Ezra Levant and Gordon G. Chang critique Justin Trudeau’s pandemic response, exposing $10M+ in foreign aid to Greece while Canada’s airports—Toronto Pearson and Vancouver International—lack temperature checks or quarantine enforcement despite direct flights from China (Beijing, Shanghai). Chang warns of U.S.-China economic decoupling due to China’s control over 80-97% of U.S. antibiotics and past contaminated drug incidents like 2008’s adulterated heparin. Levant suggests suing China for damages, citing WWI reparations and Sudan precedents, while accusing Beijing of covering up early virus data, risking undetected Canadian infections amid media’s alleged focus on Trump over Trudeau’s failures. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I go through the latest shenanigans from Justin Trudeau.
The word shenanigans is too light because what he's doing has life and death consequences.
He's just announced he's going to send millions of dollars to fight the coronavirus in Greece, apparently.
That's more important than Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Halifax, I guess.
So here's the show.
Before I get out of the way, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's basically the video version of these podcasts.
Plus, Sheila Gunn Reid has a show every week and David Menzies.
You can get that at RebelNews.com.
Okay, here's the podcast.
Tonight, another day, another coronavirus mistake Trudeau is making.
It's March 20th, 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.
Every day I go to two websites, torontopearson.com and yvr.ca.
Those are the websites for the Toronto and Vancouver International Airports.
And every day I see direct flights to those cities from China.
There aren't as many as before, but every day there are flights from Beijing and Shanghai and usually a place called Xiamen.
I'm not even particularly bothered by flights from Hong Kong, even though that's officially part of China, or flights from South Korea, which has had a lot of cases of coronavirus, because Hong Kong and especially South Korea have done a very good job of suppressing the coronavirus, unlike Communist China, which has only done a very good job of suppressing information about coronavirus.
My preference would be that there would be no flights from these places, but I accept that some flights might be necessary for Canadians to make, but I simply don't trust Chinese companies like China Eastern Airlines, which flies to Canada every day to properly screen people either for their citizenship status or for their purpose in coming to Canada or if they have an infection, a fever, whatever.
And frankly, it's not their job.
They're an airline, not a health authority, not a consulate.
The people in charge of health authorities are the governments, usually.
Our Canadian Constitution gives that power to the provinces, but the federal government is in charge of airlines and airports, and they simply haven't done it.
The most they've done is have lots of brochures cleverly published in English and French.
Gee, I guess, I sure hope that people in Xiamen and Shanghai speak English or French when they land, and I hope they're smart enough to know if they're sick, and I hope they're honest and obedient enough to follow the advice on those brochures, because there ain't nothing else.
We had our friend David Menzies go to Toronto's Pearson Airport yesterday to see how that screening was going.
Can you tell me what they did?
Like, did they take your temperature, for example?
Yeah, no, no, they didn't take, no, no.
Coming through customs, was it the same as usual except for the pamphlet?
And were all the guards here and the employees, were they wearing gloves and masks when you went through customs?
Most people wear masks, yeah.
But not everybody then.
Not everybody.
No.
Did you expect that security would be heightened right now here in Toronto?
Yeah, I did.
I did.
But you didn't see anything?
No, not really.
Yeah.
Are you shocked?
The passengers landing from these foreign countries are shocked.
Did you see the passengers from Pakistan the other day who says they're expecting more screening in Canada because even Pakistan is doing more than us?
You just said off camera, man, they're doing more screening in Pakistan than here in Toronto, Canada.
Screening in Pakistan than here, everywhere.
They have those monitors that scan your fever and everything.
Even in like a smallest airport, when I landed in Multan, it's not even a big airport.
I was in Karachi, Lahore, and Multan.
All the airports, they have those scanners.
They're scanning everybody.
Even I went to a hotel.
They're like disinfecting everywhere.
I got on the bus.
They have disinfectant big gallons in their hand.
They're washing your hands with it and washing your suitcases with that.
And here I don't see that.
Pakistan is a third world country.
Less cases than Canada.
U.S. and Canada has much more cases.
I'm coming from Pakistan.
I was there for two weeks.
You see a lot of precautions, much more measures than a Western world.
Like, you know, Canada, we have much more resources.
We are far ahead of those countries.
But still, I didn't see that.
Here's what they're doing in India.
Someone at the airport was found with symptoms, so he was denied a flight.
He was sent home till April with indelible ink stamped on his hand.
Now, of course, it's possible that he could scrub it off, but at least that's a real thing, a real attempt, isn't it?
We're not even doing that.
I'm glad India is doing that.
Maybe they won't send that guy over here because we certainly wouldn't send him home now, would we?
The joke is we're using the word screening, but a screen stops things, like a screen door, for example.
There is no screen at our airports, giving someone a brochure or even just asking them a question with no consequences.
That's not screening anything.
We still don't take anyone's temperature.
We still don't detain anyone dangerous.
We just don't.
there's no screening despite the lies our precious resources for our border services officers and for our public health officers to ensure that they can do the important job the Canadians require of screening all arriving passengers.
Here's the problem.
People distrust government to begin with.
And when the liberals are saying there's enhanced screening and no foreign flights, but there is not enhanced screening and there are foreign flights hourly often.
And people start to realize that, then trust in government falls even lower.
That's not good.
Trust in the media falls too when journalists are obsessed with calling people racist who just have questions.
Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus?
There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country.
Your own aide, Secretary Azar, says he does not use this term.
He says ethnicity does not cause the virus.
Why do you keep using this?
A lot of people say he's racist.
It's not racist at all, no?
Not at all.
It comes from China.
That's why.
It comes from China.
I want to be accurate.
Yeah, that's just a journalist more interested in dunking on Donald Trump and calling citizens racist who talk about China, who want to actually just learn about the facts.
This journal doesn't care about the facts.
In Canada, where our journalists so badly want to be part of that resistance to Donald Trump, our Canadian journalists spend half their day criticizing Trump's response to the virus, but he's the leader of a foreign country.
And for some reason, those same Canadian journalists don't bring the same scrutiny to Justin Trudeau himself.
It's almost like they're bought and paid for, which they are.
And that's a problem.
Even the National Post, a newspaper I rather like, ran this credulous story about how the city of Wuhan, China is now completely virus-free.
And how do they know?
Do they have a reporter in Wuhan?
No, they do not.
The Chinese government told them there's no cases in Wuhan, so they ran that propaganda without corroboration or even skepticism.
I certainly think it's newsworthy that the Chinese government says Wuhan is now virus-free.
That is news, fit for a newspaper, but not because of the truth of the thing.
The opposite.
It's news because it's proof that China is still obviously lying.
I follow about a dozen Chinese dissidents on Twitter, and here's the latest from one of them.
A hospital in Wuhan lined up out the door.
Who knows why?
Who knows for what?
That's the thing.
You can't trust the Chinese government and you don't have your own sources.
But our media trusts the Chinese government.
They're about as credible as Bill Blair is.
But here comes news today.
Justin Trudeau has decided to spend millions of dollars solving the problem of coronavirus in Greece.
I am not even kidding.
Ottawa to roll out foreign aid as part of the fight against COVID-19 spread.
The Canadian government will soon roll out millions in foreign aid spending to help combat the spread of COVID-19 abroad, particularly in refugee camps in developing countries, says International Development Minister Karina Gould.
Last week, the government announced clients has pledged $50 million to the World Health Organization, other bilateral aid, as part of a larger billion-dollar coronavirus response package.
Some of the foreign aid money, which comes from a special crisis fund, is expected to start flowing to organizations in the coming days.
Days, really.
So we're literally sending money to Greece that's part of the European Union to fight the virus there.
The European Union is a 20 trillion a year economy.
They're as big as the United States economically.
They're 10 times bigger than we are economically.
And we're sending them money to fight the virus there instead of fighting it here, and they'll get the money in days?
Let me read some more.
We can't prioritize one population over another because it doesn't matter who you are, where you live, or what your socioeconomic background is.
The virus doesn't care about those things.
Well, the virus doesn't care about those sort of things, but you'd think a Canadian leader representing Canadians should care about those sort of things, as in, should care about Canadians.
That's their job.
Let the European Union take care of the European Union.
Here's a news story from February 2nd about Canada sending foreign aid to China to help them with the virus.
We're sending medical equipment there that we need now.
We sent it there.
Then a week later, this is February 9th, Trudeau said he would send more aid to China.
And then a week later, China's dictatorship praises Trudeau.
How appropriate that this is published in Canada's state broadcaster, this report of that.
Canada's response to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak is winning unusual praise in China, a development that federal government sources here say is part of a broader re-engagement strategy aimed at repairing strained relations between the two countries.
News reports in Chinese state-run media, official government statements and messages posted by Chinese citizens online all suggest a warming trend in the Canada-China relationship, a relationship that's been very tense since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wenzhou in Vancouver in 2018.
No mention of the two Michaels held hostage.
It's the CBC.
We weren't stopping flights from China.
We weren't screening people's temperatures when they landed from China.
We're still not.
But we're literally sending plane loads of precious medical equipment to China, the richest country in the world, where all that equipment was made in the first place.
Offer some praise from some dictators and some propaganda outlets.
They haven't released the two hostages they took 15 months ago, but they said something nice in their propaganda media about us, so there's that.
So we're suckers.
We're always suckers in Canada, but usually it just costs us money and self-respect, not lives.
But the world now knows if you can get on a plane to get here, which doesn't seem very hard, you can stay here whether or not you have a fever.
Trudeau says he won't deport you, even if you're a criminal, even if you're illegal.
And so the number of people crossing at Wroxham Road is increasing.
It's now close to 100 a day.
And again, Bill Blair lied.
He said they were being quarantined, but they weren't.
We later heard from Christy Freeland that they weren't, but maybe they would be quarantined, but just not yet.
The federal government and Minister Armendicino will organize housing for these asylum seekers because we understand that it is one thing to isolate for 14 days.
And at the federal government, we have understood that we must take responsibility for that.
And so that's what we're going to do, to organize housing to be sure that it is possible for these asylum seekers to be in quarantine.
Now, I note that today Trudeau said they're going to temporarily close Wroxham Road.
Do you believe that?
I'll believe it when I see it.
So where do we stand?
Foreign flights arriving hourly.
No screening of foreigners, if by screening you mean taking a temperature, if someone's sick, quarantining them.
There's no wall at Wroxham Road, just a little speech about one.
And even though we're short of medical supplies here in Canada, there's always enough to send to China.
And even though we're about to have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there's always more money to send to Greece.
If this is the incompetence with which our government is operating, it's pretty clear we can't rely on them for anything.
Certainly not for telling the truth.
Stay with us for more.
Well, I've told you before, and now you know the proof of it.
If there's one voice to follow for sober-minded analysis of the U.S.-Chinese relationship, and we in Canada can learn from it too, it's our next man, an expert, an author, an analyst, a scholar, Gordon G. Chang.
And I ask you, if you're not following him now on Twitter, go and do it right now.
Twitter.com slash Gordon G. Chang.
Prophecies About China00:03:12
His prophecies about China have all come true.
I call them prophecy because he really is like a prophet, but his analysis is what keeps me coming back and joining me now via Skype is Gordon Chang.
Great to see you again.
I'm sorry that we're talking in the midst of such a crisis, but so many of the things you predicted based on China's conduct, their Communist Party, unfortunately, they've come true.
Oh, thank you so much, Ezra.
And yes, the Communist Party has reacted with secrecy.
They suppressed information about the virus.
That'll allow it to spread around China and to leave China and become a pandemic.
And now the Communist Party is trying to blame the United States for spreading the virus to Wuhan, intimating germ warfare.
I can't think of how China could have handled this any worse.
About a month ago, Donald Trump wrote two tweets in a row praising Xi Jinping.
And I thought it was a little bit over the top.
But I also know that Trump sometimes flatters people he's trying to negotiate with.
We saw that with Kim Jong-un.
And I saw this tweet and it made me cringe a bit because it was so loving and I thought maybe he's getting something in return that we don't see.
That's how Trump was towards China.
But I think he's very much changed his tune since high-level diplomats and bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party have started circulating this conspiracy theory.
How has that changed the American stance towards China, if at all?
Yeah.
The three tweets from the foreign ministry last Thursday, which as I mentioned, one of them intimated germ warfare, one of them calling U.S. officials immoral, one of them twisting the testimony of the CDC director Robert Redfield.
I think that they have changed the way that American officials look at China.
And we're not hearing this over-the-top praise for Xi Jinping or China.
And I think that's an important rhetorical shift.
Like you, Ezra, I cringed whenever I heard Trump refer to Xi Jinping or Kim Jong-un, the North Korean ruler.
But I think those days are over and China has pushed Trump and the U.S. in directions it does not want to go.
And Trump, as he intimated a number of times this week, is actually trying to defend the U.S. against this irresponsible, false, and highly dangerous disinformation campaign from Beijing.
I noticed that for months, Trump was calling it the coronavirus, including in those tweets of praise to Xi Jinping.
I think he's saying Chinese virus as a specific rebuke.
That's my sense of it.
I mean, I know it irritates some people, and I can understand if someone is Chinese American, you know, the word Chinese refers to not just the country and the language, but it also refers to the evidence.
I can imagine it doesn't feel great.
But in my mind, it's just Trump slapping back in his own bully pulpit.
Chinese Virus Rebuke00:05:23
Is that how you take it too?
That's how I take it as well.
It's not only President Trump, it's also Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo, using various formulations of either Wuhan virus or Chinese virus.
I'm Chinese American.
I'm sensitive to these things.
I'm not offended at all.
On the contrary, I am really pleased that President Trump is defending my country against this very explosive and inflammatory campaign by Beijing.
And we Americans, whether we're Chinese Americans or not, have got to understand that Beijing means us harm.
We have a common enemy.
We've got one president.
He's defending us.
It's important for us to get in line and support his efforts.
Wow, that's very powerful.
I know you're in great demand, so I'm going to set you free quickly.
You're doing so many interviews, and I love the fact that we have had a window into your thinking for really years.
And now you're, I mean, you're everywhere I look, I saw you very briefly at the CPAC convention in Washington.
I see you on media everywhere.
I'm thrilled that your advice is being widely sought, and I feel like you're sort of our guy because we've been talking to you for so long.
Let me ask you one last question.
And again, I learned this from your Twitter feed, which I can't recommend highly enough.
You've been talking about a long-term change, not just solving the problem, but decoupling the U.S. economy and supply chain from China.
Can you explain a little bit what you mean by that?
Well, the United States is, as people have always said, was highly interdependent with China, especially with commerce and investment.
We have seen the downsides of that, though, because Beijing, for instance, and this is Xinhua News Agency, beginning of this month, the official media outlet, has been threatening to cut off the supply of pharmaceuticals and medical protective gear and to throw the U.S. into what it called, quote unquote, a mighty sea of coronavirus.
So we have to understand that we should not allow ourselves to become so highly dependent on a country and a regime like China's.
You know, as people have said, the America buys somewhere, it's dependent on 80 to 97% of its antibiotics from China.
We see similarly high percentages in other areas.
For instance, we go back to 2008 where China sold the U.S. adulterated hefrin.
Peparin killed dozens, actually sickened hundreds of Americans.
So we've got to understand that in this new era, we have got to start making our own goods that are critical.
And this is the reason why the USMCA, the successor to NAFTA, is so important.
We need to bring manufacturing back to this side of the Pacific.
Yeah, very interesting.
You know, you just made me think about OPEC.
A few years ago, America was dependent on dictatorships and regimes that mean harm to America for oil.
Now America is self-sufficient, and that's not just good economically, it's good strategically.
I think that maybe the same thing could happen with those other critical strategic goods, not only to make America independent, but it could be an economic boom the same way as domestic oil production is too.
I'm going to start thinking about it the same way, ethical production in America versus risky conflict production in China.
You've helped me clarify that, Gordon.
I know you've got to run.
Thank you so much, as always, for your time.
And one last shout out for folks who are not yet following Gordon G. Chang on Twitter.
You're doing it wrong.
You will learn more from him in one tweet than you will from an entire article in a mainstream media newspaper.
Gordon, good luck out there.
Keep up the fight.
Thanks so much, Ezra.
I really appreciate the platform.
Well, it's our pleasure.
There's another call for you right away.
We'll let you go.
Take care, my friend, and good luck.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
That's our friend Gordon Chang.
I feel like he's our guy because we've been talking to him for so long before this crisis, and he's an indispensable commentator.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back to my monologue yesterday about suing the Chinese Communist government for the coronavirus.
Brad writes, yes, just like the Germans and the Japanese, China should pay retribution for their actions.
I appreciate what Joel Pollack said, is that, you know, the Versailles Treaty, which demanded Germany pay reparations to France, et cetera, that was an irritant that in some ways led to the Second World War.
But at the very least, I think we need to have it in hand as a bargaining chip with China.
That's how Sudan is treating reparations.
That's how Muamar Gaddafi treated reparations.
When they want something from us, we can say, well, you have to give us something that we want.
I think those lawsuits should be filed.
Michael writes, China needs to pay countries reparations as they covered up this pathogen causing massive damages.
Well, that's the thing.
I'm not blaming China for being the source of the virus.
Reparations As Bargaining Chips00:01:12
We don't know if their secret virus lab in Wuhan created it.
We don't have any evidence to that effect.
We can't blame them for that.
We can blame them for covering it up and delaying our own reaction to it.
Doug writes, thanks for your journalism and thanks for getting on this government for their inadequate screening in airports.
They should be disinfecting the baggage too.
Listen, I think that there have been so many flights from China in the last two months.
There's probably been hundreds that I think the horses left the barn already.
I think there are so many cases of the virus that have come in from China undetected because there's no screening.
But, you know, we should still probably shut the barn door, don't you think?
Well, that's our show for today.
Thanks for watching.
We'll have more videos over the weekend, and then the show will resume again on Monday.
We're doing our best to operate in these conditions.
A lot of our people are working from home.
I think that the rebel is as important as ever because we have to be a good faith critic of what this government is doing, because certainly the rest of the media aren't.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.