Rebel News Podcast - August 28, 2019


Liberal journalists force a political billboard to be taken down. Is that the state of Canadian democracy？


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

176.09868

Word count

7,381

Sentence count

534

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

24

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A billboard supporting a third party campaign group was taken down by a "pro-union" mob led by the CBC state broadcaster. Ezra exposes the hypocrisy of the media, and the dark history of third party groups in Canadian politics.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today I show you a disgrace in Canadian politics, a billboard bought and
00:00:04.900 paid for by a registered campaign group, contract signed with the billboard company,
00:00:10.040 Patterson Outdoor, that simply said, stop mass immigration, was hounded off the sign
00:00:16.660 by a Twitter mob led by the CBC state broadcaster. And I don't care what you think about immigration,
00:00:23.600 if you believe in free speech, that's wrong. That's what I talk about. I wish you could
00:00:29.500 see the video of it because I show you a lot of things. I show you the billboard, I show you media
00:00:34.940 coverage. But I get it, you're listening to a podcast, so you use the imagination, the theater
00:00:41.420 of the mind. But can I invite you to become a premium subscriber? You get the video version
00:00:47.340 of the podcast too. And you get Sheila Gunn Reads podcast, show, TV show, and David Menzies TV show.
00:00:53.880 And it's all for just eight bucks a month and that help pays the bill. So go to
00:00:57.920 the rebel.media slash shows. Eight bucks a month or 80 bucks for the whole year. You can even get a
00:01:03.400 discount if you want by using podcasts as the coupon code. And get the video version of today's
00:01:08.980 show. And I wrap up today's show by talking about Donald Trump's tweet. We had a little banter
00:01:16.000 on Twitter, as one does with the president of the United States. All right, here's the show.
00:01:20.420 Tonight, liberal journalists force a political billboard to be taken down. Is that the state
00:01:30.600 of Canadian democracy? It's August 27th, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.
00:01:34.820 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:40.640 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:44.700 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody
00:01:49.580 right to do so.
00:01:55.800 I'm sure you've seen this billboard. It looks like it's a billboard from Maxime Bernier,
00:02:00.780 the leader of the People's Party. And that's his face, of course, and you can see his party's
00:02:05.480 logo. But as you can see by the small print underneath, that billboard is actually produced
00:02:10.080 by a registered third-party campaign group for the upcoming election. There were literally
00:02:16.600 more than 100 such third-party campaign groups that registered with Elections Canada in 2015.
00:02:23.300 Most of them were environmental groups or public sector labor unions. I've looked through
00:02:28.020 this list several times, and I can just find one single pro-Harper group amongst it, and
00:02:34.640 they didn't do much of the election. The anti-Harper third-party groups did a lot. And they were
00:02:40.440 very strategic in ridings where Harper and the conservatives were vulnerable. These third-party
00:02:44.980 groups polled which of the parties had the best chance of winning, the Liberals or the NDP,
00:02:49.680 and then they campaigned for that choice most likely to win. This helped tip British Columbia
00:02:55.280 into the Liberal column was used in other ridings across the country, too. It was very much
00:02:59.500 underreported by the media because, like I say, 99% of these third-party groups are left-wing,
00:03:05.240 so media party journalists don't think they need any scrutiny. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention
00:03:10.760 the media party journalists themselves are also on the list of third-party campaign groups. Look at
00:03:15.840 that. The Canadian Media Guild. Unifor literally funded campaigns against Stephen Harper. So those
00:03:23.640 neutral, independent media party reporters who tell you what happened every night on the campaign
00:03:27.920 trail, yeah, they're not neutral. They are literally paying from their own pocket, from their own
00:03:32.800 salaries in the form of union dues, to campaign against Harper and against Andrew Scheer this time.
00:03:39.300 So they're biased. I mean, you saw this tweet by Unifor. They don't disclose their bias either.
00:03:44.160 What was the last time you saw a disclaimer after a media party journalist just trashes the
00:03:48.720 Conservatives on TV, saw a disclaimer that they personally contributed to an election campaign
00:03:53.420 against the Conservatives? They are. I mean, how is that really different from a journalist joining
00:03:59.980 the Liberal Party and donating to the Liberal Party directly? It's not different. Well, my friends,
00:04:05.080 if ethics were a thing to Canadian journalists, I don't think they'd be lining up salivating for their
00:04:09.820 cut of a $600 million bailout from Trudeau. I mean, once you've decided to sell yourself for cash,
00:04:15.840 I guess the only remaining question is what your price is and how far you will go. And with Canadian
00:04:20.860 journalists, we haven't actually found the bottom yet. They seem to be willing to do anything for
00:04:26.140 their new master. I'll come back to the media party in a moment. But first, back to these third-party
00:04:30.440 campaign signs that support Bernier. They simply say, say no to mass immigration. That's it.
00:04:36.380 They don't say, say no to all immigration, which is another point of view. They don't say,
00:04:43.760 say no to immigration from terrorist-infested countries. Or even they don't say, say no to 0.99
00:04:50.220 refugees. They just say, say no to mass immigration. Mass means mass of numbers, open borders-style 1.00
00:04:56.380 immigration. You could probably include the 50,000 fraudulent refugees who've just walked across 1.00
00:05:01.740 the illegal border crossing from New York State into Quebec in that mass. I mean, 50,000 fakers 1.00
00:05:07.140 and liars. As a matter of fact and as a matter of law, if you are in the United States, you are not
00:05:13.000 a refugee anymore. But it's the 50,000 part that is the mass part. Ahmed Hassan himself is a Muslim
00:05:20.460 refugee from Somalia. And he has announced plans that he will bring in more than 1 million more
00:05:26.460 migrants to Canada in the next three years, 40% of whom are uneconomic. They're either old and sick 1.00
00:05:33.280 or illiterate or refugees or in some other category, just bringing them in to join our 1.00
00:05:39.980 already long lineups for hospital emergency rooms, for food banks and schools. How do you feel about
00:05:46.280 that? We're sometimes told that we need mass immigration to do economic work in Canada. But if
00:05:50.920 you're saying right from the outset that nearly half the people you're bringing in as immigrants
00:05:55.200 are not economic and never will be, why are you lying? It's the mass part. Anyone who wonders why
00:06:02.940 wages are depressed, why rents are high, why universities are crowded, why traffic is terrible,
00:06:08.080 it's the mass part. You can't add a million people to Canada in three years and expect those things not
00:06:13.720 to happen. Anyone who wonders why we don't have better integration and assimilation culturally,
00:06:18.060 it's the mass part. Because it's the mass part that allows enclaves where people can live as they
00:06:24.560 live back in Somalia or wherever. I keep thinking of this video that Ami Horowitz did in Minnesota.
00:06:30.260 But really, you could film something identical in many parts of Toronto, Montreal too. Have you ever
00:06:35.900 seen this before? If you had a choice, would you rather live here or would you rather live in the Muslim 1.00
00:06:40.080 country? I'd rather live in a Muslim country with my people. Would you prefer to live in America or
00:06:44.900 live in Somalia? For me, I think it's Somalia. You prefer to live in Saudi Arabia? Yeah. Would you
00:06:50.220 rather live in America or live in Somalia? I'd rather live in Somalia. Of course, they don't mean that
00:06:57.960 because they came from Somalia saying they were a refugee. They like all the free stuff. So yeah, 1.00
00:07:04.100 you can be against mass immigration. In fact, it's a bit unusual if you're not. I mean, statistically
00:07:11.140 unusual, as Angus Reid's poll and really every other poll ever done shows. Most Canadians think
00:07:18.020 we have too many immigrants, just a few percent, 4%, 6%, depending on the poll, say we should actually 1.00
00:07:24.260 increase our number. But about half say we should reduce our number and the rest just don't know.
00:07:29.880 So that's going straight to the question of mass immigration or not. Numbers too high or too low.
00:07:34.840 If you asked people if we should limit immigration from countries that are terrorist-infested,
00:07:39.880 failed states like Somalia, I bet the number would be even higher. I bet if you asked now if, 1.00
00:07:45.520 given that the Syrian civil war is largely over, if you asked if Syrian refugees who are no longer
00:07:52.400 really refugees, if they should go back, I bet that number would be high too. But that's not allowed in 1.00
00:07:59.080 the narrative. And so when this very simple, very underproduced billboard went up, say no to mass
00:08:04.760 immigration. It was a shock, not to normal Canadians who polls show think that way, but to
00:08:11.040 the official keepers of the ideas, the media party, the political establishment. I should point out that
00:08:15.800 it's not just the CBC and the liberals who hated this billboard. Timid half-conservatives did too.
00:08:21.980 They know that mass immigration is politically deadly to conservative parties in the long run. 1.00
00:08:26.580 It's how the Democrats won California. It's how the Democrats will win Texas. They can't get voters
00:08:32.900 to change their minds and be socialists. So they just bring in new voters from Mexico. That's the 0.63
00:08:38.660 way they do it in California and Texas. The liberal plan in Canada couldn't be more explicit. I don't
00:08:45.500 know if you remember our story from a couple of years back. Syrian refugees to Canada literally were
00:08:50.820 asked to sign releases, photo releases, on the plane ride over to let Trudeau take a photo with
00:08:58.980 them. That was their most important purpose to Canada, to be campaign props for Trudeau and
00:09:05.280 obviously to vote for him too. Duh. That's why Trudeau goes to all the mosques, including mosques that 1.00
00:09:10.720 have been associated with terrorist recruitment. Listen to how Trudeau bragged a few years back about
00:09:16.120 visiting, listen to him say it, the Asuna Wahhabi Mosque in Montreal that the Pentagon says was an
00:09:22.220 Al-Qaeda recruitment center. Because I spend a lot of time running from the Bangladeshi to the
00:09:28.460 Pakistani to the Maghreb to the Asuna Wahhabi Mosque. I cover all the different communities.
00:09:38.380 Including the terrorist community, I guess. So yeah, Trudeau knows exactly what he's doing. So does the
00:09:43.100 media, they're pushing mass immigration on Canadians over our democratic wishes. Andrew Scheer typically
00:09:48.980 refuses to fight on these grounds, as I've shown you before. That was actually when Andrew Scheer
00:09:53.300 turned against us, and against me in particular. I asked him some pointed questions about immigration
00:09:58.620 five times in a row, and he just refused to answer. Do you have anything to say about
00:10:06.020 the Syrian migrants or about John McCallum's new numbers? Or, I mean, that's something that I think
00:10:12.340 conserves, maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of conserves want to hear something on that.
00:10:16.720 Kelly Leach isn't talking about security, he's talking about values. What's your view on
00:10:19.640 values? Well, McCallum has said he's going to jack up the numbers probably by 100,000. Do you
00:10:24.460 oppose that? Are you against that? Kelly Leach has said before they get here, they should be some sort
00:10:29.880 of a value screening. Do you think we should ask any values-laden questions of people before they get
00:10:37.820 here? Well, just tell me your answer yourself. Do you think, you're saying once people get here,
00:10:41.920 integrate them, teach them. I don't think anyone disagrees. But before they even get here,
00:10:46.000 should we ask them about their values? Should we ask them about Canadian values before we let them in?
00:10:52.340 That was a lot of clips of me asking questions. I encourage you to watch the whole video. We didn't
00:10:58.140 show his answers because they were not answers. He didn't answer. What was that? Seven times I tried to
00:11:03.260 press him on immigration. He refused to answer. And in recent months, he has said he is fine
00:11:09.940 with Ahmed Hassan's numbers, and he's fine with the countries from which he chooses. So it's an
00:11:17.640 opinion cartel going on in Canada. None of the official parties want to talk about mass immigration.
00:11:23.120 Andrew Scheer quibbles about the processing of immigrants. He wants it to be more orderly at the
00:11:28.440 rocks and road crossing. But he never quarrels with the quantity, the numbers, certainly not about the
00:11:34.700 cultural fit. No, no, no, never. In fact, recently he proudly met with Omar Subedar. He's the guy on
00:11:41.440 the left there. He's the Muslim imam famous for instructions to Canadian Muslim men on how to
00:11:48.780 properly beat your wife. He really, that's his claim to fame. So yeah, of course they kept Maxine
00:11:56.280 Bernier out of the debates. They didn't want someone talking about these things, but now they
00:12:01.180 have to keep them off the billboards too. And by they, you know who I mean. I mean the establishment,
00:12:05.800 the elites, the kind of people who don't really live in neighborhoods where every other woman is 0.75
00:12:09.780 wearing a burka. They don't send their kids to schools where Canadian-born kids are the tiny 1.00
00:12:14.320 minority. They believe in mass immigration for the same reason the big business and the banks do, 0.76
00:12:19.160 drive down the wages, drive up real estate prices, and keep voting liberal.
00:12:23.580 So these billboards have to be stopped. And so the media party knew exactly what to do. They do what
00:12:31.360 they always do. They don't debate. I mean, that hasn't been fashionable in years. You'd think the
00:12:36.780 media seeing a controversy would help talk it out, help lead or host our national discussion on
00:12:43.580 immigration. No, no, no, no, no. What are you, in the 80s? The media's job is to de-platform,
00:12:50.100 not to platform. Today's journalists believe very deeply in freedom of speech, but only for
00:12:55.200 themselves. Certainly not for anyone outside of their guild. It's obviously worse now that they're
00:13:00.200 all on Trudeau's bailout payroll. So the media went on a campaign. Here's the Calgary Herald,
00:13:06.720 and here's the Globe and Mail, and here's the Toronto Star. They all went on a campaign all weekend
00:13:12.660 of huffing. Here's the sun, huffing and puffing about how outrageous this was. Here's CTV. Oh,
00:13:18.120 it's racist, by the way. Very, very racist. Yeah, no. If this had said no black immigration or no
00:13:25.740 Chinese immigration, it would be racist. Maybe even saying no Muslim immigration, even though
00:13:30.900 Islam is not a race. I could see how you could call that racist. But this just said no mass
00:13:35.700 immigration. It goes to numbers. How is quarreling over numbers? How is that racist?
00:13:40.680 A political billboard along a busy Halifax highway warning Canadians to say no to mass 0.98
00:13:47.540 immigration is being condemned by Premier Stephen McNeil and MP Andy Fillmore. That's how this story
00:13:53.160 in the Trudeau CBC state broadcaster starts. It's true. McNeil is the premier and Fillmore is an MP.
00:13:58.740 That is true. But it's also true that they're Liberal Party members and Fillmore himself will be on the
00:14:03.680 ballot against the People's Party in less than two months in the election. It's weird how the CBC didn't
00:14:08.460 identify them as Liberals until later in the story, even though that's clearly on their mind.
00:14:13.260 If the CBC had run this as a quarrel between the People's Party and the Liberal Party, which is how a
00:14:17.400 normal journalistic enterprise would have done it, that would be accurate. And it would put the
00:14:20.840 disagreement into the realms of a policy debate between two different competing points of view.
00:14:26.660 But the whole mission here by the CBC was to denormalize and de-platform one side of the debate,
00:14:31.960 not to have a debate. No, no, no, no. The CBC doesn't want a debate on immigration any more than
00:14:36.580 they want a debate on global warming. Case closed, right? So this story was deliberately framed as
00:14:41.600 everybody who's anybody versus some racist kooks. Here's my favorite part. The sign sparked criticism
00:14:49.420 on Twitter. What is Twitter? Twitter is about 320 million busybodies chattering about anything and
00:14:57.860 everything online. It's like the comments section. It's like Facebook. Imagine using that as a news
00:15:03.140 peg, as an authority. The sign sparked criticism on Twitter. Oh, well, then it must be controversial
00:15:08.920 if some people out of 320 million said so. That's not just lazy journalism. It's covering the CBC's own
00:15:17.300 agenda here. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, we're not against it. Some people on Twitter were mean. That's
00:15:21.660 why this is news. This is a CBC hit piece like all of their other hit pieces against Andrew Scheer and
00:15:27.200 Maxime Bernier. They're just using some guy on Twitter as cover for their own agenda.
00:15:32.740 Now, some conservatives, I regret to report, joined the online mob here, hoping that maybe the mob
00:15:38.140 would go easy on them in return. Here's an Ontario Conservative cabinet minister named Stephen Leckie.
00:15:43.980 He tweets, this sign is a few kilometers from where my mother, along with millions of enterprising
00:15:49.200 newcomers, landed at Pier 21. They chose this country in pursuit of freedom, opportunity, and democracy.
00:15:54.480 Our country needs skilled immigration. And it needs less of this divisive rhetoric.
00:16:01.920 Yeah, but Stephen, the sign didn't say no to skilled immigration.
00:16:05.600 It said no to mass immigration. And it's true that some immigrants come to Canada for freedom,
00:16:11.180 opportunity, and democracy. That's true.
00:16:14.200 Many don't. Too many don't. They come here for the freebies, or the free health care, or the easy
00:16:18.860 welfare. And they plan to maintain un-Canadian tradition. Not to join our freedom and democracy. 0.69
00:16:25.020 The fact that Leckie had to change the billboard's message before disagreeing with it shows maybe the
00:16:30.800 truth of the billboard. And it begs the question, Leckie isn't for mass immigration, is he? Or is he?
00:16:38.820 Is he like Andrew Scheer? He just doesn't want to answer. Anyways, he joined the Twitter mob, I guess.
00:16:42.540 Back to the CBC story. They then did a deep dive into who this third-party group was that financed
00:16:49.360 the billboard. Going into the names of the people involved, the dollar amounts, real investigative
00:16:53.880 reporting. Funny, I don't think I've ever seen them do that, to say third parties that support,
00:16:59.120 well, support mass immigration. Like the CBC's Journalism Union's third-party campaign. Why don't
00:17:05.940 they ever investigate their own campaign groups, or say those by David Suzuki? Well, I'm just joking.
00:17:12.320 The question answers itself, doesn't it? The CBC whipped up the Twitter outrage. They whipped
00:17:17.500 it up themselves, as did other media party and bailout media sites. The CBC even got a Syrian 0.88
00:17:23.460 migrant to talk about how badly his feelings were hurt by this sign. They're campaigning.
00:17:28.840 He's not even a citizen, by the way, but he's Syrian and he started a chocolate company, and the fact
00:17:33.540 that he speaks English well and runs a company is so rare amongst Syrian migrants, 90% of them who are 0.63
00:17:38.700 still unemployed. But he's very helpful to the establishment, that fellow. Naturally, the CBC
00:17:43.140 brought him out. I mean, it's a campaign right, and the CBC is campaigning. They're not reporting.
00:17:47.960 They are organizing. At first, the billboard company, Patterson Outdoor, resisted this fake
00:17:53.680 controversy, this manufactured Twitter mob. I mean, they're not a publisher. They're a billboard
00:17:59.460 company. They don't write what's on their signs. They just rent space, and anyone can rent that space.
00:18:05.380 In fact, their neutrality is an important part of functioning democracies. Stop mass
00:18:11.720 immigration is a pretty simple idea, and I think it's the default idea, I think. I mean,
00:18:16.700 shouldn't you have to make the case for mass immigration if you want it? Canadians have never 1.00
00:18:21.320 really been asked. Patterson stood firm at first. I mean, after all, the message wasn't obscene.
00:18:26.400 It wasn't illegal. It's clearly a political point of view. They were paid. Patterson can't get into the
00:18:31.020 editing business, on politics, or on commercials. But look, the establishment wants something.
00:18:39.660 The establishment's going to get something, and within days, Patterson bent the knee. They posted
00:18:44.860 this groveling apology, and they ripped up their signed contract with the third-party group that
00:18:51.300 advertised. Breach a contract out of cowardice. Whipped up by the media, especially the state
00:18:56.680 broadcaster. It was journalists who censored that billboard, political journalists. They didn't
00:19:03.680 cover the billboard, which is what a journalist would do, report on it. They campaigned against
00:19:08.260 it, which is what a good liberal would do. And then even more bizarrely, the third-party group
00:19:14.160 itself collapsed. I don't even understand this part. Look at this. The third-party advertising
00:19:18.060 group behind billboards promoting Maxime Bernier, and his stance on immigration is now distancing
00:19:22.300 itself from the message, saying he had never signed off on the controversial campaign.
00:19:30.300 We completely disavow any sympathy with or support for the views expressed by donors who paid for
00:19:35.740 and selected the content of their advertising, which we were mistakenly not afforded an opportunity
00:19:40.260 to approve. Frank Smink, the head of True North Strong and Free Advertising Corp, wrote in an email
00:19:45.820 of the Canadian Press on Monday. Yeah, no, that's obviously not true. I do not believe that a donor
00:19:55.300 to Mr. Smink designed that ad, and Mr. Smink bought it without looking at it. You know, here at the
00:20:03.920 Rebel, we put up a lot of billboards. I like this one. I don't know if you remember that one. The billboard
00:20:10.120 companies sell us the space. They print the big poster, and they glue it on the billboard, but they
00:20:18.260 don't design it. The artwork comes from the person buying the billboard. It's not even that Patterson
00:20:26.160 Outdoor would have gotten the third-party campaign group's approval first. It's the other way. They
00:20:31.460 would have been waiting for the third party to send them the artwork. That last story doesn't make any
00:20:36.520 sense at all, other than the only explanation I can think of, which is the donors, including
00:20:42.840 Mr. Smink, were so bullied and so harassed by the media party that they thought, I can't even
00:20:49.980 participate in democracy anymore. I would like to participate in democracy, but I can't. Like I
00:20:55.260 say, there's zero scrutiny of left-wing third-party groups in Canada, because the media party itself
00:20:59.700 runs third-party groups. There are even foreign entities running third-party groups. Here's George
00:21:04.840 Soros' group called Avaz. They literally list their Broadway New York office, which is illegal.
00:21:14.180 But this is from the Elections Canada website, because Elections Canada is fine with that.
00:21:18.300 And no media care, but donate money to a no-mass immigration billboard? Well, don't be surprised 0.62
00:21:24.900 if the CBC shows up at your kid's school with journalists asking other parents how they feel.
00:21:29.880 They feel safe with their children playing with your racist children. That's journalism today.
00:21:36.460 This isn't just the deplatforming of a billboard. This isn't just the silencing of the majority view
00:21:41.600 of Canadians. It's the deliberate conditioning of Canadians that you just got to shut up and withdraw
00:21:47.800 from the political playing field. Get out of the public square if you don't buy into the official
00:21:53.740 narrative. Andrew Scheer has agreed to buy into the official narrative on mass immigration,
00:21:59.160 on the threat of global warming, in the hopes that, I don't know, the big boys will let him play
00:22:04.800 with them. They're the cool kids. Can he join? I don't think it's going to work for him, but the
00:22:08.580 media party likes the fact that they've house-trained him on global warming and on immigration, which is
00:22:14.580 why the media party hates Maxime Bernier so much, an MP that they all used to rather like. He's so charming,
00:22:19.720 because these days he says things that they think you shouldn't be able to say. You can disagree with
00:22:25.100 the billboard. You can disagree with Bernie. You can disagree even with the existence of the
00:22:29.180 People's Party, but to silence him and to shut down the billboard company and then to scare the donors.
00:22:37.260 Yeah, I'm sorry, that's not Canadian. At least that's not what Canadian used to mean.
00:22:43.500 Stay with us for more.
00:22:49.720 Why did Catherine McKenna stand up and deny that the tax would go above $50? We know why,
00:23:06.260 because they were trying to keep it secret until the election was over, when they no longer need
00:23:11.340 voters, but still need their money. But yesterday, I think she got a surprise question. She accidentally
00:23:17.140 told the truth, which is that taxes will be far higher under Trudeau than he admits today. But
00:23:23.680 they'll only reveal that fact when the election is over. That's Pierre Polyev, a conservative critic
00:23:29.460 from the Ottawa area, referring to a surprising comment by Catherine McKenna, where he's correct to
00:23:37.760 say she wasn't really expecting the question, so she accidentally answered it. McKenna does that a fair
00:23:43.640 bit. I regard her as one of the more savvy operators in the Trudeau cabinet, but occasionally
00:23:50.180 she makes huge gaffes. And I mean, look at this headline in the Globe and Mail, just incredible.
00:23:54.720 McKenna backs off pledge to freeze carbon tax at $50 a ton. And I mean, that's the Globe and Mail.
00:24:02.680 That's not my friend Terry Corcoran in the Financial Post, who's been fighting against carbon taxes for
00:24:07.480 20 years. And, you know, basically, Catherine McKenna said, sure, we're going to keep the carbon tax of
00:24:16.180 $50 a ton, which is an imaginary tax. It's a ridiculous fake number anyways. But then she said,
00:24:21.960 it'll be reviewed by 2022 to confirm the path forward. Well, that's just a few years from now.
00:24:29.800 Now, that is letting the cat out of the bag. And all these carbon taxers say $50 a ton isn't even
00:24:37.820 big enough to make people forcibly change their lifestyle. Joining us now to talk about this is
00:24:43.860 our friend Andrew Lawton from TNC.news. Andrew, great to see you again. Hello, my friend.
00:24:50.560 Hey, good to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.
00:24:52.340 Well, you are so good on this file. I know you covered the carbon tax
00:24:56.000 legal challenge. So I bet you're all over this story. Let me start with the point I was just
00:25:02.680 mentioning, and then I'd love you to take this in whatever direction you like. The whole theory of
00:25:06.860 these taxes is what Stéphane Dion described in 2008 as the green shift, that they're so punitive,
00:25:14.820 they make you change your behavior to a lower carbon lifestyle. And it's to dissuade you. But the
00:25:21.260 thing is, to get it that painful, the tax is to be so high, it's politically un...
00:25:26.000 popular. So everyone hates the carbon tax, but if it's just a small irritant, you're not going to
00:25:30.980 skip your car. Of course the carbon tax has to go up in price, because they want to force people to
00:25:36.700 not drive. Yeah, and that's the big problem, though. I actually don't believe that there's
00:25:43.200 any delusion in this government that people are going to avoid driving. I think the government
00:25:47.840 knows that people are going to continue with the lifestyles they have, and they know that they
00:25:52.760 are going to have to pay for it. And that's why this has always been a revenue tool more than it's
00:25:58.360 been about reducing anything, or about changing your lifestyle. And we saw this when you mentioned
00:26:04.220 the legal challenge, Ezra, in the federal government's argument. Because to levy a tax is
00:26:10.080 actually a different thing that needs to happen constitutionally than to levy what's called a
00:26:15.620 regulatory charge, which is what the carbon tax is. And a regulatory charge can't be used for revenue,
00:26:21.160 it has to be done to either administer the regulatory scheme, or to go into something that
00:26:27.200 the regulatory scheme is funding. In this case, carbon reduction measures or greenhouse gas reduction.
00:26:33.480 And the government knows that it can't say this is a revenue tool, so it has to commit to what is
00:26:38.740 essentially this big farce, which is that people are going to get rid of the car, people are going
00:26:45.060 to stop heating their home, people are going to do all of these things. And the problem with that is
00:26:49.780 that the people most hit by this are not individual families directly, but individual families
00:26:57.000 indirectly by virtue of the carbon taxes impact on business. And if you drive down the 401 or the
00:27:03.220 Trans-Canada Highway or whatever shipping route in Canada, you're going to see a lot of these 18
00:27:08.600 wheelers going by that can't make that choice, that can't switch to an 18-wheeler Prius instead,
00:27:14.380 that can't decide to bicycle their haul of goods down the highway. And those companies eventually pass it
00:27:21.480 on to consumers. So it's not even really individual families having the option to make a choice that will
00:27:27.720 significantly reduce their share of this tax. So Catherine McKenna accidentally told the truth on this. 0.82
00:27:34.280 But you're right that the only way this will impact behavior, and reports have shown this,
00:27:40.060 is if the tax is about six times what it is now, up to $300 a ton.
00:27:44.920 Well, there was this incredible moment, you know what I'm talking about, a couple years ago,
00:27:48.100 when Kathy Kachula, just a severely normal woman, literally broke down in tears in a Justin Trudeau
00:27:54.900 town hall and was crying and said, I support you, I like you, but what can you do? I can't pay both my
00:28:01.120 electricity cost and my grocery fees. That's the green shift, people. And the green scheme lobbyist
00:28:12.260 set would say, this is good. This is forcing you to change your behavior. Put on a sweater if you're
00:28:18.900 cold. You know, learn to live with, you know, turn off your air conditioning in the summer. Like that's
00:28:26.680 what the, that is the pain that's supposed to cause people to change their behavior. So it is at that
00:28:33.560 pain point for people in fuel energy poverty. But you're right, I think they, depending on it, it's
00:28:40.020 like the sin taxes for cigarettes. At any time, the government could ban cigarettes if they really
00:28:45.780 wanted to, but they don't. They want to keep it around for the money. I think it's a mishmash. In
00:28:50.520 some ways, I look at Catherine McKenna, I think she's a true believer in this crazy stuff, but she
00:28:55.240 sure doesn't live like it. I don't know. It's confusing. It's a big mess either way, whether
00:28:59.560 you're an ideologue or a pragmatist, it doesn't make sense either way. No, but I think that you are
00:29:05.940 right. She is a true believer. And I think that she would love nothing more than to ban cars, but she has to
00:29:11.700 be somewhat pragmatic in that sense as well. So this idea of incrementally pushing a tax to someone
00:29:18.460 is a great way of getting the revenue tools so that the government can do all the other things it wants
00:29:23.320 to do. And, you know, let's talk when you mention arbitrary, the idea that Canada will reduce its
00:29:29.280 greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. That's an arbitrary target there. The Paris
00:29:37.560 Climate Accord target is an arbitrary one. And especially when you look at the countries that
00:29:43.620 are causing the real problems, China, India, Indonesia, these places that even if they have 1.00
00:29:49.920 said in a cursory sense that they're going to reduce things are not at all doing anything that's
00:29:56.300 causing a global reduction. So Canada, which is responsible for, I think, two and a half percent
00:30:01.400 of the world's emissions. Sure, we can reduce those by 30%, but at what cost? And you have to look at if
00:30:07.960 the cost of these programs is worth the supposed and as of yet unproven environmental benefit that
00:30:15.420 would come from that 30% reduction when there is already a market-led effort in the West and
00:30:21.980 specifically in Canada for companies to reduce because of consumer requests. So let's not target
00:30:27.520 the industries that are going to have major job losses and major cost burdens, shipping, mining,
00:30:34.680 transportation, these sectors that are going to be undeniably and irreparably harmed by this carbon
00:30:41.040 tax that, make no mistake, the liberals have admitted, is going to be going up probably.
00:30:45.860 Let me ask you about the politics here, because this is obviously a political story. We're in a campaign
00:30:51.160 season. You saw Pierre Polly have taken the opportunity to talk about the prospect of
00:30:57.480 tax hike. I remember a few months ago when the Ontario caucus of the federal liberals had their
00:31:04.040 meeting, and they had a very detailed questionnaire of their MPs, and it leaked. And it seemed like a
00:31:10.340 genuine leak. You know, sometimes political parties leak something, and they stamp it secret all over
00:31:15.880 the place just to ensure journalists give it coverage. I don't think it was that kind of fake leak. I think
00:31:21.060 this was a real leak, because it was critical of the government. And one of the things they said is,
00:31:26.520 hey, Catherine McKenna, can you please stop talking about the carbon tax? It was quite a surprising
00:31:33.480 story. And there was a moment there where Catherine McKenna seemed a little bit crestfallen, a little
00:31:39.080 bit marginalized, and that she was told to be a little less crazy. But maybe that moment is gone. Maybe
00:31:44.560 it's because Gerald Butts is back in the driver's seat. But they seem to be going full tilt on this
00:31:50.040 green scheme. What do you think? I mean, those were real Ontario liberals saying, shut up about the
00:31:55.860 carbon tax, please. Can we talk about anything else? But now she's talking about the carbon tax,
00:32:00.220 and Gerald Butts is in charge. Who's right? Butts or the caucus?
00:32:05.300 Well, this is where you talk about her being a true believer. And I think that's an important
00:32:09.180 point here, because I think the carbon tax is bad policy. I don't think it works. I don't think it
00:32:14.500 does what it's supposed to do. And I don't think that the problem is as critical as the government is
00:32:19.060 trying to make it out to be. But even if you accept at face value, this idea that the carbon
00:32:24.280 tax is good policy, I don't, but let's go down that road for a moment. If you accept that there
00:32:30.060 is not the mass national buy in that Catherine McKenna and Justin Trudeau tend to think there
00:32:35.400 is. I mean, even among people that support the carbon tax, there tends to be a resignation there
00:32:40.660 of, you know, I think the environment's in rough shape. I don't like it. But I think this is what's
00:32:45.000 necessary. When they get up there and thump their chest about it, and when they poke fingers at the
00:32:50.140 conservatives and say, those people don't want a carbon tax, and we do, it shows how deluded they
00:32:55.680 are, because the liberals genuinely believe that people like this, when at very best, they tolerate
00:33:01.520 it. You're never going to get national buy in pushing for a tax. And I can give you a bit of an
00:33:07.620 example here. I had a story over at True North a couple of weeks ago that I was amazed got no
00:33:13.140 mainstream media coverage. And it was Catherine McKenna writing in an op-ed in a neighborhood
00:33:18.100 newspaper in Ottawa that the carbon tax will create jobs. No one says that. Even the people
00:33:25.860 that like the carbon tax don't. Then let's take 10 carbon taxes and we can have 10 times as many
00:33:30.600 jobs. It's just crazy. She cited a report, and this is the great part, that was done by a liberal
00:33:36.140 connected group. And she misrepresented the report because even the liberal connected group was saying
00:33:42.380 there are going to be tens of thousands of jobs lost in a lot of key industries. They say,
00:33:47.020 you know, we'll create some jobs. But when you get into that depth of it, the jobs that will be
00:33:52.940 created are jobs that are created under the broken window fallacy, which is that government is creating
00:33:59.020 jobs because they're needing to upgrade infrastructure to replace the stuff they're destroying.
00:34:04.020 Yeah. So, I mean, but McKenna genuinely believes that there will be a national buy in
00:34:09.160 of the carbon tax, which is a gross miscalculation. And I said, if they're going to run this election
00:34:15.400 on the carbon tax, that's great news for the Conservatives. Yeah. Well, if the Conservatives
00:34:19.680 have the courage to fight against it. I know Pierre Polyev does, but sometimes I wonder,
00:34:24.480 you know, there's a lot of Conservatives who just don't want to be beat up on the global warming question.
00:34:32.520 I'm sorry to interrupt on this, Ezra, but the Conservatives need to be a lot more bold on this. And
00:34:36.800 I would love to hear the Conservatives say, we're pulling out of Paris and say it unequivocally,
00:34:41.600 which Andrew Scheer has not done. And the reason that's important is because if you accept the
00:34:46.560 liberal premises on this, you have to accept the liberal remedy. Yeah. You know, and that's the
00:34:52.420 problem here is that the Conservatives put out this, you know, 60 some odd page environment plan.
00:34:57.200 And I panned it at the time, not because it was a bad plan, but because if the Conservatives accept
00:35:03.080 the liberal premise on global warming, they have to also accept the liberal remedy. I need the
00:35:08.800 Conservatives to push back against the premise for it to be saleable. Yeah, you're so right. Well,
00:35:14.500 great to see you, my friend. I know this is one of your favorite files. I think you're the go-to
00:35:19.460 expert on it. You were certainly there in court when it was being challenged. So I think you probably
00:35:24.000 know more about this than any other journalist. And I'm glad you shared some more expertise with us
00:35:28.300 today. Thank you. And we're going to be following it up to the Supreme Court as well when it gets
00:35:32.440 done. Right on. Well, when that happens, let me know. And we'll, we'll, I know you'll be tweeting
00:35:36.180 about it a little bit and writing about it. Maybe we can have you back on the show to talk about it
00:35:39.960 too. Anytime. All right. There you have it. Our friend, Andrew Lawton from True North,
00:35:44.340 which you can find at tnc.news. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:35:49.940 Hey, welcome back on my show yesterday about getting smuggled into a Mike Pompeo event in
00:36:06.400 Ottawa. John writes, well done. I'm both getting in via the U.S. circumventing the liberal ban on
00:36:11.160 legitimate journalists and coming up with a question that Canadian journalists went with.
00:36:14.720 Well, thanks very much. You know what? I, I met some journalists from the parliamentary press gallery
00:36:20.600 who had participated in the ban and they were friendly enough in person. And I said, I would
00:36:26.780 send them an email. Let's talk it out. And I sent them that email and they haven't replied. It's been
00:36:30.700 several days. I just don't think they want the rebel around. And that, that fits with the early
00:36:38.460 Bernier ban on those billboards. Look, you can disagree with the rebel. You can disagree with me.
00:36:44.060 But to be banned? That's just weird. Weird is the wrong word. It's weird. But it's on Canadians, 0.99
00:36:51.240 what I really mean to say. Jan writes, you realize that now American media attending any
00:36:56.480 Canadian events will be told not to let the rebel in. They treat the rebel like Maxime Bernier.
00:37:00.900 Yeah, well, the decision to let us in was not made by U.S. media. It was made by Mike Pompeo's media
00:37:08.060 director, communications director. Mike Pompeo's political office brought us in. It wasn't the
00:37:15.240 American media, the New York Times or the Washington Post, who probably don't like us
00:37:19.440 either, frankly. But I don't think they'd be for banning us. On Freeland's staff not wearing
00:37:25.200 any socks for an important meeting, Susan writes, quite frankly, I think he looks like an idiot.
00:37:29.240 But that fits with this government. Even ministers often look like idiots with how they dress and
00:37:33.400 approach life. It's more about me than government. Can't wait for the election. Yeah, look, I'm a bit
00:37:38.600 of a schlep sometimes, I admit it. And maybe I should shape up a little bit and wear a tie more,
00:37:45.240 probably I should. But I wasn't our minister of foreign affairs meeting the secretary of state of
00:37:52.720 our greatest ally. Like there were people who were dressed up there in the delegations. And this
00:37:59.320 idiot's going sockless with that little string anklet. And I mean, if you want to dress that
00:38:05.500 way in your social life, at the bar, you're going out, you're with friends, even in the office, I
00:38:10.720 think it's unprofessional for someone of that. What are you doing when you're supposed to be
00:38:15.880 representing your country, not your own, your own, I don't even know what that is. Is that a
00:38:23.800 political statement? Is that a fashion statement? How about just do that on your own time, buddy?
00:38:27.640 Let me say one more thing. I mean, why would Mike Pompeo have let me and Keegan Bexte in?
00:38:33.560 How does that possibly serve his interest? We didn't have a chance to ask a question for the
00:38:38.940 reasons out loud. I don't think Mike Pompeo cares about our coverage of him. He cares about Americans.
00:38:47.600 There's no, like there's no quid pro quo. I mean, I did meet Mike Pompeo some years ago. I gave him a
00:38:52.660 briefing on ethical oil. But I wouldn't exaggerate and say that we're friends.
00:38:57.640 It's just not true. So why would Mike Pompeo have done that? I think that maybe the Americans are
00:39:06.520 getting a little tired of Christy Freeland. I don't know if you saw this, but a couple days ago,
00:39:12.280 Donald Trump, maybe it was just yesterday, Donald Trump retweeted, two days ago, a tweet I made
00:39:20.180 jabbing at Trudeau. I jab at Trudeau on Twitter all the time. Donald Trump retweeted and said,
00:39:24.500 no, no, be nice. Trump himself retweeted. I mean, in fact, that's the subject of our next letter.
00:39:31.540 On my interaction with President Donald Trump, Jonathan Levine writes,
00:39:34.880 I don't think Canada needs an equivalent to Fox. Not even Donald the idiot president agrees with
00:39:39.620 your depiction of Trudeau as submissive. Canadians can see through the BS, so don't bother.
00:39:45.460 Well, Jonathan Levine, let's look at my tweet, where I basically say, look, Trudeau is submissive.
00:39:51.520 He talks tough and disparages Trump when Trump's not there. But in Trump's present,
00:39:56.380 he sits like a good boy and look at him crossing his legs. And I said, even a child
00:40:00.520 can see who is in control and who is submissive. That's what I tweeted.
00:40:05.320 Why would the president retweet that, bringing it to the attention of 63 million people? I'm,
00:40:12.940 like I say, to Mike Pompeo, I'm really nobody. To Donald Trump, I'm less than nobody.
00:40:19.240 Why would Trump, Trump doesn't follow me on Twitter, obviously. So why would he choose from
00:40:24.720 all the tweets out there, mine, and retweet it and say, no, it was a productive meeting.
00:40:33.440 He's nice. Well, that's a very backhanded way of showing everybody what I wrote.
00:40:40.080 That's a little bit passive aggressive. And you know, he didn't say, no, Trudeau doesn't
00:40:47.740 disrespect me, or no, Trudeau isn't submissive. He said, no, no, no, no, no. We had a productive
00:40:52.600 meeting. He was nice. He didn't deny the charge. But rather, he brought the charge to the attention
00:41:00.160 of 63 million people. I think anyone who thinks Donald Trump was mad at me calling out Justin
00:41:08.460 Trudeau and was putting me in my place, I don't think they're as sophisticated as they think they
00:41:14.420 are. And I think they're giving Trump less credit than he deserves. I mean, I could be wrong. I could
00:41:18.700 be wrong. But if you're Donald Trump, the president of the United States, you don't take some tweet from
00:41:23.800 the ether and show it to your 63 million friends for no reason. And say, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:41:30.380 You say that Justin Trudeau is a weak, submissive, backstabbing, rude loser. No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:41:39.740 I won't hear of it. He's nice. Oh, you set me straight. Anyways, that's our show for today. Until
00:41:49.740 next time, on behalf of all of us here at the Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night.
00:41:53.800 And keep fighting for free.