Rex Murphy’s June 15th claim that Canada isn’t systematically racist sparked a backlash from 30 National Post journalists—mostly Indo-Canadian women, with no Black or Indigenous signatories—while he dismissed their editor’s note as incompetent. Ontario MPP Randy Hillier argues the province’s March 13th COVID-19 state of emergency, extended through July, is unjustified, as hospital overload was avoided by mid-April and deaths remain concentrated over age 60. Lockdowns now disproportionately harm youth, schools, and businesses while Ford defers to unelected public health officials, ignoring democratic debate. Hillier warns cancel culture could silence dissenters like Candice Malcolm, comparing Postmedia’s mob tactics to Maoist purges, where fear replaces evidence. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my friends, today I go through the latest in the National Post's struggle session denouncing Rex Murphy.
I go through the letter written by about 30 people.
Well it wasn't written by 30 people.
It was signed by about 30 people in the National Post newsroom denouncing Rex as a racist.
And I see some interesting things about those 30 names including there's not a single black person on the list.
Oh and it gets better from there.
So stay with me for that and then afterwards I interview a member of the provincial parliament of Ontario who is sick of the pandemic lockdown.
Oh it's a good show today.
Hey before I invite you to listen to the podcast please consider becoming a premium subscriber.
We call it Rebel News Plus.
It's eight bucks a month.
You get the video version of the podcast plus shows by Sheila Gunrid and David Menzies.
And all that is available at RebelNews.com and just click the subscribe button.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, the National Post bows to the mob and attacks their star columnist, Rex Murphy.
It's June 15th 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 will walk up just because it's my bloody right to do so.
A while back I showed you Rex Murphy's column in the National Post that made the case that while not perfect, Canada is not a systematically racist country.
In fact, as Rex pointed out, being unracist, being tolerant, being multicultural, that's the focus of so much of our public institutions.
It's absurd to call Canada racist, frankly, and it only suits the purpose of federal politicians looking to divide us against ourselves for their own interests.
So Rex Murphy wrote that column, and a young Indo-Canadian woman from Sri Lanka, actually, fairly new to Canada, she still has a fairly thick accent, she condemned not only Rex as racist, but condemned Canada as racist.
Yeah, unlike the tolerant paradise of Sri Lanka and its decades-long ethnic civil war, about 200,000 immigrants have recently come to Canada from Sri Lanka.
Failure in Editing00:15:14
I'd be surprised if 20 people have moved from Canada to Sri Lanka.
So that young woman, Van Mela Subramaniam, who is a junior writer for the National Post, hasn't even been there for two years.
She made a fuss about Rex Murphy and she was given a column in the National Post to rebut him.
All right, fair enough.
But I read it carefully.
She didn't rebut him, actually.
She just insulted him again and again for being white and 73 years old.
Funny, that sounds racist to me and ageist too.
Maybe she proves her point, though.
Canada still has pockets of racism and intolerance.
She just didn't mean herself, did she?
Maybe we do need to do a better job of teaching newcomers like Van Mela Subramanium about respecting people of all backgrounds.
She's a bit of a bigot.
I was disappointed because I'd like to see a clash of the intellectual titans.
I mean, Rex Murphy, I don't know if you know this, he's a Rhodes scholar, for heaven's sakes.
He's the editor of a dictionary.
I bought it.
It's got a lot of words in it.
If you come for Rex, don't bring an intellectual knife to a gunfight is what I'm saying.
Calling him names and saying he shouldn't even have the right to an opinion.
She wrote that in the post.
That just doesn't do it.
It was so weak, so awful, so embarrassing.
But that wasn't the end of it.
On Friday, I noticed this.
an editor's note conspicuously put on top of Rex Murphy's column.
Look at that.
This column by Rex Murphy provoked a strong reaction from readers.
Okay, that's good.
That's what you're trying to do.
Upon review, it was determined that there was a failure in the normal editing oversight that columns should be subjected to.
This issue has been identified and policies changed to prevent a repeat.
We apologize for the failure.
Hmm?
There was a failure in the normal editing oversight that columns should be subjected to?
Well, may I point out that that editor's note needs an editor.
That sentence ends with a preposition subjected to.
Who are we kidding?
There was nothing wrong with the editing of Rex Murphy's column.
He's a Rhodes scholar.
He has the entire Oxford English Dictionary at his home.
That's as big as an encyclopedia.
You're telling me there was an editing problem with Rex Murphy from guys who don't even know how to end a sentence grammatically?
Yeah, no.
The issue has been identified, really?
Okay, what issue?
It has been identified?
Well, it hasn't been identified in this editor's note, has it?
Policies have been changed to prevent a repeat.
Oh, I thought it was an editing problem, not a policy problem.
What policies, plural, have been changed?
We apologize for the failure.
Sorry, mate, I still don't know what the failure is.
Is it the policy or what's the issue here again?
Other than the obvious, Rex Murphy said something politically incorrect and the cowardly editors of the National Post don't quite have the courage to come right out and say it because they'd lose what remains of their plummeting circulation and Rex Murphy himself would probably quit if the truth came out.
You're not allowed to say what Rex said.
What a bunch of weasels are at the National Post, eh?
I'm so embarrassed.
I used to work there 20 years ago when it stood for something.
All right, so this is basically where we were the other week when I defended Rex Murphy's column the first time against Van Mela Subermanium.
I think it might have stung her a little bit because listen to this.
I'm going to play this twice and please tell me if you understand this baffle gap.
What has the response been like from this article?
What have you learned from it?
There were people who were very, very supportive, but there were also people who were very racist in their responses, very, very angry, calling me a racist for kind of saying that a white person was racist, which in itself is a problematic statement for various reasons that would probably take us another 30 minutes to explore.
People who were very racist for calling her a racist because calling a white person a racist, which is problematic for various reasons.
How does this person even work in communications industry?
But she's lying.
She wasn't called a racist because she called Rex a racist.
She didn't actually call Rex Murphy a racist in the article, which is odd that she didn't know that.
It's almost like maybe she didn't write her own essay.
She was called a racist because she denounced Rex Murphy specifically for being a 73-year-old white male.
It was her first and most adamant argument.
She was shocked that she would be called a racist for being a racist, because normally she gets to be a racist and nobody calls her out for being a racist.
And unlike Rex Murphy, she really is a racist.
So I guess he has a lived experience with racism now.
Boy, are these people full of crap.
Take a look at that one more time.
It's unbelievable.
What has the response been like from this article?
What have you learned from it?
There were people who were very, very supportive, but there were also people who were very racist in their responses, very, very angry, calling me a racist for saying, for kind of saying that a white person was racist, which in itself is a problematic statement for various reasons that would probably take us another 30 minutes to explore.
Anyways, that was actually weeks ago now that that whole thing happened.
But the editor's note went up just on Friday, just as incoherent as Van Mala Subermanium.
But then a story leaked to vice.com to a reporter who just happens to have worked with Van Mala at Vice.
Gee, I wonder who leaked it to her.
It's this woman, another Indo-Canadian woman.
It's so weird.
Literally every single news outlet in Canada now has a racism columnist, but none of them are black men.
All of them are Indo-Canadian women.
Literally the highest income ethnic group in Canada.
Someone will have to explain that phenomenon to me one day.
Why you've got like six Indo-Canadian women writing about the Black Lives Matter beam.
They're the richest people in Canada.
Anyways, put aside that, let me show you what was given to Vice.
Journalists at Canada's biggest conservative newspaper revolt over column denying racism.
In audio from a town hall, National Post journalists are heard grilling their editors about the publication of Rex Murphy's column.
The opinion editor called it a F-up.
I won't say the whole word.
Okay, so now we know why that editor's note went up when it did.
And now we know what the issue and policy and failure were.
It was nothing to do with Rex.
I frankly doubt the man has had a spelling or grammar error in 50 years of work.
It was a thought crime.
That's what the problem was.
There was a big struggle session at the National Post.
I don't think Rex himself was in on it.
But boy, the editors sure were.
What a disgrace they are.
Here, read this.
The publication of a column by Rex Murphy that denied the existence of systemic racism in Canada was an F-up, according to the National Post opinion editor, who made the remark in an internal town hall.
Oh, so there was no editing problem.
It was just Rex Murphy isn't allowed to have that opinion.
It's an opinion column, though.
On the opinion pages, though.
But you see, it's not allowed as an opinion now because a group of junior writers and interns at the newspaper didn't like it.
Okay.
Vice News has obtained an audio recording of the town hall, which took place June 10th, as well as an email exchange between journalists at the newspaper and editor-in-chief Rob Roberts.
The email sent to Roberts June 4th described Murphy's column as lazy, ignorant, and dehumanizing to black and Indigenous peoples.
It was signed by around 30 journalists, more than half the Post newsroom.
Just stop there for a moment.
Imagine calling Rex Murphy either ignorant or lazy.
I mean, you can call him wrong.
You can call him unfair or unreasonable.
You can call him a white male, as Supermanium did.
Those are all matters of opinion, though, wrong, you know, mean, whatever.
But lazy and ignorant, yeah, I don't think they've ever met Rex Murphy.
Let me read some more.
For journalists of color in the National Post newsroom, every time a piece like this is published, we feel more unwelcome at this paper and come closer to giving up on this industry, the email said.
Wow, 30 people signed it, more than half the newsroom, and they said they found it demeaning as people of color and Indigenous people.
Guys, there are no black people or Indigenous writers at the National Post.
Just none.
There are a few of those wealthy and privileged aunties from India, as we discussed at length the other day.
It's a wonderful phenomenon.
Indo-Canadians are literally richer than Chinese Canadians, literally richer than Jews.
They're the top of the heap.
And I say, keep it up, guys.
We need to learn from how is that community so successful in Canada.
I admire Indo-Canadians so very much.
But yeah, they're not black or indigenous, and they're not really thinking about giving up on the industry.
Any of these writers, the white ones or the Indo-Canadians, sort of the opposite.
The National Post and the rest of the media industry keeps laying off reporters every few months because no one wants to read their crap.
People want to read Rex Murphy.
Oddly enough, they don't want to read people who just came here so recently that they have a foreign accent, but they're telling us that we're bigots.
Oddly enough, that doesn't seem to sell newspapers.
But boy, is Matt Gurney a coward.
He's the editor who said this was an F up.
They all stabbed at Rex Murphy when he wasn't there.
I remember when Matt Gurney was a conservative way back in the day.
He was a conservative for about 10 minutes, and then he decided he wanted to fit in with the cool kids in Toronto and not be marginalized for being, you know, conservative.
So he specialized in being a conservative who isn't conservative, who craps on real conservatives.
So liberals like conservatives like him.
My old friend Charles Adler has gone the same path too.
If you need to earn money and can only think of yourself working for one of Canada's few large media oligopolies, that's the way to do it.
It's quite sad.
Hey, do you believe Laurel and Hardy over there?
I thought you edited it.
No, I thought you edited it.
Who's on first?
No, who's on second?
No, that's just embarrassing.
I read the story in Vice by Van Mella's friend about the town hall meeting at the Post.
I like that.
Like they're voters or something, like they're shareholders at a board meeting or something as opposed to what they really are, interns.
As the Post's longtime chairman Paul Godfrey says, the newspaper is pretty crummy these days, but it's not yet unacceptable.
That's how he calls his papers.
And they're going to keep cutting dead weight until they get some profit out of it, which means he's going to cut those self-important journalists at the town hall.
But this, here's the chutzpah.
But Gurney said Murphy's column wasn't at a level that I would have wanted it to be.
In particular, he said the statement declaring Canada isn't racist, which ended up being the headline, was indefensible.
Hey guys, Matt Gurney really wishes Rex were a better, you know, better writer, better thinker, you know.
I mean, Matt Gurney has to defend Rex's work, and he can't.
It's indefensible.
Rex really let Matt Gurney down, guys.
Now, I know you probably have never heard of this Matt Gurney I'm talking about.
I just Googled him, and I swear I chose this video by him at random.
It showed up in the first Google results.
I'm going to play it for you in full.
It's only about 90 seconds.
I want you to hear the kind of editorial level that the National Post aspires to.
This is Rex Murphy's editor.
I'm not even kidding.
This is the guy who calls the publication of Rex's column an F-up.
This is the guy who says Rex Murphy's views are indefensible.
This is 90 seconds, but it will feel like 90 minutes.
Watch this.
Normally I write about pretty serious stuff, policy, international affairs, social issues.
Don't really have any of that on my mind today, at least not yet.
What is on my mind is that Twitter can be really annoying sometimes.
Partially it's my fault because I only actually really follow fellow journalists.
I mean, I also follow some of my friends, a couple of musicians I like, actors who've been in TV shows I've like, things like that.
But mostly it's journalists.
Last night, wife's in bed, kids are down to sleep.
Don't have really anything going on.
So I decide I'm going to read a book and just kind of keep up on Twitter.
I'm looking for some easy, cheap entertainment.
All I see are dozens of Canadian journalists all breathlessly reporting the same two-vote lead or four-point drop or whatever in the two by-elections that were going on that aren't going to matter because we have a general election coming up in a year anyway.
So what we really need to do, rather than have my entire Twitter feed, I can just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and see dozens of people reporting the same really preliminary useless news, we need to appoint a Twitter pool.
We need to come up with a way, just like sometimes you can't send all the reporters with the prime minister, so you send one guy with a camera and everybody gets to share the coverage.
We need someone like this on Twitter so we can have one person tweeting the news.
So it's something like this that's planned, and the rest of us can just go on tweeting about cats or stupid things our spouses have said or cute kitten videos or sports or music or video game controversies.
You know, the important stuff we ought to be using the internet to talk about.
What?
I feel dumber now.
I don't even know what that was.
And that video was approved by someone and someone pointed the camera at him and said, you nailed it.
You totally nailed it.
Look at the view count on that video.
It said five views, including mine.
How do you only get that's for real?
Yeah, talk about a policy failure and editing failure.
What even was that?
How can that guy be Rex Murphy's boss?
Oh my god, it's so weird.
Anyways, I haven't heard the audio of this two-hour struggle session like Vice has.
I understand it wasn't done in person.
It was over Zoom, which is like Skype people at all their homes on their webcams.
I take it that Rex Murphy himself wasn't on the call.
I doubt Matt Gurney or Rob Roberts, that's a great name too, would have had the courage to call Rex's column an F up if he had been there.
I'd like to hear the audio in a slow down and rubberneck at a traffic accident kind of way.
But I did get a copy of the complaint email that was circulated, and I'd like to read some of it to you now.
Some of it was quoted in the Vice article.
I'll just read a little bit, but my main point is at the end of it, okay?
So stick with me for a couple more minutes.
Junior Employees' Dilemma00:10:39
Good morning, Rob.
We wanted to email you about Rex Murphy's column, Canada is not a racist country, despite what liberals may say.
We are hurt, saddened, and angered by this column.
Stop there for a second.
Do you think that's really true?
Do you think these 30 men and women are hurt?
Saddened?
Angered?
Are you children or grown-ups?
You know you work for a newspaper, right, that has an opinion section, right?
Do you know what happens there?
People have opinions, sometimes even different ones.
Imagine saying you work for a newspaper, but you're hurt and saddened and angered because you didn't agree with something on the opinion page.
I think I've seen this before.
Donald J. Trump is now President of the United States, President Obama, steps to loosen for the inaugural press.
What a great honor to be able to introduce for the first time ever anywhere the 40...
Yeah, I'm not going to read this whole complaint, but here's more.
This column dehumanizes black and Indigenous peoples, erasing their lived experiences of racism in this country.
Murphy's argument that Canada is not a racist country is not a controversial opinion.
It is outright false.
I'll get back to the race thing in a moment, but I say again, Rex Murphy offered an opinion.
Opinions are reasonable or unreasonable.
They're persuasive or not persuasive because they're opinions.
If someone says those vegan beyond burgers are delicious, it's not true or false.
It's an opinion.
You can agree or disagree or call someone crazy, but it's not outright false because it's an opinion.
These critics are not real journalists.
They're children throwing a tantrum.
Let me read some more.
As post-media employees, we would like to know what the editorial standards and processes are that would allow a piece like this to go live.
Imagine the chutzpah of junior interns demanding to know why Rex Murphy, the National Post's only remaining brand name columnist, is published.
Imagine not knowing the answer.
Whether you agree with them or not, imagine the chutzpah of these no-name millennial cannon fodder journalists, many of whom are going to be laid off next quarter in Paul Godwin's Godfrey's next round of cuts.
Imagine them demanding to oversee the editor-in-chief's decision.
I'd like to speak to the manager, please.
And then they go back home to their parents' basements and feel hurt and saddened.
Let me read some more.
Murphy's generalized statements about a welcoming immigrant system and tolerant schools are lazy, ignorant, and frankly, point to how little care he gave to the subject of his column.
Lazy and ignorant, eh?
You keep using that word.
I don't think it means what you think it means.
Okay, I promised I wouldn't read it all.
Let me just read a little more.
For the journalists of color in the National Post newsroom, every time a piece like this is published, we feel more unwelcome at this paper and come closer to giving up on this industry.
Hey, guys, please don't give up on the industry.
I mean, please hang in there a little bit longer for Paul Godfrey to give up on you.
Actually, he doesn't even own Post Media, does he?
That's right.
Postmedia is owned in New Jersey by a cutthroat hedge fund called Chatham Asset Management.
They're headquartered in the States.
No offense, I don't think Chatham Asset Management in New Jersey could even find Canada on a map of North America.
They're not called Chatham Editorial Management.
They're called Chatham Asset Management.
And their only goal is to wring every last penny from a dying company.
I just read the biographies of their senior officers.
Guys, I'll let those asset managers in New Jersey know that you really don't want to give up on this industry.
Okay.
Let me read some more.
We ask that you, along with senior editors involved in publishing Murphy's column, begin taking the first steps towards accountability.
Hey guys, your junior writers and interns, Van Nella has been at the Post for not even two years.
I think it's wonderful that you're asking your bosses to answer to you.
I think you should write a letter to Chatham Asset Management too and demand accountability from them.
I mean, they're a bunch of old white guys.
They're that bad.
Total Rex Murphy types.
You'd hate them.
You should ask them to begin to take the first steps of accountability.
Maybe they'd fly in on their private jet from Chatham Asset Management and you could take the bus from your parents' house and you could meet up somewhere and talk.
Let me read some more.
An editor's letter published to the website could be a great start.
Well, they did that, didn't they?
Rob Roberts and Matt Gurney caved in.
We would also like to have this issue addressed in a newsroom town hall.
Well, they did that too.
They caved in.
Anyways, it rambles on a bit more and it's signed by a bunch of whiners.
And I say again, not a single one of them is black or indigenous.
I swear to God, not one of them is black or aboriginal.
So they put all the minority names right at the top just to make it look a little bit less white and male.
Like I say, it's largely Indo-Canadian women, literally the most successful, wealthiest, most privileged group in Canada.
And they're just role playing.
It's almost like they're in blackface, in a way.
Devika Desai, junior web producer, two years on the job.
She came to Canada from Dubai.
So yeah, she must really hate racist Canada.
Deanna Duong, she's been at Post Media.
I kid you not, she's been there for eight months.
She's still on probation.
Bianca Barty, she graduated from school last year.
She's a junior web producer at the Post.
Has she found the bathroom yet and the cafeteria yet?
No matter.
She knows that Rex Murphy is wrong because she knows the newspaper business.
She held down a job at the Toronto Star for five whole months before coming to the Post.
Sounds like you guys hired a real keeper there.
I mean, good going.
Anisha Dieman, another junior web editor.
She graduated in 2018, so she's been at the Post for two years plus two months.
So she's the old pro.
And that is it for minorities.
There are no more minorities.
Then it's just a bunch of white guys who are just as white as Rex Murphy, but unlike Rex Murphy, they're terrified of being called racist, so they will sign literally anything so they don't get smeared like he did.
Some intern wrote a childish tantrum letter, and some of these reports, I know some of them, some of them have been at the Post for 20 years actually.
They actually signed this dear diary letter written by some Marxist intern saying they were hurt and angered and saddened by Rex Murphy saying that Canada is a great country.
No, they weren't hurt and angered and saddened.
They were just cowardly, like Matt Gurney and Rob Roberts.
Let me read some more.
Richard Warnica, he's so white, he's pink.
Adrian Humphreys, I really like Adrian Humphreys and his work.
I've interviewed him before for a book he did.
He's so white, I think he actually might be an albino.
I'm not being mean, I'm just describing him, how white he is.
I think he's an albino.
Nicholas Sokic, he's another baby journalist.
He's been there for eight months and he's telling them, look at this guy.
Jacob Dubay hasn't even been with the Post for a year.
Here's what he's like in his normal life.
His Twitter feed calls for the abolition of police.
So yeah, good hire, National Post.
I'm shocked that he wants to tear you down the same way he wants to tear down society.
Cale Marsh is a hoot, judging by his social media posts.
He's all about being alternative and zigging where the world is zagging.
Diversity, a little bit of eccentricity.
He's for a diversity on everything except a diversity of opinions.
Not on that.
Well, either that or he's just scared of being labeled a white racist, so he turned on Rex.
Here's Victor Ferreira.
Surely he should respect Rex Murphy just by virtue of his uncomfortable hair.
The guys are like twins.
All right, I'll stop there.
It's just pitiful.
Talk about cultural appropriation.
Not a single black or Indigenous reporter.
A few Indo-Canadian women of wealth and privilege.
A bunch of kids just out of school.
Seriously, some of them I think are still doing their co-op workplacement.
And a few anti-foot sympathizers, according to their own social media, plus a bunch of old white guys who are just plain terrified of getting labeled racist if they don't keep their heads down and go along with anything and sign anything and just let the girls from India do the talking.
You know, if the National Post had any self-respect, they'd bring in a black lecturer to tell these bigots what's wrong with stereotyping.
Someone like Candice Owens to tell these non-black activists that not all black people have the same opinion.
And that it's a little bit racist to think all blacks think alike and happen to think like they do.
And it's really racist for a bunch of privileged white kids plus three privileged brown women to claim to speak for black people.
I think they all need some lessons on free speech too, by the way.
And I think Rex Murphy himself could give that lecture to the newsroom.
And I think each of these kids needs a bit of a spanking.
A reminder that they are junior employees and interns, not the board of directors.
Hey guys, I don't think the coward Matt Gurney would actually bring in Candace Owens for a talk.
And I don't think Rex Murphy feels the need to answer a bunch of lazy, ignorant people who call him lazy and ignorant.
But I bet those guys down at Chatham Asset Management, I bet they're preparing the spanking right now, even as we speak.
You know, I think the National Post could lay off pretty much everyone on that list and just keep Rex Murphy and be even more profitable as if the reverse happened.
What do you think?
Flattening the Curve,00:07:53
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, we have been covering the weekly rallies outside of Toronto's Queen's Park legislature of severely normal people, often working class people, begging the government to let them go back to work.
There are many very thoughtful arguments made from the abstract idea of freedom to the practical idea of people have to pay their bills and every argument in between.
But alas, from within Queen's Park, it seems unanimous.
Every politician is enjoying this lockdown just a little bit too much, except for one MPP.
That's what provincial politicians are called in Ontario.
Let me read to you from his website and let's see if you can guess who it is before I introduce him to you.
He's on hold and we'll interview him via Skype in a moment.
Here's what his website says.
On March 13th, we declared a state of emergency.
I was in support of giving the Premier the authority to make swift decisions to handle the COVID-19 outbreak while the legislature was in recess.
Now, three months later, I can see this power has been abused to the detriment of the people of Ontario.
Let me read just one more paragraph.
Throughout this outbreak, we have seen groups come together in defense of democracy with the hope of keeping our economy from ruin and to protect those left behind by our shuttered health care system.
Phone call after phone call began to learn the damages this lockdown has created for countless people in my riding, from business closures to bankruptcies, ignored medical procedures to unnecessary deaths.
None a result of COVID-19, but rather the orders put by this government to fight it.
Has the cure become more dangerous than the disease?
Very thoughtful questions.
And it won't surprise many of you to know that the MPP who wrote this is our friend Randy Hillier, the MPP for Atlantic Frontnack and Kingston, who has represented that writing and its predecessor since 2007.
What a pleasure to talk with you today, Randy.
Welcome back to the program.
Great to speak with you today, Ezra.
Well, likewise, and hearing those, and your website goes on for several more paragraphs, I would invite everyone to read it for themselves at randyhilliarmpp.com.
You really make the case to lift the emergency powers because I really think that flatten the curve for two weeks has turned into flatten everything for three months, hasn't it?
Well, we certainly have flattened our economy.
We have certainly flattened our access to health care and medical attention.
We have suffocated and killed off social interactions, which are exceptionally necessary for people.
And we've killed our education system.
So we have flattened a lot of things, Ezra, and it has caused significant harm, significant injury, significant consequences to a great many people who are really not at risk to any great degree.
You know, we know a lot more about the virus now than we did back in March.
And, you know, and if you're elderly, if you're in confined locations, if you have poor health, you are at exceptional risk.
But that doesn't apply to a great many people or the majority of people in Ontario.
And they are now facing significant hardship.
Like I said, the numbers of people that we've talked to who can't get necessary medical attention and who are in pain and suffering as a result are not considered during this state of emergency.
And it really is.
It's time.
It's long past time in my view that elected members of the legislature are permitted once again to engage in discussion, engage in debate, and pass approval or disapproval on behalf of their constituents on government policies.
Randy, I remember those early weeks.
No one knew a lot about this virus because you couldn't trust China.
Even if they were telling the truth, you really couldn't trust them.
And what every public health official said was we have to flatten the curve.
And I mentioned that phrase.
It doesn't mean we're not going to get sick.
It means we have to slow down the infectiousness of the disease so it doesn't overwhelm the hospitals.
They never said stay at home so you don't get sick.
It was so that we don't all get sick at once.
But here I'm showing on the screen now a graph published by the government of Ontario of the number of outbreaks.
We never reached that overload point.
We have absolutely flattened the curve.
It's lower than even the best case scenario models predicted.
The new rate of infections is as low as it's been in two months.
So the rationale has changed, hasn't it?
They said, don't overwhelm the hospitals.
The hospitals are ghost towns now.
Why are we still in lockdown?
Well, that's right.
You know, we've met the objective.
The objective was not to overwhelm our health care system.
And we beat that in spades.
And kudos to the government for that part of it, because they have, especially in the early days when there was so much uncertainty, when there was so much misinformation, when there were so many unknowns, you had to take a precautious attitude towards this and a very cautious approach.
But, you know, evidence has been revealed and facts and evidence are apparent now.
But we achieved the objective.
Our health care system was not overwhelmed.
Our hospitals are near empty.
Our emergency rooms are empty.
Our doctor practices, you know, physician practices, they're still not, many of them are still not operating yet.
And so we achieved everything that we set out to achieve.
And we know that those, you know, the peak of this was mid-April.
And we've seen since that time a very steady decline.
You know, we never, the most we ever had was 1,000 people in our hospitals where we added additional capacity of like 15,000.
So, you know, that's been achieved.
Why are we still in this state of emergency?
Why are elected members not permitted?
to discuss, hear the advice, and pass judgment on as we're elected.
You know, it's unwarranted and it's unjustified over three months later.
Three Elderly Deaths00:02:32
And now talk today coming out of Queen's Park, is they're going to extend it through July for this state of emergency.
You know, again, we couldn't trust the numbers from Communist China, but now we have so many numbers from Canada itself and the United States and even Italy, which sort of got the virus before we did.
And it is not a virus that affects the young in a great manner.
I don't think there's a single Canadian under age 20 who has died from the virus.
I was looking at...
Well, we know that's true.
There is nobody under the age of 19 has died as a result of COVID.
And if you look at the Ontario numbers, you know, it is well over 90% of people who have suffered fatalities are over 60 and with other serious health problems as well.
You know, in the area that I represent, Ezra, the two health units has a population of about 400,000 people.
And this is, I think, important for people to realize because different areas are affected and impacted differently.
But in this area of 400,000 people, we have had three deaths from COVID outside of long-term care, and the average age was 86.
And, you know, just to keep that in perspective, you know, the life expectancy in this country is 82.
You know, as much as we would like to live for a long, long time, you know, there is an end date for us all.
And if you are sick and elderly, you know, the virus is a far greater risk to you.
And elderly people with other illnesses ought to be taking greater precautions.
But to close down our education system, to close down our health care system, to close down our economy, reduce our standards of living, reduce the social determinants of health, you know, we have to look at that and look at it critically.
And is this a reasonable approach to continue on?
Doug Ford's Emergency Act00:08:02
Without passing judgment on those early days, because I do think there was a lot of good things done in the early days.
Some not so good things as well.
But that was more from the unknowns and the misinformation.
But is it justified to continue down that path today?
I don't believe so.
Well, I mean, you mentioned the average age in your district, 400,000 souls, the average age of the three deceased in the mid-80s.
And of course, each of those deaths is a tragedy for the family, but it points to where we ought to point our care, as opposed to closing down all the schools, closing down all the sports, closing down, I mean, it's summertime now, all the summer activities for kids, camps.
It's just madness to me that if the people in jeopardy are our grandparents and great-grandparents, give them 90% of the attention, 90% of the care, 90% of the worry, and let the kids run around.
It boggles my mind.
And here's my question to you.
You know Doug Ford a lot better than I do.
You were originally elected as a conservative, and you know the man and you knew his late brother.
Those were reasonable business people, common sense.
They had, you know, a foot on their feet were on the ground.
They weren't part of this elite, bossy, authoritarian class of public health officials and I know better than you types.
How is it that Doug Ford is now not only listening to what the elites say, but disparaging those let us work protesters, calling them yahoos and whatnot.
What's happened to Doug Ford, the man who used to stand up to the elites and the bossy people?
Yeah, listen, referring to people as yahoos for having a view and having an opinion that is contrary to your own is, you know, it's contemptible.
And, you know, listen, I think Doug is a good individual.
I also believe that he's placed all his confidence, all his faith in, and misplaced his confidence and faith in only public health officials.
And as much as public health is important to us all, important to society, there's other aspects of our lives that are also important that ought to be taken into consideration.
And he's made this choice that not only, you know, most of us expect experts to provide guidance and advice, but we don't expect experts to make the decisions on our behalf.
And this is what Doug has done, and he has said it clearly.
Cabinet will debate and discuss policy, but the COVID command table, that unaccountable, that unelected group of public health officials who we won't even identify, will make the decisions.
And they're not suited.
They're not competent to make decisions about the economy, about our education, about our social interactions.
They're public health officials.
It reminds me of Stephen Leecock's old saying about experts.
An expert is somebody who goes to university to learn more and more about less and less every year until such time that they know everything there is to know about very little.
And we need to understand that.
That's why our governance, our country has been so blessed and so effective is we listen to, in a democracy, we listen to everybody.
We hear various perspectives and various diverse opinions, and we use that knowledge to make a policy that is beneficial to everyone.
We don't look at just a singular facet of life to make all our determinations on.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you, show me someone who's calling for a lengthened lockdown, and I'll show you someone who hasn't missed a paycheck.
The average paycheck for a lot of these public health officers is in the $300,000 plus range.
Not only are they enjoying a healthy living, they're having the time of their lives.
People listen to them.
They're celebrities on TV.
And as you say, they don't have any messy business like actually having to listen to constituent concerns.
Hey, I got one last question for you, Randy.
And by the way, thank you so much for joining us.
And I would refer everyone to your website, RandyHillierMPP.com, where you refer to a petition on the subject.
I know informally that there are close to half a dozen conservative MPPs who share your skepticism of this never-ending lockdown.
First it was two weeks, then it was a month, now it's three and a half months.
Do you sense that there is anyone else in the legislature, either within the government benches or perhaps in the opposition, who would say enough is enough?
And the reason I ask that is because the Emergency Act under which Doug Ford and the other political leaders in this country operates, they have sort of failed safes in them.
And if a certain number of MPPs or federally MPs object or want a do-over or another vote or want to hold things to account, it's possible to trigger that accountability with a handful of other MPs.
Do you have any indication that conservatives, NDP, or even liberal MPPs share your growing concerns?
The people are sharing those concerns, Ezra.
However, you know, party discipline is a significant component of every elected member's determinations.
I'm fortunate that I'm independent and I can speak my mind without fear or favor.
You know, and let's not be, there is still a significant public opinion as well, Ezra.
And it goes back to what you just previously said.
You know, there are a lot of people in public service and in political life who continue to derive their full incomes, continue to have their pensions building, and not having to go to work.
And, you know, that's a pretty good life.
You know, they're not suffering in that regard.
You know, and there is a significant amount of fear that still is there.
You know, for the last three and a half months, people have been faced a barrage every day, a continuous barrage every day of the fear of COVID.
So let's not be, you know, we can't dismiss those circumstances.
But I do know there are other MPPs who share my views, but however, they're not able, because of party discipline, to speak as freely as I am.
Glad Candice Speaks Freely00:03:19
Yeah.
Well, we sure are glad that you are there speaking freely.
And thank you for joining us today.
I know you're out in your riding and you're in a somewhat public place there.
So I appreciate you jamming us in for this interview.
It's so nice to see you again.
It's so good to hear a blast of common sense.
I will refer people to your website, randyhillierempp.com.
We'll have a link to that under this video.
It's great to see you.
I hope we can keep in touch not only on this issue, but other issues.
I feel like you are, as you say, you have the liberty to speak your mind, whereas most MPPs don't.
So it's great to see you.
Good chatting with you, Ezra, as always, and hope to keep in touch.
And yeah, being independent does provide me that opportunity.
And I'm not going to lose sight there.
And I will take advantage of having that freedom to speak independently.
Right on.
Well, thank you, my friends.
Stay safe.
Stay healthy.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Right on.
Right on.
There you have it.
Randy Hillier, MPP.com.
He is the member of provincial parliament for Lanark, Frontenac, and Kingston and has represented that region of Ontario since 2007.
Stay with us.
More of that.
Hey, welcome back to my monologue.
Friday on Cancel Culture.
Sherry writes, this woke culture nonsense seems more like censorship in disguise.
It is clever in that it keeps people in line with whatever narrative is being pushed, always afraid to voice a real opinion because of fear of the mob.
Oh, exactly.
You know, I was looking at the names of the people who signed that letter condemning Rex Murphy.
There are people on that list who I know support Rex Murphy.
I used to work in the National Post 20 years ago.
Some of the people have been there the whole time.
Rex is beloved at the Post.
Maybe not by some of these new woke interns, but those folks who have been there 10, 20 years, signed this letter, they are utter cowards.
They're afraid.
I don't know.
Is it morally acceptable to knife someone in the back, call them a racist, to save your job if you're worried your family will go hungry?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I think it would take probably more than that for me to defame a friend as a racist falsely.
Bruce writes, how true it is that today's cancel culture are like Maoists holding self-denunciation sessions and self-criticism sessions.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, seriously, all we were missing at the National Post were those big dunce caps with signs on them.
Just utterly pitiful.
On my interview with Candice Malcolm, Paul writes, great to hear from Candice.
Being a big fan of True North, Canada's political parties represent the interests of a handful of elitists and special interests, not the interests of the Canadian people.
Candice Malcolm, one of my favorite people, and I'm so glad she still has a forum at the Toronto Sun from time to time.
And I hope that will continue.
But, you know, she hasn't denounced Rex Murphy, so will she be next for the high jump?
I sure hope not.
But, you know, post media, if they'll treat Rex Murphy that way, they'll treat anyone that way.