because they're the product being sold that makes it worth it for someone at a big oil and

00:08:25.020 gas company to perhaps spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or the CEO of BMO, who for the first time

00:08:31.520 was asked about his comments that came out in the Public Order Emergency Commission,

00:08:37.080 calling the truckers or wanting to label the truckers as terrorists. And again, I've tried to get BMO to

00:08:43.580 talk about this in the past. The only way I was able to put the question of their CEO

00:08:47.080 was just by doorstepping him on the streets of Davos. Good for you. And I'm so glad that you did

00:08:53.040 because those banks were part of really the worst moment. I mean, listen, shooting peaceful protesters,

00:09:00.380 shooting journalists was pretty atrocious. The riot horses that the cops were pretty atrocious.

00:09:05.380 But seizing banks is actually, his bank account is actually far more chilling. Here's an excerpt from

00:09:09.640 you buttonholing, doorstopping, as the Brits say, the BMO chief. Let's take a look at that.

00:09:16.220 Minister Freeland said during the Public Order Emergency Commission that you had wanted to call

00:09:19.980 the convoy protesters terrorists to deal with their financing. Why was that?

00:09:24.020 So I would never call the convoy protesters terrorists. What was said was that in order for

00:09:36.340 the banks to be helpful, there are certain protocols. And those protocols include a sanction

00:09:43.440 where we can, in fact, help in that case. Otherwise, it's not our business to interfere in the affairs

00:09:51.060 of anyone's finances, truckers or otherwise. One of the other banking executives on that call

00:09:55.900 had pushed back a little bit and said that they didn't want the banks to be weaponized.

00:09:59.380 Was that a view you shared? Oh, it's always a view I shared. I don't think banks should be

00:10:02.860 weaponized any more than any other industry. I think we have jobs to do and we do it for Canadians.

00:10:08.720 And I think generally, in fact, more than generally, we do it pretty well.

00:10:11.900 Did you support the financial measures? Good for you, Andrew. Well, listen, I got one more

00:10:16.880 question about the World Economic Forum. I don't want to talk too much about it, although it was

00:10:19.460 it was so fascinating. It was like a target rich environment. Like you just stand there. I mean,

00:10:25.120 I was a peasant on the outside of the drawbridge, but the drawbridge would come down and you have

00:10:29.620 to have sort of a keen eye to look at a name tag. But just in the course of an hour, I saw John Kerry,

00:10:35.960 Tony Blair, Governor Kemp from Georgia, Albert Bourla. Like you just stand there and it would be like

00:10:43.780 going fishing in a pond that was stocked with huge trout. I mean, it really is probably in terms of VIPs per

00:10:54.780 square foot. It really is the densest gathering of influential people around. I mean, I suppose the United

00:11:01.900 Nations General Assembly could be, but those are just diplomats. And a lot of those, you know, frankly, smaller

00:11:07.860 countries aren't even, you know, that recognizable or wouldn't even command that much attention. I

00:11:14.580 think that Davos in some ways and Klaus Schwab in some ways, it's the most influential place in the

00:11:20.540 world. What do you think of that? Yeah, it's certainly certainly they strive for that. And I

00:11:24.900 think it's filled with the most influential people. It's it's odd in a way, because if you've ever been to

00:11:29.540 a conference, you'll know that I know you have, but your listeners there, they all have this very

00:11:34.720 similar approach where they're very collegial. You just bump into people and you see, oh, this

00:11:39.360 person that I haven't run into in several years, I just saw them there. And it's exactly like that,

00:11:45.060 except they're heads of government and heads of state. So, you know, you go to the washroom inside

00:11:49.300 and oh, the next stall over, it's the prime minister of Belgium, or you're walking around on

00:11:53.440 the street and oh, there's Princess Beatrice that I attempted to get to comment on Prince Harry and

00:11:59.160 Meghan Markle, but she didn't want to take the bait on that. She just laughed at me. But you run into

00:12:04.240 people that you would just never see even on their own elsewhere in most cases, let alone all

00:12:10.220 together. Yeah, good for you. Let me ask you one last question about the World Economic Forum before

00:12:15.000 we move on. I'm riveted by it because I feel like my eyes have been opened to them. You know, I for

00:12:21.560 years, Terence Corcoran and the Financial Post would write about them. And I never understood it. I

00:12:25.520 thought it sounds so boring, world economic forum. So a bunch of economists around the world having a

00:12:32.780 like I would fall asleep before I even finished reading the third letter of WEF. I didn't care.

00:12:39.660 Terry Corcoran was always banging on about that. I never got it until very recently. And I think

00:12:45.860 95% of Canadians have either never heard of the World Economic Forum, or like I used to be didn't

00:12:53.740 understand why they should care about something full of boring people. Or if you if they followed the

00:13:00.780 CBC in the Toronto Star, they say, Oh, that's just a conspiracy theory by the alt right. So here's my

00:13:07.560 question for you, you and I have stumbled upon this incredible place where oligarchs and politicians and

00:13:14.660 business people try and shape the world in their image. But I think that most people either don't know,

00:13:22.540 don't care or don't want to hear. What do you think? Yeah, there are different criticisms. I mean,

00:13:28.320 there are the people that believe it's a shadowy cabal of satanic child killers in the mountains

00:13:33.600 pulling the puppet strings on the world. And then there are people on the other side that believe

00:13:38.220 it's saving the world. They're tackling the challenges head on there, you know, fostering

00:13:43.140 cooperation. And then I think there is a reasoned critique that is not extreme, which is the position

00:13:48.780 that I take, which is that this is a group that exists because it peddles influence, and they

00:13:53.680 wouldn't have the legitimacy they do to the people that give the money and go year after year if they

00:13:59.080 didn't have influence. And I think that the big challenge there that I would extract if we're

00:14:04.500 commenting on this, and I think our if we are paying attention to this is that we would never

00:14:09.560 settle for in a domestic context, all of the corporate CEOs in Canada, getting together behind closed

00:14:16.840 doors with all the cabinet ministers in Canada, we would think that was very weird. Why do we on a

00:14:22.100 global scale think that's acceptable? Right. And I asked both Albert Bourla and Greta, who did they

00:14:27.240 meet with in their private meetings? And neither of them had an answer for me. Of course, maybe I was

00:14:30.880 too prickly in my questions, but it is a legitimate thing. Because if Albert Bourla came to Canada's

00:14:35.740 parliament, he would have to register with the lobbyist register. Yeah, exactly. And he would have to,

00:14:41.060 at least in general terms, explain what he was there to do. And that does not happen at Davos for all

00:14:46.440 we know. He met with Chrystia Freeland and came to a deal. I mean, we don't know. It's not disclosed.

00:14:51.900 Like you say, it's influence peddling. Well, listen, it's a fascinating subject. I'm sure I'll go again

00:14:57.140 next year. I really enjoyed the trip. It was a little frosty and hard to get to, but that helped

00:15:01.500 make it more fun, I think. But let's come back to Canada now. And I want to talk about the opposite

00:15:07.460 of the World Economic Forum. They talk about global citizenship. I want to talk about Canadian

00:15:12.540 citizenship, which is rooted in our national sovereignty, our constitution, and our ability

00:15:17.400 to throw out our leaders. You can't do that at the World Economic Forum. You can't vote out

00:15:21.600 Klaus Schwab. You can't. There's no opposition party in the World Economic Forum. But there is in

00:15:28.680 Canada so far, at least for a while, there will be, I hope. And looks up here, Poliev is really starting

00:15:36.220 to get some traction. I saw a bunch of polls in a row showing that he's leading and not just by

00:15:42.220 the margin of error. And I, I mean, I live in the most, the city with the most liberal MPs in Canada.

00:15:49.020 I live in Toronto and I, and I, and I watch CP24, which is just a very popular all news channel that's

00:15:56.840 always on in restaurants and bars. And I can't believe my eyes, Andrew, they're actually giving

00:16:01.240 Pierre Poliev fair coverage. I don't like what's going on. Maybe even in Toronto, some people are

00:16:09.320 getting a little sick and tired of Trudeau and they're going to give Pierre Poliev a chance.

00:16:12.860 I don't know. What do you think? You know, there was a theory that I, I came up with a while ago and

00:16:18.120 so far I, I've not been able to disprove it, which is that the media is not always in the bag for the

00:16:24.380 liberals. And I know that's a shocking concept. So please let me explain before you pounce on it,

00:16:28.300 because the media will criticize Justin Trudeau. The media will criticize the liberals,

00:16:32.800 but when the media criticizes the conservatives, it's for being conservative. When the media

00:16:38.820 criticizes the liberals, it's for not living up to what they think the liberals should be.

00:16:43.600 So conservatives get attacked on policy, liberals get attacked on, on character. And I think that

00:16:48.840 there is still some frustration among media who would align with the liberals on policy

00:16:54.320 with Justin Trudeau. And I think that Justin Trudeau has really not done a good job at all

00:16:59.960 of trying to protect his left flank. I think he's always taken for granted that those voters have

00:17:05.400 nowhere to go. Jagmeet sings a joke. They're never going to vote conservative, but I think it's going

00:17:09.860 to be the left that ousts Trudeau before it will ever be the right.

00:17:14.680 You know, Pierre Poliev, he's got a certain style. Like he really, I mean, I like Pierre a lot. I've known

00:17:21.800 him since we were both young. And he has been, I mean, if he was a liberal, I'd say he's a politician

00:17:28.320 for life. That's really the job he's always had. But I think he's good at it. And I'm, I'm impressed

00:17:32.440 with his, the depth of his command of economic issues. Like he really does know financial issues,

00:17:38.360 monetary issues, to see him go toe to toe with a Bank of Canada governor and win is stunning to me.

00:17:44.220 And I think he's got a sense of humor too. I think he's a bit of a showman in a way. I think he's

00:17:49.280 smarter than Trudeau. And in his own way, he can put on a show. Let me show you a viral video that

00:17:55.880 Poliev put up or his staff. Now they edited it a bit to add some humor. So this isn't Poliev himself,

00:18:01.220 but they, they said, they quoted Shakespeare. If you have any tears, prepare to shed them. And it was

00:18:08.020 an exchange between Pierre Poliev and Justin Trudeau about Bill Morneau. And I acknowledged that most of

00:18:13.380 the humor here was added by the editors after the fact, but I thought this is the kind of thing

00:18:19.180 that's going to win it for the conservatives, a sense of humor, making fun of the other guy,

00:18:25.100 getting people to laugh along with you. If you ridicule someone, that's the most,

00:18:30.320 that's the most powerful way to attack them here. Watch this video put up by the conservative party

00:18:35.240 and tell me they don't have a good shot at their campaign tactics. Take a look.

00:18:40.220 It's not me that says that this prime minister overspent. It's Bill Morneau. Remember him?

00:18:46.900 My old friend, Bill Morneau. He's the one that said this prime minister spends too much.

00:18:52.420 Oh, prime minister.

00:18:54.800 You know, the conservative leader is stumbling over himself when he starts quoting random liberals.

00:18:59.340 It's been a long day without you, my friend. And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

00:19:17.180 We've come a long way from where we began. Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

00:19:31.120 When I see you again.

00:19:34.040 That made me laugh. Now, I grant that's not all Pierre Paulyad there, but, you know, the fact that

00:19:40.680 that's his style and his office style and he does these little social media videos. I think he can win.

00:19:48.740 And if I had to put money on it, I would say he's going to win, Andrew.

00:19:53.820 I think he can. I don't make predictions because a lot can come up. And I think that oftentimes

00:20:03.160 conservatives can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which I believe Andrew Scheer did.

00:20:08.720 I believe to some extent Aaron O'Toole did as well. And I think that what we see in both cases

00:20:14.040 is tremendous flip flops that took place where they positioned themselves as one thing in the

00:20:20.040 leadership and another thing in the period in which they actually were the leaders of the

00:20:24.680 conservatives. And in the case of Andrew Scheer, I think he is himself a genuine conservative,

00:20:30.500 but he took the advice that he had to go to the mushy middle. I think Aaron O'Toole is in the

00:20:34.800 mushy middle, but he took the advice in the leadership that he had to go hard right.

00:20:38.340 Pierre Paulyad, I think, is who he is. And he has been consistent. And I'm not a single issue

00:20:44.000 voter on CBC defunding. But that was one of the litmus test issues for me, where I said,

00:20:48.920 if Pierre Paulyad becomes the leader and never speaks of this policy again, this is going to be

00:20:54.000 a big red flag. He has doubled down and tripled down on CBC defunding since becoming the leader

00:21:00.960 of the conservatives, which I actually think is a very important thing. So at this point,

00:21:05.940 he has not abandoned the red meat issues. I think he softened his support for the convoy,

00:21:11.140 which I found a little bit concerning when he started saying, well, you know, I wish everyone

00:21:14.940 had been a pedestrian. I wish, you know, they didn't show up with trucks. So I think we need

00:21:18.900 to be mindful of it. But if he can actually stay consistent and show Canadians that he has

00:21:25.600 beliefs, he's not afraid of those beliefs, and he's willing to sell those beliefs, that's going

00:21:30.620 to be his path to victory. You know, you're so right. I, when he said defund the CBC, I thought,

00:21:35.420 boy, that's what every conservative leader says when they're seeking the leadership. But then they drop

00:21:40.940 that fast when they get comfy in the Ottawa bubble, not Polyev. And, and the president of the CBC,

00:21:50.340 I think, Catherine Tate, has just fumbled the ball by demonizing the conservatives saying,

00:21:58.260 that's why no one likes us. Because Pierre Polyev, as if people would have been watching the CBC by the

00:22:05.540 million, were it not for a political leader, critics like it, not only was it such an excuse,

00:22:11.980 a bizarre, self-serving excuse for why no one watches the CBC anymore. But it's, it just absolutely

00:22:18.580 plays to the conservative hunch, the feeling in our bones that the CBC preacher naturally, inherently,

00:22:25.800 genetically hates conservatives. And oh my God, as she played into that, I think it's always a winner 1.00

00:22:31.900 to run against the CBC. Just like if you're an Alberta premier, it's always good to run against

00:22:37.220 Ottawa. If you're a conservative, it's always good to run against the media party. Look at Donald Trump.

00:22:43.660 And the more the CBC takes the bait, the more it proves Pierre Polyev's right. Now, I'm not

00:22:49.660 proposing this as some trick or some gimmick. I think it's the only way to win because you've got to

00:22:54.580 out them to show that they're not neutral referees, they're players in the game. I'm, I'm with you.

00:22:59.660 I think that that's one of the most encouraging things that Pierre Polyev has done is fight the

00:23:04.500 CBC harder since becoming the leader than he did even before. Well, you know, our, our, our mutual

00:23:11.240 late friend, Kathy Shadle had always said, they're never going to like you. And that was, I think,

00:23:16.600 so true about the media, about the left. You're never going to win them over. So any, any conservative

00:23:22.040 who tries to charm the media, who tries to charm the liberals, they're going to fail because the

00:23:26.740 knives are going to come there. So you can't outplay them. You can't outwit them unless you

00:23:31.840 are prepared to call out the premises. And that means calling out bad questions, calling out bad

00:23:37.440 behavior. And I think that one thing that was really interesting here when it came to, uh,

00:23:42.980 Pierre Polyev and going after CBC is that he has done this by going after David Aiken at that press

00:23:49.900 conference where David Aiken was, you know, just berating him for not taking enough questions.

00:23:53.560 Let me, let me play a second of that. Hold that thought. I just want to remind people how crazy

00:23:57.760 that was. I'm so glad you reminded me here. Take a look at our, my former colleague. I don't know

00:24:02.700 if you would consider him a former colleague as well. David, it just went nuts. Take a look.

00:24:06.460 Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I appreciate your presence here today. Uh, before I begin,

00:24:12.280 let me just say that, uh, thank you very much. I'm being, I'm being heckled here by, by, by the,

00:24:21.260 by. Thank you very much for your congratulations. Thank you very much for your questions. I'm

00:24:27.200 going to begin my remarks now. But will you take some questions afterwards? Justin Trudeau

00:24:31.560 is out of touch and Canadians are out of money. The cost of government is driving up the cost

00:24:39.180 of living. A half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have bid up the cost of the goods

00:24:46.460 we buy and the, and the interest that Canadians pay. The cost for workers and businesses to produce

00:24:55.140 the goods that we buy. On top of that, Trudeau proposes yet more spending to bid up costs even

00:25:01.760 further. The more things, the more he spends, the more things cost. It is just inflation. Their homes

00:25:10.520 costs and to buy a home in the very first place. The reason that the, look, yeah. So I mean,

00:25:19.200 we have, we, we have, uh, basically a, a liberal heckler who snuck in here today to, well,

00:25:26.640 I work for Global News. I'm the chief political correspondent for that organization. Are you

00:25:30.900 going to let me make my statement? You may remember me from the guy who actually reported first on the

00:25:34.740 prime minister breaking the law. Are you going to let me make my statement? We'd just like to ask a

00:25:37.620 question. Say, yes, I'll take a question. I've never, I've actually never seen you heckling the

00:25:41.660 prime minister. I've never seen you heckling the prime minister back in the day. Look, bottom line is

00:25:45.480 this. I'm going to take some questions at the end of this statement. Yes, I'm taking, I'm taking two

00:25:48.740 questions at the very end. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. The, uh, so I'm going to start my

00:25:52.600 statement again. Yeah. And Paulyev called him out. Sorry, I interrupted you. I just wanted to play

00:25:57.120 that clip clip. No, that's better than my description of it. So I'm all for it. So he,

00:26:03.040 Pierre Paulyev didn't let that slide. Other conservative leaders would have let that slide.

00:26:08.000 Yeah. They would have apologized. They would have said, Oh, you know, I'm so sorry. I'm going to take

00:26:11.200 more of you. And then they would have been bludgeoned down. So I, I, I, I'm not saying that Pierre 0.94

00:26:15.380 Paulyev is taking my advice, but one bit of advice I gave on my show, uh, some months back was to be

00:26:21.560 more like Ron DeSantis. And I, you don't need to do the Trump thing because Trump is a very unique

00:26:26.060 character who can pull off stuff that other people can't, but certainly be like Ron DeSantis,

00:26:30.920 if in no other way than calling out the premises, because if you don't undermine the premises,

00:26:36.340 you have to be beholden to the conclusions. Yeah. You're, you're so right. DeSantis, exactly.

00:26:42.260 He's got all the positive characteristics of Trump without some of the excesses. And, uh, you're

00:26:48.060 right. Only Trump can be Trump and he's an inherent entertainer. I mean, the guy had,

00:26:51.160 you know, uh, absolute blockbuster TV shows for years. He's an empresario. I, I like the Ron

00:26:58.000 DeSantis approach and maybe that's where Pierre Paulyev, I think the anti-Trump, the anti-DeSantis

00:27:05.760 was Aaron O'Toole, who literally in the last election was sued by Rosemary Barton and the CBC.

00:27:14.240 They filed a lawsuit. That was in 2021, right? No, that was Andrew Scheer in 2019.

00:27:19.800 This year. Sorry. I got my elections mixed up. Filed the law. Thank you for the correction.

00:27:26.640 Filed the lawsuit against the conservatives. Rosemary Barton, while she was the boss of the

00:27:31.380 election coverage and the conservatives still went on her show. How? What? They're suing you. 0.99

00:27:37.880 And, and I don't think Pierre Paulyev would make that mistake. And here's hoping he does. Hey,

00:27:43.760 do you think there's going to be an election in 2023? It's tough to say. I mean, I, I never want

00:27:48.960 to make the mistake of presuming that Jagmeet Singh is at all a relevant person, but I think the

00:27:54.260 challenge is that he is the one holding the keys to the kingdom here. And he's ultimately the one

00:27:59.060 that's going to decide when, and if there is an election. And, you know, we, we look for example,

00:28:04.540 at the release of the emergencies, uh, the public order emergency commission report this week, a very

00:28:09.040 watershed event, but the NDP had months earlier said, Oh yeah, well, even if it comes out and it's

00:28:15.340 a scathing indictment of Justin Trudeau, we are still going to continue to support the government.

00:28:19.960 So I think it's possible, but I don't think it's likely. Yeah. Interesting. Go one last

00:28:26.720 question for you. By the way, it's been great to hang out with you this past half hour. Appreciate

00:28:29.980 it. I'm worried about civil liberties, not just because we saw what the government got away with

00:28:37.300 during the truckers and the emergencies act. We saw what the media was willing to let them get away

00:28:43.680 with. Many media were egging Trudeau on to go further. Many media were. And I think that Trudeau's

00:28:51.520 reelection, um, after the lockdowns, I think the reelection of other lockdown premiers, I think

00:29:01.180 the media supporting lockdowns and the, and many media supporting the emergencies act. I think Trudeau

00:29:08.320 has learned a lesson that civil liberties and the charter of rights aren't quite the Canadian values

00:29:13.240 that we all thought they were. I see that Trudeau. Well, I think so. And you know, if we view

00:29:18.920 journalists as being the counterbalance to authoritarianism, and I use that in the broadest

00:29:24.860 sense, what happens when both are in lockstep? I mean, one of the things, if you look at dictatorial

00:29:29.720 regimes that take place is the government co-ops the media and media are an agent of the government.

00:29:36.320 Now in Canada, I don't want to be extreme. We're not North Korea. We're not China. We're not Cuba,

00:29:41.180 but we have serious liberty problems that the government has created. And the media in this

00:29:47.080 case has the legal right to be a critic of that power. They have the legal right to be a

00:29:52.820 counterbalance against government. And many of them choose not to be. Yeah. You know, forever it's been

00:29:58.360 that way. I mean, Trotsky had a famous speech. We need a newspaper. You know, of course they did.

00:30:03.360 They had to get the message of the first thing that was often done in coups in third world countries

00:30:08.120 was seize the radio station, seize the TV station. And I think that Trudeau, he isn't seizing them

00:30:13.820 by force. He's seizing it through carrots, not sticks, through bailouts and renting them really.

00:30:20.440 But what scares me about 2023 are these bills moving through Parliament, C11, C18. Yeah.

00:30:28.240 What used to be called C36 and a bill that has not been introduced yet called the Online Harms Act.

00:30:34.200 Together, that's four bills, each of which gives the government increasingly more power over the

00:30:40.780 internet, over media, over, quote, hate on the internet, which is in the eye of the beholder in

00:30:48.000 many cases. I'm worried that four bills, that's more than Trudeau has on inflation or the economy,

00:30:55.600 tells me that this is going to be the year where freedom of speech is really tested in Canada,

00:31:00.700 the freedom of the press. And you guys are independent media. You don't take government

00:31:06.420 dough. We're clearly, we got a bullseye on our back. I would put the Western standard in that

00:31:12.720 category and a handful of others. I am worried about the free press in 2023. Is that just me

00:31:19.880 being paranoid or do you think I should be worried?

00:31:23.160 No, I think you should be worried. I think other Canadians should be worried as well. And I,

00:31:27.380 if I were to put a bigger picture look at it, I would say this, that the last three years,

00:31:34.360 the COVID era has shown us a monumental expansion of government power. When government is responsible

00:31:40.580 for making decisions about what you put in your body, about where you can work, about where you

00:31:45.540 can travel, it's not a big leap to see that same government wanting to control what you can consume,

00:31:52.200 what you can read, what you can post. So a government, it's not just a free speech issue.

00:31:57.400 It's a government control issue, but I think it's still nonetheless concerning.

00:32:01.640 Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll fight it. And we're members of the independent press gallery

00:32:05.240 along with True North and dozens of others. And hopefully there'll be some counterweight to really

00:32:10.620 what I call the government press gallery in parliament. Andrew Lawton, senior journalist with

00:32:15.920 True North. Great to see you again. Before we say goodbye, is there a project you're working on

00:32:20.760 or, uh, or something that you would encourage our viewers to see? We, we know you've got the

00:32:26.060 Andrew Lawton show, which we're big fans of. Is there anything else you want to tell our people

00:32:30.600 about? Well, we just passed the one year anniversary of the emergencies act and the convoy. So if you

00:32:36.160 want to relive that period in Canada's history, I have a book out about it called the freedom convoy,

00:32:41.040 which I was so proud to be able to document. And so far I think remains one of the authoritative

00:32:47.660 sources on this chapter of history. It wasn't given to the Toronto star or to CBC, uh, but it

00:32:52.320 was on the side of freedom. Yeah. And by the way, that was the number one best seller on in the

00:32:58.860 Canadian bestselling list. Although boy, did chapters work hard to keep it off their shelves.

00:33:03.620 And I, whenever I would poke my nose into chapters, I would make a small fuss, not a big fuss. I would

00:33:08.440 make a small fuss. Where is Andrew Lawton's book? And, and that's a kind of censorship as well,

00:33:14.300 but you know, you sold it online, which of course is where most of the action is. Take care,

00:33:18.300 my friend. Nice to see you. It was great to hang out with you a little bit in Switzerland,

00:33:22.920 holding the oligarchs to account. And we look forward to watching what you and True North does

00:33:27.640 in 2023. Thank you. All right. There he is, Andrew Lawton. That's our show for today. Until tomorrow,

00:33:36.220 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:33:44.300 We'll see you next time.

00:33:45.300 Bye.

00:33:46.300 Bye.

00:33:47.300 Bye.

00:33:48.300 Bye.

00:33:49.300 Bye.

00:33:50.300 Bye.

00:33:51.300 Bye.

00:33:52.300 Bye.

00:33:53.300 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - February 20, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The fine line between access and antagonism： An interview with Andrew Lawton

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