Rebel News Podcast - June 20, 2020


Quebec is the sanest place in Canada right now

Topics
Leslyn Lewis campaign cancel culture climate crisis ideology
Mentioned
Peter McKay Justin Trudeau Erin O'Toole Derek Sloan Jason Kenney Chris Selle Andrew Scheer Wendy Mesley Leslyn Lewis Sheila Gunn-Reed David Menzies Donald Trump John McCain Rex Murphy Quebecer Van Mela Subramaniam Aaron Kean Bextie Jagmeet Singh Chisholm Ken Paxton and 17 more
Trudeau’s lawyers battled us again in court today — and four Conservatives are battling each other in a debate tonight Canadian university chairman fired for “liking” a tweet by Donald Trump

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

169.44

Word count

6,511

Sentence count

579

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

32

sentences flagged

Hate speech

17

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode of The Ezra LeVant Show, host Ezra Levenant visits the French-Canadian newspaper the Journal de Montréal and tries to pronounce some French words. He also talks about the burqa ban in public schools, and why he thinks Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey Rebels, today I do something a little different.
00:00:01.780 I look through some French-Canadian newspapers,
00:00:04.480 including the biggest newspaper in all of Quebec.
00:00:06.800 It's called the Journal de Montréal,
00:00:08.700 and you'll hear me try and pronounce some French words not too well,
00:00:11.600 so apologies in advance.
00:00:14.280 You know, it's a totally different media and political world over there.
00:00:17.140 That may sound obvious, but I'll give you some surprising details.
00:00:20.380 So that's today's show.
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00:00:46.820 So please do.
00:00:47.660 You can do that at rebelnews.com, and it's really easy to do.
00:00:51.060 So thank you for that.
00:00:51.880 Here's the podcast.
00:00:57.320 You're listening to Rebel News Podcast.
00:01:00.000 Tonight, welcome to Quebec, the sanest place in Canada right now.
00:01:12.120 It's June 19th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:14.700 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:20.500 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:24.580 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher,
00:01:28.400 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:35.440 The media culture in Quebec is so different from that of English Canada.
00:01:39.460 It's hard to believe we're in the same country sometimes.
00:01:42.300 I suppose they have their own obsessions,
00:01:44.180 but they're not as politically correct over there in regards to a lot of things.
00:01:47.580 I suppose it's an expression of their larger political culture.
00:01:50.920 Their alternative candidate, I'd call him a nationalist populist,
00:01:55.020 Francois Legault, won a dominating majority government over the two legacy parties
00:01:59.700 by promising to stand firm against people wearing the Muslim burqa in the public sector, 1.00
00:02:04.420 and his pledge to reduce immigration by 20%.
00:02:07.300 You couldn't even say those things in English Canada
00:02:10.380 without the entire media party having a fainting spell
00:02:13.860 and Wendy Mesley probably calling you the N-word. 1.00
00:02:17.400 In Quebec, they gave the man an election victory.
00:02:20.680 Even Justin Trudeau knows better than to disparage Legault
00:02:23.580 and his key nationalist issues.
00:02:26.220 You'll notice that when Trudeau rails against burqa bans,
00:02:30.080 he almost always does it in English, in English Canada. 1.00
00:02:33.540 He's dumb, but he's not stupid. 0.99
00:02:36.400 I think it's a larger cultural issue because Quebec is, in many ways, 1.00
00:02:40.500 the nation it claims to be.
00:02:42.220 I'm not talking about separatism, and I'm not weighing into issues like
00:02:44.960 equalization or forced bilingualism or any of the things that irritate
00:02:48.920 the rest of Canada, especially the West.
00:02:50.940 I'm just talking about identity.
00:02:53.440 Quebec is obviously its own distinct society.
00:02:56.440 They speak French. They have a French history.
00:02:58.440 The culture is in some permanent peril, some existential peril.
00:03:03.720 They're a little island of French in a sea of North American English. 0.93
00:03:08.280 They think about it. They worry about it.
00:03:09.720 They worry about losing things, about melting away.
00:03:12.440 So they talk a lot about their identity.
00:03:14.260 That's why the burqa thing irritates them so much. 1.00
00:03:17.060 They've thought these things through for a long time.
00:03:19.260 They believe that Quebec is more than just a post-a-code or an airport or a place on a map.
00:03:24.580 They believe in their land and their history and their people.
00:03:28.320 They have words like pure lane, which means pure wool, Quebecers. 0.94
00:03:32.740 They talk about Québécois de souche, a Quebec tree with roots, like a tree stump with roots.
00:03:38.400 That's what they mean, people who are deeply, historically tied to their place.
00:03:43.920 You're not allowed to even talk that way in the rest of Canada.
00:03:46.480 You'll be called alt-right or racist.
00:03:49.040 But they've been thinking and talking about things like this in Quebec
00:03:51.480 since the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and ever since.
00:03:54.980 So they're not easily blown over by some hyperventilating leftist
00:03:58.900 or Wendy Masley calling them names because they know who they are.
00:04:03.820 Trudeau plays both sides of that.
00:04:05.400 He dips into his Quebec chauvinism when he's comparing himself to Alberta, for example.
00:04:11.640 Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
00:04:17.920 But I think that is just Trudeau's pettiness.
00:04:21.080 I think that's not really understanding Quebec nationalism.
00:04:24.380 And what do I know when I'm an Albertan in Toronto?
00:04:26.880 But I don't think Quebec nationalism is about sneering at Alberta.
00:04:31.300 That's a Trudeau thing.
00:04:32.840 That's a Liberal Party thing.
00:04:35.300 Quebecers I know have no beef with Alberta or the West,
00:04:38.260 even if they disagree with some policies.
00:04:40.280 Being a Quebecer is about saving what they have.
00:04:43.140 It's not about putting other people down.
00:04:44.840 This is what I think.
00:04:46.620 Trudeau really isn't a Quebecer in that way.
00:04:49.100 I think he believes in globalism.
00:04:51.240 So no borders, no nation states, no identity.
00:04:55.340 We're all just postmodern nothings to him.
00:04:59.000 As he told the New York Times in a fawning photo shoot in English,
00:05:03.540 he said,
00:05:03.940 Yeah, that's what he says to his fancy globalist friends in New York City.
00:05:24.760 They think it's so worldly.
00:05:26.440 Not enough to give him a seat on the globalist UN Security Council, apparently,
00:05:30.660 but enough to publish fawning photoshopped images of him in the New York Times.
00:05:34.600 But he would never say those things in French in Quebec City.
00:05:39.080 He'd never say Quebec has no core identity,
00:05:42.020 because of course it does.
00:05:44.120 Quebec is not postnational.
00:05:45.920 It very much wants to be national.
00:05:48.320 Its license plate motto is,
00:05:49.640 Je me souviens, I remember.
00:05:51.500 Remember what?
00:05:52.300 Well, it's too long to answer on a license plate,
00:05:54.740 but that license plate starts a conversation.
00:05:57.240 It starts with a national imagination.
00:05:58.940 In that way,
00:06:00.020 Trudeau is actually not a true Quebecer,
00:06:01.620 and Quebecers sort of know it. 0.97
00:06:03.140 In fact, he hates Quebecers. 0.98
00:06:04.640 And he says, 0.97
00:06:06.760 so remember when he called this ordinary woman,
00:06:09.480 who was concerned about Quebec identity,
00:06:11.940 remember when he called her racist?
00:06:14.700 I think this had a huge impact on the Liberal Party's fortunes in Quebec.
00:06:18.500 I should say on a personal note,
00:06:47.120 the Quebec media is similar to Quebec political class,
00:06:52.080 because there are a lot of nationalists in their media,
00:06:55.020 a lot of separatists too.
00:06:56.560 And partly because they reflect the will of the larger community,
00:06:59.200 and because the media are in many ways
00:07:00.840 the keepers of the French language in Quebec,
00:07:03.440 and thus the keepers of the culture.
00:07:04.900 So they have bigger projects
00:07:07.400 than just latching on to the latest woke fashion.
00:07:11.100 I get invited to do radio shows in Quebec
00:07:13.380 from time to time,
00:07:14.320 including a fairly regular invitation
00:07:16.720 by a French-language radio station in Quebec City
00:07:19.720 that translates my answers to French in real time.
00:07:22.680 They're not really part of the Mean Girls Media Club
00:07:25.140 like the Ottawa-Toronto Media Party.
00:07:26.960 It's just different out there.
00:07:29.440 And all of that is a very lengthy preamble to my point today.
00:07:32.740 I came across this item very recently,
00:07:35.200 a tweet from an editorial writer at the National Post named Chris Selle.
00:07:40.360 And he wrote,
00:07:41.360 The Journal de Montréal comment page
00:07:44.740 is in the midst of one of the most astonishing ever tantrums en masse.
00:07:50.240 There isn't anything even remotely comparable
00:07:52.960 in mainstream Anglo media.
00:07:55.960 And he shows some headlines from the newspaper's comment section.
00:07:59.460 I'll get into those headlines in a moment,
00:08:00.900 but just in case you don't know,
00:08:02.760 The Journal de Montréal is actually the largest newspaper
00:08:05.320 in all of Quebec by circulation.
00:08:08.000 It's obviously the largest French-language newspaper in North America.
00:08:11.520 It's got a great fighting spirit.
00:08:13.060 It reminds me of the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers.
00:08:16.720 It has a very strong investigative unit, too.
00:08:20.580 Lots of deep digging.
00:08:21.960 It's actually an outstanding newspaper,
00:08:23.300 even though it's got that tabloid style.
00:08:25.260 It's part of Quebecor.
00:08:26.740 That's the company that used to own Sun News.
00:08:29.260 And they have a bunch of TV stations in Quebec,
00:08:31.380 including TVA.
00:08:32.500 That's the big news channel there.
00:08:33.680 So it's a huge, populist, popular newspaper.
00:08:37.600 Obviously, I don't read it often because my French is weak,
00:08:40.100 and I'm not really focused on that.
00:08:41.680 But I think it's a great newspaper.
00:08:43.000 And, of course, the man saying they were having
00:08:46.940 the most astonishing tantrum he'd ever seen,
00:08:49.040 well, that's not quite true,
00:08:50.880 because Chris Selle, who wrote that,
00:08:53.900 he's part of the National Post newsroom
00:08:56.180 that had 30 reporters sign a weird snitch letter 0.93
00:09:01.240 against Rex Murphy, calling him racist,
00:09:04.340 but calling him racist in a racist way, 0.97
00:09:06.360 saying he has to shut up because he's a 73-year-old white man. 0.74
00:09:10.340 That's not an argument, fellas.
00:09:11.760 They had a two-hour struggle session in their office.
00:09:15.140 They called it a town hall.
00:09:16.620 People were named and shamed
00:09:18.180 and told they couldn't talk because they were white,
00:09:20.840 even though none of the namers and shamers themselves
00:09:23.180 are black or aboriginal.
00:09:24.740 It was a joke, but it was for real. 0.90
00:09:26.760 So, yeah, not quite ready to take the accusation
00:09:29.440 of having a tantrum seriously
00:09:31.380 from anyone who works at the National Post,
00:09:33.780 though I should point out that Chris Selle himself
00:09:36.000 didn't sign the letter of denunciation
00:09:38.200 against Rex Murphy.
00:09:39.020 Anyways, you've got my interest.
00:09:42.340 What is this so-called tantrum at the Journal de Mont-Royal?
00:09:45.980 Well, another leftist activist posted a bigger collage
00:09:50.320 of headlines, and I'd like to show it to you here.
00:09:52.880 So let's hold that up on the screen for a bit.
00:09:55.400 So that's about a half a dozen different columnists
00:09:57.980 at the Journal de Mont-Royal,
00:09:59.220 and it's a collage of the headlines
00:10:01.340 of some of their recent columns.
00:10:02.760 Sois blanc et tais-toi. 0.99
00:10:06.440 That means be white and shut up. 0.99
00:10:09.620 Oscars, racism anti-blanc. 1.00
00:10:13.420 That's easy to understand.
00:10:14.920 Are the Oscars anti-white?
00:10:17.080 Les anti-racistes sont racistes. 0.98
00:10:19.860 The anti-racists are racist.
00:10:22.260 Interdit aux blancs. 1.00
00:10:24.600 Whites are forbidden. 0.99
00:10:26.360 Les maudites hommes, blancs riches. 1.00
00:10:28.700 Those damn right-wing men. 1.00
00:10:30.260 Il y a taux de blanc. 1.00
00:10:32.220 There are too many whites. 0.99
00:10:34.320 Now, as you can perhaps detect, 0.88
00:10:36.600 there's a theme here.
00:10:38.400 It's the racial debates we're having across America,
00:10:41.500 around the world intensely for the past few weeks,
00:10:44.060 but really for years,
00:10:45.000 including back to when Black Lives Matter
00:10:46.660 was launched as an Obama street team.
00:10:49.080 But really, it goes back much further.
00:10:50.800 This is what our universities teach all the time.
00:10:52.820 This is how they talk.
00:10:54.820 In fact, they use these exact words. 1.00
00:10:56.840 Shut up, white people. 1.00
00:10:58.660 Whites are banned. 1.00
00:11:01.020 Our universities use these terms earnestly.
00:11:04.540 This columnist is just mocking them,
00:11:07.080 criticizing them,
00:11:08.180 saying these words ironically or derisively.
00:11:10.280 Of course, there is affirmative action for non-whites. 0.98
00:11:13.720 That's not in dispute.
00:11:14.540 This columnist is just condemning that.
00:11:16.260 Is that still allowed?
00:11:17.940 I mean, is she wrong?
00:11:19.160 Maybe, but it's an opinion column.
00:11:20.560 And she hasn't been torched by the mob yet,
00:11:23.520 unlike Wendy Mesley.
00:11:25.020 Then again, this columnist hasn't dropped the N-word yet.
00:11:27.380 The decline of the whites. 0.91
00:11:30.860 Inclusive racism.
00:11:32.900 White? 0.92
00:11:33.640 Male?
00:11:34.260 Guilty.
00:11:34.560 The good racism. 0.99
00:11:36.840 The new fascists. 0.96
00:11:38.760 You know what?
00:11:39.460 The first thing that comes to mind when I see those headlines is,
00:11:42.500 I'm interested.
00:11:43.640 I don't know if I'm going to agree in advance.
00:11:46.280 I haven't read it yet.
00:11:47.360 But these are people who are speaking candidly and powerfully and with passion.
00:11:52.320 Maybe they're dead wrong.
00:11:53.360 I literally haven't gone to read any of these columns yet.
00:11:56.220 I'm just looking at the headlines that Chris Selle of the National Post calls an astonishing tantrum.
00:12:01.020 I'm still waiting for Chris Selle of the National Post to tell us what he thinks about the two-hour struggle session tantrum at his own newsroom.
00:12:08.520 Or maybe he's just too afraid to take on his own mob.
00:12:11.200 So he'll chirp at some Quebecers who have never heard of him.
00:12:15.060 And he'll do it all in English.
00:12:16.320 That's a lot safer than, say, defending Rex Murphy and criticizing how the National Post threw him under the bus.
00:12:23.600 So those articles, Enfoncé and the Journal de Montréal, they all sound interesting.
00:12:29.760 They're talking about interesting things.
00:12:32.020 That's interesting.
00:12:33.640 I think that's sort of the job of an opinion page.
00:12:36.840 Each of these articles is an opinion column.
00:12:39.160 It's not news.
00:12:40.220 Look, I already showed you how each of the big English language newspapers in Canada have a full-time racism columnist.
00:12:48.080 Sri Paradkar of the Toronto Star, Van Mela Subramania of the National Post,
00:12:54.000 Dakshana Bhaskar Murthy at the Globe and Mail.
00:12:57.240 Weirdly, all three of them are Indo-Canadian women. 1.00
00:13:01.660 Two of the women are Tamils.
00:13:04.080 These are literally the wealthiest ethnic group in Canada, Indo-Canadians.
00:13:09.580 Statistically speaking, they're more successful, richer even than the Jews or the Chinese. 1.00
00:13:14.280 These are the most privileged people in Canada.
00:13:17.080 And Van Mela and Sri are so new to our country that they still have their foreign accent. 0.99
00:13:23.300 But they're paid to trash us as racists every day.
00:13:27.180 They can say things like those French headlines, but they say them unironically.
00:13:34.780 But you can't have Québécois de souche push back.
00:13:38.480 Listen to this woman.
00:13:39.360 So, say, you know what, there's a couple people that are bad, we'll never root it out,
00:13:43.560 but there's no institutionalized systemic racism, certainly not in Quebec.
00:13:47.860 What do you make of that?
00:13:49.880 My first thought was, well, here is another white guy in power telling us that racism doesn't exist.
00:13:56.800 Right?
00:13:57.020 And I don't know, based on what he says it, I just, it made me sad because I wish we moved away from this framing of does racism exist to what are we going to do about it?
00:14:09.420 Because I feel like in so many ways, this denial of racism is a denial of basic dignity, particularly of Black and First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit people.
00:14:20.400 Guys, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that she has never been to Quebec other than perhaps for a wonderful weekend of shopping and fine restaurants in Montréal in which she spoke only English other than the word champagne.
00:14:34.720 I'm going to go out on a limb and say she doesn't know her Quebec history and really doesn't care.
00:14:40.500 She doesn't know Canada's English history either.
00:14:43.120 Why would she bother to learn Quebec's?
00:14:45.320 But she's calling them all racist in Quebec.
00:14:50.880 Then again, so did Jagmeet Singh in his own way in Parliament, didn't he?
00:14:54.640 Yeah, no, they're nationalist.
00:14:57.360 They believe in something.
00:14:58.860 They're pretty open-minded, I think.
00:15:01.020 I mean, for God's sakes, they're French.
00:15:03.620 They're pretty progressive.
00:15:04.660 They're very liberal.
00:15:06.360 They just want to keep who they are, though.
00:15:08.600 They're French Canadians.
00:15:09.960 They have been for four centuries.
00:15:11.800 They fought a war over it.
00:15:12.860 They fought for their rights in our Constitution.
00:15:15.040 They're not looking to put anyone down, I don't think.
00:15:17.300 I mean, there are some who are.
00:15:18.200 They're not looking to go to Sri Lanka and call everyone racist, like our Canadian racist
00:15:24.620 columns are.
00:15:25.720 I don't think most Quebecois are poking at anyone outside the province.
00:15:29.060 They want a home, a homeland, if you like.
00:15:32.200 And I think they're getting a bit tired of being called racist when, in fact, they've taken
00:15:35.780 him tens of thousands of Haitians, just for one recent example, as refugees.
00:15:42.740 That's not really a racist move, is it?
00:15:45.460 They know immigration is a joke in Canada.
00:15:47.860 Roxham Road is in Quebec.
00:15:50.200 They see the people breaking the law, gaming the system.
00:15:53.000 And then they're called racist for complaining about it, like that woman was who badgered Trudeau.
00:15:57.940 So, yeah, no, having a dozen columns about race and belonging and laws and customs, that's
00:16:04.100 not a tantrum.
00:16:05.860 Or if it is, then the entire world is having a tantrum now, especially the National Post's
00:16:10.360 little Maoists and their newsroom struggle sessions.
00:16:13.280 What I see in the Journal de Montréal, just by those headlines, is possibly Canada's most
00:16:19.240 interesting newspaper.
00:16:20.360 I'm not saying I'd agree with it all, or even any of it.
00:16:24.200 I haven't read the stories, but boy, they're actually allowed to have a conversation.
00:16:29.700 They're actually debating each other.
00:16:31.980 And it looks like the only guy telling them to shut up is some weirdo in Toronto muttering 0.90
00:16:37.080 to himself in English. 0.61
00:16:38.980 Yeah, no, I sort of like Quebec these days, because on the most important issues, identity,
00:16:44.040 culture, society, not taxes or trade, on the most important issues, they have something
00:16:50.140 we don't have.
00:16:52.720 They have self-respect.
00:16:55.940 Stay with us for more.
00:17:08.980 Social conservative issues are policy that affect families, seniors and children, and we
00:17:14.000 can't be afraid to address values.
00:17:15.340 The Liberals are so radically far to the left in their ideas when it comes to conversion
00:17:19.560 therapy and abortion, that we can gain ground on these ideas.
00:17:23.180 Many new Canadians are social conservatives.
00:17:25.540 They don't believe that there are 72 or 102 genders.
00:17:29.700 They don't want their kids to be confused.
00:17:32.360 And remember, Stephen Harper, when he cut funding for foreign abortions, we won a majority 0.99
00:17:36.260 after that.
00:17:36.800 When Doug Ford campaigned against the sex ed curriculum, we won here in Ontario.
00:17:41.220 So we can take principled stances, and we can win.
00:17:43.600 Well, that is a clip from last night's English language debate at the Conservative Party of
00:17:49.860 Canada.
00:17:50.760 It was at a Toronto convention centre, but in an empty room because of the pandemic panic.
00:17:57.760 I watched the whole thing.
00:17:58.860 Sheila Gunn-Reed was with me.
00:18:00.500 We live-streamed it.
00:18:03.060 I don't think a lot of minds were changed, but my guess is that people saw Derek Sloan
00:18:10.020 that we just showed there and said, that guy's a real conservative.
00:18:15.180 That's at least who I thought won the debating, according to the chats, the live chat on our
00:18:20.280 live stream last night.
00:18:21.520 That was the consensus.
00:18:23.880 But to me, the real news of the night was a little bit more personal.
00:18:28.480 It had to do with Rebel News itself.
00:18:30.880 As you know, for some reason, the more timid variety of conservative has been afraid to
00:18:36.600 be seen in public with the real variety of conservative, us at Rebel News.
00:18:41.400 I think Andrew Scheer started that bad behaviour.
00:18:43.500 By the way, the words Andrew Scheer were not spoken a single time in the entire two-hour
00:18:49.340 debate last night.
00:18:50.200 He's just a footnote in history already.
00:18:53.860 Andrew Scheer started the bad behaviour of shunning Rebel News, hoping it would somehow make
00:18:58.400 the CBC and other media party groups more sympathetic to him.
00:19:01.780 It didn't work.
00:19:02.400 In fact, the CBC literally sued him during the campaign.
00:19:06.900 For the last few months, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay have followed Andrew Scheer's bizarre
00:19:11.660 media strategy, refusing to talk to Rebel News.
00:19:13.920 Although we had many excellent conversations with Derek Sloan, Leslie Lewis, and Jim Carajalios,
00:19:21.340 a candidate who was cancelled.
00:19:22.440 But last night, and the night before, Aaron Kean Bextie managed to physically accost both
00:19:30.100 Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay.
00:19:32.700 And wouldn't you know it, Aaron O'Toole immediately shucked off his bizarre fatwa on Rebel News and
00:19:39.740 answered some pretty normal questions in a normal way.
00:19:42.640 Here's a clip of Kean having a normal conversation with Aaron O'Toole.
00:19:47.320 Take a look.
00:19:47.640 In the debate, there was a lot of focus on racism, a lot of leftist talking points, really.
00:19:53.160 A lot of the questions were focused on that.
00:19:54.860 Were you concerned that it was focused too much on that?
00:19:57.260 And was there something else you would have rather talk about?
00:19:59.880 Well, certainly this is dominating public discourse.
00:20:03.400 So I think it's appropriate we're talking about it.
00:20:05.620 But it's really the approach.
00:20:07.440 As I said, I'm very proud of our country.
00:20:09.920 I do think we meet most of the time the ideals we hold ourselves to.
00:20:13.740 But if we ever don't, we have to stamp it out and have a zero tolerance approach.
00:20:18.020 And that's how I've always tried to conduct myself.
00:20:21.160 And so that's how I've addressed it tonight.
00:20:24.680 Other candidates took different approaches.
00:20:26.500 Peter McKay said yesterday in the debate that he would give Quebec a veto over pipelines.
00:20:30.580 Why do you think he said that in French, not in English?
00:20:32.940 Do you have that same opinion?
00:20:34.500 And what do you think his motivation was in saying that?
00:20:37.040 Well, I did notice tonight he talked about Energy East, right?
00:20:39.540 And then didn't talk about how to get there.
00:20:43.640 I've talked about a National Strategic Pipelines Act where the federal government works in collaboration with the partnership.
00:20:50.000 But the federal government has to articulate why these are in the national interest, in all the national interests.
00:20:55.040 And I think we can get to a place where more and more Canadians see the benefit of getting our world price for our resources.
00:21:03.120 So Mr. McKay seems to think he can have it both ways.
00:21:07.800 That's sort of consistent for him.
00:21:09.920 Yeah, that wasn't so hard, was it?
00:21:11.340 Why did the lad, the lad, why did the man evade us?
00:21:15.200 I'm talking about Aaron O'Toole.
00:21:17.260 Why did Aaron O'Toole evade us for so many months, if that's the conversation he was dreading?
00:21:21.620 I don't get it.
00:21:22.700 But someone who was a little bit more timid was Peter McKay.
00:21:26.620 And it took two days for Kian to break through Peter McKay's psychological prison.
00:21:36.140 Here, here's a clip from two nights ago.
00:21:41.420 Peter, you, you, you, you, yeah, I didn't get an answer to the question.
00:21:46.020 Why'd you, why'd you take so many, why'd you take so few questions?
00:21:50.000 Peter, why'd you take so few questions?
00:21:52.120 I want to ask if you'll apologize for calling Jason.
00:21:54.620 I took all the questions that were asked of me.
00:21:56.900 I'm not sure why you took so few questions compared to everyone else.
00:22:00.040 They told me I was done.
00:22:06.780 Peter, sorry.
00:22:08.880 You must be confused.
00:22:09.820 The escalator was over there.
00:22:12.040 Would you be able to tell me, will you apologize to Jason Kenney?
00:22:15.600 Will you apologize to Jason Kenney for calling him angry and dismissing the concerns of Albertans?
00:22:20.080 Peter, you dismissed the anger in Alberta by calling Jason Kenney an angry man.
00:22:28.140 Will you apologize for that?
00:22:35.320 Will you apologize for calling Jason Kenney an angry man?
00:22:37.820 How come you don't attend media mail?
00:22:39.720 I was on the phone and they didn't select me.
00:22:41.500 Oh my God, you were so busy.
00:22:43.420 You couldn't get to the previously scheduled media. 0.99
00:22:46.220 Peter McKay, you sort of look like a coward right now. 0.98
00:22:49.180 Yeah, I don't think so. 0.99
00:22:51.440 It's called winning.
00:22:52.720 Excuse me.
00:22:53.180 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:22:54.400 We're not going into the whole f***ing elevator, right?
00:22:56.540 Sorry.
00:22:57.120 Sorry.
00:22:57.440 Can I come on, please?
00:22:58.260 I don't get it.
00:23:02.540 I just don't get it.
00:23:04.040 Kian just wanted to talk to you about, you know, the news, the campaign.
00:23:08.260 So here's a clip from last night.
00:23:11.060 Kian trying again with Peter McKay and having a little bit of success.
00:23:14.580 Baby steps, I'd call it.
00:23:15.960 Take a look.
00:23:16.880 Peter, just a very quick zinger.
00:23:19.380 Do you support free speech?
00:23:21.340 Absolutely.
00:23:22.060 You do.
00:23:22.560 You get free speech.
00:23:23.380 Do you support freedom of press?
00:23:25.660 Absolutely.
00:23:26.400 So why aren't you answering our questions?
00:23:28.020 Why are you picking on?
00:23:29.160 Why didn't you take part in the actual?
00:23:31.140 We called and they cut off the question?
00:23:32.980 Well, you should ask that of the party then.
00:23:34.420 I don't know why they cut off.
00:23:35.160 Why did you not say that you'd give Quebec a veto in English for pipelines?
00:23:40.580 Answer that question if you support free press.
00:23:44.080 Yeah.
00:23:44.740 I don't know.
00:23:45.340 I get a real Justin Trudeau vibe off of Peter McKay.
00:23:48.580 But to me, that was the highlight of the whole thing is that Aaron O'Toole got over his rebel derangement syndrome
00:23:54.240 and Peter McKay, well, at least it's in remission.
00:23:56.920 And joining us now in studio here at our world headquarters in the greater Toronto area is our friend Kian Bexton.
00:24:03.840 Kian, good to see you.
00:24:04.540 Good to see you, too.
00:24:05.780 You know, we've met, I think we've met probably ten times, maybe more than that.
00:24:09.240 Maybe more.
00:24:09.900 And, you know, you've got a certain approach to life.
00:24:13.260 You've got a certain attitude and personality.
00:24:16.880 But I wouldn't have expected that Peter McKay, a man who has served as foreign minister, who has served as defense minister,
00:24:25.760 a man who's been in the public life this whole time, a man who's a lawyer, accomplished,
00:24:29.560 just he ran from you as if you were the Incredible Hulk, as if you were the most terrifying, as if you were a rabid dog or had the bubonic plague or something.
00:24:40.340 I've never seen a grown man react more like a child to a spider than Peter McKay to you.
00:24:47.480 But it's, I mean, it's the same.
00:24:50.440 The Conservative Party would get the same thing as they're having with Justin Trudeau.
00:24:55.540 He's a very similar man to Justin Trudeau.
00:24:59.420 He's scared of very simple questions.
00:25:01.120 He was scared of the questions at the end of the day.
00:25:02.500 He wasn't scared of me.
00:25:03.800 And the questions weren't unfair questions.
00:25:06.240 I think he was both.
00:25:07.420 I mean, he was, I think he didn't want to be seen with you.
00:25:10.080 He didn't want to talk to you.
00:25:11.540 I mean, your questions started normal.
00:25:13.480 And then they got a little bit more prickly as he ran away.
00:25:16.440 He was scared just to be seen talking to you.
00:25:18.740 I really think he was both.
00:25:20.080 Well, maybe that's it.
00:25:21.440 But his staff certainly weren't doing him any favors.
00:25:23.900 His staff came off as these hyperactive children bouncing around.
00:25:29.220 They were trying to get in the way of my microphone so that I wouldn't be able to ask Peter McKay questions.
00:25:36.400 It was just one of the strangest evenings.
00:25:38.260 But I was happy that near the end of the night when we asked him just the easiest question you could ask a Conservative.
00:25:44.200 Do you support freedom of speech?
00:25:45.800 How could you even say no to that?
00:25:46.880 Even someone who was against free speech would say, I support free speech.
00:25:50.620 Then they would just have lots of asterisks and footnotes.
00:25:54.100 I've never met a single human who says, even the Soviets used to say they believe in free speech.
00:25:59.260 Yeah, and then of course it was, do you support free speech?
00:26:01.760 Then he said yes.
00:26:02.660 I said, do you support freedom of press?
00:26:04.180 And he said yes again.
00:26:05.560 You're here obviously, aren't you, Kian?
00:26:07.600 And then I said, well, why won't you answer the real questions?
00:26:10.900 Why won't you answer why you said in French one thing and wouldn't repeat it in English?
00:26:15.180 And that in particular was that he would let Quebec have a veto over pipelines.
00:26:18.480 Yeah, you know, you mentioned his staff and his staff, his communications director was certainly very childish, escalated things, engaged in ridiculous name calling, defamation, physical blocking.
00:26:30.780 That's all true.
00:26:32.520 But at the end of the day, the boss is the boss.
00:26:35.000 And at the end of the day, Peter McKay is the principal and everyone else is just an agent or an assistant or a deputy of his.
00:26:41.880 So he has to take the ownership for the conduct of those around him or fire them, either own it or disown it.
00:26:47.840 But you know what?
00:26:48.160 He has fired five communications directors in that same position.
00:26:52.180 In how long?
00:26:53.360 That Chisholm is, the current one, his name is Chisholm. 1.00
00:26:57.180 In the period of the campaign, he's fired five of them.
00:26:59.980 He's the sixth one.
00:27:01.060 Yes, yeah.
00:27:01.700 Oh my God.
00:27:02.540 He's the sixth one.
00:27:02.720 Well, you know what, maybe he's, maybe the problem ain't with the communications directors.
00:27:07.760 I mean, listen, I believe you shuffle the deck if something's wrong.
00:27:11.820 Donald Trump, memorably and incredibly, switched campaign chairman like just a few months before his 2016 election.
00:27:20.880 Everyone thought it was insane.
00:27:22.080 It was the most brilliant move he did.
00:27:23.440 But it's one of the reasons he won when he put in Steve Bannon.
00:27:27.800 But if you're on communications director number six, maybe the problem ain't with the communications directors.
00:27:32.800 Just a thought.
00:27:33.740 Well, you remember how the campaign started out.
00:27:35.300 First, they stole their campaign logo from a small Albertan company called Maple Money.
00:27:40.260 Very similar logos.
00:27:41.340 Then the second thing that happened was they were putting out these weird, flashy, epileptic seizure-causing campaign graphics.
00:27:50.200 Do you remember those?
00:27:50.880 Canadians are proud, Canada's great because Canadians make it great.
00:27:54.540 Yeah, I remember those.
00:27:55.740 And I agree, they were very weird and childish, to use the word.
00:28:01.200 But those are just styles and tactics.
00:28:04.080 You can have a substantive campaign that is persuasive on the substance, and those little details and doodads don't matter.
00:28:13.620 With McKay, you get the worst of both worlds.
00:28:17.040 He has a man who says very little, very poorly.
00:28:19.760 Yeah, but like you said earlier, Derek Sloan contrasted with Peter McKay very well in the debate.
00:28:27.780 I think he stood out the most, the tallest out of all of them.
00:28:32.200 He was kind of coming into the debate as the underdog, I'd say, especially coming out of the French debate.
00:28:36.820 He did better there than I thought he would, but not great compared to Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay.
00:28:41.800 It was kind of the O'Toole-McKay show last night, the French debate night.
00:28:46.180 And Leslyn Lewis did a little bit better than she did in the French debate. 0.97
00:28:48.980 But I'm not sure if she had the, it wasn't a home run night for her, I'd say.
00:28:54.100 You know, I like Leslyn Lewis.
00:28:56.040 I like a lot of things about her.
00:28:57.580 And I've seen her improvements since the first day.
00:29:01.660 In fact, she launched her campaign here in this very seat you're in right now.
00:29:06.060 And she made reference to that last night.
00:29:08.360 In fact, our David Menzies put a question over the phone.
00:29:11.700 I think, I think it was his question.
00:29:15.180 Here, take a quick look at that clip where Leslyn Lewis is asked, would she, how would she treat Rebel News?
00:29:22.940 Here's her answer.
00:29:23.660 Take a look.
00:29:24.100 Next question.
00:29:25.840 Next question will be from David Menzies at Rebel News.
00:29:29.440 Please go ahead.
00:29:31.020 Yes, hello, ma'am.
00:29:32.440 My question pertains to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
00:29:38.600 Namely, as the leader of the Conservative Party or even Prime Minister, would you allow all journalists into press conferences?
00:29:46.660 And would you also ensure that bureaucratic entities such as the Commissioner of Canada elections would not go after authors who write books critical of the government?
00:29:59.080 Absolutely, unequivocally.
00:30:02.480 I think that that is one of the foundations of our democracy is to have free press.
00:30:08.720 And I set an example of that because my very first interview was with Rebel Media, and that was for a particular purpose because I know that they had not been very active in interviewing people in the party.
00:30:23.600 And so I wanted to just, just to open the door and to let people understand that I believe in free press.
00:30:30.660 And, you know, sometimes the press is not always, you know, nice to us, but it is their right.
00:30:36.980 It's a part of, it's a part of our freedom of expression, and it's a cornerstone of a free society.
00:30:43.220 Now, Kian, a viewer might say, Ezra, you sure are talking about yourself a lot.
00:30:47.220 You sure are talking about Rebel News a lot.
00:30:49.080 Can you talk about something that the rest of us care about?
00:30:51.440 But I think that Rebel News is a proxy for certain things. 0.95
00:30:54.700 Are you comfortable with the conservative base, or are you ashamed of them like a crazy ant in the attic?
00:31:03.740 So I think it's your acceptance of the spectrum of conservatives.
00:31:09.020 And second of all, are you someone who is part of cancel culture or part of the solution to cancel culture?
00:31:17.180 Are you part of the mob?
00:31:18.820 You'll capitulate to whatever the CBC or the media party demands of you.
00:31:22.880 Or will you show some backbone?
00:31:24.700 One of the things it took me a while to learn about Trump, I remember when he criticized John McCain and said something really awful.
00:31:33.100 He said, I like my heroes who aren't captured or something.
00:31:36.440 Well, you know, John McCain had a lot of things you could criticize.
00:31:41.740 But him being shot down over Vietnam, being physically tortured, and choosing to let other POWs go first.
00:31:49.920 You know, the rule is let them go in the order, first in, first out. 0.91
00:31:53.520 That was the one great thing about Trump.
00:31:55.220 And Donald Trump criticized it.
00:31:57.600 And then he got so much flack, and I thought, for sure he's going to bend the knee on this one.
00:32:04.740 Veterans are such an important part.
00:32:06.380 And he didn't.
00:32:07.360 And I was surprised.
00:32:08.800 And it took me a while to learn.
00:32:11.020 His support went up.
00:32:13.440 I thought, how can that be?
00:32:15.340 Donald Trump was wrong.
00:32:17.540 I don't say that a lot.
00:32:18.860 But he was wrong to criticize the one great thing about John McCain, his heroism as a POW.
00:32:25.380 He was starved.
00:32:26.220 His bones were broken.
00:32:27.860 He was tortured.
00:32:29.500 Why are you criticizing that and saying, I prefer my heroes who aren't captured?
00:32:34.240 The reason his support went up, in my mind, is because he showed, even when he was wrong, so let alone when he's right, that he would never bow to the media mob.
00:32:44.080 And people said, oh, even when he knows he should, he won't.
00:32:49.820 This is a guy who will never bend the knee.
00:32:52.140 And I'm not saying we need to go full Trump, but I would like a conservative leader who, when a media says, do you mean to say this?
00:33:01.700 The instinct is not to go, oh, I'm sorry, master, the CBC.
00:33:04.720 I apologize.
00:33:05.460 I'll never say that again.
00:33:06.480 The instinct is reflexively to say, to heck with you, and double down.
00:33:11.120 Well, that's what happened with Derek Sloan last night when the media was actually debating with him.
00:33:15.840 The media started actually aggressively fighting with him over his immigration policy because Derek Sloan actually has the most ballsy immigration strategy plan that any serious leadership candidate has had in a long time.
00:33:29.240 150,000 new immigrants a year.
00:33:31.920 Right now it's like half a million or something like that.
00:33:34.220 Coming up on it, yeah.
00:33:35.000 It's a bold strategy, and the mainstream media does not like that at all.
00:33:40.760 So I forget the name of the CBC reporter that was grilling him on this, but they were fighting about historical policy and his current policy and how it just wouldn't work.
00:33:51.000 And it was just a disgrace on the mainstream media's part.
00:33:53.880 But Derek Sloan really shone there.
00:33:55.960 Well, if you can stand up to the mainstream media, people can tell you're your own man, you will stand by your own beliefs, and you won't be a conformist.
00:34:07.860 And in a liberal world with liberal media, having the courage to dissent is actually the most important character trait.
00:34:16.720 Keane, it's great to see you again.
00:34:17.720 Thanks for coming to town and doing a great job down there.
00:34:20.740 And I think you really smoked out something about Peter McKay's character, too.
00:34:25.480 And I'm really glad people had a chance to see that.
00:34:28.700 Keep it up.
00:34:29.280 You're going back to Calgary.
00:34:30.360 There's a lot of work to do out there, but it's nice to see you here in the big smoke.
00:34:33.720 Thank you.
00:34:34.220 All right.
00:34:35.700 Well, that's Kian Bexty doing a great job down there.
00:34:39.260 Stay with us.
00:34:39.940 Your letters to me.
00:34:41.000 Hey, welcome back.
00:34:49.820 On our live stream in the conservative leadership debate, Sherry writes,
00:34:53.940 It certainly looks like Rebel News has turned the corner.
00:34:56.740 I think that candidates, except for one, have realized that the large and growing audience of Rebel News supporters are an informed and engaged group that are capable of influencing political outcomes.
00:35:07.080 I think so.
00:35:08.160 I mean, I don't know what their rationale was in the first place.
00:35:11.000 I think it's they were just so afraid of being criticized by, seriously, Wendy Mesley.
00:35:15.440 I know I am picking on her a little bit because she's tried to destroy so many others with false accusations of racism. 0.96
00:35:21.880 And she was the one who was fired for saying a very bad word.
00:35:26.060 I don't know.
00:35:26.800 I think that it feels like a low energy race for the conservative party.
00:35:31.940 And we have energy here at Rebel News.
00:35:34.180 We're fighting the good fight every day.
00:35:36.860 And I don't know.
00:35:38.640 I just think it's very odd that people don't talk to the leading conservative media in Canada when they claim to be conservatives.
00:35:46.920 It's just the left would never do that.
00:35:48.500 I mean, there are a range of media in Canada on the center left, the left, the far left, the very far left.
00:35:56.420 And you don't see Jagmeet Singh or Justin Trudeau saying, ooh, you're a little liberal for me.
00:36:01.020 No, it doesn't happen.
00:36:03.020 Simon writes,
00:36:03.640 How can I disagree with you?
00:36:12.640 I think Aaron O'Toole, of the people we saw, maybe has the best chance.
00:36:17.300 But he came in third in the last conservative race.
00:36:20.100 I feel like it's not the A-team.
00:36:24.160 Listen, people can grow into the job.
00:36:25.800 Stranger things have happened.
00:36:26.880 But I'm a pessimist.
00:36:29.240 Ryan writes,
00:36:30.080 I watched the CBC debate tonight, then of course watched the Rebels post-game.
00:36:35.200 Ezra and Sheila were getting annoyed with all the systemic racism questions in the Q&A after, and understandably so.
00:36:41.340 But I think they missed an important angle.
00:36:43.660 The political left has almost completely dumped the climate crisis narrative and switched to the racism crisis.
00:36:50.480 I think this might be a changing of the guard.
00:36:52.720 Look at this below from the Sierra Club.
00:36:54.640 They now have to write about racism to stay relevant.
00:36:57.880 Racism is killing the planet.
00:37:01.440 The ideology of white supremacy leads the way towards disposable people and a disposable natural world. 0.62
00:37:09.120 Yeah, I mean, listen, Greta Thunberg, no one's been hurt worse than her.
00:37:13.260 No one cares about her anymore.
00:37:14.420 She tried to make the pandemic coronavirus a thing that people listen to her about.
00:37:19.500 And I think CNN actually interviewed her as an expert, a kid.
00:37:22.960 And, yes, people just suddenly don't care quite as much.
00:37:26.800 It'll come back, though.
00:37:27.640 There's just too many billions of dollars in stake, trillions, really, with all the subsidies and taxes.
00:37:34.180 So it'll come back.
00:37:35.100 Don't you worry about that.
00:37:36.880 Well, that's our show for today.
00:37:38.300 I think we had a great week in so many ways, and I thank you for being a part of it.
00:37:42.240 Thank you for the support that your premium membership means.
00:37:45.960 It's eight bucks a month to be a subscriber to our paywall.
00:37:49.080 You might not think that's a ton of dough, but it adds up, and it's how we pay our bills.
00:37:52.880 So thank you for that.
00:37:54.180 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
00:37:59.040 And keep fighting for freedom.
00:37:59.980 Thank you.
00:38:01.680 Thank you.
00:38:23.320 Thank you.
00:38:23.860 Thank you.