BC’s NDP MLA Ravi Kallon proposed fines for "hateful behavior," targeting groups like Soldiers of Odin (200 members) and Yellow Vests linked to carbon tax opposition, while ignoring terrorism or organized crime. Sue Ann Levy revealed Canada’s $122M North York Hydro shelter costs $5K/month per refugee—mostly Nigerian asylum seekers—with catered meals and security, questioning efficiency and public consultation. Contrasting with Trump’s zero U.S. refugee intake in October 2017, Trudeau’s government plans 340K annual immigrants, including Hong Kong protesters (if China cracks down) for their English skills, despite past Syrian refugee controversies. The episode warns of governments prioritizing symbolic gestures over tangible safety threats, undermining both civil discourse and protester efficacy against militarized forces. [Automatically generated summary]
In today's podcast I tell you about a BC politician who wants police to have the power to give you a ticket if you say something rude or hateful or he's not even sure what.
He just knows he wants to ticket you.
That's coming up in a moment.
But before I give you that podcast, let me invite you to become a premium member of the Rebel.
Just go to premium.rebelnews.com and it's eight bucks a month.
You get the video version of this podcast.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, it's official.
The government is going to prosecute you if you're rude.
Can we do the same to them?
It's November 21st, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
You know it's not against the law to be rude, right?
And it's not against the law to be wrong.
I think that's really important, even though we all want to be right, not wrong, and we usually don't want to be rude unless there's a really good reason.
Because sometimes rudeness is appropriate.
And even if it's not, it's still our right to express ourselves.
And maybe being rude has its uses.
Can I give you an example?
In 1968, a 19-year-old California hippie named Paul Cohen wore a shirt into a courthouse with the words, I'm going to swear here, fuck the draft written on it.
I've told you this story once before at Sun News.
So this teenage hippie, I mean, 1968 was the peak hippie year of all time.
I mean, you had revolutions around the world, protests everywhere, Vietnam, etc.
So this teenage hippie wants to get in on it in Los Angeles.
So he wore this into a court and he was arrested for disturbing the peace, for wearing that shirt.
Now, the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which finally ruled on the matter in 1971.
And the court said that t-shirt was protected speech, and specifically the swear word itself.
One man's vulgarity is another's lyric, the court ruled.
It wasn't just the court's way of saying that everyone has a different standard of what's rude.
The court said that being rude actually had value.
Because had Cohen just worn a shirt that said something like, excuse me, but I politely object to the draft, it would have had a different meaning.
It would have been less urgent, less desperate, less passionate, right?
Free Speech Matters00:09:11
Now, you don't have to like it.
In fact, I think that's the point.
I think you're supposed to be bothered by it.
But that's what free speech means.
You can have a rude shirt and not go to jail over it.
Now, that was a long time ago when the left cared about free speech because they were using free speech to bash the right or what they considered the right.
American power, the American military, American wars, whatever.
Well, fast forward 50 years and the left has the power now.
They got it in part by using free speech, so they don't really like free speech anymore.
At least they don't really need it anymore, and they don't want their critics to use it.
Look at this story.
Look at this story out of British Columbia.
BC government looking into fines for people who engage in racist behavior.
The BC government is looking into whether people who engage in racist behavior can be ticketed.
Delta North NDP MLA Ravi Kallon has sent a letter to Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, formally requesting the province look into what powers the province has to crack down on racist and hateful behavior.
Can you believe that?
The public safety minister, that's someone who's supposed to be in charge of counter-terrorism, counter-extremism, border security, that sort of thing, maybe even organized crime, of which British Columbia has quite a lot.
But mean words are what's important to the socialist government out there.
That's what the public security minister is going to look into.
I understand that some jurisdictions have implemented new non-criminal sanctions to deter this behavior, such as ticketing, the letter reads.
I would be grateful if your ministry could determine what options might be available to better deter perpetrators.
Just what jurisdictions are those?
Iran?
North Korea?
Get this.
Callan has been traveling the province to meet with people about hate and racism in BC.
Really?
Is that what he's doing?
He's literally going around the province whipping up divisions.
Let's talk about hate, everybody.
BC is one of the most racially diverse provinces.
There are entire municipalities that are majority minority, like the city of Richmond.
But he's claiming somehow there's some sort of systemic racism.
Callan himself, that's him there, is proof of that.
He was born in BC, absolutely no barriers to his meteoric rise.
He was a sports hero, you know.
He actually went to the Olympics.
Now he's an elected politician in high office.
Sorry, you can't have that kind of a charmed life in a hateful, racist place.
It's just not true.
He's proof it's not true.
It's super gross to me that he's trying to whip that up where there is none.
It's like Hedy Fry, remember 20 odd years ago claiming there were literally crosses burning as we speak in Prince George, which just was not true.
The letter, quotes the story, comes as communities have noticed a rise in groups like the Soldiers of Odin and the Yellow Vest Movement, which drew criticism for attracting some members of the far right.
People are afraid in their communities.
They know that these hate groups are organizing in communities, Callan said in an interview.
My request to the Solicitor General was to do a scan of what other jurisdictions are doing to address public hate speech.
Really?
The Yellow Vest movement is scaring people?
The far right?
You know what the Yellow Vest Movement's about.
It started in France.
It's against the carbon tax there.
People who are against carbon tax, is that the far right and the hate group?
What does that even mean?
The soldiers of Odin, I've heard of them.
That's what, 10 guys in leather jackets, half of whom are undercover cops.
Out of a province of 5 million people?
Yeah, sorry, that's not a thing.
They're making an issue here.
Several communities also expressed concern to Callan that new hate groups are establishing themselves in BC and are seeking legitimacy by registering as societies under the Societies Act.
To address that, Callan is asking the BC government to speak to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about ensuring BC is doing everything possible to prevent the growth of these groups.
Well, what groups?
What is a hate group?
And should they be banned from incorporating as a society?
I know what a banned group is in Canada.
We have a list of them, actually.
Here's a list right here.
It's basically a list of terrorist groups.
Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram.
It's a list that the Department of Public Safety publishes.
You can see it, mainly Muslim terrorist groups.
It won't surprise you to learn.
But they're not hate groups.
Hate.
Yeah, they're hateful, but hate's not what put them on the list.
It's not illegal to hate.
It hates a natural human emotion.
What gets you on the list is when you become criminal, violent, terrorist violence, organized crime.
That's something different.
What on earth does it mean to want to ban people, for example, who wear yellow vests from organizing?
That's not even an official thing.
It's just a symbol anyone could wear.
It's like wearing those pussy hats at a women's march.
Is that a hate symbol?
What are you going to do?
Ban pink hats?
I don't even understand what they're really trying to do, but boy, are they trying to do something?
Ticketing people for hate, they say.
Does that include off-color jokes?
Does it include mean words?
Like the N-word for blacks.
I would never say that word.
It's a terrible word.
But I actually hear that word every day because I listen to the radio and there's rap music on the radio and I hear that word a lot.
Is there a special exemption for that word in rap songs?
Or does it depend on who says it?
What words are banned and what words aren't?
We're going to give that power to politicians.
If you are of a certain race, can you make fun of that race?
If you're of a certain religion, can you criticize your own religion?
And is that the only people who can?
Why are we even talking about this?
Other than some authoritarian extremist wants more power over what you can do or say.
Look at this insanity.
It's not just that one MLA.
This is from the same BC New Democrat Party.
It's another MLA there.
Many people in my community are voicing their fear that civilization is once again teetering on the brink of violent upheaval.
Really?
In BC?
Is that what's going on?
It is unnerving how much of what is happening around the world today resembles what we now know is taking root in Germany and Italy almost 100 years ago.
The deliberate spread of misinformation, the systemic degradation of political discourse, rhetoric that portrayed life as a dog-eat-dog struggle in which one could only gain at the expense of another, and the fanning of the flames of regional and national grievance, all creating a sense of crisis that encouraged citizens to voluntarily hand over their freedoms to demagogues in exchange for the promise of predictable order and safety.
Wow.
Did you know we're on the edge of another world war in British Columbia, a dog-eat-dog struggle?
So did you catch that word?
She wants to crack down on disinformation.
That's what she said, which means censorship, which is funny because she said, oh, they gave up their liberties too easily to some demagogic politicians, but that's what she's doing here.
She's spreading disinformation.
Oh my God, we're on the brink of a civil war, so let us control the disinformation.
I think she has, I think she should look in the mirror.
It's so weird, but this is the new narrative.
And look at this.
Look at this from the state broadcaster.
In case you missed it, we're launching a new series called Civil Obedience.
We'll be highlighting politicians who champion civility.
Does your MP beat back partisanship?
Do you have a story about politicians working across the aisle?
Let us know who you think we should feature.
Love you.
Civil obedience.
I know what civil disobedience means.
It means you're a critic of the government and you make your protests peacefully, even if you break the rules.
You're peaceful, you're nonviolent, you're like Gandhi.
Passive resistance is what he called it.
But then CBC state broadcaster, just weeks after Trudeau's re-election, is counseling, hey guys, obedience, civil obedience.
Don't even use mean words towards the government people.
We're going to celebrate an opposition that doesn't really oppose.
The state broadcaster is telling the people to be obedient.
And if you're not, maybe you'll get a ticket for hate, especially if you're wearing a yellow vest.
5,800 Young Street House Plans00:10:54
They'll probably even give a ticket to these guys.
This is just a stock photo.
But you know who wears yellow vests?
People doing something hateful, like building an oil pipeline.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, I see news from the United States that for the first time ever, the United States accepted zero refugees last month.
It's part of Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration.
Well, in Canada, the Trudeau government has been re-elected in part on a pledge to increase immigration to 340,000 people per year, most of whom are not economic class immigrants.
They're either refugees or grandpas and grandmas coming to join their kids here.
What happens when these refugees can't get a toehold in the economy, don't speak English, can't get a job?
Well, in Toronto, it seems they're put up in a million dollar a month makeshift refugee center.
And joining us now is a reporter who has toured that center, our good friend Sue Ann Levy from the Toronto Sunset.
It's such a great thing to see you again.
Nice to see you.
Well, I follow your stories about homelessness, some of the troubles in Toronto, and refugees.
And you write about things that every reporter knows, but many are afraid to say.
It's tough covering refugees, homelessness, and things like that without being called names, isn't it?
Oh, I've been called every name in the book, racist and bigot, the most recent ones, particularly when I cover refugees.
And the other thing that people don't know, and your audience should know, is that the people at City Hall and the shelter providers have thrown me out, have gone out of their way not to answer my questions, to avoid my questions, and to not give me information.
In fact, going so far as to offer tours and selective stories or advanced stories to other media to try and get back at me for covering this sort of stuff.
Well, I recently saw that you visited a shelter, and this is just for foreign refugees, am I right?
It's not for Canadian homes.
Mostly from Nigeria.
And what's so strange is it's in a former office building, and we'll show some images of it here.
You brought a cameraman in, and it seemed like they were showing you around.
They wanted to show this place off.
It looks very much almost like a museum, like everything is so...
Tell us a little bit about this former office that is now being used as a million-dollar-a-month refugee center.
Tell me a little bit about it.
So it's the former North York Hydro building.
It was bought by some condo developers about a year ago for $122 million.
The city, I discovered, first discovered the potential for it to be used back in February of this year when I saw a small line item in the 2019 budget that said $3 million contingency had been set aside for 5,800 Young Street to house refugees.
They actually said that in the budget.
So my mind flipped and I went and looked at the address, saw that it was the building.
Well, the building sat vacant.
for the entire year.
I did find out that they were looking at it as a contingency space.
It sat vacant until I heard rumors a couple weeks ago that they were actually going to activate it and make it into a shelter for 200 people.
Well, that's what's so strange is, I mean, we sent our own David Menzies, and I know you covered it too.
There's a Radisson Hotel in eastern Toronto, and the whole hotel is full of refugees, which, I mean, that's not really a good way to keep people on a long-term basis.
A hotel, there's no room to stretch your legs.
It's not meant for kids.
It's meant, you know, you're in town to do business, you're there for a few days, but at least a hotel is meant for people to sleep there.
The idea of putting people in an office is so weird.
It's not a sensible use of the place.
It's not built for it.
It's huge, too.
There's a lot of space.
And I mean, there's a lot of light, so that's a good thing.
But, you know, the interesting thing is that these are not the refugees that are in the hotels.
At first, I thought that they were going to be offloaded from the hotel system.
Well, no, forget about that.
These are single refugees, male and female, more female than male, that have been in the shelter system, that have occupied 40% of the space in the shelter system.
So these were people who were in the homeless shelters.
Yes.
They've been taken out of the homeless shelters and put here.
Yes.
I didn't know that we, I thought that Trudeau had said we weren't taking single refugees.
I guess he was referring to Syria.
So these are single guys, and you say they're from Nigeria?
Mostly Nigeria.
No, there were refugees from Nigeria.
Well, mostly Nigeria.
I think they're asylum seekers, most of them.
There's 120 women going into this shelter and 80 men.
I mean, Nigeria, I mean, I wouldn't choose to live there, but it's one of the world's most populous countries.
If we're saying that Nigeria is now a source of refugees, first of all, that's strange to me.
And second of all, there's far more people in Nigeria than Canada.
This is very unusual, it seems.
But the crazy thing about this, and I can't get over it, is, and you can see this in your video, it really is an office.
It's not, like, they've just cleared out some debt.
I mean, it seems so inefficient.
And what I can't believe is, and you did the reporting here, they're spending, you know, $45,000 a month just for heat and light.
The total bill, I can't even believe this.
A million dollars a month.
And I did the math.
You say there's 120 women and 80 men in there, so that's 200 people.
Right.
A million a month, that's $5,000 a month per person.
That is a luxury condo.
That is a big house.
$5,000 rent.
That is a nice, and Toronto's expensive, but you can get a nice house for $5,000 a month.
Well, you know what the expensive thing is, the per diem.
So it costs $140 a night, or the city is paying $140 a night to house these people, over and above the rent and the heat and light.
So $140 would go towards their beds, their three meals a day, which are being catered and brought in, snacks, and the support services and the security services.
There's a heck of a lot of staff.
So that's, so you're saying there's the rent.
Yes.
But then there's all the services.
It's like, I mean, you know, I live next to a senior's residence where they get the room and they get their food and the snacks.
I bet there's a lot of Canadians that seniors, disabled folks who would say, hey, excuse me, can I get a bed, three meals a day, snacks, and security.
Well, you should see the shelter.
They've got computer rooms.
They've set aside rooms for prayer if these people need to pray.
And they've got a common area with a huge widescreen TV.
I mean, it was actually pretty inviting, considering it was an office building.
Well, it's just weird that it's in an office building and a million dollars a month.
I mean.
Well, this is a city is so desperate for space.
They don't know where to put these people.
They've got shelter space that's being occupied by refugees.
The flow of refugees has continued unabated.
I found that out.
Well, I mean, at the border crossing, they just walk right in.
I mean, there's a big sign that says the word illegal on it.
Like, the sign says illegal.
Yeah.
But there's officers that are ready to literally carry the luggage across.
Exactly.
And there's space.
They even told me that there's space under the beds for their little suitcases that we see or their big suitcases that we see when they cross the border.
So these are people.
So is that where these folks are coming from?
They weren't brought in officially.
A lot of them perhaps came across that border in Quebec.
Well, they'll never tell you that.
They'll never tell you that.
They will never tell you that.
But the thing is that they're all singles.
I do know that.
And I know that they have been in the shelter system for however long.
Some for three months, some for longer.
But, you know, I did find out that a lot of them speak English, and they are going to try and find them jobs and rehouse them.
But, you know, it's hard to get the actual figures as to the turnaround.
Well, I tell you, and it certainly sounds like, I mean, if you hadn't spotted that line item in the budget, we wouldn't even know about this.
And maybe that's one of the reasons they have it here, is low-key knowing.
Well, the neighborhood was caught completely by surprise.
And I might add that they're having an open house tonight, Thursday night, November 21st.
But it was supposed to be a consultation, but it's not a consultation.
It's done, it's afraid of consultation.
So basically, people can come and find out how good this place is for the neighborhood.
That's what's going to happen.
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, 120 single gals, 80 single guys.
I mean, who knows?
Maybe they'll have dances.
Yeah, maybe they'll have like romance under the sea, dance night with German DJs.
I'm joking around.
I know it's like a cruise ship.
That sort of is.
Who knows?
Maybe they'll make love.
I don't mean to make light of it.
Maybe people will find love.
Stranger things have happened.
But obviously the North Carolina is going to sit around in this office all day.
So, I mean, I don't know off the top of my hand.
5800 Young Street sounds like it's fairly far north.
It's north of Finch.
So is there anything around there?
Well, they said that they've scoped out, they call it the assets of the neighborhood.
So they know where the coffee shops are and they know where all the services are, dentists and doctors.
But I have to tell you, having gone up there, it's kind of situated in a bit of a wasteland.
So they have to walk down to the Finch subway station, which is fine.
But there are no, in the immediate area, there are no coffee shops or restaurants.
Everything about it is strange.
Everything's about it.
It's strange, but the thing I just can't over can't get over is it is 80,000 square feet of office space.
I mean, look, I don't know the real estate scene in Toronto, but it seems fairly firm to me.
Like they're building things downtown all the time.
80,000 square feet, and the best use at a million bucks a month is to put 200 foreign migrants in there.
I just don't even get it.
Arrows Against Tanks00:04:08
I tell you one thing.
I wish I was getting five grand a month worth per person.
So if there was theoretically a family of four, they're getting the equivalent of 20 grand a month.
It must be nice.
It is.
It is.
Only in Canada, you say.
And in Toronto.
Well, excellent reporting.
And I'm glad you got access to it.
I had to insist, but I did get it.
Well, I'm very pleased.
And credit to you.
And I suppose credit to them for letting your camera in because they could have blocked you.
I'm glad they didn't so we could take a look at what was in there.
Sue Anne, keep up the good work.
I know you get a lot of flack for reporting these things, but you know what they say?
You don't get flack unless you're over the target.
So you're doing good work.
Well, it's hard to give me flack when I actually go out there and do it.
Yeah.
Good for you.
Thank you much.
Thank you.
There you have it.
One of our favorite people, Sue Ann Levy, telling us about this homemade refugee center in an old office building.
Isn't that strange?
I recommend to you the story, which you can find in the Toronto Sun.
The headline is Refugee Shelter to Cost Taxpayers Nearly $1 million per month.
And you can find that at Torontosun.com.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
On my monologue yesterday about Hong Kong and our real refugees petition, Monica writes, I totally agree, the Hong Kong people are true refugees.
Well, they're not refugees yet.
Hong Kong is still a refuge itself from Communist China.
But if things go from bad to worse, if it becomes the new Tiananmen Square, I fear there will be genuine refugees, but they will have qualities that we like.
They speak English, they're entrepreneurial, they're well-educated, they love Western values of liberty and democracy and independent courts.
I think they would make fine Canadians.
And I think they would love our values, and frankly, they would teach us a thing or two about freedom.
Diane writes, having lived in Vancouver, I know many people from Hong Kong.
They're often Christian, awesome people.
Well, that's a point I made yesterday.
I showed you recently that there are mainland Chinese in Canada who are bringing some of that communist culture with them, the People's Liberation Army Legion Memorial, like that.
I'm worried about that.
I think bringing in Hong Kong Chinese freedom lovers could be an antidote to the PLA's fingers in our country.
I think it would be good.
Mark Andre writes, how about they keep fighting for freedom in their own country instead of giving up and coming here?
Well, you're right.
And that's my point, is that they're not refugees yet.
They're fighting.
But what I saw at that Polytechnic University, they're fighting literally with bows and arrows.
They were using bows and arrows to shoot against heavily armored police, including some mainland Chinese paramilitaries.
You're not going to stop a tank with a bow and arrow.
It makes me think of that scene from Avatar when the armored helicopters were being plink, all the little bows and arrows from down below.
I'm worried there's going to be a massacre.
You know, we hear so many calls for Syrian refugees and now the Rohingya refugees.
By the way, the Syrian refugees that Justin Trudeau brought over, as you know, they didn't actually come from Syria.
They were already safe in a third country, whether it was Jordan, Turkey, or Lebanon.
They were not in jeopardy.
Trudeau just wanted them because he wanted more liberal voters.
I think if China goes full Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong, there will be genuine refugees in genuine jeopardy, and their bows and arrows won't stop the tanks.
I don't know.
I just know one thing, that if they were leftist liberal voters who hated freedom, Justin Trudeau would already have them on a plane to Canada.
Well, that's our show for today.
until tomorrow on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home.