Senior Canadian figures—including former Supreme Court judge Louise Arbour, diplomat Derek Burney, and Trudeau Foundation-linked Don Newman—signed a letter urging Meng Wanzhou’s release, despite $10M+ in Huawei donations to Liberal-aligned groups. Critics call it capitulation to China’s "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy, comparing it to historical appeasement, while Meng’s detention fuels retaliation against Canadians like Kovrig and Spavor. Meanwhile, Barbara Kay defends mentorship traditions, contrasting them with today’s "thought police" backlash against experts like Hudliski, Rowling, and Murphy, dismissed as "unfashionable." Ezra Levant warns of legal risks for Rebel News amid protests, exposing CBC’s double standard: $4,200/day for bodyguards over vulgar heckling but ignoring violent threats. The episode reveals how foreign influence and ideological policing clash with free speech and institutional integrity. [Automatically generated summary]
19 senior Canadian lawyers, diplomats, politicians sign a letter to Justin Trudeau asking him to be even more pro-China than he is.
What does that mean?
How can that be?
How can you be more pro-China than he is?
Well, they actually come out and say that he should give in to the blackmail.
They use that word, blackmail and extortion, in their letter.
I go through the letter, but more importantly than the substance of the letter, I look at the 19 people who signed it and I asked the question, are they getting paid by China?
I'll take you through it in a moment.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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You get the video version of this podcast, which I like to think is worth it.
Plus, you get weekly shows by Sheila Gunread and David Menzies.
And finally, you know, it helps us stay strong here because we don't take a dime of that government money.
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If you go to rebelnews.com and just click subscribe, you can get a whole year's worth of Rebel News Plus for just 80 bucks.
So that's actually a discount, as you can see.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, at the exact same time, the Chinese embassy and a bunch of senior liberals make a last push to free the Huawei executive from jail.
Not extradited.
I think we have a corruption problem, people.
It's June 25th, and this is the Edge of the Vance Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
You have 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government about why I publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
We've talked with our friend Gordon G. Chang about the new style of Chinese diplomacy that they call Wolf Warrior.
It's what it sounds like, basically a decision to stop being bland and diplomatic, the normal way of being, you know, in foreign affairs, and to start being a little bit more like internet trolls, insulting, harassing, going rogue, really.
But with the full approval of Beijing, it's named after a hit Chinese movie in which a rogue Chinese soldier becomes a Rambo figure.
Here's a short clip from that movie's trailer.
Wolf Warrior.
Yeah, so Wolf Warrior diplomacy, no more Mr. Nice Guy.
I wasn't aware that China ever was Mr. Nice Guy beforehand.
I think it's the same China as always, a communist dictatorship.
It just has stopped pretending to be like the rest of the international community.
It's embracing its inner Mao Zedong.
Here's just an example from today.
You could find other examples literally every hour.
This is from China's official English language foreign policy propaganda arm called Global Times.
This guy is their editor, their top boss, who obviously thinks of himself as a wolf warrior.
Which country had committed sin to African people in history?
Which country is more friendly and respectful to Africa today, which is sincerely supporting development of Africa?
African people have their own judgment.
They don't need American white supremacist government to speak for them.
Oh, white supremacist government.
Imagine saying that.
Imagine saying that at all, let alone imagine China saying that.
China that has a million Uyghurs in a mass internment camp, China, that invaded Tibet and has an ethnic cleansing project of bringing in millions of ethnic Chinese people to dilute the Tibetan people in their own country.
China, that was, as part of their Wolf Warrior BS, declared that black people from Africa were the real source of the virus in China.
And so police in China started rounding up blacks.
Apartments kicked out black people.
Restaurants said no black people allowed.
This was all official.
There are apparently a lot of black people living in China, mostly from Africa.
I didn't really know that.
But the footage of them being rounded up on the streets of China is shocking and ubiquitous.
Imagine saying that the Wuhan virus came from Africa.
That's pure racism.
But why not?
Another Wolf Warrior claimed it came from the United States military.
So yeah, Wolf Warriors, they all think they're the Chinese Rambo.
And here's what the Chinese Wolf Warriors in Canada look like.
China suggests it will free Kovrig and Spavor if Canada allows Huawei executive Heng to return home.
Oh, so they're not even pretending those two are anything more than hostages, pawns in a Wolf Warrior tit-for-tab.
They're not pretending anymore.
Except that Rambo, the real Rambo, and even Wolf Warrior in the movie, he never took civilians hostage.
He's the guy who freed civilian hostages, even the Chinese Wolf Warrior.
The Chinese government says that if Canada sets Huawei executive Meng Wanzou free, it could affect the fate of two Canadians jailed and charged with espionage by Beijing.
China has repeatedly rejected suggestions there is any connection between its detention of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor and Canada's arrest of Ms. Heng in December 2018 on an extradition request from the United States.
On Wednesday, however, a top spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs linked the two matters.
Imagine thinking the two items weren't linked even for a second.
You'd have to be as stupid as François-Philippe Champagne, our pro-Beijing foreign minister.
I take that back.
He's obviously not stupid.
In fact, he's quite successful.
He's experienced.
He's smart.
He's well-traveled.
François-Philippe Champagne is not stupid at all.
He's just hopelessly compromised.
He has become a Chinese asset.
I mean, he's been playing for China's team for decades.
Imagine being a wealthy business executive in London, England, the financial capital of the world, hundreds of banks.
That was François-Philippe Champagne.
And he chose, of all the banks in London, a Chinese government bank called Bank of China for his London mortgage.
That is not normal.
That's what you do if you're a Chinese sympathizer or a Chinese asset, or maybe if you live in London and work for the Chinese embassy.
No one else does that.
He's our foreign minister.
Our government is compromised.
I haven't shown you this clip in a while.
Just a reminder, Justin Trudeau's own brother, Alexandre Trudeau, wrote a pro-China propaganda book that was actually published by the Chinese government called Barbarian Lost, Travels in the New China, as in, we westerners are the barbarians.
China's dictatorship is the civilized one.
Trudeau, the brother, had a lot to say about China.
He could have published his book with any real publisher in the world, frankly.
I mean, someone would have published it.
But of all the publishers in the world, just like François-Philippe Champagne, of all the banks in the world, he chose to take his mortgage with the Bank of China.
Alexandre Trudeau, of all the publishers in the world, he chose to have his book published by the Communist Party of China, the dictatorships of who does that?
Well, this guy does.
The book now, Being a Barbarian in China, in the New China.
So why the book and why that title?
Well, the book itself.
It was sort of an organic phenomenon.
The Chinese wanted to write a book on my father's visit to China, and they asked me to write, this was in 1960, and they asked me to write the preface, and the Canadian edition was published in Vancouver.
They published it, so they asked me to write a longer preface.
And I said, fine, but I would like to go back to China and get into things, rediscover the country.
And when I went there, I found I had so many things to say that they said, well, we can't put that in a preface.
So we'll put it in a section.
And actually, we'd like you to write a full book on it.
Well, that was the pretext, but the idea is that China, for someone like me who was involved in geopolitics for quite a long time, just can't avoid China, which plays now a very important role.
His fake, weird style is so similar to his brother Justin Trudeau's, isn't it?
Alexandra has crazier eyes, though, doesn't he?
So, yeah, the Chinese Communist Party has assets deep within the Canadian government.
Our foreign minister, the brother of the Prime Minister, and obviously Justin Trudeau himself.
I'm not saying they're actually paid by China.
Well, no, actually, I think I am saying that.
Yeah, I'm saying that.
I mean, here's one example: Huawei, the Chinese Communist Party-controlled tech company that's the center of this political battle.
They are a huge donor to the Liberal Party's think tank in Canada called Canada 2020.
Huge Chinese donations to the Trudeau Foundation, too.
So, yeah, they actually are on the payroll, at least in that way.
Do you notice in other ways too?
Look at this guy.
You tell me, is this a Chinese-Canadian senator promoting Canada's interests, or is this a Chinese senator in Canada?
You tell me whose team he's on.
And that's not an ethnic question, it's a question of the insane words this man says.
Senator Wu.
Thank you, Your Honor.
My question for the government representative in the Senate has to do with the lead article in a national newspaper today concerning the views of two learned jurists on the ability of the government and the power of the government to now stop extradition proceedings for Meng Manchou.
Should they find that the extradition requests was unwarranted and or should they feel that it is in the national interest?
Furthermore, the views of these two learned jurists suggest that to take these actions would not be a compromise on the independence of the judiciary, nor would it be outside of the rule of law.
In the interest of the two Michaels who have been in detention in China for many, many months now and in the interest of the broader Canada-China relationship, will the government take the opportunity of this fresh interpretation from the two very seasoned scholars and lawyers to have what Professor Rock calls,
quote, a full debate based on a legitimate foundation of facts rather than an incantation of rubrics such as rule of law, independence of the courts, and sanctity of the judiciary.
Trudeau liberal, of course.
Which brings me to the newest disgrace in this file.
Of course, the Chinese embassy is going to behave like they do Wolf Warriors.
How's that working out for you?
By the way, that whole Wolf Warrior thing.
Canadians have a more hostile view to China than has ever been recorded by pollsters before, not just in Canada, but people around the world, too.
There's a huge shift against China in global opinion and in Canadian opinion, but not at our elite levels because of money.
For God's sakes, Hockey Night in Canada, they sacked John Terry as John Don Cherry, excuse me, as un-Canadian, but they take cash from China to run a Huawei ad right on the show.
Absolute sellouts, of course, because money.
And that's Ron McLean for you.
Which brings me to the latest Wolf Warrior move by a lot of people who care a lot about money.
Look at this.
A letter to the Prime Minister.
Now, I write letters to the Prime Minister all the time, but the CBC doesn't take my letters and make national news stories out of them.
In fairness, I'm not a former Supreme Court judge or a former diplomat.
Let me read this story.
Former parliamentarians, diplomats, pen letter calling on Canada to release Hmong, citing a legal opinion.
Signatories say Huawei executive Hmong Wenzhou should be released.
What?
Citing a legal opinion as in they paid some lawyer to write a letter?
Did they not miss that Hmong actually had a real court hearing in a real court and a real judge heard from both sides, including Hmong Wenzhou's actual legal team, and they heard the real facts, unlike just some lawyer hired out of the yellow pages.
And Hmong Wanzou lost her court case, and a neutral nonpartisan Canadian judge said Wangzhou committed what, on the face of it, is an illegal act in Canada, and so the extradition process must proceed.
Did these 19 signatories miss that?
And so these senior, very important people, are literally writing to Trudeau to tell him to ignore our courts and just make a political decision, Chinese Communist Party style.
And this is timed coincidentally with the Chinese embassy making the same demand, like that's just by chance, is it?
This is a disgraceful letter.
This is an un-Canadian letter.
It's the letter of the China lobby of Chinese assets in Canada.
And the only good thing I can say about it is that the signatories have done us a favor by signing it and thus outing themselves.
And now we know who the apologists are.
These are like people who in the 1930s were defending Adolf Hitler's Germany and saying that Canada should not beware of Hitler or Germany.
They're just, you know, let's see if we can get along with them.
That's what these people are like.
There are a number of things in this letter that are word for word what the Chinese embassy has been saying.
In fact, I wonder how this letter was coordinated.
Was it arranged by the embassy?
Did the embassy suggest it?
Did they write a first draft of it?
Were they shown it in advance?
I wonder how much the embassy paid for it, or more likely, how much Huawei itself paid.
I mean, Huawei's sloshing money around Canada 2020, Hawking Night in Canada, whatever.
Do you doubt there's money here?
Let me quote from the letter.
It seems to us that the Hmong Wanzou extradition proceeding is making it impossible for your government to define and pursue an effective foreign policy towards China.
What?
What?
So a legal proceeding in our independent courts, where Hmong has the best lawyers money can buy, a process that's 100% independent, that's making it impossible for Trudeau to govern, impossible for him to deal with China.
Now, Trudeau is perfectly capable of being a political failure on his own.
No need to blame this trial.
But this letter is written in the reverse, like a photographic negative.
It's China, in fact, because of the Hmong Matter that has turned rogue.
Not Canada.
China's Rogue Behavior00:07:16
China has become rogue, abusive, hostile, and threatening because of the Hmong Matter.
It may well be that Trudeau has no idea what to do anyways.
But it's because of China's erratic reaction, not because of a completely normal extradition hearing in a normal court done normally in Canada.
This list of fancy people basically admitted China is so mean and such a bully that they will surely continue to abuse the two Canadian hostages.
So the only thing to do naturally is to cave into the bully, to accept that relationship.
China's the bully, and we're the country that gets bullied.
So just give the bully your lunch money and stop resisting.
Imagine someone actually more craven than Justin Trudeau.
This is real.
Unless the minister acts now, the two Michaels face indefinite confinement.
So that can't change or won't change.
China's going to do what it's going to do.
We can't demand that China change.
We can't take any diplomatic or political steps against China.
We can't kick out their foreign citizens clogging up our universities.
We can't send home their diplomats.
We can't ban Huawei or anything.
We just have to comply.
That's the advice.
That's the smart people.
But the main thing about this letter, signed by all the fancy people, is that it deodorizes the threat, the extortion from the Wolf Warrior Embassy.
Here you have fancy people saying, hey, guys, sure, it's extortion, and sure, it's bullying, and sure, it's absolutely outrageous that they're literally holding these two men as hostages and demanding that we violate our own court system just like they do, just like they want us to do.
But you can totally do it because we'll give you moral cover.
They admit it.
Look at the language they use in their own letter.
Canada's foreign policy is also being held hostage.
So they acknowledge the obvious.
And their solution is total capitulation, not only to foreign demands, but to undermine our own courts.
They admit what they're doing.
Quote, of course it does not sit well with anyone to yield to bullying or blackmail.
It's repugnant.
Well, it sure seems to sit well with you guys, because you're saying to do it.
Because you're important people and we should all listen to you, apparently.
And you guys are absolutely, totally, 100% definitely not on the Chinese payroll yourselves.
I mean, how dare I suggest such a thing?
Look at some of the names who signed it.
This one jumped out.
Don Newman.
He's on there.
He's a former CBC News host.
Gee, there's a shocker, a CBC journalist saying we should capitulate to communist China.
But look under his name.
It's signed journalist, broadcaster, author.
And that's all true about Don.
But hang on, look at this.
Don Newman actually is on the Chinese payroll.
He's the chair of Canada 2020's advisory board.
They take huge sums of cash from Huawei.
I already showed you that.
Why didn't Don Newman disclose that?
Hey, when Don Newman was still on TV, did he also take money on the side back then?
I wonder.
And hang on, did you know that Don Newman works for a lobbying firm called Navigator?
At least that's what this website says.
I tried to contact him through that contact info and it bounced back, so maybe he's no longer there.
Does Don Newman, does he do any work for Huawei?
That's what Navigator does.
They're lobbying for.
I sent him an email this morning to both his Navigator email address and his Canada 2020 address asking him if he works for China, if he takes money from China.
I'll let you know if he answers.
It's just weird that he doesn't disclose his other identities.
Isn't it weird?
Like Louise Arbour, the very first name on the letter.
She works for the United Nations right now.
So obviously she's pro-China.
I wonder why she left that part out of her identity.
It just says that she's the former president of the International Crisis Group.
That's the company that Michael Kovrig was working for when he was kidnapped.
I'm sure she wants him back for many reasons, but maybe that personal interest should have been disclosed.
I get it.
That company can't get their employee back, so they want Trudeau to sell out every Canadian value to get him back.
I understand.
I just think it's gross to ask an entire country to debase itself, and I think it's especially gross for a former Supreme Court judge to say so.
Next on the list, Lloyd Axwithian Ed Broadband, a couple of hard left-wing globalists, no surprise there.
But I see a couple of conservatives on the list, Derek Burney, Lawrence Cannon, and they're identified as former diplomats.
Again, that is true, but is that really the most salient characteristic about them for this letter?
Let me give you an example.
Derek Burney works for a pro-China think tank.
And he pumps out extreme pro-China propaganda for them, like this.
Why Canada needs a deeper relationship with China.
And like this.
Why Canada must pursue a trade relationship with China.
And after more than five years of on and off exploration, it is time to take the plunge on a free trade agreement with China.
Could you imagine a free trade deal with China, giving them full access to our economy, even more than they have now?
No tariffs, nothing like that, but for our side, none of the legal or property rights or contracts or rights or protection for Canadian companies and our intellectual property.
Imagine just saying, hey, let's take the plunge with China.
I mean, let's get in bed with China even more deeply than we are.
What could go wrong?
Yeah, maybe that should be disclosed here.
Why was his role as a pro-China lobbyist not mentioned?
I see Yves Forche signed the letter.
He served on something called the Security Intelligence Review Committee.
That's the oversight panel that reviews the conduct of our spies.
So these are the people watching over our spies.
They oversee CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
So Yves Forche was the guy keeping tabs on our version of the CIA.
He signed this letter?
That terrifies me.
How can the man who was on an ultra-high security, top-secret committee, the committee to review our spies, how can a man who watches over the watchman, literally the guy we rely on to look over the other guys that we rely on, how can he sign a letter admitting that China is blackmailing us and recommending to Trudeau that we give into the blackmail?
Did he apply that same surrenderist view to his work at the Security Intelligence Review Committee?
I am terrified to learn that he signed this surrender letter.
What did he tell CESIS to do all these years?
I see Claude Lavader signed the letter.
That's the opposite of a surprise.
He was Jean-Creten's foreign policy advisor.
Kretchen left office as prime minister and literally it took only weeks before he announced he was working as a China lobbyist.
Weeks, not years or even months.
Obviously, it was all planned while he was still the sitting prime minister, still making decisions about China.
Corrupt, corrupt, corrupt.
But here's my point.
Almost every week there's another headline about someone in the United States secretly taking payments from China to help Chinese interests.
Here's the case of a top scientist at Harvard who pocketed secret cash to help China.
He's being prosecuted for that.
In Canada, I think we're a bit different.
We don't make it a secret.
Huawei and other Chinese companies just pour cash to all our institutions, our universities, our think tanks, our TV shows, liberal front groups.
It's just a fire hose of Chinese money.
Book Burninggeist00:08:03
We only know about some of it because most of it is not disclosed.
Real talk for a second.
How many of these very senior establishment figures who signed this letter have taken cash from China directly or more likely indirectly through a Chinese front group like Huawei, through a grant, through a well-paid speaking gig, through free trips, through a sponsorship?
How many of these 19 people, any of them?
Well, we know that some of them have, as I've described.
So some of them?
Do you think it's most of them?
Do you think it's all of them?
Do you think we'll ever find out?
Maybe CSIS is looking into it.
Then again, maybe Mr. Forche put a stop to that.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, there's some words, especially old-fashioned words, that are out of vogue.
You used to call a degree a bachelor's degree and then a master's degree.
And sometimes you would even call someone master as if you're some sort of slave.
You know, even the word seminar, well, that sounds like seminal, which the same root as the word semen.
Oh, my God, how patriarchal.
In fact, isn't the entire notion of a hierarchy so racist?
And I point this out because of a great article by our friend, Barbara Kay in the National Post, who links so many things together.
And I've been feeling it too.
And Barbara's on the line.
We'll introduce her in one minute.
But her piece in the post called Learn from the Best While You Can is must-read journalism because it links it all together.
The young authors and staff at J.K. Rowling's publishing house who go on strike because they have an opinion different than hers.
She's the one who gave them all jobs.
The young interns, some only at the National Post one year, demanding that Rex Murphy, the greatest writer of the newspaper, be run out of town because he's a 73-year-old white male.
So outrageous, rather than from learning from the actual masters of the craft, they want to topple them like any statue.
Joining us now via Skype from her home in Montreal is our friend, Barbara Kay.
Barbara, this is a very thoughtful piece.
It reminds us of what we can learn from the past, and maybe people hate that.
Maybe people hate the idea that they have anything to learn.
That their mom and dad and grandma and grandpa might have had to have dealt with the same things and thought things through, that maybe Shakespeare might have had the same considerations we do, but could express it and solve.
That there's anything we don't know.
Maybe that's why people hate learning from masters.
Well, I do think that in the last 30, 40 years, the kind of education that a lot of the young people have that are going into these professions, publishing and writing and even the sciences nowadays, the education they're getting is telling them that the past, everybody was wrong and did bad things and thought bad things and were racists and were terrible people.
And they've kind of got the truth.
So the past is not worthy of respect in any respect because our culture is terrible and it was built on slavery and all of this.
And the way forward is the way of social justice, equity, diversity, inclusivity.
And so these young people think, you know, we're the future.
Everything that came before, why should we respect it?
Why should we have any consideration?
Because, well, that's why we're pulling down statues, right?
We want to eradicate the past because the future is utopia and we have the secret to social perfection.
So we have no respect for the past.
Yeah, we have secret knowledge now that has been hidden until this moment.
And our morality is more thoughtful and deeper than any time before us.
We're better educated than any time before us.
We see clearly no one else before us ever has.
And so let's throw out everything from the past, especially the stuff we can't understand.
I want to quote from your article.
Oh, there's a line in here, Barbara.
I really like it.
Art, acting, surgery, sports, chess.
If you want to achieve something beyond competence in these domains, you must accept subordination to a master.
Obviously, that master can be a woman.
For most of human history, in fact, apprenticeship to a master was the only way craftsmanship and scientific knowledge was passed down and the only way excellence could be preserved.
Well, and there you see it.
Some of the statues being smashed are so artistically beautiful in themselves compared to the absolute crud that dominates modern art.
I'm not knocking all of modern art, but like so many things, before you tear down the past, ought you not to at least be able to understand it and equal it.
Yes, I agree with you.
It's very sad to see this impulse.
And I do think there's huge symbolism in toppling statues.
This is a revolutionary, the spirit that does this is one of revolution and eradication.
This can be dangerous because this kind of anger and triumph feeds on these acts of desecration.
It's an act of vandalism, and it is a kind, it's saying we don't follow prescription, we don't follow law and order.
We, the people, take matters into our own hands, and we're making a statement here.
The statues are first.
People are next.
You know, to me, it's very similar to book burning, and nothing good ever comes out of book burning.
Well, and that's if you knock down a statue, as I said the other day on the show, a statue is a symbolic representation of a man with ideas.
They're not knocking the statues down because they're ugly.
They're knocking them down because of who they represent.
But imagine if you would knock down a mere statue, it's just an image.
Surely you would want to knock down the words and the books of the person you knock down, because that's actually what you hate.
You don't hate the lump of metal.
You hate the books and the words.
So of course you'll burn the books.
And then finally, you'll come to anyone who still animates those ideas.
They are burning books in a sense.
Amazon is refusing to publish, you know, Amazon is a vehicle for authors that are self-publishing their books.
They're now refusing books that they don't like the ideas in.
That to me is a form of book burning.
Schools, you know, high schools won't teach certain books because they have either bad words in them or bad thoughts, even if they are written by great authors.
And that's a form, you know, I mean, it's not actual book burning, but it's book banning.
It's putting, it's throwing art or past ideas into the memory hole.
And once you go into the memory hole, it's like it didn't happen.
That's, again, a revolutionary act that is very chilling when you think about it.
If you are trying to eradicate your own history, I think that's a terrible statement for the next generation.
Can I ask you about the case that you refer to in your story?
Banning Past Ideas00:13:07
You talk about a Brock University professor named Thomas Hudliki, if I'm pronouncing his name right.
Hudliski.
That's a Hungarian name, I take it.
Is that right?
He's from the Czech Republic.
Czech Republic, thank you.
Sorry, I'm from Czechoslovakia.
So he probably has some old school ideas of academia, the very kind of thing we're talking about, learning from the best learning from history.
Tell me the trouble he got into simply for using phrases like masters and apprentices.
Everyone knows what those mean, but apparently you can't even say that anymore.
What happened to Tomas Hudliski?
Well, I should say, first of all, he is of a certain age.
He's around the same age I am.
And so, yes, he comes out of a culture, Czechoslovakia, that's quite old school.
And he wrote an article.
It was actually a commentary on an article that had been written 30 years ago about The state of his field, which was organic chemistry, and how was it going forward, and what improvements could be made in the transmission of knowledge, and just general commentaries on, and it was a very much in-house article published in a chemistry magazine.
And I should also say about Professor Hudleski is that he was attracted, he was recruited by Brock University because of his outstanding research and his acclaim in his field.
And Brock University is a mid-level university.
It's not known as a top-tier university, but attracting this professor was a feather in their cap.
He's a tier one research professor, which means he's very top-level.
So, you know, the work he's been doing so far, they've been very proud of him.
They boast about him until now.
Anyways, for the 30th anniversary of this former professor's article, he published a gloss or a commentary on that older article.
And he said that he's witnessed over the past 30 years, he's witnessed certain changes in the learning of organic chemistry.
And one of the things that he mentioned was the fact that graduate students are not working as hard as they used to, and they're not working under the direction of a master.
And he used the word in a totally academic way.
He's not like a slave master.
No, you know, you take a word that has several different meanings, and because one meaning of the word master was, you know, applies to race relations and slavery.
It's like masterpiece or my master craft.
Are you going to ban all these words?
As a matter of fact, a friend of mine told me that at his company, they're no longer going to use the phrase master files because it's offensive to minority groups.
Or look at Massey College.
They used to call the head of the college the master of the college.
And now he's called, what, the director or the principal or something else.
But the word master itself has now kind of got this negative aura around it.
And poor Professor Hudleski has no idea about any of that because he's not political at all.
So he used this phrase: the master-apprentice relationship is dying out.
That's not good.
The only way to pass along true excellence is to have the graduate students immerse themselves in this relationship of master-student.
I mean, so he used this word a few times, and everybody went apoplectic.
The chemistry journal withdrew the article.
The provost of the university wrote an open letter saying, Oh my goodness, so distressing, so offensive, so harmful.
So, this is the graduate.
There was a graduate student group that got together and they published an open letter saying, Oh, this appalling rant.
You know, you'd think that he would have said, I don't know, you'd think that he was a war criminal from the way they talked about him.
And he was shell-shocked.
He had no idea what he had done wrong.
They're the mad ones, not him.
You know, I was reading your article.
You mentioned that your son, Jonathan Kaye, when the National Post started some 20 years ago, was part of a group of young writers who had a master writer, John O'Sullivan, former speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher.
I think he was with the Daily Telegraph in the UK.
Brilliant man.
Well, I was, I sat next to John, your son, in the editorial board, and we would, it was a bunch of, I was 27 at the time.
We were all young.
We all thought we were so smart.
We were all just out of college.
Oh, we were smart.
And we would go, and John would start talking, and we all realized, okay, time for, I mean, can I tell you an anecdote about it?
You mentioned that that was the master-apprentice relationship.
It's absolutely right.
I would submit my editorials, and I'm sure your son Jonathan did the same thing.
And then I would go into John O'Sullivan's office and ask to stand behind him as he went line by line.
And he would say, explain the edits you're doing.
Oh, you're over-egging the pudding too much here.
You put this, you do too much of this.
You're overusing this word.
And he would explain every jot and tittle, every change he made.
So you didn't just submit your work and get it back edited.
He would give you a live commentary as he edited your work.
And of course it was better every time.
This is one of the world's great writers and editors.
And imagine the arrogance of any 20-something who thinks they're a better writer.
And I have one more anecdote to tell you.
So it was the anniversary of a terrorist attack in the UK.
And all of us had such strong things to say.
Oh, I have something to say.
And I mean, I was very certain I had the smartest thing to say.
And John just said, oh, I remember it like it was yesterday.
It was the most exciting night of my life.
And then he explained what happened, how the explosion happened, and he was there.
And that, I mean, that's not a writing anecdote.
That's like, imagine the hubris of us 20-somethings who would dare to think that we knew more than this master about a terrorist attack in London when he was there.
It was the assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher, I think in Brighton or something.
Well, I have to say that I'm so totally envious of you, Ezra, and my son and that whole editorial board.
Because when I started writing for the National Post, and I would, you know, write what I thought was, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't sure anytime I handed something in if it was good or not good.
It was very haphazard.
And every time I wrote something, I sweat bullets over it.
And I did like 10 revisions.
And I would have killed to have, I mean, if I could have had a John O'Sullivan standing over my shoulder saying, no, You see that paragraph there?
I mean, it would have been so golden as an opportunity.
And I'm jealous.
I'm envious.
And when I think of these young, wet behind the ears students, the kids that just came out of, you know, English lit or whatever they came out of, and they're writing, they're at the New York Times or they're at these, they should be on their knees in gratitude.
First of all, to have a job in journalism because a paying job in journalism nowadays, they're just not that frequent that you get them.
But they should be looking at their editors with reverence or at least with respect or they should be thinking, what can this person teach me?
And if they don't like something that this editor does, they should say to themselves, well, I didn't like that, but if I don't like it that much, if it's that so offensive to me, I can quit.
You know, it's funny you say that because in your piece, you used the word master, and I just told you before we went on air, and I'm not embarrassed to say it, at the National Post, I irritated those around me by actually calling John master.
I know that's, I'd say master, master, and I know that sounds so nerdy and dumb, but I swear that's how I felt like whatever he said I knew in advance was right.
And if I had a different opinion, I knew in advance I was wrong.
When you submit like that, what else do you call someone but master?
You don't call him John.
Who the hell am I to call him John?
And I am like, I've had three great masters in my life.
And I'll tell you this.
I worked for Preston Manning when I was a very young man.
And now I feel like in some ways I've exceeded his politics.
So I no longer would call him a master.
But for the two years I worked for him, I learned every single day from him.
And Mike Walker of the Fraser Institute, I learned when I worked at the Fraser Institute, every word he said was so obviously an education.
He was a PhD in economics, and I was extremely lucky to have time with him.
And then my time with John O'Sullivan.
And I regard myself lucky.
And if in any of those instances something would have been so offensive to me that I just couldn't swallow it and say he's right, I'm wrong, then I should not be there.
Exactly.
I should not be.
And imagine the chutzpah of me in any of those instances, a 27-year-old writer, a 22-year-old intern at the Fraser Institute, or when I worked for Preston.
I mean, imagine the chutzpah of a 27-year-old right out of school saying, no, I know better how to write than you, John.
I know better about history than you.
But that's exactly the mob that went after Rex Murphy, the mob that's going after this Tomas Hadliski, the mob that's going after J.K. Rowling.
J.K. Rowling made all those junior editors and writers.
And they have the chutzpah to try and take her down.
They should quit.
The idea they would run their master out of town, their mistress, is outrageous.
But they should.
But the thing is that they, you know, it's not like they're saying, oh, we know your craft better.
Like, it's not like they're saying, oh, we know how to edit better than you.
What they're saying is your values are wrong.
And they're the morality police.
They're the thought police.
That's such a good point.
That's such a good point.
They're not even arguing that they're better.
They don't even have that arrogance yet.
They're not saying, I'm a better creative fiction writer than you, J.K. Rowling.
I'm a better chemist than you, Tomas Hadliski.
They're not saying that they have a better command of the English language than Rex Murphy, who happens to be an editor of a dictionary, for heaven's sake.
They're just saying, you're Squaresville dude.
You're an old Czech chemist who dresses like you're still in the 70s in the Eastern Bloc.
What do you know?
You're unfashionable.
Oh, it's not your clothes.
It's the fact that you use the word master.
Oh, J.K. Rowling, gay icon, feminist icon.
Well, you're not trans-friendly.
So you're yesterday's news.
That's what's so gross.
The attack on Rex Murphy by those 20-somethings was purely personal.
Yeah, they're saying, look, I'm your moral superior.
And I'm telling you that you are a sinner.
You sinned.
And you need to be punished for that sin.
And they actually believe that an editor who's been there for 20 years and done a great job, if they make that one mistake, in a headline, like in the Philadelphia Inquirer, that editor that put in the headline, buildings matter too, because he was talking about how buildings were being defaulted.
And he had to leave.
But they thought that was okay because, you know, if you sin, you got to be punished.
And when you feel that way, that's a religious, that's a very harsh religion.
You know, it's like the Scarlet A. You got to wear it.
You've got to wear it and you've got to not be in polite society anymore.
You've got to be shunned because you've transgressed.
You've transgressed.
This is a tough crowd.
All these wokesters who watched The Handmaid's Tale, they pretended to be sympathizing with the women.
I think they were actually learning lessons about the oppressive theocracy.
They're the ones shouting shame, shame, aren't they?
Pretending To Be Sympathetic00:02:19
They pretend they're with the women.
They're on the other side of that.
I didn't watch much of that.
Well, Barbara, what a pleasure to talk to you.
What an interesting thing.
Don't mind me for telling you my personal stories.
It's just when you mentioned how John, your son, felt about John O'Sullivan.
I felt the same way.
In fact, I was a bit ridiculous about it, but I sort of yearned for that apprenticeship under a grandmaster.
That's exactly how I felt.
And there's not many of those people around.
And I knew that I was in a special time and place and I had one.
And I'm lucky in my life I've had three great masters.
Even if I no longer keep in touch with them or even no longer agree with them, how can I deny that each of those three formed me in important ways in politics, in economics, and in writing?
I'm glad you shared those anecdotes.
And I think they make my column come alive in a way.
And it also speaks to the fact that you and my son's generation, your whole generation, you're the last ones to have that sense of hierarchy and reverence for your craft.
You want to be good at what you're doing and willing to have that passed down to you.
The idea of intergenerational transference is a beautiful thing.
But I think you're the last generation to feel that way.
And that's a very sad thing to me.
That is very sad.
Hopefully there are others.
Barbara Craig, great to see you again.
Thank you for being here, my friend.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Barbara Kaye, columnist of the post-millennial and at the National Post, among other places.
She joined us via Montreal.
Stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Our show last night.
John writes, longtime member and support is on the way to protect our rebel army.
So proud of the rebel team.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Thank you for that.
I had hoped to have the big, big video for you tonight of our huge visit to City Hall yesterday where we had seven bodyguards, a lawyer, five cameras, etc.
But the lads who were editing said, Ezra, we need a little more time to make it perfect.
Fight for Freedom00:05:46
And I said, this is so important.
There's so, you know what?
They have five cameras worth of video.
Even I took some footage on my phone.
So just imagine you got five different viewpoints, five different storylines, and we've broken into.
They're putting together masterfully.
I've seen a little bit of it.
In fact, let me show you just a little taste.
Can I show you a little taste?
I wanted to have the whole video for you tonight, but I think you'll agree with me.
We need to give this a little time to make it perfect.
You'll see it tomorrow.
But take a look at this teaser.
No!
No!
No! No! No! No!
Our purpose, as I mentioned earlier today, is to do journalism.
We're not there to protest, but we're just going to be so compliant with the law that we're going to force the government to reveal itself.
Are they really just trying to get rid of us because they don't like the cut of our chip?
If so, that's illegal, that's unconstitutional.
That's why it's so critical that we're not engaging in any such conduct.
Now, not that I would expect that, but it is really important that we're not riotous, we're not boisterous, we're not annoying, whatever that means.
And so we want to do that because that is what the government is going to be relying on.
They're going to say they had every right based on this bylaw to eject, and it was a reasonable limit on our free expression.
Right.
All right, let's go downtown.
Aaron is coming with all sorts of legal precedents in hand, just in case, not if the protesters attack us, but if City Hall attacks us in real time.
We're going to meet our security detail at Old City Hall, and then we'll walk across the street.
And hopefully we'll be done in half an hour.
Hopefully it'll be uneventful.
But if the city and the police have other plans, we're as ready as we can be.
The police cannot arrest you or take any action against you unless they have reasonable and probable grounds that someone is in the commission or has committed an offense.
So as long as no offense has been committed, then in essence, a detention or an arrest is unlawful.
Even how about a touching?
Like if they touch you and pull you up.
Unlawful.
If you try to make us the problem that we're not, we will hold your conduct to great scrutiny.
So I don't want to come across as threatening the police, but what happened yesterday when our people were driven out of the public square by the police will never happen again on my watch for this company.
Fernando, how you doing?
Steve.
We're here to assert not only our right as citizens, but we have a specific law called Section 2B of the Charter.
What we're doing today is sort of like a symbolic march.
We're going to go there.
David's going to try and do journalism.
Ideally, we're done in half an hour because nothing happened.
It's not even that interesting a story.
It's a bunch of tents.
All right, well, I got my pass.
That's for sure.
It's a diamond VIP pass.
The barcode.
So official.
And on the back, will be my charter rights.
All right, so that's coming.
Mike Wrights, you're a hero, Ezra, really worrying how many Canadians don't think freedom of expression is under attack.
Well, you know, it's funny, one of our fellows, I think I might have said this before, his name is Mocha, you've seen him.
They chase him around.
He's originally from Turkey, and I don't know if I think he's okay with me telling his story.
He actually, back in Turkey, was arrested and taken to the police station twice.
And I told him my story about when I was summoned by the election commissioner and grilled about my book and all that.
And I was sort of a tough guy, but at the end of the day, I knew I was walking out of that elections Canada office.
I knew I wasn't going to a prison.
And I knew, and I know that even though that case isn't done, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to come out victorious, as in their absurd case against me will fail.
Now it's going to cost me a lot of money and a lot of time, and it's a stupid fight, but I'm pretty sure they're not going to bust down my door at night and arrest me in the middle of the night.
But our friend Mocha was literally in a Turkish police station twice.
So I appreciate you calling me a hero, but we don't fight as hard as those in places like Turkey, Venezuela, Iran, China, North Korea.
But I think that's why we have to fight now.
As my old friend John O'Sullivan always said, it's easier to fight in the first ditch than the last ditch.
I feel like that's what we're doing here at Rebel News.
I don't want it to get so bad where I'm hauled down to a police station like our friend Mocha.
I don't want it to get so bad where you're actually thrown in jail.
So we're going to fight in the first ditch because it's easier.
TJ writes, we need Rebel News now more than ever.
Fighting in the First Ditch00:02:49
Keep on reporting.
Oh, we absolutely will.
It's absurd how much money we spend on security.
And people always say, as we're all volunteer, all volunteer.
I appreciate all the volunteers.
I do not want volunteers.
Volunteers are not insured.
Volunteers are not licensed.
Volunteers do not do this professionally.
Volunteers either don't know what to do or maybe they're too eager for a fight.
They're not a team.
We had seven people.
Imagine seven bodyguards working as a team communicating.
You can't just join that team as a volunteer.
So I'm not looking askance at the generosity and I'm not looking to spend more money.
I just know that we're at a level of security needs that we can't mess around.
That's why.
Unfortunately, when you're at that level of security, you're paying $100 an hour, six-hour minimum.
You do the math on seven people.
That's $4,200 plus tax just for yesterday, plus the day before, plus, we had our lawyer down there.
So we're coming up on $10,000, absolutely, this week alone.
You know what's so insane?
And let me close on this.
You know, there's a swear.
I've done a few shows on it, a few stories on it before.
There's this, I'm not going to call it a practical joke because it's not really funny.
It's not really a prank because it's not lighthearted.
It's typically when there's a female reporter, but sometimes when there's a male reporter, doing a live hit on the street, often at a sports event, someone will walk by and shout, F her right in the P.
It's a very vulgar, extremely vulgar phrase.
And it's just this thing that caught on somehow.
And now people do it as a lark to basically heckle with this uniform profanity.
And it's startling and harassing, but frankly, nothing that our people don't put up with far worse every single time they go out in public.
And whenever that F her right in the P strange insult phrase is said, oh, it's a national story, and the CBC talks about racism and sexism, and the police say they'll investigate.
And here in Ontario, one guy was identified, and he was fired from his job with Ontario Hydro, I think it was.
And, oh my God, we need training and we need a law.
Just for someone walking by, uttering a swear and literally running off.
Whereas our reporters get physically beaten while police and city hall security stand idly by and not a peep out there.
So never, never, never let some CBC dainty say, oh, someone swore in my presence.
We need a national crackdown.
Nah, sister, you didn't care when our people got punched in the face.
You'll have to wait in line a little bit for me to care about the fact that you got heckled in public.
Just another double standard.
Well, that's the show for today.
I can hardly wait till tomorrow to show you the full version of the video I'm referring to.
Until then, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters and you at home, good night.