Ezra Levant warns Canada’s Online News Act—a $61M pre-election "bribe" to 1,500 media—will license journalism, excluding Rebel News and Canadaland despite their news output. Jesse Brown’s critiques highlight legacy outlets’ conflicts with Google/Facebook funders, like the Globe and Mail (Thompson-owned), while Bill Gates’ TED Talk protests reveal skepticism over his pandemic policies and globalist ties. Reader questions contrast Canada’s selective enforcement—ignoring Jason Kenney’s infractions but jailing truckers’ convoy supporters—with UK police fining politicians. Levant dismisses Trudeau freezing Rebel News donors’ accounts but notes seven lawsuits against the government, while Pierre Polyev’s leadership bid promises defunding CBC and opposing CBDCs, positioning Canada as a blockchain hub to resist financial centralization. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm not the only one who's worried about Justin Trudeau's plan to license news journalism.
Jesse Brown of the left-wing podcast Canadaland is too, and he had a string of arguments today that I thought were interesting enough.
I'm going to go through them with you.
The fact that he's a leftist and is the kind of guy who would naturally, I think, like Trudeau.
He's a woke virtue signaler.
But he's opposed to this journalism licensing, I think, makes his points all the stronger.
So that's today's show.
Stay with us for that.
But I want to invite you to get the video version of this podcast first.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month.
You get the video show of my podcast every day, plus weekly videos from Sheila Gunri, David Menzies, Andrew Chapados, and Nat and Kat, who have a new podcast with us.
So in any given month, that's 20 videos from me and 16 from the others, if my math is right.
That's 36 vids for $8.
Got to admit, that's a pretty good deal.
Frankly, even if you don't watch them, it's like giving us a few pennies as a tip, which I'd appreciate because as we'll get into today, we don't take any government money.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, I'm learning more about the Trudeau government's plans to license journalism.
It's not good.
It's April 11th, and this is 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 is government.
But why I publish them?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Most of the time I disagree with a left-wing website called Canada Land.
They can be deceptive and unethical.
And once their boss, Jesse Brown, falsely defamed one of our writers, and we're still pursuing them for that.
I went on their show about a decade ago as a guest.
It was deceptively edited.
The only time that's ever happened to me in my life, actually.
There are problems over at Canada Land that go to honesty and character, not just ideology.
But even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
And Jesse Brown, the boss over there, well, his review of Justin Trudeau's plans to license journalism is spot on.
I should say that Canada Land and Jesse Brown, despite my ideological differences with them, are one of the very few news outlets in Canada that don't take government money.
Their chief medium is podcasting, and they do pretty well at it.
They're often in the top 10 most popular podcasts in Canada.
Again, not my cup of tea, but they obviously have some talent.
But they're worried about this journalism licensing business, the stuff we're suing the government over.
You'll remember we applied for this status as license to have the government designation QCJO, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization, and we were rejected for the most absurd reasons.
I mean, I just still can't even get over this.
They claim that only 1% of what we do is news.
I'm serious.
You know, I checked, and we've published almost exactly 30,000 individual news stories since we were born seven years ago.
I think I gave you a slightly different estimate last week, but now I have the exact number.
I had our team pull some stats.
We have published 29,801 items we could call news, as opposed to like a sign-up page or a merchandise page on the website.
That's an average of more than 10 stories a day, seven days a week for seven years.
And that's just on the website.
It doesn't count all of our social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook or whatever.
The idea that only 1% of that or 298 items over the course of our entire life are news is absurd and embarrassing to the government.
I'm just, for example, we have 144 stories that we call exclusives.
Big scoops, usually through access to information requests or leaked info or tips.
You know, just FYI, every morning at 7.30 a.m. Eastern Time, our journalists receive an email briefing note from our researcher pointing out breaking news and events of the day just to get their noggins jogging.
Then at 10 a.m., we have a news meeting where each of the reporters makes their pitch to our managing editor, Sheila.
At 5 p.m., we have a follow-up news meeting to ensure things are being published in a timely manner.
Like I say, more than 10 news stories a day every day of the year on average, actually 82 a week to be precise.
And the government is saying that we don't even publish one single news story a week.
I'm sorry, that's just weird.
We're suing, obviously.
If you missed my details on that, please go read our lawsuit at wearsuingtrudeau.com.
But back to Canada Lounge and their editor, Jesse Brown.
He made a series of tweets today about this very issue.
And I'd like to read them to you, which I normally wouldn't do, but he's spot on.
And I think it's valuable that he's a leftist.
He's woke.
He's all the things you're supposed to be to get in good with Trudeau, except he won't bend the knee and merge with the government.
So far, at least in his podcast today and in his tweets today, he intimated that maybe to survive, he has to join them.
He hasn't yet.
Here, let me read.
It's a thread of about a dozen tweets, but I think they're good.
He says, this is what is poorly understood due to secrecy.
The media bailout and the Online News Act puts all legacy news in Canada under government-dependent support.
TV, radio, newspapers, all of it.
Okay, just stop right there.
Any government that uses the phrase news act, like a news law, is all you need to know about them.
There is no room for the government in regulating news.
That's censorship by definition from the beginning.
You know, it reminds me of, you might recall that Bible Bill Aberhart, the social credit premier of Alberta in the dirty 30s, he brought in a law called the Accurate News and Information Act.
That was 80 plus years ago.
It was literally designed to fight fake news.
It required any newspaper of the day to run a government rebuttal next to any story they said was fake.
Now, that law was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Edmonton Journal, who fought against it, they actually won a special Pulitzer Prize for fighting it today.
Well, today, the Edmonton Journal has signed up for the Online News Act.
If only Bill Eberhardt knew that all he had to do was bribe the Edmonton Journal with a carrot, not hit them with a stick.
I'll keep reading Jesse Brown's post.
His next one, he says, combination of government money plus Facebook money plus Google money will fund all legacy news production in Canada.
In over 100 cases, it already does.
It's a good point.
Google and Facebook are already the largest spenders of lobbying money in America.
I'm sure it's the same in Canada.
They have huge interests.
Really, they're as large as countries, profitable countries.
Just like Trudeau, they know the best way to get good press is just to buy it.
And if Trudeau forces them to give money to journalists, those, well, those journalists I understand have to sign special contracts or even, you know, even if they just know that the money is coming from Google and Facebook, I mean, you don't think they're going to pull their punches in their coverage of Facebook and Google?
Of course.
As in they'll never criticize them again.
What percentage of news costs are subsidized?
It's a secret, but based on info from Australia, whose laws we based our policy on, 30% of news costs at one org are now covered by big tech.
Imagine that.
Secret funding from Google and Facebook at the direction of Justin Trudeau.
That's what's in the Online News Act.
Imagine a journalist who would sign a non-disclosure agreement with the most powerful and rich companies in the world.
That person is no longer a journalist, is he?
How can you be?
You're keeping secrets, not telling them now.
Add to that the 25% government wage subsidy, and it's reasonable to estimate that more than 50% of Canadian editorial expenses will be paid by the government big tech combo.
It's a good point.
You've got so many layers of grift here.
You know, sometimes people make fun of me because so often I'm asking our viewers to chip in to pay for this or that thing at Rebel News.
And it's true, and it's annoying, and I'm sorry for that.
But it's also 100% voluntary.
No one has to give us a dime.
And frankly, 99% of our viewers don't.
But if you get money extracted from Canadians by Trudeau for you, you know, we don't do that.
We don't take force money.
We don't take subsidies.
We don't take big grants.
And now, shake down money from big tech too.
They really are state broadcasters, all of them now, aren't they?
Here's what Jesse Brown says next.
To think that this won't change how the media covers the government and Facebook, and Google is a fantasy.
It already has.
To think that this won't hurt public trust and journalism is to ignore both data and what we hear from newsreaders every day.
He's right on that.
It's a great point.
There are a whole raft of reasons why no one trusts the media anymore.
Their conduct during the pandemic is a big part of it.
But everyone can tell the media is no longer a watchdog.
They're a lapdog.
They're in on it.
Here's an idea I didn't think of myself, Jesse Brown says.
As Dr. OW argued on Canada land years ago, this doesn't just lock in legacy news orgs at the expense of startups.
It also locks in the power of Google and Facebook, putting a critical part of our democracy on their permanent payroll.
Exactly.
You're making Google and Facebook parts of our government, parts of our media industry.
Who died and appointed them God?
If Google and Facebook fall or are disrupted, the news business loses its sugar daddy.
Yeah, and may we pray for that disruption of those companies to come.
Brown continues, how does Google determine how much to pay news orgs?
As Google's VP of news, Richard Zingra reveals here, it involves the number of articles a news org publishes.
The incentive is to pump out content.
He's referring to Google VP of News, Richard Zingra.
He made those remarks at a Liberal Party conference hosted by a lobby group called Canada 2020.
See, Google is deeply involved with this and with the Liberal Party, and you'd better believe that politics comes up all the time.
They hire directly from the government.
Here's Zhingra saying they're taking steps to insulate the politics of it.
Yeah, sure they are.
Sure they are.
I mean, we have, for instance, expressed in our conversations with the government that another, you could take an entirely different approach, for instance, and say, we're going to create a fund that platforms contribute to, and that fund is distributed by formula.
You know, that could be a very effective way that would eliminate either the potential for political influence or the suspicion that somehow the platforms are inappropriately imbalancing the voices in the news ecosystem.
All those secret negotiations, all those non-disclosure contracts, all that secrecy for the news business, for the journalism license business.
Just two more quotes from Jesse Brown.
Digital news orgs are being cut in on the deal, and most will be happy to get free money, even if it's dimes to the dollar of what their legacy competitors get.
Of course, digital orgs don't have to participate, but passing costs them more than just money.
That's such a good point.
You know, most of the money is being hoovered up by the dying dinosaurs like the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.
The Globe is owned by Canada's richest family, Ola Garks called the Thompsons.
So, of course, they need more of your tax dollars to run the globe.
I mean, it's for innovation, right?
I'll skip to the end.
Taken as a whole, the level of market interference has expanded and expanded to the point where small independent news organizations face an existential crisis.
This may mean join or die.
That includes Canada land.
Now, maybe he's just emoting out loud, or maybe he's getting his viewers ready for him to abandon his principles.
He wouldn't be the first.
And I get it.
Listen to him argue with Colette Brin.
That's the government appointee who wrote the rejection letter to us, the woman who blacklisted Rebel News.
Jesse Brown is complaining to her that the Globe and Mail, owned by Canada's richest family, just came and hired away two of his producers, presumably at a big increase in salary, so that the Globe and Mail could make their own podcast to challenge Canada Lands.
How could he possibly compete if half the Globe and Mail's costs are now borne by the taxpayer?
I mean, it was bad enough when he just had to compete against Canada's richest family, but now he also is fighting against a competitor with free government money or Facebook, Google money, coming to pillage his staff.
Take a listen.
In March 2020, the Toronto Star launched a daily podcast about Canadian news.
In May 2021, the Globe and Mail launched a daily podcast about Canadian news.
How do I know that they were trying to make their own version of Canada land?
Because they hired away two of Canada Land's producers to make it.
But Canada Land is kind of a niche.
I know you hate that, but do you really have direct competitors?
Are you kidding me?
The Globe and Mail hired away our staffers.
Is the Globe and Mail?
You're a competitor?
Of course I can do it.
Yes, but oh, and in terms of your workforce.
Do you want to pay for audience?
Of course they are.
They're a competitor in terms of stories.
We're competing with them to get scoops.
They are a competitor in terms of news subscriptions.
People aren't going to get an infinite number of subscriptions.
They are a competitor in terms of talent.
They hire away our people to launch podcasts that cover Canadian news, right?
I actually worked with Kasha.
She's amazing.
She's wonderful.
God bless them.
Good luck to her.
But that is a newspaper that is owned by the richest family in Canada.
And I'll tell you something, though podcast companies are excluded from QCJO status and from the subsidy, I suspect that the way it's set up, podcast workers at newspapers are getting their salaries subsidized.
So explain that one to me, how that's possible.
Oh, I'm not going to explain that.
I mean, that's way beyond my job description.
But you could see that that's egregious.
I am taking note of all of this.
I am taking note of all of this.
And I, you know, it's a very, it's a broad issue, right?
And it's all kinds of complexities.
Our Plan Explained00:02:35
I mean, we're, you know, we're applying this specific thing.
And I understand it could have impacts on other aspects of the industry.
I was surprised by how surprised she seemed to learn that the plan that she's a part of to help some news companies actually hurt other news companies.
I mean, what did they expect would happen?
So yeah, it's interesting to hear the same complaints as we have, but from the left.
It's shocking to see the silence of the other 1,500 media companies who are taking the payout.
Really, 1,500.
We know that because that's how many companies were on the list that took a $61 million emergency pre-election bribe from Trudeau last fall.
Do you remember that?
What, you didn't hear about that?
Of course you didn't because those companies took the bribe.
Why would they tell you about the bribe?
That bribe story was published only by two media companies, Rebel News and Canada Land.
Now, I don't know if Jesse Brown is going to collapse and take the government money, the Facebook money, I don't know.
But we've got a better plan, I think.
Take Trudeau to court and fight.
I don't know if it's a better plan, but it's our plan.
Go to weareSuingTrudeau.com.
All right, more ahead.
Okay, if any of you guys have been to any of the freedom rallies over the years, well, last two years, you guys know what we do here.
My job is to bore you to death.
I'm kidding.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to yell a couple of things and I'm going to hand the mic off to an excellent singer.
Guys, freedom is essential.
Freedom Is Essential00:06:15
Rights are essential.
Freedom is essential.
Freedom is essential.
Rights are essential.
Rights are essential.
Guys, what do we want?
Freedom!
When do we want it?
What do we want?
When?
Again!
Well, that was the scene yesterday in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Bill Gates, who came to world prominence for his role as the boss of Microsoft.
but has since transformed into a kind of schleppey supervillain.
You know, he has that awesh approach to him, but he comes up with a series of bizarre plans, whether it's to release billions of tons of dust into the atmosphere to block out the sun, or his obsession with viruses and vaccines, including a smallpox vaccine, just a little bit crazy on that one.
Remember when he said this?
And so I'm hoping in five years I can write a book called, you know, We Are Ready for the Next Pandemic.
But it'll take tens of billions in RD, that the US and the UK will be part of that.
It'll take probably about a billion a year for a pandemic task force at the WHO level, which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call germ games, where you practice.
You say, okay, what if a bioterrorist brought smallpox to 10 airports?
You know, how would the world respond to that?
You know, that there's not to really cause epidemics, and bioterrorism caused epidemics that could even be way worse than what we experience today.
His obsession with global warming, even though he jets around private.
I think, of course, the worst thing about Bill Gates by far, so bad that even his wife divorced him over it, his wife who shares many of his other ideological beliefs, was his friendship with the pedophile and child pimp, Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship that persisted long after the facts about Epstein were known.
Here's, of course, Melinda Gates saying that that was why they broke up.
You know, it was also widely reported that Bill had a friendship or business or some kind of contact with Jeffrey Epstein and that you were not, that that was very upsetting to you.
Did that play a role in the divorce at all in this process?
Yeah, as I said, it's not one thing.
It was many things.
But I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no.
And you made that clear to him.
I made that clear to him.
I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time.
Did you?
Yes, because I wanted to see who this man was.
And I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door.
He was abhorrent.
He was evil personified.
I had nightmares about it afterwards.
So, you know, my heart breaks for these young women because that's how I felt.
And here I'm an older woman.
My God, I feel terrible for those young women.
It was awful.
You felt that the moment you walked in.
It was awful.
Yeah.
And you shared that with Bill and he still continued to spend time with him?
Any of the questions remaining about what Bill's relationship there was, those are for Bill to answer.
Okay.
But I made it very clear how I felt about him.
It's shocking to me that such a man would still find an audience, but of course, money buys you a lot of things.
As you may know, Bill Gates has spent hundreds of millions of dollars that we know about paying subsidies or gifts to various media companies, which is probably why he's never grilled on things.
He was in Vancouver to deliver a talk at a TED Talk, which is sort of a 15-minute deep thoughts speech.
Our friend and BC Bureau Chief Drea Humphrey was outside.
She joins us now by Skype.
Drea, great to see you again.
I always thought Bill Gates was sort of a harmless, nerdy guy and that he just wanted to do good.
He was a bit of a do-gooder.
That naive belief was shaken out of me by watching him over the last two years.
What was he in Vancouver to talk about?
Well, first of all, they're calling it a TED Talk on a new era.
So anything for what they believe the future holds, including discussions on new developments with AI and the direction where they think we're headed, really.
So the kind of thing that a supervillain would care about.
I mean, you know, you and I are worried about things like, oh my gosh, did it really cost $130 to fill up the gas tank?
Or, you know, what about our civil liberties?
We can't fly.
At least I can't fly because I'm not jabbed.
Bill Gates doesn't worry about that.
He flies private.
He doesn't think about little things.
He thinks about big things like, you know, telling people what to do, how to think.
So it sounds like a perfect fit for him.
A lot of folks were gathered outside.
I find that impressive.
What was the main theme of the protest?
Well, the main theme of the protest, if I had to sum it up, I would call it an anti-globalism protest.
So it seems that Bill Gates is a figurehead sort of for that sort of energy.
And, you know, just touching on the things that Bill Gates doesn't have to worry about, the people who attended the conference, which, by the way, is still happening.
It's between the 10th to the 14th, had to pay $5,000 to be there.
So a lot of them feel that the whole narrative with COVID-19 with the last two years, a lot of it went down the way it did because of the things that Bill Gates was saying early on in 2020 and how much coverage he got there.
If you recall, one of the things that he said is that we're not really going to get through this unless we have a vaccine and a digital certificate.
Bill Gates and Sludge Electricity00:03:08
Well, before we talked about vaccine passports specifically.
So you also mentioned thinking that Bill Gates is sort of some sort of computer nerd.
There was a sign there that made me chuckle and it said, please, God, make Bill Gates a computer nerd again.
So that was kind of a funny one there too.
But he also got into some trouble with sort of monopolizing the computer industry back in the day.
And I think some people think he's trying to monopolize the world now.
I think that's true.
I mean, he does strange things like he's buying up more private farmland in America than any other landowner.
And at the same time, he's promoting eating synthetic meat.
And even I'm going to show you something and look away those without a strong stomach.
I just gag even thinking about this.
He's done promotions for drinking reclaimed sewage water.
Take a look at this.
Over two and a half billion people have no access to safe sanitation.
We asked brilliant engineers to help us solve this problem.
And one of those engineers actually has proposed a solution where the waste is valuable.
The omniprocessor turns sewer sludge, which is kind of nasty, into clean drinking water, electricity, and ash that is pathogen-free.
This is where the sludge enters the machine.
It goes up this conveyor belt, is fed into these large tubes we call the dryer.
That's where we boil the sludge.
And in the boiling process, we separate the water vapor from the solids.
The solids are now dry and we can feed them into the fire.
Once we have this very hot fire, we can make high-pressure, high-temperature steam.
And we take that steam and we send it to a steam engine.
And the steam engine drives a generator that makes electricity that we use for the processor and also excess electricity that can be delivered back to the community.
The water vapor that's created in the boiling process is run through a cleaning system until we have the cleanest, purest water you can possibly imagine.
The sanitation system, as we know it in the developed world, cannot work in developing countries.
So what we need in developing countries is a very simple system.
The entrepreneur that owns this processor will get paid for the input, the sludge.
And that same entrepreneur will get paid for the outputs, the electricity, the water, and the ash.
I am very impressed with this solution we're seeing here.
And it generates electricity, it generates clean water.
It will grow to every corner of the earth that needs it because it makes money every day.
I can't even think about that without gagging.
I'm sorry to have shown that to you.
I just want to let you know how weird this guy is.
I mean, you know, he's going to be weird if he's a computer prodigy.
Climate Lockdowns Concern00:15:52
Okay, fine.
That's great.
I mean, Elon Musk is a little bit quirky, and you can't be at that level without having a few quirks, shall we say.
But all of Bill Gates' quirks turn toward the dark side from his bigamous marriage.
I won't get into that now.
I've done a whole biography on him before.
I think by far the creepiest thing is his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the fact that he is still polite company is shocking.
Well, I mean, you remember what Gates said about that.
Whoops, too bad that Epstein's dead.
Remember this?
Well, he's dead.
So, you know, in general, you always have to be careful.
Well, he's dead.
I mean, that's creepy how he said it.
Let's stop talking about Bill Gates in generic and let's talk about what happened in Vancouver.
Here's, I got a question for you.
Vancouver is a pretty eco-friendly city.
It's where, you know, Greenpeace and other environmentalist groups have probably their densest participation.
You know, it's very environmental.
It's where Greenpeace got its start decades ago.
People that are health conscious too.
And a lot of environmentalism has been done at the global level, the UN level.
So at the Davos level, where Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum are.
So do you think there's some folks in Vancouver who maybe for many years were environmentalists just because they want clean air, clean water, clean soil kind of thing, who have now watched the virus lockdowns and the virus globalism and are thinking, yikes, I don't want to have a climate lockdown and climate globalism.
Do you think some Vancouverites who sort of went along with the eco thing have sort of been scared out of it now watching Bill Gates these past two years?
That's a good question.
I've definitely heard that from people who not necessarily were already feeling or as part of that community to begin with, but more people who challenged that narrative to starts to say, hey, we're going to see climate lockdowns.
I remember reading about, hey, look how much energy we saved or whatever during the lockdowns and seeing comments of people sort of on social media saying, oh, we should do something like this more regular.
So maybe extending the hour that you turn off the lights to a week, I don't know.
But I personally haven't come across anyone who said, hey, you know, I used to be thinking this way.
And now, you know, I'm not buying this whole energy and climate change era.
The doctors, there was actually doctors on tour who took the stage.
I want to say five or six of them at the protests.
And one of the questions one of the doctors asked was something about the climate change.
So, and nobody put their hand up when they were asked if they believe in climate change.
So it's interesting that there's definitely a lot of discussion in this area.
And I think people in general are a little bit more skeptical about the sort of polarized narratives we're getting on everything.
And some of them are diving into things a bit deeper now.
I want to play just one more clip from your visit there yesterday.
Here, take a look.
He's not a doctor, but anyone from the health system are listening on paying to what we told them to do with us.
He's not an epidemiologist, but he's just setting up epidemics.
This pandemic, because it's not pandemic, it's pandemic.
He's not elected, but he seems to be more important than the government itself.
Well, Treya, I mean, Vancouver, it's so close to the border, as are most Canadian big cities.
I mean, when you think about it, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, so close to the border, Ottawa, fairly close.
Even Calgary, only a few hours away.
Really, our country is the second largest in the world, but we are in that little band about 100 miles from the border, 90% of our population.
So I can imagine why, especially a city as, you know, outward looking at Vancouver, as Vancouver, would sort of be like an honorary American city.
I mean, a lot of Americans, I mean, if you're in Seattle, it's just a little bit further up the highway.
So it's not surprising to me that a lot, I mean, and there's a lot of Hollywood stars who go up to Vancouver to shoot movies.
But part of me thinks that a lot of these American oligarchs see Canada as like a proving ground, a test facility for their craziest ideas.
I mean, George Soros is deeply involved with Christy Freeland.
She was his biographer.
There's a lot of things that are done in Canada as like a test bed.
So I'm worried that Bill Gates coming up to Canada is more than just, oh, it's a great city I was invited to talk in.
I'm worried that he might have some Canadian plans.
Let me remind you that even Stephen Harper shared a stage with Bill and Melinda Gates and bought into some of their global work.
I don't know if Harper would do that again.
Are you worried that these oligarchs are trying to collect Canada as a little prize?
Or is it just look, it was a cool city that he was invited to speak in?
There's nothing more than that.
I think you're right.
I think that there is a lot of attention and focus on Canada for a variety of reasons and in a lot of different ways.
And perhaps that has to do with our so-called niceness over here that perhaps we bite our tongues a little bit more if we don't think everybody thinks the same way as us.
We're less likely to speak up.
That's what I think our niceness is.
So perhaps they've gotten away with quite a bit and they're getting some momentum here.
So this is an attractive area to come and just kind of focus on these areas and maybe make the connections that are helping moving along such agendas.
But, you know, we'll just have to keep a close eye and see how things are going.
I think it is something to see that many people come out after the provincial mandates dropped to come out and say, hey, we're not comfortable with someone who's done all of these things here in Vancouver.
So I guess it's not entirely going unnoticed anymore.
Yeah, you know, you said a lot of interesting things.
I think maybe because Trudeau is the PM up here, that also is sort of a standing invitation to any globalist.
And certainly Bill Gates is that.
But you're right.
Since the worst of the lockdowns has been lifted, other than the travel bans and some of the government mandates, for that many protesters to show up for Bill Gates feels impressive.
I don't think that would have been the case two and a half years ago before the pandemic and the lockdowns.
I really think he has exposed himself as someone that is out to destroy our civil liberties, frankly, as part of some mad megalomanic scheme.
I think we have to bring back the use of the word oligarch.
It's usually used for Russian or Eastern European billionaires who meddle in politics, but that absolutely, especially monopolists, and that absolutely describes Bill Gates, Jeffrey Bezos, and most of these bossy billionaires.
Just because they're in tech doesn't mean they're an oligarch.
Bill Gates is an oligarch.
I just think that's a fact.
Last word to you, Drea.
Well, I just think the conflicts of interest alone are something that, you know, needs to have light shed on it, especially when it comes to someone like Mr. Gates, who, as I said earlier, has had his hands literally in everything when it comes to do with COVID-19 and has benefited tremendously.
And we see that also in the big tech era, too.
So I guess, you know, it's good.
And another thing is peaceful.
You know, nobody had the pies out waiting to smash them in Mr. Gates' face in case he came out.
So that's something to be commended as well.
Yeah, very interesting.
Well, thanks for being there.
I love your coverage from the West Coast.
Great to see you.
Thanks for your time.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
There you have Adrea Humphrey, our BC Bureau Chief.
Stay with us.
we're ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
MH says the London Metropolitan Police claim to be issuing fines to those at 10 Downing Street when politicians had their little Christmas party.
We'll see.
I understand they did that.
So far, I have seen no tickets or prosecutions of any Canadian politician who has broken the rules.
I'll give credit to the London police.
I think it's too little, too late.
I mean, in Canada, we've seen Christian pastors thrown in prison for weeks or even months at a time.
And Mr. Sky Palace Jason Kenney, oh, well, you know, it was just a little whoopsie, so no police for him.
M. Sauvé says, here's a question for you.
If Trudeau froze the accounts of anyone who donated to the truckers, what's to stop them from freezing the accounts to anyone donating to Rebel now that Trudeau is after the license required for Rebel to practice journalism?
It's a very good question.
It's a very serious question.
The first thing I should tell you is that I am unaware, and I spoke to the lawyer Keith Wilson, who represents the truckers.
I'm unaware of anyone who had their bank account frozen or seized just for donating to the truckers.
I think that was a fear tactic by the disgraced and unethical interim police chief of the Ottawa Police.
I think they were, and frankly, Christy Freeland and Justin Trudeau, I think they were trying to do exactly what your letter shows me has happened, to terrify people.
Now, 200 people did have their bank accounts seized or frozen, but in almost every case, they were someone who was a trucker on the scene.
So they did go after the truckers and a few of the organizers.
But according to my interview with Keith Wilson the other day, and you may have seen it, it was a special hour-long interview with Keith Wilson, who's the Truckers Convoy official lawyer.
No mere donor had their money seized.
So I do want to put you at ease about what has happened, because that may change your prediction about what might happen.
But we are very alive to this risk.
And I am certainly not here to say, oh, that'll never happen.
I'm simply here to say that has not happened yet.
We would fight like hell against it happening.
Knock on wood, I don't want to tempt fate, but we have strong security for our donations and our lists.
We don't even have that in Canada.
That's not even here in Canada, I should tell you.
I'm not going to get into the steps we've taken for our security and what happens if we are attacked in some outrageous way by Trudeau or Christy Freeland.
But we are taking legal steps to preemptively harden our company against illiberal actions by him.
You're right.
I mean, obviously, he's the government.
If he wanted to, I suppose he could throw me in prison.
But we have a lot of lawyers who fight like heck, and we have a lot of donors who I think would, if there was a threat against Rebel News, would realize that we are one of the last ditch defenses before they go for ordinary people.
So I don't think we're there.
I think the truckers were the first ditch.
I think we're the next ditch, God forbid.
And both of those things would happen before they go for so-called ordinary people, like people who aren't high-profile activists.
So yeah, I think we are sort of next in line.
But I think if they came for Rebel News, it would be an enormous, enormous thing.
The truckers they picked on were typically independent people, people with modest means, people who were not sophisticated in fighting back either legally or politically.
I think Rebel News, would you agree with me that after seven years of doing this, we are probably one of the better companies at fighting for our rights and defending ourselves against Trudeau.
I note that we are currently suing the government in seven different cases, the federal government.
So I don't think that will be as easy to push around.
I don't know if that's a good answer for you.
I do think about these things all the time.
We have not been attacked in a serious way by the government yet, as in that deeper way you suggest.
There's other things I want to tell you that I think would give you some reassurance, but I don't want to discuss our defensive strategies in public.
I hope you'll accept that.
Greg Christopher says the public health officer system has a conflict of interest embedded in the structure.
The World Health Organization should have no power to undermine Canadian autonomy.
This looks like a gradual seizing of powers to form one world governance.
Watch for a climate emergency declaration from the UN, probably slanted as a public health emergencies.
Do we even get a referendum on the abdication of our nation's sovereignty?
Alas, no.
And no one likes the UN and Davos and these international forums more than Justin Trudeau.
I mean, he loves it.
He'll sign away our national sovereignty in a heartbeat.
Now, I think he was chastened a bit.
He thought he had a chance to get Canada as a temporary member of the Security Council, just FYI.
The UN, there's what they call permanent members of the Security Council, U.S., you know, Russia, China, for example.
But then there are different countries voted in by blocks.
There's sort of a European country, an African country, et cetera.
The different blocks.
And so there's, I think, it's two-year terms.
And Trudeau thought that he could give away so much foreign aid and visit so many countries that Canada would be voted in, but no, it didn't happen.
Everyone knows Canada is sort of a lightweight.
And they had more serious things to do than give Trudeau another bauble.
So I think he was chastened a bit by that.
That's our show for today.
I'm going to leave you with our video of the day by Drea, who went to the University of British Columbia asking students what they think of Pierre Polyev's blockchain vision, but also about Chinese social credit and government digital coins.
Very interesting conversation.
Strong turnout.
We see strong turnout for Pierre Polyev and for Leslie Lewis and actually all the very lively conservative race.
I'd love to see him.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Being on university campuses and being conservative definitely makes you feel like a minority.
Well there's definitely a prevailing campus culture of hostility towards non-left views.
The policies that the current government has imposed on us to deal with COVID have actually not been scientifically backed.
The guy who's on Blackface four times shouldn't be the guy championing against racism.
Hey guys, if we can do a quick photo, but we really don't have a lot of time.
He's asking a question and so the guy before him and the guy the central bank's only role should be to keep inflation low and the financial system stable.
All right.
Thank you so much.
I'm going to smile for the camera as well.
Treya Humphrey on the campaign trail for the Conservative Party's leadership race.
Behind me is Mr. Pierre Polyev, who's made his way to Vancouver, BC.
I'm standing in a gathering that took place at UBC.
I'm told it's one of the largest ones that they've had in quite some time.
We interviewed the students that came to see here to talk about what it's like to be a young conservative and what they'd like to see from Mr. Polyev if he is to win this race.
One of the common things that came up was about his goal to make Canada one of the blockchain capitals of the world.
So if he'll take a question from us, we're going to ask him to elaborate a little bit more on that.
Young Conservatives Gather00:06:05
But first, let's hear from the students.
We have some students from Simon Fraser University.
Now, what's it like being a conservative in Canada these days?
A young conservative.
Yeah, so I'm an international student from Zimbabwe, you know, so it's more of a learning curve for me, you know, being here in Canada and just learning about everything, just education, you know, because I didn't know more of politics until I came here.
So it's very much good to be exposed to it, you know.
I find it a little hard to be able to speak freely, especially on a canvas that I would assume values free speech in their classrooms.
And I feel that places like this allow for more freedom of expression.
Well, there's definitely a prevailing campus culture of hostility towards non-left views, especially since we are in one of like, well, the most liberal city in Canada.
And we do have like a large population of people who have grown up extremely wealthy.
And they have no idea what the average Canadian has lived through in their life.
No concept of what it is like for rural Canadians.
They don't understand the impacts that energy decisions, for example, have on them because they'll live in their bougie Vancouver apartments, right?
And I think that kind of translates into academics here as it's not so much that you're banned from saying it, but it's almost social exclusion if you progress your views in public.
And so I think it's definitely a culture of, if I express my views, am I going to be shunned?
Being on university campuses and being conservative definitely makes you feel like a minority, but it's just so amazing to be able to come here today and see so many people who just share the same thoughts and opinions and be able to have conversations, see Pierre as well.
So we're happy to be here.
I think it's better than what it is in the States, but still it's a bit tough.
Yeah, I mean, I say this, the guy who's on Blackface four times shouldn't be the guy championing against racism, right?
He's pulled a con on all the young liberals.
Now, what is a promise you would like to see or hear from Mr. Polyev if he becomes the leader of the Conservative Party?
Well, what he said about defunding the CBC sounds quite promising, especially because, like, I don't see a lot of their company supporting free speech ideology.
And so I think that's going to be an important thing moving forward for Canada.
Actually, I just want him to keep his promises, do what he says.
This is what we're lacking for all of our politicians.
For example, Chudoi promised everything, including that he would respect the Charter of Canadian Vice and Freedom.
And now he violated every single section.
I would definitely like to see how he is working around the whole blockchain technology because he actually made a bet on like he wants to make Bitcoin and Ethereum like a legal tender here in Canada.
So we are definitely looking forward to see like how that's going to work out.
What do you think one of the common stereotypes about conservatives in Canada are and what's the reality of that?
So the big one when I was young, we used to think that anyone who was a conservative didn't care about poor people.
I grew up really poor, so for that reason I was liberal when I was really young.
But I mean if you just look at what's happening in our country, who's really fighting for the average working person?
Is it the guy who's letting gas go to 220, the average house $880,000?
I mean just think about it, right?
The notion that you have to be a millionaire just to have a place to put your head down at night.
Is that the guy fighting for the poor person or the guy who wants to bring down house prices?
It's really important to know what your values are and to know what you stand for.
And personally, my convictions are, yeah, standing up for the rights and freedom for every Canadian citizen to be able to choose what's best for them and themselves.
And it's so cool to see a leader in the very same room as me who's advocating for those very same things.
All right, this is Sally with the UBC Conservatives.
Now you helped organize this event.
How did it all come together?
Yes, yes, I did.
So I am president of the UBC Conservatives Club.
We are one of the biggest political clubs on campus.
And then I know that one of the really big things we want to do for members is have MPs and leadership candidates come out and speak to students because we are the next generation and I want people to, you know, MPs to hear their voices.
So I got into contact with leadership teams, Pierre's included, and then Pierre loves the youth crowd.
He wants to speak with them, so he has agreed to come out and we've got a really big crowd out here today, which is really exciting.
Yeah, and you were saying that it's one of the biggest turnouts you have, is that due to COVID-19 or something else?
Well, it's just on campus at UBC, I find that people are not as engaged in politics at all.
We're like, again, you know, biggest political club.
People are more focused on school and their courses.
So this is the biggest event of any club politically on campus in the last five years.
It's not due to COVID, it's just due to the passiveness, I think, a little bit of the campus.
So we're really hoping with this event to really rile up people interested in politics and campus politics that want to get their voices heard and then be the first of many events to come on campus.
What do you think is the stereotype that some people who are not conservative may have about conservatives in Canada?
Well, I think people would think that, you know, I've heard words like conservatives are crazies, we're anti-vax, and they think we're not educated, which is not true, by the way.
There is more conservative youth, actually, on campus.
It's just people are very quiet about their views, and this is mostly due to, I believe, them feeling that they will be called out on or maybe even seen in a not a maybe not a good light if they do have their views heard.
And it's really great to see all these people come out, as we can say, closeted conservatives on campus and come out and talk to them.
If Mr. Polyev was to become the leader of the Conservatives, what's one promise you would like to see him give for Canadians?
Well, I think affordable housing.
That is a really important thing for us students about to graduate.
Controlled Currency, Uncontrolled Freedom00:04:27
I want to own my own home.
I don't want to live on debt my whole life.
And also, I think we should defend the CBC.
We should really get real news out there and not rely on the government to tell us everything.
He's asking a question.
It's what are they gotten for him?
I'm a voter as well.
Greyaf from Rebel News.
Good to see you.
Thank you very much for coming.
We're lined up.
I'm hoping I can ask you just a super quick question.
Yeah, real quick.
The only thing is we are a little late, but I'd be happy to.
It'll be just as quick as everybody else in chatting with.
Yeah, so recently you said that you are for Canada becoming sort of the blockchain capital of the world.
I'm just wondering if that means, and I've got to read it because I'm learning with everyone else here, does that mean you support centralized digital currency like we're seeing with Canada that they're developing with MIT, like what we're seeing that just rolled out with China and their social credit system?
No, the opposite of that.
So you have central bank digital currencies which are controlled by government.
You have decentralized blockchain assets like Bitcoin, which are controlled by no one.
Basically, Bitcoin is controlled by the majority of the processing power on the network, which is held by thousands of people all around the world who don't even know each other.
And that's the genius of the blockchain and the genius of Bitcoin.
No one controls it.
The government doesn't control it.
It is controlled by a protocol, and you can buy and sell it without any intermediary.
Everything is updated on a public ledger that is verified by thousands of people around the world through their computer network.
And those people don't even know each other, so they can't conspire to control it.
And the genius of that is it takes control out of money away from politicians and bankers and potentially gives it to the people.
So the central bank digital currency, on the other hand, is controlled by governments.
That's what China is doing.
China has banned Bitcoin.
Well, they have brought in a central bank digital currency which is designed to control people.
And I'm against having a central bank take deposits and take over the banking system.
I think that the banking system should be private.
The charter bank should be private.
And the central bank's only role should be to keep inflation low and the financial system stable.
All right, thank you so much.
I'm going to smile for the camera as well.
Yes, I'm a crypto trader.
Yes.
And so the thing that me and my friends love the most about it is that it's decentralized, obviously, and no one can touch it.
Yes, so how do you get around all this?
Like, I'm sure if you pay attention to this space, the scamming is unreal that's happening, especially in the NFT space.
So how can you avoid centralization of a currency but also regulate it?
Because that's a fine line, right?
Well, first of all, there are scams in every part of life.
There's scams using the American dollar, the British pound, the Canadian dollar.
There are scams in the stock market, in the bond market.
There are scams everywhere, right?
So people have to, but you were not going to ban dollars and stocks and bonds just because there are some scam artists.
The first thing is that if someone, people have to take personal responsibility.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Don't buy something you don't understand.
And there is a lot of junk out there, just like a lot of when the stock markets first began, there were a lot of scams that happened there.
But we would have been mistaken to shut down the entire stock market system.
So, personally, I don't trust most of them, but I do believe in Bitcoin and related technologies.
I'm not saying you should buy it or not buy it, but I do believe you should have the freedom to buy it because it gives people the ability using their own brain power to decide what to do with their own money.
And if the government is going to ruin our cash like they're doing right now, then the people should have the right to look for other cash that the government can't control or manipulate.
I believe in taking control of money away from bankers and politicians and giving it back to the people.
Me too.
So you're against CBDCs?
Yes.
All right, there you have it.
More from Mr. Polyeb about what he means about his goals with having Canada being the next blockchain capital of the world.