Ezra Levant examines the Canadian flag’s 2022 controversies, from Kawartha Dairy’s ban on employee vehicles displaying it (despite allowing Pride or Ukrainian flags) to Sunderland Public School’s refusal to hand out flags due to "environmental" and Indigenous concerns. Nikki Billou claims 75% of consumers oppose corporate "wokeism," with boycotts potentially diverting $7.5T from Canada/U.S. firms like Coca-Cola, while Disney’s market cap plummeted after Florida’s tax-exempt revocation. Levant contrasts weak leaders—Trudeau, Obama, Biden—with Reagan and Thatcher, urging men to reject victimhood and organize against "woke" institutions like BlackRock. The episode ties flag debates to broader cultural shifts, where activism risks silencing dissent under the guise of anti-racism, questioning whether Canada’s values are being eroded by ideological overreach. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, is the Canadian flag a symbol of pride or of shame?
It's Wednesday, June 15th, 2022.
I'm David Menzies, and this is The Ezra Levent Show.
Shame on you, you censorious boobug.
Well, folks, with Dominion Day just a couple of weeks away, the question arises, what does the Canadian flag represent to you in 2022?
Is the Maple Leaf something to take pride in?
Because it seems in certain circles, the Canadian flag is deemed to be a symbol of colonialism and or imperialism.
Or maybe our flag is a symbol that is now too closely linked with the great unwashed masses who make up the various freedom convoys.
And as we all know by now, for the rank and file folks who comprise the loony left, freedom can have, you know, negative connotations.
Now, if you think I'm exaggerating, I will now present the proverbial proof in the pudding.
Consider what happened recently in Newmarket, Ontario, a town just north of Toronto.
Donna Steftkos owns a SUV that is draped with several flags.
Some flags state we the fringe.
And there are Canadian flags on her Jeep too.
She works at the Kawartha Dairy Shop on Davis Drive.
By the way, if you happen to be in the Newmarket area and you are craving for ice cream or a milkshake, I can think of no better place for those marvelous edibles than Kwartha Dairy.
Regardless, somebody took exception to those flags on Donna's vehicle.
And this man walked into the shop and complained vociferously.
The flags were offensive to him.
Naturally, the state-funded Newmarket era newspaper published fake news pertaining to what those flags were.
The era noted the flag stated F Trudeau.
That was false, but hey, isn't that par for the course for a Tor Star O newspaper slash birdcage liner?
In any event, based on one solitary complaint from somebody who apparently is unable to read basic English, the executives running Kawartha Dairy bent the knee.
Donna was ordered to remove the flags as in all of the flags on her truck.
Yes, including those Canadian flags.
Well, if the executives at Kawartha Dairy thought this would get their company out of the 24-hour news cycle, they were dead wrong.
Because you see, last Saturday, a few hundred protesters descended upon the shop to voice their outrage regarding the ultimatum Donna had received.
Now, we knew there was no way in hell that these demonstrators or Donna would get a fair shake from the mainstream media.
So my camera woman Olivia and I also headed up to Newmarket on that day to chronicle the event.
Here, check out an excerpt of our report.
As the saying goes, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
But forget about that, it seems that some people these days are screaming for censorship.
And that's the crux of the matter of this story.
I'm in front of the Kawartha Dairy store.
It's a fantastic ice cream shop.
But you see, what happened recently is the new market era, yes, that's part of the state-funded mainstream media, reported that an employee here had her vehicle festooned with F Trudeau flags.
Actually, that wasn't the case.
There was not a single F Trudeau flag on her vehicle.
And even if there was, I don't think there's any kind of rule against profanity.
If that were the case, half the rap songs would have to be deleted from the radio.
Certainly the flags look like the infamous F Trudeau flags, but it says We the Fringe.
And you're quoting basically how the liberal government has described the Freedom Convoy people in terms of their ongoing demonization and vilification of this movement.
So what's the deal here?
Why did they think that you were displaying F Trudeau flags in the first place?
Well, in my opinion, I think the person had nothing better to do with their time.
It was a gloomy, rainy day.
The flags were down.
Like I said, that veto, my vehicle has been parked over there at my place of employment, which does not have anything to do with me and my personal stuff.
Somebody just couldn't read.
It almost comes down to that.
We have somebody in our community that hates our country, couldn't take two seconds to even walk over and lift it up.
I would not be disgraced if anybody touched my flag to look at it.
The store received one complaint, singular, one complaint that this was offside and she was ordered to remove the We the Fringe flags.
This is my own opinion.
This has nothing to do with Cawartha Dairy.
The product is great.
It is Canadian run.
My views do not reflect anything to do with the company.
That one customer clearly should have done their homework and they have ruined many people's lives by one, one comment that blasted up.
The store was being called and harassed on a daily basis and still is.
And there are a lot of freedom fighters out there.
There are so many people that love our country that have been calling in support as well.
She was ordered to remove even the Canadian flags.
I feel that this has been an unjust and discrimination to our Canadian flag.
It's been a rough few days, all because somebody wanted to post fake news.
If you're showing pride in your country by flying a Canadian flag, this is offside somehow.
You said it right there.
It has become sad.
The cancel culture is real.
People can flip things and turn things all around.
It is actually despicable.
Can you imagine, folks, that We the Fringe flags are offensive to those who are presumably Justin Trudeau supporters?
I mean, wait a minute.
That fringe word emanates from the lips of the prime minister himself.
Check out this footage from late January.
We know the way through this pandemic is by getting everyone vaccinated.
And the overwhelming majority, close to 90% of Canadians have done exactly that.
The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable views that they're expressing.
Yeah, so fringe, as in, you know, lunatic fringe, was essentially a slur directed toward the truckers and their allies.
This was the first step by the Trudeau liberals in terms of vilifying and demonizing the Freedom Convoy.
So when it came to that progressive nut bar who threw a temper tantrum when he saw Donna's vehicle at the Newmarket Kawartha Dairy Shop, what pray tell was the issue?
Donna was simply identifying herself as a member of that despicable fringe minority, right?
The complainant had no reason to be triggered, really.
But as you also saw in the video clip, The Kawartha Dairy VP, Dana Summerfield, also ordered Donna to remove the Canadian flags from her vehicle.
Huh?
Oh, by the way, just to let you know, while Canadian flags were banned from the personal vehicles of Kawartha Dairy employees, no such ban was in place for, say, pride flags or Black Lives Matter flags or Ukrainian flags.
Yes, this is beyond parody, folks.
But it is also a telltale example of what happens when a corporation essentially melts like, well, ice cream on a hot summer day.
Because what Kawartha Dairy should have said to that hysterical complainer was simply this.
Your disdain for our employees' flags is duly noted.
And while we welcome your patronage, there are several other stores in Newmarket that can fulfill your dairy needs.
Be thanking you.
In any event, yesterday I did touch base with Donna, and I have an update to report regarding Flaggate, if we can call it that.
Namely, Kawartha Dairy VP Summerfield and CEO Brian Kerr reversed the Canadian flag ban.
Wow!
It's like the Christmas miracle in June.
Imagine that.
The Canadian flag can be displayed at Kawartha Dairy yet again.
Excellent.
By the way, when Donna asked Dana why the Maple Leaf was banned in the first place, Dana reportedly said that in the past two years, the Canadian flag has become tainted.
Tainted.
Like the Maple Leaf is akin to, oh, I don't know, a swastika?
Mein got.
Also, Donna was told that the We the Fringe flags remain under the ban.
Why?
Because given the colors and the font style, some passersby might think that We the Fringe flags are actually F Trudeau flags.
What the hell?
If that's the case, maybe these delusional people need to see an optometrist or a psychiatrist or both.
In any event, is this where we are when it comes to bending the knee to the zealots who comprise the cancel culture mob?
That now we must say sorry and ban things based on imaginary offensive images.
Are we actually now acquiescing to those who are delusional?
Well, yes, apparently so.
By the way, I reached out to both Ms. Summerfield and Mr. Kerr to get their side of the story.
I posed five questions so that I could try to make sense of their warped logic regarding the flag policy at Kawartha Dairy Shops.
Here are the questions I sent to them verbatim.
Number one, I am trying to understand why Donna was ordered to remove Canadian flags from her vehicle.
She remarked that you told her that the Canadian flag in the last two years has become tainted.
Can you explain what you meant by this remark?
Two, I understand that the We the Fringe flags are still under the ban.
Donna remarked that you told her that some people might think those flags state F Trudeau.
But clearly, Donna's flags do not state this phrase.
It seems odd to me that a flag would be banned on the basis that people might think they are reading something that simply does not exist.
Again, can you explain your rationale for this decision?
Three, when this flag flap began, you had issued a statement that read as follows: Quote, Although there was no profanity on the flags, we have spoken to the employee who has removed the flags from their vehicle.
Kwartha Dairy prides ourselves on being an inclusive company who treats everyone like family and respects the personal opinions of our employees and our customers, end quote.
The part of the statement that refers to inclusivity does not make sense to me given that banning flags is actually an exclusionary act.
Can you explain how banning something is indeed an act of inclusion?
Four, as I understand things, this whole controversy erupted after just one customer complained about something that did not exist, namely the F Trudeau flag.
In hindsight, do you think that Kwartha Dairy bending the knee to this individual regarding an imaginary problem was a good idea?
Why did your company simply point out that the customer was wrong on what he believed to be true and simply move on?
And five, Donna mentioned that both you and Mr. Kerr verbally apologized to her for the flag ordeal.
Is this indeed correct?
Well, folks, alas, at time of broadcast, neither executive had gotten back to me.
But is that surprising, really?
As these banana splits continue to ban and unban and re-ban certain flags on almost a daily basis, I don't think Somerville and Kerr know what to say or know what to do anymore.
But one thing is certain, it was prudent to allow the Canadian flag back on Donna's vehicle because had they not done so and worse, had these cowards disciplined Donna for flying the maple leaf, then methinks we're talking a major lawsuit here.
Oh, by the way, for an added slice of insanity, just consider the fact that Kwartha Dairy actually uses a maple leaf on their packaging.
Amazing.
But sadly, Canadian flag delusional syndrome is spreading these days, folks.
Baffling Permission Slips00:05:32
Case in point, the Sunderland Public School in Sunderland, Ontario recently sent home a permission slip to parents, a permission slip that left many parents absolutely baffled.
This was not a permission slip regarding students going on a field trip or taking part in a school dance.
Rather, the local Lions Club in Sunderland thought it would be a nice gesture to give the grade one students a Canadian flag.
Alas, these days, no good deed goes unpunished, it would seem.
Because in advance of the free flags being handed out, the school sent out letters to parents to see if it was, you know, okay to distribute this material to the youngsters.
No, I'm not making this up.
Were the lions handing out Canadian flags or pornography?
Or is our red and white symbol tantamount to porn in certain circles these days?
Well, here's what Principal Jennifer Fisher said in her bizarre letter to parents, quote, on June 28th, our grade one students will have the opportunity to meet with a member of the Sunderland Lions Club to learn a little about the history of Canada and why we celebrate Canada Day.
Students will also have the opportunity to receive a Canadian flag from the Sunderland Lions Club.
If you prefer that your child does not receive a Canadian flag, please return the bottom portion of this letter to the school prior to June 28th.
If you do not return the form, your child will receive a flag, end quote.
Principal Fisher then noted to parents that if they had, quote, concerns about the presentation or the flag, end quote, then they could contact their child's teacher or the office.
Now, I reached out to Principal Fisher, but was told she was in a meeting.
But check out my brief conversation with the nice receptionist at Sunderland School.
It looks like the principal's letter really stirred up a hornet's nest.
Sunderland Public School.
Yes, good morning.
Can I speak to Jennifer Fisher, please?
She's in a meeting at the moment.
Can I take a message?
Oh, sure.
My name is David Menzies, and I'm with Rebel News in Toronto.
And I'm just calling her about this Canada flag permission form.
Oh, okay.
You can call the board office in regards to it.
Oh, was this a board decision?
Well, no, it was from her, but she's not taking the calls.
Oh, that's interesting.
Why would she put out a permission form, but I would have to direct my calls to the board that had nothing to do with this?
I don't know.
I've just been getting a lot of calls and a lot of angry people and yelling at me.
Oh, no, I'm not going to yell at you, Matt.
No, no, I know.
I can already tell you're not going to yell because you're very calm.
But believe me, the amount of calls that I have taken and the amount of angry citizens that are out there and the yelling and the swearing that I'm hearing from the other end is, I just am tired of taking them, so I'm just going to direct them to the board office now.
You know what?
I'm very sorry you're getting verbally abused.
I know it's not your decision, so I.
No, no, I hadn't, that's the thing.
I had nothing to do with it.
Do you know why the permission is being asked in the first place?
I mean, I do not understand that.
I don't.
Okay, yeah.
And so I guess because of the amount of angry people, this is why Ms. Fisher isn't taking calls on this issue?
I'm going to assume that's the reason why.
So I, like I said, she's also said you can voice your concerns at our website, sunderlandps at ddsb.ca.
Wow.
You know, I suspect Principal Fisher is not in a meeting, but rather she's curled up in the fetal position in the staff lounge these days.
Nevertheless, I did reach out to the Durham District School Board.
And according to spokeswoman Rachel Matheson, the ostensible policy reason for the permission slip was to essentially be environmentally friendly and to avoid offending Indigenous people.
Says Matheson, quote, schools don't often distribute Canadian flags and we wanted to ensure that we weren't wasteful in terms of families already having one or not intending to make use of them.
We also recognize that for some Indigenous families, the Canadian flag may represent something else in terms of their relationship and that we are being respectful of their rights as we support reconciliation efforts.
The letter home was simply designed to provide choice to students and families in the class about receiving the flag after a presentation from a member of the Lions Club about why we celebrate Canada Day and was in no way intended to diminish the importance of our national flag or cause harm.
Flags and Activism00:06:34
⁇ End quote.
Wow.
You know, I never thought I'd see this, folks.
This idea of the Canadian flag in Canada in 2022, that it could somehow be deemed both environmentally unfriendly and politically incorrect.
And you know something?
I wonder if the Durham District School Board sends out permission slips if its schools are staging, you know, drag queen story times.
Nah, what am I thinking?
That might come across as, oh, I don't know, being homophobic or transphobic or biphobic or some sort of phobia.
So, hey, kids, sit right back and check out a stript tease show, courtesy of a fake female.
Nothing wrong about that.
And hey, maybe Kwartha Dairy would like to cater such events.
And in the meantime, let's shield the kids' precious eyes from that vulgar red and white piece of fabric known as the flag of Canada.
Folks, are we all collectively trapped in a nightmare right now?
Is the alarm bell going to ring any second now?
And we're all going to finally wake up and realize that the events of recent weeks are akin to season nine of Dallas.
You know, that it was all a bad dream, this whole business of Bobby dying in season eight.
Or are we indeed awake?
And this is indeed the new perverse reality that we are living in.
That Canadian flags are somehow offensive to some people.
Maybe, perhaps.
And another thing, what Ms. Somerville allegedly said about the Canadian flag being tainted these days, isn't the polar opposite the truth?
At other trucker protests and at other freedom rallies the world over, from the United States to India and Australia, the Canadian flag is proudly on display.
It's an acknowledgement of how Canadian truckers and their supporters stood up when their democratic rights were being threatened.
Yet, here in our great dominion, the Maple Leaf is deemed to be something that we need to apologize for, that we need to keep in the closet.
Just think of the logic process at play here.
The Canadian flag represents freedom, yet for the progressives that champion big government and big tech and big lockdowns, freedom is the new F word.
Don't know about you folks, but it seems that life in Canada under the Justin Jugmeet regime is increasingly resembling a South Park episode.
What a pity indeed.
Well, folks, unfortunately, not a day goes by in which someone or something isn't eradicated by the social justice warriors who make up team cancel culture.
Perhaps it's a broadcaster who allegedly said something offensive.
Maybe it's a company getting boycotted for God knows what.
But for the progressives and the Marxists out there, it's their way or the highway.
And the question arises, what can be done?
And to answer this question and other queries, I'm joined now by Nikki Billou, who, along with Wayne Allen Root, wrote the great patriot protest boycott book subtitled The Priceless List for Conservatives, Christians, Patriots, and 80 plus million Trump Warriors to Cancel Cancel Culture and Save America.
Hey, welcome to the Ezra Levine Show, Nikki.
Hey, it's great to be here, Brother David.
Thanks for having me on.
It's a pleasure.
So, Nikki, as I mentioned, cancel culture is everywhere these days.
It's very depressing.
Heck, even the Canadian flag is being canceled in certain circles in Canada, as I mentioned in my monologue.
But first and foremost, what indeed can be done to fight back against this insidious trend?
Well, David, I got to tell you, for me, I think there's a lot that can be done to fight back.
We live right now in what is still the freest, greatest society on earth.
Canada, the United States, the free West still offer greater freedom for everybody than any other place on earth.
And for that, I'm very, very grateful.
And even though the forces of totalitarianism have gained a foothold, they have not yet managed to completely eradicate freedom.
And that gives me a ton of hope and a ton of belief in what we can do.
Now, Wayne Allen Rood and I decided to write this book, the Great Patriot Protest and Boycott Book, because we believe that we can use some of the tactics of the Alinskyite left against them.
If you've heard of Saul Alinsky and his book, Rules for Radicals, you know that when they were in the fringes of society, they used a very specific series of tactics and strategies in order to push back against, you know, bourgeois society, put people back on their heels, and they use that to get themselves into power.
And hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
So we've done the same thing.
We put together this incredible book, which is a list of 116 companies that generally speaking are capitalistic companies, but they've been browbeaten by the left into adopting their mantras and their model of the world wholesale.
So this book essentially is a call to polite, persistent activism, where people that really are the base customers of these organizations can go up to them and say, hey, you're doing X, Y, and Z that I disapprove of.
For example, you're trying to sexualize five-year-old children, which I disapprove of.
Call to Persistent Activism00:08:57
So I'm no longer going to be giving my business to you.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
And this book's been very powerful.
And I got to tell you, I don't know if Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida actually read this book, but he certainly was inspired by the spirit embodied in the book because he took a page out of what we're doing.
And when Disney decided to start putting their family programming toward sexualization for five to eight year old children, they took away Disney's tax exempt status, which immediately cost Disney over a billion dollars a year.
And that cost Disney over $63 billion in market capitalization.
So these companies took notice in the United States.
And right now, their advisors are telling them, stop being political, stop jumping into issues that are controversial.
And many companies that were being kow-towed by the left are no longer going down that path.
So it's a small victory, but it is a victory.
And for that, I'm very grateful.
And you know, Nikki, I mean, if we can just go back a little bit about why this is a thing with corporations these days, why they are bending their knee to basically a lunatic fringe.
And you mentioned Disney.
Disney's a great example.
We had basically those in the radical transgender community demanding that Disney no longer refer to their guests, their paying customers, that is, as ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
Now it's friends, you know, so we don't misgender anyone.
And what I understand is that people for that and other things, you know, that Disney has promoted recently.
They're staying away from the park and droves.
You mentioned the DeSantis tax break issue.
And what I'm just trying to get to the bottom of here, Nikki, is why?
Why is it that a corporation would acquiesce to these people?
My theory, it's two-pronged.
One, they figure if we agree to their insane demands, they'll leave us alone and go on to company ABC and make life difficult for them.
And B, many of the executives, the younger executives, that is, they've been indoctrinated.
They've gone through school.
They actually believe in this nonsense.
Have I got the right picture on what's going on, Nikki?
Well, definitely the first part, I 100% agree with you.
They're just scared.
They're plain afraid of being targeted by folks.
They don't believe in standing up for themselves.
And that's just a shame because, you know, a lot of corporations go out there and they give everybody this great big song and dance that they stand for things, that they believe in things, and it doesn't matter if it costs them money.
Well, that's really not true because they're bending the knee to people because they're afraid.
They're not standing up for the values that they truly, maybe privately even believe in, but they think they need to stand up for these values that they don't really buy into.
Now, yeah, there are a lot of younger executives that buy into some of this woke ideology, but I believe that number isn't as big as you think.
So I'll give you an example of what happened at Netflix.
Netflix basically said to their employees that we're going to be bringing in content from conservative and traditional voices.
And a whole bunch of their employees just were up in arms and saying, oh my God, you can't do this.
You can't do this.
I'm going to stop working here.
Well, the head of content at Netflix sent out a very famous internal memo and said, Hey, I appreciate, thank you for sharing your views.
And Netflix is committed to a diversity of voices in the content that we create.
And if you can't abide by that, maybe this isn't a place for you to work any longer.
And when he said that, Netflix, which had been losing subscribers at an alarming rate because of their insane commitment to some crazy programming, they had a program that was sexualizing 11-year-old girls.
That is a terrible idea, a terrible idea.
You don't want to do this.
This puts young girls at risk in a huge, huge way.
We can't have that.
And now it seems like they found their cajones and, you know, they are and their ovaries, if they're female, cojones for the men, ovaries for the females.
And they've gone in there and said, nope, no more of that.
And that has caused exactly what?
Nothing.
The employees that were up in arms have either resigned or they've shut up because they know that the corporation isn't really going to put up with this.
And that's really one of the reasons we wrote this book is we want to encourage corporations, you know, to stay out of controversial issues, to stop putting their finger on the scale for either side.
You're here to be in business.
You're not here to support a particular ideology.
Now, I appreciate that there are certain universal values that are good for every corporation to be in favor of motherhood, apple pie, clean air, clean water.
I'm 100% on board with all those things because we can all agree on those.
But there are many, many things that they're getting involved in that we don't all agree on.
And in fact, the vast majority of their customer base is diametrically opposed to.
So, look, I have a ton of sympathy for somebody who's going through gender confusion.
One of my best friends' brother decided, you know, that he was not decided.
That's not the right word to use.
Let me just say this properly, was confused about who he was, was confused about his sexual identity, his gender identity.
And he transitioned into a woman.
He had the surgeries.
He did all that.
And after living as a woman for 10 years, took his own life, took her own life.
And this was a good person.
I knew this person.
You know what I mean?
Robert, when I met the person and Julia later, and this confusion caused all kinds of angst for this individual.
I got a ton of sympathy for this individual.
I got a ton of sympathy for my friend and his family and, you know, his mother and father to see their own child commit suicide.
That's absolutely awful.
You know, and we need to, as a society, deal with people who are genuinely dealing with these types of issues with sensitivity, with compassion, with plenty of space to make up their own mind in their own way.
What we don't need is some nut bar activist forcing a particular view down people's throats.
So these folks are worse than the people that said, no, no, no, no, this is not a thing at all.
Because those people had no sensitivity for the real issues some people are going through.
These people have no sensitivity or nuance for the fact that young people that are questioning their identity, questioning their gender, need to be given all the room in the world to come to their own decision, their own understanding, and pushing them in one way or another is terrible.
And there's hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of stories, well, maybe not hundreds of thousands, but hundreds, thousands of stories of teenagers who felt pushed in a particular direction by activists to make a decision to go on puberty blockers, to have gender reassignment surgery, who now regret it.
And I got to tell you, that's not right.
You've got to give space for people, especially teenagers, to be able to understand that they're going through a time of confusion being a teenager period.
And if this issue is particularly an issue that they're dealing with, they need to be dealt with with sensitivity.
What they don't need is these crazy left-wing activists coming down and forcing them to do something that they'll regret later.
And that we all got to take a stand against.
That we all got to say is wrong and shouldn't happen.
And we definitely, definitely need to say that, hey, sexualizing children, any child is wrong.
Until a child is of age, 16, 17, 18 years old, these are not issues that adults should be forcing down their throats.
And I'll die on that hill.
You know what?
As far as I'm concerned, Disney as a corporation has lost all my respect, all my trust.
I won't be going to their theme parks because I was planning on doing that.
I won't be going to watch their movies.
I won't be supporting them.
I definitely won't be investing in their corporation.
And I'll be encouraging every person I know who's a parent to stop doing business with Disney until such time that Disney wakes up and says, hey, you know what?
Maybe sexualizing kids isn't a good idea for a family-oriented company.
I couldn't agree more, Nikki.
And I ought to also say, as I'm a bit of a theme park aficionado, if you are in Florida or California for that matter, don't go to Disney World or Disneyland.
Go to Universal if you want some really good rides to have fun on.
What I'm getting at is I think Disney is vastly overrated.
Boycott Big Brands00:11:02
But getting back to the book very quickly, Nikki, you provide a list of more than 100 companies, as you say, for conservatives and patriots to protest, boycott, and hound.
And I'm looking at the list.
It's everything from Coca-Cola and Costco to Hyundai and Toyota.
First of all, Nikki, what are some of the reasons that you've targeted, say, the four companies I just mentioned there?
And do boycotts work?
I mean, you really need a critical mass.
Last time I went by my local Costco, it was like, you know, a half an hour lineups to buy your merchandise.
Is there any hope of basically initiating boycott movements in the first place?
Look, I would say conservatively, in Canada and the United States, a good 70 to 75% of consumers are against radical leftist woke ideology, against sexualizing children, against forcing teenagers to make life-altering decisions that they can't walk back if later on they get to some clarity, against pushing forward Marxist ideology,
against going into schools and saying that one ethnicity or one race is bad.
I mean, we all used to call that racism back in my day.
You know, you were against one ethnicity, we called you a racist.
Now the left is trying to rebrand racism.
Well, the left have always been racist.
Let's be honest.
In the United States, the history of racism is the history of the progressive left.
The Democrat Party has always been the racist party.
They're the ones who had the slaves.
They got really mad when us Republican types went, took away their slaves, and they got smart.
You know, evil got smart.
And they said, you know what, we can't be open about our racism anymore.
Let's call the other people racist.
But we know we're still really the ones doing the racist because, you know, we're Democrats and we're progressives.
And, you know, they've always been racist.
Every progressive in the past has been a racist.
They've put racism at the center of their thinking.
And they're doing it again.
They're just pretending they're not.
And it's very important for us to understand that.
Now, I'm not talking about good, ordinary people who may be progressive in some of their things.
Those people are not racist.
I'm talking about the activist ideology.
Those people absolutely are racist.
The average person isn't.
75% of people can be persuaded that they should not, with their dollars, be supporting organizations that are absolutely destroying their children.
They're absolutely crapping all over their values.
And if you think about this, if we can only get that 75%, 30%, which is less than half, to switch their buying habits away from these organizations, we're talking about $7.5 trillion in Canada and the United States that will be taken away from these corporations.
Trust me, that's a lot of revenue to divert elsewhere.
And if Coca-Cola lost 30% of its revenue in any given year, the CEO would be fired.
The shareholders would revolt and they'd say, enough of this crap.
Let's get back to what we do best, which is, you know, creating Fizzy sugared water, which is bad for you and bad for your teeth and all that stuff.
You shouldn't be drinking Coca-Cola in the first place for other reasons.
But the fact that they've gone crazy insane woke is another great reason not to do business with them.
And I really believe that if we have these organizations in the spirit of the great Ronald Reagan, the happy warrior himself, we can absolutely beat these folks.
Reagan had a simple strategy, a simple philosophy when it came to fighting the Cold War against the Soviets.
I have the same philosophy when it comes to fighting progressive wokeist ideology.
You want to hear it?
Shall I share it with you, David?
Absolutely.
Don't worry about it.
You know what?
Here it was.
Here it was.
Reagan's philosophy was: it's simple.
We win, they lose.
That's what it's all about, baby.
And listen, in my other work, I'm a businessman.
I teach the mindset of champions.
I work with men.
I'm all about helping people have a powerful, strong mindset.
And that's what it's all about.
You got to have the people on our side stop being snowflakes too.
Stop being victims.
Stop blaming other people.
Get in action.
Take extreme ownership.
As Jocko Willink and Leif Babbin say in their great book, Extreme Ownership, take extreme ownership.
Stop blaming the other folks.
Get into action.
They can give money to organizations like yours.
They can actually write letters or go on social media with the CEOs of these organizations.
I bet you if the CEO of Coca-Cola got 300 people on his Instagram saying, we're leaving you because you're woke, he'd notice.
He'd notice.
You know, it's a and the proof is in the proverbial pudding, Nikki, because I go back to the Cortha Dairy story that we covered in which the employee was ordered to remove the Canadian flags from her vehicle, a vehicle parked in Canada.
And there was an enormous Patriot counter demonstration at the dairy shop on Saturday.
And lo and behold, the executives have reversed themselves and said, yep, you can put those Canadian flags back on.
You know, Dickie, we're running out of time.
One last question.
And since you mentioned Disney, and since we've seen this corporation take a financial kneecapping on so many fronts, here's the big picture question I want to ask you.
Will Disney change its ways?
Because with any big corporation, as they say, the bottom line is the bottom line.
And if they're going to lose millions, even billions in revenue because of these crazy, you know, social justice positions they've adopted and alienating their base in the meantime, will we see this company change and reverse some of its policies like Kawartha Dairy did here in Canada?
Or are we, is it going to be more of the same just for waving the flag of wokeism?
Well, listen, one of the things I can tell you is I don't know if they will, and I don't know if they won't.
But if we keep up the pressure, then we have a better chance of having them change their policies.
And if they don't, if they lose 30 to 50% of their current revenues, then they're going to go out of business.
I'd rather they don't go out of business.
Disney's a great American company started by a great American patriot.
Walt Disney is now rolling in his grave because he loved America and everything it stood for.
If you read about this man's story, my God, it'll give you goosebumps.
It'll make you want to stand up and salute.
He was such a great man.
Now, he had his flaws.
There were things about him that weren't great, but there were so many things about him that were great.
And the folks at Disney right now are led by weak and competent leadership.
There's a poem a friend of mine wrote.
His name is Jeff Michael Hopf, and it goes something like this: Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.
Well, we're living in hard times right now because weak men have been in charge.
We've had people in charge of Canada who are weak, like Justin Trudeau.
We've had people in charge of America that are weak, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
What we need right now is we need some of those hard men.
Those are the men that need to come up and save the world.
And yeah, we need, and listen, just in case there's anybody here who's going, oh, what about women?
Well, yeah, we absolutely need hard women too.
My favorite leader of the last half of the 20th century is the late, great Margaret Thatcher.
Yes.
Lady Thatcher, the Iron Lady, inspired me even more than Ronald Reagan, more than Pope John Paul II.
She had big ovaries and she got them done.
We need women and women to their credit are stepping up.
I mean, in the United States and even in Canada, they're the ones that are going to school boards more than the men and fighting back against these wokeists.
And God bless the women.
The mama bears are what we need too.
But I'm talking to the men right now because, you know, I'm a man and there's a lot of men right now that are acting like a bunch of wussies.
You know, there's another word that rhymes with wussies, and I'll just leave it to your imagination as to what that word ought to be.
These men need to get up off their duff.
They need to stand up and they need to say, enough of this.
Stop buying from Disney.
Organize other people to stop doing it.
And, you know, you got to push back against these corporations and their institutional investors like BlackRock Corporation, who really is pushing a woke agenda.
I don't understand why someone who's made trillions of dollars for his organization is pushing wokeism.
But for whatever reason, he's decided this is the thing to do.
We need to push back against these organizations.
We need to find our own champions who are wealthy.
And it looks like Elon Musk is coming over from the dark side to the side of the angels.
So let's really work with people like Elon.
If Elon watches the show or you listen to this, Elon, my name is Nikki Ballou.
Look me up, man.
Let's talk.
Let's work.
You're a man with a big voice.
You know, I'm a man with some masculine cojones.
We can work together and make a lot of good things happen in the world.
And we ought to.
The world needs for us to do this.
And I say this to every progressive thinker, to every liberal person, a fair-minded person.
I'm on your side.
I believe in that.
I want a free Canada and I want everyone to be tolerated.
I am a brown man from the Middle East.
I've actually experienced real racism.
When I was a young boy in Iran, a monotone cocktail was thrown through my window.
The note on it said, die Christian scum, a shuri scum.
It was based on my ethnicity and my religion.
So for all you people who think you've actually experienced racism, tell me if you got a better story than that.
Then we'll talk because I bet you don't, right?
So I'm nobody, and I mean nobody is more opposed to racist, true racist behavior than Nikki Ballou.
But I also am not going to put up with the wokeists and the left-wing activists co-opting opposition to racism because they really aren't opposed to it and trying to smear people, fair-minded people, and getting them to shut up by falsely claiming they're racist.
If you want to come after Nikki Ballou and call him a racist, bring it, buddy.
Bring it because I'll eviscerate you.
I will destroy you, leftist woke piece of garbage, lying sack of, you know what?
Don't you dare.
We are the party of the people who freed the slaves.
You're the ones who took the slaves and you got mad at us for taking them away from you.
So get over yourself and let's go.
Let's go.
Let's make this world a better place for you.
Normal people who are left of center, hey, you're with us.
Pretty soon they're going to come after you too.
We're all going to be right of center.
Just like Elon Musk with his beautiful little graphic that he posted on Twitter.
Before yesterday, he'd never voted Republican.
Yesterday, for the first time in his life, he voted for a Republican.
There you go.
Well, Nikki, I love your enthusiasm and hope abounds.
And my goodness, that list of leaders of decades gone past, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul.
I really wish there was a DeLorne with the flux capacitor option so I could go back in time to the 80s.
It seemed like a hell of a lot normal time than we're living in today.
China's Future Plans00:02:35
Oh, for sure.
And Nikki, one last question quickly, because we are out of time.
If somebody wants to get a copy of the great Patriot Protest and Boycott book, how do they get it, my friend?
It's on Amazon.
Go on Amazon, Amazon.ca.
You know, if you're elsewhere, Amazon.com, go grab yourself a copy and you can contact us.
Our emails are in the back cover, back page of the book.
So you can email me and Wayne and we'll respond.
Fantastic.
Nikki, it's a pleasure.
Maybe we'll have you back in the future, especially if Disney does indeed reverse its ways.
Thank you so much for your time, my friend.
Thanks for having me on.
It's an honor to be here.
You got it.
And that is Nikki Ballou, who, along with Wayne Allen Root, is the co-author of the great patriot, sorry, the great, yes, the great patriot protest and boycott book, required reading, folks.
You'll really enjoy this one.
Keep it here.
More of the Ezra Levin show to come right after this.
Well, folks, plenty of mail last night regarding Ezra's monologue on the travel restrictions finally being lifted or suspended, as the government likes to say.
Kevin Charbonneau writes, I'm so glad that Canada has rebel news or else this country would be left to the idiots entirely.
Well, you know, Kevin, we strive to bring the other side of the story.
The fact remains, the vast majority of the mainstream media is on the government take in one form or the other.
We depend on you, our viewers, to fund rebel news, and for that, we are forever grateful.
Ron Fowler writes, Did you ever in your life think that Canada would be in a group with North Korea and China?
Well, yes, Ron, I did.
And I started thinking that way several years ago.
I think it was 2014 before Prime Minister Trudeau became Prime Minister Trudeau when he was just Citizen Justin.
And he remarked at a female-only meeting in Toronto that he has respect for the or admiration rather for the basic dictatorship of China.
The very fact that he said that, a future leader of a Western democracy, is unbelievable and egregious.
But he said it himself.
Why Dad Respected Adversaries00:07:47
Those were his own words.
So yeah, the idea that Canada is increasingly resembling communist China, no surprise whatsoever, my friend, sadly.
And Dave Sobrani writes, I think they ended the mandates because of the veteran walking to Ottawa.
They are very scared.
Yes, that would be James Topp, who is indeed walking right across our country to Ottawa.
Say, folks, do you think Justin Trudeau will actually come out and greet him?
Will shake his hand?
Or would this be another case of, you know, as Justin likes to say, the veterans are simply asking for too much?
What a disgrace.
Well, folks, that wraps up tonight's edition of the Ezra Levant Show.
Thanks for tuning in.
The big boss man, he'll be back tomorrow.
In the meantime, as always, stay sane.
Terry Diot for Rebel News.
Everyone knows and remembers the late Ted Byfeld as a conservative activist and great opinion columnist.
Now there is a book about the man and the legend.
There's a gentleman by the name of Jonathan Van Marin who runs his own show, The Bridgehead.
And he's a, he felt that we don't have enough conservative heroes.
In fact, I don't think we have hardly any these days.
And the media has done a great job in popularizing a lot of left-wing folks.
But dad or Ted Was very much a larger than life figure.
And this came through.
And the stories that circulate around my dad are so amazing at times that some people think that they're made up.
And dad is the first one to say that, well, how did he put it?
Verification has ruined many a good story.
But at the same time, the facts with some of the things that my dad had accomplished in his life need to be told.
Hopefully, it will serve as an inspiration.
For someone who's never heard of Alberta Report, how would you describe it?
Time magazine from literally 1920 in terms of its viewpoints.
It was Christianity, it was Christian values, but it wasn't in-your-face Christian values.
It was just assumed.
It was sort of the foundation of every article, pretty much.
But it was not.
Anyway, it took off.
It was very popular.
And what happened in the early 80s is it became known that they were practically the only media, if not the only media in the province that was going to stand up to the liberals when Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Mark Lalonde introduced the National Energy Program, which was a blatant grab of Alberta's energy in terms of tax revenue.
Did your dad see this book before he passed away?
No, I'm afraid not.
Dad had, he was able to see a draft of the first three or four chapters and had provided a lot of input with Jonathan.
He thought Jonathan did a really good job.
And by the way, people who've reviewed the book and have endorsed the book, like Preston Manning, Preston won't endorse a book unless he's read it.
He's a very principled man and he thought it was exceptionally well done.
And so did others.
Fildebrand, your competitor for the Western Standard, said he could not put the book down.
He just says he's never read a book faster.
What did he think about politics toward the end of his life?
Obviously, he saw the first Trudeau up close and personal.
Yeah.
I think actually dad had a fair amount of respect for his adversary.
He always thought of Pierre as a very intelligent man, but quite clearly the enemy.
And if you read Dad's writings, even early on, even though Dad lived and died a federalist, Dad saw what is often coined now the Laurentian elites as a really serious problem that will wreck this country if they are not somehow put in check.
And so Dad came up with the Triple E Senate along with Preston Manning.
But that's been fairly soundly rejected since.
It's probably not a secret to most people in Alberta that it's arguable that had your dad not been around, there might not be a Conservative Party of Canada.
Yeah, I think so.
Because if you look at the history of movements, I think that the Reform Party very clearly said, and the most famous expression that's associated with the Reform Party is the West wants in.
And Dad was the keynote speaker at the first assembly in Vancouver for the Reform Party.
The West wants in.
And so I think had Preston and Dad not provided that leadership and vision, there were plenty of people even back then in the 90s who wanted out and had had enough.
But dad said, we need to give it one more try.
And they did.
They tried really hard.
And so Preston obviously created the Reform Party and then Stephen Harper took over and then merged with Peter McKay.
I have my opinions on that not necessarily being the best thing for Western Canada, but it certainly has kept everything stuck together in terms of the Federation.
What do you think your dad would like to be remembered most for?
I think he wants to be remembered most for his books.
And he every day, until his last day, prayed every morning and prayed every night.
And I think that he wants to be remembered as a good and loyal servant of God.
Now, that means serving his fellow man, and that means serving his fellow Albertan and Western Canadian.
And he genuinely does feel that a Canada that can resolve these regional issues is better than a divided Canada.
And I might add, he has said that if Alberta were to ever separate, that's the end of Canada.
The rest of Canada will fall apart very, very quickly.