Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Why would Elon Musk invest $20 billion into Mississippi instead of Canada？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I think we've got a good show for you today. If I may, I got something

00:00:05.660 interesting to tell you about the state of Mississippi. How does Mississippi compare to

00:00:10.100 Canada in terms of prosperity and attracting jobs and building mega projects? I think you'll find

00:00:16.540 this one a good one. And then we talked to a firearms expert about Mark Carney's stance,

00:00:21.380 and I'll show you a sneak preview of our quick visit to York University, where we went to prove

00:00:26.740 that free speech is still alive. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber

00:00:31.260 to Rebel News Plus. That's our video version of this podcast. It's $8 a month, and I really want

00:00:36.860 you to see our little truck we were driving around the university. Go to rebelnewsplus.com,

00:00:41.600 click subscribe, and not only do you get the video stuff, you support Rebel News,

00:00:45.960 and we need it because we take no money from the government. We rely on you.

00:00:56.740 Tonight, why would Elon Musk invest $20 billion into Mississippi instead of into Canada? It's

00:01:13.060 January 9th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:15.280 You're ready for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:30.820 Elon Musk just put $20 billion, and I mean U.S. dollars, not Canadian mini-dollars, into Mississippi.

00:01:37.600 Today, we are here to announce the largest private investment in Mississippi history,

00:01:45.340 a $20 billion-plus investment by XAI in South Haven, Mississippi. They are going to create

00:01:55.960 hundreds of permanent jobs and thousands of indirect subcontracting jobs and help us further grow the

00:02:04.580 economy of Mississippi. My friends, as you've heard me say before, Mississippi is not just making

00:02:13.700 news. We're making history. Today, we are breaking another record that some thought would never be

00:02:21.480 possible. XAI's investment of up to $20 billion, again, is the largest private sector investment in

00:02:29.340 Mississippi history, and it's twice the size of the previous largest investment. The tax revenue

00:02:37.500 generated here as a result of this record-breaking investment will help support vital programs and

00:02:43.420 services like infrastructure, public safety, health and human services, educators, firefighters, police.

00:02:51.540 You know Mississippi, right? I mean, I don't know much about it. I've never been there.

00:02:54.820 I know that it is sometimes considered a caricature of the South. I think the movie Mississippi Burning

00:03:01.800 about the civil rights era might be what a lot of people think of. I mean, it's a small state and

00:03:06.300 it's far away from Canada, so I doubt many Canadians have ever been there. It's less than 3 million

00:03:11.940 people too, so it's pretty small. Can you name a city in it? Maybe you can, but we don't know a lot

00:03:17.100 about it up here in Canada. Mississippi is the poorest state in the Union. That probably won't surprise you.

00:03:22.400 Now, it's also pretty cheap to live there compared to, say, New York City or San Francisco or Toronto

00:03:27.500 or Vancouver. Economists have a concept called purchasing power parity. You sometimes see the

00:03:33.000 letters PPP to take that into account, as in if you earn $50,000 a year, but you live in a place where

00:03:40.440 rent is really cheap and food is really cheap and gas is really cheap, you may actually be wealthier in

00:03:46.260 terms of your purchasing power than someone earning $100,000 in an expensive place. I saw

00:03:52.380 this chart prepared by The Hub a few months ago that compares the purchasing power of people in

00:03:57.960 all 50 U.S. states and all 10 Canadian provinces. Very interesting chart. See, you can see that New

00:04:05.820 York is the wealthiest jurisdiction in North America. Even though it's probably the most expensive city to

00:04:11.640 be in, they earn so much more too, so their purchasing power is well over $100,000 U.S. That's

00:04:18.960 another thing to know about this chart. It converts everything to U.S. dollars, so you can compare

00:04:23.500 Canadian provinces to it, apples to apples. So look at that. The second richest state is

00:04:29.740 Massachusetts. California is up there too. North Dakota is also. That's likely because of all their

00:04:35.220 oil production. Unlike their northern neighbor Saskatchewan, North Dakotans have never heard of

00:04:40.800 the concept of their federal government blocking pipelines to them. They'd probably consider it an act of

00:04:46.920 war, maybe a cause for a secession, so they're rich. In fact, you have to go down to the 20th place

00:04:53.940 before the first Canadian province makes its debut. That's Alberta, no surprise. Saskatchewan is

00:04:59.420 at 25. Newfoundland surprised me. It's next for the Canadians. It's ahead of Ontario and BC, but I think 0.59

00:05:05.660 that's partly because of purchasing power parity. They don't earn as much in St. John's, perhaps,

00:05:10.820 as they do in Toronto, but their housing, I checked it. The average house costs $450,000 in St. John's

00:05:18.180 compared to more than $1 million in Toronto. That's the purchasing power I mean. And Newfoundland

00:05:24.540 actually has a bit of an oil industry, which helps too. So Ontario is actually way down there at 48th

00:05:30.560 place. Isn't that incredible? Mississippi is at 57th place. But that means it's still ahead of Prince

00:05:38.040 Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. There's natural gas in New Brunswick too, by the way.

00:05:44.840 They could be very rich if they wanted to be, but their government bans developing natural gas. So

00:05:50.580 they're literally the poorest people on the continent with an income of less than $50,000 each

00:05:57.820 converted into U.S. dollars purchasing power parity. By the way, Mississippi is about 37% black.

00:06:05.980 Now I checked a statistic that I probably wasn't supposed to, and the average U.S. black income

00:06:11.380 on the same purchasing power basis is just under $60,000 for the average African American in the

00:06:18.240 United States. So let me tell you that amazing statistic. The average African American family

00:06:25.960 is doing better economically than the average family in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or PEI.

00:06:33.640 For all of our Canadian snobbery and condescension and moral superiority, and all of our focus on race

00:06:39.740 relations in the States, the Canadian media is obsessed with it. African Americans are actually

00:06:45.200 doing better than many Canadians economically. So let me ask my first question again a bit differently.

00:06:50.560 Why would Elon Musk invest $20 billion in Mississippi rather than in Canada? Put aside the Atlantic

00:06:57.660 provinces, but say Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary. Well, first of all, when was the last time you saw

00:07:04.220 any company actually invest $10, $20 billion in Canada at all, anywhere? That actually used to be

00:07:11.380 fairly common in Alberta during the oil sands boom. But the horrendous provincial NDP government in Alberta

00:07:18.280 that one time. And the last 10 years of federal liberals pretty much ended that. And no, the

00:07:24.280 government shoveling subsidies at huge foreign car makers in Ontario to build electric vehicle

00:07:29.700 batteries in Canada doesn't count. And by the way, have you seen just this week, General Motors

00:07:34.400 took a $6 billion write down on their electric vehicles. Let me read from the Globe and Mail article.

00:07:41.140 Many automakers, including GM's crosstown rival Ford, have been dialing back factory work on EVs,

00:07:48.200 electric vehicles, since last summer, when U.S. President Donald Trump's massive tax and spending package

00:07:53.440 darkened the outlook for the EV market. Sales of battery-powered vehicles have cratered following the

00:07:58.880 elimination on September 30th of a $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicle buyers.

00:08:05.100 Ford in December said it would take a $19.5 billion write down over several quarters as it canceled

00:08:13.280 several EV programs, including the fully electric version of the F-150 Lightning truck, an additional

00:08:19.980 electric truck and van. It was canceling it. No one really wanted it without government subsidies. So

00:08:25.320 yeah, Canada forced taxpayers to invest in that fake industry, thinking Americans would be forced to buy

00:08:32.920 electric vehicles. But Trump isn't into that. He's more into real jobs, I think. Hey, I'll answer

00:08:38.120 the question in a moment about Mississippi, but can I show you a very expensive tweet? I think the most

00:08:42.840 expensive tweet in history was when Justin Trudeau said, hey, anyone can come into Canada. And then

00:08:48.140 50,000 people crossed over at Roxham Road. But in terms of sheer business, this tweet is probably more

00:08:54.840 expensive. It was during the lockdowns. And as you may know, Elon Musk has a big factory in California.

00:09:00.240 And the local public health police in that area were putting so many demands, insane, crazy COVID

00:09:08.540 restrictions on Elon Musk's factories. And Musk was opposed to all that. And he was being quite

00:09:16.420 vocal about that. So Lorena Gonzalez, the head of a labor union in California, who used to be a state 1.00

00:09:21.760 assemblywoman herself, was pretty plain about it. I'm going to swear now. I hope I don't offend your

00:09:26.160 ears. You know, here's Elon Musk, the leading citizen, leading investor, leading job creator.

00:09:34.560 And she just wrote, fuck Elon Musk. That's what she wrote. She didn't quite have the courage to spell

00:09:40.540 it out fully, as if it's better to not have the U in there. And then she went on, she kept talking,

00:09:46.060 actually. She said, California has highly subsidized a company that has always disregarded

00:09:52.200 workers' safety and well-being, has engaged in union busting and bullies public servants.

00:09:57.760 I probably could have expressed my frustration in a less aggressive way. Of course, no one would

00:10:02.940 have cared if I tweeted that. So she's making excuses. Obviously, she got some blowback. And then 1.00

00:10:07.780 she said, the deaths from COVID-19 in California are disproportionately Latino. Our communities have 0.99

00:10:13.520 been the hardest hit by far. Maybe that's why we take the public health officials' warning and

00:10:18.060 direction so seriously. So she's playing a race card now. So Elon Musk just tweeted back two words.

00:10:27.140 She said, fuck Elon Musk. He said, message received. And then he moved the corporate headquarters of Tesla

00:10:34.800 from California to Texas. And Texas is where he's expanding, where he's investing, where he's growing,

00:10:39.960 where he's hiring. It's where SpaceX is. All his new work is in Texas. He has taken Ms. Gonzalez's

00:10:47.020 advice to heart. Now, he didn't shut down his California factory, but like he said, message

00:10:52.120 received. So right there, do you think for a second that Elon Musk, who would have operated in almost

00:10:57.900 any country in the world, I mean, he's got a factory in China. Do you think he would choose to come to

00:11:02.280 Canada where the governments are anti-business to begin with, where so many politicians are just as spiteful

00:11:08.060 as that Gonzalez woman? Like Doug Ford, scrapping a rural internet program that used Starlink just to get 1.00

00:11:17.180 even with Elon Musk because Musk is friends with Donald Trump or something. Imagine canceling a government

00:11:23.720 contract, just ripping it up, canceling a service to hundreds of thousands of Ontarians. It was supposed to be

00:11:30.740 an important thing to give internet to people in the country. But you're going to punish Elon Musk. So

00:11:37.160 you've shown that you don't put the public interest first, you put your personal vendettas first. Here's

00:11:43.480 Doug Ford on that. Yeah, Starlink is done. And are we surprised that they're not seeing eye to eye? I predicted

00:11:51.320 that as soon as that marriage happened. I thought there'd be a divorce real quick. 1.00

00:11:55.240 Yeah, we're done. Well, we're working on that right now. We're sitting down with a company. I don't I don't want to

00:12:05.900 deal with someone that's attacking our country. And he was one of the number one culprits, Elon Musk. And that's

00:12:13.060 unacceptable. I can't do business with someone that's doing that. Yeah, if you could open a company and spend $20 billion

00:12:19.860 US anywhere. Would you seriously choose a place run by Doug Ford or Mark Carney, where if you do

00:12:26.460 something they don't like, they'll just tear up a contract with you? Maybe if your business was about

00:12:31.380 getting subsidies, you would but not if you were a real company. So let me show you who beat us

00:12:37.540 Mississippi. I'm going to read to you the entire story from ABC News. Musk's XAI. So this is his

00:12:45.940 artificial intelligence company to build $20 billion data center in Mississippi. Elon Musk's

00:12:52.320 AI company, XAI, plans to spend $20 billion on a data center in South Haven, Mississippi.

00:12:58.600 I'll read the story. Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, XAI, is set to spend $20

00:13:04.060 billion to build a data center in South Haven, Mississippi. Governor Tate Reeves announced Thursday,

00:13:10.300 calling it the largest private investment in the state's history.

00:13:13.060 The data center called Macro Harder is being built in Mississippi's DeSoto County near Memphis,

00:13:20.900 Tennessee. Now that's a riff on Microsoft. Elon Musk is calling it Macro Hard. I think Elon Musk

00:13:27.680 sort of hates Bill Gates anyways. Let me get back to the news story. It will be the company's third

00:13:31.920 data center in the greater Memphis area. XAI CFO Anthony Armstrong said the cluster of data centers will

00:13:38.120 house the world's largest supercomputer with two gigawatts of computing power. Just by the way,

00:13:43.800 on the map, South Haven, Mississippi is just across the border from Memphis, Tennessee. So it's very

00:13:48.400 close by. The announcement comes as XAI faces scrutiny over its data center projects in the Memphis area.

00:13:55.920 The NAACP, that's a black lobby group, and the Southern Environmental Law Center, that's a socialist 0.80

00:14:02.000 lobby group, have raised questions over air pollution generated by XAI supercomputer facility located near

00:14:09.680 predominantly black communities in Memphis. Of course they did. They're left-wing agitators, the 0.91

00:14:15.420 kind who rule Canada. They get paid six figures to complain, but many of the actual people working

00:14:21.260 in the factory, building the factory, will likely be black. I mean, it's Mississippi. And the governor 0.90

00:14:26.700 isn't about to let some race hucksters stop it. Whereas in Canada, we absolutely would. I mean,

00:14:31.660 look at why we can't build pipelines. We've given a racial veto now, apparently, to Indian bans, 0.96

00:14:37.700 even though the constitution doesn't allow it. There will be no oil pipeline built to the West.

00:14:42.760 A petition by the Safe and Sound Coalition, a South Haven group opposing XAI's developments,

00:14:48.200 calls for shutting down XAI's operations in the area and has received more than 900 signatures

00:14:53.160 as of Thursday afternoon. Oh, wow. 900 signatures, eh, on a petition online, eh? That's hard to do.

00:14:59.760 Yeah, no, the state will take its $20 billion in investment and jobs, thanks. But can you see

00:15:03.720 what's going on here? This is supposed to be a news story about the biggest investment in Mississippi

00:15:08.060 history. And they did say a few lines about it, but the bulk of their reporting is attacking

00:15:12.620 the industry, attacking Elon Musk, attacking the company. Now, this is the media, but in Canada,

00:15:19.880 that's the politicians, too. Let me keep reading. XAI did not immediately respond when asked for

00:15:24.720 comment about environmental concerns. A fact sheet released by the Mississippi Governor's Office

00:15:29.060 said environmental responsibility is a core commitment for XAI. During the announcement,

00:15:33.920 Reeves personally thanked Musk. Reeves predicted the investment would bring hundreds of permanent

00:15:37.720 jobs to the community, thousands of indirect subcontracting jobs, and tax revenue to support

00:15:42.560 public services. And then here they go with an attack again. Under the incentives for data centers

00:15:47.780 passed in 2024, the state will waive all sales, corporate income, and franchise taxes on the

00:15:52.840 XAI development, saving sales taxes on the computing power that XAI is purchasing would likely be worth

00:15:58.520 a substantial amount of money. But the Mississippi Development Authority did not immediately respond

00:16:02.720 to the Associated Press's questions about how many tax revenue Mississippi will give up.

00:16:07.560 DeSoto County and the City of South Haven have also agreed to allow substantially reduced property

00:16:11.840 taxes. XAI is expected to begin data center operations in South Haven next month.

00:16:17.780 So this wasn't even a news report, was it? It was an attack. It emphasized the complainers,

00:16:23.420 it tried to graft a racist element onto it, and tried to make the case of agreeing to give up

00:16:28.420 some tax revenue. This is not a good deal for Mississippi, even though $20 billion is coming

00:16:33.600 in. At least in Mississippi, their only offer is to reduce taxes, not to actually shovel $50 billion

00:16:39.960 tax dollars into the company like Canada did with electric vehicle batteries. You'd think that story was

00:16:44.920 written by the CBC or something. Anyways, back to reality, $20 billion in a factory. And it sounds

00:16:50.560 like more could come. Pretty awesome. Why do we ever get offers like that? Well, that plant needs

00:16:58.500 electricity more than anything. Electricity in Ontario is about 50% more expensive than in

00:17:04.320 Mississippi for industrial users. And that's because we thought that solar panels and windmills was a good

00:17:09.940 idea for the environment. So you've got cheap energy. You've got located to other XAI data centers

00:17:16.400 already. And look at this, some banter between Musk and the governor of Mississippi. Let me show you on

00:17:20.800 Twitter. Here's the governor who says, why invest in Mississippi? Elon Musk said it best, insane

00:17:26.660 execution speed. We can get you from spending money to making money faster than any state in America.

00:17:31.820 And that's our competitive advantage. And then Musk replied to that, saying, excited to invest in

00:17:37.340 Mississippi. And the government wrote back. Maybe this was prescripted, probably. He said, why is

00:17:42.980 Mississippi in the conversation for virtually every major industrial project in America right now?

00:17:48.660 This sentence sums it up. Insane execution speed by XAI in the state of Mississippi. Mississippi's open

00:17:54.540 for business. So they're talking about how quickly things can move, how quickly the government can get out

00:18:01.260 of the way. How fast do we operate in Canada for $20 billion projects? Well, the MOU, the memorandum

00:18:10.480 of understanding that Mark Carney grudgingly signed with Alberta, suggests that a new pipeline will be

00:18:15.940 built, if you read it, and I read it, sometime before the year 2040. I'm serious. Read it for

00:18:23.320 yourself. It jumped out at me right when I saw it. The year 2040 is in 14 years from now. Alberta might

00:18:31.860 get that oil pipeline. Don't give up, guys. Yeah, it's fun to make fun of Mississippi, but they're

00:18:37.740 richer than many Canadians. And after today, I think they might actually move up a few rungs. 0.77

00:18:42.760 But hey, in Canada, we've got our elbows up, don't we? Stay with us for more.

00:18:53.320 Well, there's certain policies that the liberals announce and re-announce and re-announce.

00:19:01.860 They don't really do anything about it, but they love the announcement, of course,

00:19:05.140 taking guns off our streets is one of them. They don't actually succeed in taking guns off our

00:19:09.720 streets because the guns that are used by criminals are impervious to announcements by politicians.

00:19:15.220 Isn't that funny? I mean, they go after legitimate gun owners, including hunters, farmers, ranchers,

00:19:20.120 sportsmen, but they never seem to quench or to put out the fire of the crime wave across this

00:19:27.760 country, especially in the big cities. I note that the federal government had an idea to buy

00:19:34.800 back the guns. And, you know, I suppose there's a germ of an idea there. If gangsters are trying to get

00:19:40.660 rich by using their guns to rob places, maybe they would accept money for their weapons. Well,

00:19:45.780 their entire project in Cape Breton, where they had a pilot project yielded a grand total, get this,

00:19:53.780 of 25 guns, not 2,500 or 25,000, but 25, like a dozen and a baker's dozen. Like I've probably eaten

00:20:02.580 that many donuts on a bad day, 25. And by the way, they spent an average of $7,000 managing this program

00:20:12.800 per gun. And yet they've set up a new program. They've agreed to fund the province of Quebec

00:20:18.220 $12.4 million to do the same again. Now, I don't know if they're going to pull in more than 25 firearms,

00:20:25.080 but that would be half a million dollars per gun. I remember there was a movie, a James Bond movie

00:20:31.240 called The Man with a Golden Gun. Maybe they're thinking they're going to buy a few of those for

00:20:34.960 half a million. I don't know. I think that guns are a whipping boy for the liberals. They don't actually

00:20:39.340 solve the problem, but they'd like to distract. But joining me now is someone who follows his

00:20:43.280 file closely. His name is Daniel Fritter, and it's a delight to join him again. Daniel, great to see

00:20:47.640 you again. Thanks for having me. We were just talking before the camera went on about how firearms

00:20:54.400 policy looks in 2026. Is that something that Mark Carney has focused on, or is it sort of a going still on

00:21:04.200 the inertia from the Justin Trudeau years? I mean, Carney is basically at his one year anniversary

00:21:09.680 now. Has he done anything himself, or is it just sort of what was left over from the previous

00:21:16.260 administration? He hasn't done anything per se, but he did mention specifically during his campaign that

00:21:24.180 he was going to maintain the quote unquote buyback program and that he was going to efficiently and

00:21:32.860 in a cost effective manner, buy them back. He hasn't made any new policy announcements. It feels

00:21:39.240 like there's inertia and there is inertia because within public safety through the department where

00:21:45.940 all of this is kind of emanating from, the buyback program has been the single largest source of new

00:21:52.020 hires. So there's a ton of people, there's 153 of them to be specific, whose jobs are managing this

00:21:59.020 program. They obviously want to remain employed. So it's in their interest to keep pushing this

00:22:04.440 thing forward. So whatever Mark Carney wants. Um, I think I, like many gun owners was surprised that

00:22:10.800 he reiterated, you know, doing this with cancel the carbon tax, but keep this going kind of seems weird.

00:22:17.360 Um, but there is a lot of inertia with within public safety to keep this thing going. And I think

00:22:22.120 that's what we're seeing with Quebec specifically now. Well, 153 hires is insane. And again,

00:22:27.560 if you apportion that to Cape Breton, that's, uh, six government employees per gun that was bought

00:22:36.780 back. Now I know that they're doing other things and then they weren't all focused on that, but it's

00:22:41.000 sort of laughable. I remember when Alan Rock brought in the gun registry, this would be about 30 years

00:22:45.720 ago now. And the price is just absolutely ballooned. What was supposed to be in the tens of millions soon

00:22:52.420 was in the billions. I, um, I don't know, maybe that's the actual purpose of Canadian gun control,

00:22:58.120 not to take, uh, criminal guns off the streets, but to provide a unlimited employment for anti-gun

00:23:05.640 activists. I mean, I suppose the anti-gun industry doesn't have to succeed to make money. In fact,

00:23:12.860 I suppose like a lot of other industries, like the welfare industry or the, the drug rehabilitation

00:23:17.260 industry, if they were actually to succeed in Canadian public policy, that a lot of do-gooders

00:23:22.800 and NGOs would be out of work. Maybe they fail on purpose. Well, I think, you know, to refer back to

00:23:28.760 what you're saying earlier, the, the government loves the announcements and guns are a very popular

00:23:34.840 whipping boy, uh, especially these days where they can pitch guns as largely an American sort of thing

00:23:41.860 where a lot of Canadians are feeling anti-American sentiment. It leverages that sort of specific

00:23:47.400 issue. Um, and it's frustrating because as a gun owner and as someone who has been in this industry

00:23:53.360 for 15 years now, you know, I used to do media interviews like this and they would largely be

00:23:59.720 predicated on the notion of, uh, how are we doing it right? There'd be a massive thing in the States

00:24:05.580 where a bunch of people got killed. And then I would do an interview where the journalist would go,

00:24:09.020 why doesn't that happen in Canada? And I would explain because we had previously a very resilient

00:24:14.900 system of controlling who is allowed to own a gun because we don't have a second amendment. You got

00:24:19.300 to get a license. It's rigorous. You get checked every day. Uh, but we don't, we don't say what

00:24:25.240 kinds of gun you can specifically own. We control who owns them. Uh, but that seems to have been

00:24:30.520 abandoned and it's, it's broken the trust I think between gun owners and the government and in some

00:24:37.700 ways the public, because as gun owners, we're watching the public vote for a government who,

00:24:42.220 uh, continues to not seem to care that, that makes the announcement, the key instead of actually

00:24:50.300 trying to keep people safe. Like you said, they spent $2 billion on the long gun registry. It saved

00:24:55.160 zero lives. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the gun bans that have occurred since

00:25:00.980 2025 or 2020. Uh, and no one is safer for it. It's, it's a shame.

00:25:07.620 You know, um, I saw something very, that has a strong counter narrative. A few weeks ago, the, um,

00:25:15.500 top brass at the Canadian armed forces had this idea of sort of a, I don't know, not really a reserve,

00:25:23.620 but of a turning, that's all right. Bureaucrats into a kind of reserve where, you know, I mean,

00:25:30.940 I just imagine these, uh, I, I just, in my mind, these middle-aged lifer government sector union

00:25:39.480 workers who are used to working like as a clerk somewhere, sort of the kind of people you, you

00:25:43.400 meet at the department of motor vehicles who are not in a rush to anything who say, Oh, I'm still on

00:25:48.200 my break for 90 seconds. I won't answer your question. Like, like they want to recruit,

00:25:51.740 I think they said hundreds of thousands of them to be this like militia or something to I'm guessing

00:25:59.260 to defend against some American invasion that they, that in their fever dreams, they think is

00:26:05.260 imminent. So all of a sudden having a gun and shooting a gun is cool and necessary and patriotic.

00:26:11.940 It's a way to keep up the evil Donald Trump and his Greenland brigades. Um, what did you make it? 0.73

00:26:17.060 Did you pay attention to that at all? Like, I think they sort of dropped that, but I thought

00:26:21.600 they were, it was pretty weird from people who'd like to ban guns.

00:26:25.460 It, it, but it's, I, I saw it. I thought it was pretty laughable. Obviously I'm, I'm laughing

00:26:30.220 because I, I'd forgotten that even was a thing, but it, it also harkens back to the notion that

00:26:35.100 when they announced these bans, it was around the same time as, you know, the government was getting

00:26:41.020 elected on largely a, we need to oppose this 51st state rhetoric. Uh, and they were saying,

00:26:46.420 we're going to send the guns to Ukraine. And it's the same logic of, you know, Ukraine's being 0.95

00:26:51.260 invaded by Russia, which is bad. So let's send guns there, but also we need to take the guns 0.99

00:26:56.400 away from Canadians because we might be getting invaded by America. It was a very strange thing

00:27:02.560 that also died because it was a similarly laugh, like laughable notion, but this notion of, you know,

00:27:08.100 the civil service becoming an armed militia at the same time is there, they can't even figure out how

00:27:16.080 to take the guns away from people that have them is just a, you know, you talk about skill gaps. Um,

00:27:23.740 that's a pretty big one for a government that can't figure out how to take guns away from people who

00:27:29.000 legally own them to say, we're going to arm the entire government with guns. I mean, it's,

00:27:35.660 it's just, it's so silly. It's, this doesn't even feel like a real country thing to be talking

00:27:42.280 about. Like, I'm, I would be afraid they would use those guns against, uh, uh, Canadian citizen

00:27:49.320 customers who were a little too eager in saying, how come I'm still waiting in line? Like I, I could

00:27:54.900 imagine if you armed every public sector bureaucrat in Canada, the chief, uh, destination of any gun,

00:28:02.960 gunfire would be at, uh, customers who are a little impatient. I just think it would be

00:28:08.080 like, it's psychologically the absolute worst people in the world you would want to give guns

00:28:12.600 to. I forgot about the point you said that the liberals had said they were going to seize guns

00:28:16.940 from ordinary farmers, ranchers, hunters, and give them to Ukraine, which is in the middle of

00:28:23.620 the toughest war in memory where, where, you know, they don't have little plink, plink,

00:28:30.760 plink guns. They don't, they're using horrific machines of war. I mean, it's a lot of drone

00:28:36.760 warfare, but they're not using the kind of guns that Canadian farmers using. They're using war

00:28:42.340 guns. And I think that the Canadian government has fooled itself because they talk about,

00:28:47.620 we're going to ban assault style weapons. And they don't even know what that means. They just

00:28:51.900 think if something is black and has a plastic stock and looks scary, that's an assault style 0.99

00:28:56.900 weapon. So obviously that's how we defend Ukraine against Russia. I think they, I think that what 0.77

00:29:03.260 that reveals is that the people making firearms policy in Canada probably have never seen a firearm,

00:29:08.980 touched a firearm, know anything about firearms. They just, like you said, like I said before,

00:29:13.320 it's just about the press release. And that was, you know, what's cool right now? Ukraine. Okay.

00:29:18.220 We're going to seize the guns and give them to Ukraine. That's so cool. That's going to go crazy 1.00

00:29:22.980 viral on Twitter. I think that's the level of policy depth of our liberal government.

00:29:29.380 It's, it's, it's government by TikTok is what it feels like. And I mean, I don't know if this is

00:29:34.240 still the case because, uh, not surprisingly, no one within the department of public safety has

00:29:40.320 opened a good channel of communication with me for some time. Uh, but that wasn't always the case.

00:29:46.340 And even going back to all the liberals were still in government. Um, there was a staffer in public

00:29:51.940 safety who worked for Ralph Goodale, uh, who would call me and talk to me about gun policy because

00:29:57.660 working in the gun industry and he freely admitted he was the only person in the entire office that

00:30:03.280 had a gun license and he no longer works there. So I would hazard a guess that no one there has a gun

00:30:09.940 license. And I think that you are absolutely correct. And that these people, they don't know guns.

00:30:15.760 They've hired 153 people. These are new hires. It also has notably shifted the entire demographic

00:30:23.000 of public safety staff to a younger age. They are young people who don't have a gun license,

00:30:28.560 who don't basically nothing about guns, who have gotten a job in the government dictating gun policy.

00:30:35.160 And it's, it's kind of insane when you actually think about it, because this is a key component of

00:30:40.340 public safety, like national defense, guns are an important thing. You cannot have a bunch of people

00:30:47.300 making policy about them who have no experience and no knowledge about it. It'd be, it'd be like

00:30:52.940 saying the minister of transport is a guy who's never driven a car or the minister of the environment

00:30:59.600 is a guy who was a green peace activist, which is based where we're at. So, you know, we're on the

00:31:05.420 other side of that, that glass, I guess. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, listen, it's great to catch up with

00:31:09.800 you, Daniel Fritter. What's the best way for people to follow you and your work? Uh, Twitter,

00:31:14.740 Instagram. We're doing more Facebook. CaliberMag.ca is our website. Uh, and all those social media

00:31:20.760 handles, it's all just CaliberMag. That's great. Daniel Fritter of CaliberMag, thanks for taking the

00:31:25.400 time with us. Thank you for having me. Right on. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.

00:31:30.360 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on Garnet Genuist. I hope I wasn't too tough on the guy,

00:31:43.780 but he needs a bit of a, you know, splash of cold water in the face or something. Uh,

00:31:48.300 Tom Vandervoort says, agreed. Garnet is normally awesome and holds the government to account,

00:31:52.600 but this is bending over and taking him. Yeah. And Garnet can, like, let me say one thing about

00:31:57.080 Garnet. He is a very polite man. Um, you can be firm and polite. Once in a while, I manage that,

00:32:03.780 uh, combination. You don't have to be rude to be firm. To assert your rights, you don't have to be

00:32:08.640 rude. I think Garnet can stay in his emotional space of being a reasonable young man and not allow

00:32:17.100 himself to be pushed around by some woke radical at York University. Ghostbird says, if York doesn't

00:32:23.140 want to abide by Canada's freedom of speech and assembly laws, go after the funds they receive

00:32:27.220 from taxpayers. Yeah. I mean, exactly. Uh, that's how Donald Trump is doing in the States. If

00:32:32.960 universities are too radical, he says, I'll cut you off if you don't follow the law.

00:32:37.320 Surprise baby turtle says, I wish Canadians weren't so wishy-washy. China is slowly taking us over and 1.00

00:32:42.460 hardly anyone seems to care. Go Donald. Thanks rebel news. Well, you know what we did today and I don't

00:32:47.720 want to give anything away. We're editing the video right now. We sent six people to York

00:32:54.120 University. That's the university where Garnet Genuos was going to, we sent six people there,

00:32:57.820 two teams and the beautiful billboard truck. And we did what Garnet Genuos was banned from doing.

00:33:05.520 We talked to students inside the university, outside the university. We had the big free speech truck,

00:33:10.300 as I'm calling it, and no problem at all. No one kicked us out, not even campus security or the police.

00:33:15.880 Sometimes you can just do things instead of being afraid of your shadow. Here's a quick,

00:33:20.980 very quick clip of that, uh, that our videographer Lincoln shared with me. Take a look at this.

00:33:26.080 I feel like everyone's held to the right of free speech. Um, everyone has a right to speak to how

00:33:30.240 they want to speak. Uh, even if it's an opinion you disagree with, I think it's a very important

00:33:34.240 to have conversations and dialogue as it's university campus. And that's what it's meant for.

00:33:38.160 Exactly. Is it not part of the university experience to hear other people's ideas? Um,

00:33:43.080 or do you think that people's feelings should be protected first?

00:33:46.140 I don't think feelings should be protected. I think everyone has a right to free speech.

00:33:49.040 I think it's important for everyone.

00:33:50.340 Just a little teaser. We'll have the full video maybe tonight or tomorrow. I'm not sure,

00:33:54.420 but you know, you don't have to be afraid. Sometimes you, a little bit of courage can be

00:33:59.080 contagious. That's our show for today until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at rebel

00:34:04.520 world headquarters to you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - January 10, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Why would Elon Musk invest $20 billion into Mississippi instead of Canada？

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