Ezra Levant exposes Xinhua’s bid for Canada’s Parliamentary Press Gallery accreditation as a propaganda and espionage front, citing Dr. Charles Burton’s claims of intelligence-gathering under false pretenses and Mark Buri’s defection after witnessing intimidation tactics like disrupting Falun Gong events. While mainstream media—including the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail—criticize others for running Chinese state ads, they profit from them too, with 99% of outlets allegedly dependent on Trudeau’s government, stifling dissent on pandemic policies or human rights abuses in Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The episode contrasts Canada’s centralized media control with the UK’s political divisions, like Boris Johnson’s vaccine passport rebellion, and highlights cases such as Tracy Mackey’s fight against Van City Bank’s discriminatory QR code demands—later reversed after public pressure—while warning of escalating restrictions in Quebec and beyond, including unvaccinated families denied access to hospitals. The push to "restore freedom" now, via fightvaccinepassports.com, underscores systemic threats to civil liberties under Trudeau’s policies. [Automatically generated summary]
There's a new company applying for accreditation at the Parliamentary Press Gallery and it's called Xinhua, which is the Chinese state news agency.
But of course they're not a news agency.
They're a propaganda arm for the Communist Party.
And worse than that, they're actually spies.
I'll prove it to you.
And then I'll show you who's going to make the decision.
And I'll leave it to you to guess if they accredit them or not.
It's quite something.
I mean, Rebel News has been banned from the Parliamentary Press Gallery because we're too opinionated.
It'll be quite something if a dictatorship's propaganda unit's allowed in.
I can hardly wait.
Before we get to that podcast, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
We do it every day.
And once a week we have podcasts from David Mentis, Andrew Chapatos, and our friend Sheila Gunn Reed, our chief reporter.
So eight bucks, half the cost of Netflix, and I think you'll get unique content you can't find anywhere else.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com and click subscribe.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, Trudeau's parliamentary press gallery banned Rebel News, but is considering an application from Xinhua, a Chinese state broadcaster.
It's January 19th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government.
But why publish them?
is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Great story in Blacklock's report.
You know who they are.
They're one of the few independent news companies left in Canada.
And by that, I mean they don't take money from the government, from any government.
As you know, 99% of media companies in Canada are now on Trudeau's payroll.
That sends a message to a lot of people.
It sends a message to Trudeau and every liberal that you're a journalist willing to sacrifice your independence for some favor, some trinket, some cash, who knows, maybe some access.
And you can see that message has been received by journalists who actually haven't truly gone after Trudeau in years, have they?
Really, since the Jody Wilson-Raybold story.
Have you seen any real accountability journalism in Canada's mainstream media?
How about even on the pandemic itself?
Of course, readers see that too, which is why alternative media such as Rebel News and True North and Western Standard Online and Blacklocks are gaining viewers.
Why would you pay a dollar or two for a copy of a newspaper that is little more than laundered Trudeau talking points?
You can get that for free from the Liberal Party website if you really want it.
But others see what's for sale too.
Others with money, like China's Communist Party.
So they see that all the newspapers in Canada are desperate for a bailout, so desperate that they're willing to sell their own soul to Trudeau.
Well, Xi Jinping has more money than Justin Trudeau.
And look at this.
So he buys two, four, eight-page spreads in Canadian newspapers where the Chinese embassy literally writes every word.
In the small print somewhere, you can see that it's a paid ad, but it doesn't look like a paid ad, does it?
It looks like news reporters writing in a newspaper.
And it's called China Watch, as if it's some skeptical watchdog, someone watching critically like Neighborhood Watch or Crime Watch.
No, it's Chinese propaganda.
I just showed you a recent spread in the Globe and Mail.
Now here's what the Toronto Star's Rosie DiMano said.
She saw that spread and she said, shame on the Global Mail for running Chinese government propaganda by publishing paid content from the international propaganda arm of China's state-run English language newspaper.
The Globe made itself a shill for a government that's at diplomatic war with Canada, Rosie DiMano writes.
I agree with the Toronto Star, which is quite rare.
But then look at this.
Holy moly.
Not only did the Globe and Mail do it again, but China cut the Toronto Star in on the deal.
They must have read Rosie DiMano's great piece and thought, how do you shut up a journalist in Canada?
Back in China, you throw them in jail.
In Canada, it's actually much easier.
You just buy, I don't know, a $50,000 or $100,000 ad spread in the newspaper, and the editor will shut up the journalists for you.
How humiliating for Rosie DiMano.
The entire editorial board of the Toronto Star was humiliated, by the way, which they should be.
And they wrote this.
They said, our collective China hypocrisy.
Talk is cheap.
Real change will require unified sacrifice.
If we want to begin to have an impact on the Chinese government's behavior, we need to collectively open our eyes more, not less.
Oh, and look at this.
Over the last few years, newspapers around the world and many in Canada, including several in our group, such as the Toronto Star, have been running advertisements or advertorials paid for by a Chinese government-sponsored organization, China Watch.
Yeah, no, speak for yourself.
Most journalists haven't sold out to China.
We haven't.
Neither have most people.
It's no excuse for the Toronto Star to do it because the Globe and Mail did it.
You are properly humiliated by your ad department, and the fact that you are making excuses for it and calling for someone else to take a stand while you won't is pitiful.
If a newspaper in Toronto can't take a stand against communist China, well, then who can?
What a bunch of losers.
But they are who they are.
They're for rent.
And now everybody knows.
It's really gross.
But back to Xinhua for a moment.
That's China's equivalent to Reuters or the Associated Press.
It's a news agency, except every word is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
So it's actually an impersonation.
They call themselves a news agency.
They say their staff are reporters.
Their website in Chinese and in English and many other world languages, by the way, looks like a news website, except that it is all 100% controlled by the Communist Party of China.
You cannot criticize Xi Jinping in the Xinhua news agency.
You cannot write about the plight of Tibet or the Uyghurs or Hong Kong or Taiwan other than to condemn those people.
You cannot praise democracy or Christianity or any rival thought system or ideology.
I'm sure some of their human interest stories are politically neutral, but even as I say that, it's not true, really.
Everything must support the narrative.
China is happy, powerful, successful.
Its rivals are immoral, hypocritical, and weak.
So even weather stories, even sports stories would be propaganda for Xinhua.
But Xinhua is much worse than just propaganda.
I mean, the CBC here in Canada is propaganda, too.
It's owned by the government.
Everything I just said about Xinhua could in some way be compared to the CBC or Britain's BBC.
But there is one thing that is worse about Xinhua, and I've had this confirmed to me personally by Dr. Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat to China, who now writes about the Canada-China relationship.
He says that reporters from Xinhua call him up as reporters to ask him questions.
They say they're reporters.
They say they're doing a news story.
But no news story is ever written or published about what he says.
Dr. Burton says it's obvious what's happening.
They're actually just spies.
They do write up a report based on what he says, but they don't file it as a news report publicly, but rather they file it as a report to the Chinese embassy about the views of Canadian scholars who track the Canada-China relationship.
It's espionage.
Dr. Burton is savvy.
He knows what's happening, and he's not giving any secret intelligence.
In fact, he usually criticizes Communist China, but let me give you a darker example, and it comes from Mark Buri, a journalist in Ottawa who actually worked for Xinhua for a while in Ottawa.
Let me read to you what happened when the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet and a great enemy of the Chinese Communist Party, came to Canada.
So I'm going to read to you at some length from this, but I just want you to see it.
So just FYI, Zhang Da Cheng, that's the name of the boss of Xinhua in Canada when Buri worked for them.
So, by the way, he was an army officer.
So, like I say, it's a Soviet-style propaganda project.
They're not real journalists.
So, let me read a few paragraphs.
Give me two minutes because I really want you to hear straight from a guy who actually worked for Xinhua in Ottawa and what they really did, okay?
It was the Dalai Lama who tossed over the apple cart for me.
He came to Ottawa this past April 27th, the featured speaker at the 6th World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet.
Xinhua asked me to cover the session.
When I asked if the material was being used for a news article, Zhang said yes.
The next day, the Dalai Lama spoke to a packed hall at the Civic Center.
I bought a ticket and sat in the crowd.
As I left, my cell phone rang.
Zhang, who had been with the press contingent on the floor of the hall, wanted me to cover the Dalai Lama's press conference held a few minutes after the public event.
I used my press gallery pass to get into the room where the press conference was being held.
Zhang was already there with a video camera, but he wanted me to provide a written transcript of the press conference.
He also wanted me to use whatever sources I had in the government to find out what had happened in the Dalai Lama's private meeting with Harper earlier in the day.
I asked if this material would be used in any kind of news story.
Zhang said no.
Xinhua does not report on Tibetan separatists, he said.
To do so would cause the government to lose face.
Over the past year, Xinhua's English language news site has carried a few stories mentioning the Dalai Lama.
These mainly outline diplomatic objections filed with the leaders of countries who met with the spiritual leader.
I reminded Zhang that the press conference was open only to accredited media.
Xinhua was therefore using our parliamentary press gallery ID to gather information on critics of China.
If Xinhua would not carry any journalism on the Dalai Lama's visit, we were there under false pretenses, pretending to be journalists, but acting as government agents.
We were allowed to be there as journalists, I wrote to Zhang in an email that I sent later that morning.
We were not working as journalists.
We were, by your description, gathering intelligence for China.
That day, I felt that we were spies.
It was time to draw the line.
I put down my pen and notepad, listened to the Dalai Lama, shook his hand when he left, went home, and sent Xinhua an email telling him I quit.
I was replaced by another press gallery freelancer within a few hours.
So that's not even propaganda, is it?
That's just spying.
I remember about 20 years ago when some Falun Gong members had a press conference on Parliament Hill and Xinhua sent some reporters to cover it.
And instead of covering it, they actually stood up and started shouting at the Falun Gong, literally threatening them and insulting them and disrupting the event.
So not just propaganda and not just spying, actual intimidation and disruption in our country.
Imagine how much worse they are now, 20 years later.
And so that spy ring, this group of propagandists and spies and agents, provocateurs, is applying for membership in Trudeau's parliamentary press gallery.
The same group that repeatedly bans our reporters at Rebel News by saying that we're too partisan or we advocate too much or whatever they say.
As if the Toronto Star and the CBC aren't as partisan, as if left-wing media groups don't advocate the way we do.
But even Trudeau's own henchmen would never claim that we spy for a foreign power, that we disrupt our enemies like Xinhua does to the Falun Gong.
And yet they are actually meeting to consider the application of Xinhua.
Maybe Xinhua's giving them $100,000 too, like they gave to the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star.
And why not?
The Parliamentary Press Gallery accredits foreign powers now, state broadcasters from Ukraine, from Vietnam, from Russia.
I mean, there is no dictatorship they've refused yet.
Why would they refuse China?
They hate us at Rebel News.
We're not allowed in.
But genocidal countries that put millions of dissidents in internment camps, no problem.
We're happy to take your application.
Hey, did you see that billionaire tech bro who owns the Golden State Warriors NBA team?
Do you see this?
Yeah, nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, okay?
You bring it up because you really care.
And I think they care.
The rest of us don't care.
I'm just telling you a very hard ugly truth.
You're saying you virtually don't care?
I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay?
Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.
Okay?
Of all the things that I care about, it is below my line.
I mean, look, if the NBA has to crawl over a million dead Uyghurs to get access to the Chinese TV audience, they'll do it, okay?
I mean, money's money, okay?
At least that NBA collaborator has an excuse.
China is taking him from being very rich to being super rich.
What's the excuse for the Parliamentary Press Gallery, though?
I mean, seriously, are they being paid off?
Take a look at this.
It's a list of the executive of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
These are the deciders.
These are the ones having the secret meeting.
Seriously, they're doing it behind closed doors in secret, Chinese style.
Eight people, two of them are from the CBC.
They love China, or at least they do whatever Trudeau does, and he loves China.
There's someone from the Globe and Mail, publisher of China Watch.
So that's three yes votes, I'm presuming.
Two people from the Canadian press, also a huge benefactor of Trudeau's bailout.
Two from Global News, extreme leftists, as you know, and two more Quebec bailout newspapers.
I mean, seriously, these are the insiders of the insiders.
There really is no separation between them and the Trudeau liberals financially, ideologically, socially.
Government Unveils Mask Mandate End00:03:21
Even their office spaces right there in Parliament.
So what do you think?
Do you think Xinhua will be banned from the Parliamentary Press Gallery like Rebel News is?
Or do you think like the Golden State Warriors billionaire, it's just about the money and the power?
We'll find out soon enough.
Stay with us for more.
We can return to Plan A in England and allow Plan B regulations to expire.
As a result, from the start of Thursday next week, mandatory certification will end.
Organisations can, of course, choose to use the NHS COVID pass voluntarily, but we will end the compulsory use of COVID status certification in England.
From now on, the government is no longer asking people to work from home.
And people should now speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office.
And having looked at the data carefully, the cabinet concluded that once regulations lapse, the government will no longer mandate the wearing of face masks anyway.
Mr Speaker, from tomorrow we will no longer require face masks in classrooms and the Department for Education will shortly remove national guidance on their use in communal areas.
In the country at large, we will continue to suggest the use of face coverings in enclosed or crowded spaces, particularly when you come into contact with people you don't normally meet.
But we will trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalize anyone who chooses not to wear one.
The government will also ease restrictions further on visits to care homes.
And my Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will set out plans in the coming days.
Mr. Speaker, as we return to Plan A, the House will know that some measures still remain, including those on self-isolation.
Well, there you have it, as brought to you by GB News, my favourite British broadcaster, Boris Johnson announcing the end of mask mandates, the end of work from home, the end of some forms of the vax passport.
He's obviously not going as far as Florida, where the state has positively banned other authorities from mask mandates.
For example, Florida does not have a mask mandate, but more than that, they ban schools from forcing masks on people.
I'm afraid, because I've seen this movie before, that just because Boris Johnson lifts the mask mandate doesn't mean that every petty bureaucrat, every mayor, every school principal won't demand masks using what little vestige of authority they have.
So if you're not banning forced masks, you're probably still going to get them from the diehards, but at least there's an emotional and momentum shift.
British Dissent Matters00:03:46
Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Lewis Brackpool, our UK correspondent.
Louis, great to see you.
Let's recognize this as a step forward, even though Boris Johnson has been all over the map and he's been one of the worst.
You still got to give a guy credit when he does the right thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's very divided at the minute when I speak to circles about this issue.
You've got one side saying, right, let's have a party, let's celebrate, there's no restrictions anymore.
But then the other half are saying, well, why has he done it now?
And what's to come?
That's the main question.
Well, that's another thing.
I mean, we've seen across Canada, for example, you know, that I don't know if they have the same Snoopy cartoon in the UK when Lucy holds the football, I think it was for Charlie Brown to kick, and at the last minute she pulls it away and he falls.
I mean, we've seen this, just kidding, or sorry, just one more time, Groundhog Day, endlessness.
I think what you alluded to there is correct.
Boris Johnson had such a terrible week because so much of his own hypocrisy, his secret garden parties, bring your own booze parties.
And then the Labour Party, the opposition, they had their beer parties.
Oh, it was just beer, not wine, they said, so it's different.
The entire political class in the UK has been caught cheating.
The government, the opposition, the media.
And I think everyone was just so sick of it.
And now with the endless boosters required, I think that Boris Johnson realized that he couldn't, that he had to do something dramatic to survive.
I think that's the only reason this happened now.
But I'm over here thousands of kilometers away.
What do you think of my theory that this dramatic gesture was just Boris Johnson's way of saving himself because he really was the target of a rebellion in his own party?
You're absolutely spot on is what I it's exactly the same as what I think.
I think it's just all political theater now.
They could have done this months ago, but because the polls aren't looking good for Mr. Johnson, he's had revolters.
I mean, we remember back when they tried to put through the vaccine passports and they had a vote on it.
126 Tory voters rebelled against it.
So we had a bit of a revolt against him.
There's even people talking about a no confidence and have published a letter.
And we're seeing defectors left, right, and center and more to come, apparently, according to sources.
So I think you're absolutely spot on.
I think it's political theater because he is in a lot of turmoil.
And that's my opinion as well.
And I think that's the only way to see this situation.
You know, for all the problems you have in your system, Lewis, the fact that 126 Conservatives rebelled, is that just the Conservatives or does that include Labour Party MPs?
Just Conservatives.
I believe there was only seven on the Labour Party side.
But still, even that, there is not a single MP from any party in Canada who was allowed to dissent.
There was a Conservative MP named Marilyn Gladieux, a leadership contender.
She merely said, let's have a civil liberties caucus.
She was frog-marched out to the press by the so-called conservative leader of the opposition and made to abjectly apologize.
Anyone remotely skeptical is sacked.
And you have 126 MPs saying of the governing party, say not us.
And even on the Labour side, like you say, seven MPs, I understand that Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader, whose brother Pierce Corbyn is a real skeptic of lockdowns, he himself is against it for reasons of class.
Mask Skepticism Spreads00:05:51
He doesn't want the working class punished while the fancy people, the lawyers and the business folks who can work from Zoom from home, are loving it.
So I have to admire the British system, as flawed as it is, at least it allows some dissent and some debate.
We have none of that in Canada, Lewis.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think comparing both countries, Canada and the UK, I think it is safe to say that there is a kind of gratefulness over here in that respect.
However, I believe the work is definitely not done.
I believe there is still 10 tons worth of work to be done since this call.
So like I said, it's split between two camps.
It's the people that are celebrating and that are happy.
There are revolters, but other people are saying it's not enough.
I'm swaying towards the not enough side.
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, as I said right at the top, just because the Prime Minister, I mean, listen, the Prime Minister is obviously a moral leader, leads by example.
Why he was in so much trouble when he was caught cheating and his senior staff were caught cheating and Neil Ferguson, the fear-mongering epidemiologist, was caught cheating.
All the big shots were caught cheating, and that really corroded respect for the lockdowns.
But now that Boris Johnson basically says, All right, I'm not even going to try anymore, I think that encourages other people to be free as well.
But I do know that there are some people who love the lockdown so much, they're going to want to keep it in their little place.
And I also know, forget about little authoritarians, like mayors and little councillors, anyone with a shred of government power.
I think it has permanently screwed up 10% of people that they are genuinely terrified and that they will probably wear masks for the rest of their lives.
I think that some people are so susceptible to fear, and the way they've psychologically coped is to absolutely go full, you know, hazmat suit.
They will never give up the terror.
And in some quarters, they'll impose that on others, like a parent demanding that a school do it.
I think you will still see very noisy lay citizens demanding we see that in the state of Virginia, in the United States, the new governor says no more mask mandates.
And a lot of the schools said, Oh, yeah, well, we'll see you on that one.
So that's my worry, Lewis.
Do you think that's going to happen in the UK?
Like, I mean, even there's the different regions, like the different countries, Wales and Scotland, very lockdownist over there, aren't they?
Absolutely.
I mean, when I've always gone out to do reports through London, I'm the only one on the tube not wearing a mask.
And it's sad to say.
I mean, sure, that was during the restrictions, but it happened even when we lifted these restrictions last year.
And we're going to continue to see that.
People, it's no secret now that we're being run by behavioral scientists.
So now, this almost psychological operation has sort of transformed people and made people think that now, even the government telling them, no, you don't have to wear this to feel safe or to protect others.
You're seeing people now taking the step one step further.
And yeah, I don't think people are going to ditch the masks soon.
I mean, I know Twitter is an example of real life, so it kind of is a bad example.
But people have started trending wear a mask already on Twitter for the United Kingdom.
So, no, you're completely right.
I don't see a shift of people starting to rebel.
I think they're just going to take things to the next level in their own case.
The leader of the Labour Party, Kier Starmer, if I'm saying his name correctly, he's been all over the map on things.
He was actually a bit of a lockdownist.
I remember last year when he walked into a pub and was thrown out by the pub owner because the pub owner was just so disgusted with the Labour Party for cracking down on middle-class shopkeepers like that.
It was quite something.
But besides him, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is an extremist leftist in his own right.
He's been terrible on every issue.
He really is the British equivalent to, I don't know, the mayor, the outgoing mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio.
Have we heard anything from Sadiq Khan?
Sadiq Khan?
I mean, I would expect that he would say, well, you may be the prime minister, but I'm the mayor of London and I control the tube and I control the buses and I control the police and I control all this.
And I'm the boss of London and I say the masks stay.
Has he said anything like that yet?
Yes, it has.
He's come out and said that for the tube and public transport in London, we are to keep masks.
So you must continue to wear masks even though the government have turned around and said you don't need to.
He's still implementing that on the citizens of London.
And it's almost that classic metropolitan bubble that he likes to encapsulate all the people in.
Yeah, it's awful.
So he's still playing dictator over in London.
Well, it's very interesting.
I do think it's a step in the right direction.
I think it's because he wanted Boris Johnson to change the channel from his growing scandals and the rebellion.
I think he needed to do something dramatic.
Whatever the reason is, I'm glad it happened.
And you'll keep us posted from the UK.
Great to see you again, Louis.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ezra.
I'll keep posted.
Right on.
There you have it.
Louis Brackpool, our UK correspondent.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Children Taught Nazism00:03:38
Your viewer feedback Rambloat says we are a communist province of a foreign power, and it's pretty disgusting.
Only fellow Chinese vassals like Australia and New Zealand are more committed to abusing their citizens for unclear motivations.
Again, as always, you could be talking about any number of stories that we cover here.
I was very pleased to see that Boris Johnson, in a panic, after having tried every other option, the only thing left to do was to do the right thing and abolish the parliamentary mask mandate and vacc passes.
I think, as Louis said, there's going to be a lot more battles to come, but at least it's a moral signal.
They're done with it.
Listen, if that's what it took Boris Johnson to do to save his political career, I'm happy to see it.
Perseus 09 says, here again is proof that the liberals have taken a page out of Nazi history and are applying to our society today.
Didn't start with the gas chambers.
It started with one party controlling the media, one party controlling the message, one deciding what is truth, one party censoring speech and silencing opposition, one party dividing citizens into us and them and calling on their supporters to harass them.
It started with good people turning a blind eye and letting it happen.
This video proves that history is repeating itself.
The Liberals have done everything mentioned in the above statement.
I think we can truthfully now say that the Liberals are the neo-Nazis of Canada.
Well, I'm not going to go all the way there because there are certain things that the Nazis did that the Canadian government is doing, things that the Nazis did in the early days, the demonization, the censorship, the whipping people up, the calling people dirty and unclean.
But of course, we can't go the full distance because thank God they haven't gone to the death camps and to murder and things of that sort.
But there is a lot of intimidation and there is a lot of pressure.
But I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're neo-Nazis or Nazis of the old variety.
But I want to show you a video clip from Quebec TV that I saw today that makes me afraid because one of the tricks of the Nazis, and indeed the Soviets do, the Soviets had their young pioneers.
The Nazis had their Hitler Jugend, which was their basically the Hitler Youth, is what that translates into directly.
Look at this video from Quebec TV.
And these are children.
Children can be taught to say anything.
Children basically repeat what their parents or teachers say.
Look at these children and what they've been taught to say.
And this was on a celebrated Quebec TV station and no one in the entire operation said this is a little dark.
This is a little scary.
This is a little cruel.
They loved it.
Here's a letter from RSCH who says the Bank of Canada is supposed to be a public-owned bank, one of the only ones in the world.
Well, I'm not sure if that's quite true.
I mean, I suppose it's owned or controlled by the Canadian government in the same way that the Federal Reserve Bank is and that other national banks are.
So I don't know about being owned or I don't know.
Banking On QR Codes00:15:20
I don't know exactly what you mean.
I'm not an expert in banking, but I think it is the counterpart to the Bank of England or to the Federal Reserve.
I have a lot of problems with our Bank of Canada.
The fact that they are so demonstrably partisan and political, I think is one of the problems, but it's just one of many.
Let me close today with a video of the day from Drea Humphrey talking about Van City Bank and their approach to the crisis.
I'll leave you with that until next time.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Really, it's anything.
So we've moved virtual.
We were virtual when the pandemic first hit.
15-minute appointments, if it's in person and whatnot.
We weren't back to in-person appointments.
Now we're moving back.
Anything longer than 15 minutes in an office, we're just trying to protect people, right?
Protect members, protect the staff.
Drea Humphrey here with Rebel News.
Last week, we brought you this shocking in-person interview with the family who is staying at Ronald McDonald's house with their four-year-old child with leukemia and being evicted because of their vaccination status.
Today we have another concerning report, similar, but in a whole different environment, and that is doing your essential banking.
I sit down to interview Tracy Mackey, a woman from the lower mainland who is from a one-income family and has already taken the blow of being put off work without pay due to her vaccination status, only to be told that when she goes to take her money out, she can't do it unless she shows a QR code.
You're not going to want to miss a minute of this shocking report, but before I get there, if you're new to Rebel News, you should know that we've had enough of segregation at Rebel News.
And if you have too, please take this simple step, open up a new tab or go to another device and search fightvaccinepassports.com.
That's our special website where we crowdfund to help support the slew of lawyers fighting around the clock to end vaccine passports and to represent people at no cost who are fighting no jab, no pay policies.
We've partnered with the Democracy Fund charity to do this initiative.
So all funds go directly to that charity to pay off the legal fees.
Not a penny goes to Rebel News.
We must restore freedom in Canada now.
Tracy, this is a crazy story, one the public really needs to hear and grasp, hopefully not a sign of the times.
You wanted to cash in your RRSPs with Van City Bank and you called to make an appointment.
Tell us what happened after that.
I had an appointment and the night before the bank called me home and told me I needed to bring in my QR code to show my vaccination status to my appointment.
And I got quite upset on the phone and I actually hung up on the guy.
And I ended up talking to the bank manager who said to me that because it's an appointment in closed quarters, anything over 15 minutes, they were going to start to need to show vaccination status in order to go to those appointments.
So where were they getting this rule from?
Did they say it's their Van City policy?
Because it's certainly not government policy.
Right, and I got upset with the manager as well, and she said she would accommodate me.
And I went in the next day, and I did confirm with her, she said at that appointment that you were to, people were, it was a new policy.
She confirmed it was not a branch policy.
It was coming from head office.
And she said that they were not going to scan the code, so they were just going to look at them.
Let's throw to a clip of Tracy speaking to the manager about just that.
Okay, yes, I want you to explain the new QR code policy of your bank.
So really, it's anything.
So we've moved virtual.
We were virtual when the pandemic first hit.
15-minute appointments, if it's in person and whatnot.
We went back to in-person appointments.
Now we're moving back.
Anything longer than 15 minutes in an office, we're just trying to protect people, right?
Protect members, protect the staff.
So, no, explain the QR code part, please.
You know what?
The QR code really is, if you're going to be sitting in anything longer than that, we're just requesting that.
You know, same thing when people go to restaurants and whatnot.
Yeah.
So you're requesting that people show you their medical information at the bank.
But we're not scanning.
We don't scan anything.
We really don't.
I know, but that's irregardless.
But you're requesting.
And I do think, I do think it's something that I don't know if it's being looked at or whatnot.
So really to that right now, I mean, that came out yesterday.
We're still gathering information.
So this isn't your branch.
This came out from head office yesterday?
Oh, yeah.
So it's not, yeah, I mean, we don't make these rules in branch.
Well, yes, I don't know that, right?
We take direction from our head.
Okay, because somebody, they phoned me last night and told me I could not come to my appointment without a QR code.
Of course, that's not the case.
We find other ways that we can.
You can come to your appointment.
If it's a quick in-out appointment, absolutely.
So where's the science behind 15 minutes for somebody without a QR code?
It's to minimize the actual interaction that we have.
Because, I mean, because honestly, the public health says it's actually, the public health order says it's illegal to ask for a QR code at a credit union, right?
So you guys know that because that's part of the public health order.
And everybody's, I'm sure the bank has seen that.
And also, I'd like to know why anybody with any common sense would see that the government has said that 84% of new cases are in the fully vaccinated, according to the government stats, right?
I'm not going to get into the weeds of it just because I'm not, you know, I'm not.
I know it's not your policy personally, but you're the only person I have to talk to about it.
But what I am going to do is, because this is still so new and whatnot, I can take your information and let's, we can, we can forward it on, right?
But it's for me to, like, I'm not an expert.
So it sounds like you stood your ground, you did a little fighting, and that actually got you the appointment without showing a QR code, correct?
And then the manager said, oh, we were just going to show it.
And you can hear you're questioning, you know, what would be the purpose of that.
What do you think about the answer she gave?
Well, because I told her, according to the public health order, which I brought with me to my appointment, it says no QR codes will be required in banks or credit unions.
And I said, so how can you guys just arbitrarily make these rules?
And not only that, but 80% of the new cases are vaccinated.
So how is this protecting your employees from me specifically?
Which, of course, she didn't have an answer for because it doesn't make any sense.
Tracy was right.
This doesn't make any sense.
Across Canada, we are seeing that fully vaccinated people are filling the majority of hospital beds.
Pfizer's own CEO recently stated that those with two shots have little, if any, protection against the dominant Omicron strain.
And a new clinical study out of Israel is showing that four COVID shots is not looking very promising either.
Was Van City asking to see Tracy's QR code based on science that meant doing so would make their staff and customers safer?
Or following the lead of our Trudeau government by making life harder for Tracy so she will finally cave, go against her conscience, and comply.
We've continued to put forward strong incentives to be vaccinated.
If you want to get on a plane, if you want to get on a train, if you want to travel internationally, these are the kinds of things that encourage people to get vaccinated.
And I can tell you that there continue to be people showing up in vaccination clinics to get their first shots.
Something quite remarkable happened after you kind of stood that ground, had that conversation with the manager.
You went home and then received a phone call.
Tell us about that.
I got a phone call at home from, I can't remember the gentleman's name now.
He's VP from Van City.
He called me at home and he apologized.
And it was a little bit of a lengthy conversation, but he did say that no QR codes would be required or asked from people.
So he was basically backpedaling.
We want to make sure that we're not creating any challenges for our members in any way.
So definitely an error on our part.
So that's all I can say is it's an error and we will make sure that our staff going forward have all the right information to share with our membership.
Okay, because the manager did confirm with me that was the new policy as well.
It wasn't just the person.
Confirmed that with you today?
We're on the phone the other day that they would make an accommodation for me, but that was the policy.
they told me and they did tell you you have to know that they told me it was to keep the members safe because the unvaccinated were transferring the virus they told me and they also yes yes And I will go and swear on this.
And they also told me that I could bring in a medical exemption and that would be okay.
And even when I went to the bank today, they said, well, we weren't going to scan your QR code.
We were just going to look at it, the manager said.
And I have that.
I have it on tape, though, too, right?
Yeah.
So, you know.
I don't know.
I don't know quite, honestly, I don't know where that piece of information would have come from.
But I will certainly connect directly with the manager on that one because that information, I'm not sure how that was interpreted or where that came from to be completely transparent.
But I will certainly deal with it.
The last thing we want to do is create anxiety.
You know, it's a very challenging time for everyone in society, and we certainly do not want to create more layers than we need to in terms of supporting our membership and our communities.
And Adrian said, I apologize for the experience that you've had.
and that's not what we our intention is or our expectations are.
And I do believe in this situation it was a misinterpretation of what we were trying to convey and trying to do.
But we've rectified that there's, as I said, there's a communication and information that's gone back to our team to make sure that everyone across all of our member-facing channels and branches and call center and mobile team are well aware of how we are going to accommodate our members going forward.
And again, there is no proof of vaccination required or to be requested.
Well, it is nice to get an apology for being discriminated against these days, but what exactly was the bizarre policy in the first place?
And while we're at it, how is Van City treating their own employees who haven't yet taken a COVID-19 injectable with zero long-term studies?
Here is a bit of their response to my inquiry on just that.
I'll put their full statement on my written article for this report at RebelNews.com.
Van City members are not required to provide proof of vaccination to access any of its community branches or financial services.
They included a list of other less extreme measures they have taken to address COVID-19, including daily health checks, plexiglass shields, distancing and masking.
And for their staff, they say that they will require them to be fully vaccinated for COVID by February 7th, 2022.
They say that they value their employees and are currently working with a small minority of unvaccinated employees on personalized plans.
I was able to confirm with a Van City employee who prefers to remain anonymous that to date, Van City has accommodated unvaccinated employees, including by allowing them to work from home.
So while they are choosing to accommodate the marginalized employees, they are segregating despite the virus spreading regardless of one's vaccination status, and they were also quick to try and smother out further sparks from asking Tracy for her QR code to withdraw her own investment.
Should Canadians still be concerned that this ever happened to her in the first place?
Now, I think you should give yourself a pat on the back with that.
I recently covered the Ronald McDonald House story where they have this inhumane policy that's throwing out sick children and their families based on the vaccination status.
And at the time of recording this, they still have not even revoked that policy.
But you, you asked some solid key questions to that manager.
And obviously, they probably had a conversation and then changed that.
So I do think that's a win because this is concerning to see more and more areas where unvaccinated people are treated less than human.
Now, it might have had a little bit to do with you pressing for who people should talk to should they have concerns about the Van City policy.
Let's throw to a clip of you speaking with the manager about just that.
I take your feedback for sure and I will.
I trust that I will forward it on to the appropriate people.
Okay.
And if people want to phone and have their opinion, I don't want them necessarily all calling you.
That's not fair, right?
So who should they call?
Can you give me?
So there is, on our website, there is a feedback link.
It's called Feedback and Complaints.
I don't think they're going to go in the, I think they want to call somebody.
Okay, so then it would be probably directly the CEO's office.
Okay, do you have a contact?
I can have a contact.
It's on the website.
The CEO.
Yeah, CEO's office.
I'm going to give a little credit where credit is due.
It's good that they tossed out that policy.
But for you, why was the apology not good enough?
Well, I did say to the VP when we were talking, like, what if it wasn't me?
What if it was a senior trying to get their money?
And what if they just, you know, what if they weren't able to push back?
What if you continued with the policy?
There's lots of people that need their money now because they've lost their jobs, because of these outrageous policies and stuff like that, which was my case.
And it just wouldn't be right if we wouldn't be able to access our money.
Even Vaccinated, Show QR Code00:00:53
What would you say to the people who say, what's the big deal?
Even if they're vaccinated, just show your QR code and go get your banking done.
I don't know.
Where does it stop, really?
I've heard rumors that in other countries they're stopping people from accessing any kind of public transportation and going into the post office.
And now in Quebec, you're not allowed to go to do a lot of your shopping.
Like, where does it hand?
That's a really good question.
Well, thank you so much, Tracy.
This is a very important story.
I know it's not always easy to do an interview, but you're keeping the public informed.
Drea Humphrey for Rebel News.
Now, again, you can see the full written statement at rebelnews.com.
But I also want to encourage you guys to remember to go to fightvaccinepassports.com.