Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ We've sent billions in foreign aid to Ukraine, but where is the money really going？

00:00:00.000 Friends, two stories about Ukraine today. One is about things we're learning from the NATO

00:00:05.420 conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, and other things we're learning accidentally about the

00:00:11.860 war in Ukraine. And second, what we'll talk about how in Canada, Russian Canadians, and I don't mean

00:00:18.620 Russian citizens, I mean Canadians, Canadian citizens, born here even, but if they trace

00:00:25.280 their lineage back to Russia, how they're being marginalized, almost like the Japanese internment

00:00:30.860 camps here during the Second World War. I'll give you more details later, but first let me invite you

00:00:34.640 to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. Just go to

00:00:39.020 rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get my podcast every night,

00:00:44.560 but in video form. And I'd like to encourage you to do that, not just because I think it's a good

00:00:49.520 show, but also because that's how we survive. Eight bucks a month might not be a lot to you,

00:00:53.820 but it adds up for us, and it's how we stay free and independent. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:01:00.400 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:14.680 Tonight, get this, U.S. foreign aid went to the Ukrainian government that asked the FBI to censor

00:01:21.520 social media criticisms of Ukraine in America. And don't doubt it happened here, too. It's July 12th,

00:01:28.640 and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:30.520 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:33.220 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.60

00:01:36.360 How many billions of tax dollars has Trudeau sent to Ukraine so far? It is billions of dollars. But

00:01:53.000 I'll say this, it's far less than the staggering, astonishing, inexcusable 31 billion tax dollars

00:02:00.760 that Trudeau says he'll give away to rich foreign car makers to build battery factories in Canada.

00:02:07.780 I looked up the market capitalization of Stellantis, one of the companies Trudeau's giving a windfall to,

00:02:14.260 and Volkswagen, another one. These are gifts, by the way, that Trudeau's giving. Canada could have

00:02:20.840 literally bought, as in purchase, to own half the stock in Stellantis with that much money.

00:02:28.000 Not that they should have, but I literally have never seen anyone negotiate worse deals in history.

00:02:34.580 Look at this. Also from just this week. This is from CNBC.

00:02:39.720 Novavax stock spikes 29% after a company snags $350 million from Canada for unused COVID shots.

00:02:48.740 Do you know what it means when a company stock shoots up on news like that?

00:02:54.260 It means that the stock market is in investors, analysts, people who study things and make bets in the stock market.

00:03:01.960 None of them imagined that Trudeau would have just handed over more than a third of a billion dollars

00:03:07.580 for vaccines that Canada didn't use.

00:03:10.340 If they had expected that windfall, it would have already been priced into the stock. 0.99

00:03:15.300 Look, no one has ever encountered anyone stupider than Trudeau. 0.99

00:03:20.080 They were shocked by it. That's what that stock market reaction shows. 1.00

00:03:23.760 And he shovels money around, especially overseas.

00:03:28.060 Did you see this story?

00:03:29.240 Liberal government announces $100 million in aid to shore up police forces in Haiti.

00:03:35.320 Haiti. That's a foreign country. 1.00

00:03:37.720 I don't know if you've seen it, but there has been a murderous crime wave across Canada,

00:03:42.140 particularly bad in Toronto. Stabbings, shootings, random killings.

00:03:46.920 But Trudeau just sent $100 million to Haiti for policing there instead. 1.00

00:03:52.220 What an idiot. 1.00

00:03:53.160 But the Americans aren't much smarter. 1.00

00:03:55.120 Look at this story. This is from Associated Press. 0.83

00:03:58.820 Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid.

00:04:04.640 Oh, OK, got it. So a $6.2 billion mistake.

00:04:09.700 It's quite a mistake.

00:04:11.200 But without any question, without any hesitation, that $6.2 billion error goes to Ukraine.

00:04:19.080 Not back to taxpayers in America.

00:04:22.060 I mean, obviously it goes to Ukraine.

00:04:23.340 I mean, it's just obvious it should, right?

00:04:25.420 It's like that monopoly card.

00:04:27.460 Bank error in your favor. 1.00

00:04:29.060 That's Trudeau-level stupidity. 0.99

00:04:32.760 But by the way, where's all that money from Canada and the U.S. and the U.K. and other countries? 1.00

00:04:38.420 Where's it going?

00:04:40.120 I mean, it's got to be close to $100 billion by now,

00:04:43.100 which, by the way, is more than Russia's entire military budget for an entire year.

00:04:47.880 So where's all that Western money, including our money, going?

00:04:51.720 Now, I don't trust any side in this war unless they are admitting something embarrassing.

00:04:57.440 Otherwise, I just discounted it all as propaganda.

00:05:00.120 So this was odd, this little clip here.

00:05:03.080 A Russian prankster managed to convince Henry Kissinger to do a call and to make Kissinger,

00:05:11.140 who's 100 years old, by the way, which is incredible,

00:05:14.140 make Kissinger think he was talking to Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.

00:05:19.620 So in this call, where Kissinger really thinks he's talking to Zelensky,

00:05:23.140 the pranksters asked Kissinger who he thought bombed the Russian natural gas pipeline called Nord Stream.

00:05:32.700 I don't know if you remember that.

00:05:34.220 It was a huge bombing, and it did a lot of damage to Russia's economy.

00:05:38.640 And Kissinger answered the pranksters and said,

00:05:41.520 I thought you did it?

00:05:43.360 Here, take a look.

00:05:44.780 Nord Stream 2.

00:05:45.640 How do you think?

00:05:55.020 Who is behind, who is behind of explosion of Nord Stream 2?

00:06:05.120 Who is guilty?

00:06:06.340 How do you think?

00:06:07.060 I frankly have thought you would.

00:06:10.280 Really?

00:06:11.080 You think that we?

00:06:12.720 No, no.

00:06:13.600 But I didn't blame you.

00:06:22.900 I would not say that as a criticism.

00:06:26.420 Get the show real.

00:06:28.900 I show you that clip because it's a reminder that for months,

00:06:32.940 the U.S. and Ukraine denied that they blew it up

00:06:35.520 and claimed that Russia blew it up themselves.

00:06:38.980 You have to be careful about propaganda, don't you?

00:06:41.160 So here's Joe Biden admitting something astonishing.

00:06:44.780 And again, I'm only believing him because he's making an admission against his own interests,

00:06:49.760 which is that after 18 months of this war and $100 billion,

00:06:55.160 Ukraine is running out of ammunition.

00:06:58.120 And so is the United States.

00:07:00.460 That's the crazy part.

00:07:01.660 The United States is running low on munitions.

00:07:06.120 Listen to him.

00:07:06.960 He says the U.S. is low.

00:07:08.300 Take a listen.

00:07:08.900 We're in a situation where Ukraine continues to be brutally attacked across the board by munitions,

00:07:15.660 by these cluster munitions that have dud rates that are very, very low, I mean very high,

00:07:21.180 that are in danger to civilians, number one.

00:07:24.540 Number two, the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition, the ammunition that they call 155-millimeter weapons. 0.73

00:07:34.780 This is a war relating to munitions and the running out of that ammunition, and we're low on it.

00:07:43.120 And so what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to, not permanently,

00:07:50.320 but to allow for in this transition period where we get more 155 weapons, these shells for Ukrainians,

00:07:59.140 to provide them with something that has a very low dud rate.

00:08:02.560 It's about one, I think it's 150.

00:08:04.920 Yikes.

00:08:05.540 A year and a half in, and America itself is running out of weapons.

00:08:10.040 And everything else, the U.S. defense budget is more than $800 billion, and that's real money, not our Canadian minibucks.

00:08:18.900 It is nuts that Ukraine is running out of ammo, but the U.S., China has got to be. 0.99

00:08:26.340 Laughing's the wrong word.

00:08:29.180 Can you believe it?

00:08:30.880 Hey, quick point.

00:08:32.020 I don't know if you saw this last week, but all the regime media were saying that at the big NATO meeting today in Vilnius, Lithuania,

00:08:40.960 that Trudeau was going to play a key role.

00:08:44.520 That's the word they kept saying, a key role.

00:08:46.680 Well, here's Trudeau playing a key role this morning.

00:08:50.240 The extraordinary panelists that we have assembled.

00:08:52.960 If I can briefly introduce, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, will be coming here momentarily.

00:08:58.900 He's going to slot.

00:08:59.640 Yes, thank you, Prime Minister.

00:09:00.700 That's the empty chair.

00:09:03.420 We have, of course, Latvian Prime Minister Christianes Kaurins.

00:09:07.100 Yeah, he finally got out of bed and finally showed up.

00:09:12.940 And take a look at this.

00:09:15.640 To all these plans, to these four structural requirements, to the command and control adaptation,

00:09:20.840 are going to do what is necessary in terms of getting more people at a higher readiness,

00:09:27.580 more soldiers at a higher readiness, getting the capabilities, buying the systems that we need.

00:09:35.760 So it is more investments.

00:09:37.600 It is investments in infrastructure.

00:09:39.680 It is investments in enablement of...

00:09:42.640 Good morning.

00:09:43.660 It is investments in enablement to make sure that we do not only have the fighting forces,

00:09:50.760 but also that we are able to have the logistics in place,

00:09:54.520 that we are able to support the fight as we now see in Ukraine is so difficult.

00:09:59.640 So three regional defense plans.

00:10:02.380 High north in the Atlantic, the central plan, which covers the Baltics to the Alps,

00:10:07.200 I think is how you've described it, and then southeast Europe.

00:10:09.860 Those three regional defense plans.

00:10:11.980 Prime Minister Trudeau, welcome.

00:10:14.320 Good morning.

00:10:15.060 Apologies for...

00:10:16.320 No, no, no.

00:10:16.540 I call this perfect timing because I'm going to throw the first question to you.

00:10:21.480 So no rest for the weary.

00:10:24.000 I'm sorry.

00:10:24.580 Yeah, we're so proud of Trudeau playing a key role.

00:10:29.120 So where's all the money going?

00:10:31.920 Well, NATO says one of the things they're thinking about with Ukraine is they're...

00:10:36.980 Well, they're worried about corruption and they think that could be a barrier for Ukraine to join NATO.

00:10:41.940 Here's the head of NATO itself saying that corruption is a real issue.

00:10:46.900 It's wrong to say that nothing has happened.

00:10:49.500 For the membership.

00:10:49.980 Yeah, they're not become members, but first of all, we have strengthened our partnership.

00:10:54.940 We are working much more closely with them.

00:10:56.420 But you won't defend them, obviously.

00:10:57.900 Ukraine is not part of NATO.

00:10:59.100 I know, no, I understand.

00:10:59.860 So meaning Ukraine is not covered by our collective defense clause, our collective article five.

00:11:07.360 To be a NATO member, you need to meet the NATO standards.

00:11:10.780 We help them with modernizing, fighting corruption.

00:11:14.240 Well, I've got some news for you about where that money's going.

00:11:19.280 And Trudeau, at the one speech he actually did show up for on time, alluded to it.

00:11:24.580 Trudeau was talking about global warming, of course.

00:11:27.860 He jetted over there on a private jet with a huge entourage, so you know he cares about his carbon footprint.

00:11:33.220 But his second issue was what he calls disinformation, by which, of course, he just means anyone who disagrees with him.

00:11:41.320 What a weird thing to talk about, right?

00:11:44.240 Well, weird to you and me, but absolutely key, as the regime media would say.

00:11:49.400 Because look at this, as released by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

00:11:53.880 Here's a press release the other day.

00:11:55.360 Let me read it to you.

00:11:57.300 Documents reveal FBI colluded with compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency to censor Americans.

00:12:04.620 Now, I'm going to read the press release in full because it's not too long.

00:12:07.280 Today, the House Judiciary Committee and the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government released a report titled the FBI's collaboration with a compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency to censor American speech.

00:12:23.300 Based on a subset of subpoenaed documents, the report details how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, colluded with the Security Service of Ukraine, SBU, an agency widely known to be infiltrated by Russian-aligned forces,

00:12:39.880 by routinely sending social media platforms, spreadsheets, and other documents containing thousands of accounts to take down.

00:12:49.220 In so doing, the FBI and SBU flagged authentic American accounts for removal, including a verified U.S. State Department account and those belonging to American journalists.

00:13:02.460 The report also exposes how the FBI offered Facebook and Instagram legal cover to remove the SBU's flagged accounts.

00:13:09.420 The new information highlights the FBI's unconstitutional role in enabling the SBU's censorship regime and raises grave concerns about the FBI's credibility, reliability, and competence as the nation's premier law enforcement organization.

00:13:24.360 The coordination between the FBI, SBU, and American social media companies is substantial, and the full extent of the FBI's involvement with the SBU remains the subject of ongoing investigation.

00:13:35.640 Now, that's on the U.S. side.

00:13:40.900 And they only learned about it partly by accident and partly because their Congress, unlike our parliament, has the ability to truly investigate their government in ways that we don't.

00:13:50.940 And they have internal checks and balances that we don't have.

00:13:55.260 They have only a two-party system, and it has its flaws.

00:14:00.200 But it's built for accountability, don't you think?

00:14:02.100 So the U.S. was shoveling money to Ukraine, whose security services were telling the FBI which social media accounts to censor of American citizens, including journalists.

00:14:13.780 And, of course, the FBI did it.

00:14:15.540 And, of course, the tech companies went along with it.

00:14:19.500 Do you doubt for a second that's happening in Canada, too?

00:14:24.060 Trudeau, who loves censorship on his own.

00:14:28.080 He certainly doesn't need to be told by a foreign government to censor us.

00:14:31.660 He'll do it on his own, yeah.

00:14:33.280 The only question I have left is which is a worse use of our tax dollars, this or Trudeau's gift to Stellantis and Volkswagen?

00:14:46.080 Stay with us for more.

00:14:47.220 Hey, welcome back.

00:14:59.800 You know, I used to live in Edmonton, and it's a wonderful city.

00:15:02.600 It's such a warm city.

00:15:04.860 And because it's so temperature-wise cold during the winter, boy, they make up for it in the spring and summer.

00:15:12.300 It is a city of festivals.

00:15:13.780 I used to live right downtown near Sir Winston Churchill Square, and every weekend there was something else going on, often food-oriented.

00:15:22.620 So, you know, I loved it.

00:15:23.560 They had—it's just great.

00:15:25.680 And they have something every year called the Edmonton Heritage Festival, which is sort of a multicultural thing where everybody comes and wears their old country's garb and serves.

00:15:38.220 It's just a real coming-together thing.

00:15:40.100 But, you know, that can be tricky when countries abroad are waging wars because we don't want to bring ancient hatreds or even modern hatreds going on in other parts of the world.

00:15:52.060 We don't want to bring that here.

00:15:53.380 We want to put our Canadian-ness first, don't we?

00:15:55.960 And so I was absolutely staggered to read this statement by the German ambassador. 0.97

00:16:06.240 We think there shouldn't be any Jewish culture promotion here because this is the culture that brought up the generation of people who turned out to be invaders, looters, killers, and rapists. 1.00

00:16:19.820 That's unfortunately what we as Germans feel, and the whole world sees that suffering. 0.97

00:16:25.500 That's a pretty shocking thing to say about the Jews.

00:16:29.260 Now, of course, you may have figured out what I'm doing.

00:16:31.620 It wasn't the German ambassador talking about the Jews.

00:16:34.340 It was the Ukrainian ambassador talking about Russians.

00:16:37.680 Let me read it properly so you're not confused.

00:16:39.720 We think there shouldn't be any Russian culture promotion here because this is the culture that brought up the generation of people who turned out to be invaders, looters, killers, rapers, Yulia Kovalyev said. 1.00

00:16:54.660 That's unfortunately what we as Ukrainians feel, and the whole world sees that suffering.

00:16:59.980 Oh, my God.

00:17:01.320 What do you think of that?

00:17:02.640 Well, a man who wrote a column about it is our friend Lauren Gunter.

00:17:06.400 The column is called Russian Canadians Should Not Be Denied the Chance to Celebrate Their Culture.

00:17:12.440 It was published in Postmedia, and he joins us today.

00:17:15.640 Lauren, am I going over the top by transposing different ethnicities in there?

00:17:20.740 I have to say I was shocked by what that ambassador said.

00:17:23.360 No, and, you know, the point that I was trying to make is so we have this terrific cultural festival, the Heritage Fest, every August long weekend.

00:17:34.120 Our family calls it things on a stick day because there are about 80 different cultures that are represented, and about 90% of them have some sort of kebab-like food that they serve.

00:17:45.840 So we have jokingly called it things on a stick day for a long time.

00:17:50.100 Right, and last year there was the Russian cultural group in Edmonton didn't participate in the festival, but this year they wanted to, and the festival said, no, we've received too many complaints, too many threats, and we're not going to allow that.

00:18:10.040 And a lot of those threats seem to have come from Ukrainian organizations, including the official representative of the Ukrainian government to Ottawa.

00:18:21.920 And that staggers me because we're not talking about official country pavilions.

00:18:26.640 This is not an international expo.

00:18:28.540 This isn't Expo 67.

00:18:30.100 It's not the expo in BC in 86.

00:18:32.420 This is just a bunch of cultural organizations in Edmonton that for 50 years now have gotten together in the summer for a weekend to celebrate their ethnicity, their background.

00:18:47.000 And so what you're talking about here is banning one group of Canadian citizens from celebrating their cultural heritage because another group of Canadian citizens has objected to it.

00:19:00.360 And I think in many ways, this is the end point of our obsession with identity politics and our obsession with cancel culture.

00:19:11.820 And so you have statements like that from the Ukrainian ambassador, which don't apply at all.

00:19:15.960 These are not people.

00:19:17.360 I'm guessing if you ask most of the people from the Edmonton Russian cultural organization, they are not in favor of Putin.

00:19:24.960 They're not in favor of the invasion of Ukraine.

00:19:27.940 They just happen to be Russian, Russian extraction.

00:19:31.760 Yeah.

00:19:32.220 And that's the thing.

00:19:33.180 It's weird for the ambassador of Ukraine to weigh in at all because these are not foreign nationals.

00:19:40.220 These are not instruments of the Russian government.

00:19:43.560 I mean, you can hate Vladimir Putin.

00:19:45.100 You can hate the Russian government.

00:19:46.100 You can be, you know, for sanctions against key parts of Russia's military industrial complex.

00:19:52.280 Canada has done all those things.

00:19:53.760 But like you say, these are Canadian citizens.

00:19:56.020 I mean, there were a lot of Russians who came to Alberta at the same time Ukrainians came.

00:20:00.700 And by the way, the borders have shifted around.

00:20:03.420 Some, you know, there were towns and cities that were Polish or Russian or Ukrainian, depending on the decade.

00:20:10.080 Austrian.

00:20:10.680 Sometimes, sometimes Austrian.

00:20:12.520 You know, that's how much they've switched around.

00:20:14.400 And there are some people who are new arrivals.

00:20:17.500 But those ethnicities have been in Alberta since, I mean, there was an explicit immigration campaign to bring farmers from Eastern Europe to break the soil and build sod huts and develop the prairies. 0.96

00:20:31.280 They are as Canadian as anyone.

00:20:34.060 And I really feel like this is pitting ethnicities against each other.

00:20:37.680 And I'm so disappointed in the government.

00:20:40.120 And I say the government because it's up to the police and the city to provide police protection.

00:20:44.900 I think this is actually shocking.

00:20:47.240 I do, too.

00:20:48.160 And, you know, if you could find sometimes with these ethnic groups, these cultural groups, they do get tourism support from the old country.

00:21:01.660 For instance, you know, like let's travel to Uganda.

00:21:04.820 Yeah.

00:21:04.940 And they get a little bit of money for the Uganda pavilion from Uganda tourism.

00:21:12.780 And so if there were official Russian participation, official participation from the Russian government in the Russian pavilion, I would say, well, you know, let's let's ask the organizers to expunge that because we don't want to have anything at all to do with the Putin regime.

00:21:30.500 So that would be I think that would be fair.

00:21:32.840 But but to say, oh, well, we're we're we have concerns about safety, so we're not going to we're not going to protect the Russians. 0.64

00:21:42.060 You're saying we're not going to protect a group of Canadians from doing something that is perfectly legal and is within their charter rights.

00:21:50.000 So it's not like saying we're not protecting the Putin representatives who will be here at the Heritage Festival.

00:21:57.160 We're saying we're not going to protect other Canadians who happen to be of Russian extraction.

00:22:02.840 From exercising their cultural, linguistic and charter rights by participating in the festival.

00:22:11.600 And I think that's just giving in to the bully.

00:22:13.920 Yeah. 0.95

00:22:14.280 I mean, I despise the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping. 0.91

00:22:19.480 I actually think when you add up the atrocities in this world, they they are the worst there. 0.83

00:22:26.700 They I actually think they are committing a form of genocide against the Uyghur Muslims, against Tibetans. 0.99

00:22:32.640 I think they're doing terrible things in in Hong Kong against democracy activists.

00:22:37.900 And yet I would never in a million.

00:22:39.140 Taiwan.

00:22:39.860 Yeah.

00:22:40.500 But never in a million years would any Canadian ever think ban ethnic Chinese people, especially.

00:22:47.560 And by the way, in Alberta, the Chinese community has been there for more than a century.

00:22:50.820 They helped build the railway and, you know, 150 years ago almost.

00:22:55.040 So no one would ever think that way.

00:22:57.080 I it's Japanese internment in the Second World War.

00:23:00.180 Right. I think that's a very good parallel, actually, that that, you know, here you had

00:23:03.600 people who were Canadian citizens of Japanese extraction.

00:23:07.060 But because we were at war with Japan, we thought they were potentially allies of a foreign

00:23:13.620 state.

00:23:14.120 And so, therefore, even though they had they had shown no inclination to helping out the

00:23:20.640 Japanese, we herded them away from their private property, out of their businesses, out 1.00

00:23:25.640 of their farms and into the interior of B.C. so that they couldn't signal Japanese ships 0.95

00:23:33.000 off the coast and help them fight us in the war.

00:23:35.680 And this would be different, too, I think, if Canada had troops on the ground in Ukraine

00:23:42.660 fighting against Russia.

00:23:44.100 Russia was our enemy. 0.94

00:23:45.080 And, you know, I can see where you have a slightly different stand on things at that

00:23:50.560 point.

00:23:50.800 But there is there's nothing to indicate that the Russian Canadian organization that was

00:23:57.000 in charge of the Russian pavilion at Edmonton Heritage Festival was in any way connected

00:24:04.320 directly to the Russian government.

00:24:06.480 And even this is a little bit of a stretch.

00:24:10.880 It's a little harder situation or a little harder position to accept.

00:24:17.180 But even if you had people of Russian extraction who were not entirely against Putin or or believe

00:24:26.620 some of Putin's rhetoric about how Ukraine is really just an extension of Russia, it shouldn't

00:24:32.540 be free, it shouldn't be independent.

00:24:34.580 It should be part of the greater Russia. 0.51

00:24:37.040 You know, I don't agree with any of that.

00:24:39.200 I have been very much in favor of Ukraine's defense against the Russian invasion.

00:24:44.320 I have been in favor of the NATO allies giving whatever material aid they can to Ukraine.

00:24:50.520 I think we could do even more.

00:24:52.820 I was in favor of NATO putting tanks in Ukraine before the Russians invaded as a way to deter the 1.00

00:24:58.360 Russians from starting this whole war. 0.93

00:25:00.600 And, you know, our family has donated to Ukrainian refugee appeals.

00:25:06.160 So I'm not in any way excusing what the Russian government is doing.

00:25:10.860 But even if someone were to say, well, I, you know, I see the point of some of these things

00:25:15.880 that the Russians have said about why they invaded Ukraine.

00:25:18.880 That's still a Canadian right.

00:25:20.880 You're still able to say those things.

00:25:23.140 What you can't do is give direct aid and comfort to the Russian government or be involved as

00:25:30.140 being their proxy.

00:25:31.220 This is not at all like the Liberal Party of Canada taking aid from agents of the Chinese

00:25:38.340 communist government and their proxies in Canada.

00:25:41.000 It isn't anywhere near doing that.

00:25:43.080 This is simply a group of Russians who live in Edmonton, want to have a pavilion and are

00:25:48.260 not being allowed.

00:25:48.920 You know, it's incredible.

00:25:51.180 I watched a video the other day by John Mearsheimer, who's a professor out of Chicago, and he has

00:25:57.120 pro-Ukraine credentials, too.

00:25:58.680 He warned Ukraine after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

00:26:03.000 He said, do not give up your nukes.

00:26:05.760 And, of course, Ukraine, I don't know if you recall, gave up the nukes in return for promises

00:26:09.880 of security from the West.

00:26:11.680 Those promises meant nothing.

00:26:12.900 If Ukraine had kept its nukes, which were sort of a portion there because they were spread

00:26:17.380 out through all the Soviet empire, there's no way anyone would ever invade Ukraine for

00:26:22.980 all time if they had nukes.

00:26:24.240 So Mearsheimer, who is pro-Ukraine in that way, still points out, look at the polarization.

00:26:31.440 He predicts a terrible end for this war.

00:26:33.560 And I'm getting off track a bit, but you'll see my point in a second.

00:26:36.740 He believes there's going to be a kind of ethnic cleansing that happens, not necessarily

00:26:41.920 through brute force, but actually just because there's such a polarization.

00:26:45.960 He believes, and I'm just putting his prediction out there, he believes that ethnic Russians will 1.00

00:26:52.920 want to leave Ukraine for Russia because they're so hated.

00:26:57.840 And ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea, in the Donbass, in places that Russia has annexed, will move

00:27:04.920 to Ukraine proper, just because there's such an ethnic hatred and polarization now.

00:27:12.900 He's saying it's going to be incredibly difficult to have any diplomatic solution because there's

00:27:16.420 so much distrust and hate.

00:27:17.860 But I think we see a little bit of that in Canada.

00:27:20.960 I think anyone who's Russian is being forced to publicly self-renounce, even if they have

00:27:25.760 nothing to do with the government at all.

00:27:28.040 You know, Russia...

00:27:29.040 Go ahead.

00:27:30.040 No, but look, but just look at the words of the Ukrainian ambassador.

00:27:32.780 They are so over the...

00:27:36.300 This is the generation of Russians who've... 1.00

00:27:39.980 You know, the celebration of Russian culture is left to this generation that is now bombing 1.00

00:27:44.240 us and killing us. 0.87

00:27:45.300 Yes, yes, that may be true. 0.94

00:27:47.720 But none of the Russian Canadians in Edmonton are doing that.

00:27:51.320 So that's my whole point.

00:27:53.940 Most of these people are going to be wanting to celebrate pre-communist Russian culture.

00:28:00.460 Yeah.

00:28:00.600 So, you know, they're celebrating a Russian culture that goes back over 100 years.

00:28:07.540 I mean, they're not czarists.

00:28:08.920 They're not communists.

00:28:10.340 They're not Putinists.

00:28:12.200 They're just a group of Canadians with Russian background who want to have their dances shown.

00:28:18.520 And I don't think there's any things on a stick in Russian culture, Russian cuisine.

00:28:23.240 But if there was things on a stick, they'd be selling them.

00:28:25.500 You know, it makes me sad, this whole thing.

00:28:27.780 And I mean, my family's been in Canada for 120 years.

00:28:32.380 But originally, we did come from a city called Dnipro, if I'm saying it right, which used

00:28:37.760 to be called Dnipropetrovsk, which was the Russian way of saying it.

00:28:40.660 That town was in different countries in different decades.

00:28:43.120 And I guess I never thought too deeply about, am I Russian, am I Ukrainian?

00:28:47.800 Because I thought I'm Canadian.

00:28:49.720 And I sort of thought that if you're from Eastern Europe, if you're from Poland, Ukraine, Russia,

00:28:55.480 a lot of those places, and if you, especially being in Canada for some time now, I would

00:28:59.680 have said until this war, what defines those people is they know what communism is really

00:29:05.500 like.

00:29:06.180 They're unlike the, you know, the woke students in the underground who talk about, oh, we just

00:29:11.360 need communism applied properly.

00:29:14.180 It was just never done properly.

00:29:15.720 And all these people from Ukraine or Russia or Belarus or Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, et cetera,

00:29:21.320 could say, no, no, brother.

00:29:22.680 We know.

00:29:23.300 Like, I always sort of, I shouldn't lump people together, but I lump them together in a favorable

00:29:28.220 way.

00:29:28.500 I thought these folks know.

00:29:30.280 They know the horrendous, they know the Holodomor.

00:29:33.380 That's the engineered famine that killed millions of Ukrainians.

00:29:40.240 Stalin did that, the forced collectivization of farms.

00:29:43.000 That's a horrendous, that's a kind of a Holocaust, a kind of, like it was a kind of a genocide 0.78

00:29:50.000 in a way.

00:29:50.600 I think it was more economic and political.

00:29:53.060 But these folks in Alberta especially know about tyranny.

00:29:59.020 And I hate the fact that they're being pitted against each other.

00:30:01.620 Last word to you, Lorne.

00:30:03.380 Yeah, I would hope that the Heritage Festival reconsiders, allows the Russians to have a 1.00

00:30:10.200 pavilion, and that Edmonton City Police say, look, we're prepared to defend these people's

00:30:18.600 rights to be as ordinary as everyone else of any ethnic background whose countries are

00:30:26.040 being, ethnic backgrounds and countries are being represented at Heritage Festival.

00:30:30.120 That would be the Canadian way.

00:30:32.760 Yeah.

00:30:33.260 And by the way, if any other citizen had said what Ambassador Kovaliv had said about the

00:30:39.460 Jews or some other minority, it wouldn't surprise me if they got a phone call from the police 1.00

00:30:45.100 to talk to them about deliberately spreading hatred under the criminal code.

00:30:49.820 It wouldn't surprise me at all.

00:30:50.840 This kind of language, you weaponize that against other groups.

00:30:54.160 The human rights industry would go nuts.

00:30:56.600 Lorne Gunter, great to catch up with you.

00:30:58.780 Likewise.

00:30:59.580 Thank you very much.

00:31:00.640 I repeat again, Lorne's column on the subject is called Russian Canadians Should Not Be Denied

00:31:05.500 a Chance to Celebrate Their Culture.

00:31:07.580 And you can find it in Post Media.

00:31:09.840 Stay with us.

00:31:10.500 More ahead.

00:31:10.960 Hey, welcome back.

00:31:23.640 And thanks to my friend David Menzies for doing the show yesterday.

00:31:28.600 I was traveling and I went to Ottawa for the Ottawa premiere of our new documentary, Church

00:31:36.220 Under Fire.

00:31:36.800 And I've also been at our shows in Calgary, a couple of them there.

00:31:42.040 And it's been very exciting.

00:31:43.320 Toronto, obviously, in Ottawa.

00:31:45.360 And Sheila Gunn-Reed and Keane Simone tonight are in Regina, Saskatchewan.

00:31:49.780 If you go to our website, Church Under Fire is the name of the movie.

00:31:54.600 SaveTheChristians.com is the website you can see where the other movie theater showings of

00:32:00.720 the film is.

00:32:01.380 And it's gotten great reception by everyone who's seen it.

00:32:04.900 And thanks to all the supporters.

00:32:06.800 And thanks to David for spotting me off.

00:32:09.200 I'm going to be here for the rest of the week.

00:32:11.480 And I'm going to do some long-form interviews next week.

00:32:14.480 But I'm also, partly in keeping with the theme of today's show, which was what's going on

00:32:19.960 in that Ukraine war.

00:32:21.740 I'm going to be going to Eastern Europe next week.

00:32:24.820 And one of my goals is to talk to a NATO leader who believes in peace.

00:32:32.600 Is it possible to be in the NATO alliance dedicated to defending the West against Russia, but also

00:32:40.900 to be suing for peace, as they say, in Ukraine?

00:32:45.040 Well, I hope to have the answer for you next week.

00:32:48.080 I'll let you know what I'm talking about.

00:32:49.700 But it is something I care about.

00:32:51.420 Not because I have ethnic ties to the region, which I did 120 years ago, but I don't think

00:32:57.140 of myself as Ukrainian or Russian or Eastern European.

00:33:00.580 I think of myself as Canadian.

00:33:02.080 But I can't help but feel horrible about how that country is being ground up.

00:33:10.400 It really feels like it's another, it's an echo of the Battle of Stalingrad.

00:33:16.980 If you look at the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, every single building is destroyed or damaged.

00:33:23.280 And I really feel like the caricature of Western armchair generals using Ukrainian soldiers as

00:33:33.640 cannon fodder, I really feel like it's coming true.

00:33:36.620 And the glibness and the glee of it, I find very unsettling.

00:33:42.400 And as you know, I'm against Vladimir Putin.

00:33:44.760 I wrote a book condemning the West for buying natural gas from it.

00:33:48.520 The book was called Groundswell, The Case for Fracking.

00:33:50.880 I toured Germany in 2014, shortly after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying,

00:33:56.560 stop buying your gas from Russia.

00:33:58.760 You are arming him against you.

00:34:01.480 Obviously, my book didn't turn the course of history.

00:34:04.940 But I tell you that simply to tell you, I am not for Putin or the invasion of Ukraine.

00:34:10.460 But neither am I for a senseless permanent war that will kill hundreds of thousands if left

00:34:16.780 to continue.

00:34:18.360 I'm curious about your thoughts.

00:34:19.820 You can send them to me at ezra at rebelnews.com.

00:34:24.240 I'll be back here tomorrow, obviously.

00:34:25.900 I'll be here all week.

00:34:27.320 And we'll have some shows for you next week.

00:34:29.280 And then I'll hopefully have some reports to you from Eastern Europe.

00:34:32.760 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:34:36.840 good night.

00:34:38.000 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:34:39.120 All from the Soviets, I'll be right back here. 1.00

00:34:42.780 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:43.300 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:44.100 Good morning.

00:34:47.000 Good morning, everybody.

00:34:47.520 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:48.260 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:48.820 Good morning, everybody.

00:34:49.920 Good morning.

00:34:50.660 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:50.820 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:52.220 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:52.800 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:53.120 How are we looking now?

00:34:53.880 Good morning, everybody.

00:34:55.560 Good morning, everybody.

00:34:56.440 Good morning, everybody.

00:34:57.380 Good morning.

00:34:58.020 Good morning, everyone.

00:34:59.500 Good morning, everybody.

00:35:00.500 Good morning, everyone.

00:35:01.480 Good morning, everyone.

00:35:02.600 Good morning, everybody.

00:35:03.140 Good morning, everybody.

00:35:04.480 And let's go home.

00:35:05.360 Good morning, everyone.

00:35:05.500 Good morning, particularly...

Rebel News Podcast - July 12, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ We've sent billions in foreign aid to Ukraine, but where is the money really going？

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