Ezra Levant critiques CBC’s October 5th annual report, where CEO Catherine Tate claims rising threats against journalists—ignoring past incidents like David Menzies’ assault or the Freedom Convoy’s selective framing. CBC’s prime-time market share fell to 5.8%, yet it pushes taxpayer-funded narratives while lobbying for Trudeau’s Online Harms Act. At Vancouver Island Speaks Out, activists like Janea Wright exposed SOGI 123’s risks to child safety, facing venue cancellations and threats. Levant defends free speech on parental rights and women’s safeguards, contrasting Rebel News’s transparency with CBC’s alleged hypocrisy, and teases a competing annual report. [Automatically generated summary]
Hey there, I read the CBC's annual report so you don't have to.
I found the best and the worst of it.
You're going to be appalled by some of it and you'll have a chuckle at other parts, but I'd love you to see the video version of it.
Can you go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe?
It's eight bucks a month, and you get the video version of this, and I do the show every weekday.
Plus, you know, we sort of need the dough because we don't take any money from Trudeau and it shows we're independent-minded, but we need your support.
Eight bucks is probably not a lot of dough to you, but it is a lot to us because it really adds up.
And I'd like you to consider that and go to rebelnewsplus.com.
Thanks a million.
right here's today's podcast tonight cbc releases its annual report and it's a disaster It's October 5th, and this is the Esther Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
I saw this story in Black Locks, which is one of the few non-government-funded news sources left in Canada.
Here's what it looked like.
Their headline was, say Canada's unsafe for CBC.
Let me read a little bit from their story.
Canada is unsafe for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporters, says CEO Catherine Tate, the network chief in a report to Parliament, claims CBC employees, quote, face rising threats to their safety both online and in the field.
The public broadcaster's role as a source of trust to news and support of original Canadian stories has never been more important than in today's increasingly polarized society, Tate wrote in the latest annual report.
Our news teams are experiencing the impact of this polarization firsthand as they face rising threats to their safety both online and in the field.
Did you know that the CBC was facing safety threats?
I didn't, and I keep my eyes peeled for such things pretty carefully, but maybe I already noticed, detected, just a little bit of baloney here.
My BS detector starting to ping like a Geiger counter.
Safety threats online.
Hey, you guys aren't just talking about mean tweets again, are you?
Is that what you mean by safety?
Yeah, when they blame others for polarization, sure.
Let me read a bit more.
We're defending media freedom so our journalists can stay on the stories that matter to you, as they have throughout the pandemic and war in Ukraine and during the 2021 federal election and the convoy protests, wrote Tate.
Your public broadcaster is committed to supporting accurate and credible journalism as a cornerstone of our democracy.
We are committed to protecting the journalists, producers, cameramen, and all the teams who do the work each and every day.
Is that right?
The CBC is defending media freedom.
That's what they said.
I haven't heard that one before.
How are they defending media freedom?
Where?
When?
In some court case that I haven't heard about?
They did mention the pandemic.
Okay.
How did the CBC defend press freedom then?
They didn't say a word when our reporters were assaulted, either David Menzies or Alexa Lavois, or even when the Montreal police tried to search our Airbnb houseboat without a warrant.
So what do they mean?
They're defending freedom in the press in Ukraine, they said they said that.
But they don't even have a reporter in Ukraine.
They sent a reporter in like for a few days last year, but unless I've missed it, they haven't had a reporter there for ages.
Maybe they mean this woman, Briar Stewart, their Russia correspondent, who, as you can see here, is based in London, England.
That's a neat trick.
You know, we could actually use someone fighting for press freedom in Russia and in Ukraine too.
I can understand why the CBC isn't actually doing that, even though they just said they are.
I mean, it's too dangerous.
Here's a story.
I don't know if you saw this one.
There is an American journalist who has been taken prisoner by Russia.
That's no good.
So I can understand why CBC has their Russian correspondent in London.
And here's the New York Times itself with the headline.
Critics say a new media law signed by Zelensky could restrict press freedom in Ukraine.
Lawmakers who passed the bill said it would help meet European Union conditions for membership, but journalists have denounced it as a move towards censorship.
So yeah, I wish the CBC were telling the truth.
I wish they were fighting for press freedom in Russia or Ukraine or both.
Then again, I say I wish the CBC were telling the truth a lot.
Those are words I say often, don't I?
So maybe the rest of the sentence was true, that they defend media freedom during the 2021 federal election and the convoy protests.
But again, is that true?
The only censorship I know of in the 2021 election was rebel news being banned from attending the leaders' debate.
We had to go to court in an emergency application to get an order letting us in.
The CBC were nowhere to be found.
And the trucker convoy, only in their own fevered minds were the CBC at risk.
Not a single convoy protester was ever arrested or charged with violence or threats of violence in Ottawa.
Like I say, the only violence in that entire city in that entire time was against Alexa Lavoie by Trudeau's mounties.
So what are they banging on about fighting for freedom?
Well, you have to understand in 2023, to the woke left like CBC, words are violence.
So when they talk about safety, they mean safety from microaggressions, from mean tweets.
My favorite part of this news story is the last paragraph.
This is from Black Locks again.
The Canadian Association of Journalists in a January 28th, 2022 news release claimed its members suffered, quote, threats of violence and harassment from the Freedom Convoy.
The association later acknowledged it learned of all incidents second or third hand and that they typically involved jibes on Twitter.
They're liars.
Sorry.
I used to think about the Canadian Association of Journalists from time to time.
I mean, I've been a journalist really on and off for 30 years.
But the Canadian Association of Journalists are nothing but a lobby group to beg Trudeau for more money.
And since they have to do that every year, because Trudeau keeps them hungry, so they never stop begging.
So they just are always trying to suck up to him.
Here's a screenshot of the Canadian Association of Journalists' website.
I took this screenshot today.
As you can see, it's almost completely focused, not on journalism, but on begging for more subsidies.
There is one story there.
Did you see him?
Demanding that politicians don't get to decide who is or isn't a journalist.
I sort of like that one.
I can relate because Trudeau has banned us from so many things, from the Canadian parliament itself and from attending UN events.
But when I clicked on that link, it had nothing to say about any of that.
It was a rant about the Conservative Party not wanting to let a left-wing journalist attend their private party function.
Seriously, the Canadian Association of Journalists will demand that conservatives let liberals into their private functions.
But has nothing to say about the liberal government banning journalists from public functions.
Like I say.
Here's our friend Rupa Superman, and she points out this isn't, this whole annual report isn't just the CBC whining and playing the martyr again.
It's about the CBC lobbying for Trudeau's next censorship law for him.
It's called the Online Harms Act.
It will criminalize hurt feelings and give the government the power to actually delete and block entire websites from the internet, North Korea style.
Rupa's right.
Well, all this made me want to read the CBC's annual report.
I don't think I've ever said those words before, but yeah, I did want to read it.
So I did.
I found Catherine Tate's whiny letter.
But while I was there, I thought I'd look at the real stats in the annual report.
Like how many people actually watch the CBC?
Here's what they said.
So the truth of what's true is surely worse than what they admit to.
Here's what they admit to.
You can see on the website, this is a chart of how the CBC and CBC News do with audiences in English Canada.
Hey, no peeking.
What market share do you think the CBC has on television during prime time?
Remember, they have a huge brand name, the oldest TV station in Canada.
They have $1.5 billion a year to pump them up.
What do you think their market share is during prime time?
Do you think it's 20%?
Do you think it's maybe 10%?
Actually, it's 5.8%.
As you can see, they couldn't even meet their own target of 6.6%.
But look at that.
Their target for next year is even more laughable.
4.9%.
They expect, they aim, they're working hard to lose about one-fifth of their viewers in the next 12 months.
That's their stretch goal.
Remember, they failed to meet their goal this year, as you can see.
So their goal is to lose viewers.
It's probably going to be far worse.
But how about news?
And this gives me great hope.
The CBC is full of government journalists pushing Trudeau's propaganda.
So what percent of Canadians are watching CBC News?
By the way, I should tell you, it is legally required by the CRTC regulator to have the CBC News on every cable package in the country.
Did you know that?
You legally cannot escape it.
It is forced onto every basic cable package in Canada.
So what percent of the audience do you think watches CBC News?
Do you think it's 20%?
Do you think it's 10%?
Do you think it's 5.8% like the primetime shows?
No, look at that.
2.1%.
That is one out of 50 Canadians.
If you walk down the street and go for a good long walk and you meet a person, let's say every minute, you would be walking for nearly an hour before you bumped into someone who watched CBC News last night.
The first 49 out of 50 people you meet on the street, they wouldn't watch it, but I guess they'd still have to pay for it, right?
And look at that.
Their official target for next year.
I love this.
This is their big plan.
Is for that number to fall from 2.1% to 1.8%.
1.8%?
That is a rounding error.
That is lower than the number of people who believe in the Loch Ness monster or Sasquatch.
But doesn't that make you feel a little bit better?
I mean, sure, you're still spending $1.5 billion tax dollars a year on this.
I get it.
But literally nobody, or at least 98% of people are not even watching CBC News.
Hey, the one area where the CBC truly excels, though, is in being racist.
Sorry to say it, but that's the only word that fits.
Take a look at this.
You and I see people, right?
The CBC, though, as a propaganda arm for cultural Marxism, as Trudeau's errand boys, they see people as identity tokens.
This race, that sex, that sexual orientation, that religion, irrelevant things like that.
CBC's Racism in Hiring00:04:44
They don't judge people on the content of their character.
So their official goal, as you can see here, is for 42% minority hires.
And they beat that.
Hooray!
The only thing they could beat in their plan, they hired 44.5% minorities.
Almost 50% of all new hires are minority.
It's pretty much the only thing that they're good at, according to their annual report, except, sorry, it's racism on the face of it.
And racism is racism.
If you're judging people based on race, I'm sorry, you're a racist.
And if you're counting, which the CBC is, Canada is about 25% visible minority these days.
So they are positively discriminating against millions of people who are not minorities, but you knew that already.
Hey, it reminds me of this crazy story.
Did you see this one?
Take a look at this.
Career conference for females in tech was taken over by male attendees.
They were there just purely for the career fair.
Social media clips filmed at the Grace Hopper, the world's largest gathering of women technologists, show men standing in line to meet with recruiters.
This is a space for women in tech.
This is one of those few limited resources that isn't for you.
It's for us.
Some of the male attendees reportedly lied about being non-binary just to get in.
But it's interesting that the large majority of the people that actually ended up in the event had name tags with he, him and have no searchable history of identifying as non-binary.
Several tech workers defended the men for trying to capitalize on job opportunities not meant for them, seeing that the entire concept was wrong.
Let's be honest, there is no need for a conference just for women because if it was the opposite of for men, then they would be sexist.
Just because you are a woman doesn't give you the right to talk to a big firm recruiter.
Guys work just as hard and they don't get that chance.
Did you catch that?
It was an all-female job fair for computer science, you know, Google, Amazon, whatever.
But it was overrun by men pretending to be trans men.
But aren't all trans or trans women, whatever, but aren't they all pretending, really?
I saw this about the University of Toronto caught my eye the other day.
The U of T will provide free tuition to people from nine different Indian bands.
Wow.
What do you think that incentive will give people to do?
You are about to see thousands of Elizabeth Warrens.
You know who I'm talking about.
That U.S. senator who faked being Aboriginal.
You are going to have thousands of students discovering they are one 64th Indigenous to get that free stuff.
What a world, eh?
They probably won't learn much at university, but it'll certainly be enough to work for the CBC.
Stay with us for more.
Here with Rebel News, where we're not afraid to bring you the other side of the story to the politically driven narrative.
That is, if one does not affirm all things labeled as a trans right, that automatically makes them some sort of hateful bigot.
That's why when we learned about an event that would be hosted by Canadian journalist and women's rights activist Megan Murphy called Vancouver Island Speaks Out, we knew we'd better be there to cover it for you and be your eyes and ears.
Murphy, alongside activists and researcher Brirony Dixon and Janea Wright, a mother who caught a male dressed like a woman peeping under her daughter's change room stall in the Nanaimo Aquatic Center earlier this year, sat on a panel at the event for the discussion about gender identity ideology, women's spaces, and parental rights.
The conversation was MC'd by former Chilliwack and Hope MLA Gwen Mahoney, and all tickets for the event ended up selling out.
Despite such public interest, the original venue for the event canceled on the woman-led talk after pushback from cancel culture mobsters who also deemed the talk as hateful.
At the stroke of midnight, the good folks who volunteer their time to manage Lady Smith BC Saltaire Community Center allowed the event to relocate to their hall.
So on Sunday, I hopped on a ferry, which, by the way, costs way too much these days, and checked into a modest hotel and then met up with two bodyguards who were by my side the entire time I brought you the coverage from this event.
Relocating the Conversation00:14:01
So if you appreciate that Rebel News goes to far lengths to bring you reports like the one you're watching, consider helping us right now recoup some of those costs.
You can grab another device or open up another tab and go to our special website called journalistdefensefund.com.
That's where you can chip in to help us cover the security costs that we incurred for this event and also to keep rebels safe in the future.
I'm a female.
I have a vagina.
I'm going to sit on a toilet.
Who cares if I have short hair?
Who cares if I sleep with women or love women or marry women?
I'm marrying one.
Like, who cares?
It's none of your business what I do, how I live.
I'm not hurting you.
I'm not grooming your kids.
I'm giving my kids a safe space to be who they are.
And you are trying to stop that.
So I and we are trying to stop them.
You can't shut us up.
I think it's really important to support children's rights.
Children have rights just like their parents.
All right.
And your sign says inclusion is protection.
Okay, so inclusion of who?
You can make the sign.
Okay.
I accumulated it.
All right.
And so what do you think about this event isn't considering the kids properly?
Because they're pushing their own agenda.
Who's pushing it?
The anti-SOGI.
Okay, and what about SOGI is not for the children if you're against it?
I don't have any comments on that.
I was that kid that could have used SOGI in school.
I was that kid that tried to kill myself a bunch of times because I was surrounded by this.
By what?
What is that?
By what's going on in there?
They hate rhetoric.
I know I'm being sucked in, you guys.
I'm sorry.
This isn't a trap.
This is anti-SOGI bullshit.
They haven't, every time we try to offer an explanation and a description of the actual curriculum, like grade by grade.
Nope, I don't want to hear that.
I don't want to hear that, that bullshit.
We listened to theirs.
We tried to come in and they sent us elsewhere.
Like we had people wanting to hear the other side and they literally lied and said, go here.
This is where it's happening.
But we're too smart.
But I can tell you, I've covered SOGI.
Are you aware of them?
I think we should stop.
Yeah.
Just clarify one thing.
You don't want me to show curriculum.
I know what SOGI 123 is.
But when I told you one of the main concerns these parents have, you're saying you don't want to see the evidence of those books being in BC schools or across the county.
She said that she would give you her information.
Sorry.
Your fiancé said, I think you should stop here.
I think she should stop talking to you.
Can you tell us about your shirt?
My shirt is that you can assume my gender.
That's what I prefer you to do.
Is that okay?
I just want to know what your take is on it.
It means you can just assume whatever you want to call me is fine.
Totally fine.
Yeah.
And you can buy it at RebelNewsStore.com.
Let's take a look at some of what happened inside and outside of the event, starting with protesters who are champions for the controversial SOGI 123, a sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum that many parents are concerned about because among other things, it's paved the way for books with sexually explicit images like the ones you're seeing on the screen being normalized in schools across Western Canada.
And you're going to see the moment when for once when an olive branch was extended to the trans rights activists, they actually took the organizers up on that offer.
Take a look.
We don't want the hate.
And what is the hate at this event?
The speech that they're about to have in there is all hate.
Give me an example of how you know that.
I'm not going to give you an example of that.
They also invited us to come in, but without cameras and only two of us, which is obviously not safe for us.
And at that time, they did say it was not a paid event, that it has been canceled, but they are checking tickets at the doors.
Trish can stay here if she wants.
Yeah, Trish can stay where she wants.
She's being peaceful protesting.
We're conversing.
Okay.
Can you let the cop know that?
Because they said maybe which one.
So were you expecting that, that it's okay for you to be here?
It's all right.
It's all right?
Or did you think it would be more hateful, like get out of here, Trish?
I didn't expect that at all.
Yeah, I'm glad we're here.
How long is your event going to?
It's going till 9, so it should be starting any minute.
We just need clear here so people can come through.
If the protesters can stay out here, that would be great.
With the exception of Trish and her friend, we've talked to them.
Are they in the Q ⁇ A room?
No.
We just wanted to know because this olive branch has been extended.
Although I'm not very trusting about walking into a room full of people that I have seen online spew hate is not super comfortable to me.
But is this something that you guys, maybe not you guys, but maybe somebody from your community would be interested in, having a panel where there is both sides to have a conversation?
Correct.
We've been trying to do that since 2016, and no one will join the panel.
Like media has tried to host, you know, conversations of me and trans activists.
People have tried to set up debates.
People have tried to set up panels that shared both sides of the issues.
And the other side has always refused.
really appreciate you coming in and speaking to us a lot because that's you know it's not very common that that happens but yeah I think that yeah I mean, I think that if the conversation could happen, that would be great.
I know Serena would love that also.
And if you don't invite us in to have a conversation, the conversation cannot be had.
I understand that you think now allowing a conversation is being radical.
It's not, you denied our existence.
You've denied our conversation.
We haven't denied anyone.
We've denied it and we did invite you.
We invited you anywhere.
Please first off you're in trouble.
Yeah, I do that.
I mean, when we did actually have a non-mask policy in general for everybody.
Everybody.
There was a no-mask policy for statements.
We don't have to do that.
So only your rules, and that's what you're saying.
In this space.
Gender identity is a regressive, sexist, nonsense ideology that claims the impossible.
That individuals can change sex through self-declaration, that it's possible to be born in the wrong body, that if a girl or a woman sees a man in their change room and that man says he's a woman, he has the right to be there and the danger is in fact the girl or the woman who feels unsafe.
This is what our government is protecting.
This is what our unions are protecting.
This is what our public institutions are protecting.
The right of predatorial men to access spaces where girls and women are vulnerable.
I was totally inspired by everyone who came out.
It's really hard to come to these events.
I wish that it weren't.
It seems silly to me that it's so scary and so risky just to come to an event to have a conversation about things that are really important to everyone.
You know, women's rights, kids, families, parental rights, reality.
You know, and this is a quietly held opinion, I'd say.
As I got older and I realized you had to be more particularly correct, especially in arts and culture circles where this is, you know, a lot of people bought into it at Hipplan and Sinclair, I will say.
I'm growing like increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that I'm living in a place where you can't talk freely anymore about serious issues.
Child safeguarding, women safeguarding.
And I've been working at a fringe and watching how that is not espousing the values that it once had for free expression.
And this is one of those subjects, right?
So I've been speaking on it because it's my own sex-based right.
evening, I escorted her into the change room and a individual wearing a wig.
Six foot two, something between his legs, and it was a man.
Came in the change room and loitered around the change room, didn't have any towel or bag or any indication that he was going to use the pool facility.
You caught a person who identifies as a woman looking underneath the change room.
What was going through your mind?
Just a quick recap.
I actually don't know.
I think that I blanked out and I went into full protection mode of my child in that moment.
And yet there are people who were here today outside who believe it was hateful.
One even named you believes it's hate that you're spreading.
And Janaia Wright in there is touting or talking about how there was zero aggression on their side.
The aggression and violence was on them.
This has nothing to do with the transgender community for myself.
This has to do with a predator that is appropriating transgender identity to gain access to children.
And I would love it if the transgender community would stand with us, with us as parents, because it would also protect their, you know, their name in all this.
Because the thing is, is these predators that are doing these things are making people hate their community when that should not be a thing.
That's not something that I personally am trying to represent at all.
This is about a predator that looked under the stall at my daughter and the fact that anybody can self-ID.
How is denying the safety of trans women safety for all of humanity?
Great question.
Okay, that's ridiculous.
Thank you.
I mean, I don't think anyone is denying the safety of men.
I think that what we're talking about is the safety of women and girls and children in particular.
And so there are certain spaces that are single-sex spaces for a reason because women and girls are vulnerable in those spaces.
So, change rooms, transition houses, shelters, prisons, bathrooms, and I mean I'm frustrated that I even have to explain why men aren't allowed in those spaces, but I think that we...
Well, I'm talking about trans women, not men.
I've never done an event ever addressing the issue of gender identity, ideology that hasn't been protested, where there haven't been threats, where we haven't needed security and the cops.
It is really dangerous.
And I'm scared every time I do these events for good reason.
We were attacked.
I talked to you about this earlier in San Francisco.
Like a gang of Antifa men chased us down.
It was terrifying.
These people threaten us with real violence and do sometimes perpetrate real violence.
We lost our first venue because the business owners were terrified that this would be business suicide in their words.
I think we talk a lot about safe spaces and this is one of my big concerns how words have become deemed by a lot of people to be now harmful or violent or aggressive in some way and I understand why the people outside have that fear because I can't blame them having been conditioned to believe that a lot of people hate them which I don't think is the case.
I think algorithms push that messaging.
I think the media pushes that messaging and our institutions do as well.
I watched it this week with a million person march so I understand why they're fearful and so it is a big deal when they come in and speak to us about it and but then I'm hoping that they feel like they can have a voice and we also deserve to have a voice.
I have received plenty of hateful messages, people bombarding me online, people saying that I'm some hateful individual, plastering my name, my picture, my business name all over the internet when they don't even know what I'm standing for.
I never once have said anything negative about transgender, about their community.
This to me, again, was a predator that appropriated the transgender identity to gain access to my child.
This was my child this happened to.
A pervert looked under the stall at my little girl.
Like if people can't wrap their brains around that, it actually boggles my mind.
My business has actually not suffered because more people are supporting me because I am speaking out on this, and I'm going to continue to speak out on it because I just want safety for children.
Busy Parent's Struggle00:00:29
Well, that's the show for today.
What do you think of that annual report?
I should write an annual report for Rebel News.
I used to do that, but then I got so busy during the pandemic.
I haven't done that in a while, but I'd like to.
I'd like to give you the stats, the highlights of our last year.
We've done so many things.
I don't even know where I start, but I should probably do an annual report.
And then like the CBCs, I wouldn't be faking it.
That's our show for today.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.