Rebel News Podcast - The annual press freedom rankings are out. See where Canada ranks — and where China does

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about two things, really. First of all, it's Earth Day,

00:00:06.200 it's Vladimir Lenin's birthday, and it's the anniversary, the 500th day anniversary,

00:00:11.860 that China kidnapped two Canadians and has held them hostage ever since.

00:00:15.780 I pivoted from that somehow to talk about the new world rankings of press freedom

00:00:20.480 put up by Reporters Without Borders. I'll tell you where China is, 0.60

00:00:24.100 and where Canada is, and where America is. You'll be surprised.

00:00:26.880 Thanks. Hey, before I stop talking and get to the show, can you please become a premium subscriber?

00:00:34.720 Go to rebelnews.com. It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version of these podcasts.

00:00:39.920 You get access to shows from Sheila Gunn-Reed and David Menzies,

00:00:43.160 and we could use the eight bucks to help pay the bills around here. I appreciate that.

00:00:48.240 Just go to rebelnews.com. Okay, here's the podcast.

00:00:56.880 Tonight, the annual press freedom rankings have been published. I'll tell you where Canada ranks

00:01:10.500 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?

00:01:21.060 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:25.120 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.

00:01:36.000 Hello, my friends. It's April 22nd, which is Vladimir Lenin's birthday.

00:01:39.940 He was truly one of the horrific killers of the 21st century, not as prolific as his eventual successor,

00:01:47.260 Joseph Stalin, or his emulator, Mao Zedong, but he made the template.

00:01:51.560 He laid out the brutal and bloody path, and it is no coincidence that today is also Earth Day,

00:01:57.420 the day that the war against private industry and private property is rephrased as environmentalism.

00:02:03.800 It's like a watermelon, green on the outside but red on the inside.

00:02:07.320 On this Earth Day for the umpteenth year in a row, North Korea takes the prize for lowest carbon footprint. 0.80

00:02:15.180 They're shivering in the dark, as they are every day, frankly.

00:02:20.440 Which brings me to the topic of Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities in the world,

00:02:24.180 not only for the experience of being there, the energy, the excitement, the hustle-bustle,

00:02:29.120 the cosmopolitan feeling of a city with hundreds of thousands of the best and brightest expats

00:02:34.000 from around the world working there, including an estimated 300,000 Canadians, if you can believe it.

00:02:38.700 It's a place with fascinating history and culture of China, but also of the UK,

00:02:45.540 with British civic virtues and the rule of law.

00:02:48.360 I think it's one of the best places in the world.

00:02:50.860 And over the last few years, it's developed a unique identity.

00:02:54.660 As communist China has tried to impose authoritarianism on the city,

00:03:00.420 Hong Kong people have risen up almost in complete unity

00:03:02.940 and redefined themselves as Democrats and freedom lovers.

00:03:06.800 And they're thinking of themselves as Hong Kong people first.

00:03:10.540 It's been amazing to watch.

00:03:11.660 I imagine a city of about 8 million people, pretty much the same as New York.

00:03:16.540 Well, literally 2 million of them physically attended a democracy protest last year.

00:03:21.040 That's amazing.

00:03:22.100 I think they really are the most pro-democracy-interested place in the world,

00:03:26.320 certainly more than here in Canada.

00:03:27.880 I think maybe even more than in America.

00:03:30.180 In fact, the protesters often waved American flags,

00:03:33.460 I think even more heartfelt, if that's possible, than many Americans do.

00:03:38.440 It was quite something, and I'm so proud that we sent two reporters.

00:03:42.180 First, Avi Yamini, and then a follow-up trip with Kian Bexty.

00:03:46.780 My favorite moment, of course, was when Avi met this guy.

00:03:50.380 Donald Trump don't trust China. China is an asshole. 1.00

00:03:53.420 That clip has been seen tens of millions of times in so many different platforms. 1.00

00:03:58.420 Just great stuff.

00:03:59.200 Anyways, 2019 was the year of victory for Hong Kong Democrats over Beijing tyrants.

00:04:04.660 There were city elections late last year that were seen as a proxy battle

00:04:07.720 over so much more than just who would be the local politicians

00:04:10.340 in charge of things like garbage pickup and pet bylaws.

00:04:13.080 It was really a referendum on China itself, 0.94

00:04:14.960 and that municipal vote went overwhelmingly towards the freedom side of things.

00:04:19.160 It was just amazing.

00:04:22.240 Well, 2020 couldn't be more different from 2019, I regret.

00:04:25.860 It's been terrible, I should say.

00:04:28.060 One silver lining is that the world was generally ignored Hong Kong last year.

00:04:32.620 I mean, seriously, I think for a while there,

00:04:34.000 we were the only Canadian journalists who had a camera in Hong Kong.

00:04:36.920 Well, now the whole world has a proper measure of China 0.94

00:04:39.860 and what it's really like as a dictatorship,

00:04:41.820 what it's like towards its own citizens

00:04:43.440 and towards us in the West,

00:04:46.440 who are the real good guys and bad guys over there.

00:04:48.720 I think we've seen it.

00:04:49.520 It's been a painful year,

00:04:50.540 but like 9-11, it was a year of clarifying,

00:04:54.160 a painful wake-up call,

00:04:55.180 but maybe we needed a calamity of that gravity to wake up,

00:04:58.720 wake some people up,

00:05:00.140 to the direness of the problem of China.

00:05:01.800 In the past, I've shown you this international survey by Pew Research,

00:05:07.020 asking people in different countries what they think of China.

00:05:09.320 Now, this chart is over a year out of date now.

00:05:12.400 Canadians have been angry at China for more than a year,

00:05:15.160 ever since China kidnapped and held hostage.

00:05:17.380 Two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,

00:05:19.460 say, did you know that today marks the 500th day of their captivity?

00:05:24.920 500 days longer than Iran held the U.S. hostages.

00:05:28.680 The scandal that was one reason Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election.

00:05:31.420 500 days.

00:05:32.560 And I bet that Justin Trudeau will make a public statement

00:05:35.460 marking Earth Day Lenin's birthday, 0.85

00:05:38.380 but not the hostage situation.

00:05:40.720 It'll be fascinating to see those international opinions and numbers now on China.

00:05:44.900 If Pew Research does their survey again, I hope they do.

00:05:47.920 The Chinese government is in full PR spin mode now around the world.

00:05:50.940 They infected the world because they lied to the world.

00:05:53.640 And now they're selling the world medical gear

00:05:56.100 after hoovering up all the medical gear from the world.

00:05:58.980 Oh, and they're making a big show out of giving foreign aid in the form of medical gear,

00:06:04.260 which often turns out to be faulty, to be useless.

00:06:07.980 Hey, at least they're shipping faulty equipment to Europe at all.

00:06:11.640 They're not even shipping anything to Canada.

00:06:14.940 Did you see this outrageous and unbelievable story yesterday?

00:06:18.360 Canada sent two planes to China to pick up deliveries of medical gear.

00:06:22.380 And according to Trudeau and his henchmen, Chinese authorities sent the planes home empty.

00:06:28.580 I'm not kidding.

00:06:29.700 And get a load of this excuse that liberal cabinet ministers, here's Ahmed Hassan, are using.

00:06:34.800 They sent two planes to get equipment from China and they came home empty handed.

00:06:40.000 Like, how does that happen?

00:06:41.260 How do we send a plane to China and then they say,

00:06:45.320 sorry, that the supplies are gone?

00:06:46.960 Can you explain how that happens?

00:06:48.060 No, it wasn't a question of the supplies being gone, Evan.

00:06:51.600 The prime minister addressed this question in his press conference and he indicated that the problem is that,

00:06:58.640 you know, China has strict requirements on how long planes can be on the ground in the airport.

00:07:06.860 So after a short period of time, our planes had to take off

00:07:10.360 because the supplies were taking a long time to get to the airport.

00:07:13.540 But we will continue to follow up on those orders.

00:07:16.340 We are continuing to deliver orders to provinces.

00:07:20.720 Yeah.

00:07:21.620 You think that's really what happened?

00:07:23.180 Our plane was parked in a loading zone, didn't put enough quarters in the parking meter.

00:07:27.940 So they only had 15 minutes before they had to move or they'd get a ticket or something.

00:07:32.560 Yeah.

00:07:33.400 So apparently we had to leave without medical gear, but it's all good.

00:07:37.540 Yeah, no problem.

00:07:38.620 We just sent a cargo jet 14 hours to China to be told to turn around and fly home 14 hours empty.

00:07:43.960 And apparently that happened twice.

00:07:45.920 And yeah, it's cool.

00:07:46.760 No biggie.

00:07:47.740 Do you actually believe that excuse that there was an issue with how long the plane was parked?

00:07:52.260 Do you believe that?

00:07:53.260 Yeah, no, me neither.

00:07:54.880 But then again, these are the liberals who think that their nickname, Little Potato,

00:07:58.740 is a deep compliment from China.

00:08:00.780 They really like us, guys.

00:08:01.940 We're quite proud.

00:08:03.580 The prime minister has been given a fond nickname in China.

00:08:08.100 Which is?

00:08:08.380 He is called Pudou, which I believe means potato.

00:08:12.980 And he is, I can't say the Chinese word, it's Yan Pudou, Little Potato, because his father,

00:08:19.100 Pierre Elliott, Pudou, was senior potato.

00:08:23.040 So we feel we are off to a great start.

00:08:26.400 So yeah, I'd like to see those Pew numbers again on world opinion about China.

00:08:30.620 And for Africans to have a say too, you know, China has pretty much colonized Africa. 0.80

00:08:36.220 And believe it or not, China, the land of cheap labor, it brings in cheap labor itself now 0.99

00:08:41.220 from Africa to China.

00:08:43.780 But now the official Chinese line is that the Wuhan virus was caused by Africans.

00:08:47.880 It's an African thing. 0.90

00:08:49.220 They're to blame. 0.98

00:08:50.060 So anyone black is being kicked out of apartments in China, banned from restaurants and malls, 0.97

00:08:54.940 even rounded up on the streets by police. 0.80

00:08:56.820 Take a look at this.

00:08:58.340 If you come from Africa country, you can't go in our building. 1.00

00:09:04.420 Why?

00:09:05.420 Because I live in China for 20 years and I have already got my trust and everything.

00:09:10.300 Why can't I stay in China 20 years without you?

00:09:13.940 Or take a look at this.

00:09:20.060 Why are most people...

00:09:22.060 Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

00:09:23.060 Why are you...

00:09:24.060 Only us?

00:09:26.660 Only us.

00:09:27.300 So we're just in the building.

00:09:30.800 You're not allowed to go in?

00:09:31.580 Yeah, you're not allowed to go in.

00:09:33.340 Well, I can go in.

00:09:35.000 You can?

00:09:35.480 Yeah, yeah.

00:09:35.900 Excuse me.

00:09:37.660 I can go in.

00:09:38.480 They cannot.

00:09:39.860 Come on.

00:09:41.980 They can.

00:09:44.160 Right?

00:09:44.720 You can be okay.

00:09:46.240 Okay.

00:09:46.980 Oh, my God.

00:09:48.100 This is a beautiful picture.

00:09:48.920 Really?

00:09:49.200 I'm sorry.

00:09:49.980 I cannot help you.

00:09:51.160 Really?

00:09:51.840 Oh, my God.

00:09:53.240 Yeah, I'm thinking Africa doesn't like the new apartheid.

00:09:56.740 Here's a Chinese factory in Nigeria, apparently burned to the ground in retaliation by Nigerians

00:10:03.180 against China.

00:10:03.980 I mean, I hate to say it.

00:10:05.300 Communist China can be just as bigoted as South Africa.

00:10:08.440 Check out this popular Chinese TV ad.

00:10:10.320 No, no, no, no.

00:10:40.320 Hey, I wonder if all those NBA basketball players who were making pro-China comments last year

00:10:59.920 during the Hong Kong protests to appease their business interests in China, to keep their

00:11:04.760 endorsements for brands in China. 0.80

00:11:07.300 I wonder what they think of all this anti-black racism.

00:11:10.200 I wonder if they themselves would be allowed back in China despite their skin color. 0.69

00:11:15.440 Yeah, I think the NBA made a really bad bet on a really bad country.

00:11:19.900 But then again, so did every tech company, every industrial manufacturer, Hollywood.

00:11:27.340 Anyone who looked at China and saw only 1.5 billion customers, not 1.4 billion prisoners.

00:11:34.420 So forgive me all this throat clearing.

00:11:36.720 It's just a long way of saying it's been an awful year, 2020.

00:11:40.080 But it's been a revealing year.

00:11:42.580 Today is an awful day, the 500th day of captivity for the two Michaels. 0.94

00:11:46.220 But let me tell you something I saw as I scanned my favorite alternative news sources about China.

00:11:51.640 I mean, you obviously can't trust a word that Chinese official media say, although I read

00:11:55.320 a lot of Chinese official media because I think I can work backwards to see what they're

00:11:59.220 trying to accomplish with their spin.

00:12:01.020 And here's a tweet boasting about their naval exercises, a rebuke to the United States that

00:12:05.420 recently had a virus outbreak on an aircraft carrier.

00:12:07.600 And it's a threat to Taiwan and other democracies.

00:12:10.340 As Gordon Chang told us yesterday, China's getting more aggressive, not less aggressive.

00:12:15.240 And look at this, by way of example.

00:12:18.400 I showed you all the peaceful democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.

00:12:21.580 Very peaceful, culminating in democratic wins in local elections.

00:12:26.160 Yeah, so what?

00:12:26.960 As Stalin said, how many tank divisions does the Pope have?

00:12:29.920 So, you know, you can vote.

00:12:32.400 So what?

00:12:33.080 As Mao said, power comes out of the barrel of a gun.

00:12:36.420 So Chinese police just plain old arrested en masse the democracy leaders last week,

00:12:40.620 including very senior pro-democracy politicians.

00:12:43.220 And the West barely noticed.

00:12:44.940 So focused are we on the Chinese virus.

00:12:47.020 And even Hong Kong people, well, what luck for China that two million Hong Kong people 0.98

00:12:51.580 can't jam the streets in protest anymore because of that same Chinese virus. 1.00

00:12:55.860 Funny how it works out that way.

00:12:56.900 So I saw this just in China seeks new world media order, says Watchdog, as Hong Kong plunges

00:13:05.440 to 80th in press freedom index.

00:13:07.700 And I believe it.

00:13:08.800 Hong Kong has a rollicking free press, but it is very much under attack.

00:13:13.180 Communist thugs literally broke in and damaged the printing presses of democracy-oriented

00:13:18.140 newspapers, trashed the place that they are going after the Epoch Times.

00:13:21.860 They've arrested people, as we've just mentioned.

00:13:24.820 Here, I'll click on the study they refer to, though.

00:13:29.400 China seeks new world media order, says Watchdog, as Hong Kong plunges to 80th in press freedom.

00:13:34.860 I'm going to read a bit.

00:13:35.520 This is from the Hong Kong Free Press.

00:13:37.820 Hong Kong has plunged seven places in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, quote, because of

00:13:42.760 its treatment of journalists during pro-democracy demonstrations.

00:13:45.200 Reporters Without Borders, RSF says.

00:13:48.460 China, meanwhile, was ranked 177th as it sought a new world media order, according to the

00:13:53.620 French journalism watchdog.

00:13:55.900 Hong Kong was ranked 73rd in 2019.

00:13:59.400 Its new ranking marks a significant drop from 18th, where the city stood when the index was

00:14:04.900 created in 2002.

00:14:06.040 The Press Freedom Rating is released annually to highlight the media freedom situation in

00:14:11.460 180 countries and regions and measures pluralism, the independence of the media, quality of legislative

00:14:16.500 frameworks, and the safety of journalists, unquote.

00:14:18.700 Now, far be it from me to object, but I know for a fact that our very scrappy reporters, Avi Amini

00:14:24.120 and Kim Bextie, were unbothered by police as they covered the protests. 0.73

00:14:27.680 It's just a fact.

00:14:28.820 They weren't bothered at all.

00:14:29.700 And I don't want to be dramatic, but on any given day here in Canada, our reporter David

00:14:34.860 Menzies is hassled more by police than Kean and Avi were in Hong Kong, including when David

00:14:40.260 was thrown to the ground for peacefully asking some polite questions of Don Cherry's Judas,

00:14:45.600 a man named Ron McClain.

00:14:46.880 So I don't want to take anything away from what has happened in Hong Kong in the last six

00:14:50.400 months.

00:14:50.720 China itself has zero press freedom, and if they could, they'd have it that way in Hong Kong 0.57

00:14:54.340 itself.

00:14:55.160 And maybe things have gotten much worse since Avi and Kean were there a few months ago.

00:14:59.700 And the arrests suggest they might, but I think there might be a little bit of drama

00:15:03.880 in this Reporters Without Borders report on purpose, and that's okay.

00:15:09.060 So here's the Reporters Without Borders rankings for Hong Kong.

00:15:12.340 I'm going to read a big chunk.

00:15:13.280 This is actually now from that think tank that was quoted in the Hong Kong Free Press.

00:15:17.380 So this is Reporters Without Borders.

00:15:18.680 They say, Hong Kong saw many cases of violence against the media, mainly by the police and pro-Beijing

00:15:24.860 criminal gangs, during the pro-democracy demonstrations in the summer and autumn of 2019.

00:15:29.700 The territory is supposed to enjoy separate status as a special administrative region of

00:15:33.920 the People's Republic of China until 2047, but press freedom is already in retreat as

00:15:38.300 a result of pressure from Beijing.

00:15:40.080 The most notable recent incident was the expulsion of Financial Times Asia editor Victor Mallet

00:15:44.640 in October 2018.

00:15:46.640 As vice president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, Mallet had chaired an event

00:15:50.860 that wasn't to Beijing's liking.

00:15:52.460 The Chinese Communist Party liaison office in Hong Kong controls, partly or entirely, several

00:15:58.140 media outlets in the territory, including two daily newspapers, Tao Kung Pao and Wen Wei

00:16:03.380 Po.

00:16:04.620 Nonetheless, there is resistance.

00:16:06.180 It is being led by a handful of independent online media, such as Stand News, Citizen News,

00:16:10.680 the Initium, Hong Kong Free Press, and In Media.

00:16:14.100 Okay, so it's getting bad, and there was real violence.

00:16:17.120 There was an expulsion of a foreign journalist.

00:16:18.900 First, I'm frankly not sure if Avi or Kim would be allowed back in Hong Kong today.

00:16:22.960 I don't know.

00:16:23.860 But there still is a free press there.

00:16:26.340 And along the bottom of that page on Reporters with Borders, you can see there'd be no journalist

00:16:30.780 killed in Hong Kong.

00:16:32.640 Believe it or not, that's a measure they use.

00:16:34.580 It suggests that they need that measure in some countries.

00:16:36.700 To be honest, I think this report is more a warning of what is to come rather than what

00:16:41.280 is happening right now.

00:16:42.120 I just don't believe that it's worse to be a journalist in Hong Kong than many of the

00:16:46.280 79 countries they put higher than Hong Kong on the rankings.

00:16:50.320 I mean, East Timor, Malawi, just to pick a couple.

00:16:53.540 I just don't believe that Japan is at number 66 that low.

00:16:58.500 Japan is great.

00:16:59.260 It's free.

00:16:59.580 It's liberal.

00:16:59.940 It's safe.

00:17:00.360 Let me just tell you what they wrote about Japan.

00:17:02.020 Not connected to Hong Kong.

00:17:03.260 Let me just show you.

00:17:03.760 They say, the world's third biggest economic power, Japan, is a parliamentary monarchy that,

00:17:09.620 in general, respects the principles of media pluralism.

00:17:12.340 But journalists find it hard put to fully play their role as democracy's watchdog because

00:17:18.020 of the influence of tradition and business interests.

00:17:21.580 Journalists have been complaining of a climate of mistrust towards them ever since Shinzo Abe

00:17:25.540 became prime minister again in 2012.

00:17:27.520 Yeah, sorry, that's got nothing to do with press freedom.

00:17:30.080 Don't tell me they're at number 66 in the world.

00:17:31.740 It's Japan.

00:17:32.200 It's free.

00:17:32.580 I mean, people don't trust journalists.

00:17:34.980 That's nothing to do with press freedom.

00:17:37.700 And the United States of America, with its amazing First Amendment, ranked 45.

00:17:42.980 I'm sorry, I don't believe it.

00:17:44.040 Let me read some about America.

00:17:46.400 Press freedom in the United States continued to suffer during President Donald Trump's third

00:17:50.340 year in office.

00:17:51.400 Arrests, physical assaults, public denigration, and the harassment of journalists continued in

00:17:55.640 2019, though the numbers of journalists arrested and assaulted were slightly lower than the

00:18:00.000 year prior.

00:18:00.460 Much of that ire has come from President Trump and his associates in the federal government

00:18:05.540 who have demonstrated the United States is no longer a champion of press freedom at home

00:18:09.500 or abroad.

00:18:10.120 This dangerous anti-press sentiment has trickled down to local government institutions and the

00:18:15.080 American public.

00:18:15.620 In March 2019, a leaked document revealed the U.S. government was using a secret database tracking

00:18:20.900 journalists, activists, and others whose border authorities believed should be stopped for

00:18:25.060 questioning when crossing certain checkpoints along the U.S.-Mexico border.

00:18:28.260 Is that all you got?

00:18:30.980 Trump was denigrating some journalists on this Mexico thing.

00:18:33.100 I looked up that border story, and it's true, some journalists were pulled aside and asked

00:18:37.580 some secondary questions before being allowed to go right through the border.

00:18:41.860 I don't know, maybe I should be more concerned about that, but that happens to me, I'd say,

00:18:45.540 once a month when I used to travel.

00:18:48.080 I mean, you get pulled aside for some questions.

00:18:50.040 Sometimes I don't understand the reasons, but after 10 wasted minutes, I'm on my way.

00:18:54.300 I'm sorry.

00:18:55.160 That and Donald Trump sparring with Jim Acosta from CNN day after day, that doesn't make America

00:18:59.680 a bad place for freedom of the press.

00:19:01.660 This is very partisan.

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.

00:19:13.360 He's loving it, and when the White House took away his privilege to attend for one day,

00:19:17.500 he sued and was immediately let back in.

00:19:19.440 Trump chooses Acosta and other liberal haters almost every day because he likes to spar.

00:19:25.800 I'm sorry, that doesn't make America a hater of free speech.

00:19:29.280 This is a political survey.

00:19:31.860 You know, compare Trump loving to spar with reporters to, say, me and Rebel News.

00:19:37.540 Kian Bexty, David Menzies are reporters who are routinely denied access to Trudeau's briefings.

00:19:41.920 We're denied access to his briefings every single day right now.

00:19:46.380 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.

00:19:56.340 And yet Canada is ranked 16th on the press freedom list.

00:20:00.020 Here, let me read their excuse.

00:20:02.960 Canada illustrated its growing commitment to international press protections this year

00:20:07.060 when it launched, alongside the United Kingdom, the Media Freedom Coalition in July 2019,

00:20:12.900 creating an international alliance between nations that pledged to champion and defend press freedom.

00:20:17.980 Oh my God, I know that conference.

00:20:19.580 I was there.

00:20:20.160 I was there with Sheila Gunn-Reed.

00:20:21.180 That was the one where literally at the conference called press freedom, media freedom,

00:20:25.660 Chrystia Freeland, our deputy prime minister, then the foreign minister,

00:20:29.480 tried to ban our reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, at a press freedom conference.

00:20:33.520 Remember this?

00:20:33.980 Okay, so, um, Glover Mail, um, Global, um, CTV, Al Jazeera, CDC, and the national conference

00:20:44.240 meeting, please.

00:20:45.320 And the other.

00:20:45.760 What about the rest?

00:20:46.400 The rest of us?

00:20:47.380 The rest of us have to stay back.

00:20:48.620 No, I think we all go.

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.

00:20:55.680 No, we're not going for it.

00:20:56.560 We're just not.

00:20:57.180 We're all going.

00:20:57.640 This is a media freedom conference. 0.98

00:20:59.000 Yeah, this is ridiculous. 0.75

00:21:00.100 We just don't do that.

00:21:00.580 Yeah, we're not going then.

00:21:01.600 So, that fake Potemkin conference on free press is why Canada's doing so great, because

00:21:07.300 they gave money to a conference?

00:21:09.540 That's like that Joni Mitchell song.

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.

00:21:17.920 But they couldn't even keep up that pretense for the duration about the conference itself

00:21:21.460 before kicking Sheila out. 1.00

00:21:22.500 No mention of the corrosive effects of Trudeau bailing out 99% of the newspapers and thus

00:21:27.760 controlling them with money.

00:21:28.880 No mention of Stephen Gilbeau's plan to license websites.

00:21:32.840 What we are saying is that we will not ask news organizations to have license.

00:21:43.940 And I refer people to the report, which does make an independent panel that makes a recommendation

00:21:50.800 that on the issue of discoverability, media organization would need to have a license.

00:21:57.300 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

00:22:05.920 necessarily of news agencies.

00:22:08.100 And maybe the confusion comes from there.

00:22:09.960 Thank you very much.

00:22:10.860 And no mention of Dominique LeBond's brainwave to make it illegal to have the wrong opinions

00:22:16.400 about the virus.

00:22:18.000 That's what China did. 0.92

00:22:19.380 And China is ranked 177 out of 180.

00:22:22.980 Now I agree with that.

00:22:23.940 North Korea is last, by the way. 0.99

00:22:25.320 I agree with that.

00:22:27.280 But look, it's hardwired right into the mandate letter that Trudeau sent Gilbeau, the heritage

00:22:31.940 minister.

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.

00:22:41.740 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.

00:22:52.720 And they're standing up for Hong Kong.

00:22:54.400 Again, I'm very glad.

00:22:55.940 But when they say that Trump's insults to lippy CNN reporters is a reason why America isn't

00:23:00.980 free, they lose credibility.

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.

00:23:22.920 China doesn't care. 1.00

00:23:24.000 I mean, these are the people who mowed down thousands of democracy protesters with tanks

00:23:28.340 at Tiananmen Square, and they don't care.

00:23:30.260 They just pretend it never even happened.

00:23:31.700 But this kind of report by Reporters Without Borders is actually the kind of thing that

00:23:36.300 Trudeau and Christy Freeland care about.

00:23:38.480 They love to go to international cocktail parties and jet around to places like Davos

00:23:43.540 and the UN.

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

00:24:06.260 up for Hong Kong.

00:24:07.680 I don't even mind the hyperbole.

00:24:09.500 We need all the help we can get.

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

00:24:24.540 bans?

00:24:27.200 Neither are good for the country, and Reporters Without Borders should say so and stop whitewashing

00:24:32.960 Trudeau's authoritarian mean streak.

00:24:37.180 Stay with us for more.

00:24:38.080 Welcome back.

00:24:50.800 Well, as I said in my monologue, today is the 500th day that two Canadian hostages have been

00:24:58.340 held by the government of China.

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

00:25:14.680 Kovrig and Michael Spavor kidnapped by China.

00:25:18.380 Not a word about that.

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.

00:25:26.760 Let's get straight to it.

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.

00:25:38.040 He joins us via Skype from Ottawa.

00:25:39.760 Manny, great to see you again.

00:25:42.240 Thank you, Ezra.

00:25:43.120 Nice to be with you, as always.

00:25:44.840 Well, you're a fan favorite.

00:25:46.160 You go deep into things.

00:25:47.300 I know you've been working on this subject for a while.

00:25:49.640 Let me just let you get straight to it.

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

00:26:15.400 completely forgets.

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 0.99

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.

00:26:51.600 Those Canadians, send them home. 1.00

00:26:53.720 This is not the time.

00:26:55.300 They haven't even been charged with anything.

00:26:58.040 I mean, can you imagine 500 days and not being charged with anything?

00:27:01.200 So it's a perfect time to do it.

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, 1.00

00:27:47.900 would be outrageous to be released immediately.

00:27:49.900 But he hasn't.

00:27:51.280 And part of me thought, Manny, well, maybe Trudeau is trying to play nice because he's

00:27:55.880 got some sensitive negotiations with China.

00:27:57.980 Maybe he's trying to acquire, to buy back the masks and personal protective equipment that

00:28:04.540 he shipped to China in February.

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

00:28:18.900 that they could park at the airport.

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

00:28:29.960 is getting Canada anything from China.

00:28:33.580 So China's disrespecting and abusing us anyways. 1.00

00:28:38.180 Why not at least speak truth to power?

00:28:41.020 Well, absolutely.

00:28:42.140 And, you know, as of right now, the pandemic, the COVID pandemic is now occupying every politician's

00:28:50.120 mind.

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

00:29:02.040 truth of the matter.

00:29:03.100 And let me start from the beginning.

00:29:04.840 When we heard about the coronavirus back in January, the early estimation was the mortality

00:29:13.240 rate was about 8%, 6%, 3%.

00:29:16.200 That is significant.

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.

00:29:33.200 But that was bad information, Ezra.

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.

00:29:49.840 And China's mortality rate was around 8%.

00:29:52.280 That would alarm you.

00:29:53.840 Then they went to Italy.

00:29:55.360 And Ezra, when they say Italy, they don't mean Italy.

00:29:59.460 Italy is a big country.

00:30:00.580 I was born in Calabria.

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

00:30:37.700 for the surge of cases.

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.

00:30:51.580 So off we did.

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

00:31:04.900 there.

00:31:05.480 The data back in Italy, in Calabria, where I was born, there are two million people there,

00:31:10.900 and they have only 76 deaths.

00:31:13.240 This is not an Italy problem.

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

00:31:27.140 Ontario and Ottawa.

00:31:29.800 And let me give you the Ontario numbers.

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

00:31:46.840 used.

00:31:47.320 I mean, we're well below the surge capacity.

00:31:52.100 So we flattened the curve.

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.

00:32:05.280 That is not going to happen in Ottawa.

00:32:07.960 That's not going to happen in Ontario.

00:32:10.120 It's certainly we have enough units.

00:32:11.320 I even drilled down to my city of Ottawa.

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

00:32:44.760 or five or six or seven percent killer.

00:32:47.180 We were fearful of the surge.

00:32:49.500 And so we did everything we can.

00:32:52.480 We slammed the curve, I'll use.

00:32:56.840 We didn't flatten the curve.

00:32:57.840 We slammed the curve.

00:32:59.020 And we are, in our best case scenario, imaginable.

00:33:02.440 And we're still extending this till mid-May.

00:33:06.220 It's just, it is ludicrous.

00:33:08.640 Yeah.

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.

00:33:45.780 So the economic cost is huge.

00:33:49.420 The social costs of the recession are huge.

00:33:52.160 And I'm worried about the civil liberties.

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.

00:33:59.100 Yeah, no, it's absolute madness.

00:34:02.060 Sorry, go ahead.

00:34:03.220 I didn't, yeah, no, absolute madness.

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%.

00:34:13.360 I would be alarmed too.

00:34:14.760 I was very alarmed.

00:34:16.160 But I knew that the data was wrong.

00:34:18.500 And I've cross-examined hundreds of experts knowing that bad data in, you know, garbage in,

00:34:24.080 garbage out.

00:34:24.940 And I knew I was a little suspicious. 0.99

00:34:27.700 So I went into it.

00:34:29.760 Today, or a few days ago, the Ottawa public health officer admitted that she believes

00:34:36.660 that 11 to 33,000 Ottowans are infected.

00:34:42.720 We have a mortality of 25 people.

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.

00:35:11.300 That makes sense.

00:35:12.760 Now, hold on, Ezra.

00:35:13.960 I'm very upset at my governments.

00:35:16.660 I'm upset at the Ontario government.

00:35:18.360 I'm upset at the Canadian government.

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,

00:35:46.640 unilaterally focused on global warming.

00:35:50.240 That's all we heard in the last election.

00:35:52.260 The word health care didn't even come up.

00:35:55.520 So they could have been prepared, but they weren't.

00:35:58.680 And I say, OK, that's fine.

00:36:00.200 You're not prepared.

00:36:00.900 We will go into two weeks isolation to give the hospitals time.

00:36:07.780 The hospitals are virtually half empty.

00:36:10.880 The best evidence of that is the Ontario government is asking nurses to leave the hospital post

00:36:17.200 and help in the old age homes.

00:36:19.480 Where are these nurses coming from? 1.00

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.

00:36:34.700 Well, Manny and I, I love the social media.

00:36:37.640 So every day I see 10 new videos made by nurses, doctors, orderlies in a hospital somewhere

00:36:44.160 doing some karaoke performance.

00:36:46.800 And I'm not mad at them.

00:36:48.280 They're bored.

00:36:49.040 They have nothing to do.

00:36:50.180 The hospitals are empty.

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

00:37:04.800 than an emergent surgery is being postponed.

00:37:07.280 There's a cost to maintaining this emergency.

00:37:10.520 It's like holding your breath.

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.

00:37:19.140 Yeah, no, exactly.

00:37:20.140 Ezra, on your point of what does it cost?

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.

00:37:34.620 At the beginning, clearly, we were afraid.

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.

00:37:46.900 That's a huge number you worry about.

00:37:48.540 But as the evidence comes in, there are reports in Los Angeles County of 400,000 people that

00:37:54.720 have it and they don't.

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.

00:38:06.260 Let's look at this.

00:38:07.220 It's not as bad as we thought.

00:38:09.020 Second of all, who's it killing?

00:38:10.640 Now, Ezra, I mean, you know, I'm caring for my 93-year-old father-in-law daily.

00:38:17.400 I understand and we're taking care of him.

00:38:20.160 But I understand by the evidence that's coming in, there was one, and it's hard to get this

00:38:25.780 evidence.

00:38:26.180 They're hiding it from you, Ezra.

00:38:27.820 But the evidence that's coming in is that 82% in Quebec, we saw one, I saw one piece of 0.98

00:38:35.100 data, 82% were in old age homes.

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

00:39:01.380 conditions.

00:39:02.100 That makes me think, well, wait a minute.

00:39:04.100 I have to think about these facts and what do I do to apply it?

00:39:08.540 And here's what we're doing, Ezra.

00:39:09.780 And you made a great point.

00:39:11.220 It's costing, I estimate it, it's costing about $8 billion a day every time we delay this.

00:39:17.840 And that's hard costs.

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

00:39:36.840 driven.

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

00:40:23.100 becoming hurt.

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.

00:40:34.660 Yeah, I believe it.

00:40:35.660 Well, let me turn our eyes south of the border.

00:40:37.700 You mentioned New York.

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

00:41:23.720 of sharing.

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

00:41:45.620 across the border.

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?

00:42:14.740 Yeah, I mean, it has to happen.

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.

00:42:33.740 It's a lot better.

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

00:43:27.220 COVID.

00:43:28.040 So it's the same thing that are killing people in old age home, there just happened to be

00:43:32.920 a different name to it.

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

00:44:00.200 is clear?

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

00:44:15.380 much better than it was.

00:44:16.940 And the same is true in America. 0.73

00:44:18.780 You look at, I have a brother that lives in Arizona.

00:44:21.180 They have very few mortalities there.

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

00:44:52.320 rate there is less than Canada.

00:44:55.220 And we have 37 million people.

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.

00:45:11.540 Those are the two prime examples.

00:45:13.080 And number two, deaths are happening of people over 80 years old in real frail and dying condition.

00:45:21.140 That's the vast majority.

00:45:22.940 That tells me that government should not be, Ezra, we're spending $8 billion a day every

00:45:29.860 day that we wait.

00:45:30.680 And I'm going to tell you something.

00:45:32.760 The big difference between Northern Italy and Germany in the death rate was the number

00:45:38.720 of IC units.

00:45:40.060 Germany had much less death per capita because they have 38 IC units per 100,000.

00:45:47.880 Northern Italy had six or eight, I believe.

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.

00:46:07.500 We are not going to have the ICUs.

00:46:09.080 We're not going to have the health care.

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.

00:46:29.500 I knew some of that, but not all of that.

00:46:31.440 And I appreciate you bringing us that info.

00:46:33.420 Yeah.

00:46:33.740 One more point there, Ezra.

00:46:35.440 I do not understand why the government in Canada has not done 10,000 random testing.

00:46:43.620 And this is science.

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. 0.94

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.

00:47:37.260 Well, Manny, so much to think about.

00:47:38.940 It's great to see you, and we look forward to having you back on soon, my friend.

00:47:42.100 No problem.

00:47:42.720 Thank you, Ezra.

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.

00:47:50.700 Stay with us.

00:47:51.380 More ahead on The Rebel.

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.

00:48:22.680 They're not workers.

00:48:24.140 They're not Canadians. 1.00

00:48:25.000 They're here to go to school here.

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.

00:48:44.780 They're not working.

00:48:45.620 And Trudeau's going to give them checks on the expense of Canadian taxpayers?

00:48:52.080 What is wrong with him?

00:48:54.380 Darcy writes, we have mass unemployment.

00:48:56.640 Bringing in more people will make it worse.

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?

00:49:54.800 Well, the thing is, he's not really in power.

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?

00:50:10.700 All right, that's our show for today.

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.

00:50:18.320 Thank you.

00:50:32.300 Thank you.

00:50:32.940 Thank you.

00:50:33.280 Thank you.

00:50:36.020 Thank you.

00:50:40.220 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - April 23, 2020

The annual press freedom rankings are out. See where Canada ranks — and where China does

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