Ezra Levant argues reviving the $20B/year Keystone XL pipeline—blocked by Liberals despite regulatory approvals—could boost Canada’s GDP by 1% and counter OPEC, while questioning why Conservatives exclude Rebel News. He highlights Paul Cheng (Liberal candidate), a former Toronto police officer, whose CCP-aligned remarks about a "$1M bounty" violate Bill C-70, exposing potential foreign interference. Protests in Markham mock Cheng as a "CCP servant," revealing deep community divisions over Beijing’s influence, with Lily Pong and WeChat groups pushing pro-regime narratives. Levant’s critique ties economic and democratic risks to Canada’s handling of authoritarian ties, contrasting with U.S. enforcement and Alberta’s push for national unity under Tamara Leach. [Automatically generated summary]
I went to a Conservative Party press conference this morning, but unfortunately, for the fifth time in a row, Rebel News was not allowed to ask a question, which concerns me.
Are the Conservatives becoming a little bit afraid of us?
Now, they didn't keep us outside in the cold like Mark Carney did.
And maybe it's just, I don't know, coincidence, like flipping a coin five times and coming up heads every time.
But I'll tell you the question I would have asked Polly.
And you tell me if it's as good a question as I think it is, because I might try and ask him again.
Hey, before I get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
I want you to see a few clips.
I play about four clips in today's podcast.
I want you to see them with your eyes, not just hear them with your ears.
So go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month.
And by the way, that money is how we pay the bills here because we do not take any government money.
and it shows.
Tonight, could the Keystone XL pipeline save Canada?
It's April 2nd, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Today, I went to a press conference this morning with Pierre Paglia.
Well, I didn't go with him.
I went to see him.
He was in downtown Toronto talking about the Trump tariff announcement, which had not happened as of the morning when he gave his speech.
In fact, I'm recording this before the announcement, so I don't know what will come.
If I had to bet, which is a crazy thing to do given that the results of that bet will be out before this video is, it's that Canada will be given a general reprieve, as Trump has done several times before.
Unilateral Tariff Removal00:05:45
By the way, I note that two days ago, the Israeli prime minister announced he was unilaterally removing all tariffs on anything from America, which is quite a bold statement of solidarity and cooperation.
But frankly, it's also in Israel's interests in a number of ways, including politically.
But economically, free market economists like the Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman say that the best approach for a country to take is to unilaterally declare free trade with the entire world, even for nations that have tariffs on you.
The economic theory, which places like Hong Kong proved over the decades to be true, is that your economy will grow and your citizens will get the most affordable goods from around the world.
Because remember, a tariff is an import tax paid by your own people.
So you're really punishing your own people to get back at the other guys.
Now, obviously, the most ideal outcome is all countries eliminating tariffs.
But Friedman says, even if no one else does it, you're still a winner if you do.
Here's a clip of Friedman trying to explain it.
I just chose a short clip.
President Reagan put this very well once in a speech he gave in San Francisco in which he said, you know, let's suppose three of us are out in a boat in the ocean.
And one of the fellows in there takes out a gun and shoots holes in the bottom of the boat.
Is it the sensible thing for the others of us to do to take out our guns and shoot more holes in the bottom of the boat?
That's kind of a silly notion, isn't it?
But yet that is exactly the notion of protection and retaliation.
Suppose Japan and Europe do, do, and they do, no question, impose protectionist tariffs.
That hurts them.
It hurts us.
If we turn around and impose protectionist tariffs on them in retaliation, all we do is to hurt ourselves some more and to hurt them some more.
We're just shooting additional holes in the bottom of the boat.
It doesn't make any sense.
The best thing in the world would be for all countries to engage in free trade.
But even if other countries don't, then the sensible, rational thing for us to do, all by ourselves, after all, we're the great leader of the free world.
We're not simply a camp follower.
The idea of our going around and imposing quotas on imports from Hong Kong and from Singapore and from all those other terribly threatening countries.
It seems to me it's just demeaning and degrading for a great power to engage in acts like that.
So in my opinion, the right course of action for the United States would be unilaterally to get rid of its restrictions and say to the world, come and sell your goods here.
We're delighted to sell to you.
We're delighted to buy from you.
We're delighted to sell to you.
Now, of course, if you buy, if you sell to us, you're going to get dollars.
And what are you going to do with those dollars?
Are you going to eat them?
If you would like to stack them up in a nice pile and set fire to them, we'd be delighted.
We can print all the pieces of paper you want.
But nobody's going to do that.
If they sell things to us for dollars, they are going to spend the dollars back here.
There's no doubt about that.
And what will produce that result is that the price of the dollar in terms of their currencies, the number of yen it takes to buy a dollar, the number of marks it takes to buy a dollar and so on will adjust up and down so that the total flows of dollars in both directions will be the same.
There's a lot more clips of Milton Friedman talking about pure free market economics.
Now, I acknowledge there are non-tariff barriers too.
Restraints of trade, subsidies.
So you can't just remove tariffs.
You have to remove other things.
But it is true what Milton Friedman says is the fewer barriers you have to imports, the better off your own citizens will be.
Now, I think what Trump would say in response to Friedman, if Friedman were still alive, if they were debating, Trump would say that America, by virtue of being the biggest, can pressure other countries to dropping their tariffs.
So while a little place like Israel or Hong Kong would unilaterally have free trade for imports to benefit its own citizens and just merely suffer the pain of foreign tariffs, Trump would say America can use its dominant economic power to force other countries to remove tariffs and other trade barriers.
So tariffs, according to Trump, are a temporary weapon to get both sides to disarm, as Friedman has called for.
That's what Trump talks a lot about.
He talks about reciprocal tariffs.
And if you've got tariffs on our stuff, we're taking it in response to you.
In the case of Canada, Trump has said he wants access for Canadian goods like dairy and poultry and banks.
And as Milton Friedman would say, every single Canadian consumer would benefit from that.
Not just U.S. dairy and chicken farmers and banks.
I mean, who cares about them?
What's the benefit to Canadians?
I mean, even if you never, as a Canadian, took a mortgage from an American bank, don't you think that having Bank of America and Citibank right on your main street offering mortgages right next to Canadian banks, don't you think that would make Canadian banks give you better service?
If you could have a checking account with Wells Fargo, don't you think that the Royal Bank and Scotiabank and the others would lower their fees to keep you?
Even if you never bought an American product in your life, that's competition.
That's Milton Friedman's point.
Israel was savvy to unilaterally banning tariffs.
At the very least, it shows political cooperation with Trump, which is what Trump wants.
It's the psychological aspect of America First, getting respect from other countries.
Frankly, it's the opposite of the style of relationship chosen by, say, Vladimir Zelensky, who argued in public with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Why Not End Uncertainty?00:15:29
Anyways, back to today.
So I got up early to make my way through Toronto traffic to a conservative event featuring Pier Polyev.
And he announced his counter-tariff plan.
Obviously, there was no Milton Friedman in the air.
It was all retaliation and plans to fight back, which is politically necessary, I suppose, when the political establishment in Canada absolutely demands that, and the media is asking you to perform more and more anti-American statements.
No matter what Polyev says, by the way, the Liberals will accuse him of being a crypto traitor, booster of Trump, even though it was Mark Carney that Trump effectively endorsed.
And I don't think Polyev and Trump and his team have even spoken ever, not even once.
I think the hope is that once the election is over, these war of words will simmer down.
Now, Mark Carney's right-hand man is a New York lobbyist named Ian Bremer.
He runs a lobby group in New York City called the Eurasia Group.
And if you recall, that's where Gerald Butts, Trudeau's disgraced right-hand man, fled after his ethics scandal.
Remember with Jody Wilson-Raybold, how Gerald Butts tried to force her to do a favor for a friend of Trudeau.
Anyways, that's where Gerald Butts landed in New York City, working for the Eurasia Group.
That's where Mark Carney's wife works.
That's where Evan Solomon, another liberal star candidate, works.
They're all, they're the campaign team from New York City.
Ian Bremer, who runs the lobby group, I don't know if he saw this.
He gave his opinion the other day that what Mark Carney was saying now about getting tough with Trump was just a show, was just to get through the election, and that Carney will likely collapse on everything as soon as the election is done.
It's quite something hearing that from Mark Carney's boss, Ian Bremner, that Carney's just doing the whole nationalistic patriotic thing as a campaign trick, which is what I've been arguing from the beginning.
How can you take patriotism lessons from the party that violated the charter to throw peaceful protesters in jail, that stripped Johnny McDonnell off the $10 bill, that reworded our anthem, that took the historical pictures out of our passport, that calls us genociders, that says the Canadian flag is a right-wing symbol.
How do you take patriotism lessons from Mark Carney with three passports who hasn't lived in Canada in a decade?
I've said all along this whole Teen Canada patriotism thing is a fake by the liberals.
Anyways, so I went to the Polyev speech this morning.
I had heard most of it before at his big rally in Ottawa a few weeks ago.
Here's an extract from today.
If elected at the end of this month, we'll launch a Keeping Canadians Working Fund, a targeted temporary loan program for businesses that are directly hit, helping them keep workers on the job.
Very similar to the type of program that John Baird initiated when we were in the Harper government during the great global recession.
Binding people to their jobs, keeping their paychecks going.
While we can get through this trade dispute, we'll help keep the horizon bright and keep our economy stable.
But where do we go from there?
The second part of the plan is we have to try to end this trade dispute.
On day one, as Prime Minister, I will propose to the President to accelerate renegotiations of CUSMA, bringing in a new deal on trade and security.
CUSMA must be renegotiated anyway, next year.
Why wait?
Why not get it done now?
Why not end the uncertainty that is paralyzing both sides of the border and that is also costing us jobs today?
We should set a firm date to finalize a new deal.
And I will propose that both countries pause tariffs while we hammer out that deal.
Well, I had reached out in advance looking to ask a question of Polyev, because he was in the same city I was.
But alas, Rebel News was snubbed.
Four regime journalists had questions, none for Rebel News.
I think that's five polyev events in a row where Rebel News reporters went there.
We even flew, as you may have seen, we flew David Menzies out to New Brunswick to go to a conservative event.
Our new reporter, Katrina Panova, went out into Naimo and they were snubbed as well.
Now, I'm actually not taking this personally, but I do observe that the Conservative Party of Canada now has the same media approach as the Liberal Party of Canada towards rebel news.
Except that I guess the Conservatives don't shoe us out of the building and into the cold.
You might have seen, I attended a Mark Carney event a couple of days ago in Georgetown, Ontario.
Police wouldn't let us too close to Carney or in the building.
But we were outside talking to people, doing streeters, as they say.
And I talked to Alex Van Coverdon is his name, a Liberal MP.
At the Polyev event in Toronto today, same sort of thing.
They had velvet ropes.
We weren't allowed too close to Polyev.
We weren't out in the cold.
I'll give him that.
I'm grateful for that.
But we had the exact same access to Pierre Polyev that we had with Mark Carney, which is zero.
And the purpose of this is not to complain.
Many politicians have been afraid of our questions before, including Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer, and we survive.
But to me, not taking a question from rebel news has a larger meaning that has nothing to do with our feelings.
To me, if you are a conservative politician who is afraid to talk to rebel news, I think it casts doubts on your conservative courage.
Are you worried about what the mean girls in the press gallery will say about you if you are seen talking to us?
Are you worried that some left-wing panel on the CBC will say, yuck, they're hanging out with the likes of Ezra LeMan or David Menzies?
I've said a dozen times that my favorite thing about Pierre Polyev has been, the thing that makes me trust him the most is that he doesn't care what the media party, the regime media, the media, political, industrial complex, the mean girls think about him.
This is my favorite Pierre Polyev moment.
You know what I'm talking about.
On the topic, I mean, in terms of your sort of strategy currently, you're obviously taking the populist pathway.
What does that mean?
Well, appealing to people's more emotional levels, I would guess.
I mean, certainly you tap very strong ideological language quite frequently.
Like what?
Left-wing, you know, this and that, right-wing.
I mean, it's that type of ideological thing.
I never really talk about left.
Anyways, a lot of people.
I don't really believe in that.
Okay.
A lot of people would say that you're simply taking a page out of the Donald Trump.
Like which people would say that?
Well, I'm sure a great many Canadians, but...
Like who?
I don't know who, but.
Well, you're the one who asked the question.
So you must know somebody.
Okay.
I'm sure there's some out there.
But anyways, the point of this question is, I mean, why should Canadians trust you with their vote, given not just the sort of ideological inclination Inclination in terms of taking the page of Donald Trump's book, but what are you talking about?
What page?
What page can you give?
Give me the page.
In terms of turning things quite dramatically in terms of Trudeau and the left wing and all of this, I mean, you make quite a, you know, it's quite a play that you make on it.
So I'm not sure.
I don't know what your question is.
Then forget that.
Why should Canadians trust you with their vote?
Common sense.
Common sense for a change.
I love that because it's funny, but I love it because it lets me know that if Pierre Polyev isn't afraid to quarrel with a journalist like that in real time, he's certainly not going to be afraid of ignoring that journalist if that journalist demands that Polyev, you know, renegs on a campaign promise.
My point is, the power relationship there was Pierre Polyev does what he wants and that whiner journalist is ignored or corrected.
Now, is Pierre Polyev taking notes from those winer journalists?
I mean, is that why he won't talk to Rebel News?
And if so, will he sell out other conservative values if the whiny media demand he do?
I hope I'm wrong.
What if the Polyev campaign suddenly has a new approach, though?
One that indulges the regime media journalists and avoids independent journalists five or six times in a row.
Sorry to think it's not random.
Again, we are who we are.
Look, we were born during Stephen Harper's prime ministership.
We survived Andrew Scheer.
We survived Aaron O'Toole, and we will survive Pierre Polyev.
We're not going anyway.
We're not going anywhere.
We'll be fine.
It's just sort of sad to me to think that perhaps the Conservative Party is vanillifying.
Anyways, but here is what I would have asked about, which frankly is a better question than anything else that was asked today by the four mainstream journalists.
Donald Trump has objected to Canada's trade surplus, again, something that Milton Friedman would say is a good thing because it's better to consume than to produce, Milton Friedman would say.
And Americans are buying things from Canada that are obviously preferential in some way as compared to another place or being made at home.
Of course, that's true for the oil sands, by far the biggest import that America buys from Canada.
And Canada's auto sector is really just U.S. companies located right across the border from Detroit.
I mean, Ford and GM plants are basically sprawling on both sides of the border.
So it doesn't make sense to put tariffs on one part of the auto industry since it's making the same vehicle, literally the same car's parts, cross the border several times before it's finished.
Trump has confused many Canadians, especially conservatives, by calling Canadians nasty and calling for our annexation.
Those are emotionally charged words and they prick the pride of many people, but they're abstract, aren't they?
His one tangible complaint besides our ban on American dairy and poultry and eggs and banks is our trade surplus.
But I say again, that's just largely from oil, which has to be bought from somewhere until America can close the gap, which will take years.
So Trump has confused many Canadians with his complaints when the complaints are abstract and even personal.
But I wanted to ask Polyev about the one tangible, positive, business-like America-first thing that Trump has said that's enormously important.
And I think we should focus on more.
I don't know if you saw, a couple weeks ago, Trump mused out loud about restarting the Keystone XL pipeline.
Did you see it?
Keystone XL is a multi-billion dollar pipeline project that would take oil from Alberta, pass through Saskatchewan, pick up oil there, and take it all down to the U.S., all the way down to the Gulf to be refined, to be re-exported, whatever, about 800,000 barrels a day.
If you do the math, that works out to about 20 billion US dollars a year as the current prices.
That's almost $30 billion Canadian.
Literally, that one pipeline could add 1% to our entire national GDP.
That is how big and important it is.
Now, Trump knows it's smart.
That oil will displace conflict oil imports from OPEC.
It's an economic project just to build the thing and to maintain it.
It would be the largest property taxpayer in many of the counties through which it passes.
It would employ a lot of steelworkers and welders and the like, and it would bring in oil made from American-owned or American-invested companies in the oil sense.
Win-win-win.
It's ethical oil versus OPEC conflict oil.
That's how America should think and talk.
That's the America first way.
I just wrote a whole little book about it.
I mean, shouldn't that be the way through the fog of this trade war?
Revive the Keystone XL pipeline, boost Alberta oil production, get the two countries talking about something positive and mutually beneficial.
Danielle Smith is making friends south of the border.
She could certainly help and put Carney on the back foot.
Just as we Carney said he's going to support Bill C-69, pretty much an anti-oil, anti-pipeline ban that Trudeau passed.
We do not plan to repeal Bill C-69, to answer your question correctly.
What we have said and made very clear 10 days ago, formally with the first minister's meeting, is that we will move for projects of national interest to remove duplication in terms of environmental assessments and other approvals.
And we will follow, as the federal government, the principle of one project, one approval to move forward from that.
So what's essential is to work at this time of crisis to come together as a nation, all levels of government, to focus on those projects that are going to make material differences to our country, to Canadian workers, and to our future.
I don't know if you remember, but Trudeau actually used to say when he was pressed on it that he supported the Keystone XL pipeline.
I think he did because he knew the U.S. would kill it, either under Barack Obama or under Joe Biden.
And indeed, both of them did kill it, by the way.
Trump revived it in the interim.
But Trudeau said he supported it.
That's official liberal policy.
And the Canadian government actually signed off on it once.
Would Mark Carney support a revived Keystone XL pipeline too?
Just like Trudeau did.
Remember, the Keystone XL Pipeline did pass every single regulatory test.
It received every single permission.
And I say again, it would add 1% to our GDP.
It's so huge.
Would Mark Carney support and approve of the Keystone XL pipeline being revived or not?
Or would he spite Alberta, snub America, and put his World Economic Forum ideology first?
That's what I wanted to ask Pauli about this morning.
But unfortunately, the party preferred questions from the mainstream media.
Too bad.
Because I actually think this is the kind of thing that could get Americans excited and snap them out of their anti-Canada fever.
By the way, here's a sizzle reel of me suggesting the idea to various Trump-friendly pundits in the States.
Take a look.
What a brilliant idea this is.
Canadians have the oil.
The Americans need oil.
Was this the oil that we were going to get from the Keystone pipeline?
Yes.
You can move the factory, but you can't move the oil sands.
It's where it is.
What do you think is the way, what's the off-ramp?
If you replace all your OPEC conflict oil imports with Canadian ethical oil, you don't have to spend $50 billion a year patrolling the Persian Gulf sea lanes because it's not your business anymore.
Would Canada be willing to sell?
I mean, is Canada, are they open to, are they open to a deal?
They already signed it under Donald Trump in the USMCA.
Under the USMCA, there's a special sort of side letter that guarantees America preferential access to that oil.
That we certainly could double our production of oil and gas, especially if we're building pipelines east, west, north, and south.
50 years worth of oil if you double it.
And what you're saying is that this is a way for America and Canada to do a reciprocal deal that is very much in the spirit of Canada.
Paul Cheng's Controversy00:15:41
We won't give up on you, okay?
Okay.
Okay, Ezra.
So here, I agree with all that.
Look, love the oil deal.
That's fantastic.
No, I totally love that idea.
It's a great idea.
That's what's brilliant about this book is that that's exactly what Donald Trump needs to hear.
So what do you think?
Should I try to ask Polyev that question again?
Stay with us for more.
Hey, welcome back.
Now, you know me.
I'm a fan of freedom of speech.
And that includes the freedom to make jokes that are sometimes offensive.
You've probably heard the phrase gallows humor.
It's a way of coping with stressful things.
But that doesn't mean that it's appropriate in all circumstances, especially if the joke is on you.
Here's what I mean.
Just over a week ago, one of Mark Carney's liberal MPs, who's running as a candidate in the Markham area in the Greater Toronto area, was speaking to a group of Chinese-Canadian reporters,
and he started making jokes about having his conservative rival seized, kidnapped unlawfully, taken to the Chinese consulate where there's a bounty for his scalp of 1 million Hong Kong dollars, almost 200,000 Canadian dollars.
Now, I've finally seen the video.
I'm going to show it to you in a moment.
And there's some nervous laughter and some chuckles in there.
But watch as Paul Cheng, the liberal candidate in question, repeatedly says, if you were to grab this guy, you'd get a million bucks.
If you were to grab him, if you were to grab him, and remember, the whole time, he was a police officer for 25 years.
Some people have tried to say this is a joke.
If it was a joke, it was disastrously poor ethics and had poor judgment.
But I do not believe it was a joke.
I believe that for 25 years, Paul Ching has been loyal to the Communist Party of China, and he regards pro-democracy dissidents in Canada as enemies.
Judge for yourself.
Take a look at the video.
The other person that's running most probably is, you know, the Chinese community of Joe Tai, Zhang Jing Su.
He's looking for the nomination.
The Chinese media knows him.
He was in the media business in Hong Kong.
And here in Canada, he's a radio host or, I don't know, for Singhao Media or Bear Child.
He was a media person.
So that's all he's like.
But also right now, he is wanted by the Chinese government.
And there's a $1 million reward on his head.
So the one, if you guys want to pick him up and take him to the Chinese consulate, you make a million dollars.
I'm just joking.
But there is an arrest warrant out for him from the government of China.
And there is a reward for him.
But apart from that, I can't say more than that.
He can't say more than that.
He can't say that it's wrong.
He can't say that it's outrageous that the Chinese government would seek to effectively kidnap a Canadian citizen.
And he was fine saying it three times.
This is an ex-cop, mind you.
Well, the man who actually recorded this video and publicized it.
I'm delighted to say he joins us now.
His name is Terence Shen.
He's a YouTuber, an influencer.
He does a talk show in Mandarin, and we're delighted to have him on the show.
Terrence, what a pleasure to have you.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me, Azra.
By the way, I'm not the one who recorded it.
I just find out from a Chinese social media called Red Note.
Someone recorded it.
I know who he is.
He's also a reporter in the local Chinese media.
I'm not going to say who he is, but yeah, I know him.
Thank you for clarifying that.
But you were there.
Is that correct?
Or did you just hear about this event?
I wasn't there.
Okay, but I thank you for those corrections.
I guess the important thing is what he said was captured on tape.
Now, for almost a week, Mark Carney said, oh, I know this man.
He's of good character.
The words were deplorable, but he's fine.
Why do you think Mark Carney stood by this guy for nearly a week?
In fact, you could say he stands with him now.
He didn't fire this guy.
This guy resigned after it became such a national scandal.
Why was Mark Carney so afraid of firing this man as a candidate?
The Liberal Party didn't take it seriously because people don't understand it.
Paul Chen may deliver it as a joke.
They say it's just a joke.
But we are not stupid.
Everybody understood exactly what message Paul Chen was trying to send.
So what happened is that Paul Chen essentially suggested people could collect a bounty from a foreign dictatorship on his Canadian political opponent right in front of a group of reporters.
Clearly, his intention was to portray his opponent as a criminal.
So voters in the community wouldn't support him.
To me, that's a textbook case of foreign interference.
Just look at the timeline.
The Chinese government placed a bounty on Zhou Tai after learning he was going to be nominated by the Conservative Party.
That tells us the bounty wasn't random.
It was designed to benefit Paul Cheng and help him defeat Zhou Tai.
So Ho Chen, of course, he knew that.
That's why he brought it up in front of reporters on purpose, hoping the message from China would influence voters in the Chinese community.
So I definitely believe this should trigger an investigation under Abu C70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act passed just last year.
It's a perfect opportunity to prove that this law has teeth and Canada is serious about protecting its democracy.
Of course, when the Prime Minister called this a teachable moment while defending Chen's candidacy, you know, refused to fire Chen, I definitely disagreed.
A teachable moment means nothing without consequences.
So, but now that Paul Chen's political career is over and the case is under investigation, now we can say this is a real teachable moment for the Liberal Party, for the whole Canada.
Yeah, I mean, Mark Carney thought, oh, that's just a gaffe, a joke in poor taste.
But it actually, on the face of it, is a criminal offense.
Like you say, it's a violation of the new foreign interference rules.
But it's also when you say to people, catch someone for a bounty, if they're not actually, like maybe in China, that's lawful, but that is not lawful in Canada.
I mean, I do not know what this guy was like for 25 years as a police officer.
I'm worried, based on what I just saw with him and what I've learned about him in the last week, I'm worried that during his time as a police officer in the Greater Toronto area, he may have done favors for the Chinese Communist Party.
He may have been harsh on Chinese democracy activists.
I don't know.
It sort of scares me that we gave that guy a badge and a gun.
And for 25 years, we don't know what he did because he showed who his allegiance is to.
Yeah, right now we are facing serious challenges in acting, actually enforcing the B70.
As far as I know, not a single individual or organization has registered as a foreign agent under the law.
Not Paul Chen, not nobody.
Here's the thing.
I could give you a full list of organizations and individuals that are actually actively working on behalf of the Chinese communist government right here in Canada.
It's not a secret within the Chinese community.
Everybody knows who they are, and everybody knows Paul Cheng has very close relationships with the Chinese consulate.
We have seen those pictures.
So the real question is: when will the government act?
So it doesn't matter which party a politician belongs to, defending Canada's democracy, liberty, and national security must come first.
So I think the Liberal Party failed us.
So that's the lesson from the Paul Cheng case.
And we expect the next government to step up and take that responsibility.
Well, I hope it happens.
Now, I was looking at your Twitter account, and I want to show a picture that you posted.
It's at the entrance to Markham.
Markham is part of the Greater Toronto area, for folks who don't know.
So it really is, I mean, it is a separate place, but it's sort of conjoined to the rest of the big blob called Toronto.
And at the sign marking that you're entering Markham, someone has put a homemade sign that says Paul Chiang and a bunch of Chinese lettering.
And you wrote, some members of the Chinese community in Markham, Ontario put up signs near Pacific Mall to protest Paul Cheng and mock him as someone serving the interests of the Chinese communist regime.
And I mean, that's a lot of Chinese text for people driving by, but I guess traffic in Toronto is so slow that maybe you go by slow enough to read it.
What does that say?
What do those words in those homemade signs say about Paul Cheng?
It just says that Paul Cheng is serving the people.
You know, serving the people is a slogan of Communist Party.
So they are mocking him.
So because people, you know, in the Chinese community, some of them already started to realize that the CCP's United Front operation in Canada really hurt the reputation of Chinese community.
So the CCP's United Front operations lasted like decades and they are trying to build ties with people and groups who can help push Beijing's agenda.
So that could mean organizing cultural events, setting up also associations or working through diaspora communities to influence public opinions and even the local politics.
So on the surface, it might look like a harmless cultural exchange.
It's like the Paul Chen and other some pro-CCP members of parliament are doing.
But when you dig deeper, a lot of it is really political influence work.
So I want to give you one example.
So there is a woman called Lily Pong from Vancouver.
She has been identified as a consultant for the Chinese CCP's organization.
It's a major United Front agency.
And her son, Debbie Wong, has tried to get into politics for this election.
He tried to be nominated as a conservative candidate for Richmond in Vancouver.
Based on open source information, including the Chinese state media, their connection to the top CCP United Front officials are pretty clear.
So it raises a serious question about whether foreign influence is creeping into our political system.
And I put together everything I found from the public sources and send it to the Conservative Party, CISIS, Canadian Intelligence Service, and even FBI.
And now we've learned that Daily Wong didn't get a nomination.
That's a problem.
Terrence, you're not just a reporter, you're a freedom fighter.
I love to hear what you did.
Hey, can I ask you a question?
By the way, just really quickly, you mentioned United Front.
That's the Chinese Communist Party's global influence operation.
Is that what United Front is?
Yeah, actually, FBI already arrested some of the Chinese community leaders who were secretly working for the CCP.
But my question is: what stopped Canada from doing this taking the same actions?
Yeah.
Hey, can I ask you a question?
Before China allowed mass immigration outward bound, the Chinese Canadians were either folks who came over a long time ago to help.
I mean, for example, there were Chinese Canadian laborers who helped build the railway.
So that's 140 years ago.
There has always been Chinese Canadians, and there were also people from Hong Kong.
And I would say that by my own assessment, until about 30 years ago, I would say a majority of Chinese Canadians were either dissidents or on the freedom side or really weren't connected to communist China because they were sort of sealed off.
But in recent years, China has been one of the largest sources of immigration to Canada.
And again, some of those people are critics of totalitarianism.
Some of those people are just regular folks who aren't very political.
Can you give me the estimate, or at least for Toronto, which is a very large Chinese community now, what percentage are for the CCP in the United Front?
What percentage are democracy activists like yourself?
And what percentage are just regular folks who don't really have a strong opinion?
They're just living their lives and going about their regular business.
Would you say that half, or what's the statistic?
Because I'm worried that freedom fighters like you are being overwhelmed by the sheer power of the CCP migrants.
What do you think?
I believe that the majority of the Chinese population in Toronto, Vancouver, or anywhere in Canada are not related to the Chinese politics or the Chinese CCP organizations.
Majority people are just live their lives.
And the problem is that a few of these CCP agents working for the CCP are trying to influence them and trying to sway the public opinions.
That's the problem.
And like for us, we are a minority of people who are trying to defend the reputation of Chinese population, Chinese immigrants in Canada.
So I think probably just a few, just a few percent of us and maybe 10% of CCP's agents, maybe a majority of people are not really political.
Right.
I think it's probably the same with the Persian community.
I meet a lot of Persian people, people from Iran.
And frankly, most of them that I meet are for freedom.
They're against the Ayatollahs.
But those who work for Iran are very vocal, very well-funded, very organized.
It's quite an interesting battle.
WeChat vs TikTok Politics00:03:44
Hey, I've got a question for you.
Paul Chang has quit.
But are there other candidates of any party that worry you in the same way?
Is there someone you can't believe is allowed to run again?
I noticed that Han Dong, who was implicated.
I understand he's not running this time.
Is there someone out there you're worried about?
Or is there someone out there you're excited about?
Is there someone running for parliament who you think, wow, that person could do a lot of good?
What do you think, Terrence?
There are a few of these people who have a close tie with CCP.
I don't want to name them, but simply the one who's take over Handong is questionable to me.
Okay.
We'll look into that.
We'll look into that for sure.
Terrence, I got to tell you, it's so great to have you on the show.
You have so much information, and obviously you're fluent in Chinese, so you can read the Chinese language media.
Give us one minute on WeChat, because I don't think a lot of white Canadians know what that is.
You know, we use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, I suppose.
What is WeChat, and is it a powerful vector for the Chinese Communist Party to spread its mission in Canada?
People don't realize that WeChat has much powerful function than TikTok.
It's even more influential among the Chinese because everybody has a WeChat account and they are communicating on WeChat, not TikTok.
TikTok is just a platform.
You know, people record videos.
But WeChat is the communication tools.
And I found out that there are a lot of groups, people in those WeChat groups talking about politics.
And it's heavily influenced by the Chinese narratives.
So that really concerned me.
Wow.
Well, Terrence, what's the best way for people to follow you?
Is all your work in Chinese?
Do you do any videos in English or is it mainly in Chinese?
Yeah, a few of them are in English and most of them are in Mandarin.
And I have a YouTube account called Mr. Shen.
And everybody can follow me on X account, Terence Shen.
Excellent.
Well, I am following you now.
And so is a lot of our team because we are very interested in what you have to say.
You're very courageous to stand up because we know that the authoritarian regime in China, it has long reach.
And I thank you for being an early warning for us.
So Terrence, pleasure to meet you and keep up the fight and stay safe.
Thank you very much.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you.
There you have it.
Terrence Shen.
Very interesting.
We'll have to talk to him again.
Stay with us.
more ahead hey welcome back Your letters to me.
Deborah Summers says, conservative boomer here.
I love my children and grandchildren too much to vote liberal.
Yeah, listen, I got a few emails like that.
I'm not being mean to boomers.
I mean, I'm almost a boomer myself.
I guess what I mean is if you've paid everything off in life and you just, you don't have to deal with a lot of these challenges, it is easy to vote liberal.
And I just saw some of that at the Carney thing.
Of course, I'm not anti-boomer.
I just look at the polls and I see that is where Carney is strongest.
Next letter from Ron Voss, who says, well, I recall her mandate being to strengthen Alberta's sovereignty.
Sovereignty And The Boomer Vote00:02:40
I don't recall her getting a mandate to try to fix Canada.
Hey, Ron, that's a good point.
But the job of the Alberta Premier always seems to be to push back against Canada.
But how many times, against Ottawa, excuse me.
But how many times can you go to war against Ottawa before you say, you know what, this is tiring?
The Supreme Court has validated and confirmed a process of getting out of here.
And if Quebec can do it, so can we.
Like after a certain point in time.
And that's the thing about this Donald Trump indecent proposal.
If you're a lucky, happy person in Montreal or Toronto, and Donald Trump says, come join us, you might find it very offensive.
But if you are an unhappy person in Alberta and Trump says, come join us and be a cherished 51st state, it sounds a lot different in Alberta than it does in Toronto or Montreal.
William Murphy says, I don't think your poll results are authentic.
Virtually everyone I know is down with leaving Canuckazuela.
William, we hired Leger Marketing, which is a pretty old and pretty reputable polling company.
And I was surprised that the numbers were as small as they were too.
And I think it's because of the question we asked.
We didn't say, would you like to be independent?
We didn't say, would you like a better deal?
We didn't ask any sort of easy to answer.
We said, would you join the 51st state as a 51st state?
So it's a very specific, very concrete ask.
And what that tells me is that had we asked a more general question, would you like to have a different sovereignty situation, maybe be independent?
I'm guessing the number would have been a bit higher.
Last letter from Doug Heal, who says, I will gladly kick in some good bucks for a Tamara Freedom Award.
She truly needs to be honored.
Well, you're talking about Tamara Leach.
You know, I'm recording this a little bit early because I got to run to the airport because I'm going to Ottawa tonight.
I'm going to see Tamara Leach tonight.
And then tomorrow morning is the big day where we go to the Ottawa courthouse and we will learn her fate.
And I know I've been too optimistic before, but I really have a good feeling about this one.
I think that the reason the trial was so long is this is how the government's going to punish Tamara Leach by the trial itself.
Because I just think, and I shouldn't jinx it, but boy, I'm optimistic she's going to be acquitted.
By the way, the legal team, Lawrence Greenspawn and his two deputies, did a great job.
And I said to Lawrence just yesterday, I said, you know, if I'm ever in deep trouble, as opposed to the shallow trouble I always find myself, I would go to him as a lawyer.