Ezra Levant argues Justin Trudeau may provoke a U.S. tariff war to shift blame from his policies—like $10-a-day childcare and climate-focused spending—to Trump, despite economic harm, as Canada faces per capita recession and GDP inflation from mass immigration. Trudeau’s refusal to address Trump’s border demands contrasts with Mexico’s Claudia Scheinbaum, who avoided conflict by cooperating. Meanwhile, Global Affairs Canada’s $750M property portfolio—including a $9M NYC condo for Tom Clark—raises oversight concerns, while foreign-funded protesters exploit unenforced laws like Section 176.2 and Vaughan’s 100-meter bubble zone, testing legal limits without consequences. Trudeau’s outdated anti-Trump stance risks isolating Canada as global leaders like Zelensky and Putin embrace him, exposing a leadership gap in both economy and enforcement. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I outline my theory of what Justin Trudeau is doing.
You might think it's crazy, but I think Trudeau would rather run against Donald Trump than Pierre Polyev.
And he would actually like to have Trump put tariffs on the Canadian economy, which would devastate the Canadian economy.
So Trudeau could say, hey, it's not me that's causing the hardship in your lives, it's Trump.
Vote for me.
I'm the anti-Trump.
Polyev is too chummy with Trump.
I'll make my case.
I'll prove to you that's what's going on.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to the video version of this podcast.
We call it Rebel News Plus.
There's a couple of clips of Trudeau I really want you to see, not just here, but see them.
So please go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
That might not sound like a lot of money to you, but boy, it makes a difference for us because we don't take a dime from Trudeau and its shows.
But I want to mention one more thing.
Is it just me?
Are you also sick of DEI and ESG?
Sorry, that should say tired, not Fred.
Ready?
Is it just me?
Are you also sick and tired of ESG, climate alarmism, and gender ideology being pushed by your financial institution?
Our friends at Rocklink Investment Partners believe your investments should be driven by powerful balance sheets, earnings growth, and exceptional management teams, not Marxist politics.
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That's RockLink with a C. info at rocklink.com.
Tonight, I'm 100% sure Trudeau wants a trade war with Donald Trump and he wants Canada to lose so he can win the next election.
I'll explain.
It's December 11th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Trump's Border Threats00:15:06
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Trudeau is picking a fight with Trump.
That's not smart.
Here's Trudeau saying that Americans are regressive sexists for not voting for Kamala Harris.
Now, it shouldn't be that way.
It wasn't supposed to be that way.
We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress.
And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president.
Everywhere, women's rights and women's progress is under attack, overtly and subtly.
But I want you to know that I am, and always will be, a proud feminist.
You will always have an ally in me and in my government.
And here's Trudeau a couple of days earlier saying that Americans are too stupid to understand who they chose in the last election.
They're not being really thoughtful like he wants them to be.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness.
I hope some of the things I said actually pierce through the haze of challenging situations everyone's in.
Canadians are fundamentally thoughtful about the kind of future we want, the kind of solutions we're going to put forward to improve our communities, to improve our neighborhoods, to build a better set of opportunities for our kids.
And every election is about that as we approach what will be an election year next year.
And my only request for everyone is to be really thoughtful and go into the choices you make with eyes wide open.
I think there's a number of folks in different countries, and I won't point out any particular one, where folks are going to be wondering about the choice they may be made in elections.
Let's not be that kind of country in Canada.
Let's be deliberate about the choices we make.
If we want to stop fighting climate change, if we want to re-legalize assault-style weapons, if we want to put back into question women's rights, if we want to scrap $10 a day child care across the country and stop delivering free dental care to vulnerable seniors, and in a democracy, that's a choice people can make.
Get rid of the CBC, too.
That's a choice people can make.
But let's take on the responsibility as electors, as thoughtful agents of change in our communities, to be smart about, no matter how much we want change, let's not fall into an easy trap of voting for change for the worse.
Canadians deserve better, and I know they're going to pick it.
Yeah, how's this quarrel with Donald Trump going to end?
I'll tell you how Trudeau wants a trade war.
He actually wants one.
Let me back up a little bit to set the scene to show you how this came about.
As you know, Donald Trump's main campaign platform was to stop mass immigration in the United States.
Most of that is illegal mass immigration, whereas here in Canada, most of it appallingly is legal.
We let millions of people into Canada on purpose.
In the U.S., I suppose you could say that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris let them in on purpose too, but only in the sense of not enforcing the law, not guarding the border.
There are millions, perhaps tens of millions of illegal migrants in the U.S., and Trump says he's going to kick them out.
Most of them came in from the southern border with Mexico, to be sure, but they're not all Mexicans.
Other migrants from other Latin American countries, too.
They come in through what they call a caravan.
People from Africa, people from the Middle East, people from China, they all know the southern border is the easy way into America, but increasingly, Canada is too.
After all, it's the world's longest undefended border.
Of course, that goes both ways.
We took in about 100,000 or more illegal immigrants at Wroxham Road, and our CMP were there in the role of bellhops and concierges.
We didn't stop anyone from coming across.
But back to Trump.
He said he's going to stop that.
It's an extension of his first term promise to build a wall.
So as you remember, a few weeks ago, Trump tweeted, or actually he posted it on his own social media platform, True Social, that he expects Canada and Mexico to steal off the borders to both illegal immigrants and illegal drugs by January 20th when he's inaugurated, or he'd hit each country with a 25% tariff.
Now, it's a bit odd, including Canada and Mexico in the same post.
I mean, the scale of the problem is much greater on the Mexican side.
I think Trump just wanted to be, you know, avoid being seen picking on Mexico.
He wanted to show that he's concerned about all borders.
And by the way, he's not exactly a fan of Justin Trudeau.
Well, the new Mexican president, who is a socialist like Trudeau, I don't think she likes Trump very much, but she understands that there's a new sheriff in town, and whether or not Trump was deadly serious about putting in the tariff, it's too much of a risk for her and her country's economy to ignore.
And really, Trump wasn't asking for anything more than a good border between the countries.
Like, neighbors want a good fence.
Have you ever heard that phrase, good fences make good neighbors?
They had a phone call, the president of Mexico, Scheinbaum is her name, and it was a done deal.
I think Trump was looking to show that he's already taking steps even before his inauguration.
He's showing that he's the de facto president while sleepy Joe Biden is sleeping somewhere.
I think he was looking to make things easier for himself when he finally does take office in January to get other countries rolling.
And he's trying to build momentum of world leaders showing respect to America and to him after four years of disrespect.
You could see that in real time when Trump went to the Notre Dame Cathedral restoration in Paris.
Our friends Alexa Lavois and Sheila Gunri were there.
You can find more of that on our website.
The church itself was, of course, the star of the occasion.
But in terms of celebrities, all eyes were on Trump.
He's back.
America's back.
And all the sniping and gossiping about him pretty much evaporated.
I don't know if you saw, but Emmanuel Macron, I mean, the host of the events, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, they were hobnobbing with Trump.
They were posing for photos with Trump.
They were vying for Trump's attention.
Giorgio Maloney, the prime minister of Italy, was there.
Even Quebec's premier, Francois Legaud, and he had a brief interaction with Trump, and he tweeted about it.
I think it was sort of interesting that Legault went and Trudeau didn't.
Don't you find that unusual?
My point is, Donald Trump is back.
And even though he's not actually the president for another month and a bit, he's sure being treated as the president.
So his demand to Canada and to Mexico, while not a formal act of diplomacy, was obviously diplomacy the Trump way.
He gets things done by Twitter.
And Mexico's president understood that enough to remove the risk, to pull the stinger out just to get through the problem.
By the way, Trump immediately tweeted his thanks to the Mexican president.
Crisis resolved, at least for now.
Now, whether or not the crisis will actually be resolved on the ground remains to be seen, but that can be observed and managed in the course of time.
What Trump really got from Mexico was a moral pledge to strengthen the border.
Now, the president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum is her name, made a series of tweets that basically said, well, we're doing this for our own way, and we're a sovereign country, and we have our own reasons to do this, but we're doing it, which I think is probably true, and I think that's the right thing to say.
She has enough self-respect to say we're sovereign and we're doing this for our own reasons, but she's doing it.
Again, good neighbors, good fences.
Now, compare that to Justin Trudeau.
He had a call with Trump.
It didn't resolve the matter.
So then he zipped down to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's home in Florida, and the de facto White House for now.
And I note that Trudeau did not bring Christia Freeland, the finance minister, basically the minister of everything, or Melanie Jolie, the foreign minister.
You would think that those are two important people when you're dealing with America.
A tariff issue, bring the finance minister.
Foreign affairs, bring the foreign minister.
But Trudeau knows Trump despises Freeland and would laugh at Melanie Jolie.
And in a way, that's progress, isn't it?
I mean, Jolie and Freeland were explicitly quota hires by Trudeau.
They were DEI hires, diversity hires.
Remember this?
Your cabinet, you said, looks a lot like Canada.
I understand one of the priorities for you was to have a cabinet that was gender balanced.
Why was that so important to you?
Because it's 2015.
Canadians elected extraordinary members of parliament from across the country, and I am glad to have been able to highlight a few of them in this cabinet.
Yeah, well, Trudeau kept his promise to hire based on gender rather than on merit, and that hasn't worked out well.
But bizarrely, Canada as a country and the media political class just sort of accepted the worst finance minister and the worst foreign minister in memory just because they're girls.
And that's how we are now, according to our feminist prime minister.
We are a mediocre government turning the country more mediocre day by day.
And nobody really does anything about it.
And we all just sort of accept it as if it's normal.
And one tweet from Trump sort of cut through nine years of self-delusion, didn't it?
I mean, even Trudeau realized, I can't bring Freeland and Jolie down there.
It was clarifying.
Trump is deadly serious.
Remember the saying, don't take Trump literally, take him seriously.
And Jolie and Freeland just are not serious people.
And Trudeau sort of knows it when the crisis comes.
But there was no deal done at Mar-a-Lago, was there?
Not that President Sheinbaum of Mexico signed a deal that we know of, but she at least bent the knee, at least enough to give Trump a win, or at least something he could call a win optically.
Trump is very transactional.
Remember where he comes from.
He's a businessman, a deal maker, New York real estate.
So if Trump is going to seal that southern border anyways, isn't it to Mexico's advantage to get a kind of moral credit from Trump, to do him a favor by giving him a little win and to get a favor in return, whatever that is, whenever that is.
I think that's how Trump operates.
Tit for tat, you're nice to him, he's nice to you.
You cross him, he'll cross you.
Don't you think that's how he works?
I mean, read the art of the deal.
That's how he was in New York.
We don't even have to go that far.
Look at how he was in his first term.
So Trudeau flies down to Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with Trump, but nothing was really resolved.
And Trump was probably thinking, I just wasted three hours.
Now, let me say the most important part of this again.
This isn't a trade negotiation.
This is a border negotiation.
Trump just wants to stop illegal immigrants and illegal drugs from crossing the border.
He's not asking for a new trade deal here.
He's telling his neighbors to fix their side of the fence, or he will fix the fence in a way they don't want.
And as I've said from the outset, why wouldn't Canadians, in the Canadian interest, want to stop that illegal activity on our borders too?
That's a point that Pierre Polliv made in reaction to the whole kerfuffle.
He believes in solving those same problems, not because of Trump, but because of Canadians.
Remember this?
I don't want to stop drug overdoses to please Donald Trump.
I want to stop drug overdoses so that there's not one more mother with her face buried in a pillow sobbing that she just lost her kid after 47,000 other Canadians have died.
That's more than we lost in the Second World War.
A 200% annual increase in drug overdose deaths have resulted from Justin Trudeau's radical liberalization of drugs.
Justin Trudeau must put partisanship aside, not just for the sake of Team Canada, but for the sake of our people, and fully reverse his liberalization of drugs.
Ban them, prosecute those who traffic in them, secure our borders against the illegal importation of fentanyl ingredients, put people in treatment and recovery to bring our loved ones home drug-free.
That is necessary now more than ever.
Look, President Trump has the right to put his workers and his nation's security first.
I will put Canada's workers and Canada's security first.
We need a prime minister with the strength and the smarts, the brains and the backbone to stand up for this country, to rebuild our security.
I think that's exactly right.
Sometimes Canada has a trade war with the U.S. over some policy project up here like softwood lumber or our dairy cartel.
You can't, yeah, I mean, you can disagree with Canadian policies on softwood lumber or dairy cartel.
I totally disagree with supply management and dairy, but the Canadian government and parliament believes they're important, so the Canadian government believes they're worth fighting for.
Fine.
Agree or disagree with the policy.
It is not immoral or improper to fight for Canadian industries.
But who on earth would fight to the death for criminal traffickers, illegal immigrants, drug cartels?
Trump is asking for a security change, and he's using the economy as a big stick to threaten us with.
Obviously, he doesn't want to follow through on that threat of terrorists.
If he wanted to, he would just do it.
He wants the border closed, and he's trying to get our attention.
Imagine Canada humming and hawing over stopping illegal drugs coming into the United States.
Trump's Border Joke?00:03:09
I think Trump was, in a way, giving both Trudeau and Mexico Scheinbaum an easy way for a quick win.
They should have a negotiation with Trump on the phone or in person and agree in principle to fix the borders and have Trump's warm words in return and likely a favor in return.
These are transactions doing business, solving problems.
That's the Trump way, don't you know?
Scheinbaum took that deal.
Trudeau did not.
And that is on purpose, my friends.
And Trump has noticed.
So Trump started a poke at Trudeau.
Someone at the Mar-a-Lago dinner leaked to the media that Trump had joked about Canada becoming the 51st state.
Here is a clip.
I think this is on Fox.
And tonight we're getting some new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table.
We are told that when Trudeau told President-elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can't survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion a year, then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.
It's a joke.
I think the fact that it was leaked shows the meeting wasn't really a success.
But the reaction to that joke was so predictable.
I mean, here's just one example.
Trump on his Truth Social this morning greeted the Prime Minister as the governor of the 51st state, something along that line.
Have you seen that?
Do you have any thoughts about that?
About the dynamics of the relationship?
I haven't seen that, so I probably shouldn't comment just that with the Truth Social post of Donald Trump planting a Canadian flag on a Canadian mountain.
I have to say that to the extent that this 51st state thing was a joke, it's not funny.
And I find that pursuing it on social media makes me increasingly nervous.
Mr. Trump has, we have to be very, very careful with the president-elect, and we have to pull together, I think, all opposition party leaders and premiers, all elements of the Canadian political establishment, such as we are, better pull together to make sure we don't create any cracks that allow Fox News or Mr. Trump's social media to exploit us and say things about Canada that aren't true.
Yeah, calm down, sister.
It's a joke.
You don't have to think it's funny, but it was a joke.
And Trump is a jokester.
I think he's naturally entertaining.
He's a natural storyteller.
And he tells jokes.
I mean, have you ever watched any of his rallies?
In a way, it's sometimes like a stand-up routine.
And if you're a jokester, if you like having some fun, and if you see the gnashing of teeth from your opponents and how thin-skinned people are, especially up here in Canada, you double down.
That's the New York way, I guess.
So Trump published this joke again in the form of a tweet of him standing with a flag looking like he's going to invade Canada.
I think that's actually the Swiss Mountain the Matterhorn or something.
People Worried About Borders00:09:18
And oh my God, did our country's best and brightest take the bait?
So Trump did it a third time, deliberately calling Trudeau the governor of the state of Canada.
Do you really think that Trump didn't know that he's the prime minister of the country, not the governor of a state?
Of course he knew.
He was poking and prodding.
You could say it's all in jest, but in a way, it's actually deadly serious.
Trump wants the border fixed.
He asked.
I'm not going to say he asked nicely, but he asked.
And Trudeau didn't say sure, or he didn't say yes, I agree in principle.
We just got to the devil's in the details.
And that's a very fair thing to say.
I think that's sort of how the Mexicans said it.
Devil's in the details.
Yes, but we've got to work on it.
Of course, you're not going to solve the problem in a 15-minute phone call.
Trudeau responded with delay and obfuscation, and some of his ministers started talking tough, maybe implying that they could cut off American access to some Canadian resources.
Here's Christia Freeland talking tough about how much America depends on us.
So the prime minister was really clear yesterday.
He said that, of course, Canada would respond to unjustified tariffs.
Our focus is on achieving a win-win outcome.
And our focus is on really explaining to our American partners, our American neighbors, that the trading relationship with Canada is balanced and mutually beneficial.
And it's a very special relationship because Canada is the largest market for the U.S.
We are a bigger export market for the United States than China, Japan, the UK, and France combined.
That puts us in a really special position.
And of course, Canada supplies to the United States things America absolutely critically needs.
Oil, electricity, uranium, critical minerals and metals.
So we believe that this is a mutually beneficial, balanced, and win-win trading relationship.
And we're taking the time to explain to our American partners that that is the case.
Here's Francois-Philippe Champagne talking about, well, America better watch out.
Do you see this as a bargaining tactic, or do you think we're really going to see 26%, 25% tariffs?
Listen, what I can do is that, you know, we have to take that seriously, there's no doubt.
On the other hand, I would say the preparation that we've done is going to be material in our discussions.
Yeah, well, we have had a number of discussions.
We'll continue to have President Trump is not president for two months, so we still have a number of weeks to engage.
We'll make sure that everything that we have said about the strategic nature of our relationship, about security, supply chain resiliency, and making sure that they understand that this would have an impact on the U.S. economy if you just think about the energy sector in particular.
So we're going to be making sure of that.
And bottom line, we'll do like we always do.
We'll stand up for Canada, we'll stand up for the workers, we'll stand up for our industry.
Yeah, I don't think you're going to be able to shake down America, at least not with Trump in charge, just a guess.
Doug Ford, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, was angry too.
What I found unfair about the comments is to compare us to Mexico.
And I can tell you, Canada is no Mexico.
We do approximately, just Ontario alone, $500 billion of two-way trade.
I found his comments unfair.
I found them insulting.
It's like a family member stabbing you right in the heart.
Spent a lot of time in the U.S.
And I have yet to talk to one American that has any issue with Canadians.
We see drugs flow from Mexico coming up through California and through BC into Alberta into Ontario.
And what we need to do is take that threat seriously.
I had a conversation with the Prime Minister after he spoke to President-elect Trump last night.
The threat is serious.
We need to do better on our borders.
We need to give the resources to CBSA, which are fine people.
And I know talking to other premiers last night that we will do everything we can as provincial governments and territorial governments to secure our borders.
Yeah, and look, that's not actually true.
Every single province in Canada is poorer than every single state in the United States.
We are poorer than Mississippi or Alabama.
But look, it's not about that.
This is not about a trade war.
That's the low IQ take.
That's the CBC take on things.
Trump is using the threat of an economic sanction to get what he really wants, a border.
He wants to end people trafficking and drug trafficking.
Anyone who says their response is to declare their own economic war against Trump is being deliberately foolish.
Why wouldn't you just fix the border?
Well, what if you're a much-hated prime minister of Canada, your own caucus is in rebellion against you, you're barely at 20% in every single poll, you're about to be crushed by the Conservative leader Pierre Polyev.
If the trend of the past year continues, and there's no reason it won't.
Polyev, as we've shown you a dozen times, is ahead amongst all demographic groups, including young people, including visible minorities, including women.
Trudeau has no real base left other than the public sector and I think pro-Hamas voters, which is why he brings so many of them in.
And Polyev knows a big reason why the country is fed up with them because no one can afford anything anymore.
The cost of housing, the cost of groceries, the cost of fuel, the cost of energy.
Polyev keeps saying we need a carbon tax election.
He loves to say that because he knows that is why people are worried.
And when people are worried, they get mad at the government.
And Trudeau is so out of touch.
It's easy.
I mean, here's Trudeau telling people the other day that they should not make the price of food and housing their priority.
They should care more about global warming.
The challenge we're facing right now is that the direct pressures on individuals and households, the affordability crisis being kicked in the teeth by inflation around the world over the past few years, the concerns around the rapid pace of change, the instabilities we're seeing, the shifting geopolitics, the disruptions of the supply chain have a lot of individual citizens, voters,
families really worried that they're not able to make ends meet.
And it's really, really easy when you're in a short-term survive.
I got to be able to pay the rent this month.
I got to be able to buy groceries for my kids, to say, okay, let's put climate change as a slightly lower priority.
And that's something that's instinctive.
When the storm comes, you want to hunker down and just sort of huddle up and wait for it to blow over.
We can't do that around climate change.
And unfortunately, we have an awful lot of political amplification of the kind of narrative that is directly opposed to that.
It's, you know, some very, very profitable oil and gas companies and entrenched interests that very much want people to, you know, put in opposition affordability and the fight against climate change.
And that's really the challenge we have to take on.
Everyone sort of understands, oh, yes, we need to grow an economy and protect the environment at the same time.
Not to be outdone, you'll remember that Christia Freeland's advice a few months ago was if you can't pay your bills, just cancel Disney Plus.
Then you'll be able to pay for your groceries and your mortgage.
I think Canadian families are looking really closely at all of their expenses.
I personally, as a mother and wife, look carefully at my credit card bill once a month.
And last Sunday, I said to the kids, you're older now.
You don't want to watch Disney anymore.
Let's cut that Disney Plus subscription.
So we cut it.
It's only $13.99 a month that we're saving, but every little bit helps.
And I think every mother in Canada is doing that right now.
Now, that line didn't work out so well.
She's trying out a new one.
She's saying we're simply in a vibe session.
She really said that.
A lot of economists have been talking about the vibe session and the fact that Canadians just aren't feeling good and that that is having real economic consequences.
And the Canadian economists making that point are right.
That's even stupider than Trudeau's phrase a while back of a not a recession, but a she-session.
Vibe Session Vexation00:03:10
He said that.
It is exactly the example of the kinds of things you need to do to counter the she-session and turn it into a she-covery.
Fact is, the conservatives don't talk about that in their lengthy platform.
So hear me out.
The Canadian economy is actually in a shambles.
We're getting poorer.
Pierre Polyev is popular in large part because of that.
Trudeau is absolutely going to lose the next election.
But what if Trudeau doesn't have to run against Polyev?
What if he can run against Donald Trump?
Now, I know Donald Trump is not a Canadian.
He's not on the ballot.
But what if Trudeau sets himself up as the anti-Trump and the only one who will fight to save Canada against Trump?
You know the media is going to love it.
They love to hate Trump.
There's a lot of Trump derangement syndrome in Canada already, especially in the media, because we don't have a counterweight to the CBC, like the old Sun News Network.
We don't have a Fox News.
Rebel News is trying our best, but we're still small by comparison.
The media would love the battle.
They would love to cheer for Trudeau again by having him insult Trump.
Trudeau and Freeland have already been practicing their language, talking about maple MAGA.
That's what they're calling right-wing Canadians or something, you know, MAGA, make America Green.
Maple MAGA.
It doesn't roll off the tongue.
Thank you for your remonstrations, but I have to tell you, speaking for myself, parile playground insults from the maple syrup mega don't bother me anymore.
Mr. Speaker, I can handle it.
But what makes me really mad, what I can't handle, is hearing seeing crocodile tears from these conservatives.
The only time they care, notice vulnerable Canadians, is for a partisan photo app.
We care about Canadians.
They just care about themselves.
You know, they're really not that good at giving nicknames.
Trump is the master of giving nicknames, isn't he?
We saw a bit of this the other day, though.
I don't know if you saw True North had a story about a survey of Canadian Armed Forces personnel, and the survey they were told to take asking if they had seen any extremism in the military from their colleagues.
And they gave an example.
If someone had a hat that said, make Canada great again, that was considered extremism.
By the way, that's not an extreme idea.
I think many of us would love to make Canada great again.
I think almost everyone would.
And as far as that slogan goes, I don't know if you know Rebel News actually trademarked that a long time ago.
We should have a special sale on at our store for Canadian soldiers, a special discount.
If you're a Canadian soldier, you get the hat at a reduced price.
So Trudeau would love to be the world's anti-Trump.
Even though other countries around the world, even left-wing countries, are lining up to improve their relations with Trump in America.
Putin Praises Trump00:03:22
I mean, both Zelensky and Putin are trying to suck up to Trump.
I don't know if you saw this.
This is Putin praising Trump the other day.
Well, probably just like me, you are amazed not by the fact that absolutely uncivilized means had been used against Trump all the way up to assassination attempts, numerous assassination attempts.
And I think he's not safe even now.
The history of the United States has known many cases.
But I think President Trump is a smart person and a cautious one, I hope.
What amazed me most that in fighting him, not only Trump was subjected to humiliating court procedures, accusations and so on, but his family was attacked as well.
His children was attacked.
Gangsters don't do this in Russia when criminal gangs fight.
They don't touch children and women.
It's men who fight among themselves.
But those guys stooped as low as that.
I think this is so this looks so bad that it only reaffirms reconfirms how low the political system of the United States has fallen.
And don't tell me it's because Trump is pro-Russia.
Both Zelensky and Putin are trying to ingratiate themselves with Trump because they know Trump is a decider.
Trump is going to set the course of the end of that war.
And neither of them sucked up to Biden.
I mean, I suppose Zelensky sucked up to Biden for money, but they didn't respect Biden.
Zelensky was positively embracing Trump in Paris.
Putin is praising Trump's courage.
Terrorists like the Houthis are announcing that they're stopping their attacks on freighters in the Red Sea.
That happened right after the election.
Every country in the world is trying to reconnect with Trump.
Even the hard left-wing British Labour Party, here's David Lammy, their foreign secretary, who has in the past called Trump a neo-Nazi and a misogynist.
Listen to him, praise Trump.
So April 2019, you said, deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic, Donald Trump is no friend of Britain.
Have you changed your mind, or is that still your view?
Here, Chris, I'm sitting here as Foreign Secretary.
I've had a meal with Donald Trump.
I've met Donald Trump.
Did you talk about this stuff?
Did you apologize?
Did he bring it up?
Not even vaguely.
I've got to say, I found him to be a very gracious host.
Did he offer you a second portion of chicken or something here?
He did offer me a second portion of chicken.
He was very generous, very gracious, very keen to make sure that we felt relaxed and comfortable in his surroundings.
He was funny.
He was warm about the UK.
Very warm about the royal family, I've got to tell you.
Tom Clark's Property Controversy00:15:27
He's not doing that because he believes it.
He's doing that because it's in the interests of the UK to get along with Trump.
Here's the future king of England, happy to meet Trump.
It's Prince William.
What's going on?
So look, all these leaders in the world, they don't love Trump.
Some of them get along with him.
I mean, the president of El Salvador, the president of Prime Minister of Hungary, they really do like Trump.
But the others just know it's in their national interest.
It's not about being friends.
It's what is in the national interest of the United Kingdom.
What is in the national interest of Ukraine?
It is to get a good deal with Trump.
I think Trudeau is stuck in 2016 mode with his anti-Trump attitude.
I don't think he's freshened up his thinking in nearly 10 years.
I don't think that will work in 2024.
It's like Trudeau's fancy socks gimmick.
It barely worked back then.
No one cares now.
It looks sort of sad and played out.
But there's one more diabolical part of this.
Canada's economy is in trouble.
We've been in recession for many months on a per capita basis.
We're getting poorer, each one of us, month after month.
The only reason the national GDP number is growing is because Trudeau is bringing in millions of people every year, which artificially inflates the total size of the economy.
But each of us is getting a smaller, the pie, our slice of it is getting smaller on an individual basis.
We're all getting poorer.
That is why Pierre Polyev is winning and winning big on the economy.
That's why he talks about the price of things and the carbon tax.
But here's where Trudeau's darkest idea comes in.
What if instead of fixing the border problem, or even just saying he'll fix the border problem, like the Mexicans have said, what if Trudeau sort of calls Trump's bluff and tries to rally the country against Trump and says, bring on the tariffs?
It would be insane.
I mean, Trudeau should fix our borders for its own sake.
But what if he actually wanted a trade war?
The harsher the better.
What if Trudeau actually wanted factories to shut down?
What if he actually wanted pain, wanted higher unemployment?
What if he actually wants things to be worse so he can say, I'm fighting against Trump and Polyev isn't.
And the reason you're hurting financially is not because of my policies of the past nine years, it's because of Trump, Trump, Trump.
Trump has done this to you, not me.
I can fight against Trump.
Polyev won't.
If Trudeau can run against Trump instead of against Polyev, if all his campaign literature will be Trump, And if Trudeau can blame Trump for our rough economy instead of himself, himself and the mismanagement of the last nine years, does that put Trudeau in a better position to win the 2025 Canadian election?
Maybe it does.
Could be.
Now, I don't think it'll work.
I think it's going to do enormous damage to our country.
But I really think he's going to do that.
That's why he won't do what the president of Mexico has done.
That's why he's poking back at Trump every day in his own way.
Not as funny or light-hearted as Trump's tweets, but in a way that he knows will prick at Trump's pride.
Calling Trump's supporters stupid and thoughtless, calling Trump's supporters sexist, implying that Trump himself is those things.
Justin Trudeau actually wants a trade war against America, and he actually wants Canada to lose that trade war because he thinks that even if it turns our economy into a heap of smoldering ashes, at least he'll still be the prime minister.
And really, that's all he's ever cared about.
Stay with us for more.
One of the most entitled people in Canada is a former journalist and lobbyist named Tom Clark.
He was famous for being on TV for a long time.
I think his highlight of his journalistic career was when he was in a little plane.
Tom Clark's a pilot, and he had this shtick.
It was actually quite clever.
He would go up in a little plane as the pilot, and he would have his interviewee subject with him, and he would ask him questions.
And what are you going to do?
The only way out of that interview is if you bail out with a parachute.
So he sort of trapped his guests in the plane, which is a great way to extract some answers from them on tough questions.
But of course, Tom Clark is smarter than to ask politicians tough questions.
Here's the highlight of Tom Clark's long journalistic career.
When he had Trudeau to himself, and Trudeau had nowhere to run, he could have asked him anything.
Here's what he chose to ask.
So I guess the first thing I should ask you is, are you feeling lucky?
The entire country wants to know.
What shampoo do you use?
What a disappointing answer this is going to be.
Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.
You know, I don't know what's worse about that, the stupid question or the very earnest, extended answer by Trudeau on what shampoo he uses.
I've never forgotten that interview, and apparently neither did Justin Trudeau, who rewarded Tom Clark with a, you've heard the phrase, a thankless task.
Well, this was a taskless thanks.
Tom Clark was sent to New York City, one of the finest ambassadorial diplomatic postings in the world, to be our consul general there.
But alas, he had to live in that New York style, and he demanded a $9 million apartment because he can't just stay in some hovel.
And really, Trudeau lives like a Kardashian.
Why shouldn't Tom Clark?
Well, that caused a bit of a scandal.
Here's Tom Clark lying about it in parliament.
Mr. Clark, you've purchased property in the past probably numerous times with the assistance of real estate agents.
They do their best to sell property to you, to highlight all the features of the property to you.
Are you suggesting to Canadians that when you toured this billionaires row condominium that's right in front of Central Park, that they were completely muted and you simply walked around aimlessly looking at all the features, not asking any questions, and them not highlighting certain features to you?
Is that what you want Canadians to believe?
Yes or no, Mr. Clark?
Oh, yes.
Wow.
Wow.
You have found the most inept real estate agent in the entire world.
Well, if that doesn't get your blood boiling, this will.
Our Friends of the Taxpayers Federation, inspired by Tom Clark's sheer chutzpah, file an access to information requests with the government about what other excessive real estate foreign affairs, or now it's called Global Affairs Canada has around the world.
And the numbers you were about to hear make Tom Clark look like a peasant.
I am joined now by the boss of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, our friend Franco Terrazano, with a lot more.
I have to tell you, Tom Clark, it was so obviously a reward, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Can I read the first couple sentences of your press release?
And then I want you just a letter rip, Franco, okay?
Please, please go.
Official residences in other countries, $38 million.
Properties in Afghanistan, abandoned to the Taliban, $41 million.
Vacant land in Senegal, $12.5 million.
A chancery.
I have to look that word up.
I forgot what that is, but I'm guessing it's a building.
In Ukraine, $10.2 million.
These are some of the holdings in Global Affairs Canada's real estate portfolio, which has cost taxpayers $186 million in the past 10 years alone.
Franco, tell us the bad news.
Well, I mean, that is the bad news, but of course it always gets worse, right?
That's just Global Affairs Canada spending on fancy digs around the world in the last 10 years.
I mean, in total, Global Affairs Canada has 400 properties in more than 700 countries, and the price tag there is like $750 million.
But like, you read some of the top ones.
There's also quote unquote staff quarters in London costing $58 million.
Now, look, the government's going to come back and try to defend this saying, oh, well, you need to have diplomats all over the world.
But like, come on, right?
Just because this is what the government has done for so long to taxpayers, it doesn't mean that this is a good thing.
And like, why do we have to pay to have all these bureaucratic offices and all these fancy people living off the taxpayer dime all around the world?
Like, I have never heard a case from the government explaining why taxpayers are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars for these fancy properties and buildings and official residences all across the world.
Now, the total, $38 million for official residences in other countries.
Let me give you some other examples.
In New Zealand, $2.4 million for official residents there.
Barbados, $3.8 million for official residences in Barbados.
Trinidad and Tobago, $2.5 million for official residences there, Ezra.
You know, there's, of all these numbers here, the one that I find the craziest is Senegal, $12.5 million.
I don't know if you know where Senegal is.
If I'm not mistaken, it's on the west of Africa.
It's sort of the like there's two countries.
There's one that looks like a hamburger bun and one that looks like the hamburger, Senegal and Gambia.
It is one of the poorest countries in the world.
And perhaps we need an ambassador there.
I know other countries sometimes co-locate.
For example, you might have the British embassy and the Canadians could rent an office for them or the or we could do a deal where the Brits do our diplomacy.
Like there is no rule that Canada needs to have an embassy in all 200 of the world's countries, including teeny tiny countries like Nauru, population a few thousand.
But to spend 12 and a half million bucks in Senegal, what are they buying?
On vacant land.
What are they saying?
On vacant land.
What is that?
What's with the vacant land?
What are they planning in Senegal?
I'm not against the Senegalese people.
I have no beef with them.
I just don't know how you spend $12.5 million in Senegal.
And you're saying it's vacant land.
There's not even anything on it.
Like, what's that about?
Did they give you any details on what the heck they're doing?
No, I mean, look, we're going to keep diving into more details on this story, right?
This was the first access to information requests.
And the reason we even launched this, right, to your point, all this scandal over the $9 million luxury condo purchased in Billionaires Row in New York for Council General Tom Clark.
I mean, when we heard this story broke, we knew like this couldn't be the only time that Global Affairs Canada is buying fancy new digs around the world.
And that's why we have filed this access to information request to see, well, like, how is Global Affairs Canada spending her money around the world and all these different properties?
Like, Ezra, I mean, this is a democracy.
Canadians are supposed to have an understanding of how the federal government is spending our money.
But I can guarantee you, outside of what, like hundreds of bureaucrats in Ottawa, I guarantee you nobody knows about this type of spending.
And, you know, you kind of mentioned like we have to have these diplomatic presences all around the world.
Well, you know, the question is, like, just because this is how government has been done for so long, does that really mean that this is the best way to have government?
Like, what value are these high, living high-on-the-hog bureaucrats really providing for taxpayers?
Because we know when you get a diplomatic posting around the world, you're getting a huge taxpayer-funded salary.
You get to live the good life, other types of expenses, big-time staff.
But like, just because this is how government has been going on for so long, it doesn't mean that this is what should happen going forward.
So, like, look, like, what value, if any, is all this spending on lavish property around the world providing to taxpayers?
And if the government can't make a case for it, then the government should be selling off these properties to try to recoup some of the money back to taxpayers.
Yeah.
You know, I know where our Canadian High Commission is in London.
That's what you call an embassy between two Commonwealth countries.
It's right in Trafalgar Square.
It's a very prestigious neighborhood.
And maybe that's a good place to have the actual embassy or high commission.
But why do our diplomats or other bureaucrats have to live right down there in the most expensive part of London?
The one thing I'll tell you about London, Frank, if you've ever been, they've got one of the best subway systems in the world.
And I was just looking at some of the numbers you dug up.
When you say that Global Affairs in the last 10 years alone has bought 23 new properties costing 58 million bucks, really, really rough math, that's almost $2.5 million each.
If this is for staff quarters, why?
Like that is luxury living.
And I'm not saying that London is a cheap city, but you don't have to live right down there.
Most people who work in London take the train in.
And let me just read one more stat from your release.
All told, Global Affairs owns 65 properties for 208 million.
Now, really, really rough back of the napkin map, that's more than 3 million bucks per property.
For 65 different buildings, what's going on?
I think that there's been no oversight.
Has the Auditor General focused on any of this stuff?
65 Properties, 3 Million Per Building00:04:45
Like this, what the heck?
Tom Clark, it was so spectacular and he's so arrogant about it.
But it sounds like we've got 65 Tom Clarks in London.
Well, this is why we filed the access to information requests to get this information, because I think that $9 million luxury condo on Billionaires Row in Manhattan or in New York City, I think it's really just the tip of the iceberg.
And while I think it's right to focus on that, I think the problem is that you might focus on that one luxury condo and miss the bigger picture that this seems to be going on across all of Global Affairs Canada's real estate portfolio in many different countries around the world.
Like let's just dive into those staff quarters in London, right?
$58 million on 23 properties.
Now the records only refer to them as quote unquote staff quarters.
So it's not exactly clear exact like what that means.
But if this is just to put some staff up, like why are taxpayers paying for that?
Right.
Presumably, they all have taxpayer-funded salaries.
Like, why can't you pay for your own place of living?
Right.
Like, it just doesn't make sense to me.
So really the reason why we filed this access to information request is to put a spotlight on the fact that like, hey, folks, the waste and extravagance goes so far beyond just the $9 million condo in New York City.
It's crazy.
400 properties in more than 70 countries.
I just think it's a spending spree.
And in some places like Afghanistan, I can imagine they might have to build something up to a certain either modernity, plumbing, water, electrical security.
And the fact that they had to skedaddle when the Taliban took over, maybe I'm not going to be quite as critical there.
But London, $3.5 million homes for staff.
I think that they're parting.
And I think that, I mean, the amount of, I just think it's astonishing.
And I don't think that we need 200 ambassadors in 200 countries, each with 200 staffs, each with staff quarters.
You know what?
It sounds chintzy, but I don't know why we don't co-locate or even have one ambassador who represents, like, we could work alongside the Americans or the Brits or the Aussies in some of these countries.
I don't know.
I just, I hope you keep digging on this stuff, Franco.
I hope you can get some details about some of these particular gigs.
A fifth of a billion dollars spent in London alone.
I just think there's madness going on.
Last word to you, Franco.
And you know what?
It just, you know what bugs me the most is the luxuriousness of it.
The fact that it's so clearly just for show and pomp and circumstance, and that you know what else?
Trudeau lives the high life.
He stays in multi-thousand a night hotels, and so everyone says, oh, that's how the boss does it.
That's the role model.
You know, Stephen Harper, I remember when he was in prime ministry, he was so afraid of stories about his luxury that he almost always left before having to stay.
If he had to stay a night in a hotel, he would.
But if he could get on the plane and leave before the whole team had to stay the night, that was his move.
And he did that on purpose to have a lower cost of travel.
It feels like it's going the opposite way now.
They watch how Trudeau does it and everyone copies it.
And a fifth of a billion dollars spent in London alone is insane.
Last word to you.
Well, it feels like there's two classes of Canadians right now, doesn't it?
Makers versus takers, the taxpayers versus the tax consumers, right?
While so many Canadians are working hard, struggling to afford the necessities of life and see their tax bills going up, then you have the political and bureaucratic class that just spend money like crazy on this lavish stuff overseas.
We talked about some of these lavish properties Global Affairs Canada owns in all these different countries, but let's not forget about the fact that, you know, on a six-day tour of the Indo-Pacific region last year, Trudeau spent 200 grand plus on airplane food, or the governor general spending $100,000 with their entourage on airplane food during a week-long trip to the Middle East, or the Governor General billing taxpayers for $70,000 on limo services in Iceland.
Okay, so like, look, we're experiencing two classes of Canadians, the people who work hard, produce hard, lose their money to taxes, and the politicians and bureaucrats that are living high on the hog with our tax dollars.
Laws Enforced: Setting Limits00:04:04
The makers versus the takers.
There you have it.
Franco, keep up the good fight of the taxpayers.
We're on your side.
Thanks, Ezra.
Cheers.
Oh, my God.
How do you even spend that much?
I don't even know.
Well, Trudeau will find a way.
Stay with us.
Morehead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me about my conversation with Barbara Kay.
Spartan says, banned Lore's prayer in schools, but Muslims are allowed to pray.
Total BS.
The point I was trying to make, and I didn't make it as clearly as I wanted the first time around, is that we have so many laws as is to stop this crime wave across Canada.
And I call it a crime wave because trespass mischief, vandalism, harassment, stalking, you know, uttering threats, blocking the roads.
I mean, whether it's some environmentalist group or a pro-Hamas group, blocking the roads is against the law already.
Now, there may be other places where we need to remove religion from a neutral space, a separation of mosque and state.
I'm fine with that.
But the way to solve Hamas thugs taking over the downtown intersection is use the laws on the books right now.
But we're not.
We're not.
We're not arresting people for making threats, for even assaults.
And I think that's a political decision.
My point is it's a weird fact or a weird piece of turf for Francois Lego to decide to fight back.
And by the way, he's 14 months too late.
Mr. Gardner says, you only need to look at the street closures by Muslims in France and Germany to see what Justin Trudeau's planned for Canada and Canadians.
I don't know if Trudeau has that plan.
I think it's the other way around.
These groups, which are largely foreign nationals, in many cases funded and directing by foreign nationals, including by Iran, they're just seeing how far they can go, what they can get away with.
In Alberta, they cleared them off the streets right away.
They cleared that university encampment right away.
They blocked the streets.
They cleared it right away, and they haven't tried again.
In Toronto and Montreal, they do it every week and they get away with it every week.
And that's the new normal.
That's shifting the Overton window.
That's the new default state.
And that's why it's so demoralizing for people in Toronto and Montreal.
Howard Tenenbaum says, I agree with Ezra.
We don't need new laws.
We simply need existing municipal, provincial, and federal laws to be enforced.
And by enforced, I don't mean keeping the peace.
By preventing counter-demonstrations or keeping demonstrating groups separate from one another, those who break one of several laws on the books should be arrested and charged, period.
Well, that's the thing.
And that's why I knew the cops were wrong to arrest me for inciting a breach of the peace instead of arresting those who were perhaps threatening the breach of the peace.
You don't go after the law-abiding guy.
And, you know, just the other day, there was a huge protest outside a Jewish synagogue in North Toronto, in the city of Vaughan.
And there's two laws that stop that.
Section 176.2 of the Criminal Code says basically you can't harass a church or a synagogue or I think the phrase is a religious, a place of a religious or a moral or a social purpose.
It's basically designed to stop people from harassing churches.
I mean, it's such a specific law.
Cops didn't enforce it.
The city brought in its own bylaw, a 100-meter bubble zone for being a nuisance to a church or synagogue.
Cops didn't enforce it.
I don't know about the constitutionality of that 100-meter law, but it wasn't enforced even though it was just written a few months ago.
And I think that we have a real problem in that you're seeing legislation from the streets.
We're not setting the laws in courts or in legislatures.
Legislation from the Streets00:00:22
These Hamas foreign provocateurs are setting the de facto laws in our country.
That's just how it is.
And I think it's got to change.
And it's going to need moral leadership from premiers and the prime minister.
Right now we don't have that.
Well, that's the show for today.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.