Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Web of control： Trudeau rules YouTubers and podcasters must register with the government

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Exciting show today because terrible things are happening, which is a cause

00:00:05.020 for excitement. Justin Trudeau's CRTC has demanded that YouTubers and bloggers and podcasters,

00:00:12.440 anyone with a streaming video, has to register with the government if they're above a certain

00:00:17.020 size. Well, we know where registration of journalists leads and it's nowhere good.

00:00:22.320 That's our show for today. I want to show you some video clips, including of Stephen

00:00:25.820 Gilboa talking about these things in the past. So I'd like you to see it, not just hear it in a

00:00:31.620 podcast. Can you please go to rebelnewsplus.com? That's the video version of this podcast. Click

00:00:38.100 subscribe. It's eight bucks a month and you get to see the clips we put on for you. All right.

00:00:43.060 Thanks very much. Here's today's podcast.

00:00:55.820 Tonight, Justin Trudeau announces on a Friday afternoon that YouTubers and podcasters must

00:01:04.660 register with the government. It's October 2nd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:09.040 We're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:15.340 When governments want to reduce media scrutiny of something, when they want to bury something,

00:01:28.560 they announce it on a Friday afternoon, preferably before a long weekend. That's what Trudeau did on

00:01:33.360 Friday with this bizarre tweet by the CRTC, the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications

00:01:40.420 Commission, Trudeau's radio and TV regulator. Except, as you know, a few months ago, Trudeau's Bill C-11

00:01:47.520 gave that old, useless relic astonishing new powers to regulate the internet. Here's the tweet by the

00:01:55.520 CRTC. They said, today we're taking a major step towards modernizing Canada's broadcasting system.

00:02:04.580 Following broad consultations, we are releasing our first two decisions, including which online

00:02:09.840 streaming services must register with us. Modernize, eh? Do you think that a government agency can

00:02:17.540 modernize anything, especially the internet? Has the internet been waiting for 25 years for Justin Trudeau and

00:02:23.760 his appointees to fix it, to make it modern? Have the geniuses in Silicon Valley been asking for help to

00:02:30.320 modernize things? Because compared to the Liberal Party of Canada, they're old-fashioned, they don't know anything

00:02:35.600 about technology. Come on, the CRTC is a joke. Created in the age of radio and TV back in 1976.

00:02:43.680 It's been obsolete for more than a decade, probably two decades, other than for handing out lucrative

00:02:49.100 monopolies to Canada's cell phone cartel. Canadians literally pay the highest cell phone rates in the

00:02:56.100 world. Huh, thanks CRTC. The CRTC has various predecessors stretching back to the advent of radio.

00:03:03.300 Almost 100 years ago, the reason the government said it was necessary back then is there was limited

00:03:10.600 bandwidth on radio. If you have a radio station, let's say at 1060 on the AM dial, you can't have

00:03:17.720 another radio station nearby that's close to it on that frequency. So there was a physical limit.

00:03:24.040 You needed a regulator. It was a century-old problem. There are unlimited TV channels on your cable

00:03:30.900 package on streaming services like Netflix. There's the satellite radio. Of course, there's YouTube

00:03:35.400 and podcasts and live streaming. Now, the internet is unlimited. It's not like AM radio stations. And

00:03:42.160 everyone can be a creator now. Ordinary people can become huge stars on Twitter or Facebook or TikTok

00:03:48.300 if they have something smart or funny or interesting to say. It's all been very hard for the regulators

00:03:54.480 and gatekeepers and lobbyists at the CRTC. They were left behind until Trudeau gave those old cronies

00:04:01.120 power over the internet. Now, they want YouTubers and other talent to register with the government.

00:04:07.120 Really? So journalists, anyone with a large audience, register with the government. I've heard that phrase

00:04:13.700 before. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in federal court in Toronto where Trudeau's lawyers told the court

00:04:18.840 that I, as an author, should have to register with the government to write a book that was critical of

00:04:23.480 Justin Trudeau. They said that. They literally argued that. I'm the first Canadian author in history

00:04:29.000 who's been ordered to register my books with the government. There were 24 books about Justin

00:04:33.800 Trudeau published in the 2019 election. Mine was the only critical one. Mine was the only one

00:04:38.620 investigated, prosecuted, convicted, and fined by police and Elections Canada. And don't think the CRTC

00:04:43.960 wasn't watching. They watched and they noticed and they learned that no one cared. Well, a lot of

00:04:50.360 ordinary people cared, but not a single so-called journalism advocacy group called the Canadian

00:04:55.460 Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:05:00.040 Association, Amnesty International, Penn Canada. Not a single journalism advocate or author's advocate

00:05:06.320 cared. Not even enough just to tweet about it, let alone to send a lawyer to court to intervene in the case.

00:05:11.760 The CRTC saw that Trudeau has successfully subverted and undermined the media by subsidizing it and

00:05:19.200 bribing it. So they learned, they knew that they could force, if they could force me to register my

00:05:24.520 book, they could force others to register their podcasts and live streams. I should point out not

00:05:30.320 everyone was silent when my book was being prosecuted. Jordan Peterson saw the danger and he tweeted up a

00:05:35.560 storm in support of me. I'm grateful to him. He stood on principle and now they're coming for him

00:05:40.280 as Canada's leading YouTuber. He says he won't comply. It'll be interesting to see if they prosecute

00:05:46.260 him and who will come to his aid if they do. As my old friend John O'Sullivan always said to me,

00:05:51.280 it's easier to fight in the first ditch than in the last ditch. Here's his tweet. Jordan Peterson says,

00:05:58.680 take your modernization and stuff it where the sun never shines. I hope that means he won't comply,

00:06:04.380 but they will surely prosecute him. They've been looking for a reason to prosecute him. As Lavrenti Beria,

00:06:10.460 the head of Stalin's secret police in the Soviet Union, used to say, show me the man and I'll show you

00:06:15.460 the crime, as in they'll get you on something, anything, even if they have to manufacture a fake crime

00:06:20.480 to get you, which they just did on Friday. This shocking decision was not debated, let alone voted on by

00:06:27.320 parliament. It's a decree, like something Castro would do, but it's pretty certain that the liberals would have

00:06:32.740 won the vote if they had put it to parliament. The NDP are even worse than the liberals. Here's NDP

00:06:37.660 or Charlie Angus, who wants to make a government list of conservative activists.

00:06:43.020 I crossed a new Rubicon in 23 years of public service. I had to ask the OPP to come and answer

00:06:48.540 phones at my office because we were being overwhelmed with threats of violence against me,

00:06:53.720 my staff, my family. Welcome to public life in 2023, where death threats and intimidation

00:06:59.380 are becoming part of the playbook of the far right. And it's not just politicians. We're

00:07:04.400 seeing death threats against journalists, school board trustees, medical professionals.

00:07:09.120 What's bubbling up in the conspiracy swamps of 4chan, Reddit, and X are increasingly crossing

00:07:14.460 the line into real life. Call it pitchfork politics. It represents a serious threat, not just to public

00:07:20.840 safety, but the very nature of democracy itself. These extremists make these threats because they can get

00:07:26.720 away with it. It's time to mandate the RCMP to establish a registry of online domestic extremism.

00:07:33.800 They need to have the resources to identify the sources of the threat, to make contact with them

00:07:38.580 and to keep track of them in a public registry. Democracy is in a very fragile place and we need

00:07:45.240 to work together to keep people and our system working. I understand he's not saying to make a list

00:07:50.920 of actual criminals. It's already a crime to make a threat or whatever he claims happened. I don't

00:07:56.000 believe him. He wants to put out known activists on his list. The Bloc Québécois is just as bad. And 0.78

00:08:02.820 frankly, I'm not sure how every conservative MP would vote. Here's Aaron O'Toole's old heritage critic,

00:08:08.740 Alain Reyes, a couple of years ago, saying he wants more regulation on the internet too. This was an

00:08:13.620 alleged conservative. But we don't see it in the bill. There's nothing in this bill that allows for

00:08:22.300 the regulation of social media or platforms like YouTube. And it's clear we would have liked to have

00:08:28.840 seen this in the bill. The minister even says we have to find a way of preventing hate speech,

00:08:34.860 conspiracy theories, and fake news that's shared. But right now in the bill, unfortunately,

00:08:43.240 we won't even be able to amend it in that aspect. And because it's simply absent from the bill.

00:08:49.700 Well, he's not running again, thankfully. But how many other O'Toole liberals are lurking in the

00:08:53.920 Conservative Party? You know, it reminds me, and I think about this from time to time, I've told you the

00:08:59.620 story before about how communist Romania made people register their typewriters with the police.

00:09:04.860 First, they had to answer questions, what are you doing with such a dangerous and antisocial device

00:09:09.360 as a typewriter? Then they had to give a sample of how the typewriter typed. And that sample would

00:09:13.600 be kept on file at the police station, so that if police discovered some samizdat, that's the word

00:09:18.580 for illegal political commentary, the police could compare the samizdat, the illegal messages,

00:09:24.060 with the output of different typewriters to see who would have typed it like a fingerprint,

00:09:28.440 since each old-fashioned typewriter was slightly different than the other.

00:09:32.280 Registering typewriters. Let me read a little bit about that. This is from a Guardian story,

00:09:38.340 but a book about typewriters in Romania. When the typewriter arrives, she explains the system for

00:09:42.780 registering it with the police, how it was fingerprinted, and how they must provide an

00:09:46.700 explanation for why they need it. An instrument can be used to type about personal feelings,

00:09:51.100 forbidden, or write anti-government pamphlets, forbidden. So yeah, in Canada, we don't register

00:09:57.440 typewriters. Come on. That's crazy. We register podcasts and live streamers and YouTubes.

00:10:04.100 We also register guns, and then we ban them. You'd think this would freak out everyone who should be

00:10:10.300 freaked out, but that forgets that most of the regime media are fine with this, because they know

00:10:14.300 they're going to be fine on the inside. They're in the system. They're not punished by the system.

00:10:19.460 I mean, the CBC's Aaron Wery, he wrote a love letter to Trudeau that he called a book,

00:10:24.620 Pure CBC Propaganda, published the same time as mine. He wasn't prosecuted or fined. I was.

00:10:30.860 So why would Aaron Wery stand up for my freedom? He wasn't going to be persecuted. CTV, CBC, Global News,

00:10:37.600 The Star, The Globe and Mail, they're all on the inside of Trudeau's regime. You have to understand,

00:10:42.580 they like competitors being banned. They don't really care about Friedman's speech or the

00:10:47.500 independence of the press. They made that decision years ago when they decided to take Trudeau's

00:10:51.360 cash. They chose power over independence. They chose bailouts over revenue from their own readers.

00:10:57.220 They chose sides. They sided with the regime. By the way, the bailout media didn't just fail

00:11:03.480 despite Trudeau's cash. I think they failed because of it. I mean, very few news organizations

00:11:08.140 permit critical coverage of Trudeau anymore, and people can sense it. It shows. I mean,

00:11:12.420 here's the state broadcaster's chief Ottawa reporter. Look at how proud she is. You know,

00:11:19.140 Rebel News, as you know, started in my living room just eight years ago, but already 41% of Canadians

00:11:23.720 trust us more than trust age-old legacy media like CBC, CTV, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail.

00:11:30.060 How? Because we're independent. Well, it's Monday afternoon. I've seen very little in the last 72 hours

00:11:37.900 on this from the media party. I've seen foreigners weighing in. Isn't that always the way foreigners 1.00

00:11:43.720 who aren't on the take can criticize Trudeau? They see him anyway. Glenn Greenwald, he's an American

00:11:48.600 who lives in Brazil. He did a series of tweets about it. Look at this one here.

00:11:54.260 He says, the Canadian government, armed with one of the world's most repressive online censorship

00:11:58.860 schemes, announces that all online streaming services that offer podcasts must formally register

00:12:04.180 with the government to permit regulatory controls. And look at that, almost 50 million views. That's

00:12:10.400 10 times more than the entire combined audience of every news outlet in Canada. Now, a lot of those

00:12:16.660 are foreign viewers, but it's not like this isn't interesting stuff. But like the trucker convoy,

00:12:21.000 the media party up here knows who butters their bread, so they don't want to talk about it. If they

00:12:24.280 talk about it, they want to take the liberal side. Now, Glenn Greenwald does not take any Trudeau money,

00:12:28.700 so he covers the news as he sees it. Elon Musk saw Glenn Greenwald's tweet, and he chimed in.

00:12:35.460 Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful. Almost 40 million views of that tweet,

00:12:41.680 too. I'm shy to say it. My own tweet on the subject got only 1.2 million views, but again,

00:12:48.880 it shows that Canadians care about freedom, even if Trudeau and the media party don't. 1.2 million

00:12:54.080 views. That's five times more than watch. CBC's The National on any given name. Now, this didn't

00:13:00.280 just happen all at once. Trudeau recently rammed through Bill C-11. It put the entire internet

00:13:05.440 under the control of his CRTC appointees. C-11 lets Trudeau order Facebook, Google, YouTube

00:13:12.360 to alter their algorithms to hide things Trudeau doesn't like. Here's the key section of the law.

00:13:18.680 You've heard me read this before. Section 9.11e says,

00:13:24.760 The commission may make orders imposing conditions, including the presentation of programs

00:13:29.100 and programming services for selection by the public, including the showcasing and discoverability

00:13:34.240 of Canadian programs. That's a search algorithm. What shows up, what you discover. YouTube, Google,

00:13:39.900 Facebook, Instagram, Twitter already boost or throttle content based on their own criteria.

00:13:44.580 It's usually hostile to conservatives or contrarians, especially on issues like vaccines or

00:13:49.280 transgenderism. But this new law puts Trudeau in charge. Trudeau has now given himself the power

00:13:54.840 to alter the discoverability of internet content. He already said he's going to decide which news

00:13:59.560 is trusted and which isn't. He said that in his very first media bailout announcement when he was

00:14:04.360 starting to pay his friends in the press. Let me quote from the Globe and Mail. It's just incredible

00:14:08.640 that he said this out loud. He said,

00:14:10.040 The government said the package will aim to help, quote, trusted news organizations, but we'll leave

00:14:16.020 it to the media industry to define the application of the new initiatives. Now, they're not leaving it

00:14:20.220 to the media anymore, are they? That was five years ago. Justin Trudeau has lost his patience.

00:14:25.040 He's now going to decide for himself. As you know, Trudeau introduced a news license called a QCJO,

00:14:31.820 Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization. Trudeau gave himself the power to give or deny that license.

00:14:38.320 Until now, that license mainly meant you got tax relief. We don't get that.

00:14:44.360 Now, I mean, something else doesn't. Here's Trudeau's cabinet minister, Stephen Gilboa,

00:14:47.780 three years ago talking about forcing journalists to get a news license.

00:14:51.860 How will this work? How are you going to regulate websites? How are you going to register all that?

00:14:56.340 Are you, do you buy these recommendations?

00:14:57.940 Well, I mean, one of the recommendations, so you're talking about a couple of different things here,

00:15:05.680 but as far as the licensing is concerned, is if you're a distributor of content in Canada,

00:15:10.980 and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the requirement probably

00:15:17.780 wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google. So there would have to be some proportionality

00:15:25.720 embedded into this. But we would ask that they have a license. Yes.

00:15:30.680 There was almost no pushback from the regime media because they knew what it really meant.

00:15:35.940 They'd get the license because Trudeau trusts them, but independent competitors like us would be shut down.

00:15:41.720 It would ban their upstart competitors. There used to be some independent journalism NGOs in Canada,

00:15:46.880 but they have been transformed into grant-seeking lobby groups who exist only to extract more bailouts

00:15:53.140 from Trudeau. They'd never criticism. They're in perpetual begging mode, and it shows, because he

00:15:57.760 always makes them beg for the next year. He keeps them on a string. As I mentioned, Rebel News applied

00:16:03.760 for a QCJO news license. We were turned down laughably. Trudeau's bureaucrats claim less than 1% of what

00:16:10.280 we publish as news. I don't even know how that's possible, but that's what they said. We're still suing

00:16:15.300 them. The courts move very slowly. Friday's announcement demanding that live streamers

00:16:21.200 register with the government is shocking but not surprising. Trudeau has been working on co-opting

00:16:26.480 the media since he was elected. He's about halfway through his plan. 99% of journalists are on the

00:16:32.160 inside, so they're silent. Bill C-11 gave Trudeau power over the internet, including altering search

00:16:37.860 algorithms. C-18 gave Trudeau the power to collect a link tax from Facebook and Google and to use that for a

00:16:43.500 slush fund for trusted media only. Those are both law now, and there's more coming. Trudeau introduced

00:16:49.500 another censorship bill in the last parliament called C-36. It died on the order paper, but he

00:16:54.940 says it'll be back. It includes secret trials for internet hate and punishments, including house

00:17:00.620 arrests, even ankle monitors, even jail. The final step in Trudeau's censorship plan is the most draconian

00:17:08.000 of all. He calls it the Online Harms Act. You know, in a confidential memo, Twitter said it was

00:17:14.640 the worst thing they've seen anywhere outside China, Iran, and North Korea, and that was Twitter before

00:17:19.440 Elon Musk took over. In his final bill that he proposes, Trudeau would give himself what his cabinet

00:17:26.380 calls the nuclear option. That's what they call it. The power to actually ban entire websites from even

00:17:33.360 existing in Canada, like China does with their great firewall. We've seen too many examples of public 0.99

00:17:39.600 officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves or

00:17:46.640 even their families. Envision having blocking orders. I mean, that's that maybe it's not, you know, it's a, it would

00:17:57.220 be, it would likely be a, a last resolve, last resolved, uh, nuclear bomb in, in a, in a toolbox of, uh,

00:18:07.380 of mechanism for, for regulators. So that's what's happening. That's what Jordan Peterson is concerned

00:18:12.820 about. That's what I'm concerned about. You don't force journalists to register with the government

00:18:18.180 unless you plan to regulate them, punish them, throttle them, ban them, even jail them. It's not just

00:18:23.540 Jordan Peterson, who will be forced to register because of his Canadian residents, but American

00:18:28.200 broadcasters with large Canadian audiences will too. 19 out of the top 30 podcasts in Canada are

00:18:34.600 American. They're covered by this decree. Be interesting to see if American podcasters will

00:18:40.240 save us in the end though, because the Canadian media sure won't for the reasons outlined above.

00:18:45.220 Forcing American companies to register with Trudeau, that's anathema to their first amendment

00:18:50.440 and likely a violation of the US MCA trade agreement. Look, Trudeau doesn't care about

00:18:56.860 much. He's, he's known as a shallow man with no policy depth. He's a hundred percent about spin

00:19:02.160 and controlling the message. He's put forward, not one, but four censorship bills. That's how obsessed

00:19:06.600 he is. He really is like his father figure Castro, isn't he? We know that Trudeau has a hatred for rebel

00:19:13.340 news. He says, so look at the abusive answer to Alexa Lavoie mere hours after the federal court found

00:19:18.920 that he had violated her constitutional rights and the court ordered him to accredit us at the debate.

00:19:24.980 Bonjour M. Trudeau, Alexa pour Rebel News. Donc M. Trudeau, je vais revenir rapidement sur ce qui s'est

00:19:30.900 passé hier. Vous avez déabolisé l'un des rares médias qui ne reçoit pas d'argent du gouvernement.

00:19:37.680 Vous avez exprimé votre opinion en disant que nous propageons la désinformation. Si c'était vrai

00:19:44.160 et si c'était le cas, la Cour fédérale ne nous aurait pas permis d'être ici aujourd'hui. Je suis moi-même

00:19:50.320 scientifique et je me base sur les faits. Ma question est la suivante. L'Israël est l'un des pays les plus

00:19:58.080 vaccinés au monde. Ils sont rendus maintenant à leur quatrième rappel de vaccin. Ils ne considèrent plus

00:20:04.720 que ceux qui ont reçu deux doses de vaccin sont pleinement vaccinés. Ma question est, plusieurs

00:20:13.240 Canadiens ne désirent pas avoir un rappel de vaccin. Allez-vous leur enlever leurs privilèges

00:20:23.800 reliés au vaccinal? Et aurez-vous l'obligence de répondre à ma question en tant que premier

00:20:31.260 ministre ou allez-vous encore diaboliser mon média?

00:20:34.540 J'ai partagé ma perspective sur ton organisation hier soir. Je n'ai plus rien à dire.

00:20:40.720 Ça demande bien qui vous êtes. Merci.

00:20:43.380 But as long as we have breath in us, I promise we will fight for freedom. We're going to fight

00:20:48.320 back like our entire existence depends on it. Because it does. Learn more and sign our petition

00:20:57.160 at stopthecensorship.ca. And if you can chip in a few bucks to help us fight Trudeau in court,

00:21:03.120 please do because we're there all alone. Thanks.

00:21:18.340 Hey, I've got a question for you. Do you know what net zero means? No one knows what net zero means,

00:21:25.140 but we're all supposed to support net zero. And believe it or not, most conservatives say they

00:21:31.020 support net zero. Even Pierre Polyev in Ottawa and Danielle Smith in Edmonton say they support

00:21:38.060 net zero. Net zero, what does that even mean? Net zero by 2030. Net zero by 2050. What are they

00:21:46.240 netting out to zero? I think the opacity of that term is why anyone would say they agree with it.

00:21:54.620 Because, oh, it just, it's a meaningless phrase. If it was to have net zero emissions, no, you can't

00:22:02.360 emit any carbon dioxide. You can't drive. You can't farm. You can't heat your homes. Net zero by 2030.

00:22:11.140 People would start to ask more questions. And if they learned that emissions meant anything you do

00:22:16.780 in life, from living to breathing to agriculture, living and breathing to driving a car or flying in a

00:22:23.220 plane, suddenly there would be a lot more questions. If people said, how do we have net zero when we're

00:22:28.720 increasing immigration by one million souls a year? They might ask other questions too. Net zero,

00:22:35.100 what a bunch of BS. There's a new poll about net zero, and it gives me a flicker of hope that people

00:22:42.960 are starting to see through it. Joining us now via Skype from Ottawa is the National Director

00:22:48.680 of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who knows that net zero is basically a scheme to tax everything we do.

00:22:56.880 Joining us now is Franco Teresano. Franco, how are you doing?

00:23:00.500 Hey, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.

00:23:02.300 It's a pleasure. I think one of the tricks that the government uses for any tax is to call it anything

00:23:08.320 except a tax. They'll call it a levy. They'll call it a fee. And in this case, they won't even call it a tax.

00:23:15.460 They'll call it net zero. From the Taxpayers Federation's point of view, what is net zero other

00:23:21.840 than a Trojan horse of taxes? Well, I mean, their number one policy that they try to sell on this

00:23:28.220 is a carbon tax, right? And not only are Canadians paying one carbon tax, we're now paying two carbon

00:23:33.660 taxes, which Mr. Trudeau imposed on Canada Day. Happy Canada Day folks. But look, a glimmer of hope,

00:23:41.100 as you alluded to, is a new poll released, done by Leger, released by Post Media, that shows the

00:23:47.600 majority of Canadians either want the carbon tax cut or completely killed. And I think that's good

00:23:54.440 news because remember, not too long ago, all those smart folks in Ottawa, all those lobbyist academics

00:24:00.820 were saying that the carbon tax was either inevitable or good policy. Well, Canadians are understanding

00:24:07.220 that it is not good policy. It's an absolutely useless tax. And it sure doesn't look inevitable 0.66

00:24:12.660 anymore with growing momentum of taxpayers fighting back against Trudeau's carbon tax regime.

00:24:18.720 See, carbon taxes tells us a little bit about what it's about carbon. It doesn't sound that scary,

00:24:25.540 although it's being demonized. Carbon is the stuff of life. We're made up of carbon,

00:24:29.800 carbohydrates, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons. It's everywhere. It's, listen, it's element number

00:24:36.200 six on the periodic table. It's, it's literally in the food we eat. So when people hear carbon tax,

00:24:43.600 I think they know something's up. And if you were to interview someone pumping gas and ask them how

00:24:48.800 they feel about a carbon tax, I think they would be able to put it together with the high price they're

00:24:53.800 paying in a pump. But net zero is a little different. And tell me, did this Leger poll talk about

00:24:59.240 net zero by name, or just one of the tools to get to net zero, namely the carbon tax? Did they test

00:25:06.180 net zero with the Canadian public? That's a good question. Look, Ezra, I'll just be honest with

00:25:12.100 you. I was so focused on the results about the carbon tax, because that is my key as a taxpayer

00:25:17.100 advocate is fighting this absolutely useless tax. Now let's talk about that guy or gal filling up at

00:25:23.100 the pumps, right? And I think if you asked him or her, you know, how do you feel about the carbon tax?

00:25:27.940 I think any average Canadian would say, well, this is a completely useless tax, because how does

00:25:34.460 making my life more expensive, the necessities that I need to get to work to keep my home warm

00:25:41.020 during those cold winter months, to even fill up my grocery cart, how does it make it more expensive

00:25:45.680 for me in Brooks, in Medicine Hat, in Halifax, in Burnaby? How does making my life more expensive do a

00:25:52.400 single thing for the environment? And of course, the answer is, it doesn't. The carbon tax does not

00:25:58.220 cut emissions, it cuts families' budget. The carbon tax is not about the environment. No, no, no. To

00:26:04.180 your point, it is about a form of control, right? Do what we say, or pay.

00:26:11.180 You know, Franco, I'm so glad you are a watchdog on the carbon tax file, because that's where the rubber

00:26:16.940 hits the road. It doesn't say net zero on the gas pump, it says tax on the pump. But I've called up

00:26:23.360 on my phone, the poll by Leger, and it does actually ask Canadians a little bit about net zero,

00:26:32.100 which is interesting. Let's go through together. And I didn't mean to surprise you with it, but

00:26:36.760 it's actually a glimmer of hope. I've got it here, and I want to show you the questions that Leger act,

00:26:42.480 and you give me your reaction to it, Franco. So, here's some of the highlights, and I'm taking

00:26:46.500 this directly from Leger's website. And by the way, I mean, everyone's heard of Leger and Leger,

00:26:51.640 they are the largest Canadian-owned pollster. And in my experience, they play it straight down the

00:26:57.260 middle. They're not, like some pollsters have a liberal tendency, like ECOS. Leger is really mainly

00:27:03.380 a market research firm. They do some politics polls, but I think they're pretty straight down the

00:27:07.960 middle. So, here's what they say. 68% of Canadians are unwilling to pay more in gas tax. And that's

00:27:15.540 your focus, Franco. But look at this. Familiarity and practicality of net zero 2050 policy. This is

00:27:25.660 what I was getting at earlier. People don't even know what the phrase is. Half are aware of the

00:27:31.360 Canadian government's net zero policy. I don't believe that. I don't believe it's that high. I think

00:27:36.920 people are just saying that so they don't feel dumb on the call. However, here's the key, Franco,

00:27:43.860 and I'm reading directly from the Leger website here. Only 15% feel it's realistic for Canada to

00:27:52.860 be a net zero emitter in 27 years, in the year 2050. So, there's some crazy people out there saying net

00:28:01.040 zero 2030, which would be cutting a staggering amount of industry down. Only 15% say we'll get

00:28:10.340 there in 2050. Anyone who says net zero 2030 is crazy. What do you make of that?

00:28:16.560 Well, I think Canadians are saying, well, we have no idea what's going to happen two decades from now.

00:28:21.240 But I also think more and more Canadians are kind of tired of just being fed a load of baloney,

00:28:28.080 if I could say that. I mean, like the idea that we're just going to punish all of Canadian 1.00

00:28:32.860 industries, Canadian workers, and then downstream raise the costs on Canadians. And the idea to think

00:28:38.660 that that's going to help the global environment, I mean, it's preposterous. And I think Canadians 1.00

00:28:42.200 are just sick and tired of taking it from these politicians who are essentially spinsters, 1.00

00:28:47.660 right? I mean, even Trudeau has before acknowledged that if it's just Canada doing all this,

00:28:53.240 essentially, it wouldn't do a single thing for the world, right? Canada makes up 1.5% of global

00:28:59.460 emissions. So, Mr. Trudeau can completely bring all of our industries to a screeching halt. What

00:29:04.260 would that do? It wouldn't do anything for the global environment, but it would cause a ton of pain

00:29:10.140 for all Canadians. Yeah. Hey, I want to throw one more thing at you, because again, you say net zero,

00:29:15.500 people say, what is like, it's just such a weird phrase, net and zero. Net zero what? Well,

00:29:21.420 when Leger asked Canada, like one of the ways to get to net zero, that means reducing carbon

00:29:26.900 emissions, would be shutting down our power sources, including clean burning natural gas.

00:29:32.420 Here in Ontario, they have lots of windmills and solar, but obviously it's not reliable. So,

00:29:37.860 they started all these natural gas power plants as backups. Well, guess what? They're running full

00:29:42.820 time because wind and solar are unreliable sources. So, here's what Leger said. They asked Canadians

00:29:50.240 if it's realistic to eliminate virtually all of Canada's electricity from carbon emitting sources

00:29:58.960 by 2035, as in shut down natural gas power plants. Only 19% of Canadians said that's doable.

00:30:08.060 So, the phrase net zero, I think is a foggy, amorphous thing that a person on the phone would

00:30:14.120 say, yeah, I've heard of that. Yeah, I support that because they don't even know what it means.

00:30:18.760 But when you start getting specific, like how do you feel about a higher carbon tax? How do you feel

00:30:23.400 about shutting down natural gas? When you start putting meaning around the world, that's zero,

00:30:28.480 only 19% of Canadians think, yeah, we should shut down our natural gas power plants. I find this

00:30:36.580 poll encouraging. I think we need a way though, Franco, a different, clearer way to say the word net

00:30:43.520 zero. Because even saying that word, I think enhances it as a real thing. And it hides its true

00:30:51.920 nature. What do you think? What could we say? What could we use instead of net zero? And I'm putting you

00:30:57.660 on the spot here today, but I want to muddle my way through it. Because if you ask someone in high

00:31:03.100 school or college, you believe in net zero by 2050, net zero by 2030? Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Okay. How

00:31:09.220 about no cars, no power, no travel, no flights, no regular agriculture, no meat? Okay. I know what

00:31:19.200 you mean now. How should we phrase this? You're a master at communication around tax issues. What ideas

00:31:26.200 would you have? Well, okay, Ezra. So I just want to say two things. Number one, I mean, it's kind of

00:31:31.680 the Orwellian type of political speak, right? These politicians don't want to actually tell you

00:31:37.060 exactly what they mean. They want these high-minded phrases. So people don't actually know what they're

00:31:42.640 talking about. Then they want to say the couch in these terms where it's almost impossible for anyone

00:31:47.640 to be like, oh, I'm against that. Even though if they were honest with you with what it means,

00:31:52.500 as you can see, many Canadians would be against exactly what it means, right? Like, hey, do you

00:31:57.940 want to pay X amount more for gas to do absolutely nothing for the environment? And then you actually

00:32:02.600 find out that a majority of Canadians either want the carbon tax cut or killed. Now, in terms of what

00:32:08.060 phrasing should we use? Well, I'm not even sure it needs to be one exact phrase to counter what these

00:32:14.180 politicians are talking about. In fact, I think you've got to break it down as many ways as possible to

00:32:19.180 show Canadians exactly what that type of policy or tax or new government regulation would mean.

00:32:26.120 So I think we actually have to break it down to the specifics so Canadians know exactly what

00:32:31.320 politicians and bureaucrats and academics are planning. Yeah. You know, let me close on this.

00:32:35.860 I saw a tweet that suggested young people have two big worries on their mind. One is they can't afford

00:32:43.160 to live. They can't afford to buy a house. They can't afford groceries. Inflation is really hitting

00:32:47.640 young people who are just getting going in life hard. And in the same token, they're anxious about

00:32:53.840 a climate Armageddon because they've been bombarded with this terrifying apocalyptic imagery. First of

00:33:00.300 all, I think they're linked. One of the reasons things are so expensive is because of carbon taxes

00:33:05.300 and because power is so expensive because we went to unreliables. And I don't know, I think that

00:33:11.460 I think we can get to a prosperity agenda where energy and food are cheap, where housing is affordable,

00:33:20.040 but I don't think we're ever going to do that with this climate catastrophizing out there. In fact,

00:33:26.440 I think part of the whole climate agenda is to make life difficult and poor so that we have less life.

00:33:33.460 They actually have that phrase degrowth, where they want less of everything, less economy. And if you ask

00:33:40.840 Bill Gates, he believes we need billions fewer people in the world. I think they want smaller lives,

00:33:48.980 smaller people, and smaller hopes. That's what net zero means. I don't know. I'm going to keep

00:33:54.640 turning it over in my head because I think we need to rebut that phrase. Last word to you, Franco.

00:33:59.520 Well, one of the reasons life is more expensive, that's an understatement, Ezra. Come on. Carbon

00:34:04.680 tax number one. There's a second carbon tax in place. And then you have these policies that just

00:34:09.820 almost directly go after our oil and gas resource, whether it's Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines law,

00:34:16.700 Bill C-48, the discriminatory tanker ban, rejecting the Northern Gateway pipeline, moving the regulatory

00:34:22.300 goalposts on energy ease. Biden pulls a presidential plug on Keystone. Trudeau barely bats an eye. I mean,

00:34:29.040 no, this is a huge reason that life's more expensive. But here's the thing, right? I think

00:34:33.160 most of those younger Canadians who answer that poll aren't really ideological one way or the other.

00:34:39.000 I think the vast majority, they care about the environment, but they also care about being able

00:34:43.380 to afford hamburger meat, right? And the beauty of this is that you can kind of do both at the same

00:34:48.880 time, but you have to be honest. So number one, these types of carbon taxes don't do a single thing

00:34:54.420 for the environment. And number two, how we become prosperous in Canada while still taking care of

00:34:59.660 the environment? It's actually quite easy, right? You want to sell our natural gas or natural resources

00:35:05.160 all over the world. Let's do that. And two, let's make sure entrepreneurs can develop new types of

00:35:11.500 technology with market forces, and then we can export that as well. So that's how we have to do it.

00:35:17.020 And I think there is a glimmer of hope in this poll that we've been discussing.

00:35:20.760 You know, I think we have to get back to what environmentalism used to mean, which is clean air,

00:35:25.540 clean soil, and clean water, real things. And I think, by the way, there is work to do on that.

00:35:31.040 And if you've ever traveled to China, you know that there are huge, real problems with pollution.

00:35:36.160 I think climate, combating climate change, which is code word for taxes, has actually snuffed out real

00:35:43.140 and necessary environmentalism. That's something we got to work on too. High energy, Franco,

00:35:48.620 Terrazzano, one of our favorite guys. You take care, my friend.

00:35:53.240 Thanks so much for having me on.

00:35:54.460 All right. Our pleasure. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:35:57.300 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me, Andrew Baikey, or Baikey, says,

00:36:13.000 it comes down to the Liberal Party fundamental belief that if people won't choose to consume

00:36:17.640 state-funded content, they will force you to. The same can be said for similar liberal policies

00:36:22.620 around environmental protection and health care. Yeah, they're authoritarian by nature,

00:36:26.680 and they hate criticism. And it's true, they've managed to mollify and vanillify

00:36:32.740 99% of the official media just by putting them on the payroll. It was really easy. But people want

00:36:39.960 skeptical, critical, independent takes. And so they'll find them, even if it's just people on

00:36:44.600 Twitter. I mean, I think we're one step above Twitter, not in terms of morality or whatever.

00:36:50.720 I think that anyone on Twitter is great. But in terms of our processes, because we do this full time.

00:36:55.340 But I think to Trudeau, anyone who's not part of the regime media is disgraceful and should be banned.

00:37:02.500 I call our team citizen journalists. You can be a citizen journalist, too. I've said this for a long time.

00:37:08.580 If you have something interesting to say in your smartphone for free, you can become the media.

00:37:15.100 Use your camera. Post to Facebook or Twitter. Type a tweet. That is what journalists do.

00:37:21.480 And Trudeau looks down his nose at those people, not because they're not smart,

00:37:25.840 but because he doesn't control them. Screamin' Baby Jones says, and I think CBC encourages the

00:37:32.240 reader to share links to their web articles on their own site, to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit,

00:37:37.260 LinkedIn, and email. Maybe CBC should be paying Meta for the privilege of increasing reach on social

00:37:42.220 media platforms. Look, I have a lot of beefs with Meta. They're actually sort of the opposite of

00:37:48.320 Trudeau's beefs. I despise the fact that Facebook, which owns Meta, sorry, Meta owns Facebook,

00:37:54.980 Meta owns Instagram, are so censorious of conservatives. Mark Zuckerberg spent tens of

00:38:00.620 millions of dollars on a Democrat get-out-the-vote campaign. He's extremely partisan. They really

00:38:06.400 interfered with the Brazilian elections, with the French elections. Facebook are already great

00:38:11.400 interferers. Trudeau wants them to interfere more under his Bill C-11, but he wants to

00:38:18.520 take hundreds of millions of their dollars to pay off to his trusted journalists.

00:38:23.680 So in this one instance, I'm on Facebook's side.

00:38:27.680 Carl Rhodes says, since Trudeau says Rebel News is not an accredited news source,

00:38:32.040 Rebel should petition Facebook to allow Rebel links. Then Rebel will be the only news source on Facebook.

00:38:36.700 It's funny you say that. We actually wrote a letter to Facebook making that exact point. Our lawyers did

00:38:41.820 saying, look, we're not a QCJO-approved journalism source, so stop banning us. Well, they've ignored

00:38:48.000 the letter so far. It doesn't surprise me. Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf

00:38:53.020 of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:39:06.700 Good night.

00:39:11.820 Good night.

00:39:12.100 Good night.

00:39:16.180 Good night.

00:39:19.260 Good night.

00:39:27.440 Good night.

00:39:28.700 Good night.

00:39:30.340 Good night.

00:39:32.780 Good night.

00:39:33.480 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - October 02, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Web of control： Trudeau rules YouTubers and podcasters must register with the government

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