Ezra Levant and John Mearsheimer argue Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion was a defensive response to NATO expansion, including Ukraine’s EU integration and the Orange Revolution, with no evidence of Putin’s imperial ambitions. Mearsheimer predicts frozen conflicts like Korea’s 38th parallel, warns Western demands for regime change and reparations escalate tensions, and notes Europe’s pivot toward China amid U.S.-Russia rivalry. Meanwhile, Andy Lee exposes CCP-linked diplomats using "wolf warrior" intimidation tactics on Twitter, targeting Canadians like Michael Chong, with plans to publish 30+ documented cases in a book. Concerns arise over foreign interference risks to democracy, including Trudeau’s controversial appointment of David Johnson—a figure with deep CCP ties—as special rapporteur—while debates over Canadian identity clash with global ideological pressures, raising questions about liberalism’s future in the face of rising authoritarian influence. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I want to take you through a very interesting speech by Professor John Mearsheimer, who takes an alternative view to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Mearsheimer is a longtime supporter of Ukraine.
In fact, he argued it should never have given up its nukes 30 years ago after the Cold War.
But he thinks this current war is untenable, and he'll give you the reasons why.
I'll play about 10 clips of it for you.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of the show.
I'd like you to see, I mean, you'll hear what Mearsheimer has to say.
Of course, you will.
But I would like you to see him also.
And I think his presentation is enhanced by seeing him.
And of course, we play other videos too.
To see him, you just need what we call Rebel News Plus.
Go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month to get the video version of the podcast and the satisfaction of helping one of the few media companies in the country that does not take any government money.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, an eminent foreign affairs scholar has bad news about the Ukraine-Russia war.
It's June 8th, and this is the Azure Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious thug.
John Mearsheimer is a senior professor and scholar at the University of Chicago, very prestigious school.
Putin's Vision for Victory00:15:43
He's a political scientist.
He studies foreign relations.
He's a Cold War buff, and we're in a new Cold War now, don't you think?
He's been around for a while.
He's in his mid-70s, and he's no stranger to controversy.
If it matters to you, he has said that he was a Bernie Sanders supporter, but I don't think it should matter because his expertise is foreign affairs, not domestic politics.
I was just disclosing it to you.
He gave a speech a few days ago in Germany that I stumbled across on TikTok.
That's the China-controlled social media app.
I can't tell you how hard it was to try to find that speech on Western search engines.
I couldn't, actually.
I had to go back in through TikTok and find it there.
That's how it is with this war.
I'm certain that the algorithms are suppressing critical voices.
Mearsheimer is interesting on Ukraine.
Do you know that after the Berlin Wall fell, I think you know this, and the Soviet republics, you know, it was the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
So Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
It was a republic, but of course it became an independent country again.
But of course, there were Russian military bases, Soviet military bases in all these republics, and Ukraine had a rather large one.
Of course, it had the seat port of Sevastopol.
Ukraine, when the Soviet Union disintegrated, was left with a massive military, including a lot of nuclear weapons.
Like all of a sudden, Ukraine was at the grown-up table.
But the United States and the United Kingdom presided over a treaty whereby Ukraine would give up its nukes in return for a promise of protection from the West.
Well, Mearsheimer was against that at the time.
He thought that taking away Ukraine's nukes made it vulnerable to Russia to re-invade it, especially if Ukraine were to move out of Russia's political and economic orbit and reorient towards the West.
I say this because Mearsheimer is no pro-Russia shill.
He's the one who said, don't give up your nukes, Ukraine.
Don't do it.
It's your only way to protect yourself.
And isn't he right?
It's unthinkable that Putin would have invaded if Ukraine had nukes.
That's the thing about nukes.
No country that has them has ever been invaded, nor could they could they ever be invaded.
There's a reason for that, which we should think about a little bit as we talk about fighting and killing Russians.
Here's a Republican named Lindsey Graham.
Free or dying.
Free or die.
Now you're free.
Yes, and we will be.
And the Russians are dying.
Was it the best money we've ever spent?
Thank you so much.
Yeah, that's awful.
Democrat or Republican.
Is that how we talk these days?
What do you think of that kind of talk?
Anyways, Mearsheimer talks about another treaty involving Ukraine.
It was called Minsk, Minsk II.
It's named after the Eastern European city.
In 2015, they had a treaty that they hammered out there.
This was after Russia's first invasion of Ukraine.
And reading through Minsk II, as it was called, it sounds pretty good now.
Ceasefire in Ukraine, withdraw heavy weapons from Ukraine, release prisoners of war, have constitutional reforms to give more power and protection to the Donbass region.
That's sort of the Russian-speaking Russian ethnicity region.
Maybe it would be like Scotland having its own first minister or something.
Now, Vladimir Putin seems to have really believed in the Minsk II accords.
But incredibly, the former leaders of Germany and France who negotiated them too, they have since admitted it was basically a trick just to keep Russia busy and buy Ukraine more time.
They never stopped their plans to militarize Ukraine, apparently.
Here's a story in Reuters, and I'm quoting Western sources here.
Here's a Reuters story.
Putin had been asked about remarks by former German chancellor Engela Merkel, one of the agreement's sponsors, who told the Cyt magazine in an interview published on Wednesday that the 2014 agreement had been, quote, an attempt to give Ukraine time, which it had used to become more able to defend itself.
Russian media and politicians have quickly construed this as a betrayal on Merkel's part.
Okay, well, here's the story in the pro-Ukraine Kiev independent newspaper.
So again, I'm quoting from Western sources here, not Russian sources, the Kiev Independent.
In an interview with the German newspaper Dietzeit, Engela Merkel said about the Minsk protocols that, quote, it was obvious that the conflict was going to be frozen, that the problem was not solved, but it just gave Ukraine precious time.
And then they asked the former French president, Holland, they said, do you also believe that the negotiations in Minsk were intended to delay Russian advances in Ukraine?
And Francois Holland, that's the former president of France, says, yes, Angela Merkel is right on this point.
So they admit that their peace talks with Russia were just to keep Russia fooled and busy while they were militarizing and preparing for the next battle with Russia.
That's some background because Mearsheimer is going to refer to it.
By the way, Mearsheimer says that if these various peace deals, if the Minsk Accords had been done, he thinks there's no way Russia would have invaded because it wouldn't have felt surrounded and threatened by a militarized Ukraine right on its doorstep.
He thinks that had the West actually meant those peace treaties, Ukraine today would be peaceful and whole, and Russia wouldn't have invaded and Crimea would still be part of Ukraine.
He argues that Russia did not invade Ukraine this last year to create a new empire, but rather to stop its feeling of being encircled that the West insists on doing.
So I found this speech on TikTok, the Chinese app, which tells me that the NATO apps don't want to show it.
And I watched it all the way through and I found it very interesting.
I'm not saying I agree with it all.
It was just so startling to hear from.
I want to show you about a dozen clips from Mearsheimer's speech, mainly because I've never heard this point of view expressed before.
It's clear that he likes Ukraine.
He sympathizes with Ukraine.
He warned it against disarming 30 years ago.
He wishes it were peaceful, but he is called a Putin sympathizer because he thinks the war right now is foolish and dangerous.
But of course.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about Mearsheimer and a little bit about the Nuke Agreement and the Minsk Agreements because they're referred to in the speech and it helps to know what that was about.
So here's some clips, and I'd like your thoughts on this.
What do you think about what I'm going to show you?
And have you ever even heard this point of view before?
And do you agree that you can be against the war without being for Putin?
Here, let's start with Mearsheimer outlining what he thinks are the four parts of this conversation.
What I want to do is give a four-part talk on Ukraine, the Ukraine war.
And I want to first talk about the causes of the Ukraine war.
Then I want to talk about what is likely to happen on the battlefield in the conflict.
In other words, who is going to win the war.
Then third, I want to talk about the prospects for a peace agreement or the prospects for a diplomatic solution.
And then fourth, I want to talk about the future of European-Russian relations or the future of relations between Russia and the West.
And of course, that is great relevance for Germany.
So those are the four parts of the talk.
All right, let's get right into it.
Here is Mearsheimer making the case that Russia did not plan to expand.
It was not feasible.
It was not something that they wanted to do.
They are not on an imperialistic, aggressive, conquering streak.
He says he believes that it was a defensive military operation.
Here, he makes the case.
What do you think?
Let me start with the causes of the war.
How did this happen?
The conventional wisdom, as almost all of you know, is that it's Vladimir Putin's fault and that Vladimir Putin is an imperialist or an expansionist at heart.
And what he wanted to do was either create a greater Russia or recreate the Soviet Union.
And to do this, he had to first start by conquering and annexing Ukraine, making it part of Russia.
And Ukraine was, of course, Joe's first target.
When he was finished with Ukraine, he would go on to the Baltic states or to Poland or to Romania.
This is a man who had imperial ambitions.
And therefore, it's commonplace in the West to say that the attack was unprovoked.
In other words, we did nothing.
It was Vladimir Putin who was in the driver's seat.
And he was not provoked.
He started this war because he has imperial ambitions.
That of course is the conventional wisdom.
There is no evidence to support that line of evidence.
I want to underline that.
There is no evidence.
You have to ask yourself three questions when you hear that line of argument.
First of all, where does he say that that's desirable, right?
That it's a desirable thing to do.
Where does he say that that's a feasible thing to do?
And where does he say that's what I plan to do?
And the answer is there is no evidence that he said that this was desirable to incorporate Ukraine into Russia.
There's no evidence that he said that it was feasible.
And there's no evidence that he believed that this was what he was setting out to do.
Just no evidence.
You know, there's something in the Americas called the Monroe Doctrine.
It basically is an American policy that says no foreign power can set up a base or can interfere with politics in North America, of course, or Central or South America.
That's the reason why when the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba or were starting to, Kennedy embargoed that country, put the naval blockade and really brought the world to the brink of nuclear war because he did not want to break the principle that you cannot have enemy weapons that close to America.
That's the Monroe doctrine.
And the way Mearsheimer describes it is Russia is feeling sort of the same way that America felt in the 60s, that NATO is growing, even though the Cold War is over and they're being encircled.
Here, here's how he puts it.
What really is going on here is that the West is principally responsible for causing this war.
And it's because the West was bent on turning Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia's border.
And there were three parts to the West strategy.
The first was to include Ukraine in NATO.
The second was to include Ukraine in the European Union.
And the third element of the strategy was to turn Ukraine into a liberal democracy that had a pro-West orientation.
And of course, we talked about this as the Orange Revolution.
Those were the three elements in the strategy.
The most important of the three was, of course, NATO expansion.
In April of 2008, at the NATO summit in Bucharest, NATO said that Ukraine would become part of NATO.
Putin was actually at that meeting, and Putin made it clear at the time, and Russian leaders had made it clear even before the Bucharest meeting, that Ukraine in NATO, Ukraine as a Western bulwark on Russia's border, was an existential threat, and they were not going to allow that to happen.
Just not going to happen.
So how is it going to end?
Well, it's a terrible vision, but I have trouble challenging it.
He says that Russia will annex a big chunk of Ukraine, like it did last time.
It'll continue to.
In fact, he thinks that Russia will get more territory.
And he says that both sides will engage in a form of ethnic cleansing.
Now, I don't think he means murder or concentration camps per se.
I think he means that in the Russian areas conquered by Russia, they'll drive out Ukrainians.
And in the remaining part of Ukraine that he calls a rump, a smaller country, Russians will be driven out of there too.
So you'll have both countries sort of pull back their ethnic citizens, and it'll just be a permanent frozen war.
Here, take a listen.
Now, the next question that I want to address is what's likely to happen on the battlefield, right?
Given where we are today, who is likely to win this war?
This is one of the most difficult questions to wrestle with because the media coverage of the subject is so terrible.
Anything that happens on the battlefield, the West, Western media twists in ways that make it look like the Ukrainians are doing well and the Russians are doing poorly.
So you don't get a very good sense of what's going on from looking at the mainstream media in the West.
My basic argument is the Russians are going to win the war.
And once I say that, two questions come to the fore.
The first question is, what does victory mean?
If I say the Russians are going to win the war, what does that mean?
And then the second question that you want to ask yourself is, why is John saying that the Russians are going to win?
What's the basis of his argument?
Okay, so those are the two questions.
Why Russians Won't Conquer All Ukraine00:04:45
Now, when I say the Russians are going to win the war, I am not saying that they are going to conquer all of Ukraine.
They're going to conquer all of Ukraine and then cause regime change in Kyiv, right?
And so that they get a neutral government and then withdraw.
That's not going to happen.
They're not going to win a decisive victory.
What the Russians are going to do is the Russians are going to take a huge chunk of Ukrainian territory and they're going to annex it.
And furthermore, because they're not likely to get regime change and get a government that is neutral, they are going to make sure that Ukraine is a dysfunctional rump state.
Dysfunctional in the sense that its economy is in constant trouble and dysfunctional in the sense that they're going to be constantly interfering in Ukraine's politics, hopefully to get regime change from their point of view.
And then it's going to be a rump state because it's going to be only part of what is today or what was in 2014 Ukraine.
I think it's likely that the Russians will not give back Crimea or the four oblasts that they have already annexed.
They've already annexed, as you know, four oblasts, two of them in the Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson.
And I believe they will end up, if they can militarily, annexing four more oblasts, including Odessa and Kharkiv.
I'm not saying that they will do that, but I believe they will try to do that.
They will concentrate on incorporating those areas that have lots of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in them.
And they will avoid those areas that are populated mainly by ethnic Russians.
As all of you know, there was a huge conflict in the Donbass from February 2014, when the crisis first broke out.
up until February 24th, 2022, when the war broke out, the war that's now going on.
There was a civil war, in effect, taking place in the Donbass between the Ukrainian government and the ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in the Donbass.
The Russians want to make sure that that will never happen again.
And as a result, they will cleave off those areas that have lots of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers to avoid the Donbass problem.
And I hate to say this, but I think there will be a significant amount of ethnic cleansing.
And I believe there has already been ethnic cleansing, where ethnic Ukrainians will move out of those areas that the Russians annex, and ethnic Russians and Russians remaining in areas that are part of that rump Ukraine will move to the Russian areas.
The hypernationalism that now exists in Ukraine is so powerful that it's going to be very difficult for people who identify in any way with Russia to remain in that Ukrainian rump state.
And it'd be very difficult for ethnic Ukrainians to remain in that Russian annexed territory.
Now, Mearsheimer makes a prediction about how the war is going to end militarily.
And this is so hard to know because the only reporters on the ground where these battles are happening are either embedded with the Ukrainian forces or embedded with the Russian forces.
There's no independent neutral reporting there.
And so each side is obviously puffing up their wins and minimizing their losses.
It's only when each team admits to a loss that I think we can credibly trust them.
I don't think we can trust either side when they boast of a win, only when they make an admission against their own interests.
Resolve and Territory00:15:03
But despite that, Mearsheimer says, look, I think there's certain facts that we can tell.
In terms of manpower and artillery, that we can know.
And he says that with Russia's growth and Ukraine being partly conquered and millions of Ukrainians leaving the country as refugees, the population imbalance is enormous.
And the artillery ratio, just plain old big guns and shells that Russia has versus Ukraine, it's five to one or even ten to one.
He says there's simply no way to beat that, at least not quickly.
Here, take a look.
This is a classic attrition war.
This is like World War I. In fact, it's more like World War I than it is like World War II.
And you have two armies, two large armies, standing toe-to-toe, beating the living daylights out of each other, bleeding the other side white, or trying to bleed the other side white.
There's no blitzkrieg involved here.
This is not France 1940, right?
This is the Western Front in World War I.
And in a war of attrition, two things really matter.
One is population size.
How many people do you have?
And basically we're talking about how many young men do you have.
And number two, what does the balance of artillery look like?
And the reason the balance of artillery matters is that in a war of attrition, artillery is the principal weapon on the battlefield.
When I was in the army back in the day, artillery was referred to as the king of battle.
Can you dispute it?
And of course, it is possible.
to beat Russia, depends on how deeply the United States or the United Kingdom get involved.
But how do you beat a nuclear power?
If something goes horribly wrong, at the end of the day, they have that high-risk approach of using, God forbid, may it never happen, tactical nukes in Ukraine.
And it's atrocious to even talk about it.
But isn't that the reason why Russia and the United States have not fought with each other since the dawn of the nuclear era, mutually assured destruction?
Mearsheimer makes the case that the tough talk in the West, what we saw Lindsey Graham talking about, or even Justin Trudeau and Melanie Jolie talking about not only extirpating every Russian from Ukraine, but going back and conquering Crimea, which is what Zelensky proposes.
The way Mearsheimer sees it is that these threats from America and NATO and Zelensky to drive Russia out of Ukraine, out of Crimea, to have war reparations, to have international criminal court crimes against humanity trials, war crimes trials.
These are various demands.
And I've seen them myself when I was in Davos.
Ukraine had a public pavilion calling for war crimes trials and reparations.
If that happens, whether against Putin or some successor, I think Mearsheimer's right to say that that feels like an existential threat to Russia.
There are even some people who say Russia itself should be broken up into pieces.
So remember that Russia is used to enormous odds before from the West.
They were invaded from the West before, whether it was Napoleon or Hitler.
And in both cases, they just, the meat grinder churned up thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Russian men, but they stopped the attack.
They're used to invasions from the West, and it's a deep part of their psyche.
Here's Mearsheimer talking about it.
So the only hope the Ukrainians have is that they have more resolve to stay in the fight than the Russians do.
But they're not going to have more resolve.
The Russians have tremendous resolve because they're facing an existential threat.
And by the way, I didn't fully develop the existential threat that they're facing.
It's not only that we're interested in making Ukraine a Western bulwark on their border.
You understand that once the war started, we said, this is mainly the Americans, that what we're going to do is we're going to defeat the Russian army in Ukraine.
We're going to wreck its economy.
We're going to affect regime change.
We're going to put Putin on trial.
And now there's even talk in the West about breaking apart Russia the way the Soviet Union broke apart in December 1991.
This is a serious threat.
This is an existential threat.
The Russians are going to fight like wild dogs to make sure that this doesn't happen.
We're threatening the survival of this state.
And when the great power's survival is threatened, you do not want to underestimate the price that they will be willing to pay to prevent that outcome.
So in terms of the balance of resolve, I fully understand and I can sympathize with the Ukrainians for wanting to win this war and to hang in there, given what's happening to their country.
I understand that.
But the Russians, I believe, have every bit as much resolve as the Ukrainians do.
This is the basis of my conclusion that Russia will ultimately win the war.
So Mearsheimer says that there will be no military victory for the West.
But how can there be a diplomatic deal?
How can people split the difference?
Either you have some of Ukraine or you don't.
Here, listen to Mearsheimer say that even though the military win is elusive, how do you get a diplomatic win?
How do you get a deal at all?
Here's Mearsheimer.
There's no deal to be had here.
Now you're saying to yourself, why is John saying that?
Two reasons.
First of all, there's no territorial compromise, one.
And number two, there is no compromise on the question of whether Ukraine is neutral or not.
And let me unpack that for you, just on territory.
Unsurprisingly, Ukraine wants all of its territory back.
Maybe in an ideal world, the Ukrainians would be willing to give up Crimea, but they're certainly not going to be willing to give up those four oblasts that the Russians have annexed.
They are now part of Russia.
And the Russians have made it unequivocally clear they are not giving those oblasts back.
And you can't blame the Russians any more than you can blame the Ukrainians for wanting them back.
The Russians are fighting a major war.
They think their survival's at stake.
Those four oblasts really matter for strategic reasons, not to mention the fact that they're filled with Russians, ethnic Russians, and Russian speakers.
And if the Ukrainian government, which is now on a tirade against anything Russian, gets that territory back, you've got the Donbass problem back again in spades this time.
So the Russians are not going to give up the territory they've taken, and the Ukrainians are not going to be satisfied till they get that territory back.
And if I'm right that the Russians are going to take more territory further to the West, they're not going to get that back, and the Ukrainians are going to want it back.
How do you solve that problem?
There's no solution.
You can't square that circle.
Then there's the question of neutrality.
The Russians do not want Ukraine to be allied with the West, whether it's a de jure relationship with NATO or a de facto relationship with NATO.
That is unacceptable.
They want a neutral Ukraine.
And as I said to you, if they can't get that, they'll turn it into a dysfunctional rump state that will never qualify to come into NATO or into the EU, which is what they're doing now.
Well, if you're Ukraine, do you want to be neutral?
You can't protect yourself.
There's no question.
I gave you the population figures, right?
There's no way Ukraine can protect itself.
If the West wasn't bankrolling Ukraine today, Ukraine would have lost long ago.
This next point is a very important one.
In Canada, if you are a Russian anything, a Russian athlete, a Russian musician, you are called upon to denounce yourself and denounce your country or you will be kicked out of a sporting competition.
You know, I suppose there's some Russian restaurants.
I wonder if they've changed the name of their restaurant.
I mean, there's such a hypernationalism, and I'm going to say Russophobia.
And on the other side, too, I mean, Russia itself, nationalism is inflamed against Ukraine.
And I mean, we see that here in Canada.
And by the way, besides the hypernationalism, how do you build trust?
When, as I just showed you, Angela Merkel and François Hollande said the whole negotiations last time were just to buy time to rearm Ukraine.
Here's Mearsheimer.
I think this is the most depressing part of his whole speech.
He says Ukraine cannot win the war, but there's no way to even win the peace either.
Take a look.
Just two other very quick points on this.
Remember, I talked about the territorial problem as an obstacle, and I talked about the neutrality problem as an obstacle.
Those are the two big obstacles.
There are two other obstacles.
One is the hypernationalism that is now at play.
If you read the papers over the past few weeks, the Ukrainians are going to enormous lengths to de-Russify Ukraine.
It's really quite amazing what's happening here.
And if you look at what the Russians are doing in the areas that they're annexing, what they're doing is issuing Russian passports, asking people to use the ruble.
They're making them Russian areas, right?
So you have this growing hatred between the Russians and the Ukrainians, not only inside Ukraine, but pre-2014 Ukraine, but also between the two countries.
This happens when major powers go to war against each other, right?
Hypernationalism kicks in very quickly.
But that makes it very hard to cut a deal.
And furthermore, there's very little trust here because Angela Merkel and President Poroshenko and President Zelensky and the French president, Francois Hollande, have all made it clear that they misled Putin in the negotiations on the Minsk II agreement.
Putin was deeply committed to making Minsk II work.
Putin did not want to have to invade Ukraine.
This gets back to the first point.
He had no interest whatsoever in invading Ukraine.
He wanted Minsk II to work.
But those other individuals who participated in the negotiations with him have now made it clear they were just stringing the Russians along so that Ukraine could build up its economy and build up its military.
So what kind of a example, what kind of a template are we possibly looking at?
Well, he gives the unhappy example of the 38th parallel between North and South Korea, that technically the war never stopped.
It just sort of froze.
Here's that comparison.
You're not going to get a meaningful peace agreement.
You may get a frozen conflict.
This may look like the 38th parallel in Korea, right?
But you're not going to shut this one down.
We have really opened Pandora's box here.
No, the future that he sees is really a return to the Cold War, where Russia interferes with and meddles not just in Ukraine, but also in all Western relations, undermines.
And of course, the same thing.
I don't know if you saw this the other day.
An enormous dam was blown up, flooding huge parts of the territory.
And America immediately said, Russia did that.
But I think that's about as plausible as Russia blowing up its own pipeline or Russia blowing up its strategic bridge in Ukraine.
It doesn't benefit Russia to blow up its own dam, but by breaking the dam, it flooded Russian defenses and may cut off water to key industries and populations.
So I think that that kind of sabotage and cloak and dagger fighting, I think that we haven't really seen Russia do that to the West, thank God, but I fear it may come.
Mearsheimer doesn't say that would happen, but he says at least political interference would happen.
You take a look.
Come to the final subject I want to talk about, which is the future of relations between the West and Russia.
These relations are poisonous.
The Russophobia in the United States is off the charts.
The Russophobia here in Europe is off the charts.
The commitment to defending Ukraine here in Europe and in the United States is astounding.
Many, many people are deeply committed to helping Ukraine, and they despise Putin, and they despise Russia in a way almost anything Russian at this point in time is despised.
It's really quite remarkable.
So you have these poisonous relations.
Do you think they're going to go away?
You think relations between Russia and Germany are going to improve over time?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Because here's the problem.
Nordic NATO Implications00:06:56
The West is going to remain committed to rump Ukraine.
Let's assume you get a rump state, right?
And let's assume that you get a frozen conflict.
The West is not going to bail out on Ukraine.
We're going to continue to support Ukraine.
We're going to do everything we can to support Ukraine and undermine Putin or his successor or more generally, the Russians.
The Americans are certainly going to do this.
You can rest assured of that.
You Europeans might not be so enthusiastic about that, but the Americans will go to great lengths to cause trouble with the Russians.
You'll support the Ukrainians.
And this will, of course, anger the Russians.
And then you understand the Russians have a deep-seated interest in interfering in the politics of the West.
They have a deep-seated interest in interfering in elections to make sure that people get elected who are sympathetic to Russia.
They'll exploit the tensions between countries like Germany and Poland, Germany and France.
They'll exploit tensions between the United States and Europe, and there's real potential for trouble there.
And of course, what happens when America and Europe want to freeze out Russia?
Well, who's going to take the place of each side?
Who is Europe going to do business with?
Well, China.
And who's Russia going to do business with?
Well, China.
Here's how China wins every way.
Let's talk a little bit about China.
Given that Europe is suffering because its economic ties with Russia have been cut, Europe has a deep-seated interest in making sure it has very good economic relations with China, which is very important.
The Americans, on the other hand, are waging an economic war against China.
You understand we're in a security competition, we mean in the United States.
We're in a security competition with China.
It has two dimensions.
There's a military dimension, containment, and it has an economic dimension.
And the economic dimension involves sophisticated or cutting-edge technologies.
We in the United States are scared stiff that the Chinese are going to beat us in terms of developing sophisticated technologies.
So what we're doing now is we're trying to reduce the inflow of technologies on the cutting edge into China.
The Chinese fully understand this, and they're looking for other countries to trade with and to get sophisticated technologies or technologies that help them develop those sophisticated technologies and just help their economy grow.
And they're going to look to Europe.
And Europe is going to look to China because you're going to need trade with China.
China's going to need trade with you.
And that's going to cause real tensions between the United States and Europe.
And as you know already, the United States has not been hurt very much by this war compared to how badly Europe and countries like Germany have been hurt by this war.
And in a world where the United States is telling you you should curtail your trade with China, that's not going to make you very happy.
But this is just another opportunity for the Russians to exploit these cleavages that exist.
You know, here's one of the final things Mearsheimer says.
He mentions the two historically neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, joined NATO.
And he says, if you look at that part of the world now, Russia is again surrounded by NATO countries.
And I'm worried about it.
And Mearsheimer is too.
For years, Sweden and Finland could say, well, we're neutral.
We're Western-oriented, but we're not militarized and we're not set against Russia.
And now they are.
And for what?
As a provocation?
I am genuinely worried.
And like Mearsheimer, I think that Ukraine gave up its only Trump card, its nukes.
And so it's relying on the West to protect it, but the West cannot protect it because the West cannot get into a shooting war with Russia.
Mearsheimer is right on that.
You cannot fight with a great power with nukes and win.
You cannot.
Both sides can lose, but one side cannot win.
Just one final point on this.
A lot of people think it's wonderful that Finland and Sweden have joined NATO.
I think this is the wrong way to think about this.
The Russians already feel like they're being encircled by NATO.
The Russians will tell you, just look at a map of Europe today.
Look at all the countries that belong to NATO and look at how close they are to us.
So let's add two more, Finland and Sweden.
And then let's look at the Baltic Sea.
And you know, the Russians care very much about the Baltic Sea, especially because of Kaleningrad.
They care.
The Baltic Sea is surrounded by NATO countries now that Finland and Sweden are in.
Just take a look at a map sometime.
And then even more importantly, there's the Arctic.
All that ice is melting.
That's opening up all sorts of economic opportunities in the Arctic, and it's presenting strategic problems.
There are eight countries, eight countries that are geographically located in the Arctic.
Seven of them now belong to NATO.
One, the other one, Russia.
One versus seven.
And you know, by the way, the Russians are now approaching the Chinese about getting the Chinese to work with them in the Arctic.
And the Chinese, of course, are very willing to do this.
But the other way of thinking about this is the Russians are outnumbered seven to one.
So if a dispute comes up in the Arctic, crisis breaks out in the Arctic, and they're outnumbered seven to one, and most of their conventional forces are in Europe, in Ukraine.
I think what they're going to do is rely more on nuclear weapons up there.
So you just want to remember, when you're dealing with a great power like Russia, and you threaten its survival, you're pushing that great power into a situation where it's going to pursue risky strategies.
Ukraine's Sovereignty Matters00:04:23
And this is a great power that has thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at us.
And the idea that you can back them into a corner and you can threaten to push them off a cliff is for me an incredibly foolish way to think about doing business.
So what do you think of that?
I showed you a lot of clips.
It's hard to find that speech online, but I've showed you a lot of elements from it.
One thing that made me ask myself when I think of how Justin Trudeau, Melanie Jolie, Christia Freeland, Joe Biden, every Western politician, every TV pundit, is what is the end game here, not just for Ukraine, which obviously is the proxy here, it's the cannon fodder, but what's the end game for NATO, for the West, for us?
I mean, misery and loss for Ukrainians, but for the West, too.
All the enormous effort to end the Cold War and warm things up, and we're back in it.
Again, what exactly is a win?
When our leaders say they're with Ukraine till the end, what end are they talking about?
I mean, like this.
Mr. Putin, we will stand with Ukraine as long as it takes, as much as it takes.
For as long as it takes, we will stand shoulder to shoulder together with our European partners for Ukraine.
Canadians know that in order to get to lasting peace, we need to make sure that we continue to arm Ukraine.
And when doing so, there's still a lot to do.
And for sure, we will be doing more.
That's what I can tell you right now.
It's not about doing Ukraine favors that we're talking about.
Supplying Ukraine with weapons, and as President Zelensky very crucially pointed out, supplying Ukraine with the money it needs to win the war is ultimately in our own self-interest.
One thing where we have some real practical levers is we can help Ukraine win clearly, definitively.
And if we do that, if that happens this year, you know it as well as I do, Farid.
That would be a huge boost to the global economy.
What exactly is a win?
Well, I think for the soldiers and the civilian population in Ukraine, part of a win is simply a ceasefire.
But apparently the United States is opposed to that.
Let's remember, this war could actually end right now if Russia would withdraw its troops from the country.
We hope the President Xi will press President Putin to cease bombing Ukrainian cities, hospitals, and schools to halt the war crimes and atrocities and to withdraw all its troops.
But we are concerned that instead, China will reiterate calls for a ceasefire that leaves Russian forces inside Ukraine's sovereign territory.
Any ceasefire that does not address the removal of Russian forces from Ukraine would effectively ratify Russia's illegal conquests, enabling Russia to entrench its positions and then to restart the war at a more advantageous time for them.
The world should not be fooled by any tactical move by Russia, aided by China or any other country, to freeze the war on its terms without any viable pathway to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Any such attempt, any such attempt would violate the UN Charter and defy the will of the 141 countries that demanded just weeks ago at the UN General Assembly that Russia immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine.
Efforts to end this conflict must take Ukraine's position into account.
And so we encourage President Xi to play a constructive role by speaking with President Zelensky, which he has not done since Russia launched this invasion.
Because China, quite frankly, we believe, should hear directly from the Ukrainians and not just from the Russians.
And we encourage President Xi to press President Putin directly on the need to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The world and China's neighbors will certainly be watching closely.
Yeah, welcome to the new Cold War.
Missed Details In Committee00:11:41
It hasn't been too long since we were in the last one.
Stay with us for more.
Well, the national media is seized with the issue of Chinese interference in the Canadian political system, but it wasn't always that way.
Even though the news, many of the facts have been out there for years, it really wasn't something that the media party dug into.
You might recall that three years ago, I actually wrote a best-selling book about it called China Virus.
I wrote it in the early months of the pandemic when we were still figuring things out.
Of course, the pandemic itself and the government's authoritarian response to it was part of that book, but another part.
And it was sort of the wordplay that the real China's virus was not the coronavirus, but something far more persistent and perhaps dangerous, namely the Communist Party of China and Justin Trudeau's deep affection for it.
In the book, I didn't do any primary research myself.
By that, I mean I didn't go to China.
I didn't pour through records, and I certainly don't speak Chinese, so I couldn't track it in the native language, but I collected all the stories that had been reported before and put it all in one place.
And it was rather dramatic when you add it all up.
Well, in the last few months, so many more details have come out about explicit interference in our elections.
CSIS, which was reporting this to the prime minister's office, was ignored.
One hilarious statement the other day that senior officials in our national security infrastructure said they were on vacation, so they simply missed it.
It was appalling.
And this has all come to a fore politically because Justin Trudeau has appointed a longtime family friend, David Johnson, the former governor general, who himself has deep China connections.
And that's the crazy thing, is that in Canada, so many senior politicians make ties with the Chinese Communist Party when they're in office and almost as a reward for their good service, get huge financial outcomes.
Let me give you a quick example before we move on to our guest today.
Zhang Kre-Chen retired as prime minister after a very lengthy term, you might recall.
But within weeks of resigning as prime minister, he announced he was going to work for China in China.
He still lives in Canada, but he was going to work for China and lobbying in China.
Don't tell me that was only conceived and arranged after he left office.
Of course, he was contemplating that and arranging that while he was still PM, you may know that his son-in-law is the head of the Demare family conglomerate, Power Corp, major early political and financial investors in China.
And so it is with Justin Trudeau, whose own brother, Sasha Trudeau, Alexander Trudeau, published a pro-China book through the Chinese Communist Party.
There's a million publishers he could have published himself, but he chose to do so with the government of China.
But all this time, my interest in this subject, my own small book on this subject, were limited by the fact that I do not know Chinese.
And I found it difficult to find someone out there who could understand, read research in the Chinese language, and yet who was not afraid to come on TV to talk about it.
Over the years, I'd spoken to democracy activists, but they were terrified that they would be punished both here in Canada and their family back in China.
Well, I am delighted to say that after a long search, I found someone who I actually knew as a friend who was doing the kind of work that we were looking to do for years.
And she's been doing it on Twitter, tweeting up a storm about it, but not just her opinions.
This is the most important thing, rooted in facts, rooted in evidence, often taken from Chinese language media, not just media, but social media, apps like WeChat that are controlled and run by Beijing, where the pro-CCP messaging is spread to the Chinese diaspora here in Canada.
Without further ado, let me introduce you to the newest contributor to Rebel News, Andrea Lee, better known on Twitter as Andy Lee.
Andy, great to see you and thanks for joining us.
Hi, hi, it's very good to be here.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I'm very excited to be a part of the team and to be part of this project, especially my children are Chinese Canadians.
So, you know, this diaspora is very, you know, near and dear to my heart.
There's a lot of things that are going on right now in our country.
And this has been going on for a long time.
This isn't new, like you pointed out.
It's longstanding, this interference.
But, you know, it's really, really been brought into the light.
And a lot of things have gone on for a very, very long period of time that deserve further examination.
And so I've, you know, I've created a very good network.
And a lot of them are Chinese Canadians who are within that diaspora.
And, you know, we began researching articles and things like that.
And so I don't do this alone.
I want to point that out.
I do have people who don't like to be named for obvious reasons because they're concerned about backlash.
But I'm very, very proud to, you know, have them assist me when I research and look for things and put that forward so that people can understand what's been going on in the background for so long, because there really isn't a good coverage or examination of what's going on in our foreign language news outlets.
And there's a lot going on.
Well, what I really appreciate about your work, and I've been following it very closely on Twitter, you have over 100,000 followers, and I think there's a reason for that, is because with your team, you do read the Chinese language social media in this country, which is full of the collusion between the Liberal Party and, frankly, some conservatives and the Chinese Communist Party.
And it's there in plain sight.
It's just, you know, Bob Fife and Steve Chase of the Globe and Mail.
I don't think either of them speak Chinese.
I'm sure they have some sources too.
But every day, you've been breaking news on Twitter, and it's just by digging into these social media accounts.
I think it's amazing.
So we're delighted that you will be not just tweeting about this stuff now, but you will be publishing it on Rebel News and doing interviews about it and hopefully doing videos and things like that as much as you have.
And you've already in just literally the last two days done two great reports.
The first was when David Johnston appeared before the House of Commons Committee saying he was completely independent.
And you go through his, you know, I think how he himself has been colonized by the CCP.
And you have a new one.
And I just want to focus on this one.
The headline for your latest is Trudeau's special rapporteur considers China his home away from home.
David Johnson has made more than a dozen trips to China saying he became attached to Nanjing during his 40-year relationship with the communist nation.
Tell me some of the things you found out.
I didn't know, I mean, that is an enormous number of trips to China.
Tell me more of the things that I think if the Canadian public knew about David Johnson and his ties to China, they would be shocked that Trudeau appointed him to investigate ties to China.
Yeah, you know, it was unfortunate that none of this really came out in committee yesterday.
They did a lot of examination of his personal ties to Justin Trudeau and Justin Trudeau's family and the foundation, but they really didn't, you know, go into his ties in China.
You know, maybe that was maybe considered a no-fly zone to them.
But I do think it is important because he does have very, very deep historical ties to the country.
Now, that's not necessarily a nefarious thing, right?
But, you know, the depth of his ties bring into question whether I think he's able to examine this issue independently and in an unbiased manner.
So we know, you know, he's visited China dozens of times.
You know, this is since, you know, earlier on in the 80s, maybe during a different period in China where, you know, Deng Xiaoping was, you know, in power and things were maybe looking a little bit different for the country.
There was supposed to be a period of opening up, which never was unfortunately realized.
So, but, you know, he did receive numerous doctorates and scholarships.
And his daughters attended university in China and numerous institutions in China.
And, you know, he does, he has, this isn't the first time he said it where he's in China saying, you know, this is like my home away from home.
It seems like David Johnson has a lot of homes away from home in China, actually.
This isn't, like I said, this isn't the first instance where he said it.
So Nanjing was significant, though, because that was the first official diplomatic visit between Canada and China after Xi Jinping was elected Supreme Leader.
So his, you know, his visit was of great significance.
And as well, he did forge when he was the president of Waterloo, he did forge ties with Confucius Institutes.
And Confucius Institutes were supposed to be Chinese learning centers.
But shortly after he established those in 2006, so way, way, way back.
But by 2009, our own national security officials, Michel Juno Katsuya for one of them, actually wrote a book about concerns that they were national security threats.
And we know that most Confucius Institutes have been ordered out of higher learning institutions because they are considered to be sort of a long arm of the PRC and exerting soft power and things like that.
So they've been ordered out of the institutes.
So, David Johnson was integral in establishing this institute within the university that he ran.
So, there's details like that that were missed and not examined in committee that I think are important.
You know, he does, it was really hard to watch committee, to be honest, because, like I said, I do think that he did some groundbreaking work, and you can't just not have these institutional ties, right?
It's very, very easy to say, no, you know, we don't do business with China.
But, I mean, realistically speaking, it's a much more complex problem than that.
But it's sort of like, how do we distance ourselves to protect ourselves and our institutions and our democratic processes?
And I'm not sure that David Johnson, given the rosy-colored classes that he wears when viewing the country, and it's very obvious he's very unapologetic about those ties, very proud of them.
I'm not sure that he's the correct person to look at this through a realistic lens of how Canada-Chinese relationships, and indeed, you know, China's relationships with other countries are in the world right now, as opposed to how they were when he got to know the country intimately and became involved and obviously developed a very, very close affection with the country.
So, there's a lot of questions there, and that wasn't touched on yesterday.
Turn A Blind Eye00:03:20
I think it was Horatio Nelson, if I'm not mixing up my history, who was blind in one eye.
And when he wanted to disobey an order, he put his telescope to the blind eye and said, I don't see anything.
And it was a deliberate way of saying, I'm going to ignore the order and proceed in the face of it.
And I think that David Johnson, as the special rapporteur, was hired specifically because Trudeau knew he would turn a blind eye to the things that he should be investigating because his work would probably fall under an investigation.
It really is like OJ saying he would hunt for the real killers.
And if you think I exaggerate, look at these outrageous statements he made to the Commons Committee, where he acknowledged he didn't examine all the facts.
He acknowledged that, sure, he may be an apparent of conflict of interest, but he forgives himself.
Just look at this bundle of hubris.
The guy's not even faking it.
He's admitting that he's turning a blind eye.
Take a look at this.
Foreign interference is not usually embodied in discreet, one-off pieces of intelligence.
It cannot be dealt with on a one-off, look-what-I found basis.
The limited leaked intelligence and subsequent reporting have led to misapprehensions relating to incidents that are alleged to have occurred in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Moreover, I have found no examples of ministers, the prime minister, or their offices knowingly or negligently failing to act on intelligence, advice, or recommendations on the issues I have investigated related to the 2019 and 2021 elections.
However, I did find that there are significant and unacceptable gaps in the machinery of government.
Public inquiries on the Public Inquiries Act are very difficult tools to use for something whose job is to shed light on situations, particularly situations of negligent responsibility and so on, because they are led by lawyers with cross-examination.
They have difficulty getting at information that is classified, can't do that in public, are very expensive, are very time-consuming, and often do not result in providing the light.
What we have hoped to do, of course, in the five remaining months of our mandate is to do exactly that, to have public hearings on matters that are not part of the classified information.
And I think we may recall an earlier inquiry was the McDonald Commission that led into the creation of the CSIS Act to take over the responsibilities for foreign interference from the RCMP.
That commission was five years in its work to completion.
Madame Le President.
Madam Chair, I'm rather blown away there when we see that independent public inquiry can be costly.
Public Inquiry Costs00:05:59
What is the price tag on democracy?
What is the value of democracy?
We're here.
We've got two parties that are neck and neck in the polls where certain writers can decide on the colour of the government.
And now I'm being told that it can be costly to shed light on this because people, of course, agree upon the fact that the only way in which we can shed light in this situation is by holding an independent public inquiry.
Yes, it can take time, but we can live for a long time in the darkness if we don't do anything.
And that's not a better approach.
So when Mr. Johnson, full respect, of course, for Mr. Johnson, but when he says to me that there are certain elements that are classified that we cannot bring out into the daylight, would that be worse where we had three secret services involved in the Aurora inquiry that were actually involved in this inquiry?
So why would it be worse this time compared to what we had with the Aurora case inquiry?
Andy, I have a theory, and it's a terrible theory, and it's speculation, and I'm trying to be a mind-radier, and that's never a good idea.
But why would an 81-year-old man who has had an illustrious career of public service, he's been the president of an outstanding university, he was governor general, he was a high-minded guy.
He's 81.
He's got kids, he's got grandkids.
This is, you know, the time to be on a beach, visit the grandkids, think about a legacy.
And why would he engage in such a brutal and obvious cover-up for Trudeau?
And the only, I mean, he's destroying his reputation.
He's murdering his reputation every day.
The only way this makes sense to me, Andy, and again, I'm speculating, is that he's doing this because he's worried what might come out will actually tarnish him more than his cover-up.
It's not just Trudeau he's protecting.
It's the entire Trudeau-CCP nexus.
And he has been part of that.
My theory is that David Johnson is doing this last errand, not just for Trudeau, but for himself to cover his own tracks.
Is there any evidence of that?
Well, I mean, I always felt that the reason that Justin Trudeau chose to do a closed-door private investigation as opposed to a blown-open public inquiry is because he got to control the mandate and the terms and conditions.
And so the terms and conditions and the scope of that were not broad.
They were very, very limited.
You know, the report was mostly based upon recent allegations that we've seen in media and mainstream media.
And it was only extended back to the 2019 election.
But anybody who knows anything knows that this has been going on far, far longer.
And that, yes, David Johnson, you know, was integral to forging some of the ties that maybe would come under examination.
Should we broaden the scope of this investigation and take a more serious, I mean, this is just a scratch the surface kind of report, right?
I honestly, I feel like it's kind of like an insert your own country here.
It's very blanket, it's very generalized.
You know, there's not a lot of specifics in it.
Maybe he could or could not disclose those because of national security.
But again, if you sort of expanded the mandate and took it into a public inquiry where we could broaden the scope of what we're looking at, and foreign interference is not easy to detect.
Often it overlaps with legal activities.
And that's by design, right?
That's how they function.
So Johnston may have been part of, you know, what people like to say, and this was actually testified about in the House of Commons a few days ago by Dean Baxendale, is elite capture.
And elite capture is one of those things where you woo politicians, you treat them like rock stars, you make them feel like they're part of the family.
And, you know, you welcome them and, you know, give them gifts and things like that, honorary doctorates, special privileges while you're trying to further your country's business interests.
So that's a very, you know, a method that China's been very, very effective in using.
So I would argue that probably David Johnson is a victim of elite capture, along with a lot of people.
And, you know, he was right there with John McCallum during those years.
Of course, we know that John McCallum was kicked out.
He had some very interesting views on the Meng affair, taking her side, saying that she had a very, very strong case against her detention.
So John McCallum had to go in disgrace.
But I mean, John Callum was very, very openly courting the Chinese Communist Party and those votes during Justin Trudeau's campaign.
So I do think that if we expanded that scope and we decided to go with a public inquiry, that all of those other things might come into play.
And it's important that those things do come into play because that's how we got to this level of infiltration.
You remind me of that quote where McCallum said his China policy was more, more, more.
Yes, yes, yes.
Here, let's play.
So he was basically asked, what would he do with China?
And his answer was whatever they want.
Hey, let me close on one more thing.
And I learned this from you.
And like I say, you are, you have your views on things, which I appreciate, but you're digging into sources.
And this is what I'd like.
I'd like to direct folks to your written stories on our website.
I mean, you're tweeting these things, which is where I discovered them.
But now you've got two stories on the website.
One about Johnson's appearance before the House of Commons.
The other about Johnson considering China's home away from home.
Diplomatic Double Meanings00:06:04
They're linked to the primary sources in the Chinese language.
And I learned from you that he is sort of given an honorary Chinese name.
And China does this a lot.
I mean, they gave Trump sort of two nicknames.
One was Uncle Donald, and the other was Donald the Strong.
And it's not MAGA that's claiming that.
That's from the New York Times.
They're saying that's what the Chinese said about Trump, even though they didn't like him on many things.
David Johnson has been granted a nickname, Jiang Shan, which sounds like Johnson.
Jiang Shan.
What does Jiangshan mean on the face of it?
And what's sort of the deeper meaning?
What is David Johnson's official Chinese nickname that was bestowed upon him by the other side?
What does it mean?
Yeah, so the literal translation is kind of like rivers and mountains.
And it's an area in China.
It's a region in China.
So, you know, it's a very, very lovely name that you think is peaceful.
But I did a little bit more digging, and there's a lot of fables actually centered around this name, Zhang Chen.
And I found out that there's another translation, which literally means the regime.
And so this is what Chinese Canadians take this name to represent is that he is literally sort of an agent of the regime.
So it's not as attractive once you actually learn that there's multiple ways of interpreting this.
And so the way that that sort of goes into the regime is that it's sort of like the regime that looks over your property, your rivers and your mountains, that control your mountains.
And there are fables and parables based on this.
So he probably thinks it's a cute little pet nickname that was given to him.
But it does have definitely other meanings to the Chinese people.
Basically, it's saying that he's a leader of the party.
I think that says a lot.
Of course, I'll never forget Christy Freeland delighting in Trudeau's nickname, Little Potato.
Look how excited she was.
We'll play a clip of that.
Yeah, well, Little Potato and Zhang Shan, I think the Chinese know who the real boss is.
Andy Lee, great to catch up with you.
Thank you for your research.
We'll publish your work, as you know.
You and I have talked about it whenever the spirit moves you.
Whenever you have stories rooted in this factual research, I think that any one of your stories could appear on the front page of the Globe and Mail.
You have that kind of new and relevant content.
Your access to Chinese language media directly and through people helping you navigate there, I think is very useful.
And I think it's important work.
So thanks for doing it with Rebel News.
And we'll look forward to talking to you again next week.
I hope.
I say next week because I know that we talked about, you know, got so much content I'd like to have you on every week or whenever you have a news story.
And we'll really drill into it.
Today we sort of had a general conversation, but my hope is that we sort of go through the stories and you can show us, well, here's what I found on WeChat and here's what I found on the embassy's website.
We sort of had a general chat today, but I hope in the future we can actually, okay, folks, here's the news story.
What are the facts?
What are your sources?
Where did you find this?
What are the photos?
Who's saying what?
I see today you're quarreling with a Chinese diplomat from our embassy.
I love that.
I love the fact that you're smoking them out.
You're literally fighting with CCP spies.
And I think it's exciting.
And I'm thrilled that you're doing it with us.
And by the way, we take care of our people.
So if you get into a real fight with these communist agents, you let us know and we got your back.
Yeah, this is the second diplomat that's shown at me so far that I've caught.
Anyways, I might go back and see if there's been more.
So yeah, these are definitely connected to the Chinese embassy.
They're making it known that they're not very happy with me.
That's fine.
That means that I'm closer to the target than they would like me to be.
So yeah, I will tread lightly and watch my back, obviously.
No, I don't think we're at that point yet.
But it goes to show you just how brazen their operations are in this country, that they feel very, very comfortable to go out.
And I mean, Twitter is a free speech platform.
I don't block anybody and I invite criticism and things like that.
But, you know, it's a little bit different when you're actually posted in a diplomatic position in a different country to be lashing out at Canadian citizens, journalists, and things like that.
It's a little bit wild.
It certainly wouldn't be tolerated in their country.
Oh, yeah.
Great point.
So very, very unbecoming, I think, of our embassy and a little bit speaks to, you know, what's called wolf warrior or, you know, in plain terms, thuggish behavior and intimidation and things like this.
But I mean, this is, it just goes to show you, I mean, if they think that they can get away with it with me, they'll exercise it out in the communities.
And, you know, the concerns are real about intimidation and subtle threats and things like that, or overt threats in some cases, as we found with Michael Chong.
So, yeah, so that goes on.
It's happening.
I'm going to work on exposing it.
I'm really, really excited to be working with you guys.
And yeah, I hope to bring forward all this information.
There's so much of it.
Like, it's not going to be like 10 stories.
It's going to be like 30, maybe more stories.
Well, we'll take it all.
I mean, and I, and I mean, I wrote a book three years ago that was basically me collecting things already in the public domain, but you were doing primary research.
Frankly, I see a book here and we'll have to hand deliver one to the embassy, although they'll probably hack it and steal it first, knowing what they do.
Andy Lee, great to catch up with you.
Welcome to the team.
It's great to have you as our China Affairs specialist, and we'll look forward to talking again soon.
Pride and Canadian Harmony00:03:39
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Thanks.
And yeah, book would be nice.
I don't think I'm going to get an ambassador signing a forward on my book the way that Justin Trudeau did.
But yeah, hopefully, you know, we put this out there and I want to paint a picture that's very digestible to everybody who doesn't, you know, maybe have the understanding and let them know how this network worked and where it came from and how it was formed and how it exerts influence on our democracy.
Well, that's excellent.
And that's right up our alley.
You know, we follow the facts wherever they lead and we tell the other side of the story and you're doing both here.
Andy Lee from Calgary, our newest freelance contributor.
Stay with us.
Morehead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Pike says, wouldn't surprise me if that teacher will be arrested and charged with a hate crime.
She has no business being in that position where she becomes emotionally loose and runs off of the mouth against these students, a candidate for being fired, in my opinion.
As for the confrontation down south with police intervention, I see there's a battle between righteousness and unrighteousness.
While you're talking, of course, about Pride Week, Pride Month, or as Trudeau called it the other day, Pride season, Pride generation, Pride century.
You know, it is sort of, it was a funny insight into that teacher's mind.
You're referring, of course, to the Edmonton teacher who said to Muslim students, hey, they had to listen to your Ramadan talk.
You have to listen or participate in their Pride Month.
That's how it works.
I'm sure in her mind, that's, I don't think in her own mind, she was saying anything other than the obvious to her.
But, you know, I think she's in a pickle.
And I think that what she said would actually be fine to all the teaching establishment, except for she was unlucky enough to have been recorded.
I think this is a pickle.
And as we talked to Chris Elson the other day, Billboard Chris, you've got a very powerful gay pride agenda and a very powerful anti-Islamophobia phobia agenda when those two things clash.
If you want to know how that ends, you can look to the United Kingdom where there are some schools 90, 95% Muslim, and they don't put up with pride education.
Like literally all the kids boycott the school and hundreds of parents show up and the schools submit.
Chingadaro says, how would you describe the Canadian identity in the modern age?
Okay, well, that's a good one.
Well, I think that I think there are traits to the Canadian character and identity that are unchanged.
I mean, there's a war on to extirpate them.
But I think a liberal democracy, it is true that we were a fusion of the English and the French.
That was a very interesting decision in the wake of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
I think to have a harmony between the French and the English.
Now, I know that that's not the full reality today, and I'm a critic of official bilingualism.
I believe in Laurier and Diefenbaker, who said that freedom is a key part of being Canadian.
I think being hardy in our northern climate, in our large climate, I like the peace, order, and good government.
Of course, I'm inspired by the American pursuit of happiness and the New Hampshire motto, live free or die.
I like that full-throated love for freedom, but the Canadian way, you know, slightly more modest, more evolutionary than revolutionary.
I'm not doing very well for a succinct summary, but there is a Canadian character.
Calm Canadian Character00:00:34
There absolutely is.
On Billboard Chris, Glenn Berry says, you're looking at a true hero, folks.
Yeah, I just hope he doesn't get roughed up.
I'm a little scared for him because he's so calm.
And you know, when one person in an argument is raging and the other gets calmer, calmer, calmer, that can calm down the enraged side or it can make them just flip their wig.
I'm worried that one of these days he's going to take more than a punch.
I'm worried, God forbid, may it never happen, that it might be much worse.