Donald Trump’s July 2019 NATO summit criticism exposed Canada’s 1.23% GDP military spending—ranked 16th despite Trudeau’s hollow "capacity-building" rhetoric in Iraq, while mocking his $100K crystal glasses and $24K embassy seat cushions. Lee Humphrey (Calgary Conservative candidate) called symbolic deployments like Latvia’s battle group "rhetoric," urging a 5–7-year plan to hit NATO’s 2% target. Trump blasted Germany’s 60–70% Russian energy reliance, citing Schröder’s ties to pipeline firms, while Stoltenberg deflects blame. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s wasteful spending—$200K for Butts’ move, two nannies—contrasts Harper’s frugality, as Woodrick highlights systemic taxpayer neglect. Hollywood’s silence on Iran’s crackdown—Ma’edeh jailed for Instagram dances, another for hijab removal—underscores global hypocrisy in defending freedoms. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Donald Trump talks tough to NATO allies who refuse to pay their fair share while Justin Trudeau takes selfies and cuts our military spending again.
It's July 11th, 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.
Donald Trump says that NATO allies are not pulling their fair share.
Is he right?
Well, yes, he is.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, all the countries agree to spend 2% of their GDP on the military.
The U.S. spends almost 4% of their GDP.
In other words, the average American works about one day a month to pay for the U.S. military.
In Canada, by contrast, we spend about 1.3% of our GDP on the military.
U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, in terms of raw amounts, we're number sixth in terms of a percentage of our GDP.
We're not even in the top 10, though.
That's about to fall even lower.
We'll be number 16 next year, but hey, we'll still beat Luxembourg.
A NATO report said Canada is expected to spend an estimated 1.23% of our GDP on defense in 2018, down from 1.36% last year, says the annual report, which looks at military investments for all member states.
That's from Global News.
Look, even the Toronto Star admits it.
Here's their headline.
I hate to say it, but Trump is right about Canada's military spending.
When the star says it, you know, it's true if they admit it.
Check out this tweet from Justin Trudeau, though.
Today I'm proud to announce that continuing in Canada's long tradition of contributions and leadership at NATO, we will be stepping up and taking command for the first year of NATO's new mission in Iraq.
A mission focused on capacity building and training, centered in Baghdad, focused on the fact that now that we have degraded and even defeated Daesh on the ground, we have to win the peace.
We have to build capacity.
We have to help governance.
We have to create strong institutions around Iraqi security that is going to be able to support this fledging democracy in the years to come.
Once again, Canada is stepping up and proud to do so.
Trudeau says we help build a more peaceful world.
So after the U.S. and UK military defeated ISIS, Trudeau says that Canada will be there to build capacity.
I don't really know what building capacity means either, other than Trudeau's endless capacity for BS.
He does a head bob thing again, which he does whenever he's BSing you.
He does that a lot when he's talking about groping girls.
Remember, Trudeau is the guy who right after he was elected and Barack Obama first called him after his election 2015, Trudeau blurted out in the phone call that he was withdrawing our six CF-18 fighter jets from Iraq.
Obama pleaded with him not to do so, but Trudeau did anyways.
And now Trudeau's promising to do some capacity building, and he's so proud of that, isn't he?
I usually, let me show you one more tweet from Hajit Sajjan.
He says, I usually finish off the day with a run.
Nice to keep it up in Latvia with some of our women and men in uniform.
And if you scroll down, it's him jogging in the forested field.
That's obviously a photo op.
Just stop and think about that for a second.
When you go jogging, if you go jogging, I mean, you could tell people about it, but Hajit Sajan and Trudeau and Freeland, they had a photographer stand in place and then ready, said, go.
They ran to him in a posed photo op.
It was posed, and to state the obvious, they flew that staff photographer in from Canada to Latvia.
They spent thousands of dollars on that little photo op there.
I guess we should be grateful that Trudeau even had his shirt on, unlike this photo stunt last week, because who amongst us, when accused of sexual assault, doesn't pose for a topless jogging picture.
Anyways, Hajit Sajjan and Justin Trudeau and Christy Freeland are really good at photo ops and selfies.
Secretary General's Urgent Message00:03:45
Because they have to be, because they have to distract from the fact that Canada is not living up to our promises to move towards 2% of our GDP for NATO.
We're going in the opposite direction.
Okay, now for the photo ops.
Let's look at some stubstance here.
Here's Donald Trump doing what he does best, saying the obvious truth so bluntly, so plainly, that you can't dispute it.
You can haggle, you can quibble, you can say you're outraged by how rude he is, but please watch the next 60 seconds and tell me a single factual error here.
Mr. President, which countries do you want to spend more data in particular?
Just look at the chart.
Take a look at the chart.
It's public, and many countries are not paying what they should.
And frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money folks many years back where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them.
So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up.
It's massive amounts of money is owed.
The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody.
This has gone on for decades, by the way.
This has gone on for many presidents, but no other president brought it up like I bring it up.
So something has to be done, and the Secretary General has been working on it very hard.
This year, since our last meeting, commitments have been made for over $40 billion more money spent by other countries.
So that's a step, but it's a very small step.
It sounds like a lot of money, and it is.
But it's a very small amount of money relative to what they owe and to what they should be paying.
Yeah, it's true.
And although Germany is where so many U.S. military bases are, and the whole point of NATO, according to its first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, was to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.
That's right.
And Donald Trump is in, and American taxpayers are in.
But where's everyone else?
We Canadians free ride off the U.S. military.
We all know it.
We boast about our free health care, or actually we don't really boast about it a lot anymore, because by now we all know about the massive waiting lines and sullen government workers and old obsolete technology.
But we wouldn't have free health care at all without the Americans paying for our security for the past 50 years.
And all of our moral primping and preening is because America foots our bill.
Sorry, it's true.
You can like that, you can dislike it, but you cannot deny it.
And we're lucky that Trump doesn't focus on Canada unless we keep provoking him, which Trudeau bizarrely seems to want to do.
But here's Trump talking with the NATO Secretary General, a Norwegian chap named Jens Stoltenberg.
And what's his job?
Well, it's to make NATO strong.
So he didn't take Trump's message as a scolding.
I think he loved it.
I think he was grateful for it.
Here, take a look.
And it's an unfair burden on the United States.
So we're here to talk about that, and I'm sure it will be resolved.
I have great confidence in the Secretary General.
He's worked very, very hard on this, and he knows it's a fact.
But I have great confidence in him and his representatives.
Would you like to say something?
First of all, it's great to see you again, Mr. President, and good to have you here for the summit.
And we are going to discuss many important issues at the summit.
Among them is defense spending.
And we all agree that we have to do more.
I agree with you that we have to make sure that Allies are investing more.
The good news is that Allies have started to invest more in defense.
After years of cutting defense budgets, they have started to add billions to the defense budgets.
And last year was the biggest increase in defense spending across Europe and Gamba in a generation.
Why was that last year?
It's also because of your leadership and because of your care message.
Germany's Billion Dollar Bet00:08:32
They won't write that.
No, I have said it before, but the thing is that your message is having an impact.
Of course it's true.
Do you doubt that Stoltenberg was grateful that the U.S. president was speaking out loud instead of whispering, as Obama and Bush and Clinton did before him?
And that point by Trump that the media wouldn't report that NATO was happy to hear it and Trump was having a positive effect.
Trump was 100% right, wasn't he?
So Trump was getting encouraged, and so he just let it rip.
Here, listen to this gloriousness.
I'm going to let the tape run for three full minutes.
Because it's awesome.
And again, like it or dislike it, can you quarrel with it?
Take a listen.
Now, I could cut this off after one minute or after two minutes because he makes his point that quickly.
Then he makes it again, and then he makes it again and again.
And you can even see his chief of staff squirm a little bit in his seat.
See his Secretary of State squirm a little bit in his seat because Trump is just smashing the point again and again because frankly it's so undiplomatic to speak that way, which is exactly why Trump did it.
And if John Kelly and Mike Pompeo are uncomfortable, well imagine how Angela Merkel feels about this.
Well I have to say I think it's very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where you're supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.
So we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting all of these countries.
And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they're paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia.
So we're supposed to protect you against Russia, but they're paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that's very inappropriate.
And the former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that's supplying the gas.
Ultimately, Germany will have almost 70% of the country controlled by Russia with natural gas.
So you tell me, is that appropriate?
I mean, I've been complaining about this from the time I got in.
It should have never been allowed to have happened.
But Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting from 60 to 70% of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.
And you tell me if that's appropriate, because I think it's not.
And I think it's a very bad thing for NATO, and I don't think it should have happened.
And I think we have to talk to Germany about it.
On top of that, Germany is just paying a little bit over 1%, whereas the United States, in actual numbers, is paying 4.2% of a much larger GDP.
So I think that's inappropriate also.
You know, we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting everybody, and yet we're paying a lot of money to protect.
Now, this has been going on for decades.
This has been brought up by other presidents, but other presidents never did anything about it because I don't think they understood it or they just didn't want to get involved.
But I have to bring it up because I think it's very unfair to our country.
It's very unfair to a taxpayer.
And I think that these countries have to step it up, not over a 10-year period, they have to step it up immediately.
Germany is a rich country.
They talk about they can increase it a tiny bit by 2030.
Well, they could increase it immediately tomorrow and have no problem.
I don't think it's fair to the United States.
So we're going to have to do something because we're not going to put up with it.
We can't put up with it.
And it's inappropriate.
So we have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that's being paid to the country that we're supposed to be protecting you against.
You know, everybody's talking about it all over the world.
They'll say, well, wait a minute, we're supposed to be protecting you for Russia.
But why are you paying billions of dollars to Russia for energy?
Why are countries in NATO, namely Germany, having a large percentage of the energy needs paid to Russia and taken care of by Russia?
Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply.
They got rid of their coal plants, they got rid of their nuclear.
They're getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia.
I think it's something that NATO has to look at.
I think it's very inappropriate.
You and I agree that it's inappropriate.
I don't know what you can do about it now, but it certainly doesn't seem to make sense that they pay billions of dollars to Russia and now we have to defend them against Russia.
Let's cut that off just out of mercy.
Stoltenberg was pretty friendly, by the way.
Trump went for one more round.
I won't make you watch it.
But let me show you who Trump was talking about.
The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schrader.
He works for Putin now.
That's him in, what, 10 different poses with Putin?
He and Putin are pretty close.
They've met, what, 100 times?
They go to social events together, birthday parties, that sort of thing.
I think it's pretty unseemly for the former German chancellor to go to work for Germany's longtime enemy, Russia, don't you think?
It would be like if a former U.S. president went right to work for Russia or to, let's say, Iran, to sell out his own country.
That's the thing.
That's Schrader.
And he's still considered polite company in Germany, and the whole world was supposed to pretend it wasn't happening, that Germany wasn't becoming beholden to Russia for its energy, that Germany was paying its money to Russia for energy, and that same Germany was banning fracking for its own energy instead, that Germany was short-changing NATO.
We were all supposed to ignore that.
You weren't supposed to mention that.
Well, Donald Trump mentioned it big time, and not just in passing and not just once, and not just in private.
That's amazing.
And again, if you think it is unfair, then take it up with NATO.
Then maybe NATO shouldn't be around because that wasn't a U.S. demand.
It was a NATO promise that the U.S. is more than meeting, but no one else is meeting it other than the Brits.
Canada isn't.
We're shirking.
We're actually backsliding.
Donald Trump's probably going to whack us Canadians with an auto tariff.
And Trudeau shrinking our military spending will only make Trump more aggressive.
Trump sent letters to NATO complaining about particular shirkers.
I tried to find the letter.
The best I could find was the Wall Street Journal's report of it.
I mean, quote, Mr. Trump singled out Canada in his letters to NATO leaders expressing, quote, growing frustration that key allies like Canada have not stepped up defense spending as promised.
You can only imagine what he says to Trudeau in private.
Let me just give you one tiny example.
Here, he tweets a far-left socialist radical open borders Democrat candidate in New York, and he's cheering for her.
Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
And she's really like Bernie Sanders, if Bernie Sanders were a 20-something Hispanic woman.
She's that far-left, she's that much of a Trump hater.
So of course Gerald Butts supports her because he's a Marxist too.
But his open support for Trump's enemies, his open support for U.S. Democratic partisans, it's shocking and terrifying coming from a man who is at the center of our government and who is supposed to be negotiating NAFTA and NATO and other things with America.
Of course, we are going to have a trade war.
And as far as a war war goes, Trudeau will continue to disarm and only use our troops for PR purposes, like Molly.
Butz thinks he can turn that into a winning campaign in 2019, running against Trump, blaming Trump for the recession that will come if we have a trade war, claiming that all of Trudeau's opponents are just Trump lovers.
Angela Merkel didn't insult Trump today in Germany, even after that tirade.
Neither did Francis Emmanuel Macron, because they don't want trade wars.
They don't want the whole place to burn down.
They don't want America to withdraw from Europe.
Our guy Trudeau does.
But hey, have you seen him jogging without a shirt, lady?
He's so hot.
Stay with us for more on the subject with Lee Humphreys.
Welcome back.
Commitment and Equal Contribution00:11:19
Well, Donald Trump, once again, being very undiplomatic in a diplomatic setting, sort of like a child saying the emperor has no clothes, undiplomatic, but finally cuts to the truth.
Well, joining us now via Skype is, I don't want to quite lay claim to him as an official rebel contributor, but I feel like he is because he brings so much smarts.
Every time he's on our show, Lee Humphrey, president of James International Security Consulting, and now the Conservative Party of Canada nomination candidate for Calgary Center.
I'm very excited to hear that.
Lee Humphrey, great to see you again.
I want to sort of lay claim to you, but I know you give your expertise to any journalist who asks, and we're delighted to ask you, would you give me your thoughts on Donald Trump talking about different countries' NATO commitments?
Well, I think you summed it up well, Ezra, in the sense that Donald Trump uses language that isn't very diplomatic, but he's echoing the language of Presidents Bush and Obama in demanding that NATO countries, all NATO countries, live up to the agreements that they signed on to as part of their commitment to NATO.
And it's a really simple metric, which is 2% of your gross domestic product directly spent on military.
Now, NATO, you know, generously in 2014, when this commitment was made, changed the formula significantly to allow things like veterans' pensions to be included in that spending cap so that all countries could look just a little bit better.
But, you know, Trump is making a really important point here.
If we are a collective allied nation group for defense, then we must all pony up and share that responsibility fiscally as well as in things like manpower and resources.
Yeah, you know, that's the point.
I mean, if NATO is just a code word for America is the world's policeman and guardian and everyone else just sort of latches on, then say so.
But NATO, the countries are equal.
They all, all for one and one for all.
It's sort of like the three musketeers, but it's what, 29 musketeers or something.
If a country is attacked, all come to its aid.
We're all equal within NATO.
So we should act like it and go to that 2% rule.
Or just don't call it NATO.
Call it America protecting everyone out of the goodness of their heart.
But Trump's sort of fed up with that altruism, I think, isn't he?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, each NATO country, unlike the UN, each NATO country has an actual vote that matters.
So if NATO is going to do something collectively, whether it is a combat operation or a combat support operation, all NATO members must vote and it must be in agreement.
It's not a majority vote.
It must be 100% agreement, all 29 nations.
So you can't have a nation like Canada with a tiny contribution having an equal vote against something perhaps America or the United Kingdom wants to do or wants to be involved with.
So unless we're going to go to, say, a UN-type circumstance at the Security Council where those countries that are contributing 2% or more of their GDP get a veto power or have some extraordinary power, we want to stay as an equal alliance, then we all have to contribute equally.
Well, and that's the thing, is this isn't Donald Trump coming up here to impose his new idea on us.
He's saying, I want to hold you to your promise.
And I'm just going to be a little bit more blunt than Obama or George W. Bush was.
Trump is the irritant.
He's the prickly guy who says it.
But he is not saying, I want you to change your promise.
He's saying, why don't you keep your promise?
And I think we could use a bit of a kick in the pants because we, you know, and again, we've been free riders by our own definition.
Now, Trump has said he wants Canada to really boost it.
He's suggesting doubling our military budget.
I don't think that's a starter for a number of reasons.
But a NATO report suggests Canada's numbers actually backsliding.
Can I show you a clip from Justin Trudeau at the NATO meeting when he was asked by reporters about the doubling of our budget?
Here's what he had to say.
It's an important metric amongst many others to gauge how countries are doing in terms of contributors to NATO.
But ultimately, the more important metrics are always, are countries stepping up consistently with the capacities that NATO needs?
Are we leading in different opportunities?
Are we contributing the kinds of resources and demonstrating the commitment to the alliance that always needs to be there?
And that's a metric by which Canada can be extraordinarily proud.
But no, there are no plans to double our defense budget.
Now, Lee, to double the defense budget would be fiscally probably impossible to do unless you did it over a course of five or ten years.
It's just such a large amount.
But even over five or ten years, I don't think Trump is demanding double.
I don't think he's that unrealistic.
I don't think anyone is.
But if you listen to Trudeau, and I'd love your comment on this, he says there are more important measurements.
He used the word not equally or other, more important, stepping up and demonstrating a commitment.
Those are not quantifiable.
Hey, guys, we're stepping up.
That's a more important commitment.
We're demonstrating commitment.
Those are fuzzy words, capacities.
I don't even know what it means.
I know what the takeaway is.
He'll give words instead of dollars.
And it's not just to Trump.
What about our own troops who need the equipment and need the support?
All right, enough of a rant for me.
What do you make of what he said, Lee?
Well, he utilizes symbolism over fulfilling our responsibility.
In the fall of 1992, we had three infantry-based battle groups deployed, one in Croatia, one in Bosnia, and one in Somalia.
We had a battalion group in Cyprus.
We had two infantry battalions and all its supporting elements, which made up a supersized brigade in Germany.
Those were well more, those were stepping up.
That's when we were stepping up.
What he's doing now is sending under-resourced, under-equipped troops in symbolic ways on a couple of missions, whether it's to Latvia to lead a battle group, not be a battle group, but lead a battle group, whether it's moving the contingent from the Erbil area in Kurdistan down to Baghdad after they sat on their hands, some of our best soldiers sat on their hands for a year,
or whether it's putting a under-resourced UN support team into Mali.
This is not the Canadian military stepping up in meaningful ways to support NATO.
This is rhetoric.
So we're not funding it properly and we're not stepping up on the world stage to support NATO.
So, you know, you can understand why some of the other NATO members may be too polite to say Canada isn't stepping up.
And Donald Trump's not one of them.
He is less polite when it comes to these things.
But, you know, you're right.
We need a kick in the pants.
The Canadian public needs to understand that no longer are we punching above our weight, nor are we contributing financially as we've signed on to do.
Yeah, and I don't want Canada to do it for Donald Trump.
I want Canada to do it for ourselves, for our publicly expressed goals, and frankly, to support our troops.
I just can't get over the bizarre request a few weeks ago for Canadian forces to return their sleeping bags because there's a shortage in the army that's just, you know, and I was looking at a story that Germany in some war games, they were painting broomsticks black and attaching them to vehicles, pretending they were machine guns.
They're rusted out in their military too.
Don't do it for Trump.
Do it for our own self-respect.
Do it for our own capabilities.
Do it to show respect to our own troops.
Don't pay our troops and equip our troops to please Trump.
Do it because that's what we ought to do and we said we would do.
He's just shaming us, frankly, because we're not doing what we said we would do.
And the media hasn't held NATO to account.
Trump is doing it.
I don't know what objection one could make to Trump because he's asking us to live up to our own promises, not to his promises.
Last word to you, Lee.
I mean, I guess my point is I'm not doing this out of my affection for Trump.
I'm doing this for my affection for what our Canadian armed forces should be.
Yeah, I think, you know, as a last word, you know, let's stop making this a partisan issue.
For over 50 years, governments of both sides have used the opportunity, you know, whether we were cutting spending or we were in a period of growth to either increase or decrease our commitment to the military.
But for over 50 years, we haven't met that 2% of GDP.
In the past, what some governments have done is they've deployed a whole lot of Canadians to punch above our weight to make up for that.
And NATO was extremely happy to have that level of professionalism that Canada can bring to the battlefield, even if it is in smaller numbers.
What we're seeing now is the worst of both worlds.
And I'm hoping where this leads is that the Conservative Party this summer, as part of its policy plank, will put forward a plan, and I believe they will, to outline a way we can get to that 2% over the next five to seven years,
as well as, you know, taking into account inflation, and that we will stop using things like procurement or military deployments as political opportunism to make a government look good and then cut them the minute that they're no longer needed.
So we have an opportunity here, at least as the Conservative Party, because the Liberals just failed to take that opportunity to stop playing games with our military and to start living up to our international obligations of being the country that, you know, the Canada that we're all so proud of on the international stage.
Well, I certainly hope that we come back to that path.
Dropping 24 Grand on Seat Cushions00:11:41
And you're right.
It ought not to be a partisan thing.
And I hope that the Conservative Party really embraces this.
It's the right thing to do just for our own national interest and our national pride.
Lee, it's always great to have your point of view.
And as always, you bring a lot of historical knowledge too about what Canada was like.
And 1992 was not that long ago.
And we were in different theaters and we were, that was the golden age of Canada in these multilateral actions, what Trudeau talks about, but what he doesn't do.
Anyways, I tell you, I could go on this topic all day.
It's great to have you on the show, Lee.
Thanks very much, Ezra.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Well, it's our pleasure.
There you have it.
Lee Humphrey.
He's the president of James International Security Consulting.
And I'm very excited to learn that he's throwing his hat into the ring for a nomination for the Conservative Party.
Boy, I hope he gets that.
They could use his experience and wisdom in that party.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Welcome back.
Well, I pine for the days when Canada's media party would go to the mats, would go to the wall over a $16 orange juice that a federal cabinet minister named Bev Oda expensed.
I think she did it from a hotel mini bar.
Those are notoriously overpriced.
$16.
There must be 1,000 stories on that $16 orange juice, and she was eventually drummed out of cabinet.
Well, those were the days, eh?
Because the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has news on some of the spending under the Trudeau regime.
How I long for those $16 orange juices.
If you have a $16 orange juice, what kind of cup would you drink it out of?
Well, here's the good news.
Justin Trudeau's liberals are buying glasses, little champagne flutes and cocktail glasses.
The actual glasses themselves cost on average.
Are you ready for this?
$117.
And joining us now via Skype is our friend Aaron Woodrick, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I just scratched the surface there, Aaron, but $127,000 spent on crystal glassware, an average of $117 a glass.
That's insane.
Those are pretty pricey glasses.
So they bought $1,000 of them, Ezra, over the last couple of years.
They're customized as well.
And, you know, the funny thing is, we didn't really know how much those glasses would cost.
We thought, what's a really high-end comparison?
So we went to the Tiffany website, Tiffany ⁇ Co., their Canadian website.
You can buy a wine glass from Tiffany, Ezra, for $55.
So these glasses that Global Affairs has bought are actually twice as expensive as Tiffany Crystal.
Yeah, and that's if you're a retail customer buying from Tiffany's.
I can imagine if you said to Tiffany, I want to buy a thousand glasses, they'd probably give you a bit of a bulk discount.
The chutzpah, the chutzpah of this, Canada's running a massive deficit.
I remember Justin Trudeau telling a wounded veteran in Edmonton that veterans are just asking for more than we can give.
But when it comes to the lips of our diplomats, nothing is good enough for them.
Unbelievable.
And I just, I tell you, why don't we, let me, I mean, great story, and I saw some coverage of it today in the media.
Congratulations to you.
But it's nowhere near the mania that was around Bev Oda's $16 orange juice.
I mean, this is $117 a glass.
And the media party just doesn't seem to be revved up about it.
Yeah, it is really strange.
You know, this is more money.
It's not one glass of orange juice.
It's $1,000 crystal glasses here.
And, you know, it's frustrating.
This is certainly not going to be the last one from Global Affairs.
Ezra, I can tell you.
We actually had, there's a conscientious person inside Global Affairs, an anonymous person who sent us some tips.
So there's at least one good person in there that realized that this was ridiculous and sent us this tip on where to look.
And this is not going to be the last example.
So I certainly hope due attention is paid.
You know, we gave Bev Oda a hard time for her orange juice, but we think this is on a whole other level in terms of waste.
I mean, I think that in any corporation, the corporate culture is largely set by the leader.
And I know you guys are non-partisan, and I'm not going to ask you to weigh in on partisan matters.
But Stephen Harper was a bit of a penny pincher.
He lived in 24 Sussex Drive.
He didn't go for the big Renaults.
A fairly modest lifestyle.
And I think that trickled down through the government.
And compared to Justin Trudeau, for whom 24 Sussex Drive is not nice enough, he has his chef work there, but that's it.
He has two nannies on the government dime.
He jets around luxuriously.
So I think that everyone in, oh, and I remember when Gerald Butts, his principal secretary, moved down the highway from Toronto to Ottawa, he billed almost 200 grand in moving expenses.
If the leader's office parties like a rock star, it's not surprising that everyone around him says, oh, that's how we do it under Trudeau.
We get while the getting's good.
It's no surprise to me that these people are ordering $100,000 worth of glasses because that's how Trudeau rules, right?
Yeah, look, I think the political leadership sets the tone, right?
You remember when the Harper government came in?
I remember Monty Solberg, one of the cabinet ministers, he expensed a lunch for his staff.
They went to Subway.
They went to Subway and they had a very modest lunch.
And we thought that was a great example of setting the right tone.
And you'll recall when Justin Trudeau won the election and he showed up at then Foreign Affairs building, there were cheers.
And you really got the sense from a lot of folks in there that they thought, okay, now it's time.
Now we can turn the taps on.
Now it's time to spend.
So we really hope that this sort of thing, you know, this government needs to do something about it.
They've got a $17 billion deficit.
And it looks like a good place to start looking for savings is somewhere like Global Affairs.
You know, I want to one more example because you released this as well.
I'm sitting on a chair here.
I think we bought it new.
Most of our office furniture is used.
It's a cushiony chair.
It's really comfy on the tush.
Maybe the chair cost $180 from Office Depot or whatever.
I don't know.
I know that it wasn't expensive, but it's plenty comfy.
I sit in it for hours a day.
You have an access information request also from Global Affairs that shows that Ottawa, and this is what's so weird about it, they ordered seat cushions for the Canadian embassy down in Mexico.
They ordered those cushions from Regina.
They spent $24,000 on 86 seat cushions.
That works out to $286 per cushion.
And that doesn't include shipping.
A cushion?
$286 just for the cushion.
And then there's the chair.
And when you're in Mexico City, who doesn't think I want to ship those cushions in from Regina?
Because I guess there's no place in Mexico or the United States that's claim.
What on earth are they thinking?
Dropping 24 grand on seat cushions.
I don't even get it.
You know, you couldn't even come up with a better story that just underscores a lack of common sense when it comes to ordering this stuff.
As you say, I'm pretty sure you can find comfortable cushions in Mexico City.
It doesn't make sense to order them from Regina and ship them down.
And beyond that, frankly, Ezra, I don't even know where you'd find a cushion for $286.
I don't know where I would begin to look for a cushion that expensive, but apparently somebody at Global Affairs knows a place where you can spend far more than you have to, but why not?
It's not your money.
It's just taxpayers' money, and they don't seem too fussed about it.
And I don't even get it.
I mean, you have a chair that has a cushion on it.
Did you have chairs that didn't have cushions?
How much is the chair?
Is this a chair cushion combo?
I just, I've never heard of ordering 86 chair cushions.
And I mean, okay, you go to IKEA, you can buy a little cushion or a pillow, $10, $20, $50.
I don't even, what is in a $286 cushion?
Is it like stuffed with goose down or like unicorn fur or something?
Must be.
I mean, I know they're leather cushions, so they're nice cushions, but how you get the price up to $286 is really beyond me.
You know, you've identified just two tiny examples, glasses and cushions, but there must be a thousand different line items like this.
And I'm not saying our diplomatic staff should not have tools to do their job.
And sometimes their job involves, you know, hospitality.
And sometimes you have to be fancy in the world of foreign affairs, although I don't know why 86 seat cushions come into it.
But I just think that the culture is get everything while you can.
Money's no object.
Throw another bail of $100 bills on the fire.
I truly don't think there's a single countervailing force in this entire government that speaks up for taxpayers, whether it's in the bureaucracy with the spending or in the cabinet table.
I don't think there's a single person in this government who's a grown-up who would say, whoa, Shake your head.
What are you doing?
You're spending the public's money as if it's your own private money.
Is there a single force within government that's a countervailing pressure on this?
Well, we know of the one person inside Global Affairs, but they choose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
But, you know, that's why we're here.
We do the digging.
We work hard to expose this sort of thing.
And, you know, it's the only way, Ezra, it's the only way to create a countervailing force.
You know, sometimes it feels like we're playing whack-a-mole.
You nail down spending on some area and the government just spends it somewhere else, but you've got to keep at it.
Canadians have to keep at it.
It's the only way you get change in Ottawa is you shame them and make them pay politically for it, and they're forced to do it even if they don't want to.
Yeah, well, I hope you're right.
I just wonder where the rest of the media party is.
It's just so strange to me.
I mean, there have been some pickup of your news, and I grant it, but this should be a firestorm.
It's a little puff of smoke.
And you're doing the right thing.
I'm just wondering where's the CBC leading the national news as they did with Baboda.
Aaron, congratulations to you and the taxpayers.
We're a fan of what you're doing.
Keep it up.
Thanks a lot, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Aaron Woodrick.
He is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I wonder what my tush would feel like if I was sitting on a $286 cushion all day.
Maybe it would just, you know, maybe I would just, I don't know, have a spring in my step or something.
Who knows?
Maybe it's a massage cushion.
I don't know.
I'll have to Google that.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back.
On my monologue yesterday about Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
Paul writes, Brett Kavanaugh sounds like a great pick.
Trump may have two more Supreme Court judges before he's done.
As long as the picks are dedicated to upholding the Constitution, most should be happy with it.
An Easy Story to Get Behind00:02:29
Well, no, no, no.
Most conservatives and Republicans would be happy with it, but remember the courts want to undermine the Constitution.
They want to move to a living tree doctrine where judges can invent new things all the time and find, discover new laws within the Constitution.
That's how we do it in Canada.
Tammy writes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is long past her expiration date.
Her public comments about Donald J. Trump reveal she is incapable of being impartial and behave in such a way to respect the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yeah, it really was unprofessional of her.
And you know, Donald Trump, you poke him, he pokes you back twice as hard.
And he fired right back in the campaign.
She'll hold on as long as she can.
We talked to Joel Paul about this, and he says that literally they are there for life, even if they are medically infirm.
On my interview with Erika Kasraiyi, John writes, praying for the end of the insane Islamic revolution in Iran that burdens, persecutes, and punishes the great Persian people since 1979.
I wish Sting, Bono, Trudeau, Madonna, all feminists, or anyone in Hollywood of the CBC would speak up for Ma'edeh.
I think we will only hear crickets from the left for her.
Thanks for the story, Rebel Media.
Yeah, I mean, it's such an easy story to get behind.
You don't have to be technical.
You don't have to know your history, your geography, your politics.
Here's a young teenage gal who's apolitical.
She likes to dance in her bedroom.
Occasionally she show her belly button in a belly dance, but nothing more flagrant than that.
Sings and dances, but that is a crime in Iran.
She was arrested, forced to make a jailhouse-style apology.
And I didn't quite get her sentence.
We know the other lady was sentenced to 20 years for taking off her hijab.
But the story of Ma'edeh, the 19-year-old girl, how could anyone not get behind that?
You don't have to be an expert in anything to say there's a girl who's just doing some Instagram dancing and she was arrested by cops in Iran.
That's wrong.
How easy is that to say?
You're not right-wing, you're not left-wing.
You're not Republican, you're not Democrat.
You're not even prescribing any solution.
You're just saying something wrong is going on over there, and yet I haven't heard a peep from Hollywood.
You'd think, I mean, she's an attractive girl singing Western songs.
How easy is that for some Hollywood lovey to get behind?