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Rebel News Podcast
EZRA LEVANT | Millions in taxpayer money funneled to Canada’s worst left-wing propaganda site
00:33:15
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, my friends. An interesting revelation about a far left wing website called the national observer and how they became the number one recipient of government grants. It's a crazy story. I'll go through it with you. But first let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News plus, it's the video version of our podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com now. We do charge eight bucks a month, but that's because we're not like the National Observer. We don't take money from the government. We have to earn it by convincing people to pay it to us. We can't just steal it. That's why I'd love your help, because we need you to survive. That's rebelnewsplus.com oh yeah, one more thing.
- [00:39]
B
Are you wondering how you can support your favorite independent news outlet while also sharing your opinions in a unique way? Head over to rebenewstore.com and check out our merch. We have got incredible T shirts, hoodies, mugs and winter gear we ship internationally. And if you use the code ALEX10, you will get 10% off your order. Go and take a look today.
- [01:30]
A
Tonight, Canada's worst left wing propaganda website gets millions of tax dollars to pay for their journalism. It's April 28th and this is the Ezra Levant Show. Shame on you, you censorious. Hey, I hope you saw the show last week. It was when Sheila Gunn Reed, our chief reporter, made a presentation to Parliament's Heritage Committee about what it means to be an independent journalist. I was so proud of Sheila. I actually hadn't seen her remarks at all before she delivered them. So I, I heard them the first time in that committee room. I was very excited. Boy, she has a great understanding of what it means to be independent and to be a journalist and the impediments to doing that in Trudeau and Carnese Canada. I was very proud of that. You know, the shenanigans by the regime in so many ways. I mean, mps who didn't like her kept interrupting and saying, my translation isn't working. We've got to stop Sheila from talking. It was so weird. I really felt like I was in high school and they were pulling the fire alarm or something. But the, the more gross part. I mean, politicians are going to be politicians. But, but the other journalists who were there were from the official regime media. In fact, the main journalistic union who was there was called the Canadian Media Guild. You know the word guild? It's like a medieval society. As, as if there's some Secret knowledge that these journalists have that the rest of us don't have, as if they're craftsmen or something. I mean, like a fine stonemason who apprenticed for decades with a grandmaster. No, you're just a propagandist. Anyways, they wanted two things as you know, more money and more censorship. Well, look what was revealed today. And I just say all that just to put you in the mind of what it means to be an independent journalist and how proud I am of Sheila Gunn Reed, and I hope you're proud of her too. But look at what was revealed by a Conservative MP's question. Now this was written up by Blacklocks, one of the few independent media companies in this country. Blacklock's tweet is actually more succinct, as tweets tend to be. Vancouver climate news site national observer is the heaviest user of federal media grants covering the equivalent of 23 employees, 1.37 million for wage subsidies, $640,000 from the periodical fund, $435,000 for sole source federal subscriptions. So apparently they've got 23 staff. We have 34 at Rebel News. They were given millions. I think the craziest part, frankly are the nearly half a million dollars in forced subscriptions by bureaucrats. That was that last line item there. They basically say to bureaucrats, pay government money to get a premium subscription from the National Observer. That's just so nuts. Who are the National Observer? They're a far left website based in Vancouver that used to be called the Vancouver Observer. They were by a US propaganda group called the Tides Foundation. The same folks who bankroll basically all the anti oil, anti forestry, anti tanker propaganda. You know, I like the fact that Holly Doane and Blacklocks calls them a climate website because that's really what they are. That was what they were started to be. They're anti conservative, of course, anti Alberta, of course. They're conspiracy theorists about foreign interference. I mean, they, they thought I was involved with Russia or something I played a practical joke on in response that. I'll have to tell you that another day. But they in fact are the foreign interference. They're a Canadian branch plant of San Francisco leftists and in fact their boss is an American communist radical who basically was dispatched to Canada. So here, let's read from Black Locks a little bit. Let me read a little bit from the extended story. Eco news site number one in grants, a Vancouver climate news site. The national observer is the nation's heaviest user of Department of Canadian Heritage grants. Newly disclosed records show the quote independent news site received more than $1.3 million in taxpayers aid to cover the equivalent of 23 employees salaries while its CEO served on the volunteer board responsible for approving grants. That's crazy. The national observer record speaks for itself regarding our independence from any government of the day, said Jimmy Thompson, editor in chief. The company in a mission statement claimed to be a profitable independent news organization reading 4.5 million readers annually. But here's the gross part. This was a secret. I mean really, it meets the definition of a conspiracy. Payouts under the local Journalism initiative had been concealed by News Media Canada, a publisher's lobby group that processes grants applications. National Observer CEO Linda Solomon Wood, that's the US communist, was a member of the judging panel that quote, reviews applications, selects recipients and decides funding allocations, according to the lobby Editor. Thompson did not dispute the figures disclosed in an inquiry of ministry tabled in the Commons at the request of Conservative MP RPancana. Ms. MP Canna had asked with regard to the government's local journalism initiative, what was the breakdown of final funding each media outlet received? Now, of course, the whole thing's rigged. Let me read the next part of the story. The journalism initiative pays 100% of the cost of selected employees salaries up to $60,000 annually. Let me just stop here and just. I mean, I don't want the money. It's poison. But if someone were to pay all our staff up to $60,000. First of all, some of our staff don't make $60,000. But could you imagine how free and light we would feel? I mean, they are not a business, they are a grift. They are a project of the liberals. And they actually have the audacity to call themselves independent even though basically they work for the liberals. Let me read a little more. Records show the national observer in five years successfully applied for grants to 23 times while CEO Solomon Wood was on the judging panel. Editor Thompson said the CEO played no role in winning grants for the website. Quote, Ms. Solomon Wood recused herself from any discussion of national observer applications. He said they're all friends. I mean, they're all in it together. They all get government money and apportion it. And do you think for a second if they work together and laugh together and hand out government money together when it's the National Observer's turn to get paid? And so their editor says, I'm going to step out of the room for a minute, wink wink. The rest of them know exactly what to do. This is so super gross. I can Only imagine how this would warp my brain. If Rebel News got millions of dollars from Carney and we began to rely on it like an addict. I mean, I suppose if you won the lottery once, it would sort of wobble you, but hopefully you would pay down some debts and get on with regular life. But imagine if every year you got hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mark Carney, the most political man in the country. That would warp you, and you would become addicted to it because you'd be reliant on it and you would be obsessed with it. You wouldn't be talking to your viewers. You would be talking to one viewer. You would pull your punches. You would use more gentle language. You would ignore certain stories, and our staff would know that as well. So they would do the same. Everyone would know. We would be like a kept mistress, but trying to keep it secret from our viewers, really. But here's the fact, and this is right in the statement of the money. They have to force people to subscribe to them. The government has to order bureaucrats to subscribe hundreds of thousands of dollars in subscriptions, and these bureaucrats use tax money to pay for it. They would die in two weeks without these subsidies. They would run out of money for payroll. Now, they say. You saw me read it earlier. They say they have four and a half million viewers. I don't know exactly that, what that means. I mean, I don't know if I should believe them. They're a propaganda website, but they claim more than 4 million views a year. That's nice. I mean, if you take their word for it, that's a little over 300,000 visitors a month. So a little more than 10,000 a day. Okay, that's nice. Good team effort. There's no proof of that. They just say it, and I'll take them at the word. I don't know if you saw, but in December, I did a post and I published the raw information from an app called hootsuite. That's the name of an app that runs our social media. And I just published the full report, no edits. It's all out there showing that last year we had 430 million views and impressions. So they had 4.5 million. We had 430 million. So we're. We're almost a hundred times bigger. Were almost 100 times bigger. Have you. Honest, Be honest with me. Have you ever heard of the national observer before? I had, because I follow environmental extremists and the Ties foundation, but most Canadians have not. I don't know if you remember a few months ago, Oxford University and the Reuters foundation did a study of Canadian media, and they have this wonderful chart showing that Canadians actually watch a lot of American media, like cnn, but of Canadian video news channels. CBC is in first place. I'm only talking about the Canadians now. CTV is in second and Rebel is in third. We're ahead of Global news. No one's heard of the national observer other than the bureaucrats forced to buy it. Look, the national observer is not a real news site. And I'm not going to say you're not a journalist because that's what they say about us. But look, they're a propaganda site. They received massive funding from a lobby group. They are stenographers. They are PR men. They're not. They don't have an open mind. They can't. Their mind can't be changed. They're a propaganda site paid for by Tides and then Trudeau and then Mark Carney. There's no organic, authentic support for them. It does horrific damage to Canada by trafficking in horrible ideas. But they're not real. It's all manufactured. That said, it's comforting to know that just. Just 10,000 people a day watch that crap. Stay with us. More ahead. Last month, I was down in New York State where our friend Tommy Robinson was doing a live event hosted by our alumnus Gavin McInnis. So it was a lot of naughty people in one place. And the venue was a very interesting warehouse. It was sort of the America first paraphernalia warehouse. It was like a shrine to maga. It was quite something. And so it shouldn't have surprised me, and I don't think it did, that. They started the event by everyone standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, I stood respectfully and silently, but I did not say the Pledge of Allegiance, first of all because I don't know it, and second of all because I am not pledging allegiance to the United States because I'm a Canadian. But I stood respectfully while everyone else did. And you know what? It was a touching moment because it was a unified sense of dedication and purpose. I wouldn't say it was a religious moment, but it was sort of a secular religion, if I may. It was a cohesive joining of the people in that room. It felt like a perfunctory saying of grace before meals. It's just a moment. You just take a moment to recognize that there are other things and maybe even a higher power. And it's not just all about stuff in your face. So we can take 30 seconds and say grace. That's how it felt. And I really liked it. Well, in Canada, you don't hear the anthem that often in a patriotic way. I mean, you still hear it at sports games, it's true, but we don't have something like the Pledge of Allegiance. I mean, schools used to say God save the Queen or God save the King. That's long gone. And any wisp of Christianity has since been eradicated from the public square. But what has taken its place is, remember Sir Isaac Newton said, nature abhors a vacuum. So when you remove the Christian faith and its symbols and rituals from public sphere, don't think that people will not miss it. They'll fill it with something else. They'll fill it with environmentalism. They'll fill it with some woke statement. And as is increasingly the case in Canada, it will be filled by a quasi religious, really a pagan and somewhat mystic statement called a land acknowledgement. Where, and I should say at my own children's school, everyone stands as if it's some religious statement, as if it is some Pledge of Allegiance. To be honest, and I have to tell you, I am the only parent who does not stand. And that is a terribly difficult thing to be the one person who sits while 400 others stand. But at least I have not been arrested. At least I have not had social workers sent to my home to examine the affairs of my family because I refuse to bend the knee to this Canadian Pledge of Allegiance. But that's me. If you look across the country, on the other coast, the west coast, the Sunshine Coast School District 46, well, this is exactly what happened. A mum, Lara Yates, refused to go along with this pagan acknowledgement, and her daughter was immediately punished. And they did indeed send social workers to her home. Luckily, she has a legal eagle on her side. Joining us now via Skype is our friend and lawyer, Lisa Bildy, who is also the boss of the Free Speech Union of Canada. She joins us now. Lisa, great to see you again. I'm so glad you're helping this mum.
- [16:05]
B
Me too. And that's why we started this Free Speech Union idea, was so that we could help all these people who are just ordinary folks trying to, you know, stand up for things and express the. Express themselves and getting in trouble like Larry Yates.
- [16:18]
A
Tell me a little bit more about her. She's from Sechelt, if I'm saying that right. She's a mom of four and she thinks that saying these is a form of forced political expression. I can tell you, although I have not been forced to say the words. The peer pressure was enormous, and you have to really be a political dissident to stand up to it in B.C. saying that land acknowledgement actually has some meaning, as you, I'm sure, have been following. There have been court cases now that say there is such a thing as indigenous title and that white men or other immigrants may not actually own the land under their feet. And so it's almost like a magic spell that is actually in British Columbia. Poof. And so now the indigenous title fairy has arrived. You rub the land acknowledgement genie lamp, and the genie is here in B.C. it's way more meaningful because they. They actually are legal consequences. Let me stop talking for a bit. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your client and what exactly happened to her?
- [17:23]
B
Sure. Well, this isn't the first time she's expressed opposition to it. She is a mom of four, as you mentioned. Two of her kids have already graduated from this high school in Seychellt, and two are current students, one of them in grade 12, who was in a drama performance. And so there was an evening performance, and that's where. Where this event took place. But. But long before that, Lara had, first of all, her oldest daughter is actually of indigenous heritage. And so all four girls have been attending the Indigenous Learning program, which is a sort of a sub program of the. Of the district. And she has expressed concerns about land acknowledgments for years, including. Well, and especially after one of her daughters actually was failed, of course, because she refused to produce her own land acknowledgment. And so after all this effort of private conversations and challenging through the appropriate challenge channels, she finally just decided she was going to essentially heckle the land acknowledgment at one of these drama performances. It was an evening thing. It was. It's. This is a high school, by the way, so these are. These are not small children. And she gave warnings. She told her daughter to tell the teacher that she would be doing this, that she would. She would briefly heckle the land acknowledgement, then she would sit quietly for the rest of the performance. And that's exactly what she did. And she yelled out something like, save us your race baiting. Stop this political bull. You know, something like that. And. And then she sat quietly for the rest of the performance. Nobody asked her to leave. Nothing happened. The show went on. And then afterward, the. The drama teacher actually sort of outed her daughter to the rest of the students and said, this is whose parents, you know, were. Were Heckling. And then the kids started bullying this, this daughter. And not only that, but the principal called in a counselor to assess whether she should even be released to her home, whether she was suicidal or, or any concerns like that, which, which was completely preposterous in the circumstances. So eventually they let the daughter go home, but then the principal called Children's Aid or whatever the BC equivalent is. And so a social worker came out to the house to assess whether this family was safe for these children, which was just, again, outrageous.
- [19:35]
A
That is straight up, Orwell, that you are mentally ill for having these views. We must cure you of your antisocial behavior. If you don't support a land acknowledgement, you must be ill and you must be dangerous.
- [19:50]
B
Exactly. So there's more, two more things. One is that the principal immediately called in counselors for the whole school to help them cope with having heard a contrary opinion, if you can believe that. She sent a notice home to parents. And again, these are high school students. But in her submissions, because we had an internal appeal and I'll get to that. But in her submission, she talked about how she had pulled in all these counselors who were actually away on a retreat, brought them in on an emergency basis. And still, seven weeks after this incident, some people were still needing help to cope with having heard a contrary opinion. So the next day, Lara received something called a Section 177 order, which is a direction basically not to attend on school property. It's like a trespass notice. And the, the legislation makes it to me at least reasonably clear that this is supposed to be done to maintain or establish order in the moment. And of course it wasn't necessary. She was quiet. She, after her, her brief outburst, she sat still and quiet and wasn't a problem. So it wasn't needed. It was being used the next day as a form of punishment. Now you're banned. You cannot come on your daughter's prison proper school property for two months. And then there was going to be some condition that she'd have to kind of establish that she was prepared to behave before she'd be allowed back on. And of course, you know, she hasn't conceded anything. And so she's still banned and she's kept her kids home because frankly, she's worried about the environ kind of environment where her kids or, you know, the family's being called, having children's egg, called on them. So she's, she's not feeling very secure sending her kids alone into that environment, I guess.
- [21:32]
A
Well, that's crazy. Now, have there. You're not Laura. So you may not have this information, but have any other parents express solidarity with her or agreement? I can tell you the peer pressure to go along with these things is enormous. First of all, no one wants to be called racist. Second of all, everyone likes to conform. I mean, we saw that during COVID Everyone wants to move with the pack because if you're a dissident, you're weird. In this case, they'll send a social worker and consider basically kidnapping your kids. Has anyone else at least privately said to Laura, we're with you. Do you know the answer? You may not know it.
- [22:11]
B
I don't know. I don't. I haven't heard of any. So it's a small town, and you're right, I'm sure people would feel uncomfortable taking a position on that. But. So what we were able to do is, first of all, file an internal appeal to the superintendent that was allowed to us under the. Under the regulations. And then that was denied. And we tried to appeal it to the school board. We were denied the opportunity to do that. And so now we're proceeding to a judicial review.
- [22:42]
A
Judicial review. So the standards of judicial review, I have learned through many failed attempts, they really defer to the local decision maker. Quite often, like for a court to set aside a ruling by a school, by any other sort of petty government body, they're reluctant to do so because, at least in my experience and in some case law, the courts say, look, we want to defer to people closest to the issue with the most experience in the issue. We want to give them some wiggle room. We want to give them the right to be wrong. It's only if they're patently unreasonable. They're just absolutely incorrect. Are we going to overturn them? If they're reasonable enough, we'll let it go. What's the standard for review? Because I'm worried a court will say, yeah, we're not going to crack this open.
- [23:33]
B
Well, that's been my experience, too. They are very difficult to take these things forward. One thing we are seeking, though. Yeah, well, there's. We're seeking a declaration that her charter rights were infringed because it is a public school. And, you know, she has. She does have a right to speak. She was. She was counter protesting, essentially, like this was a form of protest. And I think it's fair to say that. And in fact, the Emergencies act decision verified that sometimes protests are disruptive. I mean, that's the whole nature of a protest. And so you can imagine that there'd be a double standard here. If this was a protest in, on some other matter. Unlikely she would have been banished. But one of the other things we're seeking is, is, or that I'm, I'm contemplating seeking is an order quashing the, the, the orders that allow these indigenous land acknowledgments. In the first place, there's an interesting provision in the School Act. It says this is section 76. It says all schools and provincial schools must be conducted on a strictly secular and non sectarian principle. So as you were saying at the outset, you know, these have taken on a quasi religious tenor.
- [24:45]
A
Yeah.
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B
They're certainly. If you take the position that sectarian is not just a religious concept, but, but refers to, you know, very strong controversial topics that, that people might reasonably disagree on. For a public school to take a position on something like that.
- [25:01]
A
Yeah.
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B
Is in my view, or at least it's arguable that that's contrary to the intent of this, of this section of the act, which you know, the public schools that have to have to educate children from all backgrounds, all political perspectives, they shouldn't be taking aside on controversial issues and they need to stop. So if this is one way to help stop that, I'm, I'm inclined to take it forward.
- [25:23]
A
Yeah, I know in Alberta the provincial government is looking at depoliticizing schools. And I think that could be the single most important legacy of Premier Smith. I mean schools are the training grounds, the ideological factories for left wing activists. I mean the Jesuits said it, but, but other, others have to give me a child at the age of 8 and I'll have him forever. I mean when you are teaching children of tender years about land acknowledgments, you were telling them in a very impression you were setting in them concrete that will harden for the rest of their life. And that, that I think is the weaponization of children. And the teachers unions are the worst at it. What's interesting thinking about your case is that the mom was the so called offender, but the child was the one who was punished. And, and, and perhaps the courts won't allow that. I mean, even if there is some remedy that must hit the mom, why should the child be subjected to it? And sicking social workers on the moment is the craziest part of all.
- [26:30]
B
Right. Yes. We're hoping that we were trying to get an apology so that we could have the daughter return to school. And they kept saying to us in correspondence, look, we, we want your children. This only applies to You. But then they put all these unreasonable barriers in front of mom and, and refuse to apologize for their own actions. And so so far we've, it's been an impasse on that front. So she's, she's got the kids at home and, and is homeschooling.
- [26:53]
A
I got one last question for you. I don't know if you'll get this information through the litigation process or you'll have to do a freedom of information request, but I think it would be fascinating to see how the land acknowledgement came about in internal records and how this child and the mom have been handled since. I mean, there may be some litigation privilege that the school applies to. We're not going to give these records up, but I don't think that that would count unless it's chatting with council. I bet based on my experience in life that the woke teachers said outrageous things in emails and whatever teachers chat boards they have. And I think that you have a chance to win this thing on the merits. But you may also have some ticking time bombs that they left by speaking intemperately. It sounds like they really hate the mom and through her, hate the daughter. I mean, you've got to hate someone pretty bad to send child and welfare services to the home to take the kids away. I would bet you a dollar that they have said outrageous things that they would not want to see the light of day. Anyhow, it's just an idea from, from someone who's used to quarreling. What do you think?
- [28:13]
B
Oh, well, we'll certainly try to get our hands on whatever we can. And I wouldn't be surprised. You know, this is the other thing that these land acknowledgments also impose a burden on teachers because if you happen to be a teacher, not only do you have to listen to it like all the parents and students, but you may be compelled to say it too. And I think honestly pushing something like this forward, whether it's politically or if we're fortunate to get a good decision in the courts would be a relief to a lot of teachers who quietly endure this and have to say these words they don't agree with. And anyway, it's time to stop. And so whatever we can do to help, that will will do.
- [28:47]
A
Well, I'm glad to hear it. Your organization is the Free Speech Union of Canada, FSUCanada CA. I am a gold member of the Free Speech Union, the original one in the uk and I'm delighted that you're heading up the Canadian branch. Give me just 30 more seconds about what the FSU Canada does in general?
- [29:07]
B
Yes. Well, we're a new sister chapter of the one in the UK that you're a member of and we've been around just over a year. We have. It's a member based organization so people can join and participate in activities like salons. We just had one in Vancouver last week with Eric Kaufman leading that one in Hamilton a couple weeks ago with Bruce Party. So nice opportunities to get together with people who care about free speech and, and figure out ways forward. We also have a few legal cases which we send out to outside council, which mostly is me at the moment until we get better funding. I'd like to have a stable of lawyers to take these for sure. We have campaigns that we run, including one to abolish human rights tribunals which have become enforcers of ideology rather than actually, you know, sort of caring about universal human rights. And we also collaborate with our international partners. And so we have a new FSU that just started in Brazil and so it's interesting to see how similar things are in all of our countries. It just seems like all of these restrictions on free speech and censorship and attempts to surveil and curtail is happening lockstep around the world.
- [30:14]
A
Well, I didn't know you guys were active in Brazil. You know, I went there for a day. They had a big march when some crusading judge shut down the entire app Twitter for the whole country because they refused to censor a few accounts. So this judge, more is his name Alexander Moraes, if I'm saying that right, shut down the whole thing and so 200,000 people protested the shutdown. I heard it was large. I wanted to see with my own eyes. I had never seen that many people care so explicitly about freedom of speech before. It actually was incredibly inspiring because I don't know if you could even get 20,000, if you could even get 2,000 to take to the streets in Canada, but there were indeed 200,000 marching for freedom that day. Thanks for letting me tell you that anecdote but it was actually a very hopeful scene, very hopeful sign. Anyway, you and I have our work cut up for us here in Canada. Lisa, great to see you. And once again, the website for folks who want to help, whether that's join or donate, that's FSU Canada ca. Thanks Lisa.
- [31:19]
B
Thanks so much Ezra. Good night.
- [31:21]
A
Our pleasure. Stay with us. More ahead. Welcome back. Your letters to me on the Nova Scotia spaceport. I just can't say that without smiling. JFK19780 says this is why the Liberals want to shut down all the committee meetings in the House of Commons. They don't want all this theft exposed. 11 years of stealing in proroguing Parliament and blacked out documents. This is liberal transparency for you. You know, I just have never, ever in my life heard of someone backdating a lease so they could pay a full year for time they didn't have the property. And it's even crazier that they're paying 54,000 bucks a day, like 20 million bucks a year for the lease, and the spaceport is leasing that land themselves from the provincial government for about 14 grand a year. It's madness. Jerry. John said this $200 million slab makes about as much sense as financial sense as a 25 billion dollar sovereign wealth fund built on national debt. Canadian taxpayers are disrespected to an insane degree. Oh, yeah. I mean, they're just raiding, absolutely raiding the bank. And who's going to stop them? The National Observer, Donald, says, kind of like what happened when Trudeau built a shed for $8 million. Yeah, a shed for $8 million. You talking about the one I think up in the Yukon or somewhere in the far north, but at least that was 8 million, not 80 million or 200 million. And they claim that was for cost overruns as opposed to just sloshing the money at Friends? Yeah, and now they have a majority, so they're shutting down inquiries. Welcome to Canada. We really are a banana republic. Well, that's our show for the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World headquarters, see you at home. Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.