Ezra Levant highlights how European politicians—like Christine Anderson (calling Trudeau a "disgrace"), Mislav Kolakusic (comparing his policies to dictatorship), and Bernard Zimniak (criticizing COVID-19 measures)—outshine Canadian opposition in condemning Justin Trudeau’s authoritarianism. Freelance journalist Rupa Supermania debunks media claims of loaded guns and foreign involvement in the truckers’ protest, while viewer mail questions union corruption tied to vaccine mandates. The $163.3M Black Entrepreneurship Loan program, administered by FACE (backed by groups like Africa Center), faces scrutiny after data shows no systemic banking bias—yet Trudeau’s Liberals, plagued by blackface scandals, still exploit racial narratives for political gain, revealing deeper hypocrisy in their governance. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I'll take you through six speeches in Europe denouncing Justin Trudeau, and they were wonderful, embracing, and passionate and strong.
How come we need foreign politicians to do what our Canadian opposition won't?
I'll take you through six examples, but before I do, I want to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
You know, you're going to hear these speeches.
One of them, or maybe two of them, are in a foreign language.
So I regret that there's captions on the screen.
You won't be able to get it.
That's just one of many reasons I'd like to invite you to become a Rebel News Plus subscriber so you get the video version of this podcast because I just want you to see the passion of all these European politicians.
I want you to see with your eyes.
I know you're listening on a podcast because you probably can't watch.
Maybe you're driving or walking or something.
But please consider going to RebelNewsPlus.com, clicking subscribe.
It's $8 a month.
You get my video show every day, plus weekly shows from four of my teammates.
That's a lot of content.
And remember, we don't get any money from Trudeau, so this is the dough we live on.
If you don't mind, we'd love your support.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, as usual, foreign critics of Trudeau are more effective than Canadian critics.
I'll show you six examples.
It's March 25th, and this is the Answer to the Man 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 I publish them?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
I've shown you many times how when it comes to truly critical journalism about Justin Trudeau, you won't find it in the mainstream media in Canada.
You'll have to go to U.S. journalists or UK journalists.
The Daily Mail in London is particularly good.
Even the UK's Pierce Morgan.
Lots of U.S. media criticize Trudeau, even liberals like Bill Maher.
Justin Trudeau.
What?
You're laughing.
But Justin Trudeau, I mean, I thought he was kind of a cool guy.
But I started to read what he said, this is a couple of weeks ago, he was, or maybe this is September, but he was talking about people who are not vaccinated.
He said they don't believe in science.
They're often misogynistic, often racist.
No, they're not.
That was not smart of him at all.
Right.
He said, but they take up space.
And with that, we have to make a choice in terms of a leader as a country.
Do we tolerate these people?
It's like, tolerate you?
Now you do sound like him.
And recently he talked about them holding unacceptable views.
Wow.
I'm surprised to hear that Trudeau said those things.
You didn't see the blackface?
I mean, he comes.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm not.
I mean, that was not a good look for him.
But I mean, come on.
I mean, that's, I think, what gets under people's skin.
You won't see that on the CBC.
Of course, the best or worst example of all this is during the 2019 election when it fell to Time magazine to break the story of Trudeau in Blackface, although it quickly emerged that most of the Canadian mainstream media had the same pictures.
They were just sitting on them covering up for Trudeau.
I learned a lot that day.
Well, what goes for foreign journalists goes to a large extent to foreign politicians, too.
I like Pierre Polyev's speeches in Parliament against the Trudeau liberals, and that's almost about it.
How many other conservative MPs can you name that really give Trudeau or his cabinet a run for the money on things like civil liberties or the lockdowns or anything, really?
We've had timid conservatives, self-loathing conservatives, non-conservative conservatives.
And sometimes we have to be reminded of that by seeing how other countries do it.
And that's what we saw this week as Trudeau went on another junket to Europe.
I'm not sure why he's back over there.
Canada really isn't a big player in the Ukraine-Russia war.
We don't have a large military.
Our sanctions against Russia are largely ceremonial.
There's no oligarchs who do banking here.
There are no oligarchs with villas in Banff or Whistler.
But Trudeau likes it better over in Europe because he doesn't have to deal with the real Canadian problems, many of which he's caused.
And he can badmouth us, and we're not there to answer.
These are anxious times, and people are looking for leadership and solutions.
Unfortunately, we're seeing a rise in cynical populists who are trying to exploit these anxieties.
They pretend to have easy solutions that play on people's fears.
Even in Canada, where 90% of people are vaccinated, and our motto as a country is peace, order, and good government, we saw anti-vaccine and anti-government protests devolve into illegal occupations of our communities and blockades of our borders.
The leaders of those convoys were effective in turning citizens with real anxieties against the system best suited to allay those concerns.
Yeah, as always, he's the victim.
Well, let me show you how it's really done.
Let me show you the voices of half a dozen European politicians who scorched Trudeau in a way that surely stunned Trudeau.
He's just not used to it in Canada.
The NDP, who are supposed to oppose him, well, they'll let Trudeau do anything, and the Conservatives will let Trudeau do almost anything.
Tell me something they stood up against in the last two years that was important.
So watch this.
Let's start with the first one, Christine Anderson, a German member of the European Parliament.
We've interviewed her a few times on Rebel News.
Take a look at this speech.
She just let it rip.
Based on Article 195.
Doubt that it would have been more appropriate for Mr. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, to address this House according to Article 144, an article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau.
Then again, a prime minister who openly admires the Chinese basic dictatorship, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists, just because they dared to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this House at all.
Mr. Trudeau, you are a disgrace for any democracy.
Please spare us your presence.
Thank you.
Well, that's incredible.
And you'll notice that there was a fair number of MEPs in there, and she got an applause.
Contrast that to the nearly empty room that Trudeau spoke to.
Well, here's what Gerald Butts had to say about that.
Gerald Butz is not used to criticism.
He points out that 125,000 people liked and retweeted this thing with millions of views.
He says in a skeptical way that that's totally normal, implying that that's fake.
No, Gerald, I know you're not used to it because you only travel in your own circles, but millions of people despise Trudeau.
It's not personal.
It's what he's done to the country and our civil liberties.
Here's the next member of the European Parliament to take a run at Trudeau.
Dear colleagues, dear citizens, Premier Trudeau, freedom, the right of election, the right of life and health, the right of work for many of us are the main human rights for which millions of citizens of Europe and the world have put their lives.
For the protection of our rights and rights of our children, which we have set for centuries, many of us, including me and I, we are ready to risk their own freedom and their own lives.
Unfortunately, today we are among us and those who gasp the main value of the human rights.
Canada make the symbol.
Modern Oketa Vashe quasi-liberal protein postal symbols and the people who are in the world.
We looked at how women, how children, how children, how children, they block bank accounts that they don't have to pay for school, that they don't have to pay for them, that they don't have to pay for them, that they don't have to pay for their own homes.
For you, these are maybe liberal methods.
However, for many citizens of the world, this is the highest-ranking dictatorship.
Be confident that the citizens of the world, together, can set up every regime that wants to destroy the freedom of citizens, by bombs, by harmful pharmaceutical companies.
Thank you.
Wow, wow, that's Mislav Kolakusic, if I'm pronouncing it right.
He's a member of the European Parliament from Croatia.
You know, I don't know that language, but I think the word Sloboda is how they say freedom.
Wow.
You know, it's quite something for people from the former East Bloc, sorry, Warsaw Pact countries, Eastern Europe, who went under the Soviet bloc, to speak.
Those people have within their lifetime's memories the knowledge of what an authoritarian regime is like.
I mean, the Berlin Wall only fell 30-odd years ago.
It's incredible to have them scorch Trudeau.
We don't see that kind of opposition in our own country.
Let me take you to the next member of the European Parliament, Bernard Zimniak from Germany.
President, honourable members, we keep discussing here our European democratic values that underpin all of our actions.
I worked in Syria and Pakistan for many years as a diplomat and therefore value democracy very highly.
Now, the invitation to Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, is an invitation to someone who's been trampling on democratic rights, who's been cracking down on people who protested against disproportionate corona measures.
People who were supporting a non-sanctioned movement coming under criticism.
So clearly the values of democracy are being despised by this individual.
Let us not give someone like this any speaking time in this House of Democracy.
Wow.
A disproportionate COVID.
I like that phrase.
I mean, I don't think these MEPs are against any reaction or program or policy to deal with the pandemic, but he's right.
Canada is the only country that I know of that has a no-fly list for its own citizens.
You can't even fly or take the train domestically in the second largest country of the world.
I think that was very passionate.
Now, let me mix it up.
This is actually from a little while ago.
This is an Irish senator, Sharon Keegan, if I'm pronouncing it right.
I didn't see this reported anywhere, actually, until yesterday.
Have you seen any of these video clips on the CBC?
Yeah, I'm sure they'll publish it just like they published the Blackface.
Here's Irish Senator Sharon Keegan.
Take a look.
Always been at the forefront of speaking up for those who have been oppressed.
We recognize the interconnectivity of the countries of Europe and the world at large, and that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We've had calls in this House to address serious human rights abuses occurring in all places over the world, from China in the East to here in the West, and addressing the issues in our own country as well.
So I find it odd that we've heard nothing of what has been a well-publicised, high-profile, peaceful protest being violently suppressed and dispersed by armed government forces.
Ranks of uniformed and armoured military figures, stripped of their badges and ID tags, converged on protesters.
An officer on horseback trampled over a disabled woman.
Around 200 arrests were made and over 60 vehicles seized by the state.
It sounds like something you'd see from Russia or actions which we'd condemn in Hungary or Poland, but instead it is happening in the supposedly liberal democracy of Canada.
And so no condemnation has been forthcoming.
In order to legally permit this level of force, Prime Minister Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act of 1988, the first time this act has ever been used since it replaced the War Measure Act of 1914.
And not being satisfied with merely dispersing protesters, the state froze the finances associated with certain individuals and companies believed to be involved in the protests.
These are people who committed no crime, who has been not convicted lawfully in court, and who the government decided to punish anyway, because they might have been connected with a protest which was inconvenient to the government.
It was an unprecedented act by the state against its citizens, which should be roundly condemned.
And so, Leader, I'm asking you to write to the Canadian ambassador, Nancy Smith, and condemn the excessive force used by the government on the overreach that is happening there to its citizens.
Authoritarianism is a threat to democracy, no matter whose foot the boot is on.
Quick Clip: MEP On Canada00:04:22
Wow, wow.
Is she ever great?
Hey, why is that not in the Canadian news?
Hey, let me throw something at you.
If that speech had been given against Stephen Harper when he was Prime Minister, do you think it would have been buried by the Media Party too?
I'm going to go back to the European Parliament now.
Here's a Romanian member of the European Parliament.
Again, I think it's relevant that he's from a country that used to be under Soviet domination.
Here's Christian Terras, if I'm saying his name right.
Take a listen to him.
And what the Prime Minister of Canada, the way he's behaving right now, he's exactly like a tyrant, like a dictator.
He's like Ceausescu in Romania.
If even you doubt, if you raise doubts about the vaccines, you're all casting.
What's the difference between what he does and what happened under the Inquisition?
See, on one side, they say, well, we should not believe in God, but on the other side, they say, believe in science.
We don't have to.
Science is not about belief.
Science is about measurements, conclusions, hypotheses, and arguments.
We got to a point right now where even if you say something, if you raise any doubts, you're already considered, you know, as whatever, you know, they label you in very different ways.
This is not okay.
And I have to tell you, you know, that when I saw the protest in Canada, you know, the way the truckers over there reacted, you know, I got in touch with some of them, others contacted me, I congratulated them, and I want to use this opportunity to thank them.
And I hope this movement for freedom and for rights is spreading all around the world.
Because at the end of the day, we have to make sure that all these elected officials understand that they were elected in those offices to work for the people, not to behave like masters of slaves.
Thank you.
I understand that clip was from a few weeks ago.
I tell you, it's bracing to hear this kind of talk.
And I, you know, there's something funny about the Canadian media.
Of course, if this was Stephen Harper being scorched, this would have been huge news domestically.
But there's something about Canada.
I think that sometimes we have a bit of an inferiority complex.
So when a Canadian makes it big somewhere else, even if his ties to Canada are very tenuous, you know, so many in the Canadian establishments say, oh, well, he was born and raised till the age of three in Canada.
That's a win for Canada.
We're always looking for a Canadian angle anywhere around the world.
Oh, he mentioned Canada.
Oh, did you hear Elon Musk mention Canada?
Oh, did you see Canada?
Like, we're anytime someone else notices us, we focus on it.
You'll notice that hasn't been the case here.
The whole world noticed Trudeau's crackdown of the trucker rebellion, but it's like the media party censored it.
I want to leave you with a very quick clip.
I'll only show a little bit of this because it's en francais, and I'm afraid I don't have an English translation.
This is a French member of the European Parliament.
I'm told that a number of other members of the European Parliament wished to condemn Trudeau, but they were removed from the speakers.
Here's just a very quick clip of the French MEP, Virginie Joron.
You know, my French is not very strong, but you can see her shirt, which was in English.
She's for truckers and she's for freedom.
Pretty cool that she was wearing that in the European Parliament.
Look, I don't like when Canada is being bashed on the world scene, but I don't think any of these people had anti-Canada feelings in their hearts.
I don't think they were against the people of Canada.
Journalists' Role Questioned00:15:04
I think each one of them was speaking more out of shock and surprise and even sadness.
You heard that one MEP who said Canada used to be the great symbol of liberalism, of a modern country, of like a role model.
I think every single one, in fact, the louder they raged, it was because something and someone they cared about had obviously fallen so far.
I wish that our own checks and balances in this country cared that much about how far we've fallen, not just our media, which is bought or rented by Trudeau, but frankly, even opposition MPs who are all too often really just controlled opposition, micro-opposition, and really in no substantial way stopped Trudeau's agenda.
Stay with us.
An interview with one of the few journalists who's critical of Trudeau.
that's next.
Well, if you were to ask me which of our journalists here at Rebel News I love the best, that would be an impossible question to answer.
It would be like asking me which of my children I love the best.
Even if you secretly have an answer, you never say it.
You love them all equally.
Well, I'll say it.
Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter, is my favorite.
And Avi Yamini, our star in Australia, is incredible.
He wins the Viewer's Choice Award every year, and there's a reason why.
But if I were to look outside of the family of Rebel News, one of the journalists I most admire and most closely follow, who writes such interesting things, not only has sharp opinions, but actually goes into the field to find the news.
The one journalist who's not already a rebel, who I'd just love to follow, is Rupa Supermania.
And she joins us now via Skype from Ottawa.
As you know, she's a freelancer with the National Post and with Nikkei.
And Rupa, I got to say, I'm a super fan and I don't care who knows.
I love your work.
And I really got to know your work during the Trucker Rebellion when you went down into the streets and met the truckers.
And I've been hooked ever since.
And I want to ask you about a story.
The Toronto Star had this huge front page story that claimed to tell the real story behind the Trucker Rebellion.
And one of the things they said was that police found loaded guns in the trucks on Parliament Hill.
And we were just one inch away from an armed revolution.
The star put that on their front page, but it turns out there weren't any guns at all.
The star just made that up.
Well, yeah, I was really struck by that because I remember, you know, there was during the protest, there was a lot of speculation that there were weapons, there are potential weapons in the trucks and that there could be a violent, there could be violent incidents and so on and so forth.
And there was a lot of that stuff happening during the protests.
And then the Toronto stars, Justin Ling had a fairly big sort of a post-mortem of the protests about a week ago.
And there was this almost a throwaway remark, I would say, where he says, in quote, fears that there were weapons inside some of the trucks proved prescient.
A police source said loaded shotguns were found.
And in brackets, while truckers can legally transport registered firearms in their vehicles, guns must be securely stowed and are not permitted to be loaded.
Now, this goes against what the Ottawa police chief, Interim Chief Bell, said yesterday, where he said that no firearms were found during the clearing of the convoy protests.
And so this goes against what the Toronto Star was claiming.
Now, maybe the reporter's source wasn't very credible.
I don't know what the inside story there is, but it certainly is yet another claim that has essentially fallen by the wayside in the last couple of weeks.
We've had, you know, we now know that most of the funding for the protests came from within Canada.
These were average Canadians giving small amounts of money in support of a cause that they support, in support of a cause that they really felt strongly about.
And then you had the arson, the attempted arson.
If you recall, there was this allegation that a downtown apartment building on Lisker Street, in fact, where a couple of people broke into the building and tried to set the building on fire, trapping the residents of the building.
And then it was immediately blamed on the protesters.
And then you had our political elite and the media class immediately jump in and say that this was directly related to the truckers and the protesters without even allowing the facts to, without even allowing the police to fully investigate the matter.
Let the facts come to light first before we jump to any conclusions.
That wasn't the case at all.
You had the mayor saying explicitly that the protesters were behind this attempted arson.
Now we know that the arsonists had the alleged arsonists had nothing to do with the protests.
And so, you know, these, you know, you've seen a series of claims in the last couple of weeks that have just fallen by the wayside and then really puncturing that narrative that was in place to paint the protesters and the truckers as violent insurgents and insurrectionists and that they were here to cause violence and overthrow the government and so on and so forth.
Yeah.
You know what?
I'm so glad you brought up all those other examples.
That arson was specifically used as a rationale for why we need extreme policing.
And oh my God, dark foreign forces, whether it was Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump or both of them, were funding and organizing this whole thing.
The CBC actually had a commentator suggest that.
And on this firearms thing that the Toronto Star got wrong.
Now, maybe they were told a fake thing by a cop.
I'm skeptical.
That reporter, Justin Ling, has a habit of playing fast and loose with the truth.
Here's the thing, Rupa: you know that if that were true, they would have laid charges because they've laid absurd charges over trivial nothings.
You know, Tamara Lich spent weeks in jail for incitement to mischief, which I've never heard of anyone being held without bail for that in my life.
So if they're willing to prosecute people for incitement to mischief or hand out hundreds of tickets for parking violations, you bloody well better believe that if they actually found loaded guns in any violation, they would have obviously made charges, obviously had press conferences.
It was sort of an obvious lie, but when you put it all together, the fake arson claim, the fake claim of foreign funding, the fake Putin connection, the fake guns, I think it's fair to say that everything the media party accused the truckers of conspiracy theories, making things up, the media party itself did.
The media party being the journalists and the politicians who were too closely associated with conspiracy theories, not the truckers.
It's quite something.
Yeah, I mean, what's extraordinary about this is that, you know, as journalists, or really anyone, really, for that matter, must allow for the facts to emerge first before you jump to any conclusions and before you paint an entire group of people as, you know, in a certain way.
And that was what was extraordinary about this, that we, you know, that many people had immediately decided that the truckers and the protesters were responsible for all of these things and that they were violent and that they were up to no good.
And when in fact, they were just here peacefully protesting.
It was a peaceful civil disobedience.
You may not like the issue.
You may not agree with them.
But they were here for three weeks.
And think about the fact that they were here for three weeks in the downtown core.
And maybe apart from some graffiti that I may have seen at a bus shelter and a couple of other places, I didn't see anything and not a single glass had been broken.
Nothing had been damaged.
As many people pointed out during the protests, the streets were clean and they were collecting garbage and shoveling snow and so on and so forth.
And so this goes against all of the stuff that we kept reading about in the news and what was being reported.
And now that the dust is settling a little bit on the protests, the facts are coming out.
And the facts are saying that much of the reportage on the protests was just one-sided.
Perhaps big chunks of it may have been incorrect.
But my question is, will the journalists who perpetuated this narrative, who promoted this so aggressively, will anyone in the media actually take a step back and say, hey, did we get this wrong?
And why did we get this so wrong?
What happened here?
Will there be that introspection?
Now, that's the question I have.
And I'm not saying that any one of us is perfect, but I think everybody needs to do that.
Just take a step back from the situation and really evaluate one's own conduct in that, in bringing out the story.
And did you do due diligence?
Did you report the facts as objectively as possible?
And I'm afraid that large sections of the media didn't do that.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Huge sections, I would say the majority.
It's funny when you say, will there be any retrospective analysis or sober second thought, post-mortem, I think, is a good word.
A few weeks ago, there was a panel discussion of journalists in Ottawa.
And I think you participated by sending in a video, if I'm not mistaken, where the journalists talked about how mean they were treated by the truckers.
I wasn't there myself, but I followed a reporter from True North who was sort of live tweeting him.
And it was that in this enormous story, which was a huge national story, but I think it was the largest world story about Canada in years.
I mean, there were people all over the world that were in it.
Know that because, and I'm sure you were doing media hits all over the world, just like our reporters were, not just in America, but all over Europe and elsewhere.
Like it was the biggest story around.
And afterwards, for the journalists, I think Evan Solomon was one of them, and I can't remember who else.
For them to get together and the subject matter of their conclave was how mean they were treated.
It just showed a solipsism, a self-centeredness that they just don't get it.
And I see another panel discussion coming up with Rosemary Barton, the chief reporter for this, the political reporter for the CBC.
It literally has mean tweets as the subject of the, they're going to talk about mean tweets.
I wonder if any of them ever think, well, have we done anything wrong?
Could we improve?
So many establishment institutions have lost credibility in the last two years.
I think journalists are amongst the worst.
I don't see any sense of self-awareness from what I call the media party, the government-funded media, the state broadcaster.
I don't know, you're in Ottawa.
I'm not in the belly of the beast.
What's your sense?
Like Justin Ling in the Toronto Star had a huge error.
I don't see any correction, let alone a termination.
No, the only people who are held to account are people like us, you know, the independent voices out there.
You know, we're scrutinized like nobody else out there.
And that's unfortunate.
I think everybody should be held to account, independent voices, mainstream media, whoever are politicians.
But it seems to be just really, you know, this, you know, I'm trying to be hopeful.
I'm trying to be hopeful and optimistic that there's going to be some self-reflection, some introspection.
And, you know, and I would say that even within the mainstream media, I think there are voices of dissent.
Perhaps they're fearful of speaking out.
You know, you'd have to be completely blind to not see just how one-sided the mainstream coverage of the protest was.
What was what I consider to be one of the most important cultural moments in this country's recent history.
And here was an opportunity to actually objectively cover it and bring out all aspects of it.
Sure, report on the Pat Kings of the world, but also report on the thousands of people who showed up, honest Canadians who really felt left out in the conversations that we've been having the last couple of years during the pandemic.
These are people who've lost their jobs.
Their relationships broken down with, they've lost friends and families.
And so it's just that the coverage of it was so incredibly one-sided, as if to double down on this narrative that everybody had bought into, which was the official government narrative, which was Trudeau's narrative.
Trudeau's Divisive Language00:05:53
It was Trudeau who set the ball rolling.
Before the protesters even arrived, he, you know, using very divisive language, he called them racist and misogynist and that they were really beyond the pale and not worth engaging with.
And that kind of set the motion.
Now, if you are the media, I would say, you know, push back against that.
Challenge Trudeau on his statements.
And I don't think the journalist who was interviewing him for that, you know, was interviewing him back in December when he made those comments really pushed back.
Now, this was a French language show.
So, you know, my French isn't the greatest.
I'm not sure, you know, how exactly it all panned out, but I didn't really get a sense that he was being challenged on those views.
And so that basically set the ball rolling.
And everybody basically, you know, was in lockstep.
The media was in lockstep with the government and everybody was essentially sounding the same.
And when everybody sounds the same, I don't know about you, but I immediately just, you know, I can't breathe.
You know, I know something is up, you know, and I really start questioning what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing.
And that's what happened with me.
You know, I just wanted to go and check it out for myself and make up my own mind, which is what I did.
And I think that's what journalists should do: make up your own mind and report the facts as objectively as you possibly can.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you, I sure am glad that you did that.
And I'm glad you have the forum of the National Post that publishes your articles.
We'll have to talk about other subjects in future visits.
I love your take on the liberal NDP coalition.
And of course, watching how the Ukraine-Russia war is spilling over into Canada with cancel culture for anyone with a Russian-sounding last name.
You've written some great columns in the post about it.
We'll have to get into those another time.
But what a great chance to catch up with you, Rupa.
We love your work.
Keep it up and look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thanks, Ezra.
Thanks for having me.
And it's a pleasure to be here again.
Right on.
Thank you.
There you have it.
Rupa Supermania.
She's a freelancer who writes for the National Post, Nikkei, and other places.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer mail.
Someone nicknamed MetaBan talks about the Jerry Diaz bribery scandal and says, could this go much deeper?
He not only supported the vaccine mandate, he pushed other union leaders to do the same.
Well, that's the thing.
I keep coming back in my mind to the fact that the union will not say who the bribe payer was.
Why?
You think if they have any loyalty, personal affection, or protectiveness, it would be to their longtime president.
So they've sacked him.
They're investigating him.
So surely that's the nuclear worst case scenario.
Why are they protecting someone else unless that someone else is powerful or important or implicates others?
That's so bizarre to me.
And I don't think this should fall just to Unifor to investigate.
I think we need police on this one or a judicial inquiry.
What else has been compromised?
Like I say, Jerry Diaz isn't just some lobbyist or advocate.
He's in his own way a kind of judge judging which of his union members he'll fight for and grieve for and which he'll sell out.
I think a lot of those things have to be overturned and re-examined.
Michael Kanzenbach says, corrupt.
All past contracts with auto companies need to be looked into now.
Yeah, well, listen, the business corruption is for sure an issue.
But the fact that people were fired or grievances weren't pursued is much more worrying to me.
Yeah, I mean, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars stolen, purloined.
Yes, yes, of course that happened.
But in some ways, individuals being forced to get a jab or forced to be fired, in some ways, I think that's morally even more repugnant.
Ava Red says, real journalism, digging up dirt and exposing it.
Thank you.
Well, you know, If you could be referring to so many stories we're working on, I should tell you that we did not discover the news about Jerry Diaz.
The union announced the investigation, and for a while they kept it covered up.
So it really was their own announcement.
We didn't dig into that.
Listen, we're always doing access to information requests and we're going out and asking things, but a lot of these, you know, a lot of these stories, I think they require a whistleblower.
I mean, if someone pays a bribe and someone takes a bribe, how are you going to know about that?
That's not going to show up in an access to information request.
That's not going to be the answer if you ask someone a question.
They're not going to suddenly say, oh, you got me.
You need someone on the inside to break the cone of silence.
And I hope we see more of that.
Well, that's our show for today and brings us to the end of the week.
I hope you enjoyed, or if not enjoyed, at least appreciated our coverage of so many things.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, let me say goodbye and keep fighting for freedom.
And let me leave you with our video of the day from Sheila, who looks through federal data that shows minority business owners are not held down by systemic racism in banking, despite what the government might say.
Inside Information Needed00:02:38
I thought this was an interesting study.
I'll leave it with you and I'll see you on Monday.
Bye-bye.
Do you remember this announcement?
Last year, the Liberals said they were bringing in this new program, the Black Entrepreneurship Loan.
Let's look at it.
As part of the first phase of the loan fund, the government is investing $33.3 million, and the Business Development Bank of Canada is investing $130 million.
As part of the second phase, the Royal Bank of Canada, BMO Financial, Scotia Bank, CIBC, the National Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Van City, and Alternative Savings have committed an additional $128 million.
The Black Entrepreneurship Fund is administered by the Federation of African Canadian Economics, a federally incorporated not-for-profit.
FACE was created by several prominent not-for-profit black-led business groups, namely the Africa Center, Black Business and Professional Association, Black Business Initiative, Côte d'Inege, Black Community Association, and Group 3737.
So, this loan program is administered by these other organizations, but it's funded in part by the feds and then a bunch of banks.
Is any of this necessary?
Justin Trudeau seems to think so.
He's the system.
His party is quite literally the system in power longer than any other party in the last 100 years.
If racism exists in the system, he did it.
But he tweeted this the other day because it was some sort of day-to-day systemic racism, I think.
It's up to everyone to come together and reject all forms of racism, discrimination, and hatred, and to take action whenever and wherever we see it.
Today, let's recommit to doing that and let's continue to build a future that's fairer for everyone.
But is all this special treatment for racialized minority groups in the financial system even necessary to undo a system of evil taking place?
The answer is no, and the federal government's own data shows it quite clearly.
Someone actually decided to ask the Liberals to show their work on this topic.
Arnold Vierson, the Conservative MP from rural northern Alberta, is using his order paper opportunities very wisely these days.
He asked the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development, and Disability Inclusion with regard to government measures to address systemic racism in Canada since January 1st, 2016, has the government conducted research to identify and quantify the specific barriers preventing black, indigenous, and other minority communities from receiving equal access to financial services.
Now, here's what Arnold got back, and we should be happy about this because it shows we're actually inclusive.
The answer from the government is 52 pages long.
Reasons For Declining Finances00:03:28
Half of it is in French, of course, but it's really good news about the kind of country we live in that you won't hear the liberals ever telling you or the mainstream media ever talking about.
Take a look at this.
Immigrant owners are less likely than Canadian-born owners to seek financing from any source, but their applications are just as likely to be approved as those of Canadian-born owners.
Thus, the study finds weak evidence to suggest that access to financial capital is a more serious issue among immigrant-owned small and medium enterprises than among small and medium enterprises with Canadian-born owners.
That's fantastic news.
There doesn't really seem to be any systemic racism lurking around our financial systems.
But let's keep going because the next bunch of numbers here, also really interesting.
39.4% of businesses with 1 to 499 employees that were majority owned by Indigenous persons did not request financing in 2017.
The following reasons were cited for not requesting financing.
Financing not required, 96.2%.
Thought the request would be turned down, 1.7%.
Applying for financing is too difficult or time-consuming, 0%.
Cost of financing is too high, 0%.
Unaware of financing sources available to the business, also 0%.
And other, 2.1%.
Let's keep going.
58.6% of businesses with 1, 2, 499 employees that were majority owned by persons who are from a visible minority group did not request financing in 2017.
The following reasons were cited for not requesting financing.
Financing not required, 86.8%.
Again, these people didn't seem to think that their requests would be turned down.
Thought the request would be turned down just 1.7%.
Applying for financing is too difficult or time-consuming, 2.9%.
Cost of financing is too high, 1.7%.
Unaware of financing sources available to the business, 3.3%.
And other at 3.6%.
Now, here's where things really get interesting.
The comparison to the overall general entrepreneurial population.
In comparison, 52.9% of all businesses owned by anybody, really, of any background or color, if you care about those sorts of things, with 1 to 499 employees did not request financing in 2017.
The following reasons were cited for not requesting financing.
Financing not required, 91.1%.
Thought the request would be turned down, 1.3%.
Applying for financing is too difficult or time-consuming, 1.9%.
Cost of financing is too high at 1.1%.
Unaware of financing sources available to the business, 1.2%.
And other 3.4%.
So as you can see here, basically throughout the general entrepreneurial population and when it is segmented by immigrant status or racialized demographic, there seems to be no real difference with the entrepreneurs thinking that they would be turned down for financing.
Real Racists Exist?00:00:25
Now, don't get me wrong.
There are real racists out there.
Not a lot, but I mean, just look at Justin Trudeau.
The good news is he's the exception, not the rule.
However, the Liberal Party, where you can do blackface so many times you forgot and still remain not only the leader of the party, but get re-elected as the prime minister.
Well, that seems to be the real stronghold of systemic racism in this country that the rest of us are accused of.