Ezra Levant exposes Canada’s $600M+ media bailouts, including $50M for the Local Journalism Initiative, where judges like Winnipeg Free Press publisher Bob Cox approved grants for their own outlets while pushing climate change narratives. Leaked notes warn Bill C-18’s levy on news links could distort markets and create "perverse incentives," contradicting claims of neutrality, amid $1.2B+ CBC subsidies and $170M in direct media funding. Meanwhile, senators took $21K–$42K raises during the pandemic—while taxpayers faced carbon tax hikes and $1T+ debt growing at $1,600/second—undermining accountability as public trust erodes, mirroring UK’s election chaos where Partygate, Beergate, and fabricated smears distract from open-border failures like the Rwanda scheme’s 2% processing rate. Levant’s critique ties media bias to systemic financial decay, questioning whether democracy survives when both politicians and journalists prioritize agendas over truth. [Automatically generated summary]
Canadian Ministry of Truth Documents Revealed00:14:22
Tonight, an exclusive Heritage Department access to information briefing note titled Approaches for Online News Publisher Renumeration and in that somebody accidentally told the truth to Minister Stephen Gilbo.
It's May 5th, 2022.
I'm Sheila Gunnarid, and you're watching the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
My hands on some Canadian Ministry of Truth documents.
These are some briefing notes, what they call advice to the minister prepared by ministerial staff that we filed for through access to information on the government's media bailout.
The majority of these documents are from way back in 2020, so just a couple of years ago.
We wanted to dig deeper, especially after seeing this report from our friends over at True North on just one small portion of the series of media bailouts, which are estimated to be tallied at over $600 million.
Look at this.
Media executives who were given control of a federal grant program for the journalism sector gave their own companies generous payouts.
Now, according to Blacklock's reporter, media executives sitting on the local journalism initiative judging panel have approved their own organizations for grants to hire new employees.
Startup news outlets were not allowed to apply for grants.
The $50 million local journalism initiative was created by Heritage Canada back in 2019 with control given to organizations within the press industry.
Several managers of prominent mainstream news outlets sit on the judging panel.
One panel member is the Winnipeg Free Press publisher Bob Cox.
The Free Press was awarded grants to hire two new reporters, including a climate change correspondent.
We will tell stories that need to be on the public record from around the province.
We will do it on the farm.
We will do it on the oil patch.
We will do it where the permafrost is melting, the free press wrote on its application to the panel.
Now, in case you were wondering why you see so much climate change journalism now completely shoehorned into your local newspaper, well, this is why.
Some of the bailouts for local news were used to hire journalists to scare your community into caring about something no one really does by saturating the news ether with so many stories about the glories of a carbon tax that you finally just capitulate and give in.
They basically badger you into liberalism.
Anyway, let's keep going from this article in True North.
Cox, who chaired the newspaper lobby's pursuit of a bailout from the federal government, told MPs in 2019 that the push for federal support was not for his own interest.
These measures have been called a bailout by some.
I would suggest this crowd knows very little about the business of operating a newspaper, he told the Commons Finance Committee.
There has also been the suggestion newspapers will be beholden to the federal government, not independent, and more likely to give favorable coverage.
Well, I have not noticed this happening.
Well, Bob Cox, even the bureaucrats writing advice to the minister in the documents I have were sounding alarm bells that the media bailouts would contaminate media coverage.
Not that the minister cared at all.
Think that might actually be the point of these bailouts to contaminate the coverage.
Now, let's look at the documents I have a little closer and we'll publish them all for you in full so you can look at them for yourself.
Don't take my word for it.
They are as much your documents as they are mine.
And that's because we only have access to them through your generous crowdfunding donations at our special investigative journalism website, rebelinvestigates.com.
Let's start on page 40.
We can see the government's definitions of terms like online platforms, news publishers, and misinformation.
To them, news publishers are persons that produce news content for making available in some format, including online.
But as you know, they are prickly about giving us that distinction.
News content is factually based information on or account of recent or important events and created by a news publisher.
Again, something they are remiss to say that we do here at Rebel News.
Misinformation, according to the government, is false or inaccurate information that is communicated regardless of an intent to deceive.
Now, I think we used to just call that being wrong on the internet before being wrong was made illegal or cancel worthy.
But here it doesn't just mean being wrong, it's being wrong according to the government.
Being defined as wrong according to the government is misinformation, even if, as they say here, it's an accident.
Even if you didn't actually mean to disagree with the government, now that disagreeing with the government is worthy of censorship and more regulations.
Misinformation also amounts to asking good questions the government doesn't want you to ask.
Remember our exchange with Alexa Lavoie and Justin Trudeau?
Hello, Mr. Trudeau, I'm Alexandra for Rebel News.
So, Mr. Trudeau, I'm going to quickly go back to what happened yesterday.
You have diabolised one of the rare media who doesn't receive money from the government.
You have to express your opinion in the propaganda disinformation.
If it was the case, the supreme federal court allowed today.
I surrendered scientifically, and I banned surrender.
But Israel is the country more vaccinated at vaccines.
And surrender to their vaccine.
They consider what the vaccine is planning to vaccine.
Ma question est, plusieurs Canadiens ne désirent pas avoir un rappel de vaccin.
Allez-vous enlever leurs privilèges reliés au passeport vaccinal?
Et aurez-vous l'obligence de répondre à ma question en tant que premier ministre ou allez-vous encore diaboliser mon média?
I started perspective on your organization and Okay, back into these documents.
Let's look at page 56.
We see some interesting comments that are partially blurred out along the side of the document, but they're still somewhat legible.
They're editing the document here in real time, including someone here who obviously doesn't really want to progress in their career with the federal government because they are actually telling the truth.
We know how the federal government feels about truth tellers, don't we?
Anyway, this person, God help them in their career, is raising concerns that the imposition of a levy on linking to news articles, as is now proposed in Bill C-18, that's the Online News Act, which has a clause in it that requires social media companies to pay for merely facilitating news access, linking to news access.
Well, this person feels that it could undermine negotiations between tech giants and media companies.
And they also raise concerns that the incentives could prevent certain media outlets from receiving the market correction they so rightly deserve from the public for being awful and bad at the thing they exist to do, you know, journalism.
They're worried, this person, that it would artificially, quote, artificially, structure the marketplace and create, quote, perverse incentives.
Perverse incentives.
Now, that's a pretty strong phrase, but it's accurate and true.
It's the exact thing that Bob Cox from the Winnipeg Free Press told the government could never happen when he wants to make us believe that the good people, for example, in Lin Lake, Manitoba, population 674, care more deeply about the environment more so than the local nickel mine and all the jobs produced there.
But the warnings from that one truth-telling bureaucrat, were they ever heated?
You know, the one person that said these bailouts and freebies would pervert the news marketplace and skew the media landscape in the most bizarre ways.
Oh, no, friends, of course not.
You know, that's the whole point, to artificially skew the landscape of the news in favor of the liberals.
Let's keep going.
In these documents, it also reads that the digital economy does not provide the same support for journalism as offered by the traditional media ecosystem.
We can keep going in these documents.
We can see that another bureaucrat is hinting at an ever-increasing merry-go-round of media subsidies.
It's here on page 57, and this is how we know more bailouts are coming.
There's a comment on the side asking if the funding already being provided, $1.2 billion plus for the CBC, and at the time of this briefing note, $170 million in direct subsidies to the media and different CRT supports.
This person is asking if these, all of this, are sufficient and appropriate.
And they're asking if the money already provided is the right calibration.
Those are their words, not mine.
The person writes, does this do enough?
Do enough?
Of what?
Stay with us.
Franco Turrizano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins us after the break.
Canadian families are being hammered by record inflation.
And you know what the liberal solution to all of this is?
They gave the Senate a raise and they sort of did it without anybody really knowing.
Now, this is crazy.
It needs some of the details filled in.
So we called in a bit of an expert.
We called in Franco Terrazano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Franco, tell us what's going on here because I read this and I think, you know, families are just being pinched through inflation that is being just driven by the liberals' bad policies through hikes in the carbon tax, through their out-of-control spending.
And instead of, you know, dealing with reality and maybe forcing the politicians and the senators to live within some of that reality that Canadian families are supposed to deal with, they have given them a raise.
Tell us all about it.
Well, what's really happening is another slap in the face to struggling taxpayers.
High level, you're going to see some senators take anywhere from about $20,000 in a raise all the way up to an extra $42,000.
And here's why.
Right now, the Senate formally recognizes two different types of group, the government and the opposition in the Senate.
And the leaders of those two groups get what's called a leader allowance, which essentially just means bigger pay.
But now, under this new bill, what is going to happen is you're going to have more smaller caucus groups.
And each leader of the caucus group will now get a pay raise of between $21,000 and an extra $42,000.
Now, that number in and of itself, that's a big pay raise.
But what we have to remember is the context of all this, because who's going to pay for those big raises?
Well, it's taxpayers.
And it's taxpayers that have struggled through two years of revolving government lockdowns, that have struggled through pay cuts, that have struggled through job losses and even business losses.
So as I said at the beginning, this really feels like a slap in the face to struggling taxpayers.
Yeah, you know, there's being stay at home work orders, and that's been reflected in the Senate.
A lot of them were not traveling, were not going to work.
A lot of them were working from home, doing, frankly, in my opinion, less work than ever.
And now they're getting a pay raise for it.
And because there's so many splinter groups, because they're independent senators who so often vote along the government lines, they're all getting pay raises.
This is, as you say, a slap in the face to normal people who are just trying to make ends meet while the liberals are bringing in increases to everything, especially through the carbon tax.
Yeah, they like to call themselves nonpartisan, but really what they are is unelectable and unaccountable.
But Sheila, this really fits the bigger issue with what's going on in Ottawa, because let's remember, it's not just some senators that are getting pay raises, these new leaders of these small caucus groups, all senators have already taken three pay raises during the pandemic, just like all members of parliament have already taken three pay raises during the pandemic.
And I heard you say, wow.
And it is a shocker because there is no way that the people who are supposed to be our representatives in Ottawa deserve three pay raises during a pandemic.
They've made life tougher with higher taxes.
They've made life tougher with crazy spending, with the printing press on overdrive that is fueling inflation.
And while their constituents have struggled with pay cuts, job losses, business losses, they've taken pay raise after pay raise after pay raise.
Now, let me throw a few numbers out there.
If you look at the three pay raises that have happened during the pandemic, well, in total, members of parliament are now collecting more than $10,000 more than they were pre-COVID, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now collecting more than $20,000 more than he was pre-COVID.
It's unfair, and they need to give these pay raises back.
Now, this sort of came to be in a bit of a sneaky way because they tried to do this in other ways, and it didn't make it through the House of Commons.
Sneaky Pay Raises Buried00:07:50
So now they stuck this in the budget implementation bill, and it's buried way down in there.
So the average person wouldn't even think to go looking for it.
It's sort of left up to organizations like the CTF who do the dirty work of digging down in these big budget bills.
But that's how it came to be.
They just sort of snuck it in the back door.
That's absolutely correct.
It lacks complete transparency.
Really is no transparency because this is in the budget implementation bill.
And remember, the budget is a few hundred pages long, right?
People are looking at the high-level numbers, like the massive deficit that's more than $50 billion, like the fact that the government has no timeline or plan to balance the budget, like the fact that the debt is more than a trillion dollars and is going up by $1,600 every single second.
So, taxpayers are already digesting on these other huge macro issues within the budget.
And buried within these few hundred pages of the budget implementation bill is this sneaky little pay raise that is going to see some senators getting an extra $21,000 and up to $42,000.
You know, and in the grand scheme of things, it's not all that much money when you talk about the just enormity of the debt and deficit.
But it's really the point of it all, isn't it?
Well, it's even more than just leadership.
What's why it's so important, and it actually is a really big deal, is because you're seeing politicians in Ottawa, you're seeing senators in Ottawa become financially divorced from the people that they're supposed to represent.
And that's why you're getting such bad policies out of Ottawa because they're not impacted the same way everyone else is by their own decisions, right?
Let's just call a spade a spade here.
Many of the people within government who are pulling the levers around lockdowns or other types of restrictions, they didn't lose.
They didn't lose a payday.
They didn't lose a meal, right?
When they raised the carbon tax, when they raise booze taxes, when they have massive, when they cause massive inflation, well, they are not really impacted to the full extent of these higher taxes, of this inflation, because they continue to give themselves raise after raise after raise.
Now, Franco, I want to ask you, because I think the last time that we talked or you talked with Rebel News, you were on your tour with the debt clock.
What was the reception like for you as you pulled your debt clock into small towns and big cities all across Canada?
Because just, you know, you get dizzy watching that number go up and up and up and up.
And it just gives you like anxiety watching it go up, knowing that not only are you going to be paying for it, your children are going to be paying for it, your grandchildren are going to be paying for it.
What was the response of the public?
Well, yeah, we just finished our national debt clock tour.
We went coast to coast, start in Victoria, and then we also went right to Halifax.
And on the time that we were on the road for about a month and a half, the debt went up by $8 billion.
So absolutely eye-watering.
And that was the main reaction that we got: a shock value, seeing the $1 trillion debt going up by about $1,600 a second.
A lot of people were like, hey, when are we ever going to see the clock start to go down?
That's it.
That's something I really empathize with.
But there's also two very important things that we heard from Canadians in small towns and big cities.
Number one was they're worried about the financial future they're leaving to their kids and grandkids.
Right now, each Canadian is already on the hook for more than $30,000 in federal debt.
And that number continues to go up and up and up.
And people are worried that they're not setting up their future generations for financial success.
And Sheila, the second thing that we heard is that people feel like they have lost a sense of control, like they've lost a sense of being able to actually hold their politicians and government bureaucrats accountable.
Yeah.
And, you know, I guess to some extent, you're sort of scared to hold the politicians to account because they might emergencies act you and seize your bank account, as we've seen the liberals do with convoy protesters.
Franco, thanks so much for taking the time.
But before I let you go, let people know how they can support the work that the Taxpayers Federation does because you are really just, to some extent, a bit of a mom-and-pop shop up against the full levers of the government.
Well, thank you so much for having me on.
Really appreciate it.
Please head over to taxpayer.com.
You can check out our newsroom.
You can check out some great petitions there.
And again, just want to say thank you again for having me on today.
You've got it.
Thank you so much for the work that you do, not just for Canadians, but for generations of subsequent Canadians who will be paying for the Liberals' out-of-control spending.
Stay with us.
Your letters to Ezra up next after the break.
This brings us to the portion of the show where Ezra reads his fan mail, his hate mail, your letters, questions, and comments to him unlike the mainstream media.
We welcome viewer feedback.
Glenn Murray writes, Freedom of the press is so old school.
Journalists today pay people to be interviewed and coach them to ensure the bias wanted for their piece is clear and concise.
It's sickening how honesty and integrity has been swallowed to earn a buck from the socialist money trough.
You know, I want to stop and address this one right here because we saw this firsthand with Tara Henley when she left the CBC.
She left, and when she left, she wrote a sub-stack article explaining that CBC screens their guests for diversity to make sure that they have the right people being interviewed that check the right demographic boxes.
So at CBC, they don't really care what you say or what your opinions are.
They just want to make sure that you fall into the right category of human beings so that they can show you that they've checked all the demographic boxes when they put you on air.
It's gross.
Fawn Hall Lohan writes, when I see these so-called special protection branch government thugs pushing and shoving David Menzies around and cracking his head against the wall, it pisses me off to no end.
These bastards think and act like high school bullies and act as though they're above the laws of the land and can bully people without consequences, which irks me like you would not believe.
I hope you pursue charges against them every single time they overstep their boundaries.
You know, we sure do.
That's one of the things that I am most proud of here at Rebel News as it's that we protect our journalists when somebody assaults them.
We make sure that we do our best to hold that person to account, no matter what the cost.
And I can testify to this myself when I was punched at the women's march a few years ago by out-of-control male feminist named Dion Buges.
We pursued him criminally and then we pursued him civilly.
And it cost much more to pursue him civilly than we received in judgment, but it was so important to hold him to account in every single way possible.
And I know that that's not just something that Ezra did for me.
It's something that we do for all of our staff.
Well, everybody, that's the show for today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thank you to Olivia behind the board for putting the show together.
Thank you to everybody behind the scenes at Rebel News World Headquarters and who works remotely from all across the country for making sure the show is available for you to watch.
We've got a video of the day, a carefully curated video of the day for you to watch.
And as Ezra always says, keep fighting for freedom.
Angela Rayner's Beergate Revelations00:04:25
The local elections in the United Kingdom are set to kick off on Thursday, the 5th of May, where the Conservatives, according to polls, are projected to potentially lose a lot of council seats, with many people feeling like either the system doesn't work, the Conservatives aren't actually conserving anything, and a Labour government wouldn't make much difference at all.
So let's explore all of that in this video.
Don't go away.
This is Lewis Brackpool for Rebel News and today I'm outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, England where the local elections in the United Kingdom are set to begin on the 5th of May.
Voters who have registered will be able to cast their ballot on who they want to run the London Borough Council's district councils.
A quick scary fact for everyone that's outside of the United Kingdom.
Scotland and Wales's voting age was reduced recently to 16 years of age.
So imagine that.
Someone as young as 16 can rock up to a voting booth and vote.
And they most likely haven't even finished their GCSEs.
The vote is projected for Boris Johnson to take major losses in the council seats with even talks of conservative councillors defecting.
So let's break down why this is happening.
The most prominent headlines that spring to mind at the minute are of that of Partygate where during the height of lockdown the Prime Minister hosted drinks and parties whilst the public weren't even allowed to see friends or family.
The police force was out fining innocent people for wanting to keep their businesses running.
Myself and my colleague Lincoln even covered a story where a man drove to the seaside with his wife, parked up and sat in their car, drank a cup of tea and then was issued a fine of £200.
And without getting sidetracked, let's not forget about the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, who has now called off more investigations because it turns out he was having a party during the height of lockdown with none other than Angela Rayner.
The event is now being dubbed Beergate.
Porngate is another one where Tory MP Neil Parrish was caught looking at pornography by his colleagues, bringing a whole new meaning to mass debate in the House of Commons.
Sorry about that.
He on the other hand says that he was actually searching for tractors.
Yeah, alright mate.
Many of the Tory female colleagues are dubbing this incident as misogynistic.
Whilst once again, without getting sidetracked, Angela Rayner of the opposition was actually accused by Tory MPs that she used a basic instinct style ploy to distract Boris Johnson by crossing her legs.
She of course says that these claims are false, misogynistic and desperate perverted smears for even making these claims.
However, recordings have actually come to the surface of Angela laughing and joking about this type of action back in January.
It's now later revealed that an inquiry was set up to find the source of this story and turns out the source was actually Angela Rayner.
Turns out that Angela Rayna actually propagated the story.
So let's keep ourselves up to speed so far.
We've got Partygate, Beergate, Porngate and Beavergate?
Can I say that?
Pretty Patel and her colleagues are dubbing the Rwanda scheme a success.
Meanwhile, a reporter come out at the Times recently where only 2% of illegal migrants that make the journey are even going to be processed in Rwanda.
With 11 days of no activity in the English Channel due to, you guessed it, bad weather, between the 1st and 2nd of May, the Border Force, Hurricane Deck Boats and others have offered themselves as a taxi service to approximately over 500 illegal migrants into the country.
I was right to be sceptical, of course, about this plan.
Hate to say I told you so.
Rwanda Scheme Skepticism00:03:18
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer seems to be just avoiding the issue altogether.
I've not heard a single sensible solution from him or his Labour Party members at all.
How much immigration is too much if they want open borders?
That would be my question.
How can you even justify the sustainability of it if we're caught up in the worst cost of living crisis, a supply chain crisis and the worst standards of living since the 1950s?
I wonder if Keir Starmer is even interested in putting the interests of the British people first.
It's highly unlikely.
I also understand that a lot of people feel like this system is set up for people like me and you to fail or the voting system is manipulated against us.
When you have people that are supposed to be in charge of the country that simply are out of touch with what the British people believe in, you even have the likes of the WEF who openly admits that they penetrate the cabinets of world governments to influence them on legislation under the guise of a sustainable future.
What we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on.
So we penetrate the cabinets.
I would know that half of this cabinet or even more half of this cabinet are for our actually young noble leaders of the world they crave for.
Gareth Icke said something recently that really did get me thinking.
He said if you were in a casino and you knew the tables were rigged so the house always won, would you bother gambling?
And if the answer is no, why do you vote?
And I completely understand why he thinks this and I sympathise with his viewpoint completely.
I must say however with gambling you could lose everything which in turn could affect your marriage, your children, your parents, your life ambitions and so on.
Whereas with voting you haven't got anything to lose in my view.
And wouldn't that be something the WEF would benefit from?
Fewer votes in independent parties with no pushback against the two big parties who are essentially two cheeks from the same ass.
Lastly, I would never ever tell you who to vote for.
That's of course down to you and you only.
I can only give you honest information and you take that as you will.
The right to vote and the right to choose when voting is essential.
So of course it is definitely something to think about.
So this has been Lewis Brackpool reporting in Parliament Square for Rebel News.
If you enjoy my honest boots on the ground journalism, you can now help support me and the expansion of the UK correspondence with Rebel News over at ukreporters.co.uk.