Ezra Levant critiques the May 12 Conservative leadership debate as the worst ever, citing Tom Clark’s bizarre rules—ping-pong paddles to silence cheering, bans on Trudeau mentions, and trivial questions like Netflix habits—while ignoring core issues: $6B carbon tax hikes, inflation, China’s seizure of the Michaels, or pipeline expansion. Clark’s focus on climate and foreign interference ($1.28B in environmental funding) clashed with party divisions, as candidates like Polyev (no embassy move) and Charest dodged tougher topics. Rebel News reporters asked sharp questions on censorship and firearms, unlike CBC’s UN climate fixation, raising doubts if a potential Polyev win means populist policies or establishment surrender. Meanwhile, vaccine passport exemptions for the medically vulnerable, like Drea Humphrey in BC, expose systemic instability, while COVID protest rulings took courts 30 months to clarify—highlighting how elite agendas stifle real debate and civil liberties. [Automatically generated summary]
I go through the Conservative Party leadership debate, which was awful.
I have to say, I've watched probably 100 debates in my time.
American presidential debates, Canadian debates, provincial debates, even municipal debates, debates, debates, debates.
This was the worst I've ever seen, and I think I'll make that case to you.
Boy, it's something.
You can hear it if you're listening to a podcast, but boy, I'd like you to see it.
It's just unbelievable.
Tom Clark, a liberal lobbyist, was the moderator.
I don't know how that happened, but it did.
You got to see it with your eyes.
That's why I want you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of the podcast.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's $8 a month.
You get my show every night, plus four weekly shows.
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RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
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All right, here's today's video.
Tonight, the conservative party leadership debate doesn't tell us a lot about the conservative leadership candidates, but it told us a lot about the media.
It's May 12th, 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 to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I'm not a member of any party, haven't been for more than 10 years, but I got to tell you, I am very engrossed by the conservative party leadership race.
I wasn't the last time around when Aaron O'Toole slouched across the finish line, and I didn't even find it interesting that much when Andrew Scheer squeaked by Maxime Bernier to take the party over.
But this time it feels different because there's a genuine choice there, a strong clash of opinions.
I think it's great.
And I think we saw this in not last night's leadership debates, but the ones very recently held not by the party itself, but by Preston Manning's old think tank.
The moderators were our friends Candice Malcolm of True North and Jamil Giovanni.
I want to show you a few excerpts from them.
It was a brawl.
It was a rollicking debate.
And that's the whole point of debates.
Show a clash of ideas.
Show the clear choices.
Here are some clips from that debate.
I'm going to begin with you, Mr. Polyev.
And I want to start with the trucker convoy.
Something we've already been discussing.
You've been criticized for your support for the trucker convoy.
One of your fellow candidates has even said you should be disqualified for leadership of the party based on your engagement with the convoy.
As we all know, public opinion on the trucker convoy is sharply divided.
The Trudeau government and the mainstream media have gone to great lengths to vilify the truckers.
And back in February, you said that you were, quote, proud of them.
That's right.
Has your opinion on the trucker convoy changed since?
And is your support of the truckers a liability moving forward?
No and no.
My position has not changed.
I said at the very outset before they even arrived that I simultaneously stood with the law-abiding and peaceful truckers who were fighting for their livelihoods and liberties while condemning any individual who breaks the law, blocks critical infrastructure, or behaves badly.
That is the position I took then.
It's the position I take now.
Now, Mr. Sheret learned about the Trucker Conboy on CBC, like other Liberals, and he misrepresented them.
He believes that I should be censored.
He believes I should be cancelled from this leadership race and disqualified, in his words, because I don't share his Liberal viewpoint.
That is the kind of cancel culture and censorship you would expect from Justin Trudeau, but instead we're getting it from this Liberal on this stage.
And frankly, Mr. Shere, for you to talk about law and order is a little bit rich given that your party, your Liberal party, took a half million dollars of illegal donations when you were the head of that party.
The average trucker has more integrity in his pinky finger than you had in your entire scandal-plagued Liberal cabinet.
So, I do stand up for the freedoms of Canadians and I acknowledge that the working class has been demolished in this country over the last couple of years.
We don't need elites who've been able to rely on special contracts with Huawei to look down on them and call them criminals.
Instead, we need to stand up for the people who are struggling and give them hope for the future, and that's what I will do.
Next to you, Mr. Shere.
You led a Liberal government in Quebec, and your record as Premier includes raising taxes and introducing a cap-and-trade program.
Many Conservatives don't connect with you, and frankly, some are wondering why you're running for leader of this party.
So I'm wondering if you can set the record straight.
Are you a Conservative?
Thank you very much.
And Roman, thank you for your comments.
And Leslin, I have a deep respect for the position that you hold on the issue of abortion.
And I want to say a word about social conservatives tonight, because we may not agree on all issues, but who are the people who call themselves social conservatives?
And I'm not a hyphenated conservative.
But who are they if not people who have a faith-based life, believe in their families, and their communities?
Sounds like pretty good people to me.
And they are part of our family, and they will always be part of our family, and they need to be respected.
Now, in this room tonight is Preston Manning, who called before this debate that we act respectfully in a view of uniting the party after the leadership race.
Well, so much for that, Pierre.
In this race, in this race, I stand with a record as a Conservative all my life.
I'll give you an example, Candace.
I believe in fiscal conservatism.
The Liberal government that succeeded me, Mr. Cuyah, that followed, left an $8 billion surplus after 15 years to Mr. Legault, $8 billion.
You're not going to see that in your lifetime again.
A higher credit rating in Quebec than Ontario.
We reduce taxes.
In fact, I reduced taxes in 2007-08 income taxes for middle-class, lower-income Quebecers, which actually allowed Quebecer to do better than Canada, the United States, or Europe, or Ontario during the Great Recession.
The credit rating agency says one of the key decisions for us, having a better performance, more jobs, more economic growth, was the fact that I reduced taxes, which was opposed by this person here, Pierre Pollie.
He was opposed to it back then.
So enough of the hypocrisy.
And on the hill, I agree with Scott.
This mess that we witnessed is the fault of Mr. Trudeau.
But Mr. Polliev, during that period, supported an illegal blockade.
You cannot make laws and break laws and then say I will make laws for other people.
I'm sorry, but that is a question of basic foundation and principles.
You're out of time, sir.
Thank you.
You could say it was bruising.
Would be a fair term.
Pierre Polyev and Jean Charay in particular going at it.
The issue, in part, one of the many issues, of course, being the truckers.
Were they criminals conducting an illegal blockade, as Jean Charais said, or were they freedom fighters, as Pierre Polyev would say?
I thought it was a great debate, but the media party didn't say so.
They don't like rambunctious conservatives.
They don't like all this talk about freedom.
They don't like any populism.
They want people like Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer, basically the tolerated House conservatives of the media party of the establishment.
They didn't like this much.
You can see that in all the headlines.
It was universally panned by everyone other than the Conservative Party members themselves, who seemed to love it.
I thought it was a very clarifying debate, and congrats to Jamil Giovanni and Candice Malcolm for chairing it.
Well, last night was the first official debate.
I don't know why there was such a thing.
Why wouldn't the party just allow any old group to have a debate?
Well, the party has a couple.
One was last night, and they have another French language debate coming up.
And I understand that it is mandatory for the candidates to participate.
And if they don't, they are fined $50,000, which is quite something.
So they were all there.
There were 1,000 people gathered at the convention center in Edmonton.
It looked like it was very exciting.
I don't know if you caught our show last night.
Tamara Ugolini and I were sitting here in Toronto live streaming the event.
And we had four reporters on the scene on the ground in Edmonton.
We talked to them a bit last night, and they said it was very exciting at first until things got really weird really quickly.
Now, I sort of had a premonition that they would when I heard the strangest thing.
You're in Alberta, which is the conservative heartland.
It's the place where the Reform Party was built.
It was where Stephen Harper and Preston Manning and Jason Kenney and Ralph Klein, all these conservative people are from there.
It's where pound for pound, the Conservative Party is the strongest.
It's where conservative media are the strongest.
We are quite strong in Alberta too.
There's the Western Standard online.
There's even some conservatives left in the mainstream media.
Our friend Lauren Gunter at the Edmonton Sun, our friend Rick Bell of the Calgary Sun.
But bizarrely, and this is what spooked me from the get-go.
I learned that they were going to fly in from Ottawa to Edmonton a Liberal Party lobbyist named Tom Clark, who almost a decade ago, you might have known him as a TV man.
He was with CTV and then he quit them in a huff when they didn't promote him to National Nightly Anchor.
And then he worked for Global for a year, a few years.
He was a very pro-liberal, not a particularly effective or bright journalist, but he had a good look to him and he had a nice voice.
He was chatty.
So he was a liberal.
And if you doubt me, look at this.
Here is, I think, the defining moment of who Tom Clark is and was.
He's a pilot, and that's quite an accomplishment.
And he has a little plane, which is wonderful.
And he had this shtick of going up in the air with a newsmaker and interviewing them while flying in his little plane.
And it's a little unusual.
It's a bit of a show-off move.
I suppose if I was a pilot, I would absolutely want to show off that way too.
But it was actually amazing in that the politician you're grilling cannot run away.
Can't say, oh, I'm late for another appointment.
There's no one else in the plane to interrupt and say, oh, the candidate has to go.
There's no storming off.
You are stuck in that plane with a reporter.
Oh, my God.
Think of the questions you could ask.
You could ask the most personal things, the most daring things.
And you just would be trapped in there for at least, I don't know, if you're up in the air to come down 20 minutes, let's say.
Here is what Tom Clark thought everyone, in fact, he says it's what everyone wanted to know.
Here is the question he put to Justin Trudeau when he had Trudeau in his plane.
So I guess the first thing I should ask you is, are you feeling lucky?
The entire country wants to know.
What shampoo do you use?
What a disappointing answer this is going to be.
Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.
That is so deeply embarrassing, I can't even believe it.
That's Tom Clark.
That was him at his apex.
That was the great Tom Clark in his prime.
Not long after that, he left to join Global Public Affairs as a lobbyist.
You can check.
He is a registered Canadian lobbyist.
He hasn't done journalism for years, other than he was hired by his old friend Justin Trudeau, perhaps as a reward for those softball shampoo questions.
And he was hired to vet people who were to be recruited by the CBC.
So he was the person that Justin Trudeau trusted to choose who would run the state broadcaster.
That tells you exactly who he is.
So when I learned that he was going to be flown in from his lobby firm in Ottawa to Edmonton, because apparently in a province of what's the population there now, almost 5 million, almost 5 million, whatever it is, you can't find a single person who could moderate this debate.
You can't find a journalist.
You can't find a professor.
You can't find some professional MC.
You can't find some party elder.
You cannot find anyone, not only in Alberta, but nowhere in the West.
You need to go to Ottawa and pluck someone out of the deep state, someone who has never shown any interest in conservative or Western things.
And the only time he's expressed himself on politics, he's a hard pro-liberal activist.
I mean, he hasn't tweeted a lot lately since he's joined the lobby firm, but here's a couple of them.
Here's one of them where he likes someone mocking the Conservative Party's short-lived civil liberties caucus.
Why are you liking someone mocking civil liberties?
Or are you mocking the conservatives?
It's tough to tell.
Here's another one where he wants everyone to see, and again, he's just retweeting and liking someone denouncing the truckers.
All right, those are legitimate points of view.
Paddle Against Trudeau00:11:20
And I'm not here trying to cancel Tom Clark.
I'm just saying Tom Clark is exactly what you think he is, exactly what he says he is.
He is a registered lobbyist who lives his whole life in Ottawa and works for the man.
He literally works for Justin Trudeau.
And someone in the Conservative Party thought he's the best person in this entire country to moderate amongst the candidates.
It was so bizarre.
But as the debate started yesterday, I thought, maybe I've been too harsh on him.
Maybe he'll really do some homework here and he'll have great questions.
I was immediately disappointed and it was actually worse than I thought.
The first thing I heard was a lot of Tom Clark.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if you added up the amount of talk time that Tom Clark actually had more than some of the candidates on the stage.
In fact, there were a few very shocking sort of Joe Biden Sr. moment moments when Tom Clark forgot to ask questions of certain of the candidates.
There were six candidates on stage, and Tom Clark on several occasions just simply forgot that there were people there and had to come back to them.
It was very embarrassing.
But the most embarrassing thing was that Tom Clark insisted on these bizarre rules.
I don't know if he himself drafted the rules or the Conservative Party did, but the way he enforced them was truly bizarre.
He scolded and denounced any of the people in the thousand-seat auditorium.
If they gave any feedback at all, if they clapped, if they booed, if they cheered in any way, he would stop the debate and scold them.
You know, take a look at this when they cheered.
To be master of your own destiny and a captain of your own life.
Thank you.
All right.
Folks, here's the deal.
Supporters of any candidate, the time that you cheer is going to be taken away from your candidate.
Just so you know, that's the way the deal works here.
Here, take a look at this when they booed.
But on this issue, let's can we be clear on one thing?
Every candidate in this race needs to tell the women of Canada where they stand, whether they're pro or against.
They, the women of Canada, deserve to know where they stand.
And Mr. Polliev's answer, quite frankly, does not fit that test.
Okay.
All right.
We will be taking 10 seconds away from Mr. Polyev.
But Mr. Acheson, get in.
I think that's.
Nonsense.
Yeah, Mr. Acheson, please go ahead.
And why in both cases was he penalizing Pierre Polyev and only Pierre Polyev?
How did he know who the clappers were?
And look, if you don't want any noise from the crowd, why did you invite them?
I've had the pleasure in my life on occasion to speak before hundreds and even thousands of people.
It's incredibly thrilling.
There's an adrenaline rush.
You get energy off it.
You rise to the occasion.
I mean, you can just imagine the difference between a performance in studio of an artist, a singer, versus a performance in a stadium.
I mean, think of the greatest rock and roll concerts of all time.
They're in large stadiums when the energy is massive.
Why would you have a thousand revved-up partisans in a room and then shush them like you're in some library?
It was deeply embarrassing, but nothing compares to this clownish, sad trombone sound.
When I say clownish, that's not an insult, that's a description.
Tom Clark said that if these six candidates even mentioned Justin Trudeau's name or even mentioned him as the prime minister, that he would interrupt them and play this sad clown sound.
Take a listen.
But what we asked you to do was to finish this sentence.
My vision for Canada is you will have 45 seconds in which to tell us what your vision is.
But there's a twist, and you know it.
You can't mention any other candidate on the stage, and you can't mention any other federal leader.
If you do, there's going to be trouble, and here's what you're going to hear.
Hang on a second.
Now, I know that Tom Clark loves Justin Trudeau.
We saw the shampoo question.
I know that Tom Clark works for Justin Trudeau, that CBC gig.
I know that.
But at least for one night, he was paid handsomely by the Conservative Party of Canada to, I don't know, to vet the candidates who have a job, which is to defeat and displace Justin Trudeau.
These six candidates are their whole purpose, their mission.
The reason this contest is afoot is they want to choose the one best able to defeat Justin Trudeau in the election.
That is the job description.
It is not a distraction.
It is not an insult.
It is the mission of the official opposition to become the government.
And it's the mission of the leader of the opposition to displace the prime minister.
Why on earth would a moderator of a Conservative Party debate say the one person you cannot mention is the Liberal Prime Minister?
I mean, I know why Justin Trudeau would love that.
No criticisms of him.
But why on earth would any debate moderator say that?
Why of all things is that off limits?
Who says who?
Isn't that exactly what the thousand people in that room and the thousands watching on TV wanted to see?
How would you take on Justin Trudeau?
It's like a job interview.
Tell me how you would take on Justin Trudeau.
What would you do to take on Justin Trudeau?
That was the one thing that the clownish Tom Clark would not allow.
It was bizarre.
And he played that wah, wah, wah, wah trombone sound like it was, I don't know, the Price is Right or the Gong Show or some goofy daytime TV show.
Take a look.
And all parties are guilty of it.
I'll give you the most obvious example, and I'm going to use the name of another party leader now to allow to.
But if you look at the way the Prime Minister used vaccine mandates and actually divided Canadians by demonization of the menu.
All right, Mr. Ageson.
You know the rules and you just broke them.
We're moving on.
Okay.
Oh, talk about clownery.
There was this one moment where they handed out little ping-pong paddles and the candidates had to hold up the ping-pong paddle when they wanted to speak, but they could only do it a certain number of times.
And once they had exhausted their paddle time, they were forced to remain silent.
Tom Clark would not call on them, even if they had something to say, even if they were being debated about or attacked by another candidate.
Once you used your paddle times, you couldn't talk anymore.
Take a look.
Now moving on to the next segment of the debate, which is called Face Off.
And before we start that, I'd like to bring Emma up, who is going to give you all a prop.
And I'll explain to everybody what this is all about.
So as we are handing these out, this, in a way, is the segment that you've all been waiting for when the candidates can choose who they want to debate on any particular issue.
And here's the way it's going to work.
I'll introduce the topic of the debate to a candidate.
Not the questions, just the topic.
And then you decide, you tell the audience who you want to debate this with.
Once you've chosen your opponent, I will then tell you what the question is.
There will be three rounds of the person you have chosen to debate.
The first round, each person gets a minute each.
The second round, you get 45 seconds each.
The third round, you get 30 seconds each.
Now, this is where it gets interesting and why you have the prop in your hand.
After we've done the three rounds between the two people, anybody else can answer this by simply raising your paddle.
And you will have a guaranteed 30 seconds to put your 30 seconds in with.
Here's the trick.
There are six questions, and you can only use your paddle five times.
You can use it all on one question if you want, or you can use it wherever you think you have the greatest advantage.
So there is some strategy involved here.
And I wish you good luck with this.
I swear, it was like some reality show or some goofy entertainment show.
It was not serious in any way.
Everything was so short, there were some questions that were only given a 15-second response time.
It was also goofy.
And Tom Clark, I don't know, he really came across like he was a game show host.
And he started off by saying it was going to be a serious debate.
And for the first few seconds, I believed him.
But whether it was lack of preparation, lack of imagination, or he was literally a mole trying to undermine the conservatives, the largest section in the entire debate was not about foreign policy, was not about economic policy, was not about political campaign tactics.
It was reality TV style, bachelorette TV style questions like, I don't know, what book are you reading?
What music are you listening to?
What historical figure would you like to have dinner with?
If you binge-watched a show on Netflix, what would it be?
Those four questions, he actually asked them.
Take a look at some.
With Mr. Charay and Mr. Shere, the very first question I have for you is, what book are you reading now?
What book are you reading now?
Oh, I'm.
Mr. Aitchison, I wanted to ask you and give everybody a chance.
There's a question and there's a twist to the answer.
I want to know who your political hero is, and you cannot say Winston Churchill.
Thank you all very much.
That was actually really interesting to hear all that.
Dr. Lewis, I'm going to start with you, and then, of course, everybody else gets a chance.
I know you're all busy.
I know that you've got stuff that you're doing right now.
when you have the opportunity to sit down and listen to some music what do you listen to i would say i want to go to a question maybe a little more light-hearted getting to know you a little bit more i And there are a lot of people who want to know this.
It's not just me, trust me.
But, Mr. Baber, what was the last thing that you binge-watched on TV?
What historical figure from anytime, anywhere, would you most like to have dinner with?
I think it was Patrick Brown last night who answered, saying, Look, I'm on a campaign.
I'm running around this country.
Carbon Tariffs Debate00:16:14
I'm not curling up with a nice book to while away the time.
It was a bizarre question.
I mean, have one of those just for a light-hearted moment to cleanse the palate.
But it was seriously the longest part of the entire show, the entire debate, were these.
And it dawned on me that maybe that shampoo question that Tom Clark put to Justin Trudeau, maybe that wasn't just softball.
Maybe that's the true intellectual level at which Tom Clark operates.
I mean, seriously, the shampoo question, how is that any different from the Netflix question?
Look at it again in the light of his disastrous performance last night.
So I guess the first thing I should ask you is, are you feeling lucky?
The entire country wants to know.
What shampoo do you use?
What a disappointing answer this is going to be.
Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.
I think the only thing more embarrassing is that Justin Trudeau gave a thoughtful answer to the shampoo question like he was ready for.
Look, I'm not the only one that was criticizing.
The entire internet was just shocked with Tom Clark.
The fact that he was exhumed and shipped in from his lobby firm, no one could understand it.
And everyone was appalled by it.
I mean, you know, whether it was Evan Solomon of CTV or Paul Wells, formerly of McLean's, I think it was universally panned as the worst debate in Canadian history, and I'd have to agree.
Now, there were some substantive questions asked by Tom Clark.
Now, again, you're in Alberta and you're in Edmonton, a city I've had the pleasure of living in myself.
Gateway to the North is one of its nicknames, along with City of Champions.
Gateway to the North, what does that mean?
Well, it means exactly that.
If you want to go to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, you're probably going through Edmonton.
And more practically, it means the oil sands.
Edmonton is the gateway to the world's third largest reserves of oil.
And oil is very much in the news these days.
What with Russia's energy sales to the West, oil and gas, and pipelines.
And yet, instead of talking about the oil sands or pipelines, instead of talking about other Western conservative rural issues, instead of talking about, oh, I don't know, firearms, instead of talking about equalization payments for the West, instead of talking about Alberta's place in the West or the Western in the country or other Western provinces, the questions that Tom Clark was obsessed with are the questions that Justin Trudeau would want to talk about.
He literally kicked off by talking about an American court case called Roe v. Wade, a case that has not and has never applied to Canada, has no ramifications for Canada whatsoever.
But Tom Clark wanted to talk about abortion and smoke out where the Conservatives stood on that.
And he was relentless on it because that's what Trudeau would want him to talk about.
I say again, I don't know if Tom Clark actually was a Liberal Party mole.
I now believe he's not actually clever enough to do such a mission.
But I should say, if he was a Liberal Party mole, what would he have done differently other than talk about Roe v. Wade?
There was another debate question that was so out of place it was bizarre.
I'm interested in indigenous issues.
And you know what?
Justin Trudeau says he is too.
He said that giving drinkable water on northern Indian reserves was his top priority.
Well, it's been seven years since Trudeau was elected, and there are still dozens of boil water advisories.
Trudeau can't wait to ship billions of dollars to any foreign country that gives him a reception in the photo op, but he still has not solved the problem of unclean drinking water in Canada's northern reserves.
So if you were going to ask a question about Indian affairs, about Indigenous rights, I would think that that would be a place to start.
You could talk about many issues.
You could talk even if you want to about reconciliation.
You could talk about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
But I think that Tom Clark last thought about politics when he was working at Global News.
And so he asked a question about a 1995 study that's so obscure.
It's called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
They had like 90-plus recommendations, some of which were very odd, like having a national day off of work for, yeah, maybe that's just one example.
That's actually one of the least odd ones.
And instead of asking a genuine question, he put this weird question: do you accept every one of the 90-plus recommendations?
And if not, tell me the one you don't.
So this is a document that is seven years old.
Really, no one's talked about it in seven years.
It was really a response to the Harper government.
You've had seven years of Trudeau in power, seven years of him making problems, breaking promises.
Tom Clark thinks it's 2015.
So he's not just asking about the 1995, sorry, the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
His question is a pure gotcha question.
He's not asking a substantive question.
He's asking, name one of the 90-plus recommendations.
That's like the trick question that they played on George W. Bush when he was running for office 20 odd years ago.
Name the president of Kazakhstan.
What's the prime minister of Kyrgyzstan?
It's more a jeopardy question.
It's not a question that goes to knowledge and judgment.
Here, take a look.
We're going to go to the final question now.
It's Mr. Polyev.
Mr. Polyev, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented its final report in 2015.
That is seven years ago.
And it contained 94 recommendations.
Would you make a commitment to implementing all 94 recommendations?
Okay, and I just want to bring you and Dr. Lewis in because there was just one thing I didn't quite understand.
Would you, Dr. Lewis, implement all 94 recommendations?
I will implement any recommendation that uplifts the lives of Indigenous people.
We have let them down.
Even our missing murdered Aboriginal women, we have not committed to even dealing with that issue, which is a fundamental issue that affects the core of the society on reserves.
Okay.
Mr. Brown, if we don't implement all 94, what ones would we not implement of the 94?
Choose one that you would not implement.
I think there should be questions about Indigenous issues, including economic opportunity.
They're in the city.
That's the gateway to the oil sands.
The oil sands are the largest employer of Indigenous people in the country.
Tom Clark doesn't know that because he's an Ottawa lobbyist.
He doesn't know anything about the West.
He didn't prepare.
He killed time by asking about TV shows and music and movies.
He doesn't know any conservative issues or Western issues, and he couldn't be bothered to try them.
There was actually moments where they were booing Tom Clark.
It was deeply embarrassing, but not embarrassing enough for him to stop.
You know, it put the candidates in a pickle because after one, two, three inane questions more suited for a daytime game show, what do you do as a candidate?
Do you go along with it to show you're a good sport, or do you sort of take on the moderator and stink up the joint and object?
It's a tough call because you don't want to seem to be uncooperative within the party, but the party threw them into this barrel with this liberal activist.
What's so telling is that Tom Clark didn't talk about certain things.
He didn't talk about anything that could possibly embarrass Justin Trudeau.
He didn't talk about the fact that the price of housing in Canada has doubled under Justin Trudeau's watch.
In fact, in the last year alone in some cities, it's up nearly 30%.
He didn't talk about the price of gasoline at the pumps, which is partly due to world forces, global forces, but largely due to Trudeau's taxes, including his carbon tax that he raises year after year.
Didn't talk about inflation.
And he didn't talk about other issues like China and China's seizure, for example, of the two Michaels, China's threats to Canada in terms of industrial espionage and economics.
Any question that could possibly embarrass Justin Trudeau was simply ignored by Tom Clark, or maybe he's never heard of them because he lives in that Ottawa liberal bubble.
I think the only interesting moment of the debate, if I may say so, was afterwards when there was a scrum.
Now, unlike the debates, the journalistic, the media scrum was not a requirement of the candidates.
They were not fined for not attending.
And interestingly, Pierre Polyev did not attend the Q ⁇ A afterwards.
But the other candidates did.
And the most absurd thing was the only question the CBC asked, and I heard them ask it again and again, in French, by the way, was about global warming and how can you win if you're not deep with the UN's global warming class.
Here, look at how many times they asked the same question again and again and again and again.
It's all they wanted to talk about.
Take a look.
How can Conservatives win if they don't have an environmental plan, if their members don't vote for a motion recognizing climate change?
But how can Conservatives win on the environmental plan if those members are not backing up any kind of plan on climate change?
And if you can also try to answer in French.
As for Mr. Aitchison, I'm Audrey with En Everywhere French CBC.
How do you think that Conservatives can win on the environmental aspect if a majority of their members vote against a motion recognizing climate change?
Mr. Charit, as the conservators can environmental planning, sur majority demands vote contre motion to recognise the existence of climatic change.
Tom Clark actually was obsessed by the same thing.
They're a perfect match, the CBC and Tom Clark.
I think the best reporters there, if I may say so myself, were from Rebel News.
We had four reporters there, and we asked five or six questions.
Here's a montage we prepared of the rebel questions.
I don't think any of these were actually raised during the debate itself.
But look at some of the talents of our reporters there talking about everything from censorship to carbon taxes to firearms rights to the embassy in Jerusalem.
Take a look.
Hi, Mr. Aitchison.
Celine Gallis for Rebel News.
The Liberals have imposed a backdoor gun registry through an order in council which changes regulations to require retailers and sellers to collect data on purchasers.
New rules come into force May 18th.
Will you commit to repealing these?
I will.
Canada has among the most regulated firearms industry in the world.
The problem that we have in this country is the issue of illegal guns coming across our border and getting into the hands of gangs.
That's a much more difficult challenge to deal with.
And you see the Liberals time and again using firearms and legal, law-abiding firearms owners in this country as a whipping tool to try to lather up their base and generate votes while not dealing with the real issues.
It's the wrong approach for Canada.
What we need to do is address the real problem, not demonize law-abiding firearms owners.
I'm sure Adam Sows from Rebel News.
I know this is a question you've been asked a number of times, and I completely respect and appreciate your sentiment that no one should have to apologize for work that they have done in the past.
But I just wanted to give you an opportunity to address the fact that Huawei was developing AI technology to enforce the CCP social credit system and to identify weak years for internment.
In light of this, do you have any apprehension or criticism of the party of the company, aside from the work that you yourself were doing?
All the work that I have done in my lifetime has always been aligned with the interest of Canada.
Private, public sector, period.
It's that simple.
And for Huawei, I would ban Huawei.
I'm very clear on that.
And just to remind you how things evolve, it was the Conservative government that brought Huawei into Canada.
A Conservative government, of which Mr. Poitiev was a member of.
I mean, Huawei was actually a sponsor on Hockey Night in Canada.
So my position is very clear.
Thank you.
Adam Sos here for Rebel News.
The Allen inquiry found that foreign funding for Canadian-based environmental initiatives totaled $1.28 billion from 2003 to 2019, most of it largely untraceable, and a substantial amount of it was dedicated to blocking Alberta oil and gas development.
Do you see this as a problem?
And if so, what will you do to change it?
Absolutely.
I think it's important that we have the courage and conviction to develop our natural resources even in the face of foreign interference and where we can detect that foreign interference does exist and that it's preventing us from realizing our potential,
building pipelines, developing our natural resources, getting our product to market, offsetting foreign dictator oil.
We should definitely ensure that those individuals and those organizations are stamped out and comply with our laws, which means not blocking critical infrastructures.
Sheila Gunread, Rebel News.
You have given some confusing statements around moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
Will you commit to moving the Canadian embassy to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem?
No, I will not move the embassy.
I support the position that was articulated under Stephen Harper's government, which was not to move the government as it would make the peace process more difficult.
You have said that now is not the right time to raise the carbon tax.
However, you have been a proponent of the carbon tax.
So when then would be the right time to raise a carbon tax?
So I don't support raising the carbon tax, period.
And I believe that we should respect provincial jurisdiction.
What I would say is I think there needs to be a serious conversation about carbon tariffs at the border, given the fact that we continue to see product dumped in Canada from China and India that competes with Canadian goods and frankly, product that doesn't have the same environmental or labor standards.
Former Conservative Party Heritage Critic MP Alan Reyes actually pushed for more censorship from the government, calling out the Fowlun Gong-founded Epoch Times by name, calling it a conspiracy site.
Now the party opposes Trudeau's call to regulate the internet.
What changed and why didn't you speak sooner?
I apologize I'm having difficulties hearing you, but I think I understand the general tone of your question.
Look, I think that there is no freedom of speech in Canada without a free and independent media.
And that means that we need to stop subsidizing mainstream media.
We need to stop the bailouts.
We need to defund the CBC.
And also, we should not have some sort of litmatest as by government bureaucrats saying who's a journalist and who's not a journalist.
I think that independent media provides a valuable perspective and it should be encouraged.
Citizen Journalists Matter00:04:45
Rebel News had more questions to these candidates than any other media outlet.
There were a few other independent journalists there.
Wyatt Claypool from the National Telegraph, Rachel Emmanuel from Western Standard Online, Andrew Lawton, our friend from True North, and of course the four rebels I've just shown you.
I was very proud of it and I think it stood in contrast to the absolutely atrocious media party.
I think that that's this country going forward.
I think you have the deep state, professional lifers, insiders like Tom Clark, who get sweet gigs even with the establishment elements of the Conservative Party.
Like, how did that even happen?
You've got the journalists and the debate moderator, Tom Clark, obsessed with global warming in the United Nations, topics a million miles away from regular people who care about inflation, cost of living, and frankly, their civil liberties.
You've got the deep state, the permanent establishment, the elites, and on the other side, you have the grassroots, citizen journalists, and populist candidates.
There's a real divide in this country, too.
It's interesting, if you think about what would have happened last night without the citizen journalists, it would have been like more and more and more Tom Clarks afterwards.
I think, if I had to guess, I think that Pierre Polyev is going to win this election.
He has the largest crowds, the most momentum, and he seems to have the most excitement.
Jean Charais, I think, is one of the most seasoned operators, and his argument is simple.
He's won before.
He knows about government, and he is a more moderate face that might make liberals vote for him.
I don't know.
Possible.
Patrick Brown was pretty slick, but I just don't think he has the horsepower outside of Ontario, although he has surprised people before.
I think in the end, if I had to guess, I'm going to guess that Pierre Polyev is going to win this leadership.
And then he's got a choice.
What does he do to a party that is used to the Aran O'Toole, Andrew Scheer way of campaigning, the Arano Tool, Andrew Scheer way of talking to the media, of obsessing with pleasing the CBC and talking about global warming?
Will Pierre Polyev, if he wins, will he continue to be the conservative populist, talking about challenging the Bank of Canada for their inflation, talking about shutting down the CBC?
Will he continue to do the things that pleased the audience last night?
Or will he too become a Tom Clark?
Well, we'll see soon, won't we?
Stay with us.
We'll talk to our friend Adam Sose, who put two questions to the candidates last night.
And joining us now live from the streets of Edmonton, where the Conservative Party debates were held last night, is our friend Adam Sose.
Adam, great to see you.
I understand you are at the March for Life today, and I'm going to talk to you about that in a minute.
But first, we just finished talking about the Conservative leadership debate.
Give me two minutes on that before we talk about what you're up to today.
First of all, what was it like to actually be there?
From my vantage point, it was very distracting having a terrible format and a host that was clearly not a proper fit.
What was it like actually being in the room?
You know, I have to say when we first arrived there, the mood was very energetic.
People seemed extremely happy to be gathering under a new and somewhat renewed conservative party.
Many interested to see some specific candidates.
But effectively, as soon as the actual debate started and that awkward format with Tom Clark unfolded, the energy absolutely vacated the room.
It seemed like people couldn't get an argument going or make a point for more than 30 seconds without being cut off.
And there was a long segment of questions that were about silly things like what Netflix series are you building?
Have you been binging?
What's your favorite book?
It was frankly just silly.
And people were basically leaving throughout the course of the evening.
By the time the media scrum was over, they very much intended for people to speak with the leadership candidates.
Instead, the place was empty.
We couldn't even speak with people to get their opinions after the debate because, frankly, no one was left in the building.
So it started off on a positive note, but it just dwindled as the evening went on.
And that's a sentiment that was shared by virtually everyone we spoke with, other journalists as well.
Protesters Clash and Questions Falter00:06:25
Yeah.
I mean, last night when I was doing the live stream with Tamara here, I was following on Twitter Evan Solomon, who's a pretty straight shooter.
I think he's with CTV, if I'm not mistaken.
And he just couldn't understand it.
He said silly questions, very short speeches as short as 15 seconds, and really no debating.
It's just very strange.
I don't know if Tom Clark was actually a Liberal Party mole, but if he was, I don't know if he would have done anything differently.
He just made a clown show of the whole thing, literally that clown sad trombone, won, won, won, wah, and like ping pong paddles.
It was, it was, I don't know, I was deeply embarrassed for him and for the Conservative Party who selected him.
But hey, not my circus, not my monkeys, as they say.
Let's talk about what you're doing today.
You stayed overnight in Edmonton, and I see behind you some protesters.
Tell us what's going on in the streets of Edmonton today.
Yeah, so we're right at legislature actually today, and the March for Life is taking place.
Even before the event kicked off, a number of counter-protesters, among them MLA or NDP MLA, Janice Irwin, dancing, playing loud, very profanity-laden music, already engaging in some altercations, even sort of bumping an evidently pregnant woman.
So I've seen counter-protesters at every March for Life I've attended, but things with the situation with Roe v. Wade in the United States seemingly escalating.
I must say the crowd itself for March for Life here is smaller than I have ever seen.
There's loud music blaring there in the distance.
The March for Life crowd is doing their thing.
We're a little bit away, so you can actually hear what we're saying.
But yeah, not a massive turnout, but already some altercations.
Security has also been involved with some of the action that's been going on behind us as well, which is something that doesn't really tend to happen at March for Life.
So already some shocking action just as this event is underway.
So let me get that straight.
You said that Janice Irwin, an NDP member of the legislature, was part of the counter-protest and she was, what was she doing again?
I want to make sure I got that right.
Yeah, she does this every year.
She's always at March for Life with these people.
We actually spoke with her just before we ran into her and she said she wouldn't be coming back.
And then 10 minutes later, there she was.
She had a large sign.
I can't recall what the message was on the sign, but she was dancing with the group of counter protesters, kind of moving towards the March for Life crowd.
And then there's a bit of an altercation.
I don't think she was involved in any of that, but she very much the counter protesters cheered when she arrived.
And then she was holding a sign and kind of counter-protesting this peaceful gathering.
On the other side, however, we do have presently right now, and I think Sid is filming it, MLA Dan Williams from the UCP giving an address with his family.
I believe his family and kids are here as well.
So two sort of opposite sides of a coin, certainly.
Right.
And listen, I believe in the right to protest and counter protest peacefully.
just wanted to check on Janice Irwin so she was not involved in she wasn't shouting profanity She was not involved in any physical altercation.
Just to check on that.
I don't believe so.
But we did have two, three cameras rolling on the incident there.
No, she was within that crowd, but I don't believe she engaged in any of those answers.
Okay, well, I'm very glad to hear that because that would have been very disappointing otherwise.
So is this part of a larger, like, are there March for Life rallies in other cities and towns as well?
Yeah, all the way across Canada.
I believe we're going to have our team heading out to a number of the March for Life's across the country.
Some of them take place on different days.
There's obviously a little bit later, a massive one in Washington in the United States as well.
I believe these have been going on for something like 30, 40 years.
There's a very long tradition.
I don't know how many there have been in Alberta, but there's a long tradition of these.
It's certainly sort of a unified effort.
And one of the things that I did want to comment on is the fact that there's very often very little media coverage, but these are very often the largest protests and gatherings.
And other than maybe these new COVID-19 mandate gatherings that we've seen, these are the largest gatherings and protests in the country very often.
And there's next to no media coverage of them, unfortunately.
So we've got you there.
It's, you know, let me just check the time, the time zones.
It's a lunch hour out there in Calgary as we're talking to you right now.
Did this just start or is it wrapping up?
Is it the same time around the country?
Is there a bigger event on the weekend?
Tell me a little more about it.
Yeah, so there are different events.
I don't have the exact times and dates for all of the different events.
I believe there's one in Ontario on Friday as well.
And the one in the United States, I believe, is later in the month.
So they're not necessarily all on the same days.
Very often that comes down to when they can book the space for protest and gatherings.
This one is usually on a weekday.
Other ones more so on the weekends.
I mean, it's just starting at 12:30.
It's going to go till 2:30.
In past years, it has actually been a march through the streets.
But I guess there's some delays in scheduling with COVID-19, apparently.
So they're just going to remain here for two hours.
It will not be the traditional marches through downtown Edmonton.
Got it.
Well, I guess what's interesting is just a few days ago, a judge in Calgary ruled that these COVID rules against, quote, private gatherings cannot be used to stop public protests.
So that was, I think, really the first time a judge in this country has pushed back on these authoritarian lockdowns.
Am I right?
Yeah, and so just to clarify so people don't get the wrong impression, that specific order pertained to the CMOHO health order that their CMOH health order that extended from December 2020 to January 2021.
But any other health orders that have very similar language may eventually fall under that umbrella.
But it was certainly the first time that a judge ruled effectively that public protests don't constitute private gatherings.
So there are likely to be a wider range of precedents set from that.
Yeah.
You know what's pitiful is that it is literally May 2022.
So we're like, what, almost 30 months after these lockdowns began.
It took more than two years for our judicial system to rouse itself from its slumber to defend civil liberties and only in the meekest of ways.
Why Trump Failed On Baby Formula00:02:49
Very depressing.
Well, Adam, listen, it's great to see you in the field.
I was glad you were there last night.
Rebel News, I think, led the pack in coverage.
We had more questions, better questions than anyone else.
You were there, and I appreciate you staying up there today.
Thanks for keeping in touch.
All right, a little bit windy, but we'll say goodbye to Adam there.
Stay with us.
your letters to me are next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer mail, Aaron Callalindley, says, look into the white gold rush and what they did to China after that melamin scare in formula.
It's big business, just like masking.
This was done in China first.
I tried to get into the formula business, tried to make a healthier version than Nestle.
It is so controlled.
Well, I don't know much about that, but I know it's bizarre that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the world, there is a shortage of baby formula.
I was looking at some Trump advisor on Twitter saying this would never have happened under Trump.
I believe that.
But he said if Trump, if it did happen under Trump, Trump would have called the CEOs of the companies to a meeting, an emergency meeting in Washington, where he would have tried to sort it out and order them to sort it out.
He would have ordered the FDA to put that factory back online.
He went through a sort of a checklist of action.
And I read that and I said, that is exactly what Trump would have done.
He would have taken command and he would have approached it like a hotel construction boss facing some logistical problem.
He would have solved it.
Joe Biden doesn't even know what day of the week it is.
Chris Black says, thanks.
Good show.
But very sick.
No wonder the U.S. is out of baby formula.
I didn't know about Bill making fake formula.
They only knew about the meat which is in our stores.
Now I don't buy anything that's already cooked from the freezer section in stores.
Yeah, it's not just fake formula.
I mean, I suppose in some ways baby formula is sort of a manufactured thing, but the fake breast milk, there's just something really gross about it.
And I'm just learning about a World Economic Forum idea called transhumanism, where they sort of hack the human body and mind.
And I don't like it one bit.
And I feel like this artificial milk and artificial meat and eat bugs and live in pods thing, it's part of a dystopian future.
And I don't know why these billionaires are so obsessed with it.
I find it really creepy.
Exemption Fears and Medical Heroes00:07:56
Arana Nation says, I would love to see a debate with just Jim Karahalios and Derek Sloan alone.
Yeah, well, I don't think there would be much to disagree on substantively.
You know, Randy Hilliard, Derek Sloan, Jim and Belinda Karahalios, these are all people who generally have a freedom orientation and are critical of Doug Ford.
I agree, but there's a splitism afoot.
And I think they're just going to, I don't know if they have a chance to win anywhere, but I think they're going to cut into each other.
I think there has to be sort of a unite the right.
I just don't see them.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.
Good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
And let me leave you with our video of the day of Drea Humphrey at the BC Supreme Court hearing a vaccine passport challenge funded by our friends at the Democracy Fund.
All right, good night.
Drea Humphrey here with Rebel News standing next to the brave and strong.
And hopefully you will be free of the discrimination you face from vaccine passports.
Now, you, like us, took the ferry.
You came with your husband to be here in court today, long awaited after seven months of being segregated and discriminated because you medically cannot get the vaccine passport.
How are you feeling walking out of the courthouse?
Well, like you said, medically, I medically feel very happy that I'm here because, you know, the last couple weeks, I wasn't feeling very well.
And I was in bed a lot.
And I thought, oh, I hope I'm better for the big day so that I can go.
And I just rested up the last couple of weeks.
And I'm happy to say that I'm here.
And I hope to see, you know, an end to this that includes never having to endure a winter in isolation, complete isolation again, like that segregated.
I hope that that's something that I can put behind me.
Well, that reminds me of something that one of your amazing lawyers, William Cates from JSS Barrister, both Cates as well as Mr. Robert Hawks flew from Alberta to be here today to fight for your medical freedom and other British Columbians.
But one of the things Kates pointed out is: yes, the vaccine passports are dropped, but the three plaintiffs are living in fear that they will return.
Do you agree with that statement?
Oh, definitely.
I think we've learned that there's no telling what may happen.
I mean, even over the winter, there was an end date that was initially given to the passport system when it was put in in the fall.
And I thought, okay, it's going to end.
It had an end date.
And then when they extended it, I mean, really, I don't mind saying I cried because I was so upset because here you are counting down for something and then it gets, it's further in the distance again.
And so I think we've all been able to see how just unpredictable this entire thing has been and we just don't know what's coming.
And of course, my fear is fall, winter will roll around and cases or variant or something happens.
We're back to where we were before.
And I'm back to where I was before at home, possibly away from my family.
And I just hope that I do not have to go through that again.
Well, we'll have to wait to see what happens from this case.
This is the second case that challenged the vaccine passport in British Columbia.
You can find the details on the first case, which took place on April 19th and 20th.
From what I could see, I was the only reporter at the time, I haven't looked in the last week or so, who reported on such an important case.
And both of those cases sort of challenged the vaccine passport and the strict exemption regime, which started off with zero medical exemptions for people like Lee.
Lee's story is also linked below.
And you have rare illnesses that prevent you from being able to take the vaccine.
Then there were other plaintiffs like Mr. Prendeville, who has one of the recognized, even the government says, yes, this is one of the categories of adverse reactions, which is pericytitis, the swelling, inflammation of the sac around the heart.
Now, one of the things that Mr. Cates also brilliantly brought up is that, so even though once he had this exemption, British Columbia didn't make any changes to the QR code to allow people like yourself or him that had that paper saying Bonnie Henry says that I'm exempt to be able to just peacefully walk into a place and scan the code,
even though they did make an exception when the government decided that children with only one vaccine would be able to get into events.
What was something else that stood out for you today in court?
Well, it was just even with that, I thought just because the government lawyers are saying something existed, meaning that there was exemptions, just because you say, you know, they say existed, but in the form it existed in, is it useful?
That's the question.
Is it useful?
Like, it's not, it's not useful.
You can tell me I can get an exemption, all you want to tell me, but here I am months and months.
I'm the whole time, months later, that I've been trying to seek a recognized exemption.
And I would think and hope that I'd have one by now if that was something that was obtainable, considering I've got lawyers and my doctor and we're standing in front of the Supreme Court.
So if it was something that was just accessible, wouldn't I have it by now?
Well, that's another thing that was definitely brought up in court today.
Also very similar to what was brought up in the first case brought on by the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which just how difficult it was for doctors to A, be brave enough to write an exemption when one is warranted, and B, figure out how to.
So that was kind of your situation.
Now, I'm going to rant for just a little bit here, so bear with me.
One thing I thought was very strange, almost hypocritical, possibly, was that in the first case of a similar challenge, like I just mentioned, Justice Chief Justice Hinkson, who's ruling over all of these four cases that are coming up, he really emphasized and questioned the counsel there about why the council hadn't provided an affidavit from a doctor stating that they had fear about writing medical exemptions.
Instead, it was just the plaintiff saying my doctor was scared to write an exemption.
In your case, you have this hero of a doctor.
And I know that because I've done so many reports on the other side of the story with COVID-19, that type of fear is a real thing.
Who eventually signed an affidavit and said, yes, part of the struggle, even though he did advocate and say, you know, medically, you shouldn't get it, part of the struggle was the fear of what would happen to me if I wrote that medical exemption.
And then Justice Hinkson is like, well, what kind of doctor is too afraid to write a medical exemption?
And I'm like, you got the affidavit you wanted.
But yeah, there was a lot to unpack there.
There's going to be more written info below.
I assume Justice Hinkson is going to preside over all or wait to hear all of the matters before he makes a judgment.
Like I said, there's been two already.
We have an interview coming up with you with a gentleman who is representing himself in the third case.
It's a bit of a broader case.
And there is also the organization which is challenging some of the vaccine mandates as well.
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that Chief Justice Hinkson is going to listen to all of the cases together.
But what I do know is that Rebel News will be bringing you the reports you can trust on what actually takes place in court today.
Any final words?
Grateful For Today00:01:01
What do you want to say to the people who made this day happen for you?
I just want to once again say thank you.
Being here today, I am so grateful and I don't take a second of it for granted.
You know, like I said, I didn't even know if I was physically going to be able to get here.
And so, and just fighting for this, it's given me hope through what was a very, very trying time.
And so the whole time I've just been thinking about today's the day that I get to be heard.
I get to hear my voice heard.
And I just hope that I hope for a good outcome.
Well, don't we all?
This is just one of around 20 vaccine-related cases that we have helped the Democracy Fund take on by your generous donations at fightvaccinepassport.com.
Please continue to donate there to keep those cases going strong.