SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ CBC memo warns staff not to call Hamas ‘terrorists,’ citing politics and 'narratives'
Episode Stats
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Summary
The CBC says calling Hamas terrorists is just too political, but they'll happily push a baseless conspiracy theory that Russian agents were behind the Freedom Convoy attack in Tel Aviv on July 14th, 2019. And thanks to Blacklock s reporting, we've got a letter from the CBC's Director of Journalism Standards explaining why the state broadcaster won't call out Hamas as terrorists.
Transcript
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CBC says calling Hamas terrorists, well, it's just too political,
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but they'll happily push a baseless conspiracy theory that Russian agents were behind the freedom convoy.
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed. It's August 12, 2025, and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.
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I want to bring to the committee, amidst the chaos and the shock and the horror that so many Canadians experienced over the course of the week
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with regards to the terror attack last Saturday in Israel,
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A memo from the CBC was quietly circulated, not so quiet because it became public.
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And it was telling journalists to avoid the word terrorist when referring to Hamas fighters in their publication.
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So for those on the committee, and I think most Canadians know this by now,
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but Hamas has been a recognized terrorist organization in this country for over 20 years.
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And the memo, the memo that was leaked, reads as follows,
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do not refer to militant soldiers or anyone else as terrorists, and do not was emphasized in bold letters.
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The notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized and is part of the story.
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Even when quoting or clipping a government or a source referring to fighters as, quote, terrorists,
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we should add context to ensure the audience understands that this is opinion and not fact.
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And that includes statements from the Canadian government and Canadian politicians.
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So the question really is, Mr. Chair, if the Canadian government recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization,
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and rightfully should, and if you've read what the Canadian government says about that organization,
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you would quite understand why they were so definitively listed as a terrorist organization.
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And if you further looked at the Hamas Covenant or the revised charter from 1988,
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Hamas has been clear on their genocidal intentions.
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So the memo was circulated by a gentleman named George Atchi,
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and he's the director of journalistic standards at the CBC.
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Which, of course, gets a fair share of Canadian tax dollars.
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And we would simply like to know why that direction of opinion was put forward by the CBC.
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They are, after all, a news organization that Canadians pay for.
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So given that Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization by the government of Canada since 2002,
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and that the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel left thousands of innocent people dead and injured,
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and that an email directive was sent from the director of journalistic standards of CBC News,
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Mr. George Atchi, to all employees of CBC News,
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directing them to downplay the coverage of the horrific, sadistic violence perpetrated by Hamas against innocent people in Israel
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by not referring to the attackers as terrorists and falsely claiming that Gaza continued to be under occupation after Israel had pulled out in 2005.
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And given that the CBC receives, you know, $1.4 billion in public funding through taxpayer dollars annually,
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and that this committee has a mandate to review government expenditure,
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I believe that the committee should, A, denounce Mr. Atchi's comments and report to this House,
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some in the president of CBC, Catherine Tate, to appear for two hours by herself within seven days of this motion,
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hopefully being adopted by the Liberals and the NDP on this committee,
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some in the director of journalistic standards, Mr. George Atchi,
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and invite, of course, the CBC ombudsman, Mr. Jack Nagler,
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to appear for a minimum of two hours to address the CBC's position on journalistic standards and practices.
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It's buried in story selection, the kind of things they choose to cover,
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It's in careful wording or in what they don't cover, right?
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But other times, they just put it in writing, in a memo.
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And thanks to Blacklock's reporter, we've now seen exactly that.
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You see, Blacklock's got a hold of a 2023 letter from George Atchi,
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explaining why the state broadcaster won't call actual terrorists, terrorists.
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The word is too, quote, highly politicized and reflects a, quote, certain narrative.
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Now, the letter was written seven months before October 7th, 2023,
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when Hamas, a group the Canadian government has officially listed as a terrorist organization
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since 2002, slaughtered 1,400 people in Israel, including eight Canadians.
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And yet four days, four days after the massacre,
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And let's remember, Hamas recorded their atrocities and then published them so that the world could see.
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For years before this, CBC routinely identified Hamas as a terrorist group
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because it is an outlawed terrorist organization.
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But now, suddenly saying terrorist is too loaded, too political, one label the CBC just won't touch.
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In 2023, according to BlackLocks' reporting, CBC racked up nearly 4,800 viewer complaints,
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Most of those complaints were about CBC's antiseptic, antisemitic, both sides' coverage of Hamas atrocities.
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Conservative MP Rachel Thomas put it bluntly in committee.
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They are failing the innocent whose lives have been lost.
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There is a leaked memo from the director of journalistic standards who instructed journalists
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to refrain from using the term terrorist in his reference or in their reference to Hamas fighters.
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Now, Hamas, as mentioned, has been listed on Canada's official list of terrorists for more than 20 years.
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This isn't a matter of opinion, but rather this is fact.
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And so to justify its decision, however, the CBC came out and said,
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well, we just don't want our journalists to take sides.
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And if they use the term terrorist, they will be taking a side.
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When you have 1,400 people who were massacred in an evening,
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when you have women and girls who are raped and then murdered and then paraded through the city,
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which is a terrorist organization functioning in a sadistic manner.
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CBC only gets squeamish about taking sides when it's actual terrorists.
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When it comes to peaceful Canadians they don't like but would love to label as terrorists.
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They'll even invent a narrative if they need to.
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I think you guys know exactly where I'm going with this.
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is interviewing Liberal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino
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as the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy is rolling into Ottawa.
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And completely unprompted, she just floats this fever dream into the ether.
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I do ask that because, you know, given Canada's support of Ukraine
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but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things
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but perhaps even instigating it from the outset.
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Well, again, I'm going to defer to our partners in the public safety,
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the trained officials and experts in that area.
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CESIS had already denied any Russian involvement in the convoy.
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He just deferred to his national security experts,
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the same experts that had already debunked that fevered dream from Kochsal.
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So here's your CBC double standard in black and white.
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With Hamas, they hide behind nuance and balance
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and claim moral clarity on issues of terrorist atrocities.
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they run wild with conspiracy theories about dangerous foreign plots.
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Organizers told their supporters to report any troublemakers to police.
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And at no time did any of those four individuals not cooperate with the OPS.
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And the same was true with the Ontario Provincial Police.
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In your view, was the Emergencies Act necessary to end the protest in Ottawa?
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They provide it to us and we use it to the best of our abilities.
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We were thankful for it and we used it to the best of our abilities
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And in your view, was there a police solution to the demonstrations?
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There was a solution and we reached that solution.
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We had some help with EMCPA, the Emergency Managed Civil Protection Act
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regulations that we have with the province and the Emergencies Act.
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But in my humble opinion, we would have reached the same solution
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with the plan that we had without either of those pieces of legislation.
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still painted the convoy as Canada's January 6th.
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Except there were no threats to national security.
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I think the superintendent's evidence was that there were no threats that materialized.
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And he said there were no credible threats to national security.
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is that when you move from strategic intelligence into operational and tactical intelligence
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and establishing thresholds for mandates and thresholds for charges,
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that further analysis needs to be done to determine whether it's credible
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and whether that threat actually came to fruition.
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They decide the side they're on first and then they build the journalism to match it.
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They don't do what we do at Rebel News and that is follow the facts wherever they lead us.
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Uh, I think it should come as no surprise to you that I am conservative
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and I see things through a conservative worldview and I report through a conservative worldview.
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And I don't insult you by thinking that you can't see it too.
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And I don't expect you to pay for it unless you want to.
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And at the CBC, you're forced to hand them a billion and a half dollars a year
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for their insults and their narrative building and their half-truths.
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I'll show you some real journalism done a lot better for a lot less right after the break.
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It's our own Lincoln J with a story of unpaid rent
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and allegations of criminal activity taking place at a residence in Brantford, Ontario
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as a landlord tries to evict a troublesome tenant.
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A few weeks ago, I received a panicked phone call from a woman named Lila Protopapa,
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She claimed that criminal activity was taking place on her property.
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Lila and her family have owned four four-plex rental properties in Brantford since 1984.
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In November 2024, they began renting one of their bachelor units to a man named Jeff Haggett.
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Lila alleges that various criminal activities were occurring in and around the unit,
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On top of that, the tenants stopped paying rent in February 2025.
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After months of back and forth with the landlord and tenant board,
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Lila was finally able to obtain an eviction order.
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I decided to drive down to Brantford to see for myself what exactly was going on at this property.
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On the first day, I spoke with Lila and some of the other tenants to gather more insight into the situation.
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I returned a few days later to document the eviction, which was carried out by the sheriff,
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a representative from the Court Enforcement Office of the Superior Court of Justice.
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Watch the footage, come to your own conclusions, and let me know in the comments what you think about this situation.
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My family has owned these properties behind me for 41 years.
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At 21 Dundas Unit 5, there's been a tenant that we rented to just one gentleman back in November.
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We thought he was going to be a very good tenant.
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There's been a lot of shady activities happening here with drugs and prostitution.
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The main issues we find are like the needles lying around, them dumping their garbage,
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constant issues of traffic and drug deals going on.
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I involved Dan McCreary, the councillor of Ward 3 here.
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I thought he would get, you know, quick intervention and my problems would be solved.
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They sent some bylaw officers and they charged me more money on my property taxes
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It's always the responsibility of the landlord to take care of the property maintenance.
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But when there's an intervention from outside bringing garbage inside, that becomes a problem.
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And then the garbage that's already there from other tenants that we put there for the week
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to be, you know, put to the side of the curb, that gets all mangled up.
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That gets all broken up because they kind of look for things in the garbage,
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So, as you can see, the garbage mess behind me, this is three days after garbage day.
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Me, my mom and brothers come out, we clean it up, we take everything to the curb,
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and three days later, this is what we have to deal with.
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As you can see, the opposite side of where the problem is, absolutely clean.
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There's been countless of people now that have admitted that they come here to buy their drugs off of Jeff.
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And we have five, six months in a row, unpaid, you know, becomes a problem.
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He's just gone out for probably about half an hour.
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I really need my rent paid, because you guys have been here so many months,
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they've not paid me anything since February 1st.
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I also want to consider that we haven't had hot water or heat the entire winter.
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The fire department mentioned that he has had nothing but problems for years.
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What do you think, though, about, like, families living here, and, you know, there's people
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No, none of my friends have ever touched a needle.
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Your f***ing up store's neighbor just throwing it out the window.
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What do you have to say about the claims that he made about the water?
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Well, they are registered with the city with the water.
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We've called the firefighters here several times because they lit the place on fire on the balcony.
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If you don't know the viewers what they are, an N4 is for eviction.
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An N5 is when there's disturbance to other tenants.
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I mean, I did all the forms and then you kind of go to the next step and then you apply to the board to have them removed.
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But the process is very, very arduous and long.
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The sheriff is going to come here to evict the tenant on July the 29th.
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It looks like you're getting your stuff packed out.
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I'm getting a sense of relief because it's been such a long time we've been waiting for this day.
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So you had this many people living in a bachelor?
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Because it didn't f***ing turn on the hydro or f***ing hot water.
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So what about all the people that would be passed out of your unit here?
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That's a great example you're setting for children, you know?
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You should think about them when you're doing that.
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F*** you now when I come down here and f***ing condone you.
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I don't know if I'm going to come down here and word you.
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And you, like, obviously it's not safe for you to play.
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We sometimes play back here, but if we see anyone over there, we just run this way inside
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See, I feel bad for you kids that live around here, you know?
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Like, I remember being a kid growing up, you know?
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You're running around, you're exploring, right?
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This is not a safe place right now to explore, and hopefully with them leaving, it's going
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It's important to clarify that this unit here is a bachelor, okay?
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And we've counted roughly seven people crawl out of this bachelor.
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That many people crammed into that tight of a space.
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I asked him why people are passed out in front of his unit, and he used to show me
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I don't need him to see some junkie overdose behind my place or on a parking lot real close
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My son saw a lady from that unit 5 come to the side of the building with two men, and
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And then my daughter as well, the same crackhead lady, she called her a stupid, ugly whore.
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You see people are still coming by for whatever reasons.
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We thought they'd be a good tenant, but it turned out to be this nightmare.
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You want to take someone's word, which isn't worth anything anymore, because they tell you
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They'll lie, lie, and until they get those keys in their hands, they shut the door, and
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You saw Lloyd previously in the video, and at the time, they were still living here.
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He was a little worried about showing his face on camera.
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He does maintenance for the properties here, and Lloyd is going to bring us inside the
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All right, so, like, I'm wondering if they were actually living like this, or if this
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is the clutter from, you know, moving that we'll never really know.
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Yes, I was in the unit when it was for, before they moved in.
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This seems to be like an official government pamphlet.
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Yes, they come from the government with a lot of your NARCAN kits and stuff like that.
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Um, you can tell where they were doing their s**t crushed uphill here.
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So how many people on average do you think we're living in here?
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Uh, the one guy admitted there was 14 people at one point.
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They've just left it on the kitchen counter next to some bread, some spices.
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Let's just say the government offered, like, a rehab or something to get you guys clean,
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If they were, though, would you guys consider it?
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I understand, like, a lot of people say it's a mental health thing, but at the same time,
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I think if you've got two legs and a heartbeat, you can go out there and work just like the
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I know even a lot of the centres and that, you're supposed to go to get help, they're
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now handing out types of drugs and free drug supplies and everything else so that they
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can continue using instead of getting them the help that they need.
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I do sympathise with people that are in the depths of addiction.
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And, you know, it doesn't help when you have people in high places making it seem like,
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you know, it's okay, instead of trying to get them out of their lifestyle.
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Obviously, they have people that care about them and, you know, they need help and they
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need, someone has to step up and do something because whatever it's doing right now, it's
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I reached out to Larry Brock and then after his campaign, I congratulated him for winning,
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He promised me an appointment to see him after at his office.
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They've placed this posting on the door, notice of vacant possession, and the attendant
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The sad reality in Canada is that hard drug use is running rampant through cities and communities
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If you want to see people in the depths of addiction receive treatment, rather than being
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encouraged to continue this lifestyle, visit our website, helpnotharm.ca, sign the petition,
00:29:42.700
Well, we always turn over the last portion of the show to you.
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And I know these are your letters to Ezra, but I'm hosting the show today while Ezra's
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away for a couple of days, so you're going to get my responses, and I hope that's okay.
00:29:55.980
So your letters to me come by way of Ezra's interview with Justice Center for Constitutional
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Freedom's lawyer, Marty Moore, and he was speaking on Premier Tim Houston's ban on hiking because
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walking in the woods is going to cause lightning and arson.
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And I know this is a divisive issue, even amongst conservatives, but there are ways to balance
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I am a conservationist, and people like me don't start irresponsible fires.
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We worry about being intrinsically safe during times of high fires.
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And so I won't be doing any fire lighting while I'm in the bushes, but walking through the
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And in fact, it might even make people a little safer because you'll have people there who would
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So apparently there are smarter people than me coming up with solutions.
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David Hines writes, so did Premier Houston, in effect, just admit that Nova Scotia, like
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many other provinces, is not practicing good forest management?
00:31:24.800
Well, I do know that the federal government should not be providing any input into this
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because they definitely don't provide good forest management in the forests that they are
00:31:37.640
And in fact, the fire only really came under control once the province of Alberta got involved
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because the federal government did not appropriately manage the forest in Jasper National Park here
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in Alberta that was damaged by Pine Beetle for the better part of a decade.
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And then they didn't mechanically clear the forest because they're worried it might look ugly.
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But yeah, there have to be better ways to do this.
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There just has to be better ways than banning people who can't afford any other form of recreation
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It just, I don't, there has to be a better way.
00:32:42.120
Anything can be outlawed in the name of safety and in the public good, right?
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Normally we try to make an effort to balance people's charter rights with public safety,
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but that sort of went out the door five years ago.
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And governments have forgotten what it used to be like in the before times
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when they actually had to find a way to respect people's rights.
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But now they just think they can tromp all over them.
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That is on, in relation to a video posted by a veteran who has since been issued a $25,000
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So what the government considers woods versus what is actually woods.
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And they, you know, as the meme goes, these two pictures are the same, but one is illegal
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But if, if you have to be out of that one for safety, why aren't you out of that one?
00:33:58.780
And that's the whole problem with all of this is that the rules don't make any sense.
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It's just like during COVID where deadly COVID in the grocery store only traveled counterclockwise.
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So if you were walking in the grocery store clockwise, you were safe.
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But in the Black Death, it came counterclockwise.
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If you were sitting in a bar, having a drink with your friend, if you were sitting perfectly
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safe, man alive, if you stood up and you got yourself over three and a half feet and you
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weren't wearing a mask, the deadly COVID, it has some sort of altimeter on it that was
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It's just to see who will follow blindly the dumbest things because somebody in authority
00:35:00.200
Bruce Hatchison, who, uh, normally writes into me, Bruce, I won't be jealous.
00:35:08.520
Um, but Bruce normally writes into my show, the gun show on Wednesdays.
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Uh, but I also see that he, uh, I thought I was his favorite, but he's writing into Ezra
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So Bruce says humanizing the enemy is the left's ploy to propagandizing the masses.
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If they make vile people like Palestinian terrorists look pathetic and helpless, they'll
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Oh, I think we're talking about the staged, um, hungry people, um, where newspapers in the
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United States were publishing Hamas propaganda that were completely staged photographs to
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show how the Israelis were starving the Palestinians in Gaza.
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If anybody's starving in Gaza, it's because Hamas is scooping all the aid and it's being
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Can friction of shoes on grass and soil start a fire?
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If so, Blaine Higgs is right, but I call BS because I doubt that a brush with the brush
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couldn't create a big enough spark to ignite tinder dry material.
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There are a lot of people currently disappointing me with their overreaction to this.
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Um, and again, I say, if you can just throw everybody's rights at the door in the name
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of public safety, then you can do that for anything, right?
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You're supposed to damage people's rights the least in an emergency, not just throw them
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on the, uh, bonfire of civil liberties as it were.
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Yeah, COVID, governments learned something, but so did I.
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Thanks for everybody for bearing with me as I throw a show together while Ezra's away.
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If you find me offensive, maybe don't find me at all.