EZRA LEVANT ｜ Our lawsuit against Steven Guilbeault makes national news
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Summary
A lengthy story in the National Post and other, actually, 100 other newspapers about our lawsuit against Liberal Cabinet Minister Stephen Gilboa. I ll take you through the report as it was written, correct some errors, and tell you why I m hopeful about the case.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. A lengthy story in the National Post and other, actually, a hundred other
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newspapers about our lawsuit against Liberal Cabinet Minister Stephen Gilboa. I'll take you
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through the report as it was written in the National Post, correct some of their errors,
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and tell you why I'm hopeful about the case. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber
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to Rebel News Plus. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. It's
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a video version of this podcast. And that eight bucks, by the way, we rely on it because we
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obviously don't get any money from Stephen Gilboa, who we're suing. I'll tell you more about that in
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today's show. Here it is. Tonight, our lawsuit against Stephen
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Gilboa makes the national news. It's February 8th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Big story on page three in the National Post today, and apparently in a hundred other newspapers
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across Canada. That's how it is in the news business these days. They're really just wire
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services that repeat the same thing all across the country. I couldn't find a hard copy of the
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National Post in Toronto. That's where I drove up and down the street, went to so many convenience
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stores. You really can't find a copy of it. At least I couldn't. I didn't go to a specialty store.
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I would have liked to have seen it because the image I saw online looks sort of cool.
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You can see the headline. The paper headline was LeVant argues minister violated charter rights.
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Here's the website version with a different headline, which is liberal minister breached
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charter by blocking rebel news chief on Twitter. Legal challenge. The case is raising novel
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questions about government use of a social media platform, often called a digital public square.
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Now, there's a lot of news in the article. It's actually very long. And as far as the news goes,
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it's pretty good. But there's so much snark in there that's just so obviously gratuitous pot shots.
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But it was the second most read newspaper, sorry, story in the National Post today, which
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makes me laugh sometimes. I mean, we cover very interesting and we do very interesting things
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at Rebel News. And we are obviously watched obsessively by the media party, but they either
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can't or won't talk about what we talk about. They're simply not allowed to. But when they do, like
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today, it goes viral. I think that's a quirky thing. So let me read to you the story from Tom
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Blackwell, who obviously doesn't like us, but can't stop watching us. By the way, he never contacted
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me for the story, which is, I think, unprofessional. I should tell you the text of the online version,
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I think it may have changed a little bit throughout the day. I'm going to read to you the final
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version, which I think he actually had some of the snark taken out of it. It happens every
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day. Someone on Twitter gets fed up with criticism or abuse from another user of the social media
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platform and blocks the person from their feed. But what if the Twitter account belongs to a
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federal cabinet minister and jamming the other individual essentially cuts off access to a form
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of government communication? It's a good question. Actually, I think that's a pretty good summary
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of our lawsuit, isn't it? That question is at the heart of an intriguing constitutional challenge
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by right-wing provocateur Ezra Levant, who alleges that environment minister Stephen Gilboa violated
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his constitutional right to free expression when he Twitter-blocked the Rebel News head.
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Levant called Gilboa a convicted criminal. Yeah, he is. Incompetent and stupid. Yes, I did.
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In responding to the minister's post on Twitter, no, that's actually not accurate, and I'll prove
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that in a minute, but says he had a right to follow and comment on the minister. His application
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to the federal court says Section 2B of the Charter, which guarantees free expression and freedom of the
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press, also protects access to government information in order that meaningful discussion
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about it is possible. You know, there's a lot of reasons why we deserve access to Stephen Gilboa's
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Twitter account. I want to make it crystal clear before I go on. I'm not talking about any personal
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accounts, like his personal family account or a private account for friends. I'm not talking about
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that. I'm talking about the government cabinet minister run by, you know, his office run by civil
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servants and political staff, all in a taxpayer dime, using that Twitter account as a official
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outlet of the government. That's what I'm talking about, just to be clear. I don't care about his
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personal life. I care about, in fact, I don't even care about him. I care about him only in the fact
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that he occupies the office of a cabinet minister, and especially when we launched the lawsuit, that
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cabinet minister was a minister of heritage who had power over media companies like ours and people
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like me. I'll keep reading. The case has yet to get a full hearing in court, but already is raising
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novel questions about government use of a social media platform, often called a digital public square.
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Fred Kozak, a leading Alberta media lawyer who has acted both for and against LeVette,
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said he, I don't remember Fred acting against me, but I'll take the newspaper's word for it,
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said he doesn't always agree with rebels' opinions or tactics, but believes there's merit
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to the Twitter argument. Thanks, Fred. The courts have interpreted the free expression section as a
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bundle of rights that covers more than just actual expression, he said. I don't think you can
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identify and use a communications and access mechanism and then deny access to someone who
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disagrees with your perspective, said Kozak. That is not how democracies are supposed to operate.
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Fred's pretty smart, by the way. He represents so many media companies. He was our lawyer, just to
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remind you, when the NDP government of Alberta banned Sheila Gunn-Reed from walking in the legislature.
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I don't know if you remember that. They literally sent a sheriff with a gun to keep Sheila out.
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Fred was our lawyer who got us back in. Here's that video clip, if you've forgotten about it.
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Fred is a champion of the journalists. It's just a fact. Journalists across the spectrum,
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by the way. In fact, I understand he represents the National Post sometimes. Let me get back to
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the story. But Levant's own behavior might pose some obstacles in the case, says lawyer Kara Zwiebel,
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director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
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Oh, really? What behavior is that? I've never been suspended or banned from Twitter. I extremely
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rarely even swear on the platform. I've never sworn it. Stephen Gilbeau, I don't threaten to harass
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anyone. What on earth are you talking about? I'll keep reading. On the face of it, what Gilbeau did
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seems to violate freedom of expression, she said, noting that courts in the U.S. ruled President
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Donald Trump and other politicians had breached America's similar First Amendment by blocking
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certain Twitter users. But the right in Canada is not as absolute, and courts here may rule that
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online abuse is a legitimate reason for a government representative to block someone, said Zwiebel.
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What are you talking about? No one, as literally no one has ever accused me.
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Of online abuse. Criticizing a powerful government using peaceful language of protest
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is not abuse, you strange civil libertarian. I'll keep reading. The charter allows some violations
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if they're deemed a reasonable limitation on the right. There is a strong argument that public
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officials have an obligation to communicate in a way that is open to people to respond to,
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she said. Elected officials have to have a bit of a thick skin and be prepared to deal with the
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criticism. But there is a point where the line gets crossed and personal attacks and harassment.
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What are you talking about? I've never harassed anyone in my life. What? It's just, it's pitiful.
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She made that up. I called him a convicted criminal. I don't even know if that's an attack. That's a
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description. It's true. He was convicted. I don't know if you remember, he was a Greenpeace criminal
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convicted in court. Is mentioning the cabinet minister is a criminal? I think that's very
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newsworthy. In fact, not only do I think it's not abuse, I think I have a duty as a journalist to
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mention that. Now here's another thing I said about him. I'm just showing you the toughest
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things I said about him. For a convicted criminal, the only criminal I'm aware of who has ever been
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appointed to a federal cabinet. Gibault is a terribly bad liar. Here, watch for yourself. And
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then I played this video. The bill is about ensuring that these platforms that act like
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broadcasters pay their fair share when it comes to Canadian culture. So it's about spending
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obligations, spending requirements. It's not about content moderation. So I'm going to flip the
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question for a moment here, minister, because it was important enough to put that exclusion there in
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the first place. Now it's gone. Why was it important in the first place to put it there?
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We're not interested. I mean, it's not what the bill is about.
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I mean, I hear you saying you're not interested, but there literally was an exclusion that was put
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in the original iteration of that bill, the thing that was reviewed, and then it got to committee,
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and bingo, bango, bongo, the exclusion is gone. So why was it important to put it there in the first
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place such that now the committee has removed it? Well, I mean, the committee decides what they
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want. The bill, first of all, the committee hasn't even finished doing its work in terms of the
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amendments. So we don't have a full picture of what the bill will look like when it comes back to the
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Would you like to see the exclusion back in there?
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If it's not necessary, why was it there in the first place?
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Well, you know, we've worked on this for many months. We came up with what we thought would be
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the best possible bill, but bill can always be perfected. They will be amended, and it's not the
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purpose of the bill. So it's not required to be there because, I mean, again, this idea that the
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CRTC would start looking, would start doing content moderation has no basis in reality. In its 40 years
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of existence, it has never done that. It doesn't have the power to do that. Bill C-10 doesn't grant
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the CRTC the power to do that. So this whole conversation makes no sense.
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But a former CRTC chair, Peter Menzies, has said, I'll quote here, granting a government agency
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authority over legal user-generated content doesn't just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a
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full-blown assault on it. That is from a former CRTC chair.
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Yeah, that's, I think that's the toughest thing I've said about him. By the way, calling someone a bad liar
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is kind of a compliment. That's not abuse. And I'll just show you one more. Reminder,
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Guilbeau is a convicted criminal that Trudeau put in cabinet over police objections. He's the perfect
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thug to be in charge of silencing Trudeau's opponents. Those are the two toughest things I've
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ever said about him. I didn't swear. I didn't threaten. And if you understand Twitter, you'll have
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noticed that I didn't tag him or name him. I didn't swarm him. I didn't have any pathway to him.
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This would not have come up in his Twitter feed, I'm saying, unless he or his staff were positively
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searching for people chit-chatting about him. I wish Kara Zwiebel and the Canadian Civil Liberties
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Association cared more about civil liberties. I mean, it's nice to hear from her after her three-year
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vacation during the civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic and the lockdowns. I guess
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there was nothing important for her or the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to do during
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that time, but she's alive and that's good to have some proof of life over there. I'll read some
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more. Guilbeau's office and his personal lawyer declined to comment while the case is before the
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courts. Rebel lawyer Chad Williamson was not available. The action originally also targeted
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former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and her own blocking of Levant. That's not true.
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That's just a factual error. McKenna blocked Sheila Gunn-Reed. She's never blocked me.
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You know, you'd think that Tom Blackwell would get his facts right, but he never bothered to call
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me. Anyways, so that's an error here. But her name was removed from the case after she quit politics in
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2021. Calgary-based Rebel News has long been a controversial loudspeaker for Canada's hard right.
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Oh, really? Is it hard right to care about personal privacy and not being forced to comply with a
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vaccine mandate or not being banned? Is it hard right to be worried about civil liberties? What a
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loser Tom Blackwell is. Can't even get his facts straight either. As well as being a resolute doubter
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of climate change and critic of COVID vaccines, the online outlet once promoted a conspiracy theory
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that a Muslim had perpetrated the 2017 Quebec City mosque murder, reported sympathetically from
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2020's racist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville VA before firing its correspondent there,
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faced boycotts by conservatives and other politicians, and hosted Gavin McInnes, founder of the alt-right
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Proud Boys. Again, Tom Blackwell is just sloppy. We don't deny climate change. Climate change is all the
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time. If you've ever heard of the ice ages and know that we're not now under a kilometer of ice
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in Canada, you know the climate changes. What a weird lie. We're not against COVID vaccines if you
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want to take them. Fill your boots. We're just against COVID mandates. And on the Quebec City mosque
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arrest, I don't know if you remember, but police originally arrested more than one person. They arrested
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two people, one of whom went on to be convicted. The other person who was arrested and held overnight
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was a young Muslim man. That's not a conspiracy theory. The police arrested him and then only later
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said he had nothing to do with it. In terms of the Charlottesville event, again, Tom just has basic
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facts wrong. That was in 2017, not 2020. And the reporter who went there did not go with Rebel News.
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She was a rebel reporter, Faith Goldie, who went on her own accord, contrary to my direction. And when I saw
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that she had participated with one of the alt-right groups at fire. So just weird gossip, mishmash, factual
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errors from Tom Blackwell. Sort of embarrassing. I'll keep reading, though. Gilboa, who was heritage
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minister at the time and introducing a bill on online hate speech, blocked Levant in early 2020. Rebel lawyers note
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the liberal could have just instead muted Levant, which would have prevented the rebel tweets from
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appearing on his timeline, but wouldn't block the commentator from seeing the minister's posts.
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Again, Tom Blackwell gets his basic facts wrong. Muting someone doesn't prevent my posts from
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appearing on his timeline. It just prevents Stephen Gilboa himself from seeing it. I don't know how
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you get to be a newspaper reporter for such a senior newspaper as the National Post. And in every
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paragraph you get facts wrong. I'm sort of embarrassed for him, but maybe it's because he never bothered
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to call me for his story. I could have helped him get his facts straight, but I guess he's with the
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media party and he doesn't really believe in calling the other side. Kozak noted that Levant could still
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get access to the minister's tweets from someone who had not been blocked, but said the courts might view
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that as weak justification for blocking someone. Well, not just that, but when you have access to
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someone's Twitter account, you can interact with them. You can reply to them and have a banter with
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them, a discussion with them. That's half the fun of Twitter, isn't it?
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Zwiebel, though, said a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling makes it difficult to argue that merely
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blocking a person on Twitter breaches their rights if the same information is available elsewhere.
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And then if you see on the story there, it's linked to a case. I clicked on that case.
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It's got nothing to do with Twitter. Now, either Kara Zwiebel is wrong or you just have another
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dumb error by Tom Blackwell. Let me read to you. This is a Supreme Court ruling.
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This is called a head note, which is a summary of the case written by clerks of the Supreme Court.
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So I'm just going to tell you the case that Kara Zwiebel allegedly referred to Tom Blackwell.
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Tom Blackwell probably got it wrong because this makes no sense.
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The trial judge ordered a state of proceedings in a murder trial, finding many instances of
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abusive conduct by state officials. The Ontario Provincial Police investigated and exonerated the
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police of misconduct without giving reasons for their finding. Concerned about the disparity between
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the findings at trial and the conclusions of the police investigation, the Criminal Lawyers
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Association, CLA, made a request under the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act,
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FIPAA, to the responsible minister for disclosure of records relating to the investigation.
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The records at issue were a lengthy police report and two documents containing legal advice.
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FIPAA exempts various categories of documents from disclosure, some of which may be disclosed
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pursuant to a discretionary ministerial decision, including law enforcement records under Section 14
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and solicitor-client privilege records under Section 19. Sorry, a secret and private legal opinion
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for a police force is not the same as public tweets. I'm not asking for some special disclosure of a
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secret. I just want access to Stephen Gilboa's public tweets. I think Kara Zwiebel has been on
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vacation for too long. Or maybe, just as likely, the reporter, Tom Blackwell, just absolutely got his
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facts wrong again. That case has nothing to do with my access to a public... I'm not asking the
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government to divulge a secret legal opinion. If those are the people who are in charge of our
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civil liberties and our journalism, we're in trouble in Canada. All right, let me get back to this shoddy
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article. In that Ontario case, the top court said the charter's free expression section can require
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governments to release information, but only if denying access to it effectively precludes
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meaningful public discussion on matters of public interest. I'm not asking for the government to
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release any secrets. What a stupid lawsuit to... a court case to refer it in. This is a terrible article.
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Gilboa's office did not comment on why the rebel founder was blocked, but an affidavit filed by the
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minister's lawyers contains a number of tweets posted by Levant about Gilboa. In some, he refers
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without elaboration to the minister being a convicted criminal, an apparent reference to Gilboa's
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conviction for public mischief after climbing the CM Tower for a climate change protest while working
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for Greenpeace. Well, let me just stop there and say, it is true that I have never been given
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an actual explanation for why I was banned from Gilboa's Twitter feed. I don't know if it's
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something I wrote, if it's something I said, something I did, or if it's just who I am. We
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simply don't know. And the thing is, I keep saying Gilboa's Twitter account, but it's actually not his,
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is it? If it's run by and controlled by and staffed by and paid by civil servants on the taxpayer dime,
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Levant suggests in other tweets that Gilboa is one of the dumbest ministers, one of the most
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incompetent, a terribly bad liar, and a perfect thug assigned to silence Prime Minister Justin
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Trudeau's critics. In a legal motion decided recently, rebels lawyers urged the courts to
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toss out the affidavit displaying the tweets, arguing it was prejudicial to their case, but of
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little evidentiary value. Justice Alan Diner ruled against Levant saying prejudice has not been
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demonstrated, and the evidence is not obviously irrelevant. But like I showed you before,
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those tweets don't even tag Stephen Gilboa. But let's, let's say that those tweets were the reason
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I was banned. We don't know that because Gilboa has refused to testify so far.
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I think that those are terrible reasons to ban me. Because there's no swearing, there's no threats,
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it's simply criticism, or, or calling him a convicted criminal, which I don't even know if
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that's criticism, that's, that's who he is, to ban someone from getting access to a government
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service, a public Twitter account, simply because he irritates you in a partisan political way.
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How can you possibly allow that with no explanation? Banning for me from getting a service, not from a
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secret memo, a service. Anyhow, very interesting story today, and it caused quite a ruckus. Like I
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say, it appeared in a lot of places, very popular. Now, the comments on the National Post website were
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a hoot. I read, I don't know, about a hundred of them. They were knocking Post Media for taking money
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from Trudeau. They were applauding our news coverage and comparing it favorably to the National
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Post. They pointed out the truth about Gilboa, how he was, in fact, a criminal. But then midday,
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and this, as the story was getting traction, something happened, because all of a sudden,
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hundreds of liberal bots, robots, or, you know, shills and partisans were unleashed, and what a hoot
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they were. It was a big argy-bargy, a big back and forth. Here's what you need to know. This lawsuit is
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proceeding to trial. The trial is just a few months away, in June, in Toronto. And I think we've got a
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real chance. If you put aside the snark and the factual errors in Tom Blackwell's story, and if
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you strip aside the snide remarks from the liberal robots, you have a case that on the face of it is
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clearly a violation of my rights as a citizen. It reminds me a little bit of when Justin Trudeau
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required any small business that wanted a summer jobs grant to sign an attestation that they agree
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with Justin Trudeau on moral questions like abortion, had absolutely nothing to do with
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whether or not they should receive a summer jobs grant, absolutely punished Trudeau's enemies,
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and had nothing to do with summer jobs. It was just punitive. Well, that's what he's doing again
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here, but he's not even going through the motions of giving an explanation or a rationale or publishing
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the rules. He's just taking out his vendetta against one of Trudeau's harshest critics, me.
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I don't deny that I'm a harsh critic of the liberal government, and that's my constitutional
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right. And one of the ways I can express that right, in fact, some would say it's a duty of a
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journalist to do that. One of the ways I can express that is to interact with the government
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on Twitter. The tweets I showed you didn't actually interact with Gilboa at all. I didn't
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reply there. I was just speaking in my own right. It would be quite something if I was talking about
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Gilboa over here, not even to him, and I was banned from his Twitter account. I don't think
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Gilboa will be able to avoid taking the witness stand in his own trial. That was that little
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skirmish they talked about at the end there. Gilboa still has not sworn evidence under oath.
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It'll be quite something to see that. If you think this interesting fight should be supported,
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well, I should tell you, we need your help. The government's spending hundreds of thousands
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of dollars stopping this. For some reason, they think it's extremely important that I be banned
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from following Stephen Gilboa on Twitter. And you might say, what a much ado about nothing.
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What a tempest in a teapot. And this is where I disagree with you if you said that.
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Because if the government can ban me from getting a government service, information published by
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civil servants using a government website, if the government can ban me for any reason or no reason,
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not give me the reason, not give me any appeal, not communicate with me at all, just ban me,
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if they can set that precedent, what other things can they ban me from? Can they ban me from having
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a bank account? Can they ban me from getting a tax refund? Can they ban me from traveling places? I
00:24:53.220
mean, they're violating my fundamental freedoms of speech and journalism and the media. What other
00:24:57.620
fundamental freedoms can they ban me for? This is actually an extremely important case.
00:25:03.880
Because if we win, it's a message to the liberal government that no, they cannot use government
00:25:10.580
offices and government projects as their own party projects. I mean, if the liberal party, by the way,
00:25:17.120
the liberal party of Canada has not banned me from Twitter, funny enough. Maybe they should. I'm a
00:25:22.260
critic of theirs and they're not owned by the government. But if the government can ban me and
00:25:26.940
block me simply because they don't like me, well, then that's a road that we do not want to go down,
00:25:33.220
a road where the government is used for private interests, not public interests. If you want to learn more
00:25:38.200
or help us out, go to twitterlawsuit.ca. All right, here's our next interview with Rachel Emanuel.
00:25:45.320
Well, if you had the opportunity to shake Justin Trudeau's hand, would you? Well, if you are a
00:26:02.420
typical rebel viewer, I'm guessing your answer would be no. You might even do that silly high
00:26:07.840
school move where you put your hand out to shake it and then you brush your hair back. You would do
00:26:12.880
something sort of silly like that. But what happens if you weren't allowed to be disrespectful? If you
00:26:17.900
weren't allowed to flip them the bird, as so many Westerners do? Well, maybe you would do what Alberta
00:26:24.640
premiers do when they come face to face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, just like a quarter century
00:26:31.340
ago when the Alberta premiers came face to face with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. They made it clear that
00:26:37.940
in the name of the office and provincial federal harmony and following the Constitution and respect for the
00:26:43.940
Queen, they would, in fact, meet the Prime Minister and they would, perhaps grudgingly, shake his hand. Here's Jason
00:26:51.120
Kenney scowling a bit while shaking Justin Trudeau's hand. Danielle Smith, who is much firmer when it comes to
00:27:00.440
provincial rights and criticizing Justin Trudeau, firmer than Jason Kenney, it looks like she didn't even want to shake
00:27:07.000
hands. But Trudeau reached down to her hand and shook it anyways. Here's how that went down.
00:27:20.120
Yeah, I think, I think that that was just the right tone. It reminds me a little bit of when
00:27:26.240
Stephen Harper was at a international summit and Vladimir Putin came right up to him with his hand
00:27:33.680
out for a handshake. And Harper said, I will shake your hand, but I'm opposed to what you're doing.
00:27:39.900
And I thought that was just the right tone. I'm not comparing Justin Trudeau with Vladimir Putin,
00:27:44.400
although both share similar authoritarian instincts. But I like the fact that Danielle Smith let it be
00:27:50.980
known through her body language that she was no friend of Justin Trudeau. And although that was
00:27:56.800
condemned by the Twitterati and the fainty dainties who thought that she embarrassed Alberta, I think the opposite.
00:28:05.000
I think the fact that she so viscerally rejected Justin Trudeau was probably her finest moment yet,
00:28:12.360
at least in the eyes of Alberta patriots, which is her base.
00:28:17.580
Joining us now via Skype from the Wild Rose Province is our friend Rachel Emanuel,
00:28:21.720
who writes for various outlets, including our friends at True North. Rachel, great to see you.
00:28:26.880
You're actually out there. I'm out here in exile in Toronto. And I was cheering on
00:28:31.000
Danielle Smith when she didn't shake Trudeau's hand. How did it go over there when Danielle Smith
00:28:36.960
clearly was sort of resisting shaking Trudeau's hand?
00:28:40.720
I think this type of thing plays very well with Danielle's base. Of course, in Alberta, you know,
00:28:45.200
they're no friends of the Liberal Party, especially the United Conservative Party. They hate the Trudeau
00:28:49.360
Liberals. They hate what Trudeau has done to this province through some federal legislation. So I
00:28:53.780
think this type of thing plays very well with her base. Of course, there's going to be the
00:28:57.460
Laurentian elites that have negative things to say about it and want to teach Danielle a lesson on
00:29:01.600
how to shake your hands. But I think it was rather intentional. And I think it's going to play over
00:29:05.500
well for her. Now, I know that some of this is for public consumption. Danielle Smith wants to put on
00:29:11.640
the record how she feels. But provincial premiers and federal PMs, they just simply have to work
00:29:18.260
together on so many things. And when they do so, I presume the goal is to be constructive. I presume
00:29:24.040
that the kind of squabbles we see in public are probably not there in a business phone call to get
00:29:29.860
through an item of to-dos. That's what Trudeau was doing. He had a list of things he wanted to do.
00:29:37.720
I don't think it was the same as a list of things that Danielle Smith wanted to go through. Here,
00:29:41.880
let me play a clip for you of Danielle Smith talking with Trudeau looking somewhat uncomfortable.
00:29:47.700
Now, the audio here is rough, but I understand this is the best audio that exists for this clip.
00:29:54.040
So do your best to make it out as she talks about stopping Trudeau's often repeated desire to phase
00:30:02.180
out the oil sands and the jobs that go with it. Here, take a look.
00:30:06.480
I'm delighted to be able to have an opportunity to talk about some areas of common interest,
00:30:12.820
maybe some areas of diversion, to see if we can find some common interest. We have, I think,
00:30:17.760
a lot of shared goals in addressing issues of Indigenous health care and health addiction,
00:30:23.760
home care, community-based care, as we transform our health care system. So I'm pleased that we'll be
00:30:28.480
meeting with all the other bringers today. But of course, I did write a letter to the Prime Minister
00:30:36.480
a couple of weeks ago expressing concern about some of the major initiatives that have been announced
00:30:43.760
without much consultation in Alberta that stand to have a huge impact on our products. The just transition,
00:30:50.960
the Prime Minister, the impression that the energy sector is going to be phased out and it's not going
00:30:56.960
to be phased out. We're transforming away from high-intensity emissions to lower emissions,
00:31:02.880
and we have some shared priorities on that. LNG exports to reduce emissions using a green transfer
00:31:10.160
mechanism to get credit here. That would also help Rich Columbia, working on critical minerals, hydrogen,
00:31:17.680
geothermal. I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to find some common ground. I'm also concerned
00:31:24.480
about the green electricity regulations. Our province has 90 percent of our electricity grid on
00:31:30.640
natural gas, and so a third phase out of natural gas is just simply not going to result in a reliable
00:31:36.960
and affordable option for our province. And also a proposed emissions cap on the energy sector. We've
00:31:44.800
said very clearly that being an aggressive emissions cap, such as it was initially proposed, would
00:31:50.560
really be a production cap, because there isn't a feasible way for us to achieve that within eight
00:31:56.160
years. So with that, we'll find some common ground on some of those issues today, because I think it's
00:32:00.480
going to be important for all of Canada that we need to find common ground so that we can continue to move
00:32:07.680
more. Well, Rachel, was this the case of two ships passing in the night that really weren't talking
00:32:16.880
to each other? Or was there any common ground? Did they engage on anything?
00:32:23.360
I wouldn't say it's two ships passing in the night. I want to say that there was some agreement made. As
00:32:27.440
you mentioned, the Prime Minister did look extremely uncomfortable while Danielle was making her comments
00:32:32.160
there. But as she's saying, you know, we're not going to be phasing out the energy sector, we see Trudeau
00:32:36.640
nodding along, kind of conceding to some comments that she's made. Later on in her remarks, he looks
00:32:41.280
arguably a bit more uncomfortable. I'm sure they didn't agree on everything. But I think it's safe
00:32:45.200
to say we did see some concessions from the Prime Minister. And I think the Premier is coming back to
00:32:49.440
Alberta with a good message. And I think she's proud of what she was able to deliver on during her visit to
00:32:53.840
Ottawa. Tell me what some of those concessions were. I know that Danielle Smith campaigned on the
00:33:03.840
Sovereignty Act, which got a lot of dramatic coverage from the CBC and others. But my read of
00:33:09.520
it is just basically applying the Constitution the same way Quebec has, which is to make sure there's no
00:33:15.360
intrusions on provincial jurisdiction by the feds. Was there any, were there any interesting concessions? I know
00:33:22.480
that there was a recent firearms concession by Trudeau basically admitting that he was going to tackle
00:33:28.720
hunters and he backed down from that. Other than the firearms back down, what else did Trudeau back down on?
00:33:35.280
Well, I think the interesting thing we see there is that when the Premier is saying we're not going to
00:33:38.640
see a phasing out of the energy sector, we see the Prime Minister nodding along in agreement. So they've
00:33:43.440
reached some mutual territory there. Of course, the firearms one was a big piece of drawback that we've
00:33:48.320
seen from the federal government lately. I was actually really surprised to see that. It seems that the Trudeau
00:33:53.760
government hasn't been listening to Canadians lately. No matter how loud the criticism is, they are very
00:33:58.800
loathe to withdraw unpopular legislation. So it was interesting to see them withdraw this amendment. Now, you
00:34:04.560
could say that's a concession for now, although I'm not sure that we won't see reintroduced at a later date in some
00:34:09.840
other form. So it'll be interesting to see where we go for that. And you're absolutely right. The Sovereignty Act was so
00:34:14.960
controversial when the Premier was first voted in and made actions on that. But really, her plan is to
00:34:19.680
achieve the same autonomy that the Quebecers have. Now, there's still some other movements that need
00:34:24.560
to be made. There needs to be some changes in health care. And of course, the provincial police
00:34:28.080
force would allow the province to have some more autonomy, as Quebec does. So there's still a lot of
00:34:32.160
work to be done on that. But I think we're seeing that the Sovereignty Act wasn't as controversial
00:34:36.160
as it was initially pegged to be. And it's since been passed, and there hasn't been as much
00:34:39.920
conversation about it as we've seen. Yeah. It has not escaped my attention that opinion polls,
00:34:47.200
including opinion polls taken by liberal-affiliated pollsters like Abacus, show that Trudeau has a
00:34:55.440
statistically significant shortfall in his popularity far behind Pierre Pagliau's conservatives. I mean,
00:35:03.760
it's not just a point or two. It's almost a double-digit lead now. That's got to be spooking
00:35:09.600
some liberals in marginal seats. I mean, if you're in downtown Toronto or Montreal,
00:35:14.800
they'll be voting liberal almost no matter what. But it's in those more marginal areas,
00:35:19.840
the suburbs, even parts of British Columbia, some rural strongholds for the liberals in Ontario,
00:35:28.320
Manitoba. Those liberal MPs are going to lose if these poll numbers stand up. Do you think that
00:35:34.320
that is motivating Trudeau to maybe give up some of those ideological eccentricities?
00:35:40.640
I think to an extent, I think what we're seeing, if you read media reports, there's been reports in
00:35:47.520
recent weeks of people within the Liberal Party actually turning on Trudeau. I think within his
00:35:52.000
own party and among his MPs, we're finally seeing him lose support and popularity. For the first time
00:35:57.440
since 2015, we're seeing that people in the Liberal Party are finally standing up. They're seeing,
00:36:01.600
as you just pointed out, that their seats are at stake. And I think they're pointing that out to him,
00:36:05.440
and I think they're very angry. And so maybe what we're seeing with the withdrawal on the firearms
00:36:09.440
amendment is Trudeau is under a lot of pressure from within his own party for the first time.
00:36:14.320
And he's worried for his own position and that he might have to resign if things continue
00:36:18.240
the way that they are now. I don't know if he's looking and he's actually caring about other MP seats,
00:36:22.080
but I think he's taking a lot of heat from within his own party in a way that he never has before.
00:36:27.920
You know, I saw a fascinating tweet today by a journalist, I think for the Epoch Times,
00:36:32.640
an internal PMO document showing the number of letters that the PMO receives by subject matter
00:36:41.120
and hundreds of thousands of letters, but they categorize them. And I notice that it's all
00:36:47.600
lockdown issues, government mismanagement of COVID, the carbon taxes on there, all the things that,
00:36:53.440
quote, severely normal people care about. I notice not on the list of issues are global warming,
00:37:00.240
climate change, you know, a just transition off oil and gas, none of the woke transgenderism or
00:37:07.520
feminism. It's just such an incredible difference between what the Liberal Party wants to do,
00:37:14.640
which is often a cultural war, versus the bread and butter issues that Canadians care about. And I think
00:37:21.120
more and more, if we head into a recession, it's going to be cost of housing, cost of mortgages,
00:37:25.840
interest rates, inflation, things like that. I don't know. I think that for the first time,
00:37:30.640
you know, I mean, it's been eight years since Trudeau was elected. Maybe he's starting to wear
00:37:35.280
on people's nerves a bit. It's almost like in Canada, they don't vote prime ministers in,
00:37:39.360
they sort of chuck the old one out when they get tired of them. I want to ask you one last question
00:37:44.080
about Alberta, though, before we go. And by the way, Rachel, it's great to have you here. We love True
00:37:47.920
North very much. You're based in Alberta. And for the longest time, the public face of lockdowns,
00:37:55.600
even more than the Premier Jason Kenney at the time, even more than Tyler Shandro, the health
00:37:59.520
minister at the time, was the public health officer. And that was, I think, a wise strategy
00:38:04.720
by politicians. Make the unelected bureaucrats the bad guy for everything. At first, they were treated as
00:38:11.120
heroes. But then as the mood turned, they were the scapegoats. Dina Hinshaw was Alberta's public
00:38:18.480
health officer. She was sacked by Danielle Smith. And maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but she popped
00:38:25.280
up. She was snatched up by British Columbia. She went over there and she's the deputy provincial
00:38:32.080
health officer. I'm not sure how many provincial health officers we need. There seem to be hundreds
00:38:36.160
of these people across the country. And I really don't know what they do other than repeat Anthony
00:38:40.800
Fauci's latest press release. But what do you have to say about Dina Hinshaw moving from Alberta to BC
00:38:45.600
and being welcomed with a six-figure job? Yeah, I'm not really sure what they do either,
00:38:51.520
other than lock down and tell average people in Albertan businesses that they're not allowed to
00:38:56.320
operate while they're collecting a $228,000 COVID bonus. I think BCers should be asking themselves
00:39:02.720
why they're picking up Alberta's sloppy seconds right now. Let's not mince word. Dina Hinshaw was fired
00:39:07.840
for her poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. So I think that BCers are absolutely correct to be
00:39:12.880
outraged that she's now being hired in BC to do who knows what. I think it's a bit laughable that
00:39:17.840
she's just been able to transfer over to this province after doing such a poor job with Alberta's
00:39:22.240
handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. And let's not forget, as I just mentioned, that $228,000 bonus that
00:39:27.840
she pocketed in 2021, the same year that she shut down Alberta businesses, she took home over almost
00:39:33.920
$600,000 in 2021. That's well over half a million dollars while she was shutting shuttering Albertan
00:39:39.760
businesses. So it's just laughable that she's been able to take a job in BC so quickly. I don't know
00:39:45.120
what they were thinking. I don't know what they were thinking in terms of optics, but it seems that
00:39:48.400
there's some people in the system who have found a way to survive in Justin Trudeau's inflationary Canada.
00:39:54.400
And, you know, maybe you just have to respect them for doing whatever it takes to find a way
00:39:58.400
to support themselves and have a good life while the rest of Canadians are suffering.
00:40:02.160
Yeah. Yeah. You know, with those stats, I have them in front of me. She was earning in 2021
00:40:06.640
a $363,000 salary. But then she got a bonus, as you mentioned, of 228 grand for a grand total of
00:40:16.240
$591,000. And I don't know what she did other than read out statistics
00:40:23.360
every week of how many cases there were. I mean, like I say, every city, every municipality,
00:40:29.040
every province had these public health officers. It drove me nuts when they were referred to as
00:40:34.240
top doctors, but they didn't have any patients. They're not the best doctor or the, you know,
00:40:39.520
the smartest. They are doctors, but they don't have patients. They're just bureaucrats with an MD.
00:40:45.280
And the idea of a bonus of 228 grand, it's like she's a stockbroker who made $10 million profit. So
00:40:53.680
they gave her a quarter mil bonus. I don't know what bonus, like what did she do so well to give
00:41:01.280
her a bonus of that size? There were, just like there are profiteers in a military war, Rachel,
00:41:07.920
there absolutely were profiteers during the COVID crisis, which was often likened to a war. And
00:41:15.840
Dina Hinshaw is one of them. Good news for Alberta that she's gone. I pity the BCers who have to pay
00:41:21.280
for it. Last word to you, Rachel, what do you think we should look at in Alberta in the months ahead?
00:41:27.060
How far away is that provincial election? It's a fixed state election. It's not far away now, is it?
00:41:32.560
Yeah, the provincial election is coming up. It's scheduled for late May. I think that's where
00:41:37.460
everyone's eyes are turning right now. We're already seeing some of the discussion change to
00:41:41.600
that pre sort of election campaigning. I think we're going to see the NDP really try to paint
00:41:47.200
Danielle Smith as someone who is crazy, as someone who doesn't know what she's doing in government,
00:41:50.860
and who's simply not up for the job. And we're going to see the Alberta UCP party try to paint the
00:41:57.420
NDP as a party that's closely affiliated with Justin Trudeau by nature of the federal
00:42:02.380
NDP, which currently has an agreement to hold Justin Trudeau and his government in power.
00:42:07.140
And so we're going to see them make those connections. It's similar to how Jason Kenney
00:42:10.260
did it when he ran for the leadership and how he won the election. So we'll see if they're
00:42:14.500
successful in that. We're already seeing the polls switch in Danielle Smith's favor. So I'm
00:42:18.260
interested to see if we continue to see that upswing. Certainly the numbers are looking much better
00:42:22.720
for the UCP than they were under Jason Kenney. So we'll see if Danielle Smith has what it takes to
00:42:27.160
form government for the first time. All right, Rachel Emanuel, great to see you.
00:42:31.180
We'll follow you at True North. And it's nice to have you. Pop by here, Rebel News. Stay with us.
00:42:49.000
Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Mark Beerly says about the balloon. This report raises some
00:42:55.120
very disturbing questions. If our defense department was not aware of this balloon, the minute it launched
00:42:59.160
from China, that indicates a serious flaw in our intelligence gathering. If the defense department
00:43:03.360
was aware of the balloon and chose not to inform the president, that would mean that our military
00:43:07.500
has been compromised by the CCP. I have not heard a single report as to when Biden was informed.
00:43:15.700
But given the fact that he has been certainly being compromised by the CCP and the fact that he
00:43:20.560
is a pathological liar, I would be willing to bet that he was told days in advance by Xi himself
00:43:25.340
that they were going to launch a balloon and that he had better ensured safe passage over
00:43:29.360
the United States. No, I think you go too far there. I don't think that Xi Jinping would have
00:43:36.020
informed Biden of sending the balloon over. Not at all. And I don't think it's reasonable to track
00:43:41.480
every weather balloon that's launched over China. China is a huge country and there are legitimate
00:43:45.980
reasons for launching weather balloons. Now, as I showed you on the map, it should have been detected
00:43:52.380
when it approached Alaska and as it came down B.C. And it surely was. I don't know when Biden would
00:43:58.800
have been briefed. I mean, let's be honest. Biden isn't exactly the decision maker there. They probably
00:44:02.580
briefed someone else at the White House. Someone whose nickname is maggotism says it's war, Ezra.
00:44:10.320
Israel does the same. Does the same with what? Are you talking about balloons? Are you talking about
00:44:17.980
the war between Russia and Ukraine? I'm not sure what you mean. Like I said yesterday,
00:44:23.400
I'm generally against war, but there are some things that war is better than. War to preserve
00:44:30.740
your freedom, war to preserve your independence, war to get your independence or freedom.
00:44:35.900
Many countries are born in revolution, including the United States. Canada, we're one of the lucky
00:44:40.960
countries that evolved into our independence. Israel, unfortunately, has had many wars of survival.
00:44:47.980
If Israel were to lose even a single war, that would mean its end. Luckily, it hasn't had a
00:44:52.720
serious war in years other than the slow-burning terrorist war. I'm not sure what other analogy
00:44:58.520
you're trying to make there. I was hopeful and impressed, but then obviously immediately dashed
00:45:04.960
to learn that Israel's PM was involved in negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.
00:45:10.300
And then I was dashed to hear that it was, you know, scuppered by Joe Biden.
00:45:13.600
There's a lot of intrigues afoot, aren't there? I'm glad we live in a safe place in Canada.
00:45:19.620
That's our story for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:45:24.080
headquarters to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.