Brian Lilley tells Ezra Levant how the CBC manages to lose money on their gift shop.
This report aired on The Source June 19 2013.
What happens when Justin Trudeau is asked a serious question by the media? He assumes it’s from Sun News…oops it was from his friends at the CBC.
This report aired on The Source June 19 2013.
Tyler Sommers of Democracy Watch joins Ezra Levant to discuss Trudeau's unethical paid speaking gigs as an MP.
This report aired on The Source June 19 2013.
Ontario MPP Rick Nicholls speaks with Ezra about the Ontario town taking down its wind turbines.
This report aired on The Source June 18 2013.
The Media Party is running to defend Justin Trudeau for charging charities to hear him speak, blaming the scandal somehow on Conservatives.
This report aired on The Source June 18 2013.
Justin Trudeau got rich off of speaking fees charge to charities, schools and unions. He is promising to “make it right” but won’t admit to any wrongdoing.
This report aired on The Source June 18 2013.
Last June, Justin Trudeau gave a speech at a charity dinner in Saint John, New Brunswick. The Grace Foundation was trying to raise money for a seniors’ home.
The event flopped. It actually lost $21,000. But it would have broken even and then some if Trudeau hadn’t insisted on collecting a speaking fee — a whopping $20,000, plus HST, plus business class travel. For a speech from a sitting MP.
Months later, the charity wrote to Trudeau and asked if he’d refund his fee. He refused. And when news of the charity’s request broke last Friday, Trudeau dispatched a stern spokesman with a cold answer: “With regards to this event, Mr. Trudeau fulfilled all obligations within his contract.”
No doubt that is legally true. It is also obscene. Since when does an MP — paid $157,000 a year by taxpayers, plus travel and expenses — charge charities $20,000 to give a speech? Is that the act of a public servant? All the more mind-boggling is that Trudeau is a rich kid, who inherited a trust fund worth millions from his late father.
But Trudeau was adamant. Charging for speeches, even as an MP, is his “profession,” he says. In fact, from the day he first announced his intention to run for Parliament, till that Saint John dinner, he billed $966,500 in fees for speeches. That’s more than he earned as an MP.
But as the Grace Foundation story went viral, Trudeau’s political base — the Parliamentary Press Gallery — started to turn on him. His carefully crafted image as a champion of the “middle class” was melting. So on Sunday morning, Trudeau went on CTV to make an announcement.
“I’ve decided that it is the right thing to do to offer to help the Grace Foundation and any other organization I spoke for as an MP, to either give them an equivalent donation or work with them to try to fix it and make it right,” he said. That’s refreshing — a politician who acknowledges he did something wrong and wants to fix it! But wait a moment. He also said, “I’m doing this not because I’m worried that I did something wrong, because I didn’t.”
Well, if it’s not wrong, why does he have to make it right? Why was the right response on Friday to tell the Grace Foundation that a contract’s a contract, but the right response on Sunday was to offer to pay them back, or “work with them,” or whatever vague promise they’ll try to hold him to?
Billing charities $650 a minute for a speech is bizarre. It shows an entitlement mentality and a disconnect from normal people. But even more troubling is the money Trudeau took from people who can afford it.
Like union bosses. Under Canadian laws, unions (and corporations) are banned from donating to parties or candidates. But in the four years ending 2010, Trudeau pocketed $112,500 from unions, including the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union and a multitude of teachers’ unions, for giving speeches. Does that explain why he’s been such a ferocious critic of the Conservative bill to reform labour laws?
Gilles Vaillancourt, the Mayor of Laval, resigned in disgrace and faces charges of corruption for allegedly taking illegal bribes for years.
See, he’s not as smart as Trudeau. If Vaillancourt had just given his benefactors a speech and an invoice, he never would have been charged and he’d still be mayor right now.
This column was written for Sun News June 17 2013.
In 1982, Muslim extremists launched a civil war against Syria’s dictator, Hafez Assad. His soldiers chased them to the town of Hama, surrounded the city and pounded it with artillery for a solid month. Thirty thousand men, women and children were killed. The rebellion died, too.
Assad bequeathed his dictatorship to his son, Bashar, who now faces a similar revolt by similar extremists.
Credible reports put the death toll of the current civil war at 93,000. That’s sad.
But it’s a teardrop in an ocean of the world’s sorrows, especially in the Muslim world, especially these days.
A few years ago, 300,000 people were killed in the Sudanese region of Darfur. By Sudan’s own government.
Syria is a small country, barely 20 million people, with a GDP as small as the city of Edmonton. It has never been in the western orbit.
It was a Soviet client state during the Cold War, and is now a colony of Iran. The Russians still have a naval base in Syria’s port of Tartus.
What is the west’s interest here, other than to not get entangled in it?
It is all about entanglements now. Iran reportedly has 50,000 expeditionary troops there, defending Assad. The terrorist group Hezbollah has committed to defend Assad. Russia continues to sell hi-tech weapons to Syria, which already operates MiG-29 jets and in 2010 signed a contract for state-of-the-art Russian anti-aircraft missiles, called S-300s.
Israel is so worried about those S-300 missiles — and their ability to stop Israel’s F-16s and F-15s from flying missions in Syria — that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally visited Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask him to halt the sale, and actually warned that Israel would feel compelled to destroy the missiles before they were deployed. But Putin was not dissuaded.
That’s who’s on Assad’s side. But who is against him? Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was.
He announced the U.S. will send military equipment to the rebels, and may even set up a no-fly zone over 25 miles of sovereign Syrian territory adjacent to Jordan, as a base of operations for the rebels.
Who are these rebels, to which Obama has allied America and its military?
Is there a Lech Walesa amongst them — the democratic hero who liberated Poland?
Is there a Vaclav Havel? Maybe even a Kemal Ataturk or a George Washington?
No. They’re a coalition, dominated by al-Qaida and al-Qaida’s affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. More than a thousand radical jihadists from the west — a thousand Omar Khadrs — have gone to Syria to take up arms against Assad, including several Canadians. One of whom blew himself up in a truck bomb in the middle of a crowded street. That’s our “allies” now. Funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
These are not liberals. These are not democrats. They commit as many atrocities and war crimes as Assad does; both sides are descending into hell.
Rape as a military tactic is now standard, not only to punish and demoralize the other side, but to commit the rapists to fight till the death, knowing that if they ever surrender they would be killed mercilessly. Which both sides do.
Into this fray Obama has committed not just America weapons, but American men and women. That is what a no-fly zone means.
Do you doubt that Assad would use S-300s against those American jets if he could? Do you doubt Iran would? That Russia would?
But that is America’s problem. What is so terrifying is the certainty that Obama has pressed Stephen Harper to go along with this fool’s errand, to send forces like we did in the air war against Moammar Gadhafi.
Gadhafi had no allies or serious weapons; it was a turkey-shoot
Our 500 Canadian Forces were lucky to escape the mission unharmed.
It will not be such smooth sailing if Canadians are sent to enforce a Syrian air or sea blockade, at Commander Obama’s order.
This column was written for Sun News June 16 2013.
Justin Trudeau called giving speech to lobbyists for pay “professional work.” Isn’t his “professional work” being a member of parliament? Now one charity wants their money back.
This report aired on The Source June 14 2013.
Environmental lawyer Eric Gillespie stands against Nextera Energy bullies who are bullying a local mother who dared to stand up against them.
This report aired on The Source June 14 2013.
Tom Brodbeck tells Ezra Levant about the case of a woman who torched a house, killing five people, and will be eligible for parole in five years.
This report aired on The Source June 14 2013.
Fraser Institute's Ken Green tells Ezra Levant what Obama's new green team means for Canada.
This report aired on The Source June 13 2013.
Where is the media outrage over Mac Harb’s outrageous senate expense bill and his pledge to fight repayment?
This report aired on The Source June 13 2013.
Former Executive Director for Canadian Immigration Service James Bissett says Premier Wynne needs a lesson in Canadian civics before she considers letting non-citizens have the right to vote
This report aired on The Source June 13 2013.
Zane Caplansky and Lorrie Goldstein join Ezra in a meaty protest of Vancouver joining the global Meatless Monday movement.
This report aired on The Source June 12 2013.
Justin Trudeau jetted around the country, skipping out on his real job, to do paid speaking events for charities, schools and unions. Were taxpayer dollars abused?
This report aired on The Source June 12 2013.
Ontario MPP Monte McNaughton defends his constituent, Esther Wrightman, and her right to protest against green energy giant Nextera.
This report aired on The Source June 12 2013.
Former Crown prosecutor, Scott Newark, talks to Ezra Levant about the parole process for convicted terrorist Omar Khadr.
This report aired on The Source June 12 2013.
Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old employee of a US defence contractor, moved out of his house in Hawaii, copied top secret documents from work, and flew to a Hong Kong hotel from which he has been doing media interviews.
Snowden calls himself a whistleblower, and his documents purport to show a massive surveillance project by the US government covering every form of modern communication. He says he's motivated by civil liberties. Which is odd for someone fleeing to China.
One program Snowden revealed is called PRISM. It gives the US government "surveillance and stored comms" on any "target" that uses one of nine different Internet companies, from Google to Facebook to YouTube to Skype to Apple.
According to the documents, PRISM can catch e-mails, chats, videos, voice communications, photos, stored data, logins and "special requests."
The documents suggest PRISM is for targeting foreigners. "Much of the world's communications flow through the US," the documents state. "Your target's communications could easily be flowing into and through the US" That includes Canadian communications. (And yesterday came confirmation that Canada's Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a similar project here.) Another top secret document describes Boundless Informant. That's a "data mining" program that the National Security Agency uses to categorize records of communications being tracked around the world. The top four countries, with more than 50 billion hits amongst them, were Iran, Pakistan, Jordan and Egypt. But Boundless Informant also sorted 3 billion pieces of intelligence from the US That works out to ten per citizen, in one month.
Snowden also disclosed a secret court order that requires the US phone company Verizon to give all of its meta-data - basically who called who, at what numbers - to the US government on a continuous basis, and to keep that co-operation secret.
It's one thing for the US government to spy on enemies like Iran. But is it spying, en masse, on Americans? On all of them? Is it storing their information to create a historical record for every human being? That would be like starting an investigation into everyone, everywhere, in advance of any cause for suspicion.
It's not even possible to ask the communications companies if they're doing that - under the terms of the court orders, they're forbidden from telling the truth.
But what about when a US senator asks the director of national intelligence himself? Just three months ago, Sen. Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" and was told the unmistakable answer: "No, sir." But that seems to be completely false.
Put aside troubling questions about Snowden - why he fled to China; how a 29-year-old high school drop-out could have had access to such secrets after just 90 days on the job; whether he really had the power he claims he had, etc.
There is a bigger question: in light of recent disclosures about abuses at the IRS and Department of Justice, how can Americans trust their government with an invasion of privacy so pervasive that even George Orwell's book 1984 could not imagine it?
It would be shocking if President Obama had access to the private e-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages or even family pictures of his political enemies. But this is the same president who won his first two Illinois elections after the shocking release of his opponents' sealed divorce records.
This report was written for Sun News June 11 2013.
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