Ezra Levant exposes Ontario’s baffling COVID policies: strip clubs like Fillmores reopen with vaccine passports and masks, while schools stay closed amid child vaccination debates. He contrasts Alberta’s Bachelorette exemption with pastor Arthur Pavlovsky’s raids and Ocean Weisblad’s police assault for skating in an open rink, plus Prince Albert’s $14K church fine during a casino reopening. Levant warns vaccine passports risk social control—comparing them to proof of STDs—and criticizes private businesses and schools (e.g., Seneca College) enforcing discriminatory rules despite Ontario’s Human Rights Act exemptions. With Florida’s Ron DeSantis banning them entirely, Levant vows legal battles, citing past wins against airport detentions and Saskatchewan’s anti-gathering laws, while his book Libranos surges in sales amid political backlash. [Automatically generated summary]
The schools remain closed, and it's not certain they're going to open even in September, but the strip clubs are opening.
How can you tell that politicians are making these decisions?
I'll talk a little bit about that.
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Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, Ontario's strip clubs are set to open, but their schools are still in doubt.
It's July 14th, 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 the government go by house is because it's my bloody right to do so.
You can tell a lot about society's values these days in the lockdown.
Early this year, when Alberta was under a bitter lockdown, when Christian churches were being raided and expropriated, and pastors were being jailed, Alberta granted an exemption to The Bachelorette.
It's a TV show to do their production at a resort in Jasper, the famous Jasper Park Lodge.
I don't know if you're familiar with The Bachelorette, but it's a dating show.
One woman, 25 guys, so a series of dates, weeding out the men until there are just a few left.
And then there's a final decision in case you're in any doubt.
There's lots of what the Brits called snogging.
So yeah.
So Arthur Pavlovsky, the pastor, was arrested in a highway takedown by a SWAT team for having people at his church.
But a few hours up the highway, a cast and crew of twice the size of his whole congregation were, shall we say, violating social distancing rules.
And no problem.
Ocean Weisblad, a kid in Calgary, was assaulted by police, sworn at, attacked, threatened with a tasering for being in an outdoor skating rink that was actually officially open by the city.
That was illegal, you see.
But the NHL and their whole entourage, they're not just open for practice and to play games, but they could actually go to whatever restaurant they chose, and that restaurant could magically open up just for them and their entourage.
That was legal.
Well, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the casino was open up there.
No problem.
There was a coronavirus outbreak at the casino, apparently, but they shut down the church in town and gave it a $14,000 fine.
We fought that for them and we won.
The fine was dropped.
So yeah, priorities.
No one has been more shrill about lockdowns since Trudeau's CBC State broadcaster, but the president of the CBC, Catherine Tate, has actually been commuting weekly from her home in New York City.
Obviously, she doesn't quarantine for two weeks for her weekly jet flight.
She's exempt.
Which brings us to today's news in the Toronto Sun.
Fillmores says, no vaccine, no entry, as strip clubs set to reopen.
Fillmores is a strip club in Toronto and it's being closed like other things have been closed in this province.
Restaurants have been closed, still are.
One of the last places in North America where that's true.
So these strip clubs are going to open, maybe.
Restaurants are going to open, maybe.
I mean, I bet the strip clubs have a lot of politicians as clients.
You'd think the restaurants would too, but no luck yet.
As you can see in that photo in the sun, the sign on the strip club says, masks on, clothes off.
That's pretty funny, actually, but it shows just how insane this all is.
It's not about a virus anymore.
You may not know this, but strip clubs sometimes involve sex.
Bodily fluids, the occasional stripper does more than just strip.
Imagine thinking that the leading health risk in such a club is something that a mask would stop.
But they're not just insisting on a mask.
Looks like they're insisting that you get vaxed.
Let me read.
Anyone wanting to enter the iconic Fillmore Strip Club on Dundas Street will need proof of vaccination before they can get up close and personal with a dancer.
We want our staff to be safe.
We were the first industry shut down and the last reopened, said Fillmore's entertainment manager Casper Cameron on Tuesday.
Fillmore's isn't the only club taking this approach, added Cameron, who noted that he has been in conversation with the owners and managers of all the other clubs in Toronto, and they will adopt the same approach when they reopen on Friday.
We're going to make it mandatory that customers have at least one dose.
Yeah, I'm not sure if the coronavirus is the most worrisome disease at a strip club, to be honest.
Dancers will perform on stage, but lap dances will not be allowed.
Something Cameron said was ridiculous, noting that massage parlors and sex clubs are reopening without restrictions.
Now, I'm not going to read any more about Toronto's sex trade to you other than to note the absurdity of demanding inoculation for the coronavirus that spread through coughing, not through sex.
But it raises the question, would a strip club demand that customers prove they don't have a sexually transmitted disease?
How about if they demanded proof that customers don't have AIDS?
AIDS is far more deadly than the coronavirus.
About 4 million people have died in the entire world from coronavirus, COVID-19.
And of course, in North American Europe, the vast majority of them are senior citizens in their 80s.
Not exactly the strip club regular crowd.
Now compare that with AIDS.
According to the United Nations, 36 million people have died from AIDS, many times more than have died from COVID-19, and it's often sexually transmitted.
So seriously, why wouldn't a strip club demand to know if you've had AIDS, if you haven't now, if you've been taking an experimental vaccine?
There are experimental AIDS vaccines, just like there are experimental COVID vaccines.
None of the COVID vaccines have finished being tested, but do you see my point?
Can you imagine demanding to know if someone has AIDS or is vaxed?
And AIDS is relevant to a sex club, I think, but vaccine passports are being demanded for any business anywhere for the coronavirus.
Since when is it anyone's right to demand your private information like that to walk into a bar, restaurant, store, gym, whatever, if you're healthy, if you're healthy, if you're not a risk to others, why should any bouncer or clerk be able to ask you such invasive personal questions?
The reason I choose the strip club story is because it's in the newspaper today and it's sort of funny, but also because while it's set to open, let me tell you what, in Ontario, the schools are not yet set to open.
They might, but they might not.
They, you know, the question is not settled yet.
Because you see, they're not as important as NHL teams or Hollywood Productions and they're definitely not as important as lap dances at strip clubs.
In fact, the mad priest, Anthony Fauci, he says we have to hit kids the hardest, even children of tender years, who have effectively a zero chance of serious illness from the virus.
Did you see this?
The children who are not able to get vaccinated because of their age should follow, their parents should follow with them, the guidelines of the CDC that unvaccinated children of a certain age greater than two years old should be wearing masks.
No doubt about that.
That's the way to protect them from getting infected because if they do, they can then spread the infection to someone else.
So the CDC guidelines for unvaccinated people, including children, are not changed at all.
We are currently doing, we being the federal government together in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies, age de-escalation studies, namely looking at the safety and the immunogenicity of vaccines in children from 12 to 9 years old, then from nine to six, then from six to two years old, and then ultimately from six months to two years old.
Those data will likely be available by the end of the year, and then it will be up to the FDA to decide when they will make a recommendation that in fact this could be done in the sense of vaccinating children of that age.
He's mad.
He's a wizard.
He's a priest.
He's not a mad scientist.
Science is about observing facts, of testing hypotheses.
Fauci and his disciples are occult now who don't want to hear any information that contradicts their theories.
They take it on faith now.
They're tyrants who demand obedience now.
Science doesn't demand obedience.
It rewards skepticism.
There is no science behind masks in schools other than the science that it harms children.
That's the only scientific proof.
But really, at this point, it's not even certain that kids will be allowed back in schools in Ontario masks or not.
I know not all parts of Canada are that insane, but what I've learned over the last year and a half is that it's the worst ideas that get passed around.
It's a race to the bottom.
Politicians say, well, if he's doing it, I better do it too.
And the media ensures it.
The courts ensure it.
You know, there's been so many court challenges.
We've funded a few of them.
Not a single anti-lockdown court case has been successful in Canada in any meaningful way.
The worst ideas are being embraced by every powerful element of society.
And as surely as night follows day, when the flu season returns this fall, the lockdowns will return with it.
But hey, you can always go to the strip club if your mask is on, because that's what's important, right?
Stay with us for more.
Hey, I've got a question for you about vaccine passports.
If vaccines work, why do you need one?
Because everyone who wants one has got a vaccine.
If vaccines don't work, why do you need one?
Because they don't work in any event.
I put it to you that vaccine passports make no logical sense in terms of dealing with an illness or a pandemic, which, by the way, is subsiding.
But vaccine passports make a lot of sense if the issue is both control, controlling citizens, regulating them like a Chinese-style social credit system, and psychologically, it's a club.
Just like people can't wait to tell you that they're on a gluten-free diet or they're vegan, saying you're vaccinated is a new status symbol and a way to scold people.
Well, you can't scold people if you don't know who isn't vaxed.
So the court code, the card rather, is essential.
It's like airline loyalty programs.
Air Canada, they have something called the elite.
But there's also the super elite.
And the top is the super elite 100 cane.
It's not just about being in, it's about who's being out.
And I put it to you that vaccine passports are about people deciding who's in and who's out.
Joining us now by Skype is our friend Andrew Lawton of TNC.news.
His new article is called Jason Kenney Vows to Not Cooperate with Feds on Vaccine Passports.
Andrew, great to see you again.
Likewise, thanks for having me.
Oh, well, it's our pleasure.
I understand that just today, Justin Trudeau says that he's going to leave it to the provinces to have vaccine passports.
And we heard from Jason Kenney that he's going to leave it to companies and schools and other entities to have vaccine passports.
I think that means we're going to have an enormous number of vaccine passports.
Anyone's going to get into the business.
Privacy, medical secrecy, your private matters will now be something that any person, any company, any school, any employer will demand to know your intimate information.
In a way, it's worse than if the government were involved because now any Tom Dick and Harry can ask you personal private questions and deny you service and discriminate based on that.
That's a working theory I have.
What do you think?
Yeah, the guy selling you the Used Dining Room set on Kijiji can say, I need to see your proof of vaccination first.
There are really two issues here that I see.
Number one is the forced disclosure of medical information.
And again, I'm a firm believer in the fact that people can make their own medical choices and they can decide they want other people to know or they can decide to keep those privately.
It doesn't matter if you may be comfortable or someone else may be comfortable sharing their decision on this.
No one should be forced to, which is really the underlying premise of a vaccine passport.
The other one is the stratification of society.
You mentioned the in-club or the out-club when it comes to vaccination.
There's a significant risk here that certain facets of society, of civil society, like going to a concert, going to a movie, going to school, we'll talk about this in a moment, will be off-limits to people that have not made a particular decision that legally you are entitled to make for yourself, which is do I get a COVID vaccine or do I not?
Good Life Fitness Today came out and said it will not require staff or members to be vaccinated.
And the backlash to them on Twitter is quite insane.
Seneca College in Ontario yesterday came out and said any student who wants to go to a class in person in the coming year will have to be vaccinated.
So we're already starting to see this.
Vaccine Passports and Discrimination00:06:02
And again, I believe private businesses are allowed to make their own decisions on things.
But the problem we have here is that a vaccine passport really encourages those decisions to be made.
And listen, Ezra, we had 16 months in which everyone was locked down, even if you were low risk.
The government said it didn't matter.
We all were in it together.
And it's interesting that now that more and more people are vaccinated, not everyone is getting to benefit from the reopening equally.
Yeah.
Let's talk about Seneca for a second.
That's a college or university in Ontario.
I'm certain it gets public money.
It's not a private institution.
So it's using government money and its prestigious position in society to say you're not allowed even to come on campus if you're not vaxed.
What about people who can't get a vaccine because of health reasons?
They're allergic to it.
They would get a health reaction to it.
What about people who are naturally immune because they had the COVID virus?
And have recovered from it.
What about people who are objectors on religious or other grounds?
There's no room for any of them.
And here's the reason I mention all this, Andrew, because I, like you, believe in property rights and liberty.
And I think that while discrimination is bad, we can't, you know, people ought to have certain rights on their property or their private business.
But Seneca is saying we're going to discriminate based on a medical issue, a private medical issue, not that you're sick, that you just didn't take this medicine.
And I haven't seen the fine print of their policy, but I don't think there's any exemptions there.
Could be wrong.
So all of a sudden, you have this discrimination in public, in private, in stores.
You're demanding knowledge about things that I think is in any other sphere illegal discrimination.
So I hear what you're saying about loving liberty and letting people make their choices.
But you're about, Seneca and other places like that are about to disenfranchise vast swaths of citizens, whole classes of citizens.
And by the way, I don't want to be racial about it, but different minority groups have a different approach to this vaccine.
For example, visible minorities are less vaccinated.
Maybe like black people, remember the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
They maybe don't trust vaccines quite as much as other folks.
I just think we're going down a whole terrible road, and people are so bloody eager to do it.
Well, Canada's disregard for acquired immunity is quite something.
Acquired immunity is one of the reasons that United States jurisdictions were able to reopen as vastly and successfully as they have because they realize that there are multiple paths to immunity.
One is a vaccine, one is acquired immunity, and so on.
And you are right to point out that when government money is involved, my view is that you should have to uphold constitutional freedoms.
And we know that post-secondary institutions are notoriously bad for this when it comes to free speech.
And clearly, they may be going down a very dark road with vaccine as well.
Now, I will say the Seneca policy will accept exemptions under human rights grounds, such as medical exemptions.
What I find interesting is that the Ontario Human Rights Act is notoriously broad.
And one of the protected grounds against discrimination in Ontario is creed.
Could your creed simply be, I don't want to get vaccinated?
Yeah.
I wonder, I think this is really bad news.
I saw, it was our own reporter, Adam Sos, who put the question to Jason Kenney that everyone picked up: will you bring in vaccine passports?
He said no.
But that's not even a good answer.
I mean, it's a better answer than yes.
But I look to Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who not only said no, but he banned anyone from doing so because the cruise ship industry, which is headquartered in Florida, wanted to have vaccine passports.
And you could see why they would want that.
But he said, we're going to fine you, I think it was thousands of dollars for every person you ask.
Well, that would destroy the cruising industry.
So they decided to not go with a vax passport.
So he didn't just say, I'm not going to do it myself.
I'm going to stop anyone else.
I am worried that you're going to have countless vax passport rules.
Every restaurant, every company, every retailer having a different standard.
And I think it's going to be invasive.
And I don't want to go to a Starbucks and have some 16-year-old barista ask me my personal health information.
The answer is none of your bloody business.
But if it's not blocked, that's going to be the norm.
I don't know.
I just feel like we're living in an era where the most deeply invasive questions are now being held up as a righteous kind of inquisition.
I just think it's gross.
Last word to you, Andrew.
Yeah, you know, I was actually in the U.S. not that long ago in a jurisdiction that had abandoned its mask mandate.
And every single business I went into had no mask requirement.
There were some individual customers and staff that still decided to wear masks, which is completely their prerogative.
If a business were to say, after a mask mandate is stripped away in Ontario, say, you know what, we're going to require masks of our customers, I would say, listen, that's fine.
You have the right to do that.
I have the right to go elsewhere.
And a mask is something very tangible.
You can see it, you're wearing it, you're not wearing it.
Vaccination is very different.
This is something that requires medical documentation to prove, which no one should have to hand over to anyone to access a service, but certainly not to your barista, to your baker, to the registrar of your university.
It is absolutely no one's business.
And the term that I used at the beginning, the stratification of society along these immunological grounds is a very dangerous turn for our country.
Yeah.
Mask Mandate Rights00:03:26
You know, I did say, Andrew, last word to you, but you know, I can't help myself.
Like, just imagine if someone said to you, hey, do you have AIDS?
Hey, do you have an AIDS vaccine?
Like, I'm really worried.
We would say, what are you saying?
Who the hell are you?
Just mind your own business.
Like, if someone started saying that, we would all get the creeps.
Andrew, keep your eyes peeled.
We've done a lot of litigation over here.
We've challenged the COVID jails at airports, hotels.
We've challenged anti-gathering laws in Saskatchewan.
I want to take a vaccine passport case.
Maybe Seneca is the one, maybe not.
But if you see a crazy example out there, please bring it to my attention because I really want to challenge the worst vaccine passport law so we can set the best precedent.
I just think we're headed into a terrible time of no privacy and no autonomy over our lives.
And I think we have to fight back.
I know you'll fight back with us journalistically.
And by the way, congratulations to TNC.news for hiring Sue Ann Levy, an outstanding columnist formerly with the Toronto Sun.
Give us one word on Sue Ann.
Yeah, Sue Ann's absolutely fantastic.
She's fearless.
She's well established.
And the politicians tend to tremble in their boots when they see her coming.
So she's a great addition to our team.
And I know she's already hit the ground running.
And we look forward to some great things from her.
Yeah, anyone in the greater Toronto area knows who she is.
And anyone who's not in the GTA, you're going to love her.
She's got such a fighting spirit.
And frankly, I think that the Toronto Sun, no disrespect to them, but I think they were putting, trying to muzzle her a bit because she was too effective and City Hall was trying to punish her a bit.
I know she won't have any of those censorship issues at TNC.news.
So yet another reason to support Andrew and his team.
The name again is Sue Ann Levy.
She's the best.
Andrew, you're the best.
And thanks for joining us today.
It's great to see you.
Anytime, Ezra.
Thank you.
All right, there you have it.
Andrew Lawton, stay with us.
Hey, welcome back.
On my show last night, Tad writes, political persecution is alive and well in Canada.
You know what got me about this letter from the election commissioner?
You can see it at the libratos.com, is he responded to my lawyer saying, look, there were 24 books.
They were all about the election.
They were all published during the election.
Some were pro, some were con.
They're all identical.
Why is my book the only one being prosecuted?
That's unfair.
And they said, well, it's true.
Everything you said is true, but we have the right to do that.
Oh, just that.
You're just sort of admitting that you're doing that.
Okay.
Good to know.
Keith writes, I think the Streisand effect just inspired me to buy a book.
Yeah, you know, it is true.
I think the Libranos is my best-selling book ever.
And I think it's partly because Trudeau wants a ban.
VI writes, Ezra, I hope you have a revised edition ready in time for the next federal election.
There's plenty more true dough wrong going to add.
You know, I'm working on another book, a new one.
I mean, it is a good idea to revise and update the old one, but I think I've got a new one that's even better.
I've got to get it done on time, though.
Oh, boy, that'll get another election complaint, won't it?
Anyways, folks, that's my show for today.
Thanks for joining in.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, Stewart Home, good night.