Ezra Levant reveals a Leger poll from April 2023 where 64% of Southeast Asian immigrants and 50% of South Asians—not white newcomers—believe Canada’s immigration levels are too high, despite media suppression of such views. The poll undercounted foreign students (900K) and temporary workers (600K), masking reality: Canada’s actual intake nears 2.2 million annually. Levant critiques the government’s plan as politically driven, ignoring housing shortages and security risks from countries with anti-Semitic policies, while comparing U.S.-led diplomatic pressure to shield Hamas and Iran’s nuclear program to its passive response against Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked ships. His work at Rebel News mirrors past conservative media strategies, framing skepticism as a necessary counter to establishment narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Incredible poll by Leger, very reputable and large Canadian pollster based in Quebec.
They asked new immigrants their views on immigration levels.
And you know what?
You're not going to believe this.
New immigrants do not like high immigration.
They are more hostile to it than white people.
In fact, this poll is broken down by race, which is really rare.
I'll take you through the numbers.
You will be shocked.
That's ahead.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
It helps you see things because we have a lot of video clips.
And for example, in today's episode, I'll show you some charts from the poll.
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Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, a poll on Canadian immigration shows that visible minority immigrants are the ones who want immigration reduced the most.
It's April 19th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
It seems like just a moment ago when even raising the subject of immigration was forbidden in polite company, even though for years Canadians have said the numbers were too high.
I've never seen the poll say anything else, but no one was really allowed to say that out loud.
I remember when the Conservative Party of Canada decided didn't want anything to do with rebel news anymore.
I know the precise moment it happened.
It was when I interviewed Andrew Scheer a few years back and asked him about immigration.
He avoided the question.
So I asked him again.
He avoided it again.
So I asked him again, again.
I think I might have asked him five times.
Here was the last time he ever made the mistake of talking to Rebel News.
This is when we broke apart.
And Kelly Leeds said, I'm going to be the Canadian values candidate, especially when it comes to immigration.
How would you position yourself on those issues?
Because I'm trying to differentiate for myself and for our viewers amongst the dozen candidates.
I think what you've described so far is good, and I'm glad to hear it.
But to me, that's sort of the base, you know, the starting point.
Where are you on these other more divisive issues?
Well, I can tell you that I've always had a pro-life voting record.
My concentration on a lot of these things that have been thrown out is that, look, as the leader, you have to find those issues that conservatives can unite around.
There's no sense in a leader promising things that he knows that the Conservative caucus might not even go for, never mind the parliament itself.
I take your point about focusing on uniting the party, but I would put it to you that Conservatives and all Canadians think immigration is too high.
Only 8% of Canadians want more immigration.
In the United States, Donald Trump has shown his most popular issue was immigration and stopping illegal immigration and reviewing Muslim immigration with an eye towards security.
We've just had John McCallum announce in this week, Economic Times, he's going to jack up immigration.
Kelly Leach is taking out that ground.
Do you have anything to say about the Syrian migrants or about John McCallum's new numbers?
I mean, that's something that I think conservatives, maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of conservatives want to hear something on that.
I think you're right.
And I think it's more than just conservatives.
I think a lot of Canadians are concerned about issues like security.
And one thing we saw with the Syrian refugee issue is that it became very apparent that it was a political goal on a political timeframe and that it looked like that the Liberals were sacrificing things like security and proper vetting to reach that.
And the feedback I got from my constituents and premiers around the country, a lot of people saying, look, we have to get this right.
Yes, Canada can play a role in providing a compassionate space for people in danger, but we have to get the security component of that right.
Kelly Leach isn't talking about security.
She's talking about values.
What's your view on values?
So look, yeah, you mentioned a couple of issues, immigration and values.
Let me talk about immigration first.
I think it's important that we arrive at a number based on some kind of logical formula.
What is the need that we're trying to address?
Is it an aging population based on logical rationale?
Okay, well, McCallum has said he's going to jack up the numbers probably by 100,000.
Do you oppose that?
Well, what's that based on?
I don't know.
Yeah, so if it's not based on something logical or coherent, then I think it's just a political target aimed at trying to win over a segment of the electorate.
I'm not going to do that.
One of the constraints...
Are you against that?
Well, I am against a policy that just throws a number out for shock value or to try to gain attention.
I mean, I agree with you about integration and about how to get people involved in Canada's community once they're here.
But Kelly Leach has said before they get here, they should be some sort of a values screening.
Do you think we should ask any values-laden questions of people before they get here?
Well, I'm not sure what she's saying.
Okay, forget about her.
Just tell me your answer yourself.
Do you think, you're saying once people get here, integrate them, teach them?
I don't think anyone disagrees.
But before they even get here, should we ask them about their values?
Should we ask them about Canadian values before we let them in?
Well, he's gone, and Rebel News is still here.
Anyways, immigration is one of those issues that everybody talks about except the media.
Journalist Mickey Kaus calls that kind of story the undernews.
What real people talk about, the water cooler, the coffee pot, the photocopier, but only if you follow, if you only follow the regime news, you'll miss it altogether.
That's one of the reasons why Donald Trump did so well in 2016.
So many people thought the border wall was a good idea and still do.
Well, immigration is the ultimate underneath issue in Canada, and frankly, it touches on so many issues at once, all of which the regime media are squeamish about.
Housing being the most universal one, you simply cannot add 2.2 million people a year to Canada without driving up the price of housing, especially given that Canada is only building a bit more than 200,000 houses a year.
You just can't do it.
Housing prices, crime, social unrest, especially people who come here from countries where anti-Semitism is endemic and who have become activated like little sleeper cells of Nazis or something, Like this guy, that's a racism problem.
That's an immigration problem.
That's a crime problem.
We're simply not vetting immigrants for cultural fit.
In fact, we're not really vetting them at all.
We admit 6,000 people per day, 365 days a year, to immigrate to Canada.
don't even have to have an interview or a face-to-face meeting anymore to become an immigrant.
So yeah, those Hamas hate marches are a function of immigration policy too.
Our healthcare system is strained, of course.
Welfare, of course, even something as simple as traffic.
Like I say, everyone talks about these things except the establishment.
And if you even breathe a word about it, well, you're a racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe.
Well, that's what I want to tell you about today.
Look at this, a new poll by Leger.
As you know, they're the largest Canadian-owned pollster.
The poll's about immigration, and it specifically asked people of different racial backgrounds their thoughts on immigration.
Here's what made up this survey.
It's really interesting.
2,100 people were surveyed, focused on newcomers, as they call them, people who came here as recently as yesterday and as long ago as 10 years.
So anyone who's arrived in the last 10 years, that's who they surveyed.
And let me just quote from their survey.
Results were weighted by age, gender, region, country, birth, as well as years since arrival.
So this is an unusual poll, eh?
Good for them for doing it.
Page 10 shows a breakdown of who they broke to, spoke to.
41% were what's called permanent residents, 16% temporary workers, 11% students, etc.
So let's start with the boring question.
Who would you vote for?
And let me be clear, these are for newcomers, as they call them, fairly recent immigrants.
24% lean conservative, 22% lean liberal.
38% say they don't know, which makes sense.
I mean, if you just arrived here as a student visa holder, you probably haven't thought about politics yet.
But right there, that's interesting, isn't it?
New Canadians are ready to vote for Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives.
The typical media smear of you're racist doesn't seem to be working anymore, does it?
Page five of the poll is sort of interesting.
Political party by race of newcomer.
So black immigrants lean liberal, and they lean against conservatives pretty dramatically, which is a surprise to me.
South Asian, I think that means mainly India, which would include Sikhs, but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka.
They're strongly conservative.
And look at those Chinese numbers.
Holy moly, three to one choosing conservatives over liberals.
That's honestly sort of surprising to me.
I thought that maybe Justin Trudeau's sucking up to communist China would be appealing.
But I mean, I'm just telling you what the poll says.
Three to one there for the conservatives.
I think all that's sort of interesting, but I want to talk about immigration.
That's what is the most interesting here.
So look at page seven of the poll.
Opinion of current immigration plan.
And again, if I'm understanding this poll correctly, all of these people are new immigrants, people here in the last 10 years.
They just break those newcomers down by race, which is, again, unusual for a poll.
Now, I want to read to you something that will erode your confidence in this poll a little bit, but I want to disclose it to you.
And it made me raise an eyebrow.
Here's the actual question that was put.
The government of Canada's current immigration plan is to welcome 465,000 immigrants to Canada this year, 485,000 in 2024, and half a million in 2025.
So they started doing this poll late last year, by the way.
But as you know, and as I said a few minutes ago, that's not accurate.
Those numbers are not accurate because in addition to those numbers, there are a stunning 900,000 foreign students here on visas.
And then there are about 600,000 temporary foreign workers here on visas too.
So the real number, as calculated by Candice Malcolm at True North, is 2.2 million per year, four times the number that Leger asked in their polling question.
So I would think that if people knew the truth, their reactions would be even more stark.
But let me tell you what newcomers said when presented with the question that Leger actually did ask them.
Let's look at the choices.
Too many immigrants, the right number of immigrants, or too few immigrants.
Only 7% said too few.
By the way, I'll take you out of suspense.
Those who say the right number is really, in my mind, a way of saying I don't know, because it's a safe answer in addition to the 17% who actually say, I don't know.
I think many people would say about right if the number were higher or lower.
They just don't want to be controversial.
But for those who have an opinion, only 7% say no, we should have more, whereas 42% say we have too many.
But let's break it down by race.
That's what's interesting here.
41% of white immigrants say there's too many immigrants to Canada.
42% of BIPOC say the same.
That is a goofy acronym.
I never use it.
It stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, which is a weird category because it contains other categories within it.
The group that has the fewest people saying there's too many immigrants is black immigrants.
And even though I just mentioned BIPOC, so I don't quite get that.
17% of black immigrants say we're taking too many, but still that outnumbers the number of black immigrants who say we're taking too few, which is just 11%.
So there is no race of immigrant whatsoever where more people, more immigrants want more immigration than want less.
But look at South Asian people.
So that's people from India, including Sikhs, et cetera.
50% of people from India say that Canada is taking too many immigrants.
And these are Indian immigrants saying this.
Oh my God, look at the next statistic.
64% of people from Southeast Asia say there's too many immigrants.
64% of recent immigrants.
So it's not, I'm not talking about someone who came here 50 years ago or even second generation.
I'm talking about someone who's just off the plane or just off the boat, someone who's been here less than 10 years, someone who could have arrived yesterday.
64% of Southeast Asian immigrants think that we take too many immigrants.
That's places like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia.
They are fed up with immigration.
Even immigrants from there are fed up.
In fact, only 4% of Southeast Asians want more immigration.
64% think we're letting in too many people.
Immigrants Speak Out00:17:05
I find that incredible.
And again, I'm comparing that to white immigrants.
Only 42% of white immigrants say the same thing.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Visible minority immigrants are harder lying on immigration than white folks.
And you can see Chinese Canadians are almost as skeptical of immigration.
55% of them want the doors closed.
What do you think of this?
You can challenge some of the methodology here.
I do.
This poll took place over a number of months.
A lot has changed in the immigration debate over the last six months.
I already showed you that the essential question to put to people undercounted immigration by a huge number.
And I'm just skeptical of the numbers for black Canadians.
My own anecdotal experience with Canadians from the Caribbean or Central Africa are different from the results here.
And I don't know how BIPOC is different than black.
I don't know.
But listen, this is the poll.
These are done by experts.
Maybe that's the difference between my anecdotes and their data.
But put aside any quibbles or quarrels for now.
That's not even the point.
The point is that on its own terms, for whatever it's worth, this poll by Canada's largest pollster shows that far from immigration skepticism being a racist point of view, immigration skepticism is actually the dominant point of view for Canadian immigrants from minority races.
Let me put it another way, minority immigrants, immigrants of color, are more anti-immigration than white immigrants.
And compared to other polls of all Canadians, particularly the polls taken by Angus Reid, all immigrants are more anti-immigration than old-stock Canadians are.
Maybe it's time the Conservatives embrace a message of immigration sanity.
Or as I like to call it, net zero immigration.
Stay with us for more.
Well, the other day, it sounded for a moment like we were on the brink of World War III.
Iran, everyone said, was planning to launch a massive attack on Israel.
It's almost as if they had telegraphed the exact time and day of their attack.
And when I say World War III, well, that's because there were a lot of countries involved in the battle.
Iran and its allies, the Yemeni Houthis, Hezbollah, and on the Israeli side, the United States and reportedly the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
I think that is a kind of world war, but it ended as soon as it began over in hours.
A shock and awe attack where allegedly 99% of the rockets were intercepted.
Well, Israel responded the other day in the same sort of manner, very noisy, but did it do any damage?
What is this all about?
Is this play fighting?
What is going on?
Is this all orchestrated for public consumption?
What is the state of bellicosity between these two countries?
And what is America's role?
That's what I find most confusing.
Remember that Joe Biden, when he was vice president under Barack Obama, was a leader in normalizing Iran and funding Iran, lifting of sanctions on that country, including making it easier for them to develop their nuclear weapons.
Joe Biden has done that again as president, releasing tens of billions of dollars to that country.
You could say America was funding both sides of that battle.
Well, that's my amateur point of view from my perch here in Canada.
But what about someone who has spent his life studying the region?
In fact, who runs a think tank called the Middle East Forum, who himself has lived in the region for years and has traveled widely.
I'm talking about our friend Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum.
He joins us now via Skype.
Dr. Pipes, great to see you again.
Thanks for coming back on the show.
Thanks for inviting me.
I don't know what's going on over there.
I thought that the armed direct battle between Iran and Israel would be a sort of a final showdown.
Those two countries have been staring at each other literally for decades, not just because the Ayatollah are exporting terrorism, but because Iran has a nuclear program, which is so evidently aimed at Israel.
What is the state of affairs there?
I don't know what's going on, and I don't want to yield to online conspiracy theories, but it looks strange to me.
No, I don't think there are conspiracies going on.
I think the key factors are: one, that the Iranian military is quite weak.
Strikingly, amazingly, even, the Iranians have not managed to buy modern military aircraft since the revolution.
And they're still using American-purchased planes from the 1960s and 70s.
I don't know why the Russians, Chinese, and others haven't supplied them, but they haven't.
So the Iranians are weak from that movie.
They don't have much of a Navy.
They don't much of an Air Force.
They can't really take on Israel.
That's point one.
Point two is that the U.S. policy, as you suggested, is deeply conflicted.
Look at the person of Joe Biden.
He has a relationship with Israel.
He goes back half a century.
He proudly mentions that he met Golda May here something like 50 years ago.
And he keeps saying that he has Israel's back and ironclad commitments and so forth.
At the same time, as you pointed out, President Obama and now Biden have a great interest in luring the Iranians back into the so-called family of nations.
They have a belief that if you treat the Iranians nicely, if you offer them money, don't take a hostile stance, you can bring them back.
So I think these are the two key factors and the complications derive from them.
Well, I think everyone knows that Iran, while I agree with you, its conventional army is not strong, it is the master of asymmetrical warfare.
It funds terrorist groups, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it seems to be quite successful in the drone industry.
In fact, I think Iranian drones are actively used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
So Iran, while has avoided direct conflict with Israel, preferring the economic and political benefits of asymmetrical warfare.
That is some plausible deniability.
The rockets weren't launched from Iran themselves.
They could say.
And if there was a battlefield loss, it wouldn't be on Iranian soil.
That changed last week when Iran launched rockets and missiles directly.
What's the why?
What?
What's next?
Why didn't Israel attempt to take out Iran's nuclear project?
I'm just trying to understand: is it over?
Are they play fighting?
I don't understand how.
Tell me more about it.
I'm trying to figure it out.
I'm not sure if it's over or not, but for the moment it is over.
Who knows?
There might be another act of retaliation ahead of us.
But right now, the Israelis would, I believe, dearly love to attack the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
And there are many, myself included, who wish they had.
But the pressure from the United States and other friendly countries on Israel was intense.
Don't do anything too provocative.
Do something more or less symbolic.
Let's close this thing down.
And what's so striking is that the attack yesterday is not acknowledged by Israel and is not acknowledged by Iran.
So everybody wants to close it down, or at least the allies of Israel want to close it down and the Israelis are going along with it.
I suspect the Israelis have come to the conclusion that it is a better deal to go along with their allies and to put pressure on them, to hold over them the threat of attacking Iranian nuclear infrastructure, to get them to take more, to get the Allies to take more aggressive steps.
And the Allies have promised to take steps, which they have done already, some of.
And the Israelis still can attack the nuclear infrastructure at will.
But it'll be expensive in terms of their diplomacy, in terms of their support, in terms of their getting arms from the United States and other Western countries.
So the Israelis have concluded, Deputy Benjamin Netanyahu has concluded that this is the better course to follow now.
He has internal pressure to do more.
Many Israelis want more.
But he concluded that better to go along with President Biden and not cause any rupture in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
For me, a strange fact is that Hamas has been allowed to live in peace in the southwestern end of Gaza, in the Rahwa area.
The leadership is unmolested there.
Israel does not attack it.
For months, it's been a stalemate there.
And you see America and other G7 countries basically saying to Israel, do not finish the job.
Israel has taken over, or at least controls, the bulk of the Gaza Strip.
But the hardest part of it, where any surviving hostages might be, where the leadership of Hamas is, remains, you know, with impunity.
Do you think Israel will finish the job?
And if not, why are Israel's so-called allies telling it not to finish the job?
I do think the Israelis will resume their attack on Rafah.
They are going slow again because of intense diplomatic pressure.
The Israelis need to balance their own military imperatives with their diplomatic imperatives.
They're a small country, and small countries need to balance these sort of things.
Look at Ukraine.
They have to worry.
Ukraine is much bigger, but it's still a small country, relatively speaking.
And so they don't follow the kind of direct, consistent policies that a great power can do.
And we see that very much in Gaza.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has over and over again talked about total victory and absolute victory.
And he's been very emphatic about the need to destroy Hamas, have no remnants of Hamas.
And yet, as you point out, Hamas exists and is in no particular jeopardy at this point.
Will the Israelis resume?
I think so.
Will it be at a cost to their relations with the United States and other friendly allies of Israel?
Probably.
But the Israelis have many times gone against the wishes of their allies.
I think of the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981.
The Americans and everyone hated it.
Eventually came to terms with it.
In fact, we're grateful when the United States went to war with Saddam Hussein.
Great gratitude for there being no nuclear bombs in Iraq.
So it's not a conspiratorial game.
It's not a play acting game.
It's a complex diplomatic game of how far can Israel go militarily when it's constrained diplomatically.
I don't know what's going to happen in November in the U.S. presidential elections.
I don't know if Donald Trump will be in jail, God forbid, assassinated.
And I say that again, I don't mean to be extreme, but so far there are no taboos that have been unbroken in terms of stopping him.
I think there's a chance that Donald Trump could be president.
Let me put it that way.
And there's also a good chance that Biden would be.
Maybe Israel is just trying to bide time until November, where I think Donald Trump presidency, if it were to come, would reset a lot of things in the region.
I think it would put Iran back in its box.
And I think Gaza and Hamas would be dealt with as swiftly as Trump dealt with ISIS.
I don't know.
I wonder if Israel can afford to wait seven months in the hopes that America will have a different stance.
Perhaps, but I'd like to point out that Trump and Netanyahu had a good working relationship through their years together.
But in January 2021, Netanyahu recognized Joe Biden as president of the United States and sent him the routine kind of congratulations that foreign heads of state do, as a government do.
And Donald Trump took this amiss.
He is angry, and he remains angry.
So what I'm getting at is if Benjamin Netanyahu remains the prime minister of Israel, he can expect a lot of hostility from Donald Trump.
Should there be a new prime minister, I think it would be different.
But Donald Trump retains his grudges, and I think he has a grudge against Netanyahu.
Now, Netanyahu had no choice.
What's he supposed to do?
Say that Biden was not the president, but rankers, rankles with Trump.
So I don't know that if Trump came to office and Netanyahu were in office, that would be all that smooth sailing in 2025.
A few weeks ago, Senator Chuck Schumer, a senior Democrat who also happens to be Jewish, gave an astonishing rant, basically demanding that Israel depose Netanyahu.
I don't think that's too strongly worded to say that.
I mean, they basically said, Netanyahu, you've got to go for the U.S.-Israel relationship to remain.
I found it striking the least.
If Netanyahu were to go, who would succeed him?
And would they want to, quote, finish the job against Hamas?
As Netanyahu has repeatedly said, who is in the wings and would they finish this military project?
Well, the easier question to answer is the second one.
Would they resume and finish the job?
Yes, I think so.
There's a very strong sentiment in Israel that Hamas needs to be obliterated.
The institution of Hamas can no longer have power in Gaza.
Who that might be, I don't know.
Presumably, Netanyahu's successor would be from within the liquid party.
He has managed to keep his potential successors down.
He does not have a right-hand man.
He does not have a vice prime minister.
So there are aspirants Nir Barkat, for example, the former mayor of Jerusalem, Danny Danon, former ambassador to the United Nations, and others have shown their interest in taking his place, but we don't really know because they haven't been allowed to run for any kind of leadership position.
So there are some excellent candidates within Likud and even outside Likud, but it's very hard to predict at this point who might be Netanyahu's successor.
Easier to predict that that successor will continue the job, yes.
Let me ask you one last thing.
Aircraft Carriers and Missiles Inaction00:04:23
I'm astonished by the approach of the U.S. Navy in the region.
There's a lot of aircraft carriers and missile ships in the region.
And yet, I would say every week there's another attack on civilian shipping, anything that is in any way related to Israel, those ships, like it could be some cargo from Israel on a ship that is owned by South Korea, registered in Liberia or whatever.
But if there's any Israeli connection at all, the ship is attacked.
It's boarded by Yemen, even by Iran.
And you have all these mighty American ships there, but sailing through the Suez Canal still appears to be very dangerous at the hands of this ragtag terrorist regime.
I find that puzzling.
And even when the American ships themselves are attacked, America doesn't fight back.
It's like shoeing flies away as opposed to killing them dead.
What's going on there?
I just make one slight correction.
The Houthis in Yemen are attacking basically everyone at this point, whether or not there's an Israeli connection.
It's indiscriminate, even Chinese.
I think even Russian, not sure.
How can that continue?
It's just like a return to pirate days.
It is, yeah, it is the equivalent of piracy.
I thought at the beginning of this barrage of attacks from Yemen that there would be an international consensus that this is hurting everybody.
And there would be a squelching of it.
There'd be pressure on the Iranians to stop it.
But no, it doesn't happen, as you correctly point out.
This has just continued, and it is outrageous.
World shipping, world economy is affected by it in substantial ways.
And the Houthis, just without much danger to themselves, continue to attack.
The United States hasn't done much.
Neither has anyone else.
It shows a kind of passivity that is, I think, very ominous, that a ragtag, as you call them, group can have this impact on the global economy.
Terrible, terrible.
We are defensive.
And again, with the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel, it was purely defensive.
The United States came to help, as the Saudis and the Jordanians, the British, Israel knocked Down these drones and missiles, but don't do anything offensive, they say.
You can't win if you're always on the defensive, and yet that is the preferred American posture or preferred democratic posture.
Let's stick to the defensive.
Let's not offend anybody.
You know, I think it's an echo of the domestic policy in the United States and Canada, where you have Hamas hate marches on the streets, on campuses, some astonishing footage out of Columbia University yesterday.
In that case, there were some arrests.
But when I see these mighty U.S. ships turning the other cheek, it reminds me of the hate marches in the streets of Toronto and Montreal and other places where even in New York, quite often police just let obvious crimes go by instead of cracking down on crime.
So I'm not talking about a political censorship.
I'm talking about actual crimes that are committed.
I find it astonishing.
The strongest country in the world doesn't have enough self-respect or motivation to take care of itself.
And again, I'm not looking for political censorship, but there are actual physical crimes, blocking the key bridges, blocking the airports in Chicago, in New York, in Seattle for hours.
And then letting, I understand in San Francisco, they blocked the bridge and all the blockers were let go without charge.
I think it's an analogy, a Navy that won't shoot down a Houthi and police forces and prosecutors that won't lay a finger on Hamas activists in America.
I find it very demoralizing.
Well, Ezra, you have captured the temper of the times, I'm afraid, in Western countries.
Well, I'm sorry that that's the case.
I hope it'll change.
It's great to see you again, and I'll continue to follow your work at the Middle East Forum.
Halal Mortgages Controversy00:03:35
We've been talking with Dr. Daniel Pipes, and you can follow his work at meforum.org.
Did I get that right?
You did.
Excellent.
Well, nice to see you again, and thanks very much for your wisdom.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Ryan Michelle says, Justin only stands with Laurentian elites, talking about being a fancy pants.
I think it's possible to grow up in wealth and have a common touch.
I think it's possible to live your life where you mix with people of all backgrounds.
I happen to think that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does that.
In his own way, as I mentioned, I think Donald Trump did that.
But Trudeau has not.
And imagine him or Mr. Rolex, Jagmeet Singh, saying that Pierre Polyev is the fancy pants.
Pierre Polyev was an orphan or he was raised.
He was adopted and raised by two Saskatchewan teachers.
I mean, he's the least fancy of all the party leaders.
Crushing all deceivers, I'm guessing that's not the name that mama gave you, says, say no to halal mortgages and halal mortgages in Canada now.
That's really weird.
There was a reference in the budget to halal mortgages.
Of course, halal is the Arabic or Muslim word for, I guess it's their version of kosher.
Like halal food would mean no pork, food killed in the Islamic way.
So what's a halal mortgage?
Well, paying interest is usury.
It's against the rules of Sharia law.
So how do you give someone a mortgage if they can't pay interest?
Well, you have fees and you have rent to own and you have, there's ways around it that exist right now.
There are thousands of Canadian Muslims who have unconventional mortgages that get around this technical issue.
And frankly, I don't have a problem with that.
I mean, I don't care what kind of deal you make with your lender or your bank.
What I'm worried about is the government mandating a religious approach to banking to people who don't want to do it.
That would be something I'm worried about.
Trouble is we have no idea what it means, and the government has not yet told us.
So I'm on alert.
I'm not on high alert yet.
I just don't think the government should say, hey, do this religious approach to business.
No, people can do that if they want.
It shouldn't be forced by the government.
TMG says, I think you'd make a great prime minister, Mr. Levant.
It's very nice of you to say.
I don't speak French, for one thing.
I don't think I have the patience for it.
I think I'm doing something morally important here at Rebel News.
In fact, I think what we do in some way assists conservative politicians.
We help shape the battlefield of ideas.
I think that, let me give you the example of perhaps one of the greatest conservative leaders in the last 50 years.
I'm referring to Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan could only do what he did.
And Margaret Thatcher, his counterpart in the UK, could only do what she did because of the support of conservative-leaning media that shaped the battleground of ideas, that gave him and gave Margaret Thatcher support.
Shaping Ideas Battlefield00:00:40
In fact, especially in the UK, it was critical that she had the support of the London Telegraph and some of the tabloids.
She couldn't have done it without that.
When I look around Canada today, I think that the media is a huge problem.
And even if we had a principled, passionate conservative leader without a friendly or fair, let me put it that way, media environment, they're doomed.
So I see that as my role.
I don't know if you know this, but 30 years ago, I briefly, or 25 years ago, I briefly ran for political office, but I stepped aside in Calgary Southwest for Stephen Harper.