Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The Irish people answer the question, 'What is a woman？'： Ben Scallan on the Irish constitutional referendum

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Big show today. We're going to talk to Ben Scallon from Ireland about the

00:00:04.860 amazing double referendum win. I don't know if you heard about it, but there was a referendum

00:00:09.620 to change the Irish constitution to take out the word mother. Well, they lost. The people won. We'll

00:00:16.560 talk to Ben about that. And then I want to show you a couple of crazy videos. One is a police

00:00:21.400 officer in Toronto giving you advice on how to make it easy for home invasion robbers. And then

00:00:26.880 a comedy video from Vancouver about the cost of housing. It would be comedy, but it's not funny.

00:00:33.120 That's all I had. But first, make sure you get a subscription to the video version of this podcast.

00:00:37.680 We call it Rebel News Plus. I really want you to see these videos I refer to. You really have to

00:00:42.780 see them with your own eyes. And to do that, just sign up for Rebel News Plus, eight bucks a month to

00:00:46.900 get all the video versions of the podcast, plus the satisfaction of keeping Rebel News strong.

00:00:52.580 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:56.880 Tonight, the Irish people answer the question, what is a woman? It's March 15th, and this

00:01:15.280 is the Ezra Levant show. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:32.000 I'm going to switch things around for this show. Normally, I do a bit of a monologue,

00:01:35.280 and then I interview a guest. But I want to interview the guest first. It's about an amazing

00:01:41.000 innovation in Ireland, the people standing up to the political parties. Frankly, it reminded me

00:01:47.040 of the Canadian Charlottetown Accord constitutional referendum. Well, 30 years ago, you might recall

00:01:53.500 that the entire establishment got together and wanted to make certain left-wing identity politics

00:01:59.320 changes to our constitution. The banks were in favor of it. The media were in favor of it. Every

00:02:06.000 company felt the need to advertise their support for the Charlottetown Accord, and all of the

00:02:11.320 established parties did, too. You would think there's no way such a thing could be defeated,

00:02:15.300 but alas, it was. 60-40. Everyone was wrong except the people. It was wonderful, and I remember that

00:02:21.420 as a young person. Of course, the Reform Party of Canada, which at the time just had one seat,

00:02:26.100 was on the right side. Everyone was against it, but the people, sort of like Brexit. Well, that happened

00:02:31.000 in Ireland, and the question wasn't about identity politics. Well, I guess it was about identity

00:02:36.980 politics, and it was a constitutional change. It was about taking the word mother out of the

00:02:43.520 Irish constitution. Enough from me. Let me show you my interview earlier with Ben Scallon of

00:02:49.340 gripped.ie, and then come back, because I want to show you some crazy, crazy news on the crime front.

00:02:55.220 Here, take a look at this. Hey, you might remember a couple of months ago, I was going through the

00:03:02.000 Irish constitution. Well, that's an unusual thing to do, but Ireland is such an interesting country,

00:03:07.380 and they're trying so many crazy things. It's like a laboratory of bad ideas. I refer in particular

00:03:13.200 to their censorship provisions, but as I was going through their constitution, you might remember this,

00:03:18.420 I came across the most interesting thing I've ever seen in a constitution, and I'm very familiar with

00:03:24.300 our Canadian constitution. Of course, I've studied the American constitution, but let me read to you

00:03:29.700 article 41 of the Irish constitution, and I read it, and I shared this with you months ago, and I thought

00:03:37.160 they're lucky to have this. This is such a loving thing. It's so emotional, which is odd for a constitution,

00:03:45.140 which is quite icy and technical. Here, let me read. The state recognizes the family, capital F,

00:03:52.700 as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of society, and as a moral institution possessing

00:04:00.700 inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law. Do you know what

00:04:08.140 that means? That means the family is before and bigger and above laws that parliaments would issue.

00:04:15.980 That's an incredible thing to say. I'll read just a little bit more. The state, therefore,

00:04:20.680 guarantees to protect the family in its constitution and authority as the necessary basis of social

00:04:27.520 order and as indispensable to the welfare of the nation and the state. And I've just got to read

00:04:35.680 the next line to you, and then I'm going to go to our guest. But isn't this incredible? Can you imagine

00:04:39.540 if this were in our constitution? In particular, the state recognizes that by her life within the home, 0.90

00:04:46.520 woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. And then this 1.00

00:04:54.880 next sentence, when was the last time you saw the word mother in a constitution? The state shall 1.00

00:05:02.260 therefore endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labor

00:05:11.140 to the neglect of their duties in the home. It continues on in wonderful ways. But have you ever

00:05:16.380 seen family and mother and woman and these words in a constitution in such held, I mean, literally put

00:05:23.940 on a pedestal above grubby politics? Well, grubby politicians didn't like that one bit. And they

00:05:30.760 proposed in a referendum to remove these words. They said it was about progress and moving Ireland

00:05:38.080 forward. Well, the people had something to say about that. Joining us now via Skype from Ireland,

00:05:43.040 short days after the referendum on removing those words was put to the people, is our friend Ben

00:05:50.280 Scallon of gripped.ie, my second favorite media company in the world, just behind Rebel News. Ben,

00:05:57.540 great to see you again. Thanks for taking the time.

00:06:00.240 Great to see you again, Ezra. Great to talk to you under these circumstances too.

00:06:04.000 Well, yeah. I mean, I just read something that I think many people would find unusual. And I'm not

00:06:10.160 sure if even every Irish person knows it's in there, but that's pretty loving language for a law,

00:06:16.700 don't you think? Well, it's very interesting the cultural context in which that particular

00:06:24.020 piece of text arose in our constitution. Because the Irish constitution, as we know it,

00:06:29.500 those articles were written in the 1930s. And one of our main ministers who was campaigning the

00:06:37.760 campaign to get rid of this text from the constitution and to replace it with more modern,

00:06:43.560 kind of up-to-date text, was he said that this was actually progressive. This was him speaking many

00:06:50.200 years ago. He since has apparently changed his view on this matter. But he said that he thought it was a

00:06:54.860 progressive addition to the constitution because it was saying that women should not be forced to work

00:07:02.240 for the benefit of business and the economy necessarily, that there is a higher calling and

00:07:08.700 that if women would like the option to stay at home with their children, the state should support

00:07:14.300 and appreciate and thank them for that and make that a possibility for them. But in the modern context

00:07:21.600 and in the view of Irish politicians, this was seen as somehow oppressive or relegating women to a 1.00

00:07:29.900 domestic role. Like it's almost telling them, oh, women need to stay in the kitchen and they shouldn't 1.00

00:07:34.840 work, which is absolutely not what the text says if you read it. It's simply saying that women do very 1.00

00:07:41.680 important work in the home. It's a reality that happened at that time in history and still happens

00:07:47.020 today and that we should acknowledge and appreciate that. And so they held it on International Women's

00:07:52.780 Day. They thought this will be a nice, comfortable win for us. People will be swept up in a kind of feel

00:07:58.180 good, lovey-dovey, sentimental sense of liberalism and they'll vote in favour of this. And both of these

00:08:05.640 proposed changes were defeated by an overwhelming landslide, about 70% or so between the two proposals.

00:08:13.540 And I think, honestly, part of that is to do with the fact that it was the weekend of Mother's Day.

00:08:20.220 You know, we were literally proposing removing the only reference to the word woman in the

00:08:25.340 constitution a couple of days, or sorry, not woman, mother, a couple of days before Mother's Day,

00:08:31.540 which would have been a kind of an interesting gift to give your mom, I think you'll agree.

00:08:35.100 And so there was enormous pushback in some working class areas. We saw no votes to the tune of 96%,

00:08:43.300 which I don't think I've ever seen a referendum like that. That's North Korea numbers when you

00:08:49.560 start seeing figures like that. So yeah, very much an upheaval politically here in this country in the

00:08:55.600 last week or so.

00:08:56.460 Now, I've read a lot of your coverage and very interesting interviews, and it was like the entire

00:09:01.320 establishment was for the removal of these words. By the way, can you be more precise? The word

00:09:07.400 mother was in there, the word woman was in there, the word family was in there, lots of words that

00:09:11.440 are triggering to the progressive left. What exactly did they, what exactly was the proposal? Was it

00:09:17.600 specific? Like, were they going to take the word mother, just delete it, or just say mother or father,

00:09:23.680 or just be silent on that? Like, what exactly did they want to do besides eradicate the word?

00:09:28.760 So what they wanted to do was they wanted to make the recognition of mothers gender neutral. So they were

00:09:36.660 going to say, family members who care for one another should be respected and appreciated by the state. So

00:09:44.820 that could be your grandmother or it could be your father.

00:09:47.340 You know, that would be tantamount to repealing Mother's Day. I mean, because why should mothers have a day? 0.99

00:09:54.620 What about non-mothers? I mean, who, what was the, what was the political rationale for this? I mean,

00:10:02.400 you know, there's, there's a saying in, in North America, that's as, uh, American as motherhood and

00:10:08.480 apple pie. The, the, the phrase meaning that no one on the left or the right would be foolish enough 0.95

00:10:14.280 to challenge that apple pie is wonderful and that mothers are wonderful as American as motherhood and

00:10:20.140 apple pie. Who cooked up the idea in Ireland, that the Irish were sick of treating their mothers

00:10:25.460 nicely, that the Irish were sick of mother's day. Like, where's the angle here? I, I, it obviously 1.00

00:10:31.340 failed spectacularly three to one, the votes against it, but who thought this was a winner and why did

00:10:37.560 they think it would win?

00:10:38.480 Well, Ireland, as I'm sure, you know, has had a number of referendums in recent history on

00:10:46.560 progressive issues and all of them passed comfortably for, for years now. I mean, I believe if I'm not

00:10:52.100 mistaken, I think we were the first country in the world to, uh, legalize same sex marriage by popular

00:10:57.880 vote. You know, other countries have brought it in through courts, rulings and government, you know,

00:11:04.440 edicts and so on. Whereas we were the first people that the Irish public at large voted for it. Same

00:11:09.860 goes for abortion, uh, and so on and so forth. So I think they assumed this was going to be another

00:11:16.380 one of those. And I think the reason they did it more than likely is because as you and I have

00:11:20.820 discussed on this show before, Ezra, the government is under intense pressure when it comes to certain

00:11:25.840 controversial issues like immigration and like, uh, hate speech laws and things like that. So for the last

00:11:32.680 year or so, they've really been feeling the heat and they thought, you know, what would be a great way to get

00:11:37.260 the heat off ourselves would be to throw out one of these nice liberal referendums that we always win. And

00:11:43.300 that will be a nice kind of comfortable distraction. It won't really change much materially. It's largely

00:11:47.800 symbolic. Uh, but then we'll, we'll get a nice, uh, uh, feel good love in once again. And hopefully that'll help us

00:11:56.680 coming into the European elections and the local elections in June. And obviously that did not exactly pan

00:12:02.560 out the way they would have liked. I can only assume. I have a theory for you and you'd tell

00:12:07.580 me if I'm right, right or wrong on this. Um, sometimes a referendum can be a safety valve of

00:12:13.200 a whole bunch of different issues in Canada. We recently had a special by-election in a district,

00:12:18.300 uh, and the, the conservative opposition did tremendously well, 57%, even though prime minister

00:12:26.000 Justin Trudeau and a lot of his cabinet campaign there. And obviously it was more than just the local

00:12:31.880 campaign. It was like a, a, a lightning rod for all the various crises that Canada is going through

00:12:38.160 right now. Inflation, immigration, crime, corruption. What do you think of the theory, the hypothesis

00:12:44.720 that yes, this was about the government picking a fight with mothers and the word mother, but it was

00:12:51.120 also a way for people to lash back at the establishment on some of the issues you just described,

00:12:56.460 the immigration, the crime, some of the ways that the Irish government is perhaps getting too far 0.90

00:13:03.280 ahead of their skis, so to speak. So this, sure, this was about defending mothers, but it was also a

00:13:09.000 way for ordinary people to clap back at the establishment because really it was the entire

00:13:15.060 establishment, wasn't it? All the NGOs, all the big political parties, all the official people loved

00:13:21.620 this, didn't they? Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with the Irish

00:13:27.400 political landscape will be shocked to know that even our biggest opposition party, Sinn Féin,

00:13:32.240 which many people will remember from the Troubles as being this nationalist party that was fighting

00:13:37.480 for Irish independence and so on and so forth. That party is now significantly more left-wing than the

00:13:45.640 government. And if I had to explain the Irish political system to a foreign audience and maybe

00:13:51.940 an American context, the current government we have is basically like the Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi wing of

00:13:58.300 the Democrat Party. And then the opposition, the Sinn Féin type parties are like the AOC, Rashida Tlaib

00:14:05.300 branch of the Democrat Party. But that's the range, that's the Overton window you're dealing with,

00:14:10.880 where it's just left to radical left. And so all of them put their entire weight behind this thing.

00:14:17.920 And it seems like the voters have rejected them all. It didn't go to anybody's favour,

00:14:23.480 at least none of the major elected parties. We had one political party that has a single seat aimed to,

00:14:30.200 and they campaigned against it. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see in the upcoming elections if

00:14:35.120 they benefit from that. But for the most part, it was pretty much uniformity. And the entire

00:14:39.980 establishment was rejected. And so to your question, was this a rejection of, you know,

00:14:46.540 something bigger than just the question of the referendum itself? I think it's very telling that

00:14:52.020 one big source of frustration that the public had was the amount of misinformation that was peddled

00:14:58.300 by the government throughout the campaign. So just to give one example, this is a government that set up

00:15:04.720 a group called the Electoral Commission as a kind of a misinformation arbiter. Their specific purpose

00:15:11.520 that the government set them up to do was to fight misinformation at election time. And this is the

00:15:17.400 first electoral event that they've existed for. So this was kind of the unveiling of this brand new

00:15:22.060 group. And during the campaign, they were fact checking government ministers for false things that

00:15:29.440 they were claiming about the Constitution. Our media minister, Catherine Martin, was saying things

00:15:35.660 like, oh, the Irish government or the Irish Constitution says that a woman's place is in the 1.00

00:15:40.740 home. It absolutely does not say that. That text does not appear in the Constitution. That's just a

00:15:46.200 total and utter mistruth. Yeah, we just read what it says. It says a woman's place, if she chooses it, 1.00

00:15:53.120 should be protected. She shouldn't be obliged to leave it. We just went through the text.

00:15:56.980 The minister was lying. And so the Electoral Commission then effectively called her out for

00:16:03.940 this and said that's not true. And the government totally disregarded what they said. I even asked

00:16:09.100 her, I said, will you retract that statement now that you've been fact checked by your own fact

00:16:12.860 checking body? This isn't me. This isn't Ben Scalin of Gripped Media telling you you're wrong.

00:16:17.180 It's the authority that you set up to regulate the truth is telling you you're wrong. Are you going to

00:16:23.060 retract it? And she refused. She said, oh, no, that's that's the widely understood

00:16:27.220 implication of the amendment. And I'm not taking it back and yada yada. So I think things like that in

00:16:33.460 the runoff people. I spoke to one government politician who he campaigned for the change.

00:16:40.000 He was on the losing side of the referendum. And he told me that he thinks it failed due to

00:16:44.300 government arrogance. He thinks that people just had enough of the the pride and the hubris and the

00:16:51.020 sense that you can just say whatever you want, whether it's true or not, with no consequence.

00:16:55.700 And that that played a big part in this thing's downfall.

00:16:59.700 Huh. By the way, the idea of a ministry of truth where the where any government appointees get to decide

00:17:06.300 what's true or not is is terrifying. The fact that in this one case, they condemn the government

00:17:10.880 is cold comfort. The fact that they exist at all. I mean, each one of us should be our own

00:17:16.280 fact checkers and should come to our own opinion. That's terrifying that Ireland has that in effect.

00:17:20.680 Hey, let me play for you a clip. And I know you know the one. It was a debate on what I believe

00:17:26.640 is your state broadcaster, RTE. And it was about what removing woman and motherhood might mean in

00:17:33.200 terms of polygamy and other kinds of families. I didn't quite understand this, but I but this apparently

00:17:39.960 was a bit of a bombshell moment in the debate on the subject. Here, take a look at this clip and help

00:17:46.660 me understand what was going on here, because I I've watched this twice and I need a little bit

00:17:51.940 of help. Take a look. Is he going to tell a Muslim man who has fled persecution to make his home in

00:17:57.240 Ireland with his two wives and children that they're not in a durable relationship and that his family

00:18:02.160 is not a moral institution, as Minister O'Gorman suggested? Well, again, in terms of immigration law,

00:18:07.880 if that's what you're... No, that's not what I'm asking. I mean, I'm not going to embroil the hot red

00:18:14.280 subject of migration into this issue, which is about a fundamental recognition of families in our

00:18:20.240 community and the different types and modalities of family. What I would say is in terms of the state

00:18:25.160 always reserves the right in terms of migration and does so through migration law. So you don't

00:18:29.480 recognise that family? So I'm not making comments on sort of specific red herrings. You don't recognise this as a family. It's not a red herring. This is a reality in the new Ireland that we live in.

00:18:37.700 We have many new immigrants that are citizens of Ireland now. Is his family a family or not?

00:18:42.420 Sorry, in terms of... We have many different types of relationships. Yes. And I'm asking, is a

00:18:47.860 polygamous marriage in that case a family? Sorry, bigamy is illegal. Polygamy. Sorry, polygamy is also illegal in this country.

00:18:55.300 But so you're saying that... It's legally, it's illegal and the law prevents it. But you're making a new law and you're saying that durable relationships are on a par with marriage. So will this man have

00:19:06.100 have family rights? Will his children have family rights? Sorry, sorry, sorry, but can I come back, come on.

00:19:10.820 Will his children from his second marriage have rights?

00:19:12.820 But can I come back now? You know that the rights are there in the Succession Act, the rights in terms of all of those legislation, the Social Welfare Consolidation.

00:19:18.100 Okay. No, this is important though, because this has been introduced and needs to be clarified.

00:19:22.820 The Succession Act of 1965, the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitance 2010,

00:19:28.100 Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, Taxes Consolidation Act 1987, and International Protection Act of 250.

00:19:34.340 They're all the laws that guarantee issues around inheritance, tax, social protection.

00:19:38.900 What we're doing here is the foundational document of the Constitution,

00:19:41.540 which is about values and principles, and which the courts interpret as from the very beginning of the Constitution.

00:19:47.220 If I could speak, please, Michal.

00:19:50.260 Tónustha, you know that legislation can be overturned. The whole point about introducing a constitutional amendment is that it trumps legislation.

00:19:58.820 And if you give somebody new constitutional rights, legislation can be overruled and can be declared unconstitutional.

00:20:06.180 Ben, that was very interesting because, of course, if you're saying mother is gone and just all families are there,

00:20:12.020 well, there are polygamous families in Islam. And, you know, there's hundreds, perhaps thousands of those in Canada.

00:20:20.820 And I didn't quite know who was arguing what there, but I think it's a live question.

00:20:25.620 And if you undo the nature of a family, husband and wife, mother and father, any family could be protected by the Constitution.

00:20:38.100 And I think that the point Ms. Steen was making is that you're opening up Pandora's box.

00:20:44.580 That got a lot of light and heat, that part of the debate. What was going on there?

00:20:49.300 So that was specifically referring to the other proposed change that the government wanted to make.

00:20:55.220 One was the motherhood issue that we discussed earlier. The other one was that currently the Irish Constitution says that family is based on the institution of marriage.

00:21:05.860 And the government said, well, that's discriminatory and unfair because there are people who aren't married who are in a family.

00:21:12.580 You know, there are people who are raised only by their grandparents or, you know, one grandparent or whatever it might be.

00:21:18.420 And so they wanted to say that instead the family was based on marriage or any other durable relationship.

00:21:25.520 Now, what exactly a durable relationship is, is anybody's guess.

00:21:30.780 You know, the ministers tried to assure us, oh, no, this has specific meanings under law and it's narrowly interpreted and the courts will figure out what it means.

00:21:39.840 It's not a big concern. But we had very senior legal people.

00:21:43.800 Maria Steyn, who was speaking in that clip, is a barrister herself.

00:21:47.240 We had the former attorney general of Ireland, who is currently a senator, Michael McDowell.

00:21:52.300 He raised serious concerns about this, saying that if you interpret a family as being anything based on a durable relationship,

00:22:00.060 then that has all kinds of potential implications for tax law.

00:22:04.480 Could be roommates. I mean, why not have some roommates? That could be a durable relationship. What does that even mean?

00:22:12.080 I mean, I've been on this show a few times. Do you and I have a durable relationship?

00:22:15.100 We absolutely do.

00:22:17.360 If one of us kicks the bucket, maybe somebody else will be claiming inheritance, you know?

00:22:23.280 So it's so and then on top of all of that, of course, as we've discussed, immigration is a big issue in Ireland and a government minister went on the news several months ago before the campaign.

00:22:34.740 And he said that this change and he was saying this is a good thing, by the way.

00:22:39.200 He was bragging about this. He said that this change would have, quote, serious consequences for immigration law.

00:22:45.880 Because if you say you have a durable relationship and that makes you a family, that would help things like family reunification for refugees.

00:22:54.100 It would be easier for asylum seekers to bring their relatives over.

00:22:58.980 Now, after that, that comment naturally went down like a lead balloon and everybody was saying, oh, my goodness, this is going to open the floodgates.

00:23:07.500 And then ministers quickly came out and they said, oh, no, that's not true.

00:23:10.940 That's all misinformation. But it was a government minister who said it.

00:23:13.820 It wasn't we didn't come up with this. You guys told us that was going to be the impact.

00:23:17.680 So anyway, that's that's basically the clip that Maria Steen was referring to there.

00:23:22.700 That's what a big part of the debate was about, that people were concerned that if you enshrine durable relationships as having family rights,

00:23:31.800 God only knows what the legal implications of that would be once it hits the courts.

00:23:35.780 Yeah. And the judges would just take that as a starting point.

00:23:39.220 You know, this whole thing is really a lesson about what it means to be conservative.

00:23:43.520 It doesn't mean right wing, whatever that is.

00:23:46.380 It means don't throw out something that has worked for generations that contains the wisdom of our entire past.

00:23:55.560 Don't throw those things out lightly.

00:23:58.180 It's much harder to build something than to destroy something.

00:24:02.080 And the wisdom in the constitutional provisions that I read is the wisdom of decades and centuries and I think you could say of thousands of years of all the generations that have gone before us.

00:24:13.940 So if you're going to rip those out, if you're going to rip out those mighty oaks and plant new weeds, you bloody well better know what you're planting.

00:24:22.680 You better know what you're replacing the old tried and true with.

00:24:26.900 And it sounds like Irish people have had enough change for now, enough radical change imposed on them that they just didn't want to take on the institution of motherhood.

00:24:36.680 And I say good on the Irish and I was I didn't know about this referendum until right before the end of it.

00:24:43.700 And I was delighted with the result.

00:24:45.920 Do you think it will have any long term impacts?

00:24:48.200 Do you think it'll cause the government to be less radical?

00:24:51.240 Do you think it might encourage other opposition parties?

00:24:54.200 Or do you think they'll just try and forget this ever happened and quickly go back to their old ways?

00:25:00.660 I do think it's definitely giving them seeds of doubt and things to think about.

00:25:05.580 And one of the reasons I think that is very quickly after the referendum results, we had a government minister coming out saying that they're going to have to consider how representative NGO organizations, particularly the state funded ones, are of the general public and their views.

00:25:22.920 Because one of the groups that kind of spearheaded this campaign was the National Women's Council of Ireland, which is one of Ireland's best funded NGOs, of course, funded by the state.

00:25:32.780 I think they receive about 96 percent of their staff funding from the government, which is a weird kind of non-governmental organization that's almost exclusively held up by the government.

00:25:43.020 I'm not sure what kind of independence that is.

00:25:44.740 But anyway, that's that's a whole other issue.

00:25:46.440 And they advocated very strongly for this.

00:25:50.000 And then obviously it was overwhelmingly rejected.

00:25:52.800 And exit polling shows that even women rejected it by a very significant margin.

00:25:57.120 So I asked our quality minister after in the aftermath of the result, does this mean would you say that these groups are not representative of women?

00:26:06.820 How can they claim to represent women when they were so clearly radically out of step with what ordinary women on the street think? 0.99

00:26:13.080 And he said, oh, no, I think I think they are definitely representative.

00:26:17.580 This is just a kind of an isolated incident.

00:26:19.580 Nothing to say here.

00:26:20.480 But I think there's other people behind him who are less radical who are thinking, yeah, I don't know.

00:26:26.080 We're we're we're backing the wrong horse here.

00:26:28.440 The people aren't really having what what these guys are selling.

00:26:30.960 And maybe it's it's time to rethink how we're approaching these issues.

00:26:35.220 Well, it's all very interesting.

00:26:36.920 And then we're so grateful to you and your colleagues.

00:26:39.420 We spoke to Fatima Gunning the other day.

00:26:41.280 I mean, there's so much going on in Ireland and it's a small country, much smaller than Canada.

00:26:45.960 But we have, of course, historic ties to Ireland, a lot of Irish people in Canada.

00:26:50.280 But much more than that, I think we're going through the same challenges.

00:26:54.040 The war on women, which is a bizarre thing to say in the 21st century.

00:26:58.580 But I think this referendum was an attempt to eradicate the definition of a woman.

00:27:05.920 Immigration debates, censorship debates.

00:27:07.820 What's happening in Ireland is what's happening in Canada and around the world.

00:27:11.060 So we're grateful to have you as a source of information.

00:27:13.800 Thanks very much, Ben.

00:27:15.680 Thanks so much, Ezra.

00:27:16.740 All right.

00:27:17.140 There you have it.

00:27:17.520 Ben Scallon of GRIPT.ie.

00:27:20.280 G-R-I-P-T dot I-E. 1.00

00:27:23.180 Stay with us for more.

00:27:24.300 You know, I really love GRIPT.

00:27:38.060 And if you look at their symbol, it looks like a fist gripping.

00:27:42.520 GRIPT, G-R-I-P-T, is sort of an archaic past tense of grip.

00:27:46.820 Like to grip something strongly.

00:27:48.800 I really like those guys.

00:27:49.840 They've got a good grip on things.

00:27:51.920 Before I go, though, I just want to show you this absolutely insane news clip.

00:27:56.560 I'm sorry.

00:27:56.840 I'm not laughing because it's funny.

00:27:57.940 I'm laughing because it's absurd.

00:27:59.040 It's an emotional explosion when I think of how insane this is.

00:28:04.020 Look at this clip from the news in Toronto City News.

00:28:07.840 It doesn't even matter where it's from.

00:28:09.280 The shocking thing is what the police officer says.

00:28:13.300 And it's not just one cop.

00:28:14.320 You can tell two different police forces in the greater Toronto area are giving the same advice.

00:28:19.520 And I'm sure this has been echoed in other cities like Montreal or Vancouver.

00:28:23.420 Take a look at the latest advice for you from your police.

00:28:28.320 Take a look.

00:28:29.060 There's also updated advice for all vehicle owners.

00:28:32.160 A message echoed by Toronto police speaking at an Etobicoke safety meeting last month.

00:28:36.720 Constable Marco Ricciardi had a new message for vehicle owners who keep their fobs in Faraday pouches.

00:28:42.640 To prevent the possibility of being attacked in your home, leave your fobs at your front door.

00:28:48.580 Because they're breaking into your home to steal your car.

00:28:51.260 They don't want anything else.

00:28:52.520 A lot of them that they're arresting have guns on them.

00:28:55.220 And they're not toy guns.

00:28:56.180 They're real guns.

00:28:57.200 They're loaded.

00:28:58.320 That's why Galinsky says they will be installing the door stops and taking YPR's advice seriously.

00:29:04.360 But she'd like more action from police as well.

00:29:07.560 Did you get that?

00:29:08.320 So the first thing they say is to hide your key fob in what's called a Faraday bag.

00:29:12.860 That's a fancy bag that means that people cannot detect electronics.

00:29:18.320 So they can't detect a key fob.

00:29:19.920 They can't detect a cell phone.

00:29:21.400 That's a really strange piece of advice because your key fob is in your house.

00:29:26.740 Like when you park your car, you go into your house, you lock your door, you put your keys down, you go to bed.

00:29:31.580 But you heard what that cop said.

00:29:33.480 He said, no, no, no.

00:29:35.360 There's so many break and enter home invasions.

00:29:39.260 Make your keys easy to find.

00:29:42.260 Hey, these people aren't bad.

00:29:44.320 They're not here to hurt you.

00:29:46.040 They just want to steal your car. 1.00

00:29:47.740 So make it as easy as possible so they don't accidentally hurt you.

00:29:52.260 Their advice was for you to make it easier for you to be robbed.

00:29:57.720 That's what they're saying.

00:29:58.620 They're saying these people are going to smash through your door when you're in the house.

00:30:02.660 And it has to be that way because if you're out working or whatever, you have your car with you.

00:30:07.980 They want to smash into your house when you are at home because that's when the key is there and the car is there.

00:30:15.280 And this cop's advice is just let them have it.

00:30:19.120 Just let them have it.

00:30:20.460 Whose side are the police on?

00:30:21.800 I find myself asking this a lot these days.

00:30:24.020 Remember a couple of months ago when the pro-Hamas supporters blocked a bridge into a Jewish community in North Toronto.

00:30:30.260 The police literally brought them coffee.

00:30:32.480 Remember this clip?

00:30:33.340 No one told them they can't come back.

00:30:35.060 Otherwise, he would have said, OK, I understand.

00:30:36.620 OK, I'll just ask.

00:30:37.940 I understand.

00:30:40.620 Sorry, it's the person who's in bed.

00:30:44.120 Jihad? 0.94

00:30:45.140 Yeah.

00:30:46.040 Yeah, you're not supposed to be helping the people illegally blocking roads.

00:30:51.580 I mean, at least I remember last time when the truckers blocked the roads and they actually just, you know, didn't actually block full roads.

00:30:59.200 Justin Trudeau called in the Emergencies Act of Martial Law.

00:31:03.300 Oh, by the way, here's Justin Trudeau today saying, oh, no, no, no.

00:31:06.800 He's fine with all the street protests.

00:31:09.520 He has no quarrel with any of them.

00:31:11.100 Take a look.

00:31:11.540 And we've seen some incredible increases in anti-Semitism across the country.

00:31:15.580 I'm wondering what you think the role of the federal government is to help stamp that out.

00:31:19.120 Well, the government has continued to step up in pushing back against the rise in hatred that we're seeing around the country,

00:31:26.140 whether it's working directly with police services across the country, whether it's making sure that community and religious centers have the right kinds of protections,

00:31:39.660 or whether it's just reminding Canadians of who we are.

00:31:43.020 Yes, the freedom to protest is sacrosanct and a really important part of our free, robust democracy.

00:31:51.420 But that doesn't give you the right to make a fellow citizen feel unsafe in their own home, in their own community, in their own neighborhood.

00:32:01.580 And we need to make sure that even as people are feeling extraordinarily impacted by what's going on at the other end of the world,

00:32:12.340 they don't take it out on their fellow Canadians because that's not the kind of country we are.

00:32:16.780 Yeah. Justin Trudeau's fine with actual criminals. He saves the police work for peaceful trucker protests.

00:32:24.840 It's just astonishing. And I think it is safe to say, based on their conduct, the Toronto police are actually assisting the criminals.

00:32:35.920 They're telling homeowners to make it as easy as possible for the criminals to get the keys.

00:32:42.080 I mean, the only thing they didn't say was, leave your doors unlocked. Welcome to Canada in decline.

00:32:48.620 Toronto's probably worse than most. Vancouver is atrocious as well.

00:32:52.740 I want to leave you with one quick video. I found this on TikTok.

00:32:56.120 Here's a young person. Boy, she's got a sense of humor, a very dark sense of humor.

00:33:00.680 Look at her comparing housing in Vancouver with prison cells.

00:33:06.180 She does it in the form of a quiz. She shows you a room and says, is this a rental unit in Vancouver or a prison?

00:33:14.480 Look at this.

00:33:15.400 Today we're playing a game called, is it for rent in Vancouver or is it a Norwegian prison?

00:33:20.400 Up first is the single bed desk closet combo. That is for rent in Vancouver, $1,200 a month.

00:33:27.260 Next up, we have a similar vibe, beautiful natural light, single bed desk.

00:33:31.040 This would be a room at the Halden prison in Norway. The bars on the window might make this one pretty obvious, but it is in fact for rent in Vancouver.

00:33:40.740 Three, two, one. Prison. It's prison.

00:33:45.380 Lastly, another small room with a small window with a small bed and a small desk.

00:33:50.580 Of course, we all know this is for rent for $800 in Vancouver.

00:33:56.140 How many did you get right?

00:33:57.460 It would be funny if it weren't true. Hey, by the way, do you think that young woman is going to be voting for Justin Trudeau anymore?

00:34:04.620 Maybe if Trudeau tries to equate Pierre Polyev and Donald Trump or whatever his latest scheme is.

00:34:09.880 No, I think Trudeau is toast when you have people like this making videos like that.

00:34:14.760 Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:34:22.660 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - March 16, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The Irish people answer the question, 'What is a woman？'： Ben Scallan on the Irish constitutional referendum

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