Sheila Gunn-Reed is the host of The Gun Show and Chief Reporter for Rebel News. She s covered countless national stories and is a best-selling author, writing books like Stop, Notley, and the Destroyers.
00:01:31.180You know, I had worked on a few election campaigns just as a volunteer or whatever.
00:01:37.280And so I was active in political circles.
00:01:39.820But in the lead-up to the election of Justin Trudeau, I felt like the mainstream media wasn't doing the research on Justin Trudeau's candidates that they were doing on the Conservatives.
00:01:55.160Because, you know, the mainstream media, they really do all the opposition research on behalf of the Liberals anyways.
00:02:01.380But they weren't turning that sort of attention to the Liberals themselves.
00:02:06.300So I thought, you know what, I'm a mom.
00:02:09.300I'm not particularly, or I wasn't at the time, particularly tech-savvy.
00:02:13.280But I could sure search somebody's Twitter feed.
00:02:18.740I started just picking off Liberal candidates.
00:02:22.980And, you know, in writings where I knew, lunacy is rife.
00:02:27.200So, you know, you'd go and search the Liberal candidates in some of the BC writings where you know they're radical green wackadoos and, you know, supporting anti-pipeline protests.
00:02:39.860When the Liberals tell us on paper they support oil and gas and pipelines and stuff like that.
00:02:44.300But they were running these candidates that didn't.
00:02:47.400And it ultimately ended up, my research actually ended up getting a Liberal candidate in Alberta nuked.
00:02:55.560It was Michelle Rempel's Liberal opposition in Nose Hill.
00:03:00.440Funny story, she had actually tweeted some pretty anti-Jewish stuff about our boss, Ezra Levant.
00:03:08.900Like, telling him to go back to Israel.
00:03:10.820And it was like, I'm pretty sure he was born here, by the way.
00:03:46.800It was just a citizen activist doing their job, they being the mainstream media.
00:03:51.380And even in reporting on the things that I had been doing, they were still getting this story wrong because they didn't even bother to reach out to me to say, you know, are you doing this because you work for the party?
00:04:05.080So, you know, I think our boss sort of saw that, what I was doing and a couple other people were doing.
00:04:14.760And he reached out to me when he started Rebel News.
00:04:20.600And at the time, my littlest one wasn't in school full time.
00:04:25.680So that wasn't the deal my family signed up for.
00:04:28.000So I said, you know, I can't do it right now.
00:04:29.900But when September rolled around and she did start school full time, my excuse and delays to go back to having a normal job and not being a stay-at-home mom, that sort of ran out.
00:04:43.220And then Ezra contacted me again, and I didn't have a reason to say no.
00:04:47.780And it's really, it's been a love affair since with the company.
00:04:51.200And then Justin Trudeau gave you what you wanted, which was his, what would it be now, almost seven years of pure love and joy.
00:05:09.340Now, fast forward another year to 2016, which is, of course, when Trump caused people to break their brains and spill it all over the sidewalk.
00:05:18.520It was a crazy time here as just a viewer.
00:05:22.980I want to get inside your head of how it was to work here.
00:05:26.460You had all these crazy personalities, of course.
00:05:28.720You had the Tommy Robinsons, the McInneses, the Southerns, all these people, the Milos, all these people coming through.
00:05:37.040Everybody's blowing up in terms of following, getting banned from everywhere.
00:05:41.480What was it like to, you know, the company for it to explode so massively so quickly and everybody, including yourself, all of a sudden have this huge fan base internationally from UK to Australia to Canada to the US?
00:05:57.260I think we were in the right time at exactly the right place.
00:06:00.820I like to think here at Rebel News, we're early adopters of good ideas.
00:06:05.620And we just sat through an hour long staff meeting this morning where we have these big plans and big dreams.
00:06:12.000And, you know, like we get this idea and we just do it and we'll figure out the details afterwards.
00:06:17.240And that seems to be working for us so far.
00:06:20.080And that's what 2016 was kind of like.
00:06:23.620We, you know, like we, it was the Brexit was happening and Trump was getting elected.
00:06:29.600And it was just a strange time to be in conservative politics and in conservative news.
00:06:37.820And in Canada, we were really the only ones at the time.
00:06:41.820Now we have, you know, True North and Postmillennial popped up.
00:06:44.640But I still think we do something completely unique and different because we couple our news and journalism with activism.
00:06:51.580So we do something where we come to tell the story.
00:06:56.140But instead of just telling the story, which for me can feel kind of like we're exploiting the story, I'm proud that we do something different in that if we are able to offer help in a solution, we do that.
00:07:07.300But we, again, going back to we were in the right time at the right place, doing the right thing, fighting the right battles.
00:07:13.420If you look at the United States, they're very saturated with conservative news outlets, big and small, right?
00:07:20.540The largest cable news channel is a conservative one.
00:07:27.580And because of that, because we had this unique Canadian perspective, but also we were so free speechy and we cared to fight the fights for free speech and tell the stories that the mainstream media were either scared to tell or didn't want the opposing narrative out there because we were willing to do those things.
00:07:51.440We went from, you know, maybe a few tens of thousands of people who were interested in what we were having to say to, you know, approaching a million.
00:08:01.260Did your life change at all in that time span?
00:08:03.520Like I said, all these people, all these characters, yourself included, all of a sudden you've got 50,000 individual followers, a million people watching.
00:08:12.560I remember there was a time where in my life where every single rebel news video that came out and I'm clearly wasn't alone in this.
00:08:20.280We were just like, what, what were they going to do next?
00:08:22.680What was the next, like legitimately edgy thing that was going to happen?
00:08:27.260Because there, like you said, there was nobody else doing this stuff, especially not in Canada.
00:09:30.280Um, but I guess maybe for some of the other talent who were doing these big international stories and I've done some of them for me, I always tried to use my platform.
00:09:42.080And I think I still do this to, uh, advocate for the normals of the world.
00:09:46.380You know, in 2016, for example, Rachel Notley brought in this crazy bill called bill six, and it basically put bankers hours are on Alberta family farms.
00:09:58.580And for me, I saw the mainstream media coverage of this is like, oh yeah, you know, these poor exploited farm workers, the NDP are going to help them.
00:10:07.080And I'm like, no, the poor exploited farm workers are literally my kids back off.
00:10:11.560And, you know, I felt like for some of the stories that I covered because of where I am and how I live and my, the people who live in my family and the job that my husband has and the job that my dad had.
00:10:25.680I felt like I have been uniquely, uh, equipped to tell Alberta stories in a way that you're not going to get from people who are in a cubicle in Calgary or Toronto or Vancouver sometimes who are reporting on Alberta news.
00:10:41.560And so for me, that's sort of where my focus has been.
00:10:45.980So those people like farmers, rig hands, they'll notice me, but like if I'm traveling in Toronto or whatever, nobody knows who I am.
00:10:53.120Um, and also I think it has a lot to do with how I look and how I dress.
00:10:55.860I look like everybody else's soccer mom.
00:10:58.000So, I mean, there's some benefit to being ordinary.
00:11:03.560Chevy Astrovan getting a big plug with you, I think.
00:11:06.680I want to parlay that to a Canadian story that's been high on your radar.
00:11:12.380You've reported a lot of it along with our Alberta and BC reporters.
00:11:17.240And the reason I bring this up is because it gets so little coverage, um, 65 relatively unspoken of church vandalisms or burnings across the country.
00:11:29.660And this is me as a non-religious person saying this.
00:11:32.520What does the lack of coverage say about our media in this country?
00:11:35.900Uh, well, it says that they think the actual victims here are deserving of what's happening to them.
00:11:45.320And it also speaks a lot to how, uh, I guess the secular ism in the mainstream media.
00:11:54.040They really don't understand who uses these churches.
00:12:00.080For example, Drea covered a Coptic church that was burned in the lower mainland.
00:12:07.120And if anybody knows anything about Copts, they are some of the most persecuted people in Egypt.
00:12:13.780Their churches are routinely burned during Holy Week.
00:12:16.960So when you flee to Canada, you think that you're going to be, uh, safe from your churches being burned.
00:12:23.160And yet they are because we have the, this spate of arsonist terrorism, uh, directed at Christian churches.
00:12:31.060Um, you know, when you have the prime minister saying things like, I don't agree with it, but I understand why it's happening.
00:12:41.540Um, and the mainstream media completely reporting that uncritically, like, no, you should have just stopped everything you said before, but was the right thing to say.
00:12:50.580Um, you know, you're, you're putting blame on the innocent people who use these churches.
00:12:55.880Adam Sose right now, I think literally as we're filming this, he's out at a church on Siksika land.
00:13:05.680Tutsina, wrong reserve, just outside of Calgary.
00:13:08.560He's helping put a roof back on the church.
00:13:11.340So while the mainstream media is sort of cheering on or, uh, doing their best to understand the motives of the arsonist, much the way, you know, like we need to find out the root causes of terrorism.
00:13:26.360Justin Trudeau said, we're actually doing something to help these communities that are so often indigenous communities.
00:13:33.180Um, and I think that's where the real disconnect is.
00:13:35.720The mainstream media sees, um, religion as this colonial thing that is oppressing indigenous people when these are indigenous people of faith and their churches are being burned down.
00:13:50.680And that's, I think the difference between what we do and what the mainstream media does, where we're actually going to talk to the people who use the churches instead of going to talk to the paid, uh, person who rings the alarm bell of colonialism every time they need somebody to do that on the CBC or on global news.
00:14:12.280Yeah, I think it does, uh, uh, native people, uh, extreme disservice in the way this stuff is reported on and the way their whole history is presented in conjunction with, you know, subtler colonization history.
00:14:26.620It almost cheapens the society that, that, that was created through colonization and through working with native tribes.
00:14:35.120Um, you can even go as far as to talk about residential schools if you want.
00:14:39.420There's never any two sides given to that story.
00:14:42.160It's always sort of told through this, you know, it's, it's silly, almost silly to say, but it's literally through this communist, uh, purview where everything is just, uh, we're, we've come here to destroy this land.
00:14:55.100To, to take everything from it when that couldn't be further from the case.
00:14:58.600And it also presents, uh, a side of innocence on the, on the side of people who are here already.
00:15:04.920There's two sides to both stories and I don't think it's presented properly.
00:15:08.760I don't think there's a differentiation between, uh, different colonists and different tribes who act in completely different ways, uh, different subtler groups, different, uh, different native groups who may have been at war with one another or who may have worked with subtlers.
00:15:23.920So it's all this literal white socialist communist whitewashing of it, where everything's just black and white and it's oppressors and the oppressed.
00:15:33.080And that's the theme I think we see in pretty much every story that's told from that point of view.
00:15:38.920The next thing I want to talk to you about is something we get a lot of questions in myself personally, because we do cover the alternate, uh, parties.
00:15:46.700I'll call them just because they pull or get a lot less votes.
00:15:49.500Uh, rebel news, we cover them, the Mavericks, um, forgive me, the wild rose.
00:15:55.000I'm not sure how much coverage, uh, they're getting the PPC, of course, and even the green party.
00:16:00.040If they want to talk to us, we'll talk to them, even if they are a literal globalist party.
00:16:26.180Um, and I'm not, I'm not cheering for any particular politician.
00:16:31.360I'm cheering for the people in, in this case, the people of Alberta.
00:16:35.520So, um, for people who say, well, if, if you're critical of Erin O'Toole, you must support the PPC, or if you are critical of federalism, then you must support the Mavericks.
00:16:46.960And why can't I say, actually, I'm in support of good ideas.
00:16:51.560Um, and for me, somebody who has, you know, built a life out of mostly nothing, uh, and I think the best way for me to do that is through conservative principles.
00:17:02.120Um, that's where, uh, that's where I am, um, with regard to my politics and, and that sort of stuff.
00:17:08.320But yeah, we get a lot of people who say, well, if you support the PPC, you're splitting the vote.
00:17:14.800When you drive people to the PPC, you're splitting the vote.
00:17:19.400Um, it, it's really interesting to watch the, and this is one of the things that I brought up during the leaders debate last time.
00:17:28.420It was my question to everybody, uh, that, you know, Andrew Scheer oversaw the splitting and eruption of the party into the two sort of factions of PPC and the conservatives.
00:17:44.460And my question to the leader, prospective leadership candidates at the time was, what are you going to do to fix that?
00:17:51.660Because when you talk to PPCers, they haven't changed.
00:17:55.960They still hold those fundamental, fundamental conservative principles that they held when they were the conservative base.
00:18:05.180These people were part of the conservative base, reliable donors, door knockers, activists, but they've been driven out of the party.
00:18:12.700And for me, I said to them, what are you going to do to bring them back?
00:18:16.480Because we know that Andrew Scheer hired a literal liberal mercenary to malign these people in the mainstream media, paint them as extremists, paint them as white supremacists.
00:18:28.700When just a few short months earlier, they were within the party getting phone calls saying, give us money, reliable conservative donor.
00:18:38.380And that was fine back then, but because they left the party, they were treated like garbage and I still see it.
00:18:44.640So if there is a conservative vote split, that is squarely on the conservative party itself because they've had a lot of time to fix this problem.
00:18:54.460But instead of being, for lack of a better term, ecumenical with them, to reach out across the table to say, you know what, I'm not Andrew Scheer.
00:19:04.520You see conservative partisans still treating the PPCers and the Mavericks and anybody else like a pile of garbage.
00:19:13.300And it shouldn't be that way because you can't berate these people, lie about them, paint them as extremists, and then hold them accountable for your loss because they didn't vote for you.
00:19:27.040Yeah, and my opinion on that is for people to vote for what they actually believe in, not to vote against somebody else, which I know is hard for people to conceptualize when they're so displeased with a Joe Biden or a Justin Trudeau or whomever it may be in your part of the world or region.
00:19:46.820But I think it's best to vote based on your conscience and what you believe in, and then hopefully those ideas take a foothold and they grow and they grow and they grow.
00:19:58.120Sorry, I just want to add to that because I think I have a unique perspective with that because I'm in Alberta.
00:20:06.540So for us, it's far easier to vote for your conscience because basically the election is over by the time the 905 votes are counted.
00:20:17.340So we can go completely blue, conservative, like we did last time, and it didn't matter.
00:20:23.440We were just this big blue chunk of the country out here being treated like a colony of Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.
00:20:31.680And so when you realize that you, you know, like it doesn't matter, everything's decided for you before the 905 is counted, then vote for who you feel like.
00:20:44.140Vote for the people who earned your vote because at least, you know what, if you're going to be governed by your colonial overlords, at least come by it honestly.
00:21:32.660Is there a way or a change that we can make moving forward that gets rid of what appears to be bias at the highest level, political bias?
00:21:41.320Is there anything we can do to make the country system better?
00:21:44.660Do you have any ideas or thoughts on that?
00:21:47.160You know, for me, this starts a lot closer to home if we're worried about Charter rights.
00:21:51.680I think, if anything, that conservatives should learn over the past two years, but maybe four years if we look at the culture war.
00:22:02.160It's that we need and we have the greatest ability, especially as, again, I look at this through an Alberta lens because we're controlled by our colonial overlords in Laurentia.
00:22:12.020If we really want to make change, I think it starts a lot closer to home.
00:22:18.020If we are worried about our children being brainwashed to be future liberal NDP voters, whatever, then why aren't we involved in the school board?
00:22:27.880Why aren't we making sure that conservatives are on the school board, people who believe in parental autonomy?
00:22:33.320I think these battles start a lot sooner.
00:22:38.140And I realize that, you know, it's going to be a long time to undo what's currently happening, but we have to start somewhere.
00:22:45.780And the quickest way to make change is closer to home.
00:22:48.180For example, all the mask mandates in Alberta right now, because the provincial government removed everything July 1st, we've been living free here.
00:22:56.220But now the municipalities are bringing them back in.
00:23:00.120Edmonton is considered, Edmonton has done it.
00:23:50.700So, you know, you have to fix the farm team before they get to be an MP and have vast control over your life.
00:23:58.580For me, I think that's the one wake-up call that conservatives should have, is that we walked off the field of municipal politics a long time ago.
00:24:05.960And we've seen the tyranny of municipal politics over the last bit of the pandemic.
00:24:11.600So, we have to get involved and we have to make change.
00:24:13.800And I know here in Alberta, October 2nd, no, yes, October 2nd, I think, is our municipal elections.
00:24:21.160And so, I think it's time to hold some of the locker-downers on municipal councils responsible for the things they've done to people
00:24:29.000and the civil liberties they've harmed over the last 18 months to years.
00:24:32.840A lot of that advice can be used for the Edmonton Oilers as well, Sheila.
00:25:40.880Like, what would I have to say about what people who are poor, what they need to no longer be poor?
00:25:48.140Or what would I have to say about, you know, how it is for women's rights, because I'm not some fancy person with a degree in feminist literature.
00:25:59.020I think that's a lot of it, but I think that's a real problem with how the rest of the country also looks at Alberta.
00:26:07.920It's like, look at those hillbillies with their money.
00:26:10.720How dare you feed people and give them energy, Sheila Gunn-Wood?
00:26:14.420Why do those people have any political power?
00:26:19.220Two generations ago, they were dirt poor.
00:26:21.560And so, you know, you get a lot of that classist looking down their nose.
00:26:24.620For me, I get a lot of that, but I also enjoy how I irritate my haters.
00:26:31.620I very rarely block them, but I do mute them, because I think it's important for them to see what I'm saying and scream into the ether while I pretend like they're dead to me.
00:26:42.300That I enjoy, and I hope they know that.
00:26:44.780This is where we show the footage, stock footage, of your daughter throwing rocks as if she's your slave or something.
00:27:06.100But, yeah, well, from you, from David, from higher up the supply chain.
00:27:10.440But I think it's really important work that we do here at Rebel News to work from without the system, outside the system, to hold our, not just liberal politicians, but our conservative politicians to account.