The Candice Malcolm Show - Justin Trudeau is determined to censor the internet (Feat. Ezra Levant)

00:00:00.000 Why is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau so determined to censor the internet?

00:00:04.460 Why is trampling on free speech such a high priority for this government?

00:00:07.940 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:21.340 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the show.

00:00:23.900 So as you've probably seen, the Trudeau government is ramping up its efforts to ban things that they don't like.

00:00:28.780 Namely, things that are said online.

00:00:31.420 So the dreadful policies of the last Parliament Bill C-10 and C-36.

00:00:35.480 Thankfully, those died when Justin Trudeau selfishly called an election in the fall of 2021.

00:00:40.500 He thought he was going to get a majority government.

00:00:42.180 He didn't get one.

00:00:43.240 However, now he has a de facto majority because he is in alignment with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.

00:00:49.680 And so these online censorship bills are back and they're worse than they were before.

00:00:54.220 So joining me today to discuss the government's insistence on censorship.

00:00:58.100 I'm pleased to be joined today by Ezra Levant.

00:01:01.060 Ezra is the founder and CEO of Rebel News and the host of The Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:04.580 He's Canada's foremost free speech champion.

00:01:07.200 He's often single-handedly led the charge and fought back against overzealous government intrusions.

00:01:12.880 Ezra, thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:15.020 It's great to have you.

00:01:16.160 Well, thanks very much.

00:01:17.460 A pleasure to be here.

00:01:18.340 So can you help us understand where we are with the legislation?

00:01:25.440 I know there's two new pieces of legislation being put forth.

00:01:28.560 They're called Bill C-11 and C-18.

00:01:31.960 And then we also, we're still waiting for the follow-up to Bill C-36.

00:01:36.440 So what do you make of these bills?

00:01:38.560 What's the worst part of them?

00:01:40.600 And do you think that something else is even, something else worse is even yet to come?

00:01:45.700 Oh yeah, the worst is yet to come.

00:01:47.200 And I know that sounds like a laughable tagline, sort of like an anti-Disney world, the world's

00:01:52.540 unhappiest place.

00:01:54.000 But it's bizarre to me just how much energy and effort the Trudeau government is putting

00:01:58.260 into censorship of the media.

00:02:00.180 I mean, you would think just looking around the world, there are a hundred things that

00:02:04.540 are more important to the quality of life for Canadians, whether it's inflation, price

00:02:09.120 of gas, the war in Ukraine, taxation, carbon tax.

00:02:14.520 I can think of a hundred things more relevant and more demanded by Canadian citizens censoring

00:02:21.040 the internet, deciding for people what they can or can't see wouldn't even be on the list.

00:02:27.400 That's not a benefit at all.

00:02:28.720 That's a cost, something that none of us want.

00:02:31.800 But it's what Trudeau wants, because he wants more and more control over the national discourse.

00:02:39.000 And he's gotten a lot of it through carrot.

00:02:41.160 In the carrot and stick choice, he's used a carrot using media subsidies and insider access.

00:02:47.920 And basically, he either owns through the CBC or rents through his media subsidy more than

00:02:56.920 99% of the media in this country.

00:02:58.700 And I know it's that number, because right before the last election, we got an access to

00:03:03.500 information document showing a secret $61 million payment from Trudeau to different media companies.

00:03:11.420 So we made the request, can we see the list of media companies?

00:03:14.320 Over 1,500, I didn't know there were 1,500 news media companies in Canada, got a special grant from Trudeau on the eve of the election.

00:03:24.520 None of those 1,500 companies reported that they got the grant.

00:03:28.000 So when you own the CBC, which is larger than all other news media combined, and when you rent the other 1,500, the handful of independent people left, Rebel News, True North, I mean, you can almost count them on one hand's fingers.

00:03:42.700 You think, well, why is he so obsessed with smashing down those few, few dissonance?

00:03:49.160 And it makes me think of this, Candice.

00:03:50.340 I don't know if you've ever heard of something called the Ash Conformity Experiment, A-S-C-H. 1.00

00:03:56.800 Have you heard of that?

00:03:58.000 No, I haven't.

00:03:58.080 It was a test, a psychological test done in the aftermath of the Second World War.

00:04:04.700 It's often spoken of in association with the Milgram Experiment.

00:04:09.740 I bet you've heard of the Milgram Experiment.

00:04:11.040 It's when someone in a white lab coat says to someone, electrocute the guy in the other room because he got a question wrong.

00:04:19.340 Don't worry.

00:04:20.200 I'm wearing a white lab coat.

00:04:21.580 I'll take responsibility.

00:04:23.180 That shocking experiment called the Milgram Experiment showed that most people were willing to inflict pain on another person if someone in authority told them it was the right thing to do and said they'd take responsibility.

00:04:34.780 Shocking test called the Milgram Experiment.

00:04:36.740 There was another test in the same vein called the Ash Conformity Test. 0.65

00:04:44.060 And what it was, and just give me a minute on it because you'll understand why I'm so focused on this test.

00:04:49.520 I've been thinking about it nonstop through the entire lockdown, by the way, because I see such conformity.

00:04:55.320 I see people doing things that on the face of it would be absurd, people wearing a mask by themselves in their car.

00:05:01.640 I saw someone in a canoe on Lake Louise by themselves, a canoe on Lake Louise wearing a mask.

00:05:06.780 Why would people be such conformists?

00:05:09.100 Well, the Ash Conformity Test helps us understand.

00:05:11.940 There were five people in a room and they were shown a line and then a group of three lines of different length.

00:05:17.300 And they were asked the child's question, this line is the same length as which of these three?

00:05:22.540 And most of the time, everyone gave the right answer.

00:05:26.360 But four of the five people in the crowd were in on it.

00:05:29.800 So every once in a while, they would all give the same wrong answer, Candace.

00:05:34.600 They would all say this long line is the same height as this short line.

00:05:38.740 And four out of the five people were in on it. 0.98

00:05:41.260 But the one naive experimenter would say, huh, you guys are crazy.

00:05:45.860 That's not the same length.

00:05:47.460 But the Ash Conformity Test found 37% of the time, the person who wasn't in on it would go along with the mob because he didn't want to make a fuss.

00:05:59.400 He didn't want to be an outlier.

00:06:00.560 He didn't want to be a nonconformist.

00:06:02.200 37% of the time, people would deny what they saw with their eyes and repeat a lie just to go along to get along.

00:06:10.840 But here's the second part of the Ash Conformity Test.

00:06:14.160 If that one naive person was given a confederate, that is, when the group went crazy and said the short line was actually the medium line,

00:06:24.540 if one other person in the room said, no, no, no, it's that one that's the same length.

00:06:32.200 And they all had to sort of say their answer out loud one after the other.

00:06:35.760 If a single other person in the room was telling the truth, that meant that the naive test subject, he spoke the truth 95% of the time.

00:06:46.700 So his compliance, his conformity fell from 37% to 5% with a single other sane person in the room.

00:06:55.220 Sorry for taking up so much time.

00:06:57.840 It's a wonderful experiment that teaches us so much about conformity.

00:07:02.840 And so I come back to your question at great length.

00:07:05.700 I'm sorry.

00:07:06.060 Why is it necessary to stomp out Little Rebel News, Little True North, Little Spencer Fernando, Little Western Standard Online, all these little groups?

00:07:17.340 I mean, I love them all.

00:07:18.100 I love you guys.

00:07:18.940 I love Rebel News.

00:07:20.200 But even though we're growing, we're still a fraction of the size of the Toronto Star, which has a million circulation every day, or the CBC.

00:07:28.040 We're still a fraction of their size.

00:07:29.820 So why is he obsessed with smashing us?

00:07:32.020 It is because if there is a single person telling the truth, speaking truth to power, saying the other side of the story, being a dissident, and someone sees that, they say, okay, good.

00:07:41.200 I'm not crazy.

00:07:42.400 I don't have to go along with it.

00:07:43.920 I'm not mad.

00:07:45.040 And whether it's on the carbon tax or open borders immigration or lockdowns or whatever it is, if there's one truth teller, and I think you guys do a lot of truth telling at True North, that inspires, gives courage to people.

00:07:58.440 That's what the Ash Conformity Test taught us.

00:08:00.300 And that's why the last holdouts, those last 1% of journalists are the worst in the world to Trudeau because our very existent proves a lie to the rest of the pack.

00:08:12.760 That's why he's obsessed.

00:08:14.220 Well, that's such an interesting and wonderful analogy.

00:08:17.320 I'm glad that you brought it to my attention because I think that's probably part of the reason why people like me felt so much hope from the trucker convoy because it was like, here is a group of people who are doing, like you said, what that one, you know, the one person who was saying, no, that's the wrong line, that's the wrong line.

00:08:32.660 And then, you know, 95% of the time, the person in the room said the right thing.

00:08:38.120 To me, that was the moment in Canada.

00:08:40.720 And I think I've heard from people all over the world that talk about the truckers as sort of a tipping point to the end of the pandemic that so many people are now saying enough is enough.

00:08:49.240 I still, I want to kind of go back though, Ezra, to Justin Trudeau and his obsession because even when he was in Europe, he was talking about how important it is in Western liberal democracies to stamp out disinformation, misinformation.

00:09:04.520 These are kind of the latest, you know, words that the left loves to use to describe things that they basically stories that they don't like.

00:09:11.420 Things like the Hunter Biden laptop story, which they said has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation during the election, the U.S. presidential election 2020, they basically banned that story.

00:09:21.200 And lo and behold, a year later, the New York Times is reporting that it is, in fact, accurate.

00:09:25.460 It's sort of like taking cancel culture and legislating it.

00:09:29.720 And you kind of answered this question in your last explanation.

00:09:33.120 But Justin Trudeau is doing something truly extreme by trying to regulate algorithms on websites like on apps and sites like YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and doing things that really enter us into authoritarian anti-free speech territory.

00:09:48.620 Again, like, why isn't there more pushback?

00:09:51.120 Why isn't this the biggest story in the country?

00:09:52.820 Why isn't, why aren't there a few people, at least in legacy media, saying, hey, guys, this isn't normal stuff for a Western liberal democracy.

00:09:59.660 And to your point earlier, there's a hundred other issues that are more important in Canada.

00:10:04.140 And yet this is what we have a government that's obsessed with.

00:10:07.460 Yeah, you're right.

00:10:08.240 You know, I mean, imagine if this were five years ago and it was Stephen Harper or even a couple of years ago and it was Donald Trump saying, I'm going to commandeer YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram.

00:10:17.540 And I'm going to have them boost what I want and de-boost what I don't like.

00:10:22.380 And Pablo Rodriguez, the new heritage minister, last week announced that if there is fake news out there, there's a 15 million dollar penalty.

00:10:30.780 Well, one man's fake news is the other man's contrarian take.

00:10:34.220 What's fake news other than news your side doesn't like?

00:10:37.500 So imagine if Stephen Harper or Donald Trump or some conservative has said, I'm going to commandeer the press.

00:10:43.080 It would have been apoplexy.

00:10:44.120 But these are this is Trudeau, the you know, the precious one.

00:10:48.520 And you've had five years of obedience conditioning in the media.

00:10:52.520 I saw Pablo Rodriguez's press conference last week about this, where he was rolling out this massive incursion into freedom, setting up these bizarre and intricate panels and bodies.

00:11:05.320 And the QCJO qualified Canadian journalist organization that he'll have a panel that'll decide whether journalists are qualified to get government friendship or whatever.

00:11:18.260 And the journalists who were there, first of all, they were screened.

00:11:21.820 Only, quote, accredited journalists were even allowed to get close to the sainted minister.

00:11:26.540 But their questions were not about what are you doing?

00:11:29.640 This is immoral.

00:11:30.300 This is contrary to the charter.

00:11:31.280 This is a violation of the independence of the media, the separation of, you know, none of the questions were like that.

00:11:37.460 They were all sort of technical questions as if as if they were getting a new employee manual and asking technical questions like, OK, so how much vacation time do I have now?

00:11:46.800 Or what, you know, like their questions were technocratic questions.

00:11:51.960 They have completely bought in to the mentality that they're sort of stenographers.

00:11:56.380 They're part of this system.

00:11:57.440 In fact, one of the questions, I don't know if you saw this, is one of the media parties said, will Rebel News be allowed to get this qualified Canadian journalist organization accreditation?

00:12:07.880 Like they're obsessed again with the holdouts who aren't in on it.

00:12:11.680 And that's another thing.

00:12:12.560 It's I'll use another analogy.

00:12:13.940 It's it's a group of people who are codependent or who are bad influences on each other, whether it's drugs or alcohol.

00:12:19.520 And if one of them pulls out and says, guys, I'm getting out of this and I'm going to go straight, I'm going to go sober.

00:12:25.920 I'm not going to hang out with you guys.

00:12:27.620 I got to change my friends because you guys are bad influence on me and I don't want to live that life.

00:12:32.140 That guy who breaks out and leaves, everyone hates him because it's proof that you could break out and leave.

00:12:38.540 And so why does the media party hate True North?

00:12:41.160 They hate True North.

00:12:41.980 They're really mean to you, by the way.

00:12:44.360 I mean, they despise me.

00:12:45.700 Why?

00:12:46.940 Because we prove you can do it without being an obedient, submissive stenographer.

00:12:51.340 And our very fact that we broke away and we refused to take the dough is is shines back at them like a mirror showing them that they did not have to take the money.

00:13:02.600 And it's I don't know.

00:13:03.600 I find it deeply depressing.

00:13:06.380 Justin Trudeau has spent his whole life protected in bubble wrap.

00:13:10.740 He had his dad's lawyers and accountants manage a trust fund for him, I think until he was 40.

00:13:17.800 Like he never paid a bill and he was not in charge of his own.

00:13:20.740 I think Pierre Trudeau made Justin wait till I think he was 35 or 40 before he gave him his inheritance.

00:13:26.180 So there was this retinue of financial servants and lawyers always getting True out of a pickle.

00:13:30.920 I want to tell you and and his name and his handsome looks and his connections got him out of everything.

00:13:36.920 Can I tell you a quick anecdote?

00:13:38.040 I know I'm taking up all your time.

00:13:39.840 I'm going to tell you this story about the time I very first met Justin Trudeau.

00:13:43.380 And this was, I don't know, 20 years ago.

00:13:46.080 And I was in a very schmancy restaurant in Toronto called Sassafras with Andrew Coyne.

00:13:53.060 We were buddies back then and we were in this fanciest place in in Yorkville.

00:13:57.020 And we looked down and there's a booth there and who is smiles and drinking and just chatting with the ladies on his phone.

00:14:05.560 But Justin Trudeau and Andrew Coyne and him are related by marriage or whatever.

00:14:08.740 So we get up and go and say hello.

00:14:11.540 And Andrew Coyne, the skeptical, cynical, hard-bitten commentator, I've never seen him be so fawning and obsequious in my life.

00:14:22.100 And Justin Trudeau, it was almost like kiss my ring.

00:14:24.780 And I just, I had never met Justin Trudeau before, but that was his life.

00:14:30.440 His life was, you know, chatting with the ladies, gorgeous meals paid for by someone else, everyone coming to bend the knee to the prince.

00:14:41.240 His entire life has been surrounded by people who will never say no to him.

00:14:47.240 Jody Wilson-Raybould was the first one who made the error of saying no to him and was sacked.

00:14:51.000 And so I tell you that he cannot handle criticisms because he's never had it.

00:14:58.800 Everyone always says yes to him.

00:15:01.100 And so the fact that some grubby, unqualified journalist would dare to say, and the fact that those European parliamentarians, remember those MEPs in Europe who stood up and scorched him?

00:15:11.120 More scorchy than anything our Canadian MPs would do.

00:15:14.100 He was stunned by that because that never has been able to penetrate into his inner sanctum.

00:15:20.720 He does not have any internal dissidence.

00:15:24.320 You know, Lincoln said a team of rivals, you know, have a rollicking internal debate.

00:15:30.400 Allow people to criticize you.

00:15:31.860 And then finally make a decision.

00:15:32.820 Trudeau does not have a rollicking internal debate.

00:15:35.640 There is no dissidence allowed.

00:15:38.860 And he does very poorly with criticism, which is another reason he tries to ban journalists from his press conferences.

00:15:45.720 I think Justin Trudeau meant it when he said communist China was the country he most admires.

00:15:52.360 He meant it when he gave the eulogy to Fidel Castro that was so shocking.

00:15:58.680 Half of the American Senate was appalled by it.

00:16:01.880 I think Pierre Trudeau meant it when he said communist Siberia was the land of the future.

00:16:07.560 I think it's time to believe Justin Trudeau when he says he admires dictatorships.

00:16:11.840 Well, he certainly does have thin skin.

00:16:14.940 And, you know, that anecdote doesn't surprise me at all.

00:16:17.540 Just my observations of Trudeau and the way that he's treated by the media.

00:16:22.640 One of the things.

00:16:23.580 Oh, and just to your point earlier that you made that the idea of fake news is completely subjective.

00:16:28.800 At one point, Ezra, I wrote a column for the Toronto Sun with my perspective on carbon taxes.

00:16:35.720 And Chris, or sorry, Catherine McKenna, who was at the time the environment minister, tweeted that it was fake news.

00:16:40.520 Said, don't read this, it's fake news.

00:16:42.260 And so even the language that they use, you know, maybe she was just saying that tongue in cheek or in jest,

00:16:46.340 but because she disagreed with my, you know, analysis in an opinion column.

00:16:50.820 But the idea that they just throw that term around to news that they don't want and now they have legislation to follow up,

00:16:57.860 it really, really doesn't go hand in hand with a free society.

00:17:02.020 I want to ask you specifically about this new bill, Bill C-18, an online news act that ensures that news media and journalists receive fair compensation,

00:17:10.880 what they call fair compensation for their work.

00:17:12.640 And so essentially they are ensuring that all of the tech companies who have basically eaten the lunch of the journalism companies,

00:17:20.820 the media companies, Facebook and Google, would now have to start paying legacy media outlets in Canada.

00:17:28.200 You know, right now we have a situation where the government is subsidizing.

00:17:31.640 In the future we'll have a situation where the government, it's not just government subsidies,

00:17:35.340 but it's government forcing the world's largest tech companies to also pay these journalism companies.

00:17:41.380 It's like, how are independent companies like ours supposed to compete against a double stack deck?

00:17:48.060 And, you know, what do you think of this?

00:17:49.720 It seems to be a pretty clear quid pro quo for the government is going out and doing the lobbying and the dirty work of these media companies

00:17:56.220 by forcing a private tech company to pay them.

00:17:59.940 Oh, you're exactly right.

00:18:01.140 But I should tell you, Facebook, Google and others are already paying and subsidizing journalists around the world.

00:18:09.160 I don't think they're quite at the level of how Trudeau is subsidizing them.

00:18:13.740 But I'd say that probably a quarter of the journalists in Canada already are subsidized by Facebook and Google.

00:18:20.680 And those are not selfless companies.

00:18:22.540 Just the same way that you don't bite the hand that feeds you when it's Trudeau giving you a grant.

00:18:26.840 Who is more powerful in Canada?

00:18:28.800 Is it Justin Trudeau or is it Mark Zuckerberg or Sergei Brin or the new CEO of Twitter, Parag Agarwal?

00:18:37.280 I put it to you that Google, Facebook, YouTube, these are as powerful as countries.

00:18:43.560 And in fact, in some cases, possibly even topple a country.

00:18:47.740 So when they're paying hundreds of millions of dollars to journalists, it's corrupting them, too, to be less interested in privacy and less interested in bias in Facebook's algorithms.

00:18:59.820 Yes, it's outrageous that Trudeau is robbing these tech companies to pay off journals.

00:19:05.120 Of course, that's outrageous.

00:19:06.460 It's outrageous that Trudeau alone will decide which journalists get the dough and don't.

00:19:11.900 Again, that's that qualified Canadian journalist organization thing that they're talking about.

00:19:16.760 They get to decide.

00:19:18.600 The government is deciding who's a journalist and who isn't.

00:19:21.520 This is a form of media accreditation.

00:19:23.140 Let me back up for a second.

00:19:26.220 There's never been regulation of journalists in Canada.

00:19:28.920 It's not like doctors or lawyers who are regulated by a profession.

00:19:32.780 If you do journalism, you're a journalist.

00:19:34.720 It's an activity.

00:19:36.000 It's like if you cook.

00:19:37.160 You know, if you cook something, you're a cook.

00:19:38.780 You don't need a credential.

00:19:41.240 The government brought in this QCJO, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization, credential.

00:19:46.760 A few years ago, to start their government programs, to give tax credits to some subscribers, things like that.

00:19:54.780 But it's morphing into an actual government media license.

00:20:00.600 Because without the QCJO, for example, you can't get any of this shakedown money from Facebook and Google.

00:20:06.740 And it's becoming a license.

00:20:08.880 Without the QCJO, I'm sure you won't be allowed to get into the leaders' debates to report.

00:20:14.180 We've been kept out two elections in a row.

00:20:16.180 The government is making a license.

00:20:19.640 And by the way, when they're telling Facebook that there's a $15 million fine for censorship,

00:20:27.220 they know that Facebook will be extremely harsh because they don't want to risk that penalty.

00:20:33.220 Harsher than if the government itself regulated fake news because the government would be subject to a charter challenge or scrutiny.

00:20:41.780 Contracting out censorship to mega tech companies is actually worse than if the government itself censored you.

00:20:49.120 I've been censored by the government many times, but at least I can go to court and I can demand their documents and they're held to the Charter of Rights.

00:20:56.460 When I'm censored by YouTube or Facebook, they don't even tell me what happened or why.

00:21:00.940 There's no court I can go to and the Charter doesn't apply.

00:21:03.740 So if you're Trudeau, you want your dirty work done by Facebook and Google.

00:21:09.480 And I think we're getting into a dark place here.

00:21:12.960 I think the government's to blame.

00:21:14.520 Facebook and Google are no saints either.

00:21:16.220 They're big censors.

00:21:17.020 This will make them worse.

00:21:18.420 But the number one culprit here are the other journalists who were bought off, Candace.

00:21:25.540 It's such an interesting debate.

00:21:27.300 I know conservatives have sort of been dithering over this idea.

00:21:30.000 Well, Facebook and Twitter and Google, they're private companies.

00:21:32.940 So in the U.S., you know, the First Amendment doesn't apply to them.

00:21:36.300 And rather than seeing it for the threat that it is, which is really what you describe,

00:21:41.220 this idea that we live in a social credit system already,

00:21:43.580 where if you have the wrong opinions, you get excommunicated and banished and you no longer can participate.

00:21:49.820 I really don't know which is worse, Ezra, the sort of coercive powers of big tech or the fact that Trudeau is now trying to team up with them.

00:21:59.860 And there was a little bit of a little small light, small flicker of good news in the big tech world.

00:22:10.100 We learned that Elon Musk is now the, I think, the largest shareholder in Twitter.

00:22:14.180 He bought 9.2% worth about $3 billion.

00:22:17.040 So he now owns more of the company than the founder, Jack Dorsey.

00:22:21.220 Do you see this as a positive development?

00:22:23.440 How do you think Elon Musk will be able to effectuate change?

00:22:26.840 Will he bring back people who have been banished?

00:22:28.780 We know that he has really strong views on free speech and he hates big tech censorship as well.

00:22:34.220 And he's the richest man in the world.

00:22:35.260 So he has the ability to fight back.

00:22:37.540 Do you see this as a glimmer of hope?

00:22:39.760 I see it as huge news.

00:22:41.840 Finally, someone with some clout and some dollars can get in and be a counterweight to what's called the ESG movement, environmental social governance.

00:22:49.440 But here's the thing, Elon Musk is for sure the largest shareholder in Twitter, but the other shareholders making up about, I mean, if you look at the other shareholders, there's lots of individual people with this big, big investment funds, hedge funds.

00:23:05.820 Some of them have trillions of dollars in assets and they're deep into this ESG sort of woke capitalism.

00:23:11.700 And so on his own, Elon Musk is the biggest dog at Twitter now, but of the other 90% of shareholders, I'd say half of them have bought into the wokeism that Elon Musk is against.

00:23:24.940 That said, he's got a quarter trillion dollars himself and he can muck around a lot.

00:23:29.080 I think he's a true believer in freedom.

00:23:31.420 It's interesting to see a lot of the staff at Twitter squawking in public about how much they hate his free speech ideology shows how far Twitter has fallen.

00:23:39.520 It's interesting, Jack Dorsey himself, the founder of Twitter went on last weekend or two weekends ago, said that he longed for the days of Internet freedom and he accepted some of the blame for the centralization and censorship of the Internet.

00:23:55.180 It was touching.

00:23:56.220 I'm not sure if I forgive the man for what he did, but I think he realizes he created a Frankenstein monster of of control, not of liberty.

00:24:04.240 Elon Musk is one man.

00:24:07.340 There's Peter Thiel, another freedom oriented tech person.

00:24:11.460 It's it's more than nothing, but not much more.

00:24:14.980 I'm worried when it's all synced together.

00:24:17.060 You talk about the China style social credit.

00:24:19.260 We're talking about the algorithms.

00:24:20.640 We're talking about censorship takedowns and add in Justin Trudeau's unique creation.

00:24:27.380 Seizing bank accounts.

00:24:28.840 He sees the bank accounts of his political opponents, these truckers, peaceful truckers, not a single charge of violence, not a single weapon found the most peaceful protest.

00:24:38.240 You're right.

00:24:38.520 It inspired the whole world.

00:24:39.700 And what did Trudeau do?

00:24:40.920 He put our country under a form of martial law and he went without legal process and he seized bank accounts.

00:24:47.440 That's what they do in Venezuela and Cuba.

00:24:50.040 That's what Putin does to democracy activists.

00:24:52.580 And.

00:24:54.820 And there was some discussion about it, but where was the shocked outrage?

00:24:59.440 There was very little of it from all the establishment because they've been conditioned over time to accept this infringement on our civil liberties.

00:25:07.680 We are less free now than we have been.

00:25:12.320 I suppose you could say since before women were given the right to vote. 0.95

00:25:15.980 I think we are less free as a country now than we have been in a century.

00:25:20.020 And just because some of the mask bylaws are being lifted, I think we're still deeply unfree. 0.55

00:25:26.240 And I think Trudeau's coming to squash that strategic freedom.

00:25:29.400 The late Alan Borovoy, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said.

00:25:33.320 Freedom of speech is the strategic freedom.

00:25:36.120 Take away all my others, but leave me free speech.

00:25:38.660 And with it, I can reclaim my others.

00:25:41.960 If you stop people from being able to talk, you've lost every other battle.

00:25:46.600 And I think that's what was so chilling about the bank account seizure.

00:25:50.080 It was a lawless expropriation, politically directed, smashing Trudeau's opponents.

00:25:57.420 And it's they only seized 200 bank accounts, but they terrified 20 million Canadians and they chilled the speech.

00:26:05.940 And that is a tyrannical move.

00:26:08.100 Well, you say only 200 bank accounts.

00:26:10.780 I should know that that was more bank accounts than the U.S. government seized after 9-11 when they were pushing back against Al-Qaeda.

00:26:17.780 And so it was a larger reaction than the worst attack in North America in our history.

00:26:23.440 It's truly, you know, even when you just think about the psychology of Justin Trudeau, like, you know, he used to wrap himself in the charter and he used to, you know, be so proud of being the liberal.

00:26:35.100 He's a liberal, small liberal, big illiberal.

00:26:37.000 He believes in freedom.

00:26:38.060 And to look at the way that he's chipping away at those freedoms in Canada, frankly, for self-preservation reasons.

00:26:45.720 And, you know, I think I think Elon Musk, it's a great sign.

00:26:49.160 Jack Dorsey once said that Twitter was the free speech wing of the free speech party and it was meant as a libertarian bastion of free speech and free thought.

00:26:58.880 And I hope that Elon is able to steer it back, at least in that direction.

00:27:03.900 We also see more and more companies pushing back against the wokeism.

00:27:08.000 Coinbase put out, which is an interchange, put out a statement basically saying, leave your politics at home.

00:27:13.760 If you bring them to work, don't work here anymore.

00:27:16.140 And about five percent of the company left and everyone else is happier.

00:27:19.120 So maybe maybe, you know, these little glimmers of hope will provide a road path for people wanting to push back.

00:27:26.380 Ezra, I want to spend a couple of minutes with you talking about an exciting upcoming event that we have planned.

00:27:31.720 So we're excited to announce that True North is pairing up with the Rebel alongside the Independent Press Gallery and the Democracy Fund to host the first ever student journalism conference in Bolton, Ontario, just outside Toronto in early May.

00:27:43.600 So why don't you tell us a little bit about that conference?

00:27:46.660 Yeah, I'm very excited about it.

00:27:48.020 The Democracy Fund is a registered Canadian charity whose mission is to advance constitutional freedoms and journalism.

00:27:56.300 So a conference of 25 young journalists who will be brought to Toronto.

00:28:03.280 I mean, even if you're far away, we'll bring you in.

00:28:06.260 Now, if you can't fly because of the vaccine rules, we'll Zoom you in, we'll Skype you in.

00:28:10.660 And it's a weekend of learning the craft of journalism.

00:28:14.760 And journalism today, of course, is very different than a generation ago.

00:28:18.060 So, for example, we've got amazing speakers, Dave Rubin, the very popular YouTuber, ally of Jordan Peterson, founder of Locals, like a great success story.

00:28:29.760 For example, he'll be leading a session on how to make it as a YouTuber.

00:28:33.120 That's amazing.

00:28:33.780 So very practical.

00:28:36.720 How do you do it?

00:28:38.060 How do I be successful?

00:28:39.720 That's half of it.

00:28:41.120 The other half is, OK, well, let's talk about substance a bit.

00:28:44.600 Let's remember civil liberties.

00:28:46.940 Let's remember the journalistic tradition of covering civil liberties.

00:28:49.600 So it's a weekend event.

00:28:51.360 You don't have to be in journalism school.

00:28:53.660 You don't actually have to be a student, just a young person interested in making journalism your career.

00:28:58.820 And my theory here is that if 25 students come to this event, let's say only a couple of them actually make journalism their permanent job.

00:29:08.560 Well, if this conference is on every year, over 10 years, you put 250 students through this.

00:29:13.660 By the end of that, you've sort of built up a cadre of freedom-oriented journalists in this country to counterbalance the woke journalism kids being pumped out of Ryerson and Carleton.

00:29:25.360 And this is free to apply.

00:29:29.020 And in fact, you're paid.

00:29:30.800 Your costs are paid.

00:29:31.880 So I want to encourage everyone who's a young journalist or who knows a young journalist or a would-be journalist or aspiring journalist or an amateur journalist or a citizen journalist.

00:29:40.480 You don't have to be credentialed.

00:29:42.760 Go to thedemocracyfund.ca and click on the application form and ask you a few questions.

00:29:49.100 And as co-sponsored, as you mentioned, Rebel News, True North, Independent Press Gallery, and the Democracy Fund, I think it's going to be great.

00:29:56.320 And I'm going to be speaking there myself, and I know you will be too.

00:29:59.720 What an amazing group of young people this is going to be.

00:30:02.560 I can hardly wait to meet the students.

00:30:03.720 Well, it kind of brings us back full circle in this interview, Ezra, because, you know, having peers that are like-minded, if you're a young journalist starting out there and, you know, you look out at your competition and the potential places that could hire you, if you're conservative or liberty-minded, you know, you don't have a lot of friends and allies out there.

00:30:23.180 And so going to these kind of conferences can be a great way just to sort of reconnect with your ideas and what's important and carve your own path.

00:30:31.880 And so I think it's a great initiative.

00:30:33.540 I'm really pleased for True North to be involved.

00:30:36.340 So can you remind me where can people go to apply for that?

00:30:40.400 Yeah, it's a page of the Democracy Fund's website, so thedemocracyfund.ca.

00:30:46.580 You can very quickly find the link to the Student Journalism Conference application form there.

00:30:51.120 You can also see other things that the Democracy Fund is up to.

00:30:54.200 And I think it's going to be wonderful.

00:30:55.920 And really, there's so many.

00:30:58.440 It's, again, you've got these massive corporate journalism schools that churn out woke activists, and they have hundreds of millions of dollars amongst them and all the advantages of the legacy media.

00:31:11.400 This little student journalism conference, I bet, pound per pound, will produce better journalists and more effective journalists, even though it's a little grassroots idea.

00:31:18.720 So I think it's very important.

00:31:19.880 It's just like 99% of journalists are on Trudeau's Take and 1% are independent.

00:31:26.080 99% of student journalists in this country are going through brainwashing at journalism schools.

00:31:30.660 1% will go to the Student Journalism Conference, and I'm betting on those 1%.

00:31:34.840 That's great.

00:31:36.300 Yeah, we have a couple of young journalists on our staff here at True North, and some of the stories they tell us about, you know, Bryerson and these journalism schools are so woke.

00:31:43.460 They're not even focused on telling the story, telling the other side of the story, focused on truth.

00:31:47.660 No, instead, they're focused on things like equity, things like social justice, and their parties are just so off what the schools are teaching.

00:31:55.120 But fortunately, you know, there are a few independent-minded people out there that choose to come work at places like the Rebel and True North.

00:32:02.040 Well, Ezra, thank you so much for all your insight, and I'm really excited about this conference, this Student Journalism Conference in May.

00:32:07.940 Looking forward to seeing you there.

00:32:09.000 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:32:10.400 Right on.

00:32:10.760 My pleasure.

00:32:11.220 Thanks for having me.

00:32:11.840 All right, that's Ezra Levant.

00:32:14.300 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:32:16.180 Thank you.

The Candice Malcolm Show - April 13, 2022

Justin Trudeau is determined to censor the internet (Feat. Ezra Levant)

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