Episode Overview

Podcast: Rebel News Podcast
Host: Ezra Levant
Episode: "Why do governments around the world always attack farmers?"
Date: November 27, 2025

Ezra Levant explores the intensifying government pressure on farmers globally, focusing on recent farmer protests in London and reflecting on similar movements in the Netherlands and Canada. The episode scrutinizes the underlying motives for government crackdowns—environmental policies, cultural tensions, and economic interests—and features a discussion with Chris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on the growth of Canada's government bureaucracy and its consequences.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Global Farmer Protests & Government Pressure

• London Farmer Protest (00:00-13:09)
  • Ezra opens by expressing admiration for farmers' protests, historically covering the Dutch farmer rebellion and now focusing on UK farmers demonstrating in London.
  • He highlights the surprising scale and impact of Dutch agriculture for such a small country, making it the third-largest food exporter globally.
  • Key insight: Dutch government’s environmental extremism, specifically targeting nitrogen emissions, has led to aggressive measures against farmers, such as drastically reducing livestock numbers.
  • Farmers in the Netherlands responded by forming the Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), rapidly becoming the largest party in the Dutch Senate. Levant quotes party leader Caroline van der Plas: '"It's all normal citizens who voted."' (09:40)
  • Ezra draws parallels between anti-farm policies in different countries, including forced culling of healthy animals and onerous environmental regulations.

“Imagine insisting on killing every one of them. Nonetheless, it really does echo what they were trying to do in the Netherlands, doesn't it?... They want to kill the animals to save the environment, which is crazy because obviously the animals are part of the environment when you think about it.”
—Ezra Levant (11:08)

• UK Context
  • Recent UK government proposals would hit family farms with a 20% inheritance tax, threatening the tradition of passing farms to the next generation and possibly paving the way for corporate consolidation.
  • Levant explains: "How on earth could a family with a farm just scrape together £200,000 to pay a tax to the government to allow the farm to continue to operate in the family? Why are they doing that? Well, the same reason the Canadian government and the Dutch government use. They, you know, they probably wouldn't admit it, but they sort of hate farmers.” (12:43)

2. Cultural and Economic Significance of Farmers

• Ezra extols the virtues of farmers—self-sufficiency, honesty, custodianship of land and water, and essential role in feeding the population.
• He asserts that the independence and self-reliance of farmers make them philosophically opposed by left-wing or globalist elites who prefer more centralized control and dependence.

“All the qualities that make someone a great farmer also make them a great citizen… Patience, planning, thinking about the future, problem solving, harmony with the cycles of life.”
—Ezra Levant (12:13)

3. Police Response & Political Double Standards

• Tractor Ban and Police Arrests (13:09-13:29)
  • London police ban farm vehicles from central city on protest day, ambushing demonstrators.
  • On-air audio features direct report of a farmer’s arrest, highlighting perceived hypocrisy compared to leniency toward recent pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic protests in London.

“This is the place of the public, the public and farmers being arrested on a section dispersal because the police decide to say that they're not going to be allowed.”
—On-the-ground reporter (13:09)

• Ezra challenges: "Don't you think Parliament is actually the proper place to protest the government?" (14:03)

4. Bureaucratic Expansion in Canada

• Interview with Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (15:31-30:26)
  • The conversation shifts to the 950,000 new government jobs added in Canada over the last decade—a huge spike not matched by population growth.
  • Discussion of the negative impacts: economic drain, loss of entrepreneurial spirit, rising tax burden, and cultural shift toward state dependence.
  • Chris Sims references Ayn Rand’s 'looters versus producers,' stating: "What this is is basically far too many people have now joined the ranks of government. Charlie Kirk said it best when he said big government sucks. It does." (16:13)
  • Data: Government employment grew from about 17% to over 21% of the Canadian workforce since 2015. In Atlantic Canada, one in three employees now works for the government.

“The average salary for federal bureaucrats is now well over $100,000… You start to feel like a sucker if you try and make a go of it on your own.”
—Ezra Levant (18:56)

- Shrinking private sector leads to loss of innovation and economic opportunity, especially in provinces like Newfoundland where population shrinks but government jobs grow.
- Sims draws a philosophical parallel: government employment incentivizes complacency, dependency, and less support for private sector growth and tax reduction.

5. Canada’s Economic Direction and Investor Confidence

• Ezra and Chris discuss risk of “brain drain” due to poor economic policy, cumbersome regulation, stalled resource projects (like pipelines), and “managed capitalism” promoted by figures like Mark Carney.
• They lament Canada’s loss of reputation as an attractive place for business, referencing Shopify as a top tech success that may eventually relocate.

"We’ve become the country of no. And to your point, I know this is kind of painful to think about, but under Harper... our dollar was even over par for a little while. Yeah, Wild."
—Chris Sims (27:54)

• Sims details how pandemic money-printing and lockdowns created durable inflation and worsened affordability.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Did you know this? The Netherlands… was the third largest exporter of food in the world behind only the United States and Brazil. Are you surprised by that? I was.”
  —Ezra Levant (01:37)
• “The Dutch farmers fought back though with these rebellions… and did something incredible… they started a political party.”
  —Ezra Levant (07:12)
• “The elites want expensive energy and expensive food. They'd rather have cloned meat or machine, you know, printed meat. Gross diabolical things like that.”
  —Ezra Levant (12:56)
• “Farmers are the best people in the world... I mean, is there a more honest breed, self sufficient and so sufficient that one of them can feed a hundred of us, maybe a thousand of us?”
  —Ezra Levant (11:44)
• [On police response to protest] “Just in the last day, London's atrocious police announced that all farm vehicles were suddenly going to be banned from the center of the city… But they ignored it. And to their peril, though, here's one farmer being arrested for daring to bring his tractor with him.”
  —Ezra Levant (13:04)
• “What this is is basically far too many people have now joined the ranks of government. Charlie Kirk said it best when he said big government sucks. It does.”
  —Chris Sims (16:13)
• “If the government continues to block the single best hope of economic growth, namely an oil pipeline… these things will just compound. I hate to say it.”
  —Ezra Levant (26:18)

Important Segments & Timestamps

| Segment | Approx. Time | |-----------------------------------------|-----------------| | Dutch farmers and the nitrogen war | 01:37 – 09:40 | | Formation & victory of BBB party | 07:12 – 10:32 | | Animal culling & anti-farm policies | 10:33 – 12:13 | | UK protest & London’s farmer crackdown | 12:14 – 14:03 | | Police & double standards in protest | 13:09 – 14:30 | | Canadian government expansion | 15:31 – 20:57 | | Regional bureaucracy disparities | 20:58 – 23:21 | | Cultural effects of government growth | 23:22 – 25:13 | | Economic direction & "brain drain" | 25:14 – 29:59 | | Oil pipelines & investor confidence | 29:59 – end |

Tone and Language

Ezra Levant mixes sharp criticism, humor, and a populist tone. He regularly uses direct language and rhetorical questions to engage listeners, particularly defending the farming community as emblematic of hard-working, self-reliant citizens. The interview with Chris Sims continues this tenor, blending economic data with a clear ideological critique of government expansion and regulatory culture.

Conclusion

This episode of the Rebel News Podcast offers a passionate defense of farmers facing government overreach, drawing lines between agricultural, economic, and political freedoms across the UK, Netherlands, and Canada. Through both anecdote and analysis, Ezra Levant articulates a worldview distrustful of bureaucratic growth and sympathetic to those who "push the cart"—farmers and private sector producers. The analysis is enriched by an expert interview charting how government expansion reshapes economies and societies in ways that diminish individual initiative and national competitiveness.