Rebel News Podcast - Our plans for 2021 (with or without the Media Party's permission)

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about my exclusive email interview with Aaron O'Toole, the conservative party leader.

00:00:06.940 I thought it was a good interview. He talked about questions I had about the China files.

00:00:11.860 That's interesting. I think he did a good job. I'll tell you some of his answers.

00:00:15.820 But it turned weird when his director of communications sort of denied that there was an interview,

00:00:23.080 even though, like I say, it was all done by email, so I have the receipts, as the kids would say.

00:00:27.140 It's a really weird story. I'll tell you about it.

00:00:30.420 I wish you had the video version of this podcast, because I show you my email exchange,

00:00:35.100 which is what's sort of funny about this whole thing.

00:00:38.080 I'd like to invite you to become a video subscriber to this podcast.

00:00:41.740 Go to rebelnews.com, click subscribe. It's $8 a month, or $80 for the whole year.

00:00:46.340 You get the visual stuff. We put a fair bit of effort into the video side of things, the images, the visuals.

00:00:51.440 And the $8 a month helps us keep the home fires burning, because, of course, you know we don't take a dime from Trudeau.

00:00:58.960 All right. Here is today's podcast.

00:01:01.040 Tonight, an exclusive interview by email with Aaron O'Toole.

00:01:21.120 It's January 11th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:24.040 Hey, I have a good story for you, and then a weird story for you, and then a bad story for you.

00:01:51.120 And the thing is, it's actually all the same story.

00:01:54.540 Hey, remember last month when I had what I called the scoop of my lifetime,

00:01:59.360 34 pages of top-secret government documents that the government simply forgot to censor

00:02:04.580 before sending them to me.

00:02:08.200 It detailed how the Canadian Armed Forces didn't want to have joint winter warfare exercises

00:02:15.500 with China's People's Liberation Army after China seized two Canadian hostages,

00:02:22.180 Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.

00:02:23.920 Well, when Justin Trudeau and his bureaucrats found out about this proposed cancellation,

00:02:27.780 they hit the roof.

00:02:29.560 I wasn't supposed to get copies of the 34 pages of emails and memos,

00:02:34.120 but I did, and it made huge news.

00:02:38.160 News in Canada.

00:02:39.240 The Globe and Mail followed up with a major story on it.

00:02:41.780 News around the world.

00:02:43.000 And I was invited on the number one news show in America,

00:02:46.680 Tucker Carlson's show on Fox.

00:02:48.880 It was a brief interview.

00:02:50.820 Pretty exciting, and I think I got the message out.

00:02:52.880 Here's how that went.

00:02:54.640 Ezra LeVant is the founder of Rebel News in Canada.

00:02:58.120 He broke this story.

00:02:59.920 It's an amazing story.

00:03:01.040 And he joins us tonight.

00:03:01.800 Ezra, thanks so much for coming on.

00:03:03.280 I read this.

00:03:04.400 My first reaction was, this cannot be true.

00:03:07.020 Your prime minister offered to train Chinese troops in Canada.

00:03:11.420 Why would he do that?

00:03:13.440 It's a shock to Canadians, too.

00:03:16.520 That cold weather warfare that you're referring to was just one of 18 different joint projects

00:03:23.480 the Canadian Armed Forces had with the People's Liberation Army in 2019 alone.

00:03:30.120 Canada is training one- and two-star Chinese generals in our war colleges.

00:03:37.140 We're training lieutenants and majors, commanders.

00:03:41.860 We're sending Canadians over to China. 1.00

00:03:44.740 We're bringing Chinese—I think they're not just soldiers.

00:03:47.860 I think they're spies as well—to Canada.

00:03:50.860 And I don't know a single person in this country who knew about it, but it's been happening.

00:03:56.560 And we found out about it really by accident when the government sent me freedom of information

00:04:03.460 documents and forgot to black them out.

00:04:05.800 Or maybe, frankly, someone inside the government wanted to blow the whistle on this incredibly upside-down relationship.

00:04:13.320 In those same memos you're talking about, Trudeau's office was supporting China and condemning the Trump administration.

00:04:21.080 It was upside-down.

00:04:22.700 It was inverted morality.

00:04:23.920 It's seeping all the way into our bureaucracy, our diplomacy, and they're trying to get the military on side, too.

00:04:31.200 I mean, with respect, we're Americans, so our concern is the United States.

00:04:36.120 Canada is our biggest trading partner.

00:04:38.900 We have the closest relationship with Canada of any country, obviously, in the world.

00:04:43.960 This seems like an obvious threat to American national security.

00:04:47.680 Does the Trump administration believe that, do you think?

00:04:49.960 Well, in fact, in these memos, you can see that the Trump administration warned Canada

00:04:56.240 that this winter warfare training would transfer knowledge to China that could be used.

00:05:02.280 Now, they don't explain would it be used to take on Uyghurs in Xinjiang,

00:05:06.660 Tibetans to fight India in the Himalayas, or even to fight us. 0.99

00:05:10.280 And when the military, the Canadian military, said our American allies or our allies are concerned about this,

00:05:16.700 Trudeau's staff pushed back and said, is it just the Trump administration, or is anyone else worried about it?

00:05:22.720 So there's an antipathy towards America that seeps through all these secret documents,

00:05:27.540 and the overarching goal is to let China's president, Xi Jinping, save face.

00:05:34.760 I want to tell you, though, Tucker, that is not the view shared by grassroots Canadians.

00:05:38.880 Ever since China kidnapped those two civilians, two years ago today, actually,

00:05:43.820 Canadian public opinion has hardened against China.

00:05:46.940 And the last Pew poll I saw actually says that Canadians are more hostile to China than Americans are.

00:05:54.120 You have every reason to be.

00:05:56.200 Ezra, thank you so much, and congratulations on Rebel News.

00:05:58.920 I know you take a lot of abuse up in Canada, but you do a great job. We appreciate it.

00:06:02.200 So, like I say, biggest story of my life, real, genuine, secret documents.

00:06:06.620 Not Watergate or anything, but big for me.

00:06:09.700 Anyways, the next day, Aaron O'Toole, the conservative leader, and other conservatives asked about it in parliament.

00:06:15.960 They agreed. It was a big story.

00:06:18.480 Mr. Speaker, months after Canadian citizens were taken hostage by the communist regime in China,

00:06:23.920 we learned that the liberals fought hard to keep a close relationship with China.

00:06:28.420 In fact, the deputy prime minister fought for Canada to train China's military on Canadian soil

00:06:36.220 against the direct advice of the chief of defence staff.

00:06:40.480 With our citizens in jail, our exports banned, and with China committing human rights abuses around the world,

00:06:47.540 why did the deputy prime minister push hard to partner with them?

00:06:51.300 And then I saw press releases, including one from the Conservative Party's defence critic.

00:06:56.420 Can you guess who I'm talking about? Can you name the Conservative Party's defence critic?

00:07:01.760 Don't Google it. Can you name him without checking?

00:07:05.080 To be honest, I couldn't either, but I did Google it.

00:07:07.860 And I sent him three invitations to come and talk on our show.

00:07:12.700 Three. Two by Twitter direct message, he follows me, and one by email.

00:07:17.920 Now, I didn't get a reply.

00:07:19.980 I'm going to leave you guessing who he is, because I don't think you know either.

00:07:24.460 Anyways, he can come on our show any time he likes, if he has something to say.

00:07:28.340 But I guess he doesn't. Maybe he's on a beach somewhere.

00:07:32.200 But then, Aaron O'Toole had a press conference specifically about the documents that I had received.

00:07:38.660 I was pretty excited. My scoop was growing.

00:07:41.520 So it was a press conference that you had to dial in a conference call,

00:07:46.120 and you would be chosen to ask questions.

00:07:48.080 I had some really good questions.

00:07:49.300 I dialed in to the conference call, but I was never picked as a journalist.

00:07:54.600 Now, that's okay.

00:07:56.580 Not everyone gets picked all the time.

00:07:58.980 I thought it was a bit odd, because the CBC was given two questions,

00:08:03.760 and Canadian Press was given two questions.

00:08:06.800 And out of all the questions that were asked, only a couple were about China.

00:08:11.760 And they weren't really questions.

00:08:12.860 They were scolding O'Toole for daring to be upset about China.

00:08:17.360 And none of the questions in the entire press conference were about the documents,

00:08:22.640 the China files that I had leaked, and that O'Toole had called the press conference to talk about.

00:08:27.100 Take a look.

00:08:27.440 And just as a follow-up, I want to get your direct reaction to the news this morning,

00:08:32.320 that officials in Beijing have said that Michael Coburg and Michael Spavor have already been indicted and tried.

00:08:39.960 And then just as a follow-up to your answer there,

00:08:42.780 don't you think that sanctions at a time like this would put them at even greater risk,

00:08:49.060 given the situation that Coburg and Spavor are in?

00:08:51.920 Don't you think that some of the, you know, some of what you might be advocating,

00:08:57.000 Magnitsky sanctions, perhaps well-intentioned, you know,

00:09:01.720 could have negative repercussions for these two Michaels?

00:09:06.140 Because, you know, when you poke the jailer in the eye, it's not always a good idea.

00:09:10.980 Do you not think that's a consideration?

00:09:12.300 Or can you talk about that a little bit more in a little more detail, perhaps?

00:09:15.340 So if O'Toole wanted to get the message out about the China files, I think he failed.

00:09:19.660 Simply no reporters in the media party wanted to talk about it.

00:09:23.640 I don't blame them.

00:09:25.480 It's a story they don't like to write about.

00:09:27.500 So I sent a note to Erin O'Toole's press secretary, Chelsea Tucker,

00:09:32.820 asking her if she actually wanted to talk about the news story of the season,

00:09:37.220 great story for the conservative base,

00:09:39.920 something about which the liberals are utterly vulnerable.

00:09:43.220 And she came up with a series of excuses for why Erin O'Toole couldn't talk to me. 0.99

00:09:48.240 He was busy.

00:09:50.700 What about COVID-19?

00:09:53.280 He had already talked to Rebel News months ago.

00:09:56.100 These were some of her excuses.

00:09:57.680 She was stubborn.

00:09:59.460 But I can be more stubborn than just about anyone sometimes.

00:10:03.520 And finally, she agreed to do the interview with Erin O'Toole via email.

00:10:09.220 The deal was, I would send my questions to her.

00:10:11.780 She would pass them on to Erin O'Toole or, more likely, a policy advisor.

00:10:16.480 They would write a reply and send back the answers to me.

00:10:20.600 It's not ideal.

00:10:22.060 I reminded her we're in the video business.

00:10:24.180 But, look, email messages do work.

00:10:26.800 And I acknowledge that is how a lot of politics are done.

00:10:29.240 But by the time I heard back from her, it was almost the Christmas break.

00:10:35.500 Seriously, more than a week of delay had gone by since we broke the scoop.

00:10:39.880 And I was trying to get conservatives to appear on our broadcast.

00:10:43.560 So, by the time we were in late December, it was a dead zone for journalism.

00:10:47.920 So, I held on to the written interview until the news picked up in the new year.

00:10:52.460 Of course, last week was just nuts with what happened in Washington.

00:10:55.380 And Mondays are always slow news days, so today we published the email interview with Erin O'Toole before the week began.

00:11:04.200 And I think it's a great story for Erin O'Toole.

00:11:07.000 It makes him look strong and decisive.

00:11:09.880 He's talking about a winning issue for him.

00:11:12.620 You know what I mean by that, right?

00:11:13.680 I mean, he can be interviewed by the CBC about, I don't know, systemic racism or global warming or Greta Thunberg or whatever the CBC wants him to talk about.

00:11:22.840 And even if he does a very careful job and does the best he can, he's always losing because he's talking about subjects that favor the liberals.

00:11:31.440 But if he can talk about China and national security and the military and the two Michaels, he'll always win, even if he doesn't do a great job talking about it.

00:11:41.080 You know what I mean?

00:11:42.120 I'm just saying that's how politics works.

00:11:43.900 It's not even, you know, what you say in a conversation.

00:11:47.540 It's what the conversation is about.

00:11:49.720 What's the ballot question, election strategists might say.

00:11:54.600 Trudeau hates it when people are talking about China and spying the military.

00:11:59.040 That's a bit of a hint about what O'Toole maybe should talk about, don't you think?

00:12:03.440 So that's what we did.

00:12:05.160 And we published it this morning pretty positively.

00:12:08.040 You'll see that we were careful to mention that it was an email interview, which is sort of obvious because if it were a video interview, we would have the video of it.

00:12:18.140 And we mentioned that the interview was actually done before Christmas, which it was.

00:12:22.200 Other than that, I think it was pretty much verbatim.

00:12:25.740 And it's good.

00:12:27.640 That's the good news part of the story.

00:12:29.320 Aaron O'Toole is strong on China.

00:12:31.520 Let me read a bit.

00:12:32.140 I'm just going to read one of my questions I put to him.

00:12:34.040 I said,

00:12:35.760 The China files show that besides the winter warfare training, there were 17 other Canadian Armed Forces People's Liberation Army projects in 2019.

00:12:45.220 Would you suspend any of those?

00:12:47.320 And he answered,

00:12:48.880 Canada should not be training Chinese soldiers. 0.84

00:12:51.960 As Prime Minister, I would cancel any training exercise coordinated with the People's Liberation Army.

00:12:58.240 Training Chinese military personnel, why the Chinese Communist Party holds Canadians hostage and actively spies on,

00:13:03.980 and intimidates Canadians at home, is dangerous.

00:13:07.160 Canada needs to take a principled approach to foreign policy and stand up to China. 0.83

00:13:13.000 That's a pretty good answer.

00:13:14.580 Now, I'm going to stop there.

00:13:15.660 I asked him four questions, and he gave four answers, and I think they were pretty good.

00:13:20.160 And we published them without editing a single word that he said, without even changing a comma or an apostrophe.

00:13:26.080 Nothing added.

00:13:26.960 Nothing take away.

00:13:28.420 And you notice one more thing, right?

00:13:30.380 The use of the first person.

00:13:32.100 As Prime Minister, I would.

00:13:33.900 Now, I mention that to you, even though it's weird to mention it.

00:13:36.520 Because, of course, it's him talking to the first person.

00:13:38.900 I had asked to interview Aaron O'Toole via Skype.

00:13:41.480 But they said no, only by email.

00:13:43.600 I grudgingly accepted.

00:13:45.200 And they came through.

00:13:46.120 So, of course, it's Aaron O'Toole.

00:13:49.080 But since I had dealt with the press secretary as the go-between, I mean, I wasn't bugging Aaron O'Toole directly.

00:13:54.740 I sent Chelsea, the press secretary, one last email confirming that these words, in fact, were attributable to Aaron O'Toole.

00:14:03.720 I wasn't really interested in doing an interview with some staffer.

00:14:07.420 I wanted to know what the leader of the party had to say.

00:14:10.560 And you can see in this email, she said, of course, it's attributable to O'Toole.

00:14:16.040 Who else would use words?

00:14:17.500 As Prime Minister, I would.

00:14:19.560 Yeah, so, of course, it was Aaron O'Toole's replies.

00:14:22.140 And she wished me Merry Christmas.

00:14:24.380 So, today we published the story, an exclusive interview done by email about my China file scoop.

00:14:28.880 I asked exclusive questions that I thought up in my brain.

00:14:31.880 And O'Toole gave me answers that were sent only to me.

00:14:35.460 That's what exclusive means, I think.

00:14:37.040 I know you're thinking I'm weird for even mentioning these details, but I'm telling you that because the media party freaked out about this.

00:14:47.200 For example, Andrew Coyne.

00:14:48.840 I don't even know where he is these days.

00:14:50.360 National Post, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star.

00:14:51.960 It's all the same, isn't it?

00:14:53.800 He was apoplectic.

00:14:56.080 He didn't really say why.

00:14:58.880 I guess we're just all supposed to know why.

00:15:02.420 I'll tell you why.

00:15:03.180 Because Andrew Coyne believes in cancel culture, and he thinks we Rebel News folks should be canceled, and we should not be allowed to ask questions of Aaron O'Toole, and he should not be allowed to talk to us.

00:15:14.240 And more than that, he believes he's in a position to tell politicians what they can or can't say and to whom they can or can't say it.

00:15:20.380 That's a lot of chutzpah.

00:15:21.480 And soon, other liberal hacks like Andrew Coyne got in on it, including liberal MPs and liberal party staff, to which my reaction would be great.

00:15:34.160 It upset them.

00:15:36.120 The interview was a good one for Aaron O'Toole.

00:15:38.440 It had good answers on China.

00:15:40.580 It was on O'Toole's agenda, not Trudeau's agenda.

00:15:43.600 So the liberals were really mad, and that's great, and he's reconnecting with the conservative base.

00:15:48.520 That's great.

00:15:50.020 Here's a pro tip, and I used to be a staffer on Parliament Hill more than 20 years ago.

00:15:55.220 If your political opponents are really mad at you, that's a sign you're doing something right in our political system.

00:16:02.680 Even Gerald Butts, the disgraced former aide to Justin Trudeau, who was forced to resign over his role in the dirty SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal.

00:16:12.280 Remember him?

00:16:13.200 He's now working from New York.

00:16:15.520 He weighed in.

00:16:16.840 That's a sign you're over the target if even Gerald Butts is mad at you.

00:16:21.560 I guess he wants to bring cancel culture up to Canada, too, I guess, for enemies of the liberal party, I guess.

00:16:27.160 So far, so great.

00:16:28.560 O'Toole reconciling with Rebel News, the biggest conservative news agency in Canada.

00:16:32.340 O'Toole sounding pretty good on good issues, ignoring the media party.

00:16:36.260 That's what I'd call a win.

00:16:39.340 But then, but then O'Toole's communications staff snapped.

00:16:47.820 Not him yet, at least when I'm recording this, but his staff.

00:16:51.700 Look at this weirdness from Melanie Parity, his communications director.

00:16:56.140 Just again and again and again.

00:16:58.280 It was not an interview.

00:16:59.380 It was not an interview.

00:17:00.320 It was from a spokesman.

00:17:02.460 It didn't happen.

00:17:03.440 It didn't.

00:17:03.840 It's a lie.

00:17:06.120 Well, no, sister.

00:17:07.660 It wasn't an email from a staffer.

00:17:10.940 I wouldn't publish an interview from a staffer.

00:17:13.480 I mean, who cares what a staffer says?

00:17:16.660 By the way, a staffer wouldn't say, as prime minister, I would do this or that.

00:17:20.040 It was handed to me by a staffer, but it was attributed to the leader.

00:17:26.040 And I presume he wrote it or approved it if he's putting it out in his name.

00:17:30.640 It was an interview by email, which is acknowledged in our story because they wouldn't do a Skype call.

00:17:35.340 Well, okay, that's fine.

00:17:37.840 I mean, I don't really care.

00:17:38.980 I've had the great pleasure of interviewing Aaron O'Toole in person before.

00:17:42.620 It's a wonderful experience.

00:17:44.440 I'd like to do it by Skype, but I'll take email from now and then.

00:17:47.180 But why the fib?

00:17:51.880 Why the attempt to deceive or, I don't know, distract?

00:17:56.940 Why try to deny the obvious?

00:17:58.780 They gave me an email interview.

00:18:01.240 That's a thing.

00:18:03.040 Why be shy about it?

00:18:04.240 Why try to throw me under the bus?

00:18:06.660 Was it me?

00:18:07.740 Really?

00:18:07.980 How is that throwing me under the bus?

00:18:09.280 I posted to Twitter my email conversation with the press secretary confirming that it was indeed from O'Toole.

00:18:17.760 Really weak.

00:18:18.840 Really sad.

00:18:21.060 But more than that, why are they doing that?

00:18:22.960 Why not just say the conservative party position is the same no matter who asks us a question?

00:18:28.700 Okay, you're done.

00:18:29.480 That didn't even take five seconds.

00:18:31.580 Why not say we take questions from a range of journalists?

00:18:33.980 It's part of our job in the communications department.

00:18:36.120 Why say that?

00:18:37.220 How about saying nothing?

00:18:40.060 Why spend half a day dancing to the tune played by liberals?

00:18:45.900 Would a liberal communications director take one second of his day to indulge some conservative online troll?

00:18:52.940 Would they let the conservatives hijack the liberals for half a day to talk about things they didn't want to talk about?

00:18:59.180 How embarrassing.

00:19:00.620 How unprofessional.

00:19:01.440 Not for me.

00:19:02.560 I mean, I thought it was a good interview.

00:19:05.880 And I don't even think it's that embarrassing for Aaron O'Toole.

00:19:08.160 Well, what he said was pretty good.

00:19:10.500 And we emailed it to a lot of people in Canada.

00:19:13.660 Probably the first time they ever heard of him talk about it because the media party didn't let him get any messages out on that.

00:19:18.420 But for a spin doctor who's just spinning in circles, digging a hole, embarrassing for her.

00:19:24.060 Why, though, why would a single person in the world care that Aaron O'Toole told me he wants to be tough on communist China?

00:19:33.800 I mean, maybe Andrew Coyne cares.

00:19:35.940 But so what?

00:19:36.580 He voted NDP and he voted liberal in the last few elections.

00:19:39.500 He's a quirky columnist who, I promise you, will never support the conservatives and does not want good things for conservatives.

00:19:47.000 So why is Melanie Parity jumping up and down for him?

00:19:50.740 Why try to appease him and give his cancel culture call any credence?

00:19:56.840 Why are you doing that?

00:19:58.480 You know, Aaron O'Toole has actually been pretty good on cancel culture.

00:20:01.440 At least whoever runs his Twitter account has been good on cancel culture.

00:20:04.840 At least back when he was running for party leader.

00:20:07.320 I haven't heard much from him about that since.

00:20:09.920 It's just weird that his own staff are wobbly.

00:20:12.140 I mean, if you don't want to talk to me or rebel, then don't talk to me or the rebel.

00:20:17.720 Don't talk to me and then try to lie about it, especially when I got the receipts.

00:20:23.580 Oh, well, who cares?

00:20:25.080 I mean, it was only the biggest story in the season.

00:20:27.740 Why wouldn't they want to get in on it?

00:20:29.540 I mean, but sure, go answer some more gotcha questions from the CBC.

00:20:33.500 They're still suing the Conservative Party, by the way, literally suing the Conservative Party.

00:20:37.980 The CBC is suing.

00:20:38.980 But you go give them some exclusive interviews on TV, not even by email.

00:20:44.240 You know what?

00:20:44.740 We're going to keep doing our job here at Rebel News, which is telling the story with or without MPs.

00:20:49.140 I mean, it was the largest story of the day with or without MPs.

00:20:53.040 I mean, I haven't been on Tucker ever in my life.

00:20:54.900 That was five million viewers.

00:20:56.440 The fact that the Conservative Party's obscure defense critic wouldn't even return my three messages.

00:21:02.160 Well, really, so what?

00:21:04.220 I mean, I got the story out, didn't I?

00:21:05.920 He probably could have used some of the coverage.

00:21:08.260 I don't think most people, even though the Conservatives, have a conservative defense critic.

00:21:13.500 Look, we've had the best journalistic year of our lives by telling the story that others won't tell.

00:21:18.560 And, you know, in the past year, since the pandemic started, we've done thousands of stories.

00:21:23.420 I mean, we're doing like 10 a day.

00:21:24.560 I doubt we've talked to politicians 10 times in the last thousand stories since the pandemic began.

00:21:32.960 I mean, why?

00:21:34.040 They just aren't relevant.

00:21:35.080 Certainly not opposition MPs who won't oppose, critics who won't criticize, in a parliament that almost never sits.

00:21:41.700 I mean, any journalist who thinks that's where you're going to get the news probably is paid by politicians, which is most of them.

00:21:47.640 But not us.

00:21:48.860 We're too busy.

00:21:50.060 And by the way, this week we're announcing we're getting even busier.

00:21:54.260 Thanks to our generous viewers, we've paid down our bank loan.

00:21:58.020 And now we've got some freedom of movement.

00:21:59.880 We are putting up three help wanted ads for new journalists.

00:22:04.560 One for a reporter in Montreal, one for a reporter in Ottawa, and one for a reporter to cover the China beat.

00:22:11.320 So hopefully someone who speaks Chinese fluently is able to report on China's influence in this country and everything from politics to universities to media, talk about what's going on in Hong Kong, stuff like that.

00:22:21.760 So that's what we're doing.

00:22:24.720 And, you know, we're doing it with or without the permission of the media party or the media party's financiers in the Liberal Party.

00:22:31.600 Aaron O'Toole is welcome to come talk to us anytime if he wants to be part of that conversation.

00:22:36.820 But if not, it really doesn't hurt my feelings because I know who I am and I know who we are, no matter what Justin Trudeau and Andrew Coyne say.

00:22:47.440 Stay with us for more on Cancel Culture.

00:22:49.220 Stay with us for more on Cancel Culture.

00:23:19.200 But also how they're handling the civil liberties lockdown that we see.

00:23:23.480 The United Kingdom is in some of its strictest lockdowns yet.

00:23:27.760 What a pleasure it is to read our friend Calvin Robinson in a publication called The Mallard.

00:23:33.420 That's a great name for a magazine.

00:23:36.020 His latest article is called The Censorship of Big Tech.

00:23:39.720 We've spoken with Calvin before.

00:23:41.080 You'll remember him as the boss of Defund BBC and a senior fellow of a policy exchange.

00:23:47.040 He joins us now.

00:23:48.280 Why is Calvin?

00:23:48.660 Calvin, great to see you again.

00:23:50.440 I just chuckle at the name The Mallard, but it looks like a great read.

00:23:55.040 I'd encourage our viewers to go there and read your article.

00:23:57.760 Tell me about the case you make about big tech censorship.

00:24:03.400 What lessons can we Canadians learn from the UK, for example?

00:24:07.000 Absolutely.

00:24:07.400 So I think there is so much at stake here.

00:24:09.820 And I really, really do believe that democracy itself is at stake.

00:24:13.600 Because as we saw with Brexit, we've had four, nearly five years now of battles after we had one of the biggest votes we've ever had in this country.

00:24:22.280 More people came out to vote to leave the European referendum than normally come out to vote for anything else.

00:24:26.880 And the metropolitan liberal elite, the establishment, the uppity people who run things were not happy with the results.

00:24:35.400 They didn't get the result they wanted.

00:24:36.700 Our prime minister quit immediately.

00:24:38.540 We've had two prime ministers since then who struggled to get this done.

00:24:43.360 But the whole of parliament, the whole of our political system was against us leaving the European Union.

00:24:48.760 And when more people have voted for it than for anything else, and the establishment are against it, we've got a loggerhead.

00:24:55.120 We've got a battle here.

00:24:56.260 And this is the undermining of democracy.

00:24:59.280 And we're seeing the same thing in America.

00:25:01.300 We saw, you know, when Donald Trump got elected, it was not in my name or not my president.

00:25:06.820 And now that Biden's been elected, we're seeing the reverse.

00:25:10.620 Trump is saying, you know, this wasn't a legit election result.

00:25:14.560 So no one seems to want to concede ground anymore.

00:25:17.560 And you can't have democracy unless the losers concede.

00:25:20.900 It doesn't work.

00:25:21.800 Now, one of the things that I love about freedom of speech, and I've been in my own free speech battles over here, is that free speech is a safety valve.

00:25:30.060 If you're frustrated, if you feel a grievance, if you feel hard done by, you can shout it to the wind.

00:25:37.200 And if you are allowed to do that, you feel like at least you had your day in court, so to speak.

00:25:43.100 And I think that's part of accepting a loss in a game.

00:25:48.160 If you agree to the rules of the game and you play and you lose, accepting it, that's a healing thing.

00:25:54.020 But if you are now banned from expressing your grievance, banned from expressing your point of view, that doesn't stop you from feeling it.

00:26:02.700 I mentioned that, Calvin.

00:26:04.740 Absolutely.

00:26:05.560 Sorry, go ahead.

00:26:06.160 I'm just saying it's empowering, isn't it, to have a moan, to have a rant.

00:26:09.960 It's quite British, actually, just to be unhappy about something and put it out there. 0.93

00:26:13.780 And people can argue against it or join in with you.

00:26:17.020 But if you're shut down because you have the wrong opinion and you're not subscribing to the approved narrative, that's very dangerous because that sends your opinion underground.

00:26:24.580 And we all know what happens, according to history, if opinions get shoved into the underground.

00:26:29.800 They uprise and we get extremists.

00:26:32.340 And we've seen that across the world and across time.

00:26:34.640 And we're seeing this at the moment.

00:26:36.560 And it's not just a US issue.

00:26:37.860 This is a global issue in that big tech has become too powerful.

00:26:40.740 When big tech can collude and work together, and I'm talking about Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, they're all working together now.

00:26:48.360 There's surely an antitrust lawsuit coming up.

00:26:51.520 But they're working together to shut down debate.

00:26:54.500 And they silenced the most powerful man in the world.

00:26:57.100 They silenced the leader of the free world and said, actually, you're not allowed a platform anymore.

00:27:01.300 And people are saying, you know what, these are free to do whatever they like.

00:27:04.560 They're private companies.

00:27:05.380 Yes, they are private companies, but they're also a monopoly.

00:27:08.140 And they control our communications infrastructure.

00:27:11.140 So they're bigger than a private company.

00:27:13.300 They are the platform that we've come to expect to get news and information from.

00:27:17.800 And Trump made that happen.

00:27:18.880 He made Twitter what it is.

00:27:20.260 You know, it wasn't the platform it was when he joined.

00:27:23.160 And he's made it the in thing for politicians to kind of put their news and their information out there.

00:27:28.560 And so to remove him, to remove a sitting president of the United States from being able to express himself and put news out there is,

00:27:36.420 in effect, it's a coup d'etat.

00:27:38.620 It really is.

00:27:39.320 And big tech have flexed their muscles and said, we are more powerful than the president of the United States.

00:27:45.160 And it's our way or the highway.

00:27:46.560 And it's not just him.

00:27:47.560 They silenced a load of high profile conservative voices.

00:27:50.700 I've had hundreds of followers disappearing from my following list.

00:27:54.240 I'm sure you've had the same over the last few days.

00:27:56.360 People who think like us or don't think like, you know, Jack Dorsey of Twitter or Zuckerberg from Facebook, people who think differently are being erased and silenced.

00:28:07.600 What is this?

00:28:08.240 It's totalitarian.

00:28:09.260 It's scary.

00:28:09.800 It's a tyranny.

00:28:10.760 And these big companies are orchestrating it together.

00:28:13.320 You know, people say, well, it's a private company.

00:28:16.820 Go start your own. 0.97

00:28:17.600 First of all, when it was the case of the little baker being ordered to bake a cake for a gay wedding, people said, no, no, bake the cake, you bigot. 0.95

00:28:25.920 That's illegal.

00:28:27.100 Well, these tech companies don't want to bake the cake for Trump.

00:28:29.560 But when a bunch of conservatives and Trump supporters went to a startup called Parler, P-A-R-L-E-R, well, they shut that down, too.

00:28:39.820 Amazon stopped hosting their servers.

00:28:43.000 Apple and Google refused to sell the app.

00:28:46.160 Twelve different companies, you know, it was, they shut down the startup.

00:28:51.260 So it's not just that you can't use the monopoly sites that have 99.9% of the traffic.

00:28:56.540 If you think, OK, I'll make a go of it on this tiny little island, they'll flatten that without a blink.

00:29:02.180 That's what's scary to me is it's a juggernaut that crushes anything in its path.

00:29:06.940 I'm a little worried here myself because we rely on Google, YouTube and servers.

00:29:12.260 We rely on everything to be in the public square in 2021.

00:29:16.040 Ezra, it's like you're suggesting that the left have double standards.

00:29:18.420 It's outrageous.

00:29:19.400 But you're completely right.

00:29:21.160 You know, people say, well, make your own app.

00:29:22.940 And Parler or Parlay, however it's pronounced, made their own app.

00:29:25.340 But then they got shut off the app store.

00:29:27.280 They got shut off the Play store.

00:29:28.800 And not only that, the entire servers have been closed down.

00:29:31.900 This is what I mean by collusion of Amazon, Google, Facebook.

00:29:34.400 They're all working together.

00:29:35.560 And that is illegal in and of itself.

00:29:37.420 But who's going to challenge them?

00:29:38.880 Trump was the only political figure I can think of that would stand up to big tech.

00:29:42.860 And now that he's on his way out, I'm very worried about what's going to happen next.

00:29:46.900 Because if I want to make an app that promotes free speech, I've got to make my own operating

00:29:52.200 system now with my own app store.

00:29:53.740 Probably I have to make my own mobile phone.

00:29:55.500 Like, how far does it go?

00:29:57.040 Will the airwaves, the networks, will they be shutting people down next?

00:30:00.420 Do I have to make my own network too?

00:30:01.800 It's not possible, is it?

00:30:03.040 When they control the infrastructure, the information highway, they control the messaging.

00:30:07.740 And they need to decide whether they are a platform or a publisher.

00:30:11.380 Because if they're going to curate content, and they're going to censor people, they're

00:30:14.800 a publisher.

00:30:15.640 Therefore, they need to abide by the regulations that publications do, which are much more stringent.

00:30:20.420 And there's much more accountability there.

00:30:22.420 But right now, they're saying they're platforms.

00:30:23.940 So they have very limited accountability.

00:30:25.700 And it's not democratic.

00:30:27.100 Like, if I don't agree with Twitter or Facebook or their policies, I don't agree with their

00:30:33.100 politics, who do I challenge that with?

00:30:35.060 How do I vote them out?

00:30:35.820 How do I get someone else in that I do agree with?

00:30:37.760 It's impossible.

00:30:38.800 It's very, very worrying.

00:30:40.500 Well, I got a question for you.

00:30:41.380 One of the characters I follow online is Nigel Farage.

00:30:45.320 Obviously, he's a consequential British politician.

00:30:48.500 He was the driving force behind Brexit.

00:30:52.040 He was a very visible supporter of Donald Trump, campaigning with Trump in both 2016 and

00:30:58.160 2020 in America.

00:30:59.800 You don't often see that.

00:31:01.260 You don't obviously have Brit coming over to America to campaign quite closely associated

00:31:07.200 with him because of that.

00:31:08.120 And in the UK, Farage is talking about the kind of populist, nationalist things that Trump

00:31:14.440 did, including right now.

00:31:16.960 I mean, America would say build the wall.

00:31:18.380 But there's these dinghies coming across the English Channel with refugees. 1.00

00:31:22.960 I think that Nigel Farage is next on the list of national, populist, conservative troublemakers.

00:31:31.760 I think that there's a real chance Nigel Farage will be deplatformed.

00:31:37.420 What do you think?

00:31:38.200 Am I projecting onto the UK?

00:31:40.380 You would know better than me.

00:31:42.520 No, I think you're absolutely right.

00:31:43.800 I think people like Nigel Farage will be deplatformed next.

00:31:47.280 He's saying things that the establishment don't want said or that the metropolitan liberal elite

00:31:51.360 don't want said.

00:31:52.020 And they'll say he's racist.

00:31:53.800 They'll say he's xenophobic.

00:31:54.780 What he's actually saying is, why do we have illegal immigrants coming over to the UK from

00:31:59.900 safe countries?

00:32:00.760 You can't get to the UK without passing through a safe country.

00:32:03.340 So they've landed in Germany.

00:32:04.900 They've gone to France.

00:32:05.980 Why did they not settle there?

00:32:07.120 Why are they swinging across the Channel to the UK?

00:32:08.600 There's something dodgy going on there.

00:32:10.120 Why are we letting that happen?

00:32:11.440 And just by raising that, he's sticking his head above the parapet and he's ostracizing himself.

00:32:16.340 So yes, they'll come for him next.

00:32:17.720 And the left will celebrate.

00:32:18.880 They'll be like, yes, he's gone.

00:32:19.880 Just as they did when Trump was silenced.

00:32:21.960 But they forget that one day they'll say he'll do something that people don't appreciate

00:32:25.480 and they'll get canceled too.

00:32:26.660 So we have to all stand up and say, no, it's not OK.

00:32:28.940 Censorship is not OK.

00:32:30.420 And we want to fight for free speech because otherwise it'll be too late when it's already

00:32:34.100 gone.

00:32:34.460 Who's going to champion it then?

00:32:35.720 Yeah.

00:32:36.040 You know, the one glimmer of hope I see in the Western world fighting for free speech,

00:32:40.380 it's actually in the UK.

00:32:41.680 I see more and more people like Toby Young of Free Speech Union.

00:32:47.940 I see some people pushing back in the UK.

00:32:50.900 I don't see that as much in America and I don't see it at all in Canada.

00:32:54.800 So although you were sort of an early example of what America could expect, your Brexit

00:32:59.540 experience, maybe you're an early example of people fighting back.

00:33:02.280 I know you're a free speech or two.

00:33:03.740 So I wish you great luck.

00:33:05.060 Thanks for taking the time with us today, Calvin.

00:33:07.460 Absolute pleasure.

00:33:08.240 And God bless.

00:33:09.060 And let's hope that people do start to stand up for freedom of expression.

00:33:11.940 That's excellent.

00:33:12.580 Well, I hope so too.

00:33:13.500 There you have it.

00:33:14.020 Calvin Robinson, you can see his new article in the Mallard.

00:33:18.640 The website is linked underneath this video.

00:33:21.420 It's mallarduk.com.

00:33:23.580 Stay with us for more.

00:33:24.400 Hey, welcome back.

00:33:36.820 Your feedback, Randy Weitz.

00:33:38.360 People trying to live a normal life is now the biggest crime that police are trying to

00:33:41.580 stop.

00:33:43.080 Well, you're talking about the lockdown.

00:33:44.980 So they got the curfew in Quebec.

00:33:46.680 I'm really worried they're going to bring the curfew to Ontario.

00:33:49.460 But the thing is, you've been trained, you've been conditioned for that by forcing you to

00:33:53.880 wear a mask.

00:33:54.480 So they've already got you thinking like a prisoner.

00:33:57.320 So you have to dress how they say.

00:33:59.980 And now you can only go out when they say what's left, really.

00:34:04.340 Tanya writes, can't do journalism if you're kicked off a platform.

00:34:07.880 Do you have what you need ready when they come for you?

00:34:09.820 I hope so.

00:34:10.320 Well, we have some backup plans, and I think we probably need other backup plans.

00:34:17.340 And the thing is, Parler, which was the conservative Twitter replacement, they thought they were

00:34:23.800 fine until all of a sudden they weren't.

00:34:26.140 So I think we have to take extra steps.

00:34:28.540 Even if we think we're OK now, we have to ask the what if, what if, what if questions and

00:34:34.180 be ready for that.

00:34:34.940 But for now, I think we're OK.

00:34:36.840 But that could change in a heartbeat.

00:34:38.080 I'll do my best to make us ready.

00:34:39.300 That's our show for today.

00:34:41.600 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:34:46.120 good night.

00:34:46.880 Keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - January 12, 2021

Our plans for 2021 (with or without the Media Party's permission)

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