Ezra Levant returns from Davos, where he grilled Liberal politicians—Trudeau’s denial of Rebel News ties called a lie, Freeland’s evasive answers raising ethical red flags—before attending an Israel anti-Semitism conference independently. At the Conservative convention, Rebel News’ global probe and Alberta’s potential independence due to federal tensions dominate, while federal waste, like $200M in bonuses for failing executives and Mary Simon’s $100K Beef Wellington catering, exposes systemic incompetence amid an $80B deficit. Levant ties these issues to Canada’s declining reputation, warning that reckless diplomacy and bureaucratic excess risk alienating allies and voters alike. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm going to give you my thoughts on my journeys and what's going on this weekend at the Conservative Party Convention in Calgary.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, it's eight bucks a month.
And not only do you get our video content, you support Rebel News.
I mean, we don't take any government money, and it shows.
Tonight, Canada is in the world news again, and that's not a good thing.
It's January 29th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Oh, hi, everybody.
It is great to be back in Canada.
As you know, I've been away for a bit.
I went with Abiy Amini and two of our videographers to Davos, Switzerland.
It's a very long journey.
It's hard to get there, and that's on purpose, as you know.
Their goal is to keep away independent journalists who ask prickly questions.
It keeps blowing me away that I was able to interview or ask questions of four senior liberals in the course of 24 hours, which is more than I've been able to do in an entire five-year or even maybe even since the birth of our company.
And that's because in Switzerland, they're normal.
They don't have police arresting journalists for asking questions of politicians.
It's so crazy, and it makes you realize how abnormal Canada is, how unhealthy it is.
And yet, our regime media go along with it.
They go along with it because they have all the access they want.
I don't think I got a lot of great answers from these four politicians.
My interview with Justin Trudeau reminded me of what a liar and a gaslighter he is when he says, Oh, Ezra, I haven't heard of you.
You never call.
Don't lie.
You spent millions in court trying to stop us from asking you questions.
To her credit, Christia Freeland did give a few answers to my questions, but I think they raised more questions themselves about her ethical conduct.
My interviews with François-Philippe Champagne and Melanie Jolie were very shallow, but I give them credit.
They actually did treat me with a drop of respect.
Maybe the fact that they're from Quebec, they haven't been taught to hate rebel news as much as the Ottawa Toronto Circuit has.
I thought Davos was useful and will continue to go.
That's something Rebel News has been doing for years, and it's sort of a signature item for us.
And I think it's a kind of accountability journalism that you can only do if you are not owned by a corporate media or a government media, because either of them would say, no, no, don't embarrass our friends.
So when we were finished in Davos, we could have come straight home, but actually, Avi and I were invited to Israel for an anti-Semitism conference.
And I'm interested in that because I don't understand what's happened on parts of the online right my entire life.
And I grew up in Calgary and I spent a lot of time in rural Alberta and in the Conservative Party and conservative movements.
And I have to say, there just was no anti-Semitism for 50 years in small towns, big cities, you know, people of all walks of life.
Right-wing anti-Semitism wasn't a thing in Canada nor in the United States.
And suddenly I see, and it's obviously a lot of it is fake and ginned up and bought and paid for, but I was trying to wrap my head around it a little bit.
And I was glad that we were invited to Israel to learn a little bit more about it.
And I was grateful that I had a chance to interview the cabinet minister who's sort of the point person on that, Amikai Chikli.
So again, it was great to talk to a senior cabinet minister and to be invited there.
Tell you, and this is something you know about Rebel News, is we did not take a free trip.
We didn't take her free flight or free hotel.
We actually stayed in an Airbnb in Jerusalem.
And actually, the cost of the flight to get to Israel was pretty low because we were already in Switzerland, so it was a fairly quick flight.
But I just want to let you know that we're independent.
And I'm not saying that there's anything immoral about taking government money per se to go to a trip in a country, but for Rebel News, our independence is very important.
And I want people to know that if we talk about any country, we're doing so based on our own conscience, not based on any freebie or a giveaway.
In fact, that's my concern about anti-Semitism: the people who are expressing it so weirdly are doing so most likely on the payroll of Qatar or Iran.
Anyways, I was glad we went there.
We're back, and actually, in just a couple hours, I'm going to hop on a plane again, this time to go to Calgary for the Conservative Party convention.
I'm looking forward to it very much.
I want to reconnect with Canadian Conservatives, listen and hear what they think are the most important issues, and share our point of view.
We're going to have a good-sized team there, including our chief reporter, Sheila Gunrid, our Alberta team, including Sidney Fazard and Angelique Toy.
And I'm so happy about this.
Tamara Leach will be there too.
As you know, we found a way to hire Tamara Leach that complies with her sentence.
You know the story.
I won't go through it in detail again, but she was sentenced to a year of house arrest, but there is an exemption for a job.
So, working with her probation officer, we offered her a job that requires her to attend political events around the country.
She's been in Toronto a few times.
It'll be a delight to have her in Calgary.
And I think so many people at the Conservative Party convention are going to love saying hi to her.
I mean, she's just, as a human being, so friendly and welcoming.
And I know she was such an inspiration for so many people.
So, we're absolutely chuffed and proud to be affiliated with her.
And if you're going to be there at the Conservative Convention, we're going to have sort of a reception on Saturday night.
And I think there's still some tickets available.
You can find out on our website, rebelnews.com.
That's going to be Saturday night, our reception.
I have in mind two other special projects that I'm aching to tell you, but I'm not quite ready to do so yet because we want the element of surprise on one or two of them.
But we should be in a position to tell you about an amazing international investigation that our team did recently.
And we're just putting the final touches on it.
I think you're going to be impressed that Little Rebel News from Canada was able to do something so globally important.
And I know I'm being a bit of a tease by telling you that, but it is on my mind when I think of what Rebel News says.
We cover Canada.
It's the most important story to us.
That's where 90% of our staff are.
But every once in a while, we travel the world because what happened in Davos affects our country.
I mean, if you believe the regime media, the most important thing that happened at Davos was Mark Carney's speech.
Comedians and Power Mockery00:07:51
No, it wasn't.
I mean, that's the most important thing to Mark Carney and to his applauders in the regime media.
The most important thing was the Davos and NATO trying to come to terms with Donald Trump and his demands not only for tariffs, but also for NATO to step up.
And, you know, they did resolve the Greenland matter, but that was obviously the focus of Davos.
But to the Canadian regime media, no, no, no.
It was all about Mark Carney.
And you know that they were sensitive about it because the government comedians at the CBC just went nuts on it.
I think I have admitted to you before that I am on TikTok.
There's a number of reasons for that.
I want to see what the bad guys are pumping out, although the transition to an American-owned company just happened.
It'll be interesting to see how that algorithm changes.
I used to be on TikTok because I wanted to see the Russian, Iranian, and Chinese propaganda, which was like a fire hose.
I just wanted to see it and hear it and see what it looked like.
But I also see on TikTok the CBC puts a lot of content they don't put on their other channels.
Here's an example of them just full out praising Mark Carney's speech like it was the most amazing thing they ever heard.
There's no jokes here.
There's no laugh track.
It's just the government comedians at the CBC State Broadcaster bowing down to their master.
Super gross.
Take a look.
Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum was incredible.
It made me proud to be Canadian.
Made me glad I voted for him.
Before, I was like, who even is this guy?
But watching that speech, I got it.
I finally got it.
I finally understood Mark Carney.
Every single word.
Words like hegemony, which, you know, I say a lot, because I absolutely know what it means.
When he mentioned the trade block called Merko Sir, I was 100% Merko sure what the hell he was talking about.
And when he spoke about the aphorism of Thucydides, I was like, girl, shame!
Who doesn't quote Czech dissident Václav Havel?
I like to do it in the morning before my coffee.
Carney said everyone in that room knew the principles of risk management, but do they love them the way I do?
I just get him.
Mark and I are in total hegemony.
He could have said multilateral trade, but he went with plurilateral trade because he knew they're definitely different.
And I knew that too.
Or was it aphorism of doodes?
I have a rash on my hegemony.
Do-do-do-do?
Do-do-diddies.
It's like we share the same brain.
Get out of my head, Kearney.
Or as you'd say, withdraw your intrusive presence from my mental locus.
You did a good job up there, Mark.
Hegemony!
Bless you.
Doody-doody!
Just today, I saw another video from this hour's 22 minutes, which is supposed to be a comedy show.
Just mocking Pierre Polyev as uncool and weird.
And again, no real policy here.
Just trying to denormalize and mock the opponent of the regime.
And, you know, I know a little bit about comedy, and I like to laugh.
In fact, I think I like to laugh at comedians that are a little bit rough around the edges.
And, you know, my taste in comedy is probably a little bit rambunctious.
But that's sort of the thing about comedy.
You mock the powerful.
We've spoken before about the position of the court jester or the court fool.
That was an actual office in the royal court.
And it was very powerful and very political.
The court fool was the only one allowed to mock the king to his face with impunity.
So everyone else was so afraid of what the king would say, and I don't want to offend the king.
The court fool would just say, would basically be a kind of one-man official opposition, couching everything as if it was just a joke or a rhyme or a song.
An incredibly powerful position, because if you could get the court fool to raise an issue, perhaps the king would reconsider.
That was the historic role of comedy.
Isn't that interesting?
Comedians today play that same role when they're at their best.
They mock power because nothing is more effective at undoing power than ridiculing it, than laughing at it.
That's why Ayatollah Khomeini once said, there is no comedy in Islam.
Because who are you mocking?
If you're mocking, you're mocking the order of Allah.
When you are laughing at a tyrant, you are taking away much of their psychological power.
Most tyranny relies on everyone obeying at the same time.
Take a look at this CBC clip and tell me, are they mocking power or are they mocking the opposition and supporting power?
Super gross, CBC.
Take a look.
Oh my God.
This is Pierre's worst New Year's party yet.
You think so?
Remember 2021?
We had to help him put his contacts in.
This one's worse.
Look around.
We're at a loser party.
Maybe we should go to the Liberal Party.
Hey, hey, hey, isn't this party something, team?
No music, fully lit, hard chairs.
I love it.
Yeah, yeah.
Too bad some of the group left for the Liberal Party.
Traitorous scum.
Yeah, I hate traitorous scum.
Plus, I heard the party sucks anyway.
You know, open bar.
Can you imagine enjoying a drink you didn't earn?
Yeah.
Plus, New Year, new Pierre.
I'm nice and I'm fun now.
You guys want to play my favorite party game?
I test.
Yeah, maybe in a bit.
Okay, you're missing out.
Dawn Tremont just texted me and they are currently doing body shots off of Mark Carney's abs.
And whoever leaves now gets to be Minister of Transportation.
Oh, that's one of the easy ones.
Hey, we are true blue conservatives.
We're not going to have fun at the Liberal Party.
It'll be too woke.
No, they've changed.
Okay.
Apparently, every drink comes with a plastic straw.
But he'll notice.
P-E-Z-O-L-C-F-T-D.
Nice.
Yes.
Nailed it.
You know what?
I spent all of 2025 being a loser.
And I will not go into 2026 a loser.
I'm switching parties.
What?
No.
I knew it.
Still nearsighted.
You guys want to check.
Oh, did she leave?
That's fine.
Good Riddance.
It's fine.
We'll turn it up.
We can have some fun.
Tequila shots?
Sure.
I don't have tequila.
I never bought it.
Never had it.
But we can lick salt.
Put your hands out.
Come on.
Lick them.
Come on.
Here we go.
Let's lick it up.
Oh, what else?
Cheers.
Eye contact.
Eye contact.
Oh.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Okay.
Who needs a line?
Oh!
You guys have got to switch parties, okay?
It's so much fun.
The rule is you take a shot every time you say the name of a company Carney has financial interest in.
We're wasted.
All right.
You guys can go.
Go on.
New Pierre can also admit when he's lost.
Thank you.
Yeah, have fun.
Maybe I can join.
Oh.
It might be like a little weird.
Yeah, next year.
Oh, next year.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that.
Next year.
Cool.
Bye.
Bye.
Yeah.
All right.
Counting down a woman's biological clock.
10, 9.
And that's not it.
CBC went to Greenland with their whole team.
This hour is 22 minutes and did the same thing.
They just, it wasn't very funny other than they had Mark Critsch do his impersonation.
The rest of it was just bashing Trump.
Let me play a moment of that.
I'm not going to play the whole thing.
Winning Trade Deals00:15:04
You know how expensive it is to go to Greenland?
You might recall in Trump's first term, Rebel News actually sent a journalist to Greenland.
It was so expensive.
It was so hard to get there because there's no direct flights to Greenland.
You have to go to Iceland first, etc.
And the CBC thought nothing of spending, I don't know, a quarter million dollars taking their whole production crew to Greenland just to mock Trump.
And the funny thing is, by the time they got their comedy produced, Trump had already resolved the Greenland thing.
Here's a little bit from the CBC's expensive visit there.
If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.
I'm in Greenland because I need it for security and to overcompensate for my tiny cheesy.
I'm President Trump and I'm here to make Greenland the 51st state I really am.
I really am.
So cold, so icy, so distant.
I love Greenland, but it doesn't love me back.
Reminds me so much of Melania.
Well, I started off by saying that Canada is in the news again around the world, and that's not a good thing.
In a way, it reminds me a little bit of the lockdowns and the truckers.
That was, I think, the last time that Canada was in the news top story: the massive trucker convoy that was embarrassing Justin Trudeau and his panicked, illegal, unconstitutional response of bringing in martial law.
And that's one of the things I asked him about in Davos.
Canada's back in the news because of the spitting contest we're having with Donald Trump.
And by the way, I think Donald Trump is poking at us full tilt, too.
And I guess what you have to do when you're dealing with someone who's 10 times bigger and 100 times more powerful is you have to say, do I want to win the argument or do I want to win the trade deal?
And, you know, a lot of thoughtful people have said, well, what Donald Trump is saying is outrageous and his demands are appalling and they're not what a good neighbor says.
And I think the first thing to say is that I think those people are perhaps taking Trump too literally.
Remember, he's got an audacious style.
And remember his book, The Art of the Deal, is he talks about making outrageous demands so that when he moves back from those outrageous demands, what he really wants looks very moderate.
And I think that's what he was doing on Greenland.
But if your goal as prime minister or as a diplomat is to secure the best trade deal possible for Canada, including protecting the steel and auto industry, which is important to Ontario, if your goal is getting the best trade deal for Canada possible, then you don't shoot at Trump publicly because you know he'll shoot back.
You don't give speeches where you basically say, We're siding with communist China now in a new world order.
And the speech that Mark Carney gave at Davos, that was so wildly applauded by every leftist in the world, that's an example of what I mean about winning the argument or winning the debate, but losing the goal.
You know, an old saying about diplomacy is: a diplomat is a man who lies abroad for his country.
Now, there's a triple entendre there about lying and abroad being a battleship, giving the broad side.
It's an old quote of over 100 years old, but diplomats, their job is to pursue the national interest, not to make friends, not to win debates.
But what is in Canada's national interest?
Well, I can take a guess.
Renewing the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement on terms that allow our industries to continue to export.
The auto industry in Canada is overwhelmingly focused on building American cars.
Here's the head of the Canadian Auto Manufacturers Association giving a very powerful speech.
And by the way, Donald Trump actually retweeted this.
Did you see this?
I won't play the whole thing, but take a look.
Auto's importance to Canada and Ontario specifically cannot be overstated.
The industry directly employs more than 125,000 people in vehicle assembly, parts, research, and development.
An additional 370,000 people are employed in the aftermarket services and dealership networks.
With over 90% of Canadian production destined for the United States, there is no industry without U.S. access and North American integration.
Diversification is not an option for automotive, as markets in Europe and Asia are better served by assembly plants in those regions.
Canada's market alone is too small to justify large-scale manufacturing.
The future of Canada's auto industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that it supports depends on securing our trade relationship with the United States.
This means the removal of the Section 232 tariffs and the renewal of CUSMA, our trilateral trade agreement.
So if your goal is securing thousands of high-paying auto and steel jobs, you keep your grievances and your grouchiness and your insults quiet.
You either tell them to the cabinet, tell them to your friends, tell them to your priest at confession, or talk to Donald Trump about them one-on-one.
Donald Trump's actually sort of famous for having private phone calls or private face-to-face meetings with people he's sparring with and coming out saying, I loved it.
Remember when Zorhan Mamdani, the communist mayor of New York City, went to meet Trump?
They had a private meeting and they got along famously.
Carlos Slim, the owner of the New York Times, Trump and the New York Times would bash each other around.
Carlos Sleem went and met Donald Trump for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and the two got along famously.
Of course they did.
Trump, whether you like it or not, reacts to people who criticize him publicly.
He reacts by overwhelming retribution and retaliation.
So if your goal is you want that war, other words, you want the retribution and retaliation, then by all means continue to upstage him, insult him, talk about new world order, talk about strategic partnership with China.
And that may be Carney's goal.
Anti-Americanism won him the last election.
Maybe it'll win him a new majority.
There's a lot of people thinking there'll be an election this spring.
But if your goal instead of winning an argument, winning a debate, is actually winning the safety of Canada's auto sector and steel sector, you wouldn't be engaging this.
And maybe that's not fair that you have to bite your lip while Trump lips off at you.
But that's the world we're in.
And if you're serving Canada, that's what you would do.
One last point.
Alberta, and I've been, even though I've been abroad for 10 days, I can tell the energy in that province, and I'm really looking forward to being there tonight on the independence issue.
And I think it's been there for months, actually, since Mark Carney surprised everyone by winning the election.
I think a lot of Albertans realized, oh, here we go again.
It never ends.
I think the fact that the proposed pipeline tanker issue is so murky and obviously isn't going anywhere.
I think a lot of Albertans were frustrated with that.
But more than that, I think Albertans are watching Mark Carney talk about China and strategic partnerships and fighting with America.
And Albertans are saying, you know what?
Mark Carney, who hates Alberta and has spent less time at Alberta than he has at the UN and the World Economic Forum.
Think about that.
Mark Carney.
And he's announced he's going to continue his international jet setting.
Albertans are saying, you know what?
Why don't you and your Toronto Liberal base, you keep having a spitting match with Donald Trump.
You keep doing that.
And we'll just sort of consider independence on our own.
And by the way, Alberta exports more than 80% of its stuff to the U.S. Alberta is the source of most of the oil and gas exports to the states.
So why would you want to hitch your wagon to Mark Carney, who's torching the relationship there?
Look at how Danielle Smith has done it.
She obviously isn't pleased with everything America is doing, but she's managed to keep her insults off her lips.
And she goes down there in a respectful way, and she's met with Donald Trump.
And I think so far she's succeeded in keeping Alberta out of this back and forth flame war that Carney and Trump are having.
So we'll be taking a look at Alberta independence.
And Tamara Leitz, that's one of the things that she's been covering, is these big rallies around the province.
Anyways, it's a lot of different things all at once.
But as I started off today's show, Canada is back in the news because we are fighting with Donald Trump.
I don't think that ends well.
Mark Carney talked about middle powers and hey, we got to stick together.
It just doesn't work that way when your focus is: how do I keep a car factory in Ontario open?
How do I keep the oil sands going full-tilled?
If your goal is the real things that ordinary Canadians value, then winning a debate is not how you do it.
You do it by just having a negotiation and getting it done the best you can.
And I think that Mark Carney's failure, it was his campaign, his central campaign promise, was he was the Trump whisperer.
He knew how things worked and he would get it done.
One year later, he hasn't got it done.
In fact, things are looking worse than ever.
If you Eastern liberals who were spooked by Trump think that's a success, maybe Alberta doesn't want to be a part of that.
It's just an idea.
We'll keep you posted.
Stay with us.
Next, Franco Teresano of the Taxpayers' Federation.
Well, hello, everybody.
It is so good to be back on Terra Firma in Canada.
Been journeying around for a while, but one of my guys I talk to at least once a month, sometimes more often, just to put my finger on the pulse of what's really happening in our country.
Well, he's the boss of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
His name is Franco Terrazano, and he always has an interesting tidbit that is a reflection of the larger financial crisis in our country.
And he's got a couple of new publications out here written by Jen Hodgson of the taxpayers team.
The one that really got me going is this one.
Executive bonuses cost taxpayers $200 million last year.
But the crazy thing is 90% of government executives got a bonus.
98%, excuse me.
Like almost all of them did.
You had to be an atrociously bad bottom 2% executive not to get a bonus.
And the thing is, half of their performance targets were not met.
It's so crazy.
And I just read you the first sentence in the piece.
There's a lot more sentences to come.
Joining us now from Ottawa to talk about this is our friend Franco Terrazano.
Franco, bonuses are supposed to be just that, a bonus for going above and beyond, for doing something really super in the sales world.
A bonus is when you sell a huge deal, you get a recognition that you really helped the company.
When 98% of executives are getting a bonus, it's just a pay raise.
Like it's not even a bonus anymore.
What's your take on it?
No, that's exactly it, Ezra.
Let me tell you, I might get a little spicy here today because I'm so fed up with this culture of government entitlement in Ottawa, where they think just because they're on the taxpayer payroll, they deserve to take more money from you each and every single year.
And you're exactly right.
Like this isn't even a bonus anymore, right?
Come on.
Like this is just a sneaky way to give these government bureaucrats more money, right?
98% of government executives take a bonus.
Like, what do those other 2% do, Ezra?
Right?
Because think about it this way, right?
Like, look, departments met just under 54% of their own performance targets, okay?
So they made the tests, they wrote their tests, they barely got a D minus, and instead of getting fired, they got a big fat bonus check.
That's so crazy.
And I want to come back to the sales analogy because most people in the real world, to get a bonus, you got it.
Like, there might be a little Christmas bonus, which is more like a Christmas gift.
But in the real world, to get a bonus, you have to meet a stretch goal.
You have to, you know, have a new high watermark.
What you're saying, let me read that line here.
Federal departments met just 54% of their performance targets.
You gave them a D minus or D plus.
You gave them a terrible mark.
So they were failing.
They weren't excelling.
You give a bonus to the rock star on the team.
I mean, I don't know if you remember that old show, Glenn Gary Glenn Ross, when Alec Baldwin says, first prize, a new Cadillac.
Second prize, set of steak knives, third prize, you're fired.
I don't know if you remember that old movie.
It was a play.
Glenn Gary Glenn Ross was the name of it.
It was turned into a great movie.
That's how you give bonuses for amazing outcome.
When 54% of people fail in the real world, they would be fired, Franco.
They would be fired, not bonused.
And Ezra, 54% was their best year.
Oh, my God.
Okay.
So the government is handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses every single year.
And guess what?
The government also publishes its performance targets data online for the last five years.
Okay.
54% of their performance targets was their best year.
In two of those five years, Ezra, they failed to meet half of their own targets.
Okay.
It's like you're a waiter.
You go try to hand this guy a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
You throw it all over him.
And then you expect a bonus.
I mean, this is what's going on.
And folks, let me just impress upon you this most important point.
This is your money.
The government is taking money from your pocket and it's rewarding its own failure with the taxpayer-funded bonuses.
Okay.
Money taken from your family, from your budget, to reward these completely incompetent government bureaucrats in Ottawa.
You know, I'm just trying to think of the way an ordinary person could measure the success of the government.
I mean, there's big picture things like what's the deficit?
What's the taxes?
I would call that a macro level thing.
But how about just in your ordinary life?
In dealing with Canada Post, that's a federal government agency or getting a passport or like just little things.
I mean, I'm always shocked when I hear that the majority of federal public servants still work from home at least several days a week.
Like that's so insane in the real world.
I mean, think about public safety.
Think about handling immigration, both fake and legitimate.
Just think of all the little business services government is supposed to do.
Are any of them better today than they were five or 10 years ago?
CRA's Efficiency Dilemma00:02:38
Like, so.
What about the CRA?
Ezra, sorry.
Let me just jump in with the CRA because that's the best example.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
The CRA, the CRA can barely pick up a phone when they do pick up the phone.
They're probably giving you the wrong information.
Okay.
And don't take my word for it.
Look at the Auditor General report, right?
The CRA gives the correct answer to personal tax questions just 17% of the time.
Oh, my God.
Ezra, it would be bad if they gave the wrong answer 17% of the time.
They're only getting it right 17% of the time.
Let me give you an example, banking.
Now, none of us like banks, but I think everyone would acknowledge the banking app, which wasn't really a big thing 10 years ago.
It makes our lives a little easier.
You could do banking on the go.
You don't have to go to the branch.
I mean, that's just a tiny example of how they're actually improving customer service.
And I'm not in love with the banks.
I'm just saying, okay, I can give the banks credit for making my life a tiny bit easier in that regard.
What has the federal government done to improve services to Canadians?
And don't say the ArriveCan app.
That's an atrocious piece of spyware and malware.
I'm just saying literally anything they touch is worse.
And I'm not even talking about just the money they blow.
If they were in the private sector, they would be, they would, I'm not going to say they would all be fired, but I think most of them would.
I mean, remember when Elon Musk took over Twitter?
He fired 80% of the staff because he said they just weren't doing anything to improve the product and the product got better.
I hate to say it.
You could probably get rid of 80% of the people working for the Canadian government, and people either wouldn't know or would say, oh, things are a little better now.
Well, I'm glad you brought up Arrive scam.
Folks, if you're having some coffee, put it down, okay?
The government executives working on Arrive scam took $340,000 in bonuses.
Okay?
Your money for a complete failure, a national scandal.
And Ezra, look, we have way too many bureaucrats.
Look, the government added 100,000 bureaucrats in 10 years.
The cost of the bureaucracy went up 80%.
Meanwhile, half of Canadians say federal services have gotten worse since 2016.
Right?
Not better, not the same.
Half say services have gotten worse.
Look, you have all these government union bosses now running around, pretending they're chicken little, claiming the sky is going to fall if bureaucrats get fired.
Wham, whah, whah.
Government bureaucrats do need, there are a lot of government bureaucrats in Ottawa that do need to get fired, right?
Just to be blunt, with the deficit ballooning to $80 billion this year, like we have to shrink the bureaucracy.
Government Salaries Spur Controversy00:03:57
But can I say one thing?
You know what?
The first thing should be on the chopping block?
It's to go after the fat cats and these taxpayer-funded bonuses.
That should be the first thing on the chopping block.
You got to go after the fat cats first.
You know what?
Good point.
That's a good point.
I'm glad you made it.
Hey, speaking of fat cats, I want to touch on one more thing.
And I tell you, you guys do great work.
And I'm delighted that Jen Hodgson is working for you.
I know Jen.
She's a very freedom-oriented writer.
And I'm delighted she's on your team.
And I think I did know that, but it's great to see she's involved with this.
She has a story on your website called Governor General's Salary, spikes to nearly $400,000.
But it's the details that are crazy.
I mean, when I first saw this one, I thought that's got to be a typo.
Simon, that's the name of Mary Simon.
That's her last name.
She's the governor general.
Sparked multiple controversies for spending millions on travel.
Now, it's one thing to travel, but get this.
Her extravagant trips include a $100,000 bill for in-flight catering during a week-long trip to the Middle East and a $71,000 bill for limo services during a four-day trip to Iceland.
And I don't even know how you can do that.
I mean, you could buy a restaurant for $100,000, just a week's worth of catering $100,000.
What are they eating?
Like caviar and champagne?
I don't know how you, how do you spend $71 grand in four days on cars?
Again, did you buy the limo?
This is, and the thing is, Mary Simon is not royalty.
She is the delegate of the king.
She's his representative.
She's not her royal highness.
She's living like she thinks she's a princess.
Look, I'm just going to start with the salary first, Ezra, and I'll get into the details.
Her salary this year, $393,800.
Okay.
$400,000 as a taxpayer-funded salary for a largely symbolic role is disgusting.
Okay?
And let's talk about the perks.
$100,000, folks, on airplane food.
It was $100,000 on airplane food.
Ezra, they don't have the same airplane food that you and I would have, right?
A chicken wrap here, a chicken wrap there.
No, they were having stuff like Beef Wellington with Regu.
Sounds yummy.
I'm sure it was delicious.
It costs a lot.
Ezra, on the $71,000 on limos in Iceland during a four-day trip, the governor general's hotel was a 10-minute walk away from the main conference center.
Okay.
It would have been cheaper, less expensive for them to have bought a brand new BMW, drove it around the island for four days, then left the key in the car before they got back on the plane, right?
Let me tell you another one, Ezra.
And cut me off if I'm going too long, but this one's crazy, okay?
A governor general over their five-year mandate can bill you up to $130,000 for their clothes.
Huh.
Like, their salary is $400,000.
They can pay for their own clothes.
And that's not even the craziest stuff.
Yeah.
You know, I am a monarchist.
I would rather have a monarchy than a republic.
But this kind of behavior brings the monarchy into disrepute.
And I think it goes to the head.
It goes to their heads.
There's been a number of governors general who suddenly think they're the center of it.
They don't realize they are an agent, a delegate of royalty here.
They are not royalty themselves.
And they're ceremonial.
They are not the main player, so to speak.
They're not the main character.
And I tell you, what Mary Simon is doing is destroying the reputation of the monarchy.
Her misconduct will hurt the institutions she claims to serve.
I tell you, Franco, it's great to catch up with you.
You're invigorating me.
Cheering For Anti-American Bulwarks00:02:46
And I know you're on the front lines of this battle every single day.
What's the best website for people to sign up so they can get your news directly?
Hey, everyone.
Go over to taxpayer.com.
That's the place to go to taxpayer.com.
It's such a great website, taxpayer.com.
All right, Franco, keep up the work.
We'll talk to you soon.
Hey, thank you so much.
There he is, Franco Terzano, the boss of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Stay with us, Moorhead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
On my interview with James Lindsay and Dinesh Souza, Tracy Root says, the hateful racists use the internet to indoctrinate, especially young people, and spread their lies and propaganda.
I've never seen hate like this spread so fast.
I'm shocked by it.
I mean, I tell you that I've never seen this kind of racism on the right in my whole life.
And I've been to tiny small towns where, you know, just there were no Jews or blacks.
And no one is racist.
Like, there's no authentic, conservative Canadians are raised.
I just have never seen it.
But it is obviously an online phenomenon that is being spurred by new forces.
And I put it to you, a lot of it is bought and paid for.
Newslee 7 says it's a sellable conventional narrative.
But the fact is we are all being reset for the new world order.
Eastern and Western powers are uneasy bedfellows in the agenda.
Well, it's very interesting.
And New World Order is a phrase that Mark Carney used very specifically when he was talking about his proposed strategic partnership with China.
Long 111 says, you guys talk about the Republican Party like it's a good thing.
A lot of us, including Tucker, have come to realize the enemy is our ruling class, not the left.
Well, one of the things I worry about with Tucker, besides his anti-Semitism, is that he's now cheering for every enemy of the West.
He's cheering for Islamic theocracies.
He's cheering for Maduro.
He's cheering for basically every anti-American bulwark.
I mean, I just don't know how you call that conservative.
And I think that Tucker's end result could be changing the reputation of the Republican Party to make it less palatable to American voters.
It's such an extreme position that he and the so-called Groupers take.
You know, saying that Churchill was the enemy of World War II, saying that Heil Hitler was cool.
If that becomes part of the Republican Party brand, I'm worried about what's going to happen in America.
And I say this as an America lover up here in Canada.
Well, that's our show for the day.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.