Ezra Levant critiques Jacinda Ardern’s UN push for internet censorship, comparing her to Justin Trudeau and labeling her stance "fascist" after pandemic messaging that dismissed dissent. Her collaboration with tech firms to study algorithmic content curation is framed as a tool to suppress opposition under disinformation pretexts. Meanwhile, China benefits from the Russia-Ukraine war by diverting global focus from Xi Jinping’s 20th National Congress amid internal unrest, while NATO’s aid-only approach risks emboldening Beijing. Businesses flee Hong Kong due to authoritarian crackdowns, undermining its financial hub status, and Trump’s unpredictability is credited with deterring aggression like Putin’s Ukraine invasion or Crimea annexation—contrasted with Biden’s perceived weakness. In Canada, protests over Iran’s morality police killing Masha Amini demand sanctions on the IRGC, exposing alleged regime ties and Liberal inaction, while fossil fuel advocates argue oil remains vital for prosperity. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I'm going to take you painstakingly, and it will be painful both for you and for me, through Jacinda Ardern's speech at the UN a couple weeks ago.
She's the New Zealand Prime Minister who is even worse than Justin Trudeau.
I'm going to take you through about half her speech, which is probably too much, but I want you to hear it for yourself.
I want you to hear how she says that words must be banned, just like nukes, that words are weapons.
And she's got this theory.
At least I think.
I think she's saying that the war in Russia and Ukraine is the fault of people who post on Facebook in New Zealand.
Again, I will play for you her actual remarks so you can see them for yourself.
And I'd like you to see him, not just hear him.
And by that I mean this podcast is in audio format, but we actually make it as a video first in our mind.
And you can get that daily video by going to RebelNewsPlus.com.
It's a video version of the podcast.
It's just $8 a month.
I do 20 of these shows a month and my colleagues here do another 16.
That's 36 episodes a month just for eight smackers.
And you know what?
That's how we pay the bills around here because we don't take a dime from Trudeau.
So please consider going to RebelNewsPlus.com, chipping in eight bucks a month.
You get the video version and you help keep us strong.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's version of Justin Trudeau, flies to the UN to call for global internet censorship.
It's October 3rd and this is the Azra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Do you remember this video clip of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's Prime Minister, early in the pandemic?
What a little fascist she is.
We will share with you the most up-to-date information daily.
You can trust us as a source of that information.
You can also trust the Director General of Health and the Ministry of Health.
For that information, do feel free to visit at any time to clarify any rumor you may hear, covid19.govt.nz.
Otherwise, dismiss anything else.
We will continue to be your single source of truth.
We will provide information frequently.
We will share everything we can, everything you are, else you see a grain of salt.
And so I really ask people to focus.
Always the greatest example of that appears to be this text which originated in Malaysia and has kind of has become a viral hope in Australia and in New Zealand.
How irresponsible is it the people that are sharing that news of a lockdown imminent in New Zealand?
Yeah, and look, that's the kind of thing that adds to the anxiety that people feel.
So I continue to share the message.
New Zealanders must prepare, but do not panic.
Prepare.
And when you see those messages, remember that unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.
And I really ask people, just visit covid19.govt.enz.
It has all of the up-to-date information.
And we will continue to provide everything you need to know.
You know, sometimes people tell me to change the name of Rebel News, and I think the number one suggestion people give me is to call it truth news.
And obviously, I believe we tell the truth, but I also know that there are other points of view out there.
And from time to time, we can get things wrong, and someone can see things from another angle.
It's like a car accident.
Two different witnesses standing in two different places can tell two different stories, but they're both telling the truth.
They saw it.
And so I would never say what we're called truth news because I would never be so absolutely certain that we could never be wrong and that our critics could never be right.
That's not false modesty.
It's just there are some things that we don't know.
And there are some things I'm sure that we think we know that we will one day realize we're wrong.
I suppose that's all obvious.
Our command of the world is imperfect and always will be.
Only God is omniscient and omnipotent.
We are flawed.
And anyone who tells you they're not is either misleading you or misleading themselves.
That's why we're not called truth news.
And that's why Jacinda Ardern is a wacky tyrant when she tells you to dismiss anything else you hear, dismiss anyone else who contradicts her.
And she says that sight on scene in advance of hearing any critic.
Without yet hearing the objection, she rules it out.
We will continue to be your single source of truth.
A Christian pastor could say the Bible is the perfect truth, and maybe he's right.
But he doesn't have the power of the police and the state to back him up, or even the power of censorship over YouTube and Facebook to back him up.
And I think that pastor would probably say the Bible is the perfect truth.
I doubt he would say that he himself, a flawed sinner, was a perfect source of truth.
Imagine saying that about yourself.
Dismiss anyone else.
Everything else.
We're the single source of truth.
And that if anyone else says something contradictory, ignore them without question.
And don't you worry about any of this.
Don't you worry your pretty little head.
We will continue to provide everything you need to know.
Really, who talks that way?
Well, Jacinda Ardern does.
And, you know, she hits the ride recently with Justin Trudeau, her left-wing globalist mini-me, from London to New York.
They were both in London for the Queen's funeral and in Trudeau's case, to do some drunken singing in a bar, in a party atmosphere.
Yeah, Trudeau's so classy.
So what did they talk about on that flight to New York?
Well, they're both young World Economic Forum types.
I guess they're not so young anymore.
I mean, Klaus Schwab is pretty proud of them.
What we are very proud of now is a young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, president of Argentina, and so on, so she penetrates the cabinets.
I think they probably talked about the things they have in common, their love of authoritarianism, taking rights away from people, replacing local sovereignty with globalist control, censorship, forced vaccines, gun control.
But out of all those things, censorship is the most important because if you still have free speech left, you can fight to regain your other rights.
But without free speech, you can't.
So let me show you what Trudeau and his U.S. taxpayers paid to bring Ardern to New York to say.
Here are some clips from Ardern's visit to the UN and her big speech there.
Of course, she starts off in Maori.
I mean, if you think Justin Trudeau is woke and virtue-signaling, he's never tried this before.
E nga mana, e nga reiau, rauranga tira mā kua hui hui mai nei i tēnei whare nui o te ao.
Nga mehi maoha ki a koutou katoa, mai i toko whenua o Aotearoa.
Tui a ki ronga, tui a ki raro, kā rongo to pō kā rongo te ao.
Nō reira, tīnā koutou katoa.
I don't think Ardern actually knows how to speak Maori.
I think she just memorized those lines like an actor, like Trudeau is an actor, like when he rattled off this for a reporter on command.
He's good at memorizing a few lines, not much more.
Covid and Beyond00:13:51
I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing, but I do.
When do you expect Canada's ISIL mission to begin again?
And are we not doing anything in the interim while we prepare?
Okay, very simply, normal computers work by...
Hang on down, don't...
Don't interrupt me.
When you walk out of here, you will know more.
No, some of you will know far less about quantum computing, but most of you, normal computers work, either there's power going through a wire or not.
It's one or a zero.
They're binary systems.
What quantum states allow for is much more complex information to be encoded into a single bit.
A regular computer bit is either a one or a zero, on or off.
A quantum state can be much more complex than that because, as we know, things can be both particle and wave at the same times, and the uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer.
So that's what's exciting about quantum computing.
Back to the speech at the UN.
Here's what she said.
COVID-19 was devastating.
It took millions of lives.
That's not quite true.
It did take millions of lives if you trust the statistics.
But I know that in the West, the statistics included anyone, often, who died within 30 days of a diagnosis of COVID.
So they could have died from some other cause, but COVID was to blame.
Made more money that way for hospitals, for more excitement for TV doctors, for politicians, for vaccine companies.
Now, that's the disease, and I'm not minimizing its actual death toll.
I'm saying there was massive overcounting, as many jurisdictions have since grudgingly acknowledged.
But look at what she moves to immediately.
Sure, she cares about COVID.
I don't doubt it.
But she cares about using COVID for other political goals too.
Listen to this.
It set us back in our fight against the crisis of climate change and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals while we looked to the health crisis that was right in front of us.
Global warming, that's what she really cares about.
The lessons of COVID are in many ways the same as the lessons of climate change.
When crisis is upon us, we cannot and will not solve these issues on our own.
The next pandemic will not be prevented by one country's efforts, but by all of ours.
Climate action will only ever be as successful as the least committed country as they pull down the ambition of the collective.
She really is doing that.
She really is using the deaths of people as a political platform to stand on, stand on the dead bodies, to push her obsession with global warming.
If you think it's absurd for Canada, with our tiny population of 38 million people, to try to stop the world from warming, imagine how nutty it is for New Zealand to do that.
They're just 5 million people.
And you have to fly across the ocean to get anywhere.
Imagine being obsessed by that.
So naturally, she goes to globalism, giving the power to faraway organizations like the United Nations.
We need a dual strategy, one where we push for collective effort, but where we also use our multilateral tools to make progress.
And that's why on pandemic preparedness, we support efforts to develop a new global health legal instrument, strengthened international health regulations, and a strong and empowered World Health Organization.
The World Health Organization, she wants to give them more power, the one that's run by China?
The same World Health Organization that told the world, don't worry, COVID-19 is not contagious, that World Health Organization.
Has anyone over there actually been fired?
I mean, I know you can't un-elect them, but seriously, not a soul over there fired.
She talked more about global warming, you know, in her bones.
She wants to bring in climate lockdowns, just like COVID lockdowns.
You know she wants to.
She did some virtue signaling about Ukraine and calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
By the West, of course.
I mean, do you think China or Russia would ever give them up?
Listen.
Nuclear weapons do not make us safer.
There will be those who agree, but believe it's simply too hard to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons at this juncture.
There is no question that nuclear disarmament is an enormous challenge.
But if given the choice, and we are being given a choice, surely we would choose the challenge of disarmament than the consequences of a failed strategy of weapons-based deterrence.
What does that mean?
I mean, she has no nukes in New Zealand.
Neither does Canada.
So she's calling on America to disarm, but let China and Russia keep their nukes.
You know, she used to be the youth head of the Socialist International.
She's still got that pro-Soviet message track.
But look, she's got no chance to eliminate nukes.
She was just saying that to impress her old socialist friends.
She does, however, have the power to censor New Zealanders.
And that was the main point of her speech.
Traditional combat, espionage, and the threat of nuclear weapons are now accompanied by cyber attacks, prolific disinformation, and manipulation of whole communities and societies.
Remember, she's your only source of truth.
Ignore everyone else.
And if she has to call everyone else a foreign spy or disinformation agent, she will.
I mean, she would never engage in misinformation herself.
Oh, no, no.
Only her critics do that.
Now, as leaders, we have never treated the weapons of old in the same way as those that have emerged.
And that's understandable.
After all, a bullet takes a life.
A bomb takes out a whole village.
A lie online or from a podium does not.
But what if that lie, told repeatedly and across many platforms, prompts, inspies, or motivates others to take up arms, to threaten the security of others, to turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them?
What then?
Every action comes from an idea, obviously, but there is an enormous difference between an idea and an action.
She would literally ban ideas, thoughts, words that in her prophecy could possibly one day lead to a conflict that she doesn't like.
I'm not sure what words she thinks led to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I'm not sure if she's blaming some Facebook post in New Zealand for causing that war.
I think it was Russia's Vladimir Putin that did the invasion.
He sensed weakness in the West, especially under Joe Biden.
I don't think it was some comment on Facebook or YouTube that made him do it.
I think it was the state of Russia itself that committed the violence, by the way, not an ordinary citizen, certainly not one in New Zealand.
But she somehow has blamed everyone who has an idea she doesn't like, who says a word she doesn't like.
She blames them for an invasion by an authoritarian ruler halfway around the world.
What?
Here's some more.
This is no longer a hypothetical.
The weapons of war have changed.
They are upon us and require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old.
We recognize the threats that the old weapons created.
We came together as communities to minimize these threats.
We created international rules, norms, and expectations.
We never saw that as a threat to our individual liberties.
Rather, it was a preservation of them.
The same must apply now as we take on these new challenges.
She's speaking vaguely, but her point is clear.
Words are weapons, and she wants to ban word weapons that she doesn't like.
Now she briefly tips her hat to freedom of speech and then the word but comes in.
It's like Salmon Rushdie always says.
Ignore everything before the word but.
And now, the moment somebody says, yes, I believe in free speech, but, I stop listening.
You know, I believe in free speech, but people should behave themselves.
I believe in free speech, but we shouldn't upset anybody.
I believe in free speech, but let's not go too far.
The point about it is the moment you limit free speech, it's not free speech.
The point about it is that it's free.
Exactly.
Now watch this clip and listen for the word but.
In New Zealand, we deeply value our right to protest.
Some of our major social progress has been brought about by hikoi or people power, becoming the first country in the world to recognize women's right to vote, movement on major indigenous and human rights issues, to name but a few.
Upholding these values in a modern environment translates into protecting a free, secure, and open internet.
To realize all of the opportunities that it presents in the way we communicate, the way we organize, the way we gather.
But that does not mean the absence of transparency, expectations or even rules, if we correctly identify what it is we are trying to prevent.
Did you hear the word but make an appearance?
But and surely we can start with violent extremism and terrorist content online.
Okay, well terrorism is already banned online in every country in the world.
Of course she means incitement of terrorism which is banned.
No one is actually killed online, but that's already banned under criminal law and by the social media platforms too.
They don't allow terrorism online.
But she uses the phrase extremism and the word content, which only she will define like Trudeau did.
I mean he called the peaceful truckers extremists.
He actually defamed them as violent too.
Ardern moves from rare terrorist attacks to treating everyone online as a potential terrorist and getting algorithms to suffocate dissenting opinions.
This week we launched an initiative alongside companies and non-profits to help improve research and understanding of how a person's online experiences are curated by automated processes.
This will also be important in understanding more about myths and disinformation online, a challenge that we must as leaders address.
Sadly, I think it's easy to dismiss this problem as one in the margins.
I can certainly understand the desire to leave it to someone else.
She's saying it's not rare.
She's saying it's not on the margins.
She's saying everyone you meet could be a potential terrorist.
Everyone who has extreme opinions, like opposing her on climate or the lockdowns, I imagine, that's extreme to her.
As leaders, we're rightly concerned that even the most light touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech that we value so highly.
But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it.
To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value.
Did you hear the word but appear there again?
I love free speech, but we can't ignore the problems with free speech, but it's a threat, but always the word but.
After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble?
How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists?
How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?
Is she saying that censoring people in New Zealand on Facebook will cause Putin and Zelensky to end a war?
Did the war start because of something her citizens said?
If not, why are they being punished for the war?
She literally says that free speech is a weapon of war that needs to be defeated.
The weapons may be different, but the goals of those who perpetuate them is often the same.
To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves.
To disband communities, to collapse the collective strength of countries who work together.
But we have an opportunity here to ensure that these particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare.
That's what she's saying.
She's saying that free speech is what caused the war, so it must be stopped.
It's actually violence, not just speech.
And so, we once again come back to the primary tool we have.
Diplomacy, dialogue, working together on solutions that do not undermine human rights but enhance them.
By the way, what diplomacy in Ukraine has she ever supported?
I haven't seen any.
Jacinda Ardern is an even more authoritarian bully than Justin Trudeau is.
And because New Zealand is an island, she can sort of be more abusive to her citizens than even Trudeau can be.
And their media is even worse than ours in many ways.
But she and Francis Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau all share the World Economic Forum globalist view on free speech, that it is the problem, not Putin.
Free speech is a weapon that needs to be destroyed.
But really, if all you need to know, if all the truth you could ever want comes from Jacinda Ardern herself, why would you ever want to think a thought by yourself?
Stay with us for more.
Nord Stream Sabotage & Beyond00:14:06
Well, there was a spectacular act of what many are calling sabotage, the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline that ships gas from Russia to Europe blown up.
Who did it?
Accusations that Russia did to themselves.
Other accusations that seem to me more logical or that it was done by a Western power.
Who knows?
The world is full of disinformation.
The Ukraine-Russian war is an example of that.
If you think that's hard to figure out, imagine trying to decipher what's going on in communist China.
There's a language barrier, a cultural barrier.
And of course, the great internet firewall of China makes it hard to pierce through that country's information.
And I ask that because what is happening to Xi Jinping?
There are internet rumors that he is facing internal dissent, which is a difficult thing to muster in an authoritarian regime.
Is that just propaganda?
Well, here's a tweet of Xi Jinping making a public appearance.
This is from our friend Gordon Zhi Cheng.
He shows an image of Xi Jinping appearing in public with a mask on.
Does that mean he's still alive?
Does that mean he's in power?
Does that mean there is no internal turmoil?
I find these things difficult to understand, but I want to understand them.
So we're delighted to have Gordon Cheng himself appear on our channel as he often does.
Gordon, great to see you again.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
What's going on in China?
What's up with Xi Jinping?
Is he in trouble?
Ezra, I think he is in a little bit of hot water.
And you'd expect that because you've got the economy in reality is contracting.
There's the debt crisis.
The currency is plunging.
Property prices and sales are falling.
And yet, Xi Jinping seems like he'll get his third term, precedent-breaking third term as general secretary of the Communist Party when the party holds its 20th National Congress in October.
The point here, though, is that there were rumors a week ago of a coup.
Those rumors were false, but something actually did happen.
We just don't know what.
So, for instance, about 60% of China's flights were canceled.
The Chinese military controls the airspace.
Rail and bus traffic into Beijing was canceled.
So, something did occur.
It's just that, as you say, China is very opaque, and we have no idea really of the full extent of what has occurred.
You know, that's fascinating.
Imagine shutting down just every airline.
It feels like something out of a Jason Bourne movie where, you know, the CIA would just turn off the power to catch one guy.
Who knows what the reason is behind that?
You know, I would have thought that Xi Jinping was doing well because of Russia's troubles.
I mean, Russia is looking for friends and allies, looking for customers for its oil and gas.
I mean, who knows what it's going to do now that that pipeline was blown up?
And Xi Jinping seems ready to stand by and be the bigger partner, the senior partner.
That's at least how it looked to me that one of the beneficiaries of the Russia-Ukraine war was China.
Am I wrong on that?
Did China manage to get cheap energy or political concessions from Putin?
Well, certainly China and India have gotten cheap energy, and China has been effectively financing the war with its elevated commodity purchases from Russia.
China benefits in the sense that the world now focuses on Putin.
So that means we're not focusing on Xi Jinping.
And I think that the Chinese feel that that's an advantage.
Also, they like the idea that the Russians are taking on the international order, and so they don't have to.
But clearly, Putin and Xi Jinping do view the world in the same terms.
They think their interests coincide, and they identify the same enemy, which is us.
I think if I was trying to explain NATO's approach to Ukraine, and you tell me what you think here, because I'm just going on a limb here.
Why is the U.S. Congress, why is the Pentagon, why is it so focused on the war, giving massive military grants?
And why is there almost no talk of peace negotiations from official sources?
My theory is that the Pentagon and also UK and other parts of NATO and the Five Eyes see that Russia is trapped in Ukraine and American military hardware.
And according to the New York Times, the CIA is helping to quarterback things out of Kiev.
It's sort of like they've got the Russian bear in a leg hole trap, and they're using modern American weapons to grind down Russia militarily, burn out its equipment, hurt its economy, harm Putin democratically.
So they don't really want peace because they are degrading Russia's military so substantially, and perhaps even in a way that caught Russia by surprise.
That's my theory.
There's sort of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
I mean, Ukraine is the punching bag, but it's Russian casualties to the NATO goal.
That's my theory.
I don't know what you think about that.
And I wonder if that's a premonition for what the U.S. might do, God forbid, if China were to make a move on Taiwan.
Obviously, the difference is Taiwan is an island that could be embargoed, whereas Ukraine can be supplied by land.
Maybe I'm wandering too much into speculation here or wandering off the subject, but I wonder if what NATO and America are doing in Ukraine is a and insofar as it may have shocked Putin, I wonder if there's any lesson there for China and its ambitions.
I think the lesson that China takes is very different from what we think.
The Western narrative is that the heroic resistance of Ukraine has made China think twice about invading Taiwan.
That's what we would like to believe.
I think, though, that China sees something very different, and that is the failure of the West to deter Russia from invading Ukraine.
You've got to remember that last year, the coalition that was arrayed against Russia, the United States, 27 nations of the European Union, and Great Britain had an economy that was 25.1 times larger than Russia's, and yet we absolutely failed to maintain peace in Ukraine.
And I think that China looks at that and says that the West is feeble, it's incapable, and so therefore Beijing has latitude to do what it wants.
Also, you know, they see the sanctions regime on Russia, and the sanctions regime hasn't stopped the Russian war machine.
So Beijing probably believes that any sanctions imposed on China for invading Taiwan or something else are not going to really affect Beijing's ability to accomplish its military objectives.
Yeah, I think that touches on something you and I discussed last time we met, which was if Western Europe couldn't get off of Russian oil and gas, like if they refused to sanction their own lifeline of energy from Russia, how could they possibly sanction China, which is so dominant in everything from electronics to, well, just there's almost no field of indebted pharmaceuticals.
90% plus of our medicine is made in China.
Our gadgets are made in China.
If you can't sanction Russia for natural gas, you're never going to sanction China for everything in the economy.
I think you're right.
That's probably the lesson they're saying, which is sanctions are more PR than bite, more bark than bite.
Yes.
Well, you know, I believe that that's what Beijing, in fact, thinks.
Now, we can talk all day about whether Beijing is right about that, because this is a complicated issue about the effect of sanctions and how they work.
But that's the lesson that I believe that Beijing has taken away.
And that's a very dangerous lesson because deterrence has already been breaking down.
It was breaking down we saw in March of last year when China sent its top two diplomats to Anchorage to talk to our top two diplomats.
And China, you know, in that open public session on the first day, actually said, well, look, the U.S. can no longer talk to China from a position of strength.
That was chilling.
But since then, we've seen the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the failure of deterrence in Ukraine.
And I believe that Beijing is looking at the world and thinking about what it can get away with.
You know, let me ask you this.
You mentioned perhaps some of the bubbles in China's economy are shrinking, the real estate bubbles, some of the banking issues.
I think that a lot of China's strength was its promise, its growth, lifting up hundreds of millions of people from poverty to the middle class.
I mean, just think about all the construction.
Think about all the infrastructure.
Like, it's such a promise.
China's promise is this enormous market that will move from poor to middle class.
But a lot of that is based on hope and confidence and projections.
I mean, it's a very large country now, but it has quite a long ways to go.
Perhaps if it had an existential conflict with the West that caused, if not actual sanctions, but caused a breaking of the psychological, emotional connection between China and the West, that the West no longer thought of China as a partner or a place to invest or a place to grow.
Maybe just the loss of confidence that China had unfettered access to the West, maybe that would cause collapse because it's still, you know, it's more promise than actual economic success.
Again, I'm speculating here.
I'm outside my area of expertise.
I guess what I'm saying is Russia already had a number of collapses.
It's shrunk in the world.
And you can't really shrink oil and gas.
That's a global commodity.
People are always going to want it.
But a lot of China's strength is the prospect of a million new skyscrapers, the prospect of new rail and airlines.
And that prospect depends on continued access to Western markets and capital.
Is there anything to that speculative theory?
I think what's occurring right now is that psychological change that you're talking about.
You know, we're starting to see companies withdraw from China, starting to build production facilities elsewhere so they're not so dependent on factories on Chinese soil.
And there's been a reassessment of China's role in the world.
So these are not working to the benefit of the Communist Party.
We are seeing, I think, very different attitudes.
And, you know, one thing that has triggered this, you know, we were just talking about Ukraine, is China's full-throated support for the Russian war effort in Eastern Europe.
That is something that has forced people in countries and companies and, you know, and barbershops to just see China in a very different light.
Let me ask you one last question about Hong Kong.
What a valiant, peaceful struggle the people of that city had in the streets, in the universities, but in the end, they succumbed to the relentless, I guess, soft violence.
That's a contradiction, but they succumbed, I think.
And no one there in the world was really there to help, and how would they help anyways?
I think a lot of lights have gone out in Hong Kong, especially in terms of democratic opposition, the media.
I find it incredibly sad.
And it's almost like there was no marking of that funeral.
It just sort of happened, I think.
I don't know.
I find it terribly sad.
But has the world actually pulled out of Hong Kong?
Have companies relocated to Singapore or thought twice?
Or are they saying, all right, well, we'll just keep doing business and now we'll know it's a little bit less free, but we need the money.
Like, has the death of freedom in Hong Kong actually hurt Hong Kong economically and China economically?
Or are, as was it Solzhenitsyn who said, please don't, capitalists will, or was it Lenin who said, capitalists will sell us the rope by which we'll hang them?
Are the world's capitalists just so hungry for that market that they don't care?
You see, businesses are reducing their exposure to Hong Kong.
They're moving to Singapore or elsewhere.
And largely, it's because what China has done in Hong Kong is it just smothered freedom.
And that has had consequences.
So Hong Kong right now is probably less free than the mainland.
There's less room for political conversation.
And that's having effect.
So I think that essentially we are going to see Hong Kong just a road.
It'll remain a financial center, Mesra, but it won't be an international financial center.
It will be a Chinese financial center like Chenzhen or Shanghai, but it won't be the same.
Very interesting.
I find these are dark days.
Hong Kong's Future00:03:21
And I don't want to be reflexive and say, well, if Donald Trump were here, these things wouldn't happen.
But I have to say, when Donald Trump was in power, a lot of these things did not happen.
I think a lot of authoritarians hesitated, didn't take risks because they, you know, the very things Trump was accused of, erratic, wild, radical, well, that's what actually scared the tyrants because they didn't know what Trump's reaction would be.
With Biden, you always know it's going to be underwhelming.
I mean, why did the Taliban make their move under Biden instead of under Trump?
Why did Russia make their move under Biden instead of Trump?
I'm not saying Trump is flawless, but I'm saying his very character, which liberals often hate, is probably what was necessary in this foreign affairs world today.
What do you think?
Yeah, it was Trump's unpredictability that I think deterred both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
You know, we have what is close to a real-life experiment.
Russia invaded Ukraine, took Crimea in 2014 during the Obama administration.
Nothing like that occurred during the Trump years.
And then, of course, we have the February invasion this year under Biden.
So clearly, you know, whatever it was, it certainly worked.
And Trump kept the peace.
And I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but essentially, I think Putin and C were just afraid of Trump.
I think they were.
Gordon, I learned so much from you.
And forgive me for throwing all my homemade theories at you.
I'm just so interested in these subjects.
And I don't know how it's going to go.
I'm a little bit worried.
I mean, for heaven's sakes, Putin's actually talking about nuclear weapons.
And I think we should be afraid of that.
I don't know if he means it, but we'll keep following you.
I enjoy following you on Twitter at Gordon G. Chang.
And I certainly encourage all our viewers to do so.
Thanks for your valuable time, my friend.
Oh, thank you so much, Ezra.
I really appreciated it.
Right on.
It's our pleasure.
There you have it.
Gordon Chang, what a pleasure to see him again.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your feedback on my interview with Manny Montenegrino teachering says, I am certain that Prime Minister Georgia Maloney is not losing sleep over Trudeau Snub.
She is more than likely aware of this guy and what he's all about.
Yeah, I don't think that Canada is top of mind for Giorgio Maloney.
I don't think Trudeau is top of mind.
I think she is battling real problems in Italy, economic problems.
Manny described some of those.
And I think she's battling problems within the European Union.
I mean, she has a lot to say about Emmanuel Macron.
I'm sure she has a lot to say about Germany, maybe on Russia.
But I really don't think that Trudeau is on the top of her mind.
But Trudeau's obviously obsessed with her.
On Sheila's monologue about the CBC, here's a letter from Kelly Abrams who says, Pierre better completely defund them when he becomes prime minister at all his rallies.
That is what he's promised, and it got the biggest cheers.
Majid Johari's Dilemma00:09:33
Zero dollars.
If he does not, then that will be a disappointment.
Well, a disappointment is one thing, but they're actually more dedicated as his enemy than even the Liberal Party of Canada is.
So I think it's not just keeping his principle.
It's self-preservation that he must defund them.
On Sheila's interview with Robbie Picard of OIL Sands, Strong Spielman says, even in the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, oil was the commodity most needed.
Hey, that's a great point.
I mean, nothing has done more than to lift humanity up out of drudgery and out of poverty and into prosperity and comfort than fossil fuels.
Nothing has, and it's linked to so many other metrics in life, to health, to longevity to, you know, infant mortality, to survive in cold weather or hot weather, to to build.
I mean just, there's nothing that is more correlated to human success than energy, and that energy comes from fossil fuels.
That's our show for today until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters.
See you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
David Menzies for Rebel NEWS here in Richmond Hill, Ontario.
And a massive protest is taking place right now on Young Street between uh 16th Avenue and Major Mackenzie.
Uh, it's actually being closed to traffic.
That's how big it is.
Thousands of people are here and the reason is much like the reason for protests erupting in Iran and all over the world.
Late last month, Masha Amini, a 22 year old Iranian woman, died in police custody very mysteriously.
Why was she arrested, you ask?
Well, the morality police arrested her because she wasn't wearing her hijab properly, can you imagine.
So the protest has spread to all of Iran's 31 provinces, to cities around the world.
And uh, here we are, in Richmond Hill, where there are literally thousands of people taking to the street, and I got to tell you folks, two questions spring to mind.
One is what can Canada and other western democracies do to help the Iranian people right now, especially since thousands have been arrested, dozens have been killed while demonstrating.
And secondly um, isn't it funny?
Uh, maybe he's here, but I don't think he is the liberal mp for this riding the writing of Richmond Hale.
That would be Majid Johari.
I don't think he'll dare show his face today, much like he didn't dare show his face at the vigil two years ago when the Ukrainian Airlines uh plane was shot down.
That's because, if you can imagine folks, Majid Johari actually supports this regime.
Yes, a Canadian member of parliament is an ally of the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it even terrorizes its own people.
In any event, let's wade into the crowd and see what these folks have to say.
The Islamic Republic is not Iran.
I think most people here, virtually everybody, would agree with that.
I guess there's a lot of people experiencing buyers remorse from the 1979 revolution.
Yeah, I agree with that and that's why we're all here and we're supporting the people and our people and we are our, their voice in here.
And you know, it's such a shame what happened to miss Amini?
She was arrested by the morality police, died for not allegedly wearing her hijab properly.
How can this force be called the morality police?
That seems to be the most immoral thing possible, killing someone for not wearing clothing properly.
That is just shameful and this is not right.
These protests have spread to all 31 of Iran's provinces.
They've spread to major cities around the world.
Here we are in Richmond Hill.
Thousands of people.
Here's a big question though.
In terms of tangible change in Iran, what would you like to see countries like Canada do to help the Iranian people?
Sure, the main thing that we want to get across is getting the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
They have a lot of family here.
There's going to be people here that you don't know.
They're associated with the regime back home, but they are.
They're going to be taking pictures of everyone, trying to catch them back home, putting them in prison.
So that's something we want to put a stop to.
They own a property in Bridal Path.
They own multiple businesses all around the GTA.
We want to put a stop to that.
Vancouver, all across Canada.
We want to put a stop to that.
Be our voice and support us.
Now it's the time for the regime to go.
Now we're looking for the revolution.
We are here.
We're looking for the revolution.
We want revolution.
Be our voice.
Now it's the time.
Please.
Now it's the time.
Be our voice.
First of all, I think Canada can do whatever the state did before.
Here is like a country that Iranian government used as a money laundering country.
Okay?
And for example, the military system used this country as a backyard, okay, to send the family, the money, everything to Canada, but they stay in Iran.
Well, sanctions are first, but support them.
Be there and be their voice.
They need to hear that the world is with them because they're running towards bullets.
So they need all the support they can get.
You know, certain people, they're not backing up the population of Iran, the actual Persians, and that's, you know, that's not really good.
But, you know, we all stand up together.
We call it out.
Make sure you guys know about Nassau Amini.
She was a 22 years old who lost her life, got murdered by morality police in Iran.
And we're here for the freedom.
Hopefully this revolution will happen and everything will change.
That country.
Support the people.
Support the people.
Announce this dictatorship must come to an end.
Hello, my friend.
I'm just reading your sign.
We stand with the brave woman of Iran.
What do you think our government should do to help the people of Iran right now?
Just gone.
Pardon me?
Just gone.
Just guns?
Yeah.
Okay, then.
Just guns.
Hey, do you think that's going to happen, folks?
Justin Trudeau is managing the biggest gun grab in Canadian history.
Then again, there's going to be a lot of inventory.
Maybe those firearms should be sent to the people in the streets of Tehran.
But I don't think this prime minister has the intestinal fortitude to do that.
And how do you feel about the fact that the liberal MP for this riding of Richmond Hill, Majid Johari, he's actually a supporter of the regime.
I don't think you're going to have a voice with that.
I mean, how is it possible that someone in a Western democracy would support the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism?
I don't know why he's here and he should not even be living here and this is very shameful.
And I feel very sorry that he's, I don't even feel sorry that he's not here.
And he should be very shameful of himself.
He should be very shameful.
He probably doesn't dare show his face at this protest.
Yeah, because nobody accepting her and we don't want him.
And we don't want him in parliament.
We don't want him anymore.
He should leave.
Well, hopefully there'll be regime change in Iran and in Canada.
I hope so too.
Be our boys, please.
Women, live, freedom.
Jian Azadi.
This is Farzi.
I don't understand it.
I know who he is, Majid Johari.
Yes.
Is he here today?
No.
What do you think that is?
No one see him.
Yeah, no one see him.
And he's not here because he actually supports the regime, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
He supports the regime.
He supports the regime.
He's liberal.
Well, folks, what a sight this is.
This is indeed the hill in Richmond Hill, the hill leading up to Major Mackenzie here on Young Street.
And in the 24 years I've lived in this city, I have never seen a demonstration of this size.
Literally, the hill is alive with the sound of protests.
But the thing is, that's the big question is, isn't it?
In the days and weeks to come, will we see anything tangible happen in the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Will there indeed be regime change or will the mullahs there brutally snuff out this protest that is occurring with their own people?
And secondly, unfortunately, we really can't expect the Justin Trudeau liberals to stand up to the regime.
Sure, they'll throw a few sanctions here and there, but they turn a blind eye to the agents that are here.
They turn a blind eye to the money laundering.
They turn a blind eye to members of the regime coming into Canada who literally have blood on their hands.
And look at the MP for the federal riding of Richmond Hill, Majid Johari, an ally to the mullahs in Iran.
Can you imagine?
It just goes to show, I think, with friends like Majid Johari, who needs enemies?