We’ve filed a constitutional challenge to Saskatchewan’s lockdown laws
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Summary
We've filed a constitutional challenge to Saskatchewan's lockdown laws, and we're on the hunt for the person responsible for the ban on political gatherings in the province. We're taking the government of Saskatchewan to court, challenging the constitutionality of their ban on all political gatherings.
Transcript
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Well, another day, another lawsuit, but this time we're on the hunt.
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We are taking the government of Saskatchewan to court.
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We're challenging the constitutionality of their ban on political gatherings.
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Wish us luck. I'll tell you where you can read the entire lawsuit, and I'll quote a bit to you.
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Before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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That's what we call the video version of this podcast.
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Plus, you get shows every week from Sheila Gunn-Reed, David Menzies, and now Andrew Chapados.
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So that's a lot of content for just $8 a month.
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Seriously, $2 a week. I think maybe we're undercharging.
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Anyways, just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe,
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and you'll get the video side of things, and it helps us keep the lights on, you know.
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Tonight, we've filed a constitutional challenge to Saskatchewan's lockdown laws.
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I'll tell you about our project to open Saskatchewan.
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It's January 27th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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There are 76 hospitals in the province of Saskatchewan, and according to the latest statistics,
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there are a grand total of 33 people in the entire province,
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33 people who are in intensive care from the coronavirus.
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So one person for every two hospitals in a province physically larger than France.
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but I'm pointing out that it is not a crisis by any normal measure.
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Like the rest of Canada, it's overwhelmingly a problem for the very old and very sick.
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My point is, is that it is a disease that is focused on people in their 80s and 90s
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So why are young, healthy people being locked up?
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But it's the same story across Canada and indeed across much of the Western world.
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Now, as you know, we have helped lots of individual citizens
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who have received outrageous tickets and fines from the lockdown.
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In the name of the pandemic, they've been given these abusive treatments.
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Like in the Saskatchewan city of Prince Albert,
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where the local mayor has had a long-running vendetta
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And so he used the pandemic as an excuse to give the church
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He hates that church and he's using the pandemic as an excuse to smash it.
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How did you find out that you were levied some fines?
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He received a $2,800 fine plus a victim surcharge.
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And your ministry received what I think so far is the largest fine issued in the country
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for the coronavirus and breaking the regulations of a municipality
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So, yeah, I was just contacted by Peter Ross from the health authority.
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I wouldn't, even if he said, I've got something for you.
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I think he did say that anyways, but he didn't tell me he was going to give me a fine.
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But, yeah, two weeks ago he contacted me and so I met him at my place of quarantining
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and out at the farm and he basically gave me the ticket.
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In a way, how the mayor is using the pandemic to go after his rivals,
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It is a real problem, but by declaring a total emergency in the country
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authorities now have powers to do a lot of things
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that are completely unrelated to the actual problem.
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And they're simply using these emergency powers to do all sorts of things
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that would never be acceptable in normal times in a free society.
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And now we're coming up on a full year of this,
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so much for two weeks to flatten the curve, eh?
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So we've helped individual people in Saskatchewan and all around Canada
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We crowdfund lawyers to defend them, but that's reactive.
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The government will just find more people and just bring in more lockdown rules.
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I want to tell you about something we're doing to change that.
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See, we booked a town hall meeting in Regina, Saskatchewan for last May, May of 2020.
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It was our friend Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace.
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He had been invited by the city of Regina to give a speech at a conference for the city.
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And then censors, deplatformers, cancel culture types, they jumped in and bullied the city into banning him.
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So I called up Dr. Moore and I said, don't cancel your trip to Regina.
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I'll rent a big hall in town and we'll hold your speech anyways, that same night as planned.
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And we'll keep the ticket prices really low and we'll make it a great night, get as many people out as possible.
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And well over a thousand people signed up, far more than the original conference.
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Well, of course, the pandemic came in in March and no one knew just how bad it was going to be in those early days.
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So when the giant auditorium we had booked called the Connectus Arts Center told us we had to postpone the event, we obviously agreed.
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And most of our ticket buyers, our would-be audience, agreed too.
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Well, within a few months, we pretty much knew.
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You're going to be fine, statistically speaking, if you're a healthy person under 70.
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If it makes you feel better, wear a mask or use hand sanitizer or whatever.
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But we're going to be okay as a community, as a country.
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If you're very old and very sick, take special precautions.
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But we're going to get through this thing as a country.
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So we asked the theater to reschedule the event for later in 2020, and they did.
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But the province hadn't changed their rules banning indoor gatherings.
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They only allowed a tiny number of people, and not for the purposes we had in mind, even though the Connectus Arts Center's main auditorium could hold over 2,200 people, they wouldn't let us have anyone in there.
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So we rescheduled it again, and each time some ticket buyers asked for refunds, which is fair, and we gave it to them.
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But as our audience got smaller, well, guess what?
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We could actually socially distance inside that giant theater.
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So individual families could sit far apart from each other in that main theater, certainly farther apart than they would in a Walmart or a Costco or on an airplane.
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But the province just refused to update its original ban on indoor events like theaters.
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Even though this wasn't like a rock concert or something like that.
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It was a political town hall meeting, one that had already been banned by the city.
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And I'm not saying that music concerts and other things like that aren't important, too.
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But legally speaking, constitutionally speaking, as part of our democracy, political meetings, the freedom to assemble and speak and to listen to Professor Moore, those are given a very high level of protection.
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Those are actually called fundamental freedoms.
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You can look them up in Section 2 of our Charter of Rights.
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I think everyone has the right to meet and assemble for whatever reason.
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But political speech about the problems of public life after a professor, Dr. Moore, had been censored and banned.
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Well, that's the most protected speech in our Constitution.
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So we wrote a polite letter to the health minister and to the justice minister of Saskatchewan.
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And we said, look, we understand the need for public health, but we can do this.
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Let me quote, given the large size of the main Conexus theater, it is possible to hold the event with all current ticket holders attending while maintaining social distancing between family bubbles.
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Most ticket holders are couples or groups of four.
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And based on our client's experience, it would be possible for every cluster of people to sit six feet away from the next cluster.
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Certainly, seating would allow greater separation than is currently permitted on airplanes within the province of Saskatchewan where masks are required, but there is no social distancing.
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Beyond this, Rebel plans to take other precautions, including providing multiple hand sanitizer stations in the lobby, providing a free mask to every attendee, screening all guests with a portable infrared thermometer, adjusting the reception and dinner events accordingly.
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Rebel News is also prepared to take any other reasonable precaution that the government of Saskatchewan may require to allow this event to proceed.
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You can see that letter in full on our website, opensaskatchewan.com.
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And we pointed out that it's frankly illegal for a government to just ban political gatherings.
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There is no pandemic exception in the Charter of Rights.
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And let me read a little bit more from the letter.
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Dr. Moore's speech is an important public policy event.
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His ability to speak freely and the opportunity for attendees to assemble and associate it as a constitutionally protected right.
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The event came into being to counteract what Rebel News identified as a troubling act of censorship and deplatforming.
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It has been delayed once to accommodate public health concerns, but with the pandemic being under control in Regina, with not one active case being confirmed,
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whatever justification may have existed to prohibit events similar to this can no longer reasonably be said to exist.
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With flights and movies being approved activities in the province, there simply isn't any reasonable justification for a continuing ban on this event.
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Despite this, the government has to date refused to relax its lockdown restrictions.
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Now, there are a handful of cases in the province again, but back then, the government had none, and they still wrote back and said,
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no, no compromise, no timeline for opening up, no recognition that we know more about the virus now than a year ago,
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and basically protect the long-term care centers, protect the seniors' homes,
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but young people just are less likely to get this disease and are less likely to be affected by it.
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No one under 20 in Saskatchewan has died from this disease.
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For example, there's different degrees of risk.
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There's no understanding that there must be a balance between the public health goals
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and other societal goals, including our fundamental freedoms.
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So we decided to challenge this ban on gatherings with a constitutional challenge.
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We have the right to organize, the right to assemble and associate.
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We signed a contract with the Conexus Arts Center.
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He has agreed to join the lawsuit, too, as a plaintiff.
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And our paying customers have the right to hear.
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One of our ticket-buying guests, Leo Gamow, has agreed to be a plaintiff, too.
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And last week, we filed the lawsuit in Saskatchewan.
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You can see that on the website opensaskatchewan.com, too.
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We've also filed affidavits from me, from Dr. Moore, and from Leo,
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I'd encourage you to go to opensaskatchewan.com to read them in full.
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There's some legalese in them, but it's not that bad.
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I mean, it's a serious lawsuit filed by serious lawyers who know their constitutional law.
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But I believe that the documents are accessible to anyone who just thinks about freedom.
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The respondent is Her Majesty the Queen in right of Saskatchewan,
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as represented by the Attorney General of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Minister of Health.
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The applicants seek judicial review and challenge the constitutional validity of the public health orders
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issued by Dr. Saqib Sahab, most recently dated December 14, 2020,
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or any subsequent or substantially similar order, the PHO.
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which is the most recent of a number of orders previously issued under the Public Health Act.
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The public health order is ultra-virus, the PHA,
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so it's outside the powers of the government under the Public Health Act,
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and an unjustifiable violation of the fundamental freedoms of expression,
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assembly, and association, as well as freedom of the press.
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an order or declaration pursuant to Section 52 of the Charter
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that the public health orders is unconstitutional for infringing on Sections 2B, 2C, and 2D of the Charter,
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is not justified under Section 1 of the Charter,
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So you've got to go a little slowly as you read this, but I think it's clear, isn't it?
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Further, or in the alternative, such remedy or remedies pursuant to Section 24 of the Charter
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that this Honorable Court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances,
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including damages suffered by the applicant due to the postponement or cancellation of the CAC event.
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C, a declaration that the public health order is unconstitutional for being inconsistent with
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and contrary to Section 1E of the Bill of Rights,
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D, an order or declaration that the public health order is invalid, unlawful,
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and ultra-virus to the Public Health Act, and therefore of no force or effect.
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So we're both referencing Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights.
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The applicants assert that the public health order is improper and ultra-virus the authority granted to the Ministry of Health
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pursuant to the Public Health Act, as the Ministry of Health does not or cannot believe on reasonable grounds
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in the prerequisites for issuing health orders prescribed in Section 45 of the Public Health Act.
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Specifically, A, a serious public health threat does not exist in Saskatchewan,
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and B, the restrictions set out in the Public Health Act are overly restrictive
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and are not necessary to eliminate the risk to health presented by COVID-19 in Saskatchewan.
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I know I'm getting in the weeds a bit, and there's some jargon here,
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but I want to read the next couple of paragraphs to you, okay?
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You can read the whole thing at opensaskatchewan.com,
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because what I'm about to read is how judges balance fundamental freedoms in Canada
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with other goals that are also important, like public health.
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This isn't the first time a law has been challenged under the Constitution, under the Charter of Rights.
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It's been on the books for almost 40 years, and over the years, courts have developed a test.
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It's called the Oaks Test, named after a famous case,
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and it guides governments and courts about how to carefully balance,
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especially when they're violating our freedoms.
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I mean, no one would deny our freedoms are being violated.
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In addition, the public health order unjustifiably infringes upon fundamental freedoms
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protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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Specifically, A, the public health order unjustifiably and unreasonably has the effect
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or incidental purpose of restricting expressive activity,
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causing a chilling effect on expression and activism,
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and impairs the ability of the applicants in seeking or attaining the truth,
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participating in social and political decision-making,
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and achieving self-fulfillment, contrary to Section 2B of the Charter for Freedom of Expression.
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B, public health order unjustifiably and unreasonably prevents the media from producing and publishing news,
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and creates unconstitutional obstacles to media activities,
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contrary to Section 2B of the Charter for Freedom of the Press.
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C, public health order unjustifiably and unreasonably impairs the right to gather and engage in public life,
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contrary to Section 2C of the Charter for Freedom of Assembly.
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And D, the public health order unjustifiably and unreasonably impairs the right to join together for common goals,
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contrary to Section 2D of the Charter for Freedom of Association.
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The public health order is not rationally connected to the legislative purpose,
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does not minimally impair fundamental rights, fundamental freedoms protected by the Charter,
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and is not a proportionate response to the public health situation in Saskatchewan.
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Therefore, the public health order is not reasonable or justifiable,
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Finally, the public health order also unjustifiably infringes upon the freedoms of assembly and association,
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as protected by Section 1E of the Canadian Bill of Rights.
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and those terms like unjustifiable, unreasonable, not rationally connected, not proportionate,
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That's how the government has to be when infringing on a freedom.
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They actually do have the power to infringe on your freedom if it's minimal, the least possible,
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if it's rationally connected to their legislative purpose.
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They have all these checks and balances on them.
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that even a huge auditorium like the Conexus Arts Center
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can't have more than a handful of people in it for a political gathering.
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You have to justify every single infringement and prove it's proportionate
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and prove it's rationally connected to your goal
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We know a lot more about the virus now than we did a year ago.
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It's simply unacceptable to have a permanent ban on political gatherings and speeches
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The laws in Saskatchewan do not allow political gatherings at all right now.
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So we made the decision that we have to do more than just fight individual tickets and fines.
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And if the politicians ignore us as they've been ignoring us, well, we have to go to court.
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And they're excellent on constitutional matters.
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Go to opensaskatchewan.com yourself and read the lawsuit and the affidavits.
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I don't want to tell you exactly how much we've spent on this lawsuit so far,
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but it's safe to say it'll cost us between $100,000 and $150,000 for sure.
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Our Patrick Moore speaking event wasn't about making money either.
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It was about stopping the censorship of an intellectual and a scholar and an author
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Well, we beat that cancel culture mob by having our event.
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But now we don't seem to be able to beat the public health lockdown.
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Not just for ourselves and our event, but for all Saskatchewan people.
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It's just that we have standing there because we are personally affected.
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If you are from Saskatchewan or if you're from anywhere else that wants to see these
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limits on our freedoms lifted, please read the lawsuit at opensaskatchewan.com.
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And if you can, please consider contributing to our crowdfunding campaign to pay for our
00:22:20.300
I know I ask for help for our lawyers a lot, but there is so much to do.
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And I think we have to do it in the courts because we see no courage amongst politicians.
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We defend individual Saskatchewanians right now.
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We do that, but it's time to free everyone in the province, not just a handful of people.
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And hopefully, if we are successful, it will inspire people across Canada to take their
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Well, I acknowledge and I always have that COVID-19 poses a health threat, but it is not, thank
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God, on the order of the Black Plague or Ebola.
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In fact, we must learn to balance public health concerns with other concerns, economic concerns,
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the concerns that the lockdown or the medicine, so to speak, the public health medicine might
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be worse than the disease, the unintended consequences of shutting down the economy and
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And one of the things that concerns me the most is the flattening, not of the curve, but
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We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of that.
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And it's now illegal in many parts of Canada to gather in any numbers, in some places, even
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And political gatherings, political protests in particular, have been shut down.
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Well, as you know, Rebel News has filed a constitutional challenge to some of the lockdown rules in the
00:24:14.180
We have standing there because for about a year now, we've been trying to have a political
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gathering, an event where people in Saskatchewan can hear the other side of the story.
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You might recall that our friend Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, was invited
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to speak at a conference convened by the city of Regina.
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Well, some people didn't want to hear what he had to say, so they launched a campaign to
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And to their eternal discredit, the city caved in, banning him, ripping up the contract that
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I called Dr. Moore, an old friend of mine, and I said, no, no, no, save the date.
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We'll book a facility, and we'll invite everyone who wanted to hear what you had to say to do
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so, and we'll have a question and answer session at the end.
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We booked the largest venue we could find, the Conexus Arts Center, which holds more than
00:25:18.340
I think it maxed out at close to 1,700, but then the pandemic hits, and we were told that
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everything had to be shut down, two weeks to flatten the curve.
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Well, that two weeks has turned into almost a year.
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We've rescheduled and then rescheduled again, and we've written to the Ministry of Health
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and the Ministry of Justice and said there must be some way to balance health with other
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Can we have temperature checks of everyone in the room?
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Can we space things out in the auditorium so no one is within six feet of the others?
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Time and again, we were told by the government, no, and they have no plans to lift the bans either.
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So we have filed a constitutional challenge based on our charter rights, our rights to
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hear Dr. Moore, his rights to speak, the rights of people to gather, and to hear a political
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message, especially a message that was deliberately censored by the government in the first place.
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You can see that lawsuit in full at our website, opensaskatchewan.com.
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And joining me now via Skype from his home in British Columbia is Dr. Patrick Moore, who is
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You know, I was so excited about the speech we had organized for you.
00:26:49.580
We had over 1,600 tickets sold, and it was so symbolic that you were censored by the government,
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and when we set up an alternative venue, so many people said, we want to hear from the
00:27:03.700
And I was very proud to be affiliated with you and to fight for free speech.
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I understand why everything was shut down because of the pandemic.
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But the government shows no sign of balance between health and other interests like freedom
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My view on the subject, Ezra, is they should be willing to let me speak there if people
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want to come and all the precautions are taken.
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The Australian Open is going ahead this year in Melbourne, where they allow pods of up to
00:27:37.060
six people who are, you know, a unit that is exposed to each other regularly anyways, and
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where they then social distance everybody in pods of one to six.
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And why can't we do that in Regina, inside a huge auditorium?
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So I believe that we should win this case and that I should be allowed to speak, especially
00:28:03.080
now that I've made a book out of the talk I was going to give, the book title Fake Invisible
00:28:14.420
And I would be very interested in hearing my story about how nearly all the scare stories
00:28:20.480
today are about things that are either invisible, like carbon dioxide, which is blamed for about
00:28:27.480
And then there's coral reefs and polar bears, which are so remote that nobody in the average
00:28:32.440
population can go and count the polar bears or see the coral reefs for themselves because
00:28:39.000
So I want to give that talk to people and show them how all of these scare stories are
00:28:45.560
fake and invisible and the threat of doom is in the future.
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So many of these scare stories are about the future, which hasn't happened yet.
00:28:57.320
And yet they are talked about as if the scientists know for sure what's going to happen in the year
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So I really do believe that the 1,700 people who signed up to hear me speak would like to
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have that information and they deserve to have it.
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And we can do this in a way that complies with all of the restrictions.
00:29:21.160
And that's a very good point to point out sports events.
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I mean, across Canada, kids hockey leagues are shut down.
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Even outdoor rinks, we had that infamous case in Calgary where a young hockey player on
00:29:34.120
an outdoor rink was threatened with tasering by the police.
00:29:43.120
I just see in the newspapers today, there are two dozen film shoots going on in Toronto around
00:29:51.220
Obviously, if you've ever seen a movie production, there are 50, 100 people on set.
00:29:56.160
So those things are open for recreation and celebrity entertainment.
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But when people want to gather to learn for political reasons, to hear your presentation,
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there is no flexibility, not even the same rule.
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All I would say is give us the same rules as the NHL gets.
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And I think that there's something special about political speech.
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I think that, by the way, you should allow concerts and performances, again, follow some
00:30:28.220
Like, if people don't want to come, that's fine.
00:30:30.300
But the fact that there's no flexibility at all for political speech, but these other
00:30:36.020
recreational or entertainment things are allowed to go if they have the right lobbyists, I find
00:30:45.220
I mean, why can't we meet to gather to hear political ideas?
00:30:50.980
And why can sports events, the professionals, meet and gather to make millions?
00:30:56.980
I just don't see the rule of law there, Dr. Moore.
00:31:04.540
And that's because politicians these days are pretty darn arbitrary about the decisions that
00:31:10.560
We simply do not have a good system of governance in this country at many levels.
00:31:17.780
And I don't know what is going to happen in the future.
00:31:20.320
I hope people wake up and realize that we're a democracy.
00:31:24.760
You know, being from British Columbia, of course, I've grown up.
00:31:30.240
I've grown up with Western alienation, knowing that what British Columbia thinks doesn't matter
00:31:35.820
a hoot if as long as Ottawa and, you know, as long as Toronto and Montreal and Ontario
00:31:41.300
and Quebec agree on something, the rest of us are chopped liver.
00:31:45.160
So I'm very cynical about politics to begin with.
00:31:48.780
They say out here that Canada is a road from Ottawa to Montreal and back again.
00:31:55.580
So I just think that they're making a decision about whether I can speak or not on political
00:32:04.380
So surely I should be allowed to have my political grounds.
00:32:07.640
And the political ground I want is in that auditorium in Regina where I can talk to people
00:32:22.920
And I'm glad I haven't got it yet because I've been very careful and I live in a place
00:32:30.760
But just the same, we should be able to continue with life as normal to a certain extent.
00:32:37.660
And there must be a happy medium somewhere here.
00:32:41.460
Well, our Constitution, as it's been interpreted in the courts over the years, says that if the
00:32:48.060
government is to infringe our fundamental freedoms, they have to prove, the burden is on them to
00:32:54.700
prove that it's reasonable, that their infringements are rationally connected to their goal, that
00:33:03.440
The government simply can't take away your freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom
00:33:15.580
I'm so proud that you've agreed to be part of the litigation as a plaintiff, and you've sworn an affidavit in
00:33:21.920
I would like to invite all our viewers to go to opensaskatchewan.com.
00:33:28.980
And you can also read our letters to the Department of Health and the Department of Justice asking,
00:33:36.220
suggesting reasonable accommodations to allow these events to proceed.
00:33:42.660
Dr. Moore, we're going to fight all the way because we believe in freedom over here, and
00:33:49.600
And when that trial happens, I hope many Canadians are watching.
00:33:57.680
Well, I'm on your side, and I'm so tantalized by what your speech will be like when we finally
00:34:03.680
return to Regina and give that speech in front of 1,600, 1,700 people.
00:34:14.840
Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, the author of a new book.
00:34:20.500
It's called Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom.
00:34:24.940
You can learn more about our lawsuit at opensaskatchewan.com.
00:34:56.920
I was intense with you, and then I started to laugh.
00:35:09.000
Like, I knew I was a little bit cheeky when I said, why are you so mean and will you apologize?
00:35:15.000
It's a little bit cheeky, but I sort of meant it.
00:35:20.640
And I was really, I don't know if outraged is the word, but the fact that they called me up
00:35:25.300
and didn't, obviously hadn't even talked to the cop, and it's so clear that just showing a torso
00:35:31.400
doesn't breach anyone's privacy, and that it was a promotional picture that they took.
00:35:38.100
I thought, I don't know if they're that stupid.
00:35:42.740
I think they're actually smart, playing dumb, just to get us.
00:35:47.820
Wendy writes, I do not like all Ezra's conjecture that Doug Ford directed this.
00:35:52.360
Like Rebel News is the biggest thing on his mind, there are many other possibilities.
00:35:56.260
The fact is, we really don't know, and asking someone to blur a name tag sounds like a reasonable
00:36:01.100
The two lawyers were doing what lawyers do, representing their client.
00:36:03.740
There's no need to be so rude and aggressive over the phone, or to trash them in the monologue.
00:36:08.340
Ezra, I'm disappointed that you put this show on the air.
00:36:11.380
All right, well, I really appreciate you giving me your most clear criticism.
00:36:16.480
My first point would be that the name tag is blurred.
00:36:22.280
If you go to fightthefinance.com and zoom in, you cannot see the name.
00:36:32.840
I guess my second point is, it's blurred on the source photograph is from them.
00:36:38.580
And my third point is, they put the picture up as it is with the guy's face.
00:36:45.200
But I want to tell you that it is the law in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, that a policeman
00:36:50.360
has to tell you their name and their badge number.
00:36:58.040
If you say I was rude on the phone, I'm going to take a little bit of an objection there.
00:37:03.180
I was maybe a little cheeky, but I didn't raise my voice at them.
00:37:18.580
But they're the ones who threaten me with four lawsuits.
00:37:22.840
So I don't think I'm going to accept the charge that I'd be mean.
00:37:29.020
But I feel great that you asked me those tough questions.
00:37:39.960
We live in, as Dickens would say, the best of times and the worst of times.
00:37:45.820
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home.