Rebel News Podcast - Why did Erin O'Toole fire Pierre Poilievre as his finance critic？

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I try and make sense of Aaron O'Toole firing Pierre Polyev as finance

00:00:06.320 critic, and it is a tough one. There is no sense to it. He was the star performer. There's only

00:00:13.120 one way it makes sense, and I'm sorry. I just think this is, you know, Occam's razor. The

00:00:18.620 simplest answer is probably the right one, or, you know, deduction. When you remove all other

00:00:24.680 possibilities, what's left, however implausible, must be the one, and that is this. Aaron O'Toole

00:00:29.880 does not like Pierre Polyev being a rival. He doesn't like being outshone by him. I'll

00:00:35.040 make my case to you in the podcast ahead, go into some detail. Hey, let me invite you before

00:00:40.000 I do to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's eight bucks a month. That's

00:00:45.140 only 80 bucks a year. If you buy in advance, we'll give you a discount. Just go to rebelnews.com,

00:00:50.040 click subscribe. You get the video version of the show, and we also give you access to

00:00:54.840 a few other premium shows on Rebel News Plus. Sheila Gunner-Reed is a weekly show. There's

00:00:59.700 Menzies is a weekly show. Andrew Chapinos is a weekly show. So that's a lot of content.

00:01:04.280 And I just want to say it means a lot to us because we don't get any government money. We

00:01:07.860 don't get any big corporate money. So this is how we live. So I'm not going to ask you

00:01:13.200 to subscribe on a charity, but it is what keeps us alive. That eight bucks a month, if you can

00:01:20.480 believe it. So if you're feeling generous, if you like the podcast, please consider going

00:01:24.280 to rebelnews.com and clicking subscribe. Frankly, even if you don't watch it, it would be a very

00:01:29.260 meaningful way to help us. Thanks for that. Okay, here's today's podcast.

00:01:31.900 Tonight, Aaron O'Toole fires Pierre Polyeves' finance critic. What possible reason could

00:01:53.220 there be besides jealousy? It's February 10th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:59.080 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:02:04.760 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:02:08.820 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:02:13.720 right to do so.

00:02:19.100 I've done this quiz with you before. You, who are probably in the top 1% of Canadians in terms

00:02:25.700 of news consumption, especially of conservative news consumption? I've asked you to name the

00:02:31.220 conservative party's critics in charge of the most important portfolios over the past year.

00:02:36.600 So I haven't asked you about amateur sport. I've asked you about the pandemic. Who's the

00:02:41.780 conservative critic for vaccines, lockdowns? That would be the health critic, right? Who's

00:02:47.060 the foreign affairs critic? Mainly China, the two Michaels, but also America, Iran, whatever.

00:02:52.580 Who's the foreign critic? I think free speech stuff is important these days, so the heritage

00:02:57.160 minister who gives out the media bailout money and who's now in charge of censorship.

00:03:02.440 Can you name them? I literally haven't found a single person who can name them all without

00:03:07.740 Googling it. And maybe you can't even, even though I've told you the answers before.

00:03:12.080 Because they either aren't allowed to say anything, or they have nothing to say,

00:03:17.360 or they say it, but they say it to media who hate them, so it goes nowhere. I have a friend,

00:03:24.140 I think I told you, who lives in downtown Calgary, and he did not know that his own MP was the energy

00:03:30.700 critic. You'd think you know that given the carbon tax, the Keystone XL crisis, and you know,

00:03:35.940 Calgary, but no. Except for Pierre Polyev. Everyone knows him, and it's easy to know why. The guy can talk,

00:03:45.040 the guy can think he has something to say. It's conservative. He knows his file inside and out.

00:03:50.820 Even the really technical stuff, which is, I'm not going to say I'm surprised by it, but I'm

00:03:55.480 impressed with it. He can go toe-to-toe with expert economists, bank experts, tax experts. He knows his

00:04:03.360 stuff. That's hard to do. And when it comes to partisan fights, well, he's a winner. Look at this

00:04:09.280 battle with Bill Morineau a few months ago. I believe that it is a mere coincidence that you

00:04:17.760 repaid over $40,000 of expenses associated with your travel on a WE charity trip, that you just

00:04:28.240 repaid it today on the same day you were expected to testify under oath about it. Is that just a

00:04:35.220 coincidence, Minister? Mr. Minister? Thank you. Thank you for the question. I think what I want

00:04:43.880 to make sure that I communicate is this was a mistake on my behalf. I'm responsible for any

00:04:51.100 expenses that I incur on trips being paid for. This was an expense that I was unaware of, that I did not

00:04:59.080 know, had not been paid. And when I found out over the course of the last- $41,000 expense? You didn't

00:05:05.780 know about a $41,000 expense? How is that even possible? Mr. Minister? Again, Mr. Chair, I just have to

00:05:17.820 say that in review of our records, I understood that there was no charge for these travel expenses

00:05:24.740 or these expenses at the WE facilities. And once I found that out, I endeavored to repay that. And of

00:05:32.580 course, it was a mistake on my part, which I take full responsibility for. I mean, the average Canadian

00:05:38.200 living in Red Deer or Halifax that goes on a trip would notice if there was a, say, a $400 expense

00:05:48.240 that they didn't pay. Maybe a hotel room for a couple of nights that never got charged them, and

00:05:54.260 they paid immediately. But you're telling me that on this obviously very luxurious trip,

00:06:00.400 that $41,000 of expenses happened right under your nose, and you didn't know about it until it

00:06:11.100 suddenly, through an epiphany, came to your attention the very day you were to testify in a

00:06:17.380 parliamentary committee about it. Obviously, there were a lot of forces bearing down on Bill Morneau

00:06:22.540 with that WE charity, including media interest and a track record of bad behavior by Morneau. But I think

00:06:29.160 it is a fact that Pierre Polyev was the most effective at actually putting tough questions

00:06:34.640 directly to the man in committee. He did it, and you tell me, when was the last time that a

00:06:40.920 conservative critic saw a liberal cabinet minister thrown out of cabinet, and even thrown out of

00:06:44.940 parliament in disgrace like Morneau? No, that is not common. And I think a share of the credit goes

00:06:50.040 to Pierre Polyev. He's young. He's smart. I think he speaks French. He has a lovely young family. He

00:06:57.000 hasn't screwed up anything publicly. In fact, he was seriously considering running for leader last

00:07:02.980 time. He started to tour the country a little bit until he abruptly canceled all that. And I was quite

00:07:08.880 disappointed to see that. And I imagine that some scandal was brought to his attention privately,

00:07:15.020 and he was told, don't you run. And he probably thought, you know, I don't need that dirt thrown

00:07:19.840 at me and my young family. I'll pass. That's just speculation on my part. I have no basis for it.

00:07:24.600 But boy, he slammed on the brakes fast after stomping on the gas fast. And I regret that. And I look at how

00:07:31.820 lackluster Aaron O'Toole has been since becoming leader. And I regret Pierre's decision not to run even

00:07:38.200 more. And I suspect a lot of conservative party members do too, especially when they see Pierre

00:07:44.780 out there just killing it every time in parliament and on social media and taking on issues that

00:07:51.640 conservatives care about. He doesn't stray outside his bailiwick of finance, but, you know, he does

00:07:58.060 interesting things in that portfolio. I love how he showed that the Great Reset is a real thing

00:08:04.360 cooked up by the World Economic Forum, of which, by the way, Chrystia Freeland is actually a director.

00:08:09.560 How's that even possible? And Pierre just nailed it.

00:08:13.120 I sometimes wonder if the government's not just covering up the Wee scandal here with this endless

00:08:18.300 filibuster, but they also don't want any scrutiny of this grand reset the prime minister is now

00:08:23.860 talking about, this idea that he's going to renovate Canadian society to fit his Trudopian ambitions.

00:08:32.080 This is not a time to re-engineer society to his liking or to his socialist ideology. This is a time

00:08:40.640 to get people safely and securely back to work to protect their lives and their livelihoods,

00:08:48.820 not a time for government to take advantage of the crisis in order to massively expand its powers at

00:08:56.240 the expense of Canadians' freedom. That's what we should be talking about here in the Finance Committee.

00:09:01.500 We should just be standing up against government power grabs like this grand reset the prime minister is

00:09:08.160 discussing. I'm beginning to wonder if this filibuster is about more than just covering up the Wee scandal,

00:09:14.400 but also about covering up the government's grand schemes for social and economic engineering to cover up the

00:09:22.760 power grab that he has lusted over since the beginning of this crisis.

00:09:27.480 So, frankly, we've lost patience. We want an answer. We want to get on with the job.

00:09:34.140 He's great on his file. He's great at fighting for the base. And so, I think I know why Aaron O'Toole

00:09:40.500 just sacked him, fired him. The best critic in caucus, really the only critic in caucus, the only

00:09:46.760 household name, certainly, the only conservative capable of forcing the media to cover him on his

00:09:54.920 own terms. They do so maybe grudgingly. But when Pierre Polio takes a run at things, the media knows

00:10:01.020 to listen because it's probably going to be politically interesting. It's probably going to be

00:10:05.100 factually accurate. And it's going to be well communicated. And it is, it works. You know,

00:10:11.460 the media grumble that he's a conservative, but they give him coverage. They have some respect for him.

00:10:16.760 Unlike those other critics you can't name that I keep quizzing you about. And thus, you see Aaron

00:10:22.880 O'Toole's position. I think he's jealous. Jealous that Pierre has success where O'Toole himself does not.

00:10:31.020 For heaven's sakes, he's the leader. He got what he wanted. He's the boss in the big chair. But

00:10:36.640 you can't buy a personality. You can't win a personality in an election. You can't win courage in an election.

00:10:43.240 And I got to say, no one really cares what O'Toole says, possibly because he says so little of

00:10:48.860 interest. I mean, the one thing I will note that he has said is that he quarrels with Trudeau's

00:10:54.320 bungled vaccine procurement, by which I mean O'Toole says he would have done it better.

00:11:01.260 Can you tell me anything substantive about which O'Toole and Trudeau have actually fundamentally

00:11:06.420 clashed? Doing something better, I don't think, is a fundamental clash. In fact, O'Toole told Pierre

00:11:12.580 to cork it on that great reset stuff. O'Toole is an empty space. I think he believes that's a path

00:11:23.640 to victory. Just let Trudeau implode and catch power as it falls into your hands. I don't think

00:11:31.540 it works that way. I think that was sort of Andrew Scheer's strategy, too. It didn't work.

00:11:34.580 I don't think that works anywhere, especially in a country like Canada, where Trudeau has a natural

00:11:40.180 base of about 30% in the polls to begin with, no matter what. And the media party is good for

00:11:45.680 another 5% or 10%. I mean, they saved him last time when the whole blackface fiasco blew up. 1.00

00:11:51.900 I don't think there's a second blackface fiasco about to blow up. And O'Toole is doing his best

00:11:58.780 to antagonize his own base, including turfing Derek Sloan, a leadership rival on trumped up

00:12:07.020 charges. Remember that? A racist named Paul Fromm donated money to Sloan's campaign. But he was

00:12:13.540 tricky about it. He used a different name than he's known by. He went by Frederick P. Fromm instead of

00:12:20.500 Paul Fromm. And of course, it was a donation to the Conservative Party, too. And of course, nobody knew

00:12:25.280 who Frederick P. Fromm was. But O'Toole actually accused Sloan of unforgivable racism and poor

00:12:32.100 judgment. Even though Sloan is not a racist, he actually married a woman of color and his kids are

00:12:38.520 children of color, if that's the word. He's no racist. And remember, O'Toole's Conservative Party

00:12:44.560 headquarters issued the membership. They took a portion of the donation, too. O'Toole said only Sloan

00:12:51.560 was to blame for the same trick they fell prey to, and it was a small donation. There was no moral

00:12:58.100 turpitude in cashing the check. O'Toole smeared Sloan as a racist. And as Sloan told me, O'Toole

00:13:06.200 never even so much as picked up the phone to call him, to talk to him in advance. I mean, that's not

00:13:12.080 a leader. Do you remember this clip? That you weren't actually ever called by Aaron O'Toole before he

00:13:17.180 announced he was going to seek your termination. Is that true? Yeah, not before and not after.

00:13:22.940 Aaron O'Toole had still not contacted you other than his general remarks on the Zoom call today.

00:13:29.400 That's correct. You know, firing people is an unfortunate job that every boss has to do.

00:13:35.420 And I think it's a sign of someone's character to at least call someone, if not look at them in the

00:13:42.940 eyes when you fire them. Has he sent you an email or a text? I've had no communication with him at all.

00:13:51.300 Before this event or through or after.

00:13:57.140 I am very disappointed in that answer. If you're firing a man for good reasons or for bad,

00:14:02.560 you look him in the eye and you tell him. So yeah, yeah. Aaron O'Toole, who ran during the

00:14:08.400 leadership campaign against cancel culture. Actually, he specifically said he was an ally of Sloan. I mean,

00:14:15.000 not an ally, but he would defend Sloan's right to be in the party. He broke those promises.

00:14:19.600 My point being, that's all O'Toole has really done since becoming leader. I mean,

00:14:25.060 you tell me what he's done. You tell me what he's stand for. What difference has he made? What fight

00:14:29.060 has he fought? I think Aaron O'Toole has put more energy and effort into fighting people within his

00:14:35.800 own party than fighting Trudeau and the liberals. And I'd include in that O'Toole's bizarre decision to do

00:14:42.860 an email interview with me, which he did and which we published and which I thought

00:14:47.960 he looked pretty good in the interview. But when the mean girls of the media party recoiled in horror,

00:14:53.880 he immediately disowned us and his own interview that he had done with us. Huh? That's cancel culture 0.99

00:15:01.140 plus cowardice, plus not being a conservative, plus showing how easily pushed around you are. 0.58

00:15:07.100 And I say again, what a contrast to Pierre Paul, yeah. So O'Toole fired him. Now they say,

00:15:13.320 oh, well, he's on the jobs file. No, mate, he was on the jobs file. That's finance critic.

00:15:18.420 I think this is what they call tall poppy syndrome. You ever heard of that? Oh, I can't have someone who

00:15:23.800 is better than me. If O'Toole can't be popular and can't be loved, well, then no one can be. Fire

00:15:29.100 him. Fire Poliev. I mean, I bet O'Toole would probably kick Pierre Poliev out of caucus if he

00:15:38.320 could, like he did with Derek Sloan. Now look at this, look at this. This is an indicator of

00:15:45.560 engagement with the party base on Facebook. But I think that's a surrogate for a lot of things,

00:15:50.260 because we all get our news so much from Facebook. A lot of conservative party members are on

00:15:54.640 Facebook. So this is an analytics page. It shows how many people in the last seven days

00:16:01.060 follow each of these Facebook pages, how many people engage with posts on Facebook.

00:16:10.100 So follows them or likes them or comments them. It's an indication of public support.

00:16:16.080 So Justin Trudeau, as you can see, has 7.8 million Facebook likes. And in the last week,

00:16:23.740 851,000 interactions with the public. Fair enough. I mean, he's the prime minister. He has a massive

00:16:30.260 public profile, massive budget and staff, and he makes the news. So that's to be expected. Now,

00:16:36.000 the conservative party itself has 461,000 followers and 432,000 people engaged with their tweets last

00:16:45.080 week. That's pretty good. I mean, that's half as much engagement as Trudeau. But like I just showed

00:16:51.060 you, Trudeau has 15 times more followers. So in fact, the conservative party itself isn't doing bad

00:16:56.900 in engagement compared to Trudeau. Now, we at Rebel News are next on the chart. We have just under 200,000

00:17:04.780 followers. And our engagement is almost the same as the conservative party, 422,000 people. Now,

00:17:11.180 I should tell you, we have another quarter million followers on our other two Facebook pages and my

00:17:16.640 own personal page. So we're actually bigger, but let's just compare that one main page. But look

00:17:21.860 at Pierre Polyev. 184,800 followers. Pretty good. And he's just killing it with engagement.

00:17:31.220 785,000 people are liking, commenting, following almost as much as Justin Trudeau himself.

00:17:42.800 Michelle Rempel's on there at 345,000 engagements. And engagement is when you interact with people.

00:17:48.960 It's a sign of people caring about you. And then in last place on this chart is Aaron O'Toole,

00:17:56.340 the party leader with 242,000 engagements. And I don't know if you noticed that other column there,

00:18:04.480 number of Facebook posts this past week. That's how much stuff different people are publishing.

00:18:09.460 We have the most on this chart. We published 132 items this past week. Makes sense. We're a publisher.

00:18:14.940 Pierre Polyev did just 12. And he had massive reach. Michelle Rempel, give her credit. She did just

00:18:20.580 two posts. Had a huge reaction just to two posts. Aaron O'Toole, I mean, he's trying to do what he does

00:18:26.560 46 times. And no one cares. They just don't care. I think maybe he knows it. Did you see his new

00:18:34.220 weird ad? Just take a look at the first part.

00:18:37.560 I'm Aaron O'Toole. If you don't know me, I'm the leader of Canada's Conservatives.

00:18:51.460 Yeah, weird. If you're doing that after having been in politics for years and years, and you're

00:18:58.540 maybe just weeks away from an election call, if you're still trying to introduce yourself,

00:19:02.840 you're not doing so well, are you, buddy? You know, it's hard being the leader when your followers

00:19:09.080 are stronger than you, have more charisma than you, more personality than you, but get over yourself.

00:19:15.160 That's the job of the leader, to weld together a team. Stephen Harper wasn't the most dynamic

00:19:21.460 personality in the room, though he could be funny and charming when he wanted to be, but generally,

00:19:25.680 he was sort of the boring accountant dad guy. And it worked. And he could tolerate people being

00:19:32.620 more peppy or media-centric than him, including Pierre Polyev, by the way, who was a Harper minister.

00:19:37.960 Harper managed to work not just with peppier people, including Jason Kenney, but also his

00:19:42.680 own personal rivals. Jim Prentice, Peter McKay, former leader Stockwell Day, even Belinda Stronick

00:19:50.560 for a while. Harper put these people on the front bench, even though they were rivals with each

00:19:54.560 other and with him, because he was the boss. He didn't need to be shy of them. And by the way,

00:20:02.120 I remember this because I was involved in those early days, some 20-plus years ago.

00:20:08.320 Stephen Harper started out his leadership of the Conservative Party. It wasn't even called

00:20:12.440 the Conservative Party back then. He first fused together the Canadian Alliance Party. Remember

00:20:19.140 that? Well, there was a split-his group, if you remember, Deborah Gray, Monty, Solberg,

00:20:23.840 Jay Hill. They had all sulked away in something called the Democratic Representative Caucus

00:20:29.460 for a bit when they rebelled against Stockwell Day. So when Stephen Harper became the new

00:20:34.940 leader of the Canadian Alliance, he rebuilt the coalition. He didn't just tolerate rivals.

00:20:41.620 He reached out to them and rebuilt things. He said to the Democratic Representative Caucus,

00:20:47.460 you guys, come on back. And then he said to Peter McKay, let's join forces. He built

00:20:52.300 a big coalition, and he won. What has O'Toole done? Well, he hasn't done anything conservative.

00:20:59.620 He attacked Eric Sloan on false pretenses. You'll recall he also attacked rival Jim Carahelios

00:21:05.300 during the leadership race. He's attacked us. I'm not sure why. And now he's sacking his best MP?

00:21:11.260 If only Aaron O'Toole was so brutal towards his enemies as he is towards his friends. If only

00:21:19.620 Aaron O'Toole spent as much effort criticizing Trudeau and the liberals as he does going after

00:21:26.840 conservatives. Hey, maybe it'll work. Maybe the conservative base will be motivated enough

00:21:32.200 to still show up to the polls. And maybe some liberals will really like the cutoff of O'Toole's

00:21:37.460 Jim. Really like his style. And maybe they'll, you know, maybe O'Toole will defeat the media party

00:21:42.060 by, I don't know, really liking them and really being nice to Rosemary Barton and showing those

00:21:49.460 mean girls what he really thinks of independent media like us. I don't know. I guess it's possible,

00:21:54.000 isn't it? I mean, there's no evidence of it working so far, at least on Facebook. And here's the

00:22:01.540 CBC's aggregation of polls. There's no evidence of it working so far in public opinion polls. But

00:22:08.740 hey, I guess anything's possible, right?

00:22:13.180 The worst part, they change the rules constantly based on whichever they, whatever they deem to

00:22:30.340 be politically correct at any given point in time. These rules and standards are often changed

00:22:34.840 without the knowledge of their users. Moving the goalposts on Floridians and others who use these

00:22:40.160 open forums for discourse and as a source for information. When a social media company applies

00:22:45.820 these standards unequally on users, this is discrimination, pure and simple. Can you imagine

00:22:51.960 tolerating this kind of behavior in banking or in health care or in other industries?

00:22:59.180 Well, that's a statement by Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, a man who has been

00:23:06.240 getting well-deserved kudos from Republicans for his handling of the lockdown. I like him the way

00:23:13.460 he handles the media. And now he wants to handle the big tech companies, and in particular, as you

00:23:20.080 heard there, their political censorship. But how can he, given that the governing law over those affairs

00:23:25.840 is the Communications Decency Act, Section 230 to be particular, that has basically provided a waiver

00:23:34.080 for big tech companies for anything they publish it has made them immune to lawsuits over content or

00:23:41.460 how they handle content. Donald Trump talked about Section 230 during his term as president. Alas,

00:23:47.740 he did not take meaningful steps during that term. But now the governor steps forward. Joining us now

00:23:53.620 to talk about Ron DeSantis' proposal and whether or not it will make a difference is our friend Alan

00:23:59.260 Bokhari, chief tech correspondent for Breitbart.com. Alan, great to see you again.

00:24:05.020 Hi, Ezra. Good to be on.

00:24:06.360 You know, I love Ron DeSantis more every day. In many ways, he has Trump's fighting spirit and his

00:24:13.280 understanding that the media is not his friend. But he seems blessedly free of some of Trump's flaws.

00:24:21.240 Every person has strengths and flaws. But I think Ron DeSantis carries the best of Trumpism

00:24:26.840 with him with him. I'm very excited about him as a governor. What do you think of the man before we

00:24:31.860 get to the Section 230 issue? I think I agree with that assessment. I mean, he's, as you say,

00:24:38.600 he knows how to handle the media. And he's leading the way on perhaps the biggest issue to the populist

00:24:47.320 right, which is big tech. And I think, you know, these proposals he's come out with, he's come

00:24:54.200 out with the massive raft of proposals, probably the most aggressive set of regulations that he

00:25:01.760 plans to compare us in big tech that we've seen in any Republican governor. You know, it might have

00:25:07.400 some difficulty in the courts, especially with Section 230 still on the books. But this kind of

00:25:13.700 might be a model, I think, for a Republican regulation of big tech going forward.

00:25:20.320 Well, and that's the thing. I'm not as familiar with American jurisdiction. I mean, in Canada,

00:25:25.660 we have a clear distinction between what the feds can do and what the provinces can do. And this would

00:25:32.240 squarely be a matter for the federal government in Canada. But the United States tilts more towards

00:25:39.040 the states. And individual states can have quite a bit of power, as California shows

00:25:43.360 in its regulatory regime. Can you tell me some of the things that Ron DeSantis proposes to do

00:25:48.520 at the state level? First, tell me what they are. And then if you want to tell me if you think that

00:25:53.120 they have sticking power. So he's proposing several things. He's proposing a $100,000 a day fine on any

00:26:01.060 tech platform that censors a political candidate or an elected official. And, you know, it doesn't sound

00:26:07.680 like a lot of your tech company, but it adds up, you know, over 30 days of $3 million. He's also

00:26:13.500 proposing a private right of action for Floridian citizens who are censored by big tech platforms,

00:26:19.060 unfairly. He's planning to impose even more fines on tech companies that use their algorithms to favor

00:26:26.480 certain candidates or certain political causes ahead of elections. That's very important. And he's

00:26:33.120 also going to empower the Attorney General of Florida to bring suits against the tech companies

00:26:37.340 based on the Florida's unfair and deceptive trade practices. So a whole lot of proposals there

00:26:45.200 that would present a significant problem for the tech companies if they aren't shot down

00:26:50.660 by the federal courts. And that's probably the issue he's going to deal with. But it's good to make a

00:26:58.360 start. We're going to start the fight. And we'll just have to see how that develops when the Section

00:27:03.280 230 ends up superseding it. I'm not a really a legal expert, so I can't say with any confidence how

00:27:09.580 that'll turn out. But it's good that the fight has started. Now, of course, I suggested that

00:27:15.560 DeSantis is in the mold of Trump in his worldview, in his style. Are there any other governors who seem

00:27:23.500 to be sympathetic to this approach who might copy it? I can imagine if you had a few states, Texas,

00:27:30.820 Florida, some big Republican states? And of course, the Republicans have the majority of states

00:27:35.220 numerically. They control state houses. Do you think this might spread? And do you think any Democrats

00:27:41.780 might get behind it? Well, oh, I doubt any Democrats will get behind it if the focus is on censorship.

00:27:47.920 They are doing some interesting things on competition, but they want to increasingly,

00:27:54.100 they're trying to tie their enforcement actions that they're proposing to detect conditions on

00:27:59.000 cracking down on misinformation or hate speech, so censoring even more. As far as the other Republican

00:28:05.140 states go, the other man to watch at the moment is Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton. He's leading

00:28:11.180 multi-state lawsuits against Google and the other tech giants, targeting their monopoly power. And he also

00:28:17.720 really understands the censorship issue as well. So that's another one to watch. I will say,

00:28:24.700 if Republican, you're absolutely right, if Republican states got together and acted as a unit on this

00:28:29.580 issue, they could do some real damage to the tech companies. One interesting proposal I've

00:28:34.040 recently been thinking about is the amount of state government agencies that rely on these tech

00:28:42.120 platforms to put out their messages, to alert the public about what's going on, and also public Wi-Fi.

00:28:51.320 So airports and schools, these are controlled by state governments in many cases. So if all of these

00:28:56.860 state governments got together and say, well, look, if tech companies discriminate on the basis of

00:29:01.860 viewpoint and they censor political candidates, if they censor the president, then we're not going to

00:29:06.160 allow them on public Wi-Fi until they change their policies. Or we're not going to allow our agencies to use these

00:29:13.640 platforms to put out their announcements. They're going to have to use different platforms. And that wouldn't be a

00:29:18.400 crippling blow to tech companies, but it would do real damage to them, impose consequences on them. And it would create an

00:29:24.800 incentive for new companies to, it would create a market for new companies to, to cater to those, you know,

00:29:31.680 Republican agencies that would be looking, those Republican controlled agencies that would be looking to put out their

00:29:37.280 announcements on platforms that aren't Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

00:29:40.800 You know, that's a great point. I mean, I often wonder why in our city, we're based here in Toronto, and why the media is so

00:29:49.320 submissive towards the mayor? And I think one of the most obvious answers is because the city hall is one of the largest

00:29:57.100 advertisers in, in Toronto. So if you tick off the mayor, he might cancel a million dollars worth of ads to your

00:30:05.280 newspaper chain. And he'll also give scoops and leaks to your competitor. But I think that the power of the purse is

00:30:11.560 important. It makes me think of that new executive order that Joe Biden signed to push

00:30:16.780 transgenderism into sport and other places. Usually, I think it's called Title IX. Basically, he's saying, if you're a

00:30:24.240 school, a college, an Olympics team that gets any funding from the feds, you got to go full trans, or you're going to be 1.00

00:30:31.620 cut off. I think, I think it's, it's not so much that he has the legal jurisdiction. He's just saying, if you want my

00:30:38.040 money, you got to do it, I think that if you cut off all advertising, all access to state buildings and

00:30:46.220 assets and infrastructure and Wi Fi, you could block Facebook, YouTube, Google, in an enormous number of

00:30:54.400 places, not a private home, but in a lot of other places, just through the power of the purse. I never

00:30:59.620 thought of that. That's absolutely right. And you know, the Biden administration is showing

00:31:04.080 Republicans how to really use executive power. So many executive orders just in the first month

00:31:10.360 of the Biden administration. So Republican governors need to start doing what Republicans aren't really

00:31:16.700 used to doing, which is weaponizing executive government. And, and I mean, what if you had all

00:31:24.420 of these, like I said, if you had all these federal agencies or alternative platforms, that would have

00:31:28.000 knock on effects for the journalists, whether the left wing or right wing would have to go to these

00:31:31.540 alternative platforms as well to get the latest news. So it could cause a nice chain reaction.

00:31:37.820 Yeah. And you get the big Republican states, I mean, Texas and Florida being the obvious examples.

00:31:43.100 That's a lot of people. That's tens of millions of people. And, and there's a lot of media in those

00:31:49.160 two states too. Let me shift gears a little bit. I asked you what other states would be interested in,

00:31:54.220 and you, I think, correctly said it would be Republicans. But I see in your article, and I,

00:32:01.720 I tell you, I learned so much from your Breitbart story. So let me just read the headline of a new one.

00:32:09.580 Senate antitrust reform bill targets big text monopoly power. And when I read that, I thought, well,

00:32:16.760 hang on, the Republicans don't control the U.S. Senate anymore, which I find terrifying.

00:32:20.500 But this is a bill that Democrats support. Am I right? That's right. It has real bipartisan support.

00:32:27.460 And it doesn't really address the censorship issue because it's, you know, the Democrats are on board

00:32:33.040 with it. But it doesn't, you know, as far as I can tell, it doesn't tell the tech companies, well,

00:32:37.900 they have to censor misinformation, they have to censor hate speech as well. So that makes it a little

00:32:42.140 bit better than some of the other Democrat proposals we've seen, like the one from the New York

00:32:46.820 Attorney General, and some of the stuff that Biden's been talking about. What it does do,

00:32:52.280 which is interesting, is target big tech's exclusionary practices, anti-competitive practices.

00:32:58.160 So this is the way in which companies like Google and Apple and Facebook cut deals to crowd out

00:33:05.920 competitors. So one good example of this is how Google paid Apple over a billion dollars, I think,

00:33:12.000 to make Google search the default search on Apple smartphones. And obviously, competitors to Google,

00:33:18.740 smaller search engines don't have that kind of money, which allows Google to really dominate the

00:33:23.160 marketplace. Because obviously, Google and Apple, they control 99% or more of smartphone operating

00:33:29.200 systems worldwide. That's the entire smartphone market. So by targeting our practices like that,

00:33:35.240 this bill could make it, well, it doesn't target political bias directly, it could make things easier

00:33:40.600 for competing search engines that aren't as politically co-opted as Google to start gaining

00:33:46.760 some market share.

00:33:47.340 I mean, that's a small example. I mean, listen, a billion dollars or whatever is not small,

00:33:52.500 but in the scope of things, it is small. Let me ask you, I mean, the last big populist president,

00:34:01.520 I mean, I don't know my American history that well, but I would say it's Teddy Roosevelt. And he was a

00:34:06.180 trust buster. He went against the top-hatted Rockefellers and the big robber barons, as they were called,

00:34:13.340 the railway, steel, coal, that kind of thing. And they were almost caricatures. I mean,

00:34:20.420 to look at old man Rockefeller with his top hat and whatnot, they were easy to hate, is what I'm

00:34:28.220 saying. Maybe that's just how history portrays it. But where's the populist fury against the tech

00:34:35.820 companies now? Is it there? And I know Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the Democrat presidential

00:34:42.280 primary briefly, she's part of that populist spirit. I'm not sure if the Sanders people love

00:34:47.500 tech companies, but I see that the left has merged with the tech companies. People who used to be for

00:34:54.940 the little guy, people who used to rail against the rich, the billionaires, the oligarchs, the plutocrats,

00:35:01.560 the people who should be hating this generation's John D. Rockefellers, they love Zuckerberg and

00:35:10.920 Bezos. If not personally, they just love the cash and the power.

00:35:15.700 Well, I think the people in charge of the Democrat party right now, Pelosi, Biden, all these people,

00:35:20.600 they're clearly neoliberals. They're not really left-wingers in any traditional understanding of

00:35:26.400 the world. They're corporatists. And their very clear agenda right now is merging the power of the

00:35:32.380 federal government with the power of these tech companies, leaning on them to censor their political

00:35:37.020 opposition. So a very sort of authoritarian, corporatist style of government. And quite similar

00:35:43.440 to China, as I've said in the past. China uses public-private partnerships to control what private

00:35:49.160 companies do and control their own people. As far as the populist left goes, I don't think they have a

00:35:54.520 great deal of love for the tech companies either. We've even seen a few far-left communities getting

00:35:59.420 censored. For example, Reddit banned a really big left-wing subreddit last summer. The Chaco 0.96

00:36:05.160 Trap House subreddit was a subreddit for a very popular podcast. And a lot of Jeff Bezos recently

00:36:13.820 stepped down from Amazon. It's really been a hate figure for grassroots, populist left-wingers,

00:36:18.680 if you look at the sort of things they say on social media.

00:36:20.980 But those guys don't really control, one, they don't control the Democratic Party. And two,

00:36:27.480 even though a few of their people have been censored, I would say they still support things

00:36:32.140 like crackdowns on hate speech for the most part, enforcing gender pronouns on people. The

00:36:38.380 populist left believes in that too. So unless they start really suffering from censorship in the same

00:36:44.800 way that the right has been suffering from censorship, I don't think that'll be a priority. It's more a

00:36:49.220 back for the rich kind of thing. Well, let me just ask one last question to you, because you made me

00:36:53.780 think of something. I know that Facebook's been fighting with Australia over different things,

00:36:58.720 over money, really. And Facebook's threatened to sort of leave Australia and ban Australia.

00:37:05.180 And I know I'm oversimplifying. But it reminds me of when Twitter was getting into fights with other

00:37:10.860 countries. When Twitter started censoring Donald Trump, other countries said, whoa,

00:37:15.680 if they can censor Trump, they can censor us. I know Uganda. Twitter was messing around in their 1.00

00:37:21.620 elections. I think it was Uganda. And they just said, all right, Twitter, you're banned from Uganda.

00:37:27.600 And Twitter said, what? Free speech. This was moments after censoring Trump. I know Angela Merkel,

00:37:33.240 I know Mexico's president, also expressed concern with it. And I see even in the last 48 hours,

00:37:40.960 Twitter getting involved in the farmers' protests in India have earned the ire of the Indian government.

00:37:51.900 And I wonder if some of the changes to tech's monopoly status will come not from any American

00:37:59.260 political spirit, but from other countries saying we don't want to be dominated by Americans left-wing

00:38:05.880 or right-wing. India should have its own Twitter app. Let's ban Twitter because they're meddlers. 0.99

00:38:12.600 Uganda, maybe you're not going to have a Uganda version of Twitter, but maybe you'll have an

00:38:17.420 Indian version of Twitter that catches on. They're a tech powerhouse. I guess what I'm saying is,

00:38:22.040 if America isn't quite as freedom-loving and trust-busting as it ought to be, maybe America

00:38:28.760 might be saved in part by other countries that have a sense of national pride like India.

00:38:33.020 Yeah, I think this is going to be one of the big trends we're going to see in the coming years.

00:38:37.860 This idea of digital sovereignty, I think, will really gain momentum. Do you want these American, 0.56

00:38:43.660 if you're a foreign country, whether you're a European democracy or a tin-potted leadership in 0.54

00:38:49.080 Africa, you don't want a bunch of American companies coming to interfere in your politics.

00:38:54.160 And I think the State Department and various arms of the U.S. foreign policy establishment

00:38:59.780 are going to be very concerned by this because for the longest time they've seen Silicon Valley

00:39:05.180 and these tech platforms as a means of extending their influence even further abroad. So if all

00:39:12.080 these companies are going to start pushing back against Silicon Valley, kicking them out of the

00:39:15.280 country or regulating them, it's going to really lessen that influence. That's certainly something 0.75

00:39:20.460 to watch, especially the European governments, I think, because I think that especially took Silicon

00:39:25.700 Valley and the U.S. foreign policy establishment by surprise that Europe is so determined to not be

00:39:33.500 influenced by Silicon Valley.

00:39:35.440 You know, years ago, I had a quarrel with Chiquita Banana. Don't ask, Alan, it's a long story. But I 0.99

00:39:42.100 studied a little bit about the history of that company. Of course, it was called the United Fruit

00:39:45.880 Company. And it had its own CIA nickname, Unifruit, like codename. It was such a political force. And that's

00:39:55.400 where the phrase Banana Republic came from, where this fruit company was so powerful and it had a

00:40:02.680 corrupting influence on politics, on police, on commerce. And the phrase Banana Republic

00:40:09.780 was based on how abusive and corrupting this American-controlled CIA asset company. I know this

00:40:18.700 sounds like crazy James Bond stuff, but it actually is the history of that company. And to this day,

00:40:23.840 they still get involved in strange deals with terrorists in South America and elsewhere.

00:40:29.320 And you can see where that animosity would come from, whether you're left-wing or right-wing. If

00:40:34.980 you're in Costa Rica or whatever, whatever the country would be, or Ecuador, you would hate the fact

00:40:41.780 that some foreign company is making the rules for you. I mean, that would get anyone united with their

00:40:49.680 fellow countrymen. And now I think the banana republicization of politics isn't done through 0.72

00:40:56.440 fruit companies and guns. It's through throttling speech and imposing Silicon Valley's tastes 0.81

00:41:03.560 on countries that are a gazillion miles away. I think that the new united fruit companies of the

00:41:10.160 world are these meddlesome blowhards in Silicon Valley. And I don't think they even know it yet. 1.00

00:41:15.880 Last word to you, Alan. Oh, yeah. Well, yes. I mean, we need to start thinking of companies as

00:41:21.580 being potentially more powerful than governments. We're in that kind of historical era. And it has

00:41:25.460 happened before. Just look at British and Canadian history. Canadian history of the Hudson's Bay

00:41:29.600 Company, probably integral in creating the nation of Canada, even more so than the British government.

00:41:35.360 And obviously, the British East India Company conquered an entire subcontinent. So, and these companies,

00:41:42.600 these tech companies, as you say, they're not fruit companies. They control a product that is far more

00:41:47.060 insidious and has far more potential to, you know, silently influence the products of a country

00:41:52.640 than any banana company, not to mention their enormous wealth and political connections.

00:41:59.380 Alan, I love talking with you. Another day we'll talk about Chiquita Banana. But for today,

00:42:05.340 thank you for this. I would recommend, as I always do, that not only that you follow Alan at

00:42:11.220 Breitbart.com, his tech stories, but that you follow him on Twitter also. And we'll put his

00:42:15.800 Twitter handle on the screen for folks to watch. Alan, great to see you. Thanks for your time.

00:42:20.680 Thanks, Desiree. Great to be on, as always.

00:42:22.240 Right on. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:42:24.380 Hey, welcome back on my show last night. Graz writes, can I still get one of those shirts?

00:42:41.540 Well, Graz, it wasn't a rebel shirt. It was a shirt made or attempted to be made by some staff at the

00:42:47.540 Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Sounds like the shirt never actually got made, but the Chinese spies who 0.68

00:42:53.100 track everything they do caught it and made a fuss about it. So I don't think you could get them

00:42:58.620 originally. It was just an internal thing. I don't think they were actually ever made,

00:43:02.820 but I suppose you could make one for yourself as long as it's not made in China, right?

00:43:08.240 Some guy writes, I apologize to Canada. Apologize to China for such a stupid thing.

00:43:14.300 Yeah, I don't know why we're apologizing to literal kidnappers.

00:43:18.720 It was against all of our legal norms and international norms to seize two Canadian citizens

00:43:25.840 really as hostages. And we're apologizing to them. I think it's 793 days now that the two Michaels have

00:43:33.180 been in prison. Illegal. Kidnapping, really.

00:43:36.740 Phil writes, how about an apology from the Chinese communists for holding two Canadians in jail for

00:43:44.500 over two years? Yeah, it's really since December 2018, if you can imagine. So it is over two years.

00:43:53.520 I'm very frustrated, Biden, as I showed you. It seems to be getting worse. And with Joe Biden

00:43:58.040 jumping on the Chinese Communist Party train, I think it's going to get worse.

00:44:02.400 Well, that's our show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:44:06.960 headquarters to you at home, good night. Keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - February 11, 2021

Why did Erin O'Toole fire Pierre Poilievre as his finance critic？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript