EZRA LEVANT ｜ The world's biggest freedom forum： checking in from the ARC Conference in London
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Summary
The world s biggest freedom fighting conference gets underway in London, England, and this is the Ezra Levenance Show, you fighting for freedom! Here s a clip from a speech at the conference by Kemi Bednock, the leader of the opposition in the UK.
Transcript
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Tonight, the world's biggest freedom fighting conference gets underway in London, England.
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It's February 18th, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.
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You fighting for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!
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Oh, hi everybody. Ezra LeVance here for Rebel News. Rebel News, of course, is a citizen journalism
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and activism organization based in Canada, but we are viewed around the world. In fact,
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here in the United Kingdom where I'm standing today, we have a team. Sammy Woodhouse and her
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videographer Schillitz have joined our team to cover interesting things in the UK. One of the
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interesting things is this conference that I'm at. It's called ARC, which I think stands for the
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Alliance of Responsible Citizens. Jordan Peterson is one of the key proponents of it,
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and it's a thinker's conference. It's a doer's conference. I think one of its ambitions is to become
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a freedom-oriented counterweight to the World Economic Forum. I'm in the middle of an exhibition
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room, sort of a trade fair attached to the conference where there's over a dozen freedom-oriented
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NGOs, GB News and The Spectator, two freedom-oriented media companies. There's universities here.
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There's Toby Young's Free Speech Union. It's, I'd say, the largest freedom gathering in the UK.
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In fact, the very first speaker was the leader of the opposition here in the UK,
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Kemi Bednock. Here's a quick slice of her speech.
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In order to fix things, we need to know what went wrong. I believe that loopholes in liberalism
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have been found and easily exploited. We have been hacked. Rule of law is what built so much of the
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West. It is in the corruption of the rule of law itself that we see where the problems begin.
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The most extraordinary example is how the European Convention on Human Rights, designed to stop the
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persecution of individuals by the state, is now weaponized by those who wish to erode our national
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The current system is being exploited. The public are enraged at the perception that the UK has become a haven for
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foreign criminals. One case involved a man who was allowed to stay. It was claimed that his son
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disliked foreign chicken nuggets. In another, a drug dealer reportedly avoids deportation because of his
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daughter's gender identity issues. While we were members of this convention for half a century without
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this madness. What's changed? It's not the values. It's the people. They are afraid of creating any kind
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of conflict. They use the most novel and expansive interpretations of human rights law to avoid it.
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And we see that lack of confidence now in everything from law and order to national defense.
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A fear of sticking up for young girls being abused by rape gangs over so many decades so as not to upset
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Well, Kemi was in government for 14 years, so some conservative critics would say,
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why didn't you implement those freedom ideas when you were on the inside? Someone who would say that
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is Nigel Farage. He's the leader of the Reform Party UK. Even though they only have a half a dozen or
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less MPs, believe it or not, they're leading in all recent opinion polls. Here's a slice of
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Most effective way of enriching the absolutely poor and likely of serving long-term environmental
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needs is to make people wealthy so they can afford to care about the future, especially in the
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developing world. And so I'm kind of wondering, you have an opportunity now, because the right is
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split in the UK, to really hash things out on the conservative side. This sort of thing happened a bit
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in Canada. And that means that it's possible now for conservatives to push the envelope. And I'm
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really curious about your view on, it isn't exactly even on net zero, which I think is an appalling
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policy, to get that right out on the table. But more than that, it's like, how appalling is it?
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First things first, the right is not split in this country. The Conservative Party is not on the right
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in any measurable way. 14 years that brought us the highest tax burden since 1947. 14 years that saw mass
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immigration, legal mass immigration, on a scale hitherto never even dreamt of. 14 years that saw
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illegal immigration, small boats crossing the Channel, and the government completely incapable of dealing
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with it because they couldn't face up to what membership of the European Convention on Human
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Rights was all about. And 14 years that saw net zero enshrined into law by a Conservative government,
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and Boris Johnson, Theresa May, as evangelical about net zero as the current Ed Miliband.
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We take the view that if we're going to be using gas, if we're going to be using oil in this country
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until 2050, and even the most zealous net zero types except we'll be using these commodities for
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years to come, our view is if we're going to be using them, we may as well produce them ourselves in
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our own country and genuinely become energy independent. And our platform, our platform is
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to re-industrialize Britain. We've closed down our steel industry. You know, we think closing down
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a steel industry is good because it means our national CO2 output is down. And all that happens is,
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the plant closes in Redcar, the plant closes in South Wales, it reopens in India under lower
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environmental standards, and then the steel is shipped back to us. So let's produce all the
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stuff we need in this country. Let's become not just energy independent, we could actually become
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an energy exporter. Right now, every day, we import 10 to 15 percent of our electricity,
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and our industrial energy prices are between four and six times higher than America. Not only that,
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but everybody out there, and of course this hurts the poor more than anybody, we've had 20 percent
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subsidies on domestic electricity bills going on now for the best part of two decades. And it's
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a truth that no one dares tell. So look, net zero is a complete and utter disaster. If you want to have
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energy production that is very, very low in carbon output, there is only one way ahead. That is small,
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modular, nuclear reactors, dozens of them all over the country. The only way forward.
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Okay, okay, well... It's the only way forward. And, you know, if you look at the way the Far East
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produces nuclear energy, we can do it a damn sight cheaper than we've ever done it before.
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Okay, okay. Well, that warms a Canadian's heart. Well, those are partisan politicians, but there are people
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here who are outside partisan politics. They're more philosophers, thinkers, scholars, academics.
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And there's about 4,000 people gathered here at this massive East London Conference Center. I'm
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told about a third of them are American, about the same number of Brits. My own guess is that there's
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about 150 Canadians. And then there's people from Australia, pretty serious contingent. And then there's
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folks from the continent. I've met people from Germany, France, Switzerland. I really think this
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is destined to become an annual, conservative, freedom-oriented conference. I say conservative,
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but I would expand it beyond that. There are some people here who are interested in religion. There's
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people who would call themselves probably more libertarian. I don't know. I find it interesting
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because it's still very nascent. The first gathering was only a year and a half ago.
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So they're still sort of figuring out themselves. I think the state of freedom in the UK, it's a little
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bit complex. In some ways, things are much worse than they are in Canada. Our Online Harms Act was
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vaporized when Justin Trudeau dissolved parliament. But here, they have been, they have a de facto
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online harms act. Every year in the United Kingdom, thousands of people are arrested for what they
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call non-crime hate incidents for posts they make on Facebook. I'll just pick a random example.
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Take a look at these cops going to someone's home over social media posts.
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What did it need to come to? Tell us why you escalated it to this level. Because I don't understand.
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I posted something that he posted. You come to arrest me. You don't arrest him. Why has it come to this?
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Why am I in cuffs? Because there's something he shared, then I shared. Because someone has been
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caused, obviously, anxiety based upon your social media posts. That's why you've been arrested.
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And it's not even for what people say out loud. One of the most bizarre things about the United
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Kingdom is how often people are arrested for praying silently in their own head. I don't know
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if you remember, but just a week or so ago, I talked to one lady who's been arrested several times.
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Take a look at this. It is causing people harassing harm and distress. And although I know you're not
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saying anything, it is causing people these issues because they know who you are. Do you understand?
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So because somebody knows who I am, then that's causing them harassment?
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Because you're the leader of an anti-abortion organisation, it is causing people issues.
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I'm not going to go into the internet because you know that. You know you shouldn't be here.
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No, I don't. I don't. I think I'm perfectly entitled to be here.
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I'm going to ask you to move. Would you do that for me, please? Would you leave 150 metres above the zone?
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I really don't see that I need to. I'm literally just standing here silently saying some prayers.
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Is there anything I can reasonably say or do to make you leave at this moment in time?
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I don't think that is a reasonable thing to ask me to do, simply because of my beliefs that I'm being asked to move.
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Yeah, so this happened about a week ago in Birmingham, and it becomes even more ludicrous
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when you realise the backstory to this, that already I was arrested previously for my silent prayers
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on exactly the same spot. I went to court. I was acquitted. I was rearrested two weeks later
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by six police officers who took me away in a police van telling me my prayers were an offence.
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And even after that, I had police officers coming out trying to give me tickets telling me I'd be fined.
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And in the end, I had to resort to making a claim against the police for unlawful arrest,
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for false imprisonment and for assault. And I received a settlement for that.
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And now since then, this has happened. So, you know, before I was being told that my prayers
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were an offence. Now, effectively, it's me that's the offence. It's all very well given me compensation.
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But if that doesn't translate into changes, what's it worth? It was never about me being out of pocket.
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It was about officers across the force behaving very unprofessionally or grossly misunderstanding
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There's other dystopian things here in the United Kingdom. We talk about 15-minute cities. That
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sounds sort of cool. It sounds like a cool neighborhood. Now, the reality of 15-minute
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cities is when the state says you must live in your little hutch and you're not allowed to go beyond
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it. Here in the UK, they have a phrase called ULEZ, which stands for ultra low emissions zone,
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which means they're trying to stop cars from going in and out. And if you dare to drive in a ULEZ,
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an ultra low emissions zone when you're not allowed to, a spy camera, a surveillance camera,
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captures your license or I don't know what other sensors they have with facial recognition,
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and you'll be issued a fine. They have these so-called ULEZ cameras all over the place. I think
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second only to communist China, the UK has got to be the most surveilled country in the world.
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But I said it's a complex situation. I'm telling you all the bad things that happened. For example,
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last summer, when there was a murder by an Islamic terrorist stabbing little girls, there were riots
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in response. And hundreds of people were charged for social media posts. So things are very dark in
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the UK. But at the same time, there's a spirit of freedom, resilient, that, I don't know, that
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Churchill response. And I also want to show you sort of a naughty response. It reminds me of George
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Orwell's book, 1984, when he said, if there's any hope, it lies with the pearls. And I mentioned this
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to you before, those ULEZ cameras, there's rogue bandits that call themselves blade runners.
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And they operate quickly, they go out with a little steel cutting saw, which is not, no one,
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it's not a common thing. But you can get a little saw that cuts through a steel pole.
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And in under 30 seconds, these blade runners, when they spot one of these ULEZ cameras,
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they go there and they cut it down, in and out, in one minute. Take a look.
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That's the dichotomy. You've got sort of the rule of law, traditional Brits,
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who might say, well, we don't approve of such vigilante action. But at least there's a spirit
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of freedom underneath it. And I see the same thing. For example, here in the UK,
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they have a freedom-oriented TV station called GB News. I'm a big fan of it.
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And I'd say it's by far, obviously, more freedom-oriented than anything in Canada.
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And I'd put it on par with Fox News in the United States. However, it labors under a heavy regulation.
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There's an office of media called Ofcom that you can complain about any TV show,
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and the government will investigate you at great lengths. But even the press here, even like the
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printing press, the newspapers, I think they are less cancel culture-ish than in Canada. I mean,
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the idea that Nigel Farage or others like him would be on TV talk shows or have columns in these
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newspapers, again, would be unthinkable in Canada. I think, would Maxime Bernier, the leader of the
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People's Party be allowed to have an op-ed in the Globe and Mail? Probably not. Would he be interviewed
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on CBC or CTV? Probably not. And Nigel Farage is in the UK. So it's sort of a checkerboard. You've got
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some deep problems. For example, they are so further down the road than we are in Canada
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when it comes to mass immigration. They have terrible problems like that, and they have a lot
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of terrorist incidents. I mentioned the recent stabbing. So it's very interesting to be a conservative in
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the UK. And I love coming here. You know what I say. It's like a dystopian time machine. I can look
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five years into our own future. Now, I was attempting to do one more thing. As you know, we try and help
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Tommy Robinson in a number of ways. And I visited him in prison about two months ago. I had scheduled
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another visit at HMP, His Majesty's Prison, Woodhill, on Sunday. I flew in. I was going to go straight to the
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prison. But I received an email from the prison governor banning me from the prison. And the
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accusation against me was that I might talk about the visit afterwards. Now, of course, that's no
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reason to deny someone a prison visit. I'm a free person. I can talk about the visit. In fact, I think
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I have a duty to talk about how Tommy Robinson is doing in prison. And I think he has the right to talk
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to me. We both have the right. He has the right to tell me things. I have the right to hear it
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and to say it. But I was so committed to visiting him just to see how he's doing in solitary confinement
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that I wrote back to the prison governor. And I said to her,
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I don't need to go in as a journalist. I can go in on a private capacity as Tommy's friend, as someone
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who's trying to help him, help his family financially. As you know, we're raising money for
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the kids. And I said that I'm a former barrister and solicitor. I would take it very seriously to
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give my solemn promise not to chat about things if that really was the reason she was banning me.
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No answer back. So I didn't see Tommy Robinson. And the reason why that's troubling is because I have
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things to tell him and I have things to hear from him. But he also needs the visits. He's in solitary
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confinement all day long. He's allowed out to have a quick shower. And he's allowed out to exercise for
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about an hour a day. And that's it. And the thing is, no human being is designed to live nine months in
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solitary confinement. He's not even in as a criminal prisoner. So it's very concerning what's going on.
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And by canceling my visit, they're not just denying me the substance of the visit, but the
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visit itself. And they're canceling a raft of Tommy's visitors, which means he's simply not
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getting the human contact. I think it's a strategy not just to cut Tommy off from his political and
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journalistic friends, but to drive the man mad. You cannot put someone in a cage for nine months.
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You know this from the zoo. In a zoo, the elephants have challenges. They have things they can play with and
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scratch against and play. Otherwise, the tigers and the elephants and the other creatures will go mad in
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a zoo. I don't know if you know that, but they have to stimulate the mind of these more intelligent
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animals or they'll go mad. If that's the case for dumb beasts like an elephant, surely it's that way,
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much more so for a human being. And I'm terrified of what they're trying to do to Tommy Robinson.
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So that was one of my purposes to come to the UK as well. Anyways, I want to just show you,
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we'll show you while I'm talking, some of these booths here at the exhibition here, sort of a trade
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show. And we'll show you some clips from some of the more interesting speakers. My favorites,
00:20:46.260
of course, are the ones who talk about the deep civilization divides like Douglas Murray and Ayan
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Hirsi Ali, both of whom spoke here. Let me give you a taste of their comments.
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So good to see all of you here and thank you to the organizers of ARC for inviting me.
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Perhaps I could just start by saying that I think that the challenge that Philippa and
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the organizers of this conference have laid out is much bigger even than we speakers have been told.
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It's a sort of challenge upon a challenge to be invited to be optimistic about the future from the
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And I'd like to tell all foreign visitors to this conference that if you go just a few miles
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from this conference center, you'll find a most charming and historical city with many landmarks worth seeing.
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One of the questions I think that all ages ask themselves is what do they call the age that they are in?
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One, almost every age has had this question. Most recently, the age of modernism asked what comes
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after modernism and the rather unoriginal idea was post-modernism. Post-modernism, of course,
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included its offspring of deconstructionism and nothing came from that. But I would like to suggest a name
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for the age that we should be in and the age that this conference can help bring in, the age of
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reconstruction. We should be the reconstructionists.
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The deconstructionists knew something about how to take things apart, but like children with bicycles
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had no idea how to put them back together. So it will be the job of people like those in this room
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to try to put that civilization back together. And I'm delighted that that's one of the things
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that we're gathered here to do. The belief that all humans are created in God's image, Genesis 127,
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underpins ideas of equal worth, human rights and dignity for all individuals, including the poor and the neglected.
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The biblical teachings such as love your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus 19, 18 emphasizes care for
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others and fairness in governance. The Bible's distinction between God's sovereignty and earthly
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authority, Matthew 22, 21, influenced the Western principle that the state should not overreach into
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matters of faith and conscience. Biblical ethics stress that rulers and citizens are accountable to a higher
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moral law, ensuring that government acts justly and protects the vulnerable. Romans 13, 3-4.
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These principles collectively shaped Western values like democracy, human rights,
00:24:11.220
and unconstitutional government. That is why my message to you today and the message of Courage.media
00:24:20.100
is to stress that responsible citizenship in the West is inseparable from Christian morality.
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Hey, one more reason I came over here. I mean, Jordan Peterson, by the way, is a real leader of this
00:24:37.380
event. He gave a speech. He's on panels. And I think that's wonderful. I think he's truly Canada's
00:24:43.940
leading public intellectual. And that just drives all the failed left-wing professors kooky. It drives them
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mad that a conservative opinion leader like Jordan Peterson is as successful as he is, while they toil away
00:24:59.540
as some second-rate Canadian university pumping their woke Marxism into young minds.
00:25:08.420
It's good to be here with the 150 Canadians. It's good to see the speeches and to see some sort of
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collective, I guess as collective as conservatives can be. But there's one more reason I came. And that is
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to welcome our new team in the UK. As you know, Tommy Robinson used to be a journalist with us years ago.
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Now he's on his own with something called Urban Scoop. But we hired Sammy Woodhouse, as you may recall.
00:25:37.140
She was a victim and whistleblower in the case of the Rotherham rape gangs. And she's been an activist
00:25:43.620
fighting against that phenomenon for a dozen years. Anyhow, she's joined us as a journalist.
00:25:48.260
So I'll close today's show with some of the interviews that Sammy did here. And I think she's
00:25:55.060
coming along great. I think she's going to be a great citizen journalist. So let me close with videos
00:26:00.100
of my colleague, Sammy Woodhouse, and our videographer, Schillitz. Take a look.
00:26:05.300
Sir, tell me what brings you to the ARC event today.
00:26:08.580
So I'm here with Hope for Justice. We're an anti-trafficking organization. And we're here to
00:26:14.180
talk to all the people here about the work that we do and to bring the issue of trafficking to a
00:26:19.940
wider audience. I think it's one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. It's worth about
00:26:28.340
260 billion. Trafficking humans is a growing issue and a challenge globally. And we're here to tell
00:26:36.340
people what we're doing to try to end slavery. And we're trying to do that through the work that
00:26:44.660
we do with companies and through our Slave Free Alliance organization. And also through the work
00:26:50.340
we do directly through our INGOs, working with partners, governments, and other organizations.
00:26:57.700
So yeah. Is there anything that you would like to say to the females of the UK?
00:27:03.940
Yes. Thank you for letting us speak. And I would like to say to English girl, if they want to create
00:27:09.460
something like collective nemesis in England, we'll be really happy to do it. I think England needs to
00:27:16.180
have a collective nemesis who denounce all the violence against women. So no doubt if you want to be
00:27:23.540
engaged. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube and collective nemesis. And
00:27:34.740
let's work together. Ada, you are here today at the ARC event. What brings you here? So I'm here
00:27:42.020
because I'm, you know, concerned about the direction of travel in terms of a lot of conversations that
00:27:48.580
are happening in the public sphere and, you know, things in relation to social cohesion, the economic,
00:27:57.060
you know, situation of the country as well. And I'm just here to meet like-minded people and discuss,
00:28:02.820
you know, certain things in terms of how, you know, our country can progress and how we can rebuild,
00:28:09.220
you know, certain traditional things like the family, community, and things like that.
00:28:14.500
It's amazing to see so many people from so many walks of life and countries. What a reunion here,
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working on all kinds of issues, education, family, culture, politics,
00:28:23.060
and this whole vision toward telling a better story. A posture of confidence is palpable. This
00:28:29.540
is what has changed. Now, no longer in a position of insecurity and depidity, people are starting to
00:28:35.060
find their courage and act with boldness. That's what I noticed here. Wow.
00:28:39.460
Yeah, it's exciting. The last we spoke, you're working on fighting against MAID,
00:28:45.220
medical assistance in dying, which is the latest euphemism for mercy killing or, but they have so
00:28:52.660
many phrases and once it gets too toxic, they discard it for a new one. Medical assistance in dying,
00:28:59.620
it sounds so medical, but it's really just Dr. Dr. Jack Kevorkian stuff.
00:29:07.300
Now we're in the UK and the word here is assisted dying. This is an issue right now being discussed
00:29:13.860
by many people in England who are concerned that there's a risk of following suit. Canada is, on
00:29:19.700
the one hand, a cautionary tale of what not to do and has, in many respects, led to countries staving
00:29:25.700
off the euthanasia experiment in their own places. But the UK is on the brink and it's passing through
00:29:32.820
Parliament. So there's a lot of discussion here about euthanasia. I'm finding many people
00:29:37.060
working on this, concerned about it, and Canada is the warning. So I'm grateful that we can stand
00:29:43.220
as a sign of what not to do, but it also tells us how much work we have to do given that one in 20
00:29:49.780
deaths is a euthanasia death in Canada. And so this is touching so many people to the extent that I
00:29:58.740
recently met a man for coffee, just a few years older than me, and he told me that three out of four
00:30:03.700
of his grandparents were killed. Two of his grandmothers within eight months. This is shattering.
00:30:10.660
And I'm grateful that this is a gathering where we're learning that we belong to one another,
00:30:15.700
that there's a social fabric, that there are things we actually seek to conserve as conservatives,
00:30:21.140
that life has dignity, that hope needs to be reawakened. So it's a great forum for delving with,
00:30:27.380
into all of these themes. Wow. I mean, that's crazy. If one out of 20 deaths is doctor-assisted dying,
00:30:36.340
that's got to be more than many forms of cancer or other disease. That's crazy.
00:30:42.980
Last question. JD Vance came to Munich last week at a security conference. He talked about freedom,
00:30:51.300
freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and democracy. He didn't actually talk that much about
00:30:56.900
security. I think the US is reclaiming sort of its global mantle of moral leadership. I don't think
00:31:08.180
you're going to see a globo cop. I don't think you're going to see American empire with tanks and
00:31:14.500
invasions. Trump's not that way. But in the form of Marco Rubio and JD Vance and even Elon Musk,
00:31:21.860
I think you're seeing ideas being exported. At least that's how it feels to me.
00:31:27.780
What's your observation about that? Certainly, countries are taking note and wondering,
00:31:32.260
are our countries also worthy of protection? Do we have a national identity that we want to safeguard?
00:31:38.180
Is there a vision around which we can coalesce as a basis for integrating such that people kind of
00:31:44.580
fall away by their own decision if they don't opt into some set of shared values? And I have been
00:31:51.140
grateful as well to see the emphasis on combating antisemitism in all the respective contexts in which
00:31:56.740
this has become a massive global crisis. And regimes will begin to differentiate themselves for a kind of
00:32:03.300
moral sanity in the face of this new antisemitism, which is old but always mutating into new forms.
00:32:10.900
And I'm just so grateful to see that this has been on a lot of people's radar here and has been a
00:32:16.340
basis for some of the concerns and discussion around security.
00:32:19.940
I mean, I've been working around trafficking for over 12 years. I was trafficked myself. I was exploited.
00:32:27.140
So you probably are aware that there are thousands of children being groomed, abused, raped, trafficked,
00:32:33.300
tortured, criminalised, impregnated. Do you find that a lot of women and children as well was made
00:32:42.180
So I'm in our global programmes. So we hear cases of that. But it's something our frontline staff
00:32:54.500
deal with. It's not something that I deal with on a day-to-day basis. But I know it is a challenge
00:33:03.780
Add a child to my exploitation as well. And what I found in the UK, because I'm trying to change
00:33:07.940
laws around that, is that there are no support services, no laws, no protection for children
00:33:14.020
that are born from rape. Do you think that support services and, you know, this help should be in
00:33:22.900
Well, of course. But I'm not, I would have to refer to, like, I'm not a UK expert on this. So I think,
00:33:30.100
like, you know, I mean, it just sounds like, yeah, support services should be in place for
00:33:34.660
children, like, in any of those circumstances. But I wouldn't know, like, the details. And I'm
00:33:41.060
really sorry to hear about your experience. That is awful. And I'm glad that you're an advocate for
00:33:46.020
survivors now. Like, that's really, really. And yeah, and I hope the UK does more in this space.
00:33:52.260
So, pitting groups against each other. So, for example, ethnic minorities, sort of trying to,
00:34:00.660
there's these toxic narratives that makes it seem that, you know, they can't achieve or move forward,
00:34:07.460
you know, without some kind of, you know, white, to be very, you know, specific,
00:34:13.220
without white saviours coming to their rescue. And then it's taken away that sense of agency,
00:34:19.620
right, that individual accountability and responsibility that harms us ethnic minorities
00:34:25.860
by making them feel like victims or making them feel like they are able to, you know,
00:34:31.460
take charge of their own circumstances and their own lives.
00:34:37.140
I went to visit one of the federal prisons in Canada, in Saskatchewan. And there, I actually
00:34:42.100
had the occasion to meet two men serving life sentences. These are Indigenous men in a prison that
00:34:47.700
is a predominantly Indigenous population there. And I was able to discuss euthanasia with them
00:34:53.940
and to ask if they had heard about our so-called medical assistance in dying, which they had.
00:34:59.140
How? There's very tight security and there's no media, they're not on the internet.
00:35:03.460
They had heard about Canada's euthanasia program from the CBC. Imagine prisoners serving life sentences,
00:35:11.140
and where does the idea become planted that they could have not capital punishment, which has become
00:35:17.620
illegal in Canada, but a kind of voluntary capital punishment of euthanasia. They learned about it
00:35:24.100
on TV in prison catching wind about Canada's euthanasia program from the CBC. That is terrifying
00:35:31.620
and that is deeply saddening. Now, when I spoke with them, I asked them,
00:35:36.260
do you see a value to your own life? One of the men said, well, I wake up each day,
00:35:40.660
I'm breathing, I hope so. How can these Indigenous men who are serving life sentences
00:35:46.900
see more clearly the value of life than those who are trying to propagate our euthanasia society? This
00:35:54.980
visit moved me very deeply and I realized that for many prisoners, if a prisoner is actively
00:36:00.980
showing signs of suicidality, they will actually put that person in an isolation room with a camera
00:36:08.340
to kind of monitor that they don't harm themselves. It's not necessarily the best remedy. And yet,
00:36:14.020
if someone asks for euthanasia, there's a doctor who will come, they'll be made comfortable. It's almost
00:36:19.620
like assisted suicide is the more accompanied form of dying. And so we're really abandoning
00:36:28.660
the most vulnerable, including prisoners. And it's been a couple years since we've seen data
00:36:34.100
on how many prisoners have opted for euthanasia in Canadian prisons. This demands more investigation.
00:36:40.580
I bet they're pushing it. How could they not? I mean, from a budget point of view, from a hassle
00:36:48.020
point of view, it's in the government's interest to get these people to kill themselves.
00:36:53.140
It is so sad. And yet when I visited these men, I gleaned so much from them because again,
00:36:59.620
they're capable of seeing a certain value to their life, even though they're in prison. Let me tell you,
00:37:03.860
I asked one of the men, what do you miss most about your freedom? And this man said,
00:37:11.940
I miss being able to take out the garbage when I want to do it.
00:37:16.740
Who who is asking for euthanasia today relishes getting to take out the garbage on their own terms?
00:37:24.100
And so we have so much to learn from those who are at greatest risk of being discarded,
00:37:28.500
dismissed and discounted in our society. And what might we lose if we eschew that?
00:37:37.380
Well, whenever you're done what you're doing, you got to come and work for Rebel News.
00:37:43.300
Amanda Ackman, what's the best way to to follow your work?
00:37:48.340
There you have it, Amanda Ackman. I hope she comes work for Rebel News. I make her that job offer
00:37:53.220
every year or two. And she always, she never says no, but she never says yes. One day, maybe.
00:38:01.380
Well, that's our show for today from East London, from this huge exhibition hall.
00:38:06.420
Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel News, to you at home,