Our latest book hits No. 1 on the bestseller's list, and I'll show you the Media Party's reaction. Ezra Levant's new book, "Unsporting," is about transgenderism in sports.
00:16:02.760Lee, supervisor here, guys, as always.
00:16:04.760Yeah, I mean, if you would have shown me that video a year ago of someone who was wearing a mask, getting a nearly $1,000 fine for shaking hands, I'd say, no.
00:16:23.600No, and I don't mean that just in a conjecture way.
00:16:27.100I don't mean that in an exaggerating way.
00:16:28.780Ontario literally has no path whatsoever that's leading to a point without restrictions.
00:16:35.400Ontario has once again ripped up its previous so-called reopening plan and replaced it with another one.
00:16:40.800This one has three stages that we are supposed to so-called upgrade ourselves up through based on which percentage of the population is vaccinated.
00:16:50.020And it's in three steps, and you get to the third step, which requires 70% to 80% of the population having at least one dose of a vaccine, 25% of adults having two doses.
00:17:02.620And even this third step, which is the final step in the roadmap, has gatherings with larger limits, indoor dining with capacity limits, sports and recreational fitness facilities open with limits, indoor meeting and event spaces with limits, all of these things.
00:17:19.180And they don't say what the limits are, by the way, that can be done with some unspecified limit.
00:17:25.220And that's the point that we're working towards.
00:17:29.040Whereas just by contrast, Alberta, whatever you might think of its handling of this, has put a roadmap forward that at the end has no restrictions whatsoever.
00:17:38.280That's a lot more aspirational than Ontario, where the best thing you can hope for is a life with just maybe some fewer restrictions than there are now.
00:17:46.780You know, there's one more thing, and we just showed those two different roadmaps of Ontario and Alberta.
00:17:52.020Another thing that I find quirky is the Ontario system has different measurements, this many people getting a vaccine, that many people getting a vaccine.
00:18:01.260But that's not the thing we're trying to fix.
00:18:08.820That's what public health is about, you know, helping people stay healthy.
00:18:12.460The number of people getting a jab in the arm may or may not be related to the number of people who are sick or dying.
00:18:19.640But if the death, like Texas, I mentioned the other day they had a massive state of Texas, I think they've got 30 million people there now.
00:18:27.760Not a single person died from the virus.
00:18:30.420So you would say, and Australia, they really, I think in all of Australia they have maybe a dozen cases.
00:18:37.640They are not saying, well, you must still be locked down until you all get a jab because the health crisis is over.
00:18:45.200I find it odd that getting the vaccine is now the test of whether or not you're free.
00:18:52.020There's one more thing I'll throw at you.
00:18:54.740Even in addition to those vaccine rates, they have this arbitrary 21 days per phase.
00:19:01.100I mean, I've heard of two weeks to flatten the curve, but this 21 days business, they just made it up.
00:19:05.940So they, you know, 21 days is arbitrary.
00:19:09.400The vaccine rate is arbitrary because neither of those things has anything to do with how many people are actually sick or in a hospital.
00:19:16.380You could have empty hospitals, not a single person sick, and you'd still be under lockdown under these rules.
00:19:23.160Well, the 21-day measure is a particularly insidious one because that's actually proof that they're just trying to delay reopening.
00:19:32.140And I'll give you a very concrete example of this.
00:19:34.720Step one, which we're not in yet, so we're at step zero, I guess, right now.
00:19:38.580Step one allows easing of some of the restrictions, not many of them, but some of them.
00:19:43.360And it requires 60% of the population to have had at least one dose.
00:19:47.780Last week, Ontario passed 65, 5% higher than the minimum standard, and they still have not flipped the switch to say that we are in Ontario in step one.
00:19:59.180And the reason is because they have that arbitrary delay that they're putting in so that we will not get to that point earlier than June 14th.
00:20:07.320And then to get to step two, we have to wait 21 days beyond that.
00:20:12.400We'll actually be at the government's vaccination threshold for stage two, likely before we are even in stage one.
00:20:20.880And they won't let us go through because they're putting these 21-day buffers between.
00:20:26.640And one of the reasons that the U.S. has had success in reopening is because they understand that vaccines are not the only way to immunity.
00:20:34.400There's also acquired immunity from people who have had COVID.
00:20:37.700And you're right, that is kind of an aggregate measure they can look at as far as how many people are in hospitals, irrespective of the specific percentage of people that have been vaccinated.
00:20:48.740In Canada, there's a contradiction on here.
00:20:51.460If you want to come into the country and you're a Canadian citizen, you still have to quarantine for two weeks, even if you've been fully vaccinated.
00:20:58.440But if you have a negative COVID test, you've got an old COVID test that says you have the antibodies, basically, you've still got to quarantine, but you don't need to do a test on entry.
00:21:10.040And then you flip that around, you've got Ontario initially saying that it was not even safe for fully vaccinated health care workers to go to a hockey game before they reversed that.
00:21:19.600Well, if vaccines are so transcendent and they are the be all and end all of this, why is the government not actually pegging any of these reopenings to vaccine rates in some areas?
00:21:31.600And then on the other hand, why are they?
00:21:33.480It's about picking and choosing based on the desired outcome, which seems to be at this point keeping people locked down for longer.
00:21:39.900You know, with the summer here and the weather is nice and people don't want to be cooped up and they're going to go out.
00:21:47.100I mean, Montreal is finally getting rid of its absurd juvenile, you treat juveniles with a curfew.
00:21:55.240It infantilizes people to give them a curfew.
00:21:58.360I fear that their goal is to let people have a summer because there would be no way there's enough police and prosecuting resources to arrest everyone who goes out on the summer on a patio.
00:22:11.380You're just not going to stop barbecue season in Canada where the summer is so short.
00:22:18.000So a curfew when it's still sunny outside is very difficult to get people to buy into.
00:22:22.760Yeah, I think this is the authoritarian state saying, all right, there's no way that people are going to obey these laws during the summer.
00:22:30.700And we'll be in disrepute because everyone will not follow them.
00:22:33.980Let's grant people a summer to remember.
00:22:37.680And then in September, October, when it gets chilly, flu season is coming around again.
00:22:45.720I know the teachers union wants to do that.
00:22:47.520Now, I fear that since we're not going full tilt freedom like the Indy 500 or Jacksonville or most American places, that the government doesn't want to get out of it.
00:22:58.720Because if they finally say it's over, it's harder to get back in than if they just say we're taking the boot off your neck a little bit, but you're still under it.
00:23:08.120So I don't think Doug Ford or most of the other premiers want to say it's over because I think they want to have that tool to ratchet it back up again if they need to later.
00:23:27.260The so-called longest unprotected border in the world has been closed for about 15 months now because they keep renewing that closure over and over.
00:23:35.200And we know going back to over a year ago, that was at Canada's behest.
00:23:40.320It wasn't the U.S. that wanted to close the border to leisure travelers.
00:23:45.340And the country is still, I mean, with some exceptions, of course, still by and large closed.
00:23:49.980So that's going to be a big, big problem here.
00:23:53.000If people are not buying into the rules anymore, as you've indicated, Ezra, the government loses legitimacy.
00:23:58.600So they have to relent and make it look like they're giving us this gift of freedom when in actual fact they just are aware that they're going to have this massive countrywide rum spring on their hands and won't be able to enforce it once the weather starts getting nicer.
00:24:14.820Yeah, I think, I mean, I'm here in Toronto and, of course, it's slightly different in different provinces and cities.
00:24:20.380I think that Toronto being, I would say, the worst lockdown in, I mean, through the BBC says, I think there are people and institutions and businesses that if this lockdown goes for yet another cycle, another quarter, another season, I think you're going to see the Detroitification of Toronto.
00:24:39.760I'm not saying it's going to be over like that, but you're going to see more and more people and companies and families just saying, we're going to leave this crazy place for a more sane place, whether that's America or another province.
00:24:53.120Because I think there's only so long you can justify living in an expensive, crowded, traffic-y, drug-infested, you know, crime-ridden city if you don't have the pluses of the city, the pluses of the city, the restaurants, the shops, the theatres, the action, the being able to socialize.
00:25:13.160I mean, it's one thing to be in a prison, but why would you be in the most expensive, slummiest prison in the country?
00:25:19.060I think that Toronto is teetering on the edge of becoming an ex-great city, and I say that with some sorrow. Last word to you, Andrew.
00:25:27.500Yeah, and I think that actually underscores what's been, I think, one of the big injustices of the lockdowns is that they disproportionately affect people who don't have the means to avoid them.
00:25:39.040I mean, we saw stories going back the last year about this politician jetting off to St. Bart's, this guy going to another country to get their vaccine, people that have decided to take up and move to the Caribbean, which I'm all for if you can afford it.
00:25:53.180But the reality is, it is only a narrow subset of the elites that can get out of Dodge, leaving everyone else forced to deal with the carnage that politicians have unleashed on their communities.
00:26:04.080And that's a big part that's happening here in Toronto. We forget a lot of the time. Not everyone can work from home. I'm fortunate in that I can. A lot of people are stuck with this. And you know what? The politicians have to be held to account for that.
00:26:18.040Yeah. You know, we've got some great videos over the weekend. Our team went down to Montreal. They allowed two NHL teams, Toronto-Montreal, to have this big battle, and 2,500 lucky folks who paid up to 10 grand a ticket could watch.
00:26:31.360And I just thought, you know, that's the elites of the elites, the billionaire owners, and the millionaire players, and people who could afford up to 10 grand for a ticket.
00:26:40.200They're allowed to buy their way out of the lockdown. 2,500 people in one room. But churches are under extreme restrictions. Community hockey leagues, kids' hockey leagues can't open.
00:26:52.760That is absolutely the political elite buying its way out of the lockdown. I thought it was super gross, and I thought it was tone-deaf of the NHL.
00:27:02.420Andrew, keep up the fight over True North. We love your work, and thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
00:27:08.980All right. There you have it. Andrew Lawton of The Andrew Lawton Show at TNC.new. Stay with us more.
00:27:13.720Hey, welcome back. Instead of letters, I want to show you what is just such an outstanding video, in my view.
00:27:31.660And you can tell me what you think. We've done, I don't know, 20,000 videos since Rebel News was born.
00:27:36.100This next video, I think, shows journalistic courage, a command of the facts and the law, excellent videography and editing, and an amazing ending.
00:27:49.680There's everything I like about this. It's nine minutes long, but when I watched it, it felt like it flew by in 30 seconds.
00:27:55.900Let me show you why Avi Yamini won our Viewer's Choice of the Year Award.
00:27:59.760Let me close today's show, instead of with letters, with one of the best videos we've ever made. Take a look.
00:29:15.160So, you're saying if I have an accredited media pass by Victoria Police, I don't have to cover my nose and mouth while talking on the microphone?
00:29:20.700I'm saying is you are not accredited media.