June 2012 Archives

Does freedom of speech include the freedom of Canadian rappers to make music videos glorifying Taliban terrorist attacks on Canadian troops?

As odious as that is, the answer must be yes.

Manu Militari, a Montreal rapper, has done just that. It's almost as sick as the snuff movies allegedly made by Luka Magnotta. Of course, Militari didn't actually kill anybody. He just indulged his fantasy of it happening.

Which is about as sick.

But that's the thing about freedom of speech. We have to give it to people we despise if we want it for ourselves.

It's unlikely that any of us will ever be quite as offensive or macabre in our speech. But each of us will surely, at one point in our lives, say something that offends someone - maybe even something that offends everyone.

But.

And there's a big but here - a $110,000 but. That's the amount of money that you and I were compelled to give Militari since 2008 to subsidize his "art," by way of taxpayer-funded government grants. That's almost as sick as the snuff video Militari himself made.

According to blogger Stephen Taylor, Militari has managed to wring that six-figure sum out of an organization called Music Action, that's funded by the Canadian government's department of Heritage.

See, that's the thing about "art." Everyone has a different taste. Most Canadians would agree that Militari's vision is sick. The fact that he has to rely on government handouts, rather than actually selling his music videos in the free market, testifies to that fact. But who should make the decisions about what taste is acceptable to the government?

In some ways, it puts bureaucrats and politicians in an untenable situation. If they exercise judgment, they can be accused of meddling. If they don't - as in this case - they are accused of supporting obscenity.

The answer is obvious: Get the government out of the art business, and let 34 million Canadians be their own art curators and their own censors. We're all grown ups. We can make our own choices.

It's not censorship to refuse to fund smut like Militari's. Censorship is banning something - having the government tell you that you can't say it or show it. It's not censorship to ask people to pay for their own hobbies. In this case, Militari has been allowed to turn his hobby into a very lucrative job - instead of his alternative, likely working in the booming fast-food industry.

Once upon a time, there might have been a business incubator-type rationale for grants to artists. Equipment was expensive, marketing was expensive, life was hard - as it is for any other entrepreneur.

But those excuses for government intervention don't exist anymore. Anyone with a smartphone now has a high-definition camera. Anyone with a laptop now has studio-quality editing software. Anyone on the Internet can upload videos or sell their own songs on iTunes. Anyone who is promising can raise their own money through PayPal.

Technology has set us free - made it impossible to censor us. It has also made it unnecessary to subsidize us.

Militari doesn't need our $110,000. He probably could raise that much if he put up a PayPal button - it would be a big hit amongst Taliban and al-Qaida web surfers the world over.

This column appeared in Sun News June 30 2012.

Ezra Levant takes his message of freedom and capitalism to the north in part two of his special report from Inuvik, NWT.

This report aired on The Source June 29 2012.

Jason Unrau, former editor of the Inuvik newspaper, shares his frustration with the stalled pipeline projects of the North.

This report aired on The Source June 29 2012.

Charities law expert, Samantha Kernahan, educates on the boundaries of charities law in Canada.

This report aired on The Source June 29 2012.

Ezra Levant takes the Tides Foundation and Environmental Defence to task for their latest attack on Sun News.

This report aired on The Source June 28 2012.

Jamie Ellerton from Ethical Oil talks about the love-in held between environmentalists, who found time to bash Ezra Levant and Sun News Network.

This report aired on The Source June 28 2012.

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore talks about how environmental charities are hardly charitable.

This report aired on Sun News June 28 2012.

Ezra Levant talks about what he discovered in Canada's far north, and why the beliefs there mirror his own and those of Sun News viewers

This report aired on The Source June 27 2012.

Inuvik Mayor, Denny Rodgers, on debunking myths about the North and the economic future of the North West Territories.

This report aired on The Source June 27 2012.

Fred Carmichael, Metis, and director of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group speaks about his frustration with the stalled pipeline process of the Mackenzie Valley Project.

This report aired on The Source June 27 2012.

Ezra Levant and Mike Duffy talk about the evils of censorship and why it is time to do away with it in Canada.

This report aired on The Source June 26 2012.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has asked the federal government to step in to handle the political complaints against my TV show.

The CBSC has condemned me and issued a ruling against me, but I refused to go quietly. So they're calling in the big guns.

Back in December, Chiquita Banana announced trade sanctions against Canadian ethical oil.

I did what any self-respecting Canadian would do. I told them to buzz off - with a Spanish-language swear.

A grand total of six Canadian whiners demanded an investigation of me because I spoke truth to power with a romantic Latin flair.

And a panel of four TV censors issued a ruling condemning me.

Not because of my Spanish swear - swearing is allowed on Canadian TV. But because, according to the censors, I broke Clause 6 of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics, which says I have to provide "full, fair and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment and editorial."

In other words, I couldn't oppose Chiquita Banana without also supporting them. I had too strong a point of view.

Well, I scoffed at the censors and promised a public campaign to render them obsolete - and a laughing stock.

Well, now my criticism of the censors themselves is the subject of new censorship complaints.

David Climenhaga, a pro-union blogger who complained the first time, has demanded a new investigation of me. This time because I dared to criticize his decision to call for my censorship.

I've invited Climenhaga to come on my show and debate me. But he doesn't believe in debate because that implies my point of view is allowed at all. He wants me gagged.

Climenhaga isn't alone. Another complainer wrote, "I know the logic would be to just turn (the TV) off but that is not the answer for me ... I am looking forward to new laws coming down to regulate their online presence as well ... I feel like I am fighting a battle and I need backup."

This neighbourhood snitch knows he could just click his remote control. But that would still let you watch the show, which he can't accept. And he wants new laws to regulate the Internet, too!

Well, what did the TV censors say to all this?

They called in the feds because the comments in question were about the CBSC and they felt it was a conflict of interest for them to deal with the complaints.

In their replies to these latest snitches, the CBSC wrote, "We have ... forwarded your file to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is the governmental body mandated to oversee the entire broadcasting and telecommunications industries ... The CRTC will deal with your complaint file from this point on."

Those federal government bureaucrats have the power to destroy our network by taking away our TV licence.

I don't think the CRTC has a desire to get into the business of measuring whether my opinions on Chiquita Banana are just balanced or too strong. I hope not.

The rules the TV censors are following are obsolete and archaic - the product of an earlier, more submissive age, before every single Canadian became a consumer of media on demand. To hell with a group of nobody censors.

The federal government did the right thing earlier this month by repealing the censorship laws in the human rights act.

Now it's time for them to finish the job and rip out the censorship provision of every TV and radio licence in Canada - and free us from this meddlesome group of whiners called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

This column appeared in Sun News June 26 2012.

Ezra’s censorship showdown continues with more complaints to the CBSC now tossed to the CRTC.

This report aired on Sun News June 25 2012.

Doug Christie, also known as the “lawyer for the damned,” discusses why we have to defend the right to free speech, even if it’s offensive.

This report aired on SunTV June 25 2012.

A shocking new study by the U.S. government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows the Obama administration's $9-billion solar power program created just 910 long-term jobs.

That's $9.8 million per job created.

Even if you add in all possible "indirect" jobs that could be attributed to this subsidy flurry, it still works out to $1.63 million in subsidies per job created, according to the report.

Just to be clear, this isn't some taxpayers federation or Republican Party group writing this scathing review. This is the US government itself.

That $9 billion was taxpayers' money - wrung out of the hides of Americans with real jobs. Or, to be more accurate, it was borrowed by Obama, from the Chinese government, and will hang around the neck of taxpaying Americans like an unpaid $9-billion credit card debt.

How many jobs will that kill?

Why are Obama's fake jobs - in counterfeit industries, like solar power and wind power, that could not exist without handouts - more important than real jobs for which there is a real demand in the economy?

Why do people who have modest real jobs - not ones that cost $1.63 million in subsidies to prop up, but ones that maybe eke out $50,000 a year in profit - have to carry these fake solar jobs on their backs?

And could there possibly be a stupider thing to do to your own country in the middle of the deepest and most prolonged recession since the 1930s?

The solar panels and wind turbines built with this $9-billion slush fund are probably still operating. That's not to say they're doing any good - even when wind turbines are working as planned, they don't replace coal or nuclear or hydroelectric power plants. Each of those need to be kept because wind turbines just don't work when it's not windy. And even when the wind picks up, you can't just "shut down" a coal-fired power plant for an hour or two.

The whole concept is counterfeit.

But there is another level of fakeness to it. It's not like the actual factory workers building the solar panels were pocketing the $1.63 million. Vast amounts of money go to a meta-industry of lobbyists, lawyers and grant-writers who game the system and find out how to liberate that money from politicians in the name of "green jobs."

Sometimes they take the money and run - like the US solar panel maker called Solyndra, which took $535 million from the Obama administration to support its 1,100 jobs, and then declared bankruptcy.

But here's the biggest scam involved with wind and solar power. It's like those little hamster wheels. Once you subsidize them - once you build them with handouts - you've got to keep giving them handouts to operate. The moment you take your foot off the taxpayers' gas pedal, they just shut down.

You can subsidize the companies that build them. You can subsidize the companies that set them up in strange places. But unless you keep subsidizing their operation, like Ontario does, with jacked-up power prices, they just don't work.

There is literally no place on Earth where solar panels or wind turbines are a profitable business.

You can see this with your own eyes. From California to China to Nunavut, when you drive by wind farms, look to see how many wind turbines are actually spinning vs. how many are stalled or just plain broken.

Unless you keep shovelling good money after the bad, there is no sense in maintaining them because they're unprofitable even when they are spinning, without subsidies.

Until last year, Spain was called the world's leader in solar energy. Then the euro crisis hit. So six months ago they cancelled $31 billion in green subsidies.

The schemes are ending. The shiny wind and solar machinery will rust and become expensive junk.

As Obama staggers his country deeper into recession, expect the same with his fake-work, make-work million-dollar green jobs too.

This column appeared in The Sun News Network June 23 2012.

Did you know that a secretive group called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is censoring what you hear on the radio and see on TV?

I bet you didn’t. Because they truly are secretive.

Unlike a real court, or even the kangaroo courts of Canada’s human rights commissions, the CBSC doesn’t hold open meetings when it gets together to censor TV and radio.

In fact, they don’t even let the people they’re censoring attend. No right to face your accuser. No right to ask questions. And when you lose, you don’t have the right to appeal.

I should know, because last week I was condemned by this Star Chamber myself.

On the face of it, the condemnation of my TV show by the censors’ council was for my use of a Mexican insult to tell off the Chiquita Banana company, which had announced trade sanctions against the oilsands.

But, of course, there is no rule against swearing on Canadian TV. So the censors said I violated Clause 6 of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics (apparently there is a list of rules), that I didn’t provide a “full, fair and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment and editorial.”

Hang on a second. What I do isn’t reporting — it’s opinion journalism. It’s editorials. It’s taking a side in the story. Giving a “full” presentation of opinion would require that after I denounced Chiquita, I’d then have to make their case for them.

Or if I endorse the Conservatives in an election, I’d then have to argue the case for the NDP. It’s absurd. By definition I take a side of the debate — not the boring, mushy middle of the road.

But that’s precisely what I was convicted of by these censors. Well, here’s my five-point plan to fight back.

1. Keep breaking the rules. I’m going to violate the censors’ rules every single day on my TV show. Not just me — I’m going to invite other TV and radio hosts who have been censored, and invite them to re-offend on my show. I’m going to make a mockery of the rules.

2. Scrutinize their every move. Let’s point out their inconsistencies and how their rulings violate the Charter of Rights guarantee of freedom of speech. Let’s shine a light on who exactly these censors are. Let’s make it an embarrassing job for them to have.

3. Build a grassroots army. Most journalists in the NSM (the non-Sun Media) are too timid to take on the censors. Let’s encourage them — this can’t just be a personal battle for me. But let’s get the ball rolling ourselves on blogs, Facebook, letters to the editor, etc.

4. Encourage Parliament to act. The censorship provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act was finally repealed this month. We need an MP to champion this and bring it to a vote — repeal the broadcasting regulations that require this sort of censorship on TV.

5. Contact the bosses. James Moore is the minister in charge of CRTC, the government agency that regulates TV and radio. His e-mail is james.moore@parl.gc.ca.

The prime minister is at pm@pm.gc.ca.

E-mail them. Tell them we want our TV and radio as free as the rest of the media in our life — newspapers, magazines and the Internet.

We don’t need a nanny to tell us what we can hear or see. And we sure don’t need some censor saying you can’t take a political point of view they disagree with.

This column appeared in the Sun Chain July 19 2012.

Ezra Levant launches his five step campaign to get rid of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

This report aired on The Source June 18 2012.

Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice tells us why it’s important to defend the right to be offensive.

This report aired on The Source June 18 2012.

International relations professor Aurel Braun reacts to the UN slamming Canada for its “human rights abuses” over the Montreal riots.

This report aired on The Source June 18 2012.

Last Wednesday, Canada's TV censors issued a five-page statement condemning me. They say I've broken their rules, and the Sun News Network is in trouble because of what I say on my show.

They say what I talk about with my viewers is not allowed in Canada. They say I'm "biased" and my monologues are "tirades."

And they have demanded that I read out a confession to this effect on the air.

The censors are called the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. They're the busybodies who decided last year to ban the rock song Money for Nothing by the band Dire Straits - more than 25 years after it first was played on the radio - because a handful of whiners complained the song had the word "faggot" in it.

Put aside the fact the song has probably been played one million times since it was released in 1985. And put aside the fact it was actually an anti-homophobia song.

The really stupid part is that a group of puritans thought, in the 21st century, they could ban a song, like some medieval Pope might do, adding another work of art to the official Index of Prohibited Books. These are the censors who drove some of the most popular radio shows out of Canada through their bullying - like Dr. Laura, Howard Stern, and even Canadians such as

Dr. Charles McVety, the Christian leader.

There's a theme to the enemies list here: When it comes to politics, Canada's censors hate conservatives and libertarians. They regularly attack the great Lowell Green, the conservative hero from Ottawa, if he dares criticize radical Islam. They attack people like Dominic Maurais and Jeff Fillion, two lonely conservative voices in Quebec. Does the broadcast standards council ever censor the CBC? No. Because the CBC is exempt from their censorship powers.

The broadcast standards council is nominally a private organization, set up by TV and radio stations themselves. It has no court-like powers. But that's a trick: Paragraph 6 of our government TV licence requires us to be a member of it. George Orwell would love that: A voluntary censorship board that you're required by the government to join.

It's censorship - outsourced to the private sector.

The censors were mad that, on my show, I criticized an unethical U.S. company called Chiquita Banana, and used a Spanish phrase that's considered an insult in some Latin American countries. Chiquita is hated in Latin America - for a century their abusive, anti-democratic practices were the root of the phrase "banana republic." It's fair comment. But these censors said I "indulged in language excesses that widely overstep the limits of what is acceptable in dealing with a controversial issue" and I was "unrepentant" about it.

What I said on the air can be translated as a swear. But swearing, of course, is not banned on Canadian TV. Entire shows - like The Trailer Park Boys, or Chef Gordon Ramsay's The F Word, are based on swears.

That's OK by the censors. But when I use a Spanish insult to fight back against Chiquita - because they announced a boycott of Canadian oilsands oil - the censors say that's "excessive."

Not that the insult itself is bad. But I'm not allowed to use it "in dealing with a controversial issue." That's un-Canadian. It's rather banana republicky. As Liberal Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier said, "Canada is free and freedom is its nationality." I'm allowed to say what I want about politicians or businesses.

But the real problem here isn't the censor board. It's this Conservative government that allows its TV bureaucrats to continue to force journalists like me to submit to this censor board.

I didn't shut up when the human rights commission told me I couldn't publish the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. And I sure as hell am not going to shut up because some censor tells me I have to be nice to Chiquita Banana.

This column appeared in the Sun Chain June 16 2012.

Ezra Levant discusses his interview with Global VP and CBSC member Troy Reeb, another round in his fight for freedom.

This report aired on The Source June 15 2012.

Firearms lawyer Solomon Friedman looks at how the latest ban suggestions in Toronto will not work.

This report aired on The Source June 15 2012.

Journalist, Noah Richler, on his new book 'What We Talk About When We Talk About War' and the role of Canada as a peacekeeper or warrior nation.

This report aired on The Source June 15 2012.

Ezra Levant sits down with Global VP and CBSC judge Troy Reeb to have an earnest and blunt chat about the boards censoring ways.

This report aired on The Source June 14 2012.

Ezra Levant continues to tear down the censorship crazy authorities that continue to try to throttle those who speak their mind freely.

This report aired on The Source June 14 2012.

Ezra Levant and fellow freedom lover Kathy Shaidle discuss why journalists need the freedom to say whatever they feel.

This report aired on The Source June 14 2012.

Ezra Levant takes the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to task for their biased kangaroo courts which aim to censor private broadcasters.

This report aired on The Source June 13 2012.

Senator Mike Duffy looks back at an instance when he had his own freedom of speech infringed upon and why members of the media, like Ezra Levant, need to be able to speak freely.

This report aired on The Source June 13 2012.

Author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara & the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, Humberto Fontova, has strong words for the Toronto District School Board.

This report aired on The Source June 12 2012.

Director of FrackNation, Phelim McAleer, calls Mulcair’s latest attack on fracking baseless.

This report aired on The Source June 12 2012.

Ezra Levant dissects his interview with David Shiner, particularly all the faulty reasons given for banning plastic bags in Toronto.

This report aired on The Source June 12 2012.

To understand how Canada got an Internet censorship law, also known as Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, you must go back in time to 1913.

That’s when John Ross Taylor was born in Toronto.

Something about Taylor just wasn’t right. In his 20s, as the world lurched towards the Second World War, Taylor openly sided with the Nazis. He was interned during the war. After the war, despite the absolute repudiation of Nazism, Taylor didn’t give up hope. He continued to call for Canadians to throw off our liberal democracy in favour of dictatorship. And, of course, he seasoned that with a dose of anti-Semitism and anti-black racism, too.

It was pitiful: He’d print up some pamphlets, climb to the top of an office tower, and dump them off the roof, like confetti, hoping that would foment a revolution. What a deluded loser. But Taylor was never violent. If you turn the sound off when watching reels of him on the news, you’d mistake him for a banker — always dressed in a three-piece suit, the kind of thing you’d expect from the grandson of a Toronto alderman. But he just wanted an all-white Reich here in Canada.

Obviously this bothered right-minded people after the war, especially Jews in Canada, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust. Canada’s Official Jews — the bosses of the now-defunct Canadian Jewish Congress — pressed their friends in the Liberal Party for laws banning Taylor’s anti-Semitic rants. And in 1966, a committee appointed by the justice minister proposed new laws to ban hateful speech. The Cohen Commission specifically mentioned Taylor by name as a rationale.

Using this harmless buffoon as an excuse, they recommended infringing on freedom of speech for all Canadians. “There is an evident distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ public discussion, and the state has as great an obligation to discourage the latter as it has to maintain the former,” they wrote.

So in 1977, Parliament passed the Canadian Human Rights Act, and Section 13 made it illegal to publish anything “… likely to expose a person … to hatred or contempt.”

Well, around that time, telephone answering machines were all the rage. And Taylor, now a senior citizen, saw this as his magic weapon for convincing Canadians to go fascist. He would stand around street corners in Toronto, handing out cards inviting people to get a racist message by calling his answering machine. Seriously.

Taylor was charged — and convicted — of having a mean answering machine message. He appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court — which heard the case in 1990, when he was 80. They ruled against him, four to three.

Gentle reader, do you think after such a stubborn life Taylor complied and unplugged his answering machine? He did not. And thus he served nine months in jail — more than most Canadian rapists do.

For more than 30 years, Section 13 had a 100% conviction rate for the thought crime of hurting someone’s feelings.

What an abusive law. What an un-Canadian law. What a ridiculous law in the age of the Internet.

Last week that law was pulled out, like a noxious weed. In 20 years time, I predict it will be regarded as one of the Conservatives’ greatest legacies: Freedom.

This column appeared in the Sun Chain June 11 2012.

Dr. Salim Mansur and Ezra discuss the irony of an upcoming event in Calgary entitled, "The Power of Unity: Islam in a Multi-Cultural Canada".

This report aired on The Source June 11 2012.

Will Vancouver be the latest city to hop on the bag ban bandwagon? Political commentator Brent Chapman discusses the possibilities with Ezra.

This report aired on The Source June 11 2012.

Filmmaker Sandy Cioffi disscuses her documentary, “Sweet Crude,” showing in Toronto on June 12, 2012 on the exploitation of Nigerians over conflict oil.

This report aired on The Source June 11 2012.

Ezra lauds the long-awaited ruling to rid the country of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

This report aired on The Source June 11 2012.

Last Wednesday night, Toronto’s City Hall was trying to mop up one of their own messes.

They were reviewing their price-fixing policy for all retailers in the city — they had previously passed a bylaw requiring every Toronto retail store to charge customers five cents for a plastic bag, whether those stores wanted to or not.

It’s a pointless law.

It’s a busybody law.

It doesn’t make sense economically or environmentally.

It’s just a layer of red tape. And according to critics, it’s a dictionary definition of price-fixing — when businesses collude to drive up prices and tamper with natural competition.

If you have trouble grasping that, imagine if city hall ordered every gas station in town to charge the same, inflated price per litre, too — in the name of environmentalism, natch. The Competition Bureau would stop those shenanigans.

So, while trying to clean up their price-fixing mess, they of course created another.

With no notice, with no consultation, with no thought, one allegedly conservative councillor, David Shiner, just blurted out an idea: Let’s ban plastic bags altogether!

And, of course, they did.

After Dec. 31, it will be illegal to give out or even sell a plastic bag at a store.

The bylaw is poorly drafted — a classic, back-of-a-cocktail-napkin kind of thing.

It refers to “carryout shopping bags.” What does that mean? Can you have little plastic bags that you then put in bigger paper bags? What about the plastic bags at the fruit and vegetable section? Is it illegal to just carry one of those out?

Well, that kind of ambiguous legal work is considered a bonus in politics — because it will be the source for many more meetings and bylaws. Red tape begets red tape.

What is the motivation for the bylaw?

If you said the environment, you’re wrong.

Plastic bags are environmentally sound — inert, non-toxic, low energy to make and ship, and are a natural byproduct from clean natural gas.

But the bylaw specifically bans the new technology plastic bags, too.

Shiner’s law bans all plastic bags “including those advertised as compostable, biodegradable, photodegradable or similar.”

Huh? Why?

And why would the city spend tens of millions of dollars on an elaborate recycling program, only to then ban plastic bags of any sort?

Aren’t plastic shopping bags good because they are so easy to recycle — and are so commonly reused by people for everything from lining garbage bins to picking up dog poop?

Toronto as a city is broken. Taxes are high; traffic is jammed; there are gangland shootouts in downtown malls. There are a lot of things to fix.

But those are tough problems to solve.

Banning plastic bags is easy — as easy as a barroom Napoleon ranting and raving to his buddies about how he’s got all the world’s problems solved, from Mideast peace to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ losing streak, if only he was in charge.

City halls specialize in these pointless, showy barroom Napoleon moments.

Usually they’re just PR exercises to prove the moral righteousness of otherwise non-newsworthy junior politicians.

But sometimes — like the bag ban — they will cost families millions of dollars, and make the environment worse.

Toronto is looking for a new city motto.

Unofficially, it used to be Toronto the Good.

If city hall is the example, I propose Toronto the Stupid.

This column appeared in the Sun Chain June 10 2012.

David Harris joins Ezra Levant with a surprising story of hate being taught in a Canadian school.

This report aired on The Source June 8 2012.

Bag bans, soda bands...OH MAN. Ezra Levant looks at how the nanny state is winning.

This report aired on The Source June 8 2012.

Conservative MP Larry Miller joins Ezra Levant to voice his skepticism with the United Nations.

This report aired on The Source June 7 2012.

Ezra Levant gives an inside look at Naheed Nenshi's coddling up to Occupy Calgary.

This report aired on The Source June 7 2012.

Ezra Levant is joined by guest David Goldman to discuss how the fate of Europe's economy may well effect the globe.

This report aired on The Source June 6 2012.

Ezra Levant takes on the obsessive journalism of the main stream media who continue to harp on the robocall issue.

This report aired on The Source June 6 2012.

Ezra Levant and guest Matthew McGuire discuss the plastic bag fee and opposition to it.

This report aired on The Source June 6 2012.

Why are Canadians paying for a foreign firm to criticize our very own oilsands? Ezra Levant investigates.

This report aired on The Source June 5 2012.

Ezra Levant speaks to criminologist Kelly Sundberg about the cracks in Canada's justice system after a man on house arrest shot up a Toronto food court.

This report aired on The Source June 5 2012.

Ezra Levant speaks to Pierre DeRocher, author of 'The Locavore’s Dilemma: In praise of the 10,000-mile diet' about why the trend of local eating has faded.

This report aired on The Source June 5 2012.

Omar Khadr's economy with the truth

What horrible things has the United States military done to Omar Khadr while he's been in prison down in Guantanamo Bay?

Dr. Michael Welner, America's leading forensic psychiatrist, asked Khadr that question himself. What was the worst physical torture they did to him? What was the worst psychological torture they did to him?

Dr. Welner brought along a video camera to record the whole conversation -- all eight hours are on tape.

Was Khadr waterboarded? Was he electrocuted? What?

He is suing the Canadian government for millions of dollars. Our courts have already decided -- without Khadr's testimony -- that his Charter rights were violated.

It must have been pretty bad then, right?

According to Dr. Welner, all Khadr could come up with as an example of physical torture was this: When the International Red Cross came to visit Khadr, to make sure he was being well taken care of, they insisted he be weighed. Khadr resisted being weighed, and wriggled around and cried out as guards put him on the scale.

That's it. Seriously. When given the opportunity to make any allegation at all, that's what Khadr came up with.

Oh -- and he shouted in Arabic, to his fellow prisoners, that it was all just for show and that they shouldn't be worried.

That weigh in -- and Khadr's Arabic message to his buddies -- are on tape too.

But was Khadr tortured psychologically?

Again, Khadr himself provides the details. According to Dr. Welner, the worst thing done to Khadr was that when U.S. prison guards told him his father died in a shootout with counter-terrorism troops, the U.S. guards were insensitive about it.

Seriously. That's it. According to Khadr himself.

And yet you will find it taken as fact by 99% of the consensus media in Canada that, in fact, Omar Khadr was brutally tortured, and he is but a little lamb worthy of our sympathy.

There are other things we learn about Khadr, simply by asking people who know him and have interacted with him, as opposed to liberal journalists, none of whom have met him, but all of whom have idolized him.

We learn that Khadr is a racist and sexist pig, calling a black woman guard a "slave" and a "bitch." We learn that he fomented other terrorists to be aggressive towards guards, throwing feces at them.

We learn that, whenever he was mad at guards, he would boast about murdering a U.S. army medic, Christopher Speer.

We learn that Khadr rejected the guidance of a moderate Muslim chaplain sent by the U.S. to show him a nonviolent approach to Islam. We learn that, in fact, Khadr leads the other prisoners in prayer, so devout and fundamentalist is he.

We learn that he resents having been imprisoned; that he refuses to acknowledge that his own father's terrorist work was immoral.

We learn that he signed a written confession -- approved by his own lawyers -- that he wanted to kill Americans and Jews for the jihad. And to collect a cash bounty.

None of this is disputed by Khadr's own lawyers. None of this is secret. It just hasn't been reported. Because it contradicts the consensus media's narrative.

All Canadians have been shocked and terrified and repulsed by the videotapes of Luka Magnotta, the suspected murderer in Montreal.

How would Canadians react to eight hours of Omar Khadr speaking proudly about his jihad, and his love for al-Qaida?

We don't know. Because Dr. Welner's eight-hour interview has not been released. It's being held at the Pentagon. It has not been shown to the Canadian government -- despite President Barack Obama's request that we take that terrorist back. Which could mean parole as soon as this summer.

How can Public Safety Minister Vic Toews approve of Khadr's prison transfer without seeing that tape?

How can the parole board release Khadr without seeing that tape?

We've seen how diabolical an accused psychopath like Magnotta can be.

So why can't we see what an unrepentant terrorist looks like on tape, too?

Sun News Network June 3 2012.

Ezra Levant provides his analysis of the existence of a market for snuff videos, the gruesome case of Luka Magnotta, how it compares to Canadian horror stories like Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, and what Canadian justice lacks.

This report aired on The Source June 1 2012.

Former police officer and law and order columnist for 24 Hours, Leo Knight, surmises on the kind of sentence Luka Magnotta would get if convicted for his alleged crimes.

This report aired on The Source June 1 2012.

Lorne Gunter on location at Ross Sheppard High School on the Edmonton teacher suspended for giving a failing grade to students that deserved it

This report aired on The Source June 1 2012.