EZRA LEVANT ｜ CBC tried to smear Rebel News — so we beat them to the punch
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Summary
The CBC threatens to smear Rebel News and I'll give you my response. We also interview Ava Chipiuk from the Trucker Convoy about why she thinks the CBC should go easy on Jason Kenney.
Transcript
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Hello my friends. Strange morning. I woke up to an email from the CBC threatening to, well,
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really do a hit job on me and Rebel News if I didn't answer them within a few hours. They gave
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me very little notice. Well, I decided to answer them in the form of a video and that's my monologue
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for today. We'll also interview our friend Ava Chipiuk from the Trucker Convoy. That's up a
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little bit later. But first let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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That's the video version of this show. And I'd like you to do that because I'm going to show
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you a few things about this CBC threat to me. I want to show you the letter. I want to show you
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my reply. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And you
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know, we really rely on that money because unlike the CBC, we don't take any public funds. All right,
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Tonight, the CBC threatens to smear Rebel News. I'll give you my response. It's January 25th
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Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster just told me they're coming to smear Rebel News.
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This morning, they contacted me telling me they were going to publish an attack on us
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at 12 noon Alberta time today. They say they have a secret letter written by me to the Premier of
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Alberta, Danielle Smith, and that they're going to publish a story about that letter at 12 noon. And
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Well, what would you do if a government journalist from Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster was trying to
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blackmail you with a gotcha story? Well, I think you'd probably do the obvious. You would publish
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the letter yourself first so everyone could see it in full. You'd call the CBC's bluff.
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So that's what I'm doing. You can see my letter to Danielle Smith right now
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at a website we've set up called lockdownamnesty.com. It's a five-page letter that I sent to the
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Premier's Chief of Staff back in November after I had a chat with her in person. And I want to let
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you know I am very proud of that letter and I stand by every word of it and I want you to read it
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at lockdownamnesty.com. Read the whole thing for yourself.
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It should come as no surprise that the CBC is coming to throw mud at Rebel News and me. They are
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Justin Trudeau's state broadcaster. They are his attack dogs and they hate nothing more than Rebel
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News and the people who support us. They follow Justin Trudeau's lead. Quite frankly, your,
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I won't call it a media organization, your group of individuals need to take accountability for
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some of the polarization that we're seeing in this country. And I think Canadians are cluing into
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the fact that there is a really important decision we take about the kind of country
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we want to see. And I salute all extraordinary hard-working journalists that put science and facts
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at the heart of what they do and ask me tough questions every day, but make sure that they are
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educating and informing Canadians from a broad range of perspectives, which is the last thing
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The CBC obeys Trudeau and copies him. So they smear us and they attack us. They're part of the
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parliamentary press gallery that has illegally voted to block our reporters from attending press
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conferences in Ottawa. That's how gross the CBC is. So the CBC has come for Rebel News now.
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They think this is their moment to hurt us. Now, when I got their letter this morning, I thought
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for a moment of writing back to the CBC smear merchants directly, but then I thought, why would
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I do that? Rebel News has far more viewers in Alberta than the CBC does. Why wouldn't I just
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make this video with their gotcha questions and my answers and send it out myself? At least
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that way I know that Trudeau's journalists won't tamper with what I say. Out of fairness,
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I'll read to you their entire letter to me. They would never give me that fairness.
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Their letter is from a wicked liar named Megan Grant. But first, let me tell you a little
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bit about what this, what this is all about and why it's happening. See, when Alberta Premier
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Danielle Smith was first running for the leadership of the United Conservative Party a few months
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ago to succeed Jason Kenney, when she launched her campaign, our reporter, Adam Sos, asked her
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a great question that the CBC would never ask her. We asked if she would call off Jason
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Kenney's politically motivated lockdown prosecutions.
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Meanwhile, though, we're still seeing targeted charges against pastors and small business owners.
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Some of these are being dropped, fortunately. Others are still clogging up the courts. Are you
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willing to commit to staying charges and freezing ongoing investigations against those emanating
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from the lockdown? And how do you plan to restore faith in the courts and in politics?
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Yes, we have to, we never should have come down on pastors the way we did some every other
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jurisdiction, it seems we're able to enforce their measures without putting pastors in jail and has
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created so much division in our communities. So yes, we should drop we should drop those. We should
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also drop charges against small businesses. Part of the reason why we're enjoying the freedoms that we have
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today and the ability to go and watch hockey games is because there were some courageous people who
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stood up and said, you know what, there's another way to do this enough is enough. It took the
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politicians a little while longer to realize that. But now that they've realized that, I think part of
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the healing process is to make sure that some of those, that those charges are dropped. The other
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thing we need to do, though, is we need to have a full reckoning about what happened, who made the
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decisions, why they made the decisions that they did? Great question and a great answer. It became
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part of her campaign platform. And right then the CBC resolved that they would do anything in their
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power to destroy Danielle Smith, but they failed. She is now the premier of Alberta, but the CBC knows
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they'll get another chance just four months from now in the general election. So they are campaigning
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against her full tilt. Anyways, it looks like Smith is serious about keeping her promise to call off
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these very political lockdown prosecutions. Here's Smith confirming her position when our reporter
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Selina Glass asked her about it in November. During your campaign, you said that not only would you
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issue an apology to those prosecuted during COVID restrictions, but you would also grant them
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amnesty. When can we expect those apologies? I can apologize right now. I'm deeply sorry.
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for anyone who was inappropriately subjected to discrimination as a result of their vaccine
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status. I'm deeply sorry for any government's employee that was fired from their job because
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of their vaccine status. And I welcome them back if they want to come back. As for the amnesty,
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I have to get some legal advice on that. And so I've already asked my staff to request that advice
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so I can see how we would be able to proceed on that. My view has been that these were political
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decisions that were made. And so I think that they can be political decisions to offer a reversal.
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But I do want to get some legal advice on that first.
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Would that also have to do with the timeline for the proposed amnesty?
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I would have to see. If I can do it, I would do it at the earliest opportunity. So I'm hoping within
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the next week I'll get that legal advice. And at Christmas, I personally sat down for a one-on-one
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year-end interview with Premier Smith. And it was actually the main issue I asked her about. And I'm
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not going to play you the whole interview. We talked for almost half an hour. You can see that
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whole interview at lockdownamnesty.com if you want. We put the video there. But here's just a taste of
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it. The world has moved on, but Alberta Health and Alberta Justice are still prosecuting. And they
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haven't had a lot of wins, but they've had a few. And it just feels like a hangover from a bygone
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era. It doesn't feel like it's in sync with the times. Is there a way to move on? It feels like a
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vendetta from some prosecutors that really want to punish these guys. Now, I'm coming from a very
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strong point of view. I support these guys. And I know you've got to be... You can't meddle in a
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judicial process, but boy, it doesn't feel like it's in the public interest.
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You know, I think we learned a lot about how our justice system works in watching things at the
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federal level and how the Attorney General and the Crown have an independence from the Premier's
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office. The questions that I can ask and have asked and continue to ask is, is it in the public
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interest? And is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction? And I think the longer that we go on
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seeing that prosecutions are not being successful, it makes a stronger case on both of those fronts,
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that if the conviction isn't likely, we know that we have a lot of pressure on our courts.
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And if the public has now come to terms with wanting a different approach, is it in the public
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interest? It's becoming increasingly hard to answer those two questions. Now, I put it to the
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prosecutors. And I've asked them to do a review of the cases with those two things in mind.
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Smith was very careful with her words, wasn't she? She said she wasn't going to interfere with any
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prosecutions. That's what Justin Trudeau did to save his corrupt friends at SNC-Lavalin. But
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Smith would follow the rules and just have a look at cases to make sure they were legally appropriate,
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especially since the province was losing so many of those cases in court.
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Were they really in the public interest to pursue? Did they really have a chance of conviction?
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Well, the government journalists at Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster couldn't stand that.
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And they hunted and hunted for proof that someone did something wrong. They showed a passion for this
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story that they never showed for Trudeau's interference with the SNC-Lavalin case. And huge scoop,
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they found the smoking gun. Here's the blockbuster story that Megan, the CBC liar, published last week.
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Let me show it to you on Twitter. New, Alberta Premier's office contacted Crown Prosecution about
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Coutts cases. Sources. Coutts is some of the trucker cases. And I'm not sure if you can see it, but more
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than half a million people read that tweet. And if you click on it, it leads to this story that is still
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up on the CBC website right now. Alberta Premier's office contacted Crown Prosecution about Coutts cases.
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Sources. Now I'll read just a little bit from the story. A staffer in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's
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office sent a series of emails to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service challenging prosecutors'
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assessment and direction on cases stemming from the Coutts border blockades and protests,
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CBC News has learned. The emails were sent last fall, according to sources whom CBC has agreed
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not to identify because they fear they could lose their jobs. Wow. That is a bombshell. That's amazing
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investigative journalism. It's a smoking gun. In fact, it was so devastating, it caused an emergency
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caucus meeting in Alberta. Smith's MLAs were in open revolt. Except it wasn't true. There were no such
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emails. And the CBC didn't admit until days later that they actually never saw any such emails.
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They didn't disclose that in their original story because they're not real journalists. They're
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government journalists. That's a very different thing you have to understand. They work for Trudeau.
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But because of that false accusation, the public service of Alberta, the nonpartisan permanent staff
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government, they had an emergency search of every single email between the premier's entire staff
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and the Justice Department. They literally reviewed one million emails.
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Here's a CBC story grudgingly admitting that, nearly a week after their smear was first published.
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You can see this was written by a different CBC reporter. Megan Grant is still lying about things.
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Her lie is still being published, both the tweet and the story that I showed you. They're still up.
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All they've done is added this little note to it. They say,
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editors note the original version of the story published January 19th neglected to note that CBC
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News has not seen the emails in question. Seriously, they let that out? They didn't mention
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that when they first made the accusation? They didn't admit. They actually hadn't seen any proof.
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They smeared the entire government, not to mention the prosecutors. They tried to cause a caucus revolt,
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and they actually hadn't seen the emails they claimed existed, and that we now know do not exist. How is
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that story even still online? How are they still broadcasting then? How is that headline even still
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there? How is that wicked liar, that fabricator, that hoaxer, that disinformation spreader, that Trudeau,
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she'll Megan Grant? How is she even still employed there? Well, because lying to Albertans and lying
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about Albertans is a key requirement to work for Trudeau's CBC, duh. Remember this other CBC liar lying
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about the trucker convoy? You know, given Canada's support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia,
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I don't know if it's far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to
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fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset.
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Huh. She actually got a raise and a promotion after that lie because it pleased Justin Trudeau.
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I bet Megan Grant got an attagirl call from the PMO, too. So the CBC just blew up whatever
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credibility they had left in Alberta. I mean, not that they had any. I mean, they really hit rock bottom
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such a long time ago, but they're still digging. But Megan Grant is now trying in some way to salvage
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her credibility. So she sent me this letter this morning, and I'm going to read it to you. And
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you can see it in full at our special website, lockdownamnesty.com. Here's what the liar Megan
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Grant said to me. Hi, Ezra. My colleagues and I are working on a story about the premier putting
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pressure on the justice minister in an effort to get COVID-related charges dropped, especially Arthur
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Pawlowski's. We have an email dated October 25 sent from you to the premier's office following an in-person
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meeting, which took place at the UCP convention days earlier. The email advocates for nonviolent
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COVID-related charges to be stayed or withdrawn and advises the premier on how she could make that
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happen. The email makes the case for why some charges should be dropped and why the attorney
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general should intervene. My questions for you are, what prompted you to send that email? What influence
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do you feel your advocacy has had on these types of cases? Do you wish to add further comment on these
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matters? We plan to publish at noon. Many thanks, Megan Grant. So now she's trying to imply that in
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some way, Rebel News has done something wrong or that I have, or that we have somehow counseled the
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premier to do something wrong. It's a gotcha. And she says, I only have a few hours to reply or she's
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going to leak my letter. So I'm going to leak it first at lockdownamnesty.com. You know,
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Rebel News and I have been saying the same thing about these lockdown prosecutions in public and
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in private to anyone who would listen for nearly three years, including at Smith's annual general
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meeting. And in my year end interview with Smith, you might even know we literally have a billboard
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at the side of the main highway in Alberta calling on Smith to drop the prosecutions. It's called
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lockdown amnesty. Here's an excerpt from my five page letter, the one that the CBC thinks is a smoking
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gun. It is five pages with legal footnotes. There's a lot of legalese in them. So I won't read the whole
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thing to you, but here's part of it. I just want to give you a flavor of this letter.
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I am only suggesting that the prosecutions, which have been politically motivated,
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targeting people who only sought to exercise their constitutional freedom of expression and religion,
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be stayed or discontinued. From my knowledge of the prosecutions,
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most people charged were either attending a protest or a religious gathering. Usually the
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people charged were the low hanging fruit, the most vocal or the ones sharing their message on social
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media. None of the prosecutions that the democracy fund or Rebel News supports have any violence or
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firearms involved. The premier's action on these prosecutions will promote democratic principles
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and ensure an appropriate use of our court's limited resources. You've heard me say that a dozen
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times before, including in my year-end interview with the premier, the CBC somehow thinks this is
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a gotcha moment, but it just shows they only re-breathe their own air and listen to their own
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point of view. They never listen to any other voices and they obviously don't watch my show or
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they'd know what I said to the premier herself in my year-end interview. Here's another excerpt from
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my letter. Really, go and read the whole thing at lockdownamnesty.com. I'm very proud of that letter
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and I think you might enjoy it. You might learn something from it. I think it was a useful letter.
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Let me read some more. Withdrawing charges, staying proceedings or declining to prosecute
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or continue a prosecution is justified if there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction. This
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standard varies by the facts of each case or if the prosecution does not serve the public interest.
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The prosecutions that I am aware of do not meet either element of the test, let alone both.
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So staying the charges is well justified. There are clear legal issues with many of the prosecutions
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that I am familiar with. Prosecutions under the Public Health Act are likely to fail
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because as the premier likely recalls, the chief medical officer of health orders were vague,
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confusing, inconsistent, and did not specifically prohibit certain activities."
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There's a little legalese in there, but I think you can get it. Last excerpt. I'm proud of
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this letter. I want you to read it. The premier can, should she choose to, direct the attorney general
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to review and withdraw or discontinue any cases arising from the chief medical officer of health
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orders under the Public Health Act, criminal charges being prosecuted by the Alberta Crown Prosecution
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Service, charges under the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act, or any pending charges or applications
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stemming from alleged breaches of the court's orders to refrain from public gatherings or otherwise.
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The premier could request that the review be undertaken with respect to each prosecution held
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with Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, and cases where there is no reasonable chance of conviction,
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or where prosecution does not serve the public interest, be discontinued immediately. Obviously,
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the attorney general would take into account the premier's view that without more, i.e. violence,
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proceeding with these prosecutions is not in the public interest, unquote. Look, I've said that in
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public. I've said that in private. I've said that to the previous government. I've said it to the current
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government. I said it to Danielle Smith in an interview, and I've said it to her in a private conversation,
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and I've said it to her in an amazing five-page letter that you really should read for yourself.
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And that's what the CBC can't stand. They can't stand that Premier Danielle Smith would actually
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listen to another point of view besides Trudeau's point of view or the CBC's point of view. She can't
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stand, sorry, they can't stand that Premier Smith actually might care about freedom and think that
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bullying Christian pastors or, you know, small restauranteurs or other peaceful protesters is not
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in the public interest. The CBC can't stand that Smith actually talks to me and gave me a great
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year-end interview, by the way. Look, I have no idea what Smith did or didn't do with the letter I
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wrote to her. I hope it was circulated, frankly. I'm just glad that she's interested in more points
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of view than the Trudeau shills at the CBC. And that's what the CBC hates. So that's why I'm not
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actually scared about the CBC leaking my letter because they might think it's scandalous, but I
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am actually very proud of it. In fact, I would be grateful if you read it. And in fact, if you are
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in Albertan, I would encourage you to send a version of that letter to Smith yourself or to your local MLA.
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And while you're at that special website, LockdownAmnesty.com, take a moment to sign our
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petition. I just checked and nearly 25,000 people have signed it so far to call off these prosecutions.
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Let's see how high we can get that number. If you're like me and you despise the CBC and you're
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deeply embarrassed for the unethical journalism published by Megan Grant last week,
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do something positive about it. Sign our petition calling on the premier to bring in
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Lockdown Amnesty. That's what we're calling it.
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And while you're on that website, feel free to chip in to support our journalism
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and our advocacy. Megan Grant is bought and paid for by Justin Trudeau, and it shows.
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Well, I'm recording this interview segment at 3 p.m. Eastern time, which is 1 p.m. Alberta time.
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And the reason I tell you that is because the CBC has not yet published their threatened smear
00:22:29.720
against me or Rebel News, despite saying their deadline was 12 noon. So I will keep you posted
00:22:35.160
on how that goes. I'll let you know probably tomorrow. We'll see what they do about it.
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But I want to talk about a very important thing. It was very important to Rebel News viewers in 2022,
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the Trucker Convoy, and then the echo of that in the Trucker Commission, the Public Order Inquiry
00:22:55.500
Commission, where a judge presided over a judicial inquiry for weeks into whether or not Justin Trudeau's
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invocation of that form of martial law was justifiable. And one of the stars—in fact,
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I would say I was very proud of the democracy funds rule, but there is no denying it—the gaggle
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of lawyers from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms really set the tone. There was, I think,
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seven of them all together, and they were related. There was the JCCF lawyers and the Freedom Convoy lawyers,
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the Trucker lawyers. I couldn't quite keep them all straight, but one of our favorites was Eva
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Chipiuk, who not only grilled the Prime Minister directly, but she also was a regular guest on our
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pop-up studio that we had in Ottawa, where we did our live streams every day. I was really proud that
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we did that. We really covered that commission. Well, here's just a little recap of Eva asking
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questions of Justin Trudeau. I'll just play this before we bring Eva back on the show. Take a look.
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Minister Blair, Public Safety Minister, Minister Mendicino, National Security Intelligence Advisor
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Jody Thomas, and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucky, and today you, testified that the federal government
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was committed to exhausting all alternatives to a resolution prior to making a decision to invoke the
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extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act. Do you agree that that accurately describes your
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government's position? That the invocation of the Emergencies Act was a measure of last resort,
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was not something to be taken lightly. Thank you. And something to do when other options were not
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effective. And you are aware that the OPP, along with others, developed an engagement proposal and you
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were advised of that proposal at the IRG meeting on February 12th, correct?
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Um, it was a proposal, but we had, and it was presented to us, we had more questions, uh, about, uh,
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how it would actually work. Uh, there, it was not a complete proposal. My last question,
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Mr. Prime Minister, when did you and your government start to become so afraid of your own citizens?
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That's a very unfair... I am not, and we are not.
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Well, good for her. And I'm glad that freedom-oriented lawyers were allowed in. But the
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other day, I saw Ava tweeting about the imminent release of the Judicial Commission's report,
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and I wanted to bring her on the show to hear her elocute on that at greater length. Joining me now
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via Skype from Edmonton, the City of Champions, is our friend Ava Chipic. Ava, great to see you again.
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Well, it's a pleasure to have you on, and you were a very strong part of the team out there,
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the freedom team. I really think that were it not for you guys and Alan Hohner of the Democracy Fund,
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the whole flavor, the whole tone of that commission would have been very different. So I'm glad you
00:25:51.900
were on it. But the other day, I saw you tweeting a bit that you were a little worried. And, um, I,
00:25:57.980
I thought, well, let's get Eva on the show. Let's talk about it because I want to hear it. And,
00:26:02.780
and, you know, you might be right. So what, first of all, when do we expect the Judicial Commission to,
00:26:11.980
to issue its report? Do we, is that date set in stone?
00:26:17.260
It is. And that's one of the concerns, uh, I raised on Twitter and via social media,
00:26:22.700
is that the commission is going to publicly release the decision on February 20th. That would,
00:26:30.380
goes directly to parliament and the public. So, uh, one year anniversary of the day, um, the, uh,
00:26:36.700
the, uh, emergencies act was revoked. Right. So it's statutorily required that within a year,
00:26:44.780
a report is presented to parliament and presented to the public where the concern has been raised is
00:26:52.220
in order to set up the commission, parliament cabinet issued an order in council and it made
00:26:59.660
certain specifications. And one of the specifications that we noted is that the commission,
00:27:06.620
the commissioner was directed by, um, cabinet to issue a report no later than February 6th.
00:27:15.100
And that goes to cabinet only. So two weeks in advance of parliament and the public getting the
00:27:21.980
report, cabinet is getting it. Got it. Now I saw that, and that is concerning for two reasons. First
00:27:28.220
of all, it shortens the amount of time the judge has to operate by two weeks. And it was a very compressed
00:27:34.220
time frame. By the way, the judge, I think had an, uh, emergency surgery, if I'm not mistaken,
00:27:39.420
which delayed the whole inquiry by a number of weeks anyway. So, um, there, there were, uh,
00:27:45.500
obviously that couldn't be helped, but it's shortened the amount of time. But the idea of
00:27:51.660
Trudeau getting a secret copy of it for two weeks to work on his spin is troubling in a way. But
00:27:58.220
Eva, I think that is a standard practice with some reports about the government. If I'm not mistaken,
00:28:07.020
auditors general give their report to the government in advance too. And the rationale, I think,
00:28:15.980
is that since the government is what is sort of being on trial, they have a chance to think about it,
00:28:21.980
digest it, so that when it's released to the public, they can say, okay, we've reviewed it,
00:28:26.940
we accept this, we dispute that. Like if I can understand it, uh, so that the government
00:28:34.540
has some time to think about their response. I just don't like the fact that the government
00:28:39.180
obviously will be spinning against any criticism, but isn't that sort of normal on like auditor general
00:28:45.260
reports? Not that I'm aware. And so let's think about that for a moment. Uh, that's the best case
00:28:51.340
scenario is that it's given to the government in advance. And I do have concerns with the short
00:28:56.860
timeframe as well, that shortens the timeline for two weeks. When we had such an insane schedule in
00:29:03.820
Ottawa, it's, you know, completely unfair for the commission and for the parties to, uh, then even
00:29:10.380
shorten it more. So that being one concern, uh, spinning it is, would be the milder of the issues,
00:29:17.820
but given that nobody sees it, what if it, the issue is a little bit more sinister. And then at
00:29:24.460
that point cabinet has an opportunity to ask for changes. We don't see it. So we don't know. One
00:29:32.140
thing I do know that happens at least in other countries and situations like this is that you
00:29:37.420
would all, all parties at a minimum parties that were involved, lawyers that were involved,
00:29:42.380
should be able to get a copy, uh, like under embargo or under some kind of undertakings. We
00:29:49.340
were all asked to sign very stringent undertakings, which we did have some concerns about. So why isn't
00:29:55.420
that put in place for everybody at the same time either? Got it. I understand that because of course,
00:30:01.340
the government is one party, but so is, so was everybody else there, I suppose. I mean,
00:30:07.660
a party or at least had some standing. I mean, I wouldn't want the report to go into the hands of,
00:30:12.540
crazy activists, like say, Zexy Lee, but at least some of the lawyers there, I think.
00:30:17.740
But do you really think that changes would be made? Uh, is that permitted? Uh, is that in the
00:30:23.900
cabinet order? Because the idea that, you know, other than like a typo would be corrected, I would
00:30:30.140
think that I would hope that a judge would push back because this is a, it's a judge and a judicial
00:30:37.340
inquiry, if I'm not mistaken. So it has a certain, it has a certain level of authority
00:30:42.620
and to have one party ex parte, as they say, in secret with no one else there asking for changes.
00:30:49.900
I've got to hope that's unlikely or, or, um, irregular. Do we have, I mean, is there anything
00:30:58.780
in the, in the cabinet order that would permit that? So not that I see it. I think the words
00:31:04.060
are final, but what I would go to is what we saw throughout the inquiry. And I went very optimistic
00:31:10.860
about how it would be handled, but we did see that, uh, we had quite a bit of challenges
00:31:16.700
with the redacted documents that the federal government was giving to everyone and very
00:31:22.060
late disclosure, incredibly late, so late that it's not useful. Same with the redacted documents.
00:31:27.980
It's almost not useful to the parties when you can't understand it, when redactions were deemed
00:31:33.820
to be not proper because there's no lawyers and they're claiming solicitor sign client privilege.
00:31:40.300
And it shouldn't be on parties in an inquiry like that to be adversarial within one another.
00:31:46.940
So the, it was on the commission to ensure that it was a fair process for everyone.
00:31:53.340
Given that, that, that actually didn't transpire throughout the whole inquiry.
00:31:58.460
That's where I have a little bit more concerns about the transparency.
00:32:02.460
Now we didn't get transparency during the inquiry. So I have a little bit less faith that we're going
00:32:08.220
to have it at this end of the game. All right. Well, I hope that you're wrong.
00:32:13.820
Now, are there other issues that you're worried about? I take your point that this shortens the
00:32:19.180
amount of time the judge has to contemplate things. I take your point that it's only being shared with
00:32:24.060
the bad guys, so to speak. And I take your point that there's a possibility that changes could be made,
00:32:30.860
but I, I have to hope that that's an unlikely outcome.
00:32:36.460
Me too. I, and I have to agree that the second thing I did post about was that there,
00:32:41.820
the government really by the last week, especially relied on the legal opinion that was presented to
00:32:48.860
cabinet. That was the reason they justified the emergencies act. That is also secret. So again,
00:32:54.380
the transparency is really hard to see. And let me remind the viewers that this isn't just any act,
00:33:01.020
this is the emergencies act, formerly known as the war measures act. And when this new emergencies act
00:33:08.460
was debated, there was so much debate about this inquiry and that how important it is to be transparent
00:33:15.820
and accountable because this is the most egregious tool you can put on Canadians. So if we're going to
00:33:23.900
ask about transparency and accountability of the Canadian government at any time, this is the time.
00:33:31.980
Right. I take your point and you're right. And the thing is a legal opinion. Well, there are
00:33:36.540
tens of thousands of lawyers in Canada who wrote it. Was it a justice department lawyer or did justice
00:33:46.700
hire an outside firm? Was it a constitutional expert or someone friendly to the liberal party? Do we know
00:33:53.260
any of those answers? Do we know anything about, like, I mean, you could get five lawyers writing
00:33:58.460
five different opinions, sort of like doctors. Now there is a common body of law, but you can shop
00:34:05.340
around and there are law firms that are closely connected to the liberal party. There are law firms
00:34:10.220
that sort of tilt liberal. There are some that tilt conservative, believe it or not. There are even some
00:34:15.100
that tilt NDP, sort of labor oriented law firms. So the fact that we don't even know that information,
00:34:21.340
let alone see the legal memo, I think is worrying. They presented a document and all it said on the
00:34:30.860
top of the document was Department of Justice and everything else blanked out. So just, you know,
00:34:37.180
disheartening to see. And again, reminder, this is the most, you know, a stringent act that they could
00:34:44.540
use. And it is for the federal government to show that they justified using the emergencies act,
00:34:51.580
not for parties, especially the protesters. You know, it was, it's incumbent on the federal
00:34:58.380
government to do that. And if everything is so secret, it's incredibly hard to be reassured that
00:35:04.700
they did the right thing. Yeah. The whole point of the inquiry is to inquire and it's a public inquiry.
00:35:10.700
It's not a secret inquiry. Are there anything else? Is there anything else that's on your mind? I would
00:35:16.220
say that those are legitimate worries of different degrees of worrisomeness. The fact that the legal
00:35:25.340
opinion was not shown, I think goes to a lack of transparency. Now, do we know if the judge himself
00:35:31.100
saw the legal opinion? Not that we're aware of. No. Wow. See, that's weird. Why wouldn't a judge
00:35:37.340
who's running this community? I can understand, like in a lot of trials, there are matters that,
00:35:43.900
you know, both sides haggle over. I think the phrase is a voir dire, where you have sort of a
00:35:50.540
trial within a trial about whether or not you can disclose a certain piece of evidence.
00:35:56.220
And typically the judge and the two lawyers talk about it. And the judge will say, yes,
00:36:02.300
I will show that to the jury or no, I won't because it's too prejudicial or whatever. But
00:36:07.820
typically the judge gets to see everything. If the judge himself couldn't see that legal opinion,
00:36:15.580
that's troubling. Do we do we know that? I'm fairly confident because we do know that that
00:36:21.420
kind of voir dire process was set up for the CSIS information. And you touched on something very
00:36:29.020
important, is that in normal cases, the lawyers from both sides and the judge would again go into
00:36:36.060
this voir dire where nobody else can see it. And that makes sense. Again, we were under very strict
00:36:42.620
undertakings. But what happened with the CSIS was very interesting in its own right, in that the judge
00:36:49.020
got to see it and only people with special national clearance could go. So none of the lawyers for the
00:36:55.580
freedom corporation and the freedom oriented that I know of were able to participate in that voir dire.
00:37:02.460
You know what? I think that they were just using that to keep out other eyes. I just have no idea
00:37:08.380
how a legal opinion could be a national security issue if there was one or two facts in that legal
00:37:15.180
opinion. And by the way, did the lawyer who wrote the legal opinion have national security clearance?
00:37:20.300
So I have to be clear, that was a separate issue. It was the CSIS national security and threat,
00:37:26.380
their assessments. So while we were in Ottawa, they did a voir dire.
00:37:30.380
Got it, got it. Thank you. Now I understand. So you're saying there was a voir dire process
00:37:34.380
for another document. Thank you. Now I understand. All right. Well, listen, here's my take on this.
00:37:39.260
I was worried from the outset because I had heard scuttlebutt that the judge may have some
00:37:47.020
connections to the Liberal Party. My first reply to that was, yeah, many judges do. Most judges,
00:37:54.700
I would say in this country, are a lean liberal either ideologically or were appointed by a partisan
00:38:01.100
liberal. But you've got to be able to put that aside or you're not going to be happy with any
00:38:07.500
legal process. So I sort of held my breath on that. I also believe that the judge had a really
00:38:14.300
tough time, any judge would have, balancing all the different people and interests and parties
00:38:20.220
and interveners. And, you know, it was his job to make it run on time because, as you pointed out,
00:38:27.100
it has an end date. Most trials could be adjourned. That means to postpone, delayed, more days added.
00:38:33.420
This could, so this judge had a very tough job. He couldn't just call a break
00:38:37.900
and say, okay, we're going to spend two days looking at this side issue. He had to do it
00:38:43.100
almost, well, in a very rushed way. So I sympathized with the judge. And even if he got some of the calls
00:38:49.420
wrong, I don't think you can reject a judge. If a judge is asked to make 50 different decisions
00:38:55.820
in the course of a trial and he gets a few of them wrong or a few of them go the other way,
00:39:00.540
I don't think you can write off the judge for that because it would be too high a standard to say,
00:39:05.900
I want the judge to be perfect in every way from my point of view. So I, I'm going into this with
00:39:11.660
some hope. I'm going into this. I still have hope. Maybe I'm going to be proven to be a foolish,
00:39:18.300
naive, you know, justice lover who, who still believes that there's the rule of law. Believe me,
00:39:25.900
that's been taxed over the last three years. But at this point, Ava, I still am hopeful
00:39:33.500
that this public order inquiry commission will do the right thing and say what we all know,
00:39:38.460
which is Justin Trudeau had no national crisis rationale. It was all a political optics campaign
00:39:49.180
matter. And he just used the nuclear weapon just to save face against the truckers. I think that's
00:39:57.660
evident to everybody, even this judge. What I'm really afraid of, and I'm sorry, I'm rambling on. I'd
00:40:04.540
like your thoughts on this. Here's what I'm worried about. I'm worried that the judge is going to do what
00:40:10.700
the conflict of interest commissioner did, which is say, yeah, Trudeau broke the law. Duh. Of course
00:40:17.980
he did. And then the whole country shrugs and says, oh, well. And all the media says, oh, okay.
00:40:25.660
And Trudeau says, well, it's a learning experience for all of us. And nothing. Because Trudeau has had
00:40:33.580
so many scandals, including being convicted for breaking the conflict of interest, taking that secret
00:40:39.100
vacation. Firing Jody Wilson-Raybould is another crisis. And he just says, oh, yeah, sorry about
00:40:44.860
it. That's what I'm more worried about. I'm more worried that the judge will do the right thing.
00:40:48.940
And the entire national establishment, which is basically on his payroll, will say, oh, yeah,
00:40:53.260
that's okay. That's okay. Don't worry. So I'm actually really glad you brought that up. And that was
00:40:59.500
part of my tweet as well, is I put in a call to action. I said, if you don't believe this is fair,
00:41:05.820
or this is right, or this is not transparent, you as a Canadian should reach out to your MPs. And I
00:41:11.340
think maybe as Canadians, we've gotten a little bit passive about things in the last few years.
00:41:17.100
And obviously what's happened in the last year or so has shown that Canadians are interested in what's
00:41:24.300
going on in government. And exactly to your point, is this commission we knew from the beginning,
00:41:31.260
it doesn't have teeth, like many Canadians were asking for a tap teeth to put Justin Trudeau in
00:41:37.180
jail or something like that. It never had the power to do anything more than to make an assessment.
00:41:43.100
My call to action for Canadians is right now, if you don't think this is fair,
00:41:48.300
talk, reach out to your MPs, maybe do it on social media because they are looking at them. That's one
00:41:53.980
thing we did learn at the inquiry is they're sending, texting each other tweets all the time,
00:41:58.860
even at a high ministerial levels. But the second thing is, if the commission does find that Justin
00:42:05.260
Trudeau should not have invoked the emergencies act, it was not justified, like both of us agree,
00:42:11.660
then what is the next step? Canadians should call to action their MPs and say, that's it,
00:42:17.420
this is the final straw. Now this was the worst thing he could have done to his own Canadian citizens.
00:42:23.420
And it was found to be not justified. We need to do something about it.
00:42:27.900
Well, listen, I hope Canadians do do something about it because I'm worried that the
00:42:31.500
establishment won't remember the truckers. It felt that the truckers, as George Orwell would say,
00:42:36.300
the proles, the proletariat, ordinary people to do something because all the fancy people in the
00:42:41.420
country for two years did not. All the political parties, all the mainstream media, all the law
00:42:46.220
professors, all the colleges of physicians and surgeons, all the old school civil liberties groups,
00:42:51.820
all the celebrities, all the influencers, all the checks and balances failed, except for the common
00:42:59.820
sense of the common people. So who knows? Maybe they'll save us again. Last word to you, Eva.
00:43:06.300
Yeah, well, thanks, because it is the one year anniversary, if you could believe it or not,
00:43:12.060
of the Freedom Convoy starting to work its way to Ottawa and them getting settled into Ottawa, escorted
00:43:18.860
into Ottawa by the Ottawa police on Saturday. And so some of the people on the Freedom Corp board still,
00:43:27.820
they've been thinking about how they can commemorate it. There's still so much incredible support.
00:43:33.180
And what they've thought about is for people to go out to where they were on the highways,
00:43:38.620
to wave in the truckers, to go there Saturday at noon and take pictures and wave their flags and
00:43:46.620
bring that community back together because it was strong a year ago. And I'm sure, and again,
00:43:51.820
it's still so strong right now. Right on. Well, listen, great to catch up with you. I hope that you're
00:43:57.260
being pessimistic and that things turn out better. We'll find out soon. And of course,
00:44:02.060
there is a chance that the report will leak. It wouldn't surprise me that anything that's
00:44:07.180
positive towards Trudeau will be strategically leaked by his office. Trudeau has no compunction
00:44:13.660
about that, so he may well do that. But we'll all find out on February 20th. Eva Cipiuk,
00:44:23.100
All right. Our pleasure. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.
00:44:38.460
Hey, welcome back. I got a couple of letters from last week when I was with the team
00:44:43.900
at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Let me read those. Margarita writes,
00:44:47.340
Good evening, Ezra. I am following a bunch of Hungarian YouTubers because of my Hungarian
00:44:53.260
mother tongue. The video on you reporting from Davos asking tough questions from the Pfizer guy,
00:44:58.300
Greta, as well as Larry Fink. I heard some of it from Rebel, but it was nice to hear your reporting
00:45:03.340
being appreciated by Hungarian reporters as well. I just love it. Kind regards. Well, isn't that fun?
00:45:08.620
As I mentioned the other day, I have seen our Rebel News videos being translated into so many other
00:45:15.900
languages. Now you're saying it's in Hungarian too. Sometimes we have a real viral video and I see
00:45:22.220
it get translated into a few. But the thing is, the vaccines and the mRNA vaccines and the Pfizer
00:45:29.740
mandates and the fact that so many countries forced you to take a jab or you would be fired from your
00:45:35.020
job or couldn't go in public means this issue is something that literally billions of people around
00:45:41.500
the world care about. In fact, as I mentioned, it was a real kerfuffle in India, even though the
00:45:46.300
Pfizer vaccine was not allowed in. And I tried to watch some of that coverage. A lot of Indian news is
00:45:52.220
in English, by the way. And I think it was because there were some politicians in India who were clearly
00:45:58.220
on Pfizer's side trying to bring the mRNA vaccines into the country. So it, our report, I just, it was quite
00:46:05.900
something, I didn't quite understand why there was this uproar and kerfuffle in India about my interview
00:46:14.380
and Avi's interview. And it was, it was amazing to see. So thank you for the report from Hungary.
00:46:20.140
I think that is the most watched video of all time that we have done in our eight years. So it obviously
00:46:25.900
connected with people. And I keep laughing because we didn't actually get any answers. How could such a
00:46:32.060
video be so popular if there was no answers? But it was putting the questions to a guy who'd never
00:46:36.460
been questioned before. That's why. Christopher Ray says, hi, Ezra. Just wondering, has the FBI
00:46:43.660
been a contributor to the World Economic Forum in the past? If so, for how long? Continuously.
00:46:48.060
Wondering why the current director is there to contribute. Then little Brian Stelter. What a clown
00:46:52.620
show, literally and figuratively. Like what you were doing and the great people you meet, you look cold,
00:46:57.580
stay warm. Now, I think Christopher Ray is a pseudonym because I think that's the name of the FBI
00:47:02.860
director. It's a great question. Why would the FBI director go to Davos? I understand why a businessman
00:47:09.900
might to make money to get a deal. I understand why a political leader might to meet political leaders
00:47:16.540
from other countries to try and, I don't know, get donations or something. There's a lot of people who
00:47:21.340
their being there makes sense to me, even if I don't like the World Economic Forum, the media
00:47:27.340
being there, you can have media trying to suck up and get access or media like us trying to hold to
00:47:32.060
account. But why would America's top policemen, who is very recently engaged in very political raids
00:47:39.820
against Donald Trump, why would America's top policemen be at Davos for the World Economic Forum?
00:47:48.300
I don't know. And the thing is, we'll never know. Because one of the whole perks or attributes of
00:47:55.260
the World Economic Forum is that what goes on in Davos stays in Davos, unless they positively want
00:48:00.700
you to know about it. It's not like Congress or Parliament, where there's a handshake, where there's
00:48:04.700
a record, where there's a lobbyist registry. So I think it's sort of creepy that the head of the FBI was
00:48:09.660
there. Thanks for your letters. I'll let you know when the CBC finally publishes their smear against me,
00:48:15.580
if they ever do. Between this morning and now, they haven't done anything, so we'll see.
00:48:21.500
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night,