Justin Trudeau’s government lost a 171-148 vote to form a Special Committee on Canada-China Relations by January 20, 2020, forcing witnesses like Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Ambassador Dominique Barton—both with ties to Chinese interests—to testify amid unresolved hostage cases (Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor) and Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou detention. Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg’s Time Person of the Year honor, despite reader support for Hong Kong protesters, contrasts with her Tesla’s single-use plastics, exposed by reporter Kian Bexte at RebelUN.com, while UN climate conferences in Madrid feature coal sponsors like Coca-Cola and ignore OPEC/Russia’s "conflict oil." The episode reveals systemic double standards in activism and governance, exposing performative virtue signaling over substantive action. [Automatically generated summary]
Hey you guys, I have some good news for you and my mouth can barely even make those words.
It's so rare.
Good news?
Yeah.
The opposition parties in parliament got together and passed a motion over the objections of Trudeau's minority.
And it's a good motion.
It's to set up a committee to investigate China-Canadian relations.
I will read the entire motion to you, or almost the entire motion to you, and tell you what I think they should look into.
I'm excited about this.
Before I let you hear that, though, may I invite you to become a subscriber to our premium service.
Go to premium.rebelnews.com.
It's basically the podcast with video.
And you get access to a couple other shows too by David Menzies and Sheila Gunread.
Eight bucks a month at premium.rebelnews.com.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, Justin Trudeau just lost an embarrassing vote in Parliament, 171 to 148.
I'll tell you what it's all about and why this is good news.
It's December 11th and this is the Esther Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government about why I published it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I worked for Preston Manning back in the 90s and in many ways it was pointless.
I loved the work.
I loved working with him.
It felt meaningful at the time, but really every single vote in Parliament was predestined to go his way, everything.
There was never any doubt he had three majority governments in a row.
We could make a bit of a fuss and question period and have the odd symbolic win.
But really, for a decade, the government did what Jean-Cretchen told it to do.
Cretchen had his rival, Paul Martin, but he absolutely knew how to contain and control him.
He delayed his exit as long as he liked, and he planted little time bombs for Martin when he finally decided to retire, like the ad scam scandal, the sponsorship scandal.
I would never have thought it at the time, so I loathed the liberals so much, but I look back with almost a fondness.
I know that's nuts because it was Jean-Cretchen who was the liberal, but he reigned in the deficit.
It was Jean-Cretchen who allowed and even legally and politically encouraged the oil sands to take flight.
It was Cretchen and his Edmonton cabinet minister, Anne McClellan, who defended the oil sands against the more radical environmentalists in cabinet like Sheila Copps.
True, Jean-Cretchen ratified the Kyoto Protocol and he had this bizarre negotiation strategy.
Whatever the Americans agreed at the UN Global Warming Meeting back in Kyoto, whatever they said, he instructed his negotiators to pledge to do 1% better.
But what was so genius about that was, of course, he never actually meant any of it.
He never actually did anything other than say it.
He didn't bring in a carbon tax.
He didn't beat up the oil sands.
He didn't block any pipelines.
He just kept saying that he ratified Kyoto.
And he did.
Didn't mean he actually executed or implemented it.
Cretchen didn't like Alberta that much.
He didn't like America that much.
But I don't think he picked fights with either like Justin Trudeau does.
And he wasn't stupid enough to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, the oil patch.
Can you even believe it?
I'm nostalgic for the Kretchen years, I'll admit it.
Maybe that's why Cretchen won three back-to-back majorities.
He was a liberal.
I mean, he implemented a gun registry.
He frustrated Senate reform.
He did a lot of things we didn't like.
But his style, I think, was that of a manager, not a dramatic leader.
He liked to put out fires, not start them.
He wasn't always hamming for the cameras.
He wasn't looking for crusades or adventures.
He was happy to have no open files on his desk.
He was happy to be bored.
He also had a bias towards people around him who were grown-ups.
They were liberals, but they were seasoned a bit.
I think of Herb Gray, the old liberal hand from Windsor, Ontario.
I'm not saying that Herb Gray was a great businessman or really a great anything, but he had some ballast.
He wasn't excitable.
He had seen a thing or two before, including in opposition.
Compare that to the absolutely clueless, inexperienced team that Justin Trudeau has put around himself now.
It's like he had a rule, no one over 40.
I mean, that works for hip TV shows, but not really when you're running a country and experience and wisdom counts.
Krista Freeland is just over 50, but I think she styles herself as a wannabe millennial.
And you are literally looking right now at her crack NAFTA team.
I swear to God, look at them there.
I don't think any of them have even yet negotiated a mortgage, let alone an international trade deal.
No wonder we were taken to the cleaners by Trump.
What a contrast to Kretshan.
All right, that's not what I actually meant to talk about today, but I can't help but to have thought about it in comparison to Justin Trudeau.
By the way, I see that Finland has a new prime minister, and she's just 34.
And she's part of a pack of millennial cabinet ministers of that country, all of them women, by the way, or most of them.
Finland has about 5 million people in it, so it's about the same population as the Greater Toronto Area.
And it has a smaller GDP than Toronto.
So, I don't know, maybe it's no harm to have a group of millennials at the helm.
Or maybe Finland is about to be devoured by Russia again, as it has been in the past.
That's Sergei Lavrov on the right there.
And that's, look at that guy there.
And that was Putin on the other side.
They eat broken glass for breakfast.
And I don't know if the Finns stand a chance, but hey, they got some millennials who look sort of cool on Twitter, so they got that going for them.
Oh, well, that's their problem in Finland.
Back to us here in Canada.
Trudeau is almost 50, and he's awful no matter what his age was.
But the good news is he had his majority government taken away from him.
Now, the good news for him is that the NDP doesn't want to have another election right away.
They have no money.
They really underwhelmed in the last election.
They had their seat count cut almost in half.
And Jagmeet Singh is like Trudeau, but even with less there.
He was a weak campaigner, and he actually makes Trudeau look wise.
This is Jagmeet Singh in his safe place.
Wait, wait, wait, stop.
Stop.
This doesn't make sense.
Hold up.
Wait, who are you?
I am you.
I am me.
No, sir, you are you.
Wait, I don't know.
Two is two.
Got two bus downs down as blue.
I mean, they look sort of cool, pretty cool.
That's a popular app with the teenagers called TikTok.
It's basically a karaoke dance app.
And I think Jagmeet Singh is a perfect fit for TikTok.
He's done a couple of vids like that now.
He's sort of cool.
And that was his brother there, too, politician also.
Those guys are happy to be living on the public dime, have a fake sort of celebrity, but neither of them would ever know what to do if they were given any power.
They're happy to be in opposition, is what I'm saying.
It's just enough for them.
They didn't do very well at campaigning, and neither of them will ever actually wield power.
So I don't think they're going to go to an election again.
They're just going to do some TikToks.
The Blocky Bukoi actually came ahead of the NDP.
Total revival under Trudeau.
He's revived Western separatism and Quebec separatism, so good for him, eh?
I don't think they're in a hurry to campaign anymore.
They're just enjoying life on the public dime, too.
They're totally against the government of Canada, except when it comes to their paying their pensions.
So I think Trudeau will likely win any confidence votes for at least a few years, because of course if you lose a confidence vote like a budget, there's an election.
I think Trudeau will call an election when he thinks he has his opposition particularly weak.
I don't know, maybe right in the middle of an Andrew Scheer leadership vote or something.
But although Trudeau is likely to pass any budgets or confidence votes, he will still lose on some matters where the parties can humiliate him and stop him without forcing an election.
It might be hard to find common ground amongst the conservatives, the bloc, and the NDP, but I think there could be on some things.
When it comes to the SNC Lavaland, Jody Wilson-Raybow matter, although I think now that I say it, I think the Bloc Québécois would probably stop that because they would champion SNC Laviland and say, stop picking on Quebec.
I think there could be some cooperation by the opposition on ethics matters, but last night they actually found common ground in foreign policy on China.
Isn't that interesting?
And so they teamed up to pass a motion, 171 votes to 148.
I wanted to read it to you at length, if I may.
It comes on the one-year anniversary of the kidnapping by China of two Michaels, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were seized as hostages by the dictatorship of China in revenge for Canada lawfully arresting a Chinese tycoon named Meng Wanzou.
She's the CFO of Huawei.
That's a big telecom company in China.
She's also the daughter of the founder.
So it would be like arresting, I don't know, Bill Gates' daughter or something like that, if he has one.
China has launched a diplomatic war against Canada in revenge and a trade war.
And of course, taking hostages, which really could be considered a real act of war.
But Trudeau has bent the knee and appointed a new foreign minister who literally went on television in China on their propaganda networks to speak in defense of what a great dictatorship they are.
Here's the clip.
And I would say China stands out as a beacon of stability, predictability, a rule-based system, a very inclusive society.
Yeah.
Oh boy, he's going to hold them to task, eh?
Yeah.
Canadians are smarter than Trudeau, even though they voted for him.
I don't know if you can see this.
This is a chart by countries.
It's a survey done by Pew Research of countries around the world and asked them if they have an unfavorable or favorable opinion of China.
The blue bars are unfavorable.
The green bars are favorable.
You can see that Canada has amongst the most unfavorable views of China in the world, even more hostile than Americans.
And this has all happened.
Canadians have hardened their hearts only in the last year towards Communist China.
They've had enough.
I think the hostage taking is really serious.
So is China threatening Hong Kong.
I think Canadians are good people, obviously, and have always felt a bit odd about how chummy Trudeau was with China.
And now it's moved from a quirk of Trudeau to a real flaw.
I mean, remember this?
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
When Trudeau said that back then, it was weird, but now it's much worse than weird.
So here's the motion that passed yesterday.
It's called Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
Okay.
Let me read it, Chiang.
I'm going to read most of it to you.
The motion is that in light of the prolonged diplomatic crisis with China, the House, that's House of Commons, appoint a special committee with the mandate to conduct hearings to examine and review all aspects of the Canada-China relationship, including, but not limited to, consular, economic, legal, security, and diplomatic relations.
That the committee be composed of 12 members, of which six shall be government members, four shall be from the official opposition, one shall be from the Black Québécois, and one from the New Democratic Party.
Okay, let me stop there.
So it's a total review of the Canada-China policy.
I think it makes sense.
Something Trudeau should have done, but he didn't do.
His government is packed with China shills.
Even his new ambassador to there, Dominique Barton, total sine of file.
I think they might even still be working psychologically for China as they did in real life before.
That's not an insult.
They did in their real life work for China, in China, for Chinese businesses.
I'm not sure how anyone can trust that they're still not putting Chinese interests first now.
I'm talking about our ambassador, our foreign minister.
Well, now we've got a committee that is 50-50 government and opposition MPs.
I'm not sure how tie votes will be broken, but it'll be very interesting to see the proceedings.
They won't just be able to shut them down.
Like, I don't know if you remember a few months ago, how they shut down any inquiries in the House of Commons because they used that liberal majority when they were investigating the Jody Wilson-Raybold matter.
Remember this disgrace?
Can you get to your actual point of order?
I actually have started my point of order.
It has to be an actual point of order.
It is indeed a point of order.
It is indeed a point of order.
And I appreciate that this is a very uncomfortable subject for the Trudeau majority on this committee.
But while the Prime Minister is trying to silence his former Attorney General, he will not silence members of the official opposition.
So at this point, this is a point of debate.
We're going to move to a vote.
Mr. Because I've spoken to the clerk, and at this point you haven't raised a point of order.
You've raised a point of debate.
Debate cover up.
Thank you.
We're going to move to a vote.
All those in favor of the motion?
What an awful, disgraceful, corrupt moment that was.
That Anthony House father chairing the committee, shutting down any questions into the scandal.
Well, that won't be able to be done now that Trudeau does not have a majority anymore.
I don't know how you're going to break a tie on a committee, though.
Shutting Down Questions00:06:16
All right, I'm going to skip some of the technical parts of the motion, but let me read a little bit more, okay?
The clerk of the House shall convene an organization meeting of the said committee for no later than January 20th, 2020.
That the committee be chaired by a member of the government party.
That notwithstanding Standing Order 1062, in addition to the chair, there will be one vice chair from the official opposition, one vice chair from the Blo Québécois, and one vice chair from the New Democrats.
The quorum of the committee be as provided for in Standing Order 118, and that the chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least four members are present, including one member of the opposition and one member of the government.
Okay, I'm just showing that they're going to do some, like they've got some rules here.
The committee be granted all the powers of a standing committee, as provided in the standing orders, as well as the power to travel, accompanied by the necessary staff, inside and outside of Canada.
Okay, so let me stop for a minute.
This thing's going to get rolling pretty quickly.
Right after the new year, they're going to organize it.
They'll have a staff.
They'll have all the powers of any existing committee and they'll travel in Canada and overseas.
I bet they'll go to Hong Kong.
I bet they'll go to Hong Kong.
What do you think?
But look at this part.
This is delicious.
This is also from the motion.
That the committee have the power to authorize video and audio broadcasting of any or all of its proceedings, and that the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety, and the Canadian Ambassador to China be ordered to appear as witnesses from time to time as the committee sees fit.
So it's going to be broadcast on TV, which is good, so we can all see it.
And the foreign minister, public safety, minister Trudeau himself, the ambassador, ordered to appear.
Now, I'm not quite sure if a vote of the House of Commons is enough to order someone to appear, but really, why wouldn't Trudeau?
He takes questions from time to time in question period already.
It's not like he actually says anything substantive in his answers.
He's a master at evasion, and the opposition isn't really good at pinning him down on anything.
And frankly, he's too dumb.
He doesn't even know enough to give a wrong answer.
And certainly the media party doesn't press him on anything.
Really, Trudeau just has his very shallow message track, and no one tries to push him off message, except Donald Trump.
That's the one time I've ever seen it happen.
Just last week at the NATO summit in London.
Watch that moment one more time.
Look at this.
Well, we'll put him on a payment plan, you know?
We'll put Canada on a payment plan, Ron.
I'm sure the Prime Minister would love that.
What are you at?
What is your number?
The number we talk about is 70% increase over these past years, including, and for the coming years, including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets.
We are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it.
Okay.
Where are you now in terms of your number?
We're at 135?
1.3. 1. 1. 1.
And continuing to move.
They're getting there.
They know it's important to do that.
And their economy is doing well.
They'll get there quickly, I think.
And look, it's to their benefit.
Trudeau was afraid of Trump, afraid of Trump calling out his BS.
So he actually answered after obfuscating.
It was a lie.
Canada spends 1.27% of our GDP on defense, not 1.4%.
But at least he gave a substantive answer to the best of his meager abilities.
Trudeau was afraid to avoid the answer, but he's unafraid of Parliament or the Canadian media or even the law.
I mean, the guy's broken the law five times now, Conflict of Interest Act.
So he'll skate at this new China committee, but still it'll be a moment Trudeau will hate.
And there are real things to talk about.
And even if Trudeau lies to the committee, others might tell the truth.
Here's a few things to talk about.
Why isn't Canada retaliating to China's trade war?
Why does Canada take so many Chinese nationals into our universities, pushing aside Canadians?
Why does Canada take so many Chinese nationals into our high-tech university departments where they engage in massive industrial espionage according to CESIS?
Why is Canada allowing Huawei to build any telecom infrastructure in Canada at all, let alone in our far north?
Why is Canada allowing China to put trade sanctions on us, like on our agriculture, without a tit for tat?
Frankly, why are Chinese diplomats even allowed here while the two Michaels are held hostage?
Why don't we expel them?
Not take them hostage, but kick them out.
Why won't Canada stand with Hong Kong like the U.S. Congress has done?
Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, Republicans, they've voted for a law that would put sanctions on China if they get violent in Hong Kong, take away Chinese rights to trade in America.
We have more Canadians in Hong Kong than America has Americans there.
Why are we silent while Americans are bold?
Why are we still planning to take billions of Canadian tax dollars and invest them in China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank?
Have you heard of that?
It's this huge Chinese infrastructure bank.
Why would Canadian taxpayers give money to China at all, let alone to build Chinese infrastructure?
They have, what, two, three trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves.
Why would we build Chinese infrastructure with our money, especially when we're shutting down Canadian infrastructure like pipelines?
How much money does Canada still give China and foreign aid?
Because I know we do.
Why do we at all?
And how much do we give?
Those are just a few of the hundreds of questions I think ought to be asked, and none of them could cause the minority government to fall in themselves.
It's actually a smart use of the combined votes of the opposition parties, don't you think?
Maybe they're not quite as hopeless as we once thought.
Stay with us for more.
Risking Freedom00:04:07
We no longer have time to leave out the science.
Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis.
Finding holistic solutions is what the COP should be all about.
But instead, it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition.
Well, that's Greta Tunberg, Saint Greta, as we call her, or the Time magazine person of the year, as Time magazine calls her, even though Time Magazine readers overwhelmingly voted that that honor should be bestowed on the young people of Hong Kong who have stood firm against Beijing's tyranny,
defended democracy and freedom at the costs of their own, at the risk of their own lives.
Well, Greta, she sailed in a yacht from America to the Global Warming Conference in Madrid, so surely that makes her the most amazing person in the world.
Yeah, not really, but we have sent the only two skeptical journalists in all of the world to cover the global warming conference that the UN hosts every year.
This year it's in Madrid, Spain.
It was supposed to be in Santiago, Chile, but alas, that city is in flames as the people rise up against energy poverty brought about by poor decisions made by the local authorities there to go with green transit, which costs more and thus made the price of transit go up and caused the riots.
I think it's quite poetic that the Global Warming Conference was moved because of riots against the global warming agenda.
Joining us now via Skype from Greta Central, Arkyan Beckstee, and Sheila Gunri.
Good to see you guys.
Hey, Boss, good to see you too.
Well, give us an update.
Sorry for that long introduction.
I just can't even, part of me can't believe that Greta is held up as the best of anything.
But really, when you think about the politically correct mindset, of course she was, because she is the battering ram for the globalist, environmentalist, green agenda.
So of course she's the person of the year.
Yeah, this was to be expected, but you know as well as I do the history of Time magazine's person of the year.
It used to be man of the year back in 1930 something when they picked some undesirable man.
They don't have the best taste as far as I'm concerned.
And when you compare Greta Tunberg to the millions of people marching in Hong Kong, I've seen them both.
And I know who I'm impressed by.
I'm impressed by the people who stand up against the Communist Party of China when they risk their own lives, when they risk being sent to a gulag, when they risk being raped in prison by police officers.
Greta Tunberg, on the other hand, doesn't risk anything.
Greta Tunberg is just raking in the dough, raking in the fame, and there's no risk to her.
Well, and what does it say about Time magazine that they're choosing this young girl as their person of the year over the Hong Kong protesters?
One of these groups or one of these people is advocating for more centralized government, more government control over your life.
And the other group that the Hong Kongers, they're marching for less government control, less freedom.
They're marching for liberty when all the solutions to the things that Greta thinks are problems means more government and fewer rights for everybody.
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Now, Sheila, this is, if I'm correct, your fourth global warming conference that you've covered for Rebel News.
I'm really glad you're an old pro.
Debating Plastics vs. Fossils00:15:46
Tell us how this one is different, if it is different, than the ones you've covered in the past from, let me see if I can remember, Marrakech, Morocco, Bonn, Germany, Katowice, Poland.
You've attracted this traveling feast.
It's a feast for the bureaucrats and diplomats and lobbyists.
You're there working and you're going economy class.
How, if at all, is this year's conference different from the previous three you've covered?
Well, I think the first thing is that it is in a bigger facility than the other places have been.
So there is in the other cities, there were more inflatable structures to support the conference.
This is in a massive facility.
So they do have a lot of structures existing here.
However, you can tell that it was thrown together haphazardly at the last minute.
If you look around town, there's not a lot of signage here.
I know in Morocco, the whole town was coated with signs.
Germany, likewise.
Poland, not so much for other reasons.
But here, even the signs, they still say Chile.
And then they have Madrid written underneath because Madrid was chosen, you know, really only four weeks ago.
And this is actually the third host city.
So I suppose it's hard to get momentum up for a conference that literally nobody wanted.
Originally, this was intended to be in Brazil, and then Brazil elected their version of President Trump, President Bolsonaro.
And he said, we're not having this conference here.
We don't want it.
We're setting our own way.
We're going our own way in the world.
And that's how it ended up in Chile.
And as you rightly pointed out, they are having energy poverty protests that have turned out to be deadly.
So I guess the people who want to make energy more expensive for literally everybody on the planet thought it might be an optically bad idea to continue to hold it in Chile.
So they scrambled and found a location here in Madrid.
I was actually quite convinced that it would go back to Bonn, Germany, where the head of the UN climate change operations are.
But they did find a place here.
But it's festive inside, but when you're in the rest of the city, you would not know that this conference is happening.
Yeah.
Well, let me ask you one more question before I go back to Kian.
As you say, this was just kicked around.
Nobody wanted it.
The signs all say Chile.
I think that's very funny.
I noticed that they have big corporate sponsors, which makes sense because, of course, the journalists report on the press releases and the politicians, but there really is a lot of business conducted at these billions of dollars worth of grants and subsidies.
They're lobbying.
I noticed that of the four, I think they're called platinum or diamond sponsors, three of them are coal-fired power plant companies.
They're energy mega corporations, and they have, you know, they all have a few windmills for window dressing.
But the people who are sponsoring this are in the coal industry.
Now, I think that's hilarious.
I think that's great.
I think it shows that the UN, like most global things, is absolutely riggable.
Just like, I don't know, international sports.
There's bribery and corruption, and whether it's FIFA soccer or the Olympics.
Here, you don't have blood doping like the Olympics.
You just have payola to say, can you give my coal mine your green blessing or something?
I've got nothing against coal.
I'm just laughing that the global warming people are letting themselves be sponsored by coal because, of course, they like free money.
Well, yeah, you know me.
I like coal.
I'm a fan of coal.
But it's funny.
You're right.
There are some major fossil fuel companies here sponsoring this event.
If you go to their website, they sort of feature the fact that they're into natural gas, but of course they are into coal.
We also see there's a lot of greenwashing happening here.
Coca-Cola is prominently featured here.
And as Kian points out, they're one of the world's largest producers of plastic pollution.
Dinon, you know, the little dairy company that has all the disposable yogurts, they're prominently featured here.
It's greenwashing, really.
It's exactly what you point out.
These high-polluting companies, if you care about that sort of thing, and I'm told these people do, if they throw enough money at the United Nations, they get the green stamp of approval.
And it's funny because I saw on Twitter today some of the delegates here are sort of outraged that CAP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, has representatives here.
I suppose they are as observers.
But why is that so outrageous when everyone is walking under these signs featuring the Spanish fossil fuel companies?
It's almost as though, you know, it's really how the liberals treat Canadian oil and gas, isn't it?
They tax Canadian oil and gas and give foreign oil and gas a pass.
And the same thing is happening here, except in reverse.
They are giving their own domestic production a pass while again continuing to target Canadian oil and gas.
Yeah.
Well, Kian, I want to bring you into the conversation.
You are the only journalist of which I'm aware, at least the only journalist in the English-speaking world, who has actually managed to put questions to Greta Tunberg, St. Greta, person of the year, Greta, that weren't puffball PR approved questions.
And that's when you encountered her in Edmonton.
You tracked her down.
We had a big team effort to find her.
It was amazing.
We found her in that city of a million.
And you, well, here, let me just show our viewers a quick reminder of when you actually got to ask her about, well, who's funding you and things like that.
Here, take a quick look at this.
So will you be disclosing your finances?
Will you be telling us who is paying for your trip, your Tesla, and bringing you to our country in the middle of an election?
Thank you very much.
You're paying for everything.
You pay for the Tesla?
Borrowed the Tesla for free from New York.
Have you registered as a third-party advertiser coming to this country in the middle of an election period?
It's the middle of an election.
You understand that?
Have you registered as a third-party advertiser?
I'm sure we don't talk about the elections at all.
I have never mentioned the election period.
You understand that climate change is a pivotal policy.
It is a ballot box question in this election.
This is a ballot box question this election, and you're rallying, you're engaging in our political discourse as a foreigner.
All right, so that's, you're, I think, the only journalist in the world who's actually scrummed Greta.
Really, it's her handlers that are that are the puppeteers.
How is Greta being treated or seen at this global warming conference?
Because on the one hand, they would love her because she's the battering ram that's that's punching through because she's so quirky.
On the other hand, her whole shtick is that she's holier than thou.
She took a sailboat across the Atlantic.
No one else at this Madrid conference did.
They all took jet planes.
So her whole thing is, I'm so pure, no one is pure enough for me.
How are they handling that?
This is a very interesting question, Ezra, because something we've been working on here is sharing some footage that we have of Greta.
Something that we haven't published yet before from that day when I talked to Greta was the footage of the inside of her Tesla, the Tesla that Arnold Schwarzenegger gave her, and it was littered, Ezra, it was littered with climate contraband.
Climbing contraband, it's a good phrase.
And you mean like plastic bottles and stuff?
Yes.
Yeah.
It was full of it.
Plastic utensils, plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles, plastic wrappers for Kiwis, plastic twine covering oranges, all this stuff, Ezra.
So we're asking folks, well, what do you think about the use of plastics in general?
And when they say, oh, the use of plastics is bad.
And then we say, well, look at this footage of Greta Tunberg's Tesla.
And their response, Ezra, is, I don't believe it.
We watch the stages of grief pass through their face in about five seconds.
And they get angry.
One of them literally called on us.
One of them said, I just don't believe you because she's my hero and Greta wouldn't do that.
One of them said, well, you know what, Kean, I do believe you because she's not a messiah as much as everyone says she is.
That was some brutal honesty.
The reactions have been hilarious.
And I encourage everyone to go to RebelUN.com where all of our coverage from this conference is.
And that video will be there.
And it is the creme de la creme of this conference, I think, because the reactions, they just, some of them don't want to accept that Greta, person of the year, is really Greta, hypocrite of the year.
Okay, well, let's just show a quick sneak peek of that.
But you're correct.
You guys have been pumping out the vids, including on Saint Greta.
All your vids from Madrid are at rebelun.com, but here's just a taste of you showing the truth that St. Greta isn't quite as pure as the driven snow when it comes to plastics.
Take a quick look at this.
What do you think Greta Tunberg would say to people who continue to use plastic, even though they know how damaging it is to the environment?
I think she would be very angry at them.
Stop using plastic.
It'll help a great deal.
Shame.
How dare you?
I was going to say it.
I was going to say it.
How dare you?
How dare you?
Do you think Greta Tunberg uses plastic water bottles?
I hope not.
I don't know.
So, we see lots of people driving Teslas, you know, and they're like, oh, we're saving the environment.
But in the Teslas, in the cup holder, is a plastic water bottle.
Do you think some of these people are just hypocrites?
Honestly, yeah, I think so.
And I think it's easy to like jump and to be part of the trend of like going green, going healthy.
So I think that it is a lot of it is like this new kind of trend or fad that's going on of trying to save the environment.
But I think at the end of the day, people don't really care and they just want to have the image.
So one thing I want to show you, it's footage that I took actually of Greta Tunberg's car.
This is her car.
These are the Aboriginal beads that were given to her by Native parents.
Yeah, but it's kind of hard.
It's not to be unplight, but it's kind of hard to believe.
Because Greta is kind of my, it's really hope for my finally my generation.
So if I don't have like strong evidence, I can give you answer.
What do you think about that?
I don't know what is the source of the photos.
I'm afraid I cannot say anything.
If they were true, if they're real, and I can promise you they are.
What do you think about them?
Well, nobody should use plastics in the first place, but I don't know what is the source, so I'm afraid I cannot really say.
I took it myself.
Why are you surprised that Greta Tunberg, someone who's using plastic?
This is, well, this three isn't.
Oh, okay.
So, Greta Tunberg is using single-use plastics.
That's what surprised us.
Have you used single-use plastics?
We're not the climate messiah.
I don't know what was the case and why was it bought, but as I say, I wouldn't take any stand on this just because it is unclear to me what is the source and if it's the true.
Fair enough.
So I want to believe that it's not that it's not Greta Greta's car.
I want to believe that it's not her, and I can't confirm it.
So I will not talk about her.
Well, you guys, you're doing great work there.
You're going to be there for a couple more days.
Now, it looks like you're getting more access to this conference than we have in the past.
I know that after Sheila went to Marrakesh, Catherine McKenna, the climate zealot who has since been demoted by Justin Trudeau, she instructed the UN to not accredit rebel journalists at the UN.
That's very abusive and censorious.
It hasn't stopped us from going to these climate conferences, but it's changed where we could physically go.
It looks like you guys are getting a lot of access.
Is that just because everything's so ramshackle?
It's sort of easy to get places.
Is it because it's not in an authoritarian regime like I mean, Morocco is not that bad a place as Arab countries go, but it's a controlled, benign dictatorship there.
Why are you getting more access than you have in years past?
Well, we're getting into the side events.
Now, we are nowhere near where all the bureaucrats and decision makers are.
They're in a completely other building from where we're at.
But because this was thrown together, I think so haphazardly, the side events that are normally spread across the city and that are earlier in the conference, they're being held right now in one building.
And so we're able to get into, it sort of amounts to a bit of a train show where they have press conference, like not press conferences, but panels.
They're hosting panels of completely uninteresting people.
But at least we're allowed to get in under in the warmth.
It was only four degrees here and it was raining this morning.
So we can get in there and we can, there we can find sort of the climate change true believers, which has resulted in some really great content for Kian.
But yeah, I think it's just because it was just the whole conference was just stuffed together in this one venue.
And the security is not as tight at other times.
You know, sometimes they want to see our passport so we can get into the building.
Sometimes we just walk in with the herd and nobody seems to notice.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's really exciting.
And I want to encourage all our people to go to rebelun.com.
I believe that you too, Sheila and Kian, are the only skeptical journalists.
I want to say in the world, there may be someone else out there, but I just don't know who they are.
I haven't seen journalists make contact with Greta in the skeptical way that we have.
I haven't seen journalists cover these global warming conferences in the way that we have.
That's why Catherine McKenna kicked us out.
That's why the UN kicked us out.
That's why we go back.
I think that it's important journalism, and I'd encourage all our viewers to go to RebelUN.com to watch all the videos and to help cover our costs if they can.
I have one more question for you, and I'll let you guys go because I know the time zones are later over there.
I think it's six hours later there than in Toronto.
North America's Clean Air00:03:20
I've been talking a lot about China, and you mentioned Hong Kong, Kian.
Everyone at these global warming things hates what I call ethical oil.
That's oil produced in democracies.
And these days, that really means Canada, the United States, a little bit of North Sea oil.
And that's pretty much it.
Whereas the conflict oil from OPEC countries and Russia is generally not criticized.
I haven't seen Greta criticize it.
And of course, if you worry about greenhouse gases, and I don't, but for those who do, China is by far the largest emitter, and India is probably growing and will soon be number two.
Have you seen any criticisms of China, India, OPEC countries, Russia there?
Or is there hatred reserved only for the Western liberal democracies?
It's the latter, Ezra.
Their hatred is reserved completely for Western liberal democracies.
And Greta Tunberg said it in her speech today when she said, net zero emissions are not enough.
When referring to rich countries, rich Western liberal countries, net zero is not enough.
We must ask for more.
And countries like Canada and the United States need to do even more to offset poor countries like India, China, you know, the major polluters that are destroying our rivers and oceans, killing ecosystems and polluting particulate matter more than anyone else in the world.
There's one reference of China here, and it is in these pollution pods.
We did a video on them, and Beijing was the worst pod out of all of them.
It's hard to fudge the facts on that one.
Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world.
And in these pollution pods, well, there's five of them, one from London, one from Sao Paulo, one from India, one and Beijing as well from China.
None from North America, though, because, well, guess what?
North America is clean.
The air in North America is clean.
But it's North America that is being targeted by the likes of Greta and by the likes of the United Nations.
The West needs to do more and do more, and we need to kneecap our economies, and we need to kneecap our middle classes more and more and more so that Xi Jinping can pollute more and more and more and create cheap products to be shipped out to South America and Europe and Africa and North America as well, because China gets a free pass.
China's not, I haven't seen China mentioned hardly at all.
And one thing also to note is Taiwan is not here.
Taiwan, typically, you'd expect a major city, millions and millions of people, tens of millions of people, I think, live in Taiwan.
Huge contributor to the dialogue around sustainable development, sustainable growth, and climate change technology and carbon capture technology.
Taiwan's a huge player in that, but China has been allowed to veto Taiwan's ability to be at this climate change conference, which they wanted to be at.
But of course, the United Nations bends to whatever demands Xi Jinping has.
Yeah, Taiwan's an amazing country.
It's got about 24 million people.
It's very modern, very clean, and it is a democracy.
It's shocking to me that they have been banned, but not surprising because, of course, the UN is all in for Beijing.
Taiwan's Omission00:04:13
Last word to Sheila.
Sheila, I want to say that your trips to these global warming conferences are truly one of the great achievements of Rebel News in our almost five-year history.
I'm kidding.
I mean, I say this as a compliment to you, but it's true.
I think that if I were to look back on the 13,000 videos we've produced at Rebel News over the years, we've hit other UN conferences too.
We did one on the Nanny State Conference in New Delhi once.
We sent David Menzies to their migration conference in Morocco also once.
We've been to the UN in Geneva and New York.
But I think that these global warming conferences, if we didn't do it, I don't think anyone would.
We have, I mean, our headquarters is in Toronto, but our heart is in Alberta with the oil patch.
I just think it's important work, and I thank you for doing it.
I'm glad you're bringing Kian along.
Show him the ropes to these conferences.
Release the Kian.
You know, he's got his own great style.
But give me your thoughts.
This is your fourth one, and I hope you'll continue to go to these always for us.
Give us your last thoughts on this, Sheila.
Well, you did point it out that we are probably two of the only skeptical journalists here.
We did encounter our friends from the New American magazine who did interview us because as Americans, they were quite interested in the fact that we were banned by our own government.
They found it very shocking, actually.
And it should be shocking.
But also, besides Kian and I being journalists, I think we're just normal people.
Like we're normal Albertans.
And so we notice things that these very managed, true believing journalists don't or refuse to.
Like Kian, right away, I was so proud.
I felt like I had maternity over it when we were going through security and he noticed the hum of the diesel generators.
And I thought, that's my boy.
Yeah, that's a great point.
And I was so proud.
I was so proud.
And then when we were out in the parking lot and Kian's like, nobody's using the electric car chargers.
And I, you know, I had to wipe away a little tear because I was very proud that he was noticing all these things that normal people notice that the dozens and hundreds of journalists walking into the conference every day don't.
So I'm very excited that Kian's here because there's so much to do.
And, you know, my great regret at these conferences is that I can't cover it all.
And Kian and I will never be able to cover it all, but at least we can make a real serious dent in it.
Yeah, well, that's great.
I remember, and we'll just show a little B-roll of it right now, when you were in Morocco and you leaned up against one of these car charges.
And I was thinking to myself, are there really that many Teslas in Morocco?
And not only are there really no Teslas there, but those, they were fake.
These car electric charges were fake and they tipped over when you leaned on them.
They were literally a Potemkin village, a fake just-for-show thing, which was the perfect symbol.
So I'm so glad that Kian caught onto that too.
Well, you guys, thanks for doing this interview with me.
I don't even know what time it is over there, but thanks for fitting me in.
Good luck in the next two days.
Keep the videos coming.
We'll encourage people to go to RebelUN.com and more great work.
I think you guys are really making a difference.
So thanks for doing it.
Thanks, Ezra.
Thanks, Boss.
All right, you guys take care.
Well, there you have it.
Sheila Gunn Reed and Kian Bexte at the UN Global Warming Conference in Madrid, a conference that no one wanted.
Brazil kicked them out.
Chile kicked him out.
Madrid said, oh, fine, we'll take them.
And I really recommend you head over to RebelUN.com.
There's just little videos, little vignettes there that I promise you you will not see anywhere else.
All right, stay with us for more.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about WestJet's CEO saying he won't tolerate talk of Western separatism.
Roddy writes, I say boycott WestJet, find another means of travel.
Let him eat his words.
Boycott WestJet?00:01:28
Yeah, I don't think that's going to punish the CEO.
Maybe it will.
I think he has to be chided by his business peers and by political leaders.
So far, I haven't seen either of those things happen.
Raymond writes, if Alberta separates, investments would flood in.
Well, they're already flooding out, so it couldn't be any worse than that, could it?
Matthias writes, we don't need the opinions of millionaires.
This is a decision for every Albertan.
Yeah, my beef with the CEO of WestJet isn't that he's a millionaire.
I'm just pointing out that because he's a millionaire, he's completely immune to what unemployed Albertans are going through.
I saw a statistic that 20% of young men in Alberta are unemployed.
That's shocking.
It's that he has no connection to the Royal Patch, really no connection to Canada at all.
He just got here a couple years ago.
He's not a citizen.
He's a jet-setting globalist in every meaning of that word.
And he's telling regular Albertans who are hurting to shut up.
The fact that he's a millionaire adds insult to injury because, you know, who knows what lavish lifestyle he's in while he's chirping at people for complaining about their poverty.
I thought it was a real disgrace.
And it really reminded me of the snobbery in the UK Brexit vote.
He's a perfect remainer.
Well, he can go sought off, as they'd say in Britain.