David Menzies critiques NDP MP Leah Gazin’s Bill C-413, proposing criminal penalties for denying or downplaying residential school harms, citing Grave Error (2023) and Fraser Institute findings questioning unmarked graves claims. He links it to Canada’s censorship trend via Bill C-63’s Online Harms Act, which allows life imprisonment and preemptive judge-ordered restrictions. Menzies slams the CBC’s $200K "modernization panel" of insiders, like David Skock, as a taxpayer-funded PR stunt, while noting CEO Catherine Tate’s millions in bonuses despite government funding. Protests against media—like bricks at Rebel News’ truck—highlight deeper tensions; he argues defunding state-backed outlets would curb bias better than self-serving panels. Trudeau’s 2024 absence on Truth and Reconciliation Day underscores perceived hypocrisy, suggesting the bill may prioritize political narratives over historical accuracy. [Automatically generated summary]
And if a NDP private member's bill passes in Ottawa, expect yet more censorship to head our way.
It's Monday, September the 30th, 2024.
I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Hey folks, happy National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Was it good for you?
I know it was very, very good for federal government workers, given that it's a full statutory holiday for them.
I wonder how many were reflecting on reconciliation.
Or given the glorious summertime weather we're getting in the GTA at least, I wonder how many were out on the golf course earlier today.
As for the vast majority of us schleppers, well, it was just another day at the office, I reckon.
I guess we'll have to reflect on truth and reconciliation on our own dime when we get off work.
Say, since the prime minister had the day off, I wonder how Justin Trudeau reflected upon truth and reconciliation this year.
We all know how he reflected upon this solemn occasion when the holiday, well, at least a holiday for some, was first incorporated back in 2021.
In fact, folks, I think we even have some video footage of Justin's heartfelt remembrance.
Beach, blanket, bingo!
That's the name of the game!
Oops, that wasn't actually the former part-time drama teacher Justin Trudeau channeling Frankie Avalon.
Even so, I do ponder if the surf was up on DeFino Beach earlier today.
Anyway, I was also wondering if I just committed a future crime vis-a-vis making an inappropriate comment on anything and all things Indigenous.
I do not jest, although I wish I were.
Last week in the House of Commons, NDP MP Leah Gazin tabled a private member's bill called C413.
From the NDP's website, here are the details.
For starters, Bill C-413 is, quote, aimed at combating residential school denialism and stopping the harm it causes to survivors, their families, and First Nations Inuit and Métis communities.
If passed, this bill would add to the criminal code the offense of willfully promoting hatred against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, justifying, or downplaying the harm caused by the residential school system in Canada, end quote.
Wow, a criminal code offense for, say, questioning the validity of statistical data that might not even be accurate?
That sounds really serious, don't you think?
But Ms. Gazan, the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Center, is adamant that no thought crimes regarding Indigenous matters shall be tolerated in our stolen land of Canada if Bill C-413 becomes law.
Quote, if the government is serious about reconciliation, then they need to protect survivors and their families from hate.
The residential school system was a genocide designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families, and heritage.
To downplay, deny, or justify it is cruel, harmful, and hateful.
This should have no place in Canada, end quote.
Funny that, I thought censorship had no place in Canada, but in these increasingly censorious times, our Dominion is evolving into a realm in which Big Brother Trudeau and his useful idiots are watching you and penalizing you.
You know, my beloved boss, Ezra Levant, he predicted that 2024 would be the year of censorship.
And wow, Ezra has proven to be a modern-day Cassandra.
And in this respect, think of Bill C-413 as an Indigenous-themed addendum to the most censorious legislation in, well, basically the history of the Western world.
That would be Bill C-63, aka the Online Harms Act.
As Ezra warned back in February, Bill C-63 will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to stipulate that online hate speech is discrimination.
And the bill will empower people to file confidential complaints if the Commission thinks the individuals might be subjected to intimidation.
That's right.
You do not even get to know the identity of your accuser.
Oh, and if you find out who that person is and name him or her, you'll face further penalties.
It gets worse.
Those who engage in hate speech could face life imprisonment.
It would also allow judges to put you under house arrest with an ankle bracelet and tell you who you can or cannot talk to on suspicion that you might commit a hate offense.
You know, the sci-fi flick minority report, complete with its pre-crimes unit, well, it's quickly becoming a current day reality in Canada, isn't it?
Meanwhile, so-called victims of hate speech could be compensated up to $20,000.
With standalone hate crimes being added to the criminal code, the federal government would be entitled to an additional $50,000 per complaint.
Wow, that's a service charge that would even make the shysters running Ticketmaster blush.
And because the odious Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is back, well, expect that also to be weaponized against dissenting Canadian expressions.
Bill C-63 is equal parts appalling and terrifying.
And now we have Bill C-413.
And in both cases, it's all about clamping down on Those expressing contrarian opinions or else.
Indeed, I shall quote directly from the private members bill, which is hell-bent to eradicate the so-called willful promotion of hatred directed at Indigenous peoples.
Quote, everyone who, by communicating statements other than in private conversation, willfully promotes hatred against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada, or by misrepresenting facts relating to it, A, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years,
or B, is guilty of an offense punishable on summary conviction, end quote.
Well, thank goodness that this bill does not apply to private conversations.
That would seem to indicate that the Gestapo won't be listening in on our phone conversations and monitoring our emails.
Well, not yet, at least.
As always, the devil is in the details.
First and foremost, what is the benchmark for Indigenous hatred?
Apparently, everything changed in Canada regarding Native affairs in 2021.
That's when a mass grave of Indigenous people was allegedly discovered at residential school sites in Kamloops, B.C. At one point, the missing children reportedly discovered at unmarked graves across Canada ended up totaling as many as 1,300 souls.
But is that number even remotely accurate?
Regardless, the Kamloop story sparked riots.
Statues were torn down and dozens of churches were set ablaze.
As for the Trudeau Liberals, they were all in with the anti-colonial narrative.
Federal government buildings were ordered to display the Canadian flag at half-staff for almost half a year.
Justin's best buddy, meanwhile, Gerald Butz, didn't condemn the arson attacks on churches, but said he found such crimes understandable.
And yet, what was the truth behind those alleged mass graves?
Well, CP Champion and Tom Flanagan co-authored a book published last year entitled Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us and the Truth About Residential Schools.
Earlier this year, the Fraser Institute published an article based on the grave error book entitled, No Evidence of Mass Graves or Genocide in Residential Schools.
The following is an edited excerpt of that article.
Quote, on May 27th, 2021, Roseanne Casimir, chief of the Kamloops Indian Band, announced that ground-penetrating radar had located the remains of 215 missing children in an apple orchard on the site of a former residential school.
Politicians and media seized on the announcement and stories of mass unmarked graves and burials of missing children ricocheted around Canada and indeed much of the world.
According to Canadian newspaper editors, the discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was the new story of the year.
And the World Press photo of the year award went to a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside with a rainbow in the background commemorating children who died at a residential school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada.
These events created a narrative about the genocidal nature of residential schools, which were established in the 19th and 20th centuries by churches and the government to educate Indigenous children and assimilate them into Canadian society.
That narrative went unchallenged at first, yet substantial pushback gradually developed among a group of retired judges, lawyers, professors, journalists, and others who have had careers in researching and evaluating evidence.
It's no accident that most are retired because that gives them some protection against attempts to silence them as deniers.
But the narrative of mass graves is wrong and not just wrong, but egregiously wrong.
For example, the essay in Kamloops, Not One Body Has Been Found by Montreal historian Jacques Royard, has done more than any other single publication to punch holes in the false narrative of unmarked graves and missing children.
Other essays punch more holes.
Academic provocateur Francis Widowson shows how the legend of murdered children and unmarked graves was spread by defrocked United Church minister Kevin Annette before it popped up at Kamloops.
Retired Professor Jaime Rubinstein and collaborators examine the evidence of unmarked graves, such as the results of the GPR, and find there's nothing, repeat nothing there.
Retired Professor Ian Gentles examines health conditions in the schools and shows that the children were better off there than at home on reserves.
Our book demonstrates that all the major elements of the Kamloops narrative are either false or highly exaggerated.
No unmarked graves have been discovered at Kamloops or elsewhere, not one.
As of August 2023, there had been 20 announcements of soil anomalies discovered by GPR near residential schools across Canada, but most have not even been excavated.
So what, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown.
Where excavations have taken place, no burials related to residential schools have been found.
In other words, there are no missing children.
The fate of some children may have been forgotten with the passage of generations, forgotten by their own families, that is, but forgotten is not the same as missing.
The myth of missing students arose from a failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's researchers to cross-reference the vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them.
The documentation exists, but the commissioners did not avail themselves of it.
Myth Of Missing Students00:03:40
End quote.
Now, folks, the article goes on to make the case that the narrative of mass burial grounds of Indigenous people is, well, at the end of the day, a hoax.
But if you even suggest that in certain circles, you'll be demonized, you'll be vilified, you'll perhaps even be terminated.
And this is the current harsh reality in Canada without the passage of Bill C-413 into law.
Indeed, it would appear that what Gazen is hoping to do is merely add jail time to the punishment to ensure that the so-called deniers and those who might voice a contrarian opinion will be intimidated into silence.
And yet, how does this heavy-handedness contribute to the very spirit of truth and reconciliation?
Isn't part of this process when it comes to the truth and reconciliation all about having open and honest dialogue?
But no, Gazan, like some wannabe director at the Ministry of Truth, wants you to subscribe to a certain narrative vis-a-vis Indigenous Affairs, even if that narrative is a falsehood.
And she wants you to self-censor yourself under penalty of law and even imprisonment.
Now, historically, private member bills die on the vine, but given the on-again, off-again, on-again bromance between Justin and Jugmeet, and given that Trudeau is likely all in when it comes to the bill's content, given that he adores censorship, well, perhaps this bill has a fighting chance of getting widespread support and actually becoming law.
And if that does pass, what then?
Are the authors of Grave Error and the head honchos at the Fraser Institute going to be the first to be prosecuted on the basis of denialism, even though there's still not a scintilla of evidence that these mass graves exist?
For that matter, is Rebel News and yours truly on the hook for a fine and some jail time simply for airing this monologue?
What's perversely ironic is that Gazan is obsessed with so-called denialism when it comes to what she believes to be an attempted genocide of Canada's Indigenous people.
And yet for almost a year now, we have seen thousands of violent pro-Hamas demonstrators take to the streets of our great dominion, denying the Holocaust as they openly support engineering an additional one.
These unhinged members of the New Age Hitler youth movement continue to make coded chants, clamoring for the genocide of the Jewish people, you know, intifada and from the river to the sea and go back to Europe.
And for the most part, what's been the response of those in government and law enforcement?
Well, they hold their noses, they turn a blind eye, and then they arrest and imprison peaceful counter-demonstrators and members of the independent media who might have the temerity to ask impolite questions.
What a joke.
A bad joke without a punchline.
Bottom line, the year of censorship, or at least selective censorship, continues unabated.
Panel On CBC's Failure00:13:50
And it would appear that the only thing George Orwell got wrong about his most famous cautionary tale was the date.
Hey, everybody, before I jump into the story, I just want to show you my new coffee cup.
On this side, Rebel News, our logo, but on this side, who is that?
Who is that wanted for journalism?
Well, that's my buddy David Menzies.
I'm not even kidding.
That is actually his real mugshot when he was arrested in Toronto for doing journalism.
He's been arrested three or four times in 2024 alone.
I'm not laughing about it, but if you got to choose between laughing and crying, you may as well laugh and put a mug on it.
That is actually his real mugshot.
And I think he actually looks sort of cool.
So here's to David, a journalist who was arrested for journalism.
There's no two ways about it.
Anyways, back to the journalism we're doing here today.
The CBC is not just Canada's largest news organization, larger in terms of journalists than all the others combined.
Imagine how that distorts the market.
But incredibly, their viewership is falling despite Canada's population growing.
People are watching it less, and it's speeding up the less, the less, the less.
So they put together a panel to figure out what's going on.
And you're going to laugh at this.
One of my favorite guys is joining us today.
You know who I'm talking about, Franco Terrazano, the Taxpayers Federation.
He joins us now via Skype from Calgary.
Franco, everybody knows what's wrong with the CBC, but only this government would spend a quarter million dollars finding experts from the CBC to tell us what's wrong with the CBC.
Tell us the facts.
Give me the scoop.
What's really going on here?
And you know, I'm laughing just because of how ridiculous this waste of money really is, right?
So, you know, the government is dropping $200,000 plus on this seven-person modernization panel to figure out, I don't know, I guess what's wrong with the CBC and how to move forward.
And you know what?
They didn't have to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure out why the CBC is failing.
All they would have to do is go to Tim Hortons and ask one of the many customers there, and they would tell the government just why the CBC is failing.
But, you know, $200,000 and that tab is probably only going up.
Even Canadian Heritage admits that the cost could balloon higher than that.
And another crazy part of the story is like, folks, this is a seven-person panel, modernization panel.
Well, three of the seven panelists used to work at the CBC, and another one of them was a contributor to the CBC.
So four of the seven CBC panelists either worked at the state broadcaster before or was a contributor to the state broadcaster.
So, you know what?
If they really wanted a predetermined outcome, they could have gotten one for a lot less than $200,000.
Yeah, it's incredible.
And the fact that they're choosing their own people, the people who were part of the disaster to give advice on things, it's, you know, I don't know why, but it sort of makes me think of when the Biden administration had a summit on electric vehicles, they did not invite Elon Musk.
They invited the others, but not Elon Musk, the guy who's actually given her.
Why?
Well, because they didn't want to hear what he had to say.
They absolutely did not want to hear him.
They wanted the insiders because this is an inside thing.
I think a lot of people who are counter to the CBC, independents, anti-CBC activists, could point out why we think they're failing.
And we could point out for free, and I think we do every day.
Why do you think they choose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on insider experts instead of listening to the free advice that any Canadian, like you say, you just go to a coffee shop?
Anyone will tell you what's wrong with the CBC.
Why do they insist on paying for bad information instead of actually listening to what the public has to say?
What's going on?
Well, two reasons.
Number one, it's easy to waste money when it's not your money, right?
It's not like this is their money that they're wasting.
I mean, this is money that they're taking from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers, right?
The CBC is costing Canadian taxpayers more than a billion dollars every single year.
So, number one, it's easy to throw away money when it's not yours.
It's somebody else's.
Number two, they don't want that free advice from Canadians, right?
Because sometimes the truth hurts, especially when you're the CBC taking more than a billion dollars from taxpayers.
They don't want to hear why they're failing from everyday Canadians.
That's why they stacked a panel with ex-CBC staff.
And I got a proof point.
You know what else we've been talking about on your show, Ezra?
Is the millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses that the CBC has been handing out?
Well, you know what?
The CBC is using our tax dollars to hand out these bonuses, but they don't ask Canadians what Canadians think about these bonuses.
So the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we did ask Canadians, right?
We commissioned a poll from Leger, a reputable polling firm, and the poll showed that seven in 10 Canadians are against those CBC bonuses.
So why isn't the CBC just going to a Tim Horton, just going on the road and asking Canadians?
Well, I don't think they want to know the answer from Canadians.
Yeah, you know, we have a motto here: follow the facts wherever they lead.
That's hard to do because you have a preconception in mind.
It's something called confirmation bias.
You love an answer that's exactly what you thought you were looking for.
It's tough sometimes, and I find it tough too.
We go out into the world, we have a very strong.
We went down to Springfield, Ohio, a couple weeks ago.
We thought we were going to see people eating dogs and cats.
We couldn't see any evidence of it.
And we were sort of excited about that crazy story.
But you've got to, you know, listen to the facts as they are.
And we did not find any evidence of that.
The CBC will do anything not to change their worldview.
They would rather change the facts than change their worldview, which is why they're asking insiders to review their own system.
Hey, I got a technical question.
I was looking at your press release on this.
You said the total cost of the panel is more than, we're talking about the CBC panel, more than $280,000, including $106,500 for panel members.
That's a squeak gig.
I'd do it for free, by the way.
And then what says $133,000 for background documents, $28,000 for facilitators, and $13,000 for translation.
Do you know what's a background document?
How do you spend $133,000?
What even is a background document?
Do you know what that means?
So from my understanding, okay, first of all, this is about as transparent as a coconut, okay?
Yeah, I don't know.
So, I mean, what essentially I think they were doing is trying to get briefing papers for these panelists to help them in their modernization discussions, right?
But here's the craziest part.
I actually don't think the government even knows how much this is costing, okay?
So our great investigative journalists at the CTF, Ryan Thorpe, he went through hundreds of government records from access to information records, right?
And those records suggested that the cost of the modernization panel was $280,000.
So Ryan did a follow-up with Canadian Heritage, the department in charge of the CBC.
And the Heritage Department said, well, you know, the costs are actually more like $200,000.
So do you see what's going on here, folks?
Like they give these records out to the public, suggesting it's one cost.
Then the department comes back saying, oh, no, it might be another cost.
So not only are they wasting our money when they could have just asked Canadians for free why the CBC is failing, but I don't even know if the government knows how much this is actually going to cost taxpayers.
You know, a lot of media companies are failing, and they have executives and business people and owners who are racking their brains.
How do I fix this?
How do I fix this?
And the reason they're forced to think it through is because if they don't fix it, they're going to go bankrupt.
They're going to go out of business.
And frankly, a newspaper has been closing in Canada pretty much every week for a decade, believe it or not.
There's a motivation to fix your business if you own it and are at risk.
But there's a moral hazard if your business is declining, if you're a failure, but someone's always there to bail you out.
You know that phrase moral hazard.
It means the consequences of what you're doing have been removed from you.
So you are in a position where you can do something that you know is wrong because you're not paying the price for it.
This is a form of moral hazard.
You have hundreds of executives at the CBC who are paid six figures to figure out what are we doing wrong.
To spend a quarter million dollars on an outside panel, that is a Potemkin village.
That's a distraction.
Frankly, if you were to ask me why would they do this, it would be, oh, we're going to have a friendly group of outsiders who can now go and sing our praises to the world.
I don't think this is actually a real panel on how to fix the CBC.
I think they're just paying a bunch of people to go forward and say, oh, the CBC really is worth it.
And I'm here to tell you that as an independent outsider, there are hundreds of people at the CBC who are paid to fix the problem.
The fact that they don't is because they're bailed out every time.
I got one super quick question for you.
What's going on with CTV?
Have you been following that spat between, is there a taxpayer angle in that?
I don't want to get you to comment something outside your mandate as a taxpayers guy, but I think Justin Trudeau is sorry, pardon me, Pierre Polyev is implying that Bell Canada and its CTV subsidiary are beholden to government regulators and grants.
Do you have any info on that?
Well, Ezra, you know, I'm not sure I'd be able to add too much on that, but I do have to go back to your point about the CBC and this modernization panel because I think you really hit the nail on the head on one aspect there, okay?
So let's not forget that the government stacked this modernization panel with ex-CBC staff, right?
Three out of the seven used to work there.
One other one was another, was a contributor.
But not only that, right?
Most of these panelists have either worked for the CBC or for an organization that has taken taxpayers' money, right?
I'm sure that's totally a coincidence, right?
Just like I'm sure that it'll be totally a coincidence when they come back recommending that the CBC take more taxpayers' money.
But you know what?
If the government wanted a predetermined outcome, they didn't have to waste $200,000 on this.
Okay.
And to go back to your point about the moral hazard, here's how it plays out in real life, right?
You have Catherine Tate, the president and CEO of the CBC, crying to the government, claiming that the CBC is chronically underfunded, even though it gets more than a billion dollars from taxpayers every single year.
So you would think that if the CEO actually thought its organization was chronically underfunded, then it wouldn't be handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives.
But what did the CBC do?
It still handed out millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses to its executives last year and this year.
So that is the moral hazard, right?
Instead of improving services, figuring out how to get voluntary contributions, you have the CBC's president CEO crying, begging to the government for more taxpayer cash.
Franklin, I just want to give you one little anecdote because I know one of these people on the panel, sort of.
I don't know him personally, but I've been following him for years.
His name is David Skock.
And let me just read one line from your report here, and then let me tell you a little nugget about him.
Your report says David Skock, editor-in-chief of The Logic, that's a website-based news outlet that focuses on tech.
David Skock was the only participant to decline payment for his participation in the panel.
So he sounds like a good guy.
He's willing to give his advice on how to make a go of it for free.
Not so fast.
I remember when David Skock started the logic.
He said, We're going to be independent.
We've got to be.
No one will trust us otherwise.
We're not taking a dime of Trudeau's money.
Okay, that lasted about a year.
And then he made a public statement saying, We can't do it.
We're not good enough.
Our customers don't support us enough.
And instead of finding something else to do with my life, I am going to go against everything I believe in and take the government dough.
His wording was slightly different, but that was the outcome.
So here's a guy who's trumpeted himself as a friend of free enterprise, failed and went cap in hand to Trudeau for a bailout.
He's on this panel.
He's making a big show of not taking government money.
He's already taking government money.
And more than that, every day of his life, he repudiates his public statement that he would do it on his own merit.
I just wanted to tell you, that's the perfect guy for this CBC panel because he's a failed free marketer who then went to the warm embrace of free taxpayers' money.
Friend of Free Enterprise Takes Bailout00:03:22
And I think you can tell in advance what he's going to say.
Don't mind me.
I wanted to share that little bio on David Skock with you, Franco.
Well, you know what, Ezra?
Here's the solution: get the government out of the business of media, right?
Freedom of the press means freedom of government interference, but it also means you got to take the government out of funding the media.
Taxpayers should not be paying a single penny to media corporations or media organizations.
And that means defund the CBC and all of the taxpayer-funded media subsidies.
In fact, Ezra, I think you'll like this.
The only modernization plan for the state broadcaster should be three words long: defund the CBC.
There you have it.
We'll end on that note.
Our friend Franco Terrazano of the Taxpayers Federation.
Keep in touch, my friend.
Hey, thank you so much.
All right.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Well, really, hasn't 2024 been marvelous?
We see so much legislation going through to censor what we can say, what we can publish.
Meanwhile, out on the street, it's good old-fashioned hooliganism that is taking root.
And I speak about unhinged members of the Rainbow Mafia and their anti-fa allies who have taken the throne, throwing bricks at our glorious Jumbotron truck.
We published a piece recently about that.
The truck needs some repairs.
And, well, because we're not bending the knee.
We're not going to put it in a garage because unhinged, censorious thugs want us to.
In any event, it sure got a lot of response from you, folks.
Bobender writes, and they just happened to come across a brick at the perfect time.
Yeah, right.
You know, that's a great question, Bobender.
Were they packing bricks or did they scoop them off the street?
Nevertheless, it makes a mockery of the left.
You know how they love to chant, love Trump's hate.
What kind of love do you get when you have a brick thrown at you?
A. Smith writes, BC election underway right now.
Send us your cool video truck.
We need all the help we can get.
You know what?
Who knows the way things are going?
That truck is getting a fantastic reception.
Maybe we need to roll out more trucks in more provinces to get the message of free speech out.
Danielle B. Cooper writes, Every country needs a clone of David Menzies.
Hello from Australia.
Well, that is so nice.
You know what?
I completely support cloning because I'll get that clone to do all my work, whereas the real David Menzies, well, I guess I'll go to Tofino, BC, and go on a surfing safari, much like our prime minister likes to do on Truth and Reconciliation Day.
In any event, folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
Ezra, as you might know, is on an extra special assignment down in the great state of Texas.