A Lebanese Arabic newspaper, Al-Akbar, claims Canada agreed with the U.S. to resettle 100,000 Palestinians—40,000 from Lebanon (descendants of 1948 displaced persons) and 60,000 from Syria—under Trump’s "deal of the century," cutting costs from $12K to $7K per migrant. Skepticism lingers despite the Jerusalem Post’s translation, while Chrystia Freeland waived trade tribunal rulings to let China dominate $42B LNG projects in B.C., using cheap steel and labor, risking job losses and substandard infrastructure. Broader concerns tie Trudeau’s policies to perceived Islamophilic favoritism, including a $10.5M payoff to an al-Qaeda-linked figure, while critics allege left-wing parties suppress Jewish voices amid rising anti-Semitism—raising questions about Canada’s economic and political priorities. [Automatically generated summary]
I saw some great accountability journalism the other day.
It was a someone had a sit-down with Justin Trudeau in Ottawa and tough accountability questions.
I don't need to tell you the punchline here.
Obviously, it was a foreign journalist because no Canadian would do that.
So stay tuned for that.
It's a clips, a few clips from Netflix, actually, Hassan Minhaj, the comedian from LA.
I really wish you could see the video, though, because he does a great job of it.
And this is a podcast, so I know you just use the theater of the mind.
But please consider becoming a premium subscriber to this podcast.
It's $8 a month, $80 a year, and you get the video version of it, which is highly produced.
And you've got to see these clips today.
I really think you should.
Go to the rebel.media slash shows.
And you can join right there.
Premium subscriber.
Still get the podcast, obviously.
Get the video version of this.
Video version of David Menzies' show.
Video version of Sheila Gunread's show.
And the satisfaction in knowing you're helping to keep us going.
All right.
Here's today's podcast.
Tonight, an Arab newspaper reports that Canada has agreed to resettle 100,000 Palestinians here.
Is that true?
It's September 4th, and this is the Eswal Advance Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
There's a problem in Canada, and that is our media party is so housebroken.
Trudeau's Troubling Scandal00:07:45
It's no longer a guard dog or a watchdog.
It's a lapdog.
It's a dog that likes tummy rubs too much.
I mean, it's always been bad.
Remember this hard-hitting interview?
The one that the entire country wants to know.
What shampoo do you use?
What a disappointing answer this is going to be.
Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.
He actually answered it.
He actually wanted to tell people the answer.
Yeah, and that was even before Trudeau ponied up with his $600 million media bailout.
Now, they're just full-time shampoo question askers.
There's just propagandists for Trudeau.
To get real Canadian news, it's so weird.
You often need to read foreign newspapers and watch foreign TV shows for the occasion that they talk about Canada.
Everyone else in Ottawa is just too careful because if they're too aggressive with Trudeau, he'll cut them off.
I was reminded of this by, surprisingly, a left-wing Muslim comedian in the U.S. named Hassan Minhaj.
He's an environmental extremist, if that's even possible when you're a jet setter like he is with a massive staff and an energy-intensive TV show.
But he talks a good game on the environment and he's opposed to war, or at least as far as I can tell, opposed to wars of a certain type.
And by that, I mean any wars by America or America's allies.
Now that's the default position of most of Canada's journalists too, that they're too obedient to ask Trudeau about any of those issues, even from the left, I mean.
But look at this comedian the other day.
I mean, other than the Globe and Mail and their SNC Lavaland matter, I think the Canadian media is only too happy to forget about the scandals.
But look at this guy, Hassan Minhaj.
I'm going to play about three minutes of his recent 20-minute show on Canada.
Take a look.
So in a country like Canada, you would think Trudeau's re-election would be a landslide.
But you'd be wrong.
Well, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is dealing with a growing scandal.
The scandal that erupted inside his cabinet now threatens to drown the entire administration.
Trudeau is being accused of pressuring his former attorney general to cut a deal with a company facing corruption charges.
Trudeau denies any wrongdoing, but his popularity is sliding.
Asked which federal party leader they believe is the most ethical, Justin Trudeau lags behind with almost 17%.
In 2015, the RCMP, Canada's FBI, charged an engineering company called SNC Lavalin with corruption and fraud for allegedly bribing Libyan officials, which included Muamar Gaddafi's son, Saadi Gaddafi, who looks like he's about to lose a Latin Grammy.
Now, Libyan Carlos Santana allegedly spent a bunch of that money on luxury yachts, because when you're rich and you look like that, you either spend it on yachts or you get your kids into USC.
And after SNC got caught, they lobbied Trudeau's office to avoid criminal prosecution.
And here's where things went sideways.
This February, Trudeau's attorney general testified that Trudeau and his staff pressured her to help SNC avoid criminal prosecution.
And when she didn't play ball, Trudeau demoted her, replaced her with a man, and eventually kicked her out of the party, which perfectly captures why women are skeptical of male feminists.
Right?
You first meet them, they're wearing a pussy hat, and then one girl rejects them and they're like, women don't belong in Ghostbusters.
Oh, and remember when Trudeau said he didn't do anything wrong?
Well, a couple weeks ago, Canada's ethics commissioner said, yeah, you did.
Canada's ethics watchdog has ruled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act.
Facing a damning assessment of his actions, the Prime Minister today acknowledged mistakes were made.
I assume responsibility for everything that happened in my office.
But at the same time, I can't apologize for standing up for Canadian jobs.
Are you serious, JT?
You apologize all the time.
We have the receipts.
My apologies for my behavior.
I completely apologize.
I withdraw that word.
I apologize.
I apologize and apologize again for the comments I made.
They lacked respect.
I lost my temper for that.
I unreservedly apologize.
Come on, man.
You can't walk into parliament looking like puss and boots.
They're like, I'm sorry.
Now, back to my cunning sports play.
So officially, Trudeau got a yellow card for this scandal, but politically, his approval rating has been cut in half from 65% to 32, which is actually lower than Trump's right now.
That's the truth, isn't it?
He's a left-wing Muslim activist.
He's a comedian.
But he'll say more truths than you'll ever see on the CBC.
How weird that we need to get our news from foreign sources.
But, you know, let me just show you one more clip from that comedy show.
Minhaj is Muslim, but he doesn't seem to like Saudi Arabia.
There could be various reasons for that.
One of them could be that the Saudis are becoming too pro-Western, too pro-Trump, and even hard to believe, too pro-Israel for him.
I don't know.
That's certainly the view of more extremist elements like Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood.
But for whatever reason it is, that guy, Hassan Minhaj, actually pressed Trudeau on the question of Canada-Saudi relations.
Take a look at this.
It's so weird to me that this progressive, peace-loving place has a deal to sell tanks to the Saudis, especially when Trudeau's government has been so vocal about their brutality.
They slammed the Saudis for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and Trudeau himself condemned the kingdom's human rights abuses.
So I had to ask Trudeau about the arms deal, but I wanted to be tactful.
I mean, I'm in the guy's office.
So I had to go in with another game.
Finish the sentence.
Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution.
Nice.
Finish the sentence.
Kawhi Leonard should be very proud of what he accomplished in his time in Canada.
I completely disagree.
Kawhi Leonard should never return to Canada because he is a traitor.
That's the correct answer.
People bring American sentiments onto Canadian politeness every now and then.
Finish the sentence.
Canada will not sell any more weapons to Saudi Arabia, period.
I'm sorry, I missed the line.
Canada will not sell any more weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Please.
That's a good statement.
That's a good statement.
You said nine months ago you guys would be examining, and it takes about three months to study for the LSAT.
So that's a pretty good examination time.
You could announce it right here, right now.
We're canceling the deal.
We take our wild on Canada.
We take our legal responsibilities and the breaking of contracts very seriously in this country.
I'm telling you they watched the show.
They really watched that.
I don't doubt they do.
I'm sure they're keeping an eye on you.
Again, when was the last time you saw anyone in the Canadian mainstream media, the legacy media, the bailout media, put a contradiction like that to Trudeau?
I'm obviously no fan of the Saudis.
Half of my book, Ethical Oil, was that the oil sands were a tool to undermine the corrupt and bigoted OPEC dictatorships.
But put aside which awful OPEC regime is worse than the other.
Minhaj was asking Trudeau a Canadian question, though, wasn't he?
And I haven't seen a Canadian journalist do that in memory.
Have you?
Certainly not one who could get a one-on-one interview like that.
Trudeau hated that.
Palestinians and Political Chess00:09:41
You could see it in his eyes.
I put it to you, the foreign media is tougher on Trudeau than our own media is because foreign media is not on Trudeau's payroll.
They're not sucking up to Trudeau.
They know what happens in Canada.
If you ask tough questions, the Canadian journalist, that is, Bob Fife, the senior journalist of the Global Mail, asked a tough question, so he and the Globe were banned from participating in the leaders' debates.
Those five faces I showed you were the five approved liberal journalists who will moderate the leaders' debates.
Bob Fife and the Global Mail were banned from it, and Trudeau has nationalized the debates.
He's in charge now.
See, foreign media don't care about that.
Hassan Minhaj was never in the running to be a journalist moderating the debates.
He doesn't care.
So he'll report on things.
He'll ask prickly questions.
What does he care?
Anyways, I saw a report today in the Jerusalem Post, the most authoritative English language newspaper in Israel.
Let me read the headline to you.
U.S. has agreement with Canada to accept 100,000 Palestinians.
Arab report.
And then if you see underneath, it says, Canada would receive 100,000 Palestinians from Lebanon, and Syria and Spain would receive 16,000 Palestinians from Lebanon, alongside similar agreements with Belgium and France.
Now, this is a report of a report, but I think that's how it is in the Middle East sometimes, because here this is the original story.
And as you can see, it's in Arabic, and most people don't speak Arabic, especially me.
Now, I ran this page through Google Translate to see for myself.
And the Jerusalem Post report seems to be an accurate representation of the Arabic report, if Google translates anything to go by.
So here, I'll read the Jerusalem Post version now in English.
The Lebanon-based newspaper Al-Akbar reported that an official source in one of the Palestinian factions revealed that there is an understanding between the United States and Canada for Canada to receive 100,000 Palestinians, 40,000 from Lebanon, and another 60,000 from Syria.
In addition, there is a further understanding with Spain to receive 16,000 Palestinians from Lebanon alongside similar agreements with Belgium and France.
The understandings would lead to the reduction of the cost of migration from $12,000 to $7,000 per person.
Isn't that interesting?
So the theory is, in the story, that this is part of a regional deal, a world deal to solve the Middle East, led by America.
And Canada, for its part, will take 100,000 Palestinian migrants.
Now, obviously, they're not refugees.
There's no war in Lebanon right now, and the Syrian civil war is pretty much over in 95% of the country.
Speaking of Palestinians, there are only a few thousand Palestinian refugees at all, if you can call them that, who were displaced when Israel was created in 1948, and all of its Arab neighbors immediately declared war on Israel.
And to everyone's surprise, Israel won that war and survived there.
There are not 100,000 Palestinian refugees in the whole world.
Israel was born 71 years ago.
The people they're talking about were obviously born and raised in Lebanon.
Children of parents who were born and raised in Lebanon.
They're Lebanese.
Palestinian is not actually an ethnicity or a religion.
They're Arabs who speak Arabic.
Now, I'm not saying I'd want to live in Lebanon myself.
Even though it's capital city, Beirut can arguably be called pretty.
Its climate is lovely.
It's on the Mediterranean.
It's got strong French influences from when it was in the colony.
These are actually pictures of Beirut.
There's still a small Christian presence there.
As Arab countries go, I'd say Lebanon is more tolerable than Saudi Arabia, which is oil, sand, and Sharia law.
There are no more refugees from Lebanon.
There's no war there, thank God.
It's not as free as Canada, but it's not a hellhole either.
But here's what this is about.
Let me read some more from the Jerusalem Post.
The representative of Hamas in Lebanon, Ahmed Abdelhadi, told al-Akbar that part of the deal of the century, it's Trump's deal, aims to resettle between 75,000 to 100,000 Palestinians in Lebanon and displace the rest to more than one country.
About 40,000 Palestinians have left Lebanon in the last four years through legal immigration.
Others have taken illegal routes.
Okay, so if this report is correct, Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushan, have been working on this master plan for peace in the Middle East.
They call it the deal of the century as if it's a real estate deal.
Now, Trump does know about deals, but it's a bit harder with countries, especially countries that don't want a deal and don't deal honestly.
Trump's trying to do his best to do a deal in North Korea.
He's made some symbolic progress, but it's a long way from being a done deal.
And of course, China is pulling many of the strings there, and they're in a huge trade war with Trump right now.
So it's not going great at the moment, that North Korea thing.
And doing a deal in the Middle East, I can't think of anything more complicated.
Again, less Western in thinking.
Remember, Israel had already offered the Palestinians everything.
All the land, all the money, even weapons.
Israel offered to give the Palestinians weapons.
Seriously, and Yasser Arafat just rejected it.
Because end of the day, he didn't want peace.
He wanted to get rid of the Jews.
Look at the Gaza Strip.
Israel unilaterally just left the Gaza Strip and just gave it back to the Palestinians, who just turned it into an armed base camp to shoot rockets into the rest of Israel.
So I'm skeptical of any deal, even by the grand dealmaker Trump himself.
But the main point is this.
What did Palestinians in Lebanon have to do with anything?
How is that an issue at all, let alone an issue for Israel or America or Canada?
Why would we, why should we take them in Canada?
They're not in jeopardy.
They have no ties to Canada.
They have no English skills.
They have no job skills.
They have no cultural skills to fit here.
They're Arabs living in Arabia.
Why would we have a mass transfer of Palestinians from Lebanon to Canada just as some sort of bargaining chip for someone else's chess game?
Why would Canada have anything to do with this at all?
I don't even get it.
Maybe it went like this.
Maybe Lebanon insisted these Palestinians get out and go to Israel.
Israel obviously objected.
Maybe Trump, the dealmaker, said, well, give them to Canada.
They'll take anyone.
Look at that Trudeau.
They'll take anyone.
Let's have Trudeau solve our problem here.
And so it was a fake problem, but Trump knows Trudeau loves Muslim immigrants, so he had a solution to a fake problem that didn't cost America or Israel a thing.
And Trudeau is just the man to do it, along with his immigration minister, Amin Hassan, who has jacked up immigration to more than one million people over the next three years.
This is insane, this report.
Now, I don't know if this is true.
I believe that the Jerusalem Post actually reported what this Lebanese newspaper said.
And I believe that the Lebanese newspaper actually accurately quoted what the Palestinian leader said.
From Hamas, it sounds like.
And that Palestinian leader might have even been accurately quoting some suggestion, some brainstorm, some idea that's bouncing around in diplomatic or political circles.
Now, whether that moves from the level of gossip and brainstorming to a plan is quite a different thing.
But as you saw in the Jerusalem report, a post item, Trump is holding off on his peace plan details till after the Israeli elections, which is just two weeks from now, actually.
Now, I don't know if this is real.
I see that Anthony Fury says the Canadian government has denied it.
But I don't know if I trust that denial, to be honest.
First of all, we know that Trudeau lies to Canadians.
He's a politician, whether it's about SNC Lavalan or about some Muslim issues.
He lied and tricked us about Omar Qatar.
He set up the $10.5 million payoff to Qatar in a secret manner, deceiving the public to avoid the family of Qatar's victims suing to get the money.
So Trudeau has tricked us for his Muslim extremist friends before, in that case, an actual terrorist.
And we're talking about Hamas here now.
Now, that Omar Qatar thing was just money, but 100,000 Muslim migrants that Hamas chooses to send here.
Well, who knows?
I mean, if Donald Trump is holding off on the details till after the Israeli election, maybe he might hold off until after the Canadian election too.
Because if Trump actually wants to dump a problem in Trudeau's lap, he's probably smart enough to wait until Trudeau's back in office before announcing that.
Now, I don't know if it's true or not.
I'm absolutely sure that Trudeau would approve of the idea if he could.
He has an Islamophilic election strategy.
He'll literally take anyone.
I've shown you this video before of him bragging about campaigning in any mosque he can, including the Asuna Wahhabi Mosque in Montreal, an extremist mosque that the Pentagon says is a place where terrorists have been recruited to al-Qaeda.
They spend a lot of time running from the Bangladeshi to the Pakistani to the Maghadiya to the Asunno-Wahhabi Mosque.
Is Trudeau really going to take 100,000 Palestinians from Lebanon at the request of Hamas?
I got to tell you, it rings true.
But so far we just don't know.
What we do know, however, is that we're very unlikely to find out the truth from our own Canadian media first.
Maybe we'll just have to watch a Muslim comedian in Los Angeles do some real journalism on the subject to find out.
Stay with us for more.
Modular Construction Across Canada00:14:53
Welcome back.
Well, we love LNG.
As you know, that stands for liquefied natural gas.
It's a way of condensing natural gas, which is a gas and very voluminous, by cooling it dramatically to put it in those bubble-shaped ships and send it overseas to places where natural gas is very expensive, places like Japan, South Korea.
It's a booming industry.
The United States is taking advantage of it.
And Canada, because of our fracking, has natural gas to export too.
And finally, some LNG facilities are being built on Canada's west coast.
It's a huge construction opportunity in addition to the ongoing sale of natural gas.
In fact, there are projects afoot in BC worth a staggering $42 billion.
That would make it, hands down, the largest construction project in Canada.
And the fact that it's private sector money is even more amazing.
But let me put a fly in the ointment.
Let me tell you something terrifying and terrible.
This $42 billion project will not be manufactured in the main by Canadians.
This will be built in modular form in China by Chinese workers using Chinese steel and shipped to Canada for final assembly.
And all of this was made possible by a shocking decision by the Canadian government.
And here to talk about it is our guest, Ed Whalen, who is the president and CEO of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction.
Mr. Whalen, it's a pleasure to meet you and have you on the show today.
Oh, thanks to be here.
It's nice to be here.
Now, I outlined the facts as best as I know them, but of course you're an expert in this field.
Can you please correct me or add any information to how I've just described the projects at the Wood Fiber LNG and the LNG Canada construction?
Did I get my fact basically correct?
Yeah, basically, you did a pretty good job, probably better than I could have.
The LNG Canada project is valued currently at about $40 billion.
These types of projects this size usually kind of balloon to about 60 to 80, so almost double if you use Australia as an example.
The wood fiber is quite a bit less.
It's about $2 billion.
So that's where the $42 billion comes from.
There's two projects, and there's a number of them lined up potentially in the future, not only in the BC coast, but also in the Atlantic.
So there's a considerable amount of LNG activity, potential in Canada.
And, you know, just to start off, you know, we would love to be part of that.
We want the project to go forward.
But we as an industry and the construction industry in general would like to see at least a little bit of that activity and construction go to Canadians.
Well, what's so incredible here, and I haven't mentioned this part, and I'm going to rely on your expertise to explain this.
This Chinese construction project, I'm going to call it a Chinese construction project, even though it's in Canada, is against the trade rules because the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, which hears cases of dumping where China dumps enormous amounts of steel below cost, below market prices, to drive out Canadian competitors.
Well, that was challenged at this Canadian International Trade Tribunal, and the trade tribunal found against China and said they're doing it illegally.
They're breaking the law.
And here's what I can't believe.
And again, I'm relying on you to correct me because this is so staggering.
I'm worried I've gotten my facts wrong here, Mr. Whalen.
Is it true that Christy Freeland, our foreign minister, waived this tribunal ruling and said you're breaking the law, an independent tribunal found that.
You lost in court, but we're letting you do this anyways?
Is that an accurate reflection of what happened?
Yes, unfortunately, you can't get any more accurate than that.
Why?
Why would we do this at the best of times?
And by the way, these are not the best of times with China.
They hold two Canadian hostages.
What's the official rationale of the Canadian government?
Well, that's a good question.
And I think the only ones that can actually answer that properly would be the government.
It comes down to cost.
The large oil and gas companies, in this particular case, the LNG Canada Group.
Which, by the way, just one of the major partners in LNG Canada is PetroChina, which is a state-owned, a Chinese state-owned company, wants to not only take the work to China, but they want the lowest, lowest, lowest price possible to do that so they can put more money in their genes.
So the only way you can do and get the lowest price in the world is bring a construction project to a country that illegally dumps and subsidizes their construction products.
So here, China now, globally, is well known as a dumper and subsidizer.
Other countries and construction industries in the rest of the part of the world aren't allowed to do that by WTO rules.
Otherwise, we have trade cases brought against us.
And in our case, in the steel fabrication case, we brought this trade case forward because of exactly these types of projects, not these small little projects.
We wanted to protect our industry on large infrastructure, oil and gas mining type projects, and wanted to have a fair level playing field in order to get some of these projects.
Now, we realize if we're not globally competitive, we don't deserve to get the job.
But at least everyone should be bidding fairly.
And our trade case and the duties would be only bringing the Chinese price to where it should have been fairly.
And the government of Canada decided to waive it.
I just don't understand that.
It's not like China is doing us any favors right now.
They've banned our agricultural exports.
They've banned our canola.
They've banned various other crops, let alone their illegal detention of two Canadians.
I just don't understand it.
But I really don't get it on the jobs front either, because the whole point of these LNG facilities is to develop our economy, not China's economy.
And I really don't care about PetroChina.
They're a state-run enterprise from a communist dictatorship.
I have no affection for them.
I want to see jobs in Canada, whether that's in BC or in, I don't even know if the steel would come from Hamilton.
I don't know where that steel would come from.
Tell me, Mr. Whelan, where would the steel come from if it wouldn't be shipped in from China?
Would it be in BC?
I know that there's some steel makers in Saskatchewan.
And I just don't know the market that well.
Who's the loser under this deal?
What's the communities?
Right.
And just as a clarification, it's important for your audience to know that we have a steel mills that would supply these particular projects.
And our industry is the layer down, the ones that take the raw steel and fabricate it into certain pieces and columns and beams in order to build whatever the structure that it is need to be built.
And in the industrial space, we have industrial fabricators right across Canada.
And if you just look at some of the projects that were going in in Alberta, for example, in Fort McMurray, there was steel fabricated right across Canada by a host, a whole number of steel fabricators for the projects over the last 20, 25 years.
So the losers here are all of the steel fabricators right across Canada that could have supplied steel or at least could have potentially bid on these projects.
And now, in this particular case, they're not even being asked to bid.
And one of the things that we're tending to lose out of this conversation is that because a module is not only the steel bones and the frame that are made out of the products that our industry makes, but everything in.
So a module contains not only the steel structure, but it contains the piping, the tanks, the electrical, the plumbing, all the trades that would build a facility.
All those people that used to be potentially across Canada used to fly to Alberta to do a major project.
They're now going to be sitting at home watching the Chinese do it all.
And this is what the technology and the mode of construction of modular type construction is now going to be facing Canada and the rest of the world, is that it allows projects to be totally offshore.
You know, I know this is how China operates in jurisdictions like Africa.
They're really colonizing Africa industrially, financially, but also industrially.
And I get it.
Africa is diplomatically and politically and economically weak.
I guess they have to take any terms they're offered.
But for Canada to roll over and say, yeah, we'll accept basically a made-in China economic project, like a made-in China mega-project, and to accept it that it's against our law and accept it anyways, I find that very hard to fathom.
I want to ask who your allies are, because I really haven't seen a lot of voices on this.
I should tell you that I was in Ottawa a few weeks ago when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting with Christy Freeland.
And I was with other journalists and I mentioned this issue.
Not a single one of the Ottawa Press Gallery had even heard of this issue.
Now, I talked to them about it, and eventually that was the question put to Freeland, and she sort of waved it off.
I saw Trudeau being asked the same question the other day.
He waved it off.
Here's a quick clip of that.
He answered by talking about the big bad United States.
He didn't have a word to say about China.
Here, take a look at that.
And U.S. concerns about Chinese steel being dumped in Canada.
Has Canada received clearance to use imported Asian steel for these LNG projects?
And why not use domestic products instead of importing foreign steel without duties?
We have been steadfast supporters of the Canadian steel and aluminum industries.
We knew when the Americans brought in unfair 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum that we had to stand strong, and that's why we brought in dollar-for-dollar countermeasures that ended up being effective.
And we got the Americans to lift their punitive tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel.
We continue to support our industry and we will always continue to support our industry.
We're working with the Americans to prevent trans-shipment as well.
And we will always look to use Canadian steel wherever possible in big projects like these.
Mr. Whalen, I don't, that's it.
By the way, that's the identical answer that Christy Freeland gave with Mike Pompeo.
They're so on guard against Donald Trump and his trade battles.
They haven't said a word about China.
I just, where are your friends?
Where are your allies?
Are the unions properly engaged here?
Are local MPs engaged?
Are mayors engaged?
I was shocked that the Ottawa Press Gallery really didn't even hear about this.
We're kind of somewhat surprised as well.
The press hasn't picked this up.
Not quite sure why.
You're in the press, and you would probably know better than I would.
This is a big, big story.
This is tens of thousands of jobs.
I'm not sure whether everyone's a little bit lethargic over the last year about hearing about steel, and here we go again.
But what the press and what Canadians don't appreciate is that the past of how we used to do construction in Canada is now gone.
We used to talk about even a couple of years ago, even maybe as early as last year, about having a trade shortage.
I would say we won't have a trade shortage anymore because we will not be constructing buildings and structures and heavy industrial facilities here in Canada anymore.
We're seeing this technology being brought down from large industrial, even into commercial projects.
And it's not just steel where it's modular type construction, it's even wood.
So the wood industry should be afraid.
If you just have to look at the sidewalk labs down in downtown Toronto, and Google or Sidewalk Labs announced that they wanted to do all of their construction and modular type construction.
Well, there's no reason other than cost why you'd want to go modular.
The ultimate reason modular construction is used is for cost and it's going to pretty well bring most of our construction offshore.
So our trades are going to be sitting at home.
In the LNG case, right across Canada are trades that used to work in Alberta, which are quite mobile and ready to go wherever these large infrastructure projects are.
They're going to be sitting at home watching TV while the Chinese take these work, this type of work away from us.
And I just don't know.
If the liberals are intending to support the middle class, I would have thought, I would have thought that they would have done everything in their power to make sure that some of this work would have stayed in Canada.
Some of it.
But not only did they say it doesn't matter, we're not going to do anything to keep any of these modules in Canada.
Not only that, they actually allow them to have a remission on the duties.
So it's like a double kick.
Governments' Confusing Stance00:05:51
Well, that's the crazy thing: it's not like they were taking a political stance.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal made a ruling, and the government just said, oh, you don't have to follow that.
I mean, I don't even get it.
At least SNC Lavaland, when they were letting them off the hook, they claimed it was for Canadian jobs.
I'm sure that there would be more than 8,500 jobs involved in building a $42 billion project.
I just have to say, we talk about steel a fair bit on this show, and we talk about how Trump has done a lot of things to bring steel back in America.
I really feel I'm living in an opposite world.
And it would be one thing if the trade bully, so to speak, were Trump trying to get steel jobs away from us.
And who knows, maybe we couldn't fight against Trump and America.
But for God's sakes, we're not even willing to lift a finger against China.
I'm just perplexed.
Let me ask you: is there any chance?
Is there any legal or political way to undo this?
What does the provincial government say?
Surely the province of BC, which is allegedly a workers' party, the NDP, surely they believe in local jobs.
Is there any word from Premier Horgan?
We haven't heard boo from any of the provincial governments.
And again, as you alluded to earlier, we're not quite sure what all the various governments are thinking.
In previous governments in BC, they were pro-trade.
And if they could offshore to China for a dollar cheaper, previous governments in BC, that's what they would do.
And this one, in this particular case, I don't know that we're seeing any difference in opinion there.
I think many of the governments have been bamboozled to think that these particular projects are too complex, too big, and Canada doesn't have the expertise.
They have yet to show me or tell me what Canadian labor, what Canadian construction companies, and what Canadian trades can't do.
And again, the steel industry in Canada isn't looking for the whole project, but certainly a fair chance.
I mean, what I'm hearing from the government and from the LNG world is it's okay.
And the only way we can do large infrastructure projects is to go to countries that allow dumping and subsidize because we have to get the lowest price.
And by goodness, some of our other energy policies and either energy files are doing really poorly.
So let's just make sure this one goes ahead.
You mentioned SNC level.
I mean, you meant 88,000 jobs.
I mean, this is tens of thousands of jobs and many, many companies.
And this is going to have an immediate impact.
Last week, on Thursday, I believe it was, we had one of our member companies, the largest, one of the largest independent steel industrial fabricators in Western Canada, just announced that they were closing two plants.
So if people believe that these kind of decisions aren't going to have a negative impact, think again.
There is no reason to have the capacity in our industry to do large projects if Canada's going to give them away.
Yeah.
Well, and that's the whole point of dumping is flood the market with cheap steel, drive all the local competitors out, and then you've got a monopoly.
We haven't even talked about the quality issue.
It's been a decade since I've been in Shanghai.
That's a city that sprouted up almost overnight.
Even when I was in the city, there were newspaper articles back then about how the quality of steel was so cheap that there was so much trickery and fraud that steel was so low quality because everyone was trying to con someone out of a few extra bucks by putting in lower grade steel.
They were worried that a quarter of the skyscrapers in Shanghai, and this is a decade ago, were structurally questionable because of fake steel, junk steel, counterfeit steel.
And anyone who's ever seen where all the counterfeit brands in the world come from, it's from China.
The fact that we would be importing steel of questionable provenance, and this is not a conspiracy theory or a defamation of China.
This is how they operate in a low trust society.
I can't believe we're bringing in Chinese steel of questionable quality for something that's important as an LNG plant.
Listen, you've really got me revved up here, and I'm going to look into this more.
I think we've got to ring the alarm about this.
I find it very odd that we are, I mean, we really don't come from that world, but the more I see about this, the more I'm upset with it.
Give me one last thought.
What's your advice to viewers who are waking up to this issue, like I personally am?
What should we do?
Who should we talk to?
Who are potential allies?
What are questions we should ask to people?
Just give me a hand here because I'm learning as I'm going.
Yeah, I would say that for one, if any of your listeners are in the construction industry, and especially running businesses or employees, we should be very, very concerned.
I mean, this is very, very troubling.
It's going to get even bigger and larger.
And if the government is willing to take a 40 billion job, then a tinier job at only 40ths of the size and give that away from China, we're going to have to wonder what else are they going to give away.
Concerns Grow Amid Anti-Semitism00:02:40
Yeah.
Well, I appreciate you taking the time with us today.
I've learned a lot from you.
In fact, just your press release itself contained background information I had not seen before.
I seek to educate myself in this matter because I watched with some envy the revival of American industry, especially heavy industry, and I'm thinking, why can't that be us?
And I think that that's something we have to fight for as much in the steel industry as we would.
I mean, I'm an Alberta boy originally, the oil and gas industry.
That is a steel industry.
I'll stop now because you've been generous with your time, but I hope we can speak again another day.
All right.
Thanks so much for hearing.
Well, it's my pleasure.
Thank you for that.
We've been talking with Ed Whalen.
He's the president and CEO of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
On my monologue yesterday about the Liberals reluctantly dropping Imam Hassan Ghiai over anti-Semitic comments.
Paul writes, the Liberals only care about power as long as they thought Guillé was going to deliver his seat.
They were happy to look the other way on his rabid bigotry.
Well, not just that, but, you know, they were fine with him having those views because they, you know, I think they've made the decision that Jews were important politically in the past, especially before there were donation limits.
They loved getting Jewish donors, but now donations are capped.
You can be a rich Jew, which the liberals used to like, and only give $1,600.
But now there's, what, 1.3 million Muslims in the country, only 300,000 Jews.
Liberals can do math, even though you wouldn't think it from their budgets.
They've just made the decision, like Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, that their democratic and demographic future lies with Islam, not Jew.
Liz writes, there's no way we should have any of these extremists in our government, whether Khalestani sympathizers or Muslim Brotherhood.
Just how stupid are we?
Time to clean out the house before our entire government is full of anti-Western extremists.
Yeah, and I got to tell you, I talk about the United Kingdom as my personal dystopian time machine when it comes to political correctness and free speech.
But it's also that when it comes to the Islamification of parties of the left.
The Jeremy Corbyn Party is literally driving out any Jew.
I mean, I don't even know if there's any Jews left in that party.
They've left.
These are lifelong laborites who just say, I am sorry, I can't be in an anti-Semitic party.
And that's Corbyn.
Even further to his left, the UK Greens are just fully Hamasified.
It's crazy.
Clean Out the House00:00:47
And it's coming here.
Bruce writes, I'm glad this anti-Semite has been sacked, but so many more liberal Muslim members harbor the same cultural feelings.
Well, I think that's true.
I mean, I've told you before that Omar Al Jabra, the parliamentary secretary in charge of foreign consulates, that's what his original posting was.
I have to check what he's in charge of now.
When he ran the Canadian Air Federation, he lobbied to legalize terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah.
He's Trudeau's right-hand man in the Muslim community, someone who literally tried to legalize terrorist groups.
So that's the Canada we live in now, let alone one in a five-year trajectory from now.
That's our show for today, folks.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.