Rebel News Podcast - It’s Remembrance Day — and Don Cherry was just fired for telling Canadians to wear a poppy

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about Don Cherry being sacked by Sportsnet, not after any genuine

00:00:07.540 public demand. The opposite, really. A fake Twitter storm, led, in fact, by other journalists,

00:00:18.400 including at the CBC, where Don Cherry was once the top-rated and top-paid talent. I think the

00:00:25.860 CBC hated him all those years, couldn't really express it, but now that he's with Sportsnet,

00:00:29.680 they just had at it. And Sportsnet bent the knee, very upsetting. I'll go into the details and show

00:00:35.240 just how outrageous it was. Can I invite you to become a premium subscriber, though? Go to

00:00:40.680 premium.rebelnews.com. And just eight bucks a month, you get access to the video version of this podcast

00:00:48.120 and a couple other shows, too. That's premium.rebelnews.com. Okay, here's today's podcast.

00:00:59.680 Tonight, it's Remembrance Day, and Don Cherry was just fired for telling Canadians to wear

00:01:15.020 a poppy. It's November 11th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:18.720 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:24.560 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:28.620 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody

00:01:33.500 right to do so.

00:01:39.860 It's November 11th, which is Remembrance Day. Later on the broadcast, I'll talk with my friend

00:01:44.640 Lee Humphrey, a military veteran and an advocate for veterans. And of course, I'll read the poem

00:01:50.140 that I do every year, not in Flanders Fields, which is very touching, but something that I think is

00:01:55.120 a little more painful, actually, a poem by Rudyard Kipling about how veterans are treated when they

00:02:00.960 come back from the war. It's called Tommy Atkins. It was published more than a century ago, but it

00:02:06.120 could have been written yesterday. You know who loves the troops? Don Cherry does. He's the

00:02:12.720 plain-spoken host of Hockey Night in Canada, or at least he was till today. For years, he was the

00:02:18.260 only conservative voice allowed on the CBC, other than Rex Murphy. The CBC always hated Don Cherry

00:02:25.020 for three reasons. Like I say, he's conservative, and not in a snobby, think-tanky, professor kind

00:02:31.060 of way, but in a way that connects with grassroots, blue-collar guys, severely normal guys. Second,

00:02:36.920 he was more popular than literally anyone else at the CBC. No one came close to his viewership.

00:02:42.720 I know it's shocking that more people don't want to watch Rosemary Barton go on platonic

00:02:48.320 dates with Justin Trudeau, but it's true. And the third reason is that Don Cherry was

00:02:55.100 literally the only profitable thing at the CBC because of the first two points. So the CBC

00:03:00.480 made a massive miscalculation when they let Rogers outbid them for the NHL rights, the rights

00:03:07.860 to Hockey Night in Canada. With a bid of more than $5 billion for a dozen years, Rogers locked

00:03:14.480 up the show. Now they subleased some rights back to the CBC, but it's Rogers' show now.

00:03:20.340 Canadians don't much care which channel they watch, as long as they're watching hockey.

00:03:24.460 And they loved Don Cherry as the color commentator. I don't think ordinary Canadians 1.00

00:03:28.140 obsess over Cherry's politics the way other journalists do. Again, it's the jealousy and the

00:03:33.740 political partisanship I referred to earlier. The CBC humiliated Don Cherry by putting him

00:03:39.540 on a seven-second delay, as if he were some criminal who might blurt out some thought crime

00:03:45.300 or something. I don't know. What a contrast to the hero's welcome the CBC gave to the terrorist

00:03:50.500 Omar Khadar, when they literally welcomed him with disco lights, music, and champagne. Look at

00:03:57.460 that ovation for a murderer. Oh, those women, they can't get enough of him. 1.00

00:04:05.880 Anyways, this weekend on Hockey Night in Canada, Don Cherry was frustrated with the fact that so few

00:04:11.000 people wear poppies. So he said this. You know, I was talking to a veteran. I said,

00:04:16.060 I'm not going to run the poppy thing anymore, because what's the sense? I live in Mississauga.

00:04:20.020 Nobody wears, very few people wear a poppy. Downtown Toronto, forget it, downtown Toronto.

00:04:26.400 Nobody wears a poppy. And I'm not going to win. He says, wait a minute. How about running it for

00:04:31.240 the people that buy them? Now, you go to the small cities, and you know, those, the rows on

00:04:36.680 rows, you people love, you, they come here, whatever it is, you love our way of life. You love our milk

00:04:42.980 and honey. At least you can pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that. These guys pay

00:04:48.880 for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price. Anyhow,

00:04:55.400 I'm going to run it again for you great people and good Canadians that bought a poppy. I'm still

00:05:00.680 going to run it. Anyhow, love you for it. Tough to disagree with Don Cherry. He wants more people

00:05:07.340 to buy poppies. And he wants people who come to Canada from other countries, newcomers, to show 1.00

00:05:12.740 respect to the people who built Canada, made it the land of milk and honey, as he says. And they made

00:05:18.940 it that way by making enormous personal sacrifices in wars. I got to say, it's tough to disagree with

00:05:24.860 that. Ron McClain certainly agreed. He nodded along, gave it a thumbs up and said, love you for it

00:05:31.100 afterwards. Pretty normal Don Cherry type stuff. In fact, more normal than he normally is with his

00:05:36.860 crazy outfits, high collared shirts, and he loves making up words and phrases. I had never heard the

00:05:44.920 word kookaloo before. Six more weeks of cold weather. Now, I'd like to ask you with your left

00:05:52.580 wing, Pinkle friends. Yes. What about the warming trend? Like what, like, where does that come now? 0.91

00:05:57.420 You know all about that. Do you really want to get into that? No, I'm just asking you that the

00:06:02.360 kookaloos are, we're saying the warming trend, we're freezing to death. The kookaloos. I think 1.00

00:06:08.720 everyone knew what he meant. Now, could Don Cherry have been a bit smoother as he expressed his point

00:06:14.860 about new Canadians needing to study our customs? Probably. Maybe he wasn't as perfectly wordsmithed

00:06:21.720 as some woke PR firm would be. They would have been trans-friendly also. Started out with some

00:06:28.920 comment about being on sacred aboriginal land or something. Probably would have said, I'm him,

00:06:34.500 her, they, them pronouns. But no, Don's Don. Pretty normal guy, which is why he's so popular.

00:06:42.440 And why so many second-rate journalists, especially other sports journalists, and especially journalists

00:06:46.960 at the CBC, hate him because he's better and they hate that. So, there was this fake storm of protest.

00:06:54.320 They just faked it. No one real was upset by this. No normal people. It was all his rivals or

00:07:01.820 leftist politicians. People who had been holding a grudge for years. And they started going nuts

00:07:07.740 because Don Cherry is the last conservative in the mainstream culture. So, here's a Trudeau MP tweet.

00:07:18.520 He simply needs to leave hockey night. It's time. That's Peter Fragiskatos, who's a liberal MP.

00:07:25.600 So, now we have the liberal government saying who should or shouldn't be on television. Well, of course,

00:07:32.900 it's Trudeau's Canada. And really, we know where the liberals stand on veterans already, don't we?

00:07:40.300 First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court? Because they're asking

00:07:49.220 for more than we are able to give right now. Yeah, Mr. Fragiskatos is fine working for a party leader

00:07:56.860 who's dressed up in blackface so many times he's lost count, but he can't stand a conservative being on TV.

00:08:03.600 The CBC naturally led the war against Don Cherry. They're finally free to hate him out loud, as they did

00:08:10.840 under their gritted teeth for decades. They hated him for years at the CBC, but they couldn't attack him publicly.

00:08:16.420 He worked for the company. He was their most popular broadcaster. He paid all the bills.

00:08:20.700 But now that he works for Sportsnet, 20 years of pent-up hatred came spilling out of the CBC.

00:08:28.320 It was amazing to watch the CBC. If anyone actually watched the CBC anymore, I don't know.

00:08:34.000 On a Sunday night, I'm guessing maybe 50,000 people watch CBC's The National out of 35 million Canadians.

00:08:41.420 Here's why. Get a load of this woman, who I think is a weird bigot. I don't even know what the word 1.00

00:08:47.960 racialized means. Do you mean visible minority? I don't know. And I noticed she isn't wearing a poppy

00:08:53.260 while she's shouting at Don Cherry. Take a look.

00:08:55.700 I don't need to be told by you that my poppy will represent my support of bats. I hated the way that

00:09:01.260 he did that. I thought that he was absolutely looking and pointing fingers at people of color, 0.99

00:09:05.940 racialized communities, because he didn't see enough poppies. So that translates into racialized

00:09:11.940 communities not caring about this country. I'm sorry. It was unacceptable. I would love to see

00:09:16.900 Don Cherry replaced.

00:09:19.240 Of course you would, dear. But we don't believe in censorship in Canada just because you're angry

00:09:24.660 and call someone a racist who, by the way, didn't mention race at all. And by the way,

00:09:30.300 put on your poppy, you ingrate. Well, Don Cherry didn't apologize. He did not bend the knee. Why

00:09:37.920 should he? He's 85. He's almost 86. He hasn't bent the knee to anyone in 85 years. Why would he start

00:09:43.880 now? But the coward Ron McClain did. Watch one more time. Don Cherry's normal Don Cherry-ness

00:09:51.860 as his sidekick, Ron McClain, who was a millionaire because of Don Cherry. Watch

00:09:57.660 Ron closely this time. You people love you. They come here, whatever it is. You love our way of life.

00:10:05.300 You love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like

00:10:10.480 that. These guys pay for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price.

00:10:18.140 Anyhow, I'm going to run it again. For you great people and good Canadians that bought a poppy,

00:10:23.340 I'm still going to run it. Anyhow. Love you for it. So if I'm counting right, there were five head

00:10:31.140 nods. One love you for it and one thumbs up there. But look at Judas McClain the very next morning.

00:10:39.340 I wanted to address what happened last night on Hockey Night in Canada. Don Cherry made remarks which

00:10:44.300 were hurtful, discriminatory, which were flat out wrong. We at Sportsnet have apologized. It certainly

00:10:51.100 doesn't stand for what Sportsnet or Rogers represents. We know diversity is the strength

00:10:55.960 of the country. We see it in our travels with our show and with Hockey Night in Canada. So I owe you

00:11:02.520 an apology too. That's the big thing that I want to emphasize. I sat there, did not catch it, did not

00:11:07.660 respond. Catherine Denise, a son of First Nation, once said, in any wrongdoing, the real key is

00:11:14.820 recognition and acknowledgement. And I wanted to let you know that first. And then you work on the

00:11:20.240 relationship so that it isn't divisive, so that something can be a unifying event. Idle No More

00:11:26.960 was a great lesson to all of us. Last night was a really great lesson to Don and me. We were wrong

00:11:31.820 and I sincerely apologize and I wanted to thank you for calling me and Don on that last night.

00:11:39.460 Hurtful, discriminatory, flat out wrong. How? And stop lying. You say you sat there and did not

00:11:48.700 respond. You didn't catch it. You absolutely did respond, you liar. Five nods, a thumbs up and a

00:11:55.620 I love you. Why are you trying to gaslight us? We saw what happened. And you're invoking

00:12:01.700 aboriginal moral authority or whatever weirdness you're trying to do there. Why not invoke Black 1.00

00:12:07.720 Lives Matter, you woke weirdo, you betrayer of your best friend who made you a millionaire?

00:12:17.020 Sportsnet called Cherry divisive and discriminatory. Really? I heard a guy encouraging all Canadians, 1.00

00:12:23.360 old timers and newcomers to learn about our customs and buy poppies to show respect. But this is

00:12:30.040 Sportsnet's version of taking a knee. They worship wokeness. And look at all the vultures. Here's

00:12:36.660 the once second highest paid CBC talent, Peter Mansbridge, making a false accusation against the

00:12:44.440 once highest paid talent at the CBC. The notion that Canada's veterans were all white is dangerously

00:12:52.280 wrong and an insult to thousands, says Peter Mansbridge. Yeah, Peter, who said anything about

00:12:59.960 only white veterans? What a kookaloo, Mansbridge, not Cherry. Cherry's the normal one. Who asked you, 1.00

00:13:07.720 Peter? Is this some grudge against the guy who earned more money than you for decades?

00:13:14.140 All the people who had nothing to say about Justin Trudeau's blackface 1.00

00:13:17.220 had a lot to say about Don Cherry. Here's Bruce Arthur, always under Cherry's shadow as a sports

00:13:24.620 reporter. He called for Cherry to be fired. But not for Trudeau to be fired. Same guy, Bruce Arthur,

00:13:32.640 because you see, he's so progressive. He's so progressive.

00:13:38.100 Here's the liberal, John Moore, who actually compared Don Cherry to a Nazi. Do you see that Kristallnacht?

00:13:51.720 Kristallnacht, I don't know if you know, Kristallnacht is when the Nazi riots, torch synagogues smashed

00:13:56.780 windows. Here's a picture of Kristallnacht. That's what John Moore said. Don Cherry's comments were like,

00:14:07.240 and by today, this afternoon, Don Cherry was fired. There actually was no public outrage.

00:14:15.920 Just 30 mean girls in the media and 30 liberal party censors. Boy, the liberals were out in force.

00:14:21.620 That's how it rolls in 2019. You get what you get when you elect Justin Trudeau as prime minister.

00:14:28.100 That's the culture. On Remembrance Day, the number one Canadian defender of serving military and veterans

00:14:35.080 is sacked as being divisive, while the black-faced groper just laughs and laughs and cuts another 1.00

00:14:42.160 check to the CBC. What a disgrace. But today isn't about the CBC or Sportsnet or Trudeau or even

00:14:49.460 Don Cherry. It's about our troops, completely forgotten in this hullabaloo. Every year, I read a

00:14:54.500 poem by Rudyard Kipling, and I'll do it again today. There's one line that always makes me lose my

00:14:58.400 composure a little bit. I'll see if I can read it through calmly today. This is Tommy Atkins by Rudyard

00:15:05.200 Kipling. I went into a public house to get a pint of beer. The public any up and says, we serve no

00:15:12.820 redcoats here. The girls behind the bar, they laughed and giggled fit to die. I out into the street again,

00:15:19.580 and to myself says I, oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away. But it's, thank you,

00:15:25.500 Mr. Atkins. When the band begins to play, the band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play. Oh,

00:15:31.240 it's, thank you, Mr. Atkins. When the band begins to play, I went into a theater as sober as could be.

00:15:36.760 They gave a drunk civilian room, but hadn't none for me. They sent me to the gallery around the music 0.70

00:15:42.400 halls, but when it comes to fighting, Lord, they'll shove me in the stalls, for it's Tommy this and Tommy

00:15:48.100 that and Tommy wait outside. But it's special train for Atkins. When the troopers on the tide, the troop

00:15:54.160 ship's on the tide, my boys, the troop ship's on the tide. It's special train for Atkins when the

00:15:59.420 trooper's on the tide. Yes, making maca uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than them

00:16:06.180 uniforms and their starvation cheap. And hustling drunken soldiers when they're going large a bit

00:16:11.800 is five times better business than parading in full kit. Then it's Tommy this and Tommy that and

00:16:17.760 Tommy out of your soul. But it's thin red line of Eros when the drums begin to roll. The drums begin to

00:16:23.880 roll, my boys. The drums begin to roll. Oh, it's thin red line of Eros when the drums begin to roll.

00:16:30.040 We aren't no thin red Eros, nor we are no blaggards too, but single men in barracks, most remarkable

00:16:36.860 like you. And if sometimes our conduct isn't all your fancy paints, why single men in barracks don't

00:16:43.280 grow into plaster saints. Well, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy fall behind, but it's pleased to

00:16:48.760 walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the wind. There's trouble in the wind, my boys.

00:16:53.000 There's trouble in the wind. Oh, it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the

00:16:57.000 wind. You talk a better food for us and schools and fires and all. We'll wait for extra rations

00:17:03.260 if you treat us rational. Don't mess around about the cookroom slops, but prove it to our face.

00:17:09.560 The widow's uniform is not the soldier man's disgrace. For it's Tommy this and Tommy that.

00:17:15.160 Chuck him out, the brute. But it's savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot.

00:17:19.640 And it's Tommy this and Tommy that and anything you please. And Tommy ain't a blooming fool.

00:17:25.300 You bet that Tommy sees.

00:17:28.800 Stay with us. Lee Humphrey is next.

00:17:31.000 Welcome back. Well, we're affectionate of our military here at Rebel News. I don't think

00:17:49.460 anyone who is on air has served, but we have lots of people who behind the scenes have helped. We have

00:17:59.060 an editor who was in the Navy. And of course, Sheila's daughter is in the cadets. So we have

00:18:04.160 a lot of sympathy and support for our troops, especially for those who paid the price in ways

00:18:10.520 we can never imagine. And I think maybe it's because I myself have not served in the military

00:18:16.660 that I feel an extra obligation to note Remembrance Day and to stand up for veterans. Because given that

00:18:26.280 I did not serve in the military, is it not the least I can do? And that's how I feel. I think even if I

00:18:33.700 had served, I would perhaps I'd be even more supportive of veterans and the serving military.

00:18:38.840 I find it odious that rival networks such as the CBC state broadcaster seem to actually put their

00:18:48.560 sympathies for foreign enemies like Omar Khadr ahead of our soldiers and veterans. And for one day a year,

00:18:56.140 they grit their teeth and pretend to give a damn. I'm not doing this to virtue signal that we're

00:19:02.520 morally superior to the CBC. I'm lamenting the state of our entire country, that what Rudyard

00:19:09.580 Kipling wrote about in his poem, Tommy Atkins, a century ago, is unfortunately still true. It's a,

00:19:17.120 I don't know, it's, I suppose, part of that peace dividend is that you don't have to care

00:19:22.980 about soldiers anymore. But that's wrong. The peace dividend is precisely because the price

00:19:28.920 soldiers are paid. So those are my thoughts. And joining us now is a man who has served more than

00:19:34.100 most, our friend Lee Humphrey, who joins us now from Calgary. Lee, nice to see you again. And I rely

00:19:40.860 on you for information, for opinions, and because you have the moral authority, having served our

00:19:48.360 country in dangerous places, in the most dangerous places. So thank you for your service.

00:19:53.700 You're very welcome.

00:19:54.400 Let's talk about the state of affairs, because I'm a critic of the liberal government, and I don't want

00:20:01.400 my partisan bias to color my observations on the veterans file. If there's something they are doing

00:20:09.220 right, I'd like to acknowledge it. In fact, it's important that I do, because I don't think veterans 1.00

00:20:14.720 issues should be a conservative versus liberal issue. I think every party should be wanting to outdo each

00:20:21.240 other. It should be unanimity. Sometimes I talk about seeing eye dogs. Who could be against that?

00:20:30.240 You know, widows and orphans. I think veterans should be in that same category, that there's no

00:20:35.140 daylight between any of the parties on how we treat veterans. Is there anything I can point to

00:20:41.600 and give the liberals credit for? It's a tough one. I agree. It should become, and I hope it does at

00:20:52.200 some point, become a nonpartisan issue. Because there are good people on both sides of the aisle,

00:20:58.260 on every side of the aisle, that do want to support veterans. The problem that we seem to run into

00:21:05.680 is regardless of the power, the party in power, the bureaucracy within veterans affairs, the mentality

00:21:14.520 within veterans affairs, that puts an incredible onus on paperwork and red tape, and pushes veterans

00:21:25.680 to the brink of giving up, just never seems to end. So I'll certainly give the prime minister

00:21:34.300 credit for saying the right things recently. He clearly had his misstep when he said veterans were

00:21:44.260 asking for more than they could afford. But he has put forward the right policy platform to support

00:21:53.480 veterans in many cases. It's not been enacted the way we would like to see it enacted, certainly not

00:21:59.920 with the speed that we'd like to see. We haven't seen consistency at the ministerial level. We've gone

00:22:07.900 through five ministers. And if, you know, rumors are correct, we'll have a sixth minister in a couple of

00:22:15.060 weeks. So, you know, he's saying the right things as the conservatives did as well. But we're not

00:22:22.940 seeing the follow through that we'd like to see. You know, this isn't just a problem for liberal

00:22:29.800 parties. I sometimes spend some time over in the United Kingdom. And I see how they treat their vets

00:22:37.160 too. And they've had a conservative government in name, at least for some years. And over there,

00:22:44.580 and I, you know, I'm sort of embarrassed, actually, that I know some British stats more than our own

00:22:48.760 conservative stats. But my buddy Tommy Robinson out there brought to my attention, there was a hospital

00:22:58.240 for vets specializing in PTSD. And I didn't know just how widespread that was. I mean, I suppose in

00:23:09.500 World War One, it was called shell shock. They didn't have the word PTSD. But I didn't realize how widespread

00:23:16.560 it was. And even in the UK, under a conservative government, they were shutting down the medical

00:23:23.380 support for vets. How is it on the medical side? It's one thing to show moral support and have

00:23:29.820 financial support. But PTSD or shell shock and the psychological trauma of these awful wars, the

00:23:37.040 terrorist wars where children themselves are often the human, you know, bulletproof vets, like human 0.73

00:23:44.500 shields. Are we properly addressing the psychological damage done to our vets in Canada?

00:23:55.560 A mixed result, I'd say. So, you know, more than a decade ago, the Conservatives opened the

00:24:03.160 occupational stress injury clinics across Canada. The Liberals put more money into it and offered up

00:24:13.160 a couple of more clinics to expand the service capacity. The challenge there is that it still

00:24:22.820 isn't enough. The wait times are still too long. We had another suicide just last week from somebody

00:24:33.400 suffering that wasn't getting help in a timely way. We've seen the government drag their feet on

00:24:41.080 recognizing the importance of service dogs and providing those to veterans for those that it

00:24:50.740 helps. We've seen them roll back the cannabis allotment a couple of years ago saying that the

00:24:59.740 veterans were getting too much cannabis for free for those that it helped.

00:25:06.820 So a mixed bag. Again, on paper, they're opening the right clinics. They're hiring specialists in this

00:25:18.160 category. They're certainly, you know, trying to destigmatize the scourge that is PTSD. But the

00:25:30.640 bureaucracy again, gets in the way and and you think about this, you have a veteran, and he phones for

00:25:39.580 help. And he starts getting told about the forms he's going to fill out, and that he's got to see

00:25:47.320 a doctor to get another form filled out, and then they're going to process it. And, and then he's going

00:25:53.360 to get a call from a clinic in a few weeks, hopefully, and the frustration builds. So the, the person,

00:26:00.800 because they have this mental injury, starts self medicating, while they're waiting for proper

00:26:09.200 treatment. And as they self medicate, they run into the same problems that other people that become

00:26:15.400 addicted to drugs and alcohol run into. They have fights with their spouses, they have fights with their

00:26:20.960 employer and lose their job. And the spiral begins. And it's, it's like an airplane whose wings have

00:26:29.460 fallen off. It doesn't take long before the spiral ends in a terrible crash. And in many cases, that's a

00:26:36.360 suicide. So the liberals in their platform, you know, said a very important thing, and I hope they live up

00:26:44.400 to it, which is that they will ensure that a veteran can have up to $3,000 worth of treatment, before they're

00:26:52.660 diagnosed. So if a veteran calls the helpline, they can immediately be transferred to a hotline where you have a

00:27:01.320 mental health care professional at the other end that begins speaking to the veteran, and helping them before we

00:27:09.280 worry about the paperwork. If that occurs, maybe just maybe, we'll save a few lives here.

00:27:18.780 Wow, that's the way you described it there. It, it makes it very real. Now, the military itself has

00:27:25.780 always been a place of paperwork and forms in quadruplicate and things like that.

00:27:30.040 Is the, is the way serving soldiers get their medical care and mental health care? Is that any

00:27:40.040 better than the way vets get it? Like, is there, I'm just curious, because when you describe forms and

00:27:48.040 bureaucracy, I thought, well, I think the military is a little bit like that on the inside of it, right?

00:27:52.540 Yeah, you know, and there's, there's a huge debate around the idea of being fit for service.

00:28:00.960 Back in, in the early 90s, mid 90s, they came up with a term called universality of service, which

00:28:09.160 meant each trade has medical criteria that makes you fit to serve, and you had to be deployable,

00:28:17.520 because the military was downsizing in huge, huge ways. So they did not have places to hold injured

00:28:25.440 soldiers for very long or trades to transfer them to, where they wouldn't have to deploy. So the idea

00:28:33.800 behind it was the army is expeditionary, the army is deployable, and you must be fit to fight at all

00:28:41.220 times. And you can be injured for a short period of time, but we're not going to hang on to you for very

00:28:46.920 long, because we can't recruit a replacement until you're out of the system. Within the community,

00:28:53.760 you know, people recognize that it's important that if you can't deploy, that puts stress on other

00:29:00.340 people that end up deploying more frequently, which puts more stress on their family, which puts more

00:29:06.260 stress on them. And often they leave the military or they break down. So I was going to say, it made

00:29:16.840 sense. But at the same time, when you go to war and suffer so many casualties, you need to take care

00:29:23.900 of those people. And the best way to take care of them is within the military community. So, you know,

00:29:30.740 I think they're starting to recognize and understand there needs to be, it can't be black and white,

00:29:35.740 there needs to be flexibility, until we get through this period of time where we had a surge of

00:29:41.520 casualties. And we need to take care of those folks and transition them either back into other military

00:29:48.480 trades or into the civilian world in a way that's acceptable to them.

00:29:55.340 You know, my father is a retired doctor. And I remember as a kid, he would say that there were

00:30:02.640 some patients who went to the front of the line. And prisoners were actually one example of people

00:30:13.280 who went, they had a special payment to go to the front of the line for medical care. I found that odd.

00:30:19.540 And another example was soldiers. And that makes a lot of sense. You don't want a soldier languishing

00:30:28.340 for six months in a waiting line. He has to be, like you say, ready to roll. Now, that's my memory

00:30:35.640 from what my retired doctor dad told me 30 years ago. Is it the same way now? Do, I know prisoners 0.98

00:30:45.760 still go to the front of the line. Do soldiers go to the front of the line for health care?

00:30:50.680 Serving soldiers do get MRIs, CT scans, etc. purchased so that they can see specialists

00:31:00.600 more quickly because they're getting paid whether they're functional or not. So the government,

00:31:07.460 and it's a tiny military, the idea was to shrink the military to the smallest possible size

00:31:12.760 and make everybody deployable and fit and ready to roll at all times so that you didn't have a lot

00:31:21.500 of excess fat to trim once the cuts had been done. So they do still do that. And they do still get

00:31:29.520 their medical care far quicker than the average citizen, simply because the government's paying

00:31:35.260 for their services and they want them to be ready to go. That does not apply to veterans.

00:31:39.880 Got it. And does that apply to mental health as well?

00:31:43.880 Yes. Yeah, it does.

00:31:45.320 If you're serving, it applies to mental health. But there is a limit in the sense that the military

00:31:50.640 hires mental health care professionals. And typically, these mental health care professionals

00:31:56.460 share their duties with other hospitals, with clinics, with their own private practice.

00:32:02.200 So there's only so many of them. And they need a special level of training to deal with

00:32:08.360 military mental health because trauma is trauma. But there's a military component and a military

00:32:16.640 ideology and a military culture that has to be understood by those care professionals,

00:32:21.720 or they simply won't be accepted.

00:32:25.020 Geez. I tell you, I wish that you were somehow involved in figuring out the system on the inside.

00:32:32.380 Obviously, you're a critic of Trudeau, just like I am. And you would never be brought in.

00:32:37.020 I just wish there were someone who had your knowledge of the lay of the land.

00:32:41.100 I mean, I'm sure that the liberals would say they do have plenty of experts, but they don't seem to be

00:32:46.460 getting it done. Can I ask you about a different thing besides mental health and physical health,

00:32:50.220 though? I remember a couple of years ago, someone at CFB Borden sent me the base newsletter. So this

00:32:59.580 was the official newspaper published by the base. It wasn't like some dissident pamphlet. This was

00:33:06.460 the official newspaper in both languages for the base. And it talked about Christmas hampers, although

00:33:12.380 they banned the word Christmas. They didn't use the word Christmas in it. They called it holiday

00:33:17.900 something, something. And it sounded like a fun Christmas tradition until when I read it more

00:33:23.580 carefully. What they were saying is that there were people on the base who they needed food bank

00:33:31.180 food, like soldiers and their families on the base needed food. This wasn't for like the surrounding

00:33:38.380 communities. This was for serving soldiers on the base. And we saw that and we crowdfunded, I think it

00:33:44.140 was about 15 grand. And we went to give the check to the food hamper program and they refused it.

00:33:50.140 And you know this because you helped us find a veterans charity in the end. I'm worried that

00:33:58.540 the attitude in the military, because we didn't access to information about that afterwards.

00:34:03.180 And we found that the number one priority in the defense department

00:34:07.020 was don't embarrass the minister, cover things like that up. They thought our $15,000 gift,

00:34:15.900 they hated the fact that we're conservative, they're liberal, and it made the minister look bad.

00:34:21.180 We had the actual document saying, don't take the money, block them. How did this, you know,

00:34:28.220 how was this published in the first place? So I, I sense that rather than fixing some of these problems,

00:34:33.980 the, the liberal bureaucracy, and there were dozens of people involved in, in that, in those email

00:34:40.060 exchanges. I was shocked by how many people were working against this food hamper project. I sense

00:34:46.140 that it's all about protect the leadership, protect the brass, protect Trudeau and Harjit Sajan,

00:34:52.860 even if it means turning down help for vets or serving soldiers in that case. I don't know. I just,

00:34:59.740 I got a taste of the Kafkaesque bureaucracy just when we were trying to do a simple thing,

00:35:04.060 like dropping off a check. It was really crazy.

00:35:07.740 You know, the, the military is, it's an interesting place. In the mid nineties,

00:35:13.500 we were getting lots of notifications coming out saying, you know, because of all the pay freezes

00:35:19.100 that we've had, please let soldiers off early so they can go and get a second job and support

00:35:24.780 themselves and please have base food drives and things like that during special occasions. And,

00:35:31.420 and if, you know, you can give a guy an extra day off on a Monday, once a month or something,

00:35:38.700 please do so, so that he can work a second job. And the military didn't seem to mind it because the

00:35:47.100 idea was to embarrass the government and to, and to start treating soldiers with the respect and,

00:35:53.580 and paying them what they were due. But there was some painful lessons that came from that.

00:35:59.820 And a lot of senior leaders found themselves not promoted, disappearing, retiring. And those lessons

00:36:10.220 aren't forgotten. Embarrassing the government is a short term solution. It's like when you get a young

00:36:17.500 lieutenant and you have to train them as, as a senior NCO, you can take two routes. You can embarrass

00:36:23.340 them every day because it's very easy with a young lieutenant, or you can teach them how to lead men,

00:36:29.420 because someday he is going to be a senior leader. And if you go the, the route of embarrassment,

00:36:37.980 well, that's fine for, for about four to six years. And then suddenly he's a major and you're

00:36:43.500 still a warrant officer or a sergeant. And he's got some severe power over your future. So again,

00:36:49.900 it's a short term solution. And the lesson was not lost on the military that if you embarrass the

00:36:56.860 government, you will pay a heavy price for that. So now what you see is a very risk adverse senior

00:37:04.460 leadership. Generals, colonels, they are all extremely risk adverse. They are well informed in political

00:37:14.540 circles and how to deal with the politics and the bureaucracy of the D and D civilian employees that

00:37:21.340 actually run the place. And they know how the game is played. They know how they get to the top

00:37:28.140 and they know what to do and what not to do. So they have their local food drives to make sure

00:37:32.940 soldiers, you know, don't go hungry over the holidays. And they do quietly let people have second

00:37:41.100 jobs and, and, and take the time they need to be with their families, but they don't publicize it a

00:37:47.500 whole lot. And they avoid scrutiny like that. And they avoid embarrassment at the political level

00:37:52.620 at all costs. I get it. I understand that makes sense. The way you describe it like that.

00:37:57.420 I just think it's a shame. I mean, it would have, it would have been a one day thing. And the only

00:38:02.780 people who would have seen it would be our own viewers who would have felt good about

00:38:06.620 their donation. It's very frustrating to me, but the way you describe it makes perfect sense.

00:38:12.540 Well, listen, we're, we're being a little bit political because we are by nature a political show.

00:38:15.980 And I know you yourself, um, have been involved with the conservative party, but it is my true

00:38:21.100 hope that in time, these issues will become nonpartisan and that parties will seek to outdo

00:38:27.260 each other, um, as they do on some other issues, everyone trying to outbid the other for, you know,

00:38:33.100 I mean, I remember in the 2015 election, you had Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau saying,

00:38:38.700 I'll give the CBC 1.3 billion. Oh, I'll give them 1.5 billion. They were trying to outdo each other.

00:38:44.380 Uh, I only wish that they had that kind of, um, one upmanship when it came to taking care of our

00:38:50.620 serving military and our retired vets, some of whom are still injured. Last word to you,

00:38:56.620 my friend. Um, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit sad listening to what you're saying and thinking about

00:39:00.940 things, but, um, maybe Remembrance Day is a good time to, to think about these. But,

00:39:06.220 but why don't you leave us with some thoughts? What do you think on this latest Remembrance Day?

00:39:10.540 Well, you know, I think about the same things I think about pretty much every year, my colleagues,

00:39:17.980 my friends, the men and women I served with that didn't come home. All those that gave for us,

00:39:27.180 they gave so much, the families that, that suffered endlessly. Uh, that's what I think about when I'm

00:39:37.580 standing in the cold outside for 30 or 40 minutes or however long the ceremony lasts. I go to one in

00:39:47.500 Calgary that avoids politicians like the plague, which is really great. Um, and I'll tell you,

00:39:55.980 I, I am a conservative. I have founded a, a veterans for the conservative party page. I've,

00:40:02.860 I've advocated for the conservatives. I've, I've, I've wanted to run for them. But if Trudeau called

00:40:10.460 tomorrow, if his minister called, if somebody in the bureaucracy called, I'd be there in a heartbeat

00:40:16.140 and I do it for free if they asked my opinion, because I don't, I don't care what party solves

00:40:22.700 this problem. I really don't. All I care about is my brothers and sisters that still serve

00:40:29.340 and my fellow veterans. If I could help one, I'd, I'd become a liberal tomorrow.

00:40:38.220 Well, you know, that's a really beautiful note to end on Lee. It's great to have you on the show and

00:40:42.780 great to hear your voice. Always, uh, you stand for what's right and you stand for remembering those

00:40:47.740 who served and those who paid the price. Nice to see you again, my friend. Thank you for being with us

00:40:52.300 today. Thanks for highlighting this, Ezra. It's so important. All right. There you have it. Lee Humphrey,

00:40:57.820 a good friend of ours and a friend who has served our country in many ways. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:41:12.940 Welcome back on my monologue Friday about Alberta protecting conscience rights of physicians. Donna

00:41:17.980 writes, this bill is needed. Doctors should not be forced to perform abortions if it is against their

00:41:23.900 faith. There are many doctors who do not share these beliefs and they will be happy to perform

00:41:28.140 these services for the women who want them. Yeah, this bill actually doesn't even change anything.

00:41:34.460 As I showed you, Section 2A of our Charter of Rights, the fundamental freedom section, the very

00:41:39.820 first freedom is freedom of belief and conscience. Um, it just shows how when civil libertarians want to be

00:41:48.300 authoritarians, I think their authoritarian instinct wins out all these liberal journalists who really

00:41:54.220 want the power to force people to do what they want to do. Liz writes that we have to have a

00:41:59.980 conversation about doctors, right? Not to, to not perform something that is against their morality

00:42:04.460 or religious beliefs is really kind of embarrassing for a civilized country like Canada. Yeah, I keep

00:42:09.500 saying where are the civil liberties groups? When was the last time you saw the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:42:13.180 Association actually stand up for a real civil liberty? Sam writes, a doctor who performs abortion 0.99

00:42:19.820 or euthanasia is not a doctor I want treating me. Well, I mean, and that's the thing, abortion is one

00:42:24.860 thing, but assisted suicide, how is that even something that a doctor would do? The Hippocratic Oath, which

00:42:33.340 is millennia old, is do no harm. I have no idea to this day how a doctor can do that. I mean, abortion is,

00:42:39.500 we all know that abortion debate very well, but it's novel, the concept of a doctor helping to kill

00:42:47.820 someone who's born already. That's even more unfathomable. Well, that's our show today. I'm upset

00:42:56.300 about Don Cherry being fired because it's the bullying culture, the cancel culture, because it was so

00:43:02.540 obviously a fake manufactured by the media party, and because he was the last great conservative voice in

00:43:08.460 the pop culture. I think we're going to see a lot more of this in the months and years ahead.

00:43:13.980 By the way, we set up a petition before Don Cherry was fired called supportdoncherry.com, and we were

00:43:20.700 going to send it to Sportsnet, thinking perhaps he would be spared, but he was fired a couple hours

00:43:26.460 after we launched the petition. We're going to do it anyways. We're going to give a copy of the petition

00:43:31.980 to Don Cherry. We're going to give a copy to Judas Ron McClain. We're going to give a copy to Sportsnet

00:43:38.220 to let them know that people do not agree with their woke censorship. And I frankly hope that

00:43:46.220 Sportsnet loses a lot of money on this. It reminds me of Gillette when they came up with TV ads that

00:43:55.260 attacked men for being male and called them toxic masculinity. I think Sportsnet did the same thing

00:44:03.740 today. They listened to the shrill voices of the left instead of severely normal Canadians. That's the show

00:44:09.500 for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at Rubble World Highquarters, good night. Keep fighting for freedom.

00:44:15.260 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - November 12, 2019

It’s Remembrance Day — and Don Cherry was just fired for telling Canadians to wear a poppy

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