Rebel News Podcast - Justin Trudeau and the ‘Thinkfluencers’ fail to deliver on $1.5 billion promise

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I want to go deep in two made-up words, thinkfluencer and deliverology.

00:00:09.960 Do you think I'm making these words up? Do you really think I'm making them up?

00:00:15.260 Or do you think they're at the heart of Justin Trudeau's worldview? I'm going to show you. I'm

00:00:21.440 going to show you. That's what today's podcast is about. I really wish you would buy a subscription

00:00:25.640 to Rebel News Plus, though, because I got to show you some video. That's really what Rebel News Plus

00:00:31.100 is. It's the podcast, but with the video part. And you also get David Menzies' weekly show and

00:00:35.980 Sheila Gunn-Reed's weekly show. So you get a lot for $8 a month. That's all it is, or $80 for the 0.99

00:00:40.920 whole year. Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. Plus, we need the dough to pay our

00:00:45.540 bills. That's how we do it. Okay, here's today's podcast.

00:00:55.640 Tonight, remember when Justin Trudeau said he was a believer in deliverology? Yeah, about

00:01:09.280 that? It's October 8th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:14.580 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:18.340 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:21.980 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my

00:01:27.020 bloody right to do so.

00:01:33.480 There are some words out there that I just don't ever want to say. I don't want to be

00:01:38.580 the kind of guy who uses those words. I don't want to say the word thinkfluencer. That's

00:01:47.380 a word people are using. Thinkfluencer. Justin Trudeau's cabinet is full of thinkfluencers.

00:01:53.920 Those are people who go to shallow, non-expert, buzzwordy TED Talks where they outdo each other

00:02:00.980 with the jargon, and you instantly forget everything that was said, but you know you were in the

00:02:05.560 presence of a great thinker. If only you could have understood what the thoughts were. It's

00:02:10.720 places like the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. I mean, look at this CBC story.

00:02:17.380 Bono, Spacey, and DiCaprio. Trudeau chats with celebrities at Davos reception. Let me read

00:02:24.380 a bit.

00:02:25.440 World Economic Forum attracts not only political and business leaders, but actors and rock

00:02:30.620 stars. That was from right after Trudeau was first elected. The CBC loved it. Lots of pop

00:02:37.060 stars. Trudeau got to show everyone his fancy socks. He gave shallow speeches about being

00:02:43.740 great feminists. The people listening to those speeches consider themselves thinkfluencers. 1.00

00:02:51.200 It's so hilarious, so ridiculous, but when everyone's talking that way and doing that,

00:02:55.720 no one notices it's crazy, I guess. It's like when Sheila Gunn-Reed went to the United Nations

00:03:01.640 Climate Convention in Marrakesh, Morocco a few years back, and when she leaned on one of those

00:03:06.540 electric car chargers and it tipped over, it wasn't real. It was just for the feeling of being

00:03:11.620 real and relevant and thinkfluencing people into using electric cars. I'll move on to the news in

00:03:16.960 a second. Trudeau's foreign aid promises compared to the realities, but give me another moment on this

00:03:22.220 whole thinkfluencer thing because it's absolutely spot on what the government, Trudeau's liberal

00:03:28.420 government is. In his cabinet, there are no business success stories. There are no people who

00:03:34.000 achieved things in life, no real leaders. You have lots of thinkfluencers, people who talk about

00:03:39.200 talking about things, but none of them actually ever accomplished anything, and what they do and say

00:03:44.880 will change in a moment if it suits them. I mean, Catherine McKenna, Stephen Gilbeau, Seamus O'Regan,

00:03:50.680 there's no there there. It's just empty all the way down. It's like if you drop a coin into a well

00:03:56.920 and you just never hear the splash, they are empty all the way down. Give me a moment because it's

00:04:03.680 hard to tell the difference between a Trudeau speech and a parody account about these sorts of

00:04:09.940 things like this. My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. Well, I want you to know

00:04:18.940 Canadians for our resourcefulness. So he really said that. That's a little couplet of words that sound

00:04:26.040 like each other. Resources, resourcefulness. But in fact, Canada has the world's, I don't know,

00:04:31.200 second or third largest oil reserves, huge natural gas reserves, huge mining resources,

00:04:37.840 forestry, fresh water, agriculture. Those are all resources, right? The world wants them. We need them

00:04:45.060 too, to say, stop thinking about resources and just call us resourceful. That's not actually deep

00:04:51.860 or smart. That's actually very stupid. Resourceful actually means to make the best out of what

00:04:57.220 resources you have. And we've got a lot. But Trudeau was saying we're done with oil and gas and mining

00:05:03.060 and forestry and pipelines. He really is that stupid. He wants to talk about how feminist he is instead.

00:05:08.960 That's his message to the world. Incredibly proud to have a partner in my wife, Sophie, who is

00:05:14.380 extremely committed to women and girls issues. But she took me aside a few months ago and said,

00:05:19.580 okay, it's great that you're engaged and modeling to your daughter that you want her empower and

00:05:25.100 everything. But you need to take as much effort to talk to your sons, my eight-year-old boy and my

00:05:31.460 two-year-old, so a little young still, about how he treats women and how he is going to be grown up to

00:05:37.600 be a feminist just like dad. And by the way, we shouldn't be afraid of the word feminist. Men and 0.64

00:05:42.540 women should use it to describe themselves anytime they want. Yeah, I'm not sure if Trudeau is teaching

00:05:48.260 his boys the right lessons. Again, I feel I am confident that I did not act inappropriately.

00:05:58.900 But part of this awakening that we're having as a society, a long-awaited realization,

00:06:06.100 is that it's not just one side of the story that matters. That the same interactions could be

00:06:16.100 experienced very differently.

00:06:17.560 The worst of his cabinets is actually Chrystia Freeland, who really did do the shallow talk show 1.00

00:06:23.700 circuit for a living as a think-fluencer for years. She just went from TED Talk to TED Talk. She went on

00:06:30.280 late-night comedy shows in the U.S. as the Deep Flinker. But she never really said anything other

00:06:36.320 than buzzwords. I once saw her in a short interview use the phrase tipping point four times in about five 1.00

00:06:42.040 minutes in a single interview. I guess she had just read that pop bestseller tipping point. The one

00:06:48.580 company she ever ran as a businesswoman called Reuters Next, she destroyed it. It literally never 0.60

00:06:55.060 recovered from her disastrous leadership. They didn't even try to save it. They shut it down after

00:06:59.180 she wrecked it. Well, let me show you some fake think-fluencers online. These are sort of comedy

00:07:05.420 accounts. But you tell me if Trudeau or Freeland or McKennell could have said any of these. So this is a

00:07:10.140 parody account, I think. 40 self-promoters under 40. Yeah, that's actually where the Liberal Party

00:07:18.260 recruits its candidates from, right? Here's a comment about the recent debates. This is from

00:07:24.560 Professor Jeff Jarvis. It's a parody account. Mr. Vice President, Senator Harris, we are introducing a

00:07:30.280 new format. You each now have 60 seconds to record a TikTok about COVID, including the choice of

00:07:35.720 soundtrack. You see what I mean about using jargon and buzzwords and just seeming cool but being sort

00:07:40.760 of stupid? That's very Trudeau-ish. Here's another parody account called Davos Man. I think Justin

00:07:47.120 Trudeau may actually be the model for this parody account. Trudeau loves going to Davos. Thread.

00:07:53.400 Small ideas feel big when I'm in my Gulfstream. So here it goes. We have to innovate on innovation.

00:07:59.320 The seventh industrial revolution disrupts and displaces. Artificial intelligence and blockchain

00:08:05.220 can only solve resurgent populism with compassion. Hashtag. Is this real or is this Trudeau or is this a

00:08:12.240 parody? We elites are critical to making this debate glocalized. That's another one of those words.

00:08:19.860 Thought leadership also involves thought stewardship. Communities from the core of our economies form the

00:08:26.320 core. Blue-collar workers must be reconceived as new-collar workers. Code is key. Is that Trudeau?

00:08:33.760 Is that Freeland? Is that McKenna? Is that Gilboa? Glocalized. I bet you a dollar Trudeau has used that

00:08:40.540 fake word. I'm sure he has. This actually might just be plagiarized from Trudeau's actual statements.

00:08:47.720 I've made hashtag women a top priority for three years. As an advocate, I'm proud to say that since then,

00:08:53.960 hashtag women have made great strides. Today there are more women at Davos than ever. To celebrate,

00:09:01.240 snowmobiles will bring all Davos women to my chalet for an intimate talk on climate change. 0.98

00:09:06.840 I think that's Trudeau. Am I right? Okay, last one. Let me just read you one more.

00:09:11.880 Our current crises aren't data problems, but people problems. Data must become a great equalizer

00:09:18.440 if we give corporate stakeholders the opportunity and trust to mine the intimate details of our

00:09:24.080 lives. Data will become more human. That's Trudeau. That's Gilboa. Thinkfluencer is glocalized.

00:09:32.840 Code is key. Just all that BS. You know what's another word like that? Deliverology. Deliverology.

00:09:42.820 Do you think I'm kidding? Now this one, I'm not going to show you any parody accounts. I wish.

00:09:46.940 I wish. Look at this news story from the same CBC reporter, Aaron Wary, who wrote about Trudeau's

00:09:52.660 socks at Davos, about Bono, about that accused sex predator, Kevin Spacey at Davos.

00:09:58.320 How Justin Trudeau plans to deliver on Deliverology. I swear to God, this is not a parody. This is a real

00:10:06.620 story in the CBC. PM, a devotee of Michael Barber's result-oriented management theories.

00:10:13.100 Oh, is Justin Trudeau a devotee of certain management theories? He can engage in discussions

00:10:20.280 about management theories. Really.

00:10:23.600 From early on, Trudeau's government, laden with myriad promises, has been taking guidance

00:10:29.260 from the teachings of Michael Barber, a British political advisor whose theories of result-oriented

00:10:34.520 management have come to be known as Deliverology. Okay, so some foreign guru is fleecing Canadian 1.00

00:10:45.000 taxpayers by using buzzwords with Trudeau, and Trudeau's fallen in love. Why not just read

00:10:50.460 him fake Twitter tweets from Davos Guy or Jeff Jarvis like I just did? Save some money. How

00:10:55.440 come we're hiring foreigners at what, six, seven, eight figures for Deliverology? Why not just 0.99

00:10:59.580 read the parody stuff I was doing? They really went big with this cult. Take a look at this.

00:11:04.500 How Deliverology can help Canada's public sector pragmatists. For some time now, it's been

00:11:10.020 acknowledged that more data in the right hands means more insights, but the unprecedented opportunity

00:11:15.160 for our governments to use those insights to improve the lives of citizens has yet to materialize

00:11:19.420 in any significant way. Didn't I just read that to you from Davos, man? I'm going to skip to the last

00:11:27.560 sentence in this article. I swear this is real. This is from the Hill Times, which is an Ottawa

00:11:33.480 newspaper. This is not a parody account, I swear. Thankfully, more pragmatic public sector minds

00:11:40.460 could live by a more data-driven definition of the concept. The feedback loop enabled by the

00:11:46.100 internet and big data has created an opportunity for a data-fed virtuous cycle between government and

00:11:51.380 citizens. Tapped into, we could create a system based on facts and solid measurements that lets the

00:11:56.420 promises keep themselves. Promises keep themselves. It's like budgets balancing themselves. If

00:12:01.900 Deliverology gets us that far, perhaps Sir Michael Barber's knighthood was well-earned after all.

00:12:07.340 I swear to God, that's real. Do you know what any of that means? No, you don't. It doesn't mean

00:12:14.620 anything. George Orwell called that duck speaking. Oh, he's a good duck speaker. It's like that art

00:12:20.940 installation taxpayers bought years ago. Remember that? Voice of fire. Those three lines. I'm sorry,

00:12:28.360 it's like someone talking for 10 minutes about the deep meaning of voice of fire and why it's worth

00:12:32.680 millions. And you're nodding along. They're just making it all up. They're just seeing how far they

00:12:37.100 can go. And you continue nodding. They'll just see how far they can go. Here's an article in 2016

00:12:42.560 in a very smart think tank propped up by Canadian taxpayers. It's called, will Deliverology work for

00:12:50.620 the Canadian government? Here's the same think tank three years later. Whatever happened to

00:12:57.540 Deliverology? Yeah, a lot of people made a lot of money off gullible Canadian taxpayers. That's what

00:13:03.920 happened. Here's the Globe and Mail more recently. Trudeau government's Deliverology experiment ends with

00:13:10.540 the whimper. You don't say. You don't say. Here's another from the National Post. Public servant

00:13:16.700 tasked with monitoring how liberal government was keeping promises leaves role. Michael Mandelson is

00:13:22.900 returning to academia after four years from the Privy Council office, the bureaucratic operation that

00:13:27.400 supports the prime minister. How much money did he make off this whole scam? We will probably never

00:13:31.960 know. Which brings me finally to the news today. Look at this story in the Globe and Mail.

00:13:37.460 Ottawa's $1.5 billion foreign aid initiative has spent only $120,000 so far. Oh, foreign aid,

00:13:48.440 that's the kind of thing that think-fluencers normally like. And look there, there's Bono. He's

00:13:54.880 really a top dog think-fluencer. And look at the caption. Irish pop star Bono, founder of the

00:14:02.080 Anti-Poverty Advocacy Group, known as the One Campaign, seen here with Justin Trudeau in Montreal,

00:14:07.420 had praised the 2018 Trudeau budget as smart, women-centered policy and leadership in action.

00:14:14.400 Oh my God. Here, let me read. Nearly three years after announcing $1.5 billion in new financing

00:14:22.380 programs for foreign aid, Ottawa has dispersed only a tiny fraction of the promised money,

00:14:26.400 just $120,000 so far. The Trudeau government won praise from aid agencies in February 2018 when it

00:14:33.760 announced $1.5 billion for two new financing tools, an International Assistance Innovation

00:14:40.940 Program, IAIP, and a Sovereign Loan Program. I love that last part, International Assistance

00:14:49.420 Innovation Program, IAIP. Because really, who knows more about innovation in international assistance

00:14:55.460 than the government, especially Justin Trudeau's government. Let me read more buzzwords. This is

00:15:00.940 really in the newspaper. Ottawa touted the new programs as groundbreaking approaches to development

00:15:07.960 assistance, allowing the use of private sector methods such as equity investments, guarantees,

00:15:12.880 and conditionally repayable contributions to bring new funding, developing... Groundbreaking.

00:15:17.480 You've got to use the word groundbreaking innovation when you have an international development

00:15:22.260 assistance program. You've just got to. That's what the parody Twitter accounts would say. You've

00:15:26.680 just got to add the word women-centric and coding, and you're set. You know, I wanted to tell you that

00:15:32.440 because in these bleak times, in these dark days, this is a little glimmer of hope, a little bit of good

00:15:40.220 news. The buffoon-in-chief, the blackface boss, the groping guy, the serial lawbreaker under the 0.90

00:15:47.040 conflict of interest act. He tried to spend 1.5 billion dollars, and he just couldn't do it. He only

00:15:54.380 managed to spend 120 grand only. That, my friends, is a little miracle. May all of Trudeau's projects

00:16:02.640 fail so spectacularly. Stay with us for more.

00:16:06.760 I want to move on. Well, I'd love to respond. Look, lost the trade war with China. Joe Biden never

00:16:22.020 fought it. Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China through over the last several

00:16:27.360 decades. And again, Senator Harris, you're entitled to your opinion. You're not entitled to your own

00:16:33.120 facts. When Joe Biden was vice president, we lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs. And President Obama

00:16:39.520 said they were never coming back. He said we needed a magic wand to bring them back. In our first three

00:16:44.340 years after we cut taxes, rollback regulation, unleashed American energy, this administration

00:16:49.340 saw 500,000 manufacturing jobs created. And that's exactly the kind of growth we're going to continue

00:16:55.480 to see as we bring our nation through this pandemic. With a Green New Deal, your massive new 1.00

00:17:00.920 mandate, your Paris climate accord, it's going to kill jobs this time, just like it killed jobs.

00:17:05.740 Well, that's a clip from last night's vice presidential debate, the only one of its kind

00:17:10.040 scheduled for this election season. Vice President Mike Pence grilling Kamala Harris on Joe Biden's

00:17:15.760 record of rolling over for communist China on economics. It wasn't an argument about morality

00:17:21.920 or freedom or cyber security. It was all about jobs. But I think it made a strong point. That's my

00:17:30.620 view. Joining us now is one of North America's top experts on U.S.-China relations, our friend Gordon

00:17:35.740 G. Chang. You can follow him at Gordon G. Chang on Twitter. Gordon, what did you make of how the vice

00:17:41.460 president and Kamala Harris sparred over China yesterday? Was there any movement? Was there anything

00:17:49.380 clarified by it? I don't know if anything was clarified by it. But I think this was one of

00:17:55.520 the vice president's strongest moments of the night. And I think is actually Kamala Harris's weakest point

00:18:00.980 of the evening. Because the Obama administration, they had a view that climate change was absolutely

00:18:07.620 critical. And they were going to ignore all sorts of things in order to get Beijing to sign on to the

00:18:13.940 Paris Accord. So clearly, the vice president was right. Now, people can say that's a good thing.

00:18:20.000 But the point is, it's a fact. Do you think that the Trump-Pence campaign has focused enough on China?

00:18:29.080 And do you think they focused on it in the right way? Some of the arguments about China seem a little

00:18:34.240 bit abstract. I mean, I deeply believe in human rights. And I know you do, too. I also worry about

00:18:40.180 the region that China's trying to dominate, you know, whether it's Japan or India. I don't know

00:18:47.600 if that resonates in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, but I know the job stuff does.

00:18:52.920 Do you think the Republican campaign has been strong enough? Do you think they've

00:18:56.520 had the right focus on China? I'm worried it hasn't been talked about enough.

00:19:01.100 Yeah, I think the administration could make a much stronger case on its China policy.

00:19:05.540 So, for instance, last night, I would have liked to have heard the vice president say,

00:19:11.240 look, those tariffs that Kamala Harris complained about, those are imposed as a remedy for the theft

00:19:17.320 of U.S. intellectual property. And he should have asked her, well, what are you going to do about it?

00:19:22.280 Because when Biden was vice president for eight years, the administration just ignored it. Or when

00:19:28.040 they actually did something which was rare, they took actions that they knew were ineffective.

00:19:32.760 So, for instance, they indicted Chinese military officers in the western district of Pennsylvania,

00:19:38.160 Pittsburgh. But, you know, that was symbolic. And so I think that essentially, the administration

00:19:43.300 has a much stronger argument, but it has not been making it during this campaign.

00:19:48.560 If I recall from the presidential debate, Trump talked about Hunter Biden and China. That felt more

00:19:55.060 like a corruption issue or a scandal issue than a national interest issue. I mean, I think it

00:20:01.480 irritated Joe Biden, but I'm not sure if it moved votes. I think it really is the largest piece of

00:20:08.900 the puzzle that'll be, the largest thing that'll be different if Trump or Biden, if one of them wins

00:20:13.800 and the other doesn't. I mean, there'll be climate issues that are different, those tax issues.

00:20:18.460 There might be some racial justice issues that are different. But I think the number one difference 0.81

00:20:23.340 between a Trump re-election or a Biden election will be on China's role in the world. That's,

00:20:28.720 I think it's that critical an issue. What do you think? I mean, I know this is your area of

00:20:35.560 expertise. Let me throw one more thing at you before you answer. Nathan Vanderklip, who is a

00:20:42.360 Canadian journalist in China, was watching the debate on Chinese TV. And when Mike Pence referred

00:20:49.180 to China, take a look at this, the screen was blacked out. And on Chinese TV, it said no signal. So they

00:20:56.360 literally were censoring Mike Pence in real time. That tells me China thinks this is a critical

00:21:03.480 election and they've made their choice. Well, they certainly have, because the trend of Communist

00:21:09.180 Party and state propaganda has been to unseat President Trump. Also, when we start to look at

00:21:16.240 their troll and bot operations, those have been directed against the president as well.

00:21:21.040 And when state media or party media has talked about the candidates, it said nice things about Biden

00:21:28.900 and horrible things about President Trump. So clearly, Beijing has picked its choice in this

00:21:35.680 election. And it's doing a lot to try to unseat President Trump. You know, President Trump was headed,

00:21:42.080 cruising to re-election victory before the coronavirus hit. And since that time,

00:21:48.520 he's now far behind in the polls, it's really disrupted the campaign.

00:21:52.860 I'm not saying that Beijing released the coronavirus to unseat Trump. But we do know that Xi Jinping,

00:21:58.600 the Chinese ruler, took steps that he knew or had to know would spread the disease beyond China's 0.89

00:22:03.780 borders. So there is a direct causal relationship in all of this.

00:22:10.160 Yeah. If I recall, he shut down flights from Wuhan to Beijing, from Wuhan to Shanghai,

00:22:14.980 but not from Wuhan to the Western countries.

00:22:17.740 Yeah, there's two things. First of all, Xi Jinping knew the coronavirus was highly contagious,

00:22:22.540 but he told the world that it was not. And at the same time, he was pressuring countries not to

00:22:28.120 impose those travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals from China when he was imposing similar

00:22:33.900 measures inside China itself. So he knew those measures were effective. And he knew that by leaning

00:22:39.420 on other countries, he was taking a step to spread the disease. So, you know, Ezra, this, you know,

00:22:45.560 the fact that we have all these infections around the world, all these deaths, a million deaths,

00:22:50.880 seven million infections, that's because China took steps to make sure that happened. 0.58

00:22:57.560 I thought it was interesting when Trump himself caught the virus and had to go to the hospital.

00:23:03.600 Uh, I follow a number of Chinese propaganda accounts. One of them's called Global Times and

00:23:09.700 their editor, um, Hu Xijin, if I'm going from memory is his name, he made a shocking tweet,

00:23:17.000 basically mocking Trump and saying, ha ha, it, it serves you right. I think he later deleted it,

00:23:22.740 but there was a jubilation there. And normally I wouldn't care. I mean, a pundit, what do I care?

00:23:27.680 There's a gazillion pundits in America who say rude things all the time. But the thing is,

00:23:32.600 a pundit in communist China isn't a lone ranger. He is expressing the views of the communist party.

00:23:39.600 I think he had to delete that tweet later, but it certainly showed the thinking in the

00:23:44.480 communist party. Do you think, I mean, why do you think they would have pulled them back?

00:23:47.580 Because it was just too far? Or what do you think was going on there?

00:23:51.160 I think they pulled them back because people around the world were condemning who and the Global

00:23:57.280 Times for this. Got to remember, um, Hu Xijin is the editor of Global Times. Global Times is

00:24:03.680 controlled by People's Daily. People's Daily is the most authoritative source in China. Now,

00:24:10.280 Global Times is not technically official, but we know that Beijing uses the Global Times to sort of

00:24:16.620 propagate themes, sort of sometimes on a trial basis, sometimes because they want deniability.

00:24:22.100 So this is, um, yes, you say, it's not just some jerk in China. Um, this is, uh, pretty close to

00:24:30.200 official. And I think Beijing understood that, uh, it was losing friends because of that tweet. People

00:24:35.960 may not like President Trump, but they certainly didn't like that tweet.

00:24:39.920 Incredible. Well, listen, I, I think this is going to be a momentous month. And I think so much turns

00:24:47.600 on this. I think it's, uh, going to be incredible to watch. And I hope for all the world's sake,

00:24:53.380 uh, that the election goes the way it ought to. I think that whether or not Biden or Trump wins the

00:24:59.080 American election will actually have a greater impact on Canada, on the United Kingdom, on Taiwan,

00:25:06.180 certainly on Japan, than most domestic decisions in the countries I've just looked at. It's so

00:25:12.040 important. And, uh, we're going to be watching every step of the way. And we're going to be

00:25:15.700 following your Twitter account, Gordon. I encourage every one of my followers who's not following yet

00:25:20.220 do so at Gordon G Chang. It's educational. It's patriotic, great arguments, great facts. I can't

00:25:27.780 believe how many things you stay abreast of all the time. You're like your own, uh, research bureau.

00:25:32.700 So thank you for sharing the wisdom with us. I know you're busy, so we'll say goodbye now. But

00:25:36.400 Gordon, thanks for joining us as you always do. No, thank you so much, Ezra. All right. There

00:25:41.080 you have it, Gordon G Chang. Got to follow him on Twitter. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:25:47.440 Hey folks, you know, we got some exciting things cooking. We got so many reporters doing so many

00:26:01.880 things. And I just want to give you a little update about Kian Bextie's update. He's been on

00:26:06.120 the West Coast for a few days. He's gone. I don't know if you saw this, but he went to an environmental

00:26:11.920 blockade, an illegal encampment. But it was so far in the woods, they didn't have Wi-Fi. So when he

00:26:17.500 showed up, they couldn't Google who he was. So they didn't know he was a rebel. So they actually let him

00:26:21.640 in and he filmed all sorts of stuff. And he's been doing all sorts of stories about illegal blockades

00:26:26.420 there. We're going to have an amazing little documentary for you next week about that.

00:26:30.680 Here, here's a sneak preview from Kian himself.

00:26:34.160 Right now, we are in the Fraser River on a tugboat. This happened virtually overnight after

00:26:40.040 my cameraman and I were embedded in an eco-radical blockade on the west end of Vancouver Island.

00:26:47.040 They welcomed us in after we said we were good buddies with Fred and Tunberg. Not really a lie,

00:26:51.140 we're on first name basis. But after that, we wanted to hear the other side of the story because they

00:26:55.660 were actually quite compelling people. They made some arguments. And I wanted to hear from folks

00:27:00.880 in industry and someone on a tugboat carrying logs from Haida Gwai all the way down to Vancouver

00:27:06.680 to the Fraser River is the perfect place to do that, the perfect people to talk to. So we're on the

00:27:13.740 boat right now. They invited us on and we're hearing the other side of the story. And it's all thanks to

00:27:17.480 folks who contributed at bcblockade.com. You can still go there if you want to contribute to this

00:27:23.340 documentary that we're creating. This documentary is going to cover everything from how the industry

00:27:28.400 operates to who is hurting it. We found some very interesting things out about some of the

00:27:33.680 eco-radicals behind these blockades. And a spoiler, they're closely connected to the very same people 0.99

00:27:39.960 blockading the coastal gasoline pipeline in northern BC that I was at earlier this year.

00:27:45.680 It's a crazy story and I'm excited to tell it to you. You can check it out at bcblockade.com.

00:27:50.640 Well, I can hardly wait to get that whole thing put together. Kian's still working on that. I just

00:27:55.300 talked to him a couple hours ago. So hopefully we'll have that next week. If you want to see

00:27:59.760 more about it, if you want to help us cover the cost, can we spend a few bucks on this?

00:28:03.100 Flying folks to BC, hotels, flights, meals, even. Go to bcblockade.com and we need to put together a few

00:28:13.340 thousand bucks if you're interested. All right. That's our show for today. Until tomorrow,

00:28:18.500 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Highquarters, see you at home. Good night.

00:28:22.060 Keep fighting for free.

00:28:23.020 Music.

00:28:33.700 Music.

00:28:34.600 Music.

00:28:35.800 .

00:28:40.260 .

Rebel News Podcast - October 09, 2020

Justin Trudeau and the ‘Thinkfluencers’ fail to deliver on $1.5 billion promise

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