Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The fireworks are over at the trucker commission but the hard work is actually just beginning

00:00:00.240 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I recap the last month of the Trucker Commission of Inquiry with four

00:00:04.940 amazing women. All four of them happen to be women. Eva Chipiak, the lawyer who grilled the

00:00:10.960 Prime Minister, Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter, Celine Glass, and Alexa Lavoie,

00:00:14.780 two young reporters who really made their mark during the trucker convoy in the spring,

00:00:20.000 and they're back with us now. It's a great show. I'd like to encourage you to get the video version

00:00:25.040 of this podcast. I want you to see Eva cross-examining Justin Trudeau. I was really

00:00:31.460 pleased with it. There were different kinds of cross-examination of him. Some were technical,

00:00:36.160 some were legal. I think Eva's points were moral and emotional, and I think they connected.

00:00:41.380 To see the video part, go to rebelnewsplus.com. That's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:46.980 It's eight bucks a month, but you get my show every weeknight. I think it's good value for money.

00:00:50.620 It's the only place you're going to get this kind of news and reviews. Go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:55.040 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:02.040 The fireworks are over at the Trucker Commission, but actually, the hard work is just beginning.

00:01:16.920 We'll talk to four people who know. It's November 28th, and this is The Ezra LeVance Show.

00:01:21.160 We're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:36.040 The Trucker Convoy was one of the most important things that has happened to Canada, not just this

00:01:40.480 year, but I'd say in the past decade. Obviously, the pandemic and the lockdowns were the event of the,

00:01:45.780 I don't know, the half century. But how that fever was broken, how that collusion and that false

00:01:53.740 unanimity that lockdowns were good and forced vaccine mandates were good, how that ended

00:01:59.480 actually is the best part of the story. It didn't end because of any one political party or media

00:02:05.240 company or any judge or doctor. It ended because ordinary, very ordinary, very working class people

00:02:13.620 decided, well, if the fancy people weren't going to stop this madness, they would. And truckers,

00:02:19.080 the salt of the earth, the backbone of the country, people who never stopped worrying during working

00:02:23.620 during the lockdown. In fact, their work became more essential as the Zoom class, the staycation class

00:02:29.900 just stayed at home and ordered food delivered to them. Well, the truckers became more important

00:02:33.580 than ever. And of course, they became the target for Justin Trudeau, who demanded that they too

00:02:40.640 be vaxxed for crossing the border. It makes no sense other than a lifeguard, sorry, rather a

00:02:46.500 lighthouse operator in a remote coast. I can't think of anyone who has a more solitary day than a

00:02:53.260 trucker. They're in a cab by themselves. They stop by for gas. They often sleep in the back of their

00:02:59.320 car. Imagine demanding the truckers get jabbed. Well, that was the last straw. And they stood up

00:03:05.480 and spoke up. And the thing is, that did not suit the fancy people one bit. All that honking,

00:03:11.480 all that diesel fuel. Don't these people know that Canada is about electric vehicles and honking is,

00:03:19.880 well, it's a form of microaggression, don't you know? I'm not kidding. These were the complaints made

00:03:26.140 at the Trucker Commission of Inquiry by Ottawa bureaucrats who were outraged that the peasants

00:03:32.460 from the colonies dared come to the fancy capital. Well, the Commission of Inquiry, I thought, was very

00:03:38.040 useful, even though it wasn't perfect in the eyes of the truckers or those who care about freedom. I

00:03:42.640 think it was the best thing that we've had in Canada in terms of holding government to account

00:03:46.540 in some way. Tell me the last time question period yielded any answers, let alone some of the ones

00:03:52.240 we've seen no access to information requests yielded the kind of documents, the text messages,

00:03:56.960 the cabinet memos that we were able to see over the past few weeks. It was the first time I've seen

00:04:02.060 police chiefs answer bluntly to reply to the disinformation campaign that Trudeau and his colonized

00:04:09.660 media have propagated. I think that that's my point of view because I actually watched the

00:04:15.520 Trucker Commission. What scares me, though, is the same media party that lied about the Trucker

00:04:20.620 Convoy in the first place continues to lie. They're trying to revise history using the

00:04:24.900 Trucker Commission. We really are, as Eva Chibiak tells me in today's show, watching two different

00:04:30.580 movies. Those of us who care about freedom and civil liberties see the admissions that the government

00:04:35.840 had no justification whatsoever for martial law, but those on the other side saw nothing but

00:04:41.560 potential terrorists. You'll see that word quite a lot in Justin Trudeau's comments. There was no

00:04:47.260 violence, just potential violence. No one was hurt, just it potentially hurt them. Well, of course,

00:04:52.880 some people were hurt, but they were the protesters being hurt by Trudeau's invocation of martial law

00:04:57.340 and the bullying police. So what I'm going to show you today is something I actually recorded earlier

00:05:02.400 in the day. As you may know that we have covered the Trucker Commission wall-to-wall for the last month.

00:05:07.940 We even set up a pop-up studio in an Airbnb in downtown Ottawa. I thought that was a great thing we did.

00:05:13.800 So many people on our team worked there. Some people stayed there for weeks. Others just rotated

00:05:18.520 through. William Diaz Bertheom, our on-the-ground Ottawa reporter, was there pretty much every day.

00:05:23.500 Sheila Gunn-Reed was live-tweeting it almost every day as well. And we had video clips we would cut,

00:05:30.120 and of course we would have a live stream every night where we would chat about it. So in today's

00:05:34.540 show, we did a live stream early in the day where I talked to Ava Chibiak. She's one of the lawyers

00:05:41.180 for the truckers. In fact, she had time to cross-examine Justin Trudeau. We'll show some

00:05:46.320 clips. We'll talk to her about it. We'll bring on Sheila, who I think covered the Trucker Commission

00:05:51.140 more than anyone else on our team, even though she wasn't in Ottawa for all that time. One of the

00:05:55.180 great things about the Commission of Inquiry was that so much of it was available online,

00:05:59.620 not just the live stream of the video in English and French, but documents published too. It really

00:06:04.380 was excellent. And then the transcripts of it, they really did a good job. I hate praising the

00:06:09.080 government. It's so unlike me. But remember, this wasn't the government. This was the fail-safe,

00:06:13.500 a kind of freedom poison pill built in to the Emergencies Act. This had to be done.

00:06:18.220 Don't let Justin Trudeau take credit for it. We also talked to two of our newer reporters,

00:06:23.680 Celine Glass, who was embedded with the Trucker Convoy from Calgary to Ottawa. She spent the last

00:06:29.320 few weeks in Ottawa at our Trucker Commission Airbnb studio. And Alexa Lavoie, who was in Ottawa as well,

00:06:38.600 and I have a heart-to-heart with her about being the one person in Ottawa during the whole time

00:06:46.700 who was shot. Indeed, there was violence in Ottawa, but it did not come from the truckers.

00:06:53.180 And actually, it wasn't in the main directed against the truckers, at least the shooting.

00:06:57.700 It was directed against Alexa Lavoie. The police who shot her knew who she was.

00:07:02.380 We know this because of records we've received in the lawsuit against them. They knew who she was,

00:07:08.380 and they refused to give her first aid after shooting her. Enough preamble. Let me now run for

00:07:13.760 you part of my live stream earlier today with Eva Chepiuk. And we're going to show both three or four

00:07:20.340 clips of her talking to the prime minister and trying to coax answers from them. Then Sheila,

00:07:25.540 Celine, and Alexa. And that part with Alexa is hard to watch. It's hard to watch the worst moment in our

00:07:31.740 company's almost eight-year history is when Alexa was shot with a riot gun at point-blank range

00:07:38.720 by a policeman who knew exactly what he was doing. Here's my live stream from today.

00:07:45.040 Come right back at the end, and I'll read my mail. Take a look.

00:07:48.000 Great to see you again. How are you doing?

00:08:01.760 Oh, nice to see you. Nice to be home. A little bit tired, but just the beginning, I think.

00:08:07.840 Yeah. Well, we just wrapped up the public hearings, as in the sworn witnesses and the subpoenaed

00:08:14.740 documents and the cross-examinations, but the Trucker Commission is not yet done. There's going

00:08:20.580 to be a public policy phase and other things, but the drama of the last month has come to a close.

00:08:28.480 Eva, you were one of a number of lawyers from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom

00:08:31.940 and other freedom-oriented groups, including our friends at the Democracy Fund. How long was it? I mean,

00:08:38.880 you were out there. Half of the civil liberties lawyers in Canada, by which I mean Democracy Fund,

00:08:45.820 JCCF, Canadian Constitution Foundation, and even the liberals at the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:08:53.280 Association finally thought they'd wrap up their two-year vacation and engage in the freedom file,

00:08:59.800 thankfully. Tell me what it was like actually being a lawyer associated with the commission.

00:09:05.580 You were granted standing. You were given access, early access to privileged documents. You were

00:09:10.680 given interactions with the judge, and of course, you cross-examined witnesses. What was it like?

00:09:17.860 I don't know where to start. I can't believe it's all come to an end. It feels like it just started,

00:09:23.920 and then it was just a daily grind. It was 31 days nonstop of evidence, and you know, when we are having

00:09:31.600 long days like we did, and then you're still preparing for the next day, and of course, my

00:09:36.900 clients were a huge focal point in all of this. The protesters, the reason everything came to head

00:09:45.240 as these protesters came to Ottawa to hear from their federal government, and we know how the federal

00:09:51.200 government responded. So this was all about whether or not this was justified. You asked a few questions

00:09:58.120 quickly in the intro, and I, you know, getting all these documents like you said, we did, but the way

00:10:07.000 this was set up and how quickly this all transpired, it was hard almost to assess everything that was

00:10:14.520 happening as it was happening. I think I'll be decompressing, and we're all going to be thinking

00:10:19.300 about this for months and possibly years to come.

00:10:22.120 Let me ask you, do you think it was, I mean, we'll see what the report says. We'll see what the

00:10:29.040 judge's findings are and what any recommendations are. So of course, we don't know how it's going

00:10:35.220 to end. I mean, it could go a number of ways, but the process itself is an outcome, a sort of outcome.

00:10:42.680 Having police answer questions under oath, and I think generally the police told the truth.

00:10:47.100 Having politicians under oath, and I frankly think generally the politicians lied. I'm sorry,

00:10:52.820 I just, that's just what it looked like to me. Lied or at least evaded, avoided, talked out the

00:11:01.060 clock. I suppose that's different than lying, but there was lying too. I think in general the process

00:11:06.880 was positive, and anyone who looked at it directly or through the filter of Rebel News or other freedom

00:11:13.920 oriented groups probably learned a lot, but there really are two solitudes. Reading the coverage in

00:11:20.260 the Toronto Star or the CBC or Global News, which has just become the worst media outlet in the

00:11:25.800 country, it's hard to believe. They're engaging in revisionist history of this Trucker Commission,

00:11:31.720 just like they engaged in revisionist history of the Trucker Convoy itself. So although I think the

00:11:36.620 Trucker Commission was very useful, if your only source of info about it was the Toronto Star or Global

00:11:42.160 News, you remain in the dark about what was really happening. That's my thoughts. What do you think?

00:11:48.680 Yeah, no, it's unfortunately still the same. People are watching two different movies, and that's how it

00:11:54.880 was since the beginning of the protest in Ottawa. Truckers going to Ottawa, if you looked at some of

00:12:02.020 those mainstream media outlets you were talking about versus social media, it was a completely different

00:12:08.060 story. And then it's unfortunately still the same. So what we've learned, I hope, is that you really

00:12:13.860 need to get firsthand information, number one, be way more involved, be way more active, really

00:12:21.340 investigate things for yourself. And I really hope at least that is something that people have learned

00:12:27.540 throughout the process. And I agree with you very much. It was really interesting to see the police

00:12:34.280 give evidence, give evidence, and also senior officials. So not the politicians, but senior

00:12:39.700 levels in government, at least on a municipal scale. It was quite different to see what they had to say.

00:12:45.840 Well, listen, we have a half dozen clips of your own involvement, and I'd like to show that.

00:12:52.860 Like I say, you were granted standing, you and other civil rights lawyers. So there were a lot of lawyers

00:12:59.060 there. And sometimes the cross-examination of politicians or police was, you know, you had

00:13:05.820 five minutes or 10 minutes. And frankly, you ask one question for a minute, every politician worth

00:13:12.140 their salt can give a four-minute evasive maneuver. Let's go through. We've got a half dozen clips.

00:13:20.220 Let's just belt through them. The first one was when you were asking Justin Trudeau, the prime minister,

00:13:25.500 that must have been exciting. First of all, that you, you, not every lawyer had a chance to have a go

00:13:30.680 at Trudeau. You asked him, I think questions, I mean, you sort of knew he was just going to

00:13:36.280 duck speak his way through things. So you put more thematic questions, less sort of legal cross-examine-y

00:13:43.800 things. Here, let's show the first clip, and I'll show people what I mean.

00:13:48.260 People have testified in this inquiry referencing your widely published comments and calling the

00:13:54.560 unvaccinated racists and misogynists. And we have heard testimony in this inquiry about how some of

00:14:01.600 your officials wanted to label protesters as terrorists. Would you agree with me that one of

00:14:07.360 the most important roles of a prime minister is to unite Canadians and not divide them by engaging in

00:14:12.140 name-calling? I did not call people who were unvaccinated names. I highlighted there's a difference

00:14:24.260 between people who are hesitant to get vaccinated for any range of reasons and people who deliberately

00:14:34.060 spread misinformation that puts at risk that life and health of their fellow Canadians.

00:14:41.260 And my focus, every step of the way, and the primary responsibility of a prime minister

00:14:47.640 is to keep Canadians safe and alive. I'm not sure if the primary job of the prime minister is to keep

00:14:54.080 me alive. I think if that was his job, I'd be dead by now. He's really not good for much. Even being a

00:15:00.780 substitute drama teacher, he didn't finish his full term. He's a wicked liar. Of course he called people

00:15:07.260 names, in English and in French. He even said, should we tolerate them? I think you've got to

00:15:13.980 be a bit of a sociopath to tell a bald-faced lie like that. Your next one, again, it didn't go to the

00:15:20.400 technical legal matters of the Emergency Act, but I think it summed up their insane response

00:15:29.240 to, oh my God, working class people. They're so grubby and dirty. Maybe they have guns in their

00:15:35.060 trucks. Deploy their tanks. These people, you know, here in King's Landing, we only have sophisticated

00:15:40.820 people with fine silk suits and expense accounts for lunch. Here come the Walmart people. Here come

00:15:46.240 the gun-owning people. The peasants are storming the Capitol. You know, Trudeau despises ordinary people.

00:15:52.920 He's an elite, son of an elite, son of an elite. Three generations since the last Trudeau actually

00:15:59.080 worked for a living. And here's your question. Why are you so afraid of people? Here, take a look.

00:16:04.880 Minister Blair, Public Safety Minister, Minister Mendicino, National Security Intelligence Advisor

00:16:12.700 Jody Thomas, and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey, and today you, testified that the federal government

00:16:18.780 was committed to exhausting all alternatives to a resolution prior to making a decision

00:16:23.600 to invoke the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act. Do you agree that that accurately

00:16:29.720 describes your government's position? That the invocation of the Emergencies Act

00:16:34.740 was a measure of last resort, was not something to be taken lightly. Thank you.

00:16:39.080 And something to do when other options were not effective. And you are aware that the OPP,

00:16:46.240 along with others, developed an engagement proposal, and you were advised of that proposal

00:16:51.920 at the IRG meeting on February 12th, correct? It was a proposal, but we had, and it was presented

00:16:59.880 to us, we had more questions about how it would actually work. It was not a complete proposal.

00:17:07.300 My last question, Mr. Prime Minister, when did you and your government start to become so afraid

00:17:12.720 of your own citizens? That's a very unfair. I am not, and we are not.

00:17:19.440 Those are my questions. I think he is, I think he is afraid of people. He deployed,

00:17:26.080 they talked about deploying the army, they talked about tanks, they deployed hundreds,

00:17:30.800 maybe thousands of riot police, they stomped people with riot horses, they invoked martial law

00:17:36.380 for the first time in 50 years. Of course he was afraid of people. I think he was actually more,

00:17:40.580 more to be precise, he was afraid of what the people were doing, that they were politically

00:17:45.680 finding their voice. I don't think he was afraid of them physically. I don't think he was afraid of

00:17:49.800 them, you know, as a danger to sovereignty. Like, like the Emergencies Act is built for when the

00:17:57.180 Prime Minister's afraid. Are you afraid of danger to groups of people? Are you afraid of revolution?

00:18:01.880 It is for Prime Ministers who are afraid for the country. I don't think Justin Trudeau was actually

00:18:07.680 afraid for the country. I don't think he was afraid of an insurrection. He was afraid that

00:18:12.080 these working class people were embarrassing him because they weren't obeying him. So he was afraid

00:18:16.940 of losing face, not afraid of them.

00:18:20.900 I very much agree, and his own evidence says that. He said there was a threat or a potential for the

00:18:27.960 violence. So he confirmed in his own evidence there was no violence. There was a potential for it.

00:18:34.740 Of course, there's a potential for violence any day, any, anywhere you are. And then if you heard

00:18:39.900 Chrystia Freeland's evidence to somebody was mean to her, they weren't violent towards her. They said

00:18:47.160 mean things to her and maybe an expletive body language. And it was a woman trucker. All in addition.

00:18:55.280 So when you hear the evidence that they were giving, it goes exactly to your point. It was

00:19:03.620 an embarrassment for them, more so, and a threat of losing control, which they did.

00:19:10.340 Yeah.

00:19:11.060 Clearly.

00:19:11.780 You know, I want to get through a few more clips. He had some great little exchanges with

00:19:14.920 him. Here's one where Trudeau says, I wish I would have done more. Well, what more was there?

00:19:19.720 I mean, he actually shot our reporter, Alexa Lavoie. His bodyguards physically beat up our

00:19:25.820 other reporter, David Menzies. I mean, the only thing that they did not do was actually deploy

00:19:30.940 the tank. Though they certainly seem to talk about the Canadian Armed Forces a lot. Let's play

00:19:34.600 clip number three.

00:19:35.720 You have now heard the statements from some of the many concerned Canadians who felt compelled

00:19:42.180 to support the protesters. Do you now understand the reason so many Canadians came to Ottawa

00:19:49.520 Ottawa with such resolve in the midst of a harsh, cold Canadian winter because of the harms

00:19:58.500 caused by your government COVID mandates, and they wanted to be heard?

00:20:02.740 I am moved, and I was moved as I heard these testimonies, as I saw the depth of hurt and anxiety

00:20:20.940 about the present and the future expressed by so many people, that COVID pandemic was unbelievably

00:20:29.340 difficult on all Canadians. And my job throughout this pandemic was to keep Canadians safe. And

00:20:38.120 the way that I chose to do that was to lean on public health officials, lean on experts and

00:20:45.560 science on the best way to keep Canadians safe. And because Canadians got vaccinated to over 80%,

00:20:53.540 we had fewer deaths in Canada than places that didn't reach that. And every heartbreaking story

00:21:03.240 I hear of a family who sat beside the bed of a loved one dying because they had believed that the vaccines

00:21:12.220 were more dangerous than the disease. I take personally, because I wish I could have done more.

00:21:24.220 To convince people to get vaccinated.

00:21:27.200 I wish I could have done more to save lives. I saved so many lives. Of course, that doesn't talk to the use of the martial law. I don't know if martial law would save one life. I don't know if it would save any lives. I think, you know, you could shoot more people more easily. You can deploy more guns.

00:21:45.200 I think he's a sociopath. I don't know. What did he make of him? He's got that when he starts talking, his sexy voice. And he hopes that people can feel the raw emotion of the substitute drama teacher. And this is an opportunity for us to all reflect on being women respecters and respecting visible minorities. And this is an opportunity for you to learn not to wear blackface.

00:22:14.860 This is an opportunity for you to learn not to grope Rose Knight in Creston, B.C. This is really an opportunity for all Canadians to improve themselves.

00:22:24.360 Like he just gets in this drama teacher mode and he changes from being the decider who made a terrible decision to like some third party observer as if he's not the central decider.

00:22:36.080 He has this really gross way of doing things and it seems to work. For seven years he's skated. I'm worried, Ava. Is it Ava or Eva?

00:22:42.520 I like saying Ava, but how do you say it?

00:22:45.400 It's Ava.

00:22:46.140 Ava. Sorry about that. Ava. I'm worried he's going to skate. I'm worried that dramatic, thespian voice of his and the media party, they're lapping it up.

00:23:00.100 I'm worried that no matter what the judge is, I think the judge is going to say he had no legal basis for it.

00:23:05.660 I think the judge, unless this judge is so completely in the tank for Trudeau, there simply was no evidence that this met the legal requirement from Marshall.

00:23:14.980 There was none. There was none.

00:23:16.640 Every cop, every person who knows security, like there was no security threat. There were no violence threats. There was just none of it. All he has was, well, there was a potential.

00:23:30.580 I don't think the judge is going to come back with anything other than there was no legal basis for it.

00:23:36.540 But I think Trudeau is going to skate because he's going to roll out his heartfelt message track like he just did there, Ava.

00:23:43.560 Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. Like watching it back now, I didn't imagine that he would go on a tangent like that, but I guess I should have seen it coming.

00:23:54.960 What else was he going to say? And we knew that this was just for him. He was going to be trying to score political points.

00:24:01.320 Like it wasn't going to be about the law because that's not something that he's really qualified to speak on anyway.

00:24:08.740 But I do hope that the commission, like we were talking about earlier, is an opportunity for people to see firsthand what was going on, and maybe they can start to see the disconnect between this government and what they're doing and their talking points and reality.

00:24:26.160 It was very much fiction over facts, in my opinion. Feelings over facts is what we learned, the reasons behind invoking the Emergencies Act.

00:24:36.960 Yeah. Well, unfortunately, most of the media in this country is very feelings-oriented, and they're feeling grateful to Trudeau for bailing out their failing TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers.

00:24:48.100 So they're all about feelings also, and Trudeau makes them feel warm and fuzzy.

00:24:53.160 Ev, I'm grateful to you and your fellow lawyers. There was some great lawyering done.

00:24:57.380 And I really believe that if the freedom lawyers that you and the rest of the team from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, if the freedom lawyers and the Democracy Fund were not there, this would have been a very, very different commission.

00:25:08.220 It really would have not had so many important interactions with the national security deep state, which is very rarely subjected to scrutiny.

00:25:19.260 So on behalf of Canadians, let me thank you and your team for that.

00:25:22.480 Ev, great to catch up with you.

00:25:23.520 And thanks for joining our live stream so many days over the last month, as you and the rest of your team did.

00:25:28.840 I really appreciate it.

00:25:30.200 My pleasure. It was great to be on and getting the truth out.

00:25:33.260 So happy to be part of the team.

00:25:35.940 Sheila, how are you doing?

00:25:36.560 I'm doing great.

00:25:38.420 I'm sort of happy that the testimony is all over.

00:25:42.840 You know, trying to sift through the lies can be exhausting, but I'm so proud of our team for how hard they worked to fact check some of these snakes in real time.

00:25:52.160 Yeah.

00:25:52.940 Now, you covered it probably more than anyone other than William Diaz Berthium, who's based in Ottawa.

00:25:59.600 So he's right there.

00:26:00.460 This was the circus coming to his town.

00:26:02.220 We had a number of reporters who cycled through our Airbnb pop-up studio, which was super fun.

00:26:07.680 You covered it from out there, but mainly you covered it from your home.

00:26:11.140 Because one of the things I'll salute this commission for doing, they really made it easy for people around the country, indeed around the world, to follow.

00:26:18.240 I've actually never seen a public proceeding that was so citizen-friendly.

00:26:24.060 Documents were made available online.

00:26:26.600 The video was live streamed, French, English.

00:26:30.420 Like, you could show up and be in the room, but frankly, there was no need to.

00:26:36.980 And in fact, there were some times when the physical room wasn't even full, not because there was no interest in this, but because people could cover this from the comfort of their own offices or homes, right?

00:26:48.440 Yeah, and I think the public nature of all of this is really doing a number on the mainstream media, as though the convoy didn't do a number on the credibility of the mainstream media to begin with, right?

00:27:01.700 They couldn't come out of their office towers to talk to the truckers that were in Ottawa to find out why they came there.

00:27:10.480 So they just sort of made it up as they went.

00:27:12.760 And I think the fact that this was live streamed in real time in both languages, the documents, as soon as the lawyers were discussing them, became available for you to leaf through.

00:27:24.260 You could see how the media was purposefully twisting testimony again in real time.

00:27:31.800 I would see the tweets the mainstream media were sending out and realizing, you know, I'm literally watching the same proceedings and they're taking things out of context.

00:27:40.060 But people didn't even have to believe me and my tweets this time.

00:27:43.840 They could see for themselves just how much of a bunch of liars the mainstream media are.

00:27:49.100 Yeah, you know what? And that's how we succeeded.

00:27:54.220 Rebel News, I think, really was our finest hour covering the trucker convoy.

00:27:59.440 We had more eyeballs on that than anything else we've ever done.

00:28:03.080 And it was simply because we turned our cameras on and pointed.

00:28:06.160 And, I mean, I was in Ottawa for only a few days.

00:28:09.500 I was most of my time at our head office.

00:28:11.040 But we had teams, I think, in particular, Alexa Lavoie and Lincoln Jay, 23 days straight, just walking the streets with extra batteries in their phone, just live streaming.

00:28:22.860 And sometimes it was sort of boring, but sometimes it was extremely exciting.

00:28:27.380 But what it never was, was filtered.

00:28:30.020 And so you literally felt like you were there.

00:28:32.140 I remember watching our people encounter these whimsical, East Berlin-style police check stops every corner and filming their interactions.

00:28:43.280 Oh, boy, was I mad.

00:28:45.020 Sometimes I would call into the reporter also if I felt they were being legally roughed up.

00:28:49.840 But the reason I could do that is I knew exactly what was going on.

00:28:52.520 I had a personal interest because it was our reporters, our company.

00:28:57.220 But millions of people had a public interest, and they were following along, too.

00:29:02.620 And it's interesting that when foreign news outlets wanted to know what was going on, sure, the propagandists called up CBC, of course.

00:29:12.220 But so many – and I'm not just talking about right-wing media like Fox News.

00:29:16.760 No.

00:29:16.880 Like Deutsche Welle.

00:29:17.740 Deutsche Welle, as the name sounds, it's a German – it's actually a state broadcaster, if you can believe it.

00:29:24.220 Why would a state broadcaster in Germany – why would Sky News in Australia – why would –

00:29:32.400 I think Alexa did the French-language state broadcaster also, if I recall correctly.

00:29:37.680 Good memory.

00:29:38.160 There's so many I can't even keep track.

00:29:39.860 But why would they – I mean, there was this great one of Lincoln just standing in the street, you know, with his toucan because it was so cold, live broadcasting from the street.

00:29:51.680 Well, that gives you the answer why.

00:29:54.040 Because even if Lincoln is not as seasoned a journalist as some of these superannuated, you know, regime journalists at the CBC, he actually was standing there.

00:30:05.000 He actually wasn't hiding under his desk in his tower.

00:30:08.580 Or, oh, my God, the peasants are coming.

00:30:10.500 The peasants are revolting.

00:30:12.020 Who?

00:30:12.360 They most certainly are.

00:30:13.980 The truckers are revolting.

00:30:15.800 They certainly are revolting.

00:30:18.140 You know, I mean, this – I watched too much of that show called Game of Thrones, and the name of their capital city was King's Landing.

00:30:27.500 And it was a squalid, corrupt, incestuous capital.

00:30:31.060 And that's what the good denizens of Ottawa felt like when these revolting truckers, how dare they?

00:30:39.040 Can't you keep your protests out in the colonies?

00:30:42.420 Why are you coming to King's Landing?

00:30:44.520 You know, that's what it was like.

00:30:45.860 And, you know, the very first day of the commission, you had this low-level government bureaucrat named Zexy Lee who was talking about all the microaggressions.

00:30:58.060 And I worked for the government, and there was these truckers, and they honked, and I really felt like I was assaulted.

00:31:03.520 Oh, my God, Zexy Lee, were you assaulted?

00:31:05.320 No, but I sort of felt like it.

00:31:07.400 Well, did anyone touch you?

00:31:08.420 No.

00:31:09.240 Well, were you afraid to go on the streets?

00:31:10.680 Well, no.

00:31:11.140 Actually, I spent a lot of time out there and took a lot of photos and filmed them and talked to people.

00:31:14.660 But I was terrified.

00:31:15.560 Oh, so you just thought they were low-class because they were truckers, not someone with a fancy government unionized, you know, desk job doing IT for Services Canada or whatever her job was.

00:31:29.680 Like, it was such a classism there.

00:31:32.900 Thank you.

00:31:33.120 How dare you, don't A, know your place, B, don't you know that your job is to listen to the media, not be citizen media, and how dare you honk your horns at us?

00:31:47.720 Sure, we have locked you in your homes for two years, and now we're banning you from cross-border travel, which is necessary for the truckers.

00:31:54.420 By the way, we saw a minute ago Justin Trudeau lying about 80% vaccinations.

00:31:58.020 I thought he said it was 90%.

00:31:59.600 He's changing his numbers now.

00:32:00.960 But we know that Chrystia Freeland, in her notes, said with truckers it was less than 50%.

00:32:05.880 So they're lying.

00:32:07.260 They're lying to you to try and make you feel like everyone's on board with this.

00:32:10.900 Oh, how dare you honk your horn?

00:32:13.840 You honk your horn at me?

00:32:15.620 I mean, I locked you in your house.

00:32:17.040 I banned you from cross-border travel.

00:32:18.500 I banned you from taking airplanes or trains or boats in the second largest country in the world.

00:32:23.080 I banned you from the public square.

00:32:24.660 I banned you from restaurants, gyms, and stores.

00:32:26.240 But how dare you honk your horn, sir?

00:32:30.780 Do you not know who I am, sir?

00:32:33.520 I am Zexy Lee.

00:32:35.620 Zexy Lee, who are you?

00:32:37.340 Well, I'm a 23-year-old who works for the government, and I didn't like the honking not one bit, sir.

00:32:45.400 Yeah.

00:32:45.620 Okay, well, better throw the whole country into martial law because Zexy Lee heard a horn honk.

00:32:49.560 Yeah.

00:32:49.860 She heard a horn honk, people.

00:32:51.420 Where's your sense of compassion?

00:32:52.600 Yeah, you know, that line of classism and bigotry runs through all of this.

00:32:59.980 They want those Westerners that came to their fancy city to just stay away.

00:33:03.720 They didn't like their trucks.

00:33:05.120 They didn't want to have to look at their trucks or the things that the blue-collar people do for fun,

00:33:10.440 like have street parties, play hockey, and have hot tubs.

00:33:12.740 That grossed them out.

00:33:14.420 What a boring city.

00:33:15.860 But also, we saw in testimony, and then it was supported in some documents that Black Locks published today,

00:33:23.400 that they were really worried about having useful people within the convoy.

00:33:28.960 And what I mean by that is they were frightened at the sheer number of CAF, Canadian Armed Forces,

00:33:36.440 active members and former members that were in the convoy.

00:33:40.380 They were sort of worried about this insurrection, which seems like absolute bigotry,

00:33:46.180 assuming that because you were in the CAF, you're inherently violent by nature.

00:33:51.220 But they couldn't get their heads around the fact that these people who are willing to fight and die

00:33:55.580 in a uniform with our flag on it would go to Ottawa to defend freedom here.

00:34:00.960 Yeah, you know what, if you compare the hatred and fear that Trudeau had for our veterans

00:34:09.520 with how he describes the people our veterans were fighting,

00:34:13.760 how Trudeau talks about ISIS terrorists coming back to Canada.

00:34:18.280 Sorry, Ezra, to interrupt you.

00:34:19.580 Mary Montseff, the now former MP for Peterborough,

00:34:23.620 she described them as her brothers, the Taliban.

00:34:27.100 Remember, they were her brothers.

00:34:28.140 Yeah.

00:34:28.460 But our veterans are potential insurrectionists.

00:34:31.880 Give me a break.

00:34:33.160 Yeah.

00:34:35.480 You know, they despise the military except for as a PR.

00:34:39.840 I was just looking today.

00:34:40.720 I mean, Trudeau was announcing billions more for foreign militaries in the Indo-Pacific.

00:34:46.100 He can't just he can't do a foreign trip without spraying our money around.

00:34:49.440 And he's given who knows how much to the Ukrainian army.

00:34:52.640 But when it comes to Canadian soldiers, they're asking for more than he can give.

00:34:58.420 It really is an eye opener.

00:35:00.900 I there was I think my if I had to name my favorite moment or least favorite moment in the

00:35:06.220 in the whole commission of inquiry, it's clip number seven.

00:35:10.820 And this Trudeau does this sometimes when he's had too much to to think and by himself without.

00:35:16.240 I mean, he's used to having a script writer around.

00:35:18.820 I mean, he's an he's an actor.

00:35:20.780 I mean, sometimes we think that actors are the personality they play in a movie.

00:35:25.920 Forgetting that no actors just read a script.

00:35:27.940 I mean, occasionally some brilliant actors might ad lib, especially comedians.

00:35:32.080 They might ad lib.

00:35:33.180 Some great movies are done that way.

00:35:35.340 But generally, actors are, as Hitchcock said, like cattle.

00:35:40.780 And they just do exactly what they're told, which is why, you know, the editor and the

00:35:45.140 script writer and the producer are so important.

00:35:47.180 Um, Trudeau is like that.

00:35:51.360 Yes.

00:35:51.960 Gerald Butts writes a script for him.

00:35:53.560 Katie Telford writes a script for him.

00:35:55.200 He's very good at memorizing a few lines.

00:35:57.400 Um, but whenever he, but if you could ever get him to think about something new he hasn't

00:36:02.480 been briefed on, then he says something really dumb.

00:36:04.840 Like, remember that question, I guess it was eight years ago now, what country do you most

00:36:10.620 admire?

00:36:11.940 There was no way he had ever been asked that before in a formal setting.

00:36:15.620 So he actually thought about it and said, well, China, because of their basic dictatorship

00:36:21.380 verbatim, that's what he said.

00:36:22.760 So there's an actor free freelancing without a script.

00:36:27.420 And that same thing happened.

00:36:29.920 This is clip number seven.

00:36:31.380 When he started thinking in a way that had not been gamed out by his handlers.

00:36:36.640 And he says, and he starts thinking, yeah, well, maybe, maybe you shouldn't really be allowed

00:36:42.140 to protest if, if you're trying to change the world.

00:36:45.100 This is, and then, and then he says, oh, and then there was a little, an alarm clock that

00:36:49.340 went off in his head.

00:36:50.680 Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

00:36:51.700 You stepped in it.

00:36:52.580 You stepped in it.

00:36:53.500 Alert, alert, alert.

00:36:55.040 Or maybe, who knows?

00:36:55.740 Maybe he actually had an earpiece in it.

00:36:57.180 And he started, walked it back like he did with the original China quote.

00:37:00.240 Here, take a look at clip number seven.

00:37:01.380 But in terms of responding to their demands or, or legitimizing them by engaging, I'm

00:37:10.660 highlighting that I'm worried about setting a precedent that a blockade on Wellington

00:37:14.040 Street can, can lead to changing public policy.

00:37:17.660 People need to be heard, but we need to get that balance right.

00:37:21.520 And then she agreed that I need to be cautious and I don't want to set any bad precedents.

00:37:27.220 Okay.

00:37:27.780 So fairly self-explanatory.

00:37:28.920 There's, there's a, a willingness to, to discuss, but you, you were concerned about

00:37:33.940 setting a precedent where, uh, a blockade could equal, uh, a, a change in public policy.

00:37:40.280 Is that fair?

00:37:41.800 Yeah.

00:37:42.580 Uh, I mean, I think we, we have, uh, a robust functioning democracy and, uh, protests, public

00:37:49.900 protests are an important part of making sure we're getting messages out there and Canadians

00:37:54.920 are getting messages out there and highlighting how they feel about various issues.

00:37:57.960 Uh, but using protests to demand, uh, changes to public policy, um, is something that, that

00:38:08.180 I think is, is, is worrisome.

00:38:10.460 Okay.

00:38:11.040 Thank you, Mr.

00:38:11.620 Although, sorry, to a certain extent.

00:38:12.780 No, no, please go on.

00:38:13.580 Yeah.

00:38:13.860 Protests, if you're out protesting that the government is, you know, shutting down a safe

00:38:18.040 injection site or something, you are asking for changes in, in public policy.

00:38:21.640 But there is a difference between, uh, occupations, uh, and, and, you know, saying we're not going

00:38:31.340 until this has changed, uh, in a way that is massively disruptive, uh, and potentially

00:38:37.280 dangerous, uh, versus just saying, yeah, we're protesting because we want, uh, we want public

00:38:43.160 policy to change and we're trying to convince people to get enough of them that politicians

00:38:47.080 will listen to enough people saying, okay, uh, I'm going to lose votes if I don't change

00:38:51.260 this.

00:38:51.600 Uh, that's the usual way, uh, protests, uh, uh, can be effective in, in our democracies.

00:38:59.720 I don't think I've ever seen Justin Trudeau condemn a protest from the left that's been

00:39:05.140 disruptive.

00:39:06.360 Black Lives Matter.

00:39:07.680 I don't know more.

00:39:08.480 The Tamil Tigers, Greenpeace and other eco radicals against forestry, against, um, the

00:39:18.480 seal hunt, against pipelines, against LNG.

00:39:22.020 I don't think I've ever in my entire life seen Justin Trudeau speak out against a left

00:39:26.820 wing protest, disruptive or not, shutting down the railroads in this country.

00:39:30.780 In fact, they literally sent negotiators to negotiate with the Watsuitan, um, false tribal

00:39:38.240 leaders, not the real ones.

00:39:39.980 Um, there is no protest on the left that Trudeau won't bend the knee to.

00:39:43.820 And he realizes that he sort of stepped in it there where he says, oh, you know, if you're,

00:39:48.180 if you're protesting to change public policy and then something said, oh, but we do that

00:39:52.140 too.

00:39:52.380 And he tried to draw a distinction.

00:39:53.700 They tried to mop it up later, didn't he?

00:39:55.800 Yeah.

00:39:56.380 But he made it worse because then he hinted that it's not just all protests that try to

00:40:00.980 change public policy that are the problem.

00:40:02.840 It's just your protests that try to change public policy that are the problem.

00:40:07.760 He said it's perfectly fine to protest the closing of a safe injection site where people

00:40:12.520 poison themselves into a slow death, but he used a word occupation there.

00:40:17.600 He said an occupation is not acceptable.

00:40:19.620 Now, I don't know about you, Ezra, but I am old enough to remember when he met with chief

00:40:24.600 chicken noodle, Teresa Spence, who is occupying a park in Ottawa and she was lobbying to change

00:40:31.220 public policy.

00:40:32.300 In fact, she was lobbying for an end to a law that would have brought accountability

00:40:36.000 to her reserve that she was driving into the ground between her and her sticky fingered

00:40:40.420 boyfriend at the time.

00:40:42.260 And he met with her.

00:40:43.580 He went into the occupation site, went inside of her teepee.

00:40:48.020 And I don't know if they ate chicken noodle soup together or what went on in there, but he

00:40:53.240 made it and he invited the media to join him when he went to meet with her.

00:40:59.760 And he basically said, why isn't Stephen Harper meeting with her?

00:41:03.440 And and she was running her reserve out of Wapiscat into the ground.

00:41:07.140 There's McLean's.

00:41:07.820 There he is with chief Teresa Spence.

00:41:10.860 I forget the park that she was in in Ottawa.

00:41:12.640 But again, this goes over to the point that actually that buffoon was making himself that

00:41:18.660 some occupations and protests are fine and some aren't.

00:41:22.060 And we're not allowed to have him.

00:41:23.260 But he is.

00:41:24.040 Yeah.

00:41:26.180 You know, it's funny, as Ava was saying a moment ago, it's like we're watching two different

00:41:31.180 movies.

00:41:31.780 I mean, the the regime media who we learned through this trucker inquiry were being managed

00:41:36.380 on a daily basis by the government.

00:41:38.140 Oh, I'll I'll talk to this reporter.

00:41:41.720 She's really receptive.

00:41:43.300 I'll talk to that.

00:41:44.100 Like, we need to get this reporter to use the word neo-Nazi.

00:41:47.640 Like you could see that you could see the orchestration of it.

00:41:51.020 As I said, if there was a real national emergency, you wouldn't need to spin the media on it.

00:41:55.040 For the FLQ crisis, which I acknowledge was an emergency 50 odd years ago, they were blowing

00:42:00.540 up.

00:42:01.080 They were they were detonating bombs.

00:42:02.840 They were kidnapping people.

00:42:04.520 They were they were murdering.

00:42:06.000 There was murder, murder, kidnapping.

00:42:10.060 There really was the FLQ really was connected to Cuba.

00:42:16.880 Like there was a foreign meddler.

00:42:19.320 It was trying to cause a literal insurrection in the province of Quebec to destroy the sovereignty

00:42:24.320 of the Canadian government.

00:42:25.060 There actually was.

00:42:26.420 Now, I think that the deployment of martial law was overbroad, overlong.

00:42:30.240 Trudeau Sr., his RCMP took advantage, arrested hundreds of people who had nothing to do with

00:42:36.840 it other than they were political enemies of Pierre Trudeau.

00:42:39.300 The RCMP famously burned down barns of Trudeau's political opponents in Quebec.

00:42:45.720 So even back then, the martial law was absolutely abused by Pierre Trudeau.

00:42:52.420 And I'm sure that's how Justin Trudeau learned that you can really get away with anything as

00:42:56.800 long as you don't blink, just don't blink, just have your confidence and the other side

00:43:02.280 will huff and puff and you got a house of bricks.

00:43:05.360 They won't blow it down.

00:43:06.400 I think Justin Trudeau learned from Pierre Trudeau that you can violate civil liberties

00:43:10.840 and call yourself a liberal and the media won't care.

00:43:14.180 If they didn't care 52 years ago when the only government media was the CBC, they're certainly

00:43:19.120 not going to care today when all the media is on the government payroll.

00:43:22.380 Well, and that is the reason the Emergencies Act was rewritten from being the War Measures

00:43:29.260 Act is because there was an acknowledgement that it was overbroad.

00:43:32.400 It was used to attack political enemies instead of enemies of the state.

00:43:36.460 And yet still, even after all that, even after that law had to be rewritten by the actions

00:43:41.100 of his father, Justin Trudeau comes along and abuses the Emergencies Act against his peaceful

00:43:46.380 opponents.

00:43:46.920 And, you know, the idea that these people were even remotely insurrectionists, as Keith

00:43:53.180 Wilson, lawyer for the convoy, pointed out, it's a hell of an insurrection when they don't

00:43:57.200 even break a window on the way out.

00:44:00.760 You know, not even a window was broken in Ottawa when every time that the convoy was met with

00:44:07.400 violence at the hands of the state.

00:44:08.740 And that's one thing Eva pointed out.

00:44:10.160 And I thought it was very, very poignant in her closing statement, where she said,

00:44:14.380 at every opportunity, the government chose state force, state violence instead of engagement.

00:44:20.960 And that was an act of choice every step of the way.

00:44:22.840 But every time the government chose force, the convoy didn't choose force.

00:44:28.560 When they were beaten with clubs, they never reacted.

00:44:30.980 And every step of the way, the cops in the city of Ottawa and at Coutts were overwhelmed.

00:44:36.420 If those truckers and convoyers wanted to take the city of Ottawa, it was full of angry,

00:44:43.360 useful people.

00:44:44.300 And they could have done it, but they never did.

00:44:46.100 We saw how they peacefully ran off the RCMP in Coutts.

00:44:50.320 They sang to them and they ran away.

00:44:52.440 These were not violent insurrectionists.

00:44:54.700 And shame on the regime media for painting them that way without a shred of evidence to

00:45:00.580 the contrary.

00:45:01.260 Yeah, that's a great point.

00:45:02.260 You know, I was down there on Parliament Hill and the center block of Parliament, that's

00:45:07.160 the that's the most famous one with the big peace tower that's right on the lawn.

00:45:12.600 It was under renovations and there was sort of an eight foot high wooden fence, the kind

00:45:17.840 of thing you see around a construction site.

00:45:20.180 Sure.

00:45:21.180 No one even touched it.

00:45:22.880 Like you could have pushed that fence over and broken through and stormed into the building,

00:45:29.620 I presume, if you tried.

00:45:32.980 If you had a thousand people, if you had a hundred people, maybe if you had 20 people

00:45:36.260 who were dedicated, but no one even touched the wooden wall.

00:45:39.320 They didn't even touch it.

00:45:41.080 Right.

00:45:41.520 And these are the kind of people who do things with their back in their hands for a living.

00:45:44.540 They could take down a wall.

00:45:45.740 Yeah.

00:45:46.240 Like it's when I say wall, it was just like, you know, around a construction site, they

00:45:49.760 put up a fence with, you know, some two by fours and some plywood.

00:45:53.060 Yeah.

00:45:53.300 Like it wasn't a riot wall.

00:45:55.000 It was a don't step here because you can get hurt.

00:45:57.480 It's a construction zone wall.

00:45:58.820 No one even touched that wall.

00:46:01.000 So the idea that they were like, I saw pictures of Ray Epps, the FBI informant, whipping up

00:46:06.300 people to storm into Congress.

00:46:08.880 And, you know, as a conservative and a pro-Trump conservative, I acknowledge that they did

00:46:14.040 enter into the actual buildings of Congress.

00:46:17.060 I also know that the police opened the doors and welcomed them in.

00:46:21.460 And there was a lot of funny business.

00:46:23.240 But I cannot dispute that they physically went into the Congress itself.

00:46:27.740 They never even entered a building in Ottawa.

00:46:32.440 They never even tried to.

00:46:34.280 Like you say, there was no window that was smashed.

00:46:37.520 There was no unlocked door that was open.

00:46:40.040 Nothing.

00:46:40.680 They were content to be in their trucks and on the street.

00:46:44.180 Well, Sheila, I'm so glad you helped us anchor our coverage on this for the past month.

00:46:49.020 I appreciate that.

00:46:49.760 And you spent some of the time in Ottawa.

00:46:53.020 But you, like I say, this was a very citizen-friendly project.

00:46:56.640 Last question to you.

00:46:57.880 What was your impression of the Airbnb pop-up studio?

00:47:01.300 Because we crowdfunded that.

00:47:02.720 We haven't received the final bill yet.

00:47:04.800 So for those who want to help out, not just for the Airbnb.

00:47:08.000 It cost us about $15,000 for the Airbnb.

00:47:10.260 And then we were constantly flying journalists in to the Airbnb from, they usually drive from

00:47:17.120 Toronto.

00:47:17.500 But we flew in some folks from Calgary and elsewhere.

00:47:20.280 So our total bill, I haven't seen it yet.

00:47:22.160 It wouldn't surprise me if our total bill for that pop-up studio for the month was $30,000.

00:47:26.940 So we made a big investment in it.

00:47:29.320 What was it?

00:47:29.960 How was it?

00:47:30.840 I mean, just being in that house with the pop-up studio and the guys, it had a tiny bit of a

00:47:37.360 fraternity feeling, not that it was parties, but you got a bunch of guys away from home,

00:47:41.560 having fun, working together.

00:47:43.800 What was it like when you were there?

00:47:45.720 I thought it was great.

00:47:48.320 You know, it's modest.

00:47:49.820 It's very modest.

00:47:50.840 That's how we roll around here.

00:47:52.440 But, you know, it was great to have a fixed location where we could bring the lawyers

00:47:56.540 to help us analyze what happened that day.

00:47:59.480 And it was someplace warm instead of working out on the street, which is new for our team

00:48:03.700 that works in Ottawa.

00:48:05.300 So that was great.

00:48:06.600 But it was also, as you say, a place where, you know, it was collegial.

00:48:09.960 You know, you're working late.

00:48:11.380 You're leaving early.

00:48:12.240 When I was there, Celine and I were out of the Airbnb like before eight.

00:48:16.720 But it was a place where you could save some money, grab a coffee.

00:48:19.600 You know, if you're working late, there was a little bit of food in the fridge instead

00:48:23.920 of having to constantly eat out.

00:48:25.500 So I think it was it was a great way to help our team feel a little bit like they were at

00:48:30.760 home while they were gone for so long.

00:48:33.160 Yeah.

00:48:33.340 You know, I was there in January, February.

00:48:36.240 It was so bitter cold.

00:48:38.140 Part of my thinking was, I don't know how cold it's going to be.

00:48:40.660 It wasn't that bad.

00:48:41.600 But just to get out of the cold, just to warm your hands and feed up a bit.

00:48:45.120 And and of course, batteries, cell phone batteries and camera batteries don't work

00:48:49.560 as well when it's minus 20.

00:48:51.020 So luckily, it wasn't that brutal.

00:48:52.480 But boy, I wish we had that Airbnb back during the convoy itself.

00:48:56.200 Well, Sheila, thanks so much for joining us.

00:48:57.880 And thanks for participating so deeply in the project over the last month.

00:49:03.680 We're going to take a very quick commercial break.

00:49:05.400 And then we're going to come back with Celine Glass, who started her work with Rebel News

00:49:10.920 in the convoy.

00:49:12.300 She was embedded in the convoy as it made its way from Calgary to Ottawa.

00:49:16.200 And she's been in Ottawa for weeks covering it there.

00:49:18.800 When we come back, we'll talk to Celine Glass.

00:49:21.200 Well, very exciting.

00:49:22.560 I tell you, the trucker convoy was what finally broke the fever of the lockdowns in this country,

00:49:28.180 broke the group think, showed that not everyone was being compliant.

00:49:31.580 And Celine Glass was there from the beginning.

00:49:33.340 Celine, great to see you again.

00:49:34.360 And you're back in Alberta.

00:49:35.900 But you spent a lot of time in our pop-up studio.

00:49:38.140 That's what I'm calling it.

00:49:39.320 In Ottawa, it was very close to the hearing.

00:49:42.880 Like, it really was like a three-minute walk or something.

00:49:45.400 I think that really made it useful.

00:49:47.540 So you didn't have to take an Uber.

00:49:49.060 You didn't have to take a cab.

00:49:50.320 And it wasn't brutally cold.

00:49:51.900 So I thought it was really convenient.

00:49:53.480 It was also convenient the other way around for lawyers and others and witnesses from the

00:49:58.440 Commission of Inquiry just to walk to our little Airbnb.

00:50:01.020 I thought it worked out pretty well.

00:50:02.280 Yeah, I did, too.

00:50:04.720 I think it was fantastic.

00:50:06.100 Yeah.

00:50:06.400 The back and forth commute was super short, especially for those early days getting to

00:50:10.700 the Commission.

00:50:11.840 And as you said, it made it very convenient.

00:50:13.940 A lot of the lawyers that we had, the Freedom Corp organizers, as well as, I guess, yeah,

00:50:20.860 we had like Andrew Lawton on there, too.

00:50:22.300 So any of our friends that we talked to, they were all really, really close to it, which

00:50:26.760 worked out perfectly.

00:50:28.180 Yeah.

00:50:28.740 And the fact that it was sort of obviously in the kitchen, I don't think anyone minds.

00:50:32.880 I mean, everyone has conversations in the kitchen.

00:50:34.720 I thought I had a homemade kind of feel to it.

00:50:37.360 So how long were you there altogether?

00:50:38.800 I believe I was there for 22 days straight, 22 or 23 days.

00:50:45.960 Yeah.

00:50:46.220 I don't know if you had a chance to see any of the city while you were out there.

00:50:49.980 I mean, that commission was pretty intense.

00:50:52.620 It worked some weekend days, too, didn't it?

00:50:55.560 Oh, it did for sure.

00:50:56.340 And it's also post-production as well, right?

00:50:58.100 So wrapping up those reports, making sure that we're planned for the week ahead, the daily

00:51:01.860 content, et cetera.

00:51:03.300 So, yeah.

00:51:03.680 Yeah, there wasn't a lot of downtime.

00:51:04.860 And by the way, I give the judge some credit.

00:51:07.040 Everyone's piling on him.

00:51:08.920 He had a very difficult job.

00:51:11.400 Imagine herding all those cats.

00:51:13.300 Everyone has their own lawyer.

00:51:14.480 Everyone's, you know, and all under a very intense time pressure.

00:51:18.640 From what I saw, I mean, I didn't watch it as intensely as you did, but from what I saw,

00:51:22.500 I'm going to give the judge certainly the benefit of the doubt.

00:51:25.220 I mean, I thought he certainly tried to be even-handed.

00:51:30.200 That's how I felt.

00:51:31.040 I know there were some moments that it didn't quite seem that way.

00:51:33.900 I want to play for you just a couple of clips and get your reaction.

00:51:38.880 Here's a funny one.

00:51:39.860 I know you're from Alberta like I am originally.

00:51:42.720 Clip number five.

00:51:44.300 You know, Jason Kenney, who used to be a really close friend of mine and used to be one of

00:51:49.200 the leading freedom politicians in this country, he really fell down on this one.

00:51:53.920 And he started talking like Trudeau.

00:51:59.320 You know, he was calling the truckers crazies or conspiracy theorists.

00:52:02.720 He was using Trudeau's Ottawa language in Alberta.

00:52:06.580 It just sounded not just hollow.

00:52:08.540 It sounded like a kind of mutiny against Albertans.

00:52:11.520 It was sort of crazy.

00:52:12.900 Clip number five, that is.

00:52:14.900 I think I made a mistake.

00:52:15.660 Clip number five has Kenny reportedly describing the Alberta truckers, many of whom I've met and

00:52:24.020 they're the most straight up guys you'll ever see.

00:52:26.420 Play clip five.

00:52:27.200 I'd like your reaction to sleep.

00:52:28.440 Boldened or digging in to their illegal behaviors and that enforcement of public order is actually

00:52:39.620 a threat.

00:52:41.140 And this is actually something that Jason Kenney brought up at the FMM, highlighting that these

00:52:46.660 are not rational actors, there are conspiracy theories and he was concerned, as we were,

00:52:52.360 that the invocation of the Emergencies Act could have people who are irrational overreact.

00:52:59.120 But at the same time, we had to balance that risk against the risk that people who were already

00:53:09.120 starting to get fed up and engage in counter protests would start taking more and more into

00:53:15.200 their own hands, which was a greater risk, I think.

00:53:17.920 You know, Jason Kenney had decided that these people were the bad guys and I'm sure he believed

00:53:26.740 that.

00:53:27.060 I think he was surrounded with people who were sort of in a bunker mentality at that point.

00:53:32.540 He wasn't getting outside opinions.

00:53:34.340 It was like the palace guard in, you know, cut off from the world and they were probably relying on

00:53:40.020 official.

00:53:40.900 I just thought it was sad to see a freedom fighter like Jason Kenney become really Trudeau's man

00:53:47.600 in Canada.

00:53:48.140 What do you think?

00:53:49.780 I totally agree with you.

00:53:50.980 I think it's always really harsh.

00:53:52.580 It's a harsh reality to come to when you see that there's somebody that has the potential

00:53:56.540 to really stand up for people that like has those traits in the beginning.

00:54:00.240 It was like the first time when we saw on video that he, you know, denounced the vaccine

00:54:05.460 passport and he didn't even know what it was allegedly.

00:54:08.640 And then, you know, what happened in Alberta, the same as everywhere else in Canada.

00:54:13.080 So I think that he could have been our greatest opportunity looking back to have

00:54:17.420 a different reality when it came to how the Albertan government handled the lockdown

00:54:22.360 restrictions and mandates.

00:54:23.440 But gosh, listening to Trudeau again, I'm not fully out of the Ottawa mindscape.

00:54:29.980 I feel like I have hives after listening to Trudeau talk again, but it's harsh.

00:54:34.240 It's really harsh.

00:54:35.180 And I kind of think, I mean, Trudeau is kind of just throwing him under the bus as well.

00:54:39.780 Like, I kind of feel bad, you know, like just I know that he touched on a lot of other

00:54:44.740 people's testimonies, but I dare say I don't think that it was as brutal or harsh as that.

00:54:49.220 And regardless of what Jason Kenney did, it's probably because Trudeau knows he's from

00:54:54.140 Alberta.

00:54:55.040 So why not?

00:54:56.040 Right.

00:54:56.300 Just salt to wound, a little bit of extra pain.

00:54:59.220 Alberta could have been the Florida of Canada could have been, especially since health care

00:55:02.420 is so clearly a provincial jurisdiction under the Canadian constitution, section 92, it

00:55:08.940 really is up to Alberta.

00:55:11.580 And for whatever reason, and I think it's because Jason Kenney always had his eye on

00:55:15.680 returning to Ottawa as prime minister.

00:55:17.480 So he didn't want to be too province oriented, too.

00:55:20.720 He didn't, he was worried that in the future that would make him look too small time and

00:55:24.260 too partisan and not national and grandeur enough.

00:55:27.760 And he missed the opportunity.

00:55:30.300 Well, listen, Selene, it's great to see you.

00:55:31.820 Thanks again for serving such a big tour of duty away from home.

00:55:35.920 We're going to play a very quick ad.

00:55:38.520 And when we come back, we'll have your colleague, our Montreal-based reporter, Alexa Lavoie.

00:55:44.080 So Selene will say thanks now and we'll sign off and folks don't go away because after

00:55:48.680 this ad, we'll have Alexa.

00:55:49.940 Now, Alexa, great to see you.

00:55:52.080 And you were on my mind during the commission of inquiry because for all the talk of the

00:55:56.260 potential violence of the truckers, there was no violence from the truckers.

00:56:00.420 There was, there was no shooting.

00:56:02.580 There was no smashing.

00:56:03.880 There was no rioting.

00:56:05.140 But there was a person who was shot.

00:56:08.440 And it was you.

00:56:10.380 You were shot with a riot gun.

00:56:12.400 You were hit by riot police.

00:56:13.820 And so the violence came from the government side.

00:56:19.680 And as you know, we're suing the government.

00:56:22.480 People who don't know what I'm referring to can go to standwithalexa.com.

00:56:27.120 In fact, I just want to show a brief clip of that.

00:56:29.540 And I'm sorry, you probably hate to see it.

00:56:32.000 And I hate to look at it.

00:56:33.460 But we can't forget it.

00:56:34.700 We can't let it be swept under the rug.

00:56:36.940 We can't let Trudeau gaslight us, if you know what I mean.

00:56:40.340 Here's a clip of that terrible moment.

00:56:42.400 And I'll come back and I'll share some quick thoughts with people.

00:56:44.580 And then I'll bring you in.

00:56:45.600 Alexis, great to see you.

00:56:46.520 Here's, here's a clip of that terrible day.

00:56:48.080 And I'm sorry to show this because it was an atrocity that was done to you.

00:56:51.700 But people have to see it.

00:56:52.600 Take a look.

00:56:52.980 What are you doing?

00:56:55.800 What are you doing?

00:56:56.460 What are you doing?

00:56:58.000 What are you doing?

00:56:59.160 Hold on.

00:57:00.340 Stop it.

00:57:02.560 Stop it.

00:57:03.340 Stop it.

00:57:04.340 Stop.

00:57:05.340 Ah!

00:57:06.340 Ah!

00:57:07.340 He's just trying to throw this.

00:57:11.340 You're just trying to throw this.

00:57:12.340 You're just trying to throw this.

00:57:13.340 Oh, god.

00:57:14.340 Yeah.

00:57:15.340 Oh.

00:57:16.340 Oh!

00:57:17.340 Oh, no!

00:57:18.340 Oh!

00:57:19.340 Oh!

00:57:20.340 Ah!

00:57:21.340 There you go.

00:57:22.340 You all right?

00:57:23.340 That's right.

00:57:24.340 Take care.

00:57:26.340 Bring her out.

00:57:27.340 Bring her out.

00:57:28.340 Come on.

00:57:29.340 Oh, my God.

00:57:31.340 Yeah!

00:57:32.340 Oh, shit.

00:57:43.120 Oh, shit.

00:57:45.940 Hey, someone got shot in the head.

00:57:48.920 Oh, Jesus.

00:57:51.700 Oh.

00:57:53.480 Bring her to the left here.

00:57:54.560 Come on, man.

00:57:55.540 Get her out of your head.

00:57:57.540 Just atrocious.

00:57:59.280 You were shot.

00:58:00.120 You were hit, and you were shot with a kind of anti-riot weapon in your leg at point-blank range.

00:58:08.420 I'm very sorry that happened to you.

00:58:09.740 As you know, we're suing the police, and we've discovered that the police knew who you were.

00:58:15.940 We discovered from the police notes they knew who you were.

00:58:18.320 They knew your name.

00:58:19.860 And one other thing we discovered is that the police that day were helping a lot of people with medical issues,

00:58:25.020 people with a heart attack, someone who slipped and fell, someone who had hypothermia.

00:58:31.340 Police shot you.

00:58:33.340 They obviously knew that they shot you, and they did not offer you any help, did they?

00:58:39.180 No, no.

00:58:40.660 So I collapsed just like a couple of minutes after, and no one came to me.

00:58:48.500 The only protester came, a former nurse who lost her job, actually took care of me.

00:58:56.340 And I remember another man that was there.

00:59:00.020 They washed my face with water because I was full of, I think it was cayenne paper or something that was burning my face and my body and my skin.

00:59:11.760 And I remember I had it in my mouth, in my eyes, and it's why I was like crying as much, but I saw because I was hurt.

00:59:21.520 But thanks to these two and all beautiful people who actually helped me out because probably without them, I would be like in the snow alone.

00:59:34.500 I'm so sorry that happened to you.

00:59:36.480 I have to say that in the nearly eight years of Rebel News being a company, that was the worst moment in our entire company's history.

00:59:44.640 That was the worst thing that ever happened to us, the worst thing anyone had ever done to us.

00:59:49.340 David Menzies was roughed up pretty badly by Trudeau's bodyguards a few months earlier.

00:59:53.860 But to actually be shot and beaten, and for the police, they knew, the reason I say they knew who you were is because we have, we're suing them.

01:00:03.500 And in the course of that lawsuit, we have received their notes, and they knew exactly who you were.

01:00:09.000 And there were thousands of people, protesters, journalists, observers in the streets.

01:00:15.260 And there were thousands of police.

01:00:17.620 And the coincidence that you were the only one shot, I do not believe that's a coincidence.

01:00:22.640 Like I say, they knew who you were.

01:00:24.460 And then once they committed the atrocity of shooting you, they committed a second atrocity of literally not helping.

01:00:32.340 Like I said, they helped other people all day.

01:00:34.440 We see that in their notes.

01:00:35.620 But they refused to help you.

01:00:38.420 And we are seeking justice for people who want to be involved in that.

01:00:41.820 They can go to standwithalexa.com.

01:00:44.180 I'm sorry to mention that.

01:00:45.180 It's just been on my mind, especially since clip number six.

01:00:48.920 Alexa, I'd like your reaction to this.

01:00:50.340 This is a clip of Trudeau saying he had to invoke martial law because what if some little old lady got hurt?

01:00:58.840 And all I could think about was the police horses stomping on that little old lady and the police roughing up that short old man and the police shooting you.

01:01:10.680 And Trudeau's making it like he was the one standing against violence.

01:01:14.840 All the violence in Ottawa came from the government.

01:01:20.220 All the violence came from them.

01:01:22.520 Here, take a look at this clip of Trudeau.

01:01:24.000 When there's a national emergency and serious threats of violence to Canadians and you have a tool that you should use,

01:01:32.060 how would I explain it to the family of a police officer who was killed or a grandmother who got run over trying to stop a truck

01:01:39.640 or a protester who was killed if I hadn't used the tools, if one of the protesters, one of the occupiers had been killed in a violent clash with someone else?

01:01:55.900 Getting this situation under control and protecting the safety of all Canadians is a priority.

01:02:02.040 What a sociopathic liar.

01:02:04.840 There were no serious threats of violence.

01:02:06.420 We know that because none were made and all the police forces confirm that.

01:02:12.140 Threats of someone being killed, how would that possibly happen if the only violence came from the government?

01:02:17.680 A grandmother trying to stop a truck from running over her.

01:02:21.820 I don't even understand that weird hypothetical situation.

01:02:24.600 How about a grandmother being stomped on by an RCMP horse for no reason at all?

01:02:29.560 Just absolutely outrageous.

01:02:31.120 How did it feel when you saw that prince of lies take the witness stand?

01:02:37.740 Well, first of all, you use speculation for make the situation worse than it was.

01:02:43.120 Just trying to create in the mind of people like that.

01:02:48.420 Maybe this will have happened if I didn't have like invoked the emergency act.

01:02:54.020 But the only thing that I was thinking when I was talking is like Candice Serra was in the audience watching him saying that in her face when she was trampled by a horse.

01:03:07.360 And the SIU dropped the case on her because her injury was not enough severe to continue the investigation on her.

01:03:18.440 The SIU, that's a kind of internal affairs.

01:03:21.040 That's the special investigations unit whenever police are violent against someone, they come and investigate.

01:03:26.860 You're saying the SIU dropped the case against the police who stomped on her because her injuries weren't that bad.

01:03:33.220 That's what you said there, right?

01:03:34.880 Outrageous.

01:03:35.320 Sorry to interrupt you.

01:03:35.940 I just want to explain to people what SIU was.

01:03:38.300 Keep going, Alexa.

01:03:39.040 So I had a talk and I have like an interview with her that's coming up on how she had been so far.

01:03:49.560 And I saw her.

01:03:50.560 She was crying about like she's still hurt.

01:03:55.400 She's hurt by also what the government did.

01:03:59.400 And she lost a lot of faith.

01:04:03.620 And I was really sad to see this and the hypocrisy of Justin Trudeau testimony all day long.

01:04:12.080 But I was also surprised that usually, you know, it takes so much time to answer the question.

01:04:17.620 But I was surprised how fast he was answering the question that day and that he answered actually really mostly truthful for some of the question.

01:04:30.760 I think I think what was irritating to me was he showed what was in his mind.

01:04:38.260 You could sum up every one of his answers was, I think very low.

01:04:43.240 I have a low opinion of Canadians.

01:04:45.500 I'm afraid of Canadians.

01:04:46.880 I'm scared of them.

01:04:48.820 And I thought it was best to be as firm as possible with them.

01:04:53.620 So when he says, I was afraid of a grandmother being driven over by a truck, that's an absurd thing to say.

01:05:02.300 So is that true or false?

01:05:04.200 Well, I think if it's true, it shows what he thinks of us.

01:05:08.480 It shows what he thinks of the peaceful protesters, violent protesters fighting with each other.

01:05:15.320 There was no violence amongst the protesters.

01:05:18.100 But he thinks, oh, they're truck drivers.

01:05:20.380 Of course, they're violent.

01:05:21.540 They're just a bunch of drunk yobbs.

01:05:24.820 And especially when he said, I never called unvaccinated names.

01:05:29.820 And I was like, this is such a lie because we have so much proof of so many excerpts of video where we saw him calling unvaccinated names.

01:05:42.400 Yeah.

01:05:42.940 Well, should we tolerate them?

01:05:44.380 They're racist, misogynist, the things you said.

01:05:46.660 Well, Alexa, thank you for covering this.

01:05:48.700 And I'm so glad.

01:05:49.460 And again, you really shined during the convoy itself, especially you allowed us to talk to the Quebec truckers because, of course, Ottawa is just across the river from Quebec.

01:06:00.840 So there were a lot of Quebec truckers there, and some of them didn't speak English.

01:06:06.280 So you were able to talk with them.

01:06:08.560 And it was very encouraging for me as an English-Canadian originally from the West to see that Quebec truckers, French-speaking truckers, they cared about freedom, too.

01:06:20.280 I really was grateful for that.

01:06:21.860 And so thank you not only for your coverage during the last month of the Trucker Commission, but for your original work with the Trucker Convoy itself.

01:06:28.680 Great to see you, my friend.

01:06:30.420 Great to see you, too.

01:06:31.220 Thank you.

01:06:43.280 Hey, welcome back.

01:06:44.320 Your letters to me.

01:06:45.880 Here's one that says, hello, Ezra.

01:06:47.320 Sean Smith here from Lethbridge.

01:06:48.380 Just a short note to say, it was a pleasure meeting you and to offer big congratulations for bringing together such excellent and wonderful speakers.

01:06:55.500 Listening to them and meeting with some of them was enlightening.

01:06:58.500 They were all good, decent, and more than likable human beings.

01:07:00.860 Appreciate your work.

01:07:01.660 Cheers.

01:07:02.780 You're from Lethbridge.

01:07:04.460 You're talking about our Calgary Rebel News Live meetup, which was on Saturday.

01:07:10.960 It was great.

01:07:12.360 We had some outstanding speakers from Alberta, but we also had, for example, Premier Brian Packford, who came in from Vancouver Island.

01:07:20.060 Conrad Black gave a speech about the history of Canadian civil liberties.

01:07:23.840 Dr. Roger Hodkinson, of course, the freedom-fighting doctor.

01:07:27.480 I don't know.

01:07:27.820 There were about 15 speakers.

01:07:29.380 It was wonderful.

01:07:30.220 I'm glad you were there.

01:07:32.060 Next letter is from Alphacet, who says,

01:07:34.100 First of all, you're exactly right.

01:08:03.480 In fact, remember, Aaron O'Toole, who was the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada at the time, stopped his MPs from meeting with the truckers.

01:08:10.740 In fact, it was the reason they threw him out.

01:08:13.860 But I think when people say conservative, they're referring to the small-C conservative ideology as opposed to the big-C conservative party.

01:08:21.100 But even there, I think you're right.

01:08:23.340 I've met people over the last year who are not conservative.

01:08:27.680 They're green-oriented, natural health.

01:08:30.220 They don't believe in over-drugging people.

01:08:33.280 So they've been in support of the truckers.

01:08:36.800 There are people who say, My body, my choice.

01:08:39.420 Typically, people like that might vote for the Liberal Party.

01:08:42.000 But how come the liberals didn't support my body, my choice when it came to jabs?

01:08:46.760 NDP members who were in the labor movement couldn't believe they were sold out by their union bosses,

01:08:51.420 not grieving this change in their collective agreements.

01:08:54.420 And, of course, the conservatives, well, if only their conservative leadership went along with this, too.

01:09:00.100 My point to you is you are exactly right.

01:09:02.740 I use words like freedom and privacy and personal autonomy and sovereignty.

01:09:07.440 There were conservatives there, but not a lot of conservative party members at first.

01:09:12.880 On Trudeau's testimony, Billy 98 says there is no way he can apologize.

01:09:17.500 He just doubles down.

01:09:18.380 He is so conceited.

01:09:19.260 But conceited is part of it.

01:09:21.160 Yeah, it's a personality thing.

01:09:22.440 But I think he truly has a tyrant's blood in him.

01:09:27.160 He got some of that honestly from his father.

01:09:29.400 But look at who he says he admires.

01:09:32.160 Some people say they admire JFK.

01:09:35.120 Some people say they admire George Washington or Abe Lincoln.

01:09:38.500 You don't have to choose American names.

01:09:40.140 You can say you admire John A. MacDonald.

01:09:42.820 There are some Canadian heroes.

01:09:44.620 You can say you admire some European figures.

01:09:46.900 But who does Justin Trudeau say he admires?

01:09:50.820 Well, the two names that come to mind incredibly are, number one, China.

01:09:53.680 He literally says it's the country he most admires.

01:09:56.060 And number two, you'll recall when Fidel Castro died, Trudeau gave a shockingly exuberant eulogy to that mass murderer.

01:10:04.680 So much so that American senators put up press releases denouncing it.

01:10:09.040 So why are you siding with Castro?

01:10:11.980 Castro. So, yeah, I think that Justin Trudeau isn't just a sociopathic liar.

01:10:17.240 I think he really is a tyrant who's figured out that he can win in a democratic system, but rule like he's a bit of a dictator.

01:10:25.720 Remember, democracy is not just one day every four years punctuated by authoritarianism.

01:10:31.360 That's not democracy.

01:10:32.560 But for Trudeau, it is.

01:10:34.300 That's why he disrespects any legal limits on him.

01:10:37.980 That's why he laughs when the conflict of interest commissioner rules against him.

01:10:43.160 That's why he laughs when the Federal Court of Canada grants Rebel News the right to be accredited at leaders' debates.

01:10:50.220 He laughs because he truly doesn't believe in the checks and balances of a modern democracy.

01:10:55.520 That's why he wants to ban us.

01:10:56.720 That's our show for today.

01:10:59.500 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

01:11:04.000 And keep fighting for freedom.

01:11:05.040 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - November 29, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The fireworks are over at the trucker commission but the hard work is actually just beginning

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