François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s foreign minister, owes $1.2M to China’s state-owned Bank of China while avoiding public thanks for Taiwan’s life-saving PPE—contrasting with his swift praise for China’s flawed donation, hinting at Beijing-aligned deference. Professor Kathleen Lowry, fired for opposing Bill C-16’s gender ideology, warns of escalating attacks on her dissent, citing equity mandates that prioritize trans candidates over marginalized women and questioning child sterilization risks in gender-affirming therapies. Ezra Levant defends free speech, even for critics like Lowry, while comparing her plight to his own media exclusion and Trudeau’s authoritarian G7 tactics—parliament suspensions, journalist bans, and internet censorship. The episode underscores how ideological conformity now trumps debate, eroding academic freedom and civil liberties under the guise of progress. [Automatically generated summary]
Justin Trudeau's foreign minister has a million dollar loan from the Communist Party-run Bank of China.
I mean, who doesn't?
It could happen to anyone, really.
I mean, what's in your wallet?
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, $1.2 million mortgage with the Bank of China.
I mean, who amongst us doesn't have it?
Just crazy, crazy story.
And then I talked to a left-wing feminist professor from the University of Alberta who is being thrown out the window because she doesn't share the transgender ideology.
She's an old school feminist who doesn't think trans women are biologically women.
Oh boy, that's an interesting conversation, I thought.
I hope you think so too.
Let me invite you to become a premium subscriber.
That's really how we pay the bills here.
The podcast is free, right?
So if you chip in eight bucks a month to get the video version of it by becoming a Rebel News Plus subscriber, that pays the freight.
If you go to rebelnews.com, it's eight bucks a month, $80 a year, and you get the video version, also Sheila Gunrid's show, David Menzies' show.
I think it's worth $8.
I really do.
Here's today's show.
Tonight, Canada's foreign minister owes more than a million dollars to a Chinese government bank.
What could possibly go wrong?
It's June 11th, 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 government.
But why shouldn't?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
You know François-Philippe Champagne, right?
That's Trudeau's pro-Beijing foreign minister.
You'll probably remember him from this disgraceful moment.
The government of Taiwan had just made a huge donation of clean, hygienic, high-quality face masks to Canada, unlike the government of Communist China, which had bought up all of our good Canadian face masks in January and February and then sold us shoddy Chinese-made face masks in return at inflated prices.
So Taiwan was a hero, the exact opposite of communist China.
But when a conservative MP asked Foreign Minister Champagne to thank Taiwan, he just wouldn't.
He refused.
He thanked all the countries who had given Canada masks.
But yeah, I mean, the U.S. sells us masks.
China and Taiwan, those are really the three.
And China's masks were shoddy, dangerous even, unusable.
But Champagne just wouldn't say the word Taiwan because China hates Taiwan and China takes the point of view that Taiwan isn't even a real country because China keeps threatening to reconquer it.
That's an insane point of view, of course.
But Champagne is so obedient to Communist China, even now, he just wouldn't even say the word Taiwan.
What a weirdo.
Here, watch again.
This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
On March 28th, he personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPEs to Canada.
This tweet happened within three hours of China announcing that gift.
Now, as it turned out, many of these PPEs were defective and could not be used.
More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada.
And yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity.
Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians?
The Honorable Minister.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question.
Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada.
This is a global pandemic which knows no border.
We have been expressing our thanks to many nations who have contributed.
We will continue to do so.
It is important at a time of pandemic, Mr. Speaker, that we don't play politics, that humanity comes together.
I can say to my COVID foreign minister's call, the world community has come together to make sure that we would make sure that supply chain would remain intact, that we would have transit up, that would have their bridges.
And we will continue, Mr. Speaker, to work with every nation when it comes to health.
This is a public good that we want to work together with.
That is so creepy.
What a weirdo.
I'm sorry.
What do they have on this guy?
Is it compromat?
That's the old Soviet term for compromising material, like extortion stuff.
I don't know what China has over him.
Or maybe he's just ideologically in the tank for communist China, like his execrable boss.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
Hey, let me contrast Foreign Minister Champagne's grotesque ingratitude.
That's what that was, ingratitude.
He's an ingrate.
He took the gift from Taiwan.
Oh, you bet he did.
But he wouldn't even say thank you.
It's like he made Taiwan come in the back entrance, the servant's entrance or something.
But look at this.
Look at this contrast.
The Chinese government donated a few masks to Canada.
Again, shoddy masks.
And it's after Chinese operatives hoovered up every clean mask from Home Depot and Canadian Thai or in our whole country and shipped it to China while telling us coronavirus wasn't contagious, don't you know?
So that's what China did.
But this is from the Chinese embassy in Ottawa.
On March 27th, Bank of China donates medical supplies, including 30,000 medical masks, 10,000 sets of protective clothing, 10,000 goggles, and 50,000 pairs of gloves, followed by N95 medical masks.
Canada fighting against COVID-19.
We are together.
Yeah, no, you liars.
We are not together.
You lied about the virus.
You shut down flights from Wuhan to your own cities of Beijing and Shanghai, but you kept the flights to Canada.
You lied about the virus while you bought up all our supplies.
And then you gave us a fraction of a fraction of those supplies back, and they were shoddy and dirty, but you wanted a pat on the head and you charged us money.
Taiwan gave us half a million clean masks and you won a prize for giving us 30,000 masks?
You crooked commies.
But look at this.
The Communist Party of China propaganda, that message was tweeted at, do you see it there?
9.48 a.m. on March 28th.
9.48 a.m.
And look at this.
At 12.31 p.m., not even three hours later, Champagne issued a gushing thank you to the commies by name.
He named them.
Thank you for this donation.
In the face of a global pandemic, supporting each other is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.
Okay, got it.
A gushing personal thank you, not only for the masks, but he went further and claimed that China was supporting us and that they were doing the right thing and the smart thing.
Not just, hey, thanks for the 30,000 masks, but a larger endorsement of China's attitude and policy too.
I'm only surprised he didn't call them daddy, which he normally does.
Contrast that with his utter refusal to even say the word Taiwan when repeatedly asked about it by an MP.
But did you notice that Chinese embassy tweet?
It was tooting the horn of a donation nominally made by the Bank of China.
Now the Bank of China is one of that country's largest banks and it is owned by the government.
It's owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
So it's not their central bank, although it does have some power to print currency, if you can believe it.
Mainly, it's just a big Communist Party bank over there.
That's what it is.
So it's no surprise that its tweet was published by the Chinese embassy.
They're basically the same thing.
So François-Philippe Champagne broke every speed record in Ottawa by publishing an official thank you in less than three hours to a Chinese government bank.
Well, would you look at this?
Big story in the Globe and Mail.
And I mock them for being part of the media party.
But how can I just beat that the Globe and Mail has consistently had the strongest coverage of China policy in Canada in the mainstream media?
I think it's a big reason why they've been almost all but shut out of Trudeau's morning press scrums too.
Did you know that?
Trudeau is punishing the Globe and Mail for reporting things like this.
Take a look at this.
Foreign Affairs Minister has two mortgages with state-run Bank of China.
Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne has two registered residential mortgages with the state-owned Bank of China in London, which the opposition says opens into personal financial vulnerability at a time when relations with Beijing are at a standstill.
Mr. Champagne, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 2015, bought two apartments in London, one in 2009 and one in 2013, while he was an executive with Amic Foster Wheeler, PLC, the British multinational construction and engineering giant.
The mortgages were initially valued at $1.7 million, and the current balance is $1.2 million.
So Canada's foreign minister literally owes the Chinese government more than a million dollars.
But here's my favorite part of the story.
Mr. Champagne said he had a temporary work permit for the United Kingdom and was unable to get a loan from a British bank.
Are you telling Porkies?
Is that true that a senior executive for a multinational construction giant, extremely wealthy man, jet setter, worldwide player, he couldn't get a mortgage, so a secured loan, you've got the property, and you can't get a loan in London.
Really, the financial capital of the world, in many ways, even more so than New York or Hong Kong, London, home of every bank imaginable, London, multinational city where senior executives from the whole world come to work for a period of time.
There wasn't any other bank in that massive city, that banker's city, that would provide a mortgage to a rich man secured against a rich condo.
He had to go to China?
Is that the truth or is he lying again, the liar?
Here's a nugget from that Globe story that points out just how crazy that lie is.
Data from UK Finance, a trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector, showed that for 2018, the Bank of China was the 53rd largest mortgage lender in the United Kingdom with a 0.1% share of the country's mortgage market when measured by value of mortgages outstanding.
So there were 52 other banks that people would more regularly use.
No one needs to get a loan from the Communist Party of China to buy a mortgage in London.
London is the most financed city in Europe, probably the world, seriously.
London does more financial commerce than Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Moscow, all of them combined.
It is the boss of finance.
It is sophisticated.
But they just couldn't loan money to buy two condos for this man.
He had to go to China.
Scouts honor.
Is any of this normal?
No, of course it's not normal.
But it is being normalized.
That is very different.
I say, do you think there are any liberal MPs or even cabinet ministers who have loans from other dictatorships, like Iran or North Korea even?
I know, that would be crazy, right?
That would never happen, right?
Like 0.1% chance of that happening, right?
Well, that wouldn't be any crazier than the man in charge of negotiating for the freedom for the two Michaels, literally being held over a million dollar barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.
That would never happen.
Right?
Stay with us for more.
Well, about 40 years ago, the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, said it was no more possible for the Olympics to lose money than for a man to get pregnant.
It was a joke, and of course, the joke was on him, the Olympics lost a lot of money.
Students and Gender Criticism00:14:22
Well, if that mayor were around today, that joke would likely be illegal.
Let me quote to you from an article in the Edmonton Journal.
This is amazing.
Quote, the university has said it's perfectly okay to fire people for doubting that men can get pregnant, for doubting lesbians can have penises.
The implications are very dangerous because this is a live issue in our contemporary Canadian democracy.
It's not a joke anymore.
Our next guest is a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, my own alma mater, who is fired from an administrative position because she doubts that men can get pregnant.
She is a feminist.
In fact, I think she's the polar opposite to Rebel News on most ideological issues, but she has been sacked by political correctness nonetheless.
Professor Kathleen Lowry joins us now, Weiss Guy.
Professor Lowry, thank you very much for joining the show today.
Hi, thank you for having me.
Did I accurately summarize what happened?
I see a copy of your letter in the Edmonton Journal.
You were fired because you wanted to talk about feminism and that women, biological women, are different than trans women.
Am I correct?
Well, yes.
But there's actually been developments since then that I think are even more interesting.
So I just, I want to quickly dispense with what's been in the news so far because on that, on my dismissal back in March, my faculty association is backing me up because it wasn't handled according to proper disciplinary procedures.
So I think on that, I'm likely to prevail.
I think the faculty association just has sort of an airtight case.
But what's happened since then, what's happened with all the publicity around this, is there's a kind of burgeoning round two.
The burgeoning round two is once this was in the news, colleagues, students, and particularly student journalists from the University of Alberta Gateway newspaper started combing through my social media history.
So I always comment on social media under my real name, and particularly they've combed through my social media history on a site called Spinster.
So it's a kind of a tongue-in-cheek name.
Spinster is something like gender-critical feminist Twitter.
And I think this next stage, I think, is going to be the more interesting stage because I think it's not going to turn on, it's not going to primarily turn, I don't believe, on my academic freedom, which most of the discussion so far has been framed in terms of.
But it's actually going to raise issues about what any Canadian can say about gender and gender identity.
So let me, I'm just going to go.
Is it okay if I just keep sort of?
Yeah, please, we want to learn.
Can I just read one more line?
Before you do, Professor, may I read just one more line from the Edmonton Journal?
Because I'm up to speed with your case as far as that article.
But can I just give one more fact to our viewers before you go deeper?
Because our viewers are likely new to this.
So I'm just quoting from what you told the journal.
I think it's very on point.
And then please do continue.
Because I think this is what you got in trouble for.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
This is you in the journal.
I said on the first day of class, we're going to read material in this class that are currently out of fashion in academia.
You certainly don't have to agree with me.
Since this is a university, I think it's important to be exposed to.
This is important literature you should be aware of.
So basically, you took the traditional feminist point of view as opposed to the transgender point of view, and you let your students know they might find it disagreeable.
So that was what got you in trouble stage one.
I just, am I correct in that?
Well, you know, I can't know because the complaints are confidential, but I don't think it was actually any students in that course.
I think it was students who heard that I kind of existed as a gendercritical feminist who complained because the students, even the students who, by the end of the course, didn't agree with me, they all really appreciated being exposed to this literature.
So the students who actually were in a learning situation were not traumatized by being in a learning situation.
But I think my problems come from a much greater number of students who are traumatized to learn that I exist on campus and I have bad thoughts.
So step one was the academic administrative position firing, and you're stating you're in phase two, which is the mob combing through your historic tweet.
This one I think is really going to be interesting because I think the mob is coming for me and there's really no way they're not going to get me.
And it's not because I've said anything terrible or hateful or I think that trans people should be bonked on the head.
It's because gender critical feminism is in direct collision with gender identity ideology and particular gender identity ideology as is enshrined in Bill C-16.
So I don't, your viewers, I mean your viewers, listeners, may not know what Bill C-16 is.
It's a bill that was introduced in 2017 that added gender identity and expression to the grounds on which people couldn't be discriminated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
So the critical part, so now gender identity is kind of being treated very reverentially.
Now that's quite different from the sort of traditional feminist approach to gender.
So the traditional feminist approach, which now gets called gender critical or radical feminism, but in the olden days used to be just feminism.
The old approach to gender was biological sex is real.
People are born.
It's a boy or a girl.
And then societies kind of place gender expectations on these people who were born.
And these gender expectations tend to be hierarchical and tend to contribute to the oppression of women.
So that, you know, men are supposed to be leaders and women are supposed to be docile followers, those kinds of expectations.
So the feminism of a generation ago said, look, this is wrong.
People are born and we shouldn't put these kinds of gender expectations on them.
What we should do is we should abolish gender.
So the attitude to, say, a little boy who enjoyed tea parties and wearing tutus would be, well, you know, knock yourself out.
You're a little boy, are you?
Who enjoys tea parties and tutus.
And the idea that feminists had was that this process would be liberatory.
If we stopped expecting people to fit gender identity categories, people would be happier and society as a whole would become better.
Now, this has really changed.
And it's specifically, and it's now changed not just in academic discourse and in a lot of popular discourse, but it's now changed in Canadian law.
So this means we have to have a kind of reverential embrace of gender stereotypes.
So that same little boy born now who likes tea parties and wants to wear a tutu, you say, oh my gosh, your gender identity is that of a girl.
So you were born in the wrong body and we understand, we're going to affirm your gender identity and we're going to raise you as a little girl.
So people who don't feel they fit into the category of gender stereotype girl or gender stereotype boy, those people are now called non-binary, which an older feminism would have said, that's everybody.
I mean, no one can fit perfectly into the categories of gender because the categories of gender, their expectations are so rigid.
So I'm guessing that your audience might be a little bit older, but I remember my, so some of them might recognize this reference.
It's one I like to use a lot.
My dad was a big fan of the 1970s NFL player Rosie Greer.
And some of you might remember Rosie Greer, you know, is a huge, successful NFL player, very macho.
But he also published this book called Rosie Greer's Needlepoint for Men.
So Rosie Greer was non-bait.
I mean, old-fashioned feminism would say everybody is non-binary.
Professor, could I jump in for a second?
Some of our viewers are not as familiar with the academic phraseology.
Can I ask you really the sharp front, the conflict between your point of view and the transgender view?
Can I see if I can sum it up in more plain language and you tell me if I'm doing a disservice to it?
Because I understand what you're saying.
And we're familiar with C-16.
We remember when Dr. Jordan Peterson was worried about it, and it's almost like you're echoing those worries.
But would you say that the difference between your point of view as a feminist and the current point of view of gender identity, and tell me if I've got you wrong, I'm just trying to put your views into plain language, which obviously I'm going to lose some nuance, but that you believe that women are women, even if they express their gender differently.
So you could be a more masculine expression, maybe a lesbian of a certain style, but you're still genetically, biologically a woman.
That's your view.
And you use the example of a boy who likes tea parties.
He's still genetically, biologically a boy.
Maybe he's gay or whatever.
That's one point of view.
And the new point of view is a biological male saying, no, no, no, I am actually a woman.
Let me into women's sports.
Let me into women's prison.
I'm not even saying this is a gender expression.
I'm saying I am a woman.
Am I oversimplifying or getting it wrong?
Well, no, you're not.
And actually, there's some inherent contradictions to it.
The sort of erasure of sex is a real problem.
But the legal language, and that is something that people say, that I am literally a woman.
But the legal language is just about gender identity.
So the language in Bill C-16 doesn't say sex is literally changed.
It says that gender identity and expression, you can't discriminate on its basis, which I fully agree with, but the way it's being interpreted is you also cannot have a critical perspective on gender because gender is the thing that you must embrace and affirm.
Does that make sense?
I think so.
I have to say, I'm not strong in academic vocabulary, but I've listened very carefully to what you have to say, and I think I understand it.
May I ask you about you?
Because you obviously think about this stuff all the time.
And I think our viewers would say, even if they may have differences of opinion with you, they can immediately assess, as I do, that you care about ideas, you care about debating, and that you'd be willing to talk to anybody about these ideas.
That's sort of your job.
But it sounds like the people who are disagreeing with you don't believe in discussion, debate, arguing.
There's certain red lines they don't even want to talk about.
Am I getting that part right?
Well, you are, but it almost doesn't matter how they feel.
What matters is what the law says.
And right now, or at least how we're interpreting Bill C-16, right now, at least one interpretation of Bill C-16 would be that gender criticism, because it doesn't affirm, it's not reverential towards gender identity, that should be illegal, that that is hate speech.
So to go back to, so ever since Bill C-16 was passed, there's been a real campaign against gender critical feminists.
So they've been no platform, they've lost their jobs, they've been kicked off Twitter, they've been kicked off Facebook.
And I think in my view and in the view of gender critical feminists like me, this is kind of the central feminist struggle of our era.
So the idea that gender is not something to celebrate, it's something to be quite wary of because it tends to be a structure of oppression and the way it works as a structure of oppression tends to harm women.
I think everything that we see from Bill C-16, all the implications of Bill C-16, this is just true.
So the things you've mentioned about trans-identified men in women's prisons, about trans-identified men in women's sports, about the way that the criticism of gender critical feminists falls very, very heavily on women.
So there haven't been a lot of no-platform men.
And actually, I would say Jordan Peterson is unusual because he's not, he's kind of a patriarch.
His case was very famous, and very celebrated.
But there are dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of women who have been harmed.
You know, I agree with that.
And I know you would be surprised how many feminists I know because I'm not particularly a feminist myself, but I see the erasing of women from certain spheres.
And I can, and it irritates me, and I'm not a feminist.
I can only imagine how it irritates a champion of women and a feminist.
And as you go through the list, Facebook, Twitter, deplatforming, we know the case of Megan Murphy and the library in Toronto.
The irony is that I think I'm on the polar opposite of the spectrum of you, but all those same things I see as deplatforming, you are a feminist as you've described yourself, and you're facing deplatforming in Firing College.
I have a question for you.
Have you had any assistance, either legal assistance, media assistance, PR assistance?
Is anyone coming to help you against the mob?
Well, I mean, the media has been great, actually.
People see this and they're concerned.
At least on fight number one, my faculty association really backed me up, but they don't take a position on my gender critical views.
People See This and They're Concerned00:08:02
This, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
This is where I say it's going to be very interesting to see this, how this unfolds, because students are looking for gender critical content and they're going to find it.
So what is going to happen with that gender critical content?
Definitely a lot of people, from what they've seen already, they think I should be charged with hate speech crimes.
They think I should be dismissed from my position as a university professor.
So is, I mean, the one thing I hate, in a way, I hate that this is happening.
I mean, of course, I hate that this is happening to me.
Like I have a mortgage.
I don't want to lose my job.
I don't want to go to jail.
On the other hand, this has happened to so many women quietly flying under the radar.
So I'm so fortunate in a way that there's been so much attention to my case.
So whatever happens, whatever happens to me, it's going to happen in the public eye.
So it's going to happen in the public eye.
And I think that it's not, you know, the first case number one, people talked a lot about academic freedom, but what's happening right now is about the right not just of academics to talk about whether gender identity is something that we should be really reverential towards.
But can anyone express gender critical views?
Can anyone express concerns about the policy implications of this?
So I have one example that I'd like to give that has to do with the university.
Can I give that example?
Of course.
Okay, so you know, people have, and I think quite rightly, people are concerned about men in women's presence.
People are quite rightly concerned about men in women's sports.
People are quite rightly concerned about so-called gender affirmative therapies being used on children before they really are at an age to have a sense of who they want to be, what their gender and sexuality is going to look like.
Some of the consequences of some of the therapies that are currently being advocated are really terrible.
You know, they can have the impact of sterilizing children.
Some of the puberty blocking drugs that are used are carcinogenic.
They definitely are going to have bad effects on children's health.
So there's all of those concerns.
But let me just give you a more, perhaps a less drastic concern, but a concrete example of the things that worry that I think should worry us all.
So my university has recently passed a new equity, diversity, inclusivity policy regarding hiring.
And what it mandates, and I'm the only person on the general faculty's council to have voted against it.
And you might think this is surprising, like as a feminist, why would I be against, you know, I'm certainly not in favor of an all-white male university, so why wouldn't I support this?
The language in the policy says that in any hiring situation, whether academic, administrative, support staff, if you have two equivalently qualified candidates, you should hire the one who is historically underrepresented within the university.
So there's examples that we could think of that, I mean, you, your viewers might not agree, but let's say I would agree, that I would say if they're equivalently qualified and there's a white guy and an Indigenous woman, then hire the Indigenous woman.
I wouldn't have a problem with that.
With gender identity being enshrined in the law and now in policy the way it is, what happens if there are two candidates, one is an Indigenous woman and the other one is a person who identifies as non-binary and uses they-them pronouns.
Now, certainly in terms of historical underrepresentation, the non-binary person using they-them pronouns is much more historically underrepresented because that identity didn't exist before about five years ago.
So, as the policy is written now, does that mean you hire that person over an Indigenous woman?
Is that, I mean, the policy sort of lays out all of these identities on a perfectly flat surface and just says, well, let's make sure we pick a mix of them.
I think it makes such a mockery of the whole history of social justice across the 20th century.
I think it makes such a mockery of the series of struggles that we've had to become a more just society.
And trans rights activists often figure their struggle as the last in a cumulative series.
So we had colonial people rebelling against imperialism, we had the civil rights movement, we had the women's movement, we had the gay and lesbian liberation movement, we had the disability rights movement.
And I actually offer a course, I've offered a course for many years, where we read both theorists and movement literatures from all of those movements.
When you get to, I think this trans rights activism, I think one of these things is not like the others.
One of the ways it's not like the others is, and this is something I think your viewers or anybody who is politically interested will really feel kind of on the hackles on their back of their neck, which is it's predicated on something that's absurd.
It's predicated on the idea that biological sex isn't relevant in human affairs.
It's predicated on the idea that you can change biological sex.
Now, the fact it, Bill C-16 says we all have to say that the sky is green and the grass is blue and you're in big trouble.
And the big trouble is not a joke.
The big trouble is coming for me right now, that you're in big trouble if you don't say that.
I think that's worrisome on its own merits.
But I also think there's, if you think about it in terms of the history of social justice movements, all the ones I mentioned up to that point, so anti-colonialism, civil rights, women's movement, gay and lesbian liberation, disability rights movement, they all asked us to make, they all asked us to kind of get a grip.
They asked us to make, to have a better apprehension of life as it really is.
They each of them said, look, imperialism is exploitative and colonized people can rule themselves.
It said the racial caste system in the United States is unjust and it's bad policy in terms of it just doesn't fit people.
The women's rights movement said this, you know, all of these.
So all of these were saying, let's grapple more fully with reality.
Professor says, let's ignore reality.
And by saying we are the accumulation of everything that's gone before, I think it's a terrible insult to all those previous movements, as if each of those movements was also asking us to accept an absurdity.
So I'll finish in a second, but I just want to say I've been on the left my whole life.
I can remember in junior high school, I went to junior high in the States, and I can remember military recruiters coming to my junior high in 1984.
And me and my little feminist friends, we asked, why are gays and lesbians not allowed in the U.S. military?
So these are things I've been thinking about my whole life.
And I just think where we are now, this is not what I signed up for.
Why Gays and Lesbians Aren't in the Military00:04:38
Wow, that's fascinating.
I have to say, I think some of the things you've said on our show here today could put you in some political jeopardy, but calling out absurdity sometimes does.
You made me think of the Jonathan Yaniv case, who presented himself to immigrant women of color who were estheticians and demanded to be waxed.
I mean, it's so absurd.
Right.
And you just made me think of that.
Until it came really out into the public eye and it was dragged down into the public eye by a really courageous blogger named Gallas Magg.
She's been so important.
Until it was dragged down to the public eye, the BC Human Rights Tribunal was on Jonathan Yanov's side.
It was helping him harass those immigrant women of color.
He co-opted it.
He hijacked it.
It's so wrong.
It's so wrong.
Well, it's very interesting because I think, I mean, and I know when our producer contacted you, he said you noted the difference in ideology between you and me, and that's fine.
Well, I actually, you know, I was kind of horrified, to be honest, and I hastened to say that I was a supporter of the boycott devast sanctions, hoping that you guys would be put off, but you weren't.
And I feel like in a case like mine that's about free expression, it would be very hypocritical of me to say, oh, I'll speak to media, but not you.
And I also said that I was, I did think it was terrible that you all were not given press credentials at the federal leaders' debates last year because I think, you know, you're not my cup of tea, but you're somebody's cup of tea.
So you should be allowed to cover, you know, you guys are general.
If the government is deciding which journalists are allowed to cover events, that's not a happy world.
Well, thank you.
You know, I remember the great, the late, great civil libertarian Alan Borvoy, he said, free speech is such a strange thing.
You have to give it to your opponent if you want it for yourself.
And I always try to think of that.
Well, let me ask you this.
If the mob is coming for you, and it sounds like they are, and if they're digging through old social media comments, they'll probably find something that irks someone.
Let me just put an invitation out there, and it'll sound strange, but if you need help, if you need help with a lawyer, one of the things we like to do is crowdfund civil liberties lawyers.
And I just want to put an offer out there.
I mean, if your faculty association doesn't help you, and maybe they are.
If you get sacked, God forbid, and I, I mean, the way you describe it, they're coming for you hard.
I know this sounds like strange bedfellows, and it most certainly is.
And although I, you know, concede that I don't agree or even understand everything you're saying, that's not the point.
The point is that you don't cave into the mob.
So I just want to put an offer out there, and you don't have to accept it here.
But God forbid.
Yeah, well, I forgot to.
We'll crowdfund a lawyer for you.
We'll crowdfund a lawyer for you.
That's very nice.
I'll stay in touch.
You know, you may know that this is an issue that's been really controversial in gender critical feminist circles.
So I know there were some feminists in the States who spoke in an event at the Heritage Foundation.
I don't know if you heard about this.
I didn't hear about that.
No.
Yeah, the Heritage Foundation hosted an event for gender critical feminists, and there was a lot of criticism about how could you work with the Heritage Foundation.
And it was really because no one else offered.
So that's been another thing that's been distressing as someone who's always been on the left is the left is not extending a hand at all to gender critical feminists.
And what are we supposed to do?
Yeah, so that's actually a live issue in and of itself.
But hopefully it won't come to that.
But I have to say, honestly, I'll keep you all in mind.
Okay.
Well, hopefully it won't come to that.
And the fact that your article, I mean, you mentioned the media has been at least somewhat sympathetic.
I learned about your case through the Edmonton Journal in a fairly sympathetic piece.
Listen, I wish you all the best, and I thank you for talking with us today and having a good book.
Go ahead.
Yeah, no, it was a pleasure.
Thank you.
Okay, well, I wish you good luck, and we'll be keeping an eye on things.
And I challenge you to take me up on my offer should you need it.
I mean, you might actually be the person to stand up to the mob and win.
Pleasure Talking00:02:41
And if we can help you do that, right, well, anything is possible because it's such, it really is such strange times.
Strange times.
Well, thank you so much, Professor, and a pleasure to meet you.
Okay, all right, a pleasure to meet you as well.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Well, that's Professor Kathleen Lowry, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Albuquerque.
with us.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday.
Lewis writes, your monologue on the British and Canadian struggle against slavery was most welcome and an antidote to the current maelstrom of lies, violence, and madness.
In my home province of Nova Scotia, slaves fleeing America were helped by a movement called the Underground Railway.
People who offered shelter and food to those in flight painted their chimneys white with a black band around the top so that people would know to stop for refreshment and welcome.
I remember my grandparents' old home in Granville Ferry still had this symbol of support for freedom back in the late 50s when I was a boy.
Oh, that is such a wonderful story.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to do more research into this.
I learned so much preparing yesterday's video, and it just got me fascinated.
I just, listen, I was fairly attentive as a schoolboy.
I'm not saying always, but I paid attention.
I liked history.
I just didn't learn any of these things.
I didn't know we abolished the slave trade in the 1790s.
You know, what's that?
Almost more than 150 years before Canada was even formally independent.
I didn't know that the British Empire paid, took a 200 billion or whatever dollar loan to redeem every slave in the empire.
I didn't know that.
Did you know that?
Why didn't you know that?
Well, we weren't taught that.
Susan writes, I did not learn that in any history class in school.
Thank you for doing the research and opening our eyes.
I am now feeling much prouder to be a Canadian despite what the media analytes tell us.
Well, isn't that the truth?
And I can assure you that the people who are spray painting and rioting and looting and smashing don't know that.
The trouble is, I think even if they knew that, they wouldn't care.
It wouldn't stop them.
On my interview with Ryan Gerduski on his book, They Are Not Listening, Craig writes, President Trump and Brexit were just the beginning as the EU collapses and Canada is poised for a major political nationalist revolution against our current dictator, Justin Trudeau.
Well, now you use the word dictator with some artistic license, but I have to say, can you name for me any other leader in the G7?
I'm not including the G8s, Vladimir Putin.
But in the G7, you know the countries I'm talking about?
Proud Canadian Amid Chaos00:02:16
Italy, France, the United States, Canada, what are the other G7 countries?
You know, I think India might be one of them.
Sorry, I forget all seven G7s.
So accepting they're out, China and Russia.
Can you tell me any leader of the G7 that is suspending parliament the way Trudeau has, that is bringing in censorship of the internet like Trudeau repeatedly promises, that is banning journalists, investigating journalists, having our CMP march journalists out of press conferences like Trudeau has?
I can't.
I can't.
So it's an artistic license to call him a dictator, but not by much.
All right, that's today's show.
What do you think of the conversation with the professor from U of A?
I didn't understand a lot of her feminist jargon.
I'm sorry, it was jargon.
It was academic jargon.
But I could understand pretty clearly she was in trouble for saying that calling trans women women is like calling the sky green.
That, that I could understand.
And although, and then she wanted to make the point that she has a different opinion on me than Israel.
Okay, so what?
It's got nothing to do with you.
Don't sack a professor because the Twitter mob says you're not gender friendly enough or whatever.
Yeah, absolutely will crowdfund a lawyer for her if she gets sacked, don't you think?
That's what I mean.
That's what free speech means.
It's such a paradox.
You have to give it to your opponents if you want it for yourself.
And I really feel like in the last few months, Rebel News has done civil liberties work in that vein.
I'm so proud of all the cases we've handled in terms of the pandemic.
Most of those people are working class people, would never even think of Rebel News.
It wasn't in their world, but we have come to help them.
I have become enthused with this work.
And I think our viewers have too because they've supported it through crowdfunding.
I don't understand.
I don't agree with much of what that professor says, but I will actually put my money where my mouth is and crowdfund a lawyer for her defense should they come to sack her.