Ezra Levant critiques Mark Carney’s muddled ASEAN speech—$300B in vague trade promises, 50M LNG tons by 2029, and $3.4B annual deals Trump secured instantly—while contrasting his lack of action with Trump’s bold moves: a Thailand-Cambodia peace deal and Malaysia’s U.S. tariff concessions. Alberta’s independence rally (6K–12K attendees) reveals UCP-aligned frustration over stalled pipelines and Carney’s green energy schemes, like Bermuda shell companies favoring Brookfield Asset Management. Viewers question Carney’s leadership, calling his rhetoric "gobbly gook," while Smith’s Washington diplomacy and Trump’s trade dominance highlight Canada’s fractured approach to sovereignty and global influence. [Automatically generated summary]
I watched Mark Carney's entire speech at an Asian conference in Malaysia.
It's only five and a half minutes long.
That's all the time they gave him.
I'll play you the speech and I'll give you my thoughts and then I'll contrast it with Donald Trump's triumphant arrival at that same conference.
That's ahead.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
I really want you to see Carney.
I want you to see this empty room, Carney not even standing in a podium.
I want you to see how pitiful and pathetic it was and how mumbly it was.
You can see it with the video version Rebel News Plus.
Go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
Eight bucks a month, which might not sound like a lot to you, but it's enough to really pay the bills for us because we take no government money in its shows.
Tonight, Donald Trump and Mark Carney were both in Malaysia, but they didn't meet.
Let me show you how each of them fared at that get-together.
It's October 27th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Hey, the word ASEAN, A-S-E-A-N, it's like NATO.
It's an acronym.
It stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
There's 11 countries, including Indonesia, which is a pretty big country.
And you'd be surprised how big countries like the Philippines and Vietnam and Thailand are, but they're all pretty poor, also, to be honest.
Neither Canada nor the United States are members of this club called ASEAN, but both were there invited as guests.
I'm going to show you what each of those two leaders did.
Now, I'm sorry, you're going to find this very depressing.
Now, let's start with Mark Carney.
He left Canada during a crisis.
His best friend, Doug Ford, had dumped $75 million, allegedly, into attack ads against Donald Trump at the same time as Canada's diplomats are trying to negotiate a trade agreement with them.
Could you imagine if Trump had bought $75 million worth of political attack ads in Canada just to rough up Mark Carney, to whip up Canadian sentiment, to put pressure on Carney to compromise in a negotiation?
I think it would be unthinkable, but that's what the brilliant neurosurgeon rocket scientist Doug Ford cooked up.
And even when he agreed to stop the ads, he fudged that because he really wanted the ads to air during the World Series over the weekend.
That surprised Trump, who had been told the ads were coming down.
And he gave Canada, a surprise in return, a 10% bump in tariffs.
On the flight yesterday, you said that you were talking about the Canada tariffs.
Can you walk through when you expect those to take effect in fast?
Why?
You know, we're going to let them know.
Ronald Reagan loved tariffs.
He used them sparingly, which he probably would make a mistake.
He made a mistake in that.
And again, I was the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan, but on finance, on trade, it wasn't his strong suit.
But he liked tariffs.
And they totally changed that to say that he did because they're catering to the Supreme Court.
Because Canada's been ripping us off for a long time.
And they're not going to rip us off anymore.
Canada has been ripping us off for a long time.
One of the most difficult countries to deal with has been Canada.
As much as I love Canada itself and the people of Canada, they've just had a lot of bad representatives.
They did a fake ad yesterday.
They were court.
The Ronald Reagan Foundation was the one that caught him.
And it was totally the opposite of what they said.
So I don't like that.
That's dirty fool.
You can't do that.
And let me just tell you, they shouldn't have done it.
And they've apologized.
And they said, we're going to take the ad down.
Well, they did it, but they did it very late.
They let it play for another two nights, and now they took that ad down.
So I don't know when it's going to kick in.
We'll see, but I don't really want to discuss it.
By the way, here's a U.S. negotiator who says it's not even about the ad.
It's about all sorts of antics by the Canadian negotiating team.
And he specifically mentions some holdovers from the Trudeau years.
Yeah, obviously the President Truth something that reveals his frustration with the actions and postures of the Canadians through months of negotiations.
And we'll see how it goes.
Mr. Hassett, on Canada, you said the president was frustrated, but is this just a knee-jerk reaction?
I think the frustration has built up over time.
I've been involved in some of these negotiations, and the Canadians have been very difficult to negotiate with.
And you look at all the countries around the world that we've made deals with, and the fact that we're now negotiating with Mexico separately reveals that it's not just about one ad, that there's frustration that's built up.
And is he planning to speak with the Prime Minister Kearney when they're both in Asia this week?
Because this ad had nothing to do with Kearney's government.
Yeah, I don't have any information on that.
Mr. Hassett.
Mr. Hassan, how concerned is the administration that the Supreme Court will not ultimately side with your view on the tariff policy?
The president has been truthing a lot about the upcoming case.
I think that we have a very high level of confidence that the Supreme Court will side with us.
We think we're on very strong grounds.
I've been fishing through the briefs myself just to see what the arguments are.
And I think that the case is very, very strong, and we're highly confident that they'll side with us.
I even spoke with the Oval with the President about it last night.
And I have to say the level of confidence is extremely high.
Mr. Hassett, just very quickly, what has been so challenging about dealing with Canada in trade negotiations?
I guess the lack of flexibility.
And, you know, also, I would guess that leftover behaviors from the Trudeau folks that can be very frustrating for people who are negotiating.
Anyways, I'd call that a crisis.
Is there anything more important that Carney is doing?
But, you know, his way of handling crises seems to be to run away to his happy place, his safe place, which is foreign conferences, as opposed to our parliament or a cabinet meeting or even just going down to the White House to try and fix things.
I think that Mark Carney likes giving speeches in faraway places and sounding like a boring Goldman Sachs analyst, which he is.
Just jargon-filled word salads.
I'll show you.
Let me show you his entire speech to this ASEAN conference.
I got to tell you, the speech is just over five minutes long.
And no one there cared what Carney had to say.
The place was inattentive.
Carney wasn't even standing up at a podium.
He was just sitting in front of a microphone, low energy.
I'm not sure if his speech was written out for him, but it doesn't really matter.
It was just all that jargon fog machine.
Take a look.
I want you to promise to stay and listen to what Trump said and what Trump did by contrast.
That's my whole point here: to compare.
So please don't be bored by Mark Carney and click away.
I really want you to stay to see the difference between Carney and Trump at the same meeting.
Okay?
So here it goes.
I'm going to, like I said, it's about a five-minute speech that Carney gave.
I'll play the whole thing.
I'll play the first two and a half minutes without interruption.
So that's half the speech right there.
It's just a five-minute long speech here.
Take a look.
Now, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as for the tradition, we will first invite the guests of the chair.
And we begin with the Prime Minister of Canada.
Thank you very much, Prime Minister, for that introduction, for your hospitality, and for your leadership in this vital forum at this historic time and your leadership over the years and going forward.
Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, it is an honor to be here.
I chose this summit and this visit to Malaysia as my first trip as Prime Minister to Asia for a reason.
Peace Deal Announced00:14:45
And that is, like ASEAN, Canada values sustainability and inclusivity in everything we do.
And I felt as I walked in to the summit, as I said to His Excellency, that I felt at home seeing the symbolism here.
We value a rules-based system.
We respect trade agreements and the rule of law.
We value the free exchange of goods, capital, and ideas.
We're a natural partner.
And as one of your earliest dialogue partners, we value ASEAN as the standard barrier of multilateralism.
And I just want to say a few words about how we can contribute to building that.
I recognize your words this morning.
We're at an uncertain time in the world.
There's a shift.
We don't know the new system that's going to emerge.
This is more of a rupture than a transition.
It's a shift that's happening in a short period of time.
Multilateralism giving away to transactional bilateral trade, a new era of great power rivalry, technological change, shrinking distance, and increasing the fields of conflicts, developing developments that all challenge the effectiveness of the institutions on which we as middle powers have long relied.
It makes ASEAN more important than ever.
And it underscores the importance of reliable partners who honor their commitments, who are there in tough times, and when things are not working, who work collaboratively to fix them.
And again, I want to commend you, Chair, and in brokering the peace agreement that was announced this morning.
A future determined by commitment, not circumstance, again to quote.
And, colleagues, I would like to just underscore that Canada can be and is such a partner.
You know, in 2025, no one really cares about someone talking about a rules-based order.
That's the idea that economic power and military power don't really count.
It's whatever rules some bureaucrats of the UN publish that matter.
That's just not how the world works.
Certainly not in places like Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Gaza and China and Taiwan and anything.
But even so, it's a lie.
Mark Carney does not believe in a rules-based order.
He violated the rules by unilaterally and unconditionally declaring Canada's recognition of a Hamas-led Palestine without adhering to any rules or any international systems like a UN vote.
I don't believe in the UN.
I think the rules-based system is code for blocking the United States.
But it's a bit rich for the guy who claims to follow the rules just to give a big diplomatic gift to Hamas terrorists and pretend that he didn't.
But other than that, would you agree that this speech really just sounds like a bunch of blather, like a board professor talking to bored students?
He mentions a peace agreement.
I'll come to that in a moment.
It seems like he had no idea about it in advance.
But unless I misunderstood him, I think he actually suggested in just a mumble that no one listened to that Canada might be willing to help do that.
Canada can be and is such a partner.
No one asked Canada to make a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia.
No one asked.
No one asked Canada to help negotiate between Ukraine and Russia or between China and Taiwan or between Israel and Hamas.
Literally, no one in the world thinks, what would Canada do?
Let's ask them.
Let's ask them for help.
No one.
And I'm embarrassed to say this, but it's downright pitiful to see this mumbler just sort of half-assed say it after the fact suggesting that he could have been relevant to a peace deal or something.
I'll show you more about the peace deal later.
But let me play some more of his speech.
We're halfway done because here's where he starts in on his sales pitch to this half-empty room.
I'll play just under a minute.
Here, take a look.
Give an example.
A few days ago, I announced our plan to double our non-U.S. exports over the course of the next decade.
That's more than $300 billion in new trade, much of which we hope will be with this group.
We think we can do that because we have much of what the world wants.
We're an energy superpower and both clean and conventional.
We expect within the next five years to produce and export 50 million tons of LNG every year to Asia and to double that within 10 years from then.
So Carney says we're an energy superpower, both clean and conventional.
But we're not.
We're a serious producer of oil and gas, but both are very limited by the fact that you can't build pipelines in Canada and you can't build tanker facilities because the government will stop you.
The Liberals killed the Northern Gateway pipeline and the Energy East pipeline, and they haven't lifted a finger to revive the Keystone XL pipeline after their ally Joe Biden killed it.
Now that Trump is there, they would revive it in a second.
But what does a clean energy superpower even mean?
We export some electricity to the U.S., most of it from hydroelectric dams, not from windmills or solar panels, which is what I think Carney means.
Now, he does mention LNG, liquefied natural gas.
He refuses to say the word oil.
But his liberals have been an impediment to LNG.
Remember, Justin Trudeau actually said there was not a business case for it, and he turned down countries like South Korea, Japan, Germany, and India who all wanted Canadian energy.
Listen to what he says about rare earth minerals, which are needed for some high-tech things like magnets and batteries.
Take a look here, and I'll come back in a minute.
We're one of the largest, blessed with one of the largest resources of critical minerals and rare earths, just like many around the table.
And part of our partnership offer is to work with you on financing and developing that, including through what we formed a critical mineral alliance, which can provide a secure buyer for these resources so that you can develop them over time.
Do you understand that?
He says he's ready for financing and development for them, not for us.
He says you twice.
So he's going to take Canadian money and put it into foreign countries.
What does he mean by that?
Does he think he's at Brookfield or something?
He's offering them money.
Whose money?
Taxes, I presume, to develop Asian resources.
I thought he was trying to sell them on developing our resources.
Play that again.
We're one of the largest, blessed with one of the largest resources of critical minerals and rare earths, just like many around the table.
And part of our partnership offer is to work with you on financing and developing that, including through what we formed a critical mineral alliance, which can provide a secure buyer for these resources so that you can develop them over time.
You can develop them.
No, we can develop them.
I don't know what he's talking about there.
Maybe I've misunderstood him.
Maybe he's just saying nothing.
And then he starts to ramble and mumble.
I guess he saw that he has just 60 seconds left by this point.
So he sort of goes nuts and it sort of overheats and short circuits and he says all the buzzwords at once: cyber, AI, you know, and he just starts reaching for his happy places, catalyze a generational investment.
That's his favorite.
Watch this explosion of jargon.
With respect to defense, AI, cyber, just to give context, we are quadrupling our spending on defense in the next five years.
Much of that will be in the realms of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the interactions.
This is an area where our cooperation is ideal.
Do you know what he even means by that?
They shoehorned him into a meeting.
This is why he ran away from Canada.
For that, for five minutes of mumbling when no one was even in the room, he wasn't even standing at a podium.
The one thing that was tangible was him saying he's going to quadruple spending on the military.
I don't believe him.
Canada spends about $40 billion a year.
Do you really think he's going to quadruple it to $160 billion a year?
Of course not.
But even if he were, what's his point?
Why is he telling that to these other countries?
Is he going to send them some of the shipbuilding contracts or something?
Is he inviting them to get some of that business?
What on earth is that false boast?
What does it have to do with getting investors to put money into Canadian factories or to buy Canadian goods?
I don't know.
And then he just lies.
This is the final clip.
I hope you haven't turned this off yet because you just got to hear Trump by contrast.
Here's the final moments.
President Bravo, thank you.
We concluded a historic trade agreement, our first bilateral free trade agreement with an ASEAN partner with speed and with ambition.
This reflects what we want to do as a government.
We will bring the same commitment to bilateral discussions with any of you who are interested.
But very importantly, and this is something I wanted to underscore, we would like to complete the negotiations of the Canada-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement over the course of next year's presidency, President Marcos, we discussed earlier.
We will put all the resources in.
And finally, to supplement your work on digital, on clean tech, and on energy wherever we can, because this is the form of reason and respect.
This is the form of inclusivity and sustainability, and we are keen to contribute in any way we can.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, so Mark Carney is all about speed and ambition, people.
Today is his 228th day as Prime Minister.
What has he done so quickly and ambitiously?
Again, he mutters the buzzwords digital, clean tech, but he doesn't say what he means.
Is he trying to get them to invest money in Canada?
Is he offering to spend our money on them?
Who knows?
No one knows, and no one there really cares.
He ends with some sort of passive, aggressive comment that ACN, this group, is a form of civility and inclusiveness.
I think he's taking some subtle jab at Trump.
But he was crystal clear, wasn't he?
He said he concluded a trade agreement with an ASEAN country.
I looked it up, and I don't think he has.
Now, there was a deal with Indonesia that was done last year, and they signed the paperwork recently.
Maybe that's what he means.
I don't know.
I mean, if he's taking credit for that, I guess it's true.
But it would be a weird thing to lie about.
I don't know.
Here's the statement that I thought he was referring to.
He put this statement out about meeting the head of the Philippines.
The headline is, Prime Minister Carney met with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
I read this statement, and it says that Canada has been slowly negotiating freer trade with the ACN group for years, and that'll continue for at least another year.
And the big news in that press conference, press release, apparently, is that now Canada will also directly negotiate with the Philippines, and that's going to take at least a year to negotiate.
That's starting now, as in they don't have an agreement yet.
By the way, I like the Philippines, but we only do about $3 billion in two-way trade each year with them.
We sell them about $1.4 billion worth of stuff every year, compared with 'trillion dollars' or $1,000 billion.
We do business with the U.S.
So it's sort of pitiful, sort of lame.
I see he was pretty proud to meet with the leader of Laos.
Our exports there, I checked, are $18 million.
Not billion, million.
I have no beef with Laos.
I couldn't find them on a map, honestly, but I'm sure they're nice.
I think running away from the crisis in Washington for a photo op with Laos is pretty weak.
So that's our guy.
That's our elbows-up guy.
Honestly, what even was his message?
If you take all the filler words out of his speech, AI, cyber, clean tech, digital, sustainable, transformative, catalyzing, decisive action, you take all those words out.
There's only three things he said in that whole speech.
He's going to quadruple military spending, which just is not true.
And what's that got to do with exports?
He says he signed a free trade deal.
If he means the one that was negotiated last year, I guess that's true, but that's a weird thing to boast about.
And he's taking a veiled dig at Trump not being civil.
Speaking of whom, Trump landed at Malaysia around the same time, too, and he announced two real things almost immediately: a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia.
I didn't even know they were fighting.
Here, take a look.
Oh, just that.
Just another peace deal.
Now, some might point out that there have been attempts at getting those two countries together for a long time and that Trump just came along at the end as they crossed the finish line.
Well, I suppose, but that's sort of the point.
No one could make it stick.
No one could get it across the finish line.
No one could get it done.
No one else could turn a maybe into a yes.
No one else had the charisma, the authority, the economic power, the diplomatic power, the carrot and the stick.
Just like Joe Biden allegedly was working on peace for Israel his whole term, well, Trump did it in a few months, getting both the Jews and the Arabs to agree.
Oh, but don't forget our Mr. Mumbles.
He said he's available in case anyone wants him as a mediator or whatever it was that he said in that incoherent speech.
But besides a peace deal, Trump announced a trade deal the day he landed.
And by deal, I mean a real deal, not a promise to try and get a deal a year from now.
U.S. - Malaysia Trade Deal Highlights00:03:45
You can read the deal on the White House website.
It's very long and very beneficial to the United States.
I skimmed the whole thing.
It's very long.
Let me tell you some of the highlights.
It has 19% tariffs on Malaysian exports to the United States.
So they pay for access to the U.S. market.
And in return, they grant preferred market access for Americans in the Malaysian economy.
Isn't that what Carney said he was supposed to go to this conference in Malaysia to do?
Didn't Kearney want access to markets?
Our guy didn't get them.
Trump did.
Remember, Carney mumbled something about critical minerals.
It was weird.
He said Canada had them, but then he said something about ACN developing them.
I'm not sure what the deal was.
Actually, I am sure there is no deal, just a mumble.
But let me read the critical minerals section of Trump's deal, which is in black and white.
Malaysia has committed to refrain from banning or imposing quotas on exports to the United States of critical minerals or rare earth elements.
Malaysia has committed to the expedient development of its critical minerals and rare earths sectors in partnership with U.S. companies, including granting extended operating licenses to create certainty for businesses to increase production capacity.
Malaysia has committed to ensure no restrictions are imposed on the sale of rare earth magnets to U.S. companies.
So U.S. companies get to go into Malaysia, mine rare earths, sell it to America with no impediments, no taxes or tariffs for an extended time.
Pow!
China's strategic advantage over rare earth minerals just disappeared.
And remember, Carney mumbled something about LNG.
Yeah, Trump just signed a deal on that, too.
Let me read it to you.
America will sell, Malaysia will, quote, purchase up to 5 million tons per annum of liquefied natural gas, estimated at up to $3.4 billion per year.
And unlike Canada, the U.S. has plenty of LNG liquefaction plants.
They frack the natural gas, they pipe it to the ports, they liquefy it, and they put it on ships to Asia.
They're doing that now.
We have a single LNG plant that's operational, and it's just started, and it's not even up to full speed yet, and there's problems with it.
And the grand total it's shipped ever is less than a million tons.
Now, I'm rooting for it.
I hope Carney doesn't kill it or the other LNG projects that are trying to get built.
I hope Carney doesn't kill the gas pipelines to feed these LNG plants.
But Trump just signed a 5 million ton a year deal with Malaysia while we're still figuring out where our naval is.
Oh, yeah.
And then this part of the deal: procurement of 30 aircraft plus a purchase option for 30 additional aircraft.
Now, I'm not sure if those are fighter jets that America would sell or passenger jets, but that in itself is a multi-billion dollar coup.
I'm not going to read the whole deal.
I'd characterize it two ways.
Number one, Malaysia pays to sell its goods into America and agrees to let America sell significant goods into Malaysia on favored terms.
But more importantly, America locks in Malaysia's rare earths, dealing a blow to China's ambitions in the region.
So, yeah, one meeting, ASEAN.
Two different leaders, Carney and Trump.
Based on what you've seen, Trump is absolutely going to devour Kearney, isn't he?
stay with us for more.
Conservative Party Clash00:14:27
Well, I think that Alberta is the crucible, the laboratory for conservative and freedom oriented and, and smaller government ideas in Canada.
In fact, I think you could argue that it has been that place for more than a century.
A lot of political leaders, a lot of political parties, come out of Alberta.
And right now, a movement that has a fair bit of life to it is the Alberta Independence Movement.
And as you may know, Rebel News had some town hall meetings in Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton, and even one in Saskatoon.
And hundreds of people came out just to explore the ideas.
Well, a couple days ago, there was a rally outdoors in the cool weather in Edmonton, and thousands and thousands of people came.
And one of them was our friend Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter.
She joins us now via Zoom.
Hey, Sheila, how was it?
What was it like?
First of all, who sponsored the rally?
How many people were there?
Who spoke?
Just give us some facts about it.
Sure.
Ezra, it was an incredible sea of blue.
It was just nothing but Alberta flags and thousands of people.
Now, there are some disputes over how many people were there.
I asked the police on scene, take this for what you will.
They said between 5,000 and 6,000, which is huge.
It's an enormous number for a non-partisan political rally.
The only rally I've seen bigger would be Polyev's final rally in Edmonton.
That was like 12,000 to 14,000.
But this is non-partisan.
There's no political money backing it, the way that it would back a political party.
The organizers, the Alberta Prosperity Project, organized this on kind of short order, not too long, maybe a couple of weeks.
Their numbers, using drone footage and some analysis of that, suggest closer to 10 or 12,000.
I would believe either one of those numbers.
It's hard to get a grasp on how big a crowd is when you're in the middle of it and all you see is just a sea of humanity.
Like, for example, I thought there was people sort of up top of the plaza because they ran out of room on the plaza.
And I thought, oh, those are the aunties.
Like, those are the counter-protesters.
I went up there.
Nope, same rally.
Just they ran out of room and it was up top.
It was just an enormous bunch of people.
We had Jeffrey Rath.
He's the lawyer who undid much of Jason Kenney's COVID madness here.
We had trucker lawyer Keith Wilson.
He spoke.
There were other Alberta Prosperity Project-linked people, but also Chris Scott.
So the whistle-stop cafe owner who stood up at great personal cost against the COVID mandates.
And now he's standing up for Alberta Independence.
Well, we know all those folks.
Very interesting.
Now, you mentioned counter-protesters.
Were there any?
I guess.
I ran up to take a look.
And I was safe to do that not only because I was in thousands of friendly folks, but because the police were guarding these antis pretty carefully.
There were about a dozen or so police officers guarding about eight counter protesters.
They looked exactly how you would imagine they look.
There was one openly Antifa guy waving an Antifa flag.
There was, you know, your obligatory handmaid's tail LARPer.
She was there.
The ladies of the left need a new book.
They really do.
But, you know, there was just eight people, you know, your regular left-wing kooks from downtown Edmonton that wandered down there.
But that was it, really.
Well, I suppose if they use plural pronouns, that would double the number.
So there's eight people there, but they all call themselves Billy Bam.
Maybe that's like 16 people.
I know.
I don't know how the math works.
Now, I saw this clip.
It sort of made me smile.
A couple years ago, when Danielle Smith was running for the UCP United Conservative Party leadership, there was a forum held by the Alberta Prosperity Project.
And if you can believe it, they asked me to be one of the MCs in this debate.
So it was a forum and a debate.
And I put a question to Danielle Smith, which I guess they liked because they played it and the answer at the rally.
And didn't that make me feel good?
Here, let's play a clip of that.
This is at the big rally.
The audio is from a couple years ago, though, when I moderated the debate.
Here, take a look.
Ezra, I hope your eyes are better after getting pepper sprayed over in Ireland, I think it was this week.
But he asked a question during the leadership campaign for the United Conservative Party.
And Danielle Smith was the one who answered, Gary, hit the audio.
Economic minority, but they did something different.
They had an or else added to the end of it.
How far are you willing to go?
Are you willing to say we want these things or else?
At what stage would you, for example, invoke the Clarity Act as clarified by the Supreme Court?
For example, calling a referendum on the Clarity Act question of secession.
Do you have an or else in mind?
What is it and what would make you use it?
And if not, how are you serious?
And I'll start off with Danielle Smith on that one.
The or else is Dennis Modry of the Alberta Prosperity Project.
It's true.
We proclaimed into law on April the 7th, the Citizen Initiative Act, which gives the people the power to collect signatures for a petition campaign to propose an amendment.
If it's a simple matter of policy, it's a 10% threshold.
If it's a constitutional change, it's a 20% threshold.
That would mean 600,000 signatures.
And as I understand it, Dr. Modri has a million people on his database.
So part of when I decided I wanted to run, I knew how important it was to make sure that we addressed the issues of autonomy.
And I talked to Dr. Modri as one of my first steps.
I said, let's try this together.
Let's get as much autonomy as we can.
Full well knowing that he's got the power.
You've got the power.
If we're not successful, and this is why I take your movement very, very seriously and why Justin Trudeau should take it very, very seriously too, because you have the power to be able to be the or else.
Well, that's sort of fun, but I think it is the essential point.
I mean, in politics, you can take your base for granted if they have nowhere else to go.
I suppose your base can, quote, stay home.
But if you can, like, can you take Alberta for granted?
Can any party take Alberta for granted?
Well, if there's no or else, then the answer is, yeah, probably.
And my question to Danielle Smith, who's now the Premier, implied, let's say you try and fail like so many Albertan leaders have tried and failed before.
Are you willing to push that button, that independence button?
And her answer is sort of, right?
Because she's allowing the referendum and making it a little bit easier.
She's sort of neutral about it, but the fact that she would give it her blessing itself is a big positive.
How did this crowd sound in regards to Danielle Smith?
Because in a way, she's enabled their referendum, but she's not sort of cheering for it.
I think she's taking a neutral stance, which is probably wise.
What's the mood about her?
You know, I didn't meet a single person there who would not have been a UCP voter.
Right.
Like a United Conservative Party voter.
I think the Venn diagram, as they say, on these people being Conservative Party voters, United Conservative Party voters, it's a circle.
These are the UCP base.
And as I said in my upcoming video on this, you discard these people at your peril.
I think they are people who are perfectly happy to have Danielle Smith fight with the feds, fight for provincial autonomy, fight for our jobs, fight for our pipelines, fight for our firearms rights.
But in the meantime, do all that while they work towards independence?
They're not anti-Danielle Smith.
In fact, I think a lot of people appreciate her hands-off approach.
I don't think people want political meddling.
And yet, there's the likes of Jason Kenney, who repeatedly goes after the sovereigntist movement in the same language that Justin Trudeau used to go after the Freedom Convoy.
These are a bunch of fringe.
These are a bunch of radicals.
These are a bunch of wackos.
They sure didn't look that way to me when I was there.
In fact, they're people who likely voted for Jason Kenney in the past.
You know, I mean, Jason Kenning is a pundit out there, but he's also in private business.
And sometimes I wonder who his clients are and if he's speaking for himself or for his clients.
I'm not quite sure.
Let me ask you a question because I've been focused on Mark Carney, and he has been really wobbly in his negotiations with Donald Trump.
He promised he would be the guy who could handle Trump better than anyone else.
Turns out he's the guy who Trump doesn't want to meet with over anyone else.
Like Trump will literally, he's cutting deals every day, but he will not talk with Carney.
It's sort of weird to watch.
But I'm listening to Carney anyways.
He was in Malaysia, and he said Canada has clean energy to offer, and we have what the world wants.
He's basically been saying that for a while.
But I don't know what he means by clean energy.
I think he means LNG, liquefied natural gas.
But I don't think he means oil, even though places like India and basically everyone in the world would prefer to buy our oil if they could.
Do you think Mark Carney is going to allow a pipeline of oil to be built?
I actually think he'll approve LNG.
Do you think he's going to allow any oil?
No, absolutely not.
That's why I wasn't such a cheerleader for Bill C5 when it was being rammed through the House of Commons.
I don't think the government should be deciding private projects that are in the nation's interest.
They should meet a specific criteria for safety, and then that's it.
The government should get out of the way.
But when they attach this in the nation's interest to it, what I believe is in the nation's interests and what the liberals believe are in the nation's interests are two far different things.
You're going to see, I think, all sorts of green energy projects being approved in the nation's interests and a lot of liberal-linked friends and insiders being enriched by these projects that are being approved because they're in the nation's interest.
But do I believe that a pipeline will go forward?
No.
And like the liberals before him, Mark Carney is offloading the voice of no to somebody else so he can say, look, I tried, I kept my hands clean.
David Eby says no.
And Quebec says no.
It's not me saying no.
Can't you see I tried?
And so do I think that any of these projects that are in the nation's interest related to Alberta are going to go forward?
Absolutely not.
When Mark Carney says that the world wants what Canada has, I think he means maybe liquefied natural gas, which is fine.
But I think some weird, quirky, green project too, like offloading some sort of weird green tech that's developed in Canada for a gajillion dollars to Brookfield Asset Management.
That's what I think he means.
You know, when I was in Bermuda for four hours earlier this year trying to track down one of his shell companies, I discovered them in Bermuda.
All his green companies have this sort of storefront office in Bermuda.
None of them operate there, by the way.
It's just basically compliance lawyers and clerks.
And he hasn't sold any of his stock.
He has still held on to all his stock, and he makes money with these green schemes.
And just, I mean, 99 plus percent of his stocks are foreign.
He just doesn't believe in Canadian companies.
In fact, his last act as head of Brookfield was to move their head office out of Canada.
I think you say there's between 6,000 and 12,000 people at the separate independence rally in Edmonton.
When it becomes clear, when you get a hard no on a pipeline, I think then you will see those numbers skyrocket.
Right now, people are trying to understand Carney.
What does he mean?
He speaks in foggy emanations.
It's tough to understand him.
But he's been prime minister for almost 230 days, which is a lot more than it feels like because he hasn't done a bloody thing.
Right.
And it's coming up on a full year.
And what exactly has he done?
In my monologue today, I point out Trump.
He lands in Malaysia, announces a peace treaty, announces a trade deal, moves on to Japan.
Mark Carney talked for five minutes.
No one was in the hall listening to him.
And he met with Laos.
Nice people, I'm sure, but the total Canadian exports to Laos last year were $18 million with an M, not a B, not billion, $18 million.
Like, what are you even doing meeting with the Laotian leader?
It's costing you.
I mean, are you going to increase trade by 10%?
And just the paperwork on that, like, it was such a joke.
I don't know.
I'm worried.
I think that I think you're right.
He's delegating the good cop, bad cop.
I mean, Doug Ford was the bad cop attacking Trump.
E.D.'s the bad cop blocking pipelines.
I think that this is, it's the old Mark Carney, the green scheme sustainable.
Yeah, I think he is.
Yeah, you know how I know there's no pipelines getting built in Canada?
Brookfield is heavily invested in pipelines in other places.
Brookfield's Pipeline Puzzle00:02:27
That's how I know.
If Brookfield were heavily invested in pipelines in Canada, then Canada would get pipelines.
But Mark Carney's policies are whatever is good for Brookfield.
And there's a Brazilian pipeline that Brookfield is invested in, and another one in the United States.
And blocking Canadian pipelines is good business for Brookfield.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, I'm so glad you were there.
And it was quite something I'm going to try and make the next rally myself.
I love going to big rallies.
Sometimes they're in Dublin.
Sometimes they're in London.
I should at least go to the ones in the province of my birth.
So Sheila, keep me posted on those rallies.
We'll go to the next one.
All right.
You know what?
Before you let me go, I have to tell you, usually when I go to these things, people are asking me, did David Menzies ever get his whiskey?
But a lot of people were asking me, how's Ezra?
How is he post his incidents in Dublin?
They're very worried about you.
So your province of your birth cares about you as much as you care about them.
Well, thank you very much.
You know what?
I think there's a reference.
I was in Dublin.
I got pepper sprayed, which, you know, it's really painful when it's in your eye, but you wash it out and the pain goes away in 10 minutes.
It's not the end of the world.
And, you know, I'm not saying I wanted it to happen, but it's sort of a, you know, a coming of age, I suppose, as a street journalist.
Being assaulted, being jumped on by some guy in a mask was not my idea of fun.
And I feel like I got away lucky there.
I mean, I had no injuries.
They didn't even break my glasses, which is sort of surprising.
But yeah, I mean, Dublin, that's a whole different thing.
I prefer our Canadian ways.
I think once you open the door to violence, you know, it just spins out of control.
But listen, Ireland has a different history.
They have a different culture, a different, you know, they rebelled against.
I'm talking too much about Ireland, but they are rebels and they mean it.
And anyway, I love going over there to learn.
I'm just going to try not to be the target.
And learn the hard way.
That's right.
Well, thank you for passing on those regards.
All right, Sheila, thanks for going there.
I'll be at the next independence rally, that's for sure.
All right, folks, stay with us.
letters to me next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
On the show this past Friday, Trevor Boyne says, notice how Doug Ford mentions all provinces, but does not mention Alberta.
Clear Communicators Reveal00:02:38
Yeah, I mean, his approach, just shouting, calling everyone a tyrant, running $75 million worth of attack ads, it ain't working.
Danielle Smith went down to Washington politely, was not obsequious, just said, look, guys, I'm here to make a deal.
I'm here showing respect.
Can we work on this?
Danielle Smith has been utterly vindicated.
Doug Ford has been shown to be a destructive buffoon.
So of course he's jealous of Danielle Smith.
Susan Ashbrook writes, really enjoyed your discussion with Keith Wilson tonight.
It was eye-opening.
Thank you.
Yeah, Keith predicted it that Donald Trump would be enraged when he learned that in fact the ad was not canceled as promised, but ran during the World Series.
And I mean, just put the shoe on the other foot.
Imagine if Trump was running attack ads against Mark Carney in districts where there was a by-election afoot or something.
I don't know.
Like attack ads.
And by the way, even if the attack ads are right, even if Doug Ford's attack ad on Donald Trump is correct, you're at a negotiating table.
You're trying to reason with them.
This is you saying, I'm going to mess you up.
That's my negotiating tactic is to have an external threat to you.
Who would have thought that would work?
Last letter from Ruth Bard, who says, when Carney speaks, I'm reminded of the ads from the 70s about how they got the caramel in the caramel bar.
Unadulterated gobbly gook.
Yeah, you know, there are some industry leaders who can think clearly and speak clearly.
And you can tell that their clear speaking is a reflection of their clear mind.
And then there's the opposite, the absolute BSers.
You see them more in politics and journalism.
In companies, you typically don't see that in a CEO.
You would see that in a mid-level bureaucrat.
I mean, just think of Elon Musk.
Whatever else the guy is, he's a blunt communicator.
He says exactly what's on his mind.
He might go down different tangents, but he is crystal clear about what he means, even if he's quite technical.
Mark Carney uses words to obscure, not to reveal.
And I think that's how he ran Brookfield.
And as Keith Wilson mentioned, he didn't really run Brookfield.
He was the chairman of it.
And Brookfield itself doesn't really run things.
They just acquire things and hold them.
I think we've got a terrible prime minister on our hands, and it's just dawning on me.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.