EZRA LEVANT ｜ Liberal politician falsely claimed a Rebel News reporter harassed him — I’ll tell you what happened next
Episode Stats
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Summary
A liberal politician falsely cries wolf, claiming a Rebel News reporter harassed him at a farmer's market. Trouble is, it's a lie. And why would a politician falsely cry wolf about something that's not even illegal in Canada?
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. I don't know if you saw over the weekend, but a liberal candidate said something
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online that was so shocking about Rebel News. But for about one second, I thought, well, maybe it's
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true. He said a Rebel News reporter harassed him and he gave really specific details at this
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farmer's market after doing this and this. I thought, boy, that's a very specific allegation.
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It wasn't until I called and emailed our entire Ontario staff that I realized
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it was a lie. I'll take you through that story and what we're doing about it, but more importantly,
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what it means and why would the liberal lie that way? I'll give you my explanation or my best guess.
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That's today's show. Before I go to it, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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That's the video version of this podcast. It's useful. For example, today I show you all the
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tweets he made. And if you get the video version of the podcast, it's called Rebel News Plus.
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Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's $8 a month. You get the video version of this show
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every day, Sheila Gunn-Reed, David Menzies, and Andrew Chapitreau every week, and the satisfaction
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of knowing that you're helping to keep Rebel News independent. We don't take a dime from Trudeau.
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Tonight, a liberal politician falsely cries wolf, claiming a Rebel News reporter harassed him at a
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farmer's market. Trouble is, it's a lie. It's January 17th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
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I saw a tweet from Justin Trudeau proudly announcing that it is no longer legal to intimidate doctors
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or nurses. Except, of course, it's never been legal to intimidate anyone. Any profession, really. Any
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person of any background. Now, of course, there is a threshold. What is intimidation? That's the
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question. Here's a handbook for prosecutors published by Trudeau's Justice Department just
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last month, actually, describing the law as it has been for a very long time, for decades, actually.
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Criminal harassment, which includes stalking, is a crime. While many crimes are defined by conduct
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that results in a very clear physical outcome, for example, murder, the offense of criminal harassment
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prohibits deliberate conduct that is psychologically harmful to others. Criminal harassment often consists
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of repeated conduct that is carried out over a period of time and that causes its targets to
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reasonably fear for their safety, but does not necessarily result in physical injury. It may be
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a precursor to subsequent violent and or lethal acts. That's a pretty good one-paragraph summary.
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Obviously, there are things that are uncomfortable or offensive that are completely legal, even
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important to society, beneficial. There is no right not to be offended in Canada. That's a counterfeit
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human right. It's a woke feeling. It's really another way of saying you want the power to shut
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up someone you don't like. But according to that Justice Department handbook, most harassment is
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actually really obsessed stalkers who quite often know their victims. Think of an obsessed ex-boyfriend
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or something. Ex-girlfriend, perhaps. So if someone is being stalked, that's been against the law for
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decades. And then there's the law against intimidation, which has its own section in the
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criminal code. I'm going to read straight from the criminal code to show you how vigorous the law is
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right now, but also what intimidation means in the criminal context. It's anyone who, and I quote,
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uses violence or threats of violence to a person or their intimate partner or children or injures the
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person's property. B, intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that
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person by threats that in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment
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inflicted on him or her or relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged.
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C, persistently follows that person. D, hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by
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that person or deprives him or her of them or hinders him or her in the use of them. E, with one or more
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other persons, follows that person in a disorderly manner on a highway. F, besets or watches the place
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where that person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be, or G, blocks or obstructs a highway.
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I like that last one. Yeah, you might recall a couple years ago how railway lines and highways
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were constantly being blocked by environmental extremist groups and the police literally did
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nothing. Same with the eco-sabotage of logging or oil patch places, but my point is it's been against
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the law for a very long time to harass people or stalk people or intimidate someone. I just, I mean,
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that criminal code provision has a lot of examples, right? But there is a move about to expand this
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dramatically to capture things that heretofore have been simply called healthy debate. But healthy debate
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is an old-fashioned concept now. Now the default response by the left is no debate. Silence the dissenter.
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It's been that way for a while on certain issues in certain places. For example, the CBC and Britain's
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BBC positively boast that their editorial policy is to ban anyone from coming on air to provide a
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skeptical point of view on the theory of man-made global warming. That's been their practice for
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years and they're doing the same and much more actually on the pandemic and lockdowns and forced
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vaccines. Thing is, people just went elsewhere to get that other side of the story, mainly the internet.
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So that's why woke censorship moved to YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram
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and places like that. That's why Joe Rogan is so successful. He has smart, long conversations with
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people, usually experts, usually dissidents, and he listens and asks questions and he doesn't
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denigrate or deride them, which is why he has about 11 million listeners on his podcast on any given
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episode, more than any cable news host in America. In fact, double the highest Fox News host.
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Which is why they want to censor him so badly. Same thing with the most successful comedian in
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America right now, Dave Chappelle. He tells jokes about trans people, for example, and so he must
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be burned at the stake. Just like J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, the most
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successful author of our time. My point is, debating critics is out, silencing critics is the new way,
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and Trudeau has decided that it's not happening enough yet. So he wants more laws, new laws.
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Look at this. Update. It's now illegal to intimidate doctors, nurses, and patients,
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or to obstruct them from providing care or seeking treatment. As our government's legislation to
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criminalize a behavior comes into force today, we'll continue to have the backs of healthcare workers.
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No, you weird liar. It's always been illegal to intimidate people. I just read to you the criminal
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code provisions there, too. But frankly, I think doctors could use some protection
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from intimidation these days. Doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals
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could use some protection from Trudeau and his Simon Says premiers who copy him,
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who have not only fired thousands of doctors and nurses for not being vaccinated, even though many of
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them have natural immunity, which seems to be working better than the vaccine, but mainly the absolute
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intimidation of doctors by their colleges of physicians and surgeons. If those doctors dare to
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have a medical opinion for one of their patients that deviates from the political line, that you must
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have a vaccine in an endless series of booster shots. Any doctor who gives exemptions is investigated
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and threatened, and in many cases suspended even before their case is heard. So yeah, this is projection
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on Trudeau's part. Doctors like the rest of us have strong protections under criminal law, always have.
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The laws of stalking, harassment, and intimidation, all sorts of threats. That has never been legal to do.
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Trudeau is the threatener today, and even as he threatens doctors, he's projecting onto you what he's actually
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doing to his critics. He does that a lot. He sexually assaulted Rose Knight in Creston, BC, but he calls
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his enemies sexist and misogynist. He wore blackface more times than he can remember, but he calls his
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enemies racist. He threatened doctors, but he says his enemies do, and of course he's definitely against
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violence. Oh, unless it's his own personal bodyguards doing it to a rebel news reporter.
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But as Trudeau does, so they all do. And so it was that this weekend, a little Trudeau wannabe,
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a liberal candidate provincially in Ontario who has been a lockdown extremist, a TV doctor,
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hyping lockdowns, he told a lie, a whopper of a lie, an extreme lie, a cry wolf lie, a cry baby lie.
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Here's what he said. Nathan Stahl is his name. He said,
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Today a Rebel News reporter harassed me at a local farmer's market for promoting vaccines.
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That same reporter made use of the market's shopping service, where volunteers personally
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shop inside for those without a vaccine certificate. Reasonable accommodation demands civility.
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More than a thousand people retweeted or liked that. Probably a hundred thousand people saw it or
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more. You heard him. He was very specific. A Rebel News reporter at a farmer's market.
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A Rebel News reporter who was personally shopping without a vaccine. Harassed him. You couldn't be
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more factually precise than that in a small tweet. Now, he didn't say anyone's name. He didn't show
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a photo or a video taken from his cell phone. But look, he's a doctor and a politician, so surely
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he wouldn't just make that all up, right? That's a pretty specific thing to say. Well, I saw that and
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I immediately sent a note to our entire staff. Did anyone talk to that guy? Now, a bunch of our team
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immediately replied and I phoned the rest. Obviously, I didn't pester the people I knew were far away in
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British Columbia or Australia, but everyone in Ontario where this guy is. And not only did none
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of our staff interact with him, only one person actually knew who he was. And no one on our staff
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had ever contacted him in any manner. None of them had been to a farmer's market at all that day
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anywhere. It was simply all made up. Just completely made up. But that's the thing about defamatory facts
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as opposed to defamatory opinions. If this Nathan Stahl character had just called us names
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or had an opinion about us, people could ignore that. They could think he was reasonable or
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unreasonable. But frankly, an opinion, when you express it, says as much about you as the person
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you're expressing your opinion about, about the person about whom the opinion is spoken. Now,
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you could say, I hate rebel news. I think they're terrible. Okay, fine. Fair enough. That's your
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opinion. But he says specific facts. One of our reporters harassed him at a specific place,
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specific details. It's very different than an opinion, isn't it? As you can tell by my own
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immediate reaction of calling our own team. I myself thought it was possible, even if it was
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very unlikely, it was possible that it was true because he said it was such specificity.
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I was pretty sure he would be exaggerating no matter what, but I thought it could be true
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until I spoke with literally our whole team. I called him out on it on Twitter. This is what I
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said after I talked to everyone on our team. I said, this is a defamatory lie. It did not happen.
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I personally checked with every Rebel News staffer today. No one interacted with you in any way.
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No one was at a farmer's market. Most of my staff have never heard of you. Please delete this
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falsehood. You untrustworthy liar. I was mad. So I said it again because he wasn't deleting it. I said,
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you wicked liar. I've just checked with every single Rebel News staff member. No one interacted
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with you today. No one went to a farmer's market. Most of my staff have no clue who you are. Retract
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your defamation and apologize or we'll sue you on Monday morning. I went at it a bit and here's
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what the little liar finally wrote in reply. He said, please speak with Rosemary Fry. Here's her
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Rebel News article covering my work on COVID-19 vaccines. And then he linked to this story from
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five months ago. Huh? Rosemary Fry? She doesn't work for us. Never has. And that story, it was our
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reporter, Tamari Ugolini, interviewing Rosemary Fry. She's just a person we interviewed five months ago.
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We've done 30,000 videos in our time. We've spoken to thousands of people. They don't work for us.
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They're not Rebel News reporters, which he specifically said actually twice. He's not that dumb to think
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someone we interviewed five months ago as a Rebel News reporter. He just thought he could get away
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with that lie. And by the way, he's such a liar, I don't believe he even had an interaction with her
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in any event. But so what? The lie was out there. And even after I called him on his lie, he let it
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stand for hours more. So hundreds and thousands of people could see it and retweet it. It was a hoax.
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Like Jussie Smollett. He invented a hate crime, but it was a lie. He was the hater.
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So what, though? Here's a left-wing news site called The Narwhal republishing it,
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saying it's proof that we're not real journalists. Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail's health journalist,
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retweeted it. Of course, Catherine McKenna, the disgraced former minister, did too.
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Over a thousand people liked retweet it. And then finally, a real lawyer, I guess,
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talked to him, and he panicked. And he just deleted it all. But with no correction, no retraction,
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no apology. The hundred thousand plus people who read it simply read it. And that was it. They
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assume it was accurate because Stahl didn't correct himself. The defamation is done. The hate was
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published, and it's in the service of Trudeau's narrative. People are inciting violence against
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them or even committing violence against them or whatever harassing meant. They're lying.
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They're the violent ones. They're the threateners. They're the ones locking us all down. They're the
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ones using police to bully us, using colleges of physicians and surgeons to silence doctors.
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They're accusing their victims of what they themselves do. Our lawyer sent Stahl a demand
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letter telling him that if he doesn't, in fact, retract and apologize and put that on his Twitter
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account, we're going to see him in court. I'll let you know how that goes. By the way, look at this.
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The unvaccinated cherish their freedom to harm others. How can we ever forgive them? That was published
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in Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star. If I were a woke leftist, I'd say that's
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intimidation or harassment or something, and the police ought to arrest them. But I'm not a leftist,
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so I'll just say it's a disgrace. And it's absolutely 100% at the feet of Justin Trudeau,
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who has telegraphed to the entire establishment that it's okay to hate those you disagree with
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on the pandemic. This will not end well. Stay with us for more.
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Well, hey, do you remember a few weeks ago when David Suzuki said that there could or would or
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should be violence against pipelines? He wasn't very clear. Initially, he held his ground, refused
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to retract that. But I don't know where the pressure came from, whether it was from the
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David Suzuki Foundation, which for some reason is charitable status in Canada, or whether it was
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from the CBC. But he eventually realized that he had simply gone too far, this multimillionaire,
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essentially giving his moral blessing to eco-terrorism. So he finally walked it back. But
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everyone got the message. Well, not so at the CBC, Trudeau's state broadcaster. In this great story
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on True North by Cosman, Georgia, it's revealed by Cosman's digging that the CBC has just commissioned
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an anarchist who promotes violence, including videos like one titled, How to Paralyze a Country.
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Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster has hired an anarchist to put together such a movie. Joining us
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now is Cosman, Georgia, the reporter at True North who revealed the story. Cosman, how you doing? Great
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to see you. Good. How are you, Ezra? Well, I'm fine. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I thought
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that maybe when David Suzuki blinked and walked back his eco-terrorist message, which was a little bit
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ambiguous. It wasn't clear if he was predicting it or giving it his blessing. He walked it back. But
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this guy, Franklin Lopez, he's full-on anarchist promoting violence, isn't he?
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Yes, in some sense. So Franklin Lopez, by the admission of the CBC, has been an active anarchist
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activist activist in the Canadian community for about 20 years. So it's evident that the CBC was
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well aware of Mr. Lopez's past connections. Now his work through the company Submedia, which he founded,
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has found its way on several of Canada's most radical anarchist extremist websites like Montreal
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Counterinformation, North Shore Counterinformation. These are websites that regularly publish communications
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and descriptions of illegal and criminal activity, such as shutting down pipelines, throwing stones
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through bank windows. So there's an extensive network of these anarchist little communities that
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use these websites to get their word out and essentially encourage each other to pursue
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attacks on Canada's critical infrastructure and other such things.
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So I want to make it clear, because just earlier today I was saying, look, Trudeau is looking to
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criminalize merely dissenting speech. And so we have to allow offensive speech and annoying speech and
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speech we don't like as part of the political hurly-burly. But I just want to be crystal clear,
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these websites that you're talking about, they don't just talk about ideas. They talk really
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how to make a pipe bomb, how to derail a train. Am I accurate in describing them that way? They're
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actual manuals, how-to manuals for violence and eco-terrorism. Is that right?
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Yes, absolutely. You know, as you mentioned, having an extreme or radical opinion is not illegal in this
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country. But what these websites endorse cross the line. Now, they put in tongue-in-cheek comments
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where they're just saying, you know, this is for informational purposes. But Montreal Counter
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Information, which has published and linked to several of Mr. Lopez's videos, has published guides
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on how to make Molotov cocktails. Now, it's illegal to own or produce Molotov cocktails because they're a
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form of inflammatory explosives. So I think this clearly crosses the line. And the fact that the
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CBC is comfortable to work with such an individual that has been endorsed by these websites, and he
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himself has published, you know, positive portrayals of people, radical environmentalist protesters shutting
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down pipelines. And as you mentioned, you know, how to paralyze the country. These are very concerning
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things. Yeah. The article on True North is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC Documentary
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on BC Pipeline Protests. Now, I want to make sure we sharpen the distinction between things that this
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anarchist Franklin Lopez himself has said or done versus the websites upon which he's published. I mean,
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I think we can infer certain things by him being published by these violence promoting sites. But what has
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the worst thing that he himself has said or done? I suppose he gives them their blessing. But has he
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himself counseled violence or, you know, violence to property or violence to people that you know of?
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As far as I can tell, Mr. Lopez has been very careful about what he says and does using his own name.
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Now, on his Twitter account, which has since been locked, he has, you know, published positive,
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messages about Antifa and various actions that they've done throughout the country and in the
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United States and beyond. So if you just look at Mr. Lopez's company, Submedia, there's hundreds of
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videos positively portraying other radicals. Now, as I said, he's been very careful and he's also been
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very public about this, you know, and the fact that the CBC has no qualms with that, it just goes to
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show how much they've sold their soul. And as we know recently from former CBC producer Tara Henley,
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the CBC has a far left problem and it's endemic across the Crown Corporation.
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Yeah. You know, what was so interesting about your story is you actually talked to Chuck Thompson,
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the chief spin doctor over there at the CBC. He's the damage control mop up guy. I really got to know
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his name during the whole Xi'an Gomeshi scandal. So when he's put on a file, you know, they're in
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trouble. But you're right. He basically said, yeah, we've known who he was for 20 years and that's all
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we're saying. He didn't get into any particulars. I think it's unthinkable that the CBC would glamorize
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violence and eco-terrorism if it were against any other industry, if it were against, I don't know,
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wind turbines or something green. I mean, I don't know, anything against one of their left-wing
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heroes. But if it's against oil and gas, of course, the CBC will do. Why is that a surprise?
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They're Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster. They do what he says. And he himself, Trudeau himself,
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I can't think that he's ever criticized eco-terrorism. He hired Gerald Butts as his
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principal advisor for years. So the CBC is basically saying, yeah, what are you going to
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do about it? I mean, the brazenness is quite something. You're absolutely right, Ezra. You
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know, this production is called Yinta, and as Chuck Thompson described it to me, it's a point-of-view
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documentary. Now I wonder, would the CBC create a point-of-view documentary about all of the First
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nations along the BCLNG pipelines route, all of the elected councils who endorse and are set to benefit
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from this project in terms of jobs and income? Would they create a point-of-view documentary
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from the perspective of the besieged BCLNG workers who have constantly faced blockades, lack of access to
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food and road closures due to the activities of these radical protesters? I suspect they probably
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won't create that point-of-view. So it's obviously very one-sided. And as you said, you know, Gerald
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Butts is very involved in the environmental movement. But we just saw from the latest cabinet the promotion
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of Stephen Guilbault, who was a radical Greenpeace activist, and he's very much proud of that fact in
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various interviews he's given to the media. Yeah. Well, he's a convicted criminal, too. He broke into the
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CN Tower as part of a stunt, and he pretended in court that he was quite contrite, but he did a victory
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lap for the media outside. He's untrustworthy, Stephen Guilbault, and he's shown that he'll break the law to get
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his way if he can't do it lawfully. So it's no surprising that the CBC is the same. I just want to point out
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one thing. This is about the pipeline where there's an Indian band, the Wet'suwet'en First Nation.
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We sent our former reporter, Kian Bexte, up there, and we discovered that all the agitators against
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the pipeline, they're not the actual band council. They're not the actual people there who represent
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the First Nations. They're, you know, I'm not going to call them impersonators, but they have no democratic
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legitimacy. They're basically foreign-funded provocateurs. It's no surprise to me that Franklin Lopez comes in on the
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side of the basically eco-colonizers to tell the local Aboriginal folks that they're not allowed to have
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economic development. It's really gross, and the fact that the CBC is pouring money into an Antifa-style
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filmmaker says it all. That's a word to you, Cosman. Do you think that the CBC will ever have its
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massive budget cut? I see that Aaron O'Toole, who campaigned on defunding it, is now saying,
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hey, let's fix it. In fact, he reached out to that Tara Henley you're referring to and said, hey, Tara,
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let's sit down and see how we can fix the CBC. I thought Aaron O'Toole told conservatives that he
00:25:52.020
would defund the CBC. I didn't hear him say he would fix it. Do you ever think we're going to
00:25:56.940
defund the CBC or get rid of it? Well, it would take a serious conservative leader to do that,
00:26:03.920
and I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person. I think actually his original plan to essentially
00:26:09.020
privatize the CBC English TV arm of the Crown Corporation was actually a decent one, but he's
00:26:17.400
obviously reversed that position. Now he's talking about fixing it. I think a serious conservative
00:26:22.820
government would clean shop. They would use their powers through the governor and council to essentially,
00:26:30.200
I think, they should fire their board of directors, get some more level-headed people in there,
00:26:37.060
start cutting down CBC's coverage of national and federal politics, sell those assets, and put that
00:26:44.760
money and resources into local news, which is so desperately needed across this country. So there
00:26:51.260
are clearly ways to, if not totally defund the CBC, absolutely reform it. And you could also change
00:26:59.900
their code of ethics and make freedom of speech central to their code of ethics.
00:27:07.060
I think there are plenty of options that a conservative government would have. Now the
00:27:11.440
question is, who would be willing to do that? And I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person.
00:27:17.740
Well, that's the one thing I'm going to disagree with you on, Cosman. I don't want to, you know,
00:27:22.100
refocus the CBC on local news gathering. I want to get them out of the news business. I want to get the
00:27:27.740
government out of the news business. And just as easily as a conservative leader could
00:27:32.260
stack the CBC with his board of directors, uh, the next year, a liberal prime minister could do the
00:27:38.480
same. I think this is one of the things where if you don't pull it out by the root, it'll be,
00:27:45.140
it's part of the permanent deep state. And the CBC has a stronger culture of left-wing activism than
00:27:52.320
the conservative party does. It'll just outlast the conservatives. We saw that mistake made by
00:27:57.260
Stephen Harper who did not pull it out by the root when he had a chance. And of course they stuck the
00:28:03.780
knife in him in 2015 when they had the chance. So I think it's unreformable. I think it's like,
00:28:08.700
uh, it's like the CIA. You will never reform the CIA. It's just, it's too large. It's its own
00:28:15.840
creature. It truly is the deep state. The CBC, as you can see by your own story is the deep state of
00:28:22.020
left-wing activism. It, it will not be reformed. That's just my view. I think, I think it has to
00:28:27.140
be pulled up by the root and a bunch of salt poured into the ground where it once grew. It's great to
00:28:32.140
see you, Cosman. Thanks for covering this story. I appreciate your investigations and we look forward
00:28:37.020
to talking to you again soon. Thanks for having me, Ezra. Happy to be here. Right on, you too. There
00:28:41.760
you have it, Cosman, Georgia. His story is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC Documentary
00:28:46.640
on BC Pipeline Protest, because of course, stay with us. More ahead.
00:28:59.200
Hey, welcome back. Well, you know what? Here in Toronto, they get four feet of snow and everyone
00:29:03.920
panics. Well, I managed to come into work today and so did one other staffer, our friend Dakota.
00:29:08.780
So he's running the studio today. Big thanks to him. And the rest of our team is working hard
00:29:13.920
from home, but I was delighted to make it. You know, imagine saying that the way to get around
00:29:18.700
the second largest country in the world, one of the coldest countries in the world is, I don't know,
00:29:22.960
with a bicycle, with a Prius. Today, at least in this city, pickup trucks and SUVs own the road.
00:29:29.040
It was quite something out here and proof that all these schemers and global warmest,
00:29:33.840
they really have no clue. It's really the same as the big brains who tell us that lockdowns will fix
00:29:39.500
the pandemic. Anyways, forgive me that little aside. Newbie Bob says, I can't believe things
00:29:45.700
are getting this far. You really are fighting hard to squeeze the last hope out of freedom out of us.
00:29:51.340
Keep strong, all. You could be referring to just about any story we talk about,
00:29:56.180
because we talk about freedom. Josh Bush says, thanks for discussing section one of our Charter
00:30:00.780
of Rights and Freedoms. I call it the comicavia, which essentially makes a mockery of our entire
00:30:05.340
Canadian constitution. Any document that starts with exemptions to what it purportedly avows is
00:30:10.500
not a serious document. Canadians, in essence, have only the freedoms that the sitting government
00:30:15.160
grants at their pleasure. You're so right. And if you remember our conversation with Brian Peckford,
00:30:20.900
the former premier of Newfoundland, that's what he said. He says that exemption, that section one,
00:30:25.700
which says all these other rights we're about to give you, they're limited, so just don't even take
00:30:30.680
it seriously. Brian Peckford says that that was meant to be used in extreme emergencies, not this
00:30:36.940
perpetual public health emergency that's not even really an emergency. So yeah, but what are you going
00:30:42.040
to do? I mean, the Soviet Union had a constitution that promised freedom, put it in the hands of the
00:30:49.040
Communist Party, and they're so-called judges, and you get what you get. For, you know, the UK, you could
00:30:53.580
say, doesn't even have a written constitution, and yet they love freedom, and their courts defend it.
00:30:58.600
So you have to have freedom in your culture. Simply having a piece of paper will do you no favors.
00:31:05.620
Black Medicine says, time to pack up, say bye-bye to Alberta, and head south for beautiful and free
00:31:11.440
Florida. Well, as you know, Texas and Florida are the two states with the most in-migration from the
00:31:17.340
other states, California and New York being the most out-migration, no surprise there. But the thing is,
00:31:23.200
not everyone can move. Many businesses are geographically rooted. People have to go to a
00:31:28.740
particular office. If you're in a restaurant business, you can't just lift up your restaurant
00:31:33.380
and move to Florida. I mean, I suppose you could shut down your entire life here and try again there,
00:31:37.840
but there's one more wrinkle. It's another country. You can't just walk into Florida. I know that there
00:31:42.800
are illegal migrants there, to be sure, but that's a dream. For some people, it can be reality,
00:31:49.600
but for most Canadians, we've got to stay and fight for freedom. Well, that's our show for today.
00:31:54.960
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.
00:32:00.680
He is the reigning Australian Open champion, and he cannot play because he is unvaccinated. Now,
00:32:09.460
our next guest has been covering the story from the beginning. He has great insight into the entire
00:32:14.740
lockdown going on two years and insanity in Australia. His name is Avi Yamini. He's the chief
00:32:19.480
Australian correspondent for Rebel News, and he joins us now from Melbourne. Avi, great to have
00:32:24.480
you on the show this morning. I'm just going to turn it over to you. What's your reaction as you
00:32:27.480
see what's happening in Australia this morning? Well, thanks for having me. It's been an insane
00:32:32.980
week, but a couple of corrections. It's not actually that the government appealed it and won the
00:32:38.960
appeal. That's not true. He first, when he came in, they tried to ban him, saying his vaccine
00:32:47.920
exemption was invalid. When he appealed that, he won in the federal circuit court. And what
00:32:57.480
then transpired is the government claimed that he'd lied on his papers to get into the country
00:33:05.940
in his documentation. But that's not even what they came after him at the end. At the end,
00:33:10.820
the minister of immigration exercised his discretionary power to remove Novak Djokovic for the reason
00:33:20.480
that his mere presence in the country would essentially incite dissent. He said, citing that he was a risk
00:33:28.840
to civil order. So him being him, him being here, not that he was un-vaxxed, but that people perceived
00:33:36.220
his way of thinking, his belief to be anti-vaxxed. And that could inspire people not to get vaccinated
00:33:46.800
in a country where we're, I don't know, 90% or in a state, 93% vaccinated. It is crazy what happened
00:33:54.880
here today. Yeah, I mean, everything in Australia seems crazy to me these days. I guess my question
00:34:03.240
to you is, you know, I get how the government feels about this. It's a little surprising in the post
00:34:08.580
Omicron era where we now know that the vaccinated are spreading it. But how do the Australian people
00:34:13.920
feel about it? Where do they stand? Because this was such an international story that put a spotlight on
00:34:20.260
what they've been going through as well. I think a lot of Australians were really angry in the
00:34:26.300
beginning when Novak got an exemption, because as I said, over 90%, at least in Victoria, are double
00:34:33.540
vaccinated. And that's not because people chose to, it's because pretty much to live life here, you need
00:34:39.500
to be fully vaccinated. So people felt like they were forced to get vaccinated. But then this superstar
00:34:45.540
came here, and he was given an exemption. I think the federal government here rode that wave and felt
00:34:53.640
like they had an opportunity to win some political points. And they essentially went to take him out
00:35:02.520
on the most bizarre, bizarre, for the most bizarre reason. It's not, again, that he's unvaccinated.
00:35:08.800
Today, the immigration minister conceded that his vaccination exemption was absolutely kosher. It
00:35:17.420
was fine. It was over the fact that they said he was potentially inciting dissent. And one of the
00:35:24.080
things that they cited as evidence, which I found quite interesting, is that before the vaccines were
00:35:30.740
even available, that he'd questioned the idea of a vaccine, or he said that he was no expert, but
00:35:38.120
he would see at the time, but he wasn't really interested in vaccines. That was the only real
00:35:43.620
evidence that the state had that he was ever kind of anti-vax. The interesting thing is that that was
00:35:50.080
at a period of time that Joe Biden and every Democrat in America was having a go at the vaccines. It was
00:35:57.060
during the period that Trump was talking about the vaccine. And back at that time, being anti-vax was
00:36:03.380
actually the right kind of position to have. So it is a really, really bizarre situation that's
00:36:11.840
happened here. But there is, listen, a lot of people were angry about Novak being here. I think
00:36:17.840
Australians are going to look back at this period with a lot of shame.
00:36:22.880
Avi, you raised so many great points. This idea that he would incite dissent, you know, dissent is
00:36:29.520
something Americans are quite proud of, although it's been being squelched here as well. And we've
00:36:33.680
seen it actively by big tech. But the fact that the government would say dissent not allowed,
00:36:40.420
what does that tell you about the current state of politics, of power in Australia? A lot of people
00:36:46.740
look over at Australia and don't recognize a thing we used to think it was.
00:36:50.200
Look, I lived here my whole life and I don't recognize it. The last two years
00:36:55.620
has absolutely changed Australia. And day by day, it gets worse as we're coming out of this pandemic,
00:37:03.500
as we're learning to live with it. It seems like we're being stripped more and more of basic
00:37:09.700
fundamental human rights. And it's really, really sad. And I hope, like probably many Aussies,
00:37:17.600
that we come out of this okay and we're able to get back to the Australia we once had. But it is
00:37:27.980
Avi Yamini of Rebel News, great perspective this morning. Thanks for jumping on so quickly this morning.