Ezra Schemes And Dreams

I would say that Ezra Levant should be careful about the company he keeps, but I doubt that there is more that can bring down his reputation other than simply being Ezra.

The merchant of malice and division, repugnant to the morally sane, has launched a new scheme to keep his rapidly-sinking Rebel Media afloat, a suspect retirement savings fund.

After struggling through rocky times in 2017, Levant is apparently now looking to diversify Rebel Media’s revenue streams, teaming up with an Alberta-based wealth management firm to offer Levant’s aging viewers the opportunity to stash their nest eggs in an alt-right website.

“The fund is directed at investors seeking to save for retirement or in retirement that desire modest, regular, steady income,” reads an information sheet promoting the fund. The sheet also notes the Rebel Freedom Fund is a match made in heaven for those looking for “both a financial and ideologically based investment.”

For those of sufficiently-strong constitution, here is a promotional video for the fund, led by Dale Wells:


Interesting the company that Ezra keeps. Consider Mr. Wells himself.

On the firm’s website, Wells says “we don’t invest traditionally,” explaining the firm focuses on “one-on-one” investments like financing movies and mortgages instead of mutual funds because the markets are “manipulated” – “I don’t want to say corruption,” Wells cautions, even though “I might feel that.”

“There’s no standard of acceptable practices or accounting or anything that you could follow along anymore because it’s all manipulated,” he adds.

That Mr. Wells believes that there is "no standard of acceptable practices or accounting" is evidenced by his own checkered past.

According to Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada records, Wells was disciplined by the regulators in 2011 for “business conduct unbecoming to the public interest” when he “acted in the role of an advisor without being registered as one.”

Specifically, the panel found that Mr. Wells committed a violation by entering into an arrangement to supply a financial services company with his own computer-generated research that recommended buy and sell opportunities related to mutual funds in return for a fee, and that this information was used regularly by that firm to make trades in an investment fund. In doing so, Mr. Wells acted as an advisor within the meaning of the Alberta Securities Act without being registered as such, contrary to IIROC Rule 29.1.

In its decision, the panel reviewed the requirements to be registered as an advisor under Alberta Securities law, and concluded "the evidence clearly established that the Respondent [Mr. Wells] held none of these qualifications."

As a consequence, Wells was levied a $25,000 fine and received

a three (3) year prohibition from conducting securities related business in any capacity while in the employ of, or associated with any Member of the MFDA, effective from August 1, 2014 to July 31, 2017.

Newly-freed from that ban, it appears that Wells may be up to his old habits, given his pairing up with that malevolent trickster Levant.

That the benighted might wish to risk some of their cash on this scheme is of no consequence or concern to me. What this episode does serve to illustrate, however, is the demographic that is being targeted, the same one, of course, that supports Levant's reactionary rants, mistruths, and distortions: the stupid, the gullible, and the sorely ill-educated.

It is almost enough to make this retired teacher despair at education's obvious failings.

If You Can Name It, You Can Condemn It

It is bigotry, pure, simple and deeply ingrained:

When Is An Apology Not Really An Apology?

When it is delivered, not by the offending party, but rather by an unseen narrator instead.

Another Pundit Supports Trudeau's Rejection Of Sun News

Reaction continues to be mixed on Justin Trudeau's decision to boycott Sun News following resident madman Ezra Levant's tirade against his entire family. Pollster Bruce Anderson is now the second pundit to support the decision, as he makes clear in his inaugural digital column for The Globe and Mail.

His has several reasons for taking this stance:

First off, if a competing politician uttered the things that Mr. Levant said about Justin Trudeau, we would expect an apology or a resignation, or both. If we wouldn’t tolerate such shameful behavior among political competitors, what would it say about how low we are willing to see media standards fall, if there were no consequences.

Second, maybe someone can explain why any of us should have to answer to anyone for the sexual habits of our parents. I’ve never heard a voter in a focus group say “I’d vote for candidate x, if his or her parents had been more sexually conservative.”

Anderson also points out, in addition to the distasteful content of the Levant screed, it is inaccurate:

Watch Mr. Levant’s description of events, and then read the account of how the bride’s father saw the same moments. I suppose it’s possible that the father of the bride was lying, but I think another explanation seems more likely.

Labelling the unhinged Levant's performance an embarrassment to journalists, and to those in conservative politics that he is normally aligned with, Anderson feels that Trudeau's response was a reasonable one, since he is simply

holding the publisher to account and using what leverage he can muster. His goal seems not to end or disrupt or manipulate media relations in a permanent or pervasive way, but to say this isn’t normal and it shouldn’t be treated as such.

In the instances of such scurrilous attacks one can either ignore the insults or speak out against them. In Anderson's view the latter is the more noble choice:

I fielded one call from a conservative who said that Mr. Trudeau was taking the coward’s way out by refusing to engage with Sun. I tried hard to understand that logic.

But in the end I couldn’t help but think that cowardice in that situation is doing nothing to defend your honour, and that of your parents.

I certainly get the need to protect professional journalism. But this week anyway, it needs more protection against what Ezra Levant would do to it, than what Justin Trudeau would.

It has been my observation that, like the bullies they are, extreme right-wingers are quite happy to mete out abuse, but cry like babies when held to account. Expect no agreement with Andersen's defense of Trudeau from that quarter.

UPDATED: On Trudeau's Sun 'News' Boycott

When I wrote a brief post the other day on Ezra Levant's disgusting and puerile tirade against the Trudeaus the other day, I had no intention of revisiting the issue, but two columns calling into question the decision by Justin Trudeau to boycott the organization leads me to further comment.

Writing in The Globe, Simon Houpt, while fully agreeing that the attack was just the latest in a series of outrageous nonsense from the mouth of the perpetually angry Levant, says that

when a politician cuts off access to select media, it is an affront to everyone. Sun Media has hundreds of dedicated professionals who work hard every day on behalf of millions of readers (and a few thousand viewers of Sun News). Trudeau’s impetuous move signals a disdain for them all, and carries an implicit warning that he might bar other media outlets who run afoul of him. We already have a Prime Minister obsessed with controlling the message. Trudeau does himself, and all Canadians, a disservice.

The Star's Chantal Hebert, in today's Star, offers similar criticism of the Trudeau decision.

The temptation to shut out all Sun Media journalists in protest over Levant’s grotesque commentary was probably irresistible. From a human standpoint, it is certainly understandable. But it also sets the party on a slippery slope familiar to most veteran parliamentary correspondents.

Liberal insiders who argue that it is too much of a leap to think that an opposition party that shuts out an entire news organization over the comments of one commentator would, once in government, expand its black list based on more political criteria are whistling past a cemetery of good intentions.

She adds,

If there is a debate to be had over the Levant commentary, attributing guilt by employer-association is hardly the way to go.

Questioning whether those who run major news organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that minimal journalistic standards are maintained by their organizations would be a better place to start.

My own response to these objections is quite simple. Sun News, by virtue of its continued employment of Levant, despite the numerous times he has disgraced both himself and his employer, means that the entire organization is complicit in his slanders, his racism, and his absence of balance.

Both Houpt and Hebert's critique of Trudeau's boycott are premised on Sun News being a legitimate news organization. Based on its tolerance and encouragement of people like Levant, it is an assumption with which I suspect many thinking Canadians would profoundly disagree.

UPDATE: The National Post's Jonathan Kay breaks breaks ranks with his fellow scribes and asserts that Trudeau is morally justified in his boycott decision.

Do People Really Watch This Crap?

Five minutes was my limit for this video.

And apparently Justin Trudeau has reached him limit with Sun News. His decision to boycott the network, I'm sure, will send the foaming right wing into a howling frenzy.

More Hypocrisy from the Far Right

To say that the extreme right is often hypocritical is tantamount to saying that when the sky is clear, it is blue. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel more than my usual disdain when that hypocrisy is especially overt and egregious.

This morning, while waiting for my wife at the dentist's office, I picked up a copy of The Globe and Mail to read one of the few columnists I actually miss from the days that I subscribed, television critic John Doyle. In his column today, entitled Warning: This column contains scary Sun News scenes unsuitable for some readers, he reports that the Sun News channel, which enjoys what could most charitably described as a miniscule audience,

... has put in for mandatory carriage on basic cable in Canada. The elusive, lucrative 9(1)(h) category, as it is called by CRTC wonks. What it means for us is that if you purchase a basic cable package, Sun News would be part of it, whether you bloody well like it or not.

As Doyle points out, this desperate measure to save the station runs completely counter to its notion of freedom:

... isn’t Sun News anti-mandatory on everything? Watching Sun News doesn’t bring many surprises; you’re more likely to get variations on a theme watching the Fireplace Channel. So, mere minutes spent watching its continuing hilarity confirm that it’s against folks being obliged to do anything they don’t wanna do. Like, you’d think, pay for a TV channel they don’t want to watch. On the day Sun News went on the air, Levant declared, “We’re talking about truth and freedom. If you love freedom like I do, it’s a pretty happy day.” Well, sunshine, “freedom,” also means freedom from not having to pay for your channel.

Yet one more reason to hold the extreme right-wing in the contempt they so roundly deserve.

Do You Have What It Takes To Write For Sun News?

Please note: no journalism degree needed or wanted.

YOU'RE CONSCRIPTED! JOIN THE SUN NEWS TEAM

Do you think differently? Have you dreamed about working in the media but couldn't stomach the thought of the group think therapy sessions? If you're on a relentless pursuit of the truth, we might have just the opportunity for you.

As we grow and expand Sun News Network, we need people like you to make it all happen. People who are independent thinkers, strong writers and communicators -- black sheep who have a genuine passion for the real news.

No need to have a journalism degree (in fact, we'll view it with a healthy dose of skepticism). Journalism 101 isn't where you learn to find the truth.

Coming up with the right stories for Ezra, Adler and Brian isn't rocket science...but you can bet your average CBC producer wouldn't be able to deliver that magic.

So, if you think you've got what it takes (only a select few do)...send us your resume. Send us your demo reel. Send us a must-read e-mail on why we should hire you over that stuffy, know-it-all from Columbia University with nine degrees in advanced journalism studies.

We're always looking for the right people, so if you'd like to join the team submit your resume here or email SunMedia.Careers@sunmedia.ca.

Sun TV - A Blight On Critical Thinking

Personally, I think we all give far too much attention to that parody-of-news-organization known as Sun TV. From the puerile rants of Ezra Levant to the sanctimonious pronouncements of religious hypocrites like Michael Coren, Sun TV is an egregious insult to anyone with a modicum of critical-thinking skills.

Yet here I am, adding to the cacophonous denunciations of this propaganda wing of the Harper Conservatives. Oh well, I will blame my lapse on the oppressively humid weather outside (now 41 degrees with the humidex). That, and this blistering article from Rabble.ca exposing the organization for what it is.