Front-runner Peter MacKay is turning out less like Harper and more like Scheer
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Summary
After the disaster that was the election campaign of Andrew Scheer, conservatives are hungry for change. Conservative leader hopeful Peter McKay is yesterday s man as he fades into his rightful place in Canadian history, namely footnote territory. Ezra asks: Is Peter McKay someone who has scored in his own net?
Transcript
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Peter McKay described Andrew Scheer as someone who missed an empty net on a breakaway, but is
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Peter McKay someone who has scored in his own net? It's February 5th, 2020. I'm David Menzies,
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and this is the Ezra Levin Show. Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I
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know? There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say
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to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Last Saturday night, I experienced an uncanny feeling of deja vu. You see, I was at Toronto's
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swank Old Mill for a meet-and-greet event with conservative leader hopeful Peter McKay. Now,
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after the disaster that was the election campaign of Andrew Scheer, conservatives are hungry for
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change. Andrew Scheer, aka Mr. Charisma, is yesterday's man as he fades into his rightful
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place in Canadian history, namely footnote territory. As for Peter McKay, I think he came out of the
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gates flying back in October post-election night. Who can forget his assessment of Scheer,
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noting that his loss to Trudeau was akin to, quote, having a breakaway on an open net and missing the
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net, end quote. It was so refreshing to see a leadership hopeful nail the failure that was
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Scheer with straight talk and using a colorful hockey metaphor to boot. And it was accurate. Look,
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Scheer was a weakling from the get-go, I grant you that. But given the long laundry list of scandals
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and fiascos the liberals were responsible for, ranging from the SNC-Lavalin affair and the
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persecution of ex-Vice Admiral Mark Norman to the India trip and the infamous blackface revelations
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and the groping of Rose Knight, it seems almost impossible in hindsight that not only did the
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Trudeau liberals win, but they very nearly got another majority mandate. In fact, it was worse
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than missing an empty net. It was missing an empty net and then allowing the opposition to steal victory
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from the jaws of defeat. Kind of like this hockey highlight for the ages. Check it out with Andrew
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Scheer in the role of Patrick Steffen and Justin Trudeau in the role of Ailes Hemsky.
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Bergeron fans on a pass. Steffen steals and he'll ice it. Oh, at least I thought he was gonna
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until he blew it. That's unbelievable. Here come the Oilers the other way and Hemsky's loose.
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Hemsky, he scores! Can you believe what we just saw?
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Uh, no, I don't believe it. Both the 2019 election results and that hockey highlight from 2007.
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Poor Patrick Steffen. Poor Andrew Scheer. But the thing is, when McKay made the empty net analogy,
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I thought it sparked some hope in the conservative base. Here was someone that appeared to be something
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of a straight shooter. Someone not using polite $3 words to describe an electoral disaster. But
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lately, one must take pause to ponder. Is the wannabe coronation of Peter McKay akin to
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meet the new would-be boss, same as the old boss? Increasingly, that's what it's looking like to me.
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For when I visited the old mill last Saturday night and was greeted by one of McKay's handlers,
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the very first words out of his mouth were, there will be no questions tonight. Excuse me?
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Sorry, but asking a journalist not to ask questions is akin to telling a dolphin not to swim.
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This is a man who would be prime minister of our great dominion. This is a man who, as the prime
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minister, would be routinely grilled with questions. And already, as merely a leadership hopeful,
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he can't have a quick query or two from a news organization that has nearly 1.3 million YouTube
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subscribers, most of whom are presumably red meat conservatives. Gee, where have we seen this
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play out before? Oh yeah, it was the Sheer campaign, which suffered from an acute case of rebel derangement
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syndrome as it reached out to the mean girls of the media, you know, the likes of the Toronto Star,
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the Globe and Mail and the CBC in a disastrous quest to be loved by the Mandarins of the media party.
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Love that went unrequited. Furthermore, a huge issue for conservatives is freedom of speech.
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And just days before the McKay meet and greet weird Ezra's shocking report regarding his interrogation
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by those ex-cop bureaucrats who now do the bidding for the commissioner of Canada elections.
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Ezra's crime? Well, he wrote a book about Trudeau. Oh, correction. He wrote a critical book about Trudeau.
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You see, puff pieces about Trudeau. Oh, those are allowed. In fact, they're even encouraged.
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But a critical book about Prime Minister Blackface? Well, that is apparently an illegal campaign activity.
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Check out this snippet of the interrogation Ezra endured at the hands of ex-mountee Dudley Doeright,
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You did a blurb online that I watched, and you speak about, of course, that it was released in time for the election.
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Which, if that's your position today, that wouldn't allow you to have the exemption for advertising for a book.
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Um, I think I need to check my GPS. Was that office located in Ottawa or Pyongyang?
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And I'm not just saying that out of bravado. After all, after that video aired, Ezra's book,
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The Libranos, soared to number one on Amazon.ca.
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Hey, this story has even received international media attention.
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So I wanted to see how much of a free speech champion Peter McKay is
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by simply asking him his opinion regarding the electoral interrogation of our beloved commander.
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To use a baseball analogy, my question was akin to a softball floating across home plate
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But when I finally got past McKay's handlers to ask my query, here's how things went down.
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I just want to ask one question, not even an interview.
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So under Peter McKay, it'll be the same as Andrew Scheer, that the rebel is not allowed to be here?
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I just want to ask you, sir, what do you feel about Ezra Levent being interrogated by the elections commissioner?
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I don't like anybody being interrogated, including right now.
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But this is a very important freedom of speech issue, Mr. McKay.
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I don't even know why it hasn't been raised in the House by your conservative colleagues.
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Well, you should talk to those conservative colleagues.
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I'm not in the House of Commons, so I don't have an opportunity to raise it.
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What is your opinion of the elections commissioner going after Ezra Levent simply for writing a book during an election campaign about a prime minister?
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I don't have any of the information other than what I've read.
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I have heard about it, just briefly, but I don't have any of the facts.
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Really, Mr. McKay, you were unaware of this story?
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Really, Peter, you felt like you were being interrogated by me simply for posing a question?
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But let's give Mr. McKay the benefit of the doubt, folks.
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Let's pretend he never had heard about this story.
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Okay, so here's how I would have answered that question if I were in his shoes.
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If what you're saying is truthful and accurate, and then I would have added,
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Then this was an outrageous attack by bureaucrats in a grotesque attempt to shut down freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
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And furthermore, should I become prime minister, this business of using Elections Canada bureaucrats as attack dogs to go after authors critical of a government will no longer be tolerated.
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That is a response that would resonate with the party faithful.
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And since that night, things have gone from bad to worse.
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Indeed, a couple of days later, Peter McKay consented to an interview with CTV.
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After the 45-minute tour, McKay agreed to discuss his return to politics.
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I'm at a point now with some further private sector experience and some reflection.
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That I would like to do politics a little differently.
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But having been in and left and coming back to it, I think I bring a new level of compassion, a new level of understanding of perhaps how things could work a little better at a practical level.
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And I'd also like, and everybody says this, but I would like to see some civility.
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I noticed there was a video put on Twitter talking about Justin Trudeau's yoga expenses.
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I mean, highlighting $800 and some odd in yoga expenses?
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And that was something that happened that I'm not proud of.
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So I don't have the opportunity always to vet every single thing that goes on that social media account.
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At that moment, his team abruptly ended the interview.
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I, that's, that's quite, he said civility, I mean.
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The tweet has been viewed more than 700,000 times, with many reminding McKay about his own expense controversy
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when, as Minister of Defence, he used a search and rescue helicopter to pick him up from a fishing lodge.
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We've made a decision that we'd like to stop the interview.
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And did you catch the line about McKay not vetting all the tweets that go out in his name?
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And B, he threw a member of his team under the bus for the yoga tweet.
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And finally, C, sorry, Peter, you hired and approved members of your team.
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And so it is that the frontrunner for the role of the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
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And he's coming across as less Stephen Harper and, inexplicably, more like Andrew Scheer.
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And I don't say this with any amount of glee, folks.
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In fact, I'm feeling kind of like Linus Van Pelt these days.
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You know, little Linus, the Peanuts character who goes out to the pumpkin patch every October 31st,
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And just like Linus, I so want to believe that a miracle is going to occur,
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namely that the next Conservative hopeful will be a contender as opposed to a pretender.
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Alas, in the case of Linus, the great pumpkin never does appear,
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And meanwhile, back in Conservative land, we are apparently being courted by those
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who seemingly channel the persona of Joe Who or Mr. Charisma.
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Moving forward, prior to the Conservative Convention in June,
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before this party even decides who it wants as its leader,
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I think this party has to decide what it actually wants to be.
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Disturbingly, the Conservative Party of Canada seems to be going down a rebranding road,
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Sorry, guys, that sort of new coke strategy is not going to work.
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Because when it comes to those who are left of centre,
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why would they choose to vote Liberal Light when they can have Liberal Classic?
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Granted, there's still plenty of time for Peter McKay to reboot and recover,
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And maybe, just maybe, my personal great pumpkin,
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that being Stephen Harper, will come out of retirement and save this party from itself.
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But in the early going, McKay has been a profound disappointment.
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It's not so much that Peter McKay has failed to score on an empty net on a breakaway,
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rather, to use another hockey analogy, McKay has scored into his own net.
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Say, folks, in case you're wondering where our commander is, Ezra Levent,
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well, he's stateside meeting up with Glenn Beck.
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Now, Glenn Beck is connected to the Nazarene Fund,
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and that is where all the money you donated to our campaign,
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This was about helping out the Christian community in Iraq.
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Now, if you still want to make a contribution to help Sheila Gunn-Reed
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pay for her trip and accommodation over to Iraq,
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And now, here is Ezra's interview with Glenn Beck.
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Let me go back to your help on the Nazarene Fund, which I find amazing.
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You have used your platform to do good and raise money every month,
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and you're sending the Nazarene Fund $5,000 every month,
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which I've known you for how long have we known each other?
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Well, I meet you once, and then I go away for months.
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And I meet you once, and I've enjoyed it for years.
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You introduce yourself every time, and I think I say every time,
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And I found out, somebody said to me last time we met,
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somebody said, do you realize what he's doing for the Nazarene Fund?
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I mentioned we went to Iraq, and we saw this terrible situation.
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And so we raised some money, but it's a very low-trust society.
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That's a very friendly way of saying a corrupt place.
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And the first three people we went to, we wanted to give it to a pharmacy.
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I could feel that it was going to be purloined, stolen.
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In fact, we delivered some food on our first trip there,
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and we were charged quadruple the price in the market.
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And I had, I mean, in the end, I found the Nazarene Fund,
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It was actually here in North America that I found the one charity I trust
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not to waste the money, not to pocket the money.
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And so we just baby-stepped, started giving, started giving.
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And then we sent one of our reporters over there in November
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just to see with her own eyes, what are you guys doing on the ground?
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Well, we have them up on our website, rebelnews.com.
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In fact, we just strung them all together, about 45 minutes worth of video.
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Just one of our reporters on her own with a selfie stick and a cell phone
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hey, let's chip in, let's make this our Christmas drive.
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Now, it's in Canadian mini-buck, so it's slightly...
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But I'm delighted to give you a check for $30,907 from viewers of Rebel News.
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Our reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, went there, checked you guys out.
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Make sure they're doing what they say they're doing.
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And Sheila, I said, be skeptical because, you know, we're giving some dough.
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Sheila came back and she said, these are the best guys doing work in extremely difficult circumstances.
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So there's almost 31 grand there and we'll continue our monthly support.
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Simon Wiesenthal Center came to me about five years ago.
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He said, could you please stop talking about the coming persecution of the Jews?
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And he said, for this reason, I have to convince Jews to help the Christians because, mark my words,
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But I've got to get the Jews to pay attention to the beginning.
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And it was shortly after that, that we saw the beginning of ISIS.
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And so you, as a Jew, standing up for the Christians is just so great.
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Well, I mean, I've been to the Holocaust Memorial in Israel and there's a concept called the righteous Gentile.
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Someone like Oskar Schindler, who at great personal risk, would save Jews for no other reason than it's right.
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And I thought, surely it's time for all of us to be righteous towards.
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And these are the most ancient Christians in the world.
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You could see, you know, what Pope John Paul called the Jews are our older brothers.
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They're praying in a language so close to Hebrew.
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And they've been there for 1,400 years in some of these towns.
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And then, like the Holocaust would wipe out an entire Jewish town and just make it a rumor.
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And I'm of the belief that the only safe future for many of these people is to leave.
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But they don't have enough of contiguous territory to be protected.
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It's a little village here and a little town there.
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It's not like Israel that at least has borders that they can defend.
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But it's so amazing how they won't because they're like, we can't leave this.
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And they're the ones protecting this holy site that the apostles were on.
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But another part of me looks around and ISIS is gone.
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I truly believe that the Nazarene Fund has the right balance.
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And part of that is getting them out of there just to live on.
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But Trudeau put a limit on Christians, didn't he?
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The previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, had a special track for Christian refugees of persecution.
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Trudeau, one of his first acts was to stop that.
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Trudeau will bring in the wolves from these places.
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Some of the largest sources of immigration to Canada are Muslim countries.
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But can we please sort the wolves from the lambs?
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It would be as if in the 30s and 40s, the West was taking Germans but didn't sort the Nazis from the Jews.
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I'm happy to take the lambs from Iraq and Iran and Egypt where they're being persecuted.
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I wish, I mean, I love Samaritan's Purse and I love the Nazarene Fund.
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And thanks for letting me hang out with you today.
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Well, that wraps up another edition of the Ezra Levent Show.