Sheila Gunn Reid examines Justin Trudeau’s August 2022 separation from Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, spotlighting his VIP Challenger jet flights during the 2023 King’s coronation—where Sophie traveled separately and nanny Sarah Clark returned alone—raising questions about taxpayer-funded personal use. Meanwhile, Robbie Picard from Fort McMurray warns of Trudeau’s energy policies, citing layoffs at Suncor and Syncrude, stalled projects like LNG exports to Germany/Japan, and pipeline shutdowns, arguing they harm Canada’s economy while benefiting foreign interests. Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act is praised as a symbolic response, but Picard insists federal overreach undermines both jobs and Indigenous-led reconciliation. Letters from listeners amplify separatist frustrations, targeting Ottawa’s policies and Christy Freeland’s WEF ties, framing Trudeau’s legacy as one of elite detachment from public accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
I think I had documents which proved marital discord in the Trudeau household in my hands for about four weeks.
Then Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong joins me to talk about the phase-out of the oil and gas sector under Justin Trudeau's liberals.
It's August 2nd, 2022.
I'm Sheila Gunread, but you're watching the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Big news that I think most astute political watchers knew was coming at some point.
However, I didn't think it would happen while he was still in the prime minister's office.
But here we are.
Justin Trudeau has announced his separation from his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau.
Here's the statement from the Prime Minister's office.
And naturally, the social media prime minister also made the announcement on his Instagram, which is so perfectly Trudeau 2023.
It's weird and off-putting, but here's the PMO statement.
Statement from the Prime Minister's office.
Today, the Prime Minister and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau provided an update on their relationship.
Sophie and the Prime Minister have signed a legal separation agreement.
They have worked to ensure that all legal and ethical steps with regards to their decision to separate have been taken and will continue to do so moving forward.
They remain a close family, and Sophie and the Prime Minister are focused on raising their kids in a safe, loving, and collaborative environment.
Both parents will be a constant presence in their children's lives, and Canadians can expect to often see the family together.
The family will be together on vacation beginning next week.
For the well-being of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy.
Now, if you've been paying attention, you know the Trudeau's have been living apart, I think, for quite a while.
Trudeau's wife and children have largely spent much of their recent time over the last few years at the summer house of Harrington Lake, while Trudeau has been largely holed up in Rideau Cottage.
The couple's lack of contact with each other was glaringly evident when Sophie first brought COVID home from a trip to England early in the pandemic, but Trudeau didn't catch it from her.
And you would think a recently returned wife to the loving arms of her husband would have given him this apparently highly contagious disease.
And then when Trudeau did eventually catch COVID, Sophie was already somewhere else where she wouldn't be in contact with her husband to recontract the disease.
It was all just sort of weird if you were paying attention.
Now, let me just stop right here.
I want to say the dissolution of any marriage is an absolute tragedy.
Even the dissolutions of the marriages of my political enemies, particularly because there are children involved.
I have to tell you that despite my glaring differences with the Trudeau's, of course, I always, always cheer for intact families as the building block of a sane society.
I hate seeing this, although it confirms a lot of my suspicions.
But still, this is objectively awful and it changes the worlds of three innocent children who did not ask for these people to be their parents.
And these children have done nothing wrong.
And we should remember that when we are talking about the Trudeau's marriage.
I realized something, however, in the news of the prime minister's separation from his wife as it broke this morning.
I think I had evidence of this in my hands for about four weeks.
I just really didn't know what I had at the time.
And I didn't have now the context of what I had.
Let me tell you what I did.
I asked for the flight manifest for the Prime Minister's VIP travel associated with the King's coronation ceremonies in the UK back in May of 2023.
If you donate to a website, rebelinvestigates.com, you helped me get access to these records and many other access to information records.
We rely on your support.
We don't get any money from Justin Trudeau.
So, thank you for making today's monologue possible.
If you donate there, now at the time, I just wanted to know how big the entourage was that Canadian taxpayers were footing the bill for.
Now, on the Department of National Defense's manifest, which would cover the Prime Minister's Challenger jet, I could not see Sophie Trudeau on his flight.
Sophie must have traveled there separately because we know that she was in the UK for the coronation.
I just know she didn't travel with her husband on that challenger.
I thought it was odd, and of course, a poor use of tax dollars, but now, hindsight being 2020, it was indicative of something tragic unfolding in the Trudeau family.
Even more strangely on the manifest, we can see that the nanny for the Trudeau family, Sarah Clark, she was on the flight home with Justin Trudeau.
Now, she wasn't on the flight over.
I'm just going to assume that Sarah Clark flew over to the UK with Sophie on whatever flight she took.
One might wonder why Trudeau would need a nanny on a flight when his kids weren't on the flight with him because they weren't.
They were not on the return flight manifest.
I can see documentary evidence of that.
At the time, I want to reiterate: I just thought this was all sort of bizarre.
Maybe the Trudeau's had gotten into a fight, it happens.
Maybe Sophie went early or stayed later.
Maybe the couple's schedules just didn't align.
Maybe they didn't care about taxpayer dollars.
I don't know.
It could have been a combination of many, many things.
And I was just left to speculate at the time.
But in the light of today's news, a nanny on Justin Trudeau's flight with no Sophie or no kids, what are we to think now?
And I want to tell you: a divorce or separation is really a private matter.
It's really none of our business, except insofar as Justin Trudeau made an announcement today.
Sophie Trudeau has really been out of the spotlight for years.
In fact, she's had very little public role whatsoever.
And I'm not sure I mind all that much.
When she is in public, she's, you know, kind of embarrassing.
Remember her weird warbling that one time?
Some people doubt that angels can fly.
And some people fight without knowing why.
Some people live without seeing the light.
And some people live.
Oh, no, no, no, no, but not quite.
And I know that good will prevail.
And I could conquer the world with all the love that I feel.
When you smile back at me, when you smile back at me, I see it from the corner of your eye.
The day that we will say goodbye.
But nothing will take away what's between you and me.
When you smile back at me, when you smile back at me, when you smile, when you smile, when you smile, I love you much.
But it is legitimate to ask if like the cheater John Torrey, the former mayor of Toronto, who had an affair with an underling while his city was locked down, but he had sent his wife to the free unlocked down state of Florida.
Fort McMurray's Struggle00:14:34
Trudeau was flying around his kids nanny on taxpayer dollars when there were no kids with him to nanny at all.
And I can see in the records, there were no kids to nanny.
This is a question in the public domain because now it touches on public dollars.
And I think the public deserves some clarity because while, and I reiterate, someone else's marital strife is their own business and it kind of grosses me out to know about it because it feels voyeuristic and creepy.
I also don't want to have to pay for it.
Stay with us.
Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong joins us after the break.
Imagine you are in a federal industry and with the stroke of a pen, the feds have decided to outlaw what you do for a living and the money that you generate into the Canadian economy.
Well, I think that's what it feels like to be an oil patch CEO right now and to be someone who works in the oil patch.
And yet, when environment minister at the time, Stephen Gilbo was pushing his net zero green transition plan, two weeks ago, he refused to meet with oil patch CEOs to explain himself and what he wants to do to the entire energy sector.
It's crazy.
I think it's a slap in the face.
And joining me now is somebody who's been a staunch advocate for people who work within the oil and gas sector and for Canada's oil and gas on the international market.
My friend Robbie Picard, founder of Oil Sands Strong.
He joins me now from Fort McMurray.
Robbie, thanks for coming on the show.
What do you think about this?
Stephen Gilbo refusing to meet with the oil patch CEOs.
Now, Gilbeau said that he would rather meet with people that he doesn't normally get to meet with, I guess, like environmentalist organizations.
But what do you think about this refusal to explain himself to the people whose industries he plans to destroy?
I think it shows you where his mind from his past history, from his past activism, like he's the guy that, you know, put solar panels on Ralph Klein's home or attempted to.
I think it's very scary, but I'm not surprised.
It's a sign of the times.
I mean, they don't want our industry to be successful.
They want to shut it down.
There's a rush to shut it down.
And it's terrifying.
And I truly hope that we have a proper change of government right now because the damage that Trudeau is doing to us, I don't think people understand how severe it is.
I mean, candidly, you know, I'm trying to be very hopeful about Fort McMurray, but it's almost like they've put kind of like a countdown clock on our entire economy and our entire future.
And it's very scary.
And I'm worried.
I'm worried about our future.
I think that he should be ashamed of himself that he wouldn't meet with any of, I mean, when you're the environmental minister, you're supposed to meet with everybody.
And it was about making the environment better.
I do not believe shutting down oil and gas is going to make the world a better place.
It's going to make other countries richer and Canada poorer.
What's it like in Fort McMurray?
What's the sense in Fort McMurray?
Because, you know, I think it's a surprise to nobody.
My husband works in oil and gas and we're in a bit of a boom right now.
I think owing some of it to, frankly, the war in Ukraine that sort of always drives up the price of commodities like oil and gas.
But things finally, after a very long time, are picking back up in the oil patch.
We're seeing mass hirings instead of mass layoffs.
Things have been hopeful, especially with Premier Daniel Smith's advocacy for Canadian oil and gas.
And then all of a sudden we have the Feds just throwing this wet blanket over top of the industry.
What's it like in Fort McMurray?
Honestly, like right now, I'm not hearing about a lot of job hires.
I mean, I know that if you're in heavy equipment or an operator, they're pretty short in that department.
But candidly, I mean, you're hearing about a lot of layoffs, you know, especially at Suncor right now.
So, but I mean, I don't know.
That could just be with some decisions they've made internally to do some shifting that now they've kind of really taken over Syncrude.
But the morale in our community sucks, like it feels really kind of bad.
And there's a lot of empty buildings.
There's not a lot of investment.
I mean, we have, we might be getting a super Walmart, but I think our community has been hit with two things.
There's a lot of fly-in fly-out.
People live in camps.
We've got like 30,000 people live in camps.
And we are, for whatever reason, the pariah of all things bad in the world.
So I do believe it's booming a little bit, but the feeling isn't overly optimistic right now.
I mean, there's lots of houses on the market.
The prices are dropping.
I think this interest rate hike has really hurt a lot of people.
I think that the decisions that Trudeau has made and the comments he's made, it's just really bad.
But I mean, I want to be hopeful, Sheila, but it's not always easy to be hopeful.
Like for what Fort McMurray has contributed to the rest of the country, Alberta and everywhere else, we should have a lot more than we do right now.
And that part is a little bit kind of scary.
Yeah, I mean, you have to think about what these net zero policies, and they say they want everything to be net zero by 2050.
That's really only, you know, 25, 26, 27 years out.
When you think about the time it takes to build a major oil and gas facility, it can take upwards of a decade.
And that's multi-billion dollars of investment.
And that's just not going to happen here in Canada with the sun setting on the industry if the liberals have their way.
That money is not going to come to Fort McMurray.
It's not going to come to Fort Saskatchewan's upgrader alley.
It's going to go to places like North Dakota, West Texas, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, places where it's safer to invest in the oil industry than in Justin Trudeau's Canada.
Well, and I think that's what he wanted.
And I think, you know, people judge people by history.
You can always make statements on that.
I don't think history is going to look very kindly on his effect on Canada.
And I think like the damage that, you know, the damage that he's done to our industry, I think we'll be paying for for a very long time.
You know, for example, example, like if he would have decided to do something for LNG and liquefied natural gas and became a friend to Germany, a friend to Japan, that could have set our next generation up for success.
But instead, he said there was no business case for it.
Yeah, I think that is the intention of the bigger planets, just to, you know, just get the oil and gas industry to die a slow death.
I'm not really much of a conspiracy theorist, but I do question so much of what's going on right now and why it's going on.
And I'm very worried.
When it comes to Fort McMurray, like, you know, we should be the richest city in Canada.
We should be booming.
We should have all this amazing stuff.
And there's not a lot of new investment here right now.
And I don't believe it is lack of opportunity.
I think it's just the way the government has basically done the narration of our community that communities that rely on oil and gas are just going to be shut down.
And I'm worried because our morale and our future, the house prices are dropping.
Interest rates of, I mean, so many people are upside down on their mortgages.
You know, there's only so much people can take and then they break.
And that's sort of the feel right now.
I wish it was optimistic.
I mean, I do believe other parts of Alberta are booming more than us, but it just goes to show you how the heart of the Canada's energy industry isn't always the most loved.
Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Now, I want to pivot away from politicians who hate the oil and gas sector to politicians who love the oil and gas sector.
And I think Danielle Smith, our new premier, is a true advocate for Canada's oil and gas sector in a way that we haven't seen in a very long time.
She has basically obligated herself to fight with the feds anytime the feds encroach on provincial jurisdiction, particularly when it comes to energy and energy projects and energy project approvals.
Tell me, what do you think about Danielle Smith and her advocacy for the oil and gas sector?
I know that you had discussed with her sort of as she was campaigning and before she even became premier the first time around what she would do for the oil and gas sector.
What do you think about what she's done so far?
Danielle Smith, I think she's an amazing leader.
I'm very impressed with the way she fights for our community.
I stand by this.
She's one of my favorite politicians.
Anytime I've met with her, people have met with her.
She listens to them.
She's concerned and she's kept every promise she's ever made to me.
And she's met with every person I've ever asked her to meet with.
So I do believe she truly cares.
I hope people humanize her.
I hope that the conservatives, you know, learn from a lot of their mistakes in the past because I truly believe that their values are what Alberta needs right now and the fight for what Alberta needs.
But when it comes to the feds, I mean, I mean, honestly, I mean, they have no respect for us.
They want us to shut our energy industry down, even though our energy industry carries them and their perfect recession-proof lifestyle.
So it's quite terrifying.
Now, before I let you go, I want to ask you about what this means for Indigenous reconciliation, because that's something the feds just can't seem to shut up about.
They just keep talking about Indigenous reconciliation.
But the phase-out of the oil and gas sector will directly affect the Indigenous population, because I think there is no more an Indigenous industry than the oil and gas sector.
So you work very closely with the Indigenous community in Fort McMurray.
You are Indigenous yourself.
Tell me what you're hearing in those communities.
They want the federal government to butt out when it comes to getting in the way of oil and gas production in our region, not just here in British Columbia as well.
And there's a lot of talk about the energy corridor, the Indigenous energy corridor, which we're working on right now.
There's a lot of people that are disgusted at the way that they shut down the, you know, the, they didn't support the Keystone Pipeline.
And then there was the gateway, the gateway pipeline that they shut down, Northern Gateway pipeline.
So it's just honestly, I mean, there is some hope.
I mean, we're going to go to a conference in a couple weeks.
I mean, I do feel like there is some hope, but I just think that our federal government, if they really believe in reconciliation and truly making up for the past, the energy industry is the best way to do that, the fastest way, the most environmentally safe way.
And they haven't been an advocate for us in a long time.
So I'm hopeful, but I'm also coming from a place today where I'm concerned that they don't seem to really care.
And they say one thing, but their actions say something else.
So when it comes to advocating for Alberta and my community, Justin Shroto has probably been the worst thing that's ever happened for us.
And now, before I let you go, Robbie, you basically are up against the deep pockets of foreign-funded green charities advocating for Canada's industry.
You do it largely on your own with, you know, you have a little tiny team around you, but it's not like Tides or Makeway money or Greenpeace money or forest ethics or whatever they call themselves these days.
You don't have that kind of money.
This is grassroots as it comes.
So tell me how people support the work that you do and how they can find out what you're doing next.
So please go to oilsandstrong.com and buy a couple hoodies.
That would really help out, especially as I'm on my way to go back and finish the bus tour of the buses in Sudbury right now.
And we're going to head to Ottawa next.
And also, if you can, you know, participate in Oil and Gas World magazine at oilandgasworld.ca.
I interview a lot of different people.
And if you can buy an ad or something, that definitely helps us out.
Great, Robbie.
Thanks so much for coming on the show.
And thank you so much for working so hard to advocate for families just like mine.
Okay.
Thank you very much for having me as well.
Stay with us.
your letters to Ezra read by me up after the break.
Well, friends, we've come to the letters portion of the show where we read your viewer feedback, good, bad, or indifferent.
We take it just the way we find it because we live and die on the support and feedback of our viewers at home.
We don't have a sugar daddy named Justin Trudeau giving us a bunch of money to create content and do the news that nobody cares about.
So we care what you have to say because without you, there is no rebel news.
Now, we've got some letters from Gary and Sherry Schauston says, hey, Ezra, if Alberta did separate from Canada, I would sell everything here in Ontario and move there.
I won't do it now because I have my family, business, and property here.
Alberta's Separation Fantasy00:04:50
But when push comes to shove, I'm out of here.
Now, I'm not sure if Alberta will ever truly separate.
It's a fantasy football sort of ideal for me because I feel that we're sort of culturally incompatible with vast swaths of this country.
And we have been treated fairly, poorly since we joined Confederation in 1905, along with our friends and neighbors in Saskatchewan.
And I think there are parts of British Columbia that are culturally compatible with us here in Alberta.
I think most of the interior seems a little bit more Albertan and Western in their thoughts than, for example, the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island.
But the reason I don't think at this point separation is a real possibility is our new premier, Daniel Smith, is giving the separatist movement a lot of the things that it wanted without separation.
A lot of people expressed separatist sentiment because they were frustrated with how they were treated by Ottawa, but also how our so-called conservative politicians were reacting to that treatment of Ottawa.
Jason Kenney, our former premier, would send a series of strongly worded letters to Justin Trudeau, who I don't think normally reads things without pictures.
And strongly worded letters were not enough.
They have never been enough.
And all it did was, well, frankly, nothing.
And it never stopped the feds from overreaching into provincial jurisdiction.
Our new premier, Daniel Smith, has basically legislated and obligated herself to fight with the feds on all matters in which the feds overreach into provincial jurisdiction.
It's called the Sovereignty Act, and it gives the sovereignty movement a lot of the things that it wants from our premier without actually having to leave the country.
Because I think a lot of sovereigntists are reluctant sovereigntists.
They see it as the last resort.
And a lot of sovereigntists love Canada, but they just never felt like Canada loved them back.
And maybe this is the way to save that relationship.
By the way, might I encourage you to just move out here anyway?
If you sold your property in Ontario, your dollars to buy new property here in Alberta would go a heck of a lot farther.
You've just got some wildly out of proportion property prices in Ontario.
I don't know how young people ever think about living the dream of home ownership there.
Let's keep going.
On last night's Ezra Levant monologue about what if Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Christy Freeland is worse than Justin Trudeau.
Wow, Ezra.
Bold proposition.
Nicole Heck writes, she's on the WEF Board of Trustees, major conflict of interest.
Yeah, you better believe that.
If Christia Freeland is operating as someone who is on the WEF Board of Trustees, is she putting Canada first?
And how do we even know?
That's the problem.
She might be, but the conflict of interest means that we might never know.
We're just supposed to take her at her word for it.
And I don't take any politician at their word.
Unacceptable and deplorable rights.
Freeland oozes condescension and smarminess when she speaks.
She comes across as even more phony than Trudeau.
Yeah, she does, doesn't she?
She talks to Canadians as though she were speaking to a group of kindergartners, which is insulting to our intelligence.
And it is.
It's just so sickly sweet.
Like she has this Mother Canada feel about her.
Like, I'm just doing these things for your own good.
And you people are just too immature to realize why I'm seizing your bank accounts for your own good.
I don't know.
She very well could be worse than Justin Trudeau.
I'm not sure.
Depends on the bar by which you measure it, doesn't it?
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I think Ezra's back hosting the show tomorrow.
Thanks for everybody's patience with me, including the production team in Toronto and across the country.
Viewers may or may not know, but I did have some technical difficulties today that through the magic of television, you may never be aware of.
So thank you for that.
And thank you for the hardworking team behind the scenes.