Coronavirus in Canada reveals a stark disconnect: despite 8,500 official COVID-19 deaths and Nova Scotia’s 11-day zero-case streak, mask mandates persisted, while fentanyl overdoses (526 in BC alone) went underplayed. Joshua Phillips of The Epoch Times ties this to China’s "wolf warrior diplomacy," exposing CCP espionage—1,000 agents active in Canada per CESIS—yet criticizes Trudeau’s aid to the Wuhan lab amid hostage detentions. As global outrage grows over China’s persecution (100M Falun Gong, Uyghurs in slave camps), economic shifts like Apple’s move to India signal mounting backlash, but Hollywood and media remain complicit, raising questions about Canada’s compromised institutions. [Automatically generated summary]
Some very strange stories in the newspaper about excess deaths.
What does that mean?
Well, those are deaths that are more than expected, but not attributed to the virus itself.
Gee, I wonder what those could be.
I'll give you my thoughts in a moment, and also an interview with the senior investigative reporter from the Epoch Times.
But before I get to that, can I invite you to become a premium subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus.
That's basically the video version of this podcast, plus Sheila Gunread's show and David Menzies' show.
It's only eight bucks a month, and you can get it at rebelnews.com.
Helps us keep the lights on here so we don't have to take any of that government money.
We never will.
So we rely on you for help.
Okay, here's the podcast.
Good news, the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Bad news, now we're seeing all the other destruction governments have caused.
It's July 27th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have is government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Let's start off with some good news.
Nova Scotia reports no active COVID-19 cases in the province, as in not one person.
There are almost a million people in Nova Scotia.
It's twice the size of Belgium geographically.
Not a single person has the disease.
Let me quote from the story.
For the 11th day in a row, Nova Scotia is reporting no new cases of COVID-19.
And the one active case in the province is now resolved.
So there's nothing.
Has been nothing for 11 days.
So now that it's over, it really never began in Nova Scotia, really.
I mean, 63 deaths in the province grand total.
I mean, I'm sorry to hear it.
Everyone is a tragic loss, but the official models said thousands would die.
Just didn't happen.
So the pandemic never actually did hit.
The tidal wave turned out to be a ripple, and it's done now.
Has been over for about two weeks.
The last guy who was at home with a cough is healthy again.
So naturally, the province's politicians are now moving to make masks mandatory across the province.
Nova Scotia making mask wearing mandatory in most indoor public places by July 31.
So that'll kick in next week.
It's over.
I mean, 100% over.
You cannot catch it in Nova Scotia because no one else has it in Nova Scotia.
And by the way, they're actually quarantining travels pretty strictly there.
You literally cannot catch it because no one else in the province has it.
But the province is forcing everyone to wear masks nonetheless.
And only now, not back in March or April.
No, July 31, really August 1.
What?
Let me read.
Nova Scotia is making mask wearing mandatory in most indoor public places beginning July 31, even for performers singing at concerts.
Previous Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang, Chief Medical Officer of Health, said today the measure is necessary to minimize any potential second wave of COVID-19.
Performers singing in a concert.
I'm dead serious.
People entering restaurants or bars will have to wear a mask until they begin eating or drinking.
This is nuts, but it's the law.
Well, the law is an ass, as the saying goes.
This isn't about health.
It's about control.
It's about maintaining public fear.
It's about keeping the crisis going.
Sorry, what else could it be?
Let's go from one end of the country to the other now.
British Columbia, 5 million people.
Geographically speaking, it's large.
It's 50% bigger than the country of France.
They have a grand total of 16 people in the hospital in the entire province, only three in intensive care.
There are over 100 hospitals in British Columbia.
And precisely three of them have someone in intensive care because of the virus.
And look at this.
Median age in years for the deaths, 85 years old.
And the range is 47 to 103 years old.
So the median age of death was 85.
I should tell you, average life expectancy for men in BC is only 80.
Women are a little higher.
And look at that.
No one under 47 died.
Again, I'm not happy that anyone died.
I'm just showing you how rare it was and how rare it is.
It's the case everywhere in Canada.
It's over.
More and more you can hear journalists talking about new cases, as in how many people have the virus but don't actually get sick from it or just get a little bit sick and maybe don't even realize they have it.
They're not showing you hospitalizations anymore, let alone deaths anymore, because those numbers aren't going up.
They're almost not even existent, especially in jurisdictions where they're ramping up testing.
So of course more people will come back as positive.
Those are cases, but like I say, hospitalizations and deaths, they're flatlining everywhere.
But look at this.
Take a look.
There's a death gap in Canada's four most populous provinces.
If COVID-19 isn't killing these people, what is?
As in, why are so many people dying?
Imagine asking that question.
We've shut down all of society.
We've emptied out hospitals to make way for the COVID victims that never came.
We've made people wait for regular health care for months.
We've stressed everyone out to the breaking point.
We've shut down any physical exercise from gyms to sports teams to summer camps for kids to schools.
We've made everyone paranoid and many people suicidal.
We've literally forced more than a million people out of work.
And you're wondering why people are dying?
More so than even the virus?
The virus that Trudeau said would kill up to 350,000 of us, according to his models, but that actually killed 9,000.
Again, each one a tragedy.
But if that's a pandemic, well, then so is the annual flu season, which kills as many.
Here's the new Statistics Canada story behind that Toronto Star headline.
Provisional death counts and excess mortality, January 2019 to May 2020.
COVID-19 has caused the death of more than 8,000 people in Canada, affecting communities and families across the country.
Beyond deaths attributed to the virus itself, the pandemic could also have indirect consequences that increase the number of deaths due to various factors, including delayed medical procedures.
To understand both the direct and indirect impact of the pandemic on deaths in Canada, it is important to measure excess mortality, which occurs when there are more deaths during a period of time than what would be expected or are typical for that period.
Varying levels of excess mortality were observed in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec in April and May, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.
You don't say.
In British Columbia, excess mortality was observed for a six-week period beginning in mid-March.
Over this period, there were 386 more deaths than in any of the previous five years for those same weeks.
Here, I'll help you.
I showed you this a few weeks ago.
It's another pandemic from China.
It's called opioids, drugs, like fentanyl.
It's killed more people this year than the virus.
Look at that, table one.
That's deaths by fentanyl.
526 deaths in the first half of the year.
Average age, people in their 30s.
The virus has only killed 191 people in British Columbia.
So opioids are twice as deadly, and they're not going to stop.
That pandemic hasn't ended.
You can't wear a mask to stop that one, can you?
Why do people do drugs in the first place?
I don't know.
Stress?
Boredom?
Lack of purpose?
Despair?
I'm just guessing.
Are you surprised the drug use is skyrocketing?
And we haven't had conclusive suicide stats yet either.
And how about hundreds of thousands of cancer checkups just missed or skipped?
How about elective surgeries being delayed until they're no longer just elective?
They're emergent.
This pandemic has killed nearly 9,000 people, average age over 80.
I'm very sorry about it, but I promise you, before we are done, the political response to this pandemic will have killed many more times 9,000.
Maybe the Toronto Star will figure it out one day.
Communist China's Global Challenge00:15:20
Stay with us for more.
Well, last week, the United States ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, to shut down in just three days' notice, saying it was a hub for industrial and other espionage.
Well, not surprisingly, China fired back, ordering the U.S. consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu, that's actually in the region of Tibet.
Well, they were ordered to shut down in 72 hours as well, ending a 35-year tenure in that city.
Joining us now to talk about what this battle of the consulates means is Joshua Phillips, the senior investigative reporter at the Epoch Times.
Joshua, nice to see you again.
It's a real pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Well, it's our pleasure.
My instinct is that this is a good thing.
Let's have it out.
Let's stop with the fake diplomacy that everything's all right.
I believe we are in a Cold War with Communist China.
And let people know that.
Let people see that.
Let's get rid of the niceties.
Let's pack up all the consulates.
Maybe keep some diplomats around for some emergency communications.
But I think it's more honest for both sides to send the nice talkers home.
What do you think?
Fully agreed.
The Chinese Communist Party, in its own doctrine, in its own words, has been waging full-scale unconventional war, not just on the United States, but on many countries.
And it uses not just its consulates in the United States as tools for espionage, but even subverts American consulates in other countries.
One of the big issues that hasn't really been mentioned in this whole debate, actually, is that the United States and its consulates hires local staff.
I actually interviewed before Robert Booth.
He's the former deputy director of the State Department's Office on Counterintelligence.
He helped educate them and how to deal with foreign spies.
He was saying most of the foreign staff they hire are spies.
And so the CCP not only uses U.S. consulates, you know, its consulates here in the U.S. as spy hubs, it uses American consulates in other countries as spy hubs.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you, we know in Canada that Chinese espionage is a huge risk.
It's been over a decade since our counter-spy agency, spy counter-spy agency, CESIS, reported 1,000 Chinese agents at work.
The number is surely larger since then.
Even personally, when I had my book launch a week ago about my book that criticizes China, the Chinese consulate in Calgary, Alberta whipped up an attempt to deplatform me.
So I think that the Chinese consulates and embassies are extremely active throughout America and Canada.
How do you think that this will unfurl?
Like there's a reciprocity.
America kicked the Chinese out of Houston.
China kicks the Americans out of Chengdu.
That's the Panda Bear capital.
Will this go another round or is it the tit-for-tat shooting war over?
Do you think Secretary of State Mike Pompey or even Donald Trump wants another round of this?
Or do you think they're in a stalemate for now?
Well, there are a few different factors on this.
Just as a brief answer, yes, I do think this is going to continue.
Because as we speak, this is the Chinese Communist Party's new way of doing things.
They call it wolf warrior diplomacy.
They meet like with like.
They will do the exact same thing you do to them right back at you.
I think the CCP's biggest concern is that the U.S. will pull out more consulates out of the U.S. from China and that other countries may follow suit.
And as you mentioned, yeah, the same thing happening in the U.S. is happening in Canada.
As you mentioned, in Canada, this was exposed by CESIS.
Actually, the Sidewinder report on this many years back really did a lot to expose the way the Chinese Communist Party was subverting your political system.
And I think, unfortunately, that didn't have as big of an impact then as it would now if it came out, mainly because I think it was such a new topic for people.
People had never heard anything like it.
And of course, it was criticized as being racist and all these other labels they use against things like that.
But, you know, point is here, the CCP does the exact same things in every country.
And if the U.S. takes that first step to start kicking them out, very likely Canada is going to follow suit.
Very likely, maybe even Australia is going to follow suit.
Other countries may be on the tail of that as well.
Well, it's interesting that you say Canada might follow suit.
I certainly wish that that were the case.
Given the fact that two Canadian nationals have been held hostage in China, I'd have to check the calendar.
I think it's almost exactly 600 days.
You would think that that would be a provocation for which Canada would send diplomats home.
Trudeau has not done so.
Trudeau, in fact, has sent more foreign aid to China, including bizarrely to the Wuhan Virology Institute.
Do you just hope that Canada would follow suit?
Or do you have any basis for that?
I just'm worried that that's wishful thinking.
I think Canada is still very much in the thrall of China.
And if you were to say UK or Australia or New Zealand, I'd say, okay, yeah, now you're talking.
Why do you think Canada would follow suit?
I think I agree with you.
The government in Canada has been pretty close to the CCP.
But at the same time, the security community and the military in Canada is pretty on the ball with this stuff.
I mean, really, among all the different countries in the world, they were some of the first to blow the whistle about the CCP infiltrating your political system.
It's true, to really make that happen, you would probably need to have a cleaning out of those influences from your political system.
Whether or not that's going to happen, we'll have to see.
But when it comes to, for example, going against the Confucius Institutes, when it comes to calling out some of the different forms of subversion in Canada from the CCP, Canada has been pretty much at the forefront of exposing a lot of these things.
Now, when it comes to these two Canadian nationals being held basically hostage in China in exchange really for Meng Wangzhou, because they said they'd do a hostage exchange for her, I mean, this is terrorist-level stuff.
They're threatening to execute two Canadian citizens because, you know, this criminal CFO of Huawei, you know, accused criminal, I should say, of Huawei, you know, was arrested in Canada and may be extradited to the United States.
At the same time, though, we're seeing across the board Canada, UK, Australia, you know, Five Eyes countries essentially, but even the EU joining in now, there is a lot of pushback against the CCP because they're seeing the CCP as hostile.
They're seeing that this, you know, this decades of soft power campaigns that it was launching that really created this polished facade.
That facade has now fallen off, and people are starting to see for what it is.
It is unfortunately true, though, what you say with Trudeau, that he does seem to be leaning more towards China.
It's very interesting what you say about momentum building, and I see that now because, of course, on Huawei, four out of the five Five Eyes security partners have already said no to Huawei, Canada being the malingerer.
Wouldn't that be something if it created a momentum to re-marginalize communist China?
I mean, they've polished their image so much.
I mean, I remember the last Olympics, they're getting the next Olympics.
They're so acceptable.
To marginalize them would.
And in my book, I think, well, how do you treat China?
You can't treat it like Nazi Germany.
You can't wage total war against it.
They have nuclear weapons.
Do you contain it like the Soviet Union?
Well, I don't know.
They're pretty integrated in our economy.
The analogy that I thought fit the best.
Let me bounce this off you, Joshua, because you follow this stuff more than almost anyone.
I thought of South Africa.
And when South Africa had an apartheid system, the world took moral stands, kicking them out of the Commonwealth, putting on sanctions, just basically saying we disapprove.
So it was more a rhetorical thing than actually economic.
I mean, yeah, the sanctions did have some impact, but I think it was the shaming.
And I think that maybe the Chinese Communist Party, the risk of losing face might actually be the sharpest stinger to them as opposed to anything else.
That's just a theory of mine.
You're an expert on this stuff.
What do you think?
I agree with you, actually.
And I would say the weakest point of the Chinese Communist Party, I've said it before, I'll say it again.
It has a glass jaw.
And its glass jaw is an ideology because it has abused its own people to a horrifying extent, more so than I would say even Nazi Germany.
Under Mao Zedong alone, it killed 50 million to 70 million Chinese people.
As we speak right now, there are about 100 million Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China, about 100 million Christians in China facing persecution, Muslim Uyghurs being used in literal slave camp.
And even Western companies have been involved in those slave camps using slave labor, including some major corporations, are being called out now for that.
In fact, different companies are being sanctioned for it.
This has become a big discussion in the United States.
And I think countries are going to have to decide whether they want to be affiliated with slave labor, with re-education through labor campaigns, with torture, with murder of dissidents, with, for example, using living people, just religious believers, as living sources for organ transplants.
Whether profit, murder for profit, human slaughter for profit is something they're willing to turn a blind eye to.
And really, as these issues get exposed more and more, countries are going to have to really position themselves more and more.
And people are going to be increasingly aware of what they are aligning themselves with if they continue working with China.
I want to ask a question because taking on the Soviet Union, there were few economic ties.
South Africa was very small economically.
China is so large.
And capitalists look at it and say, look at the size of that market.
I think of the NBA, the National Basketball Association.
I look at Hollywood.
Both tailor their own rhetoric so as not to offend either the Chinese officials or, in the case of movies, Chinese audiences.
There's so much money at stake.
How can companies that are looking to profit from cooperating with Communist China, how can they be made to absorb the cost, the moral cost?
How can the NBA be shaken out of their belief that doing business with China is a net plus?
What will it take to get Hollywood to stop tailoring their editorial content of their movies?
What would it take to make them get those dollar signs falling from their eyes?
Well, I think, for example, what's happening in the U.S., where the Trump administration is, in fact, going after them pretty hard on slave labor, where the U.S. is called, you know, not just the U.S., but a lot of countries, including, for example, Australia, New Zealand, calling out the Chinese Communist Party for what it's done in Hong Kong, where it went back on its agreement with Hong Kong and is essentially the end of the country's autonomy.
You can talk about what they're doing to Tibetans, what they're doing right now in their hostile border conflicts with, for example, Japan and India and other countries.
The CCP, its peaceful veneer, again, is gone.
People are starting to see it for what it is.
And it's an unfortunate reality, too, that a lot of companies, big businesses, have become intertwined with it.
A lot of them right now are starting to reel because, of course, the U.S. is now pushing back against companies involved in slave labor, because a lot of these companies making all this noise about the history of persecutions in America are using actual slaves as we speak in China.
Muslim Uyghurs, all these companies, virtue signaling about persecution of Islam, they're using Muslim slaves.
And so I think as this gets called out again more and more, people will see it more and more.
And it's going to become too much of a liability for these companies to deal with China.
Not only that, but yeah, Tencent, for example, bought up a lot of Hollywood.
You have Chinese companies buying up a lot of natural resources in different countries.
Some countries like Australia, they basically control the main GDP industries.
And so it becomes a political issue and it becomes a major economic issue to start pushing back against them.
And at the same time, though, it's going to be hard for them to decouple because pretty much the Chinese Communist Party is getting such deep tendrils into their economic system that it's hard to pull out of it.
As the U.S. is showing, though, I think right now, it's demonstrating that pretty much a lot of the business deals that you make with China, you do not actually profit from.
And you're more likely to make more money and be better off if you were to not trade with them whatsoever.
The same type of cheap manufacturing you could find in other countries without all the totalitarian politics you have to deal with.
And I think the world is now starting to see that.
I saw for the first time a news story that Apple is going to manufacture one of its high-end iPhones in India.
And I thought, well, that's hopeful.
That's a hopeful sign because they were so heavily invested in China.
Let me ask you one last question because I'm trying to think of any celebrity or popular person who is not trying to suck up to China for money.
And I'm having trouble coming up with names.
I mean, so many sports and Hollywood heroes are just completely committed to endorsement deals or product placement deals in China.
Other than Richard Gare, can you name anyone in Hollywood or a musician or I'll just use the word a celebrity, someone who has sway with ordinary folks, not political insiders like you and me.
Can you name any hero on this stuff?
Unfortunately, not off the top of my head.
You know, the CCP, they made an example out of Brad Pitt when he made seven years in Tibet.
Pretty much, you know, if you went against the CCP to a hard enough extent, it means that even putting you in films is going to cause trouble with China.
You're not going to get that film shown in China.
You're going to lose out a huge part of the global market.
And when it comes to China buying up the talent houses, last I heard they bought up AMC theaters.
You know, the amount of money they pour into these different studios, even a lot of U.S. studios co-produce films with China because it helps them get past Chinese censors and get the films approved to be shown in China more easily.
It is say, I would say, career suicide for a lot of these individuals to go against the CCP.
China's Influence on Global Cinema00:01:46
And really, I think that if they really believed in a lot of the issues they claim to believe in when it comes to pushing for social justice, that they would be willing to stand up against the CCP in that regard.
Well, I think there's a lot of work to do.
And I think you're right.
We have to show these sellout celebrities that they are actually endorsing a modern version of the slavery that they claim to abhor in North America.
Joshua Phillip, we learned so much from you every time we talk.
Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
Hey, my pleasure.
Thank you.
All right.
There you have it.
Joshua Phillip, he's the senior investigative reporter for the Apoc Times.
Stay with us.
More Ahead on the Rebel.
What do you think of our conversation with that senior investigative reporter from the Apoc Times?
I found him extremely knowledgeable.
We've spoken to him before.
He does great work.
They do great work.
I'm just so pleased that we have allies doing critical reporting on China.
There are so many in the establishment who are sucking up to China in so many ways.
I didn't know that the whole movie theater chain AMC was acquired by a Chinese interest.
I wonder how many of our cash poor going out of business newspapers have been bought either formally or with a hidden partnership from China.
China has trillions of dollars in foreign currency reserves.
You could buy a leading urban newspaper in any given city for, I don't know, 10 or 20 million bucks easily, probably less.
Are you actually surprised that China hasn't taken all of them over?