David Menzies slams 48 media groups—including CBC and Torstar—for a September 2022 open letter to Justin Trudeau demanding police action against "online harassment," yet ignoring physical assaults like Sheila Gunreid’s sucker punch in 2017 or his own RCMP attack in December 2021. He accuses outlets of ideological bias, citing Global News’ defamation of him while downplaying real threats. Meanwhile, Doug Ford’s $40/ton industrial carbon tax (rising to $170 by 2031) contradicts his 2018 anti-tax campaign, locking in double taxation and inflation. Ontario’s Blue Party leader, Jim Karahalios, calls it a betrayal of conservatives, while BC Libertarians blame mandates and monopolies for crises like 12-hour hospital waits and a baby’s death—urging decriminalization of private healthcare and tax repeals to restore normalcy. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, the media party has sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Folks, you are not going to believe the hypocrisy and the double standards that are found in that letter.
It's Thursday, September 8th, 2022.
I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Well, that was one humdinger of an open letter that was published the other day by members of the media party.
It's a joint letter, actually, signed by 48, count them 48 media organizations and associations.
It was sent to the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, and other political leaders.
And the letter, quote, demands action on the growing harassment and abuse of journalists in Canada, end quote.
Oh my, it would seem that the media watchdogs who now exist as lapdogs are in a most disagreeable mood despite being very well taken care of by their kennelmaster, Justin Trudeau.
Then again, I suppose even the tiniest and most domesticated chihuahua might yelp out a bark or two if it's pissed off, right?
So how about we dissect this missive, shall we?
It begins, quote, dear Prime Minister Trudeau, end quote.
Well, of course Justin is dear.
He's the media party's sugar daddy.
More than a billion annually for the vastly unwatched CBC, more than 600 million annually to the rest of the mainstream media because these outlets can't seem to sell subscriptions and advertising in sufficient volume to stay afloat.
And gee, I wonder why that would be.
Needless to say, sucking from the government teat is immoral and unethical.
Simply put, how can you objectively cover the latest scandals erupting in this liberal government when you are also receiving payola from Prime Minister Blackface himself?
But I digress because the media mutts are barking mad.
Apparently, the practice of journalism these days is getting increasingly dangerous.
Oh, you don't say.
And apparently, Master Trudeau is not protecting his minions as he should be in these uber violent times.
Yes, first they want bucks.
Now they want bodyguards and even a dash of big brother to, you know, monitor things.
You see, not a week goes by in Canada in which a journalist isn't slaughtered in the course of duty.
Okay, not slaughtered, would you believe, beaten to a pulp.
How about slapped on the wrist?
Harsh language, anyone?
Yes, it's F-bombs and mean tweets that the sluggos and the MSM are enduring.
And this will not be tolerated.
These are special people, after all, folks.
Anyway, the letter goes on to state, quote, we are writing in relation to the increasing and alarming online hate and harassment targeting journalists and journalism as a profession.
This is a global problem, which threatens not only the safety and well-being of journalists, but the proper functioning of democracy itself.
Many countries are now working on plans to fight back.
We are calling on Canadian police and policymakers to do the same.
For the most part, these attacks are aimed at racialized and female journalists who are experiencing an increasing number of targeted, vile threats of violence, end quote.
Is that true, by the way, racialized and female journalists are receiving the brunt of this harassment?
Or is this yet more critical race theory being jammed down our throats?
The letter goes on, quote, we are asking police forces to take several immediate steps to address the current incidents and to work with our organizations to combat abuse of journalists and all victims of online hate and harassment, end quote.
So if you read between the lines here, folks, these journalists and journalism organizations are calling for censorship.
They are calling for a further enhancement of what is already a society resembling a police state.
That's an odd thing for those in the press to clamor for, wouldn't you say, oh, and be careful what you wish for, guys.
The Trudeau liberals are already hell-bent on censoring the internet as is.
Methinks some of the signatories to this letter might not like the final result.
The open letter drones on, quote, first, many of the threatening emails use similar language, the language commonly used by domestic extremist groups, end quote.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the clock.
Who are the so-called domestic extremist groups?
They are not identified in the open letter.
What a reckless use of language by these scribes.
You see, the way journalism works is that you make a statement and then you back it up with a fact or an example.
So again, who are these domestic terrorist groups?
I think they are referring to the freedom convoys of the last several months.
Yeah, that was one hell of a terrorist group on Wellington Street in Ottawa, wasn't it?
Especially if one believes bouncy castles and hot tubs are weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, by the way, isn't it interesting how the media loaths phantom domestic extremist groups, but they really kind of dig international terrorist groups.
Case in point, our homegrown al-Qaeda terrorist, Omar Cotter, he killed an American ally and partially blinded another.
So we locked them up for life, of course.
Oh, no, we didn't do that.
Justin Trudeau, who never met a jihadi he didn't adore, cut little Omar a check for $10.5 million because this murderer had his feelings hurt.
Please find me the doofus who coined the phrase, crime does not pay.
The online letter at points gets comical, folks.
Check out this line, quote, on several occasions, journalists from our organizations have experienced difficulty reporting incidents of harassment to police, waiting hours on the phone, and in some cases, being treated insensitively or dismissively by officers, end quote.
Oh my God in heaven, these reporters were put on hold and they were treated in an insensitive fashion?
Gee, it really is a war zone out there for these scribes, I'll tell you.
Then come the demands, which can be summed up as follows.
They essentially want a thought police force, one that will take action on, quote, journalists who have become targets of hate and harassment, end quote.
And this will, quote, protect journalists and thus democracy, end quote.
Oh, please, guys, get over yourselves.
Taxpayer-funded journalists receiving nasty tweets is akin to an attack on democracy?
Surely an insurrection.
And besides, have these sluggos ever heard the rhyme that begins with, sticks and stones may break my bones?
Aside from the usual suspects such as the CBC and Torstar, the latter being more concerned with running its online casino other than publishing newspapers these days.
Well, there are notable signatories to this open letter.
For example, there's Canada Land, which despite its moniker, is not a theme park, although it can resemble a house of horrors at times.
And the Canadian Association of Black Journalists.
Now, I didn't even know this organization existed.
And I wonder what their position is on their benefactor's habit of, you know, donning blackface.
And of course, there's the media party's very own beloved union Unifor, aka the Resistance.
Say, guys, how's Unifor's former president, Jerry Diaz, doing?
You remember Jerry, don't you, folks?
Death Threats and Media Attacks00:06:47
He allegedly accepted $50,000 from a supplier of COVID-19 rapid test kits.
And then he promptly put himself into a mental hospital because he's not a fraudster, you see.
He's sick or the devil made him do it or something like that.
Now, to gin up the crimes against humanity narrative against members of the media party, check out this recent column in the Toronto Star headlined, quote, death threats, racist taunts, vows of violence inside the increasingly personal attacks targeting Canadian female journalists, end quote.
Oh my, that sounds serious.
Well, wait a minute, this must be a misprint.
This column was allegedly written by Grant LaFleche?
Surely this is not the same Grant LaFleche who maliciously defamed Alicia Herder of St. Catharines last year.
Alicia, you see, figured out a way to keep her salon open within the COVID rules at the time by reinventing her salon as a film production studio.
Well, Grant LaFleche and all the other COVID Karens out there, they lost their minds over Alicia's ingenuity.
But LaFlech went a wee bit too far.
You see, he wrote that Alicia was part of a group calling for, quote, the firing, arrest, and even beheading, end quote, of Dr. Mustafa Hershey, the acting medical officer of health for Niagara Region.
Just one hitch.
Alicia made no such death threats.
And thanks in part to LaFleche's hit piece, she became the target of death threats.
Check it out.
You should be the one beheaded because you're damn stupid not to understand that we're going through a pandemic.
And this is fucking ridiculous that people like you are the ones that are causing the problem.
Get alive.
Stay home.
Wear a mask.
Be social distance.
Stop being cat.
So there you have it.
This woman thinks that you should be beheaded.
You've reached out to police, I understand, Alicia, as well you should.
What's been the reaction?
The police tell me that because it's cyber and because these, most of these people's threats to burn down my building and do all that, it's cyber.
Even though I found their identities, the police say because it's cyber, there's nothing concrete they can go after.
But the minute I shared that meme, there's something concrete enough that the next time they reached out to me was to ask me about the meme that I shared, but they aren't reaching out to me about any of the threats on my person or my child or my house.
That's really interesting.
Listen, I'm just doing a story on chrome barbering, and I came across some of your pieces, and there was one in which the story is kind of implicating Alicia Herter in terms of giving a death threat to Niagara's acting medical officer of health.
Sorry, not do that, Mr. I don't really have any comment for you.
Oh, okay.
It's your story, though, isn't it?
I mean, I'll read it to you.
It says, opponents of Niagara.
The story does not implicate Ms. Herder in anything other than the post that she made.
You're well aware of that.
Did she make a post?
Sir, didn't she make a post advocating for violence or death?
Huh, hi up.
He's very busy.
Yeah, so Grant LaFlash decrying a personal attack against females is kind of like a fox mourning the passing of those birds who once upon a time resided in the chicken coop.
One of the birthing persons LaFlash holds up as an example of being attacked is Rachel Gilmore of Global TV.
Rachel Gilmore was the subject of some mean tweets, and this is apparently akin to journalism's day of infamy.
Just ask Rachel.
Now, make no mistake, does Rachel Gilmore deserve online nastiness and threats?
Of course not.
And anonymous threats from social media trolls, those are wicked and it's cowardly.
But I get the idea that Gilmore, who I had never heard of before, is almost thankful for this barrage given that she is milking it for all that it's worth in terms of raising her profile.
By the way, folks, for a laugh, check out the Rachel Gilmore parody account called Raquel Crymore.
Here's a beauty.
Quote, anyone else feel we should get medals when we get boosted?
We are, after all, saving the people of the world when we do.
So a little recognition would be great.
I'd love to add that to my Tinder profile, end quote.
This was surely posted in response to the tweet the real Gilmore had pinned on her Twitter account.
She's wearing a tank top and displaying a part of her arm where she was most recently jabbed.
Who does that?
Who posts their medical history online?
What sort of vapid and vacuous person thinks that getting jabbed is some sort of an accomplishment?
Well, two things to be grateful for.
Rachel didn't experience a wardrobe malfunction and she wasn't posting the results of her most recent pap smear test.
Thank goodness.
Oh, another thing to be thankful for, the parody of Rachel's medical virtue signaling.
It seems to have done the trick when it comes to getting that dumbass tweet unpinned.
But at the end of the day, despite the bluster of this drama queen Supreme, she's never actually been physically harmed.
As a reporter, she should know that social media, it's not the real world.
It is a biosphere of the bizarre.
It is populated by trolls whose bark is worse than their bite.
So can we move on from Rachel Gilmore's Day of Infamy already?
Andy Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
I think Raquel Crymore, or I mean, Rachel Gilmore is now at the 14-minute 59-second mark of her fame.
Hopefully she'll just go back to, you know, tweeting photos of extreme weather as proof of climate change.
Oh, by the way, I don't want to give you the wrong idea that there's no such thing as actual physical brute force violence being carried out against Canadian journalists because there is.
And yes, we have video evidence.
Alexa And The Past Tense00:05:22
I speak of my colleagues and yours truly.
Over the years, we have been repeatedly physically assaulted simply for doing our jobs.
How about what happened to my beloved colleague Sheila Gunread at an Edmonton woman's march, no less, back in 2017?
Check out how a worm of a man named Deion Bugs sucker punched Sheila right in the face.
Fuck you.
Wait, so why don't you say that it would be feminine?
No, no, no, I'm just asking you a question.
Do I seem unreasonable to you?
Because I seem really pleasant.
I think I might come across some pleasant reading.
We're just trying to have a conversation here.
I'm trying to have a conversation with you.
Get out of my fucking face.
I will break the camera.
Come down.
We're here.
Come down.
Y'all have the right to film you before you go.
Was there a media outcry about that assault?
Nope.
Crickets.
Actually, the CBC would later publish a glowing puff piece about Dion and his Edmonton guitar business.
By the way, Deion Bewes now goes by the name Dion James.
Gee, I wonder why that is.
But keep in mind, if you are in the market for a handcrafted guitar, you might want to steer clear of this guy's shop, given that he is a misogynist after all.
And how about my colleague Drea Humphrey?
She was covering the prime minister visiting BC during last year's election campaign.
Even though she was outside practicing journalism, she was somehow deemed to be a threat and was actually picked up by some Trudeau hired goon and moved aside as if she were a little China doll.
Check it out.
You talked about Canada's last wrongs, the past things they haven't done right.
When will you speak out about the 20 vandalized churches?
They're burning churches and vandalizing them, and you're not calling it a hate crime.
Here's the deal, folks.
Law enforcement can't really get handsy with a person unless that person is under arrest.
Another thing, did the signatories of the open letter freak out about this incident?
Especially since they are so concerned about female and racialized journalists being attacked?
Because it doesn't get more female and more racialized than Drea Humphrey, a black woman with indigenous heritage.
But suddenly, identity politics, well, they go out the window when it comes to Drea Humphrey, not because of what she looks like, but due to her thoughts and her reporting.
Drea's not down with the woke revolution, so it's a matter of nothing to see here, folks.
Move along, move along.
Then there's what happened to Alexa Lavois in Ottawa last February when some trigger-happy cop thought it would be a good idea to shoot some sort of canister at Alexa's thigh.
Thank God it was her thigh, not her head, for I fear we would be speaking of Alexa in the past tense had that been the case.
Check out this disturbing footage.
Now, the day after, I attended a press conference with Alexa at Ottawa Police Headquarters.
I asked acting Chief Bell what the status of the investigation was in terms of Alexa being shot.
He pulled the Sergeant Schultz routine.
Yeah, even though this story had gone viral the world over, Chief Ding Dong Bell had no knowledge of it.
How's that possible?
Oh, it gets worse.
After the QA session concluded, the chief went on to praise the members of the mainstream media for their coverage of the Freedom Convoy.
And he noted that police investigations had already been launched vis-a-vis the verbal abuse reporters received.
Yeah, apparently some demonstrator called Evan Solomon a soy boy, and that hurt the feelings of Mr. Soyboy, or I mean, Mr. Solomon.
But a reporter being shot, well, that's not really a crime.
It's a bit of a nothing burger because I guess Alexa Lava is not a state-approved and state-funded journalist.
And of course, no outcry from the 48 signatories of that open letter on this particular file.
Evan Solomon's Protest Encounter00:04:04
Finally, not to go all Rachel Gilmore on you, but I have assembled a highlight reel, or rather, a low light reel.
It regards the various attacks on yours, truly.
Not Twitter attacks, mind you, but old school physical attacks.
Let's start things off with a bottle to the head in Kingston.
Pardon me?
What are you doing back here?
We're on a public street, ma'am.
What are you doing here?
Why are you here creeping on our protest?
We don't want you here.
We ran you off before from the park.
We will do it again.
Yeah, you were physically violent.
So.
No one is physically violent with you.
No one touched her.
Don't get out of here.
It's a public park.
It's coming.
Whoa.
Let's move over.
Oh, you're a tough guy behind that mask, aren't you?
Get out.
Oh, and you too.
No one is physically violent with you.
No one touched Jeff.
Unbelievable.
Now, folks, they say Hogtown is going to the dogs under the testosterone challenge, Mayor Tori these days.
We have evidence that that is indeed true.
You don't have the right to actually smash that camera right now.
I have the right to smash AA.
I won't do that.
By law, I have the right to smash him.
You have the right to smash that camera back.
Yeah, by law, you know I have to.
Hey, hey.
Why are you quoting her?
Punch the cell phone out of my hand Then there was my encounter with the trans grifter known as Jonathan Jessica Yaneve Simpson and its mother.
Here's some footage of just one of the five blows delivered to my head and shoulders via a steel cane.
You're not going to go close to him.
Look.
Hey, hey, you're not going to go close to the title.
Don't you touch me.
Don't you touch me.
You're not going to go close to him.
Get out.
Get away.
Don't you?
You better not.
You better not.
No.
You make contact.
You're going to go to jail.
You're going to.
I know.
Don't touch me.
You're going to die.
Why do you send sexually expressed a message with the young girl?
Go away.
You hurt.
Go away.
My iPhone.
Go away.
You just snatched your cane over my head.
But folks, I've saved the worst for last.
It's the worst because this assault came at the hands of law enforcement, the very people who are sworn to protect us.
I speak of what happened to me last December as I stood on a sidewalk in downtown Toronto to hopefully pose a question to the prime minister.
The context was this.
Trudeau at the time was telling Canadians not to get together with friends and family at Christmastime due to COVID.
Yet he threw a fundraising dinner for himself at a jam-packed restaurant.
We were not permitted inside the eatery like the state-appointed and approved mainstream media.
So Ace cameraman Lincoln Jay and I, we waited outside.
Our goal was to ask Mr. Trudeau about the apparent double standard in terms of Christmastime get-togethers.
Everybody there knew who we were.
My Rebel News mic flash was on display.
Everyone knew we posed absolutely no threat whatsoever to the prime minister.
But check out what happened to me at the hands of Justin's Royal Canadian mounted henchman.
Huh?
Look around.
Yeah.
You'd like to see that.
I wouldn't like to see that at all.
It needs a lot of paperwork.
Haha!
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Get off me.
David Aiken's Mistake00:05:11
Hey, I can.
Hey, this is assault.
I'm on a side.
What is this?
I'm on a sidewalk.
I am on a sun.
What is this?
You cannot touch me.
No question working.
Are you kidding?
Are you kidding?
I follow you.
What is this?
You can't.
Am I under arrest?
Am I under arrest?
You know, folks, I received the three C's thanks to that assault that night.
Cuts, a concussion, and COVID.
No, I do not exaggerate because a few days later, after years of not claiming a single sick day here at Rebel News, I was diagnosed with the coronavirus.
And that's because it turned out that half of these pigs, that's right, I called them pigs, were COVID positive.
And where was the outcry by journalism incorporated?
Where was the open letter denouncing this behavior?
Oh, actually, quite the opposite occurred.
Most of the mainstream media avoided this story, but some were actually gleeful about the physical assault.
Let me present an excerpt of Ezra Levant's superb monologue from December 19th.
It's shocking, actually.
Okay, so forget the smears by that editor who, frankly, I've never heard of.
Put aside the smears.
She actually did say that it looked bloody awful.
But not David Aiken.
He was trying to turn her around on this.
He said, Google David Menzies and arrest.
This is how he pays his bills.
What?
So David Aiken is saying that David Menzies wanted this for profit?
That this is what David Menzies does for money?
That David Menzies expected this, wanted this, planned this, provoked this.
And by the way, David Aiken is still suggesting that David Menzies was arrested.
Menzies was not arrested.
He was mugged by the police, not arrested by them, not charged by them.
I'll show you another tweet here.
Another journalist, Alan Fryer, chimed in and said to David Aiken, shouldn't matter, David.
This should not happen in Canada.
So Alan Fryer is saying this, it doesn't matter what David Menzies was going to ask, but Aiken doubles down.
He says, like I said, I'm curious.
The only journalist in scare quotes I've seen treated this way in 20 years of covering political leaders is Menzies.
It's his stick fundraising theater.
He gets arrested all the time.
Well, I say again that he wasn't arrested last night.
And a better journalist would have known that than David Aiken.
Now, to tell you the truth, folks, those David Aiken tweets I found hurtful to me.
That's because 10 years ago, David and I worked at Sun News together.
I was frequently a guest on his show.
We were colleagues.
Indeed, I would consider him to be a friend.
But to defame me this way, to put journalist in scare quotes, as if to suggest that I'm not a journalist, despite having a degree in journalism and working for almost four decades straight as a journalist, what's the deal with that?
And another thing, if I was a frequent guest on David's Sun News show back in the day and he thought I wasn't a journalist, then why the hell was I a guest on those shows all those times in the first place?
Doesn't make sense.
But that's the thing, isn't it?
Sun News did not receive government funding.
Oh, on the contrary, the network was denied a license by the CRTC that would have allowed it to continue broadcasting.
Not the right ideology, you see.
So the government, in a sense, killed it.
But David Aiken landed at Global News, which is now a recipient of filthy Lucre courtesy of the Justin Schruder liberals.
Tell me, folks, would you throw a colleague?
Would you throw a friend under the bus as a way of virtue signaling to your sugar daddy?
Because that's exactly what David Aiken did.
Doesn't make me mad.
It kind of makes me sad.
Bottom line, forgive me if I take that open letter by the mainstream media types with a shovel full of salt, because it all boils down to this, folks.
If you hurt the feelings of a government-funded left-of-center media party journalist via nasty name-calling, either online or in the field, that is unforgivable.
Pushing Back on Carbon Tax00:15:13
And violators must be punished.
However, should a right-of-center independent journalist get physically assaulted, well, keep up the good work.
I simply cannot believe what's happened to my profession.
Folks, remember once upon a time when Ontario Premier Doug Ford was so against a carbon tax that he actually took the federal government to the Supreme Court over the issue?
And why wouldn't he?
Ontario is a manufacturing province, after all.
A carbon tax is poisonous when it comes to industry.
Alas, Ford was unsuccessful in his court challenge against the feds, but get a load of this.
In the aftermath, the progressive conservatives have concocted their own made in Ontario carbon tax.
What the hell?
How can this be?
And in order to shed light on this disturbing situation is Jim Karahalios, the leader of the new Blue Party of Ontario.
Hi, Jim.
How are you doing there?
Good.
And thank you, Dave, for having me so we can get to the bottom of this and correct some of the history that's been reinvented or rewritten by the Ford PC government.
Yeah, in fact, Jim, that's important because speaking of history, one of the campaign slogans from 2018 that the PCs used was Ontario open for business.
Why would this party now be pro-carbon tax, which of course is anti-business?
Well, they claim they're not.
And when I was running in the last election and Belinda was running, even the candidates we were running against were saying, oh, we're not for the carbon tax.
And yet, let's go back.
Doug Ford wins the PC leadership on AXA Carbon Tax Promise.
He comes in, he gets rid of cap and trade.
It was probably the last good thing he did.
Well, maybe slashing Toronto City Council.
Two good things he did in the first five minutes he was in office.
And then it all went south from there.
But he got rid of cap and trade and he replaced one carbon tax in Ontario with two, Dave.
And he spent $200 million in court telling everyone that he was fighting this cash grab, the Justin Trudeau carbon tax.
But before the Supreme Court ruled, he cut a deal with Justin.
Before he even got the decision from the Supreme Court, he cut a deal with Trudeau.
And it was reported in even the mainstream media that Trudeau had signed off on Doug Ford's industrial carbon tax.
And so now in Ontario, we have two carbon taxes.
We have Trudeau's consumer carbon tax and we have Doug Ford's industrial carbon tax.
And to make matters worse, I wrote an op-ed three years ago that surprisingly, Dave, the Financial Post wrote it.
And, you know, back then we were still hoping that maybe the Ford government would turn things around.
We said, hey, your approach in court is wrong.
You're throwing the argument in court.
You've got three legal tests.
You're conceding two of them.
They didn't care.
They stuck with the same legal approach, which was to throw the case in court.
He knew he was going to lose because they didn't try.
And he introduces industrial carbon tax before that Supreme Court decision came out on a nice little handshake sweetheart deal with Justin Trudeau.
Well, first of all, Jim, why in the world is an Ontario Conservative, allegedly, Premier Doug Ford, getting into sweetheart deals with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the first place?
Well, we're going to go on five years of seeing that, with the exception of maybe two or three months in the beginning when he got rid of cap and trade.
But something happened.
And what happened is we're seeing the real Doug Ford and we're seeing the real Ontario PC party.
They are a wing of the Justin Trudeau Federal Liberal Party.
And the first writing on the wall before COVID, before we had lockdowns, was the capitulation on the carbon tax.
And so the real shame here, Dave, is, you know, he's got people out there like ministers and MPPs rewriting history, saying, well, we were forced into it from Justin Trudeau.
We lost the Supreme Court case.
So we might as well tax Ontarians and industry through the roof since we threw the case in court.
But the real shame here, Dave, is let's say we get a Pierre Polyev prime minister one day because he's going to win the leadership.
Let's say we get a conservative government one day federally.
And let's say they keep their commitment to axe the carbon tax.
I know I'm counting on a lot, Dave.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic.
But let's just say if they get rid of that federal carbon tax, we're going to still be stuck in Ontario with an industrial carbon tax at the provincial level that the federal government sometime in the future is not going to be able to get away with.
So Pierre Polyev, instead of endorsing Doug Ford, congratulating Doug Ford on a majority government, should be pushing Doug Ford to get rid of his industrial carbon tax and let Justin Trudeau do the tax and spend policies.
But this PC government, they're exactly like the Justin Trudeau government and the Liberal Party, and they love the tax and spend.
Absolutely baffling and almost unbelievable, Jim.
And yet I saw in the popular press, Ontario Environment Minister David Pacini says, I'm no fan of the carbon tax, but he said the government has no choice.
They have to put this carbon tax in.
It was for reasons I couldn't understand.
Jim, can you explain what he means by the government having no choice?
And is that really a genuine argument when it comes to this carbon tax in Ontario?
Well, they're very good at theater, the PC government.
They love the theater and they get the talking points.
But one thing you can count on, whether it's lockdowns, whether it's the Ontario Sex Ed curriculum, whether it's on critical race theory, or whether it's the carbon tax, that everything they say, every statement they put out is deceptive and hiding the truth of what's really going on.
And that's not true that they had no choice.
Number one, they had a choice to properly fight Trudeau's carbon tax in court.
It was the federal government impeding on provincial jurisdiction.
There was a three-part test.
Do you know what they did in court, Dave?
I sat there and I read the over 100-page submission from the Ontario lawyers that were tasked with it from the PC government, right from the Premier's office.
They conceded that carbon pricing is the only way to regulate emissions and it must be done to reduce emissions in Canada because there was a matter of national emergency.
And they conceded that carbon pricing was the only way to do it.
So what they did was in three stages of the test, they conceded the first two.
They said to the court, yeah, Justin's right on part one and two of the test.
The only difference they had to disagree with in court was to say to the judge, we're fine with carbon pricing, but we just don't like Justin's carbon price.
We want to set our own that's a bit lower.
If you go to court on that argument, Dave, you're going to lose.
You've already said that everything that Justin's doing is a good idea.
It's necessary.
It's needed.
It's a matter of national liberation.
So they threw the court case and they knew they were going to lose, but they did $200 million worth of theater to tell Doug Ford's voters that he was fighting it in court.
And then, like I said, before the Supreme Court ruled, they cut the deal with Trudeau to put in an industrial carbon tax.
And then even after the Supreme Court ruled and they threw the case, he still has a choice.
He could say no to Trudeau.
We are not putting an industrial carbon tax in Ontario.
If you want to tax people because the Supreme Court has given you the green light, even though the Conservatives threw the case, then you got to do it, Justin.
And he should be supporting the Conservative Party or Max Bernier and the PPC in the political fight to axe the carbon tax.
That's the proper principled approach to this so that one day when the Liberals are defeated federally, we can get rid of the carbon tax across the board.
Instead, Doug Ford has made it harder to get rid of the carbon tax because now we have Trudeau's consumer carbon tax and we've got the Ford PC's industrial carbon tax, two carbon taxes instead of one.
And if we ever get rid of it at the federal level, we'll need a provincial government to get rid of it at the provincial level.
He's made it worse, Dave.
Unbelievable.
It is truly the worst of both worlds, Jim.
And you know, that's disturbing too, the fact that they would have spent $200 million on political street theater, to use your words, Jim.
It reminds me of many years ago, it was when the liberals were running the province.
And again, for political street theater, and it was a very popular thing to do, but it was a no-hoper.
The transport minister going to court against the 407 electronic highway to get out of that contract and the government's own lawyers saying, no, the contract's ironclad until 2098.
You cannot do it.
They did it anyways.
They lost.
And it was all about spending money to make them look good.
This is what this reminds me of.
But, Jim, when we get down to the nitty-gritty numbers, the current tax, as I understand it, $40 per ton today, that's going up to $65 in 2024, so less than a year and a half away.
By 2031, $170 a ton up from, as I said earlier, the current price of $40 a ton.
Jim, what does this mean for the average Ontario consumer?
Because people can say, well, it's a carbon tax to industry, but we all know when their costs go up, industry is certainly going to pass these costs along, are they not?
Well, industry, that's exactly right, Dave.
Industry doesn't care.
It's not like they're making industry pay for it with no impact on the consumer.
The guys in the C-suite are just going to pass the tax down to the consumer, raise their prices.
We see it at the gas pumps, and we're going to see it in other prices.
Ontarians are already suffering with inflation because of the tax and spend policies of Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford and the impact of repeat lockdowns and all the other mismanagement we're seeing federally and provincially with governments walking hand in hand in what they're doing, Trudeau and Ford.
And now this carbon tax, as it goes up, people are going to be hit even more, even harder.
And affordability is going to get worse.
And what is necessary, who would have thought, Dave, that we've got a PC government who replaced one carbon tax with two?
Like, can you, it's so, it's ridiculous.
And then the industry, Dave, like you said, they're fine with it because if they hire the right lobbyists, they're going to get the shell game back with a subsidy, half a billion dollars, a few million dollars, and they'll get the subsidy back from the Ford PC government.
But the consumer at the bottom is not going to get any relief.
Their prices are going to keep going up and government spending is going to keep going up.
And that's the real tragedy here.
Well, you know, Jim, that reminds me of the other 2018 campaign slogan.
Remember, for the people, this sure doesn't sound like it's for any person that I know living in this province.
And, you know, again, Jim, I don't, I'm having a hard time connecting the dots in terms of finding out how the Ford government thinks this is a political win, thinks this is popular.
I go back five years ago when sneaky Patrick Brown was the leader of the PC party of Ontario.
He threw social conservatives under the bus by saying he'd get rid of the radical sex ed curriculum, only to backstab that community by saying, no, it's perfectly fine.
And then he threw the fiscal conservatives under the bus.
I believe his first speech after becoming leader at the Canadian Club, he said that he would be responsible for a made-in-Ontario carbon tax.
And Jim, the room, you could hear a pin drop.
And finally, somebody from the peanut gallery went, no.
So that was, he was the architect, I think, of his own demise because once there were no more conservatives to throw under the bus, the Conservative Party threw Sneaky Patrick under the bus.
So again, Jim, I come back to how does the Ford government think this is a good idea when it comes to the people of the province who ultimately elect these ministers.
So what we're seeing with what you just described, because after Patrick Brown made that announcement, I started the Axe the Carbon Tax campaign.
Doug Ford campaigned on that for leader.
Pierre Polyev's campaigning on that and trying to bridge off of it, running for federal leader.
But what we've seen with the Ontario PC Party is at its core, they can't shake their liberal values and their love for Justin Trudeau.
They can't.
So what they've done with Doug Ford is, let's just change the rhetoric.
Let's lie.
Let's tell people that we're against the carbon tax.
We've got no other choice.
We're just powerless.
All we are is the government.
All we are, all I am is the Premier of Ontario.
And they've been running on that script for just over four years.
And it falls on us, Dave, at the New Blue Party to get the truth out because Global News is not going to ask the right questions.
And they're not going to call me for comment.
And they're not going to call anyone that's going to set the record straight.
And thanks to you, Dave, for giving me the opportunity to talk about it.
It falls on us.
And sooner or later, it's going to run out for the Doug Ford PCs.
There's only so long that you can conceal what you're really doing.
And our job at the New Blue Party is to keep moving forward and keep exposing what's really going on and what they're really putting in place, not the rhetoric that they're doing to satisfy conservative voters and distract them, quite frankly.
You know, and I think the real tragedy here, Jim, is that, well, certainly if the new Blue Party were to come to power, I know you would axis tax right off the bat.
But when it comes to the other major parties, whether it's the Liberals or the New Democrats, they're not going to axis tax.
You know, we expect the Conservatives to act differently, but it's like the tagline for the old ABC detergent ad.
Can you tell the difference?
I can't tell the difference.
I don't know how we got here.
It's very disturbing.
And, you know, it reminds me of the lyric from the famous Who song, Jim, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Jim, last word goes to you.
Well, there was hope with the PCs.
And even those that thought, you know, they're not very good on social issues, they don't really have a backbone, but fiscally, they're going to take care of business.
And Doug Ford kept campaigning on Axe the Carbon Tax for leader.
He did it in 2018 in the general election, and he got more votes than any other party and premier in Ontario's history, 2.3 million votes.
And it was largely on the back of that axe to carbon tax promise, the campaign that we led and the PCs tried to destroy me and my family in court.
And then what did we see?
We saw this PC government and this Ontario PC party, they're fine with vote rigging inside their party.
And even on fiscal issues, they are just in lockstep with the Justin Trudeau liberals.
Axe the Carbon Tax Promise00:02:40
And we don't have to wait to get to government, Dave.
The New Blue Party's got a lot of work to do every day, and we're going to keep moving forward and hold them to account and let them know they can't get away with these mainstream media lies that they're feeding global news and the others.
We're going to let Ontarians know.
And thank you to you, Dave, for having me on to remind people because everything old becomes new again.
And an op-ed from three years ago that I wrote is still going to be around.
And the axe to carbon tax narrative is still going to be around because it's a principle that conservatives depend on.
And the New Blue Party is going to be there for right of center voters.
Well, Jim, I think I speak for a lot of our audience when I say thank you for being the watchdog when it comes to these shenanigans.
It looks like the media party, they've morphed into government-approved and funded lapdogs.
And I want to thank you for speaking the truth and keep your eye on this government.
Right now, I think I probably speak for most of my audience again when I say, I feel like I've been a victim of bait and switch here, Jim.
I thought conservatives were against carbon taxes.
I thought Doug Ford meant it when he said open for business.
But this looks like monkey business to me, my friend.
And like I said, please keep us appraised of any more shenanigans going on with this government.
Well, thanks, Dave, for having me.
And we're on it every day, Dave, working hard.
Thank you so much.
And folks, that was Jim Karahalios, the leader of the new Blue Party of Ontario.
Keep it here.
More of the Ezra Levent show to come right after this.
Well, folks, lots of feedback regarding Ezra's monologue last night on Europe going into energy conservation mode, a.k.a. rationing, because, well...
Russia's not going to play ball when the gales of November come early.
F. Torres 59 writes, I very much doubt the Queen of the EU will follow these mandates.
Well, that is the thing.
It's always one law for thee, one law for me when you are an elitist, be it Patrick Brown in the Kingdom of Brampton or Claus Schwab over at the World Economic Forum.
They always make sure they are well taken care of when the rest of us are not.
Camcom writes, have the power and communications companies cut their services off first?
You know, that's interesting.
Stand For Lower Costs00:07:53
If you're talking about mainstream media, I think that is one so-called luxury we can get along with just fine without.
In fact, it might even improve many people's lives.
Canadian Rumble Guy writes, to make a long story short, they want us living in caves and eating bugs.
That's the future they want.
You know, it does seem that way, doesn't it?
I mean, they want to transform, it would appear, the first world into the third world instead of lifting up the third world to first world standards.
And for all those people in Europe who laughed at Donald Trump years ago when he warned them, don't be dependent on Russian energy.
Well, who's laughing now?
Well, that wraps up tonight's edition of the Ezra Levant Show.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I believe my colleague, Sheila Gunread, she'll be hosting for Ezra tomorrow.
In the meantime, have a good night.
And as always, stay sane.
All right, Jason.
So for people who are not familiar with yourself or even your party, let us know a little bit about what the BC Libertarians stand for.
That's a good question.
The frequent answer to what's a libertarian?
Are you liberals?
The answer is actually libertarians are the original liberals, the classic liberals.
But a libertarian stands for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This is it.
We stand for everything that the Charter stands for, guaranteed by the Supreme Court of Canada.
We stand for your free, uncoerced choice.
And we stand for the principle of non-aggression, meaning it's my body, my choice.
You cannot force me to make a decision against my will.
That seems to have worked well throughout history.
And it's gone poorly when that principle has been broken.
Well, we've seen it broken many times over the last two years.
So how does what your party stands for translate into why you decided to run in this by-election?
I chose to run in this by-election because in 2020, I saw that unprecedented restrictions would lead to unprecedented harm.
And I was concerned that the restrictions would lead to more harm than good.
How'd I do?
Unfortunately, I don't take any joy or any pride in that.
And I wish that I was wrong.
In 2020, I called for an evidence-based return to normal.
Here we are today in 2022, two and a half years after two weeks to flatten the curve.
And our government has made the decision to impose orders and mandates that have led to the very thing that they were trying to prevent, hospital overwhelm.
We have hospitals that are absolutely in a state of chaos at the moment.
We have rising hospital wait times.
We have ambulances.
People are waiting five.
I just talked to a lady right now.
She said she waited five hours.
I read a story the other day that people were waiting 12 hours.
Sometimes the ambulance isn't even coming to pick them up.
So we have this hospital overwhelm, increasing wait times, we have babies dying.
A recent story out in Barry, a baby just died waiting.
So you're absolutely right.
What would you be able to do as a voice if you were elected in these areas?
Well, two things that myself and the BC Libertarians stand for.
One, we are calling for an immediate reconsideration of the health worker injection mandate, because one of the main reasons why there is an understaffing at the hospitals and hospital worker burnout is because our province has made the decision to fire the people they've previously lauded as heroes, our frontline workers.
So we are calling to rehire our heroes.
That's a slogan I chose from one of the parties, one of the other advocacy groups.
So that's what we're calling for.
Let our health workers go back to work and get to the job of caring for people in our community, particularly my community, all communities, because we have an elderly community in South Surrey.
They need that care.
Please let our healthcare workers go back to work, please.
Secondly, we want to put an end to the BC healthcare monopoly.
British Columbia is one of the only places in Western civilization where it is prohibited for you to pay for private medical health care.
We believe that you should have a free choice.
You should have a choice to pick between public health care and private, whether or not you pay out of your pocket or whether you choose private medical insurance.
That choice itself, de-prohibiting, decriminalizing, I guess, paying for private medical, would alleviate the wait list and release the burden on the healthcare system.
So that's why we stand for that free choice.
We stand for eliminating the BC government health care monopoly.
What is something specific, maybe an issue or concern that you think relates to people in South Surrey, specifically where you're riding?
Well, it doesn't relate specifically to South Surrey.
I think this is a concern for everyone in all communities across Canada.
And it is the rapid rising cost of living, particularly for families and people on a fixed income.
This is a real concern.
This is a real issue that arose because our current government, federal, has chosen to print a crazy amount of money.
I know that's not specific to this community, but it is greatly affecting us.
the cost of housing, the cost of food, the cost of fuel.
I stand for, I stand for the repealing of the carbon tax.
The government cannot balance the checkbook.
How can we expect them to fix the environment with a tax?
I think that's ridiculous.
I stand for repealing the liquor taxes.
I think most people will be very, very disappointed to know that more than half the price of their adult beverage is going back into the government coffers.
And what are we seeing for these things?
So I'm standing for essentially basic human rights, basic dignity.
I'm standing for the something that I'm standing for lowering the cost of living through something that is controllable, that is manageable, that is lowering our taxes, that are going away for services that we're not getting in return.
Many people believe that.
So our community is very, very concerned about this cost of living.
We're very, very concerned about the travel restrictions.
We're concerned about mandates that are affecting hospital wait times.
I'm calling for a basic, fundamental, evidence-based return to sanity.
Our government is continuing with orders and policies and mandates, expecting different results.
It's two and a half years later.
It's time to return to sanity.
All right.
In the description box below, you'll see links with more information about this upcoming race, but let people know where they can go to find out more information about yourself.
Well, you can go to libertarian.bc.ca.
There's a by-election page where you can read more about me, read more about the platform.
Please connect with me.
Send me a message.
I would like to know your concerns.
If you live in South Surrey, connect with me.
I want to know what your top concern is.
I want to know what I can do to help you in this community.