Rebel News Podcast - General Motors took a taxpayer bail-out — but now it’s laying off 2,800 workers in Oshawa.

00:00:00.000 Tonight, just like Bombardier, General Motors took a taxpayer bailout, but now it's laying

00:00:05.280 off 2,800 workers in Oshawa. It's November 26th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:16.240 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:20.040 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:23.740 You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.

00:00:26.740 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my

00:00:31.760 bloody right to do so.

00:00:37.520 There's no good time to lose your job, but a month before Christmas has to be amongst

00:00:41.120 the worst. General Motors has announced that it will be shutting down all of its operations

00:00:45.640 in Oshawa, Ontario. Their plant will continue operating into the new year, but it's winding

00:00:51.660 things down. It'll be gone within a year. There has been a GM plant in Oshawa for

00:00:56.720 pretty much a century. 1918, if I'm not mistaken. At its height, they employed 40,000 people

00:01:03.380 in that city, a greater proportion than the Calgarians who work in the oil and gas industry.

00:01:10.180 The union that represents GM autoworkers, it used to be called the Canadian autoworkers,

00:01:14.580 now it's called Unifor. They seem to be caught by surprise by this.

00:01:19.360 They put up this press release late last night. While the union does not have complete details

00:01:26.320 of the overall announcement, we have been informed that, as of now, there is no product allocated

00:01:31.200 to the Oshawa assembly plant past December 2019.

00:01:36.540 Based on commitments made during 2016 contract negotiations, Unifor does not accept this announcement

00:01:42.640 and is immediately calling on GM to live up to the spirit of that agreement.

00:01:47.800 Unifor is scheduled to hold a discussion with General Motors tomorrow and will provide further

00:01:51.780 comment following the meeting. So that was last night. Now, you know Unifor. They've been in the

00:01:56.880 news a lot lately for every reason other than their autoworkers. A few weeks ago, they launched

00:02:02.380 a partisan campaign against Andrew Scheer, the leader of the Federal Conservative Party, saying

00:02:06.540 they're going to be his, quote, worst nightmare. Could be.

00:02:10.480 But the people losing sleep tonight are Unifor's own members, not Andrew Scheer.

00:02:15.960 The man in the middle of that picture there is the president of Unifor. Jerry Diaz is his name.

00:02:20.760 I suppose any union leader, especially of a large union, is a political figure by definition.

00:02:25.200 But Diaz really seems to come across as someone who thinks he leads a political party,

00:02:29.880 not someone whose chief job description is looking after the interests of his own dues-paying members.

00:02:35.040 Unifor is a private sector union, as opposed to most union members in Canada who are government

00:02:42.680 sector unions. While I think it's safe to say most government workers tilt left, I don't think

00:02:48.480 the same can necessarily be said about Unifor, at least all of its parts. It actually represents,

00:02:54.200 for example, thousands of workers in Alberta's oil sands. My point being, the political party that

00:03:00.800 Jerry Diaz wants to lead, it's in his own head. He doesn't speak for his members. Diaz loves

00:03:06.860 Trudeau, but I bet not one in ten of his Alberta members feels the same way. You see my point? It's

00:03:12.600 a personal indulgence on his part at the expense of his members. Sometimes Diaz is right. His union

00:03:18.080 represents thousands of journalists in Canada. At CTV, Global News, the Globe and Mail, places like that,

00:03:23.660 they're obviously pro-Trudeau. I'll grant you that. But Oshawa? You know, the federal MP there is named

00:03:31.420 Colin Carey, and he's a conservative MP. He's won five elections in a row, going back to 2004. By the

00:03:41.020 way, the liberals have come in third in Oshawa in every election since 2004, and they've never won in

00:03:47.660 that riding provincially. They got single digits there in the last provincial election. But Diaz is for

00:03:53.300 Trudeau. But if Jerry Diaz isn't campaigning for Justin Trudeau and campaigning against the

00:03:59.840 conservatives, he's probably busy attacking, oh, I don't know, Donald Trump. As part of his thank

00:04:06.480 yous to Jerry Diaz for his support, Justin Trudeau appointed Diaz to be on an advisory panel during the

00:04:12.420 rickety NAFTA renegotiations. I mean, I understand the idea. Unifor's members do a lot of trade with the

00:04:19.660 U.S., especially on the auto side. But unless I missed it, I didn't hear a word from Jerry Diaz

00:04:26.100 about the auto industry. It was all rants about the dairy cartel, which is odd, because dairy farmers

00:04:31.940 aren't members of Unifor. I mean, some of them are United Food and Commercial Workers Unions, but many

00:04:37.120 of them are just not in the union. But boy, was Jerry Diaz prepared to fight for the dairy cartel.

00:04:42.860 Hi, it's Jerry Diaz. I'm at the Canadian Embassy. I just left the meeting with representatives from

00:04:49.400 the Prime Minister's office, Ambassador McNaughton, Minister Chrystia Freeland. We had a good

00:04:54.480 discussion about how things unfolded last night and this morning. The facts are, the federal

00:04:58.940 conservatives are not helping at all. When Andrew Scheer makes statements that we should be

00:05:03.680 capitulating, basically, this should have been done a long time ago. He really doesn't know what

00:05:07.740 he's talking about. So what does Andrew Scheer suggest we should capitulate on? Should we walk

00:05:13.220 away from supply management? Should we throw the dairy farmers in Ontario and Quebec under the bus? 0.90

00:05:18.900 Should we be saying, listen, we don't care about our cultural exemption? We should be saying that to 0.95

00:05:23.800 Quebec, that we don't care about your culture. I think that's ridiculous. Should we be allowing Fox 0.98

00:05:29.060 TV to buy the CBC? Should we be getting rid of Canadian content? And then, of course, there's the

00:05:34.700 whole issue. Does Andrew Scheer believe that all disputes in NAFTA should be handled in U.S. courts?

00:05:40.600 So, Andrew, what exactly do you want us to capitulate on here? You should be ashamed of yourself.

00:05:46.680 Other than Canadian oil exports to the U.S., the auto industry's exports are by far our most

00:05:52.100 important sector. But Diaz was in lockstep with Justin Trudeau's weird strategy to ignore the important

00:05:59.360 stuff. And focus instead on weird ideological pet projects like feminism and global warming or 1.00

00:06:04.920 whatever. Things that have no place in a trade deal. I suppose the biggest mistake was Diaz agreeing

00:06:11.680 with Trudeau's dangerous strategy to insist on doing a deal with Mexico, a three-way deal,

00:06:18.560 rejecting Donald Trump's sensible proposal that America and Canada do a quick renewal of NAFTA between

00:06:24.620 the two of them. And then Trump can go battle it out with Mexico later. Why wouldn't we have agreed 0.50

00:06:30.860 to that? We have no natural trade quarrel with America. In fact, we're actually a higher cost

00:06:36.100 producer than them. Our jobs and factories move south, not the other way around. Trump has no beef

00:06:41.980 with us. Our trade with America is pretty balanced dollar for dollar between what we buy and sell to

00:06:47.500 each other. I think Trudeau liked the romance of being a savior to Mexico. Remember this three amigos 1.00

00:06:54.120 meeting? I think Trudeau loved the idea that he would selflessly come to the aid of a poor third

00:06:59.820 world country run by a socialist. The irony is Mexico had more than 50 private meetings with U.S.

00:07:06.880 negotiators where Canada wasn't in the room. And then Mexico and America did a bilateral deal

00:07:12.300 first. If you look at what we were forced to sign after, and Trudeau waited until literally hours

00:07:19.640 before the deadline. It actually capped the number of cars that can be made in Canada and sold in the

00:07:24.660 States and put other restrictions on our auto industry that we didn't have before. It was a

00:07:29.280 setback for our auto industry. Not a big one, but a setback. I didn't stop the Trudeau media from saying

00:07:36.280 it was the bestest trade deal ever. And that Chrystia Freeland, who Trump personally called out as being

00:07:43.160 irritating on the negotiating team. Well, the mainstream media says she's the bestest foreign 1.00

00:07:48.340 minister in the history of history. So, you know, it's settled. But that's life inside the Trudeau

00:07:53.360 bubble. And then this morning, reality hit pretty hard, didn't it? Let me read from the Wall Street

00:07:57.940 Journal, because these days, if you want honest reporting about something in Canada, you can't

00:08:02.000 really trust Canadian media because they're all in on the payroll of Justin Trudeau or about to be

00:08:06.980 with his $595 million slush fund. So this was printed on the Yahoo Finance website. But as you

00:08:13.860 can see, it was written by the Wall Street Journal. Headline, General Motors expected to shut down

00:08:19.160 operations in Oshawa, Ontario. Now, the story says that GM is cutting costs in a lot of places,

00:08:24.440 including in the U.S. But let me read to you a line that I haven't seen in the CBC or CTV or any

00:08:30.460 other Trudeau media outlet. Canada's auto industry, which is concentrated in southern Ontario, has

00:08:37.200 shrunk over the past decade as more factories moved to the southern U.S. and Mexico where labor

00:08:42.040 costs are cheaper. Canadian policymakers had hoped the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, reached

00:08:49.140 in late September with provisions requiring more work be done by higher wage workers, would help the

00:08:53.780 domestic industry. Today, Canada is among the most expensive countries in the world to build cars

00:09:02.080 and the highest cost market for car assembly in the North American free trade zone.

00:09:08.320 Huh. Here's what Buzz Hargrove, a past president of the Canadian auto workers, had to say. He lived and

00:09:14.840 breathed auto workers for years. He didn't hang out quite as much flying around on Justin Trudeau's

00:09:21.440 private jets in his day, in the prime minister of his day. Here's what Buzz Hargrove said in the Sun

00:09:27.240 today. He said, former Canadian auto workers head, Buzz Hargrove, told the Sun news of the closure left

00:09:33.780 him reeling. I'm shocked, he said. It seems like Trump's strategy is working beyond belief.

00:09:40.940 Exactly. And who do you think is going to get better? Do you think it's going to get better or worse

00:09:45.400 when Justin Trudeau's National Carbon Tax kit kicks in? We're talking about costs of production here,

00:09:50.700 aren't we? Whereas Donald Trump is actually cutting taxes. And he says, if anything, he's going to cut

00:09:57.040 taxes more and reduce red tape more for the auto industry. Remember, he's been talking about getting

00:10:01.060 rid of the extremely expensive fuel efficiency standards that's forced on Detroit. Now, this is

00:10:07.500 happening on Justin Trudeau's watch. It seems to happen a lot with him. Here's a story just two weeks

00:10:12.400 ago about Bombardier, the company that has received literally billions of dollars in bailouts

00:10:16.980 from Canadian taxpayers. Let me quote from this story in The Star. Bombardier said about 3,000 jobs

00:10:22.820 will be cut in Canada with the majority of those in Bombardier's home province of Quebec and 500 in

00:10:28.080 Ontario. Like Bombardier, GM was the recipient of billions of dollars in taxpayer larges. Actually,

00:10:35.640 GM got, and the auto sector in general, got far more than Bombardier. And in fairness, Stephen Harper

00:10:42.320 was part of that decision a decade ago as part of the massive auto bailout done in conjunction with

00:10:47.860 Barack Obama in the province of Ontario. So a lot of people were involved in some bailouts. Here's an

00:10:52.800 article from a few months ago, though. This is from June. Nearly $14 billion shoveled into the auto

00:11:00.940 industry, and much of it has just quietly been written off by the liberals. Here, let me read. Ready?

00:11:06.160 The Liberal government appears to have written off a taxpayer loan to the auto industry in March,

00:11:12.940 but is refusing to say how much the loan was for or to provide any other details.

00:11:16.720 Ottawa has been carrying large, stagnant loans to the auto sector on its books,

00:11:21.120 and repayments have been passed due since at least 2010.

00:11:26.700 Why? I mean, a child is a better negotiator than that. Much better. If you've ever had a child

00:11:32.760 try to haggle with you to stay up a little bit later, kids can be pretty good negotiators.

00:11:38.460 I say we put eight-year-olds in charge of our Canadian business negotiations, whether it's NAFTA

00:11:43.640 or Bombardier or General Motors. I really don't know how an eight-year-old could make it worse than

00:11:48.860 Trudeau has. I mean, just months ago, he forgave GM a massive debt and obviously got nothing in return.

00:11:57.280 They just shut down their Osso plant months after Trudeau gave him a free billion or whatever it was.

00:12:02.760 Maybe there's no way to have kept GM here. Maybe. But when the feds gave $10 billion to the auto

00:12:09.360 industry a decade ago and Ontario taxpayers gave billions more, surely there was a quid pro quo.

00:12:15.140 And if it was just to squeeze another decade out of a factory, well, that's more than a billion

00:12:20.680 dollars a year. For a factory with 2,800 people in it, you could have just cut every worker a million

00:12:25.960 dollar check and have been ahead of the game. It'll be interesting to see what Justin Trudeau and

00:12:30.520 Bill Morneau and Gerald Butts say and do today and in the days ahead. I mean, on the one hand,

00:12:36.860 they and Catherine McKenna have always railed against the fossil fuel economy. They've always

00:12:41.880 talked about phasing out gasoline-powered cars. Maybe you think they didn't mean it? Or do you

00:12:49.020 think they only meant it when it came to the oil industry itself, but not the people who burn oil

00:12:53.280 in their cars? You or the factories that make the cars? Here's Gerald Butts. I love showing this clip

00:12:58.460 because it's the truth. It's right out there. It's right on the internet. I don't have a secret

00:13:01.780 source. Here's Gerald Butts just a few months before quitting his anti-oil sands lobby gig

00:13:06.760 to be Trudeau's right-hand man.

00:13:11.000 Truth be told, we don't think there ought to be a carbon-based energy industry by the middle of this

00:13:15.860 century. That's our policy in Canada, and it's our policy all over the world.

00:13:19.640 You can choose to fight this fight on locking us into a high-carbon economy

00:13:24.180 for five decades, and I think that's a very reasonable perspective to take. In fact,

00:13:31.560 it's one we do take. So we don't think that—we think that the oil sands have been expanded too

00:13:37.420 rapidly without a serious plan for environmental remediation in the first place. So that's why

00:13:44.420 we don't think it's up to us to decide whether there should be another route for a pipeline.

00:13:49.640 Because the real alternative is not an alternative route. It's an alternative economy.

00:13:56.180 Well, you heard the man. He wants an alternative economy, no more of this gasoline fossil fuel

00:14:02.120 business. Now, that alternative economy is not here yet, but maybe he can hasten this coming

00:14:07.260 utopia by destroying the society we have now, shutting down some factories. I mean, it's not funny.

00:14:14.260 It's sad for 2,800 families, and it's not going to be the last. Here's an interview from May of this

00:14:19.500 year with Magna, the big auto parts manufacturer, great Canadian success story. Let me quote Don Walker,

00:14:24.560 their CEO.

00:14:25.040 I'm worried about what's going on in Canada, Walker told employees and shareholders gathered

00:14:30.100 in Markham, Ontario, on Thursday. I get very frustrated when I see the decisions being made

00:14:34.780 that put undue administrative costs and inefficiencies on our plants, specifically here in Ontario,

00:14:39.800 because we have to compete. We're not going to get business if we're forced to be uncompetitive.

00:14:43.620 If I look at after-tax returns, the US now has an advantage, he said. So if we have two

00:14:49.640 equal projects, jurisdiction A and jurisdiction B, and in jurisdiction B, I get more after-tax

00:14:53.960 dollars, that's where we're going to start to allocate more dollars. We have to think

00:14:57.580 about what the tax burden is on companies operating in Canada. So he said that back in

00:15:02.640 May. Do you think that problem is going to get better or get worse when Justin Trudeau brings

00:15:08.440 in his carbon tax full tilt? When Ontario power prices keep going up because Dalton McGinty

00:15:13.880 and Kathleen Wynne signed 20-plus-year deals with green lobbyists to buy their ultra-expensive,

00:15:19.900 unreliable solar power and wind power? Yeah, this GM plant isn't the last to go.

00:15:26.280 Now, as I say this, Trudeau, you know, he got up at the crack of 10, and he, about a quarter

00:15:32.360 to 11 this morning, he put out some little tweets saying he's deeply concerned. That's another

00:15:37.460 difference between him and Trump. Trump never stops working. I've never seen Trump take a

00:15:41.740 vacation in two years, have you? Other than maybe the odd golf game, but he plays less golf

00:15:46.600 than Obama did, and Trump actually owns golf courses. I think Trump only works. I think

00:15:51.340 that's all he does. And you can even see him tweeting about things after midnight and

00:15:55.800 at 6 a.m. He just works. Justin Trudeau, he's taken a month's worth of personal days this

00:16:02.120 year, and he didn't get around to weighing in on the auto thing until almost noon. Now,

00:16:08.160 what's he going to do? Now, I know that he'll be emotionally available. That's really his

00:16:13.960 strength, isn't it? He'll talk about how much he really cares. What's he actually going to

00:16:18.920 do? What can he do? Another bailout of the bailout? Will he give General Motors another billion

00:16:25.240 dollars to keep that factory open just for one more year? I mean, maybe. Maybe just enough to

00:16:29.500 get Trudeau through his 2019 re-election. Then again, Oshawa votes conservatives. So maybe those

00:16:34.800 2,800 unemployed families will be treated the same way as the 100,000 or so unemployed Alberta oil and

00:16:41.340 gas families. In other words, Trudeau really just doesn't care. Trudeau will give billions to dairy

00:16:46.280 farmers because, well, they're simply better. Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada 1.00

00:16:54.900 because, you know, poor Quebecers. Our oil and gas industry is down and out. Our auto industry is

00:17:01.560 failing. But don't you worry. You'll only get happy news about all this because the most important

00:17:06.920 people in the entire economy, more important than oil men or auto workers, are the political

00:17:12.540 journalists of Canada. And the one thing Jerry Diaz can take credit for is a $600 million slush fund

00:17:19.900 for Canadian reporters. So that's my best advice for these 2,800 hurting families. Make yourself feel

00:17:27.280 better. Just read news from the CBC or the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail. Their journalists will

00:17:32.980 tell you that it's not that bad at all. In fact, it's pretty great. I mean, just think of the carbon

00:17:37.440 emissions will save. You'll be just fine. That's what the Unifor journalists will say anyways.

00:17:44.880 Coming up, we'll talk to Manny Montanagrino about this. Stay with us.

00:17:47.800 As we negotiated the USMCA, as we made sure that we were doing the right things for Canada, the right

00:18:10.160 things for Canadians. And the key thing on that is always listening, learning, talking about how we're

00:18:16.120 going to build for a better future and thinking about that future with the long term, in terms of

00:18:20.420 your jobs until you retire, but also your kids' jobs and your grandkids' jobs. That kind of focus

00:18:26.080 needs to be at the centre of it.

00:18:27.580 Well, that's Justin Trudeau at a Chrysler plant in Windsor just last month, saying that he had not

00:18:34.100 only secured the jobs of the workers there, but their children and grandchildren. That's a 50-year

00:18:40.520 promise. Unfortunately, it didn't quite last 50 days. That Chrysler plant is still fine. But as you

00:18:48.060 just heard in my monologue, General Motors is shutting down its Oshawa plant completely. There

00:18:54.320 has been an auto factory in that city for one century. It's down to what you could call a skeleton

00:19:01.080 crew down to 2,500 plus 300 other contractors. 2,800 people. Used to be, oh, about 40,000 working

00:19:10.440 in Oshawa. No longer. Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Manny Montenegrino,

00:19:16.300 who was our guide during the NAFTA renegotiations. Manny's the president of ThinkSharp. It's great to

00:19:22.440 see you again, Manny. No one is happy about this. That's 2,800 families that have been put on notice

00:19:30.120 that they're going to be unemployed. It's sad. But it is also a day of politics because there's

00:19:34.660 always politics when it comes to the auto sector, isn't there? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And it is very

00:19:39.680 sad, but it is foreseeable. It's pretty simple that businesses look to improving their bottom lines

00:19:49.180 every year for the shareholders. I mean, that's a fact that cannot be overlooked. This plan by GM

00:19:56.260 started two years ago. They look to improve their shareholder value. Oshawa, I mean, if you add

00:20:07.000 what's happened in the last few years, the accelerating costs of electricity by the liberal

00:20:12.840 government, the provincial liberal government, the imposition of carbon taxes, the inability

00:20:19.340 for the federal government to match the corporate tax rate of America. I mean, we had our fiscal update

00:20:27.540 and the finance minister says we won't do that. Well, that just is another impediment for businesses

00:20:37.320 to stay or these multinational businesses to stay in Canada. So when you put it all together and GM is

00:20:43.560 making a decision, it's made decisions in other areas of the world, it's made decisions in America,

00:20:50.920 but about 40 to 50% of its decision is in Canada, reducing Canadian jobs. That's a big number when

00:21:00.360 you look at Canada only being one-tenth the size of the United States. So General Motors really picked

00:21:06.940 on Canada or their Canadian operations the most in their restructuring. And that has to do with all

00:21:13.420 those factors that I just mentioned. Yeah. What scares me is I was reading back in May, I just dug it

00:21:19.860 up, the CEO of Magna that does a lot of auto parts. It's not obvious. Magna is fairly well known,

00:21:26.620 but not as well known as GM or Ford. And the CEO couldn't have been clearer. And this was in May.

00:21:32.560 He said, if you look at the tax cuts that Trump brought in in January, it just is more expensive

00:21:41.020 to do business up here. So if a company is going to shut down a plant, they're more likely to shut

00:21:46.440 it down up here. If they're going to restructure, they're more likely going to move things to the

00:21:51.920 States. And he was, what scares me, Manny, is that this could be a domino and other dominoes may fall.

00:22:00.220 And God forbid, other factories, Magna, I think the industry is moving away like the Western Canadian 1.00

00:22:07.640 oil industry is moving. Well, exactly. I mean, when you talk about domino, it isn't just the auto

00:22:14.280 sector. The domino began, in my opinion, in the oil sector, in the pipeline sector. A great example

00:22:22.720 is Trans Mountain Pipeline. There was an election in 2005, I believe it was, in BC, where there was

00:22:30.640 opposition. The prime minister did absolutely nothing for a year and a bit until he received

00:22:37.380 a basic threat from Kinder Morgan, 30 days, and then acted by buying the pipeline, not putting in a

00:22:46.820 clause, not putting in an appeal. This is telling the business community at large, we're really not

00:22:53.820 open for business. So if you look at it, every aspect of it, if you look at the business confidence

00:22:59.320 index in America versus Canada, America is up 30 to 40 percent since Trump got elected. And we're down

00:23:06.720 about the same amount, 20 or 30 percent in business confidence. So when you're looking at, I mean, humans

00:23:12.640 are making decisions. They're around the board table. They're looking at the increasing taxes

00:23:17.080 in Canada. They're looking at the carbon tax. They're looking at the direction of the government.

00:23:20.980 They're looking at the business confidence. I mean, these people talk to each other. The oil

00:23:25.780 industry guys talk to the CEO of a big oil company or your CEO of General Motors. They're talking to each

00:23:32.840 other. They know what's happening. And you look at the totality of everything and you look at what's

00:23:37.120 happening in America where businesses are invited and businesses are being attracted. Where are you

00:23:43.440 going to make the decision? So you have to look at the totality of it and what you have. And here's

00:23:51.620 the big, big, big difference, Ezra. And I've advised big business CEOs in my legal career. There are

00:24:00.880 people that are looking for that one day, I'll say, approval. And there are people who plan for a

00:24:09.140 long term. Our prime minister is simply, and there's too much evidence not to agree with this point,

00:24:15.140 is simply looking for how can I get through this one day, this media one day to look good. Whereas

00:24:20.940 down south, the president is thinking, how do I plan a one, two year plan to make sure businesses come

00:24:27.560 here? And his plans by reducing taxes, by cutting regulation, by cutting burdensome carbon taxes or

00:24:36.420 carbon regulations, this frees business. And of course, businesses are going to be attracted to

00:24:41.820 there. And in Canada, all this prime minister needs to do is, how do I get by this news day by

00:24:49.140 saying something fluffy? What he said in your clip, we listen to business. Well, you clearly didn't

00:24:56.300 listen to GM. They've been talking about this for two years. It's clear that all businesses,

00:25:01.720 you have the oil patch leaving, the oil rigs are leaving Alberta, 70, 80% are now down in America.

00:25:09.060 Pipelines are not being built. You're not listening to anyone. I mean, clearly, so that is what is

00:25:15.340 happening in Canada. Yeah. You know, if I think of Justin Trudeau's key moments to talk about his

00:25:23.940 economic vision, I think, for example, when he spoke at Davos, Switzerland, right after Trump

00:25:30.540 announced his tax cut, so January this year, it was his chance to talk to the masters of the universe,

00:25:37.160 you know, the big CEOs. And he didn't, like you say, he didn't address the amazing comparative

00:25:44.200 advantage American businesses now have on taxes. He led with his male feminism schtick again. 1.00

00:25:50.520 I want to show you a clip from Trump. And frankly, you could pick this, you could find 20 clips from

00:25:56.600 Trump in the same vein. I'm just going to show you Trump. This is from last year. Just talking

00:26:03.300 about autos. He talks, you know, everyone knows the motto, make America great again. But other than

00:26:09.060 that, I think his most common saying, his catchphrase is buy American, hire American. And he's obsessed

00:26:17.080 with getting factories back into the States. Here's just one clip of many. I could give you 20 clips

00:26:22.060 like this. Take a look at this. Already we're seeing jobs coming back. Since my election, Ford has

00:26:28.940 announced 700 new jobs coming back to their plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. Fiat Chrysler has announced

00:26:39.240 that they will create 2,000 new jobs in Michigan and Ohio.

00:26:49.220 And just today, breaking news, General Motors announced that they're adding or keeping 900 jobs

00:26:57.000 right here in Michigan. And that's going to be over the next 12 months. And that's just the beginning, folks.

00:27:02.460 Now, Manny, as we said at the top, there are some GM cuts in the States too. But my point for showing

00:27:10.580 that clip is Trump is obsessed with bringing factories back. It's all he talks about domestically. I mean,

00:27:18.860 it's why he won so many Rust Belt States. Trudeau doesn't send those same symbolic messages to

00:27:26.040 companies that you will find a great home here. He talks about feminism and carbon taxes and they

00:27:33.480 don't want to hear it. Right. And you know what? We have to be honest about our review of the prime

00:27:41.180 minister and the president of the United States. The prime minister is, in my opinion, unconcerned

00:27:47.420 about industry of any sort in Canada. I mean, he will attend to it. He gets the photo ops. But his

00:27:55.280 major concern, and it's clear in his beginning of his NAFTA discussions, which is a big trade deal,

00:28:01.740 it was five virtue signaling causes. He's concerned about virtue signaling on every aspect, every tweet,

00:28:09.500 every message, every he's off. If you look at his tweet to going to Argentina, he talks about,

00:28:16.800 you know, getting women in the workforce. Like he's in every tweet. His focus is that. And

00:28:22.760 that's where his mind is. The president's focus is on jobs, is on businesses. And that's why their

00:28:31.240 GDP is so much stronger. That's why jobs are created so much more in America. And so that's what's

00:28:38.900 happening. So Trudeau is getting, the prime minister is getting exactly what he wants. He wants that

00:28:46.260 daily coverage that he's sitting there on virtue signaling clauses and really unconcerned. And we

00:28:52.460 can talk about many industries. It is the oil industry. It is, I mean, Bombardier, we gave a

00:28:58.980 bunch of money and they've fired a lot of people. So it isn't just the auto sector. It is all general

00:29:05.260 business malaise. You know, if you're building something, if you're touching something with your

00:29:09.960 hands, he's not interested. The prime minister is not interested in those jobs. He's interested in

00:29:15.960 those fancy jobs, not the kind of blue collar job. Whereas the president is interested in the blue

00:29:22.500 collar jobs. And those are what builds countries. Yeah. And by the way, a lot of those blue collar

00:29:27.640 jobs pay very well, I should add. Oh, yeah. Right. I have one last question for you. When I was reading

00:29:35.780 some more about this GM closure in Oshawa, it looks like they'll close down over the course of the

00:29:42.120 next 12 months. So the families are getting the bad news now. They will really have one year to wind

00:29:49.080 things down. That's enough to get Trudeau through his next election campaign. The plant, there will not

00:29:57.740 be the images of the plant actually closing, I don't think. Do you think Trudeau is going to try and

00:30:05.260 bargain with them and say, listen, I'll give you a billion. Just keep it open a little more. Do you

00:30:09.760 think he's going to try and and give them more subsidies to keep them afloat? Or do you think he's

00:30:16.600 just going to, you know, commiserate with them in a photo op and just not talk? I think I think he's

00:30:22.600 going to ignore it. And I think he can ignore it because no media is sitting there. And I tried to do

00:30:28.420 this. You know, as you know, I'm retired. I'm going through a bunch of information. I tried to count the

00:30:33.840 number of jobs near Ottawa. We had a couple of major plants in our in our suburbs left to America.

00:30:41.540 The media is not saying how many jobs are going to America as a result of the policies of the

00:30:48.420 liberal government. I know that they're 60, 70, 80 percent of the rigs are gone from Alberta and

00:30:54.520 they're in the States. We know the pipeline jobs. There's 8000 jobs are off. You know, no one's doing

00:30:59.460 a count. No one in the media. And, you know, there are thousands of people in the media that

00:31:04.220 can sit there and say, what's it cost with our direction, the liberals direction with the gender

00:31:09.760 budget and with respect to virtual signaling? How many jobs does that cost? And no one's done that.

00:31:16.520 I did do one analysis and I'll share with you. And it's called the prime minister talks about

00:31:22.200 how good the unemployment is, the unemployment rate in Canada. Well, that's a false figure. I never look

00:31:28.040 at unemployment. I look at participation rate. Participation rate is a better number. It tells

00:31:33.140 you it's scientifically better number. It tells you how many people are working in the population

00:31:38.420 of able bodied people. And it doesn't mean because the unemployment rate, once you're off UI,

00:31:44.780 you're not counted, although you're able bodied and willing to work. Our our participation rate since

00:31:50.840 the prime minister has been in power is down a point five percent, which is about 170,000 jobs.

00:31:58.540 And we're adding many more immigrants. So the population is increasing and people and less 1.00

00:32:05.080 people are working. Whereas in America, the participation rate is up. So that tells you what's

00:32:10.180 really happening in the job market. We are not creating the jobs to sustain either immigration 1.00

00:32:15.220 or normal growth in Canada. Yeah. Well, it's very sad. I mean, between the oil patch and the auto

00:32:20.300 industry, those are two key industries in Canada. And I I fear that we have yet to see the worst

00:32:26.680 in either. But Ezra, Ezra, Ezra, we're going to have a booming journalism industry. It's going to be

00:32:33.620 supported. Jobs are protected there. And that's at least that industry is somewhat protected.

00:32:41.900 You're right. You're talking about that five hundred and ninety five million dollar

00:32:47.340 slush fund for journalists. Well, I just want one journalist, one journalist to go to the number

00:32:53.560 of jobs that have left Canada to America as a result of the last two year plan. Just if there's

00:32:58.400 one out there and I might even pay for it myself. Yeah. Well, you know, it's probably a project for

00:33:03.220 us at The Rebel to try and compile that. I wonder if a think tank's on it. Manny, as always, it's great to

00:33:07.640 catch up with you. Thanks for your review of things. It's great to see you.

00:33:11.900 Well, there you have our friend Manny Montenegrino, the head of ThinkSharp. And he was one of our

00:33:18.000 guides through the whole NAFTA renegotiation process. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.

00:33:23.400 Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about Justin Trudeau being protested by 2,000 people

00:33:39.120 in Calgary. Robert writes, Trudeau and Butts are just laughing at them. They have no intentions of

00:33:44.260 getting the pipeline built that Alberta needs. Like TransCanada said, if C-69 passes, no pipeline

00:33:49.740 company in the right mind would propose building a pipeline. Yeah. I mean, gender analysis, emissions 0.98

00:33:55.860 analysis. We import oil from Saudi Arabia and Algeria via tanker ship. There's no tanker ship

00:34:03.960 ban for their tankers. And we import a lot of oil these days. I don't know if you know this,

00:34:08.560 by rail from the United States, including from the Bakken geological region in North Dakota.

00:34:16.520 Did you know that? We actually import oil from America. And what's the commonality between American

00:34:23.860 oil and Saudi oil? Neither of them has to pay a carbon tax in Canada. Neither of them has a gender 1.00

00:34:31.020 analysis or a carbon analysis, but they're allowed to come into the Canadian market. Trudeau puts those

00:34:36.640 analyses on our own domestic producers. He actually treats Canadian producers worse than foreign

00:34:43.920 producers. That's just weird. Al writes, instead of a noose shirt, he should have worn a Celine Dion

00:34:51.340 skull shirt. Then all would be sweetness and light. Al, you're so right. I tell you, I can't get some of

00:34:57.840 those Celine Dion images out of my head, especially the little demonic babies. What is she thinking? I

00:35:04.240 don't know. But you're right. I mean, if we're going to start having the RCMP investigate people with

00:35:08.660 shirts. And the RCMP did. From what I understand, I saw reports of the RCMP were investigating that

00:35:13.640 shirt. Are we going to shut down, you know, every college kid who wears the Che Guevara shirt or the

00:35:19.600 Mao shirt? Because to tell you one thing, it's a joke when you say, oh, come on, we've got to hang

00:35:24.440 Trudeau. But it's no joke. Che Guevara and Mao Zetong were murderers. And in Mao's case, it was in the 0.56

00:35:31.020 tens of millions. On my interview with Gabe Desjardins about residential schools, Don writes,

00:35:37.480 I'm sure the policy of sending Native children to residential school was made with good intentions.

00:35:41.460 I also believe that there were abuses at some schools, but it certainly wasn't every student

00:35:45.020 in every school, as we are constantly told. I believe there are many people who are successful

00:35:48.640 today who would not have been if they had not attended a residential school. Well, you're exactly 0.99

00:35:54.320 right. And that's exactly what I've been told now by two families that went through the

00:36:00.580 residential school process. Here in Toronto, we've just heard about a sexual assault at an elite

00:36:07.100 boy school called St. Mike's. I'm not blaming the saint part of St. Mike's. I'm not blaming the

00:36:12.460 Mike's part of St. Mike's or the Toronto part or anything. I'm just saying these things sometimes

00:36:17.080 happen. It's been tagged to the entire residential school that they were all abusive and it's been

00:36:24.240 hung around the neck of the church. I think that's some excusology to defame the church, but also to

00:36:33.080 revise the past so that it's only a narrative of grievance and none of those things are healthy.

00:36:40.860 On Trudeau's $595 million media slush fund, Bill and Barb write, you stress several times that the rebel is

00:36:48.300 the only source in opposition to mainstream media and not taking or wanting government money. Part of

00:36:53.980 the scandalous $595 million. A grant that you are the largest and I'm sure the most effective, but you

00:36:58.780 are not the only one. You have to agree that the Truth North Initiative and Spencer Fernando also do

00:37:03.760 great jobs and do not get funded. Even the National Citizens Coalition does a certain amount, but not on

00:37:08.500 the scale that rebel. Keep fighting for freedom, but don't over claim. That's a very interesting point.

00:37:14.780 And I did indicate that Black Locks reporter is also refusing to take handouts. And I went to get a

00:37:22.500 subscription on Black Locks, but I saw it was $314 a year and I want to show them some love, but I don't

00:37:28.580 want to pay $314 a year, so I'm not going to do that. But yeah, I follow Spencer Fernando. I think he's

00:37:36.380 great. Frankly, I've invited him to do some work with us, but he says he's too busy. He's a great

00:37:41.880 commentator. I don't think he goes out and breaks news. I don't think he does access to information

00:37:47.360 requests. I don't think he covers events. I think he's more a commentator on other news. Now, he's

00:37:54.260 great. I follow him closely. And obviously, he would never take money. But I don't know if I would

00:38:02.220 call him a news network. I'd call him an independent freelance pundit. And I don't think he would be

00:38:08.680 offended to be called that. True North Initiative, obviously, I'm a super fan. That's Candace Malcolm

00:38:13.940 and Andrew Lawton is with them now. And not only am I a fan of theirs, but we actually helped crowd

00:38:18.980 fund their flights to London to help report on the Tommy Robinson case. I have to say, though,

00:38:25.680 that was probably the first time they went out into the field to do that kind of journalism. Now,

00:38:31.280 Candace obviously does very important journalism, including breaking international scoops at the 1.00

00:38:37.500 Toronto Sun. And so, again, I'm not disparaging. I'm just distinguishing between The Rebel, which has

00:38:45.500 a couple dozen staff. We have on-air personalities. We have researchers. We have video editors, web

00:38:52.160 editors. We have 1.1 million YouTube subscribers. We have hundreds of thousands of clicks every day. I

00:39:00.060 don't know the exact number. It goes up and down. So I'm not saying there are no other voices. And the

00:39:05.880 National Citizens Coalition, frankly, they're not very active these days. I'm not saying there's no

00:39:11.000 one else. But I don't know if the True North Initiative would call itself a news organization.

00:39:16.520 And I think Spencer Fernando, he's definitely an opinion commentary journalist. But I just don't

00:39:22.180 think they're in the news gathering, reporting, full-time, full-tilt business. You know, maybe I'm

00:39:27.660 sounding defensive. I'm really not. There's other groups out there, too. There's Ontario Proud,

00:39:32.800 and now BC Proud and Alberta Proud. And they actually do some on-the-ground filmology a little

00:39:39.380 bit these days, and I hope they grow. I'm trying to think of some other groups. But they, you know,

00:39:45.120 those groups are more about Facebook memes, where they have a pithy saying and put it on Facebook and

00:39:50.520 get a lot of people to like. That's just a little bit different, I think. I'm not disparaging. I'm just

00:39:56.280 saying it's different. You tell me, am I sounding too defensive? I love all those. Every group I've just

00:40:01.120 listed. I admire. I click on. I retweet. But, you know, I think that the actual journalism, it's the

00:40:12.020 rebel. Let me just put it on the record. I hope those other groups grow mighty and help fight back,

00:40:20.740 because Lord knows we need the help. One more email. Eric writes, just subscribed to help the rebel.

00:40:28.400 Keep up the good fight against the bought and paid-for propaganda media. Give them hell. 0.98

00:40:33.760 We always do. And so do those other groups. So does Jeff Ball and McGowan at Ontario Proud, 0.99

00:40:38.740 and so does Canada Miss Malga and True North Initiative, and so does Spencer Fernando. All of a

00:40:43.320 sudden, I'm feeling bad that I said they weren't big and mighty media groups. They're just not.

00:40:48.040 But I hope they do grow. And we're, let me just say, we're very open to doing anything with them

00:40:54.200 that they find in their mutual interests. I mean, we have done some projects with True North, and

00:40:58.500 I'd be interested in doing anything with Spencer Fernando. That's it for today, my friends. And

00:41:04.380 until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night.

00:41:09.000 Keep fighting for free.

00:41:09.920 Keep fighting for free.

00:41:22.340 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - November 27, 2018

General Motors took a taxpayer bail-out — but now it’s laying off 2,800 workers in Oshawa.

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