Government prosecutors go after Sheila Gunn Reid for writing a BOOK — Help us fight back
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Summary
Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter and Alberta bureau chief, has been prosecuted by the Elections Commissioner of Alberta for writing her book, Stop Notley. It s the most popular book on Alberta politics in 2019, reaching the No. 2 spot on the Amazon Bestseller list.
Transcript
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It's about one of our friends, Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter, our Alberta bureau chief.
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She's been prosecuted by the elections commissioner of Alberta.
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Now, you might be saying, hang on a second, Jason Kenney is the premier of Alberta.
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Well, this is a holdover appointed by Rachel Notley to get her enemies.
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And on the top of that enemies list is Sheila Gunn-Reed.
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And I want you to listen to the recordings of the prosecutors threatening us,
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Hey, one way you can help is to become a premium subscriber.
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You can get a bit of a discount if you type in the coupon code podcast.
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Besides helping us, you get access to the video version of this podcast
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and other shows by Sheila Gunn-Reed and David Menzies.
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Okay, I really hope you can listen to this whole show today.
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I think it's probably the most important video we've done in a year.
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Tonight, government prosecutors make their move against Sheila Gunn-Reed for her book, Stop Notley.
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It's July 24th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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For three months, we have been privately fighting against an illegal and unconstitutional attempt by the Alberta government
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to prosecute Sheila Gunn-Reed, our star reporter and Alberta bureau chief,
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for writing her best-selling book, Stop Notley.
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That book is the most popular book on Alberta politics in 2019,
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reaching the number two spot on the Amazon.ca national best-seller list.
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It was great journalism, and it's Sheila's third best-selling book.
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She wrote another one about the NDP three years ago called The Destroyers,
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They're great books, and the Rebel is proud to publish them.
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But Rachel Notley hated them because Sheila is the toughest journalist in the Alberta press corps,
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one of the few who would ever challenge Notley.
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Sheila broke more news scoops than any other Alberta reporter these past four years,
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including the incredible scoop that Rachel Notley cancelled every single water bomber contract
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just days before the wildfire tore through Fort McMurray.
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Notley actually banned Sheila from the legislature as punishment for her reporting,
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literally sending an armed sheriff to block her from coming into the legislature,
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and then Notley had Alberta's Justice Department write to us,
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banning us or anyone connected to us from going on government property anywhere.
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That's illegal, of course, but Notley didn't care.
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It was only when her weird Venezuela-style censorship was mocked in the national press
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that Notley backed down, but she never forgave Sheila.
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So last year, Notley created a special new hunter-killer office
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called the election commissioner, not the chief electoral officer,
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not the guy in charge of running the elections.
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Notley created a new officer in charge of political crimes
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and she hired a disgraced anti-conservative activist named Lorne Gibson
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who actually sued the conservatives in his personal capacity
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but Notley gave him the last laugh appointing that unbalanced kook
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to be the elections commissioner to investigate her enemies,
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and he loved doing it because they were his enemies too.
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Now, Gibson has taken a run at us several times before,
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but we've always fought him off, and he's always backed down.
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In fact, Elections Alberta actually published a series of apologies to us
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They're threatening to prosecute Sheila Gunn-Reed for her book.
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They're literally prosecuting her for her book, Stop Notley.
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They're demanding that she hand over all her notes
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They're threatening her with, quote, severe consequences.
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including the voice recordings and emails from Notley Steph.
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and then they get, you know, they get obstruction.
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You know, the offense for obstruction can be pretty severe.
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I have some terrible news to share with you today.
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to get ourselves out of the trouble that we're facing,
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NDP-appointed holdovers in the Alberta government
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are coming for me because I wrote a best-selling book
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I'm potentially facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines,
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and what the government officer involved calls severe consequences,
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but the biggest threat is to freedom of the press for all of us.
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We have to go back a few months to the very beginning.
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This video is long, but I have to tell you the whole story,
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and I have to show you the proof of what's happening,
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Back in April, we received a letter from Alberta's elections commissioner.
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That entire bureaucracy is a recent creation of the NDP,
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and it was weaponized against Notley's conservative critics.
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They have come after us about billboards critical of the NDP
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on two separate occasions in the past, and they lost.
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This new threat letter in April came from the elections commissioner,
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But Notley's hand-picked enforcer was still on the job,
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after complaints about lawn signs promoting my best-selling book.
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We will be seeking your answers to a number of questions,
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What was the date you began to make this book available to the public?
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Was the availability of the Stop Notley book to the public
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time to occur with the 2019 provincial election campaign,
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or was the book planned to be made available to the public
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regardless of whether there was an election or not?
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What is the estimated cost of the Stop Notley advertising book promotion campaign?
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What is the contact information for the company
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and the company that designed, produced, and distributed
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Gibson said he would be contacting me for an interview,
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if the book was planned to be made available to the public,
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regardless of whether there was to be an election.
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Apparently, even Alberta's draconian elections censorship law
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we lawyered my book up and down before we published it.
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In fact, legal fees are one of the largest expenses
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and contrary to Canada's constitutional freedoms,
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Your decision to keep these complaints against me a secret
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you stop me from knowing the details of the case against me
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Perhaps the complaints would also shed light on that.