Rebel News Podcast


Gerald Butts refuses to testify under oath. Why? Was he lying?


Summary

Gerald Butts takes the stand in front of a parliamentary committee, but refuses to take the stand under oath. Does he have a case to answer? Is he lying? Or is he just not a good enough lawyer? Ezra Levenant goes through some of Gerald Butts' testimony, and talks to Pardes Salah of Mediaite about Ilhan Omar.


Transcript

00:00:00.280 Hello, my rebels. Let me tell you a little bit about today's podcast.
00:00:05.800 I go through some of Gerald Butts' testimony before the Parliamentary Justice Committee.
00:00:11.240 I show you some back-and-forth banter with Lisa Rae. She did a pretty good job.
00:00:16.400 And then I tell you how I think it's going to all end.
00:00:18.640 I also talked to Pardes Salah of Mediaite about Ilhan Omar, the Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota.
00:00:25.040 So I'm glad you're listening.
00:00:25.840 Hey, can I try and convince you to buy a subscription to our TV version of this?
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00:01:16.420 Here you go.
00:01:17.040 Without further ado, today's Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:19.480 You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.
00:01:24.160 Tonight, Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau's right-hand man and the de facto prime minister,
00:01:29.260 takes the stand in Ottawa, but refuses to do so under oath.
00:01:33.460 I wonder why.
00:01:34.320 Was he lying?
00:01:35.640 It's March 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:40.020 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:43.840 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:47.460 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's
00:01:52.300 my bloody right to do so.
00:01:59.140 It's been the biggest scandal to rock Justin Trudeau's government.
00:02:02.560 Last month, the Globe and Mail reported that Justin Trudeau tried to pressure the Attorney
00:02:06.980 General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, into dropping criminal charges against a corrupt Montreal engineering
00:02:13.780 firm called SNC-Lavalin, even after Wilson-Raybould said no.
00:02:19.620 Well, the PMO and other senior Trudeau handlers met her and phoned her 20 times and emailed
00:02:27.260 and texted her even more.
00:02:28.640 When she wouldn't buckle, they sacked her from her job, appointing a more compliant Montrealer
00:02:36.300 named David Lamedi, whose downtown Montreal writing just happens to be where the head office
00:02:42.120 of that disgraced engineering firm is located.
00:02:45.700 You know it's a big deal when even the CBC starts to run criticisms of Trudeau, albeit from
00:02:53.280 one of the few independent-minded journalists left there.
00:02:55.460 Today, Neil MacDonald tore a strip off Trudeau, calling him shallow, calling him narcissistic,
00:03:01.300 calling him, frankly, stupid, mocking his meaningless word salad.
00:03:06.460 Of course, Jody Wilson-Raybould's own testimony last week was devastating to Trudeau.
00:03:12.240 We played it for you in full the day she did it.
00:03:16.180 Here are just two quick clips from that day to remind you.
00:03:19.820 I'm choosing these because they refer specifically to Gerald Butts, Trudeau's right-hand man, the
00:03:24.920 de facto PM, the man Trudeau himself says, that MPs should treat Gerald Butts, that if
00:03:30.680 he says something, they should take it as if Trudeau himself said it.
00:03:34.200 So Butts was testifying today.
00:03:36.260 Here's what Jody Wilson-Raybould said about him last week.
00:03:39.660 Jerry said, quote,
00:03:40.920 See, that's the thing.
00:03:50.200 It's illegal to interfere with a criminal prosecution in any manner.
00:03:56.280 And then this.
00:03:58.280 Jerry talked to me about how the statute was a statute passed by Harper and that he does
00:04:03.860 not like the law.
00:04:04.760 I said something like that is the law that we have.
00:04:09.160 Yeah, there's a deliciousness here.
00:04:11.980 Stephen Harper brought in an anti-corruption law and it actually worked.
00:04:17.420 It caught a corrupt government, didn't it?
00:04:20.060 Now, it's one thing for Jody Wilson-Raybould to say what she said.
00:04:24.280 But who knows?
00:04:25.040 Maybe she had an axe to grind.
00:04:26.640 After all, she was sacked as attorney general by Trudeau.
00:04:29.980 So maybe it was sour grapes.
00:04:32.520 But then this week, Trudeau's most competent cabinet minister, that's what people say,
00:04:37.820 Jane Philpott is her name, resigned, putting out a shocking, blunt statement saying she just
00:04:46.060 couldn't support Trudeau and the cabinet anymore, given what she had learned about this matter
00:04:51.740 and its lack of ethics.
00:04:53.320 Stunning.
00:04:54.720 Well, today, Gerald Butts finally took the stand.
00:04:57.100 Well, not quite.
00:04:58.120 You see, when you say the phrase, take the stand, it implies that you swear on a Bible
00:05:03.740 to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
00:05:06.720 It's a moral statement to tell the truth, but it's also a legal statement because if you
00:05:12.200 lie under oath in a proceeding like this, you're guilty of perjury.
00:05:17.260 You could theoretically go to jail.
00:05:20.000 Now, before Butts took the stand, the conservatives introduced a motion to have Butts swear an oath
00:05:26.280 to tell the truth, and the liberals voted against that.
00:05:30.760 Then the conservatives put a motion to ask Butts voluntarily to willingly swear an oath
00:05:37.460 to tell the truth.
00:05:38.300 And again, the liberals blocked that.
00:05:40.360 They wouldn't even put that request to Butts.
00:05:42.900 Now, Butts was sitting right there watching all this, and indeed, he chose not to swear an oath.
00:05:48.720 Butts, I'm sorry, that is the weirdest thing you can imagine.
00:05:52.200 How much more obvious can it get?
00:05:54.040 This is a contest of credibility.
00:05:56.300 And Trudeau's guy won't swear an oath to tell the truth, and Trudeau's MPs blocked it?
00:06:02.640 It's so obvious.
00:06:03.860 Okay, I'd like to show you a few clips of his testimony.
00:06:06.940 I've got about half a dozen.
00:06:07.760 It was mainly a fog machine.
00:06:10.980 Low energy, lots of fuzzy language.
00:06:13.940 The opposite of the ranting ideologue that Gerald Butts shows himself to be on Twitter every day.
00:06:20.020 I mean, Butts is the guy who literally calls his opponents Nazis.
00:06:25.680 In this tweet here, he's implying, I'm a Nazi.
00:06:28.520 I guess I'm a Jewish Nazi.
00:06:29.860 But I think someone said, yeah, Jerry, that's not the right approach to take in Parliament today.
00:06:36.500 Anyway, reminder, this is the guy, if you're talking about corruption here, this is the guy who padded his expenses, who personally pocketed $127,000 just to move from Toronto to Ottawa.
00:06:52.140 And then he hid those expenses from Canadians, and he only grudgingly paid a fraction of it back when he was caught.
00:06:59.200 He's just as corrupt as Trudeau, and he wouldn't swear an oath to tell the truth here today.
00:07:03.780 With that in mind, here you go.
00:07:06.140 Here is Gerald Butts, some clips from him, in front of Parliament's Justice Committee.
00:07:11.620 Unsworn testimony.
00:07:13.540 Take a listen.
00:07:15.660 I am not here to quarrel with the former Attorney General, or to say a single negative word about her personally.
00:07:22.180 Yeah, and then he proceeded for the next hour to call her a liar in about 17 different ways.
00:07:33.400 Here, watch a little more.
00:07:34.260 What I am here to do is to give evidence that what happened last fall is, in fact, very different from the version of events you heard last week.
00:07:43.860 It is based on direct communications with the former Attorney General and her staff,
00:07:49.140 contemporaneous notes I took in meetings I attended personally,
00:07:52.500 and debriefs from people who attended meetings I did not.
00:07:55.300 I guess my second point is that he did not provide the meticulous meeting-by-meeting rebuttal that Jody Wilson-Raybould had.
00:08:11.620 She had dates, times, places, names, who emailed her, who phoned her, who said what.
00:08:19.480 Gerald Butts had a lot of feelings, and I'll show you a little bit of that later on.
00:08:23.180 But he said some interesting things that I think gave away the game.
00:08:27.840 Their general response was, sure, we tried to persuade her.
00:08:33.900 We didn't pressure her.
00:08:35.420 It was persuasion that's different.
00:08:36.980 And, by the way, it was about jobs.
00:08:39.940 Here, take a listen for a minute.
00:08:42.080 The Prime Minister gave and maintained clear direction to the PMO and PCO on this file.
00:08:47.820 That direction was to make sure the thousands of people whose jobs were, and it bears repeating, are at risk, were at the forefront of our minds at all times.
00:08:57.880 If anything could be done to protect those innocent people, we were told to work with the professional public service to make sure that option would be given every due consideration.
00:09:08.860 He told us to keep in mind, at all times, that the decision to direct the DPP rests with the Attorney General and the Attorney General alone.
00:09:19.400 We implemented that direction faithfully and with integrity.
00:09:22.600 I was personally involved in the file on only a few occasions, but it was principally my responsibility to ensure that the Prime Minister's direction was followed by PMO staff.
00:09:34.160 I have no doubt that they did so to the highest standards.
00:09:38.200 He talked about the thousands of innocent people whose jobs were at stake.
00:09:46.800 I should tell you that in the course of today's testimony, both by him and others, not a single person, including Gerald Butz, had any evidence whatsoever that prosecuting this corrupt company would cause any job losses whatsoever.
00:10:03.060 In fact, there was evidence to the contrary, the claim that maybe SNC-Lavalin would leave Montreal.
00:10:09.400 They actually have a legal agreement that they must keep their headquarters in Montreal to at least the year 2024.
00:10:16.680 But that whole argument that it was about jobs, it was about jobs, even that is not acceptable under the law.
00:10:26.140 Now, you'll remember that Butz just said, Justin Trudeau directed us that the decision here is for the Attorney General to make about the Director of Public Prosecutor.
00:10:34.880 Do you actually think Justin Trudeau said that?
00:10:38.640 Do you actually think Justin Trudeau had that kind of a command of the situation?
00:10:43.000 I don't think we can take Gerald Butz at face value.
00:10:46.660 What he's trying to do, though, is saying, sure, we broke a few eggs to make this omelet, but we were doing it to save jobs.
00:10:53.960 But that's the thing. See, the Canadian Criminal Code specifically says that economic matters are not relevant to whether or not you can prosecute a criminal.
00:11:06.140 It's just not how we do things in Canada.
00:11:10.160 Otherwise, we would literally favor any rich person, any big company, and let them off, but just go after the poor people.
00:11:16.400 Think about it. Put that up just for a second.
00:11:17.540 Again, I'm going to read. This is from the Criminal Code.
00:11:22.900 This is on deferred prosecutions. This is what SNC-Lavalin asked for.
00:11:28.080 Look at this. This factors not to consider.
00:11:31.980 It is actually phrased that way.
00:11:35.100 Despite paragraph 2i, if the organization is alleged to have committed an offense under Section 3 or 4,
00:11:42.080 the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the prosecutor must not consider the national economic interest,
00:11:52.000 the potential effect on relations with the state other than Canada,
00:11:56.260 or the identity of the organization or individual involved.
00:12:00.460 Must not.
00:12:02.660 Factors not to consider.
00:12:05.420 So this whole jobs, jobs, jobs argument, that's specifically not allowed in a consideration to drop charges.
00:12:15.140 Otherwise, every big company could simply break the law all the time and say,
00:12:20.060 yeah, really wish you could prosecute us, but you see, we've got a lot of people working here.
00:12:25.160 Let's watch some more clips.
00:12:27.060 It was not about second-guessing the decision.
00:12:29.360 It was about ensuring that the Attorney General was making her decision with the absolute best evidence possible.
00:12:37.040 Fresh in Our Minds was a recent federal court of appeal decision that had found that the government
00:12:42.200 had not concluded consultation sufficiently in connection with the TMX pipeline.
00:12:46.860 The TMX pipeline is the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline, a, what, $15 billion, $10, $15 billion project
00:12:57.300 that would double the amount of oil shipped from Alberta to B.C.
00:13:02.040 That actually is a jobs, jobs, jobs project that the liberals shut down, along with all the other pipelines,
00:13:08.880 to pretend that the liberals care about jobs is a bit of a joke.
00:13:11.920 But you see his excuse there.
00:13:13.280 He said, well, we had to really, really think about it.
00:13:16.020 I, Jody Wilson-Raybould wasn't thinking about it enough, because, you know,
00:13:20.140 we had just been through the Trans Mountain Pipeline project.
00:13:22.960 He's saying that because they were shut down, because they didn't consult widely with Aboriginal bands there.
00:13:29.240 That's what the federal court said.
00:13:31.180 They'd better consult widely here, but there's no comparison at all.
00:13:36.660 Consulting with dozens of Indian bands is something that you go out and do,
00:13:40.480 and you either do a good job of it or you don't.
00:13:43.000 But there's no consultation with Indian bands about whether or not SNC-Lavalin paid $48 million worth of bribes in corrupt Libya.
00:13:54.280 They did.
00:13:55.860 There's no question that the Qaddafis stole $120 million as part of this SNC-Lavalin deal.
00:14:04.840 There's no more facts out there.
00:14:06.360 There's no facts that are new.
00:14:09.040 There's no new evidence.
00:14:10.760 To dare to compare the lawful consultations by the Trans Mountain Pipeline to SNC-Lavalin is a trick,
00:14:20.220 a monstrous trick that actually takes advantage of legitimate oil and gas workers
00:14:26.340 and compares them to the pure corruption of Libya a decade ago.
00:14:30.100 There's no new facts.
00:14:31.640 It's outrageous.
00:14:32.240 Here's some more clips from Gerald Butts.
00:14:34.580 On November 26, she wrote,
00:14:37.000 Hey there, GB.
00:14:38.120 Do you want to chat?
00:14:39.640 I have a number of things to bring up.
00:14:41.800 Maybe you do as well.
00:14:43.560 Tomorrow after cabinet, perhaps.
00:14:45.780 Thanks, Joad.
00:14:47.420 I replied,
00:14:48.740 Sure, I'm heading to Toronto right after, but could delay 10 minutes.
00:14:53.240 She replied,
00:14:54.520 Happy to chat another time with you if heading to TO.
00:14:58.900 Think this convo may be a bit longer than 10 minutes.
00:15:02.780 We parted that meeting as friends and colleagues and exchanged personal text messages a couple of hours later.
00:15:08.500 I wrote, Nice to see you.
00:15:11.260 She replied, Nice to see you too.
00:15:13.840 Thanks for the convo.
00:15:15.240 Please say hello to the PM.
00:15:17.360 Heard him speaking my language in his speech.
00:15:20.120 Good luck in Montreal.
00:15:21.800 We stick to our guns slash plan.
00:15:23.800 We will be good.
00:15:24.480 As you will note, SNC-Lavalin is not mentioned in these exchanges at all.
00:15:32.020 You see what he did there?
00:15:33.400 So he is quoting Jody Wilson-Raybould's personal text messages to him that show they were friendly.
00:15:42.460 Thanks for the convo.
00:15:43.680 Say hi to the PM.
00:15:45.660 So what he's doing is exactly what Gian Gomeschi did when he abused women.
00:15:51.760 He held on to texts after the abuse.
00:15:56.460 And this isn't controversial.
00:15:57.740 This all came out in the court.
00:15:59.660 He held on to texts so he would punch a woman in the face.
00:16:03.420 And if they had any interaction with him after that, he would hold on to that text as proof.
00:16:08.000 Well, she couldn't have really been mad because she was civil to me later.
00:16:11.820 That's a form of what Gerald Butts is doing here.
00:16:15.040 Oh, she couldn't have been pressured.
00:16:17.140 She couldn't have been corrupted because you see here, I just read three friendly texts from her where she said, thanks for the convo.
00:16:25.700 Say hello to the prime minister.
00:16:27.240 So, you know, you can't trust her.
00:16:29.500 She's a liar.
00:16:30.740 False accusations.
00:16:32.060 Remember, he said he was going to start off by not casting aspersions.
00:16:35.140 But there's another layer here besides that tactic of, well, obviously she wasn't pressured.
00:16:41.740 By the way, there were ten meetings and ten phone calls in addition to any texts or tweets.
00:16:47.460 But how did Gerald Butts get those text messages?
00:16:51.920 I know that sounds like a strange question, but, of course, those texts are government property on government cell phones.
00:16:57.700 And, of course, he resigned from the government weeks ago.
00:17:00.420 So how did he get those?
00:17:02.280 And how did he get just those?
00:17:05.440 Well, he was asked that, and I think we'll show you some clips in a moment.
00:17:09.100 And he said, oh, well, I don't really know, but my lawyer sort of got them, and don't ask me about that.
00:17:15.360 So those texts were given to Gerald Butts in a process he doesn't know, by someone he doesn't know,
00:17:22.660 to put the prime minister in the best possible light.
00:17:26.380 But no other texts were released to the public.
00:17:29.220 We don't know what else was said.
00:17:31.720 This is another stitch-up.
00:17:33.700 Here, let's watch some more.
00:17:35.740 I am fully aware that two people can experience the same event differently.
00:17:41.660 I believe that the minister shared my interpretation of our dinner,
00:17:45.400 and I only quote these messages so you can appreciate why I was so surprised to hear months later
00:17:51.560 that the minister experienced that dinner as pressure.
00:17:54.340 I do not see how our brief discussion of that file constituted pressure of any kind.
00:18:01.060 If you close your eyes, we experience the same thing differently.
00:18:08.420 I was surprised to hear her say that.
00:18:10.800 I thought we were fine.
00:18:12.380 That's exactly the words that Justin Trudeau used when asked about his sexual assault of Rose Knight,
00:18:22.000 the young reporter in Creston, B.C. in the year 2000.
00:18:24.760 He said, well, I respect her right to have experienced that event differently.
00:18:29.480 The exact same language.
00:18:32.900 Gerald Butts clearly wrote the same alibi that Justin Trudeau used back then that he's using now.
00:18:40.420 Well, sure, she meticulously proved that she felt pressured, but I got to tell you, you know,
00:18:47.940 cuckoo, you know how girls can be.
00:18:50.600 I respect her and her ability to experience it that differently.
00:18:56.220 Cuckoo, you know, I respect you for being that crazy, but yeah, no, it didn't happen.
00:19:04.840 He's calling her a liar.
00:19:06.680 He's calling her a liar.
00:19:07.760 Funny, though, he's the one who refused to swear an oath.
00:19:12.440 Here, watch a little more.
00:19:14.500 The second and final meeting I had on the file was with Jessica Prince, the minister's chief of staff, and Katie Telford.
00:19:21.100 There was no urgency to attend that meeting.
00:19:24.100 I remember that meeting very, very differently than the account given last week.
00:19:28.240 I remember Ms. Prince saying that the minister didn't want to consider quote-unquote political factors in the decision and was worried about the appearance of political interference.
00:19:39.120 I said that it's the minister's decision, of course, but to my mind, 9,000 people are not a political issue.
00:19:47.120 Again, it's a lie with no evidence behind it.
00:19:52.580 Prosecuting SNC-Lavalin for a crime.
00:19:54.960 SNC-Lavalin is a multi-billion dollar company.
00:19:58.340 Prosecuting it for a crime is not going to push it out of business.
00:20:01.720 It'll be an embarrassment, and it'll probably cost it.
00:20:04.780 I don't know, 48 million bucks, the money they stole and paid in bribes?
00:20:08.720 Yeah, they can obviously afford 48 million bucks in bribes.
00:20:11.580 They can afford 48 million bucks in fines.
00:20:14.000 But it's not going to put 9,000 people out of work.
00:20:16.840 He kept saying that, and I'm sure you'll see the media party and the Justin Journos who were signing up for their bailout repeating that.
00:20:25.420 But there was no evidence offered whatsoever that 9,000 people would be put out of work.
00:20:30.620 And even if, in some hypothetical scenario that was not proven, even if SNC-Lavalin were to go out of business, that doesn't mean that those engineers and other people working for the company would never get work.
00:20:42.980 They would reassemble in an ethical company.
00:20:45.640 They would immediately be snapped up.
00:20:47.660 Probably a manager at SNC-Lavalin would say, OK, you 10 guys, we've been working together.
00:20:52.840 Let's go start our little company.
00:20:54.000 It's a lie to say 9,000 jobs would be lost.
00:20:58.460 It's a joke to think that the same Gerald Butts that killed three pipelines with multiple thousands of jobs lost cares about jobs.
00:21:09.600 But it's a trick.
00:21:11.220 And it's an illegal trick, as I showed you.
00:21:13.920 Economic factors are specifically not to be considered in the prosecution.
00:21:20.720 I think we have some more clips.
00:21:21.720 Go ahead.
00:21:22.940 This, to me, begs the entire question of what exactly constitutes pressure.
00:21:27.380 According to the former minister's testimony, 11 people made 20 points of contact with her or her office over a period of close to four months.
00:21:37.840 Four of these people never met with the attorney general in person.
00:21:42.120 In my case, the attorney general solicited the meeting.
00:21:45.200 That's two meetings and two phone calls per month for the minister and her office on an issue that could cost a minimum of 9,000 jobs.
00:21:56.340 Oh, now it's a minimum of 9,000 jobs.
00:22:01.060 So who knows?
00:22:01.660 I mean, this could cost a million jobs.
00:22:05.080 No evidence for it.
00:22:05.880 He was asked repeatedly about that, including by Elizabeth May.
00:22:09.460 Funny enough.
00:22:11.300 Now, he's saying, well, listen, 20 phone calls and meetings.
00:22:14.600 You know, that's not a lot of pressure.
00:22:16.940 He said he was just trying to persuade not to pressure.
00:22:19.340 And no, no, no, it wasn't political, even though Jody Wilson-Raybould said that Justin Trudeau's re-election was specifically a reason that Justin Trudeau demanded she reconsider.
00:22:32.660 I want to read to you another section of the Criminal Code.
00:22:36.020 I showed you the section that said factors not to consider.
00:22:39.060 I showed you this the other day.
00:22:40.180 It's obstruction of justice.
00:22:41.840 Section 139.2 of the Criminal Code.
00:22:43.380 Everyone who willfully attempts to obstruct, pervert, or defeat the course of justice is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.
00:22:55.740 Everyone who willfully attempts in any manner other than a manner described in subsection 1, and that was financial manner.
00:23:03.420 So it doesn't have to be undue influence.
00:23:07.100 Gerald Butts is saying, well, sure, there were 20 attempts, but, you know, it was over a few months.
00:23:12.020 No, no, no.
00:23:13.580 It doesn't have to be undue pressure or sustained pressure or gang-like pressure.
00:23:19.280 Any manner.
00:23:20.500 Any manner.
00:23:21.520 Oh, no, it was just 20 times.
00:23:23.020 I mean, come on, grow up.
00:23:24.860 But as we learned in Jody Wilson's own testimony, the decision had been made, and still the pressure came.
00:23:31.400 All right, I'm not going to show you any more of Gerald Butts' testimony.
00:23:35.360 I thought it was full of vagueness.
00:23:37.440 He said 9,000 or more jobs would be at risk.
00:23:41.280 He never substantiated that.
00:23:43.780 And he more or less called Jody Wilson-Raybould a liar throughout and selectively released text messages that suited him.
00:23:53.080 I should tell you, the conservatives moved a motion asking that all text messages be released.
00:23:59.740 And the liberals blocked that, too.
00:24:01.760 Gee, it's almost like they don't want the facts to come out.
00:24:03.860 All right, well, after Gerald Butts' self-serving testimony, which I have to say was very out of character for him, I showed you that online where he's unguarded, where he's himself, he's the most partisan, vicious man around.
00:24:19.000 Here he was low energy and polite, even, politely calling Jody Wilson-Raybould a liar.
00:24:24.660 But then Lisa Raitt, a conservative cabinet minister who is actually a lawyer herself, I believe, started to press Gerald Butts with a few questions.
00:24:32.560 I want to show you some of those interactions.
00:24:34.260 We have a couple of back and forth.
00:24:36.600 Here, take a look at this.
00:24:38.500 Mr. Butts, you said that you reviewed your texts since you have resigned from PMO.
00:24:43.900 How did you still have possession of your government phone?
00:24:46.380 I acquired the ability to review my texts through my counsel.
00:24:52.220 I do not have possession of my government phone.
00:24:53.980 You don't have your phone.
00:24:54.740 So you received the access to the phone?
00:24:57.440 Is that what you're saying?
00:24:58.540 I am, however, my legal counsel got the texts.
00:25:02.700 That's how I got them, through my legal counsel.
00:25:04.400 So they did a review of records and they produced the texts to you?
00:25:10.800 Well, I'm not sure what you're asking, Ms. Raitt.
00:25:15.120 I'm asking how, if you gave up your phone when you left the PMO, that you still had access to the phone to produce the texts today?
00:25:24.080 You said you didn't.
00:25:25.160 You received it from your legal counsel.
00:25:26.820 That's true.
00:25:27.120 And I'm asking who then picked the texts that you were to receive and look at?
00:25:31.100 You may recall there was a small story on the front page of the Globe and Mail about this a few weeks ago.
00:25:38.860 And when that story ran, I said to myself, actually, it wasn't when the story ran.
00:25:45.640 It was the next day when I got a very specific question from the Globe and Mail through the office directed at me about my meeting with Minister Wilson-Raybould.
00:25:57.940 I believe they were even specific enough to say at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, where my first instinct was to look at my phone and see if I remembered it as correctly as I thought I did.
00:26:12.500 You'll notice he didn't answer the question.
00:26:14.320 He gave a roundabout story, but he didn't answer who chose the texts and how did you get it.
00:26:21.480 That's a skillful liar.
00:26:23.360 Here, watch a little more.
00:26:25.460 Mr. Butts, did you know that on September 17th, Jody Wilson-Raybould indicated that she instructed her staff to ensure they had a very detailed chronology of all meetings and conversations about the SNC-Lavalin and deferred prosecuting agreements because she was worried about what was going to be happening in the coming months?
00:26:45.180 Were you aware of that?
00:26:45.880 I was not aware of that, no.
00:26:47.040 Well, she did, which I found interesting.
00:26:48.940 As we were talking about what the Prime Minister's office staff was doing to try to get to the Director of Public Prosecution, the second type of legal opinion that was sought was different, and this time it was a legal opinion sought on the actual Director's decision to not grant a deferred prosecution agreement.
00:27:11.860 Were you aware that Mr. Elder and Mr. Bouchard requested that?
00:27:16.560 I'm not even sure I know what that means, Ms. Wright, to be honest.
00:27:21.540 It sounds like you are a lawyer, correct?
00:27:24.060 I am.
00:27:24.740 I am not.
00:27:25.720 These are important issues, Mr. Butts, and because you're testifying here that you are the link between the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's office, and yet the Prime Minister's staff was clearly over the line of appropriateness.
00:27:38.500 That's testimony from Jody Wilson-Raybould, and that's my assumption based upon the fact that she put forward.
00:27:43.980 So, at the end of the day, you are responsible for these matters, and your responsibility flows up to the Prime Minister.
00:27:50.320 That is correct.
00:27:51.320 I am also testifying that if anyone crossed a line, it is the responsibility of the Minister to inform somebody about that.
00:28:00.800 You see, there was two things he did there.
00:28:04.760 He was asked a technical question about why people in the Prime Minister's office were meddling with a decision made by the prosecutor.
00:28:12.280 It wasn't the Prime Minister's decision to make.
00:28:14.800 It was the Attorney General's.
00:28:16.060 And did you see his answer?
00:28:17.700 Well, I'm just a simple boy from the country.
00:28:21.880 I don't know about all this law-talking stuff.
00:28:24.780 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:28:27.780 You're the godfather.
00:28:28.920 You're the head of the Libranos.
00:28:30.100 You can't just say, I'm not a lawyer.
00:28:32.380 I don't know about all this law-talking stuff.
00:28:35.640 And then the follow-up question there, where he said that, where he was asked about the responsibility flowing upwards,
00:28:46.800 he never rebutted the actual allegation.
00:28:51.140 He gave fuzz and fog, and he didn't do it.
00:28:54.800 But what I think he achieved today was he gave enough fog, enough vagueness, enough talking points.
00:29:05.700 He certainly mentioned jobs that all the pro-Trudeau activists, all the party loyalists out there have something to hang on.
00:29:14.600 They've decided they're going to throw Jody Wilson-Raybould under the bus, but very politely.
00:29:19.760 They've decided they're not going to apologize for anything.
00:29:22.200 I don't know if you saw the news story the other day where Trudeau was floating trial balloons.
00:29:27.640 Maybe I'll make a statement of contrition.
00:29:30.160 They've obviously decided not to do that.
00:29:32.180 But I'm not going to spend any more time on the exchange.
00:29:35.680 It went on for hours.
00:29:37.440 Frankly, I watched the whole thing today.
00:29:39.080 I spent almost my whole day watching it.
00:29:41.620 Here's what happened in Parliament today.
00:29:44.760 Jody Wilson-Raybould's testimony remains uncontroverted.
00:29:49.320 There were a few interesting details that Gerald Butts brought forward.
00:29:52.340 For example, he said that Jody Wilson-Raybould was offered the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio and Cabinet but declined it.
00:29:59.340 Okay, that's interesting, but that's got nothing to do with her being fired from Attorney General.
00:30:04.360 Other than that, all we heard is a series of Gerald Butts saying,
00:30:08.300 Well, I don't know about what that guy did, and I don't know about what that guy did,
00:30:11.580 but all Trudeau did, if he did anything, was stand up for jobs.
00:30:16.760 It's just simply not what the law allows.
00:30:19.920 I should say that after Gerald Butts testified, there was more testimony from Michael Wernick,
00:30:26.100 the clerk of the Privy Council.
00:30:29.180 He's supposedly the head of the nonpartisan civil service,
00:30:33.660 and his comments today were so extreme and bizarre.
00:30:37.360 They were the opposite of Gerald Butts, who was on his best behavior.
00:30:41.280 Michael Wernick went unhinged.
00:30:43.140 In fact, he started today by complaining about mean tweets that he had received.
00:30:49.300 I've never seen such a partisan performance by it.
00:30:52.240 In fact, the NDP's Charlie Angus was probably the toughest,
00:30:55.240 and basically said the guy was a liar who should step down.
00:31:00.240 So what's the takeaway today?
00:31:01.580 I don't want to take up...
00:31:03.120 It was hours of testimony, and there were lots of interesting points.
00:31:06.960 I thought it was worth going through Geordie Wilson-Raybould's entire testimony
00:31:12.380 because it was so fact-packed and so shocking.
00:31:16.600 Today's testimony by Gerald Butts was not shocking.
00:31:19.260 It was embarrassing in that it was basically calling her a liar.
00:31:27.480 It was embarrassing in that it was contrary to what the law itself said.
00:31:32.880 But it comes down to this.
00:31:35.680 Justin Trudeau and his team have decided to brazen this out.
00:31:39.540 They've decided to go all the way through.
00:31:41.740 They've decided it's faster to go across than to turn back.
00:31:45.180 And they're going to do that, and they're going to go into the next election saying,
00:31:49.100 we did it for jobs.
00:31:50.960 The only people who I think can stop this are the police, the RCMP.
00:32:00.500 Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott both say that the law was broken in terms of obstruction.
00:32:06.920 Five attorneys general, former attorneys general from across the country,
00:32:10.100 have written to the RCMP asking for an investigation.
00:32:12.700 Will they do that?
00:32:15.620 If they do, I think it'll be the end of Justin Trudeau.
00:32:18.480 But if they don't, I think he might just get away with it.
00:32:22.880 The election is still more than six months off.
00:32:25.760 I think the press will lose interest in this,
00:32:28.180 especially as it comes time to cash those $600 million checks in the bailout.
00:32:32.880 Yeah, I think we saw today the liberal counterattack,
00:32:36.620 and we saw how the liberal MPs on the Justice Committee
00:32:39.020 closed ranks to shut down any further questions.
00:32:41.900 They also shut down a conservative motion to bring Jody Wilson-Raybould back to say more.
00:32:47.780 Unless there's another shoe to drop, another cabinet minister who quits,
00:32:51.600 or if Jody Wilson-Raybould is holding back more information,
00:32:55.020 I think we've seen the way this is going to go.
00:32:58.040 Unless the police do their job.
00:33:00.160 But these days, with the politicization of the RCMP,
00:33:03.560 which itself reports to a cabinet minister named Ralph Goodell,
00:33:07.340 well, I wouldn't bet on it.
00:33:10.400 Stay with us for more.
00:33:11.900 Welcome back.
00:33:26.180 Well, for years I have puzzled over a quirk in Israel's democracy.
00:33:30.960 You know that Arabs and Muslims and Christians and everybody
00:33:35.220 have a right to vote in Israel,
00:33:37.760 and so there are some Muslim parties that run for the Israeli parliament,
00:33:42.980 the Israeli Knesset.
00:33:44.000 And some of the successful MKs, as they're called, are extremely anti-Israel.
00:33:51.660 But they have the rights and privileges of an elected parliamentarian.
00:33:56.880 And some of them go too far.
00:33:59.100 They actually are prosecuted for treachery or a kind of sabotage.
00:34:05.040 But it's always puzzled me about how a liberal Western-style democracy can have within it
00:34:10.780 underminers that would literally seek to destroy the state.
00:34:14.400 Well, that was just something I daydreamed about if I was bored.
00:34:18.460 But now I believe it's come to America.
00:34:21.380 Because you see, in November, two Muslim congresswomen were elected for the first time ever.
00:34:28.060 And both of them are of the most extreme variety.
00:34:33.180 One of them is named Ilhan Omar.
00:34:36.860 She's from Somalia.
00:34:38.740 And she is an elected congresswoman from Minnesota.
00:34:42.380 And she's caused quite a fuss.
00:34:45.140 Let me show you an example.
00:34:48.340 Here's the Washington Post on the subject.
00:34:50.360 House Democrats erupt in protests over indirect sanction of Representative Omar
00:34:55.120 for alleged anti-Semitism.
00:34:57.280 This was just published minutes ago by the Washington Post.
00:35:00.620 The Democrats are trying to figure out how to deal with such a nut.
00:35:05.080 Let me show you a little bit of who Ilhan Omar is.
00:35:08.080 Take a look.
00:35:09.040 Israel has hypnotized the world.
00:35:11.520 May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.
00:35:15.440 You've commented a lot since then, trying to explain what you meant by that.
00:35:19.860 And I wonder just what your message is this morning as the first on our Game Changers series
00:35:24.480 to Jewish Americans.
00:35:27.280 Who find that deeply offensive?
00:35:31.480 Oh, that's really a regrettable way of expressing that.
00:35:36.280 I don't know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish Americans.
00:35:42.180 Now, of course, you can be an anti-Semite and still be an American, but she's also an anti-American
00:35:50.920 extremist.
00:35:52.040 I don't think you should be anti-Semitic, by the way, but she's also deeply anti-American,
00:35:56.460 attacking many American institutions.
00:35:57.980 It's quite a puzzle.
00:35:59.520 And joining us now to talk about how the Democrats and Republicans are dealing with what I believe
00:36:06.280 is a fifth columnist is our friend Pardes Salah, who's a writer for Mediaite.com and who
00:36:12.260 herself has written about, hey, Pardes, great to see you.
00:36:14.900 I see you've got a column on it called Democrats looking for the Goldilocks option to condemn
00:36:19.860 Omar without going too far.
00:36:21.460 That's the pickle for Democrats, right?
00:36:23.220 They don't want to seem extreme and anti-American, but they don't want to lose this part of their
00:36:30.180 coalition.
00:36:30.920 Yeah, it seems like a problem that they've been grappling with, and they were supposed
00:36:36.080 to vote on a resolution today condemning anti-Semitism, and they pushed it off until at least tomorrow
00:36:43.180 because of the internal disagreements, which actually today, instead of voting in the resolution,
00:36:48.740 they had a closed-door fight, which we just heard about from the Washington Post, which
00:36:54.180 they broke the story just now.
00:36:57.620 Well, tell me, what are the two camps?
00:37:00.320 I mean, is there actually an anti-Semitic wing of the Democrats, or are they just saying,
00:37:05.620 look, she's a Muslim first, let her have those views, we can all...
00:37:10.800 Like, I believe that the Labour Party in the UK has gone full anti-Semitic.
00:37:15.420 I just, I see evidence of that every day.
00:37:18.580 I don't think the Democrats have gone fully anti-Semitic, but is this the beginning of a
00:37:23.220 Corbynite, Labourite style of official anti-Semitism, a party saying, look, there's just so many anti-Semites,
00:37:29.820 so much radical Muslim migration, let's harvest those votes.
00:37:33.700 What's going on inside there?
00:37:35.820 I think there's, there are two factions of the Democratic Party.
00:37:40.100 The Democratic Party has always been very unified until now, but I think they're splitting up.
00:37:44.820 There is a very, very anti-Israel faction that's also very hard left, and they're anti-American,
00:37:50.780 and they're anti, like, a lot of things.
00:37:52.800 And they're kind of like the hard left, and they're splitting with a lot of the more traditional,
00:37:59.120 more moderate Democrats who are, you know, kind of like, they call themselves centrist Democrats,
00:38:03.820 like Michael Bloomberg, you know, maybe Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi,
00:38:11.920 Dianne Feinstein.
00:38:12.560 So, like, sorry to be, like, naming so many, but I think there's a big dispute between them
00:38:20.180 right now, and it's coming out in this anti-Semitism resolution, and also with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's
00:38:27.520 New Deal.
00:38:28.400 So a lot of issues, they're starting to split.
00:38:31.620 So I think there's going to be, in the long term, there's going to be an overall split in
00:38:36.320 the Democratic Party.
00:38:37.320 They're not going to be so unified anymore.
00:38:39.540 And I don't think the whole party is going to go in, like, the anti-Semitism route.
00:38:44.040 Now, you mentioned a bunch of names there, but three names stood out for me.
00:38:47.980 You said Bloomberg, Schumer, and Feinstein, all three of whom happen to be Jewish, all three
00:38:55.520 of whom are in their 70s or even their 80s.
00:38:59.600 And, of course, Bernie Sanders is very senior also.
00:39:02.780 Now, none of those three are particularly religious Jews, but I think they're culturally
00:39:07.080 Jewish, and that represents a time when the Jewish vote was, if not quantitatively large,
00:39:14.640 it was qualitatively large.
00:39:16.520 Jews were donors.
00:39:17.480 Jews were activists.
00:39:18.420 Jews were engaged as voters.
00:39:20.580 Here's my point about the Labour Party in the UK.
00:39:23.400 You could have said the same thing for liberal politics in the UK until mass immigration changed
00:39:29.940 the math.
00:39:31.000 You could say the same thing for Canada, too.
00:39:32.780 I mean, the Liberal Party of Canada is the traditional home of the Jews, but now Justin
00:39:38.180 Trudeau did the math.
00:39:39.140 He counted noses, and there's four times as many Muslims in Canada now as there are Jews,
00:39:43.920 so he switched sides.
00:39:45.560 There are a few Jews who haven't got the memo yet.
00:39:48.320 I guess my question to you is you've got Ilhan Omar from Minnesota.
00:39:52.060 You've got Rashida Tlaib.
00:39:53.520 That's another radical Muslim congresswoman from Michigan.
00:39:56.460 They're young.
00:39:59.060 They're 30s, 40s, and those Jews we named are 70s and 80s.
00:40:04.140 Is this a demographic change that in 20 years there won't really be any prominent Jews in
00:40:09.880 the Democrats?
00:40:10.760 It'll be the Party of Islam.
00:40:12.400 I think it really depends on what Republicans do.
00:40:18.760 Right now, we've also got a lot of, there's this whole wave of young Republicans who are
00:40:23.320 coming out against this whole leniency with immigration and are pro-border walls, border
00:40:31.060 security.
00:40:31.640 And I think right now it really depends on what President Donald Trump does, if he fulfills
00:40:39.860 his promise to his constituents and what they do moving forward, because right now the ball
00:40:47.760 is in Republicans' court, and Republicans have allowed Democrats to waver on immigration
00:40:56.580 for a while.
00:40:57.240 So I think really it depends on House Republicans at this point, in my opinion.
00:41:04.560 You mentioned Donald Trump.
00:41:06.100 He weighed in on Ilhan Omar directly.
00:41:08.720 Here's a quick clip of Trump talking about the Somali-American congresswoman.
00:41:15.000 One other thing I might want to say is that anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress.
00:41:22.340 And Congressman Omar is terrible, what she said.
00:41:29.800 And I think she should either resign from Congress or she should certainly resign from the House
00:41:37.520 Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:41:38.660 What she said is so deep-seated in her heart that her lame apology, and that's what it was.
00:41:48.360 It was lame, and she didn't mean a word of it, was just not appropriate.
00:41:54.140 I think she should resign from Congress, frankly.
00:41:56.960 But at a minimum, she shouldn't be on committees.
00:41:59.800 Certainly that committee.
00:42:01.120 You know, I mean, obviously I agree with him on anti-Semitism.
00:42:05.320 I'm Jewish myself, and even if I weren't, I hope I would be against anti-Semitism.
00:42:10.200 But being supportive of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, isn't just a Jewish thing.
00:42:15.580 It's a liberal Democrat thing, if you support a democracy.
00:42:19.560 It's a Christian Zionist thing.
00:42:21.080 It's an American thing.
00:42:24.360 Who has a better read on the pulse of America?
00:42:29.600 I mean, Donald Trump is saying it's un-American to have her views.
00:42:34.640 Is he right?
00:42:37.460 I think he's right.
00:42:39.240 For a long time, the United States has been a very welcoming country to Jews
00:42:49.040 and has been very pro-Israel, pro-freedom in the Middle East,
00:42:53.420 and having Israel as an ally in that region.
00:42:57.280 And I think things are changing a little bit now with the new wave of far-left Democrats.
00:43:04.640 I think also another thing that was interesting about the far-left Democrats' defense of Ilhan Omar
00:43:12.080 is that they said, well, you know, we don't think that she's necessarily anti-Semitic,
00:43:18.380 and her comments are being used to just nullify anything else Democrats say as anti-Semitic,
00:43:28.120 so we don't support this resolution.
00:43:31.060 I think it's interesting that they say that, because if anyone else was saying it,
00:43:36.400 maybe you might believe them, that they mean it, but these are people who repeatedly are calling Republicans
00:43:45.160 and other people in the Democratic Party racist, homophobic, you know, sexist.
00:43:53.440 Anything that you do, you're called an ism label just to shut down what you say.
00:43:59.420 But somehow with anti-Semitism, it doesn't apply to anti-Semitism because Ilhan Omar is Muslim,
00:44:06.800 so she's a protected class.
00:44:08.720 Very interesting.
00:44:09.820 I want to show just a few more quick tweets of Ilhan Omar, because you mentioned,
00:44:13.500 I mean, Trump mentioned a fake apology.
00:44:15.720 I mean, she's doing this every week, so I don't think it's a one-off.
00:44:19.460 She's talking about Israel and why the Republicans are pro-Israel,
00:44:27.560 and she said it's all about the Benjamins, baby.
00:44:29.900 That's a phrase that refers to the American $100 bill.
00:44:33.140 We've got one more tweet.
00:44:36.160 Our democracy is built on debate, Congresswoman.
00:44:39.060 I should not be expected to have allegiance or pledge support to a foreign country
00:44:44.160 in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee.
00:44:47.160 The people of the fifth elected me serve their interest.
00:44:49.380 I'm sure we agree on that.
00:44:51.000 But she's implying that to support Israel is to show a dual allegiance.
00:44:58.700 And I think you can be pro-Taiwan, pro-Israel, even pro-Saudi Arabia, I suppose,
00:45:05.160 without being disloyal.
00:45:06.740 That's another anti-Semitic trope.
00:45:08.440 I don't know.
00:45:08.840 I find this interesting.
00:45:10.240 I got one last question for you.
00:45:11.820 You work for a company called Mediaite, which shows your focus is on journalism.
00:45:17.160 Is the mainstream media giving Ilhan Omar a pass on her anti-Semitism that they would not give
00:45:26.700 if it were a Republican or a non-Muslim saying the same things?
00:45:31.620 I think that they are not giving her a pass for the most part.
00:45:37.560 Some people are starting to give her a pass.
00:45:41.280 Like we saw on MSNBC earlier today, it wasn't even a pass.
00:45:45.480 It was kind of like, oh, maybe she wasn't really being anti-Semitic or maybe she's having such a hard time
00:45:52.680 because she's Muslim so she doesn't know what to do and everyone's piling on her.
00:45:57.020 But they would have definitely been harder on someone who was Republican.
00:46:01.200 I mean, there's no question about that.
00:46:02.660 Or someone who wasn't Muslim or wasn't, you know, on the far left.
00:46:07.180 Yeah.
00:46:07.520 Very interesting.
00:46:08.520 Well, Pardes Salah, great to see you again.
00:46:09.900 Thanks for keeping us up to date.
00:46:11.440 I find this a fascinating Congress.
00:46:13.740 You mentioned Alexandria Ocasio-Cartez.
00:46:16.320 Very interesting and a real news shaper just from her charisma.
00:46:21.400 I think Ilhan Omar is in the same league, not because she's charismatic and inspiring,
00:46:26.580 but because she is, like I said at the beginning of the segment, she is an underminer.
00:46:31.040 I truly believe that she is deeply anti-American and anti-Semitism is just a part of that.
00:46:38.200 It'll be fascinating to see if she winds up like some of those Israeli MKs who were finally thrown out.
00:46:43.780 Hopefully we can keep in touch on this one.
00:46:46.800 Yeah, sure.
00:46:47.340 It's going on.
00:46:49.740 It's a topic that's going to, there's so much that's going to happen after this.
00:46:53.020 And we've got the resolution tomorrow.
00:46:54.760 We'll see if that happens.
00:46:56.400 All right.
00:46:56.720 Well, we'll keep following your stuff on media.
00:46:58.760 Great to see you.
00:46:59.280 Thanks, Pardes.
00:47:00.660 You too.
00:47:01.320 Thank you.
00:47:01.840 All right.
00:47:02.180 There's Pardes Salah.
00:47:03.080 She writes for Mediaite.com.
00:47:05.560 Stay with us.
00:47:06.100 More ahead on The Rebel.
00:47:17.340 Hey, welcome back.
00:47:19.560 You know, I mentioned earlier how Gerald Butts had an eerie repetition of Justin Trudeau's
00:47:25.180 We Experience Things Differently.
00:47:27.900 One of our top editors here did a mashup of Justin Trudeau saying we experienced it differently
00:47:34.960 when he was asked about his sexual assault in Creston, B.C.
00:47:38.640 And Gerald Butts today, you've got to watch this.
00:47:40.940 Take a look.
00:47:41.360 The same interactions could be experienced very differently from one person to the next.
00:47:52.560 I am fully aware that two people can experience the same event differently.
00:47:57.660 I feel I am confident that I did not act inappropriately.
00:48:02.620 I believe that the minister shared my interpretation of our dinner.
00:48:05.580 Like I said, I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way.
00:48:11.360 I was so surprised.
00:48:12.920 I was fairly confident.
00:48:16.320 I do not see how our brief discussion of that file constituted pressure of any kind.
00:48:22.260 I've been reflecting very carefully on what I remember from that incident almost 20 years ago.
00:48:31.180 And again, I feel I am confident that I did not act inappropriately.
00:48:38.940 I remember that meaning very, very differently than the account given last week.
00:48:43.900 Often a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate.
00:48:50.680 And a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently.
00:48:54.820 Yeah, yeah.
00:48:58.500 Do you believe either of them?
00:49:00.480 Let me read some letters on my monologue yesterday about South Dakota's new riot-boosting law.
00:49:04.580 Bruce writes,
00:49:06.100 We should all get a copy of this bill and send it to our elected representatives.
00:49:09.660 Riot boosters should be strictly punished, not praised.
00:49:12.860 Yeah.
00:49:13.220 Or in the case of Alberta, Rachel Notley actually appointed riot boosters to her Oil Sands Advisory Council.
00:49:20.380 Sappora Berman, just to name one.
00:49:22.600 On my interview with Barbara Kay about transgender athletes, Wendy writes,
00:49:28.680 Very demoralizing for female athletes.
00:49:31.300 Many high school girls toil away at sports to try to earn a post-secondary scholarship
00:49:35.820 to take their sport to the next level and to afford a college education.
00:49:39.180 The trans community is robbing them and ruining their competitive experience.
00:49:44.180 You're exactly right.
00:49:45.300 I mean, I'm not a big follower of boxing, but every once in a while I watch a bout.
00:49:50.800 And there's weight categories.
00:49:54.500 You don't put a flyweight or a welterweight up against a super heavyweight.
00:49:59.340 Because that's not sport.
00:50:01.300 That's like that jokey clip we ran from Seinfeld of Kramer, the grown man, winning.
00:50:07.480 Ta-da!
00:50:07.880 Totally won against those little pishers, those little tykes.
00:50:11.820 That's not sport.
00:50:13.800 You know the phrase, shooting fish in a barrel.
00:50:17.020 That's not sport.
00:50:18.240 It's sport when you go out and fish with a fishing rod.
00:50:21.620 It's not sport when you shoot fish in a barrel.
00:50:24.220 It's not sport when a grown man beats a kid.
00:50:26.680 It's not sport when a, if you put Mike Tyson up against a hundred pound weakling.
00:50:31.020 And it's not sport when trans men beat women.
00:50:36.360 And I'm afraid that our morality is inverse because people are afraid of saying, look, the emperor has no clothes here.
00:50:43.760 Well, that's the show for today.
00:50:45.340 I hope you don't think I spent too much time going through the minutiae of Gerald Butts.
00:50:49.700 I have to say it took up all my day and I was left feeling unsatisfied by it.
00:50:54.080 But I was left with a bit of a worry that they're just going to try and tough it out.
00:50:58.840 And I think the hands of this country are in the fate of another cabinet minister or MP if they stand down and quit as, for example, Jane Philpott did.
00:51:09.400 I think that would change the math or if the RCMP did.
00:51:12.900 But failing those two things, I think Justin Trudeau is going to brazen it out.
00:51:17.920 And if you look at the polls right now, the liberals are behind.
00:51:21.140 In every single poll I see, they're behind between five and ten points.
00:51:24.680 That's a fair bit.
00:51:26.100 But it's a fair bit of time between now and the election.
00:51:29.200 And I just don't think the media party will overcome their natural biases to the left and their natural affection for Trudeau.
00:51:38.180 I think they're going to help him win.
00:51:39.980 That's what my fears are.
00:51:41.120 You let me know what you think.
00:51:42.640 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
00:51:47.920 We'll see you next time.