Trudeau had the government take over the political leaders' debates. And surprise — he decided to kick out Maxime Bernier
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Summary
Maxime Bernier has been kicked out of the upcoming Canadian political leaders debates. Should he be banned? Should the government have the power to ban him? Or should the debate hosts and other parties have a say in who gets to debate against the prime minister and vice-prime minister in the upcoming debates?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, my rebels. Today's show is about Maxime Bernier, and should he be banned from the upcoming leaders' debates?
00:00:07.700
Well, the answer is, of course not. No one should be banned.
00:00:10.420
It should be up to individual debate hosts and other parties, and, you know, let there be a dozen or a hundred leaders' debates, or none, if no one wants them.
00:00:20.080
But to have the government decide that, that's where it gets creepy.
00:00:23.940
That's where it gets banana republically. I'll talk about that today.
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00:00:46.920
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00:00:52.660
Tonight, Justin Trudeau had the government take over the political leaders' debates, and, surprise, he decided to kick out Maxime Bernier.
00:01:05.660
It's August 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:01:08.280
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.
00:01:24.060
Who should run the debates between the party leaders in the federal election?
00:01:38.700
In fact, pretty much the only wrong answer is the government.
00:01:43.060
If it helps, think about your local community voting for an alderman or a school trustee or a local politician of any sort.
00:01:53.180
Well, it sounds very ominous and dramatic, but really it's just, you know, your local Rotary Club, a local church, a local school.
00:01:59.460
It's just people who care about the election, who want to hear from all sides.
00:02:02.720
Or maybe they don't want to hear from all sides.
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Maybe you have debates on a certain theme, a certain issue.
00:02:10.360
Sometimes you have elections for a mayor, for example, and you can literally have, sometimes, 30 people on the ballot for mayor in some of the big cities.
00:02:21.880
Now, a local neighborhood group shouldn't be forced to have all 30 of them if there's only a handful of real candidates who have a chance of winning.
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Let candidates choose which debates they want to go to.
00:02:38.920
Well, if there's a disagreement, let the public know.
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If some people are excluded, let the public know.
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I just think the last people who ought to control all this are the government, since it's the government that hangs in the balance here.
00:02:57.140
So you shouldn't let the incumbents make the decision.
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You don't want a mayor choosing who gets to debate against him for mayor, right?
00:03:06.880
Well, surely that applies to the national level, too.
00:03:10.100
Surely a mayor shouldn't be able to silence his toughest challenger.
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That should apply for prime minister, too, even more so.
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And we've talked about this before, how the liberal government just decided one day, just to take over the debates, they just did it.
00:03:23.840
And the bailout media, they just rolled over, they just did, because they're all being rented by Trudeau now, either permanently, like the CBC, or temporarily, as with the $600 million newspaper bailout.
00:03:38.400
I showed you this press release, this outrageous press release, the other day, where the liberals just said, hey, we're appointing our hand-picked people to run these debates, but we're not even trusting them to make the key decisions.
00:03:52.480
In the interest of time, and as a starting point for the upcoming 2019 debates, the government has established clear criteria for participation by political party leaders.
00:04:02.560
And then they outline their liberal rules there.
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Now, this press release was dated October of 2018.
00:04:10.560
Do you really think that there was no time for a debate committee to come up for rules for a debate for an election that was 12 months in the future?
00:04:18.600
The rules can be hammered out in a week, in a day, if needed.
00:04:23.240
It was about the interest of the liberal party.
00:04:26.900
The liberals did it, and then they just announced it.
00:04:29.180
They just nationalized the debates, and they wrote the rules, and so they're deciding which of their opponents they want there.
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Now, they couldn't really avoid Andrew Scheer or Jagmeet Singh.
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That would just be too high-handed to kick them out.
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And obviously, it's irrelevant in English Canada.
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They're not even running outside Quebec, so should they be in the debates?
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What about Maxime Bernier and his People's Party?
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Like I said before, those would be up to the media and debate hosts and even other parties before.
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Some party might say, I'm not participating unless, as Elizabeth May is in.
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Some party might say, I'm not participating if Elizabeth May is in.
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A few elections back, when Elizabeth May, who was in the single digits in the polls, had no chance of being PM,
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She was really just a one-person pundit, but the media really liked her, so they campaigned to get her in the debates.
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And the conservatives made the political decision to agree.
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They didn't want to seem intransigent or censorious, so they agreed.
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In the end, it wasn't up to the conservatives themselves.
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They didn't have the power to just say yes or no.
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They could have pouted and not participated, but that probably would have looked bad.
00:05:49.700
Now the liberals can just sort of make these strategic decisions about who they want and who they don't want.
00:06:00.420
Last year, here's Trudeau's spokesman, an MP named Karina Gould, and she said,
00:06:05.080
Bernier can join leaders' debates if People's Party meets nomination threshold.
00:06:12.480
Maxime Bernier would be eligible to appear in the 2019 leaders' debates if his upstart People's Party successfully nominates candidates in at least 90% of the ridings,
00:06:20.480
Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said Thursday.
00:06:24.880
By the way, Bernier has a lot more candidates nominated right now than the Liberal Party does.
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I don't know if you know this, but the liberals have dozens of unfilled seats, no candidates, just none.
00:06:36.320
So much for local democracy, which he loves to, or used to love to brag about.
00:06:39.920
But my point is, Bernier surely exceeds the liberals in nominations, but he's being excluded.
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And unlike last time, when there was public pressure brought to bear on the debate organizers and the other parties,
00:07:03.800
Karina Gould looks friendly enough as a person, but she's actually a bit of a thug.
00:07:12.160
Remember, she's the one that Trudeau appointed to censor the Internet.
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She's the one who set up that five-man Internet emergency censorship panel that the chief clerk of the Privy Council is going to be on.
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They'll deploy in the election to shut down stories they don't like.
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So she simply doesn't want Bernier there, so it's done.
00:07:28.120
Even if the Monk debates, even the CBC, even all the other parties wanted Bernier there, they can't because the government just decided.
00:07:34.820
Like a mayor just deciding which of his rivals can or can't have the honor and privilege of debating him.
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Look, I know a lot of our viewers at The Rebel are Andrew Scheer supporters.
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I've yet to actually meet someone who loves Andrew Scheer.
00:07:48.240
It's more of a loyalty thing to the conservative party.
00:07:53.080
I've met plenty of people who think Maxime Bernier is a splittist who's going to split the vote.
00:07:59.740
That can be the conservative party's point of view.
00:08:02.280
They'd prefer it if Bernier wasn't in the debates, perhaps.
00:08:04.520
But having that point of view is completely different than having Justin Trudeau, through the power of the government,
00:08:13.460
A candidate who surely has just as much right to be there as Elizabeth May.
00:08:17.200
And, insanely, the leader of the Bloc Hebecois, I'm serious, under the Trudeau rules,
00:08:23.620
the leader of the Bloc Hebecois will be in the English language debates,
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even though he has no candidates in English Canada,
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but not Maxime Bernier because that suits Trudeau just right?
00:08:33.120
Look, when even a Toronto Star columnist knows it's unfair, it's time to scratch your head.
00:08:39.960
Meanwhile, the main political parties have become too clubby.
00:08:42.440
When it comes to leaders' debates, the Liberals, Tories, and NDP know the debates don't have huge viewership,
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but work to their benefit for public exposure and winning seats.
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Even though they've now let in May twice and keep including the Bloc Hebecois,
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which remains controversial, it focuses primarily on them.
00:08:59.420
How much difference is there really, really, between Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer on key issues like immigration, for example?
00:09:07.600
Andrew Scheer has publicly said he does not disagree with Trudeau on the number of immigrants
00:09:11.300
or the demographic mix from what countries they come.
00:09:14.580
How much difference between Trudeau and Scheer on dairy cartels, on multiculturalism, on political correctness?
00:09:21.760
Scheer is even copying Justin Trudeau's phrase about diversity.
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If we want to understand what Canada is and what it can be, we need to understand where we have come from.
00:09:34.000
From the very first Indigenous peoples, to each wave of new arrivals that have come to Canada,
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to hopeful newcomers that are arriving even today at Pearson and other ports of entry,
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And we are all part of a grand tale still being written.
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A success story of different people, humanity in all its diversity, each adding its own chapter.
00:10:04.300
Now, believe me, I want Andrew Scheer to beat Justin Trudeau in the upcoming election, of course.
00:10:13.640
Scheer would obviously be better than Trudeau on many things.
00:10:18.140
And I want Canadians to hear that there is a choice out there.
00:10:20.920
And maybe Andrew Scheer can be pushed into being more conservative.
00:10:24.440
It reminds me of when Doug Ford ran for the conservative leadership in Ontario after Patrick Brown.
00:10:28.920
And Ford said he was going to oppose the carbon tax.
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All the other candidates were for it, more or less.
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And there was great squawking in the establishment about Doug Ford, how dare you?
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Including from the Liberals, because they wanted that issue taken off the treadmill.
00:10:45.080
They wanted to pocket that issue as taken for granted win and move on to the next one.
00:10:49.520
Maxine Bernier probably doesn't have a statistical chance to become prime minister.
00:10:53.420
But he is certain to put forward ideas that many Canadians share,
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especially ideas that are considered politically incorrect.
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Ideas that the establishment club doesn't even want to talk about.
00:11:09.340
If the Bloc Hebecois can be included under Trudeau's rules,
00:11:11.640
if Elizabeth May can be included under Trudeau's rules,
00:11:14.060
then excluding Bernier is obviously a political choice.
00:11:17.640
The Liberals think it helps them for some reason.
00:11:28.460
because I think the establishment is wrong on so many issues.
00:11:31.000
But mainly, I think it's creepy and a bit banana republic-y
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for the government to choose the rules of its own opponents.
00:11:38.400
Whether or not you like Bernier is not the point here, actually.
00:11:41.260
It's whether or not you think the government ought to be able to ban their challengers.
00:11:44.940
And surely any conservative can be against that,
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even if they personally don't want Bernier in there.
00:11:49.560
Oh, and by the way, if your goal is to tamp down populist anger
00:11:56.420
I'm pretty sure banning populist dissenters from a debate
00:12:05.360
But what would I know about populist conservatism?
00:12:24.320
Well, by banning Maxime Bernier from the federal election debates,
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Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer, who's just fine with this,
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have managed to silence the loudest voice in Canada
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Freedom of speech, fighting against political correctness,
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It is not particularly in the interests of any of those leaders,
00:12:51.640
That's a little, well, what used to be a dead-end alley,
00:13:00.000
But it's turned into a major highway for illegal fake refugees,
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just walking up from the United States to Canada
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I call them fake because legally and factually,
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you cannot be a refugee once you are now in the United States.
00:13:16.540
And yet Canada has taken 50,000 people through this opening.
00:13:50.880
Well, the camp is completely set up and it's pretty permanent.
00:14:02.280
so that in case any refugees are in a wheelchair,
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they'll make their way up into the RCMP compound
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so that they can be booked and then put into a bus.
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that then drives them down the Canadian side of Roxham Road
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into a secondary facility where they're all sorted out
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until they are ready to go to their refugee board hearing,
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many of them just don't show up to at all once they're in Canada.
00:14:33.880
I mean, of course, those refugee board hearings,
00:14:37.940
Some of them are literally being scheduled 10 years from now.
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because you'll have your hearing in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 years.
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someone getting a refugee board hearing for January 1st,
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Of course, there are no hearings on January 1st,
00:15:04.800
Now tell me about the different kinds of people you saw.
00:15:25.960
They were standing there very interested in me.
00:15:36.580
The other type of person I saw was a commissioner,
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basically the chauffeur who brought the individuals,
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the illegal border crossers to the secondary facility,
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who just happens to own property on Roxanne Road,
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She told me that she didn't want to speak on camera.
00:16:48.740
because I think it was just recording in my car
00:17:06.340
She's upset that journalists keep knocking on her door
00:17:15.120
So those are the four type of people I spoke with.
00:17:27.160
It depends on the time the planes come in, you know.
00:17:32.400
Because they come in at the Plattsburgh, at the airport.
00:17:38.900
Yeah, Plattsburgh is the closest airport to the border, so.
00:17:43.300
And they get off there and they take the cab over here.
00:17:50.080
I wouldn't have thought that they had the money
00:17:58.580
Some of them spend their money on the other side
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they're going to end up with a check in their hands, you know.
00:18:10.940
Yeah, well, we know from access to information requests
00:18:17.860
or average migrant that comes across the border
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if you're curious to see the proof of that claim.
00:18:33.140
Remember you mentioned that we treat these fake, bogus refugees
00:18:47.740
You know, I was in downtown Toronto the other day
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and I walked by an enormous urban refugee camp,
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while homeless people, Canadians, are on the street.
00:19:05.220
Why has this issue dropped off the radar screen
00:19:07.860
as we're now, what, 75 days away from the federal election?
00:19:13.400
Are the conservatives talking about it federally
00:19:24.940
they know that if the conservatives bring this into the debate,
00:19:38.080
And there just doesn't seem to be that kind of interest
00:19:45.580
It was a shouting conversation across the border.
00:19:51.840
who were doing research on that side of the border,
00:20:09.840
than there had been in any other previous year.
00:20:12.580
This problem is only getting worse and worse and worse.
00:20:34.960
because that fits their narrative a lot better.
00:21:19.060
even under the strict United Nations definition.
00:21:21.060
And of course, under the safe third-party agreement,
00:21:23.740
no one in America can ever be a refugee in Canada,
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and thanks for sharing your footage with us today.
00:22:10.440
They're just worried he's going to split the vote on the right.
00:22:36.620
but that the Liberals and the official Conservatives
00:22:50.220
I think that's just going to cause more anger and dissent.
00:22:54.440
Conservatives are supposed to be for free speech.
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on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,