Rebel News Podcast - March 19, 2019


Why fully legalizing sports betting in Canada is “the right thing to do” (Guest host： David Menzies)

Topics
legalizing single-game sports wagering budget and economic indicators middle class tax increases
Hosted by
David Menzies
Mentioned
Catherine Swift Justin Trudeau Bill Morneau Bill C-63 Paul Martin Ezra Levant C. White Michael Chong Charlie Brown Vic Fidelli Jean-Cretien Norman Clerk Lucy
Rebel Roundup： Guests Ezra Levant, Amanda Head, & Keean Bexte! Alberta： Notley calls an election for four weeks from today. Here's what to expect.

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

156.04

Word count

3,156

Sentence count

220

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Will the Trudeau Liberals legalize gambling on single-game sporting events in Canada? Or will they continue to oppose such a change? And if they do, what will it mean for the economy, jobs, and tax revenue?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of the Ezreal Event Show.
00:00:07.080 And on today's show, we have my monologue on my hope that the Justin Trudeau Liberals will finally approve
00:00:15.580 single-game sports wagering in Canada, something that's been so overdue and something that would be a win-win-win for all.
00:00:25.140 And of course, we have Catherine Swift of Working Canadians. 1.00
00:00:29.040 She's going to weigh in on what her predictions will be regarding Bill Morneau's budget tomorrow.
00:00:34.940 Now, if you like listening to this podcast, then you would love watching it.
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00:01:33.780 And now, enjoy this free, audio-only version of Ezra's show.
00:01:39.940 You're listening to a Rebel Media podcast.
00:01:43.340 Tonight, will the Trudeau liberals legalize gambling on single-game sporting events?
00:01:48.500 Don't bet on it.
00:01:50.020 It's March 18th. I'm David Menzies, and this is The Ezreal Event Show.
00:01:54.480 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:02:00.320 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:02:04.400 The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publishing, is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:02:10.260 Once upon a time in Canada, there was virtually no such thing as legalized gambling.
00:02:20.360 Aside from a church bingo game or the crown and anchor wheel down at the local summer fair,
00:02:25.580 or maybe a smuggled-in Irish sweepstakes ticket,
00:02:29.400 it was slim pickings for those who like to wager unless you are heavily invested into horse racing.
00:02:34.900 If one wanted to gamble, at least legally, doing so meant purchasing a plane ticket to Las Vegas.
00:02:42.080 Today, the gambling landscape is radically different.
00:02:45.940 From lotto tickets and table games to slot machines and daily lotteries,
00:02:50.920 one is free to squander one's money with the complete approval of the government.
00:02:55.540 Actually, the government is both the house and the bookmaker.
00:02:59.720 But as much as Canada has morphed into Las Vegas North, there is a notable exemption.
00:03:05.920 I speak of wagering on sports matches.
00:03:08.820 Oh sure, for more than 20 years now, this has been facilitated by the ProLine Provincial Run Lottery.
00:03:16.040 But the thing is, a sports bettor must wager on a parlay, meaning he or she has to choose at least three games.
00:03:23.460 To this day, wagering on single-game sporting events is illegal. 0.99
00:03:27.660 Think of how cosmically stupid that is. 0.97
00:03:31.500 For example, if you wanted to bet on the single biggest game of the entire sports calendar, namely the Super Bowl, 0.99
00:03:38.420 you couldn't do so via any of the Provincial Lottery corporations.
00:03:43.360 Of course, that doesn't prevent Canadians from betting on the Super Bowl.
00:03:47.440 It only meant that one had to seek out a bookie or, in my case, open up an account with an offshore betting company such as Bet365.com.
00:03:58.800 Who knows how many billions the government has lost out on when it comes to forfeiting single-game wagering.
00:04:06.180 But recently, Ontario Finance Minister Vic Videli wrote to Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau asking for an amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada,
00:04:16.100 one that would indeed legalize single-game sports wagering in Canada.
00:04:21.240 This is a win-win-win on so many fronts, from creating jobs and increasing gambling revenues,
00:04:28.460 to attracting American gamblers to Canadian casinos.
00:04:32.480 But where do the federal liberals stand on this issue?
00:04:37.060 It's kind of hard to gauge.
00:04:39.020 When they were in opposition, they supported a private member's bill, Bill C-290, as did all the other parties.
00:04:46.860 That bill, which would have made single-game wagering legal, actually passed third reading and was sent to the Senate.
00:04:54.520 Alas, it languaged in the upper chamber for three years and died on the order table when the 2015 federal election was called.
00:05:01.940 But again, why?
00:05:03.840 Why are Canadians not adult enough to bet on a single sporting match?
00:05:10.360 Or was there something more to the assassination of Bill C-290?
00:05:15.240 For example, consider Conservative MP Michael Chong, who used to be Minister of Sport.
00:05:20.480 He publicly opposed Bill C-290 because that bill would allegedly hurt children, low-income groups, and people with addictive personalities.
00:05:32.280 Plus, it would supposedly ruin the integrity of sports.
00:05:36.780 Now, how many paternalistic senators, I wonder, also had similar views?
00:05:41.660 But does this rationale pass your sniff test, folks?
00:05:46.080 The fact that parlay sports betting protects kids and gambling addicts, whereas single-game wagering will see junior squanderers' candy bar money on Wednesday's Leafs game?
00:05:57.220 Give me a break.
00:05:58.440 Oh, by the way, it should be noted that Chong once worked for the National Hockey League Players Association.
00:06:06.140 So why do I get this feeling Chong is less concerned about the family milk money being sacrificed and more concerned about his old millionaire cronies being shut out from new gambling revenues?
00:06:19.040 Bottom line, like it or not, when it comes to the gambling business in Canada, the government is already the biggest pimp daddy in the land thanks to its lottery and casino interests.
00:06:31.460 And sorry, when it comes to sports wagering, there's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant.
00:06:38.280 So here's hoping that the Trudeau Liberals will reverse themselves yet again when they hand down the budget tomorrow and throw their support behind single-game sports wagering.
00:06:50.060 It would be the right thing for them to do, especially since it's abundantly clear the budget is not going to balance itself.
00:06:59.620 Then again, would you ever bet on this particular government doing the right thing?
00:07:03.900 I think the odds against that would make even the most reckless gambler cringe.
00:07:23.920 Well, tomorrow is budget day and this is an election year.
00:07:28.300 So why do I get this queasy feeling that Finance Minister Bill Morneau will resemble Santa Claus in a budget that will likely be jam-packed with goodies and freebies?
00:07:41.200 But as we all know, given our obese deficit and debt, nothing is truly free.
00:07:47.740 And joining me now to discuss what might be coming down the pike tomorrow regarding this budget is Catherine Swift of Working Canadians.
00:07:55.800 Welcome to the Ezra Levent Show, Catherine.
00:07:58.300 Thank you.
00:07:59.840 Listen, Catherine, do you share my queasiness?
00:08:03.780 Oh, yes, I do.
00:08:06.720 Sadly.
00:08:08.120 And what I found rather, I mean, it would be funny if it weren't so awfully sad and serious, but, you know, leading up to this budget, there was all this mention in the media.
00:08:17.660 Well, all the economic indicators are looking pretty rough right now.
00:08:21.380 So this will give Morneau and the Liberals an excuse for a big spending budget.
00:08:26.200 But when have they not had a big spending budget?
00:08:29.740 When the economy was, you know, doing not badly, say, last year or the year before, they still had big spending budgets.
00:08:35.980 So I sort of didn't understand why this was different.
00:08:38.780 But there's no question in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin fiasco and the ongoing situation there, we're going to have, I would think, the Vice Admiral Norman scandal, which looks like it's at least as ugly, if not more so, in the next few months.
00:08:54.780 They're clearly looking to turn the page.
00:08:57.580 I think even without all that, it would be a big spending budget.
00:09:01.300 But this, they're probably looking for even more bells and whistles.
00:09:04.500 You know, the squirrel, look over here, Canadians, tactic to try to distract from all of their many, many scandals and fiascos. 0.98
00:09:13.480 I heard just, I feel I haven't been listening to the news now for five minutes.
00:09:17.500 So something else has probably happened in Ottawa in terms of somebody resigning or, you know, the Clerk of the Privy Council resigned this morning.
00:09:24.200 We're retired, but, you know, really resigned.
00:09:26.760 You know, it is chaos in Ottawa right now with this government.
00:09:30.620 And this budget is very scary because, of course, all governments try to bribe us with our own money.
00:09:36.440 But this one in particular has developed a real talent for it, and it's not a talent any Canadians should really be appreciating.
00:09:43.760 Oh, I agree, Catherine.
00:09:44.720 And to go back to something you said about some of the grim economic indicators that have been reported very recently.
00:09:51.580 For example, Bank of Canada reporting that GDP has slowed to a near stall.
00:09:57.320 And that in December, Canada recorded its widest trade deficit in its history and also predictions that the dollar might fall to 62 cents U.S. or even below.
00:10:11.440 That would be a record as well.
00:10:14.440 What do you make of this?
00:10:15.920 And, you know, let me ask you this, Catherine.
00:10:17.660 And given those kind of grim indicators, if you were in Bill Murnau's seat, what would you be doing as opposed to what we can expect is going to happen, which is almost a game show-like atmosphere in terms of giveaways?
00:10:33.240 Yeah.
00:10:33.680 Well, I certainly wouldn't be introducing the rumored new Pharmacare.
00:10:38.000 Yes.
00:10:38.660 Which is a massively costly program.
00:10:41.120 We'll have to see how it's structured, but it doesn't matter.
00:10:43.000 It's massively costly no matter what.
00:10:44.700 I think a real difference would have been if I were in those shoes, those shoes that apparently are resold this year, not brand new ones, I would not have behaved like he behaved in the previous budgets.
00:10:58.800 Because, really, the time for sensible, I won't say restraint, but sensible spending control was then.
00:11:07.180 Things are slowing now.
00:11:08.260 And the whole notion, I love it when the left sort of the political spectrum cite Keynesians.
00:11:13.260 Keynesians, and I'm an economist, as you probably know.
00:11:16.580 And, you know, the perverse thing about Keynes was he actually recommended that you save money in good times so that you have some in the bad times. 0.96
00:11:26.460 And this government has spent ourselves, because it's our dough, stupid in the good times, which leaves us hugely vulnerable.
00:11:33.560 So, I mean, again, I don't see any reason to introduce brand new sparkly things like pharmacare, especially when things like the evidence out there shows that there's a very small minority of people that don't have coverage. 0.92
00:11:44.740 Why don't we target them instead of having this massive new national program that's going to be mega tens of billions of dollars? 0.83
00:11:52.220 And it's probably just going to make people unhappy anyway, because I bet a lot of stuff isn't going to be covered by it.
00:11:57.020 We've also heard they're going to supposedly do things to help millennials buy houses.
00:12:01.540 Well, frankly, you look at the market now, and the rate of millennial home ownership is quite high, thank you very much.
00:12:09.360 It doesn't mean there aren't some people that would like to buy a house that can't right now.
00:12:12.880 But, again, these kinds of measures are not going to solve the problem.
00:12:17.080 They might be sort of the sparkly baubles that somebody who isn't thinking in a long-term sense would find attractive, and that's, of course, what they're hoping.
00:12:24.960 But, I mean, I think in terms of different behavior, that should have happened over the past few years.
00:12:29.380 We should have a nice cushion now, as we see indicators going south in the economy, so that we can lessen the impact of the recession coming.
00:12:38.560 Oh, indeed, and that's the thing.
00:12:40.860 I mean, the price, don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless.
00:12:43.820 I mean, it would be wonderful to have a pharmacare program for all Canadians, but there's a price to that, Catherine, as you and I and our audience well knows.
00:12:52.860 Nothing is free.
00:12:54.040 And, I mean, there's been some other rumors, too, perhaps a national daycare program.
00:12:59.020 There would be another multibillion-dollar boondoggle, I should think.
00:13:01.980 And even there was some pledge about guaranteeing that Canadians, all Canadians, that is, will have access to high-speed internet by 2030.
00:13:15.420 I always love those promises, picking a date in which this crew will be long gone from politics.
00:13:21.160 But what do you make of these other rumors that are in the mill in terms of what the price tag will mean to Canadians, Catherine?
00:13:29.180 Well, it looks like deficits almost in perpetuity, which is worrisome, always worrisome.
00:13:38.000 And if people don't realize what a burden that imposes on our children, our grandchildren down the road, it's disgraceful.
00:13:47.820 Everything's being financed by debt now.
00:13:49.760 And the deficits, I hear rumors, and I guess we'll see tomorrow, but I hear rumors the deficit's supposed to be coming in about $2 billion less than was forecast in the latest forecast.
00:14:00.160 Mind you, these numbers are fiddled with, as we know.
00:14:03.080 But apparently corporate tax revenues seem to be up, and so that's accounting for a somewhat lower deficit.
00:14:08.420 But in my long career of studying the economy, when things go south, they go south really fast.
00:14:18.720 And we're looking in supposedly decent economic times at $18 to $20 billion deficits.
00:14:25.820 Those are going to skyrocket more than double, possibly triple, when the economy, which invariably will happen, does go bad.
00:14:34.660 And I just really hope Canadians will have some perspective here, because obviously, you know, you can't spend with borrowed dollars forever.
00:14:45.800 We all know we can't do that in our household accounts.
00:14:48.260 Governments can't do it either.
00:14:49.740 One thing I wonder about from just looking from a political standpoint, where the heck are Paul Martin and Jean-Cretien right now?
00:14:56.020 They faced the demon debt wall back in the mid-90s, had to make all kinds of cuts.
00:15:01.600 They imposed all kinds of cuts on the provinces.
00:15:03.880 They took almost $60 billion out of the EI fund at the time, which was a misuse of that money.
00:15:09.420 But they did end up getting rid of the deficit.
00:15:12.100 Why aren't they advising the current crew that it's deja vu all over again?
00:15:16.240 Oh, indeed.
00:15:17.160 And we'll have to paraphrase the old Oldsmobile ad slogan.
00:15:20.980 This isn't your father's liberal party, that's for sure.
00:15:24.420 But, you know, Catherine, I want you to take off your economist hat and put your political hat on for this question, which is this.
00:15:31.260 A lot of people understand what's going on. 0.57
00:15:33.700 And, you know, people aren't stupid.
00:15:35.500 They see that this is an effort to buy votes.
00:15:39.140 And yet I can't think of, say, families on the margins, you know, maybe a single mom struggling to make ends meet and hearing free daycare, free pharmacare.
00:15:49.920 You know, this makes a difference in my life here and now.
00:15:52.540 And I'm voting for this.
00:15:54.140 What do you do you think this, you know, actually tilts the game in the liberals favor come October?
00:16:00.920 It's hard to say because a lot of their so-called brand has been ruined.
00:16:06.260 Certainly, their constant touting of the middle class.
00:16:09.320 Well, there's an awful lot of very good research showing that that has not borne out.
00:16:13.880 That has not been true.
00:16:14.900 In fact, middle class people are facing tax increases under this government.
00:16:17.820 And how can it be otherwise?
00:16:19.640 How can it be otherwise?
00:16:22.320 There's all manner of promises they've made they've reneged on.
00:16:26.060 And I guess it's the old Lucy and Charlie Brown in the football.
00:16:29.840 Why should we believe them now?
00:16:31.980 No, they've done very little that they said they were going to do for the entire time they've been in government.
00:16:37.760 They've betrayed a lot of the indigenous file, the so-called feminist file and so on and so forth.
00:16:45.460 So why should we believe them now?
00:16:47.340 And even to that, you know, lower income person, they have to be noticing now that they're not better off.
00:16:54.860 And I think this is the ultimate thing.
00:16:55.920 We can tout studies and, you know, research all we want.
00:16:59.980 But there's an awful lot of public opinion polls and other information that are showing your average Canadian doesn't feel better off right now than they felt three and a half, four years ago.
00:17:10.080 They're feeling worse off.
00:17:11.660 They're feeling more insecure about their future.
00:17:14.000 And again, that affects everybody at every part of the income spectrum.
00:17:17.520 For sure.
00:17:18.000 Well, for now, you know, Catherine, it's all conjecture.
00:17:20.540 We're going to find out all the true nitty gritty tomorrow when it comes down.
00:17:24.100 So one final question before we wrap.
00:17:26.100 And again, I think for this, put on your economist hat once again.
00:17:29.980 Now, I'm still to this day.
00:17:32.080 He said it many years ago, and I've thought about this for years and I still haven't figured it out.
00:17:37.600 But tell me, Catherine, when Justin Trudeau said the budgets will balance themselves.
00:17:43.960 What in blue hell did he mean by that?
00:17:47.280 Please tell me as an economist.
00:17:50.020 Well, I'm sorry, but I can't. 0.85
00:17:52.140 And all I can say is it was proof positive that Justin Trudeau not only knows nothing about the economy and government finances, but he has had a long history of blurting out grandiose statements that mean nothing or are outright silly. 0.96
00:18:09.760 And that's probably one of the silliest. 0.96
00:18:12.340 Yeah, for sure. 0.55
00:18:13.260 It sounded to me like another way of saying wishful thinking, keep your fingers crossed.
00:18:18.560 And oh, my goodness.
00:18:19.860 Well, Catherine, hopefully it won't be as bad as we think it is.
00:18:23.180 But I wouldn't put anything past this government.
00:18:25.200 So thank you so much for weighing in with your analysis.
00:18:29.120 My pleasure.
00:18:29.860 You got it.
00:18:30.320 Thank you, Catherine.
00:18:30.960 And that was Catherine Swift.
00:18:32.440 And folks, keep it here.
00:18:33.700 More of the Ezra Levin show to come right after this.
00:18:36.120 This is a learning moment for everyone.
00:19:04.920 And Canadians need to do better.
00:19:08.200 Wow, Paul, you could be Justin's official apology writer with such wordsmith acumen because a Trudeau apology is all about fancy pronouncements and nothing about personal responsibility.
00:19:23.220 And Ice Lion Man writes, he's an embarrassment to Canadian people kind.
00:19:28.940 Indeed, not to mention all the Fisher folks from coast to coast.
00:19:35.220 And C. White writes, I'm trying to figure out the logic of the most recent apology.
00:19:41.220 Junior apologized for the liberal governments of the time evacuating TB victims to where they could be treated and not spread contagion throughout isolated communities.
00:19:53.080 Well, wait a minute, C. White, you're trying to piggyback that goofy thing known as logic to something Justin Trudeau does or says.
00:20:03.720 That was your first mistake, my friend.
00:20:06.440 Well, that's the show for tonight, as we'll be we'll be back for tomorrow.
00:20:10.080 Thanks so much for putting out with me.
00:20:11.520 And thanks for watching.
00:20:13.000 Take care.
00:20:13.440 Take care.