Peter MacKay’s leadership bid reveals a pattern of evasion: during the Ezra Levant Show, his handlers blocked questions from 8,500 live listeners and 1.3M YouTube subscribers—"red meat conservatives"—mirroring Andrew Scheer’s failed media strategy, while he dodged scrutiny over Trudeau’s $20K yoga expenses by deflecting blame despite pre-approved social media posts. Levant highlights the Nazarene Fund’s verified aid for persecuted Christians in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, now facing threats from ISIS and Iranian-backed militias, contrasting it with Trudeau’s shift away from Harper-era Christian refugee policies toward Muslim-majority intakes. MacKay’s avoidance of direct answers risks blending into Scheer’s legacy, while Levant’s warnings about refugee vetting and geopolitical double standards underscore deeper ideological fractures in Canada’s immigration approach. [Automatically generated summary]
Peter McKay described Andrew Scheer as someone who missed an empty net on a breakaway, but is Peter McKay someone who has scored in his own net?
It's February 5th, 2020.
I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carmen 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'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Last Saturday night, I experienced an uncanny feeling of deja vu.
You see, I was at Toronto's swank old mill for a meet-and-greet event with Conservative leader Hopeful Peter McKay.
Now, after the disaster that was the election campaign of Andrew Scheer, Conservatives are hungry for change.
Andrew Scheer, aka Mr. Charisma, is yesterday's man as he fades into his rightful place in Canadian history, namely footnote territory.
As for Peter McKay, I think he came out of the gates flying back in October post-election night.
Who can forget his assessment of Scheer, noting that his loss to Trudeau was akin to, quote, having a breakaway on an open net and missing the net, end quote.
It was so refreshing to see a leadership hopeful nail the failure that was Shear with straight talk and using a colorful hockey metaphor to boot.
And it was accurate.
Look, Scheer was a weakling from the get-go, I grant you that.
But given the long laundry list of scandals and fiascos the liberals were responsible for, ranging from the SNC Lavalin affair and the persecution of ex-Vice Admiral Mark Norman to the India trip and the infamous blackface revelations and the groping of Rose Knight, it seems almost impossible in hindsight that not only did the Trudeau Liberals win, but they very nearly got another majority mandate.
In fact, it was worse than missing an empty net.
It was missing an empty net and then allowing the opposition to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.
Kind of like this hockey highlight for the ages.
Check it out with Andrew Scheer in the role of Patrick Stefan and Justin Trudeau in the role of Ailes Hemski.
To be the one last gasp here for the Oilers.
Bergeron fans on a pass.
Stephanie steals and he'll ice it.
Well, at least they thought he was gonna until he blew it.
That's unbelievable.
Here come the Oilers the other way and Hemski's loot.
Hemski, he scored.
Can you believe what we just saw?
No, I don't believe it.
Both the 2019 election results and that hockey highlight from 2007.
Poor Patrick Stefan.
Poor Andrew Scheer.
But the thing is, when McKay made the empty net analogy, I thought it sparked some hope in the conservative base.
Here was someone that appeared to be something of a straight shooter, someone not using polite $3 words to describe an electoral disaster.
But lately, one must take pause to ponder.
Is the wannabe coronation of Peter McKay akin to meet the new would-be boss, same as the old boss?
Increasingly, that's what it's looking like to me.
For when I visited the old mill last Saturday night and was greeted by one of McKay's handlers, the very first words out of his mouth were, there will be no questions tonight.
Excuse me?
Sorry, but asking a journalist not to ask questions is akin to telling a dolphin not to swim.
This is a man who would be prime minister of our great dominion.
This is a man who, as the prime minister, would be routinely grilled with questions.
And already, as merely a leadership hopeful, he can't have a quick query or two from a news organization that has nearly 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, most of whom are presumably red meat conservatives.
Gee, where have we seen this play out before?
Oh, yeah, it was the Shear campaign, which suffered from an acute case of rebel derangement syndrome as it reached out to the mean girls of the media, you know, the likes of the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and the CBC, in a disastrous quest to be loved by the Mandarins of the media party.
Love that went unrequited.
Furthermore, a huge issue for Conservatives is freedom of speech.
And just days before the McKay meet-and-greet weird Ezra's shocking report regarding his interrogation by those ex-cop bureaucrats who now do the bidding for the Commissioner of Canada elections.
Ezra's crime?
Well, he wrote a book about Trudeau.
Correction.
He wrote a critical book about Trudeau.
You see, puff pieces about Trudeau.
Oh, those are allowed.
In fact, they're even encouraged.
But a critical book about Prime Minister Blackface?
Well, that is apparently an illegal campaign activity.
Check out this snippet of the interrogation Ezra endured at the hands of ex-Mountie Dudley DeWright, or I mean, Tim McCann.
You did a blurb online that I watched, and you speak about, of course, that it was released in time for the election.
Which, if that's your position today, that wouldn't allow you to have the exemption for advertising for a book.
I think I need to check my GPS.
Was that office located in Ottawa or Pyongyang?
Anyway, this was surely the story of the week.
And I'm not just saying that out of bravado.
After all, after that video aired, Ezra's book, The Lobranos, soared to number one on Amazon.ca.
This story has even received international media attention.
So I wanted to see how much of a free speech champion Peter McKay is by simply asking him his opinion regarding the electoral interrogation of our beloved commander.
To use a baseball analogy, my question was akin to a softball floating across home plate, just begging to be hit out of the ballpark.
But when I finally got past McKay's handlers to ask my query, here's how things went down.
David, there's no questions.
I just got to see if I can ask him.
No question.
No questions.
You guys are preventing me from interviewing.
I just want to ask one question, not even an interview.
It's a question on freedom of speech.
So under Peter McKay, it'll be the same as Andrew Scheer, that the rebel is not allowed to be here?
Here, aren't you?
Excuse me, here.
But I'm going to ask a question.
Yes.
Hi, Mr. McKay.
How you doing?
Just want to ask you, sir, what do you feel about Ezra Levant being interrogated by the Elections Commissioner?
I don't like somebody being interrogated, including right now.
But this is a very important freedom of speech issue, Mr. McKay.
I don't even know why it hasn't been raised in the House by your Conservative colleagues.
Do you have a comment on that?
Well, you should talk to those Conservative colleagues.
I'm not in the House of Commons, so I don't have an opportunity to raise it.
What is your opinion of the Elections Commissioner going after Ezra Levant simply for writing a book during an election campaign about a prime minister?
Well, I don't have any of the evidence.
I don't have any of the information other than what I've read.
So we'll see.
You haven't heard about this?
I have heard about it, just briefly, but I don't have any of the facts.
Thank you, sir.
Okay, I made sure.
Really, Mr. McKay, you were unaware of this story?
Really, Peter, you felt like you were being interrogated by me simply for posing a question?
Come on, man, give your head a shake.
But let's give Mr. McKay the benefit of the doubt, folks.
Let's pretend he never had heard about this story.
So here's how I would have answered that question if I were in his shoes.
I would have prefaced the response with, if what you're saying is truthful and accurate, and then I would have added, then this was an outrageous attack by bureaucrats in a grotesque attempt to shut down freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
And furthermore, should I become prime minister, this business of using elections Canada bureaucrats as attack dogs to go after authors critical of a government will no longer be tolerated.
Bingo!
That is the right response.
That is a response that would resonate with the party faithful.
Instead, we got the Sergeant Schultz stick.
And since that night, things have gone from bad to worse.
Indeed, a couple of days later, Peter McKay consented to an interview with CTV, and this happened.
After the 45-minute tour, McKay agreed to discuss his return to politics.
I'm at a point now with some further private sector experience and some reflection that I would like to do politics a little differently.
And everybody says that, but having been in and left and coming back to it, I think I bring a new level of compassion, a new level of understanding of perhaps how things could work a little better at a practical level.
And I'd also like, and everybody says this, but I would like to see some civility.
You say civility.
I noticed there was a video put on Twitter talking about Justin Trudeau's yoga expenses.
And is that civil, though?
I mean, highlighting 800 and some odd dollars in yoga expenses?
No, it isn't.
And that was something that happened that I'm not proud of.
I don't have the opportunity always to vet every single thing that goes on that social media account.
So we're going to do better.
And in that, I think.
I'm sorry.
At that moment, his team abruptly ended the interview.
He said civility, I mean.
She's just doing her job.
She's a journalist.
I'm just doing my job, guys.
The tweet has been viewed more than 700,000 times, with many reminding McKay about his own expense controversy when, as Minister of Defense, he used a search and rescue helicopter to pick him up from a fishing lodge.
The price tag, an estimated $16,000.
He's made a decision that we'd like to stop the interview.
Okay.
Ooh, that's awkward.
And did you catch the line about McKay not vetting all the tweets that go out in his name?
So, A, he's not writing his own tweets, and B, he threw a member of his team under the bus for the yoga tweet.
And finally, C, sorry, Peter, you hired and approved members of your team, so yeah, the buck does stop with you.
And so it is that the frontrunner for the role of the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada has quickly devolved from stud to dud.
He's coming across as less Stephen Harper and inexplicably, more like Andrew Scheer.
And I don't say this with any amount of glee, folks.
In fact, I'm feeling kind of like Linus Van Pelt these days.
You know, little Linus, the Peanuts character who goes out to the pumpkin patch every October 31st, awaiting the arrival of the great pumpkin.
Just like Linus, I so want to believe that a miracle is going to occur, namely that the next conservative hopeful will be a contender as opposed to a pretender.
Alas, in the case of Linus, the great pumpkin never does appear and the kid endures yet more humiliation.
And meanwhile, back in conservative land, we are apparently being courted by those who seemingly channel the persona of Johu or Mr. Charisma.
And that's the crux of the matter.
Moving forward, prior to the Conservative Convention in June, before this party even decides who it wants as its leader, I think this party has to decide what it actually wants to be.
Disturbingly, the Conservative Party of Canada seems to be going down a rebranding road, reimagining itself as Liberal Light.
Sorry, guys, that sort of new coke strategy is not going to work.
Because when it comes to those who are left of center, why would they choose to vote Liberal Light when they can have Liberal Classic?
Granted, there's still plenty of time for Peter McKay to reboot and recover, should he choose to do so.
And maybe, just maybe, my personal great pumpkin, that being Stephen Harper, will come out of retirement and save this party from itself.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
But in the early going, McKay has been a profound disappointment.
It's not so much that Peter McKay has failed to score on an empty net on a breakaway.
Rather, to use another hockey analogy, McKay has scored into his own net.
He is indeed the author of his own misfortune.
Glenn Beck And The Nazarene Fund00:03:46
Say, folks, in case you're wondering where our commander is, Ezra Levant, well, he's stateside meeting up with Glenn Beck.
Now, Glenn Beck is connected to the Nazarene Fund, and that is where all the money you donated to our campaign called Save the Christians is going.
This was about helping out the Christian community in Iraq.
Now, if you still want to make a contribution to help Sheila Gunn Reid pay for her trip and accommodation over to Iraq, please visit savethechristians.com.
That's savethechristians.com and kick in a buck or three.
And now, here is Ezra's interview with Glenn Beck.
Let me go back to your help on the Nazarene Fund, which I find amazing.
You have used your platform to do good and raise money every month, and you're sending the Nazarene Fund $5,000 every month, which I haven't known you for how long have we known each other?
Well, I come, I meet you once, and then I go away for months, and I meet you once, and I've enjoyed it for years.
You introduce yourself every time, and I think I say every time, I know who you are.
What do you mean so many people?
I know.
And I found out somebody said to me last time we met, somebody said, do you realize what he's doing for the Nazarene Fund?
I said, no idea.
You never said a word about it.
Well, because it's not me, it's our viewers.
No, I know.
I mentioned we went to Iraq and we saw this terrible situation.
Yeah.
And so we raised some money, but it's a very low trust society.
That's a very friendly way of saying a corrupt place.
And the first three people we went to, we wanted to give it to a pharmacy, we wanted to give it to a charity.
I could feel that it was going to be purloined, stolen.
In fact, we delivered some food on our first trip there and we were charged quadruple the price in the market.
Everyone's ripping you off.
And I had, I mean, in the end, I found the Nazarene Fund.
And I did my due diligence.
I read your IRS filings.
I read as much as I could.
And at the end of the day, it was ironic.
I was going overseas to find a place to trust.
It was actually here in North America that I found the one charity I trust not to waste the money, not to pocket the money.
And so we just baby stepped, started giving, started giving.
And I wanted to keep it low-key.
And then we sent one of our reporters over there in November just to see with her own eyes, what are you guys doing on the ground?
And she put together a bunch of videos.
Oh, I don't think I've even seen these.
Well, we have them up on our website, RebelNews.com.
In fact, we just strung them all together.
About 45 minutes worth of video.
Just one of our reporters on her own with a selfie stick and a cell phone spent two or three days with your guys watching the families being taken in.
It's amazing.
And so we made it our Christmas drive.
Our reporter went there in November.
And in December, we said to our viewers, hey, let's chip in.
Let's make this our Christmas drive.
And so I have here a check from our viewers.
Now, it's in Canadian mini bucks, so it's slightly different.
It's about a third of flesh.
It's not that bad.
But I'm delighted to give you a check for $30,907 from viewers of Rebel News.
Our reporter, Sheila Gunread, went there, checked you guys out.
I'll be honest.
I said, check them out, make sure they're doing what they say they're doing.
Yeah.
We want you to.
And Sheila, I said, be skeptical because we're giving money.
Sheila came back and she said, these are the best guys doing work in extremely difficult circumstances.
And I thought, well, I mean, so there's almost 31 grand there and we'll continue our monthly support.
And it's because we trust you.
Proud Supporters of Persecuted Jews00:04:04
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
Let me just say this.
Simon Wiesenthal Center came to me about five years ago and said, could you please stop talking about the coming persecution of the Jews?
And I said, what?
And he said, for this reason, I have to convince Jews to help the Christians because mark my words, they're coming for you first this time.
They'll get to us.
But I've got to get the Jews to pay attention to the beginning.
And this time they're coming for you first.
And it was shortly after that that we saw the beginning of ISIS.
And so you as a Jew standing up for the Christians is just so great.
Well, thank you.
Most of our viewers are Christian.
But you.
Thank you.
But you care.
Well, I mean, I've been to the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, and there's a concept called the righteous Gentile.
Someone like Oscar Schindler, who at great personal risk would save Jews for no other reason than it's right.
He wasn't a Jew himself.
And I thought, surely it's time for all of us to be righteous towards.
And these are the most ancient Christians in the world.
They still pray in Aramaic.
That's the language Jesus prayed.
And it sounds very much like Hebrew.
I went to Hebrew school, so I could understand.
I thought, oh my God, look at this.
You could see what Pope John Paul called the Jews who are our older brothers.
And I thought, look at that.
They're praying in a language so close to Hebrew.
And they've been there for 1,400 years in some of these towns.
And then, like the Holocaust would wipe out an entire Jewish town and just make it a ruin.
That's how it is in the Nineveh Plains.
And I'm of the belief that the only safe future for many of these people is to leave.
And that's so hard to say.
But they don't have enough of contiguous territory to be protected.
It's a little village here and a little town there.
It's not like Israel that at least has borders that they could defend.
It's so amazing how they won't because they're like, we can't leave this place.
Their roots are in the land.
It's their land.
And they're the ones protecting this holy site that the apostles were on.
And they're like, we can't leave it.
They'll destroy everything.
And part of me says, stay and fight, but another part of me looks around.
And ISIS is gone.
There's a new militia called Hashtel Shabi.
It's an Iranian battle, and it's never ending.
I truly believe that the Nazarene Fund has the right balance.
And part of that is getting them out of there just to live on.
Well, Canada's not really been a part of that.
You'll take in everybody from everywhere.
But Trudeau put a limit on Christians, didn't he?
Yeah, the previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, had a special track for Christian refugees of persecution.
It was amazing.
Trudeau, one of his first acts was to stop that.
Why would you stop that?
I mean, we want the lambs, not the wolves.
Trudeau will bring in the wolves from these places.
Some of the largest sources of immigration to Canada are Muslim countries, and that's going to be fine.
But can we please sort the wolves from the lambs?
It would be as if in the 30s and 40s, the West was taking Germans, but didn't sort the Nazis from the Jews.
Can we take the lambs, please?
I'm happy to take the lambs from Iraq and Iran and Egypt, where they're being persecuted.
And China, they're persecuting Christians.
Can we sort?
And China is persecuting Muslims.
Yeah, the Uyghurs.
Yeah.
And it's incredible.
I wish, I mean, I love Samaritan's Purse and I love the Nazarene Fund.
And we're proud to be supporters.
And thanks for letting me hang out with you today.
Good to see you.
Thank you so much.
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Ezreal Event Show.