Ezra Levant examines Maxime Bernier’s distant second in the June 20 Portage Lisgar by-election, praising his libertarian defiance against media like the CBC but dismissing him as a realistic PM alternative. Bernier’s past push for Pierre Poilievre’s leadership is noted, though Levant criticizes Poilievre’s cautious stance on censorship and immigration. The episode introduces The 1867 Project, a Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation book debunking systemic racism claims—highlighting East Asian Canadians’ top earnings and Sir John A. MacDonald’s treaty work to "save Indigenous lives." It warns against retroactive demonization, urging Canadians to value their imperfect but progressive history over divisive narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Last night, Maxime Bernier placed second in the by-election in Portage Lisgar, but he didn't have the breakthrough he was hoping for.
And in fact, the conservative vote increased.
What does that mean for Bernier and the People's Party?
I'll give you my deep thoughts on this subject.
But first, let me invite you to subscribe to Rebel News Plus.
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All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, Maxime Bernier came in a distant second in the by-election last night.
So what happens now?
It's June 20th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
We like Maxime Bernier.
I- I've known the man for 20 years, ever since he was at the Montreal Economic Institute.
I like his style and his ideology.
I like that he's energetic and doesn't seem to care what the media party says about him.
He was a cabinet minister under Stephen Harper, of course, and then he ran against Andrew Scheer for the party leadership in 2017 to succeed Harper.
And it was quite something.
If you recall, it went to 13 different ballots.
Bernier was leading for the first 12 ballots.
And only on the last one did Andrew Scheer squeak ahead 51% to 49% under the party's quirky point system.
It was quite something.
Bernier was stylish and fit and talkative and French.
Scheer was dull and introverted and inexperienced.
He was Speaker of the House of Commons for years, so I suppose he was experienced, but really he didn't have a track record of fighting for anything, really.
The Speaker of the House is neutral, doesn't vote on things.
He never fought for a bill.
He never really fought a campaign.
He never had a tough scrum.
After his first election, I think he went into diplomat mode.
It was like he was frozen in time for the eight years of Stephen Harper's tenure.
So he had no scandals, I suppose, but he also had no track record of anything, no experience campaigning going up against the bruising battles of the liberals or their media regime.
Bernier was libertarian.
Scheer was a social conservative, but like I say, Scheer lacked the courage of his convictions.
He'd never really been in a fight before.
He panicked about everything.
Scheer's Cowardice00:15:10
He bent the knee to the media, especially to the CBC.
I remember when he went full coward about us, even though his right-hand man was a co-founder of Rebel News with me.
Andrew Scheer, let's begin with your decision earlier this week.
You said you will not grant any further interviews to Rebel Media for as long as its editorial direction remains as is.
So what is it specifically about the editorial direction that led you to that decision?
Well, first and foremost, you know, it's very important to me to send a very clear signal that the Conservative Party of Canada has always been a party that is inclusive and tolerant and open to members of every different ethnic community that call Canada home and that chose to make this wonderful country where they want to grow and raise their families.
Like, I was just disgusted by what I saw in Charlottesville on the weekend.
That kind of hatred and vile displays of intolerance just need to be denounced.
And I understand that there's a fine line when it comes to journalism between reporting on facts, reporting on what's going on, and giving a platform or in any way kind of legitimizing what may be going on.
And I felt that that line was crossed on the weekend.
And so I just decided, you know, I'm not going to lend my platform to those or you know, institutions or outlets that may be doing that.
So I'm here with a positive message and I want to get that message out in a positive way to as many Canadians as I can.
What was it specifically that you saw that led you to the decision?
As I said, I just felt that that line between saying, okay, here's what's going on.
Here's an important event that may be happening.
People obviously need to be aware when there are good things happening, when there are bad things happening.
That's what media outlets do.
They cover on events.
But when people are given an extra platform or in any way, an outlet starts to concur or legitimize some of the aspects around that.
That's not where I want to go.
I don't want to see anybody with those kinds of views have that extra.
So the fact that they were on the air, the white supremacists were on the air.
I mean, what was it specifically that you saw where you said, okay, I can't be part of this?
What was the moment?
As I said, it was the nature of the coverage.
It was the way that, you know, in any way that that outlet or the people involved in producing those shows kind of went beyond just saying, here's what's happening and, you know, gave that an extra legitimacy or voice, you know, in any way kind of concurring or validating some of the points.
And I felt that that was going on while that was happening.
You know, I'm an open, accessible politician.
I don't think you want politicians or prime ministers or premiers or members of parliament deciding what is or what isn't legitimate news outlets or journalism.
We believe in freedom of the press.
Even the Liberals fought to make sure that the rebel was included at the United Nations climate change talks.
I think Canada respects that history of an independent profession when it comes to the press.
But when it comes to granting exclusive interviews, when it comes to kind of seeking an outlet where I would talk directly to get my vision out, what my positive message is for Cayens, based on what happened on the weekend, I just think that going forward I'll be looking at other types of outlets that don't blur that line or cross that line into giving that kind of legitimacy to those kinds of groups.
Look, Andrew, they're not going to be any nicer to you just because you turned on us.
And indeed, they weren't.
Even after the CBC literally filed a lawsuit against him right in the middle of the election, he still kept going on their shows.
It's like he thought he could charm them into liking him.
What an idiot.
He blew it.
Of course, it just got worse with Aaron O'Toole, who ran as a full-blown liberal.
I mean, seriously, come on, a carbon tax.
Andrew Scheer sucked up to the CBC thinking they would like him, but now Aaron O'Toole sucked up to the Liberals thinking they would like him.
What a disappointment.
He's gone now, but he popped up on TV again.
I think I showed you this the other day.
He's got advice for Pierre Polyev on how to win, which seems to be do exactly what he did to lose.
You know, the Conservatives won the popular vote in the last two elections.
It just wasn't efficient enough.
And Mr. Trudeau, some of the polarization is actually focusing and over-delivering your small cohort.
So he's now one two minority governments with a smaller popular vote and in some elections being virtually shut out in certain provinces of the country.
So I think had the pandemic not been a part of the discussion, I had a lot of fiscal conservatives that wanted to see the conservatives with a smart plan on the environment.
A lot of business leaders, for example, or small business owners that wanted to make sure they lowered emissions for their kids, but were worried about our competitiveness, worried about trade relations, thought Mr. Trudeau's ethics were questionable.
So there's a bunch of voters that want to see the conservatives address all issues.
I think Pierre will do that.
Yeah, Aaron O'Toole is sort of the only guy in the universe who cannot give advice on how to win because he doesn't know how.
But hey, the media has a strange new respect for Aaron O'Toole now that he is no longer an actual threat to Trudeau and in fact seems to be criticizing Pierre Polyev.
O'Toole was terrified of rebel news also.
I mean, I interviewed him a couple years ago and it was fine.
Again, it was the mean girls of the media party who convinced him he can't talk to rebel news if he wants to be friends with them.
Spoiler alert, they didn't really mean it when they said they'd be friends with him.
To be clear, I don't take being friends with rebel news as a litmus test for a politician.
I mean, I suppose there could be a good reason not to like us or at least not to like me.
But if you are so obviously marginalizing or deplatforming or trying to cancel rebel news just to appease the woke mob, then liking us actually is a litmus test because if you let the liberals or the media party tell you who you can and can't talk to on your own side of the aisle, especially who you can or can't meet with, well then imagine how they'll control you if you ever actually took the levers of state power into your hands.
It's about courage.
That's my favorite thing about both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
That's the one thing they actually both have in common.
They never, ever let the media party bully them and they love actually demonstrating how partisan the media are and fighting back.
Pierre Polyev has a bit of that in him too, especially towards the CBC.
But back to Maxime Bernier.
He placed an extremely close second to Andrew Scheer in that Conservative Party leadership in 2017.
Scheer appointed him to the shadow cabinet, but the two of them really didn't get along from the very beginning, obviously.
I don't know if you remember, but Bernier then wrote a book called Doing Politics Differently, My Vision for Canada, which, boy, that sure sounds like a political autobiography, a campaign book, really.
He posted a chapter online, and I can see why Scheer saw that as a kind of undermining Scheer's authority, especially since Bernier criticized the dairy cartel, which was actually one of the ways Andrew Scheer won the leadership by appealing to that cartel.
Anyways, things rapidly fell apart between the two men, and Bernier launched his own party.
He quit the Conservatives, launched his own party, the People's Party of Canada, that August.
So he wasn't even under Scheer's leadership for a year.
I remember doing a video at the time.
I should dig it up.
I was surprised by Bernier's move.
My thinking at the time was if Bernier had just stayed cool and just stayed within the party, and if Andrew Scheer lost the upcoming general election, which it sort of looked like he would have done on his own, Bernier would have absolutely been a shoe-in right afterwards to be the leader.
I mean, given that he only lost by just 1%.
And if Scheer did win in 2019, which didn't happen, well, surely Bernier would at least be the Quebec lieutenant in that party.
But alas, Bernier broke away to start his own party.
That's extremely hard.
I saw Preston Manning try it for a decade.
Bernier claimed that the incumbent party was just inherently corrupt.
He didn't want to stick around in it.
Now, there's something to that, of course, in all parties.
Andrew Scheer obviously sold out to the dairy cartel in Quebec, and he won his leadership that well, that way.
Welcome to politics.
The 2019 election was lost by Scheer, despite the shocking revelations of Trudeau's blackface antics.
I mean, how do you lose to that guy?
Plus, the even much more important revelation that Trudeau and Gerald Butz fired Jody Wilson Raybould for not interfering in a criminal trial where Trudeau's friends were trying to get a sweet plea bargain instead of a criminal prosecution.
How do you lose an election like that?
And then there was the 2021 election.
Aaron O'Toole was even worse, even more liberal-like, and he just wouldn't.
He just absolutely wouldn't say a word against Trudeau's approach to lockdowns or forced vaccines or the rest of it.
Look at this.
This was supposed to be a leader's debate, you know?
It wasn't.
They all agreed.
We're all in this together.
We've come so far in the fight against COVID.
It's time to finish this pandemic for good.
So get vaccinated.
If you know someone who hasn't, talk to them.
For our kids, for our communities, for our economy.
It's how we get forward together.
Vaccines are safe and effective for use.
Vaccines are the best way for you to protect yourself, your family, and your community.
So get vaccinated.
Let's fight COVID-19 together.
Pour vous protéger vous-même, pour protéger les plus fragiles d'entre nous, pour protéger l'ensemble de la population, le meilleur moyen connu demeure le vaccin.
We all agree getting vaccinated is the way forward.
We're all in agreement.
This is not a partisan issue, so please get vaccinated.
We're united, and it's time to get the shot.
Vaccines save lives.
They're how we're going to beat COVID, and it's time for everyone to do it.
Get the shot.
Get the shot.
Oh, that's so cringy, so gross.
And you'll notice that Maxime Bernier was not allowed into that debate, even though he was polling high enough to warrant it.
I wish Bernier had sued the debate commission to be allowed in.
We, Rebel News, sued the debate commission when they banned us from covering that debate as reporters, and we won.
You'd think an actual candidate would have sued too to get in.
Why not?
I think Bernier would have electrified that debate.
The other five candidates were absolutely indistinguishable on any key issue.
I really can't recall any differences.
Bernier would have at least shown an alternative.
I think he would have won that debate just by showing up.
But alas, Trudeau's man David Johnston, who ran the election debates, he kept him out.
But that was when an alternative, populist, contrarian, freedom-oriented voice was needed the most in the country.
Everyone, everything, the whole establishment.
They were unanimous, everyone except the people.
That's what we found at Rebel News.
We were one of the few media to question the forced lockdowns and the vaccine mandates.
And there was a big demand for the other side of the story.
Alas, Aaron O'Toole was opposition leader, but he did not oppose.
Of course, he didn't win the election.
Why would you vote for him?
Bernier did oppose.
In fact, he was personally arrested.
He was victimized by the lockdowns.
He was targeted for arrest in Manitoba on the orders of the Premier, who publicly announced he wasn't welcome in the province as if we live in political fiefdoms that the premier can control like some prince or something.
And when the trucker convoy came, Bernier championed them.
O'Toole cowered under his desk, the loser.
O'Toole demanded that his MPs not even visit the truckers.
Well, that was the final straw, and O'Toole was thrown overboard, thank God.
But that was the beginning of the end.
The truckers did it.
They broke the fever in the country.
They woke the country up.
Almost immediately, premiers began backing down.
Do you remember?
Jason Kenney did, and then Kenny himself was still thrown out by his party.
Vaccine mandates were lifted.
Lockdowns were lifted.
The Truckers was what freed us.
Bernier had battled in a way that very few other politicians had done so.
A handful of provincial legislators did in Ontario.
Four conservatives did so, and they were all immediately punished by Doug Ford, kicked out of the party.
Roman Baby, you might recall, Randy Hilliard.
There were one or two other dissidents across the country.
Bernier was the only federal politician who opposed, but alas, he did not have any standing.
He did not have a seat in parliament.
At least Elizabeth Gray, even though she's quite a marginal character, she has always had a seat, and her party has two.
Fast forward to last night and the four by-elections across Canada.
One of them happened to be in the Manitoba riding of Portage Lizger, which is a wonderful riding.
I've been there.
Great people and very deeply conservative.
In the last election, the People's Party got 22%.
Far behind the Conservative Party's Candace Bergen, who was almost a 53%, but Bergen was retiring.
So you could see in a perfect storm how Bernier might have had a shot.
Very right-wing riding, great base to build on.
Conservative MP retiring, so those personal connections gone.
A by-election allows voters to vote on principle without risking changing the government.
They can be more idealistic than pragmatic.
And Bernier, as leader, has a perfect storm.
Alas, it wasn't to be.
Bergen's Conservative Party successor, as you can see, Brandon Leslie, he actually got more votes than Bergen did last time, at least percentage-wise.
He got 65%.
Bernier got 17% down a bit from his party showing last time.
I think that's two general elections, 2019 and 2021, and two by-elections that Bernier has contested, but not one.
Which brings us to today.
Now, let me stop for a moment and say that Rebel News has been the most supportive news outlet in Canada towards Maxime Bernier.
We cover his press conferences.
I've personally interviewed him probably 10 times.
We've also sold ads to him.
We'll sell ads to almost anyone, by the way.
He bought ads with us because our viewers are a good fit.
Our viewers like Bernier's love for freedom, and we appreciated his opposition to the lockdowns when few other politicians would have the courage to say so.
Last night, Bernier vowed to fight on.
And that's great.
He's obviously a fighter.
But what does it mean to fight but not have a seat in parliament for four years now?
I mean, that's a politician, but it's more of a pundit or an activist.
Now, I like punditry and activism.
It's actually what I do for a living.
And there's something great about a political party.
You can run candidates.
You can get on the ballot.
It's also good to fundraise because you get a sort of tax receipt issue for donations that no other advocacy group can get.
It's even more generous than a charitable tax receipt.
But last night was a pretty convincing result in the most PPC-friendly riding in the country.
Next Election Strategy00:09:52
So what now?
Well, I hope Maxime Bernier stays in the public square.
He always was in the public square.
His father was too.
I think he has good skills, a strong network, a strong ideology.
He's bilingual.
I love how he infuriates all the right people in the establishment and in the media.
All the fancy people hate Maxime Bernier.
But what do we think and what do we do here at Rebel News?
Like I say, we've covered him more than most.
I interviewed him at the start of his by-election campaign.
My colleague Sidney Fazard interviewed him just the other day.
We certainly gave him ink and airtime, but what now?
I'm going to invite Bernier to come on my show for an 11th time to talk about his future plans, but what could they be exactly?
And is his result in Portage Litzger an indication of how things have changed in the past two years?
The PPC was sorely needed as an antidote to Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole and to the pandemic lockdown conformity.
But now that Pierre Polyev has moved the CPC to the right, and now that the lockdown crisis has receded, are populist conservatives and freedom-oriented contrarians happy enough with Polyev to vote for him?
That seems to be the message in Portage Litzger, does it not?
I think that Pierre Polyev isn't perfect, but perfect can be the enemy of the good.
What I mean by that is Polyev is miles better than O'Toole and Scheer.
He's still a bit cautious and he's scared of the media party, but much less than those other two.
He's taken firm lines on things like the carbon tax, the economy.
He sure has socked it to the CBC.
He's obviously still scared to talk about immigration and he's still shy about rebel news.
He hasn't done a sit-down interview with us, Pierre Polyev.
Though when we bump into him in events, he doesn't tend to run away.
Bernier isn't scared of anything, but maybe that kind of ideological purity is great for punditry and social media action, but not so much for winning elections.
We desperately need to beat Justin Trudeau.
Many of the qualms I personally had with O'Toole and Scheer are gone now.
No way was I going to support carbon tax lovers and CBC lovers, really, after losing in 2019 and 2021.
Isn't it desperately time to win against Trudeau?
And you tell me, is it not the fact that there are only two people who could mathematically become PM after the next election, Justin Trudeau or Pierre Polyev?
In Alberta last month, the left had a similar choice to make.
All the small parties on the left voted strategically.
The Green Party, the Liberal Party, the Alberta Party, they all basically evaporated and their voters coalesced around Rachel Notley, the NDP candidate, the only hope they had to beat Danielle Smith, the conservative.
It wasn't enough, but it was very strategic and they almost did it.
Is that how it might go this time federally?
I fear that there will be a bit of an anybody-but-conservative vote as the media demonizes Polyev.
I think you'll see people leaving that empty suit Jagmeet Singh and voting for Trudeau just to block Polyev.
In that way, I fear that Polyev's healthy lead in the polls today could be a mirage.
And so if the left coalesces around Trudeau, if they abandon the Green Party and the NDP to vote for Trudeau, ought not the right to coalesce around Pierre Polyev?
It's hard to say otherwise.
I like Bernier very much, and I wish he were in parliament.
I wish he were in government.
I wish he had beaten Andrew Scheer, the cowardly dairy lobbyist, back in 2017.
But wishing doesn't make it so.
And so if the PPC hasn't won a seat in the last two general elections and the last few by-elections, and if another general election is upon us soon, and if Pierre Polyev is pretty good, if not perfect, and if he's running the most serious campaign against Trudeau we've ever seen, even more serious than Harper's 2015 campaign, shouldn't that be the choice?
Now, I put this question to the former Premier of Newfoundland, a great freedom fighter, a great Canadian named Brian Peckford.
And here's what he said to me when I asked him, remember this?
Now, your co-plaintiff in the airline mandate case is Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party.
And we have quite a strong relationship with Maxime Bernier.
We interview him a lot.
We find him very interesting.
We found him quite principled on a lot of matters, including during the lockdown.
And I think we interview him every month or two.
And I admire, there's a lot to like about Maxime Bernier.
But if I have to be completely, pragmatically, coldly candid, he cannot form the next government.
And even when he had a seat, when he had the one seat for his party, he didn't break through.
And there were a lot of reasons for that, including they, in my view, illegally kept him out of the leaders' debate.
There were a lot of other reasons.
But, and let me tell you this as someone who admires Maxime Bernier and generally supports him.
I wish it were otherwise, but I do not think that Maxime Bernier can mathematically be the next government.
So to me, there's really only two mathematical choices, Justin Trudeau or Pierre Polyev.
And those are the two pragmatic choices.
And therefore, I will, between those choices, choose Pierre Polyev.
Would you do differently?
Yes, I will vote for Maxim Bernier in a flash because I'm looking long term.
We have to change the whole structure of this country.
We can do a lot within the existing constitution, like I just proposed, as it relates to CBC, as it relates to tightening up the conflict of interest legislation, as it relates to the political parties publishing their audited financial statements of their party every year as it relates to sovereignty and signing trade agreements and so on.
We can do a lot inside the existing constitution, but we need to do more.
And therefore, we have to start somewhere to begin that reform.
And so I'm looking long term.
And long term, the policies that are on the PPC website today, on Mr. Bernier's website, most align with my views now as a Canadian and as a former first minister.
They align most with me.
I see what has happened to bilingualism, biculturalism.
I see what's happening to being very, very flexible in trade agreements.
I see what's happened to our immigration policy where it hasn't matched our economic policy and which has gotten out of hand.
And so we have to start somewhere.
And so in however many years I got left, as long as Mr. Bernier sticks with those principles that he has actually put in writing, and by the way, his expenses are right there on his website as well, his financial statements, which I'm asking the other parties to do.
I will begin anew to assist him in getting, look, if he could get three or four seats to become, to have to be interviewed by the press to start the ball rolling, I think that would be a really good start.
And having him part of the national conversation and his views could really assist.
So you start small, you get a couple of seats or whatever, you get a chance to get your ideas out there.
And that could lead to over the next two elections to them being a very big political force.
So you got to start somewhere.
Canada is broken.
Our democracy has been lost.
Our charter has been broken.
And therefore, this is a long-term project.
And we must start now with honesty and real pure system to begin rebuilding our nation.
And I can't think of any better way to do it practically than through the PPC.
All right, that's good stuff.
I take the point.
And of course, he's right.
But I don't want Trudeau to win again.
I want to stop him.
Every day that goes by, more terrible things are being done in Canada, not just in Parliament, but through executive orders and just spending and through judges being appointed and through foreign policy being ordered.
Frankly, if we wait too long, who knows what Justin Trudeau will do?
Who knows if the internet will even still be free two elections from now?
I love Maxime Bernier as a person and as a political activist, but I do not believe that he can win a seat in the next election.
In his own way, he helped push the Conservative Party to get rid of O'Toole and to usher in Polyev.
He showed by example how a true freedom fighter sides with the truckers and he shamed the Conservative Party of Canada MPs into following his lead.
And Aaron O'Toole's attempt to stamp that out was the cause of O'Toole's ouster.
Bernier helped with that.
He helped improve the Conservatives from the outside.
I'm not a politician and I'm not a member of a party, but I can say it is time for Canada to get rid of Trudeau and people who value freedom and privacy and national sovereignty should vote like the next election is their last election because given Trudeau's madness, given his illegal invocation of martial law, given his obsession with censoring the internet and his prosecution and jailing of his political enemies, it just might be our last election.
Stay with us for more.
While the good guys are outnumbered by the bad guys.
That's just how it is.
And that's why our side cannot relent.
The other side is relentless.
But, you know, if you're a happy warrior and you don't mind fighting, you can see some progress.
Matthew On Canadian Racism00:14:46
And I'm pleased to say that the forces of freedom have a new ally.
And the forces of freedom, you know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I'm talking about our counterparts at True North or Western Standard, the Fraser Institute.
I'm talking about freedom-oriented groups like the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom or our Friends at the Democracy Fund.
Well, add to that constellation a new star.
I'm talking about the Aristotle Foundation.
Sounds high-minded because it is, but it's dedicated to those principles of free inquiry and open debate, principles that have been eroded in Canada lately, where there's more cancel culture than debate culture.
I'm delighted to have on the show the boss of the new Aristotle Foundation from his world headquarters in Calgary.
I jest, I joke that we're in our world headquarters here.
It's a small shop, but the Aristotle Foundation has good bones.
They're dedicated to freedom, and it's a delight to talk to Mark Milke, their boss.
And by the way, they're launching with a bang a new book.
Mark, great to see you.
Great to see you, Ezra.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, come on.
I mean, you're going to be a regular here.
I just know it because you have made a decision about the course of your life's work that you were going to chair the Foundation for Public Policy called the Aristotle Foundation.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
And then we'll talk about your project that you're launching with your debut, your new book.
But first, give me a little bit of background on the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, your registered Canadian charity headquartered in Calgary.
What's your official mission?
Well, our mission is to champion reason, democracy, and civilization or civil society, as people might know it.
Now, that's, you're right.
It sounds very kind of high-falutin, but basically we want to make people think because I think a lot of people, or some people anyway, in the chattering classes, and it filters down, are not thinking these days.
So is it reasonable to say Canada is a systemically racist society?
In the new book, which we'll talk about in a moment, Matthew Lau says, no, it's not reasonable.
How about democracy?
Why do the Swiss get to vote in a carbon tax and vote it down, where Americans can vote in marijuana and Canadians are told we just have to behave, not challenge the political class or anyone else?
I think democracy needs some reform and a dose of direct democracy, actually, in Canada.
And how about civilization?
Again, a very old-fashioned word.
A couple of years ago, I read about a little town called Cranbrook, a city in British Columbia, not far from where I grew up in the interior of British Columbia.
Two gangs were fighting it out in the streets, and then they went to the hospital and fought it out in the hospital.
Think about a small city.
How do you deal with that?
I was reading yesterday in National Review a great article on Ontario schools and some of the violence.
Is this the kind of civilization, the civil society, the country we want?
So the Aristotela Foundation was set up to make people think about some of these claims, some of these issues.
And, you know, we're underway with, and the first part of this is putting out a book that says, you want to cancel Canada?
Really?
You think that's a great idea?
We've got 20 authors in the book that say maybe you want to rethink that.
Well, let's get right into the book.
The book is called The 1867 Project, Why Canada Should Be Cherished, Not Canceled.
And it's a group of essays.
You mentioned one of them on systemic racism.
And, you know, I think racism has been a human condition in every continent since the dawn of time.
And in the past, it was just considered normal.
I mean, you could even say the saying, birds of a feather flock together.
I mean, I think it's only now that there's an emphasis on getting past that.
I mean, really, a blink of time in the history of man.
And I think Canada has a noble place in that.
We were the country that banned the slave trade more than 200 years ago.
We were part of the British Empire's campaign against slavery.
We were the destination for runaway slaves through the Underground Railroad.
I think that Canada, if you judge us in the time in question in this 18th century, in the 19th century, we were the most progressive place around.
And I think an attempt to retroactively demonize our country as racist is historically illiterate and it's wrong.
That's my thought.
What does Matthew Lau have to say?
It sounds like he's a Chinese Canadian.
You have a lot of minorities writing here, and they're writing things that are contrarian because the official woke view is: no, we're all racist.
We're a genocidal state.
John A. McDonald's a war criminal.
Tell me about some of these essays standing against this hurricane of woke.
Sure.
You mentioned Matthew Lau's in the 1867 project, and his chapter is key because there is this notion that Canada is systemically racist today.
What Matthew does is he adds some history and some statistics to this claim and then rebuts the claim.
So how he does that, he says, look, yeah, 70 years ago, 100 years ago, there was discrimination against minorities in this country.
But today, if you look at the income stats, right, you look at ethnicity, you look at income.
Well, who's at the top of the heap income-wise?
It's those with East Asian origins, for example, you know, himself from the Chinese community.
If you look at Japanese Canadians, if you look at someone from Taiwan, as opposed to China proper.
But generally, East Asian Canadians are at the top of the income heap, which is a good thing.
Now, it doesn't mean there's not individual bigots out there or prejudice.
And Matthew makes this distinction in the 1867 project.
But to find a bigot out there is not the same thing as saying Canada is systemically racist.
And people are not clear in this, and that's the problem these days.
People don't make distinctions.
They don't actually define what they mean when they talk, including politicians, a lot of them, and a lot of the media.
So what's a good reminder of what systemic racism is?
Let's go back 100 years to San Francisco.
Back then, whites in San Francisco would not allow those of Chinese origin into their white hospitals.
The Chinese of San Francisco had to build their own hospitals.
That's institutional racism or Ontario before the early 1950s.
You could discriminate against someone based on color or ethnicity in terms of employment, accommodation.
But laws are passed against that in 1951, 1952.
And yet, 70 years later, we have governments and politicians pulling their hair out as if, you know, this is Canada in 2023 as Alabama in 1923.
It's really quite ridiculous.
So Matthew Mao does a nice job of taking down this claim that Canada is systemically racist, at least against minorities.
I mean, you do see government policy these days that is what I'd call reverse racism.
I had to ask one dean at the University of Calgary to defend a hiring policy that was very specific to one color.
And they said, really?
So you wouldn't hire the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor because you think she's privileged?
So it's amazing to me actually how we've lost ground on this issue, Ezra.
That unfortunately today, old evils are cropping up in new guises, new justifications, discrimination against the individual, as opposed to, no, celebrate the individual, discriminate based on merit, hire on merit, that sort of thing.
So we've actually, I think, lost some ground, unfortunately.
And you're comparing things to Canada and San Francisco in the last century, but I think you can take a broader comparison.
Why just compare us against our own recent past?
Why not compare us to every single other country and continent in the world?
I think there's a myth that only the West was racist or only the, whereas today, I mean, there is still slavery in several continents.
There's still overt racism and discrimination in several continents.
What other country in the world is better than Canada?
I don't think there's a good answer to that.
Listen, I want to whip through some of the other subjects.
Give me just short snappers on each of these.
Greg Piasetsky, if I'm saying it wrong, takes on the case of Sir John A. MacDonald.
Here in Toronto, there's a great statue of Sir John A. MacDonald right in the heart of the city, and they built a wooden coffin around it so no one has to look at it.
It's insane.
The founder of this country is in a wooden coffin in the biggest city because the city fathers are too ashamed of him.
Give me a one-liner of why Greg Piasetsky says that's wrong.
Well, because he favored treaties and carried out treaties in the West, specifically to make sure that what happened in the American West didn't happen in the Canadian West.
Founded the Northwest Mount of Police to protect the first settlers, you could say, from later settlers and vice versa, but first settlers from later settlers.
And he provided famine relief.
Plus, he was instrumental as part of the effort to inoculate Indigenous Canadians against smallpox.
So for all those reasons and more, Greg details why John A. MacDonald, as he puts it, saved more Indigenous lives than any other prime minister.
Gurav Jaswal, which sounds like a Sikh name, and again, I'm pointing this out because I think there's something powerful for people who are supposed to be woke and think as part of an identity group saying, no, no, no, I've looked at things independently, and it's not that way.
Tell me about Gurav Jaswell's essay on the error of Canadian self-loathing.
I think that is truly, you know, we're talking about race a little bit.
It's like one of those funny lists, white people problems or things white people like.
I think that maybe things are so luxurious and so prosperous that the way that, and there's no real battles to fight, that we turn on ourselves and it's sort of like a cannibalism.
We declare ourselves the enemy.
Tell me why Gurav Jaswell thinks that Canadians should stop hating themselves.
I love Gurev's chapter in the 1867 project.
Gurev is an entrepreneur from Goa, India, who sent his two sons here to university to Canada.
And then Jaswell started to notice that Canadians were beating up on themselves and he was wondering why.
So he kind of looked into this.
And in the chapter in the 1867 project, Gurav says, what do you mean you're a systemically racist country?
You know, akin to what Matthew Lau said, he asked this questions.
Gaurav says he knows someone who, he doesn't say which province, but a friend of his, a lady that moved here some time ago, became elected as an MLA to a provincial legislature in Canada.
And then this lady had the temerity to say, Canada is an institutionally racist country against me.
And Gaurav said, listen, I live in Goa, India.
I'm not native to this state in India.
I couldn't get elected in the state because of the racism.
And yet you moved to Canada and you're elected as a politician.
So Gurav kind of, again, unpacks this.
He also, he wrote a column in the National Post several years ago and he reprints some of the letters he got, some of the emails he got when he wrote that post column from Canadians, a lot of whom are immigrants and said, this is nuts how we're attacking Canada as this systemically institutionally racist country.
And again, they kind of made the point you made.
They've encountered real racism around the world.
And they came from societies that sometimes were deeply racist.
So Garab does a nice job of unpacking this from Goa, India, to say, you know, Canadians, stop doing this.
You've got a country that was built up over time that has many things to cherish.
You know, I've been to some foreign lands, including Iraq.
And it's funny what people said to me when I was in Iraq.
They said two things.
They said, stop smiling so much.
You look stupid.
And stop saying thank you very much for little things that, stop overthinking people.
I said, well, that's just how I am.
Maybe that's how Canadians are.
We're always saying, sorry, A.
And my friends over there said, no, you look so gullible and you look like a mark and you're so, oh, thank you very much for a trifle.
People said it looks like you're a sucker.
And I think that's how it is over there.
But here in Canada, we like being nice.
We like saying after you, no, after you, let me hold it over you.
No, sorry, sorry, sorry.
And I think that some of these essays, in a way, are unpacking that, is that we're so hypersensitive to criticism.
We're so obsequious that we don't even take our own side of the argument.
That we're so deferential and that other places, other people in the world are brutal.
Oh, no, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Go ahead.
No, I was just going to say, okay, I think the core problem in Canada is best illustrated by an image.
When you think about what it takes to create a country from scratch over time, it's like an oak tree.
I love oak trees.
Why?
Because they're massive.
Their canopy is huge.
They can shelter people underneath it.
My car has been hit by hail a number of times in Calgary.
If I was sitting under an oak tree with my car, we probably would have protected it because of the canopy.
It's so huge.
An oak tree is like a country.
It's like a civilization and vice versa.
So Canada was built up over time, pre-Confederation, post-Confederation.
I mean, you can go all the way back 20,000 years ago to the first settlers, right?
Those who we now call Indigenous whose ancestors came over the Bering Strait.
Everybody contributed to building this country.
French fur traders, people in 1867, people who came two months ago from Ukraine or Hong Kong, fleeing troubles there in those locales.
But people today, some anyway, I don't think it's the majority of Canadians, Ezra.
I think there's a chunk of the population that sees a diseased limb in our history, right?
We didn't give the vote to Indigenous folk before 1960 or women before the 1910s.
All right, that was a problem.
It was a diseased limb on a tree, so to speak.
What do you do?
You don't take down the entire tree.
You prune the limb.
You make the tree better.
But we've got people today who see a problem and they immediately want to take down the entire structure, Canada.
They want to pour acid on the roots, our foundations.
Well, that's dumb because it's the tree of Canada, so to speak, this massive oak tree that's been built up over centuries that has afforded protection to millions of people.
Perfectly?
No.
But of course, this is the other problem I have.
And I think this is also the genesis of the 1867 project and the Aristotle Foundation, Ezra.
When people look back in the 20th century, the main problem was, you know, the main utopian problem was Marxism.
But at least they are, they could argue they looked ahead and they could create a perfect society in the future.
Today, we have people here, utopians, who look back into history and weirdly expect history to have been perfect, even though it was populated by imperfect human beings like us.
Unite Around Better Ideas00:03:25
Why would you expect Johnny McDonald to have been perfect or hold views exactly like us?
Plus, it actually, it's not just, of course, they were different people, different age.
We don't need to excuse or, you know, or apologize for that or condemn them for that.
Here's the other problem today with, again, some of the chattering classes who want to trash Canada.
It's also that, look, we built on their ideas and they have the tougher struggles.
Johnny McDonald trying to like feed, you know, in a famine, Indigenous Canadians trying to inoculate Indigenous Canadians against smallpox.
We're trying to build a country in a pre-modern age where it was mostly rural and agricultural before the rise of the automobile.
I mean, you know, the people who fought in world wars to actually preserve liberty, to advance liberty, the people who worked for suffrage for equal opportunity, regardless of color, they had the tougher job.
So for us to trash past generations to me seems entirely ungrateful.
And it's the wrong way to look at history.
We have built on their sacrifices and successes.
It's not that we ignore the wrongs in human history, but we've got to understand, at least in the Anglosphere and liberal democracies like Canada, we're a success by and large for the most part, except for some backsliding today, because of what these founders and others did.
And we ought to appreciate that more.
So I think that's a big part of the 1867 project, trying to get people to think a little more deeply instead of this nonsensical black and white view of history, which, you know, in the 1950s, John Wayne is always the good guy.
The Indigenous person is kind of secondary.
Now it's flipped.
That's just, that's simplistic history.
We shouldn't do that again and treat individuals as something less than what they are, individuals.
And I think condemning great men and women in the past for flaws is a kind of narcissism.
I'm better than them.
I'm perfect.
Obviously, I'm perfect.
No one in the future will ever look at me and say, I missed a trick.
So I'm so perfect.
I'm looking back historically and I'm superior to them.
And I'm just going to tell you that.
And the noisier I say it, the more pure I am.
I tell you, I look forward to reading the book.
It's called the 1867 Project.
It's a compilation of 20 vignettes like these.
The new foundation that published it is the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.
And their motto, which I like, is championing reason, democracy, and civilization.
And we could use a little bit more of all three of those things.
We've been talking with Mark Milke, their new executive director.
Listen, congratulations.
You can get the book on Amazon.ca.
I just went there myself.
Congratulations on him.
And what's the best website for people to learn more about the think tank?
Well, if they may as well, Ezra, let me just say that I think we should unite around ideas, not divide in identities.
That's actually the positive message in the 1867 Project book.
That's the end of the book.
People can find us at aristotlefoundation.org.
Just tap in Aristotle Foundation, look for us, and you'll find us there.
And again, the book, You're Right, is available on an Amazon.ca.
But, you know, I think Canadians should unite around the wonderful ideas that are part of our history and now and not divide.
So that's really where we want to point people to, is that positive end for everybody, because we're such an identity diverse country.
We need to unite around better ideas.
There you have it.
Mark Mielke, the Aristotle Foundation.
Good luck to you.
We look forward to following your success.
Thank you, Ezra.
Cheers.
Unite Around Ideas00:02:39
Stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Mark Beerly writes, I remember when they first started pushing the idea of hate crime.
I knew it was only a matter of time before we would begin to see hate speech.
And here we are.
Yeah, you know, it's incredible how many people think that hate speech is some like legal category of speech that is not protected speech.
There is no asterisk in the Charter of Rights that says you have freedom of speech unless your feelings are hard.
It's just not a thing.
But frankly, I bet you half the lawyers and judges in the country would go along with that authoritarian view.
Someone named Woofius, I think that might not be a real name, says, speaking of re-education camps, isn't that what feds wanted during the start of the pandemic outbreak by sending those unvaxxed to re-education camps around Canada?
And you thought it could never happen in Canada.
True North Strong and re-educated.
They weren't re-education camps.
They were, I'm not going to say concentration camps because that implies the death camps of Nazi Germany, but they were quarantine camps.
They were mainly at airport hotels.
And they were an absurd violation of our civil liberties.
They were actually scientifically junk.
If you are sick with the virus, go home and isolate yourself.
Don't go to a hotel with staff and other people at a busy airport.
They made no sense, but it was that authoritarian instinct of public health.
So, yeah, those were not re-education camps, though.
Those were quarantine containment camps, which is, I suppose, the step before a re-education camp.
Chuck Andrews says, if you won't tolerate being hated, don't be hateful.
Well, you really don't have a choice about it because you can't control other people's feelings.
They will hate what they want to hate and love what they want to love.
And it's very hard to change those things.
Like I say, if you want to change feelings of hate, you almost certainly have to deal with the underlying grievance.
People generally don't hate for no reason.
There's some hurt in their life that is driving them to that, some injustice.
They might be wrong about it, by the way.
It is possible to change people's views, but that involves talking, arguing, maybe even hollering at each other, sometimes offensive talk.
But as Churchill himself said, it's better to jaw jaw than to war war.