Ezra Levant exposes Canada’s Afghanistan crisis, where 1,250 citizens—including women and children—remain trapped under the Taliban, now armed with $85B in U.S. military equipment. Trudeau’s election call on August 31st amid Kabul’s fall and his reliance on Hillary Clinton over Biden for guidance spark outrage, while Postmedia’s apology for stealing Rebel News content reveals systemic media bias fueled by Trudeau’s $140K weekly bailouts. The episode underscores how political priorities and corporate influence distort accountability, leaving Canadians vulnerable at home and abroad. [Automatically generated summary]
Well my friends, the Afghan scandal, the fiasco of leaving in such haste, has properly been around Joe Biden's neck.
But according to the Globe and Mail today, there are 1,250 Canadians still in that country, including women and children.
The country is run by terrorists, now the best armed terrorists in the world.
And what does Trudeau have to say about any of it?
I'll take you through the news and Trudeau's role next.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
A lot of people like it.
It helps us because it's eight bucks a month and we don't take any money from Trudeau.
You know what, though?
During the election, we're giving it away for free if you use the coupon code Election.
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The idea is hopefully you'll be so hooked on it, you'll actually pay for it after the election.
All right, here is today's podcast.
Tonight is Joe Biden's Afghanistan disaster, Trudeau's Afghanistan disaster too.
It's August 31st, and this is the Azra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
The Globe and Mail is part of the media party, no doubt about it.
They're the official newspaper owned by Canada's wealthiest family.
It's a newspaper of the establishment.
They're not really on the side of populism or grassroots Canadians, but I have to give them credit.
On a few issues, they do a great job.
On China reporting, they are the best in the country other than the EPOC Times.
And when it comes to the scandals in Afghanistan and the loss of Canadian life and Canadian military matters, I think the Globe and Mail does itself a credit.
Let me read to you the story in the Globe and Mail today.
Ottawa says 1,250 Canadians and family members still stranded in Afghanistan.
I'll read a little bit from the story for you now.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mark Garneau says about 1,250 Canadian nationals, permanent residents and family members are stranded in Afghanistan as Canada and its allies continue to put pressure on the Taliban to allow them safe passage out of the country.
What does that mean put pressure on them?
They're a terrorist group.
The only pressure that works on them is military might, but every Canadian troop was pulled out in 2014.
Those Canadians, the embassy that was guarded, they're long gone.
And the Americans are gone too.
What pressure could there possibly be?
Sanctions of the United Nations, a sternly worded tweet?
I'll read some more.
Mr. Garneau and Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino held a news conference in Ottawa Tuesday to announce that Canada was accepting 5,000 Afghan refugees that are now in overcrowded U.S. bases in the Middle East and Europe.
Hang on, so the headline here is that there's 1,250 Canadians, Canadian citizens in Afghanistan.
And the best we got is, oh, we're going to put pressure on the Taliban to get them out.
But in the same breath, they're going to take Afghans that foreign countries withdrew and take them to Canada.
I'm open to examining Afghans who help the West after they're vetted to make sure they are indeed not terrorists themselves, not double agents, not just opportunists.
I'm open to Canada accepting some genuine refugees from the Taliban, but aren't there 1,250 Canadians who are trying to find refuge from the Taliban?
And we're not talking about that and only that and not moving on from that until it's done.
I'll read some more.
Mr. Garneau said, if Canadians wish to try to get out of the country through bordering nations, he said Ottawa has alerted its embassies and consulates to help process them so they can come to Canada.
So if you're a Canadian and you're most likely in the capital of Kabul, which is swarming with Taliban and the airport is completely taken over by the Taliban, the Canadian government is saying, we're not going to help you.
We can't help you.
But if you manage to get out of the country on your own, by foot or by car, and make it to our embassy, we'll be there waiting for you and give you a hot cup of coffee and we'll help you from there.
Yeah, I think if someone has the ability and the nerves and the courage and the resources to make their way out of Afghanistan by foot or by car, they got it from here, mate.
They're not really waiting on some diplomats in, I don't know, Pakistan somewhere to help them out.
It's incredible.
This is a disaster.
We're mainly seeing the disaster through American eyes because America was there until moments ago, whereas Canada was withdrawn in 2014.
And I think it was a good idea that Canada was withdrawn.
But obviously, 1,250 Canadians are still there, including families, including wives and children.
Let me look at, I think, the most stunning day here, the day Kabul fell, was the day that Justin Trudeau, who surely was being briefed on this, chose to end his briefing, put on his campaign gear, walk down to Rideau Hall, and ask the governor general to call the election.
The day Kabul fell was the day he said, I'm not going to pay attention to that.
I'm going to enter the busiest month of my life campaigning for my personal gain the day Kabul fell.
He could have delayed.
He could have said, I'm going to delay even by a week to work on this important national matter.
But he did not because he doesn't care.
You know, it's interesting.
I mean, Joe Biden, who is asleep literally at the Switch, here's video.
I don't know if you saw this.
Here is him sleeping.
He was meeting with the Israeli prime minister and then he just dozes off.
And the Israeli prime minister just kept talking to Biden, but he knew the cameras were there, so he didn't dare say, wake up.
Anyways, Joe Biden was literally snoozing through this crisis.
And Justin Trudeau couldn't get in touch with anyone in the White House.
He didn't talk with Joe Biden.
In fact, Joe Biden didn't talk to any world leaders.
So Justin Trudeau contacted Hillary Clinton.
Remember that?
I also spoke last night with former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who shares our concern for Afghan women and girls.
She welcomed our efforts and urged Canada to continue our work.
Governments, international organizations, and civil society must continue to work together to support women and girls in Afghanistan.
Hillary Clinton is not part of the administration.
She was the former Secretary of State, but that ended in 2016 or 2017, January.
Why would he call Hillary Clinton?
The only thing Hillary Clinton is good at is figuring out how to survive after a scandal of abandoning people overseas.
That's what Hillary is famous for, Benghazi, when she left Americans to die in that city in Libya.
Justin Trudeau has left 1,250 Canadians, God forbid, to die in Kabul.
What's he doing?
Is he asking her for advice on that?
I want to show you the most terrifying image out of Afghanistan today.
This.
This is an American helicopter, and it appears that they're hanging someone, that they've conducted a hanging by helicopter using one of the dozens of helicopters left behind in haste by Joe Biden.
The Taliban terrorists now have an Air Force.
Here's a video.
At first, you'll think these are Americans, because one fellow's talking in English, and the others look like Americans, but these are not Americans.
This is the Taliban wearing American military uniforms, including high-tech night vision goggles, walking through an American arms depot in Afghanistan that was abandoned so hastily, it's where some of the $85 billion worth of equipment is that America gifted to the Taliban.
Take a look at this.
Oh, all right.
We're here right now with the Taliban as they enter into the what was only minutes ago was an American-patrolled portion of the military airport.
Now they're taking over this.
You really could be mistaken for thinking that those are Americans in a high-tech American base because he was speaking English.
And if you didn't hear what he was saying, you'd say, yeah, of course those are Americans in Afghanistan.
Pretty mighty operation.
Yeah, the Taliban is the pretty mighty operation now.
Here's a chart from the Times of London, one of the world's leading newspapers, showing the weapons that were left behind.
Afghanistan, the Taliban, that is, now has more military helicopters than any country in the world other than the United States, Russia, and China.
It is the fourth largest military power, if you're measuring simply by military helicopters.
Obviously, that's not the sole measure, but they have a lot of other equipment too.
They also, most incredibly, were given intelligence by the CIA director.
It's hard to believe, but here's the headline to show it.
The head of the CIA flew to Kabul to meet with the Taliban and stunningly gave information on Americans they were worried about to the Taliban, naively thinking the Taliban would help get them out.
No, that just gave the Taliban a kill list.
And I don't know if you saw this.
Joe Biden launched a missile strike, obviously with information given to it by the Taliban, wound up striking and killing a family, including an interpreter that had helped the U.S. Look at this.
You know, there's an image that I saw on the internet last night of a burnt out American helicopter with a bunch of dog kennels in front of it.
And reporters say that those are the service animals that helped the U.S. military during the 20 years in Afghanistan.
That were sniffer dogs, that were guard dogs, that were attack dogs, just helper dogs, the canine unit, that they were abandoned and left behind in Afghanistan when America hastily exited.
Now, obviously, a dog's life, even a wonderful, loyal dog, is not of equal value to a human life.
I accept that and acknowledge that.
But the casualness of abandoning those dogs, I think, is symbolic of the casualness of abandoning one of the greatest military tranches of weapons in history to a terrorist force.
And the casualness of leaving behind 1,250 Canadians, and as far as we know, at least hundreds of Americans to the mercies of the Taliban.
I do not believe that America or Canada should be the world's police.
I think Justin Trudeau uses the military for photo ops, including to get some brownie points at places like the UN.
Our mission in Mali made no sense militarily, strategically, economically, diplomatically.
Justin Trudeau's Military Photo Ops00:04:04
It just simply was something Trudeau did to try and win some seat on the UN Security Council.
I don't believe we should be a global cop.
I think some parts of the world cannot be reformed into liberal democracies.
And if we're going to nation build, well, why don't we start nation-building here at home?
I know 50 boil water advisories that Justin Trudeau has promised he'd deal with for six years now.
But that said, the manner in which the United States and Justin Trudeau abandoned not only the works of the West, not only the legacy, I get that, but the actual people of the West is a great disgrace.
And the fact that we have left behind 1,250 Canadians, including women and children, but are willing to take unvetted thousands of Afghan refugees that are waiting in Europe shows the backward priorities of this country.
I think we're in dark times, my friends.
Stay with us, more I have you.
Welcome back.
Well, it's been an exciting campaign so far, I have to say.
The Conservative Party is polling better in the polls than I thought they would.
The Liberals are having a rougher ride than I thought they would.
And an interesting part of the story is that the People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier's party, is doing much better than the polls would have suggested.
And of course, then there's the Maverick Party out west.
It's a very interesting race.
Rebel News is doing our best to cover it from around the country, flying around, running around.
Sometimes we have great conversations with candidates.
Here's a quick clip of David Menzies talking to Costas Medagakis, a conservative candidate, once an MP, who hopes to be again.
Just a quick snip of that.
When we see somebody who's sort of manipulate the system for their own personal electoral advantage, people see through that.
And I believe that's what happened in Nova Scotia.
There was no need to call that election, and there's no need to call this federal election now either.
To call an election just so you can secure your spot for the next four years because you think you're going to get a majority is unfair to Canadians.
It's an expensive process.
It's at the wrong time.
People are coming out of the pandemic now.
You know, we want to bring back optimism and ensure that people get back to work and back to a semblance of normal life.
Instead, we're embroiled in the middle of an election that nobody wants.
Yeah, and like you said earlier, that might just cost Justin Trudeau.
I think even if he gets the status quo, a liberal minority government, that is, in a sense, a failure, is it not?
Oh, absolutely.
Costas is a good guy, and that's David's turf.
Sometimes, though, Conservative MPs start to talk to us, but when they realize our reporters are rebels, they run away.
Here's a Quebec lieutenant for Erin O'Toole panicking when he realizes he's talking to Alexa Lavois, our Quebec-based rebel.
Well, the Conservatives have a love and hate affair with us.
I suppose it's mutual.
But one quality guy, one of our favorite guests on the program who has had great access to the Conservative campaign and just spent a week on their campaign buses and planes, and in fact, had some chances to put questions to Aaron O'Toole himself, is our friend Andrew Lauden who joins us now via Skype from his home in London, Ontario.
Well, you've been jetting around with Aaron O'Toole.
How has it been?
Has it been fun?
Has it been exciting?
Yeah, it's certainly been busy.
I mean, I should be grateful.
Aaron O'Toole's Climate Plan Controversy00:14:59
I know in the 2019 pre-COVID era of media coverage of campaigns, what had happened was they were sometimes doing five, six events a day.
So thankfully, it wasn't that busy, but we were moving a bit around over the weekend.
We were in Atlantic, Canada, Quebec, Ontario.
So it did a fair bit.
And a combination of these very sort of controlled small announcements and press conferences and a couple of, they call them supporter events.
They're sort of the modern version of what one would say is a rally, but with a much smaller crowd.
But yeah, there was a good combination of them over the last few days.
Yeah, it's very sad when you think about it.
I mean, sometimes big rallies were not just a chance to speak to hundreds or even thousands of people, but they were a real spirit-building event.
I mean, if you're at an event with thousands of like-minded people all enthused together, you really, it really gets seared into your memory.
I think of Donald Trump's 10, 20, 30, 40,000 person rallies in his campaign.
There's a real electrifying effect on the community.
It's sort of pitiful when you have little events, but frankly, the events that have been the most newsworthy out there, this has come as an interesting revelation to me, Andrew.
Justin Trudeau can't go anywhere without being booed and heckled.
That feels new or different.
I mean, it's not the first time politicians have been heckled, but Trudeau's used to a loving crowd, isn't he?
Yeah, I remember trying to cover the 2019 election.
And as you may remember, it was a bit difficult because I had been banned by the liberals from doing it in any official capacity.
But still, I'd go on the road and try to cover.
And Justin Trudeau had a very electrifying quality about him.
And a lot of people on the right may not agree with this or want to agree with it.
There was no denying it on the ground that he had that celebrity complex where even especially with young people in Hamilton, Burnaby, Montreal, they would really just flock and fawn and get their selfies and get their picture beside the Trudeau bus and the prime minister, the liberal leader himself.
And this time, that just isn't there.
And, you know, there have been a couple of events where he's been able to have a rally-like crowd packed into a restaurant or whatever.
But you're right.
I mean, very much this, there's a large crowd, but a lot of them are there to boo and heckle and protest.
And that is very different.
And, you know, I couldn't remember.
Now, granted, I haven't been following the Liberals full time because I have been embedded with the conservatives for the last week.
But the clips that I was seeing of Justin Trudeau's press conferences, in every one of them, you can hear that chanting in the background.
Yeah.
I mean, some of them include swearing, and I don't think that's the most polite way to be, but I think the ability to heckle politicians and frankly, to swear at them.
I mean, I'm not prescribing it, but neither would I ban it.
That comes as a shock to the media who have never heard the precious one referred to that way.
I think it's 18 months of pent-up political talk back that no one had a chance to speak back to power.
Parliament wasn't really sitting.
The media were more as stenographers than anything.
The opposition parties weren't really opposing.
I think this is people having 18 months worth of frustration and anger and dissent.
And if they want to swear, you know what?
I'm not going to get too panicked about it.
Whereas the media is all clutching their pearls, some of them are implying it's violence to heckle the prime minister.
No, it's not.
In fact, it's enshrined in our Constitution, Section 2B, isn't it?
This is a big problem that I have with a lot of the discourse around this.
There are two types of displays.
There are, by and large, the protest, the people that are out there as they have a right to, and then a very, very, very small subset that I would say has crossed the line.
You know, people who have very violent rhetoric or violent imagery on a sign.
And you know what?
Those people, I think, are not doing themselves any favors if they think that is a way to protest and make a point.
But there is this problem here of the peaceful protesters who make up the majority being lumped in with those who are in the minority.
And I think it's very, very much in poor form to do that.
And in fact, the political left has been saying that whenever anyone tries to point out radicalism, rioting, and looting, and Black Lives Matter rallies, they say, oh, no, no, no, you can't let them speak for the majority.
But I mean, that same courtesy doesn't seem to be extended the other way.
Listen, I mean, I've always been an opponent of no platforming, of deplatforming.
My view is that you shouldn't use your right to free speech to shut down someone else.
So if the idea is to drown someone out so they can't speak, I'm not a fan of that.
But if people are trying to say, we're here, we have all of these issues, and these are not being heard, these are not being addressed, that is absolutely a protected form of free speech.
And for Justin Trudeau to launch this campaign saying this is about Canadians being heard, well, this is Canadians being heard.
Yeah, he only likes to hear what he wants to hear.
You know, I just want to make one quick comment.
You said some of the imagery is beyond the pale.
I saw this picture in Ontario.
It's a big poster of Trudeau and a noose and an employee accused of treason or traitor or whatever.
And I would have said, well, that's sort of startling.
But then I saw the logo on the bottom right-hand corner of that propaganda image.
And I don't know if you recognize that, but that is a logo for a fake front group called The Line.
And I identified that group about a year ago.
It's run by a guy named Lamont Daigle, who suddenly appeared on the scene with all sorts of slick ads and financing.
And he said, I'm the leader of the anti-lockdown movement.
And everyone said, who are you?
And I started seeing him say crazy things saying like, we should talk about violence or revolution.
Or even one day said, sometimes I feel like driving my truck through the CBC office.
And we said, whoa, who is this guy who is so obviously a narc, a fan, an undercover officer, an agent provocateur?
And we had David Menzies ask him those questions, and he didn't resile from them.
Here's a quick clip of that.
When we look at this one quote here, trust me when I tell you, it is a daily battle to not take someone's car and drive it through the middle of the CBC.
I don't know how that falls into the bailiwick of self-defense in any regard.
I mean, I'm no fan.
I don't think anyone at the Rebel is a fan of the CBC, but I would never advocate a violent act against the CBC or an employee of the CBC.
I completely agree with you.
And as a matter of fact, it's not just about the CBC, about CTV, City TV, any of these mainstream media that have been lying about the numbers that have been here.
Because quite frankly, we've seen up to 10,000 people here.
And they're always reporting about 100 people, 200 people, 300 people.
So they're lying to the people.
They've been lying to us for seven months.
And personally, not the Line Canada, but personally, I'm fed up with them.
And I can have ideas in my mind about how I feel about driving a car through the CBC.
It's a fantasy in my mind that would never play out in actuality.
Ever, ever, ever.
So sometimes you say things when you're fed up.
That's all.
It's just emotion.
Well, I am happy to hear that.
I mean, I'm pretty much a free speech absolutist, but the line in the sand is advocating harm, violence, death against a person, an identifiable group of people.
So when people see that, change the word violence to enraged.
And I didn't mean to go on that detour, Andrew, but my point is the guy who was seeking to enter into the anti-lockdown movement to discredit it with his violent BS talk, and we outed him a year ago, that's him again.
I would bet a thousand to one he's an undercover RCMP asset who isn't actually a genuine anti-Trudeau protester, like his fake talk of violence at the anti-lockdown movements.
I think he's there to give Trudeau the talking point.
Oh, look at that call for incitement.
Anyhow, I just think that's, don't think that undercover feds are only an American phenomenon.
We have them here too.
Grant Bristow of the Heritage Fund was a CESIS agent.
All right, back to what you've been doing.
Sorry for that tangent.
Andrew, you had a chance to put some questions to Aaron O'Toole.
Here's one you put to him about global warming, carbon taxes, and does every single MP have to adhere to Aaron O'Toole's line?
Here, let's take a look at that.
Andrew Lawton, True North, during your leadership race last year, you committed often to allowing free votes in caucus.
You spoke numerous occasions about the importance of having a Big Ten party.
Yet in your statement yesterday, you said if MPs and candidates don't get on board with the climate plan and every single aspect of your platform, they'll be booted from caucus.
So specifically, sir, on which issues will you allow free votes and on which issues will you demand a vote in favor of a particular proposal?
We are running on a plan, Canada's recovery plan, which the country needs to get back on its feet.
On the first full day of the campaign, we launched our plan.
All of our candidates are committed to the plan.
It's exactly what the country needs.
Jobs, accountability, mental health leadership, preparing ourselves for the next pandemic, and a commitment to getting the budget balanced over the next decade.
Everyone will be focused on that plan and a positive campaign.
You know, I don't think he quite answered what you said.
I mean, I get it.
If you're running on a team, you have to be part of a team.
But part of a political team is having the ability to have a range of opinions, not just to walk in lockstep with one man.
If you're just a repeater of the leader, it's not much of a team, not much of a party.
And I think if you're going to win, you need a big enough tent that you have some degrees of opinion.
I know for a fact, Andrew, that there are members of parliament and the Conservative Party in Alberta who absolutely do not agree with Aaron O'Toole on the carbon tax.
They told me that.
They told me that as recently as last month.
So if they're nodding along just so they don't cause a scandal in this election, that problem will arise later because most Conservatives do not agree with Aaron O'Toole on the carbon tax.
They said so at the last policy convention.
Yeah, and just to give a bit of context on that question, on Sunday, I think it was, Aaron O'Toole had put out a statement saying if conservative candidates are not prepared to get on board with the climate plan, or if, sorry, if they object to the climate plan or, quote, any other part, unquote, of the Conservative platform, they will not be allowed to sit in caucus.
Now, this is a 160-page platform.
There are things in here that have to do with taxes, to animal welfare, to moving the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
All of these things are in the platform.
And it was that, quote, any other part, unquote, that jumped out of me there.
Because this was a guy who in the leadership race, his great appeal as a pro-choicer to social conservatives was, yeah, I'm not one of you, but I support free votes.
I think you have a place in this party.
So I was trying to get a sense of, okay, which issues are the ones that you think require free votes and which issues are the ones that you think need to be whipped.
If it's just about the climate plan and the budget and some big picture items, that's kind of normal.
You may object to it, but that's pretty much the standard process in whipping votes.
If you're talking about every single part of your platform, I mean, just to talk about the embassy, because that was a question I asked him yesterday.
What if an MP were for whatever reason to not support moving the embassy?
Does that mean they could no longer sit as a conservative?
I was trying to get a sense of just how much that those three little words, any other part, were really going to extend.
And as of this point, I still don't actually know.
You know, I'm a little bit nervous because on a number of issues, Aaron O'Toole has changed course, whether it's defunding the CBC or cancel culture.
I mean, he gave the heave-hoe to Jim Karahalios and then to Derek Sloan, both of them on trumped-up charges, I would say.
Even his dealings with Rebel News, I think he's too easily panicked by what the mean girls of the CBC have to say.
I mean, obviously, Aaron O'Toole would be an improvement over Trudeau in that he would just clean out the stables.
But I have to tell you, Andrew, I'm sometimes worried that you're just swapping red team for blue team and that on the key issues, there's nothing different.
Open borders immigration, he's identical to Trudeau.
Carbon tax, he calls his a carbon levy.
I haven't heard him be a passionate opponent of lockdowns or vaccine passports.
He says, oh, that's for the provinces to do.
I really haven't seen him.
In fact, there hasn't been an official statement by him about the Facebook and social media censorship.
I'm not talking about Bill C-10 or C-36.
I'm talking about the other stuff that was released by the Liberals after Parliament broke.
On all these key issues that I care about, he has literally said nothing substantial to differentiate himself from the Liberals.
Am I too critical?
I mean, I'm suspicious of the guy.
Am I being too critical?
What do you think?
Well, I mean, one of the big issues that he has to face is that his platform in the leadership race came out just a year ago.
So that's not a lot of time for people to forget and move on from things.
And that was a leadership campaign in which he was positioning himself as the true blue conservative, had a fair amount of red meat issues in there, like defunding CBC.
So that was one that early on we saw had been walked back significantly.
One area that I was actually quite pleased to see in the platform, he had been silent after the Liberals introduced Bill C-36, which was their attempt, as you and I have talked about, to bring back Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
The platform is unequivocal on that.
He's not going to touch the human rights code.
He's not going to introduce Bill C-10.
So there are a lot of things that I think are very good in the platform.
There are also a lot of things that I'm wondering, okay, why is this happening when that's not what was promised previously?
But what's interesting is that when he's campaigning, he's playing it very safe.
And if you watch enough of these press conferences, listen closely because a lot of the time you'll hear, and there are a couple of reporters in particular, but you'll hear yes or no answer the question shouted at him when he hasn't, in their view, answered a question.
And in a lot of cases, he only wants to talk about things that are in the platform.
That's the only thing he wants to do.
So he's very good on message discipline, which if you're a political staffer wanting to get out the message of the day is a good thing.
But if you're a journalist or if you're a Canadian voter wanting to know where he stands on these things, well, not every answer is in the Bible, the Bible of the campaign, if you will.
Well, Andrew, I'm really grateful that you went on the bus and the plane and crisscrossed at least part of the country with him.
I'm glad you put those questions that you did.
I love following you on Twitter and on tnc.news.
Of course, you got the Andrew Lawton show.
I really think that True North has done a great job of this campaign.
I think Rebel News has too, of course, but I really think that you guys are punching above your weight.
Glad You're Punching Above Your Weight00:02:11
You're really given her.
And I'm just so glad you're out there doing what you're doing.
AndrewLawtonShow.com, that's the main website, right?
For my show, yes.
Yeah, MNTNC.news.
I think most of our viewers are already your viewers too, and I'm glad they are.
I chip in a little bit, I chipped in a little bit to your election campaign fundraiser and monthly because I like to see what, and I know that, like us, you don't take a dime from Trudeau.
So that's why I can trust you.
Well, it's very much appreciated.
And I should just say, I had a gentleman yesterday come up and say, Andrew, I love your interview with Pausas Menegakis.
I said, wait, what?
And then I realized he was talking about David Menzies' interview.
So sometimes people are watching both of us.
They know who both of us are.
They might get us mixed up, but they are watching.
Well, you and David both have both a friendly style to you.
You're respectful of people.
You're not snobby.
You don't look down on anyone.
So I think you and David have a hail, fellow, well-met personality in common.
Like, I think you look quite different, but I'm not surprised people confuse the two he is because you're both really affable, friendly reporters who ask good conservative questions.
So I think that's a compliment to both of you that you were confused with David, by the way.
There we go.
We'll take it.
Great to see you.
Thanks for taking the time.
Keep it up.
We'll keep flying you on Twitter and all your other platforms.
See you later.
Thanks a lot.
All right.
There you have it.
Andrew Lawton, one of the good guys with TNC.news.
with us.
Hello, my friends.
Normally, we run letters from you to me, letters from viewers.
Most of them are positive, but occasionally I run the critical letters.
I like those.
It makes me think.
Today I received an apology letter.
I don't often get those.
I know how hard it is to make an apology.
I have a joke.
I apologize to someone once a year, whether I need to or not.
The joke being, of course, we all need to apologize much more often than once a year, don't we?
Well, I received an apology letter, and I thought it was important enough to make a little video about.
So instead of reading my fan mail or hate mail, I'll read this apology mail.
I made a video, I'll leave it with you.
Postmedia's Apology00:04:13
And I'll say goodbye now until tomorrow.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
Here's that letter.
The largest newspaper company in Canada just apologized to Rebel News.
Here, let me read it to you.
Dear Ezra, on behalf of Postmedia, I write to apologize to you, Rebel News, and Kian Bexty, for inappropriately using your photo and video without properly crediting the source of the photo, video, or payment, and for removing your logo from the video and replacing it with our logo.
That was wrong, and we are sorry.
I have spoken with the senior editorial team to reiterate it is completely unacceptable to reproduce content from other media without proper acknowledgement.
Sincerely, Usinda Chodin, Senior Vice President Editorial.
Wow.
Postmedia owns most of the daily newspapers in Canada, was stealing our Rebel News photos and videos.
They just took our work without permission, without payment.
Then they took unethical steps to hide it.
They actually stripped off our Rebel News marks, took our logo off, and put their own company logo on the work to pass it off as if it was their work.
We caught them.
We demanded they stop.
They wouldn't.
So we sued them.
But that's like a canoe suing a battleship.
They're the richest newspaper company in Canada, and they're not even Canadian.
I don't know if you know this, but Postmedia is owned by a giant New Jersey hedge fund called Chatham Asset Management.
It's a vulture fund worth billions of dollars.
They could afford to pay their own reporters to do their own work.
They don't need to steal ours and put their logo on it.
But the idea of a vulture fund is just what it sounds like.
Pay as little as possible, ring out as much as possible, get away with whatever you can.
Never apologize, never explain.
That's their mindset.
Postmedia wasn't always this way.
You know, I used to work there myself.
They were once the closest thing Canada had to a conservative-leaning news company, but that was then, this is now.
Today they're the number one recipient of Trudeau's bailout money.
Did you know that?
They take $140,000 a week from Trudeau, and it shows.
And like Trudeau, they're just as arrogant as they are rich.
For two years, post media refused to pay us for what they stole.
They refused to even acknowledge that they stole it.
They actually claimed that they had the right to use our work the way they did.
But this morning, two years after the fact, they finally admitted everything.
What made them change their mind?
Well, we finally got to court this morning.
We had a special court mediation in front of Deputy Judge Carla Bocci.
Postmedia brought out all their big guns, a senior in-house lawyer, a senior hired lawyer, their senior VP editorial, three big guns to fight against little old us.
But they blinked.
Doesn't happen often, but it happens.
Even the billionaire bullies sometimes admit they're wrong.
Read their apology for yourself.
They were inappropriate.
They were wrong.
What they did was completely unacceptable.
So why do they apologize?
Only they know for sure, and I can't tell you some of the things that happened at the mediation.
They're confidential, but I think I know what it was in my heart.
I think it was that someone finally stood up to them.
I think that's what it was.
Look, we're just a small news company run by citizen journalists.
Normally people like us get run over by billionaires like Trudeau's post media.
They certainly did everything they could to delay today's court date.
They stretched it out for two years.
But when I made it clear to them that we weren't going to back down, they did.
There's a lesson here to all the Davids out there.
Keep fighting.
Goliath looks mean, but if you show courage, you can sometimes win and even get Goliath to apologize to you.
You know, it's funny.
Post media mocks our journalism all the time.
They hate rebel news, but they were secretly stealing it.