EZRA LEVANT ｜ My favourite lawyer at the trucker commission gets something wrong — and we want to get it right
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
165.79678
Summary
This episode is brought to you by the Trucker Commission of Inquiry, a government inquiry into the alleged use of martial law by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in response to a trucker convoy in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the truckers.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Tonight, my favorite lawyer at the Trucker Commission gets something wrong, and we want to get it right.
00:00:05.040
It's November 24th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:22.500
I'm finding this Trucker Commission of Inquiry useful.
00:00:25.300
We're learning things we never knew before, that we could never know without the power of this Commission of Inquiry, the power to subpoena people and documents.
00:00:35.260
I mean, in Parliament, we have question period, but it is not called answer period for a reason.
00:00:40.780
At the Commission, though, politicians have to attend.
00:00:43.520
They have to swear to tell the truth, and they're pressed to answer.
00:00:48.340
Some of them are clearly lying, although the police witnesses were pretty good, I think.
00:00:52.880
And as we showed you yesterday, we get access to records that are normally kept secret from us, that are normally exempt from, for example, access to information requests, cabinet memos, private text messages between cabinet ministers.
00:01:06.740
Like this one, where two cabinet ministers casually talked about sending a military tank to respond to the trucker convoy.
00:01:22.500
I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trudeau had no legal basis for invoking martial law.
00:01:26.980
And really, his shills aren't even really claiming with any enthusiasm that he did.
00:01:32.840
They talk about political reasons and journalistic reasons and how they were being made to look like fools on the world stage.
00:01:39.360
But I don't think anyone is really even pretending that the legal reasons for invoking martial law were met.
00:01:46.200
I'm sure Trudeau, the prince of lies, will take that on himself.
00:01:52.880
So I like this commission, and I really didn't think I would.
00:01:56.940
Commission lawyers are doing a fair enough job, especially given their very tight time constraints.
00:02:01.780
That's something Trudeau has been using against them.
00:02:04.340
He just refuses to release unredacted documents because he knows this commission has an expiry date.
00:02:11.260
Unlike in normal court cases, things can't be delayed while a judge orders someone to hand over better records.
00:02:17.340
Or the other move, dumping tens of thousands of pages on the other side without time for them to review them.
00:02:26.000
But, and I've said this several times, the real stars of the commission are the freedom-oriented lawyers.
00:02:33.840
The Democracy Fund's head of litigation, Alan Harner.
00:02:37.460
He has official intervener status at the commission.
00:02:40.700
He's given private confidential documents in advance.
00:02:43.920
He's allowed to cross-examine witnesses, including cabinet ministers.
00:02:49.060
But my biggest kudos go to the team of lawyers associated with our friends at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
00:02:57.100
I think there are six or seven of them altogether.
00:03:01.100
We've talked to him a lot on this show before, but there are a lot of new faces I didn't know before.
00:03:05.980
For example, Rob Kittridge, who we spoke with just the other day.
00:03:09.540
Eva Chipiuk, who's been working with Tamara Leach in particular.
00:03:12.160
I think there are literally seven lawyers affiliated with the truckers and the JCCF, and I think they've been the stars of the commission, really, giving it teeth where I'm not sure other lawyers there would have done so.
00:03:25.280
And my favorite lawyer has been Brendan Miller.
00:03:29.200
He's the toughest, the best in form, the most tenacious in the group.
00:03:35.880
I met him very briefly on the first day of the commission, and he's been the MVP.
00:03:40.080
Good facts, good arguments, good questions for the witnesses.
00:03:46.940
He lost his cool a little bit when the judge wouldn't give him a speedy ruling on some of Trudeau's blacked-out documents, and the judge actually booted him out for it.
00:04:03.460
I understand that, sir, and your counsel's advised you that.
00:04:12.480
The application, if you want to do it, you've been advised it's to be done in writing, not in the middle of the presentation.
00:04:19.540
Sir, we filed two motions in writing at your direction that you've refused to rule on with respect to the redaction of documents from the government of Canada.
00:04:28.060
That has not been ruled on and has been filed for days.
00:04:31.000
We'll take a break while you're asked to leave.
00:04:35.280
I will return in five minutes if security could deal with the counsel.
00:04:41.480
Well, Miller didn't like that one bit, obviously.
00:04:47.460
And you can't hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staff or correspondence because it may hurt you.
00:04:59.800
We've made two, actually three technically, written applications with respect to these redacted documents in advance of the minister's testifying.
00:05:13.240
And the commission has failed or refused to rule on them.
00:05:17.840
And one of the other grounds of procedural fairness is for decisions without undue delay.
00:05:24.860
When decisions are not made on procedural issues of this importance, without undue delay, procedural fairness of not just my clients, but everyone's, is violated.
00:05:35.840
Canadians are entitled to the truth, and you can't hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staff or correspondence because it may hurt you.
00:05:51.280
And that, in my view, is what the government of Canada is doing.
00:05:57.380
And had we had a timely ruling on these redactions, this application made orally today would have been entirely unnecessary.
00:06:08.940
Sorry, which the application for Alex Cohen would have been entirely unnecessary?
00:06:13.080
Is it your expectation to continue in the proceedings today?
00:06:15.680
Well, it's my client's constitutional right to have legal representation of their choice.
00:06:21.060
Is there another lawyer as part of the team that could step in for you if you're not allowed?
00:06:25.780
And with respect to being thrown out of the building at the direction of the commissioner, there is no jurisdiction to do that either.
00:06:40.220
You're just going to wait for some response from the commissioner now?
00:06:44.180
It's up to security whether or not I'm allowed in the building.
00:06:47.880
And it's up to the commissioner whether or not he'll abide by my client's constitutional right to have the lawyer of their choice
00:06:53.000
and the procedural fairness and constitutional right to be heard before the trepune.
00:07:17.020
He's trying to balance a lot of things, a lot of lawyers, his own lawyers, each of the witnesses' lawyers.
00:07:24.400
And there can only be one boss in the courtroom, and it is the judge, for better or worse.
00:07:28.700
I think having security escort Miller out of the room was a bit too much.
00:07:32.140
I think the judge could have just ordered him to sit down.
00:07:34.140
But I take all that as a sign that tempers are just a little bit frayed after a month of this.
00:07:38.460
I mean, remember, for every hour the commission sits, there's probably an hour of preparation and follow-up.
00:07:44.020
I bet everyone involved in this has been working 18 hours a day.
00:07:47.180
I'm not surprised a lawyer fainted the other day.
00:07:50.040
So you have a phone call at 1,300 hours, I think, with Deputy Minister Rob Stewart.
00:07:56.200
He says that there are 300 commercial CMV, that's commercial vehicles.
00:08:01.140
Anyways, a few days ago, Miller had a bombshell.
00:08:23.940
He said he had a doozy, but he wasn't able to tell the details to us in advance.
00:08:27.740
All the lawyers who have some standing with the commission have to follow certain rules of confidentiality.
00:08:32.940
They were given early access to documents so they can review them and prepare.
00:08:36.840
But in return, they must keep those documents confidential until they're formally released publicly through the commission's website.
00:08:43.520
So we didn't know what this bombshell would be.
00:08:47.800
Well, it was about one of the worst smears against the truckers that happened during the convoy.
00:08:52.440
As we know, the truckers were multiracial from English Canada and Quebec, people from all walks of life, peaceful, fun, patriotic, the bouncy castles, the hot tubs.
00:09:03.120
Trudeau wanted to demonize them as Nazis, but they just weren't.
00:09:09.080
He's an old liberal hack calling them neo-Nazis.
00:09:15.040
The liberals knew it wasn't true, but they knew they had to gin up that theory because they wanted to demonize their peaceful opponents.
00:09:29.320
They make accusations and they sent in false flags.
00:09:36.820
Some of these photos look like they were taken at the Chateau Laurier, the most prestigious, the most expensive, exclusive hotel in the city.
00:09:45.300
Were the neo-Nazis really, really staying there?
00:09:49.040
No one else saw that photo, saw that image in that photo.
00:09:54.000
I do know that the Chateau Laurier was where the RCMP were staying.
00:09:59.580
They boasted about it in their RCMP WhatsApp groups.
00:10:02.680
That's where they were staying when they were running their ride horses.
00:10:04.900
They were feasting like kings on the taxpayer dime at the Chateau Laurier.
00:10:08.800
I wonder if some undercover cops were there and they were the Nazis.
00:10:15.800
I mean, the supply of Nazis in Canada does not meet the demand for Nazis.
00:10:20.120
Trudeau's entire team wanted to demonize the truckers as Nazis.
00:10:37.220
Just like the FBI knew all about Ray Epps in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.
00:10:51.720
I don't even like to say it because I'll be arrested.
00:11:04.820
We are going to the Capitol where our problems are.
00:11:10.440
Yeah, look, we don't know who the Canadian Ray Epps was, but Brendan Miller, the lawyer,
00:11:19.440
He said it was a man named Brian Fox, who was a senior executive for a public relations
00:11:32.480
Maybe it was a false flag operation conducted by a group of political dirty tricksters for,
00:11:40.900
At least we knew who it was who was smearing the truckers.
00:11:47.000
Here's Brendan Miller raising the subject at the commission.
00:11:50.200
Were you aware that the first time that the picture of the gentleman, all covered in army
00:11:58.120
fatigues with a mask over his face, walking with a Confederate flag through a crowd, it
00:12:04.020
first appeared in an opinion piece in the Toronto Star from someone who actually works for the
00:12:14.480
Mr. Commissioner, my friend seems to be giving evidence now.
00:12:19.440
He asked a question, and I can guess at what the answer is going to be.
00:12:23.920
Okay, but there's a presupposition of a fact that's not an evidence.
00:12:27.160
Yeah, because you keep interrupting me when I try to ask questions, and I'm running out of time.
00:12:36.500
I'm not aware of the articles, and I'm not aware of those facts that you mentioned.
00:12:41.340
Are you aware of a company called Enterprise Canada?
00:12:48.940
And have you identified the individual, one that is, it was all over the news, the gentleman
00:13:00.380
Mr. Commissioner, as I've said before, the specific details of our investigations have
00:13:05.700
been shared, you know, with the commission earlier.
00:13:08.880
I would not be able to go into more specific details.
00:13:12.700
Yeah, no, and I take it, and I take it then, sir, that you know that that individual was
00:13:22.800
I have not said anything of that respect to counsel.
00:13:34.320
And not just that, but Brendan Miller wanted to subpoena him, to call him under oath, to
00:13:43.760
I mean, remember, this whole Emergencies Act thing was because the liberals claimed it was
00:13:48.800
violent extremists coming to overthrow the government.
00:13:52.280
Imagine if they had arranged somehow to plant that Nazi protester, like a false flag, and then
00:13:58.100
you catch the guy and he revealed the whole conspiracy.
00:14:02.480
Now, Brendan Miller had trouble going further on this.
00:14:07.820
Miller wanted to subpoena Brian Fox, interrogate him.
00:14:11.240
And Miller has his own witness, a live witness, who saw Brian Fox that day.
00:14:25.300
And frankly, Miller wanted to call Sean Folks also his witness.
00:14:36.980
And Brendan Miller had so many bombshells this past month, he really did have the goods
00:14:41.260
on so many politicians and bureaucrats and politicized cops.
00:14:45.020
So if Brendan Miller says he's got the proof and he's willing to say it in this judicial
00:14:49.880
forum and willing to call witnesses, you better believe that I'm paying attention and every
00:14:59.740
We like to reach out to the other side just to make sure they have their say in the story
00:15:11.420
Brian Fox and Enterprise Canada, they disagreed with this.
00:15:15.860
They put out a statement before we even reached out to them.
00:15:22.460
Today, in the scope of the Emergencies Act inquiry, Brendan Miller, the lawyer representing
00:15:27.140
Freedom Corp, made an entirely unsubstantiated and deeply offensive accusation against Enterprise
00:15:34.460
For the record, there is no truth to this absurd and despicable accusation.
00:15:38.560
Neither Brian Fox nor anyone from Enterprise Canada was in attendance at the Freedom Convoy
00:15:45.760
Mr. Fox was in Toronto for the duration of these protests and had no involvement in them.
00:16:00.540
Either Brian Fox or Brendan Miller in his eyewitness.
00:16:04.520
Now, Fox's company added some more details later saying, Brian Fox has not been in Ottawa since
00:16:11.800
Brian Fox has not been involved with the Liberal Party of Canada or Freedom Convoy protests in
00:16:17.160
In fact, I'm told he's a Pierre Polyev supporter who was last in Ottawa three years ago for the
00:16:25.920
But really, a senior executive in a national communications firm, the idea that he would
00:16:31.220
dress up as a Nazi to do a false flag dirty trick at a trucker convoy, it's implausible.
00:16:37.380
Really, you're going to get a senior VP kind of guy doing that?
00:16:39.840
That's the kind of thing that a young college kid might be convinced to do by a dirty trickster.
00:16:53.140
We had made application days and days and days ago.
00:16:58.980
The commission consistently directs that we are to make motions and write.
00:17:07.000
The first is dealing with all of these redactions that the government of Canada has put on all
00:17:14.620
of the staffers' correspondence, as well of the notes of Ms. Katie Talvert, the Chief of
00:17:23.280
They have redacted these documents claiming they are irrelevant or that they are in fact
00:17:29.520
subject to a cabinet confidence, despite the fact that the law is abundantly clear and undeniably
00:17:36.360
clear that cabinet confidence does not apply to political staffers.
00:17:41.020
These include the notes of Sarah Jackson, who is the office manager of Katie Telford, discussing
00:17:49.880
the Emergencies Act, discussing the protests, discussing what they're going to do.
00:17:55.040
These include the email responses from Minister Blair to his own Chief of Staff about why he
00:18:04.940
did not accept the advice of law enforcement to carry out the plan that was before the IRG.
00:18:11.680
The Government of Canada has continuously and every day dropped hundreds of documents on
00:18:25.860
They have tried to turn this entire proceeding into an inquiry about the failures of Chief
00:18:32.140
Slally, as opposed to actually about the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
00:18:38.500
And my duty to my clients, and my duty as a lawyer, is to uncover the truth.
00:18:44.240
We have also applied, and we applied before I asked the questions, with respect to Mr.
00:18:55.840
We applied to also now have Mr. I believe it's David Chan, who we found out was the individual
00:19:03.000
who actually took the photos of the gentleman carrying the Confederate flag, of which he is
00:19:16.200
Well, I would disagree with you if you have an official photographer.
00:19:22.220
Well, I understand there's an official photographer.
00:19:30.280
Because we have a witness in our application that can, who had met the person with the
00:19:35.980
flag, all right, on the day he was running around with it, and can identify him as Mr.
00:19:43.620
It's in the application, and I'm not allowed to say yet, because they won't release it to
00:19:47.680
Our applications that we have made, our applications that we have made have still not been released
00:19:59.360
Truth is a full defense, and we also have privileges for things of which we say in a courtroom.
00:20:05.800
And the reason that that exists is so that lawyers can do their job, and witnesses can
00:20:12.500
I don't care about Enterprise's little announcement yesterday.
00:20:19.780
If they want to bring that, I would be happy to do so, and defend it, and get discovery,
00:20:27.280
What are your odds of getting at the truth on this sidewalk?
00:20:31.120
Well, I can tell you the odds of getting at the truth, and a commissioner who has no
00:20:35.680
compulsion powers, at law, directing that I leave a building, a government building where
00:20:42.560
I am counsel to a client whose rights to counsel are constitutionally protected.
00:20:53.440
And I'm challenging the lawfulness of what's going on.
00:21:06.820
He says, I approached the person who was carrying the Nazi flag on January 29, 2022, and I attempted
00:21:17.400
On November 21, 2022, I went onto the website for Enterprise Canada and found Brian Fox's
00:21:23.040
profile thereon, including a photo of him attached to your two and marked as Exhibit B as a true
00:21:27.960
copy of a screenshot of the profile of Brian Fox from the Enterprise Canada website.
00:21:32.220
I can confirm that Brian Fox is the man I met with the Nazi flag on January 29, 2022.
00:21:39.860
So this guy, this witness, Sean Folks, says he spoke with a Nazi flag guy.
00:21:44.320
He spoke with a Nazi flag in January, but I don't think he took any notes.
00:21:50.440
He just sort of saw him in January and spoke briefly with him.
00:21:53.500
And then in November, just a few days ago, he happens to look at the Enterprise Canada website,
00:22:00.040
sees the photo of Brian Fox, and says, that's him.
00:22:02.580
Ten months later, you talk with someone briefly, no notes, no photos, no video.
00:22:09.280
And then ten months later, you look at a website photo, and who knows how old or accurate that
00:22:16.400
And you say, that's him, absolutely, I'll swear on a Bible.
00:22:20.820
Now, you're not really an expert at these things.
00:22:22.720
You're not trained in these things, but you're sure of it, even though the Nazi guy was wearing
00:22:36.200
Well, his affidavit describes him as a political activist, pages and pages of how he fights
00:22:41.720
political battles, and a bit of an attention-seeking in other ways, too, in his affidavit.
00:22:47.940
He talks about his father inventing the musical genre of reggae, talks about his accomplished
00:22:54.080
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with him himself or Brian Fox or what he saw.
00:22:59.000
But his affidavit sort of paints a picture about Sean Folks, as in, is he really a disinterested
00:23:07.600
Or is he someone who wants to be part of the excitement, someone with a bit of an axe to
00:23:12.160
grind, someone who wants to be internet famous, wants to be in the fight, someone with political
00:23:21.780
Sean Folks actually did make a video record of what he saw back when it happened or right
00:23:32.640
See, when he was in Ottawa at the Convoy, he talked to an independent citizen journalist
00:23:36.240
who happened to be live streaming from down at the Convoy.
00:23:43.980
I'll start with the part where Sean Folks identifies himself.
00:23:53.500
My name is Sean, S-H-A-W-U-N, Folks, F-O-L-K-E-S.
00:23:57.920
Now, when you bring up my last name, you might bring up my sister because she's the head of
00:24:03.740
Okay, she's buying fighter jets for the military, Paula Folks D'Alaire.
00:24:07.100
You might bring up my dad, John Folks, my father.
00:24:10.340
And if you bring his name up, he's the founding father, the guy who started reggae music.
00:24:18.820
Because now, like, people can't say, oh, you're bullshitting because they can do their
00:24:39.320
And believe it or not, the Canadian Armed Forces drone, too.
00:24:41.540
He sounded a bit wild saying it then, but we now know it's 100% true.
00:24:48.660
Is you guys have no idea how they're watching us.
00:24:58.400
That could, you know, fall asleep behind his trigger and pull that trigger and one of us
00:25:04.920
I'm all for Canadian snipers if they're against our enemies.
00:25:07.620
But the last time I seen them, I can't remember the last time Canadian had enemies.
00:25:12.700
And he's living proof that this was a diverse group of Canadians, these truckers.
00:25:21.240
Here's a full minute where Folks describes his encounter with the Nazi guy.
00:25:50.360
He was going around with the flag saying, is this what you want for our country?
00:25:54.800
This is what Trudeau is going to turn our flag into if we allow this draconian fascism to
00:26:00.060
Is this what you want the maple leaf to be replaced by?
00:26:06.960
So, I'm thinking that he came from a country that knows about fascism.
00:26:12.560
And we don't see the slow, incremental movements that they're making towards this total, you know,
00:26:25.560
As in a warning of what Trudeau was going to do to Canada?
00:26:33.800
I mean, I'm sure he did say that lie to the Sean folks.
00:26:37.680
Imagine showing up with a mask and a Nazi flag and then claiming you're just being ironic.
00:26:50.520
Obviously, it was a false flag designed to smear the truckers.
00:26:55.200
The Nazi flag guy spoke to Sean folks in a European accent, by which I'm sure folks means
00:27:01.240
Eastern European, like Russian or Polish or Czech or something, and claimed to be talking
00:27:12.100
But whatever the substance of the Nazi flag guy's comments, if he spoke with an accent,
00:27:25.140
I'm not saying Sean folks lied in his affidavit.
00:27:27.640
I'm saying it's much more likely that he forgot 10 months later about that detail of the accent.
00:27:32.280
Or more to the point, he's never met or spoken with Brian Fox.
00:27:35.340
He just looked at a photo of him, so he simply didn't know that Brian Fox does not speak with
00:27:40.700
I mean, seriously, he never even saw the face of the Nazi guy.
00:27:44.780
And he was looking at a corporate website photo of Brian Fox.
00:27:48.260
Imagine trying to compare those two things 10 months apart with great certainty.
00:27:53.980
If he really did meet Brian Fox in person, he'd have heard the Canadian accent and known
00:28:09.600
The government's making mistakes, but they're not learning from them.
00:28:26.380
I hate saying that because Brendan Miller has been the MVP in these Trucker Commission
00:28:32.580
He's asked the best questions in the best ways.
00:28:40.560
To begin with, Brian Fox immediately denied it was him.
00:28:50.020
He said he's a pro-conservative guy, if that matters.
00:28:52.940
And really, do you really think a senior business executive would do a dirty trick prank like
00:28:58.600
this, even if he was motivated by malice, and even if he was in town and had the opportunity?
00:29:03.820
And the proof, a foggy memory of a guy who briefly spoke with him 10 months ago, and then
00:29:20.980
Now, we reported Brendan Miller's accusation when it was made because it was news, very
00:29:26.380
It was made in a judicial inquiry about matters in the public interest.
00:29:31.840
And we immediately published Brian Fox's refutation of it.
00:29:36.120
But I won't lie, even though a flat denial is pretty powerful, I was still tending to believe
00:29:41.680
Miller has done just such a good job this past month, and I couldn't believe he would say
00:29:46.620
something so powerful without some real evidence.
00:29:49.880
We ran Brian Fox's response because that's the journalist's thing to do.
00:29:54.320
But I got to tell you, I still believed on the balance of probabilities that he was the
00:29:59.300
I mean, I just couldn't believe Brendan Miller would say something without proof.
00:30:05.500
Now that I've read the affidavit, the foggy memory of a guy 10 months ago who said on a
00:30:11.600
contemporaneous video that the Nazi guy had a European accent, that's it?
00:30:19.360
There's a reason why police traditionally have had a lineup of five or six similar-looking
00:30:25.100
suspects when an eyewitness is asked to identify them.
00:30:27.900
Because it's bloody important to get the right guy, more important than how it was treated
00:30:38.540
I know what it's like to be called names unfairly.
00:30:41.140
I'm Jewish, but because I'm conservative, you know, here's an example.
00:30:48.280
The disgraceful Gerald Butts, the advisor to Justin Trudeau, his friend since childhood.
00:30:58.700
Trudeau's corrupt henchman, disgraced lobbyist.
00:31:04.480
Now, I can brush that off more easily than most.
00:31:07.680
It really is absurd to call a Jew like me a Nazi.
00:31:09.900
But Brian Fox, I can only imagine what it's like to be tarred that way.
00:31:18.000
He wasn't even in the city, but some foggy memory guy says for sure it's him, so it's
00:31:23.040
Look, part of Rebel News is championing the cause of freedom.
00:31:29.360
That's why we support the trucker lawyers, including Brendan Miller and his great team.
00:31:34.320
If you don't know, Rebel News constantly promotes the JCCF, and I always buy tickets to their
00:31:40.980
Their boss, John Carpe, will be a speaker at our big Rebel News Live conference in Calgary
00:31:47.820
And as you've heard me say all month, my favorite new lawyer there is Brendan Miller.
00:31:52.620
He's doing a great job at the commission, but he got this one wrong.
00:31:56.440
Maybe he just wanted it too much, so he didn't look at countervailing facts.
00:32:00.880
Maybe he just knew in his bones that the government did set this up, and he forced the facts to
00:32:08.300
I can imagine he's under stress and pressure, and he's sleep-deprived too.
00:32:12.900
We like the JCCF and Brendan Miller, but we also have a duty to our viewers to tell the
00:32:21.020
Oh, believe me, we wanted to find out the identity of that Nazi guy as much as Miller did.
00:32:25.520
And when he made the accusation, we reported it with some gusto, but now three days later,
00:32:34.740
Miller raised the question again obliquely today with Chrystia Freeland.
00:32:38.720
He didn't name Brian Fox, but he said the Nazi flag waiver was a government plant.
00:32:46.180
I do think the Nazi flag waiver was a government plant, because if he were real, we would know
00:32:52.300
his name, address, phone number, and bank account like we know that information for 1,000 truckers
00:32:59.480
The banks would have frozen the Nazi flag waiver's bank account.
00:33:03.640
The media party would be doing biographies on his whole family and all his friends, and
00:33:07.520
we'd know everyone he'd follow on social media.
00:33:09.200
The fact that we don't know who the Nazi flag guy is tells me that he was Canada's version
00:33:15.040
of Ray Epps, a government plant, an undercover cop maybe, but I'll tell you, it was not
00:33:20.540
I think Brian Fox deserves from Brendan Miller a retraction, a correction, and an apology,
00:33:28.340
not just for the sake of Brian Fox's reputation, but for the sake of Brendan Miller's reputation.
00:33:34.940
Here at Rebel News, we work hard to get it right.
00:33:39.080
You know, when you publish 20 stories a day under time pressure, you're not always going
00:33:44.280
A few times a year, we get it wrong, and once in a while, we have to apologize.
00:33:50.780
It is not tasty, but it is the right thing to do, and it's also a message.
00:33:55.040
If we apologize when we make an error, that's a signal that you can trust what we do and
00:34:01.880
say the rest of the time because we'll admit it when we're wrong.
00:34:06.620
Saying sorry once in a while actually improves your reputation for accuracy the rest of the
00:34:11.080
time, we've been the top boosters of Brendan Miller and his team all month, and I've literally
00:34:18.700
never met or heard of Brian Fox until three days ago, but we owe it to our readers to correct
00:34:25.180
the record and to our viewers and to call upon our champion, Brendan Miller, to correct the record
00:34:30.880
Brian Fox did not do that terrible thing, and just as it is wrong for the truckers to
00:34:37.620
be demonized for political purposes of Trudeau, it's wrong for our side to do the same to Brian
00:34:52.380
Well, I'm so glad we're doing this Trucker Commission coverage the way we are.
00:34:55.960
As you know, we've rented an Airbnb in downtown Ottawa, not far from where the commission hearings
00:35:03.840
It's actually faster to walk from our Airbnb to the commission than even to call a cab.
00:35:09.960
It's got four bedrooms so our reporters can stay there.
00:35:12.400
It's almost like a fraternity house, but instead of for partying, it's for working.
00:35:18.240
I have to give credit to the commission of inquiry.
00:35:20.200
I have never heard of a court keeping these hours before.
00:35:24.800
I mean, courts often start at 9.30 or 10, and they often wrap up at 5.
00:35:30.160
It's not unusual for this commission of inquiry to go to 7 p.m. or later because they are on
00:35:36.920
So I give credit not just to the commission staff and lawyers, but to the judge himself.
00:35:46.360
I'm the kind of guy I start to daydream and my mind wanders.
00:35:50.120
It must take a very strong attention span to follow things.
00:35:53.060
And I'm not saying he's got everything right, but I think he's got most things right.
00:35:57.260
And I'm actually optimistic, and maybe that'll be proven to be naive, that I actually believe
00:36:02.320
that some public system can hold Trudeau to account when he has corrupted so many public
00:36:09.080
I mean, the people handpicked by Trudeau acted like it.
00:36:13.140
You saw his CSIS advisor, his security advisor, the head of the RCMP, all the people that
00:36:26.980
Just the ones who are put in place by Trudeau are loyal to Trudeau, not to the country.
00:36:33.800
I hope that this judge is independent enough to do the right thing.
00:36:39.420
How possibly could a judge find that the legal test for martial law was met?
00:36:45.120
Oh, a political test, maybe a journalistic test, a feelings test.
00:36:57.140
As I said over the course of the weeks, it's like the Commission of Acquire is moving towards
00:37:02.600
the bullseye from the outer rings of people who really weren't that involved, moving in
00:37:09.520
And today it was Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, and Katie Telford, who I believe
00:37:17.440
And then tomorrow we get to the bullseye himself.
00:37:27.660
He loves to play dress up and he loves to put on his dramatic actor voice.
00:37:31.300
It'll be interesting to see if he can hold up under cross-examination because normally
00:37:34.920
when he does his dramatic actor routine, it's a soliloquy.
00:37:38.500
It's a unilateral speech and press that he largely owns or rents, just take notes.
00:37:45.960
It'll be interesting to see how he handles cross-examination from adverse lawyers.
00:37:51.860
It'll probably be more duck speaking, just fog to kill the time.
00:37:59.000
That's, I think, the chief tactic of the government because, like I say, this commission has a hard
00:38:05.180
So any shenanigans in a real court could result in a delay or more hearings, but not this.
00:38:10.780
So I think Trudeau will simply try and run out the clock.
00:38:13.660
Well, Chrystia Freeland is the deputy prime minister, and in some ways I think she's become
00:38:19.580
the de facto prime minister because Trudeau just likes mascot-type things.
00:38:32.660
That's how he described himself before the ethics commissioner.
00:38:35.260
He was accused and convicted of taking an illegal gift of a $100,000 secret vacation to Billionaire
00:38:43.300
Island in the Bahamas, and his excuse was, sure, the man who gave me the vacation, the
00:38:50.360
Sure, we paid him hundreds of millions of dollars, but I didn't know about any of that.
00:38:59.440
I think that Justin Trudeau is an empty vessel, and Chrystia Freeland is actually the hands-on
00:39:06.820
She took the stand today, and our own Alexa Lavoie was covering it, live tweeting it.
00:39:12.440
She is at the Airbnb in Ottawa and joins us now.
00:39:18.400
We're really down to the final days in the inquiry.
00:39:30.460
Was she in that lecturing mode that she sometimes gets?
00:39:39.400
I would say because I arrived really at the end of the commission.
00:39:46.320
But I was capable to feel that people is getting tired.
00:39:51.600
And it's something that we were able to feel in the room.
00:40:01.280
I was pretty surprised that she didn't take a car or anything.
00:40:08.420
But it was really interesting to see her in front of really tough questions, trying to avoid or she was saying a lot of different things that was not making sense to, I think, gaining some time to answer to the question.
00:40:31.360
Now, you've chosen three clips to look at, and this will be my first time looking at them.
00:40:40.940
Your live tweeting events were live streaming the whole proceedings.
00:40:45.460
Plus, we're cutting video clips during the day.
00:40:49.280
There really are a lot of things happening at truckercommission.com.
00:40:54.120
This first video, clip number one, is talking about a text exchange with an American owner of a steel company that's based in Hamilton.
00:41:05.860
Let's take a look at this clip and then let's talk about it.
00:41:08.220
I know it sucks politically to back down and reverse course, but it does really pay to carry on the policy, or does it really pay, I'm sorry, to carry on the policy in support of a mandate for a vaccine that doesn't prevent the spread of Omicron and which seems to be vanishing naturally anyway.
00:41:24.940
Moreover, this could create a resurgence of the right wing, just like it did in America.
00:41:29.500
Anyway, I know this is a massive headache for you, but it could be solved by retreating and letting it fade away from everyone's memory.
00:41:35.480
Just sharing my views, hoping the spreading disruption gets resolved quickly.
00:41:40.360
You know, I think what he says there, and he runs Stelco in Hamilton.
00:41:52.340
What he was saying at the beginning about onshoring and relocating to the U.S., that's what I was talking about earlier today.
00:42:01.700
And I kind of highlight that for all of us here, just to kind of make clear to everyone that for people whose bread and butter, whose livelihoods were in the U.S. trade-exposed industries, their immediate conclusion, you didn't have to think about it,
00:42:27.160
but the immediate conclusion from the blockage of trade was the Americans are going to respond by cutting us out.
00:42:46.420
I don't think that it's, I think that the relevant information for me from him wasn't for him to tell me what the right solution was.
00:43:01.660
Yeah, because he was saying the obvious, why are you bringing this vaccine mandate for truckers so late in the game when we all know that the vaccine isn't stopping Omicron from spreading?
00:43:11.240
Why are you doing this political theater? If anything, you're going to radicalize things.
00:43:16.040
I think Alan, who apparently is in charge of Stelco in Hamilton, had some good advice for her, but she wasn't interested in that.
00:43:24.060
The idea that Hamilton's steel factory would shut down and move to America, I mean, that may happen eventually.
00:43:32.180
I have no idea, probably for other reasons, the reasons that other steel plants have closed in Canada.
00:43:37.860
But it absolutely was not affected. There was no blockade in Hamilton.
00:43:43.340
The steel in Hamilton is used in Canada. I think that that's grasping.
00:43:47.760
But let's say she's right. Let's say this trucker convoy would make the owner of that Stelco factory say,
00:43:56.800
I'm going to move it to the United States. He didn't say that. In fact, he said,
00:43:59.860
what are you doing with your ridiculous vaccine mandate?
00:44:02.540
But let's say her attempt to say, oh, no, no, this is a threat to trade.
00:44:08.100
A threat to trade is not a listed ground to bring in martial law.
00:44:14.220
Under the Emergencies Act, you have to have one of two things.
00:44:17.880
A threat, a danger to the people of Canada or a danger to the sovereignty of Canada, like a revolution or an invasion.
00:44:25.700
And part two, this is so important, something that can't be dealt with by regular laws.
00:44:33.240
So a trade dispute that may or may not happen and that didn't happen is not grounds.
00:44:39.180
And even if it did, you know, you solve the blockade with regular laws, which it was in the case of the Windsor Bridge.
00:44:46.720
And even if you didn't, even if that Stelco factory moved to the United States, which was not proposed in this text message from Alan,
00:44:55.440
even if that were to happen, you don't say, well, there's my justification for bringing in martial law.
00:45:01.260
I think Chrystia Freeland is far too easy to say, yeah, martial law, because my job was difficult for a day.
00:45:10.000
But the blockade was dismantled before they invoked the Emergencies Act, no?
00:45:19.500
So they have the power to already dismantle some blockade.
00:45:25.720
So that just proved that it was overused to invoke the Emergencies Act since no blockade was there anymore.
00:45:37.300
You know, I think Chrystia Freeland is an ideologue.
00:45:42.400
I think she really doesn't care about civil liberties.
00:45:50.160
She was, before she became a member of parliament, she was actually the official biographer of George Soros,
00:45:56.800
which is, I think, a fact most Canadians don't know but would find interesting.
00:46:00.200
And to this day, bizarrely, I don't even know how it's legal.
00:46:03.120
She's on the board of directors of the World Economic Forum.
00:46:05.500
She doesn't care about things like civil liberties or Canadian sovereignty.
00:46:13.300
And this whole idea of having to answer to the public is something that she doesn't really like one bit.
00:46:26.980
I just have a quick summary of them here, but I'm watching them for the first time.
00:46:30.300
This is Brendan Miller, who has been an excellent lawyer, doing some great cross-examinations.
00:46:37.880
Here he is asking, what's the point of an inquiry if the public isn't allowed to see the key documents?
00:46:45.340
I have to say that I disagree with the premise of the question.
00:46:50.260
I think Canada is a very transparent democracy.
00:46:56.580
And in fact, the commission that we're part of right now is a part of Canadian transparency.
00:47:05.120
And on that point, if I told you that there is a whole bunch of unlawfully redacted documents that we've been fighting over and waiting for an order just to get them today,
00:47:14.120
and we haven't had them for this whole proceeding,
00:47:21.940
Again, and with apologies, I can't agree with the premise of the question.
00:47:27.780
I think that, but what I can say is, I think that the fact that this commission exists,
00:47:34.820
that these hearings are being held, that they're public, is really important for Canada and is a measure of Canadian transparency.
00:47:42.560
Well, there's some truth to that, but the commission inquiry doesn't work if it can't get access to documents.
00:47:49.180
And it's not a very much a public inquiry if the documents are not made public because Trudeau blacks them out.
00:47:55.460
And it's really funny because during her testimony, they show a document, but it was just a black square, a giant black square, because everything was hiding.
00:48:13.960
So where is the transparency when we see some documents look like that?
00:48:20.180
She claimed that there is no lack of transparency on Canadian citizens.
00:48:26.020
I'm sorry, but when we see the documents coming back from the government, it just showed that there is like a really big lack of transparency
00:48:36.720
if you don't want to show the information and to hide the information from the population.
00:48:46.160
Our third clip is again with Brendan Miller asking about terrorists.
00:48:57.160
In terms of designating who is a terrorist and who isn't, that is not my job as Minister of Finance or Deputy Prime Minister.
00:49:13.660
And so it's not your authority to designate Tamara Leach, Chris Barber, Tom Marazzo, or Danny Bould for terrorists.
00:49:28.200
We have enforcement agencies whose job is to determine who is a terrorist.
00:49:33.880
And there you say that you need to designate the group as terrorists.
00:49:41.060
So, but it's not your job, but you wanted to designate them as terrorists, right?
00:49:49.480
So, that handwritten note in my notebook, I can assure you that was not a meeting with the director of CSIS,
00:50:02.000
It says, okay, it's with David Vignol from CSIS.
00:50:12.640
That meeting, that is not an account of a meeting with Dave Vignol because I didn't have a meeting with the CSIS director.
00:50:27.480
I need to see my whole notebook that you're referring to, but I can tell you for certain.
00:50:33.140
I can tell you for certain that I did not have a meeting during this time with the CSIS director.
00:50:41.960
You know, I thought that was an excellent back and forth.
00:50:45.360
She said twice, no, we do not designate people as terrorists.
00:50:50.840
And then a second later, her own handwritten notes say we need to designate these people as terrorists.
00:50:58.300
Oh, I thought you literally just said you're not allowed to do that.
00:51:05.040
I mean, politicians do not command our police forces.
00:51:11.140
Politicians do not direct police to arrest their enemies.
00:51:14.420
And yet throughout, we've seen Trudeau and other politicians demanding that police do their bidding.
00:51:20.580
I think that Brendan Miller caught Chrystia Freeland red-handed there.
00:51:27.260
And especially when you think that some people from the organism was present in front of her,
00:51:34.980
saying what she was just saying in front of their face.
00:51:39.720
I find that a little bit arrogant and not adequate at all.
00:51:48.380
I don't know who the Dave was in question there.
00:51:55.360
I don't know how many people named Dave she talks to about designating people as terrorists.
00:52:01.160
But I think that there's more answering to do there.
00:52:06.240
But again, the nature of this inquiry is that she likely will never be followed up on that.
00:52:10.200
And it'll be interesting to see tonight if the mainstream media reports that stunning contra juxtaposition.
00:52:21.140
It's just because she keeps telling that it's why she's taking note, because she keeps forgetting.
00:52:28.880
But I'm just like, oh, you can forget to who you talk about designated someone as a terrorist.
00:52:37.740
I mean, if you're in a crisis and you're talking to someone about designating them as a terrorist,
00:52:42.660
and you just forget who that is, I find that implausible.
00:52:46.180
But again, in some ways, it doesn't matter who it is, because you saw that Chrystia Freeland,
00:52:51.440
one of them designated terrorists, and she's the decider.
00:52:59.480
She just said, it's not our role to make people terrorists.
00:53:02.080
And then the next moment, she said, yeah, those are my notes.
00:53:06.220
Well, of course, it does matter if it was CESIS.
00:53:09.820
But in a way, it doesn't matter because we just see the mask has slipped.
00:53:14.240
And we see that Chrystia Freeland is in the habit of designating her political enemies as terrorists.
00:53:20.640
I'm sure it's not the first time she's done that.
00:53:22.640
Well, Alexa, thank you for your coverage there.
00:53:28.500
And it'll continue with Katie Telford, the chief of staff, and tomorrow's a big day with Justin Trudeau.
00:53:35.160
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be there, too.
00:53:41.160
Folks, if you want to see all our coverage of the Trucker Commission, go to truckercommission.com.
00:53:47.380
And if you can, help us chip in to cover the cost.
00:53:49.920
The Airbnb for a month and a half with four bedrooms and that little pop-up studio, it's about $15,000.
00:53:57.720
Even our Western team has done some shifts in there.
00:54:02.940
We probably need to raise about $30,000, to be honest.
00:54:05.820
And I know that's a drop in the bucket of the CBC, but it's a lot of money to us.
00:54:09.380
If you can go to truckercommission.com and help, I'd be grateful.
00:54:22.200
Your viewer feedback on Brendan Miller and Chrystia Freeland today.
00:54:26.280
Jack Masterman says, what is Brendan Miller trying to do?
00:54:30.920
They should have been directed to the health minister.
00:54:33.840
Why spend time asking questions the witness can't answer, not within their ministry, and
00:54:38.240
have little to do with invoking the Emergencies Act?
00:54:41.160
Walking away after asking a question is just making Rolo mad, as he has already talked to
00:54:48.960
Look, I'm worried about this because, as I said at great length in my monologue, Brendan
00:54:53.300
Miller is right to say that the Nazi flag waiver was obviously a government plant.
00:55:01.120
But I think he's got to correct the waters, correct the record, because he muddied the
00:55:12.260
Calvin 1536 says, these liberals are far too reckless and cocky to be effective tyrants.
00:55:18.120
They provided ample campaign material for constitutionalist conservatives.
00:55:27.420
Listen, we already knew what Trudeau was like in the 2021 election.
00:55:32.540
He had yet to do the martial law move, but he had done the lockdowns and he was reelected
00:55:40.040
Oracle of Truth says, they should have treated it the same as they treated the Black Lives
00:55:46.080
Matter and Aboriginal protests, i.e. done absolutely nothing at all or even joined in.
00:55:52.620
Black Lives Matter, Trudeau literally took a knee, but he was talking or his cabin ministers
00:55:58.340
were talking about bringing in a military tank when it was the truckers.
00:56:03.680
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,