Rebel News Podcast - March 31, 2021


Vaccine passports are coming, aren’t they?


Episode Stats

Length

34 minutes

Words per Minute

169.95819

Word Count

5,895

Sentence Count

401

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

Vaccination passports are coming to Canada, but is there any opposition to them? I'll take you through it, and explain why I'm opposed to them, and why I think it's a bad idea.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. You know, I got to tell you, I really think it's coming. I think that we are
00:00:03.920 going to have vaccine passports. I see that New York State is already rolling them out,
00:00:09.500 but they're being met with some opposition. We see some governors in other states saying never,
00:00:14.820 never. But in Canada, is there actually any opposition to them? I'll take you through it,
00:00:19.400 and I'll explain why I'm opposed to it. That's next. Before I get to that, let me invite you
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00:00:28.800 video version of this podcast. You also get Sheila Gunn-Reed's videos every week, David Menzies.
00:00:36.320 By the way, Sheila has a great video this week of her interview with Pastor James Coates,
00:00:40.700 just released from prison in Alberta. That's on the show today. Anyways, it's eight bucks a month,
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00:00:58.800 Tonight, vaccine passports are coming, aren't they? It's March 30th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:16.900 Trudeau is good at posing for selfies and giving banal speeches that you forget the minute they're
00:01:43.400 over. Hey, it's worked for him and probably will again in this year's federal election. But
00:01:47.980 he's never actually done something. He hasn't run a business. He hasn't really held a job
00:01:53.420 until becoming an MP. So negotiating for pandemic vaccines against every other country in the world
00:02:01.300 pretty much was the most awful test of his abilities or lack thereof, wasn't it? I mean,
00:02:06.680 the guy's first instinct was to sign a deal with a company that no one ever heard of called CanSino or
00:02:12.040 CanSino, a Chinese vaccine maker associated with the People's Liberation Army. I don't think you
00:02:19.220 needed to be a psychic to know how that was going to end. But you see my point? Normal political leaders,
00:02:24.680 normal business leaders, normal health leaders would have thought, okay, who are the great
00:02:29.460 pharmaceutical companies in the world? In the West? Probably. Because the West has excellent
00:02:35.100 science, but also reliable corporate culture, reliable safety culture, etc. I'd probably include
00:02:41.360 Japan in that. I wouldn't really want to take a China-made medicine for anything, would you? Although
00:02:47.820 that said, we know that a lot of our own Western medicines are manufactured in China. But I wouldn't
00:02:53.460 want something developed by them, certainly not by the Chinese army, would you? For the same reason,
00:02:58.800 I'd probably skip the Russian vaccine too, but not Trudeau. He wanted the Chinese brand. That was the
00:03:06.180 one he signed up for right away, even though at the time they had kidnapped two Canadian citizens
00:03:10.280 and were banning our agriculture and generally waging a soft war against us. Now compare that to
00:03:15.700 Donald Trump, who declared Operation Warp Speed to get vaccines manufactured, approved, developed at
00:03:22.080 record time, something that the Brits did too, and the Europeans. So there's Pfizer and
00:03:28.720 Moderna and AstraZeneca and others. I'm skeptical of any vaccine rushed to market. I'm skeptical of
00:03:35.740 taking medicine for a disease that more than 99% of people recover from. But my main point is Trudeau had
00:03:43.940 to out-compete everyone in the world, right? 200 countries or so. So he had to out-compete everyone from
00:03:48.980 Trump to India's Modi to China's Xi Jinping to Boris Johnson. In a real world, real deliverables,
00:03:57.520 can you get vaccines for the people who want them? So it's not, did you like the speech? It's,
00:04:01.960 where's the vaccines? Trudeau hasn't, can't, won't, whatever. In the real world, all that matters are
00:04:07.680 results, and he can't. Now there's two things to say about this. First of all, without vaccines,
00:04:13.460 things have gotten better anyways. That's the good news. Without vaccines, the number of people
00:04:19.580 in hospital in Ontario has fallen in about half just since January. And here's Quebec, the worst
00:04:27.560 province for the virus, absolutely plunging if you look at the graph. Again, my point is it's doing
00:04:33.700 that pretty much without vaccines because Trudeau didn't get any. Here's a chart generated from the
00:04:39.660 data at Johns Hopkins University. Israel, which leads the world in percentage of population
00:04:44.840 vaccinated, is pretty much exactly the same result as South Africa, which has vaccinated almost no one.
00:04:54.260 Here's the reckless governor of California calling the governor of Texas reckless for lifting the mask
00:05:00.760 laws and other lockdowns in Texas. Now that was about a month ago, that tweet. But here's the data
00:05:05.980 from the New York Times on Texas cases pretty much gone. My point of showing you this data is the
00:05:14.160 good news is nature is working. However, it's almost like the virus is just a really bad flu season,
00:05:20.420 about triple the death toll of a normal flu season. And that's not good. But it's not Ebola. It's not
00:05:26.360 the plague. It's nowhere near the top cause of death. In Ontario, the biggest province, not a single
00:05:32.300 child has ever died from it. Not one, thank God. But of course, the public health deep state loves
00:05:38.080 the lockdown. They love the spending. They love the power. They love the control. They love the
00:05:42.200 distraction from other problems. They love the fear that will make people do whatever they want.
00:05:47.140 They love the new flag of lockdownism, the mask. Here's Joe Biden telling states to force people to
00:05:52.600 put masks on again. I'm reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain
00:05:59.020 and reinstate the mask mandate. Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it
00:06:07.080 down. And business should require masks as well. The failure to take this virus seriously,
00:06:14.620 precisely what got us in this mess in the first place, risks more cases and more deaths.
00:06:20.100 Deaths. Look, as I do my part to accelerate the vaccine distribution and vaccinations,
00:06:27.380 I need the American people to do their part as well. Mask up. Mask up. It's a patriotic duty.
00:06:36.180 It's the only way we ever get back to normal.
00:06:40.840 Yeah, no, it's just a symbol. I don't know why Aaron O'Toole is putting on a mask. You know he
00:06:46.300 got the virus, right? And he got better from it. He's immune. So he's just putting on a mask as a
00:06:51.620 symbol of his belief system. So first it was panic and lockdown. Then it was masks. Now it's vaccines.
00:06:58.360 I mentioned Trudeau's screw up because he did manage to get his hands on a ton of AstraZeneca
00:07:03.860 vaccines. But maybe there's a reason why. Here, take a look at this weird news. This is a little
00:07:09.140 snapshot from the front page of today's Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper by circulation.
00:07:14.440 One of Canada's countless public health boards now says you should not take the AstraZeneca vaccine
00:07:21.880 if you're over 64, and you should not take it if you're under 55. That's just a pretty small
00:07:28.640 bandwidth. So just 55 to 64-year-olds, just those people. It's too dangerous if you're under 54.
00:07:36.060 It's too ineffective if you're over 65. I think that's what it is. Who knows? Maybe they'll tell
00:07:40.900 something else tomorrow. Normally you don't hear this after. You've already given countless people
00:07:46.860 the jab. But then again, normally vaccines aren't rushed to market in a matter of months,
00:07:52.060 circumventing the regular tests. Here's a scoop from Gateway Pundit, one of my favorite U.S.
00:07:57.400 investigative websites. It's the Center for Disease Control's count of people who have died from the
00:08:03.420 vaccine, showing that it's greater in the last year than in the last decade combined. But hey,
00:08:11.940 there's lots of money in it. I showed you a couple weeks ago how excited Pfizer is about not just one
00:08:18.000 jab, but two jabs, and now adding a third jab. I mean, why sell only one when you can sell two,
00:08:22.860 and why sell only two when you can sell three? Maybe there'll be a fourth jab, or onto two or three
00:08:27.100 masks now. And so now we approach vaccine passports. Isn't that amazing? Compelling people to buy your
00:08:34.620 product. They're coming. Absolutely they're coming. For about two minutes, Canadian politicians
00:08:40.300 pretended they weren't coming. We want to encourage and motivate people to get vaccinated as quickly as
00:08:46.500 possible. Getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible is the way to restore a
00:08:52.340 semblance of normality in the coming months. And of course, we're going to make decisions
00:08:56.640 step by step and look at all sorts of different ways both to encourage people to get vaccinated
00:09:01.560 and keep people safe. The idea of certificates of vaccination for international travel
00:09:09.200 exist already and are well established. There are countries in the world where you
00:09:13.280 shouldn't go unless you can prove that you've been vaccinated against certain tropical diseases,
00:09:18.600 for example. That's well established. But the idea of certificates of vaccination for domestic use,
00:09:25.820 to decide who can go to a concert or who can go to a particular restaurant or engage in certain
00:09:32.320 activities, does bring in questions of equity, questions of fairness. There are some people who,
00:09:39.240 because of medical conditions or other reasons, will not be able to get vaccinated. There are others
00:09:43.700 who are not on priority lists, who will have to wait much longer before getting vaccinations.
00:09:48.660 These are things that we have to take into account so that, yes, we're looking to try and encourage
00:09:53.940 everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, but we're not discriminating and bringing in
00:09:58.680 unfairness in the process at the same time. Yeah, but they just can't stay away. It's a whole new
00:10:03.780 industry, a lot of money, a lot of contracts, a lot of control. It's a good way to keep paranoia up to
00:10:10.000 pit us against each other. Snitches have already been bad enough. People who snitch on their neighbors
00:10:16.220 for having grandma over to come visit, imagine now snitching on someone who hasn't had medicine.
00:10:23.440 But you have to do it. You have to take a vaccine. They said to take AstraZeneca. Now they say that's
00:10:29.060 too dangerous to do. They say to take Moderna and Pfizer. Those are those mRNA vaccines that actually
00:10:36.560 interact with your body's genes. That's not generally called gene therapy. But, you know,
00:10:44.720 sometimes it is called gene therapy. Maybe it's completely safe. Look, I don't know.
00:10:51.200 We thought AstraZeneca was safe. I don't know. It's a new technology that works on your body.
00:10:58.560 It's the kind of thing I'd like to wait a bit just to have it tested a bit more before we inject
00:11:04.520 healthy people with it. I mean, what do I know, though? I mean, Bill Gates says it's just fine.
00:11:12.540 One final way that's new and is promising is called the RNA vaccine. With RNA and DNA,
00:11:19.580 instead of putting that shape in, you put instructions in the code to make that shape.
00:11:24.860 I don't know. Here's a shot of Florida these days. They're doing better than lockdown states
00:11:31.060 like California and New York. I showed you Texas and their graph. Here's Las Vegas. They're out in
00:11:36.560 the sun. They're obviously feeling some peer pressure to go to the gym and get fit, get healthy,
00:11:41.040 exercise well, eat well. I think they're a bit healthier than people in Canada who have been
00:11:47.100 told to stay home, don't go out, don't go to the gym, don't go to the playground, just stay home,
00:11:50.940 watch Netflix, and order fast food delivered to your house. How do you think? I'm getting extra fat.
00:11:54.940 It's because, you know, if I was living in Vegas, look at that lifestyle there. Doesn't that make
00:11:58.800 you want to get fit? I think we're becoming prisoners psychologically. We're already physically
00:12:05.100 prisoners, especially in Quebec, with their curfew. How can a free people accept a curfew for so long?
00:12:11.760 There's a disconnect, though. I keep seeing stories in the news about how few doctors and nurses and
00:12:17.200 hospital workers are choosing to take the vaccine. Isn't that alarming? It would be like a chef who
00:12:21.680 refuses to eat his own cooking. That would be odd. And yet you have our political class lining up to
00:12:28.040 make it mandatory for the little people. But how would that work? How can you compel someone to take
00:12:33.200 a medicine, especially medicine that is potentially dangerous or that we simply don't know enough about
00:12:38.800 yet? How do you compel someone to do that, especially if they're not sick? Whatever happened to being
00:12:43.960 pro-choice? Keep your laws off my body. Where did those people go? It's not just the forcing of the
00:12:49.820 vaccine. It's what the vaccine surveillance apparatus will do to all of us, combine our
00:12:55.520 social credit score with our medical reports, with our right to work and travel, and the rest of the
00:13:01.440 modern panopticon, keeping track of everything about us, our bank records, etc. I'm somewhat worried
00:13:08.940 about the vaccines. I really don't feel the need to take them myself. Plus, I'm not between the ages of
00:13:15.020 55 and 64. But I'm deeply worried about a society that allows total surveillance and obedience at all
00:13:21.020 times, permission to do everything. You have to ask for permission in advance or you can't do it
00:13:26.060 anymore. Remember that summer jobs grant that you had to swear an attestation that you support Trudeau's
00:13:32.240 views on abortion, for example, before you can get a summer jobs grant? If they have a total control
00:13:37.480 over you through a vaccine app, of course they could use that for anything else they deem politically
00:13:42.280 necessary. If you're having trouble with this idea, imagine if this vaccine passport were for any
00:13:49.740 other disease. Let's pick a political disease, AIDS. People have a lot of views on AIDS. Where's your
00:13:56.440 AIDS passport? Prove you're not sick. Prove you're not at risk. And then show the whole world, tell the
00:14:01.760 whole world, any stranger, any shopkeeper, any politician, any policeman, show them that you don't
00:14:06.980 have AIDS. Show them that you're not at risk. Tell the whole world about your health or don't live
00:14:10.700 freely anymore. You know, you don't need to show ID to vote either in Canada or the United States. You
00:14:16.780 know that? But now you need not just ID, but a passport to go around your own country. And not
00:14:23.540 just a passport. Your private health information to go to your corner shop. Completely illegal without
00:14:29.260 a passport. And yet the civil liberties groups are silent. I think they love it. Here's America's
00:14:36.740 best governor. This is a story in the New York Post. I'm going to read the whole thing to you.
00:14:41.320 Governor DeSantis vows to ban vaccine passports in Florida. I like this guy. Florida Governor Ron
00:14:45.800 DeSantis on Monday vowed to take executive action to stop the use of so-called COVID-19 vaccine
00:14:51.300 passports in the state. Quote, it's completely unacceptable for either the government or the
00:14:55.240 private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be
00:15:00.160 able to participate in normal society, he said. You want the fox to guard the hen house? I mean,
00:15:04.320 give me a break. The Republican governor added, I think this is something that has huge privacy
00:15:08.900 implications. It is not necessary to do. DeSantis said the Sunshine State will have vaccinated a total
00:15:15.160 of 3.5 million seniors or about 75 percent of them sometime this week. Quote, it's important to be
00:15:20.420 able to do it, but at the same time, we are not going to have you provide proof of this just to be
00:15:25.580 able to live your life normally, DeSantis said. He added, and I'm going to be taking some action in an
00:15:30.780 executive function and emergency function here very shortly. DeSantis' comments come after it
00:15:35.960 was revealed that the Biden administration is working on creating a set of standards for more
00:15:39.860 than a dozen passports being created so Americans can prove they've been vaccinated against the
00:15:45.140 coronavirus. New York is the first state in the U.S. to formally launch such an app.
00:15:50.260 The program dubbed the Excelsior Pass is an app that allows New Yorkers to prove their vaccination
00:15:55.780 status or a recent history of a negative COVID-19 test in order to gain entry to events and businesses.
00:16:03.300 Major venues such as Madison Square Garden and the Times Union Center in Albany will begin using the
00:16:08.420 app this week, and on April 2nd, Excelsior Pass will expand to smaller arts, entertainment, and event
00:16:13.200 venues, Governor Andrew Cuomo's office has said. It's terrifying. Now, do you think it's just about
00:16:20.580 health? Here's a tweet from Asha Regappa. She's a CNN commentator, but she's a former prosecutor.
00:16:27.160 Listen to this. Don't want a vaccine passport? Fine. How about a tax for those who refuse to get
00:16:33.980 vaccinated? Proportional to the additional costs and burdens they impose on society as a result of
00:16:38.740 needing to have the freedom, in scare quotes, to spread the potentially COVID variant-infected
00:16:43.940 aerosol everywhere. You know what? I see that kind of commentary everywhere, especially
00:16:50.520 from prosecutors who are just salivating over using this as a weapon. The fact that we're
00:16:58.240 actually debating these vaccine passports is shocking, but it shouldn't be. We've been
00:17:02.520 conditioned for this. Two weeks to flatten the curve, they said, or two years, whatever.
00:17:07.300 Stand six feet apart, or not if you're an important person on an airplane. Don't go outside. Don't go to
00:17:12.980 the gym. Don't let your kids play sports, but professional athletes are exempt from that.
00:17:17.140 Don't go to church. Go to Walmart. Empty the prisons. Put a pastor in prison. Don't wear masks.
00:17:23.760 Then you must wear masks. Now you must wear two. And in Montreal, a curfew for every man and woman
00:17:30.680 to be treated like a child. Still in effect today. And here we are a year later. Of course, vaccine
00:17:36.520 passports are coming. At least in America, you have some conservative leaders pushing back.
00:17:41.140 You've got 50 states. They have a fair bit of independence from the feds. You have Republicans
00:17:45.660 in Washington fighting the idea, too. In Canada? Name me one politician who has said he's against
00:17:51.560 it and who means it. Stay with us for a moment.
00:17:58.560 Actually, I think I told you about my visits to Tommy Robinson when he was in Belmarsh Prison,
00:18:03.600 in the UK. Basically, they're Guantanamo Bay. Some of the treatment reported by Pastor James Coates
00:18:11.240 is similar to what solitary confinement in that British version of Guantanamo was like,
00:18:17.140 at least the way he tells it. It's a terrifying story. Pastor Coates gave his last interview before
00:18:21.920 he was sent to jail to Sheila Gunn-Reed of Rebel News. And he gave his first interview out of jail
00:18:27.920 to Sheila Gunn-Reed. So let me show you this. About 20 minutes. It's worth watching. Here's Sheila
00:18:34.180 talking to Pastor James Coates. Pastor James, first, how are you doing? Emotionally, spiritually? How are
00:18:41.680 you doing? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. I am trying to figure out how I'm doing. I don't know
00:18:47.600 that I've quite gotten my feet on the ground as yet. I think I'm still adjusting to just everything
00:18:54.240 that's happened since my imprisonment and don't really have a clear handle on just what kind of
00:19:01.540 world I'm stepping into at this point in time. I'm obviously out of the rhythm of my routine,
00:19:08.220 and a big part of that routine is preaching. And so I look forward to that. It's been a blessing to be
00:19:14.280 here and to reconnect with our people and express my love for them and to have them express their love
00:19:21.640 for me. But I'm adjusting and I can't quite put my finger on what the adjustment is or why. I'm
00:19:29.840 feeling it's an adjustment, but it's an adjustment. And I'm thankful to be out and I'm thankful to be
00:19:35.780 here. And I'm looking forward to just putting one foot in front of the next and taking it one day at a
00:19:40.960 time. Now, I don't want you to rehash or relive anything, but what was a day like for you behind
00:19:50.180 bars? Did you have a cellmate? How often were you able to talk to Aaron? Without, you know,
00:19:57.440 the gruesome, gory details, what was a day like? In quarantine, it was a challenge because I would
00:20:03.920 get out twice for 15 minutes a day. I can remember one day, I think I told my wife that I had been in
00:20:10.940 my cell for 23 hours between exercises. And when you get out, you got 15 minutes and that's not a
00:20:20.020 long time. So that was a little bit of a challenge, but I was able to get through it and get into a bit
00:20:28.000 of a groove. And initially, you're just trying to learn the culture that you're in. And there's a
00:20:32.840 way that things happen and you're just trying to learn it. So you're up to speed and that takes
00:20:37.860 some time. And so I could kind of be distracted a little bit just by that entire process. Once I
00:20:42.460 got out of quarantine, I did have a cellmate and, you know, he was a good cellmate. We got along well
00:20:51.320 and had lots of good discussions and conversations. And he's called me since I've been out already twice
00:20:58.260 now. And so, you know, the morning begins around seven o'clock with breakfast. You go down to get
00:21:05.060 breakfast, you have your breakfast, and then you return your trays. And then you're in your cell for
00:21:10.700 a couple of hours, usually at least until nine, you might get out for an hour, typically got out for an
00:21:16.380 hour ahead of lunchtime. And lunch was 11. And then you would get out once for an hour between lunch and
00:21:23.620 supper. And then you would get out for another hour, typically between supper and bedtime. And for
00:21:31.780 that hour, I would spend a lot of time on the phone for sure. I would call my wife a lot. That
00:21:38.220 was obviously a highlight for me in the day. I loved those conversations. I'd have chaplains visit
00:21:44.540 me from time to time. I could play a little bit of basketball on the court outside, which is basically
00:21:52.560 just a cement cube with no roof. And, and just interact with the guys. It was, they were pretty good to me.
00:22:01.660 They treated me well. Have a neat story about the final moment leaving that I can share with you if you'd like
00:22:08.120 to know. But that gives you a little bit of a taste of a normal day.
00:22:12.920 What was the worst part or the hardest thing to adjust to?
00:22:16.600 That's a great question. I think adjusting to the diet was a bit challenging. It's not,
00:22:25.740 it's not a comfortable place to be, obviously. Like I slept pretty, pretty well. But in terms of
00:22:30.760 where you spend your time in your cell during the hours you're awake and not lying down, it's not
00:22:36.640 really a comfortable place to just sit. And, and so it's difficult to be there and, and, and try and be
00:22:45.480 productive, not feel like you can be productive, not be productive. And so that's a bit of a difficulty
00:22:53.100 for sure. One of the, the blessings was receiving lots of mail and mail would come and I could read
00:22:58.680 that and that would feel productive and it would encourage me and strengthen me. But I think just
00:23:05.540 the lack of productivity and, and, and, and the diet being what it was and trying to make up,
00:23:13.280 it took me a little while to figure out how to use the canteen effectively for me to be able to get
00:23:19.620 the calories I need without, without eating food that's not doing me well. So the diet, the, the time
00:23:28.000 in the cell being uncomfortable from a seated perspective. And, and there were moments when
00:23:35.880 the tension in the prison, you could feel it, something would be going on and you'd feel just a bit
00:23:40.760 of a tension among the, um, the, the inmates and that didn't last a long time or wasn't sort of
00:23:48.320 consistent, but some of those moments were a little bit awkward. You'd feel the tension in the room and,
00:23:54.100 and, um, I tried not to share that with my wife so as not to make her worry, but, uh, but for the most
00:24:01.020 part and actually in large part, almost entirely, actually the, the inmates were great to me and I
00:24:07.180 really appreciate them. Did you get a chance to minister to anyone on the inside? Because I think
00:24:12.880 your incarceration was part of your ministry on the outside. Your church just blossomed even though
00:24:19.800 you weren't here. Um, or at least that was my viewpoint spending every Sunday here while you
00:24:25.440 were gone. Um, but did you get a chance to minister to somebody on the inside? Yeah. I mean, so once I got
00:24:31.160 into GP, which is general public, I would have guys often come to my door and want to speak with me
00:24:37.720 and would share difficulties in their life with me and I would share the gospel with them. I mean,
00:24:44.420 we'd be talking through a door to each other. Um, but I would share the gospel with them. So that
00:24:49.940 happened often where guys would just come to me. There was a gentleman next door to me and he wanted
00:24:55.540 me to do a Bible study. So I went down to the floor. I was on tier three. And so we went to the floor
00:25:00.600 where there's tables and sat down, he and I, within about 60 seconds, three or four of the guys sat
00:25:05.820 down with us and, and, and there we are in the gospel of John having a Bible study. And, um, yeah,
00:25:12.840 I had lots of opportunities to share the gospel. I didn't get a lot of opportunities with the guards
00:25:17.500 because you're, you're at a bit of a distance away from the guards, but, but in terms of being able to
00:25:23.500 speak to the guys in, in the remand, uh, lots of opportunities. And just to kind of show
00:25:29.980 um, the affection that we had for each other in the moment that I was leaving, I turned around,
00:25:37.660 uh, I was at the exit entrance to the whole pod. I turned around and I lifted up my hand to wave
00:25:43.600 and, uh, and the doors of the, the, the pod began to shake as the men in their, in their cells just
00:25:51.800 banged on their doors as a sign of, um, support, uh, love affection. And I was with the chaplain
00:25:59.620 actually when that happened and he's emailed me since then and just shared with me that he'll
00:26:04.040 never forget that moment. And it was precious to me as well. And so, um, that just gives you a
00:26:10.600 little bit of a picture of the way that they thought toward me and treated me.
00:26:16.680 Were you aware of just how big your story was while you were inside? I mean, Aaron was on
00:26:22.400 Tucker Carlson. Were you aware of just the international interest in your story?
00:26:28.080 I was, but, but trying to get your mind around that on the inside is difficult. So I, I certainly
00:26:35.660 was aware, but even to this point now, I don't think I totally appreciate it. I don't think I'm,
00:26:43.100 um, I'm grasping the significance and just how, how big this has gotten. And, uh, and so that's part
00:26:52.300 of the adjustment, I think, is trying to figure out what am I stepping back into here? What, what's
00:26:56.620 this, what's life going to look like now that this has happened? Will life ever be the same?
00:27:01.480 Um, and so I'm just kind of taking it one day at a time on that.
00:27:06.120 Now the police were here today. They wanted to come into the church.
00:27:13.180 My question, I guess, is given that you've already been to jail for seven weeks and the police were here
00:27:19.580 today. Would you do all of this all over again? Well, the answer is absolutely. Um, I couldn't do
00:27:28.580 any different than I did. I was put in a position that demanded a certain response for me to be
00:27:36.400 obedient to Christ. And, um, yeah, absolutely. I would do the exact same thing again in a heartbeat.
00:27:43.340 I couldn't do any differently than I did. I've, I've honored my word and my integrity and my
00:27:49.920 conscience. And more importantly, my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, the entire time.
00:27:54.580 Now I've heard some of the critics of Grace Life and probably yourself too, say that this is,
00:28:01.920 you know, sort of a stunt for fame or glory or money. How would you address that criticism?
00:28:08.180 So I understand that. I think, I think in our world, we are so used to people doing things for
00:28:20.400 vain glory. We are not used to seeing men, women of conviction that will take a principled stand
00:28:28.160 based on real conviction, tethered to reality as it is, because Jesus Christ is the King of Kings
00:28:35.820 and Lord of Lords. And, uh, and so I, I get it. They don't know me. And so looking from afar,
00:28:44.060 I can totally get it. I can totally understand it being suspicious, just being, just thinking
00:28:51.440 something, uh, that this is suspect on my end. I get that, but, and I don't even know if I really
00:28:56.420 care, to be honest with you. Um, this is not about what other people think. This is about the Lord
00:29:02.560 Jesus Christ. And so I am here to please Him, honor Him, glorify Him. Where the chips fall thereafter
00:29:09.780 is out of my hands. And, uh, and so I get it. I understand it, but they just don't know me and,
00:29:17.760 um, don't know my heart and, and just can't understand what I'm doing because they've never
00:29:23.680 seen anything like this before.
00:29:25.140 Now, I know every week that I've been here, your congregation prays for the people who have
00:29:32.600 participated in your incarceration. They pray for the RCMP officers. They pray for Alberta Health
00:29:37.800 Services. Do you have a message for the people who are involved in your incarceration?
00:29:44.080 You know, I, I'm wrestling with what that message is at this point in time. Um, to have the RCMP
00:29:55.420 here today and wanting to come into the facility was, uh, was difficult for me. Um, it is disruptive.
00:30:06.060 It affects my ability to carry out my responsibility to the Lord. You know, in some ways, being in jail
00:30:18.520 wasn't much of a difference because I haven't been free for months. With AHS and the RCMP breathing
00:30:26.980 down my neck for, for months, going into jail was actually reprieved from that. And so
00:30:35.680 um, I'm thankful to be out of jail, but to be here today and to see them still wanting to enforce
00:30:44.280 when this is in the court system, there's clearly a dispute. The dispute needs to play out.
00:30:52.140 Let's let the dispute play out. Um, so I don't know what my message is. Obviously, I would want them
00:30:59.740 to come to know Christ. I would want them to turn from their sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
00:31:04.320 be saved. I, I have a heart that is full of forgiveness to anyone who's wronged me. And so I,
00:31:10.920 I harbor no unforgiveness toward anyone. And so I guess that would be it at the end of the day is I
00:31:18.740 would just love for them to be reconciled to God through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:31:24.600 Now pastor, you've been very generous with your time. And I know this is your first interview since
00:31:28.360 you got out of jail. I want to ask you what your message would be to other pastors like yourself,
00:31:35.220 their churches aren't open or they're complying with the Alberta health services code. And for that,
00:31:42.400 they're turning away members of their congregation. Do you have a message for them?
00:31:45.380 Well, that's difficult too, because, um, just because a building has the title church on it
00:31:53.240 doesn't mean it's a true church. And to the extent that churches that aren't churches are closed,
00:32:00.560 um, I can take some joy in that. I don't want false churches to be open.
00:32:06.940 And so it's difficult. I mean, I would need to speak with each individual pastor, understand their
00:32:11.240 context, their situation, what they're going through in particular. It's the men that I'm in
00:32:17.120 fellowship with, the men that I know are preachers of the gospel who are approaching the pandemic
00:32:21.900 differently. I don't know that I have a message for them, but I would love to interact with them
00:32:25.860 and see if I can't help them to see things a little bit differently in terms of what we're going
00:32:30.200 through and where we're at and what, what the, the, the right response ought to be. But I recognize
00:32:35.560 that we're going to see things differently at times and that's okay. And, uh, it's not a matter
00:32:39.760 to, to, to break fellowship over with those men. I love them and, um, and, and support them.
00:32:46.600 So it's difficult. I don't think there's a one size fits all message in this situation.
00:32:51.280 Um, and so hopefully that gives some sense of what my mind and heart would be toward that.
00:32:58.400 Lastly, do you have a message for people around the world who supported you, supported Grace Life,
00:33:05.560 supported your family during this time?
00:33:07.500 Um, just immensely grateful, received so many letters, um, emails, the support that's poured
00:33:14.860 in is just, uh, overwhelming. And so I'm just, I'm thankful for the prayers, the well wishes,
00:33:21.160 everything that has come to us in this time. Um, I want to be, uh, faithful to the Lord and to the
00:33:28.160 extent that that blesses others. I take a immense joy in that. I really live for, for two reasons,
00:33:34.920 one to see people saved and two, to see them sanctified. And so to hear that the Lord has
00:33:40.620 been using what's happening in my life to strengthen them and cause their spiritual growth
00:33:45.160 and development is just, um, makes everything worth it in terms of the sacrifice. It's been to me
00:33:51.280 personally and my wife and our church. And so, uh, I just, uh, a huge hearty thank you, express my love
00:33:58.700 and gratitude to you and, and, and pray for me that I'll continue to be faithful and, and give you an
00:34:05.180 example worthy of imitation. Thank you, Pastor Coates. Thank you. Well, great work by Sheila.
00:34:11.200 She's really earned the trust of a lot of people who, you know, I should tell you that no other media
00:34:15.820 were allowed on the property because they didn't come to report. They came to stab and defame and
00:34:21.440 besmirch. Sheila earned the trust as she has with so many small businesses around Alberta. And we're doing
00:34:26.980 more and more fight the fines work, as you know, to learn about the cases we're defending, go to
00:34:31.620 fightthefines.com. That's our show for, for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at
00:34:37.380 Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, goodbye. Keep fighting for freedom.