Justice Patrick Smith, a Toronto Superior Court judge specializing in Indigenous law, faced unprecedented judicial persecution after accepting a six-month, unpaid role at Lakehead University’s Boral Alaskan Faculty of Law in April 2018—approved by Chief Justice Heather Forster Smith and Indigenous Justice Minister Judy Wilson-Raybold—to stabilize the school amid systemic racism claims. The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), led by Norman Sabarin, launched an ethics investigation based solely on a May 3 CBC article criticizing his appointment, ignoring formal approvals and procedural safeguards while leaking its November 6 verdict before notifying Smith. Justice Russell Zinn’s ruling exposed CJC misconduct, revealing how media-driven outrage can weaponize judicial power against dissenters, raising alarming questions about institutional fairness. This pattern mirrors broader concerns over the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence—corrupting Western universities with Confucius Institutes (e.g., UBC’s $250M revenue from 6,000 Chinese students), pressuring Hollywood and media giants like the New York Times into self-censorship, and even manipulating platforms like Facebook to silence pro-democracy voices. Smith’s case underscores a troubling trend: when unelected bodies target individuals without due process, it signals a dangerous erosion of justice, whether in Canada or against global threats like authoritarian propaganda. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I go deep into a lawsuit, the likes of which I've never seen.
One judge is suing a bunch of other judges, and then another judge had to judge the judges.
Oh boy, it's nasty.
It's nasty.
But there's a lot of interesting insights and little sneak peeks into the people who rule over us.
I hope I can keep your attention as I go through this interesting legal ruling today.
I think you'll find it interesting.
I hope so.
That's the show today.
I guess it helps a bit to have the visual of the court ruling.
I read through it.
And some people find that easier to follow along when they're looking at the words too, because I read extended passages from the court ruling.
You can see all that, of course, if you're a subscriber to Rebel News Plus, which gives you the video version of this podcast.
You also get access to shows by Sheila Gunread and David Menzies.
You can get all that for eight bucks a month, or if you buy a year in advance, it's just 80 bucks for the whole year.
I think that's good TV value.
I mean, I subscribe to all sorts of things.
I subscribe to Quibby.
Have you heard of that?
To Netflix, of course you heard of that.
Disney Plus for the kids.
Crave.
There's almost nothing I'm like, I'm just shelling out a bunch of the kids into sports.
That's a lot of subscriptions.
You know what?
Rebel News Plus is the cheapest of all the things I've just listed.
And I think it's the bestest.
So let me invite you to go to RebelNews.com and become a subscriber.
80 bucks, come on.
We need the help.
We don't get any money from Justin Trudeau.
If I was a lefty, I would just go to Trudeau and say, fill up the Az Tank.
I'm not.
So I rely on the goodwill of our viewers and listeners.
All right.
Enough for the plea.
Here is my podcast.
Judge Smith's Appeal00:16:06
Tonight, I've got a good news story from the Federal Court of Canada.
I can't even believe I'm saying those words.
It's May 22nd, 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 is the government will want to publish it just because it's my bloody right to do so.
Look at this court ruling from the Federal Court of Canada, and perhaps it's more than a coincidence.
It's written by Justice Russell Zinn, the same federal court judge who ruled in our favor last October in the Debates Commission case.
Here's the ruling.
I want to go through it a bit.
Now look who's suing whom?
The Honorable Justice Patrick Smith and the Attorney General of Canada and the Canadian Judicial Council, the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association and the Ontario Superior Court Judges Association interveners.
It's just so many lawyers and judges.
A judge is suing the Judicial Counsel and the Judges Associations and the government.
So a judge is suing other judges and then Judge Zinn is ruling on the judge versus Judge Battle.
Holy moly.
I'm going to read some of this for you.
Justice Zinn starts by quoting the late journalist Christy Blatchford, who wrote a column about this whole case.
The fact that Judge Patrick Smith is in danger of a removal is a sobering illustration of the no good deed goes unpunished saying, Christy Blatchford.
Well, that gives you a hint which way this is going to go.
Let me read.
The Honorable Justice Patrick Smith, Justice Smith, is a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Toronto.
He challenges two decisions of the Canadian Judicial Council.
The first is the August 28th decision of the Quebec Superior Court Associate Chief Justice Robert Pidgin in his capacity as vice chairperson of the Judicial Conduct Committee to constitute a judicial conduct review panel.
Second, Justice Smith challenges the November 5th, 2008 decision of the review panel.
Okay, now please don't click away.
I promise it doesn't get more boring than that.
That's the boringest part.
Those are just the names of the fancy oversight committees that scrutinize judges.
So Judge Smith is suing, or actually he's appealing, to be more precise, rulings against him by Judge Pidgin and a bunch of other judges who had condemned him.
So it's a judge civil war, and our favorite judge, Judge Zinn, is the referee.
Now here's the part that's in plain English, but I predict you will find it as hard to understand as any lawyer would.
Ready?
The review panel concluded that Justice Smith, in accepting the appointment of interim dean academic at Boral Alaskan Faculty of Law at Lakehead University, contravened Section 55 of the Judges Act.
It further found that Judge Smith failed in his ethical obligations as a judge to avoid involvement in public debate that may unnecessarily expose him to political attack or be inconsistent with the dignity of judicial office.
So hang on.
This judge, the judge that's suing the other judges, Judge Smith.
So he took a temporary position, that's what interim means, as the academic dean of a law school at Lakehead University.
And the other judges said that's unethical.
I'm not even kidding.
That's what they said about him.
Yeah, I'd sue them too.
The decision of the review panel is not reasonable.
And the Canadian Judicial Council procedure was applied unfairly to Justice Smith and was an abusive process.
Justice Smith is entitled to a meaningful remedy.
So Judge Zinn, that's our favorite guy, he sided with Judge Smith against this big shot panel of judges who had condemned him for helping a law school.
Here are the facts as outlined by Justice Zinn.
On April 16, 2018, the interim president and vice chancellor, Lakehead University, wrote to Justice Smith asking him to accept an appointment to the position of interim dean of the law school.
The law school had existed only since 2013.
Its mandate is Aboriginal and Indigenous Law, Natural Resources and Environmental Law, and Small Firm and Sole Practice.
The second permanent dean of the law school, Angelique Eaglewoman, resigned earlier in 2018, alleging institutional racism.
In her letter to Justice Smith, the interim president notes the importance that it maintain the confidence and support of the Law Society of Ontario, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, and of our local bar and extended communities.
The interim president explains why he's being asked to take on this interim position.
We make this urgent request based on your knowledge, skills, and experience as a judge of the Superior Court of Ontario.
In addition, your long-standing connections and the respect you garner in the local, provincial, and national legal communities, combined with your significant work with Indigenous communities and your important publications focused on Aboriginal law in Canada, are critical to the ongoing evolution and success of the Faculty of Law.
So just to be clear, this is an Aboriginal-focused law school.
They're having some trouble.
The whole place is wobbly and rickety.
It's only five years old at this point.
The university's president is desperate for someone to save the day just to hold the fort while they find someone permanent.
It's a bit unconventional, but a sitting judge might actually be just the right person.
They literally ask him to do them a favor to save the school.
Not just any school, but a school that has the purpose of helping Aboriginal people in the law.
That sounds pretty noble to me, pretty woke, something that you'd think would receive support from everyone.
And as Justice Zinn points out, Justice Smith sits in the Northwest region and before becoming a judge in 2001, practiced law in Thunder Bay for 25 years.
He has significant expertise in Aboriginal and Indigenous law.
So he knows the file.
He knows Aboriginal law, certainly more than most lawyers in downtown Toronto or Montreal would, just for example.
In fact, I got to say, the more I learned about Judge Smith, he sounds like a perfect law school dean if the purpose of the school is to focus on Aboriginal law.
Let me read.
In October 2009, he was appointed to the specific claims tribunal.
Justice Smith worked with former judge and current senator Marie Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on various judicial education initiatives, including developing and co-chairing a three-day intensive course sponsored by the National Judicial Institute on Aboriginal Law for judges from across Canada and creating and updated a judicial bench book on Aboriginal law.
He's often invited by legal organizations to speak on Aboriginal and Indigenous law and is called upon regularly by judges across Canada to assist with the mediation of land claims and other litigation between First Nations and various levels of government.
Okay, I've got to ask you a question.
Does he sound racist?
Does he sound stupid or ill-informed?
Does Judge Smith sound unethical to you?
I mean, I'm sorry, those questions are too absurd to even ask, aren't they?
Well, to you, maybe.
But in a moment, I'll tell you who is actually malicious enough to ask them.
I'll tell you who complained about this, in a way.
In the meantime, try to guess.
What is the most malicious negative low force in Canada today?
Think lower.
Okay, lower, lower count.
I'll tell you in a moment.
Okay, just to let you know, Judge Smith didn't just walk away from his job as a judge.
That would be a bit nuts.
He literally asked all his bosses for permission and for their advice.
So he wrote to the chief judge of the province.
That's the judge who's in charge of the other judges.
He wrote, and they checked with the justice minister of the day, Judy Wilson-Raybold, Jody Wilson-Raybold, who, as you know, is herself an Aboriginal woman.
So everything was like, just do everything by the book, check all the boxes, which you would sort of expect and hope for from a judge, right?
So here's how that went, according to Justice Zinn.
Justice Smith informed the Honorable Heather J. Forster Smith, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice, of the request from the law school.
In his letter, Justice Smith says, the affairs at the school are in crisis.
This characterization of the situation at the law school is not questioned.
He asked for the approval of his Chief Justice and the Minister of Justice to accept this short-term appointment.
The Chief Justice wrote to the Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybold, expressing her support for Justice Smith to accept this role.
She notes that this request, quote, would take him outside of his judicial duties in a role that is unprecedented for a judge of our court.
She also notes that Justice Smith is a supernumerary judge, so the impact may be less than it would in other circumstances, particularly until the fall.
Now, by the way, as a supernumerary judge, Justice Smith performs judicial duties for only six months each year.
She indicates that this is an exceptional situation and an opportunity for our court to respond positively to a number of Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations.
The Chief Justice proposes to grant Justice Smith a leave of up to six months from June 1, 2018 to November 2018 under the authority given to her in paragraph 51, 541A of the Judges Act.
She notes that anything beyond that would require an order in counsel.
Okay, okay, so that's a long quote.
So both the chief judge and the justice minister say, all right, for a six-month term, it's fine.
He's only a half-time judge anyways.
And Jodi Wilson-Raybold thinks it would not only be a good thing in terms of helping the school, but it would show harmony, reconciliation, you know?
Let me quote some more.
The Chief Justice writes that Justice Smith appreciates that he can only accept the role within certain clear parameters, including that his role be confined to academic leadership.
He would delegate administrative authority over recruitment, financial decisions, and academic appeals to others within the school.
Lastly, she observes, given the restrictions of Section 55 of the Judges Act, which prohibits extra judicial employment, occupation, or business, he could not accept any remuneration from the university.
So he's not going to take a dime for this, just to be very plain.
He's not taking any money for this.
So everyone's being very, very careful.
If he's a dean, he's not going to hire and fire anyone.
He's not going to spend or raise any money.
Those could possibly be seen as showing some bias or something.
I don't know.
I'm not quite sure how that would show bias, but they didn't want to take any chances.
He's just going as an academic guide.
So the Justice Minister specifically writes back to the Chief Judge.
I have no concerns about your granting Justice Smith a special leave from June 2018 to November 18, as outlined in your letter.
Okay, so get this.
He takes the gig and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster, writes a story about the judge and includes rancor from some nobody critics.
Of course, it's a CBC.
They bitch and moan for a living.
They're victimologists.
They only have one narrative for Aboriginal people, victims.
And an out-of-control legal busybody reads that CBC story about some people bitching and he starts an investigation into Judge Smith's ethics.
The week he accepted the job, he hadn't even started yet.
Let me read.
On May 9th, 2018, the executive director of the CJC, that's the Canadian Judicial Council, Norman Sabarin, wrote to Justice Smith with a copy to his Chief Justice.
He observed that pursuant to section 4.2 of the Canadian Judicial Council procedures for the review of complaints or allegations about federally appointed judges, in addition to receiving and reviewing complaints, he may review any other matter involving the conduct of a Superior Court judge that comes to the attention of the executive director and appears to warrant consideration.
He further noted that under section 4.3 of the review procedures, if he determines that the matter warrants consideration, he must refer it to the Judicial Conduct Committee.
With that background, Mr. Saburin writes in his letter to Justice Smith that media reports indicate that he has accepted to serve as Dean of Lakehead University on an interim basis, and he attaches a CBC web report posted May 3rd, 2018 entitled, Justice Patrick Smith, Named Interim Dean of Lakehead Law School.
It reports on the departure of former Dean Angelique Eaglewoman, who on stepping down said systemic issues within the university and challenges to implementing the Borough Loskin Faculty of Law's Aboriginal and Indigenous Law Mandate have made my continued involvement in the law school untenable.
The news report concludes with the reaction of some Indigenous leaders to the situation at the law school.
Since then, Indigenous leaders representing dozens of First Nations communities across northwestern Ontario call for immediate change at Lakehead University.
They made several recommendations, including that Lakehead commit to appointing an Indigenous person as Eagle Woman's successor, that an independent review examine all issues and allegations raised by her, and that appropriate measures are subsequently taken.
Mr. Sabarin says, in light of sections 54 and 55 of the Judges Act, and given the general duties and ethical obligation of judges, acceptance of the interim dean role brings me to the view that the situation may warrant consideration by counsel.
Prior to reaching any decision, Mr. Sabarin invites Justice Smith's views.
Huh.
This is Norman Sabarin, a sour-looking man.
He looks like a nosy bureaucrat, doesn't he?
He's the executive director of the Canadian Judicial Council.
So let me be clear.
There actually hadn't been any complaint.
He hadn't actually started yet.
Both the chief judge of the province and the justice minister, who's Aboriginal, liked the idea.
Judge Smith was saving the day.
It was a six-month mission of mercy for a school that was falling apart.
There were lots of checks and balances on what he could or could not do.
Not only did no one complain, but every I had been dotted and every T had been crossed.
But this meddling little bureaucrat took it upon himself to launch an investigation.
No complaints.
I'm serious.
Now, you can imagine in a case of judges fighting with judges about being judges and the whole thing being reviewed by judges.
This ruling goes on for quite a while.
I can just tell you one thing I've learned from this is that it's not unprecedented for sitting judges to also be law school deans.
In fact, in the past, judges, even on our Supreme Court of Canada, have served as law school deans.
Judge Smith put in lots of safeguards.
He said, for example, when he was done as interim dean, he went back to a judge.
He wouldn't sit on any cases that involved that university.
So he's being extremely well-behaved.
He would recuse himself from those cases.
It was all so reasonable.
He went back and forth with the Canadian Judicial Council's Norman Sabarin.
So he said, oh, no, no, everything's fine.
I checked.
I got permission.
But that sneering, sour-puss bureaucrat proceeded to investigate and prosecute him nonetheless.
I swear to God, he was doing this for free.
Let me remind you.
Judge Smith wasn't taking a dime.
Now, here's where it gets weird, and here's where it gets gross.
So remember, this was just a six-month interim thing.
Helping an Aboriginal law school that was falling apart.
Helping Aboriginal people, students, the community.
Unfair Judicial Prosecution00:09:52
But this Norman Sabarin and the Judicial Council, they just won't let this go.
Does Judge Smith need any of this?
Does he need the hassle, the stress, the weird attempt to shame him?
Shame him?
No, he does not.
Does he need the investigation and the prosecution of him?
Seriously, that's what they do.
They were prosecuting him for an ethical breach.
Does he need this in his life?
No, he does not.
So he resigned.
That's what they wanted him to do.
So he resigned.
Not sure how that helps the law school or the reputation of the law itself or Aboriginal students, not sure, but that weirdo, Norman Sabrin, who acted in the absence of a complaint.
Let me say that again.
No one complained to the Judicial Council.
Just some whiny, grievance-mongering report in the CBC state broadcaster.
And that was enough.
Sabrin got his way.
Judge Smith quit.
But Sabarin and the Canadian Judicial Council, they weren't done yet.
They wanted their pound of flesh.
They proceeded against Judge Smith anyways.
Even after he bent the knee, even after he quit and said, all right, I'm out of here.
They still went after him.
I'm serious.
And incredibly, they leaked their denunciation of him, their ruling against him, to the media before they even told him.
Let me read.
On November 6, 2018, the CJC, that's the Canadian Judicial Council, told two reporters that the review panel had reached its decision and that it would be released that day without having so informed Justice Smith or his counsel.
The CJC published a press release on its website the same day with a link to the panel decision.
Is that normal?
Or is that crooked?
Why are you leaking things to the media?
You're supposed to be the court.
What the hell is wrong with the Canadian Judicial Council?
Why do they hate Judge Smith so much?
Why are they prosecuting a man without even a complaint against him?
Why are they continuing their prosecution even after he complied with their bizarre demands?
And then why are they leaking the results like some cheap political intrigue rather than being the alleged counsel of the most senior judges in the land?
You want to know who brought the administration of justice into disrepute here?
Who makes judges look unethical and unreliable and politically motivated and untrustworthy and punitive and biased?
Yeah, it ain't Judge Smith, I'll tell you that.
So I'm pleased to say that Judge Smith sued the bastards.
Technically speaking, he appealed the ruling of this council of judges.
Let me read.
These applications focus on three issues.
Whether the decision of the review panel decision is reasonable.
Whether the CJC proceedings were procedurally unfair or an abusive process.
And if the applications succeed, what is the appropriate remedy?
Oh, it is a pleasure to read the dozens of pages that follow, but it wouldn't fit in this video monologue.
Suffice it to say, Justice Zinn more or less accuses the Canadian Judicial Council of, quote, reverse engineering the verdict.
As in, they came up with their decision first, and then they tried to find some way to justify it.
He says they misinterpreted the law.
They didn't use common sense and they were just wrong about their ethical accusations.
But most damning to me is Justice Zinn's ruling that this Canadian Judicial Council engaged in an abusive process, as in they had all this power in their hands, and they abused it.
They were corrupted.
Here, read this.
I find that the CJC disciplinary procedure was misused from the beginning when the executive director determined that Justice Smith accepting the appointment to the law school was a matter that warrants consideration.
Of course, it didn't warrant consideration.
Judge Smith got permission from the chief judge and the justice minister.
Then he took the interim job, no payment, all sorts of checks and balances on him.
If that was taking, if taking that job was unethical, then by definition, so was the chief judge of the whole province and the justice minister because they approved it, really.
Remember, not a single complaint to the judicial committee.
And when they persecuted, I'm not even going to say prosecuted, when they persecuted Judge Smith, they claimed it was because the law doesn't allow him to take outside work and then it puts him in an ethical bind.
They threw those baseless accusations at him, which were absurd.
Like I said, Judge Zinn, in his ruling here, accused the Canadian Judicial Council of just making up excuses to backfill their hate for this guy.
So why did they hate him?
What was really motivating their persecution of him?
Why were they shaming him like this?
Remember, Justice Zinn didn't say they just got it wrong.
They misused it.
It was an abusive process.
Why?
This Judge Smith, I never met him, seems like a nice enough guy.
Seems like he loves Aboriginal people, lives in the North, loves the law, seems to be politically sympathetic to vulnerable people.
I dare say he sounds like a stand-up guy, someone who's sort of a credit to the court.
I think he's one of the good guys.
I don't know him.
I don't know him.
So why did they prosecute him, drive him out, sue him, condemn him, and then leak against him?
That's the lamest part.
What's going on here?
Well, Justice Zinn has a theory.
It's that article from Trudeau's CBC State Broadcaster.
Take a look.
Just for clarification here, a reminder, Pidgin ACG is Associate Chief Justice Pidgin, the judge on the Judicial Council who condemned Judge Smith.
Let me quote.
As noted above, the only information Justice Smith had as to the substance of the matter was the initial letter of the executive director attaching one webpage reporting that he had accepted the appointment and its reference to sections 54 and 55 of the Judges Act and the general duties and obligations of judges.
However, Pidgin, in his reasons for referring the matter to the review panel, indicates that other material was before the executive director which guided his actions and decisions.
He writes, Following Justice Smith's appointment as interim dean, First Nations leaders were upset and criticized the lack of prior consultation and failure to follow the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on Aboriginal issues.
They called on the university to rescind the appointment.
On the 9th of May 2018, given the public comments made in response to the statements made by First Nations chiefs, the executive director of the Canadian Judicial Council wrote to Justice Patrick Smith and his Chief Justice to obtain more information.
None of this information was provided to Justice Smith.
Specifically, he was not informed of the executive director's concerns about the call for him to resign, nor was he provided with any of the public comments made in response to statements made by First Nations Chiefs nor those statements.
Procedural fairness dictates that one is entitled to know the case to be met.
This is a fundamental procedural right that the executive director failed to give to Justice Smith.
So let me explain if it's not clear.
Some malcontents bitch about the fact that they weren't consulted about Judge Smith for his temporary interim leadership.
And so the CBC loves that because remember, the only narrative they accept about Aboriginal people is about grievance and victimology.
So here's some good guy coming to do them a favor for free, just a six-month patch while they get their act together.
Seems like a lovely man.
But someone bitched to the CBC and the CBC makes an industry out of bitching and this scares or motivates Norman Sabarin and the rest of the cowards at the Canadian Judicial Council.
But they don't have the courage to actually tell Judge Smith why they're mad at him, why they hate him.
They probably don't even hate him.
They're just so afraid of some CBC whipped-up mob, so afraid of political correctness that actually never materializes here, that they set up Judge Smith.
You get that?
They set him up.
They claim he was being disciplined for ethical corruption, for illegally taking a side job.
None of which is true.
It's patently absurd.
But because they lack the moral courage or the plain old honesty to say what really motivated them, some CBC quoting some unknown anonymous people bitching that no one asked them who should be the interim dean to run the law school that's falling apart.
And so based on that, the unethical Canadian Judicial Council set out to destroy a good man, a better man than any of them, a man who had done more for Aboriginal people than any of them, I'll tell you that.
Let me quote Justice Zim.
I find that the CJC process involving Justice Smith was unfair to the point that it is contrary to the interests of justice.
It was an abuse of process.
Boom.
You judges are unfair.
It's in your bones.
And the thing is about judges, all they have is their fairness.
If a judge isn't fair, it's like salt that's lost its saltiness.
There's nothing left, is there?
Except a bunch of overpaid political hacks.
Now look at this.
Look at all the lawyers involved in this massive fight.
The judge has a lawyer.
The judges he's suing each have lawyers.
There are lawyers for lawyers, and then there's a judge judging the judges who judged the judge.
What, did this whole thing cost a million dollars?
Probably.
Was it all unfair to Judge Smith?
Absolutely.
Because the cowards at the Canadian Judicial Council were worried about some CBC political pout?
Yes.
And my point to you is this, my friends.
If these politically correct, abusive, secretive, biased, corrupt, unreasonable liars can do this to one of their own, what do you think they would do to you?
China Threat Reconsidered00:13:26
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, of course, even in times of crisis, a constitution matters, civil rights matter, and one basic civil right is the freedom of the press.
And even though you want a sense of national purpose behind a national leader and his advisors, you also want critics, constructive critics, as we call them in Canada, a loyal opposition, loyal to the country, critical of the man in power.
Alas, in Canada, we seem to have put the opposition on the back seat.
Of course, Parliament sits rarely and in many cases online.
The parliament itself was a grudging concession by Justin Trudeau, who sought to rule by fiat for another year.
Spending's out of control.
And of course, law enforcement has gone nuts.
In the United States, though, you see some of those phenomena, but you see another one.
The media, rather than being fawning like they are in Canada, have gone into overdrive with their partisan attacks on Donald Trump.
It's almost as if they're taking the side of the virus because whatever Trump is against, they are for.
And if it's too much for them to take the side of the virus, well, then they'll take the side of the closest thing, namely the People's Republic of China, which brings us to our next guest.
His name is Ben Weingarten.
He writes for the Federalists, and the article we're talking about today is called, U.S. Media Helps China Spread Propaganda About Wuhan Virus and Foreign Policy.
And Ben Choi, just on Weiska, good to see you again.
Thanks for being here.
Ezra, it's always a pleasure.
Well, let me just remind our viewers, we've talked to you several times before, including about your great book about Ilhan Omar called American Ingrate.
And we'll make sure that we have the Amazon link underneath this video.
I highly, highly recommend it.
It's the authoritative book.
But Ben, you've done great work on the U.S. propaganda war.
I got a question for you.
Is this just general left-of-centered journalism that's always been soft on communism?
Or is this, you know, an enemy of my enemy is my friend?
Anything that's against Trump, I like just to get Trump out.
I think it's a little bit of a combination of both, in addition to the fact that much of U.S. media has a pecuniary interest in continuing the what I would describe as establishment status quo, the engagement or integrationist or accommodationist agenda, really an appeasement agenda.
With respect to the Communist Chinese Party that has persisted for decades, your viewers will note that, for example, the Washington Post and the New York Times and many other publications as well have historically, and in some cases to this day, continued to run inserts from English language Chinese publications that are obviously derivatives of the Chinese Communist Party.
And of course, this extends into really every sector of America, whether it's the financial services sector and it's underwriting and capitalizing on fees for doing business with Chinese entities, whether it's Hollywood, many of the films of which and the film studios are funded by Chinese money, whether there's their academic institutions.
So what we see in the media is sort of a microcosm of what we see everywhere else, but the media is so zealous in its partisanship and hatred of Trump that it is de facto taking the side of the Chinese Communist Party against the Trump administration in this.
But to your broader point about, well, is this just a reflection of the fact that our media, which is leftist, always sides with the leftist adversaries of the United States?
Yes, that's certainly as well a part of it.
You know, even in Canada, I know what you're talking about, those inserts.
I think they're called China Watch, which makes them feel like, oh, this is going to be skeptical.
I'm interested in a China Watch too, but it's actually published by the Chinese embassy or the foreign ministry.
In Canadian universities, we have Confucius Institutes, which are little propaganda arms.
And of course, it's just plain old cash.
I saw a calculation that the University of British Columbia, which has thousands of Chinese nationals, I think 6,000 Chinese nationals attend that one Canadian university.
They represent a quarter billion dollar a year revenue stream.
University president's job is pretty much one thing, raise money, and they're going to take the side of communist China every time.
That doesn't even touch on money for research from Huawei and whatnot.
I think it's bad up here.
I've seen it said that Canada is the worst in the world.
How is it in the States?
I guess it's tough for you to compare because you probably don't follow the Canadian side of things.
Are all these establishments, have they all been corrupted in America?
Or are there still great institutions in America that are skeptical of communist China?
Well, I hate to say that I think directionally America is pointing the same way as China, with the exception of the fact that this presidential administration and indeed even much of the bureaucracy that has largely been hostile to the Trump administration has really taken a much firmer line on communist China than ever before.
It still goes in fits and starts.
There are still differentials between different parts of the bureaucracy in terms of just how hawkish they are with respect to the Chinese Communist Party.
But if you look at our civil society, many of our lawmakers, and historically our political institutions, yes, the corruption of China has been self-evident, quite frankly.
And I think it points to something really another failure of the globalist elites.
And this extends from the U.S. to Canada to Western Europe and even Eastern Europe in some cases and beyond.
The notion post-Cold War that economic liberalization, that is commercial relations between free nations and communist China, would lead communist China towards political and cultural liberalization was and is a total farce.
And the Trump administration's national security strategy stated this flatly.
Even more so than that, it actually went the other way.
Commercial relations with China ended up corrupting us.
It compromised the West.
And it has led us in many cases to engage in all sorts of self-righteously suicidal policies that have built up communist China to the point where today it threatens the U.S. as the most powerful nation in the world.
And you see it acting, lashing out in all sorts of ways that are sort of unprecedented, really, as the regime has bited its time and hit its capabilities as Deng suggested that it should do during the late 1980s.
You know, I want to play a clip that comes to my mind based on what you said.
I mean, obviously, we know the NBA is very interested in China.
Hollywood is very interested in China.
And, okay, sports.
I mean, it's a cultural icon, and sports heroes are public heroes, but okay, it's just basketball.
And with movies, it's a little bit irritating to have movies boglerized a little bit.
But I want to show you an interview that I found truly shocking.
And I've watched this about five times.
I find it gripping.
It's Michael Bloomberg, who, until a couple months ago, was a serious, if long-shot, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
He's one of the richest men in the world.
I think he's worth more than 50 billion.
He's not just in financial communications, but he's as a general newswire, Bloomberg.
He's a big deal.
And because he personally and his company has such ambitions in China, He said things that if they were said by an NBA player or a Hollywood actor, we'd laugh and say, oh, you're such an idiot.
Stick to acting.
This is a man, former mayor, Democratic president, like a serious, serious man of public policy.
I think you probably know the interview I'm talking to where he says that China, no, no, no, it's actually a democracy.
Here, take a look at this.
Xi Xiping is not a dictator.
He has to satisfy his constituents or he's not going to survive.
He's not a dictator.
No, he has to.
He has a constituency to answer to.
He doesn't have a vote.
He doesn't have a democracy.
He doesn't have to.
It doesn't mean he can survive if his advisers gave him...
Is the check on him just a revolution?
You're not going to have a revolution.
No government survives without the will of the majority of its people.
But I find that such a head scratcher.
I mean, he, I can understand someone saying that to a Chinese dictator.
That's total fawning.
But to say that with a straight face, I don't know if he actually believes it or if he's just so programmed to say it.
But I think that's exactly what you're talking about.
We didn't make them more like us.
They made us more like them.
Our so-called elites tow the Chinese Communist Party line and there are myriad explanations for it.
But one of the biggest ones is certainly greed.
And the basis of the opening to China, if you go back, and I've been doing a lot of work on the history of this in connection with the book that I'm working on, if you go back to the 70s, the start of relations, even before Nixon's opening to China, there was already the easing of bilateral trade restrictions that had existed.
Trade and commerce has always been sort of the basis of it.
So baked into the cake was the notion of greed.
This is an untapped massive market that we need to exploit.
But I think going back to that Bloomberg clip, what it almost evidences is the fact that it views as if it's someone giving a confession on Chinese state-run television.
That is almost the level at which our elites are willing to tow Chinese communist propaganda effectively.
Basically to maintain the status quo and continue this failed notion of engagement that has resulted in empowering a mortal adversary, a mortal enemy that threatens all of our liberties in the West.
And it's shameful.
And the question that needs to be posed to all of these people, many of whom among our elites claim to be proponents of progressive policies and social justice warriors, in spite of the fact that China flouts all of the principles and values that they act as if they speak for.
The question that has to be asked is, is it and was it worth it to sell out our short-term, to trade, our short-term economic interest for long-term national interest?
Are we okay with that trade of effectively selling our soul for profits and cheaper goods associated with China while China is winning the competition to be the top world power and to control our lives ultimately?
And I don't think they have a good answer for that, quite frankly, but the question is very rarely posed.
Yeah.
You know, we had Gordon Cheng on the show the other day and he told me about the new Pew research study.
I didn't know that they had updated that.
And so last month, Pew surveyed Americans again on China, asked a lot of very interesting questions.
And I was very heartened to see that grassroots Americans of both parties are pretty wise to China.
In fact, I think the favorable, unfavorable towards China, even for Democrats, going from memory, I think 62% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of China.
Under the Obama administration, it was sort of reversed.
And under Obama, Americans thought China was the world leader.
So I see a lot of hope.
in, as Orwell would say, the hope lies with the proles, ordinary, severely normal people.
And by the way, and I'm just going from memory, the number one beef Americans have with China is pollution, which is interesting because you never hear them criticized for global warming.
Number two, cyber attacks.
Number three and four, jobs in the economy.
So, I mean, these are issues that the mainstream media, I think, doesn't emphasize.
So I find it incredibly encouraging that grassroots Americans, and I imagine Canada is similar, if not the same, see through the Bloombergs and the NBAs and the Hollywood shills.
They see China for what it is.
I think Trump is a big factor of that.
I think ordinary Americans are fed up with China.
What do you think?
100% agree.
And those polls, one of the data points that comes out is that nine in 10 Americans, approximately nine in 10 Americans, view China as a threat.
It just illustrates so perfectly the chasm between the elites who think that they are in the mainstream and that their view is the predominant view are so out of touch with the people that they're supposedly representing.
The fact that Trump was elected, I think China was a big part of it.
It wasn't a direct point in that Americans didn't vote for Donald Trump on the basis of the China-specific policy.
But in terms of the idea of this is an adversarial nation that's taken advantage of us, that's hurt our nation's interests in any number of ways.
America's Anti-Chinese Sentiment00:03:35
And all of these elites have been making deal after deal with them.
That's terrible for us.
That was a core narrative that underpinned what he ran on, and it resonated with millions of Americans.
I think Americans reflexively sort of understand or understood the China threat, but it's been underscored perfectly in context of the coronavirus crisis.
And I just pray that our leadership, and this really has to be a global thing ultimately, but America as the leading world power in the sort of anti-Chinese Communist Party bloc, I pray that they look to these polls and that that hardens our policymakers in devising policies that are going to be difficult to implement and require coordination and doing things that might hurt us in the short term to take on and confront this CCP that is a menace to the world.
And as we see presently, really threatens to effectively subsume Hong Kong ahead of schedule, threatens Taiwan, does all sorts of menacing things.
Australia, for example, they've threatened to use economic coercion against Australia.
To me, Australia is actually the canary in the coal mine for the Anglosphere in terms of what happens if you get too close to the Chinese Communist Party.
And so I hope that our leadership in the West looks to these polls and uses them to get behind a slew of policies that deal with this massive generational problem.
I think it's at least a generational problem.
It's probably multi-generational, quite frankly.
It took a generation to get into the problem, and it'll probably take a generation to get out.
You're very correct to point to Australia.
They're further down the road than us.
You know, I was thinking we're talking about cultural elites.
And I remember about 15 years ago, I mean, I'm in Toronto now, but I had passes to the Toronto International Film Festival, which is sort of a big deal in this town amongst the fancy pants set.
And I sort of liked it because you could go see a movie before it was out, and you could have a meet and greet with the stars.
It was very exciting for me, a simple boy from the prairies.
And I happened to go when all the anti-war, anti-American Iraq-themed movies were coming out.
And they were all terrible.
And by the way, they all did terrible at the box office.
I'm not saying that the war itself ought to be praised, but they all felt so anti-American.
And there was a dozen of them.
I remember seeing The Valley of Ilah, which was a huge box office flop.
And in the midst of this, a movie called 300, if you recall about Sparta, became a shocking surprise hit.
Obviously, it was a historical movie, but I think it was the first thing that sort of praised being patriotic and defensive.
And then a few years later, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, again, a huge hit.
And it makes me think Hollywood, they don't dare lay a finger on China because they're worried they'll lose box.
They won't be allowed to show the movie in China.
And so, but if someone came along and did an American sniper, did a movie that wasn't a caricature, but that was patriotic and that was touched the heartstrings on some of these issues, I think Americans would rally to it.
And I don't know, forgive me for this tangent, but I remember a time when all of American opinion elites seemed to be anti-American to get out George Bush.
I feel like it's a repeat now, but it's with China.
I don't know what you make of that analogy, but it just sort of struck me listening to what you were saying.
I think it's certainly an apt analogy.
I'm not sure as much hatred as there was of George W. Bush.
Amazon Prime's Cultural Battle00:02:21
The difference with Trump is that he really threatens the gravy train.
He really threatens the establishment in a way that no Republican president, save for Reagan, really, in any of the immediate decades before him can even come close to.
And so, and the fact that he fights back the way that he does makes them hate him to an even greater extent.
George W. Bush would never punch back the way that Donald Trump has punched back.
He would never upset the Apple card in terms of taking on the bureaucracy, the national security and foreign policy establishment, in the way Trump has.
So the hatred is something that is even beyond the way it's ever been.
What is maybe new to some extent is just how much our media really colludes with the bureaucracy, the permanent administrative state that exists here.
But going back to your tangent about the media and cultural part of this, it is worth noting there's one series, I believe, on television on Amazon Prime.
It's called Bosch.
And I believe Michael Oslin wrote a great article about this several months back in National Review, where he talked about the fact that Bosch sort of portrays Chinese Communist Party associated figures negatively.
And it's an Amazon Prime series.
And you wonder, huh, why is it that Amazon would run this series?
Well, the answer is China doesn't give Amazon access to its marketplace.
Same thing, there's a documentary, One Child Nation, that I saw actually at the Tribeca Film Festival, which I imagine is sort of analogous to the Toronto Film Festival that you mentioned that showed the horrors of the one-child policy.
That got great reviews and a pretty big viewing in the United States as well.
The more things that accurately portray the nature of the Chinese Communist Party, the better.
I think that truth is the biggest weapon that can be wielded against the Chinese Communist Party, just like the Soviet Union would not brook any dissent either.
And by the way, to overcome the Soviet Union, a massive part of the Western effort in general and the U.S. effort in particular was flooding the zone with truth, with counter-propaganda in the best sense of the term, not in the pejorative sense of the term.
We're starting to do that in the U.S. with respect to the Chinese Communist Party, including our deputy national security advisor, delivering two recent speeches in Mandarin, one directed at the Chinese people in a pro-democracy speech, and another directed at Taiwan that was very complimentary of their recent elections and inauguration as well.
Media As Collectibles00:07:46
I think you're going to see more of that.
And I think it's imperative because that information war that China has started to wage against us, we need to be engaged in that battle because again, ideas ultimately really are quite powerful in this competition that we're in.
Well, that is very interesting.
And thank you for telling me that.
I'm going to look up those Mandarin speeches.
I'm sure I could find them quickly.
And maybe we'll do a show built around them.
I've got one last question.
Be very generous with your time, Ben.
Thank you.
And I know we didn't dig into your article a lot, but I've had this question about the media because in Canada, the media has lost all its pride as it's lost its economics.
And so in our country, besides the CBC, our state broadcaster, which is larger than all other news media combined, by the way, so it takes $1.5 billion a year from Trudeau, which proportionally would be like $15 billion in America, because you're 10 times our size.
But now all the newspapers are on a $600 million newspaper bailout.
Again, that would be like $6 billion just for the printing press papers in America.
So they're sold out.
They've sold out ideologically.
They are now all beholden to Trudeau, but they're still failing.
Which brings me to this question.
Who owns newspapers?
Well, Carlos Slim owns the New York Times and Jeff Bezos that you mentioned, it's the Washington Post.
They're collectibles now for billionaires who maybe they'll make money off it, but more likely, they just want to seat at the table in a national or international discussion.
And newspapers are trading at historic lows in the stock market if it were to be bought that way or private deals or through shell corporations.
I can't believe that a major newspaper is not yet bought, even if it's through various cutouts, by China.
They have all the money.
They've got the foreign currency.
Are you worried that it will happen or do you think it has happened that Chinese money is saying, well, let's buy up these all too willing journalists because they're for sale of bargain prices.
Is that too paranoid on my part?
No, if anything, it's probably not paranoid enough in my view.
Look, I think, first of all, we've seen the Department of Justice and members of Congress as well have been pushing on this in the U.S. start focusing on the Foreign Agent Registration Act, FARA, to start designate Chinese media companies that exist in the U.S. as force them to register as foreign agents because they are propaganda agents.
Of course, FARA has also been abused in other contexts, so I'm not wholly sanguine on that sort of tactic.
All that said, China probably views itself as already holding the cards to some extent when it comes to U.S. media, given that they have basically premised, conditioned access to mainland China on not running too afoul of what the Chinese Communist Party wants you to print.
They've gotten papers to bend over backwards to meet the kind of strictures that China has implemented.
And of course now, it does appear that they're starting to kick U.S. journalists out and we're starting to kick their propagandists out of the U.S. as well.
But I think absolutely they'll look to take any advantage they possibly can to engage in the information side.
The more it can look like they are not the ones in control of it, the better.
So I think to your point, whether it's shell corporations or other cutouts, they're going to look to do everything they can to compromise us.
But even better from their perspective is Americans who on the surface don't look like they could be bought and paid for, de facto, if not du jour agents of the Chinese Communist Party, spouting their propaganda.
That's the best thing money can buy.
If they don't even need to spend any money on it, because, for example, there's such great hatred of our president and there's a mutual feeling between our media and the CCP that he poses a threat to the CCP's designs, then that's even better.
So I think today the media is sort of doing the job for them.
At a future time, I absolutely believe they will try to do everything they can to engage in those sorts of transactions.
And there are laws on the books that allows the U.S., for example, to defend itself against them.
That's not the case in every country around the world, but it really ought to be because, again, information and ideas are such a critical part of what the CCP is engaged in that we need to look at blocking every avenue they take to trying to corrupt our institutions and propagandizing and influencing public sentiment so that ultimately they do triumph in this war of ideas that one side has been engaged in to this point.
Finally, it seems like we're stepping up to the plate as well.
You know, just listening to you, I'm convinced that there's no need to buy a newspaper.
Why would you bother buying a newspaper when you own the internet forums?
Literally today I was reading a story from 2015 when Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, met Xi Jinping.
And I know you won't believe this without seeing it, so we'll put the headline up on the screen here.
Mark Zuckerberg went to Xi Jinping and said, we are expecting a baby.
We would like you to do us the honor of naming our baby.
That is so stunning.
And he, of course, boasted about speaking, learning Mandarin just to speak to him.
You don't need to buy some printing press, some oily inkstained printing press, when you've got Mark Zuckerberg begging a tyrant to name his child.
Why would you waste any money when you have, as Lenin would say, a useful idiot?
Last word to you.
Yeah, just to add on to that, look, our social media companies censor patriotic Americans, patriotic Canadians, patriotic anyone in the Western world who's pro-Western.
Anyone who dares challenge the WHO, for example, gets censored.
And meanwhile, these Chinese propagandists and many other propagandists on behalf of other regimes as well get to act with total impunity in social media.
And I think that really says it all.
It's more than disturbing.
It really poses an existential threat to our way of life.
And that's why it's so critical to keep exposing it.
Ben Weingarten of the Federalists, what a pleasure to catch up with you.
Thanks for giving us so much of your time.
Always an education.
Keep it up.
Great to see you.
Appreciate it.
It's always a pleasure on my end, Ezra.
All right.
Thanks very much.
Well, there you have it.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about two new opinion polls on China.
Doug writes, China is out to conquer the world.
This is their ultimate goal.
They will do it any way they can.
I think you're right.
And the way that terrifies me the most is economically, because that undermines our core as Western free market capitalists.
I mean, when you have the Michael Bloombergs of the world making the case for China, it's much more persuasive than having some Chinese ambassador do it.
And the reason Michael Bloomberg's saying that is not because deep in his heart of hearts he's a fascist authoritarian, although maybe actually he is.
It's because he's got his entire wealth tied up in China, so he's making mental acrobatics to make it work.
Same thing with the NBA.
The NBA is not naturally a pro-China organization.
It's just following the money.
That's what scares me.
And that's why Trump is so right when he says, bring the factories back, put on the tariffs, take away the economic incentives.
Michael Bloomberg's Persuasive Case00:02:34
Anyways, I thought the whole thing was interesting.
Anna writes, it's not the ethnicity that people are upset about.
It's their politics.
It's communism.
Same as when Russia was the USSR.
Exactly.
And I don't know if you remember my show a few weeks ago when the CBC went after the Falun Gong-based Epoch Times newspaper.
They're ethnic Chinese who were democracy activists tortured by China.
Like China actually, I won't get into it.
It's too gross.
I'll just say this.
Well, I won't say it.
You know, organ harvesting.
It's a thing.
Google it.
So to call the Epoch Times anti-Chinese or racist or inflammatory, as the CBC did, is such a lie.
They are ethnic Chinese.
But the CBC is using Communist Party language to smear opponents.
On my interview with Jim Carahelio, Sandy writes, you besmirched Jim again.
He would be an excellent PM.
He has integrity.
You, you should apologize to Jim.
We are very disappointed in your response to the letter writer.
Oh my goodness.
I'm in trouble again.
Well, listen, I like Jim.
How many times do I have to say it?
Listen, you know I like him.
I've had him on, what, four times now in the past month?
In fact, today at 12 noon, Jim was on my live call-in show.
Not call-in.
It's called a super chat.
People can type comments live and I read them and I put the questions to Jim.
So I think Jim's got a thicker skin for himself than you have for him because he came back on my show today.
He was on the show for half an hour and we put questions to him.
I like Jim.
That doesn't mean I'm going to say I believe he can win if I don't think he can win.
And I'm not saying that's a good thing that he can't win.
I'm just saying politics is a very tough and serious business at that level.
And if you want to be the leader of a party, you need to have certain assets and networks and resources and allies.
And if you want to be the prime minister, you've got to be the best of the best.
If you're going to try and unseat Justin Trudeau with the media party in his corner.
I like Jim Karahalius.
That doesn't mean I'm going to say I think he can totally knock off Justin Trudeau.
I wouldn't say that to you if I don't believe it.
That's not me being mean to Jim.
Anyways, he doesn't agree with you because he came on my show again today and he didn't seem like his feelings were hurt.
Anyways, that's a strange note to end on, but we will end it there.
I hope you enjoyed our works this week.
And until next week, keep watching our YouTube videos and, you know, keep fighting for freedom.
We got to.
The battle's here in Canada now, too, with this whole pandemic overreaction.