Jean Charé’s rumored $300,000 Huawei consulting role—helping Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case with ex-clerk Wayne Wooters—raises concerns about his Conservative leadership bid amid past Liberal ties and Quebec corruption. Meanwhile, Trump’s Soleimani strike and Iran’s failed missile retaliation expose its military weaknesses while pushing Europe/NATO to abandon the JCPOA. Trudeau’s delayed response to the Ukrainian Boeing downing, despite family pressure, hints at potential pro-Iran biases, from Alexandre Trudeau’s Press TV links to MP Majid Johari’s influence. Charé’s alleged foreign lobbying and Trudeau’s perceived inaction underscore deeper geopolitical tensions, where Canada’s stance on China and Iran risks undermining U.S. alliances. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I talk a little bit more about the Conservative Party's looming leadership race.
It's going to be here faster than you think.
300 grand just as an entry fee.
Today I take a look at Jean Charé, whose name is being bandied about, and some news that he's actually been working for the Chinese government.
What do you think of that?
I'll tell you what I think.
Before I do, though, can I invite you to become a premium subscriber?
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Okay, here's the podcast.
Tonight, is Jean Charest going to run for the Conservative Party of Canada or the Communist Party of China?
It's January 8th, 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 is in government about why I publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I see that Jean-Charais is being touted as a potential leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
As you know, Andrew Shears says he's going to resign, even though he hasn't yet, and the party has apparently scheduled a leadership vote for June.
As Andrew Lawton and I discussed yesterday, the party has an extremely high entry fee.
China's Politician Rent-a-Center00:13:13
$300,000 just for the privilege of running.
And then you've actually got to raise money to actually run.
So there's no way to run if you have less than half a million bucks at your fingertips.
I shouldn't say no way.
For example, Bernie Sanders in the States has shown that you can raise a staggering amount of money in small increments on the internet if you build a genuine presence.
But Bernie Sanders has been a congressman and then a senator for decades.
And of course, he ran in 2016 in the Democratic primaries against Hillary Clinton.
And it's widely admitted that she stole that election from him.
As in, he was winning with actual party members, but she won by gaming the rules and winning what's called the superdelegates.
Those are party insiders who are given extra power within the party than normal members.
I truly think that the way Clinton beat Sanders in the primary turned off a good portion of the Democratic Party's base.
And though Sanders is a full-blown socialist, even more so than Clinton, he has an authenticity and a sort of blue-collar appeal that Clinton just doesn't.
I wonder if Sanders would have beat Trump head to head in 2016, especially in key states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio.
What do you think?
Obviously, we'll never know, but it's something to think about.
Sorry for that tangent, but it all goes to my point.
Bernie Sanders can raise millions of dollars because he's been a fighting champion for the socialist movement and then for the Democratic Party for years and decades.
And he has a national and obviously even a global reputation.
And a lot of people sort of think he was robbed.
And my point is, that's why he can raise a ton of money online.
But can you name for me someone in Canada in the conservative movement who could match that even proportionately?
It should have been Maxime Bernier.
If he could have stayed within the Conservative Party and not split away, he would absolutely have been their heir apparent today.
He would have had the same feeling that Sanders has, that he should have been the candidate last time.
He was robbed, et cetera.
But that bridge is burned, and then the burnt-out bridge was nuked, and then the remnants of that were dynamited, and then there was an earthquake.
So that bridge is gone.
Can you name me someone else in Canada who can come in and muster that kind of support?
Jason Kenney could, but he's busy as Premier of Alberta now.
Maybe Brad Wall, maybe, the former Premier of Saskatchewan, but probably not.
He's not as well known nationally, and he's ruled it out, of course.
I like Pierre Polyev, who announced his campaign this week.
It will be chaired by John Baird, the former cabinet minister.
I like Pierre Polyev because he's conservative, but more to the point, because he fights.
Unlike Andrew Scheer, who let the media party steal his lunch money every day, Polyev fights back hard enough to put the media in their place, but not so viciously hard as to turn them mercilessly against him.
That's a balancing act.
Here's a recent exchange between him and the media that I sort of liked.
The only people talking about recession consistently are the conservatives.
Why are you so offside with the independent projections?
Well, actually, the liberals are offside with their own projections.
Remember, the liberals, the liberals, yeah, but I'm talking deficit.
Talking recession.
Talk about the economy for a second.
No one is saying it except you guys.
Okay.
So let me help you out with the definition of a recession.
Two consecutive quarters of Egypt.
I'm aware of your textbook definition.
But I will say, as Reagan said, that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
And a recovery is when Justin Trudeau loses his job.
With John Baird on his team, and I think Jenny Byrne, who ran Stephen Harper's last campaign, with Baird and Byrne helping him, I think he's got a real chance.
But who else could muster a half a mill almost immediately?
Well, the answer is obviously the candidates of the old Red Tory dynasties, the old school Laurentian elites, Peter McKay, son of Elmer McKay.
Peter McKay's greatest accomplishment was, I guess, shepherding the merger of the progressive conservatives with the Canadian Alliance Party.
Give the man credit for that deal, or maybe it's the opposite of credit.
Maybe Stephen Harper ran circles around him as they negotiated with each other.
Either way, good for Peter McKay, but a fairly unremarkable cabinet minister in his own right.
He was justice minister for a while, and I challenge you to name a single conservative judge appointed in his tenure.
Well, I can actually name one, but that's it.
Out of the dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens, hundreds of judges appointed over Harper's tenure.
Did you know that Stephen Harper appointed eight Supreme Court of Canada judges?
Eight.
There's only nine on the whole bench.
Now, some of them retired and he replaced them.
Eight Supreme Court justices, courts of appeal, federal courts, etc.
He could have completely remade Canada's legal system the same way Donald Trump is doing in America.
Instead, Harper let Peter McKay indulge in patronage politics and Red Tories or full-out liberals.
But yeah, that's Peter McKay, old family, old red Tory.
He could raise a half a million in a few phone calls.
Phone calls to bundlers and fixers like Brian Mulroney.
Or maybe the Mulroney candidate would be this guy, Jean Charé.
Seems like he's been around forever, doesn't it?
That's because he got into politics pretty much right after school.
He was briefly the Tory leader after Kim Campbell destroyed the Conservative Party in 1993.
Then Shire saw a better opportunity for himself, and he switched to being a liberal and became the Premier of Quebec, overseeing one of the most corrupt governments in recent Canadian history.
I don't have any evidence that Jean Chere himself took bribes.
I won't say that.
But pretty much every other liberal politician in the province during that period of time was charged with some sort of crooked kickback scheme.
Who knows?
Maybe Shire was the only saint in the entire province.
But yeah, Shire is actually being touted as a Conservative Party leader, as if the one thing the party got wrong in the last election was its opposition to the carbon tax Shere proposes, promotes the carbon tax.
But still, who else could muster half a million bucks in 10 days?
But here comes big news from the Globe and Mail, which is doing good work on the China file.
Let me say what I said before about their coverage of Jody Wilson-Raybow.
The Globe and Mail covers the China file excellently.
I mean, really admirable.
A real public service speaking truth to power, which is hard to do for the media party.
Look at this.
Shire advising Huawei in Hmong Wanzo case and on 5G networks.
Let me read a little bit.
Former Quebec Premier Jean Shire, who is contemplating a run for the Conservative Party leadership, has been acting as a consultant to Huawei Technologies Company Limited in the Hmong Wanzou extradition case and the tech giant's efforts to participate in Canada's 5G wireless networks, a source says.
Mr. Shere is part of a team in the law from McCarthy Tatro, including former Privy Council clerk Wayne Wooters, that Huawei retained in the summer to offer strategic advice.
Now I want to let you know I believe everyone has the right to a lawyer if they're charged with a crime.
Even guilty people.
Meng Wanzhou is fighting her extradition to the U.S. where they want her for financial crimes.
I believe she deserves the right to a lawyer.
And I believe a lawyer can represent her in that extradition matter without being pro-communist or pro-China or pro-Huawei.
Our system sort of depends on lawyers to help people charged with things, even if they're guilty, by the way.
But that second part of his retainer, Shire is helping to lobby, sounds like, or at least provide some political strategy to get China's massive Huawei telecom company into Canada's phone and computer networks.
So that's not defending an accused criminal and providing justice where needed.
That's choosing China over the United States, where even the Democrats say Huawei is dangerous.
Here, just a reminder, here's Democrat Susan Rice, who was Obama's national security advisor.
It gives the Chinese the ability, if they choose to use it, to access all kinds of information, civilian intelligence, military, that could be very, very compromising.
So much as I disagree with the Trump administration on a number of things on this, their concern about Huawei, I believe they're right.
As a matter of protection, would the United States have to have a slightly different security relationship?
Yes, and that will throw the five eyes collaboration, which serves the security interests of every Canadian and every American, into jeopardy.
It can't be done.
Can't share.
I don't see how we can share in the way we have.
It's not a joke.
It's truly serious.
The fact that in addition to Shire, the former clerk of the Privy Council, Wayne Wooters, the former top bureaucrat in Canada, who knows all the secrets, who knows the inside track, who knows the government's thinking, the fact that he's now happily working for a foreign power, that's super gross, even more gross than a former premier doing the same.
A source, let me read some more from the Globe article, a source said Mr. Shere and Mr. Wooters are providing strategic advice to Huawei.
This includes intelligence and policy advice on understanding the extradition process facing Ms. Hmong, the chief financial officer and daughter of the company founder Ren Zheng Fei.
They are also advising Huawei as it seeks approval to sell equipment for the construction of Canada's 5G networks.
The federal government is conducting a cybersecurity review to determine whether Canada should bar the Chinese high-tech firm from participating in the next generation of wireless technology as the United States and Australia have.
So like I say, China is renting out former senior Canadian politicians and bureaucrats to battle our current senior politicians and bureaucrats because Shire and Wooters are for rent.
Now I get it.
Everyone has to pay the bills.
Some people want, I don't know, four or five cars, two or three homes.
They want that millionaire lifestyle that so badly that they'll sell out their own country.
Nothing illegal about it, just super gross.
But imagine thinking that you can do that, go get the Chinese money, sell out your country's security interests, and then come back to the public life and run for public office after having taken private payments from a foreign power.
Well, I guess that does make him the perfect red Tory, doesn't it?
And it certainly clears up any doubts about Shire's ability to raise significant funds quickly, doesn't it?
How much did Shire charge Huawei to say this?
Let me quote from the Globe.
Our policy towards China has been hijacked by Donald Trump, Mr. Shere said.
We should not be kow-towing to another government with regard to our relationship with China.
Imagine saying that, that we're kowtowing to our closest friend and ally in fellow democracy, the United States.
Whereas, in fact, China is the dictatorship that has seized and held Canadian hostages for more than two years, but Shire's bad mouthing, America, and you want to be prime minister?
Yeah, I'm grateful for this Global Mail article.
I think, if I know conservatives at all, that Jean Charé can come up with this 300 grand, 500 grand, whatever.
Sure, yeah, no problem.
But I think he's going to get blown out of the water if he runs for conservative leader in Canada.
But I see a very promising future for Jean Charé running for the leadership of the local Communist Party cadre in Shenzhen, where Huawei is located.
Of course, they don't have to compete in elections over there now, do they?
Stay with us for more.
Iranian Aircraft Incident00:15:01
As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
Good morning.
I'm pleased to inform you the American people should be extremely grateful and happy.
No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime.
Trump went on, that was his remarks this morning, went on to explain that in his view, the show of fireworks by Iran, nothing deadly, not even injuries, just a lot of hollering and flash bang, was the equivalent of Iran standing down, of Iran blinking in the face of Donald Trump's threats to hit 52 targets in Iran if they push back,
a symbolic number chosen for the 52 American hostages taken by the Ayatollahs in 1979.
It's been an incredible week or so.
World War III was a phrase bandied about.
And now it looks like Donald Trump is the peacemaker.
Even his critics say it's a new, it's a new, I'm not going to say new world order, but I give you the example of Ian Bremer, who is Gerald Butt's new employer of the Eurasia Group, who says this is a remarkable opportunity for peace, joining us now via Skype from the LAX airport where he's about to follow the news around the country is our friend Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.
I tell you, you need to follow the story every few hours, Joel.
Not long ago, people were thinking we're on the verge of World War III.
Donald Trump, I think, kept his cool, realized that the Iranians must have been aiming to miss because they literally did not hit in a single American soldier and said, yeah, I'll take that as a win.
I think it looks great on him.
What do you think?
Well, it's a great day for the world, actually, because not only did Donald Trump clearly establish a new deterrent or restore a deterrent, really, against attacking Americans or killing Americans, he also managed to keep the United States thus far out of any kind of intense military engagement in the Middle East.
So it's a win-win because the Soleimani strike was so effective and so shocking that it reset the game.
And we are now in a situation where Americans are not afraid.
In fact, Americans feel safer than ever before, whether in uniform or out.
The president has made it very clear there's a price for harming American civilians or soldiers.
Meanwhile, Iran wakes up today with the same problems they had before, even worse perhaps.
The regime saves face by telling its people that it responded with military strikes and so forth, but they still have these crushing sanctions on their economy.
They're about to get more.
They're still isolated from the rest of the world.
The only win they really got was getting rid of Soleimani, because there are plenty of Iranians, possibly within the regime itself, who were tired of all the proxy wars and so forth, all the money they were wasting on controlling Syria, you know, not exactly prime real estate.
So they're a winner in that sense, but the real winner is Donald Trump and the American people.
Of course, we are thinking also about the Canadians who lost their lives on that Ukrainian Boeing 737 that crashed.
We don't know exactly what happened, and that'll be interesting to find out.
It may be that Iranian defenses were responsible for mistakenly shooting that aircraft down.
I don't know why the aircraft weren't grounded coming out of Tehran during airstrikes against the United States and against Iraq, but you see the number of Canadians on that flight, your heartbreaks.
Certainly other people on board as well, but just so many Canadians.
So we're celebrating the fact that there were no American casualties, but we are also thinking about the victims of that terrible crash, and we need to know what's going on.
Of course, Iran is hiding the black boxes, maybe because those black boxes would reveal that there was nothing wrong with the plane.
It's a new plane.
It's only four years old.
And according to the Ukrainian airline, it's one of their best planes with their most experienced crews.
So we're going to have to see what happens there.
There's going to be more coming out about that.
But in general, the world is a safer place.
The United States has established a deterrent.
Iran has responded, but without escalating, essentially.
And nobody's going to have to go to war.
This is what people voted for.
They voted to get out of wars in the Middle East, but also at the same time to be safe from rogue states like Iran.
And it's a big win all around.
You know, it was your absolute Trumpian negotiating strategy.
And it's such a startling approach.
And I recommend for the dozenth time that people read the book Art of the Deal.
And of course, it was co-written with a ghostwriter, but the ideas there are pure Trump.
The purpose of hyperbole, the purpose of the ability to walk away from a negotiation.
When Trump said, I'm threatening 52 targets, we'll devastate you.
The world clucked and said, that's warmongering, that's over the top.
But I think that was the kind of raw language that actually connected with the Ayatollahs much more than the constant appeasement of the Obama regime.
And I mean, it must have taken, I mean, let's come back to that crashed jetliner in a minute.
But other than that huge possible exception, it must have taken quite some effort by the Iranians to fire, what, 20 missiles and have every single one of them miss, I'm certain, to miss on purpose, lest they provoke Trump's 52 strikes.
I mean, it's like two dogs met each other and growled, and one of them went away whimpering with its tail between its legs.
I can't think of, I mean, it was such a stare-down, and only a, quote, bully like Trump could have done it.
What do you think, Joel?
Well, I don't want to overstate the accuracy of Iranian missile targeting.
First of all, I'm at an airport right now, as you can see in the background.
Airports take up massive amounts of space.
The part of an airport where a person might actually be found is probably minuscule, let's say 5% of the total surface area of the airport.
And the same is true on military bases.
You've been on a military air base, you know that there's a lot of land there.
There's some runway too and some buildings and so forth.
But these are big targets.
And if you want to aim a missile at them, you don't exactly have to have the best precision-guided GPS positioning to manage to hit the base but not hit any people.
I don't want to overstate the accuracy of Iranian missiles because, of course, four of the 15 missiles were reportedly lost in flight.
So that tells you they're not actually that capable.
I mean, good for them, I suppose, for aiming to miss, so to speak.
But, you know, again, the jury is still out on that.
We don't know what happened with the jetliner.
We don't know what it was hit by.
And the Iranians lost basically a third of their missiles in flight.
So Iran is not only perhaps standing down here wisely, but they've also been revealed to be a bit of a paper tiger.
I mean, nobody's afraid of Iranian missiles in quite the same way after last night.
They're just not as scary.
Yes, they can cause devastation and destruction, but they may not work.
And one of the only reasons the missiles hit the bases at all is that the United States missile defense systems were deployed elsewhere.
We have military bases that are actual American bases in various Arab countries in the region.
This was an Iraqi base.
It's not an American base.
These are the two bases that were hit.
These are Iraqi military bases where we happen to have troops stationed.
But they're not U.S. bases, really.
So Iran knew that, and they went for a base that would be undefended, and also one that wouldn't trigger a necessary retaliation to re-establish a greater deterrent by the United States.
So you give them credit, in a sense, strategically.
Iran did, I think, the smartest thing they could do under the circumstances.
But I think their military hardware is just not up to scratch.
I mean, again, four out of 15 missiles lost in flight.
We don't know what happened with the civilian jet airplane that crashed, what hit it.
It probably isn't mechanical failure.
You know, if Iran were being belligerent and bellicose, they would have blamed the United States for taking out the civilian airliner.
It's happened before.
We have actually accidentally downed an Iranian plane, a civilian plane, before.
So they could have blamed us, and then there would have been this scramble to find what actually happened, and they have the black boxes, so we never would have found out.
But the fact that they came out right away within basically minutes and said it was mechanical failure, and now they're not handing over the black boxes, that tells you they may have missed whatever they were aiming at, or they may have misfired.
And, you know, so Iran looks a lot weaker today militarily.
Domestically, where they control the media, they probably look a little stronger.
But again, we've taken out their top general, the architect of their regional hegemony, Kassin Shilimani, is dead.
And all they did was essentially put on a fireworks show.
They didn't really cause us any damage whatsoever.
So again, big win to the United States.
The other interesting thing about Trump's remarks, and this was really the part I did not foresee, because when the first missile reports started coming in, I actually said, I was being interviewed at the time, and I said, let's hold off and wait to see what happens.
This could just be saving face by the regime.
These missiles tend not to hit anything.
And that turned out to be correct.
But the one thing I didn't foresee was that Trump would use this episode to pressure the Europeans and to pressure NATO.
He basically said to Europe in his speech, you guys have to pull out of the rest of the Iran deal.
Whatever remnants are left of the Iran deal, they are now over.
We need your help now on sanctions.
Don't give the regime a financial lifeline.
Don't give them any diplomatic support.
You are the loophole in this entire arrangement.
Come back together.
Now we have a military deterrent.
Now people believe and understand I will use the military option.
Now we can get a better deal and really remove Iran as a nuclear threat to the world.
So he's putting pressure on Europe.
He told NATO they have to step up and lead these efforts in the Middle East.
So that's going to be interesting to watch.
Here's a quick clip of that NATO reference from Trump.
Take a look at this.
The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout.
Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism.
The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality.
They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal or JCPOA.
And we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place.
Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process.
So I want to pick up one more thing that you said.
Of course, I was focused on the big World War III possibility and the amazing turn of events.
But you're right.
63 Canadians are dead.
What surprised me when I looked at the Canadian foreign minister's first statement about this is that he said he was going to contact Ukraine, not Iran, when the plane crashed in Iran.
I think you mentioned earlier that the plane is new.
It's four years old.
It has a senior crew.
That Iran within minutes said it was a mechanical problem.
And most suspiciously, they won't hand over the black boxes.
I think if you believe that this was an accident that just happened to be perfectly timed to when Iran was shooting missiles and shooting things down, I think it takes the same sort of credulity to believe that Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself.
I just think there's some coincidences that are too dark, and you have to really be naive to accept them without due diligence.
I think that Canada, and I hate to say this, I think Canada lacks the courage to champion those 63 dead Canadians and the others and to challenge Iran and to do a proper investigation.
I think Trudeau in particular, his brother Alexandra, has done propaganda films with Press TV.
That's Iran's public broadcaster.
I think that Trudeau's own caucus has pro-Iran MPs like Majid Johari.
I think that because of ideology sympathies, Trudeau will actually let the death of 63 Canadians, which I believe the most likely explanation was being shot down, not on purpose by Iran, but through negligence or an accident.
I think Trudeau's going to let that slide.
I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
Maybe that's a Canadian insider's question.
But the more I think about it, the more I see already the seeds that Trudeau is not going to ask questions because he doesn't want a moral fight with Iran.
Well, maybe the families of those Canadians will have something to say about it.
I mean, that's going to be hard for him to maintain.
All that's needed is for a couple of those families to come forward and demand answers.
And I think it'll be a political nightmare for him to continue in a passive way.
I think people deserve answers.
And also, the Iranians must be upset about it.
I mean, Iran's going to have to come out with some answers because Iranians want to be able to travel.
Now, they can't travel everywhere because of all the sanctions and so forth.
But when you're no longer confident in your country's ability to fly airplanes in and out of your major international airport, that changes your life significantly.
I think that they have to demand answers, and they will.
And I think the regime will have to come up with some explanation.
When you say mechanical failure, I mean, especially because it's an American plane, why not detail all the mechanical reasons this failed?
It's a Boeing.
Boeing's had a lot of problems lately with a 737 MAX, although this wasn't one of those.
But there's going to be pressure in Iran as well.
Iranians Demand Answers00:02:26
The regime is a totalitarian regime, but it's not immune to those kinds of popular pressures that have nothing to do with politics.
People want to know.
There are Iranians in that plane as well.
I think Iranians were the single largest nationality on that plane.
There are Iranians in that plane.
They want to know that it's safe to travel.
And I think that people are going to want to know.
So, you know, I don't think Trudeau is going to be in for an easy ride if he tries that.
Well, it'll be very interesting.
Well, thank you.
And I hope you travel safely.
Thank you, Eric.
And thank you for jamming us in as you wait to board your plane.
Joel, great to see you.
And thanks, my friend.
You too.
Thank you.
It's great there.
You have a Joel Pollock Sr., editor at large of Breitbart.com.
And we'll certainly keep an eye peeled for what Trudeau says and does about this downed Ukrainian jetliner.
Stay with us.
more ahead on Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about the 200 arsonists behind Australia's bushfires.
Louise writes, not a single mention of this in the UK.
Imagine my shock.
Also, the Green Party voted against backburning in cooler months.
Yeah, well, listen, There's real explanations for fires.
It sounds like 87% of the fires in Australia were either accidents, like the military accidentally setting off fires or matches or accidents or arson.
87%.
That's boring, I guess, compared to the global warming ferry.
Chris writes, ending forest management programs and arson are the biggest reasons for the fires in Australia.
Well, yeah, if you'll recall, it was the same for the awful Fort McMurray fire in Alberta a few years ago.
Rob writes, those are the ones caught red-handed.
I bet many more started fires and didn't get caught because nobody saw and the evidence was burnt.
Well, that's a very good point.
So you got 200 people charged and arrested rather.
To arrest someone, you have to have a certain burden of proof.
I read that one story of a helicopter spotting people.
But I mean, how many helicopters are there over the entire massive country of Australia?
It's a very large country geographically.
The odds of spotting an arsonist, I put it to you, are low, and yet they've spotted 200.