Ezra Levant critiques Remembrance Day as a hollow observance amid Canada’s pandemic-era civil liberties violations—vaccine passports and forced vaccinations—calling them the worst betrayal of veterans’ sacrifices. David Menzies, barred from Ottawa’s press riser despite Legion ties, highlights Trudeau’s late wreath-laying, broken silence, and $10.5M payment to Omar Qadar, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist, while 3,000–5,000 veterans remain homeless. Afghanistan vet Chris Semchuk’s PTSD worsened after Canada abandoned allies in 2021’s U.S. withdrawal, yet his petition for permanent flag honors faces bureaucratic rejection. The episode frames modern Canada as unrecognizable to those who fought tyranny, exposing a "kinder, gentle tyranny" that weaponizes virtue signaling while ignoring veterans and Indigenous crises like dirty water. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through our Remembrance Day show.
You know every year I read a poem by Rudyard Kipling called Tommy Atkins.
That last line makes me choke up every single time.
I just can't avoid it.
What can I do?
We'll also talk to our friend David Menzies who was at the National War Memorial today.
He's got some interesting reports.
Before I go, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus for eight bucks a month.
That's a video version of this podcast.
I hope you think it's worth it.
We don't get any money from the government, so we rely on that $8 to pay our bills.
I hope you'll help us.
But more than that, I think you'll enjoy it.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com and click subscribe.
You also get other stuff there.
Not just my work, but Sheila Gunrid, Andrew Chapatos, David Menzies himself.
So I think there's a lot there.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, it's Remembrance Day, but I'm afraid our country has forgotten not only the sacrifice of the soldiers, but what they were even fighting for.
Welcome to the Ezra 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 to the government of a wire publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Well, as you know, every November 11th, every Remembrance Day, I read the same poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Stop Enjoying Freedom00:04:03
It's called Tommy Atkins.
I think so many of Kipling's works are applicable.
If you attended or watched our Zoom civil rights town hall with Glenn Beck, you'll see he quoted one of Kipling's wonderful poems called The Gods of the Copybook Headings.
The poems were over 100 years ago, most of them in the late 19th century, many of them set in India.
They were about military matters and empire matters, but you could see within them some of the same germs of the crisis that we face today.
A crisis of national self-doubt, of national self-hatred, of forgetting what's right and what's wrong.
Little did he know the horrors that would come and be to come in the 20th century.
I'll read that poem, Tommy Atkins, later, because it always makes me choke up.
There's that one line in there about Tommy Atkinson, Atkins, that he sees the way he's treated and he knows, you'll know the one.
But what's different this year, and even more than last year, I mean, the pandemic was upon us a year ago, and masks were everywhere, and lockdowns were here, but the viciousness had yet to come.
The brutal prosecution of the Christian churches, the imprisonment of pastors had yet to come.
Even though the cases spiked in Canada, the deaths spiked in April of 2020, you would think things would have been over by the fall, but no, they were just pausing before the brutal state truly exercised itself.
And that was followed shortly thereafter in early 2021 with the vaccines and the forced vaccines.
And I say forced vaccines because it's no choice to say you can have this vaccine, you can choose to have it, or you'll lose your job, be demonized, marginalized from public life.
That's not any more of a real choice than the choice that your stereotypical mugger says, your money or your life.
Hey, that's a choice.
You just chose your life.
No.
So I think that what we face today is truly the gravest violation of our civil liberties in Canada's history.
And I say that because normally on Remembrance Day we stop to remember and to praise those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and those who also were wounded and those who served and survived who did so for our liberties.
But then we go back to enjoying those liberties.
We have to make two minutes a year to remember that the lovely life we have was paid for in blood.
We have to stop enjoying freedom for a moment to think about freedom.
That's normally what Remembrance Day is like.
This year that applies, but it also applies in a different way.
We have to remember what those freedoms were that they fought for because those are going away.
Maybe it's because we forgot the price we paid for the freedom, because we forgot about the veterans and those who perished, that we have forgotten who they were, we've forgotten the sacrifice, and we've forgotten what they gave us because we are giving it all away.
Could you have imagined two years ago telling people that Canadians would be locked in their own home, that they would be fired from jobs despite exemplary service, that they would be denied the right to fly in a plane or go on a train, to meet in public, to meet in private.
In Alberta, if you're unvaxed, you are not allowed to meet with other unvaxed people for Christmas, for example.
That truly is what our veterans and those who fell paid the price to fight against.
We're not just here to remember the veterans.
We're here to remember what the veterans fought for.
I'm afraid we've forgotten that part too.
These are the worst of times.
We'll do our best to chronicle it, to shine a light of public scrutiny on it, to tell the other side of the story and through the Democracy Fund to fight for these people.
Drums Begin to Roll00:02:47
That's my monologue for today, but now let me end as I always do by reading Tommy Atkins by Rudyard Kipling.
I went into a public house to get a pint of beer.
The publican, he up and says, we serve no red coats here.
The girls behind the bar, they laughed and giggled, fit to die.
I outs into the street again, and to myself, says I, oh, it's Tommy this and Tommy that, and Tommy, go away.
But it's, thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the band begins to play.
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play.
Oh, it's, thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the band begins to play.
I went into a theater as sober as could be.
They gave a drunk civilian room, but hadn't none for me.
They sent me to the gallery or around the music halls.
But when it comes to fighting, Lord, they'll shove me in the stalls.
For it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy wait outside.
But it's special train for Atkins when the trooper's on the tide.
The troop ship's on the tide, my boys, the troop ship's on the tide.
Oh, it's special train for Atkins when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than those uniforms, and they're starvation cheap.
And hustling drunken soldiers when they're going large a bit is five times better business than parading in full kid.
Then it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy, I was your soul.
But it's thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll.
Oh, it's thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red heroes, nor we aren't no blaggards too, but single men in barracks, most remarkable like you.
And if sometimes our conduct isn't all your fancy paints, well, single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints.
Well, it's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy fall behind.
But it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the line.
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind.
Oh, it's pleased to walk in front, sir, when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk of better food for us and schools and fires and all.
We'll wait for extra rations if you treat us rationale.
Don't mess about the cookroom slops, but prove it to our face.
The widow's uniform is not the soldier man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this and Tommy that and chuck him out, the brute.
But it's savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot.
And it's Tommy this and Tommy that and anything you please.
And Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool.
You bet that Tommy sees.
That's Tommy Atkins by Rudyard Kipling.
That last line just gets me every time.
Fallen Heroes Remembered00:15:32
We do forget our veterans in the fallen.
We absolutely do.
Don't deny it.
But worse, we forgot what they fell for, what they died for, what they fought for.
And I think that is something that they would never forgive us for.
Stay with us.
We'll talk with David Menzies next.
Well, our own David Menzies was in Ottawa today at the National Memorial, the National War Memorial for the Remembrance Day ceremony there.
He then went to Kingston, Ontario, which has a proud military tradition.
And we've caught up with him actually at the side of the road in Ontario as he's making his way back to Toronto.
David, thanks very much for pulling over to give us an update.
Tell me how your day began in Ottawa.
Well, Ezra Mauricio, our cameraman, and myself, we went to the glorious National War Memorial in Ottawa to take in the Remembrance Day ceremonies.
I want to say, unfortunately, we were not allowed to be part of the press riser.
In other words, to get a good viewpoint of the ceremonies.
You think if there's anything that should be apolitical nonpartisan, it is commemorating the war dead and honoring our war veterans.
But apparently, that's not how they roll in Ottawa either.
So they kept us out for political reasons, the same way they tried to keep us out of the leaders' debate?
You got it.
We were told you have to be part of the parliamentary press gallery.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
As if, by the way, any of them give a hoot about soldiers or veterans.
You know, twice we've gone to the federal court of Canada to be allowed into the federal leaders' debate.
And those same smarmy, that little cartel keeping you, you who is such a booster of soldiers and vets in the poppy.
I'm sorry to be distracted.
You're right.
That is not the, we are not the center of the story.
The veterans and the fallen are the center of the story.
But the fact that official Ottawa is so petty, I'm sorry I can't let that pass without comment.
Today is not about us, but neither is it about the partisanship that the press gallery showed.
Keep going, David.
Tell me about the event itself.
Well, I want to commend Prime Minister Trudeau for making the ultimate sacrifice.
By that, Ezra, I don't mean that he's actually signed up for military service.
I mean that he actually showed up to lay a wreath as opposed to, oh, you know, buggering off to Tofino and going on a surfing safari like he did on the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
So at least he showed up, although I understand from my colleague Sheila, he was late given our poor vantage point.
We couldn't tell who was who in the zoo at the Cenotaph.
And Ezra, the Prime Minister's office, if anyone's ever been to Ottawa, it is literally, literally across the street from the National War Memorial.
I don't know how you can be late.
Likewise, the Governor General intruded upon the two-minute moment of silence.
Now, there was some security issue, we understood, that was resolved.
It was a red herring.
But here's the thing, Ezra.
What dignitaries, including the Governor General, including the Prime Minister, must understand is that Remembrance Day is not about them.
It's not for them.
It's for the war dead.
It is for the veterans that we're honoring.
They should never, in this case, I should say the Governor General should not have intruded upon that two-minute moment of silence.
I thought that was a disgraceful display of etiquette.
You know what?
We have that on video.
Here is a clip.
So the two minutes of silence, you know, I know from that Broadway song, there's 525,600 minutes in a year.
And two of them out of 525,600 were supposed to just have a moment.
Just have a moment.
And it was during that moment that the government of Canada broke in to make the announcement that the late Governor General was arriving.
Hey, everybody.
Hey, everybody.
Here, take a look.
Here's the actual video of it happening.
Mesdames et Messieurs, Son Excellence, La Très Honorable Mary May Simon, Gouverneure-Générale du Canada.
You know, David, I got to say, you and I are talking about the veterans.
We're talking about the fallen.
But between Rebel News being banned from Remembrance Day, by the way, as I don't know if our viewers know this, every rebel is a Legion member.
And those that aren't already Legion members, we buy Legion memberships.
Right now, I know that's not the same as serving, obviously, but it's just our way of saying whose side we're on.
So we show up there and you're told you're not allowed there because you're rebel.
Prime Minister comes in fashionably late.
Governor General, fashionably late, and they interrupt the moment of silence to let everyone know the critically important news that she's there.
I'm sort of mad listening to this.
Tell me something good.
Tell me something heartwarming or tell me something solemn about today other than the joke of our prime minister.
Well, you know, I think, Ezra, even if everything went off without a hitch, this is a day that we honor the war dead and the veterans, you know, the 11th day of the 11th hour, the 11th month.
Here's my thing.
What do we do when it comes to our veterans for the other 364 days that are in a calendar year?
Right now, we have a number, I believe it's between 3,000 and 5,000 veterans who are homeless.
As you know, Ezra, soldiers and their families on military bases in Canada can't make ends meet without sometimes being the recipient of food baskets.
We also know from the Prime Minister several years ago in Edmonton, dealing with a veteran with PDSD, that you, the veterans, are asking for too much, but plenty in the kitty, Ezra, for our own homegrown al-Qaeda terrorist, Omar Cotter, $10.5 million to let him live high off the hog.
I think this is atrocious.
I mean, today's ceremony, full of pomp and circumstances.
It was equal parts, majestic and somber.
But it has to be more about one day a year for these men that put their lives on the line.
And just think about that, Ezra.
Our veterans have done that.
They have put their lives on the line.
Some of them made the ultimate sacrifice.
They're asking for too much.
An ISIS sympathizer, a terrorist wannabe, he gets $10.5 million for taking the life of an ally and partially blinding another.
Sometimes I think we're on the Bizarro Superman planet, Ezra.
I'm trying to look for that silver lining, but my heart breaks for the veterans.
You know, all of our World War I veterans, they have all died off.
Of the million Canadian veterans that were, sorry, the million servicemen who served in World War II, there's only about 39,000 left.
The average age is 94.
And I wonder, Ezra, if we brought the war dead back of that greatest generation, if they could see what I call the kinder, gentle tyranny of 2021, in which we have vaccine passports, medical apartheid, a kinder, gentle tyranny, but tyranny nonetheless.
Would they even recognize the country that they went to war for and made that ultimate sacrifice for?
That's a very powerful point, David.
And we're so glad you're on our team.
We know you love the vets.
And I'm really glad you were there at the National War Memorial.
And it's a disgrace that the media party kept you out, but I think that just shows that they do not take today seriously.
Great to see you.
We try to support veterans and serving armed forces members 365 days a year, 525,600 minutes a year, not just two minutes a year.
Great to see you, my friend.
Thanks for being there.
Thanks for your time, Ezra.
Thank you so much.
All right, there you have it.
David Menzies in Ontario on his way back from Ottawa.
stay with us more ahead.
Welcome back your viewer mail.
When we talked about Prince Harry, Kerry Lewis says, Harry is being canceled out of my life.
I wish him well.
You know, I've never seen anyone who talks so much about being private, gives so many press conferences, take so many million-dollar gigs to complain about his lack of privacy.
I just don't think it works.
Someone with numbers, I don't think that's a real name, says, when the government says they're here to help, run, run as fast as you can to get away from the government.
Yeah, I mean, Ronald Reagan joked, the most terrifying words are, I'm from the government, I'm here to help.
I really think the government has been the biggest problem during the pandemic.
The virus, as I mentioned earlier, that peaked, the deaths peaked in April 2020.
And I'm not happy that anyone died, but the average person who died was an 80-year-old person who was very fat and had three underlying health conditions in the early months.
The majority, almost 90% of those who died, were in seniors' homes, many with Alzheimer's, liver disease, heart disease, kidney disease.
It was not ordinary people on the street who were the ones who were locked down.
It was not schoolchildren.
It was not people going to theaters and restaurants and bars.
And I'm afraid that the tyranny was opportunistic and that the crisis of public health was turned into a chance to seize power.
And I see no end in sight to that.
That's our Remembrance Day show.
I'm glad David went to the National War Memorial.
Can you believe that they actually kept him out because he was a rebel?
What a disgrace.
I'll bid you good night now and keep fighting for freedom.
And I'll leave you with David's video from Remembrance Day.
Good night.
How is it possible we have a prime minister in the 21st century in a democratic Commonwealth country applauding China?
That's a big question, David, but general apathy in Canada to participate in the civics process and to actually understand what our country is and our history and heritage is.
It's a shame our education system doesn't highlight that.
So it leads to the state we have where in 2015 we get a prime minister elected because he was somebody's son.
Because honestly, Mr. Prime Minister, I was prepared to be injured in the line of duty when I joined the military.
Nobody forced me to join the military.
I was prepared to be killed in action.
What I wasn't prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, is Canada turning its back on me.
So which veteran was it that you were talking about?
Why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court?
Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.
Chris, we're going to go to the Prime Minister's office.
I think you're going to accompany us.
We are going to deliver our petition.
I want to thank our viewers.
More than 10,000 of you signed this signature.
And the call to action was simply this.
It is time to raise the Canadian flags across this country permanently.
Our veterans paid the ultimate price for our freedom and they deserve to be honored every day, but especially on Remembrance Day.
And even though the flags are up, we still want the Prime Minister to get the message that thousands of Canadians were upset and disgusted with this virtue signaling, especially given that he didn't even show up for Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30th.
He was too busy surfing.
So let's go across the street and deliver this petition right now.
David Menzies for Rebel News here in Ottawa.
Well, folks, I'm at the Glorious National War Memorial and take a look around.
It's the day before Remembrance Day and lo and behold, the flags mercifully have been raised to full staff.
And that is indeed the reason for my visit here.
Perhaps the Justin Journal Liberals knew we were on our way.
We've been advertising it.
It was to deliver our petition, raise our flag.
You know, back in the spring, that's when the flags were originally lowered to have staff.
And there was perverse irony to it, wasn't there?
As my colleague Adam Seuss has pointed out, these flags were lowered by the same politicians who are basically doing nothing to advance Indigenous affairs.
We still have dirty drinking water on so many reserves.
So was this all virtue signaling?
Well, it was outrageous.
It's been half a year that these flags have been down.
Do you know they've been down for a longer period of time than all the dignitaries honored in the past century?
Can you imagine?
And you may have noticed I'm standing next to Chris Semchuk.
He is a veteran.
And I think Chris has a word or two to say about these flags being lowered for so long.
Chris, what did you make of it?
Was this truly meaningful?
Meaningful, because when I look at it, it just seems like so much virtue signaling to me, given that nothing really tangibly is happening on the reserves, as far as I can tell.
It's virtue signaling, and our humble prime minister, at least he did submit and bring them up before, and thanks for the petition, which I signed as well.
It's all for naught.
This government's smoke and mirrors to me.
And you know, and speaking of our prime minister, I mean, I thought that was just insult to injury that on the first Truth and Reconciliation Day holiday, September 30th, which he brought to fruition.
And we now have a Inuit governor general.
Instead of doing anything meaningful to mark that occasion, he buggered off to Tofino to go surfing.
What do you make of that?
I guess he was honoring the Haida Guai while he was there on his surfboard, at least.
Yeah.
The hypocrisy, I call it the Librano 3Hs doctrine of hype, hubris, and hypocrisy.
And it seems like our current prime minister has that in spades.
Well, my boss Ezra Levent will love that.
He, I think, coined the Librano's nickname.
Slap in the Face00:09:11
And I wonder if Trudeau will make the ultimate sacrifice tomorrow.
That is actually showing up to our Remembrance Day ceremony as opposed to going surfing on some beach somewhere.
We'll find out.
But Chris, tell us a little bit about your story.
So my story is: I was a veteran of the Air Force for 20 years.
I served.
I joined in 1997 and then I got medically released formally at the end of the process, completely finished, started because I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2015.
And through the release process, I got my final date of military service was January 6, 2016.
So since then, as a veteran, as any service member, you don't want to give up service.
It's in our blood.
You're a veteran forever.
So I fell into starting, I started a YouTube channel on September 11th, 2019, when Trudeau dropped the writ on September 11th, which was a slap in the face to raise awareness about veterans' issues and in support of the People's Party Veterans platform or policy blank, because it's exactly what veterans need to have happen.
We've been marginalized for far too long.
And Chris, what is the name of that YouTube channel?
If you look up Veteran's Voice Chris Semchuk, it'll come up.
Now, you were an Afghanistan veteran.
You are an Afghanistan veteran there.
What do you make going back to September when the election was called?
That was when we and the United States abandoned our allies, our interpreters and their families, in some cases even citizens.
It makes you wonder now that the Taliban is back in charge in Afghanistan and literally, you know, hanging people in the streets of Kabul.
Do you ever wonder why we even went there in the first place, Chris?
Every day.
Never stopped wondering about it.
That's part of the PTSD.
It was a real slap in the face to our allies, to the Afghans that we helped, the Afghans that helped us to pull out in the manner that we did.
Disgraceful, in my humble opinion.
And so unavoidable.
This was a preventable tragedy.
We could have done, you know, we could have been airlifting people out of there months before we announced we were leaving.
What do you think is the reason for that?
Why did we abandon our allies?
At least, why did the Justin Trudeau liberals abandon them?
Well, it's the New World Order from Trudeau since 15.
We're a post-nation state, as he called us.
And so why stand up for anything other than their ideology?
You know, I think you're on to something.
Several years ago in Toronto, Prime Minister Trudeau said that he has an admiration for the basic type of dictatorship China is in terms of getting things done.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their face is dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
And now years later, we have seen China emerge as the most dangerous bully on the world stage.
How is it possible, Chris, to you, and you've served this country standing up for our democracy, for our rights and freedoms.
How is it possible we have a prime minister in the 21st century in a democratic Commonwealth country applauding China?
That's a big question, David, but general apathy in Canada to participate in the civics process and to actually understand what our country is and our history and heritage is.
It's a shame our education system doesn't highlight that.
So it leads to the state we have where in 2015 we get a prime minister elected because he was somebody's son.
The lucky DNA club.
And when it comes to the armed forces, when it comes to veterans, we have veterans such as yourself suffering from PTSD.
We have homeless veterans, if you can imagine, in our nation.
And yet, remember folks back in Edmonton a few years when he got a question from a veteran at a town hall meeting and what Prime Minister Trudeau's answer was?
Check it out.
Because honestly, Mr. Prime Minister, I was prepared to be injured in the line of duty when I joined the military.
Nobody forced me to join the military.
I was prepared to be killed in action.
What I wasn't prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, is Canada turning its back on me.
So which veteran was it that you were talking about?
Why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court?
Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.
Veterans are asking too much.
To Brock Blacek.
As he also said to him, thanks for your courage for speaking to me here today, which I thought was a real slap in the face to say to a soldier as well.
That was another nail in that statement.
It is astonishing to me, Chris, because on one hand, he's saying you are asking as a veteran for too much.
This is somebody that put their life on the line.
And yet, a year earlier, he had cut a check for $10.5 million to our homegrown al-Qaeda terrorist, Omar Qadar, who took the life of one of our allies.
Are we living on the bizarro Superman world?
We sure are.
And in my humble opinion, I mean, I'm no expert.
That payout to Omar was because why would you want things to go through court?
Because court will actually bring out some lessons learned and some truth of what actually went down vis-a-vis our government's interaction with it.
So let's just write a check and bury it.
Yeah, it was astonishing.
The official reason was that to fight this in court was going to cost us far more than $10.5 million.
Isn't it funny, Chris?
Suddenly the Justin Trudeau liberals became fiscal conservatives overnight.
Yeah, it's rather fortuitous for them to find that reason, isn't it?
Well, Chris, we're going to go to the Prime Minister's office.
I think you're going to accompany us.
We are going to deliver our petition.
I want to thank our viewers.
More than 10,000 of you signed this signature.
And the call to action was simply this.
It is time to raise the Canadian flags across this country permanently.
Our veterans paid the ultimate price for our freedom, and they deserve to be honored every day, but especially on Remembrance Day.
And even though the flags are up, we still want the Prime Minister to get the message that thousands of Canadians were upset and disgusted with this virtue signaling, especially given that he didn't even show up for Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30th.
He was too busy surfing.
So let's go across the street and deliver this petition right now.
Hi, sir.
My name is David Menzies with Rebel News.
I'm just here to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister.
And your colleague at the front door told me to come to number 11.
Is this the correct place?
Yes, it is, yeah.
Oh, okay, then.
So I can't get in, I guess, but I put it in a box.
Is that how it works?
Well, you can put it in an envelope.
Oh, okay, then.
That's the thing.
don't have an envelope for it.
I've got a...
I can put it in a box.
Okay, sure.
Okay, then.
There's another petition in here, but it's not for you guys.
We'd be very busy.
Thank you, Chris.
Do I need a postal code or anything?
No, that should be good.
Okay.
All right, then.
Thank you, sir.
You have a good day.
All right.
Well, there you go, folks.
The package has been delivered.
More than 10,000 of your signatures are on that petition.
And hopefully, Prime Minister Trudeau gets the message.
Hopefully, he actually receives it.
We know he doesn't care for dissenting voices, but I want to thank all our viewers.
I want to thank veteran Chris Semchuk for coming, for answering the call to raise these flags.
It is so nice, isn't it, Chris, to see the flags at full staff at last?