Catherine Swift exposes how politicians and media stoked pandemic fear with inflated ICU projections—Ontario’s 900-bed CBC warning collapsed when actual usage hit just 264—while enforcing arbitrary restrictions like Doug Ford’s selective mask rules, mirroring New Zealand’s police-state lockdowns. Her six-point plan for Canadians for a Responsible Recovery targets green agendas, citing China and India as plastic polluters, and warns decarbonization could cripple Canada’s resource economy, from Newfoundland’s Husky project to Alberta’s oil. She also slams judicial bias in Canada, contrasting it with the U.S.’s accountability, suggesting RBG’s opposition to court-packing was misrepresented. The episode reveals a pattern of overreach—economic harm, climate hypocrisy, and unchecked authoritarianism—all under the guise of public safety. [Automatically generated summary]
Every day the media tells us more and more cases of the virus, but what is a case?
And why are they doing it?
What are they trying to prepare us for?
What are they trying to whip up?
I'll give you my thoughts on it.
That's next, but can I invite you to become a Rebel News Plus subscriber?
Because I show you about four or five different video clips in this podcast.
And yeah, you'll be able to figure it out from the sound.
But I really want you to see, especially what's happening in Australia.
Oh, the videos out of there will make your eyes freeze and your hair stand up like a porcupine.
Just go to RebelNews.com and click subscribe at $8 a month.
That's a pretty good deal.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, I know why politicians tried to scare everyone when the pandemic arrived in the spring, but why are they still trying to scare us now?
It's September 22nd, 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 to say is government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Every day I get terrifying news about new virus cases.
Cases, not illnesses, not people in the hospital, not people in intensive care, not people on a respirator or a ventilator.
Remember those?
That was the big panic six months ago.
Here's a CBC story from April 3rd.
Ontario needs 900 new ICU, that's intensive care unit beds, to cope with coming surge in COVID-19 patients, models suggest.
So that's new beds, extra beds that were needed immediately.
ICU, intensive care unit.
It's not just a bed, of course, not just a place to sleep.
It's a whole expensive complex suite.
Machines, ventilators, oxygen, complicated sensors, and of course it's all in a hospital.
Imagine trying to add 900 ICU beds to cope with a coming surge in a matter of days.
Well, no problem.
The government of Ontario didn't just add 900 acute care or intensive care beds.
On April 16th, it announced this.
Province adds more than 2,000 acute care and critical care beds and enacts pandemic staffing plans.
Wow.
I'll read some more.
The province has added 1,035 acute care beds and 1,492 critical care beds and taken steps to ensure hospitals have the staff available to care for a sudden surge in patients.
Pretty impressive, but remember, that's just what was added.
There were a lot of beds in place before the pandemic.
Take a look at these stats.
As a result, Ontario has a total of 20,354 acute care beds with the potential for another 4,205 more acute care beds by April 30th.
Of Ontario's 3,504 critical care beds, 2,811 are now equipped with ventilators, up from 1,319 when the outbreak first started.
More than 20,000 acute care beds?
By the way, there are more than 250 different hospitals in Ontario.
So just to recap, in early April, the CBC was panicking, saying Ontario needed 900 more beds.
Doug Ford met that and raised it, adding more than 2,000 new beds, bringing the total to 20,000, of which 2,811 had ventilators.
So how did it work out?
Did they survive the surge?
Well, look, reality didn't quite listen to the models from the experts and their panics.
Look at this.
As you can see by this chart of Ontario hospitalizations and ICU cases, the number of ICU beds, intensive care beds, needed in Ontario peaked just six days after that panic article in the CBC at a grand total of 264.
I can't even find the maximum number who needed ventilators.
It's typically a small fraction of the people in the ICU.
But just for reference, in the entire province of Ontario today, there are a grand total of 11 people on a ventilator.
11.
The province has 2,811 ventilators, just in case.
You know, the second surge and all that, that second wave and all that.
Models say, experts say and all that.
Here's the Ontario graph for daily new cases, which is the only one the media is talking about.
And for some reason, it's the very first graph on the Ontario statistics page.
Then there's the absolutely useless total cases over time graph.
You know that by definition, that number can never go down, right?
It's like saying total number of Canadians who have ever had a traffic accident over time.
You know that number will only grow, right?
It cannot shrink, right?
Over time, events only add up, they don't subtract, and the number is of no use in any way, is it?
It's like saying, did you know that the total number of people who have ever died in the world, it's estimated to be over 100 billion people.
And it's only growing.
Does that make you feel better or worse?
Would a graph of that help you in any way other than to know that the number is only growing?
What a weird number to track.
Completely useless in every way other than to give you an ominous feeling.
It's the daily deaths number that's the key indicator.
For weeks in Ontario, it's hovered around two, plus or minus.
It's so tiny on the graph, isn't it?
It's so hard to see.
That's the whole province of Ontario, 14.5 million people.
Here's a chart that makes it easier to see.
Zero on some days, one or two on some days.
Average age of the deceased is the mid-80s.
I'm sorry to see it, but you know, again, don't mean to scare you, but did you know, according to Statistics Canada, about 100,000 Ontarians die every year from all causes.
So you've got one or two a day from the pandemic, and you've got another 300 a day from all other things.
For example, in Toronto, shootings are a bit of a problem.
173 people dead or injured from that this year so far, mostly young people who don't really die from the virus.
I wonder why politicians prefer to fight an imaginary battle against a virus that peaked back in April, as opposed to a real problem like gun violence that keeps going up.
It's going up.
The battle against the defeated virus is done.
It's defeated.
I've shown you the stats for Ontario pretty detailed, but it's the same or better pretty much across Canada.
For example, the entire province of Saskatchewan, there is one person in intensive care.
One person in a province of over a million people.
So why is the panic being ratcheted up?
Why the emphasis on cases?
Which can mean anything.
It can mean a false positive, for example.
Someone doesn't have the virus, but they take the test and the test accidentally says they have the virus.
That's happening a lot.
You know, I think a lot of people think that testing is going to really solve the whole problem, and it isn't.
It's one component of a response.
If you test somebody today, you only know if they're infected today.
And in fact, if you're testing in a population that doesn't have very much COVID, you'll get false positives almost half the time.
That's Ontario's deputy public health officer saying half of the tests are false positives.
They're bragging about how many tests they're giving to people who don't have any symptoms.
Why are we spending so much effort testing healthy people with no symptoms?
Is it to generate false positives?
Is it to instill fear?
Is it to make jobs for schemers and scammers to keep the emergency going for the benefit of someone, profiteers?
I don't know.
Why the renewed enforcement?
I mean, here in Ontario, Doug Ford, the Premier, he loves going to weddings with his friends.
Here he is having a grand old time despite the lockdown.
Isn't it odd that he's the one now ratcheting up rules for everyone else except him?
We all know that a second wave of this virus is coming.
We see it all over the world.
This virus is still amongst us and it's spreading.
So the only question left is how bad will the second wave be?
And the answer to that question is up to all of us.
It's up to you.
It's up to the 14.5 million people in this province.
We've shown what we can achieve when we work together.
Together, we got those numbers down.
We flattened the curve on the first wave, but we're not out of the woods.
And today's numbers, they're a cause for concern for all of us.
Let me be crystal clear.
Every option is on the table.
We will take every step necessary, including further shutdowns.
And the second wave of COVID-19, it's a scenario that we have been preparing for all summer long.
I don't get Doug Ford.
His chief move is to insult people who aren't panicking like he wants them to, even though he himself obviously is not panicking in his real life, his personal life.
He's going to weddings.
There was some car show, you know, where people have a show and shine.
They bring their old cars or whatever.
Ford called it a car race or something.
I'm not sure if there's actually any evidence that it was racing illegally.
And Ford just went nuts on those people.
But those are his people, really his kind of people, or they used to be, not now.
He's calling them dumb.
He's saying they're deplorable.
And then all of a sudden we hear what's happening.
They gather, these organizers.
And as for the organizers, you know something, guys, I don't get it.
I just don't get it.
If we weren't so backlogged on MRIs, I'd send you to the MRI to get your brain scanned because I just, I don't think there's anything in there.
We get the protocols out there and they just blatantly ignore the people.
Oh, and he's calling people concerned about their freedom, yahoos.
We have, you know, a bunch of Yahoos out in the front of Queen's Park sitting there protesting that the place isn't open, as they're breaking the law and putting everyone in jeopardy, putting themselves in jeopardy, putting the workers in jeopardy, and God forbid, one of them end up in the hospital down the street.
It's such an elitist thing when it's said by Hillary Clinton or Kathleen Wynne or the media party sneering at normal people for not wanting to follow unscientific and irrational and arbitrary rules, rules that the ruling class itself doesn't follow.
But since when does the head of Ford Nation mock his own people as dumb hicks?
I know he gets praised by Justin Trudeau and the Toronto Star for that, but I'm not sure what voters think.
I can take a guess what they'll think of this, though.
Deploying police to enforce masks and social distancing.
Like I say, like the stats show the pandemic is over.
People aren't afraid enough, I guess.
why not have police go out there and make them afraid?
This is what I've been worried about.
Deploying Police for Masks00:17:46
We've seen it in other Commonwealth countries.
Jacinda Ardern, the ghoulish prime minister of New Zealand, literally postponed her country's elections because of the pandemic.
What a little fascist.
Watch her here as she laughs about indefinitely imprisoning anyone who won't take a voluntary virus test.
You said I wanted to...
A number of questions about people refuse, you know, what do we do if someone refuses to be tested?
Well, they can't now.
If someone refuses in our facilities to be tested, they have to keep staying.
So they won't be able to leave after 14 days.
They have to stay on for another 14 days.
So it's a pretty good incentive.
You either get your tests done and make sure you're cleared, or we will keep you in a facility longer.
So I think people, most people will look at that and say, I'll take the test.
She's laughing there.
That's New Zealand.
Here's the state of Victoria in Southeast Australia.
This is a 69-year-old grandmother walking in the park.
Why the handcuffs?
Here's another Australian video.
We're going to try to bleep out the swearing.
A man was arrested for driving on the road, I kid you not.
What are you going to say, mate?
Go on.
What do you got to say?
What's the reason you're pulling me over for?
Driving a motor vehicle on a highway?
Oh, mate, you're the best.
You're f now, mate.
No, it's not an offence.
That is not offence.
Let's just do this one at a time, please.
No, we will not be doing this.
I pulled out on a what street.
You're telling me a highway.
One of the time you've got balls.
What's your name there, mate?
My name is Conservable Singh.
Thank you very much.
And yours?
Peter.
Oh, you don't have a name here.
You don't have a name here?
And of course, our own reporter, Avi Yamini, was smashed to the ground.
It was quite peaceful until this guy here is going to be placed under arrest right now.
I am here.
I need that.
I've got my permit in my pocket.
My permit is in my pocket.
And the United Kingdom is just awful.
They've got a bizarre rule of six, just arbitrary.
If you have five people in your family, you can't have your grandparents come over together.
One has to wait out in the car.
I'm serious.
That is a rule.
There's massive £10,000 fines.
It's almost 20 grand Canadian.
Unless you're with Black Lives Matter, then no problem.
Have a big meetup as you want.
Seriously, here's a peaceful anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square.
Look at the riot police smash-in.
Compare that to the same UK police during the pandemic at a Black Lives Matter protest.
I love it.
I love it.
We said you can't do it.
Take a new one.
We're in you.
The sergeant's going on.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Take a new one.
Come on.
Yes, Tyler!
Yeah, I guess the virus only attacks conservatives or something.
What on earth is happening over there?
But of course, why would we be immune to it here?
We have the same source of law, the same culture and history when it comes to policing and our courts and freedom.
So if New Zealand, Australia, the UK can all collapse, can we?
I expect it to start happening now.
The second wave drumbeat is high for the pandemic.
Cases, cases are rising, cases, cases, cases.
I don't see any opposition from the opposition parties.
Have you?
The media is totally on board.
In fact, they're just screaming for more.
And the police here, well, we've shown you how Canadian police can be political.
I'm worried.
Seriously, how long until you see this sort of thing arresting a woman bursting into her home because she made a Facebook post against the lockdown?
This is from Australia.
Well, Cebuan.
I'll just have this little thing.
In an hour, let me finish and I'll explain it.
In relation to a Facebook post, in relation to a lockdown protest you put on for Saturday.
Yeah, and I wasn't breaking any laws by doing that.
You are, actually.
You are breaking all.
That's why I'm arresting you.
In relation to the past, how can you arrest her?
Can't you just say to her, take the post down?
Like, come on.
I'm happy to delete the post.
This is ridiculous.
Yeah, I have to give you these caution and rights.
Do you understand?
Yeah, that's fine.
Like, I'm happy to delete the post.
This is ridiculous.
Like, I just think that's coming to Canada.
Why wouldn't it?
Why would it only infect other Commonwealth countries and not us?
The virus of fascism, I mean.
The media is lusting for that.
There's an irrational hatred towards normal people who aren't loving the pandemic panic.
Take a look at this in the Toronto Star just yesterday.
Spot someone not wearing a mask?
Here's what you should and shouldn't do.
I'll read some of it.
It's by Karen Liu, Culture Reporter.
My current strategy in encouraging non-mask compliant strangers to put on a mask is as follows.
Give them a dirty look and then briskly walk past them in a big curve as if they have a magnetic force field that repels everything.
Not surprisingly, it doesn't work.
Either they don't notice, don't care, or think I'm smizing.
Smizing is a made-up word which means smiling with your eyes.
That actually makes me laugh because, of course, you can't really communicate much, can you, when you're wearing a muzzle?
So much of our communication is nonverbal.
Facial expressions, a smile, a fake smile, a scowl.
Try doing any of that with a mask on.
The Toronto Star writer here is trying to show how woke he is.
He's actually showing how rude he is, how antisocial he is, how much of a scold and a snitch he is, but really how dumb he is.
He has lost the ability to communicate with body language, with facial expressions.
He's not saying anything, and he's wondering why he can't communicate.
And he's asking for help, and he doesn't even realize it's because of the mask he's wearing that no one can understand the scowl on his face.
He lacks the courage to actually say anything, and his scowl doesn't work from behind a mask.
What an idiot.
Let me read some more from his column.
Fortunately, the majority of people I see went outside have been following public health guidelines.
But what should I do, if anything at all, when I see that one person not wearing a mask or physically distancing?
I want to look out for the safety of those around me.
After all, we're supposed to be in this COVID-19 pandemic together, right?
Of course, in Toronto, it's illegal to ask someone why they're exempt.
I guess he doesn't know that.
There are plenty of reasons not to wear a mask.
And if you are exempt, and there's a bunch of reasons, it is actually illegal for some busybody, whether it's a cop or a storekeeper or a Toronto star snitch, asking you why.
It would be like asking someone in a wheelchair, prove you're disabled.
Get out of that wheelchair.
Prove you.
That's creepy.
Look at this weirdo.
I'll read some more.
I asked my Twitter followers what they do when coming across someone not physically distancing or wearing a mask.
Most replied they keep their distance and move on, adding it's not worth it to risk having an angry individual get close to their face.
Others said they have tried to tell people to mask up, but were ignored.
When it comes to a business, some just don't shop there anymore if they don't feel safe.
Sounds like this reporter's friends are actually smarter than him.
If you're so afraid yourself, don't go out.
I thought masks were supposed to make you safe, though.
Not wanting a conflict with another citizen is a good idea.
That's normal.
But I think the scolds and the snitches are probably the abusive ones more often than not.
Remember this?
Quit policing other people.
How about you get out of here?
Quit policing other people out of her basement.
Then go.
I got to go this way.
I got to go this way.
Move your stupid ass and go.
Can someone call the police, please?
Oh, behind someone ass.
Why not?
No, for harassment and for people policing other people.
You can't actually not hold the freeze on for this.
You care.
It's part of the bylaw.
Yeah, I can tell those ladies are worried about their health.
Get this.
University of Toronto psychology professor Steve Jordans says even with the best intentions, it's easy to come off as accusatory when asking someone to wear a mask.
When confronted, people tend to have a flight or fight response.
And as we've seen through countless viral videos, a few have opted for the latter.
I think the psychology professor is engaging in projection here.
He's saying the normal people are afraid, and the masked people are the normal sane ones.
I'm not sure about that, Chief.
I'll read some more.
Jordan says there's a temptation to automatically think of a non-mask wearer as a conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe in COVID-19.
And while there are people that fit that description, there are also individuals who might still be in a state of denial that a pandemic is happening after going through personal trauma, such as losing a job or a family member.
I don't think anyone doesn't believe COVID-19 exists.
I think a lot of people believe it's not a statistical danger anymore because it's not mathematically as to conspiracy theories.
I wonder what the good doctor here thinks about how China explained the virus and how it spread.
I wonder if he believes them and thinks mask skeptics are the naive ones.
I wonder if he thinks that Trudeau and Patty Haju and Teresa Tam have done everything just right.
And China's World Health Organization is just right on top of things.
If you think China and the World Health Organization and Patty Haidrew and Teresa Tam and Justin Trudeau have been telling the truth, you probably believe that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.
I wouldn't accuse other people of conspiracy theories.
I'll read some more.
To some extent, we lost our previous way of life.
And wearing a mask is associated with accepting that life isn't going to be the same, he said.
For some people, that is hard to accept.
I'll give the good doctor that one.
He seems to be happy to accept it, though.
I'm not going to read any more of this Toronto Star column to you.
It's not really a piece about morality or ethics because the advice is to marginalize and demonize and harass people, many of whom have lawful mask exemptions.
It's basically, they're trying to pick on people who have asthma or respiratory problems.
It's not really a piece about morality.
It's not a piece about legality.
Like I say, every mask bylaw in Canada has exemptions.
In Toronto, you're not allowed to ask people to prove they're exempt.
It's not a piece about science, is it?
No one is dying from this virus anymore.
In all of Ontario, maybe one or two people a day, average age mid-80s.
I checked, there hasn't been a death in Toronto since August.
This column isn't about any of that.
It's about preparing society, conditioning people for the second wave, not the second wave of the pandemic.
That's not coming, folks.
It's about the second wave of police and politicians and bureaucrats and scolds going full Australian on you.
It's about the war against you by the ruling class that's been enjoying itself just a little too much these past six months.
Stay with us for more.
Well, get ready for the bad news.
Justin Trudeau's going to have the Governor General read his throne speech.
I can only imagine how much spending in a Green New Deal.
He's going to try and echo the AOC wing of the Democrats in the States.
Spending's no object, taxing's no object.
And as they say, never let a crisis go to waste.
I think that's what we see from Trudeau.
At the same time, we see so-called recovery councils with people who have never run a business in their life.
People like Gerald Butz, the disgraced former aide to Justin Trudeau.
I see he's putting his oar back into the water with lots of advice for green spending and taxes.
I'm terrified.
Even Christia Freeland, who's supposed to be the more moderate member of cabinet, is talking about decarbonizing the country.
So I was delighted to see a press conference today by a pro-business group of people who actually run businesses.
They're called Canadians for a Responsible Recovery.
And there's a lot of familiar names in the group.
Dan McTaig, the moderate liberal.
Patrick Moore, our friend, the co-founder of Greenpeace, and our next guest, Catherine Swift, who has spent her life being an advocate for small businesses.
And she joins us now via Skype.
Great to see you again, Catherine.
Thanks for taking the time to be with us.
My pleasure, as always, Ezra.
Well, thanks for being here.
This is sort of a pre-buttle, right?
It's not a rebuttal.
It's a first strike against Trudeau and his throne speech and some of these pro-government, pro-spending NGOs.
Tell me a little bit more about Canadians for a responsible recovery.
That's your group.
Yeah, well, it started off actually with an organization called Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada.
Now, they started off in Ontario, but they branched out nationally.
And the impetus for it was the massively increased hydro rates in Ontario, which of course more than doubled in many instances under the Green Energy Act back in 2009.
It was introduced and in subsequent years.
And a lot of these businesses, and I know many of the owners, and they're good employers, they tend to have anywhere from about 50 to several hundred employees.
Some of them were driven almost out of business or out of the country.
And not willingly.
Some of them have relocated simply because the alternative was they were not going to be in business at all.
So the really alarming, there's a lot of alarming things here, but this particular group, and as you mentioned, they're business owners.
They're the ones that are dealing with real issues every single day, employing lots of people, paying lots of taxes.
And when we saw this group that's called the Resilient Recovery Group, and of course it is, it's Gerald Butts, it's a number of other Bruce Lurie is another one.
Basically, a lot of the architects of the Green Energy Act in Ontario are involved yet again.
And of course, what they're basically trying to do is extend the complete devastation that the Green Energy Act had in Ontario to the whole country.
And There's just so many worrisome things here and elements to it that, you know, that one could discuss.
But I think the bottom line, the real bottom line here is that what, and we'll see, we'll see in the thrown speech.
We haven't seen it yet.
But all indications are that the Trudeau government is going to go all in on a so-called green recovery, which basically means that businesses and organizations and entities that take in way more of our tax dollars than they will ever actually produce are the ones that are going to be in charge of this.
And the businesses, such as in the group that I'm associated with, the ones that actually produce tax dollars, create real live jobs that don't have to be subsidized by the Fisk, they're the ones that are going to be disadvantaged.
And if we can just take the experience in Ontario, and I recently read the Resilient Recovery Group's plans, and by the way, they want $55 billion is their latest ask.
Not chump change exactly.
They want a whole whack of our money.
And they make all the same claims in what they're currently proposing to do to Canada that the Green Energy Act made in Ontario back years ago.
All these green jobs are going to be created.
All this prosperity is going to be created and so on.
Of course, absolutely zero of that ever came to pass.
And how, you know, you feel, you kind of feel like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football.
You know, when does Charlie Brown smarten up?
When do we Canadian taxpayers smarten up and realize that these groups do not have our best interests at heart?
Mind you, they're doing very well financially for their own, their own, you know, their pockets are being lined very, very substantially.
When do we smarten up and realize that these promises that have been made for years and years and years by, and we see it around the world.
It's not just in Canada, but in Canada, like I say, we have this example in Ontario where none of the commitments, none of the promises ever came to pass.
Pandemic Lockdown's Surprising Impact00:10:51
In fact, major damage was done to average Ontarians, average taxpayers, and we're starting to see it nationally with the carbon tax, of course, has hurt, you know, for a government that says it wants to support the middle class, it's hurt the middle class badly.
And these things that they're proposing now to unfold in the future, supposedly to get us out of our pandemic slump, will not only not get us out of the pandemic slump, but worsen the situation and hurt the businesses that actually do contribute to Canada's bottom line.
Yeah, it's so absurd to focus on greenhouse gas emissions as if that's in the top 20 list of concerns for ordinary Canadians.
I predict that when the measurements are in in a year or so, we'll see that the pandemic lockdown actually had the greatest diminishment of global warming gases, greenhouse gases, in maybe ever, because no one was driving, factories were shut down, no one was working, the economy ground to a halt, more than a million Canadians thrown out of work.
It's what the left calls degrowth.
Even population, immigration was halted.
So that's the kind of extreme catastrophic shock to our modern industrial commercial life needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
So it's simply impossible to grow the economy, get people back to work and be happy again without emissions rising.
So my point is having Gerald Butz or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in charge of a recovery, they don't want a recovery.
They don't believe in the concept of growth because growth means more energy use.
And they actually like the lockdown because it's a form of deindustrialization.
What do you think of that?
Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of truth there, sadly.
And yes, I think if people really do want to see what decarbonization looks like, let's see what we've endured over the last few months with the pandemic, where tons of people have suffered horribly.
Granted, not the butts and their gang, not public sector workers either, of course, because they've all continued to make exactly the same money for not working as they would have if they actually were working free paid vacations for the government sector.
They've loved elastic.
It's really laughable in a sick kind of way.
But you know, Ezra, I think also one thing that should be said is that this whole climate debate has been presented as such a polarized, you're either on or you're off.
You know, there's no middle ground.
And I think this is something that this group that I'm with, the CCMBC, wants to get across: is that there are ways to do very sensible things for the climate, in fact, much more sensible than the radical greenies would like to implement without impoverishing everybody else.
And I think this is an important consideration.
It doesn't mean you're saying there aren't issues that we should deal with with the climate.
Of course, there are.
And frankly, there probably always have been.
But we can do that at much less cost and difficulty imposed on everyone else than has been the case to date.
And the Green Energy Act Ontario is a classic example for the cost that, and that government, that Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty at the time, signed 40-year contracts.
There were 40-year contracts.
How absurd.
Tying the hands of governments for the foreseeable future.
That kind of thing should be illegal, in my opinion.
But the amount of economic loss, job loss, difficulty, imposition of unnecessarily high costs for things like hydro, which nobody can really live without in this country, on average people.
There have been studies that have shown the same environmental benefits, which were there, to be fair, but they weren't massive.
The same environmental benefits could have been achieved at about one-tenth of the cost.
So that's the kind of solutions that we're looking at: sensible solutions, not shutting down the economy, not alienating businesses and investment that create wealth, create tax dollars, and create jobs in Canada, but rather, you know, having a middle ground where, yes, you're doing some sensible things that actually accomplish something for the environment, but at a cost that is sustainable for our country and our economy.
I think I'm more conservative than you on that.
I don't think that carbon emissions are actually a problem.
I believe in fighting real pollution, particulate pollution.
I want clean air, clean water, clean soil, but carbon dioxide itself, I think, is the stuff of life.
But let's set that aside for a second.
And I don't disagree with you there, Ezra, because I was referring to it writ large.
You know, yes, we do have an issue with plastics in our waterways.
But again, that's a problem in China and India and Africa.
Well, precisely.
It's not Canada that is doing most of this either.
And that's a whole other element of this debate: why are we the masochists of the world in Canada, you know, punishing ourselves mightily for things that, frankly, we can't even influence very much.
Well, Trudeau is the king of richer signaling.
Now, I have in my hand here your plan for Canadians for responsible recovery, and you've got six key points, and I want to whip through them.
Let me read the title of each of these six to you, and you give me a one-sentence explanation.
So I want to be able to get through all six.
So these will be short snappers.
Your first one is we have to curtail public spending, not expand it.
Give me a sound bite on that.
Well, frankly, the fact that that should even need explanation is true, though, would read it.
Okay, the second point, we have to move away from arbitrary emission reduction targets.
That's the same thing.
I mean, it's just not the priority now.
No, and not only that, but again, and a lot of this gets down to believing in fantasy land or believing in facts.
Every single International Climate Accord has had targets that were never met by anybody.
At what point do we say this is not going to happen?
Why do we adopt these things?
And it's not just Canada, again, it's other countries as well, agree to these things and then never achieve them.
Why don't we do something real that's measurable and actually accomplished instead of these foolish things that aren't achievable?
And yet, at least in Canada, we're implementing policies that hurt people, supposedly in the name of things like the Paris Accord.
Point three, we have to get back to work.
We cannot continue to live with an economic lockdown.
Are you worried about a second wave of lockdowns in Canada?
Yeah, very much so.
Very much so.
And again, we have seen governments spend tons of our money that is going to at some point have to be paid back in the future by future generations.
I mean, this is a horrendous situation for, I mean, I'm not young anymore, so I won't probably have to deal with this very much, but our kids and our grandkids and on and on are going to have to deal with this.
So yes, another lockdown, I think, would be inexcusable.
And we're looking at international examples like Sweden, which certainly did have some relatively high death rates, but they didn't shut down their economy.
And now, several months later, we're seeing that their actual experience with the pandemic isn't that different from other countries.
But because they didn't shut down their economy, they didn't have that horrendous economic mess to try to clean up.
Well, not just economic mess.
When you shut down the economy, you have other illnesses that are not treated, depression that's created.
Point four, we have to reduce the regulatory burden on work.
That's pretty clear.
Point five, Canada must ensure that the critical supply chain items are manufactured in Canada.
What do you mean by that?
Well, that gets to the whole personal protective equipment and other related matters that we saw how vulnerable Canada was.
And we had, of course, government departments and agencies that were supposedly taking care of this.
And remember, early on in the pandemic, Ezra, you remember we had chief health officials in Ottawa telling us, oh, we dealt with SARS.
So we're really ready for this.
Of course, it was a total baloney.
We're not.
So let's not put ourselves in that position again is what that's all about.
And the sixth point in your plan is Canadians should acknowledge the contribution of our resource sector to our Canadian economy and celebrate it.
I'm worried because I heard Christopher Freeland talk about decarbonizing the economy.
You can't have any mining, oil and gas, petrochemicals, plastics.
Even forestry is so many outdoor, even agriculture are energy intensive.
I'm worried that they're going to go for that virtue signal globally and kill our key resource industries.
Yeah, a lot of people are worried about that.
And I think a lot of people don't realize in Canada that aren't that close to it, perhaps, how much our economy is heavily dependent on that.
And frankly, we see other countries around the world.
I love how some of the green acolytes like to talk about countries like Norway, who are doing some very good things on the social policy front, but are exploiting their oil resources like nobody's business.
You know, why, again, why are we in Canada trying to punish ourselves?
Our God-given wealth that we have of natural resources in Canada, why are we not sensibly using that to our advantage?
And it blows your mind.
But I think another point, too, is that some people in various parts of the country think, oh, this is Alberta's problem, or maybe a little bit Saskatchewan's problem.
No, it is the whole country's problem.
So many manufacturers and other businesses are heavily dependent on what happens in our resource sector.
It affects jobs in Ontario.
We saw in Newfoundland with that Husky project that recently has been postponed and possibly canceled.
Newfoundland, horribly affected by what's happening in the resource sector in Canada as well.
So nobody is exempt here.
And to not take advantage in a sensible way of the wealth that we have been given in resources is pure foolishness and will beggar a lot of Canada.
Why Judges Aren't Politically Accountable00:01:44
Yeah.
Well, great to talk with you today, Catherine Schwift.
Nice to see you again.
Thanks for spending so much time with us.
My pleasure, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
The website, if you want to look at these six points and learn more, is responsiblerecovery.ca.
Stay with us.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's...
Stephen writes, Democrats don't want a new judge appointed until after a new president is elected because they say it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish.
The Republicans want to appoint one now because it's in their constitution and that's how you run a country.
Yeah, this make-a-wish foundation idea, that's not how it works.
I don't even know if I believe that.
Her last wish was, really, I'm not quite sure if that's true.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed to be against other kooky ideas on the far left, like packing the court as in adding, you know, four, five, six new judges, all Democrats.
I'm not sure if she was in this unconstitutional campaign that the Democrats are in now.
Gandor writes, the elephant in the room there is that judges are politically biased.
Their compass must be the law, not political opinion.
Well, I think our judges up here in Canada are just as biased, even more so.
They're political, just like they are down there.
They're just not politically accountable.
We don't have nomination hearings in Canada, and it's almost never that a judge is withdrawn after being proposed.
It happens in the United States all the time.
The American system is atrocious, but if you can believe it, ours is worse.