Ezra Levant examines Trump’s exclusion of Mark Carney from the Ukraine peace summit despite Canada’s $20B contributions, linking it to Carney’s disruptive policies like a digital services tax and Ford’s insults toward Trump. The episode critiques Western sanctions failing to deter Russia, which pivoted to China, and contrasts Putin’s 2022 preference for Trump over war with NATO’s vague Article 5 threats. Trump’s executive order banning politicized debanking—targeting banks like TD ($3B fine) and Royal Bank—may force Canadian institutions to halt bias, as seen in ARPA Canada’s sudden account closure by Canadian Western Bank. Levant warns Carney’s global influence poses greater risks than Trudeau’s unpreparedness, framing the summit as a test of Trump’s ability to negotiate with adversaries over allies. [Automatically generated summary]
Very interesting days with the second Ukraine peace summit within a week.
And I think we're going to have a third very soon also.
What's happening?
Why wasn't Mark Carney invited?
Seven European leaders were.
We'll dig into it.
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Tonight, the world's leaders converge on Washington, D.C. for Ukraine peace talks.
But why wasn't Mark Carney invited?
It's August 18th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you sensorism bug.
Well, I don't know if you watched it on Friday.
It was absolutely riveting to me.
The summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.
It was historic in a way.
I mean, first of all, it ended the attempt to isolate and sanction Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
Both the isolation and the sanctions are still in place, I should say.
For example, the Russian president's plane needed to refuel.
Normally, that would be done electronically, but they literally had to pay cash because Russia is banned from using any banking system in the West, including credit cards and the SWIFT system.
So even in Putin's arrival, sanctions and isolation were in place.
But, you know, it was so symbolic.
And you can see that Vladimir Putin was quite pleased to be there, although Donald Trump, too, seemed quite pleased to end an era of unsuccessful responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Whatever you think of that war, and I think it's clear it was an aggressive war by Russia, the sanctions just weren't working.
In fact, it retooled the Russian economy to aim towards China.
Russia found new markets for its energy and it found new vendors for its retail goods.
I just don't think it actually worked.
I don't know if you remember, I did a story on this a while ago.
Despite the sanctions, during the war, Russia overtook Germany as the, I think it was the fourth largest economy in the world, but Russia moved ahead of Germany.
How is that possible?
Part of it, of course, is Germany is sabotaging itself by investing in costly and destructive green energy programs.
But nonetheless, it's quite something for Russia in the middle of a war with sanctions to actually grow bigger than Germany.
Putin and Trump shaking hands, talking at length was an image that the Russians were delighted to show because it means the marginalization is over.
However, you don't want to just look at it from the point of view of the West.
Russia was never marginalized in other parts of the world, like the Middle East, Asia, or Africa.
So that was the first step in getting a normalized kind of communication going on.
And there was a tremendous reaction by the mainstream media to criticize Trump for even having that and for certainly granting this symbolism to Putin.
But I think that's the thing about peace deals.
You make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.
Now, Trump was insistent that this wasn't his war, which is true.
It's a war between Russia and Ukraine.
So I think Trump was extra repellent to that accusation that he was somehow doing something he ought not to.
So that was Friday.
And as soon as over, in fact, it all happened at a military base in Alaska, which is very interesting in itself.
It was a very quick journey.
It was about equidistant between Moscow and Washington, D.C. Both leaders had to fly in there.
It was on a military base, which I think made it very secure.
And I have to say, in the back of my mind, the whole time I was thinking, there are a lot of forces that don't want that peace deal to happen.
And the chances of the Russian leader's plane being shot down by someone who didn't want a peace deal were real.
And I think you could see some of the protections taken when American F-22 fighters actually escorted the Russian plane.
Perhaps it was just symbolism, but there was a lot going on there.
Anyways, that was on Friday.
Trump and his lead negotiator, Witchkoff is his name, who also was running the Hamas negotiations, plus Marco Rubio got on the phone right away with the other European allies and brought them up to speed.
And they decided to have a meeting today in Washington, D.C. Very quick.
Trump doesn't waste time.
He wants to get this thing done.
Remember, he said he thought it could be solved in a day.
He was using hyperbole, but still he wants to move quickly.
Canada's Political Landscape00:05:24
And so, wouldn't you know it?
Half a dozen leading Democratic leaders from France, from the UK, from Italy, from Germany, the head of NATO, the head of the European Union, came to Washington, D.C. at Trump's request.
And again, that was taken as a sign of weakness by the regime media who said, aha, they're here to oppose you, Donald Trump, who said, no, actually, I invited them of what he called the Coalition of the Willing.
Chancellor Murs was there from Germany.
And there was a guy named Alexander Stubb.
Now, without Googling it, do you know who Alexander Stubb is?
And I confess I didn't.
So don't feel bad if you didn't.
He's the leader of Finland, which is a pretty small country.
It's not that small physically, but population-wise, about 5 million people.
So less than the Greater Toronto area.
And you might be thinking, why was the leader of Finland invited to this meeting, but not Mark Carney?
Canada is eight times bigger in terms of population, in terms of committing to Ukraine's military.
Canada was disproportionately spendy, about 20 billion Canadian dollars, if I'm doing the conversion correctly, much more than Finland.
I don't know if it was an animosity between Trump and Carney.
It seems like Zelensky didn't lift a finger to get Mark Carney there.
It was just sort of odd because it was sort of like the G7 meeting without the Japanese.
And without the Canadians, I know why the Japanese weren't there.
They're really not involved in this Ukraine war.
They have not been diplomatically or financially imparted.
But is there a country that has been noisier about its support for Ukraine than Canada, first under Trudeau and then under Mark Carney?
And he simply wasn't invited.
I found that remarkable and so interesting.
And he tried to fill the void, Mark Carney did, by having a meeting with Doug Ford.
How are you going to talk about that?
Look, the, well, actually, I'm just going to meet with Minister LeBlanc.
We'll have a discussion of that and an important discussion with Premier Ford this morning on a variety of aspects for the Ontario economy, the Canadian economy, which, of course, includes trade, but goes much more to the issues that we can control and how we build out from within.
Like, what would some examples be?
Well, we'll talk about the housing sector.
We'll talk about steel, auto, new sectors of the economy, including artificial intelligence.
Doug Ford thought he would badmouth Trump a bit more.
That seems to be all Ford really does.
Maybe that's part of the reason why Canada wasn't invited, because every time Doug Ford, who is a proxy of Mark Carney now, talks, it's to insult Trump in a way that I think anyone who has been following Trump for any time at all knows that if you personally prick him, if you personally attack him, he remembers that.
And it can't be an accident that Doug Ford is doing his best to keep Trump hostile towards Canada.
I just simply don't know how that works to Doug Ford's advantage.
I don't get it.
If I was Doug Ford, I would be worried about the auto sector, which the majority of which is in Ontario.
I don't understand it.
I don't understand how it's good for the country, but that's Doug Ford for you.
And Mark Cartney, of course, doesn't say a word against it.
It's just really, really weird.
Donald Trump is so unpredictable.
I don't even know if he knows what he's doing tomorrow morning.
So let's start focusing on creating that environment.
But is there an acceptance, I guess, from leaders that we're just having the tariffs?
Again, the Prime Minister will speak on that, but the President is unpredictable.
He'll come out with some cockamini thing tomorrow that we don't even know about.
So do you say that Mark Carney is being two elbows down in response to Adam Pickle?
Not at all.
He's doing an incredible job.
He's working collaboratively with 12 other premiers and myself and working as Team Canada.
And he's doing a very, very good job, in my opinion.
Put in his position dealing with Donald Trump.
Let's stop worrying about Donald Trump.
We'll start focusing on Ontario and Canada.
Oh, by the way, Doug Ford was asked if he has any advice for the Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Polyev.
And the advice was, yeah, to the Leader of the Opposition, don't oppose.
He actually said that.
Premier, today is Pierre Polyev's by-election.
If he gets elected, I'm wondering, what's your advice to him going into the fall sitting of the parliament?
Work with the prime minister.
How's it?
Let's team Canada.
You know, let's put our political stripes aside and start working together collectively on large infrastructure projects, on other areas that he can cooperate with the government.
Last question, do you have plans to meet with Polyev to push that message and make sure that he is working with the Prime Minister?
All I want to do is move forward collectively as a government.
I don't care about political stripes.
The person I'm working with right now is the Prime Minister of the day.
And as far as I'm concerned, he's doing a really, really good job considering the position he's been put in.
Work With The Prime Minister00:15:41
I challenge anyone to try to deal with Donald Trump, myself included.
He's a different type of cat.
But we're united.
We know what we need to do.
And we know that we need to cut the regulatory burdens off of companies, lower taxes, put money back into people's pockets, support companies that need investment to grow and expand here.
Yeah, what a dummy.
I tell you one thing.
Let me just tell you a promise.
If Doug Ford ever runs for the Conservative Party leadership, I will do everything in my power to make that not happen.
I think he's a disgrace to the word conservative.
And I don't think he's why Pierre Polyev lost the last election, but he certainly tried his best to make that happen.
I don't know what his plan is, but I'll do my best to make sure Doug Ford's plans are foiled.
Back to Washington, D.C.
It was a different spirit than the last time Vladimir Zelensky came.
So you had meeting number one with Vladimir Putin, which lasted longer than most observers thought.
It was about three and a half hours on Friday.
Zelensky was here, and along with all those other leaders I mentioned, they had a one-on-one meeting, Trump and Zelensky, and then they had the group meeting.
And the spirit was very different.
I mean, last time, I don't know if you remember, it was a disaster.
Zelensky was picking fights with JD Vance and Trump, and boy, Vance and Trump were pushing back.
Let me explain a little bit of that to you.
It was one of the most shocking things I had ever seen in the Oval Office.
Just a reminder, take a look.
I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country.
Yes, but if you're not going to be able to do it.
Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.
Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this country.
Have you ever been to Ukraine?
Did you say what problems we have?
I have been to come once.
I've actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military?
We have problems.
And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
A lot of questions.
Let's start from the beginning.
Sure.
First of all, during the war, everybody has problems.
Even you.
But you have nice ocean and don't feel now.
But you will feel it in the future.
God bless you.
You don't know that.
God bless you.
God bless.
You will not have war.
Don't tell us what we're going to feel.
We're trying to solve a problem.
Don't tell us what we're going to feel.
I'm not telling you.
Because you're in no position to dictate that.
Remember this.
You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.
We're going to feel very good.
We're going to feel very good and very strong.
You're right now not in a very good position.
You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad beginning and it happens to be right about it.
You don't have the cards right now.
With us, you start having cards.
Right now, you don't have to be aware of that.
I'm wearing seriously.
You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.
You're gambling with World War III.
You're gambling with World War III.
And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.
I'm thankful.
Far more than a lot of people say they should have.
Have you said thank you worse?
Well, this time, Zelensky actually wore a suit to begin with.
And he said the word thank you ten times in the meeting that at least the journalists heard.
So I think Zelensky realized Trump and Putin have pretty much come to an agreement.
This is his opportunity to maybe tweak it.
But I'll tell you my thoughts about where this is going to go in a moment.
Trump was right, though, when he said that no one else could possibly make this deal happen.
No one could chair a meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.
No one could summon Putin and summon seven European leaders and do this.
I mean, who would do it?
Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer?
I mean, Trump likes to take credit for these things, but what if it's actually true?
Here, take a look.
So people can say whatever they want.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to get the Russian side to agree to things that they don't want to agree to if we're going to have peace.
If not, there'll just be a war.
They'll keep killing each other, and life will go on in America and in the rest of the world, but not for Ukraine.
So the president has invested a lot of time in trying to bring an end to this war.
He deserves credit for doing that.
He gets criticism for doing that.
He could have just let this war go on.
The president could have just said, this is Biden's war.
It started under him.
We'll do what we can for Ukraine, but we're going to focus on other things.
He could have easily said that.
But he's the only leader in the final that could get Putin to a meeting to talk about serious things.
I mean, they're mad.
The media is mad.
I think in some ways they loved this war, which is weird.
They hated that the war was started, but they loved Ukraine's defense of it.
And they accused Marco Rubio of platforming Putin.
But I just don't know that when the leader of the world's largest tactical nuclear weapon country, a massive country, a large economy in the middle of a war, he's on the Security Council.
I just don't think Trump was giving him those things.
He has them, whether or not the West acknowledges them.
I think there are some people in the West who think that Ukraine is winning the war, thinks that the sanctions are working.
I just don't think that's the case.
Here's another clip.
Critics of President Trump will say the pomp and circumstances, pomp and circumstance, the red carpet, the warm handshake, that President Trump simply lost that, that Putin gained there just by being on the world stage and walking down a red carpet with the president.
Your reaction to that?
Well, I mean, critics of President Trump are always going to find something to criticize.
You don't even pay attention to it anymore, but I will tell you this: Putin is already on the world stage.
He's already on the world stage.
The guy's conducting a full-scale war in Ukraine.
He's already on the world stage.
He has the world's largest tactical nuclear arsenal in the world and the second largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world.
He's already on the world stage.
When I hear people say that, oh, it elevates them.
Well, all we do is talk about Putin all the time.
All the media has done is talk about Putin all the time for the last four or five years.
That doesn't mean he's right about the war.
That doesn't mean he's justified about the war.
Put all that aside.
It means you're not going to have a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
You're not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin.
That's not, that's just common sense.
I shouldn't even have to say it.
I mean, that's the thing about negotiating an end to wars, just that you're working with your enemies.
And I understand not liking that.
I mean, I can imagine how awful a lot of Israelis feel when there's some ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Like, those are diabolical, Nazi-like killers.
Imagine making a deal with them.
But that's the thing about ceasefires and peace deals.
You have to make them with your enemies.
I mean, Donald Trump keeps pointing out that this is not his war in any way.
He just wants to solve it.
And by the way, Vladimir Putin, after his meeting in Alaska, said, in his view, if Trump had been president in 2022, this war would not have begun, which is interesting.
I'd like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities.
And I said it quite directly back then.
That is a big mistake.
Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there will be no war and I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so.
I can confirm that.
I think that overall, me and President Trump have built a very good, business-like, and trustworthy contact and have every reason to believe that moving down this path, we can come to the end of the conflict in Ukraine.
I want to throw one more thing in here.
And again, Trump is self-serving, as every politician is.
Trump's just better at it than most.
But Donald Trump has, even though he's only been in office since January, he has resolved a half dozen other wars.
Now, maybe you haven't heard of them because they're in places that aren't really top of mind for us, but it is true.
Here's his clip.
This is a tremendous breakthrough.
In a few short months, we've now achieved peace between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, and the DRC and Rwanda.
A couple of others also, Serbia, you know, was they were getting ready to go to war with a group I won't even mention because it didn't happen.
We're able to stop it.
But I have a friend in Serbia and they said we're going to go to war again.
And I won't mention that it's Kosovo, but it's Kosovo.
But they were going to have a big-time war and we stopped it.
And we stopped it because of trade.
They want to trade with the United States.
I say we don't trade with people that go to war.
Trump's right when he says these aren't his wars, but he really does seem interested in ending wars.
It's interesting that way.
There's a liberal comedian named Bill Maher, who I think is actually very thoughtful, and he's not afraid to zig when the rest of Hollywood zags.
And here he is reminding his liberal viewers that there was once upon a time when Democrats were against war too.
And now Trump is that par excellence.
You listen to Bill Maher for a minute.
It's funny, I see that today is the anniversary of Woodstock.
This is a 56 years ago.
And the hippies, what did they hate more than anything else?
War.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
So if you're the kind of person who says, you know, you can find some good in anybody, this would be the good in Donald Trump.
He really does not like war.
Thailand and Cambodia were having a firing at each other.
Rwanda and the Congo.
Most people don't even know about these.
India and Pakistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan.
He got involved in all of them.
He really, he doesn't really, he wants it.
Now, the way he does it, as usual, not, you know, with Ukraine, the solution was, well, surrender.
Give Putin everything he wants.
And even that didn't work.
That's the thing.
He gave Putin anything he wanted, and it didn't work.
But again, let's not have the zombie lie that he's still backing Putin because, first of all, he bombed Iran.
That was a Putin ally.
He didn't get out of NATO.
No.
He mended fences with NATO.
And he put sanctions back on Russia.
So, you know.
You're really coming around, Bill.
I'm not coming around.
There's no coming around.
It's just to what's true.
This is true shit.
Right.
I don't come around.
I'm not anybody's team.
I'm on what's right, what's true, what happened?
This is what happened.
He just doesn't like war.
So to recap, part one of the meetings was in Alaska.
Part two was today in Washington, D.C.
And they're going to have a part three, I think, with just Zelensky, Trump, and Putin.
By the way, I want to show you one more thing about this Finnish leader whose name I've already forgotten and will probably never know again.
The Finn said something that I think is true, that in the last two weeks, more has been done to bring about peace than in the last three and a half years.
What do you think?
Here's the Finn.
I think in the past two weeks, we've probably had more progress in ending this war than we have in the past three and a half years.
And I think the fact that we're around this table today is very much symbolic in the sense that it's Team Europe and Team United States helping Ukraine.
And the progress that we're looking out of this meeting is about the security guarantees.
By the way, I think one of the reasons he was invited is he played golf with Trump, and I think they got along.
But Trump, you know, Trump has a sense of humor.
He's got a cheeky sense of humor.
If you ever watch his long speeches at his rallies, they're almost like a kind of stand-up routine.
He has his scripted, serious stuff, but then he loves to riff.
I mean, he's got a cheeky sense of humor.
And there was one point when Trump sort of chided Vladimir Zelensky about not having elections.
Look at Trump make sort of a wry joke about that.
Take a look.
So you say during the war, you can't have elections.
So let me just say, three and a half years from now.
So you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections.
Oh, I wonder what the failures say.
Anyways, a third meeting is coming.
I hope we have a good meeting.
And if we can have a good meeting, I'll set up a meeting with President Putin.
And if you'd like, I'll go to that meeting.
Not that I would want to do that, but I will do that because we want to save a lot of people from dying, a lot of people dying.
We're going to save them.
You know, Trump is the only one who could make this happen.
He didn't even bother calling Mark Carney.
I think Mark Carney is deliberately trying to antagonize Trump.
He obviously ran an anti-Trump campaign.
His proxy, Doug Ford, insults Trump all the time.
He does things that seem like they want to sabotage Canada-U.S. negotiations, like right in the middle of a negotiation, putting a huge digital services tax on U.S. companies, or right in the middle of a negotiation where Trump is at the same time trying to negotiate peace with Amas, saying he's going to support a Palestinian state.
Like it's if you can get over the disbelief of even saying it, all of these things would make sense if Mark Carney wanted to destroy the relationship with the United States.
I'm not convinced of that yet.
But if you believe that Mark Carney is trying to disrupt our relationship with the United States, then all of a sudden everything he's doing makes a lot more sense.
I don't know.
I would have hoped that Canada would have been in that room, sitting where that Finn was sitting.
I think Vladimir Putin wants things to end.
I think basically he wants to keep the land he has conquered in Ukraine, and he wants to get Ukraine demilitarized to make sure it never enters NATO.
And those are things he's been talking about as his rationale for invading, well, really since the beginning.
Zelensky has been fighting so hard for so long.
I don't think he wants to give up the fight because he was so committed to it.
And many of his backers do too.
But I sense that even his European allies who were all there realize this is probably the only off-ramp.
And what I mean by that is if this doesn't get done, I don't think Donald Trump is going to invest his time, prestige, political capital on it anymore.
I think he's going to walk away and let the Europeans have it and let Zelensky fail on his own without American support.
You know, I used to watch a lot more of Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago.
NATO's Security Guarantee00:06:32
He always predicted a terrible outcome in this war because Russia outnumbers Ukraine in population, in artillery, in military, in so many ways.
And it was just the grinding, almost World War I-style trench warfare with drones.
Here's Mearsheimer predicting what would happen in time.
Ukraine would be whittled down to what he would call a rump state.
It would be constantly destabilized by Russia and depopulated and made so it could never join NATO.
Here's a clip of that.
Let me make two points on this.
First of all, the phrase is sometimes used to describe the situation in Ukraine that is that it is in a demographic death spiral.
Just think about those words.
It's in a demographic death spiral.
And what this war has done is ended up killing huge numbers of Ukrainians.
And furthermore, huge numbers of Ukrainians have left the country.
And I would surmise that many of them will not return.
So this is a disaster from a demographic point of view.
Ukraine is going to end up as a dysfunctional rump state as well.
And this is a disaster of great proportions.
That's a terrifying outcome, but I cannot see that it's wrong.
That is the outcome if Ukraine and Russia can't get a peace deal.
And Mearsheimer, by the way, thought it was impossible to get a peace deal because you're arguing over land and it's a zero-sum game.
Some business deals are a positive sum game.
That is, both sides are winners.
But how can you have a winner in this?
There's only losers.
And if you're fighting over territory, for sure there's only losers.
I don't think Trump will stick around if he can't get a deal.
I think he's moving very quickly.
And I think if we're going to have a deal, we'll have it in the next week.
I think Putin will be reasonable enough in Trump's mind.
I think Putin will give Trump enough satisfaction that he's compromising enough that Zelensky will be the decider to make or break the deal.
But if he breaks it, he's on his own.
We'll see.
But as that Finnish leader said, this is the best hope yet.
And let me play just one last clip.
You know, I'm interested in the United Kingdom.
They have a terrible prime minister, record low in the polls.
I just want to show you what he had to say at this meeting.
This is Kier Starmer, and he was given two minutes to talk today.
And tell me if you even understand this word salad.
Thank you very much, Mr. President, and thank you for hosting us here.
Can I start where Emmanuel started, which is we all want peace.
The war in Ukraine has had a huge impact, particularly on the Ukrainians who've borne the brunt of it.
But it's also had an impact on Europe and on the United Kingdom.
There's not a family or community that hasn't been affected.
And when we talk about security, we're talking about the security not just of Ukraine, we're talking about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom as well, which is why this is such an important issue.
I think this is such an important meeting as a group.
I think we've had a discussion on the phone a number of times, Mr. President, but be able now to be around the table to take it forward.
And I really feel that we can, I think, with the right approach this afternoon, make real progress, particularly on the security guarantees and your indication of security guarantees of some sort of Article 5 style guarantees fits with what we've been doing with the Coalition of the Willing, which we started some months ago, bringing countries together and showing that we were prepared to step up to the plate when it came to security.
With you coming alongside the US alongside what we've already developed, I We could take a really important step forward today, a historic step actually, could come out of this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine and security in Europe.
I also feel that we can make real progress towards a just and lasting outcome.
Obviously, that has to involve Ukraine, and a trilateral meeting seems the sensible next step.
So, thank you for being prepared to take that forward, because I think if we can ensure that that is the progress out of this meeting, both security guarantees and some sort of progress on trilateral meeting of some sort to bring some of the difficult issues to a head, then I think today will be seen as a very important day in recent years in relation to a conflict which has gone on for three and a bit years.
And so far, nobody has been able to bring it to this point.
So, I thank you for that.
Yeah, I'm not sure how the Ukraine war has affected every single family in the UK.
I just don't think it has, other than they gave billions of pounds to pay for it.
I'm not sure if Russia is going to accept British troops as a security guarantee in Ukraine.
It seems like NATO soldiers on Russia's borders is the whole reason Russia invaded in the first place.
They're trying to remove military threats if you take them at their word for why they invaded.
I don't know if you caught that when Kier Starmer mentioned Article 5.
He was talking about the NATO treaty, where an attack on one country is considered an attack on all.
It's a mutual defense pact.
So he's suggesting that a security guarantee, which Zelensky wants, would have British troops there.
And if Russia were to invade Ukraine again, the United Kingdom itself would go to war.
I think that's what he was saying there.
But mainly, I just think it was Kirstarmer babbling.
He's not a decider here, and he knows it.
It's Trump and Putin, and Zelensky can decide if he likes their deal or not.
But I think this time it's going to get done because I simply don't think Trump is going to spend, is going to take another crack at it if he doesn't get it done this first time.
But could you imagine how rambling and empty Mark Carney would have been?
At least Kirstarmer, the Brit, has an army and a navy and an air force to pledge.
At least he could say we're going to do this and that, we're going to move men here and there, even if Russia wouldn't accept that.
But what would Mark Carney be able to say?
Debanking Dilemmas00:15:23
What does Canada's government have other than self-righteousness?
Hey, how do you feel about Canada having spent close to $20 billion on this war and not even receiving an invitation to attend?
Stay with us for more.
I don't think I've done a show about it, but a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump brought in a new executive order that's going to be incredibly important for conservatives and libertarians and Christians.
anyone who has been on the outside of American power for the Biden administration, the Obama administration.
I'm talking about an executive order called guaranteeing fair banking for all Americans.
In a phrase, it will end political debanking.
De-banking is a made-up word for when a bank fires you as a customer, not because you've done anything wrong, like say money laundering or something like that, something that actually the bank would not want to have anything to do with you, but for political purposes.
In fact, let me read to you from one of the very first paragraphs of this executive order.
I'm just going to read a couple of lines.
Financial institutions have been engaged in unacceptable practices to restrict law-abiding individuals and businesses access to financial services on the basis of political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.
Some financial institutions participated in government-directed surveillance programs targeting persons participating in activities and causes commonly associated with conservatism.
It goes on and gives a few examples, including transactions related to companies like Cabela's, that's a company that sells fishing gear and firearms, Bass ProShop, or who made peer-to-peer payments that involve terms like Trump or MAGA, even though there was no specific evidence tying these individuals to criminal conduct.
It's a very meaty executive order, but the crux of it is you can no longer debank someone for breaking these political rules.
And not just that, different regulators are now empowered to investigate cases, including, quote, past or current, formal or informal policies or practices that require, encourage, or otherwise influence such financial institutions to engage in politicized or unlawful debanking.
And by the way, it has teeth, too.
They can be subject to court orders, huge fines.
The reason I bring this to your attention is that the United States isn't just passing executive orders for itself.
Other banks do business in the United States, including Canadian banks.
You might recall a couple of years ago, Rebel News tried to get a mortgage to buy an office in Calgary.
And the local mortgage officers at the Royal Bank were fans of Rebel News.
They said absolutely.
They gave us a green light.
They even offered us a line of credit we didn't even ask for.
But later, they told us it was their head office in Toronto that spiked the deal for, quote, reputational reasons.
Now, there's no law against debanking in Canada.
In fact, it's sort of the opposite, isn't it?
You might recall that during the trucker convoy, without any legal basis, the federal government simply gave a list of names to the banks and demanded that they seize or freeze family bank accounts.
If there was a husband that was in a truck and had a joint account with the wife, well, Mrs. is out shopping for groceries.
Suddenly, none of her cards work.
It was an abuse of debanking, no checks and balances whatsoever.
And frankly, it was one of the main reasons why the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the Emergencies Act was illegal and unconstitutional.
De-banking was what did it.
Now, Canada still has debanking, as my own story proves to you.
But now that the U.S. is banning it and punishing such banks, I've got a question for you.
Will that apply to Canadian banks that operate in the states?
For example, one of the largest Canadian banks called TD Canada Trust has a big presence in the U.S.
They just call themselves TD down there.
They were engaged in massive money laundering, hundreds of millions of dollars.
That's fine up here in Canada, you see.
Our regulators turn a blind eye to that, but they were caught in the States, had to pay a $3 billion fine, and it resulted in the shuffle of senior management.
My point is that it took American regulators to whip a Canadian bank into shape.
Will that happen here?
Will Canadian banks that do business in the States now have to stop their debanking if they wish to continue to operate down there?
And the reason I tell you all of this is because we have just learned of a case of a Canadian Christian organization that has been debanked and was not given any explanation.
Well, that explains it in itself, doesn't it?
I'm talking about the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada and their executive director, Mike Shoton, joins us now, Vice Guy.
Mike, great to see you.
Thanks for coming on the show today.
Yeah, good to be here, Ezra.
Now, first of all, tell our viewers a little bit about the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada.
I don't think your name really gives away what you do.
Are you the kind of group that I listed there that would be picked on like this?
Do you have a religious or a political angle that might cause someone to try and deplatform you?
Yeah, we're a Christian political advocacy organization.
So ARPA Canada, the Association for Reformed Political Action, has a mission to educate, equip, and encourage reformed Christians and Christians at large across the country to political action.
And we also take a biblical perspective directly to our civil authorities.
So that's to the courts and to the legislatures across the country.
We've been doing that work since 2007, and we've had a relationship with financial institutions in Canada since that time as well.
Well, I tell you right there, I've heard all I need to hear.
I mean, remember, this is the Canadian government that a few years ago, if you wanted a student to sign up for the student summer student program where you get a grant to hire summer students, you had to sign an attestation to agree with Justin Trudeau on matters like abortion.
You literally had to swear to support Justin Trudeau's views on that issue, or you would not get any student summer student funding.
Just absolutely political bullying.
So I'm not surprised that you found yourself de-banked.
Tell me a little bit about it.
What was the bank?
What did you use that bank account for?
Were you doing anything unusual?
Tell us about the banking you did and how it came to be that they decided to fire you and deplatform you as a customer.
Yeah, certainly.
So we have a relationship with a few financial institutions here in Canada with this particular institution, Canadian Western Bank.
We've been with them since 2008.
And yet, for the most part, they are the institution whereby we had a relationship with all our monthly donors.
So the stable revenue that was coming in to support our organization was coming into that financial institution every month.
And we never had a problem.
We had a very good, healthy relationship with that bank.
And then somewhat out of the blue on July 30th, we received a letter regarding account closure.
And I initially thought this had something to do with their merger, which had been announced earlier this year with National Bank of Canada.
But certainly it didn't.
When I looked at the letter, it said, we have reviewed your accounts and decided it's closing as of August 30th.
Since that time, we try to reach out on numerous occasions to both our representatives at the local branch, as well as to their complaints handling office, and only received one piece of communication back, and that was last week.
And it simply said, we are giving you a two-week extension to September 15th.
And that's the only extension.
You have to be out of our institution by that time.
We are closing your entire account down.
So that's the communication we received from them.
Now, as I said, Canadian or the National Bank of Canada has merged with Canadian Western.
And again, quite surprisingly, I received a phone call from a vice president of commercial banking with the National Bank of Canada on Friday afternoon, just this past Friday afternoon.
And he was apologetic.
And he said, look, it's come to my attention that this happened.
It shouldn't have happened.
What can we do to make this relationship right?
Well, as your viewers can probably anticipate, when you receive a letter like that, you have to immediately scramble to find a new institution.
So we are in the process of doing that, and that's going well.
So I asked him for in writing if he could say, you know, what he said on the phone to me, put it in writing and email it to me, and he did.
And he referenced the fact that they had to take what he called this precautionary action because of something they had noticed with our account.
So I have since communicated back to him and said this is not very precautionary when you send us this type of notice and the account closure is imminent as of a specific date, causing all this frantic activity on our side to try to find a new institution.
Yeah, Mike, that's just called lying.
I mean, if there was actually something we were worried about, they would bring it to your attention.
They would try and fix it.
They would disclose what you had allegedly done.
They would say what rule your actions had allegedly broken.
I've been through this rodeo before with the Royal Bank.
They are bigoted against Christians.
And I don't think that that's hard to realize.
I mean, I note that when Christia Freeland demanded that the banks freeze and seize bank accounts of hundreds of Canadians, not a single one of the banks refused.
They all went along with it.
They're tantamount to government instruments.
They're so highly regulated.
Unfortunately, the Charter of Rights does not apply to them because they're not officially government entities.
So you don't have the same ability to reach for the Charter.
But it's funny that I think, you know, how I started the interview by referencing Trump's executive order from just two weeks ago, not even two weeks ago.
What's so interesting is Canadian National Bank has branches in the states, especially in Florida.
So does TD Bank.
So does Royal Bank.
And it wouldn't surprise me if they're going to be taking over Canadian Western Bank.
So they're going to be taking over the company that discriminated against you.
And by the way, I'm shocked by that because Canadian Western Bank was founded by a pro-Western, pro-freedom, pro-Christian family, the Allard family.
I know them a little bit.
I don't want to overstate it.
But the fact that the Canadian Western Bank was the one that censored and deplatformed you is extremely gross.
And I think that Mr. Allard, who founded the bank, would be turning his grave if he knew what was being done to you by the bank he founded.
It's sort of weird to me that the National Bank, which is based in Quebec, would be more tolerant, but I don't think they really are.
I think they're just afraid.
If you say you got this phone call from the National Bank just a week ago or so, well, Donald Trump's executive order must be ringing in their ears because they have the ability, the U.S. regulators have the ability to investigate any bank and punish them severely.
And they proved it by fining TD Bank $3 billion.
That's my theory.
Mike, I don't think that they suddenly grew a conscience.
And I don't think they suddenly started to care about Christians.
I think that Donald Trump's executive order is what got them finally walking straight.
Yeah, as an advocacy organization here in Canada, we welcome the input of the international community, certainly.
That is impacting our work at numerous levels.
And if it does have a positive impact here in regards to our banking situation, then we welcome that.
One of the other topics of interest that you and your viewers might want to be aware about is that we actually had a billboard in Hamilton taken down by the city of Hamilton.
Mayor Horwath, she instructed that this billboard had to be taken down.
And fortunately, in Canada, the charter does apply to governments, and it's intended to shield us from government oppression.
In this case, the mayor simply didn't like the message of that billboard, which was very straightforward, factual-based, advertising the website letkidsbe.ca and calling for the end of medical transitioning for minors in our country.
The international community has fed into this campaign in a big way because countries around the world are taking action to protect minors who experience gender dysphoria here in Canada.
We're not up with the times yet.
So if the international community can impact the policy in regards to how we deal with minors experiencing gender dysphoria, we, ARPA Canada, we welcome that.
And we hope that that has a very positive impact on policy here in Canada.
As you're indicating, in the banking situation, it could have a positive impact on how Christians and people that the banks might not agree with ideologically are treated by them.
You know, I'm familiar with the billboard case, and that is a situation that the Charter of Rights likely does apply to because it's the government that's making the decision.
And the Charter, of course, is a shield to protect against government bigotry.
Now, I think we did a story on the billboards before.
Do you guys have legal assistance, either through the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms or the Democracy Fund?
Do you guys have help to fight against the city?
I don't think either of those charities could help you on the banking side, but against the bigoted mayor of Hamilton.
Yes, certainly.
So we do have in-house legal counsel, and he is pursuing legal action against the city of Hamilton.
And we've had numerous offers, including communication with some of those organizations that you mentioned, to assist either in partnering with or as interveners in this case, which we're very confident that we will win.
In fact, we have won against the city of Hamilton already when it came to other advertisements in their city.
So we're confident we can win.
And it actually, it's simply unfortunate for the residents of Hamilton.
The taxpayers of Hamilton are going to have to foot the bill plus pay costs that will be awarded to us.
Well, you know, I'm very glad you're lawyered up.
And I'm glad that some of those civil liberties charities that I mentioned, it sounds like they've been in touch.
Rally on September 27th00:05:23
And I trust you'll let the world know if you do need help.
One of the things we like to do at Rebel News is have petitions that we would, you know, and I bet you we could get 10,000 people to sign a petition and to deliver to the mayor.
And of course, if you need help crowdfunding for the lawyer, that's one of the things our viewers like to do too.
So keep that in the back of your keep that, you know, if you do need help, do reach out.
Don't be shy about it.
You seem very confident and well-versed in things.
So I think that, and if you have in-house counsel, that's probably the best way to go.
I'm optimistic.
I look forward to following the case because I don't think that mayors of cities should be able to tell you what you can and can't say.
I'm also looking forward to seeing what other banks do in response to the Trump executive order.
I sort of wish it had been around when the Royal Bank deplatformed us, but hopefully it'll help in the manner I described earlier.
What's the best way for us to follow this case and any other work that you're doing?
Is there a website out there I can direct people to?
Certainly, yes, it would be for the banking situation and any other work that ARPA Canada does, it's simply ARPACanada.ca.
And then on the specifics of the billboard and the whole campaign to end medical transitioning for minors, that's the URL is letkidsbe.ca.
And it'd be really interesting for your viewers to note as well that we are planning a large rally at Queen's Park on September 27th, Saturday, September 27th at Queen's Park.
And the whole purpose of that rally is to put political pressure on Doug Ford and his government to take action to protect minors in that province using the provincial health care guidelines in a similar fashion as Danielle Smith has done in the province of Alberta.
Well, that's very interesting.
Who's going to be speaking at the rally?
We have a number of detransitioners.
We have some lawyers, some staff from ARPA Canada.
For more information on that rally and further speakers, simply visit lifekidsbe.ca and just click on the link rally on March, September 27th, and all the information is available there.
Great.
Well, I'm going to talk to my friend David Menzies, who really covers this beat well, and maybe he can go and cover it because I'd like to see how many people you muster.
I am pessimistic that the government will respond to you.
I think that, you know, really there's very little difference between the Ontario's so-called conservative government and the opposition.
But, you know, you've got to hope for the best.
Thanks so much for spending some time with us and keep in touch on these issues.
And if any more present, and if we can ever be of assistance, don't be shy to ask.
Oh, dude, thanks so much for that.
All right.
Our pleasure.
There he is, Mike Shoton of the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada.
And I look forward to David's coverage, if you can make it, of the rally on September 27th.
Stay with us, Boarhead.
Hey, welcome back.
Got a couple of viewer letters.
By the way, you can make comments right there on our website if you are a subscriber.
And that's often where we take our letters from.
Average Gal says, as an Ontarian, I fully support Pierre Polyev, and I fully support Alberta to get the respect they deserve.
Let's get Canada back on track and make it prosperous for all.
You know, Stephen Harper really made Western separatism fall down because he treated the West with respect.
He didn't antagonize it.
And that was good enough for happy, patriotic Albertans.
But I think the problem is that structurally, the system itself was not changed.
So all it took was losing an election to a Justin Trudeau and now a Mark Carney.
And all those bad things are happening all over again.
So I love your point of view and your optimism.
But I think one of the complaints in the West is it's just going to happen again, whether it happens in five, 10, or 20 years.
And there's some truth to it.
Gray C1614 says, Trudeau's mentor and advisor was Mark Carney.
Carney's mentor and advisor is Mark Wiseman, the de facto co-prime minister of Canada.
I don't think I would go that far.
And Mark Wiseman, besides being a kind of lobbyist, is the head of the Century Initiative, this insane idea to pump up Canada through immigration to 100 million people, basically to make Canadians a minority within Canada.
Now, that is right now, I hate to say it, Mark Carney's policy.
I just don't think that that is the Svengali guru here.
You might be right, but I haven't seen a lot of proof of that.
But yeah, Carney is dangerous on his own.
I always say he's like Trudeau, but smarter and harder working and much more networked.
Remember, he was a director of the World Economic Forum.
He was the boss of the global financial alliance for net zero.
He was with the UN.
Like he really, instead of partying and drinking and playing around like Justin Trudeau did, Mark Carney actually was preparing for his moment.
And I think that's the danger.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you and home, good night.