Ezra Levant compares Canada’s COVID-19 lockdowns—universal stay-at-home orders, mandatory masks, and $20B in mismanaged relief—to the War Measures Act, FLQ martial law, and Japanese internment, calling them the most sweeping civil liberties violations since WWII. A Danish study on mask inefficacy was ignored, while governments and media, except John Carpe’s Justice Center, prioritized lockdowns over broader freedoms like police funding. Justice Minister Madhu Madu (Casey Madieu) defends Calgary’s $20M police budget, dismissing defunding critics as radical, yet faces NDP opposition despite minority support. Levant contrasts Madu’s media engagement with Scheer’s perceived weakness and hopes O’Toole will push back harder, framing the debate as a clash between conservative principles and unchecked state power. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through, I don't know, half a dozen headlines, any one of which is depressing.
Taken together, it makes me think of that novel.
It was the best of times, it's the worst of times.
I'm trying to think of how it's the best of times.
My God, it is the worst of times when it comes to civil liberties in this country.
I'll take you through it.
Hey, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's eight bucks a month.
Why would you do that when the podcast is free?
Well, becoming a Rebel News Plus subscriber, you get the video version of this podcast, plus access to Sheila Gunrid and David Menzies' weekly shows.
Plus, maybe most importantly, you support Rebel News.
We don't take any dough from Trudeau like the other guys.
So just go to RebelNews.com and click subscribe.
$8 a month, $80 for the whole year.
And Bob's your uncle.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, these perpetual lockdowns are the biggest violation of our civil liberties since the War Measures Act, maybe since Japanese internment.
It's November 19th, 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 house is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Did you see this clip a few months back from Bill Barr, Trump's Attorney General?
Putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest.
It's, you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.
Oh boy, the left was freaked out by that.
And I'm not sure why.
He didn't say it was worse than slavery or the same as slavery.
He said slavery was the one thing that was worse than these lockdowns when it comes to civil liberties violations.
The left went nuts anyways.
They were claiming he said the opposite of what he said, but he didn't.
He said it was worse than any other intrusion besides that.
And if you disagree with him, can you please tell me what you think was worse than these lockdowns?
I mean, people are being put under effective house arrest.
They're compelled to wear restraints on their faces.
Their businesses are being forcibly shut down.
Healthy people are being put into quarantine.
Once upon a time, we only did that to sick people.
Schools are being shut down.
Hospitals are being emptied out of other patients to make room for a surge that never comes of COVID patients.
And all of this done on a false promise of two weeks to flatten the curve.
And now we're coming up on a full year of this.
So yeah, can you name for me a bigger intrusion on our civil liberties other than slavery?
You could say conscription, military conscription, which both Canada and the United States used to have, but now don't.
In Canada, you could point to the War Measures Act and how Quebec was actually put under martial law, soldiers in the streets and all that.
I'd say that's comparable, but it was only in Quebec.
And there really was a terrorist group afoot bombing mailboxes and kidnapping and murdering people.
I'm talking about the far left-wing Front de Libération de Quebec, the FLQ.
That martial law started in mid-October.
It was why we call it the October crisis.
And the last troops were withdrawn from the streets of Quebec in January.
So it was just over two months.
And it was when there were real terrorist insurrections afoot.
So they didn't keep it going after the crisis was over.
When do you think will be done all of these lockdowns?
Intrudeau's request for companies to pitch quarantine facilities to public works.
Remember that RFI document?
He asks companies to plan for a two-year quarantine.
So yeah, the October crisis, maybe Japanese internment.
I'd say those were the only comparable civil liberties intrusions in Canada in a century.
The October crisis was just one province for a couple months.
The Japanese internment was mainly in one province to a small minority of people.
It was terrible and unjust.
Of course, don't get me wrong.
I'll make the Bill Barr comment.
It was worse than the lockdown.
It was full-out imprisonment, but for a sliver of the population.
The excuse being the war with Japan.
It was wrong, but it was limited.
This lockdown applies to everybody, sick or healthy, young or old.
The young don't actually get this disease in a serious way.
And if they do, it's not deadly.
Last I checked, it was just a single fatality under age 20 in all of Canada to have died from it.
Let me know if there has been a second case.
So that's out of 10 million people in that age group.
If you're over 80, be concerned about this virus.
You bet.
If you're over 80 and your kids shoved you into a senior's home with a do not revive message, yes.
I would be very, very concerned then.
For everyone else, statistically speaking, it's actually no worse than the annual flu.
In fact, I'm starting to wonder if it is just the flu.
Look at this.
The CBC reports that there have been only 17 cases of the flu in all of Canada this season.
Not 17,000, just 17.
Huh?
But there are so many cases of the pandemic virus.
Hang on.
So the flu virus just magically disappeared this year.
Only 17 in the whole country.
But we've got thousands and thousands of cases of COVID-19 that just happen to have identical symptoms.
Coughing, sneezing, fever.
Do you think, and I know this is crazy talk, do you think that maybe they're just calling the flu cases COVID cases?
Covid Deaths Discrepancy00:05:09
Do you think they might do that?
I don't know.
Here's a story out of the United Kingdom where a man fell off a ladder and died.
But they later found traces of the virus in him.
So they call that a COVID death.
So that's the quality of statistical reporting you're getting.
So it's the greatest violation of our civil liberties in at least 50 years since the October crisis, the FLQ crisis, perhaps since the Japanese internment, which is what, 80 years ago now.
You know, I'm a donor to the Liberal Canadian Civil Liberties Association for some reason that I can't even remember.
And I just got a fundraising letter from them yesterday in the mail.
And you know what they think is the number one civil liberties crisis in Canada today?
Well, they're fighting for the right to wear the Muslim hijab and niqab in the public sector, in the public service of Quebec.
They're fighting against the secularism law in Quebec that says you can't mix mosque and state.
That's the Civil Liberties Association big push right now.
That's their big project.
That's what their number one issue is.
That's what the fundraiser was all about.
I'm bringing that up.
I think, come to think of it, maybe I should stop donating to them.
What am I doing?
But look at what's coming.
Do you know every morning we have an email service?
Every morning we can send you straight to your email box not only our most interesting video the previous day, but also a scan of interesting headlines from other newspapers and media companies.
I literally use it to start my day.
You can sign up right on our website too.
We call it Rebel Buzz and it's free and you can unsubscribe anytime.
Anyways, let me show you a few of the stories from this morning's Rebel Buzz.
I find it terrifying.
Here's one in the Globe and Mail.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his cabinet is meeting Thursday to decide on potentially sweeping new COVID-19 restrictions for Toronto and the neighboring regions of York and Peel, warning of a possible lockdown.
Not a lockdown for him, of course.
I mean, Doug Ford loves going to weddings without a mask or social distancing.
The lockdown is just for you.
It's not for the ruling class.
Here's another one.
Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health Medical Officer of Health is urging residents to not visit homes or allow visitors into their homes.
Oh, yeah, so solitary confinement.
Do you think they're going to obey that don't visit people rule themselves?
I mean, the ruling class.
Do you think they'll follow their own rule on that?
Here's another one from Global News.
British Columbia is set to impose province-wide travel restrictions on Thursday.
Hang on, hang on.
Their Premier, John Horgan, the NDP leader, just last month had an election.
It wasn't scheduled.
He called it as a snap election because he saw the polls and he sensed he could make some political gains.
And he was right.
So he made the province go through an election.
That was okay.
But choosing to travel in your own province for you, the little people, that's against the law, don't you know?
Here's another one from the Globe and Mail.
Premier John Horgan says he will lobby Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to work with the provinces on developing a national travel plan to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Got it.
So the guys who fly in private jets will meet to talk about putting the rest of us under lockdown by restricting already restricted airlines.
Oh, and goodbye to Air Canada and WestJet.
Nice having those jobs while they lasted.
Here's the Edmonton Journal.
Alberta's chief medical officer of health is asking police chiefs across the province to help enforce new COVID-19 measures.
Hang on, is that how it works?
An unelected, unaccountable public health bureaucrat can direct actual police with guns to enforce her health dictums now.
Is that how it works in democracies?
And that's under Jason Kenney.
But still, it's not enough for the opposition.
Here's a story about Rachel Notley, the leader of the NDP opposition, called on Jason Kenney's UCP government to implement a mandatory mask policy for all public indoor spaces in all enhanced list regions.
Again, do you think she complies with that rule when the cameras aren't looking?
Oh, by the way, talking of masks, there's been a massive new scientific peer-reviewed study out of Denmark showing that there's no evidence that masks work to stop the virus.
In fact, it raises questions about whether masks actually make it worse.
I read the whole study myself, but I couldn't find it covered in the mainstream media.
Have you?
I think it's the biggest study, peer-reviewed, professional, real doctors, not politicians or pundits.
Why wouldn't that lead the news?
Even just to talk about it, if there's a flaw with the study, fine, let's hear it.
But wouldn't you at least mention it?
Here's another story.
UConn prepares to impose new quarantine rules.
The UConn?
Have you ever been up there?
Masks and Media Silence00:03:26
I have.
Oh, it's so pretty.
It's one of the least dense places in Canada.
It's so sparsely populated, and you're going to lock them down a bit, are you?
That's not science, that's politics.
Another story from the state broadcaster.
Quick discharges, surgery delays in Ontario as COVID-19 puts stress on hospital system.
Oh, you mean so cancer surgery and heart surgery and screenings for real disease that are leading the leading causes of death.
I mean, that's cancer, that's strokes, that's heart disease.
Yeah, get rid of that unimportant stuff because we have some sexy COVID cases, but at least people are getting rich off it.
I mean, some people, look at this story from Black Locks.
Canada Revenue Agency records suggest billions in pandemic relief was paid to ineligible claimants.
So nearly a million people got two grand a month and they didn't qualify, but they got it anyways.
Oh, well, you know, a billion here, a billion there.
Pretty soon you're talking real money, but it's not about the money, at least not mainly.
It's that we're all being put through the biggest civil liberties intrusion of our lives, and it's practically unanimous amongst all the important people, amongst the establishment.
They think this is great.
They're loving it.
The governments and the opposition parties.
Tell me what Aaron O'Toole of the Conservative Party has opposed, other than some of the spending, but certainly he supports most of it.
Has he opposed anything here?
Tell me what civil liberties he's defended, or the so-called conservative Brian Pallister of Manitoba, or Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, or the worst of all, Doug Ford.
And the media, they're unanimous.
They're the enforcers.
And the civil liberties groups, other than John Carpe's Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, civil liberties groups are silent.
They want to talk about forcing hijabs back into the secular civil service at Quebec.
This is the worst of times.
And I think as the months proceed and as it becomes increasingly apparent that the masters of the universe intend to make this crisis permanent, I think our job here at Rebel News should evolve to take a growing role in opposing this destruction of our liberties and our life.
Don't you think so?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, I can't turn on the TV or open a newspaper without seeing another hey geography of Kamala Harris for being the first African-American vice president.
It's a bit of a stretch.
Of course, there was an African-American president for two terms called Barack Obama, but the media party wants to show you just how open and diverse the Democrats are.
And I'm talking about Canada's media party.
They're obsessed with Kamala Harris.
They spend their time talking about her, but it's odd that they never talk about the first justice minister in Canada who is black.
And I think the reason why they prefer to talk about a U.S. politician rather than a Canadian politician is because Kamala Harris is a far left-wing Democrat, whereas Casey Medieu is a conservative member of Jason Kenney's cabinet.
Casey Madieu's Take00:13:20
And he just might be the best justice minister in Canada, which is another reason you haven't heard about him.
Joining us now from the legislature is our friend Sheila Gonread, who had a one-on-one interview with the man himself today.
Sheila, how you doing out there?
I'm doing great, Ezra.
You know what?
Casey Madieu, I judge him based on the merits.
I think he's ideologically strong.
He's politically successful.
He beat the NDP in their base of Edmonton.
He's rolled back some of the stupider rules of the NDP.
He's even rolled back some of the stupider rules of that red Tory Doug Schweitzer, who was inexplicably made justice minister for a year there.
So I like him based on the merits.
But if I were a leftist, I'd be talking about how he breaks down glass ceilings and he's proof of diversity.
Yeah, he is those things.
I tend to value him for the fact that he's good, not that he's black, but I'm just pointing out that that's not how the liberals do it.
No, it's definitely not how the left looks at Casey Medieu.
Casey is, you know, he's a good news story if you are in favor of immigration.
He's a good news story if you are in favor of people, you know, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and working to become something.
Madhu is from Nigeria.
From what I understand, he worked as a dishwasher while he put himself through school.
started at the bottom, took advantage of every opportunity this country gives to people who come here who want to work hard and make something of themselves.
And now he's at the pinnacle of his career as the justice minister here in Alberta.
And you will not hear the left talk about him unless it is to be critical of him for dropping the hammer on the city of Calgary for their recent move to defund the police by $20 million.
Yeah, that's your typical white woke liberal move anyways.
Because if you're a rich white woke liberal, you probably live in a part of town that has lower crime to begin with.
You can probably afford an alarm system.
Maybe you even have private security working for you.
I find that in poorer parts of town, higher crime parts of town, sure, there's some people who don't like the police, but most law-abiding citizens generally realize police stop crimes.
They stop people getting hurt.
I noticed Kim Klasick, one of our favorite people who ran in Baltimore for the Republicans on a pro-black agenda.
She and her supporters couldn't believe this woke leftist call to depolice their community.
They want the police there.
What a dumb idea by Nahid Nenshi.
Well, yeah, and Madu is saying that, you know, if Calgary wants to proceed with this, Madu holds the purse strings for a lot of funding and grants.
And he said he'll direct those directly to the Calgary police so that they do have the resources they need to keep Calgarians safe.
And as you rightly point out, the policing deficit is not going to come in the fancy people's neighborhoods.
It is going to end up making minority neighborhoods far less safe.
That's where this always ends up.
You defund the police, and it's always the minority neighborhoods left to struggle.
It's not the fancy rich people, but in their gated communities.
They'll be fine.
Yeah.
It's so weird to me.
I mean, I live in Toronto now, but of course I grew up and went to school in Calgary and I still visit it whenever I can.
It's a conservative city, perhaps the most conservative city in Canada.
The idea that its politicians would be so out of touch to think that they should just copycat some U.S. wacko idea, a wacko idea that a large number of Democrats are saying, why did we even go there?
We lost so much support.
Even Bill Maher, who's an open-minded leftist, one of the few of them on HBO the other day was saying that defund the police thing killed the Democrats.
All this woke stuff killed the Democrats, especially in minority communities.
I mean, it was remarkable to me.
And the whole Black Lives Matter police, anti-police thing, that is not a Canadian story.
We didn't have slavery.
We had nothing like their Jim Crow laws.
We were the destination of the Underground Railroad.
And it's just so upside down for this pantomime, this play acting in city councils in Canada, especially Calgary and them to defund police.
It's nuts.
You know what?
Remind me though, that in in Canada, cities don't have constitutional jurisdiction.
There's the feds and the provinces.
Provinces run the cities constitutionally.
So Casey Medieu could literally do anything he wants in Calgary if it came down to it.
I mean, obviously he would want to respect the local democracy, but he, at the end of the day, he holds the hammer.
He can say yes or no to actually anything in the city.
I don't know if that's well known, but the Constitution gives the, the premier of the province, the right to overrule anything in the city.
Well, and I asked Casey that directly, I said, you know Calgary is making this move to cut 20 million dollars from their policing budget.
I mean that number is just enormous.
But I asked him, you know where is this coming from?
What are you hearing from Calgarians?
Because it's one thing for politicians to do this.
Are Calgarians asking the politicians to do this?
And he said he's heard overwhelmingly from Calgarians saying this is the last thing we want.
And Madu uses the language that you know, like you and I use, to describe these people.
You called them wackos, but he says it's, you know, socialist activists who don't understand the rule of law.
Those are the ones asking for this.
And Medu said, it doesn't matter where you come from if most normal people in Calgary want to make sure that their police force has the resources they need to keep Calgarians safe.
Yeah well um, I want to.
I don't want to let out all the air from the balloon uh of your story people to watch your story, but here's a quick sneak preview clip of your interview with uh, justice minister Casey Madu.
One of the other things on your radar right now is this move, I think in North America, to defund the police.
Calgary has decided to strip 20 million dollars out of their police budget.
Um, you've said it's been motivated by activists and socialists who don't understand the meaning of the rule of law.
How do you know that?
Are you hearing that from Calgarians?
There is no question in my mind that that you will not find a balanced citizen who would want to pick on the men and women who do so much to keep us and our communities safe at this point in time in our history.
We need more resources to strengthen law enforcement, not take away resources from them.
That is what is needed, and the idea that anyone out there will call for defunding the police when we need more money to law enforcement.
There's no better way to describe them other than radical activists.
Well, I really like Casey Madu, and I say again, I like him because he's tough and he's conservative and he calls out the bs of the left.
The fact that he happens to be black to me is a bonus, because it throws in the face of the left their own racial stereotypes.
The fact that they're outraged By him, that a black man can be a conservative.
There's a certain racism on the left that expects blacks or other minorities to be on the left, and it certainly is exposed.
Sheila, I want to remind you that during the Alberta election, we had our lawn signs everywhere, our rebel lawn signs promoting your books.
And Casey Madhu stood in front of one of those lawn signs, which I loved.
And the NDP called him a, I know, you know, I'm going to believe it.
They called him a white supremacist.
I'm not even kidding.
I know, I know.
It's, you know, the NDP are, they're ridiculous.
Madhu made an announcement today.
And again, I don't want to let all the air out of my story, but he made an announcement today that, you know, some people are going to be against, but, you know, he took a constitutional approach to the announcement that he made today.
And he got support from minority communities for his announcement today.
And it's something that has been in front of the NDP for four years when the NDP were in power.
And they didn't do it.
They didn't do any of it.
And so he took it upon himself today.
He said, in somewhat of an act of reconciliation with minority communities to do, to, I guess, right a bit of a wrong in his opinion.
And the NDP, I guarantee you, are going to actively oppose it.
Why?
Because a conservative brought it forward.
Yeah.
Well, I like what he's doing.
I'm very glad that you had the exclusive interview with him.
I want to encourage our viewers, not just from Alberta, but from other places, to watch it too.
I also like the fact that the Justice Minister of Alberta is doing interviews with the chief reporter of Rebel News, and that's how it ought to be.
And I think that's a sign of character also, because too many conservatives in Canada are afraid that the CBC will be mean to them if they talk about truly conservative issues or with truly conservative people.
And by talking with you, Sheila, and by the way, I like talking with you.
You're a very pleasant person to talk with.
It's, you know, you're not mean, you're not gruff, you're polite, you're professional.
Any conservative politician that wouldn't give you an interview, shame on them.
It goes, I mean, it's ridiculous.
There's no excuse for it, but it goes to their lack of courage.
Andrew Scheer lacked courage.
And so for the Justice Minister of Alberta to give you an exclusive interview, it ought to be normal.
But in these crazy times of cancel culture, it's not normal.
So congratulations to him for showing courage.
Well, and if you're a conservative in Alberta, you really should be more scared of me than you should be of Rosie Barton.
Because, you know, I think here at Rebel News, we move the needle as far as conservative opinion goes.
We're the mainstream here in Alberta.
And again, kudos to the Justice Minister for not being scared of me and being willing to speak directly to our rebel viewers who are UCP supporters and voters.
Right on.
Sheila Gunreed, chief reporter.
Keep it up.
Great to talk with you.
Thanks, Boston.
All right, right on.
Well, there you have it, one of our favorite people, Sheila Gun Reed.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
I'm a show last night.
Samai writes, Scheer always was and still is just another Trudeau.
No, at least Trudeau has style and panache and charisma.
What did Andrew Scheer have?
I'm still trying to figure that out.
Dimples, we'll give him that.
GW writes, what you should do is get down in the dirt with the liberals and dippers.
You need to fight fire with fire.
You're never going to win anything by showing that you're tough on your own party members.
Well, listen, be tough on people of any party if they did something wrong.
But Andrew Scheer had this weird math.
He thought, if I disparage true conservatives and make enemies out of my friends, maybe I can make friends out of my enemies.
And I don't think that has ever worked since the dawn of time.
Robert writes, Andrew Scheer is why I won't renew my membership when it expires.
Well, I think that's an outdated reason.
There's a new leader now, Aaron O'Toole.
And look, I'm hoping for the best.
I want the guy to succeed.
I'm just waiting for him to kick in.
Listen, the Andrew Scheer thing, it's a symbolic point.
But really, I want Aaron O'Toole to stand up to the civil liberties violations in this country.
I haven't quite seen that yet.
That's the show for today until tomorrow.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.