Remembrance Day: The liberal establishment’s hollow respect for Canada’s military contrasts with its neglect—$10.5M paid to terrorist Omar Cotter while victims were blocked, $165M pension errors for 270,000 veterans, and reliance on 30-year-old gear. Trudeau’s opposition to U.S. policies (like F-35s) overused Australian jets, while charities fear his retaliation. Viewers criticize leftist narratives blaming Harper or Trump, sparking debates on free speech, offensive jokes, and Guy Fawkes Day effigies. The episode questions whether performative remembrance masks systemic betrayal of those who serve. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, it's Remembrance Day on Sunday, the one day a year the liberal establishment pretends to care about our soldiers.
It's November 9th, 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.
Sunday is Remembrance Day.
I have a Remembrance Day tradition that I started when I was at the Sun News Network of reading a poem every year, not in Flanders Fields, which is very touching, and is the reason we wear puppies on our lapels.
A different poem, you know the one by Rudyard Kipling, the great British journalist and author and sometimes activist.
He was the author of the jungle book, you know, the author of so many interesting short stories about the British Empire.
A poem simply called Tommy.
I'll read his poem in a moment and you can tell me what you think of it.
And ever since I went to Halifax for the Conservative Party Convention earlier this year, Halifax, a military town, a Navy town, I have to say I've been listening to sea shanties and traditional songs, many of which are about military veterans or sailors or people pressed into service, either Canadian or from the British military from which our own came.
And I've discovered a song that I will not sing myself, don't worry, but I'll play a 90-second clip from it because it talks about veterans in a way too.
Or more to the point how men who are recruited are sometimes treated.
Some people call the song an anti-war song because it criticizes the treatment of veterans.
I disagree.
I think it's a pro-soldier song and speaks to the humanity of an ordinary soldier and how it's so important that we must respect them when they're done their service.
We can't abandon them, whether they're wounded physically or mentally, shell shock, as it used to be called, or PTSD, as it's called now.
So I'll read the poem and then I'll play 90 seconds of that song.
I looked at my remarks from last year and the year before, and I see how bad things are every single year for veterans.
I think that Stephen Harper did change that somewhat as prime minister, at least symbolically.
I remember shortly after he was elected when there were questions about where his first foreign travel would be to.
Would it be to the United States?
Would it be to China?
As many liberals and businessmen had hoped, no.
Do you remember he went to Afghanistan to spend time with the troops there?
What a statement, what a symbol that was.
And he did his best to morally support the troops, and he slowly ramped up spending on equipment for the troops.
And I'm not making this a partisan ad for the conservatives, but I am lamenting that brief period of respect and momentum has been undone, not just financially, but also morally and symbolically.
Why did Justin Trudeau rush to give $10.5 million to Omar Cotter, the convicted confessed terrorist?
And why did he arrange that payment in a tricky way?
Do you remember that?
To ensure that Cotter's victims, the family of a U.S. soldier named Christopher Spear, couldn't collect that money as part of their wrongful death lawsuit against Cotter.
Why did Trudeau collude with Cotter?
Why did Trudeau have such a chummy meeting with Joshua Boyle?
Remember him?
A Muslim convert who took his family to meet up with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Boyle actually used to be married to Cotter's sister.
Boyle has been charged with horrific crimes.
Boyle said he met up with Justin Trudeau once before.
I wonder what that was about.
Why is Trudeau so chummy with terrorists and terrorist sympathizers and so hostile to our own troops?
Why is he cheaping out, literally asking soldiers to turn in their sleeping bags because there's a shortage?
What on earth, if there really is a shortage, buy some new ones?
Or are these sleeping bags for something else, like giving to Trudeau's 50,000 migrants who've just slipped across the border into Quebec and they need a sleeping bag?
I don't know.
Trudeau's Troop Shortchanges00:16:38
You tell me.
Or when Trudeau had so impoverished our soldiers that they had to set up a food bank on the base, remember that?
But they refused to take our fundraised donation to it because that was too embarrassing.
As in we were offering to feed our soldiers since Trudeau wasn't paying them enough, but Trudeau refused to take the funds because he'd rather our troops go hungry than for he himself to suffer embarrassment that he made them go hungry.
A hundred things like that.
And I see it in the United Kingdom too, through my work with Tommy Robinson.
They are a few years further down the road than we are.
So many British soldiers wounded in Afghanistan, so many have PTSD, and they're being shortchanged.
Tommy has a new campaign about a PTSD clinic there that was shut down due to lack of funds, but they have funds for sex change operations and breast implants on the taxpayer dime.
And speaking of love affairs with Islam, look at this official recruiting ad for the British Army.
That's a real ad for the British Army.
Imagine that.
Did you see that one scene there where the squawk box was, sorry, Commander, can't take your call now?
Sorry, Commander.
No, sorry.
We're all pausing for one of five daily Muslim prayers.
Sorry, boss.
Maybe you're reporting some attack or that someone needs our help, but they've just gonna, they're just gonna have to wait a minute.
That is nuts.
Yeah, we don't seem to learn, do we?
Because listen to this poem called Tommy or Tommy Atkins.
That's the British nickname for an ordinary soldier.
And listen to how Kipling observes the respect and the love that Tommies get when they're needed in a war compared to the disrespect and punishment they get when the war is over.
Let me read the poem to you now, a poem that I try to read each year without choking up at this one key line.
All right, here goes.
I went into a public house to get a pint of beer.
The publicany up and says, we serve no red coats here.
The girls behind the bar, they laughed and giggled fit to die.
I outs into the street again and to myself says I, oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away, but it's thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the band begins to play.
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play.
Oh, it's thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the band begins to play.
I went into a theater as sober as could be.
They gave a drunk civilian room, but hadn't none from me.
They sent me to the gallery or round the music halls.
But when it comes to fighting, Lord, they'll shove me in the stalls, for it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy wait outside.
But it's special train for Atkins when the trooper's on the tide.
The troop ship's on the tide, my boys, the troop ship's on the tide.
Oh, it's special train for Atkins when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than them uniforms and they're starvation cheap.
And hustling drunken soldiers when they're going large a bit is five times better business than parading in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy ows your soul.
But it's thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll.
It's thin red line of heroes where the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red heroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, but single men in barracks most remarkable like you.
And if sometimes our conduct isn't all your fancy paints, why single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints?
Well, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy fall behind.
But it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the wind.
There's trouble in the wine, my boys.
There's trouble in the wind.
Oh, it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk of better food for us and schools and fires and all.
We'll wait for extra rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cookroom slops, but prove it to our face.
The widow's uniform is not the soldier man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this and Tommy that and chuck him out, the brute.
But it's savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot.
And it's Tommy this and Tommy that and anything you please.
And Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool, you bet that Tommy sees.
Yeah, it's still that way, isn't it?
128 years after that was written.
In fact, we in Canada have a prime minister who says that the people we really need to listen to and respect and heed are not our returning soldiers, but returning ISIS terrorists.
I think it's now that in Syria and Iraq they've been declared defeated.
There is a question of them coming back to this country and you can't possibly monitor all of them, can you?
Yes, we have security agencies that are engaged on this file very much, but there's also a lot of community outreach going on.
We know that actually someone who has engaged and turned away from that hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice.
Yeah.
I want to add to that poem, Tommy, a new song I've been listening to since I had my military sea shanty awakening in Halifax a few months ago.
I've been listening to this song.
It's new to me, but it's a very old song.
And as with old songs, there seem to be a lot of different versions of it out there.
It talks about a British soldier, Johnny, is his name not Tommy, who is recruited into the army and finds himself sent over to Germany to fight.
From what I can find by googling around a bit, this song refers to the wars in Europe, in Germany, about 300 years ago, battling over Spanish succession and rival empires.
Here, give it a listen.
This is by the Dreadnoughts.
They call their version the cruel wars.
I've also seen it called Johnny, What'll Happen to You?
Here, take a listen.
A recruitin' sergeant came away from an in-near town at the close of day.
He said, My Johnny, you're a fine young man.
Would you like to march along behind a military band?
With a scarlet coat and a fine cocked hat and a musket at your shoulder.
The shilling he took and he cares the book.
Oh, poor Johnny, what'll happen to you?
The recruiting sergeant marched away from the inner town at the break of day.
Johnny came to with half a ring.
He was off to be a soldier to go fighting for the king.
In a far-off war, in a far-off land, to face the foreign soldier.
But how will you fare when there's lead in the air?
Oh, poor Johnny, what'll happen to you?
Well, the sun rose high on a barren land where the thin red line made a military stand.
There was slingshot, chainshot, grape shot too.
Swords and bayonets thrusting through.
Poor Johnny fell, but the day was won.
And the king is grateful to ya.
But your soldiery's done and they're sending you home.
Oh, poor Johnny, what'll happen to ya?
They said he was a hero and not to grieve for the two ruined legs and the empty sleeve.
Took him home and they set him down with a military pension and a medal from the crown.
But you haven't an arm, you haven't a leg, the enemy nearly slew ya.
You'll have to go out in the streets and beg, oh poor Johnny, what'll happen to you?
A recruiting sergeant came away from the inn near town at the close of day.
He said, my Johnny, you're a fine young man.
Would you like to march along behind a military band with a scarlet coat and a fine cocked hat and a musket at your shoulder?
The shell and he took and he cares the book.
Oh poor Johnny, what'll happen to you?
Now some say it's an anti-war song.
I mean, didn't Johnny lose his legs and an arm for a pointless war in a faraway land?
I mean, Germany, who cares?
It was 300 years ago.
And wasn't Johnny being treated poorly when he returned?
He has to beg in the street.
Now, I take those points, and I see the analogy today.
Our men are wounded and left without proper care, sometimes begging.
And faraway lands like High Germany in the 1700s.
Well, that was closer to a true British interest geographically, economically, politically, religiously, in the year 1700, when empires were clashing than Canada today sending Canadian troops to Mali.
Can you find Mali on a map?
No, seriously, can you?
Can you name a Canadian interest in Mali?
Can you tell me why a single Canadian should lose his or her life in Mali?
Other than for some obscure political point for Trudeau.
So I like that song by the Dreadnoughts because it's an angry song about how soldiers are recruited and then expended.
But to me, the lesson isn't to stop soldiering or stop recruiting, but rather the opposite, to treat soldiers better, both when they're in the army and after, not to send them on pointless missions in faraway lands with no connection to their homes.
I saw this ridiculous and outrageous cartoon in the New York Times just last week.
It was after news that Donald Trump was sending soldiers to defend the southern border against the migrant caravan making its way through Mexico that sought to break through the border into the U.S. to illegally migrate.
Some of them, of course, were armed, some were criminals.
That cartoon implies that Trump abuses the troops by sending them to defend America's borders, that his priorities are wrong and that the military dislikes Trump.
Yeah, they surely prefer Democrats.
And look at what they're made to say.
Put the cartoon back up just for a second.
The soldiers are made to say, I enroll to fight in the Middle East.
Now, I'm sure some did.
America was attacked by Muslim terrorists 17 years ago, and many men did enlist, not enroll, but enlist.
No one, the New York Times actually knows a soldier, so they don't know the lingo.
But the idea that American soldiers prefer to fight in some godforsaken faraway land like Afghanistan instead of to defend America's borders is absurd.
You have to work for the New York Times to believe that.
I believe we ought to respect our troops from the moment they're recruited throughout their service and afterwards.
That means not sending them on foolish missions like Mali.
That means giving them proper pay and equipment while they serve.
That means taking care of them if they're wounded.
300 years after the War of Spanish Succession, the one in that Dreadnought song, 130 years after Kipling, 17 years after 9-11, it's the same.
I think we need to do a better job of remembering, don't you?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, I tried not to be partisan in my opening remarks, although you would have to be blind and deaf not to see the difference in respect and attitude towards our military when you're comparing the Republicans or the Democrats, when you're comparing the British Conservatives or the British Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who literally laid a wreath for Hamas terrorists.
And in our own country, too, Justin Trudeau, who prefers to take photos with Joshua Boyle, the Taliban accomplice, as opposed to any Canadian forces.
But we have news of a non-partisan disaster that's been going on for a decade.
Here's the story in CTV.
270,000 veterans are owed $165 million for a disability pension error.
Now, obviously, 270,000 veterans, that's stretching back historically years, decades even.
A calculation error is blamed.
You can't hang this around the necks of the Liberals because this has been on for so long between the Liberals and the Tories, but it's just a sign.
If this were any other group in society, short-changing them a sixth of a billion dollars.
I mean, God forbid, the public sector government workers union is short-changed a dime.
They'll raise bloody hell.
Where were the advocates for the veterans?
Joining us now via Skype from Edmonton to talk about this is our Alberta Bureau Chief, Sheila Gunnery.
Sheila, great to see you again.
Hey, Ezra, thanks for having me on.
You know, there's a military tradition in Edmonton ever since Jean-Cretchen shut down the military base in Calgary as a punishment to that city.
Edmonton has sort of been the military city in Alberta.
And it's also the veterans city now.
We've seen various vets in that city being ignored and abandoned by the government.
I won't just put it around the Liberals, but it's more acute that way.
Do you think things are getting better or do you think things are getting worse?
For veterans?
Yeah.
Well, obviously they're getting worse.
All we have to do is look at how the Liberals prioritize veterans' issues compared to the issues of people like Omar Cotter.
Omar Cotter gets $10 million while our veterans are consistently short-changed.
They can't follow through with their promises for their pension for life.
Veterans groups are outraged about that.
The Liberals, it came to light a couple months ago that our military, our active service military, have to share sleeping bags amongst themselves because they don't have enough.
Likewise with their rucksacks.
The rucksacks that they do use are 30 plus years old, and they have to share those amongst themselves.
Then all we have to do is keep looking at how ill-equipped our military is.
We're buying used fighter jets from Australia, which will be older than some of our fighter pilots.
And that's the Liberals' idea of taking care of the Canadian military.
Yeah.
That Australian F-18 purchase is particularly odious because it's so obviously a fit of peak by Trudeau against the United States over a quarrel involving Bombardier.
Bombardier, of course, as I don't know if we've covered it in the Rebel yet.
After all the billions they've taken, they've laid off thousands, sold out, and they just sort of took the money and run, and we're still neglecting.
When we were in Israel, we saw the F-35 jet in action.
And I mean, I've seen F-15s and F-16s.
They're pretty amazing in the sky.
When that F-35 takes wing, it's the toughest, baddest thing in the air.
I'm a little bit embarrassed that instead of buying that, we're buying the castaways from Australia so they can get more modern jets.
It's so symbolic.
It's so symbolic, isn't it?
Well, yeah.
I mean, the Canadian Air Force is now caught in the crossfire between Justin Trudeau's anti-Trump attitude and his devotion to spending money outside of Canada as opposed to spending it within Canada.
Another slight that the Liberals have committed against veterans is the Christopher Garnier case.
He battered, murdered, and disposed of an off-duty policewoman.
Her name was Catherine Campbell.
He stuffed her in a garbage can like garbage.
Christopher Garnier was never a veteran, never served a day in the Canadian military, never gave anything of himself to this country, but his dad is.
And because of that, Veterans Affairs under the Liberals was paying for a private psychiatrist for Christopher Garnier, a convicted murderer behind bars, because getting Christopher Garnier treatment for the PTSD that he admits he gave himself when he murdered this woman somehow benefits his veterans' father.
Veterans Advocacy Gap00:11:48
And what a slap in the face of Canadian veterans who some of them are taking their lives because they don't have access to timely mental health care.
You know, it's interesting.
I've been observing our former colleague Tommy Robinson and some of his veterans' charity work overseas.
And I can't help but think we have those same problems here in Canada.
We must.
I just don't think we have sort of a rogue veterans advocate like Tommy Robinson.
I mean, Tommy's a wild man.
He's unstoppable.
If he sees a problem, he'll make a ruckus.
I don't think we have that.
When Stephen Harper was prime minister, we had sort of an astroturf fake liberal veterans, as if there's such a thing, just sort of constantly bad-mouthing Stephen Harper.
And now that Trudeau is in, they've vaporized this liberals, veterans advocacy group, because they were never really about advocating for veterans, but advocating for liberals.
I feel like we need an uncontrolled veterans advocate.
And by that, I mean not someone who is on the payroll of the government, not someone who's looking for an order of Canada from Justin Trudeau, someone who is strictly loyal to the troops.
And this is something we experience, I should tell you, Sheila, and we haven't fully aired this whole story.
When we tried to raise money last year for a food bank on a military base, as in this was not a military base collecting food for the local community.
Soldiers on the base were so underpaid.
They had to collect food in food hampers for each other.
We raised the money to take care of it.
Trudeau ordered the local base not to accept our charity money because he preferred to keep them hungry than to be embarrassed by the fact that he was keeping them hungry.
We tried to donate that money to several other military veterans charities.
And who's ever heard of a charity turning away money before?
That doesn't even make sense.
That's frankly contrary to their fiduciary duty.
But all these veterans groups, all these military charities, immediately panicked when we showed up because they know Justin Trudeau hates the rebel.
And so they're more worried about preserving their liberal connections than they are with helping vets.
I guess what I'm saying, Sheila, is I wish there was some rogue is the wrong word because that makes it sound negative.
Just some truly independent veterans group that doesn't give a damn about Justin Trudeau, that would actually fight zealously for actual veterans.
You know, I agree with you.
Going back to your comments about the sort of astro turf pro-liberal pro-veterans group that suddenly vaporized once the liberals were elected, that wasn't even about the veterans.
It was about the unions that go about providing services to veterans.
And Stephen Harper was trying to streamline that so that more money went to the hands of the veterans as opposed to the bureaucrats who allegedly serve the veterans.
They came out and used the veterans as their reason for being, the reason that they were so outraged when it was really about protecting public service jobs.
It is a great shame that we don't have a really bold, nonpartisan, pro-veterans group here in Canada.
But I mean, when you see the way the liberals are spiteful with military procurement, I understand why some of these veterans groups aren't as bold as we'd like them to be.
Yeah.
I mean, I think we're at three veterans charities now.
When we approach them, when we approach the actual day-to-day workers there, they're thrilled.
They can't believe someone's trying to give them a check for, I think, $16,000.
And then they accept the check and then a few hours later we get a phone call.
Yeah, we have to give the money back.
It's so transparent and it's so cruel.
And I'm embarrassed and angry for these veterans charities for being that way.
But I can only imagine they've done the math and they say if we take actual charity from a conservative, the liberals will punish us so badly, it's counterproductive to the veterans.
We need someone who has no government contracts, no political ambitions, doesn't care, has no pressure points.
Probably, frankly, a retired veteran himself or herself who has no skin in a political game anymore, who doesn't care if Trudeau or Harjit Sajjan, the stolen valor defense minister, badmouths them.
I mean, it's not me.
And I don't even, maybe it's you, Sheila, but I think it has to be someone who truly comes from a military background, truly is a veteran, and knows veterans, and veterans would instinctively trust and relate to them.
I'd like to find someone in Canada who would say, I am willing to be the pro-veterans gadfly, and I'm not scared of Trudeau or the military establishment, because I'm putting veterans first.
I don't know who that person is.
I don't know who that person is either.
I hope they're watching at home.
I hope there is somebody out there who is more concerned with helping veterans than being liked by Justin Trudeau.
And it seems to me that that's what a lot of the bureaucrats, the bureaucrats and administration around these military charities, that seems to be their motivation.
They're more concerned with being liked and popular with the liberal establishment than they are making sure that our veterans get fed.
Yeah, and you know what?
People say, Ezra, you talk too much about Tommy Robinson, and it's probably true.
But in the case of his, he recently dropped off a petition of almost 200,000 names at 10 Downing Street about soldiers.
So he's doing all this pro-soldier activism.
He's not a soldier himself.
He's not a veteran himself, but he just has sort of an emotional connection to them.
That's what got him started in this when returning Afghan vets were met with booze and burning poppies and when Lee Rigby was murdered on the street.
This sort of flicked the switch on for him.
I wonder if there's a Canadian who had a switch flipped on when Nathan Cirrillo or Patrice Vincent were murdered.
I wonder if there's a Canadian, I mean, we've got 35 million Canadians.
Surely there's someone who says, you know what?
I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do it in a bureaucratic way.
Anyway, if such a person exists, I hope they present themselves to you, Sheila at the Rebel.media or me, Ezra at the Rebel.media.
Because I'd certainly like to get behind such a person and do the kind of crowdfunding for individual veterans cases, do the kind of petitions that he's doing over there in the UK.
So I guess my point about Tommy is maybe he can be a role model or an inspiration for what we do here in Canada, because I know we have the same problems that the British military has.
I know we have them here.
We just don't have an activist like they have over there.
Yeah, and you know, I was just thinking about when we were in Israel.
When we were in Israel, there is an absolute, and I know it's because they have, you know, mandatory military service, but there is such a difference in how they treat their military and how they respect their military.
And when we were at that air show, how Netanyahu, you could tell he had love and affection for his Air Force.
We don't see that in Canada.
We don't have a politician even, even the defense minister or the Veterans Affairs Minister, who has that sort of appreciation, affection, and respect for the people who are protecting Canadian values.
Yeah.
Well, I remember that air show, and we'll show some footage of it.
It was an incredible air show.
It was a graduation for the Israel Air Force Academy.
What was interesting to me, I mean, it was awesome to see the technology.
It was awesome to see the F-35 and some of the other gear they had.
But to me, the most remarkable thing was you had the Prime Minister Netanyahu, who of course was a paratrooper commando when he was young.
You had the defense minister.
I think you had the president in the country too.
They gave speeches, but then they didn't just hop into their limo and speed off.
In Canada, if you had like a four-hour graduation ceremony, if a politician came, he'd come, give a 10-minute speech, stay just long enough that it wasn't embarrassing, then he'd skedaddle.
But there, all these politicians stayed for the duration, and then afterwards they stayed to shake hands with the cadets and their families, the graduates and their families.
So it was actually a genuine affection, and I know Trudeau couldn't stand the kind of person who would actually enlist in the Canadian military, and vice versa.
They probably couldn't stand him.
No, and I think the sun can only shine on one at once.
With Justin Trudeau, I think part of the reason he wouldn't want to go to a military parade is because he wasn't the guy graduating.
You know, he's the baby at every christening and the bride at every wedding.
It's funny.
My daughter is an air cadet.
And just even to communicate to Canadian air cadets what I saw and the performance that the Air Force put on for the families at the Air Force graduation, it's something we don't experience here in Canada.
And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we don't have mandatory military service.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a downside to conscription.
I mean, it basically takes a year or two out of the life of a young person.
It can put their personal plans on hold, their career plans on hold.
But you can see it in Israel.
It's a great leveler, whether you're fancy or poor, you're all in it together.
Whether you're religious or not, whether you're from the city or the country, you're all, and there's nothing more team-building, camaraderie, unifying than serving in danger with someone.
I can only imagine having not done it myself.
And you learn some leadership, you learn some fitness, you learn a trade in Israel.
You learn, one of the reasons they're so high tech is their military is high-tech, and all these people come out of the military and they have a real skill.
You're right.
I tell you, I sometimes wonder if what my own life path would have been like had I been conscripted.
I probably would have resisted the compulsion of it, but I'm sure I would be fitter, a better team player, and I would be able to say that I actually lived up to my own words about national duty and responsibility.
could say with honesty and certainty that I had at least served.
And there is something to be said for conscription.
Last word to you, Sheila.
Well, I guess my last word is that, you know, this is Remembrance Day.
It's 100 years of the armistice.
And this is something that really gave birth to Canada as a nation.
And it's very easy to forget because it's not wartime.
We don't have any people deployed in active wars.
But we can't forget that we do have people deployed on peacekeeping missions overseas, highly dangerous.
And this Remembrance Day, I think it's a time for us to give thanks and appreciate all the sacrifices that have been made.
Well, there you have it.
I agree with that.
Sheila Gunnerid, great to talk to you today.
Remembrance and Relevance00:05:06
And of course, I'll see you tomorrow in Calgary at theRebelLive.com.
I know we are slightly oversold.
I just checked, and we actually sold two more tickets than we have.
It's like, uh-oh, you know what?
I'm sure we'll be able to add a few more chairs, and there might be some no-shows for whatever reason.
So we may still have a few tickets at the door, but I'm delighted to say that the Rebel Live, Calgary, is completely sold out tomorrow.
So our Calgary friends will look forward to seeing you there all day.
I'll see you there too, Sheila.
Great.
We'll see you then, Ezra.
Okay.
Well, there you have it.
Stay with us.
your letters to me next.
I've got some letters.
I'll read them to you.
They're not on the theme of Remembrance Day.
On my monologue yesterday, Paul writes, The acrobatics that these leftists go through to reach the conclusions that they do is truly amazing.
The Liberal Party spends half its time looking for someone to blame their failings on, and the other half projecting those failings onto others.
It's Harper's fault.
It's Trump's fault.
To say it's childish is an understatement.
Canada isn't run by adults at this point.
Paul, I got to tell you your letter, I'm not sure exactly which story it refers to.
I think it could refer to 50% of the stories we talk about involving Justin Trudeau, his cabinet, or Democrats in the States.
Liza writes, does Justin think we don't know Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the embassy, the American embassy there?
What disgusting lying bull, Netanyahu, who has said that no other president has been as supportive of Israel as Trump.
Ah, maybe Paul was talking about that Anthony Housefather's story.
Yeah, you know, the Liberal Party of Canada used to be the Party of the Jews, which was always odd to me because Trudeau, a senior, didn't like the Jews much.
And, you know, Jean-Cretchen and the others were no friends to Israel.
But I would say they were not positively bad.
That started to wobble about 10 years ago.
Stéphane Dion got really bad about that.
And now the party, like the Democrats in the States, like the Labour Party in the UK, is being colonized by anti-Semitic Muslim votes.
And I think that causes some political schizophrenia amongst the remaining Jews in that party, like Anthony Housefather.
Or it should.
On my interview with Count Dankula, Tom writes, the joke was sick, but I'm going to be honest, I've laughed at many sick jokes in my life.
These people who burnt the effigy lack morals and compassion, but are these traits now an arrestable offense?
You know, I was trying to think about that because it's in bad taste, and I can imagine if I saw someone burning the Twin Towers, World Trade Center 9-11, I would feel upset with them.
And I can imagine people who grieved over the 70-plus lost lives at Grenfell Towers would feel the same way.
I don't quite understand the holiday of Guy Fawkes Day and what burning effigies means.
I don't quite know if it's a hateful thing or a memorial thing.
I don't know.
But you're so right.
And I sometimes pose the question to would-be censors, if a joke is really, really funny, Is it allowed if it's in bad faith?
Sorry, sorry, not bad faith, if it's in bad taste or even racist.
Like, is a joke okay if it's hilarious or if it's also offensive?
Or does it become not allowable if it's offensive but not funny?
It's the only joke you can have, an unfunny joke that's not offensive.
And of course, we're all trying to get to the funny joke that's not offensive, but there's not that many of those, is there?
I mean, anyone with kids knows that if you Google kids' jokes, they're pretty tame.
They're more puns.
Like, why were the strawberries sad?
Because their parents were in a jam.
All right, so that's a kid's joke.
I don't think you can get truly funny, knee-slapping, funny jokes unless you offend some sort of sensibility.
And by definition, that's going to upset someone.
And what are the other rules?
Can you tell a racist joke if you are of that race, but not if you're not?
Like can Eddie Murphy or other black comedians use the N-word?
Woody Allen and Seinfeld, I'd say about 50% of their jokes are Jewish jokes.
If anyone else told them, would they not be funny?
Is it only okay if a Jew tells them?
I don't know what the rules are, but I think that's the thing about comedy.
You can't really apply rules to it or it doesn't work.
Policing Laughter00:00:47
That's my beef with this Grenfell effigy burning.
There was no real crime done in any way there.
If we're trying to police laughter, and that was another question I had from Mark Mecham, a.k.a. Count Dekula.
Was the crime, the burning of it, the laughing at the burning, if they would weep as they burned it, would that be okay?
Look, I don't want to live in a country where we have to parse jokes and private bonfires this way, but that's what the United Kingdom has become.
And I promise you, we are just moments away from that in Canada, too.
All right, enough talk about that.
For our Calgarian friends out there, I'll see you tomorrow at the Rebel Live.
Everyone else, have a great weekend.
Remember, Remembrance Day on the 11th, and we'll be back in studio on Monday the 12th.