EZRA LEVANT ｜ Held to ransom： Rebel News defies attempt to shut down conference
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the latest attempt by a Liberal minister to cancel our Rebel News Live event in Toronto, and why we have a "Friendship Clause" in our contracts with venue owners and venue operators to prevent them from canceling our events.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. What a weekend it was with our Rebel News Live and our Rumble Live events.
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But the strangest part of it all was the attempt by Yaara Sachs, the Liberal Cabinet Minister,
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to cancel the event, and when she couldn't, to sort of beef about it online on Twitter.
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Anyhow, I'll read you her attack on us and give you my response.
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But first, I'd like to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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That's the video version of this podcast. I want to show you a few things.
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And in addition to that great video content, you also support Rebel News.
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The $8 a month that it costs to be a supporter of Rebel News Plus gets you all that video,
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but it also keeps Rebel News strong because we don't take any money from Trudeau, and it shows.
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Tonight, blackmail. The Liberal government tries to cancel our Rebel News conferences here in Toronto.
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It's May 13th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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You know, we usually have security at Rebel News events.
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If you've ever been to our events, like our Rebel News Live, our big convention,
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It's there just in case. I mean, that's like insurance, right?
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When you need it, you want it to be there, and in a way, you're happy if you don't need it.
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It also makes people feel a little bit more secure.
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But in nine years of hosting that conference called Rebel News Live,
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our day-long jamboree where people get to spend FaceTime with Rebel News talent
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and with our favorite guests, we've never needed it.
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And we recently booked our event for Rebel News Live, which happened on the weekend.
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And again, we didn't need it, but we did it anyways,
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just because, you know, these heightened tensions, as the kids say.
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Why not have a few extra security just in case?
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Well, as we often do, in addition to having extra security,
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and by the way, we bring in security sometimes to make the venue operator feel comfortable,
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If we're booking a big hall or an event, the people we're doing business with,
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they might be friendly, they might be supportive,
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but they might be a little bit nervous if they've ever dealt with us.
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So bringing security is as much for them as for us.
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We also do one more thing that I think is probably unique.
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We add an anti-cancellation clause to our contracts,
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It typically says, look, you might get some angry tweets or angry Facebook comments
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for allowing rebels to have an event in your theater, in your restaurant.
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But you agree not to act based on those random calls.
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You agree that if things get very serious, you'll contact us
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and we'll see if we can solve a problem together.
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It basically says, look, if things, be aware that some people don't like our style.
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And if there's an actual problem, an actual security problem,
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So it doesn't lock in a vendor no matter what, because that wouldn't work.
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There are some things so terrifying, such an existential threat to a venue
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But what we're doing is we're saying, you can't throw us out casually.
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Let's keep those lines of communications open and let's work together.
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And we've had those in effect for almost since the beginning of our company.
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It's one of the steps we take because the other side plays rough.
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It's like when we hire private security for our rebel reporters.
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Most of the time, thank God, we don't need them.
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But when we do need them, I'm glad they're there.
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But the problem with this friendship clause or this anti-cancellation clause in our contract
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And the problem with private security is the same problem.
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The problem is neither work against the government.
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I mean, we have different security in different times.
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You've probably seen our regular security guard that we have in Australia protecting Avi Yamini.
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He's a huge mountain of a man named Daniel, and he's wonderful at his job.
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No private security in the world would go up against the police.
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And no friendship clause in a contract works against the government either.
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It's all designed for ruffians and rowdies and antifa and thugs.
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It's not designed, what if the government is the thug?
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Now, everything was going great as we were heading into the final days before Rebel News Live.
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And in fact, as you know, we were reached out to by Rumble, which is one of the competitors to YouTube.
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And they said, Ezra, we're concerned about freedom of speech in Canada.
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We'd like to do a Rumble live stream with Rebel News in Toronto.
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We'll bring in some Rumble talent like Donald Trump Jr.
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and Glenn Greenwald and Viva Frye and you guys.
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Everything was going great until the venue operator told us about the shakedown he was going under at the hands of the government.
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Because the venue we chose is in central Toronto.
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It's in a great big area called Downs View Park.
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It has soccer arenas and hockey arenas and volleyball.
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It's a huge area because it used to be an Air Force base.
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In fact, there's still an airstrip there the prime minister uses to fly into Toronto from Ottawa because it's a little bit out of the way.
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Anyways, the underlying land is still owned by the federal government because it's a former military base.
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And it's operated by the government's landlord of Crown Land, which is a crown corporation called Canada Lands Company.
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And, I mean, I knew it was on Downs View Park and I was sort of vaguely aware that it was sort of a special federal property.
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But never in a million years did I think that would be an issue.
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I mean, I walk the streets on government land all the time and I'm not arrested for it, at least not usually.
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But in the final weeks, well, two weeks out from both the Rebel News Live event and the special Rumble Live event with Donald Trump Jr.,
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our event venue operator, the person with whom we had this friendship contract, this anti-cancellation contract,
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he was threatened by the Canada Lands Company property manager, Alan Schacht,
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who said that the events could not proceed, he told me, unless we paid close to $50,000 in unnecessary and bizarre security costs.
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Like I said, we're happy buying security anyways.
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And, in fact, we're happy buying a few extra just to make sure everyone's feeling good.
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But this underlying landlord had no right to impose it on a private event if the venue operator thought we were doing the right things,
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Not only did they demand we provide security for the entire Downsview Park area,
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not only did they demand we hire Toronto Police Service, apparently they're for sale, I guess,
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but they demanded, and you can see this on the insane bill they foisted on us,
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they demanded that we buy barriers so that protesters could come and have an area,
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and actually that we even pay for porta-potties, pay for portable toilets for those protesters too.
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Now, we asked, and there was no intelligence whatsoever, no security analysis whatsoever showing that there would be protesters.
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In the nine years we've been doing this, we've never had protesters.
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And to say, oh, my God, this event is so terrifying and so dangerous,
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you need to, what, quadruple your security, hire expensive city police.
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And set up for protesters was insane and absurd.
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And it was, I think, deliberately insane and absurd because the goal was not to keep things safe.
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The goal was to make it impossible for the venue operator to pay that bill,
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impossible and impossible for him to pass it on to us.
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Because we, I think we had a grand total of 1,000 people between the two events.
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You can't add on a $50 per person charge for security.
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And I should tell you, if there was a basis for us, we would have known and we would have paid for it.
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And we would probably have said to the city, we pay taxes here.
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We expect the police to do work without being hired as mercenaries.
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It was for the plan that we couldn't make the payment and we were blocked.
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Downsview Park, where we had the two events, is in the district called York Center.
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That's the political district, the riding, as it used to be called, of York Center.
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And who is the member of parliament and cabinet minister for York Center?
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Well, no one less than Yara Sachs, that crazy left-wing liberal.
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Now that I'm talking about Yara Sachs, you might remember her.
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She's the Jewish liberal MP who went to take a selfie with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PLO terrorist group.
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Speaking of that, right now in Toronto, there is a large Hamas protest going on right in the heart of the city at the University of Toronto.
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For example, I saw a video of a Jewish professor trying to get into the school.
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Do Hamas protesters, who are trespassing, by the way, do they have to pay for security?
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Do they have to pay for porta-potties for counter protesters?
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I attended the events, and I tried not to be mad at the ordinary cops and the ordinary security who were there.
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They're just regular guys and gals who were doing a job, and they were told by their bosses,
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hey, you have a special project, you're going to go hang out at Rebel all weekend and just stand around.
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So, I mean, how can you be mad at an ordinary cop or an ordinary security who was asked to be there?
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I told the cops to get out of the building and go fight crime.
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They counted on us not being able to meet this $50,000 fake charge because no rational business person would proceed with that.
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And they believed so deeply in freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and they wanted this event to go ahead.
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I should tell you, I spoke several times with the venue operator himself.
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He was terrified of the threats against him by Ken, the land company,
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that they would tear up his lease and his whole life's dream would be destroyed by it.
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And if you weren't there, you can still watch them.
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The Rumble live stream, about 180,000 people have watched it.
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What's incredible to me is how brazen the government was about this.
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They didn't even pretend they had a security study.
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I really felt when I was talking to the venue operator that I was talking to a hostage who was saying,
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Here's a tweet that Yaara Sachs did on the weekend in the middle of our conference.
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She really is interfering with police in the city.
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My statement on the Rebel News event in York Center with Donald Trump Jr.
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Which is sort of funny because her attack that follows is really not about Donald Trump Jr.
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Sadly, I have learned that Rebel News will be bringing its hateful and extremist views to York Center.
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The writing I am proud to represent when it holds Canada's most provocative conference,
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including Donald Trump Jr. and other MAGA conservatives at Downsview Park this weekend.
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Now, I should tell you that I actually live in the district.
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In fact, I sort of get along with, I mean, I don't know everyone on the street,
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And when I go for a walk, sometimes I wear my Rebel hoodie when I walk the dog.
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And I get stopped at least two or three times every time I go for a walk by people who want to chat.
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But, you know, I think Rebel News is sort of loved in York Center.
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And I'm talking from people of all sorts of different backgrounds.
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When she says we're not welcome in the writing, I feel pretty welcome.
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I think, in fact, the only extremist around is her old pal Mahmoud Abbas.
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And by the way, I went to a shopping center a few weeks ago in the heart of the writing.
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She says, while I am a strong supporter of the right to free speech, let me be clear
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that the vile views espoused by Rebel News are not welcome in York Center, nor do its residents
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Whenever anyone says I support free speech, but, always ignore everything after the word,
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And come on, do you really think that Trudeau's liberals actually support free speech?
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I mean, for heaven's sakes, they put us under martial law because some truckers honked their
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Again, I'm in York Center every day, which is more than Yara Sachs can say.
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Rebel News, its commentators, staff, and associates have espoused everything from anti-Semitism to
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I don't know if you ever heard that one, or rebel Jews.
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They say that in a mean way because we're pretty pro-Israel.
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I think we're, you know, we're pro-Taiwan also.
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But our concerns about radical Islam, I think, are normal concerns for all Canadians.
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Concerns she obviously doesn't share because she hasn't put out a tweet condemning the University
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She's got more hatred for Rebel News than the Hamas supporters.
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They claim to support the Jewish people, but traffic in the Great Replacement and Soros
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Our last trip to Israel last fall was to the Holocaust Museum.
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And then we went to the United Arab Emirates to talk about Donald Trump's Abraham Accords
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That's like we actually took people to Israel and to the UAE to talk about friendship and
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So her last trip was to visit that terrorist Mahmoud Abbas.
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Oh, and by the way, that George Soros thing, it's not a conspiracy theory.
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Her buddy, George Soros, has been found out to be one of the funders of these Hamas hate
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I mean, how many times does she have to reveal herself?
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Yarra Sachs gives a standing ovation to that Nazi, Yaroslav Hanke, in parliament.
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Yarra Sachs poses with a modern-day Nazi, Mahmoud Abbas.
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Yarra Sachs supports George Soros, who's funding the anti-Israel protests.
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After a while, you have to wonder, is Yarra Sachs a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Canadian?
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In recent weeks, Rebel News has attacked me personally, mailing my entire writing and launching
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I will not be bullied from doing my job, and I will not be lectured on how to be Jewish
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by one of Canada's leading disseminators of age.
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Look, I know what she's talking about, the mail-out.
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If that's an attack, maybe she should ask herself why she posed for the photo.
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Hey, by the way, why didn't she go to an Israel event in Toronto over the weekend called Yom
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I think she went there because she didn't want to be booed by the members of the Jewish
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All right, her tweet goes on for a bit, but let me hurry up.
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She says, it is unfortunate, but not surprising, that Donald Trump Jr. will attend this conference.
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He's done more for peace and for Israel than anyone I can think of, the Trump family, at
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I mean, who would you choose if you cared about Israel and cared about peace, and if you hated
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terrorism, who would be on your team, the Trumps or the Trudeaus?
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I know which side Israel would count on, and I know under whose side there was peace for
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Canada has beautiful attractions, shows and events.
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And actually, it was a great event, and I met so many wonderful people, and we had booths
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there and stuff, and we had great food and fun merch and books, and Tamara Leach played
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I know you're not going to believe me, but I really mean this.
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If Yara Sax had actually showed up with an open mind and was willing to talk, I think she
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I mean, she would have had an earful, but if she would have been polite and made her
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own case, I think there could have been some harmony there.
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Anyhow, like I say, if you want to see it, you can go and find it on rumble.com.
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We did a live stream of the first day, about 180,000 views.
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In the end, she talks about her conservative opponent.
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I mean, I don't think she writes her own stuff.
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I think she is, remember that movie, Anchorman, where Will Ferrell literally reads whatever
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in the teleprompter and they have a joke, don't put anything dumb in the teleprompter
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Remember, this is the first time I heard of Yara Sax when she stood up in parliament and
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read cue cards or something that she obviously didn't write.
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And either it was a prank or people said, give that to Yara, she'll read anything.
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How much vitriol do we have to see of Honk Honk, which is an acronym for Hail Hitler,
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do we need to see by these protesters on social media?
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And she obviously doesn't believe in free speech.
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He won't because he and Rebel News hold the same extremist fringe views that got him kicked
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Roman Baber actually was super calm and mellow.
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If you remember, he was a conservative MPP, provincial parliamentarian, who very thoughtfully
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and calmly opposed mandatory lockdowns and mandatory vaccines.
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I actually think he was the best elected official in Canada in terms of calmly and with footnotes
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and extremely politely saying, I think we're going the wrong path.
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I mean, there were some wild men who opposed lockdowns and vaccines.
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I mean, I don't think they'd mind me calling it.
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I don't think Maxime Bernier or, you know, Randy Hillier, I don't think they would mind
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being called a wild man because they sort of are.
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I think he's the kind of guy who mows his lawn in a suit.
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He's certainly not one to do something crazy like, say, Honk Honk stands for Heil Hitler.
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She says, well, I deplore that this conference is taking place.
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I urge Toronto's police to take steps to keep all participants safe.
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Yeah, RSX, the federal government cabinet minister, used government resources, including
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her Twitter account, to weaponize a crown corporation, to silence a group of peaceful
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Ironically, our theme was stopping C-63, the censorship law, which contains a provision
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for the house arrest, the preemptive arrest, a kind of restraining order against anyone
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who the government believes is likely to commit hate speech, speech the government hates.
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If they pass C-63, maybe that's what they'll do the next time to stop us.
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Not foist a $50,000 extortion fee on us, but just throw us in jail.
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Sometimes it feels like you're surrounded every day, a new university encampment supporting
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Hamas, and really, in not very vague language, condemns Jews or Zionists, which most Jews
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And it can be frustrating, because where are the police?
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Where are the police who would arrest you if you weren't wearing a mask?
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Who would arrest you if you were out past a curfew in Montreal?
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Well, they have a very light touch here, don't they?
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I mean, I remember the total freakout at the trucker convoy in Ottawa when some liberal
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provocateur held a Nazi flag for about five seconds, just long enough for a liberal affiliated
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photographer to snap it, then tucked it away, and that was the national conversation for
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Whereas, for example, you can see here in Calgary, someone not hiding their identity,
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not an agent provocateur, a pro-Hamas supporter, just full-on giving the Sieg Heil salute, the
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And by the way, there were politicians at that event who have not been asked to disavow.
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I mean, I was at Columbia University, one of the finest universities in the world, and
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And I think part of my shock is not the depravity of the protesters, but the meekness of those
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It's a private university with rules, and yet they decline to enforce them.
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It's even worse in some cities, like in Washington State.
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On the other hand, I suppose the states that fix their problems aren't in the news long
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I saw this the other day, where pro-Hamas protesters took to the street in Florida, blocking the highway
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According to this report, they were only there 11 minutes before police cleared the streets.
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Other universities have responded very vigorously.
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UNC just voted to take all the money from their DEI spending, diversity, equity, inclusion spending,
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And so I look across the wasteland of Canadian universities, and I've personally put eyes on campuses as diverse as, I was at UBC the other day,
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and we've covered McGill and U of T, our friend David Menzies there.
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I mentioned before, in Calgary, right outside City Hall, there was someone given the Sieg Heil.
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And remember, the mayor of that city boycotted a Jewish community event because it had a star of day with their Jody Gondek,
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the most unpopular mayor in that city's history.
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But what about the campus encampments in Edmonton and Calgary?
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Well, here's some footage of the police clearing out the encampments at the University of Alberta.
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Quite a contrast to what we saw at UBC or McGill.
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And our friend Sidney Fazzard in Calgary has been attending these Hamas events and the
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encampment, and he was there for hours as the police decided to move in.
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He joins us now from Calgary, and he's going to walk us through the events as they happen.
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Sid, first of all, thanks very much for being here, and thanks for going to sort of a risky
00:29:18.020
I mean, I don't think you were in grave peril, but you absolutely could have been hit either
00:29:23.240
by a protester, or you could have, I suppose, come within range of some reaction by the police.
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In fact, I don't think the police were thrilled to see you.
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That's the best of rebel journalism, and we're right up there with the cameras.
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Well, absolutely, and thank you for having me on today.
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I should say it's a top of the potential risk there of these aggravators in the crowd.
00:29:50.100
So I was actually limping around the entire time, but as you can see, it was well worth
00:29:56.360
It was quite the enforcement that was taking place.
00:29:59.900
I understand, at least in the University of Alberta case, that three quarters of the people
00:30:05.320
in this university encampment were not even students.
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There were people who were opportunistically going to make some sort of a political statement.
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I think that lends credibility to these university administrators who were saying, get out of
00:30:23.560
And why don't you throw to some clips that you recorded that illustrate the case?
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Tell us, think us through it, because you were there for hours.
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When it comes to, I'll address this first, when it comes to the organizers of these events,
00:30:36.460
you'll notice that the police are negotiating or conversing, I should say, with activists
00:30:43.240
They're not conversing with the student demonstrators who are on site, because realistically, there
00:30:47.880
are far less of them than there are people who do not belong at that university.
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Whether it's activists, whether it's people within the Islamic community, as we saw, the
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signage there that they have kind of represents this idea, too, of the indigenous relations
00:31:04.140
But they go with that, and they go with North America as being Turtle Island, and they lace
00:31:10.720
You can see there's queers for Palestine as well.
00:31:13.140
And there was even a full-blown Muslim prayer section that we saw on the field just beside
00:31:19.200
So there's some interesting stuff going on there.
00:31:21.880
But again, I can't stress enough the fact that these are activists that are embedding
00:31:26.200
themselves into these quasi-student demonstrations.
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I mean, by nature of having a quote-unquote encampment on a university, you're going to
00:31:34.340
have students that do have sympathy toward the demonstration.
00:31:38.380
Obviously, there's many people at a university.
00:31:40.360
But by far, these people are the agitators on site.
00:31:44.220
And you can actually see in the morning, it was very calm.
00:31:48.040
They had actually gotten there at 6.30 in the morning.
00:31:50.500
They were issued trespass notices by the staff of the university in the morning as well.
00:31:59.960
They were actually just hanging around in large numbers a few blocks away from the encampment.
00:32:07.700
At one point, maybe around 5, 6 o'clock, the Calgary police, they came in with a riot squad.
00:32:14.820
But first, they announced, hey, guys, you have to leave.
00:32:23.660
You're trespassing on university school property.
00:32:25.880
Many of these people not even being students, although some alleging to be staff members of
00:32:35.780
After they arrived, the riot squad, all of the members of the encampment, they actually kind of
00:32:41.740
clustered together and they had a conversation amongst themselves.
00:32:45.300
They established what the damage might have been if they were to stay and get arrested,
00:32:50.560
whether or not if they were a student, they would perhaps have to deal with being expelled
00:32:55.340
or trespassed from the property, which could complicate that.
00:32:58.500
But they even warned as they were deciding what to do as the riot police showed up, they
00:33:03.940
warned if you're not a student or if you're on a student visa, you should separate yourself
00:33:10.000
from this instance because there might be additional repercussions.
00:33:13.960
So a real smorgasbord of activism that's going on at these places, it's very interesting.
00:33:21.160
I think it's a little slightly comical, is that the demonstrators decided, okay, the
00:33:27.420
We have to leave, you know, take your stuff and go kind of thing.
00:33:31.400
And they held a vote and the vote was 23 people wanted to stay and 17 people wanted to leave.
00:33:37.840
And as soon as they made that announcement, the Calgary police decided, okay, there's, you
00:33:42.600
know, 20 feet of empty space here where the tents are still set up.
00:33:45.480
And there's a police, not a police line, sorry, a wall that they had constructed.
00:33:53.160
They took out the stuff that was in this empty space as the activists were all gathered together.
00:33:59.480
And they stopped for hours saying, you guys got to go.
00:34:03.000
They re-entered the conversation with these activists who were there and said, look, you've
00:34:11.240
And then you can see again, this whole time throughout the day, it's these activists that
00:34:16.480
are conversing with the university staff, that are conversing with the Calgary police.
00:34:23.060
And you can even see them later in the footage when a clash breaks out.
00:34:27.340
They're behind the scenes as they push the students to the front to engage with police.
00:34:34.380
Like, are they, for example, when I was in the United Kingdom on one of their huge marches,
00:34:39.160
there are Muslim organizers, but there's also old stock white Brits with the Socialist Workers
00:34:48.380
There's a bit of a, I mean, you mentioned the hodgepodge of different activist groups.
00:34:51.520
Would you say that the bosses here, you say they were putting the students at the front,
00:35:05.740
Well, I've been taking a look at some of the footage and some of the live streams that
00:35:11.740
Now, I don't necessarily want to go too deep into who they are, because I've just kind of
00:35:17.080
But for some of the individuals there, you've got people that are, you know, activist musicians
00:35:22.520
You've got people that are going to communist events.
00:35:27.380
You've got people that are associated with immigration as well.
00:35:30.260
And many of these activists who aren't students have photos, selfies that they have with the
00:35:35.680
current mayor, Jody Gondek, the former mayor, Naheed Nenshi, even federal people like the
00:35:40.920
prime minister in Jagmeet, Justin Trudeau, and then Jagmeet Singh as well.
00:35:44.600
So it's interesting that these people are showing up on campus, disrupting and probably,
00:35:50.080
I mean, I can't make this assertion, but I would assume that the funding is probably
00:35:53.460
coming from some of these older individuals who've been engaged in this activism for a while.
00:35:58.360
Sometimes I have called Antifa the street teams of the left-wing political parties.
00:36:05.840
And if these folks are literally posing for selfies with Jody Gondek or Justin Trudeau,
00:36:12.400
Let me ask you a question, because I've attended a few of these different campuses, and I can
00:36:17.820
get a few questions in, but when they Google who I am or when they, if I ask too sharp a
00:36:24.060
question, they immediately clam up and say, we're not talking to you.
00:36:27.480
Talk to our spokesman, and the spokesmen don't like talking to me either.
00:36:34.220
Did you have any interaction with them, or did they shun you as well?
00:36:38.820
And I find this an interesting question, because protesters usually want their message heard.
00:36:45.040
And even if they're just shouting at you, at least they're getting their message out.
00:36:48.600
Did they interact with you, or did they sort of blacklist you too?
00:36:52.060
Well, I should say, and I mentioned this off the top where I had a bit of an injury, and
00:36:57.140
I knew that this could be a bit of a tense situation depending.
00:37:01.500
And obviously, many of these individuals may not like or may decide to target me as a Rebel
00:37:07.720
So I did keep a distance for this one, because I wasn't in a position to necessarily run away
00:37:15.260
But given their rhetoric, and given what I'd seen at the demonstration, they are not keen
00:37:21.280
The media, I overheard them, mainstream media, I should say, saying, yeah, they're not going
00:37:26.260
to give us, you know, talk to us or give us an interview.
00:37:32.000
And in large part, it's because they don't actually know what they're talking about.
00:37:35.400
And if I could just say that, the one song you'll hear them singing, we shall not be
00:37:40.920
And look into the history of where that comes from, and that tells you exactly what these
00:37:44.600
people know about the protests they're advocating for.
00:37:46.720
Yeah, I think one of the funniest things I saw was at the Fashion Institute of Technology
00:37:51.240
in New York City, right after the encampment broke in there.
00:37:59.240
I mean, I don't know all the flags in the world, but I didn't recognize these.
00:38:03.900
And I asked them, and they said, oh, they're the Palestinian flags?
00:38:08.620
And I mean, listen, not knowing a flag is not the end of the world.
00:38:14.400
Some of them, there's some ethnic or religious solidarity.
00:38:17.540
Some of them, it's just fight the man, fight the power.
00:38:20.880
A lot of it is what Dr. James Lindsay says, the issue isn't the issue.
00:38:36.300
Let's be excited on the front page of the newspaper.
00:38:40.540
I mean, there are a lot of social reasons, too.
00:38:45.120
When I was at Columbia University, a lot of the trans people who clearly were having social difficulties in life, if I may say, they found a sense of community there.
00:38:56.880
So there's a lot of reasons to attend these things besides what's written on the placards.
00:39:01.060
Well, listen, I really want to thank you for going there at some personal risk, and I'm glad you didn't get hurt because in the past, some of our people have been hit.
00:39:09.060
It's an 18-minute master video, and I encourage anyone to see it.
00:39:14.780
And, Sid, you've been covering the – in fact, it was your footage, I think, that caught – at least it's still footage – some of the craziness outside City Hall.
00:39:22.680
There was that Sieg Heil, which eight months ago would have caused a freakout in society, but now it's just normal.
00:39:30.960
So, Sid, thanks very much for covering these things in Calgary.
00:39:35.560
And if I could say, you know, in regards to the individual doing the Sieg Heil, that wasn't the first time we saw that at one of these Calgary Palestinian protests either.
00:39:42.160
There were other individuals who do that, and if I could express the big difference that I see between these current demonstrations and what we saw, let's say, during the Freedom Convoy, is in the Freedom Convoy,
00:39:52.220
if there was somebody who waved a Nazi flag or came there expressing these extremist thoughts, they would actively be pushed out by the crowd.
00:40:05.120
We don't want to be associated with whatever nutbaggery is going on here.
00:40:08.740
Whereas, in these protests, currently, we see that person with the Sieg Heil.
00:40:12.920
You know, one person walks over and says, you know, we don't know what they said, but realistically, they aren't getting these people out of their groups.
00:40:19.340
They are bringing these people into their umbrella, these people with extremist tendencies.
00:40:24.500
It reminds me of what Douglas Murray said about the UK, which is, if you went to a big protest and you saw people with swastikas, you wouldn't go back.
00:40:35.080
But these folks see it, they see that sort of thing, and they go back every week, which, even if they themselves aren't flying it, they're fine with that.
00:40:48.240
You know, it's very interesting that Alberta's police in Calgary and Edmonton were the most vigorous, but it's not shocking to me.
00:40:55.440
It reminds me of some of the Texas or Florida police who have been very vigorous.
00:41:00.800
And I think it's sort of like graffiti and James Q. Wilson's theory of broken windows.
00:41:08.480
If you see a broken window and it's not repaired, pretty soon every window is going to be broken because the message is that's how we are around here.
00:41:23.660
That graffiti, when Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City, he cracked down on the small stuff first to set a new tone of what we don't allow here.
00:41:32.440
And one of the most heartbreaking things about these encampments is it's sending a signal.
00:41:45.960
So it's good to see that Alberta is saying that's not who we are.
00:42:13.460
Maritime Mom says this government is worse than the mafia.
00:42:16.040
It really felt like the mafia or some sort of shakedown like that.
00:42:19.800
When I was talking to the event venue operator, he said, please don't cause a fuss.
00:42:26.140
I'm just doing business with you for a weekend, but I have to stay here forever.
00:42:31.640
Darren says, they thought that $49,000 would be enough to shut down the event, but they
00:42:36.740
So it should be safe to assume that next time they will demand much more.
00:42:40.560
Well, I'm worried that they'll manufacture some sort of crisis or by then they'll have
00:42:44.060
this restraining order, this preemptive arrest for hate speech.
00:42:49.120
CLD says, ah, so according to her, truckers are bad, terrorist leaders are good.
00:42:57.740
If you said, Ezra, what are the top five things you'd talk about?
00:43:02.080
Freedom, smaller government, I hate censorship.
00:43:10.240
Um, I, you know, I mean, you don't want to talk about ethical oil sometimes.
00:43:19.600
I talk about Israel since October 7th, but I don't think I do so obsessively.
00:43:24.380
In fact, I'm, I'm actually more concerned about what's happening in our own cities with
00:43:28.960
What I mean by all of that is, I don't think Jewish stuff is in the top five issues we cover
00:43:36.960
I mean, I suppose maybe if you count Hamas encampments, but I think those are an offense
00:43:46.580
I guess my point is, I consider myself pro-Jewish, but Rebel News is much more than that.
00:43:53.120
And the vast majority of Rebel News staff are from every different background, Christian,
00:44:01.860
As long as you believe in freedom, you're a rebel in my eyes.
00:44:05.860
So it's sort of weird that they're coming for us.
00:44:09.680
But as long as we stay true to you, the viewer, I think we'll be okay.
00:44:15.680
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,