EZRA LEVANT ｜ Is free speech dead？ My depressing day in court
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
160.3421
Summary
I was in court today at the Federal Court of Canada fighting against the censorship of my 2019 best-selling book, The Libranos. What a weird battle, 4 and a half years later, to be fighting 7 lawyers and bureaucrats on the government side, with just one lawyer on our side.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, my friends. I was in court today at the Federal Court of Canada fighting
00:00:03.440
against the censorship of my 2019 best-selling book, The Libranos. What a weird battle,
00:00:10.260
four and a half years later, to be fighting seven lawyers and bureaucrats on the government side,
00:00:15.360
just one lawyer on our side. I'll tell you how the trial went. Before I do that, let me invite
00:00:20.440
you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just
00:00:25.000
go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month, which doesn't sound like a
00:00:29.800
lot of money, I know, but it really adds up for us, so it makes a difference. Please consider
00:00:33.760
supporting us. All right, here's today's podcast. Tonight, I'm in court all day here in Toronto about
00:00:54.260
my book, The Libranos. Is it, in fact, an illegal publication? It's September 21st,
00:01:08.700
I'm standing outside the Federal Court of Canada building in downtown Toronto's concrete jungle.
00:01:24.040
I've just spent the morning in courtroom 7C. We have one lawyer. There are four lawyers for the
00:01:31.920
government, two lawyers for the Elections Canada office, two lawyers for Trudeau's Justice Department,
00:01:38.580
and then three bureaucrats supporting them. There are seven government lawyers and bureaucrats
00:01:45.480
fighting against our one lawyer, and of course, there's the entire investigative staff of Elections
00:01:51.700
Canada behind them. I estimate that between the lawyers and the bureaucrats, there are 20 people
00:01:58.280
on the Canadian taxpayer's dime prosecuting me for the book I published more than four years ago called
00:02:05.960
The Libranos. It's actually the most best-selling book that I've ever published. It was a criticism
00:02:11.580
of Trudeau and his corruption, and I footnoted the book intensively. Not a single fact in that book
00:02:18.900
has ever been disputed. It's got that really fun cover for anyone over 40. They know what it refers to,
00:02:27.400
the Libranos. It's a takeoff of The Sopranos, a classic TV show about a mob boss from New Jersey
00:02:36.440
called Tony Soprano. I don't think anyone under 40 knows what that's about, but Trudeau certainly
00:02:43.740
knows what it's about, and he hated that book. And so very early on, I remember it was over Christmas
00:02:50.660
2019. He had Elections Canada investigate me as the author and publisher and that book,
00:02:59.660
and he actually retained two 30-year veterans of the RCMP to come after me. These weren't just,
00:03:07.920
like, I mean, to go after an author and a publisher? Who do you even choose? Well, he found two of the
00:03:13.180
most senior Mounties he could, and he actually got them to go after an author, and they summoned me
00:03:19.820
to their secure headquarters in Hull, Quebec, and they interrogated me for an hour. As you know,
00:03:26.740
I brought a hidden camera in there and recorded some of the crazy things they said, and I want to show
00:03:32.580
you some excerpts from that just to remind you. I'll tell you some of the things they said.
00:03:36.620
They acknowledged there were 24 books published about Trudeau during the 2019 campaign. That's
00:03:44.900
when you publish books about politicians during an election. After the election is over, people aren't
00:03:50.040
that interested in a campaign book. They acknowledged that my book was the only one being prosecuted.
00:03:56.280
They asked me questions about my editorial plans. They asked me about all sorts of ideas that were
00:04:02.320
Rebel News business, and they asked me, and this was very key, why didn't I register the book with
00:04:08.380
the government? Here's some excerpts from that hidden video. Today we're here about Rebel News Network
00:04:14.800
Limited. Oh, I know that, and I'm just asking you to confirm that not a single other loving book of
00:04:23.980
Trudeau is being investigated. But once we're done, if you believe that there should be complaints that
00:04:27.780
No, because I'm not a censor like you. I'm not a bully and a censor. I'm not a bureaucrat
00:04:33.420
looking to justify my budget like you. I go out and earn my living every day, fella.
00:04:41.320
You call in authors to grill them about a book criticizing your boss. Think about who you are.
00:04:47.720
We call the director of Rebel News Network Limited. Yeah, who happens to be the author of the book.
00:04:52.880
I think there's going to be a chapter about you two fellas in the next edition.
00:05:06.780
The knowledge that you would have or not have of the election act, the Canada Elections Act,
00:05:12.020
when you are planning the book, and you, the new third party rules, because I believe there's
00:05:20.140
some comments on your stuff as well about that. Did you give any consideration of saying,
00:05:25.520
maybe I should register as a third party for this circumstance, or maybe I shouldn't,
00:05:31.920
because of my interpretation of what I'm going to do, or did you not make that determination?
00:05:39.600
Tim, I appreciate the question. Yeah, I absolutely did think about that at great length.
00:05:50.280
Well, sure, some of them. I mean, I thought the day I register with the government to write a book
00:05:59.180
is the day we no longer are the true north strong and free.
00:06:04.400
And if elections Canada's commissioners are stupid enough to prosecute me for writing,
00:06:13.820
publishing, and promoting a book about an election during an election, then that's an
00:06:18.340
important fight to have, because we need to roll back these pencil-neck bureaucrats and their
00:06:24.180
blackface boss, and we need to remind them that we're still a free country. So I thought about it
00:06:31.340
Well, I enjoyed giving them a bit of a tongue lashing, but they got the last laugh, didn't they?
00:06:35.960
Because they convicted me of publishing an illegal book, and they fined me thousands of dollars. By
00:06:42.400
illegal book, here's what I mean. They claim that that book was actually a campaign document that
00:06:50.100
needed to be registered with the government as if I was a political party. But like I say,
00:06:54.960
there were 24 books published during the election season of 2019. 23 of those 24 books were either
00:07:02.760
neutral or positive towards Justin Trudeau. For example, Aaron Wary at the CBC State Broadcaster
00:07:09.360
published a loving hagiography of Trudeau. That could be called liberal partisan propaganda,
00:07:16.080
but of course it's not, because it's a book. And the Canada Elections Act itself specifically,
00:07:23.840
as you can see here, exempts books and the promotion of books, as long as two things are
00:07:30.400
met. Number one, are they sold for a commercial price? Yes, that's the case of Aaron Wary's love
00:07:35.780
letter and my criticism. And number two, whether they would be published regardless of an election.
00:07:41.600
And I don't really know what that means, because regardless of an election now, an election coming,
00:07:48.160
I mean, there will always be an election. There's always the next election. I don't really understand
00:07:52.780
that. Rebel News publishes books about Trudeau all the time. I publish one called Trumping Trudeau.
00:07:58.720
I publish one called China Virus. We talk about Trudeau every day. This one was time to coincide
00:08:05.960
with the election campaign, like the other 23 books published about Trudeau. I was never asked
00:08:12.340
if I would publish it regardless of an election, because I don't even think the question makes
00:08:17.280
sense. There will always be an election if elections were somehow suspended in Canada. Well, I think we
00:08:22.320
would publish that book and many more, don't you think? But instead, in order to convict me,
00:08:29.680
because my book was totally legal, it was sold out of commercial value,
00:08:33.240
and it was published regardless of an election, they needed to change the law just for me to
00:08:40.380
weaponize the Canada Elections Act against an author for the first time in history. Never before in
00:08:46.520
Canadian history has a book been prosecuted or fined under the Canada Elections Act. It's never
00:08:52.920
happened before. And my book, I mean, I like the book. I think it's a good book, but it wasn't
00:08:57.340
particularly startling. It wasn't particularly innovative. It just criticized Justin Trudeau.
00:09:02.620
The same way books historically have criticized Stephen Harper or Brian Mulroney or Jean-Cretien
00:09:08.600
or whomever. So Elections Canada made a sneaky little change. Although, and let me put it on
00:09:15.300
the screen one more time, as you can see here, Canada Elections Act says the test is, was it
00:09:21.060
published at a commercial rate? And number two, would it have been published regardless of whether it's
00:09:25.560
an election? Yes and yes. But Elections Canada changed the rule just for me. They said, no, no,
00:09:33.600
no. If you timed the election to coincide with a campaign, that's against the law. And Levant
00:09:40.700
admitted he did that, so we got him. Yeah, that's not what the law says. And like I say, all 24 books
00:09:47.380
about the 2019 campaign were published during the 2019 campaign, that is when you publish
00:09:52.880
books, it would be sort of crazy to write a book about the election campaign and then wait until
00:09:57.720
the election is over to publish a book about the election campaign. That doesn't make any sense.
00:10:02.080
That's why that's not in the law. But that's how Elections Canada's sneaky little lawyers changed
00:10:07.580
the law to get me. They couldn't get me under the law, so they changed the law and they fined me
00:10:14.100
$3,000. Now I'm in this position from time to time. $3,000 is a lot of money, but it's not going
00:10:21.080
to bankrupt Rebel News, thank God. And so we had a choice, just pay the $3,000 and grumble and move
00:10:27.700
on or say, whoa, what are you doing? Why are you criminalizing books and writing them? And since
00:10:36.860
when do we summon authors to secret meetings where they're being interrogated by senior RCMP
00:10:44.020
officers about their politics? And they went through our tweets and they went through our
00:10:48.860
videos. When does that happen? Since when do police do that? And so we did the principal thing
00:10:55.540
that we like to do is we go to court and we appeal. Now the first time you appeal an Elections Canada
00:11:00.480
ruling, you appeal it within Elections Canada itself, which is rather ridiculous. The same people
00:11:05.920
go through it and review it. So obviously we were convicted a second time. Today we're in the Federal
00:11:11.860
Court of Canada. And like I say, there are seven Trudeau staffers in court versus our one lawyer.
00:11:19.460
I'm excited to be in court and I'm excited to test this and I'm excited for the fact that we're the
00:11:23.480
only people who would do this. I'm also sad that we're the only people who would do this.
00:11:29.020
I got to say in Canada, I can think of five organizations off the top of my head that are
00:11:33.660
supposed to care about freedom of the press and freedom of speech. There's something called the
00:11:37.760
Canadian Association of Journalists. There's something called Canadian Journalists for Free
00:11:41.820
Expression. There's a Canadian Civil Liberties Association. There's Penn Canada, of which I'm a
00:11:47.480
dues-paying member. There's Amnesty International. There's five right there. Not one of them has even
00:11:53.500
said a word, even tweeted a word, let alone put out a press release, let alone sent lawyers to intervene
00:11:59.900
in court, let alone said, hang on a second, since when do we summon authors to an interrogation? Since
00:12:07.260
when do we find authors for a book? And this, of course, was a book. It's for sale as a book. It
00:12:13.120
was an Amazon bestseller. It actually sold more copies than the other 23 books combined. It's a real
00:12:19.560
book. And by the way, who's right is it for the police to determine what's a real book or not?
00:12:25.060
Anyways, but obviously the Libranos is a real book. You yourself might even have one. By the way,
00:12:29.740
it's still for sale on Amazon. So none of those five so-called civil liberties groups were there
00:12:36.180
or were anywhere. I was sitting in the court alone with my lawyer. That's okay. Sometimes we're alone
00:12:43.980
and we fight those lonely battles and we win. It's a wonderful feeling. A couple of weeks ago,
00:12:48.840
we beat Stephen Gilbeau. We had a consent order commanding him to unblock us on Twitter and pay
00:12:55.420
us $20,000 in costs. And the reason I call that a victory is it depoliticizes the government.
00:13:01.860
Politicians can't block or ban their enemies list just because they don't like people. I thought that
00:13:06.600
was a big win. We're in court today, but I have to say, and this is, I'm talking to you now at noon.
00:13:12.440
I'll do an update later after court. I have to say, I don't think it's going well. Our lawyer is making
00:13:19.520
the case, but the judge, there was one moment where the judge in particular said, and I'm
00:13:24.700
paraphrasing, well, what's the big deal of having to show the government your plan, your plan for the
00:13:30.260
book, your marketing plan, your editorial plan? What's the big deal? Are you kidding me? What's
00:13:36.360
the big deal? Now, by the way, look at the Canada Elections Act, the line before the book exemption.
00:13:41.280
And by the way, it's an exemption, not just for books, but for the promotion of books. And they
00:13:46.360
really hate the fact that we promoted this book with a lawn sign that had three words on it,
00:13:51.360
buy the book. They hate that lawn sign because it was so much fun. Anyways, both books and the
00:13:57.100
promotion of books are exempted, but look at the line right before it in the Canada Elections Act.
00:14:02.140
Obviously, it exempts editorials, letters, opinions, because if anything weighing in on an election
00:14:08.400
is a government regulated activity, well, then every single human with an opinion would be treated
00:14:14.480
like a government problem. So imagine a judge saying, oh, what's the big deal of an author
00:14:21.300
having to go down to the police and explain them? So what's the big deal to tell your plans? Well,
00:14:25.960
what's the big deal about any journalist? What's the big deal about anyone having, you know what,
00:14:29.780
we live in a free country. That's a big deal. And the idea of journalists being summoned to talk to
00:14:34.240
the police is what they do in dictatorships, not in Canada. And I'm really worried. Now, I got to say
00:14:39.040
that maybe the judge was just asking these difficult questions to see what my lawyer would
00:14:43.320
say in response, but I'm not sure. She seemed to genuinely think it's no big deal for us to have
00:14:50.060
to go and sit down and answer questions and be grilled by a couple of 30-year RCMP vets just because.
00:14:57.480
And there was one moment where an Elections Canada lawyer said, yeah, we most likely violated
00:15:03.620
Rebel News's charter of rights and charter rights under the charter of rights and freedoms. She
00:15:09.080
actually said that. And there wasn't there weren't gasps in the courtroom, the courtroom being just
00:15:15.120
me and a bunch of lawyers. It was just a matter of fact. Yeah, sure. We probably did violate Rebel
00:15:20.400
News's civil liberties. Yeah. Welcome to Canada in 2023. Now, the day's not over, but I'm not sure if
00:15:28.140
it's going to get any better because up next are the Justice Department lawyers who are going to be
00:15:33.320
arguing that this is fine and this is normal and that's Canada. Look, I'm a little bit depressed
00:15:38.320
about this. I mean, I think that part of Rebel News is to fight the uphill battles, to fight the tough
00:15:44.420
battles, to be contrarian, to be non-compliant. We never take the easy way. It's just not in our blood.
00:15:51.820
For the last three years during the lockdown and the forced vaccine mandates, we didn't take the easy
00:15:57.240
way. We stood with those who had no friends. We were friends to them. We, in fact, created a whole
00:16:03.480
civil liberties group ourself to provide lawyers for people charged with lockdown offenses or pandemic
00:16:08.960
offenses. So we are with the friendless. Today, it just feels odd to be the friendless one myself.
00:16:17.600
I mean, listen, I know you're my friends, but it feels odd to have the establishment institutions
00:16:22.200
so unfriendly, to have a judge who's just so blasé about government being able to interrogate
00:16:28.680
journalists, to have an Elections Act lawyer so blasé about violating our rights. And, of course,
00:16:35.280
all this happened in 2019. That's when the election was. That's when the book came out.
00:16:40.800
But since then, we've learned so much about election interference in Canada, especially by the
00:16:44.860
Chinese Communist Party. And just a couple of weeks ago, Elections Canada put out a report,
00:16:50.300
and they didn't even mention the word China. Blacklocks had that story. So here we are with
00:16:56.900
seven lawyers and 10 investigators. We've got close to 20 people bearing down on little rebel news from
00:17:03.840
my little book. And that's a higher investigative priority for them than the Chinese Communist Party
00:17:11.360
literally interfering in elections and probably tilting the outcome in several of them. I don't know.
00:17:17.920
Sometimes people say, why do you fight? Move to Florida, they say. I heard that a lot during the
00:17:22.520
lockdowns. We fight because this is our home. We fight because we know it can be better. We fight
00:17:27.960
because you never know when a victory will come. We've had some surprise victories before. In this
00:17:34.580
same court in 2019, Justin Trudeau tried to block us and our reporters from attending the election
00:17:41.360
debates. We went to this court and we won. It happened again in 2021. Like I say, just a couple of weeks
00:17:46.960
ago, we beat Stephen Gilboa. So you can win these David and Goliath battles. I think though, when you
00:17:53.840
look at the numbers, we probably lose more than we win because we're going uphill, because we're going
00:18:00.640
against the grain. I don't know. I think this is an important fight. What do you think? Maybe it's
00:18:07.060
not important. Maybe it's just one book and the fines are only $3,000 and just pay it and grumble and move
00:18:11.340
on. But I can't stand the thought of a country where police do that and get away with it and they
00:18:16.520
do it at the behest of a politician. There was a moment in court today when the lawyer for the
00:18:23.060
canon elections was going through one of David Menzies' videos and was so mad that David Menzies
00:18:29.120
said, we got to get rid of Trudeau. Going through our tweets. And I thought, frankly, who the hell are you?
00:18:35.840
Who the hell are you? I'm not interested in your opinion about my political views.
00:18:41.900
And back to what I think this turns on, the law itself.
00:18:49.020
The fact that the government cannot get me under the law because we published the book
00:18:53.720
for a commercial price and we would have published it regardless of whether there was an election or
00:18:58.720
not. It doesn't even make sense, but of course we would have. They had to change the law in their own
00:19:04.640
mind to get us. Well, you scheduled the book for the election. Yeah, us and everyone else. That's
00:19:10.140
what publishers do. I know I'll be deeply dispirited and my faith in justice will be shaken
00:19:18.580
if some partisan weaponized bureaucrats can make up a new law and go after Trudeau's enemy and tag him
00:19:27.200
just to please Trudeau. And if the courts shrug about it, I don't want to be depressed. The trial is
00:19:33.220
only half done. And who knows? Maybe the judge has a poker face. Maybe those tough questions for my
00:19:38.020
lawyer were just the judge putting my lawyer to the test. Maybe the judge has within her heart
00:19:42.980
a love for civil liberties that I just don't know about.
00:19:47.320
We're going to go back into the court now because we're only on a short lunch break.
00:19:50.780
I'm going to leave you with an update from another trial that's going on today,
00:19:55.720
namely the trial of Tamara Leach in Ottawa. I was there yesterday and I felt very confident for
00:20:00.680
Tamara Leach because the prosecution's case is so pitifully weak. By the way, yesterday in Calgary
00:20:07.280
was the trial of Derek Reimer, the pastor who protested peacefully outside a drag queen story
00:20:13.240
hour. Rebel News is also crowdfunding that legal fight. We're into so many legal fights. Sometimes
00:20:18.560
I think we're a law firm that actually occasionally does some journalism as opposed to the other way
00:20:24.180
around. Let me leave you with an update from Ottawa and then I'm going to come back to you
00:20:29.900
after court here is done for the day. And I'll let you know if the second half of our hearing
00:20:35.620
is more encouraging than the first half. But let me promise you this either way. You know me.
00:20:40.620
You've known me for a while. I've been running Rebel News for almost nine years now and I was a
00:20:45.500
political activist and journalist for years before that.
00:20:48.540
Even if we lose, you know I'm not going to stop fighting. I'll appeal this if we lose
00:20:54.800
and we will fight. You know what? I'm going to write another book about Trudeau and if he wants
00:20:59.280
to arrest me for it or jail me or sentence me, bring it on. I'll come back to you in a moment.
00:21:05.820
Robert Krejcik here for Rebel News in Ottawa, Ontario, the nation's capital at the one million
00:21:23.800
March for Children. It was a massive demonstration. Looks like thousands of people to me.
00:21:29.200
People came out here to oppose what they described as sexual indoctrination of children
00:21:34.460
being thrust upon them within public schools. The message that I heard over and over again was
00:21:41.360
that people are not here to hate anyone, to denigrate anyone, to suppress or segregate or
00:21:47.680
dehumanize anyone. It's a peaceful protest simply to defend the innocence and sanctity of children
00:21:53.900
against what I call the LGBTQ enterprise. If you value and appreciate our on the ground work
00:22:00.280
reporting that you won't get anywhere else, please understand that we can't do this for free
00:22:05.240
and stay up to date with our coverage at stopclassroomgrooming.com and please contribute
00:22:11.560
what you can. So we were here on the ground from the beginning of this demonstration.
00:22:17.060
We got to speak with all flavors of Canadians, many of them, all sorts of backgrounds, professional,
00:22:23.260
geographical, religious, ethnic, racial, professional backgrounds. And we're going to share some of
00:22:28.080
those amazing talks with you right now. We also got to speak with some interesting figures
00:22:32.840
of public interest, such as Maxime Bernier. We also spoke with Camille, one of the organizers
00:22:40.520
I'm here today, like a lot of these people, because of a breakdown in the political system.
00:22:58.280
Doug Ford was elected two terms ago to scrap the liberal sex ed agenda, despite, you know,
00:23:05.200
so many people just wanting to be focusing on math and science and literacy, and it didn't happen.
00:23:11.760
So there's really no solution right now, I think, for a lot of these people.
00:23:14.880
What's important is that kids get the education that they need, not that somebody else wants them
00:23:20.040
to have. I've got 10 grandsons who the younger ones don't need to know this. They need to know
00:23:28.880
how to survive in life with education, not indoctrination.
00:23:34.400
I just don't think that children like me should have their decisions made by a corrupt school system
00:23:42.080
or a corrupt government. I think that my parents know best for me. I don't think that the government
00:23:50.840
Well, the issues are my children being in schools where they promote sexualization.
00:23:59.400
This is something that is very inappropriate. It should stay closed. And why are you promoting
00:24:04.920
in schools? And they say, oh, you know, they're the minority and they're being discriminated
00:24:12.520
It's about our kids. As you know, we want to be sure that kids would be protected because right now,
00:24:21.640
education is not education anymore. It's indoctrination. We must stop that.
00:24:26.200
Well, I got a 16 year old in public education. She's coming home with horror stories about teachers
00:24:33.080
encouraging students before class to get up and either identify or, you know, come out as you will.
00:24:40.440
And no, I don't agree. We need to keep that out of schools. We need to keep it academic,
00:24:47.160
Well, we don't agree with gender ideology being taught in schools.
00:24:54.040
Teachers are there to be teaching math, science, history. Leave the kids out of this gender ideology.
00:25:02.920
You know, this event is an innocent event for families from coast to coast, for fathers and mothers.
00:25:08.920
And we're just trying to protect Canada's kids, at least up until the age 18. We're not looking to
00:25:14.600
oppress or we're not. This is a peaceful protest. But what's happened right now, I saw Jagmeet Singh and
00:25:21.480
the opposition with the counter protesters going like this to me. And that was incredibly disheartening.
00:25:31.000
For me, it has to do with the parents and the parents rights. We see a lot of counter protests here.
00:25:36.840
And my heart goes out to them in their confusion about what this is about.
00:25:41.480
And that is maintained. The narrative is maintained by a small group of people that don't understand
00:25:48.520
what we're trying to do. We absolutely respect all communities, all faiths, all walks of life in
00:25:55.560
this country, this beautiful country. What we are here to do is to voice our concerns as parents,
00:26:03.000
to protect the children and the indoctrination of children, of things that are not appropriate.
00:26:09.240
I think we've seen quite an incredible march here today. Even I didn't expect it to be that big.
00:26:15.400
Because we had the march spread out through small towns all across the country and cities and everywhere.
00:26:19.960
So I wouldn't expect it to be actually this big in Ottawa. So I'm happy to see that. And I think
00:26:25.640
it was it was interesting to see that face off that happened at the start when the crowds were growing
00:26:29.640
there. And we had we had Jagmeet Singh on the one side and he was he was looking at me making eye
00:26:36.200
contact and like mouthing words at me and stuff. Well, I'm here because the education system and the
00:26:42.040
government is trying to push this sexual indoctrination to our children. How can you teach
00:26:48.360
sexual education about adult teams for sexuality to grade ones to grade eight? This has to stop. And
00:26:56.920
we're concerned grandparents, parents. I mean, our children are there to learn in school, not to be
00:27:02.680
indoctrinated with something that's not theirs. They're taking away our parental rights. They're asking
00:27:07.880
the kids in school, young kids to decide on the gender. I don't think that's right. The kids can't
00:27:13.400
wake up their minds at that age. And this is just grooming in my eyes. How can we be silent? It says
00:27:20.360
in the Bible, who shall arise against the evil doers in the land? So this agenda is absolutely anti-biblical.
00:27:30.440
I just want to say that we're not spreading hate. We only spread love. But everyone's free to do what they
00:27:35.720
want. People that don't procreate have absolutely no right to tell us how to raise our children.
00:27:41.000
They do them and we do us. That's it. You do you, boo, and we do us. We want freedom. That's it.
00:27:47.480
Well, I feel like now it's time to talk because things are going crazier. People have been silent
00:27:54.600
for a long time and then not taking a stand from whatever is happening all around the world, especially
00:28:00.360
in Canada regarding that LGBTQ and stuff like that. But now they're getting so far that they want to
00:28:08.920
indoctrinate our kids in the school. This is not acceptable.
00:28:12.360
No more silence. No more silence. No more silence.
00:28:17.720
So I think I'm here today to tell that the education level in schools is very bad and they have to focus
00:28:25.160
on math, English and French. As a mom, I'm paying a lot of money for private lessons, private classes for
00:28:30.760
my kids. And instead of sending my kids to learn if they are a boy or a girl or about the sexual
00:28:36.680
identity or the orientation about this, I think they have supposed to focus more on the on math,
00:28:43.320
English, French. It's important to understand that the most important thing in a country is their next
00:28:51.720
generation. Education system is paid by our taxes and we need to be aware what is happening right
00:29:08.040
The medicine by these people, the proponents of puberty blocking, little boys are not little boys,
00:29:17.000
little girls are not little girls. These people are dangerous.
00:29:21.480
Do you want to share some remarks with us as to why you're here today?
00:29:24.040
Tell us what's on your mind, what the... I'm asking this guy.
00:29:49.800
I guess not. Nobody wants to talk to you for some reason.
00:31:24.960
I grew up perfectly fine without any of this, none of it.
00:31:41.220
And it was left up to me the same way it should be left up to them.
00:31:46.000
It almost feels like it's parents against the establishment.
00:31:49.640
So I think that's why a lot of people are here today.
00:31:51.200
It's really not about homosexuality or transgenders or anything like that.
00:31:57.300
I don't think that this stuff should be shoved down our throats.
00:31:59.980
I think we should be learning math and English and things that should be taught at school
00:32:08.960
If Pierre Polyev believes he can ignore this, everyone who's here today,
00:32:19.240
They're here because of their beliefs and their defense of human rights, human dignity.
00:32:32.400
Pierre Polyev obviously is still hiding, but I think we'll eventually get the politicians out.
00:32:39.700
They're standing there right now with their finger in the wind wondering whether they should join us or not.
00:32:44.860
I really started being vocal about this about 10 months ago, right, when I got kicked out of school and I'm still not allowed back.
00:32:51.180
The fight is still on, but we're certainly seeing a change in the culture war here and we're winning.
00:32:55.420
I'm looking for Pierre Polyev today and he's not here, but he told the Canadians that he will fight for parental rights.
00:33:04.380
And the best thing to do is to start right now here in Ottawa.
00:33:08.760
And I'm the only national politician that is ready to do that fight, that common sense fight.
00:33:18.740
But we cannot be forcing and indoctrinating them in our education system.
00:33:24.860
These conversations can happen over a dinner table, at home, with family, close people that you love.
00:33:32.260
But in our schools, that's where it needs to stop.
00:33:35.020
I'm not a parent, but I'm here for parental rights.
00:33:39.460
I don't think that the government, through the form of school boards, should be indoctrinating children behind a parent's back.
00:33:50.700
If you look around, Robert, Canada is united coast to coast.
00:33:55.280
We got Jews, we got Christians, we got Buddhists, we got Middle Easterns, we got whites.
00:34:01.200
And what we're trying to do is we're trying to preserve Canada's kids for Canada's parents.
00:34:08.760
And we're trying to uphold one flag, and that's the Canadian flag.
00:34:20.260
And the government needs to respect our rights as parents about what our children are exposed to.
00:34:28.240
But this is about pushing this agenda to little kids.
00:34:38.860
Really, it's amazing the things that they are doing against our kids, and I'm against it.
00:34:43.700
It's about our grandchildren, and not about various small interest groups.
00:34:55.080
Well, I've read about all the books that are in the school curriculum that should not be targeted for grade five and six children.
00:35:05.460
And it's not right what they're doing to children.
00:35:07.920
It's against humanity and the children that brings confusion.
00:35:17.120
They're trying to get every single piece of thing they can divide people so they can conquer.
00:35:24.800
Different from what other people are pushing on you, I think it's really important to show that people actually do care about it.
00:35:33.920
Please keep those things out of our school because let the kids be kids.
00:35:49.420
Well, that was an update from our friends in Ottawa.
00:35:58.940
There's a lot of legal action going on this week.
00:36:02.640
I can't even believe way back on Monday it was Arthur Pawlowski's sentencing in Lethbridge.
00:36:07.800
Tuesday, I was in Calgary fighting against the Calgary Police Service production order yesterday to Meryl Leach.
00:36:18.180
But I think that's because we've filled a void that has been left by so many others.
00:36:27.140
It's done in the matter of Rebel News and the Elections Canada office.
00:36:32.360
The judge has said she's going to reserve her ruling, which means she's going to go back, think about it, do some research, and write it out in long form and send it to us written.
00:36:42.080
Obviously, you wouldn't have a complex constitutional matter like this just spoken off the cuff by a judge.
00:36:50.840
It might take days, more likely weeks, or even most likely I'd say months.
00:36:54.680
But I think I know how it's going to go for a couple of reasons.
00:36:58.920
First of all, I learned that some of the lawyers in there for the government, you had some Justice Department lawyers.
00:37:04.160
You also had extremely expensive private sector lawyers hired by the government to squash us.
00:37:12.820
And, you know, there's this line in the Coen Brothers remake of True Grit.
00:37:18.980
That's a great movie if you haven't seen it, where there's some bandito they're trying to get to do the right thing.
00:37:29.160
And that's sort of how I felt today, because the judge, Justice Strickland is her name, never seemed perturbed at all by the onerous and invasive positions that Elections Canada was taking about books.
00:37:46.460
She thought it was completely normal and acceptable that authors and publishers should have to disclose their plans to Elections Canada to avoid prosecution.
00:38:02.860
The bulk of this afternoon's hearing was the Justice Department of Canada.
00:38:10.660
And they were talking a lot about election law and election finance law in general, which is fine, I suppose, as long as it goes.
00:38:19.180
He said some terrifying things, which are, I guess, the position of the government of Canada.
00:38:22.960
He said, for example, unregulated speech is a threat to democracy.
00:38:42.060
The regulations, it's the censorship that's a threat to elections.
00:38:45.940
And this guy represents the government of Canada, and the judge was sort of just taking it all in.
00:38:54.300
One of the leading cases that the federal government talked about today was a case actually brought by Stephen Harper about 20 years ago.
00:39:05.160
You might recall that before he was prime minister, Stephen Harper was the leader of something called the National Citizens Coalition.
00:39:10.920
And one of the things they did is they challenged a limitation on election spending, and they lost.
00:39:18.940
Stephen Harper went on to become prime minister and amended some of the laws, if I recall.
00:39:24.400
But it made me think Stephen Harper had to champion free speech 20 years ago.
00:39:31.800
20 years ago, there were still some other civil liberties groups in Canada.
00:39:35.200
Here we are in 2023, almost 2024, and it's fallen to us.
00:39:42.560
Stephen Harper had to fight to the Supreme Court of Canada for freedom of speech, and he lost.
00:39:48.600
And here we are 20 years later, Rebel News is fighting, so far only at the federal court.
00:39:53.800
I hope we don't lose either, but maybe it's a burden that's fallen to us,
00:39:58.680
because maybe just like Stephen Harper knew, if he didn't fight that fight, no one would.
00:40:03.520
Well, maybe if Rebel News doesn't fight this fight, no one would.
00:40:07.160
Again, I'm just, the silence of that room, it was actually a very large courtroom.
00:40:15.100
They chose a very small courtroom because it was packed.
00:40:21.920
There were so many supporters for Arthur Pawlowski, and the judge put everyone in the smallest room possible.
00:40:27.600
Here in Toronto, it was a huge room and a beautiful courthouse, actually.
00:40:33.740
The federal court building in Toronto is actually beautiful and modern and huge, and it was empty.
00:40:41.080
On my side, it was almost like the bride and the groom, you know, you sit on which side.
00:40:45.660
So the Rebel side was me and my lawyer Aaron, and then his paralegal was sitting there.
00:40:51.840
And on the government side were four lawyers and three lawyer bureaucrats, and it was like, but still, the room was tabernous.
00:41:03.500
I just worry about that because I believe that freedom is a Canadian character.
00:41:13.840
Diefenbaker, I think it was Laurier who said, freedom is part of our national identity.
00:41:20.780
Diefenbaker went so far as to enshrine the Bill of Rights in Canada.
00:41:24.920
Even the Liberal Party of Canada 40 years ago enshrined the Charter of Rights in Canada, Pierre Trudeau in concert with the premiers.
00:41:35.580
And the thing is, a radical law student today, in five years becomes a radical lawyer, in 10 years becomes a radical law firm partner, and in 20 years becomes a radical judge.
00:41:51.000
And so the left has planted these seeds of tyranny and authoritarianism, and they wait, and they water them, and they grow over time.
00:41:59.600
And in the 20 years since Stephen Harper's free speech case, I think the courts and society has moved towards authoritarianism.
00:42:09.340
I find it troubling, and it's a burden that falls to us at Rebel News.
00:42:16.220
I mean, by the way, we still might win, although I certainly got the feeling that this judge was going to side with the censors.
00:42:22.460
It was really creepy to me to hear the Justice Department say that the $3,000 fine and the lengthy investigation and the $100,000 in legal fees, that none of that was a charter violation at all.
00:42:39.060
In fact, Trudeau's Justice Department lawyer invoked Orwell's name and said, no, it's got nothing to do with that.
00:42:46.800
It's absolutely not Orwellian to investigate an author and fine him $3,000 for wrong think.
00:42:55.000
And I thought to myself, that's an excellent lawyer for Justin Trudeau, because that is Justin Trudeau's own approach.
00:43:03.080
Say something with a straight face, just a brazen statement like, it is not Orwellian to prosecute, convict, and fine an author of $3,000 for a book.
00:43:23.660
If you want to see any background of this, all our court documents, you can go to thelebranos.com.
00:43:30.480
And even though the book is considered contraband, I guess, it's still for sale if you want to read it on Amazon.ca.
00:43:42.740
It's four and a half years later, so obviously so much more has happened.
00:43:46.880
But as I was sitting there in court, I thought to myself, I'm going to write another book.
00:43:55.040
I'm going to write another book about Justin Trudeau, and I'm going to publish that other book.
00:44:01.600
And if they want to come for me again, let them.
00:44:05.400
Because I am not going to accept this censorship as either Canadian or certainly as a condemnation or a stigma.
00:44:16.840
I simply disagree, and I'm going to continue writing, and frankly, I think they're going to have to throw me in jail.
00:44:25.220
Or even then, you can write in jail, can't you?
00:44:27.640
I don't know what they're going to do, but I'm not done writing, and I'm not done talking, and I know you're not either.
00:44:35.360
You can find out more info about this at thelebranos.com.
00:44:38.240
And if you can help me pay my legal bill, I'd appreciate it, because there were seven lawyers on the taxpayer's teat there today,
00:44:45.040
and I got to pay our bill just from Rebel News.
00:44:50.920
Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel's Capital City of Toronto and across the country, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.