Bernard Hancock, a Freedom Conservative Party candidate in Alberta’s Grand Prairie riding, contrasts Canada’s stagnant job market—losing 7,200 jobs in March with Calgary’s 6.8% unemployment—against the U.S.’s 196,000 new jobs and 3.8% unemployment, driven by booming manufacturing and construction sectors. His campaign prioritizes pipeline approvals (blocked by Trudeau’s carbon tax and anti-pipeline laws) and economic revival, while criticizing Justin Trudeau’s potential SNC-Lavalin scandal avoidance via connections like Kevin Lynch and Frank Jacobucci. With only 25% of Canadian men supporting Trudeau due to perceived "pickup artist" behavior and ideological clashes, Hancock highlights Alberta’s gerrymandered boundaries and the opioid crisis, advocating for health-based solutions over UCP’s safe injection sites. The episode ties Canada’s economic decline to political missteps, questioning whether Trudeau’s policies or personal controversies are the bigger hurdle for business growth. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my rebels, I've got great news if you're an American.
196,000 new jobs created last month.
I got bad news if you're a Canadian, almost 10,000 jobs lost last month.
And do you think those numbers are going to change?
Well, yeah, I think they're going to get worse for us.
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Obi-Doo.
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Without further to-do, here's today's show.
You are listening to a Rebel Media podcast.
Tonight, Canada has a new carbon tax and a ban on pipelines and tankerships.
America, they've got 200,000 new jobs created just last month.
Where would you build a factory?
It's April 5th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have is a government about why I publish it.
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
The U.S. job numbers are out for March, and they're amazing.
U.S. Job Numbers Are Out00:02:15
196,000 new jobs created in the United States.
The unemployment rate is 3.8%.
Just think about that for a moment.
It's hard to believe, but here's my favorite part.
I'm reading from the New York Times here, the liberal newspaper, and so you know they hated saying it.
Average hourly earnings in March were 3.2% higher than a year earlier.
So not only is there a record number of Americans working, but they're all getting paid more.
They're getting raises more than the inflation rate.
Inflation in the U.S. is about 1.5% per year.
So Americans are getting raises that are double the rate of inflation.
This is so good.
And I love the kind of jobs.
I mean, I suppose every job is a good job, and every job that gives you a pay raise is a good job.
But look at this.
Construction jobs.
See the graph on the right there?
$1.32 trillion worth of construction jobs on an annualized basis.
And it's growing.
That chart on the right shows it's growing.
And this one, here's what manufacturing is doing.
Let me read this from the Institute for Supply Management in the U.S.
It's a bit technical, but I think you can get the gist of it.
It's basically a survey of business leaders, factory owners across America.
It's a panel of businessmen reporting how their industry, their factory, is doing.
And over time, it's a very useful predictor.
Why not ask a factory owner how things are going?
Let me tell you what their panel of businessmen says.
Comments from the panel reflected continued expanding business strength supported by gains in new orders and employment.
Demand expansion continued with the new orders index returning to the high 50s.
The customers inventories index improving but remaining too low.
And the backlog of orders index softening to marginal expansion levels.
Consumption, production and unemployment, continued to expand and regained its footing combined with a combined 6.2 percentage point gain from the previous month's levels.
Okay, let me get out of the technical wording.
Inventories are falling.
That means that when factories make something and it just stays on a shelf, that's shrinking, the amount of buffer they have.
There's more orders for things than there is production of those things.
New Pipelines Needed00:09:46
Let me just say it even more similar.
Times are good and they're getting better.
They better rev up the factory to keep up with demand.
This is all about manufacturing.
Those are the heavy jobs, the factory jobs, the hard hat jobs, the $100,000 a year paying jobs.
It's exactly why Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Ohio voted for Trump in the first place, the first time in a generation that voted Republican.
I want to show you that Michael Moore, that old clip I used to show you.
Even though he's the working class Democrat, he's a Democrat for fashion's sake, but he's one of the few American Democrats who doesn't sneer at the deplorables.
Because although he's a millionaire filmmaker now, he still knows that in his bones, he's a deplorable who will never be accepted by the nouveau riche Clinton or Obama Democrats.
Watch this clip.
This is what he said on the eve of Trump winning.
Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of the Ford Motor executives and said, if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy them.
It was an amazing thing to see.
No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives.
And it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Brexit states.
I got to do a show one of these days about my steel worker friend, the one who actually was starring in an anti-Trump steelworker ad.
I've had back and forth with him.
I should do a video.
The promise is being kept.
You know, it's happening.
Now, I'm not an American.
I have no stake there other than as a friend and an ally and a neighbor, but I couldn't be happier for them.
I suppose I do have a stake.
I just said it.
I'm a friend and an ally and a neighbor.
Because of course how America goes, well, that'll affect how we'll go up here too.
We'll benefit from all that extra demand.
We'll benefit from all that extra wealth creation.
But only by accident.
It's almost as if Trudeau doesn't want us to benefit from a strong American economy.
He's so busy fighting Trump.
Over the last year, he's fought Trump in so many weird ways.
In these negotiations we've had on the NAFTA, demands about feminism and global warming.
He delayed the deal by a year to argue about these things.
And so the deal is not being ratified yet.
By the way, we have not re-ratified NAFTA.
And maybe it won't be done.
Look at this terrifying headline from yesterday.
As you may have seen, several Canadian car factories have shut down in recent months, or at least announced a shutdown in Oshawa, the GM plant, and just a few days ago, the Fiat Chrysler plant in Windsor.
Trump wants to scoop up those factory for Americans.
And as I told you in January, I think it was, Trump signed a new Buy American executive order, just shutting out foreign companies from U.S. projects, including huge infrastructure projects.
Now, that barely got a peep in the mainstream media in Canada.
I don't know why.
I haven't seen Trudeau or Christy Freeland push back against it.
I don't know why.
Stephen Harper made that one of his top items with Barack Obama when he brought in Buy America.
So yeah, it's good times to be in American industry.
Even the oil industry, you know, back when I wrote my book, Ethical Oil, almost a decade ago, America was the world's largest oil importer.
Now they're exporting record amounts.
Look at that.
Including perversely exporting oil to Canada.
Seriously, American exports oil to Canada, especially eastern Canada, by rail because Quebec won't let pipelines through to Quebec and the Atlantic from Alberta.
So they're buying American oil instead.
Look at this headline.
This Texas area is expected to double oil output to 8 million barrels in just four years, boosting U.S. exports.
That's from CNBC.
That Texas area they're talking about is called the Permian Basin.
There's me wearing a cowboy hat visiting them a few years ago.
Boy, I love that trip.
Look at that.
It was great.
That's near Midland, Texas.
It was an amazing visit.
They love oil and gas there.
I think in some ways they love it even more than Albertans do because they've had it longer.
It reminded me of Alberta going there, but with more barbecue joints.
The friendless people love them.
Now, oil and gas production is growing so quickly where I was standing there, because I frack for oil there now.
That Texas, in fact, just West Texas, is going to produce nearly as much oil as Saudi Arabia.
Just Texas.
So obviously they need more pipelines.
Well, no problem.
Here's a map from Bloomberg.
Look at that.
These are all new pipelines that will be completed this year alone.
There's four pipelines there that will literally carry barrels per day.
So two of those are almost a million barrels a day.
And as you can see, it takes it right to the coast there, to refineries and then get them on boats.
Get them on super tankers to go anywhere in the world.
India, China, Taiwan, Korea, even to Europe.
Why not?
Why not displace OPEC oil for our allies?
That could have been us.
That could have been Canada.
But Trudeau and Notley and BC's John Horgan and Catherine McKenna killed that.
You heard the de facto Prime Minister Gerald Butts, this was his plan all along.
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.
Because the real alternative is not an alternative route.
It's an alternative economy.
Yeah, there was never any chance, was there?
So that's the United States state of affairs.
200,000 new jobs, four new pipelines.
I'm jealous.
Just the pay raises for working class Americans.
When was the last time that happened?
But how's Canada doing?
Well, thanks for asking.
Our job numbers are out now, too.
Canada lost 7,200 jobs in March, ending six-month string of gains.
So we lost jobs, and the CBC state broadcasters trying to put the best spin on it.
But we lost jobs.
How?
How?
How is that even possible?
America is booming.
We're right next to America.
So how are we losing jobs?
You heard inventories are down.
Orders are up.
They should be raiding our pantry, buying our stuff.
You can't blame it on low oil prices.
Oil prices are solid, high enough for a rebirth of that industry, but not so high as to punish oil-consuming parts of the country like Ontario and Quebec.
But instead of a 3.8% unemployment rate, well, Calgary now has the highest unemployment rate of any city in Canada.
The oil patch is still out of business.
Here's the CBC graphic today.
So a loss in construction jobs, you can see.
A loss in forestry jobs, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas.
But look at that right near the top.
9,600 new jobs last month in public administration.
That means government workers.
So they'll be just fine.
Why don't we have new pipelines?
Northern Gateway Pipeline, Transmountain Expansion Pipeline, Energy East Pipeline, $30 billion plus in new jobs just to construct them.
Tens of billions more in the oil that would go through them and in the oil production to feed them.
We don't have that.
Instead, we have a new carbon tax that came in this week.
We have new anti-pipeline and anti-tanker legislation working its way through Parliament.
We have some crazy lady shouting about how her taxes are going to change the weather or something.
So let's talk about climate change for a second.
Who believes it's real?
Who believes in science?
We got a report last year that said we have 12 years to take serious climate action.
We are all in this together.
We need to act.
Yes, shouting at the weather ain't going to change it, lady.
Hey, last question.
If you were going to build a factory somewhere or invest in a company somewhere, which side of the Canada-U.S. border would you choose?
I mean, if you were Canadian, you'd probably have other criteria on your mind, like where you live, where you grew up, where's your family, where's your home?
You know, emotional factors, factors of inertia.
If you live in Canada, you probably think of Canada first.
But if you were someone who made decisions purely on financial reasons, on objective reasons, say if you were a bank or a stock market or a pension fund, someone who was paid to make cold-blooded decisions, someone who was paid to make money for others, someone who wasn't spending just millions, but who was spending billions, would you invest billions in Texas or in Alberta?
Would you build a new car factory in Michigan or in Windsor?
Grand Prairie Campaign Insights00:12:31
You don't need to answer.
Today's job numbers already did.
Stay with us for more.
Hi, folks.
Bernard Hancock here, running to be your next MLA for Grand Prairie.
And I wanted to talk to you today because my campaign, I was fashionably late to the dance, but it's come to the point where I feel that it's, I got a call on me to put a campaign out there that offers a different vision for Grand Prairie.
And I'd like to tell you today why I think I'm the man.
Well, that's our friend Bernard Hancock with a nickname Bernard the Roughneck.
We've been following him for years.
In fact, he's spoken at several of our rebel rallies against the carbon tax and in support of oil and gas workers.
And as you can see, he is an oil and gas worker who's decided to throw his hat into the ring in the provincial election in Alberta as a member of the Freedom Conservative Party, the party started by Derek Fildebrand.
Joining us now via Skype from his office is our friend Bernard Hancock.
Burdock, great to see you again.
Ezra, how are you doing?
Great.
I was very excited to see your campaign launch.
In fact, I saw it live on my phone.
That was a very high-tech way of doing it.
I love the fact you did it.
Where was that rig?
Just tell our viewers, because we call you Bernard the Roughneck in an affectionate way.
What kind of work were you doing?
What kind of work do you do on any given week or month?
Well, actually, I'm in full campaign mode.
So I was just visiting some people over at a local coil tubing outfit.
And I was over visiting the Cam Van and the N2 pumper and was just walking around in the yard and just decided to go and film that live.
Well, I thought that was great.
Obviously, you're a man who is from the oil patch.
Is that part of your campaign?
Tell us what you're running to achieve.
I think there's a point at which advocacy can work and it can accomplish things.
And I don't regret anything I've done.
Mistakes I've made, I hope I've learned from them.
But on the advocacy side, you can only ask so many times and lobby so hard for politicians to go one way or the other.
And at the end of the day, I think a natural progression for what I want to be able to accomplish in terms of sticking up for the oil patch and working people is to throw my shoe in the ring and run for elected office, actually.
Because, I mean, our town of Grand Prairie, we're an oil and gas hub up in the Peace Country.
Our town runs on oil and gas.
Oil and gas makes the clocks run on time.
And I'd say a lot of other industry in this town is dependent on oil and gas, but there's greater issues than oil and gas at play.
And we're in such a time that I don't think there's many points in Alberta's history like this.
And we have a choice.
I mean, I don't think there's any choice.
We cannot go back to another four years of NDP government.
But in going about these changes and voting the government out, well, we need to scrutinize who we're voting in.
And we need conservative opposition to hold this government to account.
Because, you know, I'm a loyal, I was a loyal member of the UCP.
You know, I was in the trenches working hard for unity a couple of years back.
And, you know, when Mr. Kenny became leader, I was wholeheartedly endorsing him and behind his leadership of our party.
And, you know, too many promises have been broken.
And I don't have confidence that we're going towards anything other than a revamp of the Progressive Conservative Party.
And I don't think that's in the best interest of Alberta's future.
I think Grand Prairie has a lot of potential.
And I think the Freedom Conservative Party, it offers an unwhipped caucus and a platform for me where no one bought me.
No one like, I don't owe anyone any favors.
I'm running of my own volition.
And I think I'd be a good representative for Grand Prairie just to provide that unwhipped voice, that check on, say, some excess or some move away from conservative, limited government, small tax values.
I got to tell you, I've always hoped that one day Alberta would have a conservative government and a more conservative opposition.
That was briefly the case when Jim Francis was premier and the Wild Rose was the opposition.
But then, of course, they tried to absorb the Wild Rose opposition and it was a mess.
Tell me a little bit more about the Freedom Conservative Party.
We've spoken to Derek Fildebrand about it a few months ago.
How many candidates are you fielding?
And what are your prospects, both province-wide and in Grand Prairie?
Ezra, we got 24 candidates running across the province for 1.2 million voters.
And we want to put a conservative choice on that ballot: an accountable, limited government, small government, low taxation, high personal freedom.
And that means freedom for LGBT as the same as it does for Christians, for Muslims, for anyone, because we don't want to put labels on people.
We want to start putting forth policy that brings Albertans together around shared identity rather than dividing us into these groups and playing identity politics.
We have a better tax plan.
Sorry, I was going to say, who's the incumbent in Grand Prairie where you're riding?
Is it a New Democrat or is it a conservative?
I can't remember off the top of my head.
There is no incumbent, actually.
Grand Prairie used to be split right down the middle on 100th Ave between Grand Prairie Smokey, which was north of that, all the way to Valley View.
That was Todd Lowen from the Wild Rose, who was the MLA.
And on the south side of 100th Ave was Wayne Drasdale with the Progressive Conservative Party, and that was Grand Prairie Wapity.
Well, now Notley gerrymandered our city into one urban riding.
And so it's really a toss-up, and there's no incumbent candidate in this race.
So, and there's actually a very strong Alberta Party candidate in the race.
There's a strong NDP candidate in the race who ran against Todd Lowen and narrowly lost last time.
So, yeah, it's a real toss-up in this coming election in Grand Prairie.
And I think throwing my hat in the ring kind of brings some excitement, makes some people sweat.
And hopefully, actually, I can offer a positive vision and something different for people, you know, to bring accountability to the legislature and to have someone who ain't bought and who only works for the people of Grand Prairie.
And how are you being received?
It was only a few days ago that you made your announcement there from a work site.
Have you had any feedback?
Do you have a campaign team at all?
Do you have posters or brochures or lawn sites or any of those things?
Are you doing door knocking?
What have you been up to since you threw your hat in the ring?
You know, campaigning's hard.
I didn't realize how tiring it was.
But no, we've been going hard.
We got our campaign lit and business cards.
We got a website up, www.roughnecknation.
That's R-U-F-F, RoughneckNation.com.
We have our lawn signs that are coming tomorrow.
Like I say, I didn't even plan to run until the day the writ was dropped and I was asked to.
So my signs are just coming into Grand Prairie tomorrow morning.
But we're going to have my ugly mug up across town and up everywhere.
And yeah, we're door knocking.
We're coming to a door near you in Electoral District 63, Grand Prairie.
And yeah, the response has been really good because I talk to people and the biggest thing is we got to get pipelines to market and we need government to get out of the way of business.
And so there's a really strong response.
And also, Notley scheduled this vote during breakup.
So that's when most people in the oil patch have a small amount of time off once a year.
And all these guys are going to be home and ready to vote and they have a reason to vote.
I think you're going to see huge voter turnout.
So it's a toss-up.
In my riding of Grand Prairie, I really don't know what the outcome is.
And that's what makes it exciting because it's anyone's race to win.
And I'm getting out there and I'm talking to a lot of people.
And you know what?
There's more to life than just pipelines and oil and gas.
Like we offer a credible plan to tackle the opioid crisis because here in town, we're having like endemic rates of overdoses and death in Grand Prairie.
And it's not just fentanyl, but also with the crystal meth, the pint in town.
It's out of line.
And the property crime that results from that, the vagrancy, the hospital costs, the policing costs, the court costs, like this is an issue that needs tackling now.
And it's not just about the money too, because it's like, I know people and I know people who know people who are really negatively impacted by the opioid crisis, who are addicted.
And we need to treat people as health patients, not as criminals who are the users of the product.
But we do need to crack down on the criminals, stiffen the sentences up, and really get this filth out of our community.
Because the drug crisis in Grand Prairie, that's an issue I talk to a lot of people about.
And the UCP people, they just say, oh, no safe injection sites and no harm reduction.
And they don't want to listen to evidence.
They don't want to listen to experts.
So like, that's one issue right there where we offer, I'd say, a more 21st century, more progressive, but ultimately more successful approach to a really pressing issue.
Like it's not all about money, Ezra, and not all about pipelines.
Well, Bernard, it's very interesting, and it's exciting to see you throw your hat in the ring.
I remember vividly your passionate call to arms for years now.
You've been doing it for years with rallies and on videos and just in the community.
So I salute you for running in the campaign and I look forward to watching your results on election night.
Good luck out there, my friend.
Ezra, thanks so much.
And for all your viewers, you can follow me at RoughneckNation, R-U-F-F Neck Nation.
That's on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat.
Go to my website.
If you guys know anyone, GP that wants to help out.
I'd love to have the help.
Roughneck Nation could use some help.
And as well, if you want to donate, go to my website.
And you can donate there super easy.
But otherwise, I just want to say thanks, Ezra.
I really appreciate what you, Sheila, and Kian do in Alberta.
And yeah.
Thanks for the well wishes, and I'm going to be out there.
Hopefully, your viewers in Grand Prairie will see me around.
All right, there you have it.
Roughneck Nation, a.k.a. Bernard Hancock.
Nice to see you.
Thank you so much, Ezra.
Right on.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Trudeau and the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Carol writes, too many people from SNC Lavalan are connected to Justin and the liberals.
Yeah, I just scratched the surface a bit yesterday.
I mean, their chairman is the former clerk of the Privy Council, Kevin Lynch.
How did that happen?
Frank Jacobucci works for both SNC Lavalan and Justin Trudeau.
How's that even possible?
Yeah, I think I'm increasingly of the view that Trudeau doesn't want that to go to trial for personal reasons.
Who knows?
Jen writes, you're right, Ezra Trudeau plays women against women.
That's class of passive-aggressive behavior.
That's what men who are cheating do when they're caught and kicked out by their wife.
Very interesting observation.
I think if you look at a lot of Justin Trudeau's personal style, it really tracks that of like a pickup artist, which he surely was for at least 30 years of his life.
I think he's a manipulator.
I think guys see through it.
I just keep coming back to that poll that Angus Reed did that only 25% of Canadian men would vote for Trudeau.
Only 25%.
I think some of it is ideological.
Men are more conservative than women, but I think it's stylistic.
It's aesthetic.
It's personality-based.
I think men see a sneaky male feminist liar manipulator.
And I think men actually have better radar to find those scammers than women do.
25% And Counting00:00:51
On my interview with Noah Alter, Bruce writes, I just signed the petition at standwithithaviva.com.
What angers me is how cowardly people are when these leftist thugs bully them and with names and fake news stories.
Yeah, calling them names for sure.
That's the thing.
I mean, I'm Jewish and I'm in Toronto, so I have some proximity to this story.
But I was just as mad.
You'll remember I did a show or two, maybe even, on the Covington Catholic School in Kentucky.
Same thing.
Good kids, high school kids in Washington for a field trip, sort of ideological field trip.
They were just good kids.
And then some left-wing mob went nuts on them and the school threw them under the bus.
And that happened here in Toronto.
And I think it's gross.
I think it's gross.
Well, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf, actually Monday, until Monday, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, you at home.