Danielle Smith, Alberta’s Premier, rejects cutting off U.S. oil exports—96% of which fuel Canada’s economy—as legally dubious under USMCA and economically catastrophic, warning it would spark separatist backlash. Ezra Levant contrasts her pragmatic diplomacy with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, accused of prioritizing WEF-aligned policies like "build back better" over trade realism, while Mark Carney’s potential PM bid is framed as a shadowy succession plot involving proroguing Parliament and unelected figures like the Governor General. Smith’s conservative stance aligns better with Trump’s administration than Trudeau’s perceived weakness, suggesting Canada’s future hinges on resisting elite-driven "crypto government" agendas before October’s election. [Automatically generated summary]
Boy, we're going to chew over the Canada-U.S. TIF.
Is Donald Trump serious?
Is Melanie Jolie serious when she says she's going to cut off oil supplies to America?
Is that even legal?
And would that push Canada into breaking up with Alberta?
Say, hey, you know what?
If you're going to block our oil sales to America and throw 100,000 Albertans out of work, why don't we take Donald Trump up on his offer to join them?
We'll have a hearty conversation about this with our friend Lauren Gunter.
And I'm going to play you some clips.
I want you to see those clips.
So please go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
That's the video version of this podcast.
It's $8 a month, which might not sound like a lot to you, but boy, we give you a ton of stuff, new content every day, and you get the satisfaction of keeping Rebel News strong.
That's RebelNewsPlus.com.
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All right.
Here's today's podcast.
Tonight, Danielle Smith is a better diplomat to America than all of the federal government combined.
I'll show you why.
It's January 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you sensorious bug.
Sometimes when you say all options are on the table, you actually mean that.
Looking for Solutions00:16:06
I think when you say that most of the time as a politician, it means you have no idea what you're doing.
And so you don't want to rule anything out because who knows, maybe the journalist asking you a question has a better suggestion than you yourself have.
In the case of a DEI quota appointee in cabinet, namely Melanie Jolie, when she says she really is having everything on the table, it's because she has no clue what she's doing.
I refer to this interview where she says she's open to cutting off Canadian energy sales to the United States.
Here, I'll let you see it with your own eyes.
Take a look.
So if these tariffs are applied as he has threatened them to be, which we don't know the case, he hasn't announced that the specifics up, but he says 25%.
I was interviewing six economists, the top six economists, the chief ones for all the big banks the other day.
And collectively they said the hit to the economy, we're looking to the tunes of millions of jobs.
You're looking at a 3% contraction and essentially an immediate recession.
So it's in that vein against that backdrop I ask you about what retaliation would look like.
Is your government prepared to cut off supplies of energy, for example, to the United States?
What I can tell you is everything is on the table.
And that's the conversation we will have, the Prime Minister, Minister LeBlanc, and myself with the Premiers next week.
And that's a conversation also I'll take to Republican senators and key Republican decision makers in Washington next week, because this is indeed a decision that would be taken by President-elect Trump that would have devastating impacts on Canadians.
And so for those who are watching us right now, it is important to understand that the threat is real and we're acting on it.
And that's why I'm calling every political leader in this country to be on board, because this is not time for division.
This is not time for weakness.
This is time of strength and unity.
I guess I would just ask, though, if, you know, if you are coming from, because it's not just the Conservatives, it's all the opposition parties.
And the issue is like they're becoming even more critical because they would argue, I think, the Prime Minister has put the country in this spot.
By making the decisions he did when he did it.
I'm not saying it's not your decision to make, obviously, but he is the leader of your party.
By waiting until when he did, we're in a more vulnerable place where no one is really sure of exactly what's going to happen or what your government is going to pursue.
Can you impart a sense of confidence on Canadians that your government can navigate this despite the weakened position we find ourselves in?
Let's not fall into the narrative that Canadians were looking for this, that Canadians did anything wrong to attract any form of tariff threats.
That's a false narrative.
No, that's not the narrative.
The narrative isn't.
The question is around the Prime Minister's decision and his timing.
He had multiple opportunities to do what he did.
I had many conversations with the foreign minister of Mexico, with the foreign minister of Denmark, with my colleagues in Europe.
Trust me, nobody was completely looking forward to everything that President-elect Trump has said since he's been elected.
And by the way, he never talked about it in Fairpoint during the elections.
We're reacting to his new rhetoric.
Now, we've gone through Trump 1.0 administration.
We've gone through tariffs because he has imposed in the past tariffs on steel and aluminum.
We had a strong response at the time.
We did a dollar-for-dollar retaliation package, and we were very specific, very surgical how we were reacting.
That's what we'll do.
But at the same time, 25% on the entire Canadian economy is extremely important.
So that's why we have to put everything on the table.
I don't know if that's even legally allowed.
I don't think that Canada, under the terms of the U.S. MCA trade agreement, formerly called NAFTA, I don't think that Canada can unilaterally cut off sales to the United States, except for in a condition where Canada itself is running out of oil.
It's been a while since I've read the treaty.
So I think that literally Melanie Jolie has no idea what she's talking about.
But the fact that she would say, oh, we're going to just shut down the number one export our country has to the United States and to hack with the Alberta oil industry shows where she's coming from.
She didn't say we're going to stop sending automobiles from Windsor to the United States.
She didn't say we're going to stop any other export.
It's just Alberta would be the sacrifice zone.
Here's what Alberta's Premier, Danielle Smith, has to say about that.
First of all, it's oil and gas is owned by the provinces, principally Alberta, and we won't stand for that.
And you should never, ever threaten something you cannot do.
And I would encourage the minister to look at a map of where line five goes.
Line five comes down through Michigan to get to Sarnia.
And then that feeds the bulk of the supply needed for Ontario and connects with line nine, which feeds the bulk of the product needed for Quebec.
And so if you cut off that line, you are cutting off Ontario and Quebec.
So I would encourage the ministers to either understand how our integrated pipeline system works.
and start looking at ways that we would be able to practically respond because there's no point in making empty threats that cannot be executed on.
So there are other things I'm sure that we'll all talk about collectively, but let's just remember how integrated our markets are with the Enbridge system, the TC Energy system, that we have a product going back and forth across the border every single day.
And we cannot do anything that harms Canadians in such a substantial way.
So I just don't take that as a credible threat.
I'm sure that the U.S. administration won't either.
So we should talk about things that we actually can do as opposed to empty threats.
If they were to proceed down that path for some reason, what would be Alberta's response?
Well, they will have a national unity crisis on their hands at the same time as having a crisis with our U.S. trade partners.
We just won't stand for that.
And I don't think Ontarians in Quebec should stand for that as well.
They shouldn't be standing by and listening while a federal minister talks about cutting off their energy supply.
That's just not on.
That makes no sense.
A national unity crisis.
Of course, she's accurate.
There's something else in that clip there, though.
She says the Liberals don't even know enough about energy to know that if you stop the export of oil to America, one of the important pipelines that brings oil to Ontario and Quebec cuts through the United States.
These are idiots.
You know what?
I saw a piece of good news today, which is that the Liberal government, the Liberal caucus, pardon me, is going to have one last party, one last retreat on January 20th and 21st.
They're going to go and party it up at some luxury lodge and have a farewell dinner.
I'm glad.
I mean, of course, it's extremely expensive and they're just wringing out everything they can, but that tells me that none of those MPs are going to be down in Washington during that key time of the inaugural because they would only screw it up.
You know that's true.
By contrast, Danielle Smith herself will be in Washington, D.C.
She has been several times schmoozing, trying to let people, she even met with Donald Trump the other day.
I don't know if you saw her Twitter picture.
It looked like a very brief meeting, but at least she's there flying the flag and saying, hey, Donald Trump, the one import you actually want from Canada more than any others is oil.
And by the way, we like you enough to understand that you just want a stronger border.
I think Danielle Smith is doing more diplomacy than the entire federal government combined.
I think that's deliberate.
I think Justin Trudeau wants to fight with Trump.
He hates Trump.
And I think he realizes that the Liberal Party has a chance in the upcoming election if it can frame its enemy as Donald Trump as opposed to Pierre Pollio.
So you've heard some of my thoughts on this before, but let me introduce to you a friend of ours who covers Danielle Smith and the province of Alberta quite closely and is intimately familiar with oil and gas.
I'm talking, of course, about our friend Lauren Gunter, senior commentator at the Edmonton Sun, who joins us now.
Lauren, great to see you again.
Good to see you.
What do you take of the fact that Melanie Jolie would just so cavalierly say, oh, yeah, we'll just turn off the oil taps.
I don't even think that's constitutionally legal.
I mean, I think.
I think constitutionally they have the right to stop something from being exported because they're in charge of that.
But you're right in that under the Canada-Mexico-United States trade agreement that was worked out back in 2017, I don't think they have the power to do that.
I also don't think that Donald Trump has the power to impose a 25% tariff under that same agreement.
I think both sides are acting badly.
But yeah, it's lunacy to say we'll just cut off energy sales to the United States.
First of all, 96 or 97% of our oil exports go to the United States.
Now, since the Trans Mountain Pipeline started up in May of 2024, we've increased the amount that's being sent to Asia.
We'll continue to increase that amount, but it doesn't come anywhere close yet to the amount that gets sent to the United States.
We would be cutting off our own noses to spite Melanie Jolie's face because about one-third of all Canadian exports are Alberta oil and gas.
So it would affect the entire economy.
It would affect the entire American economy too, because we are now responsible for about 24 or 25% of all the oil that they process in the United States.
That's how big we've become.
Since 1993, when we were a small percentage of America's import oil, we have, as they have decreased their exports, we've also increased ours so that we are now two-thirds of America's imported oil.
We far exceed Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, the other exporting countries.
And that was deliberate.
You'll remember under the Bush administration that Dick Cheney, who was the vice president, who had been an oil executive, saw Canada as an integral part of America's domestic energy security.
And so he wanted us treated as though we were a 51st state, like we were part of the United States.
We could be counted on.
We could be relied upon to provide them with energy quickly, cleanly, et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, you've written a book about all of that.
So it doesn't behoove either side to be playing this stupid game.
But the federal liberals are double stupid.
Like Trump is crazy like a fox.
Look at what he's made the federal government here do.
I mean, they're spinning around like tops because of his threat of a 25% tariff.
They should be looking for ways to increase our border security so that there are fewer illegal immigrants going from here to the United States and fewer illegal drugs.
They're not doing that, but they are spinning like, as I said, like tops in fear of this 25% tariff.
But they have no understanding of economics.
They don't really understand what that would do.
They don't really know how they could stop that.
They just know that they can.
The first thought every liberal has is, how can this win me votes?
That's the first thought they have.
And so do they know how much the Americans are dependent on our oil?
Do they know how much we are dependent on exports to them?
No, but it looks really good to shake your fist at Donald Trump because that might get you a vote in downtown Toronto.
Yeah.
You know, it would cost, I would say, in the billions to strengthen our border.
I think the federal government has proposed $1.3 billion.
It probably needs to be several times that.
We've seen provinces like Alberta take steps without waiting for the feds, which is sort of unusual.
But again, that's Danielle Smith trying to get ahead of this.
Let's just say it's 10 times that.
I'm just making up a number.
Let's say it's $13 billion to harden our border with the U.S. That's all Trump.
Trump said, I want fewer illegal drugs and fewer illegal migrants, including terrorists.
All right, well, Canada wants that too.
So let's say you could spend $10 billion to get that done, as opposed to all these proposed trade wars that not only Melanie Jolie, but frankly, Doug Ford of Ontario seems really excited about.
They seem really butch.
Oh, we're going to do this.
We're going to ban this and tariff that.
The cost of turning off the taps of oil for one week would exceed $10 billion.
And they're so excited about talking about that Butch trade war instead of actually fixing the problem.
They literally would rather keep illegal drugs and migrants going than avoid a trade war.
That's the crazy thing to me.
I mean, yeah, there's a lot of points about is it legal?
Could they do it?
By the way, Lauren, a lot of the oil companies operating in Alberta are American companies.
We call it Imperial Oil in the States.
If I'm not mistaken, that's known as Exxon.
I think that's the Canadian subsidiary.
And I think half of the ownership of Canada's different oil sands companies are American pension funds.
I mean, those are, I mean, yeah, there's Canadian companies, of course there are, and they're Canadian workers, but there's a lot of American ownership of those companies in the stock market.
They're all listed on the New York Stock Exchange, for heaven's sakes.
So it makes no sense to go down the road of this war.
And I think that's what Danielle Smith is politely saying.
And by the way, that's what Stephen Harper said.
Here, let me play a quick clip of Harper saying, Look, you're actually getting our oil at a discount because we really can't sell it to other people because all those pipelines have been blocked.
Energy East has been blocked, the Northern Gateway.
Here's a quick clip of Harper saying, Yeah, we actually subsidize America with below world market price oil.
Take a look.
I understand that, you know, Donald Trump may want some changes in trade arrangements, but I must admit to being shocked by some of the things he said.
They're just not so.
You know, first of all, we don't actually sell dairy into the United States or sell almost none.
So that's not true.
Canada, it is true that Canada presently has a modest trade surplus with the United States.
The reason, Gabe, we do is because you buy so much of our oil and gas.
In fact, you buy it at a discount to world markets.
It's actually Canada that subsidizes the United States in this regard.
And, you know, so maybe my response is maybe Canadians, if Mr. Trump feels this way, should be looking at selling their oil and gas to other people.
He Gets Rid of Women Who Challenge Him00:02:37
We certainly have always wanted to do some of that.
Maybe now's the time to do it.
So, yeah, and again, Harper's tone there is not belligerent, but is very grown up.
And it's a guy who has read the briefing notes.
I don't think Melanie Jolie has read a briefing note since she became an MP.
It's just, it's, I'm ready to have tough conversations.
All options are on the table.
She really is the female equivalent of Jagmeet Singh.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
She's actually the female equivalent of Justin Trudeau.
Justin Trudeau is not a very bright guy.
I mean, you used to call him the shiny pony.
I used to call him the lightweight because I think he is.
I think he's an intellectual lightweight.
I don't think he's very smart.
He sounds clever because he's not too bad with words, although the way he delivers a speech now tends to rankle most people.
It gets under their skin.
It's kind of a smarmy, cloying way of speaking.
But nonetheless, he's not terribly bright.
He doesn't understand this stuff and he doesn't pretend to understand it, which is unfortunate.
But when you're prime minister, you don't have to understand every file.
You simply have to bring into your cabinet people who do.
But none of his cabinet ministers really understand any of this either.
Melanie Jolie is called by Warren Kinsella, who was a colleague of both of ours back at Sun News.
He calls her the worst cabinet minister in Canadian history.
And she is just, and that's that's a long list of people.
A lot of people, yeah.
You know, so that's a pretty high bar, low bar, however you want to look at it, for her to jump over.
She is terrible.
She's not very clever.
And I think in that respect, that's why Trudeau picked her.
She's an attractive francophone woman from Montreal, and she doesn't challenge him.
He gets rid of women who challenge him.
He gets rid of the Christian Freelance.
He gets rid of the Jody Wilson rayballs.
All of those.
Jane Philpot.
If you're a smart woman and you challenge him, he dumps you.
So that's why Melanie Jolie has been in cabinet as long as she has is because she's not very smart and she doesn't challenge him.
And unfortunately, she's now in charge of the file.
I mean, she said, I'm not running for the liberal leadership because I need to concentrate on the Canada-U.S. trade dispute.
No, she's not running for the liberal leadership because she couldn't get the money and she couldn't get the support.
There was almost no one in caucus who wanted to throw their name behind her in an endorsement.
Leadership Games Played00:15:21
That's what caused you.
She had very little chance of winning.
That's why she didn't run.
But the bad news is she's now going to focus on the Canada-U.S. file and she's not very good at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that, I mean, Donald Trump is bodacious and bellicose and braggadochus and all sorts.
I mean, whatever adjective you got, he is.
I mean, let me pull the camera back for a second.
Donald Trump is talking about retaking the Panama Canal.
And he's saying 38,000 Americans died building it, mainly of malaria.
That's an astonishingly high number.
That's almost like World War I casualties number.
Not quite, but it's a huge number.
And America built it.
Most of the shipping is American.
And Donald Trump is saying they're gouging us.
Jimmy Carter sold it for a dollar.
He shouldn't have.
China's mucking around.
We're going to retake it.
And that actually they might.
They might retake.
And then there's Greenland.
And it's a huge geography with a tiny population.
In a way, it's like our own Nunavut.
And there's U.S. military presence there.
And the local Inuit in Greenland sort of won independence from Denmark.
So again, it's a little bit of a stretch, but it's not insane given that the U.S. has bases there and Greenland people themselves want a little bit more sovereignty than they have now.
So those two things are not crazy.
I mean, Alaska was once bought by the Americans, and that wasn't too long ago.
So maybe Elon Musk will buy Greenland for Trump for his next birthday.
That's right.
But then Trump really starts working these internet memes about Canada being the 51st state.
And I think it's to yank our chain.
And you know what?
And if you read, and I read, by the way, I bought the book Art of the Deal again, and I've started rereading it.
And you just got to understand this is how Trump works.
He's always been this way.
He's always been audacious.
He's always had chutzpah.
And he does it because that's his personality style, but he does it to knock the other guy off balance.
Exactly.
He reset the realm of what's possible.
If he says, I want to own Canada, and you negotiate him down to okay, fine, we'll just give you what you really wanted.
That's you got to understand that's how Trump works.
Exactly.
That's exactly what he's on about.
He had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trudeau before Christmas.
He joked about Canada becoming the 51st state and Trudeau becoming its governor.
He realized that it got under Trudeau's skin, so he just kept poking it.
He's just poking and poking and poking.
And, you know, there's an element of bullying in there too, but who cares?
Don't let it get to you.
But the Laurentian elite in this country has gone nuts.
I think it's really funny.
Over the last week, Trudeau has given three media interviews and only three.
All three were to U.S. outlets that he could count on to be friendly to him.
Mark Carney, the person we all expect will jump in, the former Bank of Canada governor who we all expect will jump into the liberal leadership race, has given one sit-down interview, and that was with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show.
I mean, they may all squawk about Canada, about the United States claiming us as the 51st state, but where do they run when they want to get a favorable interview without too much hassle?
And it's right down to the United States.
They're acting as though we're already the 51st.
I mean, Christia Freeland herself used to be a regular on Bill Maher's show.
The head of the CBC would commute in from Brooklyn.
It was Trudeau who derided our country as a post-national country with no core values.
He's the one who stripped John A. McDonald off the $10 bill.
He's the one who said we're genociders.
He's the one who tried to denude us of our history.
And suddenly he's the great patriot, is he?
Well, I mean, Donald Trump knows the weakness.
As you say, he is like a bully in that he can find that one thing that you're sensitive about.
That's why he's so good with giving people nicknames because he knows the thing.
He can find their essence and nickname them.
And it sticks.
It sticks.
But here's the thing about Alberta.
Of all Canadians who would consider joining the U.S., Alberta typically is the most, is the highest number.
And in fact, there's a lot of Americans in Alberta because of historical reasons and the oil patch, et cetera.
And if Melanie Jolie were ever to precipitate that unity crisis, and I don't think that she would be allowed to, wouldn't that be something if she added some push to Donald Trump's pull?
Because it is legal, in my understanding, because of course we went through this with Quebec.
It went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
There was a reference on Quebec separatism.
And the Supreme Court of Canada found that unlike in the United States, where secession was illegal, and in fact, it started a civil war, in Canada, you can secede.
And in fact, the Supreme Court plus one with a clear question.
Yeah.
So if Melanie Jolie said, ha ha, we will use Alberta as a sacrifice province in our spiteful battle against Trump, between his saying, hey, guys, come on down, and Melanie Jolie saying, we hate you, I'm not saying it'll happen, but it's a non-zero chance that someone in Alberta might say, you know what?
We will join and we'll take all 170 billion barrels of oil with us.
And by the way, it's probably the most pro-American province.
And good luck to the rest of years without your equalization payments.
And how long before Saskatchewan joined?
And then how long before BC said we're so great?
I'd be willing to say to the Americans, hey, if you want us, we got this nice little neighbor over to the east.
They don't need much.
They're pretty self-sufficient.
They're polite people.
They do a lot of farming.
Would you take them too?
And I think they would probably take Saskatchewan in the deal.
We have $530 billion a year in exports in this country, too, of the whole world.
$169 billion of that last year was Alberta oil to the United States.
So in a country that is dependent on exports for its economic survival, we are the key in Alberta.
And so you make us angry at your peril if you're sitting there in Ottawa.
And frankly, there's a lot of loyalty in Alberta to Canada.
We like the idea of Canada.
But at some point, we're going to say, you know, the Americans aren't that bad either.
They're at least not trying to take our oil and keep us from selling it.
And so I can see, I see exactly what you're talking about: is that at some point, this not much of a separatist movement now, there's a possibility there could be one.
You know, Canadians love following American politics.
The whole world does.
The whole world was riveted by the presidential election.
So when my American friends chide me and joke about annexing Canada, I say, oh, really?
You want another California in the electoral college?
You want another 30 or 40 electoral seats going Democrat every time?
And they say, oh, right.
And I say, and welcome to trilingualism.
You think you have a hassle with Spanish?
Welcome to Francais.
And I just started throwing these little things there.
And then they cool off pretty quick.
And it's all in good humor.
But let me say this: Alberta, and I don't, I mean, Alberta joining the union is not that insane.
And it wouldn't bring economic problems.
It wouldn't bring cultural or language problems.
And it would have, I don't know, I'd have to do the math, 10 or 15 electoral college seats.
And I think, I think, wouldn't I think it's going to happen?
And we're all talking about a fantasy.
But the very fact we're talking about it is because the liberals don't know how to be grown-ups and they don't know how to handle Donald Trump other than to indulge their hate for him.
They have Trump derangement syndrome and they can't hide it.
Yes.
And I'm told that Mark Carney will be in Alberta on Thursday to announce his leadership because he wants to emphasize the fact that, you know, he was raised in Edmonton.
He's an Alberta boy.
He understands the West.
He's going to reduce the alienation at the Westfields.
Sure he is.
I don't buy that for a second because you know who announced his leadership bid in 2013 in Calgary?
Justin Trudeau.
Oh, well, there you go.
Justin Trudeau made his official announcement in Calgary in 2013.
And how did that turn out?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mark Carney, I mean, he, in fact, I think he was born in Northwest Territories.
If remember, he was.
He was born in Hay River.
And then he went to school in Edmonton.
Then he went to Harvard.
Then he went to Goldman Sachs, then the Finance Department, then Bank of Canada, then Bank of England.
And somewhere in there, Oxford.
Yeah.
And he has a doctorate.
He has a doctorate from Oxford.
I mean, the man's a smart man.
And when he was Stephen Harper's governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, Canada weathered it very much better than any other G7 country.
And that was because he put strict limits on money printing, unlike Tiff Macklam, who was Trudeau's governor during the pandemic, who thought, well, just turn the presses on.
It's going to be fine.
We can print the unlimited number of money.
It won't have any impact at all.
And of course, it just drove inflation through the roof.
So Carney is probably a better governor of the Bank of Canada than Tiff Macklam.
But again, that's not a very high bar over which to jump.
And he was not a particularly good governor of the Bank of England.
And I took great satisfaction the other day reading that the largest American banks are pulling out of the coalition that Carney formed of banks to support net zero investment.
And they've all decided it's not in the interest of their shareholders to be involved in these.
And so they're all pulling out.
And so this whole woke environmentalist investment idea is falling apart at the very time that he's going to start pushing that stuff in the liberal leadership campaign.
Yeah, it shows that it was never really about the environment.
It was just about politics and being in good with the ruling elite.
And it's like Marcus Zuckerberg suddenly seeing the light on freedom of speech.
I'm glad he did it, but he was just tacking to the right as America did too.
And he didn't want Donald Trump to fight him.
Hey, by the way, it's a good rule of thumb that if you've got a central banker named Tiff, keep your hand on your wallet.
You know what it's short for?
No.
Tiffany.
Oh, right.
Okay.
If I was named Tiffany, I would go by Tiff also.
I don't think I'd want to be the central banker if my name was, if I was named after an elaborate jewelry store.
You know, you can't blame him for the name his mama gave him, I guess.
You know, there is, I just keep thinking of the process here that the Liberal Party on March 9th, through their own process, which allows kids as young as 14 to vote, which allows permanent residents who are not citizens to vote, which does not require any money.
So you don't even have the credit card, which is a kind of ID, right?
A credit card, if a credit card has to match your name, that is actually a form of ID.
No, you don't even need that.
So this process that can be absolutely gamed, and don't tell me they're not having a coding contest in Beijing right now to see who can get an AI system to game it.
I mean, seriously.
No, no, I'm laughing, but I agree with you.
I think you're right.
If they worked on 11 writings to influence, why wouldn't they try and influence the whole shot?
And through that crooked process, a new prime minister will be installed.
Now, perhaps it'll be Christy Freeland or Karina Gould.
I doubt it.
I think Mark Carney is the chosen one, and he will win not by election, but by succession.
And he, I'm sure, will cut a deal.
He's a deal maker.
He'll cut a deal with Jagmeet Singh, and he'll rule till October.
And you will have a hand-curated oligarch who was on the board of the World Economic Forum, being Canada's prime minister until October.
That is my fear.
And the Governor General went along with this, by the way.
Yep.
Well, honestly, I think she had to.
I don't like the fact that they've prorogued parliament because it's really just to save the Liberal Party's butt.
But I wouldn't want the Governor General getting involved in that either.
I mean, it would have to be a real constitutional crisis before I thought the Governor General, who's unelected and unaccountable, should get involved in all that.
But let's talk for just a second about how incestuous this whole process is.
Mark Carney is the godfather of Christia Freeland's son.
And he was her mentor when she was at, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, one of the Financial Times, one of the places that she worked as a reporter, as a journalist before she went into politics.
She considered Carney her mentor on economic policy.
And on top of that, they've both been heavily involved in the World Economic Forum.
And so that doesn't, like, I don't see that as a conspiracy to rule the world, but it is an indication of the mindset.
They both have the same elitist central Canadian mindset.
And I just don't think that works anymore.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if it's a conspiracy, but Klaus Schwab, the owner of the World Economic Forum, and I say owner because he's not elected.
It's not a public entity.
He owns it.
And I'm told he makes $300 million a year off their Davos gathering.
I absolutely believe it, by the way.
I mean, there's no doubt that he's a billionaire, and he rubs shoulders with everyone from Larry Fink of BlackRock on down.
Here's Klaus Schwab boasting about penetrating the cabinets that he claims that half the cabinet in Canada is World Economic Forum.
And again, he's a boastful man, but actually, if you Google it, half of the cabinet really I'm sure they are.
I mean, I'm having trouble with that because that's the kind of organization they want to belong to.
It rubs their egos.
Crypto Elite Access00:04:19
It strokes their egos while at the same time giving them access to people they see as powerful leaders.
And they love that stuff.
And it also feeds their nobles obligé idea that, well, you know, here we are, the elites, and we should really be doing more for the underprivileged in the world.
So let's all get together and talk about how wonderful our social programs are.
Yeah, please forgive it.
Here's that clip of Klaus Schwab boasting that way.
What we are very proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on, that we penetrate the cabinets.
So yesterday I was at a reception for Prime Minister Trudeau.
And I would know that half of this cabinet or even more, half of this cabinet are for our actually young noble leaders of the World Economic Forum.
Well, Lauren, as you know, every year Rebel News sends some people to World Economic Forum in Davos.
They never let us in, of course.
So we hang out.
It's like the drawbridge comes down over the moat.
Like it's a highly protected area.
Really, I mean, not just police, but soldiers are there, heavily armed.
I should say the Swiss police have the lightest touch of any police I've ever encountered anywhere in the world.
They're very respectful of free speech.
They never stop you from scrumming a politician as long as you don't touch them or threaten them.
Twice our car was pulled over and we just said we're journalists.
We have freedom of speech.
And the police literally said, you're right, on your way.
Like it was actually the most beautiful interaction I've ever had with police.
In fact, I'd say the cops are a little bit shy.
And they're heavily armed, so there's no shenanigans.
But I mean, David Menzies has been arrested five times last year by police for covering stories involving Hamas protesters.
That would never happen in Switzerland.
We get right up to these VVIPs.
It's quite something.
So we're going to be there.
Normally we look for Christia Freeland and Mark Carney, but they're going to be busy implementing the strategy in Canada while we're over there.
But I have to say, they really do, like the phrase crypto government, what does it mean?
Well, crypto literally means hidden.
Here's why I call it a crypto government out there.
It does not pass laws.
That's true.
But it has meetings to discuss policy.
There's all sorts of lobbying.
There's fundraising, but none of it is seen.
There's no Hansard.
There's no official opposition.
There's no independent media.
Media are there, but they pay hundreds of thousands to get in, so they're on the inside.
There's no lobbyist registry.
There's no list of who's meeting who.
So when Christian Freeland goes to Davos every year as a board member, we don't know who she meets.
We don't know what she says and what she talks to.
What happens in Davos stays in Davos in terms of reporting, but then they go out and they all use phrases like build back better or great resets.
So it's not, I don't know if it's a, I don't, I won't go full all the way.
It's a conspiracy, but they are conspiring to move to get rich.
To me, it's kind of like the UN.
The UN has no police force of its own.
It passes resolutions, but the resolutions all come from member states.
And the member states use the United Nations to pass policies that they know they couldn't get past their voters at home.
They pass them at the UN, and then they come back and they say, wow, you know, we don't like this any more than you do, but the UN's making us do it.
The UN is them.
Yeah.
And it's a sneaky, clever, as you say, crypto way of implementing policy and making it look like it comes from above.
Yeah.
Well, it's very interesting.
And I just think of the fact that right now it looks, I mean, we'll see how Christia Freeland does, but it looks like the Trudeau insiders are all backing Carney.
Covering The Inauguration00:07:06
Katie Telford, Gerald Buddz.
Yes, it does.
And Trudeau himself.
So, I mean, that's a lot of momentum.
And of course, who the Chinese choose to back is the biggest thing.
And Pittfield, who is the keeper of all of the liberal data, was on Carney's side until he finally had to say, no, no, I'm not really.
I'm going to stay neutral.
Although nobody I know inside the Liberal Party thinks he's going to stay neutral.
So, yeah, I think they're all backing Carney.
I think Carney will win this and they'll end up with seven seats in downtown Toronto and three in Montreal.
But in the interim, he will have been installed.
He will have been selected, not elected, curated.
I call it succession.
It will be a manipulated succession.
And I think it will be one of the most undemocratic moments in Canadian history.
And I'm scared of what he's going to do to, quote, make his mark in the half year he will have before the October election.
And you know, Lauren, it's great to catch up with you.
And I say again that Danielle Smith is doing more constructive diplomacy with Trump than the entire federal government.
And I'm actually glad they're going to party at their last caucus retreat because they would only mess things up in Washington were they to go.
They would get into it.
I mean, it sounds like Trudeau just let Trump walk all over him.
Trump detected a soft spot and went after it.
Stephen Harper should be Pierre Polyev's pick for ambassador to the U.S. if Harper would deign to do it.
Stephen Harper would be a very effective advocate, knowledgeable.
Americans like him because they remember he was a solid conservative.
I think Stephen Harper would fix things.
And he sent troops and equipment to places that were important to the Americans to defend.
And so they put a lot of stock in that.
The very fact that we went into combat in Afghanistan under Harper got us a lot of credibility on economic issues.
Yeah.
Under Harper.
59 Canadians died in violence, terrorists in Afghanistan.
And that's a big load for a country of Canada's size.
And that was an American priority.
That was not actually, I wouldn't say that was a Canadian priority.
We said, we see our friends being attacked.
We're prepared to go and help.
And they put great stock in that.
Yeah.
And the fact that Trudeau is just like every other freshman at a U.S. college who's poo-pooing U.S. foreign policy, they see that too.
I think Harper would straighten things out in a minute.
And by the way, I think Donald Trump would respect Stephen Harper.
Yep.
I do too.
Well, very interesting.
It's great to catch up with you, my friend.
Thanks very much, folks.
If you haven't read it yet, the story is called Danielle Smith's Approach on Trump Tariffs.
Looks better than other efforts written by our friend Lauren Gunter in the Edmondson Sun.
Take care, my friend.
You too.
All right.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hi, everybody.
Boy, these are busy times, isn't it?
I mean, the United States is about to be transformed with the second Donald Trump presidency.
It's just really hours away.
You can see things moving in foreign affairs as countries start to realign themselves and domestically too.
The case of Mark Zuckerberg suddenly discovering his love for free speech now that Trump is about to take office.
Some of them are meaningful believers in freedom.
Most of them are just pragmatic.
That's how the world works, I guess.
I'm glad Mark Zuckerberg suddenly believes in freedom or says he does, whether it's real or not, I suppose is less important than is it happening.
We're going to cover that.
We were actually sending a team down to Washington, D.C. just to report things mainly on the street.
I will be down there as well.
I've been invited to an inaugural ball, if you can believe it.
And I thought, I've never been invited before.
I want to see who's there.
And I just don't want to turn down that invitation.
And I've also set up an interview, I've scheduled one with Premier Danielle Smith of Alberta.
I want to see when she's down there, what kind of meetings she's had, what kind of luck she's had.
So we're not just going for the fun, but we're going to, there's a rally the day before, a Trump rally the day before the election.
We'll cover that.
We'll cover the inauguration itself.
And I'm going to interview Danielle Smith.
I think that's important journalism because Danielle Smith is really the only person down there working the Republicans to try and lay off the tariffs.
We have a lot of other things cooking too.
I'm going to go directly from there to Davos, Switzerland.
As you know, every single year we cover the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Both of the leading candidates in the Liberal Party are World Economic Forum trustees.
Of course, Christia Freeland is a current director.
Mark Carney has been a director in the past.
They are top guns.
And the fact that we have to choose between two different World Economic Forum alumni is sort of crazy to me.
That's why we cover it, because there's a lot of things that are decided for Canada in Davos that we don't even know about here in Canada.
And no other Canadian media go to the World Economic Forum.
You would think they would.
You'd think the CBC would.
I mean, you'd think they would just want to hobnob with those VVIPs, but no, because they don't want to even acknowledge that Davos is important, whereas I think it is very important in terms of policies for the whole world.
I'm also going to make a less than 24-hour journey to the United Kingdom.
And I'm not going to give away why I'm going, but I will have some news when I'm on the ground there that I think you might find interesting.
And it relates to the recent kerfuffle led by Elon Musk to talk about a dark stain on the United Kingdom, which is these rape gangs that have been running rampant in that country and have actually been covered up to a large extent by the regime media and the government and the police and social workers because it's too difficult to talk about.
So I'll have a report to you from there.
I feel like I'm going to be a pinball ricocheting around, but I think all those stories are important to us here in Canada, don't you think?
I think it's important to hear directly from Danielle Smith in Washington, D.C., how she's doing, compelling Americans to say, no, don't put a tariff on your Canadian allies.
I think it's important to see how Trump transforms that country and what that means for Canada.
It's important to go to Davos to see the puppet masters, the oligarchs, and what they have planned for us.
And I'll have special news for you when I'm in London, England for less than 24 hours.
I'll give you a report from there.
So a lot coming up.
But always on our mind, number one, is our home, Canada, and how all these stories affect us.