On January 27, Canada’s first confirmed COVID-19 case emerged from a China Southern Airlines passenger, yet federal officials—including Justin Trudeau (on vacation) and ministers like Chrystia Freeland—failed to act while Toronto hosted Chinese New Year celebrations. Unlike the U.S., UK, or Australia, Canada lacked temperature checks or airport scanners, raising questions about preparedness. The episode also critiques Trudeau’s handling of crises, from extended vacations to silence on Iran-China tensions, and contrasts his leadership with historical authoritarian cover-ups like Chernobyl or SARS. Meanwhile, it examines the polarizing transgender agenda, where Dr. Kenneth Zucker (CAMH) was censored for holistic gender dysphoria treatment, despite later vindication, while Professor Selena Todd faces threats at Oxford for feminist views. The host warns Trudeau’s policies risk eroding public trust amid both health and ideological emergencies. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I go through some reports from China on the coronavirus and also from around the world of how they're dealing with it.
Very interesting approaches in Hong Kong itself and in Italy where they send medics into airplanes arriving from China.
I will show you all that.
Actually, I guess you'll hear the audio.
If you want the video version, you've got to go to premium.rebelnews.com, premium.rebelnews.com.
It's $8 a month.
You get the video version.
Plus you get Sheila Gunread's show, David Menzies' show, and that $8 a month helps us pay the bills.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, Justin Trudeau takes his second vacation of 2020, just as the first coronavirus lands in Canada.
It's January 27th, 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.
On the weekend, Canada got our first case of coronavirus, the deadly virus that is raging through China.
A man flew on a China Southern Airlines flight to Canada.
That is a very long flight.
He got off the airport and walked through customs, and we only heard about him because he later realized he was sick and he called an ambulance.
The CBC found someone to say, get this.
It was quite impressive how quickly first patient was isolated and treated.
Really?
I'm not really impressed.
And I see this morning that his wife has now fallen ill too, and that she hadn't been quarantined.
She hadn't been under any observation.
She had been under a self-quarantine, whatever that means.
That means no quarantine.
Have you ever returned to Canada from a long trip abroad?
I have.
Typically, you go to the grocery store to get some fresh milk and eggs and bread.
Maybe you pick up some dry cleaning.
You putter around town a bit.
Did this woman literally not leave her home?
We don't know.
Now, this news started coming out on the weekend about the Canadian case.
Public health officials from the government of Ontario had a press conference.
I didn't find it particularly useful, but I suppose that government bureaucrats working on a weekend, that's a good sign of some sort.
I recall one of the excuses that the Soviet Union used for not alerting the world to the Chernobyl disaster was that it happened on a weekend.
And the Soviets said, I swear they said this, that they didn't think Western bureaucrats would work on the weekend.
And you know, most bureaucrats actually don't, but these ones in Ontario did.
They said that the passengers near this sick man on the plane would be in danger.
If this person was symptomatic and infectious during the flights, and that is something we're still ascertaining, the protocol is to work with the federal government, and I have talked to Dr. Teresa Tam at Public Health Agency about this already, getting the flight information up to them through to get to the manifest and usually to identify people who are within three rows of the person who's infectious, because they would be at risk potentially.
But things like international flights where the air circulates for 12 hours, they're not really the domain of provincial governments.
That's more of a federal jurisdiction.
And Justin Trudeau was on the second holiday of the year this weekend.
I mean, he took an extra long 17-day holiday over Christmas.
I've never heard of a world leader versus a G7 country going on a 17-day vacation before, have you?
17 days.
A lot happened in that 17 days, if you remember.
Iran and the United States started trading blows.
Canada has 500-plus soldiers in the Middle East.
Trump took out Iran's leading terrorist general, Trudeau.
He couldn't be bothered to end his vacation any sooner.
He's still wearing that vacation beard like he's just phoning it in.
He's been pitifully weak in dealing with Iran since they shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet taking off from their own airport.
Trudeau calls that a crash or a tragedy when, of course, it's murder, manslaughter at best.
Dozens of Canadians dead.
But look, that's tough to deal with and stressful, and you need to know what to do.
And Trudeau doesn't know what to do, so he hides on vacation.
So he was on vacation again this weekend.
Who has had two vacations already in 2020?
Now, when the province of Ontario was having its press conference on the weekend, I checked for any comment from any relevant federal cabinet minister.
I checked Trudeau and Christia Freeland, his deputy, and Harjit Sajjan, the defense minister, and Mark Garneau, the transport minister, and Bill Blair, the public safety minister, and Patty Haidu, the health minister.
I checked them all.
Literally not a word from any of them.
They were on holiday too.
Or rather, they were partying.
They were all out at different Chinese New Year parties, ironically.
Literally, in the middle of the Ontario press conference, these cabinet ministers were partying.
Many of them were partying in Toronto, just a few miles away from where this emergency press conference was happening.
They were literally posting pictures of their parties to Twitter and Instagram in the middle of the press conference.
I mean, in truth, if they had gone, what would they even say?
Trudeau, their boss, was on holiday.
He wasn't holding emergency meetings.
There was no cabinet meeting, not even a phone call, a conference call.
It's not like these cabinet ministers had instructions, marching orders from him.
If they would have said anything, they'd probably get in trouble, either for contradicting the boss or, more likely, making the boss look bad and lazy.
When the news broke of the first infection in Canada, I went to this state broadcaster.
And hours after the news broke, there still wasn't a single story about it on the CBC's main website.
Like the Liberal cabinet, the Liberal spin doctors of the CBC didn't know what to say yet.
They were all waiting for their instructions from Trudeau.
You know, I'm certain that we'll have to rely on the foreign press to tell us anything useful other than the good news.
Just like during the election, we had to rely on America's Time magazine to reveal the Trudeau blackface photo because the Canadian media all had these photos, but they just wouldn't publish them.
So expect a lot of that.
In fact, the CBC is being weirdly reminiscent of China's state broadcasters criticizing people for being too worried and for embarrassing the government.
Look at this story.
It plays to our worst fears.
Coronavirus misinformation fueled by social media.
Experts say social media has increased the spread of misinformation during outbreaks.
Hey, what's a social media expert, by the way?
It's someone the CBC thinks you need to listen to, that's all.
You know, it's true there is misinformation in the middle of any crisis, and rumors and gossip can fill the void.
I don't think it helps when the prime minister takes a three-day vacation in the middle of it and leaves no instructions for his minions, and by that I mean his CBC.
But actually, these days there is a lot of positive information that fills the void.
Some of it could have errors in it.
It's possible there's an incorrect translation from something in Chinese, for example, or that something's missing.
Sure, sure.
But this here is an official government propaganda video from China showing every car on a major highway in Shanghai being stopped and inspected.
That shows it's getting bad out there in one of their biggest cities.
This is a compendium of videos from various cities in China.
What's the most worrisome part of this in my mind is that scene from the crowded hospital hallway.
Now I don't know if all of those people had coronavirus going in, but jammed together in that hallway for an hour, I'm pretty sure they've all got it now.
There are direct flights from Shanghai to Canada, by the way.
Now here's a video that purports to show people in a small town physically trying to scare away people from the big city who they fear are bringing the virus to them.
That made me think of the panic and chaos of a medieval plague.
Who knows if they're right?
Probably not.
But here's an official propaganda video released by China yesterday.
Now keep it running for a moment and actually turn up the volume a bit.
There's no words.
It's just the soothing sound of rain.
That's Wuhan.
That's the hot zone.
The streets are empty.
It sort of looks pretty, doesn't it?
The rain helps clear the smog away, I think.
It really is a calming video.
Very well done, propaganda-wise.
It's calming because there are no people in it, are there?
No panicking civilians, no crowded hospital hallways, no police confused about what to do and why.
There's this brief moment where there's diggers building a new quarantine hospital.
That's in the video.
But no people.
That's the way to calm people down, I guess.
Just soothing.
I'm not sure if it works.
It felt more like that scene in the zombie apocalypse movie before the climactic battle where you say, wow, there's no one left alive.
So what are other countries doing besides Canada and China?
Well, the United States is arranging not one, but several flights to evacuate its citizens from Wuhan.
I see that a number of countries are doing the same or taking steps to prepare to do the same.
France, Australia, the United Kingdom, Russia, but not us.
Our guy was on vacation, you see.
You'll just have to wait.
Look at this tweet from a flight from Hong Kong to Milan, Italy.
Italian health authorities don't seem to be taking any chances with the coronavirus.
Just landed in Milan from Hong Kong and every passenger is having their temperatures checked and providing contact details.
That's from in the plane.
That sounds pretty prudent, doesn't it?
Why don't we do that?
Flights from China only come into not even half a dozen Canadian airports.
Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, maybe a few others.
I don't know.
How hard would it be to simply have medics board the plane and do the exams right out in the plane rather than wait for people to self-report, get off the plane, spread it around as the first two cases in Toronto did?
Here's an infrared thermometer scanner in Hong Kong's own airport.
Anyone coming into the city by plane has their temperature taken automatically by remote.
They don't even realize that.
If they have a fever, they're pulled over.
Why can't we do that?
That's not really new technology, actually.
There are 4,000 people from the city of Wuhan around the world right now, according to the government.
So it's probably 10 times that.
How many of them are in Canada?
Do we know?
Does anyone care?
Automobile Traffic Monitoring00:02:10
I think the reason why Trudeau is on holidays is not because he's tired from working.
Like I say, he just had a 17-day holiday over Christmas.
That's crazy.
It's that he's running away.
He's hiding from problems.
He doesn't know what to do.
He's not a decider.
He's not an executive.
He lacks the energy to do anything.
We know he hasn't talked to Donald Trump in over a month, despite huge issues where he should, whether it's Iran or China or the virus or hostages, whatever.
Trudeau's hiding.
He's got that beard that says, I'm mentally still on vacay.
I wonder if he'll even show up in question period today, just to fake it.
But hey, maybe this is all a good thing.
Here's a tweet from a Trudeau ally in Quebec, a former politician, current journalist, Luke Ferrandez.
Let me translate it.
No automobile traffic, Buhan, no automobile traffic, no air flights.
The only city on the planet that will meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets, the path to the decline, which will be necessary when all the debates have been in vain.
I think he's actually cheering for the virus.
What a perfect liberal.
Stay with us for more.
Well, we live in very strange days, and I could be talking about any half dozen number of things, but But in particular, I'm talking about the transgender agenda.
As I've said to you before, I've faced censorship from a number of camps, not the least of which is political censorship.
Of course, I faced Islamic censorship when I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, but there is no censorship that is faster or more furious than transgender censorship.
I don't know if you know this, but when our reporter Kian Becksty was covering the case of Jonathan, aka Jessica Yaneve, Twitter was monitoring Kian in real time.
Transgender Activism Controversy00:14:27
And if he said Jonathan Yaneve instead of Jessica, if he said he instead of she, Twitter would immediately suspend him and he would have to delete the tweet.
And then they like they, it was like they had a real-time hall monitor.
That is how forceful the transgender censorship is.
Of course, censorship is the least of it.
People can be fired from their senior jobs.
People can be physically attacked.
There's so many things going on and it's all happened so suddenly.
One person in Canada who I think has been following it more closely than anyone else is our friend Barbara Kaye, a columnist in various places, including the National Post.
And she just wrote a piece in the post called, Will 2020 Be the Year of Reason in the Cancel Culture.
Wars, most people, Miguel's prof Vezier believes, want to see more brave conversations on difficult topics.
Barbara joins us now via Skype.
Barbara, great to see you again.
Welcome back.
Thanks, Ezra.
Hi, how are you?
Well, I'm fine.
I think you might be optimistic if you think 2020 is the year that cancel culture is overcome.
But let me invite you to make your case.
Why do you think we're turning the corner when all around me I see more censorship than ever?
I see setbacks.
Maybe I'm not seeing the good news.
What do you think is reason for optimism?
Well, there was one piece of good news that, you know, I'm looking for reasons to be optimistic.
So maybe I'm over-optimistic, but the piece of good news that I found encouraging was that the psychiatry department or the Department of Transcultural and Ethnic Psychiatry,
ethno-psychiatry, invited Dr. Kenneth Zucker to make a presentation at the Montreal Neurological Institute on his research into gender dysphoria.
And the fact that Kenneth Zucker, who is highly controversial, considered highly controversial in this field, could be invited to come, that the lecture would go forward without protest, that people of various opinions would come together, listen to what he had to say, listen respectfully, and then engage with him in a respectful Q ⁇ A.
This all did happen at McGill, McGill administration, in spite of some petitions for cancellation.
There were.
But they, again, they were, you know, letters, not placard-wielding activists screaming, you know, accusations of transphobia.
It all went according to what you would consider to be civil opposition or, you know, two sides of a coin and people voicing their opinions, you know, in the way that universities are supposed to.
So it was a good event, and it was well conducted, and the administration didn't even for a minute consider deplatforming Dr. Zucker.
So for me, it was a positive moment.
My editor was very glad to get some positive news on that front.
You're talking about Dr. Ken Zucker now.
actually fired yeah from McGill right for I mean he believes that certain cases of why don't you tell us a little bit more about about dr. Zachary I'm I'm sure you know his case better than me.
He was sacked.
He later got a retraction, I think, at payment.
But tell us a little bit about who this guy is and why you think it's important that he gave a speech within this institution.
Okay, so he was not fired from McGill.
He was fired from the Center for CAM-H in Toronto.
What is it?
Mental Health, the Internet of Mental Health.
Okay, he headed up the gender dysphoria or gender identity clinic for decades.
And he is an international expert on gender dysphoria.
He is the editor-in-chief of the Archive of Sexual Behavior, which is the leading journal for that domain.
And so he was highly respected for many, many years in his profession.
But the activists were not happy with his clinical approach to treating gender dysphoria because he had a very holistic approach.
If parents brought a child that was confused about gender to his clinic as his patient, he didn't just say, oh, this child, you know, this little girl thinks she's a boy.
Okay, let's talk about puberty blockers.
He said, well, tell me about this child.
What's her behavior like in general?
Is she depressed?
Is she anxious?
Have there been family issues?
Like, in other words, he was treating, he does treat his patients as a psychotherapist.
Activists nowadays in the last several years have decided that gender dysphoria is not a disorder.
It's a normal condition.
And psychotherapists should really not be doing, offering treatment of that kind to children.
They don't need therapy.
They need affirmation.
So on the affirmation model, Dr. Zucker became suddenly very incorrect in his approach.
And the activists were out to get him.
They made false allegations about him that he was practicing something they call conversion therapy.
He was doing nothing of the kind.
He does endorse for those children who are persistent in their dysphoria.
He does endorse puberty blockers and the rest of it.
So it was false allegations and he therefore did, he was sacked, but he did sue Cam H and did receive a payout, but he was not reinstated and now he's practicing privately and continuing with his research.
I have to tell you, Barbara, it's so bizarre to hear him accused of conversion therapy.
And I know that phrase is used if someone is gay and conversion therapy is, well, no, you're actually straight and here, let's talk you out of it.
Well, it seems like the greatest conversion fad these days is to convert people to trans.
The irony that trans activists would be against conversion when that's their whole shtick is all they want to do is convert people who may be gay.
Or they certainly encourage what is entirely normal in childhood to have passages or phases when you're non-conforming to your biological sex.
That is extremely normal.
And as we know from many studies, children who are non-conforming in childhood usually after puberty turn out to be comfortable in their natal sex.
Many of them turn out to be gay.
So if you have like an effeminate little boy, that doesn't mean he wants to be a girl.
It means that he, or probably means, nothing whatsoever, or it means that he will turn out to be gay.
So, you know, I think you're right.
This word conversion from when that's not the intention at all to help children with their confusion is a real false allegation.
Well, I accept your detection of a modest victory in that Dr. Zucker was allowed to give a speech despite some letters of protest.
I guess you have to take your victories where you find them.
Let me draw your attention across the pond to a very prestigious institution, perhaps the most prestigious university in the world, Oxford University, where Professor Selena Todd, who is a feminist, she is a, you know, 10 years ago, she would have been the leading edge of political progressivism.
But because she is a feminist, she's a woman first, I suppose you could say, she has been targeted by transgender extremists.
They use that made-up word against her, a turf, that she's a trans exclusionary radical feminist.
It's gone more than just arguing with her or trying to deplatform her.
It's to the point where physical threats mean that she must now have a male bodyguard at her lectures.
So this is in the highest institution in the UK.
And she is someone who mere moments ago was the most progressive person around.
Now she's been threatened by these trans thugs to the point where she needs bodyguards.
That's not just cancel culture.
It's almost like she's Salman Rushdie.
Yeah, it's fiat culture.
It's fatwa, you know, gender fatwa culture.
These are people, by the way, who usually, when you see them on talk shows or panel discussions, they talk a great deal about compassion, about how any discussion about gender that doesn't conform to their narrative is, it causes pain, it causes harm, it's not a safe space for trans people.
But when you do step outside the bounds of what they want to hear, you do find some of the radicals amongst them can get very brutal in their abusive pushback.
One last question.
And I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about these.
So few people will even talk about these things.
It's so, you instantly become labeled, no matter how progressive you are, no matter how warm-hearted you are, if you refuse to go with the full trans agenda, you are unpersoned.
And even someone with impeccable progressive credentials like this, Professor Todd, imagine having two bodyguards in her classes.
I know.
Burly bodyguards.
I noticed that in the description of the bodyguard.
Yeah, Burley.
Yeah, that's right.
They're not messing around.
Now, here's the thing that got me.
I was, like so many Canadians, I follow with some amusement the Democratic Party's presidential nomination primaries in the United States.
I just think it's fascinating.
I'm sure you do too.
They have had a real focus on transgender issues.
I'd say, I mean, obviously climate change is their number one, but they really talk about transgender a lot in their town halls.
And I saw Joe Biden, who I think is regarded as more moderate than, let's say, Bernie Sanders, more moderate than certainly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I mean, Joe Biden, he's of a certain vintage.
He's been in the Senate for decades.
He was vice president for years.
He said that the trans agenda is the absolute, in the tweet here, is the absolute human rights battle of our lifetimes.
So if the most conservative Democrat running for president says a trans agenda, 100%, I think he, I don't know if he's trying to get some advantage over Bernie or if he's just trying to head off an attack against him, but he's said it now.
I think they're mad.
I think that every mom in America, or every dad, really, who wants their daughter to be able to enjoy sports at school or wants their daughter to be able to change in a locker room or go to a bathroom without having some Jonathan Yaniv character in there.
I think this is so far down the emperor has no clothes.
I think it's crazy.
And when Joe Biden did it, I thought, my God, it's gotten far.
Do you have any thoughts on that, the so-called most, go ahead.
Yeah, I think Elizabeth Warren a little while ago said one of the points of her platform was to ensure that trans women, you know, male-bodied people that want to be like Jessica Yanid, that they would have access, that they would have access to being billeted in women's prisons.
That was very important to her, that they would have the right to be in women's prisons.
And I said to myself, man, you know, she thinks Twitter is the American population.
She thinks 10 people on Twitter represents the majority opinion out there.
And she's out to lunch on this because if you did a real poll of the American population on how they feel about male bodies in women's prisons, they'd say, what are you even talking about?
They wouldn't even have been aware of that discussion.
And if you ask them, they'd say, well, why?
Why would you?
So when they get into this whole trans thing, they're really treading on very fragile ground because they're responding to the activists to the loudest voices.
They have no idea what ordinary people, or by the way, ordinary trans people do not identify with these radicals at all.
They just want to live their life.
And most of them can absolutely see why male bodies should not be in women's sports or in women's prisons or in rape crisis shelters or in girls' locker rooms.
So, you know, this is a very dumb thing that they're doing, trying to outdo each other on the trans file, which is on nobody's list of important issues, you know, in their voting patterns.
Trans Rights in Women's Prisons00:03:06
Yeah.
You know, I'm just waiting for a politician, a mainstream politician somewhere to say, the emperor has no clothes, I'm not going along with this.
I think they would get a huge bandwidth of support.
You know, let me say one quick word about prisons.
Obviously, if a woman is in a prison, she's probably done something very bad because most women, even who commit violent crimes, are not imprisoned.
That said, I would imagine that if you're a woman in prison, you've had a pretty rough go in your life.
And although you're obviously a criminal, you're probably in many ways a victim of life too.
And to put a man in a woman's prison is to victimize those other women in countless ways.
And as you know, Barbara, under Justin Trudeau, it is now the policy that Corrections Canada must put prisoners in the prison that they identify with.
So if Jonathan Yaniv in Vancouver, who's now being criminally prosecuted for having a restricted weapon and possibly even for assaulting our reporter, if he's jailed, he can say, I'm going in with the girls.
And it's shocking to me.
I haven't seen any conservative politicians in Canada speak out against this.
Have you, like, not even a common sense conservative like a Doug Ford or a Jason Kenney, have you?
No, I haven't.
And it's kind of weird.
This is a subject that's become such a, you know, a hot rail that everybody seems very afraid to touch it.
But you're so right about these women, many of them are very tough women.
They have done bad things.
But as you say, one of the reasons they've done bad things is they've had a tough go in life.
And I suppose one could say the same about the men.
I don't want to get into who's had the tougher background.
But the idea is they should be in a safe space sexually.
And of course, men aren't.
Look, we could get into this whole thing of male rape and all of that.
I mean, it's all problematic.
But I don't see why there can't be units for trans women and trans men within the prison system.
I don't see that that's a big stretch.
So I don't see why this.
I mean, I just think that the first candidate who comes forward and says, I'm just, you know, I'm not for picking on anyone, but I just, I'm not going to go along with the madness.
We're not going to be mean to trans people, but neither are we going to go along with the madness.
I think that person would immediately draw from the center left, the center right, and a lot of people who don't even think in terms of left and right.
They would just say, yes, thank you, stop the madness.
No, really.
Look, trans rights often collide with women's rights.
This is a fact.
And when they do collide, you can't just say no, trans rights trump women's rights because trans.
You just can't.
You have to use common sense.
Censored Voices Matter00:03:02
Well, listen, Barbara, it's always good to talk with you.
Thank you.
We sort of meandered a little bit, but there was such a strange and interesting subject.
And I mean, to be censored in real time, like to watch Kian tweet about Jonathan Yaniv, and he was censored, I think, five times in an hour.
They had someone watching his tweets.
They do, actually.
Yeah, I think there is somebody literally within Twitter who's assigned to the Yaniv case.
I really get that impression.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And I don't know if you know this, and I'll just, I don't think we've officially told our viewers, but not only is Yaniv now being investigated for his assault on Kian Bexty, but we have decided to file a civil action against Yaniv for his assault on Kian, as well as his assault using a cane against David Menzies, because it's just part of the madness is that people let him get away with it.
And I think we're going to stop here.
And for folks who are interested, when it's filed, we'll have that full lawsuit up at yanevetrial.com if people want to see it.
Barbara, you take care and don't let anyone push you around, I tell you.
Okay, and Godspeed in your civil suit.
I hope you win.
Thanks, Barbara.
Great to see you again.
Well, there's our friend Barbara Kay.
She writes for the National Post and other places.
And she's one of the most courageous journalists when it comes to the issue of transgenderism.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, what do you think?
Do you think I'm overworried about this coronavirus?
Do you think I'm worried too much?
I don't know.
I saw that movie Chernobyl and I was reminded of how authoritarian regimes cover up bad news because they don't want to look weak.
That's certainly what the Soviet Union did.
We know China's covered up health epidemics before, the SARS virus.
We know that that came to Canada and killed people here too.
We know from the fact they had a weekend press conference that Ontario's public health officials seem to be engaged, but we know that Trudeau took his second vacation this weekend.
Are you confident that he'll do anything?
I see what other countries are doing.
Basic things.
I really like that Milan idea of just sending medics onto the plane, take temperatures on the plane.
Why didn't we do that?
I don't know.
I don't want to be alarmist, but they're certainly ringing the alarm in China.
I don't think they would do that if it wasn't really, really bad.
That's the thing about authoritarian regimes, and it's probably even more so in the Chinese culture of saving face.
You don't declare an emergency and seal off, what is it now, 50 million people if something's not desperately wrong.
I'm worried.
I'm not in panic mode yet, but I'm a little worried.
I'm attentive.
And with Trudeau in the decider's chair, that's really what worries me the most.