Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trump heckles Trudeau and his 'democratic legitimacy'

00:00:00.200 Hello, my friends. Big show today. I can't believe it. Tears on, tears off. I'm getting

00:00:05.460 a little bit of whiplash. And we have a great conversation with my friend Derek Fildebrand

00:00:10.280 about would Alberta ever take Trump up on his invitation to join the U.S. as the 51st

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00:01:44.900 Tonight, I'm getting a bit of whiplash with these tariffs on and off and on and off, aren't

00:01:49.620 you? It's March 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:52.320 Well, the tariffs were put on yesterday and taken off again today, at least for items covered

00:02:14.460 by the U.S. MCA trade deal. In order to protect American car manufacturers and American farmers,

00:02:21.100 we have two modifications to the IEPA tariffs that have already been announced against Canada

00:02:26.280 and Mexico. This first order relates to Canada. Essentially, what it will allow for is the flow

00:02:32.460 of parts and sub-assembly products into America to allow American car manufacturers to continue

00:02:41.660 building cars. It basically excludes U.S. MCA-eligible goods from existing tariffs.

00:02:47.280 And also, in order to help our farmers at this crucial time of year, we're going to be reducing

00:02:52.000 the tariff imposed on Canadian potash from 25 percent to 10 percent. So this is a modification

00:02:58.660 to our tariff regime to protect American car manufacturers and American farmers.

00:03:03.360 It basically makes it more fair for our car manufacturers during the short-term period before

00:03:09.660 April 2nd. April 2nd is a little bit different. That will be much more significant. But this,

00:03:18.440 during this interim period, between now and April 2nd, this makes it much more favorable for

00:03:24.820 our American car manufacturers. Okay. Can you see that, Peter? Nice to be tall, Peter, right?

00:03:46.380 I see right over. You can see. It's so nice. That's why he's such a gentleman. He doesn't

00:03:51.140 have to rush. Okay? And this is the same just for Mexico, sir, the previous one.

00:03:57.480 Same thing for Mexico, sir. That's exactly right. One for Canada, one for Mexico. 0.97

00:04:00.380 Yes, sir. They've been in the news lately, haven't they?

00:04:07.000 And I spoke to the president of Mexico, a wonderful woman, today. And we helped them out

00:04:14.260 with the problem they were having, having to do with the tariffs, short-term tariffs. And we had

00:04:21.160 a very good conversation. Also, we discussed drugs, and they've been working much harder lately. Do you

00:04:27.740 notice that? On people coming in and drugs. And we've made tremendous progress on both.

00:04:34.380 Apparently, they're remaining on other products like steel and aluminum. Just a reminder, a tariff

00:04:39.460 is an import tax that a country puts on a good that arrives on its shores. So when Trump briefly

00:04:45.880 imposed, say, a 10% tariff on Canadian oil imports to the U.S., that would be paid on the U.S. side.

00:04:53.320 That's one of the things Trump has talked about. He says he'd like to replace the IRS, the Internal

00:04:58.700 Revenue Service, with an external revenue service. He has plans, he says, to shrink the IRS greatly.

00:05:05.880 He sometimes points out that back in the day, tariffs played a large role in U.S. tax collecting.

00:05:13.120 And remember, the U.S. didn't even have an income tax until the First World War. So for most of its

00:05:18.580 existence, there was no U.S. income tax. Here's a clip of him saying that.

00:05:23.300 She said, no tax on anything. How about just no tax?

00:05:32.860 You could do that. You know, if the tariffs worked out like I think, a thing like that could happen if

00:05:38.760 you want to know the truth. You know, years ago, 1870 to 1913, we didn't have an income tax. We had

00:05:46.740 what we had is tariffs where foreign countries came in and they stole our jobs. They stole our 0.99

00:05:52.240 companies. They stole our product. They ripped us off. And, you know, they used to do numbers. And

00:05:57.720 then we went to tariff, a tariff system. And the tariff system made so much money. It was when we

00:06:03.360 were the richest from 1870 to 1913. Then we came in with the brilliantly came in with an income tax. No,

00:06:10.420 we don't want others to pay. Let's have our people pay. And then you had the depression in 1928,

00:06:16.360 1929. I call it 1929. That was a bad time. But, you know, you didn't have tariffs and you had

00:06:22.100 tariffs that ended in 1913. But it was the richest our country ever was. So I think Trump has ambitions

00:06:31.600 of doing that. And he always says it'll move factories and jobs to America. He certainly has 1.00

00:06:37.460 been announcing a lot of factories and jobs coming to America. I mean, here's the latest just from

00:06:41.820 today. Mr. President, yes, indeed, we are CMA, CGM, one of the leaders in shipping and logistics

00:06:47.660 around the world. We are very enthusiastic about this big announcement of today. We are investing

00:06:53.100 $20 billion in shipping and logistics. This means the creation of 10,000 new American jobs. We're also

00:07:00.540 looking at investing in shipbuilding of container vessels. And we most probably will be making also

00:07:06.900 announcement in the next coming weeks. And we would like also, Mr. President, to go for more US flag

00:07:12.380 vessels. And we will go from 10 that we operate today to 30 US flag ships and hopefully doing more

00:07:19.720 in the months to come. What a difference between Canada and the US. I can't think of any major global

00:07:25.660 company that would invest 10 billion or 20 billion or 500 billion into the Canadian economy as has

00:07:32.600 happened in the past month in the US or even cut those numbers down by 90% for Canada size. No one's

00:07:39.840 made those announcements. And by the way, they could be $100 billion sized announcements if we were to open

00:07:45.840 up our oil and gas sector. Even Mark Carney agrees that America is a job creating, wealth creating

00:07:54.080 magnet. I mean, in his final weeks as chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, Carney voted along with the rest of

00:08:00.720 the board to move their huge company from Toronto to New York to make money, of course. He's not stupid. 0.93

00:08:07.960 Even as he suspended the tariffs, though, Donald Trump talked about how the US did not need Canadian 0.69

00:08:13.440 imports. I'll tell you what's a high tariff nation is Canada. Canada charges us 250% for milk product and

00:08:21.640 other product and a tremendous tariff on lumber and things as such. And yet we don't need their lumber.

00:08:27.920 We have more lumber than they do. We don't need Canada's lumber. So what I'm doing is I'll be signing

00:08:34.260 an executive order freeing up our forests so that we're allowed to take down trees and make a lot of

00:08:43.360 money and then re harvest trees. We don't need trees from Canada. We don't need cars from Canada. We don't

00:08:49.240 need energy from Canada. We don't need anything from Canada. So where we can be self-sustaining,

00:08:57.580 which is in most things like we have more oil and gas than anybody. Our forests are massive,

00:09:02.980 massive parts. We're just not allowed to use them because of the environmental lunatics that stopped 0.98

00:09:08.300 us. So I'm going to be freeing that up very shortly so that we don't have to go to other countries to buy

00:09:13.140 lumber. You know, why should we be buying lumber from other countries paying tariffs, paying big prices,

00:09:18.760 extraordinary prices? And we have lumber. We have the best lumber.

00:09:22.660 Now, as you know, the biggest source of Canadian imports to the U.S. by far is oil. And the thing

00:09:27.300 is, the U.S. is a huge producer of oil, ahead even of Russia and the Saudis. But they don't have the

00:09:32.580 same reserves Canada has. Our oil sands, that's the key to U.S. long-term energy independence,

00:09:38.940 they don't move. You can't move them across the border like a factory. I think maybe

00:09:43.060 Trump already considers those American oil sands since they're covered in the U.S. MCA trade

00:09:49.820 agreement. And oil is produced by many companies that are either American outright or Canadian

00:09:55.940 companies with American investors. So maybe Trump already thinks of them as American.

00:10:01.120 Because right now, despite all the American industrial might, they rely on us for millions

00:10:05.780 of barrels a day without which they would have to buy from Russia or OPEC. That's the whole thesis of

00:10:11.380 my new book, that tariffs don't work on the oil sands. And as the United States, you don't want

00:10:16.960 them. You don't want tariffs on your oil. You want free trade with oil because it's going to your

00:10:22.260 consumers. And you can't, if you're not buying it from Canada, you're buying it from Saudi Arabia.

00:10:27.520 But I think a lot of this has just broken down to personal squabbles between Trump and Trudeau.

00:10:32.060 I mean, look at some of this from Trudeau crying again to reports of swearing back and forth at each

00:10:38.100 other on the phone. Take a look at this. On a personal level, I've made sure that every single

00:10:43.840 day in this office, I put Canadians first, that I have people's backs. And that's why I'm here to

00:10:52.500 tell you all that we got you. Even in the very last days of this government, we will not let Canadians 1.00

00:11:00.780 down today and long into the future. Because in the past few weeks, we've been working with our

00:11:08.120 provincial and territorial partners to make sure that families can rely on this system,

00:11:13.000 not just for years to come, but will allow this system to lock in, to become something that no

00:11:21.760 government a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now could ever go back on.

00:11:29.240 I just don't think Trump and Trudeau like each other. Trump has more tweets tweaking Trudeau

00:11:34.780 about when he's going to go. And fair enough, who can Trump negotiate with right now? I mean,

00:11:39.400 he can't do a deal with Trudeau. And do they even have the authority to make a deal? I mean,

00:11:44.620 they dissolve parliament. If Trudeau is gone in a few days and parliament is not in session,

00:11:48.900 what is the point for Trump to negotiate with Trudeau? And what's he going to do? Negotiate with Mark

00:11:55.040 Carney, who does not have the democratic mandate for anything. He's never won an election in Canadian

00:12:00.680 history. Trump needs a counterpart with a moral authority and the democratic legitimacy and a

00:12:06.200 mandate of an election behind them. Obviously, I want that to be peripolia, but it has to be someone.

00:12:11.640 And right now it is no one. What's Trump supposed to do? Maybe that's why the new Mexican president, 0.59

00:12:17.340 Claudia Scheinbaum, has managed to have a more respectful, productive relationship with Trump.

00:12:21.480 She actually won an election and she doesn't seem as disposed to cheap shots at Trump.

00:12:28.360 Oh yeah. Speaking of which, we're so much stronger together. I've spoken to governors,

00:12:34.460 senators, congressmen, and women from every region, both Democrats and Republicans. They know,

00:12:42.120 they tell me, these tariffs are a massive mistake. We could have stayed focused. We could have poured

00:12:50.040 our effort into making Canada, the U.S., the two richest, most successful, safest, most secure two

00:12:58.100 countries on the planet. Unfortunately, one man, President Trump, has chosen chaos instead.

00:13:07.000 Now, we have no choice. We have to respond. Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Trudeau and his team

00:13:14.920 announced retaliatory tariffs. They have my full support for a strong and forceful response.

00:13:22.860 Tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar.

00:13:25.480 Oh, so Doug Ford is going to keep tariffs on U.S. goods entering into Ontario, even though

00:13:30.440 U.S. tariffs are taken off. So it really is just a tax grab, isn't it? Like I said,

00:13:35.600 the taxes are paid on the Ontario side. Doug Ford just wants some money.

00:13:39.040 Today, I'm writing to every senator, every congressman and woman, and the governors from

00:13:45.860 New York State, Michigan, and Minnesota, telling them that these tariffs persist. If the Trump

00:13:52.940 administration falls through on any more tariffs, we will immediately apply a 25% surcharge on the

00:14:00.840 electricity we export. We will not hesitate to shut off their power as well. I'm encouraging

00:14:08.700 my fellow premiers to follow suit. You know, Trudeau is going to be gone soon, and with it,

00:14:13.040 hopefully some of the pettiness and vendettas. I'm not sure why Doug Ford thinks that that empty

00:14:19.380 role is for him to fill, the taunter of Americans. I'm not sure if that's something that Trump and

00:14:23.900 his team responds well to. The fight won't be over for months. Now, will it? Stay with us for more.

00:14:38.700 Well, all sorts of news out of Alberta. A threatened tariff on Canadian products, including energy,

00:14:51.080 has proceeded, as was foreshadowed some weeks ago. It's 25% on many products, 10% on oil,

00:14:59.580 which is chiefly from Alberta. That's obviously lower than 25%, but it still will work out to about

00:15:05.600 30 cents a gallon for U.S. customers. That's why I argue in my new book that it's not an America-first

00:15:12.140 move to tax Canadian oil imports. It doesn't really make sense. Taxes on imported automotives

00:15:19.200 could make economic sense if you got the factory to relocate to America. I don't advocate that.

00:15:25.140 Obviously, I don't want Ontarians to do their jobs, but you can't move the oil sands to America.

00:15:30.360 And given that the oil sands are really an American-destined product, it doesn't make a lot

00:15:35.740 of sense to me. And I think there's a better America-first way. But what happens now? I think

00:15:41.940 that Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, has led the diplomatic charge while other premiers

00:15:46.680 tried to out-tough guy Donald Trump. Danielle Smith was actually doing the hard work of diplomacy in 1.00

00:15:52.340 Washington, D.C. She refrained from insulting or raising the temperature of some insane threats

00:16:00.080 like Doug Ford threatening to turn off electricity to U.S. states. Just completely counterproductive,

00:16:05.620 and I don't think you're going to out-bully Donald Trump. That said, some of the terrorists were put on

00:16:12.360 a kind of reset, that they will be suspended for a period of time. I find it a little bit confusing,

00:16:18.440 to be frank. And I'm wondering what the reaction is in Alberta, and who better to know than our

00:16:23.540 next guest? His name is Derek Fildebrandt. He's the publisher of The Western Standard,

00:16:27.860 and he follows these events and others very closely. Derek, great to see you again. Thanks

00:16:32.400 for taking the time. Always happy to be on the program, Ezra.

00:16:35.520 Well, thank you for that. I'd like to play a couple of clips from Danielle Smith's press

00:16:39.540 conference yesterday, and then I want to talk about the very grassroots movement by some folks who

00:16:47.200 were saying, you know what? Let's join the states. Let's take Donald Trump at his word when he says

00:16:52.360 he wants to annex us. Let's go. So I'll come back to that afterwards, but let's look at a couple of

00:16:58.740 clips from Danielle Smith's press conference yesterday. I'd like your thoughts on it. Here's

00:17:02.780 the first one where she refers to the fact that the oil sands were given a lower tariff than other

00:17:09.380 sectors of the Canadian economy. Let's take a quick look, and I'd love your thoughts for this one.

00:17:12.260 No, I mean, it's been successful. The fact that we saw a 10% tariff rate instead of 25%

00:17:19.020 is a recognition, I think, that energy resources, whether it's oil and gas or critical minerals

00:17:25.280 or electricity, are vital components of U.S. success. That's what we were arguing, is that

00:17:32.520 if you want to be able to exert American influence internationally, geopolitically,

00:17:37.400 through oil exports, you need Canadian oil to be able to backfill so that American consumers

00:17:43.660 are protected. We very successfully made the case that there were a multitude of refineries

00:17:49.020 that would shut down potentially with 25% tariffs, and it would certainly cause an increase in the cost

00:17:55.800 of fuel. I just saw a story today that even 10% tariffs are going to increase the cost of gasoline by

00:18:01.360 30 cents a gallon in some jurisdictions. I think that that message was heard loud and clear. It could have

00:18:07.180 potentially been almost three times higher than that. So I would say that we've been able to be

00:18:11.980 successful on making some of those arguments. I think we can make them for food. I think we can make

00:18:17.960 them for intermediate products. But it does take us working with our American counterparts in business

00:18:24.320 as well as in various levels of elected office to press the point for us. I have confidence that we

00:18:29.960 can be successful on that. Just look at what happened today with a reprieve on auto tariffs.

00:18:35.140 I think the more the stock market responds in a negative fashion, the more consumers demonstrate

00:18:41.900 that they're going to be hurt, the more industry voices that speak up. I think that that's going to

00:18:46.140 get us to a place where we can get to where I think we really need to be, which is renegotiating the

00:18:51.100 Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and dealing with some of these irritants so that both countries can get

00:18:56.760 on to other issues.

00:18:58.140 I think I'm a little confused there because just the other day, President Trump said he wants to revive

00:19:03.760 the Keystone XL pipeline, which is dead and buried. That grave is cold. But, I mean, Trump knows

00:19:10.420 that's going to bring in 800,000 barrels a day. That's a lot. That's what, about $20 billion,

00:19:15.260 just roughly off the top of my head. That's so much dough. So on the one hand, he's saying,

00:19:18.860 I want more oil sands oil. But on the other hand, he's saying, you want to put a 10% tariff on it.

00:19:23.820 I'm getting a little bit of whiplash. And I'm a super fan of Trump, by the way. I find it hard to

00:19:27.680 understand.

00:19:29.860 I'm not sure there is understanding it. I mean, there's the mad dog theory of Trump,

00:19:34.800 you know, that he's just throwing us off and softening us up. But I'm not seeing any strategy

00:19:41.360 in this. I'd like to think he, you know, this is some art of the deal thing where he's trying to

00:19:49.480 throw us through a loop and soften us up. But I'm not seeing how this works here. And, you know,

00:19:56.740 so it's not good for American consumers. It's not good for American refineries. It's not good for

00:20:00.660 American energy independence, if you're defining that as North American energy independence, at

00:20:04.540 least. It doesn't square with Keystone XL. I'm just not seeing any strategy here. And, you know,

00:20:12.180 I'm, I'm sympathetic to Trump on some issues. But it, I'm having a hard time squaring it with,

00:20:22.780 you know, those who just think this is a part of some brilliant strategy. I'm not convinced is a

00:20:27.880 part of a brilliant strategy at this point. You have to wonder if it's just kind of going off

00:20:32.280 half cocked on a bunch of different fronts, as he's trying to reorder global and North American

00:20:38.140 trade. I, I'm not convinced that there's any sound strategy in what he's trying to achieve

00:20:44.100 with at least with Alberta oil, I can see what he might be trying to achieve with the auto sector.

00:20:48.580 You know, and that's, that's obviously a bad thing for, for Windsor and the Ontario auto auto

00:20:53.540 manufacturers. You can at least see where he might be trying to go, but I, I haven't, I can't see where

00:20:59.380 he's trying to go, at least with the Alberta oil sands. You know, one thing that is very clear is his

00:21:06.240 disdain for Justin Trudeau. I mean, again, he's, he's yanking his chain, calling him governor

00:21:12.240 instead of prime minister. He's done a couple of tweets or other social media posts where he has

00:21:18.120 suggested that Trudeau loves this fight because it'll give him a chance to not retire. And in

00:21:25.020 fact, to run again. I think there's a possibility of that. I, I think Mark Carney and the liberal

00:21:33.000 party have in some ways moved on from that. I think Trump is, is enjoying fighting with Trudeau and,

00:21:41.860 and Trump's sort of a scrappy guy. He gives people mean nicknames and he roughs them up a bit.

00:21:46.840 And then afterwards he makes up with them. If you think about everyone from Ron DeSantis

00:21:50.600 to Marco Rubio to even JD Vance, they were all people who used to be his foes. Now they're his

00:21:55.500 buddies, but they all went through sort of a bruising middle step. I, I don't quite understand

00:22:02.260 what's going on, but my thesis is if Trump wants to get back at Trudeau, there are other ways to do it

00:22:07.420 without pushing away Canadian oil, which is, as Danielle Smith just put there, so essential for

00:22:14.760 America's success. Yeah. You know, and I, I don't think this is going to be a Trudeau. I mean,

00:22:21.800 there was a window where Trudeau may have used this, uh, to call a snap election and circumvent the

00:22:27.220 liberal leadership race. Uh, we are so close to the liberal leadership race at this point that, uh,

00:22:31.960 no, that that's, that's not in the cards. Although it might be a fair accusation that the,

00:22:36.820 you know, Trudeau was using this to help, um, uh, improve the political chances of the liberal

00:22:44.460 party. I think there's been evidence of that in the polls, although the polls are, the polls are

00:22:48.400 drunk. Uh, they, they, they just, they, they're, they're so all over the place, but there's at least

00:22:52.940 a substantial body of polling evidence that the liberals have had a recovery riding this, uh,

00:22:58.740 you know, kind of postmodern nationalist wave. Um, it's, um, I mean, if, if Trump wanted to really

00:23:07.700 agitate Trudeau, he would exempt, uh, Alberta oil and maybe other, even other very heavy Alberta

00:23:13.500 products. Cause then it would, it would create even more cleavages between Alberta and the West 0.83

00:23:18.460 on the one hand and, and the, uh, the federal government in Ottawa and Trudeau on the other,

00:23:23.600 uh, tempting Trudeau to put on an export tax or, or embargo the United States or something like that.

00:23:30.140 If it looked like, uh, you know, Ontario and Quebec were the ones getting hit and Alberta was

00:23:35.360 getting, uh, an easy ride. So I, I think if, if, if Trump was playing more, he's doing that a little

00:23:41.720 bit by putting a, you know, I should say, you know, only 10% tariff on, uh, on Canadian oil,

00:23:47.700 primarily from Alberta. Uh, that is creating a tension that, you know, the Trudeau government's

00:23:52.720 going to be like, well, well, why are they only getting 10 when we're getting stuffed with, uh,

00:23:55.900 25 on, on most central Canadian products? Uh, but again, it's just not making a ton of sense

00:24:01.360 coming, what's coming from Trump on this one. You know, uh, Western Canada has some really

00:24:05.460 valuable things. Danielle Smith listed some of them there. Saskatchewan has a lot of potash,

00:24:09.360 which is important for agriculture and other things. Of course, Alberta has a lot of oil.

00:24:14.100 One of the things that gets me is that liberals from Eastern Canada who disparage resource

00:24:21.020 industries who, who say we have to stop them. We have to transition away from them who hate the

00:24:26.880 oil sands and frankly, hate mining suddenly want to conscript the mining industry and the oil industry

00:24:32.640 to be the battering ram in this fight. Um, I see Catherine McKenna, the disgraced former

00:24:37.940 environment minister who never saw an oil barrel that she didn't hate now calling on Alberta to

00:24:43.980 take one for the team. Let me play a quick clip of Danielle Smith talking about this threat of 1.00

00:24:51.620 export taxes where Canada would either tax or stop exports. I'd love your thoughts on this. Take a

00:24:59.060 look at this from yesterday where Danielle Smith sort of had a dukes up, not towards Trump, but towards 0.93

00:25:03.860 Trudeau. Take a look. What is Alberta willing to do if the federal government does, uh, put in some

00:25:09.220 type of export tax or decide to cut off energy to the U S well, an export tax would be a violation of

00:25:15.720 the 1977 pipeline treaty. We've committed to not tax the content of energy products going down to the

00:25:22.600 United States. And I would hope that the federal government would abide by Alberta's wishes not to

00:25:27.280 unfairly, uh, tax our jurisdiction. I know what an export tax would mean. $150 billion worth of product

00:25:34.840 tax at 25% would generate $40 billion for Ottawa that would then be spent on Ottawa's priorities.

00:25:41.180 And I have absolutely no interest. You will notice that when Doug talked about adding a surtax,

00:25:46.220 he wasn't talking about Ottawa adding an export tax that then would be collected by Ottawa to be decided

00:25:51.300 where it was going to be spent by Ottawa. He's adding that tax so that he has the ability to keep

00:25:56.440 those dollars in his own province to be able to defray any of the damage on his own people. So I would say

00:26:02.360 it is not on, it's not been on from the beginning. And you do not demonstrate that you are a reliable

00:26:07.220 supplier of energy products who are our most important trading partner by acting in that,

00:26:12.160 in that kind of erratic way. So there, there's no circumstance under which I would support an export

00:26:16.580 tax. I I'm glad to hear her say that. I don't know if she has the political, legal, constitutional,

00:26:22.260 legislative horses to stop Trudeau if he wanted to do that. What do you, what do you make of it?

00:26:26.920 Do you think that's an idle threat by Trudeau? I mean, cutting off oil to America would be

00:26:31.640 tantamount to a declaration of war, putting an export tax on them. I don't know. I think that

00:26:37.880 would inflame things. It would do a lot more destruction than reconstruction. What do you

00:26:41.980 think? Well, uh, embargoing oil exports to the United States is just simply not possible. I think

00:26:48.700 a lot of people have seen the map by now, a map that, uh, 99% of Canadians had never seen until a few

00:26:54.780 weeks ago showing that the oil sands, uh, you know, these pipelines from Alberta, uh, they don't

00:27:00.760 just go straight into America, uh, the, the, the oil, sorry, our pipelines going to Eastern Canada.

00:27:06.200 They don't actually go to Eastern Canada. They go through Saskatchewan, they go to the United States

00:27:10.380 and they come around and they eventually come up back up through the Great Lakes. So if, uh, if Ottawa

00:27:15.700 was to, uh, Ottawa was to turn off the taps to America, uh, the Eastern bastard would be making the 1.00

00:27:20.940 Eastern bastards freeze in the dark. Uh, they, they simply couldn't do it. So I'm actually in a very 1.00

00:27:26.060 weird way. I'm kind of glad we didn't build energy East because it means Ottawa has no leverage to

00:27:30.620 actually turn off, uh, oil exports to the United States, which is why, uh, they're not really talking

00:27:35.640 about that. They're talking about export tax. If they did, it's a tatramount, uh, you know, an oil

00:27:42.640 embargo against, uh, uh, against the United States is tatramount to a declaration of war against

00:27:47.020 America. An export tax is tatramount to a declaration of war against Alberta. And, uh, and there really

00:27:53.560 is no length to which, uh, Alberta should not go to resist it. Uh, I, I've been resistant against

00:28:01.020 the whole, uh, faux team Canada idea because it's, uh, it's not really been team Canada. It's team

00:28:08.100 Ontario, Quebec. Uh, what's, what's about protecting them? Uh, I think Smith was right to take a,

00:28:14.940 uh, a pretty diplomatic approach to this. There's been partial successes to that,

00:28:19.660 which I think it's at least in part why we have a 10% tariff on oil, not a 25%. But, uh, you know,

00:28:25.380 the nice diplomatic approach has unfortunately failed. I was, I, I, I, I've, I've been supportive

00:28:30.900 of her softer, more diplomatic approach here and it's a partial success, but it's obviously not

00:28:36.400 gone far enough here. But if, if Ottawa was to go this route, um, I, I'd, I'd be willing to take

00:28:44.800 some, uh, pretty extreme measures to resist it. It would be, uh, as I said, a detriment to a

00:28:50.940 declaration of economic war against Alberta. And there was absolutely nothing and no, no length

00:28:55.740 to which we should go, uh, to resist it. At that point, Ottawa becomes the much greater threat to

00:29:00.980 Alberta than the United States is if they went that route. You know, it's interesting you say

00:29:04.840 that because Donald Trump, when he talks about the 51st state, and I don't know if you saw Marco

00:29:08.600 Rubio explaining where that whole 51st state thing came from. It was Justin Trudeau who flew

00:29:13.520 down to Mar-a-Lago and he said to Trump, if we were to equalize, like, get rid of our trade surplus,

00:29:20.800 that would mean the end of Canada. So he's the one who used the phrase, it would be the end of

00:29:26.100 Canada, to which Trump said, oh, you should become a state then. So it was sort of Trudeau blurting out

00:29:30.360 that that would be an existential threat to Canada that put it in Trump's mind. And it's like when Trump

00:29:35.660 gets a nickname for someone, he just doesn't stop calling her Pocahontas or, you know, it's,

00:29:41.460 it's his shtick. But whenever Trump talks about the 51st state, he says, you'd be cherished,

00:29:49.740 he says, you'd be loved, you'd be, like, he, it's really odd. It's sort of like approaching

00:29:54.120 someone who's married and proposing to them while they're already married. Like, it's infuriating

00:29:59.380 and it's insulting on a certain level. But on another level, if someone was thinking of getting

00:30:03.800 divorced, they might say, wow, I'm getting a heck of an offer here. And this is my last question for

00:30:07.860 you, Derek. This whole thing is rather unsettling. And I'm in a pickle because I like Canada. I like

00:30:14.860 Trump. I like Alberta. How can I square all three of these things? I'm a loyal citizen.

00:30:19.940 But it's, it's a real, it's a tussle. It's a three-way tussle.

00:30:23.340 So, um, I see that Jeffrey Rath, who is a lawyer who was a bit of a dissonant lawyer,

00:30:31.080 he was active during the pandemic, fighting against some things. He says he's going to be

00:30:35.200 leading a contingent down to Washington to talk up the 51st state. See, there was a billboard

00:30:40.200 in Alberta that got a lot of attention calling for the 51st state. I think that there are,

00:30:47.000 there is a certain sizable number. I don't know if it's a majority, but I'd say it's

00:30:50.340 in the 30s or 40s percent, that if you said to them right now, if you could snap your fingers

00:30:57.000 and Alberta would become a U.S. state, not all of Canada, just Alberta, would you take

00:31:02.440 it? I think a number of people in Alberta would say, you know what? To get rid of all

00:31:07.600 the problems that Eastern Canada's brought to us, to get rid of this pipeline embargo,

00:31:12.260 to have a stronger economy. I think, I think a good chunk of Albertans would actually take

00:31:17.560 that deal. I mean, there's a kind of inception going on, planting an idea that was once unthinkable,

00:31:24.620 the Overton window. What's your feeling for that? Has Trump angered Albertans or has he wooed them?

00:31:31.600 It's a bit of both. Yeah.

00:31:34.620 Look, you know, the height of the Wexit movement, you know, the Alberta independence movement

00:31:41.180 came right after the 2019 federal election. I mean, you had the black face and the guy in the East

00:31:49.280 still puts this guy back in office. You just had to say, you know, the conservatives elected the

00:31:54.700 biggest marshmallow liberal light pink conservative you could find. And the East still voted for the

00:32:02.140 liberals. There was outrage here. And it drew into a pretty significant independence movement

00:32:08.080 on an organized level. It had trouble getting going. But, you know, at the same time, you also

00:32:16.380 had the Kennedy government, which was seen as a very weak in dealing with Ottawa. And so you had

00:32:21.780 things like the Wild Rose Independence Party, which came out of nowhere, and got into the, you know,

00:32:26.000 into the low 20 percentile support for independence, depending on how you ask the question. The highest

00:32:32.880 we had seen it in polls, we commissioned, got into the mid 40s. If you ask the question is,

00:32:39.380 should Alberta become independent if it was with the other Western provinces? So not alone.

00:32:44.460 That got pretty high, never got in majority territory, but it got damn close to it at its

00:32:48.360 height. That collapsed really as soon as Danielle Smith became premier. And it kind of took the road 0.96

00:32:55.460 of the sovereignty act of fighting for more independence within Canada, but not very, not in a very friendly

00:33:01.160 way. We liked that. There's never been a particularly large movement for Alberta to join the United

00:33:09.900 States and Canada. I mean, I mean, independence was often seen as a crank idea, but it grew into the

00:33:15.660 relative mainstream for a time. But as usual, it receded back down as things change. And people have a

00:33:21.860 hope that, you know, a conservative government inaudible will fix everything. It doesn't. It just,

00:33:28.000 you know, kind of pads over some issues. Look, if there was a vote tomorrow, I don't think that no,

00:33:35.520 it would absolutely not. Alberta would not vote to join the United States. But I can see a set of

00:33:41.440 circumstances under which it is conceivable. One is the most important is that the Liberals are

00:33:49.360 reelected. If the Liberals are reelected yet again, for whatever reason, I think there'd just be a sense

00:33:57.620 of desperation in Alberta that no matter what, the East is not going to vote for someone friendly to

00:34:02.660 the West. If Pierre Polyev gets in, I think a lot of the root problems, like he said, he won't even

00:34:07.980 fix equalization. He's not going to touch it. You know, he's going to, he'd be an improvement on

00:34:12.620 things like energy and pipelines. But some of the big core unfairness issues for Alberta in Canada

00:34:17.280 are not going to really get fixed with the conservative government, but it would be a

00:34:22.640 relief valve. So if the Liberals were to get reelected, and we had a period of prolonged,

00:34:28.500 very significant economic pain from the trade war. And then Trump made a big, made a, made a deal,

00:34:38.780 like one for one currency exchange. You know, when, when, when West Germany absorbed East Germany,

00:34:43.800 they allowed one for one currency exchange, even though the Deutschmark was worth several times,

00:34:49.020 whatever the, the junk currency of East Germany was. And so, you know, it wouldn't be a big deal

00:34:56.140 for the Americans to give one for one, you know, you know, if you had states, federal government

00:34:59.400 absorbs the entire Alberta debt, things like that. I, I think it's conceivable in a very, very specific

00:35:07.980 set of circumstances. Also, at the same time, you know, you have the Liberals reelected, and they put

00:35:12.540 in place an export tax on Alberta's oil, which would just completely melt our economy down even

00:35:18.560 further than the trade war by itself would. So there is a set of circumstances, I think it's a very narrow

00:35:24.560 path to get there. But it's a path that, you know, even thinking out loud, I'd have, I'd have,

00:35:31.960 you know, put you in a big onesie wrapped up in a bubble wrapped room. Just six months ago, I'd commit

00:35:39.340 you if you even thought the idea out loud. And if you're, if you're writing science fiction, I'd say

00:35:44.260 you're just totally nuts. They wouldn't even believe it in a sci fi book. But I, yeah, with a very specific 0.97

00:35:51.040 set of circumstances, I think it is possible now, not likely, but possible.

00:35:55.860 Yeah. Well, the last three months in Canadian politics have been crazy. And Donald Trump has

00:36:01.400 added oil to the fire, kerosene to the fire. You know what, I was listening to you different

00:36:06.240 scenarios there, and I think you're right. I remember when Stephen Harper was elected, that

00:36:10.480 took a lot of the energy out of the separatist movement, because he attended to some of the

00:36:15.720 things that were bothering the West. If Mark Carney becomes, Mark Carney will become the Prime

00:36:22.600 Ministry of Canada, most likely, in about a week. If God forbid he wins the next election,

00:36:29.020 I put it to you that separatism will hit the 50% mark. And remember, the Supreme Court of Canada has

00:36:36.260 said separatism is legal. As long as you have a clear question with a clear majority, unlike the

00:36:43.560 United States, which fought a civil war over secession, excuse me, secession, it is completely

00:36:51.220 legal in Canada, according to nothing less than the Supreme Court. Mark Carney winning a general

00:36:57.140 election, I'll predict it to you, Alberta would join America. 1.00

00:37:01.380 Let me add to that. So if, in one of the biggest reasons, like, so when we, when we had, when we

00:37:14.740 commissioned polls around independence, uh, for Alberta, uh, independence always was at least 10%

00:37:21.860 lower in support if it was just Alberta, because there's a fear, well, we're landlocked. That was

00:37:26.340 always the big knock against it. You're landlocked, you're by yourself, you're a small country, you're

00:37:30.080 just redneck Switzerland. And, um, it sounds pretty cool, by the way.

00:37:33.780 I think rednecks Switzerland sounds like a pretty cool country. But, um, um, even, but if you ask the 1.00

00:37:41.460 question of like, well, you know, if it was like BC and Saskatchewan, maybe Yukon, Northwest

00:37:46.160 territories together, uh, support was, you know, significantly higher. Um, I don't think there's

00:37:52.080 any sense of American patriotism in, in, in Alberta, but there's a sense of Alberta identity.

00:37:56.620 Right. And if people think Alberta identity is actually maybe potentially stronger in the United

00:38:00.700 States, that that's, that gets dangerous real quick. Uh, but the big thing, you know, you were

00:38:05.200 talking about independence and secession of provinces from Canada being illegal. No one's

00:38:10.620 ever really talked about it in the context of joining the United States because, you know, the

00:38:14.900 clarity act says, you know, okay, okay. If there's a clear, clear majority on a clear question, then

00:38:19.440 there's a duty of the federal government to negotiate the divorce at that point. You know, who gets the 0.99

00:38:24.040 kids, who gets dog and the house and the car, you know, division of assets and liabilities.

00:38:29.280 And that could potentially get bogged down for a long time and in technicalities. And maybe,

00:38:34.500 maybe doesn't actually end up happening because, uh, you know, Ottawa holds a lot of cards in that

00:38:38.420 negotiation. No one ever considered it in the context of, you know, potentially a province

00:38:44.960 joining the United States. If you had a clear majority on a clear question, uh, you don't even

00:38:51.080 need to negotiate with Ottawa at that point. The United States is simply the next day declares

00:38:55.920 Alberta, a protectorate of the United States and then, uh, and a candidate for statehood.

00:39:01.020 Um, you know, what, what, you know, the U S army rolls up the 49th. What's, what, what, what's

00:39:07.140 all we're going to do, send some, uh, you know, tampon dispensers from the local Canadian

00:39:12.300 military army base. I mean, there's utterly nothing Ottawa could do if that was the case.

00:39:16.220 If Alberta had hypothetically in this circumstance votes to join the United States, there is no

00:39:21.760 negotiation with Ottawa at that time. It's just the United States declares itself. Okay.

00:39:26.060 We're in charge the next day. Hey, you know, you made me think of something I had forgotten about

00:39:30.480 maybe 10 or 20 years ago. Um, way back in the day when I was a young pup like you, Derek,

00:39:36.820 I worked in Parliament Hill for Preston Manning. I was his assistant and I got to know my counterpart,

00:39:42.380 who was the assistant for the Bloc Quebecois. He was the friendliest guy. I still keep in touch

00:39:46.240 of them now. And through him, I learned that when the Parti Quebecois, the provincial party

00:39:53.380 for separatism became the government provincially, they use the mighty resources of the taxpayer

00:40:00.700 to commission, I'm going to call it an encyclopedia of separatism. They basically got leading scholars,

00:40:08.020 economists, historians, military experts, um, trade experts to answer questions like what

00:40:17.120 happens to the debt? What happens to the army bases? What happens to the passport? What currency

00:40:21.880 should we use? Like just, um, because immediately, as you said, well, would it be just Alberta or

00:40:28.040 other provinces? Would it be, you know, independent or would be a U.S. protector? There's a lot of

00:40:33.180 questions that suddenly splinter support. So what the Parti Quebecois did when they formed government

00:40:39.500 is they commissioned the smartest guys and gals in Quebec to answer some of these obvious questions,

00:40:47.020 not only to provide a path should sovereignty happen, but to let people know they were thinking

00:40:52.300 seriously. This wasn't just a joke or a, you know, back then we didn't use the word meme or anything.

00:40:58.920 It was steps to create a proto state. I got a copy of that insight. It was about this big,

00:41:07.400 like there was a bunch of volumes. It was in French. So I barely understood it. I don't know

00:41:13.300 where my copy is because I've moved several times and my guy is aligned along the way. My wife probably 0.54

00:41:19.800 said, get rid of those. You're never going to read those. But that's an amazing thing that Quebec did

00:41:26.520 because they were serious about it. At least some people in the Parti Quebecois were serious about

00:41:31.480 it. I think if you had the biggest thinkers in the U of C, U of A, other scholarly places, think tanks,

00:41:39.620 answering these questions in a quarterly journal. And by the way, you could have debates. There'd be

00:41:47.080 different opinions. I think you would show a seriousness that is currently not there. Anyways,

00:41:52.340 I'm getting ahead of myself because I don't think Mark Carney's going to win the next election.

00:41:56.800 And I think their current frothing of what's happening between Canada and the U.S. will settle

00:42:01.260 down. But God forbid, if it doesn't, if Mark Carney, God forbid, may it not happen, if he wins,

00:42:08.060 I think Albert is going to separate it. Last word to you.

00:42:10.760 I think you're right. I think most likely circumstances, the conservatives are going to win

00:42:15.400 and things are going to settle down. He, you know, Trump, Trump's got a sensitive ego. He's going to

00:42:23.280 be able to deal with, with Polyev. And if Polyev, you know, a lot of Canadians, I don't think want

00:42:29.300 Polyev to be buddy, buddy with Trump, but I think they might now because they're like, be nice to the

00:42:34.200 guy. Or at least don't provoke him. Don't raise the temperature. Don't, don't be a jerk to him. You

00:42:39.400 know, some Canadians want to see that because it feels good. But I think a lot of Canadians are also

00:42:43.220 realizing how dangerous that is with this man. This man, this, he is an unpredictable and dangerous

00:42:48.180 fellow. I think that's the most likely circumstance. But in, in, you know, as, as we laid out, I think

00:42:54.040 there is, there is a, if certain planets line up, uh, I, I don't think the, uh, 10 provinces and three

00:43:02.480 territories of Canada remain intact forever. Very interesting. Well, we're living in times that are

00:43:07.520 not boring. I'll give you that. Derek Fildermann, publisher of the Western Standard. Great to see him.

00:43:12.480 By the way, congratulations to your journalists who are really working hard to keep the liberal

00:43:17.760 candidates to account. I know you've been trying to scrum Mark Carney and he's being abusive to your

00:43:23.900 staff. Keep at it. Keep at it. I think even if you don't get in there and, and we, we get pushed

00:43:28.960 out too, as you know. People are both, uh, standing side by side outside the, outside the doors of the

00:43:35.160 Carney events, not allowed in. Yeah. Well, we keep, you keep it up. We'll keep it up. We got to hold him

00:43:39.300 to account. I mean, he's not at Davos anymore. He's, uh, he's actually got to answer some

00:43:43.600 questions. Take care of my friend. Great to see you. Thanks so much, Ezra. All right. There you

00:43:47.120 have it. Derek Fildermann. He's the publisher of the Western Standard, a great Western source

00:43:52.500 of news. Stay with us more ahead. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on the Saks files. I'm

00:44:08.260 referring to Ya'ara Saks meeting with that terrorist. Darlene Ramsey says, it's unbelievable

00:44:13.640 that Ya'ara would do something like this. What would a child think of a mother who had, 0.99

00:44:17.900 would have her picture taken with someone that thinks nothing of killing a person just because

00:44:21.960 they're Jewish? Yeah, but that was atrocious and we knew it was atrocious. But now what 1.00

00:44:27.220 we know is that in all their briefing notes, 86 pages worth, never once do they call Hamas

00:44:33.720 terrorists. The only time they talk about terrorists is they're calling the Jews terrorists. Isn't

00:44:37.540 that crazy? Fiona Wildman says, well, I guess then it makes sense why nothing has been done

00:44:43.260 about the protests in our streets. What hypocrites. Yeah. I tell you, I'm not even kidding when I 1.00

00:44:47.860 say the entire Global Affairs Canada staff working on Israel stuff is as radical as those

00:44:53.120 Hamas protesters in the street. Alan Allen says, considering who Mark Carney lets into his rallies,

00:44:58.880 this isn't shocking. That's a great point. Independent journalists like from Western Standard

00:45:04.520 and from Rebel News are kept out of Mark Carney's events, but he lets in radicals with kefias. It's 0.98

00:45:09.480 crazy. Well, that's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:45:15.160 Headquarters, see you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - March 07, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trump heckles Trudeau and his 'democratic legitimacy'

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