Rebel News Podcast - Leftists remove statue of “racist” prime minister — “but won't do anything real about today’s Aboriginal issues”

00:00:00.000 Tonight, the mayor of Victoria joins a mob of vandals

00:00:03.560 calling for the removal of a statue of John A. Macdonald.

00:00:07.120 It's August 9th, and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:15.200 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:18.980 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:22.680 You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.

00:00:25.660 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it

00:00:29.660 is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:00:36.240 I want to talk about the attack on our history, our national symbols,

00:00:39.920 on the things that unite us as Canadians.

00:00:42.100 I've never seen it so bad as in this story.

00:00:45.580 City of Victoria to remove John A. Macdonald's statue from front steps of City Hall.

00:00:51.360 John A. Macdonald, as in the founding father of Confederation,

00:00:55.340 our first prime minister, the one who forged the country,

00:00:58.140 and then who built a railroad to make sure it stayed forged.

00:01:01.800 You might recognize him. He's on our $10 bill.

00:01:06.000 Actually, that's not the case anymore. Did you know that?

00:01:08.960 John A. Macdonald has been on our $10 bill for nearly 50 years.

00:01:12.300 Before that, it was the queen, and before her, the king.

00:01:16.720 But Justin Trudeau has removed him from the $10 bill. Did you know that?

00:01:19.920 Last year, Trudeau's government issued a $10 banknote where Macdonald was on there,

00:01:26.040 but with three other people.

00:01:28.140 They were prepping you to get rid of him.

00:01:31.900 And now that has happened.

00:01:34.140 This year, they just removed him altogether.

00:01:36.160 They put on this lady instead. 1.00

00:01:39.200 Do you know who she is?

00:01:41.500 Is that a picture of young Queen Elizabeth or something?

00:01:43.800 No, it is not.

00:01:45.620 It's someone named Viola Desmond.

00:01:48.460 Who's she? 0.97

00:01:50.260 She was a businesswoman in Halifax.

00:01:52.140 She was of mixed-race descent.

00:01:55.080 Her mom was white and her dad was black.

00:01:57.760 She went to a theater that didn't allow blacks to sit near the front, 1.00

00:02:00.900 and she needed to to see the screen better.

00:02:03.020 So she bought a ticket there, and she was prosecuted for that,

00:02:06.300 and it became a human rights case.

00:02:07.900 So it sounds like a good woman.

00:02:09.960 It sounds like she fought against racism.

00:02:11.880 That's great, but it is not proportionate to have someone like that on our national currency.

00:02:17.840 King George VI was on our $10 bill.

00:02:20.820 Then Queen Elizabeth II was on our $10 bill.

00:02:24.360 Then our founding prime minister, John A. Macdonald, was on our $10 bill.

00:02:28.400 And now a community activist who fought a movie theater?

00:02:33.980 I'm sorry, that's nuts.

00:02:35.000 That's virtue signaling.

00:02:35.820 I get it.

00:02:36.460 Trudeau was all about feminism, and he'd be all about Black Lives Matter if he could. 0.99

00:02:40.000 But luckily, Canada doesn't have a history of black slavery. 0.93

00:02:43.740 In fact, we were the destination for runaway slaves, for freed slaves from the U.S.

00:02:48.020 through what was called the Underground Railroad.

00:02:50.140 This is so forced.

00:02:52.000 I mean, Viola Desmond fought a political battle, a legal battle, and good for her. 1.00

00:02:56.100 But she didn't build a nation. 0.99

00:03:00.680 She didn't lead the British Empire through a world war.

00:03:03.320 The symbols of our country are being shrunk if she's on the $10 bill.

00:03:07.500 I like Viola Desmond, sure, but she didn't build Canada. 0.99

00:03:13.160 But look, it's not about Viola Desmond, nice lady, good woman.

00:03:15.780 It wasn't about her.

00:03:16.900 It was about knocking down John A. Macdonald.

00:03:20.080 And of course, about knocking down the Queen.

00:03:22.640 And in an important way, about shaming Canada and making us feel like we have a racist past,

00:03:29.960 as opposed to the truth, which is that we have always been a light unto the nations,

00:03:36.000 more so than most countries.

00:03:38.000 Trudeau does this all the time, though.

00:03:39.880 He shames Canada.

00:03:41.200 He scolds Canada.

00:03:42.860 He says we're unworthy and immoral, and only he is the righteous one.

00:03:47.740 That's what knocking out Macdonald and putting in a small local human rights activist

00:03:51.700 as our new national symbol means.

00:03:54.540 Back to the city of Victoria.

00:03:56.180 I read the headline already.

00:03:57.840 Now look at this sub-headline.

00:03:59.520 No one's erasing anything, but we have to understand the complexity of history,

00:04:02.820 says Mayor Lisa Helps.

00:04:05.920 She's against the statue, too.

00:04:07.520 No one's erasing anything.

00:04:08.580 You are tearing down a statue.

00:04:12.300 You know who tears down statues?

00:04:14.900 The Taliban tears down statues.

00:04:17.360 They dynamite them. 0.88

00:04:18.700 ISIS tears down statues because they're extremists. 1.00

00:04:21.980 They are against any graven images that they don't like.

00:04:25.280 And just like Justin Trudeau is slowly erasing our history, our culture, our story,

00:04:30.340 so is the mayor of Victoria.

00:04:31.720 Listen to this insanity.

00:04:33.120 Let me quote.

00:04:34.660 The city of Victoria is planning to remove the statue of John A. Macdonald,

00:04:38.100 Canada's first prime minister, from the front steps of City Hall

00:04:40.460 because of what it says is his role as a leader of violence against indigenous peoples.

00:04:47.920 No, he was the founder of our great country, but I see what they're doing there.

00:04:51.500 Besides blaming and shaming Macdonald, they are attempting to blame and shame

00:04:55.020 anyone who loves Macdonald or who loves our history.

00:04:59.800 It's not just Macdonald they're calling racist.

00:05:01.580 It's anyone who doesn't agree with them about Macdonald.

00:05:05.640 But they're doing one more thing.

00:05:06.860 It's a placebo.

00:05:07.480 You know what a placebo is.

00:05:08.420 It's a fake pill that doctors give patients sometimes to pretend to the patient

00:05:12.880 that they're prescribing a real medicine to the patient

00:05:15.760 when the problem is really just in the patient's mind.

00:05:17.700 The idea being if the patient believes he's now ingesting medicine,

00:05:20.680 he'll feel better by himself.

00:05:21.840 No need for real medicine.

00:05:23.520 It's a trick.

00:05:24.240 Well, this is a placebo for doing something real about aboriginal issues.

00:05:28.780 Oh, there are aboriginal issues in Canada.

00:05:31.460 And there is anti-aboriginal racism in Canada.

00:05:34.020 Absolutely there is.

00:05:35.080 And I'm not scolding you.

00:05:36.080 I'm talking to you about a law we have on the books called the Indian Act

00:05:39.860 that gives rights and takes rights away from aboriginal people based on race,

00:05:44.420 that treats them different from other citizens based on race.

00:05:47.340 Mainly, it treats aboriginal people like their children, 1.00

00:05:50.000 as people not able to handle the responsibilities of modern life.

00:05:53.080 That's why Indians on a reserve aren't allowed to have property rights to their own homes. 1.00

00:05:57.180 The band owns everything communally.

00:05:59.540 The theory being, Indians can't take care of their own property, 0.98

00:06:03.660 or they'd be, I don't know, swindled out of it by some unscrupulous buyer.

00:06:06.940 So better not let them have the right to sell any property ever.

00:06:10.080 Did you know the Indian Act even bans Indians from making a last will and testament on their own

00:06:15.920 without the band's approval?

00:06:18.560 Did you know that?

00:06:19.120 Seriously.

00:06:20.040 Look at section 45.3 of the Indian Act.

00:06:22.380 An Indian needs to have a white man's government in Ottawa approve of his will. 0.99

00:06:27.800 You're not allowed to own your own house.

00:06:29.740 You're not allowed to get a regular mortgage.

00:06:31.900 You're not allowed to make your own will if you're an Indian. 1.00

00:06:34.180 So, yeah, racism.

00:06:35.380 You bet.

00:06:35.860 Not 150 years ago.

00:06:37.180 Right now.

00:06:38.060 Which is easier?

00:06:39.420 Which is easier, I ask you?

00:06:40.880 For liberal white virtue signaling politicians to do?

00:06:44.760 To fix the real racism today in the Indian Act?

00:06:47.420 I don't know, to get jobs for actual Indians today who suffer from high unemployment today?

00:06:52.900 Is that easier?

00:06:54.320 Fix the Indian Act? 0.96

00:06:55.180 Fix economic problems?

00:06:56.600 Or to tear down a statue as if the evil statue is the problem we have.

00:07:01.220 Like it's some sort of cursed idol or something that needs to be smashed.

00:07:04.720 It's a placebo, I tell you.

00:07:05.880 I have never met a real Indian in my life who has ever, not once, ever brought up John 0.95

00:07:10.820 A. MacDonald as an issue.

00:07:12.980 Real Indians that I know talk about real things like jobs and taxes and oil and gas and money 1.00

00:07:17.680 and pipelines.

00:07:18.260 Those are huge aboriginal employers in Canada.

00:07:20.800 That's what real issues are.

00:07:21.940 But these leftists in Victoria, most of them white, all of them virtue signaling, would rather

00:07:26.180 talk about anything else, wouldn't they? 0.87

00:07:29.260 Now, it is true, though, that John A. MacDonald was a racist.

00:07:32.760 Of course it was true.

00:07:33.680 By our 2018 standards of progressive feelings, but then again, those standards changed so

00:07:41.500 quickly.

00:07:41.900 Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are a bunch of, I don't know, homophobes, too.

00:07:45.720 By that standard, remember this?

00:07:47.480 I believe that marriage is not just a bond, but a sacred bond between a man and a woman.

00:07:56.620 What was that?

00:07:57.220 Maybe 10 years ago?

00:07:59.040 Here's Barack Obama.

00:08:00.120 I have been very clear on this.

00:08:01.720 I have said that I am not a supporter of gay marriage.

00:08:06.080 I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. 1.00

00:08:09.140 So are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton a bunch of racist, sexist, Islamophobic, homophobes 0.99

00:08:15.640 or something? 1.00

00:08:16.080 Should we tear down their statues, too?

00:08:18.500 Not that there are a lot of statues to Clinton and Obama, but you get my point.

00:08:22.620 How about the big icon of the Canadian left?

00:08:25.780 Tommy Douglas.

00:08:26.560 Here he is.

00:08:27.360 If ever we needed in this country to adopt a new attitude to homosexuality, this is the 1.00

00:08:32.680 time.

00:08:33.900 Instead of treating it as a crime and driving it underground, we ought to recognize it for

00:08:37.580 what it is. 0.99

00:08:38.300 It's a mental illness. 0.90

00:08:40.480 He's so enlightened. 1.00

00:08:42.220 He doesn't want to throw gays in prison. 1.00

00:08:43.740 He just thinks they're mentally ill and they need to see a psychiatrist. 1.00

00:08:47.580 Uh-oh. 0.98

00:08:48.040 Is he a bigot now, too?

00:08:49.240 Should we tear down the hundred Tommy Douglas statues and rename the hundred Tommy Douglas

00:08:54.780 schools and parks in Canada, too?

00:08:57.140 Because that's the thing.

00:08:58.020 Tommy Douglas actually was progressive at that time.

00:09:01.720 That was open-minded at that time.

00:09:04.020 Was Canada racist 150 years ago?

00:09:06.980 Yeah, well, we are today, too, unless you work hard to ignore it.

00:09:10.000 We have racial quotas. 0.66

00:09:11.780 Justin Trudeau himself has gender quotas for cabinet.

00:09:14.760 He pretty clearly has a bias against white males other than himself.

00:09:18.300 The Enlightened won the Indian Act, though. 1.00

00:09:20.720 That's a racist document.

00:09:22.100 But seriously, were we bigoted in Canada back in the 1860s?

00:09:26.800 Was John A. Macdonald bigoted?

00:09:28.260 Well, we were the world's refuge for runaway slaves.

00:09:33.480 We were part of the British Empire whose navy eradicated the slave trade.

00:09:40.040 There was slavery on every single continent in the world, by the way.

00:09:43.480 In North America, in Canada, the Haida Indians of B.C., they kept slaves. 0.93

00:09:47.580 They were famous for it.

00:09:49.960 If you read the stories of the conquistadors, they encountered murderous slavers in Central America.

00:09:58.880 Africa still has slavery. 0.98

00:10:01.100 Asia has slavery. 0.98

00:10:01.940 Every place in the world had slavery. 0.84

00:10:05.020 Every traditional religion in the world has been or is hostile to homosexuality.

00:10:09.620 Every culture, other than the mythical Amazons, I suppose, has been sexist in a way, or at least believed in gender roles. 0.59

00:10:15.740 To pretend that we were evil then is a laugh.

00:10:19.580 It's like a placebo to distract from our real challenges now.

00:10:22.780 But it's really just a way to attack Canada and to pull us down, isn't it? 0.72

00:10:27.140 It's the same as Trudeau changing our national anthem.

00:10:29.700 It's the same as liberals opposing the Lord's Prayer.

00:10:32.380 It's the same.

00:10:35.120 It's them hating Canada.

00:10:37.200 Not themselves.

00:10:38.140 Oh, they don't hate themselves.

00:10:38.960 They just hate you.

00:10:44.200 Stay with us for more.

00:10:45.240 Welcome back.

00:11:02.280 Well, yesterday we had a very interesting talk with one of my favorite guys, Manny Montenegrino,

00:11:06.420 who brings a lawyer's eye to Justin Trudeau's foreign affairs.

00:11:11.740 He's done great commentary about the NAFTA deal.

00:11:14.620 And the Saudi thing, though, I could sense with Manny, and I feel it myself, I'm of two minds.

00:11:19.940 On the one hand, I know that Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries in the world. 1.00

00:11:23.460 It is an Islamic theocracy that has no civil rights as we know them. 1.00

00:11:28.860 In fact, the Koran is the basis of their constitution.

00:11:32.260 They are very illiberal.

00:11:34.320 And they literally execute people for moral offenses that we would not even regard as an offense.

00:11:42.440 And so the spat between Justin Trudeau and Saudi Arabia, obviously, out of national pride,

00:11:48.540 we would stand with our prime minister, even if he's a liberal.

00:11:51.580 But by the same token, the operational way, the tactical way, the foolish, childish way in which Canada brought about this diplomatic spat 0.86

00:12:02.240 feels like it's worth criticizing. 0.60

00:12:04.500 How do we do that?

00:12:06.160 How do we criticize the amateurish conduct of our foreign affairs,

00:12:11.340 but also stand with Canada against Saudi Arabia's dictatorship?

00:12:16.760 This is a tough one to thread the needle.

00:12:18.920 And joining us now is someone who I think can help us figure it out.

00:12:22.100 His name is Anthony Feary.

00:12:23.200 You know him well.

00:12:23.640 He's a columnist with the Toronto Sun.

00:12:25.120 And he wrote in the paper, Saudi Arabia, his column's called Saudi Arabia wants to nix all human rights criticism.

00:12:31.000 And there's no way we can agree to that.

00:12:33.060 He joins us now via Skype.

00:12:34.800 Anthony, great to see you again.

00:12:36.920 Hey, Ezra.

00:12:37.400 Great to be here.

00:12:38.340 Well, thanks for your column.

00:12:39.540 You know, I've been an enemy of Saudi Arabia for a long time, ever since I wrote the book Ethical Oil.

00:12:45.780 And I'm not just saying that to boast.

00:12:47.620 I don't know if you remember, Anthony, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia actually retained the law firm called Norton Rose

00:12:54.940 to threaten me with legal action if I kept insulting their ethical quality of their oil.

00:13:02.480 I don't know if you ever heard that story.

00:13:04.480 I got a demand letter from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to shut up.

00:13:08.020 As you can see, I have not shut up.

00:13:10.080 So I regard myself as an enemy of Saudi Arabia with great pride. 1.00

00:13:14.560 I'm happy that Justin Trudeau's in that camp now, but I think he sort of mangled this one in a bit, too.

00:13:20.760 What's your take?

00:13:21.360 Am I wrong on that?

00:13:22.100 Help me figure this out.

00:13:24.240 He did and he didn't.

00:13:25.940 I mean, I really appreciate what you said in the tee-up.

00:13:29.080 And it's important to preface all of these conversations with reminding people the truth about Saudi Arabia

00:13:34.100 and what goes on there and the whole basis of them having the vast majority of the 9-11 hijackers

00:13:40.840 be part of their nationality and also some of them being connected to individuals in the government.

00:13:46.440 They're exporting of Wahhabi extremism such that when you hear about them calling back their medical resident students, 0.98

00:13:52.620 some of them you go, OK, maybe they were just regular folk.

00:13:55.220 Others, perhaps they were these extremist elk.

00:13:58.540 It really changes a lot of it.

00:14:00.360 And I think the coverage out there, particularly for young people who are perhaps not familiar with the history of Saudi Arabia,

00:14:06.500 we need to know that that needs to be the part of the conversation.

00:14:09.960 And the way I'm putting it, I have another column coming out shortly on this,

00:14:14.460 that these concerns about Justin Trudeau and how he has, shall I put it mildly,

00:14:19.440 perhaps a rather skewed perspective of global affairs and perhaps a not very good way of dealing with international relations

00:14:26.360 and a very inconsistent one.

00:14:28.140 Ezra, I think this time around, that is a sidebar issue.

00:14:32.300 I think the front and center issue, and it's gotten worse since I wrote that column you allude to,

00:14:37.220 is that what Saudi Arabia is clearly trying to do is make us submit to them.

00:14:42.400 They are trying to bring us down to heel and there is absolutely no way that we should tolerate that.

00:14:48.460 Yeah, and that's a good point.

00:14:49.760 And I felt that, I mean, I really admire Manny and I look up to him so much.

00:14:53.060 And I felt yesterday both of us were trying to square this circle because we both know that Saudi Arabia would be, 0.83

00:14:59.160 I mean, I don't even think I'd be allowed in there.

00:15:00.940 I'm Jewish and they're very restrictive of non-Muslims.

00:15:05.720 There are entire cities like Mecca where infidels are simply not permitted to travel.

00:15:12.520 I think that by any moral measure, they are a failed state propped up only by oil money.

00:15:19.660 And as you say, they want Justin Trudeau to bend the knee.

00:15:24.980 I think the reason they chose, what do you think of this?

00:15:26.700 This is a theory that I've seen bandied about a lot.

00:15:28.760 One of the theories of why Saudi Arabia has gone so mental over a tweet is because they sense Trudeau is weak

00:15:38.460 and they can get him to roll over in a way that maybe Theresa May and certainly Donald Trump and maybe Angela Merkel would not.

00:15:45.320 As in, they see he's wobbly.

00:15:47.600 They see he's all thumbs. 0.96

00:15:49.740 They see Chrystia Freeland is sort of shallow and goofy. 1.00

00:15:52.760 And goofy, they saw the fiasco in India. 0.90

00:15:55.500 They saw the fiasco in Australia. 0.82

00:15:57.580 They see all these things and they say, you know what?

00:16:00.680 If we're going to pick a fight, let's pick a fight with Trudeau because we know he'll roll over.

00:16:07.160 And that will maybe set a precedent for these tougher countries.

00:16:10.460 That's a theory I've heard.

00:16:11.520 What do you make of it?

00:16:13.140 Yeah, I see a little bit of that there.

00:16:15.020 I also think they picked a fight with us because they don't particularly care about our relationship.

00:16:19.260 I mean, they don't get that much out of it.

00:16:21.040 They export some oil to us.

00:16:23.140 But 80,000 barrels a day, it sounds like a lot.

00:16:26.000 But we actually export over 3 million barrels of oil a day to the U.S.

00:16:30.040 Your great book, Ethical Oil, talks about how we can supplant all of that, get the Saudis out of the equation. 1.00

00:16:34.840 Their population is actually a number of million less than something like 27 million people.

00:16:39.660 The land mass is smaller.

00:16:41.060 I mean, look, Ezra, if they didn't have oil, no one would be able to find them on a map like how there's a number of central African countries that, you know, high school students have probably never heard of before.

00:16:49.740 I think that would be the same case with Saudi Arabia.

00:16:51.860 So it's about the oil that we're indulging their entire hissy fit. 0.98

00:16:55.460 My problem with this, I think they have chosen to go crazy over this.

00:17:00.280 This was not a visceral, honest reaction.

00:17:02.840 And it kind of reminds me a lot of 1989 when they went after Salman Rushdie for the satanic verses.

00:17:07.340 I know Iran and the Ayatollah were kind of the headline grabbers for it, but Saudi Arabia did it, too.

00:17:12.940 They never read that book.

00:17:14.100 It's like 700 pages long.

00:17:15.420 And Ezra, when I finally read it, it's actually an incredibly boring novel.

00:17:18.000 It's not his best work, I would say.

00:17:20.140 And they didn't read the book, but they said, you know what?

00:17:22.980 We're going to make an example out of this guy.

00:17:24.940 We're all going to go nuts about this guy.

00:17:26.940 And our goal of this is to change the entire barometer of offense so nobody tries to do this anymore.

00:17:33.020 No one criticizes Islam.

00:17:34.280 And I think what they're doing here is they're trying to go, well, look what we did to that Trudeau guy.

00:17:38.880 So if any of you even try and talk like this to us again, we're going to do the same thing to you.

00:17:43.960 And I think the world can even call their bluff on it because they feel like they're calculating the oil money and the student residence and everything.

00:17:49.840 Yeah, we don't really care if for some reason Trudeau calls our bluff.

00:17:52.980 Who cares if we lose all of that?

00:17:54.340 But they weren't going to try it on another country because that relationship matters.

00:17:57.520 So I think it's a test case to see just how ballsy they can get as they are kind of something of a growing power.

00:18:03.800 And then to, I don't want to say to their credit, a vaguely developing power.

00:18:07.320 Oh, women can drive now if their father says it's okay. 1.00

00:18:09.820 Oh, good for you, Mohammed bin Salman.

00:18:11.480 You're now pretty much, you know, a left-wing liberal.

00:18:14.640 But they're trying here.

00:18:16.240 They're pushing.

00:18:17.280 And we got to say no.

00:18:18.360 Yeah, you know, that's a very interesting observation you make.

00:18:21.900 You immediately made me think of the Danish cartoon crisis, kerfuffle, fiasco, I don't know, in late 2005, early 2006.

00:18:32.300 Just like the Salman Rushdie book, just like this tweet, no one really read it.

00:18:37.100 It was just a fig leaf.

00:18:38.220 It was an excuse for what they wanted to do.

00:18:40.000 In the case of Denmark, it was the Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

00:18:45.380 And Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Islamic Countries, that's a lot of, there's over 50 Muslim countries,

00:18:53.260 they said this is our Reichstag fire.

00:18:56.700 This is our excuse to play victim, to go on the offensive, and to really scare the hell out of Europe on anything Islamophobic.

00:19:06.340 And they did.

00:19:06.960 And they really tantamount to declaring war on Denmark because it was a small country they felt they could push around.

00:19:13.260 I think that's, I think you're right.

00:19:15.760 I think we are the Denmark of a dozen years later.

00:19:19.200 Can they push Canada around?

00:19:20.660 Can they make us blink?

00:19:21.940 Is this, as they would say, pour un corrige les autres, to scare and encourage the others to behave better?

00:19:28.240 I think you nailed it with that.

00:19:29.480 I think that's right.

00:19:31.040 But your example is a really good one.

00:19:32.800 I hadn't thought of that one before, but I always thought the reaction of that is to go,

00:19:36.260 well, you guys are clearly trying to lower the barometer of offense.

00:19:39.000 Ezra, I'm not a religious person.

00:19:40.420 There are all these rules out there where people say, I can and can't do this and that.

00:19:43.600 Live your life how you want.

00:19:44.680 You don't want to draw the cartoons.

00:19:45.980 You don't have to draw the cartoons.

00:19:47.440 You're telling me and my cartoonists, we can't draw this.

00:19:50.700 Give me a break.

00:19:51.320 And the answer to that is not to indulge their infantilism, but for us just all to draw the cartoons and go, here you are.

00:19:57.800 You know, you can't kill all of us.

00:19:59.220 And I think from that regard, we can talk, we should be talking more about Saudi Arabia's regressive policies.

00:20:04.260 Now, I take the note that there's a lot of dreadful countries out there doing repressive things, and we've got to have trade deals.

00:20:10.000 We've got to work with them, and we also just can't tell everyone else how to live their lives.

00:20:13.660 I get all of that.

00:20:15.180 But this was just a couple tweets, and it was not Trudeau.

00:20:18.740 It's not the same as him doing hashtag welcome to Canada, which had really, really boneheaded consequences.

00:20:24.660 It's not that sort.

00:20:25.640 It's not the similar virtue signaling.

00:20:27.300 Christy Freeland was kind of repeating stuff.

00:20:29.520 John Baird did a somewhat similar tweet, and the UN is always saying these things about Saudi Arabia.

00:20:34.140 The bottom line is, did she do a little screw-up? 0.97

00:20:36.280 Yeah, I'm going to say Christy Freeland screwed up 1.5 out of 10.

00:20:39.820 They're trying to tell us it's an 11 out of 10, and that's the disconnect.

00:20:43.960 You know, I really appreciate your reminding us that we're dealing with a bad faith country on the other side. 1.00

00:20:51.840 This is a country looking for offense, looking to play the victim, and looking for—this is some move on their part.

00:21:00.280 It's interesting.

00:21:01.140 I am worried that Justin Trudeau will bend the knee.

00:21:05.240 I see in English Canada, a lot of the headlines are, Trudeau stands firm.

00:21:09.180 But I saw in a Quebec newspaper today, the headline translated into English was, Trudeau looks to build bridges.

00:21:16.240 I think that Trudeau—I mean, he very rarely apologizes for himself.

00:21:20.860 He apologizes for what other Canadians have done.

00:21:24.380 He throws other Canadians under the bus.

00:21:26.200 He scolds us all the time.

00:21:27.620 It's not—I've never actually seen him make a genuine, heartfelt apology for anything.

00:21:31.540 But he might do that here because I think he—I think in some ways he's sort of weak and is pushed around.

00:21:40.980 I think he's a terrible negotiator.

00:21:42.500 Do you think Justin Trudeau is going to hold the line here, or do you think he's going to—do you think he's going to kowtow and, you know, supplicate himself?

00:21:51.640 It's hard to say.

00:21:52.480 I watched that press conference yesterday with great interest, and he did reiterate, oh, no, we're going to stand up for human rights.

00:21:57.380 But then he did say that line where he said, well, Saudi Arabia has made great strides recently, and we acknowledge that.

00:22:03.400 So there's this idea that Mohammed bin Salman is really sensitive to all of that and says we're doing it on our own time, on our own terms.

00:22:10.320 Don't judge us.

00:22:11.220 So if you acknowledge the progress publicly—so maybe Trudeau did actually give them a little bit of an inch.

00:22:17.400 And since it was an unnoticeable one, maybe that's okay.

00:22:21.260 But I think if we need to backchannel and we can apologize for the fact that I guess these tweets said you must immediately release them,

00:22:27.760 whereas the John Baird tweet I was referring to just said, you know, we do not support the flogging of Raif Badawi or we condemn it or whatnot.

00:22:34.680 He wasn't actually telling them what to do.

00:22:36.680 He was saying he disagreed with what they're doing.

00:22:38.400 And that's the finer points of all of this.

00:22:40.480 But we know it's a tweet, and we know they're choosing to get crazy about it, to get us to submit.

00:22:45.060 So if they want to do some backchannel thing or they say, yeah, guys, we screwed up with saying the immediate release thing.

00:22:50.140 We get it's your affair.

00:22:51.400 We're not trying to run your judicial system.

00:22:53.160 I'm okay if we have that talk or even if Freeland kind of says it pseudo-publicly.

00:22:58.240 I'm okay.

00:22:58.940 But Trudeau, to your point, he better not offer any.

00:23:02.320 That knee better not bend at all.

00:23:04.940 Not at all.

00:23:06.000 Especially, you know, no NFL anthem games right here on this turf.

00:23:09.300 I'll tell you that.

00:23:09.800 Yeah, you know, Donald Trump can tweet the most dramatic, outrageous, provocative things because he also happens to be the commander-in-chief of the largest military in the world, the most important diplomatic corps in the world, the most important economy in the world.

00:23:25.480 So he can back it up.

00:23:26.960 I think maybe Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, they're used to sort of more selfie tweets and domestic consumption sort of soft soap tweets. 0.66

00:23:36.040 I think if you're going to be tweeting, you know, tough talk to another country, if they don't perceive you as terrifying and mighty like Donald Trump, maybe that kind of trash talking on Twitter only works for the biggest guy around.

00:23:53.260 Very interesting times.

00:23:54.200 I look forward to your call. You say you've got a new column on this coming out tomorrow. Is that what you said?

00:23:58.540 Yeah, because I think they've just ran. I mean, they're trying to get us to do total submission right now.

00:24:02.260 Since I wrote the first column, it's gotten worse the past couple of days.

00:24:05.080 And I think we've got to get even more cautious on how they're trying to use us as some sort of a pawn here.

00:24:09.600 All right. Well, we'll keep an eye peeled for that. That'll be in the Toronto Sun. That'll probably be posted online tonight. Is that correct?

00:24:15.300 Yeah.

00:24:15.740 Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye peeled for it. I very much look forward to reading what you have to say.

00:24:20.140 Hey, thanks for taking the time to join us today.

00:24:22.460 Great. Thanks. Have a good one.

00:24:23.480 Right on. There you have it. Anthony Fury. He wrote about this already in the Sun.

00:24:28.960 The column you can find online right now is called Saudi Arabia Wants to Nix All Human Rights Criticism,

00:24:33.920 and there's no way we can agree to that.

00:24:35.600 And as you just heard, he has another column in tomorrow's paper, which should be online tonight.

00:24:40.540 I find this a very interesting issue.

00:24:43.460 Do you?

00:24:44.760 All right. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.

00:24:46.660 The day you've been waiting for is finally here.

00:25:01.520 We're bringing back a buck a beer to Ontario.

00:25:04.700 Well, that is Doug Ford talking about the populist touch.

00:25:09.280 He's the new premier of Ontario, and he's promising buck a beer.

00:25:14.060 It doesn't get more down home than that.

00:25:15.900 I know all the right people are furious about that.

00:25:19.720 Why wouldn't you be furious about a buck a beer?

00:25:21.880 That sounds like a good deal to me.

00:25:23.300 But what does it mean? Does it mean government beer?

00:25:26.500 Like a state-subsidized beer like the CBC?

00:25:30.660 Well, here to explain it is our friend David Menzies.

00:25:32.920 David, great to see you again.

00:25:33.720 Great to be here, Ezra.

00:25:34.600 Now, you have your finger on the pulse of Ford Nation, unlike almost any other journalist in Ontario.

00:25:39.100 I think you and Joe Warmington are like the spirit animals of Ford Nation.

00:25:44.180 And I'm guessing that you know all about buck a beer.

00:25:47.660 And I'd like you to explain it, especially to our viewers from outside of Ontario.

00:25:51.740 What is it?

00:25:52.320 Well, Ezra, I think what it really is is a small baby step,

00:25:57.160 at least when it comes to the beverage alcohol system in Ontario,

00:26:00.040 of Ford getting government out of our lives.

00:26:03.240 I mean, just think about that.

00:26:04.680 There is what they call the non-discriminatory reference price.

00:26:08.720 Only a bureaucrat could invent that.

00:26:10.060 Yeah, I can't even remember what you just said.

00:26:12.120 Yeah, that means a minimum floor price.

00:26:13.720 Why don't you call it a minimum floor price?

00:26:14.940 Why would there be a minimum floor price for beer?

00:26:17.060 You know what? I'm going to tell you right now.

00:26:18.660 Now, this actually goes back to 1992.

00:26:22.740 And what happened, there was a great entrepreneur he since passed on,

00:26:25.840 Gabe Magnata, was able to acquire off-site licenses.

00:26:29.480 And he found a way to make, to have a competing force with wine shops against the LCBO,

00:26:35.920 running little wine shops out of industrial parks.

00:26:38.420 His cheapest bottle was $3.95 in 1992.

00:26:42.920 Wow. You know, that's less than, I mean, in 1992 money, it's a little bit more.

00:26:47.780 But that's less than a Starbucks Frappuccino.

00:26:50.400 Yeah, that's a good point, Andrew.

00:26:52.400 So what happened?

00:26:53.420 The LCBO saw Magnata as a threat.

00:26:56.500 So they came out with this thing called the non-discriminatory reference price,

00:27:00.360 meaning a minimum floor price, which meant that you cannot charge,

00:27:04.420 your cheapest bottle cannot be cheaper than the cheapest bottle of the LCBO,

00:27:08.060 which in 1992 was $5.15.

00:27:11.200 So Magnata was forced to raise this price up there. 0.98

00:27:14.400 Now, to show you the hypocrisy and to show you how government doesn't play by the rules, Ezra,

00:27:18.660 the LCBO launched a pilot project at its Westin and 401 store,

00:27:22.820 in which they were going after the U-Vint people, who they also saw as a threat.

00:27:27.320 U-Vint, does that mean like homebrew?

00:27:28.780 Yeah, so they came up with their own version of U-Vinting and selling them at a dozen bottles per purchase.

00:27:37.120 And Magnata did the math, and he found out that the cheapest bottle that the LCBO was now selling was $4.58.

00:27:44.400 So he wrote to them and said, I will now be reducing my cheapest bottle from $5.15 to $4.58.

00:27:50.360 It's ridiculous that he even has to talk to the government about this.

00:27:53.560 Oh, but here's the thing, Ezra.

00:27:54.800 Legal counsel from the LCBO writes back to Gabe Magnata and says,

00:28:01.100 we are exempting ourselves from our own policy.

00:28:05.060 It's what I think guys like you, lawyers, would call abuse of regulatory authority.

00:28:10.280 That we are not, these are rules for you, but not us in this particular case.

00:28:15.520 And it's crazy because if they set the floor price, then surely that's the floor price. 0.99

00:28:20.740 That's so dumb. 0.98

00:28:22.780 And of course bureaucrats would love that, and of course lawyers would love that. 1.00

00:28:27.260 So you're talking about wine, but it obviously was applied to beer too.

00:28:30.840 Right, and so up until maybe about 10 years ago in Ontario, you could have a buck of beer.

00:28:37.000 I think Laker, Laker Brewery out of Hamilton.

00:28:39.100 So it's not going to be the fanciest beer, but you know, that fancy people, it's just, you know,

00:28:42.260 some people want a hamburger, some people want a steak.

00:28:44.480 Some people want a BMW, some people want a little, you know, little beater.

00:28:48.360 Whatever you like, let the market flourish.

00:28:50.440 Well, and Ezra, this is the point.

00:28:52.400 Why is it that we lose our minds with beverage alcohol, especially in this province?

00:28:57.560 This is a regulated minimum floor price.

00:29:00.300 Well, why don't we have that for bottled water?

00:29:01.900 Why don't we have that for gasoline?

00:29:03.100 Well, you know, and some might even refer to the fact that the liberals, and now I guess

00:29:06.980 the province of Ontario, Doug Ford, are legalizing marijuana, legalizing marijuana, get ready

00:29:14.720 for a marijuana epidemic, seriously.

00:29:16.840 But oh my God, if we sold 4% beer, 5% alcohol beer for a buck as opposed to like two bucks,

00:29:23.900 we're going to have, oh my God.

00:29:25.580 Now here's what gets me, and it's very interesting history, and I appreciate you telling me that.

00:29:29.460 But what grinds my gears is the fancy, and I got nothing against fancy breweries.

00:29:36.620 It's a cool thing.

00:29:37.540 It's like a snob thing.

00:29:38.380 It's like people who smoke pipes.

00:29:40.200 Yes.

00:29:40.660 You know, they look down at the cigarette smokers.

00:29:43.520 Fine, you want a pipe?

00:29:44.800 Do that pipe thing.

00:29:46.100 Just, you know, I don't care if that makes you feel good.

00:29:48.840 All these craft breweries, these little, you know, fancy pants breweries, and that's fine.

00:29:53.860 I got nothing against it.

00:29:54.660 Yeah.

00:29:56.000 Weirdly, they have come out furious, blazing against this buck of beer.

00:30:02.280 But it doesn't affect them.

00:30:03.560 They can charge whatever.

00:30:04.460 They can charge a buck.

00:30:05.580 They can charge 10 bucks a beer.

00:30:07.140 No one's forcing them to do anything.

00:30:08.460 It's just allowing the Mr. Magnatas of the world and his, you know, followers, so to speak.

00:30:15.420 Why are these fancy pants breweries so furious at buck of beer?

00:30:19.500 Well, what they're saying is...

00:30:20.700 I got a list here.

00:30:21.540 Oh, yeah.

00:30:21.900 And it's really, you know, a false argument.

00:30:25.360 But what they're saying is that we use the finest quality malt, hops, barley, etc., etc.

00:30:31.580 Yeah, we can't make a go of it at a buck of beer.

00:30:34.660 That's okay.

00:30:36.260 The government is not saying in your portfolio you must have $1 beers.

00:30:41.420 Surely they understood that from the get-go because they're in the business.

00:30:45.760 And surely if they didn't understand that, they would have found that out in about a minute.

00:30:49.720 It would be like if there was a minimum price for a car and Doug Ford said there's no more minimum price anymore.

00:30:56.560 You can buy a car for $5,000.

00:30:59.280 And BMW is saying, well, we will not sell our car for $5,000.

00:31:02.480 No one was asking you to sell your BMW for $5,000, buddy.

00:31:06.520 Stop being so snooty about it.

00:31:08.500 And Ezra, why, I mean, as much as I applaud the minimum floor price being reduced from $1.25 to $1, well, it's just a quarter of a bottle.

00:31:18.940 I can't believe all this hullabaloo over $0.25.

00:31:21.920 That's just crazy.

00:31:23.040 Go ahead.

00:31:23.480 But why not another nickel or dime?

00:31:25.220 Can't we have $0.95 beer?

00:31:26.840 Why is there a floor price at all?

00:31:29.100 Well, I would argue this.

00:31:31.500 One is the more you increase the base price, the more taxation revenue you're going to get.

00:31:37.740 Right, right, right, right.

00:31:38.620 And also it ties into this murky concept, which liquor boards in Canada justify their very existence, Ezra, which is social responsibility.

00:31:49.940 And what that means is that alcohol is a potentially deadly substance if misused.

00:31:56.400 So we can't have the private sector.

00:31:59.560 They just care about money.

00:32:01.140 We have the government answers to a higher authority.

00:32:04.720 And that's why we need a minimum price, because if it's too cheap, people are going to take time off their work.

00:32:09.900 They're going to get drunk.

00:32:10.720 They're going to get behind the wheel, yada, yada, yada.

00:32:13.240 Completely does not play out in the real world, by the way.

00:32:15.640 But it is their way of justifying their monopoly.

00:32:19.780 So $1.25 beer, society is safe.

00:32:22.420 A dollar beer, mayhem, you get that 20, mayhem.

00:32:27.960 Listen, I want to tell you why I have this list in my hand.

00:32:30.660 This is from the OBN.

00:32:33.840 That's what the Ontario Brewers, the Fancy, the Ontario Beverage Network.

00:32:38.480 This is the Fancy Pants Brewers.

00:32:39.640 So this here, so all these Fancy Pants Brewers, there's one called Bowes All Natural Brewing Company.

00:32:45.620 Sounds delicious.

00:32:46.460 Yes.

00:32:46.600 And then there's Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery.

00:32:49.720 I mean, all these fancy things.

00:32:50.800 I got nothing against it.

00:32:51.940 I got nothing against it.

00:32:52.740 In fact, it sounds great.

00:32:54.340 But all these folks are sneering and getting snooty.

00:32:57.160 What I have in my hand here is government subsidies to this snob. 0.91

00:33:02.840 Like, Bowes All Natural Brewing got $354,000 in grants from the government.

00:33:08.400 Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery got $304,000.

00:33:11.240 So all these snobby, artisan, fancy pants, man bun, waxed mustache, smoke a pipe types.

00:33:21.040 Not that there's anything wrong with it.

00:33:23.660 They're looking down their nose at the Bucket Beer types. 0.97

00:33:26.980 But the thing is, their Fancy Pants is subsidized by those Bucket Beer people. 0.74

00:33:33.160 So Joe Lunchbucket on the assembly line, he has to pay taxes.

00:33:37.360 So Mr. Beauregard, or whatever his name is, can make a fancy, fruity beer.

00:33:44.160 That is the final drop of chutzpah on top of all this.

00:33:47.320 You know, and probably the worst province this exists in, Ezra, is Alberta, believe it or not.

00:33:52.320 Really?

00:33:52.940 Minhas Craft Brewery, which is not a craft brewery.

00:33:56.460 I mean, my personal opinion is a mass-produced, cheap plunk.

00:34:00.140 They have been getting millions of dollars.

00:34:02.440 I don't know what, at least until a few years ago.

00:34:04.620 I'm not sure what the current situation is now with the Notley NDP government.

00:34:08.240 But they were getting millions of dollars in subsidies to brew beer, supposed craft beer.

00:34:14.140 But the brewing was taking place in Wisconsin and was being shipped by rail into Alberta.

00:34:20.500 So in other words, Ezra, what the Alberta government was doing was providing Americans with jobs brewing so-called Alberta craft beer

00:34:28.980 at the expense of the real craft beer brewers in Alberta that were getting a pittance.

00:34:35.120 You know, it is such a messed up system.

00:34:37.480 It's a racket.

00:34:38.160 It is.

00:34:38.720 You know what?

00:34:39.080 I'm so glad that, I mean, this is a tiny, I mean, you really couldn't take a tinier step from 25 of a beer to bucket beer,

00:34:45.260 and all you've done is lower the floor.

00:34:46.900 It's such a nothing story.

00:34:48.580 And watching the utter freakout on the left tells me we need a lot more of this plain talk.

00:34:53.760 David, it's fun to talk with you about this crazy story.

00:34:55.820 Thanks for being here today.

00:34:56.560 Yeah, let's grab a beer tonight, Ezra, and celebrate.

00:34:58.740 All right.

00:34:59.700 I'll bring the toonie.

00:35:02.860 We'll have two.

00:35:03.880 That's right.

00:35:04.860 All right, David.

00:35:05.700 Great to see you again.

00:35:06.640 Thank you, Ezra.

00:35:06.940 Well, there you have it, folks.

00:35:09.040 A bucket beer, now it's explained.

00:35:11.140 Now you know, and now you know it's dark roots.

00:35:14.040 All right.

00:35:14.620 Stay with us.

00:35:15.400 More ahead on the Rebel.

00:35:26.560 Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about major media posting their next targets

00:35:30.720 to be purged from the internet like Alex Jones and their targets, including two formal rebels.

00:35:35.700 Space Moose writes,

00:35:36.880 I say that by early next year, rebel media will be kicked off all those places,

00:35:41.540 probably at the hands of Justin Trudeau preparing for the election.

00:35:46.200 I wish I could say you're wrong.

00:35:47.740 I think there is a real possibility of that.

00:35:52.080 Peter writes,

00:35:53.780 We're not going to be depersoned.

00:35:55.700 Alex Jones isn't going away.

00:35:57.780 They just proved his point and brought it to light.

00:35:59.840 Don't let up.

00:36:01.240 Peter, we won't let up.

00:36:02.460 But one day if you don't see us,

00:36:04.740 well, we won't have let up, but others will have let us up.

00:36:08.780 On my interview with Manny Montenegreno about Trudeau's disastrous diplomatic spat with Saudi Arabia,

00:36:12.820 Liza writes,

00:36:14.620 Justin, unfortunately for Canada, is an easy target.

00:36:16.760 It's not a good look on the world stage.

00:36:18.620 Not a good look at all.

00:36:20.160 Yeah, that's the thing.

00:36:20.940 I mean, as I said today to Anthony Furian,

00:36:24.260 I think I said it even yesterday to Manny,

00:36:26.660 I'm no fan of Saudi Arabia.

00:36:28.520 Oh, and the feeling's mutual.

00:36:30.540 I forgot yesterday that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself had retained

00:36:34.500 one of the world's largest law firms to threaten me with a lawsuit over my book.

00:36:37.940 Can you believe that?

00:36:38.920 I should show you that letter again.

00:36:41.060 So yeah, I don't like Saudi Arabia much.

00:36:42.780 I wouldn't want to live there.

00:36:43.940 I wouldn't want to be even a Muslim there if I was a woman or if I was liberal in any way. 1.00

00:36:49.960 It's not a nice place.

00:36:51.240 So yeah, I like the fact we're holding them to account.

00:36:53.440 But perhaps we could be a bit diplomatically smarter and perhaps we could be less bullyable.

00:36:58.200 And I think Justin Trudeau has had a disaster in foreign affairs.

00:37:01.620 Is there a single country with which we are friendlier and have a more meaningful relationship now

00:37:07.840 than we did two years ago?

00:37:10.780 I'm not talking about Justin Trudeau flying in and dumping billions of dollars in foreign aid on a country.

00:37:15.760 That doesn't count as a stronger relationship. 0.98

00:37:17.600 Any fool would take more money. 0.96

00:37:20.180 Can you name a country that is closer to us? 0.99

00:37:23.200 The United States is further away than in memory.

00:37:26.020 China snubbed Trudeau when he was there.

00:37:28.600 India was a total fiasco. 1.00

00:37:29.620 I cannot name one country we're closer to.

00:37:32.920 Maybe Cuba.

00:37:34.000 Maybe Cuba.

00:37:34.780 I'll give you that.

00:37:36.340 Well, that's our show for today.

00:37:37.980 On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:37:41.200 good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 10, 2018

Leftists remove statue of “racist” prime minister — “but won't do anything real about today’s Aboriginal issues”

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Summary

Transcript