Juno News - Ezra Levant on Montreal police raid on Rebel News staff

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:04.200 i want you to just take a look at some of this footage from montreal over the weekend

00:00:11.840 now if i didn't tell you that was montreal or you didn't recognize any of the players or people

00:00:29.900 involved you'd think that this was some sort of raid taking place in a foreign land a place that

00:00:35.400 doesn't have a constitutional protection of freedom or freedom of the press specifically

00:00:39.620 but that was in montreal that was in the dominion of canada over the weekend and a raid on a boat

00:00:45.360 occupied by members of our friends over at rebel news for the purported offense of engaging in

00:00:52.140 journalism under lockdown rebel commander ezra levant joins me on the line now ezra good to

00:00:57.800 talk to you thanks for coming on today well thank you and i actually think you're the first canadian

00:01:02.660 journalist to interview me about this i've done the circuit in the united states major outlets

00:01:08.840 are shocked by this but i think most canadian media party journalists are either not allowed to say

00:01:16.440 anything don't want to say anything or frankly agree with the police raid on our journalists

00:01:22.300 i find that troubling you raise an interesting point there and actually maybe we'll start with

00:01:27.400 the bigger picture because you and i have been in london england for the global conference for

00:01:32.260 media freedom when canada stands up as a leader and a beacon of press freedom and talks about how

00:01:37.520 countries like the congo and venezuela need to do better without looking in its own not even its

00:01:43.280 own backyard its own its own front yard here and similarly we have a lot of people in canada that

00:01:49.100 when you were going through your human rights commission battles what 15 years ago would take

00:01:54.060 principled stands even if they didn't agree with what you said but now that's gone and people are

00:01:59.120 uninterested in standing up for the freedom of people they've determined are not worth it

00:02:03.460 yeah i remember when we published the danish cartoons of mohammed it was almost universal the 0.92

00:02:10.260 support for us even if people didn't like our politics they they thought it was outrageous that we

00:02:14.900 would be uh... investigated by the state things have changed completely in those 15 years i i'm

00:02:21.800 incredulous uh... for example at la presse that's a large newspaper in montreal cheering for the police

00:02:30.320 raid on our airbnb when just uh... a couple years ago one of their own columnists was subject to illegal

00:02:40.060 wiretaps by the same montreal police force they were outraged when their reporter was illegally spied

00:02:49.380 on by police but they're thrilled that we are the subject of a raid i don't know if they can see what

00:02:57.420 they look like or can see what they're doing because the precedents being set against us will surely be used

00:03:05.260 against them let me give you a one minute recap of what happened we've been covering the lockdowns

00:03:11.740 and lockdown protests across canada almost since the beginning well since the beginning

00:03:17.740 and uh... we don't have a lot of strength in quebec because we're english speaking and

00:03:23.100 and we only have one employee in quebec and most of what he does is not on camera

00:03:28.860 but he started picking up a camera and going out at night to show us what the pandemic curfew in that

00:03:34.140 province is like i don't know if most canadians know this but in quebec they actually have a

00:03:38.780 curfew at night they claim that somehow stops the virus and at 8 pm in montreal you can't be on the

00:03:46.140 streets unless you have a special exemption and just to confirm journalists are eligible for those

00:03:51.900 exemptions correct that's right so our journalist his name is yankee pollack uh he has uh an authorization

00:03:59.580 is an exemption he has a confirmation from the police it's it's totally kosher so to speak so yankee

00:04:05.660 goes out there and he uh points a camera at police enforcing this curfew and they don't like that

00:04:11.500 police in montreal don't wear body cams they are i don't think it's controversial to say the most

00:04:16.700 corrupt police force in canada if you google montreal police corruption you'll get more than two million

00:04:22.460 hits it really is a bad place so our reporter would go out and point a camera at these police and they

00:04:29.260 would ticket him and harass him and it started getting weird they would call him jew media are

00:04:36.460 you a jew that repeatedly and i i thought that that could be anti-semitic i don't want to jump to a 0.74

00:04:42.700 conclusion maybe something was lost in translation maybe they were asking if he was with a jewish

00:04:47.180 newspaper there are such things like there's christian newspapers but i didn't like his the treatment of

00:04:52.060 him so we sent more reporters to join him in solidarity they were also called jew media and

00:05:00.220 they were handcuffed arrested pushed around by montreal police and by the way they were doing nothing

00:05:06.940 they were standing on the sidewalk with the camera but because they were reporting on the lockdown and the

00:05:13.980 what i would call police brutality they were brutalized too so our one guy was brutalized we sent a

00:05:20.860 bunch of reinforcements they were brutalized so i do what we often do here rebel news we show solidarity

00:05:27.180 so me and 16 other of our staff went to montreal in solidarity with yankee and the rest of the team

00:05:34.540 and we also brought montreal lawyers with us francophone lawyers who know the criminal law we had a

00:05:40.140 one-hour briefing with the lawyers in advance to make sure we knew all the rules and were in compliance and knew

00:05:45.980 what to do we all had the lawyer's phone number and actually the lawyer came out on the streets with us

00:05:51.900 just so we were compliant uh friday night went fine um we stayed in an airbnb as i mentioned just for

00:05:59.580 privacy we rented a whole houseboat 21 people was the capacity we had 17 people we followed all the

00:06:06.700 rules it was a registered airbnb it was sort of fun because it was a houseboat as opposed to a regular house we

00:06:12.060 liked that because it gave us privacy saturday morning comes around we're having breakfast in the

00:06:17.500 airbnb and a bunch of cops come up to and say we want to come on your airbnb we want to come in your 1.00

00:06:25.180 your houseboat and i said come back with a search warrant we're reporters i know this is montreal but i also

00:06:32.700 know there's still a little bit of rule of law left they did not in fact storm the boat but because i

00:06:38.460 wouldn't let them come on they took that orange police tape roped off the entire pier including 0.94

00:06:46.220 our cars roped off the boat called it a crime scene and for the next 10 hours trapped us they

00:06:53.900 wouldn't let anyone off the boat unless they submitted to a personal search they wouldn't let

00:06:58.300 anyone back on the boat they pushed our people around they actually arrested david menzies and took

00:07:04.460 him to jail and here's what they said to us and i i remembered this and i a day later i thought no

00:07:10.460 that can't be i can't be remembering this right so i called our lawyer and double checked and they said

00:07:15.340 oh yeah that happened like it's so absurd what i'm about to tell you is so absurd i almost thought that

00:07:20.220 my mind created it and so i double checked with the lawyer because it's what i'm about to say is so

00:07:25.580 insane they handcuffed david menzies took him to a police jail a police station jail and then they

00:07:33.980 said to our lawyer if you let us search your airbnb go room to room and search the personal effects of

00:07:43.580 your reporters if you let us do that without a search warrant we'll let david out of jail if you

00:07:50.780 don't let us do that we'll keep david in jail essentially using him as a hostage what were

00:07:56.700 they looking for but i don't quite know uh at one point they said are there other people on the boat

00:08:04.060 what do you think we were like smuggling people across roxham road i want to let you know it was

00:08:07.900 a houseboat so it it looks like a boat but it's permanently in the pier you know it's so yeah because

00:08:13.580 i was wondering when this happened why you didn't just you know go away from the dock and just sail off

00:08:17.900 into the sunset but that that's your point you couldn't the boat was fixed in place okay well

00:08:23.100 and i we had nothing to run away from i mean it's just like a slightly quirky airbnb but i i chose it

00:08:29.900 because it was of privacy reasons we would have the whole thing to ourselves and because when you're

00:08:34.940 buying hotel rooms for 17 people it actually worked out more economically to do it in one any charges or

00:08:41.340 tickets been laid against anyone against rebel or any of the people that were involved in this on this day

00:08:46.300 yes they've given a charge to david manzies and i i haven't actually inspected the the charge yet

00:08:54.860 so he has been charged he has to go back to montreal none none of the rest of us have received any charges

00:09:01.340 i presume something will come in the mail some sort of ticket but like i say we were all in compliance

00:09:07.980 with the law it was it was an airbnb it was like it was the was this the cause of the investigation

00:09:14.780 that you were violating gathering restrictions was that what they were suspicious of well that's one

00:09:20.140 of the things they said but it wasn't a gathering it was it was like a hotel yeah but and i'm also

00:09:24.860 curious if if they're if they're suspicious of you for having a gathering what benefit do they have from

00:09:29.660 going through your backpacks and your laptops and your purses and all of these things i mean are they

00:09:34.300 looking for other yeah more people in them and i was worried that if they got on the and they

00:09:39.580 wouldn't let us on the boat they wanted to search the the house boat but they wouldn't let us accompany

00:09:44.860 them i was very worried giving the given the history of corruption this police force that they might

00:09:49.900 plant something on us i don't know drugs or or a weapon or something but here's the incredible part

00:09:56.860 for 10 hours we refused to let them on the boat they refused to let us move they held

00:10:04.860 david in a jail cell for about half that time for 10 hours they shopped around quebec to try to find

00:10:10.940 a judge to give them a search warrant no judge would sign it i don't know maybe they couldn't

00:10:16.540 find a judge or maybe a judge would look at it and say what you want to search journalists hotel rooms

00:10:22.860 because you claim they were like i it here's the the owner of the airbnb came down because he heard there

00:10:30.220 were 50 police there he was panicked he came down he thought maybe we were like a hell's angels gang

00:10:35.980 or having an illegal rave or something and he saw it was just journalists and he he talked to me then

00:10:41.740 he talked to the cops and he came back to me and he said this he said i sure hope you're right and i hope

00:10:47.020 they're wrong he said referring to the police because if they're right i'm out of business because if

00:10:53.180 having an air if having a bed and breakfast having an airbnb mini hotel is now called an illegal

00:10:59.180 gathering he's out of business and think about that like if you just deem a hotel to be an illegal

00:11:06.060 gathering it's not a gathering it's a hotel he said if you're he said if you're wrong he said to me

00:11:12.540 i'm out of business so he wasn't even mad at me i asked him because his day was ruined by this imagine

00:11:18.380 having a huge police force surrounding your b&b taping it off as a crime scene you you don't know

00:11:26.460 what's going on you come down there and it doesn't make sense there was such a huge crowd of police

00:11:31.180 police cars police trucks police bikes that a crowd gathered to watch one person said are they filming a

00:11:38.140 movie because it was so it was so absurd no one could believe what happened yeah it's not a great movie

00:11:44.060 i don't want to see how this one ends yeah well i guess we are making a movie out of it but it's not

00:11:49.180 it's not a happy movie it's a movie of police brutality and as the police pushed us pushed us

00:11:54.780 the crowd started booing and heckling and swearing at the police listen we were heckling the police too

00:12:02.060 it's all you can do when they've got the guns when they're breaking the law i believe it is at

00:12:07.740 least bending the law if not breaking it to arrest david menzies hold him in an awful jail cell

00:12:13.260 and use that as a bargaining chip to get illegal access into our into our hotel rooms i mean

00:12:19.740 either david menzies did something wrong or he didn't either they have the legal right to search

00:12:24.620 our hotel or they don't for them to grab menzies and then say we'll let him go if you give us 0.99

00:12:31.500 the right to search your place without a warrant that's in itself corruption and why are they doing

00:12:38.220 that i mentioned earlier they call us jew media and are you a jew

00:12:41.820 i don't actually think that's their central motivating factor in fact we only have that one

00:12:48.300 jewish reporter their yankee our reporters of various religions various races i don't think it 0.66

00:12:54.780 was racism that was their dominant motive i think they just hated the fact that we were pointing cameras

00:13:00.380 so they what they were doing because another policeman told our reporter another day he said why are you

00:13:07.340 out recording us why are you asking us such questions yeah i saw one saying there's nothing

00:13:13.340 to see here there's no story well that's for journalists to decide they say that all the time

00:13:18.380 and they also on one occasion said the cbc doesn't ask us these questions why are you as if asked and

00:13:25.340 answered which was incredible yeah so they show they want a compliant uh subordinate media and by the way

00:13:33.340 police in montreal do not have body cams so a lot of their abuses go on undocumented unrecorded

00:13:40.380 i it was it was incredible we went there and we had this big team meeting before we went we had 17

00:13:46.380 people we met with the lawyers they briefed us we really had our battle plan in advance and i said to

00:13:51.820 everybody our goal is to have an uneventful weekend where we simply record the news and go home we're not

00:13:59.180 if i can interrupt you there ezra and i'm sorry so you were here to report you weren't just here

00:14:03.980 because you wanted a fight oh exactly it was the opposite in fact i we had a real talk with our

00:14:11.660 lawyers with our staff and we decided i mean the whole reason we met with the lawyers in advance and

00:14:16.620 had the lawyer with us is so we would be compliant the whole time we literally went out on the streets of

00:14:23.340 montreal with a criminal lawyer a french native french speaking criminal lawyer walking the streets

00:14:31.340 with us ready to interact with police because we were briefed on the law but you know if you get

00:14:37.660 into trouble you call a lawyer but if it's 1am or whatever because we were out reporting on the

00:14:42.700 lockdown until 1am the lawyer was literally walking with us and i said to the whole team including the

00:14:47.740 lawyer we're not going to protest we're not going as activists we're going as reporters we may be

00:14:54.300 forced into some action by the police but our goal is to have an uneventful weekend where the lawyers at

00:15:00.860 the end of it say huh that was the easiest money we ever made why did you even hire us so the ideal

00:15:06.460 outcome is nothing would have happened but you and i know that these days just getting the right to report

00:15:15.260 often involves some sort of a battle i remember when you and you and um david menzies and kian bexty

00:15:22.540 went to federal court we had to fight just to do our reporting in the 2019 leaders debate so um

00:15:32.220 i know you weren't looking for a fight then neither were we we were just looking to go and do the

00:15:36.460 reporting but we had to fight for that right same thing here in montreal it was the police that were

00:15:42.300 escalating they were picking on our reporter yankee then they picked on our smaller team that went so

00:15:47.420 i sent 17 people it was a proof it was sort of let us test the system completely lawfully we're going

00:15:54.460 to be really legally briefed we're going to have lawyers with us we will see if quebec is indeed a

00:16:01.660 police state or if it's free and they failed the test uh it's incredible how they attempted to get on

00:16:09.980 the boat when i said get a warrant they detained me and then they said to my younger staff you have

00:16:17.500 to let us in if you're not like they tried these tricks this tricky deceptive language but our staff

00:16:24.220 are pretty smart and they said no no come back with a warrant for they couldn't believe that we resisted

00:16:29.740 their demands for 10 hours they shopped around their search warrant application no judge in quebec would

00:16:38.380 give it to them so suddenly 10 hours after they first arrived they just left no explanation no

00:16:45.500 apology they just left and we went back on the on our airbnb it was the most incredible thing and

00:16:51.660 and they released david just released him when they realized that they couldn't use him as a hostage

00:16:57.340 the ransom being letting them in our airbnb now here's the thing and la presse is really strange about

00:17:03.180 like i say their own reporters have been illegally spied on by montreal police but they are

00:17:08.620 mocking this police raid on our airbnb saying that we're not real journalists that we're clowns whatever

00:17:15.740 i don't think we're clowns i know we're real journalists as i said the federal court of

00:17:19.740 canada said that you and we are and they commanded the debates commission to let us in but let's say we

00:17:25.020 aren't good people let's say we're really really bad people let's say we're clownish whatever the

00:17:30.460 accusations are so what the charter of rights and the rule of law protect everyone in canada whether

00:17:38.380 you're smart or dumb whether you're friendly or mean whether you're an excellent journalist or a crummy

00:17:44.460 journalist the charter of rights the rule of law limited police powers civilian oversight of police

00:17:50.620 search warrants that that all applies whether or not you're a nice person or a bad person

00:17:55.340 um the press can love you or hate you we are all protected by the law and i find it extremely

00:18:03.900 disappointing that most canadian journalists were thrilled that we were the subject of a police

00:18:10.540 raid i find that the scary part i'm glad you're all okay but you're right a lot of very significant

00:18:15.180 questions this raises about the state of media and also the law enforcement in quebec and montreal

00:18:20.700 ezra levant from rebel news always a pleasure thanks for coming on thanks my friend thanks for

00:18:26.380 listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - April 14, 2021

Ezra Levant on Montreal police raid on Rebel News staff

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