Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The state of Canada's media landscape： an in-depth look with Andrew Lawton

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. A feature interview with one of our favorite guys, fan favorite, Andrew Lawton.

00:00:06.600 But first, let me invite you to get a subscription to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video

00:00:11.760 version of this podcast. I'm going to show a few clips to you that I really want you to see with

00:00:15.780 your eyes, not just hear them. Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a

00:00:21.600 month. And we really do need that dough because we do not take government money. We rely on you,

00:00:27.200 my friends, rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:46.940 Tonight, a feature interview with Andrew Lawton. It's June 22nd, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:57.200 Come on, you, you censorious bug.

00:01:08.480 Well, as a rule, I don't like talking to general interest pundits. What do I mean by that? I like

00:01:15.540 talking to experts. The other day, for example, we talked to Xi Van Fleet, who is an expert, yes,

00:01:22.560 but she personally lived through Mao's cultural revolution. Boy, she has a lot to teach about that

00:01:30.520 subject, including terrifying photos of herself being reeducated. When I think of general interest

00:01:38.260 commentators, I say, well, that's sort of my job. Let me talk to a particular expert like Dr. James

00:01:44.560 Lindsay, the master of cultural Marxism. But in my friend, Andrew Lawton, we have someone who is such

00:01:52.360 a great thinker and a clear analyst of what goes on. I could talk to him all the time because on every

00:02:00.660 subject, he's got a fresh perspective, a vibrant conservative idea. And so I would talk to him

00:02:09.140 about anything. And today he joins us to talk about the state of the media in Canada, about which he is

00:02:17.500 a subject matter expert. Andrew joins us now. Great to see you, my friend.

00:02:23.700 Hey, thanks, Ezra. I was nervous with that, where you were going. I thought it was going to be like,

00:02:27.660 yo, I love talking to experts, and none were available. So here's Andrew. But you brought it

00:02:31.920 around to be very pleasant and complimentary, and I'm appreciative of it always.

00:02:35.900 I mean, you are like me. You're a general interest commentator. But I think you've got a fresh

00:02:42.580 take on things. And I'm saying why I love talking to you. And I think when it comes to independent

00:02:49.120 media, you actually do know more than the average bear. I mean, just in your own life, you're the host

00:02:56.280 of the Andrew Lawton Show, of course. You're on Substack, andrewlawton.substack.com. So you have

00:03:03.740 found a way to make a go of it in independent media without any money from the government.

00:03:09.320 That is a rare thing indeed. And I say that, Andrew, because just last week, CTV, which is

00:03:14.920 owned by Bell Media, one of the largest companies in this country, laid off, I think it was 1,300

00:03:21.780 staff, if I read that correctly, 6% of their workforce, including shutting down or selling

00:03:29.920 nine radio stations, and letting go some big names in there. I mean, they're closing their offices in

00:03:38.760 L.A. and Washington and London. I think they're going down to one person in Washington. They laid

00:03:45.120 off Glenn McGregor and Joyce Napier, who were their on-camera talent in Ottawa. That's incredible that a

00:03:53.000 multi-billion dollar company like that can't make a go of it, despite hundreds of millions of dollars

00:04:00.200 of subsidies. Why are you able to make a go of it, but Mighty Bell Canada can't?

00:04:08.560 I think there are a few reasons there. And one, and I don't want to understate it, is the technical

00:04:16.140 aspect. Anyone that's ever walked into a traditional newsroom, especially in TV and radio, knows they're

00:04:22.860 very large. They have a number of staff there on dealing with technical issues, on production, and on-air

00:04:29.300 people. And, you know, for example, when I was in Calgary for the Alberta election, True North had a

00:04:35.500 little station, Rebel had a station. I think we had, you know, four people running our show. And then you look

00:04:41.300 over and Global has riser after riser after riser with, they all took a group photo after about 40 people

00:04:48.340 that were there to do that. And I, and I think that in general, independent media has come about

00:04:54.840 without money. We all started doing it because we love doing it. I mean, you started blogging. I don't

00:05:00.640 think you made a dime off of it for years. I remember when you started Rebel in your living room, I started

00:05:05.580 blogging and I think I actually lost money because I had to buy the domain name and the hosting. But I

00:05:10.700 think in doing that, it's a passion project. And independent media exists not because they were started as

00:05:17.060 businesses, but because the business came about as a way to facilitate what those of us in this space

00:05:23.140 wanted to do. And that passion, I think, translates to a passion that exists in the audience as well.

00:05:29.620 And that brings us to the second part, which is the actual business model, is that our business model

00:05:34.340 is based entirely off of support from people that value the work that we do. And in some cases,

00:05:40.940 you know, advertising is like that, but not in the same direct way. If people think we've lost our

00:05:47.480 way, they're going to cancel their subscriptions. If people like what we're doing, they're going to

00:05:51.260 donate to us. And it's a way to make sure that we're always relevant, which goes to the content that

00:05:56.040 I feel is missing from a lot of what the legacy media is putting out. Yeah. And you mentioned the

00:06:00.940 40 people for global news, and I don't know if you're exaggerating. That's an enormous number.

00:06:05.920 They did a group photo at the end, and there were 40 people, maybe 36, but in that range.

00:06:11.100 I don't even know how you could do that. And I acknowledge that if we had 40 people working on

00:06:16.240 this program right now, I mean, I wouldn't even be able to come up with jobs for 40 people to do.

00:06:23.180 One person to check the thermostat, one person to give you a glass of water. Yeah. I don't know how

00:06:28.760 many people I... I don't know if I could even accommodate 10 on this show that I do.

00:06:32.420 I mean, I used to work for Sun News Network a decade ago when there were 200 people in the

00:06:36.980 whole company. And it's true. They had a sound guy in the studio. They had a teleprompter roller. They

00:06:44.380 had a makeup artist or two. Yeah, they had, though. But, you know, I mean, one of the reasons Sun News

00:06:51.720 failed is it couldn't make a go of it economically. I think that instead of starting with, well, what do we

00:06:58.160 really need to make a go of it? They said, well, how were we doing it before? Let's just trim it a

00:07:03.300 little bit instead of sort of a zero-based approach. And they just thought, well, we'll just keep

00:07:08.960 getting bailouts or we'll just keep getting bailout either from our corporate owner or from the

00:07:13.700 government. I don't know. I just don't think that this show, which is being put on by really two or

00:07:19.700 three people, would be 10 times better if 40 people were doing it. I acknowledge that Global News

00:07:25.600 production value is better than ours. But is it 10 times better? I don't believe it is. And I don't

00:07:32.580 think it is 10 times the audience either. No. And I mean, just to give a funny story about CTV

00:07:38.720 specifically, years ago when I was doing my old radio show in London, my wife and I were going to

00:07:44.860 dinner one night. And as we were driving to the restaurant, I saw there was this massive, massive fire

00:07:50.420 that was on one of the streets of this complex. And, you know, being an intrepid journalist,

00:07:55.480 I pulled over and said, OK, well, we've got some time. We can go to dinner later. Let me report on

00:07:59.800 this. And I started filming it and sending footage back to my newsroom. And they were posting it up

00:08:04.360 on Facebook and Twitter. And there was a CTV journalist there who was a renowned CTV journalist

00:08:10.940 in London, Ontario, who was standing around doing nothing because his camera guy hadn't showed up yet.

00:08:16.540 And I was thinking, well, you have an iPhone. Why do you need a camera guy? You are the camera guy.

00:08:21.840 And it's those little things that I think speak to that dynamic you've just described, which is

00:08:26.320 this idea of how do we make do with what we have versus if we were to start from bottom up,

00:08:32.660 forget everything we know about media, what would we create? And a great example of this is COVID.

00:08:38.580 When the lockdowns came in and you weren't even allowed to have people in a studio,

00:08:42.180 what did the legacy media outlets do? They all started doing things that True North had been

00:08:47.820 doing and Rebel had been doing for years by then and saying, oh, how do we get people with cameras

00:08:53.120 in their home? And how do we get people connected remotely? And how do we use home internet? And no,

00:08:57.920 the quality is not identical to that, that you're going to get in studio with tens of thousands of

00:09:03.620 dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. But it's about that question that you

00:09:08.140 asked there of how much more do you get out of spending a million dollars versus $100,000 to use

00:09:14.860 your own studio renovation as an example. Yeah. I remember when I was at Sun News, we would spend

00:09:19.580 four, even $500 for a 10 minute satellite hit with someone where Skype is pretty good. I mean,

00:09:28.000 we're talking to you with Skype right now. You really can't tell the difference. So I would do two

00:09:33.860 or three interviews a show, just that would be $1,500, $2,000 per show in satellite time. That's

00:09:40.820 just an example of how they operated in the olden days. And when the government or some big corporation

00:09:46.260 would give you that, oh, sure, why not? You know, I want to talk for a second about the nine radio

00:09:51.600 stations that Bell is getting rid of. I mean, radio stations were once so coveted, you need the license

00:10:00.400 from the CRTC. And there was only so much bandwidth, so you have to apply. Now, I understand they're

00:10:07.120 literally just shutting down six of those, like just turning it off. But again, there's so many

00:10:13.000 podcasters out there. Everyone's a podcaster these days. I mean, the talent, there's more talent than

00:10:20.140 ever. I think it's that Bell doesn't know how to make a go of it, because they don't know how to compete 0.78

00:10:26.440 with ordinary people who have interesting things to say. I mean, Joe Rogan is obviously huge right

00:10:33.780 now. But that's an example of a podcaster who's just, I mean, what's his equipment? He sits down

00:10:40.160 and he talks at great length with the guest. I think that maybe it's the end of the technological

00:10:46.380 monopoly that has allowed every guy and their neighbor to be a podcaster. And they're beating

00:10:53.920 the boring, bland commercial radio. I think that these six radio stations that they're shutting

00:11:01.020 down could obviously be a hit. People still do listen to radio, but they're not allowed to be

00:11:07.840 interesting, because by definition, if you work for the big corporation, you got to be sort of

00:11:12.280 lukewarm on everything. You can't take strong positions on anything, because you'll get a call

00:11:17.320 from CTV or Bell. I don't know. I just think it's incredible that what used to be such privileged

00:11:23.420 real estate, a radio license, is now literally being thrown in the garbage.

00:11:29.500 Yeah. And again, I'm totally willing to be transparent about this. So this microphone that

00:11:34.120 I'm speaking into now was about $450. And it's a broadcast quality microphone that would not be out

00:11:40.640 of place in a traditional radio studio. The cable connecting it to my computer is maybe about $15.

00:11:47.100 I have a little box that was $150 that connects that cable to my computer. And the whole thing is

00:11:53.680 less than $1,000. And if you wanted to, you could even buy for $150 a microphone that might not be as

00:11:59.740 good, but will still be perfectly reasonable for what a lot of people want. That is a low barrier to

00:12:05.320 entry. And the way that you compete is not by how fancy your equipment is, by how good the content

00:12:11.560 is. And that's where these companies in Canada, be it where I used to work, Chorus slash Global,

00:12:17.820 Bell, Rogers, there are some regional chains out West. What they've lost sight of is the importance

00:12:24.040 of radio content. The license doesn't matter. The studio doesn't matter if the content itself is crap.

00:12:30.760 And talk radio, which used to be one of the most powerful medium media available, it used to be 0.96

00:12:37.480 so tremendously subversive. It used to be irreverent. It used to be unwilling to go along

00:12:43.480 with the government narrative. But these companies killed that. And then they wonder why the business

00:12:48.240 model for radio, which has existed for 100 years, is no longer. Yeah. Well, I guess one of the reasons

00:12:57.520 that Bell Canada is worth so many billions of dollars is that they're cold-blooded. And when it came down to

00:13:02.720 it, they had no compunction firing some of their on-air stars. I was actually quite surprised they

00:13:09.040 got rid of their bureau chief, Joyce Napier. I guess they just don't care. They care at the end of the

00:13:16.080 day about dollars and cents. One of the things that Bell said when they shut down these radio stations

00:13:23.840 and fired their staff is they complained about how the internet is sucking up all the money.

00:13:28.760 And they sort of grumbled a bit about how they needed C-18 to give them money from Facebook and

00:13:37.480 Google. I think that the Trudeau government is really trying to nationalize the media by saying, look,

00:13:47.000 you don't have to go out of business. We will give you money directly in a subsidy through C-11

00:13:54.860 and we'll commandeer Facebook and Google to give you money through C-18. And between government money

00:14:03.780 and big tech money, we will basically replace your income. We'll give you more than half of your income.

00:14:12.540 Just don't color outside the editorial lines that Justin Trudeau and his appointees dictate. What do you

00:14:20.800 think of that thesis? No, I think you're right. And I think that the best thing for government is for

00:14:26.260 all of these things to be dependent on government, because then government gets to decide which media

00:14:30.980 outlets survive and which ones don't. And it's censorship by economics, because if government

00:14:37.960 could turn a switch and shut off rebel news, they would love to do that. But they can't do that

00:14:43.360 without being increasingly and explicitly totalitarian in nature in a way that would be

00:14:48.320 subject to a little bit of backlash, we hope, maybe not as much as perhaps we might think there

00:14:53.160 should be. But they can do it another way. They can force YouTube to manipulate the algorithms,

00:14:59.400 force Facebook and Twitter to manipulate the algorithms, force these companies to subsidize

00:15:04.100 the good kind of media. Not that Rebel or True North would want it, but we know that we wouldn't be on

00:15:09.260 the list to receive it anyway. And when I say censorship by economics, what they're trying to do is

00:15:14.820 basically kill the business models of anyone they don't want to exist and prop up the ones they do want

00:15:21.120 to exist. Yeah. You know, I think that it's slowly subconsciously undermining the profession. I, there

00:15:32.060 are some great journalists out there, and let's acknowledge Bob Fyfe and Steve Chase of Globe and Mail,

00:15:37.860 who've done great work on Chinese influence. So there are some great journalists out there,

00:15:43.080 even with media that take huge government checks. But I think they're the exception that sort of proves

00:15:49.380 the rule. I think that for true criticism of Trudeau, other than Rebel News, True North,

00:15:57.140 Western Standard, Counter Signal, a handful of independents, for true criticism of Trudeau,

00:16:03.240 you've got to go to the foreign media, New York Post, Daily Mail. I think that most journalists

00:16:10.160 in Canada just won't be rough with Trudeau. Let me give you a quick example. You tell me what you

00:16:14.760 think of this. For more than a decade, there's been questions about why Justin Trudeau left the fancy

00:16:22.180 Vancouver private school where he was teaching. He left mid-semester. That's very unusual for a teacher

00:16:29.600 to leave mid-semester. But there may be a perfectly good explanation for it. Or, as the innuendo and

00:16:39.060 gossip has said, maybe there's a terrible reason for it. Maybe he got a little bit handsy with a young

00:16:46.720 student who experienced it differently. We simply don't know because he hasn't asked about it. But then,

00:16:52.300 in Parliament, just a few weeks ago, Pierre Pauly threw that back at Trudeau in quite a jab. Here,

00:17:01.800 let's play the clip just to remind our viewers. Take a look at this.

00:17:05.760 Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was a high school teacher before getting into politics. And I'm having

00:17:10.000 a little trouble remembering what exactly the job that the leader of the opposition had before getting

00:17:14.740 into politics. Mr. Speaker, we have a plan to fight climate change. We have a plan to continue to move

00:17:23.280 forward on supporting Canadians with a grocery rebate, with a growing economy, with great middle

00:17:30.120 class jobs. We're delivering health care supports for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Delivering

00:17:36.320 dental care that has helped 300,000 kids access dental care over the past number of months,

00:17:42.120 including 1,100 in his own writing. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to be there for Canadians.

00:17:47.060 Honourable Leader of the Opposition. Yes, and he left right in the middle of the semester,

00:17:53.660 and I'm having trouble remembering why.

00:17:55.260 Oh! Now, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker.

00:18:04.780 Mr. Speaker. Buddy, he certainly wasn't a math teacher. He certainly was not a math teacher.

00:18:11.120 Now, that's a dramatic thing Pierre Polyev said. He didn't provide the answer. He said,

00:18:18.780 we don't know why Trudeau left midway. And there were gasps. And Andrew Coyne called Pierre Polyev a

00:18:25.660 thug. But not a single journalist said, hmm, maybe that's innuendo. Maybe that's a kind of slur. Or

00:18:36.920 maybe there's something there. Nobody knows. I'm just going to ask Trudeau that question.

00:18:43.080 And here he is, eight years after becoming prime minister. And I don't think a single journalist

00:18:49.360 has ever asked the prime minister, hey, by the way, why did you leave halfway through? And that's my

00:18:55.980 point, Andrew. To vet the prime minister, to vet the candidate. Harper, Jason Kenney, Doug Ford,

00:19:03.680 they've all been vetted, them, their family, their businesses, their history. But I don't think a

00:19:10.180 single journalist in the parliamentary pest gallery even asked in a friendly, let's clear the air kind

00:19:16.540 of way, hey, Trudeau, why did you leave that girl's school? Even if the answer is it's none of your

00:19:21.680 bloody business. No one asked, did they? I'm not aware of anyone asking specifically. Now, I do know 0.97

00:19:31.160 in 2019, Marika Walsh of the Globe and Mail asked Trudeau if he had ever signed an NDA for misconduct.

00:19:40.500 And this was because at the time there was this trending, I'll say rumor, because there was never

00:19:45.520 anything factual or evidentiary to support it, that there was an NDA or were NDAs between Justin

00:19:51.780 Trudeau. And it was very nondescript. I know Warren Kinsella had stoked this in some way. And again,

00:19:57.460 I'm no defender of Trudeau, but I have to be completely forthright in that I have never heard

00:20:02.140 anything more concrete on this at all than simply the rumor. And all the rumors tend to trace back to

00:20:07.880 sources that do not have any credibility. But again, I also think that the fact that he left midway

00:20:14.580 through the semester is not a rumor. That's a matter of public record. And it wasn't until the

00:20:19.060 2019 election that West Point Gray, the school, had come out and actually given a comment saying,

00:20:24.060 no, no, no, there was nothing to see here. And again, I don't know what loyalty, if any,

00:20:28.960 exists between that school and Justin Trudeau. But the fact that he left has been subject of multiple

00:20:34.920 conflicting explanations from Justin Trudeau himself. So I do not like the idea of suggesting

00:20:40.800 a reason that does not have any basis, but it is a legitimate question to ask.

00:20:46.700 Yeah. And I don't know the answer to it, by the way. I'm just trying to point out that

00:20:51.480 a more carnivorous press gallery might inquire.

00:20:56.780 No. And if I can jump in there, Ezra, the media has started to turn on Justin Trudeau now,

00:21:02.960 but only now, which meant that in 2015, when he was seeking election, there was no interest in

00:21:12.300 vetting him. And even now, the media doesn't like Justin Trudeau, but I think they dislike

00:21:16.140 Pierre Poliev more because they dislike conservatives more. And if I can give you my theory on this,

00:21:21.960 I do not believe it's fair to say that the media will never attack liberals. What I believe is that

00:21:28.240 when the media attacks liberals, it's because they haven't lived up to the media's ideal of what a

00:21:33.340 liberal is supposed to be. They're impugned because of their behavior. When the media attacks

00:21:38.480 conservatives, it's because of their beliefs. It's because of what they fundamentally believe.

00:21:44.460 And that's an important distinction because the media wants a pure liberal. The media doesn't want

00:21:50.080 any conservative. Let me say one more thing. You mentioned that the media was not vetting Trudeau in

00:21:56.980 2015. We know that's true because remember when an American magazine published the photos of Trudeau

00:22:04.780 in blackface. Immediately, the CBC and Global News, immediately, and I mean within an hour, 0.92

00:22:12.500 released their own photos. And in the case of Global News, their own video of Trudeau in blackface,

00:22:19.740 which means they had it. They were sitting on it. For whatever reason, they did not show the world.

00:22:26.980 It was only once they were scooped that they said, oh, well, I guess it's out there. We may as well

00:22:32.060 get in on the action. You're telling me if they had a blackface photo of Stephen Harper or Danielle

00:22:37.280 Smith or any conservative that they would have sat on it saying, oh, that's not news, were they?

00:22:42.900 He was only- Yeah, the guy was elected in 2008. It took 11 years to find the first one,

00:22:47.520 and it took 11 minutes to find the next three. Yeah. And my point is that they're just more

00:22:53.280 docile. And I don't know what the answer is, but, you know, I showed this the other day.

00:23:01.360 The first aggressive scrum against the Trudeau cabinet was when Marco Mendocino came out and

00:23:07.980 the hollering and the hooting. I haven't seen this since Stephen Harper was PM. Just a quick

00:23:13.280 professor. Take a look at this. How is it credible that all of the most senior staff who are paid for

00:23:29.260 by taxpayers in government and the PCO and the prime minister's office and your office knew,

00:23:32.720 but somehow you and the prime minister were only told after the fact. How is that in any way

00:23:36.860 credible to the average person who goes to their job and does their job every day?

00:23:40.820 Okay. First of all, let's all take a breath. And I want to be responsive to your questions.

00:23:46.000 What I said was, is that I would be coming down to take more questions in this afternoon.

00:23:50.680 But what I would say- You said yesterday and then you didn't-

00:23:52.420 You're off-state. We waited for five hours for you yesterday.

00:23:54.580 What I- Well, I'm here right now and I will be here again.

00:23:57.940 Absolutely. But I agree with you that there is a challenge there, which is why we have taken

00:24:03.920 steps to address that through corrective actions internally, as well as by making sure that the

00:24:10.100 CSC works very closely with victims' families going forward.

00:24:12.520 Why didn't your staff tell you? Why didn't-

00:24:14.700 Is it standard operating procedure at your office that you are kept in the dark?

00:24:18.760 And will you let anyone go in response to the handling of this?

00:24:21.260 Of course not. And my job as the minister of public safety is to make sure that we are identifying

00:24:26.740 issues where there are challenges on information flow. And so what I have done in each and every one of

00:24:32.640 these cases is to be responsive to those challenges by issuing ministerial directives to clarify so

00:24:38.880 that we are strengthening our ability to get the information that we need. So that has been done

00:24:43.760 certainly in the case of Bernardo through the issuing of a new ministerial directive. As far as internal

00:24:49.820 matters, I've dealt with it.

00:24:51.820 And again, I think in this case, Andrew, they were more mad that Mendocino canceled on a scrum

00:25:04.060 the night before. It wasn't the substance that made those reporters so angry. It said he broke a personal

00:25:09.740 promise to them to answer questions the night before. I think, you know, Donald Trump jokingly said,

00:25:16.140 I could shoot someone in Fifth Avenue and, you know, some people would defend me. Or he said

00:25:20.700 something to that effect. And people hang that around his neck. That's actually how Trudeau lives.

00:25:27.020 I mean, the way he skated from the sexual assault of Rose Knight, the she-experienced-differently

00:25:34.780 woman, the way he skated on blackface, those are scandals that have undone much better men than him.

00:25:42.300 Yeah. And I mean, one of the things with Donald Trump, whatever people think about him,

00:25:47.260 is that at a certain point, so much was being thrown at him, it all became noise. And that has

00:25:52.620 been the very thing that's happened to Justin Trudeau, where now he's been there long enough

00:25:55.980 when we've already decided that as a society that we're okay to move on anything. I mean,

00:26:00.220 how the Liberals managed to turn blackface into old news in nothing flat. I think it was Judy 0.92

00:26:06.460 Scrooge, the Liberal MP, that had given that great interview during the 2019 election,

00:26:10.940 in which he said black people should be flattered that he wanted to be like them.

00:26:14.700 I mean, that is some brazen spin that the media let the Liberals get away with on Justin Trudeau.

00:26:21.420 Hey, let me ask you one last question. I appreciate you giving us so much time.

00:26:25.180 I follow a number of different pollsters, but one of the ones I follow, because I used to know him,

00:26:30.380 is David Coletto, and he's with Abacus Research. Now, I know that Abacus is liberal-oriented.

00:26:37.260 Their founding chairman was Bruce Anderson, whose daughter was Trudeau's communications director.

00:26:43.420 Perry Tsurgis is still, so he's a very, very, very liberal shop.

00:26:47.820 And I follow him, Andrew, because when they criticize Trudeau, or when they're worried about Trudeau,

00:26:53.580 I take it at face value. It's sort of like a dog bites man, you don't pay attention, but man bites dog,

00:27:01.260 you do. When a liberal pollster rings the alarm about the Liberals, I'm going to take that at face

00:27:06.380 value, right, that I might not if it's a conservative pollster. They ran a poll about a week ago showing

00:27:11.580 not only that the conservatives under Pierre Polyev have a significant lead, like seven points if I

00:27:17.180 recall, but they also said that 81 percent of Canadians do not think that Trudeau deserves to be

00:27:25.100 re-elected. Now, a good chunk of those say they're not thrilled about their options, but 81 percent,

00:27:32.460 like that means you've got five people in a room. Do you want, do you think Trudeau's done a good job?

00:27:37.580 No. How about you? No. How about you? No. How about you? No. How about you? No. How about you?

00:27:41.660 Yeah, okay. Like imagine, and you break that down demographically, the number of young men

00:27:48.940 who think Trudeau deserves to be re-elected? I mean, there's certain demographics that is

00:27:54.380 approaching single digits, but do you think he's going to pull the rabbit out of the hat? Do you

00:28:00.540 think he's going to win despite 81 percent saying he doesn't deserve? Do you think he'll slouch to yet

00:28:07.820 another victory? If you had told me a month before the 2019 election that the scandal-ridden

00:28:15.420 Justin Trudeau would win when we get photos of him in blackface that dropped during the middle

00:28:21.580 of the campaign, I would have been like, okay, come on. You're being ridiculous. That's never 0.99

00:28:24.380 going to happen. I mean, obviously he couldn't win. Even he couldn't win in a situation like that.

00:28:28.540 And then he did. So I do not underestimate Justin Trudeau. And that's not an endorsement of his

00:28:34.380 character. That's just an acknowledgement of the media climate and political climate. And generally

00:28:39.260 speaking, the weakness of the conservative campaign machine in the last two elections. Remember,

00:28:44.140 it was the conservatives that failed to find that blackface photo anywhere between 2008

00:28:49.580 and 2019 in their opposition research, which I think is a blight on them. They were too busy making

00:28:55.100 the nice hair TV ads. So I think it is possible that Justin Trudeau could win. I have also entertained

00:29:03.580 the idea that when he is ousted, it will not be by Canadian voters, but rather by Liberal Party members.

00:29:09.820 Now, so far, I haven't seen the dissent within the Liberal ranks because he has kept just an

00:29:15.100 iron grip on his caucus and on his party. But I have to wonder if these poll numbers pick up,

00:29:21.740 if the Liberals are going to be looking and saying, okay, you're just not doing it for us. You're not

00:29:25.900 doing it for us. And in that case, I think he'll want an election because it's just the Hail Mary

00:29:30.140 pass, the only chance he really has of staying in power.

00:29:33.100 My worry is what happened in Alberta provincially could happen federally,

00:29:39.500 which is that all the anybody but Danielle Smith vote coalesced against around Rachel Notley. 0.72

00:29:46.780 There used to be smaller parties, the Green Party, the Alberta Party was a thing,

00:29:51.820 the Liberal Party, all those vaporized. Everyone who didn't like Danielle Smith

00:29:57.980 coalesced around Rachel Notley. Danielle Smith only lost a couple of points, but Rachel Notley gained. 0.99

00:30:06.700 I'm worried that the polls right now show Jack Mead Singh with, what, in the 20s.

00:30:14.860 I'm worried that if Pierre Polyev runs a strong campaign,

00:30:19.660 that leftists and anyone but Polyev, they'll all coalesce around Trudeau. And maybe he'll do a

00:30:26.380 lot better than he looks because people will just say Jack Mead Singh was a non-entity.

00:30:30.780 He was a placeholder. We need to back Trudeau. I'm worried that we're going to go to a two-party

00:30:37.260 system. And in that, Canada's liberal enough that it could save Trudeau one more time. Last word to you.

00:30:45.260 Yeah, I think it's a legitimate fear. And I think that the collapse of the NDP vote generally

00:30:50.940 has been good for Conservatives. But if the NDP have a resurgence and the Liberals hold their own,

00:30:57.020 it could work for the Conservatives. But if the NDP vote collapses even further, it absolutely will

00:31:02.380 not. And I think the one thing we've seen in the last few elections is how difficult it is for the

00:31:08.140 Conservatives to find a regional breakdown that triggers a victory. And the one thing I'll say is

00:31:13.740 that there is no such thing in my view anymore of a conservative, as a conservative minority

00:31:19.260 government. It's either a majority or a liberal NDP coalition. Right. I said that was the last

00:31:24.620 thought, but there is one more thing I want to show you. Here's Aaron O'Toole. I'm sorry,

00:31:29.500 I'm chuckling. Maybe you're more sympathetic to him than me, but here's Aaron O'Toole.

00:31:34.140 I know the clip you're going for, and I am not at all sympathetic.

00:31:36.700 Hey, if we just tried what he tried and then tried it again, that's the ticket. Here, take a look at

00:31:44.780 this. You know, the Conservatives won the popular vote in the last two elections. It just wasn't

00:31:49.180 efficient enough. And Mr. Trudeau, some of the polarization is actually focusing and over-delivering

00:31:55.660 your small cohort. So he's now one, two minority governments with a smaller popular vote,

00:32:01.740 and in some elections being virtually shut out in certain provinces of the country.

00:32:06.380 So I think, had the pandemic not been a part of the discussion, I had a lot of fiscal

00:32:11.980 Conservatives that wanted to see the Conservatives with a smart plan on the environment. A lot of

00:32:18.540 business leaders, for example, or small business owners that wanted to make sure they lowered emissions

00:32:24.380 for their kids, but were worried about our competitiveness, worried about trade relations,

00:32:29.180 thought Mr. Trudeau's ethics were questionable. So there's a bunch of voters that want to see

00:32:34.140 the Conservatives address all issues. I think Pierre will do that.

00:32:37.580 Yeah, how's that not just what he tried and failed? I don't get it. He's saying,

00:32:43.100 do what he did, but what he did didn't work.

00:32:47.020 No, the thing is that he's literally describing the very experiment that we tried. I mean, I didn't love

00:32:54.140 the Erin O'Toole era of the Conservative Party of Canada, but as a historian and as a scholar of

00:33:00.380 political science, if you will, I loved it because it gave us the ideal test case, the natural world

00:33:06.780 experiment of what happens when the Red Tory Brigade, the so-called centerized Conservatives,

00:33:12.300 get to decide what happens. We take a moderate leader who spends more time denouncing certain

00:33:17.900 factions of the Conservative Party, who rolls on his leadership platform, and comes up with a moderate

00:33:22.940 conservative vision that doesn't really seem all that conservative, that gives up everything to

00:33:29.660 win in Quebec and in the GTA and does neither. It was the very perfect test case of why these people

00:33:37.820 are wrong, why diluting your message does not result in a victory. And it's a shame that Erin O'Toole

00:33:43.340 hasn't realized that two years on. Well, I'm glad that no one other than the media party will listen and

00:33:50.220 obey him. There you have it, Andrew Lawton, one of our favorite guys. He's at True North,

00:33:55.740 tnc.news, and you can follow him on his substack, andrewlawton.substack.com. Take care,

00:34:03.260 my friend. Thanks for taking the time with us. Thank you. All right. Well, that's our show for today.

00:34:08.940 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:34:13.740 good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - June 24, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The state of Canada's media landscape： an in-depth look with Andrew Lawton

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