What would the legal consequences be if Tamara Leach were a left-wing activist? Well, a new case in B.C. tells us exactly what would happen if the same thing happened in Canada. And the answer is much different than what happened in the United Kingdom.
00:00:00.000Hello, my Rebels. Today, I compare the news coverage and the court case against some mischief-making occupiers in B.C. to how the truckers were treated in Ottawa.
00:00:13.240You're not going to believe the difference. Actually, I think you will.
00:00:17.040Hey, before we get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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00:04:49.200And in almost all of them, the judge really just wants to know that the person in question is not being willfully defiant of the court's authority.
00:04:58.020And almost always, it's just a stern talking to, and then everything's fine.
00:05:02.120There are some quirky or archaic rules, such as no photography allowed in the courts.
00:05:07.580There are some good reasons for those rules.
00:05:09.640But sometimes people forget, and so all a judge really wants to know is that you are governable, that you want, that you're not defying the judge's authority.
00:06:24.940You have to have the mass of the population supporting the police and the courts, or it'll simply fail.
00:06:32.360Unless you are in a totalitarian regime, a literal police state on every corner.
00:06:37.120You rely on the obedience and compliance and the support of the people.
00:06:41.680There just aren't enough cops and jails to arrest everyone, so you need the people on side with you.
00:06:46.900Imagine if the courts, instead of being neutral, became partisan, like the media is, like Hollywood is, like woke capital is, like so many other institutions are.
00:06:56.460Imagine if you lost half the public support, or even just a quarter of the public support.
00:07:52.900But the entire country was put under martial law.
00:07:54.980Hundreds of bank accounts were seized.
00:07:57.020Peaceful protesters were arrested at gunpoint.
00:07:59.280Our reporter, Alexa, was actually shot.
00:08:01.560And peaceful people like Tamera Leach were thrown in prison for more than a month on the laughable charge of inciting mischief.
00:08:09.500I can't find any case in Canada of someone being imprisoned for a first offense of inciting mischief.
00:08:15.320There was one case of a jail sentence for the man who knocked down Quebec's power grid.
00:08:21.860So it wasn't a peaceful political protest, and it wasn't just inciting mischief.
00:08:25.120It was a destructive act of industrial sabotage that knocked out power for nearly 200,000 people for days, cost more than $28 million to restore, and was the result of a careful scheme hatched as a sort of vendetta.
00:09:18.500Anti-pipeline protesters are guilty of contempt for storming TMX worksite, violating injunction.
00:09:25.440Four anti-pipeline protesters have been found guilty of criminal contempt after storming a Trans Mountain worksite in Kamloops in 2020, violating an injunction that had been in place for two years.
00:09:37.820April Thomas, Henry Salls, Romilly Kavanaugh, and Jocelyn Billy Pierre were found guilty on Wednesday following an earlier trial in front of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick.
00:09:49.260Court heard Trans Mountain crews were undertaking very critical work on October 15, 2020, when Thomas Salls, Kavanaugh, and Pierre disrupted construction in the Mission Flats area.
00:10:01.420Kavanaugh used a zip tie to attach herself to a gate, and Pierre used a zip tie to attach herself to a bulldozer.
00:10:09.280Thomas and Salls violated the injunction by attending the worksite.
00:10:12.200A 2018 injunction laid out a five-meter buffer zone around all Trans Mountain worksites by which protesters are required to abide.
00:10:20.920Court was shown video depicting a chaotic scene, with lots of yelling and screaming from protesters as they were removed from the site by police.
00:10:28.120The accused maintained the force used by Mounties was excessive and unnecessary.
00:10:32.020Pierre claimed she was sexually assaulted by a police officer while being arrested.
00:10:36.720The trial began in early October and was delayed after Thomas collapsed in court October 5.
00:10:42.200Fitzpatrick ordered pre-sentence reports for each of the accused.
00:10:45.860Sentencing is expected to take place over two days beginning on February 23rd.
00:10:50.640I just read you the entire story, every word of it.
00:10:54.180You'd think that would be bigger news.
00:10:55.780TMX, that's its big Trans Mountain pipeline that the feds expropriated, bought a huge premium from the company that was stalled building it.
00:11:22.240I won't read the whole thing, but I'll read part of the other local paper.
00:11:24.940Remember, protesters of Pipeline Expansion Project convicted of criminal contempt.
00:11:29.480Four members of a Sequempic protest group opposed to the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project have been convicted of criminal contempt and will be sentenced in two months.
00:11:38.440Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick heard closing arguments in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops this week and rendered her decision on Wednesday, December 7th.
00:11:44.940Romney Cavanaugh, Henry Salls, also known as Sequempic Heminatory Chief Sausses, April Thomas, and Jocelyn Pierre were found guilty of breaching a court-ordered injunction against obstructing access to the company's worksites on October 15, 2020, during work hours.
00:12:01.100The Quartet, part of the Sequempic Unity Camp to Stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline, arrived at the Mission Flats property where they tied themselves to objects and work equipment before being arrested by Mounties.
00:12:11.780Now, I thought this next part was interesting.
00:12:16.160Pierre, who was carried down a hill when she refused to walk with police, said she had no recollection of seeing signage noted by the prosecution.
00:12:25.060Pierre maintained she did not hear a Trans Mountain employee telling her to leave.
00:12:29.000Pierre said she was in an uninterruptible and meditative prayer and ceremony, which she said she had a right to do on unceded Sequempic territory for as long as it would have taken to complete.
00:12:41.160She also said she was in an isolated area, noting, and here's my favorite part, noting she's not an expert in indigenous practices, Justice Fitzpatrick said she found it odd that Pierre deemed it necessary to zap-stap herself to the bulldozer as part of that ceremony.
00:12:59.220I think she meant to say zip-tie instead of zap-stap, that's such a very strong plastic cord that can sort of be used like a kind of handcuff.
00:13:09.700Is that part of your indigenous traditions, to zap-stap yourself, Fitzpatrick asked.
00:13:16.040To remain uninterrupted, I tied myself to the area I was on, Pierre replied.
00:13:22.240Pierre argued that Canada has no legal standing to impose its laws on indigenous individuals who have never ceded their rights and titles.
00:13:30.740Weiberg, that's the prosecutor, in response referenced case law to refute the notion some of the defendants were exempt from prosecution because of their indigenous background.
00:13:40.160We're all subject to laws passed in Canada.
00:13:42.260We're all subject to injunctions issued by the court.
00:13:44.880There's no special class of people that are not subject to Canadian law.
00:13:48.180Well, he's right, in fact, everyone in Canada is subject to Canadian law.
00:13:52.900Even people who are not Canadian citizens are subject to Canadian law.
00:13:56.400There are some racial carve-outs in law, which I think are very dangerous.
00:14:00.060Looks like this judge wasn't having any of it.
00:14:02.320No zip ties are not an indigenous ceremony.
00:14:04.760But I remind you that Tamara Leach is an indigenous woman, too.
00:14:41.380There was not a single act of violence by any of the truckers throughout the whole time there.
00:14:44.920That's why you had liberals trying to cook up hoaxes, like the hoax that a trucker tried to arson an apartment, or the hoax that the truckers defiled the Terry Fox statue.
00:15:04.940I know that from my reading of at least UK case law, if you repeatedly defy a judge, they eventually put you in jail just to break your defiant spirit.
00:15:15.020These folks deliberately defied the judge, but I bet they get a modest fine that will immediately be paid by Greenpeace or someone else.
00:15:24.120Not 49 days in prison, like Tamera Leach got.
00:15:29.840There really are violent occupations in Canada.
00:16:47.420And there was an echo to that fairly recently with the trucker commission of inquiry when Justin Trudeau was asked to justify his decision to put the country in a form of martial law.
00:17:01.380Now, I don't think that Trudeau actually justified it.
00:17:04.720I think it was crystal clear by the end of the commission that he, in fact, didn't have the legal basis for it, but he put forward his political case.
00:17:12.780That was an important project for Rebel News.
00:17:15.940As you know, we booked a Airbnb for a pop-up studio.
00:17:20.920We rented a house near the commission of inquiry.
00:17:34.900And one of our favorite guests was our guest today, Eva Chipiuk, who is here to give us a recap, not just of, you know, the trucker battles in general, but what's been going on in the last two weeks.
00:17:48.120Because although the legal hearings, you know, examining the prime minister, et cetera, they were over a couple of weeks ago.
00:17:56.180There has been some other work going on.
00:17:58.280And joining us now via Skype from Edmonton is Eva Chipiuk.
00:18:11.520And it was sort of fun for us to have this outpost in Ottawa, pretty close to the place where the commission was hearing.
00:18:18.300I felt like we were really on the front lines.
00:18:20.560It also felt good that we were fully accredited media because Justin Trudeau doesn't allow that.
00:18:27.280And so it was great to get full access right in the room to be treated just like the other journalists.
00:18:33.100And indeed, we were just like the other journalists, except for I think we were a little more balanced and we put a lot of people power into it.
00:18:38.560Anyways, Eva, can you tell us what has been happening since the, I guess, the crescendo of having Chrystia Freeland, Marco Mendocino and Justin Trudeau testify?
00:19:06.980So after the factual basis ended with Justin Trudeau, as you said, highlighting everything at the end there, the next week following was a policy discussion phase.
00:19:19.120So there were various academics and different professionals that were giving their opining on, for example, the CSIS Act and the definition of national security threat,
00:19:30.380which, as we know from what went on at the inquiry, that turned into be quite a question about whether or not the Emergencies Act was properly invoked and turned into whether or not that legal definition was met.
00:19:44.620So there was a roundtable discussion about that with a former CSIS director.
00:19:49.020There was also a roundtable about misinformation and disinformation.
00:19:54.400So that would have been particularly interesting, I think, to yourselves and your audience.
00:20:00.380Because as we know, there's a lot of that going on right now in Canada.
00:20:07.300So there was a full week of policy discussions.
00:20:11.760And some of these academics and different directors were giving their opinion of what should be or what shouldn't be in the Emergencies Act and what the commission ought to provide the government as a recommendation.
00:20:29.440And it sounds like important discussions, but it sounds like they are sort of general academic discussions as opposed to retrospectively examining Trudeau's invocation of it.
00:20:51.880You know, that even came up in one of the policy discussions is somebody, and I can't recall which debate it was, but they said, you know, the worst thing is this is giving academics work.
00:21:01.380And the other thing that I found a bit troubling is some of these academics that were invited to speak after six long weeks of evidence was given were still using the same language as MSM was providing before the inquiry.
00:21:19.060So all this, the narrative that was being spun was still being used by these academics like they haven't learned anything in the last six weeks.
00:21:27.900So that was a bit troubling. And certainly, yes, it was a bit more in some respects, some were a bit more kind of hands on with the evidence and some people were a bit more high level.
00:21:39.860Well, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of those academics simply did not follow the commission of inquiry.
00:21:44.760And in fairness, it was a very intensive period of time, but it sounds like they came there with their talking points no matter what.
00:21:52.320And, of course, the thing is about academics is more than almost any other profession, they are funded by the government.
00:21:58.760I mean, journalists sometimes pretend to be independent, and I guess academics talk about academic independence.
00:22:04.580But there is basically no scholarship in this country's universities that is not funded by Trudeau, you know, through various granting agencies.
00:22:12.900And we know that they use that as a weapon against them.
00:22:16.040Jordan Peterson, one of the most cited professors in Canadian history, I would imagine, certainly a high profile, he got a federal research grant every single year of his career until he went viral as a public intellectual conservative.
00:22:31.180And then, surprise, he had his grant canceled.
00:22:33.900So, anyone who thinks academics are neutral only has to look at how they punish the one in a million academics who actually speaks out in a conservative way.
00:22:42.800So, I would imagine that colored a lot of it.
00:22:45.300Tell me a little bit about the misinformation and disinformation panel, because I think that whole phrase has been invented just to – I don't think it has any real meaning.
00:22:56.120I mean, during the Cold War, I knew in certain instances, believe it or not, when I was a young kid, I subscribed to sort of a technical magazine that was pretty nerdy called Aviation Week and Space Technology.
00:23:14.160It was like an industry magazine of really cool fighter jets.
00:23:17.460And they would sometimes have disinformation in there, and they would talk about it, that sometimes the U.S. military would put out deliberately false facts about the capabilities of their fighter jets so that Russians would get the wrong idea.
00:23:33.980They would not understand the truth about America's aerospace industry.
00:23:42.180When you choose to plant a false fact, knowing you're doing so to confuse a military enemy, that's a really normal use of the word disinformation.
00:23:50.040But politicians are now calling anyone who disagrees with them disinformation as if people are deliberately lying, as if people are in league with foreign powers.
00:24:01.300I think it's a total corruption of the language and a total attempt to silence any peaceful political protesters.
00:24:08.360Yeah, and I encourage your viewers to look at the transcript or view it still online.
00:24:15.560It's all these policy discussions are also available still on the commission's website, along with all of the evidence from the six weeks before.
00:24:23.320So, it's definitely worth taking a look at.
00:24:25.960And you can see that there were some academics that were a bit more critical.
00:24:30.580Thankfully, there was a bit of a debate about certain things, and they did bring up the issue of whether or not politicians can be part of that disinformation and what consequences or what issues arise out of that.
00:24:46.040So, again, that did come up, and it'll be interesting to see what's argued.
00:24:51.200One thing I wanted to mention is we do have the written submissions due today.
00:24:55.660So, now all of the parties are reviewing the evidence portion, this policy portion, and giving their thoughts and then their recommendations to the commission in written format.
00:25:46.780So, the report is due to be made public February 20th.
00:25:50.960So, that's when we expect to get to see it, see what it is that the commission has gleamed from all of this and what kind of recommendations it's making to the federal government.
00:26:03.080I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the judge says there was no clear legal basis to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:26:10.380And then you will immediately see the media party and the political classes say, oh, well, it was out of an abundance of caution, and we did the right thing, and it was all—you know, I think that Trudeau will absolutely skate.
00:26:24.320I think that he will not be held to account, and it'll be like every time he's broken the Conflict of Interest Act, a general shrug, oh, well, you know, sack a cabinet minister for taking a $16 orange juice under Stephen Harper, but a prime minister bringing in martial law for no good reason.
00:26:39.140And, oh, well, but he sure meant well, and they sure did honk a lot.
00:26:47.020You know, I think you're even giving it more credit than I might be right now.
00:26:51.980I don't know whether or not the commissioner will find that it was not justified, because that last week really turned when the ministers and CSIS started coming up and saying, well, the legal definition is a bit different in the Emergencies Act, or at least we—that was the advice we got from our lawyers.
00:27:14.820It's too narrow in the CSIS Act for what is going on nowadays compared to when that definition was first used and implemented in these acts.
00:27:30.340That last week was very strange to me.
00:27:32.300I'm still processing it, and I think there might be a chance, based on the feelings that we heard for the six weeks, not actual facts, but the feelings of threat, the feeling of violence.
00:27:44.820The feeling of aggression that, based on this definition, the commissioner might say it was justified.
00:27:54.640It was weird to see tough men who are used to guns and criminals say, well, there was no violence from the truckers, but it felt violent.
00:28:04.300You know, the talk of microaggressions, it was actually—you know, I regarded the commission, the evidence part, as sort of like a bullseye.
00:28:12.000You went from the outer rings and more and more and more towards the center of the bullseye, you ending up in Trudeau himself.
00:28:17.340So you started with, you know, just regular folks and police forces.
00:28:21.620And as they moved away from beat cops—or not beat cops, but Ottawa police, RCMP, OPP, and moved towards the cabinet and then towards the PM, I felt like they were less honest and more lying, frankly.
00:28:37.680I think most police actually answered very plainly, we did not need this.
00:28:42.020We could resolve these problems without the Emergencies Act.
00:28:44.180We did resolve the problems, like, for example, the Alberta blockade, the Windsor Bridge blockade.
00:28:49.080They were both ended before the Emergencies Act was even invoked.
00:28:52.900So, of course, it wasn't necessary to stop them.
00:28:56.380And that one they considered, sorry, the most hostile, you know, the one in—so if they were able to take down the most hostile one in all of Canada using the regular laws we have,
00:29:08.100how was that not a possibility in Ottawa?
00:29:42.300And, you know, as that movie was called, The Empire Strikes Back, I think Justin Trudeau was personally offended that grubby, grassroots, working-class people would dare to defy him.
00:29:53.780And when two cabinet ministers were joking about deploying tanks, yeah, how many tanks should we deploy?
00:30:03.000I think that shows, you know, how dare these gross peasants challenge us up here at King's Landing.
00:30:27.300I find the whole thing rather depressing, but I'm encouraged by the fact that the truckers, I think the truckers won.
00:30:32.640The truckers saved us in a way that no opposition party did.
00:30:35.080I'll tell you, they certainly displaced two conservative leaders who are not very conservative and not very leader-y, Jason Kenney and Aaron O'Toole.
00:30:41.900So for that alone, I'll be grateful to them.
00:30:44.540Let me close by, go ahead, sorry, you go ahead.
00:30:46.380Just one thing, touching on what you said, and I agree with you about what's going on in Ottawa.
00:30:51.520And I find that at least what we had with this inquiry is we could look into that bubble.
00:30:56.260And I honestly believe what's going on in Ottawa right now is they're living in a bubble.
00:31:01.140And it's unfortunate because that's not real people.
00:31:29.400And again, that came up in the Commission of Inquiry.
00:31:34.020Trudeau and his colleagues were embarrassed that they were being made to look foolish.
00:31:39.240That's not a definition of a national emergency, but that's clearly what motivated them.
00:31:43.860And just let me end by congratulating you and the rest of your team.
00:31:47.340You were one of about a half a dozen lawyers affiliated with the truckers and the JCCF, who I think really infused this commission with a lot of its greatest successes and its personality.
00:31:59.800Had you and the rest of your team, and we had Alan Hawner from the Democracy Fund there too, if you would have taken out you, Keith Wilson, Brendan Miller, the other trucker lawyers, and Alan Hawner, this would have been a completely different commission.
00:32:14.940And I think you guys really helped hold the government to account, and I think you provided balance.
00:32:22.220And congrats on the judge for letting that happen, by the way.
00:32:25.080So I just wanted to say that I think you yourself had a very important role, and you also took a lot of time to explain things to us.
00:33:08.000Wade Dunn says, hey, Ezra, watch your show on Russia, and notice you used our motto a few times.
00:33:13.380Want to find out what's going on in the Donbass?
00:33:15.980Check out Eva K. Bartlett, a war correspondent, a Canadian-born USA journalist who is on Zelensky's hit list, the same hit list that Elon Musk was on for a few hours after calling for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
00:33:35.720We thought he would get in in March, but things were too dangerous, and his patron, he was going in under the patronage of one of the oligarchs in Ukraine, didn't give him the green light.
00:33:46.440So, frankly, I would be more worried about a reporter in Ukraine because, first of all, it's a shooting war there.
00:33:52.940Second of all, I mean, it's just a fact that Vladimir Zelensky has arrested or shut down journalists that don't support him, has done the same for opposition parties, and is now even taking that censorship to churches that don't fall in line.
00:34:11.800But I'm actually worried about civil liberties in Ukraine just as much as I am in Russia.
00:34:17.700John Hall says, this is very interesting.