Alberta’s separatism surges as polls—denied by Ottawa—predict 20%–45% support, with economist Jack Mintz framing it as a stronger case than Brexit. The province faces $220B in net transfers and court blockades, while media dismisses its grievances unlike Quebec’s concessions. Meanwhile, Omar Cotter’s Edmonton bail hearing exposes elite silence: his lawyer ignored mainstream journalists but engaged with Rebel Media, yet he refuses to address the Speer family—grieving widow Tabitha and two fatherless children—he killed with a grenade. U.S. troop withdrawals from Syria raise questions about purpose, contrasting with permanent bases in Japan, Germany, and South Korea. The episode ties separatism, media bias, and unanswered justice to broader systemic failures. [Automatically generated summary]
It's December 21st, and this is the Ezra LeVance 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.
I haven't seen any public opinion polls on the question of Alberta's separatism.
Have you?
But I am certain that both Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau have commissioned private polls with your money on the subject.
About two weeks ago, we approached a pollster to commission a poll, as in we would pay them money and they would do the poll.
They would approve the question wording.
They would go into the field with the poll.
They would crunch the numbers using their methodology and give us the result.
All we'd do really is pay them, but they refused.
That's weird.
I thought pollsters were supposed to be neutral.
That's the whole reason to hire them.
Yeah, next you'll tell me that the media are neutral too.
I think sooner or later a pollster will break the silence and publish a poll on the subject.
I predict Angus Reed will be the first because they're based in the West and they seem to be the most politically independent pollster.
They're the ones that did the big immigration poll back in August that showed only 6% of Canadians want more immigration.
31% of it wanted to say the same and fully 49% of it of Canadians want it lower.
You do too many polls like that though and suddenly you can't get any government work, which is why I suspect we were refused our separatist poll.
Just one more quick note on that.
The other day a Quebec think tank called the Montreal Economic Institute did a poll of Quebecers showing that a majority of them preferred oil from Canada over imports from the U.S. or OPEC countries.
That poll was immediately attacked by Trudeau's CBC straight broadcaster and their in-house government-funded poll analyst.
The CBC's poll analyst Erica Grenier said, I'm just quoting here, said the questions in the survey missed the mark.
Oh, well, sorry.
The poll didn't ask the pertinent question whether or not Quebecers are willing to have a new pipeline built across the province in order to get that Western Canadian oil, he said.
Yeah, that is an interesting question.
And you could also compare it to Saudi oil tankers.
I mean, you can ask a dozen questions.
The question they chose to ask, which is, where do you prefer your oil from?
Canada, America, or Saudi Arabia?
How's that not the right question?
I've never seen that before.
The government broadcaster getting a government academic to go out and tell people, don't pay attention to this poll we don't like.
They asked the wrong question, people.
And just today, that same CBC Trudeau poll analyst, Eric Grenier is his name, he had another weird piece saying, don't pay any attention to polls that say Trudeau isn't beloved by all patriots.
The polls I went through earlier this week that show Trudeau's approval levels have plunged to just 35%.
Have you ever seen that before?
Government-funded journalists at the CBC with government-funded polling experts telling you not to believe polls that paint Dear Leader in a bad light.
I'm certain that behind the scenes, the message to pollsters is the same.
If you report on the wrong things, you'll lose your big government contracts.
Anyways, I think we'll probably see an Angus Reed poll on Alberta separatism pretty soon.
And depending on how the question is worded, I'm going to make a prediction.
I predict that support for Western separatism or Alberta independence or however you want to phrase it, I predict that support will range between 20% and even 40 or 45%.
Yeah, 45%.
If the question is written really hard, like, do you want Alberta to become its own country, I think it would probably just be around 20%.
If you ask something easier, though, like the Quebec separatist referendum questions, I bet it would be much higher.
Back in 1980, Quebecers voted on this question.
This is long, but I think it's pretty clear this is exactly what they voted on.
The government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada based on the equality of nations.
This agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes, and establish relations abroad.
In other words, sovereignty, and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association, including a common currency.
Any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum.
On these terms, do you give the government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?
Can you believe that was so long?
That was the question on the ballot.
So it didn't actually call for independence, did it?
You can see it called for Quebec to negotiate a proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada, and then afterwards, a second referendum to adopt it.
How could anyone vote no to that?
Even someone who doesn't want separatism, how do you pose that?
Because really, for decades, that was a Quebec game.
There were some true die-hard Quebec separatists who really did want their own country.
But there were a lot of so-called soft separatists who really just wanted more power for Quebec within Canada, more money from Ottawa, more Quebec symbols, more deference.
And look what it got them.
In the 38 years since that 1980 referendum, Quebecers have had the prime minister's office for 27 out of those 38 years, with the only exceptions being a few months of Joe Clark and Kim Campbell and then Stephen Harper.
I mean, is this guy a Quebec separatist or just a Quebec chauvinist?
Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
Or how about this guy?
Look, Canada is hard now because it's Albertans who control our social and social democratic agenda.
But it doesn't work.
I mean, if you can threaten full separatism, as Quebec likes to do, but actually get $13 billion a year in extra money through equalization payments from the rest of Canada, and get a guaranteed three out of the nine seats in our Supreme Court, that's set aside for Quebec, and get affirmative action into every senior job in the federal government by enforcing French English bilingualism.
That basically means Quebecers get the jobs, even in places like Vancouver or Hamilton, where no one speaks French, and then even on a more aesthetic level, where you can just say and do things like you want 20% fewer immigrants and you want to ban the burqa in the civil service.
And not only will the Ottawa political class defer to you, but most of the media and punditry will just accept that.
And they won't do what they normally do, call people racist or Islamophobic, because that's a special status, distinct society.
You don't have to fully separate to get all these bonuses.
I mean, there's a divorce, and then there's a divorce with bedroom privileges.
Quebec separatism has given that province the best of both worlds.
Whenever they're unhappy, they stomp their feet, they threaten to go and they get what they want.
It's a game, really.
Look, there's a Quebecer in Quebec City who demands that a Quebecer in Ottawa give Quebec more concessions.
And twist my rubber arm, okay.
So just last week, Trudeau gave another $1.4 billion a year in equalization payment to his home province.
Quebec, as a province, is projecting a $3 billion surplus.
They don't need the money.
But sure, why not wring another $1.4 billion out of Alberta and Saskatchewan and BC?
And just to be crystal clear here, Justin Trudeau has given Quebec a veto over pipelines.
Just real quick answers then.
Are you open to revitalizing an energy east pipeline?
There is no project on the table.
The proponent has walked away.
But if the government came forward to de-risk it as you did with the Trans Mountain, maybe you'd get a proponent.
You can't de-risk in absence of a project.
And there is clarity that under the current approach, there is no support for a pipeline through Quebec.
So that's what Quebec has wrung out of Canada for its separatist efforts.
It's got a veto over pipelines.
And really, that referendum back in 1980, even with all the weasel words, and we'll have a second referendum, that only got 40% support in 1980.
And yet we have had 40 years of Quebec getting whatever Quebec wants.
I estimate they got close to a trillion dollars worth in today's inflation-adjusted money of financial and political perks from the rest of Canada just for that lame effort back in 1980.
Not even 4 million people voted in the whole referendum, and out of those, only 1,485,000 voted to separate.
Let me be more precise.
That's how many voted to authorize their provincial government to negotiate a new deal with Ottawa.
But those 1,485,000 votes each have wrung out countless concessions that we keep paying to this very day.
So 15 years later, in 1995, Quebec tried again, and they came much closer.
And here's the wording of that year's referendum.
Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on the 12th of June 1995?
That bill they're talking about was basically a Quebec bill that laid out their plans and vision to be independent.
So again, not even the courage to say, hey, we're out of here.
Do you want Quebec to be an independent country?
They didn't even have the courage to say that.
They just said, hey, Quebecers, we've got this aspiration for a new country.
We still want our Canadian passports and our Canadian currency, and we want Canadian trade deals.
We want Canadian embassy help around the world.
But do you want us to, quote, make a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership?
And even that failed.
Well, failed, but of course, it really succeeded because it led to another round of endless political and financial concessions.
Just one small example.
You might remember that it was in the wake of that referendum that Jean-Cretchen's office cooked up ad scam.
Just one tiny example where they sent a quarter billion dollars, quarter billion, in kickbacks and bribes and commissions into Quebec to try and quiet the place down.
To this day, Quebec has had a preferential place in the minds and hearts of our political establishment, just because they want to appease them.
Here's an example.
Quebec has an ethnic identity.
Of course they do.
They're Québécois.
You know the phrase distinct society.
It's obviously true.
I think Newfoundland's a distinct society also, by the way.
I think Alberta is a distinct society.
But you must admit, Quebec is a very distinct society.
They're French.
They have a language.
They have a culture.
They have a history that is all their own.
Which is obviously true.
They have words that describe that.
Pure lane Quebecers, that means pure wool, like dyed in the wool.
Or quebecois de souche, tree stump Quebecers.
I think the analogy would be like old stock Canadians or pioneer stock Albertans or whatever.
And those are not insults.
That's just how they describe it.
Remember, even in their provincial immigration rules, they have the power to prioritize immigrants who speak French.
And fair enough.
When Quebec or Quebecers make demands of Canada, they are, at the very least, those demands are discussed.
And I suppose they are occasionally rejected, but they are almost never mocked, are they?
In fact, any insult to Quebec, even a justifiable and reasonable one, is met with Ottawa politicians going full tilt, outdoing each other, trying to out pro-Quebec each other.
Do you remember this cover story in Maclean's magazine?
Remember that cover there, the most corrupt province in Canada?
I just said you remember this to McLean's.
Does McLean's even exist these days?
I'm not even sure if they're still around, other than to reprint the odd liberal press release, I guess.
But almost 10 years ago, they wrote that pretty honest cover story about Quebec corruption, and the Parliament of Canada voted unanimously to condemn Maclean's magazine.
Let me quote, here's a story from John Geddes.
A House motion upbraiding McLean's for the magazine's cover story on corruption in Quebec politics is thought to be only the second time in a century that MPs have closed ranks to express their disapproval with the publication of an, with the work of a news publication, unquote.
It's unthinkable that Parliament would vote to condemn, let's say, an attack on Alberta by David Suzuki at Trudeau State Broadcaster.
It's just not even thinkable.
But they unanimously, even the Conservatives voted to condemn McLean's.
Anyways, I said that I was going to talk about Alberta separatism today, and I will, but I thought it was important to remind you just for a moment about Quebec separatism, because that's the precedent here.
And more importantly, how it has been richly rewarded, not only financially, but politically and morally and emotionally, and all that, despite the fact that it couldn't even muster 50% to even negotiate with Canada.
Oh, no, we can't.
So they didn't even have the courage.
Let me put that 1980s referendum question to you again.
And all I'm going to do here is swap in the word Alberta for Quebec.
That's the only wording change I'm making here.
What do you think of this?
Here's my new wording.
The government of Alberta has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada based on the equality of nations.
This agreement would enable Alberta to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes, and establish relations abroad.
In other words, sovereignty.
And at the same time, to maintain with Quebec an economic association, including a common currency.
Any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum on these terms.
Do you give the government of Alberta the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Alberta and Canada?
How on earth could that possibly get less than 40%?
I mean, I suppose if people thought that the incompetent and disloyal Rachel Notley was going to be the one leading Alberta's side of the negotiation, what a joke that would be.
I mean, frankly, the majority of her senior staff have always been NDP staffers from Ontario and BC, including anti-oil lobbyists like Brian Topps.
So I suppose if people thought that Rachel Notley was going to be representing Alberta's interests, they might not be thrilled about that.
I mean, when you have one Quebecer in Quebec City negotiating with one Quebecer in Ottawa, negotiating how much money goes to Quebec, it's an inside job, right?
Alberta's Oil Dilemma00:15:27
But when you have an anti-oil leader in Edmonton negotiating with another anti-oil leader in Ottawa, negotiating about Alberta oil, it is an inside job too, but it's to undermine Alberta, not to help it.
So if you had even a moderately pro-Alberta-Alberta premier, and you then asked Albertans, hey, guys, things aren't really working out too well.
Maybe we'd do better on our own, but let's at least try to negotiate a better deal with Canada.
Let's keep independence as an option, but do you give us permission to negotiate a better deal?
Well, who wouldn't in their right mind say yes to that?
And that is the wording of the 1980 Quebec referendum.
Here, let me just show you some streeters, some vox populi that our new Calgary reporter Kiam Becksy did the other day, just outside of Costco.
And he was asking sort of a practical version of that question.
He was just saying, who would be better for Alberta, Justin Trudeau or Donald Trump?
Here's just some random Calgarians.
Do you think Donald Trump would treat Alberta better than Justin Trudeau?
That's a good question.
As much as I don't really like Donald Trump, he does look out for himself.
Whereas Trudeau is not, I don't feel that Trudeau is keeping an eye on Alberta the way he should be.
So unfortunately, I have to say Donald Trump probably would.
Yeah.
Well, absolutely.
Why is that?
He's a businessman.
Trudeau isn't.
Trudeau's a teacher, if that.
Probably.
He has a few brains.
I have no faith in Justin Trudeau.
He makes promises and nothing.
There's nothing to them.
The last little offers, the case in point.
It's all aimed at the wrong thing.
He needs to put pipelines through.
And until that happens, the whole country is going to feel the crunch.
Do you think Donald Trump would build pipelines?
Oh, sure.
Anything in the economic interest.
Look at how the American economy is going.
Yeah, I do.
I think he probably would because he's a businessman and he gets what's going on.
I'm not a fan of him.
Yeah, I think Donald Trump would treat them better because he's very much about, I don't know, he's a rebel.
What can I say?
Yeah, and that's the thing.
If you look at the map, obviously Alberta is landlocked.
That's the problem.
BC's New Democrats, the courts, Justin Trudeau, are blocking access to the West Coast.
And Quebec's politicians, the courts and Justin Trudeau, are blocking access to the Atlantic coast.
But Donald Trump couldn't be plainer about pipelines.
He loves them.
Literally, in his first few days as president, he revived the Keystone Excel pipeline that Barack Obama had killed.
Remember this?
This is with regard to the construction of the Keystone Pipeline.
Something that's been in dispute and it's subject to a renegotiation of terms by us.
We're going to renegotiate some of the terms and if they'd like, we'll see if we can get that pipeline built.
A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs.
Great construction jobs.
Okay.
Keystone Pipeline.
Yeah, I know who'd be better for Canada.
And Alberta, of course, but better for Canada, too.
Now, the other day, a very blue chip professor in Calgary, and the University of Calgary, Jack Mintz, economist, wrote an op-ed in the Financial Post.
He had visited the United Kingdom where they're going through their whole Brexit debate.
And here's what he wrote, Jack Mintz, Alberta has better reasons for Albexit than Britain did for Brexit.
Whatever negatives Alberta would face are easily swamped by the positives that would come with separation.
Wow.
Let me quote a few lines from the professor.
He said, it's typical to poo-poo the possibility of Alberta separation as unrealistic, given the close familial and economic relationships Alberta have, Albertans have with other parts of Canada.
But if Brexit happened, then Albexit is just as possible, probably more so given the existential threat to Alberta's prosperity over resource development.
Yeah, exactly right.
See, the European Union, it's awful.
It means taxes and regulations, it undermines democracy, it's costly, it means open borders, lots of things.
But that's its general nature.
It's awful to everyone in the EU.
The Italians, the Greeks, everyone.
Maybe it systematically benefits Germany, maybe, or France, maybe certainly Brussels, where all its bureaucrats are headquartered.
But it's not explicitly, genetically anti-British.
As in, for example, the EU countries don't put a naval embargo around the island of Great Britain stopping exports, which is exactly what is being done to Alberta.
It's an embargo.
It's an economic boycott.
It's like what America is doing to Cuba, except Canada is doing to Alberta.
We're blockading Alberta oil.
BC is blocking Alberta oil.
Quebec is blocking Alberta oil.
Neither has the constitutional right to do so, by the way, except that Trudeau voluntarily grants it to them because he agrees.
As does Trudeau's boss.
We think that the oil sands have been expanded too rapidly without a serious plan for environmental remediation in the first place.
So that's why we don't think it's up to us to decide whether there should be another route for a pipeline.
Because the real alternative is not an alternative route.
It's an alternative economy.
Yeah, that's Gerald Butts.
So exactly.
He doesn't believe in oil.
And it shows.
Here's some more from Professor Mintz.
He says, Alberta will also be able to keep for itself the annual $20 billion more it sends each year to Ottawa in taxes and it gets back in federal spending.
That $20 billion is roughly 6% of the province's GDP.
Hard borders and potential trade barriers with the rest of Canada would be a cost, but these would be subject to negotiation.
And would they really be drastically worse than current internal barriers to trade, including pipeline obstacles that already exist between provinces?
The national debt assumed by Alberta would be contentious since Alberta would seek a credit for the $220 billion in net transfers it made to the rest of Canada over the past decade.
That's so right on.
And as I've always said, if British Columbia can embargo Alberta oil pipelines getting to the West Coast, doesn't that mean that Alberta can embargo, let's say, BC rail cars and semi-trailers bringing their imports from the Port of Vancouver east to Ontario through Alberta?
And anything Ontario and Quebec want to export west to the BC coast, couldn't Alberta block those the same way those places have blocked pipelines?
I don't want that, by the way, but that's what reciprocity is all about.
We were supposed to all be able to live with each other in a confederation where provinces and towns and villages didn't destroy each other or have toll booths for each other, but Justin Trudeau seems to permit that.
If Alberta were independent, it could say to BC, hey guys, we'll totally let you ship your Chinese imports like computers and cell phones and your Japanese car imports that are offloading.
We'll totally, absolutely love it.
You guys can ship that stuff right through Alberta, get to Ontario.
No problem.
If you let us ship our oil to China.
Deal?
I tell you, more people die on the Trans-Canada Highway driving from Vancouver through Alberta than die in a pipeline.
No one dies in a pipeline.
Why would we allow such dangerous goods on our roads?
Look, if not, not.
But I get the feeling BC wants its port as badly as Alberta wants its oil.
Jack Mintz points out Saskatchewan would likely join Alberta pretty quickly.
I mean, seriously, the only place that Trudeau and Catherine McKenna hate more than Alberta these days is Saskatchewan, and the feeling's mutual.
So where do we hear the rebels stand on separatism?
Well, we're not calling for Alberta separation.
In fact, we recognize that the worst damage to Alberta was done by the Alberta NDP, elected by Albertans.
But we regard that as a once-a-century anomaly, a freak accident.
The congenital constitutional hatred for Alberta from the Ontario and Quebec elite, the Laurentian elite, that, though, is permanent, isn't it?
President Manning campaigned on the West once in, but I don't think that worked.
Stephen Harper allowed the West to live as equals, no special favors.
And in fact, Harper gave tens of billions of dollars in extra cash to Quebec.
But fair enough.
But remove that man, Stephen Harper, and the system very quickly reverted to its natural posture.
So we think at the rebel that it's probably healthy if the Quebec style of negotiation is adopted in Alberta.
Quebec said, give us more or we're out, but they never had the courage to leave because they always knew they didn't really want to leave.
It wasn't a better deal.
I think Albertans would learn more and more just how much better things actually would be in many real-world measures, mainly financial, but also cultural.
I mean, I suppose Alberta has its own distinct society, its own traditions, freedom, individuality, entrepreneurialism.
That's Alberta's culture.
So how are we going to cover Alberta's separatism as journalists?
With respect, I think.
And with an understanding that it comes from a genuine grievance, not an ethnic nationalism like in Quebec, not an attempt to extort more cash like in Quebec.
A desire to be allowed to live freely and fairly under the rules of Canada as they were written, our Constitution.
And I think one thing we'll do as we cover this phenomenon is constantly point out how Alberta's separatists are covered by the rest of the media versus how that media covers Quebec separatists.
Here's just one example.
And I just pulled this at random from one of Justin Trudeau's bailout media.
Here's one in Postmedia's Calgary Herald.
It's written by some left-wing kook named Naomi LaCritz who writes editorials there for some reason.
Well, I know the reason because Trudeau likes her.
This was really written in Calgary.
You're not going to believe it.
I mean, this is in the Calgary paper.
It looks like it was written as a condition for the $595 million Trudeau bailout.
I'm sorry.
I can't believe it's in the Calgary Herald.
It's called Alberta Separatists Fueled by Loss of Civility.
This ran in the Calgary Herald.
How much did the editor hate their own readers to publish this?
I mean, I suppose it's true.
Where is the civil comity?
Where's the reciprocity between Quebec and BC in Alberta?
Where's the civility?
Why is Quebec calling Alberta oil dirty?
But that's not the lack of civility that Naomi Lagritz is talking about.
She's blaming Albertans for being the rude ones.
I'm serious.
Let me quote from this insane suicide note of the Calgary Herald.
Alberta's separatism is just another variation of extremist response to the otherwise politically ordinary.
Okay, got it, got it.
Albertans are extremists, eh?
Everything the left doesn't like is extremist or bigoted or racist or whatever, isn't it?
And what's happening to Alberta?
It's just ordinary.
Let me read some more.
Every time Alberta perceives itself and its oil to be insulted by the rest of Canada, the separatists start clamoring for the province to go.
Yeah, sister, I don't think Albertans care about oil being insulted.
I think they care about pipelines being blocked and having Alberta jobs destroyed by foreign-funded lobbyists and Canadian politicians who put their anti-Alberta bias ahead of the Constitution.
I don't think it's insults that bug Albertans.
It's the fact that they can't get work.
Now, the Herald quotes some American book written about other subjects to describe Albertans.
really weird but they say many derive their standards of conduct from the Bolsheviks.
They think it reflects credit on them to scream in the faces of people they don't like.
So you Bolshevik Albertans, I think that's projection.
Is that what she really thinks about Burtons?
That they scream in the faces of people they don't like.
Now I've never seen that.
I think that's more of a leftist move, an antifa move.
I've seen that in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Haven't seen that in Alberta.
Have you?
Let me read some more from this bizarre, bizarre editorial in the Herald.
Selfishness and fanaticism are the raison d'être, as they're fancy, eh?
For the knee-jerk separatism that periodically rears its head whenever it feels the West is even mildly hard done by.
Yeah, you Albertans, you're so selfish.
You're so fanatical.
You want to work.
You're so selfish that way, you selfish, selfish people.
Why don't you just ask Trudeau for a bailout like Naomi Lakritz and the Calgary Herald are going to get?
That's not selfish, you see.
I don't even know what this next line means.
The West is like a cat meowing at the back door.
Now it wants in, but no sooner it is let in than it wants out again.
Say, do you think this insulting, factually inaccurate, historically illiterate, bizarre rant, calling out Burtons names for wanting to work, do you think that will make separatism higher or lower?
Justin Trudeau has not received his briefing note yet from Gerald Butts on what to say or do about Western separatism, but you can bet it's going to be along the lines of the media party, the professors, the pundits, the paid-for bailout media, all demonizing and denouncing Alberta separatism.
They hate Alberta anyways.
They'll want to hang separatism as an accusation around the neck of Andrew Scheer in the upcoming federal election.
That'll hurt him in Ontario and Quebec, but mainly the liberals and the media party, they don't disagree with the underlying premise.
Albertans are different, and their proper role in Canada is to provide money to Ottawa and to be a bad guy that every liberal can bash.
So Justin Trudeau and Gerald Butts and the leftist media want this fight.
Us here, the Rebel, will report on it fairly.
We'll respect people who are driven to contemplate separatism by a system that is clearly broken.
We'll call out the double standard by which the establishment woos and pays off and praises Quebec separatists, but attacks and ignores Albertans desperate enough to contemplate doing the same thing.
And we'll say the obvious mathematical truth.
Of course Donald Trump and Americans would treat Alberta better than Justin Trudeau and the Liberals do.
Stay with us for more.
Omar Cotter's Bail Battle00:14:54
Well, Omar Khadr is a convicted confessed terrorist, murderer, and war criminal who was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a jury.
However, before he had to serve that sentence, Barack Obama cut a deal to spring him from Guantanamo Bay and foist him on Stephen Harper, who I don't think particularly wanted him.
Well, once in Canada, he proceeded to woo the hearts of the media and the courts, which granted him bail, and Justin Trudeau put the cherry on the top, giving him a public apology and $10.5 million cash structured in a way to hide that money from the victims of Omar Cotter, the widow of the man he killed, Christopher Speer being the deceased,
Tabitha Speer, the widow, Tanner and Taryn Speer, the two fatherless children.
But until moments ago, Omar Cotter was treated uniformly as a saint by the establishment.
That changed about a week ago when our own Kian Becksty scrummed Omar Cotter and to the shock and appall of the other journalists assembled, actually called him a terrorist and asked him where the money is and what airline would possibly let him on a plane.
Here, here's a quick flashback of that.
Even if he gets a passport, which airline in Canada will take him to Saudi Arabia?
You'd have to ask some Canadian airlines.
I doubt that they'd want to take a terrorist across the sea to Saudi Arabia.
Well, the media couldn't believe it.
Well, if you thought Kian Bexti was tough, today our whole Alberta team, Kian and your Chief Alberta Gun Reid, deployed to the court and they join us now via Skype.
Hello, Team Rebel.
I am so proud of you for what you are doing, i.e. basic journalism.
Thank you.
Hey, Azera.
Thanks for having us on.
Well, tell me what's going on there.
Kian, you were there about a week ago or so.
And Sheila, you joined today.
Kian, give us a quick recap.
We saw your clips last week, Speaking Truth to Power.
Give me a short summary of what happened last time.
And then I understand Sheila accosted Cotter today.
So Kian, you start.
Well, we came to Edmonton out from Calgary last week, and we waited in the courtroom.
We heard the judge say it's going to be a week until there's actually a verdict.
We came out of the courtroom and waited with the rest of the mainstream media to ask Omar Cotter questions, but it turned out when he came out with his lawyer, well, I don't think he was expecting me, first off, but when he did come out, the lawyer said they just weren't going to be taking, Omar wouldn't be taking any questions, and we had to ask the lawyer questions.
So we did, but the only questions that actually seemed to matter were the ones that we asked, because the mainstream media didn't ask any hard questions at all.
So we ended up leaving after his lawyer wouldn't answer any of our questions.
The scrum sort of dissipated.
And we came back this week to follow up with him, hoping that we'd be able to ask more questions.
It turns out when we actually showed up, Omar Cotter, we saw him through the glass window and he made eye contact with me.
We saw his lawyer and him and his lawyer split up.
His lawyer came out the door and Omar Cotter went back into the courthouse and disappeared.
We weren't able to ask any questions, but we did get to his lawyer.
Well, we know Omar Cotter is a coward by nature when he killed Christopher Speer.
Christopher Speer was coming in in the role of a medic to actually help al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and Omar Cotter in a cowardly act of terrorism through a grenade that killed him.
Just for background, because I think I jumped right into it.
The reason we're at the court, the reason Omar Cotter's at court with his lawyer, this whole thing is Omar Cotter is seeking a revision of his bail restrictions that forbid him from traveling without getting the permission of his bail officer, deny him a passport, deny him other pro-terrorist activities.
He wants to go to Saudi Arabia.
Oh, yeah, there's no terrorism there.
To connect with his pro-terrorist sister, Zainab Cotter, the ex-wife of Joshua Boyle, one of Justin Trudeau's friends.
So that's what we're doing at court.
Now, Sheila, let's bring you in the conversation.
Last week was the application.
This week was the result.
Tell us what happened in court.
Well, what happened in court was that the judge called the conditions that are placed on Omar Cotter, as in he cannot travel to Saudi Arabia and he cannot have unfettered communication with his terrorist sympathizing sister Zainab.
The judge called those conditions reasonable and that they would stay in place.
But the judge also said that the conditions aren't written in stone.
So that opens the door for Cotter to make an application to change his bail conditions in the future.
But I did have a little run-in with Omar Cotter this morning before Kean got here because as you know, Kian was coming up from Calgary.
So I staked out the courthouse early this morning and I caught Omar Cotter as he was coming into the courthouse alone without his lawyer.
He came in the back side of the courthouse.
I was standing there with some other journalists and they all sort of watched him walk up the steps and nobody asked him a single question.
It was like wildlife photography.
Nobody lunged at him to ask him any questions and I was the only one who did and then the other journalists looked at me like I was the terrorist.
Yeah, you know this happened when they came out of the courthouse.
Nobody asked the lawyer any questions.
We followed the lawyer for 10 months.
We got 100 money asking him questions, but there was just no response, no comment, no comment.
They just weren't in the mood to talk to the media and the media was letting them get away with it.
Well, that's the thing.
There's two things going on there in my view.
First is last week, and in every press conference that this terrorist has had, his lawyers have said, here's the rules.
No one talks to Carter.
You talk to me.
Yeah, there's no rules.
It's a free country.
We don't follow instructions.
We're not in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but the media are compliant because they want to be on the good side of Omar Cotter.
And what would they ask him anyways?
Other than, you're dreamy.
What's it like to be so dreamy?
So this is the perfect anecdote that proves that you just can't trust the mainstream media.
I mean, Omar Cotter, I compare him to Paul Bernardo in terms of the cruelty, the way he luxuriated in the murder, the way he is completely unrepentant.
If Paul Bernardo were to walk in or out of a court and his lawyer said, don't ask him any questions, the media would laugh and lunge at him with a thousand questions.
But our obedient media party will comply.
I think we have a clip of your encounter, Sheila.
Here, let's take a look at it now.
Omar Cotter, do you think the spear kids deserve some of your taxpayer-funded windfall?
Omar Cotter, do you think the spear kids deserve some of the money the Canadian taxpayers gave you?
Well, Sheila, back to you.
You say that the other reporters looked at you like you were a terrorist for daring to talk about Omar Cotter in a way that was less than obedient and submissive.
How many reporters were there?
How many other journalists were there?
Do you know the media outlets they were with?
Like, seriously, please tell me there's one journalist in the entire city you're in that wasn't afraid to ask an accountability question of this terrorist.
No, there was about five journalists and they had with them their videographers and they stood there silently as Omar Cotter walked by.
They were simply just collecting b-roll like he was a moose walking through the forest.
And I jumped up and asked him questions because nobody else was going to.
And I wanted to know if he thought the spear kids deserved some of the money that Canadian taxpayers have given him.
And he completely ignored me as though my question was absolutely ridiculous.
Right.
Of course, Omar Cotter ignored you because he's a murderer and a terrorist, unrepentant war criminal.
But I'm getting more at the other journalists, the five other journalists who were there.
I bet they don't even know the name Spear.
They're saying Spear Kids.
What's a Spear Kid?
They probably don't even know the names of the murder victims.
Christopher Spear murdered, and those are the two fatherless kids.
Because in their narrative, if they knew about the Spear kids, then they couldn't portray Cotter as the victim because they are the victims.
That's why they've written the Spear family out of the story, because otherwise it changes the narrative.
Yeah, that's true.
Have you noticed in all of the footage in the mainstream media, absolutely nobody mentions the Spear Kids.
Absolutely nobody mentions how he's currently fighting Christopher Spear's widow in court and hiding the money from her because she does have a judgment against Omar Cotter for the wrongful death of her husband.
Absolutely nobody is talking about any of that.
Yeah.
Well, I bet his lawyer, Nathan Whitling, got paid.
Kean, I understand that Omar Cotter was a student of nursing at Red Deer College, which is a bizarre thing for a cruel murderer to sign up for.
Bizarre because it's obviously the milk of human kindness in him, but it's also legally bizarre because to join the nursing profession, you can't have a criminal record.
You must be of good conduct and good repute.
I understand he's no longer registered there.
What do you know about Omar Cotter and how he passes his days?
Does he roll around in that 10.5 million that Trudeau gave him?
Where is he physically?
What do you know about him?
And what do you think he's up to?
So what I know about Omar Cotter is that he pays his PR team far, far too much.
You know, we saw him in the courtroom last week and he had popping socks on.
Just weird and ironic and kind of annoying.
But also this whole nursing shtick, we haven't confirmed if he's actually ever gone to a nursing class before.
We're not sure how he got into RDC in the first place, if it was just an oversight on behalf of the college.
And maybe this newfound publicity with his hearing is what made the college realize what was happening and they kicked him out.
We're not sure.
We're looking into it, but it's pretty hard with privacy laws.
So we'll have to see what happens there.
Well, I do know we did ask his lawyer, and his lawyer just says no comment.
His lawyer, there's a reason he was kicked out of RDC, and his lawyer doesn't want us to find out.
Yeah.
Now, last week, you had a good question for Omar Cotter, which was what airline would even fly And I know that Omar Cotter has come to Toronto.
I know he's come to Ottawa.
We don't know if he's met with Justin Trudeau.
I assume they've spoken on the phone.
You made inquiries with different airlines.
I think you called WestJet, Air Canada, et cetera.
Do we know if those airlines would put this convicted confessed terrorist on one of their planes?
Or is he on a no-fly list?
Do you know how he gets around?
Well, we're not sure how he flies to Toronto.
We did follow up with every airline that could get him from here to Saudi Arabia.
That doesn't matter so much now, but I certainly would be interested, and I think our viewers would be interested, to know what airline he's getting on to get to Toronto or if he has to go by bus or by train, because I certainly wouldn't want to be on a plane with someone who throws grenades at American American soldiers.
That would be a fun flight.
So we're going to keep looking into that for sure.
Sheila, I know that there's a disconnect between the elite opinion and the grassroots.
When Trudeau gave Cotter $10.5 million, he thought it was wonderful.
All the criminal lawyers loved him.
All the judges loved him.
All the professors loved him.
All the media loved him.
The Muslim community, too many of them loved him.
But severely normal Albertans were appalled.
You're in Edmonton, which has been, and it's so unfair that Omar Cotter is in Edmonton.
Why does he have to be in that great city?
But do grassroots Edmontonians share this bizarre love for a depraved murderer?
Do they love him?
Do they go along with the official spin?
Or are they uncomfortable?
Absolutely.
I think they're uncomfortable.
Absolutely.
I think that your regular run-of-the-mill Edmontonians are pretty similar to your regular run-of-the-mill Canadians from all across the country.
And as we saw when we fundraised for the spear kids, that people are appalled at Justin Trudeau's decision, especially, you know, Edmonton is a military city.
And, you know, we were one of the cities that were hit with the largest number of war dead in Afghanistan.
And so that's part of the social fabric here, that we are a military city, that we love the Princess Pat.
And the fact that Justin, or that Omar Cotter, excuse me, wrong terrorist sympathizer, the fact that Omar Cotter chose Edmonton as the place to call home.
It's really just a slap in the face.
Well, listen, you guys, I'm so glad you're both out there at the courthouse.
Not just to ask Cotter questions, which of course he will not answer, but really to shame the rest of the media for being complicit in the PR stenography for this unrepentant al-Qaeda terrorist.
So I hope you continue to stay on this file.
And I think we should do more because we have to be a megaphone for those severely normal Edmontonians and Canadians of all stripe to let the world know that we are not complicit in the cover-up for Cotter.
And I'm glad you reminded me because we raised $230,000 from our viewers for Taryn and Tanner Spear, the two fatherless children.
And when I spoke to Tabitha Spear when we handed over the money to them, she told me the timing was perfect because they were just starting college.
So imagine sending nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the children just in the nick of time for college.
I felt like it was one of the best things that the rebel did.
Obviously, all credit goes to our viewers who were donors.
I think you're right, Sheila.
That is the spirit of Canada and Alberta and Edmonton and the disgraceful media.
I mean, I understand a lawyer has got to represent a murderer.
A murderer has a right to a lawyer.
I'm not going to be too angry with a lawyer for representing a disgraceful terrorist.
U.S. Troops and Bases in Syria00:04:37
Even a terrorist needs a lawyer.
But what the excuse is for the media party, I do not know.
So you guys keep on this beat, okay?
We will.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right.
Well, thanks, Sheila.
Thanks, Kian, and Merry Christmas to you.
Well, there you have it.
The whole Alberta rebel team at the courthouse in Edmonton doing the job the mainstream media won't, which is trying to hold a terrorist to account.
Stay with us.
more ahead on the report.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about President Trump bringing home 2,000 American troops from Syria.
Brian writes, Trump has the point of view that the U.S. should only fight wars where the U.S. has a national interest.
This seems fair, and it looks like a good time to withdraw from ISIS, beaten down and their territory taken.
Well, look, I think you have to make a decision.
What is the purpose of having troops there?
Is it they're there and then you can decide what you want to do with them or are they for a purpose?
Is your purpose to have regime change and knock off Bashar Assad?
First of all, I don't think you will.
I don't think the Russians will let that happen.
And second of all, even if you do, who are you going to replace them with?
I think that's the problem that Canada and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had with Gaddafi in Libya.
You knock them off.
Okay, you didn't like them.
Now what?
There are no good guys in Syria.
If the goal is to protect the Kurds, the Kurdish enclave, let's say so, and let's be explicit about that.
And let's deploy the troops to that effect.
But that's not what they're doing there now.
Lou writes, I donated $100 to that GoFundMe page to build the wall.
I think it's the best Christmas gift I will give this year.
Good walls build good neighbors.
Hi, Lou.
Thanks for your note.
Yeah, I haven't checked that GoFundMe page for the U.S. wall in a couple hours.
Last I did, it was $11 million.
This is crowdfunding.
This is people like you, Lou, chipping in money to build a wall that, of course, the U.S. government should build on its own.
But until yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to spend $5 billion on it.
I think Trump finally realized this is so critical to his base.
I think that GoFundMe project helped catch his attention because if you have ordinary people chipping in 11 million bucks over just four days to build a wall that the government should do, and the crowdfunding goal is a billion dollars, that's a pretty incredible sign that people want it.
On my interview with Kurt Schlichter, Paul writes, big fan of Kurt's work.
The U.S. can still support the Kurds after they withdraw, and I hope they do.
Well, that's the thing.
I believe in supporting the Kurds.
I don't know how far to go in that.
Do they declare independence?
Does America help them stay independent of Iraq?
I don't know.
But that starts with the policy decision, and then the troops are the manifestation of that, the implementers of that, the helpers and protectors of that.
You don't start by saying, okay, I want soldiers there.
What do I do with them?
Yeah, you go to Kurdistan.
You make the decision, we support an independent Kurdistan for this reason, or we want to protect Kurdistan from Iran for this reason, and then you do that.
You don't just say, well, I got 2,000 troops there, and I sort of want to keep them there, and what should I do?
It's the other way around.
And 17 years in Afghanistan.
Okay, what's the goal again?
I saw someone on Twitter say, well, don't tell Donald Trump, but there's been U.S. military bases in Germany and Japan since the end of the Second World War and Korea since the end of the Korean War.
It's true.
It's absolutely true.
But they are not in combat.
They are not on patrol every day, being attacked every day, being killed by IEDs every day, or terrorist suicide bombs.
Those are just forward staging bases.
And it's really cementing the alliance.
And in the case of South Korea, it's a strategic deterrent to North Korea.
But soldiers in Germany, Korea, Japan, and other military bases in most of the world that America has.
America has a great number of bases.
They're not on hot combat patrols in a war.
So I think that comparison is false.
Why should one more American die in Afghanistan?
No one says why should one more American die in Germany, because the only Americans that die in Germany on the military base are from accidents or mishaps that could happen anywhere.
The reason people say bring troops home from Afghanistan is for reasons of blood, not reasons of treasure, although it's both.
Why We Tell It Like It Is00:01:03
Well, that is our show for the day and for the week.
We have recorded a series of semi-biographical interviews over the Christmas period, and I hope you enjoy them.
So we won't be giving you up-to-the-minute newsy reports over the break, but we will have a new show for you every single day.
I won't tell you who they are.
I'll wait for you to find out the day of.
But we'll be back here on Monday, which is Christmas Eve.
And we'll have shows New Year's Eve, and we'll have shows into the new year, and I hope you enjoy them.
I want to thank you for your support over the past year.
We're going to turn four on February 15th.
That's quite an achievement, I think.
Especially in this age of media collapses and bailouts, we're never going to take a dime from the government.
Maybe that's why people support us, is they know we tell it like it is.
We tell the other side of the story.
Thanks for being there, and thanks for giving us eight bucks a month as part of your premium subscription.
Or for those of you who are Producers Club members, thanks for your $250 a month.