Rebel News Podcast - SCANDAL： Trudeau’s office pressures justice minister to halt prosecution of corrupt Quebec company — She refused, and was fired

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. You're listening to a free audio only recording of my show, The Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:05.400 It's really made for TV, I should tell you. Today, an amazing story. It's, you know, when you see a

00:00:11.540 unicorn, you have to say, all right, I found the unicorn. They do exist. They're extremely rare,

00:00:16.440 but they do exist. I'm referring to the front page story in the Globe and Mail about how the

00:00:20.640 liberals pressured Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former justice minister, to let a crooked company in

00:00:27.160 Quebec named SNC-Lavalin off the hook for corruption crimes. She refused, and so they

00:00:33.760 fired her. It's a hell of a story. We're going to go through it, and go through it, and I say,

00:00:41.160 you got to admit, it's a great story, great reportage, and you know what? I didn't have a

00:00:45.140 lot of time for Jody Wilson-Raybould. I did not know she had a spine made of integrity, 0.97

00:00:51.020 and she would not bend for Trudeau. I'll go into it in depth in a minute. If you do like

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00:01:31.240 where you do it all. If you want to leave some five-star reviews, that'll help us too. They're

00:01:36.200 a great way to promote the show for free. Without any further ado or to-do, let me present to you my

00:01:42.360 show about Jody Wilson-Raybould. Here you go. Tonight, shocking news. Justin Trudeau's office

00:01:48.480 pressures the justice minister to call off a prosecution of a corrupt Quebec company.

00:01:53.560 She refused and was fired in a cabinet shuffle. It's February 7th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.

00:02:01.200 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:02:04.940 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to the

00:02:10.480 government of a wire publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:02:19.920 I believe Canada's media has a bias towards the Liberal Party and towards Justin Trudeau

00:02:24.820 in particular, and I believe that is being made far worse by the $595 million bailout

00:02:30.300 of journalists offered by Trudeau. And so when there is a rare exception to this pattern,

00:02:35.860 it behooves me to recognize it, and today is one of those days. The Globe and Mail has published a

00:02:41.640 front-page story that is not pro-Trudeau propaganda at all. In fact, it's the opposite, and it is huge

00:02:48.480 news. Now, they're a newspaper, so it's their job to report huge news, but in this day and age of

00:02:54.080 media party bias, we have to congratulate them for doing their jobs. There were three reporters on this

00:03:00.180 story, Bob Fyfe, Steve Chase, and Sean Fine. So they put some work into this story, and it shows. Let me

00:03:05.900 read it to you. I'm not going to read every word, but I'm going to read a lot of it to you.

00:03:10.620 PMO pressed justice minister to abandon prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. PMO, of course, stands for Prime

00:03:18.060 Minister's Office. Wilson-Raybould is Jody Wilson-Raybould, the first Aboriginal person, the first Aboriginal

00:03:25.100 woman, to be the justice minister, a star candidate for Justin Trudeau from B.C. He was so proud of her,

00:03:31.780 and you know what? Maybe she really was good. If she resisted his attempt at corruption, maybe she 0.88

00:03:37.640 really was excellent, at least in that regard. Too excellent. Trudeau obviously thought she could be 0.99

00:03:43.480 corrupted, but let me tell you more of the story. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office attempted to press

00:03:50.020 Jody Wilson-Raybould, when she was justice minister, to intervene in the corruption and fraud

00:03:56.340 prosecution of Montreal engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin Group, Inc., sources say, but she

00:04:02.920 refused to ask federal prosecutors to make a deal with a company that could prevent a costly trial.

00:04:08.880 Now that's how courts are supposed to work in Canada. We have the rule of law, which means if you commit a

00:04:13.480 crime, whether you are a prince or a pauper, you're all treated the same way. And it's up to judges to

00:04:19.460 judge cases neutrally, and it's up to prosecutors to press the case if it's in the public interest,

00:04:25.200 not the private interest of liberal fundraisers. That's of no concern. And that the prime minister's

00:04:30.640 office itself would be involved is the gravest allegation possible. I'll keep reading.

00:04:37.160 SNC-Lavalin has sought to avoid a criminal trial on fraud and corruption charges stemming from an RCMP

00:04:42.040 investigation into its business dealings in Libya. Prosecutors alleged in February 2015 that SNC paid

00:04:48.440 millions of dollars in bribes to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011 to secure government

00:04:55.280 contracts. The engineering company says executives who are responsible for the wrongdoing have left

00:05:00.760 the company, and it has reformed ethics and compliance rules. So it sounds like they've more or less

00:05:06.700 confessed to the whole thing. If they're saying the wrongdoers have left the company, so they were

00:05:11.840 caught with their hands in the cookie jar, it sounds like, and the individual criminals left the company.

00:05:16.620 So, hey guys, can we just pretend we never did any of that? Look, SNC-Lavalin broke the law.

00:05:23.060 They got rich off breaking the law. So they were caught. And a few managers were the fall guys.

00:05:28.180 Can we all just settle this over drinks, maybe? You know, maybe that private billionaire island

00:05:32.580 in the Bahamas, you know, that vacation retreat that Trudeau and his family go to. I mean, why do we

00:05:38.380 have to be all law and order-y about this? I mean, that's not very liberal, is it? Come on,

00:05:42.100 we're all friends. Now, at this point, I have so many questions, but a huge one is,

00:05:48.160 what other cases has Trudeau meddled in that we don't even know about? Okay, I'll keep reading about

00:05:54.560 this case. After the charges, SNC-Lavalin lobbied officials in Ottawa, including senior members in

00:06:01.480 the office of Mr. Trudeau, to secure a deal known as a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, or

00:06:05.780 Remediation Agreement, that would set aside the prosecution. In such deals, which are used in the

00:06:10.360 United States and Britain, a company would accept responsibility for the wrongdoing and pay a

00:06:14.320 financial penalty, relinquish benefits gained from the wrongdoing, and put in place compliance

00:06:18.380 measures. It is unfair that the actions of one or more rogue employees should tarnish a company's

00:06:23.760 reputation as well as jeopardize its future success and its employees' livelihood, SNC argued in a brief

00:06:29.360 to federal officials in October 2017. Is that really how it works in Canada? It's been a while since

00:06:37.880 I practice law, but as far as I can remember, if you have an excuse or an alibi or some mitigating

00:06:44.240 circumstance, tell it to the judge. In open court, under oath, on the stand, a judge can take it into

00:06:52.460 consideration if that's what the law allows. Since when do accused criminals hire lobbyists to meet

00:06:59.780 secretly with politicians instead? Look at this. This is the website of Canada's Lobbyist Commissioner.

00:07:05.520 This is the page showing the official contacts between the president of SNC-Lavalin,

00:07:12.320 Neil Bruce, and senior liberal officials. There are dozens and dozens of these meetings. It's like

00:07:19.920 it's all he did. I mean, we know Bombardier does that. It's pretty much all they do is lobby. It's how

00:07:25.600 they make the money. But they're usually lobbying for free cash. This is different. This is lobbying the

00:07:30.460 government to drop criminal charges against your criminal company. Let me just go through some of

00:07:36.400 these on November 19th. Meeting Trudeau's senior advisor, Mathieu Bouchard. And you can see on the right

00:07:44.460 hand side there, subject matters, justice and law enforcement. Yeah, you're an engineering company, buddy.

00:07:50.440 On the same day, do you see that right underneath there? Meeting Bill Morneau's chief of staff,

00:07:56.440 former journalist Ben Chin. Same thing, justice and law enforcement. Why on earth would the finance

00:08:01.420 department, would Bill Morneau be making decisions about whether or not a prosecutor should prosecute

00:08:06.280 a crime? Because they're liberals, dummy. Twelve days before that, they actually lobbied Trudeau's 0.92

00:08:13.100 ambassador to the U.S. David McNaughton, same thing, justice and law enforcement. Do you see that

00:08:18.680 there? David McNaughton should probably spend more time lobbying the United States

00:08:23.000 on behalf of Canada to get an exemption from Trump's new Buy American executive order, and

00:08:28.740 maybe less time talking to accused criminals begging to be set free with some weird liberal

00:08:34.940 get-out-of-jail-free card. Before that, November 5th, there's Mathieu Bouchard again from the PMO

00:08:41.480 again. And the week before that, lobbying the head of the Atomic Energy of Canada agency about

00:08:47.060 both this crime? SNC-Lavalin was going around Ottawa begging every single liberal to get justice,

00:08:58.080 to get Jody Wilson-Raybould to call off the police. Like we're in some sort of banana republic or

00:09:03.260 something, if you just talk to all the right people, schmooze all the right people, and your

00:09:06.420 crimes will be washed away if you just buy enough people free drinks or something. The week before

00:09:12.040 that, I'm not going to read them all, but I just want to show you, I mean, did you see all these pages

00:09:15.240 here? The week before that, he was meeting with Jamie Innes in Chrystia Freeland's office. She's

00:09:20.940 the foreign minister. Same thing. The day before that, another meeting with David McNaughton again.

00:09:27.680 Two days before that, meeting Mathieu Belanger, director of policy for another Quebec-based

00:09:32.620 minister. And before that, Elder Marcus, senior advisor to the truth. And on, and on, and on, and on,

00:09:38.600 and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, dozens of times. I'm going to say on and

00:09:43.760 on, 63 times. And not just meeting with senior staff, but with cabinet ministers too. On September

00:09:52.200 18th, sitting down with Bill Morneau directly. I guess that later meeting was a follow-up to make

00:09:56.400 sure Bill Morneau was doing what he had to do. The same Bill Morneau who, whoopsies, remember

00:10:01.440 that? He hid his ownership of a luxury villa in France from his list of disclosable assets to the

00:10:08.220 ethics commissioner. I think meeting with a corrupt finance minister is about right for a corrupt 0.66

00:10:13.880 company trying to get out of a prosecution for corruption. It fits. I miss the scandals of the

00:10:21.040 Stephen Harper era, don't you? Where a cabinet minister once resigned for expensing a $16 orange

00:10:27.140 juice. Those were the days. I'm not going to read you the whole lobbying list. Just take it

00:10:31.360 from me. SNC-Labiland had a private meeting with pretty much everyone they wanted to, it seems.

00:10:36.500 You get the picture. Okay, back to the Globe and Mail story. But in October 2018, SNC-Labiland

00:10:43.260 hit a major obstacle. The federal director of public prosecutions refused to negotiate a

00:10:47.540 remediation agreement that would have resolved the Libyan fraud and corruption charges without

00:10:52.080 prosecution. SNC-Labiland has asked for a judicial review of the decision, citing, quote,

00:10:58.560 the extremely negative consequences the underlying legal proceedings have had and will continue to

00:11:03.300 have even in the event of an acquittal on SNC and innocent stakeholders, including employees,

00:11:08.240 suppliers, pensioners, and stakeholders, in the absence of an invitation to negotiate.

00:11:12.940 Well, yeah, buddy, that's how it's supposed to work. If a prosecutor won't give you a plea bargain,

00:11:16.500 and there's no reason why he should, and if you don't like that, well, I guess you could appeal it.

00:11:21.440 That's what a judicial review means. You're going to a judge, not a private meeting over drinks with

00:11:26.940 your favorite liberal. You take it to a judge in open court. You make your arguments in public,

00:11:32.780 and the other side gets to challenge you, to cross-examine you, to call you out on any lies or

00:11:38.540 omissions, to say, was this really some rogue employees, or was this the whole corporate plan,

00:11:43.060 like Enron? We have courts in Canada. We don't decide who's a criminal based on private lobbying

00:11:49.800 of liberals? Oh, my God. So up until this point, we have the system working, I guess.

00:11:57.860 So far, the prosecution was immune to this political pressure. It shows a gross lack of

00:12:03.880 judgment on the part of these public officeholders to even meet with this company accused of breaking

00:12:09.660 the law, begging for a special favor, and to meet with them again and again. That is gross.

00:12:14.300 That is bad judgment. But until the point, until this point, the line was held, keeping the gross

00:12:22.260 liberal politicians away from the non-partisan prosecutors. Yeah, they're all dirty. David 0.99

00:12:27.040 McNaughton and Bill Morneau, all of them meeting with this grubby guy begging, they shouldn't,

00:12:32.540 and shame on them. But the prosecutors held the line. But then this, then this. Sources say Miss

00:12:41.400 Wilson-Raybould, who was Justice Minister and Attorney General until she was shuffled to Veterans

00:12:46.380 Affairs earlier this year, came under heavy pressure to persuade the Public Prosecution

00:12:51.380 Service of Canada to change its mind. Oh. Miss Wilson-Raybould was unwilling to instruct the 0.94

00:12:57.720 Director of the Public Prosecution Service, Kathleen Russel, to negotiate a remediation agreement

00:13:02.180 with SNC-Lavalin, according to sources who were granted anonymity to speak directly about what

00:13:07.840 went on behind the scenes in the matter. Hmm. Pressure, eh? Heavy pressure. Who pressured

00:13:14.140 her? That's the point, isn't it? Did Justin Trudeau tell her that if she didn't let his Quebec

00:13:19.980 friends off the hook, that he'd fire her? Because she didn't let his Quebec friends off the hook, 0.97

00:13:24.820 and he did fire her. The Prime Minister's office, let me read some more here, issued a short statement

00:13:31.360 when asked to comment on efforts to persuade Miss Wilson-Raybould to intervene.

00:13:37.300 Prime Minister's office did not direct the Attorney General to draw any conclusions on the matter,

00:13:41.760 Press Secretary Chantal Gagnon said in an email to the Globe and Mail on Wednesday evening.

00:13:48.040 Sources say officials from Mr. Trudeau's office, whom they did not identify, had urged Miss Wilson-Raybould,

00:13:54.640 Canada's first Indigenous Justice Minister, to press the Public Prosecution Office to abandon

00:13:59.160 the court proceedings. Do you believe that? Do you believe that excuse? I don't know who

00:14:04.600 Chantal Gagnon is. She surely is just a messenger. She didn't write that answer. I know who Bill

00:14:09.760 Morneau is. I know who all these very senior advisors to Justin Trudeau are. I want to hear

00:14:14.400 from them. Frankly, under oath. I don't want some emailed, non-believable line from some press

00:14:21.900 assistant. But even her emailed line is weirdly written. The PMO did not direct the Attorney General,

00:14:29.040 to draw any conclusion. Okay. Well, the question is, what did they tell her to do? Did they tell

00:14:35.180 her to drop the case? Make the problem go away? That's not direct. Hey, can you make this problem 1.00

00:14:40.540 go away? What exactly did they say? It's a weird lawyerly denial. It's weirdly specific.

00:14:49.000 It's very Clintonian that way. I think they're lying again. Now, it is possible for a justice minister,

00:14:55.480 that is the political person, the liberal MP in charge of the prosecutions, the prosecutors in

00:15:00.220 this country, to take over a case and make decisions. It is possible in our system, but it

00:15:04.640 has to be done openly and with notice and explanation. Let me quote from the Globe story.

00:15:09.620 I thought this was a very helpful paragraph. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada's website

00:15:15.020 says, with the exception of Canada Elections Act matters, the Attorney General can issue a directive

00:15:20.320 to the director of public prosecutions about a prosecution, or even assume conduct of a

00:15:25.320 prosecution, but must do so in writing, and a notice must be published in the Canada Gazette.

00:15:32.280 So they have to explain themselves in public. They can't do a secret deal over drinks.

00:15:38.380 Now, those rules there, that's all too Anglo, isn't it? That's all too rule of law-ish, 1.00

00:15:44.080 too, you know, legal. Can't we do it how they did it back in Libya? Maybe a nice donation to the 0.93

00:15:52.560 Justin Trudeau Foundation. Maybe the donation doesn't have to come from SNC-Lavalin. Maybe it

00:15:58.000 can come from someone else, some bank in Switzerland. I mean, the National Post did a report showing

00:16:05.000 that's how it's done. Money is pouring into the Trudeau Foundation from foreigners.

00:16:10.620 Who knows what the quid pro quo is? I can't possibly imagine. I mean, who would ever think

00:16:16.600 that our Prime Minister is for sale? Well, other than maybe the Aga Khan, who let Trudeau party on

00:16:21.180 his private island in the Bahamas, and then let Sophie Trudeau go back there with her girlfriends

00:16:26.120 again. Did you know that? It wasn't just Trudeau party. Sophie Trudeau called up and said,

00:16:30.180 can I come back with my girlfriends? And they said, yeah. I shouldn't blame the Aga Khan. He's not the

00:16:35.520 one who invited Trudeau, and he certainly didn't invite Sophie Trudeau. You know, he wasn't even on

00:16:40.500 billionaires' island when the Trudeaus went there to party. They asked him for a free. They didn't

00:16:43.560 want to meet him. They're multimillionaires who inherited everything they have. They sure are

00:16:48.140 cheap and gross, the Trudeaus, aren't they? They're really cheap and gross. All right, back to the news 1.00

00:16:53.260 today. Miss Wilson-Raybould trusted the judgment of the public prosecutor and did not believe it was

00:16:59.100 proper for the Attorney General to intervene, especially if there could be any suggestion of

00:17:03.100 political interference, sources say. The Trudeau liberals had criticized the former Harper government

00:17:09.360 for undermining independent agencies and vowed to respect the decisions. The government has also

00:17:14.680 invoked the independence of the judicial system as a reason for not intervening in the case of

00:17:18.380 Huawei Technologies Company Limited, Executive Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested at the Vancouver

00:17:23.380 airport on an extradition request from the United States. Well, that's a good point. We heard Justin

00:17:28.240 Trudeau's hand-picked ambassador to China weigh in the other day on a matter before the courts. He was

00:17:33.080 undermining judicial independence just weeks ago. Sounds like a pretty common occurrence under these

00:17:38.000 liberals, come to think of it. I think she has quite good arguments on her side. One, political

00:17:46.200 involvement by comments from Donald Trump in her case. Two, there's an extraterritorial aspect to her 0.93

00:17:54.560 case. And three, there's the issue of Iran sanctions, which are involved in her case. And

00:18:04.320 Canada does not sign on to these Iran sanctions. So I think she has some strong arguments that she can

00:18:11.720 make before a judge. Now, Trudeau later fired McCallum, but the press conference when McCallum said all

00:18:19.360 that was organized by the Foreign Affairs Department, who sent government staff along. It was not a rogue

00:18:25.100 action by McCallum. It was a liberal Trudeau thing. That's how Trudeau works for his friends. And he

00:18:32.640 loves China. SNC-Lavalin. Let me read some more. SNC-Lavalin, Canada's largest engineering and

00:18:40.160 construction management company is one of Quebec's biggest corporations and has a reputation for

00:18:43.640 holding political sway in Quebec City and Ottawa. One well-connected liberal with close ties to SNC-Lavalin

00:18:49.840 said Ms. Wilson-Raybould blew off the PMO requests. It makes me like her more. The company had told the 0.77

00:18:56.500 government it was in dire circumstances and required a suspension of criminal charges to ensure it

00:19:01.520 continued on a solid footing. You know, I bet most criminals would say that. Hey guys, this criminal

00:19:06.520 prosecution, it's really inconvenient. I might actually lose my job if I can get convicted for

00:19:13.060 fraud. So I really need you to make these charges go away because I'm, you know, bank robbery. I know

00:19:19.040 it's not the best, but I could really lose my job if I'm convicted. So can you help me? I'm really

00:19:24.020 embarrassed by your prosecution. That's what they're saying. And the fact that a liberal is saying

00:19:32.700 this uppity woman, who does she think she is? Doesn't she know that everything she has, 1.00

00:19:39.540 everything she is, comes by the grace of Justin Trudeau, the precious one. How dare she blow off

00:19:47.140 Trudeau's requests like she's some independent woman? How dare she?

00:19:52.580 The whole system was rigged in favor of SNC-Lavalin. This is incredible, this next part. It sounds like

00:19:57.980 she really did stand up to Trudeau's bullying. I am impressed with her. I got to say it. Here,

00:20:02.520 let me read this. The Trudeau government in 2018 amended the criminal code. I didn't know this.

00:20:09.560 To allow deferred prosecution agreements that let prosecutors suspend criminal charges

00:20:13.440 against Canadian companies found to have committed wrongdoing, the measure was inserted into the 2018

00:20:19.520 budget after a brief consultation in 2017. Liberal insiders said Ms. Wilson-Raybould knew this

00:20:26.860 legislative change was meant to help SNC-Lavalin out of the legal troubles that were weighing on

00:20:31.480 the price of its shares. A conviction on the fraud and corruption charges would result in a 10-year

00:20:36.660 ban from federal government contracts, a development that would lead to layoffs. Well, we can't have

00:20:40.380 that. We can't have criminals being laid off, people. So it sounds like this law was specifically

00:20:46.440 rewritten to benefit a friend of Trudeau. I guess Wilson-Raybould went along with the rewriting of the law,

00:20:52.040 but she just wouldn't or couldn't personally intervene to get Trudeau's friends off the hook.

00:20:58.140 I can imagine. I mean, she's Aboriginal. One of her themes is helping Aboriginal people with our

00:21:02.620 legal system. It's a tough file. It's complicated. There are lots of shades of gray. But imagine having

00:21:08.400 some pampered, rich, privileged Quebecer, Justin Trudeau, never worked a day in his life,

00:21:13.960 everything, silver spoon. Imagine him telling you that you have to let another pampered, rich,

00:21:19.940 privileged Quebecer off the hook from a crime, a massive crime, because they're friends. And you

00:21:25.900 know, we just do this for each other. And you're trying to do something about the fact that in some

00:21:32.280 Canadian jails, half the prison population is Aboriginal. You're trying to actually fix a 1.00

00:21:36.240 problem. At least that's how Trudeau sold you. But you're being told instead to let some rich friends

00:21:42.100 of the Prime Minister out of jail because they're rich friends of the Prime Minister. And you're an

00:21:47.540 Aboriginal justice minister. And you're being told to do what you're being told to do. I wonder if

00:21:53.440 there was a little part of her that said, you know what? No, no, no. Equal justice for all. I mean,

00:21:58.040 she's a social justice for herself. Don't get me wrong. She's meddled in the courts, too. Don't 1.00

00:22:02.180 forget. She's no saint. Last year, when a Saskatchewan farmer was acquitted of murder after

00:22:07.700 shooting an Aboriginal man who did a home invasion on his property and cold cocked the farmer's wife with a

00:22:12.280 pistol, she criticized the jury there and said jury rules should be changed. So she's a meddler, too. 0.79

00:22:17.220 But maybe doing a favor for some rich company, all fancy-pantsy, was just too much for her. Good for

00:22:25.320 her. Good for her. An honest liberal. That's as rare as a unicorn. Here's the Globe and Mail analysis of

00:22:33.120 all those lobbying visits I was mentioning.

00:22:35.520 Since the beginning of 2017, Representatives SNC-Lamblam met with the federal government

00:22:41.260 officials and parliamentarians more than 50 times on the topic of justice and law enforcement.

00:22:47.380 According to the Federal Lobbyist Registry, this includes 14 visits with people in the Prime

00:22:53.140 Minister's office. Those they met included Gerald Bunce, Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister,

00:23:00.100 and met Chip Bouchard, Mr. Trudeau's senior advisor in Quebec, whom they met 12 times.

00:23:09.400 Mr. Trudeau's senior policy advisor, Elder Marcus, also met with company representatives.

00:23:15.400 Sources at SNC-Lamblam told the Globe that the PMO was furious

00:23:19.560 with the justice minister's intransigence on the remediation agreement and that the company was pleased

00:23:28.080 to see her moved out of the portfolio. Well, we know who the real boss is now, don't we? 0.98

00:23:33.140 Furious. I bet they were furious. No one stands up to Trudeau, let alone some aboriginal woman from BC. 1.00

00:23:39.980 I mean, unlike other members of Trudeau's cabinet, like Seamus O'Regan or Dominique LeBlanc,

00:23:47.060 look at those guys. That's the old boys club. She wasn't even part of his wedding bachelor party.

00:23:53.640 Who the hell does she think she is? She wasn't one of his frat boy friends. She's so uppity. 1.00

00:24:00.180 Who does she think she is saying no to Trudeau? No one says no to Trudeau.

00:24:06.740 Let me read just a little bit more. I know I'm reading a lot, but it's just so rare

00:24:09.660 to see real investigative reporting like this into the Trudeau government. And the Globe put this on

00:24:13.560 the front page. Hey, credit where it's due. The closest things we get to investigative journalism

00:24:17.760 from the media party is some CBC hack writing a conspiracy theory about the conservative opposition,

00:24:23.340 or they saw some mean tweet on Twitter that proves conservatives are racist. Junk journalism 0.97

00:24:28.740 focused on holding the opposition to account. It's so rare to see something take on Trudeau in a

00:24:34.380 serious way. I can think of fewer than a handful of examples in three years. Can you? So let me

00:24:39.460 enjoy this moment. Here's some more. After the cabinet shuffle, Ms. Wilson-Raybould released a 1.00

00:24:45.460 lengthy statement listing her legislative accomplishments during her tenure at Justice. In an unusual move for a

00:24:50.620 member of cabinet, she also underlined the need for independence in the portfolio.

00:24:57.220 It is a pillar of our democracy that our system of justice be free from even the perception of

00:25:01.560 political interference, and uphold the highest levels of public confidence, she wrote.

00:25:06.100 As such, it has always been my view that the Attorney General of Canada must be non-partisan,

00:25:12.460 more transparent in the principles that are the basis of decisions, and in this respect,

00:25:17.440 always willing to speak truth to power. This is how I served throughout my tenure in that role.

00:25:22.560 Truth to power. Well, you're the most powerful legal officer in the country. So who could you

00:25:27.620 possibly mean when you speak truth to power? You are power. Well, there's one person more powerful

00:25:33.360 than you. Ain't there? That's a weird thing to emphasize in an exit letter. That is weird,

00:25:40.520 unless it's a sort of coded message, a little bit like a time bomb, which it very much sounds like it was

00:25:46.340 in this case. I'm not going to read anymore, but what I want to note, the amount SNC-Lavalin paid in

00:25:53.140 bribes wasn't just $100,000, which is what Trudeau's illegal vacation on Billionaires Island was worth.

00:25:59.020 I think it was worth $200,000. SNC-Lavalin paid $48 million in bribes. $48 million? That's enough money

00:26:09.540 to bribe a Clinton, let alone a cheap Clinton knockoff like Trudeau. I wonder if there was any

00:26:16.340 money sloshing over from Libya into Canada, or into one of Trudeau's front groups like the Trudeau

00:26:22.280 Foundation or Canada 2020. I don't know. I showed you the other day that Huawei dumped money right

00:26:29.280 into Trudeau's think tank called Canada 2020, run by his close friend Tom Pitfield. You see their logo

00:26:34.400 there, almost spot in the middle there, Huawei, until they deleted it last month when it became

00:26:39.920 embarrassing. I mean, if SNC-Lavalin was paying bribes in Libya, why do you think they weren't

00:26:45.960 paying bribes elsewhere? You think only Libya is where they paid bribes? Same thing with Trudeau's

00:26:53.420 other favorite Quebec company, Bombardier. They are being prosecuted or have already been convicted

00:26:58.200 of bribery and corruption in a great many countries in the world. You might recall we did a whole show on

00:27:04.380 it. Why do you think they don't pay bribes here in Canada too? You think liberals in Canada

00:27:09.860 are morally superior to the other countries they were bribed? No wonder SNC-Lavalin wants

00:27:14.740 to avoid a trial. Imagine what facts would come about. Today, Justin Trudeau indeed took a few

00:27:20.720 quick questions on this, and he repeated that very precise technical lawyerly denial. Here, listen

00:27:28.580 to this. The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false. Neither the current nor the

00:27:36.060 previous Attorney General was ever directed by me or by anyone in my office to take a decision in this

00:27:44.780 matter. The allegations reported in the story are false. At no time did I or my office direct the

00:27:54.720 current or previous Attorney General to make any particular decision in this matter.

00:28:00.200 But not necessarily direct, Prime Minister. Was there any sort of influence whatsoever?

00:28:04.920 Yeah. As I've said, at no time did we direct the Attorney General, current or previous, to take any decision whatsoever in this matter.

00:28:15.200 That precise phrasing. He's not denying the thrust of the story. That she was pressured. He's just denying that she was directed to make a decision. Of course they weren't that clumsy in their wording. It's like if a local mob boss comes by a store for a shakedown. He wouldn't be blunt. He'd say, hmm, nice business you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it. That crime boss could later say, well, I don't know what you're going to do.

00:28:45.180 I never directed them to take any decision. I wouldn't do that. He's lying, obviously. Trudeau's lying. And the problem is that the Justice Minister who was fired, she can't reply to his lies, obviously, because as a lawyer, as the government's former lawyer, she has a duty of confidentiality to her client.

00:29:04.720 She can't just talk about things. So Trudeau's got her in a trap. So Trudeau should release her from that trap. He should tell her that he waives solicitor-client privilege and that she should feel free to tell her side of the story. Of course he won't do that.

00:29:19.980 And he knows she can't answer his lies until he does. So he won't.

00:29:25.440 It's weird. Just two days ago, by coincidence, Blacklock's reporter, a small independent research newsletter in Ottawa, ran this story.

00:29:31.980 Firm is too big to blacklist.

00:29:34.700 Cabinet yesterday rejected any blacklisting of the country's largest engineering firm from bidding on public works.

00:29:41.140 Three former executives with SNC-Lavalin Group have pled guilty to offenses in the past six months.

00:29:46.060 I'm not going to go through it. But for some reason, despite SNC-Lavalin really looking like an organized crime operation, Cabinet just won't stop giving them contracts.

00:29:58.400 I wonder why. I wonder why.

00:30:02.800 This is not new. What's new is that the Justice Minister seems to have been fired over it.

00:30:08.980 Look at this story from a few years back.

00:30:10.520 Canada now dominates World Bank corruption list, thanks to SNC-Lavalin.

00:30:16.900 And I'll read one more line. Do you see the line right under it?

00:30:19.680 Out of the more than 250 companies year to date on the World Bank's running list of firms blacklisted from bidding on its global projects under its fraud and corruption policy,

00:30:29.940 117 are from Canada, with SNC-Lavalin and its affiliates representing 115 in those centuries.

00:30:36.760 Yeah, the World Bank will not touch SNC-Lavalin.

00:30:42.140 It's like it's some Nigerian email scam. 1.00

00:30:45.200 The World Bank, they're so corrupt, but they won't touch SNC-Lavalin.

00:30:50.220 But Trudeau insists that we do business.

00:30:52.500 Yeah, see, you and I read that story and we're repulsed by all the bribes.

00:30:58.100 That's gross.

00:30:59.020 But a liberal reads the same story and thinks, uh-huh, so they're into bribes, eh? 0.79

00:31:07.520 Huh, maybe I can get a slice of that too.

00:31:11.600 You know, there's another criminal trial going on right now.

00:31:13.720 It's quite something.

00:31:14.680 We haven't talked about it.

00:31:15.480 We should do a show on it.

00:31:16.680 As you may know, Vice Admiral Mark Norman is being prosecuted for allegedly leaking military secrets about shipbuilding plans.

00:31:25.600 But his trial has certainly turned around and now looks like he was the straight arrow, blowing the whistle on political corruption in huge military procurement contracts.

00:31:35.980 And that the wrongdoing was not his.

00:31:37.340 It looks like the trial's not done.

00:31:39.220 But the wrongdoing came from the liberal government.

00:31:43.380 I'm not going to get into the details of this case.

00:31:44.840 I don't have time to do that now.

00:31:45.720 But what should be a military matter, a police matter, a security matter, huh, under Trudeau became a political matter with Trudeau's principal secretary, Gerald Butts, right in the middle of it.

00:31:55.580 And if you can believe this, all these PMO people involved in this case and not a single member of Trudeau's inner circle took any notes.

00:32:03.920 Let me read a little bit.

00:32:04.660 But Vance, that's the chief of defense staff right now, Trudeau's man, Vance testified at a pretrial hearing last week that he didn't take any notes when senior RCMP briefed him on the matter on January 9th, 2017.

00:32:19.600 On the same day, Vance also met with defense minister Harjeet Sajan and with Gerald Butts, prime minister Justin Trudeau's principal secretary, and Trudeau's chief of staff, Katie Telford, to discuss the Norman situation.

00:32:30.500 He also had a brief phone call with Trudeau himself.

00:32:36.120 I'm not going to get into the details.

00:32:37.380 I'm just saying the only organizations I've ever heard of with complex operations that don't take notes about important meetings, those are organized crime.

00:32:50.980 Government take notes in quadruplicate, bilingual notes.

00:32:57.560 Police departments take notes.

00:32:59.140 It's the first thing you see when you go to court.

00:33:02.700 There's all the police notes.

00:33:03.660 How else can they keep track of things?

00:33:05.520 Spy agencies take tons of notes.

00:33:09.240 Database is full of notes.

00:33:10.680 The military probably takes more notes than anyone.

00:33:14.900 Unless you deliberately don't take notes because you're illegally interfering in things.

00:33:18.700 In this case, to push shipbuilding contracts to your liberal friends.

00:33:22.420 In the case of Jody Wilson-Raybould, to keep your political friends out of jail. 0.62

00:33:27.920 I mean, we know Justin Trudeau's corrupt.

00:33:29.460 He's the first sitting prime minister to be convicted under the Conflict of Interest Act.

00:33:33.000 That is not a matter of opinion.

00:33:34.260 It's a fact for convictions.

00:33:35.540 We know that his staff like to court at the public trough.

00:33:38.400 Gerald Butts, as you know, billed taxpayers for more than $100,000 just to move down the street, down Highway 401.

00:33:44.520 He moved from Toronto to Ottawa.

00:33:45.880 $100,000.

00:33:47.200 $100,000.

00:33:48.040 And Katie Telford together, $200,000.

00:33:49.920 And he fought the release of that info so hard. 0.99

00:33:52.240 Corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. 0.97

00:33:53.280 Corrupt, I didn't much like Jody Wilson-Raybould as a justice minister. 0.99

00:33:57.580 Trudeau said she was a token appointee.

00:34:00.280 Trudeau said she was a gender quota.

00:34:02.320 Trudeau said she was a racial quota.

00:34:03.940 He said so.

00:34:05.200 I thought she was too much of a radical activist, but I now know that she had more integrity and more belief in the rule of law than anyone else in that cabinet,

00:34:15.700 including the morally weak dozens who met with these lobbyists.

00:34:20.780 And so for that, she paid the price for her integrity.

00:34:25.320 She was sacked as justice minister.

00:34:28.640 But what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

00:34:31.500 Wouldn't it be something if her quiet act of courage led to the downfall of the most corrupt Quebec prime minister since, well, since the last Quebec prime minister?

00:34:43.520 Stay with us for more.

00:34:50.780 Now, Republicans and Democrats must join forces again to confront an urgent national crisis.

00:35:07.940 Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our government, protect our homeland and secure our very dangerous southern border.

00:35:21.740 Now is the time for Congress to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration and putting the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers and human traffickers out of business.

00:35:41.160 As we speak, large organized caravans are on the march to the United States.

00:35:55.360 We have just heard that Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection.

00:36:14.300 I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for this tremendous onslaught.

00:36:28.700 This is a moral issue.

00:36:32.060 The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security and financial well-being of all America.

00:36:41.100 We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens.

00:36:51.240 This includes our obligation to the millions of immigrants living here today who followed the rules and respected our laws.

00:37:02.940 That is a clip from Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

00:37:06.680 He says he departed from his written script and in a throwaway line suggested that he actually wants more immigration than ever.

00:37:15.620 That seems to be at odds with the whole idea of crackdown on immigration and the wall.

00:37:21.720 Unless there's some way of squaring the circle, I'm slightly alarmed by this because I note that Donald Trump has not yet actually built one mile of his proposed wall

00:37:33.380 between the United States and Mexico and his term is half done.

00:37:37.020 Joining us now via Skype from Bright Bart World Headquarters is our best friend over there, Joel Pollack, the senior editor at large.

00:37:44.180 Joel, great to see you.

00:37:45.500 Am I overreacting to that spur of the moment, impromptu deviation from the script?

00:37:51.300 It's unclear how serious a proposal it is, but it is clear that the president is selling his immigration policy by talking about how he's very much in favor of legal immigrants.

00:38:08.520 And there's no evidence to suggest that he isn't even his support for more restrictive legal immigration policies has to do with the fact that our current legal immigration policies prioritize family reunification rather than skills.

00:38:24.460 So you can understand what he's saying as I want more skilled legal immigrants.

00:38:30.800 I think he's being very careful not to create the impression or to reinforce the impression that he's opposed to immigration.

00:38:40.020 And I think he hopes that by making clear in very explicit terms that he supports legal immigration, he will have an easier time selling his border wall policies to the other side.

00:38:53.880 And I think that conservatives are concerned because they are worried about the cumulative effects of legal immigration.

00:39:01.940 I shouldn't say conservatives, really.

00:39:03.280 I should say immigration hawks on both sides because the issue does cut across parties a little bit.

00:39:08.740 But I would say basically Trump supporters are a little bit alarmed, not because they don't like immigrants,

00:39:13.720 but because the Trump phenomenon has partly been based on the legitimate grievance among the American working class that they are being forced to compete with labor that's being imported at a rapid rate from other countries, both legally and illegally.

00:39:32.360 So I think that's the question.

00:39:36.360 But I don't know if it's really such a big deal.

00:39:38.940 I think he was just eager to make clear that he's in favor of legal immigration on a night where he was really trying to hit a theme of unifying Americans, reaching out across partisan divides.

00:39:51.640 And I think in general he did that.

00:39:53.260 Well, I mean, the thing is, when you bring industrial jobs back, either through changing trade deals or through tariffs, or last week Trump announced a buy American provision,

00:40:05.060 which is a form of discrimination against imports, let's be candid.

00:40:08.420 When American unemployment is at some of the lowest rates in recent history, you are going to have pressure from some factories, from some employers saying, let us have more workers.

00:40:21.980 We need someone who's going to work the drive-through.

00:40:24.800 I mean, in Canada we had something called the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

00:40:28.780 Basically, every Tim Hortons and a lot of bank tellers were foreign laborers that came in legally, they were legally processed.

00:40:35.680 But it was because these employers said we need cheap labor because we don't want to pay $18 to have an indigenous, like an old stock Canadian do it. 1.00

00:40:45.700 So we need to bring in foreigners to undercut it. 1.00

00:40:49.600 The whole, in my mind, Joel, the whole promise of Donald Trump to the Midwest and to the working poor is,

00:40:56.360 I'm going to give you higher wages by cracking down on foreign imports and cheap illegal workers. 1.00

00:41:03.620 So, yeah, there's going to be some pain for employers, but hopefully the benefits to millions of working poor Americans will offset that.

00:41:11.800 That's, to me, the whole Trump rust belt promise.

00:41:15.960 Am I wrong on that?

00:41:18.400 I think that's the promise, as articulated at least by some in Trump's camp.

00:41:23.800 I'm not sure that restricting legal immigration is necessarily going to make American workers better off.

00:41:29.940 Now, it's easy for me to say that because I'm an immigrant.

00:41:33.120 So I think immigration is great.

00:41:35.980 And I also think that, in general, skilled immigrants create more American jobs because skilled immigrants create more value, start more businesses, that sort of thing.

00:41:45.520 Not more than Americans, but you're bringing in people who are generally entrepreneurial if you can select those people.

00:41:51.820 The problem with illegal immigration is it's unselected. 0.88

00:41:55.220 People just come if they want to come, and they're entering sectors of the economy where they're competing with low-skilled and semi-skilled American workers.

00:42:04.060 Very rarely do they compete in the professional fields, although we do have in California and elsewhere some illegal aliens who are registered members of the state bar and that sort of thing.

00:42:13.020 But it's really a phenomenon of competition on the low end.

00:42:18.700 My sources tell me that there's massive competition for entry-level warehouse jobs, for example.

00:42:26.940 For the most part in our economy, there are more jobs than people right now.

00:42:30.100 That's how fast we're expanding.

00:42:31.720 But for the entry-level jobs, it's still very difficult to get those positions.

00:42:36.620 And so that's where you're seeing Americans competing with foreigners, and especially if those foreigners are illegal, but really even if they're legal, you're going to see some pushback against liberal immigration policies.

00:42:47.720 So there's some truth to what Trump is saying economically, but I'm not sure that in general the phenomenon of legal immigration is always going to create more competition for American workers or drive down wages.

00:42:59.400 I think as long as you're prioritizing skilled immigration, you're going to create more value, create more jobs, create more tax revenues, do all these good things for the American economy, which is why Canada has an immigration policy that prioritizes skills.

00:43:13.220 There was an American critic of Trump who said that what we should do with our immigration policy is take Canada's law, stamp Made in America on it, and make it our own.

00:43:22.320 Obviously, that's an oversimplification, and not everything is hunky-dory with immigration in Canada.

00:43:26.580 I'm aware of that, but the Canadian approach makes more sense than the one we have in the United States, which is outdated by several decades.

00:43:34.320 Yeah.

00:43:34.840 I'm not familiar enough with the American details, but I can tell you in Canada, Justin Trudeau is relaxing every requirement from language skills to the amount of time before a permanent resident can become a Canadian citizen.

00:43:49.140 And, of course, his massive new immigration number is 340,000 per year, and we're a country one-tenth your size.

00:43:56.500 So imagine 3.5 million migrants a year, half of whom are not economic, half of whom don't have skills.

00:44:02.960 He just had a new announcement about bringing in grandparents, which is very sweet, but grandparents come and they go to the front line on pensions and Medicare.

00:44:12.120 Anyway, we'll put that aside. I want to talk about your latest article on Breitbart.com called A Wall Deal Should Be Possible.

00:44:20.680 That's what we thought during the shutdown. The whole point of the shutdown was to put pressure on the Democrats.

00:44:25.060 There has been no wall deal. The Democrats seem to be very resilient on this point.

00:44:30.540 I think that Trump's collapse on the shutdown from my perch up here in Canada looked like a sign of weakness.

00:44:39.100 I know you said it maybe had some negotiating judo moves there.

00:44:43.680 Do you really think there's going to be a wall deal?

00:44:46.000 I can't imagine the party of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Nancy Pelosi would possibly go for it.

00:44:54.720 Well, I think you're correct in that politically they may reject the deal.

00:44:59.260 The point of my article is that a deal is possible.

00:45:03.520 If you take the politics out of it and look at what both sides actually say they want, they're really not that far apart.

00:45:09.380 In fact, what Trump is proposing is new border fence, not even a wall, new border fencing along basically 100 new miles of border that are currently unfenced.

00:45:23.620 That's what the big fight is about right now.

00:45:26.300 Our border with Mexico is about 2,000 miles long.

00:45:28.860 So you're talking about 5% of the border.

00:45:32.640 And already some two-thirds of that border is unfenced, but a third of it is fenced.

00:45:38.360 Now, some of that's pedestrian fence, some of it's vehicle fence, some of the pedestrian fence is bad.

00:45:42.280 Trump wants to improve those fences.

00:45:44.500 But in terms of new fencing, he's not proposing that much, at least right now.

00:45:48.900 So theoretically, you might be able to reach a deal.

00:45:51.460 I mean, what is 100 miles of additional fence really in the long run, especially because it's in an area of Texas where the cartels are sending people across the border and making billions of dollars, presumably doing it.

00:46:05.740 So I think that there's a zone of potential agreement that actually exists.

00:46:12.700 The problem is Democrats don't want Trump to have a win of any kind.

00:46:16.600 So you have to overcome that.

00:46:17.660 Well, this whole thing is a little bit odd for me to talk with you about because, of course, I'm a Canadian.

00:46:22.380 I have no skin in the game, either morally, geographically.

00:46:27.620 I'm just an observer and a foreign fan.

00:46:30.240 Again, I take this as the essential litmus test of is Trump a serious man who keeps his promises?

00:46:36.920 Because to me, it was really the promise that was larger than all other promises combined.

00:46:41.640 And during the shutdown, he tweeted how adamant he was.

00:46:45.120 He said, if I don't get this, I'll act on my own.

00:46:47.180 I might call a state of emergency.

00:46:48.600 He even he alluded to his ability to act on his own.

00:46:52.060 Well, we're well into February now, and he hasn't.

00:46:54.260 Is there any change?

00:46:55.780 You and I talked about this before, but the risks of him pushing that nuclear button using the emergency powers of presidents has.

00:47:03.720 Do you think he's going to do that?

00:47:05.340 Because I think he could get that wall built in months.

00:47:10.080 I mean, I've seen how fast you can build walls.

00:47:11.960 I've seen it in some Eastern European countries that built a wall in weeks when Angela Merkel went crazy there.

00:47:20.820 We've seen in Israel how quickly they can act if they have to.

00:47:24.700 Is Trump actually going to do this on his own, or are we going to be having this same conversation in the year 2020?

00:47:33.140 I think that he will do it on his own.

00:47:35.440 I think he's getting a lot of pressure, in fact, from conservatives to do so.

00:47:39.960 And the argument is that he's not going outside the Constitution.

00:47:43.060 He's not going outside the law.

00:47:44.200 This is a legal emergency under the 1976 legislation that Democrats have used many times, Carter, Clinton, Obama.

00:47:52.100 So this is something that he has the legal authority to do, and this is the only way maybe in the end to achieve what he wants.

00:48:01.200 And again, it's not so much different from what we have already in terms of the length that he's proposing.

00:48:07.200 He's not even proposing a concrete wall anymore.

00:48:09.320 So I think that he will do it.

00:48:11.900 He's going to have to do it, I think, to retain the support of his core supporters, his core voters, his base, heading into 2020.

00:48:18.840 So I don't think we're going to be looking at the issue in quite the same way in 2020.

00:48:23.980 Something is going to happen.

00:48:25.000 It may not be built by then because Democrats will sue and try to use the courts to stop him.

00:48:30.100 But with so many Trump judges now on the bench, thanks to the way the Democrats destroyed the filibuster in the previous administration, hoping that Hillary Clinton would win, 0.97

00:48:38.800 I think Trump will eventually get a good hearing at the Supreme Court or somewhere else where they say the president has the right to do this and the construction will begin.

00:48:46.360 I do think there will still be unresolved questions about American asylum laws.

00:48:52.040 There are going to be areas of the fence that still need to be upgraded.

00:48:55.440 There are areas of our policy with Mexico that will need attention because right now we haven't done that much really to stop the cartels.

00:49:02.140 The cartels are the ones who really keep this flow going.

00:49:04.920 And that would require doing things that might alienate the Mexican government on economic issues.

00:49:09.220 So we have a long way to go still.

00:49:12.520 But in terms of actually building the structure, I think Trump's voter base will be satisfied, whether through legislation or emergency action,

00:49:20.220 that the president is at least trying everything possible and risking everything to fulfill this promise.

00:49:27.600 Yeah.

00:49:27.960 Well, that'll be very interesting to watch.

00:49:30.260 I say again, I have no moral authority to say that I am impatient.

00:49:34.660 I am nothing but a foreign pundit.

00:49:36.620 But I believe that Trump's credibility, his authority, his moral authority, the fact that anyone would treat his word as reliable,

00:49:46.980 either a friend or a foe, any respect he commands.

00:49:50.840 I mean, I think the Chinese government, I remember when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers very early in his mandate.

00:49:59.500 They went on an illegal strike.

00:50:00.760 He fired them and he replaced them with military air traffic controllers.

00:50:05.860 After the Berlin Wall fell, we learned that it was that action that made the Soviets say,

00:50:11.740 whoa, we've got to take Ronald Reagan seriously.

00:50:14.600 So the wall is not just the wall.

00:50:16.800 The wall is, can you believe a word Donald Trump says?

00:50:20.000 It's Kim Jong-un.

00:50:21.480 It's the Chinese.

00:50:22.560 It's Iran. 0.91

00:50:23.400 It's Vladimir Putin.

00:50:24.720 The wall is about them, too.

00:50:26.320 What do you think of that, Joel?

00:50:27.040 I agree with you.

00:50:29.800 And the ironic thing is that this time what ended the shutdown was the air traffic controllers.

00:50:34.840 And there's a story to be written.

00:50:36.320 CNN's done a little bit of work on it.

00:50:37.780 But essentially the union that represents them, the air traffic controllers, was encouraging them to take extra leave.

00:50:47.580 So that did bring the shutdown to a halt.

00:50:50.440 But I think Trump wanted to shut it down anyway.

00:50:52.280 I'm not sure it was really a showdown between him and the air traffic controllers.

00:50:57.080 I think if it were limited to that kind of a showdown, Trump would take them on.

00:51:01.860 But I do think that he's reserved some options for himself.

00:51:05.200 And he can maintain that international credibility by using the emergency declaration to build the wall.

00:51:10.380 But I agree with you.

00:51:11.100 You've got to be credible.

00:51:12.360 You've got to enforce red lines when you draw them.

00:51:14.360 And you've got to follow through on promises when you make them.

00:51:16.340 And that's what he understands, that his presidency will be weakened and his foreign policy will be weakened unless he can follow through on this domestic priority.

00:51:24.060 Well, thanks very much for your time and your insight, Joel.

00:51:26.040 I really appreciate it.

00:51:27.000 You always give us a very thoughtful point of view about this administration.

00:51:32.400 Good luck down there and keep up the fight.

00:51:34.580 Thank you.

00:51:35.140 All right.

00:51:35.400 There you have it.

00:51:35.760 Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.

00:51:38.720 It'll be interesting.

00:51:39.540 I have no cause to say I'm running out of patience.

00:51:43.200 It's not my fight.

00:51:44.000 But I morally feel like it is.

00:51:45.920 How about you?

00:51:46.800 Stay with us.

00:51:47.560 More ahead on The Rebel.

00:51:59.600 Hey, welcome back to my monologue yesterday about an Angus Reid poll that shows Canadians in Western Canada would support a separatist party.

00:52:05.580 Cal writes,

00:52:06.240 I reached voting age under Trudeau Sr.

00:52:09.860 Lougheed came to power in Alberta after and said, wait.

00:52:12.840 Preston Manning said, wait, because the West wants in.

00:52:14.980 Klein said, wait, because he had a great rapport with Kretchen.

00:52:17.880 Harper said, wait, because the West was in now.

00:52:20.260 We are now back to junior and F waiting.

00:52:25.060 Poll says a lot of people seem to agree with you.

00:52:28.580 And really, Stephen Harper didn't make structural changes.

00:52:33.820 He was, he didn't make any permanent changes.

00:52:38.580 I don't even know what permanent changes could be made.

00:52:41.420 So it's just a matter of time.

00:52:44.380 Bruce writes,

00:52:44.960 We Albertans should threaten to separate or become an American state.

00:52:48.480 I'm sure that would make the Laurentian bobbleheads freak out. 0.98

00:52:51.300 The problem is that we have standards of loyalty which prevent us from blackmailing the nation like Quebec politicians regularly do.

00:52:57.640 I think that is a very key point there.

00:52:59.940 See, sorry, main story today showed in Quebec they have a bit of a different moral compass.

00:53:05.440 I'm not saying every Quebecer, but boy, the corruption sure seems to come from one province more than most.

00:53:11.440 You have to be blind not to notice that pattern.

00:53:15.240 Bombardier, SNC, Lavalin, ad scam.

00:53:19.820 Just about every single mayor in Quebec was arrested for corruption in the last 10 years.

00:53:25.080 Like all of them.

00:53:27.300 Montreal on down.

00:53:29.340 So yeah, I think Albertans are just, you know, they don't have that killer edge to them.

00:53:34.660 They're too loyal and they're too neighborly.

00:53:36.960 That's the problem.

00:53:37.700 You can't really be a separatist if you're neighborly.

00:53:40.020 Trouble is you get taken advantage of then.

00:53:41.680 Isn't that a paradox?

00:53:44.440 On my interview with Manny Montenegreno about a de facto trade war with America, Paul writes,

00:53:49.060 So the liberals botched the free trade agreement in a much bigger way than was first thought.

00:53:52.780 If we had adults running the country, we could have worked with the Trump administration

00:53:55.800 and we could be looking at prosperity instead of made in Canada recession.

00:53:59.540 Yeah, listen, our unemployment numbers are low on the face of it.

00:54:04.860 We have a big deficit and we have big taxes right now.

00:54:07.180 But as Manny points out, our labor participation rate is lower than America.

00:54:11.160 I think, though, we're getting weak.

00:54:14.580 There's signs the economy is weak.

00:54:16.260 Our growth rate is low.

00:54:18.160 And I think in the next few months you're going to see this Buy America kick in.

00:54:23.480 And I, can I make a prediction?

00:54:26.600 I mean, look, I don't know.

00:54:28.180 Talk to me in 30, 60 days.

00:54:30.500 Tell me if I'm wrong.

00:54:31.980 I think this is going to tip us into a recession.

00:54:34.960 I think everything's pregnant for that. 0.81

00:54:37.200 We've chased $100 billion worth of investment out of the oil patch.

00:54:41.720 Taxes up, deficits up, scandals.

00:54:45.200 Now Buy American blocking us from bidding on, what, a trillion, trillions of dollars worth of stuff?

00:54:49.860 I think it's going to tip us.

00:54:51.300 I think it's going to tip us.

00:54:52.560 And you're so right it didn't have to be that way.

00:54:54.780 You know, I read, just as an aside, I read today that the United States is now the largest exporter of oil to the United Kingdom in more than 50 years.

00:55:06.040 And I read that and I thought, that should have been us.

00:55:08.160 That should have been us.

00:55:09.220 With energy east, that could have been us.

00:55:11.820 And I read that the United States is now the largest oil producer in the world by far.

00:55:15.720 They're a net oil exporter.

00:55:16.920 And I thought, that could have been us.

00:55:17.840 That could have been us.

00:55:19.240 Yeah, no.

00:55:21.040 That's our show for today.

00:55:22.020 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, goodnight.

00:55:25.420 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:55:26.260 Choose the record.

00:55:32.160 You're welcome.

00:55:32.700 Okay, so I'll be right back.

00:55:34.080 You're welcome.

00:55:35.000 You're welcome.

00:55:35.560 You're welcome.

00:55:36.400 You're welcome.

00:55:36.560 You're welcome.

00:55:37.340 You're welcome.

00:55:37.580 You're welcome.

00:55:39.060 You're welcome.

00:55:39.660 You're welcome.

00:55:41.560 You're welcome.

00:55:42.880 I'm welcome.

00:55:43.860 We'll be right back.

00:55:44.720 We'll be right back.

00:55:44.900 �-in-theft BROWN

Rebel News Podcast - February 08, 2019

SCANDAL： Trudeau’s office pressures justice minister to halt prosecution of corrupt Quebec company — She refused, and was fired

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