Canada’s economy risks recession by summer, with three of the last four months showing negative growth, as oil and gas exports shrink—$100B industry weakened by pipeline cancellations (Northern Gateway, Energy East) and $30–50B LNG approvals amid carbon tax policies. Jane Philpott’s resignation over SNC Lavalin scandal, calling PMO pressure "obstruction of justice," and Harper-era legal reforms exposing Liberal interference, including Jody Wilson-Raybold’s earlier exit, signal a constitutional crisis. Manny Montenegrino warns Trudeau’s credibility is collapsing, with failed trade deals (Trump), housing bubbles fueled by foreign investment, and mounting ministerial defections—raising questions if his policies will deepen inequality or trigger a government overhaul. [Automatically generated summary]
But yeah, I really recommend that you get the video version too.
You can watch it on your phone.
You can watch it on the go.
You can watch it on Roku or any of those smart TVs.
What's good about it is you get to see video clips and images and quote boards and all these graphics and things we put together for you.
really recommend it uh i mean it's um of course the podcast's great too but i think you should sign up for a vid And by the way, it's only eight bucks a month to get a premium subscription.
You get my show, you get Sheila Gunread's show, you get David Menzies.
And if you sign up for a whole year, you get two months free.
And if you actually go to the rebel.media slash shows and type in the coupon code podcast, you get even more money off.
It's so, it's really not much.
And it keeps us going here at The Rebels.
So I'd appreciate it if you did that.
Today, we talk about two things.
We talk about how Canada's slipping into a recession.
Three out of the last four months, we've had negative growth.
Recession is defined as two quarters in a row where the economy is shrinking.
I think we're on the doorstep of that.
I think we'll be in a recession by the summer.
And Trudeau is really to blame for that.
You can't kill a $100 billion oil and gas industry, give away the store to Donald Trump in auto negotiations, and think you're going to be fine.
And of course, we talked to Manny Montenegrino about Jane Philpott's shocking resignation from Trudeau's cabinet.
That's all ahead.
By the way, if you're listening to this, hey, can you do me a quick favor and give us a rating?
Of course, I'm hoping you think it was a five out of five experience, but the odd doubter thinks it's only a four and a half out of five.
All right, fine.
So without further ado, may I invite you to listen to today's audio-only podcast.
Tonight, while Justin Trudeau was busy alienating our foreign allies and corrupting our domestic legal system, guess what?
Our economy has teetered to the brink of recession.
It's March 4th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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.
Well, shocking news today.
Jane Philbot, another liberal cabinet minister, resigned in disgust, saying she simply couldn't trust Justin Trudeau anymore.
We'll have a lot more on that story with our friend Manny Montenegrino.
But first, I want to talk about something else.
We'll get right back to the scandal.
You know, our economy in Canada is now on the brink of recession, and the mainstream media has been too busy with Trudeau's scandals to notice.
Here's the Wall Street Journal the other day.
They pay closer attention to our Canadian economy than do most Canadian reporters.
Their headline, Canada's economy delivers worst quarterly growth in two years.
Just a reminder, a recession is defined by economists as two consecutive quarters in a row, six months, with negative economic growth, as in half a year where the economy shrinks, where people spend less, buy less, build less, sell less, things hurt.
We're teetering on the brink of that right now.
Now, you'd know that if you watch my show, as I know you do.
In fact, I pretty much predicted the timing even.
Remember when I told you what had not been reported anywhere else in the mainstream media, a huge announcement by Donald Trump a few weeks ago when he just announced a new Buy American executive order shutting out Canadian companies from hundreds of billions, maybe even trillions of dollars worth of U.S. construction projects.
And that's on top of what Trudeau has done to our economy.
killing the three pipelines, Northern Gateway, which was already approved by the National Energy Board, Energy East, and the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which was also approved by the National Energy Board.
I mean, Justin Trudeau just killed $30 billion in pipeline construction, and then another $30 or $50 billion in LNG, liquefied natural gas projects in BC.
How on earth do you think you can do that to an economy and not have a recession?
And we're doing that to ourselves.
And then there's just his regular war on the oil patch, his carbon tax, and remember calling for the phase-out of oil companies altogether.
I've said time and time again, and you're all tired of hearing me say it, you can't make a choice between what's good for the environment and what's good for the economy.
We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow.
We need to phase them out.
We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.
Yeah, you get rid of the oil patch.
You fail to protect the auto industry from Trump's repatriation because you're picking a fight with Trump on feminism or global warming or whatever.
And you're surprised when the economy is starting to run out of steam.
Canada's economy slows a lot more than expected, said the Financial Post.
Really?
A lot more than who expected.
I've been expecting.
I think we're heading into a recession.
I think we're heading there fast.
There are too many things falling apart at the same time.
But have you heard about any of this in the mainstream media?
I'm guessing no.
The CBC's weekly magazine show, hosted by Wendy Mesley, they had the latest conspiracy theory.
Seriously, they did a huge feature on how Donald Trump Jr. is going to be arrested any moment now.
And that will surely mean that then Donald Trump is going to be arrested and we're all going to be saved.
It was a true conspiracy theory.
It was kooky.
But the weirdest part about it is why is that on a Canadian news show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
I mean, if you want to go full Trump derangement syndrome, I get it.
Fill your boots.
But you can get that on CNN or MSNBC or any U.S. late-night talk show.
Why wait a week for your news to be stale and then done by a clunky Canadian show?
That's so weird, that show.
But hey, anything rather than talking about the economy or even talking about a Canadian scandal that's actually real.
I mean, in the past few weeks, we've seen Jody Wilson Raybold quit as veterans minister.
Then we saw Trudeau's right-hand man, Gerald Butz, resign in disgrace.
Then we saw Trudeau's chief of staff, Katie Telford, brag that she has the media in the palm of her hand and that can make all these problems away.
We saw, as the whole country watched, riveted, as Jody Wilson-Raybold gave a meticulous point-by-point day-by-day history of how Trudeau and his cronies met with her 10 times and phoned her 10 more times and emailed and texted her to try to get her to drop the criminal charges against one of their crony corporate friends, SNC Lavalan, to cover for the corruption in Libya.
We also learned that SNC Lavalan spent millions of dollars on hookers and drugs for Libya's former dictator son when he visited Canada.
And then today, another bombshell, Jane Philpott, widely regarded as one of Trudeau's most competent ministers with a lot of complicated files, just quit and in a heartfelt letter that she surely wrote herself, says she just couldn't live up or live down to the ethics of supporting the cabinet.
She just couldn't support Trudeau with a straight face.
It was brutal.
And you think she's the last to quit?
Yeah.
So it's pretty conspicuous when you're in that news environment.
The CBC says, gee, I think what Canadians really need to look at and think about now is Donald Trump Jr.
Yeah, he's the real Canadians.
Get mad about Donald Trump Jr.
It's so sad.
Now, to be fair, the CBC is actually an anomaly these days.
Other media are actually showing surprising signs of curiosity.
I mean, look at Mercedes-Stevenson asking David Lehmetti, Trudeau's new handpick attorney general, if he has any qualms about interfering in a criminal case to help Justin Trudeau win an election.
I mean, that should be a pretty easy question to answer, and apparently it wasn't.
But if someone approached that an election is at stake, would that be a persuasive argument to you?
Again, it depends on the context.
The leading case for the police.
So wait, sorry, just to stop you.
An election could be a reason for an attorney general to interfere in a criminal prosecution.
That would be appropriate.
I'm not saying it would be appropriate or inappropriate.
Holy moly.
I wonder if watching that is what made James Philpott quit today.
What else could explain the timing?
Now, this is a pleasant change to see an actual question asked by a journalist.
There have always been a lot of scandals out there with Justin Trudeau.
The fact that he's scandalous is nothing new.
This is just the first time the mainstream media is actually talking about them.
Here's the new cover of McLean's magazine.
Now, look, it doesn't mean much.
McLean's has a sliver of the readership it used to have.
It's not an important magazine anymore.
In fact, I think it's just down to a skeleton crew working there.
But it's useful as a barometer for the media party, for the Fancy Pants Insiders Elite Media.
I mean, really, they just talk amongst themselves.
But it's interesting.
They now feel comfortable challenging the precious.
I'm surprised.
I mean, they've always supported him ideologically.
And obviously, they still do support him ideologically.
Canada's media aren't suddenly conservative.
They don't suddenly doubt the theory of man-made global warming.
They don't suddenly support private firearms ownership.
They don't suddenly doubt the wisdom of a carbon tax or of giving a public apology and $10.5 million to Omar Carter.
They're still the same.
I think it's that they still believe in all those things, but they realize now, finally, three and a half years into it, that Trudeau doesn't really believe in those things himself.
Like McLean says, he's an imposter.
He just says and does whatever it takes to get him through the day.
He's been playing them for chumps.
That's really what this cover means, the imposter.
I think Trudeau is the same guy he's always been, a shallow, selfie-obsessed, trust-fun kid.
The kind of kid who, when he was in high school, probably asked to copy the homework off the smart nerds in exchange for being their cool friend for a minute.
But of course, he wasn't truly their friend.
It was all part of his grift, his backslapping, his sales pitch.
That cover story, that imposter cover story of McLean's, was written by Paul Wells, seen here joking with Trudeau a few years ago.
I think Wells really thought that Trudeau was listening to him, really thought Trudeau was a passionate citizen who valued ideas and progressive thinkings.
I think maybe Paul Wells actually thought Trudeau was his friend, like the nerdy kid doing his homework.
Maybe thought, I think he really likes me.
And now Paul Wells has woken up and is being disillusioned and realizes that he was tricked.
Trudeau wasn't really friends with him.
Trudeau just needed someone to copy his homework from.
Trudeau was just saying whatever it would take to get Paul Wells, be really friendly to him.
As in Trudeau was a master at flattering the Paul Wellses of the world.
He flattered their vanity.
He made them feel special.
He made them feel cool.
And of course, he was happy to parrot whatever policy blather they wanted to hear from him.
It's not like he had an opinion about ideas.
What you're seeing here isn't any new Justin Trudeau.
You and I have known he was a shallow faker all along.
What you're seeing here is not news about Trudeau.
You're seeing news about the media.
They are disillusioned.
Or at least those who like to think of themselves as public intellectuals of some sort.
And Paul Wells certainly thinks he is.
So let's recap.
You've got a scandal, a corruption scandal that proves everything Trudeau ever said about being progressive and modern, let alone a male feminist, is a lie.
He's an old boy feathering the nest of his Montreal cronies, worse than anyone else, frankly, and public opinion polls are starting to show that it's sticking.
He's not skating through this scandal as he did, for example, the revelation that he sexually assaulted Rose Knight, a young woman in Creston, B.C. in August of 2000.
He skated through that one.
People laughed at how foolish he was in India dressing up like it was a costume party, but it didn't detonate him.
I mean, sure, it made him look shallow and childish and narcissistic and wasteful and a little kooky, but it didn't make him look deeply corrupt.
This scandal is, and it's not done yet.
Jane Philpott, big bomb going off today.
There will be more testimony in Parliament in the weeks ahead.
I predict more resignations, too.
You want to be the last one to get off a sinking ship?
I presume that Gerald Butts, when he testifies, will do his best to rebut Jodi Wilson-Rabel, but I'm pretty sure she's got some more ammo on him.
And frankly, if Butts lies, maybe you'll see more resignations from people who know he's lying.
It sounds like Jodi Wilson-Rabel took copious notes and had plenty of unimpeachable witnesses.
Sounds maybe like she even confided in people like Jane Philpot, people she trusted.
I don't think this scandal is going away.
Of course, the Liberals will try to change the channel on this.
The other day, Trudeau was literally tweeting about the moon, the lunar gateway, or something.
Yeah, he's a space cadet.
We know that.
This week, it's more global warming, global warming.
They love that one.
It's an old reliable.
It just happens to be a winter of record cold, but look, it's all they know.
My point is, I'm not sure if they're going to get out of this one scandal so easily.
And people are starting to notice.
But so far, no one has really noticed the economy.
Whoo-hoo-hoo, but they're about to.
What has driven our economy for the last few years?
It's not oil and gas.
That's been shrinking on purpose.
Notley and Trudeau and Butts all hate it.
They want to face it out.
You know, Butts on pipelines.
I'm going to show you this video again.
I'm so sorry, but I want you to know this video so well you memorize it.
Remember this?
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.
Declining Canadian Economy00:05:33
Because the real alternative is not an alternative route.
It's an alternative economy.
So yeah, take out $100 billion of oil and gas from the economy.
Bungle your trade deal with Trump so badly that he brings home the auto industry to the Midwest like he's been saying he would do for years.
He doesn't care if Trudeau hates him.
Trudeau doesn't get a vote in the 2020 election.
Steel workers in Indiana and auto workers in Michigan do.
So scratch oil and gas, scratch the auto industry.
What's left?
The overheated housing market in Vancouver and Toronto?
That's where a lot of the wealth is coming from these days.
But look, a real estate bubble isn't truly building wealth in a sustainable way.
First of all, it makes everyone who rents poorer.
And it makes it hard for people to buy a home.
It makes it hard to start a family.
It delays adult children from leaving their parents' homes, getting married, having kids of their own.
It's like a massive brake pedal on life.
Sure, it's great for those who already own a home and have paid it off, but that's sort of the opposite of growth, isn't it?
And according to police, it's not people really saying, I'd like to pay $2 million for a starter home in Vancouver.
It's often mainland Chinese getting their money out of China, using the city's real estate just like a safe deposit box, just buying up homes, sometimes without even seeing them first, sometimes not even living in them, just to stash money away from the Communist Party of China.
That and massive criminal money laundering too.
Lots of Russians doing the same in Toronto for the same reason.
Better to put your money in a Toronto condo than in a Russian bank.
My point is, what's left?
Public sector growth?
Those are the takers, not the makers.
And the few makers who are left, well, Trudeau and his crew don't like them much.
Now they have to answer all sorts of feminist puzzles before they're allowed to hire anyone.
Project's decisions will be based on science, evidence, and Indigenous traditional knowledge.
We're also taking a bigger picture look at the potential impacts of a proposed project.
Instead of just looking at the environmental impacts, we'll look at how a project could affect our communities and health, jobs and the economy over the long term, and we'll also do a gender-based analysis.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
Who would invest in Canada rather than in Donald Trump's America?
Like him or hate him, you know he's not going to make you do a gender analysis of your steel mill before letting you open it.
My friends, as Margaret Thatcher once said, socialism only works until you run out of other people's money.
Alberta is broke.
It looks like it's heading back into a second NDP recession.
The rest of the country is tipping into a recession.
Trudeau and Mourneau had already been spending tens of billions of dollars a year in deficits.
What are they going to do now?
Oh, and here comes Donald Trump's Buy American trade barriers and his tax cut.
Let me close with a few lines from the who could have seen this coming story that the Financial Post ran.
Canada's terms of trade, a comparison of the prices of exports versus the prices of imports, saw its biggest drop since early 2009.
The report said it fell 3.6% in the fourth quarter, which was mostly due to a 34.3% decline in crude exports.
Oh, well, who needs crude exports anyways?
Am I right?
I mean, let's get down to zero.
That's what phase it out means.
The lower GDP figure for all of 2018 reflected a slowdown in most categories, including weaker results for household consumption, business investment, and housing investment, which contracted 2.3%.
The agency said the drop in housing investment coincided with rising interest rates and stricter mortgage rules coming into force.
In December, economic growth contracted 0.1% for the second consecutive month and the third decline in four months.
Third decline in four months, eh?
We're almost in a recession, aren't we?
But hey gang, there's great news out there.
The one policy success for Justin Trudeau, the one thing he was really passionate about all these years, the one thing he really cares about and can talk about without using notes, this.
The current approach on drugs is not working.
I'm in favor of legalizing it.
Five or six times in my life that I've taken a puff of protecting our children from marijuana.
So yes, five or six times in my life that the continued prohibition of marijuana, that's a lot of smoking, I've never done it except with people I know and trust.
Yeah, that's great news, man.
Let me read from the report.
Household spending on marijuana at an annual rate totaled $5.9 billion in the fourth quarter, with illegal pot accounting for $4.7 billion of the total and illegal weed representing $1.2 billion.
Cannabis accounted for 0.5% of total household spending, the report said of the quarterly numbers.
And non-medical cannabis accounted for 11.2% of spending on alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis.
That's your good news, people.
That's your good news right there.
There's pot to be bought.
So everything's declining in Canada.
Real work is declining.
Real things, construction, oil, gas, building cars.
It's all going to hell.
We've got some inflated housing in the big cities for now, part of which is just money laundering for Russian and Chinese tycoons.
But don't worry, my dudes.
Just smoke some pot and do your part for the economy and it'll all be super, oh brother.
Jane Philpott's Resignation00:15:30
Stay with us for more on today's shocking news of Jane Philpott's resignation.
Welcome back.
Well, bombshell after bombshell in the case of Justin Trudeau, SNC Lavalin, and his apparently illegal attempts to obstruct the course of justice by pressuring former Attorney General Jody Wilson Raybold into dropping criminal charges against the corrupt Quebec-based engineering firm.
Well, the bombshell today is the sudden resignation of Jane Philpott, widely regarded as one of the most competent of Trudeau's ministers.
You can see on your screen a lengthy, heartfelt letter by Jane Philpott, who just says she can't stick around.
She can't be part of it.
Instead of letting me paraphrase, let me read it to you verbatim.
I have been considering the events that have shaken the federal government in recent weeks, and after serious reflection, I have concluded that I must resign as a member of cabinet.
In Canada, the Constitutional Convention of Cabinet Solidarity means, among other things, that ministers are expected to defend all cabinet decisions.
A minister must always be prepared to defend other ministers publicly and must speak in support of the government and its policies.
Given this convention and the current circumstances, it is untenable for me to continue to serve as a cabinet minister.
Let me just read one more paragraph.
Unfortunately, the evidence of efforts by politicians and or officials to pressure the former Attorney General to intervene in the criminal case involving SNC Lavalin and the evidence as to the content of those efforts have raised serious concerns for me.
Those concerns have been augmented by the views expressed by my constituents and other Canadians.
Let me just read one more part and then we'll turn it over to our friend Manny Montenegrino who's joining us on an urgent basis.
She says, the solemn principles at stake are the independence and integrity of our justice system.
It is a fundamental doctrine of the rule of law that our attorney general should not be subjected to political pressure or interference regarding the exercise of her prosecutorial discretion in criminal cases.
Sadly, I have lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised.
Last sentence, it grieves me to leave a portfolio where I was at work to deliver on an important mandate, but I must abide by my core values, my ethical responsibilities, and constitutional obligations.
There can be a cost to acting on one's principles, but there is a bigger cost to abandoning them.
What a devastating letter.
And joining us now via Skype from Ottawa is our friend Manny Montenegrino, the CEO of ThinkSharp, former national chairman of a major law firm, and I should say, lawyer to Stephen Harper.
Manny, great to see you again.
What a bombshell.
What do you make of that letter, of which I read quite a bit?
It was foreseeable.
In fact, Ezra, if you go to my Twitter account, I posted as my pin.
I think three weeks ago I said she would do this.
What's amazing is the fact that this prime minister, Gerald Butts and his team are tone deaf.
They really don't know what's going on.
And Ezra, as I said in one of my interviews with you three, four weeks ago, or three weeks ago when this occurred, I said, this is a constitutional crisis.
And they tried to deal with it in their typical political way.
But when you have a one-sitting attorney general making the strongest case ever for obstruction of justice against a sitting prime minister and the sitting prime minister doesn't do anything, that is a constitutional crisis.
And they try to manage this as they've done.
Everything else was managed poorly.
And now you'll see the effects of it.
And this government will not last, in my estimation, for much longer.
Manny, I saw your private email exchange that you posted online where you predicted Jane Philpott.
What was it about her that made you think she would be the one to go next?
Well, that's a great question.
I think, and we talked about this, Ezra.
These are two very principled women.
These are two professional women.
One is a doctor and one is a lawyer.
And when you get to that stage, and, you know, the prime minister has never been in a profession, never understood the concept that's required to reach those high levels.
These two women certainly understand their duties and they are just exhibiting them.
So this is not, so you could see it.
And if you watch the, what is also, and I don't understand for the prime minister to be boasting to be a feminist, to not be able to read these two strong women and not understand who they are, what they did in their lifetime, what commitment they gave to their profession, and have them at your cabinet table and listen to them.
I made these decisions three weeks ago.
I don't know these women.
I understood them.
I looked at their profession.
I looked at their duties and I understood that they would.
I don't know them.
How could you be sitting at a table for three years and not know these women?
This is the opposite of what a feminist is.
This is a person that just does not, and listen, it also goes to men.
I mean, but he touts himself as a feminist.
But these are very strong women.
Ezra, when I was managing my law firm, I had strong women.
I made them partners.
It's very obvious to see the strength and integrity of women.
And by far, they wear it a lot more proudly than some men do.
And so it's not a shock.
I tweeted it three weeks ago privately.
Someone asked me, and I said, here's what's going to happen.
I've been calling this as it unfolds day by day.
But we have a constitutional crisis.
Can you imagine a sitting attorney general calling out a prime minister for obstruction of justice?
And now we have, I cannot see the RSNP after this resignation not having a full investigation.
Yeah, because remember, Jody Wilson-Raybold has not been freed from all of her confidentiality limits.
For example, what she learned and discussed when she was demoted to veterans minister.
She has not been released to discuss that.
So I'm sure that Jane Philpott knows some things that we don't know.
Of course she does.
She's a member of Council.
Sure.
Can I show you a video clip from the weekend?
This is David Lehmetti.
He went on Global TV.
He was interviewed by Mercedes-Stevenson.
And let me throw something at you.
Again, I'm just speculating, and so maybe I'm asking you to speculate too.
But I think that Jane Philpott, who, like you say, was sensitive to this issue to begin with, my personal theory is she saw the new Attorney General that Justin Trudeau handpicked, and she saw this little exchange, and she thought, if that's what we're doing, count me out.
This is my theory.
Take a look at this, Manny.
Sure.
But if someone approached you and said that an election is at stake, would that be a persuasive argument to you?
Again, it depends on the context.
The leading case for the United States.
So wait, sorry, just to stop there, an election could be a reason for an attorney general to interfere in a criminal prosecution.
That would be appropriate.
I'm not saying it'd be appropriate or inappropriate.
That should be an easy answer to say no to, but he dodged it for about a minute.
My personal theory is she saw that and said, I'm out of here.
Yeah, Ezra, I warned you once, I don't want to speak that man's name.
Listen, one more warning.
He's done more harm, more harm to the whole legal profession than any person that I know.
Absolutely.
But there's a, you know, that is certainly, that would enrage anybody seeing the new Attorney General do a complete opposite of what his duties are.
But I'm going to add something else.
The Justice Committee, or the Conservatives in the Justice Committee, tried to get Gerald Butts before the committee, and they struck it down.
Now, the power was at the Prime Minister's office.
The biggest problem of this government is a prime minister office and Gerald Butts basically treating cabinet ministers like servants.
So he was not permitted to speak to the Justice Committee because it was shut down by the Liberals.
So the Conservatives tried to, and the NDP tried to have him.
But now Gerald Butts writes a letter.
He quits, resigns, but he writes a letter and says, I need to speak to you.
That would enrage me.
If I were the minister, the Treasury Board, and knowing that this person got the cover by the Liberal Party not to go because we're protecting the PMO and he will now wants to speak.
I think that as much as David Lametti's insane review of the law, that probably had a lot to do with it.
I mean, my view is, listen, this is historic.
Never has it happened in Canada.
The majority government is going to fall apart in three years.
It's not happened.
And it didn't happen because of a mistake.
It happened because of a continued PMO mistake after mistake after mistake.
You have, I mean, Ezra, you want to go quickly through that India trip.
How did that ever happen?
A tweet, welcome to Canada tweet that's now cost us three to five billion dollars and put our whole asylum program into jeopardy.
They tweet the Saudi Arabia tweets, which cost billions of dollars and in my view may have caused the SNC Lavalin because they lost a billion dollar contract.
This PMO has been running like a fourth grade committee.
And so of course they're going to screw this up as well because they don't know how to manage anything correctly.
And to think, and I'll predict, I think this government will fall.
I think Trudeau will be gone.
There's another tweet and I said he'll be gone by the IDEs of March.
So we've got about another 10 days.
But he cannot survive.
When you have cabinet ministers saying, I don't have confidence in you, he has to step down.
The RCP has to take over.
The Liberal Party has to regain its party and it will.
It'll put new people in.
And then we'll get rid of this real dark nightmare that Canadians have been faced for three years.
Well, that's the thing.
The more people, and especially Jane Philpott, who's not regarded as a schemer or, you know, she's not a rival to Justin Trudeau.
It's not like she's doing this to position herself for something.
So I think her move has to be taken at face value.
I think if another joins her, well, that would be three then.
And I think you're right.
Let me ask you, do you think Justin Trudeau is going to be thrown out?
Or do you think he's going to take, quote, a walk in the snow and say, you know what, I didn't sign up for this.
I've made some mistakes.
Maybe the Harper ads were right.
Maybe I'm just not ready.
I'm not having fun anymore.
I like having fun.
I like being a mascot.
I love the soft press.
It's hard now.
I'm just out of here and I'll go work for the UN or something.
Do you think he's going to be thrown out or will he jump out?
Well, he won't jump out because, you know, he doesn't, again, I don't think he has great judgment.
Right now, I imagine there are 50 people clamoring and saying, you have no option.
You've got to leave.
You have no option.
You've got to leave.
And I think it's going to take some time to get that message across.
I think there'll be about six, seven ministers that say, look, we're doing the right thing, but we agree with the two minutes that left.
You make the right decision or we're all gone.
So that's going to take some time for him to process it.
There is nothing of future of this liberal government.
I think they will replace and get some new people in there and they'll give themselves another shot.
But there is no way he can continue.
You can't have cabinet ministers say that I don't have confidence in the prime minister.
And, you know, there will be others.
There'll be others.
Well, this is very interesting.
Permit me one last observation and then I'll let you close the segment.
And by the way, Manny, thanks for agreeing to talk with us on very short notice.
This literally just broke about an hour ago from when we're talking.
So thank you for agreeing.
No problem.
You know, one of Stephen Harper's important legacies was putting in place legal checks and balances to catch precisely this sort of thing.
He's the one who set up this legal scheme for the director of public prosecutions to take it out of the politics of cabinet.
In a way, you could say he was protecting it, building a fence around it.
But I guess that fence is sort of electrocuted because the liberals are zapping themselves.
They couldn't keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
In a way, it's Harper's revenge.
What do you think of that?
Well, that's true.
But let me tell your viewers legally what happened.
Of course, there's always been a separation between the judiciary and the government.
And that has been part of common law and part of parliamentary government for hundreds of years.
The Prime Minister Harper, who I proudly served, he understood that, you know what, things are going the wrong way.
Let me put a legal obligation, not just a constitutional historical obligation.
So he changed the law.
And what was important was the separation of the public prosecutor, but the important thing, Ezra, is he put in the law that if the Attorney General overrules the public prosecutor and decision, That must be gazetted, i.e. made public.
So that was a little.
So basically, not only do we separate it in law, but we're saying to you, if you make the change, you have a statutory obligation to make it public.
And that's when it broke.
because you had the chief of staff, Katie Keflert, say, don't worry, we'll line up a bunch of op-eds to kind of shelter your quote legal, because there must have been a discussion where the Attorney General says, you understand my obligation.
I now have to tell the world that I reversed the decision of the public prosecutor and everyone's going to see this as political interference.
I don't want to do it.
And the PMO sat there and said, don't you worry.
Op-Eds and Legal Interference00:07:07
We'll get 20 op-eds, 30 op-eds, 50 op-eds to say that what you did was legally okay.
We will do that for you because you're worried that publicly you're going to tell the world that you were politically interfering.
That's the little bit that the Prime Minister Harper and a very detailed, one of the, I mean, one of the brightest men you'll ever meet, one of the most ethical men you'll ever meet.
It was just an honor to serve him.
And Canada was blessed by having him as their prime minister.
We see it now today with the complete opposite of this prime minister.
Well, just amazing.
Manny, once again, we're in your debt.
I like to say when you come on, it's a masterclass in law and politics and media too, frankly.
So we're always grateful for your time and expertise.
Thanks, my friend.
All right.
Take care.
Right on.
Take care.
So there you have it.
Manny Montenegrino, formerly a senior managing partner at a national law firm, of course, a lawyer to Stephen Harper when he was prime minister.
And he is now the CEO of Think Sharp.
He joined us via Skype from Ottawa.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about Trudeau doing well when he's underestimated.
Betty writes, maybe before the next election, Trudeau will resign saying he wants to spend more time with his family.
That way he won't be around to lose the election.
Being prime minister is just too much work for him.
You know, Betty, I have been saying that.
I'm not saying it's my for sure prediction, but I think it's a greater chance some people think that he'll say, I don't need this.
It's not fun anymore.
I like being liked.
I don't like being hated.
You know, it's funny because when you're a conservative, when you're a dissident, when you're taking an unpopular position, you have to live with the fact that not everyone's going to love you.
Stephen Harper, I think, was quite fine with the fact that a goodly number of people didn't like him.
Here at the Rebel, we get smashed around so much by our enemies.
You just have to be okay with that.
If you're not okay with that, don't work for the Rebel.
Go be a weatherman or a sports reporter or something uncontroversial.
Justin Trudeau has never really been in a political controversy in his life.
He's never really had a tough time.
He's never been on the wrong side of a fight because the media are so gentle with him.
This is the first time in his life that he's having a tough go.
That cover in McLean's magazine calling him an imposter by his best buddy, Paul Wells, that's got a sting.
When all these passionate women that he appointed as part of his gender quota, when they're quitting saying he's unethical, that's got a sting.
Now, don't get me wrong, you're not going to see unethical women like Maryam Monsef or Ikra Khaled or Christy Duncan or Catherine McKenna quit on him.
They're loyal to the end.
But the actual competent women of achievement, they're quitting.
That's got a sting.
I mean, it's one thing when a conservative shoots an arrow at him, but when Jane Philpott, die-hard liberal, well-respected, says, yeah, you're a little too corrupt for me, he's not used to that, is he?
I think there's a 25% chance he'll quit.
Maybe I'm hedging my bets, but I think there's a chance.
Daniel writes, interesting to think what would happen if Justin Trudeau's new Minister of Justice decides to give SNC Lavalam that deal now.
The liberals would never hear the end of it and they may not get re-elected.
I'm going to stop you there for a second because that's their only way out in my view.
I think they've broken the law.
I think they've broken Section 139.2, the Criminal Code, obstruction.
They may have broken other sections as well, including intimidation.
But how, see, you're thinking like a conservative.
A conservative would say, uh-oh, if you do the nasty, you're going to get in trouble.
But no, no.
See, a liberal thinks, Yes, so what?
Yeah, yeah, of course we did.
We did it to save jobs.
Are you against saving jobs?
You're against kids.
We did it to stop global warming.
We did it to stop the war in Yemen or whatever they'll say.
Like, they'll say anything.
You know, they'll say, they'll admit it's a judo move.
Instead of pushing back, they'll just, yeah, of course we did it.
It would be shocking if we didn't do it.
It would be shocking if we didn't interfere to save jobs.
Well, you don't like jobs anymore?
Or do you hate Quebec?
Which is it?
Do you hate jobs or do you hate Quebec?
Because you're sure full of hate, Mr. Conservative, Islamophobe, debassing, racist, Westerner, rebel convoy, oilman.
So that's exactly the move they will do.
The only thing that'll stop them, I think, is what we saw today, is someone on the inside who says, I just can't stomach this.
And I'm amazed that you have two politicians who'll do that.
You know, what was the last time you saw a politician resign on principle?
I remember the defense minister in the United Kingdom who missed the warning signs of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.
Was it Hazeltine's name?
I can't remember.
That was when I was just a young lad.
But he resigned.
He resigned.
He said, I should have seen it coming.
I didn't.
What can I do but resign?
That's an honorable resignation in the face of a failure.
That's very rare in our political culture, isn't it?
But how much more rare to resign not because you've done something wrong?
Jane Philpott, from all reports, has never done anything wrong.
She's too liberal for my taste.
But I cannot dispute that the woman has ethics and competence.
For her to resign on principle because the government itself is ethically rotten in the year of an election when she was a shoe-in in cabinet, that's an even higher level of integrity.
I can't believe I'm praising these liberals.
These are words I never thought I would say.
But it's one thing for a cabinet minister to resign in disgrace over a failure, as the British defense minister did 30, 40 years ago.
But it's another thing for someone to say, I've seen things that I can no longer stomach, and I must quit because I can't defend.
That's a level of integrity I am shocked to see here.
Would you agree with me?
I'm not saying I agree with James Philpott on policy one, two, or three.
I'm just saying in terms of ethics, you got to take off your hat to the lady.
Robert says, Rosemary Barton, cats, bubble bath.
Holy crap, that's hilarious.
Well, I got a little carried away yesterday.
But my example today was the same thing, really.
Wendy Mesley did her show about Donald Trump, he's going to be arrested, Donald Trump Jr.
He's going to be arrested any moment, and then you see the dominoes will fall.
I mean, that's a bigger conspiracy theory than this whole QAnon thing.
They make a lot of fun of Alex Jones of Infowars.
His conspiracy theories were never as Byzantine as those pitched by the kooks at the CBC.
Wendy Mesley, Rosemary Barton, they'll talk about anything other than the precious one getting in trouble.
Keefe's Resilience00:00:50
On my interview with James O'Keefe about Project Veritas' latest investigation involving Facebook, Liza writes, I'm grateful for James O'Keefe.
Keefe, he is a warrior.
You are so right.
And you know, I have the pleasure of meeting him about once a year.
I bump into him somewhere.
I saw him just after New Year's this year.
He's doing so well.
And you know, he's just got that discipline and that patience.
And boy, he's been metaphorically punched a lot.
And he just, you know, like that old song, he gets knocked down, but he gets up again and then you're never going to hold him down.
He's got a tenacity, a resilience, a bounce backiness.
I love that guy.
He's great.
May we at the Rebel have the impact and courage that he shows from Project Veritas.