Maxime Bernier, former Conservative MP and People’s Party founder, critiques Canada’s 310,000–450,000 annual immigration push—backed by polls showing only 10% support—while proposing a return to Harper-era levels (~250,000). His party’s 12% poll standing mirrors New Brunswick’s People’s Alliance (13%), which won the balance of power by exposing old-party hypocrisy like $5B in corporate welfare. Bernier rejects CBC smear campaigns, including false Ku Klux Klan ties, and calls for reforming taxpayer-funded media bias. His principled stance—lower taxes, equalization reform, and immigration limits—positions him as a bold alternative to centrist conservatives, urging voters to demand real change over performative politics. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a feature interview with Maxime Bernier talking about his new People's Party, immigration, and the politically correct media.
It's September 26th, and this is 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 for why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Big interview today with Maxime Bernier.
You know him.
He's the happy warrior from the most conservative place in Quebec, a federal riding called Bose.
Maybe it's easy for him to be happy in every single election he's run in as a Conservative MP.
He's received more than 50% of the vote in Quebec.
Add in his energetic style, and he was a shoe-in for Stephen Harper's cabinet, where he made a name for himself as a libertarian voice, a voice for smaller government.
Of course, he ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party after Stephen Harper, ran against Andrew Scheer and many others, and he was favorite to win.
He had the most buzz, the most PR, and for the first 12 rounds of voting, he had the most votes, but in the 13th round, he was edged out by Andrew Scheer, 49% to 51%.
They never clicked.
Bernier was demoted from shadow cabinet for publishing a chapter of a book at odds with Scheer's policies, especially about the Dairy Cartel, a lobby group that is widely acknowledged as having been responsible for mustering the votes that put Scheer over the top.
In the weeks before this year's Conservative Convention in Halifax, Bernier became more voluble about issues that traditionally make Andrew Scheer and other more timid conservatives run and hide, like challenging extreme multiculturalism, mass migration, ethnic ghettos.
Yikes, the CBC won't like that kind of talk.
And indeed they didn't.
They believe they get to choose what conservatives talk about.
Harmless conservatism, like talking about reducing the deficit one day in the future, that's fine by the CBC.
But actual conservatism, no, no, no.
That has to be nipped in the bud.
In about 10 minutes, I'll show you some of Bernier's quarrel with the CBC and why I think it was so clarifying and so important.
So that's the main part of the show tonight.
My interview with Bernier.
I'd like your opinion on it.
I know a lot of rebel viewers really appreciated Bernier, but they were surprised and disappointed when he left the party.
It looked splittist and impatient, and it looked impractical.
Why start a new party from scratch?
Especially when so much effort had been put into uniting the right and to be bloody-minded about it.
If the goal was to have Bernier have another crack at leading the party, what better way than to have him stay within the tent, bide his time, make friends and allies within the party, stay loyal enough to the party that if and when Andrew Scheer loses the next election, as polls suggest he will, well, then Bernier would be the heir apparent.
That was my advice.
Stay, fight for the party from within, and wait.
And inherit all of its infrastructure and members and MPs and budgets in a year if Scheer indeed loses.
And if Scheer wins, well, that's good for the movement.
And perhaps there could be a rapprochement.
Well, all of those points are now moot, aren't they?
Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
It's done.
Bernier has his new party, the People's Party, it's called, which has a populist flavor to it.
Like Doug Ford in Ontario, for the people, was his motto.
Like that new People's Alliance in New Brunswick that holds the balance of power, like Trump, like Brexit, like many populist nationalist parties of Europe.
And if polls are correct, Bernier's party is already in the double digits.
I'm interested in who can win and who can beat Justin Trudeau, but I'm also interested in knowing that whoever can win will be a change.
More than just a change in the team colors from red to blue.
What does a party stand for?
What is their philosophy, their focus, their style?
That's what I want to ask Bernier about, and I will in a moment.
But before I do, let me show you a bizarre interview last weekend that Bernier sat for with Wendy Mesley, and I want to take about five or 10 minutes to talk about Mesley, okay?
And what's happened to her.
So I'm going to depart from talking about Bernier for a bit, but please stick around for that feature interview in about five or ten minutes, okay?
Now, we all know Wendy Mesley.
She's a pleasant enough newsreader.
She married the CBC's Peter Mansbridge for a bit.
They have since divorced.
She's bounced around the company, getting increasingly obscure posts there, but she always managed to be kept on.
It's a great gig.
I have nothing bad to say about her because I can't really remember anything remarkable she's ever said or done in her career.
She's been more of a newsreader than an actual reporter.
She pretty much reads lines written for her by others, but she always did it so pleasantly.
I think Canadians like her, but they can't really name anything she's done.
But she's got this new show now called The Weekly, and there really is no other way to say it.
Connecting The Dots00:02:58
It is all about left-wing conspiracy theories.
Sorry, it just is.
Here's a clip.
Now watch out.
There's some profanity in it.
Take a look.
I've stumbled onto a major company conspiracy, Mac.
How about that for stress?
What the hell are you talking about?
This company is being bled like a stuck pig, Mac, and I got a paper trail to prove it.
Check this out.
Take a look at this.
Jesus Christ.
That right there is the mail.
Now let's talk about the mail.
Can we talk about the mail, please, Mac?
I've been dying to talk about the mail for you all day, okay?
Pepe Sylvia, this name keeps coming up over and over again.
Every day, Pepe's mail's getting sent back to me.
Pepe Sylvia, Pepe Sylvia.
I look in the mail.
Well, this whole box is Pepe Sylvia.
So I say to myself, I gotta find this guy.
I gotta go up to his office.
I gotta put his mail in the guy's goddamn hands.
Otherwise, he's never gonna get it.
He's gonna keep coming back down here.
So I go up to Pepe's office, and what do I find out, Mac?
What do I find out?
Didn't you sell Pepe Sylvia?
The man does not exist.
Oh, sorry, wrong clip.
That's from the TV show.
It's always sunny in Philadelphia.
Here's Wendy Mesley's conspiracy theory show.
This is from their own highlight reel.
We still have to blur your photo.
When we show that photo, we have to blur the head.
It's a mask with ketchup.
It's not a head.
When the news first hit about the photo, all these journalists were going, Kathy Griffin takes a picture with a severed head.
How hard is it to be an activist?
You've been poisoned twice.
The only option we have is to carry on, to carry on with our work.
And, you know, I think there's no better gift we could give to the Putin regime than to just give up what we're doing and run.
We're exclusively revealing today that a startup based in Victoria, B.C., Aggregate IQ, also had ties to Mercer, Bannon, and Cruz.
Would I think that we would be sitting on television talking about a P-tape?
No.
Or Stormy Daniels, who was PP in her non-disclosure agreement.
And, you know, I mean, I can't make this stuff up.
Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, said that he had no idea that this summit was going to happen between Trump and the North Korean later.
Did you know?
Well, I think Rex's comment speaks for itself when it points to a certain spontaneity in U.S. foreign policy at the moment.
That's a good word.
Are you going so far as to call him a fascist?
No, I am specifically not calling Trump a fascist, but I do think he's the least Democratic president that we've had in modern American history.
So that's the Canadian state broadcaster, but it's obsessed with Donald Trump and bashing Trump and conspiracies about Trump.
And there was some Russia stuff in there too about Trump.
And they really describe it like that Pepe Sylvia business.
Here, look right on their homepage, they talk about the kookiness.
At the weekly, we've had a blast connecting the dots and digging into influential stories and people.
Yeah, there's connecting the dots, that's for sure.
As to digging, no, that's not digging.
Russia Troll Kooks & Alt-Left Extremism00:14:00
That's just crazy.
If you scroll through their list of stories, look at it.
Is Jordan Peterson dangerous?
Is Putin getting ready to target Canada's election?
Republican mega donor Sheldon Nadelson's ties to Stephen Harper.
Has Trump's fake news factory come to Canada?
Stormy Daniels case converging with Russian election meddling.
I mean, there's a lot of really kooky stuff there.
Not a lot of Canadian content other than some weird attempts to smear conservatives like Stephen Harper and Jordan Peterson.
But none of these are actual investigations.
None of actual digging.
Wendy Mesley doesn't actually leave her office.
It's all eccentric stuff collected from the more occult parts of the left-wing internet.
I mean, you've got to love this.
Brexit bombshell.
Could the vote be invalid?
Yeah, no, that's just crazy talk.
Or this one.
Has an American militia moved to Canada?
Let me save you a click and tell you the answer is no.
This is not reporting.
This is stuff that when you see it on your friend's Facebook page written in all capital letters, you sort of roll your eyes and say, that guy needs to get out of the house more and turn off the computer.
It's just really, really odd to see it coming from Wendy Mesley, who has spent 20 years being inconspicuous.
I mean, can you remember anything she's ever said or done in two decades?
And now she's dredging up stuff too insane even for left-wing blogs.
And it's almost all focused on Donald Trump in Russia.
What's going on here?
Now, I'm going to bring this back to Maxine Bernier in a moment, I promise.
But it was this bizarre interview that Wendy Mesley did with Bernie on the weekend that got me wondering, what happened to her?
Well, look, she doesn't write her own stuff.
I'm not exactly sure what she does to earn her hefty salary.
She works half an hour a week.
She does 22 minutes of TV a week.
I mean, I do that twice as much every day, and I do all my own research and writing.
I have some occasional help from a part-time researcher who does access to information requests, but that's about it.
And in addition to that, I run a small startup company, but I still write my own stuff.
Wendy Mensley has a staff of eight to do a 22-minute show once a week.
So who are these people?
Well, they're led by this wacko named Zev Shalev.
His official biography that he wrote on his own Twitter page is executive producer, CBC's The Weekly, three-time Emmy nominee, producer, entrepreneur, consultant, Trump Russia blogger.
Retweets are not endorsements.
Opinions are my own.
So he's the boss of Wendy Mensley.
He's the executive producer of the show.
And he's a Trump-Russia conspiracy theorist.
And if you can see on his Twitter bio, he links to his own website called narrative.org, spelt in that way.
And if you click on that link, well, before you do, put on your seatbelt because you are about to take a crazy roller coaster to Crazy Town and get off on the floor mark crazy.
And then it just gets a little bit crazy.
I mean, look at this stuff.
Look at this.
The fall of Pompeo.
The CIA director is under watch by staffers who fear he is handing over classified secrets to the White House for political reasons, but that's not the only thing for which Mike Pompeo needs to answer.
I'm sorry, that's crazy.
The CIA is an agency that reports to the president.
He has the power to declassify anything, everything in the CIA, everything in America.
He's the president.
He's the head of the executive branch.
He could theoretically make himself CIA director.
And no, Mike Pompeo didn't fall.
He was promoted to Secretary of State.
This is really nutty stuff.
This is written by Wendy Mesley's executive producer, her ventriloquist.
Look at this one.
I'm just going to pick a few here.
Dark Shadows.
Exposed.
Vice President Mike Pence was installed by a Russian operative and has deep ties to dark money.
I said, this is supermarket tabloid stuff now.
This is Elvis Presley is alive and living with aliens on Mars stuff.
No, Mike Pence was not installed by a Russian operative.
He was actually the governor of Indiana.
Pretty boring state.
Sorry, Indiana.
until Trump appointed him vice president.
If you Google Mike Pence, you can find out everything about him.
I think he's actually the most boring man in America, which is probably the reason why Donald Trump chose him to be vice president.
He's the guy who never goes out for dinner without his wife.
That guy.
Yeah, he wasn't installed by a Russian operative.
Okay, just two more.
I just want to show you how insane the Canadian state broadcaster is.
Who's running the show over there at the CBC?
And who writes the words that poor Wendy Mesley says.
And no one in the CBC cares enough about her to stop this.
Crimes of war.
President Trump needs to answer questions about the Trump organization's ties to terrorist organizations and his support for their state funders.
Really?
Really, people?
Wow.
Hey, someone should maybe tell Robert Mueller, the special investigator.
He's got a team of lawyers and investigators.
He's burned through 20 million bucks in his 18-month witch hunt against Donald Trump.
He hasn't found anything yet, but all he needed to do was read the blog of Wendy Mesley's boss, and he'd be able to take down Donald Trump as a terrorist.
All right, last one.
I swear, this is the last one.
How you can stop Donald Trump on Facebook and Twitter.
Posted on June 1st, 2017 by Zeb Shalev.
Now, that's all you really need to know.
That's not even journalism.
That's not even pretending.
That's not even fake news.
That is campaigning, but not even.
It's emoting.
It's smearing.
It's just a really big loser who managed to get this big job at the CBC, and no one thinks this is too weird.
This is the executive producer of Wendy Mesley's show.
So now you know where all the cray cray is coming from.
Now you know where the cuckoo, you bad people.
I mean, forget about fake news and spin.
This is actually comedy stuff.
This is Pepe Sylvia's stuff.
That Mike Pence as the sexy Russian agent part, that is amazing.
I mean, I just saw the movie Red Sparrow.
It's just all Mike Pence.
But this is treated as real journalism at the CBC, and you pay for it.
And now it's being weaponized against conservatives, but also weirdly against us here, the Rebel.
I don't think I've said a word to Wendy Mesley in 10 years.
I think maybe she interviewed me once a decade ago.
I can't even remember.
I'm sorry she's not that memorable, which is why people like her.
It's why I like her.
But now she is this crazed person.
I know she's not really.
It's that weirdo who writes her lines.
He's obsessed by a lot of things, including by us at the Rebel.
And whenever they can trick a conservative newsmaker to go on this show, he gets Wendy Mesley to ask them the same weird question.
Why do you guys, why do you guys talk to the Rebel?
So she asked it of Andrew Scheer.
Remember this?
Your campaign manager now, Hamish Marshall, was directly involved with building Rebel.
Why did you choose him to run the campaign?
Are you not at all worried about messages of sending out now?
I mean, that Rebel has gone so far down this white supremacist path.
That's a really weird question that I can assure you is not in the top 10 list of questions that 99.99999% of Canadians want to know about the leader of the Conservative Party.
It's just Wendy Mesley and her kooky boss.
It was also weird of Andrew Scheer to count out of that, that's for sure.
Then she tried it out on Jordan Peterson, the most successful Canadian author in a decade, really.
most successful public intellectual in the Anglosphere right now.
But she made asking about the rebel an entire third of her interview with him.
Remember this?
Speaking out against the federal bill, C-16 and gender pronouns and so on, the federal government cut your funding for research.
Rebel Media came in and did a crowdfunding project for you, raised about $200,000.
After Charlottesville and the riots, the protests there, many people cut ties with rebel media, including the conservative leader Andrew Scheer, saying that it could be seen as giving hate groups a platform.
You still go on there.
So I'm wondering, why do you go on Rebel Media after Charlottesville?
Anyways, on this Sunday, she had Maxine Bernier on her show, and she asked Bernier, before trying to link him to some kooky conspiracy to the U.S. Koch brothers, she asked about us.
Rebel Media, for example, does seem to be fond of you.
It's been accused, of course, of being supportive of white supremacist views.
As Relevant, they have a million subscribers on YouTube, 150,000 followers on Facebook.
Do you want his support?
Do you want his audience?
Yeah, Wendy, I'm Jewish.
We have people here of a variety of races and backgrounds, new Canadians.
Your white supremacist stuff is really unbecoming, and it makes you look like a fool who will read anything put in your teleprompter, which I guess you do.
I've got Maxine Bernier on the show today, and I've introduced him a bit five minutes ago.
You didn't need any introduction.
My monologue today is actually about this weird alt-left extremism that's creeping into the mainstream media and it's obviously found a home.
It's at its worst in the CBC.
But it's also about deplatforming and marginalizing conservatives, the attempt by the media to tell conservative leaders, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Scheer, Maxime Bernier, who they can and can't talk to, what they can and can't talk about.
You're not allowed to talk about Islam, not at all.
You're not allowed to talk about anything transgender, not at all.
No, And you sure can't talk to the rebel.
And if you do, you'll be unpersoned.
Wendy Mesley met with Jordan Peterson and asked him bizarre questions about us.
He didn't give him the right answer.
So then the CBC did an attack on a music, on a band called Mumford and Sons, just for having their photo taken with Jordan Peterson.
Since Jordan Peterson didn't comply with Wendy Mesley's weirdness, he was unpersoned.
He's now persona non-grata.
And no one else is allowed to even talk to him anymore or they'll be humiliated by the CBC, even though the CBC just talked with him.
I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, except in only one way.
If you don't do what the CBC tells you to do politically, you're obviously white supremacist or anti-trans or whatever.
So Maxime Bernier got an earful from this Russia troll kook at the CBC for talking with us, even though I think it's been about a year or more since we've had him on the show.
So I thought, well, let's see if he's being scared off by Wendy Mesley and her kooky conspiracy theorist producer.
I mean, Andrew Scheer's being scared off.
It's sort of pitiful.
So I invited Maxime Bernier on the show.
And he said yes, which is a normal thing for a conservative politician to do.
And so that, my friends, is what's next.
An interview with Maxime Bernier about a lot more than just the CBC, but I will raise the subject with him.
That's ahead on this special episode.
Stay with us.
And joining us now live via Skype is Maxime Bernier, the founder of the People's Party.
Welcome back to the program.
It's nice to have you again.
Thank you, Ezra.
I'm very pleased to be with you.
Well, a lot has happened since we last spoke.
I think the last time we interviewed you was when you were running for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and you missed that just by less than a percent.
Tell me about your decision to break away from the Conservative Party and start the People's Party.
Why didn't you stay in and try and fight for change from within and maybe be there if Andrew Scheer fails in the next election?
How come you decided to break away?
Yeah, actually, it's a great question.
And I tried to push our ideas a year after the leadership.
As you know, I didn't win with 49% of the vote.
But at the end, the grassroots people, they like our bold ideas and what we want for the future of this country based on four principles, individual freedom, personal responsibility, fairness, and respect.
So after the leadership, I tried to have that be part of the platform of the Conservative Party of Canada for the next election.
But I was not successful.
And I had a conversation, a phone conversation with Andrew 10 days before I resigned.
And he told me that the party was not, didn't want to take any of our ideas.
And so for the next campaign, for the next platform, and in 2019.
And after that, you know, I had two choices to stay in politics or to go back to the private sector.
But I decided to stay in politics and fight for what I believe.
I wasn't able to see myself and running for the Conservative Party of Canada on a platform that I don't believe.
So we had the platform, and so I decided to start the party.
People's Party Platform00:15:30
And up to now, it's going very well.
Now, you outline the four principles of your party, but those words are pretty general.
Respect, freedom, things like that.
I think a lot of our viewers like you.
They support you.
They love your style.
They love your principled stand.
But they also really want to win.
They really want to beat Justin Trudeau.
And a lot of our viewers remember the great efforts to unite the right.
Can I ask you, on behalf of our viewers who like you but are skeptical of this decision, those four principles you talked about, I bet if Andrew Scheer were right here, and of course he isn't right here because he refuses to talk to the rebel, he would say he agrees with those four principles.
Other than the dairy cartel, what are the specific differences between your People's Party and the Conservative Party?
Because I can name that dairy cartel.
I think it's an important one.
But what are the other differences?
Well, you know, we want to have a debate on the equalization formula.
I think it's important for Canada.
It's important for everybody.
You know, that formula, it is unfair, and it is unfair also for provinces who are receiving money because there's no incentive for these provinces to develop their own natural resources.
So I'm the only politician who speaks about that.
I'm the only politician who speaks about getting rid of corporate welfare.
And I'm serious when I'm speaking about that.
It is not a slogan.
We want to be sure to abolish the around $5 billion that the federal government is giving to big corporations.
We want to stop that and lower taxes for every single entrepreneur in this country.
We think that it is not fair to tax a small business entrepreneur in Calgary and using their money and that money to give that to a big corporation like GM and Borvardi.
So we are very serious about that.
And also we want to have a debate about the health care system in our country.
We want to respect the constitution.
We want to be sure that everybody will be able to have good health care services by, first of all, stopping to tax Canadians and giving that money to provinces.
We want to lower the taxes at the federal level and let the province tax for their own responsibility, like healthcare.
So we and provinces will have an incentive to develop a new way to offer that services to their people.
So with maybe more private and other ways, like in other countries, like in France, like in Sweden, like in other European countries where they have a better system than in Canada.
So politicians are afraid to have this kind of discussion.
So that's a big difference between our party and the other one.
We're not afraid to have debate about that.
And, you know, we will take the time to explain our policies to Canadians.
And that's why we will be able to have support.
And the other part of your question was about being able to be the alternative.
And I think we would be able to be the alternative because, first of all, we have a lot of support from former conservatives who are coming with us, but also from people who voted liberals before.
People who voted for Paul Martin and Jean-Cretien a couple of years ago because they believe in a balanced budget and lower taxes.
So that's in our plan to balance the budget in two years.
They all will come in our party because they cannot see themselves in the Liberal Party of Canada right now.
And I had some people who voted NDP.
They said, Maxime, I want to join your party and be with you because you want to get rid of corporate welfare and you want to abolish the cartel of supply management that is a regressive tax on the poor.
So we can attract these kind of people.
But also 30% of Canadians didn't vote at the last election because they don't believe in politicians anymore.
So I think we can have some of these people also.
So we have to prove to, I have to prove to my former conservative colleagues that we will be the alternative.
And I think it's starting very well.
We are around 10 or 12 or 15 the poor right now, just in the beginning.
We just have to increase that.
And I can tell you that in a couple of months from now, we will be the alternative.
And if you want to beat the Trudeau government, people will have to vote for us and not for Andrew Scheer.
Now, it's interesting.
I was making notes as you talked about equalization reform, corporate welfare reform, healthcare.
A lot of those ideas remind me of the early days of the Conservative Party, or more to the point, the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance.
It sounds to me like you're suggesting that today's Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer is really a party of the establishment and not a party of insurgent ideas.
Is that a fair assessment of your view?
Absolutely.
It's a fair assessment.
They're liberal light, you know.
That's why they don't have any ideas.
They don't want to discuss these reforms because they need to do polling and focus group.
And after that, they will come with a policy.
They try to please everybody.
And in politics, when you try to please everybody, you won't please everybody.
So, you know, we believe in real conservative reform.
And that's what we want to do.
And that would be the only way for having a smaller government in Ottawa and a government that will respect the people.
So that's a big difference between us and the liberal and the conservative.
And you're right.
The establishment at the conservative, they don't want to open this debate.
But Canadians, they're ready for it.
And they know if we want to have a freer and a more prosperous country, we'll need to have these kind of reform.
Well, let me ask you about one more area of politics because corporate welfare, that should be pretty easy for any conservative to support reforms.
And healthcare is no longer the third rail of politics that it was maybe 15 years ago because people know it's not working.
But there is one area of politics that I think the federal conservatives and almost everyone else in the country, especially in the media, is terrified to talk about.
And at least in English Canada.
And that is open borders, immigration, illegal immigrants, and especially the Islamic nature and effect of some of these migrants, whether it's the hijab or the full face obscuring niqab in public or in courts.
These are subjects that I think people want to talk about, but if they even ask basic questions or raise concerns, they're called racist or whatnot.
Now, you've engaged in some of these conversations on Twitter.
Is that part of your people's party as well?
Do you have views on immigration, multiculturalism, and integration and assimilation?
For sure, it is part of our platform.
And I tweeted about that a couple of days ago.
And, you know, we need to, this country has been built with immigrants and immigrants that they share the Western civilization values.
And that's very important.
So I don't want our country to be like in France, actually, right now, in Europe, where they have challenges with the integration of our new immigrants.
We don't want that in Canada.
So that is why we must have a debate about immigration.
And I'm open for immigration, but I'm open with immigrants that will come here, like the one in the past, who came here to share our Canadian values and our culture.
They will come to our country.
I want them to be able to have a job.
I want them to be able to integrate our society.
So that's why we need to have a debate on immigration.
But the other part is they don't want to have a debate about that.
You know, I think it's time to have this kind of debate.
You know, my last interview with Andrew Scheer, and I think it's why he never came back, I asked him about some of the Syrian migrants.
And I said, do you have any views on that?
He said, well, we need to do security background checks.
I said, that's true, but a lot of things won't show up in a security background check in someone from Syria.
Questions about cultural compatibility, the equality of men and women, the treatment of minorities, the separation of mosque and state.
I asked Andrew Scheer if he felt there ought to be any cultural fit test.
So not just a background police check, obviously.
And he didn't answer me.
Do you believe that we should have a test to make sure someone embraces Canadian values, like the separation of mosque and state or the equality of men and women?
I couldn't get an answer out of Andrew Scheer.
Do you feel more confident on that question?
But first of all, as you know, Kelly Leach, during the leadership campaign for the Conservative Party of Canada, raised that issue, and she said that we need a test.
So I'm open for ideas.
I don't know how we will be sure that these people that are coming here are sharing our values and our principle, Western society values and principle.
So is it by a test or another means?
I don't know.
I'm open for suggestion.
Somebody told me, Maxime, if you ask for a test, they will tell you what you want to hear, and it would be very difficult.
So I'm open to find the best way to be sure that people who are coming in this country are coming for the real reason and are coming because they want to be in a country that is free, that it respects the rule of law, the equality between men and women.
the distinction between the church and politics.
So that's important for us.
And I don't know what would be the best way to be sure that these people are coming because they share our values and they want to be in a freer country.
But what happened in the past, if you look at the past 65 years, 70 years, people, they were coming here and they were sharing our values.
So maybe we need to improve our system, but we don't need to throw everything out and start from the beginning.
What we did a couple of years ago, the point system, it's a good system.
Maybe we must improve it.
But I don't have the solution about it right now.
And I'm open.
That's why I'm doing this debate.
And I'm looking for solution or ideas from Canadians about it.
Thank you.
I have just one more question on this.
And again, even if you don't have a concrete answer, just the way you're thinking about it or your process is useful to me.
I know that Justin Trudeau and Ahmed Hassan, the immigration minister, have talked about increasing the number of immigrants to Canada to 300,000 a year.
I've also seen regular opinion polls that have gotten sharper against that.
Less than 10% of Canadians, including according to the government's own polls, support an increase.
Do you have any thoughts on the actual number?
Should it be where it is now, around 250?
Should it increase to 300?
Should it be restricted?
Do you have any views on that?
Yes, yes.
First of all, you're right that the Trudeau government, they want to have 310,000 people a year, new Canadians.
They will increase that to 340,000 a year in two years from now.
And they receive a report, the Barton report, and that report is asking for going up to 450,000 a year.
So what I want, I want us to go back on the average that we had, the average of immigrants that we had under Stephen Hopper for the last 10 years that we were in power, that the conservatives were in power.
So it's about 250,000 a year.
So I think we must go back to that number and being sure to integrate these people.
So that's my goal.
And the only politician who has a number.
All the other ones are afraid to have a number.
So around 250,000 a year, I think it will be a good start.
And, you know, I'm in line with 49% of Canadians that they think that there's too much immigration in our country.
So, you know, these people, I think they're right.
So I'm not afraid to say a number.
Thank you for answering those policy questions.
I'd like to shift gears.
I'm grateful for your time.
I want to cover two more subjects with you.
I want to talk about two provincial election campaigns and ask your opinion about shifting politics.
And then I want to finish up briefly on the CBC because I know you've just put out a new statement on the subject.
But let me talk about the election a couple days ago in New Brunswick.
That the traditional parties, the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals, they each got about 30% of the vote.
But third parties got about 30% of the vote.
There was the NDP, they only got 5%.
The Green Party got about 12%.
And there's a new party called, let me get this right, the People's Alliance, which sounds similar to your People's Party.
It's right of center.
It has new ideas.
It's against corporate welfare.
It actually sounded very similar to you guys.
And they won the balance of power.
And they got, I think, 13% of the vote.
Do you think that these old routines and customs that you either voted Tory liberal, Tory liberal.
I was surprised by the news there.
Have you been following that?
Do you know anything about this third party, the People's Alliance?
What are your take on that?
Well, first of all, I didn't follow in details the election over there, but I saw the result.
And for me, it's an indication that people, you know, are fed up with the old parties that are saying almost the same thing and they're afraid to have real debates.
But the most important, they want, they use the people's money.
When I'm saying they, the old parties, they're using the people's money to buy votes with special interest group.
They're doing that with the cartel of supply management at the federal level.
So and that way of doing politics, taxing people and people, and after that, giving that money to a special interest group for having their support, I think people are fed up with that.
And that's not the way that we will do politics.
We are doing politics for all Canadians, for the people of our country.
That's why we are calling our party the People's Party of Canada.
So I think people, it's a sign in New Brunswick.
And for us, it's looking very good because we are at around 12% in the poll right now after three weeks.
And we can just increase, and I hope we will, and we'll show to everybody that will be the right alternative, the alternative in 2019.
I want to shift to Quebec's provincial election.
And I'm not expecting you to endorse one party or the other, although if you want to, let me know your thinking on that.
People's Party of Canada00:02:50
I find it fascinating because I think as an outsider, and I don't speak very good French, so I don't have a lot of information, but it looks to me like Quebec has more honest conversations about some of the cultural issues because Quebec has their French identity that they're trying to keep a hold of.
So they think about it, they talk about it, they worry about it.
Some people would say Quebec was the first ethnic nationalist jurisdiction in North America in a way.
And what do you make about the discussions in that campaign?
And what do you make of the rise of the Coalition Avonir Quebec?
Are they a like-minded party to you?
Do they share some views?
I'd like your thoughts.
And I'm not looking for you to weigh into that election, although feel free.
I just want you to help teach the rest of the country what's going on there and can it apply to the federal scene?
Yeah, I don't want to interfere in provincial jurisdiction, but what I can say, the coalition, the Coalition Avnière Québec, the CAC-like coalition, they're tied in the poll right now with the Liberal, and we don't know what will happen in a week from now.
But yes, you're right.
They opened a discussion about immigration, and they're the only party who is saying right now in Quebec that we must have a little bit less immigration.
And I think Quebecers are used to that debate.
And in English Canada, we are having, and I'm starting that debate also.
So the coalition, it's a kind of a right-wing party.
But for me, being a right-wing in Quebec, it's a little bit kind of a socialist party also.
I don't know what will happen, but at least we have some discussion in Quebec about immigration, and it's going very well.
Nobody is saying that the leader of LACAC is a racist.
Nobody is saying that.
And he's having that open discussion.
So I hope that we can have that open discussion also in Canada.
And I'm starting that debate right now.
Yeah.
I'm very jealous because it seems like even if the mainstream media disagrees with the CAC body and their leader, they at least hear him out and report what he says.
And they understand it's a legitimate.
If they disagree with him, they at least acknowledge it's a legitimate position.
I'm jealous because I don't see that in English Canada.
Do you agree that English Canada doesn't yet have the courage to have that same conversation?
But what I'm saying, it's the mainstream media.
I think they're not fair when we speak about that.
But you know, people, the credibility of journalists right now, it is not as high as it was 10 years ago.
Rosemary's Partisan Tweets00:07:32
And people, they can have their news.
You know, you're very popular, Israel, and people like to hear what you're saying.
And there's other media, the social media.
And that's what we want to know.
We want to do, we want to appear to the intelligence of people.
And when the mainstream media, they were saying Maxim is a populist politician, I said, maybe yes, but I'm a smart populist politician because we have serious policies and we bring something on the table for having real debate that would be great for this country.
Right.
Well, that's a very good point you make is that I think English Canadians are ready for that conversation, but not the English Canadian media.
Which leads me to my last series of questions.
And I thank you again for your time.
But I've watched you very carefully over the last month, as so many Canadians have.
And one of, I'll be honest, one of my favorite things has been how you've been sparring with the mainstream media, especially with the state broadcaster.
And I want to play a couple of clips.
And you surely know the ones I'm talking about.
Right before you started the People's Party, the CBC did a hit piece on you, and it was hosted by Rosemary Barton.
There was another journalist involved.
Let me play a very short clip, and then I'm going to read a tweet by Rosemary Barton.
So let me just remind our viewers what I'm talking about.
I know you know, Maxime, and then I'll like your feedback on this.
So here's a short clip from a CBC attack on you that tries to link you to a Ku Klux Klan protest in Charlottesville.
Take a look.
You will not!
Also significant is the timing.
Bernier chose to send his messages on the first anniversary of the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A milestone for people who believe whites are under some kind of cultural attack.
We did reach out to Maxime Bernier today to see if he'd talk Rosie, but he didn't respond.
Just an absolutely insane non-sequitur.
They're talking about you in Canada, and they cook up this conspiracy theory that you're setting your timing based on something that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Let me call you for your response in one second, but I want to show just very quickly the tweets that were exchanged between you and Rosemary Barton.
You wrote on Twitter, and this is on August 16th, you wrote, just saw this report, which implies a timing between my tweets last Sunday and some violent demonstration in the U.S. How do you know that I chose to send my messages on the first anniversary of the riots in Charlottesville?
This is despicable fake news.
And then Rosemary Barton wrote back, how do we know you didn't time to coincide with that anniversary, given you won't give any interviews to anyone about anything you tweet?
How about you answer some questions and defend your position in front of people?
Then we can talk about what is fake.
Thanks for watching.
And then you wrote back, I'm just going to go a couple more here.
You said, whether or not I give interviews, your job is to report facts, not unfounded and calumnious speculation.
You admit you have no idea if there was a connection.
I tweet almost every day and was not even aware of this event in the U.S. You were biased, unprofessional.
And then the last comment by Rosemary Barton, any politician worth his salt would have known of that anniversary.
I don't care what you tweet.
I do care that you won't answer questions about.
I report facts based on what people say and tweet.
The interview request stands.
And we can clear this all up anytime you like.
Now, I said that in my own dramatic voice, Maxime, but I have to say, the mask fell off Rosemary Barton for a moment.
And we saw her true nature as a radical partisan, not as a pretend neutral journalist.
I was shocked by that exchange.
What do you think of it now that a month has passed?
Yeah, no, it is crazy, you know.
And yes, you're right.
She was a radical partisan, and that's a smear job that they tried to do.
And, you know, for me, the CBC, it's funded by us, by people's money, by Canadians, and there's no place for that at the CBC.
If they want to be a leftist partisan, they can go at the private sector and work for, but not work for another broadcaster, but not at the CBC.
So that's why I propose doing the leadership campaign, a big reform of the CBC, cutting their budget and asking the CBC to be like the PBS in the state.
And people who want to give money to the CBC will be able to do that.
And taxpayers won't be forced to give money to the CBC.
So I was very disappointed at the CBC when that happened.
Well, you are the first member of parliament that I can remember to, in any serious fashion, challenge the CBC.
That's another thing that I think the Conservative Party of Andrew Scheer is afraid of.
I think they're afraid of talking about cultural issues.
And I think they're terrified of offending the media party.
But I think the CBC, Maxime, after that interview with you, I think they doubled down.
Let me show you this quick clip of Paul Wells.
He's from, I think he's still with McLean's if they're still around.
And he wasn't just attacking you now.
He was mocking anyone who supports you.
Look at this quick clip.
Look, there's no part of his stance on immigration and identity that is libertarian.
He wants to lead a libertarian party, and he also wants to lead an anti-immigrant party.
His supporters on Twitter seem to be that tiny Venn intersection of people who think it's great that Donald Trump is the president of the United States and people who think that Maxime Bernier would be like Donald Trump.
You cannot have been paying much attention to Max Bernier over the last 20 years to entertain that fantasy very far.
So basically, his voter base right now is the stupidest people on Twitter.
And so we'll see how far that gets him.
No comment.
You know, it's one thing for him to disagree with you.
That's fine.
It's another thing for him even to insult you.
And I suppose that's the price a politician pays.
But I think the sneering scoffing at grassroots taxpayers and citizens and the laughing at his own scoffing and the other hosts there saying, well, no comment.
I don't think the CBC knows what they look like to ordinary people.
I think that they look imperious and condescending.
And frankly, Maxime, if the CBC were to do that every single day, I think your support would grow just based on anger against the CBC.
You know, you have to, like I said during a press conference, I said, when I'm going to see, when I will see a fake news, I will call it a fake news.
And Rosie, that was fake news.
and the CBC, if they're doing that, that they are not helping themselves.
You know, it's people in their tower in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.
And I think other journalists who are the journalists who are working for the CBC in Mountain, in the region, they may be not like that.
And they may be not proud of these people working with the CBC and not being fair.
with everybody.
Last Question: CBC Critiques00:02:16
I want to ask you just one last question because you've stayed very long with us and I know you have many things to do.
But it is one last question about the CBC.
I'm using the CBC as an example, but I think it goes to a concept called deplatforming.
And I'm not sure what the French term for that is.
That's not debating your opponents.
That's trying to marginalize them, ban them, censor them.
And it's just, I want to show you, and you know what I'm talking about.
This is Wendy Nesley, who used to be very prestigious at the CBC.
She used to be an anchor, a newsreader.
I think she was well regarded.
She didn't have particularly strong opinions, but she has this new obscure show on Sundays that's really a conspiracy theory show from the left.
And they took a run at you saying, you know, asking if you're funded by the Koch brothers, which of course would be illegal.
It's such a bizarre question.
It was a series of strange accusations.
But I want to show you something really weird because it references me actually.
And I just want to play it.
Our viewers probably know what I'm talking about.
I'd like your take on the new leftist approach of deplatforming and marginalizing opponents.
Take a look at this.
But I do wonder if you've noticed that Rebel Media, for example, does seem to be fond of you.
It's been accused, of course, of being supportive of white supremacist views.
Ezra Levant, they have a million subscribers on YouTube, 150,000 followers on Facebook.
Do you want his support?
Do you want his audience?
You know, I want people who believe in our ideas.
And it can be people who are watching this show right now, people who are watching the Ezra Wit and the Rebel.
It can be people who are watching Radio Canada.
You know, by the way, Maxime, I just want to tell you I'm not a white supremacist.
I'm Jewish, in fact.
Our staff is of every race and background.
It's so weird she would say that.
And that sort of came out of the blue.
Like, you weren't talking about the rebel.
French-English Political Divide00:07:40
You and I actually aren't even that close.
I mean, I do like you, but we've actually had criticisms from our viewers that we haven't talked about you enough.
So I don't even know what she's talking about there.
I thought that was an attempt by the CBC to tell you who you should and shouldn't meet with, who you should and shouldn't talk with.
The fact that we're a competitor of sorts to them makes it even more craven.
But I think it's weird that it's an acceptable line of questioning.
Don't talk to him, don't meet with them, for a journalist to say that.
What do you make of that?
You know, because you're so good, Ezra, and you're a real competition for them.
And I think they're afraid a little bit.
But I don't know why other politicians are not going on your show.
I don't know why Andrew Scheer is not going on your show.
We know who you are.
You're a credible, proud Canadian, and you can be proud of what you're doing right now.
You know, it's a news broadcaster.
You are all over Canada and you have good guests and good people working with you.
And yes, from different backgrounds, you can be proud of that.
And, you know, I said to the CBC at that time, if I receive an invitation, I will look at it.
And as, you know, I received the invitation and I'm with you and I'm very proud to be with you.
And you're doing a good job.
I know that sometimes you'll be against me as a politician on an ideas and the other time you'll be for it or I'm not.
But that's your job to do that.
And I appreciate that.
Well, thanks very much.
I appreciate the compliments.
I actually wasn't fishing for a compliment, but it was nice of you to offer it.
I think you're right.
I mean, we have criticized you.
I personally said I would have wished for you to stay within the Conservative Party and I gave my reasons, but you didn't.
And so we're going to cover you as the news.
And you can say what you want to our people.
But I just thought it was odd that it feels like there's a little club, a little clique, both in politics and in the media, and you're not allowed to deviate from that little clique.
And you have done both, Maxime.
You've started your own party and you talk to rough-hewn characters like me and the Rebels.
So you've broken two rules in Ottawa.
I'm grateful for your time today.
And we've covered a lot of ground.
Is there any other message that you would send to our viewers?
Because I am going to email this video out to our people because I think they'll find a lot of it interesting.
They won't agree with all of it.
But if you had one last message to say to our viewers, especially conservatives who feel like you should have stayed in the tent, what would your sales pitch be to them after all our discussion?
If someone's paying attention now, what would you say to them to close the deal?
But first of all, I just want to say to you that for me, political correctness, it is finished and we have to say what we believe.
And what I'm saying to the conservative who are staying with Andrew Shea right now and they're not ready to be a part of our party, just watch us and look at our platform, read our platform, and you'll see that we are the real alternative, the real conservative alternative for this country.
And I hope that we'll be able to have your support in the near future.
And if you want to know what we believe in, go on the website of the peoplespartyofcanada.ca.
You'll have the platform and you'll be able to be a funding members also until the first of November.
So be part of history, come with us, and all together we'll make this country great again.
Well, thank you very much, Maxime Bernier, founder of the People's Party.
I've really enjoyed our conversation and I think you've given our viewers a lot to think about.
And hey, I am glad that you come on the Rebel because we are part of the national conversation just as much as Wendy Mansley is.
And I appreciate you taking the time with our viewers.
All the best to you, sir.
Thank you.
Bye-bye, Ezra.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Well, there you have it.
Maxime Bernier, what do you think of that interview?
Let me know.
Send me an email to Ezra at the Rebel.media or leave your comments below.
Stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
On my monologue yesterday about the results of the provincial election in New Brunswick, Jonathan writes, As a New Brunswicker who worked on the campaign for a progressive conservative candidate, I can tell you that immigration had nothing to do with the election.
Not one party discussed it.
The split was caused by two factors.
The polarizations of bilingualism, mostly French in the north and east coast in areas like Moncton and Sheniak, and English in the south.
As you can see, the French areas are predominantly liberal and English is mostly PC.
The People's Alliance actively encouraged vote splitting amongst the right, which caused many PC candidates to lose to the Liberals, including my writing of Fredericton North.
Make no mistake about it.
If it weren't for the People's Alliance, we would have a PC majority in New Brunswick.
I should also note that the PA leader, Chris Austin, was a PC member that lost his nomination and quit the party to form the People's Alliance of New Brunswick for the 2010 election.
I say the lesson learned here is don't split the vote next year federally, or it could be worse than a minority conservative government.
We could easily face a liberal NDP coalition in Ottawa.
Well, Jonathan, thank you very much for providing that on-the-ground fact check.
As I indicated yesterday, I was speculating, and I accept without question your report that the issue of immigration or whatnot would not have been discussed in ads and debates.
I wonder if it was in the back of people's minds.
I just don't know.
You're saying it wasn't part of the election.
I'll take your word for it.
I think it's in the back of everyone's minds as we see the news every day of the open borders.
And, you know, people notice things.
I think it's a factor.
You're telling me it wasn't the decisive factor.
And you're pointing out, and it's good timing that you do, that a splitism, I believe you, costs the PCs the majority there.
I guess I would ask you, and we don't have to have a banter, but I would ask you or anyone else, did the People's Alliance have a legitimate policy cause to break away?
It's one thing to say he was a PC candidate nominee who didn't get his way, but was there something more?
Is there a flaw in the Conservative Party?
Were they not conservative enough?
Did they not take on the bilingualism issue enough?
Is there something more other than personal vanity?
And I asked that because obviously it wasn't just the leader who won, it was other MLAs too.
Appreciate you writing to me, though.
Ted writes, Conservatives in Canada are in a real mess with milquetoast leaders and vote splitting likely to lead to a perpetual leftist government in Alberta and Ottawa.
New Brunswick shows this doesn't have to be the case.
We can have conservative minority governments propped up by right-of-center parties.
Well, that's the thing.
There's a little bit of a constitutional dance going on right now.
The liberal premier claims he can cobble together a majority, but last I saw, the lieutenant governor was skeptical of that.
I think, in fact, I can't even think of a historical precedent in Canada where you have a center-right party and the balance of power is held by a party to their right.
Almost always, the minority coalition dashes to the left.
I said this about Alberta.
I said that if Jason Kenney forms a majority in that province, which I'm sure he will, I would rather have the opposition be Derek Fildebrand's Conservative Freedom Party, or whatever it's called, than an NDP or Liberal government.
Would Rather Have Conservatives00:00:37
Wouldn't you rather have the counterforce to Jason Kennedy on his right rather than his left?
Because the media is going to pull him out.
Those are our letters for today.
What do you think of my interview with Maxime Bernier?
I was glad he came on the show.
I mean, it shouldn't be remarkable that he came on the show.
What's remarkable is that Andrew Scheer has not come on the show, and so many other timid conservatives stay away because Wendy Mansley will scold them.
That's one of the favorite things I like about Maxime Bernier.
It's one of my favorite things I like about Doug Ford and Donald Trump.