Rebel News Podcast - “Lowlights” of the Media Party's terrible election coverage so far

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 0.84

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 0.83

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, 0.81

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. 0.81

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.

Rebel News Podcast - September 17, 2019

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

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