SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ The crackdown on the convoy to Ottawa will solidify a new Western independence movement
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Summary
Tariq El-Naga was a Maverick Party candidate during the last federal election, and he was part of the second wave of convoys to Ottawa. Now he lives with the constant anxiety of his assets being seized because his actions, his protest actions, were ostensibly criminalized retroactively in a temper tantrum by Justin Trudeau when he invoked the Emergency Act.
Transcript
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Oh, hey, Rebels, it's me, your favorite Rebel, I'm guessing, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're
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listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
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However, I say this every week, this is the internet, and the beauty of the internet is
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that you can listen or, for that matter, watch the show whenever you feel like.
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And he might be somebody you know from Rebel News.
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He was a Maverick Party candidate during the last federal election, and he was part of
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And now he lives with the constant anxiety of his assets being seized because his actions,
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his protest actions, were ostensibly criminalized retroactively.
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In a temper tantrum by Justin Trudeau when he invoked the Emergencies Act.
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So we're talking to Tariq tonight about why he went and what all of this means for Western
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What's it like to have been on the convoy for freedom to Ottawa now that you're deemed
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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Approximately 10 days ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act, which
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gives his government extraordinary powers of search, arrest, and seizure.
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Bank accounts are being frozen, assets are being confiscated, and peaceful protesters
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against COVID lockdowns are being arrested and hunted for being part of an illegal protest,
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If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up
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This investigation will go on for months to come.
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It has many, many different streams, both from a federal financial level, from a provincial
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licensing level, from a criminal code level, from a municipal breach of court order, breach
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It will be a complicated and time-consuming investigation that will go on for a period of time.
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You have my commitment that that investigation will continue, and we will hold people accountable
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Vocalizing your displeasure with a government that is controlling your life in the most unreasonable
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For wanting to go back to your life of 2019 with two years of coronavirus data under our belts?
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For refusing to participate in biomedical segregation?
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The Emergency Act is reserved for the most catastrophic of situations, a Pearl Harbor or a 9-11.
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Not a street party with bouncy castles and hockey scrimmages, which inconvenienced a bunch
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Well, they're being treated like terrorists or women who ran off to join ISIS.
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They're detained without bail because, I don't know, they might honk their horns when they
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And what are these charges that we had to suspend civil liberties to issue?
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The crime of telling someone to do annoying things in public.
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Now, good friend of the show, Tarek El Naga, felt so compelled by what he saw the truckers
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doing that he knew he had to be a part of it too.
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And now he lives with the constant anxiety that his opposition to the government has been
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criminalized retroactively by Justin Trudeau's little temper tantrum.
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Joining me tonight to talk about what he saw on the convoy is Tarek El Naga.
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So joining me now from, I guess, this hotel in Sault Ste.
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Tarek, before we get started, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?
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That's one of the reasons I have you on the show tonight.
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But you are a former Maverick Party candidate and an adopted Albertan.
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So I was born, raised in Dubai and moved to Alberta just a shade under 10 years ago to
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And it was very apparent, you know, the first five minutes of living in Alberta, how Alberta
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I still have a pile of horses, which you still have to come and visit with.
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And I live just about an hour north of Calgary.
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It's the story of so many people who come to Alberta and just come for opportunity and
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come for the culture and then just fall in love with it and want to fight for it.
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So I just really admire how that became so apparent to you so quickly.
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Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the convoy to Ottawa.
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But even before that, you helped organize all those horses to Coutts, Alberta.
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Why did you feel like you needed to get involved?
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So I wasn't lead by any means in terms of organization, but that helps.
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And I followed in the footsteps of some amazing pioneers, like let's call it Western pioneers
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So you and I and everybody else has been living this journey over the last two years.
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And I remember being on the side of the QA2, seeing the first set of trucks called the
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And just you're immediately filled with Western pride and filled with a lot of national pricing.
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And a tiny bit of FOMO, too, saying, I should be on that.
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And then I found out about the, you know, a young lady that was actually organizing the
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And I got on and said, I told him, started telling my friends, started telling a group
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I really think that this young lady probably thought 20, 30 of her friends are going to
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show up with with some horses and they'll ride in, you know, by the blockade and call
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Sheila, at least 350, if not 400 riders showed up.
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It was the most beautiful thing you will ever see.
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And how quickly things fell into place, because two things.
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One, as the first convoy rolled into Ottawa, Justin Trudeau conveniently had to isolate.
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You're not going to sit this one out because he's set out every previous scandal and just,
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So I'm going to go, whether it's five vehicles, 20 or 200, we're going to go and show the first
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So we were due to leave the Sunday right after the ride.
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There's a lady out in Lethbridge that opened up her ranch and said, your horses can stay
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And I even asked her, I'm like, can I can I help, you know, with their board or so on?
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She says, this is my contribution to the freedom movement.
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And I'll tell you, when we parked and we're saddling up, getting ready to ride, you couldn't
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Three people came down from Grand Prairie, from BC, from Saskatchewan to ride.
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And it was the most Western thing you'll ever see.
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So I helped to get as many people as I could out that way, especially within my area.
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But again, full credit goes to the young lady that put this together.
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Uh, and then, uh, and then I went home, put the horses back and packed the bag and Sunday
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morning, uh, we were off and Mocha was there and, and, and, uh, Celine and we, we were off
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I mean, you just dropped everything to head all the way to Ottawa again.
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Was this just like FOMO, a feeling like you had to do something?
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Was it two years of just, I gotta, I gotta do something.
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So you, you seen the way this, this, this built up and I told myself, if I sit and just
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Um, I I'm fortunate enough in a position where I could put my life on hold.
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Um, and it's important enough to put my life on hold, um, and support the first wave of
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truckers, especially those, the fact that it started from the West and then just kept
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That was just my personal take, but my longer return take was this is enough.
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It's been two years with no end date to, uh, the mandates, to the restrictions, to the
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And here we are living in a country where citizens can't fly within their own country
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or in or out depending on their medical skills.
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So I told myself, no, I need to get a group together and go any heck, if it was just going
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Uh, now what was heartwarming to see as well was there were families that showed up, um,
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And they said, we want our kids to know that they were there because this is the biggest
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historical event in Canadian history, modern history.
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I think if you look at the last 20 or 30 years, there's been no movement.
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It's this big and, and this international ever in the last 30 years, perhaps in the past
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there has been, but I think perhaps maybe in the Quebec referendum in the nineties was
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the biggest national events that we had that was pretty significant.
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And, and the journey itself to answer your question, you know, I I've never driven across
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I didn't know what to expect, but I felt the weight of the people I was with, the responsibility
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and also the need to show the first group of truckers and the first group of protesters
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Um, and despite that anxiety, we, we made it across the country with mostly no incidents,
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just one or two mechanical issues here or there, but mostly no incidents.
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Um, and then we were joined by trucks from other parts of the country, like Manitoba,
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Saskatchewan, Lloyd, um, that just joined us that found out that we were going and we just
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picked up friends along the way and made sure that we rolled into Ottawa all at the same
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Um, and then, you know, it's a completely different experience, what it was like rolling
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I will never forget that as well, but that site of rolling into downtown Ottawa and realizing
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the sheer size organization, real estate footprint, uh, of this protest.
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And you just look and you're like, oh my God, um, this is huge and impressive and clean
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Uh, and the other reason why Sheila, I wanted to go, sorry, super long answer.
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Um, but the other reason I wanted to go as, as I just described kind of in my intro here,
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uh, I wasn't born and raised in Canada and, and this is a movement around freedom.
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And I've, I've lived on the periphery of every modern war, um, that you see Afghanistan, Iraq,
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And you see the slip of government overreach in Canada.
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And the, and the other thing is here I am, I'm an immigrant.
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And it was like the, the legacy media just jumped onto, oh, this is some white supremacist,
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And I, enough of that narrative when it doesn't fit your narrative, the first reaction they
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Well, I not once for the time that I spent in Ottawa felt a shred of not being included
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or not being safe, um, or not among my brothers.
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And when, um, the truckers found out I was from Alberta, the high fives, the pictures we
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took together, uh, I didn't make, make it a point to walk around with my Alberta flag.
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So yeah, it was, I, I wanted publicly, very publicly to dispel that myth that this is not
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an inclusive pro and you walk around and there were families and people with their dogs and
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people from every age group and race and across the country, they're in one unified message.
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And even from every political strike, Sheila, like there were people there that I'm sure
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Um, but they all had the unified message of choice and freedom.
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You know, I think that's the real, I don't know, the epiphany that I've had the last,
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well, two years, but in particular, probably the last six months that none of this falls
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Like the old political lines, it is people who want to be left alone and the people who
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And, um, it's funny to see the criticisms, you know, they tried the old stuff, like that's
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racist, which is just how the elites tell the working class to shut up.
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Um, and you know, then you hear, um, well, it's violent, but the only people being violent
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in this instance are the police because the state has monopoly on the force on force.
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Um, you know, you hear that it is, um, divisive, but the only people being, being divisive is
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the government by saying, you know, this group of people can't do this.
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And there's inside people and there's outside people, people who literally have to eat outside,
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but we're being told that the movement for freedom is the divisive thing.
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And I found when you were tweeting your images, which was through a very particular Western
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lens that really appealed to me, um, you were, you really were with pictures, just dispelling
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all the lies of the mainstream media one by one by one.
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I told myself, I have to tell this story because I had 50 friends message me on my personal
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accounts every day or text saying, what's it like?
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Is it like, because they see what, what it's like on the mainstream media.
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And I started reading the mainstream media every morning and then walking the streets of
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And, and I'm, I'm no professional photographer.
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I used my already outdated iPhone to, but I wanted to really show, um, what it was like
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on the ground wife, um, and really show a perspective of the size of the organization,
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I mean, uh, the, the, there wasn't a speck of dirt, a napkin, a coffee cup on the streets.
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There were 200 shovels that were bought and distributed among the drivers.
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And whenever there was snow, they took care of it before the city ever showed up.
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Um, and there was garbage collection and there were supply stations and there were safety
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meetings, but I made it a point to crash as many of those meetings as I could as many
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of those, you know, because I really wanted to showcase through my camera phone, uh, what
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it was like on the ground and, and try to show the, the other side of the story and the
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real side of the story, which is why they were there.
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I bet you, if you asked any of those truckers, none of them wanted to park their rigs for
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I mean, it's not what they wanted, but you talk to them and you hear their stories about
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them and their families, um, the hardships they've seen over the last two years, uh, and
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Um, and if, if anything, and I know we'll, we'll get into this, but the protests, especially
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on the weekends were packed with folks from across the river, essentially in Quebec coming
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in because they've seen it pretty hard to, um, you know, they, they've seen the curfews
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and, you know, they were a hair away from, from a vac stacks.
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Um, and then they were there too, saying, you know what, um, this, this, this is a movement
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that's important for, and I bet you that's the current government's voting base.
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Um, like I, I, I would put money on it, but it, yeah, it became, it didn't be, it was not
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Like, you know, as a candidate, I was there as a Canadian citizen and I was there as a
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Westerner who cared about choice and cared about freedom and cared about stopping government
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And it's funny because in your pictures, you really did capture what I think it, like
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you confirmed my biases about leftist protests versus conservative protests, um, where, you
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know, when useless people, um, have long scale, like long lasting protests, you get Chaz, you
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get Chop, you get Occupy Wall Street, and then come the rapes and then come the drug abuse
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So when useless people do it, it turns into some sort of a purge style anarchy, but when
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useful people with actual skills go and protest, you get a community, a community forms without
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the government telling you to be kind to one another.
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And I love the way you put in one of your tweets, the makers, right.
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And, and, um, here were people that, you know, immediately formed a community around them.
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And I even made it a point to go to, um, there were two or three locations that were out of
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downtown because these were, um, uh, these were truckers that couldn't make it in time.
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Um, so as downtown started locking and it's really funny, I mean, if you actually walk the,
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the, the protest in downtown, it's almost like a geographic map of Canada because the Ontario and
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Quebec truckers got first, um, there and then you see the Manitoba truckers parked next.
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So it's literally Manitoba streets, Saskatchewan street, Alberta streets.
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Um, and a lot of the BC trucks couldn't get in because by then they started kind of locking
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So it literally was a geographic story of our lives.
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Ontario and Quebec got, got to the parliament hill first.
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Um, but, but what was amazing was just, um, and, and quite frankly, there was heavy police
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presence, but the truckers made, um, the police's job incredibly easy.
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And if I may dare say boring, um, in the sense that they waved at them, they thanked them for
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They gave them no excuse to spring into action.
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And I talked to quite a few truckers and they said, we have no beef with the Ottawa residents,
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Um, we're here, um, to talk to the federal government, which ironically in three weeks,
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never talked back to them, uh, and, and never talked with them, um, and said, let's, let's
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Um, and they continued with their rhetoric of being a fringe minority.
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Um, I'll tell you the last Saturday night, I'd say there was probably a hundred, 150,000
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people, um, on the streets at minus 20 with no facilities, um, hardly any restaurants open.
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Funny part is I'm sure you've been seeing the reports of all the restaurants and stuff,
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and I won't name them just because I, I, I think it'd be very unfair to those owners to
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single them out, which is pretty unfortunate, but most of the restaurants open in downtown
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Ottawa were owned by, uh, folks from ethnic minorities that came from really oppressive
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Um, and they, they knew what it was like, and I remember talking to a few of them and
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they're like, you know what, um, this is important.
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We understand, we know what this feels like, and we see where the country's slipping into
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They'll always have my business, but I'll, I would just won't name them, but, but, uh,
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but that's, that's the thing she was, you're absolutely right.
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The makers made a community right away, looked out for each other.
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If someone needed mechanical help, they got it.
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Um, I don't know if, if there's a story that came across your desk of the freedom puppies.
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So, um, there were puppies born on, uh, I know the exact intersection where they were
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So these folks brought their dog and didn't expect to last out, like to stay that long
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and had a litter of puppies, um, born in the cab of their truck.
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And immediately someone delivered dog food and a crate, um, and supplies, uh, for, for
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them, uh, and I think now that their, their name's diesel international convoy, like the
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Um, but, but at the same time, the community got together and there was never an incident
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There was never an incident of, um, of, of feeling unsafe.
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And I toured sometimes at 2am and I never felt unsafe.
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One, I think Ottawa was the safest city in North America because there's such a heavy
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police presence and the truckers looked out for each other and looked out for the community.
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Like, I think, you know, like the folks, um, of Ottawa, they were looked after there
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Sorry, long answer again, but no, it's, it's great.
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Uh, you're the best kind of guest because even though this is my job, you're doing it.
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Um, I, I wanted to ask you though, because we were sort of talking off camera before we
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started recording you now we're experiencing that same anxiety that thousands of Canadians
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all across the country are experiencing where, because of the emergency measures act, um, and
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the extraordinary and draconian, uh, measures that the liberals have put into that as part
00:25:05.380
Um, you are concerned that your bank account could be frozen at any minute.
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What's it like living as an enemy of the state for your political opinions?
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But my bank account getting frozen, I'm waiting for the knock at my door, whether home or hotel
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room, um, saying, here's, here's, and, and yeah, I check every couple of hours, you know,
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Um, and, and I look at, and I say, I drove to Ottawa in my own vehicle legally, uh, and I
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had every right to be on a public sidewalk, um, in the nation's capital that the way I look
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at it, we all collectively pay for, um, we all collectively pay for the nation's capital
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services, um, and every Canadian citizen has a right to be there.
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Not once did anybody, um, uh, you know, get into an area that they shouldn't have been in
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or cause any damage or cause any vandalism or any of that sort of stuff.
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Um, and for this level of government's overreach, what I think this is, is one, it's government
00:26:20.460
And it's also a really disappointing scare tactic by the current government to say, you
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There's what 92,000 people that donated on that hack list.
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Um, those that have, and, and, and we were seeing now legacy media publicly.
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Um, I can't believe that I live in the free West and then G seven nation, or I have to
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check my bank account to see if it's frozen or not.
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Um, as a citizen of Canada, I, I absolutely cannot believe it, but I think it's also a
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scare tactic of future movements, uh, uh, to say, uh, don't or else we will.
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Um, and I think the overreach that we've seen it, and, and I'm sure down the line many years
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from now between constitutional lawyers and the courts and so on, there will be a lot of
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But in today's world, what that does is it tells anybody that's thinking of peacefully engaging
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in the democratic process in a way that it truly expresses their voice.
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And that's a pretty dangerous, dangerous, uh, move to make.
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I was there, um, and, and I was really proud of being there.
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I think, you know, like it is truly a historic moment.
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I'll look at the upside, uh, is if it wasn't for this movement, both at a provincial level
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and a federal level, but more so at a provincial level, I don't think the six jurisdictions
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in Canada that have now moved, including Alberta, Manitoba, and Sask, like I think of
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the prairies, I don't think they would have moved without this, without this moment.
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I don't think they would have started opening up restrictions.
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And, and nobody, nobody in that was against the needle per se.
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They said, that's a conversation between you and your doctor.
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I'm not going to talk about the science of it or, or so on.
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That is a private conversation between you and your doctor.
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Uh, but it shouldn't be a conversation between you and your server at the restaurant, your
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airline, your employer, um, and watching your kids play hockey or any of that sort of stuff.
00:28:56.640
Um, so, uh, again, I look at it and I say, it's scary.
00:29:03.860
Will I think for us in the West, will I think it will stop us?
00:29:09.580
Um, the, the West is fierce and the West was built on guts.
00:29:13.860
Um, and, and I, I, if anything, the, the day Doug Ford declared his state of emergency,
00:29:25.520
Um, so the provincial state of emergency, um, that was the most packed night in all.
00:29:31.200
Uh, it was, I think every time they did it, people just kept showing up.
00:29:39.380
I just, I, it's hard to believe that in a free Western society that people are not only,
00:29:46.820
uh, punished for donating to a political cause, but today it's Monday as we're recording this
00:29:53.060
because you're traveling tomorrow and I have to prerecord.
00:29:55.240
Um, and today the Ottawa police said they will retroactively hunt people down.
00:30:01.740
And there's a whole other layer of crazy and all of this, the RCMP issued a statement and
00:30:07.960
they said they did not provide the list of donors to the banks, which means the government
00:30:15.480
must have, which means the government was relying on hacked data and took that hacked data, illegally
00:30:32.380
Grandmothers can't send their grandkids 20 bucks anymore for their birthday because
00:30:37.940
Chrystia Freeland took a hacked list and the bank said, sure.
00:30:42.740
This is not how it's supposed to happen in a free Western society.
00:30:46.420
This is the kind of stuff that happens in Russia, Venezuela.
00:30:50.580
The destruction of trust in the institutions of a free and modern society, like law enforcement,
00:31:00.380
like, um, the banking system and the financial system and truly privacy and government acts.
00:31:06.600
But is it like, I questioned sadly, Sheila, is it a surprise when the first sliver of this
00:31:13.720
was a complete destruction of your medical privacy?
00:31:16.900
Uh, where your medical privacy became normalized to know at your last Christmas party, um,
00:31:23.240
whether your family members or their spouses or so on.
00:31:26.780
And so if, if we went down that slope, where does it stop?
00:31:35.980
Now, I don't want to keep you too long because it's nine o'clock where you are and, um, you've
00:31:44.160
So I want to ask you, uh, one last question and it is a question I think you're an expert
00:31:50.800
What does Justin Trudeau invoking the emergencies act mean for Western sovereignty or Western
00:32:02.540
Is it going to drive the country further apart?
00:32:04.640
I think so, but I'll let you, uh, I want to know your opinion.
00:32:09.800
And, and I think rather than drive the country apart, it's going to bring the West together.
00:32:14.660
Um, and, and I look at this as the unifying movement, uh, for the West, regardless of your
00:32:21.400
political strike, um, because the West is fiercely independent and we love our freedom and we love
00:32:27.460
And I think what, what we've done or what we've seen with Western independence movements is
00:32:33.840
they flare up right after Justin Trudeau gets elected again, and then they go quiet.
00:32:38.440
I think this is the first time that at least that I could remember that in a non-election event,
00:32:46.220
Western independence has now flared up and people realize that, and one of the most difficult things
00:32:53.320
of telling a Westerner is that your vote doesn't determine government.
00:33:00.540
And, and, and that's how you, sorry to interrupt, but that's how you get blockades.
00:33:04.680
That's how you get blockades because you feel helpless.
00:33:09.120
Albertans blockaded the federal government, but also their own premier who they felt wasn't
00:33:16.920
So that's how you get blockades is when you are completely voiceless and you don't know
00:33:23.320
And us in the West, you know, a true kind of cowboy, if you will, um, traits is patients
00:33:33.360
Uh, and when that fuse runs out, it's, it's done.
00:33:36.900
And it's, it's, and the folks on the prairie look out for each other.
00:33:40.760
I remember the first three or four months of restrictions, everybody looked out for each
00:33:45.460
other and they felt like they were doing the right thing.
00:33:48.260
But as data showed up a year in, they still stuck with it.
00:33:52.080
24 months in, they're going to start asking questions of when does this ever end?
00:33:56.540
Um, so I think the Western independence movement is going to explode for likely the first time
00:34:04.800
in a non-election cycle or non-election events.
00:34:09.040
And I think the West is going to take a pretty critical look at itself and the prairie specifically,
00:34:14.320
potentially interior and Northern BC as well, and say, do we really want to be attached to
00:34:22.500
This was the first time it became apparent to me, a 22 acre plot in Ottawa makes those
00:34:29.120
And we have no say, um, in how those decisions are made.
00:34:33.260
Uh, so I, I think there's an opportunity and I think rather than divide the country, I think
00:34:42.120
Um, I, you know, me, Sheila, I'm, I'm the eternal optimist and I want to be positive about
00:34:47.060
So I really think that there's an opportunity where, um, Western independence really starts
00:34:55.440
I think if anything, people are going to realize that conceding our decision-making powers to
00:35:01.560
someone, someone, and some people who are just so far away from us.
00:35:08.200
Maybe that became apparent to you as you made that enormous drive across the country where
00:35:12.860
you're like, how the heck are these people in charge of us?
00:35:18.360
And I mean, just, it's just the way the works, Sheila is the GTA determines, um, who forms
00:35:28.280
Uh, one city typically will, I mean, the GTA has more seats than Alberta and Saskatchewan
00:35:32.480
put together, uh, and it's done by the time Manitoba starts to vote, not, not Alberta.
00:35:39.880
Um, so let's, let's take charge of our own affairs.
00:35:42.660
And I'm, you know, me, I mean, I'm publicly a big supporter of the Western independence
00:35:48.660
Um, and at the very bare minimum, Western autonomy is let us make our own decisions.
00:35:55.160
Um, because I know that some people feel strongly about being citizens of Canada.
00:35:58.280
And I think the movement, the freedom movements unified and brought a lot of national pride
00:36:05.000
Um, so, so, so I think, but at least have autonomy on our own decisions is the bare minimum.
00:36:12.680
Jarek, I would love to have you back on the show again, very, very soon.
00:36:17.920
Um, here's to you maintaining access to your own bank account and the earning of your own
00:36:26.100
It's, uh, it's outrageous that I even have to wish you the best of luck accessing your
00:36:41.160
Imagine living with the constant threat and fear that something that when you did it,
00:36:56.640
it was perfectly legal could now be the reason you're held in jail indefinitely.
00:37:01.380
Well, you've just imagined Justin Trudeau's Canada for at least the next 30 days of the
00:37:06.600
emergency act, we should really be on some sort of human rights watch list somewhere.
00:37:16.040
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.
00:37:19.740
And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.