State of the Rebel Report
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Summary
In this episode of the State of the Rebel Report, Ezra LeVant returns after a week writing a book. He talks about what s been keeping him busy, and why he thinks it s a good idea to have a civil liberties project in Canada.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. You know, I've been away for a week writing a book, or at least trying to.
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It's very hard not to procrastinate. Literally everything in the world is more exciting than
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writing a book. Just going to check if the fridge looks the same on the inside as it did 10 minutes
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ago. That is more exciting than writing a book. Alphabetizing things in your kitchen cabinet.
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That is more exciting than writing a book. So it's very hard to write a book, at least for an
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attention span, shorty like me. But I tried last week, but I'm back now. And today,
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I got sort of a State of the Rebel address for you. I'm going to go over our activities and our plans.
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Hopefully you'll find it interesting. Well, you'll see, because it's up next. But before I get that,
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let me invite you to become a video subscriber. We call it Rebel News Plus. It's all this podcast
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plus the visual elements. And today I've got a couple of videos from Manchester, UK, that you're
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just going to want to see. You're just absolutely going to want to see these. It's going to make
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you mad. Sorry, but you have to see it. Just go to Rebel News.com, click subscribe. It's eight
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bucks a month. You can buy a whole year in advance for 80 bucks. That's a discount. It's pretty good
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stuff, I think. You get Sheila Gunn-Reed also, David Menzies, and shows from Andrew Chapados now, too.
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Tonight, the State of the Rebel Report. It's February 8th, 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
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Hi, everybody. It's great to be back. I'm sorry I wasn't here during the weekday, although
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last week, as although you know, I jumped into shows every day just to say hi and talk about
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the news of the day. I simply didn't have the time last week to do my full editorial work,
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plus a special project I'm on. I'm trying to finish my new book, and if you've ever tried
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to write a book, you know it's always the thing that you procrastinate on the first,
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because it's always the easiest to say, well, I'll do that later. There's always something
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more urgent to do than to write a book. So I tried to push everything aside last week
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with mixed success. I did make some progress on the book, but things in the world kept dragging
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me back. There was so much to do. I myself did two videos last week from what our journalist
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down in Florida found. John Tory, the lockdown mayor of Toronto, apparently he's having big
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house parties at his North Palm Beach mansion. He won't tell us who's down there. He claims
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it's not him, but we just saw day after day cars coming and going to his $10 million waterfront
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house. I have nothing against wealth. I have nothing against waterfront houses. Maybe one
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day I'll have one myself. But you can't throw parties in Florida, the most un-locked down
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State of the Union, while you're presiding over one of the toughest lockdowns in North America,
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as John Tory did. He's a cheater. He's a lockdown cheater. I think that's the worst thing.
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So that kept me a little bit busy. I was working on my book, and as you may know, we have expanded
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our civil liberties project called fightthefines.com. We do a bit of that in Australia and the UK
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too. Well, we expanded that into Quebec. And I don't think I shared with you my pitiful
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attempt at speaking en français. My French is so bad, it will surely start another separatist
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referendum. Here's just a quick clip of that. Don't worry, I won't play more than a minute.
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Here's me rolling out our contesterlescontreventions.com campaign. What do you think of that?
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Take a look. Bonjour, mon nom est Ezra Levant, et je suis directeur de Rebel News, une entreprise
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de presse axée sur les libertés civiles, dont le siège social le situe à Toronto.
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Si je tenais à vous parler directement, c'est parce que j'ai d'importantes nouvelles pour tous
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les Québécois et je tenais à vous les partager moi-même. Aujourd'hui, j'annonce le lancement
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de nouveau site Web contesterlescontreventions.com. Sur le site Web, toute personne ayant reçu
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une contravention liée au couvre-feu en vertu des règles québécoises sur le confinement
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pour remplir un formulaire pour nous raconter son histoire et nous faire parvenir une copie
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So not only was I trying my French, it was terrible, but we actually did negotiate an
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agreement with a Montreal law firm to serve Quebecers in English or French to take the
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first thousand cases of their lockdown. Because as you know, I mentioned that John Tory has
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a brutal lockdown in Ontario. Well, in Quebec, they actually have curfews. Like what parents
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say to kids, you be home by 8 p.m. or you're in trouble, young lady. They really have an 8 p.m.
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curfew as if adults are children, as if innocent people are criminals, as if healthy people are
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sick. So we have signed up a law firm that has agreed to help defend a thousand tickets and we're
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doing it through crowdfunding or as they say en français, financement participatif. What do you
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think of that little français? We've also signed similar agreements in Ontario and Alberta
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because we have so many cases and we were trying to handle them one at a time, trying to handle
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them from here. We have hired actually a full-time in-house lawyer to work on fight the fines. But
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when you have literally hundreds of cases, you've got to outsource them to law firms that are built
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for that. I mean, we are not a law firm and we aren't built for taking hundreds of cases, but that's
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what it's become. So we have a deal with Quebec to take a thousand cases. Another deal in Ontario
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with a firm to take a thousand cases and we have a deal with a firm in Calgary to take at least a
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hundred cases. That's all in addition to the 498 cases we had before. So if you add it up,
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we're coming up on 3,000 civil liberties cases. I know those numbers are incredible, but if you
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actually go to our YouTube playlist, you'll see we've almost done a hundred stories on them. And
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obviously we're not going to do a story on every single fight the fines case that comes forward.
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I've told our friends in Montreal, I'd like to do at least one story a week from someone there who
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can speak English about their situation. I believe that civil liberties have never been in this grave
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danger in my lifetime. And so I believe this is the time to fight, not later, not give it to someone
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else to do because no one else is doing it other than the great work by the Justice Center for
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Constitutional Freedoms. That's John Carpe's group. And there's a couple of individual lawyers
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out there fighting, but the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, AWOL, absent without leave.
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It's very sad to see. One of our most exciting cases this past week, and I was involved a little
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bit with it, Sheila Gunn-Reed taking the lead, of course, was our case in the town of Mirror,
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Alberta, where a great entrepreneur named Chris Scott has defied the lockdown with the support of
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his town, the full support of his village, actually. They just came to the restaurant every day and
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wouldn't blink, even after he was given an injunction and an order and a this and a that.
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He wouldn't blink. He was ready to go down the path of Farmers for Justice. Here, here's a clip.
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Chris, you're open again today, even though an emergency injunction came down yesterday,
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ordering you to close. We did have one pretty brief visit from the RCMP, local RCMP collecting
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Yeah, we're still open and customers are still enjoying our food, sitting in a nice cozy cafe.
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Now, you're on your way out. It's one of the first times I think you're getting off the grill in
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all day, but in quite some time. You're headed out for a haircut. Is that so that you look great for
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What? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Now, I know that you reached out to the health minister,
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Tyler Shandro, the other day before your court hearing. He never got back to you.
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No, he didn't. So I tried phoning his office and I assumed that I would get a, you know,
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some sort of a office person or something, but it just was redirected right to email. So I sent an email
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requesting a call back. And I also sent an email, or maybe I didn't, I should, I'm going to send an
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email asking for a meeting. But so far, I haven't heard anything back yet.
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And you're still willing to be a political prisoner, I guess, is what you really would be
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if AHS takes their new evidence before judge and asks the judge to issue a bench warrant for your arrest.
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What's the difference? We're all political prisoners right now. Every one of us,
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every one of us is some, we're at the mercy of politicians right now. Every Albertan in one way
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or another, whether they know it or not, they're being held against their will. Some aren't allowed
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to go to certain places. Some aren't allowed to hang out with certain people. Others aren't allowed
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to sing. Other people aren't allowed to earn a living. It's no matter what way you look at this,
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we're all political prisoners at this point. I'm very proud of Sheila's work out there. And of
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course, I'm tremendously proud of the citizenship and the courage shown by Chris. And as I told him
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on the phone when I spoke to him, we'll give him all the legal backing he needs, because we don't
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need him to bear the burden of this alone. I believe he's fighting for all of us. I love seeing the
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courage of restaurant owners because they have been so unfairly punished. I should tell you that
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according to Teresa Tam's own science, if you can call it that, there have been over, there have been
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thousands of outbreaks of the pandemic in Canada. Obviously, 99.9% of them have not resulted in
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fatalities. But of all those outbreaks, and there have been thousands, a grand total of three
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can be attributed to restaurants in the entire country since the beginning. It simply doesn't
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happen in restaurants. And when you think about it, it makes sense why. Those are amongst the only
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people in Canada who have, say, food handling training, cleanliness training. I mean, of all
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the industries out there, restaurants are worried about infection and food handling to begin with.
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They're the folks who have the hairnets and the gloves and who tidy up and don't let mice gather
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out or things like that. So it's not surprising that one of the safest, healthiest industries in
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Canada is restaurants. And so these restaurants, and it's often a working class person who poured
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their whole lives, savings and all their heart into their business, and to be shut down is so unfair.
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It's across the West. And I want to show you two clips, and I'm stringing this all together, and I'm
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going to get to my State of the Rebel report. I'm sort of doing that now. But here's a clip from
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Manchester, UK, of a restaurateur. His restaurant is packed with customers, just like Chris Scott's
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restaurant in the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mirror, Alberta, because no one is willing to be bullied
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those customers absolutely stood by that restaurant term but the police said come
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outside and that was his mistake he went outside because all of a sudden they were brave when there
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was the two or three cops versus two or three cops versus 30 uh restaurant goers here's the
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terrifying video you heard that last video ended in a scream take a look here's the video
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what are you doing excuse me a police officer a police officer punched punched him
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excuse me this one in the hive has punched him this this police officer punched him in the face
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yeah the police once they weren't surrounded by i don't know 30 40
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50 happy patrons were a little bit tougher weren't they they punched him now he punched back i would
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never recommend punching a cop that only ends one way um i guess in the uk they don't have guns but
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you don't want to punch a cop no matter what um but i think people are getting sick of police
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enforcement of laws that make no sense that change all the time that no customers understand if you
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police understand and that where's the health there where's the public health they're punching a guy
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in the name of public health it simply doesn't make sense and i show you that clip not only to show
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you what's on my mind but that we here in canada have taken steps just as we can we filed
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a lawsuit on behalf of three of our journalists against the toronto police service for physical
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brutality here's a little bit of the um imagery of toronto police attacking our people efron mocha and
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lincoln not for protesting not for doing anything wrong not for breaking any laws but rather for
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reporting on a lockdown protest take a look at this
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What really bothers me is that the police specifically said to our people,
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journalism is not allowed. It's prohibited. And one cop said, well, journalism by the big guys,
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like CP24, this big station here in Toronto is allowed, but not from you rebel types. Look at
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this. The media is exempt, but it's like CP24 and stuff like that. What's the difference between me
00:18:00.420
and CP24? I'm not sure. You just got to keep moving, right? That's all you got to do. What's the difference
00:18:05.800
between me and CP24? I'm not sure what your company is. If you're not sure, then why are you making
00:18:10.440
assumptions? You just got to move. Everybody's got to move. That's it. Go ahead and go to
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CP24. You just got to move, sir. We're cautioning you right now, right? We're cautioning you. We're
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cautioning everybody. Yeah, that's just not a thing. That's not how it works. The police doesn't get to
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the police don't get to decide who is or isn't a journalist. And the police don't get to say,
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you can't film us beating the tar out of a lockdown protester in the public square in Toronto. So we,
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we've been talking to the police verbally. We've been sending them letters, demanding that they
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give us our freedom. In the end, we just, if they don't take it from us, if they don't believe us,
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maybe they need to hear it from a judge. If you want to see the entire lawsuit, it's only 10 pages
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long, about four pages of which is just sort of throat clearing formalities. You can see that entire
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lawsuit at our website, journalistdefensefund.ca. That's not the only lawsuit we're doing. Of course,
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you know, we're challenging the constitutionality of the lockdown in Saskatchewan. We're doing the
00:19:08.100
same thing in Australia, and we may do the same thing in Alberta. So I believe that over the last
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10 months, Rebel News, I mean, we've done more news than ever. We've got more videos a day than ever.
00:19:20.920
In fact, we've set up a second YouTube channel just for little clips because we were overloading the
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main channel. You can find that on our YouTube page. Here's a look at it here. But we,
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we're doing more journalism than ever. As you know, over the last 10 months, we've hired new
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reporters, Tamara Ugolini, Drea Humphrey, Andrew Chapadosis now. So we have more talent producing
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more content than ever. Lincoln J did his first video. But I think that in terms of the measurement
00:19:47.900
of our efforts and our spending of our budget, we are actually a civil liberties group first.
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In one terrifying month, we recently spent $189,000 on lawyers. When you're literally representing
00:20:03.180
a thousand or more people, that's what it's like. Constitutional challenges, fighting police who
00:20:11.580
are beating us up here in Canada, beating up our guy, Avi Amini in Australia. We have become the
00:20:17.540
civil liberties law firm that I always wish the Canadian Civil Liberties Association would be.
00:20:22.540
You know, I'm a dues-paying member of them. I don't even know why they haven't done a darn thing.
00:20:27.700
But we have, there's so much work to do and so many things. I think the Rebel,
00:20:31.680
paradoxically, or maybe it's not a paradox at all, we have had our most important year yet. That's not
00:20:38.380
a paradox. It's actually easy to understand. And so we're hiring. Can I draw your attention to this
00:20:43.340
page? I don't know if you've ever looked, but Rebel News has a careers page. Look at that.
00:20:48.200
We have some administrative positions. I need an assistant to help keep me organized. I'm a little
00:20:55.000
bit disorganized. There's so much going on to help book the travel and the company and help take care
00:20:59.880
of administrative things. But in addition to that administrative position, can you see we're hiring
00:21:05.780
video editors, web editors, and we're looking for three new journalistic positions. I think I've
00:21:12.540
told you that before, but I want to bring to your attention, rebelnews.com slash careers, where you
00:21:17.500
can see all the openings, including in terms of on-camera journalists. We're looking for someone
00:21:22.380
to cover parliament in Ottawa. Now, we've been looking for that for a couple months, but we haven't
00:21:26.100
filled it yet. We're looking for someone in Quebec who would know French and English. They would do
00:21:31.380
their reporting in English, but I would want them to know French so they can talk to the other half,
00:21:35.980
you know, read the French papers, etc. And you see there, we're looking for someone to be our
00:21:41.360
China affairs correspondents. So they don't have to be Chinese-Canadian, but it would probably help
00:21:46.340
if they know the Chinese community and can read Chinese. Because I want this position to follow
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the Chinese language newspapers, follow what the Chinese embassy is doing in Canada, see what's
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going on on campuses with, you know, the rich kids, sons and daughters of high Communist Party officials
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send their kids to university in Canada. There's almost 100,000 children of
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Communist Party bosses in China going to school in Canada. And they're not just learning in our
00:22:18.420
schools, they're having a political expression. They are being abusive in some cases towards
00:22:25.420
democracy protesters, Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans. So we're looking to hire a Chinese affair
00:22:31.260
correspondent. They're probably going to wind up being a Chinese-Canadian who's familiar with
00:22:36.000
that culture and language. It doesn't have to be, but you do have to know the Chinese language.
00:22:40.800
That's a very exciting position. I hope we film soon. And one of the reasons we're able to do this
00:22:46.940
is because so many of our viewers helped us out when we were in a pickle over Christmas. As I think
00:22:52.420
you remember, our banker called in a $380,000 loan, which we had hoped we would just roll over,
00:22:58.200
but he wanted his money out. And our rebel viewers paid down the bills. And so we're debt-free and we're
00:23:04.400
able to make a go of it and spend our money on expanding our journalistic work and our civil
00:23:11.880
liberties work. I'm very excited about it. And we're still sort of figuring out who we are.
00:23:18.000
It's going to be our sixth birthday next week. And I think the rebel has transformed itself
00:23:24.660
several times over the last six years. I think right now we're an important anti-censorship
00:23:29.860
civil liberties force as well as journalism. We're putting together an advisory board. I'm just giving
00:23:35.700
you a bunch of updates here from my notepad because I want to tell you what we've been doing
00:23:39.260
recently. As you know, Raheel Raza is the chairperson of our advisory board, but I'm pleased to announce
00:23:46.920
that Larry Solomon, the columnist, he writes for the Epoch Times, he used to write for the Globe and
00:23:51.760
Mail and the National Post. He's the head of a free market environmental charity called Probe
00:23:57.060
International. He's joining our advisory board. And I should have two more announcements for our
00:24:03.520
advisory board for you in the coming week. So we're putting together a bit of a oversight committee
00:24:09.620
to help make sure we're staying straight and steering straight. People who come from different
00:24:15.120
walks of life, different perspectives, people who love the rebel and want to see us succeed.
00:24:19.580
And, you know, I think that I know it's already February, but I feel like 2021 is going to be the
00:24:27.800
most important year for us yet. In addition to my own book that we're working on, we're about to
00:24:33.760
publish a book from a fairly well-known author. So we're branching out. This year, I think you're
00:24:39.220
going to see more journalism from us than ever, more civil liberties from us than ever, more reporting
00:24:45.860
in different places that we've ever been before. We've never had a footprint in Montreal. I think
00:24:51.880
we're going to continue to improve our website. I'm going to still focus on my daily show, The Ezra
00:24:57.200
Levant Show, because it's really my main expressive outlet. And it's also an important source of revenue
00:25:02.240
for us. So thanks for watching. And I just think that the real reason we have to fight so hard
00:25:07.820
in 2021 is because we have to. This is the year where they're going to go for it. This is the year
00:25:16.140
where Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilboa are going to unveil their new censorship agency. This is the
00:25:21.580
year where we'll see Facebook, Twitter, YouTube crack down on free speech for us, like they did to
00:25:28.840
Donald Trump and many American Republicans. This is the year where lockdowns will become more and more
00:25:35.000
brutal as politicians try and gin up fear and tension to keep the emergency perpetuating.
00:25:41.460
This is the year that being a rebel counts more than ever. And I got to tell you, I can't be prouder
00:25:47.200
of our team that we've put together. And I can't be more grateful to you, our viewer, for helping us.
00:25:52.440
So forgive this rambling update. I should probably type it out and put it on our website. But I want to
00:25:58.300
tell you what we've done, what we're doing right now, and what we hope to do in the months ahead.
00:26:03.820
Thanks so much for your support. Now, I did do some actual journalism today. I've got an
00:26:08.560
interview for you next, actually, about the lockdowns won't surprise you. So stay with us for now.
00:26:24.700
Well, I saw some good news out of the corner of my eye the other day. For months, I've been asking,
00:26:29.900
where's the opposition to the lockdowns? You don't see it in any real political party. When I mean real
00:26:36.560
political party, I mean a party that's an official opposition or a party that claims to call itself
00:26:41.760
conservative. In fact, conservative parties are amongst the most brutal locker downers there are.
00:26:48.640
I point to Doug Ford's Ontario as an example. And where is the opposition to the lockdown coming from
00:26:54.280
the official opposition in the federal parliament, Aaron O'Toole? I haven't heard a word about lockdowns
00:27:01.000
or civil liberties, even from the more absurd ideas emanating from Justin Trudeau, like his $2,000
00:27:07.580
hotel quarantine detention project that's clearly unconstitutional. I kept on saying, where
00:27:14.160
is the opposition? And so I was delighted to see news that a new end the lockdown caucus is forming.
00:27:23.600
So far, it has about a dozen people. But recognizable names on the list include Ontario's MPP, Randy Hillier,
00:27:33.760
independent former Conservative MP, Derek Sloan, and our guest now, the leader of the People's Party of
00:27:41.840
Canada, Maxime Bernier, who joins us via Skype from Montreal. Maxime, great to see you again. Thanks for
00:27:47.960
joining us today. Thank you, Ezra. I'm very pleased to be with you. Well, I'm excited that there was a
00:27:54.960
gathering of independent people together, because I think part of being in opposition, part of being a
00:28:02.880
skeptic, you're not really a joiner. I mean, I think that there's something in the personality of
00:28:09.440
skeptics and dissidents, that they're sort of lone rangers sometime. So to see Randy Hillier and you
00:28:16.300
and Derek Sloan and some city councillors from Ontario pull together, I found that very encouraging,
00:28:22.580
because I think there's strength in numbers. Tell us what the End the Lockdown Caucus
00:28:27.380
is about. You had a meeting. Are there any plans to do anything more?
00:28:32.340
Yes. Thanks, Ezra. We had a meeting, actually, last week. And that was under the initiative of
00:28:40.180
Randy Hillier, as you know, a member of the provincial parliament in Ontario. And Randy was very vocal
00:28:47.000
against lockdowns, like myself. But also, when he called me to be part of that caucus, he said,
00:28:55.060
Maxime, just like you said, Ezra, there's no opposition, official opposition against lockdowns.
00:29:01.900
The conservatives are nowhere. They don't speak about that. They don't want to speak about that.
00:29:07.220
At the provincial levels, that's the same thing also. The opposition in Quebec, in Ontario and in
00:29:14.420
other provinces, there's nothing, there's nobody speaking against these authoritarian measures from
00:29:21.540
the provincials and federal government. So Randy had that idea to put together the elected representative
00:29:30.400
or former elected representative from different levels of government, municipal, provincial and
00:29:37.980
federal. And we had our meeting, Ezra, in Ontario last week, last Monday. We launched the End the
00:29:45.920
Lockdowns Caucus. And I'm very pleased that right now we have more than 14,000 people who signed a
00:29:55.340
petition supporting our initiative. And that's great. And also, we have about 20-person members of the
00:30:04.240
caucus. So I'm doing the fight here in Quebec. And this week, I will be in touch with a lot of
00:30:11.360
representative elected at the municipal levels in Quebec. So just to do the fight, the more people
00:30:19.520
will be, the better it will be. And we want people to know that, you know, there's people here in Canada
00:30:27.200
that are elected or were elected in the past who believe that we must change what happened right now.
00:30:34.880
And it's against our freedoms. And we must fight. Our goal, Ezra, is to try to convince the population
00:30:42.020
and changing the public opinion in this country. Because, as you know, usually politicians are doing
00:30:48.680
pollings and surveys. And there's an official high support for lockdowns. And we need to change that.
00:30:56.480
We need to explain to our citizens and to the population that there's other way to fight the virus. And that's
00:31:06.320
Well, I look forward to seeing the caucus grow. You mentioned other people have signed on. Are any of them at a
00:31:16.560
provincial level? Are they mainly local city councillors? Because there's a couple of absences. Roman Baber,
00:31:23.740
the other Ontario MP who specifically challenged Doug Ford, I don't see him there, or Belinda Karahalios.
00:31:30.700
I don't see Gila Martau. There are some who aren't joining. I think that may, I mean, look, it's politics.
00:31:41.300
Everyone wants to be the boss, maybe. Everyone wants to be the chief spokesman. I just feel that
00:31:47.120
getting more people, and maybe even from different parties, would be so useful.
00:31:52.120
Can you tell us other people who have joined? I was just looking at the press clippings. And other than
00:31:57.880
the first five people, I don't have any names. Is there anyone you can tell us that is ready to go
00:32:05.360
public with their support? Is anyone joining the team that would be interesting to our viewers?
00:32:09.520
Yeah, you just said Roman, as you know, is elected, was elected in Ontario at the provincial level and
00:32:19.360
Belinda also. I will be in touch with them. I will reach them this afternoon, actually. And I hope they
00:32:26.120
would be part of that caucus. And, you know, there's not a lot of representatives elected at the
00:32:32.060
provincial level that are ready to join the caucus. Because as you know, Ezra, they can, they can have
00:32:41.080
a lot of pressure from their peers and their colleagues not to be part of the, of the caucus.
00:32:48.820
So we, we think that they must fight for what they believe. And if they said something against
00:32:54.620
the lockdowns in the past, against these lockdowns in the past, they must be part of our caucus. And
00:33:01.080
we are just starting to reach them. We have a couple of names that we will reach. I'm going to
00:33:06.440
reach also some of them at the Legislative Assembly in Quebec. And we'll see. Our goal is to increase
00:33:12.360
that. But it will be easier, I think, to have more elected representatives at the municipal level,
00:33:20.000
because there's no, there's no party line there, so they can express their view easily. So that would be our
00:33:29.380
goal, to have more elected representatives at the municipal level.
00:33:34.600
That's a, that's, that makes a lot of sense, because I can imagine the peer pressure would be enormous.
00:33:39.740
Basically, to join this caucus, you would probably be immediately ejected from any party, because all the
00:33:46.920
parties are the same on this. Hey, let me ask you a question that's, that's a little bit off topic,
00:33:51.740
but I just can't help myself. Derek Sloan is someone we follow with great interest. Like you,
00:33:58.520
he ran for the leadership of the party. And like you, he was pushed aside. I like Derek. I think he's
00:34:06.300
thoughtful, and he thinks about policies. And I think it was atrocious the way he was treated.
00:34:10.800
When I saw that he was in the lockdown, and the lockdown caucus with you, I couldn't help but think,
00:34:17.140
well, I wonder if you guys talked at all about collaborating, because you're both, like I say,
00:34:22.300
have the similar experience with the Conservative Party of Canada. He is not a Conservative MP anymore,
00:34:30.020
but he's still a sitting member of the House of Commons. Did you have any conversation that you're
00:34:37.160
able to share with our viewers about possibly teaming up? Because, you know, strength in numbers,
00:34:43.380
again, he's an independent. Perhaps you two can make common cause.
00:34:49.440
Actually, yes. We had a lunch together when we met last week to create the end of lockdown's
00:34:56.480
national caucus. And so I know him. We had a couple of phone conversations in the past. Actually, he called me
00:35:04.860
when he was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. And I gave them,
00:35:10.820
I gave him, sorry, some advice. And so about, you know, he decided to quit, but not him, but the party
00:35:20.960
decided to kick him out of the caucus. But the conversation that I had with him last week,
00:35:27.420
he is still a member. He still have his cart, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:35:33.480
And his goal, like he said to you after that happened, is to fight and is very focused on the
00:35:42.540
next virtual convention that the Conservative will have this spring. And for him, he wants to be sure
00:35:50.200
that what he believes in, the real Conservative values, will be a part of that discussion at that
00:35:57.280
convention. And so he's doing his fight. And I told him, you know, I respect what you're doing.
00:36:03.340
And I know that you want to go as far as you can with the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:36:09.340
And I told him, you know, I don't think you'll be successful at the next convention.
00:36:14.180
But that's my personal point of view. Maybe I'll be wrong. And I hope that they will be able and
00:36:20.260
your people, your delegates will be able to push some resolution in favor of more freedom,
00:36:26.180
in favor of ending the lockdowns, in favor of some social conservative values.
00:36:31.880
So that's his goal right now. And but we have a good line of communication. And so now we are
00:36:40.060
teaming together to fight against these illegal and unconstitutional lockdowns in this country.
00:36:47.440
So answering your question, Ezra, yes, I'm speaking with him. I respect his decision. And he will maybe
00:36:55.080
will have another decision after that convention. And we'll see what will happen. But I told him also
00:37:01.900
that our doors are open to everybody who share our values. And I know that Derek share a lot of our
00:37:09.440
Well, that's very interesting. We'll have to keep an eye peeled on how that convention goes. I do
00:37:14.100
recall him telling me that when he was ejected. Well, Maxime, and I hope you don't mind me calling
00:37:18.900
you Maxime. I should call you Mr. Bernier. But I feel like we've become quite friendly over the years.
00:37:23.360
And we're very interested in your views on things. And you told me just before we turned on the cameras
00:37:28.280
that you have a project. You're going out to Alberta to speak at a conference or a panel there.
00:37:34.520
Tell us that. And are there any other things you're working on that our viewers might be
00:37:41.280
Yes, I'll be in Alberta in the beginning of March, a conference over there. That would be people who
00:37:48.260
want to believe in this country and other people who don't believe in Canada with the true government
00:37:55.020
right now. You know, there's a lot of people in Alberta that want to separate. There's the new
00:37:59.860
Wild Rose political party at the provincial level. The Wild Rose is the independentist party
00:38:05.280
over there. And there's a conference. The leader of the Wild Rose will be there. I'll be there.
00:38:10.820
And, you know, our speech for the country, for the unity of our country. And my speech will be on
00:38:16.180
radical decentralization. We need a radical decentralization in this country. We need a
00:38:21.600
smarter government in Ottawa. And that would be good for Alberta. That would be good for Quebec.
00:38:26.600
So I'll speak about that. But I understand also the frustration in Alberta. And they understand
00:38:32.320
also that if they want to be independent, they need to do their fight at the provincial level.
00:38:37.480
And that's what they're doing right now with the creation of that new Wild Rose political party at
00:38:42.400
the provincial level in Alberta. But my message for them will be, you know, you won't be able to be
00:38:48.540
independent tomorrow. So you'll have to vote at the next federal election. And the PPC with our values,
00:38:54.480
that's the solution for you. We need to have a voice there. You need to have us in Ottawa.
00:39:01.700
Just we won't be the official opposition. But if we have one, two or three or five candidates that
00:39:08.200
will be elected at the next election, at least we'll be able to have a real debate about the future of
00:39:13.780
our country. So that would be part of my discussion with them in the beginning of March. And people who
00:39:19.480
want to know a little bit more, they can follow me on Twitter and I'll tweet about it when the time
00:39:26.940
will come, when we'll have more details. Because as you know, as Raoul, so there are some
00:39:31.780
authoritarian measures over there against a meeting like that, political meeting. And so, but I said to
00:39:40.920
them, you know, I'm ready to be there and I'm ready to take a chance if we have a police who's coming and
00:39:48.680
people will have, will receive tickets. You know, it's too important. We need to have these kind of
00:39:54.920
meetings across the country and I'll be there. I hope that the rules will change at the end. But if not, I
00:40:01.620
understand by these people who are doing, or doing the organization on that meeting, that the meeting will
00:40:07.100
take place. So we'll see. And that being said about the PPC, as you know, we are starting, we will start
00:40:15.120
next week, or we'll start to find our candidates for the next election. Our goal is to have a full
00:40:23.300
slate of candidates. That can be a little bit difficult if we have an election this spring. But if
00:40:30.000
we have an election, an election, federal election next fall, it would be easier. So we will start the
00:40:37.080
process of call for candidates next week. And at the same time, you know, we are doing a reorganization
00:40:44.340
with the party, an amalgamation of the riding associations, different riding associations to be
00:40:50.320
more efficient. And so I'm looking forward to be back on the road and to travel and to do some rally
00:40:56.440
and speaking about the real conservative values, freedom values and fighting for Canadians.
00:41:02.860
Great. Well, that's a lot on the go. It's nice to speak with you again. Keep us posted, especially
00:41:08.160
on the End the Lockdowns caucus. I think that's very important. That's the most important crisis in
00:41:13.720
Canada today. Maxime Bernier, thanks for being with us today.
00:41:19.120
All right, you too. Well, there you have it. Stay with us.
00:41:26.440
Well, what do you think? Can you believe it? When I said today that Rebel News is turning six years
00:41:39.260
old, I couldn't even believe it. I mean, that's that's much more than a toddler. When a kid is
00:41:43.860
six, he's not a baby anymore. He's off to grade one. He's going out the whole day to school. It's true.
00:41:50.220
Sun News Network shut down in February of the year 2015. And I miss it very much. And I miss my
00:41:56.800
friends from back there. And I miss the luxury of working in a big company that had big budgets.
00:42:03.500
I even remember the fact that we had a full-time makeup room and makeup artists. I mean, talk about
00:42:09.020
being pampered. Everything was so easy for us, at least. I mean, of course, Pierre Calpeleto,
00:42:16.800
who footed the bill. He poured a lot of dough into it. But for the staff, it was the best of times.
00:42:22.480
It's what it's still like at places like CBC, CTV, Global, and all the bailout newspapers. I mean,
00:42:28.520
Trudeau just hoses them down with money. So the last six years here being a lot more grassroots and
00:42:34.260
a lot more pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. But you know what? I think, I mean, with no disrespect
00:42:40.760
to the great work that was done by our friends at Sun News, I was part of that team, I think Rebel
00:42:46.800
News is larger and in many ways more effective because we're not bound by the handcuffs in the
00:42:53.080
CRTC and even worse, the cable companies. Because we can go directly to the people through the
00:42:58.760
internet, we haven't been shut down completely yet. And because we've really become participative,
00:43:04.360
just like our own journalistic style is citizen journalism. We've invited thousands of our viewers
00:43:09.660
to participate in the news by crowdfunding civil liberties work and other projects.
00:43:15.080
So I look back on the last six years with pride and gratitude to our supporters and also with
00:43:20.480
hope that if we can rise under the ashes of Sun News and build something that I think is quite
00:43:24.980
important, after six years, we'll imagine what the next six years will be like. Well, that's it from
00:43:30.260
here. Tomorrow, I'll get right back to the news. I just wanted to give you a sort of an update what I
00:43:34.540
was up to. Until then, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.