Pro-Hamas Occupation at the University of Ottawa. Robert Kreischer joins me to talk about his experience covering the pro-Israel protests at the university. We talk about the tactics and tactics used by the protesters, their motivations, and why they are so difficult to understand.
00:00:00.000What's going on at the pro-Hamas occupation at the University of Ottawa?
00:00:19.000I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gun Show.
00:00:30.000Rebel News has been carefully covering anti-Israel demonstrations, really their occupations cropping up on private property on university campuses across this country.
00:00:53.380The main three appear to be the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, and McGill.
00:01:00.680And the reason I stress that this is on private university property is that for these anti-Semitic demonstrations to be cleared, the university has to act.
00:01:12.180The university doesn't seem to want to act.
00:01:14.420In at least these three instances, they've said they don't want these people there harassing Jewish students on their way to school.
00:01:24.740However, they aren't doing anything about it.
00:01:27.180Now, as I said, Rebel News has been covering these anti-Israel demonstrations in these major cities.
00:01:35.020And joining me today is one of the journalists dedicated to covering the demonstration, hobo squat, occupation, protest.
00:01:47.820At the University of Ottawa is my friend, Robert Krejcik.
00:03:04.600I always ask that question to people who are either recent refugees to Alberta or people who are from other parts of the country who spend a little bit of time here.
00:03:15.340Because I have, of course, selection bias.
00:03:17.800I'm surrounded by people just like myself.
00:03:21.720So people who live rurally in agriculture, it's, you know, like a different kind of people.
00:03:28.060So I'm always curious how people who spend a little bit of more time than just a quick popover in Alberta, how they how they find the place, you know.
00:03:38.060So I'm glad to hear that you experience the same sort of freedom minded people that I do.
00:03:45.140And I think that's why we were so hard to lock down.
00:03:47.600Like, even our conservative government couldn't lock us down is just because, as our documentary says, we are an ungovernable people, self-sufficient.
00:03:58.960You know, you know, we don't we don't need the government telling us what to do.
00:04:01.360Now, you have spent a fair bit of time reporting on what I have begun calling, as of this morning, Hitler's hobos, the encampments against Israel, which I mean, it's really not against Israel.
00:04:48.240But tell me about your first assessment of the lay of the land of Hitler's hobos.
00:04:53.480The most noteworthy takeaway is the unwillingness of protesters to speak or even more fundamentally, their obedience to their handlers, their masters.
00:05:07.100There are these protest organizers, let's call them.
00:05:16.780You can tell by the way they look, their age, their background.
00:05:20.780They don't speak English very well in some cases.
00:05:23.480And they're also known quantities to people that I've come to know who pay attention to these things in Ottawa.
00:05:29.080So the handlers, again, not students, middle-aged people are advising everyone or let's put it this way, directing anyone who I may approach and solicit for comment or an interview.
00:05:42.960That was a quote that was directed towards me.
00:05:46.060And in 99% of cases, these student protesters who, again, I'm assuming are protesters based on their ages, they're on the young side, 18, 19, 20.
00:06:08.780That's sort of emblematic, I think, of this philosophical approach that people on that side of the aisle, so to speak, tend to have relative to us.
00:06:16.520They're much more herd mentality, much more compliant, much more conciliatory.
00:06:22.700And that was the worst part of it because I'm approaching these folks in good faith.
00:06:25.900Even if I don't agree with them on this or that issue, I do want them to express their points of view and have that shared with the audience because the rationale behind people's attendance at these massive protests is newsworthy.
00:06:38.660Yet, again, when they're told not to speak with me, they just shut down and don't talk.
00:07:10.880I think one of the reasons they don't want them talking to you is they don't even know why they're there, that they have such a shallow grasp of the issue that even the most basic level question from you would reveal that to the world.
00:07:31.320It's clearly based on insecurity and unwillingness to talk or at least a fear of demonstrators talking to media on the part of these organizers, these taskmasters, these handlers, is obviously a reflection of insecurity.
00:07:46.020They're not confident that they're able to win in the battlefield of ideas.
00:07:50.900They don't think that the attendees at these demonstrations can elucidate or articulate positions that are persuasive or convincing.
00:07:59.340So it just shows a lack of confidence, at least on the part of the taskmasters, but even to one degree or another, the fact that 99% of these demonstrators don't have the wherewithal or guts just to say, you know what, I want to talk to this guy, shows that they don't have confidence either in themselves and they're obedient, compliant, subservient to these people that they don't even know just because they've got this sort of self-induced aura of authority.
00:08:25.040Yes, great point. Not only do they likely not have a very strong grasp of the geopolitical issues at play here, but they are also cowards, which is a recipe for disaster, for a public relations disaster.
00:08:41.380So I guess that's why their handlers come down so strong on them.
00:08:44.320I mean, you see how little they really truly understand the issue of what's happening between Israel and Hamas in Gaza when they say stuff like, stop the occupation now.
00:08:56.000Israel hasn't been in Gaza for years. There's not even a dead Jew, unless you're counting hostages.
00:09:03.200I mean, they dug up the cemeteries when they withdrew from Gaza. Instead of leaving any, they literally left nobody behind. There is no occupation there. But you see these protesters saying, you know, stop the occupation now.
00:09:17.100Yeah, it's really quite bizarre. I mean, but there are questions that I want answers to, and I think the world wants answers to. Like, for example, who is paying for all these matching tents and matching professionally printed signage?
00:09:31.940And I don't think they want that question asked.
00:09:35.740There's no doubt there's a degree of central planning in a multinational sense, because you're seeing the same strategy, the same type of protest, not just in Canada, but across the English-speaking world.
00:09:47.580Let me share with you in the audience one more phenomenon, one more thing that occurred.
00:09:52.000So the last time I was there was sometime last week. I think it might have been Saturday. It was very hostile.
00:09:57.200So immediately upon my arrival, I'm recognized by one of the handlers that recognized me the first time, which was a few days prior.
00:10:05.260And he starts aggregating these other people who I assume are also organizers. A lot of them are middle-aged people. Some are middle-aged Arabs. They're clearly not students.
00:10:13.360And the entire time I was there, no exaggeration, I had this entourage of maybe 10 people following me around within three, four, five feet of me, never creating any more distance than that.
00:10:25.520To any person I may approach and solicit for an interview, I probably approach 20 people, 25 people, except for one.
00:10:32.660And even that one person himself took a moment to sort of verify what Rebel News is, to see if I'm worth speaking to.
00:10:41.040He was, let's say, 51% compliant with the directives issued to him by these handlers not to speak with me.
00:10:46.840And the exchange that I had with him was very superficial. So again, I've got these people around me the entire time, banging on drums quite close to me, blowing into this, what do you call it, megaphone, chanting, you know, free, free Palestine.
00:10:57.960And they're doing everything they can to disrupt the attention, the cognition of both me and anyone I may be approaching for an interview.
00:11:05.560There's clearly an aspect of intimidation.
00:11:07.700Now, to be fair, I mean, the people that they're intimidating are 18, 19, 20-year-old kids.
00:11:11.380I'm a 41-year-old grown man. I don't get intimidated by this kind of thing.
00:11:15.060But that vibe puts people off and obviously was effective in shutting down anyone's maybe willingness in a different circumstance to speak with me.
00:11:24.600And also, there's this attempt to disrupt the quality of the interview.
00:11:28.520So even if a person was open to speaking with me, and again, essentially nobody was, there's a high risk that the quality of the audio would be destroyed by that loud bulb.
00:11:36.760So they're doing everything they can in a very obnoxious, pathetic, juvenile, aggressive, intimidating way to prevent any sort of open communication between media figures and protest participants.
00:11:50.040Although I don't think it is all media figures.
00:11:52.940I think it is skeptical media figures.
00:11:54.980Because they're more than happy to talk to CBC or the mainstream media because they know that those outlets are going to be sympathetic to their nonsense.
00:12:15.040Could it be IRGC-backed proxies maybe?
00:12:18.300Maybe they're not asking any of those questions.
00:12:21.060So they're happy to give those interviews to the national Trudeau sycophant media.
00:12:27.320Even at one point, about three minutes after I arrived, one of the handlers who was informed of my presence, who Rebel News is here, really dangerous, goes over to this lady at this sort of de facto deus.
00:12:41.340It's a sort of makeshift platform that speakers get on top of, speakers meaning human beings, but they speak through the speakers also, the electronic versions.
00:12:49.180And they have the ability to sort of broadcast loud volume messaging to the entire demonstration.
00:12:55.120It's got the reach to the edge of the courtyard.
00:12:58.720And again, minutes after my arrival, this lady gets up there.
00:14:15.920At least as of now, there's zero willingness to enforce the university's own stated position that these encampments are not to be permitted and will be tolerated.
00:14:24.820So, again, it's sort of an issue of intimidation from the side of the protesters against the university's administration.
00:14:29.580They're not willing to do whatever is required to enforce their own stated standard.
00:14:33.220As far as one more thing about the vibe of the protest, this won't surprise anyone.
00:14:40.280But understand that there's not a meaningful difference between these sorts of protests and those against so-called climate change, the Me Too thing, the so-called rape culture thing.
00:15:00.680It's the same car with a different paint job.
00:15:02.620I'm so glad you mentioned Occupy Wall Street because that was one of the largest initial iterations of this type of protest that came known to people who I think are probably watching the show.
00:15:17.880This is the part I wanted to get to, the vibe, the theme, the messaging.
00:15:20.600There's a lot of this nonsense stuff like, you know, LGBTQ, XYZ, ABC123, you know, queers for Palestine, calls for nonsense ideas like anti-concepts such as social justice.
00:15:36.500So there's real no meaningful difference between this and all these other left-wing totalitarian flavor protests.
00:15:41.780The people there, I assume, are in good faith.
00:15:44.340The students themselves, they really think they're fighting against some sort of genocide.
00:15:47.780They think they're fighting for human rights.
00:15:49.620But the overall architecture, the overall organization is just about using whatever's possible to emotionally manipulate vulnerable, ignorant young people to show up to show this sort of presence of human bodies, this presence of force.
00:16:05.220While the actual purpose, the objective, the core messaging is just about destroying Western civilization.
00:16:24.320Because if indeed some of these, of Hitler's hobos, are non-citizens in this country, they've got no business, A, breaking the law, or being apologists for terror.
00:16:38.640And so they should be kicked out of our country.
00:16:42.400And you delivered a petition signed by thousands of Canadians to the Immigration Ministry saying as such, because it's one thing to sign a petition.
00:16:51.860But one of the things that we do here at Rebel News is actually demonstrate to the powers that be, these are the voices of the people that you will not listen to physically manifested on this paper.
00:17:14.540Yeah, it was actually, I mean, I'll have a sense of humor about it because it was so hilariously pathetic.
00:17:19.280I went down there with Alexa and with Guillaume, which is awesome to work with them, by the way.
00:17:24.160And we go to this, you know, massive, ugly, disgusting building, which is the ministry headquarters for, I think, what they call Immigration, Citizenship, and Refugees Canada, in no particular order.
00:17:48.380I basically tell them that I want to deliver a petition to whoever can receive it, ideally Mark Miller, who's the minister of this ridiculous department.
00:17:55.380And, you know, we waited about an hour because they're so busy, right?
00:17:59.020And they come down with their security guards because we're so threatening, right?
00:18:02.920And right out the gate, these two, I guess, communications operatives, they're, like, totally just forgettable, unremarkable.
00:18:09.960I refer to them as generic government drones.
00:18:12.260There's just gajillions of them in the city.
00:18:13.840And they come out acrimonious and hostile and say, oh, we're not going to do any interview, before I even introduce myself, like, just come out irritated, agitated, anxious, we're not doing any interviews, we're just here to accept the petition.
00:18:27.280I guess it took them an hour to contemplate that strategy, right?
00:18:30.060And I basically just told them, look, I didn't ask for an interview, but that's okay, and here's this petition I basically gave in the background that this is a petition of requesting that people who are non-citizens, foreigners in this country who express support for either designated terrorist groups or mass murder operations carried out by these groups like was seen by Hamas on October 7th of last year, they'd be removed from this country.
00:18:54.280And, yeah, it was just this uncomfortable exchange, at least on their part, again, I'm a grown man, I'm not really intimidated, I don't really get uncomfortable, but you could feel this tension from them, and I almost felt bad for them.
00:19:04.940How can you not just have a congenial moment?
00:19:08.120I mean, there's the littlest bit of disagreement so earth-shattering that you need an hour to prepare, and you got this little, like, script that you prepared about not talking to anyone.
00:19:17.560And, yeah, one more thing, I'll tell you this also, I don't know if you spoke with Alexa about this, when I was with Alexa earlier.
00:19:22.680That day, it was maybe an hour prior, hour and a half prior, she went over to Stephen Gilbeau's ministry, that's the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, again, another absurd department that should be abolished, right?
00:19:35.700They destroy the environment while pretending to protect it.
00:21:18.440And then, you know, a couple weeks earlier, I had gone to the Ottawa Carleton District School Board, home of Nillie Kaplan-Murth, crazy lady.
00:21:26.400And I had a petition there, similarly, fire Nillie.
00:21:31.440And I just needed someone to take the friggin' piece of paper.
00:21:46.960Likewise, when I petitioned the YWCA in Regina for having trans activist Faye Johnstone be the keynote speaker at the Women of Distinction Award, I was like, can you just take this and put it on someone's desk?
00:22:17.360They turn everything into a confrontation for some reason because they look at us like we're gross and evil, and I look at them like they're wrong.
00:22:39.460Well, I think they exist in a bubble where they are told, everybody outside of the bubble who thinks it a little bit differently, they're crazy people.
00:23:14.420I wanted to ask you while I have you, people want to know what's happening down at Coots, because the reason I asked you about Alberta off the top of the show is because you spent a lot of time in Lethbridge covering trials down there.
00:23:28.040So tell us what's coming up with, I think it's the Coots 4, which is now the Coots 2 trial, right?
00:23:52.760And just for those folks that don't know what that means, pretrial is this phase of the trial in which the defense and prosecution negotiate over some of the parameters of how the trial will proceed, sort of arguing and debating over the rules of the game to be determined by the judge as they make their cases, no pun intended, on one side or the other.
00:24:12.660Whether it includes disputes over evidence, whether this evidence is legitimate or not, whether it's been acquired lawfully, to what degree it has veracity, and maybe some other things regarding the rules of the game.
00:24:26.320So pretrial will resume, I think it's May 24th, the last week of May, whatever that Monday is.
00:24:32.600And there are trial dates booked all the way through the month of June.
00:24:36.760It may not end by June, of course, that's to be determined, but they expect it to be.
00:24:40.480And with the Coutts three, you know, the leadership, according to the RCMP, that were convicted, found guilty, all three of them of mischief, over $5,000, Alex Van Herc, George Jansen, and Marco Van Hoogenbos, their sentencing is in, if I recall correctly, the end of July.
00:24:59.800So the jury's already rendered the guilty verdicts for all three men, and now the prosecution and defense teams will make their cases to the judge over how severe or not severe or whatever the sentence will be.
00:25:17.500What are they potentially facing there?
00:25:19.580If I recall correctly, the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison, which seems very impossible to believe from lawyers that I've spoken with, given what they understand to be the precedent and the nature of this particular incident.
00:25:34.060It could also be as light as just community service.
00:25:38.740So there's a huge range potentially facing these three men.
00:25:44.220Well, and it's so unpredictable because I didn't think they would be convicted anyway, because, you know, I heard that through testimony that, you know, that even the RCMP weren't even sure that they were actually the leaders.
00:25:57.720And, but you never know, because look how they're treating Chimera Leach, 50 days in jail on a non-violent mischief charge and a breach, which was not a breach.
00:26:13.300So, I mean, it's, the courts are so predictable these days.
00:26:16.880How do people find out more about your coverage of both of these cases?
00:26:20.860Because you've been there from the very beginning.
00:26:23.420Well, we've got that website that we've dedicated to these two trials.
00:26:30.320We're going to have our information up there.
00:26:32.120Obviously, the Rebel News website, we're going to put up our stories as they get composed and written and published.
00:26:37.300And, of course, you know, the meat of our meals, of our media, is video.
00:26:42.460So, assuming I'll return back to Lethbridge in June, which I anticipate will be the case, that still will be to be determined.
00:26:48.860There will be the standard format in which I'll do a daily video update on every day of the pretrial and subsequent trial to let the audience know what's going on in terms of the Carbert and Olenek trial.
00:27:01.560And then in July, when the sentencing continues for the COOTS III, we'll deal with that then.
00:27:07.400Okay, and before I let you go, I just want you to clear up something surrounding some of your reporting.
00:27:22.180But just the publication bans are very difficult for you to report around because if you break a publication ban, guess who goes to jail for contempt of court?
00:27:35.380Just explain to us, like, how difficult and how you really have to dance around the things that you can tell the public.
00:27:42.040Okay, well, I'll tell you where there's an opportunity and I'll tell you why the publication ban exists.
00:27:46.820So the rationale behind a publication ban, as stated by one of the judges in the COOTS III trial, but this is a general truth that Ezra Levant also advised me of, and this is sort of a default setting for pretrial hearings in any criminal proceeding.
00:28:01.700It is stated that the purpose of these publication bans during pretrial is to protect the integrity of the jury pool.
00:28:09.640You want to ensure that the defendant or defendant's portal, if that's the case, receives or receive a fair trial, meaning that the jurors that are selected to sit in judgment haven't had their minds, let's say, contaminated or predetermined by information that was published by media outlets in regards to pretrial proceedings when some of that information should not have been disclosed.
00:28:34.920I'll be specific. Imagine a scenario in which law enforcement, the cops, procure or obtain evidence unlawfully.
00:28:43.020Maybe they didn't have a legitimate search warrant. Maybe they just broke into your house or your car and found this, that, or the other. Maybe they illegally surveilled you.
00:28:49.180That information is not allowed to be entered into the trial, but if I'm in there observing that and reporting on that, I'm putting that out there into the ecosystem of media, which can then enter the minds of persons who may then be selected to sit in judgment of these defendants or this defendant, and that's unfair.
00:29:05.280So it's about protecting the integrity of the jury pool. Also, some things that come into question are the veracity of evidence.
00:29:11.840So evidence may have been obtained, but it's not reliable for one or another reason. Another thing, too, and this is interesting, I can't go into specifics here because this is still a publication ban, but one of the things that can occur in a pretrial is determination of the qualifiability, if that's a word, of proposed subject matter experts.
00:29:31.700So if the prosecution wants to enter in a particular subject matter expert that, for some reason, may not be legitimate, according to the defense, there's going to be a dispute over the eligibility, the legitimacy of that subject matter expert, and the judge may say, you know what, this subject matter expert is not legitimate for one or another reason.
00:29:50.160But if I'm reporting on that openly, I'm putting out information that was then deemed to be inadmissible in the actual trial.
00:29:56.740So that's the purpose of the publication ban. Now, to your primary question, how do I dance around this? Well, look, I've gotten a bit better at this job, thank God, over time.
00:30:05.680And one thing that I intend to do is to use these opportunities, because that's how I look at them, not just a challenge, as a way to educate the audience about different aspects in general terms regarding the trial, regarding trials in general, that don't violate any publication ban by revealing any specific information during pretrial proceedings.
00:30:25.220So I hope I can be successful in presenting information to the audience that's both informative and educational. So when they walk away from those news reports, they're smarter.
00:30:33.920They're more prepared as Canadian citizens to deal with what it's like to be a Canadian.
00:30:38.280Well, I'm glad you do that. And it's very difficult. I've dealt with reporting on trials where there were really extreme or complicated publication bans.
00:30:46.800And it is psychologically exhausting to try to pay attention to what the judge is saying and then digest that into a way that the normal people who are laymen can consume while not breaking a publication ban.
00:31:01.940I think you're doing an excellent job of it, Robert.
00:31:04.040And I can't wait to see the good job that you do on reporting when we send you back there to cover the trial.
00:31:11.100Robert, it's a very busy day for both of us. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me on The Gun Show.
00:31:17.580And we'll have you back on again very soon.
00:31:20.680Sheila, love being with you. Thanks so much for the kind words and the votes of confidence.
00:31:24.380And I hope to deliver on that expectation.
00:31:58.320Or if you're watching a free version of the show over on Rumble or on YouTube and you've sat through an ad or you're watching a clip of the show over there, leave me a comment there.
00:32:09.360I will go sometimes looking for comments over there just so that I have a good mix of what's going on and how you feel about the work that we do here at Rebel News.
00:32:19.660Now, today's gun show letter is a criticism stuffed in a compliment sandwich, which is, I think, a early 90s human resources practice.
00:32:36.100And I appreciate it. So I'm going to read it and then I'm going to address it a little bit.
00:32:43.220So it comes from David and it is appreciation.
00:33:29.000I believe that presenting a more professional appearance could enhance the credibility of Rebel News.
00:33:37.340While I respect individual expression, I think everyone dressing in a more professional manner could help strengthen the trust people have in your reporting.
00:34:09.780I will say that your criticism excludes my friend David Menzies because he is always a dapper, dapper man out there on the streets.
00:34:17.800And when he dresses that way, because he's a bit of an old school journalist, he looks great.
00:34:26.060But the problem is when you wander into a protest looking like David Menzies top hat and all, you can be a bit of a heat score for the police and other protesters.
00:34:38.960So there's some ups and downs to that.
00:34:43.540Now, when I fill in for Ezra, you might notice I dress a certain way because Ezra dresses a certain way when he hosts his show.
00:34:50.100So I try to set aside my Sheila vibe and respect the level of professionalism in personal comportment that Ezra has on the Ezra LeVant show.
00:35:03.180Now, if I'm out on the streets, I look the way I normally do in real life when I'm doing journalism.
00:35:11.040And for example, if I'm down at the billboard on Highway 2, standing in a farmer's field to bring you the news of another 47 linear feet of freedom being unveiled to 1.3 million monthly impressions, you might catch me looking even more so like I normally do.
00:35:32.700Because aside from being a journalist, I live on a working farm and I think how I look reflects that.
00:35:43.620Now, we do expect our journalists to dress according to the story that they're covering.
00:35:53.040For example, if you're going to court to cover a court case, look nice.
00:35:56.740Look the way you should in a courtroom and give the court the respect it deserves by putting yourself together accordingly.
00:36:18.120But one of the things that we do here at Rebel News is that we try to be news for the normal people and we don't have a budget for wardrobe like they have at the CBC.
00:36:36.680I wear our Rebel News merch because I wear our Rebel News merch in real life and I want to show you how great it looks.
00:36:43.380I've washed this sweatshirt a million times and it looks as good as it ever has.
00:36:49.820If you want one, just go to rebelistore.com and get yours today.
00:36:54.080But I think it makes us more relatable when we talk about the issues that you care about and we look the same way that you do.