Ezra Levant critiques Mark Miller’s CTV interview, where he misused "unemployment rate" and dodged questions on Canada’s 150% temporary worker surge—now at 60% year-over-year growth—while defending permanent immigration despite polls showing 70% oppose CBC’s $1B taxpayer-funded bonuses. Miller’s vague economic claims clash with reality: mass immigration inflates GDP but shrinks per capita wealth, while CBC boss Catherine Tate faces accusations of lying to Parliament. Levant also highlights Pierre Poilievre’s defunding promise, comparing it to Trump’s wall, and tracks David Menzies’ four arrests this year for exposing IRDC’s alleged terrorism ties and confronting pro-Hamas activists, with a live-tweeted hearing tomorrow at 10 Armory Street. Accountability for both Miller’s policies and Poilievre’s pledges hinges on public pressure and legal transparency. [Automatically generated summary]
First time I've ever seen a mainstream media journalist ask anything approaching a tough question to a Trudeau cabinet minister about mass immigration.
I'll take you through it and give you my thoughts interspersed.
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All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, Trudeau's immigration minister gets into a car crash of an interview with CTV of all people.
It's August 28th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
You know, CTV these days is usually just as bad as Trudeau's CBC State Broadcaster.
And for the same reason, they are rented by Trudeau with massive subsidies and payments.
In some ways, it's worse when a company like CTV takes money from Trudeau because, like I say, they're renting CTV, not buying them like the CBC.
CBC can count on government money year after year.
It's like they're married, whereas CTV is just dating Trudeau.
They've got to answer that old question, what have you done for me lately?
All the time.
That said, they have a reporter named Vasi Kapalos who does some good interviews from time to time.
I got to give her credit.
And here she is interviewing Mark Miller, the nepotism hire, one of many in Trudeau's cabinet.
He usually hires people for demographic tokenism.
Remember when he hired, of course, Jody Wilson Raybel, the first Indigenous justice minister.
He likes to hire people like a Noah's Ark of Diversity.
He breaks that rule when it comes to his own wedding party.
You can see in this image here, there's Seamus O'Regan, Dominique LeBlanc, Mark Miller, Gerald Butts, all of his friends from a privileged, rich, white, old-stock Canadian background.
Normally, he hates those things, except for when it's his people.
Anyway, Mark Miller is one of those people who, if it weren't for his good luck in being part of Trudeau's wedding party, would never have been put into cabinet.
He's just too stupid to have earned that position on his own.
I mean, now that Seamus O'Regan is gone, the average IQ of that cabinet has jumped, but it's still pretty awful.
Of course, it must be said that no cabinet ministers in the government have any real say.
I mean, quite often they just read anything put in front of them like Yara Sachs.
I think Christia Freeland actually does handle files or delegates them to smarter people.
She, I think, actually is in many ways the de facto prime minister.
But Mark Miller, at the very least, is trotted out to do interviews.
And this interview he did with Vashi Kapalos over the last couple of days was just a disaster.
And I'd like to play for you some clips and give you my thoughts.
I'm not going to play the whole thing.
Unemployment Rates Falling?00:03:00
It's about 10 minutes long, but I'll play most of it.
Here, let's take a look.
I am joined now live by Immigration Minister Mark Miller.
Minister, good to see you.
Thanks for making the time.
Thanks for having me, Vashi.
I want to start off and ask you what the objective of these changes are, particularly with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Is it, for example, to address remarkably low youth employment rates?
Is it more broad than that?
Like, when this is fully realized, what is the goal?
Well, it is broader than that.
We've seen recent youth unemployment rates jump.
Earlier on this year, I announced the reduction of temporary workers in this country from 7% to 5%.
What that looks like is a lot different than just temporary foreign workers.
Temporary foreign workers are a very small part of that fight chart.
International students.
Now, right off the bat, he gets something wrong.
If I heard her correctly, Vashi Kapalos talks about the youth employment rate.
Now, do you know the difference between an employment rate and an unemployment rate?
It's a little bit tricky.
Everyone knows what the unemployment rate means.
It's of those people who are in the workforce, how many can't find jobs.
So that's unemployment and, you know, it might be 10% or 6% or whatever the number is.
It's always higher for young people.
But I don't know, that's what she asked.
She talked, that's the unemployment rate.
That's people in the workforce who are looking for work but can't find it.
What she asked about is the falling employment rate.
That means people just not even trying to get a job.
They're not even looking.
They're not going to bother.
The youth employment rate has fallen.
The labor force, young Canadians, have stopped even trying to get jobs.
It's actually astonishing how quickly the employment rate has fallen.
So of the group that's looking for work, the number who can find work is shrinking, but the number who are even looking are shrinking.
I don't actually think Mark Miller knows what the employment rate is.
And I'm not showing off or anything.
I just happen to know the difference.
I don't think Mark Miller does.
I think like so many other cabinet ministers, he just like reads what's put in front of him.
I don't know if you saw this clip from, oh my God, this clip from Melanie Jolie the other day, who was, you know, her hands were out and she was, but I, and she used the phrase supply chain.
And boy, if I had been there, I would have said, can you give me a simple definition of the word supply chain?
Because I don't think she knows what it means, but she sort of likes saying it.
Here's Melanie Jolie talking about supply chains.
I got to get me a few of those supply chains.
Take a look.
To talk about different issues that are important to Canadians, including, of course, what is happening in the world.
We know that a lot of the geopolitical instability is causing a lot of anxiety with Canadians.
And also, we know that affordability issues are linked to the fact that there are so many supply chains that have been disrupted because there are so many geopolitical tensions.
Ukrainians in Canada00:03:50
And we saw it again today with what happened in Kyiv and across Ukraine.
And of course, we condemn these attacks by Russia.
And at the same time, we saw it yesterday with the Hezbollah attack on Israel and Israel standing to protect its own security.
Yeah, Mark Miller is, I don't know, I think he's about the same skill level as Melanie Jolie, which is a devastating insult.
All right, back to the conversation between Vashi Keplos and Mark Miller.
Take a look.
The postgraduate work permits that come with us, come with them, the humanitarian efforts that we've deployed to welcome Ukrainians here, they all form part of that category.
You can't just send people back to Ukraine and say this is all solved.
We have to actually do this in a surgical way that makes sense for Canadians, but also makes sense for the economy.
Yeah, no, this is not about Ukrainians, and we all know it.
It is a fact that many countries around the world took Ukrainians at the beginning of the war.
We even saw some of that in Ireland when we went to sea.
Now, the Ukrainians actually have fit in fairly well in most cases where they've been welcomed as refugees.
And I think there's a few reasons for that.
First of all, people don't feel that they're being ripped off in a deep way when you have someone coming from an actual war zone.
I don't think anyone would say what war in Ukraine.
I think we all know.
There are some questions about why any men would leave.
Shouldn't you stay and fight for your country?
In the cases of families, I think people understand.
Ukrainians, many of them do speak English, but even if they don't, there is some cultural similarity.
Someone coming from Europe that maybe someone coming from, say, Somalia or another place doesn't have.
So Mark Miller was playing on the, he was playing the Ukrainian card, which is sort of his way of saying, if you don't accept refugees, well, surely you're a racist.
But no, no, no.
The Ukrainians have not made up large numbers of refugees in Canada for a long time.
If you look at this chart of this year, the number one source of refugees, I'm not talking about student visas or temporary foreign workers.
The number one source is from India.
India?
India's not in a war that I know of.
It's not a civil war that I know of.
It has some civil liberties.
It's the world's largest democracy.
I don't think I would want to visit, I wouldn't want to live there myself.
But you cannot say that India is a place that has refugees.
And if you do, get ready for literally the world's largest population, 1.4 billion.
Same thing with Bangladesh.
Same thing with the other top countries on that list there.
Nigeria, Mexico?
Mexico is not a place from which refugees come in a good faith way.
And here's my point.
You can have your opinions about the war in Ukraine and Russia, and you can have your opinions about men leaving a war zone to come live a relatively easy life in Canada.
And I think there's arguments both ways.
But I don't think anyone feels ripped off.
No one feels like you're lying if you come from Ukraine and say, I'm a refugee.
Yeah, we know.
But what is your excuse when you come from Mexico, from India?
And that's why people are furious, because we feel, we all see it.
We know they're ripping us off.
They know they're ripping us off.
They know that we know.
We know that they know.
And we're supposed to go along with this.
And the only idiot who does is Mark Miller.
Okay, play the next clip.
2 Million People Ahead of Us00:15:13
In the temporary foreign worker space, people working in the agricultural sector, transformation in Tim Hortons, we've seen an overheating that needs to be adjusted ever since the end of COVID.
And that's something I think every Canadian expects us to do.
Those numbers do affect affordability.
And not all those people can become permanent residents.
So the announcements that we made today, that Minister Boisnow made today, are sort of a smart reflection of what we need to do to ramp that down back to what looks like pandemic, pre-pandemic levels.
Yeah, blaming COVID as the reason for high immigration, it makes no sense in any means.
I mean, first of all, during COVID, we had mass unemployment.
We didn't need more people in the idea of bringing people, moving people around the world, that seemed to go against the COVID narrative.
But even if COVID had something to do with this, and I'm not sure what it does, I think a lot of people were unemployed during COVID, and we have to SOP them up again.
Why we would bring in foreigners to do that makes no sense.
But it's almost 2025.
We're in the home stretch of 2024.
And blaming COVID is such a lame excuse.
Only a liberal could think it up.
Here, here's some more of this conversation that seems to be going off the rails.
Take a look.
Why the undoing didn't start earlier?
Because for example, if you look at temporary residents who hold work permits, that number has increased by 150% over two years.
It was 60%, not just low wage, I'm speaking more broadly.
It was up 60% last July, year over year.
Why did your government wait until just this January to start addressing one stream of it and now to address the rest of it?
And could you not have addressed things earlier in order to mitigate some of the issues your Canadians are now dealing with?
I'd say 2020 hindsight is always something we can indulge in.
As a thoughtful government, you always have to reflect of what you could have done faster, what you should do, what you shouldn't do.
I'd simply say this.
The labor shortages that we saw even a year ago are no longer there.
Markets are contracting.
Labor markets are contracting.
And there's no longer the needs for the people that we were bringing in those amounts to be here or to come to Canada.
That's just reality.
And I think everyone expects governments to adjust.
Did the need exist a year ago?
Are you asserting that it did?
It's very possible in some areas it did.
I think now it's quite obvious that we do have to adjust.
Yeah, he keeps coming back to an economic argument about how economically wonderful mass immigration is.
But do you think for a second that he's blind to what he's actually doing, the political ramifications of bringing in 2 million people a year, the social and cultural ramifications?
He's doing that on purpose.
So it is technically true that if you add someone to the Canadian economy, even if you add an unemployed, illiterate person to the country, you do increase the GDP because someone has to house him, feed him, clothe him.
If he gets into trouble with the law, the criminal justice system has to deploy.
The welfare system may have to deploy.
So it is true, no matter who you bring to this country, whatever their skill level or however troublesome they are, yeah, you're going to get that GDP growing by a little bit.
But it's going to make us all poorer in the mean.
And that's what's happened, is to juice the economy.
They brought in more and more people to hide the fact that we're actually getting poor individually.
You can grow the size of the pie, so to speak, by adding more people.
But every slice that belongs to us here gets smaller.
We are getting poor on a per capita basis.
Every individual in Canada on an average basis is getting poorer.
And they're just bringing in mass immigration to try and hide that here.
Watch a little more.
That's just reality.
And I think everyone expects governments to adjust.
Did the need exist a year ago?
Are you asserting that it did?
It's very possible in some areas it did.
I think now it's quite obvious that we do have to adjust.
As a minister, I have a responsibility to look forward and figure out what we need to do next to make sure that we have a number of temporary workers here that make sense for addressing affordability, for addressing the needs.
But there's also the risk of overadjusting and damaging the economy.
The International Monetary Fund has said quite clearly that immigration has been a huge fuel in making sure that we didn't plunge into a recession like other countries in our situation.
And there has been some benefits that the Bank of Canada has clearly highlighted with some challenges that have come with it in and around housing, in and around affordability.
And Canadians, as we've heard quite clearly over the course of the last year, have asked us to make some adjustments, and that's what we're doing.
And we're doing it, I think, so in a thoughtful fashion.
And I do respect the fact that you're talking about, you know, you don't want to overshoot, essentially, that not everything is static.
You know, he really has that liberal skill.
In Orwell, it was called duck speaking, just blah, Like a Doc Brank, quark, Frank, Frank.
Duck speaking is an insult in Orwell, but it's also a great compliment.
Oh, he's a great duck speaker.
It's my point from before.
Total GDP is growing, but it makes us all poorer.
And I don't know how anyone can dispute this, giving just the basics of supply and demand.
If you bring in 2 million more people a year, rents go up, wages go down.
And we see what happens in the youth employment rate.
Young people just simply don't go out and get that first job.
They don't even try.
How many people had their first job in fast food?
I know I did.
I've worked at Callaway Park near my hometown of Calgary, working, you know, scooping ice cream, working cotton candy, absolute minimum wage jobs, but that's the first rung on the ladder.
You learn how to show up on time.
You know, you learn how to obey a boss.
You learn how to deal with customers who are a bit of a pain in the neck without showing it.
That first job, although it doesn't pay a lot, it teaches you things to be ready for the second job, the next rung on the ladder.
You can't really get to the next rung if the first rung is cut off because 2 million people a year are ahead of you in line because Trudeau thought he would employ India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Mexico.
Here, watch some more.
It hasn't been necessarily what it was a year ago.
But the Canadian press, I remember a number of months ago, reported that your predecessor received a briefing two years ago in which it was clearly outlined that both the temporary and permanent stream would have a salient impact on affordability.
You didn't do anything.
You know, like, I have to challenge you on that.
Like, you didn't do anything for at least a year after that.
It's like you kind of turned a blind eye.
Is there a reason for that?
Well, look, I've read those memos assiduously pretty much every day.
We expect the public service to give us pros, cons of what impacts any measure that we take could generate.
Those are risks that we take.
You see this part?
He's blaming civil servants.
He's saying, oh, I get so many memos and, you know, I blame the memos.
You know, they're so good at throwing people under the bus, aren't they?
He learned that from Trudeau and how he treated Jody Wilson-Raybold.
All right, here, watch a little bit more.
And I think Canadians should see them and judge us for them.
But there are also risks in not taking those decisions and not taking those, plunging into a recession, a real concern that would affect all Canadians.
Currently, now with rising interest rates, it's obvious that we do have to make a number of adjustments that economists are looking at and expecting us to make in terms of changes.
He's saying it.
He's coming right out and saying it.
He's saying we would be in a recession if we didn't have mass immigration.
And again, what is the definition of a recession?
A recession is two consecutive quarters with negative growth.
That means the economy is getting smaller.
There he admits it.
He says Canada would be in a recession if they weren't just ramming through as many people as possible, thousands per day.
And they're doing that because, like I say, if you bring someone to Canada, no matter how strong or how weak, you will just grow the economy because now we've got to take care of somebody.
But that's not making any of us richer on a per capita basis.
We've been in a recession in Canada for years.
I think that's one of the reasons they're doing it, to hide it.
The other is so obvious.
They want to cause chaos.
They want to boost their vote.
They want to strengthen the pro-Hamas wing of this country.
They want to change Canada forever.
Here, watch a little more.
Right.
And that is something that under your government has been a very specific policy measure.
We're now at about half a million, going to be in.
And the last time we interviewed, spoke to you about this issue, you said it would stay.
You know, the latest plan showed that level staying there for the next two years.
Can you expand on what kind of things your government is considering?
Are you considering, very bluntly, a reduction in permanent immigration?
Well, we are, actually, we're looking at a number of options.
When I paused the levels last year, it was with an undertaking to talk to Canadians and see what those levels look like or should be.
There has been significant growth, I think for good reason in the last few years.
That economic growth, again, has been indispensable in making sure that the gross domestic product of the country has grown, that the entrance into the workforce, all driven by immigration, was assured.
You know, he talks about half a million permanent residents, which is a shockingly high number.
But even that number is a trick because those may be the permanent residents, but there are more than 1 million students here on a visa, but they're taking fake degrees and they're not going home when they're done.
And then there's three quarters of a million people who are here as temporary foreign workers.
But no one makes sure they leave afterwards.
There's no deportations in this country.
When was the last time you've heard of a deportation?
So yeah.
On the books, we have 500,000 people a year coming to this country, which is a shocking record number.
But it's actually quadruple that.
Our population has grown 2 million people in the last year.
You can watch a little more.
Why is that the conversation happening right now?
And I ask with respect specifically to permanent, because every interview I've conducted with you or the housing minister over the last year, you have been very insistent that what was driving the ills associated with immigration was on the temporary side of things.
And I even remember in January asking you this question about permanent, the permanent stream.
And you said like questions in that, you know, you were kind of hearing a lot of questions in that area and some of them had undertones of racism.
Like that is the way that your government pushed back against questions about permanent residency.
And now at one of the most politically vulnerable times for your party, you're willing to look at cutting those numbers.
Is that why?
Well, no, look, I'm not going to presume that racism doesn't exist, but there are legitimate views within Canadian society of people I would never think of calling.
Yeah, the word racist comes up, but both CTV and the Liberal government call people racist who have objected to immigration.
I'm glad Vashi Kappalos has put in this question to Mark Miller because he's absolutely being disgusting about it.
But CTV is no better.
They call anyone who disagrees with mass immigration as racist.
But look here, this is an amazing headline.
The Premier of Quebec said that if they sent home all of Trudeau's foreign workers, 300,000 people from Quebec, immediately would solve the housing crisis.
And how could you possibly dispute that?
If you took out 300,000 people from the housing market in Quebec, not only would those 300,000 homes be available, but it would reduce pressure for everyone.
It wouldn't just be 300,000 people could find homes.
It's that the prices for everyone else would subside.
Take in a little bit more.
Take a look.
Would government have been more entertaining to those views previously?
Well, I think we should always be open to these points of views.
The conversations that I have, for example, around the Easter table, Christmas table, they're different views.
Some people have a different view on immigration than I do.
This is a country that has largely benefited and built an amazing consensus around immigration.
But again, we're hearing from different parts, different parts of Canada, different, even people in my own family that have different views on immigration.
I think we owe it as a responsible government to listen to them, even if we don't.
He talks about even my own family.
Yeah.
Well, I guess a few months ago, he would have said, even my own family has racist, because I guess now that some liberals are admitting immigration is too high, they're going to stop calling people racist.
Yeah, don't count on it.
They'll call you racist forever.
Sexist, transphobe, whatever they want, alt-right.
They'll call you anything to avoid dealing with the issues.
Keep watching.
Where can we best rationalize things?
Where can we have a sustainable level within the levels that we see with other countries of the OECD and have a conversation that's devoid of racism, but also reflective of what different people are thinking, both people from diasporas that we've brought in, but also Canadians that have been here perhaps a little longer?
And I think that is what that's what Canadians expect.
What does that even mean to have a conversation devoid of racism?
So he's saying, all right, I'm going to allow you to talk about immigration now, but only if you don't get all racisty on me, by which he means you can't question why we're receiving refugees from India.
You can't question why we're essentially letting these fake diploma mills, Acumen Academy, to sell.
They're basically selling immigration for 10 or 20 grand in tuition.
They're not learning anything.
They're not teaching anything.
They're just calling people students to bring them over here.
There's a million people like that.
There are 1 million people in Canada who are here from foreign countries to study at fake schools.
That's more than there are Canadians in university, just so you know.
You're not allowed to talk about that because that's a little too racisty.
I liked watching this interview.
I think it's about nine years too late.
Frankly, these questions should have been put to the Harper Conservatives beforehand, but they were terrified of being called racist.
I'm glad to see this interview.
I'm a little surprised to see it on CTV.
Don't let them get away with suddenly retracting the insults they've made against you for saying these things for years.
Stay with us.
Up next, our friend from the Taxpayers' Federation.
Hey, welcome back.
You know, I love doing the show.
I love talking to like-minded people in the world.
Not just you, our viewers, but of course, newsmakers.
I enjoy interviewing people across the country.
You've gotten to know some of them.
We have them on on a regular basis.
But in the back of my mind, I think, are we just in an echo chamber?
Am I just talking to people that I know will generally be on my side of things?
And that is one of the values of a public opinion poll.
Because as the public part of public opinion poll shows, you're going outside your friend group.
That's why you need a statistically valid sample size.
You need enough people that on average, it's going to reflect what the larger population says.
It's a good gut check.
It's a good reality check that you're not off course.
And this next story will show you exactly what I mean.
Canadians Oppose CBC Bonuses00:10:14
Look at the headline on the taxpayers.com website poll shows seven in 10 Canadians oppose CBC bonuses.
You know, when I was growing up, people used to say the Canadian identity, what's that?
Well, it's being not American.
I didn't think that was a good answer.
People sometimes said it's our Medicare system.
You don't hear that a lot anymore.
But one of the things some people actually claim is that the CBC keeps us together, represents us.
I don't think that was ever true, but astonishingly, its viewership falls year after year, even though their budget grows and the Canadian population grows.
I don't know how you can do that in a growing population, have a shrinking viewership when you have a monopoly, when you're forced onto every cable package.
But what I love about this story today, and in about a minute, I'm going to introduce our speaker on the subject, our interviewee, is that this confirms that all the liberal blather and all the media party blather about the CBC being an absolutely essential institution.
Nah, people see through that now.
Joining me now to talk about this is the man who commissioned the poll, and I credit him for that, is our friend Franco Terrazano, who is the boss over at the Taxpayers Federation.
Franco, first of all, good for you for coming up with the idea because it's a reality check, isn't it?
Because who do you believe?
Taxpayers' advocates or the establishment?
What do real Canadians think?
Well, this poll shows the answer, doesn't it?
Well, it sure does, right?
I mean, Canadians are just sick and tired of the government taking our money and handing out big bonus checks to the fat cats at the state broadcaster.
Now, to rewind for one second, you folks will remember that the CBC just rubber stamped another new batch of bonuses to the tune of $18 million.
$18 million in bonuses this year.
Last year was $15 million.
The year before that, it was $16 million.
They're actually giving them more issue than before.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And it's all taxpayer-funded bonuses.
Remember, folks, as you struggle to afford a package of ground beef or just to go to the gas station and fuel up, remember that the government is taking your money and giving it to the executives and manager at the CBC on your dime.
Now, going back to 2015, the CBC's taxpayer-funded bonuses have cost you $132 million, right?
So here's why we decided to commission the poll because they make you pay for their bonuses, but they've never asked you if you support their bonuses.
So we decided to ask Canadians.
And this Leger poll shows that seven in 10 Canadians are against the CBC bonuses.
The vast majority of Canadians want the government to end these bonuses, but it gets worse for the CBC and the federal government because, Ezra, if you remove the undecideds, then 81% of Canadians don't support these bonuses at the state broadcaster.
Yeah, I'm looking at your stats here, and this is from Leger, which is actually one of the largest Canadian pollsters.
Very credible.
We've used Leger before.
I trust them.
Only 16% of Canadians positively say, no, no, pay the bonuses.
I was just reading, I was skipping ahead in your press release here a little bit.
You quote the unlikeliest source to support you.
I mean, if I had to make a list of the most die-hard CBC supporters in the country, we'd put the Liberal Party in there.
But then there's this obscure lobby group that is always quoted by the CBC.
They call themselves Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
They are so connected to the government and the CBC.
It's basically like a puppet saying, it's a ventriloquist all.
Do you like the CBC?
I love the CBC.
It's called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
They, even they, are outraged.
What did they say?
Well, yeah, even that organization, that advocacy group, if we can call them that, even they have spoken out against the bonuses at the CBC.
Something to paraphrase as it's unbefitting of a national broadcaster.
So like, look, like the government continuing to rubber stamp these bonuses at the CBC.
I mean, there is opposition among Canadians, no matter which party or political ideology that they may have, right?
Here's the thing.
Like, why in the world is a state broadcaster, a crown corporation, which essentially is a part of the federal government, one way or another, takes more than a billion dollars from taxpayers every single year.
Why in the world would they be paying bonuses?
And remember, folks, you're not just paying for big bonus checks, you're also paying for big paychecks.
The number of CBC staffers taking a six-figure salary has increased by 231% under the Trudeau government.
You know, it's party time if you're part of the inside club here.
Things have never been better.
They've never made more money.
They've never had more power if you're on their team.
But this poll you commissioned shows that at least 70% of people realize they're on the outs.
They're not inside with the party.
What's so incredible about this is that the CBC boss, Catherine Tate, lied about it, actually told Parliament, no, there's no bonuses.
We don't even use that phrase.
I think they had some goofy phrase about management and incentives or something.
Like they were trying to even cover it up.
I'm hopeful in my bones that if Pierre Polyev wins the next election, something's going to change here because I have never seen a politician at that level of credibility.
As in, he, according to every poll that's being published for the last year, looks like he may win the next election.
I've never seen a politician at that level.
I mean, Maxine Bernier, who I have a lot of affection for, he says it all the time, but he's not on the precipice of becoming prime minister.
So Pierre Polyev very frequently, it's one of his number one applause lines in speeches, said he's going to defund the CBC.
It's almost like Donald Trump campaigning in 2016 about building the wall.
He says it every time.
And my point to you, Franco, is you say something a thousand times.
You make a lot of promises.
How would he keep that promise?
Have you done some thinking if we were to sell the CBC, shut down the CBC, defund the CBC?
Each of those are a little bit different.
Has the Taxpayers Federation given any thought to how would that work?
What would the mechanics of it be?
Would you just sell it?
Would you shut it down?
Would you break it up and sell the pieces?
Do you guys have any opinions on that?
I sure hope Pierre Polyev is thinking this through because that's going to be a promise people want him to keep day one.
So, Ezra, I have a couple thoughts on that.
So, maybe don't let me get too far astray.
But, you know, number one, whenever you have an advocacy group or maybe a political opposition party that is saying cut spending, the establishment politicians, the establishment bureaucrats, they want to drag you into the weeds.
They want their tactic is to try to make Canadians believe it's so tactically hard or so tactically impossible that you just can't cut that spending.
But when it comes to the CBC, the government could essentially immediately defund it.
Okay.
So what would have to happen is a couple steps.
But number one, you got to just cut the flow of tax dollars going to the state broadcaster, right?
And it's the politicians, it's cabinet.
They're the ones who control the public purse strings.
So the most important thing I think for your audience, Ezra, to remember is don't get sucked into the technicalities.
It can happen.
It should happen.
And we have to keep pressure on this government or a future Polyev government, if that is to happen, to actually live up to the promises that Mr. Polyev has made because they're good promises to defund the CBC.
Now, in terms of all the assets, the buildings and stuff, like there's a couple different things you could do.
Number one, you could sell it.
That would be our preferred line of going.
You could turn it into housing, make it available for housing for people to buy voluntarily.
But, you know, Ezra, let me just add one more thing here.
Not only has Mr. Polyev said he's going to defund the CBC, but on the Canadian taxpayers podcast, he even said that he would end the bonuses for failing government authorities, which include not just the CBC, but also the Bank of Canada.
Because this type of extravagance and bonuses is happening all across the federal government.
You know, it's really quite something when government sector bosses who have a monopoly, who never risk bankruptcy, who in many cases don't have real competitors, like the Bank of Canada.
There's no competitor to the Bank of Canada.
That's part of the problem is they have such a monopoly over things, but they give themselves lavish bonuses as if they were bankers at a merchant bank in New York City, you know, fighting with the other banks and doggy dog working 18 hours a day like, you know, some stockbrokers.
Like they, they, in their mind, like Catherine Tate, the president of the CBC, in her mind, must think she's a great media tycoon, even though she runs a government, not quite a monopoly, but it's larger than all other Canadian news media combined.
She's failing by every metric other than diversity by her own measure, and yet she's giving herself raises as if she's running Fox News and being profitable, as if she's a winner.
It really gets me the self-delusion of these people who think they're rock stars in the corporate world.
They're losers who pay themselves like rock stars.
Last word to you, Franco.
Well, and also it's not comparable to the private sector for another reason, because in the private sector, bonuses are for when you do a good job.
David's Arrest00:05:01
Yeah.
Not just showing up to work twice a week with your shoes tied, right?
And in the private sector, if you do a bad job, you get a pay cut or you get fired.
But in government, you know, it's just a bonus is like a participation ribbon, right?
Rubber stamp a bonus for essentially everyone who is eligible.
You are so right on that.
Well, it's great to see you again, Franco.
The taxpayers are the good guys, that's for sure.
And you know what I know in my bones is that, God willing, if Pierre Polyev becomes prime minister, I know that you guys are going to be just as dogged at holding him to account and keeping his promises and advocating for the taxpayer then as you are now with Trudeau's prime minister.
In fact, in some ways, it becomes even more important because we need people who believe in small government to keep an eye on conservatives because a lot of other people will say that's our team.
We can't criticize.
I know from watching you over the decades that the Taxpayers Federation is truly nonpartisan.
That's why we can trust you.
Hey, couldn't agree more, Ezra.
And thank you so much for having me on the show.
Well, a pleasure as always.
There he is.
Franco Terrazano, who just commissioned that important poll on the CBC.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Well, that's our show for today.
I want to tell you where I'm going tomorrow morning.
In downtown Toronto at 10 Armory Street is a courthouse.
And in that courthouse, our dear friend David Menzies will be, well, not on trial.
It's a preliminary hearing.
I don't know how many times he's been to court for this same matter.
I think this might be the third time I'd have to count.
This is on one of the cases that David was arrested for doing journalism.
You'll remember he started the year out by being arrested for asking real questions of Christia Freeland.
Remember this?
Ms. Freeland, how come the IRDC is not a terrorist group?
Why is your government supporting Islam on that?
You've been missed.
What do you mean?
You're under arrest for assault.
Why are you supposed to be?
You're under arrest for assault.
Who are you?
Under arrest?
Police.
Police, you're under arrest.
How am I under arrest?
You bumped into me.
You pushed into me.
I was just scrubbing with you.
I've got my credentials here and you just bumped into me.
So police.
You're under arrest.
What is your name and your badge?
Why is your name in your badge?
Why am I under arrest?
He brought my race.
I was just scrubbing Christia Freeland.
I'm a police officer.
You're under arrest.
And then he was arrested when he was trying to interview pro-Hamas hate marchers in downtown Toronto.
Remember this?
Excuse me.
I'm not going to move.
What is going on now?
We just want you to watch the moment.
Excuse me.
We're trying to put him behind that.
Hey, hey, that's my guy.
That's my guy.
And here's another one where he was swept off the streets actually at a pro-Israel event.
David was fine.
He was actually invited there.
When he went to talk to some of the gate crashes from the pro-Hamas side, he was arrested again.
Remember this?
Obey your old Israel.
I don't know.
Listen to me.
If I'm on the other arrest, get your hands off.
Okay, then I'll raise your phone now.
Put your hands behind your back.
Put your hands behind your back.
Governor, that's refusing to leave, okay?
Please don't feel the wagon, Mr. May.
David has been arrested again and again this year, and we have had to hire a lawyer to fight every one of them.
Tomorrow is such an occasion.
I'm going down there personally because I think there's a chance that the prosecution might drop this charge against David.
That'll be three times the Toronto Police Service, actually, four arrests this year totally.
Four times he's been arrested this year.
And I think this will be the withdrawal of the final one.
I don't want to get ahead of myselves.
We'll see if that happens.
But they've been delaying.
The police have been refusing to hand over what's called disclosure, which is their case against David.
Any paperwork, any recordings, any memos, anything, any records at all.
It's David's legal right to receive those, of course, but they've refused to hand them over.
Why?
Is there something embarrassing in them?
Or is there actually nothing there?
Hopefully, we'll find out tomorrow.
I'll be live tweeting it starting at around 9 a.m. Eastern time.
7 a.m. for our friends out in Alberta, 6 a.m. in Vancouver.
I want to be there.
I want to see what it's like in court.
And if David does go free, I want to be on hand to congratulate him.