Rebel News Podcast - March 31, 2026


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Wealth, privilege and champagne socialism： inside the NDP’s family business

Topics
Avi Lewis essay
Mentioned
Avi Lewis David Lewis Mark Carney Stephen Lewis Lyle Culpepper Pierre Poilievre Michael Landon Abby Lewis James Fitzgerald Danielle Smith Ralph Klein Emma Stone Ezra Tommy Douglas Jarvis Collegiate Brian Mulroney Justin Trudeau Jagmeet Singh Zoran Mamdani Naomi Klein and 4 more
EZRA LEVANT ｜ Anti-Christian narrative weaponized to drive a wedge with Jews EZRA LEVANT ｜ Chinese EV deal raises alarm for Canada’s auto industry

Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

173.56

Word count

7,401

Sentence count

311

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

18

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A semi-autobiographical essay by Avi Lewis about his time at Canada's fanciest private school. And I take you through his essay. I also talk with Stockwell Day about the NDP, and I show a couple funny videos from their conference.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hello, my friends. I found an essay, a semi-autobiographical essay by Avi Lewis, the new NDP leader, that he wrote when he was in his early 20s.
00:00:10 And it was about himself and his time at Canada's fanciest private school.
00:00:15 And I think it's really relevant to his leadership of the NDP.
00:00:19 And I'd like to take you through his essay. It's quite interesting.
00:00:21 I also talk with Stockwell Day about the NDP, and I show a couple of funny videos from their conference.
00:00:26 Anyway, that's today's show.
00:00:27 But first, I want to invite you to get a subscription to Rebel News Plus.
00:00:30 It's the video version of today's show.
00:00:32 And there's just one video I want to show you from Lyle Culpepper.
00:00:35 Oh, my God, it is so funny.
00:00:36 I think I've watched it four times.
00:00:38 I really want you to see it.
00:00:39 So please get Rebel News Plus.
00:00:41 It's the video version of this podcast.
00:00:43 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe.
00:00:46 Trust me, you've got to laugh.
00:00:48 It really is the funniest thing I've seen all week.
00:00:51 Oh, yeah, one more thing.
00:00:52 being a rebel today is simply being normal so why not support normal news and look cool while
00:00:59 doing it by buying yourself some rebel merch and more at rebelnewsstore.com
00:01:05 and you can save by using coupon code DREA10 when you do
00:01:22 Tonight, let me tell you about Avi Lewis growing up as a rich socialist in Toronto.
00:01:29 It's March 31st, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:32 You're fighting for freedom!
00:01:35 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.88
00:01:46 Oh, hi, everybody.
00:01:48 There's so much going on in the news, and one of the things that I think is very important
00:01:52 to politics is the new leader of the NDP, Avi Lewis, who's actually the third generation in his
00:01:59 family to lead the NDP. There was his grandfather, David Lewis, who was the leader of the Ontario
00:02:05 NDP. There was his father, Stephen Lewis, who was the leader of the federal NDP. And now Avi Lewis
00:02:10 has the family job. Three generations. I think that's pretty rare. It's almost like it's some
00:02:15 sort of family business bequeathed from father to son, like they're kings or something. And that's
00:02:21 a funny thing because the NDP would tell you they're not about nepotism. They're not about
00:02:26 being born with a silver spoon. But I can say that Avi Lewis is exactly that. And I want to talk to
00:02:32 you a little bit about this book I found called Old Boys, The Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada
00:02:39 College by James Fitzgerald. And it's actually compiled by James Fitzgerald. It's written by 71
00:02:46 different alumni of Upper Canada College. Now, if you've never heard of Upper Canada College,
00:02:52 it is Canada's fanciest private school, certainly the most expensive. It's in Toronto.
00:02:57 And for almost two centuries, it has been graduating people who take high stations
00:03:03 in Canadian life, as much as that goes. I suppose it would be like Eaton, the fancy school in the
00:03:10 UK from which the vast majority of prime ministers flow. It's not quite that fancy. We don't have
00:03:15 the same aristocracy here, but it is the ruling class's favorite school in Toronto, and it's
00:03:21 extremely expensive. And wouldn't you know it, that a poor little socialist, Avi Lewis, went to
00:03:28 that school. And what did he have to say about it? Well, I think that's a very interesting thing,
00:03:32 because this book was published, I think, in 1990, so about 36 years ago. So, Avi Lewis would
00:03:38 have been in his early 20s. So, he would be a man graduated in the world, but he would still have
00:03:43 you know fairly close memories of what he had done at that school although he was only there for
00:03:50 i think three or four years starting when he was nine so it was when he was a fairly young kid i'm
00:03:57 going to get into the book in just a moment but i i think i just want to show you uh the party that
00:04:02 abby lewis is is leading and i know you've probably seen this about you're on twitter and i know some
00:04:07 of our other journalists have covered it let me just show you some of the absolute wackiness of
00:04:12 the NDP, you know, their, their different statuses, their race card, their gender card,
00:04:18 their equity seeking card. These are actually, they've made cards. When you and I talk about a
00:04:23 race card, you know, a generation ago that to play the race card would mean to say something about
00:04:29 race that is sort of a personal attack and say, well, as a black woman, this, or as a Jewish
00:04:35 person, that it's sort of an appeal to authority that you try and shut the other person up by
00:04:40 playing your race card. They actually have cards though in the NDP now where you can actually
00:04:45 play your race card to get ahead in the line to speak. So if there's a white person in line and
00:04:51 a black person's behind them, it's like a game. It's like Uno or something. You play your race 1.00
00:04:56 card and you get to jump in front of them. And then there's the women's card. And then there's
00:04:59 the trans card. Anyhow, take a look at this compendium. I'm just going to play a minute for
00:05:05 you, because I want to show you how far the party of unionized workers and the party of
00:05:11 farmers. I don't think there's any actual blue collar workers or farmers left in the
00:05:16 NDP. It's all the absolute nuts from the faculty lounge. Just take a quick look at this.
00:05:24 There's a point of privilege on microphone one, then we'll go to microphone three. Go
00:05:28 ahead, delegate. Yes. Hello. I was standing here with my gender equity card before you
00:05:33 called on the previous speaker.
00:05:35 That's my point of privilege that I would like to raise.
00:05:37 I will explain the speaking order, which is fixed,
00:05:39 that I cannot amend, which is the pro-con rotation.
00:05:42 You can move yourself up a line that you're standing in.
00:05:45 I am pro, and I was-
00:05:47 We went, um-
00:05:50 You went pro, con, pro.
00:05:51 We went pro-con, pro, and my plan was to go con.
00:05:54 The speaker at con mic three also has a speaking card.
00:05:58 Yesterday, this card was used in an inappropriate matter.
00:06:03 And while I understand in Ontario, we know this as equity, even if that, this was also used inappropriate in terms of gender.
00:06:11 I want everyone to be mindful that these cards for individuals like myself who identify as a black woman have no value outside of this space.
00:06:22 Yeah, I mean, wow. I don't think that Avi Lewis's grandfather, David Lewis, would even recognize the NDP. I should tell you that David Lewis, Avi Lewis's grandpa, who led the Ontario NDP, he took a hard line against communists.
00:06:40 I know you might think, what? An NDP or against communists? Yeah, he was a socialist, but he was a hard line against communists. And remember, you know, 100 years or so ago, there was a real worry about communist infiltration here. So you had David Lewis, the grandpa, taking a hard line against communism. David Lewis, very successful man politically, was a successful lawyer. He really opened up a lot of doors.
00:07:05 I mean, it's a small point, but he was a Jewish leader of the NDP, and he actually was fairly pro-Israel.
00:07:13 I wouldn't call him a full-bore Zionist, but he wasn't an anti-Zionist extremist like his grandson Avi.
00:07:20 By the way, Avi is a pretty Jewish name, isn't it?
00:07:24 Then there's the son, Stephen Lewis, the second generation to become political party leader.
00:07:30 He was at the federal level. Not only did he serve in the federal parliament, then he was appointed Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, if I'm not mistaken.
00:07:39 It was actually Brian Mulroney who did that. So two generations of extremely successful men, but each one progressively becoming more socialist.
00:07:49 And then, of course, there's Avi Lewis himself, who Danielle Smith, I think, accurately said, meets the test of communism.
00:07:56 He believes in the public ownership of the means of production.
00:08:00 Here's Danielle Smith saying this the other day, and it's tough to disagree with her.
00:08:04 Well, I don't think they can have a different policy, quite frankly.
00:08:07 If you look at their party constitution, it says that in any matter not dealt with in the constitution,
00:08:13 the constitution of the new democratic party of Canada shall prevail.
00:08:17 And it also says that the federal NDP says that even though they have autonomous federal provincial parties,
00:08:24 They can only do so if their constitution and principles are not in conflict with the federal party.
00:08:28 So we're getting a pretty clear idea of what the principles of the federal party are.
00:08:33 They're pretty communists.
00:08:35 They talk about nationalizing everything from food to building houses to construction companies.
00:08:40 You want everyone to have a heat pump and take an electric or an EV bus to work.
00:08:46 So I think it's up to the provincial NDP to talk about how they're going to square the circle.
00:08:51 If that's his federal policy and they're required to conform with it, what are they going to do to implement it?
00:08:57 And they can't hide behind we're a different party because they're not.
00:09:00 They share a constitution. They share a membership.
00:09:02 So I think that it's pretty clear from Abby Lewis and his activism over the last number of years with the Leap Manifesto,
00:09:09 which he repeated throughout the entire leadership campaign.
00:09:12 He wants to end all fossil fuels, and that includes LNG.
00:09:16 So he's got not just Alberta in the crosshairs. He's also got the British Columbia. He's got Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia who are trying to expand gas development and oil development. So I would say that it's pretty clear what the NDP position is federally. And it is opposed to any development of fossil fuels and any infrastructure that would facilitate it.
00:09:38 Anyway, you've got Avi Lewis and his wife, Naomi Klein, who's also a lifelong activist,
00:09:45 and her brother, Seth Klein, is a lifelong activist in BC.
00:09:48 It really is a socialist family.
00:09:51 The whole family business is socialism.
00:09:54 But at least the grandfather, Lewis, worked for a living.
00:09:58 He did some lawyering.
00:10:00 He did some actual work for clients.
00:10:03 He got his hands dirty.
00:10:05 it's been a long time since the family has had any that in a way it's sort of like
00:10:09 the nepotism of justin trudeau but it's one more generation back to the book i i discovered this
00:10:17 book uh in our library here at rebel news i don't know who would have bought it and avi lewis has
00:10:23 his essay remember this is 71 of the grads of um upper canada college they call it old boys oh
00:10:32 he's an old boy and let me just tell you some of the other names in here to show you that it is
00:10:37 quite a prestigious school um stanley ryerson after whom i presume ryerson hal jackman former
00:10:48 lieutenant governor conrad black is in here um you know michael ignatiev i mean these are not
00:10:57 stunningly famous names, but it is sort of the Canadian establishment.
00:11:01 And there he is on page 301, Avi Lewis.
00:11:04 Now, I'm not going to read the whole thing to you,
00:11:06 but I want to read some of it to you.
00:11:07 And the reason I think this is interesting is because, I mean,
00:11:11 Avi Lewis surely had politics in his blood his whole life.
00:11:14 In fact, he mentions that.
00:11:16 He mentions he was told that when he was three years old,
00:11:19 he was telling the neighbor to vote NDP.
00:11:20 I don't doubt it.
00:11:22 but he wasn't as careful as he would be if he was writing this book now.
00:11:27 So this is Avi Lewis captured 36 years ago when he was asked to write about his elite education
00:11:35 at Upper Canada.
00:11:37 And if you're a socialist who talks about the means of production and standing up for the poor,
00:11:45 how do you square the fact that your rich family sent you to the richest school in Canada
00:11:50 to hobnob with the richest families i'm not going to read the whole thing to you but i'm going to
00:11:56 take the liberty of maybe reading a total of five pages to you let me start obvi lewis 1976 to 1980
00:12:04 so he was at the school for three or four years i was in grade three at deer park public school
00:12:11 in toronto and i was going slowly insane the kids in grade three say that the academic program just
00:12:18 wasn't challenging or stimulating me. The principal's idea of gifted education was to give
00:12:23 me a balsa wood rubber band boat project. So my parents, Stephen Lewis and Michelle Landsberg,
00:12:29 reluctantly and against all of their tastes and proclivities, got me an entrance test at
00:12:33 Upper Canada College when I was nine. The school was very kind and gave it to me in the middle of
00:12:38 the year. So he's already mentioned how gifted he is. And I should tell you in the 10 pages that
00:12:44 follows. He must have repeated that five times. It's very important to him that you know just how
00:12:51 smart he is. Smarter than you, smart enough to be advanced to grade, and certainly smarter than the
00:12:56 other kids either at Deer Park Public School or even Upper Canada College. Although he did say
00:13:03 this, I didn't have any idea how to tie a necktie. I couldn't write. I was still printing and very
00:13:11 poorly. And then he has some weird theory. I'm left-handed with severe mixed brain dominance. 0.78
00:13:18 What? One of the explanations for left-handedness is that normally the right and left brain
00:13:23 functions control the opposite sides of your body. When those messages get crossed, it's one
00:13:28 of the theories to explain left-handedness. I think that is why lefties are lunatics and geniuses. 0.99
00:13:35 He's just making up these weird theories. And again, though, he wants to let you know, 0.98
00:13:40 he's a genius um he talks about his father having many honorary degrees his father stephen lewis
00:13:49 let me skip ahead i saw he's talking about his classmates now remember he went to school he was
00:13:57 nine as he just told us i saw the people who would run this world he's talking about his
00:14:02 classmates in upper canada i saw the people who would run this world in their purest and most
00:14:08 in an undiplomatic state of childhood and adolescence. I saw the thrustings and boastings
00:14:14 of power in their most naked form. I saw the savage cruelty of those with power exercised
00:14:21 against those who are defenseless. The schoolyard is an archetype for what people do to people when
00:14:28 they get to the boardroom. Um, brother, you were, you were nine. I found that the people who come
00:14:37 from the most wealth and power the thompsons the burtons the turners were the most ruthless 0.99
00:14:41 even at the young age they carried with them the great sense of entitlement not like you though
00:14:47 you don't have a great sense of entitlement you're at lewis they felt they deserved everything they
00:14:52 got they would be first in the natural order of things let me skip ahead this part just
00:14:58 let me read this part i learned early on that the most dangerous boys were not the thugs who
00:15:06 were actually beating me. He talks about being beat up a lot. That I actually do believe.
00:15:11 But the quiet, reserved and honored star pupils who never laid a hand on anyone,
00:15:15 the ringleaders, the guys who called the shots, never dirtied themselves with a business of
00:15:19 enforcement, but they were responsible for more suffering than anybody else. And that's something
00:15:25 I can see now at the world at large. They let it be known that someone was undesirable and they had
00:15:30 boys carry out their wishes some boys were anyway he he it's so clear to me that what he's doing is
00:15:37 he's trying to demonize the other people at the school for booing ruthless thugs but definitely
00:15:44 not him and the way to make sure that you don't think he's one of these elitist thugs is that
00:15:49 he's going to call everyone else an elitist thug first by the way do you believe any of it
00:15:54 i spent many an hour in the prep school locker rooms in heated arguments insisting that there
00:16:02 was a difference between socialism and communism which they did not accept now that's interesting
00:16:08 because i do believe that and he's still doing that some 36 years later the arbiter of those
00:16:13 arguments was always the fist really avi i wouldn't call these fights because fighting
00:16:19 conjures up the notion of two people facing off on roughly equal terms. I was abused regularly
00:16:24 and by crowds. You know, you have to understand that he's the victim. He went to a school that
00:16:32 today costs about 50,000 bucks a year for a nine-year-old kid, the most elite school in the
00:16:38 country. But you have to understand, he was a victim. He wasn't powerful. He was oppressed
00:16:44 like the ndp he leads i've never been in any atmosphere where there was more petty criminality
00:16:51 than when i was in the embrace of the privilege class brother your father and your grandfather
00:16:58 were ndp leaders lawyers world diplomats and you're saying that you were in the embrace of
00:17:05 the privilege class you were the privilege class no one's possessions were safe it didn't matter
00:17:12 if there was a jockstrap, textbook, a notebook, or a calculator watch. Some boys had collections
00:17:16 of calculator watches. It was theft for the thrill of it, pure and simple, because there was no
00:17:21 material need for it. I also saw more drug use in grade eight at Upper Canada College than I saw in
00:17:27 grade 12 at Jarvis Collegiate, which was known as a drug school. Many UCC kids had anything they
00:17:32 wanted. They had ready cash so they could buy or sell high quality drugs. I remember the one kid
00:17:38 who was too young to drive had his own collection of antique cars do you believe that i believe that
00:17:46 the lewis family had lots of cars i'm going to skip ahead i don't want to go through too much
00:17:52 of it it it really is so overwritten and and the and the goal is to me is so obvious it's for him
00:17:58 to show that he might have been at the most luxurious wealthy school in the country but you
00:18:03 have to understand he didn't like a minute of it i was oh get this he was in the embrace of the
00:18:09 privileged class you got to read this part i was at ucc during the school's sesquicentennial
00:18:15 celebrations in 1979 1980 prince philip the duke of edinburgh visited the school as he does on
00:18:22 occasion george dub and i were chosen to give him the tour of the prep oh really so out of all the
00:18:28 the kids. You were chosen to give the queen's husband the tour, and you're not part of the
00:18:33 privileged elite, and they hated you. I already had proper contempt for the monarchy, but I didn't
00:18:40 refuse the assignment. Isn't that accurate? I had contempt for wealth, but I bore my duty and I took
00:18:50 it. I hated this fancy school, but I went there. I certainly am not part of it, but I was part of
00:18:57 it how you know if he had contempt for the monarchy how about stand by your values and let someone
00:19:03 else uh tour the prince around let me read this part the only reason i put up with being stuffed
00:19:10 in every locker garbage can closet confined space and a reeking corner of the building
00:19:16 literally running for my life on a daily basis was because i was just exploding with learning
00:19:22 i was having incredible mutual relationships of respect and intellectual seriousness with great
00:19:26 teachers um i i do find it plausible that normal kids would just hate this pompous uh sneering 0.97
00:19:38 condescending uh hypocrite who says he hates it all but uh you know luxuriates in it that part i 0.96
00:19:46 do believe but he wants to make sure you know he didn't really like it i think all the teachers 0.98
00:19:54 were aware that i was being persecuted but any intervention on their part would have made me
00:19:58 even more despicable in the eyes of the crowd yeah i think that's probably true um
00:20:08 you know he talks about being beat up a bit and i'm not sure how i think there's some
00:20:13 exaggeration there i'll stop reading that he says i don't i don't deny that i was an obnoxious 0.98
00:20:18 mouthy little shit okay finally we're getting to it i was smarter i was jewish i was socialist 0.98
00:20:27 and i was two years younger than everyone else in my class i didn't know my place when i felt 0.99
00:20:32 someone was wrong i told them so which made me insufferable i was completely the other in every
00:20:38 respect at a place where there was absolute intolerance for any variation from a norm which
00:20:43 is mythological and destructive in the extreme that's obviously a lie he was treated as a first
00:20:48 class student he was given favors he was allowed in in the middle of the year he was chosen to
00:20:53 escort the prince he he just said he had a wonderful time with the teachers what a liar what a drama
00:20:59 king i also anyhow he explains that he left the school his choice he says i also started to get
00:21:05 interested in girls which is of course didn't exist at ucc my family and i had always been
00:21:10 uncomfortable with the idea of segregated education upper canada is only for boys
00:21:15 i never believed in it and they certainly don't believe in it well you got to stop lying i mean
00:21:21 how can you say that your family was against a boys only school if they sent you to a boys only
00:21:29 school how how can you say that i'll read one last uh uh sentence or two um he he was a young
00:21:37 man in his 20s now working for a tv station in toronto called city tv and when he wrote the
00:21:41 and he said at city tv a fellow reporter colin vaughn told me the only thing he didn't like
00:21:48 about me was that i went to a private school the simple fact was the ucc met my needs as a gifted
00:21:54 kid did i tell you i'm gifted hey have i mentioned that i'm smarter than anybody else i just want you
00:21:59 to know how gifted i am i didn't hobnob with the elite that's all you did brother you toured the 0.94
00:22:08 freaking king around i'm not a champagne or silk stocking socialist you literally are 0.84
00:22:16 you're the third generation in your family to lead the ndp you're a millionaire you were born 0.87
00:22:23 a millionaire hobnob with that is all you've done i'm a socialist who paid his way literally
00:22:31 in nosebleeds he didn't pay your way in nosebleeds your parents spent tens of thousands of dollars
00:22:36 putting you through school the fact that i went to an establishment private school is a favorite
00:22:41 detail of frank magazine and that whole journalistic crowd whole journalistically your
00:22:46 mother michelle landsberg was a journalist your father what crowd are you talking about you're
00:22:51 an author your wife's an author the journalistic crowd being seen as the son of stephen lewis and
00:22:57 michelle landsberg and having gone to ucc is a burden i'll carry to the grave but i don't regret
00:23:03 it for a moment i learned a lot about the world in my three and a half years at ucc a world which
00:23:08 i lament and which i will spend my life trying to change um i don't really think so i think that
00:23:15 avi lewis is exactly what he says he's not i don't think he's as smart as he claims he is but i think
00:23:22 he is the elite silk stocking champagne socialist three generations of high society um i think he
00:23:33 just realized that by having that on his resume it shows that he's a millionaire socialist
00:23:39 then again it worked for jagmeet singh didn't it anyhow it's a little bit of bobby lewis i maybe
00:23:45 didn't hear about stay with us after the break we'll talk with uh stockwell day about some of
00:23:51 Avi Lewis's socialist policies that obviously show he's never lived a moment in the real world.
00:24:04 Well, there's been so much news in Canadian politics and world politics that it's easy to
00:24:10 overlook the, I think it's the fourth party in parliament, the NDP, that Jagmeet Singh had taken
00:24:16 down to just 9% in the polls in the last election. In fact, I think that's the big story of the last
00:24:22 election. Pierre Polyev got a record turnout for the Conservatives, but in Canada, which is a bit
00:24:28 of a center-left country, if you don't have a strong NDP carving votes away from the Liberals,
00:24:34 you know, it's just not enough for the Conservatives to win. I think the collapse of the NDP was
00:24:38 really one of the main stories of the election, and their obedience to the Liberals throughout
00:24:44 their term in parliament i think was something to see now abby lewis i think is more ideological
00:24:50 more of a lifelong policy wonk on the left i think he'll be a little bit different what will it mean
00:24:56 will it strengthen the ndp if so at whose expense what will it mean for the other parties is canada
00:25:02 going to tilt towards the left and is abby lewis and his ndp too much of a radical group of woke
00:25:10 stirs as opposed to the party of the farmer and the working man joining me now to talk about it
00:25:15 is someone who knows a thing or two about politics having served both provincially in
00:25:19 the alberta government and federally his name is stockwell day he's an old friend of mine in fact
00:25:23 i used to briefly work for him out in ottawa and now he's a retired pundit and grandpa and he tells
00:25:29 me great grandfather stock great to see you again great to be with you thanks you know the ndp
00:25:35 comes from the West. They have
00:25:37 Western roots. They were the Farmers' Party.
00:25:40 They were the Workers' Party.
00:25:41 They actually had a Christian tradition, too,
00:25:43 Tommy Douglas.
00:25:45 They've certainly moved away from those roots, haven't they?
00:25:47 They're more the Transgender Party, judging 1.00
00:25:49 by their conference these days.
00:25:52 Yeah, they certainly are.
00:25:53 First, just let me acknowledge
00:25:55 condolences to Abby Lewis and his family
00:25:57 with the very recent passing of his
00:25:59 father, Stephen Lewis,
00:26:01 who is also a doctrinaire,
00:26:03 and I'm sure is very proud of his son right now.
00:26:05 Now, you're quite right, Ezra, in what you've characterized so far.
00:26:10 The thing I like about Abbie Lewis is he's a very honest socialist.
00:26:15 He has all of his thinking is significantly and severely left wing.
00:26:21 And I think that he may find some audience there.
00:26:23 He may find even some audience within some of the Liberal Party, which leans significantly socialist, but they don't want to admit it.
00:26:30 So, you know, I think he's I think he will predict just as I think you predicted a while ago and I predicted about six months ago.
00:26:39 I thought he would win this race. He did because of his strong ideological stance.
00:26:45 And I think some people are going to find that attractive.
00:26:48 You know, I saw a critique of capitalism by a Silicon Valley billionaire the other day.
00:26:53 He said most young people, their experience with capitalism is student loans that they have trouble paying off.
00:27:00 and the inability to buy a house because it's so expensive.
00:27:03 So they have a negative feeling towards capitalism that maybe a generation ago we didn't have.
00:27:09 A generation ago, we knew freedom and free economies were better.
00:27:14 And you look around the world and, you know, whether it's Zoran Mamdani,
00:27:18 who I think can be fairly called a true socialist,
00:27:21 or even in the UK, the rise of the Green Party, which is socialist,
00:27:26 I'm worried that there is a trend amongst young people to go full socialist or even communist.
00:27:33 I mean, some of the policies of Bobby Lewis, the state owning the means of production, that's literally the definition of communism.
00:27:40 And I think for a lot of young people who can't afford to get ahead, hate the big corporations, can't save for a home of their own, I think they'll find it appealing.
00:27:50 That's what I'm worried about.
00:27:51 this generation of voters, anywhere up to 30 or 35 years old, have been schooled for years. They
00:27:57 went from grades 1 to 12 under schooling, which is basically culturally Marxist. Then they went
00:28:02 into universities, which are bastions of culturally Marxist thought. So when they hear somebody
00:28:08 boldly proclaiming Marxist policies, as Avi Lewis does, it resonates with them. And who doesn't like
00:28:15 the sound of getting free stuff. So that's why certainly, as you said, in New York, Mayor Mondami
00:28:23 is unabashed in saying he's going to take over the grocery industry. The people that are going
00:28:29 to be voting in this younger cohort don't know that not only has that been tried in countries
00:28:36 around the world, from communism to heavily socialist countries, a number of cities in the
00:28:41 United States actually tried that, tried to get into the grocery business. And like government
00:28:46 getting into every business, it's always a dismal failure. But it looks appealing because you're
00:28:52 quite right also, this generation not realizing that the single greatest reason for their earned
00:29:00 dollar not being able to purchase as much as they'd like is governments borrowing and spending
00:29:07 spending borrowed money that's the single greatest reason for a dollar losing power but these this
00:29:15 young cohort doesn't realize that and they think the answer is let government control it even though
00:29:20 the history books are clear history they've never looked at that this leads to financial disaster
00:29:25 and more poverty for more people yeah hey i want to play a clip for you this is uh abby lewis right
00:29:30 after his win on the CBC so his natural in fact he used to work at the CBC a couple of decades ago
00:29:37 then he went on to work for Al Jazeera which is sort of a natural progression once you get hooked
00:29:42 on those state broadcasters there's no telling where you'll wind up here he is talking about
00:29:47 government-run grocery stores and I think of what it was like in Alberta when government-run
00:29:54 liquor stores. And in Ontario, they only very recently put beer in corner stores.
00:30:00 Government-run anything is terrible. But when you hate the man and want to smash capitalism,
00:30:06 it sounds good. Here's Avi Lewis pitching government-run groceries. Take a listen.
00:30:10 A good chunk of your platform, a platform you won on, involves nationalizing industries,
00:30:17 banking, groceries, construction. Clearly, due to your win, I think we can say that a majority
00:30:23 of NDP membership are on board, but how do you sell those ideas to the general public? Something
00:30:29 that many would argue you need to do in order to broaden the NDP and grow the NDP.
00:30:36 Oh, absolutely. That is the goal. I've been talking to NDP members for the last six months,
00:30:39 and I'm really looking forward to getting out and talking to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
00:30:45 You use the word nationalizing, which is not a word that we use. We talk about a public option
00:30:50 for groceries and cell phones and stuff like that
00:30:53 because it's not about taking existing businesses
00:30:56 into the public sector,
00:30:58 although that is an option in certain cases.
00:31:00 We're talking about, for instance, with groceries,
00:31:02 developing a chain of 50 publicly owned
00:31:05 and operated grocery stores across the country
00:31:07 with six or seven regional distribution hubs
00:31:09 that would be able to provide groceries to Canadians
00:31:12 30 to 45% cheaper than what they're paying right now.
00:31:16 I think he's right that food is expensive.
00:31:19 I mean, inflation, shrinkflation, where you get smaller packages at the same price.
00:31:25 He's right that there's a problem, but his prescription, I mean, I just, I'm trying to
00:31:32 imagine a grocery store.
00:31:33 Of course, it's going to be unionized.
00:31:35 Of course, it's going to be government workers, civil servants.
00:31:38 How he thinks it's going to be 30 to 40% cheaper blows me away.
00:31:42 The margins in grocery stores are so thin, just a few percent.
00:31:47 And by the way, there are non-profit grocery stores now, the co-op, you know, sort of member owned.
00:31:53 I just think that this, I mean, he went to Upper Canada College, which is the most expensive private school in Canada.
00:31:59 I think he's sort of a limousine liberal champagne socialist who just doesn't know how things work.
00:32:06 And he's 58 and he's never tested his ideas.
00:32:10 And now he's the leader of a party.
00:32:12 I don't know, Stock.
00:32:13 i just can't i i mean i just don't know how he thinks he's going to get a grocery store 40
00:32:18 cheaper how well it won't be cheaper but by taxing people raising taxes across the board
00:32:27 that grocery store chain if it ever comes into being and i would just say heaven help us if it
00:32:32 does uh that will be groceries products that will be made to look less expensive because he will
00:32:39 simply tax everybody more across the board he'll take those taxes then and so the true cost let's
00:32:46 say of landing that loaf of bread in his store let's say it's five dollars the true cost by
00:32:53 confiscating money from other hard-working people he'll make it three dollars or two dollars he might
00:32:59 make it one dollar but you always pay more for it somewhere else it's always been a colossal
00:33:05 failure and he should know i'm sure uh looking at cuba and i've been there doing a mission work
00:33:12 in cuba they line up there are no groceries uh rum on on the shelves still sells for a dollar
00:33:20 that's about it everywhere these policies are practiced i went to ukraine in 1993 just when
00:33:27 the soviet empire was folding long lineups everywhere just for bread this is a disaster
00:33:34 But young people have not been informed of it. It sounds appealing. And another thing he knows, Ezra, having worked for Al Jazeera, that there is this growing nexus, this growing unhealthy joining of the socialist parties with parties that have significantly Muslim backing. 0.96
00:33:55 We've seen it in the UK, and they wind up knocking out more established parties.
00:34:01 So there's some appeal there.
00:34:03 And with a Muslim vote attaching, which they will because of this dangerous sort of new 1.00
00:34:08 phenomenon across the world of the Muslim vote and the socialist vote, they are actually 0.94
00:34:13 in a situation that could endanger Canada financially and in other ways also.
00:34:18 You know, it's very interesting.
00:34:20 I think he's going to get the socialist communist vote, and he definitely will get the Islamist 1.00
00:34:23 vote.
00:34:23 What was interesting is Avi Lewis is ethnically Jewish, but he and his wife are anti-Israel
00:34:30 Jews, which is a very small number of Jews. 0.63
00:34:33 That would be like an Italian who hates Italy. 0.77
00:34:36 It's just very rare and weird, but it's been political gold for him.
00:34:40 And I think that in that way, he could grow his party nibbling away from Mark Carney's
00:34:47 liberals.
00:34:48 Mark Carney claims he's going to be more businesslike than Justin Trudeau.
00:34:51 i don't know if we've seen proof of that yet but he certainly carries himself more moderately
00:34:55 if if mark carney is more moderate uh economically and if avi lewis is more radical against israel
00:35:04 avi lewis i think could grow the numbers i don't think he's going to form government
00:35:07 but i think he'll do much better than jagmeet singh's nine percent what do you think do you
00:35:11 think he's do you think he's got i mean certainly the media loves him that's for sure i agree 100
00:35:16 percent he's a media darling because he thinks as they do he's culturally marxist so everything he
00:35:20 says resonates when he says anything then mainstream media just goes amen and you mentioned
00:35:27 for instance if people want a good example i served ralph klein as his minister of finance
00:35:34 in alberta before i was in federal politics ralph klein was the first premier to really start
00:35:41 turning things upside down or make them back right side up and he said what is the government
00:35:46 doing in the business of selling alcohol? And that was all turned back to the private sector.
00:35:52 And what is government doing in any of these businesses? Government should be there to
00:35:57 regulate, to make sure things are safe. But taxing people, taking their taxpayer dollars
00:36:03 to prop up failing business practices, that is a road to poverty for many people and less
00:36:11 prosperity for all of us last question i see in the globe and mail a couple of reports that
00:36:17 um suggest mark carney's going to have an early election and it sort of felt that way for a while
00:36:23 but he's got a de facto majority because the bloc and the ndp typically support him on everything
00:36:29 there's a couple of by-elections coming up really soon um if there were a quick election
00:36:35 it could catch Avi Lewis you know without his feet under him he doesn't have a riding yet
00:36:41 he hasn't cemented control over his party they haven't nominated candidates
00:36:46 I think that the liberals moving quickly when they're ahead of the polls could be a way for
00:36:52 Mark Carney to get a serious majority I mean that anti-Trumpism has never been higher and I think
00:36:59 that scares a lot of Ontario and Quebec voters towards liberals first of all do you think there's
00:37:04 going to be an early election and if so do you think it'll go Carney's way as he hopes
00:37:08 before this leadership race i was saying i don't know if there'll be an early election especially
00:37:14 if he does well in these by-elections but uh mark Carney is smart enough to know that abby lewis
00:37:19 because he's honest about being a socialist he will attract the socialist vote which is now
00:37:25 hiding in liberal corridors and even hiding uh in with with liberal mps there's quite a few who
00:37:32 would lean in that direction so yeah for sure if these by-elections don't go well he's going to be
00:37:37 now he's worried about Pierre Polyev too Pierre Polyev is uh the the gap is not that great between
00:37:43 the conservatives and the liberals he's got some concern there but he is worried about losing
00:37:48 support to the true socialists rather than his sort of camouflage socialism and that's going to
00:37:55 be a concern for him you're right I think that may prompt the early election call very interesting
00:38:00 time. Stock, it's great to see you again. Thanks for spending some time with us. And I think we're
00:38:05 in for a very busy political season. We are. Thanks. Good to be with you. All right. There
00:38:10 he is. Stockwell Day. Stay with us. Your letters to me next. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me
00:38:23 about the NDP. Jim Beasley said, I'm going to start carrying fluorescent pieces of paper,
00:38:28 so I'm always privileged.
00:38:29 Yeah, that idea of actually having physical race cards
00:38:32 is so funny.
00:38:32 Hey, can I show you something?
00:38:34 There's a guy I follow on Twitter.
00:38:36 He's so funny.
00:38:36 He goes by the name Lyle Culpepper.
00:38:38 I don't know if that's his real name.
00:38:40 And he does all these funny videos
00:38:41 where he sort of makes it look like
00:38:44 he's at a press conference that someone famous was at.
00:38:47 And he did one, he's an American,
00:38:49 but he did one pretending he was at the NDP.
00:38:52 And it's so convincing, a British Columbian I know,
00:38:55 said, I don't know if this is real or not.
00:38:57 it's so real feeling this is so funny this is lyle culpepper doing satire but you can't tell
00:39:05 take a look i'm gonna let this play for a couple minutes take a look point let's hear the point on
00:39:09 microphone one yes point of personal privilege i am lyle culpepper i am non-binary i am a person
00:39:15 of color which happens to be a white color uh egalitarian two-spirit furry um i'm also sex
00:39:22 positive most sex negative i'm also a muslim adjacent hamas supporter and i am disabled i 0.80
00:39:27 have a condition called sit me which is stress-induced premature ejaculation and i am uh
00:39:33 korean but not by blood and i have all my cards i have my race equity and gender card here so
00:39:39 uh pretty much top of the list and uh there are some been some comrades who have skipped in front
00:39:44 of me i've recently gotten my oppression graded uh at a 9.7 so uh in terms of being able to speak
00:39:50 I would like to ask for extended time to speak and perhaps I can come up on stage with you, Madam Emma Stone.
00:39:59 Or, sorry, Emma Stone.
00:40:01 Not right now.
00:40:02 Okay.
00:40:04 That stress-induced ejaculation part was...
00:40:09 I'm sorry, that was so funny.
00:40:11 That was too funny.
00:40:13 So, yeah, that's Lyle Culpepper making fun of our NDP.
00:40:16 We're famous.
00:40:17 Born Canadian says, the NDP needs to be rebranded to the NRP, the non-relevant party.
00:40:22 Tom Lee Douglas is rolling over in his grave.
00:40:24 Yeah, I mentioned how David Lewis was, you know, I mean, he was a socialist, it's true.
00:40:30 But he was an anti-communist, which tells you a little bit about his views on extremism, his foreign policy.
00:40:36 And it suggests he was a patriot.
00:40:38 He was a socialist, perhaps, but he was a patriot.
00:40:41 I don't think you can say that about today's NDP.
00:40:43 Avi Lewis is anti-American.
00:40:45 He's anti-Israel.
00:40:46 he's anti-canada and the only flag on the stage when he became leader was the palestinian flag
00:40:51 soul venting says notice there were no canadian flags wokeness has given all the mental cases 0.95
00:40:57 power and a voice the ndp doubling down on ridiculous sing tank the party this will be
00:41:02 the fine nail in the coffin was saying to stockwell day i'm not sure about that i think
00:41:06 jagmeet singh through the race just like a boxer might throw the match um sing i think purposefully
00:41:15 supported the liberals his whole uh tenure and then blew the election badly nine percent i think
00:41:23 abby lewis will move the party to the left he'll sop up the communist socialist youth vote and i 0.97
00:41:30 think he will get a lot of the islamist anti-semitic vote which mark carney was counting on and i just
00:41:35 find it hard to believe that abby lewis will get less than nine percent i'm not saying he's going
00:41:39 to get 20%, but he'll do, he'll sop up the Mamdani vote, the Olivia Chow vote. So I think
00:41:47 Avi Lewis is going to strengthen the NDP, but speaking purely strategically, if the Conservative
00:41:52 Party of Canada has a chance of winning, it's got to be through splitting, through the NDP splitting
00:41:57 the Liberal votes. We'll see how that goes. Anyways, that's the show for today. I hope you
00:42:01 didn't mind me reading that essay from Avi Lewis. Maybe I overstated things, but I've never read
00:42:06 anyone talk about how so so smart they are so repeatedly brother if you're smart i'll know it
00:42:12 i'll pick it up if you're smart um and about how he was at an elite institution and he was the elite
00:42:20 of the elite smarter than everyone chosen to escort prince philip um but take his word for it he 0.98
00:42:27 didn't like being there not one bit yeah what a hypocrite that's our show for the day until 0.97
00:42:33 tomorrow on behalf of all of us here at rebel world headquarters to you at home good night 0.98
00:42:36 and keep fighting for freedom.