Ezra Levant exposes Canada’s Liberal leadership debate as a staged audition for cabinet roles, not policy competition, with candidates like Chrystia Freeland fear-mongering about U.S. annexation—legally impossible under the Clarity Act—and Trump’s Keystone XL revival, despite $22B annual economic potential and refinery reliance on Canadian crude. Freeland’s disqualification of Ruby Dalla for WEF skepticism highlights democratic suppression, while Liberal plans for Ukraine troop deployments lack feasibility amid shrinking military capacity. Europe’s energy policies, like Germany’s nuclear phase-out, weakened its economy, and Ukraine’s Budapest Memorandum disarmament may have emboldened Russia’s 2014 and 2022 invasions. A Trump peace deal could force European accountability but risks abandoning Taiwan or Ukraine for perceived strategic gains, leaving Levant torn between misinformation fears and the need for resolution over endless war. [Automatically generated summary]
I talk about a lot of things, but I have a great conversation with my buddy Lauren Gunter about the Keystone XL pipeline.
Donald Trump wants to revive it from the dead four years after Joe Biden buried it.
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Buy All the Oil Sands00:15:21
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the liberal leadership contest isn't an election, it's a selection.
They're all in on it.
I'll show you.
It's February 25th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you sensorious bug.
I've got a great wide-ranging conversation and a bit of a debate with my friend Lauren Gunter tonight about the Keystone XL pipeline.
Donald Trump says he wants to revive it almost exactly four years after Joe Biden killed it.
I'll talk to Lauren about that and also about the looming Ukraine peace deal led by Trump.
I think Lauren and I have a different opinion about that one.
But let me talk for a minute about the liberal leadership debate.
So I'm recording this right now before tonight's English language debate.
I'll be live streaming that from our studios and giving my commentary.
But I did watch the French language version last night with my colleague Alexa Lavoie.
But it wasn't really a debate.
All four of the candidates pretty much agreed on everything.
In fact, they sort of helped each other out.
It was an agree-a-thon.
It's clear this thing is predetermined.
If this were a sports event of some sort, like a baseball game or a boxing match, it would be called fixed.
There were trivial differences amongst them.
They all have slightly different approaches to the carbon tax, for example, but it's mainly a difference in marketing, not a difference in substance.
They're all trying to outdo each other with the fear-mongering about the U.S. annexing Canada as if that's something that could just sort of happen, be triggered by some magic switch to be flipped or something.
They really went nuts.
Here's the craziest comment: a clearly fictional story by Christia Freeland.
A few weeks ago in Saskatoon, I met a little four-year-old girl.
She asked me whether I could prevent Trump from invading our country.
And that's why I am standing to lead the Liberal Party and to become the next Prime Minister of Canada.
Trump represents the greatest threat to Canada since World War II.
He is threatening us with an economic war, and that's nothing new.
The last time that he was president, he threatened us too.
And at the end of the day, I succeeded in protecting our economy.
But this time, Trump's threats are worse.
He wants to turn Canada into the 51st state.
And it's no joke.
That is why he is supporting Vladimir Putin's criminal attempt to redraw Ukraine's borders.
Trump wants to redraw our borders too.
We need a leader who understands the seriousness of these challenges and how to face them.
A leader that can respond and defend everyone in our wonderful country.
I will fight for us.
I will fight for Canada.
And together, we will win.
Yeah, that just didn't happen.
It was clear they all know that Mark Carney is just going to win.
So the others are really auditioning for cabinet positions.
Here's Christia Freeland helping out Carney when he accidentally, in his rickety French, said, we all agree with Hamas.
She helped him.
Hamas.
We all agree on Hamas on a two-state solution.
No, we don't agree with Hamas.
No, we're against Hamas.
We're not against Hamas.
And we're in favor of a two-state solution.
By the way, now we know why the Liberals refused to allow Ruby Dalla to participate.
She isn't in on this deal.
She would have asked questions of the other candidates, even prickly questions about her counterparts.
I mean, if you saw my interview with Ruby Dala the other day, she brought up unsolicited the fact that both Carney and Freeland are World Economic Forum people.
I hope that you'll keep in touch with us if you make a next move, whether that's appealing to the court to get back in or running as an independent or doing something else.
I'm excited by what you're saying, and it's a reminder of what a democracy is supposed to sound like.
So thanks very much for spending some time with us.
No, I appreciate it.
And I think that I join thousands of Canadians of ensuring that we continue to have free speech in our country, that we continue to have democracy.
I have never been a part of the World Economic Forum, and I believe that it is very important that we have the leadership in our country who actually reflects the needs of the hour, of our country, of Canadian families.
Yeah, they let Ruby Dala register as a candidate to take her $350,000 fee.
Then they disqualified her, but kept the money.
Yeah.
But I've been thinking a bit more about the Trump approach to Canada.
And here's a list of what he says he wants tangibly.
This is just the things I can think of.
He wants us to stop illegal migrants.
He wants us to stop illegal drugs.
He wants us to increase our military spending.
He wants us to allow U.S. banks to compete in the Canadian market.
He wants us to allow U.S. dairy to sell in Canada.
Those are the main things he's irritated about.
Of course, he also says he's against a trade surplus.
But I'm not sure if he's thought that through, given that the trade surplus is almost totally due to oil imports, which the U.S. can't just immediately replace with domestic production.
Like with Canada, we lose $200 billion a year with Canada.
That's because we allow them to make cars.
We allow them to take lumber.
We don't need their cars.
We don't need their lumber.
We don't need their food products because we make the same products right on the other side of the border.
It's sort of crazy.
So we've just allowed that bad management has allowed it over the last four years in particular to become very imbalanced.
And I said to, I call him Governor Trudeau, but he's Prime Minister Trudeau when he was Prime Minister.
I asked him, why would we do that?
Why?
And he was unable to give me an answer.
He said, I don't know.
And I said, do you think it's fair that we're paying $200 billion to keep Canada going?
And what would happen?
I said, I asked him, what would happen if we didn't do that, if we didn't subsidize Canada?
He said, we'd be a failed nation.
And I said, then you should be a state.
Because why are we paying all of that money to Canada when, you know, we could use it ourselves, right?
So we take care of their military.
You know, we ordered, we're going to order about 40 Coast Guard big icebreakers, big ones.
And all of a sudden, Canada wants a piece of the deal.
They say, why are we doing that?
I mean, I like doing that if they're a state, but I don't like doing that if they're a nation.
Also, they've been very nasty to us on trade.
Historically, Canada has been very, very bad to us, very unfair to us on trade.
So we'll see how it all works out.
I would love to see Canada be the 51st state.
The Canadian citizens, if that happened, would get a very big tax cut, tremendous tax cut, because they're very highly taxed.
And you wouldn't have to worry about military.
You wouldn't have to worry about many of the things.
You'd have better health coverage.
You'd have much better health coverage.
So I think the people of Canada would like it, you know, if it's explained.
But just to start off, they'd have a massive tax cut, and they'd have a lot more business because then we'd let business go to Canada routinely and there'd be no tariffs.
You know, if we did that, there'd be no tariffs.
So either he's going to buy it from us or some other foreign country.
So he wants those things I listed, which I think are reasonable demands dealt with.
And we could demand things in return, I'm sure.
It's called a negotiation.
But instead, the Liberals were having a costume party last night where they each dressed up as little soldiers ready to go to rhetorical war against Trump.
It was sort of crazy.
And it made me think of this story I saw today in the Financial Times, which is a very prestigious newspaper based in London.
White House official pushes to axe Canada from Five Eyes Intelligence Group.
A top White House official has proposed expelling Canada from the Five Eyes Intelligence Sharing Network.
As Donald Trump increases pressure on the country, he talks about turning into the 51st U.S. state.
Now, Five Eyes, of course, is sort of like the super friends of the Allies.
It's just five countries, U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Not even France or Germany.
It's like a best friends club of democracies.
It's the English-speaking countries.
Now, Peter Navarro came out today to say, no, no, it's not true.
But I wasn't convinced.
All he kept saying is how mad he was that it was an anonymous source that said it.
Here's a clip.
This nonsense from the Financial Times is a product of a culture in the media where they report stories and never name their sources.
And my view is that we should never have to comment on any story where it's based on unnamed sources.
Have you ever noticed that?
Okay?
That was just crazy stuff.
We would never, ever jeopardize our national security, ever, with allies like Canada, ever.
So please stop doing that.
And I have proposed, I hope somebody's hearing me, that we just don't pay any attention to any questions that are based on anonymous sources.
Yeah, I'm not actually convinced.
Either it was an intentional leak from Navarro, or it's a real leak, and he's mad about it, but it was a weird way to refute something.
The Financial Times says they stand by their story, by the way.
But mainly, it's credible on the face.
Trudeau supports Hamas through his tens of millions of dollars going to the UN Relief Works Agency.
Trudeau supports the international courts of justice against Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Canada would arrest Netanyahu if he ever set foot in Canada.
Trudeau supports Communist China and hasn't lifted a finger to stop the Chinese Communist Party infiltration of the Canadian government, including in 11 electoral districts.
So why wouldn't the U.S. kick Canada out of the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance?
Not out of vengeance, just like demanding Canada fund our military.
That's not out of vengeance.
And really, it goes to the thing that Trudeau hates, that 51st state business.
But really, if we rely on the U.S. economy, if we rely on the U.S. military, if we don't stop ourselves from being invaded by foreign interests, in fact, if we fast-track Gaza migrants, aren't we sort of acting like an unserious country, maybe like a state as opposed to a proud nation?
I think maybe.
Stay with us.
More ahead with Lauren Gunter.
Hopefully you're having a good time with this podcast, but I guarantee a better time would be coming to Alaska with me, Drea Humphrey, and my other rebel colleagues.
You've got to find out more at our special website, RebelNewsCruise.com.
But it's taking place June 18th to June 25th, a vacation trip of a lifetime.
Again, that's rebelnewscruise.com.
I'll see you there.
Well, Donald Trump has threatened to put a 10% tariff on Canadian oil.
Now, that 10% probably won't stop U.S. refineries from importing it.
Not only do they get a price that's typically lower than the world price, but it's a specific grade of oil from the oil sands.
It isn't easily swapped out by other oil suppliers, particularly from OPEC.
I keep holding on to Howard Luttnick.
That's the Commerce Secretary's statement about a month ago where he said, oh, this is just to get action from Canada.
We don't actually want to tariff the oil.
I hope Luttnick is right.
As you know, I've written a book about this called Deal of the Century, the America First Plan for Canada's Oil Sands.
We'll talk more about that book another time.
But I've found it frustrating because America First, in my mind, means securing the continental supply of oil, not buying oil from OPEC countries.
And one of the arguments I made in my book, Ethical Oil, a dozen years ago that I make again in Deal of the Century, is that the U.S. Pentagon spends at least $50 billion a year securing the Persian Gulf sea lanes.
The Fifth Fleet is based out there, and it's only doing that because that's where the oil comes from.
Now, if Americans really want to spend $50 billion and go through the effort of being globo cop, if they want to do that for their own reasons, fill your boots.
But if they're doing that just to protect Saudi oil, why not buy all the oil sands oil you can get?
And that's the deal of the century that I mentioned in the book.
Basically, buy all the oil sands.
It's a $13 trillion deal that I would think would appeal to a man who likes big deals.
Anyway, that's in the background.
And then yesterday, take a look at what Trump posts on his Truth Social platform.
Let me read it.
It says, our country's doing really well.
And today I was just thinking that the company building the Keystone XL pipeline that was viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden administration should come back to America and get it built now.
I know they were treated very badly by sleepy Joe Biden, but the Trump administration is very different.
Easy approvals, almost immediate start.
If not them, perhaps another pipeline company.
We want the Keystone XL pipeline built.
Now, I did a little bit of poking around because I assumed that deal was dead.
I think it was TransCanada Pipeline that originally owned it.
I think they sold it off to another or spun it off to another company called Southbow.
And you can imagine over the last four plus years, permits have expired.
You know, they're not just all standing by ready.
This thing is pretty much dead.
Joining us now to talk about this and the possibility of reviving the dead is our friend Lauren Gunter, senior columnist for the Edmonton Sun.
Lord, great to see you again.
Good to see you.
You know, I mean, I like Donald Trump's support for the Keystone XL pipeline, and he did indeed support it in his first term.
Biden killed it.
I don't know if you can warm up a corpse after four years.
Permitting Process Pain Points00:06:37
I mean, there's a lot of things that would have to work for that to be revived.
And I don't even think the company itself is sort of interested in it right now.
Well, TC Energy and Southbow, which is the subsidiary that TC set up to run the Keystone XL, have both said they're not interested.
But I think that could be overcome.
I don't think finding the pipe, finding the equipment, getting the workers would ultimately be the big problem.
But you have to remember that they spend almost a billion dollars in the permitting process.
And they went, it's not just federal permits that they need.
They need state-by-state permits.
In some places, they need county permits.
And for sure, they need Native American tribal land permits.
And the environmentalists and a lot of Native American groups fought them every inch of the way.
And it took them nearly 12 years to get all the permits in line.
That's the big holdup.
It's not, I mean, Trump says in that post that you just read out, easy permits.
We've got easy permits now.
And it probably does.
I think he'd probably sign an executive order allowing the cross-border permits for the pipeline tomorrow afternoon.
You know, the only reason, the only thing we're holding him up is he's got 1,500 other executive orders that he's got to get to in advance of that.
But nonetheless, I think that's right.
I think when he says permitting would be easy from the federal standpoint, that's probably true.
And if the people who are in charge of the permit, permitting for the federal government oppose him on that, if they put down on their lists that they have to send to Elon Musk every week of the things they've achieved, and one of those things is held up the Keystone Pipeline, I think they're out.
So I do think all that federal stuff is easy.
I think the physical side of it, the workforce side of it is easy enough.
I mean, I wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of all that, but there are people who are good at it.
But it's all of this other permitting and court challenges and everything else they have to go through that I think it's going to be hard.
No one would want the Keystone more than you and I. You know, I'd love to see it.
830,000 extra barrels a day to the United States.
It would increase our exports to the U.S. One pipeline.
It would increase our exports to the United States by nearly 20%.
Yeah, I mean, I remember that it was, I'm just going from my memory of when it was shut down, that it has 800, the capacity for 800,000 barrels a day.
Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
800,000 barrels a day at 75 bucks a barrel.
I'm not sure if it would quite yield that much, but that's $60 million a day.
I'm just going to use a calculator because I don't want to get that wrong.
If you do 60, I mean, every day, 60 million times 365, that's $22 billion a year, if my math is right.
I mean, that's rough numbers.
Even if it's half that, that's huge.
It's enormous.
It's in ours.
And so you know how big our trade is already with the United States at 4.4 billion or 4.4 million barrels a day from Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan into the United States.
Add another 830,000 barrels.
It's huge.
And I'm sure when he says he's putting tariffs on Canadian oil, he's hearing from all of the lobbyists on behalf of Midwest oil refineries who can only refine our oil.
They've been set up to refine the heavy crude that we send down in the pipelines.
And they can't easily switch to West Texas Intermediate or Brent or one of the other lighter, sweeter crudes.
And they also understand that, because most of them are integrated oil companies, they're buying from us at a deep discount.
And they're then able to sell their lighter, sweeter stuff, which commands a higher price on the world market.
So they make money twice.
They make money by buying from us because it's cheaper.
And they make money by selling the stuff they don't have to put through their refineries to make oil or to make gasoline.
So it's a win-win for those American refineries.
And there are 25 refineries in the U.S. Midwest, and 23 of them cannot take anything else but heavier oil.
Wow.
So, you know, it just makes no sense at all.
But the thing, when I saw it, both of these things were said yesterday.
I'm putting the tariffs on Canadian goods, March 1st, just like I said.
Hey, let's get Keystone.
I thought, what in hemitch?
He's actually two hemispheres of his brain for trying not love, because who is going to build him a pipeline to take extra amounts of our oil that he's penalizing with his tariffs?
Like, it just, it doesn't make any sense at all.
You know, there's so much money afoot.
If my math is right, if it really is 20 billion a year, and it sounds like it could be, like, you're right.
It's, that's like a fifth of what's going on right now.
Um, I mean, so just think of, you know, a finance guy would do the present value of the future income of this thing.
Like if this pipeline would last 50 years, the amount of oil that traverses it, well, frankly, I can do that math in my head.
That's $1 trillion.
50 years at 800,000 barrels, that's 75 bucks a barrel is almost exactly a trillion dollars.
A lot of things can get done.
Now you got a present value that whatever.
That's so much money.
And that's how he's a deal maker.
He's a real estate developer.
He thinks big.
I mean, there's the guy who looks at Gaza and says, I see a Riviera come in your future.
Like he's, in a way, he's a dreamer and a schemer and a planner.
And the Braggadocio is part of it.
You know, I really recommend to everybody out there, you want to understand Trump, reread art of the deal.
And I don't know.
I hope this thing can be revived.
He's a disruptor, right?
Dreamer And Schemer00:15:10
Yeah.
He likes to come into a situation where people want things from him and he wants things from them, but people want things from it.
Either they want to put the marble countertops in all the bathrooms in his new Trump tower, or they want to keep selling goods and services to the United States, whatever it is.
They want something from him or from the United States.
And he thinks the best way for him to get the best possible deal is to make those people, is to scare those people into a laundry bill they didn't expect.
Right.
By making them go out.
Look, last night, the liberal leadership contenders had their French language debate, and they spent about a quarter of the time, maybe even closer to half the time, talking about, oh, we can't let Trump annex Canada, annex this, annex, annex.
By what method would he annex Canada?
Our elite has gotten in their heads in this country that there is some quick mechanism where he can just declare us the 51st state, and we have to pay fealty to the United States.
I think I've used this example with you before.
The city of Leduc, which is right down by the airport in Edmonton, wants to annex part of the county of Leduc because it wants to build some new subdivisions.
So it goes to the province, which has legal authority over both entities and asks for permission.
To whom would the United States go to ask permission to annex Canada?
It's not the United Nations.
It's not the World Economic Forces.
It's to Canada.
It's to Canada.
So the United States annexed, voted to annex Hawaii 60 years before Hawaii became a state.
And that was because for, I don't know, 55 of those 60 years, Hawaiians didn't want any part of being part of the United States.
They were happy to be a protectorate, but they didn't want to be a state.
And so they resisted, resisted, resisted.
Finally, they voted for it, and it happened.
But could the Americans send a couple of tank divisions over the border?
We got nothing to stop them.
You know what, the whole thing is...
But they're not going to do that.
I want to show you a clip of Marco Rubio, the new Secretary of State, who is a longtime senator from Florida.
And he's actually, he is quite clever.
He's a good communicator.
He's very smart.
And he was a rival of Trump.
But I think that shows you, again, when Trump uses his bluster and his banter and gives you a mean nickname, it's not a deep hatred.
It's just a transactional moment.
I mean, if you look at who he has appointed into his JD Vance, JD Vance practically called Trump a Nazi a few years ago.
Now he's his vice president and main man.
That shows that Trump actually can get over things.
He's mouthy.
He dishes it out.
But if you work with him, he's a quick forgiver, actually.
I mean, look at his cabinet, all the people in it who were at one point at odds with him.
I think he's not the cardboard caricature that many people say he is.
But let me show you Marco Rubio, who was asked by Catherine Herridge, who's an outstanding journalist.
She said, where did this whole 51st state thing come from?
And here's Marco Rubio with the clearest explanation of all.
And I'll give it away before I play the clip.
It was from Trudeau himself.
Here, take a look.
President Trump has talked about expanding the U.S. footprint.
In a hot mic moment, Canada's prime minister said that absorbing Canada is a real thing.
Is it a real thing?
You know how that came about?
President's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well, if you impose, if you even out our trade relationship, then we will cease to exist as a country.
At which point the president responded very logically, and that is, well, if you can't exist without cheating and trade, then you should become a state.
That was his observation.
That's how it started.
It is how it started.
And I think he's told the story publicly.
And that's how all this began.
Look, Canada's our friend.
Canada is our neighbor.
Canada is our partner.
But it goes back to the point I made.
For decades, the United States allowed uneven trade imbalances to develop.
During the Cold War, you know why we did it?
We did it because we felt like we want countries to be strong economically, even if it means they're cheating, because we don't want them to fall victim to some internal Marxist coup that overturns their government or what have you.
Those days are gone.
These are rich, developed economies.
And ultimately, who can argue against the fact that whatever they charge us, we should charge them.
Whatever they prohibit, if they don't allow American companies to do it, we should not allow their companies to do it here.
American banks can't even operate in Canada.
So there has to be reciprocity here.
We can continue to work together on all kinds of things.
But whether it's Canada, Mexico, China, anybody else, when it comes to economics and trade, there has to be reciprocity.
There has to be fairness.
And who would argue?
How can anybody argue against that?
The days where we just allow countries to take advantage of us, that has to end.
That's not good for the global order.
That leads to imbalances that create friction points.
That's the case with Canada.
It's the case with a lot of countries who are our allies and friends.
But on trade, we have an imbalance and it has to be dealt with.
So it was sort of Trudeau who blurted out, well, if you equalize our trade deficits, we cease to exist as a country.
Why would you say that to the killer negotiator on the other side?
You've just shown him your darkest fear.
Well, guess what he's going to talk about for all eternity until he manages to get you pinned down?
And after he started calling you Governor Trudeau, you lit your hair on fire and started running around in small circles.
So of course he's going to play off of that.
This started off as, you know, one of those kind of tasteless jokes that people tell after a round of golf and they're in the clubhouse.
And then when he noticed that Trudeau grossly overreacted to it, he said it again.
He said it again.
And then he realized that the CBC and the Globe Mail and most of the mainstream media in Canada had also lit all their hairs on fire over this 51st state thing.
He just kept pushing at it.
I think now he's kind of gotten it in his head that, you know, it wouldn't be a bad thing.
No, I think it's grown from just a joke into, I don't know, an impulse or something.
But he doesn't really mean.
And yes, you said, I mean, he's so busy with Gaza and Ukraine and other things, he could easily forget about this tomorrow.
A few weeks ago, every single premier, the 10 provinces and the three territories, went to Washington together.
I have to say that's remarkable.
Those are busy people.
And for them to come together actually was sort of inspiring.
And they all went to the White House together, but they couldn't get a meeting with any cabinet secretaries.
It was just fairly mid-level staff.
And on the one hand, I was sort of embarrassed that it happened that way.
But then again, if Trudeau himself is there, why is not there?
Why would it's sort of asymmetrical for the president to meet with a who would come out to see a governor?
Yeah, exactly.
But I looked at the schedule that Trump had that day.
He was, if I recall, meeting the king of Jordan to talk about his Palestine plans.
And I think India, the Prime Minister of India was there.
So he's doing extremely heavy-duty stuff.
You could agree with him or disagree with him.
But if the Premier of Nunavut, God bless him, shows up and says, I want to talk to the president.
So does everybody else, brother.
And I think it sort of, let me say one thing, though, about the idea.
We have a law called the Clarity Act.
The Supreme Court of Canada itself has verified its constitutionality.
And if I'm not paraphrasing it incorrectly, it basically says, if you ask the people a clear question and get a clear result, that's why it's called the Clarity Act, you can indeed separate and the feds will have to negotiate with you.
And I put it to you that if.
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Mark Carney or Christy Freeland try some awful shenanigans with the oil patch again.
And if somehow there were a referendum in Alberta, to answer your earlier question, how would an annexation work?
That's how it would work.
Of course.
But that's not going to happen unless we ask somebody in Canada.
Oh, they can't take it.
We have to give it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So all of this hysteria for the last three months about, oh, he keeps saying we're going to be the 51st state.
And I'm so worried we're going to lose ourselves.
You people have no understanding of the civics of this thing.
Just none at all.
You don't understand the Constitution.
And you are showing how ill-informed you are every time you open your mouth like that.
So I would say to the Christian Freelands and the Mark Carneys, and even to some extent to Doug Ford, that, you know, back off of that, because that's not going to happen unless we want it to happen.
They're not going to invade.
I don't care that he fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get a more warmongery-like guy who will listen to him better.
I don't think that was the case, but he's got a loyalist in there.
Now, that guy's still not going to say, okay, well, we'll take the Seventh Fleet and three tank divisions and the paratroop brigade and we'll storm up into Canada and take them over.
They're not going to do that.
I think the Liberals love the hysteria because they want to pose themselves as the national saviors.
It's the first time they've been able to wrap themselves in a flag for a very long time.
Last time they saw Canadian flags, they denounced themselves.
Remember, they had ads in the, I think it was the 2006 federal election where they said, if Stephen Harper wins, there will be troops on our streets with guns.
They talk themselves into this.
First of all, they hate the military.
They are absolute peacenicks.
And then they talk themselves because they don't understand military things.
They talk themselves into scenarios that are completely ridiculous.
So the thing that also occurred to me this morning when I was writing about this is that here are all these people who have no clue what they're talking about on U.S. annexing Canada.
And yet they want to put themselves in charge of the internet to control misinformation.
Well, shit, they're full of misinformation.
Sorry for the language.
They're full of misinformation themselves all the time.
Yeah.
You know, I like Donald Trump a lot more than you do, I know.
But let me say one thing that I believe is true about him.
I actually think in his own way, he's a peacenick.
He's not a weak peacenick.
He's a strong peacenick.
And I think his first term shows that.
And, you know, they always say, don't take him literally, take him seriously.
And a lot of people in Canada will not like the deal that he is about to announce in Ukraine.
We know that because they believe in fighting till victory, even though I don't know what victory would look like for Ukraine when the men are being ground up every day and Russia inexorably is taking land.
So Trump is going to do a peace deal there, and a lot of people are not going to like it.
But six months and 12 months and 18 months and two years from now, people are going to realize that Trump stopped the war, even if they don't like the terms.
And I don't know if you saw, but Trump talked about reducing the military budget by 8%, like reducing America's budget while he wants the other countries to beef up.
And remember that U.S. Fifth Fleet based in the Persian Gulf to defend that OPEC oil that comes to America still.
That's a $50 billion a year charge.
The Fifth Fleet is not there to protect the cruise liners and show up in Dubai so that the nice people can get off and take their pictures on a camel.
You know, it's there for real.
I hate what he's doing to and in Ukraine.
I hate it.
I think there are three canaries in democracy's coal mine.
I think one of them is Ukraine.
Another is Israel.
And the third one is Taiwan.
And if he gives up Ukraine the way he's about to, I'm worried about Taiwan.
I think he will stick by Israel.
I really do think he'll do that.
He understands that issue better than the other two because he's lived all his life in New York, where there are very vocal and activist Jewish organizations that have clued him in on Israel.
But I detest what he's doing in Ukraine.
But if what comes out of this is a peacekeeping force in Ukraine to keep Russia where it is now that is run by the Europeans, then he will have accomplished something he wanted, which is to make the Europeans more accountable for their own security.
And I don't give him credit for being that deep a thinker.
I don't think he thinks four moves down the chessboard like that.
But if that's what happens, two years, as you say, you know, 18 months, two years, four years, five years from now, maybe we look back and we say, well, you know, I would still hate that Ukraine, a democracy, had to give up 20% of its territory to a dictatorship like Russia.
But you know, I keep talking about Kaya Kallas.
I'm not sure if you know that name.
She used to be the prime minister of Estonia.
Now she's sort of the foreign spokesman for the EU.
Estonia population, 1.3 million people.
And Santa Marin, this other young party girl who used to be the prime minister of Finland.
And she got the country to join NATO.
And there were all these, and many of them were young women, and it was sort of girl power.
And Melanie Jolie was part of the girl power.
And I looked at it, and I have to say, what I thought was this is a costume party because the question is you and what army?
Ukraine's Nuclear Legacy00:05:35
And the UK has a bit of an army and France has a little bit of an army and the US does, but Estonia doesn't and Europe doesn't.
And in Germany, you have 50,000 U.S. troops, 40 U.S. bases.
And so when all these Europeans have their vision for Ukraine, I keep thinking you and what army.
And if the answer to that question, Lauren, is okay, we're going to build up an army now.
And I see Keir Starmer says he's going to increase his GDP spent on military from 2.3% to 2.5%.
Okay, that's more than nothing.
And now Germany's talking about their army.
Okay, well, I mean, isn't that what Trump has actually been demanding they do for years?
And Trudeau the other day, Trudeau yesterday said, I'm not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine.
Yeah, I know you're not ruling it out, but we don't know any troops to send.
But maybe if this lights a fire under Trudeau to actually stop to spare, maybe Trump in his tricky ways has got Europe and Canada to pay our bill.
This won't spur the liberals to it.
It might spur the English to do more, the French to do more, the Germans to do more, although I always have my reservation.
That's right, be careful of that one.
When the Germans start building an army, but nonetheless, you know, there was a great line in 1966 in the Times of London when England and Germany were going to play in the World Cup final.
The day before, the sports writer in the one of the sports writers in the Times said, if tomorrow the unthinkable should happen and we lose our national game to them, at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that twice this century we've beaten them at their national game.
Oh, that's funny.
That's a good one.
Yeah.
So I do worry about the Germans when they start arming.
But nonetheless, yes, if the Europeans take it more seriously, we would take like we are pikers next to the Europeans.
I mean, the Europeans may not have much in the way of armies.
Finland has a pretty substantial home defense because it shares the longest border with Russia.
But yeah, if the Europeans start picking up their bills more, if they start arming better, training their soldiers better, fine.
I'm all for that.
And so maybe Trump does that.
And this disruption, him calling Zelensky a dictator and then getting cozy with Putin to make a peace deal without Ukraine involved.
Maybe some good comes of it.
But I just hate the way he's doing that.
Well, we'll see what it is.
I mean, there's a lot of banter by all sides going on right now.
And you know what?
Let me say one thing about Ukraine, and we can all take a lesson from it.
As I think you know, when the Cold War ended, there were a lot of military equipment in the former USSR.
And then all these little SSRs became independent countries.
Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union, Georgia, all the former republics.
Well, guess what?
Ukraine had a very sizable chunk of the former Soviet military.
It had the port at Sevastopol, and it had a lot of nukes.
I think it was immediately like the third or fourth largest nuclear power in the world.
Ukraine.
And there was something called the Budapest Memorandum, where all the major powers said, hey, Ukraine, you don't really want those.
Those are dangerous.
We're going to take your nukes away, but we promise Scout's Honor will protect you.
And if you read the Budapest Memorandum, the United States and the United Kingdom promised to protect Ukraine.
And in return for that scrap of paper, Ukraine gave up its nukes.
And does anyone in the world think that if Ukraine had kept its nukes, Russia would have invaded in 2014 or in 2022?
And there's a lesson.
Russia would have done at least for a time what it has done in all the other SSRs, and that is leave Russians in charge of the nuclear sites and the nuclear weapons.
And you remember when Lloyd Axworthy, the liberal cabinet minister, was running around the world trying to get everyone to demine?
Yeah.
The biggest number of mines were around those Russian nuclear sites in other countries.
I'm pretty sure I would want those mines there.
I don't want the kind of people who run in and steal the weapons.
I didn't like the Russians, but I trusted them more to not launch the damn things than the baddies who were trying to get in there to steal them.
So, anyway, I think that the Russians would have been in charge of those Ukrainian nukes for a very long period of time.
But maybe eventually the Ukrainians would have taken them over.
And if they still had some, yeah, Putin's not going to be mousing off about maybe he'll use nukes if the Ukrainians have.
Well, listen, I hope this war ends because I visited the Ukraine Pavilion at the World Economic Forum and I've gotten the raw, pure, unfiltered Ukrainian government position.
And what I take away every single time from that visit, which I do because I'm a skeptic of both sides, but I want to just go in and hear from the heart.
And the number one thing I come away with every time is the human toll, the human civilian casualties, the destruction of the country.
And it is heartbreaking.
And, you know, Trump, like you say, is a disruptor.
Trump's Disruptive Impact: 3 Years of Turmoil00:03:33
For three years, there has not been peace.
And I don't know what this victory that Trudeau keeps talking about looks like, but I would say to him, you and what army, sir?
And anyhow.
Well, the unfortunate thing is I think they could be heading towards what happened in Afghanistan when there was no end game, when there was no route out of the conflict.
We just left.
And that's absolute worst thing to do.
So, you know, some kind of truce is probably better than no truce at all.
But I just detest the way Trump is handling all of it.
Well, let's see what the deal is like.
And, you know, remember how we've just been talking about how he negotiates, how he says outrageous and landish things.
But he ain't talking about a hotel in Chicago now.
Well, I mean, but even how he's been dealing with Trudeau and what's the final deal going to look like, it's probably not going to look like his...
Okay, he's been treating Trudeau like the Bellman at the hotel in Chicago.
I'm okay with that.
Yeah.
Well, listen, it's great to catch up with you, my friends.
I think things are afoot, but let me just close with one thought on my side, which is energy is part of these different battles we're talking about.
The reason Russia had the strength to fight a three-year war despite sanctions against it was because of its oil and gas.
And the reason that gave it a superpower is because Europe basically said, we're not going to use coal.
We're not going to frack.
We're not going to drill for oil or gas.
They have a lot of natural gas in Europe, and they gave it up.
And so Russia really had a petro economy.
That was their secret weapon for fighting for three years while Germany deindustrialized.
So energy is part of the solution.
It's America's solution, too.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Absolutely.
And, you know, the Germans have also decided to get rid of their nuclear power.
How dumb do you have to be?
Yeah.
You got to have some source of power to run a modern industrialized country.
That's why they talked about deindustrializing.
Well, now their employment numbers are way off.
Their investment numbers are way off.
Their economy is dropping, not rise.
I think last quarter it went up 0.3% on an annualized basis.
That's worse than ours.
You know, the World Bank says that during the war, Russia's economy crept past Germany's on a purchasing power parity basis.
Think about that.
Russia is under massive sanctions.
It's in a war, and yet it grows to exceed Germany.
Germany's doing something wrong.
I'll tell you that.
There's no question about that.
But Russia is under sanctions from the West.
But India and China have continued to, in fact, have increased their trade with Russia.
That's where Russia's coming in.
Well, you know, the West has got to watch that.
The West does not want India to become a friend with Russia and China any more than it already is.
Yeah.
Well, and that may be Trump's big, that's that my theory is that's Trump's big move, is to befriend Putin.
It's the Nixon strategy.
Befriend, Nixon befriended China to pit them against the Soviet Union.
Perhaps Trump is befriending Putin to remove him from other alliances, including from China.
Trump's Putin Strategy00:03:10
I don't know.
We'll find out.
It could be.
And he's Trump has done our, yeah, Trump's done really well with the Indian leader, too.
Yeah.
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We'll see.
We'll see.
He's a controversial guy, and I understand your reaction to him.
And I'm not disparaging your reaction to him.
A lot of people react to him that way.
I, over the course of the last 10 years, you know, if you take away the hyperbole, there is something underneath it all.
And I think it's generally a good thing.
We'll leave it there, my friend.
Great to spend some time with you.
There you have it.
Lauren Gunch, senior columnist with the Edmonton Sun.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me on Trudeau's Ukraine plans.
Bry Guy70 says, tell Trudeau to enlist his son when he's 18.
Send the liberals kids first.
You know, isn't that the case?
I mean, at least in the United States, there's a real tradition of political leaders serving in uniform.
I think JD Vance was in the military.
Obviously, their Secretary of Defense was.
It's very rare that that happens in Canada.
We don't treat military service as a proud civic commitment and sort of proof of patriotism.
We just don't do that in Canada.
And you're so right.
Trudeau treats our soldiers as playthings.
If you remember, he sent them to Mali because his mom had a wonderful tourist vacation there.
Mike Leo, 5990, says, I'd love to hear from any Canadian service members on this.
Shameful how he treats our vets in military.
Well, as I said to Lauren Gunner today, you and what army?
I mean, for a generation, two generations, Canada has denuded our army.
And so now when Trudeau talks about fighting till victory, well, I don't think he ever meant with our soldiers.
But if he's talking about sending soldiers there now, what soldiers?
How many does he propose to muster?
With what equipment?
I think when Donald Trump is calling the bluff of all these other countries, he's saying, you're just not real countries.
You're 51st states.
On Salmon Seama's police interaction, Isabel Theodore says, Ezra, we need to blame our mayor Chow for this two-tier policing.
Well, yes, we do.
Also, the police chief.
Also, the provincial government, which is in charge constitutionally of police and prosecutions, and also Justin Trudeau himself.