Rebel News reporter Robert Krejcik joins us to talk about his coverage of Tamara Leach's trial, and his interview with her lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon. We play some clips from Robert's time in court, including when he chatted with Leach.
00:01:29.100It was great to hang out with such enthusiastic rebels.
00:01:31.500But I have to say, the number one thing weighing on me was that the trip started exactly the same day that Tamara Leach's trial started in Ottawa.
00:01:43.780And we, of course, have been following Tamara Leach since the trucker convoy.
00:01:47.620The Democracy Fund has been paying for Tamara Leach's lawyer, crowdfunded from Rebel News' viewers.
00:01:56.460So, and as you know, Rebel News published Tamara Leach's wonderful autobiography, a great bestseller, by the way, and we helped put on a tour of her book.
00:02:07.340So we love Tamara Leach, and we think that putting aside our affection for her, it's indisputable that she was the newsmaker of the year last year.
00:02:17.980And this trial is one of the most important trials of the year this year.
00:02:23.260So I felt a genuine pain that I and my colleague Sheila Gunn-Reed, who's gotten to know Tamara very well, that we were out of the country, off of the continent.
00:02:36.600But I was deeply relieved when I saw the great work done by our Ottawa reporter, Robert Krejcik, in tandem with young Lincoln Jay, who first made his name as a journalist during the convoy itself a year and a half ago.
00:02:53.060So that tag team of Robert Krejcik in the court, live tweeting every day, Lincoln Jay with the camera outside the court, I think not only did they cover the basis, they did a great job of showing people what was going on.
00:03:09.480So without further to do, let me now introduce to you Robert Krejcik, who's been doing such a good job on the ground.
00:03:14.960So, Robert, congratulations and even more, thank you for really stepping it up and doing great coverage when Sheila and I were away, because that was sort of our beat, and we weren't there for those key days.
00:03:31.260I want to thank you for the kind words.
00:03:33.760It's great to hear that sort of praise from the big boss himself and also from Sheila.
00:03:38.700I've had a lot of help, Lincoln Jay's incredible, and of course the team behind the scenes is really upgrading my capabilities.
00:03:44.960So there's a lot of stuff in terms of assistance and help and guidance that may not be visible when you're seeing me out there, but it's definitely a team effort.
00:03:52.760Well, that's nice of you to say those words about the team.
00:03:55.480Why don't you give our viewers a bit of a summary?
00:03:58.220I know a lot of people have been going to our special website, TamaraTrial.com.
00:04:03.200That's where we have all our coverage, a compilation of your tweets, and I know folks have been following you as you live tweet from the court.
00:04:11.080But maybe for those of us, like me, who have been out of the country for more than a week, how would you summarize the first, I guess it's almost two full weeks of court?
00:04:22.720What would you say the highlights and the lowlights have been for the month of September so far?
00:04:27.880I'll start with you the grand themes that I think are the major takeaways, and they both intercept.
00:04:37.760The first one will be that the prosecution, in its opening statement, characterized the Freedom Convoy as a demonstration of protest that was anything but peaceful.
00:04:48.920Now, for those who have been with Rebel News for a while, paying attention to it or consuming, you know, firsthand content from the Freedom Convoy or were fortunate enough to attend and participate, you'll know that that description is the opposite of the truth.
00:05:01.860It's not reconcilable with what actually happened.
00:05:04.480You can see it sort of echoes this media narrative that was derisive and denigrating the demonstration through dishonesty.
00:05:12.520Now, how does that relate to the trial?
00:05:14.300Well, the evidence that's been introduced by both the Crown and the defense contradicts that assessment, and I'll give you specifics.
00:05:24.020One of the first pieces of evidence introduced by the prosecution was this 11-and-a-half-minute video montage compilation that was primarily composed of body cam footage that was captured by police officers on the ground during the Freedom Convoy.
00:05:38.860Some of it was also aerial surveillance footage.
00:05:40.840And you would think that the prosecution, which is seeking to secure convictions, would come out with an opening salvo that was very incriminating and that would show a protest as they described it as anything but peaceful.
00:05:55.100But there was no violence to be seen on that video except for, and this is also very interesting, the judge herself remarked on that 11-and-a-half-minute video.
00:06:05.060And she said a couple of days into the trial that the only violence that was seen on that video came from a police officer towards a demonstrator.
00:06:14.300The second one, I'll just wrap it up real quick in terms of how this relates to us at Rebel News.
00:06:19.020This may seem a bit self-serving, but this divide between the characterization of the Freedom Convoy and the reality on the ground blends right into the secondary overarching theme, as I see it,
00:06:32.000which is the parallel universes within which the fictional world of so-called mainstream media and legacy media exists.
00:06:40.340And those of us on the dissident side, those of us on the honest side, those of us who are not on the tape from the government trying to present our audiences with accurate information.
00:06:49.020And that weaved into the trial itself, and I'll give you a couple of examples here.
00:06:54.300Some of the videos that were presented by the prosecution and defense included these press conferences that were held by Tamara Leach, by Chris Barber, and some of their volunteers or supporters.
00:07:03.500And they would remark regularly on how the characterizations from the media, you know, whites, supremacists at these protests, races, UFOs, all these nonsense buzzwords that are regularly used to derive detractors,
00:07:16.160were not compatible with what you were seeing on the ground, which was shared by both Tamara Leach and Chris Barber with their videos on site.
00:07:24.420And, of course, anyone is welcome to do that themselves.
00:07:26.540There are still live streams out there that you can see reporting from Rebel News, for example, where Lincoln Jay and others were all out there on the streets of Ottawa capturing hundreds of hours of footage.
00:07:36.580You can see for yourself that the way CBC types would describe it is not what was actually happening.
00:07:43.120Well, you said so many interesting things there.
00:07:45.500I want to go back to your reference to the judge.
00:07:48.480A lot of people are worried about the independence of our judicial system, and I'm one of them.
00:07:54.380Even though I used to be a lawyer and an officer of the court, as they say, I still have a respect for the law.
00:08:01.280I've got to, because what else is our choice?
00:08:04.360But still, I can't help but notice that not a single substantial lockdown policy anywhere in the country has been declared unconstitutional.
00:08:13.040Our Supreme Court hasn't even bothered to hear a lockdown case yet at all.
00:08:19.200And I think a lot of people are starting to lose faith in the courts.
00:08:23.720And yet you say that at one moment the judge said something that I think could be characterized as sympathetic to the defense by pointing out that the only violence in a video, 11-minute video clip by the prosecution, was police violence.
00:08:39.540So I think that's a very interesting thing for the judge to say out loud.
00:08:43.600Judges normally keep their cards close to their chest and wait until the judgment, the verdict, to give their opinion.
00:08:50.840Can you tell me anything about the judge?
00:09:00.380Does she sort of take a hands-off approach?
00:09:03.160Have there been other things she has said that maybe suggest she's more sympathetic to Tamara Leach and Chris Barber than might be expected?
00:09:15.800Well, since I'm there every day, of course I can give you insights into her behaviors and her remarks.
00:09:20.040And I also initially thought that that statement that she made where she specifically remarked on how the only violence visible in that video, that 11.5 video montage compilation, only came from a police officer towards a demonstrator.
00:09:34.500And I also use that word, sympathetic.
00:09:51.720So this was Thursday, I think yesterday, in which a video of Brian Peckford's speech at the Freedom Convoy was shared by the defense.
00:10:00.540And for those that don't know, Brian Peckford was one of the composers, one of the drafters of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which I think we can agree or we can state fairly is sort of foundational legal document in Canada.
00:10:12.240He was also a former premier in Newfoundland.
00:10:14.480And Brian Peckford remarked a lot about the violations that you just commented on as a function of what I call the COVID-19 enterprise, this apparatus of censorship, surveillance, violation of your basic rights to movement, to due process, property rights, freedom of association, religious rights.
00:10:37.120So basically all of our fundamental rights were violated without due process in the auspices of the so-called public health framework.
00:10:43.480Don't be fooled by those who try to tell you that somehow you can skirt around the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
00:11:46.320She is authoritative when she thinks that things are sort of going off the rails, which is a quote that she used.
00:11:52.580And she definitely is mindful of not wasting courtroom resources.
00:11:58.340And I'll give you one more example of that, too, in which the prosecution is trying to submit requests to change some of their evidentiary submissions to refine certain evidence that was submitted or introduce these or those witnesses.
00:12:10.620And she has remarked several times, she stated, almost reprimanded, I would say, the prosecution to Crown for not doing all of these things by August 1st, which apparently was their sort of tentatively agreed-upon deadline between all the parties at hand.
00:12:25.500And it makes sense because, of course, both sides have to know the case, or more importantly, the defense, the accused, has to know the case they have to meet.
00:12:35.780So if the prosecution is changing the game just moments before trial or even during the trial, that does not allow them to make a fair and full defense, especially since the facts at issue here happened a year and a half ago.
00:13:33.700He was—yeah, I think he had a vendetta.
00:13:35.960And just a few months ago, he was yanked off the file and replaced with the prosecutors who were actually running the trial.
00:13:46.700And I had mixed feelings about that because on the one hand, Karimji, if I'm saying his name right, was so revved up and he was running so hard and he was quarreling with the judge.