Rebel News Podcast - September 17, 2019


“Lowlights” of the Media Party's terrible election coverage so far


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

172.3622

Word count

5,913

Sentence count

438

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In today's podcast, I examine a few vignettes to compare how the Media Party is covering the Conservatives and the Liberals, and show you just how bad it is. Here's a clip from six years ago, when Justina McCaffrey and Faith Goldie worked together at the Sun News Network.

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 Hey, Rebels. In today's podcast, I examine a few vignettes, I call them, to compare how
00:00:08.520 the media party is covering the conservatives and the liberals. I try and take similar or
00:00:15.180 even identical subjects, policy announcements, controversial candidates, and show you, or
00:00:20.980 even, I think, how many questions the leaders take on their campaign trips. And I compare
00:00:27.360 the media covering like with like. So I'm comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I'm
00:00:32.640 trying to eliminate all the variables except for one to show you, to make my thesis, my
00:00:38.500 hypothesis, that the media party is corrupt to the core. So that's what you'll see today,
00:00:43.960 or at least hear it in podcast form. I'd love it if you saw it too, because I have video
00:00:47.760 clips. I show you tweets. Obviously, you can't get that in a podcast, but please consider
00:00:51.760 becoming a premium subscriber. You get the video version of all these podcasts. You know
00:00:56.760 that. And you get Sheila Gunn-Reed's show and David Menzies' show. It's all just eight
00:01:00.640 bucks a month, or 80 bucks for the whole year. You can even get a discount if you type in
00:01:04.680 the coupon code podcast. And that's all at the rebel.media slash shows. I'd appreciate
00:01:11.280 the support if you did that. All right, here's today's podcast.
00:01:15.300 You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.
00:01:18.480 Tonight, how is the media party covering the election so far? I'll show you just how bad it
00:01:23.860 is. It's September 16th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:29.640 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:33.300 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:37.360 The only thing I have to say to the government, the why I'm publishing, is because it's my bloody
00:01:42.260 right to do so.
00:01:48.460 Hey, can I show you a few vignettes from the past few days of election coverage?
00:01:52.680 Here's the first one. It starts in the Liberal Party war room.
00:01:56.440 It's some opposition research into a conservative candidate from Ontario named Justina McCaffrey.
00:02:02.240 Now, six years ago, apparently, she made a video with our former employee, Faith Goldie,
00:02:08.240 who was then, I think she was at the Sun News Network back then.
00:02:11.860 They were talking about the Toronto social scene and how they were a couple of girls on the town.
00:02:17.580 Here's the tweet.
00:02:18.540 Banned from Facebook for spreading online hate, yet Faith Goldie is embraced by Andrew
00:02:24.300 Shearer's conservatives. Shearer and Goldie spoke at the same rally this year, and today
00:02:28.120 he campaigns with Justina McCaffrey, Faith Goldie's best friend. They even pitched a TV
00:02:32.800 show together, Watch. So, it's a chatty, girly TV show that McCaffrey and Goldie proposed six
00:02:39.020 years ago, and here's the devastating clip from it. I'm only going to play 30 seconds or so.
00:02:44.400 It's all like this, I promise.
00:02:46.660 Hi, everyone. My name is Justina McCaffrey, and I'm a wedding dress designer. I design the
00:02:52.680 most beautiful dresses in the whole wide world, and I see brides and brides come in and come
00:02:58.240 out of my life. So, I have my girlfriend, Faith, who's wonderful. We hang out, have glasses
00:03:03.900 of wine, martinis. So, I just thought it might be an opportunity for you to get an idea of
00:03:10.620 the show and how this all is going to play out. It's me, and my friends, and my kids,
00:03:18.240 and we're just out there trying to find someone for me.
00:03:22.820 Hi, my name is Faith Goldie. I'm here to help out my friend Justina McCaffrey, because we
00:03:26.260 want to put together the coolest, the hottest new show on TV called A Wedding Dress For
00:03:31.500 Everyone But Me, Not Me, Her. 0.98
00:03:35.180 It goes on like that. Of course, Faith went on to work at the Sun News Network, so she didn't
00:03:40.080 do this YouTube show. There is literally nothing in that clip about politics. Just showing the
00:03:45.960 two of them. They were friends back then, and that's the liberal attack on the conservative
00:03:51.040 candidate in 2019. They were friends six years ago. It's pretty laughable, but you see,
00:03:58.280 you're thinking like a normal person. I mean, I have my beefs with Faith Goldie, too. As you may
00:04:03.340 recall, I fired her in 2017 for going on an unacceptable podcast run by a neo-Nazi website. I fired her that 1.00
00:04:11.080 moment. I had no idea she had done it. But in 2013, four years before that, for doing a girly
00:04:18.360 society girl kind of YouTube thing, that's the big scandal the liberals have on a conservative 0.99
00:04:25.080 candidate. What a laugh. But yeah, you see, the media party, and in particular the CBC, they take their
00:04:30.060 marching orders directly from the Liberal Party. In fact, they don't even have to take the orders.
00:04:34.820 They already know what to do. So if you can believe it, at a campaign event in Ontario where
00:04:40.180 McCaffrey and Andrew Scheer were both speaking, the CBC broke away from Scheer when he was in the
00:04:46.100 middle of his speech. I'm going to show you a clip. You'll hear him still speaking. To chase
00:04:50.620 Justina McCaffrey into a car. Chase is a bit of a big word. You can see the journalist in question 1.00
00:04:57.040 here just taking a few steps. But turning it into a major scandal, huge news story. Here's the tweet.
00:05:05.340 Conservative candidate Justina McCaffrey fled questions from Katie Simpson following a campaign
00:05:11.680 rally with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. Liberal candidates posted old videos of McCaffrey
00:05:15.000 Saturday, one that includes friend Faith Goldie. Watch the video.
00:05:18.640 Thank you very much, everyone. I think we have some questions from...
00:05:21.260 Mrs. McCaffrey. Mrs. McCaffrey. Can we just ask you a really quick question? Can we just ask you
00:05:26.040 really quickly? Can we just ask you really quickly? She's running for office. 1.00
00:05:34.820 I don't actually think she ran away. I think she was about five feet away from her car.
00:05:40.500 And the CBC said, can we ask you some questions? And she just got in the car. I don't even think
00:05:45.620 Justina McCaffrey ran away. I think she was walking to the car and drove away.
00:05:50.560 But that's the scandal. That's how a video six years ago of a couple of friends, that's how the
00:06:00.520 liberals handled that. An apolitical chat with someone six years ago saying, did you see anything
00:06:05.000 like that? The breathless coverage. Did you see Katie Simpson in an uncharacteristic sprint 1.00
00:06:10.360 chasing down Justin Trudeau or Hassan Guy? Remember that anti-Semitic liberal candidate in Montreal?
00:06:19.560 I said, not someone who said hello to an anti-Semite six years ago. Someone who is an anti-Semite
00:06:25.220 himself today. I didn't see that coverage. Did you? The funniest thing was this tweet about Faith Goldie
00:06:34.000 by David Akin from the Liberal Party, War Room Today, Part One, Re-Canada, Carlton candidate,
00:06:41.220 Justina running against liberal incumbent, blah, blah, blah. He's trying to make that guilt by
00:06:46.480 association thing. I guess my old colleague, David Akin, who works for Global News now, forgot that
00:06:52.840 back in 2013, he also worked with Faith Goldie. In fact, we were all working together at the Sun News
00:07:00.420 Network. Guilt by association and so tepid, so weak. Here's another comparison. This is, I think,
00:07:06.760 even more persuasive. Take a look at this. This is the headline for the CBC covering a liberal
00:07:12.580 announcement. Great picture of Justin Trudeau. Isn't that a great picture? It's just cut and paste,
00:07:18.380 though, directly from the liberal press release. Liberals promise financial incentives lower fees
00:07:23.140 to help entrepreneurs. What a gorgeous picture that is, too, right? I think that actually might have
00:07:29.080 been word for word the liberal press release, and it might have been the handout picture from the
00:07:33.700 liberal party. Now, compare that to their identical, analogous coverage of an Andrew Scheer policy
00:07:39.980 announcement. So we're comparing apples and apples. Not exactly a great photo, but not terrible. And the
00:07:45.920 headline is, Scheer's costly tax credit could boost public transit use, but likely not by much.
00:07:53.160 So they're covering an identical thing, a political party's policy announcement. But with the
00:07:59.020 conservative announcement, instead of reporting the news of the announcement, like they did for the
00:08:03.320 liberals, the CBC goes straight to rebuttal mode. You couldn't have a more perfect comparison. All the
00:08:10.280 elements are controlled. All the variables are controlled. The only thing different is liberal or
00:08:14.560 conservative. Or look at this, look at this. Look how the CBC covers Andrew Scheer saying he's not going to
00:08:19.260 throw out every single candidate who said something dumb on social media 10 years ago. Here. Here's the
00:08:25.060 story by the CBC from Katie Simpson. Again, she's a loyal liberal. She wants so badly to end up in the 0.81
00:08:31.220 Senate, doesn't she? Scheer will stand by candidates with racist, homophobic past comments as long as they
00:08:39.000 apologize. And look at the leader has been dogged by, he's been dogged by social media. Oh, he's in
00:08:46.840 defense. So again, I ask, was that written by the liberal war room or the CBC newsroom? And is there
00:08:52.300 even any difference? So, so that's the headline. But is that what Scheer actually said? Or is that what
00:08:58.800 Katie Simpson loyally wrote? Watch what Scheer said for yourself. Listen to this.
00:09:04.840 Look, as long as someone takes responsibility for what they say, and, and, and, and addresses the fact
00:09:10.560 that in 2019, some things that may have been said in the past are inappropriate today, that if anything
00:09:17.180 that they've ever said in the past caused any type of hurt or disrespect to one community or another,
00:09:23.080 and have apologized for that, I accept that. You know, I accept the fact that people can make
00:09:27.920 mistakes in the past and can own up to that and accept that.
00:09:31.240 So, so what the CBC headline is, is not what he said, was it? Taking responsibility, realizing that
00:09:39.620 2019 is different. But here's how Jagmeet Singh and the NDP was reported for saying pretty much
00:09:46.480 exactly the same thing as Andrew Scheer did. Here's a tweet from Althea Raj, who works for the foreign
00:09:52.860 meddling website Huffington Post, but he's, she's also a regular pundit on the CBC and is actually a
00:09:58.380 leader's debate moderator. Here's what she said. Identical comments by Jagmeet Singh.
00:10:03.220 Re, past intolerant comments from candidates. Singh says he'll judge any potential incidents
00:10:08.200 on a case-by-case basis, but he believes that people can change. If someone apologizes and commits
00:10:14.460 to changes, he could keep them. People can grow. This is how we build a better world. I love you.
00:10:21.720 That last part was just perfect. People can grow. Hey guys, this is how we build a better world. I
00:10:29.540 wonder why they didn't pin that little comment on the end of Andrew Scheer's reporting. But I think
00:10:36.820 the most telling thing is how the media are reacting to how they're being handled by various
00:10:41.520 parties. Here's the leftist Glenn McGregor complaining that Andrew Scheer isn't allowing
00:10:46.400 supplementary questions to journalists on the campaign trail. As in, Andrew Scheer moves on to
00:10:51.980 another journalist for another question instead of staying with the one reporter again and again.
00:10:57.060 Here's McGregor's tweet. He says,
00:10:59.520 Andrew Scheer's conservative campaign is restricting reporters' questions by not allowing follow-ups in some
00:11:05.640 cases. They took the mic away from me and Katie Simpson today for our second questions on his
00:11:11.240 candidates. Oh, that's just devastating. It really, we're one step away from Hugo Chavez-style
00:11:18.200 crackdown. And here's another one. This is another one. This is from years ago, though. You see,
00:11:25.700 this is from the 2011 campaign. Remember this horror, Stephen Harper, 2011, when he only took five
00:11:33.080 questions a day. Oh, the outrage. How cruel he was. How's Justin Trudeau doing? Well, here's a
00:11:41.800 government journalist for the CBC named David Cochran, not just explaining why Trudeau wasn't
00:11:48.160 taking any questions. I mean, zero. Not any, not five, not no follow-ups, zero. But David Cochran of the
00:11:56.460 state broadcaster was promoting these as legitimate reasons, defending Trudeau to the world.
00:12:03.080 Now, I had trouble finding the original tweet that Cochran made because he deleted it after being
00:12:08.640 mocked. But that's what we call a gaffe, someone in politics accidentally saying something that's
00:12:13.620 true. Now, David Cochran accidentally showed who he was, a liberal spin doctor, happy to be abused by
00:12:18.340 the prime minister, knowing his proper place. But put that tweet back up for a second, because Norman
00:12:21.700 Spector caught a bit of it before it was deleted. David Cochran had said, well, you know, it's fair for
00:12:28.800 Trudeau not to take our questions, because they are focusing on rapid movement through
00:12:34.800 writings on Saturday and Sunday. As in, that's why Trudeau couldn't take questions for five minutes.
00:12:41.000 He was focusing on rapid movement, guys. Come on, guys. Stop being so mean. It's unbelievable.
00:12:47.600 Cochran deleted his first most embarrassing tweet, but he still couldn't help himself. Here's what he
00:12:51.920 said next. He said, so people are asking about Trudeau not taking questions for two days,
00:12:57.660 implying the media is okay with it, and asking why we aren't howling with outrage. So here's a
00:13:01.960 short thread as to what's happening on the bus with this. Yeah, you deleted what you said, mate,
00:13:07.080 but here's the second. He said, we have all reported that it's been two days with no questions,
00:13:10.660 so we have been transparent and disclosed. There are sometimes days incumbents without availabilities
00:13:15.400 due to travel and time restrictions. We want that to be the exception, not the norm.
00:13:20.020 Hey, guys. Full disclosure. We totally told you how we're being abused and disrespected by Trudeau,
00:13:25.720 so we already said it, so stop being mad. And yeah, we're not howling with rage because,
00:13:31.440 well, because why exactly? He didn't exactly say why he's not howling with rage.
00:13:35.460 Because we all know why. Because he's bought and paid for or rented might be more accurate in the
00:13:41.680 case of him. So it's so rushed, you see. You see, Trudeau's in a real rush, so he just can't make
00:13:49.120 any time for questions, not even one. Look, we've been transparent. We told you that. It was so, so,
00:13:54.500 so, so gross. Even other journalists criticized him. Here's someone from the Globe and Mail,
00:14:00.660 Janice Dixon. But how does anyone make the travel argument when Andrew Scheer scrums until we run out
00:14:05.320 of questions on his plane? That's a good one. Here's a journalist so close to Trudeau, she can
00:14:14.720 kiss him, or in this case, praise his footwear. Trudeau has cowboy boots on? Hey, guys. I'm a
00:14:22.660 reporter. Trudeau has cowboy boots on, and he's got a wonderful cologne. Maybe it's Axe body spray.
00:14:27.760 She's that close. She can feel his warmth. But she couldn't quite bring herself to ask him a
00:14:35.560 question other than, how come you're so dreamy? I mean, asking a question about any of the Trudeau
00:14:41.760 scandals right now, that wouldn't be friendly. And look, there's $600 million in bailout money
00:14:46.900 in the mix. Or this one. Look at this. This is my favorite. Cormac McSweeney.
00:14:52.320 Liberal leader Justin Trudeau asked about the Leafs signing Mitch Marner. Says he's the wrong
00:14:58.020 person to ask since he's a Montreal fan. Hey, guys. But he wishes Toronto the best of luck. So he
00:15:02.960 likes both cities, okay? So vote for him in both cities, okay? That's accountability journalism in
00:15:09.940 an election. I swear to God, that was the question put to him. Hey, do you like Toronto or Montreal better?
00:15:18.260 I like both guys. He said he likes both. I don't know who's going to win the election on October 21st.
00:15:25.800 I do not know. But I think there are a lot of great contenders to win the prize for the all-time
00:15:36.000 lamest media party question ever asked of Justin Trudeau. Here's the reigning champ.
00:15:42.100 The one that the entire country wants to know. What shampoo do you use?
00:15:49.180 What a disappointing answer this is going to be. Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.
00:15:56.920 Oh, my God. That is so embarrassing. If I live to 101, I will never forget the cringe in that video.
00:16:03.680 So who's going to knock Tom Clark out of his top position for cringiest question ever, ever asked
00:16:11.340 of Trudeau? I think right now David Cochran of the CBC is in the lead. Don't you? Stay with us for more on this.
00:16:33.680 Welcome back. Well, I have to tell you, the biggest media surprise of the day today for me
00:16:40.700 was that the Globe and Mail, the newspaper of record for the Canadian establishment,
00:16:46.160 they published an op-ed by me about the rebel and the liberal government censorship of it.
00:16:52.280 I almost couldn't believe it. And I can only imagine how much backlash the editors have received from
00:16:59.800 people who want to de-platform us. So I'm doubly impressed. That's a little shimmer, a little glimpse
00:17:08.680 of good news. There's other news on the campaign trail, but I think in general,
00:17:15.880 the media's coverage of the campaign has been disastrous. Joining us now for his point of view
00:17:20.480 is our friend Andrew Lawton, one of the few independent journalists out there just like us.
00:17:25.100 He's with TNC.news and he joins us now via Skype. Andrew, great to see you again.
00:17:29.620 Likewise, and congrats on that op-ed. Hell has indeed, as you note, frozen over.
00:17:33.480 That's right. Well, and I was happy to refer to you in that column because you were one of the
00:17:37.980 journalists who was blacklisted by Chrystia Freeland at that London free speech conference. So
00:17:44.140 you actually played a role in fighting for freedom. I was only too happy to mention your name.
00:17:48.100 Yeah. And I will say on that note, because it is relevant, the Globe and Mail's reporter at that
00:17:54.620 conference was one of the ones who, as you wrote about, with that little media gaggle there that
00:17:59.380 said, you know what, we're not going to go along with this sham if Andrew and Sheila are not included.
00:18:05.000 So I was very grateful for that. And I'm glad that commitment to press freedom on their part has
00:18:08.840 continued. Yeah. Well, we've talked about a little flicker of good news. And I don't regard
00:18:15.100 as good news simply because I had that column published in the Globe. I mean, that felt good
00:18:20.560 personally. But I was glad that a legacy newspaper, a media party newspaper, as I say, actually fought
00:18:28.160 for free speech by giving me some space. So it wasn't just the personal aspects. I'm glad
00:18:32.800 that anyone did it about anything but free speech. But I think in general, the coverage of the campaign
00:18:37.600 so far has been disastrously lopsided. I made some comparisons today. Trudeau absolutely taking
00:18:46.000 no questions at all from journalists and them saying, oh, shucks, what can you do? Whereas when
00:18:51.500 Stephen Harper limited himself to five questions a day in the last campaign, it was wall-to-wall media
00:18:57.200 outrage. I think they're not even pretending to be neutral anymore, are they? Especially the CBC.
00:19:02.540 No. And the five-question rule that Harper had at the time was just so egregious. And how dare he? And
00:19:10.100 it was he was compared to like some state censored dictator. And now zero questions is somehow just,
00:19:16.960 oh, it's all par for the course. And it's a busy campaign. And, you know, we'll get to him when we
00:19:20.840 get to him. And this is important because oftentimes media bias is not as brazen or as obvious as people
00:19:29.280 would like to think it. It's not as obvious as, you know, some outlets saying, you know, Justin
00:19:33.260 Trudeau, good, Stephen Harper, bad. It's a lot more insidious than that. And oftentimes a lot more
00:19:38.680 apparent in what isn't covered. And right now we're seeing no coverage of the process. And the process
00:19:45.560 stories were all that the media liked to write about when Stephen Harper was prime minister, about
00:19:50.140 how he did this to journalists, he did this and so on. Yeah. Yeah, you're so right about the process
00:19:55.420 stories. You know, that one clip I showed earlier, before I brought you on about Katie Simpson of the
00:20:02.380 CBC literally chasing down a conservative candidate about some friendship video she did six years ago,
00:20:11.780 compared to their absolute obsequiousness with, for example, Hassan Ghié, the anti-Semitic candidate in
00:20:20.440 Montreal. It couldn't be more stark. I don't know. I guess my main question for you is you and me follow
00:20:27.940 this stuff very closely. So we're attentive and we detect these differences. But I think most severely
00:20:33.260 normal people, they're not really applying the acid test to what they get from the media party. So
00:20:40.500 if all they see is Katie Simpson chasing down someone who was obviously very bad and they and then they
00:20:47.880 see tweets about how cool Justin Trudeau's cowboy boots are, maybe they're just, maybe if someone's
00:20:55.480 not really dialed in to politics, they'll say, oh, so the conservatives are on defense, they're full of
00:21:00.980 haters, and Justin Trudeau is just as stylish as ever. So I'm worried that it's working, maybe not
00:21:06.620 with people who are really, really interested in politics, but with severely normal people who have
00:21:11.440 normal lives and aren't obsessing about these things. Yeah, and I am of two minds on this. I mean,
00:21:16.380 many of your viewers may know I was a candidate in last year's provincial election in Ontario, and I was
00:21:21.220 absolutely pilloried by a lot of the same people that are going after Andrew Scheer and his candidates
00:21:27.620 in this round. What I found most interesting about it is how little of that made it through to ordinary
00:21:35.000 Canadians in a lot of respects, to the people that I would meet whose doors I was knocking on. So there is very much
00:21:40.720 a media bubble mentality here, where the media loves to just talk to each other on Twitter and
00:21:46.460 write these stories that most Canadians aren't seeing at first. And I say at first because eventually
00:21:53.080 when it goes on long enough, people are going to start to pay attention. Even the least engaged voters
00:21:58.260 who in the last few days of the campaign start reading the news are going to see whatever is still
00:22:03.400 being covered there. So that is the caveat of this. And what we're seeing right now is that the Liberal
00:22:08.840 War Room is digging up, you know, some 370 year old tweet that some candidate in, you know,
00:22:15.220 a bit to be Timiska Mang posted at the dawn of the millennium, say. And then what's happening is that
00:22:21.420 instead of this just being a Twitter sensation, every single one of these Liberal War Room tweets
00:22:26.280 is transitioning into a question from a mainstream media reporter. It used to be that reporters would
00:22:34.460 ignore the political propaganda from all sides and focus on the stories that are actual stories.
00:22:40.240 Whereas right now what the media is doing is creating none of their original reporting.
00:22:45.520 They're just asking whatever the Liberal War Room is tweeting about. And that's dangerous.
00:22:49.920 Yeah. Now, I want to tell you what I think the biggest media story of the day is. And that is,
00:22:55.340 by whatever means, and I don't quite know how, Maxime Bernier has in fact been accepted
00:23:00.080 into the next all party leaders debate. Now, I think it was a scandal that he was kept out by
00:23:06.540 Justin Trudeau's handpicked debates commissioner, David Johnston. But through whatever, whatever means,
00:23:11.700 he's back in there. And here's the thing. I think that statistically speaking, it is impossible
00:23:17.760 for Maxime Bernier to win this next election. I just do not think that that is, I think that's a
00:23:23.180 one in a thousand chance of that. I think he may win his own seat. I don't even know where a second
00:23:30.440 seat to punch through would be. I could be wrong. But the great value, in my view, Andrew, and I like
00:23:35.360 your reaction to this, of having him in those debates is that he is the only one of the party
00:23:41.120 leaders who will bring the populist point of view on issues like global warming, political correctness,
00:23:47.800 and open borders immigration to light. Even Andrew Scheer steers clear of those for fear of the media
00:23:55.060 party. So I don't know how many votes Maxime Bernier would peel off of the conservatives or whatever.
00:24:01.000 That's the concern on the right. But having him there to talk about those issues, I think, is cracking
00:24:07.060 open the conversation in a wonderful way. I've been a firm believer since the beginning that Maxime
00:24:14.500 Bernier should be in the debates, not because I have any endorsement or support for Maxime Bernier.
00:24:20.420 I'm not supporting any party in this election, but because I think ideological diversity in these
00:24:25.580 debates is important. And I also think that it's important to acknowledge that the PPC is a player
00:24:30.580 in the election. Now, I share your assessment, Ezra, that he's not going to win. And PPC people may not
00:24:36.520 like that, but that's just not the numbers that I see right now. However, you don't need to be able to win
00:24:42.740 to be able to shape the election campaign. And I think the Bloc Québécois is a great example of this.
00:24:48.140 The BQ has a statistical impossibility of winning. Even if the BQ won every single seat in which it's running
00:24:55.040 a candidate, it would not win the election because it's only running candidates in Quebec. So the reason this is
00:25:02.060 important is because we've already abandoned this idea that you need to be able to form government to be in the
00:25:07.520 debates. We've determined that the Bloc Québécois is a player. The Green Party, we know, which gets
00:25:12.380 single digits and has only ever elected two MPs, and one of them was very recent, has been included
00:25:18.400 in debates. And even in 2006, before the Green Party had ever elected an MP, it had a representative
00:25:26.020 in the debate, in Elizabeth May. So if you look at the precedent on this, Maxime Bernier very much should
00:25:31.660 have been included from the get-go. I was not optimistic that the debate commission would review its
00:25:37.300 position and change its position, but it did. So I have to give credit where it's due there.
00:25:42.520 And what they've really leaned on is that the PPC gave five ridings where it feels it has the best
00:25:48.720 shot at electing someone. And the debate commission did polling for the PPC, basically, and found that
00:25:56.280 there was a significant chunk of the voters in each of these ridings that would consider voting for the
00:26:01.740 PPC. And, you know, we were looking at anywhere from, I think, 20, low 20s to low 30s of people
00:26:09.000 that would consider voting for the PPC candidate in a few of these ridings. And that's all you need
00:26:14.760 to win a seat in the Canadian system when you have so many parties represented. So all they need to do
00:26:20.380 is show a good enough response in even a couple of ridings. And they'll have done as well as the
00:26:27.180 Green Party ever has.
00:26:28.640 Isn't that interesting? I think it's rather weird, pitiful, micromanaging, and too much government
00:26:32.780 that a government-appointed government debate commission is doing government polls on whether
00:26:39.700 or not to blackball an opponent to the government. I think it's about five layers of gross there.
00:26:46.420 But the fact that that gross system produced a free result, I think that's good news.
00:26:54.200 And I think immigration, global warming, that Greta Thunberg girl, the crazy, over-the-top 1.00
00:27:02.300 political correctness, I think these are things that Canadians care about just as much as the
00:27:07.520 officially approved debates where you can have the entire spectrum of opinion from A to B.
00:27:12.760 I think Maxime Bernier is going to shake it up. And I don't think it's resolved yet who he will shake
00:27:18.860 votes away from. I think one of the reasons the Greens have polled well recently is because in
00:27:25.420 British Columbia, Justin Trudeau has alienated people and they're going to the Green Party as a
00:27:31.920 sort of protest vote. It could be that Maxime Bernier gets some of those former liberal votes too. I mean,
00:27:38.440 it makes sense that he would get votes from conservatives. He used to be a conservative
00:27:42.000 until a year ago. But who knows where a populist candidate would get votes from. It's not yet
00:27:48.600 resolved that it would be only splitting Scheer's vote. I'm just very interested in how it goes down.
00:27:55.820 And I think it's a small blow for freedom. Last word to you, my friend.
00:28:00.040 Well, I will say that I'm less interested in the PPC contribution to the debate specifically,
00:28:05.540 as much as I'm interested in pushing back against this idea of state gatekeepers of political
00:28:11.560 discourse. And whether it was Elizabeth May, whether it was Jagmeet Singh, whether it's Maxime
00:28:16.560 Bernier, I don't like that idea at all of government bureaucrats deciding who Canadians have a right to
00:28:23.440 hear from. And we see a couple of private sector debates right now, the Monk debate or last week's
00:28:29.320 McLean debates. And they made the decision to exclude Maxime Bernier. I still think it's wrong,
00:28:34.260 but I have a lot less time when it's the state that's doing that because the state is telling
00:28:38.660 people this is the official debate. Yeah. Well, very interesting days. And I salute you
00:28:44.500 and your friends at TNC.news. We know them and we love them, whether it's Anthony Fury or Candace
00:28:50.440 Malcolm. You got a lot of good people over there and we support you. And we think you're one of the
00:28:56.340 good guys out there, independent journalists, not on the government payroll. So you keep up your great
00:29:01.400 election coverage. We'll keep an eye on you and hope to have you back on. Happy to. Thanks a lot,
00:29:06.260 Ezra. All right. Thanks, my friend. Well, there you have it. Andrew Lawton not only covers Canadian
00:29:10.920 politics, but you might recall he actually visited the UK with me a couple of times to cover Tommy
00:29:15.560 Robbins' trial. And actually, he was there crowdfunded on his own dime to attend the Media Freedom
00:29:21.380 Conference in London. Very, very interesting times we live in. Stay with us. More ahead on The Rebel.
00:29:27.500 Hey there. On my special interview with Tommy Robinson, right after he was released from
00:29:42.460 prison, Paul writes, the arrest and imprisonment of Tommy is a black mark on British history and
00:29:47.480 undermines the credibility of human rights groups like Amnesty International. Great to see him out
00:29:51.360 and still fighting. All the best to Tommy and his family going forward. Yeah, I was right there when
00:29:59.180 he walked out of prison. And within two minutes, the Daily Mirror, a hard left-wing alt-left publication
00:30:05.340 was pounding him. And he was pounding right back. And I like that because it showed me that Tommy
00:30:09.780 wasn't too screwed up after being in solitary confinement for 66 days, unlike being kept in a
00:30:16.080 little box like he was in Onley prison. So that made me feel good. Mike writes, riveting. Great
00:30:22.800 interview, Ezra. Thanks for just listening and letting Stephen unload. Pulitzer material. The
00:30:27.040 British establishment is watching what they hope to be ashes produce a Tommy Phoenix. Of course, Stephen
00:30:33.180 is the real name of Tommy Robinson, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. I was glad to be out there. It felt meaningful to
00:30:38.780 me to see him returned to freedom in one piece because he certainly was damaged physically and
00:30:44.760 psychologically the last time. I feel like Rebel viewers had a role to play in that by allowing
00:30:49.080 us to make four prison visits to ensure his proper treatment and then to be there when he got out or
00:30:55.500 felt good. Liz writes, so glad Tommy is looking so fit. I would not want to be his mother or his wife.
00:31:02.680 His wife must be an exceptional woman to go through all this for him. I hope he can stay safe and they
00:31:07.240 don't trump up any charges to throw him back into jail. I've had the pleasure of meeting Jenna,
00:31:12.700 his wife many times, and his three lovely kids, and they are impossibly great. And his kids,
00:31:18.160 they remind me of those rosy-cheeked cherubs and all those Rubens paintings. They're unbelievably
00:31:23.600 cute kids. And I don't know if you saw the clip of the video where Tommy was home. The kids thought
00:31:31.180 he was getting out Sunday or Monday. He got home Friday. Of course, we immediately took him to a
00:31:36.160 McDonald's to get a quarter pounder. Then we took him for a haircut because the kids were still at
00:31:40.140 school because he got out about 10.30. And I think his wife was working. So then he got home
00:31:44.520 and he was sitting there, all cleaned up. And his kids were coming home from Friday school. They
00:31:49.980 thought, okay, it's going to be two or three days until dad comes home. And there he was.
00:31:54.380 And that, I mean, you had to have a heart of stone not to feel something when you saw those kids
00:32:01.140 reunite with their dad. You know, there's that human side of things. And it was quite something.
00:32:07.700 So that's my report for today of our news in Canada. I can tell you that it felt important for
00:32:14.900 me to go to London for Tommy's release from prison, given that we followed it so closely
00:32:19.160 these past 66 days. But I don't expect to see myself going to the UK for many weeks because,
00:32:26.880 of course, he's not in prison. There are more legal battles that he's fighting. And I enjoy live
00:32:30.640 tweeting them. And millions of people follow me when I do. I mean, the last time I live tweeted
00:32:35.720 Tommy's day in court, I think I had 6 million views of that in one day, which tells me there's
00:32:41.640 an enormous demand for that. I feel compelled to go back for any of his trials. But so I don't expect
00:32:48.040 to be making any trips out there in the next month. The focus for the rebel is going to be our
00:32:56.000 Canadian election. We love covering things in the US. We loved going to Hong Kong in the personage of
00:33:00.720 Avi Yamini a few weeks ago. It was fun to send Jessica to Greenland. We've been covering the US
00:33:05.920 pretty well. But until October 22nd, I think you, October 21st, the election, I think you will see
00:33:11.440 our great focus being on the Canadian election. I think it's our time to shine. And I think we will
00:33:16.300 do it very well. By the way, if you haven't checked it out yet, go to the Globe and Mail.
00:33:20.260 Well, my op-ed on freedom of speech for the rebel was so popular today. This is sort of startling to
00:33:27.340 me. It was trending on Twitter. I think it was the number three trending subject on Twitter in
00:33:32.380 Canada that I had an op-ed in the Globe. How funny is that? I tell you, the rebels on the move. People
00:33:38.400 are watching us. They love us or hate us, but they don't ignore us. I'm glad you're a supporter.
00:33:42.200 Thanks for being here. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:33:45.900 to you at home, good night. Keep fighting for freedom.
00:33:48.360 We'll see you next time.