EZRA LEVANT ο½ Trudeau never forgets an enemy β that's why Ottawa took Freedom Convoyers to court
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Summary
Keith Wilson, the lawyer at the heart of the Truckers' Convoy, talks about Tamara Leach's trial, and the legacy of the truckers' movement, and why the government is still trying to get her behind bars.
Transcript
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Tonight, a feature interview with Keith Wilson, the lawyer at the heart of the trucker convoy.
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Well, it's almost 2024, but we are still living through one of the most interesting moments of
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2022. I'm referring to the greatest populist democratic uprising in Canadian history since,
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oh, what? I don't know, probably a rebellion in the 19th century. I'm talking about the peaceful
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trucker convoy that after two years of lockdowns and vaccine mandates and authoritarianism,
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the salt of the earth, working class people said, you know what? That's enough. And the most
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independent-minded people around, namely truckers, often who own their own rig, own their own
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business. Truckers who have a lot of time to think. They're on the road listening to talk radio,
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listening to podcasts. Truckers who, in their own personal life, are amongst the most isolated
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people around. They're certainly not going to be disease vectors. Imagine them being told that
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they must get a jab to continue their work. The truckers who were praised during the early days
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of the pandemic as the people who kept society going. And it was the truckers who inspired so
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many thousands and indeed millions more who had a peaceful march on protest, perhaps the peaceful
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mass movement, most peaceful mass movement in Canadian history. And simply by honking their horns
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managed to make Justin Trudeau, first of all, I was going to say blink, but before he blinked,
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he freaked out. He overreacted. He was ashamed internationally that his own people were rising up
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against him. He overreacted. And he threw the entire country into martial law, invoking the
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Emergencies Act, something not even done on 9-11. And when I say we're still living through the
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reverberations of that, I mean, I think one of the reasons we're freer today and faster than we would
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have been is because of the truckers. I think one of the reasons why Pierre Polyev is the leader of
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the Conservative Party instead of that demi-liberal Aaron O'Toole is because of the truckers. O'Toole was
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thrown out by his own caucus for his refusal to even meet with the truckers. But they're still
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trying to destroy the people behind the trucker movement. I'll tell you one thing about Justin
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Trudeau. He carries a grudge. He's very vengeful and into personal vendettas. He never forgets an
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enemy. And the enemy he saw in the truckers, well, he saw many enemies, but the most presentable,
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most winning, most easy-to-like and easy-to-follow trucker leader was none other than our friend
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Tamara Leach. She herself brought no truck to Ottawa, but she became sort of the poet laureate
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of the truckers. Not only did she handle logistics and make organizational decisions behind the scenes,
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but she made very soft-focused Facebook videos that time and again encouraged people to be gentle,
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encouraged people to be peaceful. And she became the lovable face of the trucker movement. There
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were many angry people on the movement for sure. I can think of a few. But she was a MΓ©tis grandma
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from Alberta who had just had enough. And it was a powerful force. And you know Justin Trudeau,
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he doesn't do well with strong women, especially strong indigenous women. Ask Jody Wilson-Raybould
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if you doubt me. So he invoked the Emergencies Act. He arrested Tamara Leach, jailed her for 49 days,
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and has been prosecuting her ever since. We're coming up on the two-year anniversary of the convoy.
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The trial of Tamara Leach for a trivial matter of incitement to mischief or some
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related offense has gone on for weeks now, more than 30 days of hearings. And the Democracy Fund
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lawyers working on the file confirmed for me my instincts that if there weren't all this political
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baggage and this media interest in Trudeau's personal connection, this would have been dropped
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by the crown more than a year ago, as so many other so-called pandemic offenses have been.
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So for the course of the next half hour, I want to talk about the reverberations of the trucker
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convoy, the Freedom Convoy. I want to talk a little bit about Tamara Leach's trial, which bizarrely and
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incredibly and atrociously will continue on well into the spring. I want to talk about what's
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happening with other elements of the trucker litigation and what the legacy of the truckers will
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be. We have a hand in that legacy at Rebel News. We proudly published Tamara's autobiography called
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Hold the Line, which was a massive bestseller and helped fix the story that was told with lies by the
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regime media. And of course, our cousins at the Democracy Fund have crowdfunded Tamara's legal defense.
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So we believe in Tamara Leach. And joining us now to talk about Tamara Leach, her trial, the truckers,
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and the future is our friend Keith Wilson, King's counsel and a lawyer during the crisis for the
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trucker convoy. Keith joins us now. Thanks for having me on, Ezra. Good to see you.
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Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. Not only were you a lawyer for the Freedom Convoy, but you
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were a lawyer on other projects too, including, for example, if memory serves, the lawsuit involving
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Maxime Bernier and Brian Pettford about the ban, the no-fly list for unvaccinated people on airlines.
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Am I remembering correctly? Yeah. I mean, I initially got involved. It was my wife who
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was increasingly concerned with her background as a university-degree RN nurse of retired,
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seeing what was happening with the COVID decision-making and the mandates and the apparent
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rationales for them. And of course, me seeing the civil liberties aspects and the impacts it was
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having on everyone that she asked me to get involved and take a case. And I agreed to be
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a contract lawyer to the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, representing former
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Premier Brian Pettford and a representative charter challenge on behalf of 6 million unvaccinated
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Canadians who had had their right to travel in the second largest country by landmass in the world,
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their fundamental charter right of mobility violated by these arbitrary vaccine mandates that prohibited
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them from flying, taking a ship, a boat or train. And so, yeah, I led one of the challenges there up into the federal court.
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Just gracefully, that matter was not only thrown out, but the Court of Appeal said they wouldn't even hear it
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because it was moot because it was over. It's funny how that was moot because it was over, but the prosecution
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of truckers, whether they're in the Windsor area, the Ottawa area, Coutts, Alberta, or of course, Tamera Leach,
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that's apparently not moot. The government will continue to prosecute the cases they want, but they
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don't, apparently don't have to go and justify their constitutional infringements. I think that reduces
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respect for the legal system. It's incredible to me, Keith, that the Supreme Court of Canada, as far as I
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know, hasn't yet bothered itself with hearing any cases emanating from the lockdown. So, I mean,
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correct me if I've missed one, but here we are, almost four years after the beginning of the pandemic.
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We had lockdown laws, vaccine laws, quarantine laws, mandatory airport quarantines in hotels. We had
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every infringement imaginable, and the Supreme Court, almost four years later, apparently has had more
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important things to do. Am I right on that, that they haven't heard a pandemic case?
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You are, and it's not just at that level. What we've seen is our courts, so far, have not been willing
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to do a thorough examination, to allow evidence to come before them, to do a thorough examination
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of the fundamental premises that led to this massive loss of rights, this massive overreach of
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government, these incredible harms economically, socially, educationally, relationship-wise,
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mental health-wise, for people that weren't able to be at the side of dying loved ones,
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or special events, weddings, the educational harm to our children, and so on.
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Our courts are a very important institution, and regrettably, I believe that the courts are
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demeaning their own value and their own role in our society, in Canadian society, and democratic society,
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when they decline to give an objective, thorough analysis of the evidence that is increasingly clear
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Yeah. You know, it's incredible to me that they won't even hear the case. I mean, it would be one
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thing if they heard the case and ruled in favor of the authoritarian lockdowns, that would be very
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disappointing. But for them to refuse to even hear the cases, including the flights of the no-fly list
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case that you referred to, to me is atrocious. You know, I think one of the worst moments, and I've mentioned
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this on the show before, is that early on, when vaccine mandates were still being, were still very
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new and were subject to looming court challenges, where labor unions were forcing this on their
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members, where, or refusing to grieve them, where, you know, the science was very iffy, but the government
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was firing people from federal institutions, including the Canadian Armed Forces, when they were banning
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people. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court himself announced publicly that he was bringing
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in a vaccine mandate for the Supreme Court of Canada staff itself. So there were all these cases
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across Canada in labor tribunals, in courts. It was a live issue. They had not been adjudicated yet.
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Tested facts had not yet been brought to court. The law had not been examined. And the Chief Justice
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short-circuited all of that. He headed it all off in the past by announcing,
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hey, everybody, we're invoking a vaccine mandate at our office. And yeah, I just happen to be the
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Chief Judge of the Supreme Court. So anyone who, across this country, who thinks they're going to
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challenge this, just read between the lines on how I'm going to vote. Like, it wasn't just an
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atrocious violation of civil liberties for the staff at the Supreme Court. It was a way of telling
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every other judge, prosecutor, and lawyer in the country, don't even bother trying to challenge a
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vaccine mandate. I've just shown you that not only am I going to do it, I'm going to boast about it in
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public. And what are you going to do about it? I think that was perhaps the most disgraceful moment
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for the Supreme Court during the entire pandemic. What do you think?
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Well, yes. And not just that court, unfortunately. There was no obligation on part for the court to
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release private medical information of its staff and its judges. There are privacy considerations
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here, and they should have been respected, in my view. But there's another one. Let me give a little
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vignette of what it felt like to be one of those lawyers in these courtrooms. Of course, not the Supreme
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Court because we never got there, but the other ones. And it was the masking. So you're going into
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court, and we all visualize. When you go into a courtroom, there's this huge distance between you
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and the judge, and they're above you, right? That's how all courtrooms are set up. So first of all,
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you've got distancing. So why am I even have to put a mask on? But you've got a box of masks in front of
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you. And on the end of the box, in big, bold letters, it says, warning, this mask will not
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protect against respiratory virus, the spread of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.
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And you're sitting there waiting to prepare, and this box is sitting at you, and you're going,
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this is theater. This is theater. And oh my goodness, the court's playing along with the theater.
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So it's been a deeply, another senior lawyer said to me on a call when I was dealing with a file,
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unrelated, recently, that he believes that history will see this as a very dark period of,
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for our judiciary and jurisprudence in general.
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I think so too. You know, and there's something about judges as a group. I mean, obviously they're at
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the height of their legal profession. By definition, almost judges are older. You don't have judges in
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their 20s or even very often in their 30s. Judges are in their, at earliest, they're in their 40s,
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And they're more likely 50s and 60s. And some of the greatest judges are in their early 70s.
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And the reason I mention that is they're forces of the establishment, they're forces of authority.
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So they're naturally respectful of authority because that's their team. But more than that,
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they were the ones who were statistically more at risk from the virus. And because judges aren't
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going out to bars or to gyms or to nightclubs, that's not an important part of their life. They
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just, they're sort of cocooning at home. It was easy for them to shut down bars and restaurants and
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gyms and schools because there was no skin off their nose. And at the same time, they probably
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knew some people who were old and then got sick and perhaps even died. I think of Adam Germain,
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the atrocious liberal appointee judge in Alberta who first ruled in the case of Arthur Pawlowski.
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It was the absurd ruling that Arthur Pawlowski, the pastor in Calgary, had to read out a self-denunciation
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any time he gave a public interview or a Facebook post or a sermon questioning government lockdown
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policy. Arthur Pawlowski was ordered by Adam Germain to immediately read out something that
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Adam Germain wrote about what I've just said was not considered accurate by the guy. Like it was,
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it was struck down by the court of appeal. But in his ruling, Adam Germain said,
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would every one of us know someone who has died from COVID? And I thought, no, no, we don't. I don't.
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Maybe you're an old scared judge who hasn't left the house other than to go to the country club
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in a year, but you are living in fear and that's fine because you're never going to miss a paycheck
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because you're a judge and everyone does what you say because you're a judge. There was perhaps no
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force in no demographic group in the country worse to be the imposers of the lockdown than old scared
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people who never go out to bars or restaurants or clubs or gyms and who happen to be the worst
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hit demographic group of the virus. I think we were let down by the gerontocracy. What do you think of
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that? I see it a little bit different. I take your point. What I see is this, you know, the decisions
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were made, we know, in each province at the provincial level by the public health authorities
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and or the cabinet, some combination of them. At the federal level, it was the federal cabinet,
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you know, and at the school board level, some decisions were made by school boards
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and some municipalities as well. But what I saw consistently and the case law is clear
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is that no judge was prepared to even examine the evidentiary foundation of those mandate decisions,
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of those restrictions, closing gyms and bars, closing schools, universities, forcing people to be
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vaccinated, to work in the military or the police or the RCMP or to be a contractor at an airport and so on.
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And what I mean by that is you'll see these decisions where the judge will say, well, you know,
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clearly the vaccine is safe and effective, so it's really not that bad. They'll say two things.
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The vaccine is safe and effective, so it makes sense that people are being expected to take it.
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And number two, this is such a serious situation with so many people dying, we have to do it.
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Well, what evidence is there that it's safe and effective, right? Or the deference, the relying on the government's experts.
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Well, Ezra, you may remember it was breaking news by Rebel News when you interviewed me and when I was in the middle
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of cross-examinations on the Peckford case, in particular Dr. Waddell, who's the head epidemiologist
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for Public Health Agency of Canada. And I got her to admit under cross-examination that she and the
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Public Health Agency of Canada had not recommended vaccination as a mitigation strategy for travellers.
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So it wasn't them. And she also went on to say there was no scientific basis that would be effective.
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So that never got to in front of a judge. But let me give another example. The phase, you know, I got Dr.
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Larenko to admit in cross-examinations, and she's the head person at Health Canada, who paragraph one of
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her affidavits says, I am the government official who approved the COVID-19 vaccines. So she's like the head
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of the FDA in the US equivalent in Canada. And she, I got her to confirm that every other vaccine that
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they've approved for general use in the population had to go through the animal trial, the phase one
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clinical human, phase two clinical human trial, and then the phase three. And it was only after all
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the effects were known, both in terms of effectiveness and adverse health events, after the phase three
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trial, that they would approve it for safe use on the general population. And she confirmed that for the COVID vaccines,
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the clinical, it was approved before the phase threes were completed, the phase threes were ongoing, expected to
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complete in December of this year, and others not to be completed until 2024. So on what basis could a judge have
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said, well, they're safe and effective, there was no evidence to support that. And if proper evidence was put
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before the court, they would realize that they can't actually make that conclusion, because the phase threes
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are going on. And not only that, it would become apparent that 10s of millions of Canadians took this
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injection, without anybody telling them they were signing up for an experiment, a clinical phase three
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trial, every other person who's been involved in a phase three trial, for for other vaccines, whether it's
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pneumonia, or shingles or something, you had to be sat down and sign a big long series of legal forms
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consenting to the risks and that you're part of an experiment. No Canadian of the 10s of millions who
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took that shot, were given that warning, they didn't give proper informed consent. And just one other
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point. When I cross examined the head of Stats Canada responsible for collecting death data,
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one of the things that came out of his testimony was they were following, they adopted a World Health
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Organization format and coding system. And that coding system was if someone died, and they did not have
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a negative COVID test, so they haven't been tested for COVID and they die, you put it down as a COVID
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death. Okay, so you and other jurisdictions have discovered the same thing. So that we have this
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hugely inflated number of COVID deaths that were actually not COVID deaths. So the premise that
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the pandemic was so severe, it warranted overriding similarities is based on something that was never
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tested evidentiary in a court, which is the fundamental role of a court. The assumption that
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what's the big deal forcing people to get vaccinated, it's safe and effective was never tested. We were so
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close to testing it. We were ready for trial in the federal court and you know what happened. They
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struck us out on mootness. You know, the whole thing was so large, a few lines come to mind like
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too big to fail, like too many people were invested in it. Too many people had bet their future and their
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reputation on it. No one wanted to be the one saying the emperor has no clothes here. We don't know if this
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thing works. And you pointed out that the statistics were juiced to, I mean, I remember that incredible
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case of someone who fell off a ladder and that was described as a COVID death because they were tested
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and they had COVID and apparently that made them weak and felt like it was just such an absurd,
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that was the most absurd case, but anything to plump up the number of COVID deaths. But on the contrary,
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anyone who had a reaction to the vaccine, they took the opposite point of view, uh, and were extremely
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strict in what could be called a vaccine injury. Listen, we're talking about some of the things that we
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really went into in 2022 and 2023, but I want to talk about one. And, and this is good to remind ourselves
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of the atrocious, uh, junk science and group think that we all lived through. And I'm, and I'm proud of the
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role of rebel news. And I'm sure that you're proud of your role with the trucker convoy. And, but, um,
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here we are on the, on the eve of 20 of 2024 and the most public dissidents are still facing
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prosecution. And I think of our mutual friend Tamera Leach and I have never heard of a mischief
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trial. Take this long. There was one mischief trial, some trial, some decades ago of a guy
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who blew up power lines in Quebec. So a violent, I think you could even probably call that terrorism
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because there was a political motivation, if I'm not mistaken. Now he was apparently charged with
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mischief. That's quite some mischief. And it put tens of thousands of people, uh, to cut off power to
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them. So there was, that's the worst mischief case I know of in Canadian history. But, but other than
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that, I think that my knowledge, uh, I mean, you're, you're a practicing lawyer. I haven't practiced law
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in almost 20 years, but mischief is what you charge someone. It's sort of a catch all for minor, like,
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like some kids who take a baseball bat and smash a mailbox. That would be mischief. Graffiti.
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That would be mischief. Vandalism, uh, doing something stupid, like egging a house on Halloween
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and toilet papering. You wouldn't even face a mischief charge. Cops wouldn't even file it. But
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if they did, you'd get a mischief charge. You'd go to court. The judge would have a stern lecture,
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point his finger at you, make you say you're sorry, and either give you an absolute discharge
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or say, all right, you've got to spend the weekend cleaning up the house you spray painted. Like,
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that's mischief to me. Yep. You charge Tamera Leach with mischief.
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And you put a prosecution team on it. And we're coming up on two years now. We've had 30 plus days
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of trial. The process is the punishment. This is abusive process. This, this does not make sense
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legally. I sat in court and I heard one bureaucrat talk all day about his feelings about the lockdown.
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But early in his testimony, he admitted he had never had any interaction whatsoever
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with Tamera Leach, never observed her, never talked to her, never heard anything. He had no
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evidence whatsoever to give on the matter at hand, but he wanted to talk for an hour at the court's
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time and the public's time and the prosecutor's time and the clerk's time and Tamera Leach's time
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about his feelings about the, about the, uh, about the trucker convoy. Sorry, I said lockdown
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earlier. What even is this trial and is the judge running a gong show?
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Well, the judge has got to deal with the case that's brought before her. Uh, she's got to ensure
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that the process is fair to both sides. And from what I've been able to glean, I think she's done an
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exemplary job at that within, um, the high profile nature of the case. But, you know, let's be clear
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here. It's just not the number of days of trial. And I know you understand this, but I want to make
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clear for your viewers. Um, the days in between trial are just as painful and sometimes more so
00:25:01.980
than the actual days of trial. So this trial started on September 5th in the year 2023. Right. Um,
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the crown closed its case in December. Um, and there have been arguing emotion, a technical motion
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about what type of evidence can be admitted and attributed to parties. The ruling on that is
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expected in January, mid January, and then the parties will come back. So the crown's closed its case
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in a motion phase, and then the defense will put its case in if necessary,
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closing arguments and then ruling. So they're going to come back in, in March
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for a number of days to, uh, for the defense to argue basically for the charges to be thrown out
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for a directed verdict that the crown hasn't met its burden and that there's no reasonable prospect
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of a conviction. It will probably take the judge some time. It's possible she could issue a bench
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ruling given she has now had an ample opportunity, perhaps given her other obligations because that
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court is a very, very busy courthouse, um, to enter and issue a bench ruling in, in March and, and throw
00:26:18.780
this out. That'd be a small possibility of that. Um, but she's more likely to reserve her decision.
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And so she may release a decision in June, uh, as to whether the charges are going to be stayed. Um,
00:26:34.940
if they're not, and some of them are, all of them are proceeding, and then we'd be into July and August
00:26:40.540
for, of 2024 for, uh, the defense's case to go in and probably into September and October for close.
00:26:50.700
So this trial will last, has the prospect to go on for more than a year. It's clearly,
00:26:56.060
it's long since per since passed the mark of getting the Guinness book of world records for
00:27:02.700
the longest mischief trial in the history of law, let alone Canada. That's clearly an award that one
00:27:09.740
doesn't want to achieve, but has been met. And, uh, when we look at the strain on our court systems,
00:27:16.780
when we look at the cases that are being thrown out because they're the delays in them being heard,
00:27:22.780
there's this Jordan rule that Supreme court can lay down that a case has to be heard in a reasonable
00:27:26.860
time. And if it's not, the charges have to go, there's examples that we know of, uh, that are
00:27:31.740
public, uh, where sexual assault, uh, charges have had to been dropped. Other serious offenses have had
00:27:38.060
to been dropped because the courts have not been able to process the case in a reasonable time. And in
00:27:43.820
the meantime, the crown prosecution service is forcing the courts and the defendants, uh,
00:27:51.900
the accused, Ms. Leach, Mr. Barber through this incredibly harsh process that to any reasonable
00:28:00.140
observer makes no sense. You just, it's, it's, it is very difficult to rationalize that this is anything
00:28:10.220
other than a form of political persecution, because it makes no sense by any historic standard,
00:28:18.380
by any normal standard of our justice system. Um, uh, they're using Ms. Leach, Mr. Barber
00:28:25.500
to put the convoy on trial, which is improper. In my view, that's clearly by looking at what's
00:28:31.340
been happening in the trial that they're trying to, um, criminalize the entirety of the largest,
00:28:37.500
most peaceful protest in Canadian history. Yeah. You know, I, I used a phrase some 15 years ago
00:28:44.860
when I was put through the Alberta human rights commission, uh, hate speech prosecution for
00:28:49.100
publishing the Danish cartoons. I remember that. And it was so long and so slow and so expensive
00:28:54.060
and so abusive that, um, you know, I'm sure others have said the phrase before, but the process
00:29:00.620
was the punishment. Absolutely. And you know, the amount of money that I, that they had wanted me
00:29:08.380
to pay was minor. It wasn't the money they wanted to rub my nose in it. They wanted me to submit.
00:29:13.980
They wanted to conquer my mind and, and make me bend the knee. And because I wouldn't, they said,
00:29:20.540
you know, it's not even about the money. We're going to put you through a three year process.
00:29:23.580
It was 900 days. And, uh, whereas if you just plead guilty, you're out of there that same day.
00:29:31.100
And, and the process is the punishment here. Now they had an insane out of control prosecutor,
00:29:37.900
major liberal donor. If I'm getting his name right, Moise Kashimji, if I got that right.
00:29:42.300
Who? Karimji. Karimji. Thank you very much. Karimji. Thank you for correcting me.
00:29:46.460
Um, Moise Karimji, who was such a hothead and so angry, it was unbecoming. And he was pulled off
00:29:56.300
the prosecution team almost the last moment. I mean, a few months before trial, but if you're
00:30:00.860
preparing for a trial for a year, that really is a late change. And so they, they pulled Karimji off
00:30:07.020
the case and they, um, handed it to a couple other prosecutors. And I saw them when I was in court.
00:30:12.540
And I, it really felt to me like this next team were sort of saddled with the case that
00:30:20.140
they had and they were saddled with the instructions. You must go all the way.
00:30:24.700
You must do what you can. And, and my hunch, and this is just speculation. I don't know what's in
00:30:29.900
their mind, but this B team that was put in to replace the out of control, angry guy said, well,
00:30:35.500
there's just no chance. There's nothing here. If there weren't the politics, we would withdraw the
00:30:40.460
case. Like hundreds of other cases have been withdrawn, but there's so much political pressure
00:30:44.940
here. We're just going to throw the kitchen sink at it. We're just going to stretch it out for months.
00:30:49.340
We're going to bring irrelevant witnesses. Like the one guy I saw who talked about his feelings all day.
00:30:54.860
And at the end of the day, they're going to lose, but they're going to have taught everyone a lesson
00:30:57.340
because they're going to have cost to Mary Leach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thank God the
00:31:00.940
donors are picking that up. And I remember from, from my days as a lawyer, you proceed with the
00:31:08.860
prosecution. If there's a reasonable conviction of success, reasonable chance of conviction,
00:31:14.620
excuse me. And it's in the public interest and neither of those are here. This is, this is
00:31:21.740
absolutely. There's one more. Yeah. At no time is the crown to conduct him or herself in a way that
00:31:31.660
will bring the administration of justice into disrepute. And Karimji absolutely did. And I think
00:31:38.540
that they know that the cupboard is bare. They don't have anything on her. Their witnesses are all
00:31:44.380
political pundits or therapy sessions. They even had that witness that Zexi Lee, who's got the ambulance
00:31:50.780
chasing lawsuit for a hundred million bucks or more against the truckers. Like it really was a,
00:31:56.620
like a high school talent show. Everyone coming just to do their song and dance, just to fill the
00:32:00.940
time. And I think they're going to lose. They'll probably appeal anyways, just because the political
00:32:06.380
instructions to do so. But even as they lose, they'll have won because they'll have punished
00:32:12.220
Tamera Leach and the truckers and the lawyers and put the whole movement through it. I think this is
00:32:17.100
how this is what we would describe it in another country, a show trial, a sham trial,
00:32:22.860
a political trial, absolutely a political prisoner. And I take your point that the judge is doing her
00:32:26.940
best, but by God, the prosecutors here, they're the ones who brought the administration of justice
00:32:31.660
into disrepute. It's so infuriating. The only saving grace, Keith, is that Tamera Leach maintains her
00:32:38.620
good attitude. I mean, I saw her perform with her husband, some great musical numbers at Rebel News
00:32:46.540
Live a few months ago in Calgary. And I know she had that big concert in Niagara on the Lake
00:32:51.260
about a month ago. And she's happy, normal, positive, you know, happy warrior. I think it's sort of a
00:33:00.220
miracle that she herself has not become soured and jaded by this. I think that's how she's going to win,
00:33:05.500
by being positive while these angry government prosecutors flail about trying to hurt her.
00:33:10.540
I don't know. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm reaching, but I think that the only reason I would call this a
00:33:15.820
success so far is because of Tamera Leach's own demeanor. Well, there's three things I'd say on
00:33:21.740
that Ezra. One is ask yourself, why is it? So remember I was on the ground, the convoy arrived on a Friday,
00:33:33.100
the end of January, and then I arrived on the Wednesday and was there till the end with Tamera
00:33:41.900
and others trying to ensure that it was peaceful and lawful. But why is it on the Thursday,
00:33:50.140
almost three weeks later, before the police did the mass beating of lawful protesting Canadians
00:33:58.540
uh, and arrests that started on the Friday and into the Saturday? Why is it on the Thursday that
00:34:05.820
they arrested Chris Barber about four o'clock and then Tamera Leach at about seven o'clock?
00:34:11.660
Um, it was because in my view that they were trying to send a message like, well, I just arrest those
00:34:20.300
two, right? They were trying to scare the other protesters into leaving. Why is this trial going
00:34:30.540
on for a year? They're trying to scare other Canadians from protesting and challenging government.
00:34:39.740
There was symbolism. Their decision to arrest the two when they did was a symbolic step.
00:34:46.940
Yeah. The decision to run the trial is symbolic. Yeah. Now, but let me just, I have to give some color
00:34:55.900
and detail to what they've done to Tamera and Chris, but largely Tamera, is you talk about the process
00:35:07.340
being the punishment. And yes, Tamera puts on a brave face, but she's suffering.
00:35:11.660
She can't work. She can't get a job. Right. How can you go and try and get a job and say, Oh, I might
00:35:20.140
have to go off to Ottawa again for three more weeks. That's right. Yeah. She, you know, she pays
00:35:25.260
just the toll alone of her and Dwayne, her husband driving across the country the number of times they
00:35:30.940
have, miling out their pickup truck. Right. Uh, trying to drive, they drive all the way to Ottawa.
00:35:35.660
Yeah. And sometimes they're so eager to get home. The last two times they drove straight through,
00:35:42.700
did it in 35 hours, team driving, didn't get a hotel, nothing. You know what? I feel like
00:35:48.300
crowdfunding some flights for them. So they don't, maybe they want to have their car in Ottawa.
00:35:52.140
Maybe that's why, but, uh, well, and it's expensive for them to, to stay and, and eat and, and so on.
00:35:58.620
Now on top of that though, remember that she was in jail for 49 days and I was, I don't know how it
00:36:07.660
came up, but her and I were talking the other day and she, I don't know what we were talking about,
00:36:13.580
but it, it caused her to tell me about the condition she was in for a number of those days.
00:36:18.940
She was in a cell, uh, for, I think it was a total of seven days, uh, at different points where there
00:36:25.660
wasn't even a bunk. There wasn't a mattress. It was a concrete slab with cold air coming in.
00:36:33.660
They didn't have to do that. She described it in her book. Yeah. I mean,
00:36:36.060
I learned a lot of terrifying things about her time in jail. Her book's amazing.
00:36:40.380
You know what? I'm so glad that she wrote that. And, um, as you know, we had the lawyer go through
00:36:45.740
it before we published it. Cause we didn't want that insane prosecutor to try and prosecute her for
00:36:50.140
the book for contempt of court. It's a great book. I thought I knew the story, but there's so many details,
00:36:54.780
including the abuse she took from the media. Normally you have a MΓ©tis woman leading a,
00:36:59.740
uh, a righteous civil liberties protest. She's going to be, you know, uh, the hero of the year.
00:37:04.620
She's going to be honorary professor. She's going to win every award, but they, they even tried to
00:37:08.620
deny her indigenous heritage because they, they were trying to destroy. And by they, I mean the,
00:37:13.260
the regime media, uh, you know, you're so right. And, and it reminds me of Trudeau's first reaction
00:37:18.940
to the trucker convoy. He was trying, he was delighted by it. He thought, oh good,
00:37:23.500
this is our January 6th Donald Trump style insurrection. We're going to paint them as
00:37:29.180
Trump style racist. I don't know. He threw in what xenophobes and homophobes. Like he just said,
00:37:35.100
he was just such a bizarre thing and he would have gotten away with it too. If he could have
00:37:39.740
controlled the narrative, but it was very proud rebel news really deployed into the streets.
00:37:44.220
We, uh, along with other independent journalists too, really was the independent journalists,
00:37:47.740
whether it was Rupa Subramania or I think true north had someone on the ground. Of course,
00:37:51.740
rebel news just flooded the zone. He wanted to have that January 6th moment and he wanted,
00:37:57.420
and we knew that you want to throw them all in jail.
00:38:00.140
But, and look at how, you know, and that was, we were completely, when I arrived there,
00:38:03.660
we were so alive to that, not just me, so many of the protesters and the truckers and those who were
00:38:09.660
volunteering to try and keep it orderly. That's why when I remember when someone came into one of the
00:38:15.500
operation centers and said, you know, we need to take some of these donations and go down and buy,
00:38:21.500
you know, 500 snow shovels approved. So off they went to buy all these snow shovels cleaned out every
00:38:29.260
Walmart, Home Depot, Canadian tire. Why? Because the truckers were going to make the sidewalks the
00:38:36.460
cleanest they've ever been in the history of Ottawa. There was garbage bags everywhere. We had a garbage
00:38:41.500
collection system. It was like, what are all of the things the prime minister's going to want these
00:38:46.540
guys to do to vilify them? And they were going to do the opposite. Hence this brilliant idea that some
00:38:51.660
came up with for the bouncy castles and so on. But, you know, and I just want to go circle back to
00:38:57.500
Tamara for one thing, because a lot of people don't realize what I'm about to say. And it's very important
00:39:01.820
that they do, which is she is still under her bail conditions. She cannot use social media.
00:39:09.420
And in our world today, you know, depriving someone of being able to utilize social media
00:39:17.900
is actually a very serious punishment. It's like 50 years ago saying to someone,
00:39:22.220
you can't use a telephone. Yeah. And you can't read a newspaper. You can't use a telephone and you can't
00:39:28.300
read a newspaper or listen, listen to the radio news. Right. Because that's what social media has
00:39:32.460
become all three of those. Right. She has people on her non-contact list, some of which we don't even,
00:39:38.220
we're still not even sure who they are, what they look like. Yeah. It was just random people. So she
00:39:43.660
has to be careful wherever she goes that one of these people don't happen to come up and say,
00:39:48.140
hey, can I have a picture with you? She doesn't really who was there and then bam, she's off to jail again.
00:39:51.740
Yeah. Um, she, she, her, her conditions are such that she's enduring a sentence right now. Right.
00:40:01.580
And this is remarkable. So the fact that she's being deprived of seeking employment,
00:40:06.460
the fact that she's incurring all these expenses, the fact that she can't use social media, these are
00:40:12.300
all punishments. And you mentioned the process is the punishment for sure. It's not just the courts.
00:40:18.300
It's just not the risk of the legal fees. It's really, unfortunately feels so badly
00:40:24.620
like the government, the ruling liberals are trying to scare other Canadians from exercising
00:40:31.500
their constitutional rights and challenging government decisions.
00:40:35.020
You know, a senior lawyer told me very early in the game when we were talking about what a disaster
00:40:39.580
these airport quarantine hotels were. Remember you had to stay in an airport hotel for thousands of
00:40:45.260
dollars for three days upon returning to the country. And I thought this can't possibly
00:40:50.620
be like, it's so absurdly abusive and punitive and stupid. And the senior lawyer said, yeah,
00:40:58.540
that's the point is so that each person who goes through with it tells a hundred people how awful it
00:41:03.340
was to scare those hundred from traveling, that it was abusive on purpose. And that's exactly what
00:41:09.020
they're doing to Tamir. And I, I'd like to remind people if they want to help Tamir,
00:41:13.100
I can think of three ways to do it. One is to help with the legal defense. As you know,
00:41:17.980
the democracy fund is crowdfunding the legal defense. And I don't want to tell you how much
00:41:21.660
money we've spent so far, but it is six figures, obviously. And you can do that at help tamir.com.
00:41:28.540
Just go to help tamir.com. And by the way, you'll get a charitable tax receipt
00:41:32.780
because that's a civil liberties, um, court case that's covered by that charity. And, um, if you want
00:41:39.260
to help on the rebel news side, as you know, we've had a reporter there every single day, Robert
00:41:42.780
Kraychik, you can help him at tamiratrial.com. We've got a few websites. And, um, if you haven't
00:41:52.060
read Tamir's book, she gets a royalty from those books. So, um, if you want to help Tamir personally,
00:41:59.900
I would encourage you to get a book. I think it's an excellent book. I read it. I thought,
00:42:03.740
oh, I know everything here. I don't need to read this book. I read the book and not only did I
00:42:07.740
really like, it was a fun, fun, I don't know, fun is the right word. It was an interesting read,
00:42:12.540
but I learned things about her that I didn't know. And I thought I knew a lot about her.
00:42:16.700
I think I doubled how much I knew about her by reading the book. So those are three things
00:42:20.380
you can do if you want to help the fight back. It's incredible to me that this is going to be
00:42:24.220
continuing into the spring. Uh, I'm glad to be a small part of the large team of Canadians,
00:42:31.260
including you, Keith, including her excellent lawyer in Ottawa, Lawrence Greenspan, who I have
00:42:36.060
really grown to like and admire. And by the way, I should say, Keith, and maybe you have a thought
00:42:40.940
on this. I think that the other journalists who are in the court on a daily basis, there's a CBC
00:42:46.460
journalist there every day. And there's a CP, there's a few other news agencies covering it every
00:42:51.820
day. I think they've been won over by Lawrence Greenspan. Like there's no way they're going to be
00:42:57.260
pro Tamera Leach journalists. But I think Lawrence Greenspan, his demeanor, his tone,
00:43:02.620
his command of the law, his sense of humor, his, he's just, he just feels like a great lawyer and a
00:43:09.180
bit of a, you know, some lawyers are naturally teachers. I think he's a great communicator.
00:43:13.980
I think that Lawrence Greenspan is, is excellent and is sort of, I'm not going to say winning the
00:43:19.100
CBC over because that's impossible. But the, the reporters there treat him with respect and they,
00:43:26.860
they listen to what he says because he's so obviously competent. That made me feel really
00:43:32.140
good to see that with my own eyes when I was there. Last word to you. What do you, how are you feeling
00:43:37.180
about the trial so far? I understand there's a chance you may be called as a witness yourself.
00:43:40.860
So you want to be very careful about what you say here, but is there anything you feel comfortable
00:43:45.180
saying about the trial so far? I mean, you've already given us some thoughts,
00:43:48.700
but do you want to, is there something? Yeah. Well, I would say that I think
00:43:51.980
what I believe might've happened here, because I have noticed a softening from the legacy media
00:43:58.700
and a more of a balanced approach in some of their reporting, not all it's hit and miss,
00:44:04.460
is that I think it's not only the advocacy and the tremendous skill that Lawrence Greenspoon and his
00:44:11.420
team as well as Diane Magus, Mr. Barber's lawyer have demonstrated as criminal lawyers. It's also the
00:44:17.820
poor quality of the evidence that has been put forward and the truth that's come out through that.
00:44:23.180
But I've also think that by sitting in the room and watching Tamara and seeing her outside of the
00:44:30.860
courtroom and, uh, they've really gotten to know who she is as a true, incredibly, uh, representative
00:44:41.900
good Canadian. And let me just close with one little vignette. It was in the first week of trial
00:44:47.740
and you'll know, cause the rebel news does this as well as Tamara and her husband and Mr. Greenspoon
00:44:53.900
and others, the legal team are getting close to in the morning as they're walking to the courthouse
00:44:58.860
and they come around the corner and all the cameras come on. And as she's walking, there was one morning
00:45:04.860
where, you know, and all the report you don't see is all the reporters and cameramen with their
00:45:09.660
cameras. They're running backwards. Right. Right.
00:45:11.980
And they usually have someone with a hand on them so they don't trip. Right.
00:45:15.180
Well, a bunch of the reporters global and others, I think there was a fellow might've looked like a
00:45:21.580
homeless guy with his bike and they tripped over his bike, knocked his bike over, knocked and broke the
00:45:29.420
cigarette out that was in the guy's hand. Tamara immediately spotted this, zigged over herself,
00:45:37.100
picked up his bike and checked to see if he was okay. Dwayne, her husband hung back and gave the guy a
00:45:45.020
smoke. Like that was Tamara right there. Right.
00:45:48.380
She saw a problem. She realized she had something to do with it because if she had not been walking,
00:45:54.060
even though it was the reporters being clumsy and not being concerned about who was around them,
00:45:58.380
she took ownership for it. She decided what she needed to do and she immediately acted to make it
00:46:03.740
right. And the reporters would have all saw that. Yeah.
00:46:06.060
And they probably would have thought of every other time that's happened, because it will happen many
00:46:09.660
times as people are walking backwards, trying to stay in focus with their camera in the shot.
00:46:15.900
They probably don't remember a single time, whether they were following a politician or
00:46:20.620
someone else of profile. And that person stopped immediately and felt that helping that person out
00:46:27.580
who had been harmed was the most important thing they could do at that moment. So that's Tamara Leach right
00:46:31.740
there. That's a great vignette. I appreciate you sharing that. Well, so Keith, it's great to catch up
00:46:36.140
with you. It was a bit of a reminder of the darkest days of the pandemic, but also a realization that
00:46:44.780
we are still going through the process as a punishment. And the pain that they're putting
00:46:51.100
Tamara Leach through now is meant as a warning to the rest of us. How dare you speak truth to power?
00:46:56.780
And I think it's incumbent upon each of us to realize that's what they're doing and to rededicate
00:47:01.580
ourselves to freedom and to the right to be nonconformist, especially in the face of an
00:47:08.540
authoritarian government. So great to catch up with you, Keith. And we'll stay in touch if you
00:47:12.700
are called as a witness in the trial. We'll certainly cover that as we cover every other day.
00:47:17.420
I say again, for those who want to help Tamara Leach with her legal defense fund, they can do so and get
00:47:21.900
a charitable tax receipt by going to helptamara.com. And that website resolves at the Democracy Fund page,
00:47:29.100
which is a charity for civil liberties. That's our show for today. Until next time,
00:47:34.700
on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home,