Ezra Levant exposes Canada's military recruitment surge as a fabrication involving non-English-speaking foreign nationals and lowered vetting standards orchestrated by Deputy Minister Christiane Fox. He attacks Mark Carney's pro-China economic strategy, alleging personal financial gain through Brookfield Asset Management, while highlighting Jeff Evely's acquittal regarding unconstitutional forest fire proclamations that ignored individual rights. Levant connects these events to rising authoritarianism, promotes an upcoming May Day rally against gender ideology, and concludes with listener letters supporting Alberta independence and criticizing Carney's foreign alliances. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Foreigners Staffing Our Military00:13:00
Hello, my friends.
Some very interesting stories.
I saw the headlines, did you?
That we have beaten our quota for military recruits.
But if you paid attention to a hearing on Parliament Hill today, you would find out that hundreds of them are foreigners, some of whom don't speak English or French.
It's sort of like temporary foreign workers at Tim Hortons have decided to staff our military.
I'll show you the details, I'll show you the video.
It's a terribly depressing story.
I must apologize in advance.
But I want to show you the video, so please make sure you subscribe to what we call Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, and you get the content and the satisfaction of keeping Rebel News strong.
Oh, by the way, one more thing Being a rebel today is simply being normal.
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Tonight, Mark Carney hires foreigners, including some who don't speak English or French, to artificially pump up our military recruitment stats.
It's April 20th, and this is the Ezra Levante Show.
Shame on you, you censorious thug.
I was going to do my show today on Mark Carney's big infomercial that CTV was kind enough to air for him for free over the weekend and without the opportunity to ask him any questions.
Imagine just airing a nine minute propaganda vid on their Prime Network, but not asking questions.
It really was like the North Korean media, which of course is an adjunct of the North Korean government.
No dividing lines.
Same thing with the CTV and CBC.
I bet, in fact, the CBC was on the phone with Mark Carney's office.
Complaining that they didn't get the chance to be so loving and tender to him, too.
And if he will give them the glorious gift of an infomercial next time, they'll be even kinder to him than CDB was.
That's my guess.
Anyway, it's just incredible.
By the way, if you think I'm kidding, here's the CBC just absolutely bending the knee to smooch Mark Carney.
Here, take a look.
Premier ministre du Canada, Mark Carney.
Monsieur Carney, bonjour.
Bonjour.
C'est un grand plaisir d'être ici.
Merci à vous de votre confiance.
Merci.
If you don't speak French, you could probably hear the language of sucking up.
Merci à vous de votre confiance.
Thank you for your trust in us, Mr. Carney.
He literally said that.
That's a CBC.
Thank you for trusting us, sir.
Yeah, I think I'll get into that video a little bit later because there's something I want to talk about more today, though.
I want to talk about our military and how we're hiring foreign nationals to join our army, which I think is dangerous, but also morally questionable.
I mean, you can't find Canadians willing to join the army.
Why?
I'll get to that in a moment, but let me just come back to this infomercial.
I want to talk about both things.
Let me show you 18 seconds from this infomercial of Mark Carney recorded.
Take a look.
The world, as I said earlier, is more dangerous and divided.
The U.S. has fundamentally changed its approach to trade, raising its tariffs to levels last seen during the Great Depression.
Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses, weaknesses that we must correct.
So he's just announcing.
With no debate, no vote, no mandate, that being close to America is a problem.
Now, we know he's not getting along well with Donald Trump, but Trump's going to be gone in three years.
And there's a Senate and a Congress and 350 million Americans.
He's just saying, because he loves being anti Trump, that being close to America is now a problem for Canada.
And he's going to look elsewhere, including to China, who he calls a partner.
He went over to China.
You saw that.
Wasn't Mark Carney the guy who campaigned?
Just a year ago, as the guy who could make a deal with Trump, didn't he say he's the grown up who can handle Trump?
He's the Trump whisperer.
He could protect us from Trump.
And now, not only has he given up on that, but he's saying it's positively bad to try to be a neighbor of America.
I'll go through his full remarks another day, but I just had to show you that he's going to go full anti American in a way that doesn't make sense for Canadian interests, but it 100% makes sense for his personal interests when you remember that Carney has decided to make China.
Our senior partner, he flew to China to bend the knee.
The world has changed much since that last visit.
And I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new world order.
Disparaging the U.S. and moving away from it economically makes no sense for Canadians.
More than 90% of our exports are sold there.
We're culturally, linguistically, historically, geographically, more like brothers with them than anything else.
But Kearney wants China instead.
Makes no sense to you and me, but it makes sense when you remember that Kearney still owns.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of stock in Brookfield Asset Management.
In fact, he won't even disclose the amount of his holdings, so just shocking and totally uninteresting to the incurious media party.
But that's for another day today.
I want to talk to you about this all these headlines all over the place about how the Canadian Armed Forces have actually exceeded their recording recruiting targets for the year.
Isn't that great?
That's so great.
Carney really is living up to our NATO and NORAD commitments.
I mean, he just announced a 30 billion dollar military project for our far north, and now.
Exceeding our recruitment for our military?
Boy, he's just dandy, our guy.
He's the bee's knees.
That's maybe how some boomers describe it.
A more diligent, more independent news media would have reported that Kearney simply re announced that northern spending that Trudeau had already announced a few years ago.
I bet it'll be re announced again soon when needed.
But this recruitment story, was it flim flam also?
I mean, is the military really doing well in Canada?
I saw a story that our troops had to buy their own equipment the other day.
In the Canadian Armed Forces, they have a weird feminist culture there, a trans culture now, too.
Some soldiers can't afford to eat, but they have to go to the food bank.
But there's money for tampon dispensers in the men's rooms on bases.
Is that really the kind of vibe that would recruit young men to join the Canadian military?
I mean, think about your stereotypical soldier a young guy who wants to be masculine and male and to fight.
No, you've got to have that trans tampon in your bathroom.
Or saying that if you believe in traditional family values, you're an extremist.
Remember that?
What they're saying on a subject, like becoming more extremist.
And if someone you know was very, believed in equal gender rights, but all of a sudden are leaning towards traditional values, then that might be a sign that they're becoming more extremist.
Or remember the new military boss just crying a bit about racism?
I apologize to every CAF member.
Veterans who experience racism, discrimination, and harassment.
And I acknowledged we failed you.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
If I was 18 years old and full of piss and vinegar and wanted an adventure, I'm not sure if I would choose the Canadian Armed Forces.
I might choose the American Armed Forces.
A lot of Canadians do.
They want to actually work on real equipment and have a warrior culture, not a woke culture.
But I'm wrong.
None of those things have turned off men who remain the backbone in the military.
I'm told it's record recruitment.
Except that's not quite true, is it?
Just take a listen to this.
Our department made changes to the screening process for permanent residents, significantly increasing recruitment in this population.
This was reflected in the report, which showed that over a six month period, 763 permanent residents were recruited, compared to a 30 month period previously, in which only 177 recruitments were achieved.
That's Christiane Fox, the unethical deputy minister who improperly gave a contract to her old classmate, who was condemned by the Conflict of Interest Commissioner for doing so, and yet still holds her job.
Because liberals.
Anyway, she has the key to those super recruitment numbers.
Hire foreigners and lower the vetting requirements.
Just stop to think about it.
They're not Canadian.
They have not sworn an oath of loyalty to us.
They are not citizens.
They're foreign nationals.
And here's the point you just heard them say they have deliberately reduced the vetting requirements.
I will acknowledge that even if it's morally weird to have foreign mercenaries in your army, it is possible.
That foreigners love Canada and are loyal and have no collateral purpose.
I mean, sort of weird that they're not citizens, but sure, it's possible to have great soldiers.
I think that's possible.
But in the next breath, the deputy minister of the Department of National Defense says they had to reduce their standards, had to reduce their vetting to get these foreigners in, to get the numbers, to juice the numbers.
Okay, what exactly did they loosen up then?
What questions do they no longer ask when they're recruiting for the Canadian Armed Forces?
And I'm nervous now because these are not even Canadians.
What questions don't they ask?
Or maybe more to the point, what answers do they now allow that in the past would have been answers that were disqualifying?
Are you nuts?
You're lowering standards to bring in foreign soldiers.
Well, it gets nuttier.
Here's James Bazan, the opposition critic.
I'm hearing that at St. Jean right now, where we do all of our basic training.
That there is a large number that are either voluntarily withdrawing or have failed to meet the standards.
Some of them, even on language, some of the PRs are not functional in either French andor English.
So, based upon that, we're hearing that there's temporary shelters being built to house them.
I thought that all of our forces have, or all those that have gone through basic training or in basic training, whether they voluntarily withdraw or not.
That they're paid to go home, not to be stored up in temporary housing like tents.
I'm hearing up to 13 units being built to house those that have not gotten through basic training.
Did you catch that?
Some of these foreigners don't speak either English or French, they speak neither language, and they're recruited to the Canadian Armed Forces.
So, where are they from?
I mean, I've studied the immigration charts.
Are they from Pakistan or Afghanistan or Somalia?
Or maybe from communist China?
Is that what they mean by not vetting them as hard anymore?
Number one source of immigrants to Canada, China, India.
We're not vetting them for, I don't know, ties to dictatorships, ties to extremist groups.
We're just not asking because we need the bodies.
And Byzantine's point is crazy.
They're building 13 housing complexes so they can keep these foreigners on the base even after they've washed out.
What are we doing?
Do you see how fake this all is?
Fake reannouncement of military spending, fake stats on recruitment, fake soldiers who wash up but still stay on the base, fake vetting that's reduced just to juice the numbers.
And they're not real Canadians, are they?
A real independent press gallery would tear this to shreds.
But we have North Korean style grifters who thank Mark Carney for his trust in them.
Stay with us for more.
Legal Gray Areas in the Woods00:14:28
The COVID times.
They were the worst of times, but they actually did, in some people, bring out the best in men.
I'm proud of how Rebel News conducted ourselves, but every once in a while, I think with a little bit of humility, what would I have done if I was actually in danger?
I mean, I run Rebel News, so I'm, quote, the boss.
So it's easy for me to say I would have defied someone who was cracking down on me because I never actually faced that if I were a factory worker, if I was an office worker, and my boss would have said, Wear a mask at the jab or you're fired.
Would I have truly had the courage of my convictions?
I would like to think so, but I was never tested.
You know what I mean?
It's easy to be brave when you're not in battle.
And imagine if you were in a situation, and this was much more recent than COVID, this was just a year or so ago.
Imagine if you were told simply going for a walk in the woods could have you face a $25,000 or $28,000 fine.
And by the way, the media and the political class were all on side with this.
Would you, would I, would anyone have the actual courage to do it, knowing that you most certainly would have the unlimited resources of the state bearing down on you?
The reason I make this comparison is, of course, because it's the same sort of power.
The state has to direct you to do this or that because of, quote, an emergency.
And of course, when you give the state special powers during an emergency, everything.
Starts to look like an emergency to them, whether it's a bad flu, as COVID 19 was, or a bad fire season, as there was last year in Nova Scotia.
And by now, you can probably guess what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about a very brave man who not only was willing to bear the risk of a $28,000 fine, but walked towards the fire.
He didn't have them come and get him, he went to challenge the authority.
His name is Jeff Evely.
We had him on when he was charged with the offense.
What a pleasure to have him back.
Now that he was acquitted.
Jeff, great to see you again.
Thank you for taking the time to join us.
I have to say, you are a very brave person and you willingly incurred the wrath of the government at some risk to yourself.
That's astonishingly rare.
So, actually, my first comment to you is thanks.
It was my pleasure, Ezra.
Actually, I couldn't wait to go for that walk in the woods as soon as they issued the proclamation banning us all from hiking.
I think it was just a necessary act of civil disobedience, and it was my pleasure to do it.
Well, you know, you're very rare that way because I think most people seek comfort or peace and they try and, you know, plea bargain their way out of a situation.
You sort of did the opposite of a plea bargain.
This was a year ago, and there were bad fires.
I mean, let's not deny there were bad fires.
That is, in a way, an emergency.
You could have a debate about whether COVID 19 was an emergency, but there's always some crisis.
And the government thrives on that.
Give our viewers a refresher of what these rules were.
And I remember everyone across the political spectrum saying, Yeah, right on.
I love these rules.
Can you refresh the memory of our viewers with what exactly the rules were?
It's not clear.
They banned all recreational activities in the woods.
So there was no hiking, no picnicking, no camping.
But you were allowed to camp on campgrounds.
So if you could afford to do that and you had a nice camper, then you could go smoke your cigarettes on a campground.
I personally witnessed that.
But if you're a young person, that coming of age, right of passage of going backcountry camping, that's quite affordable, that wasn't available to our young people.
And they even shut down a beach sandcastle contest down in the Halifax area there at one point.
So it was never really, I don't think, abundantly clear what the rules were, especially given the vagueness of terms that were applied stay out of the woods.
And then there was an awful lot of questions as to what actually constitutes the woods.
I made my own effort there to try to explain it to everybody in an earlier video that I believe you're familiar with.
But the woods, Were apparently the gravel pathways in the park by my house that had yellow tape across them, and the gravel pathways that did not have yellow tape across them were not the woods.
You know, I remember that video.
You showed the absurdity of walking a few feet.
Here it was legal, here it was not, here it was a bit of a mystery.
Here, let's play that clip again.
I remember playing that a year ago when we first talked to you here.
Let's have a little refresher on how insane this was.
And that's really, if you read some of the books about dystopian societies or totalitarianism, including Franz Kowska's The Trial.
The mystery of it, the catch 22, the logical traps of it is, I think, part of it.
Here, take a look.
Jeff Evely here.
I'm in Petersfield Provincial Park in the most tyrannical province of Canada, which is Nova Scotia, with my fuzzy friend Axel, where we walk pretty much every single morning.
And here you can see that this area is taped off because that trail is the woods.
But this area is not taped off because that's not the woods.
This area is taped off because that's the woods, and there is a sign here that says trail closed due to extreme fire hazard.
So that is the woods.
This area is not the woods.
This area is the woods.
This area is not the woods.
This area is the woods.
This area is not the woods.
This area is the woods.
This area is not the woods.
I'm glad you connected with what I regard as one of the leading civil liberty law firms, public interest law firms in the country, our friends at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
And I think it was Marty Moore who was your lawyer.
Is that right?
Yeah, it was Marty Moore.
He was arguing on the administrative law side of the House, and Allison Pajovic was arguing the constitutional case.
Well, tell me how that went.
How long was the trial?
Were there, it was, Was there interest in the trial?
Was there any media there?
Or did you have any supporters there?
How many days was it?
Give me a little bit of the flavor of it.
And I've got a lot of questions.
Who was there?
Did they have police testify against you?
Did they have any experts?
I sort of wish I was there now that I think about it.
Tell me a little bit about what it was like actually in the court.
So it was three days long.
We actually had two judicial reviews before the court.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation submitted one in the public interest, and the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms submitted one in my private interest.
And I think what I contributed was taking the fine because the government was not able to have it dismissed on standing or mootness this time.
So we went forward with that.
It was three days long.
And on the third day, we heard from the government.
CTV News showed up.
Jesse Thomas, down at CTV News Halifax, gave us some very fair coverage.
I was Pleasantly surprised at that.
And there were a couple other reporters there as well, like Radio Canada showed up.
And I don't have any complaints really about the news coverage.
Surprisingly.
And why do you think that is?
Just because it was maybe they didn't think of it in ideological terms.
Maybe they just thought this is a quirky news story a guy got fined for walking in the woods.
You know, I think there has been a little bit of a shift.
I know when I first went into the woods, like I got the usual kind of blowback online with a lot of trolls, but they seem to.
Subside rather quickly.
And then I noticed that there was an awful lot of support for this.
And I continued with my own little social media campaign of mockery and ridicule.
And I think some scales fell from eyes.
And I had people coming out to me in public and shaking my hand for what I did.
So I have a sense that Nova Scotians are a little more fed up with this tyranny than one might perceive on the outside.
Well, I'm really glad to hear all of this.
And the fact that you named some pretty mainstream media sources, CBC, CTV.
The fact that you say they gave you a fair shot is a bit of a white pill moment, as the kids would say.
It's a little bit of a reason for hope.
Now, about the government, did they?
I presume they had the police there who said, well, we saw him go here and he admitted to that.
Did they have anyone that they called an expert?
Did they bring in an expert on how fires start, for example?
I mean, because that's what was goofy here is that the rules were so vague and confusing, it almost seemed like there was no rhyme or reason.
Did they try and justify that somehow?
They did, but it was all in their submissions, all in their written submissions through affidavits and the like.
So they had a few affidavits in there from DNRR personnel, but they didn't really do a whole lot.
There was no cross examination really throughout the course.
It was all just the arguments based on the record.
And did you yourself take the stand?
No, sir.
No need.
Well, and, you know, of course, that's a strategic decision, of course.
If the government has a weak case, why let them have a crack at you?
Well, so the result came out, you say, on Friday, and it sounds like a win.
It was struck down, I understand.
I'm reading the Justice Center's press release as unconstitutional.
So it's not just that it was that you were free to go, it's the law itself failed.
Do I understand that right?
So the whole law itself was discarded as unconstitutional.
An illegal law, is that right?
Well, the proclamation that was issued under the Forests Act, so the law would be the Forests Act, and that empowers the minister to issue such proclamations.
But the proclamation itself was declared illegal.
Got it.
So the law remains on the books, but this particular expression, I understand.
So it's this particular, and they make proclamations or orders all the time.
But this is very good.
Now, I have a question for you.
Federally, the invocation of the Emergencies Act, that's the kind of martial law that was brought in against the truckers.
The federal court had a very serious ruling calling out the government in very strong language for a judge.
This was upheld by three more judges unanimously at the federal court of appeal, and yet liberals say they're going to appeal it if they can all the way to the Supreme Court.
So they're being stubborn.
They don't want to take the loss.
How's the government of Nova Scotia?
I guess it's only been a couple days.
Have they indicated if they're going to appeal this one?
I would imagine.
It's not as big a deal for them.
It's just a proclamation, and sort of, I don't know how much of their pride is wrapped up in it.
Do you have any sense that they're going to appeal this and try and rag the puck like the feds are doing?
I have not heard any indication of that.
And I think in this case, like it was such a succinct decision, it was only 17 pages long.
And the legal framework that applied here was the DORE framework.
And it's basically step one we need to check to see whether the decision maker actually considered our rights before issuing the proclamation.
And there's no evidence anywhere that they did that.
In fact, even in their own briefings, DNRR's briefings to The minister under the heading legal, all that is discussed is the potential of them being sued by industry if they don't allow industry to conduct their business in the forest.
But they just threw the little guy under the bus and didn't consider our rights whatsoever.
So the proclamation fails on its face.
It's unconstitutional.
Well, you called yourself the little guy.
You are one man.
And indeed, considering the scale of the resources of the state, it is true that any one person is little.
But sometimes courage can.
Equalize things.
And I tell you, I'm so pleased with this story.
And I remember, I remember when you came on the show a year ago, and I had a bit of nervousness in me because, you know, there was a mania out there about these fires, just like there was a mania.
Like people were hysterical about them.
I think some people would have had you locked up, not just fine, they would have had you locked up.
It was the same sort of panicky authoritarianism we saw during COVID.
It really felt like an echo.
Of that to me.
Is that how you felt at all that this was a redux of COVID?
Yeah, they were really driving the fear narrative again.
Tyrants rule by fear.
And like you mentioned, it was almost like the rules were such that nobody could really understand whether they were doing the right thing or the wrong thing, much like in Franz Kafka's The Trial.
So there was a lot of that kind of hysteria in the beginning, but I was fortunate that even as I was kind of running my own little social media campaign, the firefighters unions were calling out senior management for their inability to properly respond to the crisis, their mismanagement of resources.
They didn't use their volunteer firefighters properly.
So it's really a management crisis, and their failure to lead does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Isn't that interesting?
I didn't know that about the firefighters unions.
Congratulations on Ending Independence00:04:27
Well, anyways, congratulations.
Big thanks to the public interest law firms that came in because, of course, I think the government always counts on people not having the dough to fight.
I mean, if you had to hire your own lawyers, you'd probably be out $50,000 right now, let alone the fines.
So, congratulations all around.
Jeff, thanks very much for coming back to the show to let us know how the story ended.
And it certainly ended well.
So, congratulations to you.
And I hope this makes you a stronger fighter in the future, even.
Well, we don't get stronger by not lifting heavy things.
So, yeah, in the future, I'll be in Ottawa in a few weeks for the next engagement.
And that's my May Day, May Day, May Day kids in crisis.
We're going to Ottawa to bring an end to childhood transition.
So, yeah.
What date is that?
That's the 5th of May.
And we have the Parliamentary Press Gallery book for 10 30.
We're doing a rally on Parliament Hill at 1 p.m. and a town hall with a panel of experts and those with lived experience of the harms of gender ideology.
At 6 p.m.
So, other countries like the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and the US, they're all rolling this back and imposing tighter and tighter restrictions on cross sex hormones, puberty blockers, and sterilizing surgeries for young people.
And Canada remains an outlier.
So, I think it's time for us to join the civilized world and put an end to this madness once and for all.
Well, I had no idea you were involved in this.
I'm so glad I asked.
Is there a website where people can learn more?
Yes, sir.
It's MaydayCanada.com.
And we have a whole plethora of information up there that you can check out for yourself background information, our mission statements, our speakers, organizers.
We're bringing Scott Nugent up from the United States.
He's the trans man who appeared on What is a Woman who had the phaloplasty using flesh from the arm.
We also have Mia Hughes of Genspect who wrote the WPATH files, Barry Neufeld who was just fined $750,000 by the.
From BC, yeah.
Yeah, I know who you mean.
Wow.
Well, you know what?
I had no idea you were involved with this.
MaydayCanada.com.
Is that what you say?
All right.
May 5th.
Well, I'll see if we can send a reporter to that.
Jeff, you're always full of good news and interesting work.
So I wish you strength and hopefully we'll see you again.
Thanks, Ezra.
There is.
Jeff Evely.
I had no idea he was such a freedom fighter.
And I'm so glad to learn it.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me about Alberta independence.
Clive Lewis says, Ezra, what a great breakdown of why Alberta should be independent.
You are dead on.
It's not anti Canadian, it is conserving what Canada used to be.
For example, Bill C9 occurred in the Senate, currently in the Senate, is the end of freedom of religion in Canada.
Many other freedoms are being eroded by the globalist cartel currently led by Kearney.
You know, it's funny because in his weekend propaganda video, Mark Kearney said, nostalgia is not a strategy.
And I think.
So many of us are nostalgic for a Canada that was, that we grew up in, and that there's still vestiges of, but they're tearing them down.
When you tear down John A. Macdonald, when you tear down Queen Victoria with the approval of the government, you're indicating that it's a different country now.
So your nostalgia is for a country that's long gone.
Roger P. says, That's rich.
E.B. talking about treason.
Let's talk about his relationship with China.
Oh, that's the thing.
I mean, you've got Mark Carney endorsing Palestinian sovereignty.
So they're allowed to separate from, I don't know, Israel or whatever.
You've got Carney talking about joining the European Union, which erodes our sovereignty.
And now we're part of this China pivot.
But don't you, Albertans, think about getting uppity and having an independence vote?
Stuart Meade said I can see Rebel being our mainstream media after this fall.
I'm sure we will shut off CBC and CTV immediately.
We are already sick and tired of their propaganda.
They won't be in our country anymore.
I'm worried because I think the entire regime media is going to attack Alberta in the sneering, condescending way they do.
Erosion of Canadian Sovereignty00:00:29
And I don't know.
I mean, there are so many things about Canada that have changed, like the crazy rulings in our courts recently that let people go from violent crimes because of race.
That is not how Canada was built.
That's not how we work.
I don't know.
We'll see what happens, but we're going to be there.
So, stories for the day that's our show today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.