The annual press freedom rankings are out. See where Canada ranks — and where China does
Summary
On this episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra talks about Earth Day, Vladimir Lenin's birthday, and the 500th anniversary of the kidnapping of two Canadian journalists in Hong Kong. He also talks about the new world rankings of press freedom put out by Reporters Without Borders, and why Hong Kong is one of his favorite places in the world.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about two things, really. First of all, it's Earth Day,
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it's Vladimir Lenin's birthday, and it's the anniversary, the 500th day anniversary,
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that China kidnapped two Canadians and has held them hostage ever since.
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I pivoted from that somehow to talk about the new world rankings of press freedom
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put up by Reporters Without Borders. I'll tell you where China is,
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and where Canada is, and where America is. You'll be surprised.
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Thanks. Hey, before I stop talking and get to the show, can you please become a premium subscriber?
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Go to rebelnews.com. It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version of these podcasts.
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You get access to shows from Sheila Gunn-Reed and David Menzies,
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and we could use the eight bucks to help pay the bills around here. I appreciate that.
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Just go to rebelnews.com. Okay, here's the podcast.
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Tonight, the annual press freedom rankings have been published. I'll tell you where Canada ranks
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and where China does. It's April 22nd, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:01:15.260
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Hello, my friends. It's April 22nd, which is Vladimir Lenin's birthday.
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He was truly one of the horrific killers of the 21st century, not as prolific as his eventual successor,
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Joseph Stalin, or his emulator, Mao Zedong, but he made the template.
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He laid out the brutal and bloody path, and it is no coincidence that today is also Earth Day,
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the day that the war against private industry and private property is rephrased as environmentalism.
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It's like a watermelon, green on the outside but red on the inside.
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On this Earth Day for the umpteenth year in a row, North Korea takes the prize for lowest carbon footprint.
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They're shivering in the dark, as they are every day, frankly.
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Which brings me to the topic of Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities in the world,
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not only for the experience of being there, the energy, the excitement, the hustle-bustle,
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the cosmopolitan feeling of a city with hundreds of thousands of the best and brightest expats
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from around the world working there, including an estimated 300,000 Canadians, if you can believe it.
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It's a place with fascinating history and culture of China, but also of the UK,
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with British civic virtues and the rule of law.
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I think it's one of the best places in the world.
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And over the last few years, it's developed a unique identity.
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As communist China has tried to impose authoritarianism on the city,
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Hong Kong people have risen up almost in complete unity
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and redefined themselves as Democrats and freedom lovers.
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And they're thinking of themselves as Hong Kong people first.
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I imagine a city of about 8 million people, pretty much the same as New York.
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Well, literally 2 million of them physically attended a democracy protest last year.
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I think they really are the most pro-democracy-interested place in the world,
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In fact, the protesters often waved American flags,
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I think even more heartfelt, if that's possible, than many Americans do.
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It was quite something, and I'm so proud that we sent two reporters.
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First, Avi Yamini, and then a follow-up trip with Kian Bexty.
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My favorite moment, of course, was when Avi met this guy.
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Donald Trump don't trust China. China is an asshole.
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That clip has been seen tens of millions of times in so many different platforms.
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Anyways, 2019 was the year of victory for Hong Kong Democrats over Beijing tyrants.
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There were city elections late last year that were seen as a proxy battle
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over so much more than just who would be the local politicians
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in charge of things like garbage pickup and pet bylaws.
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and that municipal vote went overwhelmingly towards the freedom side of things.
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Well, 2020 couldn't be more different from 2019, I regret.
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One silver lining is that the world was generally ignored Hong Kong last year.
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we were the only Canadian journalists who had a camera in Hong Kong.
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Well, now the whole world has a proper measure of China
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who are the real good guys and bad guys over there.
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but maybe we needed a calamity of that gravity to wake up,
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In the past, I've shown you this international survey by Pew Research,
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asking people in different countries what they think of China.
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Now, this chart is over a year out of date now.
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Canadians have been angry at China for more than a year,
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Two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,
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say, did you know that today marks the 500th day of their captivity?
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500 days longer than Iran held the U.S. hostages.
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The scandal that was one reason Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election.
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And I bet that Justin Trudeau will make a public statement
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It'll be fascinating to see those international opinions and numbers now on China.
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If Pew Research does their survey again, I hope they do.
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The Chinese government is in full PR spin mode now around the world.
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They infected the world because they lied to the world.
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after hoovering up all the medical gear from the world.
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Oh, and they're making a big show out of giving foreign aid in the form of medical gear,
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which often turns out to be faulty, to be useless.
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Hey, at least they're shipping faulty equipment to Europe at all.
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Did you see this outrageous and unbelievable story yesterday?
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Canada sent two planes to China to pick up deliveries of medical gear.
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And according to Trudeau and his henchmen, Chinese authorities sent the planes home empty.
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And get a load of this excuse that liberal cabinet ministers, here's Ahmed Hassan, are using.
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They sent two planes to get equipment from China and they came home empty handed.
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How do we send a plane to China and then they say,
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No, it wasn't a question of the supplies being gone, Evan.
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The prime minister addressed this question in his press conference and he indicated that the problem is that,
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you know, China has strict requirements on how long planes can be on the ground in the airport.
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So after a short period of time, our planes had to take off
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because the supplies were taking a long time to get to the airport.
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But we will continue to follow up on those orders.
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We are continuing to deliver orders to provinces.
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Our plane was parked in a loading zone, didn't put enough quarters in the parking meter.
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So they only had 15 minutes before they had to move or they'd get a ticket or something.
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So apparently we had to leave without medical gear, but it's all good.
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We just sent a cargo jet 14 hours to China to be told to turn around and fly home 14 hours empty.
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Do you actually believe that excuse that there was an issue with how long the plane was parked?
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But then again, these are the liberals who think that their nickname, Little Potato,
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The prime minister has been given a fond nickname in China.
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He is called Pudou, which I believe means potato.
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And he is, I can't say the Chinese word, it's Yan Pudou, Little Potato, because his father,
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So yeah, I'd like to see those Pew numbers again on world opinion about China.
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And for Africans to have a say too, you know, China has pretty much colonized Africa.
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And believe it or not, China, the land of cheap labor, it brings in cheap labor itself now
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But now the official Chinese line is that the Wuhan virus was caused by Africans.
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So anyone black is being kicked out of apartments in China, banned from restaurants and malls,
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If you come from Africa country, you can't go in our building.
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Because I live in China for 20 years and I have already got my trust and everything.
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Why can't I stay in China 20 years without you?
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Yeah, I'm thinking Africa doesn't like the new apartheid.
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Here's a Chinese factory in Nigeria, apparently burned to the ground in retaliation by Nigerians
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Communist China can be just as bigoted as South Africa.
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Hey, I wonder if all those NBA basketball players who were making pro-China comments last year
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during the Hong Kong protests to appease their business interests in China, to keep their
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I wonder what they think of all this anti-black racism.
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I wonder if they themselves would be allowed back in China despite their skin color.
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Yeah, I think the NBA made a really bad bet on a really bad country.
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But then again, so did every tech company, every industrial manufacturer, Hollywood.
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Anyone who looked at China and saw only 1.5 billion customers, not 1.4 billion prisoners.
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It's just a long way of saying it's been an awful year, 2020.
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Today is an awful day, the 500th day of captivity for the two Michaels.
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But let me tell you something I saw as I scanned my favorite alternative news sources about China.
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I mean, you obviously can't trust a word that Chinese official media say, although I read
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a lot of Chinese official media because I think I can work backwards to see what they're
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And here's a tweet boasting about their naval exercises, a rebuke to the United States that
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recently had a virus outbreak on an aircraft carrier.
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And it's a threat to Taiwan and other democracies.
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As Gordon Chang told us yesterday, China's getting more aggressive, not less aggressive.
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I showed you all the peaceful democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.
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Very peaceful, culminating in democratic wins in local elections.
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As Stalin said, how many tank divisions does the Pope have?
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As Mao said, power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
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So Chinese police just plain old arrested en masse the democracy leaders last week,
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including very senior pro-democracy politicians.
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And even Hong Kong people, well, what luck for China that two million Hong Kong people
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can't jam the streets in protest anymore because of that same Chinese virus.
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So I saw this just in China seeks new world media order, says Watchdog, as Hong Kong plunges
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Hong Kong has a rollicking free press, but it is very much under attack.
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Communist thugs literally broke in and damaged the printing presses of democracy-oriented
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newspapers, trashed the place that they are going after the Epoch Times.
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They've arrested people, as we've just mentioned.
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Here, I'll click on the study they refer to, though.
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China seeks new world media order, says Watchdog, as Hong Kong plunges to 80th in press freedom.
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Hong Kong has plunged seven places in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, quote, because of
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its treatment of journalists during pro-democracy demonstrations.
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China, meanwhile, was ranked 177th as it sought a new world media order, according to the
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Its new ranking marks a significant drop from 18th, where the city stood when the index was
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The Press Freedom Rating is released annually to highlight the media freedom situation in
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180 countries and regions and measures pluralism, the independence of the media, quality of legislative
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frameworks, and the safety of journalists, unquote.
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Now, far be it from me to object, but I know for a fact that our very scrappy reporters, Avi Amini
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and Kim Bextie, were unbothered by police as they covered the protests.
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And I don't want to be dramatic, but on any given day here in Canada, our reporter David
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Menzies is hassled more by police than Kean and Avi were in Hong Kong, including when David
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was thrown to the ground for peacefully asking some polite questions of Don Cherry's Judas,
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So I don't want to take anything away from what has happened in Hong Kong in the last six
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China itself has zero press freedom, and if they could, they'd have it that way in Hong Kong
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And maybe things have gotten much worse since Avi and Kean were there a few months ago.
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And the arrests suggest they might, but I think there might be a little bit of drama
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in this Reporters Without Borders report on purpose, and that's okay.
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So here's the Reporters Without Borders rankings for Hong Kong.
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This is actually now from that think tank that was quoted in the Hong Kong Free Press.
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They say, Hong Kong saw many cases of violence against the media, mainly by the police and pro-Beijing
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criminal gangs, during the pro-democracy demonstrations in the summer and autumn of 2019.
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The territory is supposed to enjoy separate status as a special administrative region of
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the People's Republic of China until 2047, but press freedom is already in retreat as
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The most notable recent incident was the expulsion of Financial Times Asia editor Victor Mallet
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As vice president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, Mallet had chaired an event
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The Chinese Communist Party liaison office in Hong Kong controls, partly or entirely, several
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media outlets in the territory, including two daily newspapers, Tao Kung Pao and Wen Wei
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It is being led by a handful of independent online media, such as Stand News, Citizen News,
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the Initium, Hong Kong Free Press, and In Media.
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Okay, so it's getting bad, and there was real violence.
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There was an expulsion of a foreign journalist.
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First, I'm frankly not sure if Avi or Kim would be allowed back in Hong Kong today.
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And along the bottom of that page on Reporters with Borders, you can see there'd be no journalist
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It suggests that they need that measure in some countries.
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To be honest, I think this report is more a warning of what is to come rather than what
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I just don't believe that it's worse to be a journalist in Hong Kong than many of the
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79 countries they put higher than Hong Kong on the rankings.
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I mean, East Timor, Malawi, just to pick a couple.
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I just don't believe that Japan is at number 66 that low.
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Let me just tell you what they wrote about Japan.
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They say, the world's third biggest economic power, Japan, is a parliamentary monarchy that,
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in general, respects the principles of media pluralism.
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But journalists find it hard put to fully play their role as democracy's watchdog because
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of the influence of tradition and business interests.
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Journalists have been complaining of a climate of mistrust towards them ever since Shinzo Abe
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Yeah, sorry, that's got nothing to do with press freedom.
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Don't tell me they're at number 66 in the world.
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And the United States of America, with its amazing First Amendment, ranked 45.
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Press freedom in the United States continued to suffer during President Donald Trump's third
00:17:51.400
Arrests, physical assaults, public denigration, and the harassment of journalists continued in
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2019, though the numbers of journalists arrested and assaulted were slightly lower than the
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Much of that ire has come from President Trump and his associates in the federal government
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who have demonstrated the United States is no longer a champion of press freedom at home
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This dangerous anti-press sentiment has trickled down to local government institutions and the
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In March 2019, a leaked document revealed the U.S. government was using a secret database tracking
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journalists, activists, and others whose border authorities believed should be stopped for
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questioning when crossing certain checkpoints along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Trump was denigrating some journalists on this Mexico thing.
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I looked up that border story, and it's true, some journalists were pulled aside and asked
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some secondary questions before being allowed to go right through the border.
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I don't know, maybe I should be more concerned about that, but that happens to me, I'd say,
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I mean, you get pulled aside for some questions.
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Sometimes I don't understand the reasons, but after 10 wasted minutes, I'm on my way.
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That and Donald Trump sparring with Jim Acosta from CNN day after day, that doesn't make America
00:19:03.500
If America were a bad place for the press, Jim Acosta would not be back in the White House
00:19:08.520
briefing room every single day, delighting in the sparring matches as the president's foil.
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He's loving it, and when the White House took away his privilege to attend for one day,
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Trump chooses Acosta and other liberal haters almost every day because he likes to spar.
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I'm sorry, that doesn't make America a hater of free speech.
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You know, compare Trump loving to spar with reporters to, say, me and Rebel News.
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Kian Bexty, David Menzies are reporters who are routinely denied access to Trudeau's briefings.
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We're denied access to his briefings every single day right now.
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In fact, today, we had a legal cross-examination on an affidavit in our continuing lawsuit against
00:19:52.140
Trudeau over that very thing when they banned us from the debates.
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And yet Canada is ranked 16th on the press freedom list.
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Canada illustrated its growing commitment to international press protections this year
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when it launched, alongside the United Kingdom, the Media Freedom Coalition in July 2019,
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creating an international alliance between nations that pledged to champion and defend press freedom.
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That was the one where literally at the conference called press freedom, media freedom,
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Chrystia Freeland, our deputy prime minister, then the foreign minister,
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tried to ban our reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, at a press freedom conference.
00:20:33.980
Okay, so, um, Glover Mail, um, Global, um, CTV, Al Jazeera, CDC, and the national conference
00:20:49.920
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:20:52.900
That's, let's take us to the room and we can see if we can go.
00:21:01.600
So, that fake Potemkin conference on free press is why Canada's doing so great, because
00:21:11.440
They took all the trees and put them in the tree museum.
00:21:14.260
That's the only place Canada believes in free speech, at a conference about free speech.
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But they couldn't even keep up that pretense for the duration about the conference itself
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No mention of the corrosive effects of Trudeau bailing out 99% of the newspapers and thus
00:21:28.880
No mention of Stephen Gilbeau's plan to license websites.
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What we are saying is that we will not ask news organizations to have license.
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And I refer people to the report, which does make an independent panel that makes a recommendation
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that on the issue of discoverability, media organization would need to have a license.
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But that, we're not, and media can be confusing.
00:22:01.560
I recognize that, because the report talks about media, but not necessarily in the sense
00:22:10.860
And no mention of Dominique LeBond's brainwave to make it illegal to have the wrong opinions
00:22:27.280
But look, it's hardwired right into the mandate letter that Trudeau sent Gilbeau, the heritage
00:22:32.600
Trudeau has commanded him to come up with a plan to censor social media companies, make them
00:22:37.280
delete things the government doesn't like in 24 hours, or face huge penalties.
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I tell you what, they don't do that in Hong Kong.
00:22:46.260
Look, I'm sure Reporters Without Borders means well.
00:22:48.720
And I'm glad they're standing up to China, one of the few international NGOs to do so.
00:22:55.940
But when they say that Trump's insults to lippy CNN reporters is a reason why America isn't
00:23:03.320
They come across as just partisans who simply don't like Donald Trump.
00:23:09.120
And when they give Canada a pass because of some fake media freedom conference, but
00:23:13.960
ignore all of Trudeau's censorship plans, it hurts their credibility too.
00:23:19.040
Ironically, giving China a bad report, it's not going to make a spot of difference.
00:23:24.000
I mean, these are the people who mowed down thousands of democracy protesters with tanks
00:23:31.700
But this kind of report by Reporters Without Borders is actually the kind of thing that
00:23:38.480
They love to go to international cocktail parties and jet around to places like Davos
00:23:44.620
So if Reporters Without Borders mentioned any one of Canada's censorship plans that I've
00:23:49.120
just mentioned above, I guarantee you there would be an emergency meeting in the Liberal
00:23:53.180
government because they, for whatever reason, care more about the opinion of fancy foreign
00:23:57.980
pundits than they do about Canadian civil rights.
00:24:01.520
So if anyone from Reporters Without Borders is watching this, hey, thanks for sticking
00:24:11.720
But could you please say a word about Trudeau's plan to turn every Canadian reporter into one
00:24:17.100
of only two species allowed, either a reporter that Trudeau pays or a reporter that Trudeau
00:24:27.200
Neither are good for the country, and Reporters Without Borders should say so and stop whitewashing
00:24:50.800
Well, as I said in my monologue, today is the 500th day that two Canadian hostages have been
00:24:59.660
I just moments ago scrolled through the prime minister's online announcements for this day.
00:25:06.360
I see he has a childlike post about it being Earth Day today, but not a word about Michael
00:25:20.240
Well, our next guest has quite a few words to say about that.
00:25:23.860
He's been researching the subject and has a lot to say.
00:25:27.920
You know I'm talking about my friend, Manny Montenegrino, a former senior lawyer, former
00:25:33.680
lawyer to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, now the boss of Think Sharp.
00:25:47.300
I know you've been working on this subject for a while.
00:25:50.980
What are your thoughts on this 500th day of the kidnapping of the two Michaels?
00:25:56.140
Ezra, as I keep saying with you, my heart goes out to these two young men daily.
00:26:05.760
They have been forgotten by the prime minister.
00:26:08.640
The prime minister is simply only interested in doing the easiest tasks of all, and he simply
00:26:17.200
I understand that the president of the United States, even in this pandemic, dealt with other
00:26:24.820
Americans that were caught hostages and got them released.
00:26:28.720
This is a perfect time to be helping these two Michaels.
00:26:32.320
We have a pandemic that began in China that was either intentional, gross negligent, or whatever
00:26:40.960
you want that has killed hundreds of Canadians and tens of thousands in the world.
00:26:46.240
This would be an easy time for the prime minister to say, look, those two men should be there.
00:26:58.040
I mean, can you imagine 500 days and not being charged with anything?
00:27:03.220
But the prime minister, I'm sure they're the furthest thing from his mind.
00:27:07.560
He is focused on this pandemic and, in my opinion, managing it terribly.
00:27:12.760
As much as, and I also say that of Ontario, the premiers are managing it not properly.
00:27:19.080
And it all begins with false assumptions at the beginning.
00:27:24.160
You know, it's funny because Justin Trudeau never spared a moment to call for the repatriation
00:27:30.900
to Canada of Omar Khadr, who was tried, convicted, and given a 40-year sentence by a jury in Guantanamo
00:27:38.580
Bay, Justin Trudeau pressed and pressed for him to be brought home to Canada.
00:27:43.520
Even that, even to say to China, we'll put them in a Canadian prison, which, of course,
00:27:47.900
would be outrageous to be released immediately.
00:27:51.280
And part of me thought, Manny, well, maybe Trudeau is trying to play nice because he's
00:27:57.980
Maybe he's trying to acquire, to buy back the masks and personal protective equipment that
00:28:06.080
But we see that Canada sent two cargo jets to China and they returned empty.
00:28:13.240
And the excuse by Trudeau and his cabinet is that, you know, they didn't have enough time
00:28:20.260
Some made-up excuse that I see the Chinese embassy has thrown out.
00:28:23.440
So my point is, it's not like being soft and meek and submissive and appeasement-oriented
00:28:33.580
So China's disrespecting and abusing us anyways.
00:28:42.140
And, you know, as of right now, the pandemic, the COVID pandemic is now occupying every politician's
00:28:50.480
And it seems to me, if you examine it carefully, as I have, and very carefully, that the more
00:28:56.160
the actual evidence comes in, the farther the politicians are away from science and the
00:29:04.840
When we heard about the coronavirus back in January, the early estimation was the mortality
00:29:17.960
If you look at the ordinary mortality rate of the ordinary flus that exist, that kill
00:29:23.620
tens of thousands in the United States and thousands in Canada, a mortality rate of 0.1%.
00:29:29.140
So, of course, governments should be concerned.
00:29:35.760
What our governments did was we took the information from China, which I, of course, I would never
00:29:43.800
accept any data coming from China because they are not forthright.
00:29:55.360
And Ezra, when they say Italy, they don't mean Italy.
00:30:01.980
They mean Bergamo, Lombardy, which is a small city which had a disproportionate amount of
00:30:08.960
Chinese immigrants working in the fashion industry.
00:30:13.760
And there, Bergamo is about the size of Kingston, Ontario, about 125,000, 30,000 people.
00:30:21.480
They have a hospital that maybe with a dozen ICU beds.
00:30:24.840
They were inundated with a bunch of cases in the hundreds, and then you'll see in the
00:30:31.760
thousands, that literally died, not because of the coronavirus, because they were not ready
00:30:40.180
So people were left to die that would otherwise have lived.
00:30:43.380
Well, we in Canada said, well, let's avoid that.
00:30:47.480
And they call it, let's flatten the curve, which makes pretty good sense.
00:30:52.660
We flattened the curve, and we stayed in isolation for two weeks.
00:30:57.620
And the data is in now, and I'm just shocked that they're not listening to the data that's
00:31:05.480
The data back in Italy, in Calabria, where I was born, there are two million people there,
00:31:15.420
It was a surge in a particular town, a particular northern part of Italy.
00:31:19.240
So here we are, Ezra, two weeks after being in isolation in March, we now have data from
00:31:32.060
We bumped up our ICU units from 687 up to 1497.
00:31:39.460
The Ontario Health Commissioner gave a report, and he said only 270 of those ICU units are being
00:31:54.060
The evidence is now that we're never going to experience an Italy situation, northern Italy,
00:31:59.580
Bergamo situation, where you have people walking in and not being medically attended to.
00:32:15.240
We have about 100 ICU units, and only 10 are being used today for the COVID-19 cases.
00:32:26.840
Only 35 beds out of 1,200 plus 1,600 beds in Ottawa are being used for the COVID cases.
00:32:37.540
So today, as I look at the evidence, we were fearful that this virus was going to be a three
00:32:59.020
And we are, in our best case scenario, imaginable.
00:33:08.760
Well, Manny, I don't know if you've seen what we've been doing.
00:33:13.100
I'm now more worried, not just about the economic devastation that the lockdown will have.
00:33:19.020
And I just, just earlier today, I discovered a study from Alberta that for every 1% that
00:33:25.220
the unemployment rate went up, 16 people committed suicide on average.
00:33:31.400
So you extrapolate that for Canada and the amount of unemployment growth we've had over the last
00:33:36.520
month, you're looking at more than 2,000 more suicides that could be expected because
00:33:42.660
of bankruptcies and depression and things like that.
00:33:53.920
I'm worried about, I mean, you mentioned Ottawa.
00:33:55.920
I know they're giving out tickets just for sitting in park benches in Ottawa.
00:34:05.240
And Ezra, let's take it down to where we'd again.
00:34:08.420
The world was alarmed because we thought the mortality rate was 3 to 6 to 8%.
00:34:18.500
And I've cross-examined hundreds of experts knowing that bad data in, you know, garbage in,
00:34:29.760
Today, or a few days ago, the Ottawa public health officer admitted that she believes
00:34:45.380
That is less than 0.1%, which is very equivalent to a flu.
00:34:52.420
And so I'm not as worried as I was at the beginning.
00:34:56.240
We have, so if you look at the totality of it, they're changing the goalposts on Canadians.
00:35:01.380
We started by saying, hey, look, we have to flatten the curve.
00:35:05.560
We can't let people that would otherwise live that couldn't get medical attention die.
00:35:19.920
I'm upset at the New York, Cuomo's government, where they all received expert reports saying,
00:35:26.520
after 2003 SARS, after 2012 MERS, after 2009 H1N1, they all have thick reports.
00:35:35.540
Dr. Tam prepared a report where she said, here's what you must do to prepare.
00:35:40.740
Governments did not prepare because they were unilaterally focused on changing the weather,
00:35:55.520
So they could have been prepared, but they weren't.
00:36:00.900
We will go into two weeks isolation to give the hospitals time.
00:36:10.880
The best evidence of that is the Ontario government is asking nurses to leave the hospital post
00:36:21.560
I mean, when I heard Premier Ford say that, that's an admission that we have excess capacity
00:36:27.460
in our hospitals because they're sending them to old age homes.
00:36:30.900
And so that wasn't the whole reason we did this.
00:36:37.640
So every day I see 10 new videos made by nurses, doctors, orderlies in a hospital somewhere
00:36:51.780
So they're just joking around and having fun on TikTok or whatever.
00:36:56.040
But again, there's a cost to that if someone was going to have a hip replacement, if someone
00:36:59.780
was going to have a cataract surgery, if someone had to have some, you know, anything other
00:37:11.860
You can hold your breath for a couple of minutes.
00:37:13.380
But after that, you know, holding your breath becomes as deadly as what you're trying to avoid.
00:37:22.880
So first of all, I started by saying, you know, what is the real problem?
00:37:27.620
I mean, obviously, everything you do in problem solving, you identify the problem and then
00:37:31.740
you match it with the cost and do a cost benefit analysis.
00:37:37.160
We were afraid that this is a mortality rate of 6%.
00:37:39.700
And if you assume that 10 million Canadians get it, well, that's 600,000.
00:37:44.040
Or in America, that could be 6 million Americans.
00:37:48.540
But as the evidence comes in, there are reports in Los Angeles County of 400,000 people that
00:37:55.880
The mortality rate is closer to the 0.1% than it was anywhere near the 3%.
00:38:01.640
So that should, that new evidence should make politicians say, hey, hey, let's hold on.
00:38:10.640
Now, Ezra, I mean, you know, I'm caring for my 93-year-old father-in-law daily.
00:38:20.160
But I understand by the evidence that's coming in, there was one, and it's hard to get this
00:38:27.820
But the evidence that's coming in is that 82% in Quebec, we saw one, I saw one piece of
00:38:38.460
So these are people at the end of their lives in any event.
00:38:43.780
So the deaths aren't killing young kids as they did with H1N1 or younger people.
00:38:49.740
It's predominantly, and if you look at the statistics in BC and Ontario, it's upwards
00:38:54.720
about 75% are in their last years of lives are completely vulnerable with a lot of pre-existing
00:39:04.100
I have to think about these facts and what do I do to apply it?
00:39:11.220
It's costing, I estimate it, it's costing about $8 billion a day every time we delay this.
00:39:19.280
I'm not talking about, as a lawyer, you know what damages are when someone does something.
00:39:24.860
If someone dies, you sue for the death of the person or you sue for the damage you sustain.
00:39:30.860
The people that are having damages, and there are many close to my family that are anxiety
00:39:37.560
And even as I share the information to them, the facts, they are still very anxious because
00:39:42.860
the media is selling a certain death narrative.
00:39:46.540
But there, you know, we have about 5 million Canadians that suffer from anxiety issues.
00:39:53.940
You know, I watched the Bell Let's Talk moment.
00:39:56.580
I see all the experts talk about how they care about mental health and how it's important
00:40:02.360
and how we have to now give it the same respect as we do give physical health.
00:40:08.660
Well, Ezra, the answer is we don't, we don't, and we don't, and it's an absolute joke because
00:40:13.920
no one is concerned about the mental health of Canadians, what this lockdown is doing to
00:40:18.100
people, whether they're unemployed, whether they're caged, and people are becoming ill and
00:40:24.620
And we're talking damages of at least, if you double that, $8 to $10 billion a day.
00:40:31.600
It's just absurd what our governments are doing.
00:40:35.660
Well, let me turn our eyes south of the border.
00:40:39.320
One of the amazing ingredients in the United States is it really is 50 states that come together.
00:40:47.180
There's a lot of rights that an individual governor has to make decisions, and states fight with
00:40:54.400
the feds all the time, even more than in Canada, and I think the deference is to the states.
00:40:59.180
And my point for saying that is some U.S. states that never had a lot of infections, that,
00:41:05.860
you know, they're coming down the other side of the bell curve, they're deciding to get
00:41:11.060
back to work almost immediately, including big states like Georgia, like Texas, states
00:41:18.340
that are very sparse, that didn't have densely collected people, so they didn't have a lot
00:41:24.520
I guess what I'm saying is in those 50 United States, I estimate that you're going to be
00:41:29.260
almost back to normal in probably five to 10 of them for sure within a week.
00:41:35.380
And I think that's going to create a domino effect that neighboring states will say, hey,
00:41:40.780
if Texas can go back to work, I'm in Oklahoma, why can't I go back to work, or I'll just drive
00:41:46.280
And I think you're going to have pressure, people saying, hey, can I go to work?
00:41:50.520
How come my neighbor 100 miles down the road can't?
00:41:54.080
Do you think there will be that same momentum in Canada, where places like Saskatchewan or
00:42:00.580
Prince Edward Island, that have largely been spared, will say, all right, you boys in Quebec,
00:42:06.620
you want to stay in lockdown, makes sense, but we're ready to get back to work here in
00:42:10.360
Saskatoon or Charlottetown or something like that?
00:42:16.240
It's, you know, what infuriates me, and yes, Ezra, you're absolutely right, and it will happen.
00:42:21.740
What infuriates me is that everyone keeps talking, I will be driven by the science.
00:42:26.900
Well, the science is yelling loud and clear, it's not what you thought it was two months ago.
00:42:35.080
When the Ontario health minister says, we are best case, we're well below our best case scenario.
00:42:43.180
And when you talk about other provinces, I mean, I looked into this, Ezra, four people
00:42:48.280
have died in Saskatchewan, you know, six people in Manitoba, nobody in New Brunswick, nobody
00:42:54.700
in PEI, 61 in Alberta, BC, 87, and I recall BC had a whole bunch, and I don't know the number
00:43:03.040
because I don't know why they don't produce the number, it's science, but I think more
00:43:07.240
than half, maybe even, was in one old age home.
00:43:10.620
So you're talking about minimal deaths of people that would otherwise have, because the
00:43:15.940
biggest killer of the aged people in old age homes, and there's a lot of legal cases
00:43:21.280
on it, is infections and pneumonia and things that they didn't do that was there before
00:43:28.040
So it's the same thing that are killing people in old age home, there just happened to be
00:43:34.480
So, yeah, I mean, when you look at all of Canada, and you sit there and say all these provinces
00:43:40.240
with, and if you strip out the people that were very ill, with strong COVID morbidity
00:43:46.440
illnesses, you might be talking about a few deaths in these provinces, such as Manitoba
00:43:53.560
and Saskatchewan, how do you shut down your whole province for a few deaths when the science
00:44:01.140
And, Ezra, what drives me is not anything but the science.
00:44:07.000
I've been waiting for the science, and I have every science professional telling me it's so
00:44:18.780
You look at, I have a brother that lives in Arizona.
00:44:24.500
And what you have in America is a problem in New York.
00:44:28.680
I have doctor friends who tell me that downtown New York, especially in the poorer sections,
00:44:34.340
the hospital system, hospitals really don't work that well in our active capacity.
00:44:39.440
The deaths are more related to that than it is to COVID, because if you swing across the
00:44:46.080
nation and you go to California, 40 million people, 10 million more than New York, the death
00:44:57.240
So, you know, people have to be driven by the facts, the science, and the numbers.
00:45:01.880
The big problem that we had with the deaths are two factors.
00:45:05.480
One is hospitals were not ready, Bergamo, Italy, and New York.
00:45:13.080
And number two, deaths are happening of people over 80 years old in real frail and dying condition.
00:45:22.940
That tells me that government should not be, Ezra, we're spending $8 billion a day every
00:45:32.760
The big difference between Northern Italy and Germany in the death rate was the number
00:45:40.060
Germany had much less death per capita because they have 38 IC units per 100,000.
00:45:51.060
Well, as we're spending money foolishly, crazily, recklessly by not opening up our economies and
00:45:58.420
dealing with the issues that we've dealt with professionally, we are just adding debt.
00:46:02.980
And I tell you, when my kids are my age, we are going to have a Northern Italy problem.
00:46:10.440
We're not going to have, because this is simply way too much money to be funded in future.
00:46:17.740
Well, Manny, I tell you, it's always good to catch up.
00:46:20.080
And I tell you, you've been obviously going through a lot of research and looking at things.
00:46:24.200
And I'm glad to have the new information about Bergamo, Italy.
00:46:35.440
I do not understand why the government in Canada has not done 10,000 random testing.
00:46:45.700
And certainly, if I had one of these scientists' ability to cross-examine.
00:46:50.040
If we, you know, Ezra, when we do a poll, a political poll, we test 1,000 people and we kind of get the sense where the nation is.
00:46:58.020
Statistically, all you need is about 1,000 people.
00:47:00.940
Bump that up to 10,000 or more and randomly test Canadians.
00:47:05.000
You will find what the Ottawa Health Public Officer said.
00:47:08.720
And that is, and what they say, some experts say, about 10 to 20 percent already infected.
00:47:13.780
And if that's the case, then our mortality rate is less or equal to that of the flu, and we should not be destroying the nation.
00:47:22.200
We should not be destroying people that suffer anxiety.
00:47:25.100
We should not be letting people commit suicide because of lost jobs.
00:47:28.800
We should be worrying about the rest of society because this is, the science is telling me this is not the problem that the politicians are telling me it is.
00:47:38.940
It's great to see you, and we look forward to having you back on soon, my friend.
00:47:43.500
All right, there you have it, Manny Montenegrino.
00:47:46.120
He's the CEO of ThinkSharp, and he joins us today via Skype from Ottawa.
00:48:00.440
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Trump's moratorium on immigration while Canada keeps importing more people.
00:48:06.800
Brandon writes, Canadian citizens should be prioritized over foreign nationals.
00:48:10.860
You know what I heard today is that almost three-quarters of a million foreign students in Canada will be getting huge bailout checks.
00:48:27.540
In the case of the 100,000 or so Chinese foreign students, they're not even real Chinese folks.
00:48:33.600
They're usually the sons and daughters of privilege, of oligarchs, of Communist Party officials.
00:48:37.900
So the privileged elite in China sends their kids to school in Canada, 100,000 of them.
00:48:45.620
And Trudeau's going to give them checks on the expense of Canadian taxpayers?
00:48:59.640
You know, my noontime show today, I saw a statistic that in Alberta, a study showed for every 1% the unemployment rate went up, there were 16 more suicides in the province.
00:49:09.640
So if you extrapolate that nationwide, Alberta's about 10% of the population of Canada, for every percent the unemployment rate goes up, you'll have 150 or 160 suicides nationwide.
00:49:24.240
Well, our unemployment rate has jumped about 15% in the last month or two.
00:49:29.620
Just statistically speaking, the stress, the depression, people who are already on the brink, people losing their jobs,
00:49:37.200
people whose families are cracking up from financial stress, you're going to have more than 2,000 suicides because of the economy.
00:49:45.160
By the way, that's more than the number of people who have died from the virus.
00:49:49.560
Elaine writes, with Justin Trudeau in power, does it really matter what Canadians want?
00:49:56.440
He's got a minority government, but the Bloc Québécois and the NDP and the Green Party, they are with him every step of the way.
00:50:02.300
Okay, so they have approved this, and of course, the media party is cheering him along.
00:50:07.600
There's not a lot of opposition left in Canada, is there?
00:50:12.460
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.