Rebel News Podcast


EZRA LEVANT | There is no war in Canada. But Trudeau is using the war in Ukraine as an excuse to bring in censorship — in Canada


Summary

Justin Trudeau is using the Ukraine war as an excuse to bring in censorship here in Canada, and it's the most Orwellian thing I've ever read. In today's show, I talk about the Freedom Online Coalition, and how they want to ban all kinds of things from the internet, using the war in Ukraine as the excuse.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. In today's podcast, I talk about a terrifying announcement that was made late last
00:00:05.660 night by Canada as part of a coalition of a couple dozen countries. It's called the Freedom
00:00:13.280 Online Coalition, and that sounds wonderful, but that's like George Orwell talking about the
00:00:20.180 Ministry of Peace as the war ministry or the Ministry of Plenty in charge of starvation.
00:00:25.960 This Freedom Online Coalition is all about banning things from the internet using the Ukraine war
00:00:35.640 as the excuse. I will take you through their press release line by line. It's the most Orwellian
00:00:43.440 thing I think I've ever read that wasn't written by Orwell. Before I get to that, let me invite you
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00:00:54.220 every week. It's good value for eight bucks a month, half the price of Netflix, and more fun if you like
00:00:59.820 politics. The eight bucks a month also does us an important service because we don't take any money
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00:01:16.220 version of, I think, some great programming. All right, here's to the show.
00:01:26.760 Tonight, there is no war in Canada, but Trudeau is using the war in Ukraine
00:01:39.500 as an excuse to bring in censorship here in Canada. It's March 3rd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:48.300 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:51.980 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:56.040 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:02:01.920 I showed you the other day how Justin Trudeau, through his censorship minister, Pablo Rodriguez,
00:02:13.520 pressured Canada's cable companies into banning Russia today from Canadian cable packages.
00:02:19.840 To be clear, there was no CRTC ruling. The CRTC stands for the Canadian Radio, Television,
00:02:26.320 and Telecommunications Commission. That's Canada's TV and radio and cell phone regulator.
00:02:31.160 That Trudeau wants to expand to the internet, of course. We'll talk more about that another day.
00:02:38.320 But my point is, it's a kind of court for TV stations, the CRTC. They decide a lot of things like
00:02:43.920 which TV stations are mandatory when you get a cable package and which are optional. Did you know that?
00:02:49.820 They decide how much cable companies can charge you for any given station. The CRTC is how they killed
00:02:56.760 the old Sun News Network, if you recall. They made absurd rulings against Sun News, denying them the
00:03:02.820 same regulatory status as Canada's left-wing news network. Stephen Harper didn't care enough to get
00:03:08.340 involved. It's unthinkable that a liberal prime minister would have allowed a left-leaning news
00:03:12.880 station to be killed that way on the eve of an election. Oh, well. I truly believe that the absence
00:03:17.840 of Sun News was a real reason why Harper lost the 2015 election. I wonder who gave him the advice to
00:03:24.460 let Sun News be killed. Anyway, sorry for that tangent, but my point stands Sun News was killed
00:03:30.620 by rulings of the CRTC, which you could call the TV court. It has the power to have hearings,
00:03:38.400 the power to issue rulings, orders really, that have the force of law. They have the power to create and
00:03:43.680 the power to destroy. Like a court, they're biased, they're left-wing, they're run by cronies, they are
00:03:48.660 corrupt. But at the end of the day, at least there is a process, a transparency, hearings.
00:03:56.500 Trudeau just skipped all that, skipped the whole process by basically demanding that the cable
00:04:01.200 companies ban Russia Today, the TV channel, and they all did. No hearings, no rulings, no transparency,
00:04:08.200 just the boss of a banana republic banning TV stations he didn't like. And everyone was fine
00:04:15.120 with that. No, that doesn't even do it justice. The media party was cheering for that, cheering.
00:04:20.560 As I said a few days ago, you can still find that TV channel Russia Today on the internet.
00:04:25.760 And these days, I think a lot of people know how to watch the internet on their smart TVs. There really
00:04:31.100 is a blurry line between what is internet and what is TV at all. So I think that people who want to find
00:04:36.360 it will, but it's still an obvious act of censorship to knock it off your cable package.
00:04:41.300 But the internet is now shutting down Russia Today as well. Google and YouTube just made that decision
00:04:48.460 as if they themselves are countries at war. Can I show you an example of a Russia Today report? Now, there
00:04:56.240 is no doubt that it has the Russian point of view, of course. But it also shows the Ukrainian point of
00:05:02.820 view and the American point of view. I'm going to show you one of their daily news summaries. It's
00:05:08.000 just over two minutes long. I want to show you the whole thing. I think you might be surprised
00:05:13.240 by how much airtime, say, the Ukrainian president gets. I say again, this is Russian propaganda. I know
00:05:20.800 that. Just like the CBC is Trudeau propaganda. I know that. But I think I actually learned more about
00:05:25.740 the real facts of the war from this Russia Today broadcast than I would have from Trudeau's CBC
00:05:32.120 state broadcaster or CNN in America. What do you think? Watch this. It's just two minutes long. And
00:05:39.000 tell me if you feel tricked by it. Day six of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine. Latest news and
00:05:46.380 updates. Ukraine and Russia react to the first day of negotiations.
00:05:50.440 We've discussed every topic on the agenda in detail and found certain points where we may gain
00:05:57.900 some common ground. Most importantly, we agreed to continue the negotiations. We'll meet at the
00:06:04.220 Polish-Belarus border in a few days. So far we don't have the result that we hoped for. Russia stated its
00:06:12.020 position, we voiced ours to stop this war. We will analyze what we've heard and decide on how to move to
00:06:17.760 the next round. EU announces new sanctions against Russian companies and citizens. Promises all-out
00:06:25.460 economic war. We are going to deliver a total economic and financial war against Russia.
00:06:31.760 We are going to provoke the collapse of the Russian economy. Hollywood halts all releases in Russia.
00:06:37.820 Disney, Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers join the ban. Russia condemns Western involvement.
00:06:43.260 Names it responsible for the escalation. Our goal is to protect the Russian Federation from military
00:06:51.340 threats from the Western states, which are trying to use Ukrainians in the fight against our country.
00:06:56.300 Ukraine asks International Criminal Court to launch probe into Russian offensive.
00:07:01.220 We call for every country in the world to immediately react to the criminal tactics of the aggressor and to
00:07:06.560 proclaim that Russia is conducting state terrorism. We demand that they are held responsible in the
00:07:11.800 international courts. Russia denies attacking civilian targets. Russian troops do not occupy
00:07:19.920 Ukrainian territory, take all measures to protect lives and security of civilians. I would like to
00:07:25.800 emphasize that we only strike military targets and only with high precision weapons. The Ukrainian side
00:07:31.740 does not shy away from using peaceful civilians as a human shield. Ukrainian ambassador hands in
00:07:38.020 application for EU membership. Demands immediate accession under a fast-track procedure.
00:07:44.420 We have earned our right to join the rest of Europe, as equals.
00:07:48.660 YouTube bans Russian-sponsored RT and Sputnik in Europe. Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine,
00:07:54.260 we're blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately.
00:07:59.300 Sergei Lavrov says Russia doesn't intend to harm Ukrainian people.
00:08:02.740 For us, the life of every Russian or Ukrainian, Donetsk or Luhansk resident is no less valuable
00:08:09.860 than the life of a European or American. We do not intend in any way to infringe on the interests of
00:08:16.180 the citizens of Ukraine, with whom we are united not only by a common history, civilizational,
00:08:21.780 spiritual, cultural kinship, but also simply by blood, family ties.
00:08:26.100 The main thing is to stop the attempts of the temporary workers who illegally seized power in
00:08:32.100 Ukraine from betraying the fundamental interests of the Ukrainian people by turning their country
00:08:37.300 into anti-Russia, only to please the West. Now, there are some absurd statements in there.
00:08:42.580 Russia denying that it has taken any Ukrainian territory seems like fake news to me. I think that
00:08:49.700 Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, does what most diplomats do. In the famous words of
00:08:56.020 a British politician about 400 years ago, an ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie
00:09:04.180 abroad for the good of his country. There's a pun in there that we probably don't get.
00:09:08.020 He tells lies abroad, as in he lies in foreign countries, but lie abroad was actually what they
00:09:14.260 called it when a military ship would turn so that all of its cannons were aimed at the enemy to give
00:09:19.220 them abroad. So there was a pun there. I think Lavrov is a gentleman liar, of course. That's what
00:09:26.900 most diplomats are. But I think of recent US secretaries of state, like John Kerry or like
00:09:32.660 Hillary Clinton, who weighed in the other day. And I honestly don't know who's the bigger liar.
00:09:38.980 Here's Hillary Clinton with some advice that isn't really so much about what she would do in Ukraine,
00:09:44.340 but what she wants to do to Americans. She wants to silence Americans who disagree with her.
00:09:51.060 We have to also make sure that within our own country, we are calling out those people who
00:09:58.500 are giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart
00:10:04.420 move it is, who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media, not only inside Russia, but in
00:10:14.820 Europe to demonstrate the division within our own country.
00:10:18.660 Look, there's propaganda on both sides. I have watched plenty of footage of Vladimir Zelensky,
00:10:24.340 the Ukrainian president, and I've watched a smaller amount of propaganda from the Russian side.
00:10:29.620 And of course, most of what I'm getting is a fog of rumors and gossip and lies that are not attributed
00:10:37.140 to anyone. And it's tough to find out what's real or not. I'm glad I could hear from all sides, by the
00:10:42.100 way. There's probably more than just two sides in this battle. I don't trust any government to tell me
00:10:48.340 the whole story, not even my own, of course. And I certainly don't trust the media to either. I always
00:10:53.780 knew that, but the way the media party has acted as an auxiliary to the government during the past two
00:10:59.060 years, and especially during the Truckers' Rebellion, they've really disqualified themselves from being
00:11:02.980 the arbiters of truth in my mind. To me, the only answer is to read and watch as much as you can
00:11:09.380 from all sources. I've told you my point of view. I'm against the war. I see Putin as the aggressor.
00:11:14.900 He's a former KGB. I see him intent on establishing a new Russian empire. I see Biden's weakness as a kind
00:11:22.020 of provocation to tyrants, including Russia and China. I am concerned about the civilians in Ukraine.
00:11:27.620 And I must say, I'm also aware that NATO has been particularly bellicose
00:11:33.060 towards Russia, including wild military threats and calls for regime change.
00:11:38.020 My opinions are subject to change as I learn more, as the facts change, as we slowly understand what's
00:11:44.740 actually happening. This whole thing is just a week old. Are you completely certain of what's going on?
00:11:51.060 I am not. I'm on Ukraine's side largely because I see them as the civilians who are suffering at the
00:11:58.340 hands of a larger, brutal regime. But I'm not a cheerleader for the war, and I am certainly not for
00:12:03.620 escalating it. Is it okay to say that I hope the peace talks are fruitful? Because I am. But throughout
00:12:11.140 all this, I reserve the right as a Canadian to make up my own mind, including how important it all is to
00:12:18.020 me as a Canadian. I don't know the answer to that yet. And to do that, I want to read and view
00:12:22.260 information as widely as I can, including even laughably false propaganda.
00:12:27.860 I do ask that because, you know, given Canada's support of Ukraine in this current crisis with
00:12:35.380 Russia, I don't know if it's far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that Russian actors could be
00:12:43.220 continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset.
00:12:51.220 Well, again, I'm going to defer to our partners in the public safety,
00:12:55.540 the trained officials and experts in that area.
00:12:58.500 Yeah, that's an insane conspiracy theory. And yet I don't want the CBC banned for it. I mean,
00:13:04.020 I don't want to have to pay my taxes to support the CBC, but I would never say fire that woman. I
00:13:09.540 would never say take the CBC off cable packages and kick them off YouTube because they're liars.
00:13:15.860 They are liars, but can't I be the judge of that? And maybe I want to hear what liars are lying about
00:13:22.260 as a sort of intel about what the bad guys are thinking. I despise the CBC's propaganda,
00:13:27.780 but have you ever heard me call for them to be banned either on TV or the internet? Well,
00:13:33.540 just look at this. Just out last night, look at this announcement here by the Canadian government.
00:13:40.260 statement on behalf of Canada, chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, a call to action on
00:13:47.220 state-sponsored disinformation in Ukraine. And you can see this is from Global Affairs Canada,
00:13:52.340 that's the foreign ministry. Freedom Online Coalition, that's what they're called. It
00:13:58.180 sounds pretty great, doesn't it? I mean, can I join? I believe in online freedom,
00:14:03.540 the obvious and most important freedoms of which would be, you know, freedom of speech, freedom of
00:14:09.700 the press, freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief. Those are all found in our
00:14:14.420 Canadian chart of rights in Section 2, by the way. It's called Fundamental Freedoms. In the U.S.,
00:14:18.820 they're covered by what they call the First Amendment. So I'm pretty pumped up about Freedom Online
00:14:24.580 Coalition. But let me quote from Orwell's 1984. This is from the book.
00:14:28.980 The ministry of peace concerns itself with war. The ministry of truth with lies. The ministry of love
00:14:37.940 with torture. And the ministry of plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental,
00:14:44.580 nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy. They are deliberate exercises in double-think, double-think.
00:14:51.140 That's an important psychological term that Orwell invented to hold two mutually irreconcilable
00:14:56.420 ideas at the same time. So Trudeau is in blackface, but he calls you racist. That's double-think.
00:15:04.260 Trudeau sexually assaulted Rose Knight in Creston, BC, but he calls you a misogynist. That's double-think.
00:15:10.580 Chrystia Freeland's own grandfather was a Nazi propagandist, and she helped cover that up for him,
00:15:18.020 but she'll call truckers Nazis. That's double-think. You get it? And so it is with the Freedom Online
00:15:24.340 Coalition. That's what they have called their censorship committee. So let me read a bit from
00:15:32.580 their announcement. As 2022 chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, Canada leads a coalition of 34
00:15:38.820 governments united by our belief that the same human rights people enjoy offline must be protected
00:15:45.060 online. All right, well, that sounds pretty good so far. That's all those freedoms I mentioned a moment ago,
00:15:50.340 right? But that only lasts for one sentence. Here's the second sentence.
00:15:58.020 The unprovoked and unjustifiable attack by the Russian Federation against the territorial integrity,
00:16:03.460 sovereignty, and independence of the democratic state of Ukraine was preceded by a steady outpouring
00:16:08.660 of fabricated claims and unfounded allegations online by the Russian Federation. We have since witnessed
00:16:15.300 a continued onslaught of disinformation orchestrated by the Russian Federation.
00:16:21.700 Okay, it's war. Both sides engaged in propaganda. I don't know if you heard about the story of Snake
00:16:27.700 Island, where a brave group of Ukrainian soldiers held out against all odds against a Russian military ship,
00:16:35.140 and they died. Their last words being, F you. Did you see that story of heroism? Or maybe you saw this.
00:16:41.540 Here's a tweet from a U.S. congressman about the ghost of Kyiv, the Ukrainian fighter pilot who was
00:16:47.940 shooting down so many Russian planes. They have a picture of him. Samuel is his name. Or maybe you
00:16:53.220 heard that the Russians actually had the temerity to attack a Holocaust memorial at Babi Yar in Ukraine.
00:16:59.780 Did you hear about that? All of those were fake stories. Did you know that? That Snake Island story?
00:17:07.380 It happened, except for the soldiers actually surrendered. So they're alive. They're not dead.
00:17:12.660 That ghost of Ukraine, Samuel, that's a comedian from Rhode Island named Samuel Hyde.
00:17:20.660 It's not real. And here's an Israeli reporter standing in front of the Holocaust memorial at Babi Yar,
00:17:26.260 which is obviously undamaged. Like I say, propaganda everywhere. And your job as a grown-up is to try to
00:17:33.700 sort through it. I have not been convinced by the Russian propaganda that they're right.
00:17:39.380 It has not made me support their war. The Ukrainian propaganda has actually made me
00:17:44.180 more cautious about repeating what they say because I don't want to republish things that are revealed
00:17:49.540 to be fakes. I don't want to talk about Snake Island if it turns out to be a fake story.
00:17:55.380 I don't think either side's propaganda has changed my mind. It's only made me slower to jump to conclusions,
00:18:00.980 which frankly is probably a good idea in this era of Twitter. I don't know if we have to
00:18:05.860 immediately come to a conclusion about things. I think that if Canada were at war, a real war
00:18:13.540 for our survival, I would permit myself to be more jingoistic. The last war Canada was involved with,
00:18:20.580 I don't know if you remember this, under Stephen Harper actually, was toppling Libya's
00:18:25.300 Moammar Gaddafi. And I'm not particularly proud of Canada for doing that. I think it was a disaster.
00:18:31.860 I have no idea what our national interest supposedly was. We did also have a grand total of six CF-18
00:18:38.020 fighter jets in the war against ISIS terrorists, but Trudeau almost immediately called them home
00:18:42.260 after becoming prime minister. Those aren't even really wars though, are they?
00:18:45.700 I don't know. I don't feel compelled by patriotism to support obvious PR projects like when Trudeau sent
00:18:58.180 our troops to Mali. Can you find Mali, M-A-L-I? Can you find it on a map? Don't fib.
00:19:04.660 I'll admit I cannot find Mali on a map. Why did we send troops there? Oh, probably because Trudeau's
00:19:12.260 mother, Margaret Trudeau, went on a vacation there and really fell in love with the place.
00:19:15.860 So why not use Canadian soldiers to make Trudeau's mom feel good? Yeah, no. I guess what I'm saying is
00:19:21.540 I support our troops and I support peace. And I would support a patriotic war in our national
00:19:26.980 interest, God forbid, if Canada were ever thrust into one. But that doesn't mean I clap along as our
00:19:32.460 soldiers are used for virtue signaling or some pawns on a chessboard. Don't think for a second that every
00:19:39.060 one of those military deployments that I've just listed hasn't been wrung out for propaganda purposes
00:19:44.500 of Trudeau or Harper, if not by our government. I mean, Trudeau himself, that strange Mali decision,
00:19:50.900 maybe it was for his mom. Which brings me back to propaganda and the announcement last night by
00:19:57.060 Trudeau and his censorship squad. So they've got this freedom online coalition and they're really mad
00:20:02.900 of Vladimir Putin. Okay, got it. Me too. And then they say this, I quote,
00:20:08.740 state-sponsored disinformation campaigns undermine peace, prosperity, and individual freedoms
00:20:14.600 threatening to destabilize the fabric of our rules-based international system.
00:20:20.620 Now, I'm not sure how propaganda undermines my freedom. Propaganda, it's ideas, good ideas or bad
00:20:26.740 ideas, depending on whose side you're on. How does what Russia today or the Ukrainian state broadcaster,
00:20:32.560 which, by the way, is accredited at Canada's parliament, how do they erode my freedom or my
00:20:40.280 prosperity for that matter? And even the claim that they undermine peace. I mean, propaganda
00:20:44.640 doesn't declare war. Propaganda doesn't blow up buildings. People do. Soldiers do. Russia has
00:20:50.660 engaged in propaganda for years. I don't think it's a coincidence that they only acted in the face of
00:20:56.180 Joe Biden's weakness. Propaganda didn't do that. Putin looked at Biden, looked at the West and made a
00:21:01.960 decision. Propaganda is how he excuses the thing, but it's not the thing itself. The war is the thing
00:21:08.340 itself. The army is the thing itself. Here's the very next line in this press release. A strong democracy
00:21:14.080 relies on access to diverse and reliable sources of news and information so that members of society
00:21:20.160 can form opinions, hold governments and individuals to account, and participate in public debate.
00:21:25.000 Well, hang on. I thought they just said that some divergent opinions were dangerous.
00:21:33.340 Which is it? Is the diversity of opinion good or bad? Or just the ones that Trudeau says are
00:21:39.680 reliable? What exactly does this reliable mean? For example, is Trudeau reliable? No, I don't think so,
00:21:46.360 but he thinks so. How about we each decide for ourselves? But look at this wording pretzel. This is
00:21:52.440 from the announcement. We stand with the people of Ukraine, reaffirming that they should be able to
00:21:58.320 participate meaningfully in society online and offline, free from oppressive practices such as
00:22:05.020 state-sponsored disinformation. Hang on, hang on. But being free from words you don't like, that's a
00:22:11.840 counterfeit freedom. You're twisting the word freedom. You have no human right not to be offended.
00:22:18.980 You have no right to have other points of view silenced. That's not a human right at all,
00:22:24.360 actually. That's not a shield to protect you. That's a sword to silence your opponents. That's
00:22:30.600 the power to censor. They have announced a new censorship plan, and they've called it freedom.
00:22:37.200 They've simply come up with a trick to label anything they don't like as disinformation and
00:22:42.640 call it oppressive. They say you have a human right to be free from it, and they're going to start
00:22:48.860 censoring media they don't like. And what's so crazy is that Canada isn't even in this war. Ukraine is,
00:22:55.460 Russia is, but Canada is not. NATO is not. But Canada is using the excuse of someone else's war
00:23:02.320 as a pretext to ban things on the internet in Canada. Canadians' right to choose, our right to
00:23:08.820 hear are the points of view. Those Canadian rights by Canadian citizens, including you,
00:23:14.120 are being destroyed by claiming that someone in Ukraine is being oppressed by propaganda?
00:23:21.080 I think it's actually the armies and the war that are oppressing them. But even if it were the
00:23:26.840 propaganda, it's not what I'm reading or watching on my computer here in Toronto that's the problem.
00:23:32.480 It's something over there. This is a trick. This is a pretext. This is continuing with their censorship
00:23:38.800 agenda. This is them continuing with the Emergencies Act style power to act like authoritarian bullies.
00:23:45.680 They never actually stopped, did they? They just switched their emergency. They switched their
00:23:50.880 excuse from a peaceful truckers' rebellion to a war 8,000 kilometers away between two countries
00:23:56.980 that aren't us. That's why they have to censor you in Canada, you see. Sorry, but we have to
00:24:05.420 in order to save freedom online. You've just got to see this language. Look at this. This is real
00:24:12.740 Ministry of Truth stuff. First they say, we call for the cessation of the conducting and sponsoring of
00:24:19.480 disinformation campaigns and urge all stakeholders to take active steps to address the issue in a
00:24:25.180 manner that respects human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. So take active steps to censor the
00:24:30.600 internet, just like they took active steps with the cable companies in Canada. But Russia had better
00:24:38.440 stop censoring the internet. Quote, we call for the end of internet shutdowns and the blocking or
00:24:43.900 filtering of services. We also call for the Russian Federation to refrain from content restrictions on
00:24:49.720 the internet that violate international human rights laws. States must not unduly restrict, moderate,
00:24:55.480 or manipulate online content or disrupt networks to deny users access to information contrary to their
00:25:02.440 international obligations. In order to stop Russia from censoring the internet, they are going to
00:25:11.000 censor the internet. That's what they mean. They're tricksters with their wording, but it's what they
00:25:16.680 say if you read it just slowly and carefully. I mean, we just quote a little bit more.
00:25:20.200 Social media platforms play an important role in the fight against disinformation. In the last few
00:25:27.000 days, we have seen them make unprecedented and powerful decisions to restrain the Russian Federation's
00:25:32.200 attempt to misinform national and international audiences. Talk about propaganda. This is propaganda.
00:25:39.080 They literally name the websites they want smashed, but they immediately say how much they care about
00:25:46.680 freedom while they smash it. Let me quote. While respecting freedom of expression, Canada calls on
00:25:53.800 platforms to work with the Freedom Online Coalition and to keep taking every step possible to counter
00:26:00.920 state-sponsored disinformation, including that propaganded by Russia Today and Sputnik channels online.
00:26:07.720 We offer our continued collaboration to get this done in a manner guided by respect for human rights
00:26:14.200 and the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. Right, right, right, got it. The closing
00:26:21.000 couplet here, because it's like a poem, is just incredible. Canadians cannot have freedom of the
00:26:29.640 internet, but Ukrainians must. Let me read this gorgeous ending. Disinformation cannot be enabled,
00:26:38.600 whether through state media, private media, or social media platforms. We support Ukrainians'
00:26:44.920 human rights and internet freedoms, and we'll work together to counter state-sponsored disinformation,
00:26:51.240 which puts democracies and lives at risk. I think Ukrainians should have internet freedoms,
00:26:57.480 including to listen to propaganda from anyone they choose, whether it's from the Canadian government,
00:27:09.400 the Canadian state broadcaster, or any foreign version of it. My friends, they are using a war on the other
00:27:16.680 side of the world as an excuse to censor you. They're not going to stop till they do it. Stay with us for more.
00:27:26.520 Well, as you may know, we had boots on the ground in downtown Ottawa for nearly a month. We,
00:27:45.000 in fact, embedded our reporter with the trucker convoy a week before it even got to Ottawa and
00:27:51.240 covering the trucker convoy, I think, was the highlight of the last year for us. It was such a
00:27:57.000 condensed and concentrated political moment that has yielded so many results. I put it to you that
00:28:02.680 the truckers did more to change the debate in Canada and to get more freedom-oriented results
00:28:09.800 than any other actor in the past two years. And you always hear me say it, more than the courts,
00:28:16.600 more than the opposition, more than the media, more than academia. The truckers did an organic,
00:28:22.600 authentic grassroots movement. It was amazing. And it was really our time to shine as Rebel News.
00:28:28.360 We at one time had people in nine different cities covering different emanations of the truckers. In
00:28:34.040 fact, as far away as Canberra, Australia, our chief Australian correspondent was there. And I felt that
00:28:40.920 there were a clash of narratives. Rebel News was on one side with a handful of other independents,
00:28:46.520 against the media party. As you know, that's a phrase I use loosely for the political media
00:28:52.600 industrial complex quite often, journalists with legacy media. But I have to say, other than my dear
00:28:59.320 friends at Rebel News, the most effective journalist in Ottawa covering the convoy was not a Rebel. I mean,
00:29:08.680 I think Rebel did wonderfully. I would say we did a great job. But there was an outstanding journalist
00:29:15.320 journalist who I think really made her mark. And she reported, she's a freelance columnist.
00:29:22.680 She writes for the National Post. She writes for an impressive list, a roster of other media,
00:29:28.920 including the Wall Street Journal, where she was in just today. Her name is Rupa Subramanya.
00:29:35.960 And I am delighted to talk to her today via Skype from Ottawa. Rupa, what a pleasure to meet you. I've
00:29:43.160 become a super fan, even though we've never had a chance to talk before. I follow you so closely on
00:29:48.040 Twitter. I want to congratulate you for your journalism. I love what our rebels are doing,
00:29:52.600 and I think they're first rate. But to have you writing in the National Post and in the Wall Street
00:29:58.920 Journal, you were bringing a different point of view to people who otherwise might not have heard it.
00:30:04.280 Thanks, Ezra. It's great to be here. And it's great to finally meet you. And I also want to
00:30:11.800 give a shout out to your team for covering the protests. I know they were there to the very end
00:30:16.760 and right on the front lines. And there was a lot of live streaming from there. So I really appreciate
00:30:24.440 that coverage as well. So yeah, so Ezra, I am an outsider in journalism, really. I'm a trained economist.
00:30:34.280 My specialties are economics, and my expertise is economics and IR, and not necessarily the kind
00:30:42.520 of stuff that I worked on recently. Maybe that's what gave me this perspective, the outsider's
00:30:48.120 perspective on what was happening here. And what happened here is, before the convoy even showed up
00:30:55.400 in Ottawa, there was already a received narrative in place, and that narrative was pushed forward by a
00:31:02.760 handful of journalists and amplified by their echo chamber, that the protesters, the truckers,
00:31:10.520 were a bunch of white supremacists, anti-vaxxers, racists, bigots, here to overthrow the government.
00:31:19.480 And just pretty much anything bad you could say about them was said at that time.
00:31:26.040 Now, to be fair, there were elements attached to the convoy, and they didn't do any favors.
00:31:34.120 They didn't do themselves any favors that they were part of the convoy.
00:31:38.680 I feel like the convoy should have been very aggressive right from the get-go in just saying
00:31:44.520 that these guys have nothing to do with that. I know that they did that several times during the
00:31:51.080 course of the protest, but I do feel that that should have been dealt with right from the get-go.
00:31:55.960 But having said that, I went as a resident of the city where I live, not as a journalist, not as a
00:32:04.520 writer, but just as someone who wanted to see what was happening. I live right in the market,
00:32:10.920 so I have a bird's-eye view of what is happening. And so I went there keeping an open mind of,
00:32:19.640 you know, I was aware of this received narrative. I'd read all of that stuff, and I wanted to just
00:32:24.280 check it out for myself and see what was happening. And I discovered that my first impressions were,
00:32:30.760 well, I mean, this feels a lot like Canada Day. It felt like a winter carnival. There was so much,
00:32:38.200 you know, just so much joy and happiness. And, you know, you saw the maple leaf everywhere. You saw
00:32:44.440 people laughing. There were kids. There was lots of music. And you were there, so you experienced
00:32:50.840 some of this as well. And, you know, that was striking. And, you know, as I made my way
00:32:58.840 through the crowds and I spent pretty much all day there, I was struck by, you know,
00:33:05.640 it wasn't just a whole bunch of white people. There were, I saw black Canadians. I saw sea Canadians.
00:33:11.800 I saw Asians. I saw pretty much everyone. And everything was peaceful. There was nothing,
00:33:18.200 you know, as a person of color, you know, and as a woman, I walked through this protest,
00:33:25.480 you know, and felt completely safe, felt really, you know, just, I didn't feel anything
00:33:35.000 bad at all during the protests. And when I came home, you know, I came home and I told my partner,
00:33:42.600 you know, the political class in this country has completely underestimated what's going on here.
00:33:48.120 They're completely out of touch. They're detached. And I even tweeted this and I felt I got a lot of
00:33:55.240 pushback, especially from some very well-known journalists. And they mocked me and they said,
00:34:02.040 this is just a fringe group of people. It won't last for a couple of days.
00:34:08.040 It's like, you know, the annual get-together of the PPP,
00:34:16.120 sorry, the People's Party of Canada, the PPC. And nothing, and there's going to be no political
00:34:23.320 repercussions, no political consequences at all coming out of this. And then what happened was,
00:34:31.480 a few days later, the leader of the Conservative Party was fired by his own caucus.
00:34:36.040 The protests continued on for three weeks. Trudeau had to declare an emergency. There was even dissent
00:34:42.840 within his own party. So, yeah, so that's what ended up happening.
00:34:48.360 Well, it was incredible. And you really walked around. Like, I was there for a few days. It was
00:34:53.480 so very cold. I have to say, it was actually physically a challenge to cover this story. I'm
00:34:59.560 not complaining. I'm just saying, I saw you out there every day, all day. I saw you on your Twitter
00:35:05.720 feed, I mean, and the stories you wrote. And so that's the kind of shoe leather journalism that I
00:35:12.440 think really works for events like this. I think a lot of the critics in what I call the media party
00:35:18.360 never even went down there. Like my old friend, Andrew Coyne, I'm certain he didn't physically
00:35:24.440 go there. He was writing from his apartment somewhere and in Toronto. So I think that you
00:35:31.480 saw things with your own eyes. You saw people of every background. You mentioned race, but there's
00:35:37.400 also a class element to working class people and they look different. They're not as fancy. They don't
00:35:44.360 have the exact perfect words that the silver tongue devils who work in Parliament Hill do.
00:35:50.200 And I, so there was, there were some people a little rough around the edges. And I think that
00:35:54.520 brought out a kind of snobbery and condescension. You know, there's a great lawyer in Toronto named
00:36:00.040 Ryan O'Connor. He calls it the Peloton class. People who, they loved the lockdowns because they got
00:36:07.320 themselves that expensive Peloton workout machine and maybe they had a country cottage. So the fancy
00:36:13.160 people sort of said, yuck, I don't like truckers. I only like it when they drop off an Amazon package
00:36:19.080 and I don't even have to see them. They leave it at the door. I don't actually want to meet a trucker.
00:36:23.800 And I felt there was a, there was a classism and I'm not a Marxist, but I just, it's hard not to
00:36:29.800 notice some of the sneering. That same Andrew Coyne was calling them yobs. That's a, that's a British
00:36:35.920 term for sort of lower class football hooligans. I don't know. I think you really nailed it
00:36:42.360 because you were doing that shoe leather journalism. You were there looking people in the
00:36:48.120 eye, seeing what it was really like instead of just reading some pre-approved talking points.
00:36:53.320 So you have the digital economy and I, I, and that's all of us were part of the digital economy.
00:36:59.320 We've managed to get through the last two years navigating the pandemic through zoom and Peloton and
00:37:07.000 whatnot. Right. But then you have the working class, um, the, the, you know, they're, they,
00:37:14.200 they lay the brick and mortar of the economy. They're part of the brick and mortar of the economy.
00:37:18.760 And, uh, they, um, they've been completely, you know, speaking to them, you, you, you,
00:37:25.160 you get the sense that they've been completely left out. Uh, they've been affected by the lockdowns.
00:37:29.960 They've been affected by the restrictions. Uh, and then you had the mandates that kicked in. And then,
00:37:35.240 you know, I think that was the final straw for many of these folks. And, uh, what is,
00:37:41.080 what was unfortunate about all of this is that, uh, the, you know, that, that there was no real
00:37:46.680 attempt, uh, to really even try to understand where they were coming from. Um, you know, they,
00:37:52.840 it was easier to denigrate and mock them and, uh, call them names. Uh, and then when you were tired of
00:38:00.200 that, you went, went back to, uh, calling them racists and white supremacists. Um, there was no
00:38:06.360 real attempt to actually, um, to actually find out, you know, what, why are they upset? Why are
00:38:12.440 they angry? What, what's the source of their frustration? Um, and that is what I tried to do.
00:38:19.000 I mean, all I did was talk to people. I just got out of my apartment. It was cold. Um, you know,
00:38:24.840 and, uh, uh, you know, I'm not, you know, I was dressed warmly, but you know, you're there for 10,
00:38:30.200 12 hours every day. That's pretty, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's quite, um, you know,
00:38:36.040 that's, that's not good for you, but, you know, I, I went there and I, and I spoke to people and I,
00:38:41.960 and there were, you know, these people with some real heart, you know, some very, some heartbreaking
00:38:47.320 stories, you know, these are real people, uh, who've suffered during the pandemic and nobody really
00:38:53.160 wants to even engage with them. Uh, they're not all anti-vaxxers. Sure. There are some who are
00:38:58.280 anti-vaxxers. They will not take a vaccine, any vaccine of any kind, but there's, there was,
00:39:03.320 there was also a lot of, you know, there were people who had recovered from COVID. Now we know
00:39:07.000 the research on people who've recovered from COVID. They actually have very high antibodies.
00:39:12.040 So why are we forcing them to take the vaccine? Um, and, and so there were a lot of people like that.
00:39:18.440 There were people who have a history of heart condition and their families and
00:39:22.120 are not able to get a medical exemption from the vaccine. Now, this is something I didn't know
00:39:26.760 about. So there was a lot of stuff that I learned for the first time, Ezra, and this was an eye-opening
00:39:31.640 experience for me. Um, I thought getting a medical exemption, uh, wouldn't be a big deal or even a
00:39:38.280 religious exemption. In fact, when those things were announced, I thought, ah, you know, the, the,
00:39:43.240 these are potential loopholes, uh, if you want, um, you know, in the, in the vaccine, uh, man,
00:39:49.320 uh, with, with vaccination that people who don't want to get vaccinated will cite,
00:39:54.040 you know, medical reasons and, uh, religious reasons, but these are actually very hard to get.
00:39:59.960 Uh, so these two siblings I met, they didn't, they were not diagnosed with myocarditis,
00:40:07.400 but they have a heart disease. They themselves have some, some, some, some kind of a heart condition,
00:40:12.440 which is not myocarditis. You can only get this exemption for myocarditis, but think about the fact
00:40:18.200 that you have, you're really worried about this. Uh, it's not myocarditis that you have, you, but
00:40:25.400 you're worried about it. You don't want to take the vaccine. We need to understand that fear instead
00:40:30.120 of mocking them, right? Uh, what we've done is we've mocked and denigrated these individuals.
00:40:35.080 Young people's lives have changed, um, considerably. So people who used to love travel,
00:40:41.240 used to love to travel can no longer do that because they're prisoners in their own country.
00:40:45.800 They can't get on a plane, um, and, and, you know, and backpack across the world if they wanted to,
00:40:51.560 they can't go for a hockey game. So it's, it's, they can't go on a date, you know? Uh, and it's, it's
00:40:57.720 been, uh, it's been quite, uh, you know, for me, it was an eyeopening experience because I'll be very
00:41:03.560 honest with you. I'm, you know, I'm triple vaccinated and, you know, I kind of, um, initially, I thought the
00:41:10.120 mandates would be a way of getting more people vaccinated, but I hadn't quite realized how,
00:41:15.880 just how deeply unjust and discriminatory this whole thing has been. And, uh, so it really did open my
00:41:24.760 eyes and that only happened because I spoke to people and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I,
00:41:30.040 I try to understand where they were coming from. Well, that's real journalism, isn't it? I got one last
00:41:35.000 question for you. You mentioned, uh, a few moments ago that Aaron O'Toole, uh, was perhaps the first
00:41:40.480 political casualty of the truckers because his conservative MPs didn't feel like he was being
00:41:45.080 open-minded enough. He was being really shy. It was like he was afraid of the CBC being mean to him.
00:41:50.880 If he talked to a trucker, uh, there's been a lot of other things that these truckers, I think a lot
00:41:55.320 of other dominoes that have fallen. Um, I really, I mean, I said it before, I think they made a big
00:42:00.120 difference, but one institution that I think is in absolute denial and they have had no reckoning
00:42:08.080 for their role, not just in the last month, but the last two years, I think it's the media. And I
00:42:13.320 think that in politics, there are consequences for getting it wrong. You can be thrown out like
00:42:18.740 Aaron O'Toole was, or you can admit you're wrong and make changes. Like frankly, most provincial
00:42:25.600 governments are doing very quickly, but I don't think there's been a reckoning in most of the
00:42:31.180 media. In fact, I see that the new narrative from the media class is we were victimized.
00:42:38.780 We were threatened. So some of the journalists who went down there said I was heckled. Now I
00:42:43.940 grant you some people had some swears sworn at them. And I think in one case there was someone
00:42:49.680 who spat and I don't like that. That's actually assault. And someone said someone threw something
00:42:54.860 and I don't agree with that. But the whole media class is saying we're the true victims
00:43:02.420 here. We need armed guards on Parliament Hill. There's something terrible among, I mean, there's
00:43:08.540 no self-reflection. There's no introspection. There's no acknowledgement that maybe they got
00:43:16.420 something wrong over the last two years. Maybe they were cheerleaders for the lockdown. Maybe
00:43:20.860 they defamed the truckers. I've never seen a group so oblivious to what they're like. Every
00:43:27.080 other group in society has had a reckoning. I'm even starting to see it in the courts, but
00:43:31.500 not the media class. They're having panel discussions about how hard done by they are. What do you think
00:43:36.760 of all that? It's really bizarre, Ezra. And, you know, I just really have no words. The fact of the
00:43:47.420 matter is that journalists are not supposed to be there to be liked, right? They're supposed to be
00:43:52.100 there to report on the story as objectively and as fairly as they possibly can. There's no question
00:43:59.680 that there was a real disdain for the mainstream media among the protesters. I did see a few people,
00:44:07.680 few mainstream media journalists trying to engage with the protesters, maybe try to speak to the
00:44:12.160 truckers and, you know, and to some of the protesters. And they were met with a lot of
00:44:17.920 hostility. I didn't see any violent behavior, but I did see a lot of, you know, just, you know,
00:44:24.580 we don't trust the mainstream media, or if you want to talk to us, we're going to record it so that you
00:44:29.440 don't go and, you know, and, you know, and try to defame us or anything like that on the
00:44:37.040 media, for sure. But the media still has to work hard to gain people's trust, I think. It cannot
00:44:48.400 just be handed to you on a silver platter. And you have to earn their trust. I, as an independent
00:44:55.740 person, was also met with a lot of, you know, people didn't really want to speak to me.
00:45:01.420 And, but, you know, I had to really work hard at gaining people's trust. And, you know, and that
00:45:07.560 was not easy. So, so, you know, it's never, it's never good when the media becomes the story,
00:45:15.200 right? Journalists should never become the story, be the story. And that's unfortunately what ended
00:45:20.120 up happening here. I'm just not sure, you know, and they're never held accountable for anything,
00:45:26.260 really, at least for the three weeks that the protests happened. In fact, I was held more to
00:45:33.840 account than anybody else. You know, my tweets were fisked. My pieces were fact-checked, everything,
00:45:43.680 you name it, I was held more to account than Justin Trudeau or any of the talking heads on TV.
00:45:50.820 And I, as a freelancer and outsider in journalism. So that was quite ironic. You know, I just, I just
00:45:59.500 hope, because see, I've seen this movie play out before where, you know, a deep distrust of the media
00:46:04.100 then descends into things that are not good. You know, you, you do, journalists play a vital role,
00:46:10.580 you know, and I think, I think, you know, and that's very important. And, and, and they,
00:46:15.980 there needs to be a real introspection here of what they did wrong, what, what, what, what needs to be
00:46:23.820 done to improve reporting. You know, I feel like they've just, many of them have just moved on. You
00:46:31.040 know, the people who had this singular narrative of the protesters have now moved on to reporting on
00:46:38.560 the Ukraine-Russia conflict. And, you know, there's just no accountability anywhere.
00:46:45.720 Yeah, I think you're right. And, and I actually, the distrust that I myself have learned in the last
00:46:52.620 two years from watching the media cover COVID has stayed with me. And I'm extra skeptical of the
00:46:59.340 coverage of Ukraine. And I, and I'm sort of sad about that, that I've been turned so skeptical,
00:47:04.080 and that my, what little trust I had has been, you know, steamed off by what we've seen over the
00:47:11.520 last little while. Well, I got to tell you, Rupa, it's a pleasure to finally meet you and to talk with
00:47:16.100 you at length. Thank you very much for coming on the show today. And thank you for the journalism you
00:47:21.200 did. And, and I'm very critical of most journalists, but I, I have to say, I, every day I look forward to
00:47:27.620 seeing your side of the story because you told it like you saw it. You challenged the myths on the
00:47:34.480 other side and you proved it with photos and video clips and stories. I really benefited a lot
00:47:42.000 from you. And I recommend everyone follow you on Twitter as I do. And we'll have your Twitter
00:47:45.900 handle underneath. Great to meet you. I hope to talk to you again. And you are, you along with Rex
00:47:53.000 Murphy and Conrad Black are my reason for reading the National Post. So keep it up. I think you're
00:47:57.880 doing great. Thanks, Ezra. It was a real pleasure to be here to finally meet you. Well, you're very
00:48:03.000 nice to say that. There you have it. Rupert Subramanian, a freelance columnist at the National
00:48:07.320 Post in today's Wall Street Journal and other places. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:48:23.000 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me, Sharon Kerr says, send a Chrystia Freeland over there. She can
00:48:28.760 visit some relatives and it will cost a lot less. She can also coerce them to join the World Economic
00:48:34.860 Forum that she sits on the board of trustees. One world government ruled by the elites and everyone
00:48:40.500 else will have nothing. Her plutocrat's dream come true. There's a lot in there. I got to tell you
00:48:45.780 that Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Russia, is a World Economic Forum graduate. And I saw a
00:48:53.280 picture on Twitter today of him saying that he really looks up to Trudeau and Trudeau's his role
00:48:56.800 model. I find that depressing. Stephanie says, we are all Canadians. It is completely unacceptable to
00:49:04.760 discriminate in any way. Why would we punish Russians for a war that was forced upon them
00:49:09.020 by a corrupt leader? Oh, I've seen just the craziest. I've seen colleges saying we're going to stop
00:49:15.700 teaching Russian literature hundreds of years ago. I mean, I never was much into Russian literature
00:49:23.800 myself, but for example, Solzhenitsyn. Have you heard that name, Alexander Solzhenitsyn? He was a
00:49:30.300 real dissident. He wrote about totalitarianism, including censorship. Should he be banned because
00:49:40.000 he's Russian? He was warning against authoritarianism. Should he be banned because he's Russian?
00:49:45.700 Makes no sense. My friends, we got one more day this week. Who knows how crazy it's going to be.
00:49:51.700 We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, on behalf of all of us from here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:49:56.480 to you at home, good night. Keep fighting for freedom. And I'm going to leave you with this
00:50:00.020 video from Tamera Ugolini, a German health insurance company that's sounding the alarm on
00:50:06.040 vaccine injuries. I promise you, this is news you won't see on the CBC State Broadcaster.
00:50:11.560 All right, see you tomorrow.
00:50:12.560 Tamera Ugolini here with Rebel News, and we are now slowly getting 2021 data showing just how
00:50:18.380 devastating the novel mRNA COVID injectables have been on the general public. Now it's showing up
00:50:25.020 under the bottom line of health insurance companies. This particular story comes out of
00:50:30.440 Germany, where I just so happen to have some family members and how it's making me very much regret
00:50:36.340 not learning the mother tongue from my oma and omi. Yes, I am German and Italian. Makes for a very
00:50:42.660 feisty combo, you can ask my husband. Regardless, I have connected with those family members. Hi,
00:50:49.080 Tante. To seek some clarification and make sure that my translations are in fact correct.
00:50:55.720 I would welcome you and as always to fact check what I'm about to say using Google Translate,
00:51:03.020 or maybe you can reference your own friends and family in Germany. This story has been picked up
00:51:09.660 by various English and Canadian media outlets making its way on Twitter. But I wanted to source the raw
00:51:17.900 data for myself and find out exactly what was being said by this particular company. As always,
00:51:24.240 I will link all of my sources in the written component of this report. Okay, so let's dig in.
00:51:30.220 So a large German health insurer called BKK Provita, that's one of Germany's oldest health
00:51:34.800 insurance, filed this press release titled Strong Warning Signal for Coded Vaccination Side Effects
00:51:39.920 After Corona Vaccination on February 21st, 2022. It was directed to Professor Dr. Sitchutec at the
00:51:47.500 Paul Ehrlich Institute, also referred to as PEI, which is the German Federal Ministry of Health.
00:51:53.560 The letter starts off by saying that the Paul Ehrlich Institute announced in a press release
00:51:58.400 that for the calendar year of 2021, only 244,576 suspected cases of vaccination side effects
00:52:08.640 occurred after Corona vaccination and were reported. The second paragraph basically states that using
00:52:15.640 their own data, BKK Provita has reason to believe that this signals significant underreporting and
00:52:21.880 that they are enclosing an evaluation of their own data. The third paragraph, they lay it all out.
00:52:27.260 They used the billing data of doctors filing health insurance claims. Using anonymous sample databases
00:52:32.940 from the health insurance companies, they included just over 10.9 million policyholders and used the
00:52:40.060 doctor's billing data for the first half of 2021. Using the valid ICD codes for vaccine side effects,
00:52:49.400 those codes stand for International Classification of Disease, ICD, that is a globally standardized code
00:52:57.460 by the World Health Organization, the WHO. You can search the various codes and their meanings out
00:53:02.580 for yourself, but I will outline them later. Okay, so going back to this third paragraph,
00:53:08.240 BKK saw that already there had been 2,116,695 cases of vaccination side effects treated as per their own
00:53:20.320 data. They go on to extrapolate this figure to include the entire year of 2021 and apply it to
00:53:26.580 the total German population and claim that there are probably two and a half to three million people
00:53:32.120 in Germany seeking medical care due to vaccine side effects. They note that this is a significant
00:53:38.540 alarm signal. The fourth paragraph, they reinforce that this means approximately four to five percent
00:53:44.360 of vaccinated people were under medical treatment because of side effects to vaccination.
00:53:50.540 In the fifth paragraph, they speculate that the cause of underreporting could be
00:53:54.360 that there is no monetary incentive for physicians to report to the Paul Ehrlich Institute.
00:54:00.220 They note that doctors claim it takes about half an hour to file a report and with three million
00:54:04.900 suspected cases of side effects, that would take one and a half million hours of work to complete,
00:54:10.960 which would be the equivalent to the annual work performance of 1,000 doctors. That's staggering.
00:54:18.200 The last two sentences note that they also sent the letter to the National Association of
00:54:23.160 Statutory Health Insurance Funds to request that they also analyze their data appropriately and
00:54:28.900 since danger to people's lives cannot be ruled out, they ask for PEI's feedback by February 22nd,
00:54:34.580 2022 at 6 p.m. It looks like they didn't receive a response from PEI directly, but a German doctors
00:54:42.020 association called Verkalbund responded with this press release dated February 24th, 2022,
00:54:48.520 and it's been picked up and shared widely by German mainstream media. The press release is authored by
00:54:54.940 Dr. Dirk Heinrich, the federal chairman of Verkalbund. He refers to BKK Provita's claim as
00:55:01.440 embarrassing ignorance or insidious attempt to deceive and calls their conclusion complete nonsense.
00:55:08.100 The basis of the letter is that the findings by BKK are meaningless because the codes do not
00:55:12.800 differentiate between mild or severe side effects. He then attacks the company for his advertising of
00:55:18.600 homeopathy and osteopathy in some sort of strange smear attempt, to which BKK responded on in a press release
00:55:26.200 on February 25th, 2022, the very next day. They reiterate that the basis for the evaluation is the billing
00:55:32.620 data of the doctors themselves. They repeat everything from their initial letter to PEI and also include
00:55:38.440 some graphs. The graphs include data from 2019 through 2022. Graph number one shows patients with
00:55:46.760 the code T88.1. These are other complications following immunization that were not classified
00:55:53.640 elsewhere. Graph number two shows patients with the U12.9 code. That's a new code since 2021 filed under
00:56:01.980 special purposes and it's used to classify COVID-19 vaccines causing adverse effects in therapeutic use
00:56:08.160 with unspecified reaction. Graph number three shows the code U5.9.9, another unspecific reaction
00:56:15.740 caused by a vaccine or biological substance. And finally graph four shows the code T88.0, which is an
00:56:22.940 infection following vaccination, specifically sepsis. That's alarming. BKK again reiterates that they
00:56:29.820 viewed themselves as obligated to report this data to PEI as they are the supreme authority for vaccine
00:56:35.840 safety. And they reference page 39 of PEI's own safety report, which notes that this health
00:56:41.760 authority has undertaken a volunteer driven observational survey on the tolerability of the
00:56:48.400 COVID-19 vaccines over a 12 month period. They further note that they don't interpret the data. They just
00:56:54.260 want to connect it to the responsible authorities to provide possible safety signals as it's a significant
00:56:59.700 finding. The BKK executive board has agreed to do an in-depth discussion with the PEI for the coming
00:57:05.920 week. That's the first week of March. Again, they encourage all health insurance companies to follow
00:57:10.700 this lead and evaluate their own databases. BKK ProVita further distances itself from the dubious
00:57:16.920 statements made by Verkaubund in its press release on February 24th. And they claim that Dr. Dirk Heinrich did
00:57:24.220 not communicate with the board of directors at BKK, nor did he request insight into the data analysis,
00:57:31.400 noting that only serious and factual analysis can benefit vaccine safety and the health of the
00:57:35.980 insured. They reject controversial statements as an unsuitable means of dispute and further
00:57:42.040 reiterate that the Paul Ehrlich Institute is solely responsible for clarifying the safety of vaccines.
00:57:47.560 My family in Germany told me that a meeting was being facilitated between BKK ProVita and the
00:57:53.640 Elric Institute. Apparently, the CEO of BKK has since been terminated and the meeting went forward
00:58:00.340 without him. I will give an update when there is one, so please stay tuned as I follow the potential
00:58:07.280 unraveling of proper vaccine adverse effects documentation. I think it'll be a showdown between
00:58:14.800 the companies obviously profiteering from their sale versus the companies whose bottom lines are being
00:58:21.980 affected by the disastrous health outcomes. For Rebel News, I'm Tamara Ugolini.