Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ What's bugging me, you say？ Insects on the dinner plate

00:00:00.000 tonight are bugs bugging you well then you won't want to miss my interview with the ceo of aspire

00:00:20.900 foods the world's biggest cricket factory based right here in london ontario it's thursday october

00:00:29.540 six 2022 i'm david menzies and this is the ezra lavent show

00:00:34.880 shame on you you sensorious bug

00:00:41.140 so folks you might ask what's bugging me today well the answer is actually found in the question

00:00:55.780 which is to say bugs are bugging me today oh sure we have to share the planet with insects and arachnids

00:01:03.700 and so on and they so completely outnumber us they are supreme nuisances of course and yeah i'm looking

00:01:10.780 at you mosquitoes and wasps and bed bugs yet coexistence is one thing but do we have to put

00:01:18.700 the creepy crawlies on the dinner plate well if you ask the likes of claus schwab of the world 1.00

00:01:24.540 economic forum the answer would be yes that we need to substitute steak and potatoes for crickets and

00:01:30.820 mealworms oh not that king schwab will be showing down on insects anytime soon mind you much like 1.00

00:01:37.900 he tells us you know to surrender our cars as he buggers off in his chauffeur driven limo

00:01:43.480 what a fun burglar now you may have heard that there is quite the canadian angle when it comes

00:01:49.560 to the topic of edible insects namely a humongous cricket breeding facility operated by the aspire

00:01:56.460 food group recently opened in london ontario now my initial calls and my emails went unreturned so i

00:02:03.960 hopped into the menzoid mobile and buggered on down the 401 to try and get some answers

00:02:09.540 and here's what transpired david menzies for rebel news here in london ontario and folks i am standing

00:02:16.860 in front of the world's largest cricket farm i kid you not and uh many of these crickets are destined

00:02:26.000 for human consumption and the question arises why i know that edible insect fans and there are some

00:02:34.000 people that fall into that category uh they talk about the millions and millions of people the world

00:02:39.320 over that eat insects as part of their daily diet what they don't tell you is that most of those

00:02:46.580 people are in third world nations and unfortunately they don't have access to other food i don't think

00:02:54.320 a grub worm is someone's first choice over a hamburger or a chicken souvlaki after all now the thing is

00:03:02.100 you gotta wonder is canada truly a nation that is desperate for insects on the menu um but here's

00:03:12.040 the thing aspire food group which is the name of the company here folks they're not really taking

00:03:18.040 much of a risk in case this turns out to be a big flop for example aspire's plant has received

00:03:26.220 16.8 million dollars from canadian taxpayers via something called next generation marketing canada

00:03:35.200 and it seems that this payment might just be the first installment if you can believe it

00:03:41.340 also aspire has received an additional 10 million dollars in taxpayer funds funds from sustainable

00:03:48.980 development technology canada and get this they've even received a million dollars from the united

00:03:56.120 nations now we thought the idea of the world's largest cricket farm being located in canada well

00:04:03.360 that's kind of a big story wouldn't you say um especially with so many of the world's elites right now

00:04:09.900 attacking farming traditional farming that is just look what's happening in the netherlands

00:04:14.860 just look at that harebrained plan to label canadian ground beef as bad for your health

00:04:20.740 and yet here we have this multi-million dollar insect farm uh right in the uh bread basket of

00:04:29.160 ontario it it just seems weird but we tried emailing they don't return your emails we tried phoning

00:04:37.220 unless you know the employee's extension number and i took several guesses uh you cannot leave a

00:04:44.040 voicemail so why the lack of transparency now i should point out our good friend at uh western

00:04:51.240 standard uh karen selick she recently penned a fine piece about this operation and when she reached out

00:04:58.200 to interview someone well at least she got a reply it wasn't a good one it said the following quote

00:05:03.140 hello karen there is no one available to respond to your questions take care simone end quote i don't know

00:05:10.300 who simone is but aspire ceo muhammad ashur well guess what folks he was more than happy to sit down

00:05:17.760 with a cbc journalist and if you check out that report it comes across more like a press release

00:05:25.140 rather than a actual news report uh in any event i'm here to get some answers i think they owe us some

00:05:33.380 answers they're getting tens of millions of dollars of uh taxpayer money and because of that they should

00:05:41.480 be transparent in terms of where that money is going and whether or not this is going to be a viable

00:05:47.700 operation it obviously it's not viable enough for them to roll the dice and invest in this facility

00:05:54.100 themselves no they're depending on you and i just like the cbc depends on you and i in any event let's

00:06:00.720 go in and uh see what's cooking so to speak folks just take a look at the size of this facility

00:06:08.860 you know it reminds me of something from pop culture oh i know it's a borg cube you know

00:06:14.940 resistance is futile self-determination is irrelevant at least to what the world elites

00:06:20.840 want you to put on your plate in the near future ugh sir how you doing there good i'm david menzies with

00:06:28.320 rebel news and nice to meet you sir i'm in the middle of the meeting and the facility is close

00:06:33.620 visitors at the moment but if you like to schedule a meeting uh you can reach out to us and and we'll

00:06:38.440 oh i have i've reached out oh one second oh up is muhammad ashur here because your phone doesn't

00:06:45.400 pick up messages how about we come back after your meeting you'll have to schedule with me because

00:06:49.760 we're starting the plan we're not doing interviews for at least weeks oh but you gave an interview to

00:06:53.820 cbc muhammad ashur no well um we got the brush off as you can see he seemed friendly he's in a meeting

00:07:05.000 i offered to come back uh for the meeting i toronto is a more than two hours away from here

00:07:10.540 they do not return their emails folks and they have a phone system where when you call unless you know

00:07:19.900 the extension you cannot leave a message it does not go to a voicemail operation and uh you end up

00:07:28.560 guessing at extension numbers i'd have better luck uh winning lotto max i think well folks my camera

00:07:35.100 woman sarah and i we had just finished wrapping up our report such as it was we got the bums rush as 0.71

00:07:41.200 you saw earlier we walked around the facility we were literally heading out to hit the road and who

00:07:47.580 should come out of the building but muhammad ashur himself he is the founder and ceo of aspire and

00:07:56.560 mr ashur graciously invited us in to have a sit-down interview and here's how that went i'm just

00:08:02.620 wondering um muhammad can you tell us why you think there is demand in canada for cricket consumption

00:08:09.780 that's human consumption well okay so human consumption i'm not so sure about that okay our

00:08:15.040 primary market's actually pet food okay so we don't really when i first started the company i was

00:08:20.320 in medical school i came across this business competition the idea this was at mcgill university

00:08:24.700 the idea was to build a business that can address global food security so we started traveling around

00:08:29.820 different countries looking at different foods people eat we noticed that in a lot of the countries

00:08:33.400 where people have experienced real hunger places in africa primarily insect consumption is actually

00:08:39.660 prevalent so our thought was maybe we can come up with a way to farm insects to address food security

00:08:43.900 in these types of countries our thinking was never to try to get canadians or americans to eat

00:08:47.860 to eat bugs now over time we started to see that you know what there could be potential marketability

00:08:54.160 of insects for human consumption but that's obviously it's tough i mean you think like 25 years ago the

00:08:59.800 idea of eating raw fish for most canadians was crazy and now sushi is everywhere so yes there is

00:09:04.540 potential for insects to be a greater and greater percentage of our protein intake but our focus

00:09:09.700 is right now 100 pet food oh okay then so none of the crickets in this facility are right now destined

00:09:17.520 for human consumption in canada no oh but outside of canada and right now we don't have we don't have

00:09:23.020 any contracts right now with anybody who's buying crickets for human consumption out of this facility

00:09:26.920 okay yeah now the other thing um i'm so sure is the the fact that i i was looking at you know your

00:09:33.860 business plan and there's tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer funding i think there's even

00:09:38.580 a one million dollar grant from the un and you know a skeptic might say that this gamble you know

00:09:46.380 might not be done if it was simply your money or your investors money but it's taxpayer taxpayers that

00:09:52.880 are taking the risk on this venture how would you respond to that yeah i mean so i have to of course

00:09:58.540 on the one hand be very grateful for a lot of the support we've received in the grants uh it's

00:10:03.400 important to recognize that for every so this facility for example eight out of ten dollars that

00:10:10.320 went into building this facility came from investors which means i sold a huge percentage of my company

00:10:15.480 for us to be sitting here and actually those investors are amazing canadian private equity investors

00:10:21.440 venture capital investors you know here's the really cool thing we won this prize when we were

00:10:25.500 in mcgill in canada we started this company in canada but we actually moved to austin texas to do a lot

00:10:30.240 of the r d because we had found a company there we acquired it that's where we did a lot of our early

00:10:34.660 research and then we found that a lot of a lot of the great support we were getting great investors

00:10:40.000 that were backing our company many of them happened to be canadian so anyway as we decided to build

00:10:44.140 our facility in london ontario we were attracted in large part by some of these grants so one of them

00:10:49.540 for example is sustainable development technology canada this is a grant that's aimed at companies

00:10:54.260 that are going from sort of a pilot scale so proof of concept to commercialization that whose business

00:11:01.160 model has the potential to dramatically reduce you know environmental emissions and things like that

00:11:06.080 in our case if you look at pet food 30 percent of the calories that dogs and cats eat come from meat

00:11:11.640 and you know a dog in the wild doesn't eat cows a dog in the wild eats you know crickets or other

00:11:18.180 insects historically pet food used to be the leftovers of human food which makes a lot of sense

00:11:22.540 right you take a chicken you move the thighs you move the the breast and then the rest is rendered and

00:11:27.040 extruded into a pet food nowadays a lot of millennial pet parents want to be feeding their pets you know

00:11:33.780 these chicken breasts also and so now you have a lot more meat being produced you have pet food

00:11:38.840 manufacturers that are literally competing with human food manufacturers to be able to get their pets

00:11:44.320 the same quality meat that they are eating themselves and so our perspective is that there's an

00:11:48.360 opportunity for pets who naturally enjoy eating insects to reduce the environmental emissions

00:11:54.720 associated with their consumption through insects as a substitution does that make sense um well i'm not a bug

00:12:00.620 expert if you can imagine but um i'm just curious you mentioned it was the research and uh development

00:12:06.840 facility was in texas and is there any um taxpayer money from texas going into this venture so um we

00:12:15.460 actually did not receive any uh grants within texas now the halt prize of course came in canada

00:12:21.380 uh uh in the sense that the whole prize is funded by uh the um uh halt uh organization so the whole

00:12:28.660 business school every year issues a challenge it's a one million dollar prize it's put up by the

00:12:32.560 halt family they're the founders of ef an education company uh and it was the brainchild of the halt

00:12:38.160 organization so that was the only grant that came in to aspire up to now when we were ready to

00:12:43.060 commercialize it's very tough to get those grants now the only difference is we actually did receive

00:12:48.920 a small business grant from the department of defense in the very early early days but we never

00:12:54.360 got it because our company is more than 50 percent owned by canadians so you have to be an american

00:12:59.000 citizen or at least like more than 50 percent of your ownership is american so we actually had a lot

00:13:03.080 of a lot of opportunity to get u.s grants but we could never close them because of our status as

00:13:08.400 canadian citizens and and as you said um what you're growing here is destined for pet food um maybe

00:13:15.980 there's a potential for human food in the future but there's a lot of uh buzz if you pardon the pun about

00:13:21.120 um um insects being used as edibles for human beings and i mean we see it from you know people with

00:13:28.700 the world economic forum uh united nations as you mentioned gave that one million dollar uh prize to

00:13:35.200 you um i'm wondering why why does it seem to me uh mr sure that there's um people in powerful positions

00:13:44.460 advocating the consumption of insects while at the same time waging war on traditional agriculture you

00:13:50.860 see what's happening in the netherlands uh here in canada there was a scheme to put warning labels on

00:13:55.960 canadian ground beef and um a lot of people i guess are nervous or concerned that is this going

00:14:03.000 to be part of the new world order so to speak the idea that we're going to give up beef and chicken

00:14:08.400 and pork and instead have insects on our dinner tables uh i should hope not i'll tell you something

00:14:15.400 right now i personally consume meat um my family consumes meat my parents are from egypt i've traveled

00:14:21.880 around the world i think it is preposterous to imply or suggest that we're going to live in a world

00:14:27.400 without meat while i from a distance can respect entrepreneurs who want to envision a world without

00:14:34.120 meat i've been around enough farmers and i've seen regenerative agriculture and what amazing things it

00:14:38.680 can do for our land so i think that there's a misperception and this is the broader alternative

00:14:43.640 protein movement you have companies that are on one extreme that say the world needs to get rid of all

00:14:48.040 meat we're against meat everybody needs to be eating you know plant-based this and you know

00:14:52.200 alternative that and then you have on the other extreme the you know under no circumstances over

00:14:56.920 my dead body i'm only eating you know beef every single day for the rest of my body our company is

00:15:01.400 not an anti-meat company and actually i've lost customers over that because a lot of the alternative

00:15:05.480 protein companies are very puritanical in that perspective like they really expect you to be

00:15:11.720 doggedly against meat or else like you're you're not you're not in the fold that's not our position our

00:15:17.160 position is meat is here to stay we and and there's lots of opportunity for us to create

00:15:22.760 better regenerative agriculture around it our perspective is the world is growing massively

00:15:26.920 we need more protein and insects are so efficient at converting what they eat into into protein biomass

00:15:32.600 this facility here is on four acres and it will produce you know 12 million kilograms a year of meat

00:15:37.960 of insect protein that's a massive productivity out of a short amount of land so we're contributing and

00:15:43.080 we're seeing ourselves as part of an overall solution but meat's going nowhere okay well you

00:15:47.640 know it's interesting because i think i saw you quoted might be in a cbc article and i think you said

00:15:52.760 up to about two billion of uh the world's people actually eat insects and but i would say on the

00:15:58.840 other hand uh mr sure is that because they don't have access to any other protein or meat to that

00:16:05.400 they're forced to eat bugs that's so interesting you say that so i used to think that too right because

00:16:10.040 i didn't grow up eating insects myself in fact when we first came up with the idea for this business

00:16:13.800 we didn't we didn't really we weren't really sure um uh which insect even to start with right so when

00:16:19.240 we travel to oaxaca mexico and this is one of the poorest states in mexico okay one kilogram of

00:16:25.560 grasshoppers david is more expensive than a kilogram of beef chicken and pork combined can you believe

00:16:31.320 that i couldn't believe it i find that very hard to believe but is that true it is true and you know

00:16:36.520 why it's because grasshoppers only come in season for about three months okay and because of that

00:16:41.000 well three things one they're in short supply and the demand is quite high because they're quite tasty

00:16:45.160 you took anything and you add chili and lime and and and seasoning and it's going to taste delicious

00:16:49.960 but the second reason is because the manual labor involved in capturing that many grasshoppers go try

00:16:55.000 catching a thousand grasshoppers good luck right so so that makes it very expensive to capture this

00:17:00.520 amount of protein and that's what makes it expensive and i saw relatively poor people literally going up and

00:17:05.560 buying grasshoppers in like 10 gram portions because that's all they could afford so that was

00:17:11.400 so disruptive to my world view made me realize that this you know if insects are so prevalent

00:17:16.280 and if apparently they are they are so good nutritionally why haven't they already solved world

00:17:21.480 hunger well it turns out in a lot of these countries you actually can't rely on these insects

00:17:25.080 year-round because they only come in season due to temperature and climate for a short period

00:17:28.840 and high demand makes them very expensive so it's actually on the contrary not only are people not

00:17:33.880 forced to eat this food they seem to be going out of their way to spend an inordinate amount of money

00:17:38.440 to enjoy this delicacy that is fascinating but tell me my colleague chili gun reed she had a commentary

00:17:43.880 a few days ago and it was based on a scientific report that came out about the problem with pathogens

00:17:50.920 in insects and i think for i'm going by memory i think it was over 30 percent of insects destined for

00:17:57.560 human consumption have a pathogen problem is this a concern no so we have to be careful what we mean

00:18:03.560 here so there's pathogen risk for example with like food safety so if you package something

00:18:07.640 incorrectly at a plant it doesn't matter what it is it could be meat it could be chicken it could be

00:18:12.600 it could be you know crackers right like so if there's an introduction of some sort of a contaminant

00:18:18.200 in the food processing steps that could be a problem but if you're saying does the insect itself have

00:18:24.040 a pathogen so that depends on the insect that's why for us when we selected crickets we were very

00:18:28.920 specific that it has to be an insect that does not transmit any diseases to humans that it's an

00:18:33.400 insect that doesn't have any microbial activity at the end when we harvest our crickets we actually

00:18:37.880 check and we have to run analyses to look for any kind of microbes so for us we wouldn't operate as a

00:18:42.680 food production facility if we allowed for any kind of pathogen to continue in the food chain food

00:18:48.440 processor manufacturer we have to have the best general manufacturing processes we have to have the

00:18:52.760 right sanitation the right hygienic practices in place so that you know you don't introduce any kind of

00:18:57.960 pathogens in your process so like producing crickets it's the same as producing you know

00:19:03.000 chicken beef pork what have you you've got to follow sanitation standards to make sure okay 100

00:19:08.360 okay then and so just be clear as you said it's most or all of the product that you will be producing

00:19:15.000 it's destined for pet food but i imagine you know there might be a business case for you if you can convince

00:19:22.600 i don't even one percent of the population that a cricket sandwich or wrap however it's served

00:19:28.120 is good for i mean that's good for your bottom line so ultimately do you see in the months and years

00:19:32.920 ahead maybe uh having some of your product go for human consumption um i think we're going to be

00:19:38.600 focused on pet food for quite some time that market is massive david and in and it's only growing

00:19:44.120 you know during covet so many more people adopted pets and brought pets into their household

00:19:48.440 and because they're spending more time with their pets they're starting to pay attention to what

00:19:51.720 their pets are eating and they're thinking to themselves you know the pet is no longer this

00:19:56.040 adorable furry creature that greets me when i come home they're now like my favorite child so

00:20:00.600 they're treating them accordingly canadians americans people in in these countries we spend an enormous

00:20:05.400 amount of money on our pets because we adore them and for us we see a huge opportunity to be able to

00:20:09.960 deliver the same high quality nutrition to pets while at the same time having a tremendous impact on both

00:20:15.640 their health and bodies as well as the environment and of course with you being the ceo i'm sure

00:20:19.960 you've crunched all the numbers are you confident that this is going to be a profitable venture moving

00:20:24.840 on yes i am okay well mr sure i want to thank you so much for a uh you're a hard man to pin down um

00:20:32.920 i've been reaching out to your company but uh one last question is there anything that we haven't

00:20:38.760 discussed when it comes to the consumption of insects that you feel would be relevant for our audience to

00:20:44.600 know uh not at this time but if you have any other questions you can feel free to reach out to me and

00:20:49.000 and please don't don't go through the info whatever contact page i'll never see that i'll give you my

00:20:53.800 business card you'll get my email address if you have any follow-up questions feel free to reach out

00:20:57.640 oh i agree i greatly appreciate that thank you for your time mr sure thank you thank you so much for

00:21:02.760 coming well there you have it folks i should tell you that i found mr assured to be very likable

00:21:09.080 and i am indeed very grateful that he invited us into the facility for a sit-down interview

00:21:15.720 and i'll take mr assure at his word that the crickets that are being bred here at the aspire plant

00:21:22.440 are going to be utilized as pet food but then again that's in the here and now isn't it who's to say

00:21:28.680 that in the near future crickets produced by this facility won't be destined for human consumption

00:21:35.480 in the final analysis i'm a complete libertarian when it comes to a person's food choice

00:21:42.760 you want to be carnivorous well there's plenty of superb keg steakhouses to satiate your need for

00:21:48.680 meat you want to be vegetarian or hardcore vegan hey your body your choice right except when it comes

00:21:56.600 to getting vaccinated for covet 19 of course and if you want to go through life as an all-out insectian

00:22:05.320 well lucky you there are an estimated twin quadrillion bugs on planet earth you will never go hungry

00:22:14.520 say you want fries with that mealworm yeah well so many politicians and mainstream media types are

00:22:21.400 promoting the edible insect revolution why oh why do they always look so miserable when they are caught

00:22:28.440 on camera eating a bug check it out pakistan has never seen an unbroken cycle of monsoons quite like

00:22:36.040 this eight weeks of non-stop torrential rain a national emergency has been invo

00:22:43.080 has been invoked but the weather in pakistan extreme weather is alarming

00:22:47.080 need to gotcha reports yeah so not exactly um finger licking good now is it and somewhere in the

00:22:54.280 halls of global news ottawa rachel crimore remains in the fetal position weeping over the fact that yet

00:23:01.320 another canadian female journalist was attacked by an alt-right insect but getting back to the cricket

00:23:09.240 factory my bugaboo alas is the sheer amount of taxpayer dollars propping up insect farms like a

00:23:16.840 spire if there is indeed a business case to be made for edible insects and why are taxpayer funded

00:23:24.040 subsidies needed the same could be said for our state broadcaster the cbc if a majority of canadians

00:23:32.040 gave a rodent's rectum about the cbc then why does it need more than a billion dollars in taxpayer

00:23:39.080 welfare on an annual basis and the answer to that query of course is this just check out the cbc's

00:23:45.960 abysmal ratings these days in the meantime i remain completely unconvinced that insects are a viable

00:23:54.200 protein source assuming one is given the choice between bugs or burgers or for that matter even

00:24:02.120 broccoli the mere sight of bugs is revolting to so many of us who make up club homo sapiens thus sorry

00:24:11.640 the great world economic form when it comes to my dinner plate i will once again paraphrase the late

00:24:18.440 great charlton hested i'll give you my hamburger when you pry it from my cold dead hands

00:24:28.920 folks if i told you that there is a policy being enforced stating that an area is a jew free zone where

00:24:49.080 and when would you think i'm speaking of perhaps berkeley in 1939 or would it be berkeley in 2022

00:24:59.800 consider this shocking opinion piece published in newsweek recently entitled university of california

00:25:06.600 berkeley law school's jew free zones the latest progressive trend quote for several decades jewish

00:25:15.400 college students have been sounding the alarm about rising anti-semitism on college campuses

00:25:22.120 from mild episodes of graffiti to bds activism torah desecrations and egging jewish frat houses

00:25:31.560 university campuses have become hotbeds of anti-jewish and anti-zionist activist activism both in north

00:25:40.360 america and throughout the world rightly recognizing campus anti-semitism as a blight on higher education

00:25:49.080 and on america former president trump signed an executive order in 2019 on combating anti-semitism

00:25:57.560 unfortunately since then not only has the campus situation for jewish students not improved it has

00:26:03.720 taken a dramatic turn for the worse this can be seen most acutely in a move recently made

00:26:10.920 by law school students at one of america's most progressive university networks in one of america's

00:26:18.040 most progressive states at the beginning of the current academic year nine law school student groups

00:26:24.600 at the university of california at berkeley school of law amended their bylaws to ensure that

00:26:31.400 nobody who supports israel or zionism is invited to speak given that the vast majority of jews worldwide

00:26:39.880 support the state of israel these student groups have in essence created a jew free zone in the 0.82

00:26:48.360 hallowed halls of berkeley law the ruling would bar the law school's own dean erwin chemerniski who

00:26:57.480 identifies as a progressive zionist increasingly an oxymoron if the progressives have their way 0.95

00:27:05.880 banning jews or members of any other religious group from participating in a civil activity such as

00:27:12.520 speaking at a publicly funded university is discriminatory and immoral and if it becomes acceptable and

00:27:21.240 normalized in america to ban a jew from speaking on a college campus because of an opinion held about

00:27:29.160 israel or zionism what is to stop the next step from happening i.e the normalization of banning jews 0.98

00:27:37.880 from attending that same or other institutions of higher education or other entities end quote

00:27:45.560 absolutely incredible and downright sickening and joining me now for more on this shocking state

00:27:53.240 of affairs at berkeley is the author of that opinion piece and that would be toronto-based writer laura 1.00

00:27:59.560 rosen cohen welcome to the ezreal event show laura how you doing i'm good how are you doing i'm doing

00:28:06.360 great thanks for joining us laura it is hard to believe that this is actually happening in the usa with

00:28:14.520 all of the constitutional protections that country has but it is happening how did this perverse so-called

00:28:22.440 jew free zone initiative get rolling in the first place well i think for a long time berkeley in

00:28:30.200 particular has been a hotbed of anti-israel and anti-zionist political activity they have a really active

00:28:37.240 um palestinian student life there um california itself is a very progressive state so all those

00:28:44.840 and all those ingredients together have created a climate that has just become increasingly

00:28:50.760 uh hostile to israel and zionism and you know as it's been said when people talk zionist they actually

00:28:58.440 most of the time mean jews so what we can see is that the environment has become progressively more 1.00

00:29:04.920 more dangerous i would say and more um the temperature is rising on campus towards jews in 1.00

00:29:10.280 general so it's been a long time coming um and as i wrote in the article it's just that this particular

00:29:17.880 episode has kind of upped the ante on the anti-israel and anti-zionist um behavior on campus

00:29:25.880 laura it truly makes a mockery of the term and the concept progressive this is not progressive this

00:29:34.120 is regressive this is you know a form of discrimination um it is a a completely biased

00:29:43.320 attitude to an identifiable group um god forbid if this was any other minority being singled out like

00:29:50.600 this i'm sure it would be front page on every single american newspaper but that's another factor

00:29:57.240 isn't it laura the lack of media coverage nobody's talking about this what's going on yeah i think that

00:30:05.320 there's also been a lot of anti-christian bias um in america on college campuses for a long time

00:30:11.720 and that is also something that people turn a blind eye to in the mainstream media there are certain

00:30:16.440 groups certain religious groups certain maybe gender groups that are more highly protected

00:30:23.000 by the media and the media goes into full gear if certain groups are are attacked um i think in this

00:30:30.440 case it's just really uncomfortable territory for the left um jews are very progressive in general jews

00:30:37.880 vote left whether it's democrat in the united states or liberal in canada and it's really hard for

00:30:43.640 them to square the circle about what's happening now um it's a very difficult thing to have to

00:30:49.560 acknowledge at some point that the political left is more of a danger than the political right is to

00:30:55.400 jews um in north america so that that being said is understandable that there would not be very much

00:31:03.400 media coverage of this particular um event there's often independent media covering anti-semitism and

00:31:11.960 anti-semitic attacks um for example there's a non-jewish guy named mike chernowitz who is in california

00:31:20.680 who was on the story of jews being attacked knockout punched all these hasidic jews being attacked he 0.79

00:31:27.320 here he is this non-jewish um documentary film producer and sort of social media giant and he's the

00:31:34.120 seemed to be the only one interested in it it's very strange but jews i think have become um on the 1.00

00:31:39.880 scale of hierarchies of identity politics they're quite low on the scale right now and um there are

00:31:46.440 people who are higher up on the pyramid um jews are not even necessarily considered a minority worthy

00:31:52.360 of any protections in many cases they're just considered blanket to be part of the white um hegemony

00:31:59.160 the white power structure so things have gone a little topsy-turvy um in america in particular but

00:32:04.280 whatever happens in america you know it's going to start to happen in canada progressives here have

00:32:09.000 their pulse on what's happening in the united states and um i don't it does i don't feel like it's going

00:32:14.840 to get better i think that with the current administration a lot of the blind eye is being

00:32:20.120 turned to a lot of this stuff and i can't i'm not particularly optimistic about where it's going to go

00:32:26.440 you know laura what you said earlier um is a very important point um that there are so many in the jewish

00:32:32.520 community that vote left i would argue that if you are a jew in 2022 and you're voting for the

00:32:41.160 biden democrats or the justin trudeau liberals i would question if you're a self-hating jew because 0.63

00:32:48.200 these are not your friends these are you know i mean justin trudeau when he was unveiling uh holocaust 0.60

00:32:54.760 proclamations he couldn't even say the word um with with biden look what um rashida talib says

00:33:03.720 on almost a uh a weekly basis um here's a quote um i want you all to know that among progressives

00:33:12.840 it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back israel's apartheid

00:33:21.480 government this is not anti-israel this is not anti-zionist this is anti-semitism because there

00:33:28.760 is no apartheid in israel and if your argument is based on a lie then i'm sorry the likes of talib 0.99

00:33:35.960 that is classic anti-semitism and nothing else so can you possibly explain to me why in 2022

00:33:44.680 laura there are so many jews that vote democrat in the u.s and liberal in canada yes i can okay

00:33:56.120 so basically the problem is so jews generally also have a messianic tendency believing in utopian

00:34:04.440 movements they're very idealistic jews in their dna have belief in their dna but a lot of jews have 0.93

00:34:12.120 um kind of gone away from religion and religious beliefs and observance and real traditional judaism

00:34:21.080 in favor of much more progressive causes so the jews that you get voting democrat and voting liberal in

00:34:28.200 canada their religion for the most part is political leftism that is what they believe in they believe in

00:34:36.200 that culturally they're still jewish they might have yiddish words that they use they might celebrate

00:34:43.080 holidays in certain ways but their actual political belief the thing that they strive towards is

00:34:49.080 political leftism so that really explains it all which also is why in more orthodox communities you're

00:34:57.000 going to find people are voting for trump they're going to be more politically conservative

00:35:01.640 um and in canada they were voting more for conservatives so there is a definite um relationship between

00:35:10.760 i think jewish practice that is to say being jewishly literate prayer holidays hebrew um

00:35:21.160 have you traveled to israel that sort of thing and um level of commitment to conservative or left-wing

00:35:29.240 politics once you realize that they're true believers but they believe in political leftism as opposed to

00:35:36.360 maybe the god of israel as was traditional then it all makes sense absolutely incredible uh laura and

00:35:43.400 you know getting back to berkeley i'm going to quote another piece from your superb column in newsweek

00:35:50.280 and it says the anti-jewish climate at berkeley on college campuses in the hallways of congress and on

00:35:56.920 the streets of new york is not just a jewish problem because what starts with the jews never ends with 1.00

00:36:03.960 the jews american jews may flee california and new york for the calmer waters of desantis's florida

00:36:11.640 but that is really just a band-aid solution for a serious national problem so the point i'm making

00:36:19.240 here laura and i think the point you're making your calm is that if you are not jewish and you don't

00:36:27.400 care about what happens to the jewish community how soon will it be before these so-called progressives 0.96

00:36:33.480 come after you for some perverse uh reason your thoughts they'll they'll definitely start coming

00:36:40.440 after you because there's no point where they'll live and let live what i also mean by if you turn a

00:36:47.160 blind eye to what's happening with the jews is is basically the proverbial canary in the coal mine 0.96

00:36:53.480 situation that's what we've seen is that societies that have generally been accepting of jews allowed

00:37:01.160 them their full civil rights to participate in full civil society those are the societies that actually

00:37:06.760 thrive and you have to look through the microcosm of history to see that that is what is actually the

00:37:12.520 case the societies that have enabled anti-semitism state sanction pogroms other anti-semitic activities

00:37:20.520 have for the most part ended up in the dustbins of history empires entirely and yet the jews are still 1.00

00:37:27.400 here the jews have survived many empires throughout history the jews even survived the most evil

00:37:33.240 extermination attempts of nazi germany we're still here and we're still going to be here but if you look

00:37:40.440 around and you can even think about it in terms of in a biblical sense for those people who are

00:37:45.480 believers um even if you're not a person of faith when in genesis 12 3 it says god says i will bless

00:37:53.640 those who bless you and curse those who curse you you really have to look at that and say isn't that

00:37:59.800 actually the case haven't all the societies that have treated jews so badly where are they now all these

00:38:05.800 empires have come and gone and ironically um what you see now is that societies that are reaching out

00:38:11.960 to israel the collective jew um those societies are enjoying some prosperity as well i never thought in

00:38:19.160 my lifetime that i would see you know religious hasidic jews dancing at a wedding that there would

00:38:25.000 be a chief rabbi of the united arab emirates jews and arabs dancing together engaging in commerce

00:38:31.800 together traveling to each other's countries i never thought that saudi arabia was going to be a

00:38:37.080 peace prospect but you know it feels like that we might be on the cusp of that as well this strange new

00:38:43.400 sunni jewish alliance you know against iran for example so again bless those who bless you curse those who 0.99

00:38:51.800 curse you and then you think to yourself what am i actually witnessing here in north america

00:38:57.400 um and i think that toleration of anti-semitism is one of those red flags in a society and it's not

00:39:04.680 just going to stop at jews so the knockout punches that were happening in new york city that's happening 0.93

00:39:10.280 now to asians nobody stopped it when it was happening to jews and now it's happening to asians 1.00

00:39:16.680 without mercy these are merciless attacks that are happening all the time and if you don't stop a place

00:39:22.600 like berkeley from essentially banning jews for certain thoughts that they have about a certain

00:39:27.640 country where they have affiliations of ancestral homeland homeland kinship i mean that's basically

00:39:34.680 a thought crime so if the next progressive thing will be to stop the jews from being able to attend

00:39:40.920 or to stop anybody else that they deem you know ineligible because of their opinion it shouldn't matter

00:39:46.200 what anybody's opinion is what matters is your behavior so you know if there was a jewish student

00:39:53.080 who was uh murderous violent or something like that or had injured people then you could understand

00:40:01.240 banning that particular person for the actions that they had done but it is completely immoral

00:40:06.680 completely unconstitutional in the united states as well to try to ban somebody from speaking on a

00:40:12.600 publicly funded campus for thoughts or feelings that they might have so if you allow that because

00:40:18.600 it's just the jews then you're going to be opening yourself up to a a black hole it's never going to 1.00

00:40:24.680 end because with these particular kinds of fanatics there is no live and let live it doesn't exist that

00:40:32.040 concept doesn't exist you give an inch the one a mile and i think that we've we've seen that happening

00:40:37.960 in a lot of other elements of life and in society now and what it takes is massive lawsuits massive

00:40:45.800 donors cutting off the the funding um some coverage in the media so thank you you know for covering

00:40:53.880 this story but other than that it doesn't stop and then once they finish with that if they've gotten

00:40:59.000 pushback from that then they're just going to go on to the next thing so this is like a relentless

00:41:04.200 ongoing war um and it's unfortunately it is really truly anti-semitic and it's unfortunate there that

00:41:11.480 there are going to be a lot of progressive jews who try to explain it away but it's because it's 1.00

00:41:16.680 because of what i explained before is that their primary belief system is actually quite far away from

00:41:22.280 judaism and it's more about leftism it's absolutely baffling and one last question uh laura um and you

00:41:29.080 referred to it uh in your last answer about civilizational decline and the conclusion of

00:41:35.720 your column you note that if these cases of anti-semitism are not addressed if this nonsense

00:41:43.880 at berkeley is not addressed these are the clearest warning signs of the impending and irreparable decline

00:41:52.680 of the american republic are they going to be addressed or is this a nothing burger for so

00:41:59.960 many people for members of the media for even progressive jews that turn a blind eye when it

00:42:06.680 comes to policies that are designed to ostracize and hurt them what are your final thoughts are laura

00:42:14.200 um i really do believe that it is um a sign of decline of of america and it is heartbreaking to

00:42:21.320 me because i'm somebody who actually loves america and when i see these stories i actually feel

00:42:26.680 physically ill because america is supposed to still be the beacon of freedom um and free speech and free

00:42:34.840 expression and all those great things when you see it happening in america you wonder who is going to be

00:42:40.760 there to defend these rights for anybody else so if those rights get eroded and anti-semitism to this

00:42:47.960 obvious a degree is normalized in america i think that that is they're kind of at a tipping point

00:42:54.360 and i'm not sure given what we've seen over the past few years through covid and given the leadership

00:43:00.280 that we see in progressive states how they've been run to the ground look at oregon california michigan new

00:43:08.280 york um these places are not going to recover so people are fleeing they're setting up shop elsewhere

00:43:16.440 because they don't see any possibility of recovery so i think anti-semitism is definitely one of the

00:43:23.560 the hallmarks of of decline um and i think also all the election shenanigans um whether you believe

00:43:31.160 the election was stolen or not in america last time i think there's there's really some very um

00:43:37.240 difficult and troubling undercurrents uh right now in america uh a lot of people are talking about a

00:43:44.120 national divorce in america and there are going to be those for whom you know anti-semitism and

00:43:49.400 these kind of they're red lines in the sand because they know what it leads to so uh i don't think it's

00:43:57.320 a i'm not sure there's going to be a happy ending here and like i said jews might try to escape for 0.93

00:44:02.920 florida while there's ron desantis ron desantis is not going to necessarily be a permanent fixture

00:44:09.000 and some parts of america i think have gone too far down the hole to actually be able to bounce back

00:44:14.360 whether it's spiritually um or economically and um we'll have to wait and see i i don't like to be

00:44:21.800 pessimistic about it but i can't really see a real revitalization of um the way things were there's a lot

00:44:29.240 of stuff that overt has shown us um you know a lot of us talked about not wanting a new normal but we

00:44:35.480 actually i think have to admit that there is a new normal right now and it contains a lot of things

00:44:40.200 that are really ugly and that we don't want and most of us would like to go back to some kind of a

00:44:44.840 2019 situation but some of those days are gone and the left has succeeded in creating a new normal in a

00:44:53.080 lot of places um that i think is not reversible so we'll have to see i don't like to be the debbie downer

00:44:59.640 but with this particular story i can't i don't see it ending well well i i always look for the

00:45:05.480 silver lining laura and hopefully there will be pushback hopefully the pendulum will swing back to 0.94

00:45:12.920 the realm of common sense because this is increasingly the bizarro superman world that we're living on

00:45:19.320 up is down left is right and so on laura i want to thank you so much for your time and i urge our

00:45:25.640 our viewers to seek out your column uh in newsweek uh it's a superb column it's a chilling column and

00:45:33.400 hopefully this will be addressed in the uh days and weeks ahead thank you again laura talking about

00:45:39.560 it david i appreciate it you got it and that was laura rosen cohen who is a toronto-based writer

00:45:46.920 keep it here folks more of the ezra levant show to come right after this

00:46:02.280 well folks my beloved colleague sheila gun reid she was filling in for ezra last night and tons of

00:46:07.080 feedback regarding her monologue about how biden is increasingly on his knees begging the opec masters to

00:46:16.200 turn on the taps to get america more oil how funny it was that uh well perversely amusing i should say

00:46:22.600 that it was only a few years ago under the trump administration that the u.s was energy self

00:46:28.120 sufficient unbelievable in any event evil beaver writes funny how many who are against alberta oil

00:46:35.880 always peacock around about equity ethics and morals if they truly cared about this they would only buy

00:46:44.600 alberta oil are there any other countries that are as ethical as canada or anywhere near i would

00:46:53.400 like to know seriously ethical meaning environmental policies non-slave work environment clean and friendly

00:47:02.120 to all nations well you know evil beaver you nailed it uh and by the way if anyone wants a great primer

00:47:09.320 on ethical oil it is the book by that very name ethical oil written by the big boss man some 10 years

00:47:15.400 ago uh it just shows what a fantastic and stellar track record canadian fossil fuel industries have

00:47:23.880 compared to the product uh being uh mined uh in in the middle east in fact i'd love to do an experiment folks

00:47:31.080 where we go to a gas station and we label the pump ethical alberta oil and then next to it another pump

00:47:40.120 soddy oil same price or maybe make the ethical oil five cents a liter uh more expensive who knows i

00:47:47.320 wonder if consumers would vote with their lawyers right now because what's happening to our domestic oil

00:47:52.680 sands industry is a smear job that is reprehensible and downright disgusting stuart d reagan 13 writes

00:48:02.920 reducing supply doesn't keep prices low it allows gas stations to gouge consumers biden is an idiot

00:48:10.600 puppet president you know i don't think there's gouging going on by the gas stations i think that's

00:48:16.520 a myth as i said earlier donald trump had america energy self-sufficient for the first time in 70

00:48:23.880 years in fact the u.s under trump was exporting oil i don't think gas stations want the price to go up

00:48:30.920 to a point where people just park their cars and don't use oil to the same extent at the end of the

00:48:36.760 day that is not going to be good for their bottom lines galand 53 writes quebec has long used the

00:48:45.320 threat of separation to extract more than their share of canada's wealth all provinces should

00:48:51.320 threaten separation so the federal government is forced to treat all equally well you know uh yes

00:48:57.560 quebec did have two uh referendums on separation both went down to defeat i don't think given the

00:49:05.800 demographic makeup of quebec that uh separation uh could pass as a mandate and i know there's a

00:49:13.720 separation movement in alberta i'll tell you one thing folks if the liberal government keeps treating

00:49:21.720 alberta the way it's treating it and if ever we have conservative leaders such as erin o'toole

00:49:27.320 that just take alberta uh for granted i could see a separation movement of uh quantifiable results uh 1.00

00:49:37.240 starting in alberta because if you're not wanted well time to leave isn't it well folks that wraps

00:49:43.880 up tonight's edition of the ezreal event show thank you so much uh for joining me hey i'll be back here

00:49:49.240 tomorrow friday in the meantime as always stay sane i want to take you through this otherwise unknown health

00:49:57.480 canada poll done earlier this year by environics and it was clearly tailored to garner the results the

00:50:03.880 government wanted but even in the end the disdain for the government from the public could not be

00:50:10.200 parsed out of the data look at this specific research objectives were to understand the level of

00:50:15.720 awareness of climate change and its health risks and impacts actions taken to adapt and be more

00:50:20.760 resilient to the health risks or impacts of climate change trusted sources of media used and other means

00:50:27.960 and opportunities for education and awareness raising and the public's views on the role of

00:50:33.880 government and non-governmental organizations 1520 canadians were pulled for a cost of nearly 120

00:50:40.520 000 so let's read through the study together and let's see if you can see the problem with this i

00:50:45.560 noticed it right away canadians are increasingly convinced about the phenomenon of climate change more

00:50:51.320 than 8 in 10 or 85 say climate change is definitely happening and this belief has steadily increased

00:50:59.560 over time from 69 in 2008 and 79 in 2017 did you notice the flaw right there they immediately presume

00:51:07.480 that if you think the climate is changing the natural default of the study is that it's human caused

00:51:13.320 they're lumping people who think that climate is an ever-changing cycle composed of far more variables

00:51:19.960 than the size of my comfortable suv and how much beef i eat and that i think it may have a lot to do

00:51:25.240 with that big burning ball of gas in the sky than how much money i send to trudeau for my climate sins

00:51:32.360 every year okay let's keep going there has been a substantial jump in the proportion of climate change

00:51:39.080 believers again interesting use of that word who say they have taken steps to protect against the health

00:51:45.800 impacts of climate change from 38 in 2017 to 59 in 2022 what does that even mean wearing sunscreen

00:51:54.680 wearing a hat more often going sleeveless wearing warmer socks drinking more water it just might if

00:52:00.600 we look at the next finding however many of their reported actions actually relate to mitigation efforts

00:52:06.680 i.e reducing the impacts of climate change rather than protective or adaptive measures

00:52:12.520 to date seven percent of canadians have sought medical attention because of a climate change event

00:52:21.480 medical attention for climate change really for what heat stroke sunburn frostbite wind burn these

00:52:28.440 are immediate weather related harms they're not climate related and the next finding admits as much

00:52:35.880 they're calling heat stroke a climate change illness as in 2017 most canadians can identify at least one

00:52:44.200 symptom of heat illness particularly dizziness and excessive thirst understanding how to protect

00:52:50.440 against heat illness also remains similar to 2017 staying indoors 53 drinking fluids 52 remain the most

00:52:59.000 widely mentioned preventative measures canadians remain the most likely to consult the internet followed by

00:53:05.880 their doctor for more information about heat illness wait a minute if you drink more water and consult

00:53:14.600 dr google or mmd about dizziness or being outside for too long that's a climate change related mitigation

00:53:21.800 effort now this next finding is amazing because if you live in a tiny hot apartment on the 20th floor

00:53:28.040 guess what also climate change indoor temperatures increasing temperatures due to climate change and extreme

00:53:34.840 heat heat events can create difficulties in cooling indoor spaces which can be harmful to health

00:53:42.200 one in five canadians find it difficult to regulate the indoor temperatures in their main living space

00:53:50.040 in the summer this skews to residents of apartments and condominiums and those who rent their home

00:53:57.400 and accordingly to younger canadians under age 35 and those with lower household incomes who comprise

00:54:06.280 a greater proportion of renters and apartment dwellers no air conditioning climate change the role of

00:54:13.400 federal government almost one in five 18 percent of canadians report having visited health canada's website

00:54:19.960 in the last year to learn how to protect themselves and their families from climate change this is higher

00:54:27.960 among bc residents 26 who disproportionately experienced the impacts of climate change throughout 2021 again what

00:54:37.400 does this mean this might be capturing people who look at health canada for sunburn remedies does this also

00:54:44.920 capture people who go to environment canada's website to find out if it's gonna rain now this is why you

00:54:51.320 didn't see the data trumpeted from the rooftops besides the obvious flaw in the premise that lumps climate cultists

00:54:58.040 in with people like me who think taxes don't change the weather but that weather has always changed and we may

00:55:05.000 even be coming out of the last glacial age anyway the federal government receives only modest ratings for

00:55:12.440 protecting canadians health from climate change one in ten ten percent feel the government is doing a good job

00:55:20.440 while six and ten give moderate ratings and one quarter give negative ones

00:55:27.800 so more people think the feds are doing a bad job than a good one on the issue of climate change and even

00:55:33.960 radical skeptics like me can agree with that for rebel news i'm sheila gun reid

Rebel News Podcast - October 07, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ What's bugging me, you say？ Insects on the dinner plate

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