Justin Trudeau’s Bill C-69—with 345 pipeline mentions, $1M fines, and "Indigenous knowledge" and "gender-diverse analysis" shaping energy policy—undermines Alberta’s economy while exempting foreign imports like U.S. or Saudi oil. Whistleblowers like James DeMoan face retaliation for exposing conservative viewpoints, yet Google denies blacklists despite leaked evidence. Peter Thiel’s treason accusation against Google over Dragonfly and China ties highlights systemic risks, with tech giants operating beyond accountability. The episode reveals how Canada tests censorship while U.S. politicians struggle to reign in unchecked corporate power, leaving free speech vulnerable to selective enforcement and violent backlash. [Automatically generated summary]
It's the anti-pipeline law, although Trudeau's senator in Alberta, Paula Simon, says, no, no, no, it's got nothing to do with pipelines.
And if it does, it's even better than what Stephen Harper did.
I'll take you through that and prove that it's wrong.
But before I cork it and move on to the show, I'd be grateful if you considered becoming a subscriber to our premium content.
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All right, without further ado, here's today's podcast.
You're listening to a Robo Media Podcast.
Tonight, have you actually read Trudeau's new anti-pipeline law?
It's incredible.
I'll take you through it.
It's July 17th, 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 is government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I want to let you know how bad it is.
Sorry about that, but I think it's better to know than to not know, right?
I'm talking about Justin Trudeau's anti-pipeline law.
New Anti-Pipeline Law Revealed00:15:15
It's officially proclaimed now.
It's formally called an act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
That's its name.
That's the long name.
But you've probably heard more about it as C69, which was its name when it was a bill moving through Parliament.
I've told you about it probably a dozen times before, mainly in passing, mainly showing you two video clips from Catherine McKenna, the out-of-control environment minister who championed the bill.
I've shown you an excerpt from a Twitter video published by McKenna where she talks about how gender analysis and Aboriginal folklore and other things like that will now have a veto over pipelines and other industrial projects.
Here, here's a slightly longer version of the clip that I've shown you before.
Projects decisions will be based on science, evidence, and Indigenous traditional knowledge.
There will be more opportunities for Canadians like you to have a say in reviews for projects that concern you.
You'll have better access to science and will make easy to understand summaries and decisions publicly available.
We'll work in partnership with Indigenous peoples on project reviews from the start and recognize their rights.
This is one way we're following through on our commitment to reconciliation and it will lead to better project decisions in the long run.
We're putting forward a single agency in charge of all federal impact assessments for major projects.
This will make sure the approach is fair, consistent, and more efficient.
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.
The changes that we're making will make this whole review system more open and straightforward, and we'll get to decisions that are both more trustworthy and more timely so we can get good projects built and create jobs and communities across Canada.
Really, eh?
So Bringing in traditional folklore and gender analysis, that's going to make decision-making faster and more science-y and more trustworthy.
You can tell she's never done anything real in real life.
Just never.
A life of chatter, of voyeurism, of being a rootless critic, jet-setting everywhere, endlessly repeating shallow, hollow talking points, clichés, never had to actually do anything.
There's not one builder in Trudeau's cabinet, not one doer, not one employer, not one person who created something by himself or herself, who risked their own money, who mortgaged their own house, borrowed from their life savings to start something.
No one who, when payroll came around, had to skip their own paycheck to pay their staff.
No one had to deal with red tape and then more red tape and then so much red tape that they had to hire someone, an accountant, a lawyer, just to handle all the red tape.
No, not one.
If they had, they'd know how insane this all is.
It was so nuts that even Don Martin, himself, a lifelong chatterbox at CTV, even he couldn't believe it.
Seriously?
Gender analysis on pipelines?
Gender impact?
How's that fitting into a pipeline approval process?
So I'm really glad you asked that because I think people are like, well, what is this gender thing?
Well, imagine that you have a huge number of people going to a remote community, many men.
What is the impact on the community?
What is the impact on women in the community?
And actually, once again, smart proponents understand this.
So they're going to put measures in place.
That's all it is.
It's just taking a smart approach to thinking about, okay, what's going to be the impact of a major development in a particular area?
Yeah, come on.
I mean, everyone's smart knows what it means.
I mean, I've never built anything.
I've never run anything other than my mouth.
But come on, smart people know the answer that you do gender analysis on pipelines.
I swear to God she said that because when it comes to judging whether or not a company is smart or a businessman is smart, Catherine McKenna, who has never run anything, she would know.
I can't help but remember when she was lecturing a great Canadian farmer named Megs Reynolds about farming.
So you know Catherine McKenna's an expert about mining and pipelines.
She's also an expert in farming, did you know?
Now, you can't farm without fossil fuels.
You just can't.
But Catherine McKenna told this farmer, duh, just farm smarter.
I guess she couldn't drop the gender analysis line on Megs, but look at this, a shallow, snide, Ottawa lovy telling a hardworking farmer, just farm smarter, to afford the carbon tax.
The biggest challenge as a farmer for me is going to be the carbon pricing because agriculture is pretty much the only industry where we don't get to pass on that additional cost to our operation.
So carbon pricing is going to be an extremely challenging bill for a lot of farmers to be able to deal with.
She can't raise the price of her grain or she'll be forced out of the market.
So like maybe this explains why you've got all the prairie premiers basically saying, or most of them saying, we don't want a carbon price.
How do you win over farmers like her?
And look, if anyone understands the impacts of climate change, it's farmers.
Our system will give more money back to residents of that province than they will pay and will create the incentives for innovation.
And I've seen amazing innovations in farming, for example.
Zero-till agriculture, using less water, using smart technologies, artificial intelligence to figure out how you can use less fertilizer, how you can do a better job tilling, how you can get better results.
We can all do this.
But if we don't, the impact will be dire on farms.
I think I just lost 10 IQ points listening to that.
Be smarter, use artificial intelligence to figure the answer out, so like I'm just going to tax you a little bit and you're just going to be smarter.
That's the cabinet ministry.
But my point today is that's how bad C69 was when it was introduced as a bill.
And of course it goes without saying this would only apply to Canadian industry.
That's sort of a point Megs was making there.
Imports don't have to pay these crazy taxes or go through these crazy regulations.
So there would be no gender analysis or Aboriginal analysis or queer analysis or feminist analysis on oil brought in from the United States by rail or oil bought in, brought in from Saudi Arabia by tankership.
No extra permits required for them, just for Canadian producers.
Imagine passing a law that would harm Canadians but exempt foreign oil producers.
That's what Megs Reynolds says Catherine McKenna is doing to farmers.
Well, she wants to do it to oil and gas too.
So it was an outrage, C69.
It's the war on the West.
It's the war on Alberta.
It's a war on oil and gas, war on entrepreneurs.
It's like Pierre Trudeau's national energy program.
Now that was done in the name of energy nationalism, if you can believe it.
This time it's being done in the name of what exactly?
Global warming, feminism, whatever.
But look, a Trudeau is going to Trudeau.
Catherine McKenna with her fake Kardashian acts, and she's as shallow as a puddle.
But what about people who are supposed to, you know, stand up for Alberta and its core industry?
What about, say, Alberta's senators?
Well, here's what Paula Simons, one of Trudeau's hand-picked senators in Alberta, wrote on Facebook.
Let me read a fair bit of it because it's too long to read it all, but I want to read a chunk of it.
She had just voted for C69, and she was rightly being denounced as a sellout.
Someone who put her personal loyalty to Justin Trudeau, because Trudeau gave her a free, luxurious job for life.
So she's putting her loyalty to Trudeau above her loyalty to her own province and her own neighbors.
And frankly, her loyalty to the truth takes second place.
So here's what she wrote on Facebook.
She said, so much confusion and misinformation out there about the final votes on C48 and C69, just off the plane, but here's an excerpt from text of the letter I've been sending out to people today to try to explain.
You may know that I was a member of the Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources as an Alberton.
And as a committee member, I had a special responsibility to research and study Bill C-69 and consider its impact on Canadian industry, on the Canadian environment, and on Canada's relations with its Indigenous communities.
I spent months meeting with stakeholders and lobbyists and listening to witnesses at hearings across the country.
I traveled to Vancouver, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, St. John's, Halifax, St. John, and Quebec City to hear from citizens, politicians, scientists, environmentalists, Indigenous leaders, and representatives of dozens of different industries.
In the end, our committee forwarded a suggested 187 amendments to the House of Commons to address many of the flaws we found in the legislation.
I was pleased, relieved, and not a little surprised when the government accepted 99% of those amendments, not 99%, sorry, 99, in whole or in part.
This was unprecedented in Canadian political history.
Never before in 152 years has any government accepted so many amendments to any bill.
I love you, Justin Trudeau.
Sorry, I added that last part.
Eletta goes on at some length, but here's how she ended it.
But will Bill C-69, as amended, make it easier for good projects to get approved than is the case right now?
Will it make it possible to get projects built while still protecting the environment?
And does it offer a way forward, a way for proponents to work with First Nations communities to get projects built?
Yes, that's why I voted in favor of the bill.
Thursday night, we also voted on C-48, the controversial tanker ban bill.
I have long opposed C-48, and I voted against it last night.
It was a close vote, 49 to 46.
It was frustrating to get that close to defeating the bill only to see it pass.
But I fought my hardest for Alberta without apology.
I'm the best.
So C-69, you saw me read it.
She's saying it will actually make it easier to get pipelines built.
She said that.
You saw me read it.
Is that true?
No.
No, not in reality.
I'll take you through the final version of the bill, the one that was proclaimed as law.
It was just finally posted by Parliament a few days ago.
For some reason, Parliament didn't publish that final version with the amendments until just a few days ago.
I'll show you them.
But just one last thing.
I want to show you Alberta's noisiest senator, Paula Simons.
She used to be a left-wing pundit from the Edmonton Journal.
She was given her reward from the Liberals for a lifetime of liberal journalism by giving the taskless thanks of being a senator for life.
Nice gig, if you can get it.
Paula Simons could never win an election in Alberta.
She's just too far outside the mainstream hard left.
But with Trudeau on her side, she doesn't need to win elections, and she returns the favor to him every day.
Here, listen to this.
This is a Trudeau senator, Paula Simons, on the Trudeau CBC, telling Albertans that this anti-pipeline bill, C-69, is so great that she's proudly voting for it.
Well, I think this is really proof of what the new Senate can do, that we have the authority, the moral and political authority to say to the government, this is inadequate.
These are serious problems.
Here are some serious solutions.
And to have the government listen, that's really quite historic.
Wow.
I didn't know we had a new Senate.
I just learned that right there.
And it's historic what happened there.
Now, she says the bill isn't just great for oil and gas.
She says it's proof that Justin Trudeau really cares about Albert.
He's really listening, people.
Now, even the CBC had trouble buying that.
But Paula Simons knows that any critics of this bill are just stupid, unlike her.
Take a look at this.
On the street.
They know what it is.
They think they know what it is.
They know what they've been told that it is.
By whom?
By the politicians.
In some cases, by the media.
I mean, believe me, I have read Bill C69.
Some of the things that people think are in it are just not there.
Yeah, the little people, they can be so dumb, aren't they?
I mean, she read it, and you're wrong, and she's right.
And she's a Trudeau senator, so she would never lie to you.
Now, like I say, she was a lifelong left-wing journalist.
That is little preparation for being a senator, other than, I guess, you talk a lot, like Catherine McKenna talks a lot, and the rest of Trudeau's team talks a lot.
Paula Simons, though, like them, has never actually built anything, but she thinks maybe she talks enough, that's all that matters.
I honestly believe, I'm quoting her tweet here, I honestly believe this bill, as amended, will be better for industry proponents than the status quo.
But C-69 has no impact on conventional drilling or in-situ or oil prices.
I just want to show you a few more of these tweets.
She actually, you saw there again, C-69 will actually help companies.
It's a plus.
It's a bonus.
Let me read another tweet.
It's a lot better and better than the status quo.
Senators can't just block legislation because it needs fine-tuning.
We defer to the elected House.
We push back when things are dire, and they were.
C-69, as written, was a bad bill.
We made big improvements.
She wrote that just two weeks ago.
Now, hang on, she just said it was good.
Now she says it was awful, but it's simply less awful after the amendments.
I'm not sure if both of those can be true at the same time.
Well, I guess we know which side she landed on because she positively voted for C69 in the end.
She said, just so you aren't surprised, I will be voting in favor of C69 tonight.
I did not support the bill as it first came to us.
The 99 amendments accepted by the government, amendments agreed to by conservatives, independents, liberal, and unaffiliated senators, improved it hugely.
Wow, improved it hugely, eh?
And she's actually saying it was more pro-pipeline than anything that Stephen Harper did.
Look at this tweet.
Patty and I aren't liberals, and C-69, as amended and rewritten, is far more likely to get pipelines built that had Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012.
That was Stephen Harper's law.
Just one more tweet from Trudeau's senator in Alberta.
But C-69 doesn't mean no pipelines.
If anything, it should make new pipelines easier to approve.
The problem we have is that Transmountain expansion was waylaid, and Line 3 and Keystone are being held up south of the border.
Okay.
So this bill makes it easier for pipelines to be approved.
Transgender Law Tweeted00:04:29
Is that true?
Is that true?
All right, enough chatter from a chatterbox know-nothing in a Trudeau government full of chatterbox know-nothings run by Trudeau, himself at Chatterbox Know-Nothing.
Let's actually look at the law, okay?
Something I honestly don't think Paula Simons has done.
I don't think she's read it, at least all the way through.
I just don't think she has, because I don't think she could say those things if she had.
See, the other day I tweeted out the transgender part of the bill.
I'm not even kidding.
Look at my tweet.
I said, Alberta's unelected senator, Paula Simons, voted for C69, Trudeau's anti-pipeline bill.
Here's the law, and I have a link to it.
Six times it says no pipelines will be built that don't take into account how groups of women, men, and gender diverse people may experience policies.
And you can see there, I actually have a screenshot.
I copied the part of the law that says pipeline regulars must now take into consideration sex and gender and other identity factors before approving a pipeline.
I know it's crazy.
So that's what I tweeted about a month ago.
But Paula Simons denied it.
She said this.
She wrote back.
She said, I believe that is a year-old version before 99 amendments.
I did not support that original bill.
Okay, is that true?
That whole transgender thing, is that one of the things that she did not support, would not support was amended by her 99 amendments.
Is it true?
All the things that Paula Simons, the Trudeau senator in Alberta, says.
She said the bill isn't really even about pipelines, really.
She said, oh, those bad things were just in an old version.
That her 99 amendments improves things a lot.
That this will make pipeline approvals easier than it was under Stephen Harper.
Is that true?
No, it is not true.
Let's look at the law.
As you can see, Parliament has finally posted the final version of the bill that was proclaimed as law.
You can see the bottom there says assented to.
That's the Governor General saying that's a law.
Let's start by testing a few of Paula Simons' statements.
She says it's not a pipeline law.
She said that endlessly.
Really?
I did a word search of the document.
It's 365 pages.
It's huge, by the way.
Imagine thinking the 365 pages of new rules will make it faster to get anything approved.
365 new pages of rules.
That's what someone who has never run a lemonade stand, let alone a pipeline company, would say.
This 365 page chunk of red tape is going to help your life.
Anyways, I use the word search function on my computer because it's 365 pages long.
And I know I'm shocked like you are.
Trudeau's senator is lying.
The word pipeline is in there actually 345 times if you do a word search, which I did.
You know, Pipeline Claims Tribunal is in there.
It describes punishments for pipelines, sentencing respecting releases from pipelines.
It talks about pipelines exhaustively.
Why did she say it doesn't?
Oil is mentioned 130 times.
Gas is mentioned 144 times.
Why did she say this really isn't a pipeline law?
Oh, and it's a prison law, too.
Did you know that?
Did you know that this law, C-69, contains fines of up to $1 million and prison terms of up to five years?
The word imprisonment, the word imprisonment is in this law 21 times.
Here's just one example.
I'm just going to read one example.
Offense and punishment.
Everyone who contravenes an order made under subsection 951 or 2 or a regulation made under Section 996 is guilty of an offense and liable on conviction on indictment to a fine of not more than a million dollars or imprisonment for a term of not more than five years or to both or on summary of conviction to a fine of not more than $100,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than one year or to both.
Oh, hey guys, a Trudeau senator just told us there's absolutely nothing wrong with the law and if you say there's a problem with the law, you're uninformed.
Just don't trip the wire of those 20 things that will get you sent to prison.
But let me come back to the crazy thing I showed you right at the beginning.
Government Must Consider Traditions00:03:31
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.
So is that all that crazy stuff?
Is that still in there?
That was the part I tweeted the other day that Senator Paula Simons said, no, no, no, that's outdated.
No, no, no.
We fixed that with 99 amendments.
I would never support that.
I mean, who told you that?
No, no, she's pulling a Trudeau on you.
Let me read this.
This is the law, the final version assented to last month that Paula Simons voted for against her own province, against her own people, out of loyalty to Justin Trudeau.
Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
Yeah, that Trudeau.
So that's who Paula Simons is loyal to.
Let me read at some length from the law as passed.
These are the new factors that the government must consider.
The word must is in there.
Not could, not should, not maybe, not can.
They must.
The government must consider.
Let me read it.
Factors to consider.
The Commission must make its recommendation taking into account, in light of, among other things, any Indigenous knowledge that has been provided to the Commission and scientific information and data.
All considerations that appear to it to be relevant and directly related to the pipeline, including the environmental effects, including any cumulative environmental effects, the safety and security of persons and the protection of property and the environment.
Okay, so good so far.
The health, social, and economic effects, including with respect to the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.
I'll stop there for a moment.
Of course, the Commission should take into account environmental effects.
That's the whole point of this Commission.
Of course, people should be protected.
Of course, we don't want danger.
Those are criteria one and two.
But the third one, the very third one, is transgenderism and other identity factors.
Black Lives Matter, Hispanic rights, whatever, being gay, being what identity grievances are hardwired into the law, and the government must take them into account.
Transgenderism is specifically in there.
And even that first part, Indigenous knowledge plus scientific information.
Well, which one is it?
I know what folklore is.
I know what cultural customs are.
We all have our ethnic and religious and spiritual traditions.
And I love Aboriginal traditions, by the way.
But those traditions don't include building pipelines.
How can the law, the binding law, say that the Commission must, not can, not should, but must listen to Aboriginal folklore about building a pipeline.
What does that even mean?
Who decides what that folklore is?
Which sources?
Which traditions?
On what authority?
There were no books.
And Paula Simons says this will make approving pipelines easier than before.
Cruz's Platform Concerns00:15:27
This is better than it was under Stephen Harper.
And you know the proof, just like all the construction on the Transmountain expansion.
Oh, right, that hasn't happened.
In fact, for the first time in memory, according to the National Energy Board, Canada's oil production is actually shrinking.
It's less than it was.
While the United States is producing so much, it's now a net energy exporter.
It even exports oil to Canada.
And Paula Simons and her bosses, Justin Trudeau and Catherine McKenna, are just fine with that American oil coming in, regardless of what transgender intersectionality or indigenous folklore have to say about that American oil.
Yeah, Paula Simons, you are a liar, just like your boss, Justin Trudeau, is a liar.
And you both do everything in your power to undermine Alberta, including passing a new law that makes new construction of pipelines impossible in any practical sense.
You both are destroyers of the industry and therefore destroyers of Alberta families.
I suppose in that way, that makes Trudeau a bit more honest about himself than you, doesn't it?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, as you know, one of our chief stories for the last two years has been censorship by the oligopoly of tech giants in Silicon Valley that run so much of our lives.
I mean, try for a moment to think of how you could even exist without Google, YouTube, Gmail, that's one company.
Without Facebook, Instagram, that's another company.
Without Twitter, Microsoft, just a handful of companies control so much information, so much communication.
Being deplatformed is like being de-personed, but it's almost just as bad if you haven't been deplatformed because you are being shaped.
And what you see is a filtered version of reality.
And I think that censorship is coming quite quickly.
In Canada, I think we'll see it faster than in the United States because I think they're going to test out their censorship of right-wing voices in the Canadian federal election in October as a prototype for how they're going to deal with the American election in 2020.
Just a quick anecdote before I introduce our guests today.
I recently received an email from Twitter announcing a new product.
It's a censorship product that they're rolling out in Canada to test.
Well, obviously, that's because of our election.
It allows politicians like Justin Trudeau, Catherine McKenna, politicians who hate being mocked by people on Twitter, and they're mocked all the time.
It allows them to silence people from replying to their tweets.
Not just, I mean, right now, anyone on Twitter can block their ability to see mean things said about them.
And I support that, by the way.
But this would allow these politicians to block other people. from seeing these mean replies.
That is how Twitter plans to control the Canadian election.
It'll be interesting to see what else they do.
The reason I tell you all this is because at least in the United States, at least some quarters of the Republican Party are somewhat concerned about censorship and about the bending and the filtering of reality in a way designed to change our political views.
And joining us now to talk about the latest hearings on Capitol Hill is our friend Alan Bokhari, the senior tech editor of Breitbart.com.
Alam, great to see you again from the city where yesterday.
Hi, it's great to see you.
Thanks for being here.
Tell me about yesterday's hearings.
So yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz chaired a hearing with Google on Google and censorship.
And it's a topic Cruz has been a leader on.
I think he was the first senator to come out and say there's a big incompatibility in the law in which tech companies are able to claim the legal privileges of neutral platforms in which they get legal immunity from user-generated content while also claiming the rights for publisher to editorialize and generally act in a non-neutral manner.
Cruz's argument is that, and I think this is backed up in the law, that if you're going to be a neutral platform and claim that special perk that basically renders you immune from any kind of lawsuit related to content posted on your platform, then you need to behave like a neutral platform and not take sides politically.
So, you know, if the rebel media posted something defamatory, they could get sued for that.
But if something defamatory is posted on Twitter or Facebook, then they can't be sued because of this law.
And Cruz's point, and now Josh Hawley's point as well, and multiple Republican senators and congressmen are making this point.
If you want that special perk from the government, you're going to have to have some obligations attached with it.
And the most obvious obligation is if you're going to be a neutral platform, you should behave neutrally.
So that was one of the topics that was brought up in the hearing.
Senator Cruz also cited my report on the good censor, which is a document I obtained and released from Google last year, in which the company admits that both Google and YouTube and other tech companies as well have all shifted towards censorship over the past two years,
two to three years, which is an interesting time period because, you know, what happened two to three years ago, I wonder what could have kicked off this mass panic and this massive censorship at Silicon Valley.
Maybe some political event that happened two or three years ago.
Who knows?
Yeah, that's right.
Well, of course, I think the tech companies missed Brexit.
They didn't quite get it what happened there.
Everyone, all the establishment missed Brexit.
It wasn't until that same wave put Trump in the Oval Office that they panicked.
Here, I want to show a quick clip of Ted Cruz asking Google's vice president about your scoop, The Good Censor, which is how Google sees itself.
Here, take a quick look at that.
It is a document that at least purports to be authored by Google.
The title of the document is The Good Censor.
How can Google reassure the world that it protects users from harmful content while still supporting free speech?
And it's dated March of 2018.
Is this document in fact a document that was prepared within Google?
I've seen the document before, Senator.
I've seen references to it.
I understand that it was, yeah.
Okay.
Is this document prepared within Google?
Is it accurate?
Is Google engaged in, and the terms used, are censorship and moderation.
And moderation in this context, I understand not to mean being moderate, but rather actively moderating the speech that occurs.
Is that in fact what Google is doing, which is censoring and moderating speech on its platform?
So I would not say that we are censoring speech on our platform.
In fact, there is a dramatic, you know, there's the, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, remarkable opportunities for every part of the political spectrum to be able to participate through online, through the online platforms.
Well, Alam, congratulations on your reporting.
It's a real feather in your cap to have your scoop color hearings.
Tell me about one of the other lines of questioning for Google, namely their blacklists for search results.
You know, it sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory, but it's actually how they do things.
Can you tell us a little bit about that and then we'll throw to a clip?
Absolutely.
And, you know, the other thing I'd say about my reporting is that it all relies on these very brave sources in Silicon Valley who come forward and blow the whistle on wrongdoing within their companies.
And they're taking a huge risk by doing that because Google will and other tech companies will fire you with the slightest hint of conservative viewpoints.
James DeMoan, who isn't even a conservative, is a former software engineer who was fired from Google simply for expressing mainstream views about gender and suggesting there needs to be more political diversity at Google.
He was fired for that.
So these sources are taking a huge risk by coming forward, but they're doing it anyway because they know there's a whole lot of bias at these companies and it's having a massive impact on American politics and the American public need to hear about it.
But to return to your question, another key point in the hearing, I think, was when Marsha Blackburn was questioning one of the Google representative and the Google representative specifically denied that the company uses blacklists.
He did that twice because Blackburn asked him to repeat it.
And I don't know how he interprets blacklists, but I reported a few months ago that Google maintains this file called YouTube underscore controversial underscore query underscore blacklist.
So they have a file with a big list of search terms and they've called that file a blacklist.
So I don't know how Google's representative can go before the Senate and say the company doesn't use blacklists.
Yeah.
Well, if you're a company that's, I don't know, not quite a trillion dollars in market cap, but getting there, I suppose you think you have impunity.
I mean, what's the government going to do?
Sue you for lying?
Here, let's take a quick look at that exchange.
Has Google ever blacklisted or attempted to blacklist a company, group, individual, or outlet from its advertising partners or its search results for political reasons?
No, ma'am, we don't use blacklists, whitelists to influence our search results.
For what reason does Google blacklist a company?
As I said, per your previous question, we do not utilize blacklists or whitelists in our search results to favor political outcomes.
It's not, it doesn't happen.
Well, Alam, I find it encouraging that senators and some congressmen are sharpening their inquiries.
I remember the first wave of these hearings, Facebook attended.
You had senators and congressmen who obviously do not use the internet intimately, are not familiar with the problems, and were asking questions that sounded like they were written by staffers and they just didn't.
The questions weren't sharp and they betrayed that the question askers really didn't believe or understand the file.
I sense that with Senator Hawley in particular, but also Ted Cruz and Marshall Blackburn, that these people are starting to get it.
And they also know that the tech companies are, as you just indicated, the liars.
And so I think they're taking more of an adversarial cross-examination style of inquiry.
Would you agree with that?
I think so.
I don't think they care about lying to Congress or not even showing up to Congress.
I mean, on a number of occasions, Google simply hasn't shown up to these hearings and they've just put an empty chair there.
I think they don't care because even when governments like in Europe especially do find these companies, the fines aren't nearly high enough that it would actually do serious damage to these companies.
You know, these companies can take the fines.
You know, we're talking about big fines for like antitrust and competition violations.
These companies have like been totally fine.
They've just taken that on the nose.
So something like misrepresenting what their companies do to Congress is a much lower offense in their eyes than antitrust or competition.
They know nothing is really going to happen to them, especially when they do so much spending on Capitol Hill with lobbying and they have so many friends in Congress.
I mean, keep in mind, yeah, we're talking about two or three senators, less than a dozen congressmen who are active criticizing these companies.
You know, think about all the congressmen who are just totally silent on Google and Facebook.
Is there even a majority for regulating them in either of the houses?
I'm not even sure that exists.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I mean, these tech companies are now by far the largest spender on lobbyists in Washington.
Was it Facebook?
You mentioned an antitrust fine.
I just glanced at the headline.
Was it a $5 billion fine that Facebook was dinged and their stock immediately went up because I think the market said, what?
That's it?
Like, that's like an hour's worth.
I don't know, it's a little more than an hour's worth.
But, you know, as that's not even a flesh wound to a company of that size.
Am I right on that number?
Yeah, it was $5 billion.
But as you said, Facebook is such a huge company that $5 billion is a drop in the bucket for them.
I mean, I think it was Marshall Blackman at the hearing who said, you know, that was way too low.
It should have been 50 billion.
Like, those are the numbers we're talking about to actually do damage to a company like Facebook.
So they're actually, you know, take notice of what governments and politicians are saying and not just continue as they were before.
But even then, you have a problem because what do most politicians want?
They want to censor their opponents.
Most politicians don't care about free speech, especially in Europe and Canada and also in America.
I mean, Ted Ted Cruz called that hearing, but the ranking Democrat, Senator Hirono, did a weird thing where she simultaneously claimed censorship doesn't exist on social media while also demanding that they do more of it and take down objectionable videos.
So there are plenty of politicians who will use their power to demand more censorship from these companies, not less.
We see that here in the Canadian example you mentioned.
I tell you, Alan.
I know you're based in Washington, D.C. Obviously, that's the power capital of the world.
And I know your eyes are on San Francisco.
Obviously, that's the tech capital of the world.
But I ask you to cast a glance north of the 49th parallel from time to time, because up here is their dark laboratory where they are going to test these things out, not only on the tech side, as that Twitter example I just mentioned, but also on the legislation and regulatory side.
I think in some ways we are as bad as Europe, maybe not as bad as Germany, but we are certainly their lab for what they're going to do to America.
Last point, because there was a tiny flicker of hope that crossed my Twitter feed the other day, Donald Trump himself likes a few folks in Silicon Valley, including a very interesting and idiosyncratic tech billionaire named Peter Thiel.
PayPal, I think he was actually one of the first investors, if I'm not mistaken, in Facebook itself, if memory serves.
I think he put in the first, I think he was the first person to put in six figures.
Thiel was saying that Google should be investigated for treason.
Let me show you Trump's tweet and then you can explain.
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel believes Google should be investigated for treason.
Google's Censorship Controversy00:03:14
He accuses Google of working with the Chinese government, a great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone.
The Trump administration will take a look.
Well, listen, if tweets were laws, we'd have a wall by now, Alam.
So I've learned to take some of Trump's tweets with a green of salt.
But I thought that was a very interesting point by Trump.
Do you think anything will come of it?
Well, it was like Thiel made this point in a speech a few days ago, and it was a very powerful speech condemning Google in very, very strong terms.
So Google executives yesterday denied accusations that the company has been infiltrated by China.
But Ezra, I've talked to people inside Google who say that the safeguards they've built to stop the people in China and people linked to the Chinese government from accessing their technology is just totally ineffective.
So, you know, Google has denied these things before.
Tech companies always deny wrongdoing.
We have to investigate to find out what they're actually doing.
And we know that they built Dragonfly.
They were working on this censored search app for the Chinese market that was designed to be in line with the demands of the Chinese government.
So we know that they'll work with the Chinese military.
They won't work with the U.S. military.
So I think there's a lot of basis to what Peter Thiel is saying.
You know, there was a great Canadian tech company when Ottawa was a real hub of technological development, BlackBerry, JDS, Uniphase.
There was a lot going on in Canada about 15 years ago.
And one of the champions of industry was called Nortel.
And they were destroyed by Chinese hacking.
And I heard someone try and explain Google and their approach to China by saying Google has decided to sell their censorship and technology to China out the front door rather than to have it stolen from them from the back door.
I mean, that's basically the choice these companies make.
Do a Nortel and be destroyed by China, or give it to China and hope they pay you.
Either option is terrible.
Maybe Trump is the only person who hates Silicon Valley enough and hates Chinese communists enough to deal with both problems.
Last point to you, Alam.
What do you think of that?
Absolutely.
That's one of the big issues of the Trump administration.
And it's not just about Silicon Valley either.
Like all the globalists who opposed Trump in finance, in business, the big donors, you know, since the 1990s, they've been told by people who advised them that, you know, China's the next big opportunity to invest in China.
So they've got a vested interest in keeping good relations between China and the U.S., even if China was using all these links to sell us technology that spies us, you know, steal intellectual property.
undermine trade, all of this stuff.
The globalists don't care because they have a lot of potential profit in keeping that market open.
And Google's no exception.
So I absolutely think that Peter Thiel is on the money there, and it's something that should continue to be talked about.
Flight Issues Exposed00:03:11
Yeah.
Well, listen, it's great to get an update from you, a catch-up.
Sounds like things are interesting in Washington.
In Canada, I should tell you, not one politician, not even in the Conservative opposition party, will even speak out against social media censorship, let alone hold hearings, let alone introduce some legislation.
It is absolute total submission in this country, Alam.
So we look to the land of the First Amendment to save us all.
And I'm sure you do too.
We all can hear your British accent.
So you have moved to a freer place than from where you came.
And hopefully we can save our freedoms up here.
Great to see you again, my friend.
Good to see you, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Alan Bokari, the most important journalist in the world, in my view, on the most important beat in the world, in my view, namely Silicon Valley oligarchs, billionaires of the left, telling you not only what you can say, but what you can see, hear, and think.
Stay with us.
more ahead on The Rebel.
On my monologue yesterday about Trudeau's cabinet minister, Dominic LeBlanc, Deborah writes, the liberals continue to gorge on the public dime.
There are no rules for the liberal elite.
Yeah.
Hey, anybody remember Bevota's $16 orange juice?
That got her kicked out of cabinet.
I showed you a flight that Trudeau spent over $100,000, it was $142,000, on food and drink on one flight.
How do you even do that?
I don't know how many seats there are on the big government jet.
Are there 50 seats?
How do you spend $3,000 per person on food for a flight?
How do you even do that?
There's some funny business going on there.
On my interview with Kian Beckstee, Edward writes, nice to see they used Keenan's clip on Hannity and Laura Ingram's show tonight.
Yeah, it's been all over Fox News the day before it was on Tucker Carlson.
He was just asking questions Americans hadn't.
Stephen writes, Keen is pretty good and very persistent.
Watch out for Antifa.
You know, that's good advice.
They'll probably come to hurt him one day.
And it's good for us to be on alert.
We do take the security of our staff seriously because so many of them have been attacked by the left.
Look, if congressmen won't answer the question, will you renounce violence?
Well, that's the moral role models.
Congress, I mean, that's pretty close to the top of the public sector moral example pyramid in America.
If a congressman, if congressman after congressman refuses to renounce anti-fo-violence, why should an ordinary political activist?
Well, that's our show for today.
We've got some big news tomorrow for you, my friends.
It's news about a big battle that is maybe our biggest ever.