NDP MP Ezra Levant’s bill C-372, the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, introduced February 7, seeks to ban promotions of oil and gas—including coupons and price discounts—with fines up to $50K for retailers and $1.5M for producers, mirroring tobacco ad restrictions. Critics argue it unfairly targets Indigenous-led projects and ignores foreign exemptions, while Levant frames fossil fuels as a "tobacco-like" threat despite debated health claims. Concurrently, Trudeau’s government faces accusations of prioritizing $200B in green subsidies over military readiness, failing NATO’s 2% spending target, and delaying promised arms like Leopard tanks (only four serviceable) and Ukraine-bound missiles, undermining sovereignty claims amid declining recruitment and UN-mission pullouts. The episode frames these moves as ideological hostility toward Alberta, the U.S., and conservative institutions—suggesting Canada’s leadership is more focused on optics than substance. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm going to take you through a crazy private members' bill by Charlie Angus of the NDP.
And you might be thinking, Ezra, private members' bill by the NDP, likelihood of that succeeding is very low.
Well, you're right.
But what it does is it injects an idea into parliament.
And often these terrible ideas are picked up by the liberals and turned into their ideas and made law.
It's an idea to ban promotion of oil and gas.
You can't say anything nice about fossil fuels, or you may pay millions in fines.
I'll take you through the law.
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Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, an NDP member of parliament introduces a bill to make it illegal to talk positively about fossil fuels.
I'm not kidding.
It's February 7th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious f**k.
Charlie Angus is one of the longest serving MPs in parliament.
He's been there 20 years.
He's a kook as much as any NDPer is, but because he's in his 60s, he's a bit less woke than the newer crop of NDP MPs.
So he's a bit less, let's say, insane on things like Hamas than his newer colleagues are.
But I think he's trying to close the crazy gap with the youngsters and take the lead.
I'm making light of things, but I shouldn't because this private members bill that he just introduced, while it's surely doomed to failure, it's going to get dozens of votes in Parliament if it comes to a vote, which it's uncertain for private members' bills.
But if it did, we would get the NDP, we'll get the Greens, we'll get the bloc, and probably a few liberals.
Now, private members' bills, because they're usually doomed to failure, are often ways that ideas are injected into the system for a tryout.
What's radical today is edgy tomorrow and conventional wisdom the next day, and then after that, it's the law.
And often NDP ideas are taken up by the liberals who normalize what was once extreme.
Trudeau does that a lot, actually.
The proposed law I'm talking about, introduced by Charlie Angus, is called C-372, the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act.
I'm going to read a little bit of it and then I'm going to play you a clip of Charlie Angus talking about it.
It was introduced on Monday.
Let's look through it a bit.
Here's the preamble.
Whereas climate change represents an unprecedented and existential threat to people in Canada and around the world.
Is that true, actually?
Are we all going to die?
When's that supposed to kick in?
I thought Al Gore said there wouldn't be snow anymore by now.
Is it really an existential threat if everything's sort of the same?
Whereas extreme weather events such as the 2021 heat dome in British Columbia are already proving deadly in Canada.
And according to Health Canada, they are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude during a climate change.
Whereas in 2023, Canada experienced the worst wildfire season ever recorded as the country exceeded the largest area ever burned in a year, totaling more than 7.9 million hectares.
Yeah, that was pretty bad.
And it was arson that did that.
So you do you, but maybe the cops should track down that arsonist.
Whereas the government of Canada has made international climate commitments to drastically reduce fossil fuel consumption and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, which requires the timely phase-out of fossil fuels.
Why do leftists always care about international promises and keeping promises to foreigners?
As if anyone in any country in the world says, hey, Canada promised to reduce their emissions.
I'm mad at Canada for not keeping their promise to me.
Do you think a citizen of Senegal or New Zealand or Cambodia has ever said those words in their life?
Why do leftists put other countries ahead of their own countries?
Whereas the production, production of the environment is a valid use of the federal criminal law power.
Really?
So they want to criminalize views they don't like.
It's the same with their proposal to criminalize denial of mass graves at Indigenous Indian residential schools.
You're not allowed to criticize the narrative.
That's a crime they want to do.
By the way, good luck with that constitutional jurisdiction of telling Albertans they can't talk about oil and gas.
I'll keep reading.
I'm still in the preamble, by the way, that you can just see it's lie upon lie.
Whereas air pollution caused by fossil fuels leads to millions of premature deaths globally, including tens of thousands of premature deaths in Canada alone and is a major cause of cancer, respiratory illness, adverse pregnancy outcomes, children's diseases, and cardiovascular symptoms.
I doubt that very much.
Actually, there is air pollution problems in much of the world, but it's not from oil and gas.
It's from, in many cases, burning dung, burning things that are not clean fuels, not even burning coal.
I challenge those stats.
I think it's actually the opposite.
If you've ever read some of Alex Epstein's work, he's a fossil fuel advocate.
I think he makes a pretty convincing case that life expectancy and fossil fuel consumption go hand in hand.
The more fossil fuels you have, the less you're burning wood and dung and other things like that, and more you're cooling your house in the summer, warming it into the winter, transportation.
It's just the opposite of what Charlie Angus is saying.
And you'd think he'd know.
He'd know.
I'll get back to that in a minute.
Keep reading the preamble.
Whereas fossil fuel production and consumption has resulted in a national public health crisis of substantial and pressing concern in a way that is similar to the public health crisis caused by tobacco consumption.
You just made that up, didn't you?
You just made that up.
You just put those words on a paper.
But you can tell they're using health crises for any authoritarianism they were practicing during the pandemic.
They're still going through the recitals here, but again, I want to show you what's in their mind.
Whereas in 1989, Parliament restricted tobacco advertising and sponsorship to reduce tobacco use to respond to that public health crisis.
Yeah, that's true.
And I don't know if you noticed, though, but pretty much every strip mall in this country has one or even two cannabis stores.
And in every major and some minor cities in this country, there's injection sites.
So yeah, if I was Charlie Angus, I wouldn't be boasting too much about how people aren't doing nicotine because they're doing much harder drugs with the blessing of Trudeau and the provincial governments.
Whereas in the context of a climate emergency, fossil fuel advertising sends a confusing and contradictory message about the need to urgently end Canada's reliance on fossil fuels.
Really?
Is Canada the problem here?
Canada is a rounding era, not even close to 1% of global emissions.
How come Canada has to shut down our industry and censor our people?
How come China is never mentioned by the liberals or the NDP as a source of emissions, fake emissions, or even real emissions like real pollution?
And I think this is the last line in the preamble.
And whereas Parliament is of the opinion that fossil fuel advertising currently deploys techniques which knowingly mislead the public and fail to disclose the health and environmental harms associated with their use, impeding informed consumer decision-making, undermining public support for effective climate action, and delaying the transition to safer, cleaner energy sources.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People are fooled by using oil and gas.
And if only we would stop the lies, they would throw away their cars, turn off their gas furnaces.
And did you see some of the snow in the Atlantic lately?
Just check out some of these images.
Pretty sure they're not being cleared by Teslas or other rechargeable cars.
Let me get back to the bill.
Now, therefore, His Majesty, buying with the advice and consent of the Senate of the House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows.
So I just read through the preamble to show you that their thinking was.
Here's the law.
Let's get into the law.
I'm not going to spend that much time here, but I wanted to show you what was on their mind.
This act may be cited as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act.
And then they have some definitions.
The following definitions apply in this act.
Brand element includes a brand name, trademark, trade name, distinguishing guys, logo, graphic arrangement, design, or slogan that is reasonably associated or evokes a product, a service, or a brand of product or service, but does not include a color.
I'm going to skip ahead.
I just want to read a couple definitions.
Fossil fuel means a fuel that, in whole or in part, is or is derived from petroleum, natural gas, or related hydrocarbons.
It excludes a fuel that consists only of non-fossilized, biodegradable, organic material that originates from plants or animals, but does not originate from a geological formation, including gases and liquids that are recovered from the decomposition of organic waste.
Hang on a second.
How's that fair?
If we're trying to fight emissions, why are emissions from other sources banned?
I mean, other than the fact that the NDP hates Alberta and oil and gas jobs.
Promotion.
This is what they're really bad.
This I really want to highlight.
This is what they're making illegal.
Promotion means a representation about a product or service by any means, whether directly or indirectly, including any communication of information about the product or service and its price and distribution, that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about the product or service.
So no more coupons, no more five cents off or three cents off, no more advertising on where to get cheaper gas.
That's all illegal because that's promotion now.
You will pay more.
No more coupons.
Charlie Angus doesn't think you're paying enough for your gas.
Do you think so?
Oh, and they hate retailers.
That's the thing.
They talk about big oil, but look at the penalties they have for the little guy.
I mean, when was the last time you went into a gas station?
I mean, I go in probably twice a week.
And it's always someone who's on a lower rung in the socioeconomic ladder.
It's often a new immigrant or it's a kid or someone who's just working their butt off, sometimes in a graveyard ship to gas stations that are open 24 hours a day.
Have you ever seen anyone work harder than someone who's in a gas station and they have to deal with crime and surly customers and they're up late and they're on their feet all day?
I have a lot of sympathy for a retailer who gets a few pennies at most a liter.
But Charlie Angus, who claims to be for the little guy, hates them.
Let me read to you the definition.
Retailer means a person who is engaged in a business that includes the sale of fossil fuels to consumers.
Sell includes offer for sale, exposed for sale, and sell for export.
So they're going after the little guy.
And I'll show you the massive fine.
You know what?
You take on big oil.
I mean, whatever.
It's the whole thing's stupid, and I'll tell you why.
But you're really targeting a mom-and-pop shop.
You're targeting that newcomer to Canada who's working at midnight.
He's the enemy, is he?
Because he wants to give you a three-cent off coupon.
Charlie Angus is not for the little guy.
I'll keep reading the law.
This act is binding on His Majesty in right of Canada or a province.
So Charlie Angus is going to ban coupons across Canada and every province.
Get ready for your constitutional revolt there.
This guy just doesn't respect the law.
He'll be struck down if this ever became law.
Purpose of the Act.
Well, we've already talked about that.
The purpose of this act is to provide a legislative response to a national public health and environmental problem pressing substantial and pressing concern.
And in particular, well, they're going to go on, but you're using that language, pressing and substantial concern.
That's the language the Constitution contemplates for seizing our rights.
That's exactly the language that was used, pressing and substantial concern, to take away our rights during martial law.
They were practicing with the Emergencies Act.
They had a COVID emergency.
Now they're talking about a climate emergency to suppress your speech.
One of the things that they aim to do is to prevent the public from being deceived or misled with respect to the environmental and health hazards of using fossil fuels.
Hey, Charlie Angus cares more about you getting the truth than you do.
He's more able to discern truth and falsehood than you are.
Do you trust him or any other politician?
And who's the actual source of disinformation here?
By the way, OPEC is probably just delighted with Charlie Angus because he's cracking out on Canadian oil and gas, but obviously not on our foreign competitors.
Russia is the winner, as always.
D, and to enhance public awareness of those hazards.
Now, which hazards are those?
Again, which hazards are those?
Like I said before, oil and gas is connected, really a one-to-one, the graphs track.
If you want to see how well a society is doing, see what its fossil fuel use is.
The healthier, the longer life, the more they use fossil fuels.
So here's the hammer.
I told you what they were trying to accomplish or why, and here's how they're going to do it.
Section seven.
It is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel or the production of a fossil fuel in a manner that is false, miscellaneous, or deceptive with respect to or that is likely to create an erroneous impression about the characteristics, healthy environmental effects or health or environmental hazards of the fossil fuel, its production or the emissions that result from its production or use.
Well, I think it's sort of against the law right now to engage in false advertising.
I'm not sure what Charlie Angus is saying is false or not, but this next line may help us understand.
The general impression conveyed by a promotion and the literal meaning of any statement containing a promotion are to be taken into account in determining whether a promotion is made in such a manner.
Manner of promotion and prohibited elements.
It is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel with the production of a fossil fuel, A, in a manner that states or suggests that the fossil fuel, its production, or its emissions are less harmful than other fossil fuels, their production or their emissions.
I'll stop right there.
What if that's true?
There are ways to produce fossil fuels that have fewer emissions.
Now, I'm not particularly worried about emissions.
I don't think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but Charlie Angus does.
You can have 10 different sources of crude oil with 10 different amounts of sulfur in them or carbon dioxide in them that have 10 different requirements of energy on how they need to be refined.
You know, there's West Texas Intermediate.
There's sweet-like crude.
Fossil Fuel Bans & Penalties00:05:06
These are the names of different types of oil that refers to how much more refining they need to do, how much sulfur they have in them.
It's simply a fact that different types of oil and gas have different environmental footprints, if you care about that sort of thing, which I don't think most people do.
And even as between different fossil fuels, they have a different carbon output, coal, oil, natural gas.
It's Charlie Angus saying you can't say that anymore.
And by prosecuting people for saying the wrong things, are we going to save the climate?
B, in a manner that states or suggests that a fossil fuel, the practices of a producer of the fossil fuel industry, would lead to positive outcomes in relation to the environment, the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous people or the Canadian or global economy.
We'll stop right there.
What if they do?
What if a pipeline proposal is owned in part by a group of Indian bands and they're going to get rich off that?
And it's going to give jobs for their people.
That's not speculation.
That happens quite a lot.
You're not allowed to say that.
The Indian band itself is not allowed to say that.
A lot of proposals for liquid natural gas and pipelines and oil and gas are Indigenous proposals, especially in Alberta.
If you've ever been in the Fort McMurray, Fort Mackay area, I think the first Indigenous billionaire in Canada, if he's not here already, will surely come from that area.
And how is it not a selling point, especially with liberals to say this is Indigenous owned?
That's against the law now, if this becomes law.
Also against the law by using terms, expressions, logos, symbols, or illustrations that are prohibited by the regulations.
So they're going to have more words that they ban.
They're just not going to tell you now.
And let me get right down to the retailer because who's going to be the guy slapped with fines and prosecutions, sales promotions?
It is prohibited for a producer or retailer to A, provide or offer to provide any consideration for the purchase of a fossil fuel, including a gift to a purchaser or a third party, bonus, premium, cash rebate, or right to participate in a game, draw a lottery or contest.
So no more coupons, no more collect your points, no more petro points.
It's a war on you, the oil consumer, but really, you're not in trouble here.
The retailer, if a retail wants to lower their price, they're going to be prosecuted.
It's a war against gas station owners is what it is.
Oh, and it's a war against the media.
It is prohibited for a person to, on behalf of another person with or without consideration, publish, broadcast, or otherwise disseminate any promotion that is prohibited by this act.
So newspapers, radio stations, you cannot say gas is cheaper here or three cents because that's against the law.
But look at this.
If you're a foreigner, if you're OPEC or Russia, don't worry.
Subsection one does not apply to the distribution or sale of an imported publication or the retransmission of radio or television broadcasts that originate outside Canada.
So if you watch CNN or Fox or ABC, NBC, CBS, you can get all sorts of ads for American oil and gas or OPEC or Russian oil and gas.
That's allowed to be pumped into Canadian airwaves, but Canadian media can't.
As usual, they treat foreigners much more gently than how they treat Canadians.
It was the same with the carbon tax.
Foreign oil exports to Canada are not charged the carbon tax, only Canadian oil.
I'm almost done.
I just want to show you what Angus, Charlie Angus, wants to do to you and society.
Foreign media.
It is prohibited for any person in Canada by means of a publication that is published outside Canada, a broadcast that originates outside Canada, or any other communications that promote a fossil fuel or its production or disseminate promotional material that contains a fossil fuel-related brand element in a manner that's contrary to this act.
So it's basically North Korea.
They're building China, the great firewall of China, keeping out those harmful messages from abroad.
And now I'm going to get to the crux of it here.
So what does the retailer face?
And what happens?
Well, false promotion.
Every producer who contravenes subsection seven is guilty of offense and liable on conviction of indictment to a fine not exceeding $1.5 million or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both or on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $750,000 or a term not exceeding one year or both.
False promotions.
If you have a coupon, every person other than a producer who controversially contravenes Section 7 is guilty of an offense.
Summary conviction of fine of $750,000.
Every retailer who contravenes some Section 9 is guilty of an offense and liability on summary conviction for a first offense, a fine not exceeding $3,000.
For a subsequent offense, a fine not exceeding $50,000.
And of course, the producers have a much higher penalty as well.
But imagine you're a retailer and you're making just a few pennies from every sale and some guy wants to use a coupon.
That's a $3,000 hit right there.
False Claims Penalty00:03:23
That's just taking all the profit out of your entire week.
But hey, Charlie Angus gets to feel better.
Anyway, I'm going to stop there.
I could go on.
I think you're getting the feeling here.
Here's how Charlie Angus put it himself for two minutes when he announced it at a press conference.
Take a look at that.
Big Oil has always relied on the big tobacco playbook of delay and disinformation.
And so to tackle this immense threat to human health, we need to use many of the strategies that finally took down big tobacco.
In 1997, the Canadian Parliament banned advertising from big tobacco because of the clear threat to human health.
This is why I'm so proud to stand here today with representatives of Canada's medical community to state that the time has come to ban all oil and gas advertising.
The big tobacco moment has finally arrived for big oil.
Bill C-372 will, quote, provide a legislative response to a national public health and environmental problem of substantial and pressing concerns.
The bill will make it illegal for big oil and gas lobby and the gas lobby or their front groups or paid influencers to falsely promote the burning of fossil fuels as a benefit to the public.
The legislation will make it illegal to falsely claim that the use of one fossil fuel product is somehow better than another fossil fuel product in improving the environment.
To claim that there are clean fossil fuels is like saying there are safe cigarettes.
We know that is simply not true.
Morgan Stanley points out that the damage from climate crisis for the North American economy in just three years has been a staggering $415 billion.
And this legislation will target advertising that falsely claims that oil and gas are having a positive impact on the global economy.
And we recently learned that toxic contamination from Canada's oil and gas industry is 6,000 times higher than officially reported.
This legislation will make it illegal for Canada's oil and gas giants to falsely identify themselves with the health and positive lifestyles of Canadians or with reconciliation of Indigenous people on whose lands the toxic contamination is highest.
The big tobacco moment has arrived for companies like Suncor, Imperial, and the oil and gas giants of Canada.
You stopped big tobacco, did you?
Yeah, no, I don't think you did.
I think that tobacco is still on sale, but you're actually trying to stop the sale of oil and gas, which is a bit of a lie.
Considering the riding that Charlie Angus represents, it's enormous.
It's Timmins James Bay, and I checked.
It's so big.
It's almost a quarter million square kilometers, which is about almost half the size of Alberta.
Like his district is truly, other than Nunavut, it's one of the largest districts in the whole country.
You can't get around James Bay without obviously a car, usually a truck, snowmobiles, airplanes, and boats, none of which are electric.
I bet you that Charlie Angus has the largest fossil fuel footprint of anyone in opposition.
NATO's Tough Choice00:14:34
I won't say the prime minister or the cabinet because they're always jetting around the world.
But just going back to his riding and around his writing, I don't think anyone uses fossil fuel more than Charlie Angus.
He's got to be up there with Nunavut and some of the other northern territories.
But imagine the mind that would think up this bill and demand that it be debated and actually suggest to become more.
Charlie Angus thought he was talking about oil and gas, but he wasn't.
And he wasn't really talking about health either, was he?
He was talking about all the things he thinks he has the right to do to you if he could.
Stay with us for more.
Hey, welcome back.
I have a theory about conservative institutions.
Think about the institutions in the world that are right-wing, whether it's the NFL or a police force or the military or NASCAR.
What are the most masculine things?
The Boy Scouts might be an example of that.
Well, these either must be destroyed by the woke left or better yet, colonize.
And if you colonize, let's say, a police force, you do two things.
For example, let's say you bring in a vaccine mandate and you demand that every cop take it.
Well, two things are going to happen.
First of all, you're going to purge and push out people who are sort of don't tread on me, conservatives and libertarians, people who are more skeptical.
You're going to purge a lot of true conservatives and you're going to entryist a bunch of underminers.
Look at the take-a-nee move in the NFL, which has destroyed a lot of political support and public support for the NFL.
I put it to you that that is Justin Trudeau's plan for the Canadian Armed Forces.
I see in the news that recruitment is down 19%, and I see most coverage says this is a terrible thing.
This is not going well.
And I thought, no, are you kidding?
This is exactly what Justin Trudeau and his advisors wanted to happen.
Do you think that tampon dispenser, which Trudeau ordered be put in military bases, men's rooms, do you think that was just a gimmick?
Or do you think it was a flag to push away traditional military recruits to lead the way for who knows what?
Well, joining us now is a man with his own opinion on the subject.
I'll ask him what he thinks of my thesis.
Lauren Gunter is a senior columnist at the Edmonton Sun and other post-media newspapers.
And his latest is called Canadian Military in Shambles, thanks to liberals underfunding and woke policies.
Lauren, great to see you again.
Good to see you.
Now, there's a saying, never ascribe to malice what could be explained by stupidity.
And I hear that a lot in politics, which is don't cook up a conspiracy theory.
The simplest answer is probably the right one.
That's called Occam's Razor.
Occam's Razor.
And this is just, you know, unintended consequences and bad side effects.
That's the happy version.
I say, no, I bet this was deliberate.
What do you think?
I don't give them that much credit for that kind of intelligence.
They can't sit down and plot this out because they're not that smart.
Not because they don't have all of those values and goals that you ascribe to them, but just because, I mean, this is a government that late last year was still taking six months to get new passports out.
They are just incompetent, period.
They're dense.
They haven't a clue.
I used to say when I worked on Parliament Hill in the 80s that there were people who didn't know how to organize flatulence at a bean dinner.
And these are those people.
So, no, are there some people in their advisor's circle?
There was a minister's advisory committee that came out two years ago with a plan for getting rid of systemic racism, colonialism, settlerism, white supremacy in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Are there some of them who are maybe smart enough to have figured out how to do that?
Yes, possibly.
But anybody in this government, they just don't have the brainpower to come up with something like that.
But they are woke enough and fashionable enough that they would buy into all of this stuff on a very superficial basis and do the same amount of damage.
By the way, it's happening in other militaries too, probably not to the same degree.
The UK has basically announced we don't want stale pale males is one of the phrases.
In the United States, they're really emphasizing transgender recruitment.
But both the British and the American military are so much larger to start with that the erosion of these woke policies.
I mean, it's happening, but they're starting from a larger pile.
In Canada, we were already depleted.
And the other advantage that the Americans and the Brits have over us is that they properly fund or close to properly fund their military, and they give them real tasks, real missions to do.
We don't give anybody in our military real missions anymore.
You remember when Trudeau came in in 2015?
On the night that he won, he said he was announcing to the world that Canada was back.
And part of that meant on the international stage that we were going to do more peacekeeping.
Well, we have done vastly less peacekeeping than the Harper government did.
We have done one six-month peacekeeping tour since 2015.
And that was Molly because his mom was on location there, right?
Exactly.
And when the UN asked us to extend our mission there, because of course, the people we send are really good and they do very good jobs with very little equipment, old equipment, bad equipment, lots of pieces, but they're so well trained and they're so intelligent that they do a good job.
And when the UN asked us to stay an extra six months, we said, no, we're not going to do that.
So even when the UN asks, these guys can't do peacekeeping.
And of course, they won't do hot war.
And the thing that really got me is about a year ago, there was that gigantic earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed tens of thousands of people.
We have two absolutely first-class military hospitals that also deal with, they have bulldozers, so those are so they can open roads.
And they're called DARTS.
And they are really, really good.
We didn't even send those.
Like, it just absolutely baffles me.
So maybe, maybe you're right.
Maybe there are people deep down in the bowels at the Department of National Defense who are thinking up ways of undermining the military.
But I just think that it's this woke party that they're having in Ottawa under Trudeau.
And it's really killing our military.
We were told at the last NATO meeting, which followed NATO exercises where we couldn't participate because we don't have enough people or equipment.
We were told at the last NATO summit that we had better live up to our commitments to go from 1.2% of our GDP on military to closer to 2%.
Even Harper made that commitment and never lived up to it.
Harper got to about 1.5%, and the liberals have now scaled back down to about 1.2%.
But we have the lowest percentage of our GDP devoted to the military of any country in NATO.
And we just expect that the Americans would defend us if anybody attacked.
The Americans will put us in their planes and fly us wherever we need to go if we want to go somewhere.
So at the last NATO summit, we were told, in no uncertain terms, I mean, NATO is a bureaucratic, diplomatic organization.
They don't say blunt things.
They're not tough talkers.
But almost as tough as NATO's ever been, they said, look, you have got to start spending on your military.
And Trudeau's budget comes out after that, and they just ignore it.
We're not going to spend any extra money on that.
We're going to spend a lot.
We're going to spend $200 billion on infrastructure for green programs that aren't reducing emissions at all.
We'll give you $8,000 to go out and buy an EV that won't run for you in January and February in much of the country, but we're not going to spend on the military.
Their priorities are so screwy that it's really head-shaking.
It's hard to believe that these are grownups who are in charge of a sovereign nation.
You know, for years now, certainly since Trudeau's dad was the prime minister back in the 70s, they've been nationalists.
Oh, Canada, we are so proud of Canada.
Canada is a nation unlike any other in the world, and we are a leader in the world, and we punch above our weight.
You've heard them use that term so many times.
Well, one of the things that small countries which have sovereignty aspirations do is they properly fund their military.
I mean, the Swedes are about to join NATO, I think, but they have been neutral now for 70 years.
And they realize that part of that is to maintain their neutrality, they have to have a properly funded armed forces.
So they built their own jets.
They have their own submarines.
They have armored vehicles that are modern and new.
We don't do that.
And yet they keep boasting about how wonderful Canadian sovereignty is.
Well, you can't defend your sovereignty.
You don't have sovereignty.
We were just in Switzerland covering the World Economic Forum.
There were a lot of police and military police deployed.
But even in other parts of Switzerland, I kept seeing all these military trucks.
So it wasn't just Davos.
They have a real military because of what you said.
They want to be independent.
They want to be neutral.
And it's actually part of the culture there.
And it actually felt sort of neat.
Every adult male and an increasing number of adult females in Switzerland must have an assault rifle in their home in case of an invasion.
Now, they also have one of the lowest gun crime rates in the Western world, despite all of these arms that they have.
So that sort of blows the other liberal theory that we hear a lot, and that is lots of guns leads to lots of crime.
Well, no, it doesn't.
But the Swiss understand that if you are going to defend your sovereignty, everybody, everybody has a role to play.
And that includes the government, and it includes funding a proper military.
And as we were, we were at the World Economic Forum and it was sort of an impenetrable fortress, like to get there high in the Alps.
And we saw these windy roads and we saw these soldiers.
And I thought to myself, it would be really tough to take Switzerland, not that anyone's really aiming for it these days, but 75 years ago they were.
And to take those mountain passes with all these, you know, snowshoeing snipers would be a tough trick.
I really liked my visit to Switzerland, even though I was there to report on bad dudes.
Hey, let me just ask you for a few quick facts because I was reading your column here.
You mentioned that we weren't even able to participate in the largest NATO training exercise in years.
Like we weren't there.
That's so embarrassing.
There's been some other news lately.
For example, a missile system that Trudeau promised Ukraine and that was said to be on the way.
It has not been shipped.
I think we promised some leopard tanks.
What's the detail on?
I mean, Justin Trudeau has really said that he's a super fan of Ukraine.
And there's a lot of reasons to say that.
There's genuine foreign policy reasons.
There's also diaspora politics.
We've taken 200,000 Ukrainian refugees.
There's a lot going on.
But when he says we gave billions in weapons, did he really do it?
No.
We have given real material aid to Ukraine.
But these missiles that they promised, which are basically, we've declared them surplus.
They're useless to us.
They're too old.
We don't think that they're worth maintaining.
There's tens of thousands of them.
We could give them over to the Ukrainians who said they would take them on and they would update the software and they would maintain the physical systems.
But, you know, to actually give missiles to a combatant is just beyond, I think, where these people, they will give them all sorts of kudos and pats on the back and hail fellow, well-met kind of support.
But they don't actually come up with a lot of tangible support.
We did lend them some leopard tanks, which is the reason I'm laughing is they asked us if we could, they asked the whole of the West if they could give tanks to Ukraine.
And of course, the Americans had some M1A1 Abrams hanging out in the back that they put onto ships right away and sent them over and some of them put on planes and some over.
And the Brits had extras and the Germans, even the Germans had extras that they could give the Ukrainians.
We looked around and looked.
We only had four that were serviceable.
And I have to admit, I don't know whether we actually sent those four or not, but the embarrassment was we claimed to have over 100 tanks, but really only four of them were functioning.
And so we couldn't even send those, I don't think.
And no wonder when David LeMetti suggested deploying tanks against the truckers, he only asked for one.
That would be a quarter of the entire fleet of tanks.
You know, we're laughing because what else can you do?
Justin's Trudeau's Vacuum00:04:23
Cry.
And again, you mentioned Pierre Trudeau.
And when I think of Justin Trudeau, I think that he was a young boy when his dad was PM.
So his memory of what his dad would have said and the meetings that would have happened in 24 Sussex is a child's memory.
So he would only have vague outlines.
And so if you look at the things he believes in most firmly, it's the things he would have picked up by osmosis from his dad.
Hate Alberta.
Hate the oil patch.
Hate America.
Hate the military.
Those were all things that you used to call him the shiny pony, didn't you?
That was your term for me.
The man is an intellectual lightweight.
like his father or not, and I didn't like his father, you couldn't say about him that he wasn't intelligent.
But you can easily make that argument about Justin, who just sort of floats on the top of whatever wave is fashionable at the time and never ever sees the direction or the consequences of his actions.
I mean, why would you take an $84,000 free vacation when you know that you've got to figure out that the press is going to be bad on that, that publicity on that is going to be bad?
Well, it's because he doesn't ever think through the consequences of what he's doing.
He believes he's entitled.
He's always done these sorts of things.
His daddy's friends have always paid for stuff like that.
And so why wouldn't he continue to do that?
And again, I'm going to have a slightly different, darker interpretation than you.
It's because he wants to show that he can.
He knew.
Yeah, yeah.
And they think they can bull their way through this, right?
That eventually people will forget about it.
If you just keep saying there was nothing wrong, it won't stick to you.
And eventually people will forget and you will have had the vacation and not taken a huge political hit over it.
I mean, I do think they make that kind of calculation.
And they realize it with their base, people in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, their voters, they would sort of see that as kind of sleek and sexy.
He was able to do that.
Yeah.
I think it's a dominance move.
I mean, just today, Francois-Philippe Champagne released a video of him walking with two Canadian astronauts.
And let me just show a little clip of this video.
The first thing I laughed at was I forgot how short Francois-Philippe Champagne is.
And listen, I'm not exactly a super tall guy.
I mean, that was the first thing.
But the second thing that jumped right out at me is Trudeau greets these two young astronauts.
He shakes the hand of the man, but he goes in for a body hug of the woman.
And what is that?
That's, I'm the man I can do.
He does this to everyone.
He did even touch the governor general, which you're not under protocol etiquette.
You're not even supposed to physically touch.
But the queen, you're not, the monarch, you're not supposed to, but the GG, it's not quite as big a.
But still, what's he?
He puts his hand on her ass.
He puts his hand on her lower back.
He's so familiar.
And I just want to play a quick clip of Trudeau.
He meets two strangers for the first time.
They are equal in rank and stature and importance and authority.
These are our two young astronauts.
He shakes one hand and then he goes for the chest-to-jest hug of the other.
a quick look at this.
I think it's the same thing.
I think he's saying, I can hug this woman in a way that would get anyone at a corporation an HR disciplinary warning.
The head of the Spanish Soccer Federation would lose his job over a hug like that.
You remember that at the Women's World Cup, Spain won, he gave Spanish teams.
Governor Cuomo of New York, one of those pounds consequential men, he said, I'm Italian.
I like to hug.
And he actually does hug a lot.
He was driven out because he hugged a staffer.
Trudeau, the $84,000 vacation is the same as I'm going to hug this gal on camera.
Trudeau's Hugs and Vacations00:04:44
And what is she going to do about it?
She's going to make a scene in public.
And it's the same thing, and I think some people start to tire of it.
If he were Pierre Polyev and he did the same thing, the CBC, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star would have a fit over it.
And they would be talking that he should go, that this is inappropriate.
But Trudeau also gets away with it because he's on their side of issues.
And it's not like they say, oh, we can't say this because he's on our side.
They never even think about it.
He's just considered automatically to be sensitive and caring in the way they are.
And so his actions are not reviewed.
They're not judged.
They're not looked at under a microscope the way people who are considered to be uncaring and traditional are looked at.
And by the way, that hug video was absolutely curated and produced by the government because they know what they're doing.
We're talking with Owen Gunter.
His latest column is called Canadian Military in Shambles.
Thanks to liberals' underfunding and woke policies.
You can read it in the sun chain of newspapers.
Owen, great to see you again.
Good to see you.
All right.
You take care.
There you have it, our favorite guy in the West.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
The first one is about the three cabinet ministers, Marcy Ian, Karina Gould, and Yaara Sachs, agreeing to never again to block rebel news journalists.
I felt good about that.
Calico Cat says, I would 100% agree.
Marcy Ian is fibbing through her teeth.
That's about taking calls from Alberta teenagers.
That's weird.
I don't feel badly for Rota, as he seemed quite all right with being the scapegoat.
Members of government should not be allowed to block people.
No one should have to go to the courts.
The Transparent Liberal Party are pretty opaque.
Yeah, and I say again, these days, getting information from the government is often done online.
I mean, 20 years ago, you had to telephone or go into an office.
These days, you can do a lot by email or website, and Twitter is a source of information.
Having them cut you off from that for no reason at all other than they don't like you politically is totally unconstitutional.
But more than that, I think it shows a hubris, a condescension.
We're the ruling class.
You're our subjects, and you'll do what we say.
Well, this is a democracy.
You work for me.
Anyhow, I don't know how many of these liberals were going to have to sue, but I'm going to sue every bloody one of them.
Jenzebel says, Danielle Smith is offering more government-covered care for people suffering from gender issues than were available prior.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, if you actually look at what she's doing, she says she wants more trans doctors in Alberta to take care of trans patients.
All she's doing is saying you're not going to have little children doing this stuff, and you're not going to do it behind the back of parents.
Oh, and by the way, sports, you can have a transgender league.
You can't beat up women anymore.
One of the things that came out was that her policy is actually more liberal and more lenient in some ways than Justin Trudeau's policy in regards to the public service.
So this is all just, I mean, do you think they mean it?
I'm impressed with how some of these pro-trans politicians literally cry on demand.
I don't know if they actually mean it.
I'm sure some of them are emotionally fraught people.
But if they actually look at what Danielle Smith proposed, no secrets from parents, no irreversible surgery until the kids are grown-ups, and no beating up girls in women's sports.
That's got to have 80, 90% support.
I don't know if the journalists really are against it or if they just say, oh, this is something to insult and attack a conservative politician.
Either way, I'm glad to see Danielle Smith is sticking to her guns.
On the liberals' expense of retreat, Canadian citizens says retreat seems to be the most appropriate liberal word these days.
In the polls, federal court cases, media presence are representing actual Canadians' needs.
They retreat.
Yeah, they can't retreat fast enough for me, though.
You know what?
People often ask me, when will the next election be?
Now, of course, I don't know that.
But under our constitutional system, Trudeau could theoretically go a full five years.
So it's very rare for that to happen in Canada.
Four years is typically as long as it goes.
And if you recall, the elections were 2015, 2019, and 2021.
So we've had three elections in less than nine years.
So it's typically every three years, which tells me that we're going to have an election this year.
But why wouldn't Trudeau stretch it out if he's still 20 points back in the poll?
It's when he doesn't care.
So we'll have to see, but we'll, in the meantime, keep holding his feet to the fire.