Ezra Levant critiques Canada’s $4.5B Trans Mountain pipeline purchase, calling it a "sweetheart deal" that ignores Kinder Morgan’s $2.5B valuation and shifts risk to taxpayers while failing to address protester blockades or Alberta’s oil industry opposition. He warns of Ontario’s fiscal misrepresentations—dental care, pharmacare, and $12/day childcare—linked to rising taxes and deficits, burdening future generations, amid auditor fraud allegations. Levant also ties youth radicalization to ISIS-like tactics exploiting anger, criticizes Trudeau’s brother for collaborating with Iranian state media, and compares Ontario’s economic trajectory to Detroit’s decline, urging voters to reject NDP/Liberal policies to avoid further financial and cultural erosion. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, in the worst business deal in Canadian history, Justin Trudeau pays $4.5 billion for the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
The one that's already built, not the one that won't be built.
It's May 29th, and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Justin Trudeau just offered $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline, not the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion project, but the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, the one that's been happily pumping away for more than half a century, he just offered to buy it for $4.5 billion.
So he could then offer to buy the $7.4 billion expansion project on top of it, and then offer to pay on top of that for any losses coming from political litigation and delay.
I think he just promised really to give about $20 billion to a Texas pipeline company.
I think that's what he did.
That's certainly the way the stock market took things.
Kinder Morgan shares jumped today on the news.
They were pretty excited.
Give me $20 billion and I'll jump for you too.
Here's Justin Trudeau's finance minister, Bill Morneau, with the fuzzy details.
The federal government has reached an agreement with Kinder Morgan to purchase the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and the infrastructure related to the Trans Mountain expansion project.
Right, but the existing Trans Mountain pipeline is not a problem, is it?
It's working, but we just bought it.
I'm sure there's nothing that could go wrong.
A Trudeau government nationalizing oil infrastructure in pressure cooker deals done behind closed doors.
I'm sure they didn't get fleeced.
Now, if I'm reading this old securities filing correctly, Kinder Morgan paid $377 million U.S. for the original Trans Mountain pipeline when they acquired it in 2007.
And Trudeau just offered them $4.5 billion.
Nice.
By the way, I see the Royal Bank values it today at about $2.5 billion, so we overpaid by double.
Here's more of Bill Mourneau.
This $4.5 billion investment represents a fair price for Canadians and for shareholders of the company and will allow the project to proceed under the ownership of a Crown Corporation.
The core assets required to build the Trans Mountain expansion project have significant commercial value, and this transaction represents a sound investment opportunity.
No, no.
See, if Canadians wanted to buy the existing pipeline, they could.
It's for sale every single day, actually, on the stock exchange.
The company was starting to drag on the stock market because its proposed expansion project was being blocked, partly by the BC government slow walking the thing, partly by the nuisance suits by every local activist.
But those were all being shot down by the courts, those lawsuits, all of them.
It was the lack of political commitment by Justin Trudeau to stare down his old environmentalist buddies in BC, more specifically Gerald Butts, Trudeau's principal secretary, refusing to stare down his fellow environmentalists, some of whom he literally worked with before.
That's what's been stopping this.
That's what made Kinder Morgan unattractive on the stock market.
So can you tell me how does selling the existing pipeline, the one that's been there for decades, how does selling that to the government, how's the government buying that, how does that improve the prospects of getting the expansion part built?
How is this sweetheart deal in the interests of taxpayers at all?
How's it in the interests of Alberta oil companies?
Here, what's more.
The agreement, which is expected to close this August, was approved by cabinet this morning and is now subject to approval by Kinder Morgan shareholders.
Really, so Kinder Morgan shareholders get to vote on it, but you or I don't.
I wish Canadian taxpayers were even allowed to see the details of this deal.
Maybe we can.
I guess maybe we have to buy a share in Kinder Morgan before we're told about the government deal.
So far, it doesn't make any sense to me to recap the existing pipe was just bought by Trudeau with your money for $4.5 billion.
Kinder Morgan was planning to spend another $7.4 billion to expand that existing pipeline, to double it, really.
So Trudeau just bought the existing first pipeline from Kinder Morgan.
Presumably he now is going to expand it.
That's what this whole thing's about.
That's why we're doing this, right?
And so he's going to put in $7.4 billion more.
He doesn't quite say.
And that's what it would cost to build.
But do you think Trudeau can build a pipeline as well as a private pipeline company can on time, on budget?
Really?
I mean, let's pretend that he can just for a second.
But where's that money going to come from to buy the pipe, to hire the workers?
Where's it going to come from?
Next clip.
The province of Alberta will also support the project, providing an emergency fund for any unforeseen costs if needed.
In return, Alberta will receive value commensurate with their contribution.
Oh, so what?
$7.4 billion from them?
How much?
Rachel Naudley is insane with glee here.
My friends, today we take a major step forward for Albertans and for all Canadians.
The deal announced today puts people to work building this pipeline right away and creating good jobs.
We worked with all Albertans to bring in the most comprehensive climate leadership plan on the continent, capping oil sands emissions, phasing out harmful coal emissions, putting a price on carbon, and attracting record investment in renewable energy here in the province of Alberta.
We have traveled the country speaking to business leaders, workers, investors, environmentalists, academics, and more, building the case for why Canada needs new pipelines.
So how much is it going to cost?
Because I hear there's a lot of extra cash swilling around.
The Alberta government covers these days.
She's giddy about what, about what?
That she's going to nationalize a pipeline or has to pay for Trudeau to national.
What's going on?
But anyway, so where's the rest of the money going to come from?
That's what I want to know.
To build the expansion.
Oh, and then to indemnify it against shakedowns.
That's what Morneau promised.
Shakedowns by people like Gerald Butz and his old friends.
But we do believe that the appropriate way for us to do that is to create that indemnity that effectively assures federal jurisdiction for a private sector proponent of the project.
Okay, so $4.5 billion for the existing pipeline.
Royal Bank of Canada says massively, massively overpaid.
$7.4 billion to build the second one.
That's if you think Trudeau is as good at building pipelines as pipeline companies.
So we're at $12 billion now, plus whatever extra costs are inflicted on this.
This is nuts.
But it's going to make money from the oil that goes through it or something.
Is that how this works?
Of course, a pipeline is effectively like an approach to move something along a toll.
So it's effectively a user-pay approach, meaning that the oil companies will pay.
The investments that we made will be paid through the oil company's payments to actually use the pipeline down the road.
We're buying the assets so we can move forward on that project expansion, which is, as I said, will create the value for Canadians.
Yeah, that's how a pipeline company gets paid.
It charges a toll for oil companies who ship their oil through it, a couple bucks a barrel or whatever.
But that only happens after it's built.
So who's going to front the $7.4 billion to build the pipeline?
Why aren't they saying?
Is the government going to lend the construction money to this?
Are we really at $12 billion already?
But you might notice something.
So far, it's just all about money, right?
Nothing here, not one thing actually addresses the problem that we have, getting it built.
Kinder Morgan never asked for money.
They're no fools.
They'll take free money from some stupid trust fund rich kid.
And I have to separate which stupid trust fund rich kid I'm talking about, because Bill Morneau, of course, inherited a company from his dad and then married a billionaire.
So neither of these folks are actually pros at business.
But look, Kinder Morgan was never short of money.
They were just short of politicians willing to push illegal protesters out of the way, willing to expedite court challenges.
And that's still not here.
Here's some questions that were put at the press conference in Ottawa today.
The British Columbia government is not the only opposition that you're going to face for this.
There's protesters that are planning to block the route, block construction.
What's the government planning to do to address those concerns and address the protests themselves?
We will recognize that Canadians have a right to express their point of view in a legal fashion, and that will continue to be an important part of our democracy.
Yeah, we knew that, but what will you do to get the pipeline built?
How are you going to address people who are blocking the actual construction?
What is the government planning to do?
Are you going to go to court to get injunctions against them?
What's the plan?
This isn't the first pipeline to be built in Canada.
The pipeline will move forward and consideration of all the appropriate security constraints and the way to ensure that it gets done appropriately.
You keep saying those words, but you have an answer.
What are you going to do to get it built?
Bill Morneau says the federal government will exert its jurisdiction.
And that is what handing billions of dollars to a Texas company is about.
We're going to do what we've done this morning.
We're going to say that in exceptional situations where to get a project done, we need to exert federal jurisdiction.
We will.
We're going to assure that when there's a project that provides significant value for the Canadian economy, a significant number of jobs, we're going to assure that it can move forward.
And we're going to do that both in a way that treats the shareholders fairly, as we did here, but also creates the value for the long term as we see this project will.
Boy, he blathers.
But he talked about jurisdiction.
I don't think he maybe understands what that word means.
See, the federal government has jurisdiction over any matters, legislation, policy decisions, government stuff, that is of a national or an international nature.
In our Constitution, which was written over 100 years ago, it contemplates railroads, but that applies to pipelines as well.
So the federal government already has jurisdiction over pipelines.
That is not disputed.
That jurisdiction doesn't only apply to government-owned projects.
The Canadian government does not own the CP Rail Company or the CN Rail Company, but it still has legal and constitutional jurisdiction over them.
Nothing has changed jurisdictionally by the Liberals paying $4.5 or $12 or $20 billion here for Kinder Morgan.
The Constitution is still the same.
The pipeline is still federally regulated no matter who owns the share certificates.
It's the same as yesterday.
Nothing's changed except we are all poorer now and maybe a little bit dumber.
And the Liberals haven't said that they're going to do anything differently.
You saw he was asked to say what they're going to do differently and he didn't have an answer.
They've talked about money, but money was not the problem.
Kinder Morgan is very good at raising money.
So were all the other pipeline companies that begged to spend tens of billions in our country and were told no.
The problem is getting it built.
And the Liberals still have no clue.
Nothing today suggests this will move faster.
In fact, with government running a business, how can that not move slower?
This is going to move the speed of the post office.
But look, it's not management that's the problem.
It's not cash that's the problem.
It's that Gerald Butts and Justin Trudeau actually do not want to fight against BC environmentalists.
What this crazy 11th hour deal does is just buy them a little more time, I guess.
Since Kinder Morgan was going to walk away on Thursday, they said the end of May was their deadline.
So this $4.5 billion was just a way to buy the Liberals some time.
I don't know, maybe to come up with an idea.
They've had years.
Kinder Morgan applied to build the Kinder Morgan expansion in 2013.
Their application was approved in 2016 by the National Energy Board, subject to 157 conditions, which they accepted.
And on November 29th, 2016, the Trudeau cabinet officially accepted this pipeline expansion.
They confirmed the National Energy Board's deal.
So it's been years.
Now, the environmental extremists, all of them paid by foreign entities, they never accepted it as a done deal.
Here's one environmental extremist paid in part by foreign money who said it's not about 157 conditions.
It's not about conditions.
It's not about this route or that route.
He's just against oil pipelines because they're oil pipelines.
Truth be told, we don't think there ought to be a carbon-based energy industry by the middle of this century.
That's our policy in Canada, and it's our policy all over the world.
You can choose to fight this fight on locking us into a high-carbon economy for five decades.
And I think that's a very reasonable perspective to take.
In fact, it's one we do take.
So we don't think that we think that the oil sands have been expanded too rapidly without a serious plan for environmental remediation in the first place.
So that's why we don't think it's up to us to decide whether there should be another route for a pipeline.
Because the real alternative is not an alternative route.
It's an alternative economy.
Of course, that's Gerald Butz, who back then was the president of the World Wildlife Fund.
He is now Justin Trudeau's principal secretary, widely regarded as the de facto prime minister, really.
Justin Trudeau took 56 vacations so far in his term.
I think Gerald Butts has taken zero.
Butts was talking about the Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia, but the point's obviously the same.
He's against any pipelines, any oil sands projects.
He's never said a word that I've ever seen, though, against foreign oil imports to Canada, including from Saudi Arabia.
Auditor General's Concerns00:17:10
But he hates Alberta oil.
I think it's clear what's going on here.
It's Justin Trudeau spending $4.5 billion in a lifeline to Rachel Notley to get her re-elected in the spring of next year.
$4.5 billion from federal taxpayers from him immediately.
And what, $2 billion or so from Alberta taxpayers is what I heard from Notley, so she can say, the pipeline will be built.
It will be built.
You see, we're taking steps, but it will not be built.
Just to say it's in hand, but it is not in hand.
And once Trudeau has his 2019 election, he'll call that $4.5 billion or $10 billion or $20 billion.
He'll call it just the cost of doing business, the liberal way.
There are no steps today that will make it built that weren't there yesterday.
No actions to move it forward.
No constitutional actions, no legal actions, no legislative actions, no police actions to clear away protesters, no political actions to punish BC's provincial government for its intransigence, like Trudeau is punishing the Saskatchewan government for not going along with its illegal carbon tax.
I'm going only on a few hours worth of details.
We'll learn more.
I'd like to know as much as Kinder Morgan shareholders know, but I'm just a mere Canadian taxpayer.
But this really is the worst of all worlds.
I continue to believe that this pipeline will not actually be built.
But we'll all be on the hook for that failure now.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, one of our favorite people is Rahil Razo.
She joins me now.
Rahil, it's great to see you again.
It's been a long time.
Thank you.
Well, I mean, you are, I mean, I was going to introduce you officially.
It's with the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow.
But that's just one of about a dozen things you do.
And give our viewers an update.
Where have you been traveling?
What causes have you been championing in the month or two since we've seen you?
Well, you know, things are really troubling all over the world and also here in Canada.
So dealing with all the issues that we are facing here, you know, the Iran problem, the fact that, you know, our leaders are embracing the Islamists and the Islamists are growing from strength to strength while all we do is complain and really not do much about it.
Internationally, I've been traveling on a new campaign by the Clarion Project, which is a documentary that they're making called the Jihad Generation.
It's about youth radicalization.
And we're preparing with it a workshop component, which is an educational component.
So I've been speaking to teachers and counselors and parents and law enforcement to see how we can put this out so that the people who are in charge can look for these signs.
Very interesting.
Now, where you say you've been traveling and the Clarion Project, we're familiar with their work.
They're outstanding.
Is this in the U.K.?
It will be largely in the United States.
So once the documentary is released, it'll be global, of course.
And the radicalization of the youth you refer to, is that in North America.
Yes, yes.
And it's both Muslim and non-Muslim youth, as you know.
You know, those young people who have gone to fight the jihad with ISIS in Syria.
What is it that compels them?
What are the signs that if the parents and teachers saw these signs, they might have been able to intervene before they were sucked into this?
You know, it's very much like drug gangs.
They prey on those who are isolated and those who are alone, those who are angry.
So we want to have some sort of help workshop that people can use.
Yeah, you know, I often thought that it was a very powerful tool to recruit jihadists because when you look at the way ISIS ran itself, I'd like your thoughts on this.
I observed that, you know, if you're a young gangster in Paris, let's say, you're alienated from the French society, maybe you have a gun or a weapon, maybe you are into drugs a little bit, maybe you're having problems getting a girlfriend.
And this gang can say, well, you like a gun?
How about drive a tank?
You like drugs?
Well, we'll give you drugs.
You want a girlfriend?
Well, we have raped slaves.
So I thought if these are marginal kids who are and you hate the man, you hate the West, well come and be part of the jihad.
So all the things that we find odious about ISIS can be a sales pitch to these disaffected youth.
That's my theory.
That's exactly what they do.
They troll the internet and very importantly they look for kids who have anger in them against the administration and they play on that and also those who don't have family support.
And of course, you know, the family structure is not as it used to be.
So there are thousands of kids out there who are lonely and they tell them that you'll be part of a family, you'll be part of a cult.
And it's all done with the approval of their interpretation of the religion.
So things that would be called bad at home, stealing, shooting, raping.
They're justified.
Yeah, and so they can feel like they're doing it as a blessing, not a curse.
They are told that when they pick up a gun and they either kill themselves as suicide bombers or they kill someone else, that they're doing it for a larger cause.
And they're compelled to believe that they're going to do something that is going to change the world, that is going to make the world a better place.
So they are told that what they're doing is right, it's justified.
And, you know, sometimes it's justified through the religion.
It's justified for them morally, ethically, and it's just plain evil.
But the kids do fall into that trap, young people.
So we are finding ways to create some reasonable intervention, what we call nonviolent extremism.
You know, tracking the ideology.
And that is a very difficult thing to do.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
I look forward to that film.
Clarion, those are good people.
And I remember the video you did, I guess it would be two and a half years ago now.
Excellent, excellent work.
We're fans of theirs.
Let me shift gears a little bit because you had an essay that we published on the Rebel a couple days ago about Tommy Robinson.
You met Tommy in Switzerland.
He drove to meet you.
I really enjoyed that conversation.
And two of my friends meeting, I was excited.
Tell me a little bit your thoughts on Tommy.
And we don't have all the facts yet.
They just lift the publication man off his court case today.
So we don't have a full transcript of what happened.
What are your thoughts based on what you have heard?
Well, it's very troubling.
It's troubling at so many levels, Ezra.
You know, you don't have to always agree with the person, but this is a human being living in a democracy or a so-called democracy.
Last time I checked, the United Kingdom was a country where you had freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
And, you know, as I said, he has his rights to speak out and, you know, say whatever he wants.
And as I said, you don't have to agree with him.
But when I met Tommy in Geneva, he drove 12 hours to come and meet me.
And the first thing I said when I met him, I said, you're so different from the image that people have of you.
And he laughed.
And he said, that's the norm.
But he said, I work with Muslims.
My best friend is a Muslim.
I'll never forget him saying this.
He said, I was at his wedding.
And then, you know, I hear that he has been trying to uncover the story of the Muslim gang, the rape gangs.
Of course, they're never called Muslim because they're referred to as Asian or as Oriental.
And the fact that this has been covered up for so long is atrocious, is absolutely appalling.
It is inhuman.
And his arrest actually bodes such a tragic downward trend about freedom.
And that, too, in a country where another man by the name of Anjum Choudhary, who is Satan personified, has just been released.
Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Chowdhury, I remember interviewing him at the Sun News Network.
You know, sometimes when you do a mic check, you say one, two, three, four, five.
We did a mic check with him, and you know what he said?
He said 9-11, 7-7, that's the date of the bombings.
So he was like he was taunting, even in trivialities like that.
If there was ever evil personified on earth, as I say, Satan, that is Anjum Chaudhary.
Anjum Chaudhary has been freed and Tommy Robinson has been arrested and it's the way he's been arrested that, you know, as I said, as a mother, I find so troubling.
I mean, he's no different than my sons who have no boundaries, no barriers, say whatever they want.
And we are lucky yet to be living in a country where we still can do this, but I don't know how long that is going to last if this trend continues in the West.
And, you know, we who love freedoms, we who love freedom of expression and freedom of press, we must speak out.
Well, I'm so glad that you met him when he was free and you had that moment to chat and get to know him just a little bit.
I hope you'll have a chance to meet him again.
I hope he'll get out of prison soon.
It's great to catch up with you.
I'm excited because it's already just a few days to the Rebel Live.
That's our big get-together in Toronto.
I'm so glad you're coming.
Our invitation to speakers is whatever you want to say.
You talk about so many different things, anything of which our people would be fascinated on.
And I'll just turn to the camera for a second, folks.
If you don't have your ticket left, get it now.
Go to therebelive.com.
Rahil will be one of our various speakers there.
And Lindsay Shepard, who's sort of an acolyte of Jordan Peterson, she'll be there and some other great speakers.
Have you thought about what subject you're going to address?
Or are you still sort of contemplating that?
Oh, I am addressing a very controversial title.
It's called WTF, but it's not what you think it is.
It's about where to find the solutions.
I want to talk about the fact that we know the problem.
We know we've known the problem for a long time, far too long.
What are we doing about the solutions?
And we have to work together to find solutions, and we need to do that sooner rather than later.
Because Canada, as you know, is going down a very slippery slope with the Iran issue.
You know, we've got Iranian dissidents pulling their hair out about the fact that this country in which the theocracy rules with an iron whip and where women are arrested for just uncovering their hair.
And here we've got warm, fuzzy relationships.
Trudeau's very simple.
Trudeau's brother, Alexandra Trudeau, actually made a movie in cooperation with the Iran state agency.
The movie was called The New Great Game.
So Trudeau's brother, Alexandra, is very friendly with Iran.
Well, this is what we are looking at.
I mean, how can you be soft on those people who oppress their own citizens?
And especially for someone who holds himself out to be a great feminist.
Well, a feminist, a champion of human rights.
None of these things are happening in Iran.
And of course, you've got this monster M103, which hangs over our head like a sword.
How long will it be before I will not be able to say what I do?
And talking, coming back to the Tommy Robinson issue, I'm going in August to the United Kingdom to attend a rally to support the victims of these gang raids.
Oh, wow.
What's the date of that again?
It's August 20th.
And there is a rally.
It is being held by a group called Marias, which is Mothers Against Radical Islam.
And I am speaking there in London.
In London.
In London.
But I think, are they going to arrest me?
Because I'm going to speak about in support of the victims of these gang raids.
But I know the victims and I've met them.
You know what?
I hope and pray that wouldn't happen.
I don't think it would happen to you, but it's no longer beyond the realm of the possible.
This is what this Tommy Robinson issue has done, is it is no longer beyond the realm of what is possible and our freedoms are at stake.
So if nothing else apart from not necessarily agreeing with each other, let's come together for Canadian values.
Let's come together for what Canada is known for, for the good that is in Canada and the bad that is being imported from abroad.
We need to get rid of that.
Rahil, I remember once I said you were my favorite Canadian citizen.
And it is true.
And hearing you again is so encouraging.
You're tireless.
You spend so much time on a plane warning the whole world.
We're always grateful when you spend time in Canada because we need the help too.
And I'm thrilled that you're coming to the Rebel Live this weekend.
I look forward to your WTF.
And it meant a lot to me that you reached out and said, hey, I've got an essay about Tommy Robinson.
I was thrilled that we were able to get that up online right away.
For those of you who haven't read it yet, Rahil wrote an essay about her encounter with Tommy for the first time, and it was worth all reading.
Great to see you.
Good luck.
Keep up the fight.
Stay safe and stay strong.
Thank you.
That's all right.
Stay with us.
That's more ahead on The Ramble.
Yes, we will run a little bit of a deficit over the first couple of years and we'll go back down to balance.
But in the meantime, we've got to fix what Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals broke.
We've got to make sure that families can get the prescription drugs they need, they can get the dental care that they need, that they can afford childcare.
Hey, guys, that could be Ontario's next premier, Andrea Horovath of the NDP saying, Don't worry about it.
Just a few little deficits.
Nothing to worry about.
They're little.
I've heard that before.
Doesn't give me any peace.
It reminds me a little bit of the Alberta NDP and reminds me a little bit of Justin Trudeau, who told us that budgets balance themselves.
You just need to grow the economy from the heart.
Well, joining us now is someone who takes a more sober-minded view about the nation's finances.
I'm talking about the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Her name is Christine Rangine, and she joins us now.
Christine, great to see you.
Whenever I hear a politician talk about a little deficit, I hold onto my wallet.
Yeah, and you should, because, you know, Justin Trudeau promised the exact same thing a few years ago.
And in his first year, I think the deficit was triple what he had promised it would be.
And then on the subsequent years, it's been averaging about double.
So I think you can probably expect the same thing from Andrea Horvath if she's elected.
And we certainly can expect it from Kathleen Wynne if she's re-elected.
After all, the deficit that she said she's running is actually, according to the Auditor General, about twice what she says it is.
So in both cases, when they say it's going to be small, you really need to look into what small means and try and figure out if they're telling the truth.
And usually, as we saw with Mr. Trudeau, it's not the truth.
Yeah, what's so amazing of the Ontario Auditor General is the bluntness of the language used to describe Kathleen Wynne.
I mean, listen, there's always a tension between an Auditor General and a politician.
Politician tries to stretch the facts and spin the language as far as possible.
But the Auditor General of Ontario has basically said, without using the word lying, I think it's the toughest rebuke of a sitting government that I can even think of.
Basically, the Auditor General said, you cannot believe Kathleen Wynne.
She's using dishonest accounting.
Am I exaggerating what the Ontario Auditor General?
The actual language that the Auditor General used was she said that the government's numbers are bogus.
And I think that that's pretty much as close to saying they're a lie as you can get.
And the Auditor General has refused to sign off on the government's books.
She said that the numbers are not reliable and she won't provide an audited opinion.
So that's serious, right?
Like we've never had a government in Canada in any province where something like that has happened.
And that's with Premier Wynne.
With Andrea Horvath, we don't know if we're going to get something different.
We don't know if she's going to agree with the Auditor General's approach to the numbers or if she's just going to use the same win tactics of trying to finesse the numbers and create complicated financing structures.
But we do know with the PC leader, Mr. Ford, that he has committed to accounting using the Auditor General's approach rather than the government's so-called bogus approach.
You know what?
It's incredible.
I was thinking from a corporate point of view, if you have a company listed on a stock exchange and the auditor refuses to sign off on the books, I'm not an expert in securities law, but I would imagine that if you don't have an audited statement of financials for investors, the stock exchange is not going to let you sell your shares because it's not just if you don't have it.
If your auditor says, I refuse to certify it.
So it's not just no message.
Worries About Rising Taxes00:07:23
If the message is blamp, blamp, blamp, warning.
I think any corporation who acted that way, I think they would be delisted from the stock exchange.
What does it mean?
Like, I don't even know what the remedy would be.
If you're a publicly traded company and you have something in your financial statements that's a material misrepresentation, that's a form of securities fraud.
You can actually go to prison for that.
And in the United States, the penalties are much more serious.
It's treated really, really seriously.
I believe an auditor in a company like that wouldn't say the books are not reliable.
They just wouldn't issue a statement.
And then the statement, the lack of a statement is very telling in itself.
But to publish something with material misrepresentations is fraudulent.
Wow.
You know what?
That's incredible.
But I got a question for you.
Do enough people care?
I mean, the debate the other day, and we showed some clips with Jerry Agar.
It was almost like politicians try to outbid each other with spending promises.
I suppose that's how it always is in elections.
Do people care that small deficits, big deficits, auditors blowing the whistle?
But does anybody hear it?
I guess I wonder if people love the illusion.
If someone says, well, I don't pay taxes anyway, so I want the most I can get, or I have a government job, so I know I'm safe.
I guess I always ask this, Ontario, does anyone even care?
So I can tell you, every taxpayer cares about certain things.
So everyone likes free stuff and everyone hates tax increases.
And you can't really have both.
So if the government wants to promise you all of this free stuff, the dental care, the pharmacare, the $12 a day child care that Horvath is promising, that free stuff is only free until you pay your taxes.
And then you see that your tax bill is going up and up and up.
And people are getting really frustrated in this province.
So people do care when they pay their taxes.
I hope that they're able to make that connection, that all of these offers of so-called freebies are not actually free at all, that you end up paying more and more and more for them as these deficits get larger and larger and larger.
And that soon it's not you who's paying for them.
It's your children.
It's your grandchildren.
So I hope that voters keep that in mind.
Of course, it's not just the taxes.
I mean, living in Ontario, I've experienced the shocking power prices, electricity prices, and that's all government decisions, but it's called a power bill.
So you pretend it seems like it's not a tax bill, but it's really just as much a tax as anything else.
I don't want to ask you for your horse race guesses because I know that's not your business.
You're more a nonpartisan advocate for taxpayers, although it is fascinating.
I don't know if you're out and about in the community.
Do you think that the carbon tax is an issue?
It's something we care about here at the Rebel.
And I know in the conservative leadership race, Doug Ford and the other candidates sort of got them all cells ripped up, sorry, riled up against the carbon tax.
Are you worried that maybe Doug Ford's going soft on that?
Do you sense that that's an issue in the public fighting against the carbon tax?
Or is that last month's news?
No, carbon tax continues to be a big issue.
And it's a bigger issue in different types of communities.
So people who are more in rural areas care about it more.
People who drive more care about it more.
Other people might care about different issues.
I think in downtown Toronto, it might not be as big an issue.
But if you own a small business and rely on transportation or if you're in manufacturing, the carbon tax is a huge issue.
For other people, you know, I think people care a lot about bread and butter issues.
When you talk about gas prices, which are really, really high right now, you have to remember that the carbon tax is part of that.
And so people definitely care about the price of the pumps, and they just need to remember that the carbon tax is a big part of that.
It's almost five cents a liter added to your bill because of this government's kooky policy on cap and trade.
Yeah.
There was some premier or provincial premier or territorial premier, I can't remember, who said, we already have a carbon tax.
We don't need to bring in Trudeau's carbon tax.
It's called our gasoline tax.
I forget who it was who said that.
That's a great point.
We don't need to have, I don't believe in carbon taxes at all, but if we do have to have one, and I don't accept that, we all pay a carbon tax every bloody day at the gas pump.
And I'm trying to remember which provincial premier quipped that.
It was New Brunswick.
Oh, if that was New Brunswick?
Well, I wish they would stand up and fight a little harder.
I thought it was a great line.
It's true, by the way.
Last word to you, Christine.
Do you think that, I mean, there's this Leninist phrase that I hate, but I hear it sometimes, the worse, the better.
As in for people to wake up and fight back, things have to get even worse.
And I'm very much against that because I don't want things to get worse.
I want us to wake up and not hit the snooze button again.
I am worried that Ontario is going to get worse, God forbid, before it turns itself around.
Are you worried about that?
Between Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horvath, I think that's 50% of Ontario voters who are voting to make things worse.
Yeah, I'm not partisan, but what concerns me is a tendency of people towards turning to the government to solve all their problems instead of asking the government to give them some of their money back and give them some of their freedoms back and say, stop squeezing every last drop out of me.
And so I think there are parties that align one way or the other, but I think when it comes to giving people more of their money back, that's not the NDP way.
At least that's what the experience has been in Alberta.
Perhaps it would be different in Ontario, but with a leader who's promising to run a $4.7 billion deficit and continue to run deficit up until the next election, I don't think this is someone who's interested in saving people money.
Yeah, well, I'm nervous.
Well, it's great to talk to you.
You are one of the good guys.
That's for sure.
We always enjoy talking to our friends, the Taxpayers Federation.
I tell you, if there were 10 more groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we could really turn this country around.
There aren't that many, so I'm very grateful for the work you do and the rest of your teammates, Christine.
Oh, it looks like we lost our connection with Christine.
I was just saying thanks to her and buttering her up, as I like to do whenever I talk to those taxpayers' federations.
I'd say the best.
I'll give her a call and I'll say thanks to her offline.
But that was Christine Van Guy, I'm the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Detroit's Decline and Ontario's Hope00:06:47
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Tommy Robinson and the publication band Liza writes, It's hard to think about anything other than Tommy and what the UK police, legal system, and government are doing to him.
I still can't believe Britain is so corrupt.
It truly is a disgrace.
If we can have a hand in getting them to overturn the reporting ban, it will be a huge win for everybody.
Well, thank you, Liza.
I was speaking for the last couple of days with our lawyer, Daniel Burke, who's based in Manchester in Northern England, and he got on the file right away and he recruited a Queen's Counsel, a QC.
In the UK, they have a split legal profession.
You have barristers and solicitors.
It's sort of funny that way.
So we lawyered up, and Daniel started working on the file.
But early this morning, I spoke to him, and another newspaper, The Independent, it's called, went to court, I guess, hours quicker than we did.
And the judge lifted the publication ban on the Tommy Robinson part, not on the underlying rape gang trial part.
So we were ready to fight.
I was actually looking forward to the fight, but someone got there hours before us, and that's great.
Actually, it's good to know that we're not the only people who care about freedom of the press in the UK.
I wish everyone had been there.
Where was the New York Times, CNN?
Where was the BBC?
They didn't care, but I'm glad the Independent did, and of course we did.
And I'm going to stay involved and interested in this story.
As I mentioned yesterday, Tommy does not work for us.
He went independent a few months ago, as you probably know.
I mean, I'm on good terms with him and everything.
I'm just not his boss.
So I did not have the authority to make decisions on his behalf.
And I still don't, of course.
Without his permission or his family's permission, I'm not going to meddle.
But this was something we could do in our own right, and we did.
I'm glad it became moot so quickly.
Keith writes, a wake-up call to Canada, U.S., UK, Australia, and all civilized peoples who feel the talons of Marxism scratching at their backs.
Yeah, Marxism, I'd say it's an alliance between Islamism and politically correct social Marxism.
It's a collusion there.
It's funny that they're allies because so many aspects of postmodern leftism are contrary to Sharia law.
I mean, there's so many things about leftism that the jihad would wipe out.
But they are allies together, extreme leftism and extreme Sharia law, in taking on Western civilization.
I suppose the idea is once they defeat Western civilization, then they have a final battle.
By the way, I would bet on the fundamentalist Muslims over social justice warriors who aren't by nature physically robust or violent.
People are violent in an anti-fuck kind of way.
But if I had to bet who's going to win a civil war, if any, this is a strange speculation, but my point is, it is a tenuous, temporary alliance.
But it's quite effective, isn't it?
On my interview with Jerry Agar, Robert writes, I agree with Jerry Agar.
I thought Horvath was rude throughout the debate.
She kept talking over the other candidates.
I suspect that undecided viewers would not be impressed with her antics.
She may have also alienated those people who usually vote liberal, but might consider voting for her in order to block Ford.
They might just stay home instead.
You know what?
I have lost my confidence in my ability to guess these kind of tea leaves reading things.
I mean, on the one hand, yes, it's very irritating, someone interrupting, interrupting like that, but was it effective?
Did it knock the other people off their path?
I think maybe.
Did it show a feistiness?
Will people say, yeah, you do that, you go?
And if so, it's hard to read these things.
Jerry made the great point that it's one thing for a woman to interrupt a man in a way that a man could never interrupt that woman without being called a bully.
That's just part of the gender dynamics.
I mean, I remember the other day Doug Ford said Kathleen Wynne had a nice smile, and that was considered this great sexist moment.
Yeah, that's gender politics in 2018.
I sure hope Doug Ford wins because it would be a disaster from Ontario.
The other day I mentioned that when you're at the height of an empire, it seems impossible that it would be any other way.
I can imagine Rome at its apex felt like it would endure for a millennium or to be more smaller than scale.
I imagine Detroit in the 50s seemed unstoppable, highest wage in America, strong employment.
And it was a magnet for black workers because it was in the North and it was good industrial jobs.
And then the Democrats took over and the industrial heart of America moved away from Detroit.
Unions, left-wing politics, social justice-type politics, Democrats, corruption, and now Detroit is a bombed-out, poor city instead of the greatest city for working men in America.
I tell you the analogy of Detroit because it's unthinkable that Ontario, the economic engine of Canada, could be anything other than the boss, right?
It's unthinkable that this city would not be the capital of Canada economically forever.
Well, you know, it's not unthinkable.
Ask Detroit and ask Montreal.
Montreal, in so many ways, was a business capital to rival Toronto until the early 70s.
The Bank of Montreal, I mean, right there, it was in Montreal.
Now it's just a symbolic office in Montreal.
What ruined it?
Politics.
In that case, separatist politics and anti-Anglo politics.
And what, 100,000 of Montreal's leading Anglo-business people, and a lot of Jews, by the way, moved from Montreal to Toronto because they didn't like being poked at for being non-francophone.
They didn't like some of the language laws, the sign laws.
They didn't like the uncertainty of it.
So Montreal suffered a permanent and irreversible economic decline for political reasons.
Detroit has suffered a permanent and irreversible economic decline for political purposes.
Trump's trying to turn that around.
Do you think Ontario, if it votes for NDP or Liberal again, will be able to pull out of its 10-year economic decline?
I don't.
That's an unhappy way to end today's show until tomorrow.
On behalf of all of us here at Rubber World Headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.