Ezra Levant highlights an Abacus poll revealing 32% of Canadians unprompted cite freedom as their top national attribute, yet 43% believe it’s worsening due to COVID lockdowns and censorship. Only 7% see healthcare as a strength, while democracy declines (39%) amid CSIS’s disclosure of 12 MPs/senators compromised by unnamed Chinese spies. Immigration—2M annually, including 1M student visas—fuels concerns over assimilation, housing (e.g., 10 people per unit), and national identity, contrasting with police inaction during pro-terrorist marches or Jewish-owned shop vandalism. Legal victories for truckers, like Ben Spicer’s February 2022 arrest overturned after Charter breaches, suggest the Emergencies Act backfired, exposing Trudeau’s overreach while former Sun News colleague Charles Adler faces ethics accusations for abandoning conservative principles to support his policies. Canada’s perceived decline in core values stems from unchecked government power and fractured social cohesion. [Automatically generated summary]
It's August 21st, and this is the Edge Levance Show.
Shame on you, you sensorism bug.
You know me, I like referring to abacus data precisely because as a pollster, they are not conservative.
Their affiliations are with the Liberal Party.
So when they tell me something that I like to hear, I know it's not self-serving.
I know it's not wishful thinking.
It's sort of contrary to their own point of view.
So I trust it.
Now, usually I take you through their horse race political questions, which party would you vote for if the election were held today?
And usually that's broken down by province and sometimes by age and by the sex of the respondents.
I find that interesting.
And I'll just tell you, FYI, their latest polls are what we've seen for years now.
Pierre Polyev's Tories are at 42%.
The Liberals are at 25%.
And you can see the NDP is at 18%.
You can see the numbers historically here.
And that looks very encouraging to conservatives.
I'm encouraged by them.
But remember, Trudeau was initially elected in 2015 because about a week or two before Election Day, there was this revelation and then this huge push, not just by the liberals, but by the entire media and third-party campaign groups, environmental groups, to go ABC, anybody but conservatives.
So a large chunk of the NDP vote switched in the last moment to the liberals, especially in key ridings where there was a left-wing vote split.
I believe Polyev will win the next election.
But when the Liberals roll out their campaign and start spending money and their dark money to Chinese influence operations, whatever, I mean, that's not a myth as already been proven by CISAs.
And when the CBC and other regime media go into survival mode, don't think this race won't tighten.
Anyways, that said, I just want to show you this.
What a pleasure it is to see conservatives leading in literally every single province except Quebec, where it's sort of a three-way tie behind the blockade of Koi, although they would get the most seats.
I mean, it's probably within the margin of error, but it's astonishing to me to see that the Conservative Party are further ahead in the Atlantic than they are even in Ontario.
Isn't that sort of amazing to you?
It's amazing to me in terms of their actual raw vote number.
Anyways, that's not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk about a more interesting poll question asked by Abacus.
And that question is, what do you like best about living in Canada and is it getting better or worse?
It's a good one.
What would you say?
My first answer would be more sort of psychological and emotional than physical.
I would say I like the feeling of being home.
This is where I'm from.
This is where I'm connected to the place and the people.
But I'd say that's getting very much worse as we are being flooded with people who have no connection to us and don't come here to be connected to us when you bring in 2 million new people a year.
Many of them don't speak English.
They aren't culturally a fit.
They're not going to become Canadians in a deep way.
They're going to set up segregated ghettos.
There will be no integration, let alone assimilation.
You'll feel like a stranger in your own home.
So my favorite thing about Canada is that it's home and it feels like home.
And I'm really worried about that.
So here's what Canadians said when they were asked.
David Coletto says it's a really interesting question.
So we asked, unprompted, what the best thing about living in Canada is and followed up with whether that is getting better, not changing or getting worse.
Interestingly and not surprisingly, vote intention was linked to that as well.
That's David Coletto talking about the reason he did the poll, but let's take a look.
Look at that chart there.
32%.
The fact that these are unprompted.
So normally on a political poll, they say liberal, Tory, Green, NDP.
Here it was unprompted.
They let people come up with the words themselves.
32% said freedom.
Unprompted.
I think that's amazing, don't you?
I would have thought it had been drummed out of us by the state and by regime media and by our communist teachers' unions.
But 32% of Canadians, unprompted, still say freedom.
19% say natural beauty and the environment.
They're not talking about kooky environmental schemes like carbon dioxide or paper straws or banning plastic bags and bringing in carbon taxes.
They're talking about what the word environment used to mean 35 years ago.
Beautiful places to go hiking and camping and picnicking and sightseeing, going out to nature, going to the mountains or a national park.
That's what people say they love about Canada.
The second most thing.
The third is opportunities and standard of living.
10% of people list that.
Safety is next.
Isn't that interesting?
Do you feel safe in Canada?
It's a high trust society.
We are safe, but it's eroding.
I think it's getting worse.
If you're in a small town, still pretty safe, but I doubt there's a soul in any big city in this country that feels safer than we did five, 10 years ago, especially when you have massive crime waves, often driven by foreign criminal gangs.
Here's how Canada's largest urban police force recommended dealing with home invasion robberies, coming to steal SUVs right off your driveway.
Remember this from Toronto's police?
There's also updated advice for all vehicle owners.
A message echoed by Toronto Police speaking at an Etobicoke safety meeting last month.
Constable Marco Ricciardi had a new message for vehicle owners who keep their fobs in Faraday pouches.
To prevent the possibility of being attacked in your home, leave your fobs at your front door because they're breaking into your home to steal your car.
They don't want anything else.
A lot of them that they're arresting have guns on them and they're not toy guns.
They're real guns.
They're loaded.
That's why Galinsky says they will be installing the doorstops and taking YPR's advice seriously.
But she'd like more action from police as well.
Yeah, and that's just the regular crime wave.
Then you have massive pro-terrorist marches through the streets, in the middle of the street, around Jewish synagogues, vandalizing Jewish-owned shops week after week, arson, even gunfire, masked thugs chanting threats and racism, and the police don't do a damn thing.
In fact, some institutions give in to them, support them, like those encampments at universities.
The police who declared martial law on peaceful truckers stand by while actual violence and threats of violence terrify people with a racial edge to it.
Absolutely, we're less safe now than we were five years ago.
Protests and Vandalism in the Streets00:07:28
You'll note that healthcare is down to just 7% of Canadians.
Unprompted, only one in, what's that, one in 15 Canadians, one in 14 Canadians says, oh, healthcare is the best.
I remember when I was young, when you asked anyone official what the Canadian identity meant, most of the time the answer was Medicare.
That's our Canadian identity.
Medicare and the Charter of Rights, people would say.
Can you even believe that?
No one thinks that Medicare is great.
No one loves publicly funded government-run healthcare.
They've been burned.
I don't think people have said that unprompted in 10 or 20 years.
I like the answer on this poll.
People say, what do you like about Canada the best one?
People say the people.
Isn't that a great answer?
People being the best part of Canada.
Obviously, that's true.
Diversity or culture.
5% of people said that, but those aren't the same thing, by the way.
Diversity means differences, different races, different ethnicities is typically what they mean.
But culture could mean something totally different.
It could mean arts and museums and history and architecture.
That's sort of one definition of culture, language.
But think of French culture, Italian culture, Turkish culture.
Those things actually mean the opposite of diversity, don't they?
Tell me the essence of being French.
What's the essence of being, I don't know, Algerian?
I'm just picking countries.
It means the opposite of diversity.
So I don't think that question made a lot of sense.
But generally, an interesting list.
By question, these were unprompted, but to categorize culture and diversity is the same thing.
They're not.
But even more interesting than those unprompted answers, I love the fact that freedom's number one, is how all of those wonderful things about Canada are trending.
Remember, that was the second part of the question that Coletto asked.
See, Abacus didn't just ask what your favorite thing about Canada is.
The pollster asked if that thing is getting better or worse.
And guys, the answers are bad on everything.
That's the chart on the right there.
That gray zone in the middle is people who say there's no real change.
Bright green is when people say something's getting even better.
Bright red is when something's getting even worse.
So compare the green and the red.
Ignore the gray for all purposes.
The first thing is every single thing is getting worse.
Everything, no matter what you like about Canada, you tell the pollsters things are getting worse.
The only thing that is even close to being balanced is that answer on diversity or culture.
27% say it's getting better.
32% say it's getting worse.
But like I say, I'm not even sure people agree on they're not using the words for the same meaning.
Culture and diversity are not the same thing.
Some people might say diversity is getting more, and I think that's true, but that's not necessarily a good thing if it's getting more diverse.
It's sort of a weird one.
But put that aside, look at freedom, which is such a wonderful answer, the number one answer.
10% of Canadians, only one in 10, say freedom is getting better.
43% say it's getting worse.
That's such a big number.
That's not just right-wingers.
Everybody senses it, isn't it?
That's freedom of speech, political freedom, even economic freedom too.
That's what we all saw during the COVID lockdowns.
That's what we all see now with internet censorship.
People are worried about freedom.
I think it's wonderful that they're saying so.
Nature and beauty.
In some ways, it's hard to imagine how can it get worse?
Aren't the Rocky Mountains still, the Rocky Mountains?
Aren't national parks still national parks?
Well, about that, here's a clip from our story about a fun beach in Ontario where thousands of newcomers from other countries, well, let me put it this way.
They have a different way of using beaches than we do.
Take a look.
And I told my kids, if we're going to go on the beach, watch out so you don't step in any human poop.
I've heard people are using tents and they're just like doing it in the sand so no one can see.
I think it's really gross.
They're digging holes and they're pooping and putting tents up because they don't want to go to the washrooms.
And I'm here to fact check that because that's not a lie.
It makes me not want to swim and not want to be on the beach.
To be a responsible parent, you should be showing your kids how you can actually throw out their diaper in the washroom, not bury it at a beach.
Some of it's just common sense.
Like, why would you do that?
And they dig a hole and they use it to further bathroom.
I truly think that's on people's minds when they're asked about natural beauty.
Trudeau has brought in 2 million new people to Canada in the past year, mainly on student visas, about a million, and work visas, that's about 750,000.
They're often staying 10 people to an apartment in Toronto or Vancouver.
It's so crowded where they live.
So, of course, they're going to get out of the house and go to parks and national parks.
And so now they're crowded and they're alienating.
And that's just a fact.
I mean, don't ask me, ask the people.
Look at the answer to opportunities.
Only 11% say that there are more opportunities.
44% say things are getting worse.
One of the highest numbers on the entire chart.
Of course not.
No one can afford to buy a house in Canada, especially if you're competing against 2 million people a year needing housing that Trudeau is bringing in this year and next year and then following year.
No one can live on minimum wage, especially since you're now being undercut by foreign workers earning even less than minimum wage in some cases.
There are 450,000 unemployed young Canadians.
There are 750,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada.
Do the math.
I already talked about the decline of healthcare in Canada, the biggest decline on the chart, by the way.
The people, that's a great answer.
It's plummeting too.
It makes me very sad.
But I don't think that Canadians are changing for the worse.
I think it's other people who are coming here who are behaving badly.
Those people are not from here.
You can hear their foreign accent.
Listen to this guy shout and scream and threaten.
And how can you disagree that the people in Canada, well, it's not what it used to be.
Take a look.
Bull streets!
Pull streets!
Who's streets?
Who's streets?
Who streets?
Who streets?
Yeah, they're not your streets, mate, or at least they shouldn't be.
But that's who Trudeau thinks Canadians should be.
He has given away our streets.
So I guess I understand why people say that they're not happy with their neighbors anymore.
Not neighbors.
They just are worried about the people.
One last one, democracy.
Similar numbers to the freedom answer.
Only 8% say democracy is getting better.
39% say it's getting worse.
And remember, we haven't yet even been told who the dozen Chinese spies in parliament are.
Remember that revelation that CSIS, our spy agency, says there's a dozen compromised members of parliament and senators sitting right now in our parliament, and they're there.
They haven't even been named, let alone kicked out.
So yeah, great poll.
Some hopeful answers.
I love how many people care about freedom, don't you?
But just some terrifying stuff, too.
It is depressing seeing that Canadians think our country is going down the drain, isn't it?
Mr. Spicer's Legal Battles00:14:23
Stay with us for more.
Hey, welcome back.
Well, half of my travels these days are to cover trials of people who were charged with criminal offenses in February 2022 during the Trucker Convoy, even though the Emergencies Act was already ruled by the federal court to be illegal and unconstitutional.
Well, that hasn't stopped literally hundreds of cases from proceeding to court, including big spectacular cases like our friend Tamara Leach on trial in Ottawa still, or the various cases in Coutz, Alberta, where there was an echo blockade between the Alberta and Montana borders.
Well, here is an interesting case about a man who was charged, arrested on February 19th, 2022.
So right at the apex of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.
But he was roughed up, illegally searched, and basically a case of police misconduct the whole way down.
Trouble is, who has the funds to fight back?
As you know, the Democracy Fund has crowdfunded for many people, including the aforementioned Mayor Leach and the Coots defendants, the Coots III, and actually 55 other truckers.
But the granddaddy of civil liberties law firms in Canada are our dear friends at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
And they've been at this game for more than 10 years defending people, including during the Trucker Convoy.
And I am delighted to welcome on the show Monic Grenier, the lawyer for Ben Spicer, who joins us now via Skype from Ottawa.
Monic, nice to meet you.
You too.
Nice to meet you.
Tell me a little bit more about Ben Spicer.
It sounds like he went there, as did thousands of other Canadians, to sort of experience the moment.
There were some people there protesting, but there were many others who just wanted to be there, sort of like Woodstock for freedom.
Tell me more about Ben Spicer.
Was he more an activist or an observer?
Well, you raised some very good points there.
In fact, there was a YouTube video from February 19th, 2022, from the location of Mr. Spicer's arrest that was actually put into evidence by the defense as an exhibit because it showed the atmosphere.
And the atmosphere was, I would say, very jovial.
There were a lot of people milling about, some protesters, some observers, dogs, children, police.
So Mr. Spicer was in attendance and was arrested at that day.
It was 7:20 p.m. on this Saturday night, the last Saturday of the protest after the police came in.
His arrest was one thing, but then they spied on him.
They sort of eavesdropped on him.
And the thing is, when you're arrested, you got to be quiet.
I mean, people want to talk.
They're stressed out.
They want to maybe talk their way out of a pickle.
But tell me a little bit about, well, I mean, first, tell me a little bit about the search of his person.
They didn't have a search for it.
Yeah, go ahead and tell me about the search.
Tell me about their secret spying on him because this is bad behavior by the government.
So I can tell you from the evidence at trial that Mr. Spicer was arrested unlawfully because it was found there was no grounds for arrest.
After the arrest, his person was searched, incidental to arrest, because he was found to have been unlawfully arrested, that there were no grounds for arrest.
The search was also unlawful.
But most interesting, and the point you raised was the paddy wagon, audio and video that the Crown sought to rely upon to try to ask the court to infer criminal intent or criminal activity.
So why it was found to be a breach of a Section 8 charter right was because there was no signage that he was being audio, video recorded.
There was no explanation, no warning given to him.
So due to that, he did have an expectation of privacy.
It was found to be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The Crown argued that while in police custody, you don't have a right to privacy, that you're, I mean, you're in custody, right?
Now, the court found based on several cases we were able to present that you do, in fact, maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in custody, even in a police vehicle, a paddy wagon, such as is in this case, but it does depend on the facts.
So if there had been a sign, for example, or if it had been clear that Mr. Spicer was aware that he was being audio and video recorded, that would have changed the facts.
But he was unaware and he was having a conversation with a protester, provided some personal information, information about his opinion about the convoy, for example.
So he had an interest in the subject matter.
And based on the circumstances, the judge agreed with the defense that this was a breach of his Section 8 right.
They could not have had that recording without a warrant unless there was some exigent circumstances, which there were not.
So the judge actually agreed with all of our charter breaches that we advanced, Section 8, 9, and 10B, right to instruct and retain counsel.
Well, I'm really glad.
And, you know, that's an argument that a person would likely not be able to make on their own.
That's a fairly sophisticated argument.
You have to understand the Charter of Rights.
I don't know if you have to give notice that you're challenging things.
I don't know how the criminal procedure went where you are.
But I guess what I'm saying is the fact that I don't know, I imagine a lay person certainly doesn't know.
Absolutely.
And if they didn't have the help of the Justice Center, this guy would have been devoured by the wolves.
I absolutely agree with you.
I couldn't agree with you more.
I really am so appreciative.
And it was such a privilege to be able to have this opportunity to defend Mr. Spicer through the Justice Center's funding.
I was actually in the beginning able to, I had 22 clients was my count, that the Justice Center was willing to defend and fund.
So they've done a really good job doing that.
No, you couldn't, in my opinion, make this argument on your own as a layperson.
You may be eaten by the wolves, if that's the right terminology.
You may advance arguments that are completely irrelevant.
For example, you said in the beginning that even though the Emergencies Act was declared improperly invoked, it really doesn't matter because these are criminal charges and criminal charges are based on the grounds for arrest.
Did the person commit mischief, for example?
It makes no difference whether there is an Emergencies Act invoked or not.
I guess that was the reason for going in.
However, I would also note that the Emergencies Act did have an exception for lawful peaceful protests.
Right.
And you said something a moment ago I want to come back to.
You said that when he was in the paddy wagon with another protester, he, quote, expressed an opinion and that that was what the Crown wanted to rely on to say that he was doing something mischievous.
And I hate the fact that we're in a country where having an opinion can be a crime.
Well, I can't speak for the Crown in that was it really the opinion or was it something else that the Crown would have pointed to to say, oh, here you can infer criminal activity.
So I'm not prepared to say it was due to an opinion that the Crown would have argued that he might have done something meriting some conviction.
Well, I'm glad you won.
And you say you've taken 22 cases with the Justice Center.
How many of them have been through trial?
Because I imagine they're getting a little long in the tooth.
It's been two and a half years.
And of course, there's a time, there's a sort of a time limit on how long the prosecution can drag their feet.
What's the status of the other 21 cases?
Actually, Mr. Spicer was my last case.
So I am very pleased.
I'm just counting in my head.
So some of the charges were withdrawn by the Crown early on.
I think my count is I've did four trials, if I'm not mistaken.
All successful.
I have not had a client convicted after trial.
There was one where the crown withdrew the charges on the eve of trial, and there were some resolutions, which means that, you know, each person has to make their own decisions.
They may not have wanted to proceed.
And in some cases, maybe made the right decision, but none of my clients obtained a criminal record.
I'm so glad to hear that.
22 out of 22.
You know, I should tell you, the Democracy Fund, with whom we support a lot of their work, they have similar results, especially on ArriveCan app charges.
And, you know, you can tell that a lot of the prosecutors and even a lot of the judges, here we are two and a half years later, and you have hundreds of these BS COVID charges clogging up the courts, taking up prosecutors' time, judges' time, courts' time.
And I think the more sensible prosecutors say, what am I doing?
I'm focused on this BS political matter instead of an assault case or a robbery or something.
I think that I think there was a bit of a mania by the authorities.
I think, frankly, the imposition of the Emergencies Act sort of shocked people and maybe shocked people out of their trance because things were getting worse.
In that moment, I think it was the shock of the trucker convoy.
Trudeau made an unforced error by bringing the martial law, and things started to unravel for him then.
You can track the polls, by the way.
That's when he started to really go down.
It's interesting that you say that because, like, my office is just a few blocks from Wellington Street, right?
So I was here throughout the entire protest and drawn to it, in fact, because of my love for photography.
But I do remember in particular the speech made by the prime minister.
I think it was the Monday or the Tuesday after the beginning of the protest.
And I was here at my office, which is on Metcalf, and it was a very quiet day.
But then he made the speech and he made some comments that I thought did not de-escalate, but rather they escalated because of the terminology that was used about the protesters.
And I was amazed to see within 15 minutes on Metcalf, there was a line of 18 wheelers driving up Metcalf, I believe, in response to that speech.
Well, I think Trudeau wanted a conflagration.
He wanted to replicate the January 6th narrative in the U.S. where you had protesters at the Capitol and they were insurrectionists and terrorists.
I think Trudeau thought he could have a do-over of that up here, but I think it blew up in his face.
He was the one shown to have tyrannical instincts.
There was no rioting.
There was no smashing or arson.
There was no violence on the part of the truckers.
In fact, the only violence was done to the truckers, including by riot horses.
Monic Grenier, what a pleasure to meet you.
And I have to say, I'm just delighted to hear that you took 22 cases of truckers and 22 of them were saved by your smarts and the generosity of the justice.
Not all 22 stayed with me.
Some left, so I can't take all the credit.
All right, well, but you know what, though?
Farewell.
You're being very accurate, which you like in a lawyer, but it sounds like you've had some great victories.
And Ben Spicer was saved from a conviction.
And I'm glad to hear it because I think the pendulum swung too far against our civil liberties.
So I like the fact you were fighting back.
Great to meet you.
Me too.
All right.
There you have it.
Monic Grenier, a lawyer from Ottawa, who was fighting for freedom.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey there, your letters to me about the Tamara Leach trial.
Oldie says the prosecutors are holding the line with the longest mischief trials in Canada's history.
Yeah, you know what?
It was astonishing to me when I was there how little evidence they had about Tamara Leach.
And I have to think that if those prosecutors were honest, they would not have proceeded with the case.
There were five super short videos just collected on Twitter and the internet showing nothing.
Like, in fact, I was confused.
They didn't properly understand why they were showing these short videos because Tamara Leach was sort of like in the background and it was just banter.
And like I said, what's the point of this video?
The point was the prosecutor was showing the five little super short nothing videos.
That is the only evidence of what Tamara Leach was doing in Ottawa.
That's it.
A 43-day trial and they had nothing.
It was only to punish her.
Outrageous.
That's when the outrageous hit me.
On Charles Adler, RDM Motorcycle says, he used to talk about how his parents fled communism in Hungary.
Now he's helping usher it in.
His parents would be ashamed.
You know, I used to be friends with Charles Adler.
We worked together at the Sun News Network.
He would occasionally have me on his radio shows.
I thought he was great back then.
He learned the lessons of freedom.
He fought against political correctness.
He had a big audience and he was conservative.
But then something changed.
I think the first thing that changed was talk radio went liberal.
So he adapted and then he decided he wanted to be a senator so he would do whatever Trudeau wanted by applying.
He actually applied to be senator.
And I think that showed a lack of ethics because while he was secretly writing to Trudeau and saying, please let me in, please let me in, he was publishing things that were sympathetic to Trudeau, but he wasn't disclosing to his audience that he was trolling Trudeau for a job.
Well, he got the job, but he got a disgrace out of it too.