Ezra Levant critiques Justin Trudeau’s snap election call amid Afghanistan’s chaotic evacuation, where 300,000 Afghan troops and U.S. hardware—including Black Hawk helicopters—fell to the Taliban despite superior firepower. Rebel News, funded by 731 anonymous donors, rejects government subsidies like CBC’s $61M "emergency relief," calling it a bribe, while accusing Trudeau’s nationalized Leaders Debate Commission of hypocritical censorship, banning crowdfunded journalists like themselves. The episode ties Afghanistan’s century-long resistance to Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, questioning if foreign interventions ever change local customs, as Taliban atrocities—forced marriages, rape slavery (Bachabazi)—mirror historical patterns. Levant’s defiance underscores media’s role in holding power accountable, even as courts and leaders fail. [Automatically generated summary]
I was riveted by the scenes coming out of Afghanistan of the Taliban reconquering that entire country in hours.
You know, I recall I'm old enough to remember the Gulf War when after 9-11 when America, along with other allies, the UK in particular, and Canada had some jets, if I recall,
toppled Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, toppled Saddam Hussein in a matter of not even weeks, and it was regarded as such a military triumph, which indeed it was.
And then other wars, more wars, second Gulf War.
And I think there was a bit of ethnocentricity to think, yeah, that's just the awesome power of American and allied military money, which of course it was.
But then what do you say about the lightning fast victory by the Taliban?
Like really, really in a few days.
Was that because of technology?
I don't think it was.
As Joe Biden boasted, the Afghan army had 300,000 troops with very modern weapons, really the same weapons that Americans used, and they felt like a house of cards.
It wasn't the technology, it was the motivation, it was the belief in the cause, it was bravery and courage and standing for something.
I think it's, we'll talk more about this later in the show, but it was just stunning footage.
I actually think that is the largest story of the day.
But here in Canada, we have an election.
Yesterday, Justin Trudeau went to the Governor General.
As Canadians and Canadian supporters in Afghanistan were scrambling to get out, Trudeau thought a better use of his time rather than work on that old thing would be to prematurely call an election because he thinks it's in his political interest.
I don't think that the Governor General should have said, no, I'm not letting you call an election.
I think that that would be overstepping for the Governor General.
But I think the Governor General should have sent him away for a few hours while she consulted.
And during that time, I think she could have drafted a statement saying that because of the limited role of a constitutional monarchy, she's not going to interfere.
But she does note that there's a grave situation going on that the government ought to attend to.
So saying, yeah, I'll give you your election, but it's my duty as sort of a benign monarch to point something out.
And that rebuke alone would have, I think, had reverberations for the whole campaign.
That's just my own daydream of what I think ought to have happened.
But of course, when Justin Trudeau handpicks the Governor General, she does what he says.
We have a clip from Trudeau's announcement yesterday, sort of an odd statement about tyranny and tyrants.
It's clearly on his mind.
Here, take a listen.
We've seen situations where conservative backbenchers have referred to some of this government's decisions as tyrannical in terms of how we're creating mandates for vaccination of public servants or vaccination of people on trains and airplanes.
Well, the answer to tyranny is to have an election.
I'm not going to say that's quite a full-throated admission of tyranny, but it's obviously on his mind.
What Justin Trudeau probably understands, but is dancing around, is that a tyranny punctuated by a day of voting every four years, or in this case two years, does not change the tyrannical nature.
Democracy is not just a day every four years, or however many.
It's a continuous process.
It's a system of checks and balances.
For example, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Pierre Trudeau shepherded into our Constitution, that applies all the time.
That limits the government even during emergencies, even during pandemics.
So you can't engage in tyrannical acts 364 days a year and then have an election one day a year and say, oh, this validates every illiberal thing I've done.
It doesn't work that way.
What the government does is subject to those checks and balances all the time.
Now, the trouble in Canada is that our judges have so far not stopped any of these clearly unconstitutional matters.
And then there's the whole matter of parliament itself, which barely sits anymore and is hobbled in many ways.
I think that the fact that Trudeau repeated that word is interesting.
It shows that it is on his mind.
And he loves it.
I mean, why should that be surprising to you?
This is the guy who went to, you know, is a super fan of Castro's Cuba, called China, the country he most admires.
We'll get back to Afghanistan later, because I think it's incredible and deeply worrying.
Planes Take Someone By Discretion00:02:34
And the only people, I mean, obviously the Afghans are terribly worried.
Can we show the footage of them scrambling to get on some of those American massive cargo jets?
So, I mean, America's been in Afghanistan for 20 years.
There's wives and children there.
There's civilians there.
There's staff.
So this is a plane.
This is not an American cargo jet.
This is some passenger jet.
And they're literally doing anything just to get into that plane.
I don't see many women there.
Can you get the one where the plane is taxiing down the runway with 50 people literally clinging to the outside of the plane?
That was a civilian airliner there, a commercial plane, I mean to say, that was probably being chartered to get people out.
But the U.S. military had some really big planes.
I think they're C-17s is their name.
Yeah.
Look at this.
So this is, that's a mighty plane.
And that can hold anything.
I presume that's full of people.
And look at these folks holding on.
I don't know what they're thinking.
Were they thinking that the plane would stop and let them in?
Were they thinking they were going to hang on until the plane took off?
Now, there's another video, and I'm going to give you a viewer's discretion warning.
Do you have the other video where it takes off and someone actually held on?
And, You know, these military planes, first of all, I don't know if the pilot even knew anyone was still holding on.
And I don't know what he was supposed to do.
If civilians clinging onto a plane are going to stop you from taking off, you'll never take off.
This really is like the fall of Saigon in South Vietnam.
And it's actually not that important if you can find it.
It's just a terrifying video when one of those planes taxied down the runway.
It didn't stop.
It kept going.
And the more sensible folks let go.
So this is a longer version.
This is from Al Jazeera.
Is this the one that actually takes off when someone falls?
All right, folks, so Vera Discretion advised.
Photo Tweet Questions00:11:51
Yeah.
Okay, I'm glad that's on there.
So it's taken off.
And there was someone who was hanging on.
There was someone who was hanging on.
And they fell.
Very sad.
You must be quite desperate to hold on to the outside of a military jet like that.
Of course they're desperate.
They're all going to be killed.
I don't know about all of them, but many of them.
We'll come back to that.
But I want to talk about the Canadian election.
I want to talk about the Canadian election.
I think the Afghan story is an important Canadian story.
Almost 160 Canadians died in Afghanistan, and some people might now, and thousands more were injured, including through PTSD, psychological trauma, what used to be called shell-shock, of working in such a horrific place.
Um, why?
What did they achieve?
Was all their sacrifice for nothing?
Those are real questions.
They're questions for Justin Trudeau.
I doubt they'll be put to him in any serious way.
They're questions for the United Kingdom, but they're mainly questions for the United States and Joe Biden in particular, who I note has been in hiding for several days.
The only image of Joe Biden I have seen in the last 48 hours is a still photograph of him in a situation room.
Do you have that photo?
I know I said I'd talk about the Canadian election.
I will, I promise you it's most of the show today.
So Joe Biden as recently as last month said, oh no, the Afghan Army is well trained, finely equipped, vastly outnumbered the Taliban, they'll hold for sure.
Weeks went by and that was false.
And then even in the final days, Biden administration officials were saying, oh, no, no, no, no.
There's no way it's going to fall in days.
It fell in hours.
And some of those images, like the fall of Saigon, people desperate to flee.
So where is Joe Biden?
Is he making a presidential address?
I see reports that they're moving thousands of American soldiers back into Afghanistan to help extract the stragglers.
I'm not sure how that's going to go.
Do you have the still image of him just in front of you?
Yeah.
So President, so this is an image.
This is from Fox News, but this image was released by the White House.
Here's Fox News caption.
President Biden meeting his national security team virtually earlier today to discuss the evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Kabul.
Now, just hold this up there for a second.
There's a few things I find interesting about this.
He's completely alone in the room.
I find that unusual.
Can you zoom in?
Can you open that picture up and zoom in on the picture itself?
So, yeah, the photo in that tweet.
Richard Grinnell, who used to be the national security cabinet official for Trump and National Security.
Yes, zoom in if you can on that video wall there.
Yeah.
So I don't know if you can see it, but those are different officials and their title or their offices.
Like, I think that's Kamala Harris in the middle, actually.
Do we have anything?
Can we zoom in at all a little bit more?
Rick Grinnell said, why is the national security and spy team not redacted?
I mean, Kamala Harris is one thing.
But the other people there, when Joe Biden has an emergency national security crisis and not with his cabinet, and in fact, there's no one there in the room with him, which I find odd, like not one person.
Why are you showing who the top spies are?
Isn't that confidential information?
So I thought that was one observation made by Rick Grinnell that I thought was very interesting.
And if we get a higher res photo, that'd be great.
The second thing, and I don't want to be too conspiratorial, but it is a question.
Someone looked at the clocks on the wall.
You know, when you're in certain places, they have all the different time zone clocks on the wall.
In this image, yeah, so like JFK Naval Observatory, that's the name for the vice president's office.
DNI, that's director of national intelligence, I believe.
Scroll down a little bit.
Doha Station, so that's in Qatar.
So that's the CIA.
And on the left is the CIA, I presume in Langley.
Why are you, and then State Department, that looks like the Secretary of State there.
Why are you showing OSD, JCS, what's that, Joint Chiefs?
Why are you showing the actual?
I mean, so what?
Kamala Harris, she's not, but who are those other folks in there?
And the one right to the left of Kamala Harris, I can't quite make that out.
Can you read that, what that says?
CENTCOM, so that's the central command of the military.
So this photo alone has a tremendous amount of information on who is briefing the president, who's involved.
I bet the bad guys are running facial ID scans on those CIA operatives.
Is it normal to bring a camera in to show the faces of CIA agents who are working in counterterrorism?
Asking for a dummy here.
My favorite is JFK, wherever that is.
I mean, there's a number of things named JFK.
I don't know what that is.
They're wearing masks, of course, that's the most important.
But look at the clocks up there.
So you can see Washington, D.C. 1129, which would mean five hours later in London.
We know that.
And there's Moscow time in Tehran and Beijing and Seoul.
So that's really good.
Now I saw an observation that the Moscow time was wrong here because some places the time zones change.
Like for example in Saskatchewan, Canada, the time zone changes differently.
They don't have daylight savings time.
Thanks very much.
And so it could be that the president, and it's just a little trifling detail.
Could be that in that situation room, whoever's in charge of the clocks just didn't fix it.
But a more conspiratorial or speculative or paranoid analysis might be, that ain't a photo from yesterday.
That's a photo from another period of time in the year when that Moscow clock was accurate.
Not every place in the world has daylight savings time.
So, I mean, I'm not going to put too much stake in that.
But don't you find it bloody odd that we haven't heard a word from Joe Biden?
We haven't seen proof of life.
I'm not saying he's dead.
I'm just saying, where the heck is he?
Like, isn't it bizarre in the extreme that he hasn't even touched down in Marine One?
That's the name of the chopper, and said, folks, it's a very serious event.
I'm meeting with my team right now.
I'll have remarks later tonight.
I mean, like, how long are you going to wait?
Kabul fell yesterday.
Is he okay?
Is he sick?
Is he having a health episode?
Did the stress get to him?
Is he just more incoherent than normal?
Why won't they even release a video?
I'm not even saying that, I mean, I think it's pretty clear he wouldn't have the stamina to do a genuine press conference, but typically in grand moments like this, a president comes out and gives a set speech, usually from the Oval Office or something like that.
It could be pre-recorded, frankly.
Why don't they have any proof of life kind of video?
Again, I'm not saying he's dead.
I'm just saying, where the heck is he?
What's he doing?
Is he okay?
Is he healthy?
Who's actually making the decisions?
Was that image of him in the situation room a real image?
Why are they showing the faces of individual CIA officers on the counterterrorism file?
You know, I'm not very familiar with that world, but I do know that people in those positions, their faces and their names are a closely guarded secret for a variety of reasons, including their own security and safety.
It's just incredible.
So how many days has it been since Biden has been seen?
And also, Jennifer Zensaki, the White House press secretary.
I mean, I haven't checked in the last hour, but she's on vacation.
That's what her autoresponder email says.
I'm away for a week.
Go to AOC's Twitter feed.
Last she tweeted was a couple days ago, something about libraries, public libraries being just amazing.
I wonder if she's broken her silence.
I mean, maybe she was just enjoying the weekend.
Yeah, her last tweet, shout out to libraries and library workers.
We love and appreciate you.
That's all.
So that's two days ago.
Hey, hey, AOC, anything?
And the one above that, just so you know, it's a pinned tweet.
It's from almost a year ago, so it's not new.
So scroll down a little bit.
So the only thing she has had to say in two days is, shout out to Malai.
Hey, how's my library workers?
Whoa!
Hey, oh, library workers, shout out to the libraries.
Woo!
Okay, nothing else going on.
I'm going to go away for a few days now because there's nothing else going on, really.
Is there anything else from, go to POTUS, twitter.com slash POT as president of the United States.
Has he had anything to say?
Something about ice cream, maybe his favorite flavor?
Okay.
I will be addressing the nation on Afghanistan at 3.45 today.
All right, good.
So we'll have some proof of life, hopefully.
But before that, you can see the same thing.
He hasn't had a word to say in two days.
In fact, on August 14th, He was saying during the World Wars, Native American code talkers used their language to develop an unbreakable gun.
So Afghanistan is falling, but you're talking about, and he's got something to say about Haiti.
Hey, that's great.
I like Haitians as much as the next guy.
You've got your own crisis, mate, but you haven't had a word to say about it in days.
That's incredible.
Taliban Helicopters Surrender00:03:24
That photo of him all alone, though, was quite something.
Quite something.
All right.
You know, there is just, let's, you know, we did the Afghan stuff first.
I said I wasn't going to, but let's just do one more thing.
Can you show some of the troves of weaponry?
Because the Americans left so hastily that they left behind staggering amounts of first-rate military hardware.
Trucks and, I don't know, I don't think there's any main battle tanks there, but armored vehicles and MRAPs, I think they're called, and obviously Humvees and personal weapon systems and helicopters.
Now some of these might have technically been owned by the Afghan army, but they surrendered faster than Saddam Hussein surrendered in the First Gulf War.
And some of these images are incredible.
The Taliban now has an air force of American.
They have more Black Hawk helicopters now than many other countries.
And I mean, it is a skill to fly a helicopter.
I imagine that's pretty hard to do, probably even harder than flying a fixed-wing aircraft.
But there was a video I saw online of Taliban taking over an airbase.
Yeah, now that looks like it's a little bit derelict, right?
So that looks like an aircraft that's having some trouble.
But I saw a video of the Taliban actually flying helicopters.
There's also one that shows a road.
Yeah, let's see this one if this is one.
Is there any audio?
Thanks.
Yeah, I won't ask for any more helicopter shops, but if you could find me the one on the road to Iran.
Now, I think what that video we showed there was the Taliban getting into helicopters, figuring out how to turn them on, but I think those folks there weren't pilots, so they didn't dare actually take off.
They just said, let's turn this thing on for fun.
Take my word for it, and I won't ask Justin find them now.
But they were airborne yesterday.
They were airborne.
And I'm not sure if I could properly identify which helicopter that was, but I believe that's a Western helicopter.
I don't know if that's a CH.
Yeah, sorry, I'm not even going to guess.
I'll show my ignorance if I try and guess.
But there were some quite impressive hardware that is rather new and that was given to the Afghan army and that either defected or abandoned or surrendered at once.
White Man's Burden00:12:40
And a whole convoy of that is going up to Iran right now.
And of course, China and Russia both immediately recognized the new Taliban government.
I think it's a certainty that all of that American hardware and importantly the software, the computer side, the tech side, will be dissected and copied and stolen, if it hasn't already been, by those countries.
And it's just incredible.
Oh, do you have a video there?
Yeah, look at this.
This is what I'm talking about.
Now, these just look like fairly standard vehicles.
Although some of them have some, yeah, this is from Iran TV.
This is going to Iran.
Obviously, these aren't American vehicles there, but you could see some of that was clearly American-made Humvees and other modified vehicles.
Just a disaster.
I should say that I don't believe America should be the global cop.
I don't think it should be the world's policeman.
I don't think Canada should be either.
And more than 150 Canadians gave their life in Afghanistan, and they've got to be asking for what?
Thousands of Americans, trillions of dollars.
And for what?
And for what?
Afghanistan is not a liberal democracy.
You know, there was an incredible essay by Steve Saylor in USA Today 20 years ago.
Can you find that?
Steve Saylor, type in Steve Saylor, Man Who Would Be King.
We've talked about that movie before.
It was a short story written by Rudyard Kipling over a century ago about a couple of British soldiers who decided to become kings.
And they went into Kefiristan, this very remote part of, I think, Afghanistan, where there had been no contact with outside forces since Alexander the Great.
And they went in with 20 muskets or rifles or whatever.
And they said, we know we can take them over.
We're tricksters.
We'll take over the first town.
We'll train some soldiers with our 20 guns.
We'll take over the next town, the next town, and we'll run the place.
We'll conquer it.
And they conquered it very quickly.
And then, an amazing movie.
Yeah.
There's Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
What a great, great movie.
So Steve Saylor reviewed this amazing movie 20 years ago and said, look, it's a work of fiction written by Rudyard Kipling.
Because, of course, before the Soviets in Afghanistan, the British were in Afghanistan.
And the question was, can any outside force hold Afghanistan?
Can you Google USA Today, Steve Saylor?
Because that's a fictitious movie.
It's a work of fiction.
It was a short story written by Rudyard Kipling, written over 100 years ago.
Afghan Insights, Man Who Would Be King.
So look at the date on that.
September 2001.
I'm just going to read a couple lines.
No great adventure movie, not even Lawrence of Arabia, offers more insights into the possibility of an upcoming war in Afghanistan than John Houston's 1975 film The Man Who Would Be King.
Starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine, the film is based on an 1888 short story by Rudyard Kipling that is set in Afghanistan.
In the last two weeks, a couple of contradictory assertions about Afghanistan have become commonplace in the press.
I'm reading to you what he wrote before the invasion.
This was September 2001.
This was right after 9-11.
The first is that outsiders inevitably face horrifying defeat in Afghanistan.
The second is that the U.S. must not only kill Osama bin Laden and batter the Taliban regime, but should then take up the imperial burden in Afghanistan.
By the way, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called The White Man's Burden, which is, I think he's bowlerizing it here to call it the imperial burden.
The U.S., they say, should conquer and pacify the entire Texas-sized country, build a unified nation out of its warring ethnic groups, reconstruct its economy, liberate its women, calm its furious holy men, and make it a middle-class democracy.
This was written 20 years ago.
The Man Who Would Be King reminds us that neither despair nor utopianism is a realistic attitude for anyone contemplating a military incursion in that harsh land.
It may seem strange to look to a Victorian costume drama for perspectives on a 21st century war, but few movies have benefited more from the energetic inspiration of a young genius and the skeptical wisdom of an old artist who'd been everywhere and done everything.
Rudyard Kipling, the youngest man to win the Nobel Prize for Literature at age 41 in 1907, was only 22 when he wrote The Man Who Would Be King.
Yet, and he'd already been shot at by a Pathan tribesman in the famous Khyber Pass.
Although out of fashion for decades, the Bombay-born Kipling is now the literary immortal of the hour as America contemplates the same question that so long plagued the British Empire.
What to do about Afghanistan?
Kipling was long despised for his imperialism, yet at a time when many, including more than a few anti-Taliban Afghans, want the U.S. to take responsibility for Afghanistan, Kipling's sharp eye for the rewards and dangers of imperialism is suddenly relevant once again.
In the words of critic John Derbyshire, Kipling, quote, was an imperialist utterly without illusions about what being an imperialist actually means, which in some ways means that he was not really an imperialist at all.
Yet it took 69-year-old John Houston to richly flesh out Kipling's tall tale, adding an astute post-Vietnam moral.
I'm not going to read anymore.
It's a very long article.
It's on USA Today.
I read the whole thing yesterday.
It's like it was written five minutes ago, but it was written 20 years ago.
And by the way, I'll just tell you his points.
His first point is, anyone can conquered the Taliban, or whatever it's called at that moment.
You know, it's just, you know, the Brits did it.
The Soviets did it.
America did it.
That's not the hard part.
The hard part is holding it and ruling it and overcoming local traditions, customs, religions, concepts that are immutable.
And by the way, if you've seen the movie, wonderful movie, Sean Connery, who quickly conquers Kafiristan, as it's called, then said, well, I'm the king now, and I'm going to dispense justice.
And it was going okay.
But then he wanted to marry beautiful Roxanne, a tribeswoman, and there was a reason I won't get into now where that was completely contrary to all the rules of Kafiristan, but he was so set on it, and it was his downfall.
And I think there's an allegory there, too.
There are certain things about Afghanistan that will not be changed, and you will never do.
and the Brits couldn't, and the Soviets couldn't, and the Americans couldn't, and the man who would be king is, I know, listen, I'm not saying it was a documentary, but it's a parable, and it's an allegory, and it's set there, and it was by a guy who was actually there and was shot at, just in the 1888 version of an IED.
And so who's going to run Afghanistan now?
Well, the Taliban.
But I think China and Russia will come in.
Now, will they have better luck this time than last time?
Well, I think on the China side, there's not going to be any compunction about killing locals.
I mean, China will kill, has, you know, under Mao, killed tens of millions of its own people.
China literally has set up Muslim concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims in the west part of the country.
If China has any footprint on the ground, and I'm sure they will, they will be merciless with whoever they want.
But why would they, they're not going to try and seek to reform Afghanistan.
The imperialists of Rudyard Kipling thought, well, we can save them.
Can you call up his poem, White Man's Burden?
You're not allowed to read this poem anymore.
But the British imperialists, like the Romans, wanted to change where they were, bring in a code of laws, bring in bureaucracy and rules.
The Romans didn't bring in democracy, and the Brits really didn't either, but they at least brought in a form of civilization, including that of Christianity.
So this is an incredible poem, which you're not even allowed to read these days.
It's called The White Man's Burden.
And you might say, well, that's racist.
But here's how it was viewed by Rudyard Kipling over a century ago.
I'm going to read this.
I don't know if you're allowed to read this anymore.
Take up the white man's burden.
Send forth the best ye breed.
Go bind your sons to exile to serve your captives' need.
To wait in heavy harness on fluttered folk and wild your new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child.
Take up the white man's burden in patience to abide, to veil the threat of terror and check the show of pride.
By open speech and simple, an hundred times made plain, to seek another's profit and work another's gain.
Take up the white man's burden, the savage wars of peace.
Fill full the mouth of famine and bid the sickness cease.
And when your goal is nearest, the end for others sought, watch sloth and heathen folly bring all your hopes to naught.
Take up the white man's burden, no tawdry rule of kings, but toil of surf and sweeper, the tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter, the roads ye shall not tread.
Go mark them with your living and mark them with your dead.
Take up the white man's burden and reap his old reward.
The blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard.
The cry of hosts ye humor, ah, slowly toward the light.
Why brought he us from bondage, our loved Egyptian knight?
Take up the white man's burden, ye dare not stoop to less, nor call too loud on freedom to cloak your weariness.
By all ye cry or whisper, by all ye leave or do, the silent, sullen peoples shall weigh your gods in you.
Take up the white man's burden, have done with childish days, the lightly proffered laurel, the easy, ungrudged praise, comes now to search your manhood through all the thankless years, cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, the judgment of your peers.
Other than some of the archaic language and the unwoke word, white man's burden, let's switch the word, you know, I bet a lot of people who were woke or born after the year 1990.
Don't say white man.
Okay, fine, let's say, take up the neocons burden.
Take up the globalist burden.
Take up the burden could we substitute that would get over that word?
Take up the globalist burden.
Take up the NGO burden.
Take up the world policeman.
Take up the peacekeeping burden.
Yeah, that's the one.
Take up the peacekeeping burden.
But look at, you know, go and help people, go and fight sickness, go and liberate.
Did he say liberate women there?
Was that in there?
That was in the USA Today story.
Raise people up, civilize them, build things.
Unthanked.
That was written in 1899.
Steve Saylor's review of the Men Who Would Be King was written in 2001.
And here we are in 2021.
And I think they are all correct.
Which is, you want to go in and smash up some terrorists?
Hey, count me in as a moral supporter.
But again, you have to, I mean, unless you're a soldier ready to do the soldiering, I don't think you should ever be too gung-ho about a war with someone else's kids, am I right?
Armchair Soldiering Risks00:02:08
It's easy to be an armchair soldier.
Adam Smith talked about that.
About how bored, fancy, luxurious city folk like to play war games with someone else's kids.
Even Adam Smith talked about that.
But if it's about destroying terrorist networks and blowing up things, you know, these days that's, I suppose, easy enough with airplanes and missiles.
But if you want to have boots on the ground and hold a country for 20 full years, you're an imperialist again.
Sorry.
I mean, take out the archaic language, swap the word white out and put in just, you know, Operation Enduring Freedom or whatever it's called.
How's what the United States and Canada and Britain and other countries did over the last 20 years in Afghanistan any different from what Rudyard Kipling was talking about?
How's it any different?
I really recommend the movie The Men Who Would Be King.
All right, we're going to read some chats now.
And like I said, we're going to start today's show with the Canadian election.
So now that I got my little preamble out of the way, 37-minute preamble, the show is about to begin, my friends.
We're going to talk about the Canadian election.
It's actually quite important that we do because we have so many things that I want to tell you about.
Let's whip through some super chats.
Hyperchat, History Club World, how well do you think the Conservative Party, the Maverick Party, and the PPC will do in this election?
Do you think any of them parties will interact with you as journalists, or will you be trapped in police custody?
Follow History Club on Instagram.
Oh, yeah, I think the PPC, and in fact, I think we interviewed Maxine Bernier just a couple days ago, even in the weekend.
Maverick Party, I think Sheila has interviewed Jay Hill, and I expect we'll do that some more.
Yeah, I think those parties are hungry enough for media coverage that they will not turn their nose up at us, but I think that both the Liberals and the Aeronautool Conservatives will.
Although I don't know if I told you, I was at an event in Edmonton a couple weeks ago, and there were two MPs there.
Why Doesn't Canada Act?00:04:07
I'm not going to name them.
And I saw them across the room, and they came up to me, and they said hi to me, and they asked for selfies with me.
And maybe I told you the story already, and I said if you post those, you'll get fired.
And they said they didn't care.
So the snobby look down your nosishness of the Aeronautoole Conservatives is not a view shared by all their MPs, I'm pleased to say.
On Rumble, Rocks 4N3, he's going to say he was re-elected, so people voted for vax passports, so it's not tyranny.
That's exactly what he's going to say.
Rumble, daughters of narcissists, how long do you think the ban on the unvaxxed flying will last?
I have to decide whether to jump on a plane or I might not get to see other family for who knows how long.
Well, that's a real consideration.
The announcement was like a tweet, like just a little, you know, very short statement.
There's no legislation, there's no regulation, there's no rules, there's no question period.
So I don't know if it's actually going to take effect immediately.
But you know what?
To be very candid, if I were you, I would get my family reunions going.
If you were going to visit someone, I would do so in the next month or so.
I absolutely would.
I think there's going to be a big battle, big civil liberties battle, and seeing how the courts so far have not struck down any part of the lockdowns.
I'm not optimistic.
Hyper Chat, Enoch the Salty Pretzel.
I'm more concerned about all the women and girls being rounded up and kidnapped by the Taliban as sex slaves and unwilling wives.
Also, you can expect Bachabazi to be fully back on the Taliban menu.
You're talking about basically rape slavery, both of women and boys.
Absolutely, that's back on.
And by the way, The Man Who Would Be King treats that issue.
There's an incredible scene, and I'll tell you, where they conquer a little village, Sean Connery and Michael Caine, and the local chief offers up a whole bunch of women, including very young women, including, I think, some of his daughters.
And Daniel, and one of them, Sean Connery and Michael Caine, is outraged and says, you barbarian.
And the other says, oh, local customs.
And then immediately, the warlord says, oh, if you don't want women, I have boys.
And then the other one, I think it was Michael Caine to O'Connery, said, local customs, or I forget the exact, but the idea of raping boys, which is called Bachabazi, if I'm pronouncing that correct, which goes on en masse today, and which Allied soldiers had to turn a blind eye to, because that's one of those local customs.
That was in the movie The Man Who Would Be King.
I really recommend him.
I wonder if you could find that clip of The Man Who Would Be King.
They're basically offering him girls, and then they say, would you prefer boys?
And the way that Michael Caine and Sean Connery react to that culturally is identical to the treatment of women today and boys today, frankly.
That they are the sexual playthings of men and they don't have civil rights in their chattel and Sharia law supports them.
Terrifying.
You know, if you could find that clip, it's power.
And the movie was in 1975.
Rudyard Kipling in the 1880s, the movie in 1975, the great essay by Steve Saylor in 2001, and here we are in 2021.
Has anything changed under the sun?
Nothing changes under the sun.
Hyper Chat from History Club World, why doesn't Canada or America send resources in to evacuate as many citizens as human beings possible, send them the military to control the airport and some surrounding land, allow people in, and just resettle them in Canada, America or cruise ships?
Start Show: Bonus Content00:16:50
Who?
How many?
What?
How many people in Afghanistan?
I used to know that number.
Afghanistan population.
38 million.
It's exactly the size of Canada.
So what are you proposing?
To take 10,000, 20, 30,000 or 10, 20, 30 million people and just move them here?
Can do that for the whole world.
Like, at what point do you say, okay, we're a country, they're a country?
You know, there's a lot of blame to go around for the generals and for Joe Biden and even for previous presidents, Trump, Obama, Bush.
But at what point do you say, hang on, this is your country.
You really did have soldiers and equipment.
And if you didn't fight for your country, we should fight more.
Or maybe you don't see your country as a Disney fied version, a knockoff of America.
Maybe you really are like Kaffiristan in the movie The Man Who Would Be King.
Rumble, Frosty Night.
Rebel News, what do you think the outcome of the election will be?
All right.
I said I was going to start with the show on the election, so let's do that.
Justin, let's, you know, it's got a few things out of the way there.
Let's start the show right.
Yeah, let's start the show.
Play the YouTube warning.
Let's start the show.
That was a bonus.
You just got yourself a bonus 45 minutes on Afghanistan.
But today's show is about something completely different.
It's about the Canadian election.
Throw the warning up there.
Warning.
Censorship.
Warning.
Censorship.
Warning.
Censorship.
Hello, everybody.
Ezra Levant here, August 16th.
What a pleasure to be with you.
For those who joined for a special bonus pre-show, great to have you back.
For those who are just joining now, welcome.
As advertised, today's show will be about the election.
For those who just enjoyed a 45-minute director's cut bonus blooper reel, you're welcome.
I do recommend The Man Who Would Be King, in case you didn't know, I recommend that movie.
Who doesn't like Michael Caine and Sean Connery?
One of my favorite things to say is.
All right, back to today's hot news, which is the election.
I think it's going to be a disastrous election for two reasons.
The first reason is the media, which helps us understand the world, which shapes perceptions which are more powerful than reality, and who have an important role to challenge the powers that be.
The Canadian media, which has always tilted left and has always been infected by government dogma and government propaganda and government interests through the CBC, the state broadcaster, has almost completely wiped out independent journalists.
And I don't know if you saw the story a week ago in blacklocks.ca, Blacklocks Reporter, one of the few independent media sources in the country.
Now the subsidies are secret.
Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbo's department refuses to name publications awarded, publishers awarded nearly $61 million in pre-election emergency relief.
The grants were to ensure readers receive timely information they require from their government.
So they just gave out $61 million to the media right before the election as a pre-election tip, bribe, commission, payoff, solidarity fund.
So the media were bad enough.
The CBC media was the worst.
And you just gave them $61 million and you're keeping their name secret for the election.
So the media is now completely compromised.
And they don't care if you know it.
They just took their own union news from their media unions to run anti-conservative campaign attack ads.
Who are the independent journalists in this country?
Well, aside from Rebel News, there's TrueNorth, TNC.news, there's Spencer Fernando, there's Western Standard Online, there's a guy out in BC, I think it's called The Breaker, Bob Macken.
There's Black Locks Reporter.
I think I've just gone through it.
The post-millennial does some independent journalism, but they're mainly just a, they just rewrite news stories on Twitter.
I don't know how much primary journalism they do.
I like them, but they don't do primary journalism.
That's it, I think.
All the newspapers are on the take, all the TV stations, all the radio stations.
So that's the first problem.
You can't trust the media anymore.
Not that you really ever could, but now they're just completely in the tank.
The second problem is that Her Majesty's loyal opposition, the official opposition, and the official critics, you know, these are titles, and they're actually jobs and job descriptions, and you get paid for it.
Well, the Conservative Party isn't really conservative, and the opposition isn't really opposing.
So who is?
In the pre-show, the bonus material, we talked about how Trudeau said, if you don't like a tyranny, now it's your time to speak up.
Let's play that clip one more time, because it is quite impressive.
Trudeau is saying, well, I can't be a tyrant because we're having this election.
Take a look.
We've seen situations where conservative backbenchers have referred to some of this government's decisions as tyrannical in terms of how we're creating mandates for vaccination of public servants or vaccination of people on trains and airplanes.
Well, the answer to tyranny is to have an election.
No, that's not true, because an election is a moment every four years.
Tyranny can exist punctuated by the odd election.
By the way, this health vaccination, biosecurity state, social credit system, vacc passport, whatever you want to call it, it wasn't debated in Parliament, wasn't introduced as a bill, wasn't subject to scrutiny in the House of Commons Committee.
They've had a year and a half, by the way.
But they just haven't.
Not that O'Toole would oppose it.
I just read his platform today.
Not a word opposing it.
Not a word opposing it.
So it is not disproof of a tyranny that once every four years you have a vote.
Living in a free country, it's free every day, and the government doesn't get to misbehave and violate civil liberties every day.
So problem number one, the media is completely complicit, bought off by the governing party, and they don't even hide it anymore.
Problem number two is that the party who is given special status in parliament, special budgets, special rights and privileges to oppose is not opposing.
And they call themselves conservative, but I don't see the conservative part.
They're like salt that's lost its saltiness.
What is it even?
And I want to show you a moment yesterday that I think is just absolutely couldn't be more succinct, showing the problem.
You know, there's a guy named Andrew Coyne.
I think he's 61.
I think he was born in 1960, if memory serves.
He's a young-looking 61.
He's been a journalist as long as I can remember.
I think he's a dozen years older than me, so I sort of always looked up to him a bit because he was always a cycle ahead of me in life.
And I don't read him much anymore.
I find him boring and predictable and very establishment and often self-contradictory, but whatever.
I'm sure he has the same views about me.
But he's regarded as sort of like, I mean, he's the establishment for sure, but he's been like he's had been like a marquee columnist.
They show his name in this picture.
He's on TV.
He had senior positions with the Globe and Mail.
Then he went to the National Post.
Then he moved back to the Globe and Mail, which sort of tells you really, tweedled-dee, tweedledum.
There's no real difference in Canada's newspapers.
So I'm not going to call him a dean of anything, and I'm not going to say he's particularly accomplished.
I don't think he's ever written a book.
I don't think he's actually ever done anything other than be sort of just like, you know, those two grumpy old men in the Muppets who sit up there in the opera and just, you know, the peanut gallery and just heckle.
I mean, he's not as old as them, but he just sort of, like, what does he do other than hang out, hang around and give some half-witty comeback that sounds smart, but when you think about it, you, you know, a day later, you forgot, what did he say?
What did he say?
He comes and goes, and you don't even remember what it is.
Anyhow, my point is he couldn't be more of a man of the establishment.
In fact, that's really his entire CV is he was born to his father, who was an important man in the Bank of Canada.
And because he had that important last name, life has been easy for him, rather like Justin Trudeau.
So that's Andrew Coyne.
He's the establishment man in the media party.
Although bizarrely, he votes NDP, he votes green, which I think is a sign of philosophical schizophrenia.
But look at him yesterday.
Look at this tweet.
Andrew Lawton gets the first question?
Seriously?
Now, what does this mean?
Hold this on the screen.
So there was a press conference.
I think this was Aaron O'Toole's press conference.
The unconservative conservative, the opposition leader who doesn't oppose, the salt that has lost its saltiness, Aaron O'Toole.
Footnote in history, the man who makes Andrew Scheer look passionate.
So Aaron O'Toole was having a press conference, and Andrew Lawton, our friend from Dew North, was there.
And he got the first question.
Now, my experience is you can get the first question sometimes by showing up first and getting to the microphone early.
Sometimes that's just how it's chosen.
Are you there first?
But whatever it is, maybe he was chosen first.
Maybe it was on the phone.
So maybe he just logged in first.
Maybe it was random.
I understand this may have been on the phone, but it doesn't matter because someone has to be first.
And if you're in a press conference, you know, hopefully it goes on for long enough that you get a range of questions.
So it actually doesn't even matter who goes first, I don't think.
If it goes on for 5, 10, 15 minutes and you cycle through some questions, does it matter?
First, second, third?
Like journalistically, it doesn't matter.
Justin, can you think of a reason why it might matter?
Maybe, ah, good point.
So Justin says maybe people stop watching after the first few minutes.
That would be for the live audience, but I don't think a lot of people were riveted to their TV screens.
Oh, wow, Aaron O'Toole's going to make a statement.
I've got to tune in now.
I think reporters would listen to it and then go write something.
I don't think that's like a white-hot live show.
Oh, my God, Aaron O'Toole's live streaming.
Oh, my God!
Is he on Instagram live?
I got to watch Aaron O'Toole.
Hey, guys, it's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Put down everything.
Andrew Coyne is Andrew Coyne, Aaron O'Toole, he's live streaming, guys.
I don't even know what accent that was.
I don't know what that was.
That just came out of me.
So my point is, it absolutely doesn't matter the order, other than if you're about snobbery and if you just really care about that.
And oh my God, he's wearing that suit.
Did you see that?
That hasn't been in fashion in four years.
Oh my God.
You know, I hear he didn't go to University of Toronto like me.
I hear he went to a, hmm, well, he's not our kind dear.
Let me just put it that way.
And that haircut, I mean, wow, he went to first choice haircutters.
I don't like to get change back from 100 when I go to my sound.
Like it's pure snobbery is what I'm saying.
Pure snobbery.
Look at that tweet again from Andrew Coyne.
Andrew Lawton gets the first question?
Seriously?
But what does that mean?
I know Andrew Lawton.
He's on our show all the time.
So you're not even, so you're not even pretending that you believe in free speech or an open press or an independent press or different voices.
And you are, and even if you think this in your own mind, Andrew Coyne.
And that's fine, we all have our foibles.
You're a snob, fine.
You think this thought in your heart?
Fine.
We get it.
You're fancy.
Because you had the good luck of being born after your father rather than before him.
We get it.
It's the Justin Trudeau, Peter Pan.
You've just, everything you have is by virtue of your father.
We get it.
But don't say those things out loud because what you're saying is, not only do I think I'm better than Andrew Lawton, but I don't think he should be treated the same as me.
See, that's the difference.
You're not just saying, ha ha, dumb question.
Okay, got it.
Dumb question.
That's a judgment on his smarts, and is his question good?
And, you know, but Andrew Lawton gets the first question.
I am offended.
I am the one who gets the first question.
I am better than him.
Andrew Coyne, of course, isn't just a bailout taker from Justin Trudeau.
He's far worse than that.
Look, 99% of journalists in Canada take Trudeau's money.
But Andrew Coyne is one of a handful who put on a show about, I don't like government subsidies for newspapers, but I'm going to take it.
Andrew Coyne, who for years rails against the CBC getting government money, is on $1,000 a pop on their at-issue panel.
Now, that's what it was 10 years ago.
I bet he gets a lot more now.
So Andrew Coyne is the worst in the world in that he takes the bailout money, but he doesn't have the grace to shut up about it, take the money and shut up about it.
That's what 99% of journalists do.
Andrew Coyne takes the money.
He says, I sure don't like taking this money, but I'll take it.
He's only worked for bailout media, in fact.
And you can see his rage.
I think he hates Andrew Lawton for that reason alone.
Not because Andrew Lawton might not be in the highest styles or have the finest pedigree.
I think that what actually burns up Andrew Coyne is that Andrew Lawton is a more independent, credible, trustworthy, arm's-length neutral journalist than Andrew Coyne, because unlike Andrew Coyne, Andrew Lawton doesn't take money from Trudeau on Monday and then report on him on Tuesday.
So I'm excited to tell you that the government which took over the debate commission, you know, every year there's a debate.
It used to be done by the TV networks.
They had sort of a consortium they figured out on their own.
Trudeau nationalized that.
And look at who he installed as his debate moderator.
There's going to be five people asking questions in English.
And one of them is Rosemary Barton.
Who's she?
She's that gal.
Oh my God, I was so excited.
I was so close to him.
I felt him brush up against my hair.
I could feel the warmth of his body.
I love you.
Do we still have the video?
Platonic Date Controversy00:15:23
I think that the CBC had Twitter take it down when she went on that platonic date with Trudeau.
Remember that?
And they talked about what he was listening to on.
What podcasts are you listening to?
What do you do on a rainy day?
Do you ever just daydream?
What's your favorite color?
If you could be anything, like a couple of those I'm making up as jokes, but I'm not actually like, what's on your podcast?
This is what Rosemary Barton asked him on their platonic date.
I think she thinks she's dating him or could date him or something.
Take a look.
Belong to be close to you and the angels got together and decided to create a dream club.
You know, that loving look.
I mean, find yourself someone who looks at you the way Rosemary Barton looks at Justin Trudeau and hang on to that because that is true love.
Now that's a funny version, but we have, believe it or not, the serious version of that, where you actually hear her questions to him, is much, much worse.
Hey, if you were Prime Minister, what would you do?
Hey, what are you listening to in your podcast now?
Yeah, sorry.
I'm just excited a little bit.
Rosemary.
Yeah, this tweet has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder.
The CBC hates this tweet so much.
And there's another one we have of, anyhow, so Rosemary Barton, Trudeau's platonic girlfriend.
Hey, Justin, what's it like to be so pretty?
She's actually one of the moderators of the English language debate, which is incredible in itself, a state broadcaster, platonic girlfriend, selfie taker, so obviously in love.
I mean, why don't you guys just get a room?
Like, so compromised to begin with.
But she actually, if you remember in the last election campaign, sued the Conservative Party.
I mean, she was the plaintiff.
Rosemary Barton versus Conservative Party of Canada.
She sued the Conservative Party in court.
And you're the moderator?
Because you're neutral.
it is just incredible.
I want to show you what the Debates Commission, you might recall last year we applied for our journalists to be accredited at the very last moment, moment.
They declined and they gave us like a one-line answer, which wasn't a real answer.
So we rushed to court the next business day.
They told us on Friday morning you're not allowed in.
We were in court on Monday morning.
Emergency application before the Federal Court of Canada.
And I couldn't even believe it.
We won.
The Federal Court of Canada said it was unreasonable and time was of the essence.
They ordered the Debates Commission to let us in.
And David Menzies and Kian Becksty and Andrew Lawton, the three journalists who were banned, got in and asked the best questions, by the way.
So that was humiliating for Trudeau and for the mean girls like Andrew Coyne who wanted to keep us out.
So they just released the new rules.
They just released media accreditation for the 44th general election.
The Leaders Debate Commission is mandated by its Constituting Order and Council to organize two leaders' debates for the next federal general election, one in each official language.
See, right there, you can see why Trudeau did it.
Before there were several debates, but Trudeau doesn't like debates.
Media representatives wishing to have access to the debates organized by the Commission must apply to be accredited by the Commission.
So the government will decide if you get to ask questions of the government.
Now, scroll down a little bit there.
This is just amazing.
The Commission, the Commission recognizes the media organizations, columnists, or commentators may have an editorial point of view or endorse political candidates or political causes.
However, a conflict of interest arises when the media organization or journalist becomes an active participant in the story that they are covering.
Now, this next part is called the Rebel News Clause.
According to the CAJ, Canadian Association of Journalists, a conflict of interest, one, when an organization, oh, there is a conflict of interest, one, when an organization becomes an actor in the stories it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal services,
crowdfunds to help some individuals and stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertising and launches petitions.
I wonder, I wonder, wonder, wonder who crowdfunds legal fees for clients.
Is there any media in Canada that does that?
Oh, right.
I think we do that.
Crowdfunds legal services or has a president whose name rhymes with Shmezra.
No, no, no, we're not singling out rebel news.
But if you have something called fightthefines.com, you're not allowed in.
No, We're not discriminating against rebel news.
But if you happen to crowdfund legal fees for Arthur Pavlovsky, you're not allowed in.
What's that got to do with the federal election?
Oh, nothing.
We just added, but if your boss's name rhymes with Shmezra, you're not allowed in either.
But we're not targeting rebel news and we're not bitter about losing to them in federal court last time.
No, no, no.
Why would you say that?
Put that back up.
This is so unbelievable.
When a reporter writes opinion pieces about subjects they also cover as journalists, endorses political candidates or causes, takes part in demonstrations, signs petitions, does public relations work, fundraises, and makes financial contributions.
Okay, well, I've got to tell you right now that Andrew Coyne, the saints, and Rosemary Barton, who herself, how about when you go to court to sue?
How about when you go to court to sue the conservatives?
Is that okay?
Is that okay?
Because Rosemary Barton did that.
Andrew Courton, Andrew, sorry, Coyne, endorses and condemns politicians every day.
Would he be kept out?
That is called the rebel news.
We don't like you.
We're not letting you sit with us at the lunch table because you're not with the cool kids.
You and Andrew Lawton are really meanies.
And anyone who, and I'm not saying rebel news is banned, but anyone who has a fight the fines campaign for Arthur Pavlovsky is banned.
That just may happen to be rebel news, but if it is, it's purely a coincidence.
That could be called the rebel news section.
They are so afraid of anyone who is not bought and paid for on their payroll.
Andrew Coyne is the voice of these people.
Andrew Lawton got the first question.
He's not our kind, dear.
What a bunch of snobs.
Andrew Coyne is the snob.
But this government debate commission hates rebel news because we sued them and we beat them like a drum in court.
And they were humiliated because they were shown to be a bunch of partisan hacks.
So they're really super smart bureaucrats, handpicked by Justin Trudeau, said, well, I know, we'll just pass a law that Rebel News is not allowed to ask us questions.
Like, I mean, there are other crowdfunders in Canada.
I think that, I think True North does, I think what they do could be called crowdfunding.
I'm not sure.
They have subscriptions.
And Canada Land, for example, a left-wing gossip podcast, they asked for, like, is what they do called even, I don't think, you know, I don't think they even ask for donations.
What do they do?
They ask for donations.
They ask for donations.
Is that called crowdfunding?
I don't know.
And then there's rabble.
Like, I don't even really know.
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is when you ask a crowd to like ask the public for funding.
We use the word crowdfunding every day.
I guess we could say donations or something.
But really, all crowdfunding is, is a way of getting paid.
So put that back up, those rules back again.
It's quite something that they would talk about being funded by viewers as disqualifying, but being funded by Trudeau is not.
heard that first part again.
According to the CAJ, there is a conflict of interest when an organization becomes an actor in the stories it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal.
What does free legal services for Arthur have to do with whether we can ask Justin Trudeau a question?
Crowdfunding to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertisers, and we don't do that, and launches petitions.
That is called the rebel news.
We don't like you, you guys are really mean, but we just don't have the courage to say we don't like you, so we're going to pretend that we're being really, really neutral and this could catch anybody.
How about just say you're not allowed to come if the president of your company is a pudgy Jewish guy with glasses and who lives in Toronto around an eighth of a ton.
Why not just say if you work with ESRA, you're not allowed.
Like why go through all those weird, and if you represent, if you crowdfund legal assistance for someone, what has that got to do with that?
What is helping Arthur?
Like they're crowdfunding legal resources for civil liberties.
What has that even got to do with asking a question of Jagmeet Singh?
Excuse me, Jagmeet Singh, I have a question for you about vaccine passports.
No, stop.
You are crowdfunding a lawyer for someone in Calgary right now, so you can't ask Jagmeet Singh about vaccine passports.
What?
That's the triple truth.
That's what's going on.
Hyperchat from History Club World.
Will Rebel News be suing the Commission again and again?
Point out hypocrisy in it.
Jack M on Super U. What a pleasure to have someone from Super U. How can it be legal to use taxpayer dollars to buy the media for political gain?
Well, let me answer both of these.
We just started the show again for people who are just joining us.
We had a 45-minute pre-show.
It was awesome.
Talked about movies.
I read like a whole item from USA Today back in 2001.
A lot of people requested that.
So that took 45 minutes of throat clearing.
Then we started the show again at 1245.
So you just joined us.
We're really near the beginning.
Thank you.
Welcome, by the way.
But I want to tell you what we're doing.
Okay, I've been joking around a little bit.
So what are we going to do?
Well, can you go to realreporters.ca?
We set up a website, real, R-E-A-L, reporters.ca, and help fund our 2021 Canadian election coverage and view our election plans below.
Yeah, this is why we can't go to the elections debate because we're asking our viewers for money instead of asking Trudeau for money.
Unlike the CBC and the bailout news paper, oh, can we have that corrected to papers, bailout news papers?
Can you have ATAN correct that?
Rebel News doesn't take any funding from Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau just gave $61 million in secret payments to news reporters on the eve of the election, and he won't say who he paid until after the election.
It's incredible that it's a secret.
Normally the media would dig into secret payments to liberal friends, except that they are the liberal friends, which explains the total silence amongst the mainstream media about this.
They took the bribe on the top of their regular bailouts.
So that's what we're up against, Rebel News.
That's our competition.
We're one of the few news companies not on the take.
And since YouTube demonetized us this spring, since they cut off our right to sell ads, we've been reliant on donor donations, but we're not going down without a fight, everybody.
Here's our three-point plan to fight back.
I wrote this, by the way.
Number one, journalism.
Deploy the largest group of rebel journalists ever assembled.
Get them out in the field, not just in their home cities, but traveling.
Point number two, Rebel News Plus, make our premium shows, which are normally behind the paywall, make them free for everyone during the election period.
And point number three, legal.
Have a free speech legal team ready to fight against a certain censorship that will be thrown against us and other independent journalists.
And we already started with our first election lawsuit.
We're not just going to ask tough questions of Justin Trudon as liberals.
We're going to ask tough questions of all politicians, including Aaron O'Toole, because we're alarmed that he has given up on true conservative ideas.
Scroll down.
Donations and Journalism00:15:31
What else is on the page here?
Journalism.
We're not going to play favorites.
And we'll talk about small parties too.
Can we add the Maverick party that right now?
So we're going to fix the S on the first sentence.
And Maxine Bernie's PPC, Jay Hill's Maverick Party.
Can we add that there?
And Derek Sloan has plans too that we're curious about.
We want to talk about the issues.
The media won't.
Scroll down, we talk about Rebel News Plus, talk about the, oh, that's right.
We filed a legal challenge already to Elections Canada there.
I haven't even had a chance to talk about that.
Thank you.
So, hey, can you go to rebelnews.com/slash journalists?
You know, we were around in the 2015 election.
We were just born back then.
And then we were around in the 2019 election.
I think we did a pretty good job.
So this is our third federal election.
Now, look at this page.
You can see this on our website right now.
Journalists.
So that's me at the top.
That's my name, Angela Levant.
And then our chief reporter.
So let's count.
So there's Ezra.
There's our chief reporter, Sheila.
There's Avi Yamini, Rebbe Award winner.
So is Sheila, by the way.
David Menzies, also a Rebbe Award winner, best pandemic journalist.
Rahil Raza, who's the head of our advisory board.
Drea Humphrey, one of my favorite people.
She's amazing.
I like her so much.
Adam Sauss in Calgary, holding down the fort there, Andrew Chapalos.
You've seen him out here before, obviously.
Tamara Ukolini, very interesting.
Started as a Fight the Finds client.
Liked it so much, he joined the company.
Alexandre la voir.
She is doing a great job.
I love her attitude.
And she does stories in English and Francais.
Then we got Kean Simone who joined us in Calgary.
We call him K2 because we had another guy in Calgary named Kian Kien Bexti.
So this is K2.
And then truly one of the favorite people I've met over the years at Rebel.
His name is Mocha Bazirgan.
That's his nickname.
And he's our chief videographer.
And he just, he loves doing work in Quebec.
He loves to travel.
And he's really going to work hard in this election.
He just promised me.
Not that he wouldn't have done it without the promise, but we're going to have him flying around so much.
I said, Mocha, you've got to go full tilt.
He said, I'm up for it.
Sidney Fizzard, I think I'm saying that right.
Sidney joined us as an editor, and he's also doing some on-camera work.
Now, down under, we have Alexandra Marshall, just joined us.
In Toronto, Catherine Krozanowski, if I'm saying that right.
And on Twitter, I think she's the crow or something, which I think shows a sense of humor.
Lincoln Jay, you know, the ladies love him, girls adore him.
Just a great guy.
Efrain Mosanto started right out of school.
Now he's our head of video.
He also does journalism, and he was the guy who was arrested.
What was he arrested for?
Or ticketed for not smiling.
For shaking hands.
He got a ticket, swear to God, for shaking hands.
Obviously, we're fighting that.
Yankee Pollock, who just did great work in Montreal.
And I don't know why he's not on there.
Is there a problem with Matt Brevner's?
Because that's the one name I noticed that's not on there.
So you know how many people we have in Canada on the telly?
17.
Is that right?
Did I count right?
So you'll notice that I'm not talking about people who are purely behind the scenes.
Now, you can see about half these folks do behind the scenes work as well as on camera, like Andrew Chapatos and Sidney and Mocha and Efron and Kian.
So I'd say half these people split their time between behind the scenes work and on camera work.
But me, Sheila, David, Drea, Adam, Tamara, Alexa, are full, are only on TV.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
So there's ten people who are part-time on TV.
I think I've got to cover it.
And then seven who are full-time.
Would you say that's enormous?
I would say that's enormous.
I happen to know, because I was talking to a lawyer for McLean's magazine, that McLean's entire company is 14 people.
So they're not even talking about, right now they have some freelancers or whatever.
But their entire company is 14 people.
And we have 17 Canadian on-air talent plus two Australians that I'm not counting here.
What's my point besides my pride and joy in this talent?
We're deploying, my friends.
We're deploying these 17 people into the field in the election.
Now, the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Andrew Coyns of the World and the Justin Trudeau debates commissions, they seem to dislike crowdfunding.
Go back to RealReporters.ca, put that, show that.
So how are you going to pay for 17 people?
Well, I know what I would do if I was McLean's magazine.
I'd call up the Prime Minister's office and say, give us some money.
Our goal is to do it through crowdfunding.
You see this little thing on the right-hand side?
Payment one time, monthly, $10, $100, whatever, $1,000.
That's how we do it.
That's called crowdfunding.
You know that.
But apparently the government thinks crowdfunding is really, really evil.
They would prefer it if you took their government grants.
Yeah, we're not going to do that.
We're going to.
And so far we have 699 donors.
And if you want us to continue our Real Reporters Plan, then that's how you can help us.
I think it's quite something that they explicitly say they don't like crowdfunding because every bloody one of them is on the take from Justin Trudeau.
Andrew Coyne's snobby, oh my God, just since you refreshed that, we got eight more donors?
Oh, you didn't refresh this the last time.
So it's about 10 minutes.
Well, that's almost one donor a minute.
Well, that's pretty good.
I just find, like, Justin, would you not agree with me that it's remarkable that the Debates Commission specifically talks about crowdfunding?
What is crowdfunding?
Let me tell you what I think about crowdfunding.
I mean, occasionally, if a donation comes in, someone brings it to my attention, as or maybe call this person or whatever.
But do you think I know those seven?
Do you think I've even looked at those 707 names?
I can just tell you, let me just tell you right now, I have not.
I have not looked.
I mean, maybe those 707 people are saying, Ezra, I wish you would.
Ezra, you could be a little bit better in the thank you notes department.
Okay, you're right.
But what I regard that, and maybe you don't like to hear this, I regard not knowing who those 707 people is as a plus.
And I can tell you one thing.
Not a single reporter here knows who those people, because obviously we keep that list private, both for legal reasons and moral reasons.
No one at Rebel News knows who our crowdfunders are.
So they're out there, and they can follow our mission without fear of favor.
Follow the facts wherever they lead.
Tell the other side of the story.
They don't know who those 707 people are.
So they're not in the back of their mind saying, oh, I better not criticize Justin Trudeau, because my boss just got $5 million from the bailout fund.
So maybe I'm not going to ask a tough question.
Oh, I better not ask Stephen Legault, Gilbo, a tough question, because he's bringing internet censorship, and he's also paying my boss.
So I better not, you know, oh, we're getting money from, you know, Facebook and Google pay a lot of media companies directly.
Oh, we, what do you think that is?
That's called a bribe, people.
That's called lobbying.
If Facebook gives your company, and Facebook is now paying news companies directly, if Facebook gives you a half a million dollars, let's just say I'm making up a number, yeah, they're going to expect that you're not going to condemn them in your editorials.
So if I just told you the 17 Canadian reporters we have, plus we got two others.
Those 17 reporters do not know who those 707 donors are, and they will not know who those 707 donors are.
So those 17 reporters are more neutral and more independent than Andrew Coyne, the CBC, the Global Mail, the Toronto Star, Global News, or any other bailout company, or any other Unifor or Canada Media Guild company.
They just are.
But it is so bizarre to me that the Debates Commission has specifically singled out crowdfunding.
And by the way, I don't think there's any other media company in Canada that even uses the word crowdfunding.
I love True North.
I think they use the word donations, which is sort of crowdfunding.
Or I think they used subscription.
I'm a $10 a month giver to True North.
Plus I chip in when they have the odd project.
Andrew Coyne told me, Andrew Lawton reminded me that I chipped into a video they made.
They're specifically saying if you get your money from Justin Trudeau, you're neutral.
If you get your money from 707 strangers, you're compromised.
What?
If you donate money to Unifor's campaign against Aaron O'Toole, you're neutral.
If you donate money to Arthur Pavlovsky's civil liberties lawyers, you don't belong anywhere near a debate.
What?
What's Arthur Pavlovsky?
Did they say fight the fines?
They said something.
It was almost like they said, they didn't actually say the word fight the fines.
They used the word legal defense or something?
Where was that?
Crowdfund to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers.
What has that got to do?
What has that got to do with anything?
I just think this is incredible.
That is the, we don't like Rebel News, and we sort of lack the courage to say it, but we're going to be weasly about it.
And Andrew Coyne will just come out and say it.
He's a snob, and Rebel News and Andrew Lawton are not our kind here.
But Justin Trudeau's handpicked us, and so he told us to ban Rebel News, so we're going to do that.
And we're just going to say, we're not against Rebel News necessarily, but if you happen to be a crowdfunded conservative website who also helps civil liberties people, you're not welcome here.
But we're definitely not banning Rebel News.
It's just a coincidence.
That is an ad for Rebel News.
That list of who's allowed and who's not is de facto an ad for Rebel News because you know we are the only media they insist on keeping out.
And why is that?
Is it really because we crowdfunded lawyers for Arthur Pavlovsky?
What?
He's just a Christian pastor in Calgary.
We're paying his legal bills.
Oh, you did that, eh?
So you raised money for legal bills.
Well, you certainly can't come to a national debate and ask questions about anything.
Oh my God.
Very funny.
But you know what?
I would like to ask for your help.
If you can go to realreporters.ca.
Go there one more time.
Let's see if it ticked up.
It was 707.
It's been about five minutes.
Oh my God.
Look at that.
It's 715.
That's eight people in eight minutes, right?
Probably even less than eight minutes, yeah.
You know what?
That's how you build a media company.
I do not know who those 715 people are.
How would I know?
I'm on TV right now.
I could take the time and dig it up.
I'm promising you I'm not going to.
Because not that I don't care.
In fact, I want to say thank you to those people right now.
I'm not pretending I'm ungrateful.
Do you understand the difference between me being grateful but not wanting to have a boss and the average donation?
I haven't checked in a while, but last time I checked, the average donation to Rebel News, I think, was $53.
So don't ever let me say I don't value a $53 donation.
That's our specialty.
But you see, when I say we have a $53 donation average, do you know what that means?
That means everyone has an opinion, and we hear everyone's opinion.
Did that just tick up again?
Everyone's allowed an opinion at Rebel News.
But since the average donor is $53, everyone's opinions count, but no one counts too much, if you understand what I'm saying.
If we took a million dollars from Justin Trudeau or Stephen Gilbo, his opinion would count too much.
And not just that, they're the center of the news.
How can you take money from the center of the news?
I love crowdfunding.
It's the most honest way to do journalism.
Sometimes people say, oh, Ezra, you guys are crowdfunding too much.
Well, you know what?
99% of our viewers don't chip in.
So if you don't like it, don't chip in.
99% of people don't.
But for the 1% who feel motivated, chip in, chip in.
It's voluntary.
You're going to get the video no matter what.
But the reason I'm telling you it's better is, number one, you're not forced to support us, unlike the CBC, you're forced to support them.
Unlike the $61 million payoff to the journalists before the election, you're forced to support them.
But number two, our journalists, they don't know who those 716 people are.
So they go out there and they just do the job.
Follow the facts wherever they lead.
Tell the other side of the story.
Those are two of our mottos in the newsroom.
Isn't it crazy that they specifically say crowdfunding is a downside, but they love the government on the take reporters.
Isn't that incredible?
All right, well, we did two shows today.
We did the 45-minute pre-show about Afghanistan.
Re-Platforming in Regina00:06:14
Oh my god, 721.
Thank you.
I presume that's people watching this, but maybe not.
Maybe that's just other people out there.
That's realreporters.ca.
Thank you very much.
You know, I want to say one quick thing, and then I've got to go because I've been going on a little long today.
Can I tell you that we have a great event coming up in Regina, Saskatchewan?
Regina is a town of about a quarter million.
It's the capital city of Saskatchewan, as you can see from the Latin.
Regina means queen.
And one of the nicknames of that great town is the Queen City.
And on September 14th, we are having an evening with Dr. Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace.
Now, you might recall that we originally scheduled this event when he was unseemly deplatformed by the city of Regina.
The city of Regina government was having a conference.
They invited, I think, 45 different speakers.
Really interesting mix of speakers.
And one of them was Patrick Moore.
I've heard him speak.
In fact, he came on one of our Rebel Cruises once.
Great guy.
Really compassionate guy.
One of the co-founders of Greenpeace.
He loves critters, he loves the environment and the world, but he's not a partisan guy who only cares about, like Greenpeace has lost its way is what I'm saying.
But he's still got, he's all heart.
So he's a bit of a skeptic about some things.
I love the guy.
He was deplatformed, the only one deplatformed from that conference because a bunch of cancel culture types canceled him.
And the city of Regina, shame on them, cancel him.
I know him enough that I called him up on the phone.
I said, do not cancel your plane ticket.
Go to Regina.
We will book another venue and we will do an event just with you.
And to heck with that stupid city conference, we're going to have a Dr. Patrick Moore event.
He said, sure.
And I said to him, what is your speaking fee?
And he told me, I said, we will honor it.
We will pay you what you were going to be paid.
No discount.
I'll tell you that.
Because this is not a setback for you.
It's an opportunity to show that you actually were the star.
So we booked a venue called the Connexus Arts Center, which is a beautiful building.
Huge.
The capacity of the main theater, I think, is 2,200.
By the way, the original City of Regina conference only had room for a few hundred people.
We sold about 1,500 tickets, like in a week.
Isn't that amazing?
The fools at the city of Regina thought, oh, someone complained.
Let's get rid of Patrick Moore.
He was the most interesting thing at the conference.
We sold 1,500 tickets like that.
Now, trouble is, the pandemic came, the lockdowns came, the Connexus Art Center shut down.
So we had to postpone and postpone again and again and again and again and again.
But finally, they've lifted the rules.
So we got our date, September 14th.
And I checked, in fact, I'm going to check literally right now in real time, because I got a little app here telling me how many people.
So whenever people asked for a refund because of the constant postponement, we gave it to them, obviously.
But can you believe it?
We still have 1,300 people signed up.
But we're selling tickets some more because there's room.
There's still room.
1,300 people.
Oh, and by the way, we've got a little pre-show, VIP wine and cheese, and then a dinner afterwards with Patrick Moore, if you want to come to that.
But I'm so excited that we are proceeding with that event two years late, but we're proceeding with it.
And Patrick Moore's coming.
If you asked for a refund and got your ticket refunded, you can buy a ticket again if you like.
If you held on to your ticket, thank you.
I will see you in Regina on September 14th.
It's going to be great.
I just want to tell you that because, boy, we should have had that event before, but the pandemic stopped us.
This event isn't just about St. Patrick Moore.
And it's not just about getting together after being apart from each other.
It's about re-platforming a guy who was deplatformed.
Re-platforming a guy and showing the city Regina.
Shame on them.
Don't you think?
All right.
It's 1.34.
I got to go because I'm late.
But give me one more glance at realreporters.ca.
How's that doing?
I'm excited.
Realreporters.ca, that's if you believe in our crowdfunded journalism.
That's our crowdfunding website.
Oh my gosh.
Literally as we've been here, it was 7.07, then 7.15, then 7.16, then whatever to whatever, 7.31.
As we have been here, 24 people, you know, this is like PBS used to do with their telethons.
This is the most honest way to do it, as opposed to the government way.
Oh, Mr. Trudeau, can I have some free millions of dollars?
I'm sure there won't be any strings attached.
I don't know who these 731 people is.
I will never know who they are.
Who's more independent?
Us?
Or someone who calls up Justin Trudeau and begs?
And you don't think he makes you beg?
And you don't think he reminds you who gave you the million dollars?
I'm so grossed out by the bailout media, the bought-off media, the $61 million secret payment media.
And for the government commission to say, to specifically say crowdfunding is a no-no.
I think that gives the game away.
I think that shows where they're coming from.
And the fact that they hate our civil liberties project for fight the fines, by the way, that's done through the Democracy Fund.
They're too stupid to know that, I guess.
Not that you would be dumb not to know it, but if you're trying to attack us for that, do your research, that money doesn't come to Rebel News.
That money goes to the Democracy Fund, which is an independent CRA charity that pays, like when we raise money for Arthur Pavlovsky or the other 2,200 clients, that money does not actually go to Rebel News.
Someone Thrilled By Crowdfunding Ban00:01:11
We've got to get going.
My friends, thank you for your support.
I love the fact that our very independence is what bugs the Debate Commission.
Isn't that ironic?
It's upside down land.
We're the only truly independent, well, True North and other groups like that, but we're the most independent in many measures.
We've got 17 Canadian journalists crowdfunded.
And that's specifically what the government debates commission hates.
Unbelievable.
Give me one more chance.
Let me one more glance.
You know, I bet it's still the same because just because I am impatient doesn't mean that someone, but I'm just thrilled.
I'm just thrilled to see the public.
Did that just go up again by four?
Did that just go up again by four?
Oh my God.
It's almost like people want real reporters.
Well, we can't have that.
All right, guys, I've got to go.
You had a two-for-one show today.
Great to be back.
I got a show tonight at 8 p.m.
Until then.
Do we have a dog video?
We do.
I'll say goodbye now.
Here's a dog video that'll hopefully make you feel a little bit better about your day.