Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Where has the chamber of commerce been the past two years？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. In today's podcast, I talk about something I don't talk a lot about.

00:00:04.080 I usually talk about the civil rights crisis we're in. I don't often talk about

00:00:07.700 what small businesses face. Maybe I just sort of assume, you know, I care. But today I

00:00:13.100 ask the question, where exactly have the chambers of commerce been the last two years? You know,

00:00:19.680 the people who are supposed to stick up for businesses. Cat got your tongue? I'll take

00:00:24.860 you through some interesting exchanges I saw on Twitter today. I'd like to invite you to become

00:00:31.360 a subscriber to Rebel News Plus to get the video version of this show. You get my daily show,

00:00:36.220 Sheila Gunn-Reed, David Menzies, Andrew Chapitaux on a weekly basis. And your eight bucks a month,

00:00:41.180 while I hope you can afford that, you know, really adds up for us and it allows us to stay

00:00:46.480 completely independent. As you know, we don't take a dime from Justin Trudeau and it shows.

00:00:51.320 Let's just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. All right, here's to this show.

00:01:08.180 Tonight, where has the Chamber of Commerce been the past two years? It's December 10th and this

00:01:13.960 is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:15.140 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:21.000 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:25.060 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:29.940 right to do so.

00:01:36.260 I care about civil liberties because I care about justice. I feel like the world is out of balance

00:01:41.300 when I see something morally wrong. I see something morally wrong every day these days.

00:01:46.480 The pandemic has brought out the worst in too many people. But at the end of the day, I'm

00:01:51.260 not actually afraid of people. The pandemic has brought out the worst in powerful institutions,

00:01:58.520 including large corporations. But mainly, I'm worried about what the pandemic has brought

00:02:03.520 out in our governments. Because the difference between the government and the corporation or

00:02:08.820 a private person is that the government has a monopoly on violence. It can force you to do

00:02:15.200 things, force things to be done to you. I think corporations have been atrocious during the lockdowns,

00:02:22.120 but in many cases, they were acting atrociously because the government forced them to act that way.

00:02:28.340 I genuinely don't think corporations would have introduced vaccine passports on their own,

00:02:34.700 for example. It's what Elon Musk said the other day. Government is just a corporation at its

00:02:41.200 ultimate worst. Bigger than anything, but it can't fail. It really can't go bankrupt. You can never

00:02:47.640 really fight it. And at the end of the day, it can do violence to you illegally. He even used the

00:02:53.520 word immortal for the staying power of its regulations. This clip.

00:02:57.540 There's a general problem, not just in the US, but in most countries where the rules and

00:03:04.260 regulations keep increasing every year. Rules and regulations are immortal. They don't die.

00:03:11.260 There's not a natural. Occasionally, you see some law with a sunset provision. But really,

00:03:16.440 otherwise, the vast majority of rules and regulations live forever. Government is a corporation

00:03:22.040 in the limit. So it is the most corporate thing. It is maximum corporation. But it's also a monopoly.

00:03:33.040 And also, it's the only one that's allowed legally to do violence.

00:03:36.960 I find that also grievous. Here's Arthur Pawlowski and his brother David being arrested on the highway,

00:03:45.940 hunted down like dogs or like terrorists, really. Again, a corporation can't do that to you.

00:03:51.600 An individual can't do that to you. I mean, I guess unless it's a gangster, I suppose. But

00:03:56.900 at least then you can fight back and self-defense is on your side. You can't use self-defense against

00:04:02.800 the police. Only the government could perpetrate such an offense against you. So that's what I

00:04:09.640 really care about. I care about the morality of it, the psychology of it, the philosophy of it,

00:04:15.140 the way we're all being rewired in society. And to be honest, I haven't talked enough

00:04:21.940 about the economics of all of it. I've raged against the merger between big tech and big

00:04:27.920 government, how Amazon and Netflix and Disney and all the online stores have thrived as their

00:04:34.560 in-person bricks and mortar competitors have all been hobbled by the state, except Costco and Walmart.

00:04:41.820 Those stores never closed for a minute, did they? Do you think Amazon.com would like the pandemic to

00:04:49.100 go on forever? Of course it would. They're in league with big governments. There used to be a name for

00:04:55.700 that. That corporate cronyism in bed with the government was a facet of fascism. But what about

00:05:03.520 independent businesses, small businesses, mom and pop shops, restaurants, convenience stores,

00:05:09.480 the trades, barbers, gyms, a little motel maybe? The stuff that makes a community, makes a neighborhood

00:05:15.520 feel like home. The places that are the backdrop to your life. What about them? So many restaurants

00:05:22.960 have closed forever in the lockdowns. Is there a restaurant or a bar or a place in your life that's

00:05:28.520 much more than just where you had a meal once? But it was the setting for a major moment in your

00:05:34.880 life, a happy moment in your life, a moment that made you feel a part of the place like you belonged.

00:05:40.480 That's gone. I drive by a restaurant near my house every day that closed because of the pandemic.

00:05:47.200 Not that I'd be allowed to go there now, even if it were open, but the sign of the restaurant is still

00:05:52.400 up. I remember going there for the first time on New Year's Eve a few years ago with my family.

00:05:58.640 I'm sad that it's gone. Maybe I'm being sentimental, but I think you need to know

00:06:02.740 the place where you're living. These little stores, these little battalions of life.

00:06:09.620 Paradoxically, our little company, Rebel News, has grown because of the crisis. I am not happy about

00:06:15.180 that. I would prefer it if the world were normal and we were a small struggling company trying to make

00:06:21.440 payroll each fortnight. I wish we were not in a crisis of society where no one can trust the

00:06:27.240 government or the other media or any institution, really. Our motto, telling the other side of the

00:06:32.560 story, was meant for a time like this, though. Our decision not to take any media bailout money

00:06:37.780 was done for our own reasons, but in a time like this, it makes all the difference, don't you think?

00:06:44.000 We've grown at Rebel News. We're twice the size of what we were a year ago

00:06:47.240 because people want more of the other side of the story. Our projects with the Democracy Fund

00:06:52.380 try to give people some helpful action, not just words. On Monday, I'll show you a shocking video

00:06:59.200 about the price that our journalists pay for being independent. It will trouble you deeply.

00:07:04.720 But today, let me focus on the question, where is the business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce? Where is,

00:07:10.420 for want of a better phrase, you know, the businessmen, the business community, the people who are

00:07:14.680 supposed to champion companies? The Chamber of Commerce, not Facebook and Amazon and Walmart

00:07:20.180 and Costco, not the giants. They'll do fine. I mean, the local guys, the small guys, where are they?

00:07:28.300 Where were their lobbies last year when the two-week lockdown started to turn into a two-year lockdown?

00:07:33.940 Where were they? Did you see them even once? Where was the restaurant lobby? It's a big lobby.

00:07:39.460 Where were the hotel people? Anyone in the travel industry, where were they?

00:07:45.740 Where was the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the CFIB? They used to be pretty good guys,

00:07:51.860 sort of like the Taxpayers Federation. They were pro-business, but mainly small business.

00:07:56.740 Where have they been? Where were they when Chris Scott's Whistle Stop Diner was shut down,

00:08:01.020 when Adam Skelly's barbecue was shut down? They were hiding like every other institution.

00:08:05.800 In fact, most chambers of commerce welcomed vaccine passports. They decided it was the best way to 1.00

00:08:14.300 end the lockdown, the government told them so, by sacrificing civil liberties for themselves and

00:08:19.260 their customers, as if that would ever work. But look at this exchange I saw today on Twitter.

00:08:26.560 The Globe and Mail wrote, happening today at 2 p.m., Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health,

00:08:31.080 Dr. Kieran Moore, now joined by Health Minister Christine Elliott, will announce new measures,

00:08:36.420 vaccine passports stays past January 17th, and stricter process for verifying medical exemptions.

00:08:41.740 So, completely predictable, a disaster for civil liberties, a disaster for normalcy,

00:08:47.020 and obviously a business disaster, unless you're Amazon and Netflix.

00:08:51.700 Around 80% of Ontarians are vaccinated, by the way.

00:08:54.360 That was supposed to be the end of the lockdowns, the way out. Obviously, the vaccines

00:08:59.460 aren't working. When Bill Gates says it, can we please say it now?

00:09:03.780 You know, we didn't have vaccines that block transmission. We got vaccines that help you

00:09:08.580 with your health, but they only slightly reduce the transmissions. We need a new way of doing the

00:09:14.300 vaccine.

00:09:15.040 But my point today is, so what does the voice of small business have to say about this extended

00:09:20.100 lockdown and vaccine mandates and the continuing marathon here?

00:09:26.160 Oh, here's that same Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

00:09:29.820 Their boss, Dan Kelly, tweeted,

00:09:31.780 Regardless of one's views on vaccine passports, there is no doubt they've led to a further drop

00:09:37.020 in sales for the small businesses required to use them. Extending this policy extends the losses

00:09:42.500 among hospitality and arts recreation businesses.

00:09:46.020 Oh, okay. So nearly two years in, and the CFIB starts to timidly oppose what's going on.

00:09:53.660 But does he even? Here's his next tweet in a series.

00:09:58.180 Over 60% of businesses required to use vaccine passports report lower sales as a direct result.

00:10:03.780 Less than 10% saw an increase. Over half have faced abuse and or increased costs.

00:10:09.980 I hate the impact of this chart, the fact that businesses are being crushed. I hate that.

00:10:14.380 I hate the fact that customers are unhappy. Life is being disrupted. Normal is being delayed.

00:10:19.560 And people are saying so, even if it's just in private, to a pollster. 74% in the hospitality

00:10:24.180 industry, 66% in arts and recreation. So theaters, gyms, sports clubs. This poll specifically asked

00:10:32.060 about vaccine passports, demanding proof of vaccination. Now you wouldn't know it given that

00:10:36.980 100% of the media loves the lockdowns. It's sad, but I see some hope in those stats that ordinary

00:10:44.600 people, ordinary customers, ordinary businesses are not happy about this new biomedical security

00:10:49.700 state that we're being told to live in. People aren't happy about being treated like prisoners

00:10:53.620 in a prison. People aren't happy about being deputized to be prison wardens. Do you see that one line?

00:10:59.280 62% of restaurants and 55% of gyms say they've had, quote, abuse or negative activity because of the

00:11:06.600 vaccine mandate. Now, I don't want people to abuse each other. They conflate the word abuse with the

00:11:12.500 word negative. I don't want shopkeepers or workers to be harmed, but telling them negative things is

00:11:19.080 fine. That's freedom. That's listening to your customer. That's customer feedback. And that's hopeful.

00:11:24.380 Don't you think that people are letting it be known? They are not happy.

00:11:29.460 But here's what gets me about the chambers of commons, even the so-called business friendly

00:11:34.660 CFIB that's supposed to be for the little guy. Here's another tweet by Dan Kelly. He says,

00:11:40.760 CFIB is waiting to learn if the Ontario government will offer any support to those businesses required

00:11:46.140 to use the system even longer. Alberta and PEI have offered some financial help, but not Ford Nation.

00:11:52.180 And this is such a bad time for the feds to dramatically cut small biz support programs.

00:12:00.420 So that's your demand for bailouts or handouts or grants financial help. You can't bring yourself

00:12:08.100 to call for an end to this punishment, an end to the emergencies, an end to the law. You just want a

00:12:14.460 few trinkets in compensation that'll be coming out of your taxes or debt anyway. The government doesn't

00:12:20.080 come up with the money. It's being wrung out of you. You can't bring yourself to call for freedom.

00:12:24.580 You're called the Canadian Federation of Independence. You just can't say it.

00:12:28.600 With the changes the federal government has proposed in C2, only one of five small businesses

00:12:34.240 in need of help will qualify for wage or rent help in the very lean months ahead. Join our call to fix

00:12:39.520 the problem and then a link. Wage or rent help? For how long, mate? Another two years? Maybe another 20

00:12:47.260 years. I clicked on the petition that they linked to there. I looked at it. They have five bullet point

00:12:52.660 demands. Do you see that? All of them are for more money, more handouts. None of them are for freedom

00:12:58.040 or just removing this emergency or how's this for a crazy idea? Letting every business choose their own

00:13:03.580 fear level. You can have the quadruple mask, quintuple vac store for all the terrified people

00:13:09.780 out there. And you can have the easy peasy store for others. How about let businesses, you didn't think of

00:13:14.600 that, did you? And these are the capitalists? Really? Of course, they're crony capitalists now,

00:13:20.880 just like Amazon and Netflix are. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's a disgrace. Stay with us for more.

00:13:30.500 Well, better the devil you know, they say, and there's a reason for that because phrased in other

00:13:36.000 way, things can always get worse. And these days, if they can, they often will. Jack Dorsey was the

00:13:44.440 Rasputin-like CEO and founder of Twitter that has become the digital public square

00:13:51.740 for a lot of political worlds, certainly in the United States, Canada, UK, Australia.

00:13:58.300 Twitter's banned in China itself, but there are hundreds of Chinese agents on Twitter for the

00:14:05.860 government, diplomats, military voices, all propagandizing against the West. That's allowed on

00:14:12.680 Twitter, but Jack Dorsey banned Donald Trump, the sitting president of the United States. However bad Jack

00:14:19.300 Dorsey was, though, it looks like it's getting worse. He is succeeded in his position by someone named

00:14:25.580 Parag Agrawal. And you can see the changes already. Joining us now via Skype from Austin, Texas,

00:14:33.220 is our friend Alan Bokari, senior tech correspondent of Breitbart.com. Alan, great to see you again.

00:14:39.780 It's hard to imagine saying, I long for the days of Jack Dorsey. He was the censor who suspended the

00:14:47.940 New York Post's Twitter account when they broke the news in the 2020 election about Hunter Biden's

00:14:53.840 laptop. It's hard to think he could be the better than a better and in a better and worse diptych.

00:15:00.780 But he was, wasn't he? That's absolutely right. Now, I have a rule when Silicon Valley CEOs are

00:15:08.720 replaced. You know, however bad the previous CEO was, the replacement is almost certainly going to be

00:15:15.680 worse. That's because, you know, the political climate in corporate America now is just so left wing

00:15:21.240 that they're constantly moving to the left. And, you know, the replacement of a CEO is always an

00:15:26.120 opportunity to find someone more woke, more radical, more extremist. And this is what we're seeing now

00:15:33.660 with the new CEO of Twitter. He's barely been in his position for a week and already we're seeing mass

00:15:39.960 suspension, mass bans, you know, accounts with tens of thousands of followers, hundreds of thousands in

00:15:45.980 some cases being taken down withy nilly without even any explanation. So, you know, we're moving

00:15:52.900 towards even more censorship on Twitter than we've seen in the past. Yeah, I mean, it's not just hate

00:15:59.840 speech, which, of course, is a code for conservative speech. In the last week, two very surprising but very

00:16:05.280 telling Twitter accounts have been nuked. And I see this in your latest article, Breitbart.com,

00:16:10.700 called Twitter Blacklist's account providing updates on Ghislaine Maxwell trial. That's Jeffrey Epstein's

00:16:18.020 procurer who helped him run his pedophile ring, Ghislaine Maxwell or Ghislaine, as some people pronounce it.

00:16:26.260 All it did was spread information about the trial. There was no, at least as far as I know, there was

00:16:31.680 nothing nefarious about it. It was literally magnifying what was going on in that courtroom. Deleted.

00:16:37.440 Another one called Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker, which just, hey, here's what Nancy Pelosi is

00:16:42.800 investing in. Public information in the public interest. Deleted. Deleted. That can't be a

00:16:48.840 coincidence. It can't be. And, you know, both of those accounts have hundreds of thousands of

00:16:54.420 followers. So if we ever ran them and put probably years of work, you know, certainly many, many hours

00:17:00.560 of work into building out those accounts. And then Twitter just takes it away overnight. But yeah,

00:17:06.960 those two accounts are interesting because, you know, it shows that on the one hand, they're not

00:17:11.660 going to allow anyone to report on the wrongdoing of the elites who isn't part of the elites themselves.

00:17:18.320 So, you know, CNN is going to be allowed to report on the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. But if you're a,

00:17:24.060 if you're a, you know, a ordinary person with a Twitter account, then it's going to be a lot more

00:17:29.120 difficult for you. You might even get banned. And then you have the Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker,

00:17:33.980 which was a fantastic account. It drew attention to the fact that the, the investments of Nancy

00:17:41.260 Pelosi have been surprisingly successful over her, you know, long career in Congress. The,

00:17:48.360 I remember that account tweeting that Nancy Pelosi must be the next Warren Buffett, given how successful

00:17:54.420 her investments are. Obviously, the underlying theme here is there's, you know, some suspicion,

00:18:01.300 at least of insider trading going on. And Pelosi has faced those allegations in the past. But,

00:18:07.460 you know, that account has gone down to hundreds of thousands of followers. In the past week,

00:18:11.640 we've seen like numerous right-wing accounts go down, various conservative bloggers and

00:18:15.160 various stories, they can take them down as well. So what I think is going on here is Twitter is

00:18:22.000 deploying some sort of network analysis tool. And what network analysis is, is I've written about this

00:18:30.160 length in my book deleted on tech censorship. Network analysis is analyzing who follows who on social

00:18:37.440 media. So if you want to identify a political movement, or a social movement, or some group of

00:18:43.680 like-minded people on a social network, you want to look at who's following who. And social networks do

00:18:50.240 this all the time to identify, for example, certain groups of consumers, like, you know, people who buy

00:18:54.720 Nike sneakers or people who buy, you know, Apple products. You know, they'll use network analysis

00:19:01.200 to find out who those people are. But you can also determine who are members of a particular

00:19:06.080 political movement using the same tool. And I think they've used that for shadow banning in the past,

00:19:10.800 and they're now using that for, you know, full-scale permanent bans to ban an entire movement

00:19:15.200 at once.

00:19:16.720 Yeah, I find it troubling. I did a show when Parag Agrawal took over, and I quoted

00:19:23.920 the same interview that you quote in your latest article in Breitbart. It was a comment he made

00:19:31.280 to MIT Technology Review. I think it was at a conference. And I'm just going to read this. This

00:19:35.840 is you quoted in your article in Breitbart. This is the new Twitter CEO.

00:19:41.040 Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy

00:19:47.200 public conversation. And our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier

00:19:54.400 public conversation. And he goes on to talk about speech is unlimited, but attention is limited. And

00:20:02.640 he wants to use the algorithm to divert attention away from the things that are unhealthy and make

00:20:09.520 people pay attention to the things that are healthy. But of course, he's the judge of what's healthy

00:20:15.280 and unhealthy. And the fact that he says so so blatantly shows that that's considered normal in

00:20:21.520 Silicon Valley. I find this shocking. But he said it out loud at a conference. He clearly wasn't shy

00:20:27.840 about it.

00:20:28.560 Yeah, I remember a few years ago in 2018, I published this document from inside Google called

00:20:36.400 The Good Censor. And it was essentially admitting to censorship on the part of Silicon Valley, then

00:20:42.320 moving away from their ideals of free speech. And this was like a big story at the time because

00:20:46.240 they were hiding it. This was a report that was not available to the public. But what I've noticed

00:20:50.240 increasingly is that the most Orwellian things you can imagine these days, tech companies simply

00:20:55.840 admit to them openly. It's become the norm in Silicon Valley, as you said, that they're going

00:21:01.840 to censor. They're going to choose. You don't choose what you see. They choose what you see.

00:21:07.440 And they use all this Orwellian terminology like healthy public conversations. And of course,

00:21:14.080 they define what's healthy and unhealthy. Yeah. You know, I can't help but think of it.

00:21:21.040 Sergey Brin, one of the brains behind Google, he came over from the former Soviet Union. And I think

00:21:27.840 he had a memory of what Soviet totalitarianism was like. I don't know why over time he sort of lost

00:21:37.440 that. Maybe being a gazillionaire does that to you. Maybe the power went to his head. I don't know why.

00:21:43.520 But there was a while there, I truly believe, where that helped shape his thinking.

00:21:48.720 Parag Agarwal came to the United States as an adult, really to seek his fortune. And that's

00:21:53.600 wonderful. A lot of people do. But I don't know if he has in his bones the First Amendment.

00:22:00.720 There's many wonderful immigrants to the United States from India. You and I both have an incredible

00:22:05.600 friend, Harmeet Dhillon, America's leading freedom of speech advocate of Indian descent.

00:22:15.600 I just think that this guy came to America to get rich. It would be like if someone from China 1.00

00:22:21.760 came to America to get rich and said, oh, yeah, I sort of like the freedom because it lets me get rich.

00:22:26.720 But he doesn't really care in his bones about the First Amendment. He just doesn't care.

00:22:32.080 And it sort of gets in the way of getting rich. I'm worried about that. I'm not really picking

00:22:37.840 on the fact that he's from India. I think some of the worst censors are American born and bred. 1.00

00:22:42.800 Some of the worst America haters are born in America. I just I just wish there was someone in

00:22:48.160 any of these creative industries who loved freedom as an ideal. And I think Jack had about like a drop

00:22:55.520 of that in his blood. This fellow doesn't even care. I don't think he does. And, you know,

00:23:00.880 I think it's perfectly valid to say, you know, some some cultures value freedom more than others,

00:23:05.280 particularly the post-Soviet countries, because they remember what what tyranny was like. I think

00:23:10.720 actually the post-Soviet countries probably the people who live their value freedom, maybe more

00:23:15.440 than perhaps anywhere anyone else in the world right now, including the West, because, you know,

00:23:19.840 the West has never experienced that kind of Soviet communist tyranny. And this angry wild guy is very 0.51

00:23:25.920 clear to me what he's doing. He has just been made CEO. He knows what he needs to do to, you know,

00:23:32.240 win the favor of the press to get good press to Twitter. It's all about gaining status with with the

00:23:39.200 press, with the media, with the people who run the show in America. He knows that the way to do that

00:23:43.200 is to do a lot of bans early on to signal exactly what his new regime of Twitter is going to be like.

00:23:50.800 You know, one of the things that I've learned in the pandemic is a lot of the technologies

00:23:55.200 that are being deployed in vaccine passports, in lockdowns, in, you know,

00:24:02.560 app technology. They were tested out in communist China. For example, in the in the weaker province of

00:24:11.840 Xinjiang, they have omni surveillance apps that you need to show to travel around. This is on cell

00:24:18.400 phones. We know this. We we received confidential Canadian military documents describing this. And

00:24:26.560 it troubles me that a lot of the social credit, so to speak, style surveillance in China is being

00:24:34.160 brought here. And it makes me wonder if maybe Parag Agrawal's big score is to make Twitter China

00:24:43.920 compliant, to start gagging voices on Twitter so that he can say, hey, China, we're we're ready. We

00:24:52.320 we're going to have the pipeline flow the other way. We used to take censorship tools from China

00:24:57.280 to America. Now we've practiced how to manage wild conversations in America. Can you let us into

00:25:04.640 China, please? I don't know. Maybe that's a crazy idea. But he really is trying out China style

00:25:10.320 conversation moderation in America. I'm just sad to see it. Alam, I don't know what to make of it other

00:25:15.760 than to say I'm sad. It's certainly possible, your theory. I mean, you've seen this before in

00:25:21.840 Silicon Valley companies. Google tried at one point to make a censored search engine for the

00:25:26.720 Chinese market. They eventually backed down on the heavy bipartisan pressure. I actually think

00:25:33.520 that, you know, suppressing political dissidents in in America is more acceptable to American elites

00:25:43.280 than, you know, the Chinese suppressing dissidents in Shenzhen or in or in Hong Kong, because, you know,

00:25:51.440 you'll often see both Republican and Democrat politicians, very prominent ones criticizing China,

00:25:58.160 criticizing China for cracking down on dissidents in Hong Kong. But those same people are completely

00:26:04.000 silent when, for example, people are locked up for months on end for, you know, trespassing in a federal

00:26:09.760 building. Or when, you know, every every single Silicon Valley company joins forces to make certain

00:26:16.080 American citizens second class, because that's exactly what they've done. Or when they came up to 1.00

00:26:22.160 build the American equivalent of a social credit score. You know, if you say enough of the wrong

00:26:27.600 things, if you have enough wrong thoughts, then, you know, you won't have a bank account, you won't

00:26:32.160 have a PayPal account, you won't have access to social media, you won't have access to the public square.

00:26:36.160 And many of the politicians who criticize, who criticize, who attack China, who are China hawks,

00:26:42.080 you know, say very little about this. So in a way, I think what we're seeing something even scarier

00:26:47.360 than American elites posing up to China, we're seeing American elites more concerned by dissidents

00:26:52.800 in foreign countries than they are by the treatment of dissidents here in America.

00:26:58.240 You know, you're, I think you're right on that. Let me ask you one last question,

00:27:01.520 because I want to leave on maybe a hopeful note. Rumble, the video platform that sees itself as a

00:27:13.120 neutral, politically neutral alternative to YouTube. And it used to be a home of conservatives,

00:27:19.680 but they've gone out of the way to recruit progressive liberals like Glenn Greenwald and

00:27:24.880 Tulsi Gabbard and Russell Brand from the UK, like people who are certainly not right wing.

00:27:34.000 You know, they're they're growing, their viewership is growing, they've had some

00:27:39.600 investment rounds, I should disclose, I have like a sliver of a fraction of a percent of a millimeter

00:27:46.240 stake in it. Does it have any chance? Or if it gets big enough, will it just be killed

00:27:52.240 through some larger creature in the internet infrastructure?

00:27:57.360 I think it definitely has a chance. I think, uh, I also think it's a good thing that they're

00:28:02.560 recruiting liberals because what you don't want with these new platforms is them to be

00:28:06.880 ghettos. The really, really good thing about social media is that you can, or it used to be the case, 0.83

00:28:12.160 you can naturally persuade people. You could get the message to people who aren't conservatives,

00:28:17.360 the people who are on the fence and, you know, maybe, uh, maybe, maybe change their views in some

00:28:21.760 way. Or if you have a platform that's 99% conservative, you know, it's good in some ways,

00:28:25.760 but you know, you don't get that, uh, you don't get that exchange of views. Um, I think Rumble has a,

00:28:31.520 has a really good chance actually. I'm going to wait and see how it develops because as you said,

00:28:36.480 uh, all of these platforms are dependent on other entities. So, you know, they probably want to

00:28:43.040 maintain their access to the Google play store, to the Apple app store. Uh, you know, we've seen

00:28:47.840 other platforms like parlor and gab get kicked off of those. Uh, they also want to, you know,

00:28:52.560 not get the platform by banks and payment processes, which has happened before again to gab.

00:28:57.520 So, uh, these, these are all risks for any social media that said it's committed to political

00:29:02.640 neutrality, but, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll see where it's go, where it goes. I am optimistic about Rumble

00:29:07.760 and, uh, and the broader alternative tech ecosystem at the moment though. Well, I hope

00:29:13.120 you're right. I mean, we, we got a real scare earlier this year when YouTube completely demonetized

00:29:19.600 us, banned us from accepting, uh, super chats at their call when people make little donations,

00:29:25.200 gave us a strike. We feel like we're on borrowed time on Twitter, I'm sorry, on YouTube. So that

00:29:30.640 moment we started publishing on a multiple of platforms, Rumble, Odyssey, a Canadian, uh,

00:29:36.640 free speech startup called super you.net. So, um, on, on payment processing, you know what I'll

00:29:43.200 say? Like every conservative should learn how to use DeFi decentralized finance, uh, cryptocurrencies,

00:29:49.600 because, uh, you know, that's a system of exchanging value and making payments. I really can't be

00:29:54.720 sensitive. Like it genuinely can't. You can have, there are some cryptocurrency exchanges that are

00:29:59.600 centrally run, but the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem, you know, it genuinely is open to

00:30:05.360 everyone makes very radical too. You know, that's a very important point because of course,

00:30:09.760 we've had our battles with PayPal deplatforming us too. Alan Bocari, it's so good to catch up with

00:30:14.880 you. You really are ahead of the curve on all of these issues. What you talk about in 2018 comes

00:30:20.560 true in 2021. Uh, you've, you're definitely the early warning system on that stuff. Great to see you.

00:30:26.720 Thanks for your time. Good to see you, Ezra. There you have it. Alan Bocari, senior tech, uh,

00:30:31.680 editor and correspondent at Breitbart.com. Stay with us more ahead.

00:30:43.040 Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback. Jillian Davis says the hospitals will be overwhelmed,

00:30:47.920 yet we can afford to drum medical professionals out of service. I just moved to Ontario and have

00:30:52.320 been told it could take as long as six years to get a GP, but we're preventing doctors from

00:30:57.280 graduating. Just another day in clown world, I guess. Oh, we will feel the echoes of these

00:31:04.960 atrocious policy decisions for decades. And I'm not even talking about what we don't know

00:31:11.280 about the vaccines long-term effects. It's just the worst. I really think it's the worst civil

00:31:16.400 limits crisis ever in Canada. Definitely the worst public health crisis. And I'm not talking about the

00:31:22.880 virus. I'm talking about the politicians who, as you saw in Ontario, are just even digging in harder.

00:31:29.920 Well, that's our show for this weekend. And for, uh, today, of course, I look forward to seeing you

00:31:35.360 again on Monday. We have some bad news to share with you that I'm not trying to tease you or depress

00:31:39.680 you. I just want to tell you that we've, um, fighting for freedom and being an independent media

00:31:45.280 company in Canada is difficult and it's getting more difficult. And we'll tell you that the background to

00:31:50.160 that on Monday, but let me, uh, leave you with two things. First of all, an invitation to ask me

00:31:55.360 anything. We're going to try that. We're going to have a show. Ask me anything. Just send, uh, your

00:31:59.520 thoughts to letters to Ezra dot CA, whatever you want to ask. Uh, we'll do a show of your questions

00:32:04.800 and I'll answer them, try something new, have some fun. And, uh, let me leave you with, uh, what we call

00:32:10.640 the video of the day, just chosen somewhat randomly from our videos that are elsewhere on rebel news.

00:32:16.160 And this is an interview with Nathaniel Pavlovsky. If that last name rings a bell, it should,

00:32:23.040 you'll see why I'll leave you with that video. As I say to you, good night and keep fighting for

00:32:29.040 freedom. The procedure itself, both the initial exemption procedure and the appeal has been,

00:32:36.160 was very intimate, uh, very invasive and personal. And it's interesting because there's a Supreme Court

00:32:43.920 case called, uh, uh, syndicate Northcrest v. Amsterdam, where they established the court

00:32:48.960 outlines the test for determining whether a law or a policy is, uh, infringement of someone's

00:32:54.640 religious beliefs. Uh, but what I've noticed is that the university and employers are ignoring

00:33:01.520 that legal standard and they're implementing their own. Don't give up. Um, you know, just keep

00:33:06.800 appealing the decision, uh, meet with whoever is responsible for this. Uh, tell them that if

00:33:12.800 your religious beliefs aren't going to be upheld like the constitution and the Alberta Human Rights

00:33:18.080 Act, uh, tells, tells us that it should be, uh, threaten them with legal, uh, with legal action.

00:33:27.520 Tell them that, uh, you'll file a human rights complaint. Tell them you'll file a small claims.

00:33:31.440 You'll take this as far as it needs to go because our, we feel like we're being discriminated against.

00:33:40.560 Warning. Censorship. Warning. Censorship.

00:33:44.720 Adam Sos here for Rebel News and I'm now joined by Nathaniel Pawlowski, son of Pastor Arthur Pawlowski,

00:33:51.760 who, as you know, was sent to jail for daring to open his church throughout COVID restrictions.

00:33:57.280 We were here just a few weeks ago and you yourself were part of the protest for students advocating for,

00:34:03.680 among other things, religious exemptions from vaccine mandates. Uh, on one front,

00:34:09.360 we do have some good news because you, uh, yourself, despite some invasive procedures,

00:34:13.840 obviously managed to attain that. Um, if you can tell us about what the process looked like

00:34:18.560 and how you managed to obtain the religious exemption.

00:34:20.720 Yeah. So, uh, my name is Nathaniel, Arthur's son. Uh, I'm in my last year of studies here at Mount

00:34:28.080 Royal. Um, my initial religious exemption was denied. Um, and I appealed it and miraculously it

00:34:36.800 was accepted because from what I've heard of, I was the only one who's been accepted so far. Uh,

00:34:42.080 definitely at least the Christian exemption, I've been the only one. Um, the procedure itself,

00:34:48.640 both the initial exemption procedure and the appeal has been, was very intimate, uh, very invasive and

00:34:56.720 personal. Uh, and it's interesting because there's a Supreme Court case called, uh, Syndicate Northcrest

00:35:02.640 v. Amsterdam where they established the court outlines the test for determining whether a law or a policy is,

00:35:09.200 uh, infringement of someone's religious beliefs. The first part of that is establishing whether the

00:35:14.720 person has a genuine nexus with, uh, an established religion. Um, but it's a subjective test and you

00:35:21.040 don't have to go into much detail. The second part of that is determining whether the actual law or

00:35:26.400 policy is an infringement of that person's religious beliefs and goes and violates their ability to live

00:35:32.960 in accordance with their beliefs. Uh, but what I've noticed is that the university and employers are

00:35:38.880 ignoring that legal standard and they're implementing their own, which leaves a lot of room for problems.

00:35:45.680 Um, my procedure was very invasive. Um, I felt like it violated my privacy. They demanded that I,

00:35:53.920 in my initial denial, they basically claimed that my beliefs were invalid. Um, so for the appeal process,

00:36:00.080 they made me go into detail of how my beliefs apply in every aspect of my life, going into crazy detail,

00:36:06.720 very personal details. Um, and it just, it's a small indication for how our core values like privacy,

00:36:15.280 privacy is one of the core values of democracy, especially here in Canada. And it just, it's a

00:36:19.840 small indication for how our values or core Canadian values are being superseded by these un-Canadian

00:36:28.000 governance and mandates. Well, it goes to show that you're studying criminal justice. So that's great.

00:36:33.200 The Anselm case, the interesting thing there is that that is functionally for most considered to

00:36:37.760 be the precedent setting case. And one of the conclusions was that a strictly individually

00:36:42.560 held belief that can be affirmed is sufficient for a religious exemption. Um, so we've seen lots

00:36:48.720 of schools saying, for example, for Catholics, well, the bishops don't say that it's automatically

00:36:53.840 a grounds for exemption or other religious groups saying that vaccination isn't necessarily a

00:36:58.400 violation, but that doesn't per the precedent of the law, um, violate your personal convictions.

00:37:04.320 Um, of the people that you've spoken with on this issue, um, there was a significant group of

00:37:10.560 people. I think some of you are connected in standing opposed to this, um, from that group,

00:37:15.600 is there anyone that you've heard of at all who's received successfully a religious exemption

00:37:19.600 other than yourself? No. So I'm the only person who's received one that I know of, and we are all

00:37:24.880 connected. There's a large group of us here at this university. Uh, I've heard of a few students

00:37:29.920 at U of C, but Mount Royal has been denying them all. I was the first person that I've heard of to

00:37:35.360 be accepted. And what, what was the process? What I know, lots of people that are just feeling

00:37:40.640 deflated. Um, I know people who are deeply bound by their convictions and that is their reason for

00:37:45.600 not being vaccinated. They've been denied at schools. What did you do? How did you stand up for

00:37:50.160 yourself and secure that religious exemption? Uh, so I had a meeting with the person who's

00:37:54.720 responsible for these exemptions here at the university. Um, I basically went over my,

00:38:01.280 my denial letter, uh, how I felt that it was, it was wrong that I was denied that my religious

00:38:06.400 beliefs were essentially spat on. Um, and basically I also said that if I feel like I'm being

00:38:13.360 discriminated, like my religious beliefs are being undermined, I'm going to take legal action. I'm

00:38:18.720 going to file a human rights complaint and I'm probably going to file a small claims because I,

00:38:23.760 I have, I have been dealt damages here. Um, so I had a meeting with a person and, uh, he kind of went

00:38:31.520 over what they expect from a religious exemption, but they never told anyone this. There's no like

00:38:39.200 set principle for what, what they, what they standard, but there's no standard that they give.

00:38:45.360 Um, so he kind of outlined what they're looking for. Um, but even then he said, it's very difficult

00:38:52.240 to obtain one and this and that. Um, so it was a really strenuous procedure to get it accepted.

00:38:59.360 Um, but it's possible.

00:39:01.920 And it seems like there is from many of the stories I've heard, some of them flat out horror stories

00:39:06.640 of people being yelled at and called villains, people we've spoken to for daring to not want to

00:39:11.360 get vaccinated. There is among administrations, it would seem, and we'll certainly reach out to

00:39:15.840 Mount Royal for commentary, but an ideological, uh, support for vaccines and an attempt to undermine

00:39:23.120 any efforts for religious exemption. Would you echo that sentiment?

00:39:26.080 Yeah, absolutely. They're, their official stances that they're not forcing anyone.

00:39:31.280 Of course they're not. Uh, but they're coercing us. They're telling us that there's no other options.

00:39:37.040 You have to get it or you don't get to continue your education, but you see with, uh, colleges

00:39:41.200 like in Red Deer, they reverse their mandate. So now they're going to continue with rapid

00:39:45.920 testing and no student is going to be discriminated against. So I don't see why Mount Royal and

00:39:51.440 University of Calgary and all Albertan universities can't echo what Red Deer College did and do the

00:39:58.000 same thing. And another question, this is more on the science, I suppose, of the matter, but, uh,

00:40:02.720 I've had to be tested to attend some of some events for the sake of reporting. And the reality of the

00:40:07.120 situation is if a school implements, let's say testing, we know that people who have the vaccine

00:40:11.920 aren't exempt from spreading someone who's been tested frequently. We know they don't have a test

00:40:16.240 and they will not spread. What is the opposition to the far more logical implementation of testing

00:40:22.080 programs that would ensure people's rights aren't violated and they aren't being forced to be

00:40:26.720 vaccinated? Why are people so opposed to that rational alternative?

00:40:30.000 It's a great question. And they have no answer to that because I asked, I posed that same question

00:40:34.160 myself. Uh, they say it's expensive, which doesn't make sense because we're paying for our own tests

00:40:39.280 now. Um, they're not provided by the university anymore. Um, and it's an automated procedure that

00:40:44.960 replies to our tests. So it scans it, make sure everything's in order, but to claim that it's too

00:40:51.600 expensive is ridiculous. It's just an excuse. Uh, the science behind it, nobody has tested positive

00:40:57.360 that I know of who is part of the rapid testing program right now. Uh, so it's obviously a self

00:41:02.720 safe alternative and I don't understand why they're not continuing with it.

00:41:06.160 And finally, perhaps a word of encouragement for students out there who are in the same situation

00:41:10.560 or maybe have been denied and any thoughts for those people?

00:41:13.520 Yeah. Don't give up. Um, you know, just keep appealing the decision, uh, meet with whoever

00:41:18.800 is responsible for this. Uh, tell them that if your religious beliefs aren't going to be upheld,

00:41:25.200 like the constitution and the Alberta human rights act, uh, tells, tells us that it should be,

00:41:32.320 uh, threaten them with legal, uh, with legal action. Tell them that, uh, you'll file a human 0.50

00:41:38.720 rights complaint. Tell them you'll file a small claims. You'll take this as far as it needs to go

00:41:43.440 because our, we feel like we're being discriminated against. Well, Nathaniel, thanks for your brave

00:41:48.720 stance. Thanks for sharing this update with us for students out there who are in the same situation.

00:41:53.600 Do not hesitate to reach out to us. Fight vaccine passports.com is the place to go to share your

00:41:58.800 stories. We are waging a number of fights against these discriminatory measures across this country.

00:42:05.120 We aired some of Nathaniel Pawlowski's concerns with Mount Royal university who provided the

00:42:10.080 following response. They said that Mount Royal university's position on COVID-19 is contained

00:42:15.680 here and they provided a link. They said that it outlines how individuals at MRU may apply for an

00:42:21.040 accommodation under protected grounds as enumerated by the human rights act. Mount Royal university did

00:42:27.440 not specifically reply to the concerns aired by Nathaniel Pawlowski aside from what's provided on their

00:42:33.600 website. I want to thank you all for tuning in for rebel news. I'm Adam Sos.

00:42:41.840 If you agree that students based on their deeply held beliefs should be granted medical exemptions and

00:42:48.240 you think that vaccine passports violate our fundamental rights, help us fight back against

00:42:54.160 vaccine mandates at fight vaccine, passports.com.

00:43:02.400 Thank you.

00:43:08.640 Thank you.

00:43:10.640 Thank you.

00:43:18.880 Thank you.

00:43:20.880 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - December 11, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Where has the chamber of commerce been the past two years？

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