Maxime Bernier’s "stop mass immigration" billboard—legally paid for by a third-party group—was torn down after CBC-led liberal journalists and unions like Unifor pressured the city, despite 50% of Canadians opposing current levels. Polls show skepticism, yet critics silence debate by labeling opposition racist, while Ontario’s Stephen Leckie misrepresented the message to avoid backlash. Meanwhile, Catherine McKenna’s carbon tax admissions—$50/ton by 2022, later $300—exposed its revenue-driven flaws, burdening Canada’s 2.5% of global emissions while China and India lag. A leaked Ontario Liberal questionnaire urged her to stop discussing it, yet the party clings to unpopular policies tied to the Paris Accord, giving Pierre Poilievre’s bold opposition a strategic edge. Trump’s "be nice" retweet of Bernier’s critique of Trudeau hints at deeper approval, while Pompeo’s team sidelined Canadian journalists, reflecting shifting global perceptions of Canada’s political and media establishment. [Automatically generated summary]
A billboard bought and paid for by a registered campaign group, contract signed with the billboard company Pattison Outdoor, that simply said, stop mass immigration, was hounded off the sign by a Twitter mob led by the CBC State broadcaster.
And I don't care what you think about immigration, if you believe in free speech, that's wrong.
That's what I talk about.
I wish you could see the video of it because I show you a lot of things.
I show you the billboard.
I show you media coverage.
But I get it.
You're listening to a podcast, so you use the imagination, the theater of the mind.
But can I invite you to become a premium subscriber?
You get the video version of the podcast, too.
And you get Sheila Gunrid's podcast show, TV show, and David Menzies' TV show.
And it's all for just $8 a month, and that helped pays the bills.
So go to the rebel.media slash shows.
$8 a month or $80 for the whole year.
You can even get a discount if you want by using podcasts as the coupon code.
And get the video version of today's show.
And I wrap up today's show by talking about Donald Trump's tweet.
We had a little banter on Twitter, as one does with the President of the United States.
All right, here's the show.
Tonight, liberal journalists force a political billboard to be taken down.
Third-Party Campaign Scrutiny00:02:43
Is that the state of Canadian democracy?
It's August 27th, 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 to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I'm sure you've seen this billboard.
It looks like it's a billboard from Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party, and that's his face, of course, and you can see his party's logo.
But as you can see by the small print underneath, that billboard is actually produced by a registered third-party campaign group for the upcoming election.
There were literally more than 100 such third-party campaign groups that registered with Elections Canada in 2015.
Most of them were environmental groups or public sector labor unions.
I've looked through this list several times, and I can just find one single pro-Harper group amongst it, and they didn't do much in the election.
The anti-Harper third-party groups did a lot, and they were very strategic in ridings where Harper and the Conservatives were vulnerable.
These third-party groups polled which of the parties had the best chance of winning, the Liberals or the NDP, and then they campaigned for that choice most likely to win.
This helped tip British Columbia into the liberal column.
It was used in other ridings across the country too.
It was very much underreported by the media because, like I was saying, 99% of these third-party groups are left-wing, so media party journalists don't think they need any scrutiny.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention the media party journalists themselves are also on the list of third-party campaign groups.
Look at that.
The Canadian Media Guild, Unifor, literally funded campaigns against Stephen Harper.
So those neutral, independent media party reporters who tell you what happened every night on the campaign trail, yeah, they're not neutral.
They are literally paying from their own pocket, from their own salaries in the form of union dues to campaign against Harper and against Andrew Scheer this time.
So they're biased.
I mean, you saw this tweet by Unifor.
They don't disclose their bias either.
When was the last time you saw a disclaimer after a media party journalist just trashes the conservatives on TV, saw a disclaimer that they personally contributed to an election campaign against the conservatives?
They are.
I mean, how is that really different from a journalist joining the Liberal Party and donating to the Liberal Party directly?
It's not different.
Well, my friends, if ethics were a thing to Canadian journalists, I don't think they'd be lining up, salivating for their kind of a $600 million bailout from Trudeau.
Media Bias Against Conservatives00:14:59
I mean, once you've decided to sell yourself for cash, I guess the only remaining question is what your price is and how far you will go.
And with Canadian journalists, we haven't actually found the bottom yet.
They seem to be willing to do anything for their new master.
I'll come back to the media party in a moment, but first, back to these third-party campaign signs that support Bernier.
They simply say say no to mass immigration.
That's it.
They don't say say no to all immigration, which is another point of view.
They don't say say no to immigration from terrorist-infested countries.
Or even they don't say say no to refugees.
They just say say no to mass immigration.
Mass means massive numbers, open borders style immigration.
You could probably include the 50,000 fraudulent refugees who've just walked across the illegal border crossing from New York State into Quebec in that mass.
I mean, 50,000 fakers and liars, as a matter of fact, and as a matter of law, if you are in the United States, you are not a refugee anymore.
But it's the 50,000 part that is the mass part.
Ahmed Hassan himself is a Muslim refugee from Somalia, and he has announced plans that he will bring in more than 1 million more migrants to Canada in the next three years, 40% of whom are uneconomic.
They're either old and sick or illiterate or refugees or in some other category.
Just bringing them in to join our already long lineups for hospital emergency rooms, for food banks and schools.
How do you feel about that?
We're sometimes told that we need mass immigration to do economic work in Canada, but if you're saying right from the outset that nearly half the people you're bringing in as immigrants are not economic and never will be, why are you lying?
It's the mass part.
Anyone who wonders why wages are depressed, why rents are high, why universities are crowded, why traffic is terrible, it's the mass part.
You can't add a million people to Canada in three years and expect those things not to happen.
Anyone who wonders why we don't have better integration and assimilation culturally, it's the mass part.
Because it's the mass part that allows enclaves where people can live as they lived back in Somalia or wherever.
I keep thinking of this video that Ami Horowitz did in Minnesota, but really you could film something identical in many parts of Toronto, Montreal too.
Have you ever seen this before?
If you had a choice, would you rather live here or rather live in the Muslim country?
I'd rather live in a Muslim country with my people.
Would you prefer to live in America or prefer to live in Somalia?
Well, to me, I think it's Somalia.
You'd prefer to live in Saudi Arabia.
Yeah.
Would you rather live in America or live in Somalia?
I would rather live in Somalia.
Of course, they don't mean that because they came from Somalia saying they were a refugee.
They like all the free stuff.
So yeah, you can be against mass immigration.
In fact, it's a bit unusual if you're not, I mean, statistically unusual, as Angus Reed's poll and really every other poll ever done shows.
Most Canadians think we have too many immigrants, just a few percent, 4%, 6%, depending on the poll, say we should actually increase our number, but about half say we should reduce our number, and the rest just don't know.
So that's going straight to the question of mass immigration or not.
Numbers too high or too low.
If you asked people if we should limit immigration from countries that are terrorist-infested failed states like Somalia, I bet the number would be even higher.
I bet if you asked now if, given that the Syrian civil war is largely over, If you asked if Syrian refugees who are no longer really refugees, if they should go back, I bet that number would be high too.
But it's not allowed in the narrative.
And so when this very simple, very underproduced billboard went up, say no to mass immigration, it was a shock not to normal Canadians who polls show think that way, but to the official keepers of the ideas, the media party, the political establishment.
I should point out that it's not just the CBC and the liberals who hated this billboard.
Timid, half-conservatives did too.
They know that mass immigration is politically deadly to conservative parties in the long run.
It's how the Democrats won California.
It's how the Democrats will win Texas.
They can't get voters to change their minds and be socialists, so they just bring in new voters from Mexico.
That's the way they do it in California and Texas.
The liberal plan in Canada couldn't be more explicit.
I don't know if you remember our story from a couple years back.
Syrian refugees to Canada literally were asked to sign releases, photo releases on the plane ride over to let Trudeau take a photo with them.
That was their most important purpose to Canada, to be campaign props for Trudeau, and obviously to vote for him too.
Duh.
That's why Trudeau goes to all the mosques, including mosques that have been associated with terrorist recruitment.
Listen to how Trudeau bragged a few years back about visiting, listen to him say it, the Asuna Wahhabi Mosque in Montreal that the Pentagon says was an al-Qaeda recruitment center.
Because I spend a lot of time running from the Bangladeshi to the Pakistani to the Maghadiya to the Asuna Wahhabi Mosque.
I cover all the different communities.
Including the terrorist community, I guess.
So yeah, Trudeau knows exactly what he's doing.
So does the media.
They're pushing mass immigration on Canadians over our democratic wishes.
Andrew Scheer typically refuses to fight on these grounds, as I've shown you before.
That was actually when Andrew Scheer turned against us and against me in particular.
I asked him some pointed questions about immigration five times in a row, and he just refused to answer.
Do you have anything to say about the Syrian migrants or about John McCallum's new numbers?
I mean, that's something that I think conservatives, maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of conservatives want to hear something on that.
Kelly Leach isn't talking about security.
She's talking about values.
What's your view on values?
So look, well, McCallum has said he's going to jack up the numbers probably by 100,000.
Do you oppose that?
Are you against that?
Kelly Leach has said before they get here, they should be some sort of a values screening.
Do you think we should ask any values-laden questions of people before they get here?
Well, just tell me your answer yourself.
Do you think, you're saying once people get here, integrate them, teach them.
I don't think anyone disagrees.
But before they even get here, should we ask them about their values?
Should we ask them about Canadian values before we let them in?
That was a lot of clips of me asking questions.
I encourage you to watch the whole video.
We didn't show his answers because they were not answers.
He didn't answer.
What was that, seven times I tried to press him on immigration?
He refused to answer.
And in recent months, he has said he is fine with Ahmed Hassan's numbers and he's fine with the countries from which he chooses.
So it's an opinion cartel going on in Canada.
None of the official parties want to talk about mass immigration.
Andrew Scheer quibbles about the processing of immigrants.
He wants it to be more orderly at the Roxham Road crossing, but he never quarrels with the quantity, the numbers, certainly not about the cultural fit.
No, no, no, never.
In fact, recently he proudly met with Omar Subedar.
He's the guy on the left there.
He's the Muslim Imam famous for instructions to Canadian Muslim men on how to properly beat your wife.
He really, that's his claim to fame.
So yeah, of course they kept Maxime Bernier out of the debates.
They didn't want someone talking about these things, but now they have to keep them off the billboards too.
And by they, you know who I mean.
I mean the establishment, the elites, the kind of people who don't really live in neighborhoods where every other woman is wearing a burqa.
They don't send their kids to schools where Canadian-born kids are the tiny minority.
They believe in mass immigration for the same reason that big business and the banks do, drive down the wages, drive up real estate prices, and keep voting liberal.
So these billboards have to be stopped.
And so the media party knew exactly what to do.
They do what they always do.
They don't debate.
I mean, that hasn't been fashionable in years.
You'd think the media seeing a controversy would help talk it out, help lead or host our national discussion on immigration.
No, What are you, in the 80s?
The media's job is to de-platform, not to platform.
Today's journalists believe very deeply in freedom of speech, but only for themselves.
Certainly not for anyone outside of their guild.
It's obviously worse now that they're all on Trudeau's bailout payroll.
So the media went on a campaign.
Here's the Calgary Herald.
And here's the Globe and Mail.
And here's the Toronto Star.
They all went on a campaign all weekend of huffing.
Here's the sun, huffing and puffing about how outrageous this was.
Here's CTV.
Oh, it's racist, by the way.
Very, very racist.
Yeah, no.
If this had said no black immigration or no Chinese immigration, it would be racist.
Maybe even say no Muslim immigration, even though Islam is not a race.
I could see how you could call that racist.
But this just said no mass immigration.
It goes to numbers.
How is quarreling over numbers?
How is that racist?
A political billboard along a busy Halifax highway warning Canadians to say no to mass immigration is being condemned by Premier Stephen McNeil and MP Andy Fillmore.
That's how this story in the Trudeau CBC state broadcaster starts.
It's true, McNeil is the Premier and Fillmore is an MP.
That is true.
But it's also true that they're Liberal Party members and Fillmore himself will be on the ballot against the People's Party in less than two months in the election.
It's weird how the CBC didn't identify them as liberals until later in the story, even though that's clearly on their mind.
If the CBC had run this as a quarrel between the People's Party and the Liberal Party, which is how a normal journalistic enterprise would have done it, that would be accurate, and it would put the disagreement into the realms of a policy debate between two different competing points of view.
But the whole mission here by the CBC was to denormalize and deplatform one side of the debate, not to have a debate.
No, no, no, no.
The CBC doesn't want a debate on immigration any more than they want a debate on global warming.
Case woes, right?
So this story was deliberately framed as everybody who's anybody versus some racist kooks.
Here's my favorite part.
The sign sparked criticism on Twitter.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is about 320 million busybodies chattering about anything and everything online.
It's like the comments section.
It's like Facebook.
Imagine using that as a news peg, as an authority.
The sign sparked criticism on Twitter.
Oh, well, then it must be controversial if some people out of 320 million said so.
That's not just lazy journalism.
It's covering the CBC's own agenda here.
No, we're not against it.
Some people on Twitter were mean.
That's why this is news.
This is a CBC hit piece, like all of their other hit pieces against Andershear and Maxine Bernier.
They're just using some guy on Twitter as cover for their own agenda.
Now, some conservatives, I regret to report, joined the online mob here, hoping that maybe the mob would go easy on them in return.
Here's an Ontario Conservative cabinet minister named Stephen Leckie.
He tweets, this sign is a few kilometers from where my mother, along with millions of enterprising newcomers, landed at Pier 21.
They chose this country in pursuit of freedom, opportunity, and democracy.
Our country needs skilled immigration.
And it needs less of this divisive rhetoric.
Yeah, but Stephen, the sign didn't say no to skilled immigration.
It said no to mass immigration.
And it's true that some immigrants come to Canada for freedom, opportunity, and democracy.
That's true.
Many don't.
Too many don't.
They come here for the freebies or the free health care or the easy welfare and they plan to maintain un-Canadian traditions not to join our freedom and democracy.
The fact that Leckie had to change the billboard's message before disagreeing with it shows maybe the truth of the billboard.
And it begs the question, Leckie isn't for mass immigration, is he?
Or is he?
Is he like Andrew Shear?
He just doesn't want to answer.
Anyways, he joined the Twitter mob, I guess.
Back to the CBC story.
They then did a deep dive into who this third party group was that financed the billboard, going into the names of the people involved, the dollar amounts, real investigative reporting.
Funny, I don't think I've ever seen them do that to say third parties that support, well, support mass immigration, like the CBC's journalism union's third-party campaign.
Why don't they ever investigate their own campaign groups or say those by David Suzuki?
Well, I'm just joking.
The question answers itself, doesn't it?
The CBC whipped up the Twitter outrage.
They whipped it up themselves, as did other media party and bailout media sites.
The CBC even got a Syrian migrant to talk about how badly his feelings were hurt by this sign.
They're campaigning.
He's not even a citizen, by the way, but he's Syrian and he started a chocolate company.
And the fact that he speaks English well and runs a company is so rare amongst Syrian migrants, 90% of them who are still unemployed, that he's very helpful to the establishment, that fellow.
Naturally, the CBC brought him out.
I mean, it's a campaign, right?
And the CBC is campaigning.
They're not reporting.
They are organizing.
At first, the billboard company, Paterson Outdoor, resisted this fake controversy, this manufactured Twitter mob.
I mean, they're not a publisher.
They're a billboard company.
They don't write what's on their signs.
They just rent space.
And anyone can rent that space.
In fact, their neutrality is an important part of functioning democracies.
Stop mass immigration is a pretty simple idea.
And I think it's the default idea, I think.
I mean, shouldn't you have to make the case for mass immigration if you want it?
Canadians have never really been asked.
Paterson stood firm at first.
I mean, after all, the message wasn't obscene.
It wasn't illegal.
It's clearly a political point of view.
They were paid.
Pattison can't get into the editing business on politics or on commercials.
But look, the establishment wants something.
The establishment's going to get something.
And within days, Paterson bent the knee.
They posted this groveling apology.
And they ripped up their signed contract with the third-party group that advertised.
Breach of contract out of cowardice.
Whipped up by the media, especially the state broadcaster.
It was journalists who censored that billboard, political journalists.
They didn't cover the billboard, which is what a journalist would do, report on it.
They campaigned against it, which is what a good liberal would do.
Donors Bullied Out of Democracy00:03:46
And then even more bizarrely, the third party group itself collapsed.
I don't even understand this part.
Look at this.
The third party advertising group behind billboards promoting Maxime Bernier and his stance on immigration is now distancing itself from the message saying it never signed off on the controversial campaign.
We completely disavow any sympathy with or support for the views expressed by donors who paid for and selected the content of their advertising, which we were mistakenly not afforded an opportunity to approve, Frank Smink, the head of True North Australia Free Advertising Corp, wrote in an email to the Canadian press on Monday.
Yeah, no, that's obviously not true.
I do not believe that a donor to Mr. Smink designed that ad and Mr. Smink bought it without looking at it.
You know, here at the Rebel, we put up a lot of billboards.
I like this one.
I don't know if you remember that one.
The billboard companies sell us the space.
They print the big poster and they glue it on the billboard, but they don't design it.
The artwork comes from the person buying the billboard.
It's not even that Pattison Outdoor would have gotten the third party campaign group's approval first.
It's the other way.
They would have been waiting for the third party to send them the artwork.
That last story doesn't make any sense at all, other than the only explanation I can think of, which is the donors, including Mr. Smink, were so bullied and so harassed by the media party that they thought, I can't even participate in democracy anymore.
I would like to participate in democracy, but I can't.
Like I say, there's zero scrutiny of left-wing third-party groups in Canada because the media party itself runs third-party groups.
There are even foreign entities running third-party groups.
Here's George Soros' group called Avaz.
They literally list their Broadway, New York office, which is illegal.
But this is from the Elections Canada website because Elections Canada's fine with that.
And no media care, but donate money to a no-mass immigration billboard.
Well, don't be surprised if the CBC shows up at your kids' school with journalists asking other parents how they feel.
They feel safe with their children playing with your racist children.
That's journalism today.
This isn't just the deplatforming of a billboard.
This isn't just the silencing of the majority view of Canadians.
It's the deliberate conditioning of Canadians that you just got to shut up and withdraw from the political playing field.
Get out of the public square if you don't buy into the official narrative.
Andrew Scheer has agreed to buy into the official narrative on mass immigration, on the threat of global warming, in the hopes that, I don't know, the big boys will let him play with them.
They're the cool kids.
Can he join?
I don't think it's going to work for him, but the media party likes the fact that they've house-trained him on global warming and on immigration, which is why the media party hates Maxime Bernier so much, an MP that they all used to rather like.
He's so charming, because these days he says things that they think you shouldn't be able to say.
You can disagree with the billboard.
You can disagree with Bernier.
You can disagree even with the existence of the People's Party, but to silence him and to shut down the billboard company and then to scare the donors.
Yeah, I'm sorry, that's not Canadian.
At least that's not what Canadian used to mean.
Stay with us for more.
Catherine McKenna's Carbon Tax Admission00:12:15
Why did Catherine McKenna stand up and deny that the tax would go above $50?
We know why.
Because they were trying to keep it secret until the election was over, when they no longer need voters, but still need their money.
But yesterday, I think she got a surprise question.
She accidentally told the truth, which is that taxes will be far higher under Trudeau than he admits today.
But they'll only reveal that fact when the election is over.
That's Pierre Polyev, a conservative critic from the Ottawa area, referring to a surprising comment by Catherine McKenna, where he's correct to say she wasn't really expecting the question, so she accidentally answered it.
McKenna does that a fair bit.
I regard her as one of the more savvy operators in the Trudeau cabinet, but occasionally she makes huge gaps.
And I mean, look at this headline in the Globe and Mail.
Just incredible.
McKenna backs off pledge to freeze carbon tax at $50 a ton.
And I mean, that's the Globe and Mail.
That's not my friend Terry Corcoran in the Financial Post, who's been fighting against carbon taxes for 20 years.
And, you know, basically, Catherine McKenna said, sure, we're going to keep the carbon tax at $50 a ton, which is an imaginary tax.
It's a ridiculous fake number, anyways.
But then she said it'll be reviewed by 2022 to confirm the path forward.
Well, that's just a few years from now.
That is letting the cat out of the bag.
And all these carbon taxers say $50 a ton isn't even big enough to make people forcibly change their lifestyle.
Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Andrew Lawton from TNC.news.
Andrew, great to see you again.
Hello, my friend.
Hey, good to be with you.
Thanks for the invitation.
Well, you are so good on this file.
I know you covered the carbon tax legal challenge, so I bet you're all over this story.
Let me start with a point I was just mentioning, and then I'd love you to take this in whatever direction you like.
The whole theory of these taxes is what Stéphane Dion described in 2008 as the green shift, that they're so punitive, they make you change your behavior to a lower carbon lifestyle.
And it's to dissuade you.
But the thing is, to get it that painful, the tax has to be so high it's politically unpopular.
So, you know, everyone hates the carbon tax, but if it's just a small irritant, you're not going to skip your car.
Of course, the carbon tax has to go up in price because they want to force people to not drive.
Yeah, and that's the big problem, though, though.
I actually don't believe that there's any delusion in this government that people are going to avoid driving.
I think the government knows that people are going to continue with the lifestyles they have, and they know that they are going to have to pay for it.
And that's why this has always been a revenue tool more than it's been about reducing anything or about changing your lifestyle.
And we saw this when you mentioned the legal challenge, Ezra, in the federal government's argument, because to levy a tax is actually a different thing that needs to happen constitutionally than to levy what's called a regulatory charge, which is what the carbon tax is.
And a regulatory charge can't be used for revenue.
It has to be done to either administer the regulatory scheme or to go into something that the regulatory scheme is funding.
In this case, carbon reduction measures or greenhouse gas reduction.
And the government knows that it can't say this is a revenue tool, so it has to commit to what is essentially this big farce, which is that people are going to get rid of the car.
People are going to stop heating their home.
People are going to do all of these things.
And the problem with that is that the people most hit by this are not individual families directly, but individual families indirectly by virtue of the carbon tax's impact on business.
And if you drive down the 401 or the Trans-Canada Highway or whatever shipping route in Canada, you're going to see a lot of these 18-wheelers going by that can't make that choice, that can't switch to an 18-wheeler Prius instead, that can't decide to bicycle their haul of goods down the highway.
And those companies eventually pass it on to consumers.
So it's not even really individual families having the option to make a choice that will significantly reduce their share of this tax.
So Catherine McKenna accidentally told the truth on this, but you're right that the only way this will impact behavior, and reports have shown this, is if the tax is about six times what it is now, up to $300 a ton.
Well, there was this incredible moment, you know what I'm talking about, a couple years ago, when Kathy Catchula, just a severely normal woman, literally broke down in tears in a Justin Trudeau town hall and was crying and said, I support you, I like you, but what can you do?
I can't pay both my electricity cost and my grocery fees.
That's the green shift, people.
And the green scheme lobbyist set would say, this is good.
This is forcing you to change your behavior.
Put on a sweater if you're cold.
You know, learn to live with, turn off your air conditioning in the summer.
Like that, that's what the that is the pain that's supposed to cause people to change their behavior.
So it is at that pain point for people in fuel energy poverty.
But you're right.
I think they, depending on it, it's like the syn taxes for cigarettes.
At any time, the government could ban cigarettes if they really wanted to, but they don't.
They want to keep it around for the money.
I think it's a mishmash.
In some ways, I look at Catherine McKinna, I think she's a true believer in this crazy stuff, but she sure doesn't live like it.
I don't know.
It's confusing.
It's a big mess either way.
Whether you're an ideologue or a pragmatist, it doesn't make sense either way.
No, but I think that you are right.
She is a true believer, and I think that she would love nothing more than to ban cars, but she has to be somewhat pragmatic in that sense as well.
So this idea of incrementally pushing a tax to someone is a great way of getting the revenue tools so that the government can do all the other things it wants to do.
And, you know, let's talk when you mention arbitrary.
The idea that Canada will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, that's an arbitrary target there.
The Paris Climate Accord target is an arbitrary one.
And especially when you look at the countries that are causing the real problems, China, India, Indonesia, these places that even if they have said in a cursory sense that they're going to reduce things, are not at all doing anything that's causing a global reduction.
So Canada, which is responsible for, I think, 2.5% of the world's emissions, sure, we can reduce those by 30%, but at what cost?
And you have to look at if the cost of these programs is worth the supposed and as of yet unproven environmental benefit that would come from that 30% reduction when there is already a market-led effort in the West and specifically in Canada for companies to reduce because of consumer requests.
So let's not target the industries that are going to have major job losses and major cost burdens, shipping, mining, transportation, these sectors that are going to be undeniably and irreparably harmed by this carbon tax that make no mistake, the Liberals have admitted is going to be going up probably.
Let me ask you about the politics here because this is obviously a political story.
We're in a campaign season.
You saw Pierre Polyev taken the opportunity to talk about the prospect of tax hike.
I remember a few months ago when the Ontario caucus of the federal liberals had their meeting and they had a very detailed questionnaire of their MPs and it leaked and it seemed like a genuine leak.
You know, sometimes political parties leak something and they stamp it secret all over the place just to ensure journalists give it coverage.
I don't think it was that kind of fake leak.
This was a real leak because it was critical of the government.
And one of the things they said is, hey, Catherine McKenna, can you please stop talking about the carbon tax?
It was quite a surprising story.
And there was a moment there where Catherine McKenna seemed a little bit crestfallen, a little bit marginalized, and she was told to be a little less crazy.
But maybe that moment is gone.
Maybe it's because Gerald Butts is back in the driver's seat.
But they seem to be going full tilt on this green scheme.
What do you think?
I mean, those were real Ontario liberals saying, shut up about the carbon tax, please.
Can we talk about anything else?
But now she's talking about the carbon tax and Gerald Butts is in charge.
Who's right?
Butts or the caucus?
Well, this is where you talk about her being a true believer.
And I think that's an important point here because I think the carbon tax is bad policy.
I don't think it works.
I don't think it does what it's supposed to do.
And I don't think that the problem is as critical as the government is trying to make it out to be.
But even if you accept at face value this idea that the carbon tax is good policy, I don't, but let's go down that road for a moment.
If you accept that there is not the mass national buy-in that Catherine McKenna and Justin Trudeau tend to think there is, I mean, even among people that support the carbon tax, there tends to be a resignation there of, you know, I think the environment's in rough shape.
I don't like it, but I think this is what's necessary.
When they get up there and thump their chest about it and when they poke fingers at the conservatives and say, those people don't want a carbon tax and we do, it shows how deluded they are because the liberals genuinely believe that people like this when at very best they tolerate it.
You're never going to get national buy-in pushing for a tax.
And I can give you a bit of an example here.
I had a story over at True North a couple of weeks ago that I was amazed got no mainstream media coverage.
And it was Catherine McKenna writing in an op-ed in a neighborhood newspaper in Ottawa that the carbon tax will create jobs.
No one says that.
Even the people that like the carbon tax don't say that.
Say, let's take 10 carbon taxes and we can have 10 times as many jobs.
This is crazy.
She cited a report, and this is the great part that was done by a liberal connected group.
And she misrepresented the report because even the liberal connected group was saying there are going to be tens of thousands of jobs lost in a lot of key industries.
They say, you know, we'll create some jobs.
But when you get into that depth of it, the jobs that will be created are jobs that are created under the broken window fallacy, which is that government is creating jobs because they're needing to upgrade infrastructure to replace the stuff they're destroying.
So, I mean, but McKenna genuinely believes that there will be a national buy-in of the carbon tax, which is a gross miscalculation.
And I said, if they're going to run this election on the carbon tax, that's great news for the conservatives.
Yeah, well, if the conservatives have the courage to fight against it, I know Pierre Polyev does, but sometimes I wonder, you know, there's a lot of conservatives who just don't want to be beat up on the global warming question.
I'm sorry to interrupt on this, Ezra, but the Conservatives need to be a lot more bold on this.
And I would love to hear the Conservatives say we're pulling out of Paris and say it unequivocally, which Andrew Scheer has not done.
And the reason that's important is because if you accept the liberal premises on this, you have to accept the liberal remedy.
And that's the problem here, is that the conservatives put out this 60-some-odd page environment plan.
And I panned it at the time, not because it was a bad plan, but because if the conservatives accept the liberal premise on global warming, they have to also accept the liberal remedy.
I need the conservatives to push back against the premise for it to be saleable.
Yeah, you're so right.
Mike Pompeo's Submissive Approach00:06:39
Well, great to see you, my friend.
I know this is one of your favorite files.
I think you're the go-to expert on it.
You were certainly there in court when it was being challenged.
So I think you probably know more about this than any other journalist.
And I'm glad you shared some of our expertise with us today.
Thank you.
And we're going to be following it up to the Supreme Court as well when it gets there.
Right on.
Well, when that happens, let me know.
And I know you'll be tweeting about it a little bit and writing about it.
Maybe we can have you back on the show to talk about it too.
Anytime.
All right.
There you have it.
Our friend Andrew Lawton from True North, which you can find at tnc.news.
Stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back on my show yesterday about getting smuggled into a Mike Pompeo event in Ottawa.
John writes, Well done, I'm both getting in via the U.S., circumventing the liberal ban on legitimate journalists, and coming up with a question that Canadian journalists went with.
Well, thanks very much.
You know what?
I met some journalists from the Parliamentary Press Gallery who had participated in the ban and they were friendly enough in person.
And I said I would send them an email.
Let's talk it out.
And I sent them that email and they haven't replied.
It's been several days.
I just don't think they want the rebel around.
And that fits with the early Bernier ban on those billboards.
Look, you can disagree with the rebel.
You can disagree with me.
But to be banned, that's just weird.
Weird's the wrong word.
It's weird, but it's on Canadians, what I really mean to say.
Jan writes, you realize that now American media attending any Canadian events will be told not to let the rebel in.
They treat the rebel like Maxime Bernier.
Yeah, well, the decision to let us in was not made by U.S. media.
It was made by Mike Pompeo's media director, communications director.
Mike Pompeo's political office brought us in.
It wasn't the American media, the New York Times or the Washington Post, who probably don't like us either, frankly.
But I don't think they'd be for banning us.
On Freeland's staff not wearing any socks for an important meeting, Susan writes, quite frankly, I think he looks like an idiot.
That fits with this government.
Even ministers often look like idiots with how they dress and approach life.
It's more about me than government.
Can't wait for the election.
Yeah, look, I'm a bit of a schlep sometimes, I admit it.
And maybe I should shape up a little bit and wear a tie more, probably I should.
But I wasn't our Minister of Foreign Affairs meeting the Secretary of State of our greatest ally.
Like there were people who were dressed up there in the delegations.
And this idiot's going sockless with that little string anklet.
And I mean, if you want to dress that way in your social life, at the bar, you're going out, you're with friends, even in the office, I think it's unprofessional for someone to that look great.
What are you doing when you're supposed to be representing your country, not your own?
I don't even know what that is.
Is that a political statement?
Is that a fashion statement?
How about just do that on your own time, buddy?
Let me say one more thing.
I mean, why would Mike Pompeo have let me and Keyn Bexy in?
How does that possibly serve his interest?
We didn't have a chance to ask a question for the reasons out loud.
I don't think Mike Pompeo cares about our coverage of him.
He cares about Americans.
There's no, like, there's no quid pro quo.
I mean, I did meet Mike Pompeo some years ago.
I gave him a briefing on ethical oil.
But I wouldn't exaggerate and say that we're friends.
It's just not true.
So why would Mike Pompeo have done this?
I think that maybe the Americans are getting a little tired of Christie Freeland.
I don't know if you saw this, but a couple days ago, Donald Trump, maybe it was just yesterday, Donald Trump retweeted Two days ago, a tweet I made jabbing at Trudeau.
I jab at Trudeau on Twitter all the time.
Donald Trump retweeted and said, no, no, be nice.
Trump himself retweeted.
I mean, in fact, that's the subject of our next letter.
On my interaction with President Donald Trump, Jonathan Levine writes, I don't think Canada needs an equivalent to Fox.
Not even Donald the Idiot President agrees with your depiction of Trudeau as submissive.
Canadians can see through the BS, so don't bother.
Well, Jonathan Levine, let's look at my tweet where I basically say, look, Trudeau is submissive.
He talks tough and disparages Trump when Trump's not there.
But in Trump's present, he sits like a good boy and look at him, crossing his legs.
And I said, even a child can see who is in control and who is submitted.
That's what I tweeted.
Why would the president retweet that, bringing it to the attention of 63 million people?
I'm, like I say, to Mike Pompeo, I'm really nobody.
To Donald Trump, I'm less than nobody.
Why would Trump, Trump doesn't follow me on Twitter, obviously.
So why would he choose from all the tweets out there, mine, and retweet it and say, no, it was a productive meeting.
He's nice.
Well, that's a very backhanded way of showing everybody what I wrote.
That's a little bit passive-aggressive.
And you know, he didn't say, no, Trudeau doesn't disrespect me, or no, Trudeau isn't submissive.
He said, no, We had a productive meeting.
He was nice.
He didn't deny the charge, but rather he brought the charge to the attention of 63 million people.
I think anyone who thinks Donald Trump was mad at me calling out Justin Trudeau and was putting me in my place.
I don't think they're as sophisticated as they think they are.
And I think they're giving Trump less credit than he deserves.
I mean, I could be wrong.
I could be wrong.
But if you're Donald Trump, the president of the United States, you don't take some tweet from the ether and show it to your 63 million friends for no reason and say, no, you say that Justin Trudeau is a weak, submissive, backstabbing, rude loser.
No, I won't hear of it.
He's nice.
Oh, you set me straight.
Anyways, that's our show for today.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at the Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.